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thelazyhermits · 4 years

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You know, after giving it some thought, I really don’t think I’m ever gonna try to pick up where I left off with the TABF main story and continue covering canon events like the way I did with the main story. The reason for that being that after seeing recent manga events I really don’t think TABF wouldn’t go that route because of the changes I already made to canon.

So, in the end, I wouldn’t be following canon for long before it diverges into AU territory. While that’s not necessarily a bad thing, I don’t really see the point in trying to cover the manga’s current arc since it’ll end up being pretty anticlimactic, at least on one end, and Fortune wouldn’t even be present to see everything going on anyway.

I’m not saying I’ll stop covering canon events period. I just don’t plan on covering every single arc that follows after the Cultural Festival arc. I just might do one shots here and there addressing certain events like how Secrets Revealed, the Shinsou hug drabble, and the Monoma drabble covered the aftermath of the Joint Training arc

I know some of y’all had been excited by the idea of me eventually covering future canon events, so I feel bad for disappointing y’all. But I just can’t see TABF going the same route as canon

Under the cut I’ll go into more details about my reasoning for this decision. The reason I’m doing it this way is since I’ll be mentioning manga spoilers and I wanted to provide a general explanation first for those who would prefer to avoid spoilers.

Okay, so not too long ago, I brought up my theory that Shigaraki’s big revival in the recent chapters wouldn’t happen thanks to Fortune’s and Nighteye’s Quirks and the fact that the heroes have the Quirk erasing bullets since Nighteye and Aizawa confiscated them before Overhaul was taken away from the police.

I still stand by that, but I wanted to add something else to that. The main reason Shigaraki revived was the fact that X-Less destroyed a machine that was still running and the live wire hit the water surrounding Shigaraki. That electric shock is what led to Shigaraki’s heart beating again.

We’ve recently found out that the Quirk-erasing bullets that Shigaraki gave the doctor were in that machine. So, since he never got a hold of those bullets in TABF, neither did the doctor, so there would be no need for that machine to be on or even there period in TABF. Whether the doctor already had it or built it for the sake of creating more bullets doesn’t matter since there wouldn’t be a need for it to be on in that scenario. Ergo X-Less could carry on with his duty of carrying Shigaraki out of there while he’s still very much dead.

Not only that, since Nighteye is alive, I see him being a part of the hospital team so even if that machine still happened to be there and active, he would stop X-Less and make sure he carried on with his mission since by this point Nighteye has already used his Quirk and knows exactly how everything is supposed go down in the hospital.

Even if there was a way for Shigaraki to still magically revive, Nighteye would see it ahead of time thanks to his Quirk and would just use the Quirk-erasing bullets on Shigaraki before he can hurt anyone. So I really can’t see a way for Shigaraki to come out of this situation alive.

While I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned it, Nighteye ends up working with Hawks in TABF thanks to Fortune’s interference. After she gets a vision of Hawks at that rally with the LoV and MLA, she realizes just how dangerous Hawks’ position is and what the heroes are up against, so she drags Hawks to Nighteye’s agency so Nighteye can look at his future and see for himself just how bad things are about to get.

After that point, Nighteye starts working with Hawks, getting ready for the big showdown with the villain army. Unfortunately, this meeting takes place just after the My Villain Academia arc so the two forces still end up joining together.

However, in the end, the heroes still have the advantage because they have Hawks and Nighteye. After he gets let in on Hawks’ secret mission, Nighteye starts doing his own investigation in order to learn as much as he can about the LoV and the MLA. This of course includes using his Quirk to find out what all is gonna happen in the future.

It’s because Nighteye gets involved in this investigation that he tells Midoriya to intern somewhere else during the winter since he knew he wouldn’t be able to dedicate the amount of time Midoriya needed for Black Whip. Plus, he didn’t want to risk Midoriya getting involved with the investigation. That’s why Midoriya still ends up interning with Endeavor like in canon.

So, overall, I see things ending in the heroes’ favor with the hospital team. Now, I’m not saying that the rest of the villains or the MLA will get stopped since I could see Dabi and Mr. Compress trying to run once they see the odds are not in their favor.

Considering how upset she was about Twice’s death, I think Toga would continue fighting the heroes until someone finally manages to stop her, but it’s also possible that she could find a way to escape being captured since I know she’s not one to underestimate.

I’m not sure what would happen with Gigantomachia since he only responds to Shigaraki, so since Shigaraki would die in this situation, I would assume either Gigantomachia just doesn’t do anything or he escapes thinking he’ll be receiving orders from Shigaraki eventually. It’s hard to say for sure, but I can’t see him fighting without orders unless he finds out about Shigaraki’s death and tries to avenge him. His situation is kinda up in the air since I don’t know enough about him to get an idea of how he would act if Shigaraki is successfully stopped.

In regards to the MLA, I could see the heroes coming out on top, but it’s possible that some of the army could escape. However, in TABF, Mirio would be in the team dealing with the attack on the HQ so he would give a lot of the army members a run for their money considering how strong he is. So the LoV and MLA would be at a bigger disadvantage since I could see Mirio taking out a lot of people on his own.

So, even though Shigaraki would be stopped, I could still see some bad guys escaping this situation so they could become a viable threat down the line after they regroup. So it’s not like the heroes would have a complete victory.

To summarize, I can’t see the LoV and MLA being successful in the current manga arc in TABF like they are in canon ergo the series’ main antagonists would be stopped resulting in a lot of future canon events not happening.

Honestly, I have no interest in attempting to write this arc since Fortune wouldn’t be directly involved. She’d be at UA with Eri during all of this, so the most I could really write is her interactions with everyone before and after it. I won’t say that I won’t ever write something along those lines, but as of right now, I don’t plan to.

I’m really sorry for disappointing everyone who was looking forward to a direct continuation of the TABF main story, but I just think this is the best way to go for the series.

#TABF #oof I talked a lot #sorry about that lol 😅#this has just been on my mind #after recent events in the manga #and I just finally decided to write out my thoughts #I hate that things would end so anticlimactically #but this is really how I see things ending up #I know y'all might think the villains could go after nighteye #but considering they're supposed to be laying low #and how hawks would be keeping an eye out for him #I can't see that happening #I just can't see shigaraki surviving this situation #the only reason he revived was cause of that live wire #as long as that doesn't happen #he'll stay dead #that's what I believe #all in all the day is saved thanks to nighteye #I said this before but #I really do feel like horikoshi killed nighteye cause his quirk was too powerful and useful #the villains would've had so much more difficulty if nighteye lived lol #bnha spoilers

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battery-forgot · 3 years

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Now, I come mid-week to give you all of my DSMP/MCYT headcanons because I have many

Don’t mind if these are repeated, misspelt, or has no logic, it is block game things and I am not checking over them-- and some will be organized, and some will be random, some might not have a Enter space because these are all ctrl c + ctrl v’ed from a Discord server I am in :]

Skeppy headcanons: Skeppy is 4 billion years old as scientists have thought that is how long ores and diamonds existed for

Skeppy's species is pretty rare

Every diamond that is broken or damaged causes Skeppy to feel a physical pain in his body

His species has lamp tail as they don't have night vision, some of them also have tiny wings that aren't usable, though they can kinda glide short distances with them

Because of his small height, he has taught himself magic to be able to change size, it can hurt him if he goes taller than 5'3, but he is able to get to Foolish's height if he tried

Sometimes random crystals grow on Skeppy's face, though they look different from normal crystals and can be used for things like explosives, though he doesn't know about it

Techno has seen Kristen but doesn't remember it well, though Kristen gave him his crown as a gift

Techno has a collection of skull masks that he has worn, he wears the skulls because of nostalgia now but he used to wear them because he thought they were cool and made him look threatening

Technoblade, Skeppy, Sam, Ranboo, Michael(the son- not Michaelmcchill), Phil, Bad, and some others really like shiny and golden objects

DreamSMP theme/"timeline" is kind of like a steampunk like thing

Drista is DreamXD's sister and DristaXD is Dream's "sister", though they aren't really siblings as they are robots

Drista and DreamXD are clones of DristaXD and Dream, though they actually look nothing alike

Callahan is a mute mini-god that everyone knows exists but doesn't really understand they are a mini-god. They kind of just chill and do what people ask them to do

Phil: Phil is more into traveling than anything else

Though he doesn't mind being a father figure, he doesn't think he is a good one especially after he killed Wilbur

He is able to turn into the size of a crow, though since his wings are now unusable, he doesn't do it as often as it is basically useless

Phil sometimes takes bird baths, though I guess they are always called that-

He has bird legs/talons,but they aren’t fully noticeable

joke headcanon I thought of is that Phil's handwriting is chicken-scratch because he is half-crow

Phil has really good memory, as a crow would

-DreamXD is actually pretty weak in powers, but he acts like he is the strongest person in the server

-Tommy's eye is just completely gone from when Dream killed him, but he covers it with an eyepatch

-Tubbo talks about things to Ranboo thinking he'll forget them, but some stories Ranboo remembers but doesn't speak about it because he doesn't want to make Tubbo worry too much

-Philza wasn't willing to kill Wilbur so Wilbur forced Phil by grabbing his arm and impaling himself

-Dream and Techno sometimes share stories about having ADHD

-Phil didn't really know about Fundy, he knew he existed but had no idea to how he acted, looked, or his actual name

-Wilbur had a letter written to Fundy about how he was sorry for what he was gonna do during November 16th, but the withers blew it up before Fundy knew about it

-Fundy doesn't let anyone hold his hand because it makes him remember the past where he would hold Wilbur's hand a lot

-Change of headcanons: Schlatt and Puffy are cousins, Tubbo was just a random kid that would follow Schlatt for hours a day, waiting for him to acknowledge him

-Dream jumps into the lava in the prison as it reminds him of Sapnap

-Bad was uncomfortable when Sapnap married Big Q and Karl because he went on a date with Quackity before but he still supported them (Yes I know Big Q basically had a divorce with Sap and Karl--)

-Skeppy knows a lot about other's pasts because of how old he is, even traumatizing facts

-Skeppy has a fear of fire (Pyrophobia) and he is kind of scared of Sapnap

-Dream used the revivebook on the cat Tommy killed, but Sam killed it thinking Dream would use the cat against Sam to escape quicker in the future

-Dream doesn't *fully* know why he is in prison, ever since Tommy and Tubbo killed him, a wire/chip broke in his body which made him forget a lot of things. Dream does get told what he had done a lot, but it makes him almost have a panic attack because he thought he was a pretty good person

-Ghostbur is Callahan, they were commanded by DreamXD to become Ghostbur so that everyone could feel like he was still there (Callahan can change who they are completely, but they don't actually know how they acted when as Ghostbur, though that doesn't mean he didn't know what happened, when Dream killed/revived Ghostbur, Callahan got to see what it felt like to die for the first time)

-Fundy has the habit of picking up things and using them at some sort of fidget (examples: knives, leaves, grass, wood, pencils, berry stems, etc.

-Ranboo will be writing/saying something about someone and use pronouns instead of their name or just with the person's name (example: "Puffy she/her was--" or "he/him writing down things") [Basically canon-]

-Tubbo used to headbutt people but stopped after around 2 years because he kept hurting people

-Phil used to squawk randomly when he was a kid, but he mainly just squawks when hiccuping now

-Even though Bad used to get really nervous picking people up because he was afraid he was gonna drop and kill them, he now just picks up everyone randomly... except Foolish and Ranboo

-Foolish is able to shrink to around 7ft, and unless he is building a big build, he will shrink so he can get around easier

-Because Ranboo is only half enderman, he isn't the full height of an enderman (He is only 8'5)

-If someone asks Charlie about his pronouns, out of confusion, he just responds with "Bones!" which sometimes leads Las Nevadas members (or just anyone really) calling him by He/it/Bones

-When Bad was being controlled by the egg, it made him get even more flashbacks about how his species was supposed to act which would end up with him panicking because that isn't who he wants to be (bonus: The more a member infected by the egg would panic, the more the egg would be able to take over the person because they can't focus)

-Kristin has taught Phil how to do makeup in their free-time of hanging out

-Kristin is insanely tall, if she shrinks then she turns more transparent, so she ends up looking more like a ghost when at average height

-Skeppy can't cry, though he still can feel sad

-Bad and Eret talk to eachother quite a lot

-When Tubbo was around 11-14, he would make redstone contraptions, though he doesn't remember how to make most of them now

Ranboo doesn't like photoshoots because he feels like everyone is staring at him, though this does mean he just doesn't have a passport photo, his alternative was to draw what he looked like on the passport but they didn't allow it, as well as Ranboo doesn't really remember what he looks like anyway because they don't like looking in mirrors--

I think this is half-canon but another headcanon is where every SMP is just an island far away from others. In this case, Hermitcraft, 30 day SMP, and other SMPs are all linked up, as for people who are in multiple SMPs, they travel around by boat for awhile, now, the thing I've just not figured out is how tf their look magically changes-like- outfit is decently obvious-- but do they magically transform like an anime girl? Idk-

Skeppy's voice randomly glitches out, is there an actual reason for this? No.

Quackity’s outfit is similar to Sub Urban’s (In Freak)

Skeppy acts as if he is royalty, he doesn't act rude or demanding unless joking- but he does act as if he is the superior person-

-Skeppy and Slime are the only "people" that don't have steampunk styled clothing because of how old they are

-Skeppy's hair grows insanely quickly and no one knows why, he honestly hates it

-Most of Skeppy's outfits have been made by Bad or Puffy

-Skeppy knows DreamXD as if he is a brother, but he despises him because of something that has happened around 3,000 years ago

-Skeppy has a lot of different shades in their hair on the "inside"(like- the side where his neck is is what I mean, I don't remember if it has a name or not-)

-Like I've said before, Skeppy's eyes are crystallized, but they are somewhat transparent, not enough to where you'd be able to see the inside of his head, but they are still transparent

-In the past, Skeppy didn't like their name which is why they called himself "Skeppy"

-He has an attachment to caves

-When Skeppy was a kid, they had the dream of him filling cave walls with houses of their own

-Skeppy goes by it/they/he

-Skeppy joke flirts with Bad all the time to confuse everyone, Bad doesn't like it because then everyone thinks they are dating which makes him feel a little uncomfortable

-Out of boredom, in the past, Skeppy would climb on the roofs of caves, hang upside down, and try and sleep like a bat

-They have no blood in his body, it is literally just a diamond covered with a thin layer of skin and hair

-Skeppy gets stressed out easily when it comes to learning because it just reminds him of everything he had to get used to as the billion of years he lived went by

-Skeppy used to not be allowed out into the open world, the first time it experienced going outside was when it was 2 billion years old

-Skeppy has accidentally caught things on fire during the day because of the reflecting of the sun, but even then, they are nocturnal so they don't really have to worry about it

-Wilbur adapted to hanging out with Sally in the water, he has some gills, but he can only breathe underwater for a bit longer with them

-Skeppy always has the equivalent of Diamond (armor) except when he was infected by the egg, he was equivalent to the strength of a Ruby

-Infected Skeppy has a redstone glow when touched, so when hugged(or hive fived- or- yeah you get the point), he would give a subtle glow around him until let go

-The Eggpire still can be controlled, but they are able to control it unless angered/upset

-Skeppy was 6ft when infected, now he is 3′9 un-infected

-At this point, Dream likes the prison because he sometimes feels safe there, like no one can hurt him

-DristaXD is more of a ghost robot than an actual robot

-DristaXD's hobby is murdering people and has basically been in some sort of jail before, she has broken chains around their ankles and hands, it seems to have been made of a really strong material as wel

-Sapnap used to have fire wings, but when he had to get extinguished, they disappeared, they are still there, they just aren't visible until dunked in lava and Sapnap can't use them anymore

-Infected Bad still took care of Sapnap, but Sapnap never cared

-Sapnap takes the name "lava cake" too seriously... though he thinks the literal lava cakes he makes taste good

-Puffy's hair has been dyed blue by Ghostbur before because he wanted people to remember Friend if they ever disappeared

-Going with my Ghostbur as Callahan hc, when Ghostbur was killed, Callahan kind of glitched between realities and so Ghostburs body glitched from Callahan's body and Ghostbur's then just disappeared. Callahan is still alive but they randomly glitch into different realities, he has glitched into places Karl has gone, including The Inbetween.

-When Ghostbur was glitching back into Callahan after killed, it shocked and concerned Dream

There you go :]

#dreamsmp #dreamsmp headcanon #skeppy #badboyhalo #dream #dreamxd #philza #Callahan minecraft #Ghostbur #Fundy #Wilbur #captain puffy #Sapnap #Quackity #mcyt headcanons #Ranboo #Tubbo

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synchlora · 3 years

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HELL YEAH alright

gonna divide this up by his various lives bc otherwise it's a Mess <3

some warnings ahead for descriptions of intense wounds, necrosis, body decay, and general infection. be careful pls

Prior to first death

rly likes robotics work and engineering so he has made his own little robots and such in the past

designed his own headset bc he is hard of hearing, wanted something to help him be able to discern noises better and also adjust volume bc Overstimulation

got a major injury to his right hand that ended up severing tendons and causing injuries that were not heal-able so he had to get it amputated. decided to work on a robotic hand to replace it and eventually finished it (he was right handed so it was a bit of a struggle)

First death

got his heart punctured in battle and it was basically useless. ponk gave him what was essentially a pacemaker and jack later adjusted this with more. robotic things (very technical wording I know /s)

basically had a large plate of metal over the left side of his chest leading to the robotic heart

u can kinda see the mechanism from outside. not super well, but he did use some glass that makes seeing it a little clearer

Second death

very badly burned his legs and left side of his body especially

ended up with a major infection in both legs and his left arm

needed to amputate his left foot and needed a permanent brace for his right

left shoulder to his hand was entirely burnt down practically to bone, also needed that amputated

decided to build off of the mechanism on his chest and made a fully robotic left arm connecting to a shoulder socket he'd also made

made a pretty basic foot prosthetic that was also robotic but not very. his left leg is now surrounded by wire/metal supports that move his leg bc it can't move well on its own

his left eye was burned out in the lava, so he built more onto his headset. made a visor to help him visualize things better and fix his depth perception w only one eye

the 3D glasses design was a bit of a dark joke on the fact that he doesn't have the depth to use 3D glasses

also fixed his headset to be able to adjust volumes better. would've done it ages ago but he just never found the time until the need was forced upon him

Third death & revival

most of him is metal/robotics by now and that's what he looks like headed into the doomsday battle

but techno blade kills him by basically shattering his skull with his sword, killing him and sending him to hell :]

literally clawed his way out of hell out of pure spite

when he made it back, he was very faded and his body was Not stable enough for him to last long

so he spent all of the time he had immunity (y'know like when u log in and ur safe from attacks for a few seconds? he had that for a few hours bc it's an Exceptional Case) trying to. fix himself

basically, he had healed somewhat from respawning but respawning doesn't fix ur issues (as jack has learned in the past) and so his skull still has a massive hole in it

so he spends several hours trying to fix up his own head with various parts and pieces until he's not on the verge of immediately dying again

this is also, despite immunity, Very fucking Painful

but he manages to Somehow make himself stable enough to live

and no one else realizes he's died, they just think he got injured and once again fixed himself back up the only way he knows how

Post-revival

everything is going relatively smoothly. he now has massive chronic migraines but that makes sense. he did have a good amount of trauma to his skull and it's not exactly. healed in a way that is "correct"

but he starts to notice some strange things

his skin is darkening in places, turning unnatural colors that really don't seem pleasant. he's starting to constantly smell rot, like there's something dead following him around. his his skin is getting uncomfortably loose almost and he's not sure what's happening

until it starts to actively slough off

and then he realizes the rotting, dead smell is him. the unnatural color of his skin is necrosis. and his skin, muscle, even bones are starting to necrose

and he is (reasonably) terrified. why isn't this killing him? how is he alive?? how in the fuck can he stop himself from literally decomposing?????

and he sticks to the same solutions he always has. he starts building

and every time he seems to have made a solution for one thing, another part of him fails. he makes a better stomach (or rather "energy core" bc who needs food anymore?) and right when he finishes that, his liver fails. he supports his spine as the nerve endings start to decay, but right as that project comes to a close, his shoulder dislocates from it's socket. etc etc etc

his current big project is basically making a hard drive to replace his brain because ooh boy it's going fast and he's not sure how well it'll work but he's gotta try

so we get to current day jack, an emotional wreck because he's always left behind and a physical wreck because he is literally falling apart as the days go by.

