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tailsrevane · 3 years

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[movie review] godzilla vs. king ghidorah (1991)

y’know what? this one is surprisingly good!

okay, kind of a weird thing for me to say about a godzilla movie considering how much i love the series as a whole.

basically, this one didn’t leave much of an impression last time–which, admittedly, i was running through a crazy marathon of watching basically all of the godzilla movies for the first time in the space of i think less than a week? i had just started getting into kaiju movies and i immediately fell in love, so there was a breathless “now, now, NOW” excitement about getting through the whole series that i don’t really regret. unfortunately as a result there were definitely a few that ended up kind of blurring together in a “yeah, that was good, what’s the next one?” kind of space. watching them on their own and only thinking about them as individual movies is just almost always gonna do them some pretty big favors.

i’ve also just never been the biggest fan of king ghidorah? i recognize his importance in the series and i think he’s often a good antagonist, he just isn’t really as much of an intrinsic draw for me in the way a lot of other kaiju are?

... a particular guy being a “draw” is a thing that gets talked about a lot in wrestling. as longtime readers may have noticed, it’s hard for me to not occasionally frame these movies in wrestling terms.

and on top of that, this movie has godzilla as a baddie and mecha-king ghidorah swooping in to save the day!! i hate that!! like, despite my mostly-indifference towards him i think ghidorah works fine as a godzilla antagonist, but having him as the good guy and godzilla as the bad guy is just never really gonna work for me.

so yeah, that plus the ridiculous time-travel plot were basically the main things i remembered about the movie. and the ridiculous time-travel plot was a point in its favor for me, but not really enough on its own for me to look back on it as one of the better ones. so, yeah! i didn’t really know what to expect upon revisiting it.

plus one of my concerns before doing these rewatches was that i might be overrating the heisei era movies slightly just because of the drastic increase in production values, but honestly? that drastic increase matters.

there are some shots of godzilla’s maw in this that are gonna make anyone with even the slightest inclination towards vore blush, and the increased facial articulation lets him emote so much more without like literally having to do a jig or whatever. it just really opens up how much he can be characterized. and even though that characterization is still gonna be broad, obvious wrestling-adjacent stuff, those little details still really help. like, when godzilla’s pissed, he looks pissed. the music and dialogue don’t have to do as much heavy lifting.

the music!! this installment represents legendary composer ifukube akira’s return to the series for the first time since terror of mechagodzilla. as well as the first time he’s worked on an entry not helmed by honda ishirō!

something that really jumped out at sonic was that he added some much more sinister undertones to his cheerful military march that’s always playing whenever the toy tanks come out. it’s a really nice touch. and i really appreciate how much of his original work he brings in and reworks. there’s some really interesting uses of his original godzilla theme throughout the film. ifukube will go on to score the remainder of the films of the heisei era, save for godzilla vs. spacegodzilla, so it’ll be cool to keep an eye on how the music in the rest of them stacks up!

maybe ifukube’s music plays a large part in why this one feels like such a return to the glory days of the honda ishirō-helmed monster mashes, but i like to think that honda himself was damn proud of the titular slobberknocker between godzilla, king of the monsters and false king ghidorah. (i said what i said. wanna make something of it, ghidorah stans?)

it’s unfair to compare this fight to honda’s given the inherent advantages the technology available to this movie had (... and to be honest i was never really in love with any of their shōwa era confrontations), but this has got to be one of the best fights between these two ever. ghidorah gets in some great offense, at one point literally stomping on godzilla and later wrapping his necks around godzilla and choking him out.

… yesOKAYfine, i have some less than pure reasons for enjoying all that, but please trust me when i say that it was a legitimately good fight? and after godzilla manages to fight out of the chokehold he decides that he’s just capital-D done with ghidorah’s bullshit and beats him the fuck down before savaging him with his atomic breath, leaving him less one head and plus one massive hole in his wing.

i don’t necessarily mind the development that godzilla then goes and stomps the fuck out of sapporo en route to tokyo. especially given that it’s one of the better city destruction sequences in a series chock full of good (and occasionally but rarely bad) city destruction sequences.

the sequence of shindō waiting for godzilla in his office at the top of a skyscraper in the city he helped rebuild is… something else. there’s a moment of recognition between the two, i think one of the first times in the series that godzilla acknowledges an individual human? and shindō just nods meaningfully to godzilla before godzilla destroys him (and the building he’s in) with an atomic breath ray.

… okay this isn’t usually how the wrestling stuff is incorporated (it’s usually just kaiju-to-kaiju interactions that fall into these patterns) but that is so wrestling? i’ve seen that shit in so many retirement matches. and not even just retirement matches. i feel like something similar happened in the triple h/undertaker hell in a cell match at wrestlemania 28, and more recently in aew when hangman page was about to beat kenny omega for the aew world championship in front of the young bucks he hesitated before delivering the final buckshot lariat before receiving a nod of acknowledgement from matt jackson who was in a position to interfere in the match but chose not to.

I’M SORRY THESE MOVIES ARE MORE THAN WRESTLING BUT THEY ARE ALSO JUST NOT NOT WRESTLING. I AM NOT FORCING THIS OR MAKING THIS UP, THEY’RE JUST… THEY’RE JUST SO WRESTLING, AND I LOVE IT!

and then emmy swoops in from the future and saves the day by piloting mecha-king ghidorah like a godsdamned zord and i hate it conceptually but damned if it isn’t kinda great in execution?

i’ve barely talked about any of the human characters in this but honestly sending them off on a time-traveling adventure is a great move because the human stuff is usually at its best when it’s more about the kaiju-related Stuff they’re given To Do rather than trying to make them intrinsically interesting. the humans in a kaiju movie are basically never gonna be intrinsically interesting. i’m sorry. they have to compete with KAIJU.

perfect example, actually. miki returns for her second of six movies and she… well, she… uh… she sure is there!

but, yeah. like i said, the human characters are deployed exactly the way i’d ideally like them to be. there’s certainly other directions you can go occasionally that work, but i think this is a pretty good default position. the only approach i like even better is when the human characters are marginalized even more and doing basically nothing but reacting to what the kaiju are doing and the kaiju are onscreen for a majority of the movie.

anyway, yeah! godzilla vs. king ghidorah. right now it’s just inside of my top ten. it’s unlikely to stay there given some of the movies that are coming up later in this gradual marathon, but it’s still a lot more memorable than i remember it being. yes, i phrased it that way on purpose.

what’s that? you want me to talk about this movie’s kinda awkward politics? yeah, that makes sense given my usual approach. so, yeah. as an american, i think the thing i can say about that is

a-rank

#godzilla #godzilla vs king ghidorah #kaiju #movie review #movies #reviews #king ghidorah #thirst

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docholligay · 2 years

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How was watching video essays? Also what ones did you watch?

I keep forgetting to answer this!

So, I am not a video essay person. Trapped on a plane is usually what gets me to watch things, because I ALWAYS drill through the book I brought, and I rarely have two in my carryon because I'm stupid. @relevantbunny has known me for...ever, and so when she made me a playlist of video essays to download, she was the one person I trusted enough to give several hours of my time on this, which should tell you in what high esteem I hold her.

So I watched many! This actually helped me figure out WHY I am not a video essay person! Which I find valuable, I like knowing what my deal is.

Thing one is extremely simple: I have a lot of trouble paying attention to a video and would rather read an article. This meeting could have been an email. I could already be fucking done with this.

Thing two is more about my discomfort with the move to video over writing as a whole, and I managed to figure it out: Even in the world of analysis, everything has to be as slickly produced as a movie. People need to be attractive--poor Ellis is fucking made up for the gods in her videos--and they need to have pleasant voices. You need expensive equipment, time to not only write out these thoughts, but also to multi-jump cut edit your video, and make sure to add "natural" advertising so it can't be skipped. I do not care for it as a move. Lots of people, lots of SMART FUCKING PEOPLE, are going to be left out because word processing is easy, video editing is hard, and they aren't good looking, or don't have a nice voice.

ANYWAY THE VIDEOS THEMSELVES. I won't talk about all of them, there were a lot, just the ones that really stuck with me for one reason or another

Kondo Culture: Fall of the House of Stuff I actually really liked this one. I was annoyed and baffled by the blowback to Marie Kondo being like, "Fuck man do you even like this thing? Or are you just keeping it because?" (polite though) I appreciate so much how this video goes into the idea of performance as reality, and how our stuff helps us perform as the person we want to show ourselves being, and SPECIFICALLY goes into people's ridiculous-ass hoarder bullshit with books, because reading is about status, and performing as a reader even if you not read is important to people. This is how people who read 3 books a year end up with huge bookshelves in big public rooms, because it's about PERFORMING as a reader. Great video.

Tomatoes: Or, how Not to talk about Art: This put its finger on something I've been struggling to articulate for a long time! I don't know that I agree, more than this video itself, with every argument that could be made FROM it, but it's a really thoughtful and pretty brief discussion about art, and games, and things we struggle to define. The last 1:30 especially, I loved, though I wish we could have springboard into: "What we mean when we talk about 'good'" which is a whole discussion in which I am very very interested.

Control, Anatomy, and the Legacy of the Haunted House: Friend needs to be more versed in horror before trying to attack a topic like this WHOO. I'm not even saying "I disagree categorically with everything he says" I just kept going, "OKay but what about--and what do you think about the subversion of that in--" etc etc etc but he just doesn't have the even what I would consider classic base for this conversation. It mostly, I think, was a video made to tell the world, "I fucking loved Anatomy and y'all should play it" and you know what? I am not a video game person, and I kinda want to play it. So, success on that front.

NUance in Kpop: The good, the bad, and the problematic: I don't know anything about Kpop. It's not for me. I've listened to a little bit of it, and it's just not a style I'm into. BUt I know it's a HUGE fucking thing for people, and so this video was a really good overall for a cliff notes of the various issues within kpop and the fandom, and also a really fantastic conversation about...how we're allowed to like things that are kinda..shitty? Which I wish was more of a fucking conversation JESUS.

The Revisionist World of Disney: Mary Poppins, Walt Disney, and Saving Mr. Banks: I had no idea why Bunny picked this for me, as I’m not really a Disney adult wrought large, and I don’t care all that much about Mary Poppins, but in a lot of ways the video is about personal historical revisionism and stories and why we make stories the way we do. It was interesting!

The Green Knight: The Uncanny Horror of Masculinity: OKay so full disclosure I think about the Green Knight all the fucking time. It’s one of my favorite movies in a very particular way where I don’t necessarily find it ENJOYABLE, but discussing it in a literary way is one of my favorite things. It’s one of the few movies I’ve ever seen that made me feel the way a good book does. So, let’s go into this discussion with that knowledge.

I think arguing what the Green Knight is ABOUT is good sport, but ultimately not ANSWERABLE. That’s part of what I like about it. So I’m going to say he’s wrong a lot, but also, maybe not.

It is HILARIOUS to me that I can enjoy watching a video so much, and disagree with so much of it, and be so frustrated that I can’t enter into conversation about it. I think Nathan is dead-ass wrong in so much of this fucking video about what The Green Knight symbolizes, he cares way too fucking much about what happens to Gawain at the end, missing the forest for the trees, and somehow never manages to bring up so so many fucking things that the movie is about, or brings in. It’s such a shallow treatment of the film even if I think its an interesting premise for the video. I’d have to watch more of his videos (And unless I’m on a plane, I likely won’t) in order to be like “Is this a HIM thing, or a this VIDEO thing?” We all sometimes whiff it.

I love the idea that its shot like a horror movie, and, I think he goes into a really meaningful and interesting conversation about the performance of masculinity, though I think he misses a few opportunities here and I disagree vehemently that “Unless you’re trans you’ve probably never thought about this” but I think that’s my perspective as being a part of butch-femme culture and community, where how I perform femininity is very intentional and thoughtful. I agree that a lot of people don’t really think about how they perform gender. So maybe I’m actually just being nitpicky there, fair enough.

But ultimately, and, I don’t know if it’s that his knowledge with the base of Arthurian mythos was probably gleaned from other videos on youtube, but he still tries to bring it in (and I would argue you CAN separate a lot of it from) or if it’s just, he gets really married to what he thought the movie was going to be--in full fairness he does mention that its bad form for a critic to editorialize like he does, and we all do it--and so its hard for him to look at what else it could be about, or what. But I just so wholly disagree with maybe like, the entire back half of the video ahaha.

But I loved it! I loved the whole experience of it.

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sophieoverett · 3 years

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Disruptions of Ritual and Inciting Incidents

I’ve been lucky enough to be a part of a creative development series lately which has come with a lot of great advice and guidance on storytelling, from the extremely specific to the really broad and sweeping. It’s covered everything from character motivations to specific genre structures to audience expectation to interpersonal conflict, but one of the things that has come up over and over again has been the idea of disruption of ritual as pivotal to the establishment of a story.

It’s been interesting to hear it articulated this way, because when I’ve taught creative writing in the past, and when I’ve thought about my own writing, I’ve always talked about this concept as the world we leave behind. It’s the pre-inciting incident stuff – the introductory grounding stuff – whether that be Harry’s life before Hogwarts, or the Bennet’s home before Mr. Bingley moves in next door.

You establish a world – or a ritual – and then you break it open.

It’s in the schism, in the disruption, where your story finds it’s legs and starts to move.

It’s had me thinking a lot about the relationship between the disruption of ritual and the inciting incident of a story, because in a lot of ways, that disruption of ritual directly sets up the latter. A story like Bridgerton has the disruption of ritual in Phoebe making her debut – a change for the whole family – but the inciting incident is really her collision with Simon Hastings and their mutual decision to fake a courtship. Similarly (but differently), Harry Potter has the disruption of ritual when the owls start descending on the Dursley home in the lead up to Harry’s birthday, but the true inciting incident is when Hagrid tells Harry he’s a wizard. Neither of these inciting incidents could’ve happened without the disruption to the character’s lives that got us there.

When we talk about inciting incidents, we’re ultimately talking about the point of no return for your protagonist. Where they either make a choice, or have a choice thrust upon them, it’s one they can never go back from.

How the disruption of ritual lays the groundwork for the inciting incident though is important. It’s not just creating the first bubbles of conflict to pop, but it’s a key part of establishing who your character is and what world they exist in.

But what does that look like? Generally speaking, I find it’s useful to think of this sort of pre-inciting incident (or disruption of ritual world) in three categories:

Change of Circumstance

Change of Environment

Change of Information

So let’s break that down a little!

Change of Circumstance

I think this one is probably the most common.

I’ve watched a lot of new movies lately and I think change of circumstance is at the heart of all of them – in Nomadland, Fern’s husband has passed away and she’s had to move into a caravan out of financial necessity; in The Father, Anthony’s daughter is moving to Italy and so she tells him he’s being moved into an aged care facility for his dementia; in Those Who Wish Me Dead, Hannah, a firefighter, has been benched after freezing during a fire which lead to the death of two teenage boys.

While all these changes are environmental too (which I’ll come back to in a second), they’re more punctuated by the impact these circumstances have on these characters – Fern is grieving, Anthony is losing his agency and independence, Hannah’s role in a job she loves has been diminished.

These changes to circumstance create the context for which the inciting incidents begin and ground the characters within their own emotional arcs. The inciting incident in Those Who Wish Me Dead is when Hannah finds another teenage boy in the woods who’s being chased by assassins; in The Father, the inciting incident comes when Anthony’s daughter hires a new nurse that reminds him of his other, dead daughter, in Nomadland, Fern connects with a seasonal worker at an Amazon factory who in turn connects her to the nomad lifestyle.

In this sense, the disruption of ritual starts a conversation that the inciting incident can either build off or interrupt or both. The examples above are all pretty big, but these sorts of circumstantial disruptions can be anything. They can be as simple as a promotion at work, a pregnancy, a new neighbour; or hell, you can go the other way, and get even bigger – start a war, go on the run, discover a new planet! What’s important though is that initial change of circumstance creates context for your protagonist and builds towards your inciting incident.

Change of Environment

This one is still pretty common, but I’d say it’s often used most efficiently and effectively in horror and fantasy.

Moving house or exploring new territory, whether that be campsites or cave dives or new planets or planes, is a natural way of putting your characters off-kilter and building environmental tension. This tension is really steeped in the unknown of the space your protagonist is interacting with, and in the promise of conflict within it. Movies like The Descent, Hush, Lord of the Rings and Star Wars are all fundamentally steeped in their opening acts involving drastic shifts to their environments that build conflict, whether that be because an environment becomes something to protect (Hobbiton in Lord of the Rings), or something that the protagonist needs to be protected from (The Descent), or that environment being invaded (Hush) are all factors that are essential to the story overall.

In these stories, these environments aren’t just a stage for the character to move across, they’re deeply interactive and often allegorical to the character’s circumstances.

My Neighbor Totoro is one of my favourite examples of this – Satsuki and Mei’s move to a new home whisks them into a magical world with soot spirits and forest creatures, but these spirits and creatures are an escape from the reality that they moved because their mother is sick in a hospital nearby. The environment they’ve moved to is them clinging to a child’s world as they live ever closer to their trauma.

The most important thing to think about with environmental change is to ask why? Environmental change isn’t about simply presenting a stage for your characters – all stories have that – but that that environment be a motivator in your character’s overall arc. After all, Nomadland might deeply love the American landscape, but Fern’s story is driven by circumstance, not environment, as I mentioned above.

Change of Information

Probably the least used of these three, an information disruption is often reserved for stories about whistleblowers or journalists. Spotlight, Bombshell, All the President’s Men, hell, even The Bourne Identity all rely on a transfer of knowledge as pivotal to creating the conflict that the story builds on.

Change of Information involves a character learning something that they didn’t know before, and the information could seem incidental in the first act (the journalist in Citizen Kane for instance learning that Kane’s final word was ‘rosebud’, or Adrian Toomes realizing there’s alien tech in what he’s been assigned to clean up in Spiderman: Homecoming), or it could be left as a landmine for our protagonists to discover (Spotlight did this by opening with the cops in the 1970s talking about the child molestation charge that our protagonists would start investigating in 2001), or be the overall driver for the film (Min-hyuk telling Ki-woo about the Park family in Parasite).

