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moonlightreal · 4 years

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Fate ep 3, second half

Welcome back! So I’m enjoying the heck outta Fate… but not as a Winx thing. I mean,

Things Fate has in common with Winx:

Some of the names.

Things Fate does not have in common with Winx:

The rest of the names, the characters’ personalities, how magic works, how the world works, who’s dating who, the color of Riven’s hair, how many drugs everyone’s doing, the style of clothing, who the teachers are, what the school looks like, what Bloom’s parents are like, etc. etc.

If they’d just renamed it Elemental Academy it’d still have been a fun show and we could’ve skipped all… this…

Gods I wish we could’ve skipped all this.

But weirdly separate from all this, I’m reviewing a show with some teachers who I like.

The students of Elemental Academy are headed to the quietest rave ever! Lots of purple lightbars and everybody’s drinking! Ok, if the teachers know how many substances their students are using shouldn’t they at least try to not let them? Ok, I can see Silva having a grand time making everybody do grueling workouts while hung over but substances and healthy fighting form don’t go together longterm.

Terra explains. This is the east wing of Alfea, “It used to be used for war preparations but since there hasn’t been a conflict in a while no one really comes down here. Except for tonight!”

I want to know what the last war was about, who fought in it, who they were fighting against, how often wars happen in the Otherworld… but Bloom wants a beer.

Ohmigod Terra brought pot brownies! Ahahahahaha! That was literally a joke on discord weeks before Fate aired, that Terra would be the fairy of pot brownies. Also Musa has gorgeous eye makeup. Race stuff aside, Elisha Applebaum is really pretty. Sam comes over, and there’s Dane. Sam gives Terra grief about the special brownies. And Dane ditches her to go offer Riven and Sky some special brownies. Poor Terra.

Bloom finds Sky and asks about Silva and Sky opens up to being upset, that Silva raised him and having Silva’s life in danger is messing him up. Then Sky asks Bloom about her parents and she says it’s complicated and she maybe needs more booze to go into it. Sky wouldn’t mind a distraction himself, so off to drink it is!

Debauchery! Beer pong! Bloom and Aisha versus Sky and Riven! Everyone drinking lots of cups! Bloom uses her power to make beer hot, which is neat since warmth seems much more useful than fire. Aisha tries to use her magic to bounce the ball out and ends up blasting all the cups and drenching Riven. Who probably deserves it just on genera…. Yup, here he is, telling Bloom about Sky’s last girl! Ricki, Stella’s last roommate and bestie until she flirted with Sky and Stella blinded her. On purpose. Bloom can’t believe it. Sky just says, ‘Yeah. that’s the story.’ But the mood is well and truly killed, and Bloom goes off to find Aisha.

Stella is in a dress solid with sequins, standing with a student in a full beard, I think.

Looking for Aisha Bloom wanders into a storage room for war stuff, and finds a class picture! There she is, the dream woman standing with a class of specialists! I think she must’ve been the Specialist trainer before Silva.

Sam and Musa flirt. Smooching!

Then Musa senses Terra coming as a wave of social anxiety and Sam vanishes through a pillar to escape. Terra wants Musa to read Dane’s mind to see if they have a chance. Musa says there is a chance.

Dane, riven and Beatrix have found the war supplies too. Plate armor! This world still uses plate armor! They do a three-way smoking of one joint, which is so gross. I know covid wasn’t a thing when this was made but eeeeeeeew the poor actors! Riven is his horrible self and teases Dane about how much Terra wants his dick. And Riven whose shirt was splashed with beer, wants to steal Dane’s. Run, Dane, find better friends!

We jump to Stella and the bearded student who is ladling out punch. Sky comes right over and goes, ‘We need to talk about Ricki!” right there in the middle of the party. Stella is horrified. They back and forth… the jist seems to be that the rumor isn’t true. Stella didn’t blind Ricki on purpose but she wants everyone to think she did. Probably she did it by accident and would rather be thought of as evil than weak, which is kinda understandable. But Sky points out that being with Stella now makes him look like a total nut.

Text arrives! The Burned One is dead! Whew!

What? How! The trained adults never succeed in this kind of story! At least they lived.

And here Bloom is photographing the specialist alumni photos. Beatrix comes in and says, ‘Are you photocollaging at a party? Why are we not friends?” Bloom asks who the woman is but Beatrix says she doesn’t know.

Bloom goes and shows the pictures to Aisha. Dowling is in the photo so she must know. Aisha wants to ask Dowling tomorrow when they’re sober but Bloom’s keen to go now. Aisha basically says if Bloom is dumb enough to go demand answers at midnight while drunk, Aisha’s out.

In the headmistress’ office Beatrix and Callan are ready for another go at the secret passage trap! Since Bloom asked about Rosalind, the plot is thickening and they have to get through now! But they haven’t disarmed the trap. So Beatrix lightnings up and tosses Callan through the door. That was direct! The guy goes blue in the lips and falls down probably dying. Beatrix goes through the secret door and down the stairs beyond.

Sky finds Silva but oh no, he’s not better! It was the wrong Burned One! There are more! Sky says he’s done waiting, he wants to fight. He storms off.

In the cafeteria Dowling and Harvey mourn. It’s their job to fix this Burned One problem and they’re not having much luck.

And here comes ragey drunk Bloom! She holds up the picture and demands an infodump. Rosalind was the headmistress before Dowling during a “difficult period in Alfea’s history” And Rosalind’s dead.

...no she isn’t. Obviously.

Bloom can read the Plot as well as I can, and heads down to the stone circle to make contact! While drunk at night. But this is awesome, she flames up her hands and lights a ring of braziers and the magic silver vessel. Her jacket’s on fire too. Then the flames all go out and she droops over crying. Sky runs over in battle kit and Bloom tells him about the changeling thing and how she just wants answers. Then she asks why Sky’s dressed for battle. Sky’s going Burned One hunting! And Bloom thinks she can track the thing, she can sense them. Now Bloom’s the sensible one who suggests telling Dowling but Sky runs past her into the forest and Bloom takes off after him.

Now there’s that plot I knew should be there!

We cut back to the party where Terra is playing beer pong and gets to hug Dane who is topless ‘cause Riven stole his shirt. I think Riven is playing some kinda wingman here.

Stella rushes over to ask about Sky, and Riven stirs the pot basically saying he spilled the “blinding” thing to Bloom then jumps into, ‘no no, they’re just friends, no need to blind her too!’

Stella: “I wouldn’t waste my magic on a changeling!”

Show, if you do not tell me what the stigma of changelings is about--!

Riven didn’t know, so Stella just stilled some beans back as getting revenge on a completely different person?

Bloom sends a text. Emergency Burned One hunt at the stone circle!

It interrupts Musa mid-snog with Sam.

Beatrix walks down a dark hallway and finds… the barrier-ed door from the trailer!

Bloom and Sky pass through the barrier and end up in a place that looks like where Bloom was trying her magic a few episodes ago. Bloom says it’s close. Sky wants to know why Bloom can track it, Bloom wants to know that too. They go back to back but the Burned One looms

Magic battle! Sky gets in a few sword swings before he’s knocked down! A voice calls, ‘Close your eyes!” before Stella unleashes blinding light! Terra uses her cousin’s favorite trick and vines it to the ground and Bloom throws fire calling on Aisha to help put it out. And Sky skewers the Burned One with his sword. Down it goes!

But Musa can tell it’s not dead yet. It leaps up—then catches fire from the inside, shining orange light, then falls again. This was a top quality battle!

Dowling appears behind the girls and confirms it’s dead now.

Beatrix emerges from the tunnels to find Callan still frozen and blue-lipped. Was Dowling’s trap actually killing him or was it just keeping him paralyzed? We’ll never know because Beatrix uses lightning to blast him to dust!

I mean, Callan wasn’t much but that’s put Beatrix solidly in irredeemable territory.

But good news, we saved the more interesting adult! Silva is on the mend. Well enough to immediately give Sky grief about going after a Burned One like an idiot. Sky only cares if his mentor is better, and he hugs Silva. Sweet moment all round.

The girls are getting the same from Dowling. But Musa sensed a tiny bit of pride in the headmistress.

Sky arrives, and Bloom says they should all get home, leaving Stella to talk to Sky. The other four have clearly bonded, and Stella’s clearly the odd one out. Stella says, ‘I was awful today. Seeing you scared I couldn’t deal with it.” and, ‘You’re the only one that knows the real me.” she goes in for a kiss but Sky pulls back saying, “That’s your choice, Stella.”

Stella disagrees. “I’m the heir to the Solarian throne, if you knew the kind of pressure...” and says Sky is her safety net and she needs to know he’s there if she needs him. But what if he needs somebody?

Which brings up a side issue. I don’t think Sky and Stella are doing the deed these days, but if they are or were that’s epic dumb for the heir to a kingdom. Royalty tends to care about premarital romps more than commoners, and if they came down with a case of surprise baby that baby would be a future heir! And then they’d pretty much have to get married, and if Eraklyon was on the other side of those wars nobody’ll tell us about that could add up to a real mess.

I wonder if there was sex in the past, Stella desperate for a distraction to get her out of her own head while knowing that every time the clothes came off they were taking a big risk thus creating more stress by the very means they tried to escape it.

This show tries to be all dark and gritty by having teenagers do loads of drugs but did they think of all this? It’s just practicality but it’d be plenty dark.

Over in the dorm Terra’s getting ready for bed. Musa comes to say, ‘your brother’s pretty great.’ but Terra laughs it off, not paying attention. She texts Dane to say she had fun at the party and Dane replies with a video of himself shirtless roughhousing with Riven. The phrase, “fat girl with the brownies” is the only thing that can be understood. I think Beatrix is filming, and she films the three of them doing a trio-smooch with pot smoke!

Terra cries. This show is cruel to her. Not as bad as I was expecting it to be, but bad enough. Hope she strangles the lot of ‘em.

Over with Bloom and Aisha, Bloom says, ‘You’d be proud of me, I went to the stone circle but chose not to summon all my magic and burn the Otherworld down.”

That was a choice? That did not look like a choice, Bloom.

Bloom starts in on sensing the Burned One and Dowling being sus and Rosalind, but Aisha is done being the sidekick. She suggests there might be no conspiracy and offers the really logical idea that maybe a teenage student got pregnant and didn’t know what to do so Rosalind changelinged the baby. Good on Aisha for trying to climb out of the rabbit hole, but Bloom’s too deep and says there are too many unanswered questions. I mean, she’s a destiny-ridden protagonist so she is right, but after last month we’ve seen in the real world how far people can go when they feel that they’re destiny-ridden protagonists… feels different now. The show in its cultural context.

Then Aisha says “some people” would kill to be a natural with magic like Bloom is even if she’s just an “ordinary” fairy and says Bloom should be “realistic.”

Oh Aisha, when will you learn to not say stuff? For Bloom “realistic” means birth parents who didn’t want her and gave her up. Bloom starts crying saying she has to believe there’s more to it than that. And yeah, that is understandable.

Ending scene with the adults in Dowling’s unlit office! “Bloom had a memory of the fairy that left her in the human world. It was Rosalind.” One of the guys says, “Ah shit.” As the camera moves down toward the mystery barrier in the tunnel Dowling continues, “Bloom has the potential to be one of the most powerful fairies the Otherworld has ever seen. If Rosalind is calling to her there’s a reason. We can never let them meet.’

And there’s Rosalind inside the barrier! Not dead.

Good ending music this time, but no lyrics.

I think Dowling hasn’t yet realized her secretary got lightninged to death.

I’ve also been wondering who “he” the evil overlord could be. Can’t be Rosalind because she’s a she! None of the named male characters seem at all sus. Callan’s dead, Sky’s dad is named but dead (unless he isn’t), Silva and Harvey are way too sweet, and Beatrix has no respect for any of the teenagers. Unless one of them is getting possessed maybe? Riven vaped in an evil spirit and occasionally his eyes glow and he spouts evil orders? Maybe it’s a guy we haven’t met yet, or a master Burned One on a dark throne in a cave somewhere. That’d make sense.

My main curiosity now is for Stella’s full story! Stella is an interesting character! Despicable, but interesting now that I’ve stopped thinking she’s going to be anything like the other Stella. Maybe we’ll find out… next time on Elemental Academy!

#fate the winx saga

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puppy-the-mask · 4 years

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Poly? Morph

A Friends to lovers post-dnd-transportation fic focusing on our boys Rant and Rus (debating on adding Edge aswell)

There’s like 4 POV changes so let me know if I should re-write? this was more for fun than anything, It doesn’t get to romance yet but I hope to continue in my free time. Let me know any errors or anything, I’ll put it on AO3 after a bit more editing and input. I’ve just re-read it so much its all bleh to me so i’m getting second opinions/input here

tw/Blood and Death- not graphic but y’know -/(Owo)\-

It’s been 5 years since we began, just a couple of students playing a game of DnD. Mere hours after wrapping up session zero us players arrived home and as a collective felt a foreign wave of exhaustion, falling asleep one by one.

The city's air was damp and the pathways were dim with the light of half dead lanterns. The party was shuffling through the empty streets to the gates bound for our next assignment when a figure appeared out of the shadows, the glint of metal and we found ourselves face to face with a hostage situation.

You had once been the closest we had to a tank, a perk of having been a dragonborn with high strength- even if you were a druid bard- but after being cursed for the upteenth time you’d been separated from your avatar- Blackjack- and rendered a low level support for our high level party.

Without you taking lead your roll was delegated to other, more impulsive members. The next moments are a flurry of movement as a loud burst sends the assailant back along with you- the dagger at your neck drawing blood.

Everything blended together as I flew to the front lines, rage getting the best of me as the look on your face burned itself into my mind. The shock and pain in your eyes drove me forward as the streets were painted red.

The cleric could heal you, I had a life to take.

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

Sans woke up panting, eyelights materializing and analyzing his surroundings. WHAT?

He couldn’t believe it, there was no way… He was back in his room, back in his world- well the one he’d been in before. There was so much to process, his new surroundings aside- their last foe had been someone they’d trusted. And yet she almost killed y/n… had she even known who she was attacking? There were so many questions rattling around his skull as his magic buzzed in his bones. He needed to check on them, he needed to make sure they made it back. Normally he’d shortcut straight to their room but his magic was sluggish and unresponsive. He’d just have to run.

He managed to make it down the stairs without falling and stumble a few more steps before he heard voices. NO NONONO FUCK! I DON’T HAVE TIME FOR THIS!

“AH RANT, YOU’RE AWAKE! RANT?” He had to brace himself on the couch, his center of gravity was much different than his avatar’s “RANT ARE YOU ALRIGHT?” Paps knelt to his level and looked him over

“I’m Fine, Let Me Go-!” The hand on his shoulder tightened its grip as he tried to get past to the door “I SAID LET ME GO! I NEED TO CHECK ON THEM!”

