#i think she told it like a big and tragic adventure so often and so vividly that molly sometimes felt like she could remember being there | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

accioromione · 4 years

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okay im a Romione shipper but I always had this question..you know how harry + hermione are like brother and sister, why is it that although Ron and Hermione met and grew up with each-other during the same time, they developed feelings, why did this never happen for Harry or Hermione?

Ouuu you got yourself an analysis. I did feel lazy to write...but I’m going into essay mode now. Literally I can make a video on this lol.

Okay so obviously for there to be mutual attraction- both parties have to like each-other. So I will explain why they both don’t like each-other like that individually.

Let’s start with Mr. Harry Potter.

Now we know he doesn’t think she’s ugly. But if you read the books, even in Hermione’s Yule Ball scene, he never has a physical reaction to her. When he described her looking pretty it was just that, ‘she looked pretty.’ With Cho and Ginny however, we see that he describes their looks alongside a physical reaction he has to them, when he see’s cho there’s a ‘jolt in his stomach’ and later Ginny, ‘a raging monster in his chest,’ he never experiences this with Hermione. So although he doesn't think she’s unattractive, he himself, is personally not physically attracted to her in a way that renders a reaction.

Next, remember that Ron and Hermione are Harry’s FIRST friends. He did not grow up with a sister, and the only relative his age is Dudley, who bullies and abuses Harry. He’s mentioned as having no friends in school, and he’s been isolated his whole life. It makes sense that he would develop a family like connection with the first people in his life to show him affection. Look at how attached he got to Hagrid, because Hagrid was the first adult figure in his life who helped him. After Ron and Hermione, he has two friends, it makes sense that he would not be as attached to the next people he meets from then on.

Hermione’s personality is not one that Harry is attracted to romantically. As a friend, yes. But romantically, she is quite the opposite. The reason he loses attraction for Cho is because she becomes emotional after Cedric’s death. Harry hates this. Harry does not deal with emotion well at all. And this is a result of developing humour as a defence mechanism for abuse and trauma. Harry wants someone he can joke with, someone he can escape his trauma with. He simply is uncomfortable around highly emotional people. Hermione is a highly emotional person, she cries a lot, and is very passionate about things. Harry wants a ‘chill’ girl a ‘go with the flow’ girl and Hermione is anything but. He does not want to play the comforter, he is so uncomfortable around emotions that people have speculated that was due to he Voldemort inside him. However, I think it’s because after years of trauma, abuse, being an orphan, losing so many loved ones, he turned off his emotions, rather than deal with the tragic reality that was his life. If he wasn’t able to do this, he would not have been able to defeat Voldemort in the first place. Ginny is perfect with Harry here, because she grew up with six brothers, she is essentially the ‘chill’ girl Harry is looking for.

Hermione questions him. One of Harry’s flaws, that also kind of makes him a hero in the process, is that he is confident in his plans and abilities. He does not like being questioned. Hermione does not blindly listen to Harry, she questions him and does it often. Much to Harry’s annoyance. In OOTP when she questions him, and says he has a saving people thing, he gets so angry with the fact that she could even think he’s wrong, and does not consider for a second that he just might be. Hermione’s always the first to nag Harry about what he does, and Harry despises this. Example, when Hermione lectures Harry about the Prince’s book because of what Harry did to Malfoy.

“I won’t say ‘I told you so,’ ” said Hermione, an hour later in the common room. “Leave it, Hermione,” said Ron angrily.

Harry had never made it to dinner; he had no appetite at all. He had just finished telling Ron, Hermione, and Ginny what had happened, not that there seemed to have been much need (…)

“I told you there was something wrong with that Prince person,” Hermione said, evidently unable to stop herself. “And I was right, wasn’t I?” “No, I don’t think you were,” said Harry stubbornly. He was having a bad enough time without Hermione lecturing him; the looks on the Gryffindor team’s faces when he had told them he would not be able to play on Saturday had been the worst punishment of all.

Give it a rest, Hermione!” said Ginny, and Harry was so amazed, so grateful, he looked up. “By the sound of it, Malfoy was trying to use an Unforgivable Curse, you should be glad Harry had something good up his sleeve!”

“Well, of course I’m glad Harry wasn’t cursed!” said Hermione, clearly stung. “But you can’t call that Sectumsempra spell good, Ginny, look where it’s landed him! And I’d have thought, seeing what this has done to your chances in the match —”

“Oh, don’t start acting as though you understand Quidditch,” snapped Ginny, “you’ll only embarrass yourself.

See the difference between the two? Even Ron gets Harry...Hermione just doesn't have that stop button. She doesn't really care about how a person feels, if they’re wrong, well, they’re wrong. She doesn’t just do this with Harry. But for someone like Harry, who already thinks the world is against him, this is a big deal. He needs someone like Ginny who will defend him, not someone like Hermione who will question him.

She’s not fun enough for Harry. Harry likes adventure, Harry likes humour, but Harry can’t do it alone. He vibes off of the people he’s around. It makes sense, Harry deep down, is a very sad person. When he’s left with someone who isn’t lightening the mood, he can easily be dulled out. As we see in GOF,

"You miss him!" Hermione said impatiently. "And I know he misses you -"

"Miss him?" said Harry. "I don't miss him. . .

But this was a downright lie. Harry liked Hermione very much, but she just wasn't the same as Ron. There was much less laughter and a lot more hanging around in the library when Hermione was your best friend.

Ron and Harry are different in that Ron does not have the trauma Harry has. Ron doesn’t NEED to be filled with positive people all the time. He can simply BE the positive person. Hermione’s lack of humour in situations or seriousness, doesn’t impact Ron, because, well he can deal with it. He can make jokes on his own, just like Ginny can. Harry and Hermione are incapable of doing this, especially later on in the books. They need to be surrounded by people that bring out this side in them. Ron can stay silent for two hours with Hermione in the library and not think about Voldemort, Harry can’t, he needs a distraction, he needs people that are the ‘lives of the party.’

Hermione is too passionate about things for Harry. Harry- I have it worse Potter, cannot be bothered to debate about things like SPEW or care enough about Hermione’s school schedule. He simply has bigger things going on. He needs someone that understands this, that doesn’t add extra burden or stress into his already stressful life.

Now for Hermione,

Hermione is naturally a perfectionist and a worrier. This is not because she enjoys worrying, she simply cannot help it. Having someone like Harry, is a worrisome thing, she is CONSTANTLY worried about him. This is not something you would want on your significant other, with Ron, she’s more at ease, yes he has his problems, but, they’re simply not as excessive as Harry’s. She can avoid worrying as much when it comes to Ron, and simply enjoy her moments with him, this is something that brings her peace.

Hermione needs someone who values her opinions. Ron is that person. They are always fighting because Ron is actually listening to what Hermione has o say, he actually pays attention to her passions and interests. He doesn’t agree with them all the time, where as Harry I have worse potter, zones her out. In third year, Ron is wondering where she is all the time, he is confused about her schedule, Harry doesn’t care, the man who betrayed his parents escaped Azkaban, whats a few more extra classes? Hermione, as passionate as she is, needs that, she needs someone who cares about what she does and why she does them.

Hermione needs someone who isn’t high-stress. Harry may not be high-stress with school, but he is high-stress in general. Hermione is the queen of being high-stress, she needs someone to reduce that anxiety, not elevate it. And Ron is just that person.

Hermione needs someone who can take her criticism. When she tells Harry he’s wrong or has the wrong idea, Harry is furious with her. Where as although Ron gets mad, he takes it better than Harry, or he challenges her in a way that tells her to explain why she thinks that instead of just being upset with her thinking it in the first place. Harry is simply more prideful than Ron, which is perfectly okay. Ron is able to put things aside, but Harry dwells. Hermione has easily been way more critical to Ron, but he gets over it. Ron having 5 older brothers who tease him, is more lenient towards critical remarks from Hermione. Harry is not. And Hermione simply cannot contain these remarks, she just can’t. Harry will not say anything and simply be like ‘Hermione is the worst’ Ron will be like ‘why are you saying that?’ Example with Scabbers, Hermione refuses to apologize, Ron TELLS her he just wants an apology. With Harry, he wouldn’t ask, he would just expect one. Ron is also able to get over it without an apology.

Ron is more emotional/ deals with emotions better. Hermione needs someone who can understand her emotions, because well, she’s an emotional person. Harry shuts out emotion, Ron, who has lived in a loving family, filled with hugs and Christmas and kisses, is used to showing emotion. He can handle her tears, he won’t run away at her crying. Every-time Hermione cries in the book Harry describes himself as being uncomfortable, where as Ron is either comforting her or approaching her in a way that shows the readers he isn’t scared of this. Hermione needs that in a significant other.

There are a bit more points to make as well, but I think that covers the jist- otherwise I can go on for hours. Because it is really amazing to me in just how obvious Ron and Hermione’s relationship differ from Harry and Hermione’s and just why that is

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kitkat1003 · 3 years

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Starsfic: How about 15 with the Traffic Light Trio?

Im doing prompts with Spirit, so I hope you don't mind I added them in

15. Oh god, you’re just like your dad.

It was rare that they saw Red Son like he used to be. Horns, tail, hooved feet; they all were hidden away behind glamour, for reasons Spirit could only guess.

It was tragic, seeing the friend they knew for decades disappear. Occasionally, Spirit could coax him into letting it down, when they were alone, but eventually they stopped asking. Doing so meant confronting the problem, the break in the foundation of a happy home that continued to crack and splinter until what it used to look like was lost to the world entirely.

Spirit was never good at confrontation. They don't think they ever will be, either.

But, times has changed, and Spirit doesn't have to confront it anymore.

Mei and MK are more than willing to do that for them.

"Come on, fire boy!" Mei tugs Red's sleeve, hard enough to make him stumble a little. "Show off! I don't hide anything!"

It's true. Mei's dragon horns and ears peek from behind her hair, and her scaly tail brushes against the floor. They appeared rather recently, and she can make them disappear and reappear with ease, but more likely than not she'll be showing them off. She told Spirit she feels more herself with them out, as odd as that may seem.

Similarly, MK has his own face marking to match Macaque and Monkey King's-and Spirit's, though sometimes they forget they're apart of that group in terms of species-as well as monkey ears and a tail that swishes back in forth.

"Yeah," He crosses his arms over his chest and smiles. "I mean, I can tell you're using glamour. I didn't use my true sight to peek, cause it's rude."

Pigsy taught MK that, because he used it on Spirit and asked why they had 4 eyes when he was using it, and the ensuing panic attack on Spirit's part lead to a stern talk from Pigsy on the matter.

"But I wanna see!" MK pulls out the infamous puppy dog eyes.

"Ugh," Red jerks his arm out of Mei's grip, taking a step back and brushing himself off. "Fine! If it stops you peasants from making such a fuss over it."

He lets out a huff of breath through his nose, pushing his glasses up the bridge of it, and then his expression turns less frustrated and more vulnerable and scared.

"Just...don't laugh," he snarls it all of them. "I can still burn you."

Of course, he wouldn't. Spirit has never been burned by Red Son, save for when they asked him to shave the side of their head. And that doesn't count as a burn.

"We wouldn't, Red," Spirit assures.

Red Son glances up at them, and Spirit gives him a small smile.

The glamour slides away, and suddenly, there's their friend. There is Red Son, with his horns and tail and snout, hooves poking out through the holes in his shoes.

MK and Mei are entranced. Spirit just relaxes, and welcomes the familiar view.

"Woooaaaah," MK walks over, walking around Red Son to get the full picture.

"You have a tail!" Mei squeals, excited. "Tail club unite!"

She pulls out a badge from somewhere and slaps it on Red Son's jacket. Red Son blinks down at in confusion.

He jumps when MK's hands find his horns, poking at them. MK leans away at the reaction, and then realization crosses his face, and he smiles wide.

"Oh god, you’re just like your dad," he says.

Red Son face flushes a dark red, and he turns away.

"Well," He starts.

"Aww, horns run in the family!" Mei hugs Red Son's arm and looks up at his horns with a saccharine and over dramaticized look of adoration, designed to mess with him.

Spirit thinks they can play the game, too.

"Red really wanted them to be just as big as his father's," They chime in. "He used to measure them every month to see if they'd grown a little. If they did, he'd prance around all excited. If they didn't, he'd pout for ages," They giggle at the memory.

"Whisper!" Red Son shouts, mortified. "You traitor!"

MK and Mei laugh up roariously, and Red Son steams, slumping down on himself with a sigh.

“You should look like this more often,” Mei tells him, once she’s done laughing.

“Yeah,” MK agrees. “You look good!”

Somehow, Red Son gets redder.

MK mentions being hungry, and Mei chimes in with a new restaurant she’d discovered, and the two are off, sprinting down the street towards their next goal.

Red Son and Spirit watch, for a moment.

“Red,” Spirit starts, waiting for him to turn to face them. “I, uh, I missed you. Like this.”

Because the way he is now, that’s the person Spirit became friends with. The mask his mother expects him to wear; that’s someone else entirely.

Red Son’s eyes soften, just a little.

“I missed it too,” he replies, shrugging it off a moment later.

He turns, gesturing them to follow him; off to the next adventure.

#kitkat1003 #Yin Spirit #lego monkie kid #monkie kid #monkie kid red son #monkie kid mk #monkie kid mei #monkie kid oc #prompts

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lapinmiel · 3 years

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Mirror, Mirror

Felix and OC (Female), 2,4K. (Part 2)

Phoebe’s life was never one of an adventure, even as a vampire — after being discovered by the Volturi for her talent, she finds herself running away from the world’s most powerful organization, and soon she finds herself in a complete lie and truth situation, with the anchor of her lover leading her to his side.

Part 1, Part 2

Saladin's jaw was clenched like a vise. Horror was evident in his eyes as if they were water droplets in a river as clear as glass, and the water droplets colliding with each other soon found Phoebe in all the confusion and fear. If her heart was alive, it would already have kept pace with the footsteps of approaching death, pounding madly — for she knew, the death was close now, like a shadow lurking around her neck.

"What are we gonna do?" asked Phoebe.

Both of their minds seemed to have stopped. Ideas did not flow with inherent ease. His thoughts, like an elephant trying to get through a door, and the instincts that were supposed to get them out of this trap, were silenced now.

“Should we take another plane and go?”

Phoebe frowned. “We are not close enough.” He looked back to where they had come from. She was right, they had proceeded on a straight street, quite far from the airport. It wouldn't have taken them a minute to come back, of course, but Phoebe wanted to fully understand the situation before she gave herself up to fear.

“I wonder where we are,” she said quietly. "Maybe we're not close to Volterra. Sicily?"

“This is not the time to think about it.” said Saladin, with clear determination in his voice. “Wherever we are, it takes minutes to get caught.”

Phoebe tried not to get caught up in the blinding energy of her afraid friend, but if a centuries-old vampire was so afraid of the Volturi, the intensity of emotion she had to feel must have been more than she could handle.

“Let’s go then.” she said.

Within seconds, they disappeared into the shadows and returned to the airport, waiting for the planes to take off. Unlike the first place they went, it was more secluded and the planes didn't take off as often. They waited for about ten minutes. Then, as an airplane started to move, they run, got into the wheels section as before, and waited for the take off. But nothing went the way they wanted, and it wouldn't for a long time.

Contrary to expectations, the plane made its way to the hangar, not the runway. Since Phoebe and Saladin could not see where the plane was going from where they were, they thought that the vehicle was proceeding normally, and during the minutes they spent on the ground, they thought that they were on the runway. Even the growing voices of humans didn't make them think something was wrong, as it was only the second time they had boarded a plane. They didn’t know what was normal and what was not. But within fifteen minutes of being there, they realized they weren’t going anywhere. This understanding brought a storm and a flood of fear that would be hard to stop.

"What are we gonna do?" asked Saladin.

Phoebe's brows were furrowed and her eyes were squinted like a fox's. She was trying to think. In addition to protecting himself, she also felt in her heart not to let down a vampire who had traveled the world for centuries but now needed her protection, and that responsibility felt like it would crush her if she didn't shed it quickly.

“Let's go on another plane,” she said. "If it doesn't take off, to another one."

Saladin's eyes were so innocent that Phoebe felt the emotion to protect him mix with compassion.

Then, all of a sudden, he was torn from where he was and crashed into the ground.

There was a loud thump, and a smashing sound — then Phoebe was pulled by someone by the shoulders with a speed that her eyes couldn't catch, and she found herself outside the plane, in the middle of the hangar.

She could see Saladin struggling with something unseen. He got punched with a left hook first, then a blow to the jaw; Then whatever was beating him somehow dropped him on his back, and then grabbed him by the neck and swung him in mid-air, hitting the ground. They couldn't see anything. Neither Saladin nor Phoebe knew who they were up against.

Phoebe was aware that someone big was holding her, for her neck had been pinched by one's arm, and both of her arms were held steady by another, as if with a chain. She couldn't see who it was, maybe she didn't want to see it, because the fear running through her told her to just close her eyes. It was as if all her senses were blinded.

She heard Saladin getting punched several more times. Then the voices stopped, and the steps made it clear that two people were approaching Phoebe.

"Use your shield," said a strange, weary voice, "Surround us all."

His body full of fissures trying to heal. Saladin did what he thought was the only way to avoid being killed, and focused, using his shield to envelop all four.

Then, at the other end of the hangar, two rushing footsteps were heard. The two owners of the steps approached the quartet and stopped.

"It was a tragic mistake to think you could escape from us."

A familiar voice. Phoebe opened her eyes, a wave of shock and fear hit her.

It was right in front of her. Jane. Next to her stood a woman with light brown hair, whom she had never seen before. She was considerably taller than Jane, and she had slightly smiling lips, in contrast to Jane's bloodless killer expression. These two women, clad in jet-black robes, gave Phoebe fears she had never felt before, and she felt her nonexistent blood burning in her veins.

Jane sighed lightly.

“Can you get past the shield?”

The woman beside her squinted slightly after Jane's question. She was trying to do something. But it didn’t work, because,"No." was her only reply.

“Then it should be something else, not a shield. A neutralizer, perhaps.”

Phoebe felt the sound waves emanating from her chest throughout her body as the giant holding her spoke. The voice was deep, rough, and judging by his accent, he was at least five hundred years old, and worst of all, he was close enough to kill Phoebe in one hit.

“Have we encountered such power before?” he asked.

“No.” the woman next to Jane said. Jane curled her lips slightly at this answer and smiled. “Aro once talked about a vampire that had a similar talent, he could stop anyone’s talent from working. But he died before Aro could invite him.” Her smile disappeared.

“Aro will like it. We're leaving." she said, giving Phoebe a cold look. Jane and the woman next to her disappeared in an instant. Then, Saladin and the little man holding him, who Phoebe could see now, left, leaving Phoebe and the person who had strangled her alone.

She was looking for something to hold onto and use. Maybe this person had a power, augmented strength, or something — she searched, tried to feel it in her mind, but found nothing. “I don't have any power for you to take me down,” the man said, when he finally realized that the girl's inactivity was due to her focusing on something else. “You can only defeat me with your body.”

Phoebe grit her teeth. Then she found herself being carried in his chest as he ran.

Soon after, she found herself in a hilly city. The man slowed when he got to the big doors, and when the doors opened he entered with the same pace. His grip on Phoebe must have looked funny to those who opened the door for him, as Phoebe heard a slight chuckle, but the giant man instantly turned around and gave the giggled man a stern look. So, Phoebe thought she did look weird, because even though she had been held by him for so long, she still couldn't see his face. It was possible that he was one of those who had come to catch her the day before, but she did not know how many giant vampires the Volturi had, and she certainly did not want to put him at a psychological advantage just because she had seen and feared him before. In the blink of an eye, she found himself walking through another set of doors and into a large, domed hall.

In front of her, on a platform, were three men sitting on thrones. She knew them from Saladin's stories: Caius, the blond and ruthless o e, the sickly-looking Marcus, and Aro in the middle, whose eyes were shining bright even from there.

Aro. The nakedness of the name left a strange taste in her mind. Sour, and also bitter.

