#and they’ll definitely abuse that power so much so badly | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

sketching-shark · 3 years

Note

LMK fandom: Oh, what do we do about this guy who has nothing but hurt Xiaotian, tried to replace Sun Wukong and his crew, hurt Tripitaka and ordered servants to cannibalize a monkey? Oh I know! We’ll turn him into our little meow meow~ he’s so innocent and Sun Wukong is obviously the villain!

What doesn’t help is this idea is perpetuated by multiple fan fic writers and artists for some reason. Especially some aus they make that turn SWK into a bastard for the sake of the story rather than considering cultural context and thinking they should be respectful.

And almost everyone lets them get away with it just because the art or fanfic is good and they get so popular that no one can point what is actually wrong without feeling like they’re going to get attacked.

I'm starting to feel like my blog is the one anons go to specifically to vent their frustrations about the Six Eared Macaque in his lego monkey show form & the associated fandom lmao. But I guess this makes sense, as I’ve had fun quasi-dragging him before & will in fact use this anon submission as an opportunity to have my own, to put it academically, bitch fest about not just this fandom's favorite protagonist-traumatizing meow meow, but about the way villains are often treated in not just fanon, but increasingly in canon works as well. But same policy as with the last anon; I'll post my opinions below the cut, and as fandoms love to say, don’t like don't read if you don't want to see me dunking on the six eared simian & common fandom tendencies towards villains.

Oh man I would say where would you even begin with this but anon you’ve pretty much started yourself with my main gripe with a lot of ways that the Six-Eared Macaque is portrayed in fandom; there seems to be this unspoken agreement that his acts of violence towards Sun Wukong, Qi Xioatian, and Qi Xioatian’s loved ones are either to be framed as somewhat or totally justified, to be immediately forgiven/excused, or to simply & completely be ignored. Like friends maybe this is just me not seeing the proper posts but while the fandom is inundated with art and fanfics of Macaque as a generally decent individual & a true member of team good guy, I have yet to see one person address the fact that this monkey literally kidnapped & mind-controlled Xiaotian’s best friend and father figures & forced them to brutalize Xiaotian while ol’ Six Ear looked on and laughed (X_X). Like this kind of fandom villain treatment is definitely not something that’s solely at work for Monkie Kid, but it is kind of nutty how fandoms will swing between yelling that people should be allowed to like villains without even mild critique, and then will just flat-out not address the villainous behavior, and will even bend over backwards to frame even characters who committed genocide as just poor innocent widdle victims who need a hug. At its worst, I’ve even seen tons of people in a fandom get really angry at other people who don’t like a villain, and will even start accusing those people of hating real-life mentally disabled or abused individuals all because they don’t like the fandom’s favorite literal war criminal. The Monkie Kid fandom is FAR more chill & better than a lot of other fandoms I’ve come across in that regard, but that is an exceedingly low bar, & the tendency to woobify certain kinds of villains-- as with Macaque and the extreme emphasis on his bad boy/sad boy thing--is very much at work.

I’ve also talked before about a kind of monoculturalization of certain character interpretations and story beats in fandoms, and one of the more popular ones that seems to be applied to Macaque a lot is the “hero actually bad, villain actually good” cliche, as observable from the general fandom assumption that Mr. Six-Ears he wasn’t even slightly lying or remembering things through a rose-tinted or skewed lens when he gave his version of his and Sun Wukong’s past. Like at this point it seems the possibility that people WILL NOT even consider is that Sun Wukong never did & still doesn't care that much about the Six Eared Macaque (in JTTW they weren’t sworn brothers & in Monkie Kid the only thing the monkey king really said to Macaque before attacking him was a pretty contemptuous "Aren't you ever going to get sick of living under my shadow?," & responds to his "beloved friend" getting blown up with "You did good, bud" to Qi Xiaotian, who did the exploding), or that their original fight may in fact have mostly been instigated by Macaque. After all, to repeat what this anon summarized & what I've said before about their original JTTW context (& in an example of the things that do feel like it's often lost in translation) is that the Six Ear Macaque was a villain not just because he beat up the Tang Monk, but because he wanted to take over Sun Wukong's entire life and identity so he could have all that glory, prestige, and power for himself. To quote the macaque himself from the Anthony C. Yu translation, "I struck the T'ang monk and I took the luggage...precisely because I want to go to the West all by myself to ask Buddha for the scriptures. When I deliver them to the Land of the East, it will be my success and no one else's. Those people of the South Jambudvipa Continent will honor me then as their patriarch and my fame will last for all posterity." And in order to do this, the Six Eared Macaque had apparently made Sun Wukong's "little ones," his monkey family, his captives through either trickery or force, and gotten a number of them to take on the appearance of Tang Sanzang and the other pilgrims. It's also made clear that in very direct contrast to Sun Wukong, he doesn't care about these monkeys beyond how they might serve him. In fact, after Sha Wujing kills the monkey posing as him the Six Eared Macaque not only all but immediately replaces him with another, but also "told his little ones to have the dead monkey skinned. Then his meat was taken to be fried and served as food along with coconut and grape wines." So this monkey is not only willing to risk the lives of a lot of other monkeys for his own personal benefit, but is also a literal cannibal. And yes yes, I know a lot of people have argued that Monkie Kid shouldn't be considered a direct sequel to JTTW & that's fair enough (for example, Sun Wukong probably shouldn't be smashing anyone into a meat patty in a children's cartoon lol). And of course, it needs to be noted that there are a buttload of really out there & really cursed pieces of media based on JTTW & that were created in China. Yet the above description is the oft-ignored in the west original facet of the Six Eared Macaque's character. And it is this selfishness, entitlement, and treatment of other individuals as tools for his own self-serving ends that is, from where I’m standing, still very much present in Monkie Kid. Like besides repeatedly going out of his way to physically and psychologically traumatize Xioatian, with the last episode Macaque seemed to be going right back to his manipulative ways. I’ve seen people frame their last conversation as Macaque softening to Xioatian a little bit, but personally that read a lot more like that common tactic among abusers where even after they’ve hurt you they’ll dangle something you want or need over your head (in Macaque’s case, the promise of desperately needed training and information about a serious looming threat), with the implication that you’ll only get it if you do what they want you to, such as, in this case, Xioatian going back to Macaque as his student even after having been so terribly hurt by this monkey, which would give Macaque power over Xiaotian and probably Sun Wukong as a result. And it is this violence and manipulation that it seems the fandom at large has tacitly decided shouldn’t even be addressed, instead leaning more towards a (and this is an exaggeration) “Six-Eared Macaque my poor meow meow Sun Wukong has always been bad & has always been wrong about literally everything” reading.

And while it is the case that I am not Chinese and feel that as such it would be best left to someone who actually comes from that background to provide more context into how common interpretations of the Six Eared Macaque from China may clash really badly with the stuff the western fandom creates, it also must be noted that, as much as we all want to have fun in fandom & in spite of all the out-there versions of JTTW from China, we westerners should recognize that there is a very long and very ugly history of western countries stripping other cultures’ important religious and literary works for parts & mashing them into their own thing while implying or even insisting that what they present provides a true understanding of the original piece. And while I trust most individuals in regards to Monkie Kid are able to step back and think “this is a lego cartoon and not a set guide for how I should understand JTTW” (especially given the insistence that JTTW and Monkie Kid should be considered there own separate works) there does nevertheless seem to be something of a tendency to take the conclusions people come to, for example, about Sun Wukong’s characteristic in his lego form & then assume that’s just reflective to Sun Wukong as a totality. I imagine a good portion of this is due to people not reading JTTW & especially to not having easy access to solid information or answers about JTTW’s many different facets (like geez awhile ago I was trying to get a clear answer on what is considered the most accurate translation of the names of Sun Wukong’s six sworn brothers & got like 5 different responses lmao), but that tendency to take a western fandom interpretation & run with it instead of doing any background research or questioning said interpretation is still very much at play. As such, & as made prominent in the way people have been interpreting the dynamic between Sun Wukong and the Six Eared Macaque in the lego monkey show, tbh it does seem kind of shitty for western creators & audience to sometimes go really out of their way to ignore all of this original cultural & narrative context for the sake of Angst (TM) in Macaque's favor, demonizing Sun Wukong, and shipping the monkey king with his evil twin (X_X).

And speaking of which, even beyond the potential inherent creepiness & revulsion that can be inspired by this specific ship given common interpretations of the og classic's original meaning (again, it's my understanding, given both summaries of translated Chinese academic texts I've been kindly provided with, my own reading of the Anthony C. Yu translation of JTTW, & vents from a number of Chinese people I've seen on this site, that the Six-Eared Macaque is commonly interpreted in China as having originated from Sun Wukong himself as a living embodiment of his worst traits, hence why only Buddha can tell the difference between them & why the monkey king is much more slow to violence after he kills the macaque), I'd argue that in the face of all the uwu poor widdle meow meow portrayals lego show Macaque is, especially if you include JTTW's events, still in the role of “Sun Wukong but worse” as he is very much a violent & selfish creep. Like he was basically running around in JTTW wearing a Sun Wukong fursuit, but there he had the sole reason of wanting to replace Sun Wukong wholesale so he could have all the good things in the monkey king's life without actually having to work as hard for them. But if you combine that with Macaque now claiming that he used to be best friend with Sun Wukong in his pre-journey days (something that's made funny from a JTTW context given that that status actually belongs to the Demon Bull King lol), his original violence has now blown into this centuries long and really unhealthy obsession with the monkey king. Like he's apparently gone from wanting to literally be Sun Wukong to being so obsessed with getting revenge on Sun Wukong that he's got basically nothing else going on in his life. Like he's only appeared in two episodes but...does he have any friends? Any family? A career or even a hobby that DOESN'T center the monkey king? Anything at all outside of his "get revenge on and/or kill Sun Wukong/use his successor as my personal punching bag” thing? Like dude! That is extremely creepy and extremely bad for everyone all around! As I’ve said before, this seeming refusal to see beyond the past or to do something that doesn’t involve Sun Wukong in some capacity is a trait that makes Macaque an interesting and somewhat tragic villain--he even seems to be working as Sun Wukong’s reflection in a mirror darkly, with lego show Sun Wukong pretty clearly not being able to heal from his own past which is hinted to be defined by one loss after another, and with Monkie Kid even kind of having these two characters somewhat follow their JTTW characterizations in that in the latter half of the journey Sun Wukong often gets sad & starts crying in the face of what seems insurmountable odds (& Monkie Kid Sun Wukong does seem to be hiding some serious depression behind a cheerful facade), whereas the Six-Eared Macaque retains a worse version of Sun Wukong’s pre-journey characteristic of getting pissed and lashing out if things don’t go his way--but it’s also what would make any current friendship or romantic relationship between these monkeys horrific. Although to be fair even the fandom seems to recognize this in an unconscious way, in that a lot of the art & fanfic seems to swing erratically between them kissing & screaming at each other in yet another example of bog-standard fandom adulation of romanticized toxic relationships lol.

At the end of the day, of course, this is nothing new. You'll find versions of this dynamic across a ton of fandoms and now even canonical work. And as such, I can only look at this kind of popularized relationship dynamic with a kind of resigned weariness whenever it pops up, & my frustrated question with the popularity of this kind of pairing is the exact same one that I have for a multitude of blatantly toxic villain/hero ships, given common fandom discourse & the tendency to either ignore or justify the villain's actions & demonize the hero: if you're THAT convinced that everything is the hero's fault, if you believe THAT much that the hero is the one in the wrong for the villain's pain and their subsequent actions, then why are you so set on them not only becoming a romantic pair, but framing this get-together as a good thing? Like I know we contain multitudes but that's waaay too many contradictions for me to wrap my head around. And it definitely doesn’t help that one branch of underlying reasoning behind this kind of pairing seems to be the ever-present “you break it, you fix it” mentality, where the assumption is that if you’re in a failing, abusive, and/or generally toxic relationship (platonically or romantically), if you put in enough time and effort & attempts to compromise, you’ll be able to restore/have the relationship you dreamed of, even with someone who hurt you really badly. And this assumption isn’t limited to fandom: I’d even argue that it’s everywhere in the culture, hence why a lot of people feel like they “failed” if they have to get a divorce or make the choice to leave an unhealthy friendship. Personally, I feel like people could really benefit from more stories about how it is not only the case that the people you hurt don’t owe you their forgiveness & you can still become a better and happier person without the one you hurt in your life, & that while it can be really hard it can also be a good thing to leave a relationship, even if it’s one that once meant a lot to you.

But in all honestly, from my own perspective this kind of pairing is starting to read far less like enemies to lovers and far more like a horrible fantasy where you can pull whatever shit you want, even on the people you "love," & never be held accountable for your terrible behavior or even have to consider that maybe you were in the wrong. It's another facet that makes me larf every time I see people insist that fandom is an inherently "transformative" or "progressive" form of storytelling like friends you are literally just taking status quo toxic monogamy & rebranding it as somehow beneficial & romantic (X_X).

But as to anon’s last frustration, it is hard to know what is the appropriate response with this kind of thing...like for my own part I’m keeping my frustrations to my blog & now increasingly to posts that you would have to click on the “read more” button to see what I have to say, but I totally get the hesitation to give even a mild critique to big names in a fandom. Like I've now seen it happen repeatedly where someone who has a big name in a fandom will make something that's kind of shitty for one reason or another, someone will message them with some version of "hey, that's kind of shitty, you shouldn't do that," and the typical response is either to blatantly ignore the issue completely, or more popularly to make a giant crying circus that seems deliberately geared towards stoking emotions on both sides of the, for example, fiction does/doesn't affect reality issue so that something that didn't even have to be that big a deal gets blown out of all proportion, with the big name often framing what often started out as a very mild critique into a long crying jag about how the initial response to their kind of shitty thing was so mean/cruel and they're just a poor innocent & that YOU'RE the true racist/sexist/bigot etc. if you don't agree with their opinion. It must of course be noted that there have also been numerous instances of people taking it too far the other way & sending not just big names but smaller creators literal deaths threats over stuff like innocuous ships which like holy hell bells people that’s a horrible thing to do. But for the big names at least, the end result of all this fighting is usually that once the dust has settled they have more attention/fame/money/power in the fandom than before, and with anyone who might have a problem with their stuff feeling afraid to voice their opinion lest they be swarmed by that person's fans. In that way fandom does often seem to increasingly be geared towards presenting an “official” fandom perspective about various facets of a piece of media instead of allowing for a multitude of interpretations, and with criticism, no matter its shape or form or how genuinely warranted it may be, being hounded out of existence. I feel like a lot of this could be made less bad if there wasn’t this constant assumption & even drive to think that a different interpretation of or criticism of your favorite work of fiction or your fanwork isn’t a direct claim that you are a thoroughly loathsome individual (& maybe also if people cultivated an enjoyment of learning things about important works from a culture outside their own, even if what you learn clashes with your own initial understandings), but I guess we’ll see if that ever happens.

So these are my general thinks about the Six Eared Macaque’s current fandom meow meow status & some of my bigger gripes with fandom tendencies as a whole. I stand by my idea that the most interesting & beneficial route for Macaque moving forward would be a kind of “redemption without forgiveness from the ones you hurt” arc--as I think was done pretty excellently with the character Grace in Infinity Train--and if for no other reason than gosh dern this monkey really needs to cultivate some sort of identity beyond his “Sun Wukong but worse” persona.

#lmk macaque #monkie kid macaque #6 eared macaque #monkie kid #lmk sun wukong #qi xiaotian #lmk monkey king #sun wukong #monkey king #journey to the west #jttw #fandom criticism #lmk

112 notes · View notes

tf2-hellhole · 4 years

Note

Could I request mercs x s/o where the s/o got out of an abusive relationship but they're still some effects left on them? Like getting scared or submissive and quiet when voices are raised around them, or flinching when a person quickly raises their arm/hand, etc? If you're not comfortable writing this, I completely understand, this can be a difficult topic to write about

Sorry this is so late! I hope this post can be of some comfort to those who have experienced abuse.

Please let me know if I’ve accidentally said anything offensive to abuse victims in the headcanons!

Scout:

When you first explain it to him, he’s horrified. Not because of you, but because he’s scared that he might have done or said things that scared or offended you in the past. He awkwardly apologizes for anything he may have said. You can literally see the tension leave his body as you assure him that he never said anything bad to you or that it’s okay because he didn’t know.

He always gives you little touches to comfort you or let him know he’s watching over you while you two or in public. It’s surprisingly discreet, and he doesn’t even make eye contact when he does it, but he’ll do something like brush his hand over yours or touch the small of your back for a moment. He’s not really comfortable with verbally comforting you in public because he’s still paranoid of not looking manly.

After that first initial apology, he can’t bring himself to apologize for any time he scares you, because he still doesn’t know how. But he shows his apologies through quick hugs and little favors. You appreciate that he’s trying to help in the only way he’s able to.

But surprisingly, he does have his moments. On days you’re feeling particularly bad or anxious, he’ll sit next to you and just wrap an arm around you. He’ll probably talk about some of the things he’s been through, like aggressive bullying in school.

Soldier:

Honestly, Soldier’s probably the worst person out of the whole team to date at first. He can be very loud, obnoxious, intense, and threatening, which often terrifies you into submission, even though he doesn’t mean to frighten you at all.

He doesn’t realize he’s been scaring you so badly until one of the other mercenaries pulls him aside and tells him. After that, he talks to you about it at the first chance he gets. He apologizes for frightening you, though he still halfway yells it.

He tries to tone it down around you, by doing things like not talking so loud and asking you to do something instead of demanding it. It doesn’t work very well but the effort is obvious, and after a while you get more comfortable with his behavior.

He encourages you to not feel like you have to be submissive around him, or anyone for that matter. This is AMERICA, the land of FREEDOM, and you shouldn’t have to listen to ANYONE if you don’t want to.

Soldier becomes much more protective of you, though surprisingly he’s not at all possessive or controlling. But he’s loyal as a dog and will always be at your side, ready to support or protect you. And don’t think he won’t punch someone who’s bothering you.

He’s surprisingly a very encouraging partner, and seems to have a talent for pulling you out of your shell and getting you to be more confident.

Pyro:

Pyro, surprisingly, is probably the best to date if you have these kinds of fears. They’re so patient with you and would never do anything to make you uncomfortable. It’s actually rather funny that Pyro is so unbelievable brutal on the battlefield, but whenever they’re around you they’re so gentle and accommodating.

They would never, ever try to do anything that has a chance of frightening you. If they do, they’re automatically at your side, squeezing your hand and apologizing through their mask. They feel like shit if they scare you and will do anything in their power to make it up to you.

Pyro loves to snuggle up to you when you’re feeling a little stressed due to someone raising their voice or something similar. If you’re in public, they’ll just wrap an arm around you, but if you two are alone, they’ll full on snuggle you.

The reason Pyro is so good to you is because they’re the same way. They’ve never told anybody about their origin, and probably never will but there are things that clue to the nature of Pyro’s upbringing. On rare occasions, Pyro will flinch or jump in the same way you do, and sometimes they’re easily stressed out by the other mercenaries’ bickering. Those aren’t the only things, but they’re a few pieces of a puzzle only you could put together.

Demo:

Demo, for a while, doesn’t notice any of your habits, because he’s usually drunk off his ass. He doesn’t notice it until he’s been sober around you a few times and picks up on your behaviors over those few times.

When he finally figures it out, he’s mortified about the way he’s been treating you. He’s never abused you, verbally or physically, but he realizes that when he’s drunk, his volume, intensity, and emotions terrify you.

He remembers being verbally abused in the orphanage he grew up in, then physically abused by his father. He remembers how horrible it made him feel; it’s one of the main reasons he turned to alcohol. He’s horrified that he may have been scaring you or making you relieve memories because of his behavior. So, he decides to change himself for the better.

In the future, he successfully cuts back on alcohol, so he won’t be acting so aggressively around you. It’s agonizing for his body, but he refuses to back down from the promise he made to himself. He also lowers his voice around you.

He lowkey becomes a little mushier. He’ll go out of his way to give you a quick hug or kiss, cuddle with you, or remind you that he loves you. He never actually tells you why he’s doing all of these things, but you figure it out pretty quickly.

Heavy:

Heavy can be much more perceptive than you think, so he picks up on all of the little clues very quickly. For a while, it actually makes him feel pretty crappy, because he knows he can be very intimidating and intense at times and he feels like he may be the main thing frightening you.

He very bluntly approaches you about it, asking if he’s made you uncomfortable without pushing you to share about whatever’s made you feel so nervous. He apologizes if he did, but either way he pulls you into a loose hug and tells you that, as your s/o, he wants to protect you and you’ll always be safe around him.

In the future, he tries to be less frightening when you’re around. He speaks a little quietly and tries his best to hold in his barking laughter. He’s always softly squeezing your shoulder or touching your back so you know he’s watching out for you, unless you don’t like physical contact, of course. If you don’t, he always clears his throat around you to draw your attention to him, and just looks back at you. The eye contact lets you know he’s watching out for you.

He’s very, very patient with you and your habits. He understands that they’re habits that aren’t always easy to break, but he does remind you of them to help you become more conscious and ease yourself out of these habits.

