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#maybe some magic bullshit can get her wacky
latveriansnailmail · 1 year
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Justice League in D&D
Today's thought experiment for my idle mind while my hands were doing work. This is in response to those videos I see in my recs along the lines of, How To Play This Jackoff Or Other In D&D5E!!! I never click on them because I usually don't see the point and I know I'll disagree anyway but today I went down a mental rabbit hole because why not? It's whatever, something to think about.
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To simulate the Big Seven mainstays of the JLA I think we can all agree that they'd be very high level if not top tier and we'd need a DM who was a pushover and actively trying to facilitate this outcome. A couple of these guys, namely Superman and Martian Manhunter, are going to be outlandish. Here's what I have:
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Batman This one's easy. Everyone argues that he's got Monk levels and I could be convinced that he has a couple but I see him as Standard Human for those unrealistic stats, Noble background (quite possibly the Knight), and stack levels of Inquisitive Rogue to the heavens. Use a feat for Improved Unarmed Strike (or whatever they call it nowadays) and boom, you've got a rich human being with skills and expertise out the yin yang who specializes in stealth, surprise attacks, investigation, and foiling villains more powerful than himself.
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Green Lantern Another easy one. Variant Human with a Willpower type feat to push those wisdom saves to the heights. Soldier background for Stewart or (yawn) Hal; Guild Artisan background for Kyle. Straight Sorcerer with a focus on force constructs like Bigby's Hand, as well as Flight and anything that'll help survive the void of space.
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Wonder Woman Another straightforward one but with an odd choice for race: Goliath. She is made out of earth, after all. Noble Background. Full levels of Oath of Redemption Paladin. Get a feat for deflecting projectiles and some magic gear and skew her spells towards influence, but she won't be using them because for the most part she'll be funneling them into Smites. She is a great advocate for peace but she will annihilate anyone who violates the peace. Rest in peace or rest in pieces.
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Aquaman (Arthur Curry) The last straightforward one, I'd say Sea Elf with (again) a Noble background. I don't think Druid because he doesn't wild shape and does use metal. Instead, full levels of Beast Master Ranger.
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Flash (Barry Allen) Here's where we have to start getting weird. Standard Human, maybe Folk Hero background? Dude's popular. Then we multiclass him Monk/Wizard. I did say weird. You would think Open Hand but I say Drunken Master with Alchemist's Tools subbed out for Brewer's Supplies. Then perhaps War Mage for the improved initiative. Take spells of Passwall, Lightning Bolt, Planar Shift, it's doable.
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Martian Manhunter Now we're going to needle that indulgent DM. The best way I figured out to make him was, get this, race: a friggin' TROLL: strength, reach, regeneration, and a vulnerability to fire. Background Sage or Soldier (Sage suits better). Then, get this, Whispers Bard with the instruments swapped for skill proficiencies. Polymorph, Disguise Self, LOTS of influence spells, Passwall from Magical Secrets, and then mundane social Skills and useful proficiencies. WACKY. I made him a Bard. I am on some bullshit.
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Superman And finally there's the Man of Steel. I warned you that bullshit was afoot and we'd need a fool of a DM. The thing is, Supes is not in Player Character Race/Background/Class territory. He doesn't actually have that many powers, just stats that are out of this world. He's not a fighter or a caster or an expert, he's just a power fantasy and his abilities all boil down to his Kryptonian heritage. We're not talking PC but rather a Monster. I say start with the Empyrean as a template (CR 23!!!) and modify size and flight and such from there. Give him disadvantage on saves versus spells from Arcane casters. Pepper the world with two types of magical rocks, one of which weakens and poisons Kryptonians and the other of which messes with his personality.
So yeah, there's today's bullshit. What's your take? I'm genuinely curious but don't call me wrong. Of course I'm wrong. These characters don't belong in D&D.
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cynthiaandsamus · 3 years
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Custom Toonami Block Week 74 Rundown
Code Geass: So we’ve got another one of those “wacky bullshit student activities” episodes, though this one seems to ride the hardest on “shit is going down, the world is ending but haha Shirley romance drama” though admittedly it does have a nice character arc for Milly so that’s cool. Lelouch is worried that the Knights of the Round are here to investigate him until he realizes both of them only have one braincell between them so it’s fine. Cornelia’s also murdering her way through religious fanatics so that’s cool. And last but not least we have Shirley and Lelouch finally getting together right before Jeremiah Geass Cancels her amnesia so she knows Lelouch is Zero and killed her dad and presumably the other stuff that Charles put in the whole school’s brain somehow. I’m sure this will end well and their romance will survive in a way that isn’t insanely tragic.
Inuyasha: We’re still in fillertown and it’s another SangoxMiroku episode. Man we get a lot of these in filler huh? I kinda don’t remember which Sango/Miroku moments are canon at this point. I’d kinda laugh if it was just all filler and some manga-only fans were bewildered when they ended up together in the end. Anyway, Feudal Lord has a thing for Sango because he has great taste and Kagome ships Sango/Miroku so she doesn’t want her to go, Miroku’s like “Hey it’s her choice, she’s been through enough, she can choose her own life, I’m not gonna get involved” which is pretty mature but the girls still hate on him for it. Sango’s just like “Dude even if I wanted to stay I still have this Naraku-slaying quest to go on and I’m not about to sit around all day and be royalty while my friends go kick Naraku’s ass for me.” Which is how most love confessions in this series go. Also Sango suplexes a demon bear the size of a building with her bare hands and it’s pretty great. In the end the lord doesn’t give up going after Sango but they finish the bear stuff and are on their way. I like how they don’t go out of their way to demonize this guy in the end to prop Miroku up, he’s still a good guy, Sango’s just got shit to do and is more the type to like a warrior who’s got her back. There’s some really cute shipping shenanigans here and all in all it’s fun filler.
Yu Yu Hakusho: We’ve got a three for one deal here as Yusuke and Kuwabara assblast their way through the Dark Triad in one episode, continuing their power play of beating villains with little effort while the boss man bets that they’ll completely wreck his guards which is still a pretty interesting dynamic. We’ve got cringey 90s trans commentary, an invisible dude that gets blindsided easily and a hostage ogre that gets beaten by Botan taking off her coat. Honestly for these guys being supposedly minibosses they kind of went down easier than some of the grunts. But now Kuwabara’s in contact with Yukina because his bullshit power of love connection actually works for some reason and they’re in on the final fight with the Toguro brothers. With this many people betting the GDP of countries on the fight there’s no way this isn’t rigged. I really like how YYH basically makes shonen fights just part of stupid black market deals for a large part of it, just like in real life everything’s decided by some old rich guy.
Fate Zero: Kayneth’s still fucked up and has Rock Lee syndrome and can’t use jutsu anymore so his wife’s like “Yo buddy you can’t give Lancer the magic cummies anymore anyway, lemme take control of your hunky knight manslave or I swear to god I’ll rip your arm off and jerk him off with it” which since she asked so nicely he just kind of does. With Lancer still kinda being uppity about Kayneth having dibs on his soul and Sola-Ui being weirdly horny and increasingly yandere for him I’m sure this’ll end well. Saber and Kiritsugu are still pissy with each other because Saber wants to go after Caster to stop the child murders which is fair but she’s also injured and shit and she’s mad at Kiritsugu for not teaming up with Kayneth to just take down Caster right there and I mean I don’t think he really had time to suggest a truce while getting attacked with Terminator 2 goo, he’s not really the asshole here. Meanwhile and more importantly, ISKANDAR HAS PANTS! Nothing can stop him now and they crash Caster’s child murder party and are jumped by Assassin’s Forty Thieves (they aren’t named yet but I’mma just assume) and Iskander’s just like “Yeah no I’m not fighting five ninjas knee deep in child guts.” And they just burn the whole place down.
Konosuba: So in a bizarre Interspecies Reviewers/Food Wars crossover, Kazuma goes to a succubus house and instead of just getting sex they do dreams and shit which seems more complicated but I guess it’s less morally gray. Anyway, naked Darkness and contrived hentai plots ensue. They sprinkle in some good character stuff for Kazuma which is nice, it’s always kind of hard to pin down where his principles lie. Like he’s generally a scumbag and will take the easy way out of anything but he’s not evil and will give Darkness an out on their encounter if she wants and will get his ass kicked to protect his local sex worker. The Principled Scumbag approach is kind of neat for him, I wish a few more of these moments didn’t feel the need to immediately undercut themselves with a joke but that’s the nature of the series. I feel like one or two more genuinely sincere moments throughout a couple episodes would do wonders but either way it’s still amusing.
Sailor Moon Crystal: We pick up right where we left off with Tuxedo Mask throwing himself in front of the Kamehameha for Usagi and then she goes Super Saiyan and cries pokemon tears to bring him back to life. But the bad guys are somehow like ‘yoink’ and steal him from her lap through a barrier somehow (that still kinda pisses me off) and for some reason the crystal that booped its way into his chest isn’t there anymore and Usagi still has and and Usagi’s going through a lot of shit right now between processing the trauma of a millennia-old kingdom falling that’s partially her fault, working through her romantic feelings and having a Steven Universe identity crisis about how to process her identity as a reincarnation of someone a lot cooler than she is, so most of this episode is Usagi crying, as most episodes are, but at least she has a good reason.  Then we get a Girl Squad Roll Out montage because fuck it we’re going to the moon somehow.
Durarara!!:  Apparently everyone knows about where Celty’s head is but her because she visits Izaya’s office where the head is just kinda behind some books on his bookshelf and she doesn’t know but Shinra’s dad has enough time to mug Namie after telling Shinra and Celty off for their weird interspecies relationship and tell Izaya to have fun fucking around with the head. Also people have shifted from being worried about the Dollars to being worried about Saika and ALSO being worried about the Dollars maybe being at war with the Yellow Scarves. Celty’s looking into it and Shinra shows some character development in just coming out with it that Saika was the sword that severed her connection with her head… I don’t know how you cut the soul of a head that’s already cut off but okay, at least Shinra’s not hiding shit from here anymore. Also Saika’s about to seriously chop up Anri and Masaomi comes to visit his girl in the hospital finally.
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hiccanna-tidbits · 3 years
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5, 6, 7 & 8 for OTP asks with Hiccanna!!
HELL YEAH BRO
Soulmate AU: Who is eager to meet their soulmate? Who absolutely does not want to meet their soulmate?
Anna, hopeless romantic and “true love” fanatic that she is, is incredibly down to meet her soulmate. One of her biggest fears is being inherently unlovable and that no one will ever love her for who she is (parents dying and sister shunning you has to leave some abandonment issues babyyyy), so she takes a lot of comfort in the idea of a soulmate--at least one person is basically certain to love her, right?
Hiccup, meanwhile, is apathetic at best and annoyed by the idea of a higher power dictating who his girlfriend is at worst. Unlike Anna, he doesn’t really fear no one will ever really love him for who he is--rather, he just accepts it as fact. Growing up with no friends and an emotionally-distant father, Hiccup came to believe that he was never going to feel the kind of deep, boundless love he’d seen between other people--and he made his peace with it. Being a more introverted scientist and inventor-type, Hiccup tends to spend a lot of time alone anyways and believes (maybe not fully accurately) that he prefers it that way. Besides, the logician in him thinks the whole “magic cosmic soulmate” thing is probably bullshit, and he just can’t figure out how something like soulmates could ever be backed or supported by modern science. Ultimately, Hiccup figures he’s going to date who he’s going to date (if he can even find any girls who are interested, that is), and he really couldn’t care less what the stars have to say about it.
When Hiccup and Anna do finally meet, and eventually start dating (knowing how shy and awkward they’d both be about confessing, it would take months to years after them meeting to actually get together, even in a goddamn soulmate AU), it isn’t revealed that they’re soulmates right away. Maybe it’s revealed by their hearts glowing a certain color when they first realize they’re in love with the other person? Idk. 
When Anna finds out they’re soulmates, she’s absolutely stoked. Like the girl probably runs around their home for a solid 15 minutes planning a soulmate reveal party or something. Hiccup, meanwhile, is just kind of like “Oh! Neat!” and then immediately goes back to whatever he was doing XD
Anna is a bit hurt that Hiccup is so, ah...unconcerned about them being literally destined to be together. She’s mainly worried that it means that he doesn’t like...cherish their connection enough and whatnot. After he picks up on the fact that she’s kind of upset about his definitive lack of a strong reaction to the whole thing, he explains to her that he didn’t really care because he’d 100% date Anna whether or not she was his soulmate. Saying their souls were deeply connected was basically just putting a formal title on what he already knew.
And Anna has to take a minute, because honestly? Hiccup confidently saying he’d be with her in any reality, even one where he risks angering cosmic forces to do so, is actually much more romantic than them being supposedly “fated for each other” since the beginning.
Single parent AU: Which one is the single parent? (Alt. if they’re both single parents: Which one is open to starting a new relationship from the start? Which one is never planning on finding love again… Until they meet the other and are instantly smitten?)
I think I’ll have Zephyr and Nuffink be the single parent kids because I Just Think They’re Neat! That, and I honestly can’t bear to make lovechildren for Anna with anyone but Hiccup XD (those of you who know me will know making Krist/anna lovechildren in any context is RIGHT OUT).
So in this AU things didn’t work out with Astrid and Hiccup is pretty heartbroken over it :( I imagine she ultimately left him because she wasn’t really feeling the spark anymore, and they have joint custody of the kids. Meanwhile, Hiccup and Anna were neighbors growing up, and were pretty close friends as kids until Anna moved away and they lost touch. She eventually comes back to their hometown as an adult, and she and Hiccup reconnect. They’re also both like “ah shit, my old buddy got HOT” XD
I actually think Anna and Zephyr would really hit it off, mainly because Anna sees a lot of what she loves the most about Hiccup in Zephyr. Zephyr has Hiccup’s anxiety, cynicism, inventive streak, overall social awkwardness--and because Anna knows Hiccup so well and knows how to best accommodate all of his quirks and oddities, it’s not hard for her to extrapolate how best to befriend a younger version of him XD Zephyr, meanwhile, has had trouble befriending kids her age due to her bluntness and general “nerdiness,” so she’s always happy to find someone who accepts her unconditionally and takes a genuine interest in her wacky inventions--even if it’s her dad’s new girlfriend, who by all accounts should be a weird person for her to get close to XD Zephyr also devours science books like they’re going out of style, and is very pleased that Anna is more than happy to listen to her ramble on and on about random science trivia. Zeph still loves her biological mom, for sure, but she starts thinking of Anna as a second mom. She brags to all the kids at school that she has two moms, which leaves them very confused and wondering if Astrid ended up marrying another woman after she divorced Hiccup (which, to be fair, wouldn’t be entirely out of character).
Nuffink, meanwhile, is a little more unsure about the whole situation, if mainly because I headcanon him as a bit of a mama’s boy. He doesn’t dislike Anna so much as he’s just...wary of her, and doesn’t know how to feel about his dad falling in love with someone who isn’t his mom. He also can’t help but feel out-of-place when he, Zephyr, Hiccup, and Anna go out on “family outings” because he kind of looks like he doesn’t belong. With her reddish-brown hair, her blue eyes, her aundance of freckles, and her fondness for wearing twin braids, Zephyr could definitely pass as Anna’s daughter (I’ve even seen Anna used as an older version of Zephyr in video edits, which is hilariously ironic). Although Nuffink has his dad’s eyes, he very much has his biological mom’s hair and doesn’t look like he’s related to Anna at all.
I think what helps them finally bond is that they both have a love of combat! Nuffink definitely does some kind of martial arts or fencing training if he can access it, and Anna is more than happy to teach him some swordplay and spar with him if he wants! Because Sword Anna is best Anna, fight me. Nuffink is also open-minded enough that hey, if his cool big sister likes someone that much, she can’t be that bad. Hiccup is just...continually super impressed with how much Anna knows about fighting--and it makes him fall all the more in love with her, because he loves that in a woman XD Once Nuffink warms up to Anna, he’s constantly trying to impress her ith how tough he is--mostly shown by him ramming his head into walls. Poor Anna worries about Nuffink a lot XD
I imagine there’s a little bit of tension between Anna and Astrid in this AU. Not really because Astrid resents Hiccup moving on--she’s actually pretty happy for Hiccup that he found someone better suited for him than her--but more because she worries Anna is trying to replace her as the kids’ “true mom” XD Anna, meanwhile, can’t help but resent Astrid a little for breaking Hiccup’s heart and doesn’t get why they kids can’t just have two moms! The more people who love them, the better, right???
I don’t imagine Anna and Hiccup having any biological kids in this AU, because I think two stepkids would be plenty for Anna! Of course, since Zephyr and Nuffink are Hiccup’s, she loves them with all her being and tries to be the best stepmom she can be. But I think having more than two kids would stress Anna’s ADHD ass the fuck out, and she doesn’t strike me as the sort of person who would feel a need to have biological kids with Hiccup if she already had Nuffink and Zephyr to parent. Our girl is perfectly happy adopting!
Doctor AU: Which one is the longsuffering doctor? Which one is the patient?
Hiccup is the long-suffering doctor, although not entirely by choice. Often he wonders if being a doctor is actually what he wanted, but his dad was like “WELL SON! YOU’RE SMART, SO YOU GOTTA BE A DOCTOR SO YOU MAKE BIG BUCKS!” (I’m headcanoning in this AU Stoick is a professional athlete of some kind, and has made BANK since he was young. He can’t really conceive of his son NOT pursuing a well-paid profession). Hiccup doesn’t really want to disappoint his rather intimidating dad, so he goes along with it.
It’s not that he dislikes it, when all is said and done. He does care about people and wants to help them, although he hides it underneath about 10 layers of snark. Still, it’s stressful and thankless work, and often he worries about whether he took the right path. Too late to pursue something else now, he supposes.
Then he meets Anna, rushed to the ICU with a collection of third-degree electrical burns. She tried to plug all of her Christmas light strings into the same power strip, and uh...it did not go well. Hiccup is there monitoring her vitals when she wakes up, and she just kind of wearily sighs and admits to him that living on her own wasn’t nearly as fun or exciting as she thought it would be. As it turned out, Anna had insisted she could be trusted with putting up her apartment’s holiday decorations, and she very much should not have been.
Anna ends up having to stay a couple weeks. She needs a small skin graft (yeah, she fucked herself up THAT bad), and then needs a bit of time for the surgery wounds to heal. Hiccup is assigned to do checkups on her regularly, and starts to look forward to it. Her perky disposition (despite being stuck in the hospital with burn wounds) is contagious, and she never fails to make him laugh after a long, draining shift. As stressful as his job is, Anna becomes his one respite.
He has to admit, it’s nice to have at least one thing to look forward to.
Hiccup is a little sad to see Anna go. Of course, bumbling, socially awkward foot-in-mouth fool that he is, he doesn’t have the courage to ask for her number so they can keep in touch. That would, uh...probably be unprofessional or something. Besides, it would probably crush his heart and soul if she was weirded out by his soft spot for her so like...maybe best not to even open himself up to the possibility.
Then, not two weeks later, Anna shows up at the hospital again--this time having broken three bones in a hiking accident. Apparently she got too excited about a particularly nice view, and toppled right off the top of a very steep bluff. He, once again, takes on her care, and is delighted (albeit guiltily) to have her back. He, once again, has something to make work not suck as much!