The giant holding her slowly loosened his arms and dropped Phoebe to the ground, grabbing her softly by one shoulder and pushing her forward.

Aro slowly descended from the platform he was on, and joined his hands in front of him.

"Welcome." he said, raising his hands slightly to the sides. He had an innocent smile on his face, as if he wasn't the biggest mafia in the world.

She couldn't help her expression, Phoebe frowned while her lips tightened as if she were staring at something hideous. Saladin, on the other hand, was trying to collect himself.

“I heard that your talent is a rare one that no one has seen before.” said Aro, in his same calm voice. He quickly turned his eyes to someone else and looked back at Phoebe.

Then, Phoebe felt the same thing again: something was trying to seep into her skin. This time it wasn't harsh, it wasn't like fire either, it was more like a sneaking mist pouring through the windows. Cool and almost numb.

Phoebe invited him in. She then gathered the feeling up, turned it into a light, and reflected it like a mirror.

Startled, she saw the mind reader's eyes widen as he pulled back, and he audibly gasped. Then she saw the memories flooding into her mind. The brightest was the way she looked at herself through his eyes, then she saw simultaneously his devotion to Aro, and the man behind her. That was him, she thought, the man from that day.

He quickly turned to Aro, the mind reader, whose name she had learned was Gerard. When Phoebe looked at him the same way, she saw admiration in his blazing eyes. Fascination.

Aro folded his hands in front of him again. The smile on his face turned into a completely happy expression.

"Matchless." he said as he approached the girl. “Nobody like you has ever existed.”

He stopped one step ahead of her. He lifted his hand and brought it close to her face, but did not touch it. His hands were close enough to feel her warmth, but he didn't come any closer, realizing the damage a single touch could do to him. He wasn't going to touch her, ever.

He couldn't hide her admiration for her, but then pulled back, remembering his role. He made his way to the middle of the hall, and turned back to Phoebe. All the while, Felix, who was the name of the man behind her as she learned from the mind reader, was holding her softly on her shoulder. The heaviness was uncomfortable, but she knew it: releasing it would give her the upper hand.

“Join us,” said Aro. “Find yourself a place at the top of the world.”

Phoebe didn't answer.

Aro must have taken it upon himself to persuade her, so he continued speaking.

“Rise with us to the top of our clan. You are too important to be left alone, you were born to serve a higher purpose.”

“What I was born for is none of your business.” said Phoebe suddenly. He was surprised, too, but the words were out of his mouth once. She believed that she was made to live with Saladin after all, to spend his life with him while they looked for Zareen. Saladin had told her before that being erased from the minds of all vampires could be the only way to true freedom, and Phoebe was convinced that living as a ghost would serve her better.

Aro's smile faded slightly, but he wasn't going to give up.

"I'm offering you a week's trial," he said calmly. He was showing Phoebe the privilege he didn't show to others, he had to. He could not allow such a precious diamond to be lost in the hands of uncivilized savages. "Join us. If you want to go after a week, you will be free.”

Phoebe was thinking. Coming here and standing under the dome of this hall, seeing that the Volturi were not monsters with colorless skin, overgrown teeth, and elongated nails, had turned the cogs in her mind.

“We'll help you hone your skill,” Aro continued after a short pause. “We can help you understand exactly what you do, how you do it, and teach you to use it. Over the years, you will become one of our strongest.”

Phoebe saw a faint glint in the expressionless eyes of Marcus, who sat behind Aro. Then she had that feeling again. Her skin was tingling. It must be Marcus, she thought to herself. Saladin hadn't told her what Marcus' talent was, but Phoebe couldn't pass up the opportunity to get to know a new talent.

She let the feeling come into his and then used it. Suddenly she saw how everyone in the room felt about each other as clearly as day.

Caius had hidden his anger towards Aro in a black box and covered it with devotion. Jane could suffocate anyone in the room but her brother and without feeling any remorse, the light brown-haired woman next to Jane loved everyone, and everyone loved her, in a shaky way.

Phoebe saw everyone in the room. She couldn't understand what had happened when she saw a few gray bruises in the love bond between him and Saladin, but then she saw weak flower buds just beginning to sprout between herself and the man standing behind her.

She suddenly threw the skill she had used out of her mind. Marcus was beginning to suspect that she was using his talent, it was evident in his eyes. Aro was still in front of him with his smiling but frightening face.

Phoebe didn't know what to decide, what to say. The wheels in her mind began to turn again. They can't hurt me, she thought. Their powers are useless on me. I can fight. If they try to imprison me, I can escape.

It bothered Phoebe that the Volturi no longer looked like terrifying creatures, and that Saladin's feelings for her were not as innocent as she had expected. She felt a vague disappointment in her dead heart, and that disappointment was changing the course of her decisions.

I can escape.

It was the last straw. She mustered up her courage. She could at least stay here for a week. She could see what the Volturi were doing. Not only that, but she could find out if they were truly monstrous or simply maintaining order and secrecy. Most importantly, he could learn what he could do with her talent. And if things didn’t go her way, she would escape, and find Zareen herself.

She took a deep breath, even though the oxygen didn't do anything to her.

“Okay,” she said with a certain shakiness in her voice, “I'm staying.”

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theotherace · 4 years

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Fic Recs: Taang

I’ve made two or three rec lists over the past few months, but I thought I’d make a proper, comprehensive one that’s easy to add to in the future. Not all of these are exclusively Taang, but they all feature the ship to some degree. I will only recommend one or two stories per author, but some profiles are definitely worth checking out further. So! Here goes.

Multi-Chapter, Complete

Whisper Into the Sky by damagectrl – Toph has two choices: Go home and get married or have the family fortune and her inheritance given to a stranger. Her problem: She wants to keep her ties to her family, but is quite content traveling with Aang. Her solution: Fight her way through suitors for her freedom. Literally. | General

The Slow Path by Tazmainian Devil – Eight years after the fall of Ozai, Aang returns to the friends he left behind. | T

A Matter of Honor by Adridere – Almost 4 years after the war. Aang is engaged to Katara and is up to Zuko to teach him the facts of life. Yep, the bees and the birds. Crazy kings, bananas and the ultimate contest for the hand of a reluctant maiden. | M

Roommates by breeeliss – An unlikely tale of two unlikely people being forced to live together under unlikely circumstances.| Modern AU | T

Fall of the White Lotus by Boo-82 – Three years after the war Zuko is living a life of duty while Katara reluctantly travels the world with Aang. So, when General Iroh orders them to find Zuko’s mother and save his Order they seize the opportunity with both hands. It’s the beginning of an adventurous journey of discovery, but as time runs out a rising threat puts their bond to the test. | T

Half Asleep by The Crushinator – Five years after the Hundred-Year War, Fire Lord Zuko is hit with an assassin’s dart, and falls into a coma from which he cannot wake. A week passes, and his prognosis is grim. But Katara could swear she hears him in her dreams… | T

Yaaburnee by aviatordame – Avatars aren't meant to belong – that's as much as Aang can fathom. | M

Getting Lucky by roca-dos – Crazy things happen in college every day. | Modern AU | T

All Fall Down by DJNS – Aang copes with a tragic loss and finds renewed hope in an unexpected place. | M | Warning for Major Character Death

The Princess & the Badger-Cat by panaili – In a land never torn apart by the Hundred Year War, the sixteen-year-old Avatar Aang is trying his best to keep the balance between the four nations, including the increasingly antagonistic Fire Nation, which, despite his friendship with the Crown Prince Zuko, refuses to acknowledge him. Elsewhere, Sokka and Katara have been separated on their quest to find their missing father, and Sokka, pursued by the same bandits who kidnapped his sister, finds himself on the balcony of some rich girl’s house in Gaoling. Oh, and a sorcerer has turned him into a badger-cat. It’s just one of those days. | Teen and Up

Reborn by Jakia – Life. Death. Rebirth. This is the cycle that all spirits must abide to, even the Avatar. Aang and Toph face death and the reincarnation cycle. | T

New Girl by tiffaniesblews – After coming home early from a business trip, all Katara wanted to do was surprise her boyfriend, Jet. Imagine her surprise when she got home and Jet was in bed with another woman. Not wanting to live with her ex, and unable to live with her best friend, Suki, Katara takes her brother Sokka's offer to move into his loft with his two roommates. Aang is perky and sweet, the owner of a st. Bernard and a cat, who's often confused about his direction in life. Zuko, on the other hand, is a closed-off bartender, who takes some time opening up to others.The four could not be more different, and yet? They work out perfectly. Even if Katara's feelings for Zuko get a bit more complicated as time goes on. | Modern AU | Mature

The Ties That Bind series by LdyKirin – An exploration of the ties that bind for good and ill. Toph and Zuko are both shaped by the family they were born to and the family they choose. Lots of found family feels. | T

What Happens In Kyoshi by BlackVelvetBand – Prince Zuko, and the GAang take a vacation on Kyoshi Island. Flirting, fighting, and embarrasment ensue as Sokka takes it upon himself to defend Katara's virtue...in a dress? A short,chaptered fic featuring Zutara, Sokki, and Taang. | T

Under the Night Sky by mycomfortblanket – Aang hears the chattering of teeth during a cold night. Was an AU that I found on tumblr that I made fit into this story. Orginal prompt: "We have to go camping together and share a sleeping bag even though we are complete strangers | General

On The Precipice by JoyDragon – They’re just best friends. Or maybe they’re teetering on the edge of being something more. | General

Oneshots, Complete

Air and Stone by Wolvenfire86 – A few Taang stories munched together. My first submissions. I hope everyone likes them. Please review, it makes me feel special. | K+

Taang Week 2020 series by teabagginses | Teen and Up & Mature

Our Little Secret by IrisPlumeria – Toph and Aang, sat next to one another dressed in their finest under paper lanterns and surrounded by copious amounts of food and friends, cringed at the disgusting noises coming out of Sokka’s nostrils as he blew his nose into Suki’s handkerchief. “I can’t believe two of my best friends are finally married!” Sokka sobbed, earning a supportive pat on the back from Suki, who didn’t flinch at the snot coming out of his nose. “I’m so happy for you guys!” Toph and Aang's family are happy for their nuptials, but will they be able to survive their wedding party without letting slip a big secret?Written for Taang Week 2020 - Tradition. | General

All Roads Lead To Ba Sing Se by irisbleufic – "I was thinking," [Mai] said, tucking her last remaining dagger into her belt as she strode to meet him, "that it's about time I let Fire Lord Zuko know that I quit." When Kuei smiled at her, she could see the sunshine at which she once cringed."Notice that's six years overdue is better than none at all." "Indeed," said the Earth Queen, and grinned at him. | Teen And Up

Lady Fu’s Fortune Telling by Lady Cleo – Katara and Toph visit the local fortuneteller to get their fortunes told. Added a part two with Zuko and Aang. | T

The Perfect Companion by Morna – Aang seeks comfort outside of the arms of his wife, Katara. Taang, slightly lemony. | T

Box by JoeMerl – Written for Taang Week, one-shot. Toph ticks off Bumi, but Aang is willing to fight his old friend tooth and nail to get her out of trouble. Humor, light romance. | K+

2 am by shmulia – Whoever set off the fire alarm at 2 in the morning is on Katara's shit list. Even if he is hot and shirtless. | Modern AU | K

And its sequel, 11:45 – House parties aren't Katara's thing. Sokka's drunk, Suki's on a mission to set her up, and Toph is... well, Toph. But for every cloud there's a silver lining, and for Katara it comes in the form of a second chance with her neighbour... | Modern AU | T

Treat by PsychEmpress – She felt the corners of her own lips quirk as he sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck. “Consider this my treat,” he said and Toph allowed a smile to break out. OR In which Toph is a stressed architecture student who gets a free cup of coffee from the handsome waiter after she helps his friend. Taang. Mentions of Sukka. | Modern AU | T

Sawaru by metacognitive – This love is simple. Non-Korra compliant. | K+

Newlyweds (and basically everything else) by PandaCookie – Everyone’s a bit hopeless right after they’ve been married. | K+

Rhythms by xcgirl08– For now, though, her child’s heartbeat was hers to contemplate. | K

Tenderness by Adridere – He wanted to keep her, even though he was not supposed to. He promised her freedom, and she promised him sanity in his own household. She kept her part of the bargain, but he found a way not to keep his. | M

Holy Matrimony by Loopy – After their marriage, Zuko and Katara deal with conflicting religious beliefs, and look to the friends for advice. Between the Zutara and the religious satire, every single person who reads this should feel offended. | General

Blind Maiden’s Grace by Adara_Rose – You can learn a lot of things from a flower… | Not Rated (I’d say General)

Etched in the Earth by Dance_Elle_Dance – She knows the feel of Aang’s footprints better than her own, and that reality scares her. | Teen and Up

No One Asks About The Scars by voleuse – Write about how you learned to curse in order not to be cursed. | General

When in Rome by dtmars – She wasn’t stupid. She knew what she was doing and what she was getting herself into. They both did. | Modern AU. | Explicit

Like Real People Do by DerAndere – The moon is full and bright when he falls out of bed, awake, asleep, inside a dream, and starts walking, driven by the feeling he does not understand, tugging on him relentlessly, and he is Aang, and he is not, and the world is cold. | General | Full Disclosure: This is my story.

Meet Me Under The Table by avatarfan16 – A story of how Toph and Aang find love, in the most unusual of places. TAANG | K+

Aftermath by Zaram'delar – In any celebration, there's always one or two people with a habit of disappearing. Taang drabbleish series. | T

I Choose Dare by for_darkness_shows_the_stars – An ode to how Aang, under the power of a mighty temptress, was forced to grow a beard. Oh, and the birth of his first child, too, he supposes. | General Audiences

Multi-Chapter, In Progress

Heartbeat by AngelicBee – Avatar Aang's soulmate probably died 100 years before, but he can't help but feel she's closer than he thinks. | Teen and Up

a mighty ocean (or a gentle kiss) by poweradequeen – no, the title doesn’t make sense but i don’t care. i couldn’t think of one so now you’re stuck with a cheesy line from two by sleeping at last.it’s a taang fine arts university au. because i said so. | Teen and Up

Neither is Love a Cage by cali-chan – Love is the freedom of flying accompanied. It is letting be without possessing. PG-13 (possibly M later on), drama/romance/angst, Zuko/Katara + Aang/Toph, post-finale but diverges before LoK canon.

Operation: Zutara (REVAMPED) by dtmars – Everyone could see that those two were in love with each other. Everyone except for them. So Toph takes the initiative and fills in for Cupid to give them a little push, while Aang just tags along for the ride. | Teen and Up

Taang One Shots by stitch1830 – A collection of short stories about Toph and Aang that I've had saved in my notes for a few months. Stories are in the ATLA/LOK universe (not canon compliant), and typically revolve around their relationship and family. | Teen and Up

148 notes · View notes

writer-room · 3 years

Text

Siblings: Chapter Four

AO3

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3

Summary: The Bats reflect on how their thoughts about siblings have changed over the years. Some opinions stayed, others didn't.

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Tim didn’t know how to feel about being an only child.

He didn’t think about it all that often, there weren’t many kids he talked to at school who mentioned their siblings all that frequently. And, in some parts, he didn’t mind it so much.

The kids who did talk about siblings complained, whether their siblings were older or younger. There were those who said their sibling took up more of their parents attention, which was something Tim was already lacking in. Some said that they never had any time to themselves, something that Tim had an overabundance in, but still cherished. Others said that the accomplishments, and failures, of their siblings reflected onto them, making their parents expect more or less of them. Tim couldn’t afford that either. His parents already didn’t think much of him, he didn’t need it to be any less. And if they wanted more, he worried he wouldn’t be able to meet their expectations.

And yet…

Sometimes he liked the idea of someone else in that empty mansion. Someone to talk to when the rooms felt too large, when the loneliness was suffocating him. He liked the thought of sharing his recent theories, photos, and the like with someone. Wondered if he could go on for as long as he wanted without being interrupted.

Maybe they’d be someone who didn’t call him by a name that wasn’t his, then feign forgetting. Who didn’t treat his binders like they were assaulting their eyes. Who didn’t scrutinize his every movement for faking.

That’d be nice, he thinks.

But there were pros and cons, he reasons. And for all he knows, if he had a sibling, they could’ve been just like his parents. Or they could’ve been kinder. Not like he’d ever know.

He had more important things to worry about than hypotheticals and wishes.

“Before you scold me, know that I took a five hour nap earlier today and I’m only getting a snack.”

Steph and Duke blinked at him from the doorway to the kitchen, their expressions a sharp contrast between exasperated and concerned, respectively.

“Wow, five hours?” Steph snarked. “That’s a new record. Are you dying?”

“Not yet,” Tim said, opening the fridge. “Give it a few weeks and I’m sure you’ll see rumors of my tragic defeat at the hands of, I dunno, Flamingo.”

“There’s a supervillain named Flamingo?” Duke exclaimed, staring at Steph incredulously.

“Oh, yeah, it’s a whole thing.” She nodded. “He had a scuffle with Jay and his kid a while back.”

“Jason has a kid?”

“Why are you up, anyway?” Tim talked right over him. “Duke I understand, he’s the disgraced child of the sun. But you patrol at the same time as every other nocturnal person in this house.”

“Hey-”

“I actually had to pretend to have a normal sleep schedule, my mom was getting worried and I didn’t want her finding me sneaking in with my full Spoiler getup on.” Steph explained tiredly. “I’m still trying to recover.”

“Tragic,” Tim hummed, pulling out a container holding a ham sandwich.

“The only thing that's tragic is your outfit.” Steph snorted, looking him up and down.

Tim blinked, looking down at himself. His outfit consisted of a pair of knockoff Batman shorts, knee-high pastel dinosaur socks, and a long red robe that absolutely did not belong to him hanging loosely off him, exposing countless scars littering his body.

“I look awesome,” Tim said, popping the lid off the container.

“Damian’s gonna start asking what battles you got your scars from again,” Steph tutted, striding further into the kitchen with a confused Duke following her. “Know that I will not be on your side when Dick notices and gets worried.”

“I’m more worried about Dami seeing this one,” He said, brushing the robe back slightly to reveal a poorly stitched surgical scar on his upper abdomen. “Because then he’s going to ask what happened, and then I’m gonna have to tell him that's where my spleen used to be, and then he's going to be reminded that oh, yeah, his brother has a missing spleen, and then he’s going to be treating everything like its diseased-”

“Does...he keep forgetting you lost your spleen?” Duke blinked, concerned. “I feel like that’d be something you were kinda always aware of…”

“Eh, everyone's worried about a different scar whenever they see ‘em.” He shrugged, glancing down as he traced over one of the surgery scars along his chest. “Which is frankly a little rude. I earned this right to be shirt free.”

“Hell yeah you did,” Steph grinned before her eyes dropped to the sandwich Tim was attempting to eat. “Isn’t that Cullen’s?”

“He didn’t label it, therefore it’s mine.” Tim said simply.

“Harper’s gonna kill you,” Duke warned warily.

“Only if she catches me,” He said, taking a bite of the sandwich. “Why’re you guys here, anyway? Grabbing a snack?”

“Lookin’ for Babs,” Steph said, hands in her pockets. “Someone on Twitter started a war about which Batgirl was better, and Babs will probably get a kick out of being remembered as the ‘missing Batgirl.’”

“Oh she’ll be pissed about being remembered that way.” Tim agreed, shoving the rest of the sandwich in his mouth. “Babs will see it in five minutes or less, though. Swear she has a sixth sense for whenever someone mildly associated with the Bats is mentioned.” He mumbled.

“You wanna hijack the thread before she finds it?” He suggested.

“Hijack it?” Duke echoed.

“We’re gonna yell about random stuff that doesn’t contribute to the conversation until all hell breaks loose.” Steph explained, already pulling out her phone. “Tim?”

“How do you feel about discussing why the sun lightens hair, but darkens skin?” Tim suggested, leaving the container on the counter as he brushed by Steph.

“You just want to piss off someone from Metropolis.”

“It’s law as a Bat that I have to torment Superman whenever I possibly can.” Tim shrugged.