#i woke up this morning and was like how can i fuck up c!jack manifold and this was the solution </3 #but yeah! hes literally falling apart and that is very Distressing so hes going through some shit man #this is a result of me being conflicted on jack being a robot initially or not and this is what i decided on :]#this way he can br fully human and fully robot. much more internal conflict #anyway im gonna make a tier list of the stinkiest dsmp characters and jack will be at the top #dumbass thots #dsmp tag #jack manifol??#infection tw #decay tw #ask to tag

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merryfortune · 3 years

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Olive Branch

Written for the 100ships Challenge on Dreamwidth and as the Free Day Prompt for @ygotplusweek

100ships Challenge Prompt #63: Olive

YGOTPlus Prompt(s): Reunions, Negotiations, Favourite Things, Separate, Learning Something New

Ship: Rockdustshipping | Earth/Spectre/Ryoken

Fandom: Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS

Word Count: 2,423

Rating: T

Warnings: No Warnings Apply

Tags: Post Canon, Canon Divergent, Self Indulgent, Minor or Implied Possessiveness, Developing Relationship, Eventual Polyamory

AN: this is my guilty pleasure ot3, I just want to have my two cakes and eat them too!!

The current situation was rapidly beginning to unfold into scenarios that Ryoken had never wanted to entertain. He would not call it the worst case scenarios - unfortunately, things like armageddon had a rightful place in thoughts and calculations like those - but he was not going to be quick to call it ideal. He still had a few fingers that he could cross but already, his heart was beginning to break just from witnessing this scenario unfold in the flesh, blood, and some pixels too.

Ideally, there would be zero Ignis but he knew Fujiki Yusaku, Playmaker, as one thing and one thing only: incredibly determined. Once his will was committed to something, it all but brought miracles forth so Ryoken accepted that a new era would likely unfold. Perhaps from the mistakes of the previous one, this second coming would be more hopeful. He had his own, after all.

He wanted to commit to his redemption. His atonement. To himself and his own nature, not as a destroyer but a protector. He had wanted to protect the children of the Hanoi Project and now, he wanted to protect what little serenity and closure they had found, finally, ten years later.

This, however, would test him, Ryoken knew, not instinctively but for more humanly reasons than that as well.

Thanks to Playmaker and his own Ignis’s determination, they had managed to revive the five remaining Ignis. Some of those matches were easier to make than others. Returning Flame to Takeru would be safe and teary-eyed; returning Aqua to Miyu and Aoi would be joyful and misty-eyed; but then there were the others. Ryoken did not have stable predictions for what would happen were Lightning and Windy were to return to their respective Origins but, for better or worse, he did have eyes. He did not need to predict what would happen were Earth returned to Spectre for he could just watch such a thing happen.

In fact, it was happening right now and it was already piercing Ryoken’s armour and cracking his heart.

Ryoken had always known it would one day come to this. Or that it should have come to this, possibly even sooner than ten years. He had run the simulations as a child, to discover what was the link that kept breaking, and in them, he did discover that Earth was not the cause for what would eventually break. He never was. If anything, he fixed things. Drastically so, if only for one person: Spectre. His Spectre.

Time and time again, running those simulations, Ryoken saw all the pathways in which Spectre and Earth would become remarkably good friends. Family. Partners. Whatever form their bond took, it was unbreakable and truly only brought the best in each other. A clean track of wins for both of them, in theory, at least. And it had incensed Ryoken.

Spectre was his. Not Earth’s.

Ryoken was Spectre’s first everything. First friend, first confidante, first person who had ever truly loved him. Spectre adored Ryoken and Ryoken matched that adoration as best as he could.

But he saw the digital future. He saw how Earth would disrupt that. The Ignis had to be exterminated regardless. It would be best if Spectre knew, it would protect him. The truth would only ever hurt but Ryoken now suspected, he had been for a fair few months now, that Spectre had come to realise that the bond that he was meant to have with his Ignis would have been incredible. And Ryoken had destroyed that possibility in some vain, petty destruction that only served his own ego.

Ryoken rationalised it as being a child. Volatile, short tempered, not properly fused or wired yet. But he still felt it. That streak of possessiveness that flared a mile wide as he watched Earth and Spectre meet for the first time. Or was it a reunion as they had always known each other, on some level that Ryoken couldn’t begin to understand because he hadn’t been the one experimented on and had life created from his brainwaves and duelling. A bond that could only be truly called soulful or psychic.

A storm raged inside of him when he should have been happy for his beloved friend. Instead, he was in wrongful furor that Spectre might be able to become happy because of someone who was not him. It was a storm between right and wrong and Ryoken knew to part it not unlike the beam of a lighthouse and he knew which side to take, even if it did repulse him. He just couldn’t let himself get in the way of Spectre’s happiness as Spectre was, easily, his most important person.

Spectre’s eyes were wide with the purest wonder that Ryoken didn’t even think he was capable of such an unguarded, vulnerable expression. In the corners of his eyes was the glistening on a single tear. He hazarded a feeble smile as he welcomed his Ignis back to the realm of the living with a shaking hand.

Earth reached out to him and his demeanour could only be described as calm. The past half an hour was a whirlwind, even to Ryoken so he was surprised - and maybe even impressed - that Earth could be so stony face before Spectre who was coming close to blubbering with happiness with the events that had occurred. Once more, Pandora’s box had been open but this time, it had been Playmaker’s fingers on the lock and key.

He had brought back the Ignis and returned them to a respectable vicinity of their Origins, forcing the data back through the Link VRAINS and getting it to rematerialise in the real world. Ryoken, a good programmer and coder in his own right, could only regard it as nothing short of magic.

“It is good to see you.” Earth said. The sound of his voice was even but gladdened.

He reached out to Spectre’s hand and though he was a large Ignis, he was still entirely dwarfed by the scale of a human. Both his hands clasped onto a couple of Spectre’s fingers and he was made to seem so small because of it. Nonetheless, he gallantly shook Spectre’s hands and that appeared to cleanse them of their nervous jitters.

“It's good to meet you, Earth,” Spectre replied, a hiccup to his voice, “but it feels like I already know you.”

Earth’s eyes softened, “I feel the same.” he confessed.

Ryoken wanted to scream. To yell. To rage. To do anything but let this selfishness stew inside of him as he held onto the helmet of his VR set. They hadn’t even had the time to get up and stretch their legs before being thrust into this situation that Ryoken could only describe as the most impossible and unplanned future possible, hurtling forward at a pace of a few minutes at best.

Spectre shyly glanced towards Ryoken, his heart beating quicker in his chest than it normally did. He could see the upset in Ryoken’s face but he was glad that Ryoken was here. He wanted Ryoken to be here for this quite dearly. He returned his gaze to Earth and it was apologetic.

“Are you aware?” Spectre hesitantly asked Earth. “Of my activities as a Knight of Hanoi?”

Earth was very quiet, his expression turned very stern and with glacial speed, he finally replied, “No…”

“No?” Ryoken exclaimed. He was startled and he awkwardly took his interjection as an excuse to cross the vast chasm between his own perch on one side of the room and Spectre’s on the other.

“Truly?” Spectre asked and he had to swallow a giggle.

“Er… yes… truly.” Earth said. “My best recollection of events is as follows: us Ignis made a pact not to interact with the material world, including with our Origins, for a while, we lived in the best harmony we could muster…

“One day, a dragon destroyed the Cyberse World, we were protected by Ai who did his best to flee from this dragon… When Ai released us, Windy and Lightning withdrew. I believe now to put in place their own machinations that resulted in this Bohman figure being created.

“I only desired to find Aqua, she was taken before I could make my decision. A decision that has now been taken from me as I have now been thrust before you… But I wanted to base my decision on logic and sound information. I needed to know more about the humans but unlike my duplicitous kin, even Aqua to an extent, I endeavoured to honour my vow so I never sought you out.

“So, now I have to ask, what were your activities as a Knight of Hanoi? It sounds noble so I desire to tentatively approve.” Earth looked up very cautiously at Spectre, and even towards Ryoken, as he finished his ramble.

Ryoken could not believe what he was hearing. He couldn’t decide if this was extremely lucky or extremely unlucky. How ironic that such a perceptive and observant person such as Spectre produced such an oblivious Ignis, even if Earth was right to conclude that he needed to proceed with information rather than instinct or some other whim, no matter how fond. He supposed that it would be up to Spectre to decide the worth of the fortune before them.

And Spectre seemed very quick to make that decision, he took a breath then explained, “Master Ryoken is the dragon who destroyed your first home. We, the Knights of Hanoi, have been hunting you for the past five, almost six, years, trying to destroy.”

Earth’s blue eyes went wide. This was certainly news to him - and Ryoken did find himself relishing that.

“Is that true?” he asked, turning to Ryoken. “You are the good doctor’s son, are you not? The son of the man who created us Ignis, I - I have vague memories of your face as a child, seeing you from within the apparatus I was created within. Is that true?”

“In its entirety.” Ryoken gravely replied, folding his arms.

“M-My…” Earth murmured.

“You understand why three of your companions were so eager to take up arms against us humans now, don’t you?” Ryoken said and he felt some snake of vindication inside of him, that Earth may flee from them and all would be right with what was left of Ryoken’s little world.

And yet, Earth steadied, “I do,” he admitted, “but Spectre spoke in past tense just now, I noticed. He said “for five, almost six years”, that would imply the activity has ceased, albeit recently.”

“Correct.” Ryoken growled. “We desire to protect the Link VRAINS, to do what we can with technology that once brought misery, to bring joy. To keep the Incident concealed so the victims can enjoy privacy.” Ryoken then took a sharp breath. “To even allow the behaving Ignis some space in this world, you were created to enrich humanity but per my observations, I believe it is only possible for you lot to touch a handful of lives at best. Though it pains me, I would appreciate it if you were able to do so with Spectre.”

Now it was Spectre’s turn to be in disbelief of his own ears. His face paled but purely because he was stunned to hear such words from Ryoken’s mouth. He thought it was going to take hours upon hours of convincing him, grovelling all but on his knees, to allow Earth to stay with them. Ryoken had always been brusque upon the subject of Spectre’s unique Ignis at the best of times and at the worst, Spectre recoiled to remember what was said implicitly and explicitly about Earth’s death from Ryoken.

Earth’s expression lightened and a peculiar thing happened. A thin branch manifested in his hands. It was thin and wiry, delicate, plumed with rounded leaves with a few bounties blooming off the stem. Earth held onto it preciously. Spectre recognised the branch by its leaves; Ryoken recognised it by its boon. A literal olive branch and it was one that Earth chose to gift to Ryoken.

“It is my understanding that the olive branch is a symbol of surrender and compromise to humans, that to give one to another means to cease an argument or war.” Earth rambled.

“Yes, that is correct.” Spectre assured him.

“Then my intentions should be apparent but if not, if I have muddled them somehow, I wish to live long and well alongside you and Spectre.” Earth said. “I value peace over all else, to the point of uselessness, perhaps, but that is who I am.”

Ryoken’s gaze wandered towards Spectre. He looked so… hopeful. It was bright and bittersweet, as such he was holding his tongue. Ryoken took a breath and he accepted Earth’s gift.

“I believe I can find those values complementary to my own.” Ryoken replied.

There likely wasn’t a response that could have overjoyed Spectre more. He got to his feet, untangling from the VR set, and embraced Ryoken. Ryoken stiffened but he pat Spectre’s shoulder before finally hugging him back. Earth, meanwhile, settled on Spectre’s head.

He looked down on them both rather curiously, like he was still quantifying the various rituals of humans even though hugging was not something alien to him as an Ignis. It was more the metrics of these two and their particular relationship, perhaps even how he would figure into their equation.

If so, Ryoken felt the same.

He still very much, at his best and kindest, wanted to fling Earth far, far away from his domain, keep him alive just with other arrangements for a home, perhaps with Aqua and either of her girls or even with Ai and Yusaku. Instead, Ryoken swallowed that one-sided resentment that he had stoked since he was a child, trying to understand the intertwining paths of Spectre and his Ignis and instead, endeavoured to make peace with this Ignis. For Spectre’s sake. He would merely have to believe that Spectre whose heart seemingly only had enough space to love and adore just one could have enough room for two.

After all, at the end of the day and at the end of time, all Ryoken wanted was to make Spectre happy and it had been proven to him, time and time again, there should be no better way than to let him have his Ignis. So, perhaps, he could come to tolerate - maybe even become fond - for the socially awkward little creature, too. If only for Spectre.

#yugioh polyship week #yugioh polyship week 2020 #yugioh vrains #vrains #yugioh #ryoken kogami #spectre (vrains)#earth (vrains)#respectfulshipping #motherearthshipping #writing tag #100ships challenge #aaaaa i always feel bad for enjoying this ship since its so niche

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pastellipanic · 4 years

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Junkenstein's Legend

It isnt a secret that I like Overwatch. It isnt a secret that my favourite event is the Halloween event of Junkensteins revenge. It also isnt a secret that I get hyperfixated onto uncommon things or parts of things. So today, presented by my hyperfixating grey brainmatter, I bring you:

The Full Tale of Junkensteins Revenge

Or, you know, the The Full Tale of Junkensteins Revenge as Theorized by Pastelli During Sleepless Nights. Anyway, we shall start at the beginning!

(Everything in this story is theorized upon the tidbits of canon information from the game, the comics and details of skins, sprays and maps. You are entitled to disagree with my theorization and I will gladly take on any opposing theories if they are given to me with a constructive and positive vibe. I will also gladly have a chat with anyone who is interested in the subject or has ideas I hadnt considered. That being said, Enjoy!)

Chapter 1: The sad beginnings of a mad doctor and his first step onto the battlefield.

Doctor Jamison Junkenstein was a young lad who worked for the local Lord Reinhardt in a town of Adlersbrunn located in the outskirts of Black Forest. He was a brilliant mechanic, engineer and had no fear of working with electricity, hence he had gotten the job in the first place. While his social skills were limited and his fame in the town stained, he was a hard worker and a genius in his own field. At some point during his career, he got bored of the same old electricity and piping, and began to experiment in robotics. His first one was a crude little thing but he was proud of it, so he decided to continue on this path. He began to dream of building live automatons, creatures that could think and feel for themselves. Perhaps it was the fact that he yearned for someone to befriend whilst the townspeople mistreated and disrespected him for his oddities, or perhaps it was his pride towards his own intelligence. However it may be, he started spending more time upon making the automatons, "omnics" as he called them or "Zomnics" as they were later called by the townspeople for their ghastly slow movements. Lord Reinhardt was displeased by him giving his time to such silly things, even more so when Junkenstein came to his door to show them. Every time he made adjustments and showed them to the Lord, he waved the "useless trinkets" away, and everytime his already feeble fame deteriorated in peoples rumours. Madman, lunatic and fool were quickly becoming synonyms for his name. This only spurred him on in his quest to prove them wrong. The metal husks laying in his laboratory soon turned to dug up corpses, the wires he used to put inside turned to stitches on the flesh and what he couldnt understand in anatomy he changed into machinery. Soon he had a body, half organic half inorganic, and all he needed was to make it come alive. Bloodpumping didnt work. Watershocks didnt work. Exchanging the heart into a running motor didnt work. Atlast he tried using electricity to bring his creation to life, unsuccessfully. Junkenstein was exhausted, abused and even his trust in his skills had failed him. He was on the brink of quitting and burying that stupid project, until...

Witch of the Wilds appeared!

The Witch of the Wilds was a well known individual, feared by all near and far for her magic. It was rumoured she could turn coal into gold, make waterfalls run upwards and burn a castle with the flick of her wrist. She was also known from her coming to people at their darkest hour and offering a solution... for a price. And thats exactly what she offered Junkenstein, a solution to his problems; the spark of life. She only asked for a favor, one she would come collect in a nearby future and one that he couldnt refuse. He accepted. He had nothing to lose. Applying the spark of life onto his machine, he started the creatures heart and mind. There were a lot of things that went through its mind when it woke, curiosity and giddiness, but most importantly: Panic. In a furious frenzy it tore itself from its bindings and ran out, into the streets of Adlersbrunn. The townspeople, upon seeing the monster, immediately screamed, cried, yelled, attacked and fled. The monster had no sympathy for people so cruel as the baker who hit it or the children kicking its shins, so he let out his rage onto the masses. It was carnage.

Junkenstein was happy. He had succeeded! His monster was doing exactly what he wanted; avenging the years of societal neglect and bullying Junkenstein had gone through. Yet he had no control over the monster, and no idea how to get it to the Lords doorstep. A couple of hours of manipulating the routes and trying to get the monster where he wanted, he finally got to the door.... Only to find that while he was busy, so was the Lord. He had hired a few wanderers to protect him when he had heard of the happenings in the town. An old soldier searching for a fight, an alchemist practizing her talent, an archer running from the past and a gunslinger hunting for easy money. Only four they were against the doctor, his monster and his minions, and against the Witch of the Wilds and her fearsome ally; a cursed pumpkinheaded man by the name of Reaper. And only four they were who beat him, leaving his corpse battered onto the rocktiles of the yard. His monster was perished, the Witch had fled and the Reaper had gone with her. The wanderers went inside to claim their prize.

