#anyway: coming up with a twist so convoluted no one can possibly guess it is OUT

[liesonthefloordramatically]

okay, Midst is very good, PLEASE listen to it, but also I realized that part of why I am so gleeful about Midst is that it not only features one of my favorite things (unreliable narrators) but also features one of my other favorite things (the narrative standing directly behind the characters with a gun)

case in point: spent the entirety of the episode last week feeling an intense amount of dread because I DID see the narrative standing directly behind the characters with a gun and then this week felt an intense amount of vindication when the gun fired

Rowan has said before that I am way too good at picking up on foreshadowing (I think I am a normal amount of good at it, but also recognize that I seem to correctly predict where things are going substantially more often than many of my friends), but also I am so gleeful that A. Midst does occasionally manage to clothesline me anyway (yes! it's fun to stop dead in the middle of the street due to Events and Revelations!) but also B. the narrative is built to be even more enjoyable when you pick up the foreshadowing because then the narrative is making pointed eye contact with you while standing behind the unsuspecting characters with a gun

anyway, this metaphor is getting away from me, please listen to Midst, I'm having a GREAT time

[thoughtspresso]

Predictions for Oshi No Ko Ending

1. Anemone will be the one to find Katayose Yura's dead body.

In Japanese flower symbolism, Anemones or Windflowers represent death, bad luck, and forsaken love. And it just so happens we have a character named exactly that, who happens to be the only other character apart from Katayose Yura who loves being in the mountains.

Anemone will likely be climbing the same mountains on Yura's wishlist, and just like before, The Crow might lead Anemone to the dead body.

It's like Akasaka-sensei decided Spider Lilies are already too obvious a deathflag so he chose a different flower.

I'm taking the bet that Akane might be the person who figures out the connection between Yura and Kamiki, or Miki-san might simply show up on the news as a statement about his "dear friend Yura" who "disappeared".

Akane might also give the head's up to Aqua that she thinks Kamiki murdered Yura, and that would be a reason for the two to spend more time with each other again. (Might shove a wedge between Kana and Aqua again, if Aqua isn't already doing that himself lmao.) Either way, it'd be a convenient way for Akane to attempt to both "save" Aqua and also help him accomplish his goals without killing himself.

2. The person who texted Frill Shiranui is Miki-san.

Sylvanes made a fairly solid guess that Frill Shiranui works for Kamiki Productions. Whether or not he was necessarily correct on this, I'm making the bet that Yura's "best drinking buddy" Miki-san is connected to Frill professionally, and goaded Frill into pushing Ruby into the spotlight.

Some speculators say this might have been Aqua's ploy, but I I think this was incorrect. Aqua agreed with Kaburagi that money comes first and Frill was a more reasonable choice commercially. He even said that Gotanda should "grow up" and not choose Ruby just because of his artistic integrity.

Apart from the friendly, casual tone of the text message that really sounds like the "Miki-san" persona and the image of decanted whiskey as his profile picture, I think Kamiki is actually praying for Ruby's success as a star.

In fact, I think people misunderstood why he killed Katayose Yura. He didn't kill Yura because his serial killer MO was simply because he liked killing up and coming megastars who shone brightly. He killed Yura because:

(a) He hates Stars who lie, who sell a persona to their fans that is vastly different from who they are as people, which is why he hated Himekawa Airi and Hoshino Ai.

(b) He killed Yura because he knew that the project being offered to her was the lead role in The 15-Year Lie. And simply, he wanted Ruby to play Ai's role.

In a twisted way, I think Kamiki believes he is protecting his children, and the public in general, from being lied to any further by celebrities like Yura who deceive the public with their feigned innocence.

Honestly? I think the reason he killed their mothers was to protect them from growing up with mothers who lie and abuse their kids.

3. Kana might play Hoshino Ai in The 15-Year Lie.

Okay, okay, okay, okay. I know. I know. Unhinged fan theory. I get it.

Even AquaKana stans think this is majorly unlikely to happen. I agree in that, I think it's insane. But I keep coming back to what Aqua meant when he said that, "Kana is so easy to manipulate", and "It's more convenient for me to build a good relationship with Arima right now."

People tend to say, he's making silly convoluted excuses again, he just wants to spend more time with her. But I think a man who is resolute in his goal to off himself by proxy of martyrdom doesn't care to date the person he was protecting from a love scandal anyway.

There are a few key reasons why I think Aqua's "using" of Kana will result in her playing Ai's role.

First of all, I think Aqua's plan is to play Kamiki, to portray him in the worst possible way, and expose him as the murderer through the film. Through this, Aqua will bait his father into murdering him too, and thus Aqua's death can be used as legal grounds for charging Hikaru Kamiki with Homicide.

As established above, I think Aqua doesn't agree that Ruby is the best choice for Ai's role. There are a lot of parallelisms baked in between Kana and Ai. Apart from the shot-by-shot remake of Sign is B, Kana is also the best person to get stabbed and deliver the lines, "Some day I hoped the lies would become true. / I did my best. I worked hard. I lied with all my heart. / To me, lies are love. In my own way, I thought I was showing my love."

Besides, you saw anyone else say these same things?

Uhuh, you guessed it:

So is Kana gonna get stabbed? Hopefully in a movie, yeah.

I think it could happen as a result of Kaburagi's dissatisfaction with Ruby's performance.

Kaburagi's "finalized" casting isn't final-final yet, really. We can see that he swapped Aqua to play Kamiki instead of Himekawa who will now play Ryosuke the university student/stalker here:

Which makes sense! Aqua looks like his father, is closer to his age during the time of the events, and Taiki's age and height also better matches Ryosuke.

And even though the paper says finalized on Ruby's casting, Kaburagi's still not completely sold:

I think the swap will come as a result of Ruby being severely overworked and unable to keep up with the demands of her role, and the Dome performance that she might want to prioritize. She may even outright collapse from exhaustion, as foreshadowed by Kana:

Apart from Akasaka-sensei absolutely trolling us to death by Ai x Kamiki on-screen romance being portrayed by twins, then just outright pulling the plug on that for fun, I think it'd just make sense for Kaburagi to say it's better if we pair Aqua with Kana for this role.

Ruby doesn't even have to collapse or anything. She's so loved up with the idea of Gorou-sensei right now, Aqua could literally just tell her "this is what's best for the plan, you trust me, don't you?" And she would absolutely just go with it.

I said before that I think up until Mem-cho pointed it out, Aqua was wholly unaware that Kana had a crush on him and joined B-Komachi just because of him. I think now that he has the awareness, he'll ask Kana to do it, first to help Ruby, but also because he can only trust Kana to play this role because she is "Special" to him.

A repeat of:

It really is the only way that this scene therefore makes sense to me:

Bonus: if the Shima D masterpiece film doesn't draw Kamiki's attention to her, Kana playing the role of Ai definitely will. And if she delivers the role with so much honesty, it might change the trajectory of the story altogether.

4. Aqua's plan will backfire.

I explained a little above and in a previous post that Aqua misunderstands Kamiki's motives.

While we all like to shit on Aqua for being the World's Nicest Master Manipulator, we have to give him credit for the fact that when it's used for saving other people, he's been really effective at spinning a public narrative in his favor. Like in the cases of Akane's suicide attempt and Kana's Love Scandal.

If the goal is to get Kamiki to stab him in plain view of the public, villify his father, and make it easy to convict him for homicide once and for all, I think he will fail.

Kamiki will not kill him or go after him. In fact, I think Kamiki will shed his Miki-san persona and reveal the truth: he was Himekawa Airi's rape victim, and Hoshino Ai was a manipulative person who seduced him with the prospect of true love, then abandoned him when she got what she wanted, which was a family.

In the absence of any evidence that he had anything to do with their deaths, Kamiki might even use this momentum of propaganda to make the public believe that he's happy to finally be reunited with his children that these terrible mothers took away from him.

Heck, Taiki might hate Uehara so much that he'd be relieved to learn about Kamiki? And if he really is connected to Frill, and if Kindaichi still cares about him, there might be real people who would back him up.

Then, it won't be until Akane works with Aqua and everyone to bring the murder of Katayose Yura to light that Kamiki would actually be brought to justice.

[iamanartichoke]

[please blacklist spoiler tags: #loki tv series spoilers, #loki series spoilers, #loki spoilers]

I need to talk about the Avengers. 

I just want to express how much I hate that the Avengers aren’t on the hook for all their time travel nonsense bc they were “supposed to” do it and Loki is on the hook bc he wasn’t. 

I mean, I am glad that they addressed it right away - that Loki was inadvertantly caught up in the Avengers' time meddling, and that apparently they were doing what they were supposed to and that's why none of them were on trial, but - there are two things going on here that I have issue with. One is, of course, the scapegoating of Loki once a-fucking-gain, but the other is that there's a legitimate problem inherent in framing the Avengers' deeds as The Right Thing So There Are No Consequences, especially because it directly leads to Loki (and only Loki) being scapegoated since, apparently, someone's got to answer for all of this. 

Why Were The Avengers Supposed to Undo the Snap?? 

Of all the possible options they could have gone with (such as reversing time back to just before the Snap happened), going back through time to gather the stones and use them to undo things five years later is, like, one of the worst?? Best case scenario, it implies that the TVA is ridiculously incompetent in managing the sacred timeline and worst case scenario, it implies that the TVA is ridiculously adept in managing the sacred timeline, if their goal is to have it be the worst possible timeline anyone could end up in. 

The Avengers may have done an arguably good thing in undoing the Snap - I don't disagree that those people should've lived - but they also royally fucked over a lot of things in the process and left Earth (and presumably many many other worlds) in total post-Snap chaos while fucking off to die be with their families and/or start new lives. 

This goes back to the plan itself. One of my many issues with Endgame is that not only is the plan convoluted and, frankly, stupid, but also I have a real problem with the concept of the Avengers just saving the world as they see fit, regardless of whether or not that's actually the best thing to do. (If the Russos hadn't done such a shit job with explaining what the Accords were actually supposed to do, then maybe this could have been addressed somehow - like, okay, together we may have the brains and resources to carry off this plan but does that mean we're the ultimate authority on whether or not we should? Maybe we should check with, like, the UN or something about this? [and it’s entirely possible the UN was mentioned and I have forgotten it bc I’ll be honest, I watched Endgame once and have bitched about it ever since.] I digress.) 

The narrative in Endgame and into the MCU beyond plays like the Avengers only care about saving the world when they stand to personally gain from it (they want their friends and family back, they want to feel like they didn't fail, they have unilaterally decided that what they want is the Best Thing for everyone) and once the Good Deed is done and the smoke clears from the battlefield, there's no concern with saving the mess of the world they created. 

TFatWS addressed so many of the problems with the post-reverse-Snap, which implies that the MCU (both in-universe and out) is aware that things are fucked up now. People's lives were literally ruined by what the Avengers did. Refugees are displaced. Humans are coming back to a world where they've been dead for five years and their loved ones have moved on and their homes have been sold and their bank accounts have been closed and they have no jobs. And that’s just on Earth. Yet no one (again, both in-universe and out) feels the need to hold the Avengers accountable for any of this. 

Plus, what about the people who died as a result of the Snap but not from the Snap directly? What about the planes that fell from the sky when the pilots turned to dust? The cars that crashed and collided when the drivers poofed? Etc. Like, fuck all of those people I guess? 

And who, exactly, is "supposed to" clean up the Avengers' mess now that the actual Avengers are either dead, old and living on the moon, or retired? Is it on Sam's shoulders alone (or, rather, Sam and Bucky's)? Is Peter Parker (yknow, the 15 year old Nick Fury went and recruited bc there was no one else) supposed to be fixing things? 

The TVA takes responsibility for none of this. They sit back in their nightmare DMV-esque office and claim that all is as it should be but my question remains: please explain to me how the outcome of the post-Snap universe is ultimately satisfactory to anyone besides the Avengers? 

There's also the fact that Loki figures out right away that the Avengers were engaging in some time travel shenanigans ("the cologne of two Tony Starks is hard to miss” lmfao Loki you snarky shit). Loki recognizes that there's been an opportunity created of which he can take advantage, but he isn't responsible for creating it. The Avengers messed up and created that opportunity so, even if they were supposed to be doing what they were doing, there are still no consequences for the fact that they made a mistake that allowed Loki to then branch off and create a new timeline. 

Let's also say that we accept that the Avengers were supposed to undo the Snap exactly as they did. Okay, sure. BUT: 

- Was Steve, then, also supposed to decide to fuck back off to the 1940s and marry Peggy (which created two Steves, right? The one who was married to Peggy all along and the one who was in the ice?? The TVA is just okay with two Steves?)? 

- What is the actual point of Stephen Strange having the time stone and using the time stone both to gain the advantage over Darmammushumuuyourmom (I’m sorry, I can’t remember his real name) and to look at all the possible timelines to figure out how to defeat Thanos? 

- How is it possible that there are 14 million potential timelines in which the Avengers failed if the TVA’s entire thing is that there can only be one true ring timeline to rule them all? The fact that Stephen can look ahead and determine so many outcomes based on the choices they're making would mean that people do have free will and that their actions aren't automatically dictated by what's “supposed to” happen. They had to make the right choices in order to get to the one timeline in which Thanos failed. 

- What’s the point of Stephen having to protect the time stone, anyway, if there are presumably a few others in Casey’s drawer?

- On that note, if there are a lot of infinity stones hanging around in the TVA’s desk drawers, what makes the original six the specific, correct ones that Thanos had to collect in order to pull off the Snap and why is it then those specific six the ones that the Avengers had permission to go back through time to get in order to undo the Snap as the Timekeepers intended?

- And actually, in fact, if there’s only one sacred timeline and anyone who fucks it up without permission gets “reset” (aka made nonexistent, along with their timeline branch) then, again, why does Stephen have to protect the time stone? Either anyone who steals it was supposed to, or their timeline gets eliminated and the theft ceases to matter. 

- Less significant but also still kinda significant is how Agents of SHIELD figures into all of this. The TVA knows that Loki killed Coulson but they don't know (or don't care?) that Coulson was brought back to life and proceeded, with his team, to go on and get heavily involved in time travel and going back and forth and bringing people from the past into the present? So the TVA is okay with Daniel Sousa leaving his timeline but not with Loki leaving his? 

... I have literally confused myself with all of this, so if anyone followed my train of thought here, congratulations and maybe you can explain it to me lmao. 

But here's my ultimate point: the sacred timeline that the TVA is tasked with maintaining is not sensical or linear. It's full of gaps and holes and people taking matters into their own hands to determine both their own fates and the fates of others. As a result, a lot of people suffer kinda needlessly based on the events in said timeline, and apparently it's perfectly fine for all of this nonsense to occur so that everyone else has some element of control - 

- but Loki is literally the only one who is told uh, actually, no, you are supposed to live a shitty life and die a pointless death and there's not a goddamn thing you can do about it bc it's supposed to happen. 

What in the actual fuck kind of logic is that??? 

Thus, either the TVA (and the Timekeepers) are grossly incompetent, or else they're extremely competent and also really fucking shitty beings who just enjoy the needless suffering of others. 

And somehow this is all Loki's fault!!

And then Mobius has the fucking audacity to say, to Loki's face, “you only exist to prop up everyone else and you, Loki Odinsonson Laufeyson mischief god and king of space lol, do not have any inherent worth or value as your own person. You were born to be a scapegoat and you will die a scapegoat and there's no getting around that, if we have anything to say about it.”

To quote Loki, in a very twisted way - yes, it's funny. It's absurd. 

Does, uh, does this make sense? At some point I crossed over from meta-writing into straight up ranting and so, well, here we are. 

[murasaki-murasame]

Thoughts on Higurashi Sotsu Ep1 and 2

After what’s felt like an eternity, we’re finally back to our good old fashioned anime about trauma and murder :)

Like with my posts about Gou, this will contain spoilers for all of the original series.

Anyway, thoughts under the cut.

Continuing on from how the second half of Gou went back in time to show Satoko’s descent into villainy, Sotsu is starting off by going back to Onidamashi and showing what was happening from Rena’s point of view, as a way of basically doing it’s own version of the answer arcs from the VN.

This isn’t 100% the same as either Onikakushi or Tsumihoroboshi, but effectively these two episodes were still almost entirely taken from material in the VN, which reminds me of how I still think that this show is more of a reboot than people would like to admit. Even if in practice it’s probably still better to just read the VN first and then watch all of this. I just feel like a lot of VN readers are going to end up kinda bored with this because of how much of it is just retreading stuff from the VN, like with the first half of Gou.

Anyway, I’m entirely on board with this being a new take on the answer arcs, and thus far I think the execution has been done really well. Rena ended up getting kinda sidelined in Gou, so I like how they’re really focusing on her perspective in this. It’s obviously not quite as in-depth as the VN, especially if this arc is just going to be one more episode long, but like with Gou I think they’re doing a great job of getting across the characterization and development without many internal monologues or anything.

Although this ended up basically playing out the same way as Rena killing Rina in Tsumihoroboshi, it turns out that this version of Rina has gone through the same sort of character development as Teppei did, and now she’s way more sympathetic than she was in the VN, with her wanting to cut ties with Rena’s father out of sympathy instead of just being out to extort all of his money no matter what. The way that this new series has been going about ‘redeeming’ it’s more evil characters has been kinda polarizing with people, but I think it worked out really well here. Partly because they don’t really spell out whether or not Rina has gone through the same process as Teppei with getting traumatized by nightmares of previous loops, and we just see her being a more sympathetic person instead. I think it also makes Rena’s actions here even more tragic, since in this timeline Rina would have left them alone if she’d done nothing, and by the time she found out about that she was already past the point of no return. It doesn’t exactly erase or make up for all of the shit that had already happened between Rina and Rena’s dad, though. It still makes sense why Rena ended up snapping like she did.

Which gets into the whole topic of Satoko injecting her with the syringe, which basically sealed the deal on Rena irreversibly going insane in this arc. In practice she ended up just going down the same path that she already did in Tsumihoroboshi without needing to be injected with anything, but it still raises the possibility that she might have been more willing to abandon her plans if she hadn’t been injected.

Sorta like how the VN was already about the inherent tragedy of how in a perfect world none of these things should have happened and nobody should have resorted to murder, this adds an extra layer of dramatic irony with how Satoko’s looping has caused a situation where the external forces triggering people’s insanity have been slowly going away, but because she’s so intent on keeping Rika in the village by mentally breaking her through continued tragedy, she’s having to go out of her way to force all these things to happen, when otherwise all of these loops might have ended up being ‘perfect’ if she’d just left it alone.

And just for the record, a lot of people seem confused by it, but I think Gou already made it clear enough why Satoko is trying to convince Rika to stay in the village by subjecting her to repeated torture. From a meta perspective, it’s all just about setting up the premise of Rika going through the original arcs again so we can have a part-sequel/part-reboot, but in general her whole plan with this seems to be to traumatize Rika enough that she’ll accept the idea that she’s being punished by Oyashiro-sama for wanting to leave the village. Obviously it’s a pretty extreme and convoluted way to try and convince her to stay, but Satokowashi went to great lengths to show how Satoko tried basically everything else she could think of to stop her without resorting to violence.

