#this is the first time in a while this kind of plot twist blindsided me | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

glassmarcus · 8 months

Text

Chrono Cross: A Reputation that precedes itself

*Played in April 2022, Written in November 2022,

I heard a lot of shit talk regarding Chrono Cross in the decade between me playing Chrono Trigger and it. No positive comment about it came without a caveat. It was always an enjoyable disappointment at best or a complete insult at worst. I heard nothing about it held a candle to the original. I heard it only weakened the world of Chrono Trigger as a whole. I heard only the music was solid and even then, Chrono Trigger still had the edge in that area. Yet. I still desired to play it. It was never convenient, so I didn't take the plunge. But now that the Radical Dreamers Edition has been released, my primal urge to complete franchises has awakened and has set its sights on Chrono Cross. And upon playing it, I can say for certain that all the bad stuff I heard about the game is basically spot on. Yea, no hot takes really. This review will not be particularly unique.

Chrono Cross is a bit of a train wreck. Party Recruitment is obtuse and for the most part pointless. The story delivers itself in the least digestible way possible. The looming threat of one shots makes defensive play seem required. The frame rate is bad and even worse with the "enhanced" graphics. It's never clear what's interactable in the world. You'll spend far more time than what is acceptable in multiple menus that are a drag to navigate. There's a misstep at every turn and while some of the remaster's features alleviate the sluggishness and tedium, it's not enough to release its true potential.

Despite all these gripes, I still would consider myself a fan of this game. It just has a vibe you can't really get anymore. There’s a moody ominous air about it, while also having no issue throwing goofy shit in your face without missing a beat. It gets a little up its own ass near the end, but I really think there's a solid blend of Edge and Levity throughout most of the game. It expertly toes the line and gets away with more than even Chrono Trigger does in terms of having schlock elements while still being a story you can be legitimately invested in. It has big Hell House energy. Probably more than even Final Fantasy 7. So many enemies and characters feel like they're from a different world, but because they are presented so confidently within it, you have no choice but to accept that they belong. These character designs with these dialects have the nerve to ask for your full attention with no reservations. And I have to respect that

While mechanically and narratively it drops the ball in a lot of places, I think there is a ton of merit to be found here. All and all, I'd describe the story as a bit trash by the end. Not valueless, but certainly not the type of story I wanted it to become. I feel like Cross wasted the intrigue built in the beginning and middle. It's not a spoiler to say that this game back loaded all its Chrono Trigger connections and these connections are the worst part of the story. Well, maybe it is a spoiler, but heeding my warning is more important than being blind on this game. If it implemented these connections throughout, it would still be kind of dumb. But at least the plot would be cleaner and I wouldn't have been tricked into loving the game in the beginning. Instead it blindsides you, revealing that it was secretly a hack job the whole time, a plot twist I really should have seen coming given its reputation.

But, there are moments which are Undeniable Peak Video Game Experiences and I can't help but look back at them and think about how raw Cross was in those instances. The branching choices the game gives you in the first act and the paradigm shift near the end of it are perfect examples of why video game stories are special. I popped off at the latter more than anything from Chrono Trigger. This game takes big swings, and when it hits it hits. And even when it grazes, you still feel the power behind it.

The gimmick of having half the cast of the game being playable is bonkers. It made the party bloated and undeveloped. There was no way all these characters would feel like they had any meaningful baring on the narrative, no matter how much time they had to work on this game. Serge, Kid, and a few others are the only ones who are important. The rest are jokes who you wouldn’t want to play as because there are only 3 party slots. Why use this slot on a character who at most has 1 side quest and otherwise doesn't effectively exist? It's not their story. Chrono Cross doesn't belong to 80% of its playable cast and by the end you have this huge party which should feel like close friends and family when it's mostly just acquaintances and 4th cousins.

Even so, I can’t deny the sense of adventure this perverse decision brings. One thing (of many things) I adore about One Piece is how you follow a protagonist going around the world, meeting colorful characters and forcing them into his found family. Any notable weirdo has the chance to join the crew and Chrono Cross elicits that same feeling. There's even a skeleton party member to complete this analogy. And if Cross can remind me about One Piece then it's definitely doing something right. Though you could also compare the cast bloat to Late One Piece too, so it might be doing somethings wrong as well. I had an issue with only 3 party slots back in Chrono Trigger. That had only 7 guys you play as and I felt I had less of a connection to some because I never had them in my party frequently. This game has 45 party members. I care about like 6 of them. That's kind of a big issue for me. There are moments in the game where you lose team members for an extended period of time. These have the potential for heart felt reunions with the friends you’ve grown apart from. I felt this sense of reunity with one character. 1 character out of dozens. Sure, I feel grateful about the reunion I had with that one character, but I can’t help but feel disappointed by the woeful dearth in kinship I felt for everyone else. It’s fine for some to get more focus than others, but there’s a disparity here that borders on hilarity.

Another big swing it takes is its world traversal. Instead of having multiple time periods with wildly varying geography and characters, Chrono Cross takes a more reserved yet more interesting approach by having two versions of the same time period. There's less variety this way, but it allows for more intimate exploration of the little space you have. Seeing how versions of characters differ between timelines and the subtle changes to the world hits a different part of my brain than the era skipping in Trigger. It's similar to The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, where the other version of the map is interesting because you are comparing it to the original. Seeing the changes and using those differences to progress is what gives you that time traveling feeling, rather than going somewhere seemingly unrelated and butterfly effecting your way to victory. I just wish this was executed a bit better. It feels pretty on rails til the end and there's only one spot where you can timeline hop, so it's a bitch to do. There's a lot of potential in this structure, but it yet again ends up paleing in comparison to Chrono Trigger by not taking full advantage.

The swing Chrono Cross takes which lands consistently is its combat. The battle system is fantastic. Everything in battle has a cost, but that cost only affects you WITHIN the encounter. Your attacks require stamina, which recharges by defending or swapping characters. Your magic requires combat points, which recharge by attacking. Your spell slots are one use only, but recharge after the battle is over. It's a very 'use it or lose it' type of game. It kinda works like old Vancian Dungeons and Dragons Magic where you chose your spells at the beginning of the day and they recharge at the end. Only with Chrono Cross they comeback after each battle. This allows for more interesting individual encounters as opposed to having a gauntlet of jobbers strangling your resources. Not necessarily better, but something I prefer and want to see more of. There's such a good flow to it and there's no stress at all because you end up wasting nothing in the long term.