Chapter 2: How to tame a monster and revive a doctor.

As the wanderers left the scene, Witch of the Wilds saw her chance to do her work. She quickly used the spark of life to revive Junkenstein, giving his bruised flesh some tidying up whilst doing it, and watched as he sat up. Safe to say, he was pissed to have lost. He wanted to charge right back into fight, but was stopped by the Witch. She managed to make him change his mind, to wait for a year and build his army before trying again, and give her some time to get allies. Gathering what he could of the broken zomnics, Junkenstein found the corpse of his monster and decided to take it back to his lab for revival. He wasnt sure if the creature would run out again or stay, but he wanted to still show the town that he could make something living. This time, when rising from the cold metal table, the monster sat still and stared at Junkenstein. During the fight it had noted that the doctor didnt attack him, even defending him from the attacking gunslinger. It decided to stay near him, for no other reason than that it trusted him. Junkenstein was thrilled to have a friend, even if it did smell of decay a bit.

11 months went by in peace. The town healed, forgot about the incident and, assuming that the wrecked corpse of a homeless man was Junkensteins, buried the past with it. Meanwhile the doctor had other things to think about. He had built an army of zomnics, had tamed the monster and befriended it, had taught it to speak a little and had served the Witch on a few occasions. On some days he still liked to venture into town to see how life was going there. At one point he had almost forgiven the town, before he had come to learn of a new game for the children based after the mocking of his person. Thats when his short temper blew into pieces and he jumped to make an announcement in the middle of the town. He raged, mocked, spat at the townspeople, before revealing his identity and announcing that all of them would perish under his boot. Seeing a dead man back from the grave gave quite a scare to the town, making them panickedly run to the local Lords. They decided that a meeting was to be held to consider this new threat. Some voted to kill Junkenstein again, yet it was deemed to be an ineffective solution due to him coming back the last time. Some voted to trap him and enslave him for the rest of his days, but it was a futile idea for someone like him to be trapped. He would just squirm his way out like the vermin he was. It was decided that Adlersbrunn was to be evacuated. All people were to be gathered into Lord Reinhardts castle, to have few protectors stay behind until they could safely escape. Lord Reinhardt sent word to three people in order to get protection for this event. A Countess from a family of Hunters that had shut herself from the world. An old friend of the Lord who traveled the world, hunting dragons. And a Monk with his Apprentice, answering to a higher calling than human.

Meanwhile the Witch of the Wilds was gathering her allies, having gotten an interesting offer from a dragon in the Black Forest. The dragon offered to lend one of their servants the powers of a dragon and give that servant into the Witches hands for the battle. The Witch was intrigued but suspicious, so she asked what the dragon wanted in return. Nothing. It wanted the greater good and it knew that the Witch wanted that too. Adlersbrunn was filled with people and people were filled with fears of the unknown. The Black Forest was filled with the unknown, and therefore they were hunted. Silver bullet battles, witch burnings and burials of the undead had plagued the creatures of the forest for long enough, and it was time for the people to leave them alone. If not by peace, then by force. Junkenstein was a great tool for the Witches cause, but she still needed more power, therefore she agreed to take the servant of the dragon onto the battlefield as her ally.

Chapter 3: Junkensteins Revenge 2, Electric Boogaloo

The fight happens almost the same as last, but this time the tables have turned. The wanderers struggle to keep up with the Summoners dragonfire blasts, the bombs lobbed by Junkenstein and the gunfire from Reapers guns. While they dont win the fight, they manage to hold them off just enough time for the townspeople to flee far away from Junkensteins grasp. Instead of a petrified Lord, Junkenstein is greeted by an empty castle. At first he seems gleeful, running to hop on the throne. Once he sits down and looks around, he bursts into tears. After all these years of pain, he doesnt even get his revenge. He doesnt get to have his victory even at his brightest moment. The monster tries to comfort its creator, succeeding just to quiet him enough for the Witch to speak. Its time for the favor he owes her.

Before, she wanted him to leave the town as well, but seeing how he was alone already she wanted something else. She wanted him to be a guardian for the black forest. No town would ever become of Adlersbrunn ever again and no one would step a foot into Black forest while the doctor was alive, to ensure that the creatures could live in peace.

He accepted, as he was to do, and remained the only human left.

Chapter 4: The time that we dont speak too much about because honestly nothing happens

Some hundred years passed in quiet. Adlersbrunn collapsed and became ruins of what it once was. Junkenstein guarded the forest and helped the creatures inside it, at one point building a bride for his monster. (Nothing too much is said about what happened to her or where she went) The monster learned and lived, helping Junkenstein with his work. Due to both of them having been revived with the spark of life, they had become immortal. (Unless killed) Witch of the Wilds passed peacefully after a long life. Reaper found his head and his curse was lifted. Life was good.

Chapter 5: Junkenstein of Eichenwalde

One day Junkenstein realizes that where Adlersbrunn once was, is now something new. People have come and started building a town, so he disguises himself and goes to investigate. These people have migrated here from the north, calling this place Eichenwalde, and seem to be very nice. They offer him food and water, the kids want to play with him and the grown ups tell stories of the North to him. He doesnt see an issue with them coming here to stay, since they seem nice and the forest has few creatures left to protect. When a little girl tries to run into the woods, Junkenstein holds her back and tells her not to go. Intrigued, the little girl asks why. The doctor starts telling about monsters and creatures to scare the kids, but they are more interested in hearing his ghost stories, so he obliges to tell them one. He tells about a mad scientist who created a monster and how the monster now lurks in the woods. The kids are excited and the adults think of it as a great legend. It becomes a habit for Junkenstein to come into the town to tell ghost stories to kids. One day, when its Halloween, he notices a difference. The town has changed their style into old fashioned clothes, their mechanical cars to wooden carriage and posters of a fake Mad scientist and a Monster litter the walls. The kids are playing as the characters from his stories and running around with mouths filled with candy. The legend has come into a tradition of a reenactment.

One day, a man arrives into the town, and raises some questions in Junkenstein. The man looks like the Lord. Speaks like the Lord. Walks like the Lord. Has the same mannerisms as the Lord. He even introduces himself as Reinhardt to the disguised Junkenstein. The Lord escaped. It would make sense for him to have started again somewhere else. This could be his descendant, without knowledge of the legend. Who would want such an odd story to be passed down to their descendants? Who would even believe it? Junkenstein keeps an eye on the man and, even when he leaves, the monster follows him for a while. It doesnt seem like he is a threat of any kind. The life goes on in Eichenwalde, with Junkenstein telling stories and living his life with the monster. Every year his story is celebrated in front of him, without any idea that it is truer than any other tale told.

The End.

It took me 3 hours to write this down and I know it starts showing at the end. Also, there are still some mysteries in the story that have absolutely no canon to even start theorizing from. (Aka The Sombra Situation. Theres literally only one spray and a skin where she is linked in any way.)

Also, some very fun theories that I didnt know how to incorporate into the story are:

McCree gets bitten by a werewolf after the first fight

The first fight is the original Junkensteins revenge-gamemode. The second fight is the Endless gamemode.

Canonically the countess killed the Monks master, and I like to think its because of this they lost. They couldnt trust eachother.

When Summoner is close by the air gets heated.(Almost Canon. It is implied in voicelines)

Junkenstein is implied to be so chatty that he keeps talking/laughing during the fight

The Countess is from a family of Vampire hunters, who was bitten by a vampire and was ashamed. The reason she joins the battle is to honor her familys name and hunt for one last time.

It took me 3 separate days to research the canon elements, put them onto a paper and theorize around them and now I finally got this written down in here.

If you are interested in the notes I have, here you can read them: (Mostly in english, but might have some finnish words in there)

Now go my children! Hyperfixate onto this and share my pain!

(Also I would appreciate that if you take this theory and post it somewhere else, that you would credit me and tell your friends I said Hi!)

#overwatch #junkensteins revenge #junkenstein #junkrat #roadhog #mercy #reaper #symmetra #halloween #hyperfixation #theory

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endlesswarsim · 3 years

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Headcanons - Memory - 1

[UNDER THE CUT TO SAVE DASHES!

Lots of thoughts on Mems because main muse energy:tm:

WARNINGS: LONG. Also, implied solitude for insane amounts of time. Implied PTSD.]

I think, of the stupider things I’ll make canon on this blog, the universe goes through multiple scenario rotations- ranging across several versions of Transformers (RiD: 2001, TFA, TFP, Bayverse). The timeline the main blog takes place in is one of the few ‘scenarios’ where the system has merged differing concepts from differing realities. Also, Memory’s TFP/Bayverse never had more than one human aside from her on the team (as a permanent member) and the system switched depending on how Cybertron fell many years prior. So she’s only ever had to deal with Miko, Raf, and/or Jack as separate NPCs, never as a group.

She least likes when it’s Miko’s turn, since Miko’s recklessness often results in Memory having to do more revives before the war ends. Raf’s usually ends up with her playing babysitter, and her Jack has never stuck around more than a few months at a time.

Memory herself has lived through so many of the scenarios that she has virtually every single one memorized- every reaction, every outcome. She’s also tried to explain this to the Autobots/Decepticons in previous wars, with no luck outside of Shockwave (who immediately tried to rip apart the system they were all residing in, thus causing an early reset). She’s given up trying to explain it to anyone, and getting her to open up about it... Takes an insane amount of trust, which is nearly impossible to get since Memory consistently distances herself from everyone with the ‘happy-go-lucky memes weeeeee’ exterior.

I would also say that the Autobots notice Memory’s change in demeanor during some of the fights they engage in against the Decepticons.- And on certain days. Bumblebee is the most aware of this, having been hanging out with Memory the longest in the blog’s canon timeline. There are moments where she will get hyper defensive of certain members of the team, and on some days, she’ll hear something and it’ll just set her off.- She’ll start moving around the base, getting supplies, setting up defenses/traps for seemingly no reason- only for something to start going wrong later that day, and Memory’s traps/defenses to come into play.

No bot is quite sure how she knows these events will happen, but most of them leave her to her devices as a result.

The Autobots can tell when Memory takes a fight seriously vs. when she’s messing around. During most skirmishes, she’s making jokes and jumping around the field like a circus act, but in certain fights (seemingly random ones)... She’s lost her humorous exterior, and there’s just something there. Optimus and Ratchet know what it is, while Bumblebee, Arcee, and Bulkhead, do not. During these fights, she’s far more likely to push herself until she’s at death’s door- and usually it is in defense of one, maybe two of the other Autobots.

As for more positive headcanons... This was one of the funnier ones I came up with ages ago, but: Memory is loaded. Thanks to being able to access the internet mentally and basically mind-hack through every firewall known to man (but not Cybertronian, curse Soundwave), she has... Quite a bit of wealth accumulated, under multiple aliases.

She cannot interact with NPCs without one of the ‘Active Players’ present. Due to her status as a glitch, she’s not registered as an entity when she tries to talk to any of the NPCs. And if the ‘Active Players’ are far away enough... The NPCs will start to glitch and break down. To add on to this, the universe starts to de-register/refuses to load when she’s too far from any ‘Active Players’. This has caused every gaming glitch one can think of, but thankfully, she’s always either been found, died from going ‘beyond the boundaries’, or had to wait it out until the universe reset.

And here I thought I was getting POSITIVE, jeez....!

Memory has gained quite a few skills when it comes to combat against full-grown Cybertronians (yes, even her Megatron). As such, she may look small... But she can still kick aft if she wants to. However, she almost never takes fights seriously... So good luck on that.

She refuses to kill (unless it’s the Dark!Memory AU in which case uhhh... R U N).

In a personal continuity with toras-muse-cabinet, Memory is not the only one who is aware of the resets.- She has a friend in Collet Pinion, the femme being the only other one who knows/is aware of the resets/wars.

Memory is her strongest while on Cybertron.- Her stamina/body hold out longer, so she has more time to influence the tech around her. Besides, the whole place is literally made of metal/wires/etc., so she can literally influence the surface of the planet to her advantage.

Memory’s ABSOLUTE strongest form is a being called ‘Core File’. This may become an AU but I’m unsure (it’s not canon in the main blog timeline, that’s for sure).

While she acts happy-go-lucky, she’s almost always ecstatic to meet humans.- No offense to the Cybertronians, but when she meets non-NPC humans on this blog... She’s internally screeching with joy. She’s had no one to talk to for who knows how long outside of the Cybertronians, and most of them don’t believe her when she explains her history to them anyway, so she’s never felt connected to them.

Memory loves physical touch, but because of the war, the slightest movement of someone’s servo/arm sends her into immediate fight/flight mode. Bumblebee tried to pat her once.

His servo twisted real fast and he hasn’t tried it without warning her since.

She’s so out of touch with humans that most social situations seem impossible to her. She doesn’t know how to work at a restaurant/event, and most of the time will just go with her gut. This often... Has interesting results.

Ratchet is the one who tries to get Memory out of the base the most (for obvious reasons).

#[reality's illusions: headcanons]#[idea eraser: memory]#long post #tw: implied ptsd

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puppypeter · 4 years

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You know when you trip over a small drabble and end up disappearing from your blog down a Evanstan rabbit hole? Yep, that’s what happened here, so enjoy some fics!! Some are more silly/lighthearted, some are a bit more angsty, so remember to read the tags before to check if it’s your thing!

There will definitely be a second part cause I’m still stuck down here, so keep an eye out if you like the pairing 🥰

🔒 = you need an ao3 account to be able to read it.

PS: do not link any of these fics to the actors or anyone associated with them. Fics are from the fans for the fans, and they should stay within the fandom!

Happy reading! 🐶

Rust and Stardust | Explicit | 8080 words

Sebastian knows one thing, and that is that he loves Chris Evans.

On Your Left | Explicit | 7894 words

Sebastian and Chris have hidden their relationship for years but an accident turns everything upside down.

In Motion | Teen & Up | 1944 words

One more take is one too many when you're dangling from wires; or, Sebastian Stan: a motion sickness story.

Ready to Go | Explicit | 8965 words

In hindsight, Chris can see the error in not pausing after knocking on Seb’s bedroom door and just barging in without waiting for permission to come in. Rookie mistake. As it is, he raps his knuckles on the wood three times, then pushes down the handle and swings open the door with a “Seb, are you ready to go?”

I’ve done some things that I shouldn’t have done (but I haven’t stopped loving you once) | Explicit | 59208 words 💗

After the release of Infinity War, Chris and Sebastian each take some time off to recharge. Chris is staying in Scarlett’s lake cabin on his own and invites Sebastian up to come and spend some time with him. Due to busy work schedules and a number of other, more personal reasons, Chris and Seb haven't been as close lately, something which neither of them are very happy about. This mini-vacation presents a chance for them to revive their friendship and maybe (definitely) explore if there might be something more. Over the course of a week, and with a little help from meddling friends and co-stars, the boys learn to build bridges, to be vulnerable and take chances, and to stop letting fear rule their lives.

We’ll figure it out | Mature | 2983 words

Of course Chris had thought about it. His brother’s gay, for fuck’s sake. So yeah, growing up, he’d wondered, and experimented a bit with a few guys in the industry. Mutually assured destruction helped confer a certain sense of security for both parties involved. All things considered, he’s been pretty fucking lucky, there are no rumors about him, and since he’s mostly attracted to women, it’s not something he really has to worry about.

Sebastian, though… There’s a reason comments about Seb’s jawline come so easily to Chris.

I Wanna Be Yours | Explicit | 7309 words

A few times, Sebastian catches him staring, and gives him an odd look.

“You okay, Chris?” he asks, the third time it happens.

Despite the fact that he’s an actor, Chris knows he tends to be a bad liar and wear his emotions on his sleeve, but he prays Sebastian will buy his white lie just this once.

“Fine, yeah fine,” Chris assures him. “Just a little tired, I’ll be back to normal tomorrow.”

Sebastian gives him a sympathetic smile, and Chris feels like the worst kind of scum.

Kiss The Boy | General Audiences | 1410 words

Sebastian once did an interview where he admitted he tried picking up girls with his rendition of ‘Under the Sea’ from the Little Mermaid. Here's what happened when he tries it on Chris.

No Longer a Place | General Audiences | 4645 words

The ups and downs of Hollywood relationships, with a side of Chris taking care of Sebastian.

This Is Awkward | Mature | 3185 words

While filming the final helicarrier scene of CA:TWS, Sebastian has to mount Chris for the perfect shot, and he gets... excited.

You Are My Sweetest Downfall | Teen & Up | 448 words

prompt: imagine sebastian crying a little after the first time he has sex with chris because he’s so happy

or: Where Chris is a cutie pie and Sebastian does what he does best: cry.

Stars Out Of The Blue | Teen & Up | 6355 words

Chris Evans accidentally kicks Sebastian Stan off a broken helicarrier set on Monday afternoon. It’s the worst moment of his life. Monday evening, however, contains the best moment. Indisputably. Ever.

My broken veins say that if my heart stops beating | Explicit | 4606 words

The one where sebastian and chris get high and chris gets curious and sebastian ends up three fingers deep in him.

All That You’re Making Of Me | Explicit | 37219 words

The unfolding of a relationship, over time. And a perfect happy ending.

All I wanna see you in is just skin | Explicit | 2852 words

Sebastian really wants Chris to be his Daddy. Especially after seeing him with that beard.

With You and the F**king Lines | Mature | 638 words 🔒

What not to do when in bed with your co-star: 1) Don't quote their role. 2) Don't quote your role. 3) If 1 & 2 don't apply for the circumstances, quote a good line.

What to do when your co-star quote your role in bed: 1) No sex for them in the foreseeable future. 2) If 1 is too hard. Quote them back. Payback's a bitch, man.

The Words We Put Together | Not Rated | 2702 words

Sebastian and Chris meet again after two years. Let the story drift you into happiness.

I’ve never seen anything quite like you | Mature | 5416 words 🔒

He texts his brother: do guys go on dates with guys Scott texts back: you are the dumbest shit alive

Only I Would Know | Mature | 2673 words

Chris brings up the idea of having kids.

Sebastian's intimidated by the idea. Just a little.

A Faity-Tale, A Fancy-Flight | Teen & Up | 2429 words

Sebastian shouldn’t have to be alone on his birthday. Chris comes over with Starbucks and first kisses.

The next 9 works all belong to the You Make Me Love You series:

Make Me | Explicit | 4403 words

After a fight Chris and Sebastian come back to each other.

My Heart, My Home, My Everything | Explicit | 26709 words

Chris and Sebastian come out to their families, and then the world.