“Does that include me?” Duke blinked. “Because I personally think tormenting Superman is a bad idea.”

“Clark wouldn’t hurt a fly,”

“Yeah, but he’ll give me the face of disappointment and I don’t think I can live with that.” Duke protested.

“He can barely even manage--where are you going?” Steph looked up, only now realizing Tim was leaving the kitchen.

“I’m starting the mayhem on the big screens.” Tim grinned, looking back over his shoulder.

“Please don’t tell me he’s going to use Twitter on the bat computer,” Duke sighed.

“He’s totally going to use the bat computer,” Steph smiled, following after him. “C’mon! It’s initiation time.”

“Do you guys just call every weird thing you do initiation?” Duke called, hurrying behind them. “Because I’ve been told I’m part of an initiation five times in the last week.”

“You’re stuck in initiation until this becomes the norm,” Steph said cheerfully.

“Of course,” Duke muttered.

Tim’s robe billowed behind him like an amateur cape as he wandered towards the door leading towards the steps into the Batcave. He threw open the door, the sound of it slamming echoing and startling the bats on the ceiling.

“Jesus!”

Harper jumped from the swivel chair in front of the computer, wide-eyed as she blinked up at the trio at the top of the stairs.

“Hey, Harps,” Steph greeted, hopping onto the stairs railing and sliding down. “We’re here to cause problems on Twitter.”

“Oh, well, in that case, by all means.” Harper snarked, getting up and grandly gesturing to the countless screens. “Not like I was using it for actual work.”

“Were you using it?” Tim asked, pointedly glaring at Steph to keep his recent adventure to the kitchen quiet.

“...looking for tasers to modify count as work, right?” She said after a moment.

“Technically,” Tim nodded, ignoring Steph’s smug look that absolutely signified she was going to blackmail him later. “But you can just use Dick’s old escrima sticks. He goes through a pair every two or three weeks, but most still work pretty well, he’s just too lazy to fix them.”

“Sweet,” Harper grinned. She then paused, taking in Tim’s appearance as he slid into the seat she was previously occupying.

“Why do you look like you’re auditioning to be the pretty girl who dies in a low-budget slasher?”

“First of all, how dare you assume I wouldn’t be the first one to die for representation points,” Tim said, pointing an accusatory finger at her. “Second of all, it’s called having fashion, and also being allowed to do whatever I want.”

“You have terrible fashion sense,” Harper snorted, crossing her arms as Steph and Duke came up beside her. “But fair, I can respect that.”

“See?” Tim said, looking at Steph. “Some people can afford to not be rude.”

“Keep talking and I’ll lose more blackmail material,” Steph calmly threatened.

Harper glanced between the two, to which Tim quietly, and quickly, turned back to the screen and ignored the both of them. Harper raised a brow but didn’t comment. Tim made a mental note to sneak into one of Jason’s unused safe houses after this was over. Steph couldn’t keep quiet for the life of her.

“What are you starting, anyway?” Harper asked, crossing her arms and leaning on the back of Tim’s chair. “A sob story about the Opportunity rover?”

“Another day,” Tim promised, opening up Twitter on the countless screens. He opened another one on the other half of the computer, which Steph quickly stood at and got her own Twitter set up. “Right now, we’re questioning how the sun makes hair lighter, but skin darker. And we’re dragging Clark into it.”

“If anyone asks, I had no part in this.” Duke said, watching the two typing with a frown. “Initiation doesn't include learning how to taunt Superman, right?”

“Eh, we can settle for you becoming close with a Kryptonian,” Steph shrugged. “Dick and Bruce share Clark, Jay’s got Bizarro, Cass and I got Kara, Babs I think counts with her, too, Damian’s got Jon, and Tim has Kon.” She listed off. “Harper and Cullen took the ‘bully Superman’ route without befriending any of his family, which is a coward's way out, so you can take, I dunno, does Chris still exist in this timeline?”

“I can call in a favor from Bart to reset the timeline again so he exists.” Tim said with a casual shrug, pulling up the thread arguing about the Batgirls.

“I’m sorry, what--”

“Finding Kryptonians who aren’t already taken is hard!” Harper protested, talking over Duke. “And Clark likes you guys being friends with his family. The only issue he has is Damian getting testy and Tim making heart eyes at Kon every five minutes.”

“I do not!” Tim squawked, whirling around in the chair to glare at the traitors he dared call family. In his head. Family in his head.

“You do,” Steph and Harper chorused.

“I’ve met Kon for less than twenty minutes and even I know.” Harper added. “I’m sure Duke knew.”

“I...yeah…” Duke coughed into his fist and turned away. “But in my defense, the gossip around here is practically shouted down the halls twice a week.”

“You were subjected to Dick having another crisis about Jay dating Kory for two months, weren’t you?” Steph said, trying to hide a snicker.

“There were so many things I didn’t want to know,” Duke whispered, face horror-stricken.

“Eh, at least Jay hasn’t brought up Talia around Dami yet.” Tim shrugged. “At that point, it’s better to just vacate the premises.”

“Wait--”

“Point is, you either befriend the Kryptonian or you torment them. That’s the rules.” Tim talked over him again, scrolling down the thread and boredly looking over the arguments. “You ready, Steph?”

“As I’ll ever be,” She grinned, giving a thumbs up. “How long till Babs notices and takes this whole thing down?”

“Few more minutes, tops.” Tim shrugged, already typing. “You two wanna give any input?” He asked, glancing behind him to Harper and Duke.

“Ask if Kryptonian skin can be used as extreme sunscreen,” Harper suggested. “That’ll rile him up.”

“Now I’m just curious if it can,” Tim said, but obediently began making his comment.

“You could just...ask?” Duke tried, clearly not taking in any of what was happening.

“Nah, Kon’s half human, I don’t think it works the exact same.” Tim shook his head, not looking back. “Kara would destroy me if I tried, Bizarro has the same problem, Jon wouldn’t know, and Clark would start telling Bruce he’s worried I’m deranged again.”

“Aren’t you?” Duke raised a brow.

“Only if I feel like it,”

“And when he forgets to sleep for ninety-eight hours.” Steph spoke up.

Tim rolled his eyes, tuning out his siblings as they continued to talk. He posted his comment before sparing a peek back at them, currently throwing off ideas to their hijacking plan like it was an everyday occurrence. Well, to Steph and Harper at least. But, to Duke’s credit, he appeared to be getting more used to it on prodding from his...sisters? Hard to tell, Steph was her own classification of family member. They were some weird choices for family, at least.

Tim watched them for a moment before turning back to making another comment on the logistics of sunscreen, a smile on his face.

He couldn’t find it in him to complain. Too much, at least.

35 notes · View notes

thiswasinevitableid · 3 years

Text

Pleasant Surprise (Indruck Superhero AU)

A little fic I’ve had bouncing around my head for awhile, set in the universe of “The Thrilling Adventures of the Green Knight.” It takes place after that story, and after the events of the small fics “Aww, Rats” and “Back in Time”. You can read it as a standalone, but it does contain some spoilers for main fic.

“You know how you always say communication is important in a relationship?” Indrid drums his fingers on the arm of the couch.

Dr. Mwangi nods, the chain on her glasses glinting in the soothing lights of her office.

“I...there is something I am not sure how to communicate to Duck. I, it’s something I’ve been dishonest about. I” Indrid takes a deep breath, “I lied about the date of my birthday.”

Dr. Mwangi doesn’t so much as cock an eyebrow, much like she managed not to gasp in horror when he told her what his training regime involved when he was learning to be a villain. Indrid’s going theory is that this self-control is his therapist's super power.

“Do you want to spend part of our session today figuring out how you’d like to talk with him about this?”

Indrid fidgets with his glasses, “Yes, please.”

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Duck comes home to one of his favorite scenes; Indrid sitting with his easel in front of the rat run. His boyfriend decided he needed to cultivate his artistic streak, so that one part of his life would not involve superheroing or villainy in any capacity. From the look of it, he’s still on the theme of inserting the rats into still-lifes of different styles.

Duck loves watching him paint, in a way at once connected to and completely different from the attraction he feels observing the other man train in the hideout or dig himself into engineering a new invention. There’s the same cleverness in his hands, the same concentration lining his face. But there’s an innocence that’s absent other places, a kind of happiness that only exists in activities untouched by his past.

“Hello, chivalrous one.” Indrid murmurs as Duck comes to drape his arms over his sweater clad shoulders.

“Hey sugar. I like the new paintin’--is that Dr. Harris Bonkers?”

“Indeed.” Indrid turns his head, his grin as bright as the streetlights flickering to life outside, “The fuzzy medical practitioner in the style of Seurat. I foresee Aubrey liking it as a Christmas gift, and I wanted to do it while the inspiration was still fresh.”

“Bet she’ll get a kick outta it.” Duck kisses the top of his head, then starts removing his work clothes, “you had dinner? Thought I might reheat some pizza.”

“I ordered us dinner, it should arrive within ten to fifteen minutes, depending on whether this is the broken stoplight timeline.” Indrid sets his brushes aside, stands so he can follow Duck down the hall to the bedroom.

“Thanks for doin’ that.”

“There is, ah, something I wish to discuss before it arrives.”

Duck turns and his heart twinges. Back when Indrid was his nemesis, Duck learned to read his emotions, a skill that eluded everyone else. He can tell when Indrid is nervous and, most often, when Indrid is nervous and doing everything he can to hide it.

“What’s on your mind?” He takes a soft step towards the other man, who goes very still as he summons his next words.

“Do you remember what I told you about my birthday?”

“That it was in the spring and you’d let me know when we were gettin close to it. Wait, fuck, you never did, not this year or last year. Then again, last year was when the White Star boys kept tryin to fuck everythin up, think a lot of stuff got missed. Do you, uh, wanna do a birthday observed or somethin? Could even get a little goofy and do a half-birthday.”

Indrid shakes his head vehemently, “No. That is not it. I, I ah, I lied. My birthday is not in spring. And before you ask ‘when is it,’ the answer is I have no idea. We never celebrated birthdays. I only know my age because my father unleashed my brother and myself upon the world some time after I, or rather we, turned eighteen.” Indrid tucks his hands into the pockets of his sweater, “that is all I wish to say.”

It would be easy to giggle at his serious tone.

Duck pulls Indrid into a hug, “Thanks for tellin me. Do you want help tryin to work out when it really is?”

“I...I do not know. I was simply tired of such a small lie weighing me down.”

“Okay. You wanna cuddle until dinner?”

“Of cour--oh damn it all.” Indrid steps back, pulling off his sweater, “Baron Thorne is going to try and hold an entire dormitory of students hostage in forty-five minutes.”

“More than a two hero job?”

Indrid tips his head back, then replies, “it’ll go best with for. I shall alert Barclay and Aubrey.”

“Roger. I’ll get the car.”

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Duck’s researching potential plants for Dani to modify into non-lethal weapons when the secure elevator dings open and Agent Stern hurries out, looking a kind of excited he hasn’t seen since Barclay’s parents landed their ship to meet their son’s new boyfriend.

“Gettin the feelin you got good news for me.”

“I do.” Joe pulls out his datapad, “I went through the files we confiscated from Abbadon to find the one on Indrid. It did indeed have his birth date, and you are not going to believe what it is.”

Duck looks at the little boxes of letters and numbers beneath the photo of a much younger Indrid with a much crueler smile.

“No fuckin way.”

“I know right?” Joe grins, “ I think he’ll get a kick out of that.”

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“My birthday is on Halloween?”

“Yeah!” Duck looks so happy that for a moment the emotion carries Indrid as well.

“That is rather fitting. It’s always been my favorite holiday.” He can see it now; little orange lights, a black tablecloth, some cake.

“And it’s three weeks away, so we still got time to plan somethin to mark the day. I was thinkin we could have it Friday, since Halloween is a Saturday and I know at least Barclay and Dani got things they do every Halloween. How’s that sound?”

He isn’t sure. Something circles up from the deep, animal part of his mind, but he can’t name it and so does his best to ignore it.

“It sounds wonderful.”

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Indrid cannot escape. Everywhere he turns there are birthdays; on the T.V, in the restaurants he and Duck go to, on cards and balloons when he’s getting groceries

It’s your big day!

“You don’t turn thirteen everyday”

To my son, on his eighteenth birthday

“To my brother, my favorite partner in crime”

“This week on ‘My Neighbor’s a Werewolf,’ Jamie throws Max a surprise party, and gets a big surprise of his own.”

When that one flickers across the screen, Indrid clicks the T.V off with a little hiss. He’s tense, feels like the embodiment of the moment a knife-tip meets skin; resistance and resignation in the instant before it all comes pouring out.

“You got a cake preference?” Duck rests his hand on the couch near Indrid’s shoulder, tone light as he continues, “know you like really sweet stuff, I could get mom’s hummingbird cake recipe from Jane-”

“Whatever you think best.” Indrid flexes and coils his fingers.

“‘Drid, it’s your party, you get to mark the occasion however you want.

“And what if I do not wish to mark it at all?”

“Uh…” Duck clears his throat, “uh, that’s fine too.”

Indrid turns his head to see the expression he knew would be there.

“That upsets you.”

“N-uh, fuck, I uh, it don’t uh-”

“Duck, please do me the courtesy of not drawing out the lie.”

Ducks shoulders sag, “Guess I’m a little disappointed. I, uh, I was havin fun plannin it with you. Thought I could make up for all the times you didn’t have one.”

“Well, you can’t.” Indrid snaps, stands more dramatically than he means to. He just wants this to be over, wants to stop seeing the memories he thought he’d properly laid to rest, “you cannot make up for what I saw, what was done to me, what I did.”

“I-”

Indrid holds up his hand, “I know you see it as your job to remove all traces of my tragic past that you can.”

“Hold the fuck on.” Duck shakes his head, “Is that what you think I’m doin? ‘Drid, it’s just a party. If you don’t want it you don’t want it, but don’t fuckin pretend this is some indicator of us as a pair.”

“Oh but it is.” Indrid feels his lips curl into an old smile, “you get to play the nice, normal hero making everything better, while all I am is someone to pity, broken long before you ever met me!”

Duck goes still, and in his visions he sees the rats finishing skittering to the far side of Ratopia. It’s at this moment he realizes he’s been yelling.

“I…I am going to bed. Goodnight.” He hurries down the hall, only bothering to change his pants before crawling under the covers. In most futures, Duck follows him and demands they finish their argument, leading to a far larger fight. But the hero doesn’t come. This gives Indrid time to get his breathing and heart rate back to normal, to try and work out why the thought of his loved ones gathering to celebrate his birth makes him want to disappear into the night.

He’s not quite asleep when Duck comes in. He’s not quite ready to apologize. As he’s contemplating his options, his boyfriend slips under the sheet and lays in such a way that his right hand is inches from Indrid’s own.

Without opening his eyes, Indrid slides his fingers across Duck’s palm. Duck shifts to interlink their fingers, and closes his hand.

Indrid wakes up five hours later in two discrete stages. The first is coming out of the nightmare, of his body registering the need to move, to hide, before his brain is fully back to the present. The second is waking up enough to wonder why he always hides in the closet after these dreams; he didn’t have a closet growing up.

He creeps into the living room, hoping he hasn’t woken Duck. He has woken Chicken, who decides it’s close enough to her breakfast time to yowl at him until he feeds her. While she crunches her cat food, he opens one of the doors to Ratopia. The mischief is mostly asleep, but at the sound Void rouses from his spot atop Mallard and scurries over to Indrid’s hands.

“You forgive so easily.” Indrid murmurs, cupping him in one hand and closing the cage with the other, “or perhaps you just forget with much greater skill than I.”

He knows when Duck is behind him. Without turning, he sets Void on his shoulder and says, “I think I know why I have been so unpleasant tonight. I...I have only ever marked two changes in age; being old enough to face the trials of my order and being sent out to cut down those who dared oppose us. My ‘birthday’ is a harbinger of suffering and death. And I, I know that is not the real truth, but it is the one my body believes, the one my mind has been bracing for without me fully understanding that’s what it is doing. I did not mean to take that fear out on you.”

“‘Drid” Duck’s voice is scratchy with sleep, but when Indrid turns his eyes are alert, “I’m so fuckin sorry. It, uh, it didn’t occur to me that your birthday would be wrapped up so tightly with the shit you went through as a kid. I never meant to push you into somethin you didn’t want.”

“But I do want it!” Indrid shoves his hands into his hair, “I want to have dinner with our friends, to get gifts, to enjoy a thing that millions of people partake in every day. And I am so, so very angry that I cannot, that instead I am dealing with all of this.” He gestures vaguely to himself, then looks at Duck, his body registering safe as the hero joins him by the rat run. When Duck opens his arms, Indrid nestles into them without hesitation.

“Whatever you decide on, that’s what we’ll do.”

Indrid hums, snickers when Void clambers onto Duck to tickle his cheek with his whiskers. After the shadows of the past recede in the warmth of Duck’s embrace, Indrid whispers, “I would like to have the party. I would like to help you plan it. But I...I would like a few of the details to still be surprises for me. It might be nice for my birthday to bring me a pleasant one for once.”

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

“Oooh, this looks so cool!” Aubrey sets a gift on the table as she admires the mothman string lights, banners, and balloons, “dang, Duck, didn’t know you had a decorator streak.”

“Don’t get a chance to flex it much. And it’s kinda easy when the theme is so specific.”

“I’m trying to compliment you, doofus.” Aubrey playfully whacks his arm, then squeals, “honey, look, rats in hats!”

“Awww” Dani joins her to regard the mischief in their tiny party hats (only Mallard is still wearing his, the others in various states of tossing them about), “Indrid, did you make these?”

“Indeed, though Barclay made these.” He slides the enclosure open and sets five rat-sized cupcakes on the floor, “which is wonderful, because I did not want them to feel left out. They’re getting them earlier than the rest of us because Barclay is looking for ways to keep me out of the kitchen.”

“It’s your birthday, that means letting someone else cook!” Barclay calls from the kitchen.

“But I modified the blender and the mixer to be self-operating!”

“Wait, what?” Is all they hear before Barclay is drowned out by whirring.

“Should we help him?” Dani says through their laughter.

“He’s a professional, he’ll be fine.” Joseph steps from the kitchen, his casual wear of jeans and a Loch Ness Monster dress shirt still somewhat jarring to the former villain who only ever saw him in suits, “Aubrey, Dani, can I get you anything to drink?”

“Yes please. Okay doctor, time to play.” Aubrey opens the special hatch in Ratopia and deposits the rabbit, who settles in to be groomed by his smaller friends.

Dinner is fancy macaroni and cheese and fruit salad, Indrid’s favorites. As Ned regales the table with his latest misadventures in fixing up his new van (“I was unaware an owl could nest in a seat cushion”) Indrid glances at the entryway.

“Everythin okay?” Duck whispers.

“Yes. I, ah, I simply did not expect so many gifts. I know it’s customary to receive them but I thought you got one or two. Not that everyone brought them.”

“You wanna open them?”

Indrid nods, grinning, “very much so.”

He takes care not to peek at the futures when unwrapping them, wanting to preserve the excitement as long as possible. Aubrey gives him a six pound bag of Lucky Charm marshmallows, Dani sneaks out to the car and returns with a potted plant (“I modified it so that the blossoms will be extra attractive to moths”). Ned gifts him a signed, limited run poster from Red Dust on His Soul, Joseph and Barclay a stack of new romance novels (“I think you’ll like Agent X, it’s a mystery series but he romances quite a few characters in them”). Mama sent a package from West Virginia that contains a small, wooden duck she carved herself and made especially smooth so it would be soothing to rub). And Lydia Little, AKA Sylvia Cold, presents him with a mug declaring him “Favorite Brother.”

Duck’s present is the last one he opens. Waiting for him in the rectangular box is a white shirt with “World’s Greatest Rat Dad” on the front. The back is covered in squiggle-scratches of five different colors, which Duck explains are signatures from the mischief made in rat-safe fabric paint.

“It’s perfect.” Indrid sighs, kisses his boyfriend and then beams at his friends, “it is time for cake.”