Oddly enough, this turns out to be the first of many hiking accidents. Anna comes in next month claiming to have nearly burned her arm off in a rogue campfire, and then again the next month claiming to have been mauled by a bear (although Hiccup is pretty sure those bleeding gashes were just left by a very big dog, and Anna is too embarrassed to admit it). Odder still, Hiccup distinctly remembers talking to Anna during her first hospital stay about how much he loved hiking and the outdoors, and now all of her new string of injuries just happen to be hiking-related. He can’t help but be baffled about how her insurance even covers all of this, but apparently having a family lineage distantly related to Norwegian royalty has its perks.
On roughly her 7th hospital stay, Hiccup finally gathers up the courage to ask Anna for her number, if only because he figures it would be nice for them to see each other without Anna having to nearly get herself killed first every time XD
Bodyguard AU: Who is the bodyguard? Who are they protecting? Which one is secretly pining for the other?
OMIGOD SO
I HAD AN IDEA FOR THIS
What if Anna was sent to bodyguard Hiccup in an AU where Arendelle is a lot more militaristic???
Basically what I'm thinking is that this is in an alternate timeline, Hiccup didn't injure Toothless's tail when he shot him down. The beginning of HTTYD plays out the same, but Toothless can still fly and just yeets off after Hiccup frees him, supposedly never to be seen again. However, this still leads Hiccup to believe he may not be dragon-fighting material after all. The poor boy still yearns to find a way to prove his worth to Berk, though.
As Hiccup gets older, his strength doesn't really improve, and it becomes clear to Stoick that he's always going to be pretty scrawny. Because of this, he's hesitant to put Hiccup in dragon training for the sake of his son's own safety--and hey, Hiccup seems to have lost interest in dragon-fighting anyhow, so it's not like Hiccup will fight him on it. Nonetheless, the dragon raids are getting worse, and Stoick worries about Hiccup being able to protect himself at all. Knowing most of the older villagers are busy with dragon-fighting and other jobs, and honestly doubting any of the village's teenagers would protect Hiccup if push came to shove, Stoick sends out an appeal of sorts to neighboring villages and kingdoms requesting a bodyguard for his skinny disaster of a son.
Back in Arendelle, shut-in princess Anna is surprised yet intrigued when a messenger from the Viking village of Berk shows up at Elsa's coronation. In a timeline where Hans and Anna don’t have their chance encounter, Hans sets his wooing sights on the newly-crowned Queen Elsa (and fails), and no push ends up being strong enough to make Elsa lose control of her powers at the ceremony. Anna, however, still feels hurt by her sister’s seemingly reasonless rebuke earlier in the evening and finds herself aching to explore the world outside her castle and be close with someone--anyone--again.
When the Viking messenger requests a bodyguard for the Chief of Berk’s son, Anna is quick to volunteer. The messenger scoffs at first, but to his surprise, the soft-looking princess isn’t entirely unqualified. She filled many of her long, empty childhood hours training with the Arendelle guard, and her swordplay is admirable. To prove her worth, Anna faces off with one of the Berkian warriors in a duel--and holds her own shockingly well. While Queen Elsa is hesitant to let her sister run off to a faraway nation, Anna vehemently insists that Arendelle doesn’t need two monarchs, and this will be great for diplomatic relations in the long run. Of course, she also longs to explore and get away from the place she’s been trapped her entire life, but Elsa doesn’t need to know that part.
When Anna arrives in Arendelle, Hiccup has absolutely no idea what to make of his new bodyguard. On the one hand, a girl who’s good with a sword is hot, and he’s long since given up on Astrid anyways. On the other hand, Hiccup is definitely irked that his dad sees him as so weak and incapable that he’s the only Viking in the village who needs a full-on bodyguard, and he hates feeling like he’s being babied and coddled (not that this is Anna’s fault). Still, his bodyguard is essentially the only person who’s ever seemed to actually want to be friends with him in...well, his whole life, and honestly? He’ll take it.
Anna, meanwhile, still aching for love and connections of really any kind, is nigh-instantly smitten. His brains, his creativity, his constant snide jokes, his snark-coated good heart, his weird, messy hairdo--all of it has an 18-year-old Anna completely over the moon. Hiccup, feeling hopeless in the world of romance after being rejected by Astrid, is honestly just relieved to finally have a friend--to the point that it doesn’t even occur to him that Anna’s a girlfriend option.
Not long after she arrives in Berk, Anna is put into dragon training to prepare for raids. She does a bit of training of her own with Hiccup, teaching him some swordplay to try and boost his confidence. It’s not hard to tell that he has mixed feelings about having to have a protector, and Anna hopes that by teaching him some basic fighting skills he can at least feel a little better if he’s ever in a situation where she isn’t there to defend him.
As she gets deeper into her dragon training, Anna asks Hiccup why he never gave dragon training a go. Granted, him being as physically small as he is would be a disadvantage, but he could still learn to hold his own decently well using speed and stealth. It would help him be able to protect himself, if nothing else. Hiccup seems very reluctant to talk about the whole subject, but he says Anna needs to trust that he knows he can’t kill dragons. He tends to give the shortest answers possible to her questions, and nigh-instantly changes the subject. When Anna presses too much, he gets snippy.
As they get closer, Hiccup finally opens up to Anna about the time he shot down a Night Fury and couldn’t bring himself to make the final kill. He admits to cutting the creature free, and how the dragon nearly killed him--only to spare Hiccup just as Hiccup had spared him. “I saw more than just a ruthless killer when I looked into that dragon’s eye,” Hiccup tells her. “I saw myself. I think there’s so much more to them than anyone knows, but...you’re the only person I feel like would actually give me the benefit of the doubt on that.”
During the next raid, Anna pays closer attention to the dragons than before. She watches how they interact with the villagers, and notice that they never seem to go out of their way to go after people. They only fight Vikings when Vikings initiate, and the dragons’ main concern always seems to be taking sheep and fish. Left to their own devices, they don’t seem to want to hurt anyone.
Unfortunately, Anna standing off to the side and trying to watch what all the dragons are doing leaves her distracted--and vulnerable. She’s not prepared for a camouflaged changewing to melt out of the wall behind her, whipping around and backing her into a corner. Anna grabs for her sword but can hardly move, frozen in terror as the massive dragon stares her down.
She holds up an arm, bracing herself for a wall of fire, but none comes. There’s a swish of wings and a gust of wind blows her back. When she looks up, the dragon is gone.
It would’ve been beyond easy for the dragon to kill her. The creature clearly saw her--could have taken advantage in her moment of frozen stupor and burned her to a crisp. And yet...the dragon spared her. Just like the Night Fury had spared Hiccup.
Anna realizes Hiccup might be onto something.
Together, Hiccup and Anna decide they’re going to get to the bottom of what dragons are really like--and why they’re stealing the village’s food. While claiming to go out for “battle practice,” Hiccup and Anna track down dragons and study them in secret--observing them, writing about them, seeing how they behave and how they interact with one another. They’re surprised by what they see: left to their own devices, dragons are good-natured and compassionate, and they take care of their own. Strangely, they never seem to feed the stolen food to their young. Hiccup predicts they’re not actually keeping it for themselves, and taking it somewhere nigh unreachable for humans. For what actual purpose is anyone’s guess.
Anna starts using the info she gathers observing dragons with Hiccup in dragon-training. She finds ways to sooth them and calm them down in the ring by using things they seem to enjoy in the wild. Scented grass, bits of fish, soft touches, slow, gentle movements. The village marvels at her newfound skills, and can’t help but wonder where she developed such a knack for controlling dragons despite spending basically all her time around “Stoick’s little runt.” She couldn’t be training with him, of all people...could she? Astrid, for one, is definitely none too pleased about her spot at the top of the class being threatened.
Meanwhile, Anna and Hiccup can’t help but grow fond of the dragons they watch. They start becoming more bold, and leaving snacks of trout and mutton for the scaled creatures. Anna is delighted when the food ends up attracting none other than what she’s pretty sure is the same changewing who spared her, as well as a curious snaptrapper. She’s never gotten to see a snaptrapper up close before, and is completely undeterred by the triple-jawed four heads. Rather, she is far more preoccupied with coming up with the perfect name for each head.
“Omigod, he’s so PRETTY! And he smells like CHOCOLATE!”
“...you know they probably emit that scent to lure in prey so they can slice it in three, right?”
“CHOCOLATE, HICCUP!!!”
With each new meal, the local dragons grow more and more comfortable with Hiccup and Anna. After a while, the changewing and the snaptrapper even let Anna touch their noses. Anna falls in love with watching the changewing seem to melt around the forest as she camouflages, and rolling in the mud with the snaptrapper after a summer storm. Hiccup starts catching what seems to be glimpses of the Night Fury he freed, and it appears that the curious creature has come back to investigate him.
The Night Fury appears more and more, drawn in by Hiccup’s trout feast. Hiccup notices the dragon’s wing is injured, likely shot by someone from the village. Although he’s not completely helpless, he’s having trouble. Hiccup sets to work on his most daring project yet--making a “brace” of sorts that can mend the ripped wing.
When Hiccup and Anna attempt to distract the Night Fury long enough to climb up and put the wing brace on, something unexpected happens. The dragon shoots up to the sky, both unwitting passengers clinging onto his tail for dear life.
Once they get their bearings and clamber up to his back, the Night Fury (who Hiccup has nicknamed “Toothless” for his retractable teeth) takes them on a flight through the clouds. Unable to help herself, Anna laces her arms around Hiccup’s waist--if only so she can supposedly “hold on better.”
Hiccup, of course, still doesn’t get it.
The flight takes a sinister turn when Toothless takes them to the dragon nest, and Hiccup finally gets his answer about where all of the villages food has been going--to their queen. Unsure what to do or how to free their new friends from the Red Death, Hiccup and Anna promise each other one thing or sure--none of the rest of Berk can know about the dragon nest. If they attack it, it spells disaster for both dragons and Vikings--not to mention the question of how they got there is sure to dig up their secret dragon-related activities as of late.
With each dragon raid, Anna finds herself more and more reluctant to fight dragons--especially now that she knows what’s actually going on. She only does the bare minimum to protect the food and the village, never going out of her way to attack a dragon or landing a killing blow (although by this point, she’d definitely be skilled enough to). During one particularly intense raid, Anna is finding it harder and harder to fend dragons off without doing lethal damage. While driving out a particularly tenacious monstrous nightmare, Anna happens upon the same changewing she’s befriended in the forest, limping to safety.
It would be incredibly easy to finish the dragon off, but Anna refuses. The dragon knows she’s beat, and so Anna lets her leave without so much as a swing of the princess’s sword.
Unfortunately, Astrid sees.
After the raid, Astrid storms up to Anna and chews her out in front of the whole village, yelling about how weak she was to not go for a dragon kill when she had the chance. It turns out Astrid’s also been noticing Anna going intentionally easy on the dragons, and how much the Arendelle princess seems to hold back when fighting him. Astrid knows it’s not physical incompetence, or a lack of skill--she’s seen Anna subdue plenty of dragons in training.
No, it seems to be the princess’s heart that’s weak. Her kingdom must be nothing but a bunch of bleeding-hearted morons, and she’ll never be tough enough to really belong in Berk.
As he watches Astrid yell and the Berkians all turn to sneer at the scene, Hiccup feels a sudden rush of protectiveness for his friend. Tears are starting to form in the corners of her eyes, and something gives in him seeing her subjected to the very ostracization that left him completely alone for so many years.
He walks up beside Anna, and suddenly he’s shouting like he’s never quite had the courage to before.
“You’re wrong, Astrid! You’re all wrong!”
Before long, he’s spilling everything--how dragons are intelligent and caring creatures, how they’re only stealing food to feed a ruthless queen, how he’s sure humans have killed far more dragons than vice versa. The village stares, horrified. When Stoick storms forward, Hiccup and Anna know it’s nothing good.
Stoick is disgusted. The very bodyguard he had brought all the way out to Berk to give his son strength did nothing but fill Hiccup’s head with softness and dangerous lies. He banishes Anna, warning her never to set foot in Berk or speak to his son again.
Hiccup will not have it. He says if Anna’s leaving, he’s coming with her. He’s made his choice, and he’s standing by the only person who ever really treated him with unconditional love and kindness.
“Fine,” Stoick says simply. “We’ll be rid of two traitors, then.”
Cast out from Berk, Hiccup and Anna find themselves with a new mission: Find the nest before the rest of Berk does, and take out the Red Death once and for all.
With the help of Toothless, the Changewing (who Anna has nicknamed “Flicker”), and the Snaptrapper (whose heads Anna have very creatively named Leafy, Greeny, Spiky, and Badbreath. It’s beyond Hiccup how she tells all of them apart, but she’s very adamant about which is which.), they find the dragon hive again, and attempt the impossible--attacking the queen. It seems hopeless at first, but once more and more malcontented dragons see what they’re doing, they join in and rebel.
It’s a tough fight, but the two humans and the revolting dragons come out on top. Not before the Red Death has one last hurrah, though--letting out a final, massive blast of fire that knocks Hiccup askew and sends him tumbling down into the flames. Toothless, Flicker, Anna, and the Snaptrapper dive after, and are quickly engulfed in red and orange.
Meanwhile, the Berkians have sent out ships following Hiccup, Anna, and their dragons, guessing the nest is where they were headed. By the time they get there, the fight is over--and Stoick and Gobber just manage to catch a glimpse of Hiccup plummeting into the flames.
Anna screams Hiccup’s name until the smoke burns her throat so much she can’t anymore. She remembers swooping underneath him and just managing to grab hold of his limp body before everything goes dark.
When she comes to later, it’s still dark--but she feels something soft and warm in her arms, and feels scales pressed against her back. Her arm is searing with pain, but she barely notices it as her eyes adjust to the darkness. Hiccup is curled up against her--groaning, but alive.
Not sure she’ll ever get another chance, she puts a hand on his cheek and finally tells him the truth. “I love you.”
He opens his eyes and looks, gaze shocked until a slow realization washes over him. He smiles. “I love you, too.”
They both pass out, still wrapped up in each other.
When the flames clear, Stoick sees what looks like a pile of dragons, all pressed together with their wings folded in. Slowly, they lift their wings to reveal two humans--charred in places, but alive.
Wracked with guilt, Stoick realizes he was wrong. Hiccup’s new bodyguard helped his son become stronger and braver than the chief of Berk ever imagined.
It turns out taking down the queen saved the dragons and the humans, and thanks to Hiccup, Anna, and their dragon friends, Berk will never have to worry about dragon raids again.
It turns out Hiccup’s leg and Anna’s arm didn’t quite make it out of the fire. Luckily, Gobber has always been handy at prosthetics--and Hiccup manages to make a fairly dextrous and functional metal hand for Anna. Anna is utterly delighted with how cool it looks.
After the whole Red Death incident, it’s decided that Hiccup is probably competent enough that he doesn’t need his own bodyguard anymore. Nonetheless, Anna is welcome to stay in Berk as long as she likes. And with new dragon friends and an incredibly cute new boyfriend, she’s not going anywhere anytime soon!
***
This is in reference to this post! I’ve already done these questions for Moanida. Theoretically still willing to do any questions I haven’t yet for Hiccanna and Moanida, although these were exhausting to write out so I might not give as long of answers XD
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mechanicalinertia · 3 years
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What’s next for Divine Patronage?
So my Ranma / Ah My Goddess! / other miscellaneous anime that take place in 1990′s Tokyo fanfic has become more popular than anything else I’ve ever written. I may have classes but this is my designated ‘leisure activity’ now for sure.
Anyway, I have a rough idea for this initial ‘arc’, and how it’ll end. Fine. Whatever. More importantly, though, I have continuing ideas about how to cross over more and more mid-90′s anime and other things into this mishmash where Urd and Ranma have to ‘problem-solve’ things. Christ I wrote like 9 possible arc setups last night; it’ll take me years to make good on them if I do at all.
That’s why I’m a-posting brief summaries of them here, so if I give up on these people can just steal em’.
1. CRIMES OF THE MISHIMA GROUP AGAINST GOOD TASTE
Sayoko Mishima and her zaibatsu god-nap Keiichi and in doing so royally piss off Belldandy. Urd has to snatch the poor kid, who is now a minor god, out from Sayoko’s clutches before Belldandy just loses it and nukes earth in silent rage. Ranma can’t beat the compound alone, though, so Urd turns to Akiko Natsume - the actual head of Mishima - and her all purpose combat android for some help. Unfortunately, the android has a cat brain. Cue Ranma struggling to confront his fears to save the world.
Crossover with: All Purpose Cultural Catgirl Nuku Nuku, a medium-obscure OVA from the 90′s starring Megumi Hayashibara as the wacky cat-bot-girl with Saeko Shimazu (Kodachi’s voice among others) as Akiko. Good fun.
2. FATE / STRANGE; DAYS
Remember Lind, the Valkyrie from the Angel Eater Arc of AMG? Well, she back. She intervened in Fate / Zero’s Holy Grail War (assumed to take place around 1994) and contracted w/ Kiritsugu the way Urd did with Ranma. Now Kiri may have lost all his lady companions, but he gets Illya back from Germany and is raising her alongside Shirou with the help of Illya’s wacky maids. Maybe lil’ Rin and Sakura are involved, too, I dunno.
Anyway, Lind considers the Sailor Senshi a threat to the divine order (they do appear to predate human civilization) - especially since Saturn’s Glaive of Silence is believed to be the Norse Gungnir, Spear of Destiny, Odin’s superweapon that could (even in the OG myths) rewrite reality itself to render enemies nonexistent.
So Lind gets Kiritsugu, Arturia Saber, and Prisma Illya to go to Tokyo and track down Sailor Saturn with Ranma’s help. Then they end up teleporting to the distant past of the Silver Milennium, back when the Senshi’s magic rendered the other planets of the Solar System inhabitable. Cue a string of John Carter references.
Crossover with: Fate / Zero, Fate Kaleid Liner Prisma Illya. Might even separate the Fate story from the whole Saturn / Gungnir subplot - they’re just hunting Kirei and Gil, then. Sure. Fine.
3. THE FUTURE IS HERE AND IT SUCKS
Skuld time travels into the future, only to find that almost every single timeline ends with humanity being wiped out before the 22nd century - perhaps by SM’s Great Freeze, perhaps by other factors. Unfortunately, she forgot to close her possible-future-timeline portals properly, which leads to various cyberpunk futures bouncing off one another for supremacy in 1996.
(Look I wanted to just fuckin do BGC or GITS crossover. Couldn’t decide. Why not both?)
Crossover with: BGC 2032 (Or my 2069 rebot), Ghost in the Shell, Silent Mobius (maybe)
4. GAMES OF THE GODS
The obligatory ‘gang plays an RPG’ sitcom episode, only a) it’s Cyberpunk 2020 because I’ve read that system’s books, and b) the goddesses all bring their boytoys along to be sucked into the game world as their player characters. (Urd gets Ranma, Bell gets Keiichi, Skuld is the GM, Peorth gets Ryoga, Lind gets Kiritsugu) (I guess I better do an arc where Peorth patronizes Ryoga to screw with Urd...)
