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greysfall · 3 years

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My 4444-word review of NEO TWEWY (with personal illustration + heavy spoilers)

My overall critical score for the game is 7.5/10, while my personal enjoyment score is 8.5/10. This review is posted as I have 80% completed the game, got the secret ending and achieved the Angel psychic rank. I’ll first start with the main pros and cons as follows.

PROS:

- Enjoyable as a whole, still upholding the first game’s spirit in world building and sharing the same backbone - which was mostly revealed in the Secret Reports, it’s impossible to grasp the story without reading them.

- The new cast and new game is charming in their own way

- The old cast’s return is one of the biggest highlights for sure, it was fun and impactful. Everyone stays true to themselves and also had their own stories wrapped up nicely.

- Boss designs are cool, new pins are fun to use and collect

- The connection between the old and new cast is well written and executed, including but are not limited to the tension between the old and new protagonist, the weird but fun interaction between the 2 Composers, the new friendships revealed and formed

- Sho being in the main cast is something so uniquely TWEWY and uniquely Sho

- Still good music

- Still many fun side quests, some of them really uphold the same quirky spirit of the old game and some are surprisingly touching

- Many new nice stores and yummy looking foods to explore

- The map is really easy to memorize for me, it’s fun to travel around the “current” Shibuya to see all the differences compared to the past

- The social network is crazy and interesting to read through

- Has an anti-frustration system to help 100% complete the game more easily and earn money faster, so post-game is relatively managable.

- Overall, I really feel the efforts the team poured into making this as their passion project, not just during the development process but for all the last 14 years. They showed the vision of what they wanted to make, at the same time giving something to both the old as well as new fans.

CONS:

- The biggest problem with the game is scenario writing. The story is so heavily back-loaded. The director himself thought it would be better to balance out the tension flow by adding more at the beginning but gave in to the scenario writer in the end, probably due to time pressure. This results in an underwhelming execution of characterization and lots of wasted potentials for the first half of the game.

- I struggle to view it as a stand-alone game, since the backstory and the old cast both play such an important role in the core of the game. If someone plays this game without having played the OG, they can only enjoy it on surface value at best.

- The new cast is nice but most of them aren’t quite as intriguing as the old cast, maybe it’s cuz they’re all too nice deep down that they lack a little bit of an edge, of that batshit craziness that everyone in the OG used to have? I think some characters (Fret, Nagi) ended up weaker in terms of characterization because the writer is too afraid of making them unlikeable – which kind of backlashed cuz they only became likable in the most expectable way to cater for a specific group of fans. I would have wished for the other team leaders to be more crazy too, had they not suffered 30+ loops of the Game…

- The CAMERAWORK IS HELL.

- Gameplay does get tedious at certain points with all the time travels.

- Shiba is so badly written as a villain, some Shinjuku characters should be given more screentime cutting into Shiba’s– like Hishima or Kaie or even, Hazuki (though his limited presence also solidified his importance).

- Some of the main character designs, for example Beat’s hairstyle and his food reactions are hilariously bad. What’s the point of covering up most of his unique facial features?

- Some of the minor/side characters’ design are too cool for them to have such a small role (eg: Ayano, Eiru). Ryoji did get much screentime but is nowhere as fun as Makoto was.

- Overall the scope of this game is made a little too big for the team to handle as perfectly as the last game that was very compact, it felt somewhat rushed in development too so the missing pieces are clearly there in the final picture

The entry fee versus paying for it all in the end

An important difference between the Neo game and the original Shibuya game was that the Shibuya rule asked for an entry fee that is the Player’s most important asset, stated as a chance the Composer gives them to reexamine themselves. Meanwhile, the Shinjuku rule neither encourages nor allows personal growth and ultimately aims to erase as many Players as possible. It’s a pity we were never introduced to the full Shinjuku rulebook, as it seems like the system there focuses more on building up power and a grand government to compare with the individuality-driven system of Shibuya.

When you have to compare the new game and the original game (OG), this is an important factor to consider. Also, the OG has a serious storyline running through and through, locked with a different partner/GM creating unique atmosphere for each week and you don’t get to see your old partners again until the end. NEO’s team system does not allow such deep insight and communication between the Players. All of your teammates are always there throughout, the dynamic does change with each new addition but it is not as prominent as a partner change.

Another important factor is how the OG was built from scratch for a new platform as “something no one has ever seen before”, while Neo recycled a lot of old unused ideas from the previous development (check out this interview for more details). The development team for NEO lacks 2 key members and had a change of writer so the final product is not as strongly bound together as the last game.

The new cast is definitely inspired by today’s teenagers (from the view of creators), compared to the old cast they’re more sociable and always seem to take whatever works for them despite feeling unstable inside. They are all innocent and genuinely nice kids, avoiding to hurt each other to a degree that they end up keeping some sort of distance. They’re also unable to communicate at deeper levels, always stagnant at this half-baked stage of equilibrium without any motivation to get to the core of things. That is the cost of entering the game without an entry fee, without even dying or having a reason to be there/to fight seriously. These kids were stolen from the RG into a Game that was decidedly the worst environment for them to change or develop, just wandering around cluelessly to find a way “out” until tragedies started to unfold one by one and they ended up being charged the total sum of the price for their actions – ultimately losing everything in the end.

That is, I believe, a story arc which can resonate more to the youth of today rather than of my generation. If the message of the old game was to “listen”, enjoy life to the fullest and accept to trust others, the message of the new game is to “speak up” from the inside, trying to understand yourself and take actions instead of just going with the flow and finally, to take responsibility for such actions.

If Neku was handpicked by the Composer for being the special one with an all-dense soul to ensure victory of the game then Rindo was just a normal kid chosen out of random by Kubo to be his back-up plan, who just happened to have a high enough imagination to awaken the incredible power from his pin. Rindo was then officially chosen by the Composer as Josh picked up and handed the pin to him again, this time not as Josh’s personal Proxy – but as the Proxy to represent the normal people of Shibuya and via whom he could gamble if humans can fight for their own fate.

The underworld heroine and the hero with little of his own

Shoka is for me a refreshing and layered heroine. She’s the kind of character that took at least 3 trials of creators to form as a complete individual – that included Nomura who gave her the base design and Reaper background, Gen who gave a more cunning touch and the writers who made her English dialogues more punchy. Dishonesty equals “tsundere” is such a cliché, so the English writers tried really hard to avoid that trope in my opinion, while still letting her good intention come through.

She serves as the character who is informed of everything the players should have known, and there was almost nothing she could do about it. Almost. Until she met Rindo.

They were drawn to each other by sharing a state of “not having anything of their own”. They both started out with not being able to truly know themselves, Shoka even hated her RG life but also managed to mature from that stage before Rindo. She must have vibed with Shiki’s love and passion in the Gatto Nero threads, initiating her connection with Shibuya and understanding herself more. With Shoka as Swallow, they were able to open up to each other and offer mental support… but was still not getting to the centre of their problems because for all this time, Shoka could not tell Rindo the most important things about herself.

How did Shoka feel when she met Rindo at the UG? She probably didn’t want to hope that he would live the day until she witnessed the Twisters’ potentials. From the very beginning, they were both incredibly conscious of each other and also constantly frustrated that the person they happened to “notice” was such a condescending bitch/a clueless loser. The Shinjuku Reapers are overall quite drunk in power and uncompassionate to Players, Shoka included. She is also a master of dissociation, which results in her constant boredom, tone swings, haughtiness and subconsciously distancing herself from the friend – the boy she cares about – from false hope, as she judged from facts that it was a hopeless situation where nothing could ever be. Maybe she is naturally a bit of a chameleon just like her name suggests (Shoka 紫陽花 = hydrangea, the color-changing flower), so putting on an act and always dissociating herself from what’s important was easy, while hiding her contradiction was impossible. It was the ex-Reaper Beat who broke it out to her, that she should decide whether she really cared and wanted to do something for a change. He knew how it felt like to cross that line, and knew she wanted to too.

Shoka is endeared by many of the Shinjuku Reapers and has shown independent acts of kindness (the Shinjuku ghost), proving that her kind and truthful side is as real as her harsh and dishonest side – which makes her a nice mirror to the previous heroine Shiki, who also embraced a dichotomy of self-complex and self-love within her character. In the end, she was the first of the new cast to ultimately accept all that is important to her and independently made the decision to help save Shibuya despite all costs.

She was jealous at Rindo’s interaction with Tsugumi and Kanon but remained silent cuz she wasn’t at a place to have any say about it. She also didn’t reveal about Swallow because that would only add an awkward irrelevance to their current situation, as she was too ready to face erasure at the end of the Game. She only wished to “play a game” with him, be it FanGo or the Reapers’ Game. The tension that the team could only feel at the end, she’s felt it the entire time. The song “DIVIDE” is applicable to not just one bond in the game, but it always makes me think of theirs. There is always a “divide” between her and Rindo throughout the course of their journey, as the living and the dead, as a Player and Reaper, as someone who has a place to return to and someone who doesn’t, someone who knows little but wields too much power and someone who knows a lot despite not being able to do much.

“If only I had the chance to connect with you on the other side

But time goes on, and without us realizing it

The battle is getting heated

Time goes on, and without us realiazing it

Divided again”

To be honest, maybe I didn’t grow any affection for the new main cast from Rindo’s perspective but from Shoka’s. Since I started to sympathize with Shoka, I started to see the boy in a more “real” way. The real Rindo, behind his peaceful façade with others, would lash out on Shoka for her unfairly harsh attitude while none of the others cared. He could also subtly feel that mantle of unspoken secrets from her, her own contradictions, the unresolved chemistry between themselves – and not knowing what to do with it rather than to feel angry with all the unfairness he could not process. (As a Libra too, he’s triggered the most by unfairness!)

It is actually a positive development as he’s at least “reacting” to something strongly now rather than to keep evading his problems. During my replay, I clearly saw the difficult situation Shoka was in, her remaining harshness after the Motoi incident was due to her internal struggle with a mission to save her own life, versus a chance to really be with the team. Her decision was to do both at the risk of losing favour from both sides. Rindo started to accept her layer by layer, as the person who resonated the most to her contradicting nature from the start and knew that via learning her resolve, he has learnt his too.

Later into the game, she even got too much of his attention. Maybe even without knowing she’s Swallow, he’s familiar with her thinking direction and Swallow had always been closer to him than any other friend. It was only after she had to betray her important ones twice that she could start being truly honest. The scene when she died a 2nd time left a strong impression in me, the little reveal let Rindo know that he is also losing Swallow as he’s losing Shoka – and that only death could drive the last secret out of her. Her final “Later, loser” echoed through Rindo as it was the final truth, with only him remaining to hear it: they had actually, already lost everything.

Rindo was the boy who never dared to face all that matters to him until he lost it all, fighting an unfair battle in the faith that they would somehow still win. Shoka was the girl who always knew what was dear to her, but never dared to think she could be together with them ever after and still threw her all into a battle she knew was losing. I think they stir each other on naturally to fill out their gaps, similar to what the Shibuya game partner systerm would have aimed for. The end reward was a little divine intervention to help close up the divide between them once and for all.

During the game there was not enough space to process anything personal so at the ending when they officially became “friends”, it was an important affirmation of their bond. Some people complained it was friendzoning but it’s not, they just have arrived at the perfect place to start something more. “From now on, we will truly be together” – I read it as that kind of message.

The heroine from a lost battle, with her story taken away

After reading the secret reports and playing the game to be surprised of how small a role Tsugumi had in the main game despite being the “Hype-chan” thought to be a major character of the next TWEWY installment, many fans would feel sad at a missed opportunity to see the Shinjuku arc in full depiction.

It was shown clearly that, a Shinjuku arc was very carefully planned out and is a vital part of the whole story, yet it could not be made due to various circumstances behind the development scene. I would assume, that the team were not able to make a TWEWY game that ended on a despairing note, but it already happened in their mind, thus becoming a mental burden that forced them to break away from it and started the game anew with NEO. A significant part of NEO became the healing arc for the Shinjuku characters, especially for Tsugumi though I really wished more emphasis should have been placed on her rather than Shiba. We didn’t even get to see her brother – Shinjuku’s Conductor who had a vital role and instead was given the clueless Shiba, who had absolutely no idea what’s going on all the way until the last day in NEO. It’s as if Tsugumi has had her story stolen away from her, because her own battle ended with a saddening loss.

I think every time the game creators look at Tsugumi, they would feel that sadness too. Maybe to them, she is a bigger character than what is seen by the fans, as despite their failed effort to depict her story, she’s lived in their mind for all these years through periods of destruction, healing and rebuild. Though it is a pity we could not get to experience the full scope of the Shinjuku story, the creators was clear about the place they wished for it to arrive at.

Individuality, connection and the social network

The team system adapted from Shinjuku rulebook does not allow much room for personal development, as the team dynamic is closer to a work relationship forced to bear results, than a spiritual bond to max out all corners of understanding as found in the partnership system. The old Shibuya system allowed only 1 winner and 1 week limit per game, while the new rule declares for a 1 winning team and only the team at last place will be erased – the other teams will enter another loop. Furthermore, whichever team to challenge the unwinnable Ruinbringers will face the risk of ending up dead last followed by erasure. As a result, the longest-standing teams are most likely not the strongest ever recorded, but the ones who have figured out a strategy to simply survive until something changes, enjoying their newly found social constructs while they are at it. Basically, it is a system to hypnotise players into the illusion that they are still “living”.

Therefore, we as players would not get to the core of each Player individually as fast and directly as we did in the last game. The Twisters were able to stand out not because they’re powerful, they only started to have a real chance after growing enough to each form a meaningful and personal connection to another teammate. It did not come as a team, nor did it intiate from the existing friendship between Rindo and Fret. In fact, I did not find much solidity or anything truly note-worthy about the main team and new characters within themselves until they started clashing with other team members, Reapers and new recruits from week 2 onwards. Rindo found his personal development with Shoka (via a clash with Motoi and pretty much a mini dating sim between them), then via the confrontation of his role with Neku; Fret found his with Kanon then Nagi, the team learned about the real Neku via Beat, Neku entered the UG via Coco’s wish to save Tsugumi… it was not the team but their personal links that empowered them to fight and solve each of their problems.

The other team leaders may have failed because they did not form such personal links, after 30+ hopeless loops Fuya’s team all fell apart to pursue their own interest even at the cost of erasure, Motoi quit his KOL façade to work like a dog for the Reapers (probably to save just his own ass not his team), while Kanon dropped her tricks to find changes via honest cooperation in acceptance of a fair loss. The despairing note in that is huge without making much of a scene because their failure didn’t happen at their best effort to “win”, but in their last attempt to find a way “out”. Even Shiba got his way “out” in the end thanked to his personal friendship with Hishima and Tsugumi.

Something has shifted in the mindset of the game creators in the last 14 years, as both games are about “connection vs individuality” but the last game focuses more on connection between just individuals and this one on the overall network that is formed out of those individual connections.

The introduction of Beat into the main cast was truly the bridge between old and new, they helped each other out in several turns before officially recruiting him. Beat is a character whom a lot of fans including myself have felt somewhat concerned about after Neku disappeared from the RG, so when the new kids welcomed Beat with warm and organic interaction and Beat seemed happy, I started to feel like I wanted to help them out too! I think the overall team chemistry is enjoyable enough for new players, but I could warm up to the new kids more from the pov of a returning character – whom I’m glad to be Beat, as the older brother figure who is genuinely kind, fun, serious and upbeat at the same time; who is needed and needs the kids in return.

The social network is a fun and refreshing feature. You can read all of the crazy tidbits about Shibuya and the links each character have formed with the town people, it’s also fun to visualize how the characters act off screen. Characters’ profiles provide extra insight into their background too, like how it reveals Tsugumi has been friend with Coco during her time in the RG. During the game when not all characters have showed up, you can sometimes guess which empty spot will belong to whom. For example there is a 1 character linking to Neky that is not linked to anyone else, so I could guess that was Joshua, and that another character linking only to Joshua was probably Hazuki, hinting that the 2 Composers are related before either of them even showed up.

Hazuki only showed up for 5 minutes, but his presence is so vital and true to the game that I think he is the most memorable out of the new cast. The two Composers have such an intriguing bond, with their yin/yang or phoenix/dragon themes, opposite color design, the sempai/kouhai tone and the way they keep some sort of distance/work relationship as if it’s mandatory between Higher beings, yet at the same time they can talk so casually because they are truly equal – and different from one another. I have written a separate meta on them here.

Some people pointed out, that all Shinjuku characters’ names and themes are based off Hanafuda cards and the Phoenix in Hanafuda belongs to the Paulownia suit – which is Joshua’s name flower. This is so interesting because it feels like the creators somehow saw it as a sign to interweave the Shibuya and Shinjuku storylines together. Though it doesn’t come out much on the surface, it’s fascinating nonetheless considering both Josh and Haz had at some point interfered with the other town’s affairs.

“Shibuya tour with Haz” was such a special scene, as it happened between 2 characters who do not/no longer have a reason to care about Shibuya, on the subject of what is worth saving about Shibuya. Hazuki carried out the purification of Shinjuku and stepped in to restore Shibuya just as part of his job and unlike Hanekoma or Joshua who both possess profound understanding of humanity, he really didn’t know humans at all. Rindo’s irrational wish invoked in him a sense of curiosity, to try gambling on something irrationally and learning a bit of what his senior have experienced. With all the pieces put together, it provides an overview on Higher beings as a whole, and that Joshua and Hanekoma are really the odd ones out with Hazuki being somewhere in between them and the rest.

The old friends

It’s easy to have returning characters overshadow the new cast as they have already matured out of their personal story arc and stayed in our hearts for all this time. In the end, I have managed to enjoy both the old and new cast separately and altogether, and they will both find their own place in our memory of this game for the long term.

Sho is truly as crazy as ever, the game wouldn’t be the same if Sho is any less of what he is. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like Neky or Beat is younger than Nagi at all, with moments when it seems like Neky has aged 14 years instead of 3 years. His friendship with Coco surprised me pleasantly, and their interaction together with Beat was fun to watch. Rhyme’s found a new dream and her friendship with Kaie is precious too, especially considering that she can still talk to him online after the game ended. Josh and Neku’s interaction suggested that they have resolved the past and are on equal terms now, they even parted ways in good spirit and I don’t feel any worry about them like I did before.

Neku and Shiki’s reunion scene was beautiful, theirs is such a special bond that it has grown and supported them even without being able to see each other. I am so happy to see them all again and that they stay true to who they are, albeit looking more grown up, cooler and happier than ever before.

Overall, NEO can’t become a classic on par with the OG, but is definitely a good sequel and a good game in its own rights. I’m happy with whether or not there will be a 3rd game to complete the 3 monkeys theme, but if there will be – I hope the creators can really find the time to learn from the last 2 games and start over with a fresh mindset and strong core.

#neotwewy #neotwewyspoilers #ntwewy #ntwewy spoilers #neo the world ends with you #twewy #review #meta #neo twewy #shoka sakurane #rindo kanade #tsugumi matsunae

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mostlysignssomeportents · 3 years

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Democrats, health care monopolies, and market failures

As the US health care system reels under shortages and capacity issues, Matt Stoller reminds us that the brittleness of the US health care supply chain predates covid, and is directly attributable to monopolization, and its handmaiden, corruption.

https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/the-villains-behind-our-medical-supply

As Stoller writes, the last decade has seen the health care industry plagued by shortages of basics: “from saline to epinephrine to chemotherapeutic agents to antibiotics, to sterilized water.”

The FDA has maintained a drug shortages advisory page for years, long before covid hit, with doctors prescribing less-familiar, more error-prone meds to patients because the standard-of-care drugs were unavailable.

https://www.fda.gov/drugs/drug-safety-and-availability/drug-shortages

Now, obviously covid exacerbated this situation, and in response, a lot of manufacturing has shifted back onshore — but it’s not really helping. It turns out that the same system that created the brittleness in health supplies is now maintaining it.

Stoller identifies Group Purchasing Organizations (GPOs) as a key culprit. GPOs originated as hospital buying clubs, consolidated catalogs of medical supplies available at discount prices. But as the buyers and the sellers grew more monopolized, GPOs took on a sinister role.

It started in 1987, when lobbyists convinced Congress to weaken the anti-kickback laws that had kept GPOs honest. Freed from a prohibition on taking bribes, GPO buyers began to source hospital supplies based on the size of the “commission” rather than value for money.

This is chokepoint capitalism at its finest. The GPOs were the only way to reach the majority of the market for health supplies, and they would only carry your merchandise if you paid them commissions.

This is what Amazon does: charge “advertising fees” and “fulfillment by Amazon” surcharges from sellers on its platform to appear higher in search results, which can climb to over 50%.

Likewise, it’s how Spotify operates, extracting high fees from labels to be featured on playlists and in “radio” streams.

It’s what monopolistic grocers do to food manufacturers, too.

This is one of the dynamics by which monopolism spreads. In order to keep prices low while bribing GPOs, medical manufacturers had to merge (eliminating competition), outsource (lowering labor costs), lower quality, and eliminate buffers and other slack in the system.

Amazon wins over its customers by promising them low prices and free shipping. GPOs win over hospitals by sharing their bribes with top administrators. Monopoly produces monopoly, and monopoly begets corruption.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/where-does-the-law-against-kickbacks-not-apply-your-hospital-1525731707

Which is why covid’s onshoring of manufacturing has not alleviated the supply-chain problems in the health sector. We can make stuff onshore, sure, but hospitals will only buy it through GPOs.

But GPOs will only carry it if it is priced competitively with stuff from Asian sweatshops, and if the bribes are also competitive. It’s not like onshore manufacturers can shop around, either.

GPOs underwent a wave of mergers in the 1990s, so four companies control 90% of US hospitals’ $300b in annual spending. Monopoly begets monopoly.

What’s more, by spreading bribes to hospital administrators, GPOs eliminated the need to keep prices down.

Instead, the final price represents an equilibrium between hospital administrators’ greed for kickbacks and hospital management’s willingness to pay.

Like all corruption, GPOs are a way to concentrate gains (bribes to GPOs and hospital buyers) and diffuse losses (lower quality goods at higher prices made by workers earning lower wages in a system that periodically seizes up due to shortages).

The worst is yet to come. Because this system concentrates production in facilities where maintenance, redundancy and fail-safes are neglected in order to maximize the funds available for bribes, it is vulnerable to even mild shocks.

This is how America ran out of saline (AKA salt water!): Baxter cornered the market for it, shut down production everywhere except Puerto Rico where labor was cheap, and then had no contingency plans for when a hurricane hit the island.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/where-does-the-law-against-kickbacks-not-apply-your-hospital-1525731707

There are more shocks to come, and America is systemically vulnerable to them. Its lawmakers and regulators have not reined in this dangerous corruption — instead, they’ve abetted it. Take Obama’s FTC chairman Jon Leibowitz — he now lobbies for GPOs!

https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_comments/2017/12/00222-142618.pdf

That may finally be changing — the Biden admin has specifically targeted single-source goods and GPO monopolies in its analysis of America’s resiliency problems.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/100-day-supply-chain-review-report.pdf

But before you get too optimistic, recall that centrist Dems are masters of snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. Take the issue of dental care, a dysfunctional area even by US standards.

Denying dental care is a cruel and senseless policy. And yet all forms of US health insurance either under-cover dental work, or fail to cover it at all. 65% of Medicare recipients don’t have any dental coverage.

Even people who do have dental coverage find it woefully inadequate. Getting two crowns under our family’s dental coverage — the “gold-plated” coverage offered by a blue-chip employer — costs $2,500 over the insurance maximum.

No wonder Americans wryly call their teeth “luxury bones” — the part of your body that health-care treats as optional, despite the serious consequences for health, wellbeing, employment and self-esteem caused by poor dentistry.

It’s a particularly American disease: one of Luke O’Neil’s readers describes being reduced to tears by the realization that his Taiwanese dentristry bill would only come to $20 — for “3 visits + surgery + medication + 3D x-rays”.

https://luke.substack.com/p/the-american-healthcare-system-damages

It’s not like the Dems don’t know this. They’re even promising to do something about it. They’ve proposed extending dental coverage to Medicare…in seven years.

As O’Neil says, “This is almost the platonic ideal of Some Democrat Shit. These people need help. Our plan is to give it to them well over half a decade from now. It makes no sense. They don’t even seem to want to reap the immediate political benefits of such a move!”

Centrism destroys politicians’ time-sense as Harold Meyerson writes for The American Prospect: “Child care subsidies are set to phase in over six years. Medicare negotiation with pharmaceutical companies over prescription drug prices won’t begin until 2025.”

https://prospect.org/politics/liberalism-and-time/

“As to the bipartisan infrastructure legislation, one admittedly conservative estimate has it that no more than $20 billion will be spent by the end of 2022.”

This is a party that is hoping to win midterms in 2022, remember.

There was a time when progressivism was impatient: Medicare was up and running in less than a year, in 1965. Today, we are faced with urgent crises — a looming irreversible climate emergency among them — and we have no time for this foot-dragging.

Neither do the families who’ll lose teeth or suffer debilitating chronic infections — to say nothing of the patients who will suffer needlessly or even die as a result of monopolistic shortages. The best time to act on this was a decade ago. The second best time is now.

Image: Nitram242 (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/25165196@N08/7082538687/

CC BY: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

#pluralistic

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whump-a-la-mode · 3 years

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A Rather Odd Heist AKA The Trophy Room

Hi! I don’t know what this is and I have (at the time of writing) work in four hours! I had this idea in a daydream and just had to get it down in writing.

I apologize if the formatting is weird. I usually write in the tumblr text editor but this was written in docs.

CW//Threats, talk of injury, talk of disease, poison, death threats, descriptions of pain, restraints, medical emergencies, collars, chains, dehumanization, being kept as a trophy

The wound felt like disease.

It was a long slash, started at the front of Hero’s chest, just below the clavicle, and extending to the middle of their shoulder blade. The pain was white hot, tearing through skin and into sensitive flesh below, but more than that, even as the wound was carved, the feeling of infection, of poison, seeping in was overwhelming.

They lost the balance from the pain alone, slamming into the worn tile floor of the subway platform with a crack from their cheekbone.