They dim the lights, sing to him as Barclay emerges from the kitchen with a massive, mothman shaped cake with lots of candles. To his delight and surprise, the inside is layers of pink and yellow, flavored with strawberry and vanilla. He eats far more than is perhaps wise, but it is his birthday and it is his understanding that such things are allowed.

His guests linger for a few hours more, Aubrey and Dani the last to leave with a reminder to put the plant on the balcony. Indrid waves goodbye, closes the door and arms the security to full. He turns back into the house, sees the cards and gifts his friends put so much thought into locating for him, the stray dishes and half-empty glasses that signify they were here. For him. Because they wanted to be, because they care about him.

“‘Drid? You want any more cake before I put it aw--oh fuck, sugar, what’s wrong.”

“Nothing” he sniffles, grins, “these are tears of happiness. I, ah, I hurried us into cake because I felt them upon me when I opened the gifts. It will take some time yet for me to be willing to show such feelings around our friends.” He wipes his eyes, “thank you, my love, for arranging this.”

“Any time, darlin.”

He smiles, “Have I mentioned lately that you are my hero?”

“Pretty sure you called me that this mornin. But I sure as hell don’t mind hearin it again.”

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

“What is this?” His brother scowls up from the paper plate Indrid passed to him through the complex delivery system keeping his cell from the world around it.

“Cake. Today is our birthday. Did you know that?”

“Who cares for such frivolous things, little brother?”

“Those of us who do not spend our lives steeped in the misery of others, twin brother. If you do not want it, give it back and I shall share it with one of the guards.”

Apollo looks at the cake. Then he kneels on the floor, tearing into it with his hands. He doesn’t eat it what he destroys, and after a moment Indrid grasps why.

“Did you really think I hid some device to help you escape in there?”

“Yes.” His brother is now trying to light stab the cake with his gaze.

Indrid rubs his forehead, “Perhaps some day you will learn to see things for how they are, not how you believe them to be.” He starts for the door, looks over his shoulder and says softly, “happy birthday, Apollo.”

A slam as his brother strikes the see-through front of his cell, “Get back here this instant you worthless, traitorous, coward!”

The door slides open and Indrid steps into the hall. Joseph is waiting for him, drops his eyes from the security feed to the man in front of him, “what a waste of Barclay’s cooking.”

“Agreed.”

A gentle pat on his shoulder, “You tried, that counts for a lot. Now go enjoy your night.”

“And my knight?”

“Him too.” Joseph waves goodbye, then adds, “and happy birthday!”

Indrid gets home before the city trick or treating hours begin; he’s feeling rather good, all things considered, and Halloween is so beloved by villains that the odds of his evening being interrupted by work are almost none.

Duck is on the porch lighting their Jack ‘O Lanterns, grinning brighter than all the candles and lights on the block combined when Indrid walks up the steps to join him. He sees in the futures that he’s made him a special, Halloween themed birthday dinner.

He pulls Duck into a hug, kissing the top of his head with happy sighs, thanking whatever twist of fate pushed him into the arms of the man who was, in many ways, his first-ever pleasant surprise.

#Indruck #indrid cold/duck newton #taz amnesty #superhero au

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aer-in-wanderland · 4 years

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구미호뎐 | Tale of the Nine Tailed - Lost in Translation EP02

Back by, possibly not popular, but certainly very enthusiastic demand: my sister’s and my continued adventures in mistranslation and cultural subtext. You can find EP01 here. Buckle up and settle in for another monster post because, wow, a lot happened in this episode. Contains spoilers.

Prologue

We open with a sweeping view of Baekdudaegan as Yeon narrates about his past as the god who presided over it. For context, Baekdudaegan is the biggest and most famous mountain range in Korea, taking up an enormous swath of the Korean peninsula (to the extent that it’s often referred to as its ‘spine’ or ‘backbone’). So Yeon wasn’t lying when he said he was a ‘major’ mountain god. ;)

Yeon: You could say these were my Leeds Days. I was the master of Baekdudaegan, a mountain god who controlled the wind and rain,* and a gumiho who was, from the start, of a different caliber than the mongrel foxes you see in Hometown of Legends. ...Or, I was.”

[*Note: Can also be taken to mean ‘the natural elements’ in general.]

When Yeon refers to his ‘glory days,’ the term he uses is ‘Leeds Era’ (리즈시절). Originally a sporting term for the height of a footballer’s career, in Korean, the expression has come to be used to describe a person’s bygone glory days. The modern figure of speech (complete with English loan word) makes for a funny counterpoint to the Yeon we see on screen and recalls the mint-chocolate loving American TV show enthusiast we’ve known him as so far.

The other modern reference he makes is to Hometown of Legends (전설의 고향), which has been the title of numerous dramas and movies (1977-2018) centered around Korean myths and legends. This is basically the equivalent of an alien referencing the X-files. Overall, the narration serves to remind us just how modern our gumiho has become and clashes humorously with the visual onscreen.

Yeon’s above narration concludes with the first appearance of little Ah Eum, who immediately proceeds to pet the mighty master of Baekdudaegan as if he were her pet dog pfft (thus the ‘....or I was.’)

As an aside, tvN released some backstory information revealing that Ah Eum had gone to find Yeon in order to pray for rain. Which means she pet him in spite of that lol We also know from the past-life sequence in episode 10 that she had actually been warned never to venture anywhere near his mountain because a 1000 year old gumiho lived there. It’s almost as if her guardians don’t know her at all...

For anyone keeping track, Ah Eum uses banmal with Yeon from the very beginning. We find out why later. As a princess (even one who had been discarded), she’s used to outranking everyone around her and therefore speaking almost exclusively in banmal. To be fair, with her temperament, Yeon being a 1000+ year old mountain god probably just wasn’t enough to get him an automatic pass from her. Point for Ah Eum/Ji Ah character continuity.

Yeon: If I could rewrite* my past just once, I would return to this moment without hesitation. So that that child could never find me.

[*Note: Literally, ‘A/S my past,’ which I’m pretty sure has its roots in computer usage. So again, thoroughly modern vocabulary from the former master of Baekdudaegan.]

We transition from young to grown Ah Eum with a sweep of the Red Umbrella. According to tvN again, this umbrella was actually a gift from Ah Eum to Yeon, and it’s also the same umbrella Yeon still carries everywhere. It’s somewhat poetic, then, that it was this umbrella that lead Ji Ah to him. So, a meaningful item on multiple fronts.

Yeon: Some called it, ‘the scandal of the age that shook Baekdudaegan.’ To think, a mountain god who had given his heart to a human... Nowadays, it would have felt like a disciplinary hearing, but I didn’t care a whit. I liked her [presence] permeating my woods.

As you might have guessed, this love story ends in tragedy. Someone stole her life. Once she crossed the River of Three Crossings, I would never be able to see her again. I couldn’t hold on to her, but nor could I bear to let her go...so I resorted to abusing my power.

The BGM playing as Yeon narrates the ending of his tragic story is ‘The Parting at the River of Three Crossings,’ which I think of as the epic love theme of TotNT alongside ‘Sad Fate.’ Why do I keep mentioning the BGM? No reason, other than that it interests me. ;)

On a linguistic note, Yeon’s line, ‘Someone stole her life’ caught my attention from the first time I watched this due to his unusual usage of the word ‘life.’ Korean has multiple words for ‘life.’ The one that would typically be used in this context is ‘moksoom’ (목숨), which I think of as having the nuance of one’s life force. So to steal one’s ‘moksoom’ would mean to kill them. Instead, he uses ‘insaeng’ (인생), which is more like the life one leads. To steal someone’s ‘insaeng’ sounds more like a case of identity theft. As we find out later, that actually is what Imoogi did, and this hinted at that linguistically.

I’m not sure how well this translated, but the gesture of Yeon kneeling is both epic and heartbreaking. Kneeling is a very weighty gesture in Korea, so for Yeon to use his godly powers to freeze the very River to the Afterlife only to kneel and beg for one last moment with Ah Eum is just... It’s a momentous enough gesture for Taluipa, the ultimate stickler for rules, to make an exception and grant his request.

The fox bead: In Japanese lore, a fox’s bead is often akin to its life force, but that’s clearly not the case for Yeon. In Korean lore, fox beads are sometimes called ‘the treasure of a fox’s lips,’ since the bead is supposedly located within the fox’s mouth (and can thus be stolen/gifted with a kiss). Some tellings claim that someone who swallows a fox’s bead gains understanding of all things and phenomena in the universe, while others say they grant the bearer’s wishes.

Yeon continues his narration, describing how he’s encountered women with Ah Eum’s face over the centuries, but that none of them were her. For anyone interested, you can find my hot take on that here.

Okay, can we please have a spin-off of Yeon hunting down folklore monsters in Japanese-occupied Korea Gaksital (2012)-style?

Fun fact: Based on some of the still cuts they released, there was actually a deleted scene in which Yeon pulled the late-Joseon era Ah Eum look-alike aside, checked her for the fox bead, and then erased her memories. (And by ‘fun’ I mean, ‘why would you delete that??’)

“I’ve been waiting for you.” Iconic.

Fun fact: Lee Dong Wook picked this as the most memorable line of the drama due to it’s thematic echoing across multiple episodes.

On the topic of the tranquilizer, there was a deleted scene in episode 1 in which Ji Ah very openly 'borrowed’ it from Shin Joo’s vet clinic because she already suspected Yeon was a fox: fox fur, Fox Ridge... She was taking a pretty big gamble though since he’s not exactly your average fox.

It’s worth noting that Ji Ah doesn’t say she was ‘looking’ for Yeon (although she was, because she’s a go-get-‘em kind of girl); she says she was ‘waiting’ for him. I took this to mean she was waiting for him to return and make good on his threat to kill her (since, not only had she not forgotten, she’d been actively sticking her nose into anything remotely supernatural or unexplainable), at which point, presumably, she planned to turn the tables on him.

Episode 02 Title Card: I’ve Been Waiting for You

For anyone wondering how Ji Ah managed to get Yeon back up to his penthouse, apparently she told the security desk her boyfriend was drunk and boldly took him back up in the elevator (presumably with help) haha

Possibly coincidentally, Yeon’s first line to Ji Ah when he regains consciousness is the same as his first line to little Ah Eum: ‘Do you want to die?’ (minus the sageuk speak)

Ji Ah’s line, “I wouldn’t be sipping tea here if I was worried about that,” would more literally be: “If I valued my life, would I be sitting here drinking flower tea?”

Lol Ji Ah. “Want a cup?” is such a classy power play.

Sub: “After the stunt you pulled, you’re actually offering me tea?” Ha. Also, what Yeon literally says is: “You pulled that variety-esque stunt, and your next line is what? ‘A cup of tea’?” ‘Variety’ here is an English loan word meant in the sense of ‘variety shows’ (ex. Running Man or 1 Night 2 Days), though to my knowledge, no one has ever been tranquilized on one.

The following exchange was littered with enough small things I would have changed that I’ll just translate the whole thing here for reference:

Ji Ah: When a man and a woman have that level of physical contact, don’t they usually also drink tea or eat meals together, too? These days, the whole pure and noble act doesn’t go far.

Yeon: Whether it does or not, when you’re at a disadvantage, isn’t it considered common courtesy to come [to the table] having put aside either your pride or your self-esteem [i.e. at least one of the two]?

Ji Ah: Listen until the end before you determine who’s at a disadvantage.

Yeon: (Nodding) In exchange, if my thinking still doesn’t change, you’ll pay the price for having tested me.

Ji Ah: Price?

Yeon: Your sight (literally ‘eyes’). I’ll be taking your eyes that have seen what they shouldn’t have.

Ji Ah: Deal. (literally, ‘call’ as in poker)

Rang & Yoo Ri Crash a Funeral

In the off chance you were wondering why this is basically the only time we see Rang driving Yoo Ri and not the other way around, it’s because Yoo Ri is ‘in character’ as the daughter of a major conglomerate and wouldn’t be expected to drive herself if there was another person in the car. In Korea, there’s a whole code of etiquette around who sits where in the car.

Instead of ‘Lee Rang-nim’ the subs have Yoo Ri addressing Rang as ‘sir.’ That just strikes me as so distant and cold...

To my thinking, this scene was peak ‘Hoket-dan.’ It was nearly the same level of over-the-top campy as some of the old supervillains. If I’m being perfectly honest, I was worried at this point that Rang’s character would turn out to be equally 2D. Joke’s on me though, ‘cause this later became a hilarious character quirk when Sajang says to Rang, “It can’t be that you came to enjoy watching me die?” and Rang responds, “I love doing that! Look, I even brought popcorn. I even go about visiting funeral homes and stuff on purpose.” lol

Ji Ah’s Gamble

Okay, but Yeon actually took her up on tea haha I love it.

Subs: “So you’re a fox that’s pretending to be human.” The word they use here (and throughout the drama) is ‘doongap’ (둔갑), which is literally ‘to assume the form of.’ Unfortunately, there’s no verb in English that neatly conveys that, so this gets subbed a lot of ways. I’ve mostly been translating it as ‘transform,’ but that’s more properly ‘byeonshin’ (변신). Sometimes with translation, the best option still isn’t great.

It’s also worth noting that this is actually not what Yeon is doing here, since he sees those sorts of tricks as beneath him. Yeon is a cheon’ho; his human form is his own.

Sub: “What a lame reaction. A normal human being would scream...” More literally: “What kind of reaction is so lacking in sincerity? Generally, if [you’re] a human, I should at least get a scream...” Again, both ‘reaction’ and ‘scream’ are in English, and, somewhat humorously, Yeon uses the verb + juda (주다) form, implying he was hoping to elicit a scream with his reveal pfft

Sub: “No. I knew something like you would exist somewhere out in this world. I started directing a TV show about urban legends so I could catch you myself.” This is mostly fine, but what she says more literally is: “No. I knew something like you would exist somewhere in this world. In order to catch [one] myself, I buried my bones in a TV show about urban legends.” To ‘bury ones bones’ means ‘to devote oneself entirely to’ and implies more drive and dedication than in the sub. The subject is once again omitted, so she could mean Yeon, but I think she actually means ‘things like Yeon’ more generally.

Yeon’s line to Ji Ah when she asks him about their long ago encounter was subbed as: “I followed the smell of blood, and I ended up saving a little kid. But I can see that she’s very ungrateful.” I would translate this as:

Yeon: I smelled blood and followed it, and ended up saving some little girl (lit. young child), but now I see that that child is trying to repay a favor with enmity.

The expression Yeon uses here, to ‘repay a favor (eunhye) with enmity (wonsoo),’ is a common turn of phrase. It’s the Korean equivalent of ‘biting the hand that feeds you,’ or ‘repaying good with ill.’ Considering eunhye has actual consequences for Yeon, he doesn’t seem all that put out.

Lol Something about Lee Dong Wook’s delivery of Yeon’s line, “So you lost your parents...” reminds me of the Oscar Wilde quote: ‘To lose one parent may be regarded as misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.’

Sub: “I’m not threatening you. I’m taking my chances.” This should be: “You’re mistaken. I’m not threatening; I’m gambling.” This turn of phrase is rather clever in Korean since ‘threat’ (협박) and ‘gamble’ (도박) are only one syllable off. In terms of the subs, while ‘gambling’ and ‘taking my chances’ are similar on the surface, they’re different enough in nuance that I would consider this a mistranslation. ‘Gambling’ implies an informed, calculated risk, whereas ‘taking my chances’ gives the impression of improvisation and leaving everything up to luck.

The Funeral Parlour

This scene is Rang in a nutshell. I actually don’t have much to comment on linguistically, but it was definitely an important scene for establishing Rang’s MO and motivations.

Shin Joo & Yeon

Yeon and Shin Joo meet up at the ice cream parlour to debrief on the situation with Ji Ah, and it’s cute how Shin Joo is more indignant over what went down than Yeon.

Subs: “It’s like we exist to repay people for their kindness.” This has been grossly paraphrased due to lack of cultural context. His line is literally:

Shin Joo: It’s not as if we’re magpies meticulously repaying our eunhye! Geez, how long do we have to be bound by that sort of premodern contractual relationship?”

This is another Korean folktale reference, this time to the story of The Grateful Magpies. I elaborated on it a bit here.

Yeon: “It’s old-fashioned but romantic. And it's also a fox’s dignity.” ‘Romantic’ here is the French loan word ‘romang’ (로망). In contrast to the English ‘romantic’ (which is also used), ‘romang’ is used to refer to ‘anything marked by the imaginative or emotional appeal of what is heroic, adventurous, remote, mysterious, or idealized.’ ‘Dignity’ could also be translated as ‘grace of character.’ Yeon’s preoccupation with style/swagger/dignity is enough of a recurring theme (and occasional joke) that it features in his character profile.

For anyone keeping track, Shin Joo refers to Ah Eum as ‘Ah Eum agasshi.’ ‘Agasshi’ meaning ‘miss’ or ‘lady.’

Shin Joo’s line is subbed, “Does she bother you?” but it should be: ‘Does it bother you?’ where ‘it’ refers to the fact that Ji Ah so closely resembles Ah Eum.

Sub: “I’ve seen tons of people who looked like her for hundreds of years.” It’s actually not ‘tons of people,’ but ‘a couple’/‘several’ over the course of hundreds of years. Let’s be honest, people as pretty as Jo Bo Ah just aren’t born every day. ;)

Yeon’s line may be overly blunt, but it’s sweet that he calls Shin Joo, ‘Shin Joo-ya.’

Back over to Ji Ah. The way this scene suddenly switches from sentimental to horrifying is great. I also like that it’s unclear when she fell asleep. The boundary between reality and unreality is as blurred for the viewers as it is for Ji Ah, and it leaves us with a similar sense of disquiet.

In case it wasn’t already clear, it’s the tooth on this skull that leads Ji Ah to Eohwa Island. She sees a skull with an identical tooth in the news and goes to investigate.

Afterlife Immigration Office

LOL Hyeonuiong briefing the newly departed on death via powerpoint is hilarious. The powerpoint reads: ‘A Guide to Hell for the Dead, Presenter: Hyeonuiong.’ The red sigil on the right bears the characters ‘十王’ (the Ten Kings), so I guess this is an official, Afterlife-approved slideshow. heh

Side note: I’m impressed with the way this show seamlessly shifts between genres. We went from emotional to creepy to funny without it feeling forced or jarring (or at least, it didn’t to me).

The powerpoint (complete with webtoon) continues cheerily: “Hell! What is the Afterlife?” / “The 10 Types of Hell.” pfft Who made these slides? Whoever they are, point to them.

Subs: “You know King Hades, right?” WOW This is bordering on cultural whitewashing if you ask me. This should be King Yeomra (aka King Enma). He’s one of the Ten Kings of the Afterlife, and quite arguably the most famous.

The sub here says Taluipa is Yeomra’s older sister, which is understandable since the antiquated word Hyeonuiong uses (누이), doesn’t specify older or younger. We find out in the final episode, though, that Taluipa is actually Yeomra’s younger sister. As far as I’m aware, this is not part of the original lore.

Lol Yeon being a drama king: “I’m going to take revenge! Thanks to her, my obligatory military service has already gone on for 600 years~!” (You’re not fooling anyone, sir)

“No way! A man’s hair is his life! My red-brown...” Fun fact: It was actually Lee Dong Wook’s idea to make Yeon’s hair red-brown, both as a nod to him being a fox, and to give him a more otherworldly look.

Why do the gods keep saying reincarnation is random when everyone we see reincarnated kept their face??

‘Oh my god” lol Watching kdrama characters react in English never gets old. Possibly because there’s something exaggerated or overdramatic in the conscious decision to use English instead of Korean.

A++ response from Yeon. I saw something going around to the effect of, ‘this show really just said love is love,’ and I love that. Point to the writer.

The BGM here is once again ‘Thread Rings.’ Given where it keeps being used, I’m fairly certain they’re somehow related to Ji Ah/Ah Eum... (So I guess there actually is a reason I’m paying attention to the BGM ;p). Lee Dong Wook just disclosed the behind the scenes scoop on the rings in his latest VLIVE.