I think Change of Information set-ups though can also be broadened out to tie pretty closely with Change of Circumstances set-ups to the point that I actually almost considered condensing the two, but I do think they’re different enough to be untangled. Parasite of course straddles all three in its brilliance as the information Min-hyuk gives Ki-woo of the Park family creates both a change in circumstance and environment too, and Midsommar is a movie I’d consider to be all three too – knowledge changing hands is essential to that film overall, and the focus in the first act of Dani finding out that her sister’s commit suicide is pivotal to everything that follows. Her change of circumstances and environment hinges on her grieving her sister, yes, but the weight of the opening act is on the discovery of that more so than it is on Dani’s circumstances changing. Life goes on is, in many ways, pivotal to that first act.

Change of information, to me, is about a character’s awareness of something creating that initial disruption overall, and that new knowledge being the ultimate plot and character driver for the rest of the story. It’s the new knowledge or awareness that creates story mobility, environment and circumstance can just come along with it.

What are you talking about, Sophie?

Right, sorry, haha.

Disruption of ritual is ultimately the shift in the story that allows for the inciting incident to happen. It’s what creates the perfect storm of circumstance, environment and information which fuels your characters, but what you choose to prioritise and emphasise is going to impact the direction of your story and provide your readers or audience with the context that shapes their experience overall.

What drives your characters is what determines their path throughout the story you’re telling, and considering circumstances, environment, and the information they do or don’t possess is an important part of shaping that. You don’t have to pick one, of course – as I mentioned above, a lot of great stories embrace two or all three! – but thinking about each and asking yourself why and working out what’s the priority for your protagonist might just help you articulate the crux of your story and give you an opening act that resonates.

#Writeblr #writing #writing advice #sophie's writing posts

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hadtochangemyurlquick · 3 years

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Okay, okay. I’m dragging myself out of hiding because I just want to talk about this Dave Goodkind stuff.

I think you are right.

We want a redemption arc because we fundamentally recognize the importance of familial relationships. We also want to categorize people not as “bad” but as “wrong” and believe that if they do the the work they can realize they were wrong and actually grow. I agree with the points around conditional love— Dave definitely gives his love conditionally. We want him to grow, learn, evolve because it reinforces that can happen in irl too. But I think on some level we want a reconciliation (at least partially) for Shelby. Shelby has demonstrated over and over again how incredibly important family is to her, and while she will build a found family she shouldn’t lose her parents/siblings because of who she is. We don’t want her to lose something that is so important to her.

So setting aside Dave’s abuse, it’s totally rational to want Shelby to lose nothing and in essence “have it all”. I shall tell a story (albeit a very scaffold story because yikes details):

So I think I’ve mentioned before that Shelby’s story mirrors mine in a lot (like 90 ways). One of those is that I grew up extremely close to my Dad. He and I did everything together. My family in general was quite tight. When I was about 13 I kind of got pushed into coming out and let’s just say it didn’t go great (once again, I’ll be sparse on details). It actually really messed me up for a long time, stuff was bad at home and all of this lead to me running away when I was 16. That period was followed by several very strained and tense years. BUT fast forward with me until today. I have an okay relationship with both of my parents. It took a lot of work on their part to get us there though, and a huge amount of recognition of the harm they caused. But they did the work. And because my roots with them run deep, we grew back together. They had a redemption arc. I’ll never say that it was the same as it was before— because it’s not. You can’t repair something that was shattered that badly. But you can make something new. And remedying it helped me heal in a lot of ways too. And similar to what you said, that’s not the case for everyone. Some people will never change (and I know those people too)— but that doesn’t mean we can’t hope they do.

So the problem here is we can’t think about redemption arcs as being for the villain. They are also for the people who were harmed. And I for one think that Shelby would get a lot of healing from any steps her Dad took. SO YES we hate him, but we also can want him to do better for Shelby’s sake. - A

(Also— I hope you are okay)

oh man oh man

Ally said i was right fuck yeah i'm gonna frame this ask and put it on my wall i love this my god you all can see this right, i'm not imagining it, she literally said "i think you're right"? ally please confirm.

anyway, thank you for articulating this better than i ever could.

the story of this experiment that gretchen is pushing is: our girls are weak. they need to toughen up, discover their power, and come back at the world with the strength of amazon warriors. and the only way to turn them into wonder women is to isolate them on an island of only women.

but whether or not they get better shouldn't be the point like. why does leah have to overcome her trauma of being raped. why couldn’t she have just. not been raped. why does rachel need to find her own inner beauty and ignore society’s expectations, instead of society changing its expectations. why does shelby need to be strong enough to leave her abusive parents instead of her parents no longer being abusive?

so much of therapy encourages us to be stronger, to learn ways of coping with the world around us. climate change is wrecking havoc on the ecosystem giving you panic attacks so bad you can’t breathe for whole minutes? let’s try some breathing techniques.

this isn’t to say therapy isn’t helpful, it is, but with so many people in our society needing it, it begs to question as to if the problem is not with the individual. so many people say everyone should go to therapy, but therapy is a specialized doctor. not everyone is saying “everyone needs to go to the optometrist and get their eyes checked!” that costs money and would be wasteful. if you have a problem with your eyes you go to the optometrist. if you have panic attacks so bad you can’t breathe for several minutes you go to therapy (ideally before it gets to that point though).

but more and more people need therapy. like, to the point those people saying everyone needs it have a point. if everyone suddenly needed glasses we’d think there was something in the water or something, right? we wouldn’t think that everyone just happened to need glasses what a weird coincidence, better make the optometrist cheaper and more acceptable that also brings me to my sponsor for this weeks video. bettervision. bettervision is an online platform with hundreds of lisenced optometrists that provide--

the point is, you don’t, and our girls don’t, need to become stronger to tough out the world. the world needs to become less tough.

“Sure gus,” you say, “but in the meantime--”

I wonder how many people have died in the meantime. the meantime is never ending. it will never get better unless you demand it.

if the show rehabilited dave, gave him a redemption arc while shelby was away at the island, it would send that message. it would tell the audience that teenage girls do not need to become stronger to survive the world, but that the world needs to become better for teenage girls.

the meantime, in other words, would end.

#hi ally #did you get my presentation i sent on lesbian day lesbian #sorry i got a little too socialist in this one again boys #i can't turn it off anymore #also sorry i randomly went on a tangent about therapy for no reason #also sorry i talked about optometry a lot #my optometrist was actually really cool #i still have a lot of love for that man #my orthodontists stalks my place of work like a vulture #waiting for the real hunters to finish so that it may be permitted to dine #i love all these asks and am going to continue to ask you all not bully me for the time being #once i publish fic again bets are off #but just for the meantime be extra nice #you can disagree just be nice #people are being amazing so far in my inbox and i can't tell you how much i appreciate it #anyway #gus answers #the wilds #dave goodkind #outinthewildspodcast

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phoneybeatlemania-bit-the-dust · 3 years

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It seems you have likely have some heteronormitive thought patterns. I used to think that way too but just the classic 'if this was a man and a woman with the same relationship or scenarios would it make me question their relationship or would it be understood as a romantic/sexual relationship' helped me see relationships more clearly and that I was being biased. Plus, the more proofs there are, the more silly it becomes to deny it. They compound.

I think though that those heteronormative patterns are largely grounded in the fact that Paul identifies as straight, and has never expressed (as far as I know) any real and substantial attraction to men. With John, I find arguments in favour of him being in love with Paul a lot more convincing, because theres a big question mark surrounding his sexuality; but I feel its fair to say that we shouldn’t assume Johns sexuality was just ‘straight’ because he’s gave us a lot of reasons to believe he wasn’t.

But with Paul, I try to respect his identity as much as possible - if I see a ‘proof’ that seems pretty straightforwardly gay, then ill accept it, but for the most part, the majority of things Paul has either said or done that might make someone question if perhaps he reciprocated Johns attraction, I find I can personally explain away heterosexually. And when I cant, most of the time they're still not strong enough evidence for me. I keep my options open, I really am open to the belief that Paul might be bi like John - but from all the evidence I have seen and gathered so far, it appears to be that there just isn't enough substantial evidence for me to get on board with it.

Another reason why I am quite speculative is because there have been times in my life where I have believed wholeheartedly in the most ludicrous conspiracy theories, and now I look back at those times and im like “what was I on?”. But if you want to believe something enough, then you'll see the perhaps minuscule evidence as momentous.

And im not saying that thats what you’re doing, or that im more correct or anything like that, because were looking at the same evidence and the same interviews im sure, and were just reaching different conclusions. But the point im trying to articulate here is more that I like to try and stay grounded with this stuff, especially because these are real people were talking about. Again, im not saying that your beliefs aren’t grounded in reality or anything, but for me, song lyrics and stuff isn't enough to convince me entirely - irregardless of whether were discussing a relationship between two men, or a man and a woman. Its enough to put doubts in my mind of Pauls heterosexuality, its enough to make me question the nature of their relationship - but it ultimately fails to convince me.

And also, the last thing I would want is to spread rumours y'know - so that's another reason why I think it is important not to hyperbolise certain song lyrics and quotes.

I might make a post of what I think all the strongest pieces of evidence for McLennon are, and then reassess what the fuck I think went on between them - and maybe then ill be more on board with the ‘they had an actual relationship’ theory, but for now I think im sticking with my belief that it was unreciprocated.

Also - I thought I might make a post of the most mclennon lyrics in their songs, and try to construct a narrative from it to maybe get some more insight into their relationship?

#did this sound rude?#i just woke up so this might sound kinda rude and patronising #saving it to my drafts actually #ill fix it after school #thanks for sending an ask!#discussion #opinion #asks #mclennon

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commentaryvorg · 3 years

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Digimon Data Squad Dub Comparison Episode 10 - Curse This Curse: Marcus’s Bad Day

This is a companion to my commentary on the original Japanese Digimon Savers! Reading my commentary on the original version of this episode (which you can find here) is recommended before reading this dub comparison.

Original name ~ Dubbed name

Masaru Daimon ~ Marcus Damon

Yoshino Fujieda ~ Yoshino “Yoshi” Fujieda

Tohma H. Norstein ~ Thomas H. Norstein

Chika Daimon ~ Kristy Damon

Captain Rentarou Satsuma ~ Commander Richard Sampson

[Since several characters share the same name between the original and the dub, quotes from the dub will always be in italics, while quotes from the original will not, in order to distinguish them.]

Marcus: “Relax. Yeah, he might be rich, but he’s not any better than us.”

I don’t feel like Masaru would quite be the type of person to be able to articulate this point even though he clearly feels this way, but I do enjoy Marcus outright pointing it out here.

Chika: “But I didn’t think you would come here!”

~~~~~

Kristy: “Yeah, I know *I* wanted to come, but I didn’t want you to come, too!”

Yikes, Kristy, being more overt about not wanting your brother to embarrass you.

Masaru: “I thought you’d feel discouraged if you came here alone, so I took the time to…”

~~~~~

Marcus: “Well, excuse me for living! I thought that you’d get freaked out if you came all the way down here on your own!”

Marcus, as usual, being more argumentative and hostile rather than just earnestly explaining why he wanted to come and help.

Chika: “That doesn’t matter!”

~~~~~

Kristy: “What freaks me out is *you* being here!”

Kristy is way more clear at expressing the fact that she doesn’t want him here to embarrass her. In the original, it comes across like Chika only realised when she was at the door that maybe having Masaru along might make things worse, but it sounds like Kristy already knew from the very beginning that she didn’t want him here – in which case, why did she not just ask him not to come in the first place?

Tohma: “Welcome, Chika-chan and big brother!”

Masaru: “Who are you calling your big brother?”

~~~~~

Thomas: “Welcome. I’m glad you guys could make it.”

Marcus: [deadpan] “Yeah, it’s a joy. Really.”

In the original, Masaru had a deadpan expression at Tohma calling him “big brother”, but the dub changes the line and instead uses his expression to reflect how much he apparently doesn’t want to be here. In which case, why are you even here, Marcus? Your sister has made it clear she doesn’t want you here either, and Thomas didn’t invite you specifically!

Masaru: “This stuff is amazing…”

~~~~~

Marcus: “This place is pretty nice, I guess… if you like that kind of thing.”

Masaru was blurting out his impressions without caring how he’d come across, but Marcus wants to make it clear that he is totally a Cool Dude who definitely isn’t really that impressed by any of this stuff.

Thomas explaining that this is a thanks for Kristy’s hospitality the other day on her birthday is the only part of this episode, or any episode, that directly relies on episode 7 existing. Like I said back in that episode, it would have been perfectly easy for the dubbers to lose episode 7 entirely rather than edit in Citramon, because all they’d need to change here to not ruin the continuity is give Thomas a different reason for inviting them – he wanted to get to know his friend’s little sister better, perhaps. But they didn’t, because they understood how important episode 7 was for its own sake!

Thomas: “…so I thought I’d put this little meal together as a small token of my thanks.”

You didn’t put the meal together, Thomas; your staff did. Though maybe he just means he chose the courses.

[Agumon starts choking]

Marcus: “You’re not supposed to eat the plate, y’know.”

I don’t know if this is them trying to say Agumon literally ate the plate in his enthusiasm (I wouldn’t entirely put it past him) or it’s just Marcus joking, but either way it amused me.

Somehow the music Thomas put on in the dub stops immediately the moment Kristy starts getting mad. Maybe that’s meant to be because she’s already begun to summon the Digimon? But there’s a shot showing the CD player acting weird (presumably from Soulmon’s arrival) after this moment, which doesn’t make much sense if it had cut out earlier.

Chika: “Masaru-niichan… Masaru-niichan… I hope you slip on the street and hit your head, run into a signpost, fall off a bridge… get run over by a car… and get squashed by a tanker!”

~~~~~

Kristy: “I wish that *you* would get embarrassed! I wish you’d slip and fall down! Or…! Fall over a big sign in public! Or something really weird like get hit by a bunch of sticks! Or get chased by a car! … And maybe get smushed by a big oil tanker!”

The dub adds her explicitly emphasising that she’s saying all this just because she wants to embarrass him too, which is of course also why Chika said those things even though she never expressed that sentiment.

Her list is expressed in “or”s, like she keeps thinking of something even better and more embarrassing than the last thing she said, which is maybe a more realistic way to express such a long ridiculous list of mishaps you’re wishing on someone than just I HOPE ALL OF THESE VERY SPECIFIC THINGS HAPPEN TO YOU ALL TOGETHER.

The bridge one has been changed, of course, because that was a play on words in Japanese that can’t work in English. So instead, it’s a lot closer to what actually literally happens and she just acknowledges that this is a weird one. Though him getting hit by the sticks isn’t quite how it goes down.

Tohma: “The problem is, you’re too thick-headed when it comes to people’s feelings.”

Masaru: “Thick-headed? What part of me?”

Tohma: “My point exactly.”

~~~~~

Thomas: “I’m afraid you do have a habit of ignoring other people.”

Marcus: [sarcastic] “I’m sorry, what did you say? I wasn’t listening.”

Thomas: “Exactly.”

Marcus’s tone of voice here makes it very clear that he was actually listening and is deliberately acting this way to be a sarcastic ass. The joke of “Masaru obliviously proving Tohma’s point” doesn’t work if he’s clearly trying to make it sound that way to get a rise and isn’t actually being oblivious!

Also, Masaru (and even Marcus too) doesn’t ignore people! If someone says something he has an opinion on, he lets them know it – in Marcus’s case, often way more argumentatively than necessarily. Tohma’s point in the original was about Masaru not being very good at picking up on people’s feelings, especially in regular social situations like earlier. That’s meant to be the point, not Marcus Is Just A Self-Absorbed Jerk. Gh.

Tohma: “I can understand perfectly how Chika-chan must have felt when she said that parting shot at you.”

~~~~~

Thomas: “She was clearly nervous at the table, but instead of making sure she was having a nice time, you just teased her and made her more self-conscious.”

Since Thomas isn’t talking about understanding Kristy’s feelings like he was in the original, this is also changed quite a bit. Most of his points here are valid criticisms – Marcus didn’t pick up on her nerves and try to help, and he made her self-consciousness worse with his behaviour – but, no, he did not tease her!

I didn’t mention any of the bits of Marcus embarrassing her back during that scene because they were all pretty much the same as in the original. There was absolutely no teasing about how Kristy was nervous and embarrassed, and I am frustrated that the dub is trying to make us think there was. Marcus is just A Jerk, right?

Marcus: “So that’s why she said all that weird stuff, like, uh… What was it she said exactly, again?”

Thomas: “Marcus… please try to pay at least some attention to your life.”

They’re laying it on weirdly thick here with this thing about how Marcus supposedly just ignores everything. That’s really not him, though? He can be kind of an oblivious dork at times, but at no point does he ever come across as spacey and forgetful like this is trying to make him seem. Marcus’s tone of voice here comes across not just like he can’t quite recall the whole list, but like he barely remembers anything she said at all, as if he barely even cares that she said it, which doesn’t make any sense. You’d think of all things for him to pay attention to and care about, it’d be his sister having an outburst of anger directed at him.

Gaomon: “And then she wanted Marcus attacked by a bunch of sticks, didn’t she?”

Technically she phrased her “wish” like she only needed one of the things on the list to happen, but I suppose at this point, now that two of them have come true, it’s reasonable to assume the rest might. And of course Soulmon is not doing this consciously and not quite taking her literally at her word, so it’s still reasonable that it’d do it all despite her slightly different phrasing here.

(Well, Soulmon isn’t supposed to be conscious and lucid, at least, not that that’s stopped several other “rampaging” Digimon in earlier dub episodes from seemingly doing things entirely out of their own very bizarre free will.)

Also, Gaomon says she said “attacked” by sticks, but she actually said “hit” by sticks. The former, but not the latter, could be loosely interpreted to be what happens here, so good job subtly shifting the phrasing of that to make it make more sense, Gaomon.