And yes, the point of ‘she should be able to just talk to Rika directly and work things out that way’ is an intentional part of the whole tragedy of the situation, lol. If this was a story where people were willing to calmly open up about all of their problems and achieve peaceful resolutions, basically none of this entire story would have happened. And honestly, at least on an abstract level, I can totally relate to that feeling of being willing to do literally anything instead of just talking to people openly, no matter how much extra time and effort it takes.

I also just don’t even think that ‘just talking about it’ would even be enough. Partly because Rika is really dead-set on leaving the village and would prefer to take Satoko with her instead of staying in the village just for her sake [which is the entire premise of what happened in Satokowashi], but also partly because in the long run this is more about Satoko’s personal trauma and her inability to accept leaving her childhood behind. No matter what she does, she’d have to eventually contend with the idea of her friends moving on in their lives, or the village itself changing.

She doesn’t just want Rika to stay with her, she wants to keep everything the same forever because this is where she feels safe and in control. And that’s just not something that you can actually achieve without, well, the ability to loop through time, lol. That’s also why I don’t really think it’s ‘unreasonable’ that Satoko was so willing to sit through Rika’s loops, and to enact her own loops. The looping isn’t just something she has to put up with to achieve her goal, it IS her goal. She isn’t exactly aware of it since she’s so focused on the point of keeping Rika with her forever, but what she wants is to keep repeating this time period forever, and that’s what she’s doing. 

Funnily enough I wasn’t really onboard with the idea of Satoko being the villain for most of Gou, but I guess by this point I’m a Satoko apologist, lmao. I just think her whole character arc makes a lot of sense, with her doing everything she can to cling onto the present and avoid the future, but obviously I also get why people think she’s irredeemable.

Either way, I’m kinda curious to see how the next episode goes, since it seems like there’s just going to be one more episode to this arc. It feels like there’s a lot still left to be covered, but maybe I’m over-estimating it. I think they still have to cover the flashbacks with Rena after she moved, her getting more paranoid about Keiichi until finally killing him, and then whatever happened with Rika and Satoko at the end of the arc, so hopefully that’ll fit nicely into one more episode.

I’m still curious to see what happens when we see Rena’s perspective on her fight with Keiichi, though, since there’s been so much speculation about it partly being a hallucination from Keiichi as he rapidly descended into L5 when Rena attacked him. There’s also still the possibility that they’ll reveal that this is an entirely separate timeline to Onidamashi, but I think that’d be a bit convoluted for no good reason. It’s be enough of a twist to just show that the fight scene went differently to how it was originally presented.

Other than that, I think that Rika probably ended up killing herself in despair at the end of this arc, and Satoko kills herself to jump to the next loop. I think that’ll all be pretty straightforward, but hopefully it’ll lead to an epilogue scene with Satoko and Eua.

After this, I guess the next three episodes will be the answer arc for Watadamashi, going by the Sotsu blu-rays being split into sets of 3, 3, 5, and 4 episodes. Unlike how this arc was very straightforward and predictable for people who’ve read the VN, I’m really excited to see what happens in the next arc, since Watadamashi was kinda confusing in a lot of ways, even after we found out about the Satoko stuff. But we’ll get to that when the time comes.

The third arc should then be an answer arc for Tataridamashi, but it’ll be interesting to see if they fit in Satoko’s perspective of Nekodamashi there as well, or if they push that to the final arc, or if the Nekodamashi arc will overlap both arcs. Either way, the fourth and final [unless they reveal more episodes or even another season later] arc will probably then continue on from the end of Nekodamashi and show however things manage to wrap up after that point. It’s really hard to tell how much time they’ll actually need after that to wrap things up, though, which is why I’m not sure if they’ll actually be able to finish things in these 15 episodes, or if we might get more later. Unless we get some major curve balls, I don’t really think it’d be that hard to wrap things up that quickly, but we’ll see.

Anyway, Sotsu is off to a great start, and I’m excited to see where it’s going to go, but mostly at the moment I’m just relieved that the last four months of my life are over now, and I can go back to live-blogging about anime where kids murder each other, lmao.

[welllpthisishappening]

First-Line Defensive Pairing

Of all the things they’d done in the last few months, spending the afternoon at the Museum of Ice Cream was one of the more ridiculous. Mostly because of the wooden spoons they gave out on the tour. Partially because it seemed Will Scarlet could not stop casting furtive glances at Belle French. Or the heels that always matched her dresses. Maybe because she kept answering his hypothetical questions. And maybe even because he was willing to drift far closer to genuine these days. At least when it came to his feelings for her.

————

Word Count: 3.7K AN: Take two! Ok, so apparently yesterday when I posted this Tumblr thought it’d be a really cool idea to just...reformat the entire story. With whole graphs in totally wrong spots. Anyway, here it is again. Just as ridiculous as yesterday. With just as many Will and Belle emotions. Because that’s a thing I’m doing now, apparently. Writing Blue Line-era Will and Belle. If you’d like more of these flirt-prone idiots, here is their first date and Belle getting annoyed that Will fought someone on the ice. Technically, this was part of the kiss prompts and was “height difference kisses.” I hope the five of you who are interested in this enjoy it. That includes @shireness-says​ and @eleveneitherway​ who are mostly to blame for this.

————

“I’m going to ask you a hypothetical question.”

Belle lifted her eyebrows. Let some of that light creep back in her gaze, a flash of amusement that regularly made Will’s stomach leap dangerously close to the base of his ribs. That’s why he did it. Maybe not the rib thing, partially because he wasn’t even sure that was the correct technical term. The rest of it, though. The eye thing. Sure. Definitely. One-hundred percent. Why he’d also made sure the little wooden spoon they’d been given at the start of this tour was still in the corner of his mouth; to guarantee absolute absurdity, and he figured that started when they decided to spend their afternoon at the Museum of Ice Cream, but he was willing to take it all a step further. 

In the absurdity factor, at least. 

Other things were—

Well, it wasn’t as if they explicitly decided to keep the relationship a secret. Not on purpose. Not really. Or come to any sort of legitimate agreement regarding the use of the word relationship. It never seemed...important, honestly. And that was a potentially problematic and lackadaisical approach to someone who made Will smile with an almost alarming consistency in the last few months, but she’d also sort of snuck up on him, and Ariel was going to be so annoying. 

About the whole goddamn thing. 

She’d never shut up about it, he knew. 

So he didn’t push. Belle didn’t, either. An unspoken agreement, that’s what it was. He had other things to do, anyway. Like get ready for a playoff run and ignore the lingering ache in his calves after the echo of Arthur’s whistle stopped ringing in his ears, and, ok, his apartment was starting to feel a little bit larger than it had in a long time, maybe since Killian had moved out, but that was fine. Cup runs did not come because someone was in a relationship. Will had seen that first hand. With Cap, of all people. 

Watched the way his whole life had fallen apart around his ankles, little shards of hope and possibility that, Will knew, still threatened the structural integrity of Kilian’s internal organs and all four ventricles of his heart, and he did not understand enough basic biology to be making those sorts of sweeping observations, but Robin had lost someone too and that had been horrible and tragic and—

If Will simply did not want to jinx things, then that was neither here nor there.

Relationship’y speaking. 

It was good. They were good. He hated the wooden spoon they gave them to taste test half a dozen ice cream flavors. 

He was legitimately worried about getting splinters in his tongue. 

No excuses could possibly reason away that problem pre-game. 

Belle’s eyebrows were still in the same spot. “You going to follow up on that, or…” “Would you burn a Gutenberg Bible? To stave off the apocalypse and or potential frostbite?” “Those two things go together, do they?” He shrugged. “In this instance, yeah, because—” “—Well, it wouldn’t matter,” Belle said, eyes flitting towards the overly enthusiastic tour guide and the seemingly never-ending history of ice cream, “because I wouldn’t allow myself to be in that position. And I don’t live anywhere near the Public Library. What would I be doing there when the freeze-wave came?” His stomach. Did that thing. Jumped and twisted, got a ten from the Russian judge on its floor routine. He was cautiously optimistic he’d be able to pull off a flawless beam performance too. It was an exceedingly convoluted metaphor. Wrong Olympics, too. 

“Does salt air give you mind-reading powers?” “You’re not nearly as subtle as you think you are,” Belle grinned. Moving her hand faster than he was entirely prepared for ensured that he nearly dropped his small plastic cup of churro churro ice cream. He made noise. Without trying. A hiss and a grunt in the back of his throat that then led to a sound escaping between Belle’s half-hearted scowl, and that sound was closer to a giggle than either of them would ever admit and just enough to mess with his mental faculties a little and the tour guide stopped talking. To stare straight at them. 

Color lifted on Belle’s cheeks, ice cream-covered spoon held awkwardly between them. 

“As you were, ma’am,” Will said, all false bravado, and that was something of a trend. In several different capacities. It was far too depressing a thought to have while eating cinnamon-flavored ice cream. 

Belle elbowed him. 

And the tour guide got back to her to spiel. Without a reprimand. 

“Say freeze-wave again without laughing.”

Her eyelashes were more of a problem, honestly. Than the eyebrows. Or the specific jut of her chin Will had rather quickly learned meant she was ready to challenge him on some ridiculous topic, fully prepared to argue a position she might not have otherwise agreed with. Only because it wasn’t what he was arguing, and it was easy to understand why she won that Model UN award. 

Plus, her eyelashes were just stupid long, and he thought she was really pretty. 

Like in a fundamental sort of way. 

“Freeze-wave,” Belle enunciated, pausing between syllables for maximum effect, “are you asking me Day After Tomorrow questions because of the ice cream, because I’m a librarian or because you’re the strangest man alive?” She finally ate the rest of the ice cream. It was starting to melt, that was why. This was very melt-prone ice cream. “Oh, shit,” she mumbled, “this is really good. Better than mine.” Something popped in his shoulder when he reached towards her plastic cup. He wouldn’t tell Ariel about that, either. 

“Which kind is—” Fighting off the objections of a small librarian who resolutely refused to wear anything except heels, no matter what the weather was like, was not usually as difficult as it was in that moment. Will assumed it had something to do with sugar. Or the force of his smile. Robbing the rest of him of energy and the ability to fend off either one of Belle’s fists. “Why are you like this?” “You didn’t want to try peanut and pretzel. With peanut butter swirl.” “Swallowed the flyer for this place while I wasn’t looking, huh?” Sticking her tongue out was distracting. Almost enough that he didn’t notice the absolutely atrocious attempt at impersonating his voice. “Oh, no, no, babe, I don’t want that; you can get peanut butter anywhere. That’s not special.” “Well, it’s not.” “I’m a big fancy hockey player, and I know everything there is to know about ice cream flavors and the potential life-changing palette moment that comes from the sublime combination of salty and sweet.” “Oh, now you’re just taunting me.” Her eyes narrowed, that time. His smile was going to permanently stretch out his cheeks. “You have a disgusting mind.” “You can’t get churro ice cream everywhere, babe.” “I’m going back to get honey later.” Will hummed. Stuck his lower lip out. Noticed that flash return. And hoarded it. Like a relationship—

Ah, fuck. 

“Would you burn the Gutenberg Bible?” Her laugh was quickly becoming his favorite sound. Which wasn’t bad, per se. Was just kind of passably concerning. God damn. It was the heels. All of them kept matching the dresses she wore. She kept wearing dresses. 

Of course, that was going to mess with Will’s head. 

Belle shook her head. “No.” “Historical significance?” “Well, once again, I would not be in that position, would have listened to science and fled to warmer climates, so as not to make myself prey for escaped...what were they? Tigers?” “I honestly can’t remember,” Will admitted. 

“This was your hypothetical!”

Heads snapped their direction. Frustration creased the tour guide’s forehead, and they’d paid extra to learn about the history of ice cream. Will had already known about the origins of the ice cream cone, though. So, the whole thing felt almost like a raw deal, and he was far more interested in preserving the color in Belle’s cheeks. He saluted. Who he was saluting was anyone’s guess, but it very likely was the otherwise unengaged teenage kid trudging behind his family who absolutely recognized Will. 

“That’s going to end up on sixteen different social media sites,” Belle warned, not quite able to get her voice to an appropriate whispering level. 

“So long as he got my good side, you won’t hear me complaining.” “Do you have a good side?”

“Sweetheart, the self-confidence. God.” She squeezed her eyes shut. While practically beaming at him, and Will had to bend his knees to reach, something else creaking in the process, but that was fine, and good, and pretty goddamn fantastic because her lips tasted a bit like chocolate. 

“‘S’not your best work,” Belle mumbled, almost entirely into his mouth. 

“Brain freeze.” “I would burn no books. That’s my final hypothetical answer.” Her eyelashes must have existed purely to torment him. Leaning back made it clear when they fluttered back open, and he swore there were flecks of gold in her eyes. Maybe he was melting, too. With the ice cream. That was almost poetic. “None at all? What if you were going to die?” “Maudlin.” “I don’t know what that means.” “Liar,” she challenged, another smile tugging at her mouth, and Will was clearly staring at her mouth. Stained slightly with chocolate, as it was. “I stand by it, though. The book stuff, not the commentary on your burgeoning intelligence.” “You want to find a corner to go and make out in?” Different laugh. The kind that came with her head thrown back, hair tickling Will’s forearm because at some point his arm had found its way around her, and touching Belle was becoming something almost close to second nature. “I could keep complimenting you if you want,” Belle said, “or I could give you my reason for not burning books.” “You’re a giant nerd, that’s why.” She clicked her tongue. “Very, very cute nerd, though.” “Betcha say that to all the girls.”

His stomach stilled. Dropped a few inches, for good measure. Below where it was supposed to be, and inching dangerously close to his feet, and what Will could not imagine was a very sanitary floor. The Museum of Ice Cream had a giant sprinkle pit. Nothing about that seemed very sanitary. 

“I think stories have a purpose,” Belle said, still not quite whispering but definitely getting there, and he knew. Knew she knew. What he was thinking and feeling and unspoken understanding was quickly becoming the name of this particular game. With them. 

Where it wasn’t a game at all. 

Damn. 

Ariel was going to be so annoying. 

“No matter what they are. Shitty as they can be, all those ups and downs, and ridiculous, often unnecessary melodrama. It’s going to matter to somebody. Someone, somewhere, will be living their life and read those words or see those letters, and they’ll think, wow, whoever wrote this, gets me, and it will change everything for them. They’ll go back to it. Find solace and safety in it. Themselves, maybe. They’ll believe everything will be ok. Even if they only think that while they’re reading.” “Don’t forget audiobooks,” Will muttered, voice strangled and tinged with emotion. In the ice cream museum. Figured, honestly. 

Belle pinched the side of his wrist. 

“Ow. Avoid the bruise further up, please.” “Did you get hit?” Nodding took more energy than it should have, too. She hadn’t been to a game. He hadn’t asked her. What an idiot. “Not bad though, that’s just—” “—Par for the course.” “Mixing idioms, mon trésor.” “Oh, I got that one, actually.” “Slow pitch softball, that’s why,” Will reasoned, some of the tension he wasn’t especially pleased by loosening. 

“I think we’re on a roll now.” He hummed. Nodded, again. Curled his fingers into the back of Belle’s dress. Blue, that afternoon. With matching heels. “It all matters,” she added, soft and earnest, and his eyes snapped. To her and with her and that second one didn’t make sense, not really, but he was and wanted to be and that absolutely terrified him. 

Of it all falling apart again. Of it not being enough. 

He wasn’t enough. 

A story no one was ever all that interested in finishing. 

“You think?” Belle nodded. “Why’d you start playing hockey?” “Quite a transition.” “Tit for tat, or—no, no, c’mon don’t look at me like that.” Red stained her cheeks, now. Making it difficult to concentrate on anything else, although the desire to kiss her again was a fairly strong second, and that kid was taking more pictures. “That’s not fair.” “You’ve brought this on yourself, babe,” Will argued, and he hoped Lucas didn’t yell. At him. He’d never really listened to the social media rules. “It’s a very long, occasionally depressing story about a kid and his single mom, the second of whom often worked her ass off and her fingers to the bone, and all those other delightfully visual clichés. But then! Who would guess, she got a job picking up extra shifts cleaning at the rink in town. Home to the world’s shittiest ice and loudest Zamboni, it instantly drew the attention of our kid-like hero. 

“He was...infatuated, let’s say. With the sounds, especially. Nothing sounds like that first scrape of skates on fresh ice. Full of possibility, you know?” Belle didn’t answer. Will kept talking. “Best noise in the world. And then he learned there were other noises. Pucks hitting the back of nets. Sticks clanging together. Grunts and groans and the game itself, how loud it was. Helped silence some of his thoughts, none of which were ever very good. Lots of worries, some about his very dead sister, then a few more about that mother and her predilection toward clichés.”

“Good word,” Belle murmured. He kissed the top of her hair. The kid was openly staring at them, now. 

“Anyway, the crux of the story is that the guy who owned the rink agreed to let the kid play on the rink. Knew the mother, understood her situation, and hockey is expensive. Like, well, we spout all that bullshit about hockey is for everyone, and I’ve got to stand up there and smile and nod and agree, and it’s fucked up because it’s not really true. Hockey’s for rich kids and families with regularly functioning alternators in their car.” 

He shook his head. Had to. To chase away the memories and the cobwebs, and Cap knew this, too. Understood it, even. Remembered a life before the Vanklads, and not every kid got the Vankalds, and sometimes Will let himself wonder what would have happened if he’d found the Vanklads. Or their upstate New York equivalent. 

Gotten better shin pads, probably. 

“Hockey’s an exclusive sorta club,” Will continued, “gotta know someone who’s related to someone else, and they know someone who played, and it’s six degrees of increasingly desperate separation. By some lucky twist of fate, though, Jimmy Newell knew some bastard who knew somebody else, who saw me play, and you don’t say no to USA Developmental. Spent two years in Minnesota, way before Cap did, so he doesn’t get to claim that state as his own.” Belle’s lips twitched. “Good to know, for argument’s sake.” His stomach was becoming a problem. 

Heart, too. 

Sputtering and slamming, uneven beats that were going to leave another bruise. Will licked his lips. 

“I went to Developmental, declared for the draft, got picked by New York, went to college, stayed in college, and the rest is history. As they say.” “They do say that, yeah.” “What’s the next question, then?” “How do you know there’s another question?” “Shot in the dark,” Will shrugged, but that was a lie, and it was getting increasingly easier to read that pinch between her eyebrows. “So, hit me.” “Literally?” “Please do not literally hit me. Locksley’s been feeling the forecheck the last couple’a practices.” “I know what that means!” Someone shushed them. Will couldn’t imagine the color will ever leave Belle’s cheeks. 

He kissed the bridge of her nose. 

“Who’d you get to teach you French?” “Who said I didn’t just learn French on my own?” “Babe,” she chided, and, well, that was the tipping point. As they say. To his heart and his stomach and—

“You wanna come to a game this series?” Belle blinked. Once, twice. Leaned back. Tilted her head. Likely waited for the camera crew that was inevitably lurking in the corner he was cautiously optimistic they’d make out in eventually. Didn’t happen, though. There was no camera crew. 

Just Will Scarlet, professional hockey player, and part-time sap. Standing in one of the more nonsensical museums they’d been to in the last two months. Although they did go to the transit museum on three separate occasions, and he could honestly say he didn’t expect that. 