Engie:

Engie, like Heavy, is very perceptive of other people’s thoughts and behaviors, so he picks up on all of the little clues fairly quickly, maybe before he even starts dating you.

Once he feels like you really trust him, he’ll approach you and ask you about them. He has so many questions such as: Are you comfortable with sharing about your past? Is there anything he can do to help you? Has he been frightening you?

It doesn’t matter if you feel like sharing or not, he assures you that you matter to him, and he would never do anything to hurt you, and you can always trust him. He’s your partner, and he wants to be your rock whenever you need him.

He’s very conscious of your symptoms, and does his best to keep from scaring or offending you. If, for whatever reason, you do become particularly frightened or stressed, he’d sit with you to calm you for as long as you need. He often softly speaks to you to take your mind away from the trigger, and his softer voice often helps. He always has the sweetest smile when he manages to calm you down; he’s really happy he was able to help you. Your happiness means the world to him, and he always puts it above his own, so he’s glad you aren’t scared anymore.

Medic:

Medic, like Soldier, is completely oblivious to your habits for a while. He can be very intense at times, and it often scares you into submission or silence, and he never notices. He doesn’t mean to frighten you, but he doesn’t realize what he’s doing to you until someone else points it out to him.

Once someone brings it to his attention, he realizes what he’s been doing and feels horrible. He confronts you about it- he doesn’t ask why you’re so easily scared, but he just asks if he’s actually been frightening you. When you tell him he has, he’s devastated and brings you into a deep hug, apologizing for his behavior. He feels particularly bad for accidentally making you become submissive, and he tells you he loves you the way you are, and he doesn’t want you to change a bit. Even though he’s notorious for his disregard for other people’s feelings or needs, he values your happiness above all else.

In the future, he tries to tone it down. While he still will yell or bark orders at the other mercenaries, he always lowers his voice when talking to you. He isn’t able to fix all of his behaviors, but it’s definitely an improvement, and enough that you start to become more comfortable with his habits.

Highkey will kill anyone else who scares you

Sniper:

Sniper, surprisingly, notices what you’re doing fairly quickly. He knows he can be a standoffish or intimidating person at times, so at first he thinks he’s just scaring you, and doesn’t consider if there’s anything in your past that’s also influencing your behavior. He has to know if he’s the reason you’re acting this way.

One day, he pulls you aside to ask you about it. He wants to know if he’s really been frightening you, and if you feel like you have to be submissive around him. If you answer yes to either question, he’s horrified. He gently grabs you by the shoulders and tells you that he loves you more than anything on the planet and that you’ll never, ever be in danger as long as he’s around.

He starts trying to be a little more sincere and open to you, because he wants to show you he trusts you and wants you to trust him back. He’s not the best at showing it but you appreciate the effort. No matter what’s happening, he’s always willing to listen to you or protect you when you need him. It surprises you how thoughtful he is regarding your feelings- anyone who didn’t know him well would assume he’s a bit of an ass, but he’s the type of person who’s loyal as hell and values his loved ones deeply.

Spy:

Spy has trained himself to be extremely perceptive, so he notices your habits very quickly. For a few weeks, he just silently watches you, making trying to pick up on all of your habits and their triggers without you noticing. This silent investigation confirms his suspicions. He’s a smart man, and he quickly figures out that your behavior is a result of some kind of emotional trauma.

He never actually confronts you about it. He doesn’t share about his demons or his past with you, so why should he expect you to share everything with him? It’d be unfair. But he does start to remind you he cares deeply for you a little more often. He doesn’t want you to ever feel like he’s not someone you can always depend on. He doesn’t want you to ever feel alone.

But he does start trying to discreetly help you out of your habits, starting with the most harmful. He does things like try to help you develop newer, healthier habits or help you stop being anxious in situations that usually stress you out. He reads a lot about trauma beforehand, and while that definitely doesn’t mean he’s an expert, he at least able knows enough about trauma and it’s symptoms to help dull the mental and behavioral affects of your trauma a little.

#tf2 #teamfortress2 #tf2 scout #tf2 soldier #tf2 pyro #tf2 demoman #tf2 heavy #tf2 engineer #tf2 medic #tf2 sniper #tf2 spy #tf2 x reader #tf2 x s/o #tf2 x y/n #tf2 x you #tf2 imagines #tf2 headcanons

240 notes · View notes

projectwkm · 4 years

Note

Okay, so... I’ve been seeing you posting a lot of stuff about Actor Mark being just misunderstood and actually nice- but, I’m not convinced. (Which is surprising considering I’m usually the one who likes the “villain,,,”) If I may ask, what’s this theory based off of?

This post has been a long time coming, so sorry! I totally didn’t realise I had asks on this blog,, I’m a fool.

So this is less of a theory of mine and more of an expansion on character and what we know! Do I think for a second Actor is going to be redeemed? No, and I hope he’s not, because I love him so much as a villain. Do I think he is redeemable? Absolutely. Everyone is.

Let’s get into why I think that!

1. ‘A Heartbroken Idiot’

This is the nickname our Mark (in this post I’ll call Actor Mark ‘Actor’, and real Mark ‘Mark, just to avoid confusion) gives Actor. In the WKM Explanation Stream, he calls him ‘a heartbroken idiot’ in reference to his plan on poker night. And if we think about what we canonly know to be true, then there is good reason for this:

The Actor, the Colonel and the Mayor were all childhood friends. The Colonel practically grew up in the Manor with the Actor.

The Actor married Celine. Do we know for certain that they loved each other? No. But we can gather that at some point they were happy, for reasons I’ll go into later.

The Colonel slept with Celine behind the Actor’s back while they were married, and also borrowed copious amounts of money from the Actor to do so (?). The last part could be slightly biased or inaccurate considering Abe was on the Actor’s side for the most part, but I don’t see why he has reason to lie.

The Actor found this out, the Colonel and Celine left, and the Actor spiralled. So far he tried to kill him self. He did kill himself — over and over until his desire to die turned into a desire to understand the Manor he lived in and its oddities.

There are a lot of gaps there, in all honesty. A lot of questions unanswered. Did the Actor and Celine really love each other? Did Celine really love the Colonel? Why was the Colonel so willing to go behind the Actor (his close friend, remember)’s back and have an affair with his wife? Why was Celine so willing to leave her husband if she married him in the first place?

But those questions aren’t important right now, because I’m sticking as close to canon as I possibly can. What matters is that the Actor was betrayed by one of his best friends and that his wife left him in an awful way. They hurt him so badly that he tried to kill himself. Now, this isn’t me ignoring the Entity’s part in all this — we’ll get to that later.

But the purpose of Mark calling Actor a ‘heartbroken idiot’ is that it shows his only motive initially was heartbreak. His actions, initially, weren’t the actions of a man who wanted to destroy his friends and loved ones. In fact, by looking at his attempts to die, especially the first ones, we can see that the only person he wanted to destroy initially was himself. He’d been hurt, badly, by people he called “his close and trusted friends (WKM)”. And he wanted an out. He turned aggressive and revenge-twisted was when his very basic autonomy over his own life was denied to him by the Manor not letting him die.

“After Celine and the Colonel left, Mark was left in this super spiral downwards. He was just completely out of it, didn’t know what to do, and he may have at one point tried to kill himself. But it didn’t work.” (Mark, WKM Explanation Stream)

So before the Manor Entity intervened, was he a bad person? No. Most definitely not. How do we know this, apart from what I’ve said above? This brings us on to point 2:

Celine and Damien

The braincells of the WKM gang, truly. Do you really think they’d stay friends with Actor if he was a bad person? Scratch that, do you think Celine would have married him if he was a bad person? Ruling him as an awful evil person from the start completely undermines the intelligence of the other characters who had been ‘fast friends for years’ with Actor.

That’s not to say he’s flawless. He has an abundance of flaws that the Entity brings out in him (see point three), but even before the Entity, his flaws were probably very visible, especially to his friends and wife. Actor was no doubt an egotistical ass, don’t get me wrong, he was no saint, but he also wasn’t evil. If he was, Celine, who could sense the energy of the Manor as soon as she walked in, would have surely refused to marry him.

It’s hinted that they didn’t have the best relationship by Mark in the DAMIEN Explanation Stream, that much is true. Their reasons for marrying could have been anything — from a passionate spur of the moment decision they didn’t properly think about, to a marriage potentially motivated by finance or power — and we don’t know if they were ever truly happy. We don’t know if Celine loved Actor, but it is implied she at least felt something for him, judging by the look of distress on her face in Chapter Three of WKM when it is revealed Actor is dead.

We also don’t know if Actor loved Celine. I’m inclined to say he did, considering his original plan was to steal the Colonel’s body and get back together with Celine, but there’s a fine line between love and obsession. (In my personal opinion, their relationship started off well before the Manor Entity began to shape them, but my personal opinion doesn’t come into it right now.)

But do you really think if he’d been evil or abusive (as I’ve seen some call him) that Celine or Damien would even be upset about his death, nonetheless have stuck by his side for so long? I doubt it. Mark says nowhere that Actor was a bad person to start off with, and goes into detail of what the Manor Entity actually did to him in the Explanation Streams of DAMIEN and WKM, so read below for more notes on that!!

The Manor Entity

Aha.... my least favourite character of all time...

Words cannot describe how much I despise this thing (whatever it is, Mark described it as more of a concept than anything else). Even as I write this, I feel a boiling rage inside me. Nonetheless! I will keep as fair and as unbiased of a take as I can while I analyse Actor’s relationship with the Manor Entity.

So let’s start with its affects BEFORE the Colonel and Celine left. These characters were fucked the moment they lived in that house. The Colonel and the Actor have been affected worst by it due to living in the house as kids; as Mark says, they grew up together in the Manor. So they’ve probably had the worst effects from it. Let’s see what Mark says about the Entity in the Manor!—

“The thing [about the Manor] that causes people to change, and the thing that curses people, it’s this…. Not a thing, but it’s this idea that whispers in your ear, and the worst thing it could possibly do is that it makes you think that the ends justify the means, in whatever situation…. It’s this thing gently over time just whispering.”

An idea. A whisper in your ear, exacerbating worse qualities and constantly suggesting. Something you don’t even know about until it’s too late. It’s not so hard of a leap to make that it could have made the Chef so aggressive (he’s been there the second longest, other than George the Groundskeeper), could have made the Colonel more hot tempered and liable to cause trouble between a husband and wife, could have very easily twisted the Actor to be a worse person.

We’ve already made it clear that the Actor is not without his flaws. On the contrary, he might be the most flawed from the group. Cocky and stubborn and prideful, passionate and a performer, it’s not so hard to see the Entity delighting at being able to plant seeds in his head. Just little suggestions: “maybe you’re better than them” “maybe they’re holding you back” “maybe they’re conspiring against you”. Just little, back-of-your-head thoughts that, over time, would change him into someone worse, something else.

Something that could have potentially driven him away from Celine and driven Celine into the arms of the Colonel.

Am I saying this is definitely what happened? No. As I say, a lot of canon from Before The Poker Night is missing, and left to speculation. But from what we know about the Entity, and what we know about what it does, it’s increasingly likely it’s been manipulating things from behind the scenes for a while even before the Actor takes his own life.

Cut to Celine and the Colonel leaving. Damien is gone too (God knows where, perhaps the Actor just shuts him out too), leaving the Actor alone in the Entity’s puppet strings. Another Mark quote!

Imagine [the Actor]: his wife left him, his friend betrayed him, the [Entity] whispers “that’s not fair, no, that’s not fair”.... “No, you’re right, that’s not fair.....” “Why should they be happy?....” “No, no, of course, no, they shouldn’t be happy.....” “Maybe they don’t deserve to be happy, maybe you should do something about them not being happy, maybe you should set something up to make sure they’ll never be happy again.”

The Entity is a powerful thing. Its powers are subtle, so subtle that the Actor probably didn’t even notice he was being changed in the first place. As Mark said “the more you stay in that House, the more it drives you toward things it wants you to do… and the worst part is it convinces you that you thought of it in the first place.”

The Entity could have been the one to suggest that he keeps killing himself. It could have very well been the one to lead him to his death in the first place. And the worst thing is that the Actor wouldn’t have a clue they weren’t his thoughts. He is a puppet without realising it, an actor for the Entity to direct in whichever way it wants.

It’s a gradual, awful process. And Actor? As the ‘heartbroken idiot’, the man Mark describes as being a ‘pawn’, that had a lot of time alone in the Manor depressed and bitter over being hurt? He didn’t stand a chance against it.

By the time we meet Actor in WKM, it is very unlikely much of the original man remains at all. While he acts cheery and cocky as usual in the beginning, the bitter puppet we see in the Void after we die and the mania-driven ‘hero’ from DAMIEN is most likely all that remains of the original. Mark from the WKM Explanation Stream explained that “every time [Actor] died, he got sent to this [Void], and was able to get a deeper understanding of it”. Doing so pushed him further and further into the embrace of the Entity, until he was nothing more than a pawn. A puppet.

Actors have little to no control over the scene they play out. It’s the director’s job to push them in the direction they want. And the relationship between the Actor and the Entity seems to function as such: even if the Actor himself doesn’t realise that yet.

And finally, my last point:

No characters are good.

Mark gave a very good quote in the DAMIEN Explanation Stream that I rely on when writing Actor, Dark and Wilford — “no one’s truly, fully, 100% evil”. In the same way, no one is truly, fully, 100% good all the time. It’s impossible. And incredibly relevant when it comes to our three Main Boys, who are all so flawed and broken that it’s not even funny.

We’ll start with Wilford first. It’s easy to forget (for me, at least) all the things he’s done wrong because he’s such a goddamn sweetheart. But- and I won’t go into too much detail- here are some of his ‘crimes’: poaching, murder (several times, as the Colonel and as Warfstache), an affair with his best friend’s wife, with multiple other offences written somewhere in the detective’s study / office (I can’t be bothered finding them dhdjdjnej). Arguably, he also has reason for people to point to him being guilty: he broke his best friend’s heart to the point he tried to kill himself. Which.... is not good.

This is not me hating on William or Wilford as a character. Au contraire, I love them both. But it’s very rare that I see anyone admit Will’s fault in this, or Celine’s (without laying it all on them, naturally, but that’s another story). Will/Wilford is a complicated character who now seems to be far more good than bad (or simply just mad) and has atoned for the past, but more often than not, people overlook his crimes and mistakes and flaws.

The same with Dark, though honestly to a lesser extent. As far as we know, there is very little that Dark has done. We don’t know if he’s killed anyone (other than perhaps Actor in HEIST), we don’t know what his true crimes are because his role is still heavily influenced by the Actor’s bias. But Dark still has his faults and flaws. He’s obsessive and clearly incredibly angry and bitter over what happened, trapped somewhat in the past the same way that Wilford is in the present and Actor in the future. Once again, this isn’t me hating Dark (he’s one of my favourite characters dfhjvffhh), but simply pointing out the negative sides to him, rather than ignoring them. It’s to point out that people — and characters — aren’t 100% good or 100% evil (honestly, they’d be less interesting that way). That includes fan favourites.

Actor is probably the worst out of them. He’s delusional, painfully narcissistic, arrogant and a self-righteous asshole. Nobody is denying that. But underneath that, Mark also describes him as a ‘broken thing’: he’s not the man he used to be. Can he be easily seen as evil now, after everything he’s done? Yes. He’s murdered and he’s betrayed, but let’s not forget he too was murdered and betrayed. This doesn’t excuse what he’s done, but rather offers us insight into his thinking — an eye for an eye. In his eyes, the poker night (at the time) was justified. William and Celine and Damien all betrayed and hurt him, so he was going to hurt them.

Things didn’t go according to plan for him, though. I very much doubt murder was in his original plans, but alas, the Entity twisted his plans unrecognisably. (Whether or not he now regrets the poker night and his actions is up for speculation, and for another post sghcdgb.)

If it is Actor in HEIST and DATE (which I’m very inclined to say it is), it’s clear to me he’s changed: even slightly. Sacrificing himself over and over for Y/N, wooing them with dates and flashy heists, planning everything perfectly for them and giving them the choice on their adventures: now, this could just be me, but that sounds rather far from an evil man. Instead, it sounds to me like Actor knows he’s done bad things, but instead of trying to confront them, he simply runs away from them; he escapes from the reality he’s created by delving into fictional fantasies of adventure where he can finally be the hero.

And that’s not action of a man who is entirely evil. That’s action of a desperate man. A coward, perhaps, but not wholly bad or awful. “A pawn in all this”, as Mark describes him, unable to come to terms with the atrocity of the poker night and what he’s done to his old friends.

To Conclude My Answer!

Actor Mark is my favourite character of all time and has turned into a special interest of mine, but I hope he’s not redeemed. That being said, he is not an ‘evil’ character, and could certainly be redeemed if he ever fully escaped the Entity’s control and owned up to stone for the past (though being redeemed would almost certainly break him — another post for another time).

Everyone’s interpretations of Actorare valid, but I also think it’s important when writing him as close to canon as possible to remember some of Mark’s comments on him, and also to remember his past and how he’s been manipulated by the Entity into something different entirely. While doing so doesn’t excuse his behaviour or awful actions, it offers insight and a way to understand why he’s done certain things!

Ultimately, it’s up to Mark himself to canonise or develop the story and character arcs, which he has done so much already. I cannot WAIT to see where Actor and everybody’s stories end up going, and big preesh to him for making such a heartbreaking wonderful story!!!

If anyone would like to hear me rant more about Actor or the story of WKM and it’s sequels, leave a question or ask and I’ll certainly do it!!

288 notes · View notes

yan-genshin · 3 years

Text

- warnings: general yandere content (nothing super hardcore imo, since jean is so righteous she isn’t a super intense yandere), some minor spoilers for jean’s story.

♥︎ jean gunnhildr

jean has decided to dedicate her entire life to protecting mondstadt- she’s given up the usual life of most young ladies, spending her days hard at work, getting little to no sleep and time for herself for the sake of the city she loves

because of this, it just... catches her off guard when she realizes she’s harboring such strong feelings for someone. jean loves all of mondstadt and its citizens, but this is... different. it’s stronger, all-consuming; enough so it gets in the way of her everyday life

it’s perhaps one of her deepest secrets how... dearly she craves love. days of her childhood (and sometimes evenings when she allows herself some rest) spent reading romance novels, jean has always longed for a soft and reciprocated love, for the gentle emotions that are so delicately portrayed in words in those novels

“thank you, master jean! i’m so sorry for taking up your time for this...” the way they sheepishly thank her after she did something as minor as help them carry their food to their home makes her heart flutter. it’s no shock the acting grandmaster would be helping a citizen with a mundane task- it’s common for everyone to ask for her help with any task no matter how menial or odd. and yet, despite the fact she’s always running around working or helping, she only feels butterflies in her stomach when this particular person thanks her. she thinks of her romance novels- thinks of those words of love, emotions gentle and fragile like silk. but... that’s not quite it; as they walk into their house, jean feels her heart twisting, feels a dark side of her brain whispering little nothings that she tries to brush off. she quickly tries to brush off the dark emotions clouding her mind as she walks back to her office, resisting the urge to look back and try to catch a glimpse of them as they organize their groceries through the window.

she tells herself she’s a knight of favonius before she’s a person, that her duty is more important than any emotion. but like a persistent weed, ignoring her emotions only makes them grow stronger and more intense. she finds herself thinking of them the second her mind strays from whatever she’s doing, and then they’re always in her head even while she works- she finds herself giving little excuses to see them, help them even before they ask despite the fact that she’s got more work waiting for her in her office

those closer to her, such as kaeya and lisa, don’t have to make much of an effort to notice how the acting grandmaster is suddenly so centered on someone. and to all others, it seems sweet; they want jean to be happy, they want her to live her life a little. whenever they try to push her to get a break or rest, they always try to push her closer to her “crush”. as outsiders see it, this is the acting grandmaster finally doing something for herself

... if only anyone could tell how deep the rabbit hole goes, perhaps they’d be desperately trying to get jean away from her beloved instead of pushing them closer. it can’t be blamed that noone can tell- jean keeps herself regal and formal at all times, composed attitude hiding the downright obsessive tendencies and thoughts that swirl around her head, as if intoxicated by the mere thought of her beloved

it’s the middle of the night. mondstadt sleeps- the taverns have long since closed, even drunk bards and citizens having crawled back to their homes to sleep. and yet, jean is awake, finally having finished her workload for the day. it’s not unusual for her to finish work so late, and it’s not unheard of for her to take a walk at said hour to unwind; but it’s definitely weird to see her as she stands in front of a house’s window, just watching. the rational part of her brain tells her to step away, to stop doing this, but the other side of her- the side of her that longs for love, that can’t think of anything but them- just fuels her desire to stay, to watch them sleep through the window. she can’t even register that she’s quite literally stalking them; as she watches them, her heart fills with a warmth and possessiveness she’s never felt before. this isn’t the same type of love she feels for mondstadt- no, this is perhaps, jean’s first intensely selfish desire in a long time

jean is more subtle in her obsession. while to others she might come off as lovestruck or like she’s a young woman exploring her first crush, that’s far from the truth. she’d never dare use the knights or their resources for her own personal desires; jean takes it upon herself to sate her increasingly selfish heart. it’s almost stalkerish how she always seems to make time to keep an eye on her darling, be it when she has to run an errand or once she finishes work at ungodly hours of the night

it only grows worse when they begin to stop by her office, be it to drop off some snacks or just say hi. of course she suspects that lisa or kaeya put them up to it- after all, those two always worry over how hard she works, and it wouldn’t be farfetched to think that they’d go so far to ask the person they know jean likes to come and cheer her up. their actions, while well-meaning, only seem to feed the monster growing in jean’s heart; the domesticity she craves, the soft love she craves so badly, now that she’s gotten a taste of it, how is she supposed to return to her everyday life...?