“WHO? RANT TELL ME WHAT’S WRONG.” He just kept struggling, but everything was getting fuzzy as his soul was settling back in his proper body. “Can You Tell Me Where You Are?” More people were walking in, having been drawn from the dining room by their voices.

“WHERE!? I'M HERE WITH YOU AT THE HOUSE- NOW LET ME GO!” more voices joined the conversation but they all started to run together.

“rant? dude what’s wrong!?”

“THE HELL IS HIS PROBLEM?”

“huh, so the shortstack does have eyelights”

“bro?” his eyelights sharpened and shrank on his brother and he felt tears prick his sockets.

“Papyrus?” The soft copy let him go as he stumbled into his brother’s arms. Stars he really hoped this wasn’t an illusion, but the comfort of his brother’s magic reassured him. “It’s Really You…”

“sans? sans what happened?” Rant just shook his head, his voice leaving him. Had that all just been a dream? It didn’t feel like it, there was no way a dream could be that real. He could remember with clarity how vivid it all was, the blood- the pain- the party that was just so full of life despite their situation- their bard. His gaze hardened.

He may not be able to do anything in his current state but there was one other person who was close enough to y/n to have a shortcut straight to them. Rant forced his voice to settle and pinned his friend with his stare

“RUS.” The skeleton stiffened “YOU NEED TO GET TO Y/N, THEY SHOULD BE IN THEIR ROOM”

“bro, sans you need to breathe with me you’re friend is fine.” He ignored his brother, not looking away from Rus.

“RUS I CAN’T USE MY MAGIC” The room stilled around him but he persisted, dragging the younger skeleton closer and dropping his volume “You’re All They Have Right Now.

Seeing his hesitance Rant quickly amended his plea. “If I'm Wrong And They’re Fine I’ll Owe You- I Don’t Care- Just please…”

Rus swallowed, settled his frantic magic, and nodded before stepping out of Rant’s slackened grip into nowhere.

“sans i know you like bein dramatic but yer really startin to worry me- what happened, what’s wrong with yer magic.” Rant took a deep breath before looking up at Mutt and muttering into his brother’s hoodie

“I’ll Tell You Tonight” Shifting he let his tears fall and grabbed at the fabric in front of him “ I-I DON’T KNOW I JUST- I WOKE UP BUT WHAT I SAW- IT WAS TOO GRAPHIC TO NOT BE REAL AND I...” Rant took a shuddering breath “ IN IT Y/N- THEY GOT HURT BUT I CAN’T CALM DOWN ENOUGH TO DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT.” He looked away from the crowd to the ground and flinched at the annoyed responses of some of them- mad at him for interrupting dinner over a nightmare and unaware of the satisfaction each rude comment brought him.

He couldn’t help but thank his old reputation as an attention seeking drama queen, this was his easiest coverup yet. Rant wiped his tears and started the process of evening out his breathing

Stars, it felt so good to be back in his own body. He settled into his brother’s embrace, hugging him back. He’d missed him so much.

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

Blackjack hadn’t exactly been thrilled when you had showed up, he was quite the opposite if he was being honest. He didn’t like taking a back seat while a teenager piloted his body, sue him. But unlike you’d think he didn’t despise you, It was obvious that neither you nor your friends had been expecting a body switch to happen by the end of the first day. But then nearly 5 years later you’d made a deal with good old gertrude, accepted yet another experimental curse, and next thing the dragonborn knew he had his body back.

The next few months were interesting to say the least, he stuck with the party and quietly delighted in how your companions turned to him when they meant to talk to you and expected him to do things he’d never do. You were different then him, kinder, a total bard, and frankly he’s just glad that all those curses you’d brought onto the two of you had transferred. He could deal with a few extra scars if that was the trade off.

You did have a couple similarities though, your shared love of gambling, ale, and women.

The two of you were talking about just that, naming your favorite flirtatious endeavors over the years you’d spent as him- of which there were many, including lady victoria. It wasn’t exactly hard for him to pick up where you had left off but something told him there was something more to the parties’ friend in high places. As good of a rogue as you were you were oblivious to the lady’s growing infatuation, one of the many reasons why the other rogue became the king of thieves rather than you… or him??? Regardless the look on Victoria’s face when he’d introduced you stuck with him, he decided to keep you close for now just in case

You were at the back of the group, his steps slowed drastically to match yours, though you still had to fast walk to keep up with his much longer legs. You were going on about a tiefling academic you’d hit it off with a while back, the one who’d inspired and helped you develop a spell of your own. It was cheesy, a healing spell for those with ‘high charisma’ as you put it that utilized the castor’s kiss. It was effective and Blackjack won’t deny using it on his own to woo the occasional maiden.

You went on and on and he could envision the tiefling in question, commenting about other features as you raved about her cute freckles, when he felt a prickle in his scales. Before anyone could react you were in a figure’s hold with a blade to your throat.

Suddenly the air crackled with electricity as the trigger happy sorcerer unleashed a Thunder Wave. Blackjack braced himself for the impact, feeling something wet and warm splatter onto his tunic. He rushed towards your prone body, yelling for help from the cleric only to curse when they had run out of spell slots.

He sighed, his breath appearing a soft glowing yellow in front of him, he never thought he’d have to use your spell in a serious situation- especially not on you. As he pulled away from your cheek the words manifested on your skin, magic runes snaked down to your neck- glowing that same pale yellow. They ran over your wound until there was no more area to cover and slowly faded as your body repaired itself.

That wouldn’t be enough. The cleric took you from his hold and started pumping on your chest, trying to force air into your lungs in practiced motions. Your blood covered the pathway and the two of them as they tried to keep you from choking on it.

Looking back to the fight Blackjack saw the rogue known as Rumor- the one you called Sans- in the very heart of the battle. He sucked in a breath as he heard their foe cry out, Veronica. He was right, but he held no satisfaction in that. She tried to plead, to escape, but that rogue wouldn’t let her. Blow after blow he refused to stop.

Blackjack looked back to you as you spat up blood, finally breathing on your own, and he couldn’t help but pity any fool that tried to come between the two of you. Just friends my ass

Suddenly his attention was pulled from you to the cleric, who was outlined in a fading golden glow along with the rest of the party, who slowly came back to themselves

“Gods above that boy made a mess!” Rumor, the real one he assumed, looked on the body with disgust. Lady Veronica was unrecognizable.

“I assume y’all are back in control then?” Y/n sat up with help. Their voice was raspy, they were still glowing, and when they coughed into their hand their fingertips were fading away. They focused on their now bloody hand and chuckled “Must take bodies longer to transport than souls I guess. For what it’s worth it’s nice to meet you all.”

It couldn’t have taken more than 3 minutes of chatting before they were almost gone.

“It was nice knowin ya player”

“Heh yeah, I’ll miss getting my ass kicked at poker…” You surprised him with a look of sincerity and fondness, trapping his gaze onto you “Thanks for everything Blackjack.”

With one more smile and a farewell wish that we look out for ourselves they vanished back to where they came from. They really were kinder than they had any right to be

Blackjack stood with a sigh and without a word turned around to head back to the tavern they’d stayed in previously. He didn’t know about the others but he could use a drink, and it’d take many many more before he’d ever admit that he alread missed his stupid little protege.

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

Rus wasn’t sure what he was expecting, when Papyrus had gone to get Rant for dinner he figured his friend was just exhausted from participating in your club. The three of you had become fast friends after him and the other ‘undesirable’ skeletons were relocated away from the main house’s relationship issues.

From what he’d been told you didn’t run into Rant despite having had your face in your phone, doing a little twirl to avoid the other skeleton last second - who had noticed your inattention and been gunning for you from down the hall. Which was just like him, always looking to start something. You’d peaked his interest and after a little chat in the halls he’d let you go to your next class until lunch.

Rus remembered you had looked so nervous and anxious when Rant had dragged you over to their seats across the lunchroom,literally, but you’d engaged and chatted with the shorter skeleton regardless. And while it took a little time he’d started chatting with you as well, since- as it turned out- the two of you were in the same graphic design course.

It wasn’t hard to convince the two of them to tag along with you to the DnD club come second semester, Rant had come prepared with a binder full of paper for notes and a separate stack for his character sheet, he’d come up with lots of backstory for his character- meanwhile Rus had a singular almost empty character sheet and took all of the session getting set up while you had multitasked helping him and participating in the pre-game exposition.

That was only a little over 5 hours ago, so when Rant had come down in a panic with a look that had dread coursing through his bones Rus was a little skeptical something had happened to you. But something told him there was more to it, and the desperation on his friend’s face alone was enough to spur him into action. He wouldn’t take any chances, not with someone he cared about

The moment he opened his sockets his gaze was drawn to your bed and he felt any and all composure he’d mustered up leave him.

“Y/n!?” A faint glow dissipated as he rushed to your side, crawling onto the bed to get to you in your confined space as he gathered you into his arms. Fuck there’s so much blood, Why-What-How??? Fuck!

He hesitated to take your pulse, the blood around your neck still wet. He couldn’t tell where it all came from and he nearly screamed when your hand shot up and grabbed his, your other clamping around his teeth. Rus jerked back and the motion sent the both of you tumbling off the bed, but you managed to catch him and brace a hand against the wall just past him- effectively stopping the two of you.

The two of you sat like that for a second before you exhaled, the tension breaking Rus began to fuss over you.

“Y/n what the fuck happened to you- did Rant have something to do with this? are you okay? do you need to go to the hospital?”

“No! Nonono I’m fine-”

“You’re Covered In-!” You shushed him, almost covering his face again before he caught your hands. He turned one of your palms towards you, it was the one you’d previously been coughing into and shook the offending arm for emphasis “See!!!” You looked past the skeleton at the wall, there was a bloody handprint you’d have to clean off and you could spot some on one of Rus’ hands

You shook your head and got back on track, fixing your tall friend with a serious look

“Look Rus, I don’t need a hospital. I just need to get cleaned up and maybe get a bandaid or two. I’m okay, promise.” He only frowned, searching your face before sighing

“you owe me an explanation later.”

“You probably won’t believe me.” You said with a tired chuckle

You scooched off of your bed and slipped off your pack, letting it hit the floor with a thunk and various muted clinks and clangs from your supplies, kits, and other odds and ends.

“can i ask about the wardrobe change now or should i wait?” You snickered as you fiddled with the various buckles attaching your scabbards and pouches to your person before thinking better of it and reaching for the pin clasping the ends of your cloak together and removing the garment. “Is That A Fucking Sword Y/N What The Hell!?!?”

Your laughter only grew louder as you nodded wordlessly with a grin, looking back at your awestruck friend- who had moved to his knees at the end of the bed, leaning closer to get a better look.

“Yeah, It ties in with the explanation but yeah it’s real! All of it is- wanna hold?” You’d explained excitedly as you quickly got the straps undone and off your body, removing your shortsword and it’s scabbard from the ensemble and holding it out towards Rus. He took it tentatively before sitting back to admire it.

You watched on with a proud look on your face, your smile growing when he unsheathed the blade and you caught his eyelights expand before zoning in on the engraving along the blade. It was a simple enough sword but one of your friends had enchanted it for you way back at the beginning when you all were still discovering and learning your class’ skills and you’d kept it close ever since.

Switching gears you started taking off your armor, which thankfully had taken most of the blood as well as your cloak- leaving your tunic nearly spotless this time around. There was a little soaked in around the collar but it was manageable. In a stroke of genius you grabbed a pair of sweatpants, telling Rus to stay where he was you moved to the alcove in your room that didn’t have your bed and quickly changed pants, throwing your boots and pants into the pile of adventuring gear before smearing blood across your face from your nose.

A mischievous grin spread across your face when you turned towards your companion

“How do I look?” when you got a concerned look in response your grin only grew “Great! I’ll be right back!” Rushing down the stairs you covered your nose, raising your voice so the whole room could hear you

“Hey mom?! I don’t know what happened but I got a really bad nosebleed- can I wash some things?”

Your mother turned from the TV to look at you, eyes widening in surprise and concern “Of course, What happened?”

“I don’t know! I woke up and there was blood everywhere. I think It stopped but it got all over my bed.”

“Here, let me strip your sheets- you get cleaned up.”

“Oh no, you don’t gotta do that.! I can get it, just give me a sec.” You tried to wave her off but she insisted, already heading up your stairs. Aaaah fuck Rus isn’t supposed to be here he didn’t use the door!!!

You felt rather than heard the pop of magic in the air and sighed, You’d have to get with him later, but for now you had blood to clean. You absently wondered if rubbing alcohol worked on leather.

Getting back to your room you looked around and found that all your gear- which you had completely forgotten also shouldn’t have been there- was piled up in the same place you had previously changed, hidden from view of your mother. You also found your phone plugged up on your bed with messages on it’s screen

~Rus~

-text me after dinner

-i’ll come over w/ rant and you can explain

Rant? Who’s-OOOOOHHH!!!! Right multiverse shenanigans, Sans is Rant here. As you were going to unlock your phone you got another text from the aforementioned skeleton himself

~Rant~

-RUS SAID YOU WERE ALIVE. I’LL BE TELLING MY BROTHER WHAT HAPPENED TO US IF YOU WOULD…

The message cut off, which concerned you until you remembered that you’d have to enter the app to get the full message since it was so long. Inputting your passcode you re-read the full text

-RUS SAID YOU WERE ALIVE. I’LL BE TELLING MY BROTHER WHAT HAPPENED TO US IF YOU WOULD BE UP TO COMING OVER AND EXPLAINING IT TOGETHER? I’D BE NICE TO NOT LOOK INSANE IN FRONT OF MY ONLY FAMILY

-We’ll see if I can make it after dinner, I owe Rus an explanation too. He actually just texted and said he’d come over with you so /I/ can tell /y'all/ what happened

-You slipped up by the way, you live with your ~cousins~ remember?

-YOU’D BETTER COME OVER…

His bubble appeared and disappeared before he finally responded

- BITE ME PEASANT

-Kinky~

-But also sleep sounds great though

-I HOPE YOUR HANGOVER KILLS YOU

You pocketed your phone with a smirk as you hopped off your bed. Some reheated leftovers sounded amazing right about now, you feel like you could eat a whole feast. You glanced over at your things and considered your unending flask of honey mead before thinking better of it. Sans- fuck RANT- was right. That healing spell would give you a major hangover after you woke up, especially with how much it had to heal. You shivered as you felt your own mortality weigh down on you.