Attack accuracy is a big part of the combat as well, and normally I hate that RNG being heavily involved in video games, but Chrono Cross does the impossible and makes it actually interesting. You have 3 basic attacks: light, medium, heavy. Light attacks cost less stamina, but they do little damage; medium attacks do moderate damage for moderate cost; heavy attacks trash enemy life bars, but cost a lot. The heavier the attack, the less likely it will hit. I thought this would be annoying, but it actually created an interesting risk and reward dichotomy. 2 heavy attacks and 1 light attack will do way more damage than 7 light attacks, but you will probably miss one of those heavy attacks. There's a combo system implemented which incentivizes you to go light->medium->heavy as each hit increases the accuracy of the next. It has a built in Bread & Butter Combo by default. But this is usually not the optimal way to deal with the issue at hand and certain situations require certain combinations to maximize damage or build combat points. It fucking rules. It's like if Xenogears combat had meat to it rather than just looking pretty. It's not perfect. The Magic the Gathering field magic shit is pretty pointless most of the time and makes the final boss more obtuse than it needs to be. Cross is starving for dual techs which were my favorite part of Chrono Trigger combat. There aren't enough encounters that push you to master the system. But honestly, aside from the music, the combat is the one thing that actually doesn't look embarrassing compared to Chrono Trigger.

When looking at this as a Chrono Trigger sequel it gives a less than favorable impression. It does some cool things with the universe and themes, but also some head ass stuff that is ultimately detrimental. Chrono Cross is a game with a heavy duality motif. So it's fitting that Chrono Trigger is both a sequel and not a sequel. It seems like the intention was to make Chrono Trigger a Final Fantasy II situation. Similar elements and branding, but completely self contained. Then somewhere down the line it decided to not be self contained. I can only assume that this is some quantum event which split us into two timelines. One where Chrono Cross isn't a sequel and one where it is. We are in the timeline where it is. The problem timeline. The one that shouldn't exist. One where the franchise was brought to a halt and Chrono Cross is vilified as an insult to a masterpiece.

But in parallel, there could very well be a world where Chrono Cross is actually respected as something different. A game that neatly ties up all the interesting plot threads it sews throughout the adventure. Or at the very least fails in a less pathetic way. Maybe this makes Chrono Trigger fans less brackish. Maybe this leads to the franchise continuing, not as a linear story, but as a series of vignettes outlining the perils and theories behind time manipulation. That timeline sounds like one I'd love to be a part of. Should I be anguishing over the reality we have been robbed of? Should I accept that this is the way things are and give in to the flow of time? I don’t know and probably never will. These are the kind of questions Chrono Cross ask and I was too confused by the last handful of hours to notice if there were any answers. But no matter what timeline you belong to, I'm confident in saying that it's worth your time. Because there's a lot worse things you can be in this world than a decent game that isn't as good a Chrono Trigger.

#chrono cross #chrono trigger

0 notes

sepublic · 3 years

Text

I love how by the end of The Third Temple, Sasha no doubt thinks she’s being super-clever and conniving, because Marcy mentions going to Newtopia first, so of COURSE Sasha agrees with this, takes advantage of it, she’s such an opportunist and the girls have no idea they’re playing right into her hands…

Except! She’s actually being outwitted by MARCY, who’s the actual smart kid… And it’s MARCY who’s thinking that Sasha’s playing into her own hands, and it’s probably Marcy’s gambit that will win out in the end with Andrias and his master; But it’s so damn hilarious because like… They’re both manipulating and playing into each other’s hands, but neither knows the other is up to something! Sasha underestimates Marcy and doesn’t know enough about Andrias, and then Marcy’s just blindly trusting of Sasha, like she probably is of friends who also serve as authority figures in her life in general (case in point Maddie Flour).

It’s legit hilarious, and the writing’s so clever; Because they both have their own agendas but underestimate the other, and they just so happen to align perfectly… And you can see one being dumb, but really they’re BOTH being simultaneously smart and duped, and amidst the tragedy and betrayal, it’s gonna be low-key funny when Sasha and Marcy’s plots collide into one another awkwardly, as they realize- Oh WHOOPS, we sort of had the same plan, but didn’t? I love it, I love seeing how these characters can have their hidden agendas and how they play into each other at the same time, clashing and conflicting, lowkey agreeing upon the one thing they both need to take down the other, and neither of them even realize it!

It’s such a complex web of events and intent, and it’s even better that they’re utterly oblivious to the whole thing… Unless Marcy is actually more aware than she lets on, and/or Andrias suspected all of this and told her. Then meanwhile you have Anne caught in the crossfire and confusion and betrayal, and no doubt Sasha and Marcy will ask if SHE had any ulterior motives, and she doesn’t, and it’s so confusing and hard to keep track of… Though I can also see Marcy kind of suspecting it, again from Andrias, but because she also knows about what Sasha did at Toad Tower from Anne, whereas Marcy herself has had no betrayal precedent established.

But yeah, it’s so damn funny that Sasha is probably thinking “GOTTEM” at poor dumb Marcy who she loves, but actually Marcy’s been four parallel universes ahead of her this whole time, freaking MARCY, and while Anne and Sasha duel it out… They’re totally missing out on the ACTUAL girl who’s playing them all for fools, and her con is likely aided by the fact that she legit doesn’t mean malice, nor does Marcy even think what she’s doing is wrong and manipulative! Again, it’s SUCH clever, twist-and-turns writing that overlaps and sews across, little plot threads coming across… Utterly brilliant, I love it!

Now we’ll have to see who adapts to the chaos and the heat-of-the-moment better… Or at least, who’s able to get Anne on THEIR side, and that answer’s likely a lot more obvious. In addition to Sasha also having to deal with Andrias and HIS machinations, which are guiding Marcy’s… And the Toad Rebellion ain’t looking so good, if that one shot of Yunnan and a bunch of downed Toads is any indication. This is just taking Suspicion Island to a WHOLE new level, and Marcy’s the one that everybody missed and overlooked, they thought SHE was the fool, when in reality she was playing them all… Not maliciously nor super intentionally, but she’s operating on Andrias’ orders, so y’know.

