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jade4813 · 5 years ago

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Like Moths to a Flame, Chapter 12

Fandom: North and South

Title: Like Moths to a Flame

Rating: NC-17

Pairing: John/Margaret

Synopsis: “I hope you realize that any foolish passion for you on my part is entirely over.“ Margaret decides to confront John about his unjust judgment of her character, but the two have always been drawn to each other, and things quickly get out of hand. In the aftermath, she agrees to marry him to satisfy propriety, but she cannot forget how ready he was to believe the worst of her. Can love survive without trust, or will the two find a way to work through the misunderstandings that have plagued their relationship from the start?

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

John Thornton was not a man prone to vacillation or prevarication, once he had reached a decision. Indeed, his experience indicated that no unpalatable task had ever become more agreeable through the passage of time and procrastination, and so he tended to tackle the most unpleasant of assignments all the quicker, to have them over and done with once and for all. To go back upon a decision, made only upon due contemplation and deliberation, after all the facts were obtained and considered with the gravity each deserved, would be an indignity, an act of dishonor. And for John, the binds of honor, the demands of duty and responsibility, were not theoretical concepts but concrete mandates, which had formed and shamed him into the man he was today. Personal preference and selfish desire didn’t merely take a distant second to the demands of his duty to ensure the happiness and well-being of those around him; they had no bearing upon the matter at all.

And yet, over a month passed, and he could not bring himself to compose the letter that would break his heart, which would separate him from his wife, possibly forever. His attempts to console himself for his action only brought him further frustration, darkening his mood and instilling in him an irascible temperament, prone to snapping at any who drew near. Even his mother, who normally could be assured of safe harbor from even his darkest of moods, had nearly been the recipient of a sharp word or two, had he not bitten them back in the nick of time. Only Margaret was certain to avoid his irritability, as his ill temper did not overcome his concern for her in her grief, or his desire to buffer her from greater unhappiness. With her, he remained gentle, seeking refuge in work when finding himself with uncertain temperament, rather than risk imposing upon her with his foul mood.

He was standing above the mill floor, overseeing the work in progress, when his mother entered the workroom. To his surprise, she didn’t begin her inspection of workers and machines, as was her usual custom. Instead, she tilted her head back to gaze upon him, her jaw set in a stubborn line. She stood still, waiting for him, and he masked his grimace as he headed to the stairs to join her. As was too often the case as of late, he had been disagreeable at breakfast, glowering at his plate and speaking little, and he was certain that her patience was at an end.

He moved to her side, and the two walked in silence to office, so as not to be overheard by the workers. As the door closed behind them, he expected her to take him to task for his behavior, but she remained silent, her gaze expectant. Moving behind his desk, he wasted no time on pleasantries. “I’m sorry, Mother. I know I’ve had a foul temper lately. I’ve no right to take it out on others.”

“Is it the bank loan?” she asked, sounding concerned, rather than accusatory.

He shook his head. Looking away, he explained, “Before he left, Bell suggested he take Margaret to London, to take her mind off her grief. I’ve decided to accept his offer.” He didn’t mention that this determination had been undermined by his inability to put such acceptance into words. Instead, he waited for his mother’s response, certain that she would express unequivocal agreement with this course of action.

To his astonishment, however, his mother said nothing, prompting him to look at her once more. In a quiet voice, she asked, “How long do you intend for her to be away?”

He sucked in a deep breath. “Indefinitely.” Only the slightest quirk of her eyebrows betrayed her reaction to this revelation. “I thought you would be overjoyed at this news. I know you disapprove of her.” She glanced away with a scowl, crossing her arms over her chest. “I’ve disappointed you,” he remarked in mild surprise, having never drawn his mother’s disfavor before.

Her eyes darted back to his, and she stepped around the desk, reaching for him. As he sank into his chair, she cupped his face in her hands, forcing him to meet her gaze. “Never,” she swore fiercely. “No mother has more cause for pride than I. But all your life, you have looked after others. The workers. Fanny. And don’t think I don’t see all that you’ve done for me. Your bride is the first thing you’ve ever truly wanted for yourself alone, and now you intend to send her away?”

“She doesn’t love me!” he protested miserably. “How can I demand she remain, when I know it will only bring her misery?”

“How is she to realize her love for you from London?” she argued, holding him in place when he would have drawn away. As though the words were torn from her chest, relinquished only with reluctance, she continued, “Margaret is proud. And vain. And I cannot pretend to love her for it.” There was the slightest moment of hesitation before she acknowledged in a dry tone, “But she is not alone in either, and she has as much right to both as any Thornton, I suppose. Sometimes pride makes it hard to recognize love, even when it’s truly felt.”

At this, he did pull away, yanking out of her grasp as he stood and stepped past her, not wanting to hear her words when he could not believe in them. She, however, refused to relinquish the point. “She cares for you, John. Whether or not either of you see it.”

He stormed to the other side of the room, keeping his back to his mother so she wouldn’t see the pain on his face. “Believe me when I say that isn’t true,” he snapped. “And I won’t keep her here against her will, when her heart would wish her elsewhere!”

“She agreed to marry you, to build a life here in Milton, and she’s never been one to do anything she didn’t wish to do. Do you trust her judgment so little, to think she’d be happier to be sent away?” He froze, the words tearing at him. He hadn’t asked her, having overheard enough to know of her regret. Was his mother right? Was there a chance Margaret would prefer to remain in Milton, for all the pain that it had brought her? As though recognizing his indecision, his mother urged him, “You mustn’t send her away. It won’t make either of you happy.”

Lost in his thoughts, he didn’t notice when she slipped out of his office to return to her duties on the mill floor. Instead, he remained where he was, cast into self-doubt by his mother’s words, uncertain that his present course of action was the right one.

He was still in his office a short time later, when there was a light knock on the door. He lifted his head from his musings just as it swung open and rose to his feet when Margaret stepped inside, a mug in her hand. “I don’t mean to intrude,” she told him in greeting, with a soft, uncertain smile. “I was down to see Mary in the kitchens and thought you might be thirsty.” He made no move to reach for the mug, and so she admitted, “That was my excuse, at any rate. If you want to know the truth, I just wanted to see you.”

As he often did in her presence, he felt himself slip into a more agreeable frame of mind. Tilting his head to the side, he chided her gently, “You need no excuse to come see me, Margaret.”

“Perhaps not,” she agreed with a relieved smile, stepping toward him. “But you’ve been working so hard, I didn’t want to intrude.”

“I haven’t meant to neglect you,” he offered in apology, longing to draw her into his arms but not allowing himself the pleasure. He was still painfully conscious of her grief and his intentions, which left him uncertain of his reception. His mother’s words haunted him, daring him to broach the subject of Margaret’s departure. Knowing it likely that she would be excited at the prospect of leaving Milton. And him.

She shook her head, her eyes contemplative as he stepped around his desk to relieve her of the mug she carried. “You’ve been preoccupied, worried about more than the state of the mill.” When he looked at her in surprise, she explained, “You’re my husband now. I think I’m coming to understand you a little, at least.” She paused and then added, “I was hoping you would talk to me.”

He nodded slowly, recognizing the fruitlessness of evasion, even if it wasn’t against his nature to make the attempt. Unable to look at her as he continued, he busied himself by moving some papers aside on his desk to make room for the mug she had brought him. “It’s true, I’ve had a great deal on my mind,” he began. “This business at the mill is taking up much of my time. I’ve been wondering if you might not prefer to be in London.”

“Oh!” Her soft cry of surprise and consternation compelled his attention once more, though she looked away from him under the weight of his regard. Choosing her words with great deliberation, she replied, “I suppose…if you think it best…I would like to see my cousin again. I could write to her today. How long of a visit should I suggest?”

When he didn’t reply immediately, she returned her gaze to his. “Oh,” she breathed again, as a dawning comprehension overtook her features. “I didn’t – you weren’t suggesting a visit. You intend to send me away.” He winced as the words hit her mark, unable to argue against the truth of them, even though the starkness of her statement was more terrible than the idea had sounded in his mind.

Afraid she might misunderstand, he tried to explain, “Milton has brought you little joy. I thought you might be happier in London than you’ve been here.”

Her temper rising, she crossed her arms across her chest, her face flushed with emotion. “Is your suggestion meant to ensure my happiness or your own?” Before he could reply, she continued, “I knew my mind when I took you for a husband. I thought we understood each other! I didn’t realize that you thought you were buying a bride you could send away the moment she became inconvenient for you!”

It was not the first time she had accused him of mercenary intent, and he felt his hands shake as he stalked toward her. “You say you thought we understood each other, but you still think so little of me, that I can only think of buying and selling because I’m in trade!” he spat.

Unlike so many others, his Margaret did not recoil from his fit of temper. Then again, she never had, neither flinching nor backing away as she demanded, “What else am I to think, when you’re so willing to send me away like some – some bale of cotton that has displeased you?” She pressed forward, offering him no mercy. “I wondered if honor might not be a sufficient comfort, and you might not come to regret your proposal one day. I didn’t realize it would happen so soon!”

Her words tore through him, flaming his anger with the injustice in her accusation. Straightening, he looked down his nose at her as he growled, “You’re mistaken. I’m not the one who regrets our marriage, Margaret. It isn’t my desire I seek to satisfy in sending you to London but your own.”

Her countenance, once flushed with her ire, rearranged into an expression of irritable confusion. “I don’t know what you mean. I have no—”

He was ready to explain about the conversation he had overheard, until a knock at the door interrupted them. Clutching his hands into fists at his side, he spun to face the offending intruder, barking a loud, “Enter!”

The door opened to reveal Nicholas Higgins on the other side, his expression calm and placid, although he must have heard the raised voices from his position in the hall. “Beggin’ your pardon, but there’s a problem with one of the machines.”

“I’ll be there shortly—” John began, but Margaret, her color still high with the force of her emotion, spoke over him.

“No, it’s all right. I’ll go. You have work, and I’d hate to inconvenience the Master of Marlborough Mills.”

Nicholas quirked an eyebrow slightly at this parting shot, but his face betrayed no other thoughts as she stormed past him, striding quickly into the hall. As her skirt disappeared around the corner and the rapid sound of her footfalls faded, John picked up the mug she’d brought him and hurled it against the wall, feeling no satisfaction when it landed with a loud crack and tumbled to the ground, spilling its contents upon the floor. It was perhaps possible that he could have handled that entire situation worse than he had, but he couldn’t at present imagine how.

Several hours later, he returned to the house, physically exhausted from his strenuous day, and emotionally spent from his earlier argument with his wife. With an early appointment looming in the morning, he knew he should hurry to bed, to catch what sleep he may. However, he found himself lingering downstairs, seeking consolation in the bottom of a glass of stronger spirits than he usually indulged. He barely tasted the first glass of the amber liquid as he tossed it back in a single swallow before pouring himself another, this time intending to savor the fiery liquid.

With a fierce yank, he untied his cravat, leaving the rumpled fabric looped around his neck as he shrugged out of his coat, tossing it aside. Then, rolling up his sleeves, he paced before the fire, his thoughts giving him no peace. Bracing one hand upon the mantle, he bowed his head, taking another sip of his drink as he stared at the dying embers with sightless eyes.

He remained that way for he knew not how long, until sound behind him that drew his attention. He knew what he would find before he even turned, finding to find Margaret in the doorway. Her feet were bare, toes curling into the carpet, her night-rail providing scant protection from the cool night air. Seeing her shiver, he reached for the coat he’d discarded on the back of a chair and stepped forward to wrap it around her shoulders before stepping back to give her space. “I hope I didn’t wake you,” he said, the words sounding inane, even to his own ears.

“I couldn’t sleep,” she replied in a soft voice. “I was waiting for you.”

“Forgive me. I meant to return sooner.” He didn’t know how to reach her, how to breach this great divide that had grown between them. A divide of his own making, he feared.

She rocked back and forth on her heels, but she didn’t approach, pulling the folds of his coat tightly around her body. “Do you truly wish to send me away, John?” Unable to answer, he turned away. “Will we never come to understand each other?”

They never would, until they could find the strength and courage that honesty required. There were so many things left unsaid between them. Perhaps it was time for him to set aside his pride and bring those secrets into the light. What had he to lose? He could not fear her hatred, when he had never had her love. “No. I don’t wish you to leave,” he admitted. “I could never truly wish for that.”

He heard her move closer, felt the gentle pressure of her hand upon his arm, but he did not turn. He didn’t want her to see his shame. “Then why are you sending me away?”

“The mill will likely close soon. We’ll lose this house. I made you a promise, when you agreed to be my wife, and I didn’t want you to see how I’ve failed you.”

She let out a sharp cry, increasing the pressure of her hand until he turned toward her, although his face remained averted. She reached to touch him, moving closer when he flinched away. “You haven’t failed me. Do you think I haven’t seen how you’ve tried to care for your workers? How hard you’ve tried? Whatever happens with the mill, you’re a good man, John Thornton. I didn’t see that when I first came to this place, but I do now. I’m proud to have you as my husband. Don’t you see that?”

He didn’t see, but he wanted to believe it. She was kind, as she had been so often to those around her, and he wanted to throw himself upon her mercy, to beg her to pretend to feel what she had once sworn she could not. To offer him the kindness of a lie, and let him believe that he might one day win her heart.

He wanted to tell her that he knew he had been a fool, pushing her away time after time, even as he wished for nothing more than to hold her close. No one had it in their power to hurt him as she did. For her good opinion, he would face rioters, intent upon his destruction. He loved her as he had never loved another, and yet he created distance between them, in a vain attempt to protect a heart that was no longer his alone.

He should reassure her of his faith in her, which he had once sworn had been lost. There was nothing for which he could deride her – save, perhaps, for choosing him when she deserved so much better than the life he could offer her. She deserved to be cossetted and protected, to live a life of comfort and joy, unmarred by deprivation and want. For her skin to be caressed by hands that had never seen a day’s work, their touch soft and gentle.

John’s hands were rough. He was hard, coarse. He had struggled as a child and would struggle again, once the mill had closed and his family was left in dire straits as they had been so many years before. He couldn’t indulge Margaret as she deserved; he couldn’t promise her a future without care. It wouldn’t be long before the bank loan came due and he lost the comfortable home he had spent a lifetime building for his family. He would find himself cast down from his position of Master of the Mills to the bottom, to claw and scrape and grab for the lowest rung of the ladder, intending to scale it rung by rung in the hopes he might one day find himself at the top once more. Meanwhile, Margaret would be left with nothing but calloused hands from hard work that her gentle upbringing had never prepared her to undertake, and with the necessity to scrimp and fret from one meal to the next.

He should tell her that he believed in her – in her kindness and her compassion. In her integrity and faithfulness. She had never taken a lover before him, but he hoped that she had once loved another, though the idea pained him – to know, even for a short while, what it felt like to bask in the adoration of one more deserving of her than he. Although John would swear that nobody in the world could love her as he loved her; nobody else could cherish either her heart or her spirit as he did.

There were many things that he should say, now that he had sworn to lay himself bare before her, but the words swelled in his chest, jumbling together on his tongue until they tangled and knotted, and he didn’t know which thread to pull at to set them free. There was only her name, a benediction upon his lips. “Margaret.” He grabbed her hand, drawing her near, missing the warmth and the feel of her, his mouth hot against hers as he wrapped her in his arms.

As it often tended to do, he was surprised by her passion, by the readiness with which she reached for him. His coat fell to the floor, forgotten, as she wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing her body flush against this own. She whispered his name as he lifted her, her night-rail falling open, her shift hitching around her waist as she wrapped her legs around his hips.