You’d almost died again, and there were no more resurrection scrolls- especially now that you were home. Your eyes drifted back to the flask…

It couldn’t hurt to celebrate a little could it? Not only are you alive but you’re home! Besides you’re already going to hate life in the morning, why not enjoy a few swigs before that cliff?

You took a long drink and closed the flask, burying it under your things before making your way down the stairs to get something to eat. It wasn’t long after that you were in your usual spot on the couch watching TV with your family and laughing together. You’d even gotten a hug from your mom during a sad scene, and if she noticed you crying a bit more than you meant to then she didn’t say anything. It wasn’t totally unheard of for you to shed a few tears for fiction after all.

#Poly? Morph #fanfic #Rant #purpfell!sans #Rus #sf!papyrus #Getting sucked into your DND game sucks but what about after?#next episode- Rant and Reader share screen time in their own fic #but first 'The Talk' tm #I called myself out in the last paragraph but i'm taking ya'll down with me #I hope this all pasted correctly cause I'm too lazy to check #it doesn't feel like 9 docs pages but oh well #thanks for reading! <3

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torr-sceadu · 5 years

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Question thingy

Favorite colors: Grey (silver), black, red, turquoise as non-edgy runner up

Last song listened to: Lorn - Karma

Favorite song: Picking one is impossible so I’ll list a couple, pls forgib q_q

Unkle - When Things Explode

Rammstein - Mein Herz Brennt

Within Temptation - Our Solemn Hour

E Nomine - Vater Unser

Favorite Musician/Singer: I really don’t know where to go with it so I’ll go with Akira Yamaoka because.. yes.

Last film watched: Oof, I don’t remember last time I watched a movie so I’ll pick whatever comes to mind first. That’d be uh... uuuuuuuuuh...... Upgrade! With Logan Marshall-Green. I spent a couple of days raving about it I think. The ending was right up my alley.

Favorite TV show watched: I’ll go with Criminal Minds because I’ve re-watched it 3 times and CSI: Las Vegas because Nick Stokes *cough*

Favorite OC: My holy trifecta aka my BGII Bhaalspawns that l still sometimes see in every other OC I have. They will always have a special place in my heart so I’ll write a lil bit about them that you can probably guess from their nameplates lol

Martyr was Chaotic Good. She really wanted to be accepted by people and did everything she could to please them. Her cheerful do-goodly facade started to break in Suldanessellar when elves wanted nothing to do with her after she once again saved everyone. It broke completely when the party got attacked by desperate soldiers that knew they had no chance but they needed the bounty that was placed on Bhaalspawn after Saradush. In the end she simply disappears losing all her desire to do anything in this world. Sarevok may have followed her.

Reaver was Chaotic-Neutral pirate captain until Sarevok destroyed her ship and her crew. Very offended by that move (mostly because of all the gold lost at sea) she sets out to be a thorn in his side. Actually finds friends along the way. Xan cries at night because she’s having none of his doom and gloom. Minsc and Boo are her BFFs. Irenicus had the most impact on her mental state. Actually considered staying soulless so the nightmares would stop. Didn’t give rat’s ass about great elven city, and prophecies. Just wanted gods to leave her alone. Said no to power, said yes to new ship.

Witch was Lawful Evil drow sorceress that lived one too many years and was fixated on gaining knowledge, often forbidden, for knowledge is power. Wasn’t actually a Bhaalspawn but was very interested in them. Saw Sarevok as the most powerful of them all so she wanted him for experiments.With immense magic knowledge behind her back, Witch had no trouble pretending to be Bhaalspawn and luring Sarevok in her trap. However, her success didn’t last as Irenicus had a jump on her. She arrived in Athkatla positively livid and ready to unleash hell. She always had plenty of pawns to do the dirty work for her. At some point she ran into Keldorn and got him out of a pickle (unintentionally). He didn’t like her at all but quickly realized that he wasn’t powerful enough to smite that evil determined to catch another evil. So he agreed to help perhaps hoping to control the damage done in that chase. As time went on their companionship proved to be most fruitful. Keldorn was surprised to see Witch have same disdain for chaos as him and zero intention to help other evildoers. Witch slightly softened up and started considering that having friends had its perks. Still enjoyed the sight of burning Suldanessellar just a bit too much. In the end Witch accepted the power and ascended. Keldorn declined her offer to be her champion but didn’t say no to occasional visits to her temple.

Sweet, spicy, or savory: Savory I suppose. Just a little bit of sweet. No spicy. Ever.

Sparkling water, coffee, or Tea: All of them. Each day a new craving.

(DONT READ IF YOU DONT WANT SAD)

Pets: This is where this post got stuck in my drafts. I had a cat, a cute assbutt with zero regard for closed doors and a deep desire to plop down on a dinner table. She died last summer after months of struggle. She has been with me for the most part of my life and I still can’t stop thinking about her. Her name was Mysya and she really liked sleeping on my chest.

Tagged by @umbralitch, @kazexvoss, @lareine-kira, @silvernsteel, thank you ;_;

#taggy tag #i'll just go cry in the corner #after writing that down

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hcmj · 6 years

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HCMJ’s Favorite Albums of 2018!

Listen to a mix featuring these albums here: HCMJ’s 2018 End Of Year Mix

Honorable Mentions:

LLLL - Chains Phase 4: Resemblance

Various - 慕情 in da tracks

Endurance - Shade Terrarium

Farragol x dropp - 楽感 / optimo

pool$ide - aquarius

FUJII - EUPHORIA

Andrew W.K. - You’re Not Alone

Stardazer - Vacation Dreams

Alex Crispin - Open Submission

Foodman - Aru Otoko No Densetsu

20) TUPPERWΛVE - To you baby, with love

As the years go by, sometimes I still crave that classic-style (or as Tech Honors once described SEAWRLDハートブレーク, “trash-ass”) vaporwave sound. It’s the usual fare of slowed down antiquated R&B with filter sweeps and side-chained kicks, but TUPPERWΛVE’s sample choices and looped snippets stay inspired throughout, building emotionally impactful arrangements and proving the artist has what 90% of contemporary vaporwave is missing: a sense of taste and purpose. NUWRLD vibes.

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19) The Caretaker - Everywhere At The End Of Time - Stage 4 & 5

Leyland Kirby released stages 4 and 5 of his six part, multi-year epic simulating a mind falling into dementia. It’s said the last memories someone suffering from dementia retains are the melodies heard in their youth, and on this year’s installments we find melodies from the first stages lost in a haze of static and noise. While not as easy to listen to as the first three stages, these 8 tracks lose the poetic titles of the previous installments and present an absolutely horrifying interpretation of the confusion that comes with a mind breaking down.

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18) Kate NV - для FOR

I won’t lie, I went into the new Kate NV hoping for at least a few heart-melting rib-cage exploding pop masterpieces like what she showed us on Binasu (my favorite album of 2016). However, the absence of conventional songwriting on для FOR ends up being its defining characteristic. The album delivers a set of impressionistic synth sculptures that slowly develop an album that blossoms into blissful organic structures with brushstrokes of vocals before skipping off into a brightly lit horizon.

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17) 忘れた頃に手紙をよこさないで - Tamao Ninomiya

There is an air of surreality drifting through the new crop of Tokyo underground post-pop. Tamao Ninomiya’s “lo-fi bedroom pop” is always performed in PJs and has a playful gloominess with a thousand-yard-stare kind of shyness that exudes a special kind of emotional resonance. Everything is gentle, subtly “off” - it’s an inventive and delicate pop sketchbook.

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16) Kero Kero Bonito - Time 'n' Place

The same way Pokémon Yellow was a video game based on an anime that was based on a video game, Kero Kero Bonito is a British group that has arrived at a sound closer to early 2000′s jrock than the British rock that crop of Japanese musicians were imitating. While the final 1/3rd of the album drags, there’s no denying the pop perfection of “Time Today,” the Blue-Album-Weezer thunder of “Only Acting,” the Parklife-era Blur artschool bounce of “If I’d Known,” the whimsical bubblegum of “Make Believe,” or the saccharin yet heartfelt “Dear Future Self,” a pop meditation complete with "Mr. Blue Sky” charm and melodramatic chamber orchestra arrangements.

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15) we could die here - we could die here

While “brooding ambient” is a genre I have drifted away from these past years, ‘we could die here’ reminded me of why I was once drawn to it. It’s all about creating atmospheres, and while so much of genre these days seems to be producing the same, boring, smoke-filled neon/black room, ‘we could die here’s lush sound succeeds in building a sprawling, haunting world with enough depth that it’s worth returning to.

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14) poemme - Moments in Golden Light

Similar in scope to ‘we could die here,’ Moments in Golden Light is as advertised - warm and soft. Blissful pillows of ambience constructed in the old style, poemme pulses and drones with the silkiness of Hakobune and the breadth of Steve Roach, featuring a track that even unabashedly layers in bird samples.

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13) Machine Girl - The Ugly Art

The Ugly Art is special, as it’s the first Machine Girl album that begins to capture the raw energy and power of their live shows by showcasing live drums. The insane breaks are intact and the blistering Dreamcast punk is more hardcore. It’s dense, unrelenting in its shredding, and culminates in the epic “A Decent Man,” a 10 minute violent rave masterpiece with more content than all 3 Matrix movies combined.

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12) Oneohtrix Point Never - Age Of

Age Of is a complex concept album more convoluted than a Roger Waters solo project. The music itself makes the trip one worth taking, through 13 immaculately produced tracks painting a post-apocalyptic machine world. It has an ability to turn pop tricks on tracks like “Black Snow” and “Same,” while the sound remains distant from any of comfortable paradigm. Bits of static, broken samples, and walls of noise develop into larger-than-life ballads that seem eerily familiar despite being so alien. The arrangements are complex and the production is deep, it’s a cyber-western soundtrack that always commands full attention.

SPOTIFY / APPLE MUSIC

11) Seth Graham - Gasp

Gasp has a charm and complexity that sets it apart from a lot of experimental composition. The tape cut samples of “Whisper - Slap” sound impossibly worked on, while the ASMR freakouts of “Binary Tapioca” and the restrained playfulness of “Flower Cheese” make the process sound like an artist working effortlessly. Deeply emotive and loudly expressive, Gasp has a sound that digs in its hooks and burrows deep.

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10) Equip - Synthetic Core 88

The long awaited followup to the seminal faux-ost I Dreamed Of A Palace In The Sky, Synthetic Core 88 delivers on the promise of Equip’s earlier work and brings it to a new realm of legitimacy. This is a 32-bit RPG I wish I could play - with all the themes of interwoven technology and magic revealing themselves in the clever score. The conflict between the cold steel and floral lushness emerges in the sound somewhere between Uematsu and a “Tales of” game. This album could only be made by someone who truly understands how music supports the worldbuilding an RPG needs to be a successful narrative platform.

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9) Utsuro Spark - Static Electricity

Utsuro Spark is a miracle. One of the highlights from the impressive output of the Japanese label, Local Visions, this mini-album is a collection of beautifully crafted metropolitan electro pop. Sharp instrumentals including studio-perfect guitar and on-point synth work lay a foundation for blissfully creamy vocals - pop music that is full of desperate longing and unpretentious charm. The katakana titles recall the old Japanese pop it draws inspiration from, but in many ways the soul of this music at the very least meets the bar set by the old masters.

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8) Tsudio Studio - Port Island

I was lucky to play a show in Kobe with Tsudio Studio, whose brilliant songwriting and iconic vocal delivery completely won over my heart and soul. The jazzy coolness and gorgeous chord structure for tracks like “Azur” and “Snowfall Seaside” are absolutely intoxicating, while the hooky R&B in “Mikage” and the Phantasy Star Online space-shredding of the opener “Tor” make Port Island a mini-album where every single track is a stand out.

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7) Dinosaur On Fire - Populous Romantique

After a 6 year gap, dds cohort Tech Honors unleashed the second Dinosaur On Fire album in a maelstrom of prog rock and laser beams. It’s an ultra hi-fi production that bounces from stoner prog to krautrock to synthwave to operatic video game symphonies to Ray Lynch arp fountains and back again effortlessly. Populous Romantique showcases the expansive reach of Tech’s abilities both as a visionary artist and producer.

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6) Monari Wakita - Ahead!

While so much jpop has become aggressively intense and fast-tempo, Ahead! provides a soulful contrast. Monari Wakita is an ex-idol and alumni of Especia, a group known for capitalizing on 80′s/90′s nostalgia. Ahead! mostly pulls from the 90′s, with new jack swing aping and hyper-produced city pop so technically perfect that the instrumentals would sound at home on the soundtrack of a 90′s Sonic Team video game. It’s that FM bass, synthetic swing, and plastic instrumentation against Monari’s powerful and soulful voice that gives Ahead! its irresistible charm and made it one of the most addictive albums of the year.

VIDEO 1 / VIDEO 2

5) Ventla - Plugged-Matic/Sublingual Odyssey

After years of silence, Ventla returned in 2018 with 10 (!) new albums on his quest to release 100. Ventla’s music continues to be eclectic vignettes of scratchy pop music, utilizing a seemingly endless variety of instruments and synths. Of the 10, the “classic Ventla” sound of Plugged-Matic and the playful exoticism explored on Sublingual Odyssey were my favorites - but with an artist whose entire catalog of 477 songs is easily played on loop for days on end, picking only 2 albums is almost an act of futility.

STREAM/DOWNLOAD: Plugged-Matic/Sublingual Odyssey

4) emamouse - Pigeon’s Point

emamouse’s genius visual art and surreal identity are accented by her equally forward thinking music. The iconic opener “01_PP2″ is a brilliant statement of purpose; a homicidal vocaloid squeaking words you can’t quite understand but frighten you nonetheless over a synth organ jamming out hypnotic post-pop you can’t help but dance to. This is music written by a true artist with a powerful vision of reality and instrumental chops informed by video game music deep cuts. “08_Pigeon’s Swipe” is another great showcase of emamouse’s ability to skew Dragon Quest baroque synths and contort them into the brilliant, unsettling world of her boundless imagination.

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3) TWICE - What Is Love?

Kpop can be a divisive genre, but its meteoric rise in the US is no fluke. The Korean pop machine has mastered the art of the pop song, and nowhere is it more evident than in TWICE’s “What Is Love?” Perfect structure, heart-tugging hook, surprising turns, and a chorus that sounds like 1000 girls yelling the lyrics from the bottom of the grand canyon, “What Is Love?” is technically perfect and sweetly endearing. It’s truly the most perfect pop song I’ve ever heard.

