#seven was another one i won’t rewatch

[vroomvroomcircuit]

Drive all Night

(A/N): This is inspired by the song "Call your mom" by Noah Kahan.

Summary: Max is worried about the sudden shift in his best friends behavior. But he is willing to drive all night to get to the root of the problem.

Pairing: Max Verstappen x fem!reader (little childhood friends to lovers on the side with angst/hurt to comfort)

Warnings: Association to Max's shitty childhood, reader has depression/a depressive episode, implicit mentions of suicide, listen to the song and you get the vibe

Wordcount: 2.4k

🏎Masterlist🏎 ________________________

Max Verstappen is not a big worrier. Actually, he is no worrier at all.

When there is something to worry about, he just changes it. If he can’t change it, it’s out of his area of responsibility, so he doesn’t have to worry about it.

Thinking like that helped him focus through great challenges. But his mindset wasn’t the only motivator. Through all his highest highs and lowest lows, his best friend has been right next to him, either cheering him on or being the shoulder to cry on he just needed.

(Y/N) and him befriended each other in kindergarten, having felt this unexplainable pull to each other. Ever since playing with Legos together for the first time they had been inseparable if they could help it.

Of course, as they got older and Max’s career in karting took off and (Y/N) had to focus more on school, they started to shift to calling and texting more than relying on in person talking. But that didn’t stop them staying best friends. One might even argue that through their 24/7 updates to each other, they grew even closer.

Meeting in person in their adulthood had become increasingly easier. Sometime (Y/N) travels with Max to several races back to back, being blessed with a remote working job.

The young man starts to suspect something isn’t going smoothly during one of their daily face time calls with her being in her dark bedroom and him in a hotel room halfway across the world. “But enough of how annoying these marketing things are. What did you do today? Except for work of course.” Max just finished another yapping season about the last challenge the social media teams had him participate in.

(Y/N) just shrugs her shoulders while focusing on a loose thread in her shirt. “Nothing much. I reread pride and prejudice.” Max halts a bit in his rummaging through his suitcase, being on the look out for his charger. “I thought you had plans for lunch with a friend? And didn’t you read through that book last week already? You do know that no matter how often you read it, the ending will stay the same.” He jokes a bit.

While still not shifting her gaze towards the phone screen, (Y/N) answers in mumbles. “I canceled on her. I really felt icky today, but we will try to set up another meet up some time next week or so.”

At first Max doesn’t think of it as much. Everyone feels not like socializing every one in a while. But then something else changes. The frequency of their calls and texts.

“...here we can do- Max? Are you even listening to me?” Max gets caught off guard by that question. GP was going over some points with him before starting FP2. “Oh, uhm, sorry GP. Gimme three seconds, I just want to reply to (Y/N). It seems like she didn’t have a great day and I just want to make sure she’ll be alright until I’m out of the car.”

This makes his race engineer raise his eyebrows. “Oh, what happened?” “I don’t know. But she is rewatching one of her comfort shows for the third time in two weeks.” He blinks at the Dutchman. “And in what way is that concerning?”

Okay, voicing his worrisome thoughts out loud like that makes Max realize that the signs are not too obvious for outsiders. But he is talking about his best friend. The person that always makes sure that he won’t go without his needed amount of sleep. The same person he had been having phone calls that resulted in four out of the last seven nights with him getting not more than 5 hours of sleep, if that at all.

For an outsider it doesn’t seem bad for (Y/N) to reread the same books and rewatch the same shows over and over again. Or having her best friend, the person she became emotionally most dependent on, talk with her through her nights.

But for Max, it raises red flags. It hits his alarm bells, ringing out loud that something is majorly wrong. He can’t put his finger on it, not just yet. He is still looking for a way to get her to tell him what is bothering her.

There is a certain uneasiness to Max during that entire race weekend. He is just itching to seat his ass on a plane on his way back to his (Y/N), a friend that he might harbor more than just platonic feelings for. A person that had his back all the time.

To the person he loves the most, that is also struggling the most right now.

He wants to be able to pay her back for all the times she stuck through his darkest times.

But something in him is scared that he isn’t able to get to her in time. “Didn’t you want to go out with a colleague of yours for drinks last night?” Max asks into the phone while speed walking through the airport. Ever since leaving his hotel room on this fine Monday morning, he has been on a phone call with (Y/N).

A sigh greets his ears. “I wanted to, but I didn’t feel like dressing up or sharing a space with a bunch of strangers. I just ordered some food in and watched your race.”

There is another red flag. (Y/N) maybe was never a big socializer to begin with, but she liked going out every now and then. But for a couple of weeks now the only thing Max gets to hear about plans is that she canceled them.

Listening to her just cutting contact with the outside world like that, it doesn’t only worry him. It’s not even scary. It terrifies him.

The two of them continue talking the whole plane ride until (Y/N) falls asleep. Even then Max doesn’t hang up. He still lets the call continue, not wanting her to wake up and feel alone. She doesn’t deserve to feel alone.

No one does. But especially not her.

When he was in karting, some kids gave him grief for winning most of the time. It was difficult for little Max to understand. So do people not want him to win?

It became more confusing to him since some people around him wanted him to win desperately. It hurt him, not understanding the difference of who wanted his best and who wanted to see him fail.

He felt isolated from his peers, especially those who should understand under what pressure he was, because they must feel the same. Right?

During these days, where he rather stopped driving in circles in a very fast manner and just continued playing football, (Y/N) was his only footing. She talked him out of ending his career in motorsport. She painted a picture of his future in the prettiest colors with her words. She gave him something to look forward during these trying times.

And when it got harder before it got easier, she held his hand and reminded him that she will always stay by his side.

Now it’s Max’s turn to show her that he will always stay by her side.

He opens the door to her apartment slowly, trying to make the least noise possible.

Every room is shrouded in what must feel to her like a never ending darkness. The blinds are drawn in front of every window, hindering the tiniest bit of sunlight to filter through. Even to Max it feels like the despair that is in the air will never stop. It is all consuming.

He tiptoes towards her bedroom. There she lays, illuminated by the low light of his phone screen. Curled up tight under a bunch of blankets and between a mountain of pillows and stuffed animals.

The MV lion, the first one that has ever been produced, the original prototype before giving the go for mass production, is held tightly and close to her chest. It pulls on his heartstrings, seeing the comfort it must have brought her while he was absent.

Max kneels down at the head of the bed, gently shaking her awake. “Schatje, come on. Wake up. We got a day of new adventures just in front of us outside the door.”

It’s something they started to say in elementary school. They once read a book in class with the premise that every day is the start to a new adventure. You just have to welcome it in. Back then, when inviting something unknown in your life was considered exciting, not scary or life changing.

“The adventures can wait a day longer.” She mumbles and turns around, trying to shake his hand on her shoulder off. But Max is having none of it.

“The darkness is fooling you. Every light that has been turned off can be turned on.” He gets up and opens the blinds. Sunlight floods the room, and even at the messiest state the young man has seen his best friend, she still is the most beautiful woman on earth to him

(Y/N) lets out a noise of unpleasantness. “Please Max, I can’t deal with it today.”  “No, you will. We are going to deal with it, whatever this it is, together.” He marches over to her dresser and produces a clean set of clothes out of thin air. That is what it looks like to her in this mess at least.

“You are going to shower. After that we will take a drive with no destination.” His words are final and in a tone that makes the young woman drag her limbs and body out of the bed and trudge towards the bathroom, even when the unwillingness is evident by her groaning.

Hearing the shower is Max’s cue to sit down and take a deep breath. He doesn’t know what he expected, but seeing the light of life missing in (Y/N)’s eyes isn’t on that list. It feels like a punch to his gut, witnessing her wither away without knowing from what.

It doesn’t take long and they both sit in the car. A drive without destination is exactly what it says. Just Max driving with (Y/N) sitting in the passenger seat. Usually they used these trips to catch up, to talk about everything and nothing. To voice big philosophical thoughts and dumb brain farts. They started this tradition, that usually includes some sort of fast food, when Max got his drivers license.

But sitting in complete silence for five minutes straight. That is something new.

“You know,” Max breaks it after another seven minutes. “Not talking about it won’t make the problem go away. It also doesn’t hinder it in its existence. Instead it will just get heavier and heavier until you break under the weight.” His dry tone isn’t something she anticipated.

(Y/N) looks out the window, seeing the colorful sunset for the first time in weeks. It’s easy to forget the beauty of the world when your inside thoughts feel like a graveyard. “I don’t want to worry you.”

That admission nearly has the Dutchman emergency breaking in the middle of a street through the fields. “So you play cat and mouse with your feelings because you don’t want to worry me?” (Y/N) nods.

Max lets out a laugh. “So what exactly makes you think that me witnessing you just becoming a shell of who you once were won’t worry me?”

She shrugs. (Y/N) didn’t expect him to catch that something feels wrong in her.

“Schatje. I will always worry about you, You are too important to me to not worry about you. Seeing you wither away in yourself, it made me scared going out on these tracks, sitting down in the car, and wondering if you still breathe while I’m driving another mile. Not knowing what you feel, that worries me more than the truth. Because then we can work on getting you better together. But when you don’t let me in, I can’t help and feel like by just standing and witnessing without intervening that I’m at fault for anything that happens to you. It hurts more seeing you hurting than knowing what you hurt from.”

She turns towards Max, mustering his side profile. She hasn’t thought about how her actions are perceived by her surroundings. (Y/N) just fell into that hole of darkness unexpectedly. While sitting at the bottom of that somber pit, she thought that trying to reach out for help would mean another person gets pulled into it.

If there was one person she doesn’t want sitting next to her in that dark hole, then it is Max. She harbors too much love and affection for him to want him to suffer the same fate as her. So not talking about her darkest thoughts seemed like the best way of keeping him far away from the hole.

But it just drew him in closer.

(Y/N) finally sees what he saw the whole time.

“You know, it’s hard to explain what happened. It takes time to really understand what goes on in me right now.” Max puts a reassuring hand on her leg. “We have all night to talk about it. Help me help you. Let us find a strategy to get you better. May it be medication, meditation, punching me or falling in love with someone. I need you to find a reason to stay with me, physically and mentally.”

She puts a hand over hers and looks Max in the eye for the first time since he arrived. “I already fell in love.”

He doesn’t need to hear more.

Max keeps his promise. He drives through the night, holding (Y/N) to the best of his ability while she cries, curses and explains.

By that not everything is picture perfect again. But it’s the first step. The first one to a future they both want to share with each other. For now and ever, that is enough motivation for (Y/N) to keep going, to continue turning every light on that was off.

[an-idyllic-novelist]

Hey guys, hope you’ve all been well and welcome to this little announcement :)

I know it’s been a while since I have done any newsletters/writing updates on here and my other blog, @forbidden-sunlight but unfortunately I won’t be getting more free time to write until mid May or June. Until then, I have at least one idea brewing in my brain, and one concept I’d like your help on. What is it, you ask?

Well, it’s a character!reader, specifically Chise!reader from the anime The Ancient Magus’ Bride where she is transported to the ancient land of Britannia in a magical experiment gone awry. Britannia is the setting for another anime, Seven Deadly Sins. Here, Chise!reader is found by Meliodas and together they search for his missing comrades as the cook and bartender of The Boar’s Hat Tavern before Princess Elizabeth of Liones stumbles into their lives. It follows the first and second season of the anime, but I’ll need to rewatch it because it’s been a while 🥲

(For those who have watched The Ancient Magus’ Bride anime, Chise!reader has already went to the College and finished her schooling, but since she has Cartaphilus’ left eye to counter the dragon’s curse, she is an immortal.)

In your opinion guys, who do you think I should pair up Chise!reader with in this fun piece? King or Ban? I did a poll a while back on my other blog, and I have a feeling everyone voted for the latter because he’s a good looking son of a gun lol.

If you have any ideas/thought, please comment on this post and share your opinion on which pairing I should go for and why. Please no bullying or shipping wars on here, guys, this is only for fun and this blog is a safe space.

Can’t wait to see what guys come with! Until next time~!

[coraniaid]

I know that Halloween isn’t really one of the very best Buffy episodes.  (I mean, it’s not even the best Halloween-themed Buffy episode.)  I know that its discussion of gender roles is, at best, kind of questionable; I know that  Buffy’s idea of what a noblewoman would actually do all day is laughably shallow; I know that this is pretty clearly one of the early episodes when the show was mostly being written by men.  I even know that the special effects aren’t that good.  And I definitely know that Angel’s “you’re not like other girls (who by the way I find beneath contempt, so don’t necessarily take that as a compliment)” speech to Buffy at the end is almost certainly meant to be romantic and not the huge red flag it actually is.

But.  Unfortunately I also know that I love this episode.  As a certain recurring vampire would say, it’s just … neat.

A couple of interesting things have been happening over the past few episodes of this rewatch.

One is that the world of the show has been getting bigger, or rather more solid.  We’re starting to see characters outside the Core Four who actually seem to have lives of their own and don’t just vanish back into the void once their episode is over.  Spike and Dru are the big ones, of course (the Master is a fun enough villain but he isn’t by any stretch of the imagination a person you can imagine having a rich inner life), but in Inca Mummy Girl we also met Devon and Oz and Jonathan, all of whom will appear multiple times this season, and this episode introduces Ethan and Larry.

(Purely coincidentally, Larry and Ethan have more in common than just first appearing in this episode. They are both gay men – or at least a heavily queer-coded man, in Ethan’s case – who will recur only a few times before being written out of the show in ways that I’m actually still kind of mad about.  But I’ll save that rant for later in the rewatch, assuming I get far enough.)

One of my biggest criticisms of the first season is how many times the show will introduce a new student (or group of students), insist that they’ve always been there, then completely forget about them forty-five minutes later.  The only genuinely recurring minor character that season was Harmony, and she was only in two episodes and not even mentioned in any of the others. Amy will return later but so far she’s just another example of the show introducing a character, establishing that Willow’s known them for years, then insisting that they don’t exist the next episode.  But that’s starting to change now, even if we’re not quite there yet – the next episode’s Lie To Me will arguably pull a variant of the exact same trick with Billy Fordham – and even if it isn’t something the show ever really grows out of completely.

Speaking of Willow, that’s the other big change that’s been happening, and the one I want to talk about most: Willow’s been slowly becoming more central to the show.  This is another slow process which won’t really finish this season, but the signs are there already.