He should carry her upstairs, to the privacy of their bedchamber. They could be interrupted at any time, caught by a servant in search of something to eat in the middle of the night, or finishing up on a task left undone. But he had not held his wife like this for far too long, and the taste of her lips and scent of her skin was intoxicating, filling his senses and driving away all reason. Reaching out one hand, he stumbled forward until his palm struck the wall, her body making a loud thud that shook the painting on the wall as it followed.

He began to apologize, but she laughed, finding delight in their passion, her hands grabbing at his shirt, his shoulders, his hair. Her lips chasing after his kiss as she tossed his discarded cravat aside. “We should stop,” he breathed, even as he pressed his lips against the curve of her neck. “The servants—”

But Margaret wasn’t in the mood to be agreeable, and she taunted him with a roll of her hips, rather than acquiesce to his suggestion. He groaned when he felt her against him, even through the fabric of his trousers, and she threw her head back, exposing soft, smooth skin to the dim light cast by the dying embers in the fireplace and the moonlight spilling through the windows. Bowing his head, he caressed her breast his mouth, wetting the fabric with his tongue as he drew the nipple between his teeth.

“The servants—” he tried once more, his voice muffled by fabric and skin, but she slipped her hand beneath his shirt, caressing the muscles of his chest, and shook her head at his protest.

“Everyone’s asleep,” she reassured him. “Don’t stop. I need you. I-I’ve missed you.”

In the darkness and with their haste, their movements were clumsy and awkward as he fumbled with the buttons of his trousers, pulling himself free. Sliding one hand between her thighs, he could feel that she was wet and ready for him, her breath coming in tight gasps as he slid two fingers inside of her, teasing her sensitive nub with his thumb.

Tomorrow, he would chastise himself for taking her so roughly against their drawing room wall, his need for her overwhelming all sense and the fear of discovery. Rather than making love to her with sweet words in a soft bed, as gentle ladies such as she had been raised to expect. But she would offer him no similar recriminations, to be sure, her exultant cries muffled by his lips and cheek, the only thing preventing them from echoing through the empty room.

Questing fingers swept into his hair, brushing it back from his face, and he reached for her hand, pinning it against the wall beside her head. She demanded nothing from him this night, but there was one thing he needed from her, his longing so deep that his heart ached with it.

“Tell me you love me,” he growled, demanding and pleading in equal measure. “Just for tonight, let me pretend.”

Her laughter died on her lips, her eyes growing wide, and he feared for a moment that he had spoiled the mood, that she would balk and push him away. He was gratified when she whispered, “I do love you.” It was a lie, but she was kind, and he was willing to let himself pretend to believe it, and so he let out a long sigh, his eyes closing as the joy of those four words washed over him.

Beneath him, Margaret squirmed, her movements growing more insistent, even frantic, as she clutched at his shoulders, his neck, his face. “John, please! I love you! I do! You must believe me!”

A groan rumbled through his chest as though torn from his very soul, and he pressed his face against the curve of her neck, savoring the weight of her words and her willingness to utter such a lie for his sake. She was kind, and he was willing to let himself believe.

“Look at me,” she begged him, her voice catching as he thrust inside her. “Look at me!” But he could not – dared not – in case he saw the truth of her feelings in her face. Instead, he crushed his lips against hers, swallowing her soft sounds of desire as he slid his hand between her thighs and stroked her until she came undone in his arms.

Her pleasure was still washing over her when he thrust into her again, rocking her body against the wall behind her. “Tell me you love me,” he demanded once more in a low voice, his lips against her ear, the strength of his need deepening his voice and the harsh, Northern burr of his accent. She shook her head, her breath escaping in a soft sob, but he increased the pace of his thrusts as he repeated his demand. “Please.”

Her arms wrapped around his neck pressing his cheek against hers as he drove into her again. A moment later, he felt a cool dampness against his skin and was surprised to realize it had come from her, a tear spilling over her lashes and sliding down the gentle curve of his face until it became trapped between them. It was almost enough to compel him to stop and draw away, except she tightened her legs around his hips and would not release him.

“I love you,” she whispered into his ear, driving him on.

He savored those words, committing them to his heart, a treasured memory that could never be taken from him, not even with the truth in the harsh light of day. Wrapping his hands under her thighs, he repositioned her, steadying her weight as he drove into her again and again until his own pleasure washed over him.

He pressed his mouth against the curve of her shoulder as he poured himself into her, feeling his muscles tremble with the strength of his release. Only when he was spent, his senses slowly returning, did he put her back on her feet, turning his head to capture her mouth in a kiss, swallowing the lie she had graciously bestowed upon him.

She deserved to hear the truth, although she must know it by now already, given his shameless request. “I love you, Margaret,” he breathed against her lips. “I have never loved another.”

#like moths to a flame #north and south #margaret hale #john thornton #my fanfiction #fanfiction #john x margaret

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cobra-diamond · 5 years ago

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Avatar Comics Good Reads Ratings - Troubling Trends

Good Reads is a website where members can rate and review books such as Harry Potter, The Hunger Games and even the Avatar comics by Dark Horse. Good Reads says they have about 90 million registered members.

I was curious about what the results would show for the Avatar comics by Dark Horse, so I took the quantity of ratings for each installment and converted them into graphs. The quantity of ratings denotes how popular a work is on Good Reads, not necessarily its quality.

For example, Harry Potter #1 has over 6.5 million Ratings whereas The Martian ‘only’ has 750,000. That doesn’t tell you how ‘good’ either book is, just that one is more ‘popular’ than the other. Both are very different stories.

Here are the Good Reads ratings for all the Dark Horse Avatar comics (excluding Imbalance):

Assuming this data represents the fandom’s popular reception to these works (i.e. how many liked them enough to spend money), here are some interesting takeaways:

Most follow-on works don’t do as well as the first installment but The Search had more ratings for its Part 1 than The Promise’s Part 1. However, The Search also saw a much, much steeper drop in ratings than The Promise. The Promise actually held its readers pretty well until Part 3.

Half as many fans returned for The Rift than The Search but The Rift also saw a precipitous collapse in readers similar to The Search. The Rift maintaining half of The Promise’s initial readers is actually over-performing, as you will see.

Usually, you expect a ‘sequel’ to receive 2/5th as many readers as the first installment’s peak. This can be illustrated by taking Harry Potters and The Hunger Games’ Goods Reads ratings and comparing their first installment numbers to the follow-on works.

You can see how, for even cultural phenomena, the sequels never do as well as the first. This isn’t always the case but it’s a near universal trend.

Another trend is also visible: a popular work holding its readers after the first installment.

This is illustrated by a similar bar graph for Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn series. It held its readers well over its run until eventually running out of steam like all series do. I’m using Mistborn as an example because it doesn’t have the ‘cultural baggage’ of Harry Potter and The Hunger Games that could potentially throw things off for those titans of contemporary literature.

You can see Mistborn held fans very well after the first installment, much better than even Harry Potter and The Hunger Games, with the 2nd and 3rd installments maintaining their popularity almost exactly. It wasn’t until Mistborn #4 that there was another drop, but even then the readers who remained mostly stayed for #5 and #6.

What do the The Hunger Games, Harry Potter and Mistborn have in common? They held their readers.

This can be further illustrated if you graph the Good Reads ratings as percentages relative to the first installments. In other words, if the first installment’s peak represents 100% of the popularity, then the next installment is 75% and the next is 50% and so on.

You can see the 2/5th drop I mentioned earlier. While Harry Potter and The Hunger Games saw big drops compared to their first installments, Mistborn didn’t reach the 2/5th drop until Book #4 and only saw a steady decline over the lifetime of the series. However, both The Hunger Games and Harry Potter maintained their followings more consistently after the first book’s drop while Mistborn held its Book #1 readers much better overall.

Converting these bar graphs to lines, you get the following ‘slopes’:

As you can see, rapid drops for The Hunger Games and Harry Potter followed by steady-state readership, while a steady decline for Mistborn with periods of steady-state readership for Books #2 and #3, and Books #5 and #6.

So what does this say about the Avatar comics? Taking the total ratings for each Avatar installment, averaging them, and adding them to the above graph, you see that the Avatar comics never held its readers until the very end, but by that point, the total readership was a mere fraction of the The Promise/Search high.

This graph is actually misleading for the Avatar comics.

Since each installment was broken up into three separate volumes, and published at different times, readers were able to ‘opt out’ of an installment if they wanted. This means turning each installment into an ‘average’ artificially props-up them up since the first parts of The Search and The Rift over-preformed compared to their second and third parts.

It’s really the first bar graph at the beginning of this article that tells the story.

I’ve added the 2/5th line to the first graph as shown below:

From this graph, with the 2/5th line added, you can see the vast under-performance of the second and third volumes of the The Search onward.

Why did this happen?

Why did the Avatar comics, when Avatar had a massive built-in fan base, never hold its readers until the end? Why did it only get in the range of 22,000 ratings for a peak when Mistborn #1 has over 360,000? Remember that the Avatar finale received over a 5.5 million viewers. Mistborn doesn’t even have a television show!

Here’s why I think this happened:

First, Avatar is supposed to be animated and epic. When fans learned that the Gaang+Zuko & Azula were continuing in mere ‘graphic novels’, especially ones that looked ‘kiddie’ in nature, they probably thought, “Really? That’s lame!” and were disappointed. No matter how well-written or mature these graphic novels were, they’d never have the same exposure as the animated spectacle; 73 pages per book for an 8-11 year old audience is simply not enough.

Secondly, the premises of both The Promise and The Search appealed to the general fan base. That’s why the ratings for both Parts 1’s are basically the same. The premise of The Promise is that it is the next story of Team Avatar. Of course that’s going to draw fans!

The premise of The Search, on the other hand, gets into the loose-threads of the franchise, namely the Zuko-Azula-Ursa family drama triangle. Both of these premises are rather distinct from one another and, technically, could have been completely separate story lines (the Gaang gets a dedicated plot line, the Fire Nation royal family gets another). This is why both had near the same amount of readers for both Part 1′s: they were addressing topics the general fan base already wanted.

However, once readers ‘got inside’ these books, in particular The Search and The Rift, they opted out and became apathetic. This apathy is why Smoke and Shadow and North and South tanked... Hard.

Even though Smoke and Shadow was supposed to continue the Fire Nation royal family triangle, Smoke and Shadow’s Part 1 rating is only 11% of The Search’s Part 1.

Yikes!

Even Mistborn #6′s ratings was 20% that of Mistborn #1, and Azula and Ursa’s relationship hadn’t even been resolved!

The specific reasons for why the comics hemorrhaged readers is anybody’s mystery. Certainly plenty has been written about it. Much can be said about the poor writing, half-baked plots, bad characterization, childish tone, etc.

What I hope these graphs give you is an idea of the ‘numbers’ behind fiction, and in particular, Avatar’s current Post-Finale comics. We don’t know what the true purpose of the comics was (Make money? Keep the fandom alive? Keep the copyright relevant? Drive away its teenage/young adult fan base?), but it’s clear they didn’t appeal to Avatar’s fan base as they should have.

Whether you like the comics or hate them, one thing is clear: they should have been a lot better.

As an aside, take a look at Gene Yang’s American Born Chinese Good Reads ratings compared to the performance of the Avatar comics. American Born Chinese is what allowed Gene Yang to be taken seriously for the Avatar comics. Also keep in mind that Avatar had a built-in fan base.

And if you compare American Born Chinese’s Google Trends results to Avatar: The Last Airbender’s, you get the following graph:

In the words of Charlie Brown: good grief.

#Avatar The Last Airbender #avatar comics #bryke

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t-citurnity-moved · 5 years ago

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HEY TALK ABOUT YOUR LOVES

Ohohohoho.

My thoughts are more or less about the boys, BUT I feel like I also need to provide context because this series has been such a huge part of my life.

So, therefore, let's start at the beginning.

GOD THIS GOT SO LONG AND I AM SO SORRY BUT I HAVE A LOT OF THOTS AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

I have been part of the fanbase (not gonna say fandom, because that implies I'm active at all in the d//m//c "community" when I absolutely am not) since before 2010. That's 10+ years of enjoyment in this series. 10+ years I've been holding onto my feelings because I wasn't sure if it was right to love fictional characters. I still wrote and roleplayed with other people who were also in the fanbase, because... well, writing OC / Canon at the time was the closest anyone could get to saying "I want to date this character and not be judged." (But we all know that even then, if the OC wasn't written a specific way then they'd be considered a sue / stu; don't even get me started there.)

I fell in love with Dante first. He was the main character up until Nero starred in D//M//C4! So why wouldn't I love him? The first piece of media in which I really broke into the series was the anime and that's only because I really loved anime at the time (now not so much, mostly because I don't have attention span, etc). And boy... ohoho boy. I loved him even more. I think it's partly because that was my first real look into the series that I love D//M//C2 so much, because I'm more inclined toward the ""edgy"" side of Dante; wacky wahoo pizza man is cool and all, but I also love retrospective Dante who's a bit serious. Doesn't mean he's not the same Dante, because he absolutely is. But I hate how the fanbase portrays him sometimes. (The same fanbase that hates D//M//C2 and probably hates the reboot too, BUT I'LL TOUCH UPON THAT IN A MOMENT.)

The fact that Dante can be a serious person when he needs to be (or even if he's like... killed his brother several times and is therefore entering into a depressive state because who tf wouldn't) seems lost on a lot of people and it makes me sad. Because when I first really started branching into the fandom, I was (and still am) the same way... I just feel like 2Dante and Anime Dante are just... more relatable? So I lean toward them more than anything because I can understand them more? Because I too have depression and struggle with it? (By no means am I saying that 4/5 Dante don't have depression, I just think at that point he deals with it differently. I have a lot of headcanon there and that in and of itself is a whole ass different discussion. I also think discovering that Nero is Vergil's son / his nephew also helps him handle his depression as well, because "wow... at least I still have some part of Vergil left, even if it is only his kid" plays a bit role in how Dante recovers, BUT THAT'S JUST WHAT I THINK.)

I even think 3Dante has some level of depression going on, even thouh that's the start of the series and it doesn't really start going downhill until after those events. I mean, losing his mother at a young age and also thinking he lost Vergil until, SURPRISE SURPRISE, Vergil invites him to a "bash" which is really just some ploy to gain power? I just think at that point, it's manageable for him; he doesn't struggle with it nearly as much as he does in 2 + Anime. That being said, the fact that he's so """wacky wahoo""" also leads me to conclusion that, even if it is "manageable," he does still struggle at times and I feel probably overwhelms him at times, so he tries to manage BY being upbeat about things. Which, anyone who has depression knows, is so fucking difficult to do. The fact that Dante can keep going despite all this shit going on in his life makes ME feel like I can keep going.

AND DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON VERGIL AND HIS PROBLEMS. Dude just wanted to be protected and loved.

Actually, LET ME get started on that. Because I have a lot of thots.

Vergil grew up believing their mother chose Dante over him. That she didn't try to save him. That Dante was more important to her than he was. He grew up with this inferiority complex because he didn't know WHY their mother never came to save him. He also grew up thinking he wasn't strong enough to save HER. That's why he actively sought out power, while believing humans were "weak." That's why he manifested this hatred for being half-human. Because he couldn't save his family and, for a long time, he was led to believe his mother didn't care for him nearly as much as she cared for Dante (IE. "saving" Dante, but not Vergil).