“master jean, are you sure these knights should be promoted to patrolling outside the city...? they’ve been working as inner city guards for years now...” an older knight stares at the new orders jean has just issued. his concerns may be genuine, but she isn’t one to make hasty decisions. she nods her head, taking the paper from his hands and pointing at the names of the inner city knights to be sent out for patrols.

“it’s precisely because they’ve been working inside the city for so long that they’re being sent out. i have personally seen them train- their skills in battle are great, and we need our strongest knights out in the paths where hilichurls have been setting up camps. the troops that have been patrolling for long now grow weary; it’ll be good to switch them out for some time.” as with every decision she makes, jean always thinks of mondstadt before anything else. and yet, this time, there’s a secondary factor to her order. the memory of accidentally stumbling into her beloved being chatted up by one of the knights stationed inside of mondstadt burns in her mind, the way he was so clearly trying to flirt with them, making them giggle and blush- she might have stepped in and reprimanded the knight for slacking on the job, but that wasn’t enough. in the list of knights to be sent to patrol outside, his name seemed to almost stand out to her- he’d be fine, assigned to a well-traveled route with little incidents; but he’d be far away from her beloved, and that was good enough for her

perhaps it’s lucky that jean trusts the knights so much, that she considers her darling to be safe inside of the city. she must protect mondstadt; she must keep her darling close. jean can feel the shame burning at her gut when she twists some strings to offer them a job as a secretary of the knights- she’s abusing her power, she’s being selfish, but... isn’t she allowed to at least once do something for herself? the job is well paid, it’s not like she’s manipulating them into it, she’s just helping them out; all of the knights seem to be happy that the acting grandmaster is taking on someone to help tackle her ridiculous workload, so it’s all... it’s all fine, isn’t it...?

it’s hard for her to pinpoint where her self restraint breaks. perhaps it’s just because her heart can’t take spending so much time around her darling while keeping up a semblance of professionalism, or perhaps it’s hearing them cheerily speak of their friends and people they’re close with that lights a fire of jealousy in her; it’s as easy as one day jean simply embracing them and pressing her lips to theirs with no warning

it doesn’t matter if they feel the same way. it’s incredibly off-putting once they realize that the composed, regal, and rational acting grandmaster is so delusional. it’s as if days and days of hard work make some part of her rationale just break. this is her perfect romance. this is her perfect love story, and she’ll make it so no matter what

it’s so hard to be mad or to run away. jean is gentle in her affections, but she’s strong. and perhaps more pressuring of it all, she’s now their boss- they happily accepted to work under her, and even though she never even implies it, it’s not hard to imagine she could fire them just as easily. it’s easier to put up with it, to let her indulge her delusions, to make them sit on her lap while she works, to let her brush their hair and snuggle into them, if once the workday is over they can head home and lock the door, try to forget the day and go on with their life until they’re once again going to be in a locked office with her all day

“i love you so much. i promise i’ll never leave you.” jean’s words are sweet, but the soft tone she speaks in doesn’t do much to help how her darling tenses. she’s just returned from a mission that took a couple of days- it’s rare for her to take on fieldwork nowadays, but when she does, it’s almost a prized break for them. and when she returns, she’s worse than ever; clinging to them, not letting them even pretend to try and do their “work” as secretary. she might say her parents splitting and not having had a regular childhood doesn’t affect her, but by the way she swears to never leave, holding them tightly as if she’s scared they’ll run, it’s not hard for them to hazard and guess that she might be trying to fill the void of affection she never had with them.

she’s never hurt them, perhaps her instincts to protect all citizens of mondstadt being stronger than her obsession- but there’s times when she’s come close to it, they can tell by the way her eyes look when they push away, when they try to make excuses to leave work early. there’s not much they can do. if they quit and told everyone that master jean did all she did, who would believe them? nobody in mondstadt would ever believe jean, beloved by all of mondstadt, who works until late into night for the sake of the city, would ever do anything negative to a citizen. they could try to run away, but they don’t have a doubt in their heart that she’d catch them (she’s so much stronger, so much faster. she’s blessed with a vision, trained since birth. and them? they’re just a citizen, someone who’s been protected by the knights all their life). as she holds them close, they can feel her heartbeat; surely she can feel theirs, too. her heart beats fast with love, theirs with anxiety. she takes a deep breath and speaks again. “i think it’s time we moved in together, don’t you think...?”

#genshin impact #yandere genshin impact #genshin x reader #jean gunnhildr #genshin jean #yandere tw

132 notes · View notes

hillchill · 3 years

Text

ACS S03E04 here we go 🙄

ML:”I really like working in the executive branch” (me: you really like working up the executive branch!)

ML saying right to Linda’s face that no one wants her (Linda) back at the WH, yay, finally

A list named “Bill and Hillary’s body count” makes an appearance… like what?!?! I thought we weren’t into conspiracies with this one

Yep, Monica, he’s busy and doesn’t want you around the WH… didn’t he dump you the last time you talked, though?

Yeah, Linda, everything you do is out of concern for ML…

Also, the relationship lasted two years on and off. I’d say, if Corona has taught us anything, it’s that two years can seem like nothing when caught in bigger scheme (see: re-election)

ML:“Everything he gets me is so ugly!” LMAOOOO that’s a burn

ML insisting to see Bill when he’s spending time with Chelsea? How about NOPE?!?!

Yeah, girl, you’re obsessed, just give him up, why are you even like this

Yeah, Linda, we all thought MLwould have her tabloid moment and then move on, but partially she got caught in the impeachment shenanigans, partially she later tried to capitalize on that and always clung to what happened, instead of disassociating herself from that image, so we’re still talking about it 25 years after the fact. Uff.

Tripp about ML: “She’s no victim”…. Till now, Linda

Urgh ML mentions WJC called for her to come to see him on his wedding anniversary. That’s ugh… I still ask myself what was going on at the time, it’s so unnerving we’ll never get to hear the whole detailed truth about how things went down in WJC’s brain, because I really cannot understand him (is it because I don’t have a penis? Maybe)

They do mention the crutches, even thou they never showed them

Well, Goldberg has a poster of “Atlas Shrugged”, just to underline where her political thought stands

Ok, do the writers have a strange fascination with this crutches oral sex thing? Because that’s the second time it’s mentioned and the image it depicts is particularly… explicit? Idk

“She orgasms, he doesn’t like to”, I kinda wished they stressed more that he only came twice, like, how is that a power move lmao…. also, does he have kinda like a denial kink or is it because he felt guilty about the affair and so not coming made it “less real/less of a betrayal”? Also? ML do you come from giving him a blowie? Damn you really are a submissive 😅 that’s weird, I hope at least she touched herself, because otherwise that’s some denialist thing she enjoys, which kinda would explain why she stayed this long in all the drama

“It’s not sexual harassment” “There’s no quid pro quo” I AGREE!!! I TOTALLY AGREE! Not an abuse of power, not a crime! She even got a higher pay, damn, girl sto whining about not working in the west wing anymore!

WJC to ML after she called Bettie Currie in a crazed crying tirade: “Who the hell do you think you are?” (…) “some fucking 24 year old” YES; EXACTLY; TELL HER! (But also, put it in your pants, Bill, because that damned pound of flesh has more power over you than Congress and Senate combined)

WJC:”If I had known this was who you were, I’d never gotten involved with you” Biiiittch, you unzipped at the sight of a fucking thong, man! You didn’t show much judgement, neither you really tried to understand if the girl was stalkers or not, don’t try to be all high and mighty now!

All said, it’s preoccupying that one of the most powerful world leaders has to spend part of the day trying to find this cray girl a job, like he kinda says here.

WJC kinda hinting they’ll spend time together in NY after he’s out of office… ugh

Idk if Vernon Jordan slapping ML’s ass implies some kind of guilt by association since he’s in WJC’s close circle and that move was definitely out of bounds (like, does it reflect badly on WJC too or is it more of a “all powerful men are the same” thing?)

ML says she thinks WJC is having other affair(s) with “Debbie the stewardess” and… Barbara Streisand (that’s an old rumor). Urgh

Monica, girl, you are obsessed, bordering on stalkerish

Monica, damn, you’re fucking choosy. Get the fucking job

Ok, Linda says the same

Oh, that infamous one about getting together when he’s out of office… I feel grimy just hearing it

Oh, finally, Linda fucking snapped!! ML was really getting annoying and kinda choosy/entitled, though it’s true she treated Betty like shit

Linda you’re faaaake, you’re just reconciliating for the gossip

“This blue dress is really *really* dirty” ugh, I need brain bleach.

Aaaaaargh “…He was so excited to see me that he… you know… finished” pls wipe my brain right now, why does it seem like she’s describing WJC’s dong as an overexcitable dog?

As far as I know, ML didn’t think it was guacamole, she thought it was spinach dip. Was guacamole popular in the 90s? Did white people even eat it?

Still, they skirt around the relationship she had with the teacher (drama tech guy?), but don’t address the guy at the pentagon. Plus wasn’t the teacher married as well?

I can empathize with people always liking your friends, but never you, Monica, but that isn’t cause to get with WJC. Also, how did she get all that confidence (thong showing etc) if she was always the second choice? Like, I think she either had quite a lot o cheekiness in her or she knew that if she showed guys she was sexually available they wouldn’t pass over the chance, even if she wasn’t their dream girl.

Ok, yeah, now she says the guy already had sex with one of the students so… kinda confirms the theory

“I fell completely *obsessively* in love with him”

Urgh Monica made friends with the wife of teacher guy, so it could be easier for the guy to have her around. And he had a kid at this point. Bleagh. Both for the guy (mostly) but also Monica just say no to pieces of shit like these

Ok, poor girl was raped ad 14? Didn’t know that, still doesn’t change her behavior in later years though.

Monica has less self respect than I do when it comes to guys and low self esteem, still manages to date more than I do… fuck my life I guess 😅

Tripp: “Paula Jones, could she help me?”Goldberg: “with what? Dating within your blood line?” Lmaoooooooooo they don’t mince words about her, do they?!?!

Still no Hillary, but giving how this ended, she’s probably gonna be in the next episode and I dread her portrayal by Edie Falco, I have bad bad feelings about this.

All in all, can I say kinda boring? They probably could have condensed these four episodes into two, three at most and probably the series could have been 6 episodes long, I believe. We’ll see how it goes.

7 notes · View notes

scammydoesstuff · 3 years

Text

So about that 'Blue Bloods' episode…

I recently saw something come across my dash regarding Alex Brightman’s guest appearance on the season 11 episode of 'Blue Bloods' (The Common Good) and it reignited the vehement response I had to the episode as a whole. And, since I have this blog now, I figured…fuck it. I need to rant about it.

So that's what this is.

Take what I say with a grain of salt, of course. This show is so clearly not for me and I acknowledge that, but I went to school for and got my degree in creative writing and so much of this episode pissed me off from a narrative perspective and I just really need to talk about it. Putting it under a Read More, though, so you can ignore me if you’d like while I rage to no one in particular. Apologies in advance if you choose to read on. I'm super long-winded. Luckily I don't have pictures and this is more of just a lot of text, so…it could be longer?

So, to begin, I’ll freely admit that I’d never seen an episode of 'Blue Bloods' before this and I’ve not watched it since. I mean, if the rest of the episodes are as badly written as this one, I have no interest to either, but I digress.

Overall my main problem with the episode was how desperately it avoided ‘showing’ over ‘telling’ and, as a visual medium, that’s kind’ve a big deal. We were told pretty much every detail that was presented to us. These people love to hear themselves talk, but do little to actually show things as they happen and I believe a part of that has to do with the focus of the show itself, which is definitely unique to this brand of television. By that, I just mean that it’s not the format I might’ve expected from a show like this. Most cop shows give a lot of focus to the cases, and the intrigue you get with the characters is how they apply their own skills and knowledge to solve them, with the hi-jinks they get into along the way being more of a bonus.

This is not that kind of show.

No, 'Blue Bloods' as a show is way more interested in the cops and their familial ties than it is about the actual job that they’re doing, as shown prominently with the political plot of this episode which was also very focused on the relationship between Tom Selleck’s character and his daughter and the wholly unrelated dinner scene where they talk about lent for 2 and a half minutes and acknowledge nothing else that happened in the episode. This show doesn’t care about the job of being a cop so much as it cares about the cops themselves.

Which would be fine if I gave a shit about cops, but I don’t.

You could argue that the mentor plot is the exception to that, but that entire situation had no real consequences for the cop in question, Jamie, abusing his power. It was entirely focused on how the situation affected him and how it was fine that he’d nudged this kid to get information which ultimately led to the arrest of Dion's brother, and Dion quitting the program. Hell, if Jamie had, in his final scene with Dion, owned up to his abuse of power and left the program — to then urge Dion to rejoin so that he can have that positive outlet in his life without him there — I would’ve been way more okay with it, but Jamie faces no consequences past ‘I don’t wanna see you anymore’, which I was never convinced he actually cared about in the slightest. There's nothing cathartic about it, it's just shitty and left me feeling frustrated at the lack of consequences for the cop.

But hey, you prolly don’t wanna read me going on and on about those parts. You prolly wanna know why I hate it despite Alex’s plot — which I fully expected to love because he’s perfect and gorgeous even when he’s playing a bad guy and he was just so adorable in his lil suit and they let him keep the scruff this time, and he was all handsome an— I need to stop. That could go on forever.

Anyway, to put it simply; it was bad, but I'll definitely explain why.

Now, I don’t think any of the guests in this episode necessarily did a bad job. They still acted well enough for what they were given. I just think they had a shit script that wasn’t interested in that story line. I mentioned at the top of this that this show cared more about telling than showing and that’s a huge problem when you want me to buy a character being the culprit in your murder plot. I need evidence, not anecdotes. Cuz, yeah, by the end of the episode, I didn’t buy for even a second that Ralph did it. And it’s not because he was played by Alex who is just charisma incarnate. I can believe him playing a bad guy. I also watched his 'Law & Order SVU' episode where he scared the shit outta me. He can play a creepy and violent character very well, he just wasn’t convincing to me as a bad guy in this show.

And here’s why!

First of all, he confessed at knife point. That confession would be thrown away IRL. It’s the same problem with using torture to get information. If a person’s life is threatened or they're being harmed in some way, they’ll usually say whatever it takes to get you to stop threatening them/causing them pain. Same deal here. You can’t convince me with a confession like that.

But they didn't seem to be interested in convincing anyone as far as I could tell. They just expected you to believe it because, ‘no, didn’t you hear? He said he did it, so he did it.’ They had so many opportunities to portray this character as the shitbag that we’re told he is. Hell, great way to really implicate him? Give him a female assistant that Donnie Wahlberg and his partner overhear / walk in on him berating for something small like getting him the wrong coffee or something. Then have them talk to that assistant later on and her mention some weird behavior from him on the night of Andrea’s death. It's cliché, but it's more than what we got.

Or you could have him talk to Meghan in a super condescending voice when he approaches her after her interview later on. Or, hell, have him refer to the murder victim in a condescending way even as he talks about her death. But no. The most we get out of him is that he's maybe a little snarky and smug when talking to the cops, but that’s not enough to convince me he’s a bad dude. Frankly, his producer buddy came off as more of an asshole, if I'm being honest. Just cuz (we’re told) his character did shitty things to her in the past doesn’t mean he’s still shitty. Show me he’s still shitty. I wanna see it and I know Alex is capable of a performance like that.

Second, it’s also just…obvious to make him the culprit if we're to believe everything we're told about him. He and Andrea are described as having had beef a little while before the murder with him being abusive mentally and physically. He’s known in the community to be a misogynist and an abusive person overall. He’s the obvious suspect, but if there’s anything that Scooby-Doo taught me, it’s that it’s never the most obvious person. Like, once in a blue moon, sure — but it’s rare.

So yeah, I don’t believe that Ralph did it. You wanna know who I do think did it?

Meghan.

Alright, so bear with me. This'll prolly sound a little conspiratorial, but hear me out:

She had the motive. She confirms in the beginning of the episode that she’s also a female gamer like the victim, but that she was ‘no Andrea’. Andrea was her competition. They were (supposedly) friends and stuck together as female gamers, but Andrea was still competition. With her out of the way, Meghan’s able to rise in the ranks, if even a little bit.

She had a scapegoat in Ralph — again, the obvious suspect given his tumultuous relationship with Andrea sometime prior — and an obvious grudge against men in their community in general. And, don’t get me wrong, men in gaming can and often are hella toxic — I’m not, in any way, denying that — but she got way more emotional when talking about the men in their community than when she was talking about her supposed friend lying dead in the adjoining room.

Speaking of the adjoining room, how did she not hear the murder happening? It couldn’t have been when she was down in the bar, cuz we see Ralph there too in the crappy CCTV footage that was supposed to show him being an asshole, I think (hard to really see). Was she just fucking around somewhere else when it happened? She doesn’t mention as much that I recall (correct me if I'm wrong on that, of course). And Andrea was strangled to death. I would assume that there would’ve been a struggle with that. Are you seriously telling me she wouldn’t hear that in her adjoining hotel room? Those walls aren’t that thick. I find that kinda hard to believe. And that she wouldn’t have found her till the next morning after that, also strikes me as a little odd.

Going off on some previous points, she shows very little grief over her friend’s death. Not just in the intro scene, either, but later on as well. (Side bar: that intro scene itself was very misleading. Don’t lead with a murder plot if it only takes up less than 10 minutes of the overall runtime, kay?) The show did a pretty bad job at indicating the passage of time, but it’s implied that the convention is still happening when Meghan gets the confession out of Ralph, so it would’ve had to have been the same weekend, or possibly the same week (though most conventions I’m aware of don’t last that long — it’s usually a weekend thing, at most Thursday-Sunday — but it could be similar to AGDQ, which seems to last about a week). So, if this is only a day or so later, why would someone who is supposedly grieving over their dead friend do interviews like nothing is wrong? Wouldn't you, like, reschedule or just politely decline and say you need time to process the shock? Like, when we cut to ol’ Donnie Wahlberg calling her after her interview, she doesn’t look upset — as I imagine she might if they’d likely asked her questions about Andrea / her feelings about the murder — and she seems cool as a cucumber when she asks Ralph to go somewhere private. In fact, the look on her face indicates pretty clearly that she’s planning to do something. Specifically, not that she's scared, that she's angry.

Finally, she’s the one who’s attacking Ralph when Donnie Wahlberg and company arrive on the scene. She doesn’t seem to have any marks on her indicating that he made any move to harm her (again, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't remember seeing her with any marks / cuts), but he’s got a clear, bleeding cut on his face. She attacked him first and was going in for the kill.

Or…was she? Cuz right before Donnie Wahlberg pulls her into that bear hug to stop her from the attack, she doesn’t do a great job of actually trying to kill Ralph. She was close enough that a quick dart at him would’ve probably been enough to at least injure him pretty significantly — maybe even fatally — and would’ve surely led the cops to pull them apart to secure him, but she kinda just hops around a bit and screams before lunging for him. That’s a really weird way to attack when you actually want to kill someone.

But, then again, I don’t necessarily think she did want to kill him. I’m convinced she wanted that confession, but that she also wanted him in jail and was playing the part of the super sad and hysterical victim who was just so overcome with her grief that she wasn’t in her right mind. I think that’s what they were going for in regards to her character in general, but it came across as less sincere in the performance and more like the character was putting on an act. They then cart Ralph off while comforting her — despite the fact that she disobeyed a direct order from police, which should lead to her being detained as well! — and that plot ends.

So, she gets what she wants in the end. A person she despises is now in police custody, her competition is out of the way, and the publicity she might get for bringing that ‘murderer’ to justice might eventually lead to her own career getting a nice boost. I dunno, it just strikes me as her having a great reason to have initiated this over Ralph just being a misogynist who 'was really trying to kill Meghan and just got the wrong girl'.

So yeah, with what the show presented to us, I believe Meghan’s the real killer. Again, if they’d done more to show me that Ralph was a bad dude or that she was more affected by her supposed friend’s death, or if they'd just given that plot more room to breathe to show those things, I might’ve been more inclined to buy the narrative they were pushing but…as is, I don’t believe it.