5. GUNS, BOMBS, ROCK N’ ROLL
Ranma gets dragged along by Urd for a vacation, theoretically to LA. But then after getting bored of the Obligatory Beach Episode, Urd rediscovers that she has a daughter in Chicago - Rally Vincent. She and Ranma rush off to screw up the events of the manga and protect her daughter from the brainwashing of a lesbian rapist crime lord. (I wish I was making that last bit up). Maybe Priss of BGC tags along to really hammer in the WACKY KENICHI SONODA CROSSOVER thing?
Crossover with: Gunsmith Cats, Riding Bean, maybe BGC
6. HEISEI BLOSSOMS BLOOMING
The Japanese government decides to reactivate the Teikoku Kagekidan project, this time using idoru as the mecha pilots instead of the Takarazura Revue thing they had going on in the 20′s. The K-on girls audition, the Love Live girls audition, someone in the Ranma cast or something tries out as well. Mecha are now nuclear-powered instead of steam-powered (whatever that means)
Crossover with: Original Sakura Wars franchise, Tite Kubo iteration non-involved. maybe K-on and Love Live
7. RANMA’S LUDICROUS EXCURSION: STAR-DIAMOND DUST IS UNCRUSADERABLE
Ranma gets a stand. Urd thinks it’s like her angel. Yare yare daze.
Crossover with: What do you think, genius?
8. ETERNAL SUMMER
Ranma gets trapped in a temporal anomaly centered around Tomobiki Town. Now it’s August 1982, Ataru and Lum are about to get married, and unless he can stop the total breakdown of the pocket reality within the seven days before the time loop resets he’ll become part of it forever. Trippy New Wave Existentialist Bullshit - Screwball Comedy meets Body Horror. Also see: Higurashi.
Crossover with: Urusei Yatsura
9. TRICOWBOYOUTLAW BEBOPGUNSTAR: EFF YOU, SPACE COWBOY
A valiant attempt to crossover all three of the late 90′s ‘Cowboy shonen’ anime of the time in one universe. A shared universe? Nah. We’re probably just gonna transplant all the characters into 90′s Tokyo again and watch the body count pile up.
Crossover with: Cowboy Bebop, Outlaw Star, Trigun. Oh, and maybe one of those ‘robo-maid’ shows from the aughties (Hand Maid May, Mahoromatic, Steel Angel Kurimi), just to fuck with everyone.
10. COPS AND ROBOTS
Ranma gets in trouble with the police for sneaking onto the Babylon Project, forced into community service, and then ends up blackmailed into the long-running grudgematch between the SV2 Labor Squad and the Tokyo Highway Patrol.
Crossover with: You’re Under Arrest, Patlabor (original OVA mostly)
11. SUPERIOR AUTOMATRONIC DISPUTE RESOLUTION: GO NAGAI EAT YOUR HEART OUT
Skuld gets in a fight with some deities from some rival pantheons, and as a proper grudgematch resolution they all resolve to build Giant Robots and then Battle Royale them. Ranma has to pilot one.
Crossover with: NOTHING.
12. THE HOUND OF ULSTER BARKS AT MIDNIGHT
Cu Chullain, husbando of Ex-Valkyrie and turncoat Irish goddess Scathach, teams up with Ranma in Dublin to stop IRA extremists from resurrecting the Tuatha De Dannan, specifically the Morrigan. A teenage Bazett (from Fate) shows up and gets all fangirly.
13. TALES FROM THE OOPS
An abandoned particle accelerator built in the 80′s near Stockholm may or may not cause Ragnarok. Ranma and some edgy Swedish Teenagers have to deal with 90′s recession bullshit and clean the place out
Crossover with: Tales from the Loop, Things From the Flood
That’s about it, honestly. I have other things I’d like to crossover with, tbh, mostly mecha stuff. Among them:
- Cannon God Exaxxion
- Eva
- Gundam UC
- Muv-Luv
-Negmia / another Ken Akumatsu trashpile (and I mean that in the best possible way)
Shit this is fun. Imma make another one of these posts with even more ludicrious crossovers later. Peace out.
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superman86to99 · 4 years
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Adventures of Superman #505 (October 1993)
REIGN OF THE SUPERMAN! The Reign is over, and Superman does what we’d all do after being dead for several weeks and coming back to life: no, not visiting your parents, making out with Lois Lane.
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Or more than making out, since the next page starts with a caption that says “Later...” and lets us know that they both had to take a shower. (NOTE: Check Don Sparrow’s section below for artist Tom Grummett’s definitive take on what happened in that scene.)
Their post-resurrection bliss comes to a stop when they remember a little detail: Clark Kent is still presumed dead. How are they gonna explain his return without making the extremely smart residents of Metropolis suspect that Superman and the guy who looks like Superman but with glasses are actually the same person? Superman’s mind immediately goes into “wacky bullshit excuse” mode and he starts spitballing ideas, like claiming Clark lost his memory, or was carried by underwater currents, or was abducted by aliens. Honestly, I’m pretty sure that last one would work, since there have been THREE major alien invasions in the past few years, but Lois thinks no one would be dumb enough to fall for that sort of thing. Really, Lois? No one?
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At this point, Superman picks up some supervillain activity with his super hearing, so he gets dressed and goes there (though it would have been pretty intimidating for the criminals if she’d shown up in that shower rug). A bank uptown has been taken over by Loophole, a S.T.A.R. Labs accountant who stole a gizmo that allows him to phase through walls. When Superman shows up to arrest him and his henchmen (are they all villainous accountants?), Loophole literally puts his first through Superman’s chest, instantly killing him. RIP Superman, again.
Nah, Supes just swats Loophole away and breaks the gizmo, causing him to get his crotch area stuck inside a vault door. Now he has to change his supervillain name to “DickVault”.
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(I freaking love Maggie Sawyer, btw.)
After that, Superman goes to one of the areas trashed by his fight with Doomsday and helps clean up the junk that’s still laying around there. It’s then that he finally reunites with his best friend and most valued ally: Bibbo Bibbowski. (Jimmy Olsen’s there, too, unfortunately.)
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Bibbo also introduces Superman to the dog he named in honor of his home planet, Krypto -- and it’s Krypto who provides the most significant moment in this issue. The little mutt starts barking at some debris from a destroyed building, leading Superman to examine it with his X-Ray vision and find some kids underneath.
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Turns out the kids had been trapped there since the Doomsday fight, leading some random passerby (fine, Jimmy) to wonder if Clark could be stuck in a similar situation. Superman and Lois look at each other... giving Superman an idea and providing the premise for next week’s issue.
Character-Watch:
First appearance of Loophole (real name Deke Dickinson, C.P.A.), who would become a running joke in Karl Kesel’s Superman and Superboy comics. While his phasing powers are tech based, he also has the metahuman ability to somehow convince attractive women to be his girlfriends/henchwomen despite being a balding little dweeb. In this issue he’s dating a blonde named Sheila (who wears a mask, so maybe she’s actually hideous), but I’m pretty sure he had other girlfriends in future issues.
Plotline-Watch:
As I said... holy shit, five years ago: no one draws Supes coming back to Lois after an extended absence like Tom Grummett. This scene is almost a remake of the one from that issue when Superman comes back from his time traveling jaunt. There’s also a callback to Man of Steel #25, when Lois hears a tap on her window and thinks it’s Superman, but it’s just some dumb bird. This time she gets it the other way around:
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Don Sparrow says: “There’s a cute visual callback to the last time Superman returned after a long absence on page 18, when Superman is reunited with Jimmy. It’s a near identical pose to Action #643, where Superman returned from exile in space (and in that moment, infected Jimmy with Eradicator-based space sickness, womp womp).” I think he’s instinctively throwing Jimmy up in the air, hoping the cold of space will kill him. Unfortunately, both murder attempts were unsuccessful.
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As seen above, Maggie Sawyer wasn’t too convinced that “Fabio” here was Superman at first. That changes when he calls her “Captain” even though she was recently promoted to Inspector, and she’s like “only a dead man wouldn’t know all the precise ranks for the local authorities!”
The surviving non-Supermen are seen arriving at S.T.A.R. Labs for medical care after the Engine City showdown. Don again: “There are some mild continuity issues stemming from Superman #82, which perhaps wasn’t completely finished being drawn while Tom Grummett worked on this one, as Steel’s costume is almost entirely intact, when we last saw it a week ago, it was in tatters. Ditto the Eradicator, who was a wizened husk, and now is apparently a scorched Ivan Drago.” Let’s assume Supergirl worked her clothes-shifting magic on Steel’s armor and the Eradicator’s, uh, hair.
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There’s a short scene where Superboy is visited by his reporter pal Tana Moon, who tells him she quit WGBS and is leaving Metropolis. Awww. Goodbye, Tana. Or should I say... aloha?
Meanwhile, Lex Luthor Jr. has a scene with Dr. Happersen where he says he intends to control or destroy anyone who wears the “S” symbol. Basically, if he can’t date them, they should be dead. He also instructs Happersen to help Cadmus’ Director Westfield get in contact with disgraced genetician Dabney Donovan. Get ready for a whole lot of clone-related shenanigans in the near future.
And now, more Don Sparrow-related shenanigans after the jump!
Art-Watch (by @donsparrow​):
This issue is another favourite of mine, but I suppose all these issues around the Death and Return are faves when I really think about it.  My copy of this issue had the holographic fireworks cover, and it’s a good one.  I like that Superman and the Daily Planet are in natural colour, rather than holograms.  The cover credit goes Karl Kesel, Tom Grummett and Doug Hazlewood, so I’m not sure what the breakdown was (or if that’s just a handwritten cover credit, just in case?
The story opens with one of my favourite sequences ever, with Lois waking up on her couch, having fallen asleep following the events in Coast City.  I love the detail as she opens the curtain, we see her engagement ring, indicating she knows her real fiancée has returned.  This sequence is followed up by two pages of splashes of the passionate reunion of the best couple in comics.  All beautifully rendered as they float, locked in a passionate, sunrise kiss.  Just lovely (so lovely that I am willing to overlook a small colouring error, as Lois has black hair instead of reddish brown for one panel).  [Max: I can confirm that they fixed that in the collections.]
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What follows is a very cute scene, and one of some debate among Superman fans.  There’s no overt evidence of what happened, all we get is a cryptic caption reading “later…”.   Again, I give credit for the subtlety of the writers, as they depict this scene in a way that can be read either way:  maybe Clark and Lois made love, and the “later” we are seeing is afterglow, or maybe Lois had a shower since she just woke up after sleeping in her clothes. Then, after calling his parents while Lois showered, Clark had a shower himself.  I feel like today’s writers wouldn’t feel the need to be so subtle, and might lose the sweetness of this scene.  
In previous posts, I’ve talked about my friendship with artist Tom Grummett, and how as a boy, I would wear him out with all my dumb fanboy questions.  Once I got older, and our relationship became a little more collegial (just a little closer to collegial, since I in no way consider myself anywhere near his level of skill or success) I would really try not to geek out too much when we would visit.  But the one question I had to ask was about this scene, and what their intention, or interpretation of it was, as I was always curious.  Once I had explained to him which issue it was (the guy has drawn hundreds, so they might not all spring to mind immediately!) he admitted that his assumption was indeed that they had sex.  So there you have it!  [Max: Hot damn! Another Superman ‘86 to ‘99 exclusive, folks!]
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However you wish to read this scene, the choreography, and facial expressions as they horse around is really sweet and fun, and such a nice, light tone compared to the do-or-die pace the books had been for the last two years or so.   Their easy joking, and back and forth banter really do a great job of showing them as a real couple.
It’s a very nice pose on Supergirl as she lifts off, simultaneously spurning Superboy’s romantic complaints.
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I quite like the design on Loophole, and his gang.  Loophole himself kinda harkens back to the silver age villains of the Flash as Loophole has a unique hairline, is an older man, with a pretty average build, which was rare for villains in the 90s. His gimmick is pretty cool, too, though we immediately see its vulnerability.
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The tearful reunion of the now-sober Bibbo and Superman is also a great moment—if anyone rose to the challenge of living up to Superman’s example in his absence, it was Bibbo.  I discuss the scene in more detail in the observations later, but the image of Superman whipping away the debris on page 20 is a great visual, with the dust clouds creating great motion and urgency.
On the whole, a great first issue for the return to the never-ending battle, even if it brings us closer to Grummett’s last issue on this title (for a while).
STRAY OBSERVATIONS:
Could Superman referring to the Death and Return storyline as a dream, while stepping out of the shower be a reference to Dallas, and their famous about-face after an unpopular season, where Bobby Ewing emerged from the shower, alive and well, dismissing a yearlong storyline as a dream?
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A coy semi-reference to perhaps my favourite line in the first Reeve Superman film on page 8, where Supergirl says “Easy steel, we’ve got you, then later adding, “ok, you got me”.  
A little more issue-to-issue dissonance with Superboy reversing himself from the end of Superman #82, where he said clearly that Kal-El was Superman, with Superboy pointing out that legally, he’s Superman and not Kal. [Max: I think he’s talking strictly in the legal sense, since he helps Superman deal with the legal problem on the next issue and all.]
For all the times that Superman has used his heat vision on guns (as he does on page 11), we’ve never seen rounds get burned off, firing on their own because of the heat.  There might be an idea there.    
An odd sorta-cameo by Erik Larsen’s Savage Dragon, who Superman apparently defeats in the waterfront district. An eagle-eyed reader asked Larsen about it in issue #6 of Dragon’s own book, and he nixed any proper crossover rumours, saying it was just a shout-out from Larsen’s buddy Karl Kesel.  Eventually they’d meet in Superman/Savage Dragon: Chicago, a so-so crossover in 2002.
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A slightly bawdy joke from one of the Loophole gang, on page 14, as the moll of Deke Dickson calls Loophole a “weiner”.  
GODWATCH: A stirring moment when Superman detects the faintest of life-signs, thanks to would-be super-pup, Krypto, and responds “God willing” when someone asks if anyone is alive in that wreckage.  The love and concern in Superman’s eyes when he says he’d “rather die” himself than let little ones perish is a tear-jerker moment for sure.  Bonus points for the cuteness of Superman heaping praise on Krypto, with the line “if that dog could fly, I’d put a cape on him…”
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Question:  Does Jimmy know? He comes up with the solution to the Clark problem very conveniently.  Maybe he’s smarter than we (and by we, I mean Max) give him credit for? [Max: It was all Krypto! Okay, I’ll concede that maybe Jimmy is as smart as a dog.]
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bbrandy2002 · 5 years
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The Diary of Riley Brooks
Entry Two
Wacky Drabble #8: Help me with this, would you?
Coincides with TRH Chapter 13
Some strong Language
Characters belong to Pixelberry
Drabbler Tags: @emceesynonymroll @burnsoslow @sirbeepsalot @jovialyouthmusic @romanticatheart-posts @stopforamoment @dcbbw @jessiembruno @katedrakeohd
Additional tags; I have no idea who is on my permanent tags list anymore😬 I didnt exactly keep up with it 😭 I'll do better. So please let me know so I can get that sorted out.
@ao719 @hopefulmoonobject
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September 7
I'm having a baby!
As I sit here trying to let that statement fully sink in, I think about where I was just one year ago today.
I had always dreamt of meeting my Prince Charming, never really expecting to find him. Liam made me realize that fairy tales do exist and sometimes wishes do come true. That sounds so cliche, yet, I don't know any other way to describe what we share together.
He is my heartbeat, my every breath, my reason for existing. Our love is built on passion and longing, his touch excites me and his very presence heats my core. Our bodies joined together, whether fierce or gentle, is pure, unadulterated magic. Liam is my warmth and sincerity, my goodness and truth.
In the depths of my belly, I am carrying the greatest symbol of that love, a part of him and a part of me, a tiny creature that will forever bring us joy.
I spent much of the reception, anxious to find out if I was indeed pregnant. As I wrote yesterday, Savannah admitted to taking a pregnancy test, as well. For whatever reason, possibly one I don't want to ever know, she placed her negative test in the bathroom drawer. Due to Madeleine's incompetence and unwanted presence for this event, she, too, put my test in the drawer. Is there some kind of weird Cordonian tradition I am unaware of that says these test work better in drawers? And why did Savannah leave hers in there? The damn thing was negative. In light of his objection, I have a strong feeling, Mr. Chuck knows more than he is letting on.
Freaked the hell out by Savannah, I knew then, I was the one who was pregnant. I needed air and a moment to think, far away from all the yee-haw bullshit. I sent Liam a text, asking him to meet me in a clearing by the house, I had a surprise for him. Within seconds, he approaches me with a flirtatious smile, looking as if he was ready to fuck me six ways from Sunday. I love that man and I'm always more than willing to participate in his freakish, outdoor sex fetish, but, this wasn't what I had in mind.
After I tell him we are a having a baby, he sweeps me up in his arms, gently placing me back to the ground. His happiness was written all over his face, until it wasn't. He went into Liam mode, panicking about the need to baby proof every room at the Palace and Valtoria. As much as I loved his cute response, I wanted tears dammit. I wanted him on his knees, crying his eyes out, unable to talk, worshipping my stomach. Mick Jagger said you can't always get what you want, but, sometimes you get what you need....well, I needed a sobbing, shaking Liam, is that too much to ask?
We discuss when to tell our friends and because I'm a petty, evil bitch, I decide we should tell them right in the middle of Savannah and Bertrand's reception. You propose at my wedding, I announce the equivalent of the second coming, in the form of my sacred child, at yours. I couldn't care less for the rest of the wedding attendees, but, seeing Hana, Drake, Maxwell and Bertrand delight in our news was exciting.
Afterwards, Liam wants to celebrate in private, which means, we might talk some, but, he still has every intention of getting off tonight. We head upstairs and I was correct in my assumption, he wants to celebrate making the baby by doing what we did to make it. He is a wet panty dropper for sure. And while some ride Harley's and horses, I propped my little pregnant ass on my own stallion and rode him hard. If Barthelemy weren't already out of his coma, me screaming Liam's name when I climaxed, would have awakened the old coot for sure.
If my panties weren't already off, after he sang a lullaby to our baby, that for sure would have melted them away. If he keeps this up, we'll have our own 20 Kids and Counting reality show.
I should have stayed in fucking bed this morning. At breakfast, Bertrand greeted us in kind, while Stick-It-In-A-Drawer Savannah, reminded us all that we are not at court. Why is she still here and not on her honeymoon? Then Leona tells me I can't have a cup of coffee....bitch, I was downing shots like no tomorrow just three days ago with Liv and Hana in Auvernal. This queen will drink a cup of coffee if she damn well pleases. My baby is probably going to come out with two heads.
Like the lovable, little genius he is, Maxwell suggests everyone buys the baby a gift. Guess who further suggested we get these gifts from the local country general store? The same damn place that was using a priceless saddle as a fucking hat holder. I can't even write her name anymore. I have to wonder, why I have been playing second fiddle on Hee-Haw Hell to her during this trip.