Their assailant, on the other hand, landed with far more grace, on their feet. Hibou’s claws, wicked constructions of metal that had clearly recently been to the whetting stone, curled inwards towards their palm. Not far, though. The twelve inch long weapons constricted their movement, not that they minded. The aluminum feathers attached to their rust-painted goggles twitched with amusement.

“I really thought they’d sent someone with a little more skill in… standing.” They smirked, though it stretched their mouth far too wide, enough to make Hero uncomfortable. “Do they not teach you that at HQ?”

Hero grumbled out a half-hearted reply that even they were unable to make out. After a moment of catching their breath, they scrambled to their feet; every movement of their shoulder sending a new wave of agony through the marred flesh.

They met Hibou’s gaze (or, at least, the black lenses of their goggles), holding it for a long moment. The world around them took a shuddering breath as a weak gust of wind managed to find its way into the abandoned subway tunnel.

Through Hero’s mind ran half a dozen half-baked plans. Diversions and threats they could carry out, attacks they could make. None would work, certainly, but it occupied their panic-addled mind until the footsteps sounded behind them.

They dared not spin around and let Hibou out of their sight, but they were acutely aware of the two pairs of feet, one on either side, approaching to surround them.

“This one was spying.” Hibou glanced to one of the unseen figures, the one on Hero’s right. “And you know what they thought would be a good hiding spot? You wanna know?”

“Course we wanna know.” The voice had a snakelike quality to it, hissed out between fangs.

“The catwalk! The broken down catwalk. You always said that if anyone ever walked up there it’d fall, and guess what! You were right.”

A barrier of cackling penned Hero in on all sides for a moment. The slash on their shoulder didn’t seem to be bleeding, but the pinpricks of disease refused to stop.

“So, that begs the question.” Hibou continued. “What are we going to do with them?”

Hero felt as though a wire was tightened around their neck. In a motion that surprised even themself, they leapt onto the tracks, running along the rusty metal for a moment before attempting to struggle their way out of the other side.

The cold, scaly hand gripped them before they had any chance to do so. With a horrifying strength, and a bold show of it, the hand threw them up, slamming them onto their back. A clawed hand pressed to their chest, foot-long blades threatening to prick into their skin. Those rusty goggles stared down at them in a way that seemed almost playful.

It was supposed to be a simple mission, they couldn’t help but recall as they lay there, well-sharpened blades likely only a few inches of flesh away from their rapidly beating heart.

Despite their seniority within the Heroes’ Organization, the amount of solo missions they were assigned to was low. Extremely so. Even lower than that of some of the recruits and cadets. Most would have been bothered by the fact-- fearing that their superiors thought them to be worthless or not good enough. That fear didn’t apply to Hero, however.

No. They knew exactly why they spent most of their days stalking around base, chatting with the medical staff or the engineers.

After all, healing powers wouldn’t get you very far in a fight.

Hell, they hadn’t even been supposed to go on this particular spying mission in the first place. Yet, of course, the cadet who was meant to take the simple job had broken their leg in a training accident.

It had sounded simple. Almost deceptively so-- as if there should have been something more to the whole thing. But, no. It was exactly as easy as it had been drawn out to be. Sneak into the villains’ temporary base, find out their numbers and exactly what kind of weaponry they possessed, and report back.

They could have done it in an afternoon. But they just had to have taken the chance with the catwalk. They could have run, they’d had the chance, but…

They’d been too scared. That was the other reason they were always stuck at base. They were a coward. The mission directors knew it.

“What, hey, don’t die on me yet. That’d be boring.”

Hibou’s voice cut through their swirling thoughts. Their eyes focused on the empty goggles looming above them.

“And I hate when things are boring. So, answer my question.”

“I- w- wh-”

“Ugh. I said, what should we do with you?”

“L- L-”

“Come on, use your words.”

“Let me go.” It croaked out of their parched throat like a forced tear. “Please.”

“Oh, well, since you said please…” They rolled their eyes. “How about this. Let’s put it to a vote. This is a democracy, after all.”

Next to Hibou’s goggled face appeared two more. One sharp and scaled around the eyes, the other with hair that hung down in wet mats. Akula and Zema.

“So, guys, what do you think? What should we do with them?”

Hero felt to be a rabbit surrounded by cats.

“Hey, boss?” Zema-- the scaled one-- spoke up. “What’s that on their shoulder?”

“Hm?” Though their eyes could not be seen, Hero just knew that, in that moment, they lit up. “Oh, that. Now that is a good idea, Zema.”

“Wh- What did you do to me!” Hero fought to jerk upwards, but was only met with a sharp hand forcing them back down.

“Oh, you know…” Hibou raised their other hand, the one not holding their captive down. The claws curled into as close to a fist as they could get. “When you came in to interrupt me and my work, I was just finishing up a special batch of… hm… what would a layman call it. A biopoison, I believe.”

Hero choked.

“Oh, you don’t like the sound of that, huh? That’s what you get for interrupting my work.”

“So… they’re just gonna die?” Akula questioned.

“Hm? Oh, I mean, without intervention, yes. Not immediately, though I could arrange that.” Ever so slightly, the claws moved towards Hero’s neck. “I guess we should probably just do that.”

“W- Wait!” Hero gasped. “If it’s going to, uh, if it’s going to kill me anyways, then why not just let me go? It doesn’t matter either way, right?”

Hibou smiled that horrible, wide smile.

“You know, the little coward has a point. That’d be a lot more fun. You don’t want to die, though, do you?”

One of those claws curled beneath Hero’s chin, forcing it upwards with the blunt end. It didn’t cut, but they knew that with any false move, it would.

“No.” They managed to croak out.

“So… hm. There’s something you want, and you can only get it from me. And, well, now that I think about it, there might just be something that you have that I want. Now, that sounds like a fair trade, doesn’t it?”

“What is it? Please, anything. A- anything.”

“That’s what I’d hoped you’d say. Hero, I think you know exactly what I want.”

“N- No. I don’t.”

“Of course you do.” The claw pushed their chin up even further, pressing the back of their head against the tile. “I want my kid back.”

Hero’s eyes widened. They felt bile rise in their throat.

“I can’t.”

“Well, then, you’ll die. Easy as that.”

“W- Wait-”

“To me, it sounds like a very fair trade, Hero. We’ve had to spend so long watching our friend suffer… slowly rot away. And now, your friends will have to do the same. It’ll be easier for you, though. Your eyes will melt out of your skull far before the real gross stuff happens.”

Hero gulped, feeling their throat press far too close to Hibou’s claws.

“Is there any other way?”

“Hmm… No. I don’t think so. Here’s my final offer, right now: You bring me my kid back. They’ll know where to find me. Then, I give you the antidote. Either that, or I cut your head off, here and now. I’ll even mail it back to your HQ, just as a little gift.”

“I-”

Hero felt their chest shudder. The sweat dripping from their forehead had long since dampened their hair. It was supposed to be a simple mission. Just some recon. Just a simple mission.

But…

“Okay. I accept.”

“Good.”

The pressure lifted almost immediately, finally allowing Hero to once again breathe. They scrambled to their feet, and were almost halfway out of the abandoned platform when they heard Hibou yell from behind:

“The rash should start in about twelve hours! Just so you know!”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

It was the nature of a hunter to keep trophies of those that they had killed.

Of course, not in the wild. In the wild, animals were simply content to fill their bellies. The only trophy needed of their hunting was the fact that they were still well and alive.

Humans, however, did not have such a luxury. Survival was not a prize to be shown off. So, other methods had to be found. Trophies had to be taken.

Taken and displayed.

No one questioned the scarf that Hero had wrapped tightly about their neck, despite the fact that it was the dead of summer. They had no time to question it. The other inhabitants of the Headquarters of the Heroes’ Organization had their own duties to complete, and not a second to spare in completing them.

So, Hero found no difficulty in walking through the front doors, every step they took threatening to aggravate the already agonizing wound on their shoulder.

After a few steps, they found themself in the center of the entrance lobby, legs stiffened. Hibou’s words echoed in their mind, sharper than their blades, as their head tipped upwards. Their gaze raised to the trophy room.

That was what everyone called it, anyways. It wasn’t so much of a room as much as it was a glass cylinder, sticking out from the railing of the upper floor. On first seeing it, cadets often panicked, fearing that it would fall at any moment. It appeared simply that precarious, even though it was, supposedly, practically indestructible. Even the glass itself was rated to withstand nuclear attack.

There was a reason for that.

The cylinder was rather large, maybe 20 feet in diameter. However, the vast majority of it was taken up by chains-- four of them, one from each side. Heavy iron things, each link likely too heavy to be lifted on its own. The four chains all converged at one point in the center.

The trophy.

Villain wasn’t a particular strong person. They may have been before their capture, but any strength they had had been long since drained away. They weren’t particularly tall, to begin with, but from the angle, they looked miniscule.

The iron collar around their neck, resting heavily on their shoulders and collarbone, was the center point of the chains. Each hooked onto one side of the collar.

Villain’s seated position pulled the chains practically completely taut, the weight of iron resting completely and totally on their neck. The pressure would have been less had they stood, but they had stopped doing that a long time ago.

The grey cotton prisoner uniform had about as much color to it as their face.

Hero couldn’t say they knew the story of Villain’s capture, nor what had warranted it. The trophy room had been there as long as they had been part of the organization. They supposed it was odd, just how quickly they had gotten used to it. The trophy room and the trophy it held were simply a part of HQ.

If Villain were to disappear for a second, everyone in the building could and would notice it.

Hibou’s kid… Of course, they were truly related. They seemed about the same age. But the fondness with which those horrid villains spoke about their friend…

Hero shook their head. If they kept acting like this, they’d get dragged to the infirmary with a thermometer shoved in their mouth in an instant. They began forward again, headed towards the staging room.

They didn’t have any missions scheduled for the day, not that they knew of at least, and they were glad for that. Still, they had their unofficial duty, preparing the other heroes for their missions.

The staging room sat behind a pair of steel doors, requiring a retina scan to pass through, which Hero passed easily. The doors slid open as they stepped through, already feeling a dozen pairs of eyes lock to them.

Colloquially, the place was often referred to as the locker room, both literally and as a joke. Lockers lined the walls, while benches filled the rest, except for at the very front, where a pair of tables were well stocked with snacks, drinks, and basic medical supplies.

After a second, most of the heroes looked down, having been satisfied that there was no threat. The only one that kept their head up was Teammate, who quickly waved Hero over. They obliged without thinking, sitting next to them on their bench.

“What’s up?” Hero questioned. Teammate didn’t respond for a moment, as they were pulling a sweater off over their head. When they were finished, they replied:

“Eh, I’m good. What’s with the scarf?”

“‘Tis called fashion.”

“Fair enough.”

“Where are you headed out to?”

“Patrolling a hospital, they had a threat or something. You?”

“I don’t do missions.” They did their best to accompany it with a smile.

“You did yesterday, didn’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“How’d that go?’

“Eh, it was fine. Spying missions are boring.”

“There’s no lie there. Anyways, um, when I was fighting yesterday I kinda got this cut-”

“Where?”

“Right here, on my leg.”

Teammate leaned down, rolling up one of their pant legs to knee height. Sure enough, across their shin, a wicked scar carved its red mark. Hero hardly thought about it as they placed a hand on the wound.

A green glow emanated from their palm, flowing and wrapping around the injured leg. The wound’s ragged edges solidified with scar tissue, before knitting themselves together.

It was so simple. A grievous wound, dealt with in an instant.

Of course, that was all they could do. Healing powers weren’t magic, not really. They couldn’t bring back the dead. They could only accelerate what the body already had the ability to do. A cold? Gone in a second? A biopoison?

Well, they couldn’t bring back the dead.

The wound finished its knitting, and Hero withdrew their hand. Teammate offered a quick smile, speaking:

“Thanks so much, see ya’ later!”

Before running off. Off on a mission. Off doing something important.

Something good.

Hero slumped forward on the bench, feeling a horrible exhaustion overtake them. When the call for their help came, they weren’t exactly surprised. It was quick, short, simply:

“Is Hero here? I need Hero.”

They raised their head, expecting to see a cadet who had hit their arm or something.

Instead, standing halfway in the doorway, face a mask of panic, stood a person in a lab coat. They clutched themself, arms around their chest, trembling visible from halfway across the room. They met Hero’s gaze.

“Come on, come on. Quickly, please.”

There was nothing in their voice but panic. Even urgence was drowned out by sheer fear. Hero was on their feet in an instant, on the heels of the doctor who was moving at the same speed. They ran, together, all the way to the medical wing, on the other side of the floor.

From there, they moved along a small catwalk, leading to-

Hero didn’t even look up to realize the destination until they were already there.

The only access to the trophy room was a small, horribly narrow catwalk. A horde of doctors was already flooding it, but they moved out of Hero’s way without question. The first doctor stopped in front of the door to the glass cylinder, which was sealed with just about every type of lock known to man.

“They’re unresponsive.” The explanation was quick, curt. “Do you know how to put on a hazmat suit?”

“What?”

“Do you know how to put on a hazmat suit?”

“I-”

“Here, here, I-”

“Why do I need a hazmat suit!”

“It’s not safe in there, you can’t go in without one.”

Hero’s gaze darted to the interior of the cylinder. Half of the chain had gone taut, while the other two were slack, on account of the fact that Villain had slumped over, all their weight supported only by the collar around their neck. In the little visible skin that the collar revealed, horrible red marks could be gleaned.

“They look like they’re dead.” They whispered in horror. “Why do I need a hazmat suit?”

“Their powers, they’ll hurt you.”

“Even when they’re unconscious?”

“Well, no, but-”

Hero’s hands latched onto one of the padlocks, straining against it, trying to pull the metal apart. It did nothing, of course. They didn’t have superstrength. But it simply felt like the right thing to do.

Eventually, someone handed them a key, then another, and another after that, until every lock on the door was opened. They swung it open, leaping inside, heart in their ears. Every panicked beat sent a new shock of diseased pain through their shoulder.

Ducking and stepping over chains, they maneuvered until they were at Villain’s side. Their first thought was to check for a pulse-- it was weak, but there.

They gritted their teeth.

Hero was going to save Hibou’s kid, and by god, neither of them were going to die.

#whump #whumpblr #whump community #hero villain whump #hero whumpee #villain whumpee #powered whumpee #whump trope #whump prompt #hero villain trope #hero villain prompt

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veeranger · 4 years

Text

So you want to watch Precure!

Version 1.3

(Google Docs Vers & Changelog)

Maybe you follow people who like it, maybe you just love magical girls and never got into Precure, but there are over a dozen seasons and you don’t know how to jump in. Never fear, this masterpost is here to give you a rundown of Precure, and hopefully by the end you’ll have an idea of where you want to start.

What Is Precure?

Precure (short for Pretty Cure) is a Toei Animation franchise started in 2004 and has been on the air nonstop since then. It’s a magical girl franchise, y’know like sailor moon or ojamajo doremi or other such shows. The main demographic is children so you don’t have to worry about any weird “fanservice” or panty shots or anything nasty like that, it’s very G rated.

What Are The Shows About?

In a general sense, Precure is about a team of 2-6 middle school age magical girls fighting bad guys and giant monsters and saving the world on a weekly basis with pretty outfits and big flashy finishers and the power of love and friendship. Each season follows a pretty standard formula (toku fans should be pretty familiar with it for the most part), and each season is around 48-50 episodes long.

In keeping with this toku-esque formula, most seasons will feature mid season additions to the cast, in the form of new precure heroes. For the sake of not spoiling these shows, these mid season cures will not be mentioned in our plot overviews unless they appear extremely early or something like that. Just know that almost every season will feature an additional cure joining the team later in the show.

Additionally, every season has at least one movie, these days there’s usually two per season. Usually you’ll find the movies are a standalone self-contained romp, and a crossover movie with the preceding seasons, with a focus on the most recent 2-3 teams. These movies might as well exist in a continuity of their own, and have absolutely no bearing on the plot whatsoever, save for one except which I’ll mention when we get to that season.

Why Should I Watch Precure?

Because it’s good. It’s a really stellar franchise with a ton of content and genuinely engaging characters and stories. Also this isn’t your mom’s magical girl show, these girls throw punches, and kicks, and big lasers. Precure is pretty well known for being extremely hands on with its combat compared to other magical girl shows, though don’t expect the same kind of fights you’d find in kamen rider or anything. Also a main draw for a lot of people is the amount of gay subtext in, frankly, every season. While there’s only one season with an explicitly confirmed gay relationship between two cures, every season has varying levels of subtext between cures, it’s pretty cool. We won’t discuss the subtext in every season overview but trust us, it’s in there.

What Show Should I Start With?

It doesn’t actually matter which season you watch, every season is a new setting and with new characters and set in a new world (except for two sequel seasons i’ll explain later), so you’re free to watch whatever you want in any order! We’re going to spend the rest of this post talking about each season to give you, the beloved reader, a glimpse at what each season has to uniquely offer. Don’t worry, there’s no spoilers down there.

Futari Wa Precure (We Are Pretty Cure) & Futari Wa Precure Max Heart

The original precure show that aired in 2004, and even received an english dub. Misumi Nagisa is a star lacrosse player living a normal life until one day a shooting star she wishes on turns out to be a fairy that careens right into her room, or rather, smacks her right in the face. The fairy, named Mepple, explains he comes from the Garden of Light, another world that’s been taken over by the evil Dark King and his Dark Zone in order to capture the Prism Stones, a number of heart shaped crystals that, if collected, could give Dark King the power to destroy not only the Garden of Light but also the Garden of Rainbows, Earth itself. Meanwhile, Yukishiro Honoka finds a box in her grandmother’s shed containing an item just like the one that smacked Nagisa in the face, and inside is the fairy Mipple, who explains the situation to Honoka. The two fairies, seeking to be reunited, drag Nagisa and Honoka along and the four of them end up meeting up, but are attacked by an emissary of the Dark Zone. Mepple and Mipple grant the confused duo the power to transform into the warriors of legend, Precure. As Cure Black and Cure White, Nagisa and Honoka manage to fight off their attacker and protect their new fairy partners. The girls are then more or less dragged into the battle against the Dark Zone, as the only hope for both Gardens, they fulfill their duty as legendary warriors despite their hesitations and desires to go back to being normal teenagers.

Futari Wa doesn’t exactly have any major themes to speak of, it’s just your standard magical girl vs evil bad guys kind of thing, forgive it for being the first season. What it does have to offer is the relationship between Nagisa and Honoka, as well as the action in fight scenes. The girls don’t start the season as best friends, in fact they barely even know each other’s names when they’re first flung together. It takes a few episodes and a major fight between the girls for them to really start opening up to each other, but soon enough they become inseparable and support each other in everything they do. It’s clear, especially near the end, that the girls cling to each other for support and strength in the face of the increasingly overwhelming odds they face as the Dark Zone gains strength. It’s very compelling to see their relationship deepen in the early season and see how deep their bonds truly go near the end.

Futari Wa received a sequel show, Futari Wa Precure Max Heart, picking up the story where it left off in the first season’s finale. Honoka and Nagisa are still the main characters, and they’re still fighting the Dark Zone, but this time they’re joined by a mysterious girl named Hikari, who can transform into Shiny Luminous, not a precure but precure-ish. This time the girls are trying to recover the heart and soul of the Queen of the Garden of Light, before the Dark Zone can recover and destroy the queen in her weakened state. Also their precure costumes have changed slightly.

The first season (that is to say, not max heart) is currently one of the few seasons available with official english subtitles on the streaming platform Crunchyroll

Futari Wa Precure Splash Star

Hyuuga Saki (Cure Bloom), a tomboy who loves playing softball, and Mishou Mai (Cure Egret), a quiet transfer student and aspiring artist, meet each other by chance one day under the Sky Tree, where they discover two creatures from the Land of Fountains named Flappy and Choppy. The two girls transform into the legendary Precure and are tasked with restoring Princess Filia and the Seven Holy Fountains, which were sapped of their power by the evil forces of Dark Fall.

Splash Star's main theme is the appreciation of nature. The main focus is on the girls rediscovering their relationships with their town and the nature and people in it. You get to meet a whole cast of characters in their community, who have a lot of heart and charm behind their writing and the show does a good job of getting you genuinely invested in their stories.

Unfortunately the romance in Splash Star isn’t much better than Futari Wa's (sorry to any Fujimura/Kazuya fans), but the main girls themselves are so engaging that it's easy to ignore. The villains are pretty goofy, but entertaining if you can accept that the show doesn’t take itself very seriously. There are two villains in the latter half of the season that really stand out, though. Without spoiling too much, I can promise you their character arcs will tear at your heartstrings in the best way.

If you've watched Futari wa Precure, Splash Star will probably feel familiar. Although it's the first "reboot" series in the franchise with completely new characters, Toei overall played it safe and Saki and Mai in many ways still feel like "Nagisa and Honoka 2.0". Splash Star is different in enough other ways to make the show stand on its own merits, but if you watch it immediately after Futari wa you might find yourself feeling some deja vu. Personally, I think it's interesting to see what Splash Star builds on and explores when compared to Futari wa, since it has many of the same themes and character archetypes but they play out quite differently.

Yes! Precure 5 & Yes! Precure 5 GoGo!

Nozomi is a cheerful, carefree girl, but she doesn’t have a dream. One day she meets a hot guy and finds a mysterious item called the Dream Collet, capable of granting any wish once all the fairies known as Pinkies are gathered inside it, in the school library. She discovers that the hot guy is actually a tanuki from Palmier Kingdom named Coco, and that the Kingdom has been destroyed by the Nightmare. Coco’s dream is to restore his kingdom using the Dream Collet, and Nozomi decides to make it hers as well.

She’s joined by her jock friend Rin, Urara, an aspiring actress, Komachi, a writer, and the rich student council president Karen. Together they form Yes Sentai Fiveranger Yes Precure 5 and work together to prevent Nightmare from obtaining the Dream Collet before they can gather all the Pinkies. They also save Coco’s “”””””friend””””””” and fellow hot guy squirrel, Nuts, and he joins them as the second mascot/handsome love interest.

The theme of Yes is dreams and heterosexual furry romance. It pulls off the dreams part very nicely. The het furry romance is bad, mostly because Coco is Nozomi’s teacher at school and also her love interest. However, Coco and Nuts are fairly gay and if you look past the romance part they have very good dadly relationships with the rest of the team.

Yespre, like Futari Wa, received a sequel show, Yes! Precure 5 GoGo!. After the defeat of Nightmare some time ago, a new faction called Eternal rises up and starts stealing treasures from various dimensions. When Eternal targets the Rose Pact belonging to the Cure Rose Garden, the precure are called back into action to fight against Eternal, with new cure outfits, a new fairy named Syrup, and a new cure-like teammate named Milky Rose.

Fresh Precure!

Fresh is sort of the defining series for modern Precure, introducing a lot of plot and thematic elements to the franchise that would be used repeatedly later on.

A concert Momozono Love attends is attacked by a monster called a Nakewameke. When Love stands up to it, she is nearly killed, but is saved when she is chosen by a mysterious power to become Cure Peach. She is joined by Inori and Miki as Cure Pine and Cure Berry, and, together with the talking ferret from the Kingdom of Sweets, Tarte, they have to prevent Labyrinth, a grey world led by Mobius, from taking over the Parallel Worlds and transforming them into identical, machine-like dictatorships, and also figure out the secret behind the Magic Baby, Chiffon, that Tarte is entrusted with.

Fresh’s themes are happiness and nature/technology and donuts. The donuts are important. Labyrinth operates by gathering misery; the Nakewameke are created from it and their function is to create more of it and fill the Sorrow Gauge. All the girls (and the mascot) have love interests and their familial relationships are explored a lot to bring out the general stakes and emphasise what they’re fighting for.

While Fresh is very strong in characters, plot, and thematics, its lack of budget is very apparent. It looks terrible. Fortunately, it isn’t that difficult to get used to the bad animation once you get into the show, although the lack of means tends to show up at inopportune moments, like new powerups.

Heartcatch Precure!

Featuring character designs and art direction from Ojamajo Doremi’s character designer Umakoshi Yoshihiko, and written by Ojamajo Doremi and Onegai My Melody writer Yamada Takashi, Heartcatch should look and feel familiar to fans of either franchise, especially Doremi.

After having a reoccurring dream about someone called Cure Moonlight being defeated trying to defend the “Great Heart Tree”, the shy and reserved Hanasaki Tsubomi moves in with her grandmother and ends up inheriting the will of Cure Moonlight and becomes the newest precure, Cure Blossom. Finding out her grandmother used to be the legendary Cure Flower, Tsubomi vows to protect the world as a precure and learn to change herself for the better. She’s joined by her new friend and the first person she saved as a precure, Kurumi Erika, a loud girl with a big heart who means well, but doesn’t hesitate to speak her mind. Erika becomes Cure Marine and the two become Heartcatch Precure, the newest precure in the long legacy of those who have stood up to the evil Dune, a mysterious invader who destroys planets and turns them into lifeless deserts. Heartcatch Precure fights against Dune’s minions: the mask wearing Professor Sabaku, his Desert Apostles, and the mysterious Dark Precure. Along the way they meet the former Cure Moonlight, now stripped of her power, and try to help her cope with her defeat.

Heartcatch Precure’s main theme is flowers and flower language. Everyone has a “heart flower” that the Desert Apostles take and use to create their monsters every week. As an interesting result of this, the monster of the week will be the main character in the plot of the week and often their big monster form will vent about their issues which will usually lead to a resolution when the precure return them to their regular bodies. Heartcatch also has a very nice backstory and lore to it. Unlike most iterations of precure, the Heartcatch girls are not the first precure to exist in their world, there are dozens maybe hundreds of precure that came before them, fighting against Dune and his forces for hundreds of years. It adds a lot to the narrative in small ways, especially later on in the season. Also the fight scenes are extremely excellent, especially when Moonlight is involved.