So, maybe this was all just—

Par for the course. 

He’d have to make some sort of deal with Eric. To make sure Ariel didn’t proclaim her relationship-plotting victories from a variety of rooftops. Someone in front office had to know someone else with Empire State Building connections. 

Zelena probably did. 

Ariel would use that. 

“Where would I sit?”

He pulled her. Up. With an almost violent amount of force, threatening the safety of both of Belle’s shoulders in the process. But she’d asked the one question he hadn’t totally considered in his half-plotted plan, and getting his mouth back on hers was an acceptable diversion. Plus, she looped her arms around his neck pretty quickly. 

Which had to count for something, he figured. 

One hand cupped the back of his head, pulling him closer. Like he had any intention of being anywhere else, swiping his tongue against Belle’s lip and swallowing her sigh. They were still in public, technically. Her feet trailed the multi-color carpet beneath them, Will’s arms tightening and his palm flat against her back and her spine, and if she kept rocking up like that, he was going to do something drastic. 

Something in the same realm as melting, probably. 

Strands of hair tickled his skin, making him tilt his head and alter the angle, and that was entirely appropriate, but getting kicked out of the Museum of Ice Cream would probably make an absolutely fantastic story. Once they told people they were—

Doing whatever it was they were doing. 

They’d get there eventually. 

“Cap’s sister-in-law is coming,” Will said, not entirely able to catch his breath, “wants to see Kris and—” “—Should I know who that is?” “Works in equipment, and that’s not really the point.” “What is?” “That Little Vankald isn’t super interested in listening to Cap be full older brother on her and, far as I know, is fully capable of getting tickets wherever she wants. Can sweet talk the gold out of anyone’s pockets, and—” “—Wait, wait, are you equating hockey tickets to gold?” “When I’m playing, ma choupette.” “Is that cabbage?” He hummed. Nearly tripped over his own feet trying to hold onto Belle and the mostly melted cup of ice cream and paying for more churro ice cream made perfect sense. At the moment. “One of the kids at school was French Canadian,” Will explained, “used to swear all the time on the ice, and then he’d use stuff like that.” “You’re sharing endearments with a trash talker.” “More or less, yeah. Used to infuriate other guys.” “Who wants to be called a cabbage?” “I think you’re super cute.” Belle scowled. Didn’t argue, though. And Will refused to linger on the beat of his pulse. “I’d really like it if you were there,” he added, “Little Vanklad’ll be cool about it. She owes me. I fed her for a very long time.” “Did you just?” “I make incredible garlic bread; ask anyone.” “Wow,” Belle drawled, “just like people on the street, or…also, do you call her Little Vanklad all the time?” “To her face and behind her back with startling regularity. Not everyone gets my French endearments, babe. Consider yourself lucky.” 

She scrunched her nose. 

Stayed silent. All Will could hear was the soft explanations of the tour guide, and the questions from tourists who probably also thought going to the Museum of Sex made them edgy. After they bought a STRAND tote bag. God, maybe he was a dick. A judgmental dick, who still had too many thoughts and used an occasionally violent game to silence them by making sure he was the one dictating the noises and the trash talk and—

“Hey, uh, Will...Mr., uh—Mr. Scarlet? Do you think we could get a picture?”

Belle’s lips disappeared. Behind her teeth, and that didn’t do anything to temper the sound of what might have actually been joy. At the prospect of the staring teenager and his photo request. 

In the goddamn Museum of Ice Cream. 

Giving a jerky nod, Will quickly scanned the kid for any team-branded, but it didn’t look like he was wearing merch and that was a rather small miracle. Far as those things went. 

Still, he had been in the middle of a pretty intense internal dialogue and potential freakout, and there was going to be ice cream on his hand if he didn’t throw this cup away. 

Belle took the phone. 

The kid’s phone. 

“Smile,” she instructed, and Will tried. Really. He hoped he didn’t end up looking like a murderer on Twitter or Instagram or whatever kids used, and he had no idea when he got that old. When things started to freak him out, and he let the nerves claw back in, and the worry take root and—

“Hey,” he said before the kid could walk back to his parents and their matching STRAND tote bags. “You think you could take a picture of us, real quick?”

No one had ever moved faster. 

In, like, the history of photography. 

Circling an arm around Belle’s waist, Will’s smile came a bit easier and that was good because he was totally unprepared for what happened after that. Another instruction and flick of someone’s thumb, but then Belle was on her toes, even with the heels, and her lips were pressed against his cheek and it was like some sort of really exceptional sugar high. 

Without the threat of inevitable crash. 

Will didn’t think so, at least. He was also pretty positive it wasn’t tigers in The Day After Tomorrow. Wolves, maybe. 

“Tell Little Vankald to save me a seat.” “I mean, I don’t think you should call her that.”

Her teeth grazed his jaw. Both of them were laughing in the picture, the kid’s eyes going impossibly wide as Will thanked him. “How hard you think it is to set up an Instagram account?”

[miraculousbelladonna]

Look What You Made Me Do

This is some salt inspired by Taylor Swift’s song ‘Look What You Made Me Do’ and @miraculouscontent’s LadyBugOut AU (go read it. it’s AMAZING)

Summary: So maybe she’d let Lila’s stories be true. She’d become what they all already thought she was. She has nothing left to lose. (AO3)

Marinette was sick of Lila. Sick of her pathetic easily debunked lies and convoluted stories.

She was sick of her classmates and her so-called “friends.” Sick of them letting themselves be manipulated. Lila was honest for once when she said she only told them what they wanted to hear, which meant that they wanted to believe the worst of her. They were too quick to turn on her for it to have been anything else.

So maybe she’d let Lila’s stories be true. She’d become what they all already thought she was. She has nothing left to lose.

She showed up to class early, well, early for her. Everyone was already in class, just chatting, a handful of people were clustered around Lila as she told an astoundingly bad fake story about Rihanna promising her she’d name the next Fenty Beauty product after her.

Adrien was sitting next to her, as far away from her as he could be while still physically being on the bench, and he smiled and waved at her as she walked in. No one else did. She waved back, but didn’t smile. She was still pissed about his “taking the high road” nonsense. She knew he was sheltered and naive, which isn’t his fault, but she thought he’d have the grace to admit he was out of his depth when it came to school bullies. At least he offered her support, even if his words ended up really meaning nothing because he never followed through.

She walks towards Lila’s table in a deliberate manner that has everyone clustered around the liar looking and glaring daggers at her. She just shrugs at them and keeps walking, humming to herself, and as she walks by Lila’s table, and her bag on the floor, she kicks it down the stairs, walks to her seat, and waits.

Everyone is gasping and gaping at her. Lila has turned to her, big sad eyes already welling with crocodile tears, already whining in about 3 octaves too high than Marinette wants to deal with this early in the morning, about “Marinette! How could you do that? How could you kick my things away like that?” Cue fake sobs that wrack her body and everyone glaring at her even harder. “I thought you were so nice! I only wanted - I only wanted to be friends!”

“Hmm.” She hums aloud, letting her mouth spread into an easy sharp grin that has everyone stepping back and has even Lila’s eyes widening a little in fear. “No. You didn’t.”

“Girl!” Of course, Alya cuts in. Jumping to Lila’s defense like she used to jump to hers. Same old routine. “I can’t believe you just did that to Lila’s stuff!”

“Can’t you though? I mean, Lila’s been claiming for months that I’ve been bullying her, threatening her, and you’ve never seen me do it, but you believed her, didn’t you?”

Alya sputters with rage at the insinuation. She’s stuttering and spitting and utterly unable to get a single word out, and Nino puts his hand on her shoulder and turns a disapproving frown on Marinette. “Dude. That totally wasn’t cool.”

“Wasn’t it? I was just giving you guys a little proof. You all think I’m torturing the poor girl regardless of what I say, so why not just make her lies be true? It’s what you all expect of me! Especially considering how you’ve been treating me for the past couple of months. You can’t honestly tell me that you’re surprised, because then it would mean you don’t believe Lila and that she is in fact a liar. And we wouldn’t want anyone to be akumatized, now, would we, Adrien?”

Adrien is looking up at her, eyes darting between her and the rest of the class, not knowing what to say. Her gaze hardens the longer he stays silent, and they’re in a silent staring contest now, with Marinette’s smile getting wider and sharper as it goes on. He looks away.

She’s becoming something truly terrifying right before their eyes, and with the startling realization that they don’t know her anymore, the class starts looking around for akumas.

She knows now that Adrien’s word means nothing. It’s too bad she didn’t find out sooner. She sits back in her chair, drops the sharp scary smile, and everyone relaxes minutely. Adrien still isn’t looking at her.

“Oh, but Adrien, don’t worry! If anyone gets akumatized today it won’t be me. Not like you really cared in the first place, though. Am I right? Not about me or my feelings, at least. Anyways, nothing I’m feeling right now is negative enough to risk me getting akumatized, which is more than I can say about everyone else in this class right now. How many times would this be, Lila? Five? Six? Now I know Hawkmoth is a magical terrorist that takes advantage of people’s negative emotions, but I have to say anything more than 3 seems excessive. If I didn’t know better, I’d say it seemed almost like you want to be akumatized. Like you and Hawkmoth have some kind of deal. But of course, I’d never say anything like that without proof.” She spits out the last word like it’s a poison dart, and they all know just who’s heart it’s aimed at. Many of her classmates turn to look at Alya, who has paled and is now sitting in her seat frantically typing on her phone, looking more panicked after every result.

The eerie sharp smile is back on Marinette’s face, but this time, it’s smug. It’s knowing.

At that moment, Mme. Bustier rushes into the room with Mr. Damocles, Sabrina’s father, two uniformed officers, and a frantic and angry looking woman.

Lila pales as soon as she sees the woman come through the door, and she’s standing immediately, about to start spinning her web of lies before anyone can even speak, but Officer Raincomprix speaks over her, walking up to her with an open pair of handcuffs.

“Delilah Rossi. Hands behind your back.” She complies, still confused about what’s going on, still spouting nonsense about how surely it’s all just a misunderstanding, Marinette must have framed her or set her up, you see, she’s always had it out for her, this must be a mistake, but Raincomprix isn’t listening. “You are under arrest for collusion with a known terrorist, and aiding and abetting the aforementioned terrorist. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to speak to an attorney, and to have an attorney present during any questioning. If you cannot afford a lawyer, one will be provided for you at government expense.”

“You can’t arrest me! You don’t have any proof! Even if you did, I’m 15! No judge is gonna believe a bunch of wrinkly old men over a face like this! Besides, I’m the daughter of a diplomat. You can’t touch me. Tell them, mother!”

“Why do you think I’m here, Lila? The police came to me with this information and the substantial evidence against you, and I agreed to give them full cooperation. I have rescinded your diplomatic immunity. You will be punished to the full extent of the law, and hopefully in the process you will learn that your actions have consequences.”

The two uniformed officers all but carry a screeching, screaming Lila out of the class, and they all follow as she’s frog marched out of the building.

It’s when they’re on the sidewalk, about to shove her into the patrol car when it happens. An akuma is flying towards Lila as she stands next to the patrol car, and she lunges towards it. When she misses, when one of the cops grabs her arm again to get ahold of her, she twists out of his grip and runs towards it. She’s screaming “Hawkmoth! I knew you’d send an akuma for me!” She’s so close, and the entire class is split between trying to stop her or running as far away as possible, and then a yo-yo is sweeping through the air and capturing the akuma.

“Come on, Lila. Did you really think I’d let you get away with that again?” Ladybug says after she releases the purified akuma.

Lila is seething, and she lunges one more time, at Ladybug, but both of the uniformed officers have grabbed ahold of her again, so all she manages is spitting at Ladybug’s feet.

“Screw you, Ladybug. You and Marinette are two peas in a stupid pod. You’re both pathetic and fake and stupid. I’ll get my revenge.” The officers are now shoving her into the patrol car and all that can be heard is her screeching, “I’ll get her back for this!”

Ladybug steps up to Officer Raincomprix and Mme. Rossi and says, “I think it’d be prudent to get her out of the country as soon as possible, considering the fact that we’ve all seen just how willing she is to work with terrorists.”

Officer Raincomprix nods and says, “Absolutely. We’ll look into fast tracking her deportation.”

Mme. Rossi cringes and adds, “I’ll pay for it out of pocket if it’ll help speed up the process. It’s the least I can do after my daughter has been terrorizing your country and community like this.”

Ladybug nods and turns to leave, but Alya calls out to her, and as tempted as she is not to, she pauses.

“Yes, Mme. Césaire?”

“Well, I guess it’s kind of obvious from this interaction, but I have to ask, were you and Lila ever best friends?”

“No. We only interacted when I was purifying her akumas, and if she didn’t hate my guts before today, she definitely does now. We were never best friends. We were never even friends nor acquaintances. Which you’d have known, if you bothered to think about anything beyond getting views for your blog and asked me.”

Alya blanched at that, taken aback by the brutal honesty, and hangs her head in shame. “I know. I’ve learned my lesson. I’m sorry, Ladybug. It won’t happen again.”

“Sorry means nothing to me. Your words mean nothing to me. Don’t give me your empty promises. Don’t tell me you’re sorry. Show me you’re sorry. Don’t just tell me this won’t happen again, take steps to ensure it doesn’t. Take down the interview. Do your research. Trust your friends. Listen to them. Mme. Dupain-Cheng was the one who first came to me about Lila’s transgressions, and told me exactly what was happening in her classroom. What you all let happen. Do not ever let me hear about anything like this happening again. Understood?”

She looks up at the rest of the class that have clustered behind Alya while she was talking. “That goes for all of you. You are all on my list. I will be watching all of you, even when you think I’m not. You better not give me a reason to make a visit like this ever again.”

Alya is shocked speechless, and her classmates all look thoroughly guilty and shamed. It sends a thrill of satisfaction through her that almost makes her feel guilty. Key word: almost.

She flings her yoyo up and disappears from view, and touches down in an alley near the school to detransform.

Tikki flies up to her immediately and rests her entire self against Marinette’s cheek in as close to a hug as her tiny body can manage. “Oh, Marinette! That couldn’t have gone better if I orchestrated it myself! You were wonderful! I’m so proud of you!”

Marinette smiles and leans into the hug, heaving a sigh that releases all the tension she’s been holding in her over the past couple of months. She has no regrets. If any, it’s that she didn’t do this sooner.

She walks back into class with her chin up, shoulders back, and ignores every single sympathetic look thrown her way, every aborted wave to get her attention. She is above them all, and she always has been, but she’s just finally realized it.

*****

Her friendship with the class never goes back to the way it was. They’ve shown their true faces now, and she has forgiven them, but she will never forget. She’ll never forget how easily they tossed her to the side for the next shiny new thing. How readily, how eagerly they dismissed and belittled her. How quick they were to use things she told them in confidence, favors she did for them as tokens of friendship, against her. She’ll never forget the years of friendship and trust, something she thought was rock solid, crumbling like sand within a matter of mere months.

No. That trust can’t be built back up. It’s been swept away with the tide. It’s gone. There’s nothing left, nothing to build from, and Marinette doesn’t even want to bother trying. She knows now that it isn’t worth it, that she could never trust any of these people again.

Ladybug makes her own blog, the LadyBugOut, and makes her first post an official announcement that this is the only blog she’ll be endorsing from here on out, and all of the temporary heroes are being retired and will never wield any miraculous again due to things that have occurred in their civilian lives.

She pretends to be appropriately curious about why the majority of her class is down in the dumps the entire week after Ladybug makes her announcement, and tries not to seem too enthused when the views on LadyBugOut rise as the views for the Ladyblog start dwindling … and keep dwindling until Alya is getting tens of likes instead of the hundreds she was used to.

Nothing is ever the same, but that’s ok. It’s time for Marinette, and Ladybug, to move on. To be the hero she was always meant to be.

Now she has nothing holding her back.

[asterekmess]

my dude i have not watched the show (nor will i ever, when i can read metas upon metas, and your rewrite :P ), so I don't know much about talia hale 'cept for the fact that she was the previous alpha of the hale pack and that she was(? or at least seemed) understanding when derek had his eyes turn blue. i was wondering about your thoughts on talia hale, and on the significance of the blue eyes(like, is it a killing the innocent thing, or a guilt thing, or whatever else)?? thanks dude

oh man, so this might be totally convoluted, and I apologize in advance. Also, a Read More to save the civilians:

So, I haven’t seen the whole show and my knowledge of Talia Hale is limited/possibly incorrect, pls b aware.

But man, do I hate Talia Hale. So, we mostly just see her in flashbacks during the Reflection episode where Peter and Cora talk to Stiles about Derek and Gerard talks to Scott and Allison about Deucalion.

Peter and Cora, as I’m sure you know, talk to Stiles and explain Derek’s history with Paige and how he got his blue eyes. According to Peter, though the flashbacks the show gives us say otherwise, Derek was desperate to have someone bite Paige so that she would accept him being a werewolf and was convinced that as a human she would never be able to understand or accept him. Then it sort of...skipped any explanation of how it came about, but suddenly Paige is in the high school at night and Ennis shows up and bites her, and she immediately has a horrible reaction to it. Derek comes and finds her and...I really don’t understand how, but he somehow manages to get her all the way into the Preserve and down underneath the Nemeton in this root cellar that he and Peter used to go to or something?

Paige is dying and she admits to Derek she knew he was a werewolf the whole time because our boy isn’t subtle. Then she asks him to help her die, bc it hurts so bad. It’s fucking heartbreaking, but he mercy kills her. By the time his mom finds him and Paige’s body, Derek’s eyes are blue.

No one really actually explains what the fuck that’s supposed to mean. They say stuff about ‘taking an innocent life’ but...it’s so fucking weird and vague? Is it killing a human or killing someone who never killed anyone else, or just killing a ‘pure’ hearted person? Is it killing them with your claws or your wolf self, or does it include shooting someone?

They’re supposed to be a shameful thing, so lil Derek shows his mom his blue eyes and she calls them beautiful and it’s a nice moment, I guess.

But see, then she steals Derek’s memory of where the Nemeton is. For some reason that I can’t remember at the moment/wasn’t actually given. We know that shit hurts, btw. Claws in ya neck is not a pleasant sensation.

And apparently the whole Malia is Peter’s daughter thing? I had to have someone explain it to me bc my memory is shit, but apparently Peter was in love with ‘the desert wolf’ who...wasn’t a wolf she was a coyote or something?...and he gets her pregnant. and...talia doesn’t like that? Someone doesn’t like that? Anyway, once again Talia stole Peter’s memory of Corrine (is that her name?) so he had no clue that he even had a daughter. That’s the memory Peter asks Lydia to get back for him.

Now if I’m honest, those two instances are enough of a reason for me to hate Talia Hale. She’s presented in the show as being this Miracle Wolf who can full-shift (ALL HALES CAN FULLSHIFT, GET FUCKED JD) and who was like superstar Alpha of California or whatever. Known for her wisdom or whatever. Wisdom that apparently never included any plans that would protect her children in the case of a hunter attack, or keep them from revealing themselves to humans at their high school, or even allowing her fucking kid to know where the INSANELY POWERFUL NEXUS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE WOODS is.