Vergil's thirst for power is just misdirected feelings toward his family. He should've been mad at demons for attacking them in the first place, but because he grew up believing what he did, it became hatred toward humans instead. That's why he hated Dante, too. In reality, I don't think he really "hates" Dante, just feels severely inferior (which he veils by """having""" a superiority complex instead of the opposite, which he actually has). I think he just had a lot of conflicted emotions that he was never able to work through. Which is why I love the idea that he and Dante, post-D//M//C5 could reconcile at some point. Because neither of them really hated each other, they just had conflicting viewpoints due to one event that go thrown out of proportion somewhere along the way. Vergil just wanted what Dante had, which he perceived as the love of their mother, because she "chose" to save Dante instead of him. In reality, she tried to go after Vergil too, but simply didn't survive. Vergil was entirely unaware of this, so obviously he'd be upset. It's the crux of all his problems.

Vergil HIMSELF even theorises what would happen if they switched places that day! He wonders what would happen if he and Dante's lives were swapped! (Which, TBH, would be a pretty neat AU, heheheheh.) Legit! "If our positions were switched... would I have your life? And you mine?" DUDE WANTED TO KNOW!!! He wanted to know what it was like to BE Dante, to be LOVED, to be PROTECTED by the ONE PERSON they had in their lives at the time! They only had their mother, so OF COURSE Vergil would be upset due to the circumstances! HE JUST WANTED TO BE PROTECTED AND LOVED.

3Vergil doesn't show much of this side of him, because he's just angry and going through a lot and he JUST wanted to be powerful enough that no one could hurt him any more. He would NEVER say this, but dude....... You cannot convince me this dude just wanted to be powerful to keep himself safe. To feel like he finally would've had enough power to protect the people he loves AND himself. He just didn't want to be hurt again. This is, by NO MEANS, an excuse for his actions. It's an explanation. His actions shouldn't be excused because of his ~ f e e l i n g s ~, but I firmly believe that post-D//M//C5, he could redeem himself for these actions. For everything he's done, he can realise it's wrong. He can grow to be a better person. He can reconcile with Dante and even be a good father to Nero. He can be better and I want to believe that he WOULD be better. After everything V went through, discovering that he doesn't really want to be the person he used to, Vergil can change and be better.

OOFIES. This has gone on long, BUT I STILL HAVE THOUGHTS ABOUT THE REBOOT BOYS THAT I STRUGGLE TO PUT INTO WORDS, SO BEAR WITH ME IF THIS SEEMS STUPID OR GARBLED.

Context for the reboot: It's basically a remake of the series that got poor reception because people struggle to accept change. :) I will not debate this and anyone who wants to come at me can eat my socks.

Dante 2.0, like original Dante, HAS PROBLEMS. He's an edgy punk bitch who has problems and he's so ugly I love him.

This dude went his entire life struggling with his identity as someone "human." At one point, he was so convinced he didn't have a heart that he ripped open his own chest to see if he did. Yeah. Dude has issues. But it's ok, because in game, he legitimately sets aside his own issues with people to save humanity. Dude's got such BDE.

People hate him, but I feel like they fail to realise what the hell he's been through. He's been through just as much shit as original Dante. Same goes for Vergil 2.0. These boys have been through SO MUCH, but people don't see that because "Nooo!! You can't just remake the series!!!" Meanwhile I'm like "hehe handsome nephilim boys go brrr."

I literally cannot begin to explain the amount of hate people have for the reboot and it makes me sad, because... like.... y'all.... don't realise... these dudes... went through so much shit..... and yeah... I get it... remake bad, original good, but dude.... my dude.... my bro.... you do not have to hate it that much.... calm down, it's just a video game....

My dude Dante grew up in the system because the foster homes and shit he got placed in were run by demons!!! So he'd lash out at them!!! He was violent because demons suck!! They killed his mom and enslaved his dad!!! Imagine!!! Being surprised by that!!! When you know what he went through!!! Damn, couldn't be me!!!

Vergil went through some shit too!!! Like!!! Yeah, he was adopted into a rich family and lived a pretty cushy life, but fact of the matter is!!! Their parents died and they had their memories WIPED when they were kids!!! Imagine!!! The distraught!!! When he (since he found out who he was long before Dante did) realised what had happened!!! When he remembered!! When he discovered he wasn't human!! My dude founded a whole ass group of demon hunting hactivists because he knew demons sucked and wanted to make the world a better place. It wasn't until after Mundus (big stinky demon man) died that he started realising how frail humans could be and decided to be an asshole about it.

I'm so sad that there will never be any more about the reboot, because fans decided to be assholes about it. I'm so sad that we'll never learn more about what happened to those boys. I'm so sad that we'll never be able to see whether they reconcile or even have the opportunity to.

Alas, I have to rely on heavy headcanon and personal re-write of the story to fix canon instead. :<

#dlselfships #c.txt #WHAT DO I TAG THIS AS????#ANALYSIS???#ITS NOT SHIP BS SO CANT USE THAT TAG BUT UHHHHH #analysis bs #ok sure good enough #LONG POST #IM SERIOUS THIS POST IS SO LONG AND I AM SO SORRY #I JUST HAVE A LOT TO SAY ABOUT THEM #dan.te #ver.gil #dante 2.0 #vergil 2.0 #AAAAAAAAAA NO ONE HAS TO READ ALL OF THIS BECAUSE HONESTLY ITS JUST SOME STUPID THOTS I HAVE AND THEY KINDA SUCK???#also you can tell im SOOOOOO BIASED when the reboot stuff comes in #oofies i loved the reboot and as soon as i saw the first trailer i was like!!! hehe hot man go brrr #even tho i KNEW people would hate it #but hey here i am.... still loving my reboot boys....

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racefortheironthrone · 6 years ago

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Thoughts on House of X #5

Time for the issue where HoX/PoX horniness kicked off!

Society Comma We Live in One:

Time to talk about an issue that definitely merited the coverted red issue status. The issue starts with Magneto and Polaris having a dialogue on society that comes off as a bit writerly, more about Hickman creating an opportunity for him to talk about his ideas about society than what Magneto and Polaris would actually be saying to one another (unless Polaris just arrived on Krakoa and is being given the tour, but that doesn’t quit fit her dialogue).

To start with, Magneto is making an argument that “the one good thing humanity taught us was society,” but attaches this to the concept of human beings shifting from settler-gatherer to agrarian cultures. Notably, in Magneto’s version, this shift also has implications for national identity, what with the whole “this is a good place - it is...ours, and from this land we will not be moved.”

At the same time, it would be highly inaccurate to suggest that hunter-gatherer cultures don’t have societies or engage in (what Magneto is really getting at here) cooperation. The main difference between hunter-gatherer and agrarian modes of cooperation is that, by creating substantial surpluses that allow more people to not engage in food production, the agrarian mode enables a new form of cooperation based on��specialization.

All of this applies pretty directly to Krakoa and the resurrection ceremony that Magneto and Polaris are witnessing: as long as mutantdom was constantly fighting for survival (the time when “the greatest necessary traits in mutantdom” would be “strength and aggressiveness”), it was essentially stuck in a hunter-gatherer paradigm. But once mutantdom established themselves on Krakoa, “intelligence, ingenuity, and creativity” started to come to the fore: the Krakoan flowers and medications, Doug’s interface and the resulting Krakoan systems, KASA, Cerebro, and now a new one. Contrary to certain implications from the Librarian in Powers of X #6, rather than simply relying on their “natural” mutant powers, Krakoan society is technologizing them.

The “Five” are a great example of this process at work. I’ll get more in detail on how this particular Krakoan biomachinery works when we get to the infographic (which brings together all of the information into one place), but there’s some more subtle details at work here:

I love how the (Fab) Five’s social/cultural status is prefigured by their on-page introduction, which looks like nothing so much as the slow-motion group shot from Resevoir Dogs combined with a supergroup pose complete with spotlights.

As many people have pointed out, Hickman’s reinterpretation of Goldballs’ “seemingly benign and pointless power” shows how a different social and technological context completely changes the way we think about the value of different x-genes.

As someone who’s spent their fair share of time studying the history of science, I do like how much the Five’s introduction re-emphasizes themes of cooperation and specialization rather than the Lone Genius myth: even with Goldballs’ limitless “eggs,” he still needs Proteus to make the eggs viable, and so on and so forth. As Magneto puts it, ““separate...they are great mutants, but only significant, not transcendant. Together..."

An interesting commonality in Krakoan biotechnology is the use of psychics and other mutants - in this case, Hope plays a similar role to the Cuckoos in KASA - to allow the group to work in unison without the need for the literal hiveminds of the machine consciousness. Something to keep one’s eye on.

At the same time, the Five’s biomachine relies on two other forms of technology of varying levels of technology. As the red diamond on the syringe confirms, Mister Sinister provides the DNA to grow the husks and (and this is one of the Big Reveals of the issue) Cerebro downloads the mind into the body.

Playing her role in the Socratic dialogue admirably, Lorna raises the vital question of whether these clones are “just their bodies...not them.” What’s really interesting about Magneto’s response is that he’s not just talking about downloading the mind of the mutant, but also “the essence..the anima...[the] soul” of the mutant, which implies a pretty strongly spiritual conception of Cerebro’s primary purpose. (It’s an interestingly monist approach to the question of the soul as a form of data that can be copied, uploaded, downloaded, etc. I wonder what Nightcrawler thinks of this?)

Xavier’s statement that “even knowing I could bring you back...a part of me dies when any of you do” really backs up what I was talking about re: Xavier’s motivation for changing his worldview. Resurrection doesn’t change the emotional impact of death, especially since the system requires Xavier to be psychically linked to the X-Men he’s sending into harm’s way, so that he’s experiencing all their pain and suffering. This also reads quite differently in the wake of Powers of X #6, because it suggests that (quite aside from his broader plans for Krakoa), Xavier’s shift to being even more of a pragmatist has a lot to do with years of compounding trauma.

BTW, a clear sign that there is a high degree of continuity of consciousness going on is that Scott’s first thought after being resurrected is “did it work?” For all intents and purpsoes, this is the Scott Summers who died on Sol’s Forge.

We See Them, Do We Know Them?

I’m going to take this opportuntity to get on my high horse for a second and take parts of the X-fandom to task. While I wouldn’t go so far as to accuse anyone of arguing in bad faith, I do think there has been a tendency to not grapple with the text in an honest way when it comes to certain characters or themes, with the Resurrection Ceremony as Exhibit A in this tendency.

Rather than being about cults or nakedness (more on both of those soon), what this scene is actually about is the coming together of the foundational aspects of Krakoan society/culture, and how two groups of heroes - the five and the strike team - will be treated in this new world.

As we might expect, there are both parallels and differences in how the Krakoan masses treat and are expected to treat these groups: as we’ll learn later from the Resurrection Infographic, the Five are “universally revered...as cultural paragons [something sacred to be treasured].”

Storm’s exhortation provides the text that is supposed to shape and give purpose to this popular attitude, that the Krakoan masses should “love them...for they have righted the wrongs of men and defeated our great enemy death.” As with many RL human cultures, historic grievances are used to define in-group and out-group, but at the same time, the Five’s “miracle” is defined as a victory over “our great enemy death,” (which neatly ties together anti-mutant violence, mutant-specific epidemic diseases, all the forces of the “on the brink of extinction” stories we’ve seen for almost twenty years).

Given that the Five are responsible for A. reversing mutant genocides which have directly and indirectly affected all mutants in profoundly traumatic ways B. making mutants functionally immortal, it would be utterly unprecedented if a cultural and social change of this magnitude did not have some element of spiritual or religious feeling behind it. World religions have been founded on far less than this.

By contrast, the Strike Team are described in more secular terms. For removing the existential threat of Mother Mold (let alone Nimrod) which had loomed over mutant society, Storm describes them as “heroes of Krakoa,” but not so much cultural heroes as secular military heroes who have made the ultimate sacrifice for their nation: “through their deaths...a great victory was won for our people.”

Another sign of difference is that the Strike Team’s public reception is conditional, requiring a further ceremony where the community asks “we see them, but do we know them?” I love the way that Hickman turns the meta-question of whether these resurrected mutants are the real thing or “just clones” into a cultural question.

Thus, he has Storm act as the Master of Ceremonies for a ritual that’s all about recognition and confirmation of individual and social identity, and uses X-comics continuity nods that readers will recognize in the same way that Storm does as the clues:

Cyclops remembers losing the leadership to Storm in UX #139, and I like this particular deep cut because it’s a great contrast to their present-day respect and affected, and because Scott’s inability to commit to his marriage to Madelyn Pryor will help kick off Inferno.

Similarly, Jean recalling line-for-line what she said to Storm in UX #242 works especially well because it’s a line about asserting your identity in the wake of death, resurrection, and the existential questions of cloning, and because once again it recalls Inferno. I’m not sure whether it’s a good sign or a bad sign that Hickman gets Jean’s voice better here when he’s quoting earlier authors rather than writing original dialogue.

And finally, in a great Rule of Three joke format, Monet breaks the pattern by going for a character beat - Monet has strong personal space boundaries - rather than a deep continuity callback.

Having done my close-reading due diligence, let me get to the point: this is not a cult, and you don’t need to take much in the way of Anthropology coursework to see that. Call-and-response between an officiant and the congregation are incredibly common across many religions, as are ceremonies in which the individual’s membership in the group is confirmed, and so on and so forth. If you want to describe this as a cult, or cult-like, you need to point to qualities that are specific to cults as opposed to other forms of religious activity.

Similarly, I find it quite strange to describe Storm as acting out-of-character in this sequence. Storm, who’s all about giving speeches at the top of her lungs, who’s been worshipped as a goddess in multiple countries, would have a problem with giving a sermon and carrying out a basic ritual? This is the sort of thing that makes me think that a lot of these comments are just people trying to disguise personal preference as story critique.

The scene ends with pulling back to see Xavier and Magneto reacting to all of this, and their feeling of tempered joy is a pretty good synecdoche for how things stand at the end of HoX/Pox: while the “good work” is clearly a cause for joy, it’s clearly at a very early and vulnerable stage, and there’s a feeling of determination that it has to continue “until it is done.” Interestingly, both Charles and Erik view this aspect of Krakoa as more “foundational” than any other element, and I wonder whether this could be part of why they don’t quite see eye-to-eye with Moira any more.

Another sign that things are not as secure as they’d like is that Krakoa still hasn’t gotten over the hurdle of UN recognition, which requires getting around a veto from a permanent member of the Security Council.

Resurrection Infographic:

So let’s talk about the Resurrection process, now that we have all of the information in front of us.

The Infographic really confirms that Mister Sinister is absolutely crucial to the Genetic Base working - “without this, we have nothing.” But given that we learn in Powers of X #6 that this was very much in opposition to Moira’s wishes, I wonder how the original plan envisioned this working. I wonder whether Magneto’s statement to Emma Frost in Powers of X #5 that “we are not ahead of ourselves...we are woefully behind” suggests a motive. Mister Sinister already had a comprehensive DNA database on the go, they might have gone to him because they wanted to accelerate the time table for reversing the Genoshan genocide.

At the same time, you can already see how Sinister has become the snake in the garden. At the moment, Xavier and Magneto have “limited...current mutant modifications...to “optimal aging,” but we can already see Sinister’s influence in the line “it is believed that in the future, designer modifications will be possible.” Unless they are very, very careful, this is how the chimera singularity could topple all of this into the abyss of the singularity.

The Five:

As I discussed above, each of the Five are a crucial element of the overall process.

Fabio Medina (Goldballs): produces limitless eggs for limitless husks. Without Goldballs, the resurrection process would be extremely limited in how many people could be brought back at any time by all kinds of resource constraints; with him, the process can be turned into one of mass-production.

Kevin MacTaggart (Proteus): turns unviable eggs into viable eggs; without Proteus, Goldballs’ innovation would be effectively stillborn. Kevin’s presence here is also a strong indicator that this was part of Moira’s plan, so as with so much in HoX/PoX what we’re talking about is a question of means vs. ends.