VIDEO

2) Mid-Air Thief - Crumbling

Crumbling is an album so in tune with my personal taste it’s hard to believe it exists. With a foundation of Lamp-esque dreamy pop labyrinths, Mid-Air Thief weaves complex arrangements peppered with ELO synths, chiptune fireworks, lo-fi indie folk revery, underwater voices and Elliott Smith whispers, even some Merriweather Post Pavilion electro-hippy clouds. It’s all the right flavors and textures coming together in a perfectly balanced, romantic masterpiece.

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1) Lamp - Her Watch / 彼女の時計

I discovered Lamp through a vaporwave album back in 2014 that sampled them heavily, and while those short samples of cooing vocals and breezy guitar looped with their heads underwater certainly worked in a satisfying way on that album, discovering the source material was a revelation. Lamp is the result of an algorithm to determine music that would be most appealing to me, and they hit new ridiculous heights of personal appeal on Her Watch. Their signature labyrinthine hurricane of Beatle-esque chord changes under soft voices and bossa nova rhythms is re-fitted into a nostalgic frame, sometimes approaching an almost city pop revivalist sound. The tenderness of “Slow-Motion,” the romance of “A Train Window,” the pop genius of “1998,” the borage of melancholic brightness that rolls from the opening chords of “At The Night Party,” all of it falls into place on the most sublime 36 minutes I have heard in a long time. It was the soundtrack to my life this year and my favorite album of 2018!

STREAM/DOWNLOAD / SPOTIFY / APPLE MUSIC

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justjessame · 4 years

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A Little Ass and A Lotta Sass Chapter 47

Negan, Kiara, and I stayed at Dad’s house, in my old room. Well, Negan and I stayed in my old room, Kiara was spirited away by her grandparents because she had them wrapped around her tiny little finger. Seeing Negan in the bed he’d replaced mine with, looking for all the world as he may if we were in our own home, made my entire body shake with longing.

“Callie,” he kept his voice quiet, even if there was a HUGE part of him that wanted to make Dad cringe, “can you think of a better place for us to try giving Kiara a sibling than where she was conceived?” I grinned, crawling into the bed with him.

“Technically, Negan,” I offered, licking up his bare chest and smiling as he groaned at my teasing. “We created Kiara in the fucking laundry room.” His arms reached for me, and his lips met mine as he pulled me to him. “Not feeling up to a field trip downstairs?” I whispered and laughed as he rolled me onto my back and attacked my neck.

“Fuck it, princess,” he growled into my shoulder as he nipped my skin. “I figure we can make baby number two in this fucking room, then any others-”

I gasped as his tongue found my nipple, wondering how I was missing his steady progress down my fucking body. “Others?” I lurched and arched as he kept moving lower. “Who says I want more than two?”

“There are a shit ton of fucking rooms in this house, Callie,” he muttered, his tongue and lips wreaking havoc on my body. “I figure we’ll end up with a fucking football team just by making sure we get around to every room.” Fuck, I thought, wanting to argue that we didn’t NEED a football team, but then his mouth completely short circuited my brain.

Morning came too fucking soon, for both of us. I had to smile as I heard my wonderful husband muttering the same obscenities that I normally offered to the fucking birds that dared remind me that shit was happening outside the window in the bright as fuck sunlight. A chuckle came when he tossed a pillow at the window as if it would stop the birdsong or turn out the light.

“Oh no,” fighting to sound serious. “Did my darling husband, morning person of the fucking decade, catch my irritation with all things perky?” He growled and pulled me closer. “Should I try to reverse our normal routine, baby? Want me to show you that mornings aren’t as shitty as they could be?” I felt him twitch against me. “I’ll take that as a yes,” and I started to kiss down his bare body to show him just how good waking up with me can really be.

Breakfast, after making Negan louder than I’d been in the laundry room our first time and a long shower to make up for the achy muscles we both were feeling, was hilarious. Seeing Daryl looking at Negan like he was disgusted by him and the debauchery he clearly forced on me, which nearly made me choke on my juice. Which is probably why Daryl wasn’t meeting my eyes. Dad was attempting to discuss the summit of sorts that we’d be having with Hilltop and Kingdom, taking my attention from Daryl and Negan’s face off to ask him if he was joining us.

“I think I should,” I nodded, agreeing that Dad’s presence made sense. “Once we get word they’re here, we’ll head over to the house.”

“Kiara stays here,” Negan offered, finishing his food as he smiled at our little girl bouncing on Carl’s knee. He’d fed her, after a brief showdown between him and her daddy, and I had to diffuse the situation by raving about how happy I’d been that a run had found me a breast pump. “Isn’t that right, princess? Dada,” he offered, wanting nothing more than to hear her say her first word and for it to be his title. “Dada thinks that his princess should play with Judith.” He elongated the word, hoping that she’d mimic him, and I had a flash of terror that she’d repeat her first slight to Negan that also happened in Alexandria and shot Dad a look. He shook his head, and I would have felt better, but he accompanied it with a smirk. Fuck.

“Judith and Hershel,” Michonne offered, Judith sitting next to her, trying to reach for her new favorite toy, my daughter. “Since I’m sure Maggie will let me watch him while she’s occupied with-” A nod of gesture toward Negan, as though he was the main focus, which I guess he was. “I think we’ll take a picnic-” but Negan cut her off.

“Keep them inside,” he realized it came out sharp and sounded like an order, so he tempered it with a, “please?” I nodded my agreement, inside, at least until everything was settled. Inside and controlled. Safe.

Once breakfast was finished, dishes washed, Negan and Dad went to the former Monroe house to make sure everything was in order. I was holding Kiara at the same window her daddy had wrapped himself around me to try to convince me to come home with him, showing her the neighborhood that had once been my life. Michonne, making sure that Judith was occupied with her toys and that Carl had his own distractions, joined me.

“She’s happy,” I smiled as I kissed my little one’s soft curls. “And she looks frighteningly like her mother.” That made me laugh, causing Kiara to join in.

“She acts like me too,” I offered, meeting my stepmother’s eyes. “Demanding, loud-”

“Has Negan wrapped around her little finger,” she offered, her smile blinding as she reached out and giggling as Kiara bounced to try to get to her. Willingly releasing my tiny one to her safe hands, I watched as she held her as naturally as she’d taken to mothering the three of us. “You know she started making sounds that sounded suspiciously like a word last night, don’t you?” I waited, knowing that I was about to find out that Kiara Jade was going to end up grounded until she was thirty by her daddy. “‘Pop-pop’,” she offered, and Kiara, the tiny headstrong traitor echoed the very clear words. Fuck.

“Damn it,” I muttered, seeing my little girl sealing her own soon to be grounded state. “You couldn’t have just followed normal fucking standards, could you?” She was giggling up at me and I sighed. “Let’s hope that she doesn’t give that little performance a go before we get shit settled, right?”

Maggie, her people and her baby boy, followed closely by Carol and her contingent came soon after Dad and Negan returned from doing a last sweep of the Monroe house. I held Kiara, as I greeted my former family members, and waited to see if weapons would be drawn or an attack made. None came, thank God, but it was still tense.

And then, as Michonne was about to take Kiara from me while Carl was reaching for Hershel, it happened. The one fucking way to truly unleash Negan’s utter illogical irritation in full force. My little girl, Negan’s pride and joy, started to cry and reach out. For my dad, and then she screamed, clear as a fucking bell, “POP-POP!”

Shit. Negan took a huge fucking breath, and I waited, feeling like we were all about to hear an atomic explosion of pissed off daddy to come roaring out and ruin the entire fucking attempt before we even got started. Dad moved to Kiara, kissing her head and whispering that he would be close, that he was going over to the house and pointing to it, while shooting Negan a warning look. Fuck.

What saved the day? Maggie laughed, then Carol, then Michonne joined in, soon even Laura offered a chuckle and somehow, someway, that diffused it. Kiara, loving the sound of laughter, giggled tears still shining, but the giggles fixed it all. Negan moved close, standing close to Dad without hesitation or any sense of discomfort, and kissed her head and smiled down at her. I heard, because I was right beside them, him whisper that her and Dada had a LOT to talk about after his meeting and I snorted. Dear God.

As the little ones went off with Michonne and Carl, the rest of us went to the Monroe house where I hoped like fuck we could figure something out that made the tension we just felt moments before seem like the worse thing that could happen today.

#negan x ofc #The Walking Dead #rick grimes daughter #alternative universe #Smut

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hubskitchen · 7 years

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Hub’s Kitchen Episode 4: Why the DC Extended Universe Failed (DCEU Retrospective)

DISCLAIMER: This is a continuation of the previous installment of Hub’s Kitchen. Please read that episode before reading this one. Or not, it’s your choice. Also, spoilers for: Man of Steel, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Wonder Woman, and Justice League.

What’s up guys, my name’s Hub, and welcome to another installment of Hub’s Kitchen. Episode, installment, same difference, this isn’t an academic essay now. In the last episode, I talked about some cinematic universes and what problems they faced or are going to face. At the end, I said I was saving one particular cinematic universe for this episode, and that it needed its own episode dedicated to it. Well, I’m gonna talk about that universe today. Prepare yourselves, as I dive into the horror that is known as: The DC Extended Universe.

If there’s one cinematic universe that can rival the Marvel Cinematic Universe in terms of popularity and success besides Star Wars, it’d be DC’s cinematic universe. The Marvel/DC rivalry has been going on since the 1960’s, when a good chunk of Marvel’s heroes were introduced during the Silver Age of comic books. Throughout the past 5+ decades, both have had their major successes and major blunders. DC has always had the advantage in the animation side of things compared to Marvel, but that doesn’t mean Marvel hasn’t had good shows. The Spectacular Spider-Man and Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes series are some of my favorite animated shows of all time. I prefer Marvel because of the heroes and how more human they are compared to DC’s catalog, but that doesn’t mean I don’t like DC. My first exposure to superheroes was the Justice League animated series from the widely beloved DC Animated Universe, and I’ve been a superhero fan since. In a perfect world, the Marvel/DC rivalry on film would be a monumental and huge war, both sides unleashing their various heroes onto the screen for audiences to love, and giving more fans more room for debate in the long-fabled who’s better debate: Marvel or DC? Instead, it’s more like Marvel is curb stomping DC into the fucking dirt. I feel a brief history lesson is necessary to really bring this whole thing into context.

HOW THIS ALL FELL INTO PLACE

Several years ago, from the 70’s to the 90’s, DC had the upper hand on film, especially with classics like Superman: The Movie, and Tim Burton’s Batman ‘89. Meanwhile, Marvel struggled to get anything onto the screen, with failures like the 1989 Punisher, the 1990 Captain America, and the cancelled, but only viewable through bootleg 1994 Fantastic Four movie. Then, Marvel went bankrupt in 1996, and to keep them afloat, they sold all the movie rights to all their characters to various movie studios. Sony got Spider-Man, FOX got the X-Men and Fantastic Four, etc. During this period, Superman already fell from grace with the 1987 bomb Superman 4: The Quest for Peace, and Batman would soon follow with 1997’s Batman and Robin, one of the most infamous comic book movies of all time. The genre would see a new beginning with 1998’s Blade. In 2000, FOX launched their first X-Men movie, and in 2002, Spider-Man came out, which is the movie that I believe is what started the comic book movie boom that’s still going on, and would be the template that the Marvel Cinematic Universe would follow. DC, meanwhile, rebooted Batman with 2005’s Batman Begins, which would later follow up with 2008’s The Dark Knight, which is often considered to be the greatest comic book movie of all time. Unfortunately, not everything was working out for both Marvel and DC. Superman Returns, the first Superman movie since Quest For Peace, while a modest hit, wasn’t the hit Warner Bros were expecting it to be, and today, Superman Returns isn’t looked at very fondly. While FOX successfully launched the X-Men onto the world of film, the Fantastic Four wouldn’t get the same level of success with both the 2005 film and it’s 2007 sequel, Rise of the Silver Surfer. Sony was also in a pickle with 2007’s Spider-Man 3, which disappointed audiences. Pile that on with Hulk, Daredevil, and Ghost Rider, and Marvel was having some pretty notable failures in their catalog. However, while Universal, FOX, and Sony failed with the aforementioned films, something huge was coming from Marvel Studios when Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk released in 2008. The first Iron Man had the famous end credits sequence with Nick Fury telling Tony Stark that he was a “part of a bigger universe,” and in The Incredible Hulk, we see Tony Stark in a scene of the movie, leading fans to believe that something was coming. 2010 and 2011 marked the releases of Iron Man 2, Thor, and Captain America: The First Avenger, and in 2012, the culmination of all 5 movies released: The Avengers. The Avengers was a massive success, being that it was the first movie to make over $200 million in its opening weekend in the United States. The movies from Iron Man to The Avengers would later be known as Phase 1 of the MCU. Knowing where Marvel Studios is today, it’s amazing how huge they’ve become, making Marvel into a global phenomenon, at least in the realm of movies. This left Warner Bros pressured to make a cinematic universe of their own DC superheroes and get a Justice League movie out as soon as possible. However, this wasn’t actually the first time WB tried to set up a DC cinematic universe.

GREEN LANTERN

In 2011, Green Lantern was released in theaters. On the surface level, Green Lantern was following the footsteps of the first Iron Man: Taking a B-list character and making a movie that would set up the foundation of what would later be a cinematic universe. However, that didn’t work out for Warner Bros. Green Lantern was released to mediocre to terrible reviews, and was a flop at the box office, grossing $219 million on a $200 million dollar budget. Thus, all plans for sequels to Green Lantern were cancelled. The movie is often considered to be one of the worst comic book movies of all time, and was subject of a joke in Deadpool, with “Please don’t make the super suit green, or animated!” Good thing Ryan Reynolds got his big break with that movie. In 2013, WB released Man of Steel in theaters. Man of Steel was directed by Zack Snyder, who directed 300 and the live action adaptation of Watchmen in 2009. The head writer was David Goyer, who wrote for the Dark Knight trilogy, and one of the producers was Christopher Nolan, the director of the Dark Knight trilogy. *In Bubsy voice* How could any of this possibly go wrong?