Suite Precure♪

The musical paradise of Major Land falls under siege by the forces of Minor Land, led by King Mephisto. His goal is to steal the living notes of the “Melody of Happiness” and remake them into the “Melody of Sorrow”, throwing the world into a permanent depressive state. As a last resort, Queen Aphrodite scatters the notes into the human world and tasks Hummy, the cat-like fairy, and the Fairy Tones, to find the notes before the forces of Minor Lands can capture them. In the human world, Hummy meets Hojo Hibiki and Minamino Kanade, two girls who were best friends as children, but drifted apart as teenagers because of their tendency to bicker with each other. The two find themselves thrown together again by fate and transform into Cure Melody and Cure Rhythm to protect the things they hold dear. Not long after, the two rekindle their relationship and become closer than before, despite their bickering. Soon the girls run into the mysterious Cure Muse, a girl who appears to be a precure like them, but hides her face with a mask and refuses to join in their fight, claiming to be neither friend nor enemy. Melody and Rhythm battle against Minor Land and the giant Negatones they create from the notes they gather, as well as Siren, another cat-like fairy who used to be Hummy’s best friend before turning to evil and joining Minor Land.

Suite Precure’s main theme is music, and it is a very encompassing theme. Hibiki and Kanade bond over their piano practice, the town they live in celebrates music frequently and is aesthetically music themed, and their powers take the form of musical instruments. Harmony is also a large theme for the two girls. Their precure power increases as they harmonize with each other, and the early season is very much about them learning to harmonize with each other. Suite also features several extremely well done mystery arcs, about the identity of Cure Muse, and various other things that I can’t very well talk about without risking spoiling things myself. If you manage to go into Suite not knowing anything consider yourself extremely lucky and be super sure not to get spoiled. The show staff went to great lengths to hide certain things, including leaking fake cure designs, and creating a second version of the second dance ending to further mask the identity of Cure Muse until her true reveal.

Also something to note, usually precure movies have nothing to do with the plot of the show itself and can be watched whenever but the Suite movie is best enjoyed right after the arc revealing Cure Muse’s identity is concluded, it has a nice resolution to plot elements in that arc and sets the stage for the last few arcs of the show, so be sure to watch it then.

Smile Precure!

Written by Kamen Rider Kabuto head writer Yonemura Shoji, Smile Precure is the second season to feature a 5 girl team after Yes! Precure 5 Gogo!. Running late to her first day of school, resident happy-go-lucky klutz Hoshizora Miyuki runs face first into a small creature called Candy, a fairy from a place called Märchenland. The two are attacked by an anthropomorphic wolf named Wolfrun, and Miyuki transforms into Cure Happy to fight against Wolfrun and the big clown faced monster he summons called an Akanbe. After Candy explains that the legends say there are five precure, Miyuki recruits four new friends: the hot blooded Akane (Cure Sunny), shy artist Yayoi (Cure Peace), responsible older sister Nao (Cure March), and refined student council vice-president Reika (Cure Beauty). The five of them become Smile Precure and fight against Wolfrun and his allies in the Bad End Kingdom, who attempt to revive the slumbering Pierrot by trying to put the world in a “Bad End”.

Smile Precure’s main theme is fairy tales, in a general sense. The Bad End trio are based off of the big bad wolf (Wolfrun), the oni from Momotaro (Akaoni), and the witch from Snow White (Majorina), and Miyuki herself is utterly captivated by fairy tales. The secondary theme is happiness, and the happy go lucky tone of the series often turns on its head during serious arcs to deliver extremely powerful emotional moments. Smile Precure is light on plot, and most episodes are an ultra happy experience, but the show knows how to get serious when it needs to and Smile is exceedingly competent at pulling off drama when the time comes. Smile knows how to get you invested in its characters and use that to pull on your heartstrings during the big moments. The last 10 episodes of the show are the absolute pinnacle of the show’s emotional drama, and each cure gets her own episode for closure before the finale sets in and emotionally destroys you. Also you get to play rock paper scissors with Cure Peace during her roll call so that’s always fun.

Doki Doki! Precure

Doki opens with Trump Kingdom’s destruction by the Selfishness as Cure Sword looks on, helpless. Switching to our world and brighter topics, we meet Aida Mana, Student Council President of Oogai Middle School, whose dream is to become the Prime Minister of Japan. Whenever Mana sees someone in trouble, she’ll help them out, so when a monster attacks the city, Mana does the obvious and tries to stop it. And when, chosen by the fairy Charuru (Charles? Cheryle? Cherry?) to become a Precure and defend the world, she meets Cure Sword, she has to befriend her and help her restore Trump Kingdom and find her happiness.

Mana (Cure Heart) is joined by Rikka (Cure Diamond), her studious companion and supporter, and also the immeasurably powerful and rich (in that order) Alice (Cure Rosetta). Together they have to unravel the mystery of the man who gave them their transformation items, the missing princess of Trump Kingdom, the strange, evil girl called Regina, and Ai, the chaotic neutral baby who hatches out of an egg.

Dokipre’s theme is love and selflessness. It also has Deep Lore, a lot of which is established in extra-series material. The show does try to explore concepts like past cures and manages a very nice repeating pattern effect with the plot, in terms of past and future happenings. There’s a lot of foreshadowing. Compared to most Precure seasons it’s very plot-heavy and even the filler usually ends up being plot-relevant.

Happiness Charge Precure!

The 10th anniversary of Precure! The Phantom Empire is spreading across the world, and Precure are rising up all over the globe to fight them off. In Japan there are two active cures, Cure Fortune, strong and capable, and Cure Princess, scared and unsure of herself. As Cure Princess, Shirayuki Hime, struggles desperately to do her duty as precure, Cure Fortune refuses to work with her for reasons Hime doesn’t fully understand. Realizing her only hope is to find a partner to work with, Hime bumps into Aino Megumi, a super friendly girl who has a tendency to drop everything and help others any time she sees someone in need. Megumi becomes Cure Lovely, and bolstering Hime’s confidence, the two of them become Happiness Charge Precure, tasked with protecting Japan from Queen Mirage and her Phantom Empire. The two are joined by Cure Honey, and eventually Cure Fortune, and the four of them receive support from Blue, the God of Planet Earth. As the girls continue to fight and defend Japan, they are assaulted by Phantom, the ruthless Precure Hunter who has defeated and trapped countless Precure in his Precure Graveyard, and the Oresky Trio, the Phantom Empire generals who oversee the invasion of Japan.

Happiness Charge Precure’s themes are romance and happiness. There are several arcs dedicated to the budding romances of the cures, and the backstory of the show is heavily tied to romance. Happiness might as well be Megumi’s middle name, she makes it her business to spread happiness to as many people as she can, and takes every chance she can to help others. Happiness Charge is also the first season to have form changes for the precure, each cure has a small selection of forms they can change to for different big attacks, and this concept would later be expanded and used as a core concept in Maho Girls Precure. Like Heartcatch before it, Happiness Charge exists in a world where multiple precure exist, but unlike Heartcatch all those precure exist at the same time in the present day. Other precure teams make cameos every so often and the concept creates a great world in which the whole planet is being protected by teenage girls with superpowers, creating a wonderful sense of scale that really makes the big victories of Happiness Charge Precure feel even bigger.

Go! Princess Precure

The first precure series to take place at a boarding school! Years ago, a young girl named Haruno Haruka meets a very royal looking person named Kanata who gives her a Dress-Up Key, a big key shaped like a dress. A teenager now, Haruka starts attending Noble Academy, a prestigious boarding school, all the while holding tight to her dream of becoming a true princess, in a quasi-literal sense. Not long after starting the school year, Haruka meets Pafu and Aroma, two fairies from the Hope Kingdom desperate to revive the legendary precure to fight back against Dyspear and her minions who steal dreams to create their giant Zetsuborgs. Realizing what her Dress-Up Key is meant for, Haruka uses it and the Princess Perfume to become Cure Flora. Together with student council president Kaido Minami (Cure Mermaid), and Amanogawa Kirara (Cure Twinkle) a fashion model with huge aspirations, they become the new Princess Precure, tasked with learning to become true princesses along with protecting the Dress-Up Keys from Dyspear’s forces.

Go! Princess Precure’s main themes are princesses (duh) and dreams. Dreams are a driving force behind all of the cures, and most of the plot of the week characters. Dyspear steals dreams to make monsters, and the precure fight to return those dreams. Characters follow their dreams with conviction, pride, and full commitment. This is also where the princess theme intersects, since it’s Haruka’s dream to become a true princess. One should note that princess is used sort of liberally in this series, it’s not that Haruka wants to somehow become someone of noble birth or have political power, she just wants to be strong, kind, and beautiful, the traits of a true princess in Princess Precure’s own terms. Also she wants to wear pretty dresses and such but who can blame her really.

Mahou Tsukai Precure! (Maho Girls Precure!)

Quite literally putting the magic in magical girls for the first time in the franchise, Mahou Tsukai Precure was the first season to have its cures be actual magicians. Izumi Riko lives in the magical world, a world where magic is real and she attends a magical academy to hone her craft. She leaves the magical world to travel to the “non-magic” world, to search for a legendary item called the Linkle Stone Emerald. In the non-magic world she ends up catching the attention of another girl, Asahina Mirai, who sees her using magic. After trying to show off some magic and messing it up, Riko is attacked by Batty, a servant of the dark wizard Dokurokushe, who is seeking the Linkle Stone Emerald as well. As fate would have it, both Mirai and Riko carry stones that turn out to be the Linkle Stones Diamond, and the two of them use them to become Cure Miracle and Cure Magical, the legendary Mahou Tsukai Precure. Additionally, the power of the Linkle Stones grants life to Mirai’s lifelong companion, a teddy bear named Mofurun. Having discovered the world of magic and become a precure, Mirai is invited to spend time in the magical world learning magic alongside Riko, before the two, joined by Mofurun and a baby fairy named Ha, return to the non-magical world to search for the Emerald and protect it from Dokurokushe and his minions.

Mahou Tsukai Precure’s main themes are bonds and separation. It’s strengths lie in how it shows the relationship between Mirai and Riko. The show takes its time building their relationship in the first dozen or so episodes of their adventures in the magic world, highlighting their similarities and differences as they grow closer and learn to live with each other and fight as precure together. Well before the halfway mark it’s clear how strong their bond is and how deeply they care for each other, and the lengths they would go to for one another. Mahou Tsukai is an emotional ride in so many ways, every emotional moment hits its mark and the more you get attached to the characters the more the show will hit harder and harder with its moments, both sad and happy. Even side characters get satisfying and emotional conclusions to their storylines outside of the episodes they’re introduced in, it’s all wonderfully crafted.

KiraKira☆Precure A La Mode

Another return to the five cure format, Kirapre is also the second season to feature a sixth team member after Yes! Precure 5 Gogo!, as well as the second season to feature high school age precure after Heartcatch Precure. Usami Ichika is in her second year of middle school and loves sweets, especially making sweets. One day a hungry fairy named Pekorin finds her way into Ichika’s kitchen, and after being fed teaches Ichika about Kirakiraru, an energy source that exists in all sweets, and something that can be stolen and used for evil, leaving the sweets gray and tasteless. Utilizing the power of kirakraru in the shortcake she baked for her mother, Ichika becomes Cure Whip, one of the legendary patissiers, Precure. One by one other precure appear, the smart but shy Arisugawa Himari (Cure Custard), the rock band headliner Tategami Aoi (Cure Gelato), the fickle catlike Kotozume Yukari (Cure Macaron), and the responsible and helpful Kenjou Akira (Cure Chocolat). The five of them fight against the evils of Noir and those he has influenced: Julio, the mysterious masked boy who runs “experiments'' using kirakiraru, and Bibury, a mean spirited girl who uses her talking doll to steal kirakiraru and create monsters.

Kirapre’s main motifs are sweets and animals, and it has a pretty general togetherness and happiness theme going on, the standard precure stuff, mostly viewed through the lense of sweets and sweets-making. All the precure work as patissiers for one reason or another and it’s the main way the team bonds early on. The team, as well as the people of their small town, love sweets as a part of their culture and sweets maintain an important role as the emotional tie that binds most things together in the story. Overall Kirapre is a wonderful show with a great cast on both sides of the conflict, and a lot of care has been put into the show to make sure characters have their moments to interact with each other as well as have their own stories , even on a team of six every precure gets more than enough time to shine on her own. Kirapre is at it’s best when it takes two girls and puts them together for an episode, letting each unique dynamic play out in a fun and satisfying way. Kirapre is also noteworthy for the almost inarguably canonical relationship between two of the cures. It's not exactly explicit and it does leave something to be desired, since this is a Toei children's show, but there’s not really any other way to read the evolution of their relationship or their duet song, so I’m more than satisfied calling it canon.

This season is currently one of the few seasons available with official english subtitles on the streaming platform Crunchyroll

HUGtto! Precure

Precure’s 15th anniversary! This season is in many ways a celebration of all things Precure, bringing together a lot of familiar elements from past shows into one. Hugtto! is another five cure season whose main themes are destiny and future. Nono Hana (Cure Yell) is a thirteen-year-old girl whose dream is to be a "cool and stylish woman," although she worries that others see her as childish. One day, a hamster named Harryham Harry and a magical baby named Hugtan fall out of the sky into Hana's house. They're being chased from the future by an evil organization called Criasu Corporation, who are trying to use Hugtan's power to freeze time forever. Hana makes friends with two of her classmates: the responsible class representative Yakushiji Saaya (Cure Ange) and the reclusive ex-figure skater Kagayaki Homare (Cure Etoile), and together they fight Criasu while taking care of Hugtan and figuring out the many mysteries surrounding her. Expect some light sc-fi elements and an emphasis on modern technology/social media.

Hugtto! explores its themes primarily through the lenses of childcare and the workplace, giving us a look at how each girl comes to terms with the transition from childhood to adulthood. This season does a good job of letting each member of the team shine; you spend several episodes with each girl (or duo of girls) and there's a real sense of a complete character arc for all of them. The romance aspect is, unfortunately, pretty bad: there’s a return of hetero furry romance between Harry and Homare, and Hana’s love interest exhibits some really creepy behavior towards her. There’s uncomfortable age gaps in both of these relationships too so it’s a just a bit…. Yikes. Thankfully, it’s fairly easy to ignore like past seasons, but a warning for it nonetheless.

Something that makes this season stand out is its LGBT subtext; there's a TON of it even compared to the normal amount that Precure is known for. Without giving away too much, two of the cures this season are heavily coded as lesbians (though not with each other per se), and there's a subplot concerning a side character who is pretty explicitly (well, as explicit as Toei dares to be) a gender non-conforming man/nonbinary person in love with another man, and it's all very wholesome and presented in a positive light. Again, this is Toei, so don't expect anything too radical, but I have to admit I was pleasantly surprised with how Hugpre handles it.

Finally I'll just say that while Hugpre is a fantastic season on its own, I would personally recommend waiting to watch it after you've seen some other seasons (notably Futari wa). It's not required, but since Hugpre is an anniversary season, there are a few episodes (especially near the end) that will really hit different if you have an emotional connection to the franchise already. Ultimately though this is a fairly minor part of the show, so watching this season first won’t ruin it or anything like that, it’s just something to keep in mind.

Star☆Twinkle Precure

Precure… in space! Our protagonist, Hoshina Hikaru (Cure Star) loves space and cryptids, to the point of drawing her own constellations. One of her constellations is an adorable alien puffball, who warps into Hikaru’s room almost immediately after she draws it. The puffball quickly befriends Hikaru, who names her Fuwa. They are later joined by Prunce, the team dad friend/alien mascot, and Lala (Cure Milky), a humanoid alien who is an adult in her own culture. After our initial duo gets off to a bit of a rocky start, they are joined by the student council president, Kaguya Madoka (Cure Selene) and a biracial upperclassman who is considered to be the “sun” of the school, Amamiya Elena (Cure Soleil). Together, they explore the universe and befriend all sorts of aliens, while also defending them from the Notraiders, who want to rid the universe of all imagination. On top of that, the universe is dying and the cures need to find the 12 astrologically themed Star Pens to save it and the 12 Star Princesses. This series is notable for attempting to break the “monster of the week” format, instead making it a “fight of the week”.

The major themes of Star Twinkle are space, imagination, and maturity. The cures have to explore the universe to find the Star Pens, and in doing so, visit a bunch of different planets. About half the series is spent on Earth, but the world still feels developed! Honestly speaking, the theme of imagination is forgotten pretty quickly and I’d refer to it more as free will. The theme of maturity is where Star Twinkle really shines. All of the cures have had to grow up too fast in some way, and the series is partially about just allowing them to goof off. Lala is considered an adult on her planet, and this plot point is treated realistically. Well, as realistically as it can be. This is one series I’d recommend avoiding spoilers like the plague for, because part of the fun is in how the plot twists are pulled off. Also Star Twinkle is notable for featuring the first ever dark skinned precure, as Elena is half-hispanic.

Healin’ Good Precure

The currently airing Precure season, as of this writing. The Byogens seek to revive their king by inflicting viruses on Earth, the Healing Garden sends three medical interns to combat them. These interns, fairies named Rabirin, Pegitan, and Nyatoran, along with a baby fairy princess named Latte, journey to Earth to find partners to become Precure. They end up meeting Hanadera Nodoka, a kindhearted girl who was hospitalized for most of her young childhood. After Nodoka risks her life to protect Latte, Rabirin chooses her to become Cure Grace. Joined by older sister type Sawaizumi Chiyu (Cure Fontaine) and the outgoing Hiramitsu Hinata (Cure Sparkle), they form Healin’ Good Precure, and defend their friends and the Earth from the Byogen’s newest wave of attacks.

This season is currently one of the few seasons available with official english subtitles on the streaming platform Crunchyroll.

Where To Watch Precure Online

Unfortunately for us, Precure isn’t really a thing in the west. There was a dub of Futari Wa back in the early 2000’s and Smile and Doki both got “adapted” into Glitter Force over on netflix (I don’t really recommend checking those out), but really Precure just doesn’t exist over here.

However, as mentioned above, there are currently three seasons avalible for streaming on crunchyroll. The original Futari Wa Precure, Kira Kira Precure A La Mode, and the current season, Healin’ Good Precure.

Beyond these isolated examples of official releases, you can really only watch precure online on streaming sites or through torrents. You can find precure pretty much on any major anime streaming site, kissanime, gogoanime, the works. You can also try your luck torrenting the seasons, i’ve found that pretty much every season has a working torrent you can find on sites like nyaa.si or the like. For more recent seasons you should have little difficulty getting torrents, and last time i checked every season was on one of the aforementioned streaming sites. What I’m saying really is there’s no single place to find precure, but it’s not impossible to find for sure.

Thanks for reading this post, I hope you decide to check out precure and I really hope you end up loving it.Thanks to my wonderful friend @meltorights for writing the sections on Yespre, Fresh, and Dokipre, to @wonderlilane for writing the sections on Splash Star and Huggto, and @cure-cosmo for writing the segment on Starpre.

If you have questions feel free to drop me an ask I’d be happy to help. I will literally go out of my way to help you if it means getting someone new into precure so please do not hesitate by any means.

#Apple Post #precure #pretty cure #magical girl #anime #toei animation

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refriedweeb · 4 years

Text

LET ME SANCTIFY YOUR BODY (SHINSOU + PLUS SIZED READER 18+)

A/N: refriedweeb here my little chickadees. Here’s another plus size reader one for all my beautiful thick babes out there. I’ve started hardcore sipping over everyone’s fave emo boy (who I always thought would prefer a thicker girl bc it just screams at you he would be) not responsible for any emotional trauma caused. ALSO, I used the same quirk from the Hawks’ series I have going on don’t judge me it’s honestly my favorite quirk I’ve thought up (and totally not bc I'm self-inserting) also if anyone draws y/n/me/yourself in this hero costume y/n chooses I'd die bc I think it’s so incredible

Prompt: Your hero agency has been pressuring you into a more scant, sexually appealing hero costume. Though you’re a hero, you’re still coming to accept your body and feel that the new costume they’ve put you in is anything but. Your boyfriend has other thoughts.

Tags/Warnings: body worship, oral, sex, spanking, shinsou being an absolute god

Word Count: 6,009

You stared at yourself in the reflection of the mirror in your bedroom. It’d been a long, exhausting past couple of weeks between you and the hero agency you worked for. They were insistent on changing up your hero costume, eager to add some sex appeal and tighter material around the assets that made you such a ‘feast’ as they called it. You were fuller figured, plump in spots that other female heroes weren’t. Your curves had caught the eye of the media surrounding the hero discourse, and you’d become something of a source of body positivity for the public. It wasn’t about your health, rather, but that strength and power came at any size, and a hero didn’t need to look like the heroes of the past in order to do good and be worthy of everything you had in your life. At first you’d been a little skeptical, sure that the other shoe was going to drop and you were going to be shunned for the tummy you had, the thickness of thighs that made you look ‘more beautiful than Venus being born’ according to one of the magazines that had commented on your body.

However, you hadn’t seen anything wrong with the hero costume you’d been rocking prior to the media’s public obsession with you. It hid the insecurities that you wished to conceal, like that very tummy so many people had started to praise. The dimples in your thighs that showed through in the latex and skin tight material that made up so much of hero costumes. Many designers of said hero costumes had been scrambling to get their designs to your hero agency, practically groveling for you to pick theirs. You’d left that day after your seemingly endless patrol (thankful that nothing out of the ordinary outside of small, petty crimes) had come to an end. But...that didn’t mean the work was over just yet. The agency you worked in had been persistent that you needed to pick a new costume by the end of the week, and it was already Thursday.

Your eyes moved from the mirror to the laid out costumes on the bed. The hero alias you went by was that of Nightmare. Your quirk was an Emitter quirk, and worked in a way that many people had been careful to get within your reach of. Once you activated your quirk, you could raise your target’s worst nightmare into a warped physical reality around them, or at least they perceived it to be a physical reality. What it really was, was a field of false reality with layers so thick it was hard to look through in order to see that it wasn’t real at all. A hallucination of the worst kind. You, much like your boyfriend Shinsou, had been people that your fellow classmates had thought would be best as villains, rather than heroes. People didn’t trust you, didn’t want to get to close to you lest you reach out a hand to their forehead and bring forth their own personal hell.

They wanted to make someone they had once demanded be too dangerous to be a trustworthy hero into a sex symbol. The fleeting thought caused you to snort, your eyes moving back over the costume layout once more. Shinsou hadn't popped around to yours yet, likely still finishing out his own patrol. His opinions might have helped, but you weren’t sure when he’d get to yours and you’d rather get the uncomfortable trial and error of why your body didn’t look right in any of the costumes that had been sent to you over with. That way you could curl up in bed under the sheets and wait for Shinsou’s warm embrace. It’d always managed to make you feel better when you were sure the world hated everything about you. That very reason had been one of the reasons you and Shinsou had bonded so quickly. The world was determined to make you a villain before you’d even had a chance to prove them otherwise. You were each other’s biggest support system, the team cheerleader while you raced to make the world a better place.

What would Nightmare wear? What would the unstoppable, dangerous Nightmare wear? The first costume was definitely not your speed, a deep plum color that was beautiful on its own. Yet, it was cut deep in the back with a half-peplum tiered skirt at the back of your waist. To you, it made you feel like a joke of a circus ring leader, feeling more like an overripe raspberry than a hero worth going toe to toe with. You didn’t have a body like Midnight or Mt. Lady. You were fuller all around, a pooch of a stomach that stuck out more than theirs, thighs that were thicker in muscle and fat then theirs. An ass, that as Shinsou had once said when he was drunk on sake, wouldn’t quit. Once again, you didn’t see anything wrong with the hero costume you had now. It was baggier, yes, allowing you to obscure a body you hadn’t fully come to terms with despite the years of progress you’d made with self-acceptance. Sure, the trench jacket did nothing to show off much of the body you’d worked hard to maintain and love, but it hadn’t been about how good you looked. It’d been about being able to do good and save people from villains. If you’d wanted to be judged for your looks, you would have signed up to be a model. But hero politics were the same politics that existed in every aspect of reality, and you had gotten used to it. It was really only a matter of time that you’d be up next in the line of speculation. The first costume was a hard no, and you peeled yourself out of it already feeling the sinking feeling of defeat as it crawled up into your spine.

The second costume was better in some aspects, worse in others. It was black in color which was much more your speed, with a black mask to match that shielded the top half of your face. Yet, over your bust and over the widest part of your hips ran horizontal white lines, giving the effect of making them appear wider than they were. It wasn’t as if they just ran the front of the costume, either. Traced around your back and your butt, you only felt that sinking feeling grow. You looked wrong, and felt worse. There was no way people actually thought this was going to look good on you, did they? An annoyed sigh passed through your nose, doing one last turn around in the mirror confirmed your thoughts. These people had no idea what would look good on you. The cynical part of you was sure that this was the other shoe dropping. This was some grand joke that you were the punch line of. If you picked any of these costumes you’d be ridiculed for your body just like you’d been when you were a kid. That mere thought sparked tears in your eyes, but you pushed them down. There was one costume left. Though you didn’t have much hope for it.

You were so in your negative thoughts at the moment as you stripped down from the second costume, you hadn’t heard the front door of your place open and close. Nor the sound of shoes being kicked off.

The third costume was by far the most aesthetically pleasing to your tastes. Like Goldilocks and the three bears, it’d been the one you thought would be best. It was a one piece jumpsuit as the rest had been, cut deep in the front and back, low plunges that exposed everything to your naval in the front, and the small curve of your lower back. Though where freshly exposed skin would have been free, black mesh was laid overtop to give the graft appearance. There were winding slits down the long sleeves of the costume, making the mesh look like ropes winding down the length of strong arms and deliciously thick thighs. The mesh at the lower back connected to the beginnings of the mesh at the back of your thighs, lining up with the mesh that curved down from your naval and over your hips to meet up with the front mesh of your thighs. The mesh of the costume was one continuous running line, and you had to admit you liked how it shaped your body. It was tight as the other costumes, and certainly left nothing to the imagination of anyone who’d see you. If you picked this costume, everyone would know what it was you were working with. And that was what they wanted, right? The final costume was by far your favorite, opening and closing the fingerless gloves that had come with it. But were you okay with the world seeing the rest of your body? You didn’t think you were ugly by any means, and hadn’t felt ugly since you were a teenager. But...that didn’t mean the world wouldn’t take that chance to pick you apart if they thought you’d gotten too confident.