So It Begins | Explicit | 12673 words

Chris and Sebastian take the first step in wedding planning, finding a venue for their big day.

Endless Love | Teen & Up | 17316 words

Chris and Sebastian's wedding day is here, but that's just the beginning.

Newlyweds | Explicit | 5374 words

Chris and Sebastian enjoying life as a newly married couple.

Luca (One Shots) | Teen & Up | 23444 words #WIP

Stories following Chris and Sebastian as first-time parents. It's Luca's world, his dad's are just living in it.

Baby Mine (Everything) | Explicit | 12966 words

Chris and Sebastian go to the Endgame premiere, they plan to make a night of it, this is their first night out since their son came home. Things don't exactly go as planned.

Luca 14 Months: TIFF 2019 | Mature | 20571 words #WIP

Luca comes with his dads to TIFF 2019 and steals the show.

Coming Home: Luca 20 Months (The Evanstan Quarantine Fic) | Explicit | 8821 words

Sebastian comes home after months away due to his job and complications involving travel restrictions. Finally the family can be together during quarantine.

Picture source: (x)

#puppy peter fic recs #pp fic rec list #fic rec list #pp: evanstan #pp: evanstan fic rec list #pp: rpf #this is real person fic #don't like don't read #evanstan #evanstan fic #evanstan fics #evanstan fic rec #evanstan fan fiction #chris evans/sebastian stan #evans/stan #chris evans rpf #sebastian stan rpf

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recentanimenews · 3 years

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SSSS.Dynazenon – 01 (First Impressions) – Battle, Go!!

Like its predecessor Gainax, Trigger is known for ambitious, sumptuous, stylish, and sometimes chaotic action bangers that usually pay tribute or homage to anime history in some way. Trigger’s first big hit was Kill la Kill, which approached and sometimes surpassed Gurren Lagann’s iconic escalating insanity.

Seemingly every Trigger series has been polarizing, perhaps none more than Darling in the FranXX (which I personally loved). Even with series generally considered middling like InoBato and Kiznaiver, you’re assured a feast for the eyes and ears. There’s also a lot of love and joy in its series; they almost always reach for the skies rather than go through the motions.

Trigger’s Fall 2018 entry SSSS.Gridman revived an obscure 90s tokusatsu series and imbued it with vibrant, dynamic, flawed characters and the kind of crazy world-flipping twists that would have been unheard of in the original series. Dynazenon (which sounds like something invented by Buckminster Fuller) is the follow up to Gridman, but so far shares neither setting nor cast with its 2018 predecessor.

What is does share is a relatively mundane first couple acts, in which the kaiju and its antigrave effects are only hinted at on the margins of the frame. We meet the four main kids: the utterly ordinary Asanaka Yomogi; the aloof Minami Yume, who serially asks boys out then stands them up and is possessed with an exceptionally icy glare; the shut-in NEET Yamanaka Koyomi; and his truant cousin Asukagawa Chise.

The fifth character is Gauma, who stands out from the others with his bizarre hair, clothes, and insistence he’s a “kaiju user”. He’s out of place in this world where the other four are just hanging around, carrying on with their normal, unexceptional lives. Still, when Yomogi hears Gauma’s stomach growling when he encounters him under a bridge, he gives him some food, and immediately gains Gauma’s gratitude and loyalty.

Yomogi’s family situation is such that his mom brings him on dates with her wealthy gentleman caller, who gives Yomogi a fat stack for his birthday to ingratiate himself. Meanwhile, we learn Yume’s sister Kano is dead her room hasn’t been repurposed yet. Yume has to ask to even enter the room, and she finds two things: a calender with a particular date circled (a recital perhaps Yume promised to attend but didn’t) and two interlocking metal ankhs that gently clink like a rain chime and shackles in equal measure.

What I love about these establishing scenes is that they are so normal and undramatic, but also intimate. It allows us to ease into this realistic world and its realistic characters before things go all tokusatsu. Yomogi and Yume cross paths quite by accident, when the former is running away from a far-too-insistent Gauma chasing him like an eager dog.

Yume wastes no time arranging a meet-up with Yomogi when he gets off work at nine. Meanwhile, the antigrav incidents around town increase, and Chise wants to drag Koyomi out of bed so they can go investigate. As expected, she stands Yomogi up, as he waits 40 minutes in vain. Fortunately for him, Gauma’s on the case: he’ll locate Yume for him.

Turns out Yume is within eyeshot of Yomogi on a nearby bridge, and when Gauma finds her and starts yelling at her for daring to mess with his new best bro, they’re within earshot as well. Yomogi heads to the bridge, and Yume admits to him and Gauma that yes, she stood him up, because yes, there is “something wrong” with her. It’s as if her “promise-breaking affliction” is a self-fulfilling prophesy.

There’s no time to get into this further because a giant robotic dino-kaiju suddenly appears in the midst of downtown, kicking up apartment blocks and office towers like a batter kicks up dirt when stepping up to the plate. The spacial relationship between the three characters on the bridge and the kaiju is clearly established, adding to the sense of scale and realism.

Deciding this is his time to shine, Gauma pulls out a glowing package, which causes a giant purple wireframe robotic hand to coalesce above his and the other’s heads. Chise and Koyomi watch it all, and Chise snaps a pic only for the purple wire robot to glare at her.

She and Koyomi run for it, but Koyomi is caught. He finds himself in a multi-chamber cockpit already occupied by Gauma, Yomogi and Yume. Then we get the first money shot of the red-and-gold mecha Dynazenon that Gauma learns he needed a total of four people to operate.

With that quota met, Gauma takes the reins—for what he admits is his first time—flies over to where his purple-and-silver enemy is waiting, and then we get a good old-fashioned rock-’em-sock-’em mecha-vs.-mecha-kaiju fight of yore—only with far more modern and enhanced production values.

You can feel the weight of the massive metal beasts as buildings crumble around them, and the heat of their various vents and exhausts as Gauma grabs his opponent and Dynazenon transforms into Dyna Rex, complete with dragon wings with which he launches high into the sky with his opponent.

One Blazing Inferno Rex Roar later, the enemy kaiju is obliterated. Gauma celebrates, Koyomi calls a worried-sick Chise to assure her he’s just fine, and Yomogi stares at Yume while recalling her words “something is wrong with me.”

You’re not alone, sister. It’s clear there’s something a little off about all four of them, and the SSSS in the title stands for Scarred Souls Shine like Stars, their flaws are the reason they’re in that cockpit, brought together by the still-mysterious Gauma.

The first battle is typically the easiest. I’m looking forward to watching how this unlikely quartet of comrades—whom I feel we already know pretty well thanks to the quieter first acts— deal with this sudden upheaval to their ho-hum lives. We’ll see if this unexpected calling is just the thing they need to sooth those scarred souls of theirs. Until then, this was a hell of an opening salvo.

By: braverade

#Anime #News #RABUJOI – An Anime Blog

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wisdomrays · 4 years

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TAFAKKUR: Part 253

WATER: THE MOLECULE OF LIFE: Part 2

PROTEIN FOLDING

Proteins are biological molecules that carry out the vital tasks of life. In the cell, proteins are initially synthesized as linear chains of amino acids ranging in size from a few to several thousand amino acids in length. Subsequent to synthesis, a linear chain spontaneously folds into a particular three-dimensional (3D) form. This precise fold is essential for the execution of protein’s specific function. As simple as it may sound, protein folding is currently one of the biggest questions in biophysics.

Researchers are working hard to be able to devise principles to estimate which 3D fold a certain linear amino acid sequence adopts, and what functions the eventual 3D structures execute. Although these questions related to the protein folding phenomenon are still far from being totally understood, some clues have been discovered.

In 1969 Cryus Levinthal stated that an average size protein would fold within about 1030 times longer than the expected lifetime of the universe if it were to fold via sampling all possible conformations even if the conformational sampling is very fast (e.g. a millionth of a millionth of a second for each conformation). This obviously is not what happens in reality, and the experimentally observed folding times are within milliseconds (a thousandth of a second) – second regime. This discrepancy between the estimated and the measured timescales is referred to as the “Levinthal Paradox.”

Consequently, proteins cannot rely on randomly sampling all the possible conformations to fold, but the folding must rather be a driven and directed process. Scientists hypothesize that water comes to the rescue at this point. As the linear protein chain is being synthesized, water-hating amino acids try to bury themselves away from water as soon as possible. This leads to the rapid collapse of the linear amino acid chain into a compact structure where hydrophobic regions are protected from water. This initial compaction which is provided by the interaction with the ambient aqueous medium is thought to be the key step in achieving folding within reasonable timescales. After the first rapid compaction, the protein adapts its final structure by sampling a much smaller number of possible conformations.

Simultaneously, hydrogen bonding helps the stabilization of certain folds with respect to other possible structures and contributes to the folding process. Eventually, the functional 3D fold is thus realized from the nascent linear protein chain.

CELLULAR COMPARTMENTALIZATION

“HE HAS LET FLOW FORTH THE TWO LARGE BODIES OF WATER, THEY MEET TOGETHER, (BUT) BETWEEN THEM IS A BARRIER, WHICH THEY DO NOT TRANSGRESS (AND SO THEY DO NOT MERGE).” (RAHMAN 55:19-20)

Compartmentalization is an important feature of life. First of all, the boundary of a cell must be well-defined and well-controlled. Secondly, different tasks are carried out by specialized compartments (so called organelles) within most of the cells. The major design principle of the cellular boundaries depends on the immiscibility of water and oil. The subunits of cellular membranes are “lipids” which simply are oil-based molecules. A lipid molecule has two parts: A water-loving “headgroup” and two water-fearing “tails”. Because of the dual water-tendency of lipids, they can self assemble into bi-layers, which eventually form enclosed structures. Thanks to the properties of water, this compartmentalization is readily achieved.

The cell membrane thus formed is impermeable to ions, and many chemical agents important for sustaining the cellular functions. Although such a barrier is essential for holding the cell contents as well as maintaining intracellular balance, material exchange between inside and outside of the cell is also an indispensible trait for carrying out the vast majority of vital processes (nerve impulse formation and transmission, cell signaling, nutrition, etc.). In order to achieve well-controlled material transport across the membrane, the cell membrane is decorated with various proteins that function as “channels”. These channel proteins come in different flavors and show specificity towards different chemicals. For instance, the channel protein for the potassium ion (K+) only allows the passage of potassium ions, whereas the sodium channel only lets sodium (Na+) through. Other channels have “gating” mechanisms that enable the channel to be “open” or “closed” depending on the need for the transport to happen. Although the specificity and gating mechanism of every channel protein relies on a unique ingenious design principle which deserves detailed mention in its own right, in the rest of the article we will focus on the water channel, for it once again exemplifies the perfect harmony between water and the bio-molecules.

AQUAPORIN: THE WATER CHANNEL

Almost 170 liters of water is recycled in the human kidney on a daily basis, and this requires that kidney tissue possesses high water permeability. Since water cannot diffuse in and out of the cell membrane very rapidly for the reasons given above, reconciliation of the enormous daily flux of water in the kidneys has been a long-standing puzzle. The discovery of water channels (also known as “aquaporin”) by Peter Agre in 1992 resolved the mystery, and this finding was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2003. It is now known that the recycling machinery in the kidney chiefly consists of millions of aquaporins. Like other channel proteins, aquaporins also display selectivity: water is effectively transported across aquaporins, whereas the passage of other ions and miscellaneous agents is not permitted.

However, how this selectivity is achieved presented another riddle: Hydrogen is smaller than water and can move through the smallest opening. How, then, is the hydrogen selected against, while water is allowed? It was also well known that water molecules which are ordered within the channel constriction normally form a “proton wire” through which the hydrogen ions (i.e. protons) can easily flow just like an electrical current flows along an electrical wire. Thus, as water is transported across aquaporins, hydrogen ions should in principle move rapidly in and out of the cells through the chain of ordered water molecules (i.e. the proton wire) in an uncontrollable manner. This would cause an imbalance in the cellular environment, and most likely would lead to cell death.

The answer came from a computer simulation of aquaporin by Emad Tajkhorshid and Klaus Schulten at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. They found that the water molecules change their orientation as they spun through the water channel. This rotation was achieved via water molecules’ specific interactions with the amino acid residues in the channel. Thanks to this orientation, the formation of the proton wire is disrupted (just like a break in an electric circuit) and the hydrogen ions are not permitted through the channel, while rapid water diffusion takes place. The interaction between water and aquaporin thus provides just another reason water is rightfully considered the cradle of life.

CONCLUSION

"There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle." Albert Einstein

… and that He sends down water from the sky, and revives with it the earth after its death. Surely in this are signs for people who will reason and understand. Rum 30:24

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thelazyhermits · 4 years

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I just had a fun idea for something that could happen in TABF in place of what’s going on right now in the manga’s current arc since I already established how things would be very different thanks to Fortune’s presence and Nighteye still being alive. I’ll put my idea under the cut to avoid spoiling those who aren’t caught up with the manga.

So, as I’ve already stated before, things would definitely turn out differently with the manga’s current arc because the villains don’t have the Quirk erasing bullets since Nighteye/Aizawa confiscated them from Overhaul.

The whole reason Shigaraki survived was because X-Less destroyed the machine that was trying to duplicate the Quirk erasing bullets. Since the villains didn’t get the bullets in TABF, that means such a machine wouldn’t have been on ergo X-Less wouldn’t have needed to destroy it. So, Shigaraki doesn’t get revived thanks to a well placed live wire.

Besides that, in TABF, we have Nighteye who can use his Quirk to scope out the situation and plan accordingly. So, while I won’t say everything is easy for them, the heroes overall are able to stop the villains, at least on the hospital team’s end. Things wouldn’t really change too much on the mansion raid team’s end since that’s all about the heroes subduing the villains and Liberation Army which obviously isn’t something that can be done quickly.

On the bright side, I see Hawks’ situation turning out better than canon. At first, I came up with the idea of Tokoyami still coming to his rescue and using items that Fortune gave him to stop Dabi, but I’ve changed my mind. Instead, I like the idea of Dabi being stopped from reaching Hawks by Mirio who was asked by Nighteye to handle Dabi since Nighteye was confident that Mirio could defeat him. Plus, with his Quirk, Mirio could reach Dabi really quickly compared to the other heroes. We all know how strong Mirio is so I could see him being able kick Dabi’s ass lol

As a result, I see Hawks being able to safely subdue Twice without needing to kill him since I think Hawks only killed him because Dabi interfered. If he hadn’t, I think Hawks would’ve just knocked Twice out, so he couldn’t use his Quirk to help the other villains. So, that would mean that Toga doesn’t go on rampage over Twice’s death which is definitely a plus haha

Anyway, back to my idea which is centered on Gigantomanchia. What if, before AFO was captured, he gave the doctor a voice recording he made to give to Gigan to play in case something happened to Shigaraki? AFO is smart enough to know a Quirk like Fortune’s isn’t something to underestimate, so he planned accordingly.

So, when the heroes go after the villains and Gigan never hears from Shigaraki, who is dead by this point since he doesn’t get revived, Gigan decides to listen to the voice recording that his first master left him to see what he should do now since things aren’t looking good for his current master’s allies.

What does the recording say? Kill the Prophet so she can no longer trouble his masters.

Now that he has his orders, Gigan takes off, tearing through heroes left and right with no one able to stop him. The doctor, who had listened to the recording ahead of time, had given Gigan the blanket she had used during her captivity, having kept it per AFO’s request, so Gigan knows her scent and can follow it. He was also told that she could be found around UA, so that’s the direction he heads.

I just really like the idea of Gigan still becoming a big foe that the heroes have to conquer rather than him just not doing anything cause he never gets orders from Shigaraki. Plus, I could see AFO coming up with a backup plan like this just in case Shigaraki ran into some trouble. While I doubt AFO could predict Shigaraki dying like he does, I could see him thinking that other complications could arise, so he gave Gigan a special order to follow, thinking that will distract the heroes.

Just imagine the looks on Midoriya’s, Bakugou’s, Kirishima’s, Todoroki’s, and Tamaki’s faces when they see this giant who keeps chanting that he needs to kill the Prophet. Those guys would immediately realize who Gigan is talking about and be horrified.

Shouji, Tokoyami, and Aoyama also know who Gigan is talking about because they remember Fortune being called Prophet by Dabi and Mumei. So they’re in the same boat as those who are familiar with Fortune’s past.

Of course, heroes like Midnight who are also on the scene would also know who Gigan is talking about. So, they’re all frantically trying to hold Gigan back to prevent him from escaping so he can accomplish his mission.

This way the students still get plenty of battle experience since Gigan is obviously not an easy foe. I could see the situation with Gigan and the students that happened in the manga also happening here. We just have Midoriya, Bakugou, Tokoyami, and Todoroki there too.

Meanwhile, Fortune, who’s back at UA with Eri, gets a vision about Gigan and is horrified when she realizes Gigan plans on tearing through the town to get to her. She immediately realizes she can’t afford to stay at UA, so after telling Eri to run to the teachers’ lounge and stay with All Might, she runs off campus knowing she needs to go somewhere far away from civilization in order to ensure no one gets hurt since she knows that Gigan will manage to escape the heroes.

As she’s running, she calls Nedzu to alert him of the situation and he immediately begins strategizing while also looking for heroes that can come to her immediate aid.

I see Midoriya coming up with the strategy of Momo creating the device that can track Fortune’s tracking device and giving it to Iida, asking him to go on ahead to find Fortune since he’s the fastest out of all of them.

I haven’t really thought much past this point, but I just wanted to share what I came up with so far. If you’re wondering if Fortune and Nighteye saw this coming, I would say that Fortune didn’t have any visions since her Quirk isn’t guaranteed to tell her everything well in advance.

In regards to Nighteye, I see him knowing that Gigan goes on a rampage, but since he didn’t check the future of someone who knows Fortune and would be be in the mansion raid team dealing with Gigan, he doesn’t know that Gigan is going after Fortune since he doesn’t hear Gigan chanting about the Prophet through the POV of whoever’s future he saw.

Nighteye, who heard from Hawks that Gigan acts on Shigaraki’s orders, assumes that something goes wrong with the hospital team, so he thinks things will be fine as long as he joins the hospital team and makes sure things go well with apprehending Shigaraki.

So, Gigan going after Fortune is a fun surprise for everyone lol

#TABF #bnha spoilers #I just like the idea of gigan being sent after fortune #think how terrifying that would be #poor fortune lol #and poor students since they have to deal with their teacher being in peril #again lol #you can bet aizawa has a heart attack when he finds out what's going on #same with fatgum #everyone who knows fortune #is freaking the hell out #hawks especially because he was not told this would happen lol

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lilacmoon83 · 4 years

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Lightning in a Bottle

Also on Fanfiction.net and A03

Chapter 25: Point of No Return, Pt 1

Emma and Killian arrived at Felix's apartment and found it fairly normal. Not dirty, but a bit cluttered and lived in. There was the collection of newspaper articles on his kitchen table that got their attention though.