Even if Sasha could come toe-to-toe with Marcy, it’s a different issue if she doesn’t even anticipate the attack to begin with, doesn’t even realize Marcy’s a combatant and player in the ring herself; And THAT surprise is going to blindside her, before Sasha has the chance to adapt and make use of her own strength to win what should normally be a straight-forward conflict. Grime praised Sasha for playing Flip-Wart while the rest did Bog-Jump, but it seems it was MARCY who was actually doing this the entire time; Fitting, how she’s the only one we see who knows about the game and actually played it!

Sasha could easily take on Marcy in a battle of strength, but that’s why Marcy has Anne to do this for her… Sasha, alas, for all of her seeming manipulations, is fundamentally more brute force than anything else; Which means she’s no match for Marcy’s wit, at least in conjunction with Andrias’ scheming! Marcy won’t meet Sasha on the battlefield, it’s Anne who’ll do that for her, leaving Sasha vulnerable on the tactical front… Hopefully Grime can help, but when there’s also the hidden ace-up-the-sleeve that is whatever Andrias is serving, and things don’t look too good for the Toad Rebellion!

Just when we thought it was Marcy who was the mediator who’d turn the tides between Anne and Sasha… It seems it’s actually ANNE who’s the mediator, to turn the tides between Sasha and Marcy! It’s all up to, and all down to, Boonchuy… And alas, I don’t think Sasha can count on Anne for support at such a crucial moment junction, not when Anne can’t the same in return. It’s always the ones who seem silly and harmless that you gotta look out for… Well, them, and the giant Newt King who’s been alive longer than anyone else; Him, AND whatever’s in that basement…!

I’ll say it again- But the way this all overlaps and fits perfectly into a place like a puzzle, all of it no doubt painstakingly planned out, so it all seems perfect and obvious to each person to do this... It’s SUCH fiendishly clever writing, and I admire it! I can almost see this as being additional karma for Sasha, who possibly low-key looked down on Marcy, or thought of her as dumb, given her apathy to Marcy’s own antics back home, and even mentioning that she’d get herself killed. Well, Sash, look who’s blindly following the path into danger, and will need to be saved by Anne, THIS time...! Guess you shouldn’t have underestimated Marcy and given her as much consideration and time of day, and respect, as Anne did... In general you need to take cues from Anne, actually. For all of Anne’s issues, she’s somehow the most well-rounded of the trio, and that is of course a CONCERNING relativity...

It’s just this total clash and train wreck of differing interests, circumstances and opportunities, accidents and twists that nobody could account for, and blind spots, all coming and crashing together into utter chaos, a mess nobody can predict, debris and shrapnel of characters and new plot points flying all over the place, and you can’t tear your eyes away from it as you watch in fascinated horror, utterly engrossed. I look FORWARD to this, the drama and weaving of threads makes me excited for the final picture and the completed puzzle...!

#amphibia #amphibia marcy #marcy wu #amphibia sasha #sasha waybright #amphibia andrias #king andrias #amphibia anne #anne boonchuy #meta #speculation

181 notes · View notes

crookedfandomquill · 3 years

Text

K Drama Phase: Part 1

So I got my ADHD diagnosis and subsequent permission to micro-dose amphetamines a few months ago. While experimenting with exactly how much better my brain was at Doing Stuff on Adderall, I discovered that I can suddenly watch foreign language media with subtitles!!! Which is a big deal because I’ve never been able to focus enough to do that, and entire worlds of entertainment were consequently off my radar. But now I can watch K DRAMAS and oh my word I have a new hyper fixation. My favorites so far:

Tale of the Nine Tailed

This was my first one! I like fantasy so I figured I’d start with that genre, ease myself in. Well, I chose kind of a batshit place to start, this drama was all over the place... but I loved it! Tragedy, romance, comedy, hot people... So much snark and so much sadness (basically my personality in two words). All in all, a winning combination that got me hooked. Solid 8/10

Goblin: The Lonely and Great God

Okay, so I started this one while I was still watching TotNT, because I got reeeaaally into Lee Dong Wook. What can I say, I’m basic. This one was more stylistically-challenging since I was still new to k drama, but I laughed and cried so hard. This was one of those stories where I sort of knew where it was going but the execution was unexpected and fantastic. The plot twists, the character development, the pretty-crying... Also a decent 8/10

Touch Your Heart

Yes, still consuming LDW’s entire filmography, sue me. This one honestly made my heart grow three sizes, Grinch-style. So lighthearted, so funny, so wholesome. I desperately needed to see a not-tragic Sunny x Reaper AU and this delivered. The characters were so complex and wonderful. Oh Jin Shim is my ultimate role model. Basically, a delightfully-fluffy rom-com with talented, gorgeous actors and hilarious sound design. 9/10 all the way

Bad and Crazy

Okay, this one is still airing but I’m in love with it. An action-comedy that fully delivers on both the action and the comedy (and everyone is insanely attractive). The main character can best be described as “whiny bastard man” and I’m still in love with him. Childhood trauma? Corrupt cops getting beat up (sometimes by themselves)? LDW being his best unhinged, Bi-Energy self? Over-the-top fight scenes? A plot that has pulled about six 180s in nine episodes? Yes, please! 9/10 just because I reserve the last point for after it’s done airing

Flower of Evil

Oh. My. God. I did not think this would be my thing but it came so highly recommended, and it had me on the edge of my seat for three days. I stayed up way too late watching it. I cried so many times, and I now understand Lee Joon Gi fans. I have an extensive list of moments from this drama that destroyed me (list forthcoming). I did not expect the amount of romance that FOE served up, but I adore it. The plot was so clever that, despite having seen several spoilers, I was still completely blindsided by the whole story (in a way that made sense, looking at you GoT). I was simultaneously elated and depressed for days by that ENDING. It hurt, I loved it, it was awful, it was perfect... no words, honestly. 11/10, the extra point is for Li Joon Gi’s jawline

#k drama #flower of evil #foe #tale of the nine tailed #goblin the lonely and great god #bad and crazy #touch your heart #lee dong wook #lee joon gi #yoo in na #gong yoo #moon chae won

46 notes · View notes

bestworstcase · 4 years

Note

We all know that the Gothel twist was terrible and was only there for the sake of having a twist, but if it absolutely have been done, how should it had happened to make it better narratively?