MAN OF STEEL

It could go wrong, but not horribly wrong. Instead of releasing to rave reviews, and making over a billion dollars at the box office, Man of Steel released to mixed reviews, and in WB’s eyes, underperformed at $668 million dollars. To this day, Man of Steel is one of the most divisive comic book movies of all time, with some seeing it as a great reinvention of Superman, and others seeing it as a betrayal at who Superman is. Not exactly the foundation you want to build your cinematic universe on, huh? As for me, I side with the more negative reactions to Man of Steel, but not as much as I did back in 2013. With the benefit of hindsight, I see Man of Steel as a movie that could have been great, but it wasn't. The issue with Man of Steel, and the thing that kills the movie for me, is that they changed Superman to accommodate the world the DC Extended Universe built up, rather than have Superman be the character he’s always been. I’d be fine with a less experienced, more doubtful Superman, if after this movie, he slowly, but gradually becomes the Superman people expect. We’ll talk about that in a bit, but it didn’t help that the movie spent so much time telling us that Superman will be great, instead of just showing us. Given what we see, Supes destroying shit in Smallville and Metropolis, I don’t think he’s going to be great at all. It also didn’t help that the movie was slow as shit. I can take slow-paced stuff, but you need to really have me engrossed in order to deal with it, ‘cause a slow-pace can kill something for me. I could go on further, but we need to move this along. Overall, I think Man of Steel is mediocre, but not terrible. So, given how this movie underperformed, what do you think Warner Bros’ would do for the future? Hit the Batman Emergency button, of course! Because Batman did wonders for Warner Bros with the Dark Knight trilogy, they decided to put Batman in the follow-up to Man of Steel. But they couldn’t stop at just putting a Batman and Superman conflict into this movie. They also needed to add Wonder Woman, ‘cause the DC Trinity needs to be on screen now that The Avengers got their movie. That still wasn’t enough, however. Let’s take elements of The Dark Knight Returns and Death of Superman storylines and adapt them. Okay, this could still work. Hold on! We need to let the audience know that Justice League is coming, so let’s put in Flash, Aquaman, and Cyborg into a scene that literally advertises their films and the Justice League movie. Now we need to double down on the dark and gritty tone people were divided with on Man of Steel, and let’s try to be even more profound and deep, unlike that stupid kiddy Marvel crap that’s successful for some reason. This is for the intellectually elite, motherfuckers! This movie will be a masterpiece! It’ll mop the floor with that stupid Marvel movie, Captain America: Civil War! People will love our movie, right?!

BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE

Haha, ha, WB executives are fucking hilarious. Batman v Superman, which I’m just going to refer to as BvS from now on for simplicity’s sake, released to negative reviews and was even more divisive than Man of Steel with audiences and fans. WB wanted this movie to make $1.1 billion, which is what Captain America: Civil War would end up making. Instead, despite a strong opening weekend, BvS had the second largest opening weekend drop off, with 2003’s Hulk still retaining that record. BvS would only end up making $872 million at the box office, which WB labeled as another underperformer. In my humble opinion, BvS is the worst comic book movie I’ve ever seen, and is a good contender for the worst of its genre. “But Hub,” I hear some of you say, “Wasn’t Age of Ultron accused of the same issues BvS had? Why did that film still end up being successful?” A few reasons. Age of Ultron, despite it not receiving rave reviews like the first Avengers movie did, still received fairly positive reviews and word of mouth, and still made $1.4 billion at the box office, which is less than the $1.5 billion the first Avengers made. That’s diminishing returns, but not by a lot. Second, while I’ll agree that AoU isn’t one of Marvel Studios’ best films, as it suffered from studio interference, I can at least say that the movie wasn’t broken at the seams. It got derailed a few times (Hi, Thor pond scene and Hulk X Black Widow relationship), but it the characters still felt like themselves, there were some legitimately great moments (Vision and Ultron in the woods is a good example), and wasn’t trying to be profound and deep. It tried to tell a more grand story than the first Avengers, but it was never pretentious, even if the movie bit off more than it could chew. AoU had to do a lot, too much in fact, and the movie came out as a mess, but not a terrible mess, or even irredeemable one. It’s honestly a miracle that AoU ended up as good as it was, given the circumstances. Heavily flawed, but I can admire what it set out to do. Had to get that unnecessary, but also necessary “Marvel isn’t perfect” thing so I don’t get accused of being a Marvel or Disney shill. Christ.

Back onto the actual subject, BvS is a fucking trainwreck on every possible level if you ask me. Okay, maybe not so much the music, but even then, Wonder Woman’s theme is the only song that I can remember. Then again, I don’t pay attention to music when I watch movies, as I listen to those on my own time. The story was so badly told, and the stand out moments were so horrible, I’m shocked that this movie was approved with the script that it was given. This is one of the few times I think of my theater experience when watching a movie. Man of Steel’s theater experience made me sick with the shitty shaky-cam, but this movie made me angry while watching it, and I never get angry when watching movies, so you have to be really bad in order to make me angry when watching. Two moments in particular, the infamous Martha scene and Superman’s death made me want to walk out on the movie. I’ve never wanted to walk out of a movie before, so that was a first for me. I think the biggest sin BvS makes that isn’t destroying famous comic book stories and having some of the worst versions of Batman AND Superman, is that not only is BvS slow to the point of boring, with very little of actual importance happening, but the movie tries to be so profound in its messages and imagery, like this is some fucking college arthouse film. A lot of people say the worst thing a movie can be is be boring. I respectfully disagree. For me, the worst thing a movie can be is be boring and trying to act like it’s so smart with its themes. The whole god amongst humans thing has been done to death, quite literally in the case of this movie, and the way it’s presented and written, comes off as overly pretentious. I can’t wait for someone to tell me that this movie is for the intellectually elite, while also saying that I need a high IQ in order to understand this movie. It’s why I prefer a movie to be rushed and have little actual meaning, than a movie that’s slow paced and try to be profound. This applies to bad movies only, of course.

There’s two cuts that exist for BvS: The one that was released in theaters, and the 3 hour, rated R extended cut, dubbed the “Ultimate Cut.” Yes, because the first movie about Batman and FUCKING Superman TOTALLY needed a rated R cut. I’ve watched the Ultimate cut, or more like I was forced to watch it because my brother made me sit with him and watch it. There’s a reason why I never trust the man with movies. But, how is the Ultimate cut? Well… it’s better… *sigh* Okay, it’s more complete this time around. It doesn’t feel like a huge chunk was cut out for no reason, and there’s more context surrounding the events of the movie, but does that actually fix the movie? Judging by my statement, no, no it doesn’t. Many of the problems that were in the theatrical cut are still present in this version: Batman and Superman hate each other for their own reasons but do the things they say they hate about the other, making them hypocrites, Lex Luthor’s plan makes no sense and is overly convoluted, Lois Lane is still useless, the action is still poor overall, Wonder Woman is still an afterthought, the title fight that the movie has its entire purpose riding on is still lackluster at best, the Martha scene is still stupid, and the movie essentially destroyed all hopes of a great Superman story by wasting the Death of Superman storyline. What else can I say? I fucking hate this movie, the end. Holy shit, that was a long section. How’s about something shorter?

SUICIDE SQUAD

This is gonna be a very short segment compared to the BvS one, but that’s because in a shocking twist, I haven’t actually sat down and watched Suicide Squad. I’ll still talk about how the movie ended up the way it did and how it was received, but I can’t actually comment on the movie itself. I’m also putting Suicide Squad’s history here because the BvS segment is long enough. Anyway, after BvS underperformed, Warner Bros panicked and decided to make a course correction with Suicide Squad. People liked the trailers, which made the movie appear to be DC’s answer to Guardians of the Galaxy. In fact, the people who made the trailers ended up editing the movie. Yes, really. The concept of the movie sounded awesome. A ragtag group of villains forced to do good things or they die is a really interesting concept and if executed well, could be seen as a new form of comic book movie. The anti-Avengers, you could say. However, that wasn’t meant to be. Suicide Squad was received about as well as BvS was, with some saying it was even worse than BvS. Seeing as how I haven’t seen the movie, I can’t comment on it, but given what I’ve heard, it sounds like a shitty version of Guardians of the Galaxy, both of them, and the sequel wasn’t out when Suicide Squad came out. At the very least, the movie was said to have been more profitable than BvS, even though it made $746 million at the box office on a $175 million budget. So, 3 misfires so far, and the best received one divided audiences and critics. The DCEU was in serious trouble, and there needed to be a miracle in order to save this franchise. Well, unbeknownst to Warner Bros, their savior, to a degree anyway, would come from an underestimated superhero, or should I say, superheroine!

WONDER WOMAN

Remember when I said that Wonder Woman was an afterthought in BvS? Well, she was, but she had a movie coming out. I find it funny that we live in a world where the Guardians of the Galaxy, Ant-Man, Deadpool, the Suicide Squad, and Doctor Strange got their own movies before Wonder Woman, the third member of the DC Trinity. The world is weird. Diana’s movie came out, and it blew away expectations. Not that they were high to begin with, but let’s not be so cynical here. Wonder Woman released to great reviews and audiences loved it. The movie made over $412 million dollars at the U.S. box office, more than any of the Marvel Studios films at the same box office, and outperformed Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man for the highest grossing superhero origin movie, and Spidey held the record for 15 years. The movie would end up making $821 million dollars at the global box office, making it the second highest grossing movie in the DCEU, with BvS being the highest grossing, but unlike BvS, Wonder Woman didn’t underperform and was a huge hit. So, what did I think of Wonder Woman? Well, gotta give credit where credit is due, but the DCEU has an installment where I can confidently call good. Diana herself was better characterized than she was in BvS. My favorite scene in the movie is when she and Steve Trevor are about to go to No Man’s Land, but before they embark on the train ride there, Diana gets ice cream from an ice cream vendor, and tells the ice cream man that he’s wonderful. This is something that this franchise has been sorely lacking: Little touches. The movie also used the dark and gritty motif of the DCEU correctly. This is because the movie was set during World War 1, which was a shitty time, and we had Themyscira, a bright and colorful place to contrast with the shitty London and battlefields. The first two acts, minus the underwhelming action that relied too much on slow motion for my tastes, were well handled and even great. Despite what I said about the action, that No Man’s Land sequence was awesome. However, and this hurts me to say this, the third act happens. Ooooh, the third act. If there was one movie that was so close to greatness, only to have the ending nearly ruin it, it’s this movie. I know I’m going to be labeled sexist for not saying Wonder Woman is a great movie, but please, bare with me. So, throughout the movie, Diana wants to kill Ares, the god of war. The legend of Ares states that he’s the reason why mankind goes to war with each other. However, Diana kills General Stryker (I’m calling him that because it’s the same actor from X-Men 2), and she believed him to be Ares. I mean, to be fair, he was huffing up some magic powder or something, so I can believe that. After killing General Stryker, Diana sees that the humans are still preparing their assault. Diana is horrified to see this, and she asks Steve Trevor why the humans are still at war now that she killed Ares. Shortly after this, the real Ares comes and then the movie goes into the usual third act climax. Now, I don’t have a problem with third act climaxes. So, why do I have an issue with it here? Ares was mentioned being alive early in the movie, so what’s the big deal? I think it has to do with how the movie was written. The way the movie played out, it seemed like Diana realizing that humans are, in her words, “so much more,” than what they seem. This could have explained why she gave up the Wonder Woman mantle and stayed in the human world for a century. Not having a third act climax in order to develop a character, with the message that humans are much more, even at their worst, would have been amazing. Instead, the movie throws all of that away for a final fight with Ares and Steve Trevor sacrificing himself. It felt tacked on and cheapened the movie. It came off as rewarding Diana for being naive, which is something I hated about the movie. Her entire character arc was rendered meaningless because of that last act. There’s also some questions after the fight that are never answered. Now that Ares is dead, does that mean World War 2 and the Cold War never happened in this universe? If killing Ares ended all conflict in humanity, why is the world so grim when Man of Steel begins? This act single handedly derailed the movie. What could have been a potential masterpiece only ends up being decent in my opinion. I won’t go as far as to say the third act ruined the movie, but it does end up hurting the movie by quite a bit if you ask me. I should reiterate that Wonder Woman is overall, a solid movie, but the third act really holds it back. Now, let’s get to the fifth and final movie in this, I guess you could call it, DCEU Retrospective, the big JL.

JUSTICE LEAGUE

Fun fact: Did you know that there was going to be a Justice League movie long before The Avengers? The movie was called Justice League: Mortal, and was going to release sometime around 2007/2008, if not later than that. However, I guess WB decided “Naaah, we got our golden boyo Christopher Nolan here doing Batman movies for us. The audience will be confused if two live action Batmen were on screen.” Not giving the audience enough credit, I see? I mean, I’m not sure what happened, but I’m pretty sure you can look up a video Justice League: Mortal.

Justice League faced tons of behind the scenes problems. There were talks of Ben Affleck (aka, DCEU Bats) directing which never went through, the movie being completely reworked just mere weeks before shooting began because of BvS’s terrible reception, Joss Whedon (the guy who wrote and directed the first two Avengers movies) taking over as director and reworking the movie after Zack Snyder tragically lost his daughter from suicide, etc, etc, etc. Now, I’m not saying a movie that has behind the scenes problems is doomed to failure. After all, A New Hope had several behind the scenes problems, with George Lucas even writing the film off before it premiered, and look at how well that movie ended up turning out. Although I was livid after BvS and missed Suicide Squad, Wonder Woman gave me some hope that Justice League wouldn’t be that bad. Well… I was sort of right on that.

Let me get one thing straight: Justice League is a terrible movie. The story reeks of “Been there, done that, seen it before, seen it better, and will see it better in the future.” The characters were flat at best, and irritating at worst (looking at you, second-rate MCU Spider-Man aka Flash), and the villain is one of the worst I’ve ever seen (seriously, Steppenwolf is a fucking mid-boss, so why is he the big bad of 4 years?). To top it off, the film is a tonal and visual mess, and what I mean by the latter is that Joss Whedon’s Avengers-esc style clashes heavily with Zack Snyder’s supposed deep and dark vision. Justice League comes off as, to quote one of my favorite YouTube channels, Midnight’s Edge “A Frankensteinian abomination.” That being said, at least the film didn’t try to shove philosophical messages down my throat or try so fucking hard to be deep and meaningful, so JL’s already better than Man of Steel and BvS in that regard. I also liked that we finally got a Superman that actually felt like Superman should instead of what MoS and BvS tried to make him be. I left Justice League feeling… indifferent, I guess? I didn’t like it, but I didn’t hate it either. All I know is that I should have been feeling a lot more positive about this movie than I actually did. The Justice League animated series from the DC Animated Universe was my introduction to superheroes, and I still think holds up wonderfully today. I may have not been a fan of how Season 1 handled Superman in regards to the villains of that show, but I still think it’s a fantastic show. It’s a fucking shame that Warner Bros essentially failed to make a movie worthy of the name: Justice League. To make Justice League look even of a failure, we’re gonna have to talk about box office again.

Wanna know how much Justice League costed to make, including reshoots? $300 million. Justice League is the second most expensive movie ever made, with Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides being the most expensive. Want to know how much money it made, or has made so far? $655 million. Yes, only that much. On its opening weekend in America, it made $93 million. It couldn’t even make $100 million! It took the movie a fucking month to make the same amount The Avengers made in its opening weekend. If that’s not a “Get fucked, DC,” I don’t know what is. So, now that I spent this entire time going over each DCEU movie in detail (sorry that this has been so long to begin with), it’s now time to answer the question: Why did the DC Extended Universe fail?