Derek didn’t even get to know who Deaton was. Like, apparently Laura knew him as some kind of advisor, but Derek didn’t know. Why the hell would you keep Deaton a secret?

Obviously Talia had no idea she would die in a tragic fire that would take out the vast majority of her family, but it still doesn’t make sense to me that her second-eldest (going by the fact we were never told Derek had any siblings other than Cora and Laura) child wouldn’t know about the magical druid who was sworn to protect the family in the case of an emergency. Laura and Derek fled to New York because they didn’t think they had anywhere else to go. What kind of Alpha leaves their kids so vulnerable and without any kind of support system outside the main house?

Anywho, in my rewrite I took some creative liberties when it came to Talia Hale and some of the other...abnormal...things I’ve noticed that the tw universe does. I twisted a few things and snipped a few others and ended up with a slightly fucked up backstory that I think makes perfect sense. *shrug*

As for the blue eyes. I personally believe that blue eyes are a symbol of guilt, not a direct result of killing an ‘innocent’ person. If the shape you take reflects the person you are, then a guilty person (and I’m talking about guilt, like the bone-deep horrible shit that you can never rid yourself of) would have blue eyes. And...apparently it’s the same with all shapeshifters, since coyotes can have them too....???

Tw makes no fucking sense.

[albatris]

Wait that sounds cool tell me more about Bright and Burning Things? (If you want to ofc you definitely don't have to)

:D!!! of course, I can tell you some stuff!!! thank you for the question, I'm happy you think it sounds cool!!

this is not really a super sensical explanation, this is some rambles, as usual

so, this is a short standalone project of mine, it's uhhhh........ hm. something something fantasy comedy something. it's meant to be a bit of a light-hearted adventure, but as it is with most of my more silly stories, it takes a sharp detour into some "oof" territory c':

bits of the premise sound kind of Heavy but silliness and heaviness go hand-in-hand quite nicely I think

the central character is a ghost kid! this kid’s name is Max! the story kicks off right after they die and they’re being ushered onto the bus that will take them to the afterlife. as they are being ushered onto said bus, they’re like “holy fuck wait no” because they have unfinished business in the living world. they got straight-up murdered!  their life got cut short! they don’t have any closure! they don’t even know who killed them!! so they make a run for it and go ghost

and like, oh, this happens sometimes. the dead are sometimes quite affronted by the fact that they’re dead and kick up a bit of a fuss when it comes to Moving On. the thing is, souls aren’t really built for Being Ghosts and can’t really survive long out in the living world, so there’s a bit of a time limit on Max’s quest to figure out who killed them and solve the mystery of their own death, since if they stay too long in the living world as a disembodied soul they’ll start to unravel

related, and perhaps more pressingly, is that there’s various agents of the afterlife who are attempting to find them and bring them back and Make Them Move On. these forces take on a bit of an antagonistic role in the story, but they’re not really any malevolent force that wants to hurt Max, they’re just the folks who go after stray and panicked souls and try to bring them to the afterlife before they fade away and disappear completely

Max’s got shit to do, though, like I said

so the story follows Max over the course of one night as they piece together the story of their death and fill in the gaps in their memory, while also attempting to stave off their unravelling for as long as they can

Max becomes acquainted with various other supernatural beings who are on their own time-sensitive quests on the same night, n they form some sort of kinship over this fact and band together to help each other out on their missions

firstly there’s Daisy, stir-crazy thousand-year-old heir to the vampire throne, due to be crowned the next day, who suddenly had an existential crisis and was like “actually vampire society is dull as hell I wanna LIVE”

so she goes out into the human world and robs a pizza store and starts several fights and is like “hell YEAH this slaps” and basically decides she’s just gonna kick up some real chaos since this is her last night of freedom, basically, n she’s gotta make it count

she’s very smart! she knows next to nothing about human society and how to be a normal person though, and if you leave her unsupervised she will attempt to eat marbles

also the structure of vampire society is very convoluted and confusing and full of complete nonsense. it makes no sense to anyone but the vampires themselves, and even then the rest of the supernatural world is half convinced the vamps are just playing the long game with an extremely elaborate prank. their royalty live in an abandoned petrol station? they wear those little paper crowns from hungry jacks/burger king. they take themselves very seriously

also this is the story in which I was really drunk when I was planning it n just slammed some vodka and was like “VAMPIRES COME FROM SPACE NOW” and then sober logan just had to deal with that

ANYWAY

next there’s Hope and Deckchairs, a socially anxious uni student and a socially anxious demon respectively, and the deal with these two is uhhhhh

well, Hope was trying to be a Cool Kid and tagged along with some Cool Kids who wanted to do a demonic summoning ‘cause Hell Yeah That’s Edgy And Cool

and Deckchairs (not named Deckchairs at the time, this is a name that’s adopted during the story) was doing their very overdue demon taxes and stressing over demon finances, n then got yoinked out of the underworld because of the aforementioned summoning

(I think this is generally viewed among demons as a mild inconvenience, sometimes you get Yoinked when you’re right in the middle of something and you just have to be like “ugh fine I’ll just kick up a bit of a ruckus then come back”)

however, when the summoning actually works, the Cool Kids freak out and scatter and in the chaos Hope gets her head bonked on the side of a dresser and fuckin starts bleeding out, and Deckchairs is like “oh fuck I did not sign on for this” ‘cause they’re........ yeah, look, they’re gentle and anxious and not a very good demon, maybe. n so Deckchairs possesses the body of Hope to keep her alive

so now these two are co-piloting a body, and have to figure out a way they can split and return to their lives without Hope dying. however, they’re also being hunted down by

the Cool Kids, who are now all keyed up and paranoid and convinced they’re the heroes of a horror movie n they have to kill the demonic entity they brought into the world

the underworld, who.......... now, I haven’t figured out whether they’re pissed ‘cause they think Deckchairs is committing tax evasion by body-hopping into the human world, or they’re pissed just ‘cause Deckchairs has work to do and they don’t consider one human life to be worth all the hold up

so that’s not great for either of them, but like, yeah, if they can figure out a way to split and be done with it, it’s problem solved for both of them. yeehaw. too bad they’re both nearly too anxious to speak to each other

and that’s................................. all that

facts?

there’s a plot twist at the end that I am SUPER psyched about! and it has taken literally all of my willpower not to spoil it completely

I feel like it’s an easy one to guess, but it’s perfect for the story and the themes and it’s one I’m hella excited about

and this is..................... this is I think the only story of mine where I would say it doesn’t necessarily have a happy ending? like. it certainly doesn’t end in TRAGEDY, but this is definitely a bittersweet ending, it’s got some real sad undertones

it’s the best possible ending for the characters, but like, hey, my protagonist is already dead, y’know?

anyway if you read this far I hope some of this was fun for you :’))

thanks for coming to my ted talk I hope you have a nice day :D

[foxghost]

This/last week’s read: Po Yun, Breaking Through the Clouds 1 & 2

All 1.6 million words. Po Yun (Breaking Through the Clouds) and Po Yun 2 (Swallowing the sea), by Huai Shang (817k) On jjwxc. I started reading them because I missed SCI, but Po Yun is a much more serious book with serious plot twists and no hypnosis/split personalities/genetic modification magic. Oh, and more whump. I mean these characters are basically hurt all the time. Constantly. A bonus: all your main characters are in their 30’s.

There’s a summary on novelupdates, but I’m going to give you an alternative summary:

International drug-trafficker King of Spades and the Gongzhou Police Organised Crime/drug trafficking division chief Jiang Ting were once childhood friends and are now caught in a game of cops and robbers cat and mouse and their love story ends in inevitable BE …

Okay, it’s not that, go get the actual summary from NU that ends in a nobody (bad) dies HE ending between Jiang Ting and Yan Xie.

(Rambling that is as spoiler-free as possible after cut, but to summarise, I’d give Po Yun 1 a 7/10 and Po Yun 2 a 10/10 recommended with some caveats for plot holes and warning for graphic descriptions of violence and gore)

Po Yun1: If this book was actually about the first story, 10/10, a very well-told tragedy that ends in a near perfect circle. As is, I’m not sure how to feel because it just felt so much like it should end in 雙愛雙殺 / “mutual love, mutual killing”, that even though it has told me it’s HE since the beginning it doesn’t feel right. Despite Jiang Ting’s insistence that he never loved SpadesK, he did … in the before times, and considering how much he hated him afterwards, he loved him a lot. I think most what made this book less enjoyable for me though is Yan Xie, who is basically your definition of male chauvinist (his nickname in the book is literally “straight man cancer”), and he touched the one squick I have … terrible personal hygiene.

Point form entirely unorganised thoughts (吐槽) :V below, mostly of my very twisted opinion, you’ve been warned

Every time I heard about Yan Xie’s “male hormones” smell I gagged a little because I’m pretty sure he stinks

No, wait, I don’t have to be pretty sure. The first time he lent his jacket to Jiang Ting he had to cover his nose and ask “when was the last time you did the laundry”

also, “wash your feet first thing when you get home or I really will avoid you” omg

Yan Xie: do I look like i have time to change my clothes <- in 3 days

why do you even like him the only thing good about him is that he loves you a lot

most of the words that come out of his mouth (especially towards women) are toxic and just THE WORST

Literally no woman in the novel is surprised that he’s tall, handsome, rich, and is single in his 30’s

his mother: now that he’s this age all I ask is that he chooses someone younger than me

anyway that’s enough about Yan Xie I just had to tell someone after Jiang Ting (whom I love) chose to end up with makes face and points THAT

Meanwhile, the King of Spades is basically a more twisted Asami Ryuichi and how can I not love that fictionally

the king of spades gets a theme song (Young and Beautiful) and childhood episode with MC

Excuse me I have feels about the villain and the MC/villain ship way more than the canon ship orz

Half the plot is about antag trying to turn back time emotionally to see if things between Jiang Ting and himself could have turned out in any way differently

“all i wanted in his life was for you to kill me and then we die together” trope

He is well-dressed, cultured, polite, and utterly off his rocker, kills without blinking, but you know something

He leaves the torturing to Jiang Ting because he’s … probably better at it

Jiang Ting will pull off your fingernails and give you the death of 3000 cuts without batting an eyelash

I love Jiang Ting a regular amount

as mentions of Yan Xie’s lack of hygiene grew less frequent I admit he grew on me (and I guess I want a happy ending for Jiang Ting since he’s suffered enough) but only right up until Yan Xie SPEAKS AGAIN

on the mystery/drama/cases front, it’s good …

too much of the plotting of how convoluted the crimes are hinged on “antag is crazy you can’t explain the motivation of the crazy”

There are plenty of surprises, lots of side characters to get attached to, and come to think of it it’s the kind of happy ending that’s really 地道, nobody (on the good guy side) dies.

Onto Po Yun 2:

MC (Wu Yu) is a contradiction of a killer cinnamon bun (do we still say that? why don’t we still say that?) anyway he can go from polite and sweet and courteous and shy about speaking in public to killer hawk jumping out of the 8th floor window using obstacles to slow his descent to stab target in the throat in 5 seconds flat

Code name “The Painter”, as in “Painted Skin”, cross-border master undercover cop, but he’s pretty to the point of standing out (this is used as a plot point later)

ML (Bu Chonghua, everytime I see his name 蔥花 “chopped green onions” floats across my brain) seems pretty normal at first glance, but he’s “living for vengeance”

MC and ML have childhood background story while MC and villain does not (thank you)

the cases are all related, and they make sense for the most part

MC’s backstory and the final reveal is a bit of a stretch and the writer knows it (and apologises)

But overall, very well plotted cases that takes its time unwinding and doesn’t get explained all at once.

however, some tropes recycled wholesale from book 1 meant that they did not fool me for a single second.

WHUMP and lots of hurt, not so much comfort. These people are wounded so often they really shouldn’t be walking around

I literally can’t tell you anything without giving half the story away, so I won’t — I’m just going to say “read it you won’t regret it”

2 is a better book than 1. Both use the same kind of ship dynamic — MC is evasive and hiding something, ML is full of love but know not to trust entirely because MC is evasive, eventually MC come to realise that “even if I’m evil this man will love me anyway” and then happily ever after. Whether the resulting relationship is healthy is … up for debate, but I’m here for all the car chases / explosions / jumping off buildings / dealing with life and death situations / nearly dying every chapter or two. Come for excitement, nobody dies, and happy wedding endings … ignore the plot holes and inconsistencies.

If Huai Shnag writes a third installment — likely, some ppl are left alive for reasons — I will drop all the points on them. This was totally worth my time. If you buy the jjwxc version, go hunt down the uncensored chapters, there is one smut scene each that got cut.

[risingsouls]

Conversations: 4

[Part 4! With a hint of shameful(less?) fanservice because the idea popped into my head and it was amusing because these two give zero fucks. A little less heavy than the last few so there’s that? I dunno we’re moving toward something here.]

Nabooru sank into the near scalding and fragrant bath she drew with an extended sigh, her tense muscles and bruises relenting in the pain they caused. Her body like jelly, she reclined back and rested her head on the lip, eyes closing and arms draped haphazardly over the side. 

She needed this last night when she dragged herself back home, but when her heavy eyes landed on her bed on the way, she failed to convince her legs to carry her further. Her head hit the pillow and she was out, exhaustion superseding the pain of her training session with Vegeta. She admired his willingness to push her, upping the difficulty level when he deemed her ready. But yesterday's spar felt more outright aggressive than a measured rise of difficulty. _She_ didn't particularly _mind_, exactly. He had offered her a proper challenge after all. But her sore body when she woke up cursed his name, and the more she thought about it, she wondered at the cause. It didn't help that she had to put this moment on hold to help Nappa out when a trainer didn't show up. Putting the fighters through their paces wasn't difficult. Painful at times due to her pre-established soreness. The trouble was keeping them focused on something other than her damn body and thinking of ways to ask her out for the millionth time.

She hadn't heard from Vegeta yet, and though that didn't mean much when he wasn't reliable with warning her when he planned to show up, she didn't sense him nearby or on the move. She took advantage of the moment of free time to relax before more training, with or without him. She smoothed the loose strands of hair she missed when she tossed it up into a messy bun on top of her head up to her scalp. She hoped she could enjoy this for a while. Maybe squeeze in a quick nap or some relaxing stretches before forcing herself into more strenuous training…

Gold eyes popped open, a groan leaving her lips as her senses picked up Vegeta’s ki signature barreling in her direction all too soon. She willed him to fly passed, head off into the wastes or further north for training on his own to give her that few hours of spoiling herself, but his power faded right at her doorstep. She winced at the bang of the front door slamming the wall and sank further into the tub, feet hanging over the end. 

“Nabooru!”

Nose scrunched, she shouted back, “I’m in the bathroom!” She muttered a few select Gerudo insults into the bubbles. She wasn’t about to abandon her bath; he could wait for her if he was so desperate as to bust into her house like a maniac to begin their training.

Silence relaxed her tensed muscles once more, content with the idea that he either left in a huff or was waiting as patiently as a man like Vegeta could manage. Just as her eyelids lowered, the crunch of footsteps on the carpet heading in her direction snapped them back open. She glanced to the cracked door after ensuring water and suds had her covered. Surely he wouldn’t just walk in would he?

He would.

Vegeta had never ventured past her living room, but following her voice and the self-explanatory layout of what he had come to expect of an Earth home, he traipsed straight through her bedroom to the master bathroom and kicked the door open none too gently. He returned her glare in kind, unbothered by her state of undress or the activity she wasted her time with. The cloyingly sweet, floral scent of whatever substances she threw into her soak only deepened his scowl.

“You know. Telling you I was in the bathroom wasn’t an invitation.”

He ignored her. “Get out. It’s time to train.”

“First of all, I’m not getting out of this tub with you standing there. You haven’t earned that view yet.” She shifted back to a comfortable position and closed her eyes to reinforce her next point. “Second, I’m finishing my bath, so you can either wait or get lost and I’ll come find you when I’m ready.”

Vegeta snarled, and considered grabbing her by the arm and yanking her out anyway. His patience had already thinned closer to nonexistence than usual with annoyance after annoyance derailing his morning routine. Finding Nabooru less than ready to fight him only further perturbed him, but she hadn’t outright refused. With a grunt, he perched himself on the toilet, arms folded and his face set in an impatient scowl.

Nabooru opened one eye. In her haste and concern with keeping herself covered with his unanticipated trespass of her bathroom, she only just noticed his still torn battle suit and cracked armor, a chunk missing from the right side of his chest. She stretched her legs. “Any reason you didn’t change your armor? Or are you going for a new look?”

“Why do you think?” he growled, leather crunching as his hands curled into fists. "Tch, nevermind. Don't answer that. It's because Bulma has refused to repair any of it since I refused to go to some stupid party with her. She also sabotaged the gravity chamber to try and prevent me from training."

The Gerudo couldn't help but snort, both eyes now open and trained on the perturbed Saiyan. Who knew a lover's spat would have him in such a tizzy. "Seems a little far for a grudge over a party, but I guess I can see why she's mad. She probably wants to spend time with her husband."

"I'm _not_ her husband." 

The vehemence of his insistence made her blink, eyebrows lifted in surprise. "Okay, lover, boyfriend, whatever. My point still stands."

Vegeta swept his fingers through his hair. Why the hell had he brought this up? "Look, she's not any of those things to me either, nor am I to her, got it?"

She understood, but his words conflicted with the information she had picked up from other sources. Turning on her side, she folded her arms on the lip of the tub and rested her chin on them. "Everyone else seems to think you two are married. I'm not dumb enough to assume that having a kid together makes you automatically married, so what's the deal, then? 

"That's exactly it: a deal." One he made without considering the consequences or all the implications and during one of the lowest points of his life. He hadn't really cared as long as he could continue going through the motions of his miserable existence in relatively the same pattern as he had been. But now it seemed Bulma had decided to raise his rent, so to speak, pressing fatherly and spousely expectations more insistently on him despite every outright refusal, typically at the cost of his sanity or one of the comforts he had grown used to. "I agreed to let her call me her husband for the sake of her reputation and to make things easier on Trunks while I got to live and train there. There is no formal marriage between us."

"Ah." While a silly concept of the culture, she knew that many women here were looked down upon for having children out of wedlock, just as those in Hyrule had been. And a woman of Bulma's status would face the scrutiny of far more than just her peers. It was a smart tactic and beneficial to both parties and the child they apparently mistakenly made. But, if what Vegeta said was true, she seemed as though she wanted more from their "marriage" than he was willing to give, hence the friction between them and the resulting refusal to supply him with the niceties she had previously. "What changed then? Do you know?"

The urge to snap again rose to the surface, her line of questioning as pointless as ever in his mind. He switched his crossed legs and, fists releasing, he tapped his fingers on his biceps. He didn't want to meet her gaze, but the only other viable option that didn't make that glaringly obvious was to stare straight forward in the long mirror that spanned most of the wall behind the sink and its counter. At his own disgruntled reflection. The view into the bathtub she wasn't _trying_ to offer him. He grunted and swept a hand over his face as heat filled his cheeks. Did he really think sitting here was going to make her finish up quicker?