so. i spent a lot of time kind of mulling over and autopsying s3 and my personal conclusion about what went wrong is that tts hamstrung itself with poor narrative structure. and this is going to be one of those posts where i lead with definitions of the terminology i’m going to use, for the sake of clarity and to avoid any misunderstanding.

to whit:

story is the sum total of every element of a narrative: character, plot, setting, theme, and structure.

character is, of course, the people in the story. it’s “who?”

plot is the events that happen in a story. it’s “what?”

setting is the time and place of the story. it’s “where?” and “when?”

theme is what the story is *about.* it’s “why?”

and then there’s narrative structure, which i think is a little harder to grasp because it’s much more invisible than the other things. but it’s the framework of the story, or the scaffolding. it’s “how?” — how are the characters rendered? how is the setting created? how are the events of the plot strung together along the throughline? how is the story built?

now… in my opinion, character is the single most important element of a story; compelling characters can salvage an otherwise mediocre story, and nothing kills a story faster than uninteresting characters.

but the one thing good characters can’t ultimately compensate for is poor structure. if the construction is shoddy, so to speak, sooner or later, the roof is gonna leak. right? and we can see this happen in tts: s1 and s2 are solid, and then bam! we hit s3 and it’s a mess of bizarre pacing and dropped characters, the feelings and motivations of key players get all wonky, the plot loses focus, and things increasingly feel like they’re happening by authorial fiat. the weak structure of the narrative has failed, and it dragged the entire story down with it.

and we can look back in retrospect and see that, yeah, all of these problems existed before; tts always had odd pacing, always had an issue with maintenance of the supporting cast, always relied more on convenience than a narrative really should. but these things didn’t hit a critical mass until s3.

so what does this have to do with gothel? well,

in and of itself, “gothel is cassandra’s mother!” is not a terrible plot twist. the problem with it is a problem of execution, which is to say, the flaw is in the structure, not the plot.

#1: set-up

plot twists are kind of difficult to pull off well, because you don’t want to blindside people, but you also don’t want to tip your hand too soon. you want to surprise, or maybe even shock—but you don’t want your audience to go, “wait, WHAT? that makes no sense!”

do you remember the whole “ricky’s quest” thing that went on in s2? we were told that there was an important piece of foreshadowing somewhere in s1 or s2 that no one had picked up on yet and there was this whole thing of people trying to figure out what it was, and then… rapunzel’s return aired, and ricky revealed that the answer was “cassandra briefly glances into the shattered mirror in rapunzel’s tower.”

and that, + the fact that we know cass is adopted and doesn’t remember her birth parents, + vague visual similarities, is the entirety of the s1-s2 foreshadowing for cassandra being gothel’s daughter.

which isn’t nothing, i’ll grant you, but for something as major as the gothel twist, for something that profoundly changes the worldview and motivations of one of the main characters to such a degree that she completely changes sides because of it, it might as well be nothing.

gothel is afforded zero narrative importance in s1-s2. rapunzel has one nightmare about her, and some lingering trauma connected to the tower that is explored, and of course tromus briefly uses her image to try to control rapunzel in rapunzeltopia. but gothel herself is a non-entity until she abruptly and without warning becomes the emotional lynchpin of the entire conflict in s3. that’s jarring.

cassandra is a complex character whose apparent motivations for turning against rapunzel are meticulously built up over the course of s2… only for s3 to pull a bait-and-switch, sweep all of that set-up under the rug, and replace it with cassandra’s messed up feelings about gothel’s abandonment. even her ruined hand never gets mentioned again—not by her, not by zhan tiri, not by rapunzel, not by anyone. that’s jarring, too.

to use my own work as a point of comparison here, the bitter snow equivalent of the gothel reveal is cassandra finding out that sirin is her aunt and her parents were innocent. like the gothel twist, learning that information profoundly changes how cassandra sees herself and the world, and it’s intended to be a big shock… but unlike the gothel twist, i did a lot of setting up for it:

1: sirin has real narrative importance in the first half of the story, pre-reveal. the fic opens with her, her involvement with the separatists is established early, etc.

2: pieces of cassandra’s backstory are threaded through the first half of the story. by the time we hit the reveal, it’s been established that cass is saporian, that her parents were executed for treason, that this treason involved selling poisoned crops and causing outbreaks of a deadly sickness.

3: there are many demonstrations of anti-saporian discrimination and prejudice in the first half of the story: the way cass sees herself and the alienation she feels from the rest of corona, past incidents where she was targeted for being saporian, basically every time gilbert opens his mouth, what happened to caine’s dad.

4: cassandra discovers evidence of the harsh, unjust nature of the crackdown and realizes that at least some of what she’s been taught about coronan law enforcement and recent history is inaccurate… thus planting the seed, for the readers if not for cass herself, that other things might be false too.

5: caine points out that cass is the reason the separatists don’t let parents join up, and though she doesn’t elaborate on that, it’s because cass is proof that corona will steal saporian children if their parents are accused of treason.

and 6: everything sirin says to cass in chapter 14 is wrapped up in her being painfully, painfully aware that a) cass is her niece and b) probably doesn’t know the whole story—while also trying to stick to the plan. so… while she doesn’t spill the beans there, she knows who cass is, she stops andrew from hurting her, she makes a point of not acknowledging the legitimacy of cassandra’s adoption, and obliquely suggests that sir peter is a murderer… and while she tries to stop cass from interfering with what they’re doing, she doesn’t hurt her, even though she very much could.

so… in chapter 15, when sirin comes out with “actually, the blight was a natural disaster no one anticipated and saporians got sick and died too, your parents were just scapegoats because corona wanted someone to blame, and oh, by the way, you’re my niece,” it’s a shock but not one that comes entirely out of left field. cassandra’s parents being innocent victims of an overzealous and prejudiced justice system is a logical extension of all the stuff that has already been set up, and sirin being cass’s aunt helps to clarify motivations that were previously opaque (such as: why does sirin despise corona so much, why didn’t she just kill cass, etc).

and because all of this stuff is given so much attention in the first half of the story, the way it snaps cassandra’s worldview in half and causes such a massive reorienting of her goals and loyalties feels natural. because it already mattered a great deal to her, and it related to the doubts she was already experiencing.

which like, that’s the key. setting up a big plot twist isn’t about establishing one basic fact (“cass is adopted”) and tossing in one instance of symbolic foreshadowing (the mirror thing) and nothing else, over the course of two whole seasons of a tv show. it is about priming the audience to be ready to accept the reveal.

how could tts have done this with the gothel reveal? here’s some ideas:

1: give gothel a greater presence in the narrative. the simplest way to do this would be to really lean in to how fucked up rapunzel is because of her. more nightmares, more overt moments where we see rapunzel still being haunted by her memory. alternatively, lean more into the fact that gothel was a disciple of zhan tiri.