Joshua Foley (Elixir): “kick-start[s] the process of life, initializing cell replication and husk growth.” Without Elixir, the DNA might sit dormant within the egg; with Elixir, you have a bridge between the raw building blocks of life and the end product of a viable husk.

Eva Bell (Tempus): “temporally mature[s] a husk to a desired age.” This is potentially an under-appreciated aspect of the whole process: without Tempus, you’d still have to wait decades for resurrected mutants to come to maturity and all throughout that time, the process would be incredibly vulnerable; with Tempus, mutants are brought back to life as fully-grown adults capable of doing their part for Krakoan society.

Hope Summers (Hope): has the more nebulous task of “enhancing and synergizing...to ensure the success of each resurrection.” As Magneto explains, resurrection is “delicate, almost impossible work.” Hope’s unique power set allows her not only to boost the powers of the rest of the five, but also to improve coordination and thus quality control, so that the overall process has a success rate of 100%.

As we can see already, this is a system with a lot of irreplacable parts, which means a bunch of potential points of failure. No wonder, then, that Krakoan minds are at work trying to overcome these problems. We already see that “Synch or Mimic” have been floated as “upgrades/extensions/stand-ins” for the Five, which suggests that they’re already thinking about ways to improve functionality by adding to the “circuit” or about ways to maintain service if one of the Five needs to be replaced.

Similarly, I love how the “Proteus problem” shows how Resurrection is changing our perceptions of so many things in Krakoan society. From his introduction, Proteus has been shown as inherently dangerous because of the way that his powers damage his body - but with the Resurrection system, Proteus is just a mutant who happens to have a chronic illness that can be treated. One interesting question...why is Proteus’ “backup mutant husk” based on Charles Xavier? Charles isn’t his father, so it’s not a question of genetic compatibility.

The Mind:

Here’s where we really get into the philosophy of identity. Hickman gets really emphatic here that these are not “just clones,” because the backups include “the essence of each mutant, how they think, how they feel, their memories, their very being.”

I’m personally inclined to agree with Hickman. Even without transference of consciousness as a real thing, I don’t think a strict view of continuity of consciousness can really hold, given the fact there are plenty of breaks in said continuity - we don’t consider people who get knocked out or blackout drunk or just have a nap to no longer be the same person, so what’s the rationale for saying that any of the Strike Team aren’t the same people who they were before?

I also love how the Cerebro part of the system adds all kinds of new problems: there’s the technical complexity of scanning every mutant mind on the planet and then storing and copying that datat to “multiple redundant “cradles,” as well as new philosophical and ethical issues about what happens when you put someone’s mind in someone else’s body, etc. More on this in a bit.

Scale:

So at least at the time that this document was written, it looks like the mutant population is back to 100,000 (although how much was the Five isn’t clear), but that there are 1 million de-powered mutants (many of whom might want to use the system to regain their powers), and 16 million mutants who were murdered and whose resurrection is a key ideological drive for Krakoa.

As Hickman points out, this brings up issues of productivity and efficiency that we’re used to seeing in industrial and technological processes. The Five’s initial rate of 200 a day would take 300 years to accomplish the goal of reversing Krakoan genocide, which is way too long a timeline.

However, it turns out that there’s a mutant version of Moore’s law: the more the Five do this, the better they get at it (with a nice nod to Wolverine, so “its estimated that capabilities could possibly reach around 30,000 a week” (or 6,000 a day), bringing the timeline down to a far more manageable decade.

A final bottleneck: Charles Xavier “is not capable of” 6,000 daily downloads, and we already seen Krakoan minds thinking about “a workaraound or a team of telepaths” to supplement someone who’s also busy attending U.N meetings, Quiet Council sessions, plotting world domination, etc.

On a policy wonk side note, I was trying to figure out how Hickman worked out these numbers, and I realized that his math assumes that Krakoa has a five day work-week. As we’ll see in House of X #6, there are major open questions about what kind of economic policy (and thus, what kind of society) this new nation-state will have. Good to see that Actual 19th Century Robber Baron Sebastian Shaw isn’t getting his own way.

One particularly odd thing about Krakoan biomachinery, according to “extensive testing,” the Five don’t actually experience “exertion,” but rather a “blissful experience” of self-actualization. This suggests the psychological equivalent of a perpetual motion machine - rather than requiring more and more labor, the damn thing requires less and less and produces “total fulfillment” as a byproduct. Weird.

Another interesting side effect is that the Five have become “an inseparable family unit” who are undergoing a process of symbiosis - given all the discussion of mechanical hiveminds, it’s worth wondering whether we’re seeing a biological one forming and to what extend is individuality being maintained.

A final, slightly odd note: this Infographic describes the Five’s socio-cultural status as that of “cultural paragons” rather than “something achievable through works,” even though the Five are explicitly described as having carried out “good works.” So what gives?

Resurrection Protocol:

One last bottleneck: the whole process seems to take at least 42 and as much as 52 hours to complete. Although they can clearly work on multiple eggs in one batch, getting that figure down would no doubt be useful in further increasing productivity.

An interesting sign of the cultural/philosophical impacts of the system: Krakoan society now has “fears regarding duplication” of an explicit moral character, and thus requires an elaborate system of confirmation to bring someone back from the dead. Thus, we start to see the formation of mutant law-enforcement entities to deal with “mutant missing persons and suspected deaths and murders,” which is presumably going to be X-Factor rather than X-Force as initially believed (since X-Force turns out to be the intelligence service instead).

A Grateful Nation:

Speaking of the burdens of statecraft, the scene shifts to the aftermath of the U.N recognition vote, where it emerges that Emma Frost used her telepathy to push the Russian ambassador to abstain rather than veto, which Xavier is ok with. Krakoa is now an internationally-recognized nation-state in good standing, something that previous mutant nations never quite managed.

This gave some parts of the fandom a good deal of trouble, but let me say as someone who’s taken a couple courses in diplomatic history, this is really quite mild stuff compared to the usual run of vote selling, wiretapping, blackmail, threats of economic or military retaliation, and other kinds of skullduggery and corruption. The world of nation-states is not one of moral purity.

Also, if we’re talking about characters being in and out of character, as much as Charles Xavier has been described as an idealist when it comes to his ultimate ends, he’s always been a pragmatist when it comes to his means when it comes to psychic powers. Mental compulsion, altering or erasing memories, mind-wiping people into mental vegetables - as long as it’s for the greater good.

I’m curious what Emma Frost’s reward will be. This scene explicitly comes after she made her bargain with Xavier and Magneto for a fifty-year monopoly for the Hellfire Trading Company and three seats on the Quiet Council, so I wonder what this bonus will be.

Mutant Diplomacy Infographic:

Speaking of the moral ambiguity of international relations, we learn from this infographic that “all current mutant diplomacy...is dependent on relationships with human nations centering on their need for mutant pharmaceuticals.” On the one hand, it’s better than basing your diplomacy on military aid. On the other hand, it’s notable that Krakoa isn’t building its diplomacy on the basis of human rights or cultural exchange or other elements of “soft power,” it’s all very transactional. (It’s also not a good sign that “nations that have rejected a trade treaty with Krakoa are considered to be naturally adversarial.)

We then get a list of non-treaty nations. Some of these inclusions make sense, others are a bit puzzling, and I have some questions about why certain nations didn’t make the list.

Asia:

Why just Iran in the Middle East? OPEC should be losing their minds about the potential for Krakoan portals to undermine the value of oil. Likewise, plenty of Middle Eastern regimes might be worried about other ethnic minorities using the Krakoan precedent to redouble their own pushes for national independence. And if it’s religious ideology, why is it only a Shia issue and not a Sunni issue?

Madripoor: given where Krakoa is located, this is probably an issue of being afraid of a new power in their sphere of influence. Also, Madripoor has tended to get up to a lot of mutant-related crimes, so they’d probably be worried about this.

North Korea: this being listed as an ideological issue is a bit strange. The official state ideology of North Korea is really peculiar, even among putatively Communist regimes, so it’s hard to tell

Europe:

I imagine the E.U’s role in negotiating trade deals probably is responsible for the relative lack of European nations on the list, but I’m surprised that none of the right-wing populist governments that have sprung up in central/eastern Europe in recent years who aren’t particularly friendly to real world minorities wouldn’t have an issue with a powerful nation of mutants.

Latveria: probably because Doom is a paranoid, egomaniacal autocrat who pursues economic autarky generally. I am curious, however, about other Marvel-specific nation states - we know that Namor isn’t going to go to Krakoa, but what is Atlantis’ foreign policy on this issue? What do the Inhumans think? Etc.

Russi: as we’ve seen from House of X #1, Russia fears a new global superpower. What’s interesting is we don’t see them exerting any successful influence on Central Asian or Baltic or ex-Soviet eastern European nations.

South America:

Brazil: is this Bolsanaro's cultural conservatism at work or something else? Because...

Venezuela: is kind of on the opposite end of the spectrum from Brazil’s current government, so it would be odd to see them on the same side of this issue. The only thing I can think of is that this might be due to Chavezista anti-imperialism. Because...

Santo Marco: contrary to what Magneto said in House of X #1, mutants have not been entirely free of the sins of conquest and imperialism, and in one of his first appearances, Magneto conquered the Republic of Santo Marco and ruled it in an extremely brutal fashion. That’s the kind of thing people remember for a long time, so I’m not surprised that you see some South American countries taking a negative view of Krakoa as a result.

Terra Verde: Similarly, Terra Verde’s government was briefly overthrown by the supervillain Diablo, and although mutants were not involved, they may be generally wary of superpower-led nation states.

Central America:

Honduras: it’s not that I think it’s implausible, but what makes Honduras different from other Central American countries on this issue?

Africa:

This is where we get a potentially really juicy plot hook. As late as X-Men Red, Wakanda has been generally positive towards mutants, especially since not only does T’challa have a personal relationship with Storm, but in the current run of Black Panther, Storm has been popularly worshipped as Hadari Yao, the Walker of Clouds.

Given that Wakanda is seen as a threat because “they do not need mutant drugs,” this may be a case of Krakoan/Moira’s paranoia that Wakanda’s advanced technology and self-sufficiency might mean that the post-human revolution might start there.

At the same time, the fact that the rest of the “Wakandan economic protectorate” also reject a trade treaty might suggest that we’re just seeing a simple story of nation-state competition for spheres of influence.

Krakoa Is For All Mutants:

In a very straight-forward example of X-Men dissenting from Xavier’s plan, we see Wolverine - who’s about to take up a significant post in Krakoa’s national security infrastructure - has a big enough problem with the amnesty program that he mentions wanting to beat “Chuck” to death for general smugness and condescension.

A whole bunch of supervillains cross-over, but while some of them will become significant as members of the Quiet Council or Captains, Apocalypse is framed as the most significant one, because he’s the only one with a pre-existing connection to Krakoa

Indeed, he goes full Disney Princess on page 27 because Krakoa “knows me, and I Krakoa,” which might be a big problem later on if Krakoan’s earlier and deeper connections to Apocalypse come into conflict with its more recent alliances with Cypher and Xavier.

At the same time, at least for the moment Apocalypse is the most ideologically on board with Xavier’s broader project, seeing it as the culmination of his life’s work.

Thus, he’s happy to say the words: “we submit to the laws of this land, be what they may, and acknowledge from this day forward, we all serve a higher purpose than want or need. One people from this day forward.” It’s an oath of citizenship, but it also speaks to the conditionality of the amnesty. And there are penalties for breaking it.

#xmen #xmen meta #house of x

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sheikah · 6 years ago

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Ok, this is the last time I’m going to address this because it’s clear you just wanted to use my blog as a platform for your opinion rather than to engage in a discussion where you could potentially understand the other side. I also don’t want to spam my followers with this anymore.

1. You don’t have tumblr, but you somehow saw and are bothered by my untagged post about fic abuse? Ok…

2. No, we are not lumping flaming and concrit together. What you seem to refuse to understand is that we are not interested in either one unless explicitly stated otherwise. While it is markedly more upsetting to be called a “cunt” or a “whore” (both of which I and others I know have received over the last year, by the way) I similarly don’t want to hear about it if someone “takes issue with [my] plot, themes, etc” I genuinely, from the bottom of my heart, do not want to know that someone is disappointed with my story or wishes I wrote it differently. I don’t care. I am doing this for fun. It is a hobby. Those sorts of comments, even well-meaning, add stress and seriousness to something I’m trying to derive joy from. And when dozens of writers are telling you that we don’t want your idea of “concrit,” whether it involves flaming or not, you should just listen to that and stop.

3. Going off of my last point, you’ve been told this by writers, several times now. We don’t want your criticism of any kind unless we specifically ask for it. By leaving it anyway or defending your right to leave it, you are ignoring our expressed wishes and being rude. By doing this you are saying that your entitlement to share your unwanted opinion is somehow more important than an author’s desire to write a story for fun without it turning into discourse, regardless of the tone of that discourse.

4. It isn’t “inevitable.” What you also don’t seem to understand is that it wasn’t always like this. I am a “fandom old” and remember a time when (aside from the rare and random flamer) all fic comments were positive. Fanfic was a place for friends to get together, execute their headcanons or dream scenarios, and fangirl over it in peace. It’s for fun. Unless someone specifically tells you so, you should stop assuming that people are overly concerned with their story being “perfect.” This is a fun side hobby, not a dissertation defense. Sometimes the point of fanfic is to do something boundary pushing or even deliberately OOC. We’re not here to be discouraged by people who have showed up to a community that was doing fine on its own and taken it upon themselves to change the rules and customs of that community.

5. Since you and more people like you are digging your heels in and refusing to be receptive about this there is a snowball effect, where some commenters see pre-existing negative comments in a thread, adopt some weird mob mentality, and gang up on writers. This has already led to multiple beloved authors in our fandom deactivating and deleting their work. Your “concrit” is having a marked effect on the fandom and leading to less content. That’s not okay.

6. It isn’t about “safe spaces.” I know people like to mock that term now, which is a whole other fucked up issue. But this is about common courtesy, decency, and maturity. If someone is telling you point blank to stop doing a behavior that bothers them, a behavior you are CHOOSING to do, a behavior that you have no reason to do other than your own entitled feelings about someone else’s work, and a behavior you could stop doing easily and with no cost to yourself or your happiness, and you do it ANYWAY? That shows that you are immature and incapable of being courteous.

7. The fact that you are bringing up the poor, helpless negative commenters being ganged up on by writers is just ridiculous. We’re telling you not to leave those comments because they upset us. You say that it’s the internet and an open forum and people should accept whatever consequences for what they post. Yet you also say it’s unfair for writers to fight back and you want commenters to be able to say what you want in peace without repercussions or negative replies. Are you seeing a pattern here???

This is the third time you’ve argued with me about this and I can’t make my opinion any clearer. If you are this unwilling to consider other people’s feelings then I’m forced to conclude based on our interaction thus far that you’re simply not a nice person or someone that I can relate to or empathize with, so I won’t be discussing this further. But please, just stop dude. Just stop.

#answered #i'm so fucking tired

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admin-cock-creations · 6 years ago

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A Change in Direction

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Fandom: A Hat in Time Pairing: The Conductor / F!Reader Summary: Stranded in a town full of birds where you’re the only human, it doesn’t seem like you’ve got much a chance at things going well for you. A local movie studio, however, changes your life for the better. Length: 5,137 words Warnings: N/A Other Locations: AO3

You still had no idea how you’d ended up here, though you could definitely recall when you woke for the first time and found the worried faces of numerous birds leaning over you. Most appeared to be owls, but one was a rather eccentric looking penguin with large sunglasses and an afro. He was pressing either a cold wing or a damp rag to your forehead when your eyes fluttered open, and once he noticed you were awake he had spoken in a boisterous tone.