You leaned up on your toes, angling to this way and that so you could get a full view of how you’d be seen from all angles. Your hand rolled over the little pooch of your belly, over the curve of your backside into that meshed lower back of the costume. The way your thighs blossomed against the costume, looking strong as hell. In the platformed boots you wore to do hero work, it’d look good. You thought. But was it too risky? Would you look like a joke? Your shoulders sagged in defeat, not sure you had the confidence to pull this off like the world seemed to think you did.

“Well, well...” came that deep drawl of the man you cared so deeply for. You jumped, completely unaware that for the last five minutes you’d been examining yourself in the mirror, that Shinsou had been eyeing you up from his position. Leaned against the frame of the door, hands tucked into his pockets with a shameless look on his face. “These those new hero costumes you were talking about?”

Once you were sure you wouldn’t about faint from the racing of your heart, you nodded. “Yeah, they weren’t that great,” you said and jutted your chin to the ones you’d hung back up on their hangers to be sent back. “Those were the first two options, and they looked...gross on me.” you said, voice dropping as the negative term against yourself left your throat. Shinsou angled a brow upwards question, violet eyes moving over to look at them. He doubted that they looked bad on you, almost disappointed he hadn’t gotten to see your skin slip under that tight material, the way it ran so flush over that body of yours he’d worshipped for so long. For all Shinsou cared, you could be running around in a trash bag and he’d find a way to think you were the most beautiful person in the world. But, one thought he shared in common with you on the first two hero costumes, was that they didn’t speak Nightmare. Your quirk was exceptional, like his in a way. It needed something as equally daring, as enticing as you were.

“I doubt that...” Shinsou strolled over to look at them, running the fabric of the raspberry suit between thumb and forefinger. “But they’re not you. They’re too tame for you.” the comment was innocent enough, but your mouth dried up at it. Sunken eyes moved over to look at you once more in that black suit number, one that he found himself to be a growing fan of. “What about that one?” His expression was hungry as he dragged his gaze up and down your body, over the curves showed off so freely.

Shinsou had never had an issue with your body. Rather, he preferred a partner that was on the thicker side to begin with. He liked being able to feel you in his hands without worry about hurting you too much. Your skin was a comfort to him, the way you were soft and plush drove him up a fucking wall. He might not have been the biggest fan of public affection, but when it was just the two of you he couldn’t keep his greedy hands off you. And how could he? Even in that moment, his fingers twitched with the carnal need to have your flesh under the pads of his fingers.

“It’s definitely the best of the bunch.” You shrugged, hand running down the shape of your belly once more, your mind still stuck on whether or not it was going to get you ridiculed. “I just don’t...I think it’s too much. I don’t think...” you trailed off. “I don’t know if I look good in it.”

The sound of a snort from behind you had you meeting Shinsou’s gaze through the mirror. He wore an incredulous expression as if you’d just claimed that there was no such thing as gravity. He shook his head and approached you slowly. “You’re kidding, right?” Shinsou stood behind you, his chin resting on the top of your head. His body was pressed flush against yours, and you could feel the half-hard length of him pressed against your backside. “You don’t think you look amazing in this, (Y/N)?”

A blush hit your cheeks as his hands rested on your shoulders. “It’s not that, Shi. I just don’t...I guess...I don’t think people will want to see me like this. So...exposed.” Being sexy wasn’t the problem here. It was how others would see you and if they’d take the same thought away that the agency had, that Shinsou had, that some of the media had about you. You could take being ridiculed for your ability to act as an hero, if you messed up on the job or anything like that. Those criticisms pertained to your ability to help and change the world, and nothing to do with your physical appearance. Changing your hero costume would open up that path to criticisms about your appearance that had never been there before.

“Ah...so that’s it.” Without having to say much, Shinsou understood where your mindset was. He sighed, feeling somewhat guilty. Had he not shown you how beautiful you were each time he settled his mouth or his cock between your thighs? Had he not told you how you were the only person who was ever going to have his eye whether you were dolled up in a face full of makeup or drooling while you slept? The last thing he wanted for you to feel about yourself was inadequate because of how much you weighed or what your body looked like. He knew it wasn’t for him to decide, that only you could determine your self-worth, but you were perfect for him. And if he was selfless enough to let the world see you how he saw you, he would in a heartbeat. But just because he wanted the world to see it, didn’t mean he was a fan of sharing. Timidly, you met his indigo gaze through the mirror’s reflection. “Here’s what I think, kitten.”

A chill ran down your spine as his fingers started to ghost over your shoulders. “I think...” He slowed his movements, tracing the seam where mesh met spandex, Shinsou’s eyes narrowed as they followed where his fingers met. They ended at the inner point of the V that formed the front of a potentially new costume. Goosebumps erupted over your skin wherever his fingers trailed, and all you could do was watch in the mirror as his head came to rest on your shoulder, doing the same. “This looks downright sinful...” his fingers moved back up the V of the spandex material, only to pause as his fingers cupped the fullness of your breasts, thumbs whispering over piqued nipples. He hovered there for a moment, tracing circles around them as you shivered against the well defined muscle of his chest. “Not a thing left to the imagination...” Shinsou murmured, taking as his hands swept over the top of your chest to your shoulders, slowly down your arms. The winding tightness between your thighs had started, and he’d only been gentle with you so far. His thumbs moved along your inner forearm, traced circles along the sensitive part of your inner wrist before they flowed back up the length of your arms, returning to your breasts where he pulled and teased once more. “You’re telling me I might have to share this with the public...”

Shinsou’s eyes, a beautiful shade of setting sun, were narrowed as his hands traveled down the mesh material of your stomach once more. His fingers spread as he traced your belly, fingers bent just slightly so you felt the drag of his fingertips through the material of the suit. It was just a prototype, after all. The real work effectiveness of the suit would be put in place if you agreed to have it. At the sensation of his nails scratching along your stomach, your thighs turned inwards, backside pressing in against a growing erection. It only caused Shinsou to smile that smarmy smirk that had caught your attention all those years ago at UA. “You’re telling me everyone’s going to get to see this goddess body I get to claim night after night...” Shinsou continued, pulling the soft pudge of your skin in his hands as he raked them to the side to grip your hips. Those fucking hips. His fingers dug in sharper there, knowing your skin could handle it. So full, so fucking lush. “Hell, kitty, you might just raise the crime rate because everyone wants to see you in this costume...” He released his iron grip on your hips, hands sweeping towards your backside to grab at the bountiful ass you had. How it drove him up a fucking wall to see how it bounced against his hips when he took you from behind. “You have no idea...” Shinsou paused to pull up the legs of his pants before he squatted down to his knees, his hands still on your ass.

“How fucking good you look in this...” You were speechless as he continued to knead at your ass, giving that plump backside of yours a soft slap that sounded through the room. He worshipped your body day in and day out, and had simply no problem letting you know how much he loved every square inch of it. Shinsou let out a low hum. His hands continued their march, coming to cup the lower part of your ass in his hands. He was greedy when it came to this, the best fucking handful and then some any god could have given him. “Your ass looks so fucking good...” he whispered, side of his face nuzzled up against the curve of your thigh. One hand slipped from the grip it has on your backside, slipping between your thighs. An idle thumb swept through your lips, so thick and full that when he ate you out he simply rested his head there. A sharp gasp escaped you, rolling into the touch that ended before it’d even begin. This didn’t go unnoticed by Shinsou, that devilish smile there once more. “And these fucking thighs...” he whispered, his second hand repeated that sinful sweeping motion between your legs, his hands gripping your inner thighs, slowing pulling them apart. All the while, you watched through the mirror, his eyes zeroed in on the puffy mound of your pussy that seemed particularly swollen in that jumpsuit. “These fucking thighs that I love to have wrapped around my head...” Shinsou turned in so his nose was pressed against your left thigh, his teeth soon enough caught the material of the jumpsuit between them and pulled it back from your supple skin. A moment later, a sharp snap hit the air as it slapped back against your skin, causing you to squirm. “You’re telling me the world is gonna know how fucking delicious these thighs are...”

He wasn’t the jealous sort, Shinsou. He knew that you wouldn’t be with him if you didn’t want to be. That you came home to every night because you wanted to. In that sense he was secure in his relationship with you. But he wanted to make it astoundingly clear to you just how beautiful your body was, and how everyone else in the world who had their head screwed on tight enough was going to see it too. He was hungry to devour you in that suit right there, to fuck you and mark you so greedily so that the world would know his mark on you, but this wasn’t about him or his selfish wants. This was about making you feel like the strongest, sexiest, most powerful woman on the entire earth. And based off the heat he was feeling so close to his hands that gripped your thighs, his mission was working. He hummed, digging his fingers into your skin. “I could spend hours on your skin, kitten.” he murmured, his nose inching up the length of your thigh to where it curved, the crease of hip into thigh his goal. “Kissing it all over, tasting all of you...” you squirmed as Shinsou shifted on the ground slightly, so that he knelt in front of you. The sight of him looking up at you, sunken eyes dark with lust, made your waver on your knees. It was next to holy imagery, his legs spread wide, hands gripping your thighs for purchase as if he didn’t, he’d disappear entirely. “You gonna let me taste you, kitten?”

Shinsou didn’t wait for your answer, moving on his own agenda. He leaned forward into that sweet, tantalizing mound of yours. His nose burrowed in, hands moving up to grip your hips as he pulled you in against him. The flat of his tongue slipped over the clothed length of your cunt, warmth radiating against the sweetness of your pussy as he pulled your thighs apart for him. You moaned out his name, the action he took so simple but enough to threaten you over the cliff. Shinsou had only touched you, slow and measured at that, and this was the first he’d put a hand or tongue where you needed him most. The fabric that had been between your legs was in his mouth, Shinsou sucking on the fabric there to get as much of you in his mouth that had already escaped you while he’d been busy touching you. The fabric fell from his mouth when he was done, slapping against your heat and causing you to jolt forward. Your fingers found themselves wound through the thick tendrils of indigo hair, balancing as he smiled up at you with his head tipped to the side. The look was downright bastardly, and you tugged on his hair. “Don’t tease me,” you said, breathless.

“No teasing here, baby...” Shinsou breathed, pausing to blow hot air against your sex. “I want to make my girl feel good,” while he spoke, he stroked his middle and index finger up and down the slit of your cunt, pushing in slightly so the fabric dipped in your glaze. “I want to make you feel good about this fucking body I intend to destroy...” He sounded so bored as he played with your pussy that it only drove you crazier. You knew from the bulge in his pants that he was far from bored, but how nonchalant he could be while he was winding that coil of an orgasm tighter and tighter inside of you could have pushed you over the edge. “I want to take my time getting you there...”

You mewled, rocking against his fingers as they slipped back and forth, agonizingly slow in their rhythm. Shinsou had never been a fan of when you doubted yourself or your abilities, your worth and your beauty. This wasn’t exactly what he would have called a punishment, rather a reminder that there wasn’t a single part of you that he would want to change about you, and that you should have felt the same. He worshipped you, every second of every day. Frankly, in his eyes, there wasn’t enough hours in the day to give thanks to whatever deities were out there that created the fucking perfect version of yourself that was stood over him currently. “Sit on my face, kitten.” he drawled, eyes raking upwards over those delicious curves of your body, the thickness of your skin so plump, until he was looking into your eyes. “Let me taste you.”

With the way he’s looking at you, you know you don’t stand a chance of saying no. “Yes,” you rasped out, Shinsou’s hands soothing you as they smoothed up and down your thighs. You took a step back from him, Shinsou staying where he was, frozen as he watched you pull down the suit.

It was like a work of art, his cock hardening as you pulled the front of it down, exposing your mounds of flesh, nipples piqued and flushed from when he’d been teasing them earlier. As the black material folded over your arms, exposing soft skin he ached to get his hands on. Down over your midsection, exposing the little roll over your belly that had his mouth watering. “You look so fucking beautiful,” his voice had hollowed out, thick with need to have your thighs practically suffocating him. He watched the blush deepen on your cheeks, only serving to make him grow harder. His eyes snapped back as the skintight material rolled over your hips and his cock twitched. The way your skin pushed out, full and so fucking desirable from the spandex material sent him over the edge. And then there it was. That glistening pussy with the softest patch of hair extending up towards your naval, a landing strip you’d called it once. Shinsou couldn’t help himself as he reached up to his mouth and ran his index finger over the swell of his bottom lip. He could see how wet you were already from the teasing he’d put you through, how your glaze seeped onto the thighs you’d pushed together. He was motionless as you slowly rolled the jumpsuit the rest of the way, over the curve of thighs into calves, finally at those fucking ankles he rather enjoyed having up by his face when he drove into you like a man starved for your fluids.

“You look so fucking tasty, kitten.” he whispered, settled onto his back. Not once had his eyes left yours. “Let me have you, please.” The please and desperation in his voice caused you to squeeze your thighs together again, and he moaned. But you indulged him once he’d taken his shirt off, your eyes directly tracing the spattering of indigo chest hair that lead a thin trail to his naval, the patch at his waist thickening as it disappeared below his pants. Slowly, you lowered yourself until you were sat on his chest. The slickness that spread on his chest from your cunt caused Shinsou to moan as his hands wrapped around your thighs once more, spreading you so he was face to face with that precious cunt he called his. “Gonna make you feel real good, baby.” he said and pulled you forward so that your thighs were pressed in against either side of his head. When he spoke next, the breath he exhaled was right against your heat. “The world’s prettiest cunt, all mine...” Shinsou’s chuckle had you fisting your hands. “One thing I won’t share...”

And then he dived in, having dessert before he’d even had dinner. He’d been aching to get his mouth on your cunt since he’d seen that swollen mound of the hero suit you’d tried on. Now that he had it, he was going to ravage you until you were begging him to stop. His nose pressed in against your mouth, hands spreading your legs further as he lapped noisily against your wet pussy. You were so wet for him already, his tongue lapping up those juices only spurred you to drip more. He was always sloppy when he ate you out, simply because Shinsou wanted to have as much of you on him as possible. You tasted like honey, like a lazy Sunday morning, like the feeling of victory. He slurped and suckled, his teeth grazing over your clit as you found the rhythm of his tongue and started rocking against him. Soon enough the sounds that filled your bedroom were the wet, sloppy noises of Shinsou eating you out, and you whispering his name like a prayer as he suckled on your clit with feral need. His face was slick with your silk glaze, running down his chin and onto his neck, the floor underneath him. But frankly, he didn’t give a fuck. Your thighs had done what he’d hoped they would, squeezing and flexing against his head as he played with and teased your clit. Shinsou could hardly breathe, but if this was how he was supposed to go, he certainly didn’t mind.

He’d started to flick and circle, traced his tongue around your bundle of nerves faster, and you started to ride his face harder. It was a chase to your orgasm, and just before you reached that finish line, he stopped. A desperate whine escaped you, writhing in an attempt to get back on his tongue and finish out your eye. Except, Shinsou was hiking one leg over his shoulder so that you were off his chest entirely. You whined once more, your core throbbing at how wet his face was. “You taste like fucking heaven...” he groaned as he wiped his fingers over his face, coating his hand in all your silk. Then, he undid the button of his pants, the zipper. And as you adjusted yourself with legs spread, you saw the brilliant pink tip of his cock, dripping pre-cum as he sprung free. You whimpered, desperate to be full once more and to reach your orgasm. Shinsou eyed you up, taking the wetness of your slick from his face in his hand and pumping himself as he came to rest between your thighs once more.

“I want to cum,” you groaned as you reached out, fingers ghosting through the curls of the violet hair around the base of his cock. Shinsou pried your fingers away, returning it to where it’d been beside your head.

“I’m gonna let you, kitten.” he said, as he continued to coat himself in your silken drip. First, he wanted to take a mental picture of how fucking good you looked on the floor. Hair fanned out around your head, your cheeks flushed, eyes blown wide with lust. The rapid rise and fall of your chest, your divine breasts moving with each movement. On your back, you were subject to his mercy. The only plan Shinsou had was to make you cum, to make you realize how fucking incredible you were. “You feel good for me?” he asked as he pulled you close to him by the legs, leaning over so that he could hike them up over his shoulders.

You nodded, any of the previous doubts about your body and how you looked quieted as you watched Shinsou turn his head to the side and nip at your ankle. “You’re so fucking perfect. These fucking legs drive me wild every time, kitten.” You felt Shinsou pressed up against the entrance of your cunt, feeling him leak onto your slip. “I don’t ever want you to feel bad about yourself when you look so good.” He was slow as he pushed into you, feeling the stretch around his cock as you moaned out his name. “Your body is fucking perfect,” he said through gritted teeth as he propped himself up on his forearms, leaned in over you so that violet hair hung over your face. Once he started thrusting, he was slow, hitting deep against your walls.

“This tummy is so fucking beautiful,” he groaned as your walls clamped around him once he picked up pace. “Feels so fuckin-nngh,” he sputtered, your feet locked behind his neck. “So good to rest on.” His pace quickened again, purple shaded eyes dropping to your breasts as they bounced in time with his thrusts. “These fucking breasts,” he grunted. You whimpered as you felt that mounting wave of your high start to climb again. “So fucking hypnotizing to watch while I fuck you,” he hissed, your hands braced against his muscled biceps as his pace started to turn sloppy. Your nails dug in, and Shinsou tossed his head back as he hit the final turn.

When he looked back down at you, there was carnal need in his eyes. “These fucking lips,” he moaned, leaning down to capture your mouth in a sloppy, wet kiss that left behind traces of your cunt. “I can’t get enough, kitten...” His tongue ravaged the rows of your teeth, lapped against your tongue as he fought to taste every part of you could. You were at the climax of that wave mounted in your heat, and you moaned his name, the only indicator he needed of to hurry the fuck up. He started to fuck harder into you to the point where bruises were likely to blossom against where his skin slapped against yours. “That’s it, kitten, that’s it.” he cooed, listening to the mewls falling past your lips as you started to spill over, the wet sound of sex filling the room louder than it had been.

Shinsou leaned back just slightly and returned his hand to your clit, the final push you needed as he paid it loving attention. You came undone around his cock and thumb, the shuddering orgasm ripping through you as you cried out his name. Your legs spasmed, squeezing against once more as he followed after you moments later, spilling hot ribbons of cum inside you. He continued to thrust after he’d come, emptying whatever remains he had until he was empty and spent. Breathless, Shinsou flopped against your chest. His head rested against your breast, moving in time with your rapid breaths that mirrored his own. His thumbs traced loving circles over your hips, his cock soft inside you but Shinsou not wanting to leave you aching and empty of him just yet. “That’s my good girl,” he rasped, swallowing heavily.

Your hands raked through the thick wave of indigo hair, gentle as you combed through it. Words and thoughts were out of your functionality for a passage of time, but when you finally remembered how to do both, you asked a simple question. One that you really already knew the answer to, no longer abashed about how it hugged the curves of your body, just another indicator that you were human. After how much attention Shinsou had dedicated to your body, you almost felt silly for having felt insecure to begin with. “The black suit?”

He chuckled, pressing a kiss to the breast opposite the one he was slumped on. Shinsou turned his head slightly so that he could look at you, admire all that you were. And what you were to him was the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life making feel that good about herself, about her place in the world. However he had to do that, he would. It was only right because you had supported him through so much and had never asked for anything in return. You were the only person who had ever looked at him like he was normal, like he wasn’t some type of freak. And he’d done the same for you when you’d both attended UA. As far as he was concerned, the only forever he needed was right there, pressed up against his naked body. Shinsou’s grin was lopsided and he nodded. “The black one.”

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cotccotc · 4 years

Note

#6 & #7 with Minho pleaseeeeee ☺️

thanks for requesting, linlin!! <333

(p.s. i didn’t get carried away this time!! it’s a real drabble wow~ look at me)

{ 𝐥𝐞𝐞 𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐡𝐨 ･ﾟ:* 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘮𝘱𝘵 #6 & 7 }

⤷ drabble, ~560 words [w: one (1) swear word]

･ﾟ:*

“give it back!” you shout at your boyfriend, minho, while stifling a laugh so as to keep up the serious demeanor you’re trying to uphold. minho had stolen your phone about five minutes ago without you knowing, and has been taking silly filtered selcas on it ever since. once you noticed, you began protesting from your side of the couch; yet, your efforts have been futile. each time you try to grab your phone away, he moves farther toward the other end of the couch, taking more and more pictures (especially in an attempt to catch your adorable anger on photograph).

“never!”

as your boyfriend adjusts his deep brown bangs and takes his hundredth duck-face selca of the day, you come up with a new strategy. you stand up, running in the opposite direction and making your way around to the other side of the couch. from there, you wrap your arms around minho, reaching for the phone in his hands. you finally grab onto it with your right hand. minho tries to tug it away, shouting “no!”, but the phone eventually succumbs to your grip.

“aha!” satisfied with your actions, you return to your seat on the couch. “i’m gonna delete them all. right now.” you’re only half-kidding, as some of these pictures will come in handy for both comfort and blackmail in the future.

his eyebrows furrow and he makes a dramatic gasp. shifting closer to you, he exclaims, “you wouldn’t dare!”

“oh, i would. and i will,” you say in a low tone while rummaging through your once organized camera roll, a playfully villainous expression on your face.

“you know you’re lying,” he purrs. his expression changes from foolish shock to a calm, somewhat ominous smirk. oh shit, you think. he senses your fright and softens back into a sweet smile, chuckling at your reaction. you didn’t know you were dating such a good actor until right now.

in attempt to keep your cool despite a sudden onset of warmth in your face and hitch in your breath, you reply, “you might be right… but i also know your phone passcode.” you swiftly reach to your boyfriend’s back pocket and snatch his phone. you know better than to simply sit there with his property in your grasp, so you instinctively leap up from your seat with a giggle and run toward the bedroom to hide.

“y/n!” minho chases after you. but you’re too quick. you shut and lock the bedroom door, excited to carry out your revenge. as you plop down onto the bed, taking a multitude of silly pictures, minho bangs the side of his fist on the door. “y/n it’s not funny anymore!”

“i personally think it’s hilarious,” you taunt back, holding your finger down on the shutter button to take a ton of pictures of yourself at once. the filter you’re using makes you look like a baby, with a pacifier and everything.

“you’re lucky you’re cute.”

“you’re right. i am.” you decide you’ve taken enough photos and proudly stride to the door. you open it up to reveal minho leaning dashingly against the door frame with his hands in his black denim pockets. you stretch your hand out and offer his phone back to him, which he takes almost instantaneously. “and now you’ve got two hundred photos to prove it,” you tease.

secretly, that’s exactly what he wanted.

･ﾟ:*

tags: @magglesx, @crscendoforsung, @stayndays, @hanniiesuckle17, @poeticallyspaghetti, @dreamy-dreamies, @pixielix, @skzctnightnight

･ﾟ:*

75 notes · View notes

ba-responds · 4 years

Text

Catharsis (Villain!Deku x Fem!Reader) Chapter Eleven

A/n: After months of nothing, finally, here is a new chapter! Now this chapter does switch point of views a few times but should be easy to understand.

Now, when the next chapter will be out...I’m not sure. I will try my best to get it up within the next month, since there is some real action, but no guarantee.

This story will contain dark themes! Please read the warning!

Summary: An unexpected death of a loved one can lead to a sudden influx of emotions. Those same emotions can become repressed, as denial and disbelief comes into play. In this time, one would seek a means of catharsis, a release from those strong, repressed emotions. But what would you do if that means of catharsis, the same release you sought so hard for, becomes addicting? To the extent, that you feel you can not live without it? What if it can’t live without you?

**WARNING: This story MAY contain; bullying, suicide, depression, torture, manipulation, mentions of sexual assault, and MORE! You have been warned.

Masterlist

Prologue II Chpt 1 II Chpt 2 II Chpt 3 II Chpt 4 II Chpt 5 II Chpt 6 II Chpt 7 II Chpt 8 II Chpt 9 II Chpt 10 II Chpt 11 II

Chapter Eleven: Suppressed Emotions and Intrusive Thoughts

Standing on one side of Shigaraki, you could feel dozens of eyes on you. Shigaraki was making a few minor remarks to the group of low level villains who stood before you, all reeking of anticipation. In only a few minutes, Kurogiri will be opening a portal into USJ, where you will find All Might, and destroy him. Everyone in the warehouse was excited, all had been waiting for the day that their names would go down in history; who wouldn’t remember the names of those who took down the Symbol of Peace? It would be revolutionary! The start of a new era!

And yet, your stomach churned with guilt.

Even taking a longing glance at the love of your life, who stood protectively on the other side of Shigaraki, didn’t fully erase the budding guilt that seemed to plague you.

You shouldn’t feel guilty.

Why the hell should you? Who cares that you shared information of everyone’s quirks in class 1-A? You barely knew them anyway, it's not like you made best friends with any of them.

No, your best friend was right here. And you were doing exactly what he wished: protecting Shigaraki, while also causing a bit of chaos.

And so, you decided to push all the guilty feelings you had in you, into a little box and throw it out the window; metaphorically of course. It was all that you could do, ignore it. It's all that you have been doing with any other feelings you didn’t want to think about.

Block it out.

Why worry about it when there was an even more fascinating and addicting feeling to come.

With that thought, your hand came up to caress the collar around your neck, taking comfort in its weight and coolness. Soon, the collar would be connected to Izuku’s shadows, bestowing upon you the most wonderful feeling you’ve ever experienced. And, with how excited Izuku seemed to be, you surely would be getting the most pleasure from it you have had yet. This caused a smirk to come to your face, giving you the confidence to raise your gaze to the eager crowd below.

You, Shigaraki, Izuku, and Kurogiri stood on a platform, ensuring that you were seen by all; as well as displaying your dominance over everyone else.

You were the League of Villains, you shouldn’t be looked down upon by anyone.

“Ready up! The game begins in 2 minutes!” Shigaraki called out, the crowd erupting in giddy cheers. Despite Father covering most of it, you could see the exhilarated grin that was plastered to his face, causing you to playfully roll your eyes and bump him with your shoulder.