"Obituaries?" Killian asked.

"He said that people were dying before he jumped. For some reason, I think he thought he was causing people to die," Emma replied.

"These seem like accidents though. This woman was electrocuted by a stray power line that fell during a storm," he said.

"That's horrible and gruesome. This guy had a heart attack," she said, confused by all of that.

"Why would he think he killed them?" she asked.

"Dunno...but I think we have to chalk this one up to the fact that perhaps he was disturbed. I think you know better than anyone how hard adjusting to coming back to a world that...moved on," he replied, as they shared a look.

"Yeah…" she agreed, but then something in the articles caught her eye.

"Unless...there is more to this, after all," she said, as she pointed to the woman's shirt.

"The Rabbit Hole?" he asked.

"She was an employee at the Rabbit Hole bar and this guy had his heart attack in the same bar," she realized, as she compared the articles.

"That is a pretty freaky coincidence...but what connection to our victim does this place have?" he asked. Emma picked up the matchbook on the table and showed it to him.

"Seems he was a customer too," she said, as he took it from her.

"Now that is definitely worth checking out," he agreed, as they quickly left the man's abandoned apartment.

~*~

After about an hour of delving into the raw data, David was still trying to make sense of it all. But he was sure he was onto something when he encountered what looked to be medical data. If they were experimenting on the missing passengers, then there would be medical data. He picked up his cell phone and dialed a number, while making sure no one was near.

"Glinda...this is David Nolan," he said.

"Hello David," she answered.

"Listen...I found my way into the data information for the Singularity Project and I'm seeing a lot of medical data...and also some electrical readouts. Does that make any sense to you?" he asked.

"Electrical readouts?" she asked.

"Yes...does that mean anything?" he asked.

"It means they're using my research to try to duplicate the Callings. Electrical impulses to stimulate the brain and produce the Callings," she realized.

"So they can control and weaponize them," he said.

"Most likely," she answered.

"Thanks…I'll get back to you soon," David said, as he hung up the phone and peered up over his cubicle and into his boss' office. He looked a bit stressed, like he was on a deadline or something. Probably too much internet surfing and not enough working. This guy was easier to play than a fiddle. There was only one way to find any locations now.

"Hey...I'm finished if there's anything I can take off your plate," David said, as Doc looked up at him and then at the stack of folders on his desk that seemed to make him nervous.

"Yeah...those you need a higher clearance to enter into the system," Doc said, as he rushed around his office.

"Sorry…I'm running late for a board meeting and was supposed to have all this done," he said.

"Well…if you give me access, I could run an algorithm to get this all entered in a snap. It'd be done by the time you get down to corporate," he offered. Doc paused and looked at him for a moment. He sighed then and gave him his access badge.

"I'm counting on you, Nolan," he said, as he hurried out of his office. David smirked.

"Don't worry...you'll get your algorithm and I'll get the locations I need," David muttered.

~*~

Emma and Killian walked into the Rabbit Hole and approached the bar.

"Can I help you?" the man behind the bar asked. He had an accent, similar to Killian's.

"NYPD...we're here to ask you a few questions about a patron that frequents your establishment," Killian replied, as he flashed his badge.

"Of course...I have quite a few regulars and I'll help if I can. I'm Will Scarlet," he replied.

"Do recognize him?" Emma asked, as she showed him a photo on her phone.

"Oh, that's Felix...he's in here a lot. A bit of a celebrity now. Talked a lot about the plane and how he knew it was going to crash," Will replied.

"Really? Was he always paranoid?" he asked.

"Well...he's always been a bit maladjusted, even before the plane. But when he came back...his paranoia went from the normal nine to off the charts. Started saying that people were dying around him," Will replied.

"Well...he might have been right. Can you tell us about these two," Emma said, as she showed him the newspaper clippings.

"Oh yeah...Amara, that was a horrible accident. She was one of my best bartenders," he said.

"And this man?" Killian asked.

"Oh yeah, Tucker...he had a heart attack right here. I wasn't here, but the paramedics couldn't revive him. Wait...you don't think Felix had anything to do with these deaths, do you?" he asked.

"No…we're just investigating any connections," Emma replied.

"Connections to what?" Will asked.

"I am afraid that Felix committed suicide earlier today. We're just trying to get a grasp of his life," Killian replied.

"He's dead?" Will asked.

"I'm afraid so," Emma replied.

"Bloody hell...that's tragic. He was a very troubled guy though," Will said. Killian nodded.

"Thanks for your help," he said, as they exited the building.

"Sounds like Felix was paranoid and thought the deaths that happened here were his fault," Killian said.

"Or he was having Callings," Emma replied. Killian looked skeptical at that.

"Or maybe this is just all unfortunate coincidence," he reasoned. She rolled her eyes.

"Nothing since I've been back has been coincidence," she replied, as they headed for the car. As they did, a thought struck her. What if that was it? He had been talking about the plane. What if he had told these people about the Callings? If that was true...she realized that both Killian and Margaret could be in danger.

~*~

"I got your call...I'm assuming you found something," Vance said. He looked irritated at being summoned and Gold seemed to be unbothered, as usual.

"I looked through the raw data and found a lot of medical jargon and electrical data. So I called another passenger. Glinda Good," David explained.

"You involved someone else?" Vance hissed.

"Relax...Glinda thinks that whoever has the passengers may be trying to duplicate her research. She is being funded by the Singularity project. She thinks they might be hijacking her research, especially now," David said.

"Why now?" he asked.

"I told her about the electrical data and medical jargon. She thinks they are using her research to experiment on the passengers," David replied.

"Even if they are...this doesn't help us much," Vance said.

"Except that I managed to find a few locations that are being leased by UDS with Singularity as the subsidiary," David said. Gold smirked, as Vance suddenly looked impressed.

"How did you get that information?" he asked.

"My boss is an idiot and spends more time on his fantasy football lineup than doing any work. So I offered to help him out and he gave me his security badge," David replied.

"That is a stupid boss," Gold agreed. Vance sighed.

"We still need more...I can't get a warrant to search this many places on what we have. Plus...this is a lot of ground to cover. We need to get it narrowed down," he said, as thought for a moment.

"Do you think Ms. Good would agree to meet with her funders and wear a wire?" Vance questioned.

"She said she wanted to help in any way she can. I'll call her," David replied, as he dialed her.

"I told you that he was the one...he's the hero in this story," Gold said.

"Shut up," Vance replied irritably, as Gold continued to smirk.

~*~

Olive looked over at her mother, as she looked through the mail. She was trying to act like she was okay, but Olive could tell she was really bothered by that reporter.

"Mom...are you okay?" Olive asked.

"I'm fine, sweetie," Margaret replied. The teen rolled her eyes.

"What's with the eye roll?" she asked.

"Because we both know you're not okay," Olive replied.

"Not okay?" David asked, as he arrived home at that moment.

"No…I'm fine. Really," Margaret replied.

"That reporter that came to her classroom the other day tracked us down at school," Olive told her father.

"Tattle tale…" Margaret muttered.

"Is he following you?" David asked, with an edge in his voice.

"I already warned him that if he didn't leave us alone that my sister-in-law, the cop, would file a restraining order," she promised.

"Who is this guy?" David asked and Olive pulled up a photo on her phone.

"Sidney Glass…" he said, as he started for the door.

"David...wait!" she called, as she ran after him.

"Baby…I'm okay and you just got home and I don't want you to go," she pleaded, as she blocked his path.

"If there is someone stalking my wife...it's something I need to take care of," he said. But she shook her head.

"I warned him and I think he got the message," she said. He sighed.

"I'm going to text this guy's photo to Emma. I think we should file that restraining order anyway," he replied.

"Okay...but I don't want you confronting this man. He's a reporter and you know he'll just write some hit piece if you confront him," she warned. He sighed.

"Which might be exactly what he wants. People are just itching to paint the passengers as dangerous," he realized. She nodded and they hugged, as she rested her head against his chest.

"I get this feeling that they want to take you away from me somehow," she confessed, as she looked into his eyes.

"They're not going to take me," he promised.

"But me going off on some reporter probably won't paint a picture of sanity...even if I really want to punch this guy right now," he added. She smiled.

"I'm fine...I promise. It just freaked me out for a minute, but he's not worth it," she said.

"You're right...maybe we both need a little break," he replied.

"You guys should go out...the kid and I'll be fine," Olive suggested, as she headed upstairs. He looked back at his wife.

"What do you say? Date night? And this time a real one and not going to some conference," he said. She smiled.

"That sounds wonderful," she agreed.

~*~

Glinda smiled, as she was led into the doctor's office. She had only met him a few times and he was one of the lead doctor's heading up many projects. If he really was involved in something shady, especially if he was using her research, she definitely wanted to expose him.

"Dr. Goode...it's a pleasure," he said.

"Thank you, Dr. Jenkins and thank you for seeing me on such short notice," she replied.

"Of course...your research is fascinating and you said that you needed to discuss some of the schematics?" he asked.

"Yes…I have been going over my experience on the plane, as you know and would like to propose a few things," she replied, as she quietly slipped her hand beneath the desk and planted the bug for Vance.

"So...what did you want to discuss exactly?" the bespectacled doctor asked, just as his colleague barged in.

"I'm sorry to interrupt, but we have an urgent matter to tend to," the man said.

"Ah...I'm afraid I will have to reschedule this meeting, Ms. Goode. Please forgive me," he said, as she rose from her seat.

"Completely understandable, doctor. Have your office call mine," she said, as she made a hasty exit.

"What is it?" Jenkins snapped.

"I think there's been a breach. Someone has been rifling through our data," the assistant reported. Jenkins fumed.

"We cannot afford anymore delays. We have already moved the project to Brooklyn. Another move will lose us weeks more!" he ranted.

"We are close...perhaps we begin again and get the results we need," the assistant suggested.

"Yes...we don't have much choice. Let's proceed, but I want to know where that breach came from," he ordered, as they exited his office.

~*~

"Brooklyn…" Gold said, as he and Vance listened to the audio from the bug that had been planted.

"That's still a lot of ground to cover," he said, as he pressed a button and his assistant walked in.

"I need you to run a search on any facilities registered to the Singularity Project in Brooklyn and expedite it," he said.

"Has it been assigned a case number?" the agent asked. If the military was involved in this...then Vance wanted them to be kept in the dark about his probing.

"I'll take care of that part. Just get me a list asap," he said, as she left.

"Perhaps Mr. Nolan can narrow his search. His boss is a bit dim. I'm sure swiping his badge again wouldn't be so hard," Gold suggested.

"No...they already know there is a breach. It's not going to take them long to trace it back to the UDS accounting firm. He goes in again and he gets caught. Not even I can keep him out of prison for corporate espionage," Vance said.

"Then we had better warn him or he'll do it anyway," Gold replied.

"Now that I agree with. We'll ping his phone and make a surprise visit," he said, as they left the office, but not before his assistant had that list for him.

~*~

She chuckled, as they trekked hand in hand through the park.

"Are you sure this is okay?" he asked.

"Of course it is...Chinese takeout in our favorite park with my husband is much more romantic than some stuffy, fancy restaurant," she replied. They were both dressed up and they had intended to go to a fancy Italian restaurant. However, once they arrived and were waiting for a table, he was attracting a lot of unwanted attention and stares. It was suffocating, so when she suggested a picnic in the car, they had picked up some takeout and enjoyed it together in the car with some music. To be honest, it was better than any restaurant, as far as they were concerned. And now, they were taking a moonlit walk in their favorite park.

"I know, but a husband should be able to take his wife to a nice restaurant without attracting attention," he said.

"It will fade over time. Besides, you know I don't care where we go as long as we're together," she said, as she kissed him tenderly. Unfortunately, they could hear someone approaching and their lips parted.

"Wonderful…" he muttered, as he saw Gold and Vance coming toward them.

"Sorry to interrupt your evening," Vance said.

"Not sorry enough not to do it," David retorted, earning him a nudge from his wife.

"Director Vance...Mr. Gold," she greeted politely.

"Mrs. Nolan...we do apologize for the interruption, but Ms. Goode has come through for us," Vance replied.

"She planted the bug?" David asked with interest. He nodded.

"And they let it slip that they moved the project to Brooklyn," Vance replied.

"That's certainly progress," Margaret said.

"Indeed. We have seven locations tied to UDS in the area. Still too many to search on foot, but it's definitely narrowed it down," Vance replied.

"And if I can get into their files one more time...I might be able to narrow it down even more," David said.

"No...that's too risky. Not even I can help you if you're caught for corporate espionage. They know their data has been searched. They'll eventually figure it out and trace it back to your boss," Vance warned.

"Then how do you suggest we find out which facility is holding the missing passengers?" David asked.

"We've got the bug planted and we'll be listening in," Vance replied.

"Fine...but you better keep us in the loop. Our son's life is in danger here," David said sternly.

"Not to worry, Mr. Nolan...we'll be in touch," Gold assured them, as they left. He sighed and put his arm around her.

"Some date night, huh?" he asked. She kissed his cheek.

"It was still perfect, handsome. Let's get some ice cream and take it home to the kids," she replied. He smiled.

"Yeah...that does sound perfect," he agreed, as they walked back to their car.

#Snowing #SnowxCharming #Charming family #Emma Swan #Henry Mills #Regina Mills #Killian Jones #Manifest #with a Once twist #AU #romance #adventure #drama #family #Lightning in a Bottle

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alternis-dim · 5 years

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I’ve never played terraria what is it about?

to be completely honest, Terraria isn’t a super story driven game. it’s one of those things where you can go through and not know a single thing about the lore without losing out on anything, y’know? it’s just sort of fun to dig around the flavor text and the developer comments to see how the world works. the amount of depth they put into what’s basically a roguelike sandbox is impressive!

there are all sorts of weird, nitpicky details, so tldr: the universe of Terraria is one where the forces of the world try to maintain a perfect balance of light and darkness, and this balance is messed with by the interference of an elder god. the player confronts bosses linked to said god, gathers npcs, and generally just tries to survive for a while. the game is advanced into a hardmode when you kill the world’s core, which releases spirits of light and dark that it was protecting the world from. this triggers a massive shift in the map, as well as a series of boss events which eventually lead up to a godly confrontation.

long and SUPER info-dumpy version under the cut (I am so sorry)

lore released by the developers explained that the setting of “Terraria” is really more of a multiverse than a single setting (which is a fun way to do a game where you can generate multiple maps and do multiplayer, imo!). each potential “world” that exists in the multiverse is sentient and strives to maintain a balance of light and dark- a rule which had been established by the Gods in order to ensure fairness for all creatures. the sole purpose of this sentience was to ensure that the balance was maintained, and this desire for balance resulted in the existence of some strange environments (biomes in the game).

the first two of the three are the only ones relevant before hardmode, and only one of those two will generate in any given world. one of them is the Crimson, which in reality is a sentient creature whose “body” is composed of all Crimson in the multiverse, creating a hivemind across universes. the other is the Corruption, a barren wasteland created from the sins, negativity, and vileness of living creatures. both of these environments balance out light with dark in separate ways: the Crimson has the singleminded goal of restoring balance to the multiverse at all costs (and has consumed many worlds in this process), while the Corruption knows nothing but causing pain and desolation.

beyond this worldbuilding, the actual “lore” of Terraria begins with an elder god, Cthulhu, whose origins are a mystery and whose only goal seems to be the subjugation of all life. this dude absolutely tore up the multiverse for a while, but was eventually held at bay when the Dryad race took him on head-on; their connection to the planet made them uniquely equipped to deal with him. they weren’t able to kill him, but instead incapacitated him by tearing his body apart, separating his organs, bones, brain, eyes… what remained of Cthulhu fled to the moon in an attempt to recover, and the shreds of his body are sort of just Around. all but one of the Dryads died in the conflict, and the last one hasn’t been seen for a very long time prior to the game.

it’s been a long time since said battle, but in that time a strange cult started to rise to power with the goal of reviving Cthulhu. they started to set about this by abducting the Mechanic, an unparalleled technological genius, and forcing her to construct mechanical replacements for his body. as of the beginning of the game, she’s finished everything but the brain.

you, the player, exist in one of Terraria’s worlds! the first npc you meet is the Guide (explained in the lore to be part of an order dedicated to the preservation of knowledge in hopes of protecting people and the world), and he guides you through the process of surviving in a setting where many things want to kill you, while also instructing you on how to attract various npcs to live with you and help out. certain events throughout the game will trigger battles with various parts of Cthulhu’s body (the Eye of Cthulhu, the Brain of Cthulhu, the Eater of Worlds (implied to be his spine, I believe?), and Skeletron (the skull and arms, bound to an old man cursed to guard the entrance of the dungeon in which the Mechanic is trapped).

The final challenge of pre-hardmode is descending to the Underworld, which has a fun bit of lore which the Guide tells you nothing about; throwing a voodoo doll of him into the lava summons the Wall of Flesh, the guardian of the world’s core and the only thing that stands between the world and the ancient spirits of light and dark it has imprisoned. (several bits of lore imply that the Guide is straight-up a human avatar for the Wall of Flesh; using a voodoo doll of the Clothier does not summon him, and an npc later in the game calls the boss the “wall of [guide name]”)

killing the Wall irreversibly shifts the map into hardmode, in which whatever dark biome you have will start spreading virulently. remember how earlier I mentioned that the world always attempts to keep light and dark balanced? the world compensates with the generation of a new environment called the Hallow, which is the realization of complete purity. this makes it equally as dangerous as the dark biomes, though. The Hallow is so “pure” that it’s sterilizing, and it spreads just as virulently as the dark biomes and is equally hostile to the “imperfections” of the world. both the dark biome and the Hallow will eventually overtake the map without player intervention, though this does take a while. triggering hardmode also releases a whole bunch of harder enemies, new npcs, and other fun stuff.

in hardmode you have to battle the body replacements the Mechanic built, and after clearing a couple more world-related bosses you’ll be able to start finding cultists around the dungeon. killing them triggers a boss fight which then leads to a map event where you have to destroy four Celestial pillars which rain down godlike power on your map. once they’re defeated, you have to confront the Moon Lord. (the details on the Moon Lord haven’t really been cleared up by the development team, but based on the fact that the Cultists are involved in triggering his summoning event, he’s missing several body parts, and he comes from the moon which the lore stated was where Cthulhu fled to recover, it’s very likely that he’s a weakened Cthulhu.) defeating him is considered endgame.

there’s all sorts of other weird and fun lore, too. the game seems to heavily imply that the setting of Terraria is post-apocalyptic, considering the existence of abandoned houses and civilizations, functional mineshafts and minecarts, swarms of undead underground (including ones wearing mining equipment), apartment complexes in the Underworld for some reason, floating islands with abandoned homes, technology such as wiring and phones, and an explicit statement from the developers that the denizens of the dungeon used to be a thriving society until a curse caused them to live beyond their bodies and become mindless monsters… that last one’s interesting, since it’s very possible that the Mechanic and the Clothier come from that civilization.