"I don't know. How could I possibly know that? I barely talk to her if I can help it." He opted on twisting on the toilet seat a half turn, enough to keep his eyes from the mirror and more easily maintain eye contact should he choose as proper conversational decorum dictated. His fingers paused their tapping as he fully considered the question, his own response. Had it always been that way? Not long ago, he had made himself--quite literally forced himself--to be more available to her and Trunks. To awkwardly wedge himself into the role of father and husband with the convoluted idea that it would make him stronger like he surmised Kakarot's family had for him. A theory he didn't think was totally unfounded but he realized had not and could not work for him. His forcing the act aside, he had to find what worked for _him_ instead of focusing and obsessing over how Kakarot reached new and unfathomable heights of power while he remained in the dust.

"I don't know," he said again, tone gruff but softer this time. "Maybe I did...tch, forget it, you wouldn't understand."

"As you said to me a few weeks ago," Nabooru responded with a raised brow, "try me." She shifted back to her previous position, head reclined and eyes closed. "You've already said this much. Might as well get it out of your system."

Vegeta stared at the bottle with light pink liquid perched on the counter's edge, studying the cluster of flowers printed on the label. That explained the fragrance. "In my pursuit of surpassing Kakarot and his brat despite the clown’s death, I made the foolish assumption that throwing myself into the roles of father and husband and learning to care about the two of them would help me get stronger like I assumed his family helped him. _Perhaps_ that is how she has come to the assumption that I want to play the part she so desperately wants me to." His foot tapped the air again, dark brows lowering. “It’s asinine. I can’t go a single day without her nagging.”

“At least you halfway admitted you brought it upon yourself.” The corner of her lips tugged upward in a smirk in the face of his glare. As much as she wanted to berate him for faking a relationship and leading Bulma on, she knew that he didn’t respond well to lecturing and it would be a moot point. He admitted to understanding he made a mistake, even if the reasoning was more selfish than her concern over Bulma’s feelings, too. He had wasted her time, after all. If a true, fairy tale marriage was really what she wanted and he wasn’t willing to give it and didn’t want to, he should have cut ties so she could seek that out. At the same time, she wasn’t completely blameless; prince though he may be, he did not hide the fact that he didn’t fit the bill of the traditional ones the stories described. And if a deal is what it took to pretend they had it all together, she seemed to have missed a fair amount of red flags signaling he didn't want much more to do with her than benefitted him.

The task of “making it” was easier said than done, that she could contend from both her knowledge of his experience and her own. They both had nothing more than the clothes on their backs when they started their lives here, not a cent to their names to start any kind of life on a planet that relied heavily on currency and its technology for real comfort. She and the Gerudo lived in a cave for months, surviving off the land while they found ways to make enough zeni to start their lives or, as they decided, build their community and stick together. For a while they could only purchase a single capsule house at a time and shared the spaces. Their task was far easier as a group working toward the same goal and helping each other. Vegeta was utterly alone, and she could hardly blame him for taking Bulma up on her offer to house him. As far as their strange deal, she could only conjecture why he wouldn't straight up tell her he wanted nothing to do with it anymore outside of simply being unsure of where to go or how to move forward. Vegeta wasn't one to mince words, after all.

“I don’t know if you’re looking for my help here, but...do_ you care about her?” She trailed her fingers along the lip of the tub. “Or is there some other reason you haven’t told her that participating in things you don’t want to do wasn’t part of the deal necessarily?”

The easy answer was comfort. Complacency in the amenities he had become used to. The difficult answer was that he _had_ amounted an inkling of care for Bulma and Trunks. Not in a romantic capacity for the former as she would like. His interest in her was purely physical and, though she tried to fool herself, he knew the same followed for her, too. She showed no interest in him outside of the rare bedroom meetings, and he very typically showed next to no interest in her life either. They had so little in common from their histories to their interests he didn't see how anyone but him seemed to find the sham of a marriage comical.

She tried to act tough since the tournament in the face of the lives he so callously and selfishly took, looking past the countless murders he committed without an ounce of remorse on his part, likely due to their ability to revive them at the near snap of their fingers. Or perhaps she refused to believe he was in control when he had done it, that Babidi instead had of him fully under his spell and orchestrated the attacks through him. Whatever the case, he had seen fear in her eyes on more than one occasion, when he lashed out or his temper got the better of him. Still, her delusions of him and her desire for the perfect family life made her cling to him.

A part of him wanted to protect Bulma and Trunks, but that's as far as his emotional attachment went.

"Complacency. Ease. Comfort." He left it at that; his omission would serve as answer enough to the inquiry concerning his feelings about Bulma. "I...I just didn't care after the Cell Games. I vowed off fighting for nearly a year before I realized it was all that kept me feeling alive. Had I a fortune to give her, my throne, an empire, I would have handed it over without a second thought or any negotiation. I wanted what was easy, so I returned to the life I had become used to."

She stared at him, eyes once more wide with surprise. After another second, he glanced at her, mirroring her expression and apparently just as shocked at the words that tumbled from his lips. The way he stiffened, she expected him to bolt without little more than a "hurry up" and a slam of the bathroom door behind him. She waited, a minute, maybe two. Partially for his benefit in case he did decide to escape the suddenly heavy weight that settled between them and partly for her own benefit. Pain erupted in her chest like a thin blade dragged downward and her lungs felt squeezed and she struggled to find the words to follow that up. To feel that low and with such pride that normally flooded him...she didn't have to imagine it; she had lived it herself. A warrior like him swearing off fighting...

When he didn't move and he sat so still she thought he might have died sitting on top of her toilet, she swallowed and said, "And now you're thinking a little more clearly. Or as clearly as you can manage." Relief flooded her when his focus snapped back to reality from whatever dimension his soul had escaped to, his lip curling up and sharp canines bared in warning. The soft, too high breath of a laugh she released in response attested to her relief. "You realize now that you want...well, what do you want? To be on your own or something? Do things differently and your own way?"

He grunted. He hated to admit he was lost. Clueless of how to move forward and ambitionless. "I don't know what I want, but it's not what I've got."

Nabooru hummed, tapping her nails on porcelain. She studied him, mulling over the possibilities. Only one suggestion stuck.

"Again, I'm not sure you want my advice but hear me out. I think you need the space to figure that out, you know? Staying where you are, you're only going to feel pressured to continue as you have and push yourself into a box you don't want to be in. That perhaps you don't fit in." When he didn't object to her analysis, his sideways glance urging her to continue, she forged on. 

"That said...you can have the guest room here if you want it. I know it's not as roomy or luxurious as Capsule Corporation, but it's comfortable." A pause; she had to choose her words carefully. To ensure he understood she was not offering charity or trying something underhanded. "You don't even have to tell me if you want it or when you plan to stay. You don't even have to interact with me if you don't want. It's not permanent either. I _like_ my own space after being crammed in with the others until we could afford more housing, so I'd rather it stay temporary. I want to give you a comfortable space to help you figure things out away from what you think you don't want. A few months or so should be fine and then we can go from there."

She caught his grimace and added, "No, I'm not trying to trap you or use this to exploit you later. Outside of a sparring partner and decent company, you have nothing I want." Sinking further into the tub, she folded her arms beneath the bubbles. "Besides, you might decide after a couple months away you miss your old life and want to be a husband and father."

"Hmpt. Doubtful." While she spoke, he watched her closely, searching for deceit, a motive. Her neutral expression revealed little, and his natural inclination toward suspicion waned. Still, he couldn't stop himself from asking, "Why?"

"Why offer this? The short answer is you're going to be a whole lot more effective as a sparring partner if you're not chronically irritated about your home life, and it will probably help your own growth, too." Another impatient grunt was all the response she received and she shrugged a shoulder in return. "Otherwise, It's the same answer as last time: I understand what it's like to be where you were, wanting to give up everything you were and worked toward."

Vegeta opened his mouth to press her, but she cut him off. "I'll explain another time, promise. It's another long story, and I'm getting wrinkly." She lifted her hand from the water and swept it toward the door. "Go on so I can get dressed. I won't take long and we can go have our spar."

"You'd best not." The Saiyan stood and headed for the door. He slowed at the threshold and glanced back at her, hand on the knob. Gratitude hung from his lips but he kept the words lodged in his throat. Instead he offered a simple nod and left, closing the door behind him.

[diyunho]

The Joker x Reader - “Queen Of The Damned”

In the whole eternity, The Queen of the Underworld only loved once: he was mortal and died shortly after she gave him a child. So when The Joker says he’s a Prince, he’s not actually lying or being a presumptuous lunatic: the green haired man is in fact royalty and sole heir to The Realm Below.

“Stop fidgeting!!!” the nurse admonishes. “This is a new experimental drug and it will help you, OK?” she tries to reason with the patient confined inside a straitjacket, heavy chains bounding him to the metal table.

“Let me go!” he hisses and tries to bite her as she checks his neck for pulse.

“I can’t let you go, Mister Joker. We’re trying to make you better, alright?” the caregiver dodges his teeth before J can sink them in her flesh.

“If you don’t untie me, my Mother will come!!! She doesn’t like it if I’m in danger!”

“Shut the hell up, you insane bastard!” the attending physician can’t hold in his bitterness while mixing the serum.

“Doctor Reeves!” the woman raises her voice. “That’s not the way we talk! I know you are new at Arkham Asylum, but I would really appreciate it if you treat our cases with respect!”

“I’m sorry,” the physician apologizes for his unprofessional remark. “He gets on my nerves!”

“Yes well… Please keep your personal opinions to yourself because they’re not doing any good! The patient is very agitated; would you like me to take over?” she offers and gets cut off.

“I don’t need your expertise, I’m a doctor for God’s sake!”

“I wasn’t implying otherwise,” the nurse sighs at his obvious crankiness; why does she have to be stuck during the night shift with Reeves?! Arkham’s South Wing is already harboring the worst criminals and a psychiatrist that took the job for the thrills can’t possibly render assistance to the troubled convicts incarcerated here.

“I’m done,” he taps the syringe and approaches The Joker when the lights suddenly flicker. “Another power outage?! The storm is not that bad!” the guy rants and doesn’t realize the prisoner is not struggling to escape anymore.  

“My Mother’s coming!” the most demented smile flourishes on The Joker’s lips. “I warned you!” he maniacally starts laughing with delight. “You should have listened!”

A low rumble shakes the immense building and the convoluted hallways fill up with mist: the Queen of The Realm Below steps in the world of the living again, surrounded by her loyal army of twisted warriors.

“Protect The Prince!” the invisible wraiths shriek, crawling on the walls in order to destroy the cameras. Some fly through brick and metal with the sole purpose of fulfilling their ruler’s command: no greater honor than aid her son trapped in the human kingdom.

He often gets in trouble and somehow miraculously vanishes or avoids hazardous situations; this is his first time at Arkham and the authorities will believe tonight’s events are an inside job or simply an elaborate breakout plotted by The Joker’s team.

Ironically enough The King of Gotham is not even crazy: his mind works on a totally different level due to the unearthly heritage. There is no cure for a person that’s not sick, no medicine or therapy allegedly mending something that’s not fractured.

“Why isn’t the generator kicking in?” Reeves stares at the ceiling and the nurse carefully listens, pointing out a disturbing detail:

“Do you hear that?”

“Hear what?” the doctor crinkles his nose. “It’s silent.”

“Exactly,” she mutters. “Why is it so quiet?”

“I have no idea,” he prepares to poke The Joker’s arm when the halogen bulbs instantly go out. “Ana, can you…” the psychiatrist mumbles as the lights turn back on. “Finally!” he turns towards the woman and gasps at the frightening apparition standing next to him. Your sword whooshes in the stillness and the corpse falls to the ground, abruptly followed by the caregiver’s: both didn’t have the opportunity to process what they saw by pure coincidence. It was gone in a second along with their existence.

The Queen towers over the medical ward, slowly taking off her helmet; her hair intensely burns, eternally fueled by the fires of The Underworld.

“You came!” The Joker face brightens up with pure happiness noticing the creatures’ claws release him from his constraints: they grumble, coo and chirp seeing The Prince is safe and sound; he pets a few kneeling at his feet while rushing in your arms. “Mother!” J sniffles and you hold him tight until his body relaxes a little bit.

“Are you hurt?” you whisper and your son pouts, burying his cheeks in the cold silver of your plated armor.

“No,” the muffled word prompts a kiss on his forehead; The Joker lets go, unwilling to watch his mother depart: he’s aware she can’t linger for too long, yet the desire to stay close to her never fades. “When are you going to take me with you?” the piercing blue eyes inherited from his father glare into yours.

“Soon,” the elusive reply makes him frown.

“You promised and I’m always left behind!”

How can you explain why he’s still here?... J wouldn’t comprehend what coming with you to The Realm Below means: he would have to get rid of his mortal shell and you just don’t have the strength to witness him die.  

Despite the horrifying moniker, The Queen of The Damned is neither good nor evil; her actions are invariably guided by circumstances.

She takes care of lost, damaged spirits and although powerful and feared, Y/N is also the recipient of her legions’ constant devotion, for no other Monarch of The Underworld ever enjoyed being cherished by its subject as much as you are.

The abomination born from her love with a human didn’t diminish the horde’s allegiance: it actually made them adore The Queen more because affection is desperately craved in The Realm Below and they can’t wait to have a Prince willing to share his Mother’s duties!

But The Joker’s arrival keeps on getting postponed…  

“You know what I’ll do?” J mischievously snickers. “I’m gonna call my crew and tell them to pick me up. The mystery of how I’m able to walk out of this place without their intervention will drive them nuts! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!” his sinister chuckle resonates in the room; he feels such gratification thinking about it one could presume he’s in a cheerful disposition. “Did you clear the path for me?” The Prince inquires and the entities snarl, excited he’s paying attention to their mighty deeds. “Perfect!” your son praises. “I’ll signal when to open the gates, ok?”

They growl at his approval and you have to interrupt the joyful mood:

“I have to go…”

“Is dad waiting for you?” J asks, already guessing the answer.

“Yes,” you nod and reassure: “Don’t worry, I’ll return when you need me!”

Before the sentence ends The Queen disappears, abandoning her descendant inside the Arkham Asylum. The Joker sulks, upset he can’t follow you and gets distracted by the commotion created on the other side of Block H: apparently some guards weren’t annihilated as expected.

“You said you cleared the path!” he scolds and picks up the phone, dialing Frost’s number. “No matter, I’ll get reinforcements and we’ll make this a party on our own, hm?” the silver grin widens at the concept of fighting his way out himself.

In the meantime, J’s mother materializes by the Endless Wall that separates The Realm Below from The Realm Above: its transparent, glass like composition is meant to keep you apart from the man you love. Why?

The response is easy: The King reigning over The Realm Above always craved your fondness and felt betrayed when you gave your attention to a mere human; deciding to give Kai a child was the epitome of mockery for the jealous emperor. He never accepted your choices had nothing to do with him. Thus he took the matters in his own hands and ensured Kai’s demise, making certain you won’t be able to save him: the mortal you loved was killed in a car crash and went to The Realm Above, which was the plan all along. Since The Joker’s father was at peace when he passed and not a lost, broken soul, he didn’t wind up in your kingdom; The Emperor sealed the borders as soon as Kai appeared on his domain, making sure you won’t touch or hear each other again.  

You tried to break the spell without success: only the one that casted such magic could reverse it and The King has no intention to do so. He likes torturing The Queen of The Damned and her beloved, that’s why he lingers in the shadows to glutton at their agony every time they meet.

Today is no exception and it sure brings The Emperor great comfort to view the aftermath of his revolting actions: it probably hurts because you’re unable to do more than gaze at the man you love. Such a fit punishment for a stuck-up Queen rejecting his proposal. You sure got what you deserved! All the powers you possess are useless against his impenetrable curse unleashed out of pure resentment.

Hmm… what’s going on?... You suddenly seem flustered and The King is trying to estimate on the motive; Kai keeps on calling your name, yet you can’t discern the sounds anyway. You swiftly fade in a hurry, neglecting to wave goodbye for a valid pretext: the sharp ache in your chest alerted that something awful happened to your son.

**************  

The Joker is lying on the floor, almost unconscious from the blood loss. The red stain under him is growing bigger and bigger, reaching the collapsed security officers that stood between J and his freedom. He was overly hyped and decided to create mayhem: being reckless provoked the dark side of his personality and he didn’t wait for his gang nor allowed the wraiths to intervene.

The Clown Prince of Crime definitely counts on his Mother’s aid, therefore he doesn’t have to worry about consequences to his endeavors. He trusts you won’t fail to show up and get him out of messy situations like this one.

“M-mother…”, The Joker wheezes as you hover over him. “Mother… h-help me…”, he begs and your hesitation puzzles your heir; his father distracted you and in exchange J got severely injured.

“… …. …. I won’t… I can’t have your father, but I’ll take you…” The Queen confesses, adamant to overcome her delay in fulfilling his wish for years. Maybe she won’t be determined like she is now if another chance will arise in the future.

“Really?...” the hope in his tone makes you sadder. “Mother…” he winces in pain, trying to touch you. “Please h-help me…It…it hurts…”

You grab his fingers and squeeze them in yours, pecking his tattooed knuckles.

“I know…I’m sorry…”

“W-why won’t you…” and he pauses, taking a last labored breath, “…help m-me?!...”

His eyelids are closing, the individual labeled as one of the worse criminals lastly fleeing the prison of his mortal half. The Joker is dead and The Prince of The Realm Below emerges from his remains, stunned to wake up next to you.

“Mother?...” he blinks and you cup his face, relieved you had the courage to do what  you deferred in the past.

“It’s ok,” you smile. “You’ll get used to the sensation, give it a few moments,” you pass your hand to his burning hair, amazed at the terrifying beauty he was blessed with thanks to his ancestry.

“Boss!!!”

“Mister Joker!!”

“Mister J, where are you?” the questions echo in the deserted Block H: his henchmen finally infiltrated the area, spooked at the unnerving feeling that something is shady. When they arrived, the Asylum’s gates were open; nobody around on the street, no guards, no medical personnel, nobody they could spot anywhere on their way to pick up The Joker as instructed.

“Over here!” Frost shouts and rushes to The Joker’s corpse, swiftly taking his pulse. “Shit!” he mumbles when he detects no heartbeat.

“What the fuck?!” Panda is the second to stumble on the scene, baffled to notice his employer covered in blood wearing just a pair of sweatpants.

“We need to get out this instant!” Frost commands as the others join the small group. “Help me carry him!”

“J?..” a woman’s voice emerges. “J?” the visibly pregnant Ava runs on the empty corridor. “Oh my God!” she panics when she sees them trying to lift him up. “J?” she gently caresses his face, panicked when there’s no movement. “Is he dead?” she presses on his wounds and starts crying since the guys are quiet. “Aren’t you going to do anything??!!” she screams, desperate to acknowledge not too much can be done.

“… Mother…” The Prince articulates and you already predict his request: “… Can I stay?”

Who else understands him better to begin with? He loves the mortal and you can relate to his anguish. Of course he wants to go with you also, yet there are things that are holding him back in the human world.

“I suppose I’m condemned to ages of loneliness…” you utter and give him a violent nudge before you change your mind.

The Prince falls back into his body; The Joker gasping for air makes Frost and Panda almost drop him on the marble floor.

“J!” Ava exclaims in disbelief. “Baby??!!” she brings her ear to his lips because he’s saying something.