This bulgasari is such a mild-mannered person. Like Shin Joo, he calls Ji Ah ‘PD-nim’ and speaks politely and deferentially.

Not for anything, but I really liked Jo Bo Ah’s delivery of Ji Ah’s line, ‘I saw a corpse.’ Her little mannerisms really sold Ji Ah to me as a person and not just a character.

Bulgasari: “That dream, can you sell it to me? I want to play the lottery.” In addition to the concept of symbolism in dreams, Koreans also have a common notion that dreams can be bought and sold. It’s funny, though, when you consider he’s probably just planning to eat the dream.

I love whenever Taluipa calls Yeon, ‘Yeon-ah.’ She’s normally so prickly that it’s notable when she's affectionate. Also, seeing as Yeon is older than 95% of our characters, there aren’t many who might address him like this with the affectionate diminutive.

Heh, Yeon refers to Ji Ah’s favor as a ‘civil complaint.’

When Yeon asks Ji Ah for her parent’s times and dates of birth, what he’s actually asking for is their ‘saju’ (literally, ‘four pillars’). You can find my explanation here.

The Snail Bride

Bok Hye Ja: “It’s the first time he’s brought someone (literally ‘a person’).” Normally this would mean, ‘it’s the first time he’s brought a guest,’ but in this case, I’m fairly certain she means, ‘it’s the first time he’s brought a human.’ ;)

“I won’t ask you to understand.” This was another exchange that made me love Ji Ah. I found her frank and sincere apology refreshing.

On a personal note, I loved watching Yeon recalibrate his estimation of Ji Ah in this scene. And it was also a scene in which viewers got to recalibrate their impressions of Yeon. Yeon is feigning indifference, but he makes a point of asking after Ji Ah’s feelings, which is not insignificant. It’s also in sharp contrast to what we’ve seen of Rang so far.

Oh my gosh, THAT PUFFBALL DOG (and it’s name is Bean-ie) XD

Minor detail, but where did Shin Joo get his necklace? Wait. OH MY GOD. Shin Joo is the Aquaman of TotNT. Yeon gets to be Batman and Superman rolled into one and Shin Joo’s power is that he ‘talks to fish animals.’ Dead.

Lol Ji Ah watching Yeon eat. I feel like this is a running joke. In the tales, gumiho notoriously eat people’s livers, so seeing him eat normal food must be a bit eye-opening.

The text description for Shin Don was left untranslated in the version we’re watching but it reads: In A History of Goryeo, there’s record of Shin Don, a monk from the time of King Gongmin’s reign (1351-1374 C.E.), having been an old fox.

Subs: “Is it true that the monk of Goryeo Dynasty was a fox?” Us: ‘Yes, the one monk in all of Goryeo and for all of Goryeo. Guess he’d have to have been a fox in that case.’ This should probably have been translated as: "So then, Shin Don...is it a fact that the Goryeo monk Shin Don was a fox?”

Ji Ah: “Oh my god.” heh

Do You Really Want to See It?

Wait, they walked all the way from Insadong to Digital Media City? Okay, this is one of the (few) pitfalls of being fairly familiar with Seoul. Sometimes it’s really obvious when two locations don’t connect and then it pulls me out of the drama. I think we’re supposed to believe that the Snail Bride is in the vicinity of Ji Ah’s broadcast station, seeing as her team are lunchtime regulars, but the the two neighborhoods are nowhere near each other.

Yeon’s line in the subs here is: “A. I’m a busy man. B. We may currently be living in the same world, but there is a big difference between where we come from.” Personally, I would have translated this as: “Firstly, I haven’t got that much free time. Secondly, we may be unavoidably living mingled together, but the world I belong to and the world you belong to are incontrovertibly different.”

Subs: “Those who got a peek at my world ended up going crazy or dying young.” More literally: “In the past, there have been those who got a glimpse of the world’s secrets. Well, most of them either went mad or had their lives cut short.”

Minor detail, but Ji Ah’s response subbed as: “I don’t care. I’ll stay out of your way. Just don’t disappear.” should more literally be: “Just don’t disappear from my sight (lit. ‘from before me’).”

The sub on Ji Ah’s line here reads: “She (Sae Rom) and I both had nightmares.” What she actually says is: “Me and my hubae also had nightmares,” meaning that she (Ji Ah) and Jae Hwan had nightmares in addition to Sae Rom. Which is why Yeon refers to them as ‘contagious’.

Okay, is it just me, or does LDW look exceptionally unreal in this scene?

Bulgasari

I’m not familiar with the actor who plays the bulgasari (pretty sure he’s a new face), but he did a great job making his movements uncanny here. The firey CG effects are fun too.

Heck yeah! Yeon sure knows how to make an entrance. Seeing as how he instructed Ji Ah on what to do, I’m pretty sure he was there the whole time......show-off.

Once again, I’m digging the fight scene underscored by ‘The Uninvited.’ I would happily watch an entire series that’s just Yeon and Ji Ah solving supernatural cases and hunting down baddies who disturb the peace.

The Smirk™ XD I’m 90% sure this was another LDW ad lib.

Lol Yeon. Subs: “Really? Then am I the jerk here?” More literally: “Really? Then I guess I’m the only bad guy, huh?”

On a linguistic note, the bulgasari speaks to Yeon in old-timey speech, once again playing up their mutual identity as creatures of lore.

It’s only at this point that, prompted by Ji Ah, Yeon finally reveals the bulgasari’s identity. This is accompanied by a brief chyron telling us that they appear when the world is in disorder, and Ji Ah supplies that they eat nightmares.

To elaborate a bit, bulgasari are one of the better known Korean creatures of lore. There are two different sets of hanja for them: (bulgasari 不可殺伊 ‘can-not-kill’) and (bulgasari 火可殺伊 ‘fire-can-kill’), which explains why, depending on the telling, they’re either un-killable or only die by fire. In traditional lore, feeding them metal makes them grow larger and stronger, which, while not the case in TotNT, is probably what inspired the coin-gobbling.

Subs: “Yes they are especially fond of broadcasting studios, which are packed with people. Eating metal reveals their true identities.” That subtitle went a bit sideways. It’s not that they like broadcast stations in particular, but crowded places like broadcast stations. So it should read: “They like places with lots of people, like the broadcast station, and if you feed them metal, they reveal their true colors.”

Okay, Yeon’s line that’s subtitled as, “The hostage will answer,” is more literally: “Hey, hostage. Try answering me.” It’s worth noting that, while he calls her ‘injil-bun’ (injil = hostage + bun = the polite word for a person), he’s still speaking to her in banmal, so he’s once again being cheeky.

It’s taking some license, but I would translate Yeon’s question to Ji Ah here as: “In this moment,* what exactly can you do other than rely on me to save you?” which is essentially what he means. [*Note: literally, ‘at this timing,’ and once again, ‘timing’ is in English.]

We get a series of short scenes lining up some of the side characters who will become our key players on the island: the fisherman find the severed head, Ji Ah grills Detective Baek about the case, and Rang approaches Pyung Hee with his usual devil’s bargain pitch. I didn’t really notice anything here that I think is important enough to the central plot or characters that it’s worth commenting on (especially given how massively long this post is already), so I’m just going to call it good and move right along. ;)

Pfft I definitely wasn’t expecting the bulgasari to be literally chilling in Yeon’s freezer (not that he had a choice). This is somewhat interesting given they’re typically thought to be weak to fire, not ice.

Subs: “I’ll die even if I tell you where he is.” More literally: “Whether I die in this way [by Yeon’s hand], or that [by Rang’s], it is all the same.”

Brother Complex

Sub: “Don’t even think of hurting her.” More literally: “Just try touching one hair on her head.”

Oh my gosh Rang’s face ㅠㅠ This was the first time I felt Kim Beom really got to display his acting chops in this role, and boy, was I glad to see it. This was also when I knew Rang was going to make me cry.

Yeon: “You’re acting like this because you lack affection.” The expression Yeon uses is ‘aejeong gyeolpip,’ which literally does mean ‘affection lack/want/absence,’ but I would have translated it as ‘affection-starved,’ since saying Rang ‘lacks affection’ could also be interpreted to mean Rang is incapable of expressing affection.

Yeon: “Why’s that?” Lol Lee Dong Wook. Also, this one line is cheekily in polite speech.

Subs: “Just because of a woman you gave up your position as a mountain spirit, left the mountain, and you even...” More literally: “Just because of one mere human woman you gave up your position as a mountain god, turned your back on the mountain, and..!!”

Yeon: “Yes, I know. I even abandoned you.” Rang-ah~ ㅠㅠ I recently received an ask as to whether or not I believed Yeon had truly abandoned Rang, which I answered here.

Oof, Yeon giving Rang advice as an older brother. In Korea, nagging is seen as a sign of affection. You may recall Ji Ah was very excited for her dad to nag her about her boyfriend in episode 12.

Sub: “You crazy fool.” Rang literally calls his brother a ‘michin nom,’ ‘michin’ meaning ‘crazy.’ ‘Nom’ is a pronoun that, depending on how it’s used, can mean anything from ‘guy,’ to ‘jerk,’ to ‘bastard.’

Sub: “I don’t need to know.” Actually: “There’s no need [for you to tell me].” The two are subtly different. Yeon’s saying he’ll find out on his own, not that he doesn’t want to know.

Fun fact: Kim Beom said in his script reading interview (before they started filming) that he was a bit worried about his onscreen dynamic with Lee Dong Wook because, while Rang has to hate Yeon, LDW is a hyung that KB likes so much in real life. What a cutie.

We cut briefly over to Ji Ah on the phone with Jae Hwan, asking him to look after Sae Rom while she chases down the skull lead.

As an aside here, Ji Ah calls Sae Rom, ‘Kim-jak’ (short for ‘jakga,’ meaning ‘writer’). In Korea, it’s common to refer to someone by their role or title. This might indicate distance, but Ji Ah’s shortening it makes the term familiar and speaks of their camaraderie. In the subtitles, this has become, ‘Ms. Kim,’ which is oddly distant given their frenemyship.

The Island

Is it just me, or does it feel like there should have been a scene here explaining how and why Yeon came to be on the boat? I’m assuming it got deleted due to time constraints, but I feel like it was needed.

Pfft The way Ji Ah pops up from behind Yeon, cutting comically into the dramatic shot of Lee Dong Wook’s windswept profile + BGM was great.

In case it wasn’t already apparent, Kimite patches are used to alleviate sea sickness, so this is further undermining the mood of a second ago haha

Yeon’s line is subbed: “I’d like to keep it to myself,” but this should more literally be: ‘Let’s each work individually/play it solo.’

Sub: “No, thank you.” What Yeon actually says: “Hard pass.” hahaha (Literally: ‘I’ll immediately/urgently decline,’ but tonally, ‘hard pass’ is closer).

The subs have Yeon’s line as: “You need to be careful what you pay attention to.” I would have translated this as: “If that’s the reason [you’ve come], go back. You mustn’t recklessly lend an ear [to such things].” His tone and phrasing are both surprisingly gentle.

Subs: “My guts keep telling me, that this is a very suspicious combination.” Well, my guts keep telling me, that this is a very suspicious sub haha I would have translated Yeon’s voiceover as:

Yeon: The same boat...the same island...a woman with the same face as that girl. My instincts speak to me relentlessly, telling me there’s something amiss about this combination.

Pfft The contrast between Ji Ah's dismount from the boat and Yeon’s.

Lol Yeon’s ‘excuse me’ was totally rude

For the record, from the moment Yeon sets foot on the island, he speaks to everyone in banmal. That’s bad form towards any stranger, but it’s especially rude considering their age. Sure, Yeon’s way older, but they don’t know that.

Ji Ah mouthing “What?” in English haha

Yeon clocking the effectively creepy villagers. Turns out the right BGM and camerawork can make anything creepy. Point to the director.

Settling in on the Island

Ji Ah’s line subbed as, “I thought you didn’t want to be involved,” should more properly be: “I thought you just said we should each play it solo?”

Yeon’s line is similarly mis-subbed as: “I changed my mind. Don’t let it bother you.” What he actually says is much ruder: “I’ll do what I want! Butt out.” Which explains Ji Ah’s affront heh

Lol Yeon walking right in front of the camera. Anyone who has ever had a pet recognized this moment.

I love how Yeon is being completely tactless and insensitive but then grudgingly course-corrects when Ji Ah glares daggers at him.

Fisherman (subs): “It gives me a bad feeling in my mouth.” Excuse me, what? haha The line is: “The more I think about it, the more it bothers me.”

Lol Ji Ah: “In the documentaries I watched, they say digging holes is your speciality” (complete with digging gesture).

Fun fact: Ji Ah blocking the way with her leg and Yeon burrowing under it was something Jo Bo Ah and Lee Dong Wook came up with themselves. Ji Ah’s line was scripted, but I’m nearly positive Yeon’s comeback of, “Burrowing is my speciality,” was an ad lib by Lee Dong Wook. Once again, casting Lee Dong Wook is the gift that keeps on giving.

WAIT. Subs: “You can’t go.” / “Borrowing is my specialty.” Hahaha What even? Cheon’ho Lee Yeon: professional mooch.

The way we then cut to Yeon ‘burrowing’ into a freezer of ice cream is just perfect. Point to the director.

Once again, Yeon is talking to all the village elders in banmal.

“You have a terrible service mentality.” pfft

OH. Ji Ah’s response to the misogynistic fisherman is just A++

Her line here is literally: “Oops, I’m afraid I’m overflowing with ‘jeong.’” ‘Jeong’ (情) can be a little hard to translate. It literally means ‘emotion’ or ‘affection,’ but the way it’s used linguistically can be a bit complex. The sub here was: “I’m afraid I was too generous,” which I actually think is pretty decent. The turn of phrase in Korean though, using the word ‘overflowing’ while over-pouring on the man, made her response doubly witty.

Hah. I love the way Yeon just raises his eyebrows when he comes out of the market and spots her.

Subs: “How dare a witch from outside come here and...” He actually calls her a ‘michin nyeon’ meaning ‘crazy bitch,’ so the line is: “Crazy bitch, where do you think this is that you dare...”

Ji Ah’s line that begins, “If you’re going to hit me...” is just SO great. We stan (1) queen.

Subs: “Nice. You’re tough.” This is a bit hard to translate. Yeon’s line is literally: “Oh~ What ggang is like this?” ‘Ggang’ can be translated as ‘guts,’ ‘tenacity,’ or ‘persistence.’ Naver dictionary describes it as: ‘a personal trait found in one who never gives in, when put in whatever difficulties,’ which is so spot on for Ji Ah. I might approximate this as: “Woah~ Just how gutsy are you?”

The way he's just like, ‘I approve. Here, have a shikhye~’ is mildly adorable. Did you buy that for her, Yeon, or were you planning on having two but decided she’d earned one? haha

Ji Ah’s response is equally great. The sub says: “That was nothing.” which isn’t a bad option for a subtitle, but what she literally says is ‘saesam-seureopge’ (새삼스럽게), where ‘saesam’ means ‘now? at this point? after all this time?’ So she’s basically saying, ‘You’re bothering with that observation, over that little stunt, after everything else you’ve seen me do?’ haha

“I plan to mooch off of you as much as possible.” Pfft I love how Yeon actually moves to stand behind her just to underscore the point. That’ll be Lee Dong Wook again.

Wow, these are some sketchy old people.

Subs: “People aren’t the only ones with eyes and mouths.�� What he actually says is, “Are people the only ones with eyes and ears?”

The Forest Spirit

Wow, the lighting in this scene is just A++ Point to the lighting team (or is that just natural? It feels almost too pretty to have just been natural).

I was too distracted by Lee Dong Wook to notice the first time, but Ji Ah’s face when Yeon shushes her is great haha

On a linguistic note, this scene is one of the few in which Yeon code switches to archaic speech as he’s addressing the tree spirit. It’s the linguistic equivalent of him putting on his ‘mountain god’ hat. (He still speaks to Ji Ah normally, though).

We cut briefly to the mudang (shamaness), and I’m sorry, I know this is a traditional way of speaking, but it always makes me laugh because it’s so over-the-top.

The spirit addresses Ji Ah as ‘agasshi,’ which would be strange if she was actually a modern young girl, but makes sense for a spirit who’s at least 600. Overall, it helps to remind viewers of her supernatural-ness.

Yeon telling Ji Ah she did a good job is so cute. I feel like they’re rapidly becoming a quirky tag-team duo and I’m 100% here for it.

Mudang: “His body returned to shore before his head did! Your father!” This line was explained in the backstory collection.

Okay, the mudang needs to dial it back like 10 levels here.

Possibly just me, but Yeon swatting the air with his hand as he peers into the cave struck me as vaguely fox-like.

Minor detail again, but the chyron here is subbed as ‘Jangsansa Cave.’ It’s actually ‘Jangsan sagool,’ not ‘Jangsansa gool.’ ‘Sagool’ is written with the characters 蛇窟 meaning ‘snake hole.’

Lol Yeon freezing mid-motion when Ji Ah tells him to stay put. That is 110% Lee Dong Wook’s sense of humour. Praise the drama gods for Lee Dong Wook - this show wouldn’t have been half as fun without him.

Fun fact: This cave is actually intimately tied to Ah Eum’s past with Imoogi and the story of how she came to be his ‘bride’ (read: sacrifice). I translated the tvN description here. I actually think this was fairly important information, so it’s a shame it wasn’t covered in the drama.

Sleepover with a Gumiho

When Ji Ah asks Yeon why he’s insisting on staying at Pyung Hee’s, his response is subbed as: “I have my reasons.” This is more properly: “You don’t need to know.”

Sub: “We don’t eat that crap!” Yeon’s line doesn’t have a subject, but this should properly be: “I don’t eat that crap!” We know from Yeou Nui that some gumiho in this world actually do eat liver.

“Heard of the Chinese liver fluke?” Ha. Yeon literally says ‘kan distoma,’ i.e. ‘liver distomiasis’ or ‘liver fluke’. While there was a well-known outbreak in China, it isn’t inherently Chinese. There’s a Korean word for it too (간흡충), but once again, Yeon opts for the loan word, adding further humour to the gumiho disavowing liver consumption - for health reasons, no less pffft

The BGM playing as Yeon sees Ah Eum in Ji Ah is once again ‘Parting at the River of Three Crossings.’

Bok Hye Ja’s line to Shin Joo is subbed as: “He went to the island to find this reincarnated girl?” The word she uses is actually ‘gakshi,’ which is an antiquated word generally meaning ‘bride’ (as in ‘the Snail Bride’), but it can also just mean ‘young woman.’

For the record, the Snail Bride speaks to Shin Joo in banmal, who speaks to her in jondaetmal

Shin Joo: “Contrary to how he looks, he’s the devoted type, after all.” Et tu, Shin Joo?

Shin Joo’s line is subbed: “As if that’s a good thing,” but I would have translated it as: “Romantic, my foot!”

Sub: “At least once in our lives we come across that one person we want to give our lives to.” This should be: ‘risk our lives for.’

Sub: “I won’t ever devote myself to love. My goal will be to protect Mr. Lee.” Actually: “I won’t ever risk my life for love. I’m going to protect Lee Yeon-nim!”

“Well that can also be called love, can’t it?” Thank you for this, Show. I know some people think TotNT champions romantic love above all else, but I simply don’t agree.

When Yeon checks Ji Ah again for his fox bead, the BGM playing is once again ‘Thread Rings’

I love how they did the CG on whatever is happening with Yeon’s powers here. I would have loved to have gotten more of an explanation of the fox bead and its powers (and Yeon’s, for that matter), but alas.

I love that Yeon tucks Ji Ah in even after re-confirming (or so he thinks) that she isn’t Ah Eum. It was important to me that he came to like and appreciate her for herself before learning that she was, in fact, his lost love.

Morning on the Island

Ji Ah wakes to find Yeon gone, the blanket tucked around her, and her expression tells us she’s onto him: sure, Yeon can be a grump, but he’s also a complete softie. heh

Yeon is, once again, talking to the elders in banmal. Why do I keep mentioning it? Because no matter how many times I see it it’s still funny.