WOW THAT GOT LONG I AM SO SORRY I JUST THINK IT’S NEAT

none of this is necessary at all to know to play the game, I just like flavor text and reading

#terraria #indie games #shush #hi my name is Star and I like to overthink things that probably aren't supposed to be thought about that hard #this game where u go around smacking monsters in order to get equipment to smack bigger monsters is one of them

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verus-veritas · 5 years

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Metabods: Change of Mind (1)

Time for another favourite story of mine. It’s a bodyswap story written by “Mango Deville” on the Metabods site. I really, really love this story and it’s definitely one of the Top 3 Best Bodyswap Stories of all time! /Verus

This happened a few years ago now.

Stuart was just lying there, unable to do anything with his life. I had come into his room on a late night prowl of the hospice made more restless than normal that night due to the news I had received that day. My suspicions had been confirmed, I had inoperable liver, stomach and bowel cancer giving me only a few more months to live.

Not that I could really complain, at 64 years of age I know that I had had a reasonably long and active life. Although I hadn't been in an intimate relationship since my last lover and I parted company twenty-five years ago I had to be grateful for what I'd had. Let's face it, it was a life of sorts at least, unlike some of the patients whose physical welfare I tended as the resident physician and who tonight I looked in on. Most were here only due to the “wonders” of modern medical technology.

Case in point was Stuart here, 23-year-old son of a wealthy industrialist, all but killed in a motorcycle accident on the family estate about a year ago; physically his young body had healed completely, flawlessly you might even say. His brain, however, had never recovered; he had never regained consciousness and brain scans failed to reveal any activity. In a less advanced society he would have died and been laid to rest after the accident. But his parents had denied him this natural process, refusing to accept the medical facts and well able to afford 24 x 7 intensive care for what was basically only the shell of the vivacious and high-spirited man-boy that I had also known, as private physician to the family. His mother regularly spent long hours by his bedside trying to revive him with her conversation and massaging his surprisingly still very fit body; there were hardly any signs of wasting away, a rare situation that gave her hope. But there was never any response and it was probably a matter of time before they finally accepted the inevitable and let him go.

I looked ruefully at Stuart, his chest rising and falling rhythmically but somehow mechanically; in the dim light I could see the heart stimulating pad that was taped to his firm chest. A respirator sat beside the bed but it was not expected to ever be used. During my tenure at the hospice I had grown to accept the tragic waste of patients like this as part of life's cruel irony. In the soft glow of the machines that were keeping his body alive and on that day of all days the irony of the empty shell of such a beautiful youth lying here for want of an active brain resounded heavily in my mind. Irony, because for want of just such a healthy body my brain would soon be silent like his.

Many thoughts had gone through my head that day but I don't quite know what prompted me to decide to try out such a crazy idea. For some years to relieve the boredom of my normal work I had experimented with brain wave patterning, always with laboratory animals of course but ultimately as a possible means of cancelling out criminal and antisocial behaviour in humans too. I was not unaware of the ethical dilemma of this concept but was not really expecting any major breakthroughs to need to worry about those realities now, if ever. And now it appears that nothing would ever come of it anyway, despite some interesting results among some of the larger mammal subjects I had tried lately. The concept was for the “good” brain wave patterns of one subject to be read into a computer and “mapped” into the other subject's brain, erasing the negative patterns. I had been experimenting with horses recently (the hospice kept a few for the active but terminally ill patients to enjoy) but to get the strength of signal required there had been problems with feedback. The donor subject would get some of the recipient's brainwaves back through the system, usually for example it would respond to the recipient's name (as well as it's own still) and other behavioural anomalies. It was as though there'd been a slight merger of memory. Certainly the recipient benefited from the experience as behavioural patterns immediately took on the donor horse's profile; it even responded to the donor horse's name! There was some evidence of a merger on this side too.

Of course all this experimentation was done on the quiet and was completely unknown to the other staff of the hospice, but I had documented everything I had done on the laptop and the main copies were on my desktop computer at home.

Perhaps it was ill-formed thought processes caused by the reaction to my bad news but also there was a feeling that maybe my experiments could help Stuart here and perhaps other patients like him. There was not also some degree of pride in the thought that my “brain” was somewhat worth saving; having been gay all my life had meant I had not had children to pass any of my characteristics on to. Perhaps I could pass my brainwaves over to Stuart and he would be able to function again? At the same time it would be like I was passing him some of myself, my characteristics so that he could make use of them. I decided there was nothing for either of us to lose, either of our lives would be measured in months now, as things stood.

So that night I went back to my office and got my experimental apparatus, consisting of a laptop computer, a pair of skullcaps, an electrical transformer and some loops of wiring to connect them all together. On my return I plugged in the transformer and connected the skullcaps to it and the laptop in parallel. I booted up the computer and loaded the program and realised I would need to modify the parameters for the different body weights (for the electrical charges) and relative brain masses (for the mapping) of humans compared to horses. I entered the data and the computer quickly calculated the settings it would feed to the rest of the apparatus. I positioned a chair by the bed and placed the laptop next to Stuart's left arm, facing the chair. I then placed the recipient's skullcap on his head and located it carefully, as I had learned the criticality of its correct positioning with the previous experiments. Stuart at least did not move with the unfamiliarity of it, unlike the horses.

The other cap I placed on my own head and, using the mirror across the room over the washbasin in which I could see myself from where I stood next to the bed, positioned it carefully. I sat on the chair and placed my right hand in Stuart's left one and clasped it tightly (this wasn't necessary but I appreciated the feeling of warmth it gave me). With my left hand I clicked the laptop mouse button to initiate the sequence. I remember the feeling of buzzing in my brain rising from almost nothing to what no doubt had caused the horses to react nervously. For them I had resorted to mild sedatives recently but had not even thought of it for myself, having only just decided to do this on the spur of the moment. It was nothing really compared to some of the pain of the cancers I was carrying in my body. The buzzing was getting to be most objectionable and I remember thinking that at least I was confident that Stuart would not be feeling anything. And then I blacked out.

I woke with a jolt, the buzzing in my head was down again to a bare minimum. I went to open my eyes but the lids seemed strangely heavy as they do when you are awakened suddenly from a long deep sleep. My eyes took some time to focus clearly though there was no problem seeing with the light in the room—I could make out the clock on the wall across from me, it read a quarter to 1, about 12 minutes after I had started my “experiment”.

Then it struck me! I was looking at the clock from a different angle from what I should have, sitting on the low patient's chair beside the bed; I was higher than that and my neck was at a reclined angle from which it was a slight strain to focus on the clock. And I could feel a hand in mine but it was my left hand, not my right one!

Noting the stiffness of my body I pushed myself upright with my free hand and realised it was the bed I was on, not the chair! And the hand I was holding was that of an older overweight man who was slumped motionless in that very chair I was sure I had been sitting in only minutes before. And that man was me! I was looking at my own body from afar—was this an out-of-body experience? Slightly panicky, I searched the room and my eyes fell onto the mirror over the washbasin and there was the ultimate shock! Looking back at me was Stuart, animated and sitting up in bed! And I saw the startled look on his face in complete accord with my emotions. I moved my head and Stuart moved his too! I raised my right arm and waved my hand and Stuart raised his arm and waved back at me. How could this be, was this possible, was I inside of Stuart's body?

Just then the fact that I (or was it Stuart?) was still wearing the skullcap caught my attention—perhaps instead of merely transferring brainwaves more than that had gone across; my consciousness in fact! So where had Stuart's consciousness gone? But then he hadn't had any consciousness had he? Is that why my (former) body lay slouched in the chair? As the thought dawned on me I instinctively reached up and removed the skullcap and it's wiring from my.. er.. Stuart's head. How would I explain this, that the former me was now at least comatose possibly dead and I was now alive inside of Stuart's body? It would appear to everyone that I had “stolen” his body! And what a body to steal! Prime of youth 6 foot 2 23 year old with a slim but muscular physique, blue green eyes and sandy coloured hair. And then there was his flawless skin, skin that when he arrived last year had acquired a golden hue from outdoor activities in the summer months but was by now somewhat paler from his time in the hospice. No one would ever understand.

I reached over and saw that my former self was indeed lifeless. Without brain activity and the life-support system that had kept Stuart's body alive all these months it had probably taken no time at all for the body to die, certainly less than the 10 minutes I had been unconscious. There was obviously no going back now. In a strangely horrified reaction to something that I had called “me” for over 60 years I shook free of the hand that still clasped mine.

Perhaps I could hide what had actually happened? My brain ticked over quickly—I would have to remove all traces of the “experiment”. With some effort I reached over and removed the skullcap from what was formerly my head. I wrapped the two of them together and reaching down to the other side of the bed, opened the cupboard door and tossed them inside. The transformer was a standard issue one though there had not been need of one for any of the equipment in Stuart's room. Again with some effort I reached down and switched it off. I picked up the laptop computer from the bed; I could see from its display that it had been coordinating and recording the miraculous process that I had just been through. Somehow I had to save this data but not let it get into anyone else's hands, of course. Fortunately I had previously loaded a rewriteable CD into the machine as I had previously found this to be the easiest and most secure way to transfer data from my experiments to the desktop at home. I quickly typed in the commands to copy the data onto the CD, noting the stiffness in my fingers. I guess when you haven't used your muscles for months, as Stuart hadn't, you can't expect them to be anything but stiff, despite his mother's massages.

My immediate thought was to delete the files from the laptop lest someone discover them but stopped myself; I normally waited till I knew the CD could be read before deleting the files, a habit formed from making an early mistake with saving data. I remembered I could encrypt them so did so and set the password to “Change_Of_Mind”, my “codename” for the experimental work I had been doing. I removed the CD and placed it into an empty CD case that I saw was lying on top of the bedside cupboard, next to the portable CD player with which I had seen Stuart's mother play his favourite music in her efforts to revive him.

Finally I pushed my former body back into the chair and slumped it over to one side (away from me).

I closed down the experiment program and opened my expenses spreadsheet, did a minor change so that it would look like I had been working on it, and launched the screensaver program. I positioned the machine on “my” lap and arranged “my” right hand as though I had been typing but it had fallen loose.

Satisfied that most of the evidence of my experiment was now removed and a plausible view of “my” former body's death was established I lay back for a minute to think about how I could “become Stuart”. I knew the boy well enough, delivering him and being the family physician for all his 23 years, but it was gonna to be hard for them to accept the inevitable differences in our personalities. I decided that perhaps they would believe that it was the result of the months of coma, a form of amnesia, maybe. I, too, would need to remember what it was like to be young and free of worries.

I had been lying there for about 15 minutes and realised one last thing. I was supposed to be comatose and there I would be perfectly normal in the morning when someone would find us. Only one thing to do, knock myself out for some time and then I could “awake”, to everyone's miraculous relief, no doubt! I remembered the tranquillisers that I had been using to give myself a few hours sleep each night, relief from the pain of the cancers. They were in my breast pocket! I reached over and gently removed the strip, took four from it, replaced the rest and then smoothed down the jacket again. From the cupboard I took the glass of water Stuart's mother used to moisten his lips... er... my lips with. Swallowing the pills was not easy (even my throat muscles were unused to activity) but after a moment I'd got them all down.

I lay for another 10 minutes or so before I could feel their effect but while I was waiting another thought occurred to me. Once or twice I had arrived to visit Stuart as the hospice's Chief nurse Peter had been finishing sponge bathing Stuart. I had been slightly jealous of the strongly built male nurse's job, really only when it came to Stuart, I admit, but couldn't help wondering at his enthusiasm to take on this particular patient with such personal zeal. My suspicions were confirmed when driving past a gay bar on the other side of town one night I saw Peter coming out of the bar, and he wasn't alone. That was some time back and I had seen him again on two more recent occasions also leaving the bar. But both of the later times he was alone which had surprised me because not only was he well built but he was quite good looking with a white blond mop of hair and possibly Nordic features. I reminded myself that gay life in our town was not necessarily a hectic social whirl (it certainly never had been for me my whole life) and with shift work perhaps Peter did not often meet other available gay men. The second time I saw him come out alone I actually felt real sympathy for the man.

On the last occasion that I had arrived before Peter had quite finished Stuart's sponge batch I discovered that he was gently cleansing Stuart's genitals, and the sight of it was enough to make me even more jealous. From where I stood at the doorway I could see that Stuart's penis and balls were quite large and not only was Peter bathing them meticulously he was obviously enjoying the moment too, from the sizeable bulge I could see in his white uniform trousers. I momentarily wondered had Stuart gotten an erection then, as a response to the warm soapy water, whether Peter would have “helped him out” if he had thought he was not likely to be disturbed. The thought had sustained me for a number of nights in my own bed, too.

I raised my “new” hand and looked at it; it was a reasonable size for a man. I then thrust it down under the covers until I located “my” genitals. Sure enough the penis I felt there was a size that surprised me even at such close quarters and my balls were easily larger than my hand could grasp together. I could almost feel an erection coming on (I was starting to get used to feeling things through Stuart's body) but the tranquillisers were kicking in. Instead I contentedly dropped the weighty objects between “my” legs and fell into a heavy sleep in which, I am now convinced, parts of Stuart's life were revealed to me in flashbacks. This would prove to be a common occurrence over the next few months.

(End of part one)

Source: “Change of mind” by Mango Deville on Metabods.com

#bodyswap #jock #selflove #permanent #metabods #changeofmind

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xoruffitup · 5 years

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Burn This: The Oversized Review/Analysis

I sat down this afternoon to write out all of my thoughts about this play, given that they’ve become more complicated after each viewing, and here I am just finishing up some 6 hours later. :’) Clearly, this play is much more complex than it seems!

I’ve now been fortunate enough to watch Burn This three times, and each time I experience something new. A lot of the reviews have been lukewarm about the play itself and skeptical of how well it functions as a revival on a modern stage. This play is absolutely a product of its time, and the revival consciously places itself in the original 80s setting through the costumes and music. Strictly speaking, I would have to agree that in some ways, the play doesn’t age well. A lot of my reservations upon first viewing towards Pale’s character and the portrayed relationship with Anna stem from this cultural shift – A modern audience watching this play has a lot more sensitivities and a higher bar of scrutiny towards an irreverent, aggressive male character like Pale than in the time of its writing. Although I believe a lot of the slurs in the original play have been removed, the audience still always makes an audible reaction of discomfort when Pale slings the words “cunt,” “oriental,” and “fag.” And yet, the audience spends practically all the rest of their time laughing up a storm at his crazy diatribes and curse-laden rants. The play is still an absorbing pleasure to watch, and for all the nitpicking I and many others are doing towards Pale’s character, at the end of the day I would still praise this production and argue its merits, its lingering universal resonance, and the brilliance of its writing.

Since Pale’s relationship with Anna is the main drive of the story, the story would lose all appeal if Pale were found completely unlikable. And yet, the reviews that have questioned their chemistry do so only partially for this reason. For the most part, reviewers are raving about Adam – Finding his portrayal to be the disarming, shocking highlight of the show. Like Anna, for all that he makes us uncomfortable, we find ourselves wanting more of his biting honesty, his crude humor, and his commanding, live-wire presence. So what is the play’s challenge? Aside from unchangeable aspects such as cast chemistry (though personally, I thought Keri and Adam had plenty) – The challenge may be that a play like this, exhibiting an ill-advised, volatile relationship like this one, can’t simply exist unquestioned anymore. This type of explosive man, hesitant woman, and tempestuous passion is no longer a reality we accept for standard. And so, perhaps some audiences fail to find the play’s story compelling or authentic.

This play contains several dangerous ledges. In the three performances I’ve seen, these ledges have been crossed to various extents. Here are what I believe to be the main tensions within the play that challenge a modern audience, and which are handled by the cast delicately and differently in each show.

Is Pale the archetype of the hyper-masculine? Is he disrespectful, inconsiderate, or worst – predatory towards Anna?

Why, comparatively speaking, does Anna have such a small presence? Does this compromise the integrity of the play, when it’s intended to be her story?

Is this really a story about romance? Are we supposed to want Anna to want Pale? Is their story one of snowballing tragedy, or of consolation, connection, and artistic fulfillment?

Is Pale the destructive archetype of the hyper-masculine?

I’ll start with the first point, as this is really the most crucial. From a storytelling standpoint, Pale needs to be dangerous. He needs to embody primal chaos, and make the audience just as uncomfortable and conflicted as Anna. I’ve used this quote in a previous post, but bringing it back because it’s so perfectly apt: “Menacing, profane, dangerous and yet oddly sensitive, Pale is both terrifying and fascinating and, in the end, the one who brings to Anna the unsettling but compelling love that, despite her fears and doubts, she cannot turn away.”

Without this response to him, the play simply wouldn’t work. Pale’s entrance into the play needs to completely upend and throw into disarray everything that came before. In the twenty minutes or so before his entrance, the world of this play is a quiet, thoughtful, and mournful place. Anna has just returned from the terrible experience of Robbie’s funeral. She’s questioning her inspiration and future as a choreographer. Burton attempts to wax about his writing and the ultimate force of great love or “some megapassion.” It is tame and innocuous. Burton’s dialogues seem charming, even bordering silly in their grandiose, guileless pretension. Then enters Pale, who barrels through the door in an explosion of curses, energy, and authenticity. He’s not standing there trying to find the fumbling words to describe a “megapassion” – In all his hot mess pain, he is one. And to Anna, his overpowering, magnetic presence is both more than she can bear, and a blessed cover for her own pain and lack of direction.

For all his political incorrectness and bad manners, I do sincerely love what Pale represents. To me – in this play about the search for artistic authenticity and inspiration, he represents the depths to which an artist might perhaps need to dive into their own uncomfortable, ugly emotions in order to create something honest. It’s no surprise that it’s through meeting Pale that Anna is finally able to choreograph the dance piece that gives her closure for Robbie’s death. His presence is the only thing incendiary enough to be called true inspiration. While Anna begins the play adrift and helpless in the expanse of her grief after Robbie’s loss, with no way to process this terrible suffering that can find no place or redress in her every day life, Pale’s massive vitality is the only thing equally as powerful. By the end, it seems to ground Anna. His destabilizing presence makes her confront the type of chaotic, profound state of being Robbie’s loss thrust her into, and ironically, sharing that space with Pale eventually affords her the equanimity and resilience to process her grief and ultimately create something from it.