“Darling!~ Are you alright? You took quite the stumble there!”

That made you pass out again.

The next time you woke you were in a bedroom, and for just a moment you were sure you were home and it had all been some weird dream. But then you noticed the room wasn’t your own and as you threw your legs off the side of the bed some arguing voices outside began to come closer. The only door to the windowless room was shoved open and the afro-sporting penguin from earlier walked in with a new figure by his side. Honestly, you had no idea what sort of bird the fluffy figure was, or if it was even a bird at all. Then, after a moment of the three of you looking at once another, the yellow one turned to the penguin and shouted in a clearly Scottish accent.

“Ye buffoon! Yer didnae tell me it was a lass faintin’ in the reception!”

Hard to believe that was the first ever interaction you had with your new boss, or rather, bosses.

Yes, once you found there was no returning to where you’d originally come from – not that you could remember it anyway – it was decided you’d have to stay and make a life in a town full of birds. You spent the first few weeks doing odd jobs around the town, periodically running into both the birds from the studio you now knew as DJ Grooves and the Conductor. Grooves was certainly the more open and friendly of the pair, not the say the Conductor wasn’t kind to you, it was just far more likely for the platform wearing penguin to find his way to your basic apartment, strike you up on a conversation of how your week was going and offer any assistance he could. That fact alone is why you were so surprised when on one evening you found his yellow partner at your door, instead, with the offer of an intern position at the studio.

Considering all you’d been doing for the past week was throwing your back out by wiping down cafe tables, you eagerly accepted the job. At least if you threw your back on a movie set it would be a more interesting story.

The following Tuesday you found yourself bustling about Dead Bird Studio, clipboard in hand and assisting DJ Grooves with production of his newest film. You’d come to learn the specific film tastes for each of the filmmakers over the short time you had been in town, and this newest genre was quite a bold step for Grooves to try. He was much more of a comedy and musical sort of bird, while his partner was the one better known for his action and murder mysteries. Though, considering you were just an intern, you really felt you had no place to speak on the director’s film choices.

A few days into the filming process, you had unfortunately been left alone in the studio for an evening, reviewing what shoddy film work they’d captured to that point and writing down every timestamp where there was some sort of error. Yawning and setting aside your now drained third cup of coffee, you glanced over your clipboard. You were on your third round of the film out of the recommended five, and things weren’t looking great so far.

18 scenes that needed scrapped. 32 boom mic shots. 74 actors out of place. 192 unintelligible and/or completely butchered lines.

You were starting to see why the Conductor was the more revered director in town. And speaking of the devil…

“I thought everyone had buggered off for the night, ye still burning the midnight oil, lass?”

Turning to look behind you, and unintentionally drawing a harsh crack from your back, you faced the Conductor from where he peeked in through the doorway. He must’ve taken his jacket off earlier in the day because it appeared he’d been in the process of putting it back on before spotting you on his way out, with the buttons still undone and his crisp white shirt and silver accented vest catching the light from the many screens in the room.

You nodded at his question and glanced over your clipboard once more, still new enough an intern to not want to risk accidentally offending either the filmmakers and lose the only good thing you had going for your life right now.

“Yes, Mr. Conductor. Mr. Grooves put me on film review before I leave for the night.” Glancing at a clock on the far wall, you winced internally at the time. Was it really that late? “I thought a few more crew members were still here but I suppose it is far too late to expect that.”

The man’s mouth seemed to purse as he took a small step into the room, arms folding over his chest and head tilting to look at the screens you had been watching. After a moment, he scoffed and shook his head a bit.

“Cannae believe DJ peck neck would leave an intern on film review. At least he could have given yer a second set of eyes!”

It was clear he saw how tired you were but you quickly blinked a few times and straightened your posture, hoping to look a little more awake.

“I’m quite alright by myself! I mean, I know everyone is so busy and I’m only an intern, I can take some of the load off everyone else’s backs.”

It was true. You worked your ass off through the day and throughout the filming process, but even then you were nowhere near as busy as the actual film workers. They couldn’t be expected to overwork themselves, otherwise filming would be interrupted. You’d had intern jobs before, granted none in the movie-making industry, but each time your job mostly consisted of making the load easier of the more important people. Whether you had been brainwashed into believing this was how being an intern was supposed to go or not, the Conductor seemed to disagree.

“Yer done enough for today. I can see those circles under ye eyes, and considerin’ ye certainly are no owl I think it’s time yer head in for the day.”

“But, sir, what about– ”

“Aye, don’t ye worry about ol’ Grooves. He isnae yer only boss, and if he has a word to say about it next time he sees ye just send him me way! Come along then, lassie! I can walk ye to yer apartment.”

Blinking slowly, you watched the bird man walk back out into the studio, hearing the distinct sound of doors being locked up and lights being shut off as you turned back to the wall of screens before you, clipboard still in hand. Could you afford to leave your work early? Would the Conductor really stick up for you if DJ Grooves had something harsh to say in the morning?

“Are ye comin’ lass?”

You glanced down to your clipboard, looking over the long list of timestamps and mistakes, listening to the hum of the screens for a few seconds before calling back.

“Coming, sir!”

The town had gone to sleep for the night, with only the pounding music from the club district giving any signs of life for several blocks. It had clearly rained recently as the cobblestones were still listening with puddles and a cool, crisp air brought goosebumps to your arms. Twas the downside of being a featherless human, you supposed. With no feathers to keep you warm and a very limited wardrobe you were used to walking through the cold to get back home some days. Though you certainly weren’t used to having company.

Beside you, the Conductor has his hands shoved in his pockets, rustling for a moment before pulling out what appeared to be a matchbox and a partly smoked cigar. You couldn’t help but watch in a mix of curiosity and confusion as he held the cigar between those pointed teeth and struck a match to life, the small flame bringing warm shades to his bright feathers as he lit up his preferred smoke. Had he always smoked cigars? You hadn’t spent much time working for him so perhaps he only did it in privacy, which would make sense as to why this was the first time you were seeing him do it.

As you watched the bird shove a hand back in his pocket and enjoy his smoke, what you didn’t realize was that he was watching you as well, and he spoke to you in an almost gentle tone as he held his cigar between his fingers and let the smoke roll from his mouth.

“Yer shiverin’, giriie. Ye that cold?”

Feeling a rush of warmth come to your face at your boss calling you out, you quickly looked back to the ground in front of your feet, doing your best to keep your shivering at bay with your arms folded over your chest.

“I-I’m fine, I swear! My apartment isn’t that far and it’s not that cold out so I’ll survive.”

Though you couldn’t see the way the Conductor's face scrunched up in a mix of thought and annoyance, you could almost feel it from the way he hummed in his throat. He didn’t say anything, however, and you expected him to leave it at that. What you weren’t expecting was for a warm jacket to be draped over your shoulders a moment later, and you definitely weren’t expecting to look over and find your boss with slightly ruffled feathers.

Reaching up to touch the collar of the warm jacket, your lips parted to retort but the owner was quick to beat you to it.

“That outta keep ye warm ‘til we get there, aye? Yer donae have the insulation like the rest of us, and if Grooves found out I walked ye home and let ye catch cold I’d nae hear the end of it!”

Another wave of heat found your face as you stared in soft wonderment at your boss. Was he truly such a gentleman, or was he merely keeping the studio's most active intern from getting ill? Those questions tumbled back and forth in your mind for a few moments until you noticed something you hadn’t before.

Now that his jacket was off you were given a view of the attire usually hidden beneath, but what intrigued you more than his fashion sense was his feathers… and just how fluffed they’d become. The Conductor was rather fluffy bird… thing… to begin with, but now, with his extra layer of warmth gone, it seemed he’d begun to fluff up slightly to keep himself warm. His ears and the smaller tufts on either side of his face were a little bigger, and there was some noticeable plumage peeking out from the one undone button on the collar his shirt. You knew birds ruffled their feathers for warmth, but in a town surrounded by the creatures, not once did it strike you that they would do such a thing.

“Thank you, sir. It’s very kind of you.”

The bird next to you let out a bit of a laugh before giving you an amused tone.

“Yer donae have to call me Mister and Sir all the time, lassie! Aye, I may be yer boss but I am nae a man for all them titles. Just call me Conductor, no need for all the professional mumbo jumbo.”

His bluntness took you by surprise. Never had you worked for a boss quite like the Conductor before, and you still weren’t sure if that was a good or bad thing. It seemed you’d have a little more time to think about it in the privacy of your own home though, as the bird pointed up towards an apartment complex, cigar between his talons.

“This is ye building, right? I’ll walk ye to the door, make sure ye get there nice and safe.”

Nodding silently, you keyed the pair of you into the apartment building, walking through the flickering lounge light and into the elevator before pressing the button for the fourth floor. Thankfully it seemed like the elevator was in working order today, with not even a flicker of the lights on your way up. Upon exiting, your small one-room apartment was the first to the right, so upon stepping out and before reaching to unlock your door, you began to shrug the jacket off your shoulders, but before you could get it off entirely the conductor was holding his hand up and shaking his head gently.

“But s- Conductor, won’t you need this?”

“Nah, lass, ye can hold on to it a while longer. I hear there’s supposed to be a nip in the air tomorrow morning and we can’t have yer gettin’ cold on the walk to the studio, aye? I’ve got more than one suit, and I’m nae expectin’ ye to keep it forever.”

With his cigar still clenched between his teeth, the yellow bird gave you a smile and nodded his head a bit before walking back to the elevator, leaving you standing in front of your door with his jacket and a strange feeling in your chest.

It was quite the feat on your part to manage sneaking into the studio the following morning without anyone noticing the fact that you were wearing you boss’ jacket. You were tempted to immediately go to his office and leave it there, but you decided that would look a bit suspicious and kept it neatly folded inside your messenger bag until a better time arose. Until then, you continued to rush about and work until you dropped.

Luckily, you weren’t left with another late job that day, and as you were packing up you realized you still had the Conductor’s jacket among your things. Keeping the folded article pressed to your chest, you made sure no one was out in the halls before making your way to the opposite end of the studio where the man’s office was. As you got deeper into his area of the studio, you could hear the hustle and bustle of some owls doing late night work, but with a few sneaky maneuvers on your part you managed to slip past undetected and made it to your boss’ office.

“Mr. Conductor? It’s me, may I come in?” You called inside with a gentle knock. There was a low grumble you took as permission, but you still opened the door slowly as if bracing for the worst.

Behind the door was an office you weren’t expecting. A desk made of some dark wood and stained a lovely hue of red sat in the center of the room, old movie posters of the director’s previous accomplishments hung in frames along the walls, a few lamps gave a warm light to the space and a few filing cabinets were placed about and filled with what you imagined to be movie scripts. At the desk, head in one hand and a glass of some alcohol in the other, was the Conductor himself. With the absence of his normal jacket he’d donned a different suit today, one that was a deep mahogany with a dark undershirt and tie. His current jacket was tossed aside and draped sadly on a corner of the expansive desk among the piles of crumpled papers. It was clear the man had been struggling with some sort of creative block and you couldn’t help but purse your lips. Looking back into the studio behind you, a moment passed before you closed the door behind you once again, placing aside your messenger bag and his folded jacket to take a seat in the closest free chair.

Once you sat down it seemed the bird finally noticed you and his head lifted from staring at the paper in front of him. A sort of crooked grin and weak chuckle was given to you as he forced himself to straighten up enough to slump back into his chair instead of hunch over the desk.

“Aye, lass, there ye are. I was – hic – I was wonderin’ if I’d see per pretty mug today. How are… how are ye? Is that DJ peck neck treatin’ yer well on set?”

Ignoring the strange airy feeling in your chest after being called pretty, you scooted closer to the desk in front of you and spoke softly to the drunken man.

“I’m treated fairly, he hasn’t yelled too harshly at me, yet. Thank you for averting what I’m sure would have been a nasty shouting session for leaving work early last night.”

“it was nothin’ lassie! I cannae let that peck neck pick on ye just because yer an intern. Intern yer may be, but ye do a smashin’ good job! Aye… with such a committed worker like ye I bet ol’ peck neck’s movie is going to win the annual bird movie awards this year.”

Looking away a bit, you fidgeted with a nearby pen on the edge of the desk.

“Actually… Mr. Grooves doesn’t take my advice on how his film could be improved. I’ve caught every mistake in the recording and acting and he won’t correct them. I’m not sure if he just refuses to listen to an intern or only cares about the dumb stardom stuff.”

Your confession seemed to catch the attention of the more serious director, leaning forward in his chair and setting aside in mostly empty whiskey glass now.

“That so, eh? Well I’ve seen yer workin’ on those shoddy recordings of his, and if he refuses to accept your criticism and advice then he’s just some – hic – some peck neck gone crazy on bird seed! I would give anything to have an intern like you on my crew right about now. Aye, poor Wesley cannae get a fresh film idea and the owls are no help.”

So that’s why he was moping around with a drink. He had lost his film-making groove and needed some inspiration. Or maybe… he needed an outside opinion.

“Well,”you started slowly, catching the little lift of his ear tufts as you got his attention, “considering how Mr. Grooves won’t take my advice, perhaps I could offer it to you and your crew, instead.”

You could see how the Conductor’s ear tufts wiggled a bit, whether it was out of thought or excitement you weren’t sure, but his mouth pursed for a moment and he tapped his talons on the desk a few time before turned to face you once more.

“If DJ peck neck cannae appreciate what ye bring to the table, then I certainly can. Startin’ tomorrow morning yer on my crew, and you willnae be catchin’ me ignorin’ that valuable input of yours.”

“No, no no! It’s all wrong! Are any of ye peck necks actually actors?!”

Several weeks had passed since you began work with the Conductor on his movie. It had taken both of you long enough to come up with a script, something rather new for his usual tastes but still in the ballpark, and you’d managed to fill almost every role with good actors. Now there was only one slot left, the most important one, and the one that was giving you the most trouble.

You were still searching for someone to fill the role of the main female lead and love interest.

When the drunken bird had told you in his private moment of weakness that he would never ignore your advice and criticism, he truly meant it, and since then you’d been something akin to his personal assistant. Sometimes he swore you knew more about film-making than he did with the quality tips you gave. You had even been the one to suggest the love interest in the story as a fresh new element to his usual tales, and you had been a great deal of help in helping him along the way. With this in mind, he pressed his hands over his face a mumbled to his side where you stood, clipboard in hand.

“Lassie, could ye please show these buffoons what we’re looking for in this character? It seems not a single owl can perform without havin’ their hands held.”

Nodding firmly, you placed aside the items you held and snatched up a spare script, making your way onto the auditioning stage and into the spotlight. You had written almost every line for this character so you barely had to glance at the printed words as you cleared your throat and began to act. You were nowhere near the professional level of acting, but you still knew how to put on a show.

Your voice was strong, your movement fluid, and every bird on set seemed impressed by the talent of a simple intern as you took upon the role of Lady Cynthia.

“I wanted to tell you that wherever I am, whatever happens, I’ll always think of you, and the time we spent together, as my happiest time. I’d do it all over again, if I had the choice. No regrets.”

Pulling his hands away from his face, the Conductor couldn’t prevent his jaw from dropping as he raised his head and watched you perform. Was it just the spotlight giving you that radiant glow or was he just imagining things? The passion and palatable emotion in every word you breathed made his feathers ruffle. Leaning forward in his seat, he stared on in pure awe as you continued the brief scene.