“Mother… Mother…” J faintly repeats and the woman misinterprets. “Yes, I’m going to be a mom and you’re going to be a dad. You already know this, hm?” she caresses his face. “Be careful!” Ava reprimands as they wrap Richard’s jacket around The Joker and Panda drags a stretcher next to them.

“Jesus boss, we thought we lost you!” Jonny adds and barely deciphers his reply:

“You’re not that lucky…”

The Joker keeps staring at The Queen and the army hidden to the rest of them: she’s leaving and although weakened, he wants to apologize for generating more sorrow when she doesn’t deserve it.

“Forgive me…” J whispers and your last words only he can discern give him unexpected bliss:

“There’s nothing to forgive.”

**************

You come near the transparent wall, seeking to find consolation even if it’s impossible: Kay is on the other side, the palm of his right hand against the invisible barrier. You cover it with yours, wishing you could tell him so much but what’s the point?...  He can’t hear you.

“I couldn’t bring him with me,” The Queen whispers nevertheless. “He wanted to stay… and I couldn’t force him…”

Something is trickling down your face and you touch it, confused.

What is this?! Tears don’t exist in The Underworld; a few drip on the barrier and it starts sizzling to your legion’s dismay. They sniff the bubbly fumes, curiously scratching at the expanding chain reaction: the wall is melting.

You and Kay watch the gap becoming larger and larger until there’s enough space to fit. Is this real or an illusion?!

I guess you’ll have to find out so you take a few shaky steps towards him, not being able to suppress your astonishment when he yanks you in his arms.  

The Emperor is lurking in the shadows, furious his unbreakable magic is dissipating with each passing moment. Your warriors are granted free passage again and they spill inside The Kingdom Above, howling while awaiting orders.  

As she hugs the man she loves, The Mother of lost spirits sneers through her clenched teeth:

“Attack!”

Also read: MASTERLIST

You can also follow me on Ao3 and Wattpad under the same blog name: DiYunho.

[felassan]

Was playing DAI again, is it possible that Felassan could be like Mythal? his death was only physical and he could technically "crawl his way back" to another body?

oooh. thanku for the ask! I’ll preface this by saying that I am 16847% on-board with and here for any theory or idea that would provide for Felassan to come back, even ridiculous ones, shaky grounds, asspulls or handwave/retcons like if Leliana or Anders died prior to DA:I and DA2 - such is my love for best elf. (guess this makes me biased)

that said, I think Mythal’s ability to crawl her way through time to another physical body and possess/merge with it and that person, and her Horcruxing abilities, are due to the quality[ies] that make the Evanuris .. well, Evanuris (“the first of my people do not die so easily” and all), and would not be available to a regular ancient elf. Felassan’s situation is more Abelas-adjacent, minus any geas deal or personal compulsion to legit servitude. 8′(

were I one of the writers I’d instead go with: Felassan was killed in the Fade -> ‘killed’ -> like how killing Feynriel, also a Dreamer, in the Fade renders him Tranquil in DA2, Felassan was instead just made Tranquil -> the PC in DA4 hears rumors of a strange Tranquil elf whose knowledge might be useful in the fight against the Dread Wolf -> you can go and recruit Felassan and cure him from Tranquility. (an aside: a Tranquil or formerly-Tranquil companion is so interesting to me, a heightened emotional state side effect of the cure like Pharamond’s provides a lot of interesting interaction opportunities. to add, Cassandra knows about the cure and is shown allied with the remnants of the people who are opposing Solas in the table-stabbing scene in Trespasser).

there are problems with this idea as well like 1) Solas wouldn’t make someone Tranquil imo, he’d rather straight up kill them, such is his aversion to it, and he’s not stupid enough to think he’s killing someone but accidentally just make them Tranquil 2) the passage where Felassan dies does not rly have reasonable wiggle-room, it’s written from his POV and explicitly says “the blow that killed him”, and Cole is explicit also with “his friend had to die” 3) does the Tranquil cure even work on people who weren’t made Tranquil via the usual rite of tranquility that the Circles use? 4) isn’t it the case that if it’s a Dreamer who kills someone in the Fade, the someone dies? I think about the stories of ancient Tevinter magisters that were able to deal with their rivals by offing them in their dreams [tho you could say that offing them in their dreams and so, making them tranquil, would still constitute dealing with your rivals because a tranquil isn’t going to have political designs or ambitions..]

anyway, dear bioware, I am ready and willing to handwave all of the above points tho btw lmao.. pls. maybe the explicit text/words is twisted to be metaphorical death.. idk but like I said I’m willing to accept/handwave literally any convoluted or weird writing explanation lol :D

Update: (I usually prefer dead characters to stay dead but 1. when I say this I’m usually referring to characters who were killed by the player as a result of player choice 2. imo Felassan’s death or ‘death’ is kinda weird in that it could go either way because of the Fade and Tranquil stuff. and it seems from this interview that that was kind of intentional or at least the writers are aware how they could write around it.)

[junionigiri]

Todochako Week 2019 - Day 1 - Mythology

for @todochaco

Rating: G

Notes: This fic (and all the others for Todochako week!) are collaborations with safri_riri from Twitter :) she did the wonderful fanart while I wrote the words. we hope u like this! btw their costume designs are inspired heavily by Hades and Persephone’s design in the LINE webcomic Lore Olympus by Rachel Smythe (highly recommended pls read its so good!!!)

Ochako walks on fields filled with flowers of pink and gold. The sun kisses the bare skin of her shoulders. In the distance, a lazy river flows; pretty nymphs bathing in its cool waters, giggling and cracking jokes and just enjoying life.

The world above the ground is bright and sunny and beautiful; this is the only type of world she’d ever known ever since she was created. She breathes in the spring air, revels in the feel of it filling her lungs.

“Darling.” A goddess walks beside her. Regal; wheat-colored hair, dazzling purple eyes, every bit sparkling and intimidating. “Do not tell me you mean to go back to that wretched place.”

“Beloved mother,” Ochako says, trying to keep the smile on her face from showing. She regains her composure and faces him. “You know that I have to.”

Aoyama’s mouth twitches in disdain. “Awful and unforgivable, that’s what this whole arrangement is! Why must you agree to it? I can’t believe that I have to lose my one and only daughter just because of a bloody pomegranate!”

He twirls in his royal robes of white and gold, with sympathetic and angry red flowers sprouting beside him as he does. His royal subjects bathing in the river are compelled to stare at him in wonder. Ochako merely tries to keep it together as she keeps her eyes on her beloved queen mother.

“Still, promises are promises,” she manages to say quietly. “I must go back underneath the earth. My husband waits for me.”

Her chest twinges a bit saying that.  

“Humph! To have to return my pure daughter to the Dead King causes me such grief!” says Aoyama, turning to face her once more. Her mother always has such a difficult face to read, so Ochako wonders why there’s a knowing smile on his mouth when he looks at her cheeks, one after the other, and speaks to her again. “Tell the king of Hell, that terrible abductor, that I hope his kingdom freezes over!”

“Mother!” Ochako looks at him despairingly, begging for some reprieve. “Please do not judge him unfairly! He isn’t cold and terrible! He is good and just and kind, and--”

That smile on Mother’s face again. For someone who’s supposedly grieving, he’s looking awfully smug. This forces a waver in Ochako’s voice, especially when she thinks of the next thing she has to say.

“... and he tells me, he will never love anyone, like he does me,” she finishes. She feels her cheeks glow under the weight of his amused stare.

Aoyama sighs. “Words are wind, my love, and so are Hades’. No matter how sweet they sound. Do not trust him.”

A chasm appears in the earth to literally swallow Ochako whole. She gazes into it, and back to Mother, who tears up as he prepares to say goodbye once more.

She turns before she sees his grandiose and dramatic despairing, the wrath of the earth floating around him as he does. Ochako’s barely had her foot in the chasm when spring turns into fall, and the nymphs in the river begin to slip into quiet hibernation.

She jumps into the darkness and faces the ferryman, Deku--a fellow that’s probably too bright and sunny for his job, but one he takes seriously anyway. Ochako puts a coin in his hand and rides the boat through the mystic river.

“It’s, um, good to see you again, your highness,” Deku chirps a little too cheerily than he ought to be doing, in a river full of the dead. One of them glares at him from underwater, making him blush and force a grim look on his face. “So the land above is cold once more?”

“Yes. Such is the wrath of my queen mother.” She looks fearfully around the darkness, where ghosts and ghouls and such float. “The Underworld is doing well, it seems.”

“Yup! Our King works pretty hard to keep things in order! You know, judging the dead, punishing them, fixing the irrigation systems, things like that!”

“I see. It’s good to see that his highness managed well while I was gone.”

He seems to have completely given up being grim as they sail along the river, despite getting another pointed glare from the dead. With another bright smile incompatible with the setting, he says, “Oh, but don’t be down, my queen! His majesty thinks of you often as he governs us here!”

“Has he?” Ochako sighs dramatically. “I wonder if my king loves me as he says he does! My mother has warned me as much--”

They reach the end of the river. Deku alights and helps her off the boat. “Believe in our King. He waits for you to take his place by his side.”

Ochako nods, albeit uneasily, and leaves the ferryman at the edge of the river.

The Underworld is dark and grim and orderly. But she is the goddess of spring, and so flowers of all bright colors grow where her feet land. Fearlessly she makes her way through the mist and convoluted pathways, until she faces a great glass door, shining midnight blue.

Beyond which, her husband awaits.

And as she pushes the glass aside, she sees him. Tall, pale skin with blue scars and mismatched eyes, frost all around him. A sharp dark suit, a crown of twisted black metal on top of his pure silver hair. A mountain of scrolls and folders on his desk, the files of the dead souls awaiting judgment.  

He turns to her quite naturally. A genuine smile on his face, one that makes disembodied voices gasp and swoon all around him. “Persephone.”

Ochako stutters in her steps a bit, face frozen in a smile that feels unnatural. She shakes herself back to her senses subtly and steps forward and bows deeply. “Your highness. I have returned as promised.”

Amusement glints in his eyes as he watches her stand to her full height again. “It’s good to see you again, my love. Winter on earth cannot come soon enough.”

Someone from afar chokes--Ochako hears something that sounds suspiciously like dreeamy boy!!! in the voice of Bakugou the god of war, from far away. She tries not to lose her focus and dares herself to look up at the face of her, um… her husband. “It has been a long year indeed, my King.”

He pauses and regards her, an unreadable look in his eyes. “Is there anything wrong?”

With his doubt comes the cold; Ochako rubs the skin of her bare arms as the frost encompasses the room. “No, not at all, my King. I just… think of my mother.”

“Queen Demeter,” he says flatly with a huff. “What has my sister told you?”

She looks up at him fearfully. His eyes have become dark, his demeanor intimidating. Shadows seem to dance around him as he steps closer.

It’s hard to be dishonest, and so she closes her eyes and answers. “My mother has told me… she told me that words are wind, and so are yours, so… I cannot possibly trust--”

A cold hand clasps around her wrist. She is terrified and is powerless to open her eyes, but then she feels warmth around her, and hears him shift in front of her.

When she opens her eyes, she finds her small frame enveloped in his coat. He’s kneeling in front of her, eyes shining in the darkness.

He takes a deep breath and says, quite clearly. “Please, believe in me, my queen. Without you, my kingdom remains dark and my heart, as dead and empty as those I serve. I have loved no-one but you, and will love no-one else.”

Ochako is having a really hard time looking straight into his eyes. “H-Hades… I…”

He doesn’t move, staring right into her eyes, waiting patiently. To hear her affirmation, or perhaps to break his heart is to be determined.  

She bites her lower lip and swallows. “I… forgot my line…”

The air around them fills with groans in the next moment. “Really, Ochako-chan?! Just when it was getting good!”

“Sorry guys,” she whimpers as the lights switch on one by one. All around her, her classmates who have been pretending to be corpses at the edge of the stage get up and stretch.

From beyond the stage, Mina looks up at her, sighing as she fans herself with the script. “Anything wrong there, babe? You two are doing great so far, but you seem extra off just now? Kinda looking overheated there.”

Ochako sputters and shakes her head vehemently. “Wh-why would I be overheated, Mina-chan? It’s the opposite! It’s really cold up here!”

It is. They had Todoroki use his real ice instead of having the props team make imitation ones. The shivering parts of her acting were 100% real.

“You tell me, Ochako-chan. I’m just calling it as I see it,” Mina says with a wink that doesn’t make her feel any better. “In any case, I guess we can take a break for now. The two of you have been acting all morning, after all.”

With that, everyone disperses. Ochako takes a deep breath and releases it and begins to walk off the stage, trying not to slip on ice.

“Uraraka.”

“Todoroki-kun.” As distracting as the patch of blue that the make-up team placed over his scar is, she doesn’t miss the look of concern on his face as he walks beside her. “What is it? Oh--wait, I’m sorry, your coat…”

She begins to shrug off the coat, but he holds up two hands to stop her. “You can keep wearing it if you need to.”

“But…”

“You said you were cold. We aren’t doing our scenes in a while, anyway.”

“Oh,” she says with a bashful smile. “Yeah… Um, sorry for messing up the scene back there, Todoroki-kun. We should have been done for the day if I got it right.”

It’s hard to keep the feelings of embarrassment at bay, considering how many big mistakes she made in the past rehearsals despite her spending so many hours memorizing all the lines in Mina’s Greek mythology script. Compared to Todoroki-kun, who unexpectedly got into it very early on and delivers all his lines, angsty and lovey-dovey and everything else, without an ounce of hesitation. It’s unfair how talented Todoroki-kun is in many things without trying too hard!

Speaking of which, why was she cast in this role anyway? No-one was able to stop Mina-chan when they chose her idea for the cultural festival presentation, and no-one was also able to stop her from writing a script and consequently casting everyone in class. She doesn’t know what possessed her friend to cast Ochako in such a major role, and with Todoroki-kun as her leading man, and no-one bothered to give her a proper explanation for it.

“Don’t worry about it too much,” Todoroki tells her as they walk out of the classroom and towards the nearby vending machine. “I think you did well in your other scenes.”

… just not the ones with Todoroki-kun as Hades the King of the Underworld declaring his love for her and such, was the eventual conclusion. She groans and leans her head against the cool glass of the vending machine. “Urgh, I’m sorry you had to be cast with me, Todoroki-kun! I am so not good at romantic scenes! I don’t usually think of lovey-dovey stuff or anything like that…”

Sure you don’t, her brain snarks. She hits her forehead lightly against the machine in retaliation.

“I understand what you mean,” Todoroki agrees. “I don’t think about romance a lot, either.”

She puffs her cheeks. “But… you’re good at this. That makes it more unfair…”

Todoroki hums, a neither here nor there sound that doesn’t really sound like he’s agreeing. “Do you want anything?”

She shrugs, and gestures for him to pick for her. He presses a button near her ear, and she feels the cold of his fingertips against it. She should be recoiling at the feel of it, but she feels her cheeks warm up at the action instead.

Stupid! Why is she getting worked up about pretending to be his wife and hearing his fake proclamations of love up close? She’s inconveniencing Todoroki-kun and the rest of her class by being so iffy about acting when she should just suck it up and be a goddamn professional about this.

She tries to straighten up and look at her leading man just as the machine drops two bottles for pick-up. “So… Todoroki-kun. If you don’t think about romance that often, how are you able to say those cheesy lines from the script so easily?”

“... was my acting cheesy?” His eyebrows shoot up in mild concern.

She actually doesn’t know. It probably was by the way Bakugou was reacting, but everyone else including her was too mesmerized by him saying those lines at all to notice. “No, you were fine,” she finally manages.

Taking note of her odd answer, Todoroki instead mulls over her question seriously. It takes him a while and a bit of staring at Ochako that makes her feel out of sorts.

After a few more beats of silence, he begins speaking. “I don’t know. I don’t think I’m good at pretending either, but when I have to, I try to mean what I say when I’m saying the lines.”

Ochako stares at him dumbly. “Ah… y-you mean… like… even those lovey-dovey lines?”

He nods, not looking the least bit embarrassed about the things he said.

“You’re kidding, Todoroki-kun! I’m sure you’re super good at pretending, just that you didn’t realize it until now…”

He shrugs. “Maybe. But it’s not hard pretending to care about you, Uraraka.”

His eyes aren’t as intense as they were on the stage, with all the shadows and lighting effects making blue and onyx shimmer so intimately, but his gaze and simple words paralyze her all the same.

To her silence, he looks right into her eyes and smiles, much like a scoundrel. “In fact, most of the time, it’s surprisingly easy. Even the parts where I talk about how dark and empty my heart is without you and all that.”

In utter disbelief, she flushes a deep red and has to look away from his teasing gaze before she melts in an incoherent puddle on the floor. What kind of guy just says these things without blinking? It’s hard to force herself not to turn away to say, “I change my mind, Todoroki-kun. You’re a ham. An utter cheeseball. You’re horrible.”

He huffs in amusement. “You said I wasn’t.”

“Well you are, and you’re the worst,” Uraraka says, finally turning away and puffing her cheeks in annoyance. No way is she going to survive this conversation if she allows him to look at her like that.

She hears him chuckle, and feels something cool being pushed into her hands. She looks down at the drink he’s bought her, and ends up gaping right at it.

“This is--”

The door to the classroom opens, Mina’s bright pink head popping out from within. “Ah, here’s my gorgeous loveteam is at. You guys ready for another rehearsal?”

Ochako’s jaw is still hanging open as Todoroki tells her, “Yeah, we’ll be there.”

“All righty~ better get to it, then,” she says. She gives them both a cheesy grin and disappears back into the classroom.

Todoroki walks ahead and looks back at her, that little smile still on his infuriating pretty mouth. “That’s my treat, by the way. Please finish it before you go back.”

He leaves, and Ochako is left to stare incredulously at the bottle of pomegranate green tea in her hand.

Yeah… he’s an utter cheeseball.

Before she can stop herself, she’s smiling all giddy and stupid and she has to straighten herself out to get back to a semblance of functionality. She puffs her cheeks, chugs down the drink in pure determination, and heads back to the rehearsal space, where the director and her leading man are waiting for her.

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

Spider-Man: Life Story #3 Thoughts

Since I was most anticipating this issue when I read it in the solicits, I read it in the store as soon as I got it. But I always meant to take a more careful look at it when I got the chance and try to break it down a bit more.

The tl:dr version of my thoughts are: This is possible the weakest issue so far.

Massive rant under the cut.

 As discussed before the perennial problem with this series is it’s muddled concept.

Is it a What If story and if so what exactly is the zag effect to where the canon zigged? Is it that Spidey ages in real time? Or that things happen more ‘realistically’ so you have a Watchmen scenario wherein real life social issues get addressed within a superhero context?

Is it an Elseworlds wherein the idea of a more ‘realistic’ worldview is the overlayed concept a top of the familiar canon?

Is it like what the Ultimate Universe was supposed to be according to some people wherin it’s a canon-free reimagining of the original stories free to take whatever liberties it desires for the new audience?

Well Life Story thus far has tried to be all of those things and winds up being none of them. This is quite aside from how it was originally marketed as a straight What If story, what if Spider-Man aged in real time.

But really this series is best described via the convoluted descriptor of:

“It’s a story where people who love and are familiar with the canon Spider-Man’s life can see how it would’ve been different if it happened in real time.