2: give cassandra’s adoption, and the question of her birth parents, even a teeny tiny glimmer of interest. specifically, let “dad found me after my parents abandoned me” be the only thing cass knows about her adoption, and let that hurt her. she doesn’t even have to be curious about who her birth parents were—just have that pain of abandonment more present in the first two seasons.

3: imply the captain knows more about cassandra’s origins than he lets on.

4: you know the parallel in RATGT where rapunzel screams at cass the way gothel screamed at rapunzel? more of that. like, how delicious would it be if there were many little instances in s1-s2 of rapunzel lashing out at cass with behaviors she obviously subconsciously learned from gothel, only for s3 to pull the sucker punch of cassandra being gothel’s daughter? like! imagine how that could so EASILY make cassandra recontextualize her entire relationship with rapunzel by linking rapunzel’s toxic behaviors with gothel’s abuse and abandonment in her mind? and then in s3 you can really dig into rapunzel interrogating her own behaviors and struggling to break the cycle of abuse.

5: if gothel being a former disciple of zhan tiri is narratively important, it can go hand-in-hand with zhan tiri and the other disciples more overtly targeting cass, specifically. even if we don’t know why until the reveal.

i’ve seen a couple posts from other folks discussing how to “fix” the gothel twist, and many of them involve cass either knowing from the start or finding out much earlier, but while that could work, i don’t think it’s necessary. it’s all about the set up. it’s all about constructing the story in such a way that the audience goes “OH!” instead of “WHAT?!” when the reveal happens, and the specific timing of the reveal doesn’t really… matter.

#2: execution

surprising absolutely no one, i’m going to talk about zhan tiri now.

based on what chris has said in various interviews, my understanding is this: originally, cass was originally supposed to be a secret antagonist all along and know about her parentage right out of the gate. her characterization softened early on in the process, her knowing about gothel got dropped, and suddenly the creators needed a way for her to learn that gothel was her mom, and thus zhan tiri entered the narrative.

she is a plot device whose whole purpose is to tell cass “gothel was your mom and abandoned you for rapunzel,” and then fuel her downward spiral. the rest of her character exists in service of that, full stop.

which… like the gothel reveal, having a character whose primary function is to be a plot device isn’t a problem in and of itself. however. “ancient evil demonic sorceress with deep ties to the magical lore of the setting and an entrenched hatred for team hero, whose MO is manipulating people” is a terrible character archetype to use as this kind of plot device, because that kind of character needs to have an agenda in order to function, and as soon as you give them an agenda they develop a gravitational pull on the rest of the story, especially if they’re directly involved with a main character.

and if you’re willing to roll with that gravitational pull, it can be fine. but if you’re not… you get tts s3.

chris has pretty much spelled this out in interviews. he said at one point that they debated multiple potential motives for zhan tiri… but found that anything more complex than “wants the drops and to burn corona to the ground, because reasons” sucked oxygen away from the cass vs raps conflict and eventual reconciliation, which… yeah. so they gave zhan tiri the cardboard motives and didn’t really do anything with her other than trotting her out to give cass a good shove in whatever direction the plot needed cass to fall in every so often.

that zhan tiri is a compelling character in s3 at all is a testament to the strength of her VA and the sheer potential of her established lore, in combination with the fact that she and cassandra are off screen enough to demand that the audience fill in a lot of gaps. but in, like, the actual text, she has all the complex personality of a piece of damp tissue paper and she is, for all intents and purposes, literally just Cassandra’s Brain. every decision, every single decision cass makes in s3 is because of zhan tiri. why take the moonstone? zhan tiri tells her to. why is she so mad at rapunzel? zhan tiri made her that way. why does she attack rapunzel? zhan tiri convinced her she had to. why does she go to gothel’s cabin in TOTS? zhan tiri tipped her off that rapunzel would be there. why does her fragile truce with rapunzel fall apart at the end of TOTS? zhan tiri interfered. why does she try to reconcile again in OAH? she found out zhan tiri was… zhan tiri. why does that reconciliation fail? zhan tiri. why does cass ultimately redeem herself? because zhan tiri stabs her in the back first.

*deep breath*

this is what happens when you troubleshoot a broken narrative with plot devices instead of opening it up to fix whatever is wrong with the underlying structure. in this case, cassandra not knowing about gothel from the get go broke her planned villain arc… and the creators applied zhan tiri like a bandaid, molding this new character into someone who could railroad cass down the preexisting plan for her villain arc.

what needed to happen instead was a wholesale reexamination and reconfiguration of cassandra’s villain arc, her reasons for going down that path, and her reasons for coming back. even if finding out the truth about gothel was still the trigger for it, it’s ultimately not about gothel anymore. gothel is just the last straw.

and in order to work with the characters as-established in s1-s2, the events of s3 would need to be framed that way. if, after all the shit she goes through in s2, cass met zhan tiri, learned that gothel was her mom and abandoned her for rapunzel, and finally just snapped and went after the moonstone because fuck this, fuck you, and then zhan tiri came in with the compassion and emotional validation and the “your mother treated you as a servant and then discarded you for something she thought was better, and so did rapunzel, didn’t she? but i see you, i believe in you, i am your friend, and we can help each other,” and cass bought that because she’s desperate for emotional support and kindness and fuck it, she’s on team demon now, only for her conscience to eat away at her until she couldn’t take it anymore and broke away from zhan tiri for good… then it works, full stop.

like, you don’t have to change a single plot event for the gothel twist to work. you just have to string those plot events along an emotional throughline that makes sense and feels connected to what happened in s1-s2. you can’t use zhan tiri to graft the s3 arc of evil-all-along proto-cass onto canon s1-s2 and call it a day because that doesn’t work! you have to write for the characters you have, not their early planning-stages iterations. if you make a decision early on that breaks your original plan, you have to commit to redoing the whole plan.

and if you do that, if you fix the underlying structure, you don’t need a character whose sole purpose is to railroad another character down a predetermined path that no longer fits her characterization; cass and zhan tiri can instead both be characters, acting according to their motivations and goals, and not puppets pantomiming the ghost of a broken plan.