Okay, Lee Dong Wook has this way of pointing at things with his entire arm that I find ticklish. Yeon ends up coming across like a petulant child. On a cultural note, in Korea, pointing at people like this is considered impolite.

Yeon dangling the ginseng behind Ji Ah as extra incentive pfft Wild ginseng can be massively expensive in Korea (on the order of hundreds of dollars), so this is actually a very effective bribe.

Also, can we take a moment to appreciate that Yeon woke up before dawn, and, instead of going back to sleep, went into the mountains to hunt for wild ginseng, then set about using it to bribe the elders into answering Ji Ah’s questions for her. Entirely of his own accord. Like I said: softie.

Side note: Lee Dong Wook’s eyebrows are working overtime in this scene and I’m honestly a little jealous.

The newspaper Jae Hwan finds at the library is dated August 13, 1954, which Ji Ah immediately recognizes as having been just after the Korean War (if you’ll recall, this is when the forest spirit told them something ominous had come to the island).

This newspaper is actually really cool. You can see how, in the past, Korean newspapers used a lot of hanja in addition to the phonetic hangeul, similar to modern Japanese. The headline reads, “Headless Corpse, Discovered on Eohwa Island, Investigation Hits Dead End.” (頭 없는 屍身, 漁花島에서 發見, 捜査迷宮으로).

Okay, to be honest, this final scene - absent the extra context given in the next episode - made me question Ji Ah’s smarts again. I wondered why she was chasing down the clearly unstable guy just to question him, but it makes sense once you know she meant to warn him his life was in danger.

As usual, Yeon knows how to make an entrance. Cue ‘Gumiho’ theme.

Yeon stopping when Ji Ah tells him to never stops being satisfying.

The BGM playing as we cut over to Rang is ‘The House of Ghosts.’

Okay, those shots of Thirsty and Hungry were full-on horror movie and I actually kind of like it? I never watch horror as a genre, but for some reason, I found I missed this spooky element when it dropped out of the later episodes.

Oh, I like that Yeon went and made her a poultice. Very ex-mountain god of you, sir.

“Long time no see, Lee Yeon.” Iconic. And creepy. I love the attention to detail Jo Bo Ah displays in the difference between how she acts Ji Ah vs. Imoogi. Imoogi’s voice is higher pitched, and gives off more of a loose-cannon feel compared to Ji Ah, who speaks in a lower, more grounded tone.

Sub: “It’s me. The person you’ve been waiting for.” Imoogi literally says: “It’s me. That thing you’ve been waiting for.” This is obviously a big clue since normally one wouldn’t refer to oneself in such a way. It also reflects the fact that, unlike Terry-Imoogi, Jimoogi perceives no value in Ji Ah herself. (Yes, I call Ji Ah-Imoogi ‘Jimoogi,’ and sadly, no, I didn’t come up with it).

Yikes, Jimoogi tracing Yeon’s face was all menace and zero cute. Point to Jo Bo Ah.

Boy, this show really knows how to make an exit.

Blue Mooooooooon!! The guitar (bass?) riff is just so catchy.

And that concludes Episode 2. Thank you to everyone who commented on the first one. If not for your encouragement, I probably wouldn’t have continued. I also genuinely enjoy hearing from people, so send me your thoughts! This is a weird, unprecedented mashup of a live reaction post, behind the scenes info, and detailed language and culture notes, and I’m still learning how to balance the three. Your feedback is always welcome.

I’d also like to take a moment to credit my sister, who, in addition to weighing in on a lot of the translations, is also the chief researcher and fact checker for these. I, meanwhile, am in charge of bad jokes and snark. I mentioned before that these take longer than you might expect, but it’s really true. The time we spend watching the episode is actually the least of it, and as much as I enjoy them, they are a huge time suck.

So. This is what I’m going to do. If you’d like to see more of these, or if you enjoyed this, or if you’ve enjoyed any of the translations or commentary or whatnot I’ve been posting recently, please consider buying me a coffee. If you follow the link, you can buy me a $2 cup of virtual coffee. I’ve never done this before, but I’ve decided to give it a try. It’ll help me to gauge how much interest there is, and, possibly more importantly, it will help me to justify all the time haha. If and when I’ve established there’s enough interest, I’ll proceed with Episode 3. ;)

#tale of the nine tailed #totnt #lost in translation #구미호뎐 #kdrama #korean language #korean culture

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peepingtoad · 4 years

Text

OKAY SO.

It’s not that often that I talk about what I really think about Jiraiya, and I guess I mean more how I feel about him, since I always try to write my ‘deeper’ headcanons/metas from a more... idk, trying not to get too emotional about it point of view. Basically it’s because I know how controversial he is, and I pretty much ritually avoid a lot of takes because I don’t want to get irritated about something that really doesn’t matter much in the grand scheme, because we’re all entitled to our opinions and I largely get my say through the act of writing and developing him how I see fit.

Which is enough for me, mostly, but for the purpose of reinforcing/building upon how I see my muse’s plight, working through some of my Sannin-feels and also to dip my toes into why I find blindly judgemental/single-faceted takes of him, his priorities and the Sannin’s bond so exasperating, I kinda feel like rambling my thoughts (feelings) anyway!

Politely sticks this stream-of-consciousness mess under a cut.

So sometimes I do think about the fact that Jiraiya kinda, lmao, forgot about Everything Else in the world because of Orochimaru and his (frankly) obsession with him/them. And the fact that a ridiculously significant portion of bad shit that happened is down to his actions/inaction. And the fact that he really did go and leave the likes of Naruto (and maybe to a degree Kakashi, although there’s zero actual evidence he didn’t get involved given the strong indications of a great rapport in the canon), just because he was so hellbent on pursuing Orochimaru, who was not even shown to be affectionate towards him at the best of times. When I think about it in terms of Jiraiya being gone and the main reason we’re given for it, things suck for a number of people, and quite largely because of potentially unrequited/horribly communicated/obsessive JiraOro pursuits, in essence :’)

(And for all it’s still quite the rarepair, Jiraiya does express on accounts that he was destroyed when Oro left. I mean... this is the guy who rarely acknowledges his sadness so... It’s not my bias at all I sware)

Of course JiraTsu is very real in my eyes too, albeit a very different kinda tragic, as is OroTsu. And the messy poly ship? Ohohoho, even better, but... yeah. Tsunade does at least go her own way for a long time, as messed up as that is in itself, for reasons including the fact she seems to pointedly not heal or move on from her grief. And given the absolute debacle that was her and Jiraiya reuniting... and both her and Oro even discussing a possibility of sacrificing him... and just, them in general for that whole arc :’))) yeah. They are without a doubt messy and troubled, but even despite how fraught things become I genuinely think all the furtive expressions and the undercurrents of longing and the evasion of their past exhibits a history much deeper and full of lost love compared to many other team dynamics we get (otherwise the Three Way Divorce wouldn’t have been quite so horrible on them, would it? That and they’d probably have split up after Team Hiruzen was no more, if they really hated each other/just tolerated each other out of familiarity like I sometimes see speculated).

But yeah, back to our main man. Jiraiya’s intense (and frankly very Scorpio of him) love for our first series Big Bad kinda did ruin him and what he was setting out to do in some ways, to the degree that the actual story of Naruto wouldn’t be very much without him in terms of drama. I mean, he always loved a good story, right? So art imitates life, and innit just pathetic poetic.

And in so many ways it is incredibly tragic and pitiable that he’s Just Like That. Idealistic and warping everything terrible, no matter how bad, into adventure in his mind! As growth! As pain that makes you TOUGH and makes you a stronger man! As something to be pushed aside while you just keep on truckin’! Whatever anyone you love throws at you, it’s Totally Fine!

After so long narrating through his personal lens, I’ve come to realise he truly is so convinced that everything bad that happens, is sort of just... something he has to deal with and feel big and guilty and feelsy for while spinning it in ways that enable him to keep going. He just loads it on himself and sorta holds it. The fact he’s so sad and filled with sickly pining grief that he has to try and exorcise it with impulsive bouts of decadence? Fine. And it’s not abnormal at all, how he approaches things with such broad scope and just kinda... thoughtlessly wrecking-balls his way through everything he thinks is a great idea at the time. He experiences the fallout of these things and simultaneously feels the entire ravages of it acutely while compartmentalising it ever so neatly away. The crazy thing, too, is that he’s exceptionally convincing at making everything he does and how he handles things seem so grand and noble and romantic and tragic... but in a humorously self-deprecating and still ultimately very hopeful way, to the degree that I as a mun get caught up in his relentless optimism and forget he actually is a sad and heartbroken guy wrapped up in all this grandiosity.

Sometimes I do step back and look and I just think yeah, fuck, he really is a total disaster! He’s a walking disaster and he’s been so damaging to himself and others in so many ways, all because of acting on emotions and impulses without really thinking about the impact! He really did kinda give up on those who needed him and for what? A love that will never love him or prioritise him back?

A wonderfully tragic theme that I do love with him, don’t get me wrong.

But then at the same time, there’s always more nuance to be had than just ‘he is a disaster and made bad choices, as tragic and romantic as it is, he was actually just selfish and kinda sucked in the end, pathetically whipped by his friends and unable to let go of what they had’. There’s more nuance to be had than reducing him to a purely romantically-inclined character, who just snubs everyone else for a doomed love... because in the end, I think a huge part of JiraOro’s demise in particular was that Oro felt immensely snubbed by Jiraiya when he stayed in Ame, when his loyalty to Konoha (as a place and people, not necessarily a system) and of course loyalty to his own ideals was prioritised over Oro.

To an extent, I feel like Tsunade could have been a similar case, were she not preoccupied with already having lost so much, and besides I really do think she and Jiraiya were quite firmly in best friend zone at that point. With Tsunade not being able to get comfortable around Jiraiya or to pursue any underlying affection for him because of the dumbass way he always behaved (understandably of her tbh), probably until she got with Dan, by which point I reckon Jiraiya started to really come through by showing how he valued her for her, where we see by them having each other’s backs so closely in the second war. Not to mention him generally respecting that his feelings for her have no place by the time he gets her back to Konoha.

In terms of that first split in Ame, Jiraiya, I feel, simply didn’t think him leaving was going to be a big deal, because the three were always fiercely headstrong people who had their own shit going on (simultaneously independent while also being, perhaps not to their knowledge, So Very Codependent). Not only that, but his overly affectionate ways and incessant jolliness were probably considered such a joke that he was basically like ‘they’ll be fine without me’. I certainly don’t think he felt needed by them, which I don’t think is their fault or a point of angst and ‘waaah poor blameless Jiraiya’, because quite honestly, the strain on their relationship was something I fully believe even he didn’t realise he needed out of at the time. His one-track mind was just on ‘save kids, teach kids, this is right, must seize opportunity to be the change I was told I’d be, not continue with this godforsaken war’

Selfish? Maybe. Well-intentioned? Certainly. Intended to hurt anyone or imply he stopped caring? No.

In essence, when it comes to why in the end Jiraiya seemed to be so horrendously bad at being around at the worst of times, at being responsible, whatever else (and I’m not even going to go into scenes intended to be comedic because, they are comedic)... I’ve got to look at it from more than just one view. It’s easy to say ‘he’s ridiculous and terrible because he pretty much flaked on what was important based on his whims/a doomed love/his dick’ (which I have seen said lmao) but there are so many other things at play here.

So I’m thinking, while he was shirking duties (godfatherly mainly)... did he actually consider that his most important duty? Was it anyone’s place to tell him it was? Minato didn’t, as I recall, and when he sacrificed himself he specifically left it to the Third because he (presumably) respected what his teacher was about and knew he wasn’t for staying put. Did Jiraiya not consider his primary duty to be to the prophecy, and in a more general sense fixing the big wrongs and trying to foil big dangers to his home? Were these things not pretty much what he existed for (as much as his faith wavered and went off the rails at times)? Was that not the main source of any real purpose he ever had, being a kid who showed practically no ambition before? Did he not pretty much redesign himself as being ‘from Mt. Myōboku’ rather than Konoha after two devastating wars, and thus is it not understandable for him not to focus solely on Konoha—not outright destroying it, still ultimately loyal to his home and not about to let anyone destroy it, but seeing that the world is in fact so much bigger than just his little town? Is that really something that’s so bad and wrong of him, in a story where the main cast’s country has a pretty fucking nasty system and is established to do so very early on? Is he not pretty revolutionary in his own brand of not blindly serving, but not going on a destroy-it-all frenzy either?

Also, was he not the only one who actually bothered to investigate Akatsuki and the forces that would see Naruto dead, in time? For all he did help bring Akatsuki into existence in ways, it was inevitable from before he even met the orphans that they were going to be groomed/moulded into what they became, regardless of whether Jiraiya came onto the scene. Jiraiya leaving them was just a different kind of suffering to what they were inevitably going to suffer anyway, and hell, with his influence at least there was a time where they might’ve stood a chance of going totally against Madara/Obito’s path, especially while Yahiko was still around. Jiraiya didn’t know that the whole thing with the Ame orphans was, by a design out of his control, doomed to end horribly. So while he felt personally responsible not knowing this, and it’s taken as a given that he was... actually, was he, when there was a master manipulator at play? Was it wrong to want to give some kids a chance?

With regards to all those things I see people say he should have stayed and fixed, that he should have been there, he should have done x y z... Is it not the responsibility of everyone not satisfied with their lot to step up to the plate and make where they live better? Jiraiya wasn’t the only adult. Tsunade, and I absolutely love her, does seem overwhelmingly to be absolved of leaving Konoha because... ??? Kicker is that she too is related to Naruto, of course.

So... was she not also needed for the very material ways she could’ve helped at numerous points? Was she not also placing her grief and lost love before everything else? Are some reasons inherently more ok than others to ditch? As Kakashi’s generation grew up, was it not also then up to them to decide whether they’d change the status quo? Were Minato’s own generation, presumably his own peer group, not complicit in Naruto’s ostracisation? We got a slight taste of rebellion with Asuma, Hiruzen’s own son, but the fact is many Konoha-nin were overwhelmingly complacent with how things were. And yet never get demonised at all for it. Because it’s Jiraiya’s fault for... not staying and giving it all up to be a guardian who could well be depressed and unfit to raise a child... or just being a flaky as hell one that’s never there anyway because he has shit to do? (and in doing the former would let too many things go unchecked by a completely tuned-out Hokage, not gathering all that spicy useful intel, y’know... essentially he wouldn’t have ended up largely doing his job along with the personal shit in between).

Basically when I see claims saying that Jiraiya as an individual should have done pretty much everything better, and somehow been there for everyone that needed him at any given time, and that (mostly Naruto’s) suffering was a failing on Just His part because of his selfish whims... I feel like the point of his tragedy is absolutely missed. That tragedy being that barrelling through things alone is definitely a failing and harmful in numerous ways, as we see with Itachi shouldering everything alone too, and we see them both miss out on Naruto and Sasuke as a result... but at the same time, is just settling down and leaving everything else to chance not also a huge failing, when there are so many other circumstances and enemies acting against you, when you do have the power to change tides, and when so many other people refuse to or can’t seize their own agency? Jiraiya does put his faith in a lot of people too, and a lot of people fail. Don’t fail him, but in a general sense many, like Minato, fail to make the change they wanted to. That’s life in this world, it’s tragic, and after losing a lot of loved ones yeah, he retreats and goes at it alone.

But how can he win? How does he do what’s right, other than by chasing what he thinks he can do to actually help the world, which happens to be bigger and not centred on individuals, even those he cares about?

(and remember, nobody knows Naruto is special-reincarnation-prophecy-boi, which is why I tend not to blame-game any characters for him being treated like so many orphans were because... while it’s not morally right or nice at all, it’s tone deaf to how the world is, to the fact all characters having different degrees of knowledge and priorities, and it’s insensitive of the fact most the characters had their own struggles and were just doing their best with a bad lot gdi).

Hell though, Jiraiya even does put Oro, his big obsessive wild goose chase that whisks him away into selfish pining hopelessly devoted land, on the back burner at points. Maybe not in a lasting way, particularly by the last databook where he’s inspired anew by Naruto, but he does prioritise other shit on numerous occasions. And there’s a lot of shit to try and prioritise.

What I’m trying to say is, Jiraiya can’t solely be held responsible for people. Sure, he’s a character whose decisions were pivotal to events, but what of every other character in the story? Why are they not held to the same crazy high standard of doing and protecting and preventing and somehow doing everything ‘right’ that would have also meant him fitting neatly into the Konoha mould? Would other characters really have been that much better in the position of The Big Guide/Martyr/Tragic Hero/Force For Change character? And also is having a tragic Chaotic Good bastard of a hero not a sign of a damn good and interesting character, that at the very least tried where so many others didn’t? Would Naruto not have been a boring as hell story, whose main protag didn’t really have much conflict to make him compelling, without Jiraiya (among others) being a mess with the best intentions? Without so many other characters having failed him, for him to overcome it and still be able to love and inspire change (albeit through sometimes-clumsy talk-no-jutsu)? Was I missing the point of the story?

............. Hmm!

No longer sure where else I’m going with this now, so.... here, I guess, ends my ode to why character hate (especially that reduces them to One Thing) is dumb, why demonising truly well-meaning characters doesn’t feel particularly woke to me in a cast full of flawed characters and horrible circumstance, and why I’ll defend this poor bastard with far too damn much hinging on him to the end I guess :’)

TL;DR HE’S A DUMBASS AND HE TRIED, OKAY?!

#i feel like this is like... about as bold as i'll get with this subject #{ooc}#{memoirs(headcanons)}#not sure about it being a headcanon as such but it does include some of mine so.... for now it can be #{long post}#{meta&analysis}

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daydreaming-jessi · 3 years

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Do u have any headcannons for the netherworld ensemble????

OH BOY DO I!!!

Ok so first off, Miss Argentina and Toaster Lady are wives, and I will not be taking any criticism thanks. Miss Argentina could honestly lead the whole department on her own, she’s VERY good at her job and wrangling people together to do tasks. If only Juno could see her capabilities and learned how to share her job. Argentina may be loud and brusque, hurrying to get her job done before things get backed up, but she is VERY kind, as we saw when she tried to convince Lydia to go home. She gained a new respect of life, and deeply regrets throwing hers away so carelessly. She’s also probably been around the netherworld the longest in the department, the only one that could beat her time is shrunken head guy, but he doesn’t remember exactly when he died, so Argentina gets the claim.

Shrunken head guy is no longer able to verbally communicate, and nowadays relies on sign language to get his message across. He’s in charge of security for the NCP department, as he was once the guy people went to when they wanted protection and a guide on their research trips to more remote locations of the world, but he’s kind of a big teddy bear. He was going to be a grandfather before he died, and deeply regrets going on a trip to Africa before seeing the birth of his grandkid. He doesn’t necessarily blame the people responsible for his death, the group he was with was trespassing on their land, but it still hurts to think about. He doesn’t really talk about himself, so few people know he even had a family, and it really is a shame, he has a lot of cool stories from all over the world.

I see toaster lady as someone shy and anxious, (thus why I call her shyanne, very clever me) and that she went through a very rough point in her life, leading her to suicide. She was never one for spooks, but now she is in the netherworld, land of creepy things, working in a towel (and a swimsuit I’m not CRUEL). It’s forced her to gain some confidence. She’s still very sweet, and acts very caring towards newly deads, when she’s not busy answering and connecting calls as the department’s secretary. Her coworkers tend to get very defensive for her, but she’s more than capable of giving someone a stern talking to if she thinks they’re doing something unfair.