Masaru: “That’ll never happen! I mean, there aren’t even any bridges around here!”

~~~~~

Marcus: “Pff, there’s *really* no way of that one happening. We’re in the middle of the city – there aren’t even any sticks around!”

This is really not an instance in which the dub should be sticking to the original as closely as possible. It made sense with the bridge, but “there aren’t any sticks around here” is far from the most obvious argument to make as to why this one’s never going to happen. He should have pointed out something like “how would sticks even attack me anyway?”

Marcus sure is chuckling with the confidence of someone who is really sure he isn’t about to be attacked by sticks but only because there aren’t any sticks nearby. If there were, man, I bet he’d be so worried.

Thomas: “He was hit… with sticks!”

I mean, they didn’t exactly hit him when all the sticks themselves did was roll under his feet.

Marcus: “I’m not fallin’ for that curse junk!”

Thomas: “But you already have. Literally.”

Marcus: “A-huh. Very funny, Nerdstein.”

As much as I don’t especially appreciate Thomas’s joke either, I appreciate significantly less the fact that Marcus is making a jab about Thomas being A Nerd. Did you know, Marcus is a Jock™ who hates Nerds™, so this is totally in-character for him, right???

Even aside from the fact that it actually makes very little sense for Marcus to have anything against academically-talented people for reasons I can’t quite go into just yet but will do in time, this is also unnecessarily mean-spirited for Marcus at this point, long after they’ve got over their differences and become friends. “Nerdstein” would have been a vaguely reasonable substitute for Masaru calling him “Tonma” back when they were at odds. But him calling Thomas that now? No. Can we not.

(Unfortunately, we are, and we will continue to; this will not be the only time. Grumble.)

Masaru: “Are you saying I purposely brought it along?”

Tohma: “It’s possible.”

Lalamon: “Very possible.”

Yoshino: “This is you we’re talking about, Masaru.”

~~~~~

Marcus: “C’mon, you really think I could cause all this trouble?”

Thomas: “Absolutely, yes.”

Lalamon: “Yep.”

Yoshi: “Well, you always do.”

Since Marcus phrases this as “causing trouble” and not “purposely bringing an illegal Digimon in here”, it does read as a lot more reasonable that everyone immediately goes “yep, that sounds exactly like something you’d do”.

Agumon: “Then it left stuff like the banana peel and signpost in his path, hurting him… Aniki is the victim!”

~~~~~

Agumon: “I mean, yeah, sure, even normally Boss is the kind of guy that might have strangers throwing sticks at him, but this time it *wasn’t* his fault!”

I’m sorry, what? No, he isn’t? Can we not with the constant insistence that Marcus Is Just A Jerk and obviously totally deserves grief for it, apparently even from total strangers who wouldn’t know what he’s like?

And even if this was true about Marcus (but even with his dub-added jerkitude, he’s not that bad), Agumon of all people should be the one person who wouldn’t see it that way, because he’s supposed to look up to him.

This is also in place of original-Agumon being adorable and worrying about Aniki getting hurt and asserting that he’s the victim here, which I am sad to lose.

Tohma: “…that I was certain were due to his blockheadedness…”

~~~~~

Thomas: “…that I thought were because he’s a clumsy oaf…”

Marcus is a lot of things, and blockheaded is fairly apt, but clumsy isn’t true, is it? If he were clumsy, he wouldn’t exactly be very good in fights.

Tohma: “A Digimon that was urged from Chika-chan’s words is turning those harmless thoughts of hers into reality.”

~~~~~

Thomas: “…and how Kristy was somehow able to summon a Digimon. Although, in a way, this *is* your fault because of how you treated Kristy in the first place.”

Pointing out that this is partly Marcus’s fault is reasonable, I guess (not that Masaru needed to have it pointed out to have definitely been thinking about the fact that this is technically all his fault), but the way Thomas words it comes across as a little unnecessarily mean-spirited.

This is also instead of that delightful little line about “harmless thoughts”, because the dub is apparently doing everything it can to smother that really fun aspect of these early episodes. Tohma was basically making the point that Chika didn’t want to hurt Masaru – though he said so indirectly enough that it went over Masaru’s head and he continued to be angry at the suggestion that she’d ever do this on purpose. But Thomas, by instead stressing that this is Marcus’s fault, is much more implying that maybe Kristy is doing this on purpose to get back at him for that.

Satsuma: “The words that haven’t been transformed into reality yet… what were the rest of them?”

~~~~~

Sampson: “Let’s analyse this. Could it actually be possible that Kristy is controlling this rogue Digimon?”

I prefer Satsuma’s attitude here in the original. Right now, the why is not the problem; the problem is what appears to be happening, and mitigating any further damage that could be done, whether it’s Kristy’s actual fault or not.

Gaomon: “Now we just have to wait for him to get chased by a car and smushed by an oil tanker.”

Because of that, Gaomon bringing up the things that haven’t happened yet sounds a lot more like he’d be weirdly okay with these things happening to Marcus just to prove their theory. (Even though that still wouldn’t actually prove that Kristy is controlling the Digimon, guys, you are being bad scientists.)

Marcus: “Kristy and I have had our differences over the years, but she’s still my sister!”

Reminder: Marcus Is A Jerk, Kristy loving her brother is definitely despite him being a jerk, this is totally friction that happens between them all the time and not just in this one episode (for reasons that weren’t even him being a jerk to her, just obliviously embarrassing her!). Urghrgh.

Masaru: “Hey, you! The Digimon clinging onto me! Come on out! You’re playing dirty! How dare you turn invisible and attack behind my back…!”

~~~~~

Marcus: “Quit hiding, you sneaky Digimon! Come out! Fight like a man! Or… fight like a Digimon!”

You almost did it, dub! I mentioned Masaru’s concept of manliness when discussing this line in the original, because this is related to that, so this’d be the perfect time to have him actually mention fighting like a man! But… they dampened the point by having Marcus immediately correct himself to “fight like a Digimon” instead, because apparently Digimon, not being humans, can’t be “men”. (They totally can, in Masaru’s definition. His concept of manliness knows neither gender nor species.)

Not that even doing this as well as possible would have landed the same in the dub, since Marcus otherwise doesn’t have an established concept of manliness at all.

Marcus is making some good ridiculous noises this episode during all of these mishaps. His voice actor is pretty good at that. (Not that Masaru’s isn’t also very good at it too.)

Gaomon: “Wait a second. Did you say he was hit by a… cart?”

Conveniently, “car” and “cart”, despite not being the same word in English, are close enough that this just about passes as being a reasonable alternate interpretation.

Masaru: “The tanker’s coming after me, right? So I’ll have to meet it face on!”

~~~~~

Marcus: “If that tanker’s comin’ out to get me, then I should go out and face it, so that no-one else is put in harms way!”

Unlike Masaru, Marcus is actually vaguely acknowledging the notion that he’s doing this specifically to keep other people safe. He is not leaning quite so completely into the HE’S JUST FIGHTING IT, NOTHING ELSE like Masaru did.

Masaru: “Clearly… this is a one-on-one fight between me and the tanker!”

Tohma: “Don’t be stupid!”

Masaru: “I just have to get out there! If it’s a fight it wants, I accept!”

~~~~~

Marcus: “If that tanker wants a fight, then I’m gonna give it a fight like it’s never seen before!”

Thomas: “That’s ridiculous!”

Marcus: “We’ll go mano-a-mano, or mano-a-tankero, I guess!”

Still, he is otherwise being just as delightfully FIGHT THE BOAT as in the original. I love how both of them just decide that the tanker totally wants to fight him, that definitely makes any amount of sense.

Yoshino: “This isn’t the time for jokes!”

~~~~~

Yoshi: “You… know you’re talking about fighting a ship, right?”

Yoshi snarks him harder than in the original and I approve.

Masaru: “Don’t get in my way. All you have to do is watch.”

~~~~~

Marcus: “Trust me, okay. I’ll take care of this like I take care of everything else.”

Marcus manages to sound pretty much like he genuinely believes things are going to be okay and he can deal with this just fine. But I like how for Masaru’s line, it was more ambiguous – it could be read that way, but it could just as easily be read like he knows he’s going to get himself killed and is only telling the others to stay out of his way to keep them safe.

Tohma: “Don’t tell me… Masaru, are you…?”

Masaru: “Shut up! Don’t follow me!”

[Masaru rushes out of the room]

~~~~~

Thomas: “But Marcus, this makes no sense, even for you!”

Marcus: “Be quiet. I’ll handle it.”

[Marcus rushes out of the room]

I really enjoyed Tohma realising that Masaru is sacrificing himself and Masaru desperately snapping at him before running off because he doesn’t want to admit that. But Thomas isn’t acknowledging that at all and is still only complaining about this being ridiculous. In turn, Marcus’s response is a lot more calm and still managing to sound genuinely like he’s sure he can handle this just fine. (The calmer tone of Marcus’s line also doesn’t fit nearly as well with his animation here.) This moment is nowhere near as fun in the dub.

Yoshino: “He is such an idiot.”

Tohma: “He sure is. It seems he has a problem expressing himself.”

~~~~~

Yoshi: “This is the most knuckleheaded thing that knucklehead has ever done!”

Thomas: “I know. And with what *he’s* done, that’s really saying something.”

I mean… they’re not wrong. Or at least, they wouldn’t be if the truth was really only that Marcus genuinely believed he could fight the boat, but that isn’t quite it. And in the original, Yoshino and Tohma both already knew that. But Yoshi and Thomas somehow don’t, even though Marcus actually explicitly said he wanted to keep people out of harm’s way like he never mentioned in the original.

Satsuma: “Because he didn’t want DATS to suffer damage, he purposely left to get far away from here.”

Kudamon: “He’s quite an obvious fellow.”

~~~~~

Sampson: “I’m not so sure. After all, Marcus is just trying to keep people safe.”

Kudamon: “That’s what the Data Squad is all about.”

So instead, Sampson has to explain to them that this is why Marcus is doing this, because apparently he was the only person who was listening to Marcus when he mentioned that part and/or has decent enough judgement of people to realise that even Marcus isn’t this dumb.

Because of this, this little exchange between the group becomes entirely about just pointing out the fact that Marcus is sacrificing himself. In the original, that fact was already obvious to everyone and instead they’re discussing the far more interesting and nuanced point of how Masaru is bad at admitting that even when it’s obviously what he’s doing.

Tohma: “There’s only 10 minutes left. We must find something, anything, that’ll resolve this.”

~~~~~

Thomas: “Fine, let him go on his fool’s errand. The rest of us have to stop that tanker.”

Thomas! You literally just had it explained to you that Marcus is doing this to try and keep people safe, and you’re calling that a “fool’s errand”? Do you not have enough empathy to be able to understand that Marcus is doing the best thing that he can possibly come up with in this situation, even if he’s presenting it in a ridiculous over-the-top way? Tohma was not being a dick like this and fully understood that Masaru was doing the best he could in the most Masaru kind of way.

Agumon: “Aniki might die!”

~~~~~

Agumon: “Boss may not make it if you don’t help him!”

The dub is still allergic to directly mentioning death, but “may not make it” is a reasonable substitution that gets across the same point without sounding too awkward.

Chika: “Anyway, why do I have to take responsibility?”

~~~~~

Kristy: “Marcus should have been nicer to me! It’s his fault!”

This is a bit of a different take on Chika’s line, but it could be assumed that Chika was essentially thinking “why do I have to take responsibility here when it was Masaru’s fault in the first place”, so it’s close enough. Except for the part where she complains that Marcus wasn’t being nice enough to her, as if the problem was that he was being a jerk. He was not!

Agumon: “The Digimon! It’s the Digimon’s fault!”

Chika: “Masaru-niichan can take care of himself against that!”

~~~~~

Agumon: “It’s the Digimon! The Digimon that you summoned up!”

Kristy: “Marcus can take care of himself! He needs to learn that there are consequences to his actions!”

Most of this conversation has been pretty much the same, but dub-Agumon directly mentioning the fact that Kristy summoned this Digimon should really take things in a different direction. The fact that Kristy doesn’t even respond to that point is odd and almost implies that she already knows that – and then, coupled with the fact that she goes on to say “he needs to learn”, it kinda potentially comes across like she knowingly summoned this Digimon, on purpose, to teach her brother a lesson. That is definitely not supposed to be an impression anyone should get from this.

Chika: “He’s an idiot.”

Agumon: “No, he’s not!”

Chika: “Then what?”

Agumon: “Er, Aniki is Aniki…”

~~~~~

Kristy: “I don’t care!”

Agumon: “Can’t I do anything to convince you?!”

Kristy: “Nope, nothing!”

Agumon: “Kristy, you’re being very childish.”

Another difference here that I’m sad to lose is Agumon being challenged to explain why Masaru is not an idiot and not having any way to get words around it, which is an adorable little bit of characterisation for him in how he sees his aniki.

Chika: “You’re an idiot.”

Agumon: “No, you’re the idiot!”

~~~~~

Kristy: “No, *you’re* childish!”

Agumon: “No, *you’re* childish!”

This exchange does get across the same point as the original (though more explicitly) that they’re both being just as childish as each other here. Although it’s somewhat dampened by Agumon’s previous line fairly calmly pointing out that Kristy is being childish, which actually came across as quite mature of him in that moment, until he ruined it with this.

Kristy: “He’s not just being selfish?”

…says Kristy as she sees her brother racing towards the tanker. Yes, dub, it’s almost like Marcus is never actually selfish at all and that was never meant to be the point. That was not the issue at the dinner in the original, nor in the dubbed version! He was just being obliviously embarrassing! Chika was never angry at him for him having been selfish, and even Kristy never actually said that in the dub until now! Masaru is not actually a jerk, dub, for crying out loud!

Yoshino: “If we could at least see his form, we could knock him flat with one hit…”

Kudamon: “Yoshino… You’re becoming more and more like Masaru these days.”

Yoshino: “Eh? What part?”

~~~~~

Yoshi: “If only we could find a way to see the little creep, then it would be easy to catch it.”

Kudamon: “Yoshino, you’re becoming more and more like Marcus every day.”

Yoshi: “You take that back!”

Yoshi’s comment doesn’t really make any sense as prompting Kudamon to compare her to Marcus, because she didn’t say anything about punching it or fighting it or anything specifically Marcus-y. Catching it is pretty general and something anyone on DATS would want to try and do.

And also, Yoshi is way angrier at the suggestion, because did you know Marcus Is A Jerk that nobody would ever want to be like, right.

(Oh god, are they trying to imply this line is Marcus-like because she called Soulmon “the little creep”, because Marcus insults people due to being A Jerk? (And definitely nobody else on this dub cast has ever unnecessarily insulted anyone, right.))

Chika: “I wasn’t serious when I said that! Masaru-niichan was embarrassing me, and it made me mad… I just said it because I was angry!”

~~~~~

Kristy: “I didn’t really want that stuff to happen! I was just angry when he wasn’t listening to me, that’s all, and I wanted him to feel as bad as I felt when he was embarrassing me!”

(Props to Kristy’s voice actor here for genuinely sounding like she’s saying this through tears, by the way. Chika’s might also manage that, but it’s harder for me to tell in a language I’m not fluent in.)

I’m still a little leery of the “he wasn’t listening to me”, when that’s not really quite it at all. He didn’t notice how she was feeling, yes, but he didn’t exactly ignore her words. She did mumble that he was embarrassing her a few times, but Marcus could perfectly well have heard that and just not known how to stop. This is not about him being a dick who ignores everyone because he’s so selfish.

This also makes it pretty clear that the dub didn’t mean to imply in the earlier conversation that Kristy knows she summoned a Digimon to teach her brother a lesson, because if she did then now would definitely be the time for her to directly mention it in some way or another. Agumon should not have mentioned that part back then, because the implication given by it was definitely not correct.

Agumon: “Aniki isn’t embarrassing! He’s strong and awesome!”

Chika: “I know that!”

~~~~~

Agumon: “But Boss isn’t embarrassing, he’s cool! I hope we’re not too late to save him!”

Kristy: “I’m so sorry, Marcus!”

Agumon still gives the same adorable sentiment, but I am sad that we lose Chika agreeing with that part. It’s clear here that Kristy still loves her brother with how worried and apologetic she’s being, but I miss her agreeing that he’s strong and awesome and showing just how much she looks up to him as well.

I need to point out that the dub’s BGM for MARCUS FIGHTING THE BOAT is extremely metal. This is exactly how it should be and I approve.

Masaru: “Bring it on!”

Tohma: “You’re a moron.”

~~~~~

Marcus: “It’s fightin’ time!”

Thomas: “You’re talking to a boat.”

I enjoy this exchange even more than in the original. Of course it’d be fightin’ time against the boat! And Thomas’s line here is definitely one of my favourite lines in the dub. He is very deadpan.

(I think I like this more because it’s the dub doing subtlety better than the original, which is also something that helps for comedy moments. Thomas doesn’t need to say Marcus is a moron, because he’s already implying it by pointing out that he’s talking to a boat.)

Masaru: “Wh-What are you doing here?”

Tohma: “This is why people who don’t think logically get on my nerves.”

~~~~~

Marcus: “Why are you here?”

Thomas: “To save you from yourself. You can thank me anytime.”

I also enjoy Thomas’s further snark. It doesn’t come across as mean-spirited, both in his tone of voice and the point about saving Marcus from himself, like he knows full well that of course Marcus would always do something like this and that’s just who he is.

Thomas: “Listen closely, Kristy. You never actually put any curse on your brother.”

Yes, I’m sure this is something that Kristy herself needed to be told. They were never talking about this “curse” like it was something that Kristy might have done unintentionally, so this comes across like he’s telling Kristy she never intentionally did this, which she already knows.

Thomas: “There’s just no such thing as a curse, no matter how much Marcus might deserve to have one put on him.”

Or, alternatively, wild concept here I know: Marcus doesn’t deserve to have a curse put on him at all, because he is not a goddamn jerk, dub, he is actually a perfectly decent freaking person, argh.

Probably Marcus’s Theme kicks in as Marcus gets ready to actually fight the Digimon, but I enjoy that it happens to start just as Yoshi rocks up with the speedboat, making it seem like the music (even though it’s probably Marcus’s theme) is here to highlight Yoshi saving the day with her competence.

(This moment used Provocation Infinity in the original, but it kicked in a little later, as Masaru insisted that he does this alone, so in that version the music really was all about highlighting Masaru.)

Masaru: “Don’t worry, Chika! I’ll beat him up for you, too!”

Tohma: [shrugging in amused exasperation] “Fine, I got it.”

~~~~~

Marcus: “Relax, I’ll be fine! And you know it wouldn’t be me if I didn’t teach this Digimon a lesson!”

Thomas: [shrugging in amused exasperation] “Of course not.”

Heh, I enjoy the “it wouldn’t be me if I didn’t” part. Lines that affectionately highlight Marcus’s fightyness (without making him out to be a jerk, wow, how about that) are good, and adding in Thomas commenting on that when Tohma didn’t is also nice.

Masaru: “We’re getting revenge for frightening Chika! Let’s go, Agumon!”

~~~~~

Marcus: “Time to make that Digimon pay. Let’s go, Agumon!”

I am a little sad that he’s not mentioning that this is for Kristy here. The earlier line, as much as I otherwise liked it, missed mentioning that part, too.

Masaru: “We can’t see him, but that doesn’t mean his body doesn’t exist.”