So the gang and I pack into our vehicle and head back to said store, where I can share with all of Cordonia that the royal crib was purchased at Wild Chester's Gear and Steer on Bootleg Road. I watched Maxwell fawn over socks, Hana recreated painful memories of lonely tea parties, and Drake...well, Drake's little wooden horse was quite adorable.
I get a call from Olivia, who somehow managed to escape earlier from this shithole than I did. I thought we were amigas now Liv? She actually cried when I told her Liam and I were expecting. I don't know what the hell she is doing in my bedroom, but, if Livvie needs something there, I'm more than happy to help a girl out. She asked me for the most valuable thing in my room, I lied to her and told her it was the royal sceptre. If she only knew the value of the dildo I had in my nightstand....that better be exactly where I left it when I get back.
Back at the ranch, Liam says the five most beautiful, glorious words I have been waiting to here for weeks.....We're almost ready to go....Hot Damn!
Bianca asked me if I thought I could get away without saying goodbye...I already knew the answer was, no. If she only knew how hard I tried about twenty times since arriving to cut tail and run. And damn that heartless, nazi, Leona, she for real dissed my husband! Bitch, I will snap you in half over Liam.
Just when I think I'm finally in the clear, who in the blue fuck put me on a plane for the next 10 hours with Frick, Frack and Kiara?
Liam, I love you, but, damn you! I'm nauseous, tired, moody, and pissing buckets every 10 minutes, carrying your child, and you thought this was a good idea.
I blame pregnancy brain for my decision to tell these three our big news. I'm not the greatest at charades, Im not even the smartest person in the world, but, I swear to God, these three may quite possibly be the dumbest morons I have ever met. They guessed I was full, I was bloated, gluttony.....fucking gluttony???? Yes Penelope, the big news I wanted to share with you is I'm a glutton. Maybe a glutton for punishment, deciding to interact with you three. More guesses included, American Football, and a common pirate jig....one of these women is an ambassador and the other my communications director. I'm a waitress from Brooklyn, and my word, I'm truly baffled by the sheer stupididy I had just witnessed. I turned to Liam, pleading with my eyes, help me with this, would you?
As bad as those three were, out of no where, the most incompetant, security guard on this planet, appears right before me. I didn't have time to worry about her, because apparently, the bane of my existence just scheduled a press conference to announce my pregnancy. I haven't seen a doctor to even confirm yet, what the hell Madeleine. One of these days, I am gonna beat that green goblin's ass down.
Cordonia, I'm on my way and can't be there soon enough.
Riley
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dukereviewsxtra · 4 years
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Duke Reviews Xtra: Geppetto
Hello, I'm Andrew Leduc And Welcome To Duke Reviews Xtra Where We Are Continuing Our Duke Reviews Look At Disney...
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Where If You've Been On The Duke Reviews Tumblr, You'll Know That I Just Reviewed Pinocchio And Since I Can't Review Everything Disney On The Duke Reviews Or Duke Reviews TV Tumblr (Though On Duke Reviews I'm Sure Going To Try)...
I May As Well Review The Stuff I Can't Review On Either One Of Those Tumblr's Here So On Today's Show We're Reviewing Geppetto...
When This Tv Film Came Out I Was Excited For It Because Unlike Other People Who Thought "Who Gives A Crap About Geppetto?" And Didn't Watch It I Actually Wondered If There Was More To The Character Than Just Kindly Wood-Carver Who Makes Toys And Wants A Kid...
Did I Get It? Let's Find Out As We Watch Geppetto...
Our Story Starts In The Village Of Villagio...
Which Despite How It Sounds Is Not A Sex Act...
Where The Children In Town Are Very Excited As The Toy Maker, Geppetto (Played By Drew Carey)...
And Let's Talk About This Really Quick So I Can Continue Talking About The Movie, I Don't Mind Drew Carey As Geppetto...
Sure, He's Not Old, Sure, He's Not Elderly, Sure, He Doesn't Pull Off An Italian Accent And Yes, He Is Miscast But He Does Have A Good Singing Voice And Carey Is Trying His Hardest With The Role So I Got To Give Him Credit...
Anyway, As I Was Saying The Children Of The Town Are Very Excited As The Toy Maker Geppetto Has Finished Making His New Toys That He Made After Gathering Wood Over The Summer...
Which Leads To The First Song Of The Movie, Toys...
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(Start At 0:42)
And For A Beginning Song It's Good But It Doesn't Really Pull You Into The Story Like A Musical Should But Drew Carey's Verses In It Are Pretty Good So I Guess I Can't Complain...
After The Last Of The Children Go Home, Geppetto Works On A Puppet Named Pinocchio Before Going Into Our Next Song Called An Empty Heart As He Gets Ready For Bed..,
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Sorry, There Was No Clip For It...
And Despite People Complaining That Because Drew Carey's Performance Has No Emotion The Song Has No Emotion, I Find That To Be Bullshit, Carey Does Well With The Song And I Honestly Like It...
But All Is Not Quiet In Geppetto's Workshop As The Blue Fairy (Played By Princess Atta) Drops By To Grant Geppetto's Wish Of Making Pinocchio A Real Boy...
However, Having Alot Of Questions, (And Why Wouldn't He) Pinocchio Keeps Geppetto Up All Night...
But A New Day Lead To Our Next Song Called And Son, As Geppetto Looks To The Future With Pinocchio Only For Problems To Happen Along The Way...
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(Start At 0:31)
And While The Song Is Cute And There's Nothing Inherently Bad About It, It's Just Not My Favorite Song In The Entire Musical...
So, By The 4th Day, Geppetto Has Lost All Patience And Sees Sending Pinocchio To School As His Last Hope, But Even That Goes Wrong When A Misunderstanding Of Something Geppetto Said Leads Pinocchio To Get Into A Fight With A Young Kelvin Timeline Chekov...
And Yes, I Know I Shouldn't Make Fun Of Anton Yelchin Because Of How He Died But It Was Too Easy To Make A Star Trek Reference...
And Speaking Of Star Trek, After Geppetto And Pinocchio Leave The School, They Run Into Stromboli (Played By Data) Who Takes An Interest In Pinocchio And Wants Him In His Show Despite Geppetto Saying No...
Returning Home, Geppetto Is Mad At Pinocchio For Getting Into The Fight At School Starting A Fight Which Fractures Father And Son And Leads Geppetto To Go Find The Blue Fairy As He Believes Pinocchio's Defective...
Eventually Finding The Blue Fairy She Basically Tells Him "Hey, You Wanted A Kid, It's Your Problem Pal" As She Sings The Next Song Just Because It's Magic"...
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(Start At 1:32)
And While I Like The Choreography In The Song, It's Again Not One Of My Favorites...
Returning Home, Geppetto Finds That Pinocchio Has Runaway From Home As Left A Note Saying That He's Joining Stromboli's Puppet Show...
Thinking That Maybe It's For The Best, Geppetto Goes Down To Stromboli's Show Where We Get Pinocchio Singing I've Got No Strings...
But After The Show We Discover That Stromboli's Not A Great Father Figure As He Keeps Pinocchio Locked In A Box....
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Hiding Pinocchio As Geppetto Goes Backstage To Give Him Some Of Pinocchio's Things, Stromboli Tells Geppetto That It Was Just A One Night Show Before Pinocchio Left For The Big City To Seek Fame And Fortune...
Upset That Stromboli Did This, Stromboli Points Geppetto In The Direction Pinocchio "Went" Before He Goes Backstage Again To Get Pinocchio Only To Discover That He's Escaped His Cage And Has Boarded A Carriage For Pleasure Island...
Angry Over Losing His Meal Ticket, Stromboli Packs Up To Go After Him Which Leads Into Our Next Song, Bravo, Stromboli...
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(Start At 0:43)
And This Is Honestly One Of My Favorite Songs In This Musical...
It's Like Brent Spiner Took All The Pent Up Wackiness He Had Inside After Playing A Robot on Star Trek The Next Generation And The Movies And Let All Out In This One Song And It Works...
Meanwhile, Geppetto Runs Into The Blue Fairy Who After The First Reprise Of Just Because It's Magic Decides "This Idiot Wants Magic, Fine, I'll Give Him Magic To Show Him What I'm Trying To Tell Him"
So, Using Her Magic, The Blue Fairy Introduces Geppetto To The Great Lazardo (Played By Wayne Brady) Who Is A Bad Magician But Is Only A Magician Because It's What His Father Wanted Him To ...
Sound Familiar?
But Seeing That Lazardo Is Great At Making Toys, Geppetto Suggests That He Become A Toy Maker Which Leads To A Reprise Of Toys Before Geppetto Continues His Journey Deciding That "Ok, Pinocchio Doesn't Have To Become A Toy Maker"...
Finding His Way To The Town Of Idyllia, Where We Get A When You Wish Upon A Star Reference...
Yeah, We Kind Of Heard It Earlier Too When Pinocchio Was Brought To Life But I Don't Really Count That
Before Geppetto Meets Professor Buonragazzo (Played By Paul From Boston Legal R.I.P. René Auberjonois) And His Son Who Have Made A Machine That Makes Perfect Children That Obey And Do Everything They're Parents Tell Them To Do...
Again, Sound Familiar?
Which Leads Into Our Next Song, Satisfaction Guaranteed...
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And...It's Okay..
While I Do Like The Song And I Like The Choreography In It, It Just Raises Too Many Questions As Val Kilmer Batman Would Put It...
Freaked Out By What He Sees, Geppetto Realizes That He Doesn't Want A Child THAT Perfect...
Running Into The Blue Fairy Again...
Ok, She's Quickly Turning Into The Cheshire Cat Of This Movie...
We Get Another Reprise Of Just Because It's Magic Where She Tells Geppetto That Pinocchio Is Headed For Pleasure Island And That Not Only Did Stromboli Screw Him But He's After Pinocchio Too...
Transitioning Into Pleasure Island We Get The Best Song In This Musical Sung By Usher...
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(Start At 0:08)
In A Scene That Some People Say Is Lazy But I Say Is Just Saving Time And Money As It Is A Television Movie, Through Pictures We See Geppetto Go After The Donkey Pinocchio On A Boat Only To Be Attacked By Monstro...
Seeing His Father In Danger, The Donkey Pinocchio Jumps Overboard Only For Him And Geppetto To Get Eaten By The Whale...
Finding Pinocchio Who Has Been Turned Into Himself Again, Citing That The Donkey Magic Must Have Washed Off...
Despite Me, Seeing It As Pinocchio's Sacrifice To Save His Father Allowed Him To Become Himself Again...
Apologizing With A Reprise Of And Son, Father And Son Make Up Which Leads Them To Find A Way Out By Deciding To Tickle Monstro's Uvula With Pinocchio's Nose Which He Lies To Make Grow So Monstro Can Throw Them Up...
And All I Can Say About This Is That Tony Goldmark Has A Dirty Mind...And If You've Seen His Review On This With Emily Clark You'll Know Why...
Returning To Their Home In Villagio, Geppetto And Pinocchio Are Confronted By Stromboli, Who Has Come To Take Pinocchio From Geppetto As He Has A Contact With Him That's Iron Clad...
Which Leads Us Into The Final Song, Since I Gave My Heart Away And It's Very Touching...
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(Start At 0:23, End At 6:47)
So, That's Geppetto And...It's A Mixed Bag...
While The Beginning Of The Movie Isn't That Great It Makes Up For It In Both The Middle And The End, And Yes, While Drew Carey Is A Bit Miscast In This, He Still Isn't That Bad Of A Singer But The People That Steal This Movie Is Brent Spiner And Usher As They Both Have 2 Of The Best Songs In This...
However, If There's Anyone That's Really Bad In This Then It's Julia Louis Dreyfuss, With The Way She's Talking I Can Barely Understand What She's Saying At Times Also I Got To Give Credit To Stephen Schwartz Who Wrote The Songs As Some Of Them Are Pretty Good...
All I Can Really Say Is Don't Believe The Haters And See This Movie, Just Skip The Very Beginning...
Till Next Time, This Is Duke, Signing Off...
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ladyloveandjustice · 5 years
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Fall 2018 Anime Overview: Continuing Series- Golden Kamuy Season 2 and Banana Fish
Golden Kamuy Season 2
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If you enjoyed the first season, this is pretty much more of the same, so check out my review of season one to know what to expect.
Though I guess you could say this portion of the season DOES lean even harder into weirdness than the first one did. There’s not many anime where you’ll see two dudes having the time of their lives modeling fashionable outfits made out of human skin, which include...crotch appendages...only in Golden Kamuy y’all.
Interestingly bizarreness tends to overlap with queerness a lot in this season and its hard to know how to feel about it. For instance, it’s definitely an unexpected revelation that dudes are attracted to Lieutenant Tsurumi like whoa. 
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IDK apparently he’s a catch. Half of his subordinates are in love with him. It’s handled as comical and of course the dudes are mentally unbalanced weirdos (as is everyone in Golden Kamuy except Asirpa and Sugimoto only sometimes) and one of them dies, but the show is never overtly mean to them either. Nobody acts disgusted about it and when one character observes the attraction, he basically shrugs about it.
 Satoru Noda apparently also REALLY loose with his fixation with dudes muscles with this part of the story, to the point we got the beef-cakiest hotsprings episode I’ve ever seen, which includes an extended fight scene where the male characters were naked throughout. There’s also an entire scene where apparently otter meat is an aphrodisiac that causes the dudes to be really into each other, so they engage in nearly naked sumo wrestling.
This is all clearly supposed to be wacky and funny, but at the same time it’s pretty clear the mangaka must REALLY LIKE drawing these scenes of muscular, naked men, and I support him following his dreams. Also I won’t deny it’s refreshing to see a hot springs episode where not a single woman got objectified, but there was dude oglin’ a plenty. It healed me a little.
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I guess while we’re talking about this show and its weird relationship with queerness I should reporting that my prediction was right and the trans woman I mentioned in the previous review did become an ally. Her transness hasn’t been bought up again (though for some reason the subs decided to switch to “he” despite sticking with “she” before) and her role is pretty minor, she does reveal she’s skilled in both cooking and surgery (because she likes dismembering people) and talks about how great it would be to see people murdered every so often, so pretty much more of the same.
And that’s really all there is to say. Golden Kamuy has only gotten weirder and the plot only more convoluted (I’m starting to have a hard time keeping track of the characters tbh), but it’s an entertaining story and there’s still characters with resonance and heart underneath it all (the scene where Sugimoto discusses his trauma from being in the war with Asirpa genuinely tugged a heartstring. These two are still great and have really settled into a kinda of adorable dad-daughter dynamic at this point) and the historical and cultural research that went into this story is still amazing. 
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I can tell the anime’s still skipping a lot of the manga (most of volume 7 was completely skipped), but since the English release of the manga is so slow, I’m happy to watch it in the meantime. It helps that the show has a bangin’ soundtrack and and it managed to pull its ginormous cast together for some truly exciting and action packed final episodes that left me eager for more. 
Banana Fish (13-24)
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Again, if you read my review for the first half of the show, you can basically expect more of the same, both with the good and especially the bad parts. We do get more downtime with Ash and Eiji’s relationship, and they continued to make me think this show would be so much better if it focused more on these quiet scenes rather than on piling as much trauma on Ash as it possibly can. 
I think this second half did allow me to see what was compelling about Ash and Eiji’s relationship and why it’s stayed with so many people. When Ash explained that he’s finally found someone who will love him without expecting anything in return, so of course he’s willing to do anything for that person, that got me in the heart. Ash is someone who has either been viewed as a threat or someone to exploit- he’s especially used to being treated like he’s nothing more than a body, a receptacle for desires. Eiji isn’t afraid of Ash, or in awe of him, and never asks anything of him other than for him to be okay and by his side. Ash genuinely can just be a dumb teenager with him while he can’t with anyone else. Eiji is an outsider, to Ash’s gang-bangin’ world, to his culture in general, and that allows him to see Ash as he truly is, just a kid who needs to get out of this mess.
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The romantic in me really loves that concept, and as an ace person, I especially connect to the underlying implication that Eiji is a romantic partner who isn’t going to demand sex from Ash or try to force him into it. Though Ash’s implied desire to avoid sex almost certainly stems from trauma, I know how he feels in a broad sense. And I think it’s a thing a lot of women can relate to even if they aren’t ace, wanting to find a relationship where they aren’t used or objectified, so it goes back around to how Ash acts as kind of a representation for the anxieties and desires of (likely) the mangaka and many women despite being a male character, and I still find that very interesting. The scene where Ash has a complete breakdown and screams at his rapist while laughing hysterically was really affecting.
So there’s moments of real resonance here, but is it worth the bullshit surrounding it, which includes every single gay man being represented as a rapist, to the point a gay bar is connected to a child porn ring? The nasty implication that gay sex is inherently evil and non-consensual, and Ash and Eiji’s relationship is only okay because they’re not doing it is very strong, and as much as this ace appreciates a romance that doesn’t require sex, I don’t want it THIS way.
There’s also some SERIOUS anti-Semitic bullshit that I can’t believe MAPPA didn’t edit out in a couple episodes. Like it would have been so easy to cut. Also some more pretty rough scenes of black men being murdered (they’re extras this time at least, and the main black dude for this part of the anime miraculously manages to both survive and not be an offensive caricature. Also his name is Cain Blood which is the best name in this story, and possibly ever). 
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The second half of the anime also involved some of the more absurd elements worsening. I got REALLY tired of every character commenting on how hot and amazing Ash is like. I GET IT.  Also Ash’s life of being sexually exploited somehow gives him the ability to seduce any man holding him captive, and every bad guy is down for raping a teenage boy, I guess. It’s actually again, a little surreal to see these tropes with a male character. I’m used to seeing hot female characters who’ve been through sexual trauma and have magic seduction powers and are endlessly drooled over...I almost want guys to watch these segments so they can see how uncomfortable it feels when the tables are turned. 
There’s also some really good examples of ACTUAL jarring tone shifts, where the anime really fails to land some of its attempts at a funny, light moment in the midst of really tense and tragic situations. I think it’s possible the manga managed this better, but I can’t imagine the “joke” where Ash has to crossdress and a male doctor gropes him and Ash punches him out cold and his friends chortle and tell him he’s not a gentle woman could ever be done in a non jarring way. Like, I don’t like sexual harassment humor in anime at the best of times, but it’s especially bad when the person who is harassed has been raped more times than he can count.  We’re expected to take that seriously, but not this, because Ash is in a dress? It’s also like, appalling that his friends who are fully aware of his history would laugh about him getting assaulted again. It’s a moment that feels like it comes from a completely different anime. 
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So um, yeah. My conclusion is those resonant moments are not worth the bullshit. The ending really cemented this for me. I had an (admittedly overly flippant) reaction that kind of sums my feelings up. Let’s just say I HATE meaningless cruel tragedy for the sake of tragedy, and I especially hate the implication abuse victims can never find happiness. 
I can’t say Banana Fish is an anime I’ll think fondly of or recommend. I do still find the discussion about it interesting, much more interesting than the actual story (as presented in the anime, again, haven’t read the manga), tbh. And I can see the seeds of a good story there, and I can understand why fans would want to see a reboot that truly modernized the story, cutting out the worst stuff and giving it a better ending, while keeping the resonance of the main relationship and the good characters (I really did like Sing, and Yut Lung was interesting. Shorter and Skip both deserved way better. Also Jessica, who at least got to do something besides be victimized at the last minute. One whole female character got a few moments of agency. Hallelujah.) Maybe someday it will happen. 