That’s pretty much all I wanted to say on the matter. I had a lot of issues with the domestic abuse plot line too, but they barely gave that 5 minutes of the overall runtime, so does it really matter in the long run? This is just…my thought process of the only part of the episode I watched for and how disappointing it was for me. And yes, I timed each section of the episode to figure out how much time was given to each of the 4 plots, plus the dinner scene at the end, but not counting the intro theme, and the murder plot got just over 8 minutes, of which Alex was on screen for half of that time. He got less than 5 minutes of screen time. It was definitely worth it just because he’s wonderful and I just like seeing him on these shows, but from a narrative standpoint, it felt pointless.

Okay, I’m done. Thank you for coming to my TED talk. Unless y’all wanna talk about this some more, cuz I’m so down for that.

#scammy talks too much #scammy rants #blue bloods #the common good #alex brightman #long post is long #I'm long-winded as fuck #obviously I'm not an authority on what makes good tv #this is just all how I felt after watching the episode #It was just so disappointing after the INCREDIBLE performance on Law & Order SVU #if you like it that's cool #I'm not here to tell you you're wrong #or that I'm right about this #like whatcha like #sometimes I just gotta rant and get it outta my brain

18 notes · View notes

brainrot-goblin · 3 years

Text

Post-Apocalypse/Dystopia AU

So I’ve been doing a lot of pondering on @my-headcanons-academia OFA headcannon and I’ve come up with an idea. Basically the whole thing was “what if OFA didn’t have to be passed on consensually?” Check out the thread here.

So here we go.

Trigger Warning: Gore mentioned, Traumatic experiences mentioned

What’s Happening:

Izuku’s DNA somehow mutated the OFA quirk to no longer have to be passed on consensually

Anytime he sneezes, coughs, etc. a bit of OFA is released

So if the DNA lands on a person, their quirk is powered up for a bit and they might (it’s rare) see flashes of the past users

The villains get wind of this since it’s not hard to pin down. Everyone around Izuku has experienced a power up at some point.

Witnessed this first hand at the USJ incident when Izuku’s blood got on some of his classmates, Aizawa, and All Might

USJ was an experiment planned out by AFO, he needed to see if it was legit

Once the majority of the LOV was wiped out at USJ, AFO got Giran to find more villains with decent quirks, not really caring if they were up for the job or not

They eventually built up an army

They dug up some intel on Izuku and uses Toga and Twice to scout out UA

They notice his connection with Katsuki

LOV plans to kidnap Katsuki at the training camp

Canon-Compliant: At the training camp, Katsuki is kidnapped

Izuku, Kirishima, Iida, and Momo go to rescue him

All Might fights AFO and becomes Small Might

A group of Nomus is sent after Kirishima, Iida, Momo, and Izuku

They’re too strong to take down and Izuku is taken

The rest of the group rescue Katsuki (it wasn’t hard, they just left him there)

Once Izuku is taken, AFO warps away from All Might

Once The Doctor gets Izuku, Izuku is set up to be drained of every ounce of DNA gradually, so that it can replenish in enough time. Izuku is turned into a renewable power source for quirks, mainly powering up Nomus, the LOV, and occasionally a stray villain who pays well.

Eventually the Doctor starts turning the LOV into Nomus

Once the entire army is turned Nomu, AFO releases them onto Japan and sets about turning civilians into Nomus

Once Japan recognizes AFO as the authority, he sets about perfecting that role and effectively ruling over the country

Once AFO officially becomes the leader, hero society is no more.

Hero agencies and hero schools are demolished and support items were confiscated and destroyed

Anyone who called themselves a hero or vigilante were kidnapped, stripped of their quirk, and killed or went into hiding

Class 1-A was split up when their school was bombed (they were in their Training Course at the time):

Satou and Kouda were killed in the blast

Kaminari, Yaoyorozu, Jirou, Ojiro, and Mineta went into hiding together

Iida went to his family and they started to form a rebellion (but they were all killed)

Kirishima, Mina, and Sero were in hiding together

Kaminari would have went with them but they were separated amongst the destruction

Kirishima went searching for Bakugo and Mina and Sero were killed in his absence

Kirishima blames himself for their deaths

Todoroki went to find his family and search for Izuku along the way

Uraraka, Tsuyu, and Hagakure went in hiding together

Tsuyu and Hagakure were killed and Urakaka narrowly escaped. (Hagakure’s quirk was tracked down since it was easy to detect and beneficial for advancing Nomu defenses)

Tokoyami and Shoji went to search for any remaining family and Hawks for guidance

Aoyama ventured off to find a way back to France and to see if AFO had taken over the world rather than just Japan

Katsuki ventured off to find and rescue Izuku.

He feels responsible for his kidnapping

Finding Izuku would also bring back order to the chaos

Angst!

Characters:

Along the way, Katsuki (unwillingly) forms a group.

Todoroki is the first to be spotted.

At first, Katsuki is relieved to see one of his classmates is still alive and the lack of social interaction gets the better of him. He begins to approach, but then trudges off because he doesn’t need anyone “dragging him down.” Fortunately, Shoto spots him and catches him, also relieved to see one of his fellow classmates, Katsuki no less (I imagine they have a kind of close bond due to their similar rankings in academics and such, Katsuki respects him but won’t admit it). They were heading in the same direction so they stuck together. Katsuki was externally reluctant, but internally grateful for the company and help. (Plus, Shoto was searching for his family, including his father, and his father would be an excellent asset to have).

Next, the duo stumbles upon a struggling Ochaco. (They had their hero costumes on when the blast happened, so she still had on those ridiculous boots). Shoto is relieved to see her (c’mon, they’re besties) and Katsuki goes “I-don’t-care-about-you-but-I’m-actually-a-caring-person” mode on her and exasperatedly searches for gear for her. Once she’s settled and she reports Tsuyu’s and Hagakure’s deaths, they all come to the conclusion that she has nowhere to go so she is accepted into the group. (Of course, once she finds out they are going to save Izuku, that becomes her main mission as well. Again, besties).

(Tall and lanky x short and chubby platonic duo. See also, girl needs money, boy willing to steal his abusive father’s credit card (based on headcanons)).

Eijirou is next, his main goal being to find Katsuki and bring him back to the Bakusquad. He was successful in the first part of his mission and he wants to help save Izuku, but he wants to get the rest of the Squad first. Katsuki denies it, telling him that they’ll lose too much time and promises to get them after Izuku, so Eijirou just stays, hoping his friends will remain safe.

As mentioned, once he learns Mina and Sero died when he left he blames himself. His character stays relatively the same, being motivational and a bit of a meat-head, but only because he represses his grief. He’s got eye bags from the lack of sleep and he’s picked up a few nervous habits such as chewing on his lips (and because of his sharp teeth we can see how bad that is). Katsuki knows what’s up with him because he’s a pro at emotional constipation and there’s a little bonding there. “If you’re gonna blame anyone, blame me. I’m the one who didn’t want to go back.” (And some more trauma for Katsuki, he’s blaming himself for a lot of people’s deaths and misfortune...)

Whenever they go gear-hunting, Ochaco searches for hair dye and gel for Eijirou since his staple look has been put on hold since the apocalypse. (This is how he’s able to maintain his signature horns and the brightness of the red part of his hair, but not his roots. Hair bleach is impossible to find and it would take too long to use).

Some Pro Heroes in the mix too:

All Might (but not really...)

After his endeavor with AFO, Toshinori aims to find Izuku. He feels responsible, especially since he didn’t catch on to the odd mutation of OFA immediately. Once AFO’s plan begins to take place, all of his failures catch up with Toshinori. He failed Izuku and he got kidnapped, he couldn’t save everyone from AFO, and he was no longer the symbol of peace. Toshinori goes into hiding and gains a new identity, essentially becoming a vigilante. He’s going to save Izuku and he’ll do it his own way, the world can wait. Correcting one mistake at a time, right? All Might, the symbol of peace, has officially disappeared, leaving Japan hopeless and desperate.

His sudden disappearance causes Katsuki to lose all respect for him. Once Izuku learns that Toshinori paused saving Japan to rescue him, he loses respect too.

Endeavor (and Hawks)

Enji turns into a bit of a badass. Think of your stereotypical, ripped apocalypse survivor and you’ve got Endeavor. He probably has a bunker, if not multiple, filled with supplies. He’s taken the new role of being the number one hero very seriously (though, he’s more of a vigilante now. Also he doesn’t have his hero costume, it’s too eye-catching, think cargo pants and sweaters). and is planning on taking on AFO and bringing the world back to how it was. He’s skilled and quick, but of course he’s not alone. His quickness is aided by the fastest pro hero, Hawks (he doesn’t change much, his character is canon-compliant, maybe a bit more cocky though). These two rip through Nomus like they’re nothing and it pisses AFO off to no end. (Hawks and Endeavor are the stereotypical main characters of the post-apocalypse trope, but they’re not the main characters here...if you catch my drift; a bit of irony?). Endeavor’s desire to save the world is definitely helping him heal his past ways and he’s hoping to fix Japan before he gathers his family again.

Aizawa/ Eraserhead (and Shinso)

Aizawa is doing what any good teacher would, do. Traveling the lengths of Japan in search of his deserted students. Mainly Izuku whose rescue would put an end to this hellish atmosphere. Before the blast, Aizawa had stepped out of the gym for a coffee break. The first bomb had dropped on the main UA building and Aizawa rushed to help save any survivors. The general studies students were in the classroom closest to where Aizawa was and he found a few students, Shinso included. He was badly hurt, his eye almost gouged out, his elbow bent in a gruesome manner, his shoulder dislocated, but most importantly his neck. Shinso had been leaned over his desk asleep when a pile of rubble fell on top of him, knocking the breath out of him and bruising his spine, but also thrusting his neck harshly into the edge of the desk. Since then it has been difficult for him to speak, rendering him almost quirkless. After digging Shinso out, the second bomb fell on the gym grounds and Aizawa watched as the building his class was in crumbled to the ground. After that, bombs dropped repeatedly, one after another, causing any survivors to hurry and duck for cover. Fortunately, Aizawa noticed a few moving forms in the gym his class was located in.

Shinso and Aizawa didn’t have any trouble communicating since Shinso didn’t speak much as it was due to insecurities about his quirk (a wonderful headcanon, not made by me: here)

(If you’re curious about where Eri is, she’s with Present Mic, other Pro Heroes and civilians in a bunker somewhere, safe from Nomus for now).

Environment/Society:

Under AFO’s “rule” a lot of things were changed, even the environment suffered.

With numerous bombings (lots of hero representation in Japan), lots of smog and ash was created, blocking out the sun. This cooled the temperature and made the air thinner, making it difficult to breath. Face masks (gas masks for the edgy and cool people) and sweaters are not uncommon to wear now. (I’ve also drawn out character designs for the main crew, Katsuki, Eijirou, Shoto, and Ochaco. I’m thinking about doing the minor characters. I’ll post it soon).

Nomus roam the cities.

These Nomus are more developed than the ones seen in the manga, think of the Nomus that could speak and counterattack efficiently.

Nomus have multiple quirks and the majority of them have quirks surrounding surveillance and stealth (hence why Hagakure was targeted). The most common is a quirk that detects the use of emitter quirks (they sense the surge of power) or a quirk that senses a constant use of a quirk (constantly active quirks, like mutation types), making it almost impossible to use one’s quirk without being caught and killed.

Obviously I’m not done generating this idea, I still want to talk more about the LOV and maybe add in other characters as well as address major plot points. So I’ll just edit and reblog this post when I do!

#trigger warning gore #gore mention #boku no hero academia #bnha headcanons #boku no hiro academia #mha headcanons #midoriya izuku #kirishima eijirou #bakugou katsuki #uraraka ochaco

17 notes · View notes

stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale · 3 years

Note

It would be cool if they did another 400 days type mini series with some characters. like showing us the beginning/middle/different parts of the apocalypse from the perspectives of: Marlon, Louis, Violet, Sophie, James, and Lilly. I think it would do well

I think something like this would do well, too. We talk about this a lot and I keep hoping that if we continue to talk about it, they’ll somehow hear us and actually do it haha.

Just think of the possibilities- a game with each episode dedicated to following a different protagonist during a different time in the apocalypse, telling a previously unheard story. They could even do more character-driven stories that focus more on that aspect rather than the walkers and outside dangers, y’know?

Really the only downside I could see if they actually did this is that people outside the fandom would be whiney about it? I mean, people who casually played Telltale games would look at Skybound like “Rehashing old characters who aren’t muh Clementine? Pass.” Y’know? And to be fair, I could see people within the fandom being disappointed, too.

But a majority? I think we’d all be happy to just have another twdg installment if Skybound wanted to make one... as long as they leave Clementine alone. That’s my one condition haha.

Leave her alone, Robert.

I’ll even throw out a bunch of possibilities for episodes-

Carley and Doug - I would love an episode that starts with Carley working as a reporter just as the walkers come. We could meet her crew, go through when they were attacked and explore the trauma she experiences after watching her producer get eaten alive in front of her.

Then, in comes our hero: Doug. Doug saves her life, and the two of them manage to escape and hideout. This is the perfect time to explore Doug’s character, too, as well as the relationship he and Carley had before they met up with the drugstore crew.

We can learn more about how Carley came to be so good with firearms and more about Doug’s technical background. Not only that, but it would be interesting to see these two actually interact since, y’know... they canonically have romantic feelings for one another.

Then the episode could end with them meeting Glenn outside, who brings them back to the group at the drugstore.

The St Johns - Here me out, but I would totally be on board for an episode about these people and how they starting picking off their farmhands for food. We don’t even have to play as any of the St Johns, we could play as a farmhand that actually escaped that fate after discovering what these people were doing.

It could definitely be more horror based, too. Like a cat and mouse sort of chase scene with the protagonist and Andy or Danny with them escaping with their life at the end and journeying off.

We could also see more of the bandits and how that agreement came to be with them. We could see more of Jolene, too.

Lilly - Okay, I want to know what the hell happened to Lilly between s1 and s4. From what I’ve gathered and inferred, Lilly wandered alone for years before finding the delta, the first place she ever considered home since... well, the motor-inn. Which... is nuts.

Then there’s all the trauma of losing Larry on top of what a piece of shit he was. I know I laugh at her for being all “No more ice cream, no more hair dryer” when she was telling Clementine about Larry cutting their power but we don’t know much about just how abusive Larry was.

Plus, we don’t know what happened to her mom. Larry still carried her wedding ring even into the apocalypse and died with it in his pocket. There’s just... a lot of things.

So I think an episode about Lilly by herself could be an interesting exploration of her being her own enemy, y’know? When I say character-driven, I mean solely character-driven with Lilly having flashbacks or nightmares or talking to herself or even hallucinations. Think Michonne, but even better executed. And with no ghost children. Maybe a ghost Larry, though. Which is arguably worse.

And it could end with someone from the delta finding her.

Christa and Omid - I feel like this is an obvious one since everyone loves these two and we’re still salty that they never brought Christa back. So it’d be cool to see these two either before meeting Lee’s group, or their time with Clementine between s1 and s2.

This is the only time I’ll allow Clementine to be here. If they feel they have to plop Clementine into this, then do it this way. We could explore Clementine’s guilt of what happened to Lee and the trauma she suffered while with the stranger, we could explore Christa’s pregnancy and learn more about her and Omid’s relationship.

We could see some dad moments with Omid as he and Clementine bond, perhaps dive into the fear and anxiety of a baby that’s coming, too.

Kenny and Sarita - So... while Kenny’s not my favorite person, I can’t deny that I’d be interested in seeing him after he apparently escapes the walker horde after killing Ben and what he went through before he met Sarita.

Hell, have an episode where we play as Sarita as she stumbles upon Kenny and how she saved him from the restaurant he was hiding in. We could get a glimpse into Kenny from Sarita’s point of view and what they went through during their time together. We could learn about Walter and Matthew, too.

Honestly, I just want to know more about Sarita as a character rather than a plot device to die in order to further Kenny’s development, y’know?

Bonnie - Yeah, yeah, I know. No one likes Bonnie and “who wants to play as Bonnie again?? she sucks??”, but damn it... I want them to redeem how badly they fucked up with her story in 400 Days.

I want an episode about her struggling with her drug addiction and how it affected her when the dead started walking. What she was willing to do to get her fix, y’know? Bring back Leland and Dee and how they helped with her road to recovery.

Leland himself even said that when they found her, she was still so stuck on those drugs. I think exploring that could be a fascinating experience.

Jane - An episode about Jane and Jamie? An exploration of Jane’s struggle with keeping her sister alive while having that internal survival instinct trying to take over all leading to her finally giving Jamie what she wanted- to leave her. Then how that guilt and loss took a toll on Jane and hardened her.

And like, I know Jane is kind of in the same boat as Bonnie where a lot of people [specifically Kenny followers] absolutely hate her and would whine about an episode dedicated to exploring her character, but I don’t care. I’d play it, I’d love to understand Jane more, even if I don’t particularly like her.

David - This one is here for selfish reasons. I want an episode all about David. I don’t care what you do, but I want to see David’s struggle of literally losing his entire family in a single night, as well as losing the world to the apocalypse and having to move forward.

Like... seriously, remember what Kate was all “I bet David was happy when the world ended” or some shit? I actually disagree, Kate, since the day the world ended, he lost his father, mother, brother, uncle, his fucking children, and you, his wife within a night. He spent years thinking you all were dead while traveling with Ava and his unit, fighting the dead and trying to survive.... but no, the day the walkers came was probably super great for him. Ugh.

The bonus is we get more Ava, too. Also, I don’t think anyone would oppose if you threw in the whole “David and Lingard might’ve had a thing”... just sayin’. We stan bisexual David.

Javier - Throwing this one in there because I think an episode about Javi, Kate, Gabe, and Mari would do incredibly well. Everyone misses the Garcia’s, everyone was bummed that we ever got a follow up to what Javi was up to after ANF.

Y’know... since ANF was a mess, they probably didn’t feel they could do a follow up because people wouldn’t play... but I’m telling you, we’d play another adventure as Javier Garcia. I don’t know what kind of story you’d tell, but it doesn’t matter. Well, it does... but ya get me.

Plus, more Gabe and Mariana content. C’mon.

James - *slams fists on table* I want my James and the whisperers episode damn it!! And I’m gonna keep saying it until someone either makes it or pays me to shut up.

I don’t care if you like James or not, you can’t deny how fascinating it would be to have an entire episode dedicated to the whisperers. On top of that, we’d get to see James and Charlie and how their relationship suffered during their time with the whisperers, as well as James realizing what a monster he became.

Maybe we could have a scene where James actually makes his famous mask, or a scene of James escaping them and leaving Charlie behind. It could end with James in his camp until he hears gunshots one night. When he goes to investigate, he finds Clementine and AJ trying to escape Lilly and Abel and we get him intervening from his perspective.

There ya go, there’s a second Clementine cameo that doesn’t fuck everything up. Ta-dah.

Sophie and Minerva - A popular one that most of us would want. Them after they were taken away and how they suffered within the delta. It’d be cool to play as Sophie, and tragic since we know how that would end. But we could be the one who acts out and tries to escape all while doing our best to keep Minerva from giving into them... which again, imagine the heartbreak.

The Ericson crew - Like with the twins, this would be a popular one that most people would want to play. While I’d rather they kept their fingers off Louis and Violet since they’re bound to fuck them up, I can’t deny that I want to know what happened at the school during the first days.

We could even play as Ms. Martin as she chooses to stay and take care of all these kids, how she bonds with them before inevitably meeting her fate in the greenhouse.

And c’mon, you know you want to see baby child versions of our Ericson kiddos. Imagine Louis and Violet at these young ages? Seeing other kids we never got to meet? We’d eat it up! ...Well, assuming they did a good job with their characterizations. Y’know.

---

Those are all the major ones I’d like to see, but hey, if any of you had other ideas for episodes following characters I didn’t mention, feel free to share!

29 notes · View notes

vanquishedvaliant · 3 years

Note

The sidedish is scrolling your blog and not finding you talking about new anime

I must not be hip enough to recognize precisely what you’re getting at by ‘sidedish’, but I just don’t usually post it much on tumblr unprompted anymore because writeups are a pain, they don’t usually get much traction, and I’m more than satisfied talking about it in discord with people that are actually going to listen and respond.

I DO have thoughts on new anime I can serve if it’s that in demand, though.

Here’s what I’m watching this season with some initial reaction ratings based on the first couple episodes

New this season;

Wonder Egg Priority 10/10

UraSekai Picnic 10/10

Kumo desu ga, nani ka 8/10

Kemono Jihen 9/10

Hortensia Saga 7/10

Soukou Musume Senki 7/10

Gekidol 6/10

Sequels;

Cells at Work 9/10

Cells at Work: Black! 9/10

Uma Musume Pretty Derby 10/10

Tensei Shitara Slime Datta Ken 8/10

Log Horizon 8/10

Dr Stone 10/10

Continuing from last season;

Higurashi ... Gou 10/10

Hanyou no Yashahime 6/10

Jujutsu Kaisen 10/10

I’m also watching the original Higurashi in between off days to catch up to where Gou is, since I’d never seen it before and it’s clear I’m not getting the full story in Gou anymore without it.

Deeper thoughts under the cut.