But also how it would’ve been different if the Marvel universe was more realistically wrapped up in social political issues of the different time period.

But also if it only really cared about the international military conflicts of those time periods and mostly uses all other social political issues as window dressing.

But also that realism mentioned above only goes as far as the writers decide it should go so the actual real life ramifications of superheroes involved in international military conflicts just don’t happen because Zdarsky says so.

And also those military conflicts only impact upon Spider-Man’s life directly whenever the story decides it should so half the time things are different because of the more ‘realistic’ warfare stuff and the other half of the time it’s different because it just is...not even because he’s aging in real time.

So yeah actually it’s also a what if Spider-Man’s life included all that stuff above but also things are randomly different from the canon for the sake of it, but the reader is still supposed to be surprised because they are familiar with the canon anyway.

Oh and what if also there are massive status quo changes between issues that randomly adhere and deviate from the canon on a whim and go unexplained”

 THAT apparently...is Spider-Man Life Story.

It’s a fucking mess at this point, I cannot understand the people who are praising it.

Let me get my ONE positive comment out of the way first.

Mark Bagley is just slaughtering the art on this story.

This is the best his art on Spider-Man has looked this decade and it’s up there with some of the best of his Spider-Man career.

I think it comes from him benefitting from modern inking and colouring like in Ultimate Spider-Man but he’s drawing something that isn’t as reimagined from the canon as USM. So consequently Spider-Man’s physique is more traditional (because Spider-Man wasn’t 15 when he began his career), Venom and the villains don’t have their Ultimate designs etc.

But the story...oh fuck the story.

The ONLY way any of this adds up in terms of story decisions is if you take it as Zdarsky’s fanfiction.

I respect fanfiction, but this is amateurish in it’s decisions and it says too much about Zdarsky’s view of Spider-Man or Spider-Man aging.

The story is so cynical about how Spider-Man aging would ruin him. the story is cynical about Spider-Man’s idealization of Mary Jane or the alleged toxicity of the Peter/MJ marriage.

Like I’ve said before he has an agenda when it comes to MJ and I think this is further proof.

Peter being Spider-Man fucks up her life big time, she suffers big time, it destroys their relationship and she lives in the shadow of Gwen.

When you consider this is supposed to on some level be a representation of the spirit of 1980s Spider-Man, or at least the stories it’s choosing to remix, it becomes utterly insulting.

This is a story remixing Kraven’s Last Hunt, a love letter to the Spider-Marriage if there ever was one, and it’s used in part to destroy their relationship.

Shit Gwen’s ghost is brought up as a bone of contention between them when it was in an 1980s story (drawn by Bagley no less) that it was clearly spelled out that Peter loves his WIFE Mary Jane more than his DEAD GIRLFRIEND Gwen Stacy.

Now I know the situation here is different because Peter was with Gwen for longer than in canon and longer even than his relationship with MJ in this universe. But the fact that it’s beating that same old drum speaks very much towards the idea that this is Zdarsky’s actual assessment of that love triangle. This is like something of the bygone days of BND and Slott’s era FFS.

The bullshit doesn’t stop there though because wouldn’t you believe it Peter and MJ have twins. Okay cool. And one is called Ben and the other is called...Claire...Claire? Who the fuck is Claire? We have 2 major AU Spider-Man stories where Peter and MJ name their first daughter after Aunt May and their second after Aunt Anna! Who the Hell is Claire?

That’s just the tip of the iceberg though.

There is so much stuff in this that as a what if or an elseworld’s story utterly fails and even stuff that simply doesn’t add up within the context of this story on it’s own terms.

·         So I guess...Vietnam ended...um...how? We already established that nonsensically Vietnam lasted longer than in the real world even though it should have ended earlier by rights. But now it’s just...over. How? How did that happen? I’m not saying it’s impossible but the story NEVER ADDRESSES this?

 ·         Captain America is clearly participating in Secret Wars in 1984, taking on Doom himself no less. We see little of his face but from what we do see he’s in uniform and also seems to still be in his prime. Huh? Captain America went rogue and fought against the United States for over 10 years in Vietnam! How does he still hold the rank of Captain America and how could he possibly still be seemingly in his prime by 1984 if he’s aging in real time? Think about it, he’s older than Spider-Man physically (forget that he’s from the 1940s). And Spider-Man is saying he’s getting slower in his old age in this story. So how the Hell is Cap (who’s powers don’t slow his aging and don’t give him Spidey’s power levels) still in his prime when he’s definitely in his 40s! It doesn’t make sense! It could all be explained a million ways because it’s the Marvel universe. The Beyonder could’ve addressed all of this but the problem is the story doesn’t. It just presents it as Steve Rogers betrayed America in 1967 and fought against them into 1977 then between then and 1984...went back to being the Captain America you knew and loved in the canon Secret Wars story

 ·         Doctor Octopus...is evil again. It was nonsensical enough that he was a good guy in issue #2 but now, with no explanation, he’s back to being evil. He doesn’t even seem to give a fuck that Aunt May is dying of dementia. That even highlights the stupidity of hookig them up in issue #2, Otto never actually romantically liked May, the age gap was massive!

  ·         The story has Peter test his new costume to determine it’s a living organism and he decides to keep it because he’s getting older and wants to remain strong and relevant. Then MJ claims he’s addicted to it because he wears it a lot and then when he is buried alive by Kraven it goes to him and turns him into...Venom? There is a lot to unpack with this I need multiple points. But let’s just start with this. First of all technically the symbiote shouldn’t give you synthetic muscles as it does to Peter when it turns him into Venom. Venom had a lot of muscle because Eddie Brock was a body builder. But I won’t hold that against the story because that’s been a problem with Venom for decades now. Similarly I hate it, but I can forgive the symbiote turning Peter into a toothy Venom monster.

 ·         More significantly the implication of this story is that the costume is corruptive of Peter, making him addictive and then feeds off his anger, threatening to permantly turn him into a monster after he’s buried alive. Er....That’s not how that works. The symbiote wasn’t originally like that outside of cartoons and films. The symbiote didn’t even corrupt Eddie Brock, Brock was already sick and twisted. It’s status as a metaphor for substance abuse also didn’t come in until later and it wasn’t a factor for Peter’s personal relationship with it at all so what gives why is that in this story? Does Zdarsky think Spider-Man 1994 is canon or something?

 ·         Peter is using the symbiote sparingly and even puts it aside when he goes off web swinging before Kraven confronts him. yet we’re told he’s becoming addictive. There is little evidence of this, it could just as easily be Reed and MJ were being overly concerned. At best it’s a case of Zdarsky telling yet not showing. If Peter was truly addicted he’d have taken the suit with him.

 ·         Is the implication the suit is going to take him over when he became Venom? How does that add up? If he’s not been wearing it to avoid that how does it rescuing him from the grave = now it’s in danger of taking him over?

 ·         What is this nonsense about Peter needing the suit to remain relevant? The costume didn’t enhance his powers originally. The story isn’t even very clear on if it does that in this universe or not. They didn’t even bring up how the costume makes the wearer more durable, able to surviving being shot, which would’ve been pertinent in this tale

 ·         Why is Peter even getting weaker? He’s 37, that’s a little older than he is now in the comics

 ·         Moving on, there is this weird inconsistency where Reed asks Peter has figured out if an alien machine can nano-weld, implying Peter’s new costume is nano-tech. This would add up because he has Parker Industries in this universe and he had a nano-tech armour during that time period. Yet his outfit is still torn like cloth. How? In fact if he has nanotech armour why would he even need the symbiote?

 ·         This story confirms for us that because Reed felt responsible for Dr. Doom he pushed away his friends and family and this is a warning to Peter of what he might become, and indeed does by the end of the issue...what? How the hell does that add up. Why does Reed feel more responsible for Doom and how does this result in him pushing away his family? Because he’s aging in real time? Because of...Vietnam??????? it makes no sense

 ·         Why is Peter concerned about staying relevant to the point where he keeps a dangerous suit? In canon Tony Stark replicated the abilities of a symbiote with non-living Extremis Armour so Peter with his resources could probably make a symbiote suit that isn’t dangerous. More importantly if he has all these resources at his disposal couldn’t he either just in general make tech to help him out and compensate for his old age (Bruce Wayne has done this in different continuities) or just use his companies resources to help people out without being Spider-Man anyway?

 ·         In canon and RYV and the MC2 universe it’s made repeatedly clear that when Peter became a parent being Spider-Man would take a backseat. Yet in this universe he’s being Spider-Man MORE at the detriment of his wife, mother and children who’ve been devoid of his presence for an extended period of time. MJ is upset to the point of swearing when the issue opens. The story is so devoid of the love and affection between the pair that’s important to the mythos.

 ·         WTF is Peter’s problem about putting May in an old folks home? He did THAT in canon too IIRC in the Marv Wolfman run. Even if he had a problem with that he’s the head of a big company just HIRE people to look after her. He’s got the money for a high tech lab and nano-tech suits why is a carer for the elderly out of his price range. And isn’t MJ really rich after Harry and her split up? Why is this an issue?

 ·         How did Peter wind up with Parker Industries? In canon it was because Doc Ock founded it then manipulated things behind the scenes after Peter regained his body to make the place a success. In this story without explanation Peter just has it. But Peter is a bad businessman, having money from MJ wouldn’t mean he’d be able to successfully run a company he hasn’t the aptitude for that!

 ·         The nuclear strike is just....putting aside how cynical it is, how achingly it wants to be like Watchmen or DKR...are you honestly trying to tell me Russia’s access to superhumans never resulted in anything game changing in the world before now? There is a superhuman arms race happening but we didn’t bring it up until nearly 20 years after the first issue began and only in 1984 does anything bad happen?

 ·         The implication is actually that Russia having superheroes of their own is a recent innovation. This makes no sense as there were Russian super powered people in the 1960s, including Red Ghost who is the perpetrator of the nuclear strike in the issue

 ·         Wait, wait, wait. Russia launches nuclear missiles at the United States because there are less super humans there and this results in a town getting destroyed and...that’s it. That’s all that happens. Oh and Vision is sad and intangible.

 Are you fucking kidding me?

How does aging in real time or the existence of super humans = The stalemate of Mutually Assured Destruction isn’t a thing in this universe.

 I’m sorry to bust out the most rudimentary of 20th century history here but if America or Russia launched a nuclear strike at one another then it’d set of a chain reaction wherein everyone would launch their nukes and the most of life would be wiped out.

Zdarsky in this story displays a blisteringly ignorance of real life history to the point where it’s honestly insulting.

It’s insulting to people’s intelligence but also to the real life people who lived through the Cold War, frightened the world would end any day.

 ·         Oh boy. Now we come to Kraven. I actually re-read this the same day I finished off Hunted so I saw a really good homage to KLH back-to-back with a really bad one.

What is Kraven’s plan here?

I will grant Kraven’s plan in KLH technically speaking made no sense but we were presented his twisted perspective and it was from that perspective we were able to deduce he was viewing Spider-Man (and the world) with blinders on. And from that limited viewpoint his plan added up.

Seemingly kill Spidey. Bury him alive. Imitate him. Be a better Spider-Man than him. when he wakes up tell him he could’ve killed him and show him you are a better Spider-Man than him. Die in glorious victory, honour restored.

It’s crazy, but it makes sense from Kraven’s POV, so much so that when he killed himself real life readers took it to be glorifying suicide.

Here we don’t get Kraven’s perspective. Which wouldn’t be a problem as much if his plan and motives were the same.

But it they aren’t because in Life Story Kraven the Hunter imitates Spider-Man, drugs him and then buries him alive...because America is at war with Russia...and he has cancer...and he needs Spider-Man to be ‘beautiful’ which seemingly means...violent and probably prone to killing.

????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

I’m just....what?

The worst case scenario for this is that Zdarsky should never be allowed to write Kraven the Hunter ever because this so aggressively doesn’t seem to understand his character, his relationship with Spider-Man or Kraven’s Last Hunt.

The best case scenario, Zdarsky is a terrible writer and in his head is justifying Kraven’s actions via ‘he’s crazy so it doesn’t have to make sense so I can have the character do anything.’

Let’s unpack this.

So Kraven is imitating Spider-Man (poorly because he uses a rifle) before he buries Spider-Man alive because...um...I don’t know.

Because as with so much in this story, it’s never explained.

You’d think it’d be to draw out Spider-Man but no, that’s not it because Kraven just happens to apparently know where Spider-Man is and sneaks up on him (where the Hell was the Spider Sense?)

The he shoots at Spider-Man at very close range but Spider-Man dodges. That’d be the Spider-Man who’s so old now at age 37 he maybe needs a symbiote suit to compensate. Yeah that guy can still dodge a rifle at close range just fine...without the symbiote.

Oh but then his old age catches up with him because Kraven stabs him.

Let me repeat that.

The old man, with no super powers (as he wants to remind us) who is also dying of cancer is able to stab the much younger super fast and agile guy with a precognitive danger sense.

What.

The.

Fuck.

Do you see?

Do you see how bad this series is?

This would be inexcusable writing even if we weren’t comparing it to canon!

But we aren’t done. Because remember how I said Kraven is old and has no powers? Yeah...why is Kraven old and hasn’t got any powers?

Kraven’s powers 100% grant him super human strength, speed, agility, the usual package of super powers.

It’s nowhere close to Spider-Man’s power level no, but it is beyond human nevertheless.

And KLH itself established that Kraven’s jungle herbs and potions make retard his aging immensely. In fact as real life time elapses their abilities to do this grow greater since he was a not yet an adult at the time of the 1917 Russian Revolution but looked to be in his 30s circa 1987 when KLH was originally published. As time goes by KLH didn’t happen in 1987 but much later so Kraven seriously doesn’t age! It’s to the point where he was part of a 1950s Avengers team in canon.

I get that Zdarsky in his alternate universe can take the characters in different directions but you aren’t even getting the super powers of the super heroes and villains right here!

But it gets worse.

So Kraven is doing this because after so many years in America he regards it as his home?

Fuck...Off.

Kraven the Hunter would never  think that way. Kraven finds America’s ways decadent. He hates them because they lack the kind of jungle and animalistic honour he holds so dear. This is spelled out in the goddam story Zdarsky is homaging.

What? Is the implication Kraven’s cancer is affecting his brain thus making him a totally different person?

If pressed Kraven might choose America over Russia but only because ‘Mother Russia’ destroyed his family in the Russian Revolution. But I’m not convinced Kraven would take a side in general, so much as he’d regard it beneath him or just the law of the jungle playing out on a bigger scale.

But. It. Gets. Worse.

Kraven’s motivation in trying to make Spider-Man ‘beautiful’ again, into a warrior again is akin to Zdarsky gluing in a character from a story we’ve not been reading into this one.

When the Hell in this mini-series was it ever implied Spider-Man was a warrior, a killer, someone violent the way Kraven wants him to be?

It’s even stupider when you consider Kraven says America hasn’t got a real hero, i.e. a real warrior who is willing to kill and be violent because...Wolverine literally appears in this comic.

Hulk appears in this comic.

Captain America appears in this comics.

Iron Man appears in this comic

THOR appears in this comic. Thor, the Viking WARRIOR God!

What is he talking about!??????????

BUT. IT. GETS. WORSE!

Because Kraven after burying Spider-Man proceeds to go around continuing to impersonate Spider-Man (for some reason without his gun now).

Why?

In KLH it made sense.

But WTF is Kraven’s motive in pretending to be Spider-Man in this story at all?

Why was he doing it before and what is his motive in doing it after burying Spider-Man?

He isn’t trying to make himself superior to Spider-Man now.

Peter isn’t even mad ABOUT Kraven impersonating him (which he was in KLH) so Kraven wasn’t doing it to rile him up.

WHY?????????????

BUT IT GETS WORSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Spider-Man only survives being buried alive because of the symbiote.

But Kraven couldn’t have known about that so his plan was either to

a)      Genuinely send Spider-Man out the way of a warrior...by drugging him and burying him alive to slowly suffocate...how noble...Or

b)      Burying him alive with the expectation he’d get out and be so angry he’d become a murderer and this would magically mean becoming old and weak wouldn’t be a problem any more.

*smashes head against desk*

·         Not to mention, a Venom empowered angry Spider-Man shoves the old, non-superpowered, dying of cancer Kraven’s head into a brick wall and...he’s fine. He’s not even dazed or bleeding.

 ·         What was the point of giving Kraven cancer? Like how does it make the story better? How does it at all play into anything? All I can think is that Zdarsky is weirdly planning on using it as a substitute for Eddie Brock’s cancer because he’s going to make Kraven Venom instead of Brock. Speaking of which

 ·         Apparently if Spider-Man ages in real time this would mean that Kraven the Hunter would become Venom instead of Eddie Brock one of Spider-Man’s most iconic villains ever. What?

 ·         Just to be clear this is a retelling of Spider-Man’s history where Eddie Brock isn’t Venom and where Kraven doesn’t kill himself. Way to ruin 2 iconic characters at once there Zdarsky

 ·         It’s implied a major part of what motivates MJ and Peter to break up (because again there is clearly  no agenda here at all) is that MJ had to risk possibly killing him with the sonic weapon when the symbiote sent him out of control.

 Okay, first of all Reed Richard had sonic weapons that could be rid of the symbiote without killing the host. The only way that could happen is if they were permanently bonded which Peter clearly wasn’t. So how comes with all his tech Peter invented a potentially lethal solution?

Second of all, he entrusts this to his...wife...and the mother of his children....um...Why not entrust it to an employee? Or Reed? Or Johnny?

Johnny is his best friend in the superhero community and his natural super powers give him an advantage against the symbiote. Reed already knows the risks and surely if Reed knows who he is then Johnny does too.

Or maybe Spider-Man ‘aging in real time’ results in Spider-Man and Johnny not being friends because...er...reasons. Seriously Peter is closer to Reed than Johnny in this continuity what the fuck.

Regardless, he’s entrusting a normal human woman with no combat skills to take down an out of control super powered being. And he’s entrusting she could bring herself to potentially kill  him as well.

Reed and Johnny might be friendly with him up to a point, but surely they’d find the prospect of killing him easier than Peter’s wife!

 My final point is this.

Maybe there is something coming to address this problem but we’re three issues in and I have to ask...what is the point of all the war stuff?

Spider-Man is a street level, personal story right? It’s about a normal guy, not a soldier. It’s about regular crime and social group tensions and romance and rent and smaller scale things like that.

So why is there such a focus in this story upon Vietnam, superheroes in Vietnam and the nuclear arms race with Russia?

Even Spider-man vs. Wolverine played things more low key than this.

This is a Spider-Man  story where a bona fide massive plot point is Russia nuking a town.

Just like...what is the point of this?

Why are we using a Spider-Man story about his life in real time to explore (badly) the horrors of war?

If you want to do that then actually finish the Spider-Nam mini-series!

Fuck this story!

P.S. Why were MJ and Peter casual about mentioning Spider-Man in front of Aunt May? Learning a bombshell like that could harm her health and in her state she could let something slip.

[airlock]

airlock grades the Conqueror archetype

and this one will wrap up the series! or, perhaps, trample it with iron boots -- because this is the realm of the ones who declare the wars, control the huge empires, storm the protagonistic homelands!