In the meantime, there’s a bunch of cool articles on Banana Fish that are worth a read. All of the pieces published on animefeminist as well as this post on Otaku, She Wrote are really informative, illuminating, and break down a lot of the issues I found here.
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pussymagicuniverse · 5 years
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American Horror Story Seasons Ranked from Best to Mediocre
Practically every TV series has a season that you don’t feel overjoyed about. Very few shows that have multiple seasons will impress you every time, unless you’re a super fan that finds no wrong even in what you love. It doesn’t make you less of a fan to critique and notice what could have been done better.
With American Horror Story it’s a different experience in regards to critiquing each season because it’s an anthology series. Despite American Horror Story: Apocalypse’s crossover with American Horror Story: Coven – every season has its own theme, plot, and characters. That alone brings on a plethora of possibilities each season, especially when we’re given weird teasers and minimal information.
Despite my love for AHS, there have been seasons that were quite sloppy or just not my speed. Below you’ll find my own personal ranking and if you’re a fan then you’ll understand all of what I’m saying.
1. Coven (2013)
While it may not seem like it, this season gets bashed on occasion. Some arguments on why it wasn’t the best were valid, but not enough to change my mind about this season.
Was it perfect? No, but nobody can say this wasn’t a nail-biting season. Not only did it have bad ass witches but Angela Bassett (Marie Laveau) and Jessica Lange (The Supreme, Fiona Goode) stole the damn show! A lot of the memorable moments featured one or both of them. Unless Stevie Nicks’ cameo appearances are more your speed. Which, in my opinion, were iconic and can’t be touched.
All in all, the season explored racism, what it’s like being black and a witch, depictions of Marie Laveau, Madame LaLaurie and the Axeman, as well as other topics. In my opinion, this season deserves better treatment than it’s received.
2. Murder House (2011)
This season was the perfect one to rope us in for this anthology series. It gave us the right amount of drama and plenty of horror. Of course, Jessica Lange (Constance Langdon) was stellar in this season, but the performances from the rest of the cast were on point as well.
The Harmon Family, which this season focuses on, keeps us on the edge of our seats throughout. Not many things will have you saying “totally saw that coming,” from the twists and turns to what transpired in that spooky ass mansion. While there were a handful of things that still disturb me, it’s still a top season for me and is undoubtedly a successful one within the series.
3. Apocalypse (2018)
Having Murder House and Coven crossover is something I have to applaud Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk (the show creators) for. Not only that but casting Cody Fern as Michael Langdon (aka the Antichrist ) was a big thumbs up. His performance throughout is no joke and it held me til the end, even when his character had me unimpressed, which unfortunately happened more than I’d like to admit.
Some parts of this season were dragged out to me and some characters felt pointless by the end. And that’s just some of what could have been done better in my opinion. Nevertheless, seeing my favorite witches again and witnessing many explicit scenes and having certain gaps filled helped the slow parts of the season.
4. Roanoke (2016)
Weird as hell. That’s the easiest way to describe the overall vibe of this season. In the beginning it seems confusing because of the set up. Though soon enough you come to the conclusion that it’s a TV show within a TV show.
It starts off being about an interracial couple, Shelby (Lily Rabe) and Matt Miller (André Holland), Matt’s sister, Lee (Adina Porter) and their experiences in a farmhouse that’s situated on the land where the Roanoke Colony disappeared in the 1580’s.
It was an interesting way to explore a real-life mystery and bring something new to the table for the series. What can be considered memorable is how many times Matt’s name is said from start to finish, the crazy ass ghosts, Scáthach or that British accent from Sarah Paulson in the final few episodes.
5. Hotel (2015)
This season is one that you either really didn’t like or you liked for the most part. For me, it’s re-watchable and holds my interest every time, even with the jacked up and bizarre happenings that occur in the Hotel Cortez. Though, I’m one for weird and batshit crazy stories, so maybe that makes me slightly biased in this instance. Mostly the season focuses on serial killers, supernatural occurrences and beings and a whole lot of mystery.
Lady Gaga, who had never appeared on the show before, gets to show off her acting chops as The Countess, a vampire who’s endured decades of the Hotel Cortez, and it’s creator. She can’t be compared to Jessica Lange but she wasn’t a disappointment either. Essentially she brought a different flavor that you either like or don’t. Regardless, it may not have been amazing but it wasn’t the worst either.
6. Asylum (2012)
This season does way too much and it overall feels like the wrong type of chaos. Whether it’s the alien abduction, “Bloody Face”, the consistent bullshit Lana Winters (Sarah Paulson) endures, Briarcliff Manor overall, the demonic possession, or the other craziness within this season.
I just can’t bring myself to actually consider this season the best one. Meanwhile, other fans most certainly will give it that title. The cast does help keep the season afloat and that does help save the season for me. Without a solid cast, this season would been a huge dumpster fire, which is the short way of saying it. If anything, it’s very much memorable for “The Name Game” scene, as well as watching a possessed nun act high-key explicit.
7. Cult (2017)
Ahhh, the results of the 2016 presidential election. I despise thinking about the rigged and undeniably corrupt results. The same ones that made that orange fool the president. We already deal with this reality and the horror of it all. So having this season be so realistic was... awful.
Instead of wacky serial killers, vampires, possession, bad ass witches, ghosts, or anything else that American Horror Story has given us – we get the horrors of our present day, such as: violence coming from Trump supporters and the right-wing in general to how progressives are painted as too radical and sensitive. In addition to how even white progressives can flip.
Not much about this season is unrealistic, which made it hard to watch. Normally I would be all for symbolism and realistic aspects, but Cult wasn’t as gripping as previous seasons. Not even Evan Peters (whose character I really hated in this season) helped.
8. Freak Show (2014)
Unfortunately there’s not much to take away from this whack season. Yes, the title should have given it away. Though it was given the benefit of the doubt and became a let down.
Maybe the first episode showed some potential, yet from there it was just a weird chain of events within the plot. No one was prepared for a choppy story or the most irritating character that is Dandy Mott (Finn Wittrock).
This season is indefinitely my least favorite and not even a few re-watches can change my mind. Not even the gay content within this season made it any better, which is saying a lot. So it makes the bottom of this list, will stay at the bottom, and won’t crawl up from the abyss.
Vanessa Maki is a queer writer, artist & other things.
She’s full of black girl magic & has no apologies for that. Her work has appeared in various places like Really System & others. She is also forthcoming in a variety of places. She’s founder/EIC of rose quartz magazine & is involved in other literary spaces as well. 
Follow her twitter & visit her site.
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poeticsandaliens · 6 years
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In Dreams
Rating: Mature
Genre: Set post MS IV, but really an introspective fic.
Summary: The life of Dana Scully as described by her dreams. Some are smutty, some of horrifying, some are beautifully mundane. Many of them are of Mulder. This is another of my Barns-Courtney-album based fics (really, that album is inspiring), set to Golden Dandelions. 
Consider this another one of my late night ramblings, as I procrastinate multiple papers. Apologies to Jess Mabe who I do not know for referencing her fic but I couldn’t help it. It was too good a chance to pass up.
Tagging @today-in-fic.
As a child, Scully dreams novels—legendary things, epics worthy of the ancient Greeks, brimming with pixie dust. She dreams a cherry tree with a different woman’s face on each blossom, a plethora of talking dragons, web-footed fey creatures that catch flies on their tongues. She dreams the looming sorcerer of her nightmares, with three fingers on each hand and a scarlet cape. The names of knights spill over her tiny lips, and when she wakes up, she’s sorry if she can’t recall them.
She hardly remembers the dreams of her adolescence. Maybe she’s too tired; maybe she can’t distinguish them from reality. Her teenage years are a blur of spiked jackets and Marlboros, making out with Larry Monsoon on the roof of her parents’ house and Missy taking credit for the condoms Ahab finds in the car. There are at least a hundred dreams of tests, more anxiety-inducing than the exams themselves. Sex dreams a plenty, probably more pleasurable than the sex she’s having at the time. Every once in awhile, a puff of mysticism, to counteract the strict diet of rebellion and heart-guarding rationality she keeps to in her waking hours.
More memorable and certainly more nagging are her dreams of Mulder. The wet dreams, the wild fantasies from their earlier days of working together. Restraining herself at work, she goes home to a ten-dollar vibrator and errant thoughts of her partner. When she dreams, it is sensual and extravagant; it is of parts of him. Taut pectorals, ripe lower lip, hazel eyes that never stop seeking. Hands before hips. Hips before hands. Once, after she watches Mission: Impossible, she dreams that he walks into their office in that red speedo, abdominals glistening, leans in to kiss her—and then whips off his Mulder-mask to reveal Assistant Director Skinner. After the Eddie van Blundht incident, she shoves that dream to the back of her mind.
However wild her sub-conscious fantasies become, they never measure up to the real thing. It’s worth noting that after they finally cave, when she smashes her mouth to his in the front seat of a shitty rental car, when they fuck in some dingy middle-of-nowhere motel, she dreams of him markedly less often. No. That’s not true. She still dreams of him, but her dreams settle comfortably in the mundane. She dreams of him popping a giant gum bubble and its pink splatter getting on her paperwork. She dreams Skinner calls them onto a case in the middle of a tropical vacation, and the hassle of catching a flight home wakes her. She dreams of facing him at the altar, wearing emerald green, and then running away before she can give her vows. She dreams that he forgives her, and they drive off into a desert sunset and live happily ever after in unwed sin. Sometimes, in the ever-changing narrative of her dream-life, Mulder dies of cancer, but sometimes it’s Scully in the coffin, watching him grieve for her and seeking the words to describe him like an omniscient narrator. She hates being the mournful storyteller more than anything.
When she’s pregnant with William, sleep is a reprieve. Going through the motions at work, she yearns to cast herself onto Mulder’s vacant couch, palm pressed against her growing son, and retreat into the world her brain creates for her. Scully has always been confident in her mind’s ability to provide what she needs to survive, so she pretends her dreams aren’t making things worse. Her dream world, once a land of magic and heroes, restricts itself to a green, loose-shingled house on the edge of an empty planet. There, the leaves are always blotted auburn and muted yellow; the wheatgrass is always dry and rustling in an autumn breeze. The dragonflies are always overgrown, swarming in clouds of violent blue and indigo, the sheen on their backs so bright she almost has to avert her eyes. A worn swing-set rocks gently in the front yard. A gangly, red-haired boy in a plaid shirt chases beetles the size of rats. Mulder is there, some nights a wise face etched into the only oak tree, dispensing loving words to his family, some nights tossing a baseball to his son, on the best nights turning dust into fireflies with a touch of his palms. Scully watches them from the rickety porch—always the porch—and marvels at the setting sun. The sun is always setting. The sun never sets.
On the run, she dreams of the fountain of youth spilling liquid gold, and Spender emerging from it with a lit cigarette between his fingers. She dreams of monsters, always monsters, babies with the black eyes of aliens and her own dry skin shedding into copper scales. She is surprised these dreams never caught her earlier, while she was neck deep in the X Files and her rational reality chipped away. Mulder’s arms sooth the assault of distorted creatures, but she still dreams of horns sprouting from William’s soft baby-skull and a dragon’s muzzle from his snout. She still sometimes imagines Mulder’s arm around her shoulders wrinkled and rotted and turned to dust in a matter of minutes, then turns in the mirror to find her own body reduced to a bonesack with a head of red hair and a cross dangling into her ribcage.
When she leaves him, it’s all sex dreams again. The wacky ones from her youth, intermixed with something more tender and mature. There’s more stroking in these fantasies, greater exploration and less hammering into the headboard. Somewhere, filed in the recesses of her brain, is a pegging dream that still makes her blush, but it’s the one where he fucks her in an empty airport Chili’s until she cries out his name that jolts her awake with an orgasm she isn’t prepared for. That’s the one that leaves her wet and aching for him, after all their time apart. She’ll never admit it, but that’s the one that makes her cry.
She stops dreaming when she sees him again. Except for one night, when a picture of their home in the dead of winter appears clearer than if she were actually seeing it. Inside, she is reading the newspaper; he is smoking a curved pipe. A deerstalker hat sits on their kitchen table. She turns to him and asks, with all sincerity, “do you mind if I practice my violin?” It doesn’t matter that she’s never played the violin in her life. It is an urgent matter. Outside, she hears the scuff of a horse and carriage in the snow. She tells him later, and he tries to convince her that no, he’s the Sherlock Holmes in their partnership more than she is, since she’s a medical doctor and keeps his feet grounded in reality. Scully calls bullshit. She is always Holmes, and Mulder will never be one hundred percent grounded in reality. It’s one of the reasons she fell in love with him.
She has a hazy summer, rosy and heavily pregnant with their daughter. The August heat is unbearable; her tank tops are too small, so she fans herself all day and in the evening lets their baby feel Virginia sunlight. Her shoulders are tan. Her belly is smooth as a skipping stone. She lies on their sky-blue adirondack chair for hours on end in a sort-of half-conscious state, listening to the hum of dragonflies. If her eyes close for a few seconds, she dreams of rivers and wildflowers. The murky Potomac, a slender brook, a roaring mountain cascade with her mother’s face etched into the current. Where she sits, facing the setting sun, fey creatures rustle in the untamed grass—little girls with freckles, Mulder’s eyes, and butterfly-wings, wearing skirts sewn of autumn leaves and carrying thumbtack swords in their hands. She dreams of weatherbeaten horses the color of ripe buckeyes galloping towards her. Fox Mulder rides to her in a suit of armor, shaggy and noble, his stubble greying but beautiful as it ever was. He takes off his gloves and presses his cheek against her rounded abdomen. He tucks a dying dandelion behind her ear. On the other horse is her son, a ranger-boy—a wiry, green-caped adolescent Jackson who hasn’t yet solidified his place in the world. Elfish ears stick up through his hair. She notices—from both their backs sprout the wings of crows, for they have died and lived to tell the tale. She embraces them.
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jeongincore · 6 years
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Shit i really liked and kinda didn’t like about Ragnarok
I recently saw ragnarok and became so rejuvenated that i brought my marvel blog back but i wanted to seriously talk about like things that i liked and really didn’t just to get shit out there. 
Things i really liked (like so much that i am obsessed)
-Thor’s new hair cut/outfit, i think its actually super suitable. Gives that sort of cool ass warrior refugee look. Plus, Chris Hemsworth is beautiful. 
-The humor, oh god it was hilarious, i’ve never laughed so genuinely and so much in my life and it made the movie so charming and relatable. It was also such a departure from The Dark World and the first Thor, which dealt with so much emotional baggage for not only just Thor, but for Loki, who basically suffered throughout both movies. 
-Hulk being an actual toddler/Bruce Banner being so fucked up and anxious because WHEN DID HE GET ON AN ALIEN PLANET. 
-”You’ve been on other planets before i assume” “Yeah, one!” “well now it’s two” 
-Valkyrie. Her entire everything gave me so much to love and adore. Tessa Thompson has stole my heart yet again. 
-TAIKA WAITITI AS KORG WAS ACTUALLY SO FUNNY
-The little tiny glimpses of Loki and Thor’s childhood, aka the snake story, get help. It really showed how much time Loki and Thor had spent together, which i assume is a lot because age in Asgardian years work differently probably? Like imagine that, Loki and Thor spending time together and being inseparable for 100 years. It showed that they were always close despite loki feeling different or alienated, which explains why its so hard for Loki to just leave thor for dead. 
-”You’ll always be the god of mischief, but you can be so much more” See that shit destroyed me. Thor acknowledges that Loki is not like him. He’s a trickster, manipulative, and selfish. But he also acknowledges that Loki is so much more than his tricks and lies, which shows so much character growth in Thor, who sees loki as more than just an asgardian prince that was raised the exact same way opposite of Thor, but as his own fucking person.
-Thor actually not being stupid and falling for Loki’s tricks, aka his magic projections of himself/his petty, stupid betrayals. Tom mentioned that Thor was evolving and that Loki was finally starting to realize that he’s the only one not growing. Scenes like the betrayal scene and the snake scene, although meant to be hilarious, point out that Thor isn’t that idiot that just was too trusting of his brother, he sees through Loki’s tricks, he’s seen them for years, and it really shows that Loki’s getting predictable with his fake deaths and betrayals, which might hint at him changing? 
-IT FIXED THE INCONSISTENCIES. The main reason i didn’t like Dark world, though i did see it as amazing for its ability to mix the emotional darkness between Loki and Thor along with the humor throughout the movie, was because it pointed Loki out to be the type of cold blooded monster that would murder his own father. I mean I’m no Loki apologist, i love the kid but he’s killed, he’s manipulated, he’s hurt everyone around him, but i doubt he could ever kill Odin, no matter how much of a shitty father he is. Also low-key hated the whole “Loki if you betray me, ill kill you” Thor bullshit. We all know thor wouldn’t be able to do that, he still hopes Loki is his brother. 
-AGAIN, THE SNAKE SCENE WAS SO FUNNY. 
-”I thought the world of you Loki.” Ouch. 
-Hulk and Val’s bromance. 
-The entire Valkyrie v. Hela scene. It was so beautiful and ethereal i actually nutted. 
-LOKI DIDN’T NEED TO COME BACK. HE DIDN’T NEED TO GO BACK TO THE SHIP WITH THOR. HE DIDN’T NEED TO GO BACK TO ASGARD. HE COULD HAVE NOT. BUT HE DID. BECAUSE SOMEWHERE IN THERE UNDER THE SELFISHNESS MAYBE HE CARES.
-Loki’s face when odin called him his son. 
-Loki’s face when Hela told him to kneel. 
-Loki refusing to let Thor go back to Asgard. “Are you serious? you can’t be thinking of going back there, that’s madness!” is that? Loki cARING? 
-Loki’s character development. 
-thor in a jean jacket and hoodie in new york. 
-Thor spilling beer everywhere. 
-Loki letting Thor take the orgy ship. 
-Jeff Goldblum. Thats it. 
-LOKIS FACE WITH THOR AND ODIN ON THE ROOF OF THE CASTLE I SCREmed AFTER ALL LOKI DID HE WAS STILL PUT THERE AS A PRINCE OF ASGARD BYE.  
-”Hello father” “OH SHIT” 
-The entire play. Loki’s rule as a benevolent god/king in which, before everyone feared him for a dictatorship militaristic form of ruling he could have, but in reality he just like ate grapes and watched plays. 
-Thor wanting to be a Valkyrie. The crowned prince of asgard, wanting to be an elite team of woman warriors. 
-VAL IS GAY AND IN TESSA THOMPSONS WORDS, HAD A GIRLFRIEND THAT SACRIFICED HERSELF TO SAVE HER. 
-Val kicking Loki’s ass. 
-THE RETURN OF THE DOUBLE BLADES OUT OF NOWHERE. 
-Loki in a suit. 
-HEIMDALL I LOVEJWIFHTGE.
-”I thought you didn’t want to talk about it” “heres the thing” 
-”Hello!” “Hi” *blasts everyone in room with giant laser guns* 
-”What are you? Thor, god of hammers?” 