Wonder Egg Priority and Urasekai Picnic are the clear AOTS contenders. Both are at once extremely superficially similar but very different in practice, and both bring something unique and charming to the table.

Urasekai is extremely notable at being a well executed supernatural adventure anime that is also a yuri; as much as I love pure romances like Bloom into You or Adachi and Shimamura, it’s very rare that we get anime with lesbian main characters or WLW romance where the romance itself isn’t the focus, that includes a serious, intriguing plot alongside the elements of romance. You know, like straight people get without a question every single story ever.

It’s got this very classic cryptid / SCP / otherworld adventure feel and has the right comedic and tension beats to be quite good, though its long term impact will be determined by what kind of further message it has.

Wonder Egg Priority immediately comes off with extremely powerful vibes in the vein of things like Flip Flappers, which I mean in the highest compliment. A surreal, metaphor-filled story of dreams and desires and well laid subtext, with colourful, exotic action and a snappy pace. This one’s extremely interesting to me, and its first episode was masterfully efficient in setting up its premise both aesthetically and thematically.

The real test for Wonder Egg will come with time; this is a story that trades heavily in meaning; so it’ll have to run longer and come to a conclusion to really test what kind of impact it’ll have. For now, I’m VERY interested and cautiously optimistic.

Spider Isekai is a charming twist on the typical flood of fantasy game / isekai stories placing our protagonist at the extreme low end of the power curve, and quite UNLIKE Slime Isekai or most others on the market like last season’s Kuma Bear, this one seems intent on keeping her there rather than immediately granting her insane godlike powers and thrusting her back above the curve.

The parts of the show that focus on the spider herself are lovely; there’s a real tension and sense of stakes in her struggle to adapt, slowly getting used to her new body and gaining levels and abilities, making even simple conflicts against frogs or lizards seem life threatening and serious, giving us a real reason to root for her.

On the other hand, the show frequently switches focus to... the entire other classroom of isekai’d children which is by far less interesting. There’s potential in there somewhere for a story about mass isekai’d kids adapting, but other than some details like one girl being gender swapped, and another being the class pet, there’s just really not much interesting about them at the moment and these sections just feel like a waste of time while waiting for the Spider to come back.

I don’t doubt that they’ll eventually meet up and have their stories intertwine... but at the moment, I don’t think I actually want that to happen. We’ll see where this one goes.

Kemono Jihen took me by surprise, and I wasn’t planning to watch this one unti l saw some screencaps. But the first two episodes have been outstanding, giving us a fantastic supernatural mystery detective agency plot and characters with real emotions, eye catching action scenes, and a compelling mystery.

Definitely looking forward to more of this one.

Hortensia Saga seems like a fairly typical fantasy war chronicle RPG story. It feels very in the vein of early to mid era fire emblems, and I happen to like anime like this that are solidly executed, like Grancrest Senki a while back. It’s doing a good enough job so far to keep my interest. Nothing game changing here, but a decent offering.

Soukou Musume Senki; this one also comes across in the standard seasonal fare of superpowered teenagers fighting aliens, this time with power armor and mild isekai elements. The monster designs are good this time, and the second episode brought us some nice moral / political dialogue showcasing some level of self awareness and depth. It’s fun so far.

Gekidol this show wants really badly to be compared favourably to Shoujo Kageki Starlight Revue. They’re hamming up the theatre tropes, putting out specials, sliding in secret background lore. First episode was fairly interesting, but the second seriously dropped the ball with its half assed Idol episode, and incredibly tone deaf play at a heartwarming moment.

I’m gonna keep watching this one for now, but it really needs to prove to me it has some meat and isn’t going to just keep borrowing tropes from other shows to lend it superficial “deep” merits.

For sequels,

Cells at Work is as cute, wholesome, and info-taining as ever. I think the OP this time is missing a little oomph, but the show itself is still going strong.

Cells at Work: Black! is offering a new take on it with a slightly darker and mature setting with a stressed out alcholic smoker at risk of contracting STDS, with a little bleaker tone and harsher stakes. It relies on the background of the original Cells at Work to work both tonally and narratively, but with that support it provides something quite interesting and unique.

The usual Cells at Work metaphors and humanization of bodily processes are just as excellent as always, and I’m giving special credit to the sketch about alcholic liver damage being compared to drunken abuse of host club employees, displaying a perhaps obvious if natural juxtaposition of the physical and emotional damage the substance abuse is causing to both the body itself and others around them.

Uma Musume; Horse girls! Racing! Just as surprisingly excellent as last season, giving us a fantastic sports story anime with charming characters and balanced stakes, with a good helping of humour. Easy recommend.

Slime Isekai: This one’s still going strong but has diverged from it’s original premise quite seriously. There’s nothing intriguing about this being an isekai about being reincarnated as a slime anymore; and he’s way too overpowered for any of the combat to have any stakes. What it DOES have however is a fascinating look at the birth of a fantasy nation of monsters, politics, science, and social development of a varied and multicultural monster nation. And THAT I’m still in for.

I will seriously never forgive them for making Bobcut Lizardgirl into a regular ass human though. It has a serious problem with de-monsterizing its character designs and seriously reducing their appeal.

Log Horizon the true king of MMO isekai is back after 7 long, long years, and it’s jumping STRAIGHT into the depth of its political intrigue and deep understanding and development of the socio political issues inherent to its setting. Somewhat dry as ever, but truly fascinating for those looking at a more serious exploration of what the concept of living in a game actually means.

Dr Stone: I don’t have to hype this up, do I? Mad science speedrunning the development of human culture from the stone age up! This time they’re going to war! They made cell phones and cup ramen out of rocks! It’s heartwarming, emotionally rich, entertaining and informative, and funny as all hell. A classic for sure.

Higurashi. Everyone knows higurashi. Thing is, I just never watched it. We thought Gou was going to be a remake, but then it ended up being Rebuild of Evangelion, so I stopped at episode 12 or so and went back to watch the original. Classic horror mystery.

Yashahime. Yikes. This one’s... well. I don’t have any especial nostalgia or affection for Inuyasha like many people, but Yashahime is clearly a very middling approximation of it. There’s things to like here, the main trio of characters are all great designs, Moroha standing even head and shoulders above them as a truly endearing goblin child, and it really does feel in ways like 90s toonami fare. But there’s some lack of depth going on here, and I just don’t even know what to say about the Sesshoumaru pedophilia thing. Extremely questionable plotting.

#Anonymous #TFWI #anime #anime recommendations #seasonal anime

7 notes · View notes

calliecat93 · 3 years

Text

I don’t think it’s incorrect to say that Cinder Fall is one of the most divisive characters in the series. From my experience, she was liked well enough in Volumes 1-4, and people were interested in her character. But as time went on with her getting less focus, any focus being on her just wanting to power, much of her original threat level slowly going down, and just so many questions going unanswered, people began to turn on her. Last volume was when interest seemed to get reignited, and it had people asking one question: were we finally on our way to getting a Cinder Fall backstory? Well my friends, the clock has struck. The spell has broken, and it’s time to see Cinder as she truly is.

Overview

Remember when the volume began with us seeing a young Cinder scrubbing floors? Well we get that again, but this time with much more detail. We see Cinder living on a farm, scrubbing floors and being bullied by other children. It’s not clear if she’s in an orphanage or a slave, but regardless we hear a woman say that she’ll take her. We cut to a city and Cinder is before a glamorous hotel, being led inside by her new stepmother. She’s lead to the back, also meeting her new stepsisters which if you’re familiar with Cinderella, you can already tell where this is going. Indeed, Cinder is forced to clean, serve guests, be given barely any food, and bullied by her stepsisters. She even resorts to eating the meals meant for guests just because she’s starving that badly. We also briefly get a new song that I... think is being sung by Casey? I couldn’t fully tell, but it is the definition of belittling and mockery.

During all of this, one individual has noticed what’s going on, a Huntsman named Rhodes. One day when particularly frustrated, Cinder sees him showing others a sword he acquired. Her stepsisters come in, trailing mud in a deliberate attempt to make Cinder’s life harder. She snaps, her Scorch Touch Semblance essentially causing her to turn her brush into a smoke bomb. As a result, her stepmother activates a shock collar that Cinder already put on, her abuse now evolving into physical torture. Having had enough, Cinder steals Rhodes sword and hides in I assume some kind of cellar. Rhodes finds her, but offers to train her to be a Huntress so that when she’s of age, she can enter a Huntsman Academy and have a better life. After all, killing her stepfamily won’t end her suffering.

Over what looks like years, Cinder receives training whenever Rhodes returns to the hotel, and she becomes a very strong fighter. But she still has to undergo the abuse for at least years. Regardless, she’s growing closer to her goal and Rhodes even gives her his sword. Unfortunately, one day, the stepsisters inform their mother that Cinder has a weapon. By the time Rhodes returns, hours have gone by and the hotel seems empty. But it isn’t long before he enters the cellar, finding the stepsisters dead and Cinder having as hold of her stepmother. The electrocution does nothing as Cinder simply snaps her neck, killing her. Cinder is relieved, having gotten rid of her abusers and now having her freedom. But to her shock Rhodes not only disapproves, but pulls his weapons, seeming to intending to turn her in. Cinder is shocked, then enraged as they fight. In the end, Cinder kills Rhodes and he merely pats her head before falling dead to the ground. Cinder rips the shock collar off and looks out the window, crying but also smiling as she is now free.

We cut to the present with Cinder waking up, Emerald having brought her back to Monstra. Cinder is very much not happy even as Emerald tries to explain how she had been hurt. Mercury comes in, saying that it’s pointless and again telling Emerald that Cinder does not care. Cinder orders them out... but Mercury isn’t there to obey her anymore. He reveals that Salem has plans for him, and thus he’s now higher up just as he wanted in Volume 6. This, he no longer follows Cinder, and she loses one more person she once had control over. They’ve been summoned to the bridge for something big. Mercury leaves with Emerald soon following, leaving Cinder sitting alone.

Meanwhile, Oz is trying to convince Oscar to let him take over to give the kid a break from the beatings. But Oscar has a suggestion. While they are there, why not use Salem’s own tactics against her? She uses her agents to sew the seeds of division among her enemies... so why can’t they dot he same with her allies? Hazel comes in, asking for the password once more. Ozpin now takes over, enraging Hazel. But when Oz asks why he’s even working for Salem when he’s fully aware of what she’s done, the brute says that there’s no point to fighting her. He knows what she can do. She will win. It’s foolish to go against her, and due to Oz countless young lives have been lost for what he deems a hopeless cause. But Oz points out that someone had to try and is about to reveal what’ll happen if the Relics are united to show just how bad the stakes are, when Salem enters to call everyone to the bridge.

All of Salem’s current agents are there, though Emerald and Neo are noticeably more to the side. Watts has contacted Tyrian to report his hacking efforts, which causes Salem to turn to Cinder. She causes the Grimm Arm to send Cinder into a wave of pain, just as she was forced into under her stepmother. But suddenly, Salem says that Cinder’s current actions are her fault, and the pain stops. She says that she denied Cinder what she wanted after all that she endured, so she allows Cinder to take the Winter Maiden powers from Penny, whether she or her Hound gets there first. or now, Cinder and Tyrian are to get Watts as Salem launches her attack. IDK if i’s Oscar or Oz begging them not to as they’ll be sealing their own doom, but Salem merely says that it’s too late.

Meanwhile, the Ace-Ops are less than happy about Watts and now having to go after what Elm says is junk, causing Winter to more or less tell them to shut up. Marrow catches a comms transmission and upon putting it on speaker, finds that it’s Jaune trying to warn someone about the Grimm River. They land before the three, who are heading for Mantle on the repaired hoverbike. When Jaune tries to explain, Harriet is more interested in finding Penny and again blames them for the situation. before she can continue though, the river... well... shoots up. To Atlas. It launches several Grimm, and they destroy the Hard Light Shield Generators. Our heroes, the Ace-Ops, Ironwood, and even the people in the Crater can only watch in horror as the shields go down. Salem gives the order, and Monstra unleashes a horde of various Grimm as the chapter ends.

Review

As I said in the intro, many have been waiting for a Cinder backstory for a long, long time. The lack of one and a definite motivation has been one of the biggest criticisms against Cinder for years now. Before we begin, I should talk about my opinion of Cinder. As I do with Ruby, I have always found Cinder an interesting character. For all the things people complained about her, like her lack of motivation, thirst for power, her declining threat level, it only made me more interested. Why? Because there’s always just enough small things to get my attention. Her hatred of Ruby for making her feel weak, getting angry whenever someone like Watts spoke back at her, even burning him in Volume 5 for getting after her changing the invasion plans. How she seems borderline obsessed with power and being in control, becoming more and more unhinged whenever she loses it. After being the puppet-master for he first three volumes, watching as we slowly learn that she is just another’s puppet and her quest for power always had me asking why she was like this.

At long last, we have the answer. Now to be honest... most of this went exactly as I expected since I knew that she was a Cinderella expy. She had an abusive guardian. Abusive stepsisters. She was abused, treated as a slave, and generally miserable. But unlike Cinderella, who always remained kind and loving in spite of her stepfamily’s torment, Cinder was angry, spiteful, and did break. Heck considering her previous living conditions, maybe she was sold as a slave, The only thing I didn’t expect was for her to have a prince/godmother figure in Rhodes, someone who gave her a chance to eventually attain a better life. But sadly, it ended with her snapping and killing both her abusers and the only person to show her kindness. Cinder got her freedom, but also sealed herself to a miserable life.

Now there’s already been some arguments about this. Everyone agrees that the stepfamily sucks, but how much fault does Rhodes hold? I think that he had good intentioned, but there’s the fact that ultimately he left Cinder to continue to be abused despite fully well knowing about it. Now I get why some go ‘just take her’, but that would have plenty of it’s own issues like him being accused of kidnapping, endangering an innocent girl, etc. Ultimately I think that Rhodes was a decent guy who did what he thought he could do to give Cinder a chance at a better life under the circumstances. She just had to endure the abuse for a few years as her inspiration did, then she could walk free. But sadly, that didn’t happen. Rhodes made a mistake in not at least stepping up to demand Cinder be treated better, maybe event threatening to inform someone higher up about it and endangering the business. But he didn’t, and this along with drawing his weapons' against Cinder sealed his demise. It’s sad, but with how hurt Cinder was and after the abuse she suffered, I understand why she did it. It wasn’t the right thing to do, but it’s understandable. Her stepfamily deserved it though, no argument there.

But putting all of our attention on Cinder now, this answered/confirmed everything that I had suspected for years. Why does Cinder hate Atlas/the elite? Because she was abused by them. Why does she hate Huntsmen? Because one betrayed her. Why is she so obsessed with power? Because it’s what, in her mind, gave her freedom. Why does she want control? Because she was never allowed to have it. It’s why she burned Watts in Volume 5, he tried to overpower her and she wasn’t going to take it. It’s why she loses it every time she loses a chance at the Maiden power, because it further reminds her of how weak and powerless she once was and never wants to be again. Heck it’s why she wants Ruby dead and even fears her, because she has a power that by it’s nature makes her powerless as Volume 3 proved, which was the first true time we saw Cinder get defeated. Just as she killed the one thing left in her way at that, she got brought right back down to that powerless girl beaten by everyone around her. Isn’t re-analyzing everything after big reveals fun?!

Everything makes sense, and we can now see how everything clicks. When we met Cinder, she was confident and in control of everything, and we didn’t question it as we knew virtually nothing back then. But as we learned about Salem, the true stakes, and the history of Remnant, the more we saw Cinder’s position slip. Every time she has gone after a Maiden past Amber, she failed. She’s failed at pretty much everything and her only success, getting The Lamp, was only because of Neo. So her anger and her grip has slipped more and more as the fact that she isn’t as powerful as she believed keeps hitting her and bringing her back to that barn/hotel. And now? Mercury has walked out on her in favor of Salem, and at this point I won’t be surprised if Neo walks and Emerald is eventually driven away. Cinder just can’t accept love and affection, having either never received it or in her eyes, those who did betrayed her. And unless she does come to understand these concepts and that people like Emerald are willing to care about her, she will be left all alone.

But the saddest part? At least with the deaths, it at least looked like Cinder could at least begin her life anew. But... she didn’t. Here’s one of my gripes with the chapter, us not seeing how she joined Salem. What happened after the deaths? Did she run away? Did she get arrested and escape? How did she meet Salem? What got Salem to take her in? I was hoping to get these answers to both know why Cinder is where she is and see more of how Salem brings people into her fold, but sadly we didn’t. That being said, we’ve seen enough to see how Cinder is just where she had previously been. She’s serving another for a goal that is not her own. She feels in control because it’s allowing her to get the power that she thinks will give her freedom. But it isn’t, and Salem occasionally showing her favor as she did here are why Cinder keeps falling back in line. Cinder escaped one abusive situation, but only ended up in another one and either doesn’t realize it or is in deep denial over it.

Honestly, it’s just... sad. I feel legit bad for Cinder. Her life was awful, and she either never got a say in it or when she did, made the wrong choice. Now does this justify anything that she has done? No. She still killed Pyrrha. She still killed Vernal. She still killed innocent people, like that Mistral girl just so she could steal her stuff. She caused Penny’s first death. She caused the Grimm attack that killed who knows how many people in Vale. She was perfectly willing to kill an elderly woman just for her powers. And as Jaune said in Volume 5, always with a sick smirk on her face. There is a LOOOT of blood on her hands and as bad as I feel for her, nothing justifies the horrible things that she has done. The only way that I can see her at least begin a redemption arc is to both start to understand the concept of people caring as well as realize just what horrible things she’s done. If Emerald and Neo turn on her as Mercury has, that could be what does it, or has her double down. I have been pretty against Cinder being redeemed because of her lack of remorse, but I have been convinced that it’s plausible. It’s all going to depend on the execution. But in the end, whether she change or stick to the path she’s on now, she ultimately has my pity.

Okay, that’s enough on Cinder for now. Let’s now talk about Oscar and Oz. And just like in Chapter 4, seeing Oscar so battered and even a little bloody is... rough. Hell, Oz trying to convince Oscar to let him take over to give the kid a break with Oscar refusing is... yeah. But I do like how Oscar brings up a very good point. Salem’s power comes form her causing division. Using her pawns to go out and place doubt into other’s minds. And it works... so why can’t they do the same? Place doubt into the minds of Salem’s agents. We as the audience know fully well that not everyone is on board. Hazel is a hypocrite, but essentially serves Salem as he sees fighting her as hopeless and thus directs the hate onto Oz since that’s someone he can harm. Neo hates being there, Emerald is scared, and despite his promotion Mercury is as terrified as Emerald is and we can see he does still care about her. Even Cinder we see could turn if she ever realized that she’s in no better a place she was as before. Only Tyrian is really full-heartedly loyal. There are cracks within Salem’s ranks, and Oscar has an open chance to shatter it.

But he’s gonna have to act fast. So... that River, huh? Yep, it was meant for Atlas. It’s a cunning move. But this makes Ironwood’s actions even more cruelly ironic. Imagine that he stayed in Mantle. Chances are, the forces would have been out in the tundra. There is a good possibility that they could have discovered the River sooner. Even with them not knowing about it turning into a geyser, they could have at least prepared for something or come up with a defense. It shows just how poor Ironwood’s decision truly was and even if he had shot Atlas upward, all it would have done was delay the inevitable. Worse, he’s sent his best soldiers to the tundra to find Penny. Even if they do, Watts will have control and Ironwood’s own temper allowed that. Ironwood okayed right into Salem’s hands, and he has sealed Atlas’ doom. Oh he won’t go down without a fight, for that I’m certain. But I get the feeling that it’s gonna be too late.

Chapter Stats

Favorite Character: Cinder Fall Favorite Scene: Cinder and Salem interaction near the end Least Favorite Scene: Mmm... Cinder being electrocuted was hard to watch Favorite Voice Actor: Jessica Nigri (Cinder) Favorite Animation: Cinder vs Rhodes Rating: 8/10

Final Thoughts

So far, this is my least favorite chapter of the volume. Not because it was bad, it just feels... incomplete. There are still several pieces with Cinder that I feel are missing, mainly how she came under Salem. But that may be an answer for another day. I also feel like they should have done this sooner, especially since after how long it’s been and Cinder doing worse and worse things, it’s harder for me to feel 100% bad for her, but I get they may not have had a choice. What we did get, however, was more than enough to answer the many questions regarding Cinder that we’ve had for eight volumes now. We know understand why she is how she is, and even how she could begin to turn it around. But that’s still a choice that only she can make. The wait was very much worth it, and add to two new songs (one being by Casey’s band OK Goodnight, yay!), Oscar showing his development, us seeing the cracks in the villains mindsets, and of course the ending taking us right back to the stakes of this volume. One more to go until the mid-season break folks, and knowing this show, they’re gonna ensure that we wait in agony.