In the first season of Buffy, I’d argue that there’s a very clear hierarchy in terms of how much attention the show gives the Core Four: Buffy is, of course, the central character, but after that the writers clearly think Giles is more important than Xander who is more important than Willow.  

This shows up in a few ways.  Speaking time is the one that’s easiest to quantify (roughly speaking, over the whole of the first season for every four minutes Willow speaks Xander will speak for five minutes, Giles will speak for seven minutes and Buffy will speak for eleven minutes), but I think this claim is also true if we consider things like how often they get to directly impact the plot or how much attention the show gives to both their relationship to Buffy and their lives outside of Buffy.  (Outside of I Robot, You Jane S1!Willow mostly exists to pine over Xander, to be rescued from danger by Buffy and to provide the sort of high school level exposition that Giles can’t deliver.)

That’s still true to a large extent in early Season 2 – Willow definitely is still pining over Xander, Buffy did go to rescue her in When She Was Bad and Willow still does get to deliver a lot of exposition – but it will stop being true by the time the season is over.  From Season 3 onward, I think it’s very clear that Willow is the most important member of the Scooby Gang after Buffy herself.  (In fact, in Season 6 I think you could argue that they’re almost co-protagonists.  That season is Willow’s story almost as much as it is Buffy’s.)

This post-Season 2 change is reflected in all sorts of ways: Willow’s average speaking time suddenly overtakes both Xander and Giles; she starts having proper arcs of her own (learning magic, dating, coming out as a lesbian); and, of course, she starts to play increasingly active roles in the plot.  And there are signs of all of this happening already, even if we’re not quite there yet. 

Taking speaking time, for example.  In Season 1 Willow had the fourth most speaking time of any of the Core Four in eight episodes, the third most speaking time in three episodes, and the second most speaking time in just one episode (The Pack).  She only had more than 12.5% of total speaking time in two episodes (The Pack again and also I Robot, You Jane), something that Xander managed in three episodes and Giles managed in eleven.  (Buffy has more than 20% speaking time in every episode of the season, as is only proper and correct.)

But although she had fourth most speaking time again in When She Was Bad, Willow did get 13.16% speaking time.  And in Reptile Boy and Halloween she is second in speaking time for two episodes running for the very first time (with 14.29% and 19.61% of all speaking time respectively).

She manages that by becoming much more assertive (that is, because the writers decide to make her more assertive).  She has, by now, mostly accepted that her romantic interest in Xander is doomed.  In Reptile Boy, she gets to dress down both Giles and Angel for their poor treatment of Buffy before leading them to go and help her.  And Halloween, more than any episode prior, really does belong to Willow. 

Willow, as much as anybody else, is responsible for saving the day here.  Not Xander, for all his costume-inspired military training.  Not Buffy, who hides behind Willow when she sees a car and asks her fearfully “what does it want?”.  And not even Giles, who does confront Ethan and  break the spell but who was so busy sitting in the library pretending to enjoy cross-referencing that without Willow he wouldn’t even have known there was anything strange going on that night.

And, of course, Willow seems to be the only one of the people changed by their costumes to retain their memories of their real lives.  Partly this has to be for plot reasons – somebody has to remember who they are if we’re going to figure things out before the final ad break – but I suspect there’s a little more to it than that.

For the most part, Ethan’s spell shows us who the Scooby Gang aren’t.  Buffy isn’t really a helpless delicate princess who’d rather die than fight and who faints at the first sign of danger.  Xander isn’t really a heroic man of action who beats up pirates and rescues damsels in distress.  Giles, we’re told, isn't really the “sniveling, tweed-clad guardian of the Slayer” he’s been pretending to be.

But the increasingly self-confident and self-assured Willow we see at the very end of this episode, as Oz drives by in his van?  The Willow who’s not just smart and knowledgeable but also willing to take charge in a crisis?  The Willow who learns to embrace the idea of wearing different outfits and taking charge of how the world perceives her?  The Willow who had more speaking time this episode than Buffy herself managed last episode?

That isn’t who Willow Rosenberg is yet.  But it’s who she’s going to become.

[jamespottersdaisy]

Sorry this will be long...

Apologies regarding the “faves” ask as I didn’t explain that longer answers/answers that go into the whys or I have several faves are perfect. It isn’t annoying at all. I’m not fussy about that; it’s really just a way to learn more about a you as a writer. Thank you for indulging me.

So...mine….

Favorite book: this one is tough because I have so very very many. If I had to pick the cast away on a desert island book, it would probably be The Little Prince. So much love for the wisdom in that tiny book. Some others in the top ten would be my copy of The Complete Novels of Jane Austen, Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb, and I think I have the Harry Potter series memorized so I might be safe to leave that one behind, hehe.

Favorite film: a second tough pick and it’s going to normally be whatever I’ve seen recently because as with books, it is easier these days to watch and rewatch just as we read and reread. Having said that I am going old school: my top pick is Casablanca. Just in case someone hasn’t seen it I won’t spoil it, but it is a classic for a reason. Just brilliant pacing, dialogue, banter.. I mean it’s got romance, intrigue, war, singing, angst, a love triangle, a murder or two, friendship…and the acting is chef’s kiss. It’s a must see, really it is. The runner’s up are all bunched up together. Oh, and I love love love Dead Poets Society. I cannot watch it or Good Will Hunting without tearing up because the whole cast (in both) are outstanding, but the late Robin Williams just knocked it out of the park.

Favorite outfit (what I wear when I want to feel confident): Like you, it is a dress. Mine is a little black cocktail dress. Simple and keeps me from standing in front of the closet for an hour. If given a choice, my desert island would actually be a cold island (just like my heart) because my favorite clothes are hoodies and jeans.

Favorite meal: homemade spaghetti and meatballs with red sauce, a caprese salad, and a $$$ bottle of cab. So many other dishes I love to cook, but that one has some very special memories associated with it.

Name seven people to invite for dinner: this one is tricky but the conversation should be lively. Really tempted to go farther back in (real) history or introduce another fictional character, but this group would definitely cover a lot of ground.

Willa Cather

Andrew Garfield

Fiona Hill

Kazuo Ishiguro

Harold McGee

Dorothy Parker

Newt Scamander

My hope is that if things got too deep philosophically, then Dorothy would lighten things up, or Newt unintentionally would.

THE LITTLE PRINCE. You have no idea how special that book is to me, and I'm happy to see that I'm not alone. I remember reading it five years ago on our cottage yard and the feeling was surreal

I haven't watched the movies you mentioned, and I need to enlarge my worldview on that matter so I'm taking notes to watch them

Cocktail dresses are actually so hot and classy, and that's the tea.

And the seven people seems like they will hold a deep conversation that you won't be able to prevent. And I'd like to see Dorothy and Newt interacting teeheee

[duhragonball]

DBZ Timelines

I got bored, so I’m gonna go through the alternate timelines created by Bulma’s time machine.  I’ve done this a few times before, but I don’t want to look that up, and besides, it’s kind of a fun mental exercise to go over this again. 

I won’t be covering all the time travel shenanigans in the Zamasu Saga from Dragon Ball Super, because (a) I’m thinking about rewatching DBS next year and (b) fuck the Zamasu Saga, it’s dumb as hell.

Part of the reason I’m interested in this is because I want to analyze the role of Gero’s computer in Movie 7, but I think that might deserve its own post, so I’ll just stick to the timeline discussion for now, and we’ll talk about Android 13 another time.

Okay, so in the past, I’ve identified these timelines with letters, but I always get them mixed up, so this time I’m going to name the timelines after a character or plot point unique to that world’s history.  

Also, just to be clear, I’m only talking about timelines that diverged because of time travel.  It’s fine to say that some of the movies take place in “alternate timelines”, and it’s fine to talk about “what if” scenarios, and imagine a world where Raditz lived and married Launch.   But I don’t want to get into those.  I say this because sometimes I get so bogged down in scenarios like “Well what about a world where Trunks didn’t make the second trip to the past?” but Trunks did make the second trip to the past, and there’s no version of events where he only goes back in time once.  So it’s not worth getting into here.

Timeline A: The Gotenks Timeline. (Depicted in DBZ Episodes 1-291.)

This is the main timeline, the one we know the best, and the one that got altered by three separate time trips: Two visits from Future Trunks, and one by Imperfect Cell.  I’m naming it after Gotenks because this is the only world that could produce a Gotenks.  Buu could potentially show up in any version of the Earth, because he’s been lying dormant there for millions of years.   And Goten might exist on some timelines where Goku survived the heart virus.  But the only way you get Gotenks is for Goku to survive the heart virus, die at the Cell Games, learn the Fusion Dance in the afterlife, come back seven years later, and teach the technique to Goten and Trunks.  

Anyway, I’m not gonna spend a lot of time on this one, because I think you all know the drill by now. 

*

Timeline B: The Future Trunks Timeline (Depicted in DBZ Episodes 1-118, 194, History of Trunks TV Special)

I’m often tempted to call this the “unaltered” timeline, but it’s not, thanks to the events of Episode 194.  In this world, Goku dies of the heart virus, then Gero’s androids attack and kill all the Z-fighters except Gohan, who trains Trunks to help defend the earth.  After Gohan’s death, Bulma completes a time machine, and sends Trunks back to Age 764, where he warns Goku about the androids and gives him the heart virus medicine.  Trunks returns, refuels the time machine, and goes back a second time to Age 767, where he joins the battle against the androids in Timeline A. 

Crucially, Trunks learns about Cell during this trip, and he spends a couple of years in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber, so when he returns to his native timeline, he’s a little older and a lot stronger, and he’s forewarned about Cell’s eventual attempt to hijack the time machine.  Trunks overwhelms 17 and 18 in a direct confrontation, then waits for Cell to make his move and kills him as well.

I call this one the Future Trunks Timeline because this is the one where Trunks actually saves his world and wins.  It’s also the springboard for all Future Trunks related stories that have followed.   The Trunks from Xenoverse, Blunks from Dragon Ball Super, the Trunks from the Bojack movie, whatever Dragon Ball Heroes is doing with him, those versions of the character might differ from one another, but they all share the same experience of winning the battles fought in DBZ #194.

* 

Timeline C: The Remote Timeline (Depicted in DBZ 1-138, Movie 7?)

This is a timeline whose events we never actually witness directly.  Still it’s heavily implied to exist, because the next timeline (see below) kind of depends on it.   Essentially, this is a world where Trunks’ two visits took place, but not Cell’s.  

What happens then is this: The Z-Fighters prepare for Gero’s androids, Trunks shows up to join them, only to discover they’re fighting the “wrong” androids, Gero withdraws to his lab and reactivates 17 and 18, who defeat Vegeta.  Everything plays out just like it did in Timeline A, except the abandoned time machine and Cell’s molt are never discovered. 

Instead, Dragon Team continues to cope with the android crisis they were already dealing with.  The conventional wisdom is that they eventually figured out that Gero had a sub-basement, which they raided and discovered the plans for #17, just like in Episode 145.  Bulma uses that information to build a remote control to shut down 17 and 18, and that solves everything. 

Presumably, Piccolo never fuses with Kami in this timeline, because Kami only agreed to merge with Piccolo because of Cell’s presence, which isn’t a factor here.  It’s possible that Goku and Vegeta resolved to train to surpass 17 and 18, but with Bulma’s remote involved, their efforts probably became academic.  

Movie 7 could function as an epilogue to this untold version of the story, since it features all the main characters just going about their business as if 17 and 18 were already defeated.  They don’t have to fool with Cell, because this timeline doesn’t get a visit from a future version of Cell.    And we never see Super Saiyan Gohan or Vegeta and Trunks in their beefy new “ascended” forms because they never went in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber.  There’s a few other details to sort out, but I’ll save that for another time.  

So why does Timeline C matter if it was never directly shown in the manga or anime?   Well, you see, we need it to set up...

Timeline D: The Cell Origin Timeline (Depicted in DBZ Episodes 1-118, History of Trunks TV Special, Flashbacks in DBZ Episodes 143, 164, and 190)

The other timelines each have their own version of Cell, but this is the only one that matters, because this version is the only one that survives long enough to fulfill his programming and achieve his perfect form. 

Most of what we know about this timeline comes from Cell explaining his backstory to Piccolo in DBZ Episode 143.  He lived in a world just like the one Future Trunks came from, only he’s from a few years later, after 17 and 18 have been destroyed.  So he eventually learned about the time machine and stole it, killing Trunks in the process.   Then Cell went back in time, entering Timeline A, and you know the rest.  

In other words, this timeline is almost exactly like Timeline B, where Future Trunks is from.   The difference is that in Timeline B, Trunks found out about Cell ambushing him in advance, so when the time came, he was ready for him, as seen in DBZ #194.   So that’s the difference between B and D.   In one, Trunks wins, and in the other, Cell wins. 

But it’s not quite that simple.   The only reason Trunks-B was prepared was because of his adventures in Timeline A.   Trunks-D had a similar time travel adventure, but it couldn’t have been in Timeline A, or he would have met Cell there and known to watch his neck later. 

And that’s why we need Timeline C, a timeline where this version of Trunks could visit and change to defeat the androids, but with no Cell in it for him to warn him about the ambush waiting for him back home.  It never gets shown in the official material because it would just be a less exciting version of Timeline A. 

This is also why I think Dragon Team used a remote to defeat 17 and 18 in Timeline C.  If they had trained and won through brute strength, then Trunks-D would have been a lot stronger, and he probably would have stood a chance against an ambush by Imperfect Cell.   But whenever we see the flashbacks of his death, it looks like Cell kills him with ease.   In this version of events, Trunks used technology to thwart 17 and 18, but the remote would be useless against Cell. 

The reason we see so little of this timeline is because Cell is literally the only major character left from that world. All of the Z-Fighters and androids are dead.  Trunks is dead because Cell ate him.  Bulma may have survived, but for all we know Cell had her for dessert.  Then Cell went to Timeline A and died himself.  So Timeline D may have finally found peace, but at great cost.

And yeah, I think that about wraps this up.   Now that I’ve gone through it again, I realize it’s pretty much just how I remembered from the last time I thought about it.   Stay tuned for some Movie 7 overanalysis, and remember: Fuck the Zamasu Saga forever.