-IMMIGRANT SONG. 
-”i swear i left him right here” “where? on the street? Or in that nursing home thats being torn down?” 
“I’m not a witch” “Why do you dress like one then?” 
-Loki rolling his eyes when thor is approached by fans. 
-Loki calling stephen strange a shitty sorcerer and going at him with stabby hands. 
-Confirmation of loki’s love of stabbing. 
-Confirmation that Loki is a snake, and also Thor’s favorite snake.
-Loki reciting Thor’s prayer to odin with him mY SON. 
-The avengers parallel. “He’s my brother!” “adopted.” 
-”mbLERG ITS ME” 
-”AGH LOKI!” 
-’DIRECT ME TO WHO’S ASS I HAVE TO KICK” 
-”Where? the devil’s anus?” 
-Bruce fighting evil with fireworks. Good job sweetie. 
-Bruce flopping like a fish on the bifrost. 
-Thor and his sparkles. 
-Lightning eyes. 
-Odin finALLY DYING. THANK GOD. 
-*Loki on a death trip* ‘this is a terrible idea” 
-Loki somehow reciting a spell to bring surtur back. what a weirdo. how did he know that. 
-LOKI COMING BACK. 
-im here. 
-Loki
-Brodinson. 
-Thor and Bruce’s bromance. 
-Jane not being there. I mean it makes sense she dumped him, he left her for two years chasing down infinity stones and constantly almost dying while she had no way of contacting him because Thor’s ass didn’t know how to use fucking email. Also i just really honestly never liked her character to begin with, i mean sure i love that Jane is a strong, smart woman but tbh i just wanted to Fast forward every time she was on screen. 
-The cute death wolf. 
-”THATS HOW IT FEELS!” “sorry i just really like the sport” 
-THOR ACTUALLY BEING PORTRAYED AS LESS OF A JERK WITH CACTUSES SHOVED UP HIS RECTUM AND MORE LIKE THE SWEET, CHARMING, CHARISMATIC AND SLIGHTLY ARROGANT BUT MEANS WELL MAN HE IS. 
-Val being there as a cool as member of the team rather than just the love interest of Thor. Protect her at all cost even though she probs doesn’t even need it. 
-”I’VE BEEN FALLING FOR THIRTY MINUTES” 
-Stan Lee’s cameo as the dude who cut Thor’s hair. Thank you for doing all of us a giant favor. Please do the same to Loki. 
-loki beating someone up with his horn hat. 
-Loki twirling his horn hat. 
-Loki being such a self serving, extra asshole that he came from the fucking fog screaming “YOUR SAVIOR HAS ARRIVED” 
-Bruce asking where tony was and then complaining about his tight crotch pants. 
-LOKI’S COSTUME CHANGE GOD I HATED THE OLD ONES BLESS UP. 
-Loki’s costume being mainly blue, black, and gold :-)))))))
-Loki being 100% done with everything that happens. 
-Val knocking Loki out when he makes her relive her trauma why do people ship this you go honey that was a dick move
-Thor throwing various things at Loki to make sure he’s not a mirage. 
-he’s a friend from work, something a kid from make a wish that met chris suggested, being in the film and all of the trailers. I hope that made that kid smile. 
-”In return, i wish to be granted safe passage through the anus” 
-LOKI FINALLY ACCEPTING THAT HE DIDN’T WANT THE THRONE WITHOUT A FAMILY. THAT HE’D RATHER WATCH HIS BROTHER TAKE IT AND STILL HAVE A BROTHER THAN HAVE A THRONE WITH NO ONE TO SHARE IT WITH. 
-LOKI SHOWING UP ON SCREEN DURING THOR’S CORONATION. 
-Loki being genuinely worried about and double checking if Thor really wants to bring him back to earth after what he did kill me honestly that would probably hurt less. 
-Loki’s face when thor said that going their separate ways was what Loki always wanted bc in reality that is the opposite go back. 
-Hela not being Loki’s daughter because 1) it proves that ya’ll should stop hoping that a comic soap opera about rich petty alien boys with daddy issues would be anything like classic norse mythology, and 2) when the fuck and how the fuck and why the fuck 
-Loki suggesting that he and Thor both rule over Sakaar together lmao ouch. 
-Loki just being really cute and quirky. 
-Thor being so fucking amazed by Val all the time. 
-”You’re late.” 
-”I saw you coming” “course you did.” 
-THE GUNS NAMED DES AND TROY I WANTED TO FUCKING DIE. 
What i didn’t like much; 
-Hela. I loved her character, but honestly here is where i think there might’ve been some failure despite how much i loved that movie. She seemed so out of place as a villain, and i feel like the whole related shit tried to mimic Guardians vol. 2, but honestly the fact that Thor didn’t care much about her made her feel so out of place. But i did like some parts, like how she was so disappointed about not being remembered or what her existence and disappointment did to how loki was raised. 
-Dr. Strange? Ok that was weird. It makes sense and it was funny to see him but to be honest i wasn’t into it. 
-tHE SCENE WITH VAL AND A GIRL BEING CUT. WHYWHYWHY
-tbh was not fond of frost master, don’t hate me. 
-Loki possibly taking the tesseract????? And hinting that he might turn evil again??? don’t do this to me marvel. 
-loki possibly being turned into the quirky sidekick of his brother. Loki is Thor’s equal, not his annoying little brother/wacky sidekick. I didn’t get that vibe often, but sometimes i did honestly. 
-RIP thor’s hammer. 
-ODIN BEING A PIECE OF SHIT YET AGAIN. 
-Hela’s entrance. it was so quick and like out of place i was like what wait, Loki and thor didn’t even have time to prepare or even mourn. 
-the comedy. It was its best and worst part of the movie. Sometimes it was tasteful. Other times it was too much. Thor and Loki didn’t even get to mourn for their dad who tbh was an asshole but still their dad before there was a annoying joke about kneeling. It took away from the story sometimes.
-the lack of hugging between thor and loki.
-The way they glossed over the warriors three’s death like they weren’t Thor’s closest friends and the only ones there for him when Odin tried to banish Thor to earth :-))))) I mean after all that shit he went through I’m pretty fucking sure it probably hasn’t caught up to him but ya bitch still pissed. 
-The way, Thor, who basically admitted that Loki actually meant the world to him and was the only family he had left, didn’t ask where he was after asgard exploded? Like tbh i get it, he trusts Loki, his brothers capable and strong and most of all really fucking smart, but i’d still be like :-) the fuck is Loki. I think this is a directing error though rather than like the characters fucking up but i was freaking out, i mean asgard was literally pebbles and everyone was out BUT my son. 
-No sif, i mean i get it Jaime Alexander was busy but like y'all could’ve explained smh. 
-Loki not getting a hair cut. When will his emo phase end. 
-Not getting that one flashback to 80′s asgard with mullets and emo loki. 
Overall it was pretty fucking cool, one of the best movies of the trilogy. I fell in love with the marvel cinematic universe all over again. But it wasn’t perfect. 
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lil-loucifer · 6 years
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a l l t h e o c q u e s t i o n s
S p a r k s  w h y
Send me a number and I’ll tell you about:
1: The most recent OC I’ve made
Fuck uhh probably these two characters I made up based on one of those datapoint-only stories in Horizon: Zero Dawn (one of the few times I felt spurred to write a fanfic this year lmao)
2: An early OC I remember making
Would you believe me if I said I made a Naruto OC
His name was like “Rei” or something and he had a sword and specialized in illusion-type jutsu (I never really learned any of the technical terms)
3: An OC I’ve never used for anything
All of them?????
I never really “write” any of my projects lmao
But uhhh, one that I have literally done nothing for is Jasper Morris, he’s kinda… something??? Not really sure at the moment, but he hunts monster-thingies in San Francisco
4: An OC whose story I’ve got all planned (or even written)
Those two OCs from the first question, their story was already written in the game, I’d just have to take liberties with the details
5: An OC I love
Dante Seraphim (That’s not really his surname). He’s this guy who was brought up to join a secret society of soldiers dedicated to serving Heaven and fighting demons and shit, but due to some “ancient prophecy bullshit” and his boyfriend’s machinations, he winds up getting exiled from that faction and hunted down by his former friends (it’s very action movie-like)
6: An OC I love to hate 
Arthur Morgenstern, the father of one of my favorite OCs. He’s generally a piece of shit. 
7: An OC I love… reluctantly
Daniel, the guy Dante from Question #5 dated. He tried to spur a rebellion within the faction he and Dante served, but due to some lore bullshit regarding Dante, Daniel was left blameless and Dante was exiled in his stead.
8: Two or more OCs who are connected (and how)
Faith, Wolfgang and Enoch are the three Branwen Children, a kind of Moirae that are borne of the eldest God of Death. Together, they oversee the death of gods, ensuring that all immortal deities meet their end when they should. 
Faith is in charge of overseeing the fates of all the gods in the world. She makes sure they all complete their stories; their reigns and their downfalls. 
Wolfgang is, begrudgingly, Faith’s assistant. The immortal world is a vast place, one that one soul couldn’t ever watch over alone. So, he handles surveillance, making sure that every deity plays their part, and nothing more. 
And when the gods try to rebel, when they grow too self-absorbed in their own “brilliance” they believe they should never die? They send in Enoch, the Reaper. Enoch is the most active of the Three Children, and the only one of them who has actually killed gods. Her role is to slay any deity that chooses not to die, which, admittedly, doesn’t happen often. Enoch is also the most rebellious of the Three Children, being the youngest. She actively lives in the mortal world, choosing to live amongst the puny mortals whose watchers she is sworn to slay. Enoch was actually the first sibling to give herself a name, for her convenience in the mortal world.
Given their elusive positions, the Branwens are more or less omnipresent in my fictional worlds, and are a prominent (albeit rarely-mentioned) part of a larger shared universe I’ve been writing. 
9: An OC I made to fit into another universe
Wayland Smith
10: A universe I made to fit my OCs
For the guy I’m gonna talking about in question #13, I made a post-apocalyptic setting that is set maybe 50-100 years after a world-ending nuclear war. 
11: An OC based off part of myself
I kinda-sorta have an OC that’s basically Sitcom!Me with exaggerated traits, like his catch phrase or whatever is just “I can give about three fucks about anything at any given time” and he’s hella apathetic but he actually cares a lot and he’s just too tired and has weird ways to show it
12: An OC based off part of someone I met
Aurelio Morgenstern’s appearance is lowkey based off an old friend of mine. 
13: An OC inspired by something completely unexpected
Okay so get this:
I have an OC who’s part of a lost order dedicated to maintaining peace in an apocalyptic wasteland--through fear. To cultivate that kind of fear, this order would style themselves after Death; the Grim Reaper, specifically. They wore all black and wielded scythes, as well as commanding a fierce arsenal of magic and custom firearms.
But I didn’t think of that shit at the time. You know what I thought up? The aesthetic. Black clothes and a wide-brimmed hat for keeping out the sun. 
Especially the hat.
You wanna know WHY THE HAT?
Because I was waiting in line outside the DMV on a bright, sunny-ass day, and I started daydreaming with the thought “Wow, I could really do with a cowboy hat.” 
14: The roughest backstory I’ve given an OC
There was this character I made, and he’s a bi, trans man who grew up in a really homophobic/transphobic house with an abusive.... everyone, really. He didn’t do anything about it until about a year after graduating high school, when he moved in with a family friend who was actually a decent person. 
15: The least painful backstory I’ve given an OC
My Hogwarts Mystery character was raised by a loving pair of parents who started to keep him on a tighter leash after his brother, Jacob, went missing. 
16: The most difficult OC for me to write (and why!)
All of them?????
I can’t write????????
17: The easiest OC for me to write (and why!)
Lua the Crow, purely because everything they do is more or less whatever affectionate thing I have on mind.
18: The OC I’d most like to fight
Lua because they’d go easy on me
19: The OC I’d most like to befriend
Francis Pendleton, because he’s a really chill dude who’d probably be a great father figure or something
20: The OC I’d probably have a crush on
Uhh this superhero OC I made up, her hero name is “Morningstar.” She just kinda has that kind of personality, I guess??
21: The OC most likely to end up in a wacky [freeze frame][record scratch] “you’re probably wondering how I got here” scenario
A currently-unnamed demon hunter OC who lives in San Francisco, and that moment is how he wound up dating Possibly Satan. 
22: An OC who acts as an antagonist
Samuel Eldest, a cult leader (or something) who clashes with Aurelio Morgenstern when he brings a new, demonic force into Aurelio’s territory. 
23: An OC who acts as a hero
My mcfucking superhero OCs???
24: An OC who acts as a supporting character
Adelina, Enoch Branwen’s very mortal girlfriend. 
25: An OC I’ve changed a LOT
Dante Seraphim
Lemme tell you he’s been through a lot of changes--started off as personified Death’s son, one who was hella 2000′s goth and was literally called “Lucifer Crescent,” THEN he became part of an angel/demon war and was renamed “Dante,” but he and several other kids took on the names of dead Angels to carry on an ancient tradition of passing on their power, and NOW he’s part of that second story, but heavily revised in that it’s no longer in a fantasy world and they now wage a shadow war across a low fantasy environment. 
26: An OC that I’m still working on
That Reaper guy from question #13
27: Someone else’s OC that I really admire
A friend’s self-insert OC named “Belle the Reaper” and the audacity they have to ship this character with their goddess of time. 
28: A common trait or pattern in my OCs
Sarcastic Angsty White Bois™
29: Something that I haven’t really explored with any of my OCs
Real social issues because I don’t know shit and will most likely get something fucked up
30: [make your own OC-related question and send it to me!]
??????????
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void-tiger · 4 years
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Writer Nonnie and apparently Cadence wasn't supposed to be an alicorn, there was some discrepancy over whether she was a unicorn or pegasus before she was given backstory of "pegasus orphan that defeated a love stealing magic". Also she's apparently a distant relative of the former ruler of the Crystal Empire that Sombra...overthrew? That "fact" is half word of a writer, half comics(that are basically a AU unless referenced by show I believe). Faust only wanted 2 alicorns but.... "buy our toys!"
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
(screenshots *might* be out of order. Also note to self: clear out your phone photos, Tiger!)
I admittedly have a pretty stubborn stance against “official” comics: partially because there’s No Way they can ever “stay” canonical (even if they weren’t “side media”), partially ‘cause I am NOT chasing down every scrap of something. Side Stories that are for Funsiea vs really expected to be “canonical” are one thing; and I’m a bit more “okay MAYBE” if it’s something postCanon (like the atlab comics. Not that I’ve ever found those scans completed OR the actual physical comics)...but. Chasing down Side Material and the “REAL Fan~” bullshit.
...that aside...
I remember speculation that Cadence might’ve been a pegasus originally, which I really liked that idea—Twilight of course was a unicorn, and Celestia and Luna were described as unicorn Sisters (with implications of transforming into alicorns later). But, when Cadence is involved...she acts more like a Unicorn, not Pegasus, including her offhand comments.
So while we have Scoots as a flightless pegasus and Fluttershy as a “weak flyer” that...just isn’t the Vibe with Cadence. It’s closer to her being like Twilight—not originally a flyer and doesn’t force herself to practice. Then in Twilight’s Flashbacks, she’s already an alicorn but uses her magic and never her wings.
There’s also the whole Transformation Thing with Twilight and I don’t remember all of Celestia’s Speech but the implication is that alicorns definitely are not genetic. (Cadence’s heritage isn’t ever really stated with the Crystal Empire in the show—the most given there is the OG Crystal Heart being her cutiemark...but it was treated mostly as Convenient (Empty) Castle and a precaution in case Sombra (or another threat) randomly popped up again with the Crystal Empire being so remote that Canterlot Assistance just wouldn’t arrive in time if needed.)
But. Then freaking Flurrieheart. “Oh the FIRST genetic alicorn!!” Oh yeah? For what. The toys? Isn’t the whole deal that Alicorns = “royalty” (Blueblood’s supposedly related but is treated closer to a duke or viscount as best, but those titles aren’t as Marketable as Prince) ...and said “royalty” needing to be earned in Equestria? (Also...tf are this guy’s family. Or is he rich enough that he just Self Proclaims and Trollestia simply goes along with it as a “sure whatever. You get a Gala invite but mostly ‘cause I don’t care.”)
Then there’s the Cake Twins—both parents are Earth Ponies, but there are recessive genes for unicorns and pegasi, so the twins are a unicorn and pegasus. This makes sense. This is what FlurrieHeart should’ve been.
...which. It all comes down to Selling Toys. (Which, although I’m not in the transformers fandom...their lore seems to hold together better? Despite also being Toys First originally like a bunch of other 80s Franchises?)
...anyway. Hasboro still would’ve sold toys if they let Faust have a tighter-knit worldbuilding. (And let Celestia be Queen vs “Princess”. I like the idea of Two Rulers but...imagine how incredible having two Queens would’ve been, especially for the target audience?)
-
And yeah. Starswirl had major plotarmor. I swear he only shows up because Twilight’s a fangirl (so...Anchors Arc! For Reasons!) But. Was it really neccisary for unicorns to burn out?! That is NOT how it works for the pegasi and earth ponies. It doesn’t explain shit, it’s just Dumb.
(Which the Seasons and Weather and Day&Night cycles just...is already a Don’t Look Too Close At It. Don’t. Well...I Warned You as-is. Which I was fine with? Let it be Wacky. But it’s a biiiit late for Burned Out Unicorns when Earth Ponies changing seasons and Pegasi especially still function Just Fine despite having just as much to do with “planet rotion”... If they’re even on a planet vs a flat disk remains of a planet that somehow retains enough mass and...aaaagh makes my brain hurt?!)
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cloverr-fields · 6 years
Note
All odd numbers of the cute asks
Oh goodness, this is gonna be a long one but here we go!! 
1. Who was the last person you held hands with? Probably one of my roommates, but not in like a walking-talking sense! It was more like she came into my room and took my hand lol
3. Who are you looking forward to seeing? A bunch of people, actually! I’m looking forward to seeing my best friend when she sleeps over this week, and I’m looking forward to seeing my mom and other best friend when I go back home in three months. 
5. If you were drunk, would the person you like take care of you? Without question, although I think I’d be okay! I don’t usually get drunk, and I’m generally the friend who’s taking care of people lol. They’d probably be laughing at my ridiculousness a lot. 
7. Do you think you’ll be in a relationship two months from now? I mean, I don’t know….. Would I like to be? Ideally, but I’m also in the middle of classes and I don’t really know how that’d work out practically. 
9. Does talking about sex make you uncomfortable? Nope~ I’m really open about those kinds of things tbh. 
11. What does the most recent text that you sent say? Let me go find it…. “Ohhh okay” (Sorry, I know it’s pretty unexciting) 
13. Do you like it when people play with your hair? Yes yes yes yes yessssss it is the number one thing to do that calms me right down (besides hugs). 
15. What good thing happened this summer? This past summer, I spent most of my time in camp and with friends, and that was super fun. I got really close with people that I didn’t expect to! Also, I moved to Israel! 
17. Do you think there is life on other planets? Define life. Bacteria and other protozoic life forms, definitely. I don’t know if I totally buy into the idea of intelligent life forms on other planets and aliens like the Hollywood movies show. 