#rwby #rwby reviews #rwby8 #rwby spoilers #rwby musings #callie reviews

8 notes · View notes

kaen-ace-of-diamonds · 4 years

Text

Homecoming

Word Count: 6,800+ (chapter 6) [AO3]

(chapter 5) (chapter 4) (chapter 3) (chapter 2) (chapter 1)

Genre: Angst/Hurt/Comfort

Pairing: one-sided Emerald/Cinder

Characters: Cinder Fall, Salem, Tyrian Callows, Emerald Sustrai, Mercury Black

Summary: Making it out of Beacon alive turned out to be the easy part of the whole disaster.Returning home in agony and shame, learning how to take the first steps forward into living in this newly broken state...that, Cinder has decided, is definitely going to be the hard part.

Warnings for implications of abuse and graphic descriptions of injury.

~0~

“Does it get your blood boiling, does it make you see red?

Do you wanna destroy it, does it get in your head?

'Cause it gets my blood boiling and I'm coming unglued

It would hit you like poison if you knew what I knew.”

- Angry Too, Lola Blanc

~0~

After so many months, Cinder was beginning to feel a nervous shake in her stomach every time she turned the corner and saw the door to this training chamber.

Ridiculous, really, she chided herself. It wasn’t even as if it were an intelligent human opponent she was facing, just a pack of the same Grimm she’d been exterminating ever since she was old enough to hold a blade. It didn’t matter how many there were. Power would always triumph over everything else, up to and including a beast’s instincts.

But then again, there were far more frightening things in this world than the Grimm.

Salem had nothing to say to her as she opened the door and stepped inside. What had at the start of this new wave of training been reassuring smiles and instructions, had now faded into a cold glare. A warning to prove herself for another day.

Her beloved bow and arrows still wouldn’t come to her, which twisted her heart every time she tried and failed to get them back. And even if she did, it would be another trial entirely to relearn how to use it sans binocular vision. A small, bitter voice at the back of her mind told her it wasn’t even worth it to try.

However, a single sword was getting easier to form with every attempt, and the one that molded itself into her hand now was like a slab of molten rock. It didn’t feel the same as Midnight, which she had been unshakably confident would never break. This one felt somehow incomplete. It was narrower than before, with far more visible imperfections and cracks running through the surface. And if one perfect sword was unachievable, then two was entirely out of the question.

Cinder did not like to have Emerald’s voice running through her head as well as talking her intact ear off, but she could still hear her infuriatingly gentle reminder, One step at a time.

So she would make this do for now. She had no choice.

She brandished the sword before her, and braced herself. Mere moments later, the shadows began to move.

The clicking of claws and gnashing of teeth followed soon after. A small pack of Beowolves stalked towards her in a semicircle, surrounding her. She hadn’t had to fight down her fear of death like this since she was a child...

(“Feel nothing,” rumbling in her ears as the hilt of the knife slips around in her small, sweating hand, shaking more than ever. She tells herself it’s from exhaustion, but the eyes boring into her always know better. “Fear nothing. You’re still too weak to matter.”)

She grit her teeth, burningly aware of the scar on her face. It had taken years for her to understand. But he was wrong. She did not fear. She was not small. And she was not weak!

Heedless of danger — for nothing could be more dangerous than the eyes boring into her back — Cinder threw herself into the fray with a vicious slash of her blade. The Beowolves howled with hunger and fell upon her, all six of them. She couldn’t take her eyes off their claws, long as her arrows. A chill settled in her gut that hadn’t in years: the one that chased away all thoughts of battle and replaced them with those claws curving underneath her remaining eyeball to tear it out and blind her completely.

(“ — no point in keeping broken tools. If you’re no longer useful, you’ll be thrown away.”

“Like they threw you away?”

Her heart leaps into her throat, afraid that she’d blurted out too much. But the mouth twists further, into a sickly smile.

“Exactly.”)

She was no longer the refuse of Mistral’s underbelly. She was more than him, more than all of them, like he’d wanted but never believed.

Just a few months ago her flames had been second nature to her. Now, to swing her arm and bring a swath of fire with it was like pulling teeth. Well...her arm worked just fine, more or less. It was this thing stuck to her that was holding her back. She swung and clawed back, as she weaved her way around the thrashing limbs and snapping jaws. Her heart pounded, to flood her veins so strongly with adrenaline that she barely felt it when they tore her dress and grazed her skin.

She felt nothing. She feared nothing. Her determination to kill, the wrath that spurred her forward, were all that mattered.

It was as natural to her as breathing, why were only these pathetic spurts of flame coming out now, after everything she’d done?!

Even now her attacks still hit more often than not; she wasn’t entirely broken. But still it took her what felt like an eternity to do what once took only minutes. She stood like a cornered animal at the side of the room, as the final Beowolf advanced on her, growling and slavering. It wasn’t like the Wyvern, or any other Grimm. It did not see her as a hand of its master, or as one of its own. Only as prey. A worthless little thing to be slaughtered and tossed—

(“Alone now, girl?”)

The beast surged towards her, towering over her, gold shining from its faceless head as the giant hand reached for her — no —

Hands —

Blade —

Claws —

Her blood hasn’t spilled yet but gods, she can smell his, sour and heavy, filling her nose and polluting the fresh air, and that’s what she’ll look like, they’ll rot together, if she doesn’t do something right now!

A sharp white point starts to dig under her skin, snapping her back into the present with a gasp. Why had she been reaching for Scorching Caress when the blade was in her hand? This wasn’t — she wasn’t the one who —

Sunlight and wind were worlds away. Everything now was darkness and smoke and how long had she been frozen, her shoulder swelling and burning? She didn’t have time to consider it. Before she knew it, fire was flaring from what felt like every pore in her body, beyond any semblance of her control despite the arm she had thrown out in front of her much too late.

The Beowolf didn’t have time to howl as it burned away, scraps of filmy black floating into the air before disintegrating. Cinder heard it anyway, in the ringing of her ears in the newly silent room.

As she crouched there — like a cowed animal, the small rational part of her sneered — she realized several things in rapid succession. She realized that she was frozen, unable even to tremble. She realized that a thick, warm drop of blood was trickling down her good cheek, her depleted Aura delaying in patching up the claw graze beneath her eyelid. And she realized that the narrow place around her left shoulder, where flesh met Grimm, was a ring of searing pain. The only reason the arm hadn’t dropped limply to her side like the rest of her was —

Her gasp of horror came out sounding more like a cough, but it seemed to burn her throat all the same. The arm was rippling, stretching, elongating and springing off like the branches and twigs of a dead tree. Every muscle in her upper arm felt ablaze, and her mind raced trying to remember her lessons, what to do to make the Grimm inside her bend to her will instead of letting it run free and wild on its own.

But she couldn’t, her head was too full of glittering gold and burning, burning silver to fit a single other coherent thought in.

And then there came a different kind of burning, a cold and ice-white burn, and all of a sudden she felt as if her entire limb was shriveling, sucking itself inward. It didn’t hurt, exactly, but the pressure and the wrongness of the sensation took Cinder’s breath away and nearly doubled her over. A soft, disappointed sigh came from just above her shoulder, and without thinking about it she went utterly still.

“Cinder. Did you listen when I taught you how to control your gift?”

Her instinct, shamefully, was to cringe. But she fought it — her master was not the sort to be sated by groveling — and turned to look her in the eyes as she nodded.

Salem fixed her with a glare that would shrivel lesser humans like weeds in frost. “Then why do you continue to let it control you?”

Cinder did not whimper as her master’s claws retracted from her skin, their tips thinly lined with blood; after all her treatment sessions, she was used to it by now. The Grimm in her was cowed back to its proper shape and size, but she could feel its roots buried deep in her muscles and nerves. It was a part of her now, it would obey her like any other part. It should obey her...

“You already know, don’t you? You still dread it.”

She swallowed hard, uncaring of the twinge of pain it still caused her throat. Sometimes she truly hated it when her master was right.

“In the spawning pool, while it was bonding with you, it communicated with you, didn’t it?”

Cinder startled badly. It was only a vague memory now, like a childhood nightmare. But still, it had happened, and she was glad for the concrete confirmation. She nodded.

“I told you before I put you under what was in there: everything a Grimm is. Hunger, desperation, fear...the things that were buried deep inside you and that now have been brought to the surface.”

Cinder had to try very hard not to stare. So that was why...

“You must be better than that part of yourself. If you’re not, after all the time and effort that’s been put into you, then at best you’ll never unlock the Maiden’s true power again. At worst, the Grimm will realize it’s the dominant presence in your body, and consume you from the inside out.”

There was a stirring from deep in her muscles, right around her shoulder bones, that felt almost spiteful. As if it were agreeing. She remembered when just the thought of rage and vengeance would bring tongues of leaping flames to her fingertips, warm her like boiling water from the inside out, the Maiden’s power surging up at her command. Now, she could practically feel it being quenched the instant she tried to let it loose. It was the closest she had come in seven years to feeling helpless again...

Without Emerald there to translate for her, it took a painfully long few seconds to choke out, “I...will...m-ma’am.”

She could have sworn she saw a smile ghost across Salem’s face. “One more question, Cinder. Do you think you’ve earned your voice back?”

Cinder didn’t enjoy feeling as if she was now the one having a carrot dangled from a string in front of her face. And she especially disliked that she didn’t have to think about the answer: not what she thought her master wanted to hear, but simply what was.

“...No.”

“Very well, then. You are dismissed.”

With a bow, Cinder made her exit. Now that she could walk unassisted again, she appreciated the long and thankfully lonely walks around the castle. She thought she had learned as a child never to take a single thing she had for granted, but after this, the lesson was burned into her like any one of these scars.

Now the immediate question was: where was she going?

Before heading to her training session, she had instructed Emerald and Mercury to go to the castle library and get some research done for her, but she was hesitant to go join them just yet. The weight room appealed: her muscles still weren’t in one hundred percent fighting form, and a few runs through the basics she’d perfected years ago, and had no chance of screwing up, might make her feel better. Exhaustion was no excuse to avoid training...but it wasn’t exhaustion that made her decide against it. It simply didn’t feel like enough.

Going back to her room to rest wasn’t an option, either. Sleep had never been much of a respite for her, but she hadn’t had such constant nightmares since...well. And this time they came twofold. Gold and silver, gold and silver...

Both her fists clenched tightly; it appeared she and the Grimm were of one mind about one thing only, and that was the thirst to kill. She envisioned sinking her claws into Ruby’s flesh, the optic nerve tearing free, soft tissue shredded with a swipe of her fingers. Like the gold before it, the silver would be drowned in blood, and the girl’s scarless body ruined until even her sister couldn’t recognize her. Justice for her own body at last; she would never trust anybody who said that justice and vengeance weren’t exactly the same thing. All that was left was how to achieve it...and for that, she could not be caught off guard again.

Fortunately, she already had the spark of an idea. She just needed information, more relevant than what she had gathered from her spying at Beacon.

And unfortunately, there was only one person she could go to about that.

Cinder bit back a frustrated growl and made a sharp turn, towards the other side of the castle.

~0~

Tyrian didn't think he was ever going to get used to this.

It certainly wasn’t the worst part of the whole disaster, but the nagging feeling of being off-balance just wouldn't go away. Perched on a wide spike jutting out from the castle’s surface, he could feel how his whole center of gravity had shifted just from losing part of his tail. He had never used to wobble up here, never feared that he would fall.

Now, though...

Carefully, so as not to lose his balance, he brought what remained of his tail out in front of him, grimacing at the leaking blood and venom that still stained the thick bandages on the stump. He knew that the others wouldn’t notice or care, but whenever he moved, he felt as ugly and ungainly as a one-winged bird, flying helplessly in circles.

It hadn’t had to come to this, had it? What more could he have done, what must he remember so that he would never again fail his queen so shamefully? Would he have to change his fighting style to compensate for the loss of a stinger? What was —

All right, what the hell was that incessant thumping noise behind him?

He turned and looked below him to see Cinder standing by the large window he’d climbed out from, glaring up at him and banging impatiently on the outer wall with her gloved hand.

Tyrian’s face broke into a grin. “Why, Cinder, how long have you been there?” he called down. “If you wanted to get my attention, you should have said something!”

He didn’t understand why the girl made such a fuss about being rendered essentially mute. As she demonstrated now, she could still perfectly communicate ‘I’ll kill you’ with only her remaining eye, and really, wasn’t that all anyone could ever need?

Despite her clear irritation, she was now gesturing insistently for him to come down to her level. Well, considering how, whether she’d wanted to or not, she had watched as he was humiliated before their queen, Cinder was perhaps the last person he wanted to interact with at the moment. But, on the other hand, the sooner he gave her whatever she had come for, the sooner she would go away and leave him alone.

So, he stood up, darted forward, and leaped from the spike, front-flipping twice in mid-air before landing hard in front of Cinder. (He managed to land on his feet well enough, but hoped that the way his legs quivered wasn't noticeable.) Before, this would be the part where Cinder would roll her eyes and call him a show-off. Now, she just gave him an unimpressed look.

“Well, then, what is it you want?” He glanced around the hall, and realized that the little green-haired girl was nowhere to be seen. “And where's your pet rat?”

Cinder made an indignant noise and pulled out a small notepad, with a pen stuck in the spiral binding. With some difficulty, she balanced it on her new left hand, which Tyrian couldn't see underneath that huge sleeve, but which seemed to be remaining stubbornly stiff. And with her decidedly smoother functioning right, she started to shakily write something out.

Tyrian snickered. “Look at you, you’ve managed to get some of those fingers working! What an amazing accomplishment!”

She ignored him. After a moment, she held out the notepad for him to read: Tell me about your fight with Ruby Rose.

Any happiness Tyrian had gleaned from mocking her dissipated. “You get right to the point, don't you?” he drawled, narrowing his eyes. “Have you come all this way to gloat?”

No, for once I’m taking the high road. Cinder paused, then wrote some more. You weren't really doing it for my sake, but I appreciate your ‘eye for an eye’ offer. But you understand how I can’t exactly go out and take a tail for you. For a number of reasons.

“Yes, that is rather unfortunate. It would have been an interesting little experiment had I succeeded, though, wouldn’t it? What would happen to you, I wonder, if we stuck one of those precious silver eyes in your empty socket? I ought to bring it up to our dear doctor, don't you think?”

Cinder grumbled unintelligibly: clearly, the idea of such a replacement didn't appeal to her. She has to have changed since the fall of Beacon. Tell me what she looks like now.

“Why do you need to know that? You think she’s undergone as drastic a transformation as you have?”

It’s part of my training. I won’t hold back when I’m killing her. That should be enough for you.

“Hmph. You’re not exactly in a position to be making demands of your superiors, you know,” Tyrian reminded her, crossing his arms and pointedly looking away.

He didn’t know how Cinder managed to make a cough sound so annoyingly high and mighty, but she did. The trademark smirk didn’t help either, as she gestured with the notepad at his poor bandaged tail: Superior? You?

“That’s right. My failure, though tragic, has left my body largely in one piece.” His goddess’ displeasure had cut far sharper than the little rose’s scythe, but Cinder’s loyalty did not quite go that far. “And my priority above all is making up for it. Where do your priorities lie, dear sister? Do you wish to further our cause, or only yourself?”

Cinder grit her teeth. Good luck, then. But that has nothing to do with this.

“And why should I help you with anything? Consider yourself lucky that I’m taking time out of my busy day to speak with you at all.”

With a disgusted noise and a roll of her eye, Cinder wrote for a very long couple minutes, while Tyrian waited. Technically, he didn’t feel the need to tap his foot impatiently, but oh, how he did love that growl of irritation the action elicited from the back of Cinder’s throat.

You can’t tell me you don’t want to see that girl beaten and bloody. Broken beyond repair, while we recover. Move on with our lives, while hers ends here. You know more about what that might entail than I do, don’t you?

“Oh? Don’t tell me you intend to go against our lady’s wishes by actually killing the little flower?”

Aggressive scratching of the pen. You can end someone’s life without killing them. Trust me.

“And you’re satisfied with that.”

Being captive here would be a fate worse than death.

“You really think so?” he prodded further, fighting valiantly to repress his grin.

Whatever Salem wants her alive for—

Oh, he couldn’t help it any longer, he burst into a fit of giggles. “How did you manage to infiltrate the academies with such terrible acting, little stepsister?”

Cinder nearly cracked the pen in half. She bared her teeth, hissing through them, and took a threatening step forward. Tyrian’s eyes were drawn to her fingers and the way they twitched, straining for fire and barely achieving sparks. What a far cry it was from when she had first won the Maiden powers, raising and commanding powerful flames as if she’d been born doing it. How awfully sad. How funny.

“I would love to help you, Cinder, you know that. But in order for me to do that, you’re going to have to be a little more honest with me. Why do you actually want my help? What’s so important about hearing this, of all things?”

Why do you care? Cinder wrote, pen tip threatening to pierce the pad. The details don’t matter so long as we get what we want.

“Oh, there’s no fooling me, dear sister. You have something in mind, and I think you ought to share it with me if you want to get anything out of this conversation. If not...” He gave her a dramatic shrug. “Well, then I suppose you’ll just have to get used to being left in the dust by the privileged few, after all.”

Before she could do anything but look outraged, he spun on his heel and started away, idly waving his tail as he went. Most people, he assumed, would have left it at that, deciding that they’d thrown enough fuel on this fire for now. Tyrian was not most people.

“My, what would your father say?”

The reaction was as immediately explosive as raw Dust. Tyrian felt the heat washing over his back even before he saw the fire.

He whipped around to see Cinder much closer than she had been a second ago, having clearly just caught herself while lunging for his throat. Flames flared from her eye, poured from her hand, and spun in a furious wheel around her feet. He could feel the sparks flying off of it, catching him in the neck and chest, and grinned.

“Oh, what’s the matter? Daddy still a sore subject?”

Cinder glared absolute murder at him, and a series of awful hissing and rattling noises came up from her throat, like a snake about to strike. Even without speech, the message was crystal clear: Not my father. Not from you.

Perfect.

“I have to say, it’s been a long time since you wore your heart on your sleeve like this, sister. I’d say...what, seven years?”

She ground her teeth harder, plainly regretting being fifteen and far easier to trick into letting slip her deeper vulnerabilities.

“You surprise me. If I had brought up your little family just a few months ago, you wouldn’t have batted an eye. But now...what’s made you so sensitive? Something remind you of him?”

Cinder looked at him suspiciously, sensing that he already knew. Very astute of her; he would never taunt somebody with a question he was not certain of the answer to.

“When you can, you really need to tell me exactly what it’s like down there in the depths of the spawning pool. I hear it has such sights to show you. All the things you like to think you’ve already overcome and put behind you.”

Her lips pulled into a stiff, crooked smirk as she picked the singed notepad up off the floor and scrawled, ink bleeding through the paper, I bet you’d love to relive how you got those scars on your chest, wouldn’t you?

Tyrian’s tail stump twitched, and his eyes narrowed. She clearly thought that two could play at this game. Well, she was sorely mistaken.

“I’m not ashamed of any of my scars, Cinder. Can you say the same?”

Her smirk broadened, but she was...shaking her head? The much-abused notepad burst into a high flame in her hand, and it stayed burning that way even after the paper was ashes on her glove.

What a confusing girl. No matter, his guesses were usually good.

“You will one day? How optimistic. Tell me, when?”

If she tapped at that glass mask just a little more aggressively, it would probably shatter. Not that it could do much more damage to that half of her face, but still. The fire in her fist burned even brighter.

“When you get your precious revenge? How lovely. I’ll be waiting with bated breath for your next riveting performance. And I suppose I can give you the little leg up you need from me. If you fall again, it won’t be my fault, after all.”

Cinder continued to glare, and he could picture her new claws flexing hungrily inside her billowing sleeve. But that was all: with a sharp nod, she turned and started away, considering their business here finished. Tyrian wasn’t quite satisfied yet.

“Let’s just hope that when you finally face your little Huntress in battle, you’ll have more luck than Daddy did with his Huntsman.”

Cinder whirled back around blurringly fast. A truly feral growl ripped its way from her throat, and though she was visibly fighting to keep from flying at him again, her eyes burned murderously. She could only make a harsher rattling sound instead of words, but in their place, fire poured from her mouth, gleaming off her bared teeth.

Tyrian quirked an eyebrow, still snickering. He wondered if that was the look she had worn as a child, hands about to be filthy with blood.

This was certainly more like the Cinder he had known for so long, the one who had swapped barbs with him and shown off her new powers the same way she had the day before she left on her long mission. And yet, even with all that fuel, she still couldn’t quite bring her fire back the way she used to. It was almost a shame.

“What’s the matter, little stepsister?” He leaned forward, tail reflexively curling upward. True, it was no longer intimidating with its end blunt and bandaged, but it was just second nature. And they both knew it was far from his only strength. “Itching for a real fight? I have to say, I don’t know how well that will turn out for you. As we both have wound up with handicaps, I see no need to go easy on you.”

Cinder kept up the growling for a few seconds more, then broke off into a frustrated huff, her shoulders sagging as the flames went out. It looked like it was physically painful for her —and, Tyrian realized, it probably was — but she surrendered the bout to him and wrenched her body around, stomping back off down the hall. Rage still radiated from every inch of her, from her frizzing hair to the downright aggressive clack of her heels.

When she was raw and irritated like this, it was so easy to poke her into an entertaining rage, and he hadn’t seen her in such a fun mood since she was a teenager. Whatever she wanted with the information he had to give, only time would tell if her plan would work.