[tiggymalvern]

Eight shows to get to know me, tagged by @dreamerinsilico. Only the first couple are in any sort of rational order. 1. Blake's 7. The original disaster crew, in which Blake the idealist wants to take down the fascist dictatorship. Unfortunately he's stuck on a spaceship with a bunch of accidental randos, only some of whom are idealists. The rest of them just want enough money to go and live somewhere the government won't bug them. I was a few weeks short of seven when I started watching it (yes, that was too young) and eleven when it ended. It was the first TV I saw where bad things happened to the protagonists, where they died and it made one hell of an impression. (Also, Servalan gave me the first inklings I was bi.) Since the BBC didn't broadcast a repeat, I didn't see it again until I was nineteen and it got a release on video tape. And it was SO MUCH BETTER even than I'd remembered. All the nuances, all the moral quandries had completely passed me by as a kid. What might you have to do to take down a fascist dictatorship? Where do you draw the line on justifying collateral damage? Then I discovered that there was a fandom for this show, that people wrote fanfics and published them in zines, and the university intranet (there was no internet) had message boards where people TALKED about it. It's not an overstatement to say that it changed the course of my entire life. This show is also probably responsible for my lifelong love of morally grey protagonists who snark at each other. So, that one got long, it always does. Shorter from now on, I promise! (Okay, maybe not that much shorter. How everyone else managed to do this meme without going off about their obsessions, I have no idea.) 2. Due South. My first slash fandom, illustrating my other recurrent fannish addiction, besides the snarky disaster crew - the two people who are odd, who are loners (or who socialise, but have acquaintances, not friends) and then they meet each other and they just fit 💗💗💗 And let's be honest, those two people were usually two men, because of the misogynistic writing for TV shows. 3. Burn Notice. My current snarky disaster crew obsession :-))) 4. Hannibal. Trope number two, the loners who fit, put together in one of the best, most complex TV shows ever written. It doesn't just happen to push my buttons, it's also objectively, amazingly good. The first time you watch it, you love Will Graham and want to squish him and protect him, and then slowly you find out more and more. And then you go back for the first rewatch and you realise that it was there, all the time, so many hints, but it was so carefully done that you just didn't see it. (I have stated before and will again that season two of Hannibal is probably the best single season of any TV show I have ever seen.) 5. Black Sails. Another snarky disaster crew, in which practically everyone is queer (SO many bisexuals, yay!). The first season is not what it became, because the writers started carefully with an action show about pirates chasing gold. And with that success, from season two, they were free to write the show they wanted. A show about idealism and love and rage at the world, in which every character is so well written that each time alliances shift and enemies become friends or friends betray each other, it's justified and it makes sense in terms of their motivations and who they are. 6. Deep Space Nine. The Trek series that changed the franchise. Arc plot! Morally grey characters, hello Garak! A Federation captain who says to hell with the rules, I'm doing what seems right at the time :-) 7. Trigun. I wondered whether to put this one in because I prefer the manga to the anime (the manga's longer, with more complexity, especially in Vash). But it's weird loners who instantly click perfection, with the added twist that one of them was put there to betray the other from the start, and then he can't and the angst is off the scale. 8. Farscape. A snarky disaster crew with the amazing bonus of Aeryn Sun, one of those rare at the time female characters who was as amazing and well written as any of the males. (I haven't watched Farscape in many years. I probably should, I wonder how it's held up?)

As usual, tag yourself if you wish to play :-)

[moodywyrm]

that’s good!! are you making anything rn or just practicing? :o god!!! the jewelry and ribbon sections are so fun!!! i love standing there and just staring at everything it’s all so sparkly and pretty

yess 🤭 i spent some of it on new books even though i haven’t even started my other 2 😞 and i know!! i was so ugh >:( but he is!! he’s there rn because i was at work and i’m about to go grocery shopping, my neighbor said he’s still getting used to everything but he’s doing well :o

omg!! i want to get my dog’s ears tattooed but i can’t decide where 💔 and i think they are but i’m getting mine on my upper back/spine, and when i talked about it w/ my tattoo artist he said it won’t hurt as much as a regular spine tattoo?

my day was good!! i had to go into work early today again which was awful bc of my sleep problems 😞 but they let me off early!! and like i said i’m about to go grocery shopping,, my gf is making my favorite dinner tonight :) nd i need to stop by my gf’s friend’s house bc i forgot my purse at the bonfire and haven’t had time to get it back 💔

how’s your day?

- 🩷

it's really fun!! rn im not really working on any specific projects, just practicing the basic stitches! I made squares >:) idk what I'll do with them one day but they're there! and no fr, I love the ribbon and jewelry sections, I love adding lil details to my clothes and accessories! I actually wanna make new boot charms

that's so real, my physical tbr this year started at like 60 books ,,, I have a problem but I do get buying more books before you've finished the ones you have kjdjsld and binx!! the lil guy!! im glad he's doing well!! happy lil guy <3

same!! I have a lot of trouble thinking of placements for small tattoos? it's so much easier to imagine a larger tattoo? and that's good!! maybe it's just lower/mid spine that hurts? which I guess would make sense, I feel like you're closer to the bone there

oh honeybee :( it's good that they let you off early!! I have a love/hate relationship with grocery shopping but your favorite dinner!! I hope it was yummy!! rip I hope you got your purse back skfjh

yesterday was good!! i just did some chores around the house, listened to an entire audiobook and practiced crochet!! I've been in a very big audiobook mood so I've finished like three in the last seven days? and I started another one this morning? wild! but rn im taking a break to rewatch the first two seasons of only murders in the building so my sister and I can watch the new season together! very sleep though, the coffee is not hitting me :(

how was your day?

[alightinthelantern]

I rewatched the 2014 film Timbuktu by Abderrahmane Sissako today, which I haven’t seen since 2015. Fantastic film, it was just as good as I remembered it being.

The film centers on the brief occupation of Timbuktu, Mali in 2012 by Ansar Dine, a jihadist extremist group. The group installs an extreme version of Sharia law in the town, requiring women to wear gloves and veils, forbidding music and soccer, forbidding unmarried men and women to congregate, and many more rules are put in place. Residing outside the city limits and thus in a state where the rules don’t fully apply to him is Kidane, a nomad and cattleherder, along with his wife Satima and daughter Toya, as well as Issan, an orphan son of friends. They live a simple life, residing in a tent in the desert, playing music in the evenings, with Issan looking after the cows during the day.

When Issan drives the cattle to the river to drink, one escapes and heads toward the nets of Amadou, a fisherman. Amadou throws a spear and kills the cow, and Kidane takes a gun with him to confront him. Their argument turns physical, and Amadou tries drowning Kidane in the river, who shoots him in self-defense. Kidane flees, but the body is discovered by the jihadists, who apprehend Kidane and arrest him. After he tells them he has seven cows, they tell him he must pay 40 cows to Amadou’s family or be put to death. Kidane accepts his fate, remarking that his only regret is leaving his daughter behind without a protector.

Throughout the film are many strong women in bit parts, including one young woman who is arrested for being in a house with men and for playing music with them, credited in the film’s end credits simply as la chanteuse, the singer. A woman who works as a fishmonger repudiates the ridiculous requirement for wearing gloves and is arrested, along with many other women throughout the occupation. The only woman who seems to be above the rules is Zabou, a witch from Haiti who openly taunts the jihadists, and frightens them away from her.

Throughout the film the viewer roots for Kidane, hoping against hope that he’ll be freed somehow and return to his family, but at the same time knowing that it can’t happen, that the jihadists won’t spare him when they are imprisoning townspeople for far lesser crimes. At one point in the film an “adulturous” couple (an unmarried man and woman who were alone together) are even stoned to death, inspired by a real incident that took place in 2012 in Aguelhok, Mali.

Artistically, and to his credit, Sissaki portrays the jihadists as real people, with foibles of their own. Some of the jihadists spend their off hours arguing about soccer players, a haram sport, and it’s an open secret that the leader of the group smokes. After a man is given 20 lashes for owning a soccer ball, the town boys gather to play soccer in the desert without a ball, in a beautiful sequence. Another beautiful scene involves the stoning of the unmarried couple, which cuts away to one jihadist who performs a balletic dance as a form of spiritual ablution, as Zabou the witch watches (and, possibly, pleasures herself(?)).

The film is one of transcendent cinematographic beauty, of a powerful story told extremely well. I can’t recommend it highly enough for lovers for cinema.

[phoenixes-and-wizards]

little things i never want to forget about the hargreeves:

all of them used to defy their father, sneak out to griddy’s, and in five’s own words “eat donuts until we puked. simpler times, eh?”

luther wrote poetry while he was on the moon, especially about comets

tom hopper and the UA crew have said that the scratches all over luther’s body were made by him. he couldn’t stand the loneliness, especially during that first year, and would often resort to harming himself as a way to vent his frustration

it’s also pretty likely that he's had body dysmorphia at one point or another

he also has a habit of stress eating

diego almost became a detective, but he dropped out because he wasn't good at following orders. he even went to police academy!!!

diego has the cross stitch grace made specifically for him on the wall of his basement apartment, and in a frame no less

he’s also a big-ass momma’s boy

and he’s the only one grace calls “silly” as a term of endearment

and he has a fear of needles due to getting that tattoo when they were kids (y’all know which one i’m talking about)

plus his stutter only comes out when he's under extreme emotional stress

and a close rewatch of 1X03 shows that his bedroom had an overflowing abundance of books so what if him and ben used to bond over that😭

allison speaks seven languages

she told her daughter about her siblings, and claire obviously knew them well enough that she was calling them "uncle” and “aunty,” and that last one is especially heartwarming because this was around the time that vanya’s book had just come out, and yet, allison--who has the option of never telling claire about her--still does, and even explains why she wasn’t allowed to go on missions

klaus was smoking blunts at fourteen

klaus was clutching dave’s dogtags right before five teleported all of them to the past

and i’ve noticed that he has a habit of doing that in general in season 2, especially when he’s feeling kind-of low, but sometimes it’s also an unconscious habit and that’s cute, too

klaus would write the things the dead would say to him, all over his bedroom wall

klaus has a habit of going barefoot whenever he’s at home

five was the only person vanya felt comfortable enough with to present new violin pieces to

five outright says that everything he’s done so far was to get back to his family and keep them safe

@me-evil-never​ wrote in the tags: “five has watched his family die/be dead like 3 times if i’m counting correctly (YES YOU ARE AND IT’S A PAINFUL FACT WE MUST ALL LIVE WITH), plus all he has ever done in his life since age 13 was to get back to them so he could spend time safely with them” and YES I AGREE why would you hide such an excellent point in the tags because, sometimes, even i forget that it’s only been two weeks for him, and they’re probably the roughest he’s had since being stuck in the apocalypse as an actual child, and idk about you guys, but i just really want to give five a big hug because lord knows he deserves needs it

allison used to paint klaus' nails during meals

and was apparently a daddy’s girl, though how one could become a “daddy’s girl” if the father in question was reginald hargreeves is beyond my capacity to understand

ben was reading chekhov as early as 14

ben was a bookworm, both in life and death

vanya had the smallest room

vanya openly called ben the kindest of their siblings in her book, and said that when he died, none of them had any more reason to stay

before he left, diego gave reggie a piece of his mind

all of them know how to dance

they all know how to speak and read greek (ancient fucking greek, as one of you oh-so-eloquently put it)

vanya knows how to speak russian and god knows how many other languages

(by this point i'm really convinced they're all multilingual and there just hasn't been an opportunity for them to utilize that yet)

she also has a mr. snuggles teddy bear

according to klaus, vanya used to cry when the others would step on ants as kids

klaus is pansexual

he also dated twins once (though i’m not sure if he dated one then the other or both at the exact same time)

and has mild claustrophobia from being locked up in mausoleums all the time as a child

diego swore a pinky promise with lila and called it “the pinkiest promise” he’d ever make, and even though he’s a hard-ass who won’t hesitate to cut anybody in half, he’s still at his gentlest when he’s around her and he doesn’t even try to hide it

off her meds, vanya got first chair and a solo on her first try (as a violinist in a professional orchestra, lemme tell you that this is no easy feat to do)

she also seemed to have an affinity for bach (again--not easy!!)

even though he was barely starting puberty, ben was smart enough to reprogram allison's teddy bear to say "luther smells dad's underwear."

upon possessing klaus for a few minutes in season 2, ben could be seen clutching various flowers and smelling them repeatedly

klaus can actually levitate in the comics

according to @valkerymillenia, ghost!ben once saved klaus' life in the comics after he overdosed on heroin yet again

both klaus and diego repeatedly tried to open the lock to vanya's old anechoic chamber and were absolutely furious when luther wouldn't let them

diego called elliott "one of ours" despite knowing him for all of a week and a half

he also calls herb “herbie,” calmed him down after accidentally drawing a weapon on him, and created a secret handshake with him, all within two hours tops of meeting him

if one really thinks about it, diego is actually good with people? and that makes sense because he left the academy as early as seventeen, and he would’ve had to talk to a lot of people just to make ends meet that first year alone, and even though reggie tried to squash that part of him down, he’s still a good person at heart, you go prince of pointy things, make us all proud

[fighterkimburgess]

Trash Pandas

Summary: When they move into the new house, Makayla and Adam have a secret that they know Kim isn’t going to be happy about. But they’re her friends, so Adam helps keep her new raccoon buddies a secret.

For Burzek Appreciation Week Day 2 - What did you do this time?

Words: 1.4k

Warnings: none

—

If questioned, Adam would swear that he didn’t know how any of this happened. He would swear on his father’s non existent grave - on Al’s all too real one - that he wasn’t sure how any of this had happened.

Because Adam Ruzek was in a grocery store at six thirty, ignoring the calls from his girlfriend while he bought forty hot dogs.

In his defence, it was one of the things that he and Makayla had bonded over since they’d moved to the house. She’d read a book about raccoons and kept drawing them, insisting they were cute. On the long summer evenings they’d talked about them and she’d insisted that she wanted to learn about them. So when they discovered that there were some living in the back yard she wanted to be friends with them.

Adam knew he should have said no, he knew he should have insisted that it was a really bad idea. But when Makayla smiled with the gap toothed grin and her brown eyes shone, what else was he supposed to do?