19. Do you like bubble baths? I love them, but I don’t take them very often. Lush is one of my favorite stores, I love bath time products. 
21. What are your bad habits? I bite my nails sometimes, but I’m trying to get over that and I’m managing it really well! I’m also a tapper, and I tend to grind my teeth/hum when I’m not paying attention. I also chew gum a lot and bite the little clip things off of mechanical pencils…..
23. Do you have trust issues? Some, yeah. Depends on with who and regarding what, though. I stopped journaling for a long while because of trust issues, but I’m super open with people and I consider everyone trustworthy until proven otherwise, in most cases! 
25. What part of your body are you most uncomfortable with? My stomach. I hate it. 
27. Do you wish your skin was lighter or darker? I wish I was more tan, but otherwise not really! 
29. Have any of your ex’s told you they regret breaking up? Yeah. 
31. Is your hair long enough for a ponytail? I refuse to cut my hair so short that it would not be. So yes, absolutely. 
33. Spell your name with your chin. eliusahewv casYes, that is definitely my name. Not too far off tho!
35. Would you rather live without TV or music? TV hands down. I depend on music like you wouldn’t believe. 
37. What do you say during awkward silences? Usually nothing tbh…. I’m not really the one to break them. But I usually try and do an “anyway” segway or something like that. 
39. What are your favorite stores to shop in? Lush, Bath and Body Works, Barnes and Nobles, Target, Macy’s, Bloomingdales. 
41. Do you believe everyone deserves a second chance? Yes, but a limited one. Your second chance with me is usually your last, and if you hurt me again I drop you entirely. I try to keep that my policy, but there are definitely exceptions. 
43. Do you smile at strangers? Absolutely. I smiled at a bunch today! 
45. What makes you get out of bed in the morning? Talking to my friends, and my alarm clock. Also, eventually I just get fed up with my own laziness too, so there’s that. 
47. Have you ever been high? No, and I don’t plan on it. 
49. Have you done anything recently that you hope nobody finds out? Yes, and I really hope that they don’t. It was nothing bad, before you get any ideas! It’s just…. Something personal, if that makes sense? 
51. Ever wished you were someone else? Yes, and I still do at times. That’s something I’m trying to work on. 
53. Favorite makeup brand? The only brand name things of makeup I have come from Bobbi Brown, I think, so maybe I’ll default to them? Or Mac? 
55. Favorite blog? I don’t really have one, honestly…. I like a lot of different bloggers and people!
57. Favorite food? Pizza, hands down. 
59. First thing you ate this morning? Wacky mac. I didn’t have a very nutritional breakfast. 
61. Ever been suspended/expelled? For what? Oh God no. I think I would die. 
63. Ever been in love? This is a complicated question. I’ve had a lot of strong feelings for people before, but I think there’s maybe one person I would say that I’ve been in love with. We broke things off a while ago, and we’re good friends now, but I still have a lot of feelings for her. 
65. Are you hungry right now? I’m so hungry tbh I’m waiting for my roommate to get out of the shower so that we can go pick up sushi. 
67. Facebook or Twitter? Facebook, but simply because I don’t use my Twitter like ever. 
69. Are you watching TV right now? Nope! I’m looking between this answer and the question list lol
71. Craving something? What? Sushi omg I want it so bad I’m so hungry
73. Do you sleep with stuffed animals? I do, actually! I have a teddy bear that my mom gave me when I last was home, and it helps me sleep at night when I’m homesick or in a bad place. I’m a very touchy-huggy person so to me it’s a big help. 
75. Favorite animal? Any form of feline. I love cats. 
77. Chocolate or vanilla? Chocolate all the way. 
79. What color shirt are you wearing? Black, actually! It’s got a pretty blue and white pattern/design thing too! 
81. Favorite TV show? Ummm probably Psych? Not sure, I have to think on this one a little more. Maybe Bones? 
83. Mean Girls or Mean Girls 2? I’ve never seen the second one, so Mean Girls? 
85. Favorite character from Mean Girls? Karen. (I think? It’s been a while since I’ve watched it) 
87. First person you talked to today? It was either @justanotherurl-not​ or @mizuritamanami​ but I don’t know for certain. 
89. Name a person you hate? A particular girl from high school might fit this description. For her privacy, I’ll just call her Sam. 
91. Is there anyone you want to punch in the face right now? At this exact moment, no. 
93. How many sweatpants do you have? So many pairs omg. My high school gave them out religiously. 
95. Last movie you watched? The Greatest Showman (WHICH EVERYONE SHOULD WATCH IT’S SO GOOD) 
97. Favorite actor? Ummm not sure. That’s a very good question. Probably someone like Leonardo DiCaprio, or Chris Evans maybe? 
99. Have any pets? No, unfortunately, but I plan on getting a cat sometime soon! 
101. Do you type fast? Yeah, and I can more or less touch type now! I’ve memorized my laptop keyboard lol thanks Mavis Beacon! 
103. Can you spell well? Usually I’m very good with spelling. My mom likes to joke that it’s because I read the dictionary when I was younger (which I did, so maybe she has a point). 
105. Ever been to a bonfire party? The only one that might qualify I’m not going to count, so nope! Maybe someday! 
107. Have you ever been on a horse? Yes, and I love horseback riding so much. I highly recommend it to anyone who hasn’t gone- it’s so relaxing and I had the best time doing it. 
109. Is something irritating you right now? Someone, but yes. It’s not their fault, though, so I probably won’t say anything to them. 
111. Do you have trust issues? I think this was already a question on this ask….?
113. What was your childhood nickname? It’s not really shorter than my name, but my mom used to call me her “princess ballerina.” 
115. Do you play the Wii? I did, but I haven’t in four or five years, since we moved and never unpacked it. 
117. Do you like chicken noodle soup? Who doesn’t? 
119. Favorite book? Right now, probably The Somnabulist by Jonathan Bates, but I love almost every book I’ve read. The Eragon series is also one of my favorites, and I love classical literature, like A Tale of Two Cities and The Sun Also Rises. 
121. Are you mean? I can be, if I want to or have to be. But I hate it, so I try very hard to steer clear. 
123. Can you keep white shoes clean? I can’t keep any shoes clean.
125. Do you believe in true love? Yes, but I believe that it’s usually something that grows with time and isn’t just magically found. 
127. What makes you happy? Music, good food, friends, a good book, a good movie, rewatching old anime series that I haven’t seen in a while, etc. Flowers, cats, pretty things. I’m a girl of simple pleasures. 
129. What’s your zodiac sign? Taurus! (April 28th is my birthday!) 
131. Your best friend of the opposite sex likes you, what do you do? This one hits a little close to home at the moment. It depends on the circumstances. 
133. Favorite lyrics right now? “She’s the tear in my heart/she’s a carver/she’s a butcher with a smile/cut me farther than I’ve ever been,” -Tear in My Heart, twenty one pilots
135. Dumbest lie you ever told? I really don’t know. Maybe that I was British? but I wound up fooling the teacher for two weeks, so.
137. How tall are you? 5′4″!
139. Brunette or blonde? I’ve always wanted to be a blonde, but I have recently started liking my hair (I’m a brunette) although I definitely have a thing for blondes. 
141. Night or day? Night has always been more peaceful to me, but I love the sunshine. Maybe like twilight time? 
143. Are you a vegetarian? No, but I could be if I wanted to! 
145. Tea or coffee? Tea is what I like better, but I definitely appreciate a good cup of coffee with plenty of milk and sugar. 
147. Mars or Snickers? I had a Mars bar for the first time this year, and I definitely prefer it. 
149. Do you believe in ghosts? Absolutely. I love watching all of the ghost hunting shows, even though I know they’re bullshit and I kinda believe them lol
Okay!! I made it through all of them! I hope the answers were satisfactory and thank you so much for asking, you wonderful person!!! 
Ask me anything               This ask list
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allofusandco · 6 years
Text
drink where wyatt earp drank
Wynonna and Doc talk about Wyatt, and Wynonn hears some difficult truths about their history.
With @theycomeuninvited (Doc).
Wynonna:
Should be said; Wynonna spent a significant amount of the day moping, alone, while Doc had his secret projects and Wav had her new girlfriend and her weird mid-youth crisis, and Dolls had… being a mountain lizard, and the whole town had mean eyes for her. Moping had never been a particularly good look on Wynonna, though, and it was inevitable that she’d snap out of it sooner or later.
Mostly because for a lone wolf, she sure craved company.
She wrapped up warm in a sheepskin coat and about thirty scarves to wander through the snow to Shortie’s. So strange that it wasn’t Shortie’s anymore. Doc’s. That had a ring to it. Maybe the new proprietor needed to hire himself a sign writer and rename the place. She didn’t think Doc would do that, though.
She pushed the heavy door open, glad it wasn’t locked yet; couldn’t have been more than a couple of minutes since the last few customers had staggered out, driven away by the silence of the jukebox and the menacing glare of the… bio… chem whatever, the science nerd with legs to her armpits who was cooking up the supernatural roofies in the basement.
She seemed to be gone as well, mercifully. Just Doc, counting cash.
Wynonna slipped onto a stool, and rapped her knuckles on the bar.
“Whiskey, barkeep. In a dirty glass. I’ve had a day. Lemme tell you about it. Turns out sometimes I’m a raging bitch to people who don’t deserve it. I’m here to drink my troubles away. You in?”
––
Doc:
“I believe as a barkeep that is just my job.”
Doc settled the counted cash into a fancy blue bag with a lock the bank had given him. Allegedly it kept out thieves or at the very least deterred them but Doc knew well that locks only kept out honest men and the patrons of his establishment were rarely that. Tossing it into the safe under the counter he turned from Wynonna and grabbed two glasses and a bottle of Whiskey from his personal stash.
Rosita still insisted it was too vile to sell to Wynonna had never seemed to take complaint with it so he figured it would do them.
“Should I inquire who you were a ‘raging bitch’ to or just assume it was some poor civilian on your way over here?”
His voice held hints of teasing because they both knew well how Wynonna could be with people. In fact he himself was much the same way though perhaps not so much in an obvious way as the latest Earp heir seemed to be.
Filling both glassed with a measure of whiskey he passed one over and raised the other in a toast to nothing in particular before draining it.
––
Wynonna:
Wynonna gave Doc a small smile. Impossible to know whether he was indulging her, baiting her, or honestly just had no idea the she was talking about him. He was probably a little too charitable with her; grace of being an Earp, and having her great-great grandaddy’s eyes, she supposed.
She didn’t bother to slip her jacket off her shoulders. One she had warmed up a little, maybe. For now she just pushed one sleeve up, far enough to avoid spilling whiskey all over herself.
“Everyone in my path, just to keep things interesting,” she said, raising her glass to clink against Doc’s. She downed it in one swallow, rotgut-rough, just the way she liked it. “I think maybe I’m having a weird sort of a week. Month. … few months.”
She crossed her arm on the bar, and took stock of Doc’s features for a moment. Seemed he’d looked at her a whole different way, first few weeks after they’d met. Probably better that they’d slipped into a more comfortable friendship, if that was what was happening, here.
“I didn’t say thank you,” she said, pushing the glass closer to the bottle. Very subtle. “For what you’re doin’ for Dolls. Thank you. And thank your… little friend, too.”
––
Doc:
His glass knocked against hers then made the path to his lips so he could chase the words down his throat. It was funny how Earp’s always seemed to think their lives weird or abnormal. Wyatt had once told him he’d wanted a normal life and he reckoned Wynonna would want that too. What they both failed to understand was that there was no normal life, just life. He’s told Wyatt that once, back on his death bed before Constance had renegotiated their deal.
             “Thanks, isn’t necessary Wynonna. It is after all what
             friends are for.”
Loyalty had always been an oddly strong pillar of his personality and he saw no reason for the modern world to have changed that about him. Dolls was sick and needed medication, he could provide that to the best of his ability just as he would for any of them.
             “Her name is Rosita.”
Picking up the bottle he refilled their glasses and picked his up once more.
             “She isn’t nearly as bad as you want to think she is either
             Wynonna. And though it is not your business you can
             shake the idea that there is something between us from
             your head, I rarely mix business and pleasure.”
––
Wynonna:
Wynonna raised her hands in a circlet around her head – there, halo. She was thinking nothing of the sort. For realism, she let the halo tip to the side, making great big eyes at Doc, and then dropped the charade altogether.
She crossed her arms on the bar.
“Doesn’t drinking in your own bar sort of define mixing business and pleasure? Like masturbating in the office.” She frowned. “Scratch that. I said nothing.”
Wynonna swirled her drink in her glass, staring intently at it.
“There’s so much I don’t know about him,” she said, trying not to let it sound like she was whining. Except, of course, she was whining. “He’s stitched up and impossible to read and frustrating as hell, and I… What is he, Doc? Give it to me straight. The magic potion you’re brewing up downstairs, what is it? Maybe I’m wacky, but I think it’s time someone gave it to me straight.” She rapped her knuckles on the counter again. “If you don’t feel comfortable blabbing it out, maybe we could try charades. Or I could guess, and you could blink faster when I’m closer and slower when I’m getting away.”
That sounded complicated.
“I miss him. There’s no one riding my ass, so my ass is kinda flapping in the breeze. Metaphorically speaking.”
––
Doc:
Her words had his eyebrows arching in an entertained sort of way, his mind briefly amusing itself with the thought of Wynonna diddling herself while bored at the office but he quickly put the thought away in favor of her questions.
              “There is so much none of us know of him Wynonna,
              myself included. As for what I do know it is not my
              place to tell.”
A man was allowed his secrets, even when said man was perhaps something more. Doc prided himself on his code and his code forbid him from spilling the secrets of others least they spill his and even Wynonna wouldn’t manage to get another word from him on the matter.
              “When he is better, and he will be better Wynonna,
              you can ask him yourself. You can tell him too how
              you missed him, I assure you he’ll be happy to hear
              it.”
Dolls cared for her. Doc could see that even if it had taken him some time to come around to the idea of it.
Lifting his whiskey to his lips he knocked back the rest of his glass and made to refill it topping hers off as well.
––
Wynonna:
Yeah, Dolls cared for her. Which was as good a reason as any to stay the hell away from him. She was the last kind of trouble he needed. And yet. She couldn’t stay away. Maybe if she had, he wouldn’t be in this kind of bullshit mess to start with.
Would Dolls even spill that secret? He was so closed off. Wynonna knew she could be an idiot, no filter, no ability to play her cards close to her chest – witness her trying to drunk-kiss Doc only a few nights ago. She didn’t know what she felt, what she wanted, she was just stupid and impulsive, and it was all so embarrassing.
Uuuuugggggghhhhhhhhhhh.
She drank half the glass, and put it down again.
“I feel like things have been… so crazy, so much of the time, that we haven’t really…” she frowned. “There’s so much I want to ask you that I never have.”
She crossed her arms on the bar, and nodded in the direction of the sign, newly reinstated.
“What was he like? Wyatt? The real Wyatt.”
––
Doc:
               “You know I am an open book Wynonna.”
Though he supposed he only was in theory.
It was clear Wynonna had set herself on a path of questions this evening and he doubted he could shake her from that course regardless of how he tried. Wyatt had been similar, always asking questions of him as if he knew the answers to them and knowing even if he did not he would think of something. It had the traces of a smile coming over his lips, a gesture only fueled by her next set of questions.
                “He was bull-headed, stubborn, insufferable. I’ve never
                met another man who could make you question every
                life decision you’ve made with just a look, then again I’ve
                never met another man who commanded as much respect
                and order as Wyatt.”
A fond smile was followed with a shake of his head.
                “Wynonna he was a good man, the best I’ve ever met. Lawful,
                but loyal even to the likes of me. You wanted to do right by him,
                he inspired it.”
And in the end he’d done just the opposite. He had let Wyatt down in every possibly way with his deal with Constance. It was a wound still fresh inside of him, a wound reopened whenever someone said Wyatt’s name. The smile faltered, replaced with a brief show of sadness he quickly chased away with a swallow of whiskey.
––
Wynonna:
Wynonna imagined him. The photographs she’d seen over the years; there were plenty. His mulish face, proud and haughty, his challenging eyes. People had said so much about him over the years, but those reports were watered down by time and the limitations of human language.
This was different
Wynonna sat up a little straighter, eyes on Doc’s expression, lost in the fond memory. She brought her glass to her lips. She hadn’t really given enough thought to this, to the fact that Doc wasn’t just some historical document, but someone who had daily breathed air with Wyatt Earp. A man. And she had the oddest sense, looking at him lost in reflection now, that she’d caught a glimpse of something the history books might have missed.
“Even to the likes of you?” she said, mock surprise on her face, a hand to her heart. “Wow. That’s quite a fella.”
She reached for the bottle, mostly to give herself something to do with her hands. She needed to know. Seemed to Wynonna the only way to ask was to ask. Just be direct. If Doc didn’t choke on his whiskey, at least they’d be on the same page.
“You joked about being sweet on him, once. Doesn’t seem like a joke anymore.” She topped up the glasses. “Never seen a look like that on the face of a man who wasn’t in love. And what about him, Doc? Did he love you back?” After all, he was an open book, right?
––
Doc:
Of all the things he had said that could come back to bite him on the ass, his teasing over Doc Holliday being sweet on Wyatt was the last one he had expected to do so. At the time he had thought Wynonna was a working lady, her place at the bar had given such indication based on the rules of the world he was used to. In the end she had been an Earp and fate had laughed in his face, as it was often prone to doing with him.
Perhaps, he wondered, he was better at hiding his feelings for Wyatt back during their own time.
Though he already knew that wasn’t true, didn’t he? How many times had he drank too much and made eyes at his friend? It was a wonder that Wyatt put up with him when he allowed himself to think about it now. Wynonna was perceptive enough to pick up on his feelings however and he owed her an answer and less thoughts in his own head.
Clearing his throat he turned away from her, picking up a stack of glasses instead and busying himself with setting them how he liked behind the bar.
              “Wyatt cared for me in the sense of a friend caring for
              another Wynonna.”
In the end he had been as close as family, a brother—nothing more.
Still it was hard to shake Constance’s voice and claims that he had been the most important thing in Wyatt’s life. He didn’t believe it then, he couldn’t let himself go down a path of what could have been. Those dreams, they were just that these days. Wyatt was gone, loving him still made little to no sense at all.
Though he did not deny his own feelings to the Earp Heir, he’d allow her the win of guessing his feelings.
––
Wynonna:
She’d half-expected him to deny it. How strongly he denied was likely to factor into how little she changed her mind. But he didn’t. Wynonna sat for a long moment, and finally shook her head.
“I’m sorry. That… must have been hard.”
She knew little about the daily realities of life in the wild west. But she was willing to guess a relationship like that wouldn’t have been celebrated. Suddenly, all the stories about Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp sounded different in her head. They weren’t just friends; there was an unrequited love there. Shit.
Shit.
“Wynonna Earp, bringing up painful memories since 1989. Everyone needs a special skill.”
She sipped the whiskey, and watched him fuss behind the bar. He looked like he wanted to end this conversation, but Wynonna was too ornery to just leave him to his quiet grief.