While Anna seems to want to run from her grief rather than face it, Pale is the opposite – He tortures himself by wallowing in it. By the end of the play, the two seem to have pulled each other to a middle ground between their opposite coping mechanisms. Finally, this might be a place where they can each move on with their lives. While Anna’s manner of physically comforting Pale is kind and familiar, his manner of helping her is a bit more unconventional – Though arguably equally effective, knowing Anna ends the play in a more centered and productive position than she began it in. After their relationship has dragged on a while and Anna begins trying to break it off, Pale says, “You know, you’re a much different person in the sack then you are standing up.” Wince. Here’s the insensitive guy complaining that she won’t just stop talking and continue the convenient hook-up arrangement. But then, as he often does, Pale throws us for a loop. He pauses, then adds with emphasis and a hint of challenge, “Which one’s the lie?”

This always seems to be one of the most powerful lines of the play. The audience usually makes an audible reaction, as with just a few words, Pale shifts from seeming self-centered, to being the only one who cares enough to challenge Anna for her own good. Because really, this is the crux of what has caused her such pain and debilitation since Robbie’s death. She’s been wearing a mask to try to cover the depth of the loss she truly feels. Like Pale says a moment later in this same scene, and another one of my favorite lines – “People walking down the street, don’t mean a thing they’re doing.” Similarly, when she tells Pale she wants him to leave because he frightens her, he calls out that she knows he’s not dangerous – she’s simply afraid of “feeling something.” Anna and her friends talk about their artistic endeavors and ambitions. They talk about Robbie’s death, sure, but none of them feel and act their grief the way Pale does. This isn’t to say that each character needs to run around wailing in order to be authentic, but Pale’s call-out here is what wakes Anna to the fact that she needs to marry these two disparate areas of herself – Her immense, debilitating grief, and her work as a dancer/choreographer. At the beginning of the play, Anna can neither advance her work as a choreographer, nor deal with her grief. But by the end – By realizing the artificiality in pretending that she was fine and life could go on, she is able to direct the immense passion and power of her grief towards both artistic and personal resolution.

Now, examining this relationship from the lens of gender, rather than artistic fulfillment and emotional authenticity, is a thornier task. The first time I saw this play, I was a bit uncomfortable with my initial impression of Pale as the type of man who doesn’t take ‘no’ for an answer – if he even asks the question at all. Originally, I didn’t like that he assumes his welcome with Anna and initially tries to blow past her misgivings about their relationship. (Although when she tells him in no uncertain terms that she doesn’t want to see him, he does listen to and respect her wishes.) However, in the more recent performances, I appreciated that the first time they become intimate happened a bit more slowly. In the first preview, Pale seemed to kiss her out of nowhere, and only afterwards did he assess her reaction. But now, this entire scene has become more tentative. He sits back and looks at her first, saying a deliberate line about how she’s making him “riled up.” He reaches for her slowly, and waits to see that she remains where she is before he kisses her. (In one performance, he spent a solid 10 seconds just stroking her hair back first.) He then sits back again, looking at her carefully and asking if she’s alright. I loved the scene a lot more this way. His slow, gentle advances were touching, and made it so much clearer just how sincerely Anna reciprocates.

The single most important and potentially uncomfortable question about Pale is whether he might be called a predator taking advantage of Anna’s grief. On paper, I can see the threat. But watching Adam on stage? The thought barely crossed my mind. After seeing how thoroughly and wretchedly he falls apart under the weight of his own grief – The kind of wailing and hiccupping, red-faced crying he does, it doesn’t seem possible that this man is anywhere near calculating. He doesn’t make any advances or comments about her body until the point where they’re seated on the couch together, and Anna has already initiated physical contact by comforting him as he weeps. Sure, on paper one could make the argument that he’s taking advantage of the situation, but with the slower, cautious way the scene is now played, it certainly doesn’t feel that way. Pale doesn’t seem to have any kind of seducing agenda. If he did, breaking down in ugly tears in front of the hot woman certainly wouldn’t help. Instead, their shared grief and discussion about Robbie gradually draws them closer – emotionally, then physically – until they both tumble into intimacy that’s both demanding and healing at the same time.

Looking at the character himself – Is he the archetype of an entitled, hyper-masculine, egotistical man? The type that has blessedly lost appeal as a romantic figure? On the surface, yes, he might seem it. Every other word out of his mouth is a curse. He starts a drunken fistfight with Anna’s boyfriend. He shows up at her place drunk, and is then hard to get rid of. He throws around curse words with Anna when they first meet. He blows from one destructive habit or emotion to the next, without any real thought for how those around him will be affected. He willfully drives Anna and Burton apart. He doesn’t think it worth mentioning to Anna before they sleep together that he’s still technically married. In terms of character traits and temperament – No, he’s not likeable.

Enter the insanely charismatic, improbably empathetic Adam Driver – Who manages to turn the character’s cursing habits into cause for uproarious laughter; Who turns the air silent and reverent when Pale’s character slows to 0 mph for the first time when he kisses Anna; and who plays the character with startlingly endearing moments. (Coyly covering his face with the sleeve of her robe after he interrupts Anna’s phone call with Burton? Kissing her forehead like 5 times when he hands her tea? Clutching her so tightly in the final scene, she is clearly all that matters to him anymore? MY HEART)

One of my favorite things about Adam’s portrayal of Kylo Ren is the complexity of gendered behavior he brings to the role, just as he does for this role. Even while Kylo is physically menacing and unpredictably violent, his eyes tremble with cracked vulnerability and even in still silence, his being radiates crushing conflict and abject pain. Adam plays Pale with the same nuance. Pale is loud, crude, and irreverent. He clearly spends no time thinking ahead about what is ‘correct’ or ‘polite’, he is simply a being of impulse and instinct. But because Adam plays him with such convincing immediacy, he comes off just as honest as he is unrefined. To me, this is Pale’s saving grace. After spending a half hour vacillating between yelling, cursing, screaming, and crying, it seems clear that he is someone moved by emotions and instincts greater than himself – Rather than a person who chose to be disrespectful or rude. The moments when he ingratiates himself in our and Anna’s hearts are when his gentle, tender moments with her are every bit as impactful as his loud, noisy meltdowns. And there is nothing aggressive or intimidating (“manly”) about the way he weeps in front of her. There is something refreshing and moving about such honesty; Such helplessness to hide or restrain the brunt of one’s pain from others. A simplistic gendered reading of their dynamic might accuse him of preying on her from the beginning; But a reading of Adam and Keri’s performance would struggle to find such a gendered binary. After all, Anna doesn’t cry in front of him once. He is the only one of the two of them to be reduced to misery in the other’s presence.

To be clear – This is not a matter of a character being “emotional” denoting the feminine, while loud yelling denotes the masculine. My response to the charge of Pale’s character being toxically hyper-masculine and predatory is simply that this is an ill-fitting characterization, given the assumptions that A) Being ‘predatory’ requires a certain amount of intent, cunning, and callousness – None of which could be attributed to the distraught, sentimental mess of Adam’s Pale who lives only in his immediate force of being; and B) The concept of hyper-masculine “macho”ness denotes a certain one-dimensional understanding of chauvinistic masculinity, which Adam’s Pale defies in its sometimes alarming complexity – Alarming precisely because his breakneck swings from a physicality of violence to one of broken helplessness fly in the face of the gendered expectations one might ascribe to a man of his stature.

(Wow, holy shit did I just write all that for only my first section? Jfc okay, promise I’ll start moving faster! But for the sake of comparison, my original conflicted thoughts about Adam’s Pale after the first preview performance are here.)

Why does Anna have such a lesser presence?

Examining this play from a feminist perspective requires acknowledging how much smaller Anna’s presence is compared to Pale’s. In their first scene together, there are literally stretches where Pale will rant and rave for solid minutes without Anna getting in a single line. No wonder Adam’s performance has dominated reviews. Keri really isn’t given much to work with.

I have two opposite responses to this problem. First – Perhaps the play simply isn’t written with a high regard for its female lead, and makes little effort to develop her character beyond her relationships with the men around her. The more I consider how the play functions, the more it seems to be the case that the men around Anna have all the important, witty dialogue as the ones who set the scenes and move the story along, while Anna is pulled along in their wake.

I realized upon later viewings that what initially seemed to be Burton’s pseudo-artistic ramblings in the first scene actually serve the purpose of establishing the play’s two main themes. The first theme – His idea to write a script about the wives of sailors out to sea, waiting for the men to return, introduces the idea of the search for some ultimate, profound form of love that sustains people through any manner of loss and suffering. (This is what Anna is searching for and what she ultimately finds in her feelings for Pale.) Okay, the very way this theme is introduced – women sitting idle, waiting for the men who are out doing the real work and having the real adventures – is lame. Second, we can’t even have the female character who’s actually trying to undertake this in her character arc narrating her own journey? Why is someone else laying it out for her? And to look at the story as a whole – Why is her fulfillment something she ultimately needs to receive through a man’s involvement? From the beginning, the fact that her resolution is tied to her connection to a man seems flawed.

The second theme is introduced from Burton and Larry’s discussion of the story of Senta and the Flying Dutchman. To make a long story short – Senta sacrifices herself in her great love for the Dutchman in order to “save him from perdition.” While Anna does participate in this conversation, she seems to remain unaware of how this meta dialogue is in fact reflecting her own underlying fear running through the whole play, as well as her greatest danger. The play vocally introduces at its beginning this idea of women sacrificing themselves on the altar of their great loves. (When Anna is retelling her experience at Robbie’s funeral, she indeed recalls how she felt she was expected to throw herself over his casket.) This could imply a number of interpretations. It could reflect Anna’s fear of loving someone again with the same intensity of her love for Robbie – And then suffering the same metaphorical ‘death’ she is experiencing at Robbie’s loss. Or, it could reflect the expectation of an imbalanced male-female relationship where the woman is expected to support and fulfill the man, while defining herself through him to the point of self-erasure. If we simply compare a word count of Pale’s lines against Anna’s lines, the second interpretation doesn’t seem completely far-fetched.

What I love about theatre is the great variability between what a script does and what actors can do with it. This very well could be a script that is completely disparaging to Anna, purposefully placing her in the path of a domineering man whose oversized personality smothers her to the point of losing both her grief and her personhood. However – that is not what Adam does with the script. That is not what this revival production seems to be trying to convey. There’s not much that can be done about the (small) number of lines Anna has; Just like there’s nothing to be done for the fact that she will unavoidably get a bit lost in Pale’s shadow, when he has these hilarious, ludicrous, show-stealing monologues and is played by an actor with such commanding stage presence as Adam.

Nonetheless – Even for all these misgivings, I have a defense for both why the script pays her less attention, and how the current production and Keri have done their best to move Anna more into the spotlight. Keri has an incredible portrayal of body language, and is often actively expressing her character’s experience even when she doesn’t have lines. For instance, when Pale first enters the apartment and spends the first ten minutes circling the room and bitching about parking, Keri keeps circling opposite from him. Her arms are crossed, and she keeps pointedly placing distance between them. When he moves towards her, she rotates away. Even though she speaks a lot less than him in this scene, her body language nonetheless clearly articulates when she begins to be moved by his suffering, and when she gradually stops distrusting him. By the time they’re sitting together on the couch and she’s embracing him as he weeps, she is physically open to him in a way she never is with any of the other characters. When she’s sitting with Burton on that same couch in other scenes, she shows in her stiff physicality that she does not feel as at ease with him, and does not trust him the same way. She always places herself opposite Burton, and keeps her legs folded between them and her torso often leaned away from him. While many reviewers said Keri’s acting seems to better fit the medium of television rather than theater, where small-scale nuance often gets lost, I found her acting through body language highly effective.

My other defense for why I’m not totally convinced of the sexism of the original material is that this really does seem to be Anna’s story. She is the character most often present, on stage for almost every scene. Yes, the main action of the story is Anna and Pale’s relationship, but the telling of that story stays more closely centered on Anna’s perspective. Even though Burton and Larry are the ones who articulate the play’s structural themes at the beginning, it is Anna’s experience and hardship at Robbie’s funeral that opens and frames the play. She is the character we get to know first. And following on that – perhaps the play is then meant to progress through her eyes, meaning the audience becomes her proxy, and hence why there might be fewer lines necessary to understand her experience.

What I mean by the audience becoming her proxy is that the play is framed in such a way that the audience’s experience watching the play closely mirrors Anna’s experience in the play. When Pale is being played by an actor that succeeds in making him empathetic to the audience, then the audience travels through the same progression as Anna in its evolving understanding of and connection to Pale’s character. The audience feels the same conflict of discomfort and attraction, the more time Anna spends with him. Anna doesn’t need lines to explain her misgivings about becoming involved with him – They’re already completely clear. And when Anna breaks off the relationship and Pale leaves – The audience feels much the same way Anna does and expresses to Larry: Relieved but “like shit.”

There is also the fact that although Anna is given less voice, her presence is, in a way, much stronger and put-together than Pale’s. Even though he is louder and more attention-grabbing, she is the one in control of their dynamic. She is the one usually looking after and comforting him, trying to manage him, and so long as their first kissing scene is played in the new, more tentative way where he waits for her response, she is the one defining the terms of their relationship. Though she connects with Pale because she is suffering just as much as he is, she is unquestionably the more stoic of them both, with a subtle inner strength she does not need Pale to bestow upon her - only to remind her of.

Is this a story of romance or disaster?

NOW finally – Is this really a story about romance? Or an explosive disaster doomed to fail? In my first post after seeing the first preview of the play, I described Anna and Pale as “star-crossed lovers” – in the proper, tragic sense.

(“Whatever is between them should not exist. Whatever is between them threatens them both. Whatever is between them is not long for this world, and doesn’t belong in it. (…) They are polar opposite people - Sharing no visible common interests and with temperaments that couldn’t be more opposite.”)

It’s certainly difficult to envision these two in a stable, long-term relationship. Most likely, they’ll continue on as they are – Finding their way to each other in explosive bursts, then attempting to disentangle before they’re drawn back together. A woman like Anna, sensible and talented, seems far too levelheaded to fall for a temperamental firebrand like Pale. So what attracts her to Pale in a way she isn’t attracted to Burton? Why does she find more fulfillment with him, when she finds no stability?

Pale both challenges and needs her in a way Burton does not. Burton comes from a rich kid background, who never really had to fight for anything and admits himself that he’s never really felt loss in his life. Anna and Burton work well in the sense of their lives and interests aligning together, but Burton never gives the impression of needing Anna in any true sense. Not the way Pale does – when he entreats her not to go when they’re sitting together on the couch, or when he comes to her in his most pathetic, broken state. She is the only one who knew Robbie deeply and can share Pale’s crushing sense of loss, and as such is the only one who can provide him the solace he so desperately needs. There is nothing Burton needs from Anna, or relies on her for with such urgency. As discussed in the first section, Pale also gives Anna something in return. It may not be what she knew she needed, but he forces her to confront the true brunt of her grief, and look at herself honestly rather than hiding from her pain. She shies away from this at first, and tries to avoid caring for someone again as deeply as she did for Robbie. (He accuses: “You’re afraid you’ll get interested. Afraid you’ll feel something.” She objects: “I feel, Pale!”) At this point in her life, this type of burgeoning attachment to someone new is not something she wants or feels equipped to deal with. She thinks she wants to end things with Pale and does so, but after he leaves, she’s faced with the rising realization of how much she doesn’t want him gone. Her following dialogue with Larry is some of the most intriguing: “I’m sick of the age we live in.” “What, you’d rather be pillaged and raped?” “I am being pillaged, and I am being raped!” Sensible, put-together, talented Anna has no place in her life and in her career for this type of affair. She has no patience for it, and is frustrated with herself for wanting it despite how much of a terrible idea it is, and how little she thinks she likes Pale as a person. She’s fighting her feelings for him, and she hates that they’re winning. But the fact remains – His need for her and the way he has bared himself to the soul has left its mark on her heart. No one else has ever been so honest with her. Just as it seemed to both pain and soothe her when she told Pale he reminded her of Robbie; It both fulfills and distresses her to grow closer to him. No matter how they get there, the urgency with which they fall into each other’s arms and cling to one another in the final scene is unquestionably one of the play’s most heartfelt and powerful moments. They may not be the type of couple that lasts forever, but this isn’t that kind of story. It is the story of two people attempting to navigate profound grief, and only through finding each other do they find their way free.

My last comment on this question is that I’ve had different impressions of the depth of their feelings for each other in different performances. In one performance (4/16), the cast seemed to be playing up the comedy so much that the two moments I had remembered as most touching and intimate between Pale and Anna became drowned out. The first was what Pale says to her between kisses, the first time they become intimate:

“Let’s just start up the engines real slow here … maybe go halfway to the city and stop for somethin’ to eat … You talk to me, okay? … You’re gonna find out there’s times … I’m a real good listener.”

This is nothing short of brilliantly written dialogue, because the first time I heard it, I didn’t even realize the sexual innuendo. In the first preview, the lines were delivered so gently and sincerely, there was no laughter at all. It was a moment where Pale seemed to be promising her that this was meaningful – That he wanted to be there for her in more ways than just the physical. Instead of a metaphor for sexual acts, it sounded like “Before we go all the way… I want you to know I’m here for you. What we’re starting is bigger than just this.” It was a palpable, tender moment of connection.

The second time I saw the performance was when the audience caught the metaphor and the moment became comic. I’m not sure what exactly Adam did differently (I think he was kissing her during the ellipses, rather than pulling back and saying the whole line in one heartfelt go), but the moment was completely different. Yes, it’s actually hilarious dialogue and brilliant because it can be delivered in such different ways, but I couldn’t help feeling that a central moment of emotional intimacy was lost.

The second moment is in the final scene, when they’re reunited for the first time in weeks. In the first preview, I think they were sitting together when Anna said in a helpless voice, “I don’t want this.” Pale looked at her and responded, “I don’t want it too.” The moment was mournful and touching, because the way they were looking at each other made it clearly inevitable that their personal wills would have no say in the matter. No matter how much they might not want this – no matter the fact that they both know they’re not good for each other – they know they’re being pulled together by forces greater than themselves.

In later performances, the blocking was changed so they’re saying these lines between kissing. This made the comments comedic rather than tragic, because obviously it’s hard to believe he “doesn’t want it too” when he’s enthusiastically kissing her back.

In my personal opinion, this shift towards the more comedic made the whole thing a little less impactful, since to me, the most compelling element of the play the first time was the beautifully tragic nature of that final scene. My friend was reduced to tears during it. The play is funnier now rather than bittersweet and Adam is uproariously hilarious, but I think what makes this play unique and most powerful is the fated/tragic nature of Anna and Pale’s relationship. Rather than a romping “oh yeah, they know it’s a bad idea but they’re falling into bed together anyway” – The beautiful writing and the exchanges between these two characters really can elevate the story to the level of the profound.