(you do still have to accept that zhan tiri will pull focus away from the cass+rapunzel friendship, though. them’s the breaks. don’t use zhan tiris if you’re not willing to let them gobble up the spotlight a bit.)

TL;DR: to fix the gothel twist, set it up better in s1-s2 by making the question of cassandra’s parentage, or abandonment by her parentage, important to the narrative at all, or else by focusing more closely on gothel being a disciple of zhan tiri; then execute the s3 villain arc in a way that makes sense for canon cass and what she experiences in s1-s2, rather than using zhan tiri to railroad her down the path evil-all-along proto-cass was supposed to take.

the problem is a structural one so at the end of the day the solution is to fix the structure. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

#rta #thank u anon its been a hot minute since i ranted about sTrUcTuRe #Anonymous

111 notes · View notes

eponymous-rose · 5 years

Text

Talks Machina Highlights - Critical Role C2E95 (February 18, 2020)

Tonight’s guests are Matt Mercer and... Matt Mercer!

Announcements: Cinderbrush: A Monsterhearts Story, the Valentine’s Day one-shot, is available on the YT channel! A new episode of All Work No Play aired today with a ghost-hunting episode featuring Laura Bailey---Twitch VOD available now, up on YT on Thursday! There are still some tickets available for autographs and pictures at C2E2!

Episode 95: Blessing in Disguise

Stats for this week’s episode: Guidance has been cast 100 times, and Polymorph has now been cast 50 times. Matt is 63 NPCs away from 1,000 in campaign 2.

Matt wasn’t sure what to expect of the group’s offerings for the hag. “I didn’t expect the scale of some of the things that were being offered. I was kind of surprised by Nott’s immediate considering of furthering the war.” He notes that it makes sense with her character. “Knowing where Beau’s arc has gone, it was really interesting to have her be willing to give up the things that were important to her.” Given how much would have had to be sacrificed, Matt honestly thought it was going to end in blows.

Matt’s thought process on Jester’s whole exchange with the hag: Matt notes that even if Jester had tried to regrow her hands, it wouldn’t have worked due to the curse, so he was mentally working through the possible ways she could resolve this, and he was thinking about how to make sure she’ll still be able to have fun with the game. He couldn’t read whether she was genuine about the self-sacrifice or was gearing up for a fight. In Matt’s mind, taking the cupcake was the last thing the hag needed to win Jester over and lock the deal in, so it made sense that she’d be easily persuaded. He was definitely suspicious but wasn’t sure if she was just going to call in her friends or attack or what. The specific way Jester worded the Modify Memory wasn’t too dramatically opposed to the hag’s nature, so she was just confused. “Ended up just being really proud. You didn’t only trick the NPC, you tricked me, which I relish.”

Matt was considering Artagan as feeling a little overwhelmed. “Jester definitely represents his most important confidant.” He was planning for him to reveal it either at or just before Travelercon, but that show of cleverness with the hag was something that Artagan would take as “okay, maybe she can help me beyond what I’ve already asked of her.” Matt loves getting to play a character with such an inherently chaotic nature who’s looking at the world as his personal playground.

Matt enjoyed all the correct guesses about Artagan. “It makes me excited that people are following along so closely and are picking up the threads that I’m dropping. It means that I’m not doing a terrible job about laying down the tracks. Sometimes the surprise isn’t the joy of telling a good story, sometimes it’s about rewarding people for following along and figuring it out.” He also notes that you can still add additional twists along the way.

Matt enjoyed getting to play Artagan off a different set of characters’ perspectives. He also liked that it hit home to the players that the decisions they make in one campaign can impact what happens later.

Cosplay of the Week: Vex in the snow! (Casualty_Cosplay on Instagram, photo by Emma_Metcalf10 on Instagram)

Matt’s push against using C1 connections in the group’s C2 characters was more about avoiding direct connections to C1 that would make it feel like C2 was just a continuation instead of its own story. Artagan felt distant enough and only situationally involved with the first campaign---Vox Machina were his origin story, but he didn’t bring Vox Machina into C2′s narrative. The timing of the Artagan reveal was dependent on Jester’s interactions with him: how many questions she asked, how often he was or wasn’t absent. Matt planned Travelercon to be probably the latest possible moment for the reveal.

Matt consciously keeps the world and the NPCs’ plots going regardless of what the players are doing. He can’t plan too much because he doesn’t want to push the players too much, but he tries to think of a few “possible loose assumptions” and plan around those to avoid being completely blindsided (or at least attempt to avoid it).

Who stands out as Matt’s most-loved/identify-with-the-most NPCs so far in this campaign? “I mean, Allura, but that’s both campaigns, that’s not fair. I would say, early in, probably Watchmaster Bryce.” Also Yeza, who’s becoming more like Matt as he gets more development. “Elements of Essek. Essek’s a delightfully complicated character.” He got much more involved in the story than Matt was expecting.

Matt’s poker face dropped during the discussion of Thoreau’s exchange with the hag being living in dread: he was so pleased that he’d set that up well enough for the players to figure it out.

“As an entity that comes from the Feywild and has existed in a space that is a similar sphere as Melora, the Wildmother, but does not necessarily subscribe to the idea that this one entity should represent all elements of nature, and, in a sense, his existence is a mockery of religious faith, he could sense that in [Fjord and Cad] and felt uncomfortably close to his zone of faith and influence. It was less that he was bothered by them, but more that they stood out because they represented things in similar spheres that he didn’t necessarily agree with.”

On dealing with the morality of a purely chaotic character. “I’ve known people like that.” While he doesn’t personally feel a kinship with that notion of chaos, he can see the appeal. “I definitely don’t agree with it, but it’s a fascinating place to mentally live within a character. And then taking a character who’s always lived that way and giving them responsibility.”

Fan Art of the Week: Jester and Artagan! (by ChryseusWitch on Twitter)

Artagan’s willingness to show his face was partly because he didn’t give a shit about the rest of the Nein aside from how they’re important to Jester, but also because of Jester’s supportive stance. “Right now, he’s more invested in them as utility, and he pretty much said that."