“He’d be glad to know you look after Wav and me so well,” she said, her tone conciliatory. “His best friend, lookin’ out for his wayward great… great granddaughters. He’d be glad to know you didn’t die. Probably wouldn’t be thrilled about the whole well deal, but you can’t have it all.”
––
Doc:
There was no way of knowing what Wyatt would think one way or the other. Half the time Doc comforted himself with ideas that Wyatt, like Wynonna said, would be happy to know he was looking after his latest hairs. The more logical parts of his brain reminded him of all the things Wyatt had said when they’d parted ways for the last time.
His friend had always been like that.
Hot to temper and when angry he fought and lashed out with a righteous kind of fury many had been afraid of. Given time he’d cool off though, think things through and come around. Doc had always allowed himself to imagine that that was how it would be, between them. Wyatt would have been angry for days over the deal he’d made with Constance but he’d come around eventually, see it as the gift Doc had seen it as.
Constance had seen to it that that time had never come to pass, forgiveness for his wrong had never been given and now he would never know.
             “You’re like him, you know. Your temper is the same, as is
             your drive to protect your family.”
Setting down the last stack of glasses he turned and considered Wynonna for a moment.
             “But you are the vision of your great great grandmother.”
––
Wynonna:
“Me? A temper?” Wynonna batted her eyelashes, and curled her hand around her glass again. Well, of all the things to be passed down the line… as many times as it had gotten her into trouble, that same temper had helped her get out of it more than once.
The world is full of idiots who think you won’t fight back. Be a good girl.
“Not sure how good a job I’m doing of protecting my family, though.” If she was really all about that, she’d bundle Waverly in a blanket and drag her back to Corfu. Hell, Waverly spoke Greek… or was it ancient Greek? Either way, it was more than Wynonna, who probably only managed to keep her bartending job because Corfu was full of Americans who… well, only spoke American.
English. Whatever.
But she liked the idea that she looked like her great great grandmother. That the lines of her face were borrowed from elsewhere. She reached up unconsciously to touch her chin.
“Was she a mess too?” Wynonna cocked her head, and glanced at the ceiling a moment. “Probably not, if he married her. She was probably one of those super resourceful, adaptable, kickass frontier women who still had perfect pincurls. I should watch the movies sometime.”
––
Doc:
If Wynonna wanted to think of Josie that way he wasn’t going to burst he bubble, though he thought they were more alike than she would ever know. There were strong, went against what was expected of them, stood up for themselves.
              “Those movies are nothing short of defamation of character, you
              should not go near them.”
Doc huffed and poured himself another drink, downing it in one go.
              “You know that actor fellow, he practically thinks he is Wyatt. Thinks
              he knows something about being a man just because he acted in a
              movie.”
Alright, perhaps he was a bit bitter over it but mostly because the interpretation was a decent one and Doc didn’t like to admit it. He didn’t often admit either that once he’d learned to work a computer and the internet he’d spent some time watching and taking in the material chronicling his and Wyatt’s lives.
––
Wynonna:
Hmm, there was a sore spot. “Kurt Russel? Henry Fonda? Or Kevin Costner? You know what, I hope you don’t mean Kevin Costner. He knows how to play exactly one character – Kevin Costner. All his movies should be renamed. ‘Kevin Costner dresses up like Robin Hood’. ‘Kevin Costner gets wet’.” Wynonna blanched. “That went a different place to where I planned, but I think you get the gist.”
He could have meant anyone. There were so many films. And somehow, Wynonna was touched that Doc had managed to see enough of them to have an opinion. She tried to imagine what it might be like, to have been in love with someone, and find that while you were gone he’d become a cultural icon who everyone thought they owned. It was strange enough to be a part of a deeply dysfunctional family with Wyatt as the great patriarch.
“Maybe you should write one yourself. Give it a happy ending.”
––
Doc:
Honestly Doc didn’t know which one he was talking about. He’d seen exactly one movie about his and Wyatt’s life and decided that it was more than enough to never watch a single thing centering on them ever again so long as he lived. Though that hadn’t stopped him from watching what was labeled “extras” and finding out that this man thought he knew something about their lives.
“Tombstone, whoever was in that one.”
Doc shrugged his shoulders, lip and moustache twitching once more in annoyance.
“That, Wynonna, is not a terrible idea though I suppose altering the ending to my own happiness would be just as much slander as the rest of them.”
He doubted Wyatt would even be amused and he reminded himself that the dead didn’t get a vote, as he had told Levi last year when he’d first come back and been confronted with the demons questions.
“give Waverly half a chance and she’ll write a book about you and the curse.”
Pouring them another round of drinks he smirked wondering how Wynonna would take her life being put out there.
––
Wynonna:
A book about all of this? Wynonna shook her head. “Bizarrely enough, even though it would be completely factual, it would also be too implausible. Although it might still sell. We can add some sexy vampires who only eat animals, or maybe just make all the revenants pretty – I mean, Bobo has his charms, if he’d take a shower once a week.”
She took the glass, and closed her hand around it for a moment.
“This is my last one,” she said out loud, partly to Doc and partly to herself – No more drunk attempts to kiss Doc. It was now official policy. Even if she was in a weird mood, or… lonely, or any one of a thousand stupid excuses she’d given herself. “This is my last one, and I’m going home to sleep. And tomorrow…”
She drained the glass.
“Tomorrow, I’m going to think up solutions to the Dolls problem, tell them to Waverly so she can shoot them down in a rain of logic and sensibleness… if that’s real word.” It didn’t actually sound right. “I’ll call if we make any progress.”
She stepped down off the bar stool, and made fingerguns at Doc – really awkward ones. Not good at all. Definitely time to go.
~complete~
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frozenartscapes · 7 years
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Well...I caved...
I saw the Emoji Movie.
Now I want to make things perfectly clear here: I did not give Sony any money for this. I found it on Kimcartoon, because I refuse to contribute to something so fucking awful. I knew this movie would be crap. I knew I wouldn’t like it. I have several free movies on my Scene card (a points-based rewards card for Cineplex theatres) but I knew this movie wasn’t even worth that because a) it would still register as someone who went to go see the movie and b) this movie isn’t worth the bus money I would have spent to get to the movie theatre. I want to make it clear that normally I would not torrent movies, and recommend actually going to see them in theatres or renting them or viewing them on a site where their creators actually get something in return. People work hard on movies and credit must be given where it’s due.
Speaking of that, to the animators of the Emoji Movie: you have my condolences. The one thing, and I mean one thing about this movie that I will say is good is the animation. You guys tried, and hey! It’s not half bad. It’s not...great, per se. But you tried. You get a gold star! (And at least you can say you’ve worked on a multi million dollar animated movie for your resumes when you want to apply to a much better movie company.) The animation in the Emoji Movie is... Like I said, it’s good. It’s certainly better than some other more notoriously bad animated movies, and this would be where it being a product of Sony helps it out. But keep in mind that when I talk about the “animation” I’m talking solely about how this thing looks on a visual level. Things like rendering, colour choices, character design... yeah, they’re ok. But other aspects that delve more into the actual storytelling aspect of animation, not so much. World-building wise it is painfully obvious they’re going for a Wreck It Ralph meets Inside Out kind of look. Dialogue and music scores? Yeah, pretty bad. And the moral? Oh boy, here we go.
The actual story of the Emoji Movie is one that you’ve all seen a thousand times. I’d say spoiler alert but it is literally the most cliched story in the book. Does this sound familiar to you? Meet our main character. He’s excited because it’s his first day at his new job. Except, he’s a bit of a weirdo. He doesn’t quite fit in to the status quo so everybody hates him. Sure enough, when he does start his new job after ten minutes of painful filler, the thing that makes him different gets in the way and he screws everything up. His boss makes it clear he’s fired, but then turns into a super villain out of no where because that’s what bosses are like. So now our main character is on the run with this other random loser he said, like, three lines to before everything went to shit. The two losers then enlist the help of a badass female character who purposely rebels against the status quo. They convince the female character to help them out by giving her something in return that will allow her to even further rebel against the status quo and our trio of protagonists set out on their quest. Along the way they get into some wacky hijinks that bring them all closer together. The main protagonist slowly falls in love with the female character. The idiot sidekick has exactly one moment of brilliance that somehow saves the day, but it’s not enough to excuse the number of other times he nearly fucked everything up. And the female character, with the “help” of the main protagonist, slowly breaks out of her cold exterior to reveal she’s only like that because she’s afraid of people getting to know the real her, who really is a soft and caring person but is afraid of conforming to the strict gender stereotypes thrust upon her because she’s a girl. They finally get to the end of their quest, but then a tragic misunderstanding due to the complicated love-related feelings our male and female protagonists have causes them to split up. Meanwhile, through some vaguely explained and half-assed reasoning, the whole world is about to be destroyed. And it turns out that it’s our two potential love interests who are the only ones who can stop it. And so our main character learns his lesson that it’s better to be yourself, no matter what other people think of you, because being yourself can save the world. Our female lead leans that it’s not about what you want, but more what your boyfriend wants to make him happy. And our loveable idiot sidekick learns nothing and continues to be a loud, self-absorbed moron. And then a dance number happens, because fuck any questions you might have about the plot: look at how much fun our characters are having!
If you think this sounds familiar, you’re right. This plot has been done to death by many a children’s show/movie before the Emoji Movie. But at least those shows/movies knew what they were doing. The Emoji Movie is just a bland, poorly written movie that was likely strung together by a series of board room members and focus groups, not actual writers. In some scenes you can practically hear the discussion amongst the middle-aged executives about what the kids think is cool and also which app developers have given them money and how they can shoehorn in a reference to them. 
It’s made even more frustrating because, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, some of these ideas could have actually worked. It’s kinda like Wreck It Ralph, and how each video game opened up a whole new world with different colour schemes, styles, characters, you name it. It made the universe of that movie seem really big, despite everything actually only taking place in one arcade. But in the Emoji Movie...it all seems really compressed. Each app is represented as a giant box on the “Wallpaper”, which is essentially the main area of the phone. It’s where our characters can go to access other apps. But when they do go into another app, it still feels like everything’s trapped inside a box. It’s like there are these invisible walls that keep the world from getting any bigger (and in some cases that is literally what happens) and as a result it just seems really limiting. They could have done some really interesting things with certain apps, or you know, things that are actually funny. They could have had a car chase in a racing game, or maybe entered a platformer game like Doodle Jump where the art style is entirely different. Instead, we got a series of ads for a number of different apps in premises that were neither funny nor exciting, and all it did was that it left me wondering why a teenage boy had an app for Just Dance on his phone in the first place. I’m not saying that a movie devoted solely to telling a story about emojis would be Pixar worthy or anything but it could have been at least a little more creative.
I’m not too mad about all of this though because I knew the second this movie was announced that it would be a pandering mess. I knew it’d be a huge pile of steaming bullshit, and speaking of that here’s one thing I didn’t expect: the voice actors. Patrick Stewart, Sir Patrick Stewart, plays a literal piece of shit. You’ve also got T.J. Miller as our main character, Gene (the “Meh” emoji), James Corden as the loveable idiot- I mean, sidekick, Anna Faris as the female love interest, and many others including Maya Rudolph, Steven Wright, Jennifer Coolidge, Christina Aguilera, Sofía Vergara, Rachael Ray, Sean Hayes, and Jake T. Austin. And the sad thing is: you can pretty much hear in most of these characters’ lines that these actors did this for the paycheque and not much else. The line delivery is really flat most of the time, but I don’t blame the actors too much for that because I bet they read the lines and realized that they weren’t worth their best delivery. Yeah, the lines were terrible. There wasn’t a single time I so much as smiled. I was literally the fucking “meh” emoji. Which, gotta say, that’s pretty awesome if that’s what Sony was going for. But it’s not what they were going for. Normally, even a bad animated movie will have at least one moment that will make me go “Hey, that’s kinda clever” but this one had nothing. It was just painful joke after painful joke, the setups for which could be seen from a mile away and anything that did come out of nowhere came from so far out of left field that they were basically out of breath when they got there.
The thing that angers me most about the Emoji Movie is the story. If you couldn’t tell from my plot summary, I’m pretty bitter about it. I could write a whole separate piece about the “be yourself” moral and my issues with it, but I’ll keep it short here. It is the kind of moral that can either be done right, like how it was handled in Wreck It Ralph, or it can be done wrong, like it was here. The thing about this type of moral is that it rarely works 100% in real life, and as a result it works best when it’s not presented as such. Instead of being yourself becoming some kind of deus ex machina that magically saves the whole world and as a result suddenly changes everything for the better, it’s a much better kind of moral when you come to accept who you are, that you are different, and that’s ok. Things might not exactly change the way you want, but you yourself are a better person, and that then often affects other things like how other people react to you. Think about how Wreck It Ralph ended: it didn’t end with the apartment dwellers in Fix It Felix Jr. deciding that he no longer was the bad guy and he no longer needed to play that role - Ralph still had to play that role, despite him coming home a hero. What changed was how they treated him, that they accepted him as he accepted himself. And in turn, they started treating him with the same respect they give to Felix and each other.
In the Emoji Movie, being yourself does everything. It saves the world. It gets you the girl. It brings parents on the verge of divorce back together. The only thing it doesn’t do is give the villain any closure (seriously, she just kinda...disappears). I take issue with this because of how the climax of this movie is set up. Gene, the Meh emoji, rather quickly falls head over heals with the female main character, Jailbreak. Jailbreak states several times throughout the movie that her intention is to get to the Cloud where she is free to be who she is. Gene initially starts out helping her get to the Cloud so she can get the source code to the phone and reprogram him so he is a true “meh” emoji, since he deems himself “a malfunction” because he can make multiple expressions. (I’m aware of the long-windedness of that statement. The explanation is like that in the movie, too). However, before this can happen, Gene confesses his feelings to Jailbreak while he still can and she doesn’t quite feel the same way. It’s obvious that there’s some connection there, but I think it was one of those things where the girl just wants a friendship while the guy wants a relationship. After that rejection, without much of an argument or anything, Gene becomes a Meh emoji without the use of the source code. Just like that. We have a character who was shit on by everybody, even his parents, was told he was a malfunction and needed to die to do any good in the world, and had to flee the only home he ever knew and live on the run with killer robots sent by his own people chasing him and it was the rejection of a girl he knew for maybe thirty minutes that changed his entire personality. He then leaves for home. Jailbreak, just as she’s about to achieve her own goals, is told what happened to Gene by comic relief character Hi-Five and promptly abandons everything she had been working on for years to go back and fix Gene. That’s right. Gene wins in the end because Jailbreak returns to tell him that she also cares for him. She doesn’t get anything back in return. Her goals have been cast into the wind. She’s now been thrown back into a life she left because she met a guy and fell in love. The male lead gets the moral that everything in life will work out if you be yourself. The female lead gets the moral that life will be wonderful and happy if you have a parter (preferably a romantic male partner) to share it with.
And that’s my problem with this movie. It’s like the Lego Movie without the irony. We’re following yet another male lead protagonist who gets everything he ever wanted by the end of the movie, becomes the damn hero of his world, and never has to change a single thing about himself. It’s everyone else who has to change, who has to move out of the way for his “development”. The female character obviously has to change the most, going from her own individualistic style to back into a somewhat conforming token girlfriend who is always happy because she found Love™. His “best friend” sidekick can continue to be lovable and stupid and slightly self absorbed, just not quite as self absorbed now because he has a best friend! Yay! And for everyone else...not much really changes. Which makes this movie worse than some of the other cliched movies out there. 
Normally what happens at the end of a Be Yourself movie is you have all the characters at the end doing just that: being themselves and not who they were when they were conforming to society’s rules at the beginning of the film. SPOILERS for anybody who still cares at this point, the way Gene saves the day is by creating an emoji gif of himself making various faces to express his teenage phone owner’s feelings about a girl the kid has a crush on. This somehow works just before the entire world is deleted and somehow the kid unplugs the phone and brings everything back without a single hint of major data loss, which is honestly the most unrealistic thing about this movie. (Added to the fact that the kid wanted to do a hard reset of the phone but had to go into a phone store to have that happen, telling me that the writers clearly don’t understand how smartphones work if that’s the case.) But, moving on: the final scene shows Gene and all the other emojis happily working at their job, dancing to a pop song and generally having a good time. The movie ends with Gene producing another gif emoji reaction and the credits start to role. What would have been interesting would be seeing some of the other emojis are now able to make different expressions as well. Like maybe Hi-Five can perform a number of different hand gestures (which would actually be pretty hilarious considering one hand gesture in particular). Or the frowny emoji can smile, or stick their tongue out. Anything, really. But nope! It’s just Gene who can change his expression. Everyone else is still a boring old, one expression emoji. I guess you can argue that they are still being themselves, but then what’s the fucking point of the movie? The Be Yourself moral generally is meant to say that you don’t have to be what society tells you to be, but then in terms of this movie, it gets a little messed up. Is it society telling these emojis what to be, or the code of the phone itself? What if the happy emoji really isn’t happy, but is unable to express it because of a god-like limitation enforced on all of them? There were even jokes about this at the beginning, like the sad emoji can never be happy even if he wins the lottery. And if the source code can be used to “fix” Gene, can it not be used in reverse to allow these other emoji’s to have different expressions? And, also, at one point toward the end of the film the villain states that emojis are meant to only have one emotion, so does that mean the film is agreeing with a villain’s statement by confirming that yes, all emojis except for that one weird one can only have one expression. Typically you use the conclusion to contradict a big statement by the movie’s villain, but I guess that’d be too much work to write/animate.
I’m probably looking too much into a movie I hate, but they even bring this up in the movie. Gene’s father, the original Meh emoji, is able to cry. The only slightly decent scene in the movie, might I add, has him and his wife meeting up in an instagram pic of Paris after having a fight. In it they have a touching heart to heart about their son whom they’re worried for, and the father reveals that Gene’s the way he is because the father can also produce multiple expressions. Now, that’s a great explanation of how Gene works and all, but why? Would it not have made more sense to say that every emoji is able to do this, and most of them are just much better at keeping things in one emotion/expression? To have it so that they literally can only make one expression seems almost cruel, and it takes away from the moral of being yourself when 99% of the population can’t physically be themselves fully. It only makes the decision to eradicate Gene more sensible, as he really is the only thing wrong in the phone, and because of him and his actions, he almost wiped out literally everything on the phone. He got insanely lucky at the end of the movie, and it’s still not great because how long is he going to be able to speak for his phone user before he misjudges the situation and things take a turn again? I gotta say, if I got the final text of the movie sent to me I’d be annoyed (which was just Gene making a series of faces set to music, but you have to remember that neither Alex the phone user nor the person he sent it to would be hearing said music, so it’d just be an emoji bouncing and changing faces for far too long and for no reason).
Ok, I’m going to wrap this up. This was a bad movie. It was nothing but ads for various apps with a half-assed story about accepting who you are or some shit thrown in. If you’re curious, like I said: Kimcartoon. Don’t give Sony any money for this shit. The more money they get, the more they’ll think it’s ok to keep making movies like this. Thank you for reading, and if we’re lucky we’ll all die in a fiery explosion before the Meme Movie gets released.
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