“This level should be exciting,” You muttered in terms he would usually use, the smirk on your face turning playful as both Shigaraki and Izuku turned to you with wide smiles. Over the course of the last few days, your relationship with Shigaraki changed from barely tolerating each other, to what you guessed you could call friends. While most of the time you still annoyed each other, after becoming an official member of the League, one of higher ranks too, the both of you seemed to settle your differences for the sake of Izuku, and yourselves.

It was like you both came to the same agreement, without actual words needing to be said. You both were possessive of Izuku, and you both would protect and befriend the other, in order to keep Izuku happy. It was a silent deal that seemed to work in both of your favors; he was able to play videogames with Izuku, while your head was in Izuku’s lap; you were able to cuddle with Izuku on the bed while watching a movie, and Shigaraki would be right there on the floor, making stupid comments about whatever was happening. During the times that Izuku was out causing havoc as Deku, you would annoy keep Shigaraki company while he played a solo game, or he’d bother watch you browse the internet.

“It’s time,” Kurogiri’s deep voice seized all of your attentions, making you grin eagerly at Izuku, who then crossed in front of Shigaraki to get to your side. His hand clasped yours, giving you a small squeeze.

“Show time, Love. Let’s show them the result of all the training you’ve been through,” He murmured, before pressing a quick kiss to your lips. Eyes shining brightly at the given affection, you nodded, feeling butterflies settle in your stomach. Izuku’s shadows came out to cloak his face, some of them moving towards you to connect.

Peeking over to Kurogiri, you could see him readying his warpgate, with Shigaraki preparing the Nomu to enter. Shigaraki would enter first with the Nomu, followed by Izuku and you, then finally the rest of your people.

Eyes going back to Izuku, now officially Deku, you met his glowing green eyes, before the shadows made their connection with your collar. Your vision immediately went black, all of your senses dulling considerably. As the first rush of pleasure took over you, you could feel just how thrilled and nervous he was; it sending you to your knees in an instant, a low gasping groan leaving your lips. You could feel your body quiver at the feeling, your jaw clattering as if you were freezing; and it somewhat felt as if you were, as if a frozen fire was running through your veins instead of blood.

“We must go, my love,” a voice---no, no, Deku’s voice whispered in your head. Shakily raising to your feet, you let the connection lead you to wherever Deku needed you to go. Feeling the air shift around you, you knew you just stepped into the warpgate.

Show time.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Bakugo’s jaw clenched at the sound of his carefree classmates having loud conversations on the bus. School was only back in session since yesterday, and it seemed as if most of the class just ignored the disappearance of one of their own.

No, no that was a lie, and Bakugo knew it. The class hasn’t been the same since the disappearance; today was the first day in which everyone seemed happy in class, it was their first class trip after all. Most of the class used (Y/n)’s the disappearance as a motivator to become even better heros; to save those they called friends.

But the thought of her caused Bakugo’s chest to tighten, the weight seeming to get harsher. So, Bakugo ignored it. Everyone in class could clearly see how the disappearance affected him; he was even more malicious and explosive than before, and the dark bags under his eyes had gotten darker since the video emerged. But, they knew not to ask him about it; Kirishima did the day before, and that ended in disaster; Kirishima should be thankful for his quirk, or else he probably would have gotten hurt. Still, Kirishima sat beside Bakugo, making sure that he was never alone.

“All right class, we’re here,” Aizawa announced, drawing the attention of everyone on the bus. Bakugo was the first out of his seat, ready for whatever task they’d be doing for the day. Stepping out of the bus with Kirishima on his side, Bakugo marched eagerly towards the door, ignoring whatever spiel Aizawa was going on. The large doors to USJ towered over him, his eyes examining it, before turning to gaze upon the faces of his classmates. They all watched Aizawa with determined, excited looks. It made Bakugo’s heart clench.

She should have been here.

She would have been here.

Not my fault.

Bakugo clenched his teeth, closing his eyes with a deep breath to rid himself of the thought. Movement happened around him, alerting him of the classmates who were now passing him to enter the building. He scurried forward, ensuring his place in front of the crowd, Kirishima never leaving his side even as he shoved past their classmates aggressively.

Bakugos gaze fell upon another figure, a person in a large space-suit looking hero costume, who he assumed to be the extra teacher Aizawa mentioned in class earlier. Half-listening to the lecture the person, who he heard was named Thirteen, was giving, Bakugo let his attention shift to the different contrasting environments that encompassed the building.

Rescue training. He could do it. His quirk was compatible with nearly all the environments he could see, except for the large body of water that he spotted. As long as his hands didn’t get completely soaked, his explosions should----

“--Is that a part of the training?” Kirishima spoke out next to Bakugo, his hand raised to point off in the distance, catching the blond’s attention. Bakugo let his gaze follow Kirishima’s pointing, seeing a growing purple splotch hovering in the air near the center of the room. Curiously, he stepped forward, attempting to see the shape better, his eyebrows furrowing.

“Wait!” Aizawa called, stretching his arm to block both Bakugo and Kirishima from stepping closer, his gaze steeled as a hand escaped from the purple portal. “Those are villains.”

Time seemed to slow as everyone registered what he had said. The portal opened larger and more of the body was able to be seen, until finally, a full figure stepped out.

“Thirteen! Gather the students,”

A man stepped out, covered in what looked to be disembodied hands. Next came a hulking, grotesque figure which towered over the hand man.

Then came a site that rendered class 1-A and its teachers immobile for a few seconds, as shock and fear clawed at them

Bakugos eyes widened. His throat seemed to close, as a rough cry tried to escape his mouth.

Not my fault.

There she was.

Not my fault

On her knees, mouth agape, drool dripping from the corner of her lips; her head teetering every which way, her eyes clouded black. Her body was quivering, her hands clawing around her own chest as if trying to force herself to get a grip on reality, like some drug addict trying to grasp onto something, anything, that was real. Her chest seemed to heave as a few tears managed to escape her clouded eyes. A large collar sat around her neck, a black shadow tentacle connecting her to the person by her side

She looked utterly pathetic.

NOT MY FAULT.

And next to her, the owner of the shadow tentacle, was the bastard Deku.

NOT MY FAULT.

Not my…

It’s my fault.

IT’S MY FAULT.

IT’S ALL MY FAULT.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Toshinori Yagi, better known as All Might, trudged his way closer to the door of the townhouse he has frequented often as of late. His body ached and was tired from doing the duties of the Number One Hero, but he ignored it in favor of knocking gently at the door. As he waited, he glanced down at the watch on his wrist, wincing a bit at the time it displayed.

He was late. He was due at USJ in any minute, and yet he wasted his time limit to stop petty criminals. And now that he could no longer face the class as All Might, he decided it was the optimal time to pay a visit to a friend, where he could hopefully get at least a bit of rest.

Speaking of, the door finally cracked open, to reveal that friend, Inko Midoriya. She looked much better than she had the first time he had visited her, and has been looking better with every visit he made. Her hair looked as if she recently brushed and washed it, and despite she was still in pajamas at such a late hour, she looked healthy. And happy.

Her green eyes widened at the sight of Toshinori, her brows furrowing.

“Uh--Toshinori, w-what are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be at work?”

“Uh, yeah, but the principal let me take the rest of the day off, so I figured I should stop by for a few…” Toshinori muttered, a light blush forming on his cheeks. Inko paused, hesitating for a minute as she looked past him, before opening the door wider with a smile.

“Oh, o-of course, come in,” She encouraged, allowing him to pass her, before she closed and locked the door. Toshinori made his way through the familiar living room, to the spot he would usually take. He glanced around as he did so, taking note that it looked as if Inko had made a major improvement in cleaning since he last was there.

“Would you like some tea? Or something to eat?” Inko questioned, smiling at Toshinori. He hesitated, shocked at the smile that she had given him. She barely smiled before now, she must have made a major improvement in her mental health.

“Uh--Yes please, to both. A-Anything is fine,”

Inko nodded as she made her way into the kitchen. Toshinori smiled weakly to himself, a warm feeling blossoming in his chest. He wasn’t sure what helped her get over the wall that was her depression, but he hoped he was one of the reasons she kept pushing on.

Breathe.

“Did that trip to USJ get cancelled? Is that why you were allowed to get the day off?” Her voice called out from the kitchen, catching Toshinori’s attention.

“Uh, no. Actually they should be there now. I just--I had a long morning, so Principal Nezu allowed me some time off. I’m not really needed there anyway, the other teachers are still going,”

“Ahh--Well, that’s good! As long as the other teacher’s are there, I’m sure the children will be fine. You told me before that All Might is going too, right?”

“Y-Yeah, he’s still going I-I think,” Toshinori lied, wincing at the way he stuttered. The question about All Might caught him off guard, he had momentarily forgotten that he told her that before.

“Good!” Inko said cheerfully as she entered the room with a tray.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Ojiro felt his heart clench at the sight of the girl he had once befriended. He could feel tears well up behind his eyes, his breath coming short and his knees felt weak. He could feel Hagakure grasp his arm, as she tried to balance herself from the shock.

Was this what being a hero will be like? To have to witness the destruction of a person? To witness the inevitable fall of a friend? To know someone will never recover from what had happened to them? Was this what it meant to be a hero? To be too late to stop the trauma from occurring, only helping after it already began?

He’s too young for this. He signed up to be a hero, not to become a victim. Not to witness a friend being tortured.

Was this what they called the real-life hero world?

If it was, he was utterly unprepared.

I’m not ready.

The class around them was silent for a good few moments, no one daring to move, as if if they stayed still long enough, this sick reality would fade away. It wasn’t long before Aizawa finally called out gruffly.

“Thirteen. Get the class out of here. Kaminari, try to signal for help.”

Ojiro was finally able to tear his gaze away from (Y/n), finding his gaze landing upon Aizawa as he strode forward, an aura of pure rage surrounding him. Nobody protested when he leapt from the platform they were on, making a speedy descent towards the rushing group of villains who let out gleeful cries as their opponent approached.

“Let’s go,” Thirteen called quickly, stepping forward to usher those closest to the front towards the door. However, Ojiro felt as if his feet were glued to the floor, his gaze locked back onto (Y/n), who was now shakily getting onto her feet, her body jolting and swaying as she did so. With every jolt and shake her body struggled with, he felt as if a piece of his heart shattered, the pit in his stomach deepening.

Before he could see what was about to transpire upon her standing, the hold on his arm jerked him backwards, snapping his attention to Hagakure.

“L-let’s go. If we leave to get help, that’ll give Thirteen the chance to come back to help,” She muttered, pulling him after his reluctant classmates.They didn’t make it far though, as a portal opened up not far from them, out stepping the creator of the warp-gate, Deku, and a shaking (Y/n).

Ojiro’s heart felt as if it would beat out of his chest.

I’m not ready.

“Hello, we are the League of Villains. So sorry for impeding on your lesson, but we’ve decided to invite ourselves to this event. Isn’t this the most fitting place for the Symbol of Peace to meet his downfall?” The warp-gate said almost tauntingly, forming his body from the portal he once was. Deku stood next to him, the shadows he used to cover his face doing little to help hide the wide, manic grin plastered on it, nor did it hide the gleaming, glowing green eyes that bore into the students with excitement.

And finally, standing so close to Deku that it almost seemed intimate, was (Y/n). She stood more stable than before, though the dazed, nearly pained look on her face didn’t leave, nor did her hands stop from running up and down her arms and across her collarbone; fingering grazing at the thick, dense, metal collar wrapped around her neck. Her head still swayed in random directions as though her head was too heavy to keep upright, but the amount of quaking her body did seemed to slow significantly; her body only jerking slightly every handful of moments.

A blur suddenly shot past Ojiro, the explosion that rang from it only registering moments later.

“No!” Thirteen yelled, attempting to stop Bakugo as he shot forward.

For a split second, it seemed as if everything had slowed. Ojiro could clearly see the pure unadulterated rage that enveloped Bakugo, his gaze solely focused on Deku. Bakugo’s face was scrunched in pure fury, his gauntlet covered hands rising mid-air to aim at the villain, a bright light forming from within it as he prepared his attack. Deku, in return, stood straighter than before, ready for whatever blow was being thrown at him; his grin widening even further, his eyes filling with a spark that almost seemed playful, full recognition in them, as if he spotted an old friend heading towards him in a crowd.

Ojiro had heard the rumors. The ones that said that it was Bakugo who caused Deku to become who he is. That Bakugo and Deku were once childhood friends, and Bakugo then became Deku’s own personal living hell, therefore becoming (Y/n)’s as well. Paired with the knowledge that Bakugo was the reason that (Y/n) ran from the school into Deku’s attack, as well as witnessing first-hand the hatred (Y/n) held towards him, Ojiro felt a deep-seated sense of resentment towards the fellow blonde, despite seeing the pain the boy had been through throughout the last couple of weeks due to guilt.

And frankly, Ojiro slightly hoped that Deku would hurt Bakugo right then. Hurt him for being the cause of all of this. Hurt him for hurting (Y/n). End his career before it all began, because the world didn’t need a ‘hero’ like Bakugo.

Because Bakugo was far from a hero. He was the villain in (Y/n)’s story.

And that thought.

That silent wish.

Scared Ojiro more than any villain could ever.

Was this what being a hero was truly like?

I’m not ready.

~*~

#bnha fanfiction #bnha imagines #bnha izuku #bnha x reader #izuku midoriya x reader #izuku midoriya imagine #katsuki bakugo x reader #katsuki bakugo imagine #bakugou x reader #bakugou imagine #mha imagines #mha x reader

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merinnan · 4 years

Text

Time Raiders

Okay, pausing the DMBJ 2 watches to watch the Time Raiders movie instead! I've been told that the entire movie is basically one big crackfic & I want to see how true that is

- Apparently the only place I can find it is YouTube

- And we open with someone laying down cards which...seem to be making a qilin pattern. Okay.

- And now we're at the Himalayas, and it seems to be a bunch of white soldiers shooting people?

- Oh, this leader white guy has a classic villain look. I love the pocket watch, too

- Wait, he's supposed to be a scientist?

- He obviously hasn't read the Evil Overload Handbook

- And now this is giving me flashbacks to Xiaoge's first appearance in DMBJ1

- Ah, yes, I think this is the Xiaoge for this movie. Excellent.

- DUDES. You have GUNS. You were using them just before. Why are you now using knives only?

- I mean, it wouldn't do much better, because Xiaoge, but still

- This is A Look

- Finally, one of them uses a gun, and it's as useless as I expected it would be

- Ahahahah, omg, what he did to these two guys is hilarious

- That is a TERRIBLE hiding place

- Don't....don't leave him alive. JFC

- This flashback montage is super weird

- Look, I don't have a tattoo myself, but I'm pretty sure that that's not how you get tattoos

- And now we move to Wushanju

- Oh, I think it's Sanshu who's been playing with those cards

- ...you have got to be kidding me

- Really? We're really doing this?

- I guess this is Wu Xie, then

- What even did he just randomly put that mask on for

- That is NOT a newborn

- Awww, kid Wu Xie

- Yay, creepy old houses. And ofc kid Wu Xie is gonna try to get inside

- But that is a fucking massive lock

- Yes, of course, wrap the porch in giant fuckoff chains, but don't lock the front door. Why not?

- ....k

- Sure, that happened

- And bratty kid Wu Xie still pinched one of the medallions after all of that

- Okay, yeah, if you were a kid who had to go to a funeral every month, no wonder you'd be so bored at them

- This movie is all over the place in terms of timeline

- I think we're finally into the time period of the main story

- And it seems this one also has Wu Xie as having been an architecture student of some kind

- Oh, yes, that's exactly what you want to find while crawling through a tunnel

- WX: "Sanshu can never know about this. You didn't tell him, right?"

WM: *oh shit I'm screwed face*

- Hi Sanshu, I wonder how you got here

- I love that no matter what version it is, Wu Xie is a little shit XD

- ...Wu Xie. Moths. Light. No.

- Wu Xie gonna Wu Xie

- Wu Xie, what are you doing?

- OMG

- Sanshu, this is all your fault for never letting him in anything like this. He doesn't know not to touch

- Wow, that wasn't subtle at all

- That's some steampunky looking villain lair right there

- I love how the 'passerby video' getting screened fucking everywhere is just the movie footage of that scene XD That's some high quality passerby video with interesting angles

- That's an interesting drinking spot, Xiaoge

- I love that so far Wu Xie's instincts for everything is either 'touch it', 'wear it', or 'dismantle it'

- ....okay

- Yeah, I....I think this is going to be my reaction to most of the movie, tbh

- Although at least this whole magic Snake Empress and weird ancient technology/magic thing is more interesting than the bland het palace drama randomly dropped into the middle of DMBJ1

- Oh, finally, some product placement

- I was wondering what was taking it so long

- I love how all their desks and papers and such are inside what look like coffins, and then fold out

- Oh look, Xiaoge's sword is inside one of the coffins.

- And there's Xiaoge

- Hei Ye gave Sanshu the sword decades ago?

- lol, this is like some Sword in the Stone bullshit right here

- I love it

- a) Was all that really necessary

- b) wtf even is that sword?

- It's a really bizarre design, and surely being able to be moved like a mechanical device would weaken it?

- ...okay, that was a cute meeting, I'll give it that

- Love how the older guys are teasing Wu Xie in the truck here.

- Oh, Wu Xie's actually a psych student in this one

- And like, Wu Xie, how do you know Xiaoge was looking at his reflection. It's a window, he might have just been spacing out at the scenery

- You must have been paying a lot of attention to him to notice it was the reflection he was actually looking at, hmmm? 👀

- This is a cute Wu Xie, tho

- Yes, Wu Xie, despite your lack of modesty there I totally caught that you just called Xiaoge handsome

- WU XIE WHAT NO DON'T DO THAT

- Hahaha, Xiaoge had exactly the same reaction

- No, Wu Xie, it doesn't matter that you'd taken the ammo out, you should never stick the barrel of a gun in your face and look down it like that.

- Even if you're certain it's unloaded, you just DON'T DO THAT

- Wu Xie, lacking impulse control and survival instincts without Xiaoge and Pangzi since....forever

- (okay, lacking survival instincts was perhaps a bit too far, but still)

- I love Xiaoge's "omg what even are you" look at that

- This is a very talkative and open to talking about himself Xiaoge

- It's kind of weird

- lol @ Sanshu locking Wu Xie in the truck so he can't come with them

- I mean, really, does he actually expect this to work?

- He knows his nephew both likes and is good at taking things apart, after all

- lol, I knew it

- Oh

- Oh, that's not a good sign

- Even Coral's logo just screams 'villainous organisation'

- These mercenaries look like video game characters from like COD or something

- Oh hi, lady I presume is A-Ning

- I like the haircut. Looks kinda like DMBJ 1 Xiaoge's haircut, just with the fringe over the opposite eye

- Oh, there's that gratuitous boob shot that @thosch3i told me about

- I really don't see why it was necessary for A-Ning to crawl all over the truck like that when everyone else just walked past it

- There is some really nice scenery in this movie with all the mountains and cliffs and such

- "What I'm doing isn't about right or wrong, it's about how much" I like this A-Ning. She is refreshingly direct and mercenary

- Damn, I though Xiaoge was going to notice the drone. I mean, it's so close to them! He should notice it!

- Love Hendrix's surprised Pikachu face at recognising him, though

- I'm honestly surprised that none of them have looked in the truck at all

- I do appreciate that this movie doesn't even attempt to pretend that they're not tomb raiders

- And that they have no interest in preserving this place

- Because BOOM! Let's just dynamite our way in and destroy half the wall

- Oops, no floor there

- Hahaha, this tomb is a fucking platform game

- Lovely, a shootout in a tomb. Just what every good tomb raiding movie need

- lol, Sanshu

- Don't you ever ever again wonder where your nephew's little shit tendencies come from

- I think Xiaoge and A-Ning are the only truly competent people on their respective teams

- A-Ning, 'keep them alive' does not mean 'try to shoot one in the face at close range'

- That little boot knife is kinda cute, though

- Clever move, Pan Zi

- I love the Xiaoge/A-Ning fight. He really is the only one who could keep her distracted

- I'm impressed at how well she held her own with him

- IDK why he was holding back

- Also, Xiaoge participating in fight banter, no matter how minimal? Strange, but also kinda cool.

- I'm going to be giggling about that "Not bad"/"I know" for awhile, I think

- IDK how they had the time or the ability to stay still long enough to rig up that trap, I'm impressed

- lol, yeah, I didn't think that it would take Wu Xie long to get out of the truck

- I take back my earlier comment about it being too harsh to say that Wu Xie lacks survival instincts without Xiaoge and Pangzi around

- Wu Xie, there is not enough light down here for you to get good shots without your flash being on

- I know having your flash on is a BAD idea, but still

- You cannot be getting good photos in this light

- Why is Xiaoge separated from everyone? He jumped down with them

- I mean, it's good that he is, otherwise Wu Xie would be kinda screwed right now

- Huh, bats, there must be an actual entrance to this tomb, not just the one that Sanshu's team made.

- A-Ning's tiny baby drones are so cute

- The English dubbing in this is surprisingly good compared to the shows

- Yes, good, the staring is starting

- ...Wu Xie, you little shit

- He's so pleased with himself

- Xiaoge is so confused until he explains it

- OMG, a Xiaoge smile

- OMG A XIAOGE LAUGH

- Ah yes, multiple large tornadoes, a way to signify weird shit is going now

- And weird spinny planets forming an...energy grid of some kind?

- ...k

- The mini drones apparently only pick up on people who are part of A-Ning's team, I guess

- JESUS

- I mean, I had a strong suspicion that was gonna happen, but it still made me jump

- Xiaoge to the rescue!

- Damn, that sword is strong

- This tomb definitely has a spider colony, but given it also has a bat colony that doesn't surprise me

- Those are some creepy looking mannequins

- This set up looks like a game of Mouse Trap

- A game of Mouse Trap with fire

- That's actually a really cool way to light all the candles and lamps

- I'm impressed that none of the cobwebs have caught on fire

- Oh, so NOW you use your flash, Wu Xie. When the room is all well lit and you don't actually need it

- CREEEEEPY

- Wu Xie and his compulsive need to touch things

- Are all the puppets connected somehow, or are we gonna have spooky magical shit making them all come to life?

- Oh, the puppet band is like the bells, I guess

- Huh, it seems Wu Xie's the only one who got thrown into memories in these illusions, everyone else's hallucination still has them inside the tomb

- wtf, a lion is a weird thing to hallucinate

- Magic Zhang blood, go!

- IDK why he needs to cut himself for each person, though, surely one cut should be enough to get all the drops of blood he needs

- Good boy, Wu Xie, already so protective of his Xiaoge

- This really is a fucking platform game

- Guys, this is why you study up on the raid mechanics BEFORE you enter the instance

- Ahahahah, the music playing as Wu Xie basically dances with the sword trap

- lol, the look on Xiaoge's face as he realises Wu Xie is just...fucking dancing and taking photos

- And that it's WORKING

- OMFG, this is basically just a bizarre dance sequence

- I love it

- It's so stupid

- The puppets having fucking crossbows

- Because ofc they do

- Repeating crossbows

- ...k

- So now we have a room full of skeletons stuffed into cages

- Why not

- Ah, we're about to have bugs show up

- Excellent

- This is what I've been waiting for

- Let the hilarity begin continue

- Dude, you can quit right now as much as you like, but it doesn't mean you're going to be able to get out of here by yourself

- I guess this guy's gonna die now

- For the tropes are hungry and must be fed

- Much like the bugs

- Yep, here we go

- Hello, shibie, I've been expecting you

- These ones don't look as cartoonishly ridiculous as the ones in DMBJ 1, I'm sad

- OMFG, it's eating the shovel/pick/thing

- Okay, this is a good effort at cartoonish ridiculousness

- It's a lovely day in the tomb, and these are horrible shibie

- Poor Wu Xie, so shocked at getting slapped

- And yeah. Yeah, that's about the only thing you can do there.

- Only way to save the guy is to just give him a quick death so he doesn't suffer from being eaten alive

- They're lucky these shibie move so slowly. It gives them plenty of time to climb up onto those frames

- lol, weird bendy sword again

- Wow, good catch, Wu Xie

- Y'know, Wu Xie, it might have been more useful to give the knife to Da Kui

- And ofc Wu Xie falls down

- What is a DMBJ adaptation without Wu Xie getting himself into danger like this?

- That was so much wtf all at once

- First, an unbroken flute just, like, laying there on the ground

- Then, Wu Xie somehow thinking that playing it would save him from the bugs

- Then that WORKED

- He's like the fucking Pied Piper of the shibie

- What even is this movie

- Haha, the little OK sign he flashes at Xiaoge

- The wtf look on Xiaoge's face

- Same, Xiaoge. Same

- I love how everyone just. Accepts it & congratulates Wu Xie on being an awesome flute player

- But then ig what else are you gonna do?

- It's like, well, this may as well happen

- Sanshu's team really likes using grenades, huh?

- Well, it does work pretty well!

- See, Wu Xie, this is when you need to summon your bugs back

- On a completely different tangent, I cannot get over how weirdly the subs translate men you ping. I had to look up wtf shtum was. I've never come across it before. Is it something more commonly used in the US or something?

- Xiaoge, when you said you had a better way than digging under the door, I didn't think you meant just BATTERING THE FUCKING DOOR WITH THE SHOVEL

- Oh, no, it's with your sword

- Because the best way to look after a sharp blade and keep it in good condition and keep a good edge is to...hack at rocks with it

- Ofc

- Why didn't I think of that?

- OK, ig fucking up your sword's edge did actually work, there's now a giant-ass hole in the door

- This is serious Day After Tomorrow vibes here

- Ah, yes, giant lightning strikes that cause so much force to travel through the earth that they can semi-collapse a tunnel deep underneath a mountain

- Just your usual tomb robbing dangers

- Physicists and meteorologists would have a fucking field day here

- Ah, I see we're at this level of the platform game

- With the collapsing floor you need to get across without falling

- Okay, that's really kinda sweet of Wu Xie here. He thinks he's likely to die, and the most important thing to him is giving Xiaoge the pictures he took of him so that he doesn't lose all his memories

- And aww, Xiaoge's so worried about him

- Like, I'm totally understanding why the transmigrated Wu Xie in that fic looked at these two and went "wow, we're so gay in this timeline"

- Even the music in this scene is shipping it

- Romantic line, and dramatic fall through the floor. Yep.