Well. Apparently I had much more to say about this play than I realized! I hope one or two people out there found themselves as interested by it and Adam and Keri’s performances as I did. Thank you kindly if you actually read through that entire rambling mess!! And please, if you have any thoughts at all about anything I wrote above or any other element of the play, I would really love to hear! :D

#Adam Driver #Burn This #Broadway #Keri Russell #Lanford Wilson #Burn This Broadway

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diloph · 5 years

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Pardon me, but it seemed from some of your posts on KOTM that you didn't like Mark Russell that much. I know he was a cliche everyman type, but what exactly made him any worse than others in these movies?

I apologise if this isn’t my most coherent answer. I’m a little bit stressed at the moment, trying to finish the next chapter of IIID and create relevant, if poorly assembled memes before the Invader Zim movie is released.

To be honest, some of it is a bit tongue-in cheek. Making fun of the most visible character in the film, considering that he hates Godzilla with a burning passion, is just a little bit of fun. It’s like how I refer to Rick Stanton with disdain sheerly because he’s somewhat based on Rick Sanchez, who I don’t dislike either.

The film isn’t about Mark: King of the Fathers anyway, so if I completely despised him, I could just zone out during his scenes, or skip them when the DVD comes out.

But… some of it wasn’t so jokey. He’s still an okayish protagonist, I’ve got nothing against the actor himself and his acting is fine. Still, Mark was loud, abrasive and hated Godzilla; you know, things that grate on my nerves when it comes to a 2+ hour Godzilla movie and that made the character… trying.

We’ve had them before, but Godzilla was generally more villainous and obviously, we feel sympathy and camaraderie with him as the title character and we are here to see him do cool things. Having a human protagonist who hates our cool monster protagonist makes sense in universe, but ultimately, it’s not what we’re here for. We can tune that out.

As for what makes me dislike Mark… for starters, he’s kind of a prick. I once saw somebody describe him as the type of guy who thinks that if he speaks loudly enough, shouts enough, he’ll get his way. I can’t say I blame them, in that first meeting with MONARCH, he’s downright hostile.

He’s also, for whatever reason, the guy that everybody turns to in the crisis. He might have a background in bioacoustics like his ex-wife and animal behaviour besides, but apparently nobody else at MONARCH is capable of doing things without the express instructions or approval of everyman Indiana Jones. Military procedures, common sense, the desperate plan to revive Godzilla; everybody seems to defer to him really quickly.

It took me out of the movie. I understand that he’s meant to be our relatable protagonist, but it’s a little bit jarring and it happens multiple times. Mark is either issuing instructions or is along where he shouldn’t be, given control of a situation where by all rights he shouldn’t have any other than spur of the moment hero stuff.

It’s like he believes that nobody has any common sense and frustratingly, a couple of times the narrative agrees with him or at least proves his actions right. For example, when Colonel Foster tries to brief MONARCH on the actions of Jonah and the terrorists, he shoots down her theory and proceeds to go on a rant as to why we should Destroy All Monsters.

He’s right, as Jonah wants to free King Ghidorah, but he has this frustrating “protagonist only” habit of noticing threads that other characters really should (nobody seems to notice that the Titans are attacking capital cities or at least very densely populated areas until he points it out), then speaks about it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

Which when MONARCH is meant to be staffed with scientists of multiple disciplines veers back into the incredulous. I can suspend disbelief when it comes to giant monsters, I don’t excuse people not seeing what’s in front of them.

And as for the moments where he really shouldn’t be issuing instructions, take a look at when Rodan is freed by Emma Russell. Serizawa instantly defers to him (I think that Mark might have been his senior before he left MONARCH and BOY do I want to talk about that plan later on) to cook up a plan instead of… himself (Director of MONARCH, or at least I assume so) or again, Foster, who controls the planes and men he wants to send at the giant pterodactyl that just shrugged off a molten lava flow.

Given his characterisation as an angry, driven father who is desperately looking out for his family after being bereaved by monsters and is butting heads with the scientists at MONARCH, I think it was an attempt by Legendary to recreate Joe Brody. Bryan Cranston’s character in the previous film was killed off too early and was featured in a lot of the trailers, giving a wonderful performance. When he died to be replaced by his son, Ford, it caused a backlash as a result.

Mark being that angry, snarky character definitely shares some similarities. But while Joe was a crusader for the truth and more than a little bit obsessive, he was trying to pierce the veil as to why his wife died, without realising that it drove his son away from him. He was trying to reveal this great coverup to the world and spent the rest of his life doing so with such conviction that he appeared crazy.

Mark… doesn’t have this driving force. He lives in a post-San Francisco universe. Monsters Exist and everybody knows it.

Now, that’s not to say he doesn’t have reasons for acting as he did. He lost his son and has driven a wedge in between his family via his drinking problem (but let’s face it, compared to unleashing the Titans by starting off with Space Dragon Satan, he’s taken it comparatively well) but he acts as if he’s the only person who has ever lost something to Godzilla and the rest of the monsters.

Even when that happens to characters in the film, Mark still acts like that and it doesn’t make him look like the grim, determined hero, it just makes him look like an obnoxious dick. It isn’t his way of coping with the trauma of loss, he just… does it.

Part of me does get why he’s annoyed and angry with MONARCH’s attitude towards the Titans. He’s correct that they’ve been keeping secrets, dangerous ones at that, but equally the kaiju are living things. They’re dangerous and unpredictable, yes, but MONARCH have been taking precautions; killswitches are present in even the supposedly benevolent Titan’s chambers like Mothra and as far as they know, all of the Titans bar Godzilla are dormant and those that aren’t are kept in check by him. Had the Ghidorah Crisis never arose, we may never have seen any other Titans for the rest of human history.

But he treats everybody around him like an idiot with little to no prompting. Mark is brought on as a consultant and he then proceeds to dominate the scene, either through his decisions in universe or the part written for him out of it. He gets the last word, the last say on a plan or a witty remark or whatever.

And some of that costs lives. Actually, no, a LOT of it costs lives.

So, to start off, when the operation in Antarctica goes tits up, Mark grabs a handgun and goes into Outpost 32 by himself (though what he and the central nervous system of MONARCH were doing on the ground and not supervising from the Argo remains to be seen, but I digress). He stops Jonah and the terrorists on the walkway… screwing up Foster’s attempt to take down Jonah, forcing her to snipe his henchman in order to save Mark’s life.

This leads to King Ghidorah waking up. Not going to extend him a great deal of blame for this one, as with a sniper present, Emma or Madison would have been forced (or “forced” in the former’s case) to retrieve the detonator and the Six-Eyed, Six-Horned, Flying-Golden-People-Eater would have gotten loose regardless. Hell, I spotted clues that he was gearing up to wake up without Emma Russell’s help.

In a narrative sense, its his character that also sets up Vivienne Graham’s death. If he hadn’t been stuck in the tangle of wires and metal aboard the Osprey, she would never have needed to stay behind to help and subsequently got singled out by King Ghidorah.

I’d definitely agree that this is more of a personal thing on my part, as I’d wanted to see more of Vivienne’s character thanks to her actress’, Sally Hawkins’ work in The Shape Of Water and that in the previous film. But in a way, he is still sort of responsible for her being written out and replaced with the vastly less interesting replacement characters of Rick and Mor- erm, Sam.

That said, I know that Ghidorah is 100% to blame in universe. He killed her because he was a bastard and I wanted to him to be a bastard, so the monkey’s paw curled a finger there, so that’s egg on my face. It certainly did wonders for establishing him as a monstrous villain who we love to hate.

I’m not wholly unsympathetic to Mark. Like I said before, the pain of loss over the 2014 attacks hurt him badly and the film doesn’t shy away from this. Mark’s descent into alcoholism is noted by both himself and his family as a rough time for all involved, part of the reason he left MONARCH in the first place. Having his daughter and ex-wife seemingly kidnapped by dangerous ecoterrorists who plan to unleash giant monsters to mass-cull humanity also wears his patience thin, as you might expect it.

But he keeps this… horrible attitude throughout the movie. The world is literally going to shit, another monster is about to be unleashed and he asks if MONARCH have had enough common sense to evacuate the town of Isla Del Mara and if Rodan has had a cutesy name all picked out from mythology for him ahead of time.

Fuck me, if I was Serizawa, having just lost my protégé and quite a few well-meaning soldiers who were trying to rescue somebody who turned out to be a massive ecoterrorist nutjob, I would have floored him. There is a time and a place for snarky comments and it is not after at least twenty people you worked with are dead and BILLIONS MORE MAY FOLLOW.

But now, one of the points that really got me disliking Mark Russell follows here. The scenes that start at Isla Del Mara and the luring of Rodan to King Ghidorah, all the way up until the detonation of the Oxygen Destroyer.

Rodan emerges from the volcano and asides from spreading his wings and roaring, doesn’t do much. He spots the incoming Argo and its entourage and narrows his eyes. Uh oh! Surely, at this point, the dastardly destruction god would leap from his perch in an attempt to chase this challenger from his territory?

Um… no. No, actually, he stays put.

Now, I get that Rodan might not have stayed that way for very long. From the ensuing chase scene, I can gather that the Monsterverse’s version of Rodan is a bit of a dick, but he still didn’t start the fight.

Instead, what happens is that Serizawa asks Mark what they should do and Mark comes up with the plan to get Rodan to fight King Ghidorah in the hopes that one will kill the other and that would at least solve one of their problems.

Sound in theory, yes, but it is not sound in execution. At all.

So, that little town that Mark kicked up quite a fuss about? As you might have noticed, it’s lying between Rodan and the Argo and is part of the reason that the big ol’ bird should be lured away, to complete the evacuation.

Mark’s brilliant plan has the jets surrounding the Argo to blast Rodan and 180 the superplane in order to get him to chase… without factoring in THE TOWN BETWEEN THEM AT ALL.

I get King Ghidorah was closing in. I get that Rodan is a wild, unpredictable animal who could go off the chain at any moment. But there was absolutely no time to get the ARGO to move a little ways around the island before beginning the attack? At worst, Rodan would make a dive for them anyway, but that’s what the jets are sent in to distract him are for. To grab his attention and then lure him to the Argo, which would then take him to Tricephalopathic Terror Town anyway.

As a result, Rodan utterly OBLITERATES Isla Del Mara simply by passing over it and so many of the people they were trying to evacuate die a horribly pointless death. It never once passes his mind (or let’s not beat him down solely) or that of anybody aboard the Argo that a creature with wings that size that can fly would generate an unbelievable amount of force simply by flapping once to create lift? He’s also dripping lava, so even if the hurricane level winds that follow him weren’t an issue, having something with that amount of residual molten rock passing overhead doesn’t seem like a healthy thing to expose Isla Del Mara to.

Further dislike ensues when one of the miraculously surviving Ospreys issues a mayday during the Rodan/Ghidorah fight and the cargo doors are jammed. Mark the Hero leaps up with gritted teeth and desire to get things done, asking the way to the hangar. After all, he’s had miraculous problem solving abilities so far, why not?

“Which way to the hangar?” he asks.

Sam, a character who I’m even less fond of, stands up and offers to show him the way. Fairly brave, considering that the Argo is rattling like a leaf in a thunderstorm as two daikaiju battle nearby. I found the character annoying and sort of… pointless, but I admire that bit of bravery.

“Anybody else?” Mark asks, making a face.

Dude. The man just offered to help you and people need that help. Get off your high horse, swallow your pride and just go without comment. God knows how many people your stupid plan just got killed.

The two run to the hangar and a crewman explains the door is jammed. Mark decides to drop a hanging Osprey onto the doors to get them off… without suggesting it to the crewman. He just fucking goes for the buttons, expecting his usual “my plan will work” attitude to succeed.

At last, one of Mark’s harebrained schemes is met with reasonable resistance for the first time and the crewman attempts to wrestle him off, before Mark Is Proven Right Again. But even suggesting it, getting a refusal and then doing it is more heroic than just going for the damn buttons like a lunatic.

He would have looked damn stupid if the weight of the Osprey wasn’t enough to open the doors and it instead just blocked them. The falling aircraft also almost hits the airborne one with its civilian payload as it also wasn’t warned, so again, he took an unnecessary risk that came off lucky because he couldn’t find the time to say “I have an idea”.

To round out the trifecta of what makes me dislike Mark in these scenes is what happens when the rest of the scene plays out:

Gravity Beams spew from Ghidorah’s mouth and blast Rodan into the ocean, defeated. Not satisfied with just this victory, the Golden Demise locks his terrible gaze on the Argo and with a sickening, gleeful cackle, closes in on the plane and its freshly arrived civilians.

All are stunned into a horrified silence. Even Mark, who has been having Unreasonable Protagonist Luck up until this point, bricks it.

“Oh, God.” he pleads.

God answers and he erupts from the ocean.

With a deafening roar, the mighty form of Godzilla slams into King Ghidorah with the force of a collapsing mountain. His dynamic, mid-air leap is enough to drag the foul hydra into the depths of the ocean and Godzilla proceeds to hold him there.

Ghidorah attempts to resurface and fly away, or at least lash out at the Argo in spite, but there Godzilla is again, yanking the head back underwater, biting and rolling like some mountainous crocodile, pinning the alien dragon under his weight.

Unbeknownst to our hero (Godzilla, obviously), the military has deployed the terrible Oxygen Destroyer in an attempt to Destroy All Monsters, giving only a cursory warning to the Argo to get out of there and fast. Mark makes his way onto the bridge and is informed of the decision.

“But he… he just saved us!” says Mark.

No, wait, he didn’t say that. Hold on…

“They… they didn’t even let us get clear?” says Mark.

Uh, no, sorry, trying again.

“Well, it’s not the worst idea.” he says.

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUCK. YOU.

I get that you’re mad with Godzilla. I get that as the title character with a long history, we root for the kaiju more than anybody else. I get that he took your son from you, but twice… TWICE NOW, he has saved you and the people around you with PERFECTLY TIMED ENTRANCES. Even if it was just a coincidence, I’d be at least slightly more forgiving of the lion that killed my brother by accident if it jumped in front of a tiger that was slaughtering people left and right before it leapt at me.

Twice.

There’s not even a hesitant “oh, but he did help us”. Not even a shocked disbelief that the military has a weapon that they think will kill not just one, but two (because I’m willing to bet he thought Rodan was dead) Titans, much less them firing it without warning right on top of their position. Just a “well, fuck ‘em” shrug.

Godzilla nearly dies, Ghidorah seizes control of the Titans and sets about starting the apocalypse. Finally, Serizawa says what I’ve been thinking for quite a while and says “Well, it looks like you got your wish, Mark.” with a mixture of anger, sadness and disgust.

I could go on; the Titans are rampaging and Mark goes to leave Castle Bravo to strike out on his own and rescue Madison, despite the fact that he knows that Emma will probably try to keep her safe in whatever secure hidey hole she and the Kaiju Cultists have holed up in. In the novel, he’s outright going to steal one (also his first instinct when confronted by an alpha wolf in the novel, is to blow it away with a sidearm, before realising that’s absolutely callous and horrible and tries submissive behaviour tactics instead. So hey, Movie Mark is a slightly better person than Book Mark).

Mark suggests the nuke plan and goes down with Serizawa, Chen and Rick Sanch- Stanton. Everything goes sideways and he doesn’t even fucking blink when Serizawa decides that somebody’s gotta do it manually.

Back aboard the Argo? How does he break the news to Sam, the only member of the MONARCH team that wasn’t there? Shoving Serizawa’s notebook into his chest, saying that they better not screw this up and not even fucking pausing to tell him what happened.

Mark’s self-centred attitude keeps coming back and it gets people killed. My second time viewing this film, during the two confrontation scenes with Godzilla, I wasn’t getting the “There is a massive threat in my territory!” vibe from the King of the Monsters, I was getting a “Who the hell is this asshole and why does he hate me so much?” feeling from Our Glorious Boy.

It’s a recurring theme too. Mark experiences loss, but he feels as if his loss is the only one that matters. Both he and Emma do this to Madison and it makes me mad that in trying to cope with their own loss, they shunned the one remaining child they had left. By the time they realise that, the world is literally about to end and they’re still bickering at one another.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m very vocally critical of Mark and Emma’s treatment of Madison. Both she and Mark decide to put their own ways of coping with their son’s death (constructing a device to allow for the orchestration of mass human death and convincing oneself that it’s the correct course of action/drinking booze) above Madison’s own well being.

When the chips are down, of course, they care for her and ultimately risk their lives to save her, but… congratulations for the bare minimum parenting, guys? Physically, they want her out of harm, but mentally she should either fall into line with Emma’s thinking or be there for Mark.

Godzilla and Mothra feel more like her bloody parents in this film (Godzilla saving her life when she was facing down the literal fucking devil and Mothra’s gentle interaction at the temple and reviving her from death when she appeared to have died in the novel) than the other Russells do. Both fill the archetypes of “Father” (tough, stern, but ultimately your protector) and “Mother” (gentle, nurturing and wonderful) better than the people do.

…yeah, alright, that one is a stretch, but I had that idea a while ago and I wanted to put it to paper.

In short, I’m mad at Sad Mad Dad because his character shoves the waaaaaaaay more interesting, compelling and sympathetic characters of Serizawa, Graham and his own daughter (and the actual goddamned non-monster hero of the movie), Madison out of the way of main character-ness, just so we can have somebody who is about as pleasant to interact with as a cactus.

King of the Monsters is a film that has a lot of sacrifice in it, good and bad. Emma wants to sacrifice most of humanity to save the planet. Serizawa sacrifices himself to save Godzilla and thus, the planet. Mothra sacrifices her own life to save Godzilla from King Ghidorah and so does Emma, to save her family and as redemption for her sins.

Even Madison was also ready to at least risk her own life to distract the Titans and King Ghidorah if it would even slightly disrupt his efforts to conquer the planet. She goes against terrorists, her own mother and a demonic, nigh-omnipotent being of malicious intent and faces him down with a defiant roar of her own when it looks like the end.

But Mark doesn’t sacrifice. He wants his daughter back, but he never takes a hit. Other people die for him, as a result of him and he doesn’t even recognise it. The world is at stake and he keeps his focus on his own desires, ignorant to the people around him because only his loss matters.

He might not be the genocidal monster in the film that Emma was, that Jonah and of course, Ghidorah certainly were. But he has a very narrow and dispassionate world-view and outside of certain cartoons with comedic circumstances, I don’t care much for that at all.

TL;DR: Madison should have been the central protagonist, because I like her more.

#Godzilla #Godzilla: King of the Monsters #Mark Russell

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