~~~~~

Marcus: “Even if we can’t see it, we can see what it’s doing, and that’ll tell us where it is.”

The implication I always got from Masaru here was more along the lines of “…but that doesn’t mean we can’t punch it!”, whereas Marcus is actually being more strategic, somewhat.

Tohma: “That spray… is made up of special particles that react to the substance Digimon are made up of.”

~~~~~

Thomas: “Simple science. Bond something visible to the invisible Digimon, and it won’t be invisible any more.”

That’s hardly science so much as it’s just common sense. On the one hand, I appreciate the dub making the spray less ridiculous and more sensible by not trying to imply that it needed to be this special chemical that reacts to Digimon in order to work. But on the other hand, I kind of like how maybe that was the point in the original, that Tohma will always come up with these completely unnecessarily elaborate and scientific solutions to problems that really don’t actually need that kind of thing. He’s a bit of a perfectionist like that, always trying way too hard – just like Masaru but different.

(And Thomas did have the same line Tohma did earlier about “the magic of science”, which I love, but it works a bit less well when his solution genuinely isn’t that scientific.)

Masaru: “This one’s for Chika!”

~~~~~

Marcus: “And here’s somethin’ from Kristy!”

At least this line is here to make this at least a little bit on Kristy’s behalf.

Masaru: “Thanks, Chika. Because of your help…” [he holds up Soulmon’s egg] “Look!”

[Chika blushes for a moment, and then pretends to be stern]