- I'm amazed he survived that fall, but it's Wu Xie, and he can't die

- ...yes, ancient Persian architecture totally had anachronistic technology. Sure. This is definitely like that

- omfg, they're statis chambers

- 2000 year old stasis chambers

- Guess they're not worried about catching Sanshu and his team to get the key anymore. They've been kinda sidetracked

- Side quests will do that

- ...plant golems

- "Don't shoot the thing that's in the process of murdering your friend! You might damage my research project!"

- Ew, that's not a nice death

- Yes, good girl, A-Ning

- That thing was just gonna kill your whole team otherwise

- ...how did that laptop survive the blast enough for Wu Xie to be using it with no problem

- That's one tough laptop

- Where do I get one?

- And hey, I guess the one Chinese guy with A-Ning isn't actually one of her people, since she just, like, left him there 🤣 In the room with a plant golem 🤣 That she then threw a grenade into 🤣

- ...omg, that's meant to be Pangzi?

- I was wondering why no Pangzi in the movie. I guess 3/4 of the way through isn't too late to properly intro him

- Ahahaha, Wu Xie actually thinks his bluff was super successful when there's a plant golem behind him

- Xiaoge to the rescue again XD

- lol @ both Pangzi and Wu Xie using Xiaoge's sword as a restraint

- ...surprise A-Ning! I wasn't expecting her to actually come back

- And she's somehow lost all of her guys

- That's a lot of snakes, but I'm more interested in where all the water is coming from and why you can see the sun behind those shelves

- Given how deep under a mountain they're supposed to be

- I do love competent, pretty girls wielding huge fuckoff guns

- This door mechanism is so intricate (like the key/timer). So ofc I'm sure they're going to destroy it all

- Because that's how tomb raiding movies go

- Introduce a tomb with intricate and complex mechanisms far in advance of anything else known to that time period and civilisation, and then destroy them in dramatic fight and escape scenes

- OMG the floor is lava

- Of course there's lava as well

- Oh, and it seems it's now all open to the sky

- Ig the lightning which could mysteriously exert high levels of force must have smashed through the mountain and very neatly cleared it all way so that this part of the tomb and only this part of the tomb is now open air

- Wang Zanghai wishes he could go this extra with tomb building

- And now Xiaoge being super extra to get across the destroyed section of the bridge

- So this dude is gonna wake up just before Xiaoge gets there, isn't he?

- And we're going to get an epic swordfight between them

- At least, it better be an epic swordfight

- Otherwise this buildup will be very disappointing

- Ah, yes, good, there we go

- And all the plant golems are also waking up

- ...along with a shitton of snakes

- OMG the snakes have arms

- The snakes

- have arms

- OMG Xiaoge's sword is doing what now?

- That's almost as ridiculous as the snakes with arms

- It's like a sword designed by a 13 year old weeaboo boy

"it's gonna be ancient, and super strong, and nothing will ever make it blunt"

"okay, seems like a typical magic sword so far, that's fair"

"and you can bend it at right angles"

"...you can what"

"and when it's bent at right angles, you can make it spin really fast and still use it like a proper sword"

"...it what"

- ...the Snake Empress is reforming in her armour as thousands of little vines all coming together

- k

- Sure

- This may as well happen

- And her armour has boobplate, because ofc it does

- Oh, she ain’t happy that Xiaoge just killed her plant golem boyfriend

- Her aesthetics are hilarious

- It's part Queen of the Damned, part Little Shop of Horrors

- Okay, snake lady, your worms might change the world but honestly I think that lightning would be more effective if you could control it

- Sanshu and co just randomly walk in through another entrance

- Oh, and there's the rest of A-Ning's team

- I want the story behind this A-Ning and her team. The way they all call her captain, and follow her without a second word, and are so genuinely happy to see her. This isn't just a throw-together team, or a team that Hendrix put together and put her in charge of. This is her team, and there's an obvious history between them

- And snake lady is suddenly not looking as pretty as she was, for no discernible reason

- One minute she's jumping around, the next she's all pale and falling apart. At least her face is

- It's like she's decomposing throughout the fight

- And here come the snakes with arms

- They move just as slowly as the shibie in here do

- They jump pretty fast, though

- RIP the next member of Sanshu's team

- Yeah, machine guns aren't that effective against regular snakes, let alone magic snakes

- And the plant golems are here

- RIP more of Sanshu's team

- Ah, the little snakes with arms are all grown up and off to conquer the world

- ...omfg Pangzi

- And this time it's A-Ning to the rescue

- I love how quickly Wu Xie and Pangzi fall into the dynamic of a pair of clowns, regardless of adaptation

- RIP Harry. You went out like a badass

- Oh wow, both teams are having some fucking epic sacrificial deaths in this fight scene

- I like

- And more cute pingxie, this time in flashbacks

- lol, clearing out plant golem conversion by pure force of will

- ...and channeling blood down the grooves in the sword blade apparently...makes it sharper?

- At least, it couldn't cut through the vines before, and now it can

- That's not how magnetic fields work

- Ahahaha, Wu Xie pulling out his flute

- He's gonna pull that Pied Piper shit again, isn't he?

- Here come the shibie, come to nom on plant-snake-lady flesh!

- She's having just as much trouble with them as everyone else does

- Because it's a lovely day in the tomb, and they are horrible shibie

- Wow, she hits hard, she knocked Xiaoge like halfway across the chasm

- Good thing there was a random broken pillar there

- Are they getting obliterated?

- Ah, no, they're getting sucked up by the wind

- Shibie-nado!

- You know, I kinda like how bad Wu Xie's English is compared to everyone else who's spoken English so far

- It nicely demonstrates who speaks it a lot and who doesn't

- Aw, Wu Xie, you're always so optimistic when you're baby

- And it actually worked. I'm impressed.

- Oh wow, A-Ning, that's some character development right there, caring about right or wrong instead of money

- Nice Pangi & A-Ning dynamic in this movie, given how they usually hate each other

- This is definitely the final level of a platform game

- Hahah, the two teams now

- Awwwwwwww 😭

- I think this is the first time I've seen Wu Xie rescue Xiaoge rather than vice versa

- "I regret not locking you in the truck myself"

- Sorry, Xiaoge, I don't think you'd actually have much more luck with that than Sanshu did

- Xiaoge, you really should have been more careful there, you almost did low Wu Xie

- Good thing A-Ning was close by!

- ....the sword...is being used...as a boomerang

- wtaf

- Hahahah, the snakes' death throes, omg

- lol what even was that ending

Overall: This movie was just one long DMBJ PingXie AU crackfic, and the author didn't know how to end it so just...didn't write an actual ending. That's the only way I can explain it.

#dmbj #daomu biji #time raiders

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slut-kiss-g1rl · 4 years

Text

geostorm <3

FADE IN:

INT. COURTROOM

GERARD BUTLER is at a COURT HEARING... in the FUTURE!

GERARD BUTLER

It is the future. Natural disasters have become alarmingly commonplace. Hurricanes, mudslides, floods, you name it. The level of destruction is catastrophic.

RICHARD SCHIFF

To be clear, this is the FUTURE you’re talking about?

GERARD BUTLER

The nations of the world have finally decided to take action. So, pooling our resources, we’ve invested heavily in environmental research and clean energy, and cracked down heavily on industrial emissions standards-

(laughs and laughs and laughs)

Just kidding! We’ve built a giant orbital platform that shoots the bad weather with space missiles and space lasers, of course.

RICHARD SCHIFF

So you’re the genius who built the space station. But instead of just making you the chief engineer, which would make sense, we made you director of the whole multi-national program, despite the fact that you have no administrative skills or political experience and mostly get what you want by yelling at people and punching them in the face?

GERARD BUTLER

That’s correct, you useless government fucks. You can all lick my sweaty gonads.

(moons everybody)

RICHARD SCHIFF

You’re fired and we’re giving your job to your little brother Jim Sturgess. At least he can do a passable American accent.

GERARD BUTLER

Och, ye dinnae hae ta be a deck abote et!

INT. SPACE STATION

Engineer RICHARD REGAN PAUL is aboard the WEATHER STATION when he notices that somebody has stuck a SMARTPHONE on an important CIRCUITBOARD.

RICHARD REGAN PAUL

Oh crap, somebody’s sabotaging this hundred-trillion-dollar space program using consumer electronics! I better draw everybody’s attention to this and alert my superiors!

(falls down and hits head very hard)

Duhhhh I mean I should hide this evidence and tell nobody yessss.

He stashes the EVIDENCE, but shortly afterwards the CORRIDOR he’s walking through is SEALED and all the WALL PANELS START BLASTING OFF!

RICHARD REGAN PAUL

What the fuck? Why would we design them to be able to do that? What possible situation could arise in a space station when we’d need to get rid of the WALLS in a hurry? This makes no-

(spaced)

The SPACE STATION then proceeds to turn a bunch of VILLAGERS in AFGHANISTAN into SNOWMEN.

INT. WHITE HOUSE

JIM STURGESS is having a meeting with the movie’s entire supply of Oscar-nominated actors.

JIM STURGESS

So yeah, we kind of murdered a bunch of innocent people with a giant ice ray like Mr. Freeze, oops. We need to send up an international team of brilliant engineers to the space station to investigate what went wrong, despite the fact that there’s already an international team of brilliant engineers ON the space station.

ACADEMY AWARD NOMINEE ANDY GARCIA

No way, Jim. As the president, I can’t have foreigners touch this station which has been funded and staffed predominately by foreigners! We’ll send up Americans.

ACADEMY AWARD NOMINEE ED HARRIS

ONE American. I mean if we’re going to half-ass this thing, let’s half-ass it, y’know?

ACADEMY AWARD NOMINEE MARE WINNINGHAM

I am also in this scene for some reason.

JIM STURGESS

Ugh fine, let’s send up Gerard. It’ll take some doing though, he and I haven’t really gotten along in the vague amount of time since you gave me his job. Seriously, the timeline is super nebulous, it could have been anything between a week and five years.

ED HARRIS

I have faith you can convince him, Jim. As your father figure and mentor, you know I support you in everything, and if you ever need somebody you can implicitly trust-

JIM STURGESS

We get it, you’re the villain, whoop-de-doo.

(leaves)

EXT. LOSER SHACK

JIM goes out to see GERARD, who is hanging with his DAUGHTER.

JIM STURGESS

Hey bro, the space laser’s been acting up. Think you could pop up to space real quick and fix it? Thanks.

GERARD’S DAUGHTER

Dad, no! You can’t go back to space! It’s too dangerous! Don’t abandon me like this!

GERARD BUTLER

OH GOD NOT THIS FUCKING TROPE. Yeah, parents should never do work that takes them away from their families for any amount of time or puts themselves at risk, no matter how important it is. I’m a shitty father because I’m agreeing to go save hundreds of millions of lives, possibly including yours. Shut the fuck up, you little turd.

GERARD immediately storms off and goes to SPACE.

EXT. HONG KONG

Suddenly the movie remembers the CHINESE BOX OFFICE and cuts to HONG KONG, where DANIEL WU is heading home with some SHOPPING.

DANIEL WU

(looks around)

Aw fuck. A famous capital city in a disaster movie? This isn’t gonna end well.

Sure enough he drops some EGGS on the ground and they immediately begin to FRY!

DANIEL WU

Holy shit the ground is apparently as hot as a stovetop! You’d think this is something the people in the street would have noticed, but uh, I guess all our shoes are made entirely of thermally nonconductive silica fibreglass?

(jumps in car, speeds off)

And our tires too, don’t forget our tires!

DANIEL drives through the streets as the pavement CRACKS and FIRE erupts out of the SUPERHEATED PAVEMENT!

DANIEL WU

Damn, the space station must have done that! Not that we ever explain how geothermal energy could possibly be controlled by space lasers!

INT. SPACE STATION

GERARD arrives aboard the SPACE STATION to meet the team of ENGINEERS.

ROBERT SHEEHAN

Welcome, Gerard! I am an asshole. A smug, unlikeable asshole. The exact kind of jerk you’d think would turn out to be the saboteur. Which is kind of awkward, because I DO turn out to be the saboteur.

AMR WAKED

It’s okay, I’ll cover for you by red herringing as hard as humanly possible in every scene I’m in.

(lurks sinisterly)

ALEXANDRA MARIA LARA

Meanwhile I’m the station’s commander. I exist to be your sort-of love interest with whom you never get beyond meaningful eye contact, and to make you seem hypercompetent by standing around uselessly while you do everything important.

GERARD BUTLER

Okay then, now that everybody’s in position let’s get this 2012-but-with-weather/Gravity-except-stupid-and-with-more-explosions hybrid on the road! Bring on the barrage of gratuitous global annihilation!

ALEXANDRA MARIA LARA

Actually there’s nowhere near as much of that kind of thing as the trailers promised. But if you like scenes where someone stares at tiny gobbledegook on a computer screen and explains what plot points it discloses, we’ve got a buttload of that!

GERARD BUTLER

(puppy dog eyes)

ALEXANDRA MARIA LARA

Oh fine, here’s one to tide you over.

EXT. TOKYO

Giant hail in Tokyo!

INT. SPACE STATION

GERARD BUTLER

Ta! Now let’s look at that satellite that fried Hong Kong.

ROBERT SHEEHAN

Uh, oops, unfortunately that malfunctioning satellite got smashed beyond usefulness because the hydraulic arm which was holding it malfunctioned!

GERARD BUTLER

Fine then, let’s look at the surveillance footage from when Richard Regan Paul got spaced.

ROBERT SHEEHAN

Um well we can’t see the footage of that wall malfunction because the footage has also malfunctioned.

GERARD BUTLER

Wait though, there’s still a useable recording in a leftover bit of wall that got stuck in a solar array panel! Let’s go for a spacewalk and get it.

ROBERT SHEEHAN

Sure thing WHUH OH while you’re trying to retrieve that malfunctioning bit of wall, your space suit has malfunctioned!

GERARD BUTLER

(bouncing off every part of the space station)

HEY YOU KNOW WHAT, I’M STARTING TO THINK THAT MAAAAYBE THERE’S JUST A SMIDGE OF SABOTAGE GOING ON.

ROBERT SHEEHAN

Damnit! Turns out that by the time you’re committing sabotage to cover up your sabotage to cover up your sabotage to cover up your sabotage, it starts to get kinda obvious what you’re doing.

(pause)

Nnnnnot that I have anything to do with that. Right, Amr?

AMR WAKED

(hovers creepily at the edge of frame)

ROBERT SHEEHAN

Exactly.

GERARD retrieves the DATA from the WALL FRAGMENT, but finds that he can’t ACCESS IT.

GERARD BUTLER

Oh crap, only a high-level government official could have restricted the data like this! That means that SOMEBODY extremely high-ranking is behind all this, but we don’t know who!

ALEXANDRA MARIA LARA

It’s Ed Harris. Everybody has figured this out already.

GERARD BUTLER

I have to tell Jim about this. But they might have bugged our comms, and my message may be intercepted by whoever the traitor is.

ALEXANDRA MARIA LARA

It is quite obviously Ed Harris.

GERARD BUTLER

I better use a code.

(calls Jim)

Hey there, Jim! Just thought I’d stop in the middle of this deadly crisis to randomly reminisce. SOMEtimes I think about that old WHITE porch we used to have at our HOUSE, where our pathetic inbred ASSHOLE of a father used to get FUCKED up on tequila and whale on US with a wrench. Glad that’s all OVER.

JIM STURGESS

A high-ranking government traitor? Why that could only be-

ALEXANDRA MARIA LARA

ED HARRIS, IT’S ED HARRIS YOU IDIOTS, THERE'S NO OTHER REASON FOR HIS CHARACTER TO EXIST

JIM STURGESS

-the president! America is soon scheduled to hand control of the space station over to an international committee. The president must be causing these disasters in order to retain control!

GERARD BUTLER

Right. Because after a fuckup of this magnitude, obviously the last thing people will want to do is remove the administrators responsible for killing everybody.

JIM STURGESS

And he’s not gonna stop with these penny-ante special effect showcases, either! He’s trying to chain a bunch of them together and bring on a geostorm!

GERARD BUTLER

You mean the tiny, ugly-ass sports compact from Isuzu?

JIM STURGESS

Not a Geo Storm, a GEOSTORM! A made-up, probably impossible meteorological phenomenon where it storms everywhere on the planet at once! According to our computers, this precise sequence of weather disasters - including the ones which the space station hasn’t caused yet - will lead to a geostorm in EXACTLY the nice, round timeframe of ninety minutes!!

GERARD BUTLER

Fuck! Fine then, let’s do an emergency shutdown of the station so it can’t frag the planet. This potentially apocalyptic orbital weapons platform DOES have an emergency off switch, right?

JIM STURGESS

Well, yes... but, ha ha, it turns out it can only be activated using the president’s biometrics. So if the most dangerous thing ever made malfunctions, it can only be stopped if you can get the president into the right specific room quickly enough.

(shrugs awkwardly)

Fortunately, I have been provided with a convenient secret service girlfriend who can grab the president for us!

ABBIE CORNISH

Okay then, I’ll-

JIM STURGESS

Plot devices don’t speak, honey.

ABBIE CORNISH

Then why does this movie have any dialogue at all?

INT. DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION

JIM and ABBIE go to find PRESIDENT ANDY at the DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION in ORLANDO. But first they run into ED HARRIS.

JIM STURGESS

Ed, thank god I ran into somebody I can trust! We need to grab the president so we can shut down this Bond villain-esque weather scheme.

ED HARRIS

Uh, okay. I have the president right here in this gun. Stand still so that I might fire him at you.

JIM STURGESS

Wha - YOU?! EVIL?!? DWAAAHHH?!?!?

ED HARRIS

Don’t patronize me. Anyway, part of my plan is to set off a giant lightning storm here and kill everybody in line of succession ahead of me, so I become president!

JIM STURGESS

Are you fucking kidding me? We’ve gone to the trouble of pointing out it’s an election year! Do you honestly expect an administration that ran an environmental program so badly that it KILLED THEM ALL to get reelected?

JIM and ABBIE grab ANDY and run for it! Then a fuckton of LIGHTNING starts DESTROYING THE DNC!

BYSTANDER

Man, those Russian hackers have really stepped up their game.

(incinerated)

ABBIE CORNISH

Quickly, we can get away using this SELF-DRIVING cab we just commandeered! Since I’m driving it there might seem to be no reason for us to point out that it’s a SELF-DRIVING cab, so I guess now the audience has already figured out we’re shortly going to be pulling some trick where it SELF-DRIVES. We’ll still act like we’re being clever, though.

ED HARRIS

Chase that cab, my suicidally dedicated minions! Meanwhile I will teleport to the road ahead of them, so I can set up a rocket launcher ambush! Nothing screams “accidental death” like getting blown up by a fucking rocket launcher. FIRE!

MINION

Uh, you sure you don’t want to wait until we can see who’s driving? Disregarding any possible self-driving tricks, cabs are pretty interchangeable and that could in fact be entirely the wrong car-

ED HARRIS

I SAID FIRE!

They BLOW UP THE CAB! But then ANDY appears and shoves a GUN in ED’S FACE.

ANDY GARCIA

That’s right, we sent the empty cab driving towards you at sixty miles an hour! And now here we are, having caught up to it on foot within the next twenty seconds. My legs are KILLING ME.

ED HARRIS

Come on Andy, you should still let the geostorm happen! My theory is that the massive catastrophe which is going to demolish the face of the planet will handily attack only our political enemies and we’ll be fine!

ANDY GARCIA

Goddamn, how is it that each new layer of your motivations is even dumber than the last?

EXT. EVERYWHERE

Meanwhile DIRECTOR DEAN DEVLIN looks under the COUCH and finally finds the movie’s MISSING DISASTER EFFECTS, and they all start happening at once! Ice storms in Rio! Fire storms in Moscow! Tsunamis in the desert!

GERARD BUTLER

Opposite weather, is it? In that case I’m guessing London is currently having a pleasant sunny day HEY-OOOHHH!

ALEXANDRA MARIA LARA

But we’re not doing so great here in space either. Somebody’s set off our self-destruct system, and the station’s gonna explode in [amount of time left in which the geostorm can still be averted + just enough time for a thrilling escape]!

GERARD BUTLER

Wait a minute, according some kind of plot mumbo jumbo, the only one who could have started the self-destruct protocol is... ROBERT! You little traitor, you’re working for Ed!

ROBERT SHEEHAN

Okay okay, you’ve got me, but SURPRISE I had a gun strapped to the underside of this desk and now you haven’t got me at all, HA!

GERARD BUTLER

What was your plan if I’d confronted you in literally any other room?

ROBERT SHEEHAN

Clearly I must have guns strapped underneath every surface in the entire space station.

(opens fire)

Aw yeah, no better strategy for staying alive than shooting bullets in a room which is separated from the vacuum of space by a single pane of-

ROBERT accidentally SPACES HIMSELF! The movie does not reveal whether, in his last moments of consciousness, RICHARD’S FROZEN, ORBITING CORPSE happens to collide FOOT-FIRST with ROBERT’S CROTCH, so one is forced to assume that it DOES.

INT. SPACE STATION STOPPING ROOM

Back on EARTH, ANDY arrives in the ROOM he has to be in so that he can turn off the SPACE STATION.

ANDY GARCIA

All right, we did it! I just used my biometrics to activate the thing, so now the world is saved! Right?

JIM STURGESS

Actually Gerard still has to get to another specific room on the station itself and press a big “YES” button for it to actually work.

ANDY GARCIA

OF COURSE. What was I thinking, we can’t let this emergency shutdown be activated merely by having the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED FUCKING STATES TURN IT ON WITH HIS OWN SPECIAL BODY SCAN. No, we need the extra, mega-secure step of having some engineer click “confirm”!

JIM STURGESS

Look, we wanted to do the president kidnapping scene but still give Gerard a big action climax, this was the only way.

In SPACE, GERARD and ALEXANDRA make it to the SPECIAL ROOM, shut down the SPACE STATION and SAVE THE WORLD!

ALEXANDRA MARIA LARA

Phew, and with one second left to go! That’s right, because we turned off the weather machine when we did all the bad weather instantly cleared up; but if it had gone on for even one more second it would have become a global superstorm which would have wiped out most of humanity. What a sensible premise!

GERARD BUTLER

Unfortunately while we were able to get everybody else off the station, there’s no time left for you and I to escape. But I knew this when I stayed behind. I may not have been a good father, but I hope my daughter can at least appreciate the sacrifice I made by dying in space in order to save-

ALEXANDRA MARIA LARA

Are you seriously copying Bruce Willis’s death from Armageddon?

GERARD BUTLER

Oh FUCK you’re right. Screw it, let’s just jump in a spare satellite and fly to safety then.

ALEXANDRA MARIA LARA

Hooray! I’m not even gonna ask why a weather satellite has room inside it for passengers!

They HOP ABOARD the SPACE EX MACHINA and fly away!

EXT. LOSER SHACK

Months later, GERARD, JIM and GERARD’S ANNOYING DAUGHTER are all hanging out and fishing.

GERARD BUTLER

Neat, our family’s come un-estranged! What a happy ending. Why if we keep the focus on stuff like this, and the fact that in Brazil the dog didn’t die, we can ignore the fact that millions of people just got horribly murdered!

JIM STURGESS

And the rebuilt space station is now in international hands as intended, and they’re gonna make sure none of this can ever-

GERARD BUTLER

Wait, what the fuck? They’re doing the space station again? After the last one turned out to be a city-destroying death ray which could be commandeered by a single nerd with a smartphone? That’s the least plausible ending this movie could have possibly had!

JIM STURGESS

Uh huh. Yeah, I’m sure in real life politicians the world over would instead start seriously committing themselves to environmental policy. Hmmm?

GERARD BUTLER

...Okay yeah this way’s more realistic.

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

>:(

#ur a bitch #<33 #submission

6 notes · View notes

hatsukeii · 4 years

Text

OH MY GOD I JUST HAD A GENIUS SONGFIC IDEA

I am once again disregarding requests-

I’m sorry I love you guys but I HAVE TO DO THIS

Due to popular demand via a vote on instagram, I have decided who to write about:DDD

Disclaimer: This fic is inspired by a Levi one I’ve read before, I don’t remember the author but if you find them or they find me props to you!!

Remember When // Modern!Todoroki Shouto x reader

Word count: 2000+

Warnings: Cursing, idk if this is a warning but aged up characters

Summary: In a world where everyone is reincarnated, your search to find someone special ends somewhere nostalgic.

The memories shouldn’t stay.

They just shouldn’t.

That’s not how the world works.

What was supposed to happen, was you were supposed to die, forget everything, and get reborn. Start a new life, with a new face, meet new people, fall in love all over again, get married, have kids, grow old, die, repeat.

So why didn’t that happen to you too?

Why did all the memories come flooding right back the second you turned three? Why did you look the exact same? Throughout your teenage years, you desperately tried to get rid of everyone in your memories. Mina, Bakugou, Deku, Kaminari, Jirou, and most importantly, Todoroki.

Ah, Todoroki Shouto, your first and last love. How could you forget him?

For fifteen years of your life, you’ve been trying desperately to find him.

But who’s to say he remembers you too?

That possibility didn’t stop you from seeking out every opportunity to figure out whether he was still the Todoroki you used to know. The Todoroki you used to love so dearly. You prayed every night, that you would finally meet him again, not in your dreams, but in real life. No matter how hard you tried to burn the memory of him out of your mind, he just wouldn’t leave. You couldn’t let go of how he stared at you, those heterochromatic eyes staring into your soul as it lit on fire. You craved to feel his hand on your cheek, his lips on your head, his arms around your waist, you wanted it all back. It made you feel greedy, it did, but could anyone blame you? You had everything taken away from you the minute he died. You wished to pass away, so you could forget about him and start a new life, but ended up with this mess. Your emotions are hard to suppress. You’re just as in love with Todoroki Shouto as you were in another life.