On repeatedly messing with Taliesin’s characters’ families: “Look. I work with what I’m given. When your party of characters hands you largely tragic backstories revolving around their parents, I’m not going to deny that. I just have to find a creative way to bring it into the narrative that hasn’t been explored in the story thus far.” He had to come up with a narrative reason for why they never returned but was more complicated than just “they died”. He hadn’t even thought of the Stone family connection until he’d planned the rest of it out.

Matt hadn’t made the connection between CR’s dramatic rise and Artagan’s panic over sudden additional responsibilities. “Maybe subconsciously? It’s all so weird. I can see definitely the threads between them, that seems similar.” He and the rest of the crew are willing to try to take on the weight of that responsibility, whereas Artagan is in a panic and trying to escape it.

#critical role #critical role spoilers #talks machina #talks machina spoilers #long text post

458 notes · View notes

benisasoftboi · 4 years

Text

Unorganised thoughts on Trails of Cold Steel III:

...I’m gonna need like a week to process that

I guess I know why people hate George now!

Could really use a good old reset from KeA right now

This is the best game in the Cold Steel series so far. Easily

I... there’s no way they’re all really dead, right? This series has been completely toothless about killing anyone who isn’t a villain until now, no way they’re permanently killing someone who’s been here since practically day 1, no way. Show me a body

And even then I’ll doubt it with all these revivals happening all over the place

‘He’s HIDING’ I sob as I apply clown make-up

Ben Diskin did not need to go so hard on the voice acting at Millium’s death he did not need to do that to me

My god when Angie drove into the graveyard and my PS4 popped up a little notification telling me it was a blocked scene, the tension in me... and I never saw that coming, I’ll have to see if it was foreshadowed at all by replaying CS1 and 2 some time

I saw Lughman being a baddie a mile away (a mysterious professor turning out to be evil in a Trails game? UNPRECEDENTED!) but he’s Alisa’s dad!?

Neat writing trick actually, since they probably knew we’d guess the former, they blindside us with the latter

I can’t express how happy it made me that the Rufus battle was Machias Jusis Elliot. My dream team!

Estelle and Joshua got mentioned so much I figured they’d make a surprise appearance at the end and save the day

So. Characters:

Rean: Rean is once again moderately more interesting than he was before, but still the least interesting person in the game. I guess he’s got some guilt that’s actually justified now, that’s cool?

I ship him with Crow, not because the pairing really appeals to me that much, but because being shipped with Crow would totally piss Rean off and I find that extremely funny

His relationship with Altina is the best relationship he’s ever had with a female character and it is 100% because she’s the only girl he’s never ship teased with

(I don’t have an issue with the concept of ship tease itself, I have an issue with Rean-ship tease because 1. I still truly do not understand why so many girls like him so much and 2. None of it will ever canonically go anywhere)

(Seriously I’m so tempted to write a breakdown of why every other guy in Erebonia is more desirable than Rean)

Juna: I like Juna. I realised early on that she and Kurt remind me of Estelle and Joshua, without being carbon copies, and that’s good. I also think her relationship with Rean was really interesting - ‘I don’t know how to feel about you because you saved my life, but it also wouldn’t have needed saving if it weren’t for your country’s actions, which you’ve played a major role in - but now I’m being forced to confront that you’re a human being too’ is a really complicated situation for her. It’s a lot more interesting than ‘I don’t like you because you accidentally got a face full of chest’, Alisa

I also really liked using her, I ended up loading her with the Platinum Pecky Medal and defensive stuff, and she was a wall, she took an S-craft from Arianrhod in her stride! My buff girl!

She should’ve just been the new protagonist ngl

Kurt: Kurt had a lot to live up to, seeing as his brother is my favourite minor character. And oh does he succeed, Kurt is my favourite of New VII, he’s a good straight man, he’s great in battle, I like his arc, I like his friendship with Juna, I like Kurt

Altina: I was not sure about Altina just... being a student now. But damn if she didn’t have the best character arc in the game. I only did her final bonding event on a whim, but it’s the best one I saw. My girl Allie deserves the damn world

I really, truly believe those three have a bond as well, they’re very well written as a group. This was a problem I had with Old VII, the fact that so many of them just... didn’t have relationships with each other. How do, say, Fie and Machias feel about each other? I have no idea. But this group has a fantastic dynamic and it makes that ending so much more effective

It’s like I praised Crossbell for, really - having a small core group is much more manageable in terms of giving them all equal screen time and getting me to care about them

Musse: Uh, kind of one-note and annoying, honestly. I don’t hate her or anything, but like... she’s either Being Mysterious or Hitting On Her Teacher (I hate it I hate it so much). It’s just hard to care about someone who’s clearly so fake, I guess? I’m definitely interested in her, but like... I don’t really like her

Ash: Poor boy. I thought Ash was such an interesting character (and man do I love having someone around who does not like Rean, and never really changes his mind about it). Ash is very well done imo

Alisa: Alisa is good when the issue is her family drama, and is so goddamn boring when it comes to Rean. Nothing new there

Elliot: I love his little ponytail I love it he’s so cute I want to hug him so bad

Laura: Winner of the ‘best new outfit’ award (was never that fond of her war outfit, but this one is perfect). Still good, but not notably so. I feel so bad for Laura, she tries so hard to matter, but she’s by far the character you’d have the easiest time lifting out of the game

And while I love Elliot... same situation really. You could go back to the start and have one character named Elliaura who likes swords and music and has two big-shot dads, and you wouldn’t lose much

Machias: Took down Rufus, yeah, destroy your best friend (boyfriend)’s evil family! Winner of the ‘worst new outfit’ award, AGAIN. Also winner of ‘dorkiest S-craft’. I did his final bonding event first, and according to Playstation trophies it’s the least popular one! Stop sleeping on my boy Machias guys, I know he was annoying in the first game but I love him :(

Gaius: Special award to Gaius for finally being interesting! Boy’s a Gralsritter now, did not see that coming!