It was no real concern of his, anyway. Perhaps if the troublesome girl still failed to live up to Her Grace’s expectations, it would start to redeem him somewhat in her eyes.

Giggling to himself, Tyrian spun on his heel and bounced cheerfully back out the window, swishing his tail in a far more jovial manner. It was like when Her Grace sent him out as her liaison with the sects of Grimm worshippers, scattered out there in the shadows of Remnant: conversing with the less fortunate never failed to make him feel better about himself.

Back and forth his tail swung, slower and more purposefully this time, and he made his way to the edge of the crystal spire with far better balance than before. He supposed that only time would tell whether Cinder’s stability would improve as well.

For now, he decided, it would be home life as usual: skulking in the shadows and waiting for the next bit of fun to arrive, before he had to leave again on his endless duty.

~0~

In hindsight, Cinder thought, she should have expected to walk away from this conversation seething, no matter how calmly she had entered it. Tyrian could be perfectly tolerable when he felt like it, but in the past few months he had made himself just as unbearable as Watts. She had hoped that being beaten and mutilated just as she had would humble him somewhat, but apparently no such luck. Perhaps it was the ability to speak that made all the difference.

Well, no matter. She would get what she wanted out of him, and that was what counted, she had to remember. She could not be mired in her own self-pity any longer: she was one step closer to grabbing a rope that would pull her out of it, that she would climb back where she belonged with. Now she could, for a while, put her teammates out of her mind.

It was a ten-minute walk from Tyrian’s chosen brooding spot to the fortress’ library. When she pushed open the heavy door, she had barely taken a step into the cavernous room before Emerald’s head popped up from behind the huge book she was perusing at a nearby table.

“Cinder!” she said brightly, sitting bolt upright.

She flipped over the book and left it on the table, heedless of what it might do to the spine, and darted out of her seat and over to her leader. Cinder’s leg had healed and she hadn't needed help to walk in weeks, but Emerald still felt the need to hover over her anyway, just in case of a relapse.

(Of course Emerald would never say it out loud, but Cinder could tell: Salem’s method of healing was not one she trusted at all.)

Cinder had been doing her best not to mind, which she had to admit had gotten much easier as she gained more and more of her autonomy back. But still, she was glad that Emerald didn't try to touch her as she walked her to the table. She didn’t think that she quite needed to have her chair pulled out for her when she got there, but she wasn’t going to complain.

Emerald did seem to be put in better spirits by Cinder’s presence, but she still let out a huff as she sat back down in the wooden chair.

“This whole library,” she groused, “this whole gigantic library, and only four books on sign language!”

“Well, actually...”

The two of them looked up (and up) at the towering bookshelves next to the table. Against one of them was laid a long wheeled ladder, and twenty feet high on that ladder was Mercury, pausing from pawing through the books to smirk down at them.

“We've only looked through half a row of these.” He waved his arm around at the dozens upon dozens of rows of floor-to-ceiling shelves, and his voice echoed in the cavernous room. “We still have the rest of this freaking place to hunt through!”

Cinder rolled her eye. Maybe the library could do with some reorganization, yes. But if a little bit of frustrated searching was the price to pay for unrestricted access to the collection her master had been patiently putting together for millennia now, then she didn't think it was anything to complain about. She caught Mercury’s eye and pointed emphatically to the chair next to Emerald.

“Fine, fine...”

Mercury gave himself a strong push on the ladder, zooming on squeaky wheels down to the end of the row and leaping off the top. Rather unnecessary, Cinder thought, giving him a supremely unimpressed look as he made his way over to them.

“So,” he said, flopping down in the chair and immediately leaning it back onto two legs, arms behind his head. “This is going to be a fun time. Does anyone remember any of the stuff Neo used to do?”

He glanced at Cinder, who shrugged. She’d reasoned back in Vale that she wouldn’t be working with Neo long enough to justify the effort of learning to understand her completely, so she hadn’t bothered to pay too much attention to the sign language that the girl had been trying to teach them. Oh, well. It wasn’t as if she’d ever see her again for any further conversation. She suspected that the Fall of Beacon had gone even worse for Roman and Neo than it had for her.

From the blank looks Emerald and Mercury gave each other, it appeared that they hadn’t been paying enough attention either.

“Okay. So we know nothing. Great start,” Mercury said flatly.

“That’s not true! Remember, she did that spelling thing with her fingers? We can start with that, can’t we?”

Cinder tried to answer properly anyway, lifting her hand and twisting her fingers into what she recalled of the fingerspelling alphabet. It was about the only part of the language she did remember, and only because an increasingly exasperated Neo had resorted to spelling things out when her temporary teammates couldn’t understand her words. Closed fist with the thumb outside, A. Flat hand, thumb inside, B. Curved hand, C. D...

She narrowed her eyes at her hand, as if it were to blame for her lapse in memory and would reveal its secrets if she just glared it down.

“The D, it’s like this, right?” Mercury put his pointer finger and thumb together, holding it out to her sideways.

“No, no, like this,” Emerald said, putting her middle finger and thumb together with the pointer sticking out. “That’s D.”

“What? No, it’s not!”

“Yes, it is!”

One hiss from Cinder nipped their argument in the bud. With her good hand — it was still hard to think of it as her human hand — she flipped back several pages in Emerald’s textbook and pointed.

“Oh.” Mercury blinked. “Point for Emerald, then. It’s kind of cheating to look at the answers, though.”

“It’s not a test. We are all just learning this language together. Wasn’t it you who said learning was fun?”

“When do we learn the swears? Neo taught me the swears but I forgot.”

“That’s not in the book, Merc!”

Cinder tapped the thick pages with her knuckles, pointedly glaring and making the next letter sign with perhaps more aggression than was called for.

“Okay, finish the rest, we got it...”

The rest of the section went by with few hitches. Cinder found it much more palatable to remember that it was just learning a new language, instead of relearning how to talk, of all damned things. It was...surprisingly calming, as well as interesting. This, however, only lasted until they moved on to the Basic Words and Phrases section.

Mercury thumped his chest with a flat palm and tapped both his middle and pointer fingers together — My name is... — and then looked over to Cinder and tilted his head in concern. “Uh...you think you’re gonna be able to do the rest of this okay with, um, your little buddy there?”

Both of them went tense in their chairs, as if trying not to flinch away, when Cinder shrugged her sleeve back and lifted the Grimm arm. She experimentally flexed the long-clawed fingers. They were stiffer than she would like, and still felt like whatever was inside the limb was actively fighting her when she tried to move it. It would be difficult to bend them to her will...but not impossible, she decided. Fine motor control practice, and all that.

It took her several moments longer to do it than it did Emerald or Mercury, but she managed to perform the signs properly with both hands: My name is Cinder. She peered over at the book —Emerald helpfully turned it around so she could see more clearly — and added a slower, careful I learn MSL with both her arms.

Emerald watched, copied her movements. “It took some digging, but we found an Upper Mistrali dialect book and a Lower Mistrali one, a Valerian one, and one with lots of dialects from all over. I wanted to focus on Mistral, but maybe the variety will help?”

Cinder nodded. Even after getting her voice back, it could come in handy to be able to communicate nonverbally when necessary...when they were back out in the field together.

Emerald and Mercury weren’t specifically trained for stealth missions like she was, but they could learn. Though the element of surprise regarding their Semblance and prosthetic weapons, respectively, had been spent, they could still be plenty useful. She could keep them by her side until the day they eventually exhausted their usefulness, however far in the future that ended up happening.

It might even never happen at all, it occurred to her, and the thought brought a small smile to her face. Perhaps they would stay following at her heels for the rest of their natural lives, existing only for her use.

Emerald blinked, hands pausing mid-sign. “Cinder? What is it?”

Cinder glanced at the book once more — yes, she was reading it right — and her smile broadened. She rested her head in the Grimm hand, and she pressed the fingers of her human hand to her lips and then extended them towards Emerald, locking eyes with the girl as she did.

As expected, Emerald startled and went wide-eyed, and Cinder could almost imagine a blush on her cheeks. “Uh...”

Mercury looked puzzled for a moment, then squinted at the book and sighed. “She’s not blowing you a kiss, Emmy. She’s saying ‘thank you.’”

“Oh! Thanks for...helping you? With this?” Cinder tapped the book and nodded, and wanted so very badly to laugh at the way Emerald’s face lit up. “Don’t worry about that, I’m happy that I can do this for you!”

Emerald subtly bit her lip to keep herself from rambling on further, as she used to do very early on, but Cinder still knew her well enough to hear the unspoken I would do anything for you. Now that she had her attention, Cinder checked the book again, looking to see how to construct the sentence she wanted.

Before she found her answer, her eye landed on another diagram, and stuck there for a moment. Without thinking about it, her hand rose to copy it...but stopped as her fingers brushed up against her throat, before it could say father.

They faltered there for just a second, and she swallowed against them, remembering another pair of hands around her neck: warm and rough, fingers interlocking, so much stronger than her...

No. This was her hand, his no longer mattered. She gave herself an imperceptible shake, and focused her attention back where it needed to be. The first word, naturally, was easy enough.

I...

Cinder pointed to herself with the Grimm hand while rifling through for the rest with her human one, so as not to shred the pages in her claws. This chapter didn’t seem to tell her any way to say she had something, so she ground her teeth in annoyance and went ahead even faster to the nouns section. And...there, that would work. She laid a flat palm on her chest, then pressed the tip of her pinkie finger to her forehead and pulled it back out into the air again.

My idea.

“Your...I know it was your idea, but —”

Ugh. Cinder cut her off with a frustrated shake of the head. “N...n-new.”

“Hey, I thought this was a no-talking game,” Mercury said with a smirk. Cinder didn’t think that hissing and slashing a clawed finger across her throat was an official MSL gesture, but it got the message across perfectly clearly anyway.

“You have...another idea?” Emerald guessed. “Do you want us to put the books away, then?”

Cinder groaned again. This was going much less smoothly in real life than it had in her head. She searched through the book again: this was going to take so many words to explain...

#rwby #cinder fall #emerald sustrai #mercury black #tyrian callows #rwby salem #team wtch #kaen's fics

15 notes · View notes

medea10 · 4 years

Text

Medea’s Anime/Game Superlative of 2019

Well it’s that time of the year where I look back on the animes I’ve watched and the games I played with this outdated meme quiz from 10 years ago. But I still do it for the fun of it! As usual, it doesn’t matter what year the anime or game came out. If I messed with it this year, it counts for the honors. So if it came out two years ago (which feels like forever ago), it counts. Let’s get at it!

First Fandom of 2019: The Promised Neverland

Episode 1! That’s all you need to watch to officially get hooked to this series. I jumped on this title at the beginning of the year not knowing what to expect due to Aniplex and Crunchyroll whoring this particular anime months prior. But once I saw the first episode, I was immediately hooked. It shook me to my core to watch one of the most graphic scenes to come from this year. I was captivated by Emma, Norman, and Ray’s plans in order to escape their doomed fate of becoming food for creepy demons. Each episode, I was at the edge of my seat wondering what was going to happen next. Is Gilda in cahoots with Sister Krone? Will Don learn the truth about what really happened to Connie in episode 1? Can Ray be trusted? IS NORMAN STILL ALIVE?! Come on, I’m like really far ahead in the manga. I want to see Norman and Emma together again. I’m so happy this series is getting a second season in 2020.

Favorite Main Character of 2019: Haru from My Roommate is a Cat

It was a close call this year for main characters and normally I don’t shoot for main characters. This year I will admit that I fell in love with Chika from Kaguya-sama. Plus, I still love me some Lana from Pokemon Sun/Moon! And I finally started part III of Jojo’s, so Grandpa Joestar is just the awesome OH MY GOD that I need. However, they all lose out to a cat! Yeah, just like that one year where I picked Nyanko-sensei as my favorite main character, I’m doing it again.

I know Haru can’t actually talk back to her human, but the audience can hear what she’s really saying and it’s absolutely amusing. She was funny when she thought the word “Haru” meant food. She’s so adorable when she’s playing with whatever catches her eye. She’s got quite the personality (almost tsundere even). But I gotta admire Haru too. Before she was adopted, Haru was on the street trying her best to look out for her younger siblings. Even giving them more food scraps when she would go hungry herself. After Haru was adopted by Subaru, she eventually warmed up to him as “her human”. It was a learning experience for both as Haru didn’t know how to react to having a human care for her and Subaru has never taken care of a cat before. But Haru is a loyal kitty who loves her human. Hell, she ran away from home because she feared her human collapsed somewhere. Haru’s the greatest!

Favorite Villain of 2019:

…

…Dear God, give me the strength to pull through this one.

Princess Malty “Myne, Bitch, Whore” Melromarc (The Rising of the Shield Hero)

No, this is not me insulting her. These are all her official names. Really! In many of the animes I watched this year, the villains were pretty hit-and-miss with me. I’m in the middle of watching the elven uprise with Black Clover and didn’t want to talk about that this year. Fairy Tail’s villains are just okay. And I didn’t watch Frieza this year! So let’s talk about the ONE villain who even out-trump’s the actual villain to the series.

It only took one episode for an entire fandom to turn on one single character. A single lie that figuratively speaking threw our main protagonist Naofumi under the bus, kicked him in the nuts, shanked him, robbed him, and thrown him off a cliff. Myne did so much throughout this series. She lied about being raped. She abused her power to get what she wanted. She set up someone to fail constantly. She attempted murder on her own sister (several times) just to keep her status as first in line to the throne. And she cheats so she gets her way! It was so sickening to watch this vile woman for more than just one episode. When you created a character who was so disgusting and revolting as a secondary villain, you did something right! It’s like with Shou Tucker and Father from Full Metal Alchemist. Ask any anime fan and they’ll definitely remember Tucker over Father. Myne is this anime’s Shou Tucker! And I have to give her some credit, she is now one memorable villain. And aren’t villains usually supposed to be despised? I, Naofumi, most characters in Shield Hero after episode 21, and all of the internet can come together in agreement to say, we hate Malty, Myne, Bitch, Whore.

Final insult on the matter, she’s a cunt!

Favorite Video Game Character(s) of 2019: Piers & Marnie (Pokemon: Sword and Shield)

I knew point blank that Marnie was going to be my favorite rival in this game. I knew I was going to enjoy the antics of her yell squad (a.k.a. Team Yell) too. But I never expected to meet her brother and enjoy him too. Like in more recent games, Pokemon has given your character a total of three rivals to look out for. And while Hop is just the British version of Hau and Bede is just…a fuck-face, Marnie was someone who marched to the beat of her own drum. She recognizes a powerful foe and has a level of respect for her rival. She has her own fanbase, but isn’t totally arrogant about it. Plus, she doesn’t mind helping you out and giving an extra boost in battle. Plus that smile scene is just too adorable for words. And then there’s Piers!

First of all, I just love the design of this guy. What did I say when I first laid eyes on him? It’s like if David Bowie, Marilyn Manson, and Sid Vicious threw up on a pentagram crafted from Hot Topic gear and this dude emerges! And much like his sister, he marches to the beat of his own drum. That’s why he’s the only gym leader in Galar that doesn’t use the Dynamax method. I would have been satisfied if I only got to see him once or twice in the game. But I was blessed when Piers came to my aid to take down the Marco Cosmos thugs AND take on all the rogue Dynamax pokemon in the post-game. I’m impressed! Out of all the people they picked to help the protagonist and Hop in this adventure, it was Piers. I am ever so happy by this. I am so heavily invested in this guy that I’m already thinking of fic ideas involving him.

Favorite Game of 2019: Pokemon Masters

As much as I really do love Pokemon Sword and Shield, I gotta give it to the mobile game this year. This game not only made one of my reoccurring dreams come true, but gave it something no other Pokemon game has been able to do in over twenty years. HUMAN VOICES! The trainers, they speak! AND YOU CAN CHANGE BETWEEN ENGLISH AND JAPANESE! Do you have any idea how much of a win this is for me! I know they’ll never have Tracey Sketchit in the game, but this still rocks my world. Do you know how much I love hearing Mamoru Miyano play a dickish bad guy? Do you know how badly I need to hear Daisuke Ono on a day-to-day basis? I’m a voice queen!

I know I don’t usually like to give praise to freemium games for the mobile phones, but this game is quite nice. I mean, yeah, you really do have to save up your gems in order to (hopefully) get the 5-star trainer that’s currently advertised and the urge of wanting to open up your wallet to actually purchase gems is tantalizing. Not as fucked as Fate/Grand Order, but you get my meaning. Unlike a lot of the freemium games, this one doesn’t limit you so much to play (unless you spend fake or real money in the game). You can super train all you want and not lose stamina! Plus, I like these special sync moves between trainer and pokemon. And there’s just something about seeing all of these different trainers from all these regions together and interacting with each other. Despite never seeing a lot of this in the anime, manga, or previous games.

Favorite Het Couple of 2019: Retsuko x Haida (Aggretsuko)

In one of my baby accomplishments this year, I stopped being a tight-wad and splurged on a Netflix account. Right around the same time it becomes unpopular. Hahaha! Why does this always happen to me?

Throughout the series, we’ve watched Retsuko take chances with a lot of guys including a charming polar bear, a red panda with the brain of a pot plant, and the world’s handsomest donkey. But Retsuko has friend-zoned her workmate Haida the whole time. Meanwhile, I and pretty much like 90% of the fanbase ship the fuck out of this. Rightfully so! Haida has been admiring her from afar for so long. He tries his best to be supportive of her in the office and elsewhere. He was even nice enough to run back to the office to try and help Retsuko with the last-minute paperwork thrown at her on Christmas Eve. Hell, we watched him at his best in the season two finale helping to corner Tadano. And even though she turned him down at the end of season one, I still hold out that there’s hope. I mean, it was right after a break-up, so it was kind of the right call for Retsuko to not go out with Haida. Season three could give us this ship in the end. I know Retsuko doesn’t see Haida as boyfriend material as of now, but I have a feeling it can change.

Favorite Yuri Couple of 2019: Atsuko “Akko” Kagari x Amanda O’Neill (Little Witch Academia)

That’s right, Akko and Amanda. This is the one Yuri ship I’m leaning on more than all the other ones. I know she wasn’t involved in the infamous love-bee episode, but that still didn’t stop me from making dirty jokes whenever these two girls were together for an episode. And that’s what makes it better! Akko and Amanda’s relationship wasn’t tampered with because of a love bee, what they have is real! Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating. But whenever I see them together doing something in an episode, I can totally see them as something more. Then again, my mind is warped.

Besides, this is as close to a yuri couple as I got this year. I can’t mention the one second we got of Ymir x Historia from Attack on Titan. Yayoi and Shion didn’t get much in Psycho Pass 3. And it’s leaps and bounds better than that OTHER anime I watched with two girls. Happy Sugar Life? More like a big pile of nope!

Favorite Yaoi Couple of 2019: Mafuyu Satou x Ritsuka Uenoyama (Given)

You knew it was coming! I was rooting for these two boys since they met in episode one. And even though I had to hold it back a bit when I learned of Mafuyu’s grieving, I still hoped that one day, these two boys would defy the odds and become the sweetest couple of 2019. Was I correct? While it wasn’t as full-blown gay as Yuri on Ice, it still gave us so much.

As I mentioned, Mafuyu was in a relationship prior to meeting Uenoyama. And this one ended in heartbreak as Mafuyu’s lover dies. But meeting Uenoyama, Mafuyu was able to smile again and got to play the instrument his previous lover left behind. Mafuyu was able to shake off the sad shackles of the past and start life anew. Now is this feeling mutual? Of course! Uenoyama dealt with the worry of “will he, won’t he” and by the end of the series, the audience seems pretty satisfied with the outcome and hope for the best of these sweet boys.

Fandom That You Didn’t Expect To Get Into: Domestic Girlfriend

2019 has given me surprise amounts of incest! This year alone I wound up watching several surprise incest anime plots including Kiss x Sis, Marmalade Boy, and Eromanga Sensei. And those of you who are not on the up-take, surprise incest is primarily a love plot involving your step-sibling. But there was just something about Domestic Girlfriend that I just couldn’t shake. I couldn’t believe I binge-watched this entire series. I couldn’t believe I picked up the manga immediately after the finale. I couldn’t believe…that I didn’t despise this anime! Yeah, usually anything with even a whiff of incest, I throw in the trash and put a bullet through its head. This one, I did not.

Simple story! Boy named Natsuo fucks a random girl and also has a crush on his teacher. Natsuo’s father tells him he’s getting remarried. Then, BIG BOMBSHELL, the random girl that got fucked and his teacher are now going to be his step-sisters. Concept alone was just fifty shades of messed up. I mean, who the heck do you root for in this situation? Throughout the 12 episodes I went back and forth either rooting for Rui or Hina. And for episode, I rooted for Miu, the cute literary girl. I was so intrigued that I had to dig through the manga for more answers. But I enjoyed this trashy soap opera! I doubt it’ll get a sequel, but it was…fun for the most part. Too hot for television fun! And if that makes me trash, well call me Forky because...

Yeah, I can admit that freely now.