Burned cigar man was actually a big business man before he died. What was his business? No one remembers. He acts like it was a big important thing, but it was one of those big important things you don’t really think about so no one really gets it and whenever he talks about his old job people get a glaze over their eyes and he ends up slinking off into a corner to sulk, chewing on his cigar grouchily because kids these days don’t respect business. He left behind a wife when he died, which he regrets very much. He didn’t die at home, thankfully, he died in a hotel on a business trip. Funny enough his doctor told him to cut back on smoking cigars, that they’d be the death of him. It’s a hilarious irony to him. He acts grouchy, but he does care, he’s just sweltering 24/7 due to his death u-u

Parachute Man used to be quite the thrill chaser. He was pretty used to sky diving, and got a bit too egotistical about it. He jumped off the plane before it was safe, and basically got beaten into a pulp by the trees. When he came to, he was standing next to his body, and had one second to get his bearings before a sandworm noticed a tasty ghost treat just standing around. He booked it, leaving behind his body and handbook with no idea of what was going on. He had a pretty rough time until a guide saved his hide and brought him to the netherworld. He now has a phobia of sandworms, and nearly faints just at the sight of black and white stripes. The jockey has had to apologize many times for causing him to pass out. His ego took a beating from the entire thing, and having to carry his parachute around or end up tripping on it keeps him from getting too cocky again. But there’s still a part of him that just craves adrenaline. A hard thing to come by in the Netherworld, surprisingly enough.

The Groom is still in denial about his death. He swears he loved his fiancé, he just had a moment of weakness! Had he been stronger he’d be alive and married to the love of his life. It’s pretty obvious that he wasn’t ready for marriage, or was even mature enough yet for such a commitment. He doesn’t like to talk about his beloved, for as much as he waxes poetics about the tragic end of their relationship, and gets pretty fed up with some of the antics younger workers in the department. The fireworks guy loves to tease him and rile him up. He likes to put on an act, that’s he’s all grand and wise, but really he’s just a 24 year old guy who hadn’t figured out his life yet, like most people his age. His ego won’t allow for that truth to come out though. He’s unofficially training under Miss Argentina to be a receptionist, and she likes him well enough, but she knows that he tends to take on more than he can handle if only to pretend that he knows what he’s doing. She won’t let him take over her job until he’s good and ready for it, lest he has a breakdown and the system backs up.

The exploded guy is the second youngest in the department, being only 19. Before he died, he was working at his uncle’s garage, saving up for college. He wanted to become an English teacher, he loved working with kids, having wrangled his cousins so much at family gatherings, and loved putting sentences together and breaking down the intent of writers and figuring out the symbolism of their works. He knows a lot about fixing things from his old job, and thus is in charge of keeping the department’s infrastructure up and running. He doesn’t mind it, he gets to explore all the nooks and crannies of the netherworld, and has had lots of fun adventures. He and the jockey are best friends, both love to pull pranks on the others, and lend each other a shoulder to cry on when they think about how much they didn’t get to do with their lives.

The jockey had spent her whole life working on becoming a horse jockey, even when people told her to give up. She dreamed of riding horses her whole life, since she grew up on a ranch. There aren’t a lot of female jockeys, but she worked hard to try and change that. Unfortunately she pushed her luck, whipped a thoroughbred, and ended up in the netherworld. Now she spends her days as a desk jockey, oh joy. She often finds herself bored and wanting to do SOMETHING, rather than the same boring routine of processing newlydeads into the netherworld, and so often goes out seeking trouble with exploded guy and parachute man on quite a few occasions. She’s used to people trying to belittle her, and isn’t afraid of getting right back in their faces and even using her whip if she has to. Being a jockey means she’s kind of a powerhouse. Racing horses is no easy job! People might underestimate her because she’s short and appears petite, but she can very easily flip you over should she want to.

There’s a whole team of college football players working as security in the netherworld, but three in particular work under shrunken head guy in the NCP department. They’re best friends, and when together, they become the stereotypical jock type you expect, they kind of just toss their brain cells away when they all hang out. But when separated their actual personalities shine through. There’s the one I call Vinny, the fullback, who wears a helmet to hide that he kind of lost a lot of his lower jaw, retaining only the bottom jawbone. When he speaks its a lot of clattering. People act like they understand him, and maybe they do? He’s the wisest of the three, being the oldest, and tends to keep an eye out for his boys, sort of acting like a mother hen to them, especially the youngest of the three, Carl. Carl, the running back, is actually a pretty good kid, being the youngest in the department at 18. He’s kind of quiet and meek, not really one to stand up for himself, and tends to do what people tell him too. It’s why he so recklessly follows his teammates around. If he’s not with his team, he’s usually around the younger workers of the department, usually the jockey and exploded guy. Then there’s Don, the quarterback. He’s the leader of the trio, and is pretty much stuck in his college frat mindset even though he was about to graduate college, and acting like the stereotypical jock bully. He likes to think of himself as a big alpha macho man, but he’s pretty sensitive of his friends, and will knock some heads together if someone tries to hurt them. He respects his elders, but everyone else is fair game to his peacocking. He tends to butt heads with a lot of the younger workers of the department, and ends up receiving the wrath of jockey and exploded guy’s pranks a lot.

There’s the general head canons I have for the netherworld ensemble, took a sec to write haha ^^ Thanks for the chance to ramble, anon! I’m more than happy to ramble even more if ya’ll have more questions

#long post #asks #anon #anonymous #beetlejuice #beetlejuice the broadway musical #beetlejuice broadway #beetlejuice the musical #netherworld ensemble #do they count as original characters if you’re giving unnamed characters a personality #headcanons

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heloflor · 4 years

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Ducktales S2 episodes thoughts

So I finally caught up with Ducktales, since I stopped watching in the middle of season 2, right after “Whatever happened to Della Duck”; and I’ve decided to share my thoughts on each episode of the post-hiatus S2 and the episodes of S3 we have so far. So here is season 2 for those who are interested, and yes, this post is going to be long (this is definitely not the most practical way to do it but I don’t want to make one post per episode) :

“Treasure of the Found Lamp!” : not much to say on this one, aside from the fact that this is probably an ‘’’excuse’’’ to show more of the Beagle Boys (when you think about it, these guys barely show up after S1) and that the character of Djinn is pretty cool; I like him.

“The Outlaw Scrooge McDuck!” : still a delight to see Scrooge and Goldie interact and see how these two are genuinely attracted to each other but their desire for gold prevent them from being together. Though honestly, you can’t convince me that they didn’t date at some point, unless one of the creators (*cough* Frank *cough*) says otherwise. I mean, in season 1, when Goldie is introduced, not only does Scrooge immediately calls her his ex but Goldie is also willing to kiss him 5 minutes into their first meeting in years. Seriously, in season 1, you can tell that these two know they are attractive to the other, they know the effect they have on each other, and it wouldn’t be surprising that they acted upon those feelings at some point, before betraying each other again. Hell, remember the best quote from this episode ?

“You love gold more than you loved me.”

“And that’s why you loved me.”

They’re literally admitting that they’re in love with each other, or at least loved each other at some point.

“The 87 Cent Solution!” : this episode did not age well. AT ALL. But this aside, the scene with Glomgold showing up during the funeral was one of the most hilarious things this show has done. And speaking of Glomgold, I really like how threatening he was in this. It shows that when he has a plan in mind and the right tools, he can really pull it off. We need more of Glomgold being clever like that (though I’ll admit he is pretty hilarious the way he is and in season 3 we have our lot of serious/threatening villains).

“The Golden Spear!” : And they were roomates ! But more seriously; speaking of threatening villains : Lunaris is amazing as a strategist villain ! I absolutely love the way he’s able to pass himself as the good guy and manipulate everyone to get what he wants, whether it be Della by asking her for the ‘blueprints’ or his own people by making Della a traitor to their eyes. Hell, even Penumbra is at a loss by the end of the episode and doesn’t seem to know whether she should obey or not. And speaking of Penumbra, her evolution throughout the episode is really great. I especially like how Della is just so oblivious to the hatred Penumbra has for her. Honestly this episode alone is definitely enough justification for the Penny/Della shippers.

As for the “B plot”, it was nice to see a bit more of Donald being a dad, especially with the kids starting to realize the impact their actions can have on him. Though, they made Donald such an interesting and tragic character in this show that I’m not that big of a fan of seeing him get hurt for laughs.

Oh and one last thing about Della : for some reason, that shot of her in the rocket, seeing the earth and crying while saying “mommy’s coming home” gets me very emotional every time I watch it. I think it’s because we know that she spent 10 years trying to get home to meet her kids, facing failure after failure; and finally, after all these hardships, she’s going back with nothing to stop her.

On the same note, Donald’s hope when seeing the rocket and his accidental launch were pretty heartbreaking.

“Nothing can stop Della Duck!” : Ok, first off, that intro. It is waaay too early in the episode for such feels and I love it ! Although, on one hand I’m a bit disappointed that the boys accept their mom so quickly (I expected a bit more heartbreak) but on the other hand it works because they all have a different reaction that truly fit with their personalities.

Secondly, the way Della is in this episode. It’s perfect. She’s not a mother, this is something the fandom had realized ever since “The Last Crash of the Sunchaser!”. Della had children too early, at a time when she was too immature for such responsibility. And her ten years on the moon, most of them in total isolation, didn’t help making her wiser. So now she’s back, still as immature, but now she has three kids to take care of; and she has no idea what she’s doing. Also, like some people already pointed out last year (or at least it probably was last year), Della doesn’t immediately know about Donald leaving the mansion for a decade. To her, the triplets grew up exactly like she did, hence why she doesn’t think her scary story would terrify them that much.

I also really like how Louie was and how Scrooge and Beakley handled the situation. I like how one of the kids wasn’t completely sold at the thought of their mom being back, and Louie works as the insecure triplet there. As for the adult characters, I love how they both knew that Della needed to learn how to be a parent but at the same time she just arrived, so they kept their distance to let her be with her kids while at the same time being close enough to act if something goes wrong.

Finally, it’s sweet to see how Della is truly willing to learn how to be a good parent, although the road is still very long, even in season 3.

“Raiders of the Doomsday Vault!” : Nothing much to say about the plot with Glomgold. It’s just Glomgold being Glomgold while Owlson and Scrooge are just done with his shit. As for Della and Dewey, it’s a great plot. We see Della trying to bond with her kids by doing what they like, and it was pretty obvious that Dewey would be the first on the list. After all, he was the first to wonder about his mom and they both share the same thirst for adventure. And it’s great to see how Della doesn’t know her kids’ abilities. So at first, she’s completely fine with putting Dewey in stressful situations; but by the end of it, she realizes how dangerous things are and what she could lose, while Dewey started to believe too much in himself due to what his mother told him, only realizing too late in which situation he put himself in.

So yeah, it was great to see Della discover what her kids are able to do during their adventures, especially their limits.

“Friendship Hates Magic!” : So, when I watched in 2017-2018, I didn’t really understand where the whole Lena/Webby came from; but seeing this now, I was definitely blind (and it didn’t help that I used to ship Webby and Dewey until I discovered Ace Att//orney and the ‘found siblings’ relationship between Edge//worth and Fran//ziska). Also I’m a bit split on Violet. Don’t get me wrong, she’s a good character and I do like how she got interested in studying magic and her personality in general. But at the same time her personality kind of rub me the wrong way, not in a “she’s evil” way but more a “I don’t like her” way. It’s weird.

As for the rest, it’s sweet how Webby tried to be more normal because she’s afraid to lose a new friend, and her reaction to seeing Lena again was adorable. Lena was also really sweet in how much she cares for Webby and wants her to be safe.

As for the B-plot, it was nice seeing Beakley and Launchpad get along, and it’s pretty clever how what brought them together was their liking for heroism.

“The Dangerous Chemistry of Gandra Dee!” : Firstly, the kids are still shippers, which is a nice touch.

Secondly, that scene with Beaks and the lasers was amazing. If the scene at Scrooge’s ‘funeral’ is the best Glomgold scene, then the scene with the lasers is the best Mark Beaks scene so far.

Thirdly, I’m pretty sure it’s safe to say that Launchpad is pansexual. I mean, if a person can date anyone regardless of species, then gender shouldn’t be much of an issue. Also Launchpad mentions in his ‘list’ a wereduck and a ninja, which are often considered as male (by that I mean that, while werewolves and ninjas can be both male/man and female/woman, when you think of one of them you’ll have a tendency to see them as masculine, because that’s how they are represented in media most of the time). He also mentions a clone of himself, so another same-sex relationship; and a talking cloud of energy, which I’m pretty sure doesn’t have a gender to begin with. So yeah. Pansexual Launchpad. Or at least non-straight Launchpad. And speaking of Launchpad, I like how he can tell that Fenton isn’t smooth at all and puts some music on to prevent the duo to be forced to talk; it’s a pretty sweet gesture. Honestly it’s great how Launchpad is often seen as a complete idiot but then you have those specific ‘fields’ in which he knows and lot and can really shine (*cough* the next episode *cough*).

Update after lurking on Tumblr : apparently there’s an LGBT+ Ducktales event and a member of the crew made an art about Launchpad and all the people he dated (including his clone and the cloud of energy and I love this person for adding this); and given the appearance of several of them, it’s clear that this guy is pan. By the way if you want to see the art just time “Ducktales love is like a hurricane” on Tumblr and you’ll find it.

Fourthly, the “It’s a date” song is great and catchy.

Fifthly, the fact that DR. Atmosphere feels insulted by Fenton not giving much effort really works with him being a reference to Doofenshmirtz. After all, in Phineas and Ferb, we see that Heinz is just a lonely guy who truly likes Perry and takes their relationship seriously, between writing his monologues to making big musical numbers to complain when Perry isn’t there at the right time (and yes, by season 4, being evil is more of a job to him than an actual wish to dominate the Three-State Area).

Finally, the heart of this episode : Fenton. This episode worked well in how it develops how Fenton views his new role as a popular hero. We especially see how he struggles to balance his two lives and his relationships, wishing to be liked for who he is as a person instead of as a hero. It’s also interesting how much work he does as a hero, to the point of not really caring anymore about being dramatic and saying catchphrases and all that yada-yada. His relationship with Gandra is also pretty nice, although it is very predictable and by the end of the episode, I’m not even sure if they do end up together ? Like, Gandra talks about a second date but it’s just a trick to get Fenton to say the code thing; and though she does help at the end and give Fenton the right ‘formula’ (she draws a molecule so yeah, formula) for his invention, she still leaves without much words and seems to have taken the original ball (I think ?). Though, the idea of them dating could be very interesting in regards of her afflictions with F.O.W.L.

“The Duck Knight Returns!” : so, first off, I never saw an episode of Darkwing Duck before seeing the recent fanart of the dt17 fandom. I more or less knew the show existed as a kid (there was a channel with old Disney shows in the early 2000s) because I remember there was another show than Ducktales that had Launchpad in it but I didn’t like his character at that time so I never watched. But I recently started watching and I have to say, the most surprising thing about it has to be the fact that Drake has a girlfriend because holy shit this show is gay ! Seriously ! Two guys, living together and raising a child together, having tons of domestic moments. Whoever wrote this show had no gaydar whatsoever ! And honestly this makes the whole thing hilarious. But shipping aside, the show’s pretty good. It has different villains with different goals and personalities, they decided to make the action cartoonish, which works well, and the show has some pretty good and hilarious quotes there and there. But what really makes this show a great one has to be the domestic moments, especially the relationship between Drake and Gosalyn. These two are adorable and their father/daughter relationship is both wholesome and feels realistic. On the same note, it’s great to see how a show from the 90s was breaking the gender norms not only by making a single father character (or, if you see Launchpad as a father figure too, you could say making two men be parents) but also by having a girl be a tomboy without it being seen as an issue by anyone (except for like one episode). So yeah, Darkwing Duck’s a pretty good show and if you like the duckverse and haven’t seen it yet, you should give it a watch !

Now, onto the actual Ducktales episode. It’s really great. I won’t talk much about it because pretty sure it’s been talked a lot already but yeah, it’s a great way to introduce Drake and give a backstory to Negaduck. Though my favorite thing about this episode has to be Launchpad. I love how he knows from the beginning that Jim’s plan is bad but still feels like he should roll with it because the guy’s his idol. I especially like the detail of Launchpad covering the eyes of the Scrooge logo while breaking into the studio. Also the “I’m trapped in a prison of guilt !” line. I also really like his interactions with Drake, especially at the end when he inspires him to become Darkwing. It really shows that, while Launchpad’s an idiot most of the time, when he’s truly passionate about something, a much more smooth and clever side of him shines (seriously during that part when he inspires Drake to become a hero, he sounds so smooth and yet it seems to come so naturally. And you can tell how much respect it makes Drake have for him with the way he looks at Launchpad when putting his hat on).

One last thing to say about this episode : there’s that scene right before Jim tries to trap Drake in which Dewey and Launchpad talk about how things are currently going for them; and when Dewey talks about how excited the whole ‘making a movie’ thing is for him, for some reason I absolutely love the animation of Dewey jumping into Launchpad’s arms while Launchpad tries not to drop him. I don’t know, it just feels really ‘fluid’ or something (I have no idea what’s the language for animation) but yeah, props to the animators for that moment.

“What Ever Happened to Donald Duck?!” : First off, the highlight of this episode is definitely the speech about Donald going to a therapist to control his anger. It’s simply amazing to have a children cartoon show a character having issues and deciding to deal with them in a healthy way, and it’s great to see Dewey realizing how much Donald does for him and his brothers and being touched by it. It’s also a great lesson about how you can’t make your anger magically disappear but you can work to deal with it in the best way possible.

As for the scenes on the moon, between Lunaris being extremely manipulative and planning everything, Penumbra trying to do what she believes is best and Donald’s determination to go home and parental instincts shining through, it was a really enjoyable episode. Not much to say about Dewey and Webby though. It’s just Dewey and Webby being Dewey and Webby.

“Happy Birthday, Doofus Drake!” : Doofus is still as terrifying as before, Goldie is still the same gold-driven robber as usual, Louie is still looking for an easy way to get rich, Glomgold is still doing weird schemes and Beaks is still relying on technology too much. So overall, not much to say aside from it’s a great and fun episode; the scene at the end with Scrooge and Louie is sweet and Boyd is a precious baby. Also I still love Goldie’s character and it’s great to see Doofus’ parents finally be free from their son’s creepy bullshit. Also also, seeing Della bond with Huey was really sweet, especially how she was willing for a while to stay with him and his garden despite how boring it was to her.

“A Nightmare on Killmotor Hill!” : again, not much to say. We get to see more of Violet’s character, along with what the kids dream of, which is a good way to reinforce their personalities but also their desires and fears (I especially like Dewey’s dream having him cry on the moon, it’s a great touch given that he spent an entire season trying to find more about his mom). And obviously, we get to see more of Lena and how afraid she is to be a bad person. I also like how it’s unclear by the end whether or not she can control her magic, which left room for season 3 to expand upon. It’s also great how by the end of the episode, her biggest comfort didn’t come from her friends but from seeing by herself the state in which Magica currently is. I don’t know why but I’d say it makes the whole thing more realistic ? Like, there’s only so much friends can do to help you, but seeing your abuser being in a terrible state is a much more direct proof that there’s nothing to fear.

“The Golden Armory of Cornelius Coot!” : again, not much. It’s a classic fun episode with the kids trying to solve a mystery while some bad guys are on their tail. Though, I really like the whole thing with Webby trying to be more like Della, with Della starting to be a bit of a mom to her. I also liked seeing Della and Launchpad interact more and it’s still funny to see how the ship that so many people liked in season 1 is slowly fading away as we see Della having a hard time accepting Launchpad and as we have Tumblr remember how much it likes gay ships with the introduction of Penumbra and Drake (by the way, I’m not saying that Della/Launchpad is a bad ship; it’s just that I find it funny to see how quick a fandom is to change their opinion on shipping, especially when ‘gay options’ are created).

Although, Della felt a bit uncharacteristically cold and aggressive towards Launchpad, especially when compared to how she was with Dewey in “Raiders of the Doomsday Vault!”. But I guess it has to do with how she felt like Launchpad replaced her, making her more protective over her plane and her talent as a pilot.

“Timephoon!” : so I have no memory of Bubba (the caveman duck) from the old Ducktales so I can’t compare him. But from what I’ve seen in this episode, he’s fine. Not the best character but he works as a one-off character and I wouldn’t mind a cameo or two in the future (as long as it’s not an entire episode focused on him because that would get boring pretty quickly).