You were unlucky to be reborn like this, all the memories from your past life mixed with new ones. The school days at UA high, fighting villains alongside your best friends. The day you got married. The day you had kids. It was terrible, having those images in your mind, but being unable to fulfil the hunger and constant longing to do it all over again.

Walking down the street, you stop at a cafe. It’s a really nice cafe. Reminds you of the one you used to work part time at in your past life. Warm, dim ceiling lights, timber wall lining, Swiss cheese plants, a nice little island where baristas were busing brewing up steaming hot mugs of coffee, plush couch seats and wooden chairs accompanied with marble tables, and a little platform for occasional guests that would perform. The entire cafe radiates a nice vibe. It reminds you of what you used to have. Giving yourself a tiny grin, you push the door open, letting the little bells ring. Grabbing a couch seat, you settle yourself down, putting your headphones on in an effort to block out the noise other customers were making. “Good evening, miss. Would you like anything? I suppose you wouldn’t want coffee at such a late hour.” You position one of the sides behind your ear. What time is it? You bring your phone up to your face, squinting a bit at the bright screen, showing 7:15 in bold, white numbers. “It’s fine, I’ll just have a latte and your apple pie.” The waitress looks at you in confusion. “Miss, I haven’t given you the menu yet?” Eyes widening, you go silent, before plastering a smile on your face. “Regular, just not at night.” Did that convince her? The waitress bites her lip, tilting her head a bit, before jotting down the order and shuffling away quickly.

The cafe is buzzing with excitement, talks of a band performing in a bit filling the air of the cozy space. You roll your eyes, not wanting to deal with it. You just got back from five lectures that you surely didn’t enjoy. The cafe is supposed to be a way for you to get some downtime, not for a band to ruin the peaceful atmosphere. Pulling your headphone back onto your ear, you mindlessly go through your phone, bored and uninterested in anything on your timeline. Every single post is about your friends with their valentines date. To you, valentines is truly, the worst thing to possibly celebrate. Not only is it is about a man that was tortured and eventually killed, it is also a reminder, that you’ll never be able to love someone normally because of those stupid, idiotic, utterly pointless memories that held you back. It doesn’t matter how many people your friends set you up with. You’ve had to reject over eight guys you were set up with, all because you simply can’t let go of Todoroki. It doesn’t matter whether he remembers, as long as you do, you’ll never be free of this hell. You get made fun of for being too uptight, too picky, too dense, when in reality you can’t help it at all. Whenever you even have the slightest thought of a different guy, Todoroki’s name plays in your mind like a broken record. Thinking about it now, maybe you don’t want to leave the memories behind. Maybe you want to remember them, no matter how annoying, shitty, and irritating they can be. Losing them would be like losing a part of yourself, and you didn’t want that.

“Miss, the latte, and the apple pie. Enjoy your food.” Picking up the tiny spoon, you fiddle around with the utensil, admiring it in all its simplicity. It isn’t a peculiar spoon or anything, just a normal coffee spoon that has a gold brimmed green end. Sticking it into the latte, you give the drink a good stir, not even paying attention to the coffee foam art that was there a second ago. Leading the brim of the cup to your lips, you carefully take a sip of the hot liquid. Nothing about it has changed. It tastes just as good as when you worked here. If only you could introduce this to Todoroki all over again. Eyeing the pie with lidded eyes, you cut out a chunk, taking it into your mouth as you reminisced the days, where you would feed him the exact pie. It was pretty impossible not to feel nostalgic in this place. Way too many memories were made here. First dates, first kisses, first mini concerts, this was like a shrine of key events in your past life. You continue to savour the rest of your food, saving the drink for last. Exhaustion is taking over as you hear the sound of cheering, a guitar strum, and a half recognisable voice. Slumping into the couch, you doze off, headphones slowly falling off. From onstage, heterochromatic eyes stare at your figure, mouth hanging as the band sets up their instruments.

He finally found you.

After all these years, he finally found you.

Never has he ever been so thankful for fate.

His situation was the same as yours. He was reborn, then regained memories from his past life, except he was never able to get a certain someone out of his head. For years, he performed at this particular cafe, hoping you would be there to watch him. He hasn’t been able to fall in love with anyone, despite having hundreds of fangirls craving for his hand in marriage. He spent immeasurable amounts of time delving deep into those past memories, trying to scrape together the song you oh so loved to listen to. The song that represented your life with him. Hours upon hours of bass practising, just for the sake of reuniting with you. Uncertainties burdened him night after night. What if you’ve already become a different person? Would all his work have been for nothing? Would the only place he can ever meet you again be his dreams, and the piles of the memories he still had with you? All those doubts were washed away with the look he gave you. That was definitely the (Y/N) he knew. From the iconic band hoodie, to the order of the cafe’s secret apple pie and latte. That was undoubtedly you.

“Guys, please let me play one song first.”

“Hah? Todoroki, you’re seriously changing it now?”

“Do me a favour, would you? Let me do that song first?”

The drummer’s eyes widened in realisation.

“O-oh! Yeah, sure thing. Good luck, you get one shot.”

Hands on the mic, the cafe goes silent as the first riff comes on.

Headphones fully slipping off your ears and onto your neck, your ears are no longer protected from outside noises.

This song.

Letting your eyes flutter open, you shake your head, rubbing your eyes a bit from your little nap. Adjusting your headphones to hang nicely around your neck, you sit up from your position, steadying yourself with your hands. How long have you been asleep for? You groggily grab for your phone, wincing yet again at the bright light that shone through. You weren’t even able to fully comprehend the numbers on your screen, when a voice rang loud and clear.

“Thought I saw your shadow under the door,”

This song, I remember it.

What is this? You absolutely love it. The way the lyrics resemble a long lost friendship, it makes your heart clench with every word. You pull your phone up, trying to Shazam the lyrics. The song sounds familiar, yet so, so different from anything you’ve heard before. Typing in the lyrics rapidly, your search fails as nothing comes up.

Dammit, what is this?

“I can never tell what’s real anymore, anymore, anymore.”

There’s no way. It has to be a real song. You swear on your life you’ve heard it somewhere. It’s lingering in the back of your mind, waiting for the right time to pop out. Cold sweat drips from your forehead as you go through all the songs you know. Your head hurts, your sight is blurry. Hands go up to grab your head as you squeeze your eyes shut, your phone dropping onto the plush couch.

No, I know this, I definitely do.

“It seems so long, it seems so long,“

Colours flash in front of your shut eyelids, almost giving you an epilepsy. Your mind travels into those god forsaken memories from your past life. Mina, Jirou, Kirishima, Bakugou, Deku, Todoroki, everything crashes right down on you. Panting heavily, you grab the cup of coffee, downing it in one go, hoping it helps with easing your mind. An image flashes in your head, sending jolts to your body. You and Todoroki in a cafe, listening to Wallows perform for the first time. That was your first date. Remember When became your song that night. It was a staple of your relationship. It was like the background music of your life story. Was there no Wallows now? The nostalgia that song brought you was immeasurable, yet you didn’t know it would have such an effect on you.

Oh my god.

A moment of epiphany hits you like a truck.

“All the places I’ve returned to,”

“All the faces that remind you,”

Letting your head spring up, your eyes dart around the cafe, desperately trying to find where the song is playing from. You should know fully well it’s coming from the band that is intriguing the audience excellently. However, you’re still in a state of complete shock, refusing to believe your ears. The familiar tune resonates in the cafe, a silky voice serenading couples in the audience.

It’s him.

Your eyes lock onto the band.

Heterochromatic irises stare back at your watery ones.

He looks just as good as before. His hair is still groomed, red and white parting in the middle. His turquoise eye shines with the gloss of tears as he sings his heart out on the stage, letting the tears roll down his cheeks freely.

Covering your mouth with a shaky hand, tears freely fall from your eyelids as your mind goes blank. You can’t seem to peel your eyes off him. Your heart beats wildly as you let out a tiny gasp.

It doesn’t matter if the two of you only just met. At a cafe.

Right now, you’re looking at someone you’ve known your entire life, and it feels ethereal.

I found you.

Finally.

Do you remember this?

Do you remember when we were the ones watching?

References:

Remember When- Wallows

Lyrics to said song

Cafe interior inspo lmao

Tags:

@sunshines-and-tatertots @izzyphantomgamer @trashcanweeb @burnt-tomato @tiger1719 @bokutokoutarou @poppirocks @just-another-bored-writer @justachillgirl @itmekisuu @kaylacinderella @random-fandomlover @skyeackermans @macaronnv @mariechan123 @xonfusedsoul @inlwlevi @talks-a-lot-of-stuff @ewfilthymundane @emsvegetables @estherwritess @shoutsukii @sakusasgarbage @agentvicinity @thirstyvolleyballhoe @artsamber @sneezefiction

Feel free to comment if you’d like to be added to the taglist!

For once I’m proud of something I wrote, please feel free to give me feedback, hope you like reading this<3

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starstrucknerdbatkid · 4 years

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Hello there Ladies and Gentlemen, i'd like to take a moment to share my thoughts on the current , successful state of star wars. I apologise in advance for any grammatical errors in my little rant, I'm not a native speaker.

So, I guess where I'll begin is with my intro: currently successful?

Solo was the first star wars film to lose money, and quite a lot at that, while the beginning of the end was obvious with TLJ: they destroyed the center of the saga for most people, which was Luke Skywalker, and with RoS they even made Anakin's prophecy redundant.

And say what you want, the numbers don't lie, RoS earned not even half of what TFA did while the cost kept rising up. Not even the actors can defend this nonsense anymore, Adam driver didn't even go on the press tour for it

As far a Rogue one and the Mandalorian goes, they aren't universally beloved, they are just better by comparison then the rest of the Disney movies. The fan base for star wars has been built for 40+ years, it's was pretty strong, and making a sequel to the first movie ever was sure to be a success, right? Well, again, the numbers don't lie, and rogue one didn't earn that much money compared to the production and marketing cost. It was also made before the franchise was really driven down the shitter with TLJ and RoS.

If you want an accurate indicator of the damages TLJ did just look at solo. If the last Star Wars movie had been good, or at least decent, people would have rushed in to see the next. Instead they didn't even make their money back.

And then there's of course the Mandalorian. Aside from not having any real numbers to go by since it's on their own platform there are enough people out there that don't like it, including myself, and the reason about 20% of the people watch it is baby Yoda, which has to be applauded as the best marketing decision they did so far, and on accident no less.

What do I mean by accident?

Then the movies came out they flooded the market with toys for their new movies, all the characters, the infamous C-3PO with the red arm to make extra money...

And that's probably the biggest indicator of where the fandom currently sits: In the time do the ot people rushed in to buy the toys, kids and adults alike, and with the prequels it got even better: more toys, more ships, more clothing, Legos, basically everything you could imagine. The kids loved it, the adults who grew up with it loved it and brought their children into the wonderful world that was star wars. And the most important fact: they never, ever dropped in price because they always sold for what they were put on the shelves for.

Now what do we get: go to any bigger store and look at the star wars section. Over the last 4 years it consistently shrunk in since to the point where the RoS toys where fewer in numbers then the ones for Frozen 2. And there you'll find them, your Rose Tico's down 98% for 5ct, your Kylo Ren for 10ct, your Rey for 12ct. The kids don't want that, and their parents that brought the previous generations in don't do that anymore.

What they want however is baby Yoda, and there weren't any: realizing that they're toys didn't sell and they could save money by not producing them in the first place they stopped all project going forward, including what the fans actually wanted and now having to make then after the fact.

Now you can come up with any reason for that: blame sexism, Trump, racism, whatever, but Star Wars always had strong female characters, princess Leia kicked their ass in the OT even in the darkest of time. Even after her planet got destroyed before her eyes she still comforted Luke over his personal lose, managed to detect the empires plan to track them and organize a missing that ultimately saved everyone's live.

The reason no one really likes Fin is because he's so inconsistent in the movies he's a joke: from giving us a genuinely gritty opening in TFA where we, for the first time ever since the deleted scene from RotJ, see a stormtrooper stand up from the crowd, see him suffer through the loss of presumably a friend to making re choice not to kill, freeing a tortured prisoner for war... Straight to him laughing to himself while blowing up his comrades while they are fleeing in terror. TLJ made it even worse, and while he's not even in much of RoS just look at what the actor has to say. Fin has been done dirty, and it's not because of racism that people don't really like him, it's because his character could have been so awesome and instead turned into a bumbling buffoon by incompetent writers, producers, directors...

And that really what's wrong with it Star Wars: Kathleen Kennedy.

The first movie of the trillogy was made by the master of never answering any of the questions brought up by his oh so great mystery boxes, the second by a guy who just wanted to subvert everything, and then by the time of the 3 they suddenly realized they didn't have a story anymore. And after all other quit they brought the guy back who notoriously can't end anything, butchered his script in the production of it, to the point where he refused to call it back script anymore, and then tripped the movie down about 20%.

And that really the difference between Lukas and Kennedy: Lucas loved the universe, he wanted to tell us his story in it while allowing the rest of it to be run by passionate fans and never really interfering all that much with it. And while he did it poorly he at least made it alright. Also he was happy to sell toys

Kennedy just wants to make money with it, anyway she can:

First she de-canonized all of it except for a handful she would use for later, and then she immediately jumped in and started making movies. There literally wasn't a story to tell, each one just made it up as they went, and Kennedy was happy as long as they all adhered to her politics believes and kissed her feet. If you want prove just look at the interview of Ian Mcdiarmid where they asked him about the return of Palpatine, and he answered he only was contacted in December of 2019(aka 1 year into shooting it and 1 year before the release) where they thought about bringing the emperor back. They were so without a plan that they didn't even have a villain anymore, and in a desperate attempt to fix it they did the only thing they had left: brought back the original one somehow(and I'm not kidding, that's literally what the movie says: somehow Palpatine came back to live)

And lastly, the people put in charge of the movies don't care about the IP, they were hired as Kennedy's mouthpieces as for as her political beliefs go and worked as yes men to nod and sign everything of she did, while she let incompetent idiots like JJ. Abrams and Rian Johnson in charge.

And I can't even blame Abrams for the last movie because it wasn't his movie at that point, it was basically make by a banking Lucasfilm desperately scrambling together and throwing in what they can and mindlessly cutting stuff out at the last second.

So what's left of Star Wars? Since the book numbers are as low as the toys that leaves the games: Battlefront 2 turned out alright,after the failure of Battlefront 1 and it's desasterous launch it got way better; Fallen order is alright, and SWTOR is thankfully not part of the Disney/Lukas deal and still going strong with a bunch of new players that want to return to the old universe

But in terms of the big screen, what do we got? No new movies even announced, so much for the cancelled Boba Fett one, so I guess TV it is: Clone wars season 7 is alright I guess, it gets much better in the second half, and the main reason for that, and our only glimmer of hope at the horizon, is Dave Filoni. This man actually lives and breathes star wars, giving us the world we like with characters we actually care about and like as well as bringing his original show to a good end. They announced Mando season 2 and Obi-Wan, and despite everything going on I still care, I still want to see more of the wonderful world of star wars, and hopefully Dave will be able to restart the fire that Kennedy spent years blowing out with all her might.

Overall it's a step in the right direction: ignore the sequels and focus on the established stuff to get the fans back on board, and when Kennedy is gone and her influence has finally faded start making movies again. For most people, Dave is literally the only lifeline star wars has left, and if he can't do it I really don't know who could

#star wars #swtor #fallen order #the last jedi #the rise of skywalker #the force awakens #solo #rogue one #baby yoda #clone wars #the mandalorian

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crazy-loca-blog · 5 years

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Personal thoughts on… 2019 releases (Part III)

Note: As the title says, these are just personal opinions on Choices books and chapters. Of course, you may agree or disagree with them, I only use this platform to express my thoughts on what I read every week.

I’m so sorry! Not only I wasn’t at home during New Year, but I also noticed that I hadn’t finished one of the books I had to write about, so I was kind of stuck! Welcome to the final part of my review of 2019 books. As I said before, I will include current releases and books that were released on 2018 but finished in 2019. The list is organized in alphabetical order and it doesn’t include the VIP Books (as I don’t have access to the feature) or the seasonal books (as I’ll talk about them in another post, after all of them have been fully released). You may see Part I here and Part II here.

Red Carpet Diaries, Book 3 (June 7, 2019 - September 27, 2019): I still wonder “what were they thinking”. Personally, I have no complaints on the first book, it was a nice story, but I already had problems reading the second book (blame Teja and Seth for it), but dealing with the third one was just a nightmare. And I hate to admit it, but I only finished it because I hate to see incomplete books in my feed. As I said plenty of times in the past, we didn’t need a wedding book. Ninradell (did anyone figure out what Ninradell was about?) and the stalker plots were enough (we could have seen our MC winning some awards as well). The wedding left me speechless… and not in a good way. It was simply painful to read at times. We basically planned it by ourselves, and we had so many LIs and so many storylines (one per each LI) that I ended up feeling like they were the worst.

Ride or Die: A Bad Boy Romance, Book 1 (January 25, 2019 - May 3, 2019): I don’t remember people complaining so much about a book before its release as they did with ROD. People were destroying it even before we knew what the plot was about! Based on those comments, the book was destined to be a failure. And then, Chapter 10 came. You may have seen it coming or not, but the plot twist of the book was brilliant, despite of being somehow predictable. It made so many people change their minds about the book and it attracted so many new readers, that this story ended up getting a second book at the very last minute (that’s the power of reading a book and buying diamond scenes, people!). Luckily, I’m part of the people who decided to give it a chance and I enjoyed it since the very first moment; however, I feel the story came to full circle at the end of the book, so I’m not that convinced about the idea of getting a second book.

Save The Date (September 29, 2019 – December 29, 2019): I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say everything about this book screams “toxicity”. At some point, I ended up feeling like half of the characters in the story had to go to therapy to control their anger issues, and the other half needed therapy to improve their self-esteem. Poor Ali, the only “real adult” character in this book, who had to deal with this bunch of crazy people. Despite having too many weddings this year, I liked the premise behind the story before its release: I saw it as an awesome space to meet different types of couples and celebrate different types of weddings (as all our wedding books at that point felt quite similar). And certainly each wedding was different and cute in its own way. However, the fact that the weddings were not the center of the story was disappointing. Instead, they focused on showing us the worst of each character: they were dull or too shy (hi Simon! hi Lindsay!) or they were too explosive and controlling (hi everyone else!). Too bad, PB… too bad.

Sunkissed (June 26, 2019 - October 9, 2019): I have some mixed emotions on this book. On one side, we have the grieving processes of this book’s characters. I just loved how the writers addressed it. They showed so many different reactions, points of view and feelings (they even addressed the grieving process after a breakup through Samson’s story), and they did it with so much respect… they did a brilliant job. On the other side, we had our family. Everything was OK at first, but as the book moved on, we ended up dealing with a mother that was quite toxic and manipulative (I’m still surprised that any of the girls suggested her to go to therapy because she was seriously damaging the family) and a sister who was a bitch with the guy who loved her. At the end of the book, I couldn’t believe that it took our mom like two chapters to move on from our dad and start dating “the artist”, and that our sister ended up in a relationship with the “not so hot” boy. Those guys deserved better than those women.

The Elementalists, Book 1 (October 24, 2018 - February 22, 2019): Spells, magick, and a whole new life. I wish we all face the same destiny as our MC when we feel out of place! I read this book a little later because it was hard for me to catch some things, such as making spells or knowing when to attack or defend myself (thanks for existing, dear wiki), so it was kind of inevitable to see some spoilers, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy it. I actually liked it a lot! Where do I begin with? The attunements. You can tell there was research and that the writers really took care about the elements to be used as attunements (I got metal, by the way). Then, the evolution of the MC, in a process that lasted a whole book. From thinking that everything was a mistake to defeating Raife, the way our MC grew during the story was beautiful. Also… we had a twin who protected us without us knowing of his/her existence! That’s just true love. And finally, some of the most loyal friends. They made mistakes, sometimes they screwed things (hi Beckett!) but in the end, it’s cool to see them learning from their own mistakes. There is only one thing I still don’t understand. Why did a lot of people think that Zeph would be the one to “betray” us? I mean, at some point everyone was convinced of it, but I never understand why. Was it because he wasn’t a LI? He never gave any clues for us to think that! Anyway… you can tell that I really liked this book, and as a person who doesn’t understand a thing about magick, this is huge!

The Elementalists, Book 2 (March 15, 2019 - August 2, 2019): The reason why it took me forever to finish this post was this book (oops, sorry!). I hadn’t finished it until a few days ago because I’m the worst when it comes to making spells, so I had to replay certain chapter (ahem, Chapter 10) like three times to make things right. What I like about this book (it’s definitely my favorite in the series) is how the writers link certain events from the first book, but at the same time they make us feel like this is a completely different story. We got new characters, new villains and a whole new story about sources. Also, our MC is more mature, he/she deals much better with his/her new powers and he/she found a whole new support network in Evelyn and Alma. However, I think the biggest mistake was the insane amount of diamond scenes with Beckett. I can totally understand how uncomfortable it was if you’re not dating him. The book was already fine, it wasn’t necessary to add so many diamond scenes with him just to get more money from us! Anyway… I can’t believe they finished this series after book 2. The ending was so open that I can’t imagine they won’t revisit this story in the future. What about our mom? What about Gemma trying to bring Alma back to life? Was Alma a good or a bad character? Are there other sources? Have we truly seen the full power of the twins? I need answers!

The Heist: Monaco (December 10, 2018 - March 18, 2019): I completely understand why people love this book. It definitely has a lot of things to love: we had a chance to choose our MC’s gender, our crew was customizable, and it’s not focused in romance. The plot is pretty solid as well, but (and here is where my only complaint about this book comes) I felt like some of the chapters in the middle of the book were just fillers to make the story longer. I don’t know if you noticed it, but in every chapter one member of the crew had a problem and we had to help them. After three or four chapters of it, I was bored and I just wanted them to talk more about the heist and less about their personal problems. But overall I enjoyed it, and just like most people, I still can’t understand why this story is not having a second book.

The Royal Heir (June 22, 2019 to October 26, 2019): One of the things I like the most about The Royal Romance series is the sense of friendship and loyalty in our gang. But when The Royal Heir was announced I had some doubts. I liked the idea of seeing these people again, but after seeing our MC physically fighting the bad guys, it was weird to imagine her with a belly and trying to keep calm. The biggest mistake in this book was not changing the story. When they decided to take the short book about Bertrand and Savannah’s wedding and turn it into a pregnancy/motherhood series, they should have realized that no one expected to spend most of the book at the Walker ranch planning a wedding. They should have kept it simple: no more than four chapters at the ranch, and then back to Cordonia, maybe deepening Olivia’s plot. However, and even though I’m hoping to have a better plot in Book 2, I do have a favorite moment in this book. Playing as Bertrand was a non-sense, but I don’t remember laughing out so hard in a long time. Making the choices that he would make and seeing him doing stuff like riding a motorcycle, serenading Savannah or dealing with a bear was just priceless.

The Royal Masquerade (October 18, 2019 - Present): Even though I think this book helps us to understand some things about politics in Cordonia, I don’t think it’s actually working as I thought it would be. I assumed this would be like a link between The Crown & The Flame and The Royal Romance, but so far, I still can’t see the connections clearly. Hunter is the example of an assigned king/queen (just like in TRH if you didn’t marry Liam), we also know that Percival and Annalisa are Bertrand and Maxwell’s ancestors, and if you read chapter 13 (spoiler alert!) you got to know the link between the Nevrakis family and the monarchy in times of queen Kenna, but that’s all. There is something about this story that I like (I’m still trying to find out what it is) but at the same time, I think the book still lacks of that “wow” moment to blow our minds. I also feel like choosing a LI at the beginning of the book was not the best idea (damn, they both are so good!). And I still have so many questions! Why is there no mention to houses Fierro and Vescovi in TRR? Where does our magic come from? Why do I feel our MC could be related to Dom? Is Vasco a friend or an enemy? Too many questions, only a few chapters left.

Wishful Thinking (April 15, 2019 - July 8, 2019): This book had so much potential that I can’t believe they messed it up so badly. You may have liked it or not, but you can’t deny the overall idea of the book was attractive. You had this shy character who suddenly goes from unknown to superstardom because she gets some powers and reads people minds. I’m still not convinced that this story deserved a second book, but I’m pretty sure it didn’t deserve the rushed ending it had. If they didn’t want to release a second book, the least they should have done was to give WT the same treatment as Across The Void and A Courtesan of Rome, that is, a single book, but longer, so that the writers could explain everything properly, because there were too many unanswered questions (mostly everything about her powers!).