So he ignored Kim’s every few nights rant about “there’s trash pandas living in our yard, Adam, we need to get rid of them!”, instead going outside every couple of nights with Makayla to feed them. She’d even named each of them, insisting that they needed R names “because they live at the Ruzek house and they’re raccoons!”

His reminder that more than half of their household was Burgesses fell on deaf ears.

It took Mack a couple of days to decide the names of each of the raccoons, and some quick thinking on Adam’s part to decide there were two boys and two girls to save learning how to tell if a raccoon is a boy or a girl. There was Renee (thanks to the actress from Hamilton, Makayla’s latest musical obsession), Ramona (named after the Ramona Quimby novels that he and Kim had been reading to her), Rodney (that he thought she got from his rewatch of Only Fools and Horses on BritBox), and Robert (unfortunately named after his dad).

It was the one secret that he insisted to Mack they needed to keep from Kim. That entire conversation was complicated, punctuated by him taking photos of Rodney sitting on the porch swing beside Mack and eating his hot dog. That was the only visual reminder of the entire conversation they kept.

“I know we say that you shouldn’t keep secrets from me and your mom, but you need to keep this secret from Kim, ok? If anyone else ever asks you to keep a secret we need you to tell us, but this time only you have to keep this to yourself.”

“Why can’t I tell Kim? Won’t she want to meet them? Mom always wants to meet all of my friends.” It was said with all the innocence of a seven year old, an ecstatic grin on her face as she threw another one to Renee.

“I mean I’ve met them.” She nodded at that, Adam looking across at her. “But if Kim finds out she’ll want them to find a new place to live. So we need to be quiet about it, and you need to be careful to make sure you don’t get hurt because they’re wild animals.”

“Ok.”

And it was an easy secret to keep. Makayla giggled outside with them, washing her hands and arms carefully after each time she spent time with them to make sure she stayed clean and safe. Most of the pictures she drew were of the four raccoons. Kim thought they were because of her weekly complaints about “why do they need to live in our yard”, not because of Makayla’s love of the strange, weird creatures. He thought it was fine. That he could keep it quiet until the gaze of raccoons inevitably left their yard and moved on to somewhere with a better variety of food.

He should have known that wouldn’t happen.

Makayla had been upset when Adam arrived home, frustrated that he was home later than he was supposed to be and why wasn’t he there. As soon as she saw him she began to calm, curling up in his arms on the couch while she did. She’d been better about slight changes to routine, but it was a tough day at school and she needed the reminder that he was there for her. Once she was calm she got into pjs and came outside to have their story and unwind. Which was when everything fell apart.

Generally Kim left them alone when they were outside, but today was the exception. It was entirely his fault, he’d left the contents of the grocery bag visible and shed come outside to ask him about it.

“Adam? What did you do this time? Why are there four packets of…MAKAYLA WARD BURGESS WHY ARE YOU HUGGING A RACCOON?”

The four startled at her appearance, Ramona grabbing a final hotdog out of Makayla’s fingers before scurrying away. The three human inhabitants of the lot were left staring at each other in silence.

“Makayla, wash your hands and go to bed. Right now.” Kim’s voice was quiet and serious, Adam fully aware of just how angry his girlfriend was when she became just that quiet. To her credit Makayla went straight away, nodding at Kim and mouthing “sorry” to Adam, who gave her a small smile while they waited for her to leave. Once she was gone Kim’s full attention was turned to him, and he felt a rush of pity for the poor perps who’d had to face down his girlfriend in the box.

“What the fuck, Adam? How could you do this? It’s a health hazard, they’re incredibly dangerous, and you just let her go and play with them? And hold them? What if she ends up with rabies for them or something worse? It’s so irresponsible and stupid and—“

“Hey. Kim, I know you’re annoyed, but please don’t start acting like I’m an idiot and don’t know what I’m doing. Sit down, take a breath, and let me explain what’s happening?”

Kim sat opposite him, taking an exaggerated breath that made Adam want to laugh. Instead he kept his face straight, swallowing once before speaking.

“Makayla befriended them anyway. I came outside one evening and she was playing with them, and I knew immediately it’s’ not a good idea. But our genius, brilliant daughter has decided to name and train the raccoons who live in our back yard. They’re Renee, Ramona, Rodney, and Robert. She told me she named one after Disco Bob, how could I get mad?” Kim’s face began to soften and he went in for the kill. “She’s taught them how to wait for their food, and she’ll sit and cuddle with them. I have a really cute photo of her with them, two of them fell asleep on her. She’s never been bitten, and if she has any scratches she knows the rule is she’s not allowed to touch them. Its not safe, but we’ve mitigated the risks as much as we can. Plus, she loves spending time with them and they make her smile.”

He pulled out his phone and brought up the picture of Makayla sitting on the swing, two raccoons asleep on her legs and one in each of her arms. The smile that could light up the world was clearly visible.

“She’s really happy around them?”

“She even asked me what she needs to do in school to become a vet thanks to them. She loves them.”

It was quiet for a moment, Kim’s hand linking with his and squeezing gently, relaxing into him and laying her head against his shoulder.

“We need to make sure that she knows all of the risks, and at least one of us is there with her at all times. Deal?”

“Deal.”

The next morning when Makayla discovered that Kim was ok with her playing with the raccoons, there was no force on earth that could handle the excitement. And when they began birthday party planning that afternoon, both her parents should have realised that the theme was going to be raccoons.

Burzek Taglist: @aruzlover @haiileyshalstead @morganupstead @adamruz @fullwattpadmusictree @redpoodlern @everythingaddictxx @write4life13 @jeanjacketjesus @tuxieboy101-blog @thelittlepterophyllum @planecrazylex @sophiatellerrhodes @ossypooh @kimburgess-ruzek @thestarrynightslover @reidskitty13 @etamne @torreshalstead @itsnotpersonalbut @kellykidd @dedlund82 @pinkwhitebrown @mmacke3613 @upsteadlovingheart @ittybitty-tittycommittee @takemetooneverlanddd @oracle23 @thedefinitionofendgame @headlightsatmidnight @butterflylies @afriendlyneighborhoodhufflepuff @withakindheartx @bebataylor84 @whoiamwhoistrivetobe @multicouple-lover @keenmarvellover @daniellexoc3

[empress-of-snark]

Finally finished with my Castle rewatch (including the last three seasons, which I’d never seen)! And y’all know how much I love making bulleted lists about my thoughts on tv shows, so here’s me being very on-brand by making another one (mostly about the later seasons).

-Overall, I think the show was definitely strongest in its first four/five seasons or so. I won’t say that they lost the spark entirely as soon as Castle and Beckett got together, but it definitely started to dim, and once they got engaged/married, it only dimmed further

-That’s not to say they shouldn’t have ever gotten together, just that shows which rely on the will-they-won’t-they tension of their main couple have an expiration date, and that date is not long after the couple becomes official

-The whole fake separation/secretly-dating-while-married nonsense in season eight was a transparent attempt to recapture the fire from the early seasons and it didn’t work or make any sense

-Later seasons subplots were a little contrived (LokSat, Castle’s disappearance, the PI agency, etc, etc) but I liked the addition of Hayley to the cast—she was a lot of fun and helped save the last season from being semi-unwatchable

-I think they should’ve given more screen time to the secondary characters near the end—Esposito, Ryan, Lanie, Alexis, and Martha are some of the best parts of the show and it felt like they got a little sidelined (especially Martha)

-Lastly, the finale. WOW. First forty or so minutes were pretty good, but that last scene was laughably awful. The abrupt transition from ‘Castle and Beckett bleeding out from gunshot wounds’ to ‘seven years later, Castle and Beckett happily married with three kids (a sequence which literally lasts ten seconds)’ was horrendous. It could not have been more obvious that they were not expecting to be canceled

Overall, it was a fun rewatch, but if I ever do it again, I’ll take a page out of my best friend’s book and stop around season five.

[rivalsforlife]

Phoenix Wright: The Truth Reborn: Oh No We’re Doing This Again

hi.

Nearly two months ago, I wrote an essay summarizing and making very wild conclusions about the second Takarazuka Musical. I did this about two and a half years after watching the first Takarazuka musical. As such I did not have the full context for many things from the musical and was relying mostly on my memory, which blocked many things from this musical for my own safety. However, just this week, I decided to rewatch it, because I enjoy tormenting myself. I said I wouldn’t write anything on it. Here I am writing something on it.

Here’s the youtube thumbnail so that you know what you’re getting yourself into. And here, of course, is the link. This is the HD version which may be slightly more pleasant to watch. Maybe.

It was not quite as cringe in a funny way as the second musical to me, and therefore this essay may be less funny, but I feel like I’m doing a disservice to people by providing a summary of the second musical while completely neglecting the first. Quite possibly doing this is even more of a disservice. I just eagerly await the day that the third musical is translated because *that* will be the day that I finally shuffle off this mortal coil. Either way, I want to write this stuff down so that I never have to watch the musical again out of curiosity.

The following essay will contain major spoilers for both the first and second Phoenix Wright Takarazuka musicals, as I will be using many points from this musical to argue my thesis of the second musical. ... like you were going to watch them anyways. 

This one broke 8k. I’m dead inside.

Introducing The Director

Again another disclaimer that I don’t have anything against the actresses or the theatre troupe. I DO have something against Suzuki Kei, who I recently learned is the writer and director of all three of the Ace Attorney Takarazuka musicals, and is quite possibly my mortal nemesis.

This man is the one who brought this monstrosity into the world.

This man, allegedly, cleared the first four ace attorney games *seven times* before sitting down to write these musicals. He played these goddamn games seven times and did not take in a single word. The man clicked through them mindlessly while watching a badly written legal romance drama in the background and got them completely confused. I genuinely have no idea how this man could have played these games more times than even me and yet managed to get so many characters (MAYA!!!!) completely and utterly wrong. This haunts me every day, truly.

This man played Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Justice for All, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Trials and Tribulations, and Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney seven times. SEVEN TIMES EACH!! and was told to create a musical based on the series. He played these games seven times each and you know what he said?? You know what he said?? “This sucks, I’m getting rid of all of Phoenix’s backstory, butchering half the characters, and writing Phoenix/Lana fanfiction, but also rewriting all of Lana’s backstory so that she was Phoenix’s childhood friend, and you know what, I’m changing her name for good measure.”

I think this man played the games seven times each and then hated it so much and was so sick of it he tried to write something that destroyed as much of the series as possible while still being vaguely recognizable. And then somehow it became a massive hit because people like me see this and go “what the actual hell” and watch it, or people who haven’t played the games see this and go “wow what a great musical!” and then he wrote TWO MORE, destroying EVEN MORE every time in his wake, until finally, finally, he stopped after making Edgeworth straight and time traveling into the past to face off against a corrupt Gregory. I guess that was the last straw.

I have to issue a disclaimer here that for legal reasons this is a joke. I don’t actually hate this man and would not punch him in the face if I met him because that would be rude, and he is entitled to his wrong interpretation of the games. I don’t know what his thought process was. But allegedly he did play the games seven times according to the wiki. This whole essay here is satire and not slander and I don’t want to offend this guy if he somehow stumbles across my nonsense tumblr post. At the same time: Suzuki Kei blink twice if you need help.

Anyways half the reason that I’m making this essay is because I want to share my fake ao3 page for this musical. The other half will become apparent later.

Sorry if that’s illegible because of tumblr quality it’s not really important. All you really need to know is that it’s a fake ao3 screenshot for the musical. Also in the author’s note I said he played the games four times but it was actually seven I just remembered wrong because I didn’t want to believe it.

at this point you may be like “Grace shut up and get to the actual musical” and okay, fine, let’s start this nonsense. Also note that I may be referencing things from my essay on the second musical very frequently; I’m not going to force you to go read that though because the fact that you’re reading this is enough of a torment already.

The Musical Begins

Unlike the second musical, this one opens with some narration from Phoenix.

Transcript:

Phoenix: I’m reviewing a particular case at the moment. To me, this case... is one I’ll never forget.

Immediately I think this is important because it establishes that this whole musical takes place in a flashback that Phoenix is reflecting on. Why is this important? Because we know, by the time of the second musical which takes place three years later, Leona is dead.

Knowing that Leona is inherently doomed to die of her Sad Woman Disease paints this whole musical in a different light. It’s not Phoenix reflecting on how he got back together with his lover; it’s Phoenix dwelling on their past together, and the opportunities they had, before her life was so cruelly and inexplicably taken away. We don’t know if Phoenix’s reminiscing takes place before or after Leona’s death... but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was after.

Phoenix, still in the present, starts to sing. “A wave appears on the horizon like a mirage, it trembles, then vanishes. Your voice, carried upon the waves, fades upon the shore, erasing the splendor of the past.”

This line actually shows up in the second musical, sung by Lucia about her imprisoned fiance quite possibly. It’s kind of hard to tell what the meaning of these songs even are. They’re too abstract for me I think. But this line appears very frequently in the first musical when Phoenix is thinking about Leona.

Then we enter the flashback time.

Phoenix inexplicably yells at a newspaper saleswoman. This is not relevant to anything whatsoever. Then Larry barges in to the office, looking for Maya. Phoenix describes him as “A real trouble maker, but you just can’t hate the guy”, the latter part of which I think many people would disagree with. 

Well, afterwards, Maya comes in. Phoenix describes her like this while making exaggerated “can you believe this shit” gestures.

Transcript:

Phoenix: She’s as ditzy as they come. Oh, and about the outfit... Apparently she comes from a family of spirit mediums. Try not to make fun of her, okay?

Suzuki Kei personally has it out for Maya and I can never forgive him for it. Maya in these musicals is here for pure comedic relief but it’s not even comedic because I just get so angry. How can you play the trilogy seven times and think this about her?? The girl who figured out DL-6?? The girl who told Phoenix to sacrifice her life in order to find the truth?? The girl who put on a brave smile in order to try and cheer up her younger cousin even after she saw her own mother murdered right in front of her eyes?? That Maya Fey?? Ditzy as they come??????

Ugh. Moving on.

Maya and Larry run off, leaving Phoenix to watch the American Broadcast.

Important things to note here are the Godot mug, the little line up of what I think are the messed up little ace attorney figurines beneath the screen, and the fact that while this broadcast is supposedly from and to America the screen is actually not at all showing America. Like literally almost everywhere in the world except North and South America.