Now, for the rest of the episode, I want to talk about Della, because she’s clearly the most interesting part here. Della was gone for a decade, she barely knows anything about her kids, especially the mischiefs they can get into, and that’s what the episode plays into. Della discovers that her kids don’t just get into danger from adventuring, they can put themselves in danger, more or less voluntary. And the way she reacts to it (along with the season finale) makes it feels like Donald and her never or rarely got into these kinds of situations, although Beakley’s line near the end of the episode might say otherwise. And speaking of which, I really appreciate how Scrooge and Beakley were when Della scolded Dewey. At first, Beakley was ready to step in when Louie made the comment of Della not being better than him; but Della made it clear that she needed to do it on her own. And afterwards, we see both Scrooge and Beakley respect her decision and staying silent as Louie is pleading them to step in. They know that Della needs to learn to be a good mother so they respect and support her decision. Though, if you search the name of the episode on Tumblr, there’s a post about how Della went too far given her current relationship with Louie, though it isn’t her fault as she doesn’t know him enough. You should try finding this post, it’s definitely worth giving it a read ! And yeah, there’s also a lot of other posts talking about the issue with much more analysis than I do so if you’re interested, go read the discourse on Tumblr.

“GlomTales!” : first off, they used the takeover as the intro and I love every second of it !

Secondly, Della….yikes. Yeah. Grounding Louie was the right decision to make but forcing him to stay trapped in a room with a dangerous robot guarding him and ‘taunting’ him with recordings telling him about how much he fucked up, all the while the rest of the family is in vacation in a place he dreamed of visiting…I think you get the point. They went way too far with the punishment, so it’s no surprise when Louie wants to join the bad guys who let him do all the scheming he wants. And while Della accepted his personality more by the end of the episode, these two still need to connect more.

Speaking of the bad guys, they were pretty fun in this episode. I like how their different personalities and knowledge led them to act with each other. I especially liked Magica trying to get back her former glory and overstepping on Glomgold for the role of leader, Glomgold who is still as dramatic and dumb as ever while having actually smart schemes and I love it.

“The Richest Duck in the Word!” : while the structure of the episode was pretty cliché (character suddenly has tons of powers but doesn’t realize the responsibilities that go with it), the ending with Louie and Scrooge was really sweet and satisfying. Honestly the season is supposed to be about Louie having a company and yet he and Scrooge didn’t have that many interactions (they still had some, but they could have more) so it’s really sweet to see them solve an issue linked to Scrooge’s company together.

And let’s not forget that Owlson finally stood up for herself and quitted (good for her honestly, she deserves a job where she can be happy and get what she wants done) and that Launchpad actually managed to land a plane without crashing (and it’s not even acknowledged !).

“Moonvasion!” : the season finale, aka the one that should have its own post. You know what ? I’ll put the review here and, eventually, I’ll split it into its own post if it’s requested.

So, Moonvasion. Where to start. Ok, first off, it was an amazing episode. Just like the first finale, this was possibly the best episode of the season (depending of your point of view though, tastes and expectations are different). It was great to see so many characters come together and fight together, all with different fighting methods. I especially like Fenton’s mom being a protective badass, Beakley being a total badass and Gyro with his clone army (I especially love his line when everyone is debating on what to do and he’s like “Simple. Clone. Army.”. I just love the delivery here).

Secondly, I really like how they expended on Della there. As we’ve seen in previous episodes, Della still doesn’t know her kids and their abilities; so in the face of danger, she’d rather flee to protect her. On the other hand, Donald trust the kids to defend themselves and immediately starts strategizing with them. And speaking of Donald, I love how they acknowledge how much and how well he took care of the kids with the line about Della’s lullaby. In general, that entire sequence on the island with the twins and their kids (no incest intended) was probably the best part of the episode, along with the big fight with everyone and that “Hey kids.” line from Scrooge near the end. Oh yeah, and also the space fight with the moon theme playing and the family working together with the twins fighting and Scrooge being happy to have his angry babies back. This entire sequence was also amazing. And when Penumbra shows up, I love how she’s using the original spear of Selene. Again, just like last finale, the crew outdid themselves.

Another thing that I can praise here is Glomgold. I really love how they made his weird schemes work out. I also love how not only did he do this to help but he also used the situation to spite Scrooge by trolling him. Also earth baby jail. Just earth baby jail.

And speaking of strategists, I absolutely adore Lunaris in this episode. This guy was truly prepared for anything Scrooge could send him and it’s great.

Another character that I’d like to mention in this episode is Drake. Basically, watching the episode again, I’m pretty sure that guy has no fucking clue on what to do. I mean, we see him show up at Launchpad’s place at the beginning of the invasion, then he’s at the meeting with the others and gives ideas that show he’s much more on the theatrics parts of being a hero, which is fitting with him being an actor (side note that I forgot to mention earlier : I really appreciate that they made Drake an actor. It really fits with how overly dramatic he was in the old show; and it could play with his ego as well, though DT17 Drake doesn’t seem to have that big of an ego). Then, before the giant fight, he’s on a car with Launchpad and once Scrooge takes his place in it, Drake still holds onto it. And by the end of the second act, he’s trying to fight with Launchpad helping him. In other words, Drake spends the entire episode glued to Launchpad. So personally, I interpret it as Drake not really knowing what to do so, since Launchpad is the one who inspired him to be a hero in the first place and is the only one taking him seriously, Drake is going to try to stay with him and have him as support. And yeah, overall, the joke about nobody knowing who the fuck Drake is was pretty hilarious.

Finally, because no episode is perfect, here’s a few details that, while not making the episode any less amazing, still bother me a bit.

- When Della left Duckburg on a gigantic plane, how come no Moonlanders tried to follow her ? Hell, we know they came to her specifically and we see later that Lunaris was able to see her position; so what gives ? And even when they’re in Egypt, though I can understand why they wouldn’t try to follow since they only have one ship. But still, Della was able to fly for possibly hours before getting attacked, and they only got attacked because they landed on a place that was about to be invaded !

- What happened to Drake after he fainted ? Like, don’t get me wrong, I understand while we stop seeing him. After Scrooge see the landing of the ship, we get into the third act, which seems to take place a few hours after the previous scene (given that several characters changed clothing and it started freezing). And I know that, since it’s the third act, they only wanted the main characters to play a role. But still, one minute we see Drake faint into Launchpad’s arms and the next Launchpad arrives alone saying everyone was captured. So what happened to Drake ? I see three possibilities, all with a few flaws : A) Launchpad ditched Drake/the two split up. Let’s be honest, this didn’t happen. Launchpad would never let an injured person behind, especially not someone he admires so much. B) Launchpad tried to find a safe place to hide Drake so that the guy can rest; but given that they’re in an invasion, finding such a spot could be very hard. C) During the time between the two acts, they got attacked by Moonlanders and either Drake was too weak to fight and got captured or he basically sacrificed himself so that Launchpad can go try to find Scrooge; with a “He needs you more than me” move. But, again, it would feel weird for Launchpad to abandon someone but then again, if it’s for the sake of everyone by trying to find his boss, I guess it could happen. This scenario would even fit with the “everyone got captured” line. Though, if Launchpad and Drake got attacked which led to them being separated, then we were robbed of a perfectly good action scene !

- There’s a shot at some point where you can see Doofus and his family and I have two questions there : 1. Why are the parents still wearing the maid outfits (and why do they keep doing it in season 3) ? and 2. Can’t Boyd do anything to help them ? Like, I know he believes he’s a real boy but that doesn’t stop him from having some pretty powerful defense mechanisms.

Update (before the post was made; I know) : so I ended up wasting 4 hours of my life reading all of Frank’s answers that I hadn’t seen yet (the things asperger makes you do…) and apparently Doofus burned his parents’ other clothes. Still doesn’t explain Boyd tho.

- During the fight in space, when the Duck family started to lose, they took a few damages before finding themselves behind the rocket. So, if they were to take damage anyways, why couldn’t Della immediately pull them on the side to get out of the way instead of heading to certain doom ? And yes I completely understand that it was a very stressful situation so she did the first thing she had in mind. Honestly that last flaw is the one that bothers me the less in a characters’ standpoint, though it still feels like plot convenience.

So that’s all for season 2 ! Again, I could put the finale on its own post if requested. As for season 3, it’d be in a second post. This one is long enough. The post for season 3 will most likely be split in half, with the last episode talked about depending on which episode airs last before the post is made.

#Ducktales #Ducktales 17 #dt17 #Ducktales season 2 #dt S2 #Flor talks #not gonna tag all episodes #or characters

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alexcat45 · 4 years

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Fanfiction meme

1. From one to five stars, how would you rate your writing? (No downplaying yourself!)

Well, from 2-4 and every now and again, I hit 5.

2. Why do you write fanfiction?

I love to write and in fanfiction, I can explore the characters I love and not spend all my time building a world.

3. What do you think makes your writing stand out from other works?

I am a one shot smut and/or angst writer with a love of humor, too.

4. Are there any writers that inspire you?

Annie Proulx's writing is perfect. I'd like to write like her.

5. What’s the fic you’re most proud of?

Tie Your Heart to Mine

- my own Endgame.

6. What element of writing do you find comes easily?

Love scenes - I like to write smut.

7. What element of writing do you struggle with most?

Long plots - I tend to write seat of the pants so long plots are not my strong suit.

8. Which character(s) do you find easiest to write?

Steve Rogers

9. Which character(s) do you find most difficult to write?

Clint Barton

10. What’s your favorite genre to write for?

Angst maybe

11. Who or what do you find yourself writing about most?

Steve Rogers

12. Tell us about a WIP you’re excited about.

I'm working on a 10K+ thing as a Timely fix-it. I LOVE the old West.

13. First fandom you ever wrote for?

CATS and none of them exist.

14. What’s your favorite fandom to write for?

Right now, MCU.

15. What’s the weirdest fandom you’ve ever written for?

I did a My Little Pony Drabble once.

16. Any guilty pleasure trope(s)?

Virgin Steve Rogers, first times.

17. A trope you’ll never, ever write for.

A|B|O I think - is it a trope. I also don't care for bondage and BDSM.

18. Wildest fic you’ve ever written?

Not sure what WILD means but MLP hinted at porn.

19. Do you prefer canon-compliant, AUs, or something in-between?

I like canon compliant in the big picture but perhaps different pairings and divergent elements, though I have read some really great AUs.

20. Gen fic or shippy stuff?

I like to write smut but I am not shippy so much as a romantic. I like my favorites to love a lot of others, so i write lots of one shots.

21. Favorite pairing to write for? (platonic or romantic!)

3 actually, maybe 4 -

Steve Rogers/Tony Stark - MCU and other Marvelverse

Steve Rogers/Natasha Romanov - MCU and other Marvelverse

Gimli/Legolas - Tolkien

Holmes/Watson - most any Sherlock Holmes fandom that I am familairr with.

22. Do you listen to anything while you write?

Not often. I do listen for titles and themes.

23. Do you prefer prompts and challenges, or completely independent ideas?

I love, love, love prompts and challenges.

24. One-shots or multi-chaptered works?

Normally once shots

25. Have you ever daydreamed about side adventures/spin-offs from your fic?

Little bit now and again.

26. Is there anything you’ve wanted to write, but you’ve been too scared to try?

Not really. I even did some BDSM writing years ago.

27. What’s the nicest comment you’ve ever received?

well, a long time ago, a young woman told me I was her influence to write and even had photos of all my work that she had printed and put into binders. She considered me one of her first influences.

Some readers love my Brock Rumlow because he's a tragic hero instead of all bad guy.

28. How well do you handle criticism when it comes to your writing?

I don't get a lot. Sometimes you get the 'your ship is wrong' at Ao3, but I normally delete those.

29. Have you ever gone outside of your comfort zone for a fic? How did it turn out?

I did. I wrote a very dark RP fic about obsession, possession and physical and mental torture.

30. Tooth-rotting fluff or merciless angst?

Both! I love love and sweetness BUT life is often full of pain.

31. Do you have any OCs? Tell us about them!

I have one or two in Tolkien who I am fond of -

Bellothia - Thranduil's cook

Araval - lover of Elrond's sons (This fic is not available right now)

And I have a Mary Sue who hasn't been published yet named Annie, who is in love with Steve Rogers.

#writing #meme

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kendrixtermina · 4 years

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Sigh. Chibnall.

Jodie Whittaker and demographic realism

So I want to make clear that I have no problems whatsoever with Jodie Whittaker’s performance - the character seamlessly kept walking across the screen, she has great energy, love the steampunk goggles.

Honestly I’ve always believed that giving existing characters a demographic change is not really as revolutionary or helpful as ppl think; New characters and stories (esp. told by writers of those samedemographics) solve the problem much better. Keeping specificity is often better than losing it, and the character still has a background (from an “advanced” civilization that used to do dirty deeds and is still kind of uppity attitudes, a character who’s decided to be against that attitude but still needs to be knocked own from the occasional uppity moment; It makes sense for them to look like a british dude, and they have the freedom to go wherever problems like sexism and racism don’t exist so... ), and will be linked to its origin. But at worst something that will look dated in a few years like the 80s outfits, the show’s done dated and crowdpleasing before; There’s no hard reason not to do it and I expected no quality dip.

It certainly worked as as attention grab, the premiere drew a lot of attention but that only lasted as long as it took for the reviews to go sour. But one of the main good things its proponents said could come of it was to help the lack of female anti heroes. So far she really didn’t get to anti hero much; It’s not Whittaker, it’s the scripts.

I want to make this clear: Varied demograpics are good;

This is why I kind of hate the term “diversity” is one of those vague euphemisms if you mean “demographic representation”, “social equity” or “demographic realism” just say that.

In a way this is a good thing, it used to be only the best boldest writers who could get away, noadays it has become acceptable to have varied casts. And that’s how it should be artshouldn’t have to have to pass some arbitrary quality standard to simply reflect reality. But as the rebootverse and star trek discovery should’ve proved realistic demographics can’t replace good writing. Sometimes lack of realistic demographis is associated with bad writing because both come from play-it-safe more-of-the-same consummerism focussed sameyness, often someone who goes against the formulas has a solid vision which makes them good, and focussing on ignored topics and perspectives can yield new ideas (consider stuff like Wonder Woman, Get Out, Black Panther... which were just good, novel movies) but you could have a super interesting memorable story where everyone is a medieval european monk, but the characters are differentiated by personality, attitude, beliefs, or something where the cast ticks all sort of all demographic boxes but the characters are 1D and the story trite and predictable

On the one hand you get those gamergate adjacent fanboys who make “diversity” and “good writing” out to be enimical opposites and then you have the purists/antis who treat any critique of writing to be founded in having something against realistic demographics. You need both!

Series 11

There were good things about it: An attempt at leastto do more of your classic thought provoking space operas or going back to the shows’ pulp fiction roots, covering some historic periods/topics other than the classic historical fiction tropes (they got a pakistani writer, had Yaz and Ryan discuss social topics among themselves etc.), the emotional story centered around this family coping with a loss, having Ryan sort of be the “main” companion and the one the rest of the team is protective of

But overall the reason I didn’t rush to watch s12 as soon as it came out is that it was a bit... bland. The team interacted mostly with each other; The Doctor had more charge with one shot characters like King James or the Solitract than she really did with the companions. Graham was such a missed opportunity. Remember how everyone loved the dynamic with Wilfred? No attempt to strike a bond over how they’re the older party members, or the professional xenophile trying to nudge the bilbo baggins like reluctant hero? We’re told the Doctor really likes Yaz, and I believe it cause she always liked people like that, but are we shown?

For all that Moffat and RTD were very different writers with different strenghts and weaknesses, both were very character-driven writers, and that was really missing here a bit.

Some ppl said they didn’t give Yaz enough screentime or personality - but the thing is, they did try. They just failed. They let her make little remarks here and there about her homelife, they just never really assembled into a whole beyond buzzwords and inspirational platitudes and the Standard Companion Traits. I didn’t get a read on what she’s about or who she’s like until the pakisan episode where she unlike Barbara, Donna etc. immediately accepted that the past can’t be changed. Ah, I finally thought, she’s a very responsible dutiful person.

Everything lacks edges and defining moments.

So far, I didn’t sweat it. I though, ok, not everything can be the high-concept character driven spec fic epic type of story that is my personal favorite. Every time there was some addition to the mythos in any way someone cried ruined forever. When the time lords first appeared. When the time war was introduced.

The classics too were lower on the character driven ness; Still good pulp fiction content. (imho the character concepts themselves were often pretty good, just not used to the fullest and some of the actresses were treated crappy backstage)

I thought “okey, it wouldn’t be good to break with the tradition of making the sussequent incarnations contrasting”

I did think that there was much liberty with the additions which the others did do only towards the end when it feltmore earned, but, the addition of say, sisters, isn’t too disruptive

Series 12 and the Timeless Child Nonsense

The frustrating thing about this is that it COULD have been good.

The Master teaming up with the cybermen to try and take over Gallifrey is precisely the sort of story the classics would’ve done.

“Your society is founded on a shady secret and exploitation of the innocent” is a good plot twist especially in these times. The Master finding that secret and using it to his advantage - also very him.

Imagine what it could have been like if it had been approached from the perspective of someone who, for all that they were a rebel, still sort of profited from being part of that society, someone who wants to take responsibility for that past and would maybe have to make some tough choice to let the exploitation victim go because it’s right even if it has cosequences for themselves and their civilization.

but then you ruin that by immediately taking the protagonist out of that society. They and they alone are the victim.

like this plot could have been good except for the twist that the Doctor and the timeless child are the same.

Not connecting it to existing lore about the earlier war game days, everything with Omega and Rassilon, that bit about the Time Lord becoming what they were through exposure to the untempered schism... that might be forgiven. Even if it does stretch the suspension of disbelief that every single piece of sci fi scanning equipment in the show didn’t pick anything up; Not to mention that it destroys the stake on every heroic sacrifice or death prophecy plot, every time a companion or oneshot character took the bullet, the whole “out of regens” plot...

This is not me being mad about things being added or changed, but this being done in such a way that undermines the philosophy, the whole flavor...

Yes, the MC is mysterious, the 7th Doctor arcs did a lot with this etc. but doesn’t spelling something out this clear not deplete rather than add to that? It#s a definite answer even if the final origin isn’t clear.

But they’re so much else.

The trickster hero accomplishing great deeds with planning, guile, improvisation and duct tape, the implicit value that ressourcefulness trumps raw power.

The rebel, different because they chose to be or made themselves to be such through their adventures, sticking to their own values in a close-minded society - who embodies & encourages thinking for yourself in every situation and universal plot, who battles enemies like the Daleks and Cybermen that represent comformity

Yeah they have many names yeah they take out gods... but all this was the result of their actions & path in pursuit of knowledge, and also, as Moffat once stated, the funny part is that behind all the fearsome reputation is wit and duct tape.

The fish in a small pond who started out a misfit, failed their tardis driving exam... etc. and often made a point that they didn’t want immortality or endless godlike power. That’s meaningless if they had it to begin with.

The explorer who wanted to see more than their corner of the world.

The ANTI HERO that’s made alltogether too tragic here, too absolved from their uppity civilization

All that is wiped away if they were this special creature to begin with.

Where WAS the philosophy, rly? The big humanist speeches that made me love the show.

Going Forward

So I think - I HOPE - that this in particular will be treated like the “half human” thing from the TV movie or the now josses additional origin stories from the audios, or be handwaved under the “you cant get it wrong cause everything is in flux” carpet

It’s the Master effing with her to pay her back for the half broken chameleon arch thing.

It’s possible the Child actually existed, long dead or trapped somewhere - again, dirty mystery at the bottom of a stck-up society is a good twist. but this shouldn’t be more than another maybe in the multiple choice past not a definite answer.

Also, i hate this line of thought but I can’t stave it off: Why is is now that the MC looks female that we get this vulnerable, passively victimized tomato surprise rather than something with an ugly but definite choice in it.

I will probably ignore it - parts of me resents this cause “your civilization is based on a lie” could be such a good plot twist (then again the existing twists to that end from the classics and End of Time do enough rly) but if i have to choose between that and the basic meaning of the character....

#Doctor Who #timeless child #chris chibnall

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