WHY THE DCEU FAILED

If you ask me, the main reason the DC Extended Universe failed was because Warner Bros didn’t have a set plan or a person with a vision to keep the universe in tact. The reason Marvel Studios and the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been consistently successful is because of one man, and that man is Kevin Feige. Originally being a producer for the early X-Men and Spider-Man movies, along with other Marvel films, he was the brainchild behind the MCU, and has been an executive producer for each movie in the MCU so far. When a movie doesn’t measure up to the rest, which was the case with Thor: The Dark World, the MCU didn’t go into a panic and have the next few movies affected by Thor 2’s failings. Instead, the franchise carried on, and all the problems of The Dark World were addressed and mostly solved with Thor: Ragnorok. DC, meanwhile, doesn’t have a Kevin Feige. Warner Bros made the choice to make the DCEU director-driven, rather than producer-driven. The problem with making a mega-franchise with multiple franchises inside is that you need to have them be producer-driven to have a consistent vision. I know that a common complaint with the MCU is that it tends to revolve around a single formula, often referred to as the “Marvel Formula,” but a consistent vision needs to be in check to keep things in line. Having director-driven movies is good, but can lead to a clash of visions. Maybe I should do a Hub’s Kitchen episode on that. Hmm… Because of BvS’s failings, Suicide Squad and Justice League had to be radically altered during shooting and post-production, rather than before shooting and during pre-production, which was the case of Thor: Ragnorok going in a different direction than the previous Thor films.

I also feel that not sticking to what made the characters so beloved is another reason the DCEU failed. I’ve always been one to say that accuracy doesn’t make a movie good, but even so, I still believe that the main point of the character should be completely in tact. Marvel Studios has done a great job at this, even when they had to slightly rework characters like Spider-Man for example. Despite him having a tech suit made by Tony Stark, Peter still made his original suit, his web shooters, webbing, is still a smart kid, and relatable. Meanwhile, the DCEU decided “Hey, you know Superman? Yeah, let’s make him a complete brooding asshole and have him kill people for no reason other than its cool.” Or “Hey, you know Batman? Yeah, he’s a killer now and then suddenly he’s a third-rate Tony Stark wannabe.” Even better “Hey, you know Flash? Barry Allen Flash? We’re gonna make him Wally West and make him incredibly annoying, because COMEDY!” Thankfully, Wonder Woman got off pretty well. I know nerds like me are the only people who read comic books, but as far as an adaptation is concerned, we want the core basics of the characters to be intact. The DCEU didn’t do that, and a lot of fans jumped ship. Audiences were also alienated, mainly because for Man of Steel and BvS, the heroes weren’t acting like heroes, or people for that matter. I think that covers that whole dilemma, and now, it’s time to wrap everything up.

CONCLUSION

I’m sorry that this episode was as long as it was. I just feel that I needed to go in-depth as to why I felt the way I did and why the DCEU failed. I love superheroes. I’d go as far as to say superhero stories are my favorite kind of stories. I grew up with superheroes, okay, mostly Spider-Man, but still. So I hope you all can understand why I hated the DCEU as much as I did, and why it ultimately failed. I feel like whenever people generalize others who love the MCU and hate the DCEU as them saying “Marvel can do no wrong,” are missing the point. It’s not that we believe Marvel can do no wrong. It’s that we want good representations of the heroes we read and love, so maybe the average Joe can understand why we love these funny books so much. Whatever issues the MCU has can (mostly) be forgiven because the good stuff outweighs the bad. The DCEU, however, has only one good movie to its name and a few droppings of brilliance in an otherwise mediocre DC universe.

Wow, I got really emotional there. I’m sorry for that. It just annoys me when people generalize stuff. I don’t know what the next topic of Hub’s Kitchen will be on, but I can tell you all this: It’s gonna be a hell of a lot shorter than this, that’s for sure. My name’s Hub, and thank you for reading. *Checks Google Drive word count* Over 5,000 words. What the fu-

#hubskitchen

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littleladyyred · 7 years

Text

The Tie That Binds: Chapter Two

Link sets off to the Capital, while Mipha becomes upset at the situation.

~AO3 Link~

Chapter Select

Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3

Chapter Two

~ The Long Road Ahead ~

“You're going to Hyrule Castle?!”

Mipha’s worrisome voice filled his ears as the two of them rested at the summit of Veiled Falls. The thunderstorm that briefly drowned the eastern side of Hyrule had come and gone, and the sky had once again returned to its crystal clear state. It was peaceful up here on the elegant waterfall, breathtaking even. Directly below them sat Zora’s Domain, a glassy aqua-colored castle that was built in the center of a ravine and surrounded by waterfalls of various sizes. It was home to the Zora’s, a fish-like species who had inhabited Hyrule for centuries, and was currently ruled by King Dorephan (who also happened to be Mipha’s father).

Zora’s Domain was definitely one Link’s favorite places to be. It was secluded and perfect and beautiful, and whenever Link was feeling overwhelmed, the serene sound of rushing water would fill him with a calmness that soothed his soul and weary mind.

Although right now, despite the location, tranquility was the furthest away from Link’s restless psyche.

It had been six hours (and counting) since the King of Hyrule had come and given Link the news of his father's death. Six hours since he was told that he will be packing up his life and uprooting to the Capital, all for the sake of becoming this ‘Hero’ he wasn't even entirely sure he was. Link had mused over his situation, pacing back and forth within his small cottage, before Mipha had once again knocked on his door and suggested they went to the falls to clear his head and ‘talk it over’.

Although she was the one who was doing most of the talking.

Link sighed and closed his eyes, briefly mumbling, “It's not like I have much of a choice.”

“You always have a choice.” Mipha argued.

“What was I supposed to do?” Link said, eyes still closed and voice low.

Mipha scoffed. “You could have said no?”

“To the King of Hyrule?” Link’s eyes fluttered open and met Mipha’s. He could see now the worry in her eyes as she sat crisscross next to him. A cool breeze, blew around them, causing a faint blush to spread across her face. She didn't respond, as she knew that challenging the King’s orders would very well result in punishment, but that didn't stop her from feeling any less concerned.

Link wished that she would just drop it. That she would just sit back and soak up what was left of the (now evening) sun and enjoy the little time he had left in this beautiful place. He didn't want to spend the next two days with his best friend arguing over something he had no control over.

Sighing again, Link broke his eyes from Mipha and laid on his back, head facing the sky. Next to him, he felt her shift awkwardly before saying softly, “I just don’t understand why you have to go.”

Link shook his head. “I just have to. My father wants me too.”

“Even though you’ve always said that following your father’s footsteps in becoming a Knight was the last thing you ever wanted?” Mipha’s voice was cold when she spoke, which was odd for her as she almost never got upset or angry about anything.

Link kept his sight to the clouds. She wasn’t wrong. The thought of him being a Knight, just like his father, made him extremely uncomfortable. Ever since the incident, Link wanted no part of fighting, knighthood or anything involved with the Hyrule Army. He just wanted to be normal. He didn't want to be apart of the Royal Guard, he didn’t want to be involved the Great War to come, and he certainly did not want to be the Hero of Hyrule….

It was ironic….

Seven years ago, Link would have raved on and on about how he couldn’t wait to become the Hero. But now….the thought made his stomach turn.

He was afraid.

Ever since the incident, Link was always afraid….

“It’s not a matter of if I want to or not. I have to—I have to do this…..” Link’s voice was barely above a whisper.

I have to do this, he thought. I have to.

He had been repeating that in his head ever since the King had left him alone to his thoughts this morning. Despite his fear, his anxieties—this was inevitably something he absolutely had to do. People’s lives depended on him. This was (quite literally) his destiny. The sole reason of his birth was to carry out this duty. A duty he’s been running from ever since the darkness poisoned his mind and implanted a fear that prohibited him from being this Hero.

“That doesn’t make any sense.” Mipha’s voice rose, dragging Link back to reality. She was looking at him again. Her amber eyes bore into him with confusion. “You don’t have to do anything.”

Link sat up now, meeting her eyes. “You don’t understand—”

“Well then make me understand!” She cut him off. Link had never seen Mipha this upset—this angry.

He wanted to make her understand. He really did. He wanted nothing more than to spill all of his thoughts to her—to his best friend, who he knew would listen and understand and would be nothing but supportive—

But he couldn’t.

He couldn’t unleash all of his baggage on her. This was his burden—his destiny. And the best thing he could do was just to silently bare it.

It was the only thing he could do.

“I can’t make you understand this.” Link said quietly. His eyes held hers as she fidgeted with her hands. “Please don't make this harder than it already is. I don't have a choice in the matter. I have to go. I have to do this.”

Mipha broke their stare and fixed her vision downward, staring at the ground. She was lost for words, she was upset. And Link—Link felt horrible. He hated seeing her upset, let alone being the cause of it.

“Hey,” He moved his hand to cover hers, the contact immediately catching her off guard. Golden eyes flew up to meet his, a shade of red blossoming across her face. The touch was innocent. It was nothing but a kind gesture to show her that he cared and that he didn't want her to be upset. But of course, (like Link half expected), she obviously took it in a different way. A way that Link hadn't intended…

“It's not like you're never going to see me again,” He explained. “I'll come back to visit—And I'll write. Everyday.”

There were a few moments of silence before she smiled. Her eyes lighting up and expression turning back to normal. Link wanted to pull away his hand (especially since he knew she was reading too much into it) but to his surprise, it was her who slowly began to retract her hand out from under his.

She pushed herself to a stand and looked down at Link. Her eyes glimmering in the evening sun. “Ok.”

Link looked at her inquisitively. “Ok?..”

“I really wish you would tell why you have to go, but I won't pry. Whatever the reason is, I'm sure it's a good one. I trust that you're only doing what you have to. So...ok.” She extended her hand out for Link to grab, he took reluctantly and rose to his feet.

“Ok.” Link looked down, unsure how to further the conversation. He felt awful that he couldn't confide in his best friend. That's what best friends were for. To tell each other secrets that you would never tell anyone else. To talk about dreams, and fears, and just—everything.

Link was never very good with words. But lately, he was getting even worse.

“Come on, let's go.” Still holding his hand, she began to lead them away from the Falls.

“Go? Where are we going?”

“Earlier you said you would come fishing with me, before the King interrupted. And if you're only here for two more days, we might as well make the best of it.”

Link felt himself laugh as she pulled the two of them down the hill, deeper into the Domain. Behind them, the orange sun began to dip behind the horizon, painting the sky with shades of pink and purple. Link didn't know what future held, but he sure as hell wasn't going to let his fear and anxieties ruin his last two days of freedom. He would spend the next two days happy and carefree. He would spend the next two days as if he were normal.

Just like he’s always wanted.

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

“Do you have everything?”

Bags of various sizes were sprawled out in the lush grass as Link loaded them up and onto the wooden cart. Mipha leaned gracefully up against a tree, arms crossed and face shaded from the early morning sun, as she patiently watched him pack his life away. The two days had came and gone faster than he expected, and it wasn’t nearly enough time to say his goodbyes. Especially to the only home he's known for the past decade.

“I think I do.” Link sighed. “I'm probably forgetting something though...” He bent down to open up one of the bags again, double checking the items. He had packed far too many clothes, and even more food. He tried to take as many things from the house as he could. He wanted to feel like he was still home, even while staying in the Capital. As he rummaged through the continents, he noticed that his hands were shaking. He also noticed that Mipha had detached herself from the tree and was now kneeling next to him. Her voice, soft and comforting.

“Hey, it's going to be ok. Remember what you said? It's not like you're never coming back here. I’m sure you’ll be able to come visit.” She grabbed his hands and pulled them away from the duffel bag. Link looked up to meet her honey-colored eyes. They were soothing and she looked at him as if he were the most important person to her in the entire world.

Link….didn’t like that look. It made him feel awful. He knew how she felt about him. He’s known for awhile, as Mipha wasn’t all that good in hiding it. However, Link didn’t—reciprocate—her feelings. She was his best friend, sure—and even though he did care a great deal about her….he didn’t...love her...

At least, not in the way she wanted.

Feeling awkward, he pulled his hands away from hers and stood up with the duffel bag, chucking it onto the wagon with the rest. “I know, I know.” he mumbled. “I’m just..”

“Afraid?” Mipha finished for him.

Was it that obvious? He thought. Link felt vulnerable and he hated it. He hated everything about this situation and he wished that Hylia would just strike him down with lightning so he wouldn’t have to go. So he wouldn’t have to leave his home, and everything he loved behind.

“Link.”

King Rhoam’s voice sliced through the air, pausing Link and Mipha’s conversation. He turned to his speaker to see the regal King coming towards him, although he was not alone. Next to him, trotted a cinnamon colored horse with a long silvery mane.

“She's for you.” Said Rhoam as he handed the reins to Link. “Her name is Epona, she belonged to your father.”

Immediately, Epona gestured her head in Link’s direction. He got closer, allowing her to nuzzle into his forehead. Tentatively, he brought up a hand to rest against her neck, and slowly began to run his fingers through her silky mane. Epona leaned into his touch, as if he were no stranger. She accepted his affection as if they had been companions for years. He had always been good with horses. It was one of the few things he and his father actually bonded over. Aiden’s love for the animals was evident, and he made sure that Link (from a very young age) developed a love as well. He taught Link how to catch, soothe and tame wild horses, and it wasn't long before the two of them earned a reputation throughout the Stables as some of the best ‘horse catching Hylians’ ever to grace Hyrule.

“Aiden wanted you to have her.” Rhoam’s voice was soft, as Link continued to soothe the gentle stallion.

“Thank you.” Link said quietly, but his eyes did not leave Epona. He felt a hum of happiness vibrate through her, and a smile spread across his lips. He loved her already. Not only that, but he was grateful that his father had left him such a beautiful and loving companion. Maybe now this trip wouldn't be so bad.

“We’re getting ready to set off. I suggest you mount up.” Said Rhoam. Link turned and nodded his head silently as the King made his way over to his own horse. Link followed instruction and climbed up and onto Epona. It had been awhile since he last rode, the hard leather saddle felt uncomfortable between his legs. Epona shifted at the sudden pressures of his weight, and Link leaned over and carefully stroked his hand along her neck, soothing her once more.

“I suppose this is it then...” Mipha stood besides him, her hands once again clasped together. It was weird looking down at her. Normally she was taller then Link, but when hoisted up on Epona, her head barely came to his hips.

Link gave her a comforting smile, hoping to mask the anxiety he felt climbing inside of him. “I'll come back to visit as soon as they allow.”