The broadcast says that Leona Clyde, age 24, was arrested for murdering the senator Robert Cole! Leona Clyde -- that’s Phoenix’s ex-girlfriend! He runs off to the detention center.

She is not happy to see him.

Leona: Mr. Wright... I’m not the woman you once knew.

Let’s Play A Matching Game

Sorry for the abundance of screenshots that are going to be throughout this section. Phoenix convinces Leona to let him defend her. Some of the conversation seems... familiar.

Leona: No one would defend someone who admits to killing a senator. I’m waiting for a court-appointed attorney.

Edgeworth: Every defense attorney I’ve talked to has turned me down.

Phoenix: In that case, let me defend you.

Game Phoenix: Let me defend you.

Leona: Don’t be ridiculous!

Edgeworth: Don’t be ridiculous.

Phoenix: I’ll never accept that you’re a murderer. Let me prove your innocence!

Game Phoenix: Huh? Isn’t it obvious? I’m going to prove that Miles Edgeworth is innocent.

Leona: I’ve already confessed my guilt.

Gumshoe: He confessed that he did it! In court!

Leona: It’s foolish to think you can win this case.

Edgeworth: My case is near hopeless, Wright.

Leona: (in response to phoenix offering to defend her) No you won’t! Don’t ever come here again.

Edgeworth: Look, just go away, and leave me alone!

Phoenix: You of all people should know. Once I decide to do something, I see it through to the end.

Edgeworth: Once you start on something, you always see it through, don’t you?

Leona: I never thought that you’d be representing me.

Phoenix: Ah, who could have guessed this day would come?

Edgeworth: Not me.

Phoenix: You believed in me. You saved me. And this time, I swear... I swear I’ll save you!

Game Phoenix: Edgeworth believed in me, and I believe in him. I’m the only one who knows the real Edgeworth. I’m the only one who can help him.

I could’ve done a few more, but tumblr is already threatening to murder my laptop.

So long story short, Phoenix manages to convince his lover to let him be the defense on the case. Then immediately after swearing to save Leona, he starts singing a song, which I’m not screencapping because this is enough:

“As long as there are people in this world, there’s only one path I will follow! As long as there is love in this world, there’s only one path I will believe in!”

Edgeworth sings this in the second musical after saying that he returned to California because of Phoenix. Phoenix sings it now after swearing to defend Leona. You draw your own conclusions.

And then we finally get the opening credits. Eleven minutes in.

Just Pretend This Is Narumitsu Fanfiction

Following the credits, we see a beautiful beach. Couples (exclusively heterosexual, of course,) dance and embrace in the background for some time, before revealing Phoenix and Leona, in the Even Further Past, before the LSATs or whatever the ace attorney universe’s excuse for law school exams are.

Phoenix establishes his absolute hatred of change, an important characterization moment.

Phoenix: The view here never changes, huh?

Phoenix reminisces on when they were kids. Leona’s parents were both lawyers (they’re both lawyers) and sometimes they would be like lawyers with her when she was a kid. This inspired her to also become a lawyer after their tragic death of Sickness. They never specify what the sickness is that caused two people who must be relatively young to die while Leona was in her early twenties at the latest. It may be whatever sickness claimed Leona’s life later. Sad Woman Disease. (Sad Man Disease for her father, I guess?)

Phoenix also talks about why he’s becoming a lawyer.

Phoenix: Watching you chase your dream inspired me to become a lawyer too.

So, it’s not “my childhood friend looked sad in a newspaper” because I guess that makes no sense or is too gay or something. But this is another important piece of Phoenix characterization. His entire life so far has been focused around Leona. They’ve been friends since they were kids, and then Phoenix decided to become a lawyer solely because Leona was becoming a lawyer. Not even to try and get back into contact with her after she moved away or anything; just because he’s so obsessed with her that he wants to have the same career as her, then they can run a Mom & Pop Law Firm or something, years in the future, after years of happy marriage and a few children or like whatever the hell.

Well, there’s a few steps they’ll need to get to that. At this point Phoenix still hasn’t confessed his feelings for Leona. He does so here, on this beach.

Leona tries to protest.

Leona: But I’m pushy, selfish, and only care about my goals... You’d get fed up with me.

Phoenix: That’s what I’ve always admired about you. That’s who I’ve been chasing all these years. That’s the only person... I love.

Sooo, Phoenix, your type is pushy selfish people who only care about their goals...? In the first, older lower-quality video translation it was “only care about my work”, too. Hm. Things to think about.

They sing a little duet together. Then we go back to present-day of what’s technically still a flashback. Whatever. Murder is happening.

Back To The Murder

So some plot things to establish: Leona is the legal counsel of Governor Miller, who is running for president in the AMERICAN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. After the flashback so that Phoenix has some time to change clothes, they show an interview of him talking about the murder.

Governor Miller: I vow to forge a peaceful country with my own two hands, and to prepare myself for whatever may lie ahead.

Reporters: Through thick and thin, he’s a friend of the people!

The Takarazuka musicals are not very good at hiding their killers.

Phoenix: Oh yeah... It’s almost time for the presidential election, isn’t it?

NEVER FORGET, WRIGHT. THIS IS AMERICA. LAND OF THE FREE! god what even was that line.

Anyways, we meet Gumshoe, who is incompetent once again. Maya runs around the crime scene, picks up the murder weapon, puts her fingerprints all over everything, moves things around, all while Phoenix is like “lol get a load of the world’s stupidest girl” or whatever. But who cares about that.

It’s time to get to the only valid part of this musical.

Edgeworth’s Gay Little Villain Solo

You may have seen this one before.

Edgeworth arrives, but not really. It’s like Phoenix heard Edgeworth was prosecuting and immediately entered a dream-like state, where Edgeworth is heralded by the sound of trumpets in Great Revival. He’s played by a different actress than in the other two musicals, since I think she retired in between the six or so months from this musical to the second. She still plays the role well, though, or as well as can be when you’re written in an ace attorney Takarazuka musical.

Shrouded in scarlet solitude... it’s Edgeworth.

Yes, those are six Edgeworths. Yes, they pick Phoenix up and carry him around and dance with him. Yes, it was probably not meant to be at all homoerotic.

He sings a song that’s called “My rule”. I only figured this out later, but it’s loosely based on a “catchphrase” of his in the Japanese version - in game 1 he says something along the lines of “All I can do is get every defendant declared guilty! So I make that my policy.” In DD in his dramatic anime introduction before the trial, he says “I intend to question the defendant with all I have. For that is a part of my creed.” “So I make that my policy” and “For that is a part of my creed”, to my understanding, are both translated from the same line, which I think is like, “sore ga watashi no ruru”, “That is my rule.” (If I’m wrong, please correct me.) In this song he sings about how he’ll reduce all criminals to ash and such, basically talks about his game 1 prosecuting strategy as “my rule”. 

It’s very fun and probably if you want to only watch one number of this musical, it can be this one. It starts about 26:10 in the video I linked.

Once the musical number is done, Phoenix and Edgeworth stare at each other, and the background fades into the courtroom, so court begins. I feel like I should note that Phoenix has not picked up any evidence or talked to any witnesses in this investigation except for Gumshoe, since Maya just moved some things around and then Phoenix had some weird fever dream about Edgeworth which presumably took up the rest of the day.

The Trial, Day 1

Edgeworth: Consider it a prelude to the poignant Greek tragedy that’s about to unfold.

Maya: The real tragedy’s your pompous attitude!

Those are the only screenshots I took of this trial day. Here’s a summary, though:

The trial starts off with Leona confessing, Phoenix says “no I think she’s innocent”, and since ace attorney doesn’t care about the defendant’s wishes he’s allowed to proceed. For some reason Leona lets him do this without complaint. 

Gumshoe is the first witness, he claims to have caught Leona red-handed at the scene of the crime, standing over the corpse. Phoenix tries to claim that since Gumshoe didn’t see Leona committing the crime, he didn’t actually catch her red-handed, to which Edgeworth responds “What do you think being caught red-handed means?” 

Once Gumshoe is dismissed, Lotta takes the stand. She has a photo of the actual moment of the crime, where Leona is holding a knife in the air in front of the victim. 

The Takarazuka musicals like to do this thing where the image is blurry and zoomed out, but then Phoenix will go “I’VE NOTICED A CONTRADICTION” and it zooms in really far as the resolution increases drastically in order to show you the contradiction that is impossible to spot for yourself, because they don’t want people figuring out the mystery in this musical based off of a video game where you have to solve the mystery yourself. Anyways Phoenix zooms in on this photo and sees that there’s blood on Leona’s hand, presumably before she stabbed the victim. How did it get there?

Edgeworth suggests the victim was stabbed multiple times. Phoenix says the autopsy report contradicts that. Edgeworth, uncharacteristically, does not update it to suit his argument. 

Phoenix concludes that this photo is not showing the moment Leona stabbed the victim, but the moment Leona removed the knife! ... Which somehow casts doubt on her having been the one to stab the victim. Because as everyone knows, anyone wanting to kill someone would never remove a knife, it’s not like they’d bleed out faster that way, or anything.

And this whole contradiction is confusing because presumably if the victim was stabbed and then the knife was removed, they’d know that happened, because then the knife would not be found stuck in the victim’s body, since the victim was only stabbed once. So this shouldn’t be news to the prosecution that someone removed the knife after stabbing. But the investigation was headed by the most incompetent version of Gumshoe ever, so. sure. I guess no one knew.

That at least manages to extend the trial another day.

This Totally Has To Be Illegal

After the trial, Phoenix goes to talk to Governor Miller, aka Mr. Totally The Real Killer. Phoenix asks him why he decided to hire Leona as his legal advisor.

Basically, it’s because her parents were both renowned lawyers. Her father was a Chief Prosecutor, and her mother was a defense attorney. ... a prosecutor and a defense attorney couple... who does that remind us of...

Phoenix points out that just because her parents were good lawyers, it doesn’t mean she’d necessarily be one. Miller says that, sure, but she is actually really talented, and her law school marks were spectacular. Phoenix says “WHY WERE YOU LOOKING AT HER LAW SCHOOL MARKS”, like it’s somehow? suspicious? for a government official hiring legal counsel to look at their law school marks?

Apparently it IS suspicious because Governor Miller freaks out and asks if this is an interrogation. Before Phoenix can press much further, he gets a phone call, and leaves Phoenix alone in a big room.

So naturally Phoenix behaves like a fully grown adult running a law firm.

If all he did was sit in the chair, lift up a desk lamp, and poke his finger on a pen, that’s one thing. But then he leans over, OPENS THE GOVERNOR’S DESK DRAWER, and finds a knife that’s just sitting there casually. It looks like a butter knife. It’s not anything major. Maybe the dude just wanted to butter his toast?

I mean I know Phoenix will dig around in stuff whenever in the games, but he has no reason to suspect Governor Miller at all, much less dig through his drawer probably full of confidential government documents to lift up a knife that he thinks is suspicious. It’s not even covered in blood or anything?

Naturally Governor Miller’s assistant comes in just then, and Phoenix puts the knife. in his breast pocket. 

bud. It may look like a butter knife, but putting knives up against your chest is not a great idea. Much less stealing a knife from a governor? 

Well, in his panic, he accidentally knocks over a bunch of books on the desk. The governor’s assistant helps him pick them up, and they find a photo. Look a little familiar?

The photo has the assistant, the victim Robert Cole, Governor Miller, and the victim’s brother who died in an incident two years ago. He’s the “Neil Marshall” of this musical, and he died in what was essentially the SL-9 incident. Same general premise, except it occurred in the courthouse, and the names are different.

AND FINALLY WE REACH THE END OF ACT 1. They do a musical number here which is a weird sort of mashup of the main opening credits song, Edgeworth’s Villain Solo, and the love duet between Phoenix and Leona. They are all such different songs that it sounds a little weird.

ACT 2, FINALLY

The act begins on a sour note with Maya playing with the knife and showing off her characterization, which is one of the most infuriating Maya characterizations you’ll sometimes see around the fandom by people who don’t like Maya.

Maya: Let me whip up my special spirit channeler hamburgers!

sigh.

But then we’re saved (?) by the arrival of EDGEWORTH, who is presumably just here to chat. He asks Phoenix if he’s defending Leona in hopes of winning her back, then says to keep out of it, since it’s a very important case and he can’t understand the gravity of it.

Then Phoenix says this.

Phoenix: Would you be saying that if you were the one on trial? The defendant is in a dark prison, reaching out for hope... Can you imagine the loneliness and sorrow of being ostracized?

CAN YOU IMAGINE IT, EDGEWORTH? CAN YOU IMAGINE IF YOU WERE ON TRIAL AND I WAS THE ONLY ONE WHO WOULD DEFEND YOU AND BELIEVED IN YOUR INNOCENCE??

Edgeworth responds to this by essentially rehashing his speech in Turnabout Sisters about how he needs to find all defendants guilty because he can’t guarantee their innocence and all that. Maya gets upset and leaves so that Phoenix and Edgeworth can talk about their childhood in private.

Phoenix once again complains about how people change since nine years old.

Phoenix then says that he has something Edgeworth doesn’t: the POWER TO BELIEVE! Then Maya comes in and tries to spike Edgeworth’s coffee, so he leaves.

The Class Trial

Phoenix explains a bit about Edgeworth and his backstory to Maya. Namely, the class trial. Phoenix was accused of stealing lunch money, Edgeworth stood up for him, but instead of Larry, Leona stood up for him. I guess Suzuki Kei thought “oh the class trial, if Leona stood up for him, it would be so romantic, because she’s a woman, and he’s a man”, or something like that. 

Edgeworth wanted to become a Great Lawyer Like His Father! But then he turned cold as ice.

Phoenix: His father got too deeply involved in a case... and paid for it with his life. Edgeworth saw him murdered. He was never the same again. I bet he couldn’t forgive the criminal.

Yeah I bet he couldn’t ever forgive the person he thought killed his father all these years, Phoenix. I bet he really hates that person, Phoenix. I bet he has nightmares about that person killing his father or something, Phoenix.

Phoenix: He vanished, then returned without his mercy or compassion. He had become a monster. When he lost his father, he also lost the ability to believe in others.