Chika: “That’s right! You’d better be grateful!”

~~~~~

Marcus: “I’m really sorry, sis.”

Kristy: “Huh?”

Marcus: “I should have listened. I’m sorry.”

[Kristy blushes for a moment, and then pretends to be stern]

Kristy: “That’s right, you *should* have listened.”

It’s pretty adorable that Marcus apologises, in and of itself. It never felt like that was missing in the original, because Masaru had still pretty clearly realised that this was his fault, and Chika was no longer mad at him any more by this point, but it’s nice to have it in the dub anyway.

But I don’t like that he makes his apology about him not having listened, because this was still never about that! I worry that the only reason the dub added in an apology was because they’d also added in so much emphasis about how Marcus is such a selfish jerk who keeps outright ignoring his sister and therefore in that context it felt more like he needed to apologise.

Agumon: “I say that all the time!”

Marcus: [sarcastic] “Sorry, did you say something, Agumon?”

Agumon: “Good one!”

This added joke about it, even though Marcus is very clearly just joking this time, also seems to really want us to think that the whole problem with Marcus in this episode has been that he’s constantly ignoring people and never listens to them. Which, literally no, though? Not even in the dub! Argh.

Overall differences

Oh boy, was this entire episode the absolute epitome of Did You Know Marcus Is A Jerk.

Masaru upsetting Chika happened entirely because he’s socially oblivious, so he largely didn’t even realise he was embarrassing her, and if he did pick up on it in any way, he didn’t know how to stop. And the thing is, the bits where Marcus embarrassed Kristy were pretty much the same in the dub! Marcus’s problem was also one of social obliviousness!

But no, it wasn’t, not as far as the dub writers want us to think. Didn’t you know, Marcus’s actual problem is definitely that he never listens, and he’s selfish, and just all around a big jerk; if we have the other characters comment on this enough times then that’ll definitely magically make it the reason Kristy got upset despite all actual evidence to the contrary in that scene, right?

See, the dub’s problem of making Marcus into more of a jerk is twofold. On the one hand, sometimes they actually make him act like more of a jerk and be unnecessarily dickish and argumentative and self-absorbed more than Masaru was, which counts as showing him being a jerk through his words and actions. But what’s even worse is that the other half of the time, they lazily, heavy-handedly tell us that he's a jerk by having other characters talk about him being one like it’s obviously true, even to an extent that isn’t actually backed up by his actions! And the latter is almost entirely what was going on in this episode. It’s violating “show, don’t tell” in the most egregious way.

Every time I see a character saying this kind of thing about Marcus, it takes me right out of the story, because it doesn’t make sense for them to even be saying that about him, so all I hear is the dub writers beating me over the head with a newspaper where the headline is “MARCUS IS A JERK! YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO DISLIKE HIM!” instead of letting me make any kind of judgement of my own. I just. Urgh. I hate it. Why would anyone do this. On purpose. This is consistent enough that it can’t not be deliberate. Making the main character less likeable is making the series less enjoyable. What the in the world possessed them to think this was a good idea.

Sigh. Onto a couple of the other somewhat significant differences – there’s more of a sense in the first scene that Kristy actively didn’t want Marcus to come at all, in that she knew this the whole time and didn’t only realise it when she was at the door, which really begs the question of why he was even there in the first place. I suppose one could argue that this is the “Marcus doesn’t listen” part of the episode – that he should have listened to her asking him not to come – but, really, for me to believe that that was meant to be the point, someone should have actively mentioned that. As it is, I have no faith in this being deliberate on the dub’s part, so this doesn’t salvage anything to me about the terribleness of everyone insisting that Marcus’s problem is totally that he doesn’t listen.

I’m also sad about the conversation between the rest of DATS after Marcus goes off to fight the boat. In the original, it was already obvious to everyone that he was doing it to sacrifice himself, even though he never directly said anything to that effect, and the conversation was some delightful little commentary on how Masaru couldn’t admit that. Instead, in the dub, despite Marcus actually saying he was doing this to keep others from harm, the conversation is entirely Sampson explaining this to Yoshi and Thomas like it wasn’t already even more obvious than in the original, with no room for any interesting nuanced commentary on Marcus’s character.

#digimon #digimon savers #digimon data squad

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hit-me-with-a-ladle · 3 years

Text

Ch.9 Creepypastas x Fem! reader

" Now, the first thing I'm going to be making very clear is. This isn't Harry Potter or whatever. You don't have a magic wand that you can wave and 'poof' all of your issues are gone. The only way you can cast spells is by studying a very old book that you humans know as a 'Grimoire'. Which, let me tell you, is super hard to learn so that's why we're starting out with potions. I'm not saying it is easy but you understand."

The girl began to vigorously take notes as she listened and watched him fill the cauldron up with water, putting it to a boil.

" So with that put aside, let's start talking about potion-making itself. Potions don't always have to be magical but to calm the soul in a way. Each potion's strength is dictated by what you put in it so, if you were to make a, I don't know, a power potion. Deciding what you put in it can define its overall effectiveness and strength. So for example, if you put peppermint instead of sage you'll get a weaker overall result. And also the time its effects will reduce significantly."

He spoke quickly and very precisely, the way he articulated and carried himself showed that he was in his element. He began to cut different plants with a sharp silver blade and put it in the cauldron, stirring it once in a while.

" You most likely know that it takes more than a few ingredients to make an effective potion, so that's why experimenting is crucial. Mixing and matching different ingredients, not just for the hell of it but with a purpose, will help you improve. But to do that you'll need the basic knowledge of what, most, of the things, you're using do. I don't have all of the herbs and plants that exist, I have a very small portion in fact. This little cottage was built by me for the sole reason to have a place to store things you'll need to, well basically, survive."

He was quick with his movements as he looked through the shelves packed with different jars and glass bottles filled with different coloured liquids. Reading the labels that were neatly put on each of them, searching for something. She thoroughly took notes as she listened to him talk.

" So you actually made this by yourself?" She asked surprised.

" Yeah mostly, I had some help from Jack. He knows his way around that kind of stuff. But everything else is made by me."

" Are you and him on good terms?"

" Yeah, you can say that we are. He's alright, very chill dude, calm, lever headed. Sadistic, yes, but he would never hurt someone he cares for too much. He loves messing with people. But Jesus doesn't get him mad. It's very hard to get under his skin, but the moment you do, it's over for you. I've seen him crush people's skulls with one hand. He got in a fight with Masky once, broke his arm like it was a twig. Got in huge trouble with The Operator for that, after that incident things between them haven't been the same."

" What did they fight for?"

" Not sure, I wasn't there when that happened, but it's most likely Masky's fault."

He shrugged as he carried on with work, the girl was deep in thought now, curious of why they fought. Hearing the snapping of fingers quickly averting her attention to Ben who now carried on with this lesson.

" Hey listen so you'll know what the hell you'll be doing for the next week."

" Sorry."

" Great. Now, where was I? Oh yeah, each of these ingredients has its own magical properties, some even have multiple uses. For example, this is one you'll most likely know." Holding up a purple plant in his right hand, twirling it in his fingers. " Is lavender, the main reason someone might use it is for warding off evil spirits and whatnot, but it can also be used for purification if used correctly. Understand what I mean?"

The girl began to shake her head as she took notes. He crushed the lavender in his hand and added it to the cauldron. Now that she thought about it. What exactly was he making all this time? Her eyes followed his lengthy form as he strolled through the cottage getting what he needed or put things back in its place. At times he would stand in front of the large bookshelves and search for certain books, comb through them, read what he needed to find and place it back in its place. He was truly in his element, his posture now perfect and he was dead concentrated on what he was doing. Seemed to have the placement of everything memorized to a T. It was nice in a way, he knew what he was doing and it showed.

" I don't have much to say really. Course, I didn't tell you everything, you have much more to learn but for now that is enough I think. So if you have anything you want to ask, go ahead." He said continuing with his business.

" Actually I do. So the Raskovnik, what does it exactly do? Masky was very adamant about me getting it so why exactly is it so important."

" Oh well, it's not that it's very important, it's just that I really need it. Used up the last of it I had a while back so I asked if he could get some. This stuffs super hard to find, ya gotta have a good ass eye to even notice it, I'm surprised you were able to even find it. And as for what it's used for according to lore I've heard, Raskovnik has the magical property to unlock or uncover anything that is locked or closed. Needed it for a potion I'm making and ran out. It's not the most powerful but it's still super effective."

" So it's able to unlock basically anything right."

" Yeah pretty much."

" So how do you use it?"

" You can use it in a bunch of ways, but the most effective way for me is in a liquidated state, I guess. you'll learn how to do that, don't worry."

A new sense of hope soared through the girl's body when she heard its usage. There was a way to leave. A small smile crossed her lips as she looked into her hands. Roughly scribbled on the pages were the many notes she took.

" Done."

Ben solemnly said, making her look at him in confusion. He approached one of the shelves and took out a wooden cup. Dipping it in the cauldron, filling it up to the top and handing it to the girl. She took it in her hands, careful not to spill it, now even more confused than before.

" Drink it." He said.

" What's this?" She asked.

"It's meant to help your wounds. They seem a little uncomfortable, so I thought it would be best for some of them to heal. Now it might not fully heal some larger wounds. But overall it helps with medium-sized cuts and bruises and reduces pain and blood loss."

Muttering a soft 'Thank you.' She drank the whole thing at once. It barely had a taste but there were chunks of different things that made the texture strange and unpleasant. Like drinking a thick crema. When she finished she felt tingling in her neck, legs and arms as the skin began to twitch. After about five minutes that gash on her neck was almost gully gone. The discomfort on her arms and legs was now non-existent. And a wave of confidence washed over Ben when he saw the result of his work.

" I feel really good. Thank you." She spoke up as she touched her neck. " Can we go now?"

" Yeah sure."

He answered, nearing the door and opening it up for them to leave. Walking outside about to leave he quickly stopped himself.

" Wait, I forgot something inside, you go ahead and I'll catch up to you."

With that, he ran into the cottage once more. Searching for something. The sounds of bottles colliding and papers being put aside were soon heard as he dug through his belongings. The girl only laughed and carried on. After a few minutes, Ben caught up to her and together they walked towards the cabin. Finally reaching it she walked in and was about to go and make herself something to eat. Ben grabbed her by the shoulder and stopped her. She looked at him confused and before she could ask he pulled out a small necklace from his pocket. Locking eyes with her.

" I made this a while back. It's a charm meant to protect the wearer, and as you're going to be guarding the whole forest you'll be the one needing it most."

He then began to put it on her neck. When he was done she got a better look at it. It was a chain necklace with a tiny glass bottle hanging inside. Inside was some sort of green herb.

" What's inside of it?"

"Rosemary." He flashed his signature creepy smile.

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sylph-feather · 3 years

Text

Summary: Danny had known the rules— that being beaten would lead to transfer of the crown, instructed to him by their ominous guardians— but he hadn’t exactly considered all the implications of that.

For: @ghost-strawberry

Prompt: (Danny is ghost king hc) Danny loses a fight with Sam and the title of ghost king is transferred to her, despite Sam not being a ghost.

Words: 3,344

“Haha!” Sam barked triumphantly, standing over her defeated enemy in a display of dominance while stomping a scary combat boot, “I won.”

Danny let out nothing but a low keening sound, slumping on the Nasty Burger table and leaving his arm in its defeated position.

“Darn,” Tucker chimed in, “I thought that with all the ghost fighting and workouts you’ve been doing, Sam finally would stop being the reigning arm wrestling champ.” He paused, melodramatically draping a hand over his forehead and intoning, “alas.”

Danny only repeated the same mournful noise, all the sentiment of my arm is going to bruise and Sam will never let this go packed into a drawn out moan.

Before Danny could construct his complaints into something that took the form of language, there was a great burst of green fire that ensconced their cheap, plastic table. In the time it took to flinch, the ghostly flames had already washed over the group— and… done… nothing?

No, that wasn’t right— it hadn’t hurt them, to be more accurate. Their table, and the tile around it, looked like someone had carved a circle into the floor, taken everything within that circle (read: the trio, several overly greasy foodstuffs, and three shakes) and dropped it right into the Ghost Zone, if the swirling green abyss was anything to go by.

(Back in the human realm, the patrons of the Nasty Burger were left with their own overly greasy foodstuffs visible in their mouths held ajar as they stared at the smoldering circle that once held three teens and cheap fast food chain restaurant seating— horribly cheap plastic booths on a table that maybe had the suggestion of meeting bare-minimum sanitary requirements. A lone green flame died out, and acrid smoke wafted away. Same shit every day, a tired cashier thought).

Before them: the Coroners. Dark-colored ghosts with a litany of dark colors with glowing green antlers that twisted into the suggestion of the shape of a crown, and gnarled hands that all had the same mark of a skull on each knuckle. Between the name and the appearance, they were very ominous, to say the least.

Danny recognized them from the last time he met them: his own coronation.

Sam and Tucker, who were not there for that ritual because it occured after the fight with Pariah, were just as confused and scared as Danny was the first time. “It’s ok!” he yelped at his friends who were readying their on-hand Fenton weaponry. “I know them. They’re the Coroners.”

Sam shot him a look that said that is anything but encouraging, and Danny winced.

“They… do… the coron-ing,” Danny said slowly, because he didn’t know how else to phrase it. “Like, the monarchy ruler stuff.”

“Down with the monarchy,” Sam intoned almost instinctively, but still pocketed the lipstick laser once again, settling down and taking a more casual sip of her strawberry shake.

Tucker, meanwhile, just kept his shaky hands locked around the box of fries, determinedly not looking at the wraith-like creatures that had deer skulls sticking out of dark garb.

Sam paused in her slurping, considering the Coroner’s job in her mind more thoroughly. “I guess it makes sense, ‘cuz the Ghost Zone doesn’t have a pope to do it,” she admitted.

Tucker relaxed, and snorted. “Ghost pope.” The idea (mixed with the special breed of hysterical comedy that comes with stress) elicited great humor.

Fear abandoned, now they just looked confused. Danny was too— because, “why are you here?” He frowned down at himself. “Are you, uh, rebelling? Or do you have an important message? Or…?”

That was one-third of the Coroner’s jobs: rebellion. Or, more accurately, inciting rebellion. To understand, one must understand two-thirds of their job: the second third was that someone had to pass down the Ring of Rage and Crown of Fire. After the defeat of Parkah, the ancient ghosts were very grateful that Danny had taken it from Pariah Dark after his reign of tyranny, given that he had destroyed them… because of the first third of their job. See, the Coroners were also supposed to act as some representative electoral body of ghost-kind in deciding who passed a somewhat okay-ish ruler, and if that didn’t work out, they usually incited rebellion against said tyrant, or inevitably did so when a once kind ruler became glutted with greed and violence.

So Pariah trapped them, which (admittedly) was a rather sensible plan, and (also admittedly) a major design flaw in the ring and the crown. After all, given the requirement for the initial rights to ring and crown were to battle and defeat its previous user to gain access (it could be peacefully passed, but that option had never happened), and really, nothing of the Coroner’s judgement would make an impact outside of someone saying no— that is to say, the ring and crown wouldn’t just poof. Thus, it seemed reasonable to assume that the battler would continue, well, battling for that power.

The last third of their job is significantly less exciting— as Danny put it: messaging. It simply was to act as ghostly servants; knights, mailmen, whatever the King and the ghosts that needed the King may require. Danny largely told them to use their own discretion in solving conflicts, because he was just one teen barely keeping his grades above Cs, and then left them to it.

So yes, Danny was kind of worried that somehow, such a dramatic summons would be some kind of ominous warning on the way he was being a king— which, to be fair, he was barely being a king at all— due to the aforementioned second-third of their job.

The largest one with the most elaborately twisted antlers pointed a long, bony finger at Sam. Its voice, which sounded both grand and incredibly spooky, boomed thusly: “this human has bested you in battle. Thusly, according to the sacred laws of the Ring of Rage and the Crown of Fire, she shall be bequeathed the title of ghostly monarch. Ye, Danny Phantom, halfa, who have bested Pariah Dark, have lost to Sam Manson, human, and cede your title as ruler.”

In a circle, the thirteen wraiths whispered, “and the cycle continues.” It was murmured slightly out of sync, but it gave less of an impression of untidiness or lack of professionalism, and more of an ominous feeling, like there were many more voices than just thirteen.

Danny was slightly less freaked out than Sam and Tucker by it, given they had said a similar thing when he was coronated, but with far less spooky fanfare, and more normal, excited fanfare. Mostly, Danng was spooked more by the suddenness of the thing, and the prospect of it.

In the hands of the largest one that was clearly the leader, the Ring of Rage and the Crown of Fire appeared in a dramatic swooshing of green flame.

Danny’s eyes widened. “She.” He paused, because he couldn’t really argue with that. It was— technically, sort of— a battle. And in the Ghost Zone, might made right and all that. Still.

Sam and Tucker stared, jaws agape. Between all the new info and now this revelation, their brains essentially bluescreened.

Danny, even though he was previously initiated, wasn’t in a much better state— all he managed to get out aloud was an incredulous, “it was arm wrestling?”

One of the smaller wraiths, its crown of horns barely nubs, drifted forwards to their Nasty Burger island that was adrift in the Ghost Zone, and asked in its voice of crackling dead leaves, “is this the manner in which you were beaten?”

Sam, herself, recovered from the mental “404” page, and her first reaction was to release a huge guffaw of laughter.

Danny slid forwards onto the table, thoroughly spent between embarrassment and confusion. All he articulated was a very, very long groan.

“May we, uh,” Danny said slowly, turning towards the head wraith and looking at the glowing points set in the skull’s sockets, “have a moment to discuss?”

Tucker made a vague noise between worry and agreement.

“So long as the queen wishes,” it bowed to her, deeply reverent.

“Wait,” Sam ordered, smile growing on her face. “If I were queen,” she said slowly, “would I be able to get rid of this monarchy?”

“Tis not a monarchy, my lady,” one of the thirteen said, antler crown bobbing.

The whole table of teens processed this for a moment.

Tucker burst into incredulity first: “you literally called her a monarch just a few seconds ago!”

“A title, nothing more,” a Coroner corrected. “Nay, you do not hold much sway over them, rather, it is they who hold sway over you, sending message to help resolve conflicts, be they fullscale fights or quarrels.”

Danny groaned, suppressed memories bubbling up: the many times the Coroners had come to him with arguments regarding ghost territories, many attempting to use Danny as a weapon or a diplomat or bodyguard or— so on.

Thus far, a handful of months into his kinghood, Danny had stopped one “fullscale fight” that bordered on a war. (...This was also related to territory, however).

Either way, that was a long way to say: the statement that it was just a title held up. The ring and crown didn’t actually really get him any political leeway with the ghosts— it was more of an… intimidation tactic that some ghosts fled from, because the ring and the crown were no more than power boosters.

Asides from that, all he got were updates on all the troubles in the Zone that supposedly needed him (most of which actually didn’t). The Ghost Zone was a lawless place, so a title of king was not worth much outside of sheer power display.

For the most part, the things had just served to place a target on his back, specifically, because any lost battle would mean they were his no more, and that the power would be passed to the victor.

Sam, seemingly on the same line of thought as he, hummed, “would ghosts know I was the… Ghost Queen?” At declaring herself monarch (even if it was apparently in name only), her face did a bit of an involuntary, complicated twisting motion.

Danny picked himself up from his pathetic slump, and aimed an intrigued-but-confused look at Sam.

Tucker caught on a bit faster— “so if the ghosts think Danny’s still the king, they fight him— but there’s no risk involved in him losing.”

Sam nodded, smiling a little sappily.

Danny just made a mushy “aw,” sound, seeming to consider it.

It was hard to read the expressions of the ghosts that surrounded the trio’s private, floating chunk of the Nasty Burger establishment, because said ghosts wore skulls… but they seemed baffled, though reluctantly accepting. It was all in the tilt of their heads and the pause of their voice as they said, “great Queen, whatever thou shall ask of us.”

Sam nodded again, then paused. Her face cracked into an eager grin— a dangerous grin. “Do I get cool powers from this?”

After receiving the crown, Danny had gotten a boost in his own powers; nothing new, just everything that was there was doubled. Double the size, the intensity, the spookiness, the everything. Needless to say, being goth and being active in fights as she was, Sam was excited for ghost powers. She was momentarily lost in visions of a sweeping gothic outfit, one of pure black with smokey edges, decked out in spikes, etcetera— in other words, “edgy.”

Tuck, meanwhile, had a far more practical askance: “hold on. She’s a human, right?”

Of course, it wouldn’t be the first instance of humans vaguely receiving or being influenced by ghost powers in some way; Undergrowth had done it, there had been that time with ghost mosquitos, and the one with that Egyptian staff, and the whole incident with the dragon-rage amulet… not to mention the halfas themselves, obviously. Still, it was not all that hope-inspiring to consider that all of them save for the halfas were essentially some degree of possession (or, at the least, something infectious and negative).

Aloud, Tucker continued to contemplate. “It’s not exactly reassuring to call them ghost powers, with uh, death. Involved.” It was a choppy sentence, but it got the point across; Danny was a special case, but even a half death wasn’t exactly desirable.

The glowing eyes of the coroners seemed to wink in amusement, insomuch as points of light could display emotion. “Ghost powers , says the queen.”

“Ghost powers,” the others echo— not ominous this time, because they are chortling, seeming to be one step away from elbowing one another.

Sam flushes a bit. “What’s so funny about that?” she grunts, offended.

The coroners all bow deeply. “We meant no offense,” speaks one from the crowd, and it is followed by a wave of nodding before any of the trio can tell which one was even talking. “We simply find hilarity on your naivete.”

“Elaborate,” she ordered with extremely thin patience.

“We were hasty in calling you the monarch yet,” the largest explained in its ancient, crackling voice, slow and thoughtful— annoyingly so.

Sam pinches her nose, understanding with perfect clarity why Danny had complained dealing with these pretentious, cryptic weirdos. “Elaborate,” she commanded once again.

“You are not the monarch yet, because you have not died,” it informed with great solemnity.

The Nasty Burger chunk floated in stunned silence as the trio absorbed that.

“Die?!” Tucker yelled, banging the table, upsetting both the fries and the silence.

“You have a fascinating and naive way of phrasing it, but perhaps ghost powers is not so far from the truth,” one of the antlered creatures mused, not really addressing the obvious tension or concern. “For indeed, the ring and the crown do power the spiritual energy—“

“They’re just ghost batteries!” Danny interrupted, baffled and surprised.

Sam herself then interrupted the interruption with a scoff, creating a horrible stack of domino-ing interruptions. “All this pizazz over just a power source that I can’t even use?”

“You are incapable of using it as you are now,” a coroner pointed out. Something in all their eyes glinted ominously, and their antlers seemed to shine with ethereal light. “You are disconnected while living,” one said. As a group, they began encircling the private bit of Nasty Burger, wraith-like cloaks brushing against disgusting tile that was glossy with grease of burgers long past. “But we will fix that,” the coroners intoned as one.