“I’m in love with you, and I’m not in the business of denying myself the simple pleasure of saying true things. I’m in love with you, and I know that love is just a shout into the void, and that oblivion is inevitable, and that we’re all doomed and that there will come a day when all our labor has been returned to dust, and I know the sun will swallow the only earth we’ll ever have, and I am in love with you.”

As you finished, the Conductor felt his heart soar, barely hearing the clap of every other bird on the set. You, meanwhile, smiled shyly and felt a rush of heat flood your face, taking a small bow before beginning to walk off the stage. You’d made it halfway across and were out of the bright limelight when the director barked out once more.

“Alright! That’s a wrap for today! We’ve got our choice for Lady Cynthia!”

You stopped in place on stage, giving your boss an odd look and arching a brow before he focused his attention on you, a wide grin on his face and his ear tufts wiggling a bit out of glee.

“Lassie, we’re gonna make ye a star! Yer the only one who can so flawlessly capture Miss Cynthia’s character!”

Dropping the script you held to the ground, the papers scattered about your feet and your entire face went red as you stammered to your boss.

“M-me?!”

By now you were two weeks into filming and the Conductor was as pleased as punch at how progress was going. With the sudden decision to make you, a human woman the role of Lady Cynthia you had spent a number of days in the costume department, being poked and prodded for every outfit you'd be required to wear at some point in the film.

Most of your scenes so far hadn’t been major, but today was your first real chance to shine. Today you were due to film the first romantic moment between Lady Cynthia and the main protagonist, and truthfully, you were nervous. You’d been spending the last hour or so pacing back and forth in the caboose of the Owl Express, the Conductor’s pride and joy and where most of the day’s scenes would be taking place. It was still at the moment, with the crew preparing for filming and the actors prepping, but you were too nervous to even think of glancing over your lines right now.

Your personal script sat atop a crate inside the car, and you currently leaning against the railing in the back. The sun was just beginning to set, painting the scene for the romance shot, and you couldn’t help but give a heavy sigh and take off the large hat you were to wear, allowing the gentle breeze to caress your face.

From behind you, someone cleared you throat, and as you turned you were met with the director, his jacket left behind somewhere and his shirt sleeves rolled to his elbows. Considering you were planning to film in the desert, you could only image how hot he was under those feathers, you were ready to melt in the over-the-top dress you were practically sewn into. Something about the Conductor’s body language made it seem like he was also nervous, and out of reflex you asked, “Is something on your mind, Conductor?”

With a soft hum, the bird shook his head, reaching up to scratch at the feathers on the back of his neck.

“Nae donae worry about me, lass, I’m perfectly fine. Yer look like the one who’s nervous, though.”

Sighing again, you ran a hand through your hair, looking out over the desert where the crew was working to load all the equipment onto the train.

“I just… I’ve never acted before, especially not in a high budget movie as the main love interest. I won’t lie, I’m nervous about today’s scene. What if I mess it up? What if I’m not emotionally convincing? I’ve got so many worries and I don’t want to risk looking at the script and making my nerves worse.”

The pair of you were silent for a few moments until you heard the rustling of paper and turned your attention back to your boss. The Conductor had picked up your copy of the script and flipped through until he stopped about two-thirds of the way in, where you could only assume the aforementioned romance scene was. You could see him scanning over the scene before he looked up to you, keeping the script in one hand and taking a step forward. You had no chance to question what he was doing before he took your hand in his, pressing it to his chest, directly over his heart, and you immediately knew just as he began to speak.

“Whatever our souls are made of, yours and mine are the same. You deserve the world, and I know I can’t give that to ye. So I’ll give ye the next best thing: my world.”

Your chest swelled and you felt yourself get a little weak in the knees as the Conductor put on his best acting and took the place of the main protagonist and Lady Cynthia’s love interest, fully intending to act this scene out with you to calm your worries. So, taking a small breath, you recalled your own lines and replied easily to him.

“I have no need for such grand gestures, darling. Your hand holding mine is enough, this is how the galaxies collide. All I desire is to be near you, to gaze upon your face and know that my heart undeniably belongs to you.”

The Conductor gave a dreamy sigh and lifted your hand from his chest to the side of his face, where you cupped his cheek in your hand and felt your heart flutter. Those feathers were so soft, and as you stroked your thumb over the warmth of his face you watched as he grew fluffier than usual. Was he feeling unwell? There was no way your acting was drawing such a reaction out of him.

“I crossed a thousand leagues of sand and sky to come to ye, and lost the best part of me along the way. Donae tell me to leave.”

“Never, my love. Never leave.”

Abruptly standing, the Conductor swept you up in his arms, dipping you low as the protagonist was meant to do in the scene and you knew where this was headed.

“Yer are so amazingly…wonderfully…beautifully…awesomely…most definitely the most precious of all precious things.”

There must’ve been stars in your eyes as you draped your arms around the bird’s neck, not daring to pull yourself closer and break the scene as you watched him slowly begin to lean in. There was to be a kiss after he spoke that line, there was no way he was actually going to kiss you. He was a dedicated actor, you had watched the films he’d stared in himself, but if he was actually going to do this during an impromptu practice run then it was a whole other level of commitment.

But as you watched him draw close, part of you realized you wanted this.

Your eyes fluttered shut, and you were fully prepared to kiss your boss before you heard some frustrated voices nearby, and both of you whipped your heads over to the source. A small crowd of owls had gathered with a filming camera and they had apparently been filming your little interaction with the director, which sent a wave of heat through your face and to the very tips of your ears. The Conductor quickly pulled you back to your feet, catching yourself on the railing so you wouldn’t collapse out of embarrassment as the furious fluff ball poofed up even more out of embarrassment and snapped at his crew.

“ What the peck do ye peck necks think yer doing?! Get ye tails in gear and load those cameras onto me Owl Express and that film better be destroyed in the next minute! ”

Watching the director storm off, you fanned yourself with your large costume hat, deciding that the impromptu practice had indeed helped. If you just pictured the owl plating the main character as the Conductor, you may just be able to give a flawless performance. And maybe, if you had the confidence, you’d ask him after filming today if he could help you practice the true romance scene at the end of the movie. Your acting was probably good enough to make yourself seem nervous again. But then again, after what the Conductor just tried to pull, perhaps you didn’t need to act.

#a hat in time #ahit #ahit conductor #a hat in time conductor #conductor x reader #conductor/reader #ahit conductor x reader #ahit conductor/reader

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rainstormcolors · 6 years ago

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it's totally cool if you'd prefer not to answer this (i've noticed it's a bit of a sensitive subject in fandom)- I was a bit curious, What did you personally think of the Ceremonial Duel?

This is a very good ask, though my answer may not be able tomeet that expectation.

The Ceremonial Duel is something of a multifaceted topic,isn’t it? My own take, the reception itreceived overall by fans, and the behind the scenes aspect, as well as my ideafor how it both fits and clashes with various aspects of the series if I feellike including that break down too. It’s also something I’m not emotionallycharged on. My feelings on it are neutral and I’m able to see the merits ofboth sides of the argument of whether it’s a fine or garbage ending.

If I had to sum it up in one sentence: I think the endingwas very heavily foreshadowed from early on within the series, but it has majorproblems, and that Atem’s feelings were left so intentionally ambiguous isintriguing to me.

Prior to DSoD, as a lurker coasting around odd fandom spacesfrom time to time, I did have the impression YGO’s conclusion was somethingpeople were iffy on. As far as I’ve been able to gather, Japan’s fandom hadsome iffiness too. I think the announcement of The Darkside of Dimensionsreally illuminated the fandom divide on the ending in a way. There were manyfans who were flatly rejecting DSoD altogether on principle, but the film ofcourse set out to examine some of the wounds left in the wake of Atem’s departure,and that’s something many fans had also felt haunted by. (There are of coursefans who despise both the original ending and DSoD, and there are of coursefans who are alright with both the original ending and DSoD; my point is more noticingthe split of fans’ receptiveness to a continuation.)

People dissect apart that final duel to try justifying theirtake on Atem’s feelings. An expression that could be taken as somber, anexpression that could be taken as one of relief; dialog drops grabbed fromcharacters who are not Atem but instead projecting onto Atem; etc. The truth isthere isn’t an answer in canon on whether Atem definitely wanted to leave ordefinitely wanted to stay. His feelings were left ambiguous; and I find thatchoice intriguing. It would’ve been so simple to give lines to Atem announcinghis relief at finally being able to rest, or announcing his crushing pain athaving to depart from the world. Instead the event is treated like a mechanismof nature.

My personal interpretation on this ambiguity is this: “ifthe items wanted to reunite inside the Millennium Stone, if the items couldmanipulate their bearers for the sake of reuniting there, if the items had noconcern for human life… I don’t think it’s out of the question the MillenniumPuzzle planted an inescapable urge inside Atem to depart to the netherworld. Ithink it really is like a salmon swimming upstream to die.”That’s not to say I’m correct; it’s just my reading.

And I also wrote this bit some time back, back before the “discourse”regarding the finale bubbled over and became bright: “I think, like so manyshonen series, Yu-Gi-Oh! was ultimately a metaphor for the journey fromadolescence into adulthood. Yugi saw Atem as a kind of idealized self. “Youwere my goal,” as he says. Their relationship became much more complex thanthat, but I think Atem leaving was meant to symbolize Yugi letting go of thisidea of an idealized self, this person he thought he should become when he wasyounger, and accepting himself for who he is. The metaphor becomes messy thoughbecause Atem is a character in his own right, with his own identity and desiresand fears, and his departure does contradict several other messages of theseries (staking your worth on a game??).”

The characters left behind would be wounded. It would hurtand they’d be haunted. Atem was not Yugi’s idealized self. He was a person. Hewas their friend.

But I don’t actually hate the original ending, in partbecause it seemed so obvious to me. I feel the immense foreshadowing shouldn’tjust be brushed aside in this discussion. And the behind the scenes aspectlooms large here: there was no time to course correct for KT. Either he had toshatter all the foreshadowing he spent seven years crafting, or he had to sendoff Atem with exceedingly poor justification in text. By that time, he’d beenabandoned by his audience and may have felt little need to break away from theoriginal plan. But that doesn’t mean fans can’t be upset about it.

The precise reason fans are upset is because they care aboutthese characters so much; I have to respect that. It’s honest pain. There’ssomething sour with this ending to leave that kind of scar on fans. But I findthe occasional mocking and moralizing comments that have come up aimed atpeople who liked the ending to be uncalled for. Humans read into fiction invery individual ways, and I think that should also be respected. (Though I’ve beentold this situation of one side sometimes mocking the other used to be inreverse.)

If I have to play defense for the original conclusion, it’dbe in how I feel there’s shades of sad nostalgia enveloping those moments. Despitethe metaphor of growing up itself collapsing, the feeling of ghosts and lostthings from adolescence you can never get back is there.

Even for fans who see the ending as something uplifting andhopeful; it’s a personal feeling and reading. Yugi accomplished his goal of helpingsomeone who had helped him. Likely, they interpreted Atem’s expressions in the endas ones of relief.

(I actually realized not too long ago that the anime had itsown foreshadowing, unintentionally perhaps, in Noa Kaiba as he understands he’salready dead and must accept his fate.)

If I have any last thoughts to include, they are unneededbut it’d be that the longest fanfic I ever successfully completed kind of examinedthe holes in the finale. I have no intentions of ever posting this fic and havealready cannibalized pieces of it for other fics but it was like this: Atem,feeling the strange tug on his heart to go to Egypt but hesitant, decides he’llwait to make his decision. This enrages the Millennium Puzzle and it seals Ateminside, not allowing him to manifest or communicate with the world at all untilthe Millennium Items are gathered at the tomb in Egypt. Yugi units the Items insidethe Millennium Stone, at which time Horakhty emerges before Atem inside thePuzzle. The Items combined allow a wish, one far more powerful than anyindividual Item’s wish. Horakhty tells Atem this wish even has the power toreturn life to a ghost. But now see, this fic was an edgy angstfest whereanother character had been killed off near the beginning of the story. Atem hasno hesitation in spending his wish for this person, and time loops back. Atemis able to stop the accident from happening. No one else remembers anything.And as time moves forward again, that’s why Atem’s feelings are so nebulous andyet set on his departure from the world. …… I don’t know if this was relevantto include, but it seems kind of related.

Thank you for the ask. I hope I gave an adequate answer. I’mopen to the thoughts of others on this.

#atem #posts I regret because anon was fishing

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lambcaey · 7 years ago

Text

Casino Cups: Life Goes On (Part 1)

This three-part fanfic is largely based on the awesome Cuphead AU known as Ask Cups and Casinos, but could apply to the Cuphead fandom in general, too (just long before the Cup bros start working at the casino). Definitely check it out!

Credit goes to Bright Goat for the AU (hope I did justice to your amazing work!) Enjoy!

Part 2

Casino Cups: Life Goes On (Part 1)