Fandom That Made An Unexpected Comeback: Fruits Basket

*squeals* I never thought this would come back into my life. One of my all-time favorite animes was returning with a reboot. AND IT WAS GLORIOUS! Oh sure, the first half of this series was literally a shot-for-shot remake of the original Studio Deen anime. But even that was enough to make me love every frame of it. Fruits Basket was just one of those animes that grabs you with the intriguing tale of a cursed family that changes into members of the zodiac. Then they take you on a fun ride with silly moments like Kyo and Yuki fighting each other or Ayame telling his ridiculous stories or Hatsuharu flashing some guy his junk. But then this series takes you on a detour of the most heart-wrenching stories involving heartbreak, bullying, gangs, abandonment, and hiding your true self.

This show re-introduced us to the many colorful and complex characters that exist. From the ultra-flaymboyant Ayame to the complex Ritsu! Many of these characters have severe baggage coming and going and you just wish the best for them. And seeing Tohru reach out to just about everyone in her own way, to tell them she’s there for them and she accepts them all for who they are, it just gets to you. 18 years was too long to keep this gem away from us. Welcome back Fruits Basket, we missed you.

Fandom That Inspired the Most Crack: Zombieland Saga

I know it came out last year, but I got the opportunity to finally watch it this year. And it was every bit of crazy as people told me it would be. Who would have thought mashing zombies and idol shows together would be a good idea?

Seriously! You’ve got Mamoru Miyano voicing the craziest character to date, who’s a necromancer who brings back seven girls from the dead. Puts special makeup on them to fool unsuspecting audience members! All to bring life back to the Saga prefecture. Add another layer to the WTF cake, these dead girls are all from different times including 2008, 1997, the showa period in the 1980’s…you even have one from the freakin’ 19th century! But that’s not all! These girls end up becoming an idol group singing different kinds of genres. One episode they’re head-banging to metal rock and the next IT’S A FRIGGIN’ 8 MILE RAP-BATTLE! And then you have this one girl named Yamada Tae. She doesn’t speak and usually makes weird noises throughout the entire series, but we don’t care! We freakin’ love her! And even with the oddball girl, she’s not the craziest character on here. Who needs a Best Girl category when you know the best girl is just going to be the crazy dude in the shades!

I’m absolutely cereal on this! Kotaro Tatsumi STOLE this show for his own! With his crazy antics, constant shouting random phrases every five seconds, and eccentric behavior, this made for one of the most entertaining animes I’ve ever watched.

Last Fandom of 2019: Pokemon: Sun & Moon/2019

I know I spent the greater part of Sun/Moon bashing several aspects of the series. But Sun/Moon was gradually getting better compared to its slow start. This year we’ve got some extreme character growth from some of Ash’s friends and even pokemon. I was amazed to watch episodes featuring Lana, Mallow, and even Sophocles growing. Lana up against Kyogre, Mallow’s thank you to her deceased mother, and Sophocles mastering Z-moves, all of these were great! Add to that, a Pokemon League that showed all of us up after 20 years of disbelief of Ash ever winning a competition. Where HE WON THE FUCKING COMPETITION! With the exception of one of the matches, this Pokemon League is definitely one for the history books for Ash. From his epic dog fight with Gladion, to the six-on-six with his mentor, to taking down a massive Ultra Beast, to taking on an island deity! All leading up to one of the most beautiful goodbyes and finale! Seriously, I screamed balls when I saw a pregnant Professor Burnet.

And my high continues with the new continuation of Pokemon 2019 (yeah, still the name). First of all, praise Arceus the animation has improved! Secondly, I am fully digging Ash and Gou traveling together. In answer to your question, yes I’m already shipping the hell out of them. Third, having these boys travel all around the pokemon world has given me so much hope in the world. The boys are going to be traveling the pokemon world revisitng old places including Hoenn, Sinnoh, and Kalos. I know I was disappointed in Ash not soley traveling to Galar and having Pikachu wear a Sherlock Holmes hat, but this I can’t cast to the side.

…

And yes, I support Ash x Gou like a beast!

254 notes · View notes

stonecoldjerseyfox · 4 years

Text

Jersey on my mind (part 20)

The sun rises and slowly transforms the pitch black night into early morning, then into forenoon. Daryl observes how the quiet community, as if it had been in a coma overnight, slowly wakes up. He sees people come out of the houses, hears Carol calling out ‘breakfast’s ready’ inside the house and the clinking of forks, spoons and knives against plates. But he doesn’t move from his spot at the porch stair.

Ever since he and Jersey handed over the watchtower to Eric and another Alexandrian that he haven’t bothered to put a name on and Mila went to sleep for a few hours, he’s been sitting here, sunken in thoughts.

It’s too much to process somehow. Everything he feels, everything he found out about her; it’s overwhelming not knowing what to do with all of these swirling… whatever it is. She’s like a goddamn hurricane. All hair and hell. Damn, she’s pretty, beautiful even. And that accent. She talks a lot. She’s pragmatic to the point of being indifferent. Maybe because she was raised like a goddamn robot by a psychopath. She’s hot tempered, impatient, stubborn... and holy fuck, Daryl digs it. All of her; the big heart, the kindness, the humor and the sarcasm. It’s like booze mixed with cherry coke. The way she looks at him… or is it just a creation of his own imagination? Is he a complete idiot for thinking that she looked at him in a special way when they sat there together, in the dark, sharing that bottle of vodka? Could it be- no! Obviously she doesn’t- he’s a fool. But the way he felt, throughout his entire body and soul, when their hands touched, he definitely felt something. But that might just be it, his own stupid delusion. When she told him she’d been engaged, and declared that whoever gave her the ring was dead, Daryl felt like the devil himself for feeling relieved, but also bad for feeling like that.

The night has truly been peculiar, he thinks, while resting his gaze on a bird in a tree, trying to feed its squeaking nestlings. Parts of what Mila told him Daryl had recognized from his own childhood. He’d been beaten up many times by his old man, leaving deep scars that never faded. He’d been neglected and abused for most of his childhood, by everyone when it came down to it. But he was a boy. Not that it justified his father's actions towards him, but Daryl could at least, and used to, fight back. He was a pretty good fighter at an early age and knew he had to aim for the kidneys. But Mila was a girl, an unwanted girl who had to face the shame and blame for not being born as the son her old man so badly wanted. He’d reminded her every single day of her shortcoming, and she had apologized, and that (and when she told about the physical abuse, because that’s what it was, even though she didn’t refer to it that way) had hit him hard. How she somehow, even though she clearly despised and distanced herself from his actions, could talk about him with something that sounded like affection, Daryl found astonishing. Like she desperately cling on to the good memories, the few she might have. Was it a perfect example of Stockholm Syndrome, or just pure madness? She’d lived in a lie for almost her entire life, he’d murdered people; how was it possible that she was so indifferent after what she’d been through? Or maybe she just managed to conceal it behind a thick wall of oppressed feelings. He could understand that more than well in a way. But on the other hand it seemed like she’d turned her life around; she had a kid who she’d managed to keep alive. Her story had made him feel secure, less odd about his own history that he’d tried so hard to oppress, to push back into the deepest darkest corner of his soul, never to reveal to any living soul.

Daryl had never talked to anyone about his upbringing, in fact he’d never talked to anyone as he talked to Mila. Somehow she managed to get these things out of him, that he had previously buried deep inside himself, that he’d never in a million years thought he would tell anyone as he told her the other night. She treats him in a way he’s never been treated before.

Daryl twitches when he feels a thug on his vest. He removes his chin from the stock of the crossbow and turns where he sits on the porch stairs.

“Hey kiddo.”

Juri smiles and sits down on the stairs next to him. He’s dressed in dungarees and boots, has seemingly managed to dress himself this morning, but has failed to tie the shoelaces that dangles around his soles.

“That won’t do. Come here.” Daryl waves his hand and nods at the shoelaces that flutter in the wind. The boy obediently raises his foot, Daryl takes it and puts it to his knees and begins to lace the small boot. “Gotta tie ‘em up good, or they’ll fall off ya’ feet.” he says and ties the shoe steadily, but not too tight. He doesn’t want to be responsible for causing Jersey Jr. a broken foot.

Daryl ties the other shoes too, then they sit there next to each other, quiet. Every now and then the boy snails up at him curiously. When Daryl snails back, Juri looks away, giggling. He’s kinda funny, Daryl thinks to himself and smiles. Cheeky, a li’ rascal.

“Ya’ mum’s not up yet?” he asks.

Juri shakes his head, then makes a snarling sound.

“She snores?” Daryl grins. “Yeah, ‘bet she does, kiddo. Heard ya’ were a snorer too.” He gives of a grunt, like a pig and Juri bursts into a big, faint, silent laugh. “Ya’ wanna go for a walk?”

Juri nods eagerly.

“Let’s go.”

Daryl gets up, grabs Juri under his armpits and lifts him up and places him on the ground. They walk around the pond, a walk that normally doesn’t take half an hour, but since his companion is only 3 feet tall, the pace is below average. When they arrive back to the house, Mila’s standing on the porch, shielding her face from the sun with her hand. Daryl once again gets all warm throughout the body and his tongue starts to crawl back up toward his palate. No, dammit! Juri starts to run towards her when he sees her, with three flowers clenched in his hand, that he picked next to the pond.

“For me!” Mila’s smile could light up the entire Safe-Zone if it would've been night, when he hands her the flowers. “Moya lyubov, thank you.” She looks up at Daryl. “Where are your flowers?”

“Didn’t pick any.”

“What a shame.” She stands up and looks at Juri. “You know what! Carol has been an angel, and made lunch for you, Romeo.”

Mila shoves Juri into the house, while the boy waves at Daryl from between her legs.

“Slept well?”

“Enough.” she answers easily. “I need to get out of here for a while. Gotta go find new shoes for Juri. What kind of mother lets her son walk around in heavy boots in this heat?”

“Good luck with that.” Daryl scoffs. “Getting past those assholes unnoticed won’t be easy.”

The sapphire eyes peers at him through the sun.

“Wanna join then?” She asks boldly with a grin. “Show off those hunter skills. Trust me, it’s easier to find game meat than a pair of kids size nine’s.”

Daryl snorts and looks around. It’s not an impossible mission, but foolish. On the other hand, he can’t just wander around in here. He’s convinced that she would leave on her own if he doesn’t follow, no matter how much he, or anyone else, opposed it.

“Gear up, Jersey.” He therefore answers and nods a little.

Mila smiles triumphantly, turns on her heel and enters the house. She returns minutes later, with the automatic rifle on her shoulder and a backpack, dressed in a worn, black leather jacket over the dark t-shirt.

“New jacket?”

“Not directly. I got it for my eighteenth birthday. Saw it in this store down in Ashbury Park and thought, ‘hey, I’d look so cool in that’, so Adam and Peter brought it to me.” She corrects her left boot with the other foot. “I love fun jackets! Fringes, embroideries- I'll be buried in this one, if that's the last thing I do.” Mila smiles. “Oh, and I told Carol we were going out.”

“What did she say?” Daryl asks, clenching his jaw. Some things are better left unsaid. Like sneaking off in the middle of what can be likened to a siege.

“Something like, have fun-” Mila replies and hurries down the porch. “And take it easy.”

They walk toward the wall, toward the place Daryl climbed to enter the Safe-Zone. Mila climbs onto the truck easily and soon they’re standing on the roof of the trailer, looking out over the landscape on the other side of the Alexandria walls.

“Head for the woods.” Daryl points. “The bike’s in there somewhere. Short run.”

Quickly and silently, they get down the trailer and start running towards the trees, into the woods.

“Ya’ know where to go?” Daryl asks as they find the motorcycle in the same place he left it.

“I have a strategy.” Mila replies. “Houses with toys and swing sets outside usually have kids stuff inside too.”

“Fine.” Daryl gets the motorcycle up and leads it up the road. “Let’s go find some swing sets.”

He straddles the motorcycle and scoots forward, to give her room to sit behind him. Mila throws her leg over the body of the bike and sits down on the leather seat and wraps her arms around his waist. Daryl takes a deep breath, tries his best to maintain a normal heartbeat.

”All right.” he coughs nervously.

He warns the engine once again before he kicks off. He can feel all of the power in the machine throughout his entire body. Behind him, Mila squeezes his waist and makes a delighted cry as he increases the speed as he maneuvers the beast on the desolated road.

“This is awesome!” Mila hollers into his ear.

A smile spreads on his lips and he speeds up, causing Mila to hug harder around his waist and laugh. They cruise around the nearby residential areas, scouting for children’s bikes in the driveways, basketball hoops, colorful slides and toys. Eventually, they find a street that seems to fill all the criteria. Daryl hits the brakes and the motorcycle stops next to a two storey house with a hoop and a climbing frame in the yard. Mila climbs off and takes her rifle, attaches the silencer over the barrel.

“Okay, let’s find some shoes.” Daryl states. “Lead the way.” Briskly, Mila starts walking toward the door, rips it up and raises the AK in front of her and walks into the house. He follows, cautiously listening for hissing sounds and dragging feets. It’s clearly not her first rodeo. Mila immediately starts looking in wardrobes, in the laundry room and in cabinets.

“Nope. Nothing.” she notes after a while. “Let’s continue.”

They leave the house and start walking down the street. Mila’s long hair blows effortlessly in the wind as they pass by abandoned houses, driveways and overgrown lawns. In the distance Daryl sees a lone, limping walker approach them in the street. He lifts the crossbow to his shoulder, aims and shoots. In the distance he sees it fall into a pile on the grund.

“That house seems promising.” Mila points toward a house with what looks like a homemade skateboard ramp in the driveway.

Daryl runs over to the walker, lying in a pile on the asphalt, to collect the arrow. When he turns, Mila has caught sight of a rotten creature, appearing from behind the molding ramp. With ease she lifts the rifle, aims and places a bullet in its head and it drops to the ground with a thud. With a crooked smile Daryl remembers what she said about the soup can. He then finds her inside the house, browsing the books in a bookshelf in the living room.

“Children's Books!” Mila holds up a book for him to see. Where the wild things are, Daryl reads from the cover. He’s never read it. On the other hand, his ma’ never read books for him and Merle. “There’s so many cute books here! Peter Rabbit, Paddington-” she grabs the books and puts them in a pile.

Daryl rests on the back of the couch, watches her stacking books on a chair. He’s amazed by how she engages her entire heart and soul to make sure that the boy has everything he could ever wish for. What would it have been like growing up like that?

With about ten children's books stuffed in the backpack, Mila then continues through the house in the search of a new wardrobe for Juri, faintly humming. Daryl finds a weapon cabinet where the owner forgot a Glock and a few boxes of ammunition, and Mila finds a pair of Chuck Taylor’s in Juri’s size.

“Half a size too big, but his feet will grow.” She states and puts the shoes in the backpack.

If he thought they were done by now, Daryl was mistaken. They therefore proceed to the house next door.

“You notice something?”

Daryl immediately turns all vigilant, looks around in search of hostility movements. Mila laughs a little.

“What?” Daryl scoffs, mildly irritated, and lowers his guard.

“We’re alone.” Mila says as they walk around a dense bush, once perfectly trimmed in a rounded shape, in front of the porch. “Like a little adventure. Pretty fun, right?”

She feels the door handle and nods. Unlocked. She pushes the door open and it goes up with a creak. Mila quietly walks into the hall, Daryl follows, with a gut feeling that something will happen. And his guts don’t lie. All of a sudden Mila’s pushed to the carpet by a walker coming at them from the left, followed by its two companions. The first one attacks Mila and Daryl’s grabbed by a male, missing an eye. Mila swears loudly, a muffled bang is heard when she shoots the walker right in the face and tries to get up from the floor. Daryl tries to pull away from the one eyed bastard, that clings to his vest. The rotting mouth and disgusting fingers claws to his torso.

”Watch it!”

With impressive force Mila grabs a hold of it by its shoulders, pulls it away from him and throws it into the opposite wall of the hallway. She takes her knife from her boot shaft and pushes it into its forehead. Daryl takes a hold of the last, remaining dead asshole and pushes an arrow deeply into its skull, forcing it down on the floor.

“Are you alright?”

“Ey, wha-”

Without another word, Mila lifts his shirt and searches his torso for wounds, or at least he thinks that’s what she does. Oh god, please don’t. Daryl gets intense chills of pleasure all through his body by her touch. Those soft, delicate fingers send shivers throughout his body in sheer delight. She withdraws, sighs in relief.

”Though it bit you.” she says.

“I’m fine.” Daryl replies, hardly meeting her gaze as he pulls the shirt down.

He tries to steady his breath, all while Mila still pants faintly. Their eyes meet, or are more like glued to each other. Daryl’s heart beats hard inside his ribcage, he can almost hear it like a drum inside his ears. Suddenly, before he’s able to say or do anything, Mila has thrown herself onto him, presses her lips against his in a kiss out of this world. It’s so sudden and so surprising that he can’t turn all flushed and angry, his usual defense mechanism in unfamiliar situations. But it’s also everything he’d ever dreamt it would be. Why would he withdraw? With her hands on each side of his face, her soft tongue finds its way in-between his lips into his mouth, exploring every inch of his mouth like a gold miner looking for nuggets. It’s mesmerizing, he’s never been kissed like this in his entire life.

He cups her face with his hand, the one not holding on to the crossbow, feels the soft skin towards his palm. It soon finds its way to her lower back, as he presses her body against his as she begins to guide them away from the hallway massacre, with the three dead corpses, into the other room. Daryl briefly presses her up against a wall, making a framed picture fall to the floor. The rough, passionate kissing turns into a frenzy of hands and heavy panting. Daryl drops the crossbow to the floor and steers Mila towards the dining table. He pushes her towards the table, while their fingers eagerly search for buttons and zippers during heavy breathing and intense eye contact.

He’s so excited, so frantically horny. Never before has he felt such a desire. He fumbles, all while Mila’s able to kick off one boot, push down her jeans and underwear, making them dangle around her leg and unbuckles his belt at the same time like a fucking magician. Daryl lets out a grunt as his palms run over her bare, soft thigh. He presses his forehead against hers and they kiss again, moaning into each other's mouths. Mila’s chest heaves rapidly underneath the t-shirt as she unbuttons his jeans, pushes them over his hips, releases his pulsating cock and drags him closer. She caresses him, touches him to the point of almost no return. Daryl ends it by grabbing her buttocks in his hands, lifts her up onto the table. She spreads her legs, pants breathlessly as she pulls him in between. Daryl grunts as he lightly fondles her, she’s so fucking wet. For him! That’s the most fucking incredible part, well, one of thousands right now. There is no darn turning back now. Without breaking eye contact, almost drowning in those sapphire eyes, while inhaling her scent, the floral and everything that enchants him, Daryl enters her, making both of them exhale loudly. She tightens around him and it feels as if he will come right away. Jesus christ, I can’t hold it, he finds himself thinking as he feels a rush of pleasure spread through his body, it won’t go. He starts to grind his hips into her, causing her to moan loudly, to dig her fingers into the back of his vest, as she jerks her hips forward against him. He lets out a low growl and starts to pound into her, making the table squeak, holding her in place while he with the other hand softly grabs the hair on the back of her head, not breaking their eye contact; all while a feverish heat runs through his body.

Dear god he doesn’t want it to end, but he can feel himself edging as her body clenches around him, and he realizes that it’s more than close. He can feel it, her entire body screams that she’s on the edge too. She lifts her head to the ceiling, as she reaches climax and the surge of warmth from her orgasm surrounds him. Daryl moans loudly into her neck, feels his entire body tremble as he digs his hips into her, as deep as he possibly can, exploding inside of her.

They gasp for air, as if there wasn't enough oxygen in the room, bodies trembling, but they don’t break eye contact. Something warm runs down his cramping thigh, bolting with his runaway pulse.

“Shit, I’m sorry.” Daryl’s whimpers, his voice breaks. He swallows, but doesn’t move, just keeps holding on to Mila’s body like a castaway clinging to a piece of board. “I’m sorry-”

“I’m not.” Mila pants with her fingers entangled into the back of his head, the other hand grasping the back of the vest. “I’m not.”

They remain like that for a few seconds; silent, trying to get a grip of the whole situation and what just happened, how amazing it was. Daryl lowers his eyes, for the first time in what feels like forever and with a soft movement he wipes away the warmth from her inner thigh with his thumb. He feels high on adrenaline, feverish, standing there with one hand under her left thigh and the other in a firm grip round her buttocks, welded together.

“I want ya’.” Daryl manages to utter between the heavy breaths, looking back at her. “Ya’ asked me what I want. I want ya’.”

Mila caresses his face with the other hand, runs it softly over his lips.

“I want you too.” She replies. Daryl’s uncertain, did she actually say that? The faint smile he gets, between the panting breaths, somehow says it all. ”You heard me, Dixon.”

#daryl fanfiction #daryl x oc #daryl dixon #twd daryl #Jersey on my mind #Daryl Dixon Fanfic #The Walking Dead fanficition #The walking dead fanfic #fanfiction #twd fanfiction #fanfic #twd fanfic #the walking dead fandom

29 notes · View notes