Danny finally took some initiative, fluidly erupting from his seat and transforming into Phantom in a singular motion. It felt just a tad ridiculous to he hovering over a Nasty Burger table that was ridiculously out of place in the abyssal green of the Ghost Zone, but that only graced his mind for a moment. Instead, the primary thought was one he voiced aloud: “are you going to kill her?” Danny may have been a C student, but regarding threats he was not slow on the uptake— he’d been in enough fights to get a good instinct. For their part, Tuck and Sam took it too— partially cowering behind Danny while brandishing their own Fenton brand lasers.

The dark spirits jolted to a stop, and tilting their many skull-heads quizzically— a nonverbal askance of why fight? All their minds were whirring, and the first theory from the group of coroners was this: “are you hungry for this power once again?” The group around chortled, a veritable cacophony like many dead leaves being kicked around by whistling wind. It was a taunt, clearly. “This is the natural order of things, halfa. You cannot deny it. You have lost. She has won, won spiritual power, power we take from you.” An enormous pressure of dread emanated from the threatening beings, seeming to push at Danny’s chest— it threw him off kilter in the emotional sense, but also the literal given that he was midair. “If you desire it returned to you, then beat her as she did you, as is the rites of the Ring and the Crown.”

“I’m more upset she’s gonna die!” Danny barked, a little sarcastic and a lot tense, gesticulating wildly as though that could free his limbs from the lead of supernatural fear. As he did so, his hands became enveloped in his own charging ectoplasm— like a snowball dragged through snow to gather more icy slush to its mass, so too did Danny draw the pure ectoplasm from his surroundings.

“I would like not to die,” Sam agreed quickly.

“If it counts, I’m thirding that motion,” Tucker put in as well.

The coroners pulled back, seemingly startled. “You… do not want this power. But you do not get to choose. ” Their antlers still held an ominous and powerful glow, which spoke to the fact that they had already made their choice in regards to the whole death thing.

Sam drew in a breath, preparing her “hell no” tirade— when Danny exploded into motion, wrapping a gloved hand around Sam’s hand that didn’t have a lipstick laser in it, and propped them sloppily on the Nasty Burger table. He held his elbow on the table and their chained hands up. Before she could process what on earth he was doing, he painfully but desperately slammed their linked hands down against the table.

Everyone was staring at Danny, ghosts and humans alike. Silence reigned— utterly baffled, confused silence. It was though a massive, unspoken huh? has slammed down onto the area.

“There,” he said, reedy desperation coloring his voice. “I won the arm wrestle match.”

Sam cottoned on pretty quickly— “oh no,” she groaned, “Danny, you beat me. You won .”

Tucker shot her a look— the emphasis was a bit hammy— but said nothing, only watched hopefully as the coroners seemed to enter something of a loading state as they processed the turn of events.

Then, startlingly, they quickly and fluidly bowed simultaneously. “Long live our shortest reigning queen,” they said with great solemnity, “and welcome back, our halfa King. Long may he reign.”

Needless to say, the trio’s sigh of relief was about unparalleled.

“If I am to reign,” Danny said slowly, recovering but still trying to sound poncy and official (rather than yell at them as he desired), “may we, in the future… discredit joking competitions?” It was delicately phrased, awkward pauses as he deliberately chose fancy phrasing, but it at least got the point across (even if Danny could swear that despite having skull faces and only pinpricks of light for eyes, the coroners were making faces at him).

The coroners stares at each other, cloaks rustling but no sound passing between them.

“Yes,” the largest said suddenly, “such a request is reasonable, for a half-human teenager.” With exasperation, it added: “you already were an exceptional case in your ruling.”

“And in general,” a smaller one piped up snarkily from the back, to be shushed by what was likely a superior.

“Right,” Danny clapped his hands together and huffed, relieved but still tense.

“Now, how do we get out of here…?” Tucker questioned, trailing off and looking at the abyss. He traced his fingers on the table, then his face lit up— “uh, can I keep this? It’s authentic Nasty Burger merch, technically, and it’s nor like they’re really gonna need it when it’s been diverged from this reality, let alone their store—“

Before he could continue, there was a snap from one of the coroner’s gnarled hands, and a great bout of green flames engulfed said hunk of Nasty Burger— for the second time that day.

When a very stunned Danny Fenton, Sam Manson, Tucker Foley, and smoldering, partially aflame with emerald Nasty Burger chunk snapped back into place within the mortal realm, a certain cashier stared balefully at the fused tiles and remnant ghost flame, thought same shit every day once again, and promptly asked: “do you want more to order?”

And thus, the status quo was restored, for better or for worse.

#phic phight #phicphight #phicphight21 #phic phight 2021 #phicphight2021 #danny phantom #phic #fic #my writing

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musicallisto · 4 years

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Hello love,

Congratulations for the 800 followers! You absolutely deserve this and so much more! I'm happy to see how your blog grows and that you're still providing all of us with wonderful content. You're one of the first blogs that I've started to follow here on Tumblr and I'm so lucky to have found your blog ♡

As for your celebration event, could I please request a 🍨 vanilla milkshake with a male Peaky Blinders Character?

I'm more on the curvy side (and insecure about it) and I'm ALWAYS wearing black (which I love, no matter what others say or even more if they object). As for my personality, I'm a highly complex, paradox and complicated individium. I'm unbelievable patient, timid, awkward, kind, forgiving, open-minded, compassionate, thruthful, gentle and calm and I've been told that I have a calming effect on others, that I can easily ground anyone and anything, no matter how troubled their mind is. I prefer vintage over modern things. I think rather deep which often leads me to overthinking everything, which in turn leads me to doubting (very much) myself. You would be surprised how timid and reserved I am, I'm sure you wouln't notice me in a room full of people if it wouldn't be for my different appearance (but I like it this way). I'm always well-meaning, yet often misunderstood (maybe because it's hard for me to articulate myself). I can be incredible lazy, clumsy and forgetful. I've always felt like I don't really belong anywhere, so I've started to distance myself from others a while ago. I'm a outsider, weird, a dork, not normal, a loner and I fucking love it, because I like to be different, I would hate to fit into just one box and to be like everyone else. And I like people who are not ashamed to be their 100% true self, no matter how different that is from the mainstream. I'm the most loyal person you'll ever find, once you earn my trust, I'll always be on/by your side, no matter what. That says a lot, because I'm hard to scare away. Sometimes I feel alienated from the people and things surrounding me and I'm sure that I annoy and bore them. I'm very nervous and insecure around others, which is why I try to avoid people and why I'm not talking all that much around them (though, I'm a really good listener). I'm easily overwhelmed by large crowds and much light/noise, that's why I don't like to go outside, I prefer to cozy up at home. I would never intentionally hurt a animal and I'm not eating any meat, which is very important to me. I believe that there isn't a ounce of cruelty inside me. I'm unassuming and understanding, I only believe what I've witnessed on my own and I have endless acceptance for almost everything. Due to my Insomnia, I'm a night owl. I have strong personal values, am very opinionated and I'm really in-touch with myself and even though I'm extremly insecure, I would never reduce or change myself and views/opinions for someone and I neither have a problem to challenge authority and advocating for my beliefs. I'm a perfectionist and sometimes I really hate it. And, as you can see, I'm unable to be brief. My favourite colours are dark green, black, gold and dark purple. My greatest passion is music, even if I can't sing or play an instrument.(I prefer rock/punk/pop/80s/90s) It's the most calming and therapeutic thing when it comes to my anxiety and depression and I could never live a day without it. You will never see me in the street without headphones in my ears and even when I'm at home there's music playing almost all the time. I could talk for hours about music and what it means to me. And otherwise I love to watch films and series (I like fantasy, horror, psychological thriller, science fiction and psychological drama and almost anything from the 70s, 80s and 90s). I love rainy days and to go outside while it's pouring big, fat drops. What I love the most is to drive around without a destination, while talking and listening to music. And I love to spend time with my cat, if I could, I would have endless animals who live peacefully and loved with me. I enjoy to have deep talks and to be challenged to think. I love to take late-night-strolls, while gazing into the sky and watching the stars/moon. I have a fascination for dark and macabre things.

I really hope that's not too much? But thank you anyway ♡

Have a good day!

thank you so much for your kind words, you have no idea how much it means to me to know that I was one of the first blogs you followed ;; here’s your vanilla milkshake - and it’s also my first time writing for peaky blinders, but I hope it’s alright; and I hope finn shelby will find the portrait I paint of him accurate enough...

Birmingham was a drab and disheartening place enough without the war adding to its joylessness; but somehow the streets are even worse to bear deserted than when they’re bustling and fetid. Especially for a ten year old boy who wants nothing but to play with someone, to talk to someone, to see someone.

With his brothers off fighting somewhere in France and his aunt too busy with her businesses (adult stuff that Finn has absolutey no interest in attempting to understand), the youngest Shelby has been fighting off an affliction worse than consumption and measles, because much more insidious for a boy his age; boredom

and he’s so sad, so irrevocably sad, with no one to bruise his knees with and throw mud at, that he just aimlessly wanders the empty streets whenever aunt Polly isn’t looking, to find a semblance of stimulation

(he used to enjoy the solitude, it gave him time to imagine delirious stories in fantastical worlds and read the most enthralling of novels, but not anymore. four years of reclusion is an awfully long time for a little boy.)

and it’s during one of his escapades that he first meets you

you’re a little girl his age, dressed in a pretty dress, wearing pretty booties and holding a pretty little woven basket, but your face is stuck on the most grouchy frown he’s ever seen on a little girl, and you don’t walk, you stomp down the wet pavement like a wrathful titan

And it’s probably the first time in four years that he’s been this close to making a new friend, so he walks up to you, despite how rusty his communication skills have become

“Girls don’t frown. It’s unbecoming.”

(Yes, pretty rusty indeed; but in his defense, he’s ten, he’s bored, he’s lonely, and he’s only ever heard Ada say it, and Ada is the most level-headed of his siblings, so anything she says must be true, right?)

“Shut up.”

(Well, if it was unbecoming of you to frown, it’s even more to rebuff someone so rudely. You don’t even spare a glance and continue walking; he has to hurry to catch up to you.)

“You can’t say that. It’s a bad word.”

“How do you know that?”

“My family says it all the time, but they told me I can’t say it.”

“Well, my family is not your family. And I hate my family!”

You’ve yelled the last words at the sky, so loud that the crows on the neighboring roofs have taken off in a startled flight.

“They want to wear this stupid dress to go to the stupid market to buy stupid meat. I don’t even want to eat meat, that’s cruel! And I don’t even want to wear a frilly dress! I want to wear black!”

And in saying so you tugged at the pink and white ribbons that encircled your waist.

And Finn couldn’t help being extremely intrigued at this little girl who said bad words and refused to eat meet and wanted to wear black. It was the most exciting thing to ever happen in all the duration of the war.

“You want to wear a black dress?”

“Yes, but my mama won’t let me. She says it’s too sad because of the war. But black isn’t sad! Black is beautiful!”

“Maybe I could find you a black dress. I’m sure my sister must have one. Where do you live?”

And, loyal to his promise, the following morning he had run to your doorstep and snuck into your house - a proper Shelby talent, to be able to go unnoticed or make a ruckus depending on the occasion - with an old, crinkled mourning dress of Ada’s, that had probably belonged to his mother and had been mended several times

And it was obviously five sizes too big for you and you looked more like a ghost from one of Finn’s horror novels, your arms floating in the sleeves and the hem of the skirt pooling at your feet, but your smile was the brightest light he’d ever seen in this whole damn town.

“Do you like it?”

(He didn’t really know why he sounds so nervous. Maybe it was having a friend, a real friend, and doing something personal for them... or maybe it had to do with how fast his heart beat, watching you in that gigantic, shapeless dress)

“I love it! Thank you so much, Finn!”

From then on started one of the most wonderful friendships Finn would ever have, and what would bring a ray of light to the grim existence of a little boy in the midst of a global war

Despite the ration cards, despite the loneliness, despite the worry that tugged at his stoic aunt’s eyes for her son and nephews across the Channel... he found an unspeakable solace in your friendship

And one day, without a trace, you were gone

He knocked on your door; gone. He asked all the neighbors what had happened to the family that lived there; gone. He wrote you letters and sent them to the confines of England; gone. He got scolded by Polly for marking numbers at random on Tommy’s state-of-the-art telephone; gone.

Suddenly he was back to the bleak existence he had battled with before meeting you, and the hollow inside his chest only grew wider as the days went on, because he had no explanation as to what had happened to you, and worried every single day

Thankfully, the war ended not long after, and his brothers came back home, all alive and unscathed - well, for the most part

Fast forward more or less ten years, and much has changed in Finn Shelby’s life and in old Birmingham, but the memory of you still stugs at his heartstrings

One evening, he’s tasked by Arthur to run some errands, send a few messages, scout a few places; the most dangerous thing his older brothers will ever let him do

His task leads him to a bar in the center of town, one that pours its joyous light and music into the street outside; he’s there to meet with a client, arrange a meeting; nothing he’s hasn’t done already

But the evening takes a turn for the unexpected when he recognizes the girl sat alone at a table, enjoying the musicians’ jazz with an air of pure bliss on her face

It’s been ten years, of course, but... it’s unmistakable. That face, that silhouette, and the black ensemble from head to toe... and he’s always had a knack for remembering faces, especially those that mark him deeply

Suddenly he’s frozen on the spot, and he has forgotten why he came to the bar in the first place, what his target looks like - all he knows is you, and how beautiful you look in the dim light of the bar, and the undisclosed and unknown feelings he had for you at the time come flooding back.

Except this time, he understands, and he fears them, because he doesn’t have time for any of this, and it’s way too dangerous for you and him

But he can’t just pass you by and not say a word?

He swallows, hard.

And walks up to you.

“Y/N?”

You open your eyes, and your face flashes with recognition, and a little bit of pain as well. Even if you fled without a word, and left him hanging all these years, he’s incapable of rancor

“Finn... wow, you’ve changed so much.”

“You haven’t.”

He gestures at your face, your clothes, how you savor the music like the finest drink in the world, and you laugh and blush, sending his heart into overdrive

“Where were you all this time?”

“I’m so sorry, Finn... my brother died in the war, and... my mom sent me to live with my grandparents in Scotland. We were all destroyed by grief... I needed to get away.”

“Without explanation? Not even a word?”

“I wanted to write to you, so bad, but... I couldn’t remember your address. I couldn’t remember anything about Birmingham at all...”

He nods, slowly, in understanding.

The war opens wounds that never heal, even after all the most beautiful friendships and love stories in the world.

“But I’m really glad I found you.”

His heart is pounding in his throat. Maybe it’s a sign of destiny that he found you here, tonight, alone, and ready to welcome him back. Maybe it’s a word from fate, that you can never truly be apart.

So he takes the seat in front of you, and you smile, that shy but bright smile of yours, and he forgets all about his mission, his client, and his brothers.

They’ll have to understand.

800 follower sleepover

#lunamooney2406 #sleepover800 #ship request #peaky blinders #peaky blinders ship #finn shelby #finn shelby x reader #peaky blinders headcanons #finn shelby headcanons #for some reason the first thing I write for a new fandom is always SUPER LONG but that's because i get rlly in my feelings

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botwstoriesandsuch · 4 years

Text

Back here with another episode of:

Read Part 1 here!

If you’re on mobile, and tumblr hates this post, follow along on this google doc!

Rules/overview this rewrite in the beginning of Part 1

Alrighty then, so let’s just jump into it!

- - - - - - - - - -

Recap! So when we last left off, we had just finished off Act 1 of the story. We’ve used the character introduction segments and the gambit feature as a means to give more life to everyone, without sacrificing too much cutscene time. Allowing us to save and focus the major story details and set up on the more cinematic cutscenes.

I had forgotten, but after Part 1 came out, an anon pointed out that Impa’s character introduction could use some work, and while you don’t need to read it right now to understand the rest of this post, I encourage you to look at it eventually to see the strengths and flaws in the original Impa introduction, and the reasons for my rewrite changes! All you need to know is that eggbot was lying around, deactivated, but when in proximity to the Sheikah Slate, was turned on like other Guardians. Eggbot being activated by the Sheikah Slate is kinda brushed over in the original game? But in my rewrite it’s gonna have some later significance. Also during the Royal Lab cutscene, I want Robbie or Purah to mention how Zelda’s control of the Sheikah Slate is quite exceptional or something. It’s a bit obvious already in Hwaoc, but I need it to be verbally said in a story scene for, again, later significance. Alright that’s it for my added details, moving on now.

After Chapter 1, we moved into the characters accepting the Call to Adventure, whether by the general external reasons of wanting to save the world, and developed a little bit further with more internal related reasons to give nuances and identities to different characters. Revali wishes to prove that his hard work earns him better merit than a sidekick, Urbosa wishes to protect and help Zelda on an emotional level, Mipha wishes to get closer to Link and come back to her family proud, etc etc.

Then, the climax of Act 1 ends with the Yiga ambush, and the characters get a first taste of leaving their areas of comfort, and journeying into the unknown world. Although the gameplay and the successful defeat of the Yiga establishes the Champion team’s strength, our interaction with Rhoam shows us that they still have a ways to go. The momentum into the full story now has a bit of tension and conflict.

So now we crash into the beginning of Act 2, the longest Act in a story, as it’s the part where the....story, happens. Let’s take a look at changes to the Hollows, eggbot mysteries, Zelda character growth, and our first real dip into the character of our antagonist, the Prophet of Doom himself, Astor…

So in the game, Chapter 3 opens on the flank of Death Mountain, our heroes overlooking the view of Korok Forest.

There are a few problems I have with this scene. It’s really stale, there’s no movement, nothing dynamic about it other than the opening shot. They just kinda stand there and say words until Revali’s done ranting and summons Medoh. Also Revali’s dialogue is a bit “much” to say the least, and uh, spoiler alert, he’s gonna be reworked a bit more than the other Champions. Finally, this scene doesn’t have a lot of purpose or substance. Sure, it has some character conflict with Revali and Link and the team, but that’s kinda established already, plus it’s something that I’ve already fleshed out in the last scene with King Rhoam, so it’s a bit redundant. So that leaves this scene serving only as a boring current draw to the Medoh fight and nothing else. This is the opening set up for the Chapter where important story stuff goes down! Needs a lot more substance. So! Here’s my rework.

We open on the sound of running. Link, along with Zelda, Urbosa, Daruk, and Mipha are running upwards on a path by Edlin. They’re chasing a small group of bokoblins and it looks like it’s the end of the fight. Urbosa is more near the back, with Zelda, but Daruk and Mipha both kill a bokoblin, their bodies of the monsters exploding in a cloud of malice upon their demise. When the camera shows each of their kills, the shots are quick, but I want the angle of the camera to be in such a way that the malice evaporates center frame, with Daruk and Mipha being behind the malice. This is because for a split second, it looks like the malice lingers around them like smoke. Huh, I wonder if that’s foreshadowing or something.

Anyhow, Link chases the final red bokoblin uphill, boots pattering against rock. However, we’re now seeing this from a moving, flying, bird’s eye view [quite literally wink wink]

Cut back close to Link, he kills the bokoblins. Stands there for a sec as he sheathes his sword. And then...

“Well I’ll be plucked. You defeated it, eh?”

Reveal Revali flying from above, and he lands in front of Link, but faces away from him. “Who would have thought that some little knight, amongst a group of chosen heroes, would get some action. You must be pretty proud of yourself, hm?” Cue that classic Revali head turn with a glare. Also when Revali says “heroes” I want him to flick his scarf dramatically, while staring at Link’s armour, as if internally he were judging Link on a runway.

Zelda runs up and starts speaking. “Oh Revali, I apologize our meet up with Medoh got a bit delayed. I assume that you’ve already positioned them by now for the attack?”

Revali hums a yes, but doesn’t bother to entertain a more fleshed out answer. Instead, he flicks his wing (as if to say, “come on”) and turns his back to walk up the trail. The others follow.

“I was informed that only the Champions and yourself would be present. What are…” Revali flicks a wing in the direction of Link and eggbot, like a Karen shooing a waiter. “...they, exactly contributing?”

Zelda says some stuff about Link being her bodyguard like: “Well, my father was impressed enough with Link’s actions from the other week that he’s assigned to give me further protection.’ She can say this a bit grumpily, to Link’s ignorance. Daruk can pipe in like “And a good thing too! Always great to have little guy at our backs.” and Mipha can nod sheepishly or something. But their dialogue is cut off by another rude interjection (because hell if Revali wants to listen to more rambling about Link)

“Right, right. And this thing is still around?” Revali gestures to eggbot.

Zelda: “Well, This little one's technological prowess has been quite useful in battle, allowing us to access the rune functions and all. So I figured it’d be a big help should something unexpected happen. Plus...” cute shot of Zelda staring at eggbot, “it just...feels right.” Then the little eggshit can like, chirp happily or make some cute whistle or whatever. Just shove in a bit of that egg fanservice, might as well since I need to better establish its presence for later.

Revali mutters something about “big help,” before gesticulating with his wings as he continues walking up the trial. “Mooore like a big liability should anything happen to your little pet, and one of us be forced to risk our lives just to save it from becoming scrap. Honestly, when it comes to you, and you.” Revali points to both eggbot and Link, “Your presence is an entire waste of time. ‘Backup?’ Help?’ Tsk. Humouring.” Eggbot can make a noise or something while Link just tilts his head. Revali continues: “You’re only here because of a non-existent, fantastical, imaginary hypothetical in which I somehow fail, and I don’t, fail.” When he articulates that last part, he stops walking and does another little head turn/glare, but he still doesn’t bother to fully face him. “I’m sure that your duty will no longer be of importance once your reputation...is nothing but a memory overshadowed by today’s great feats. A forgettable knight, heh heh!”

“Revali,” Urbosa sighs, “How long do you expect us to put up with your showboating and prattle?”

That when Revali finally turns fully to face the group, with a more grim glare. They’ve reached the top of the ledge anyhow, so they’ve stopped walking. This is where the camera can view the Lost Woods in its fullest as it zooms on Revali. Then, that ending is the same as the game with the pan up to Medoh’s presence.

“Fine. I’ve said enough. The time has come to show you what I’m made of. Now witness...Vah Medoh’s divine power!”

So that’s that. Revali is toned down a bit, and his rude remarks have more of a precision as to their point. It’s a bit hard to explain over words alone, but the fact that this scene takes place as the Champions are walking up the trail, means it’s a lot more interesting to look at. (Kinda like the walk and talk premise that you see in The West Wing) Plus, the trail being uphill establishes that hint of power dynamic as Revali is above everyone else. Also there’s just a bit of some botw dialogue connection, not only in just the opening, [Hwaoc Revali vs Botw Revali “Who would have thought” is put in different context based on their development, so it’s a good establishing point to show where this Revali is at in dynamics with Link in comparison to botw, all in just one line rather than in a more longer explanation] but I also scattered a few dramatic irony pieces in there heheh. There’s a lot more reasons why this scene is an improvement [and hopefully to you, it already *feels* better] but I’m not going to explain them until near the end, as its importance is connected to the later scenes of this Chapter.