Silence without serenity; stillness with a sense of foreboding; a feeling of calm clashing with that of rapidly-growing fear. That was how it felt during the first few minutes without Elder Kettle. One minute, he was tearfully professing his love for his grandsons. The next, there lay nothing in bed but a shallow husk of china. This wasn't to say that it happened completely out of nowhere. The man was getting on in years, and his family couldn't afford the kind of medical treatment that would preserve his already very long life. Despite the Isles' long history of supernatural phenomena, none of the local mystics could conjure up anything guaranteeing immortality, aside from repeating the horrific mistake of making another deal with the Devil. Nevertheless, no matter how aware the boys were of this day coming, they still weren't ready when it eventually occurred. By the time he'd reached his final hours, Elder Kettle had stopped trying to escape his fate. Instead, he came to terms with it as a fact of life, a life that was as happy and fulfilling as it could ever be for him. Even as the last of his family stood before him, begging him not to go, Elder Kettle left this plane of existence with a smile, completely at peace. It took a great deal of will power after such an intense shock, but the boys eventually forced themselves to leave their grandfather's bedside for the proper postmortem preparations. It was almost too painful to even look at their elder's corpse anymore. They didn't want to leave him, but, at the same time, there wasn't anything left to hold on to; just an empty shell in which a warm, caring, and loving soul once resided. It was incredibly unnerving, the idea of something this traumatic and heartbreaking occurring in this cheery, colorful, whimsical world. Every other element of life, even death, had some sort of silly, cartoon-like slant, at least from Cuphead and Mugman's perspective. Seeing stars; pupils rolling in their heads; a giant lump that could be brought down with the swing of a hammer; any sort of injury or illness was presented with the classic "Rule of Funny" that usually dictated the rules of physics and natural order in Inkwell Isle. Here, there wasn't any of that. No soul to parry, no ghost to interact with; Elder Kettle was plainly, simply, and completely gone. This event was just another item of this world's never-ending list of questionable occurrences. The only real shock from it was how starkly it contrasted to the rest of Inkwell Isle. Naturally, such a rare phenomenon of this magnitude could hardly be kept a secret. The news spread fast to the other residents in the isles, and, within the next half hour, virtually all of them had arrived at the boys' doorstep. Of course, there were exceptions. As much as the Devil and King Dice relished the misery of others, this particular soul was of no real value to them, which would make the experience more boring and pointless than anything else. Weepy also had to remain outside, lest he start flooding the house with his rivers of tears (more so than usual). Everyone else was either mourning by Elder Kettle's bedside, or offering any form of assistance or comfort to his grieving grandsons. Though the boys couldn't afford an official funeral, this was the closest to one as they were ever going to get, and they greatly accepted it. Mugman was very receptive to his friends' kindness. He showed the utmost gratitude from even the smallest of favors, from a shoulder to cry on to an array of bouquets for his grandfather's grave. He also spent much of the time reflecting on all the fond memories he and everyone else shared with him, even mentioning some of the more humorous ones to bring some sort of levity to the situation. Though part of Mugman felt very much alone, being surrounded by all his friends and neighbors was all the more comforting to him during this troubling time. Cuphead, on the other hand, expressed an entirely different demeanor during the pseudo-funeral. He kept himself isolated from the rest of the crowd, sitting at the top of the stairs with his arms resting on his knees. Instead of shedding any tears, his eyes gazed off into space, as though a million thoughts were racing in his mind at once. Friends like Cagney or Hilda had asked if there was anything they could do for him, but after a few times of giving them a cold "I'm fine," Cuphead retreated to his room, barring himself from any socialization altogether. He didn't even come out to watch the local ghosts deliver his grandfather's urn to the mausoleum. It was as clear as day that Cuphead was anything but "fine." Many people, especially his brother, were very tempted to go upstairs, and insist that he come out and talk with them. However, they also bore in mind that perhaps this was Cuphead's way of grieving with such a tremendous loss. The last thing the poor boy needed was feeling as if his friends were trying to impose on him how they thought he should act in the face of his grandfather's passing. Although they had good intentions, everyone agreed it was best to leave Cuphead alone...for now. ~~~~ After an almost sleepless night, Mugman dragged himself downstairs, and fried up some eggs and bacon for himself and his brother, hoping he'd at least be willing to come out and eat. He also poured a couple of glasses of orange juice, and, by force of habit, reached out to grab some English breakfast tea with sugar, before remembering that family connoisseur was no longer there to enjoy it. Only seconds after setting the table, Cuphead tiredly made his way to the kitchen as well. "M-Morning, Cups." Mugman chirped with a forced smile. "I made us some breakfast." "Thanks," Cuphead responded rather brusquely as he sat down. Although the meal was well-made by any standards, any appetite for it was practically nonexistent. Mugman forced a few bites of his eggs while Cuphead simply twirled his fork around the bacon, staring glumly down at the table. After a moment or so of awkward silence, Mugman nervously attempted to break the ice. "I, uh, I put Hilda's flowers up as a centerpiece for the table," the young boy stammered. "That was really nice of her, huh?" No answer. Mugman tried something else. "It...looks like a really nice day outside. If you want, maybe we can go for a walk, or catch some butterflies, or see how the others are doing. How-How does that sound?" Again, no response. He may as well be talking to an empty chair. Mugman let out a small sigh. He clearly wasn't getting anywhere with his grief-stricken brother. With a heavy frown, Mugman tried appealing to Cuphead's better nature. "Listen, Cuphead. It's ok if you don't feel like talking to me, but...just know that I'm always here for you whenever you need it. I'm not gonna make you do anything you don't want to. I..." Mugman's voice quivered a bit. "I just don't want you to feel like you gotta be all alone." At last, Cuphead looked up at his brother, his expression switching from dullness to sudden concern. Although he was referring to Cuphead in his offer of emotional support, it was a subtle, yet clear, sign of the same desire on Mugman's part as well. He may have sounded calm and collected in his words, but they were drowned out from the stronger signs of loneliness and misery in his facial and body language. After a moment of staring longingly at his brother, Cuphead's face winced and twitched with anxiety, his clenched fists shaking on the table. "M-Mug, I...I-I uh..." Just when it seemed like he was ready to explode, Cuphead swallowed hard, forcing himself to regain his former composure. "D-Don't worry, Mug. We'll both be all right. I just...I need some time to think." At that, Cuphead excused himself from the table, heading back upstairs. Mugman's eyelids rose in bewilderment. He wasn't sure whether to feel hurt from Cuphead walking away when he needed help, or worried for his stability after just seeing him fight so hard with himself. This sense of uncertainty became the norm over the next few days. The boys remained close, refusing to leave either one home alone for any reason. Ironically, despite such closeness, it was this same concern that also made them keep their distance. Although they deeply desired each other's companionship during this time of grief, something in their heads made them reluctant to act on it. Cuphead continued to isolate himself and battle his internal conflict while Mugman stayed away out of respect for his brother's time to "think." It was a paradox of perfectly painful proportions, and they both prayed that it would soon part. Fortunately for Cuphead and Mugman, they didn't spend the week in completely shut out from the world. Once in a while, a friend or two would stop by, and ask the boys how they had been doing. Mugman was thankful and accepting of any company that was offered to him. Occasionally, there was activity involved, such as playing chess with Werner, Beppi fashioning a balloon animal bouquet, and even Djimmi performing some magic tricks. Most of the time, though, Mugman felt just as, if not more, satisfied with simply sitting around and talking, whether to listen to advice or have his friends hear him out. It may not have felt like the same sort of love and caring that Elder Kettle provided, but it definitely lifted Mugman's spirits knowing he still had so many people to look after him. Although his friends offered this same comfort to Cuphead, he remained adamant in his desire to be left in solitude, which was starting to worry Mugman and the others. It wasn't as though they felt he was grieving in the wrong way; it was that, perhaps, Cuphead's self-imposed isolation was beginning to do more harm than good. Taking the time to contemplate and collect one's thoughts is an important part of the grieving process. In Cuphead's case, however, the extent to which he'd spent so much time alone left a greater impression that he wasn't allowing himself to be with anyone. He was never fond of asking for help, as it went against his self-image of being an independent, confident go-getter in virtually any task at hand. Never did Cuphead ever realize that coping with death and loss was going to be the biggest challenge he'd ever faced, enough to make fighting the Devil look tame. ~~~~ Five days later, Mugman felt enough was enough. As Cuphead sat solemnly on the swing set, staring off into the sky, his brother approached him in a manner that was both nervous and assertive, trying as delicately as possible to address the glaring elephant in the room. "C-C-Cuphead," Mugman uttered. "A-Are you ready to finally talk now?" Cuphead sighed, his head now facing down. On any other day, Mugman would've rightfully taken this as a subtle, yet clear, "no." Nonetheless, he could no longer stand wallowing in hesitation, and remained persistant. "Cuphead, please. We can't keep going on like this." Mugman sat on the adjacent swing. "If we don't hear each other out, then w-we'll be too sad to eat, play, or do pretty much anything." Cuphead remained still, but his face made a grimace, his eyes shutting tight as they brimmed with tears. His mind was practically screaming at every muscle in his body to let him walk away again, or, at the very least, allow for any sort of movement beyond trembling and staggering breathing. Alas, the inner turmoil that had been festering inside Cuphead had now brought him into a state of psychological paralysis. All the anxiety, sadness, and loneliness he'd been trying to brush off had now ensnared him like quicksand. Noticing the rising tension, Mugman slowly reached his hand for that of his brother. "Cuphead, what's the matter? I wanna help you." The moment Mugman lay one finger on his hand, Cuphead suddenly found the strength to become mobile again. With a deep breath and a heavy gulp, he jerked up from his swing, staring down at his startled sibling. "I'm sorry, Mug," he answered firmly, "I'm sorry I've been so distant. I didn't mean to make you feel like I didn't care about you or anything." "Aw, Cuphead, you didn't-" Mugman stopped. His heartfelt response immediately froze from the sudden chill in his brother's voice. "But...but I think I finally know how to fix everything, and get our lives back to the way they were. I'm..." He paused, mustering the last bit of strength to speak his mind. "I'm gonna get Elder Kettle back!" Mugman gasped. "Cuphead, no! Y-you can't do that! Elder Kettle is dea-" "I KNOW!" Cuphead screamed, taking a few breaths to regain stability in his voice. "I mean, he may be now, b-but as long as we have things like ghosts and angels and soul contracts in this world, I am never gonna rule out the possibility that he could come back!" Mugman stood beside Cuphead, a familiar feeling of danger creeping inside him. "Cuphead, for once, be reasonable! Y-You almost gambled our souls for the Devil; who knows what'll happen if you-" "Reasonable?!" Cuphead shouted, taken aback. "Why don't you, for once, be willing to take a risk for something you want? We've spent way too much time with Elder Kettle to just give up on him now! Don't you even want to see him again?!" "Of course I do!" Mugman's voice started hardening as well. "But this...i-it just doesn't feel right!" "Fine, be that way! Sit here at home, and do nothing like a coward!" Cuphead paused. Mugman's expression looked like a twisted combination of hurt and enraged. As he turned his back on him, Cuphead softened his tone a bit. "Trust me, Mug. This is the only way we're gonna be happy again. And don't worry; I won't let you down. I won't stop until I've set everything right for all three of us!" The second he finished that declaration, Cuphead smoke-dashed away, making a beeline for the woods of Inkwell Isle I. Mugman tried hurriedly to catch up with him. "Cuphead, wait! Come back!" Unfortunately, it wasn't long before the forest became too dense with foliage to safely smoke-dash any farther. Before he knew it, Cuphead was already out of sight. Mugman's mind turned into an emotional roller coaster. Knowing his brother's hasty nature, he simply knew that what Cuphead had proposed was another one of his terrible ideas. Granted, much of Inkwell Isles' laws of nature didn't make sense to begin with. After all, this was a place where a queen bee could summon floating triangles, a giant mermaid could live while decapitated, and, as Cuphead had pointed out, there were even many ghosts and skeletons roaming freely in their afterlife! Nevertheless, nothing along such lines had appeared to come to fruition in Elder Kettle's case. If he wasn't meant to be seen among the living, it was most likely that, like everything else in Inkwell Isle, it was better to not question it, and simply accept it as part of reality. The last time Cuphead tried to defy that rule, the Devil very nearly took their heads. Also, despite the danger he knew would be at hand, there was a part of Mugman that wondered why he should bother saving Cuphead at all? How dare he accuse him of not caring about their beloved grandfather! He was every bit as upset over the loss as his brother was; how does wanting to move forward make him a coward? This was a new low, even for someone who carelessly gambled both their souls to the Devil. If Cuphead were to suffer, it's what he deserves for being such a jerk...right? Mugman then shook his head, rationality and common sense catching up with him. Cuphead's in trouble, he spoke in his mind. None of these arguments matter right now. I gotta make sure he stays safe, now more than ever. Not hesitating a minute longer, Mugman followed the path his brother took, his tear-soaked eyes now glaring with determination. An unnerving aura permeated the isles as a blood-red sunset turned Mugman's body into a bold silhouette. As much as he wanted to put his mental turmoil to rest, he had to put his grief aside if he wanted to keep family from getting any smaller than it already was.

(To be continued)

#cuphead #mugman #ask cups and casinos #askcupsandcasinos #elder kettle #feels #angst #grief #fan fiction #fanfic #the devil #king dice #hilda berg #cagney carnation

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ouyangzizhensdad · 5 years ago

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Hi!! just here to say I love your metas and your analysis of mdzs/cql,, also i've seen some of your posts about anti-mxtx discourse and i thought they were very interesting!! It's very hard to find people who actually love mxtx work AND mxtx herself as a writer. Most people here will consume here work and then hate on her which I don't understand, like...then just leave?? but anyways, I can't also believe there's people here who can't process the idea of loving both mdzs and cql 😂 I love the novel and I think the adaptation was good! I don't see why hating one or the other but oh well. Keep it up with your banger metas!! I love reading them <3

Hi there anon,

Happy to know you find that my analysis and my meta are bangers 🤘.

I think (part of) the reason why it’s difficult to find people who love both mdzs and cql equally is that they are at the end of the day different stories told through different mediums, and they seem to appeal to different type of fans (at least in the EN-language fandom, I am guessing the situation is different in the CN-language fandom, for instance). While I think CQL is perfectly Fine, I am critical of where it fails as an adaptation and at the end of the day it doesn’t have what truly appeals to me in the novel (its exploration of themes, its humour, the storytelling techniques, the more complex journey for Wangxian, etc.). Conversely, a lot of purity culture/anti-fujo types seem to be really into the type of content that CQL ended up being due to censorship (take from that what you will). Otherwise, I think a lot of CQL-main people who might not have the same arguments against the novel as the aforementioned group might be the kind of viewers who are used to relying on visual language to bridge the gap of a lot of stuff that is not found explicitly word-for-word in the narration or dialogue--and might thus not be really receptive to the kind of storytelling favoured by MXTX.

Also, let’s not kid ourselves: another part of the reason that there is a lot of people who have only watch CQL is because they end up reading posts written by people totally misrepresenting the novel and think: woah, that’s bad! I won’t read it! sounds so bad!!!! My favourite posts of this kind are those where the person writing them directly acknowledges that they “hated the novel so much” that they barely read it/speed-read it/skipped entire portions/don’t remember much of it. And you know when *I* want to have an opinion on a piece of writing more complex than a YA novel I always make sure to rely on someone who admits to not having the full context of the story or to not having taken even a second to reassess their initial opinion of elements in the novel. Saltiness aside, I don’t blame people for relying on other people’s opinions to decide what to consume or to make their minds on something, but I think people could try to question more whether that people whose opinion they are taking as truth is giving a fair or credible assessment. Quoting the abstract of a journal article you haven’t read is a thing undergraduate kids do but you're supposed to work up to actually looking through the arguments and methodology before deciding whether the author of an article really has a point and if their thesis holds up to scrutiny.

I don’t think MXTX is anything close to a perfect writer. But I think she has a lot of merit as a storyteller, and a lot of her strengths are those that I personally enjoy seeing in stories, which makes it easier for me to get over the parts of her stories that are not as strong or well-executed. But I trust her skills enough to be interested to see what else she will write in the future.

#anon ask #anti-mxtx discourse #mdzs #brine corner #okay this is very salty but i am tired and mean #Anonymous

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tf2headshotcanons · 8 years ago

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Any headcanons for Medic's wife or do you not like her? I'm sure she's a lovely lady, besides it could be that one of the Medics is married while the other one isn't, I was surprised to see it's such a hot button issue in the fandom.

Hmmm, I agree. I think the arguments are pathetic. I heard one about it being racist that Demo is sleeping with her. Humans cheat. Doesn't matter of skin or sex. That's just the sucky nature. People - especially here - loooove to make everything offensive and a debate. I'm sick of negativity.It IS possible that one is married and one isn't! And a good take on it too! (Especially for those that don't like the wife business).Personally? I'm kinda neutral - like with most things. If you like it, great! If you don't, that's fine too! Just don't tell someone that they're wrong or bad for liking it (unless it was something like paedophilia, then that shit's EVIL!)Anyways, I kinda like it! Why? Because I picture her being the most stuck up bitch anyone's ever met. I picture the relationship as them being grumpy and bitchy... Fuck it, I picture her a cunt because I like Heavy X Medic, alright? (Even though it ain't canon). All joking aside, I do actually like the idea of one of the older mercs having a wife. It's an interesting thought. Whether she's Germany's Sweetheart or Satan's second cousin, the idea of one Merc already being committed - to me - is interesting. It's one of the few shippings I'm open to, even though I personally view Medic liking the best of both worlds (bi).HCs? I... Haven't actually thought of any for her. I just picture her as the blonde everyone else does. In a way, she's like a female Spy if he went maximum overdrive in being a twat. Though that's just me. If you do have any HCs for her or any other background character (or asks!) I'll be willing to lend an ear!TLDR: I think she's an interesting concept and I'm open to her. Do I think she's canon? Ehhh I think she WAS but the reception may have scraped her to merely a figment in a drunks mind (orrrr a mock of him being homosexual? It's a possibility. In that case, he sound be called DAMNo because that shit hurts!). I'm personally open to her, though haven't thought deeply into her (unless you'd like to see that?). Likewise, I don't understand why people are so... Sensitive. (And no, I really don't want to hear anymore of the negativity-)PS: Thank you for being an active member of the community! It means more than you'd think!