So like... one of the most chilling things about this musical is that they never actually solve DL-6. This probably roughly takes place 15 years after DL-6, since they were about the same age when the class trial started, and at least Leona is 24 now. The next musical takes place three years from now, and in it, Edgeworth refers to von Karma as his mentor, implying he’s still around and doing things.

So, in addition to everything else going wrong with this musical, DL-6 still happens, but von Karma never frames Edgeworth for it fifteen years later. The statute of limitations runs out, and von Karma forever gets away with his crime. And Edgeworth has no idea.

What changes did they make to DL-6, though, you may ask? I’m desperate to know as well. In the third musical, which I’ve watched because I hate myself but am unable to fully understand because I don’t know much Japanese, there is a scene where Miles flashbacks to DL-6. It’s abstract, but he makes gun-throwing motions at Gregory, followed by a gunshot sound.

Therefore, in this musical’s internal canon, either Miles Edgeworth shot his father, or he believes he did for the rest of his life.

... moving on.

Phoenix: But he still has his humanity. It’s still there, deep down inside!

At least, if nothing else, Phoenix still believes in him. Even this Takarazuka Musical couldn’t touch that.

The Feenie Sweater

Right after this, Larry barges in, and Phoenix leaves him alone with Maya. The musical tries teasing Larry/Maya, but fortunately, Maya’s having none of it.

Maya: You’re barking up the wrong tree.

Props to this musical for not being as bad as it could have been.

After this, the two sit down on the couch, and Maya asks for more gossip on Phoenix and Leona. Larry launches into a story, which turns into a flashback that ends up being narrated by Phoenix halfway through. This one’s about Phoenix and Leona’s relationship.

This is an interesting line in here, “I’ll guide you to the future”, for it loosely referencing the sort of love ballad Phoenix sings with Lucia in the second musical which is about “I’ll take you to that radiant future”, and he later sings to the memory of Leona right around the time of his big spiral into despair.

I’m sorry if you haven’t read my other essay and just said “wait what” to what I just typed.

Leona was getting ready to move to New York to defend the weak “in the big city”. This is rather strange wording because it implies that California does not in fact have a big city. She says some things in her conversation with Phoenix that probably plant some of his later issues.

Leona: This is the first time we’ll be apart since we were kids.

Leona: We promised we’d always be together.

Leona: I’ll be waiting. Waiting for you to come to me.

Haha. Sure would be a shame... if something were to happen... and they wouldn’t be able to be together anymore...

So some dancers wearing black come in and take off their outer jackets, to symbolize the passage of time. They circle around Phoenix and Leona. In this, you can just barely see, Phoenix is wearing a pink sweater beneath his jacket.

“Oh,” I think to myself, “Is that the Feenie sweater? Are they including it here as a reference to the games?”

Then the dancers keep moving.

THAT IS NOT THE FEENIE SWEATER. That is a pink sweater with a sexily drawn woman on it.

This is the other half of the reason why I decided to go through with making this essay. 

This is so incredibly funny to me. Suzuki Kei Who Has Played The Games Seven Times has seen the hand-knit bright pink sweater with a giant red heart on it seven times. The sweater Iris, Phoenix’s girlfriend, lovingly knit for him that he wears all the time even though it is one of the tackiest, cheesiest items of clothing to ever exist. And so, when the costume designers were designing the clothes for College Phoenix Wright, they asked themselves: “Should we include the Feenie sweater?”

and “NO,” someone must have shouted, “NO, we can NOT include the Feenie sweater, it is PINK and it has a HEART on it and it’s TOO GIRLY. Phoenix Wright is a MANLY MAN. He would not EVER wear something PINK with a HEART on it.”

“BUT,” someone else said, “it’s a REFERENCE to the original games, where he DID wear a pink sweater with a heart on it! We MUST include it to pander to the fans!”

“WAIT,” a third person interjected. “I have a BRILLIANT IDEA. We can keep the pink... But to make it VERY CLEAR he is a heterosexual, masculine male... we put a sexy woman on it.”

And Person Three Got A Raise.

Thank god we’re finally halfway done this musical.

We Just Have To Go On With Our Lives Now

There’s plot or something happening. Leona breaks up with Phoenix inexplicably over the phone. Probably because of that freaking sweater. Imagine wearing that. God.

Eventually we go back to Phoenix talking to Leona, and he asks about the Jack Lyon case, which is the rip-off version of the Joe Darke case. Leona is pretty cagey about it, but Phoenix proves that she was there in the gallery that day. Leona refuses to answer, claims again that she killed the victim in her case, and leaves.

This makes Phoenix sad, so he starts singing.

Phoenix: I want to bring you back! I believe in you.

If this sounds familiar, it’s the part where I started absolutely losing my mind in the second musical because this line had never shown up before then, I’d forgotten it was in this musical, and Phoenix was screaming it alone in a red room, so I thought he was like desperately resorting to a necromancy ritual in hopes of bringing Leona back to life.

Instead, this line actually has CONTEXT, though it does just end up enforcing my theory. This is Phoenix mourning what he used to have with Leona, wanting to bring the “old her” back, because he’s devastated that people sometimes change. There are several flashbacks of their college days where he’s wearing his Sexy Woman Sweater. He does succeed in winning her back at the end of this musical. Before she dies, of course.

Phoenix in musical 2 still believes that he can bring back what he used to have with Leona... even beyond death. That’s something affirmed by this musical. I’m very grateful to it for somehow managing to enforce my nonsensical theory.

Doctor Ema

After this, Phoenix returns to his office, and meets with someone new.

That’s right! Only now, halfway through the musical, do we actually get to meet the Ema-equivalent to Leona’s Lana-equivalent. Her name is Monica Clyde. She has little rainbow heart stickers on her briefcase, which is the closest thing this musical has to acknowledging that gay people exist.

But what does this little briefcase contain, you may ask? Scientific investigation tools? No.

A full surgical toolset. Because you never know when someone’ll get sick, or when someone will need an entire operation in front of you. I guess.

So yes, Monica Clyde is not a forensic scientist in training, but a doctor! She decided to become a doctor because of her parents, who passed away of The Sickness, and so became a doctor in order to save lives like theirs.

Once more this has much darker and deeper implications than the musical is even aware of, because Monica is so anxious about treating sick people that she carries a full surgical toolset around with her at all times, scared to lose someone like she lost her parents... and then sometime in the next three years, Leona, her big sister, is going to die.

Of what? The strange Sickness that claimed her parents? A car accident? A botched spur-of-the-moment surgery? Whatever it is, Monica was unable to save her, even when she’d been training her entire life for it.

Monica is not mentioned at all throughout the second musical. It’s as if she does not exist.

Because unlike Ema of Rise From The Ashes, Monica is not at the heart of this story. She is, primarily, a plot device here to make Leona not trust Phoenix so that he can angst about their relationship. 

What a mess this world is.

The Trial, Part 2

Rather than try to prove Leona’s innocence, Phoenix wants to link the current case to not-SL-9, the Jack Lyon case. He does this by showing this picture.

Senator Cole, the victim, is in this picture. His younger brother whose name I’ve forgotten, the victim of not-SL-9, is also in this picture. They are brothers. It is apparently novel that they are in the same picture, and somehow makes their cases linked.

As well, Governor Miller is in the picture. I guess you could say like... Governor Miller’s legal counsel is the defendant, so that’s another link? Even though the Governor would presumably know a Senator, so this isn’t an unusual group. Right now Phoenix has absolutely nothing to prove that these two cases are linked other than “hey, these two victims are brothers”, but apparently it works. So they spend a lot of time talking about not-SL-9, since Leona has confessed to the murder on day 1 and there is absolutely nothing indicating that she can’t be immediately declared guilty.

They hid the fact that Monica was a hostage in this not-SL-9, meaning that some of the case records were forged. Here’s Edgeworth’s reaction when this comes out.

Edgeworth: This is an outrage! I’m the most influential prosecutor in America! There’s nothing I don’t know!

In RFTA, when Edgeworth learns he’d been using forged evidence to give a man the death penalty, he is devastated, his entire worldview is shaken, he sees himself as a monster who could end up becoming horribly corrupt if he isn’t stopped.

Musical Edgeworth goes “I DIDN’T KNOW SOMETHING???”

It’s certainly strange characterization, but I guess Edgeworth is further behind in his character arc than in RFTA, so... ugh. Fine. 

Phoenix calls Monica out as a witness to prove she was involved in the case. This causes Leona to panic, and try to dismiss Phoenix as her attorney, like Lana in RFTA, but Edgeworth interjects to call Monica in anyways. He and Phoenix have a little moment.

Edgeworth: You said to believe in others. I suppose I’ll try believing in you. Try to keep up.

Phoenix: Edgeworth!

So Monica comes to the stand to testify. We get to see this picture of Monica being held hostage, and not-Joe-Darke’s incredible eyeliner.

Lots of it is very similar to the actual RFTA, except instead of the victim being stabbed on the knight with the giant knife, he’s instead stabbed with a regular old knife. Leona still refuses to admit to what really happened, until Edgeworth convinces her to believe in Phoenix.

Edgeworth: Your attorney is a runaway train with a one-track mind. Yet he placed all of his faith in you. Believe in him. You owe him that much.

Leona testifies, and says that when she found the victim, he was stabbed with a scalpel.

Here is where things get weird.

Scalpels Can’t Kill People

So basically earlier in this trial, they talk about how Leona knew that the knife that stabbed the victim was double-edged despite being buried in his chest. The judge questions if this means Leona killed him, but Phoenix is quick to say no, she was searched when she entered the courthouse and couldn’t have concealed a knife.

Yet, Monica was able to bring in her surgical toolkit which contains several sharp knives, scalpels, scissors, etc.

This is the first major contradiction.

Leona continues to say that when she found Monica, and the scalpel stabbed in the victim, she also ran into Governor Miller, who if you haven’t been able to tell yet is the Gant-equivalent of this musical. He offered to help her with the cover-up, etc.

The next bit goes a lot like RFTA. Phoenix accuses Governor Miller, who barges in, says Phoenix has the decisive evidence in his pocket. This is the “butter knife” that Phoenix took from his office when he dug around in confidential documents and stole it for no particular reason. It has Monica’s fingerprints on it! ... And Phoenix’s and Maya’s too probably because they were handling it without gloves, but they don’t mention that part.

Leona cries about how she shouldn’t have trusted Phoenix because he was apparently now blaming Monica, Monica looks terrified, she and Leona have some good sister moments but it’s not as good as it could be if the story was actually about Leona and Monica like how RFTA was about Lana and Ema. But Phoenix has the decisive piece of evidence that can turn this around.

It is this:

Phoenix: Scalpels are made for medical incisions, not stabbings. So how did it stab the victim?

...

...

...

... What?

So like. Yes, scalpels are made for medical incisions. Medical incisions often involve cutting through flesh, very easily. As a result, they are sharp. Extremely sharp. As in: their purpose is literally to stab people, very specifically.

Yes, they’re easier to control, so that surgeons don’t regularly stab people how they’re not supposed to be stabbed, but it’s not like, impossible to stab someone in a killing way with a scalpel? Admittedly, I have never tried to kill someone using a scalpel. And I do not have experience using a scalpel for surgeries because I am not a surgeon. But I’m pretty sure, if you take a sharp scalpel, and you stab someone in the chest with it with a reasonable amount of force... they die.

Like, is this a particular kind of scalpel that is not very sharp? Is the problem that the blade doesn’t match up with the initial wound? But even then, we don’t have the original unforged autopsy report or even a picture, so how would Phoenix know what the original wound looked like to say it didn’t match up? And even then why wouldn’t Phoenix say that instead of SCALPELS CAN’T STAB PEOPLE???

This is his decisive contradiction and it makes ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE TO ME!!!

Well Darn I Guess Scalpels Can’t Kill People

This is such a decisive piece of evidence, that scalpels can’t kill people, coming from the man who thought “caught red-handed” does not involve being caught standing over a corpse with blood on your hands, that it causes Governor Miller to confess.

Unlike Gant, who created the murder with Neil Marshall both to ensure that there was decisive evidence to convict Joe Darke, a serial killer who had not left any decisive evidence behind, and gain control over the prosecutor’s office in order to pull similar stunts to get criminals convicted using false evidence, Governor Miller does not have that as his motive. After all, he’s not a police officer. Instead, he ended up accidentally killing not-Joe-Darke, and then set up the incident in order to get Leona on his side. As her parents were both influential lawyers and very respectable, having her and her parents’ reputation on his side could help him become President of America Where This Takes Place.

So, let’s just take a moment to run over some of the things that made the original Rise From The Ashes great, in my opinion. Just for fun.

1 - The heart of the story between the Skye sisters. Lana closing off to protect Ema, Ema wanting to get through to her sister and get back to the way things used to be. Phoenix, in this story, is more of a bystander to this plotline rather than in the heart of it himself.

2 - Edgeworth’s Character Development. Basically RFTA creates an interesting transition between Turnabout Goodbyes and JFA. It causes Edgeworth to re-evaluate everything he knows about being a prosecutor. So quickly on the heels of Turnabout Goodbyes, it crushes the last bit of hope in him. It compares him to Gant, who also hates criminals, and forces him to wonder if his hatred of crime will one day lead to him being a criminal himself. He’s already convicted one person on forged evidence; how many others could there be?

3 - The Ends Justify The Means. ... wait come back, don’t leave. What I found neat about this case was also Gant’s motive. At one point he was presumably an honest person who hated crime and wanted to stop criminals. But over time in the police force, he became corrupted. He wanted to have all criminals convicted. So what do you do when you don’t have the evidence to convict them? Joe Darke was a serial killer who has killed several people and may have killed more if he’d gone free. The only way to stop and convict him was by using forged evidence. Other criminals could hide evidence to get away with their crimes, so people like Gant would make it up to catch them; but then when do you stop? What happens if there’s no evidence because someone is truly innocent? When does the line between “this person is a criminal and I want to stop them” and “I just want to convict everyone I’m dealing with” become blurred? This is also something he shares with Edgeworth and helps to advance his character.