“I know.” Mipha smiled, but he could tell it was forced. “Just...please be careful. I hear the road to Central Hyrule is dangerous...”

Link couldn’t hide the shit-eating grin that grew across his face. “Are you kidding? Careful is my middle name.”

Mipha laughed, genuinely, and for a moment the apprehension in her eyes faded away. “Sure it is.”

The royal horn erupted around them as the Knights and Guardsmen prepared take leave. A succession was formed and mounted at the head was King Rhoam himself. A few seconds of silence passed before the horn was blown again, and this time the line of Royals began to move, their horses all marching all in unison.

“I guess that's my cue.” With one more look towards Mipha and soft smile, Link quickly (but gently) signaled Epona to go forward. She responded immediately and fell into a light trot, steadily keeping up with the others.

“Don’t forget to write!” Mipha called out. “You promised me everyday!”

Link chuckled as he looked back to meet her gaze. She stood at the entrance of Hateno Village, a patch of sunlight illuminating her in a way that made her glisten.

“I won’t!” He called back, but he didn’t have much time to say anything else as he was ushered away from the small village and into the sea of various Knights and Royals.

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

Mipha watched from afar as the love of her life rode off into the morning sun, leaving his home and his life behind him.

Leaving her, behind him.

No, she told herself. He’s not leaving me, don’t be ridiculous. He’s just going to the Capital—and it’s only temporary! It won't be forever….Besides, you’re not even his to leave behind...

Mipha sighed and closed her eyes. She held it together pretty well today, she thought. Especially for the fact that she felt as if she were dying on the inside. And she knew—she knew it was selfish for her to feel this way. For her to feel like he was abandoning her, and that he had just up and left without a second thought. She knew this feeling was completely outrageous and she had no right to feel this way. The only reason he was leaving was because due to his father’s dying wish for him to become a ‘Knight’—even though Link had always said he ‘never wanted that’ and just wanted to be normal and live like a regular person—

STOP. She forced herself to open her eyes and push away her vicious thoughts. This is Link, Mipha..Link..Your best friend...This is the man that you—that you—

She couldn’t bring herself to say it. It hurt too much. Because she knew that he would never return her feelings. Not in the way she wanted...He only saw her as a best friend and she knew that and accepted that a long while ago…

But that didn’t mean it still didn’t hurt.

Link meant the world to her. She would literally die for him, if she had too. He was the only person she had ever met, in her entire life, that made her feel this way. That made her feel butterflies every time he so much as smiled towards her, or laughed at something funny she had said, or even the way his arm would sometimes rub up against her when they would sit up top Veiled Falls and talk about dreams, and aspirations and—

You’re doing it again…She reminded herself.

She needed to stop thinking about him. She needed to move on and just focus on things that mattered. Like her training. She had been avoiding it like the plague for the past few weeks. Muzu was probably furious with her. She could already hear his lectures on how it’s ‘imperative’ she keeps to her schedule and that she must become ‘a women and leave the child behind’ if she ever wants to be crowned Queen of the Domain one day…

Sometimes Muzu could be….overbearing..(to say the least), and she meant that in the nicest way possible. He was a great mentor and had always been nothing but supportive when it came to her duties. The only problem, was the pressure. He made her feel like if she didn’t stick to this ‘strict schedule’, she would be failing the Domain or the Zora or—something along the lines of that. He made her feel like she had to be perfect, all the time, and that the tiniest of mistakes would be the cost of her entire future.

Sometimes, it was too much for Mipha. Sometimes getting away and spending time with Link was the only thing that kept her sane.

Except now, she didn’t even have that.

Needing to get away and keep her mind distracted, she slowly turned from the entrance of Hateno Village and began her way back towards the Domain. She didn’t know when she would get to see Link again, but she knew she couldn’t stand here anylonger, watching him ride away in the distance. All she could do was wait for his return, and ignore the burning tears that unconsciously rolled down her cheek, and fiddle with her hands until she was sure they were numb.

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

Link awoke under cold drops of rain and was surrounded by the smell of pine and dirt. There was a chill in the air that caused him to shiver, and he was suddenly (and unfortunately) reminded that he was sleeping outside and not in his warm bed. He was curled under a weeping tree, keeping his distance from the other Knights and Guardsmen. He felt awkward on this trip as it was, so when they had stopped for the night next to Squabble River Link took the initiative to sleep as far away from the group as possible. And King Rhoam had argued that Link could stay in a tent, along with the rest of them (like a normal person), but Link held his ground and kindly declined as he was much more comfortable out in the wild.

Despite the rain and cold that he had not taken into consideration.

They had rode for a total of twelve hours before the King commanded they stop for the night. They had only made it about halfway, and took little to no breaks. Link was uncomfortable, both from sleeping outside and the fact that he hadn't really eaten anything since he left Hateno. Although, it wasn’t like he could eat anyways as his nerves and anxieties were off the chart. And the closer he came to the Capital, the worse and worse they became.

He pushed himself upright, to a sitting position, stretching his arms while doing so. Next to him, he heard Epona hum at his movement and gently nuzzled into his cheek. Link smiled as she did this and reached over to pet the top of her head, gently scratching the bridge of her nose.

“How was your sleep, wild boy?”

A new voice rang through Link’s ears, catching his sleepy attention. Currently towering over him was a burly Knight. He had a head full of strawberry shaded hair, and it fell perfectly around his chiseled jaw line. His arms were crossed over his wide chest as his sleek and silver royal guard armor glistened in the drizzled rain.

Link stood up, feeling awkward and unsure on how to respond to the Knight. He didn’t want to come off as rude, but he really didn’t feel like talking. The wound of having to leave home was still fresh, and all Link wanted to do at the moment was seclude himself and sulk in peace. He continued to stroke Epona, carefully running his fingers through her mane. The Knight seemed to notice his silence.

“No answer?” He pushed. “You hate us all that much?”

Link turned to the Knight then, a burst of annoyance bubbling in his chest. Why won’t this guy just go away? Can’t he take a hint? He thought. The Knight opened his mouth, about to spew something else, but was cut off abruptly by a familiar stern and regal voice.

“Gwen, get back to the tent.” King Rhoam came up behind the red-headed soldier, who turned around startled. He didn’t argue though, as soon as the King’s eyes met his, he sternly turned on his heel and made his way back to the group.

An awkward silence filled the air again. The King still stood in front of Link, his eyes watching him patiently. He spoke after a few heartbeats.

“Did you get any sleep last night?” Rhoam asked, a sense of comfort in his voice.

Link looked to the ground, avoiding eye contact. “A little, your Majesty.”

The King sighed. “If you’re going to be a Knight, you’re going to have to learn to look your commander in the eye when speaking.”

Link reluctantly did as he was told, slowly lifting his sight to Rhoam.

“Better.” Said the King, and for a moment, Link could swear he saw a sense of pride flash across his face. It didn’t last though, as in the very next sentence he went back to the same old stone-cold expression. “We’re leaving in five. Pack your things. I plan to be at the Castle by supper.”

Link silently nodded, still looking directly at the King. It wasn’t until Rhoam turned on his own heel and walked away, before Link released a breath he didn’t realize he had been holding.

Swiftly, he gathered the few of his things that were scattered underneath the tree (which mainly were just clothes he had rolled up and used as a makeshift pillow and blankets) and placed them all neatly back into his pack. He walked Epona over to where the rest of the horses were stood and then placed his bag onto the wagon that held all of the groups gear and supplies. With only a few minutes left before take off, he walked over to the river and splashed some water onto his face, his reflection rippling back as he did so.

He looked tired. So tired. Emotionally and physically at this point. He had bags under his eyes, and he couldn’t determine if they were from the lack of sleep, or all the crying he had done the night before. His yellow hair was knotted in the back, (most likely from sleeping in the lazy ponytail he failed to take out) and he had small pieces of grass that seemed to have gotten stuck in between strands.

Link did his best to comb through his hair with his fingers. He wasn’t one to complain when he was dirty, (as romping around in the dirt and grass was a normal thing for him) but he felt a strong urge to fully bathe himself and just soak in the water, letting all of the stress he’s acquired over the past few days drain away. Sometimes, isolation and a good bath was all one needed to relax.

That, and maybe a few pints of rum.

Rum also sounded really good to Link, right about now.

“Mount up!” A Knight from the group hollered out as Link just finished fixing his hair and pulled it back into the comfortable ponytail. He ran over to Epona and Hopped up and on, soothing her once settled into the saddle. A few moments later, the herd was off, and back on the road to the Capital.

Link wasn’t sure how long they rode for. It felt like hours as the breeze flowed through his hair, the wilds of Hyrule rushing past. The group had fallen into faster pace this time around. Link suspected it was due to the King wishing to be home before night fall. He didn’t mind though. The feeling of running freely through the wild was thrilling. It sparked an energy within him, causing him to lean into Epona, giving into the rush and letting the wind carry him away.

By midday, they made it to Hyrule Field. The lush greenland spilled into his view, as the beaming sun hung high in the ocean sky. That’s when Link saw it, for the first time in a decade.

Hyrule Castle.

The intimidating structure loomed in the distance, illuminated by afternoon light. The sight was beyond incredible yet extremely frightening, all at once. With each gallop, the fortress grew closer and closer. And suddenly, in the midst of his calm and energizing atmosphere, Link was terrified. Soon he would be there, standing in is old home. Standing in the rubble that was his old life. His life in Castle Town—his life before the incident. Soon he would be training with the guard, and soon he would be traveling back to the Lost Woods, to face the darkness once again….

Soon, he would become his destiny.

Encaptured by his mind, Link had stopped paying attention to the road ahead and in punishment, practically slammed into the others as the succession came to a halt. Epona neighed loudly as he pulled back (harder than he intended) on her reins, her hooves grinding into the cobblestone path. He looked up to see why the sudden stop of movement, and instead was granted with a severe feeling familiarity and pure panic.

He was home.

<----- Previous Chapter - Next Chapter ----->

Just some author notes for this chapter.

1. I know that Epona in the game "technically" isn't Epona, but in this fic, it's going to be. 2. I kinda have a headcanon that young Link is kinda like season 1 Bran from GOT. (so please forgive and bare with my slight GOT references/easter eggs. THAT SHIT IS COMING BACK SOON AND IT'S TAKING OVER ME) 3. I plan for the next 8 chapters to be all of the pre-game stuff. Chapter 9, should start with the first memory and the botw story will really start to take off then.

If you enjoyed this, let me know and be sure to follow me for updates! I will always post the new chapter here and on AO3.

The next chapter should be out within a week's time. (as long as life doesn't get in the way)

#legend of zelda #breath of the wild #loz #loz botw #zelink #botw zelink #fan fic #botw fanfiction #loz fanfiction #chapter 2

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thesydneyfeminists · 5 years

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“Queer Eye” Breaks Down Toxic Masculinity Culture

Since its release in February 2018, the Netflix reboot of “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” has been all over the media. Like any pop culture fad, the show has received both raving reviews and ruthless criticisms. On its surface, “Queer Eye” is a fun, feel-good show with just the perfect amount of “edge” for its target audience. There’s a heavy focus on personal transformation, teachable moments, community building and self-love/ care. The cast is comprised of five gay men who each handle one aspect of these transformations: fashion, food, home, culture, and personal grooming. Personally, the show strikes an emotional cord for me. I’m a sucker for the exact kind of sappy, optimistic messages the show portrays. Plus, I’ve enjoyed watching the show and its main cast grow and adapt over three, short seasons. “Queer Eye” is easily bingeable, takes my mind off the doom and gloom of the world and fans a small flicker of hope that whispers, “we can change the world by helping one another.” Still, in researching this article, I found plenty of articles illuminating flaws in the show I never would have seen otherwise. These faults range broadly but include the capitalistic and materialistic basis of the show, the mistreatment of cast members, and the general “unqueerness” of a show with the word “queer” in its very name. All these points are valid, and I will link some sources at the end of my piece that flesh out these criticisms in more depth and nuance. Today, though, I want to apply a feminist lens to one particular aspect of “Queer Eye,” and that’s toxic masculinity.

Image Description: Photo of the Fab Five against a plain, white backdrop. Tan is on the far left, wearing a black, long sleeve, collared shirt with large white polka dots and dark blue jeans. His arms are crossed in front of his chest and he is looking into the camera with a very slight smile. Bobby is standing to the right of Tan, wearing a black tshirt, black pants, and a light grey blazer. His body is angled towards Tan and his right hand is in his pocket. He is also looking directly at the camera with a neutral expression. Jonathan is in the center, wearing a white tshirt, dark blue pants and a blue jean jacket. His back is to Bobby and his hands are wrapped around Antoni’s arm. He is looking into the camera with a neutral expression. Antoni is to the right of Jonathan, wearing a grey tshirt, white jeans and a dark brown leather jacket. His left arm is wrapped around Karamo’s shoulder. He is looking at the camera with a neutral expression. Karamo is on the far right. He is wearing a dark blue tshirt and dark blue, velvet blazer with dark wash jeans. His right hand is in his pocket and he is also looking at the camera with a neutral expression. Image Source: https://variety.com/2018/tv/features/queer-eye-emmys-reality-conversation-contenders-1202843269/

“Queer Eye” takes place in the deep south of the United States, a place with a reputation for racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia and ableism. The show and its cast attempt to grapple with many of these topics. Sometimes they succeed and sometimes they fail. Some of the failures are teachable moments. Others aren’t. One of the structural issues “Queer Eye” confronts fairly well and directly is toxic masculinity. Unlike the original show, not every episode the reboot features a cishet man. I very much appreciate how the Fab Five branch out to include more diverse people in the second and third seasons. For example, “Black Girl Magic” is probably one of the most memorable and well done of the episodes on the show. Another personal favorite is when the Fab Five help a young man “come out of the closet” for the first time. However, in many of the episodes, “Queer Eye uses gay men to unleash traditionally feminine qualities in masculine blokes to redefine what all of those things even mean” (https://www.redonline.co.uk/red-women/blogs/a531752/laura-jane-williams-queer-eye-feminist/). In doing so, the Fab Five actively deconstruct toxic masculinity and embody feminist activism. They show up, communicate with their fellow men and make them question what it means to “be a man.” And, for the most part, the men listen. Partially because it’s a TV show, of course, and they have to listen. But also, partially because the Fab Five have access to and constructively use their male privilege. They show how all prospective allies should use their various privileges: to call out toxic behaviors and help people who are willing to unlearn them.