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avidbeader · 8 years ago

Text

More of the Sheith soulmates AU

Here’s the next part of the story that I posted here. Still trying to figure out a title and concrit/feedback is welcome.

Voltron fandom, Sheith story that acknowledges their age difference and will probably stay T-rated or below.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

Keith was in the middle of writing his study guide for the upcoming Interstellar Navigations exam when it hit him. The sudden clash of excitement-nerves-joy-fear-hesitation-disbelief made him drop his tablet.

Shiro. It had to be the Kerberos mission. Shiro must have gotten the pilot’s position.

He took a deep breath. He could handle this. They had talked about this.

“And you’re sure you don’t have a problem with it? Being alone for fourteen months or more if I’m chosen?”

“The only problem I’ll have is if some nutjob researcher finds out we’re soulmates and tries to keep me in a lab and monitor our bond while you’re gone.”

That made Shiro pause. Previous research showed that soulmates still felt the bond between Terra and Mars, but the chance to test it as far as the edge of the solar system would be very tempting to some scientist somewhere.

“I’ll bring it up with Commander Holt. I don’t think there’s a chance in hell of you coming with us, but he might have some ideas on how to protect you.”

“I was mostly joking, Shiro. I’m not sure anyone around here remembers that we’re soulmates other than Matt.”

“True. And I’m going to wake up Matt every morning on this mission and thank him for bringing us together.”

“Sap.”

“Of course.” Shiro pulled Keith into his arms. “Seriously, this is going to be hard.”

“I know. But I’ll put my time to good use. I’m already almost halfway through the second-year requirements. What do you think about coming back from Kerberos to find that your soulmate is a junior officer at seventeen?”

“I think that’s one of the best ideas ever. But don’t kill yourself trying to get it.”

They had a plan.

<> <> <> <> <>

Keith accompanied Shiro’s parents to the reception before Shiro and the Holts would move to quarantine prior to leaving. Shiro’s mother doted on Keith, promising to stay in touch and send care packages. His father was a little standoffish and Keith began to worry that he had done something wrong.

Shiro sensed his anxiety and pulled him aside. “What’s the matter?”

“Your dad…I don’t think he likes me.”

“He does, I promise.”

“No, Shiro, he really seems uncomfortable with me. Maybe he’s just been saying he was fine with you having another guy for a soulmate and now he can’t deal with it face to face.”

Shiro put a hand to either side of Keith’s face, tilting it up. “It isn’t that, I promise you. He’s worried because of his own experience. He found his soulmate when he was twelve and she was ten.”

Keith frowned in confusion. “But, your mom said—”

“She was killed in a car accident when she was fourteen. Dad needed a lot of time and support to get through it. He met Mom at college and they hit it off. Her family never bought much into the entire soulmates concept in the first place—they were very ‘whatever will be will be’. She decided falling in love was just as good. Anyway, after I told him about us, Dad gave me a long lecture about what it felt like to lose your soulmate, getting used to that hole in your mind and heart that never really goes away. I bet he wanted to give you the same warning, but Mom put her foot down.”

Keith chuckled a little at that, having seen Shiro’s mother in action. “Thanks for telling me. I was getting worried.”

Shiro planted a quick kiss on his forehead. “You’re welcome. Come on, let’s get back to the party.”

<> <> <> <> <>

Keith was grateful that he could isolate himself in his room as the launch happened. He sat on his bed, his tablet streaming the live audio broadcast, and focused on Shiro’s presence, savoring every shift in emotion as they lifted off.

Once the ship was safely out of the atmosphere and Shiro’s triumph poured into him, Keith concentrated on sending back his pride and love.

I’ll see you in fourteen months.

<> <> <> <> <>

Shiro did indeed thank Matt daily for being the reason he and Keith came together. He tried to find a different phrase each day, resorting to multiple languages or bursting into song when he was feeling a lack of inspiration. Commander Holt found it hilarious, but would often share stories of his own soul-bonded grandparents, giving Shiro a good picture of the ups and downs of being permanently mentally linked with another person for the rest of your life.

During the voyage out, Keith was a steady presence in Shiro’s mind. His soulmate was indeed driving himself hard, working to achieve his early graduation goals. There were occasions that Shiro knew Keith had been injured, likely in physical training, and twice something happened to trigger Keith’s temper in spectacular fashion. But generally they shifted back and forth in an easy, contented existence, patiently waiting to be reunited.

<> <> <> <> <>

Commander Holt had devised an excellent compromise for Keith’s worries about being turned into someone’s lab rat. He found a scientist that was indeed eager for the chance to expand the study of distance effects on the bond. Holt then negotiated fiercely and arranged a contract dictating that in return for exclusive access to Keith during the mission she would limit her examinations to three times a week and give Keith a generous stipend out of the resulting grant money.

Keith stashed away half of the first installment in a bank account but did allow himself one large indulgence and bought himself a late-model used hoverbike. He spent many Sundays taking it out into the desert around the Garrison, learning its every quirk and coming the closest he could get to actual unsupervised flight until he finished his training.

By sheer coincidence he was in Dr. Hooper’s lab, electrodes already on his forehead, temples, and chest, when everything spiked. Hooper ran around, shutting off all the alarms, and looked at Keith frantically. “What’s going on?”

Keith’s smile threatened to split his face. “They made it! They’re on Kerberos!”

The doctor clapped her hands. “That’s wonderful! When do you think they’ll announce the success?”

“Probably in a few days. I expect Commander Holt will confirm landing, then confirm when they’ve started collecting the ice samples they’re after. The Garrison will probably announce both at once, make a bigger media splash that way.”

His grin never left his face as Hooper recorded the readings in excitement.

<> <> <> <> <>

Two nights later, Keith woke up screaming from a nightmare of a ship looming over him and his crew, of being hauled in by some irresistible force. Large figures with glowing eyes and purple skin towered over him and dragged him through a long hallway, throwing him into a small cell.

Shiro! Something’s happened to Shiro!

He rose and threw on clothes, shoving his bare feet into sneakers and grabbing his jacket, and took off for the monitoring center. His security clearance as a cadet would get him into the front lobby. Then he needed to find someone who was stationed with the Kerberos mission and warn them.

Entering the building, he saw Commander Iverson, deep in conversation with Lieutenant General Franke. They both looked up, startled, as Keith burst through the door.

The eyebrow above Iverson’s bad eye quirked up, throwing his face off balance. “Kogane? What the hell are you doing here?”

Franke focused sharply on Keith and muttered, “The soulmate?” He put the tablet in his hand to sleep and stepped forward. “What can you tell us, Kogane? All we know is we lost radio contact a few hours ago.”

“I think…I think they’ve been taken by a hostile force! Shiro’s trapped, scared…I think the Holts are alive, but I can’t be sure!”

Iverson reached out and took Keith by the shoulders. “Deep breaths, Keith. Hold your focus. It’s a good thing you can confirm that he’s still alive. Now, I need you to keep this information completely to yourself.”

“Y-yes. Yes, sir?” Keith found the request odd. He struggled to concentrate through Shiro’s and his own fear coursing through him.

“We need to sort out what to tell the press. It is vital that you do not tell anyone else what you know. Can you do that?”

Keith swallowed hard, trying to clear the lump in his throat. “Yes, sir.”

“I’ll arrange with your instructors to give you the next few days off. We’ll say it’s flu. Stick to your room as much as possible.”

“Could I…stay at Shiro’s apartment?” The possibility of being among Shiro’s things, in his bed, immediately made Keith feel calmer.

The two men looked at one another for a moment, then Iverson nodded. “Get your things. I’ll let the building supervisor know to expect you.”

<> <> <> <> <>

The guards never acknowledged his words. Every time someone would bring the tray of slop that served as food, every time one of those weird hooded figures stopped to look in, Shiro would plead for himself and his crew. But the helms and hoods hid their eyes and he had no sense at all whether they even heard him, much less understood him.

That changed after one of the hooded things reached through the bars in the door with an odd device. The alien activated it and a bright purple light swept over him from head to toe. Pain spiked in his head and receded.

The thing withdrew and Shiro heard it speak words he could understand, in an odd hissing voice. “That should take care of it. Their brains are primitive, but similar enough for the translators.” And just like that, Shiro could understand everything being said around him. It brought no comfort.

Keith’s fear for him was constant in the back of his mind. Shiro tried to keep his own emotions steady for Keith’s sake, but the best he could manage was perpetual dread over the situation and worry over the Holts.

And then, three or four days later, they came and pulled him out of his cell.

The guards ruthlessly stripped him of his spacesuit and threw a set of dark clothing at him. The bodysuit material seemed made to stretch out and fit its wearer perfectly, with the gray tunic added for warmth. The boots were made of an odd fabric that was flexible but strong, with rubber-like soles for traction.

Once he was dressed, the guards grabbed him and practically dragged him down a long corridor. Others dressed similarly were being brought as well. Shiro’s heart leaped when he recognized a shock of brown hair sticking up in all directions.

“Matt!”

The head turned to reveal Matt’s face with an ugly bruise spreading from one temple. He peered around a tall gray alien and called back, “Shiro?”

“Yes! I’m here!” One of Shiro’s guards drove a fist into his ribs.

One by one, all the prisoners were thrown into a holding area in a shuttle, then the door closed, shrouding them all in a faint purple light. Shiro immediately moved to Matt’s side as they felt the shuttle leave the ship.

“Do you know where your father is?”

Matt shook his head. “No. They kept us together for a day or so, then pulled us out and did some kind of physical exam.”

Shiro nodded, remembering the point where he had been dragged from his cell to a room and one of those purple aliens, with a white face and white stripes on its head, drew blood and poked and prodded at him for a short time.

“The day after that they came and took Dad away. One of them said Dad was too old and only fit for a camp.”

Matt’s comment made Shiro’s heart rate spike. “Too old? Too old for what?”

Another of the aliens, with majestic red horns curving from his head, spoke up. “Too old for the arena.”

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

Part 3

#voltron #voltron legendary defender #fanfic: voltron #voltron fanfic #sheith #quintessential bond by avidbeader

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athenawroughtarchive · 8 years ago

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can i ask if you have any advice for someone wanting to create an oc? any tips?

Hi there! I would love to. I’ve been roleplaying OCs almost exclusively for the past fourish years so I’ve managed to glean some tips and tricks that I’d be glad to pass along. If you have any other questions, let me know!

The first and foremost piece of advice I can give you is to find a foundation for your character and work up from there. It’s like creating a story board, start with broad examples and then get to the nitty gritty. I normally think of a storyline I’d potentially like to see for my character first–– this should generally be a vague vignette, something along the lines of a “corrupted cop” or “dedicated nurse.” With this idea in mind, I add to the bigger picture, creating a life span for my character, starting with generalizations and moving onto details. There should always be a “why” and a “how” to your character’s life. Why are they corrupted, how did they get through nursing school? What I think makes an OC is realism, so ascertain that things make sense, that (unless you’re going for this effect) nothing seems outlandish or out of the ordinary, and understand that not every shot in the dark is going to work out for your character.

One thing that I strongly recommend is not to go overboard with your character’s negative experiences. For the past few years on Tumblr I’ve seen a lot of people crack down on the “Mary Sue” type: Becky with the good hair, no faults whatsoever, Mathlete, Valedictorian. And yet truthfully, a character with an overabundance of angst or faults can be seen as just as “cliche” or trope-y. To preface, there’s nothing wrong with adding struggle to your character’s life – I would in fact suggest that you do, it’s realistic to have experienced pain and honestly, it’s humbling – but a surplus thereof can be both difficult to work with for you and your writing partners, and occasionally unrealistic. Stick with a few major storylines, grapple with the struggle those have caused, and add in minor things when you feel you’re ready, whether they’re related incidents or not. Your character’s life should be a trajectory, a continual pendulums of ups and downs, maybe even some U-Turns here and there. It should not be a straight plunge or a soaring incline; add in excitement, leave things to chance, but remember to work out how your character deals with these situations! Sidenote: sometimes “not dealing with it” can also be quasi-dealing with it :’)

Also of note, arbitrarily adding angst to your character’s background story does not constitute as “character development”–– point blank. I know some might not agree with me but unless your character grows and learns from the things they’ve done or have had happen to them, it is not character development. Unless it has changed them as a person, a character is not a stronger person for having experienced traumatic losses, so while you shouldn’t be afraid to add negative experiences to your characters story, try not to go overboard.

Keep, keep, keep a timeline. This has been essential to the construction of my respective original characters. Create dates, locations, your character’s persona during the stages of their lives– I promise that creating a timeline will undoubtedly help you in the long run and will facilitate verses for you. This timeline can always be adjusted, but it helps you and your followers get a better idea of what your character has done in their lifetime better than a biography could.

I’d also suggest finding a defining moment from your character. This might be your character’s birth, but occasionally it is not. Where did your character discover themselves? Where did they lose themselves? What causes your character to feel negatively, what lights the fire under them, what sets them into motion? It is important to start with baby steps and understand what shapes your character, what makes them tick, how certain experiences changed them and how they’ll react to it. As I said earlier there should be a why and a how. If your character experienced a traumatic loss, how do they deal with it? What led to their traumatic loss– was it negligence, apathy, miscalculation? In summary, point B should follow point A, but of course–– adding in shock value or volte-faces out of the blue, now and again, doesn’t hurt your character, but might help them. I’ve noticed that OCs with holes in their storyline are often pushed aside, not only by other writers but it can be difficult for the creator to keep a grasp on a character that is not strong enough to retain one.

Now, that’s the developing half of creating a character, but there’s another aspect to creating an original character that’s perhaps most nerve-racking, and that is the reception to your character.

You create a wonderful character, a perfect brainchild that’s lived in your head for weeks now, you have every detail sorted out and in your mind you can see your character immaculately. Great! Now try and explain that character to your peers. Understand that OCs live 90% in the creator’s mind, and that your fellow role-players won’t be privy to every detail of your character’s life and universe.

Write a biography for your character, it doesn’t have to be lengthy but offer some insight into both the disposition and description of your character. This is essential, as some role-players won’t look twice at an OC that doesn’t feature a biography (in MLA format, of course), but just as advantageous to promoting an OC is featuring head cannons on your blog. However small, however unimportant, they allow your partners to see inside your character’s mind and get a glimpse at any quirks they may have. And, as daunting as it can be, don’t be afraid to correct your partners when they’ve formed a misconception on behalf of your character. I promise, it will do you well!

Another factor that might improve your relations with other characters is to determine your character’s voice––what they sound like, how they interact with others. Establishing a firm nature for your character does greatly improve your interactions with other role-players and limits the chances of misconstruing.

Be flexible, but don’t sacrifice important aspects of your character to meet the regulations or expectations of a verse/other role-player you’d like to plot with.

Last but not least, I wish you the very, very best with your character! I hope I you decide to bring them to Tumblr. Remember to write what makes you happy, and surround yourselves with roleplayers who seek to inspire and support your writing process. Find a niche, or a fandom, or a group of friends who are equally as dedicated to developing original characters, and don’t be afraid to bounce ideas off of them–– I promise, this can be the most auspicious thing you do for your character! I hope this short-ish guide has helped, and if you have any more questions or concerns don’t hesitate to ask.

Again, I really hope you give original character creation a try! I promise it’s not rocket science –– its not even a science, perhaps an art though –– and a lot less methodical than I’ve outlined here. You will be constantly altering and updating your character and thats okay. Just remember to stay true to who and what you want to write and don’t allow negative influence to shape that.

I’ve also maintained this tag for a few years on my RPH blog that might be of service to you.

#Anonymous #oc creation #character help #original character help

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