All three of these things are either lessened or outright ignored in this musical. Leona and Monica’s story takes a backseat to Phoenix and Leona’s Love Story, with Monica only showing up halfway through, and mainly as an excuse as to why Leona is withdrawn. Edgeworth doesn’t seem to blame himself for the forged evidence he used, and doesn’t have a crisis questioning his morality over it. And Governor Miller’s motive is purely power. Unlike Gant, who would have become Chief of Police whether he solved SL-9 or not, Miller needed Leona to win the presidency. And instead of asking her to help him with his campaign like a normal person, he just blackmailed her instead.

... How do you play the games seven times and miss this much?

The Case Finally Ends

god. we’re almost there.

The case ends, Leona is declared not guilty but will still face trial for covering up murders and such. Probably less of a sentence than Lana because she was not involved in ongoing police corruption? Either way she’s dead in three years, so she’s got something a bit more concerning coming up.

She’s led away. Phoenix sings a bit about Leona before being interrupted by Edgeworth... who has something important to tell him.

Edgeworth: You awakened within me those once-cherished emotions I had discarded. I see visions of a distant, nostalgic past.

So basically this is the unnecessary feelings of the musical. Something along the lines of “seeing you again and fighting for my former ideals is making me question many things about myself.”

How does Phoenix respond?

Phoenix: Edgeworth... Try talking normally for a chance.

Sure, we were all thinking it, but that’s a little cold, Phoenix.

Edgeworth tries a smooth recovery.

Edgeworth: I don’t do... idle chit-chat.

This doesn’t accomplish much. So he leaves to allow Leona to visit with Phoenix alone. He’s got to go change for something more important coming up.

Leona and Phoenix decide that they’re going to get back together once Leona is done her sentence! They make a promise that is very funny if you know she’ll be dead in three years.

Phoenix: I’ll be waiting. For you.

There are a lot of hugs here, I’m not screencapping them all. There are also several moments where their faces get very close together and like, their nose brushes the other’s cheek or something, but they never actually kiss. Is it because the actresses weren’t comfortable with it (valid), or they thought kissing would be too much for the musical (sure, whatever), or since both characters are played by women the show staff did not want two women kissing on stage (probably the real answer)? I don’t like watching kisses, but I kept bracing myself for one and then it never happened, so.

Phoenix ends the main part of the musical with one last musical number starring my personal favourite piece:

Phoenix: I want to bring you back! I believe in you.

I like to think that at this point, this is present-day Phoenix, after finishing his reminiscing, still desperately wishing he could bring Leona back from death.

But alas, he cannot. And so, after one last daydream of them dancing together on the beaches of California, singing about their love, the musical ends.

Dance Time!

This starts at exactly the two hour mark, if you’re interested in watching what is, once again, one of the only fun parts of this musical.

Seriously, Edgeworth’s actress kills it here, when I first saw this I went “oh, this is why I saw so many people being gay for her on twitter.”

Edgeworth’s song is an encore of “My Rule”, so it’s lots of fun. Afterwards Phoenix gets another fun piece.

Then we get to the love ballad part, which I can probably overanalyze, I feel like I haven’t done enough ridiculous over-analyzing in this essay in comparison to the other.

Uhhh so the fog represents how Phoenix feels lost in this world without Leona. You can see it in the second screenshot separating the two of them, representing the barrier of death between the two of them. Idk it’s midnight I’m getting worn out from having to think about this musical for so long.

But his mourning over Leona’s death becomes even more apparent in the credits, where Phoenix sings that one line again:

Phoenix: I want to bring you back! I believe in you.

I’m not fixing that screenshot, I think it’s oddly fitting, in a way. That’s me right now.

Then at the very end, he sings this song.

Phoenix: I’ll spend... this eternal life... soaring through... the heavens!

Technically, this refers to his name Phoenix, but let’s dig a little deeper. He spends the rest of his life soaring through the heavens... the heavens that Leona went to after her untimely death, perhaps?

Overall, the musical becomes much more interesting when you just see it as a prequel to the second musical. This musical establishes many core concepts of Phoenix’s character: his refusal to believe in the concept of things changing, for one, and also his extreme dependency on Leona who he was never separated from since they were kids and where he based his entire life around her dreams and ideals. All he can think about is her. And in the end, he promises to wait for her in California.

Yet, to paraphrase Miles Edgeworth, all that is waiting for him is her death. Their dream of opening up a Mom & Pop Law Firm will never come true.

Thanks again for bearing with me even though this wasn’t as funny!

[writing-for-me-at-this-point]

Hello Hello! Mis Queen Bee! Can I ask for Twisted Wonderland Dorm Leaders with, K,I,A! Super duper please! Good luck with your blog!

letters: K, I, and A

characters: all dorm leaders

NSFW 18+

Riddle Rosehearts

A = Aftercare (what they’re like after sex)

        Poor boy will probably need to be the one tended to, more often than not. He's tired, not good at physical and straining activities, so after a long session he's beat. That doesn't mean he won't do anything for you though. He'd prefer to relax a bit first, his face in the crook of your neck, a hand in your hair or soothing any soreness/ tender areas. He has a strong grip, so when he grabs at your hips especially, expect the area to be sensitive for a bit. Amazing pillow talk, one of the few moments where he looks relaxed and calm, there's less tension in his muscles.

        After you both rest up, he'll help with cleaning up, start the shower and get the both of you in there. He loves the intimacy that comes with this as well, and probably won't initiate too much in the shower. Will help with anything you need, and prefers to be the one taking care of your needs, rather than you taking care of him.

I = Intimacy (how are they during the moment? the romantic aspect)

        As said before, he loves the intimacy of showering together, the feeling of his hands tending to you, and you to him. The long and soft touches, the warmth of skinship, he was raised to follow the rules and most included a "No touching" somewhere in there. He craves physical intimacy and it shows through sex as well. 

        His hands linger as they trail your body, his kisses don't truly lift from your skin as he makes his way to your pleasure, his torso often glues to your own once he starts to make his rounds. He keeps you close to him, murmuring small praises through his sighs and moans, he makes you feel wanted- needed in every way possible. His love language is touch, which becomes obvious rather quickly, and he'll beg you to listen to him each round.

K = Kink (one or more of their kinks)

        Switch - He can mend himself to your needs, and doesn't prefer anything, more dependent on the mood he's in. Often in a dominant role though, a soft dom, loving and guiding you through your pleasure so gently. He will gladly sub though, allow you to take in the reins, because oh magnificent seven- does it feel good to just let loose.

        Orgasm Control - This boy, woo. He may be a soft dom/sub, but he also loves to have orgasms controlled, both yours and his. It isn't a matter of following orders, but a sense of trust, that you'll eventually get your release if you just listen. That edging of being so close, but you can't get to it, not until the other allows them.

        Overstimulation - He likes to feel needed, wanted, and that goes into overstimulation. He prefers to have it done on him, but if you're into it- he's ready and willing. Tease the head of his cock until he's whining and begging to cum, but remember, don't stop until he says your word (which would most likely be 'Rose' in his case) or he's having dry orgasms. 

Leona Kingscholar 

A = Aftercare (what they’re like after sex)

        Considering this isn't during a heat, his aftercare is catered towards you, due to him being raised to put others before himself- it's shown here as well. This man has a lot of stamina, and he is strong as hell, so expect to be sore, even during softer sessions with one another. His grip is begging and his kiss is dominant, but expect him to have you lead as well. Will prefer to cuddle up with you, his face buried into your hair, his hands smoothing out any cramps or knots, a deep purr will leave him if you do the same though. Prefers to cuddle and fall asleep, and considering this is Leona, it's all that you'll be able to do until you get that rest.

        If he's in his heat? Oh boy. So, lions can mate up to over 100 times a day, but they can only last up to 20 seconds. What does this mean for my dearest honey bees? Lots of stamina, lots many rounds, lots of cum. His heat will shorten his ability to hold out, but that won't stop him from going, only just encourage him. While aftercare, without a heat, usually consists of pawing at each other to sleep- there will be little of this during said heat. It's more like during those few moments where his heat calms, you both try to clean up the bed and you end up on food and bathroom duty- you both can make do before his heat riles up once again.

I = Intimacy (how are they during the moment? the romantic aspect)

        The intimacy Leona craves comes through his actions, rather than words, he will grip and paw at you no matter the position he has you two in. He is large and uses that to his advantage, cupping and groping at large parts of your body, your hips are never too far from his. He'll keep his face close to your neck, groaning about how good you take him, praising you all in the process. He feels like he's finally coming first when he's with you, he isn't falling behind Fareena- the spare rather than the heir, he's just Leona. He's your Leona, and that's all he wants, to remain himself. Though you can feel the intimacy when he slows down, he is rougher and faster than most, so it won't often feel like intimate love sessions- more like the both of you just being too needy for one another.

K = Kink (one or more of their kinks)

        Face Sitting - This lion is lazy, and while he doesn't mind following your lead, he has his moments. So, what better than having you sit on his face? He has his mouth open and ready for you, just use it as you please, and his tongue will do the rest.

        Riding Him - Just... be on top of him, please. You fulfill any and every fantasy this man has by either riding his dick or his thighs. He loves watching you use him for your pleasure, because you want him and only him, so it's only natural you'd show it by jumping the excited kitten.

Azul Ashengrotto

A = Aftercare (what they’re like after sex)

        Such a sweetheart. He really is. He does the tending in this case as well, but please, let him talk. He's more emotional than he lets on, and he is insecure, so let him talk about what he feels. He's an amazing listener too, but don't be fooled, Octobabe will praise everything that made him flush and more. He is someone that needs mental stimulation, before and after. He will do anything from talk about what you enjoyed to make you cry with laughter, he knows how to read you, it's a moment of vulnerability for the both of you.

I = Intimacy (how are they during the moment? the romantic aspect)

        He knows how to make you feel like a royalty, close and lingering touches, hips lulling into yours so carefully- he's pouring every ounce of  his emotion into this. He thrives off of mental stimulation, so praise and being vocal really get him going. He is vocal himself, praising you and not bothering to hide any sounds that leave him, especially in a private area where you two won't be interrupted. He can't seem to get enough of you, to the point where it can get too much, and it will lead to him either tearing up or his skin flushing into different colors- something similar to his Octoform.

K = Kink (one or more of their kinks)

        Tentacles - If this Octobabe isn't using them on you, it's either during a quickie or you're both tired. Loves to watch you squirm in pleasure under him, unable to move away from the pleasure, his arms wrapped around your body to keep you nice and secure on him.

        Light/Heavy Bondage - Goes with the tentacles. Depends on his mood, how much time you guys have, and some other factors- but in the end he isn't complaining when you're tied up and squirming, begging for some release.

        Thigh/Chest Fucking - Something about warm plush thighs/breasts around him, his body either curled around yours/yours around him, it feels euphoric to him. He honestly loves it in the morning/night, when he's just woken up or is about to go to bed, this is the best way for him to be in a good mood for the next day or two. Maybe even get this boy to go feral who knows.

Kalim Al-Asim

A = Aftercare (what they’re like after sex)

        The most playful and energetic aftercare you will ever experience. This man has seemingly endless energy, even if you two were spending the entire night fulfilling your needs, he will hold the brightest smile you've ever seen. It's contagious as well, just seeing those pearly whites and his shining ruby orbs, you'll be in absolute bliss. Whatever you need- he's got you! Has everything one would need in his bed-stand at this point, a watch list of movies to watch or rewatch, and a large shower waiting for you. There is a catch! He wants kisses till you fall asleep. That's it- that's the catch.

I = Intimacy (how are they during the moment? the romantic aspect)

        Sex with Kalim is the most oxytocin-inducing act there is. His form of intimacy is through laughter and words of affirmation, so sex is giggly and full of praise, the smile seems to never leave no matter how soft it is. His fingers dip a bit too playfully, his kisses are deep and passionate, and his hips mold perfectly into yours. Pleasure and warmth flush through your body and you melt into a puddle, love flooding your senses, and you can't help but want more.

K = Kink (one or more of their kinks)

        Light Bondage - Keeps things light (hah get it?) and fun! On you or him, he doesn't mind as long as you both enjoy it! 

        Orgasm Control - He loves being denied. So. Damn. Much. Tell him he can't cum until he's crying and begging you, moaning and thrusting into your hand or warmth for something more. Just please let him cum, he'll be a good boy, promise.

        Submissive - As you can tell from above, he'll be the best he can be. Loves to relax and just follow, though he isn't a brat or go against orders, so be soft with him! He's a good boy, just for you, and what happens when you call him that? He's all over you, pleasing you and clinging to your every need, just please tell him he's doing a good job.

Vil Schoenheit

A = Aftercare (what they’re like after sex)

        So, while Vil is arrogant and narcissistic, the fact that you managed to land him in a relationship is a miracle. Now, he isn't a prude, but having sex does mean something to him- he can't just have anyone experience The Vil Schoenheit. He is gentle, tender, loving, it almost sickens him- but he can't help keep doing so because that smile on your face?

        That sigh you let out when he runs his hands through your hair? Or the small laughs you let out when he dips his fingers into those rather sensitive spots on your sides or hips. He takes care of everything with you. He shares a nice, long, hot bath with you- and when you're done you manage to somehow lotion up and find some type routine to exfoliate. Vil takes a while to actually get tired, so if you are he has no issue pampering you, and won't hesitate to carry you to any place you decide. 

I = Intimacy (how are they during the moment? the romantic aspect)

        You might as well make a blood pact with this man, marry him and promise to raise his children, and maybe merge souls- only if you can fit that into the schedule though. He will make you feel like you're the only thing that matters, because you are, because you managed to tie down Vil- and not the one he presents to the world, the one that's hidden away and defends himself in the enclosed space of his heart. 

        He lulls his hips into you so perfectly, like two puzzle pieces fitting into each other, he makes sure that you physically feel any and all emotions he does. He wants you to feel beautiful, to feel wondrous and drawn in by your own being, if he can feel it why shouldn't you? He is surrounded by beauty everyday and yet he can't get enough of yours, so to see you like this, spread out and taking all of him so well, nails ever careful of his skin, legs shivering in pleasure that only he can give you- he's practically crying by that point. 

K = Kink (one or more of their kinks)

        Light Bondage/Silks/Shibari - He doesn't do it for the control, he more or less does it because of the aesthetic. You both just look so pretty tied up and decorated with the softest silks and ropes, unable to fully move and just accept what the other has to offer up for pleasure, showing love and yet still mindful of what apparent that plays such a big part of his life.