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bma-2020 · 5 years

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Okiedok here’s the delio. I have a list of all the blogs from the last six months who’s actively either responded to a meme i sent, responded to a message ive sent, replied to something regarding mally herself, has actually written with me, written a starter for me from my liking a starter call, has at least liked a starter i wrote for them to awknowedge it exists, all that jazz, i have a lot of open field so it’s not just a possible tumblr didnt let them no option anymore, because i send memes to everyone who posts them that i see. I reply to most peoples ooc posts. I like most starter calls I pass by. I try my darndest to actually interact bc i know how it feels to be ignored and its… i’ve been called one before so i’m using the word, thats fluffing cunty behavior, and honestly if you complain about not being interacted with but never even try when i try with you, ya being cunty, end of. I gotta list. That list only entails Mally because she’s who I care about the most. I’m probably gonna start instilling a new rule in all my blogs that if you ignore Mally and/or Darcy( @tasedandconfused ), since I would say they’re my two main blogs tho darcy gets ignored even more than mally does, probably bc i denied canon and left it entirely we know fandom hates that, if either of them is ignored then… Ya out of luck, I’m gonna unfollow you. I’m debating soft blocking everyone who ignored me on both of them but I don’t want to like be mean and deny the chance to eventually try again but at the same time i shouldnt feel bad for taking a stand and saying this is bullsheet, idk my anxiety says im awful for giving a fluff about myself but also i should give a fluff about myself probably, ive nearly died in the last three months, my brain almost exploded, i just had three root canals on one corner of my face, i have to potentially get surgery on my inner ear which i cant even afford, i dont got time to deal with only being used for like smut memes or like as a resource blog or utter bs like that, i dont got time for it. So new rules here. 1: If Mally or Darcy are not acknowledged, written with, responded to, viewed as more than just their fluffing bodies? ya dropped, im unfollowing, potentially soft blocking, which means blocking and unblocking for those not in the know, on all accounts I follow you on. Every single one. I know most of my muses are on sideblogs but despite not being able to send memes from sideblogs you can block people from sideblogs fun fact, i will do that if i have to. 2: I’m gonna be posting SCs, PCs, memes, etc. I like and respond to plotting calls, starter calls, i send memes, all of that. If I don’t get any response within.. I’m giving one week for people who don’t run on a queue and a month and a half to people on a queue based system, if i dont get anything within that time like at least an im being like ‘its posted’ or ‘its queued i wanted to let you know in case tumblrs a fluffbutt’ (i do this sometimes if i dont get even just a like on the starters i post so i at least know people saw it since i know tumblrs bs, i wait until the day they’re active to do so in case theyre busy yknow) basically i need acknowledgment at all. No you can’t claim this is abt follower count bc when you unfollow someone they inevitably unfollow you too, thats gonna drop my following, not as quickly as soft blocking would but i wanna be fair i guess, which leads to: 3: I’m basing this on your activity too, like if i like a think and you’re gone for a month after that its fine, im not gonna unfollow you unless you never come back or youre online and posting others just not mine because that tells me youre specifically ignoring me and im gonna drop you for that end of. I’m done with the bullsheet im done w the dillish behavior, i love friendship but if im giving and never receiving thats extremely one way and not gonna work. I check through my follow list weekly and i go back about five-10 pages on someones feed before i unfollow them to see their actual activity and see if theyre here or if its a q so. I’m thorough basically. 4: You dont have to be active with me on all your blogs, i mean i’d prefer it but thats hard as fluff so essentially if you have like five blogs and are just like trying w me on two or three thats fine. Ten blogs, four or five with at least a plot formed is cool. Multis just one muse is all I’d need. I’m not gonna unfollow the blogs youre not writing w me on if you at least write w me on some. Again, specifically Mally and/or Darcy. If you ignore both of them, we’re done. I havent been active on darcy because of being ignored and its a huge butt mess and im just tired i wanna use my babies, you don’t get to have my ‘better’ muses like i know a lot of ppl only follow me for my boys or my villains, you don’t get them if you ignore my baby. But, there is a limit there too. 5: If you never respond to a meme or thread even once with Mally or Darcy, or post a starter, i reply, its never replied to again after a month, I’m unfollowing and/or soft blocking for that too. Bc that means youre just raising my hopes to fluff with me or get someone else and honestly, youre even more cunty than than the people just flat out ignoring me if you do that. And this isnt a specific person, this is five of the people actually on my list. Yes, my list is also annotated with specifics again I was very thorough on this yesterday, I hyperfixated I’ll admit it, I’m in a fluffing depressionary bubble and being told to get over it because people want something they dont deserve to have to. I am a believer that people deserve good things but if youre purposefully being cunty… no you dont. 6: No I’m not releasing my list, maybe I will and I’ll omit the urls because I don’t want people being buttholes to each other too but otherwise, yall not seeing it im not giving a callout because… really thats just unnecessary here. I don’t think yall are toxic people or something i just think yall are unintentionally being cunty. And no I don’t mean everyone that follows me i mean the ppl that add up to what i’ve documented so far and fit the bill of butthat that i’ve shown, its behaviors yall gotta check before ya wreck. Yes there will be some people who have priority, everyone has those people, I write w kathryn on other platforms since she doesnt go on here as often but when Kathryn returns from war here (if she does cause she also agrees most ppl on this platform are cunty, i feel really bad saying that word so often but im gonna keep doing it i recently deleted an ask saying I was a huge cunt for not sending someone smut memes when I didn’t even follow them or know they existed so, again the travesty of this place is nutballers) same with owly, alex is here too, my most active partners are always going to be priority because theyre the ones who show the most interest and the most care. I understand that with others as well which is why I have the timeframe set up, because I want to be as open and shizz as possible while atill being firm i guess. I don’t want to have extreme double standards like its impossible for double standards not to exist at least a little bit but I want to avoid a golden chest full of them I guess. 7: I don’t have a seven rn, this was an even number and it bothered me. Seven is nust my warning that I’m bittery writing this on mobile so formatting is not real but i tried my dandest to make this look like something people might actually mind. I dont want to be butty, i dont want to be awful, i dont want to start drama or have drama but that shizz comes around anyways so i might as well make my space as okay for me as i can cause im supposed to avoid stress so my brain doesnt almost explode again, like again i almost fluffing died i dont need ppl fake being my friend or anything, i want stuff to be real and clear. I want to be happy to be on here again and have fun like i used to since my health is plummetting and I’m not allowed to go outside near plants by myself anymore because i welt up. I have plants outside my work place and im surrounded by chemicals all day long I’m welted from here to new york constantly and never comfortable in my own skin because of it and constantly see people online acting like these actual real problems are pretentious because ‘its an excuse’ when, im a fluffing sagittarius, do you know how much i want to magically be a millionaire so i can pay for friends and my own medical stuff and go on traveling and adventures, be outside probably not camping bc as a pagan i know thats a death sentence but like be outside, lay on grass, go back to swimming because i used to swim competitively and due to health reasons i can barely even go in a pool anymore because theres too much sunlight which, bit plot twist i know, im fluffing allergic to vitamin D and the rays of the sun, so go figure, attempts to be healthy kill me more, i also cant eat most plants and am constantly dying from just eating food, they dont know whats wrong with me. i cant fix it by going ve/gan for a month inf act i tried and it almost made my heart stop thanks society. These arent excuses these are the lives of disabled and diseased and to a lesser but still very real point, ethnic lives every fluffing day. This is real shit and its murder and online and gaming? It may be all I have soon since I can’t just go out and make new friends cause, again, I’d fluffing die. I get sick going to the mall or the movie theater, I miss theme parks so much but have to minimize it to weeks i dont have work so i dont get fired for having a welt while working in the beauty industry. I may have to get a degree online and change my field entirely because of my illness that nobody understands. People even make fun of it constantly online and I wish I could just drop online entirely because of how unbelievably ableist the entirety of the world is, i wish i could drop humans in general for their ableism, but i cant. I don’t have choices in most cases, but throwing away people who maybe purposefully maybe unintentionally thats why i’m giving you this warning and will be repeating this warning for awhile, this is where i have choice. I have to use what little choice I have in life while I can since everytime i go to movies or a concert or a theme park i almost die because of not having an immune system that functions or being in certain air qualities pr being near plants or unclean people, I may not have much time and I gotta do whats best for what little mental health I have, and if that means dropping people i care about and really want to write with and do things with but who ignore me then, i guess so be it.

#out.#illness cw #health cw #food mention #ive been writing this since noon and its now two pm so this is great #i’s usually put this under a read more but... maybe most people dont deserve a read more rn lol #their behavior will keep being awful if its not pointed out to them so #im done im gonna go welt up from hugging my cat and cry for a bit because i feel mean

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slamsams-blog · 4 years

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Goldeneye - #24WeeksofBond

24 Weeks of Bond continues this week with Goldeneye. Ask anybody who grew up with an N64 what their favorite Bond movie is. I’d be willing to bet 9 out of 10 of those people will tell you this film. I grew up with an N64, I knew the Goldeneye video game before I even knew it was a Bond Movie. The Goldeneye N64 game was my introduction to James Bond. Today, i feel like shouting from the mountain tops...I can now confidently say, that Goldeneye is my favorite Bond movie.

Besides the incredible amount of nostalgia playing multi-player Goldeneye in the basement of my best friends house almost every day after school - this movie is gritty, dark, witty, complex, and full of “punch you in the gut intensity”. Sean Bean plays 006, and it is the ultimate villain. Who would be a bigger adversary to Bond, then Bond himself? That’s how close 006 compares to 007. This film is as close to Bond vs. Bond that we will ever see. We also have the overtly sexual psychopath in Xenia Onotopp (Famke Janssen) and Boris Grishenko (Alan Cumming) a high level computer programmer and overall sleazy creep who uses “boobs” as his passwords.

It’s hard to top this cast of characters. It doesn’t end with the bad guys either, we have our seductive Natalya Simonova, who isn’t the obvious “sex appeal” pick, which is nice. When we first see her, she has a wool sweater on, a “Karen” hair cut, and a voice lower than mine - but she gets her shit done and nobody is going to tell her no. I love seeing Natalya boss Bond around, one of my favorite Bond girls for sure. We also are introduced to the new M, Judi Dench. Of course, with any new boss, there is chatter within the work force and M finds herself over hearing some of it. I do wish we had some moment where M proves her trust, but it’s all well and good in the end because she’s Judi Dench, the best M ever...with all due respect to Bernard Lee of course.

This movie starts hot, with Bond bungee jumping off a giant dam in Russia. He then infiltrates their military base where he meets up with his pal, 006 Alec Trevelyan. We see them tackling this mission together, but Alec finds himself in trouble. Bond decides to improv, and adjusts the timers to 3 minutes instead of 6 - but Alec gets killed despite following orders. Bond is now pissed. He manages to escape by driving off a cliff to catch a falling airplane.

This is probably the most eye-rolling part of this movie. I can suspend my disbelief more than most (I’m a pro wrestling fan), but this is just non-sense. He manages to catch up to the nose diving airplane, get in, buckle up, adjust the rear view mirror, throw on some AC/DC for the road, and escape. We see the bombs going off, Bond has completed this mystery mission. We never really find out what the mission was for. I guess just to introduce us to Oromov and Trevelyan who will become key figures later on.

We come back from an intoxicating rendition of “Goldeneye” sung by Tina Turner, and we are now 9 years into the future. Think of all the potential movies we missed out on in those 9 years! We see Bond in Monaco being evaluated where he meets a crazy speed demon who turns out to be Xenia. Bond later goes to a casino where he find Xenia there and starts to realize that something troubling is brewing. After further digging, he finds out she has a connection to the Janus Group - a crime syndicate who has an unknown leader. Not really sure what Bond is doing in Monaco. Was he on holiday? Was he sent there for something in particular?

ANYWAY (thanks mom), Xenia ends up killing an admiral with her apparent titanium alloy thighs during a hot night and steals a “Tiger” helicopter that can withstand any sort of electro magnetic blast. Bond doesn’t get to it in time, and the helicopter takes off. Now Bond is really curious...and pissed. General Oromov from the opening and Xenia set off one of the Goldeneye satellites which trigger an electro magnetic pulse, destroying every type of computer generated device. They then enlist the help of Boris, who had just hacked into the FBI security system all nonchalantly before having a cig.

The Goldeneye destroys the area and Oromov tries to cover it up by blaming it on British separatists. But doesn’t realize that Natalya had survived the blast. Bond now wants to meet thee Janus, and goes to see a russian mafia don who Bond has had history with and gets a meeting set up. This is when we find out that Janus is actually Bond’s ole mate, Alec Trevelyan. Bond is stunned and shaken. 9 years after he saw his death, here he is. Trevelyan notes that he didn’t account Bond improving and setting the timers for 3 minutes which burned half his face, and broke his heart. “007s loyalty is always to the mission...never to his friends”. Tear.

The plan is to set off another Goldeneye in London, creating a financial meltdown, putting England back into the stone age. But now Bond has entered the fray, and is keen on throwing a wrench into the plans. He does so...with a tank. In one of the more entertaining chase scenes in Bond history, we see Bond chasing down Oromov with a bloody tank. Destroying everything in his path, and finding time to adjust his tie in the process. Man I love this scene. Oromov is also another great character. Played by Gottfried John, Oromov is a desperate, corrupt General - trying to put on a front as head of Russia’s space division, but also keep Janus’ plans in tact. With flask in hand, and sweating profusely, he has to tell Janus that Bond escaped.

(Seinfeld reference alert)

Bond saves Natalya from the bad guys, yadda yadda yadda, SATELLITE FIGHT SCENE!! Bond comes to blows with 006 on the second base where another Goldeneye detonator is being held. This fight is so brutal and hard hitting that it really feels like Bond is fighting Bond. These two, once friends, now bitter enemies. Just watching this fight hurts. And just when we think Bond is at a dead end, he kicks a lever for the ladder and drops all the way down to the tiniest platform on the bottom of the satellite, leaving himself with no room for error. The fight continues on this tiny platform where we eventually see Bond kick Trevelyan off and grab his foot for a final farewell.

I don’t necessarily have a fear of heights, but I do have a fear of falling. What happens next always leaves me with the feeling of my stomach being sucked up into my throat. Bond has Trevelyan by the foot as he dangles thousands of feet in the air. Alec finally looks up and says “For England, James”, then Bond says “STFU” and lets him go. I get shivers just thinking about it.

Oh, did I mention this score??? The music that plays throughout this scene is heart pounding and really gets me going. There’s nothing like incredibly written fight music and Goldeneye has the cream of the crop.

There is just so much to love with “Goldeneye”. But unfortunately for Pierce Brosnan, this movie will be his first and his best. Goldeneye was such a tremendous success coming off a 6 year hiatus after “Licence To Kill”, that all Brosnan’s next films suffered because of it. This film was so good because it was dark, had an unforgettable cast, and had a TOUCH of humor. That scene where Bond goes to see Valentine is really all the humor you need - how about that Minnie Driver cameo? After this, I guess the writers went all in on the humor bit of it because the rest of the Brosnan catalog can be little more cartoony and goofy. While I did enjoy “Tomorrow Never Dies” - it just does not compare to “Goldeneye”.

Pierce Brosnan is the perfect Bond for this era and this film in particular. I just cannot imagine and older Timothy Dalton doing this film justice. Goldeneye ushered in a new style of James Bond. This film would be a taste of what was to come with the future Daniel Craig movies, and it provided an opportunity for a new generation of young, teenage movie goers to hop on board the Bond Band Wagon with the N64 video game. It got me, that’s for sure. This was the first Bond film I ever saw, and I’m proud to say that it is my favorite Bond movie ever.

That’s it for me this week, let me know what you thought and why it was your favorite Bond movie ever!

Reviews from Friends:

My Mom:

I watched with your dad and two of your brothers. It was a very intense and exciting film. Brosnan is so good. But it was pretty complicated and as is typical, I have a hard time keeping up with it all. That is why I loved the simplicity of last weeks choice. Lol. Because I’m old. The characters were great and I loved the feisty females

Jeremy Tillema:

Greatest bond movie produces greatest first person shooter on the greatest gaming console of all time. I said it.

Jake Benrud:

Great review Sam, and I’m with you on this one. This is a fantastic Bond movie and one of my favorites, if not my favorite. I think I have seen this movie more times than any other (I think Casino Royale might be second). I’m pretty sure I had the VHS, and I think you and I watched it numerous times. (I think Joanna was getting sick of me quoting the movie when we were watching it since I knew all the lines.) This is the movie that really got me into Bond movies. The action, the plot, the twists all made this an excellent and entertaining installment in the Bond series. Makes me want to fire back up that ‘64 and get the rumble packs out!

Tyler Dahlgren

I have been following along to these and have been giving them the Facebook like, but haven’t been commenting or watching along because honestly I could probably recite every Bond moving verbatim from start to finish. My earliest childhood memories (way, way earlier than any kid has a business being exposed to Bond) are of sitting with my Grandpa in his recliner while he munched popcorn and watched Bond. For better or for worse they are like a comfort food for me.

I say all of that to say this. Goldeneye is my favorite. I still remember watching it for the first time with Mark Kulig. We played the game and watched the movie more times than you’d think possible. The double cross, resurrection storyline. The characters. The cast is stacked. It all adds up so well and revived the franchise from some abysmal showings. I love this movie.

24 Weeks of Bond will return next Monday with -

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service

#Goldeneye #pierce brosnan #James Bond #Sean Bean #Famke Janssen #N64 #Nintendo #24WeeksofBond

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rambling-at-midnight · 5 years

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See You Later (Or Not)

Pairing: Five x Reader

Request: HII could i request a five x reader thing where the reader is a robin hood kinda “villain” she’s cocky and charming. and it annoys five but at the same time he’s like “damn” IDK i just want some love/hate thing with a villain reader :))

The first time Five meets another one of the special children, apart from his siblings, is when he’s twenty-three years old. This is, of course, a surprise to him. He’s heard about one girl in India who’s been able to heal fatal wounds; she’s gained coverage quite like the Academy had had in its prime. And he has heard rumors about someone in Canada that can move faster than light. But since there are only 43—probably less, Five supposes, and it’s definitely at the most 42 now that Ben’s dead—they’re all spread out all over the world, some probably in places where they’re unable to be heard of or even hear of the Umbrella Academy, thus possibly, a handful of the 43 might not even know they’re superpowered.

But since the Umbrella Academy was so popular, Five is reasonably certain that every child with access to the internet and born on October 1, 1989 has tested themself vigorously for traces of superpowers. It’s why superpowered villains are not common, per se, but not exactly unheard of either.

He’s staring one in the face right now, for the first time in his life, and also for the first time in his life Five is fairly sure he is not going to win this fight.

The pressure for the Umbrella Academy to reform is great, as only Five and Luther remain out of the seven original children. Anyone that knows Five, really, wouldn’t have expected him to stay. They’d expect him to go off traveling the world, or becoming a scientist, or being a professor at a college (or jumping into the future for half a century), but Five’s not an idiot. The world needs the Academy, whether the Academy be just him or all of them. It would be better if it was all of them; he has no idea how to beat you.

Besides, most all other people are idiots. Reginald Hargreeves may be an ass, and he may still think of the children as less than him, but he’s not an idiot, and Five doesn’t need to prove anything to him. Reginald just assumes that the children can and will do something. They never impress him; most of the time they disappoint him, but it’s better than the scrutinizing gazes of people as Five’s not-normal siblings try to pretend that they are. They’ll never truly fit in, so why should they try? Why not do what they’ve always done? It keeps the press mostly off Five’s back, unless he’s done something extraordinary, unlike how Allison never gets a moment’s peace and people only ever want to talk with Diego about his past instead of his present.

No, if Five went to school he’d chafe under the strict rules meant for idiots, and the teachers that are also idiots, and everything, and if he became a scientist he’d have to prove his findings instead of just showing them off, even if they are right. And if Five became a professor, he’d have to teach idiots, and he’d be the least-liked professor on campus.

It’s better to know that you are capable instead of shoving it in people’s faces; it creates less resentment, and it also isn’t as annoying.

This isn’t the first time Five’s ever heard of you—nobody really knows who you are, but your superhero name is ‘The Ghost’. He’s read a lot about you. He doesn’t know your motivations, what your past is, what you do with the things you steal, nothing. You’re under suspicion of over two dozen murders, but it’s only speculation, really, that you committed them. You’re unknown completely, unlike

“Five Hargreeves,” you drawl. Your hair is pulled into a ponytail, your face covered with a mask. You’re wearing sweatpants and a hoodie. If it wasn’t for the fact that the outfit is all black, and you’re wearing a mask, you could be a regular college student out for a stroll. In the house of a very famous, very controversial politician. Honestly, Five shouldn’t be here either. The man is a scumbag and really deserves everything that’s coming to him. Five defending him could damage the Academy’s reputation, not to mention his personal one. Besides, he just doesn’t really feel like defending the man.

Still, whatever you’re planning on doing, it can’t be good. And despite the man’s faults, Five can’t let you kill him. That would also put a damper on his reputation—damn, there really isn’t a win for him in this situation, is there?

Hoping to take you by surprise, Five teleports to where you are, but faster than he can blink you disappear from his vision. Thank goodness Five can think quick on his feet; he teleports over to the kitchen and grabs a handful of cutlery before freezing, trying to hold his panting breaths in so he can try to hear your feet on the floor. He can barely make out a shuffling sound and he tries to pinpoint it. After a second of frustration, he chucks a silver spoon in that direction. It bounces off an invisible force by the unlit stove and Five’s eyes narrow.

He jumps, but you must have let the spoon hit you deliberately. He’s met with a cast-iron pot swung directly at his face and he goes down faster than a stack of cards (but, unbeknownst to you, the only thing he’s going to complain about later is the terribly sore purple-green bruise on his jaw).

Panting, you make yourself visible again and rub your shoulder, wincing. You think you strained it by swinging that heavy pot.

“I need to start going back to the gym,” you mutter, stepping over the superhero and walking over to where Senator Hasselhoff is cowering behind a coach, taking your gun out of your waistband as you go. “All right, Senator. Let’s see what you’ve got on your computer.”

SENATOR LAPTOP SCANDAL CALLS FOR IMMEDIATE RESIGNATION OF OFFICE AFTER ARREST

After Senator Hasselhoff, in some twisted mistake, accidentally posted the entire contents of his laptop to every social media platform he has, there has been an immediate public outcry for resignation from his post. The senator is currently in jail awaiting trial after multiple suspicious and incriminating files were spotted amid the tax information, Viagra shipping orders, and plane tickets. Authorities were immediately involved concerning the videos of underaged children performing sexual acts on his laptop, as well as documents concerning bribes the senator has both accepted and sent out. One such bribe concerns the secrecy from a woman the senator apparently had an affair with…

Five snorts as he sets down the newspaper. You’ve got style, he’ll certainly give you that. And he’s not even fussed about losing the fight; who wants to protect a man like that, even if Reginald had told Five to? Sure, maybe Five would have preferred you using your words instead of instantly jumping on the attack and knocking him out cold, which was humiliating, especially when Diego found out from Luther and hassled him about it for two hours straight, but he supposes his reputation might have had something to do with your approach. He’s not exactly the cuddliest person around.

Reginald hasn’t said a word to Five since he’d woken up in the medical room with his adopted father’s face and his mother’s looming over him. Reginald had sniffed and walked straight out of the room the second Five’s eyes opened.

Five’s not quite sure what Reginald feels. Maybe he’s disappointed Five failed, maybe he knows (even though Five doesn’t want to admit it) that he gave up the fight embarrassingly quickly, or maybe he’s disappointed that the senator wasn’t able to pay him the large sum of money for Five’s protection, both because Five had done a piss-poor job of protecting him, and also because the FBI has frozen the senator’s accounts.

Either way, Five’s not fussed. His pride is a little bit bruised from his siblings’ haggling, but his jaw is a lot bit bruised, and to top it all off, he’s really confused about you. Sure, he knows that everyone has layers and blah blah blah about some people doing ‘right thing, wrong way’ or however the saying goes.

But he’s looked closer into every crime you’ve ever been suspected of or connected to, and if he even scratches the surface it turns into a sort of… Robin Hood scheme. All you ever do is attack rich scumbags, and more than often the poor somehow benefit, even if no one has been able to clearly draw a line between the two. Mostly because most everyone is an idiot, and Five is not.

But still.

It’s the confusion that makes the first thing Five says to you a compliment.

Five had been walking down the back alley shortcut he always takes to Griddy’s. A particularly strong gust of wind had pushed him slightly, his hands falling out of his pockets to brace himself against the brick wall.

Just then you’d appeared in front of him out of nowhere, hands on your hips. This time your hair hangs around your face, buffeted by the wind, but the rest of your outfit is the same. Five’s body tenses up with the familiar fight-or-flight feeling, his brain screaming at him to Get her! Jump now! She’s a villain! but for some reason he hesitates. He can’t explain why. Maybe it’s the way you’re helping people, in your own way, or maybe it’s how you’re also a person with superpowers and Five knows how, even though the powers can be liberating, they’re also a chain, and he can’t talk about stuff like that with his siblings.

Or maybe his powers are just chains because of Reginald. You were never forced into using your powers; you use them of your own volition.

“Nice work with the Senator,” Five hears his voice say, and he feels his lips move, but they feel disconnected from his brain. “You gonna hit me with a frying pan again? It’s a pretty unusual weapon, but hey, to each his own, right?”

Your face is inscrutable behind the mask, but your voice is most certainly not. Five can hear the playful tone as you reply, “I like to think I’m a trendsetter. Next thing you know every villain you fight will be wielding a pan. I imagine your jaw won’t like that very much, will it?”

Five hadn’t noticed in the heat of the moment, but you’re a girl. And you’re his age (well duh, his brain intones, she’s one of the 43 children, dumbass).

Five isn’t misogynistic; he considers Allison more capable than Luther and Diego put together, and he has a deep respect for Vanya after all the years with the rest of them, supposed to be special but instead achingly normal. He respects women, probably more than men, even, because of how much of a dumbass all his brothers are, and how shitty most men are.

Still, the fact that your voice is high and sweet and somehow vulnerable as you try to be cocky and intimidating makes him feel guilty for trying to hurt you, and it ignites a feeling in his chest that he doesn’t like.

He can’t help but imagine what you look like underneath the mask.

“You’re like a modern-day Robin Hood,” Five blurts out, surprisingly ineloquent despite the fact that he doesn’t know you, you’re a threat, and he should be knocking you down right now. He shouldn’t be… trying to make polite conversation. He shouldn’t be itching to tie your hair back so it doesn’t obstruct your vision.

“If the shoe fits,” you respond, cocking your head at him. Five wishes he could see your face, if only to understand what you’re thinking.

“What do you want?”

“It varies from moment to moment.” You take a step closer and Five should tense up, should strike out, but he can’t. The wind is blowing in his direction and the faint smell of mint shampoo fills his nose, making his brain all fuzzy. At the same time, the riddles you’re speaking in annoy him.

“Well, what do you want right now?” he snaps. Are you just wasting his time or trying to be annoying?

“I wanted to talk.” You cock your head as Five snorts. That’s got to be the lamest lie he’s ever heard. “Sorry. I’ll see you later, I guess. You won’t see me, though!”

Before Five can say anything else, you turn away and turn invisible. He’s simply too tired to chase after you.

Five turns away to continue to Griddy’s. He slouches his shoulders and shoves his hands in his pockets to protect them from the wind, feeling instinctively for his wallet, but it’s not there.

Five pieces it together quickly; the ‘strong gust of wind’ hadn’t been wind at all.

“Damn it, Ghost!”

#tua #the umbrella academy #number five #five #five hargreeves #five hargreeves x reader #reader x five hargreeves #five x reader #number five x reader #reader x number five #reader insert #reader x five

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