In fact, that's the overarching change that I’ve made to these cutscenes, I’ve actually connected them and related them to the other scenes. This is the very first introduction to Chapter 3, after all, so it’s important that this introduction serves to be of more significance than “ok here’s the champions, here’s revali, there's medoh. Now go wreck stuff.”

Medoh’s fight is the same, the cutscenes after are mostly the same. Except here, when everyone runs into Korok forest and you see Astor, I want this scene to end not on Astor’s face (because it’s not as significant anymore since we’ve already see Astor in full in Chapter 2 with Urbosa’s stage) but it should end with Astor reaching out a hand towards the camera. The camera angle would be just a bit below Astor. This is because I want the implication to be slightly more clear that he killed those two Yiga underlings to craft the Hollows. It’s a nice little “watch it for the first time it doesn’t mean anything” but watching again it’s like “ohh how did I not notice that” kind of thing.

Then, Hestu’s introduction is roughly the same. I don’t think I really need to rework it too much, since Hestu as a character doesn’t serve anything major to the plot, so it’s fine for it to just be fun and cute. I will however, change just a few pieces of dialogue.

Revali: “Are we even making progress? We could just be going in circles.”

Daruk: “Good point. If only someone could fly above and scout the way.”

Revali: “As though I could see anything through this muck. Honestly, do you even think before you speak?”

Revali!!! Don’t be so rude to Daruk. Like yes it’s a bit funny, but that last part with “do you even think before you speak” is a bit much, because honestly Revali doesn’t really have a reason to hate Daruk. He’s characterized as being rude to Link and those he deems unworthy of respect, but Revali respects Daruk, Mipha, and Urbosa fairly well, considering they were chosen alongside him. So personally, I’d just tweak this to

Daruk: “Good point. If only someone could fly above and scout the way...”

Mipha snickers at this. And Revali mutters more quietly to himself, “As though I could see anything through this muck.” and gives little “hmph!” at Daruk, moving away.

There we go! It still serves it purpose of showing how the Champions are still not completely in sync (which is what I can assume was the original purpose of Revali’s rude comment line) but it’s played a bit more comedic (which makes sense considering this is in the context of Hestu’s introduction) and we get to poke fun at Revali, since just early we had spent so long boosting up his ego. Also Mipha laughing a bit with Daruk while Revali broods adds to that point of them being too busy to see Hestu right behind them.

Another small change, I don’t want Zelda to discover Hestu first. I want eggbot to discover Hestu, maybe they shake their maraca and eggbot notices and gives a little curious whistle. When Zelda notices eggbot not walking with her, she looks right, and that’s when she notices Hestu. It’s almost insignificant, but I really want to establish the eggbot’s presence for this chapter. Especially since this game writes him out of cutscenes a lot.

Final small change. That Hestu scene ends, not with Revali wordlessly shaking his head and following the group after hanging back. But with Mipha actively turning back, saying something like “Come, Revali. We should all stick together. It wouldn’t do for us to get lost.” and then a reply like “As far as I’m concerned, when it comes to mystic swords, magic trees, lucky knights, and walking eggs...I already am.” I’m just trying to keep intact that Nintendo “vibe” of flicking the character stances right in your face, especially since this game's only forms of telling the story are through these less than a minute cutscenes.

OKAY! Gameplay stuff. There are no real mechanic or level design changes to the Battle of Korok Forest, BUT there is one important change that I want to make here.

When the party splits up to take on the bosses in order to get rid of the malice. I think that the Hollows should speak.

Not like full on sentences and stuff (yet) but I think they should mumble and groan and be able to speak a few simple words. Now why do I say this? Well, let’s take a look at how I think we should introduce them.

First off, I think it should be a cutscene. Not just some 2 second animation where the Hollows spawn in. Nonononononono, this needs to be a cutscene, because it needs to be acted, because we need to see the character reactions. Like, if you’re gonna have that cliche “dark evil clone of the protagonists” thing, then you might as well go all out with the angst. In fact, personally, I would have rewritten is as the hollows actually *being* the champions and astor can temporarily control them but then when he sees that fail later in the game that can be his motivator for making the blights to kill them off since they’re no longer of use to him alive or whatever but we’re scrapping that idea because like I've said I want to try to keep the integrity of the original story.

Ok, so you have a character come up to one of the map points, and when they get there it fades into a cutscene. It’s not gonna be super long, but here’s the vision.

Character is in the lost woods, they killed a stalbokoblin or whatever. Just some low tier enemy, and then it dies and becomes that whisp of malice. Great. Character turns to leave, but then they hear something. Like a snicker, or laughter. Cut to this angle from behind the trees, but instead of astor it’s the character you’re playing as.

They go over to investigate, creeping closer with caution, until they see a shadow. The shadow of a small figure, about no higher than Link, with a long, trident weapon.

FWOOSH! An explosion of malice, almost like a fountain behind the character. They turn just in time to block the attack, the Lightscale Trident, but yet...it’s not the Lightscale Trident, because it’s covered in malice. Hollow Mipha is striking from the air, because this is basically her fountain teleportation thing, but malice. Once the character blocks the attack, time slows just a bit so you can see Hollow Mipha’s face, and then cut to the other characters face to give them a reaction. And that’s it.

Then you can pop back into gameplay, but there should be textboxes on the bottom where you can see the character’s surprised reaction like

[Unimportant detail, but if Daruk fights his Hollow self I want his reaction to be like “Woah! I sure look grumpy. I look like I skipped breakfast.” and then his gambit attack is like “eat THIS!” Also Revali can say something about how imitation is a form of flattery]

Through that fight, the Hollows also have like one textbox and a line of Evil™ mumbling and/or laughing once they’re defeated. The laughing is kinda used in a later scene, but it’s never really seen again so I just want that to be more prevalent. You all could probably think of more angsty “evil version of you” lines that are specific to each character, but I’m just thinking stuff like “You...won’t...last” or even just *muttering*. In fact, this is another thing that I want to flesh out with my gambit feature. It not only serves as interaction between whatever two characters you’re playing as, but also as interaction between your antagonists. So if you use a gambit on Kohga, he’ll say something specific about the characters he’s fighting. Same idea with Sooga, or Astor, and now here, the Hollows can say stuff to you.

There’s gonna be someone out there more creative than me out there that can think up some cool dialogue for them, but basically what I want to establish is that we know that these Hollows are made from people’s like, souls? Or life force or whatever you wanna call it. So it wouldn’t be farfetched to give them the ability to speak. Over the course of the game, I want their textboxes/dialogue to be more and more lifelike, like without the pauses or muttering. This is because the entire point of the dialogue is not only to serve that trope of “I’m the evil you I’m gonna say stuff that emotionally impacts you mwahaha” but it also makes them just a bit more menacing in my opinion. Also overall gameplay wise, I think they need to become stronger with the Champions because idk if it was just me, but they were so easy that I just forgot about them.

So! Korok Forest Battle introduces these creepy mumbling Champions, people react and are a bit freaked out, but they eventually clear the malice and we hit the next cutscene.

This is where the shit goes down.

You all probably remember how this scene goes down so I’ll try not to spend too much time explaining it. But here’s my two cents as to why I’m gonna rewrite it a bunch. I think it’s not a good villain reveal.

Like first off, it doesn’t establish Astor as a threat. His memorable action here is the summoning of the Hollows, and while yes, they do beat up Link and that’s very good, it also let’s Link easily beat them and Astor as soon as he gets the Master Sword IN THAT SAME SCENE. There was no time to let the threat of Astor linger, and when we see Link instantly beat him once he gets his Mcguffin, it really hinders the effect of this reveal.

Secondly, everyone is just silent during this??? Like, obviously Link doesn’t say anything, but Zelda doesn’t do stuff? Astor just kinda says “kill her!” and thats about it. Zelda never says “who are you?” or “what do you want?” or anything because as far as she’s concerned this is just some random dude, he’s not Yiga or anything. Also Astor never even introduces himself?? Throughout the entire game??? So while we the player know who he is because of his fancy title card, as far as all the characters are concerned he’s just a Mystery Clown.

It’s just super weird how no one asks any questions during this scene like no one acts like a human being with common sense. In fact, one could say that no one asks any questions for this entire game. Things just happen, and happen, and happen, and everyones just kinda chill. And then Zelda just kinda receives 17 flashbacks over the course of two minutes at the end of the game like she’s speedrunning botw memory%. Obviously having an aura of mystery over the course of your game is fine, it’s good to keep questions lingering over the audience’s head. Just so long as you answer them in a satisfactory way later on. Like, that’s not something I need to spell out for you right? If you set up a question, give the audience a good answer. If you set up a mystery, give a cool explanation. If you set up an interesting character you have to give the people a pay off that was worth their investment into them, right? Right? Right? You understand right? Cause as the writer for a story, it’s you’re to explain the significance and importance of why things happen in a creative way. It’s almost as if that’s the entire purpose of storytelling, you know, an explanation of events in a compelling manner. Like please, this is a concept that you are able to grasp right? This isn’t just me right? See that’s how writing works when setting up anything ever, you gotta give an explanation to the choices you make in the plot. You gotta explain why. You gotta explain why. Explain why. Explain why. Explain, why? Explain, why? Why? Why? WHy? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WH

Sorry I got carried away. Anyhow, here’s the rewrite.

Link and Zelda don’t enter the forest at the same time. They run through the wooden tunnel thing, and Link makes a gesture like “go!” while he stays back a bit to hold off some monsters like stal-lizalfos or something. So Zelda runs into the center of Korok Forest.

As far as any of the characters know, this is a safe haven now, this was their destination, so there’s no monsters here, so they’re good. The princess is safe, the Champions are just cleaning up in their respective corners of the forest with the Hollows, and Link is fighting off the monsters by the entrance. So while there is still tension from the battle, Zelda lets out a sigh of relief once she sees the Master Sword.

She approaches it, cautiously, but doesn’t step onto the stone pedestal, still staying a ways back in the grass. “We’re finally here,” she says to herself. “Now we just have to protect the sword, await for the hero to retrieve it, and await for destiny to arrive.” She looks down at the ground, and then at the back of her hand (fuck what hand was the one with the triforce, her left hand? I’m gonna say left hand). So she looks down at the back of her left hand, before letting it fall. She turns away from the Master Sword and to herself she just mutters, “I only wish that I could make as much progress in fulfilling my own role...in making myself to be of actual use, like the others.”

There’s a moment of silence as Zelda wraps her elbows and closes her eyes. Then,

“If that is what you wish,” a sudden voice echos, and Zelda spins around to face it, “Then perhaps I can be of some assistance.”

Cut to Astor, standing in front of the Master Sword, facing Zelda. Roughly where he is shown here, but Zelda is a couple feet away from him, standing on one of those rocks.

Zelda steps back in shock for a moment. “W-Who? Who are you?”

“Me?” He takes one step down the stairs. “Oh, I am just someone, same as you, who wishes to see destiny fulfilled.” Zelda takes another step back, and seeing this, he stops approaching. “Ease your mind, Your Highness. There is no need to be frightened. You may call me, Astor”

Cut to title card on his face, it can be like this, BUT, no malice or glowing magic around him, it’s all still lush green forest, and I don’t want as much focus on his astrolabe. It’s just his face, and he’s giving a warm, yet chilling smile.

Zelda is still stammering. “Y-You...do I……. how did you—”

“It doesn’t matter. What matters now is taking every step towards stopping the Calamity, correct?” Astor starts to take a step towards her again, and this time Zelda doesn’t flinch.

“Y-Yes. Yes of course. But I’m afraid I’m still a bit confused. ...What exactly do you...want?”

Astor doesn’t immediately answer. He steps off the pedestal and starts to circle around Zelda, eyeing her, but still with that creepy smile. “Tell me, Princess, how fares your recent training? Adequate progress, I presume?”

He continues circling around her, still a few feet away. Zelda looks to the ground, defeated. “I’m afraid not. I’ve been trying to aid the researchers with the Guardians and Divine Beasts. But when it comes to this power…” she looks down at her hand again. “...it seems despite my great efforts and restless hours of prayers, they have yet to awaken.”

Using his free hand, Astor places a hand on his chest, tilting his head in a sorry pout. The gesture seems exaggerated. “My...you poor thing. How harrowing this must be for you.” He continues walking, eyeing her as he circles behind. “But, I am certain it is not your fault. You are but a child, after all.”

“I…” Zelda is still staring at the ground in front of her. Astor continues.

“I mean really, have you ever stopped to think about how absurd this all is? A collection of mis-match warriors, demanded to pilot gods. A sword for an unseen hero. The lives of us all, in the hands of one girl. Expected to lead us all, awaken a divine power, and save the world, all before her 17th birthday…”

After a beat, Zelda finally looks up at him, confusion and suspicion back in her eyes. “What did you say?”

Astor stops walking, he’s back directly in front of the pedestal. The camera is on him center frame, so that when he turns to face Zelda, his figure blocks the sword.

“Now Princess, is that truly what you want? Do you really believe yourself prepared to live up to such a monumental task?” He’s walking directly towards her now, arm outstretched.

“I—” Zelda pauses, before shaking her head. “Of course not, but that doesn’t mean—”

“Yeesss. Precisely! You needn’t not let yourself live like this, like some beggar to the gods, like a failure.” Astor is walking more quickly towards her, and Zelda is stepping back.

Zelda lets out a gasp of fear now, as Astor approaches, there’s a swirl starting to form around the astrolabe in his hand. “I don’t understand! What’s your point, what do you want? Who are you!?”

He stops walking, he’s so much closer now, just a foot or two away from her. “It’s quite simple my dear.” He gives another smile. “I’m a man who wants to live.”

Fwoosh! The air around them is now tinted purple, the astrolabe’s power surrounding them both. Zelda gasps again.

“If we truly wish to see this realm prosper, we must accept the indisputable truth.” Astor reaches out his hand. “You are not worthy of saving this Kingdom. You do not have the power to oppose such an unimaginable enemy! Therefore I shall relieve you of your burden, for the sake of us all. I will steal, your, destiny!”

Astor is seconds away from touching her, before suddenly...the sound of a sword unsheathing.

Astor flies back, crumpling on the steps of the pedestal, he looks up to see Link, sword at the ready. Link had pushed astor back with the pommel of his sword [because no stabbing or blood for our PG Nintendo game] and the motion has cause him to drop his astrolabe, which now lies a few feet in front of him in the grass.

“Link!” Zelda says, relieved. From behind, eggbot also appears. It walks infront of Link and gives a little whistle and does that sassy pointing thing in the direction of Astor, as if telling him off.

Astor frowns when he sees Link, but when he sees eggbot his face morphs into confusion. “You…? But I…” he glances at his astrolabe. Astor gets up to retrieve it and stands.

“It doesn’t matter how you’re here again. You can’t stop this.” Astor summons the Hollows, and they appear in front of him. It was harder to see in the lost woods, but here in the lush grass, its undeniable that the Hollows are draining the plant life around them.

“Kill whoever he is. Fight the Guardian if you must, though I’d prefer it intact. But don’t touch the girl.” He narrows his eyes. “Her thread shall be cut by my hand alone.”

Then it goes into that action sequence. Link is desperately fighting off the Hollows, while also trying to keep eggbot close to protect it. The hollows are laughing, even taunting him, as Astor is just walking calmly forwards towards Zelda, and Link can’t do anything to stop it.

Then it’s roughly the same, Link flies back as his sword breaks. Zelda is kinda helpless. And then just as Astor is about to reach Zelda again, Link cries out, the Master Sword glows. Everyone looks back, confused. Link pulls the sword. Boss fight.

After the fight and after Link defeats Astor, he’ll say something like. “That sword...is too powerful.” and blah blah blah. He looks up at Zelda. “Should you come to your senses, Your Highness,” he hisses the words, “I will delightfully accept an invitation with your company again.” He glares at Link. “Perhaps one day, when we have more time, you will fully come to understand where your arrogance is leading you.” He stands, though clutching his side in pain. “Until then, I shall make certain we meet again.” Link charges him, but he disappears in smoke and malice. End the Korok Forest arc.

Okay so! Why is this scene better? Uhhhhhhhh because it fucking is that’s why. We got 1) A villain introduction that’s more menacing 2) an establishment of character goals, but a mystery of character motivation to keep suspense 3) a more insightful look at different character’s feelings and thoughts 4) a much more interesting interaction with dialogue that raises tension and properly climaxes to the action and 5) the story’s momentum moves forward with ascending action, and new story details that set up later scenes.

I find it absolutely absurd that in the original game, these scenes are not written with more impact. This is the first look into the real mystery and substance that the story has to offer, and the first real look into the prime antagonist’s head. The actions and stakes throughout Act 2 have to properly ascend and rise in order to truly keep the audience engaged. You can’t just rely on mystery alone, you have to make use of character goals.

Reiterating Zelda’s internal struggles means that this can more easily connect and flow into the later segments where she doubts her ability and sees Link and the others grow stronger. In addition, Astor’s presence is a direct foil to Zelda’s arc. You can already see it a bit based on his dialogue, but I will more fully explain the true depths of how his is a direct foil to Zelda further down the line when all the aspects of his character are revealed. It’s almost as pacing the amount of information you give about a character can properly incite your audience to be more invested in the story, hmm. Anyhow, all you need to know for now is that good antagonists have similarities and aligning viewpoints as the protagonist in the beginning of the journey, much more, than you might think.

= = = = =

That is it for now! I can’t believe I had to dedicate an entire section to just one battle. But! That is how the story must go, as I need to flesh out as much as possible in only a few cutscenes without ruining the pacing. Tune in next time for flashbacks, backstory, Yiga husbands, token Zelink hours, aaand perhaps just a bit of Impa simping.

#Hwaoc: The Kip Cut #Part 2 #hwaoc spoilers #long post #hwaoc #age of calamity #hw age of calamity #hyrule warriors age of calamity

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yuta-nakamots · 4 years

Text

Candle Light - l.hc ; Part 2 of 2 (End)

Pairing - College!Haechan x Ghost!Reader

Genre - Fluff but mostly angst at the end

Warnings - Character death, supernatural activity (you are literally a ghost)

Summary - As the resident ghost that haunts your old apartment, you take pride in scaring away those who dare move in, not wanting them to ruin your memories. Though your mission changes after a group of boys arrive. These are the four boys you allow into your space and your heart. One of them is the candle that supports you, and you are the fire that burns atop it, his beacon of light.

Word Count - 6.2k

A/N - as always, credit goes to @soleilhyuck for coming up with the idea for this fic. thank you for patiently waiting and giving lots of love to this series and please look forward to frat boy!yuta next month as well <3

Tag List - @sunflowerhae @eunsangelical @soleilhyuck @neoyoungho @carefreebubble @sly-merlin @jisungismymom @jimelonji @lyraaacle @peachy-yabbay @yomanitsgonnabehee

January 2020

News about the new virus was quickly spreading, as was the disease itself, unironically. You sat next to Renjun as he watched the news on TV and played a game on his phone while Jeno was lying on the floor in front of the coffee table as he typed out an essay on his laptop.

You watched as the newscaster stood in front of a graph showing the number of cases spiking up as he said “all local colleges will be migrating to an online schooling system for the second half of this year” to which Jeno let out a loud groan at.

“How the fuck am I supposed to do all my labs then?” he muttered under his breath, angrily hitting the carpeted floor. You laughed at his childish action, Jeno’s head whipping around as he looked in your general direction with his pupils shaking as he tried to find a face to match the voice he had just heard.

“Hey y/n, I think Jeno can hear you,” Renjun said nonchalantly as he continued watching the news station on TV, “okay, Jeno wait I think you should pay attention to the screen.”

He informed the other boy just in time as the anchor said “certain schools have disclosed that some students may still be required to return to campus for activities such as labs or other assessment events.”

Jeno rolled onto his back, letting out another groan that was almost actually a growl. “I don’t know which is worse. Having to go to school during a pandemic, or having to learn from my computer 24/7.”

February 2020

As more plans for the second semester were announced, Jeno did end up having to still visit the campus for his labs so he was occasionally out along with Jaemin who was volunteering at a hospital nearby, the same one your body was taken to after the incident, not that you’d ever tell them that though.

Jaemin had convinced Renjun to come along saying “we need extra help and it’s not like you’re doing anything anyways now that class is online” as he quite literally dragged Renjun out the front door.

This left you with Haechan, who was only able to see you in certain instances because he was still not totally sure if you really existed or not. He still used the scented candles in his room, much to your distaste, since you found yourself having to put out the flame nearly every night due to his forgetfulness.

He’d spend almost every waking moment on his computer playing Overwatch and whatever other games he was into, only stopping when we had to attend his mandatory online lectures. Even then, he’d still have the game up on his screen, barely even caring about the lecture.

Eventually, this irritated you enough, having been quite a good student yourself, to the point where you just lost it when you saw him pull up his school account and you peered over his shoulder and realizing how bad his grades really were.

“You shouldn’t do that, you know.” You spoke to him, hovering behind him as you read through the contents of his student profile.

Haechan froze for a second, surprised by your voice though he didn’t make an effort to turn around. “Well, you shouldn’t just scare people like that.” He retorted at you.

“Then don’t take your college life for granted,” you remark, not missing the high amount of absences he had even though all his courses were online, “I would’ve loved to have completed mine, but that just didn’t seem to be in my life plan now, was it?” You asked rhetorically, your voice laced with sarcasm to match his.

“What are you gonna do about it, huh?” He spat out at you. “You can’t force me to study.”

You rolled your eyes at him even if he couldn’t see you as you scoffed, “yes I can.” Quite literally, you moved through his desk and unplugged his computer from its power socket. A satisfactory grin fell upon your face as you heard his monitor die out and you look at him. His mouth was slightly agape as he finally saw you up close, your previously translucent figure becoming clearer and clearer to him with every second that passed.

From then on, Haechan consciously made an effort to cut back on his gaming and dedicate more time to his schoolwork, as he hated not knowing when you’d decide to pop into his room again and he didn’t want to risk more damage to his precious computer.

Sometimes he’d spend so much time studying that he’d even fall asleep at his desk, to which you could only sigh at as you fanned out the flames of his stupid scented candles that he continued to use before grabbing his blanket from his bed and placing it atop his shoulders.

March 2020

You found that you actually quite enjoyed spending time with Haechan as he was more entertaining and witty than Renjun. Though on a particularly slow afternoon, you watched Haechan as he went about making a sandwich in the kitchen, making yourself known to him by a light tug on his shirt before he asked “so why exactly do you haunt this apartment?”

You were leaning against the kitchen island behind him, not even having bothered to materialize in your semi-human form since you let him pick and choose when he wanted to see you or not. “If I’m being honest, I really don’t know. All I’m sure about is that this unit is my unit. It always has been and it always will be.”