        Mutual Masturbation - Loves to watch you squirm for more as you pleasure yourself, following his rules and he follows yours, the both of you having both an amazing and frustrating time. One starts to tease, the other follows, one allows the other to get close and- oh no you need to slow your roll there love, you can't cum just yet. The teasing is endless and you find yourselves therefore rather copious amounts of time, poor Rook and Epel are stuck wondering where their dorm leader is as they wait for a meeting in the office.

        Photos - You bet your ass this man has a Polaroid camera in his bedside drawer, and a small decorated velvet box filled with pictures of the two of you, ready to be used for any moment that Vil deemed beautiful. It isn't all just photos of the two of you having sex- they're also "off guard" photos of the both of you, knowing the camera was in the others hand, just didn't know exactly when the shot was taken. Polaroids of both of you changing, smiling in bed while laying down, looks of lust and love faded into one another. Intimate and forever secret moments shared between the two of you, photographed, and locked in a box hidden away for only your eyes.

Idia Shroud

A = Aftercare (what they’re like after sex)

        He gets rather sleepy after sex, now usually this boy likes to go 2-3 rounds, but it depends on the day and your moods. He is shy when it comes to aftercare at times, not wanting to mess up in any way, and let's you take the lead. He needs words of affirmation and soft, slow touches, nothing too fast and uprooting. Let him lay his head on your chest, listen to your heartbeat and calming breathing, and run your nails along his back- his skin is thick so it won't rise, but you do catch the flame near his roots become a deep indigo, the mix before he has it flush into a vibrant carmine.

        He doesn't need much, but once he's calm and he starts to fall asleep, you hear him hum to you. His voice is rather nice, it has a lull and makes you fall into a deep sleep with him, the dizziness of sleep hangs over you like a thick fog in your head. Aftercare is more or less calming down from such an intense act, because while sex is great with Idia, the trust and ability to open up does take a toll on him mentally and emotionally. Poor guy needs to recharge, so just hold him and fall asleep, he needs it.

I = Intimacy (how are they during the moment? the romantic aspect)

        Intimacy comes more in the form of being able to actually be with someone, be close and trust them, let alone get in the act. He is consistently hiding himself away from the world, but the world seems smaller and more attainable when you take its place, giving him love and praise. He allows himself to be greedy, to take from someone rather than push them away, fulfilling the craving for touch and intimacy. 

K = Kink (one or more of their kinks)

        Impact Play - Since he is quite the shut in, impact play is something he enjoys, it gives him some of that missing physical stimulation in one swift movement. He is in love with the sound of skin against skin, and brings out a sadistic side he doesn't see too often, though he reels himself in from pushing it too far.

        Breath Play - Again, this is going into a more dominant/submissive side of him, and one he is more hesitant with. Start slow, don't get into the intense aspects too soon, so around the fourth or fifth time is when he gains confidence to go further. The dizziness that mixes with the warmth of arousal makes you melt into a haze that is Idia, one that makes you shudder in ecstasy when he pushes himself deeper and deeper, making each orgasm addicting- to the point where overstimulation comes much sooner than expected.

        Oral - Is it even sex if he doesn't go down on you/suck you off? No- it isn't. This man loves to watch you squirm and buck your hips into his face, against his tongue/throat, moaning and running your hands through the soft blue flames that curl and dance across your hands. It's almost too much for him, but Great Seven was it one of the most beautiful things he can experience in his immortal life, and he can't help himself to more of you.

Malleus Draconia 

A = Aftercare (what they’re like after sex)

        Large, cool, hands would palm and care for every ache, every tense muscle, kissing at your marked skin and using his ability to calm your excited body. You will be treated the way he was raised, with unconditional love, loyalty, and so tenderly you might as well curl up and cry because he is just so him. You're one of the few people in this world he truly loves and wants you to know that, because in the end, you make the world a little less bigger and more tolerable- more understandable.

I = Intimacy (how are they during the moment? the romantic aspect)

        Once Malleus knows you truly don't fear him, that this isn't an act, he allows himself to open his heart to you- let the vulnerability of opening his heart sit in your hands. He moves for your pleasure, he wants you to feel everything he does, he never wants to let you go out of his bed without knowing that his heart- his soul- is in your care. He whispers soft "I love you's" often, muttering small declarations of love in a tongue hidden just for those born or brought into Fay families, lost in a haze of affection and intimacy that runs deeper than anything in this dimension. 

K = Kink (one or more of their kinks)

        Breeding - Ascending to a title of royalty and power leaves him with expectations, so it doesn't matter if you have the ability to bare children or not with him, he'll make it work with a potion or five. He's unrelenting at that point, he craves every piece of you, and the way you tighten around him is so delicious- he spills himself into you, locking his hips against yours, buried to the hilt. It makes his stomach run with excitement at the thought of you holding his children, a piece of him always with you, another way he could show his love for you to the world.

        Marking - He can't help it- the drag of his fangs against your soft, warm, flesh. The shiver that racks your body, the small gasp, your nails trailing his own skin like a fire through a forest in a drought. The dark spots left on your skin make the darker part of him thrive, the marks of his teeth left from your neck to the insides of your thighs, the long scratches of his nails as they dig into you for pleasure- makes him crave every last piece of you.

        Somnophilia - A bit cliche, considering the tale he is tied to, but hear me out. He thrives off of love and affection from you, and considering he wishes to please, taking the time to make a move on him first makes him feel wanted- needed. This would be discussed beforehand, not wanting to make anything seem unwanted, or make you feel uncomfortable in any way. If you agree, he wouldn't mind waking up to your hands working their wonders on his hardening cock, tongue lapping at any precum, the hum that leave your throat once you feel him bucking his hips into your mouth ever so slightly- it melts him into a puddle of a whimpers and moans.

[miryum]

Nickels (Spot Conlon x Reader)- Part 10

I would just like to repeat that this will NOT follow the story-line. (Mostly because I'm to lazy to rewatch the movie...) so yeah! Hope you enjoy!

I dropped down from the statue in the middle of newsie square, right in front of Spot, Jack, and Davey. It'd been a couple of weeks since that night, and the strike was in full swing. Almost all the newsies were there, and we're about to negotiate a deal with Pulitzer.

"'Ello boys." I said, smirking.

"Hey Nickels!" I turn around to see Les, a younger newsies that I'd gotten to know quite well. He'd guessed my secret early into me meeting him, and was now one of the few newsies that knew I was a girl. He was an energetic little guy, and full of fire. He was like a little brother to me.

"Heya buddy!" I scoop Les up, "'Ow ya doin'? 'Elpin' Jackie boy wid da strike?"

"Oh yes!" He said, "I even went to visit Emerson da odder day."

I pulled his cap over his eyes, "Good job." Whenever I couldn't visit Emerson, I sent another newsie to. However, when Emmie met Les, they immediately hit it off and became best buddies.

"And 'ow is your boyfriend doin'?" I asked Les.

He blushed and shoved away from me, "It's not like dat." He mumbled. I started cracking up.

I turned back to Spot, Jack, and Davey. "You're really good with him." Davey smiled.

"Eh." I shrugged, "I'se had ta deal wid Emmie my 'ole life."

"So!" I slung an arm over Spot and Jack, the former slinging an arm around my waist, "'Ow we feelin' 'bout Pulitzer?"

"'E betta gives us what we's wants, odder wise we's not lettin' go." Jack said.

"What deal we're gonna make wid 'im?" I asked hesitantly.

"Whateva he wants. Odder dan da prices stayin' da same." Spot said.

"Great." I said, "I'se just gonna wait on da roof 'till it's over."

"Why?" Spot tightened his arm around my waist.

I looked over at him, "I'se don't need 'im knowin' I'm a goil."

"'E won't know!" Spot argued, "Davey didn' know 'til yous showed 'im, and 'e's da smart one!"

"Thanks?" Davey asked, "Was that a compliment?"

"Spot." My jaw clenched, "I'm gonna go now."

Spot grunted, but let his arm fall from my waist. I turned to disappear into the crowd, when the doors to Pulitzer's office banged open, and out strode Pulitzer himself.

"Shit." I swore and pulled my cap down low. I ducked a little bit behind Spot.

I peeked out from behind Spot to see the rest of the newsies silent and Pulitzer looking over us all. As if he was searching for something. Thank the Lord I had Emerson stay at the lodging house today.

"Newsies of New York!" Pulitzer called out, "It has come to my attention that you are unsatisfied with the new price raise. I am here today to discuss this. Who is the one that would like to stand before me and tell me what they would like me to do better?"

Everyone was silent for a second before Jack stepped forward, "Me." He said.

"And me." Spot stepped up next to him, leaving me uncovered.

I felt Pulitzer's eyes land on me and burn into my skin, "And what about you, young lad? Do you dare to step forth against me?"

"Of course I do." I said, stepping up next to Spot. I raised my head a little to look Pulitzer in the eyes.

I saw a look of recognition and confusion flash before them, but he was smart enough not to say anything until he was certain.

"And what are your terms, Jack?" Pulitzer asked.

"You lower da prices." Jack said and a chorus of shouts followed him.

"And what will you give me in return?"

Jack paused. He hadn't thought this far ahead, "What do ya want?" He asked, still trying to appear tough.

Pulitzer smirked, "My children."

***

"What?" Jack said, "What's do ya mean? We don't got your kids!"

"Oh, but you do." Pulitzer stepped into the crowd of newsies, none of us moving an inch. "Let me tell you a story. As you know, I have seven children. Kathrine, Herbert, Edith, Lucille, Constance, Ralph.... and Y/n." I felt Spot tense up beside me. I lowered my gaze.

"At a young age," Pulitzer continued, "Ralph and Y/n ran away from home. It was devastating, and we searched everywhere for them. But, we never found them. Until, I got a tip that Ralph had changed his name and was lording over the Bronx newsies. I was relived that we'd found him, and proud that he was commanding a battalion of newsies- especially one as big as the Bronx! I understood why we couldn't find him for the longest of time now. He had changed his name so that no one would recognize him. It made sense as he was the most well known of my children, and my eldest son. But... we still hadn't found Y/n. Then, someone saw a lone newsie sneak into the Bronx lodging house. A newsie..." Pulitzer came up behind me and leaned over me. I closed my eyes as a shiver went down my spine.

"A newsie," Pulitzer repeated, "By the name of Nickels."

He took my cap off my head and my hair fell down over my shoulders. He grabbed my arm and dragged me in front of the rest of the newsies.

"Meet my daughter, Y/n!"

[zenyteehee]

WIP Tag Game

Tagged by the lovely @darlingandmreames thank you! 😄 i love doing these

Rules: List all your WIP titles, all meaning even the ones that are vague or nonsensical. Tag as many people as there are WIPs.

Hehe lol I don’t think I know that many people

Futuro - this is my angsty Encanto fic where I take all my problems out on very convenient characters. It also happens to be the work I’m most proud of and have had the most fun writing.

La Cosa Nostra - my gay Vincenzo fic that’s also about not romanticizing the mob and talking about family (found and blood.) And also extreme amounts of angst and trauma

How Do You Measure Seven Years - part 2 of my Kingdom series where I map out what happened in the seven year timeskip at the end of season 2. Basically an excuse to write more Changshin

Memory - the Fiery Priest, Sweet Music from Hae-il’s POV because I always wanted to write through his eyes and also had a lot I wanted to see play out but couldn’t put it in Sweet Music because Seong-kyu didn’t see it and Hae-il sure as fuck didn’t tell him. I’ve got a couple other ideas for this series too cuz if one thing will always be true, it’s that I’ll never stop having opinions about this show

Sinister Secrets of the House of Finwë - trashy niche fic for the Silmarillion. Mpreg. Enough said.

Snapshots of a Family - trashy niche fic for The Originals. I used to have a lot of opinions about it. Now I just need to rewatch the show and also rewrite the whole series cuz my writing changed so much. Mpreg.

“The star wars one” - dinluke. Luke in the battle of mos eisley cuz I wanted to talk about him having trauma from fighting the rancor the first time and also wanted him to confirm that grogu knows mando’a. Mpreg. Because I can. Kind of an AU for certain events in my other star wars series

It Wasn’t Love - Matteo/Luca Changretta from the Peaky Blinders cuz the line “even you, Matteo?” at the end of season 4 wouldn’t leave me the fuck alone. Also an excuse to talk about first generation immigrants, language barriers, and being a part of two worlds but a member of none

Oh, Where Do We Begin? - obikin for my star wars series. I majorly fuck up canon. Also mpreg. Who tf do you think you’re talking to here 😂 also an excuse to talk about trauma. See previous sentence

“OHHHHH STAr wars” - “Ahsoka visits luke, right? yeah no, it’s bout time we talked about anakin. In my series” and that’s everything I have in my notes for it.

“Another idea for designated survivor” - in which everyone falls in love with Park Mujin because everyone did in the show. Seriously, look at how they look at him.

“Along with the Gods pt. 2” - a continuation of pt. 1. An excuse to write more smut

“Aguni/Takeru” - Alice in Borderland. You were thinking it too.

The Wrong Choices for the Right Reasons - part of my star wars series. In which Han Solo gets a chance to defend and explain himself

There Was No Child - Gotham. An excuse to write about trauma and other terrible things. This is my coping mechanism

“Of Faults and Sins” - Stranger Things. Something bad happens to Billy Hargrove and Hopper’s the only one who cares. More terrible things

“It Used to Be True” and “For the Job” - parts of my Blue Bloods series that I’ll probably never finish cuz my opinion on police has drastically changed since I first watched the show and wrote this, and now acab. But again. More terrible things

Pay the Price for Foolishness - Silmarillion mpreg. Mairon’s got a kid. I haven’t touched this since 2015 and probably still won’t.

Colic - star wars. Grogu gets colicky

And a note called “Fanfiction/Fiction ideas” that has another 34 half baked shit from 2012 and on, most of which I’ll probably never get to cuz it’s in fandoms I’m long out of

Lol, and all my encanto readers have lost all respect for me now 😂 then again I did make a disney movie into a story about major trauma so…🤷🏻‍♀️

Oh boy….let’s see, I’ll tag @xraiyax @cityofperpetualgloom @cookiedoei aaaaaand anyone else who wants to play! I think that’s fair enough, and unlimited number of people matched my unlimited number of ideas