(do note: under cut are spoilers for… everything, and also a significant amount of me criticizing or blamming characters that you might like. you’ve been warned! but all hope is lost; whether you read on or not, I will post this and you can’t stop me. ahahahahaaaa!!)

the scourge of akaneia

(8/10)

Medeus is the launcher of some sort of an archetype of his own, in the sense of the big honking draconic/demonic being whose defeat seals up the plot, but he also distinguishes himself very much from that pack -- in that he’s never really idly awaiting for the endgame to come, but instead, he’s pushing the buttons and making things happen, even if his signature pose is the lazy villain slouch.

he’s easily one of the stronger villains in the Akaneia saga -- active, intense, and, quite rarely for this point in technology, a splendid realization of the motivations that drove him to villainy. it’s hard to disagree that he did the “as long as there’s evil” clincher better than Loptyr.

the scourge of valentia

(6.5/10)

the remakes have breathed much of the good and the bad of the series’ modern instances into the man who knocked Mycen up.

there’s a frequent criticism of Rudolf in that the convoluted plots he weaves, leading up to his death, make no sense and feel like deliberate plot behavior; I’d say Shadows of Valentia does good on clarifying the need for all of his scheming, though, as he has to contend with a decadent church that steadily eclipses his crown’s influence and has the furthest possible goals from his.

the problem, of course, is that all of this clarification comes about in the fashion that these things tend to on this side of Awakening: past the point when it’d have fang. why only have the red-armored reindeer start acting like Alm’s father right at the time of the final showdown? there was plenty of time to build him up in the cutscenes before that, but we waste all of that time on him bullying his nephew instead. and that particular thing ends up making no sense at all!

it sucks not only for making Rudolf weaker as a villain, but also for how much it cheapens Alm’s subsequent drama. we’re really supposed to buy that he’s all torn up about committing patricide, when the father he killed was no father to him at all except for a half minute before croaking? and seriously, this time, all the people being like “don’t judge him too harshly” after Alm went and killed him just end up sounding fiercely insensitive to him.

and last but definitely least, seriously, his older sprite was better lookin’.

the scourge of akaneia, book II

(6/10)

what, you give me a chance to use that gif, I use it, plain and simple-

ahem! so what to make of our here fallen hero? his tragic downfall is quite compelling, truly striking as a situation that no particular individual can be blamed for but was merely the sad result of the trappings of the system. alas, that much is cheapened quite a bit when the result of it in actions tends to run the gamut of arbitrary villainy; it feels like the last real character-informed action in his arc is when he finally gives in to the Darksphere, and from there, it’s all because plot.

still, having a formerly playable character turn crooked as a main plot point is a player punch that other titles have rarely shown similar bravery to pull off, and that’s very much to merit. Shadow Dragon even goes the distance in trying to strengthen the punch by giving Marth and Hardin one or two tidbits of extra dialogue with each other, but those sadly end up landing quite stifled and fail to contribute to the buildup.

it has to be said, though, I really hate how this side of the remake makes his evil self look like a lunkering zombie when old Mystery of the Emblem dodged the gonk and gave him some kind of sexy vampire look instead. that was working better. so I guess that makes Medeus the only one of the list here who didn’t strike the remake fortune with a worse character design?

the scourge of jugdral

(11/10)

Arvis is my favorite Fire Emblem villain bar none. he’s the full package, and should be zenith to with any antagonist in this series aspires to.

starting off, he boasts an extensive backstory that not only establishes his motivations, but even his personality, his neuroses. but what’s better yet is that he’s such a good villain, he carries himself perfectly in the game proper despite most of the detail of what made him who he is falling to the wayside of additional material. none of that text exists to make right the deeds that he gets up to, too; it’s hard to blame him in the end, but he’s not to be absolved, anyway.

he’s also masterfully crafty, and unlike certain toadies I’ve covered earlier who dip into his pool and pretend to be the real mastermind, he’s out there doing exactly what needs to be done in order to turn the bickerings of his continent into a cycle of mutual destruction that naturally pulls him all the way to the top. you know how, if you get enough of the gang killed, you can have an ending where Seliph ends up having to take over the whole continent, leaving him stuck being Arvis 2.0? folks sometimes call that a “wtf seliph” moment, but I’d call it the crowning excellence of Arvis’s schemes -- his M.O. is never to take over the empire, but ever to undermine the existing leadership so thorougly as to make himself the only option left.

and what’s more: although the zenith of his arc is the stuff of late-term plot twists, this is that rare occasion when the plot twist is done well and doesn’t just ruin the rest of the story because of the secrecy required. the tipping point is built up to very well, with Arvis’s uncertain allegiances and sketchy character -- masterfully played so that he’s suspect, but hard to instantly point fingers at. the cherry on top is when he fakes coming to your aid at the very end, making it so look like that’s his place in the plot, until it isn’t and he betrayed you and murdered everyone. what magnificent brutality!

my god, is this long enough yet? because seriously, I could keep going. I’ll spare you all since we’re not even halfway done with this list yet, but I think I’ve made this much abundantly clear: Arvis is a master class in how to write a primary villain, and nothing less.

the scourge of leonster specifically

(5.5/10)

technically, a conqueror per se he isn’t, but he’s very much occupying a similar role in Thracia 776, as the one who directly made possible the imperial occupation of Manster and also the one who actively pursues Leif.

as far as villains in that particular game goes, Raydrik is one of the better inserted, having been given a place in the story of Jugdral that doesn’t encroach on anyone else’s but still makes him more than relevant enough of an enemy to Leif. it’s unfortunate, however, that having to play second fiddle to a stooge like Veld dials down the extent to which he can seize on that in full.

the scourge of elibe

(4.5/10)

the world’s sharpest fidget spinner has a fairly interesting concept going, specially with how it fits into the grand scheme of Binding Blade -- is it easy to disagree with the misanthropic antagonist, when the majority of the enemies you’ve faced up to that point were the assholes that were supposed to be on your side?

unfortunately, it’s still pretty easy to disagree with Zephiel in the end. I might be thinking of the earlier and more stifled fanslation, but he’s far too stoic to sell the bread that he’s supposedly growing. were that he ever really showed the sorrow and anger he feels at the lot he’s been dealt, and how it compels him to such drastic lenghts as attempting to erradicate humanity itself, he’d have made for a far more convincing villain; alas, depressive emotionless doesn’t really mesh all that great with the sort of arc he’s trying to build.

in fact, it weakens his impact quite a bit that so much of his backstory only ever goes through in the form of his sister lengthily expositing about it; he only gives his own words on the matter obliquely, and the thing ends up landing like it’s a sob story intended to drum up cheap sympathy, even though it actually explains what he’s doing.

Blazing Blade puts in the valiant effort of showing you in actions not words what led him down the path of villainy, but your prequel should not be tasked with the work of establishing you as the villain you are in your actual game.

credit where credit is due, though, this guy’s theme song slaps so hard, you end up in a dungeon with Sophia. in terms of audibly announcing how fucked you are when he’s in the neighborhood, he’s second only to Arvis.

the scourge of caelin specifically

(5/10)

Blazing Blade is mostly about preventing conquests from taking place to begin with, but this guy fits the bill neatly enough, as someone who sparks the conflict of Lyn’s story by making moves on his ambitions.

I can’t help but feel like he could have been written to be more interesting and compelling -- like, if he didn’t look like he’s roughly as close to death’s doorstep as his brother is anyway, and/or if he’d mentioned having heirs of his own that he wished to pass Caelin down to instead of Lyn... or maybe if he dropped the cacklevillainy for a moment to seize on what a genuinely frustrating feeling it’d have to be, being all but the designated heir for 15-odd years and THEN some random granddaughter appears out of nonwhere.

that said, he wasn’t intended to be a particularly complex villain; he’s the tutorial villain, with the tutorial villainy. I ultimately can’t grade him higher than such a role merits, but it’s ultimately understandable that he wasn’t written better.

the wooden scourge of magvel

(7.5/10)

although he’s not actually there at any point of Sacred Stones, it’s not for no reason that Lyon put his undead inflatable doll self to work -- and I mean that both in the pragmatic sense and in the character sense.

Vigarde’s presence is palpable, echoing through the backstories of a great deal of characters and informing their actions and choices for the greater part of the game; that’s a very impressive thing to accomplish without being there in the first place, and it builds him up to quite the solid character.

the scourge of tellius

(8.5/10)

so, this guy’s motivations are kind of wack; the clear intention there to mirror and contrast the protagonist ultimately lands flat, and his ideology does little to impress meaning upon his actions. also, it’s pretty lame that he has all the cool battle quotes he has when only Ike is special enough to actually hurt him. I’m getting the criticism out of the way now because the rest of this is going to be nothing but gushing.

what an incredibly entertaining villain! his great crooked grin never feels like an affectation -- he may be theatrical and cruel, but he has his firm reasons for doing everything he does. and the plot doesn’t tell him what to do; he tells the plot what to do, with flair. and his master plan, if hard to conciliate as an entirely human thing -- again, his ideology doesn’t land that well as an explanation for the things he does -- shimmers in its sheer audacity: provoking a world war in order to intentionally enrage the gods! holy shit. and he almost succeeds, at that.

his backstory is also a point-for: it’s not the sort of backstory that explains things, per se, but it serves instead to establish that Ashnard has been Ashnard for as long as there has been Ashnard, and that’s splendid. not everything has to go all the way to the egg!

right, right, again I’m going to try not to go on forever, but I’d be remiss in not closing with one of Ashnard’s greatest strengths: the banter. this guy has the guillotine-sharp tongue to match the extent to which he doesn’t give a shit about anyone, and it makes for magnificent lines. the part where he tears Bryce a new one and still gets to deploy him to the final battle is easily one of Path of Radiance’s standout moments, in my opinion.

the scourge of valm and good arcs

(1/10)

this guy gets quite compelling dialogue for what’s easily one of the most batshit villains in the whole franchise, and even Awakening itself.

as usual, the game elects to make the parts of his motivation that makes sense a secret for after you kill him -- which not only makes them irrelevant by the time they land, but also make him sound like he’s bonkers while he’s still around. all of his playing at being Rudolf 2.0 lands seriously flat in a story that has otherwise not really established the gods he keeps talking about breaking free from. and once the cards are down, well, he succeeds in being Rudolf 2.0, in that, as far as I hear, Rudolf made a lot less sense before Shadows of Valentia came about; his M.O. of imperialism to prevent the apocalypse is just one big honking what the fuck??. how hard can it be to just tell people about that? who’s going to stop you, Excellus?

and I will also never forgive him for directly influencing his ancestor’s weaker design in the remakes-

the scourgoo

(??/10)

so from where I’m standing, his plot twist also sounds pretty lame, but hey, I’m not going to start rating Fates people now, right

so, how are you all enjoying your brutal subjugation under The Empire (TM)? do you welcome your new militaristic overlords, or are you already mounting the resistance? the ins and outs of what sort of catastrophe we’ll be facing in the upcoming Three Houses are yet to be revealed, but before we set about blaming the crests, what would you expect from the sort of figure who’d be pushing the lances to make it happen? comment what you will through replies and reblogs, but rest assured that you’ll never figure out the master plan behind this invasion... ahahahahahahaaaa!!

[killian-whump]

OUAT 2x14: Rewatch Blog

Hey everybody! Here I am, once again, with a liveblog post for a Once Upon a Time episode! This one’s called “Manhattan” - which strangely enough, I had to look up to make sure of, because I could’ve sworn that 2x15 was the one called “Manhattan”, but when pressed to remember what 2x14′s name was... I could only come up “Also Manhattan...?” which seemed wrong.

Anyway! Let’s settle in and watch Manhattan Part 1...

Hmmm.  Okay, so Rumple’s all “I wanna fight!” and Milah’s like “Oh, no, the war” and this just seems weird to me, all of it. I’m making that Fry face at my screen right now. Not sure if full of shit or full of shit...

Emma asking, “Is this the right place?” AND HE SAID YES. Like, how does he know?! That globe was a hell of a lot more useful here than it was in Neverland. Or did they just toss the globe overboard when they went through the portal? “Welp, we don’t need this plot device anymore.”

Hahaha, Emma. “Well, who doesn’t love a surprise?” Should I start the list, or is someone else gonna do it? Rumple’s face is hilarious. He looks like he’s thinking, “Me, actually. I don’t like a surprise...”

That’s a really boring title card, Once. Really boring.

“Back? From where?” OH MY BABY. Incidentally, I forget he’s in this scene every single time I see this scene, and then I hear his voice and I’m like “OH, MY BABY” like, you know, what literally just happened 2 sentences ago.

Aww... You vengeance-hopped-up bondage bunny, listen to your Dommes and be a good boy <3

CHASE SCENE, IT’S A CHASE SCENE

RUN, EMMA, RUN

CRASH!!!!!

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH PLOT TWIST

I always did like that plot twist. One of the better ones, I thought.

“I am the only one allowed to be angry here!” Yeah, you tell him, Emma.

This face is great:

Kinda sums up the entire scene, doesn’t it?

I love the subtle AND COMPLETELY OBVIOUS change in Gold and Henry’s interactions now that the audience is thinking, “Oh, wait... If his dad is... and his son is... OH MY GOD.” A gentle approach as always, show.

WHY WOULD HE NEED AN ENTIRE TYPEWRITER IN A FANCY WOODEN BOX WITH A SINGLE SHEET OF PAPER THAT SAYS “I KNOW YOU’RE BAELFIRE” ON IT? HOW FUCKING EXTRA CAN YOU BE?!

Pictured Above: THE LITERAL HEIGHT OF FUCKING EXTRANESS

“...because Pinocchio told you to?!?!” One of the best lines ever XD

Oh, come on, Neal. Man up for once and just talk to your father. Geez.

Like, I know he’s pissed that his dad didn’t follow him into the portal, but all of this hiding and nonsense? Acting like he’s terrified of the man? Like, did I miss the part where Rumple EVER presented an actual threat to Baelfire? Because I don’t remember that. Honestly, if I’m forgetting something from S1 where Rumple threatened or harmed his son, someone please remind me. Shitty dad? Sure. Dropped the ball? Definitely. Worth running and hiding from for fucking centuries? You’re a goddamn pansy, Neal.

“Rumplestiltskin...” Oh, that’s not a creepy voice at all.

Oh, that’s not a creepy girl at all.

Oh, that wasn’t a creepy scene at all.

Can I go home now?

“The truth about your parents - Emma, you of all people should know how important that is.” Umm... yeah. That’s a really good point.

“Are you sure this is about protecting Henry... and not yourself?” Aw, Snow... Such good advice in this phone call. Also, nice sweater. Very soft.

Ahhh... And good acting by Jen in here, too.

AW, GEEZ, EMMA, SNOW JUST GAVE YOU SOME GREAT ADVICE AND NOW YOU’RE JUST GONNA IGNORE IT ALL. GOSH DARN IT.

Oh, look. It’s the mild-mannered mayor here to visit the amnesia-stricken woman in the hospital. There’s no way this could go badly!

Umm... Regina, I love you and I love your magical ways, but you could’ve just, like, rifled through her purse. “Magic always comes with a price” but apparently not if you just want to wave some objects through the air instead of, like, reaching in and moving shit around like a normal person. That shit’s free.

Like, there is just no reason for this. It’s pointless. It’s weird.

Library scene. One of my favorites :D Well, not this one. The next one.

Hahaha, this “touching” mother daughter moment is so weird and dysfunctional and borderline creepy. I love it.

Seriously, Hook, you’re so fucking impatient. Just cool your heels, bro.

Hey, Gold, here’s an idea. Maybe when you’re hiding your dagger somewhere, and your arch nemesis is a pirate, maybe don’t leave a pirate map to where it’s hidden for that pirate to find and follow. I mean, you might as well have left it in a toolbox in the garden she- Nevermind. Let’s not talk about this.

Emma: Don’t do this. There are things called laws. Henry: I’ll be lookout. :D

“I don’t think he’s listening.” Henry is brilliant in this episode.

YEAH, THAT’S WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT, NEAL. You finally manned up. Must've found some balls in the alley and tried ‘em on for size.

Aw, geez. I’m just... Wow. I really shouldn’t say anything about this whole scene, but... Yeah. Wow. I honestly can’t like Milah after some of the stuff she says in this scene. Sorry, guys. Like, she is literally telling her husband and the father of her child that the kid would’ve been better off if he was dead - and not just once, but, like... It’s like she’s engaging in a single-person competition to see who can find as many different ways as possible to say the same terrible thing over and over again, and it somehow manages to sound worse every time.

AHHHHH HIGH DRAMA!!!

I really do like everything about this scene with Emma and Neal and Gold and Henry and everyone trying to figure things out and/or hide things and/or... Oops, now it’s all out in the open and we’re all a big happy family fucked.

Ugh. Now it’s Greg. I really, really don’t care about Greg. At all.

Regina, goddammit, I told you to just rifle through that purse like a normal person. SEE what happens when you don’t listen to me?!

Actually, I totally forgot about this moment entirely, and now I’m laughing... Leave it to the show to put a “Why the fuck would you do this in this way?” moment into the show... that turns into a convoluted plot twist.

Son, I am disappoint totally not surprised, actually.

That map really DOES look like a child’s scribbles, though.

HOOK, WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE GOING TO DO WITH THAT... keyring? scissors? dohickey? I don’t know. WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT THING?

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, it’s time for one of my favorite things ever!!!!

SUPER CASUAL VIOLENCE!!!

They’re both just so... so casual... and so flippant... and so... oh gosh, hahaha. He’s all upset and angry and foaming at the mouth, and Cora’s just like ~fling~! and LOOK AT THAT FUCKER FLY The violence is so ultra super casual and amazing, hahaha. And then they just walk off like Mean Girls: Storybrooke Edition and I fucking love them and I’d better rewind and watch it again. Hold on a second, guys.

ARE THOSE FUCKING TONGS, THOUGH?! why?

The books falling over like dominoes, haha, they always make me laugh. Better rewind again. I love this shit so much.

Old-fashioned compass, I guess? Some kind of... dohickey? I’m gonna go with dohickey, guys. I mean, it looks like a dohickey to me. Still, like, dafuq you think you’re going to do with that dohickey against two ladies with magic, boo? You adorable fucking idiot. IT DOESN’T EVEN HAVE A SHARP EDGE.

WHOOP, THERE HE GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOES

See, there. Bae had no fucking reason to be running and hiding from Rumple for fucking centuries. He just handled him just fine right there. 

“Or what you did to me.” Valid point, Emma. Well made and- ARE YOU FUCKING LAUGHING, YOU LITTLE SHIT?!? Where’d that fucking dohickey go?! YOU ARE SO GETTING RUBBED, YOUNG MAN.

Well, what do you know? The seer who said the future was hard to discern clearly has now given you her powers... AND YOU’VE LEARNED THAT THE FUTURE IS HARD TO DISCERN CLEARLY. Shocked. I am shocked.

PLOT TWIST. The boy will be his undoing!!! Except... umm... I mean... he kinda never was, though? So, I mean, I don’t... uh...

Aw, fuck it. Let’s rewind and watch the super casual violence again.

WHEEEEEEEEE LOOKIT HIM FLY!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D