“Well, what are your ties to this place? What does it mean to you?” He pressed on as he grabbed a slice of bologna from the refrigerator.

After pausing for a second as you recall your past, you told him “this is where I grew up, my parents moved here when I started elementary school and I’ve lived here for almost twenty years until I died and ever since then, I’ve just been here.”

“I’m sorry,” he interjected, looking at you and making eye contact to let you know he was being sincere, “I really am. You had so much to live for, your whole life ahead of you.” He shook his head in pity as he unwrapped a piece of cheese.

“Things don’t always go according to your plan, as you can see,” you stated before continuing on with your story, “anyways, my family moved out shortly after my incident because my sister would always cry whenever she had to pass the spot I was last alive at and eventually my parents couldn’t take it anymore so they just up and left.”

Haechan was unscrewing the lid of the jar of mayonnaise when he asked “why didn’t you stop them? Or did you try but they just weren’t able to see you?”

“They couldn’t see or hear me. I tried calling out to them, telling them I was still here, I was still alive, but nothing worked...and so they left me behind.” Your voice trailing off at the end as you felt a familiar pain in your chest at the memory of your family.

Haechan hummed in acknowledgment, spreading pieces of lettuce over the top of his sandwich, going silent before speaking again. “I think you need closure. Do you know where your family went to? I’m pretty sure we could--”

“No, I’d rather not talk to them.” You interrupted, not wanting to witness your family in pain again after having to watch them mourn your death in this very apartment. To them, you were a thing of the past and you wished to stay that way.

“You can’t just be cursed to wander around this unit for the rest of your life, or lack thereof. That’s a bit…” he paused as he wracked his brain for a word, turning up blank, “sad, for lack of a better word.”

You watched as he placed a slice of bread on top and pressed it down before biting into his creation. “It’s not like it was my choice in the first place, you know,” you strongly articulated, “if you really wanted to help me then you’d leave this place and let me wander in peace now that you know my story.”

“We both know damn well that you’re not gonna be happy if we leave you on your own.” And the most surprising part of his statement was that he was right.

April 2020

After your previous conversation with Haechan, the two of you started avoiding each other and you ended up spending more time with Jeno when he eventually came around to being able to see you. He was more of an easygoing presence and he didn’t mind it when you stayed in his room, he just asked that you “don’t mess with my stuff like when you stacked all my books up and turned my clothes inside out” the memory of it still makes you laugh to yourself.

You felt bad for Jeno, seeing him come home already exhausted from his labs and lectures, letting out a loud sigh whenever he entered through the front door as he was finally able to take off his face mask and allow himself to take a deep breath of air.

You’d often find him dozing off at his desk, his face resting either on his arm or on whatever page he had been going over. Sometimes, if you knew the assignment was important or if the deadline was near, you’d try to keep him awake by doing this like clicking his book or dropping a book on the floor. But if he was really knocked out, all you could do was just plug in his electronics to let them charge before bookmarking his page and clearing his desk for him.

On the night of his 20th birthday, the boys decided to have their own mini-party, which you excused yourself from. You didn’t want to get in the way of their celebration since you didn’t know for sure where you stood with Haechan and that’s on top of the fact that Jaemin still didn’t believe in your existence.

You stayed in Jeno’s room, softly plucking at the strings of his guitar which he had kindly left out for you. He had previously voiced his worries about you getting bored from always staying in the unit, which you found quite cute of him.

He came back to his room around midnight and you watched as he drunkenly made his way to the bathroom, stumbling in and nearly tripping over his own feet. You heard him throwing up into the toilet but you stayed put, knowing that you wouldn’t be of much help anyway. You recognized the sound of Haechan’s voice as he entered from his own side and tried to clean Jeno up.

Moments later, Haechan came into the room carrying a near unconscious Jeno to the bed you were currently sitting on. All Haechan had to do was merely glance at you before you were already materializing in human form to put Jeno’s guitar back on its stand and help Haechan get the birthday boy into bed.

Once Jeno was tucked in and snoring, you looked up at Haechan and he nodded his head in the direction of his room, inviting you to come over with him, which you did without much hesitation. You sat on the edge of his bed as he started up his computer as he asked you “don’t you ever get tired of just staying in the apartment all the time?”

You watched as he typed in his login information as you responded, “kind of, I guess. It’s all I know so it’s not like I really have anywhere else to go.”

“Have you ever tried leaving the building, or this unit at all?” He inquired while pulling up a page on google.

You thought for a moment before answering him. “No, I’ve never really wanted to leave because I’m comfortable here.”

Haechan simply nodded and stated “fair enough” as he switched tabs before turning to you. “I found this article the other day and I think this is relevant to you.” He informed, beckoning you over to him. You moved closer and read it from over his shoulder.

Certain spirits roam the earth as ghosts due to their souls holding onto the regret they had while they were still living. It is common for these types of ghosts to stay in a place that they have special emotional ties to. They often try to scare away people who enter their sacred place as they are trying to preserve it as it is in their memory, resisting change. There have been successful cases of exorcism for these types of ghosts, though oftentimes, it serves to only anger them further, which is why exorcism is not recommended. Edit: It has been found that the spirits often pass on to the true afterlife once they let go of the regrets they are holding and free themselves from the baggage that is tying them to their sacred place.

“Haechan, I already told you, I’m not leaving.”

“But think about it, you can’t just continue existing with one foot in the afterlife, one foot in the during-life,” causing you to laugh at his wording, “aren’t there other dead people you’d like to meet? You know, like Michael Jackson or something?”

“Of course, but how would you know if there really is an afterlife where I could meet them?”

“I don’t, but aren’t you getting tired of just watching people come and go? Aren’t you curious about the existence of an afterlife? You’ve been here for what, two years?”

“Three years.” You corrected, though he was correct about your boredom and curiosity even if it really was just in the slightest form.

You weren’t looking forward to when the boys moved out as it meant you’d be left on your own again. You had grown used to the four of them since you had at least one of them home at nearly all times. You didn’t want them to leave and you had even though about asking them to stay, but you knew it would be unfair to them as they had previously talked about their future educational plans.

Renjun already was in the process of transferring to a school or arts to further hone his skills as he was nearing the completion of his traditional core credits. Jeno wanted to study abroad and experience different cultures while Jaemin simply would follow along, having promised both of their parents that he would look out for Jeno and make sure he didn’t overwork himself though oftentimes it was the other way around.

As finals came around again, you witnessed the boys and their ways of dealing with the stress of their exams. Renjun simply painted aggressively while Jeno started stretching and working out more often and Jaemin, who still wasn’t able to hear or see you, resorted to cooking. You couldn’t believe Haechan broke out those godforsaken candles yet again, even after you had voiced your hatred for them, having to put out their flames and clean up the dripping wax as to not cause a fire hazard.

One day, Jaemin was finally able to see a faint outline of your silhouette when you managed to catch the knife he had accidentally pushed off the counter while preparing dinner for the guys. He really didn’t believe them when they spoke of your existence, he simply thought it was some kind of odd prank they were all in on, but when he saw his knife floating mere centimeters above his foot, he realized they weren’t lying at all.

Ever since then, you’ve enjoyed hanging around with all four of the boys. They each introduced you to their hobbies and did their best at including you in as many activities as possible. Renjun was overjoyed when he saw you lift a brush from his case and when you asked if you could join him. He was painting a simple sunset and was more than happy to have your company. Renju let you paint any way you wished, only helping here and there to blend in your strokes and fix some of the color gradients.

After it dried, you stood back as he hung the canvas up in the living room with a broad smile on his face. He turned around and you watched as his expression morphed into one of confusion when he didn’t see you behind him and he called out your name. You felt a sense of anxiety creep up on you, reminiscent of the feeling of when your own family were not about to see you.

You knew Renjun had it easiest when it came to seeing and hearing you so why was he having a hard time now? “Oh, there you are.” He said, when you came into his view again, seemingly lightheartedly but it was hard for both of you to feel at ease after what just occurred.

It happened again when you were with Jeno as he was teaching you how to play a few chords on his guitar, something you had always wanted to do in your active lifetime. The two of you had been going at it for about an hour now and things were going pretty smoothly aside from Jeno having to help press the strings down when your own fingers weren’t enough.

You were able to learn a few simple chords separately but right before you were able to string them all together, the guitar suddenly fell through your hold into Jeno’s hands that were helping you apply pressure to the strings. He let out a noise of surprise as he too could no longer see your form.

He blinked rapidly, thinking it was his own eyes playing tricks on him until you saw him relax as both of you witnessed your own body flicker back into existence. This time, there was definitely no denying what just happened.

Later that night you went to Haechan and told him both accounts of what was going on and you broke down in tears, telling him how you didn’t want to leave them just yet. He rubbed your back as you clung on to his shirt, your tears would’ve been soaking it if you weren’t a ghost.

As much as you wanted to stay in his embrace, he told you that he had to study for an upcoming final so you instead settled for lying on his bed and staring up at the ceiling as you let your mind wander through all the what-ifs going through your head.

You’re not sure how much time passed before Haechan finally climbed into his bed, throwing an arm over your waist. No sooner than before he lifted his head to speak to you, his arm dropped through your body and fell onto his bed. The shock was evident on his face as he watched you fade out from his view.

Haechan frantically reached out, trying to grasp onto something, anything to tell him that you were still there as he called out your name. You did the same to him, but your cries fell on deaf ears until one of your hands managed to grab ahold of his and he found your eyes, the fear in his mirroring your own.

You laid with Haechan as he slept that night, scared that you’d cease to exist if he weren’t by your side to validate your presence every so often.

May 2, 2020

One night, as all of you were in the living room watching a show on Netflix, as per Renjun’s recommendation, you mentioned these repeated occurrences to them causing a thick silence to fall over everyone as they processed what this possibly meant for you.

Again, you sought out Haechan’s comfort that night and stayed by his side as he slept because being with him made you feel the slightest bit more real, even when his arm dropped from your waist again.

Now that finals week was over, the boys were home more often, though Jaemin still continued to work and volunteer at the hospital with Renjun, leaving you with Jeno and Haechan. Not much changed as you still continued to stick to Haechan like glue.

May 14, 2020

About two weeks after you had first brought up the topic of your frequency disappearances, you were lying next to Haechan in his bed as you both watched videos on his phone. He abruptly turned it off and turned to face you. “Have you ever been in a relationship before?”

You shook your head, “no, I was always too bust for one.”

“Did you want to be in one? Do you want to be in one?” You froze as you looked at him, not sure if he meant what you’re thinking he means. “On a scale from one to ten, how mad would you be right now if I told you I might have feelings for you?”

You thought for a moment before responding. “Depends on if you’re being serious or not.”

“I’m dead serious. Okay, maybe not dead, but you know what I mean.” He said, poking fun at his word choice.

“Do you really like me?” You asked, unsure if you were thinking clearly.

“Yes,” he paused, “but only if you like me back.”

“Is this just a spur of the moment thing or have you actually had feelings for me before this?” You could feel your cheeks heating up and you were suddenly grateful that he couldn’t see you as if you were a normal human.

“For a while now.” He stated, shrugging his shoulders as if it were nothing.

Your eyes grew wide in shock. “I...Haechan, as much as I’m flattered, we both know it’s not going to work out,” your voice getting caught in your throat, “you’re human, you’re still alive. There’s someone out there for you--”

“Okay and?”

“There’s someone who you can hold, someone you can kiss and make love to, someone you can have a family with--”

“And what if that someone is you?” He interrupted again. “What if you’re the someone I want to hold, to kiss, to spend time with?”

“Haechan...I don’t know…” Your voice coming out as more of a whisper.

His eyes searched yours as he spoke. “Just let me kiss you...please.”

You let out a small “okay” as your eyes fluttered shut and you felt his lips meet yours. He showed you the warmth you didn’t know you could even feel as you allowed yourself to melt into his kiss. Had it not been for your body disintegrating again and causing Haechan to fall forward, you probably would’ve stayed kissing him until he was begging for air.

“I guess that’s the universe telling me to give you a break for a bit.” He chuckled while he grabbed his phone and unpaused the video he was playing earlier as he waited for you to appear again. You didn’t have to look at him to know there was a smile plastered on his face as you wrapped your arms around him and nuzzled your face into his chest the very second you could.

If you were considered to be clingy with Haechan, now you were practically inseparable.

May 17, 2020

It was a rare occurrence for all four of them to be home together during the day so Jaemin took it as an opportunity to gather everyone for lunch. He didn’t even knock as he opened the door to Haechan’s room, sticking his head in to say “lunch is ready. I made kimchi stew. Oh, hey y/n, haven’t seen you in a while.”

You whined in embarrassment due to the fact that you were currently seated in Haechan’s lap as he practically held you like a baby, cooing at you and littering kisses across your face.

Once Jaemin was gone, Haechan pressed a kiss to your forehead. “You’re cute when you’re embarrassed. You know that?” He said, ruffling your hair out of affection.

May 19, 2020

You watch with great interest as Haechan lugs a box into his bedroom and cuts it open, revealing an electronic keyboard. He had told you previously that he wanted to get back into playing piano, having played it when he was younger. You didn’t think he was actually serious enough about it to buy a whole keyboard which, from the looks of it, seemed pretty expensive.

You sat in his gaming chair as you watched him assemble the stand, handing him scissors when he asked and holding things in place when his own two hands weren’t enough. You didn’t trust yourself to do much else in case you randomly disappeared again. Your lips curved upwards as he plugged the keyboard into the socket on the wall and played a few chords, his own smile matching yours.

May 20, 2020

Sighing, you floating your way into Haechan’s room as you notice his sleeping figure hunched over his desk, a little string of drool landing on the lined paper he was writing on. Given that school was already over, you figured it was song lyrics that he was writing.

Haechan, along with getting back into playing piano, had also picked up song composition and lyric writing as well though he refused to show you any of the lyrics he wrote and claimed he’d be embarrassed if you saw them to which you rolled your eyes at. Haechan? Embarrassed? Now that was a rarity given that he was one of the most confident people you’ve ever met, not even bothering to cover himself up the few times you accidentally came in while he was changing his clothes.

But as confident as he was, he had yet to channel that into his lyric writing as he kept falling asleep after hours of trying to get them perfect. You fan out the candle he had been using and run your finger across his lip, gathering his drool, in order to prevent his from further wetting his paper.

You tried to slowly pull the paper out from under his head, doing your best to not wake him up, though your efforts were in vain as his eyes shot open the second you tugged a little too hard. It took Haechan only a second or two to figure out what you were doing before he snatched the paper from you while whining “I told you not to read them” as he puts it in a folder filled with other papers which you assume are also lyrics.

“I was only moving it so you wouldn’t drool on it like a baby.” You scoffed at him.

Haechan imitated your scoff back at you, “don’t lie,” he quipped, “I know you were going to read it as soon as you got your hands on it.”

“You know, you better quit it or else you’re sleeping alone tonight.” You threatened, knowing that your boyfriend of sorts has gotten used to your presence in his bed while he slept.

“No!” He exclaimed, his eyes growing wide in panic before he dove for his bed and gave you puppy eyes, begging you not to leave him.

May 25, 2020

At this point, your disappearances had become more frequent and lasted for longer durations, leaving the boys constantly guessing as to where you were. You could barely muster up the force to show yourself in your human form and physically move objects so you were glad when you realized they could all see you in your regular blue-tinted ghost state.

You considered yourself lucky when they told you they could still feel the gusts of wind you created while moving around, even when you became invisible. It may look stupid to you when you were rapidly moving your arms back in forth to let them know where you are, but it’s not like you cared when you knew they couldn’t see you anyways.

On this day, you were watching a show on TV with Renjun, though he could only vaguely sense your presence. When you heard the sink in the kitchen turn on, you left your seat and floated through the wall to see if it was Jaemin cooking again. Much to your surprise, it was Haechan who was actually doing the dishes for once.

You moved around behind him, alerting him of your presence. “Hey babe, came to do the dishes with me?” You rolled your eyes and rapidly fanned his neck, something you knew he hated because he was ticklish in that area. “Okay, okay, I get it.” He giggled while scrunching his neck.

“Is y/n with you in the kitchen?” Renjun called out from the living room. Haechan shouted back a short ‘yes’ to which you heard Renjun respond back with a slight laugh in his voice, “I thought she was still with me so I was talking about the show but I guess I was just talking to myself this whole time.”

May 29, 2020

No matter how much energy you concentrated, you just couldn’t seem to show yourself in your human form at all. You weren’t completely invisible to the boys yet, just fading in and out of your normal ghost forme every so often, though if you really tried hard enough, you could force yourself to become visible again, even if it were only for a few seconds. You saved your energy for more important moments like when Haechan shot up from his place next to you in bed, sweating from the nightmare he was having.

For the past half hour or so, you watched him as he writhed in his sleep and you felt your heart wrench knowing there was nothing you could do to rouse him from his sleep, unable to do your normal actions of slamming windows or dropping books so you felt a sense of relief when he jolted awake and looked over to where he knew you’d be, his eyes searching for the outline of your body to give him some comfort.

You forced yourself to show up, glowing faintly in the darkened room as Haechan was able to catch your silhouette before it disappeared again. His eyes bore straight into yours, even if you knew that to him, he was simply staring at a wall so you didn’t move, not wanting to leave his gaze as he spoke to you.

“Y/n, I hope you know that every moment I spend with you is precious to you. Whether I can see you or not, I know when you’re with me.” He confessed, his eyes starting to tear up. “I can only hope that I am making your last moments precious for you as well.”

You hoped so desperately to have enough strength to show yourself again to let him know that you heard him and felt the same way, but you were unable to. Your own wet eyes mirrored his as you reached out a hand to cup his face, a tear slipping out of your eyes as you watch your hand merely fall through his cheek.

June 2, 2020

You’ve come to terms with the fact that your time on earth is running out when you can only seem to manage to materialize once or twice a day, lasting for only about a second each time. You were upset that you didn’t get to say a true goodbye to the other three boys, wanting to thank them for taking such good care of you. Maybe you just so hoped that this regret would keep you with them longer, if only for a few more days.

June 4, 2020

When Haechan returns to his room after eating breakfast with the rest of the guys, you watch as he sits down in front of his keyboard before turning around to face his bed, where he’s guessing you were as he spoke. “Y/n, I wrote this song for you. I don’t know how much longer I have left with you so I rushed the ending of it, but I wanted to show you now before it’s too late.”

With that, he turned back around and began playing a melody you had heard from him before though it was different this time around now that he was singing the lyrics he wrote for you.

Like Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Moments with you are always special. I’m thankful for all the days we spend together, At times like this I get shy, but it means I love you. When I see you brightly smiling and dazzling, My wish of us being together forever seems like it’ll come true. I know the future isn’t clear and the past might be sad, But don’t worry anymore. Just keep adding days like this. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, I only have plans filled with you, I think it’s perfect. In my heart, my dreams were possible through you, I want to fulfill them all with you. I’m not alone, I’m with you, When I needed someone, you came to me. Even in the ordinary, I celebrate your preciousness, Please always stay by my side.

I want to give you gift-like days, you and me, me and you baby. Without leaving behind a single day, it’s only us. Like candlelight that never goes out, My wish of us being together forever seems like it’ll come true.

June 5, 2020

If you’re being completely honest with yourself, you’ve practically given up trying to make your whereabouts known to the boys, though they continued to speak to you as they estimated your location and if you were even present in the same room or not.

You wanted to tell Haechan how much you loved the song he wrote, but you were unable to. You wanted to do something for his birthday but you barely had enough strength to walk yourself from the balcony back into his room.

For the first time within the last four years of your existence, you felt tired. You had forgotten this feeling, what it was like to be tired and suddenly you remembered when all you wanted to do was lie down and sleep.

It was late already, the digital clock on Haechan’s desk reading 11:48pm as he stepped out from the bathroom, freshly showered. You eyed him, wanting to get up and kiss him all over, to give him the same love he gave to you, and you felt so helpless when you knew you wouldn’t be able to.

He lay down in his bed with his hair still slightly wet. “Can you believe it’s already been a whole year since we first moved in?” He turned his head, guessing at where your face was but returning his gaze to the ceiling to not make you feel bad before continuing on. “I never would’ve believed in ghosts if I hadn’t met you but now I’m always gonna think all ghosts are as sweet as you and that’s not good,” he said as he let out a laugh at the end, “I’m going to get myself killed if I try talking to a ghost that isn’t as kind and loving as you.”

Haechan went silent for a bit before continuing on. “But you would never let that happen right? You’ll be my angel watching down on me from above,” he paused as a sly smile appeared on his face, “or you’ll be my little demon waiting for me in hell.” He snicked to himself at his joke. “Ah, you’re probably trying to hit me right now. Don’t worry, I’ll do it myself.” And with that, he slapped his own cheek before telling you “I really love you and I hope you know that.”

June 6, 2020

As soon as the clock’s display changed to 12:00am, Haechan’s door burst open, revealing the other three boys with party hats atop their heads as they carried in a small cake with two candles on it, showing his new age of twenty. They began singing happy birthday and you even sang along with them, clapping your hands to the beat, even if they couldn’t hear you.

“Make a wish!” Renjun exclaimed once the song was over.

Haechan clasped his hands together as he closed his eyes for a few seconds. “Y/n, I know you’re still here. Before you go, please do this one last time for me.” He reopened his eyes and looked over at where he assumed you were and gestured towards the cake. You felt your heart swell with love as you took a final glance at him before using all your remaining energy to blow out the candle.

When the flame of the candle went out, so did your view of the world. Everything faded to black as your fire was extinguished, letting you rest in peace as Haechan’s candlelight.

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