Image Description: Photo of someone holding a sign up in front of some city buildings and trees. The sign reads “You can be masculine without being Toxic bro. #truthtopower.” It is written in mostly black letters on a white background. The words “you can” are outlined in bright pink. The word “masculine” is underlined in red. The word toxic is written in green, outlined in bright orange and underlined in red. “#truthtopower” is written in red. You can’t see much of the person holding the sign, except the top of their head and their hand/ forearm. They are wearing a grey baseball cap and a camouflage shirt. Image Source: https://theconversation.com/the-real-problem-with-toxic-masculinity-is-that-it-assumes-there-is-only-one-way-of-being-a-man-110305

Over the course of a week, the Fab Five teach the cishet men on their show fairly basic life lessons – how to properly groom themselves, cook a meal, decorate their house, etc. They very clearly don’t believe in the “one size fits all” model and thoughtfully tailor their lessons to the individual. The underlying moral of these interactions is the value of vulnerability. For example, in one episode, Antoni teaches a widower how to prepare a proper meal for his two young sons. Since the death of his wife, Rob Elrod struggled to prepare healthy meals for himself and his family. So, Antoni’s cooking lesson is a learning moment about food, but also about how to be the best possible parental figure to young boys. Throughout this episode, viewers see a tender, loving, yet flawed father. By the end of the episode, we are left hoping his continued relationship with his sons will be better because of the Fab Five. As another blogger suggests, “That’s the thing about toxic masculinity — it’s not just the unconscious belief that having your own style and enjoying refined pleasures of the senses makes you less masculine, it’s the belief that vulnerability in any form makes you less masculine and, therefore, less of a valuable human being” (https://medium.com/s/pop-feminism/queer-eye-for-the-male-victims-of-toxic-masculinity-cdcdad02730d). And if I had to choose one word to describe the very heart of “Queer Eye,” it would be “vulnerability.” Not only do the Fab Five cultivate this vulnerability with the men they makeover, but they show it themselves as well. And, in doing so, they invite the audience to share in these moments of opening up.

Image Description: Screenshot of a tweet by user andi zeisler (@andizeisler). Tweet reads “general periodic reminder: the term ‘toxic masculinity’ does not mean ‘all men are toxic.’ It refers to cultural norms that equate masculinity with control, aggression, and violence and that label emotion, compassion, and empathy ‘unmanly.’” The tweet has been liked 20,166 times and retweeted 7,792 times. It was published on the 15th of February, 2018. Image Source: https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/1348005-toxic-masculinity via @andizeisler’s twitter account.

I wish “Queer Eye” could be mandated viewing for all cishet men. But that’s one of the main problems with the show. The audience it attracts is not the audience that truly needs to watch it. There isn’t much hard data to support my hypothesis. But, if you tune into internet conversations about “Queer Eye”, it’s clear the majority of viewers are not cishet men. The show seems to attract a large LGBTQIA+ fandom, probably because wholesome representation of any kind is so difficult to come by for us. Otherwise, the target audience appears to be young(ish), upper middle class, white people. It definitely does not include the very demographic of men that so desperately needs to hear the lessons “Queer Eye” teaches. The result is a warm and fuzzy TV show catered very specifically to people who already know the dangers of toxic masculinity. For the length of an episode, we get to sit back and be proud of ourselves for simply understanding that deconstructing toxic masculinity is critical work. Furthermore, “Queer Eye” so often puts the burden of transformation on those with marginalized identities. As one writer quotes, “Queer Eye suggests we can all get along, if only half of us would just be super-duper nice and patient with the other half” (https://slate.com/culture/2018/02/netflixs-queer-eye-reviewed.html). The Fab Five are thus both a beacon of hope and a reminder that the darkness is still ever so present. Still, if nothing else, “Queer Eye” reinforces the importance of representation and suggests the possibility of a world without toxic masculinity. The Fab Five very clearly care about people, and their palpable labors of love alone make the show worth watching.

By: Brittany L.

Sources

https://slate.com/human-interest/2018/02/why-queer-eyes-common-ground-message-fails-in-2018.html

https://slate.com/culture/2018/02/netflixs-queer-eye-reviewed.html

https://theestablishment.co/the-not-so-secret-materialism-of-queer-eye/

https://www.indiewire.com/2018/03/queer-eye-netflix-not-queer-1201932107/

https://www.them.us/story/skyler-jay-reveals-his-true-feelings-on-queer-eyes-trans-makeover-episode

https://www.bitchmedia.org/article/queer-eye-cutting-room-floor

https://www.bustle.com/p/queer-eye-season-2-exposes-the-fab-fives-flaws-but-thats-the-point-9394381

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2018/06/queer-eye-season-2-review/562883/

https://www.redonline.co.uk/red-women/blogs/a531752/laura-jane-williams-queer-eye-feminist/

https://medium.com/s/pop-feminism/queer-eye-for-the-male-victims-of-toxic-masculinity-cdcdad02730d

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themusicenthusiast · 6 years

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Saturday, April 28th, 2018 – Judas Priest Unleash Their Firepower on Dallas, Delivering a Pure and Unforgettable Concert Experience

Photos by Jordan Buford Photography Attending a Judas Priest show is something special. Special because of the wide array of people that are brought together because of it, all highlighting the significant impact that the legends have had during their four decades plus run. Fans of all ages were out. There were those who have supported Priest for most if not all of their run, along with a younger generation who clearly held the band in the same high regard. That even included a few literal kids whose parents had brought them out, sharing with their children the band they loved so much. Concertgoers lined the streets, eager for what would soon be unfolding. In all the line to get in stretched more than two blocks. Taking place at The Bomb Factory, it was a proper Dallas show. Judas Priest's first in years. On top of that The Bomb Factory is not the usual event center or arena that the band plays. Still exceptionally spacious, it can accommodate over four thousand patrons and it was packed to the gills. This would be the closest anyone in the present day could get to seeing Judas Priest in an intimate, even club like setting, and they weren't about to let it pass them by.

Along for the ride on this North American leg of the Firepower World Tour was Black Star Riders and Saxon. The former really set the tone for the night, a mass of people having already gathered and subsequently rocked out to what BSR did in their forty minutes on stage. By the time Saxon hit the stage The Bomb Factory was near capacity, and their arrival was celebrated. At times, such as during their biggest hits and fan favorites, one might have thought that it was Saxon who the night was all about, as they led spectators on a few sing-alongs and delivered a fantastic and high-energy set that finished getting everyone warmed up for what was still to come. After a few years away from the area, fans were anxious to get another dose of Judas Priest. The excitement mounted, first as the massive banner that concealed the stage was hoisted into place, and then as the final sound check was carried out. Followed by more waiting, the calm was soon broken by a collective chant of “PRIEST”. Each time it was repeated it grew more intense, ultimately sounding as if every soul in the building was chiming in. It was a testament to how beloved the band is. Minutes later everything was set, the quintet hitting the stage at 10:20, opening with the lead and title track from their newest release, “Firepower”. This tour may have been to support their eighteenth studio album, though selections heard from it this night were kept to a small handful. That was something that fans were okay with; and the songs selected from it were carefully chosen to complement the classic material.

That title track for example set them off on an exhilarating start. As marvelous as the recording sounds, it was in the live environment where fans were able to experience the full might of track. They ripped into it with gusto, that blistering cut thrusting the audience right in to the epic display of metal that would be transpiring this night. Richie Faulkner easily took center stage upon hitting the solo, the guitarist wasting no time in demonstrating his mastery over the axe. They quickly moved back to the past, dusting off some hits made forty years or so before. Upon finishing the second number Rob Halford approached the edge of the stage, pacing around as he addressed the onlookers. “Are you ready for some Judas Priest style heavy metal?!?” he asked at one point. His question was answered with deafening fanfare as he began to point at different sections of the audience. “Are you ready?!?” he asked, pumping them up even more.

With that they gave everyone a dose of British Steel, “Grinder” being an early fan favorite of the show. Minutes in to the 82-minute long set that they had planned and the throng of supporters were already cheering every opportunity they could find, completely enamored by the righteous metal sounds that they were being bombarded with, as well as the commanding presences that were radiating from the stage. That was made all more the striking at the solo featured in that track. Halford casually approached Faulkner, gazing at him briefly before raising a hand up with the guitar, the pair rocking out momentarily, creating an incredible moment that wowed fans even more.

The opening chords of “The Ripper” sent fans into a frenzy; Faulkner and fellow guitarist Andy Sneap meeting up as the pair let loose a flurry of slick riffs. That was the one thing about this tour, the news that preceded it that Glenn Tipton had been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease and would no longer be performing regularly with Judas Priest. Selecting Sneap to take his place, the new touring member did more than just hold his own this night. He injected a slight degree of ferocity into his performance, his energy rivaling that of the other members of the group. And at moments like that, when he was fully interacting with the musicians he was sharing the stage with, one was able to see how well they meshed and the remarkable chemistry they had already forged. No, it’s not the same without Tipton, and Sneap never tried to imitate, giving everything his own flare while still honoring the aspects that required it.

As they returned to the FIREPOWER material, they continued trekking right down the track listing of the album, “Lightning Strike” being next. It continued to impressive. The music is classic Judas Priest, though it possesses its own hallmarks that give it some distinction. It’s an adrenaline pumping thrill ride (both the record in general and the songs that comprise it), that lead single from it further escalating things, contributing immensely to the grandeur of the performance. “PRIEST! PRIEST! PRIEST!” fans began to chant a few minutes later, making the most of the silence that had fallen over the venue.

Mentioning that it had recently celebrated its official 40th anniversary, they dusted off a gem from Stained Glass, “Saints in Hell” being another monumental song of the dynamic show that they were unleashing. The further they got into the performance the more invigorating they became, the five of them being well aware of the fact that they had to keep pushing things to new heights, and they weren’t about to disappoint. That song was no exception; and Halford sounded phenomenal as he let loose some high-pitched screams, which sounded more forceful and pristine than the day the track was recorded. The remaining song that would be heard from FIREPOWER wound up being “Evil Never Dies”. Somewhat of a surprising choice, it would wind up being hailed as one of the greatest songs of the night. The thousands of fans that had congregated honestly seemed floored when it was all said and done, acting as if they had never before heard it. Scott Travis was merciless as he hammered away on his drum kit; Ian Hill thrashing about as he attacked his bass, making the rhythm section an undeniable force. There were some great touches to it on the production side of things as well, such as the reverb that happened that let the word “evil” to echo about.

The song was nothing short of an epic, being more astounding live than anyone could have ever comprehended; and at its peak Halford knelt down, digging deep and letting loose a superb scream. Rave fanfare followed that number, a sense of general amazement emanating from everyone, the Priest having just proven to them that new music can sound just as incredible as the hits that are so revered. Speaking of the hits, as the show hit the homestretch, that was all it was. “You've Got Another Thing Comin'”, “Hell Bent for Leather” and plenty more afforded the patrons ample opportunities to sing along. Halford happily ceded the vocal duties of them at times, only singing a few words, if any at all on the choruses of those, the throng of supporters loudly singing those segments to them.

It was moments like that in which one experienced the quintessential concert moment. The moment of unity and bonding, where for a brief time you are bound to everyone else you are sharing the space with, all because you share the same amount of adoration and passion for a particular band. It was beautiful, everyone singing along so enthusiastically like that, the crowd truly savoring every moment. They remained absolutely riveting throughout, somehow managing to continuously raise their own bar, further dazzling the concertgoers right up until the end of the sizzling “Painkiller”. An encore was coming, separated by mere seconds of silence. And Dallas fans were in for a treat.

The fact that the final three songs all drew from British Steel was nice, though that was overshadowed by the fact that there were three guitarists present for all of them. Tipton pleasantly surprised the audience by gracing the stage for that 13-minute long encore, appearing in fine form and relishing his time spent before the fans. He interacted with them as much as possible, beaming at the audience, working to elicit some reactions from them. In turn, they treated him as the icon that he is in their eyes, even chanting his name at one point. A hell of a way to cap off the night, it was wonderful to see the core members of Priest sharing the stage once again. A sight no doubt taken for granted by everyone, the musicians and fans alike surely having assumed that’s how it would always be. The hand that life has dealt has just made the moments like that all the more special, though. While still rocking out with a fierce determination and impeccable resolve, there was a fun demeanor about those songs, all because they were reunited with Tipton.

All standing side by side, they took a gracious final bow; handing out set lists, drum sticks and throwing picks to the fans, letting them know how much that they appreciate them for everything over the years and showing up on this night. And there was one final promise: The Priest will be back. I was fortunate to have seen Judas Priest a few times during their last cycle of tours, and I have to say, even by their impeccable standards they were in magnificent form this night. There was something magical about it, something that could only be understood if you were there and experienced it. It was the way they managed to keep everyone spellbound from the first note, never relinquishing that hold on the spectators as they perpetually grew more dominant and authoritative. It was remarkable; and by the final half dozen songs or so it was impossible not to feel elated by the amazing and raw display that was playing out on stage. A display that was utterly enthralling as they made the concert feel more like a transcendental experience. One that will stick with those who saw it for the rest of their days.

All these years later and Judas Priest hasn’t lost even an ounce of what made them so compelling decades ago when they first came into existence. If anything, a night like this affirms that they have gotten better with age. Halford arguably sounded better than ever this night, while Hill and Travis were teeming with energy. Faulkner is an absolute blast to watch, the way he interacts with the fans being something to cherish. (There was one moment he threw a pick into the crowd and made sure that it found its way to the individual he had intended it go to, not taking his eyes off it until it had.) Judas Priest is showing no signs of slowing down, this Firepower World Tour seeming to have reinvigorated them and made them more formidable than ever. Still some of the staunchest and greatest purveyors of metal music that have ever lived, fans owe it to themselves to catch one of these shows when they can, because The Priest will exceed any and all expectations. Their current North American run is nearly over, a May 1st show at Freeman Coliseum in San Antonio, TX being their final U.S. date of it, with a performance at Corona Heaven & Hell Festival in Mexico also planned for May 5th. Europe will be able to get their Priest fix this summer, and in the late summer the band will return to the U.S. for a co-headline tour with Deep Purple. A complete listing of their upcoming shows and additional info/ticket details can be found HERE. Also, be sure you add FIREPOWER to your music library if you haven’t already. It’s available in iTUNES and GOOGLE PLAY. Set List: 1) “Firepower” 2) “Running Wild” 3) “Grinder” 4) “Sinner” 5) “The Ripper” 6) “Lightning Strike” 7) “Bloodstone” 8) “Saints in Hell” 9) “Turbo Lover” 10) “Freewheel Burning” 11) “Evil Never Dies” 12) “Some Heads Are Gonna Roll” 13) “You've Got Another Thing Comin'” 14) “Electric Eye” 15) “Hell Bent for Leather” 16) “Painkiller” Encore: 17) “Metal Gods” 18) “Breaking the Law” 19) “Living After Midnight”

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