And of course it happened off screen. Because god forbid interesting stuff happen to Gaius when we’re actually around

Oh also goddamn, that is a beautiful man

Emma: Don’t really like the new outfit. It’s kind of remarkable that she’s so important but I keep forgetting she exists. Exposition witch who sometimes just doesn’t deliver the exposition I guess

Fie: Still my fav girl. Wish there had been more focus on her feelings about her dad coming back to life. Like that she’s a bracer

Jusis: Wasn’t sure how to feel about his newly close friendship with Millium because I was concerned that I was meant to ship it (by far my least favourite thing about this franchise is that that was not an unreasonable concern, as it wouldn’t even be the most inappropriate relationship in this game alone). Very, very glad it was confirmed sibling-y (not that it’s stopped them before). He didn’t really get to do anything else, sadly, but he’s good as always

I did the Purebread contest with him, and he made bread from coffee beans Machias gave him, the Ferdibert Fire Emblem energy-

“What are you doing underneath this scarlet Pleroma Grass?”

Milliam: :(

Sara: Doesn’t get much to do because this cast is bloated but like, I still really like her :)

Towa: Someone needs to check on Towa all her friends are dead or evil the poor poor girl (or uh. I guess Crow isn’t... hmm.)

Angie :(

My kids Tita and Agate are back and completely overshadowed by people teasing this almost 30-year old man about being in love with a 17 year old that he’s only ever claimed to see as a sister, I swear to god

The orbal gear looks so goofy lol

Stop mentioning Schera as just being ‘totally here, just off screen, ha ha’ give her a model! Have her be here!

Don’t get me wrong, I loved seeing Josette again, I just don’t get... why? Why is she here?

Tio is back! And so is Randy, as a major character! I’m very very happy, I love them both

Michael’s fine, I guess? He’s kind of bland but I guess that’s kind of the point and I like him just fine. He serves his purpose well

I’ve never really liked Claire all that much, but she’s fine in this one again I suppose. A bit disappointed by the Lechter reveals really, I had expected more, to be honest

Aurelia is a fun character and I enjoy her as the principal. Want to see her fight Cassius

Want to see Cassius

I love my girl Annabelle, but she’s the only reason I didn’t get all the character profiles (how was I meant to know I could even go to the highway at that point hmmm Falcom!?)

They picked a good selection of returning Thors students. Even Dorothee isn’t as annoying as she used to be. Hilarious that she’s the only one who didn’t get a profile

Juna gave a great big speech about how awesome the SSS are and namedrops everyone EXCEPT WAZY! My FAVOURITE Crossbell character! So offensive!

Oh speaking of offensive I took Machias to the Mishy show and was told he and Rean did a Mishy dance but they didn’t show it, what the hell-

Playable Olivier! Olivier back story! I could write a goddamn essay on why Olivier is such a great character. Glaring at you Falcom

I miss Mueller :(

Ada Grant is wonderful and I want better things for her

Rufus is a damn great villain just because of how much sense his actions suddenly make when you know that one little detail of him not actually being Jusis’s brother

I hate Cedric but like, in a way where I’m having fun hating him. That little bitch

Literally what do you even actually want Osbourne

I still cannot stand Elise. Something I realised playing this game is that one of the things that stops the Estelle and Joshua relationship from being as weird as it could be is that they don’t look at all alike, it’s very clear they’re not related in the slightest. Elise and Rean look like they really could be siblings, and come to think, so do Lloyd and Cecile. Which is also teased, to a lesser extent. It would be so much less uncomfortable if they just swapped Elise and Alfin’s models ngl (though still not good)

inb4 the final plot twist of the whole series is that Estelle and Joshua actually were biological siblings all along

This game looks so much better than its predecessors. Having the models being a little rounder and softer looking makes it look much more like an updated version of the original style than the complete departure that was CS1 and 2. Every time there was a flashback, Rean would be like ‘back then...’ and I’d feel compelled to say out loud ‘when we were shiny, and looked bad!’

‘Evil ancient magic corrupts people into making them do bad things!’ is... honestly a bit of a cop out that I did not expect from this series

I found Rean telling Patrick ‘leave room for Aidios when dancing with my sister’ extremely funny. Rean would totally be a Christian summer camp counsellor in the real world

I honestly would have enjoyed it a lot more if Alfin decided to cause a scandal and have her first dance with Elise, but we can’t have such luxuries I suppose

When you get that book on dystopias, very clever to put the author on the last page. Seeing the name Gideon gave me such a start

Racquel was easily my fav new location

Leeves > Trista no doubt, maybe I’m just biased because it looks a lot like the village I grew up in but it’s just such a nicer design

Also the branch campus > main campus purely for being smaller, making the filler segments between field trips more bearable

I prefer the longer but fewer chapters set-up, I think

There’s so many sad faces in this write up :(

Back when I played Sky SC, I said something about how one of the themes is ‘you are not defined by your trauma’. I now think it would be more accurate to say that the theme of all the games (but especially the Sky arc) is ‘don’t let your worst experiences define you’

Because there are characters who define themselves by their traumas and worst experiences - and those characters are all villains, or miserable, or both. Like, they don’t phrase it as such, but the requirement to be an Ouroboros enforcer is ‘have trauma and define yourself by it’

And both Joshua and Renne’s arcs are about learning not to do that

Equally, the idea that ‘it’s much easier to not to define yourself by your trauma when you have a good support system that wants the best for you’ is a big theme as well

I just think that’s a really interesting idea for a JRPG series to tackle, idk

I can’t believe I’m at the last game! This series has been my life for the past near-half a year, what do I do when I finish it?

...go back and play Sky FC, maybe?

#trails of cold steel 3 #trails of cold steel #trails series #kiseki series #erebonia arc

14 notes · View notes

onelastbreath-writes · 4 years

Text

I’ll Meet You There (Part 3)

Pairing: Marcus Moreno/ Wife!Reader (AFAB, no y/n)

Word Count: 2.6K

Warnings: Talks about loss of spouse, loss of child, medical conditions/inaccuracies, grief/mourning, manipulation/brainwashing (subtext/implied, but we’ll get into it later *winkwink*)

Tags: Hurt/No comfort (for now), ANGST, eventual happy ending, one really sad man for whom I just keep making things worse, #sorrynotsorry, and now I’m just making stuff up as I go along

Summary(lite): You are Marcus’s wife, and you’re definitely not dead. No one is having a great time right now, but like hell if there's a force on this earth that’ll keep you apart forever. This is not a goodbye, its just a see you later. And the interim is going to be everyone else’s problem, you’ll make sure of it.

A/N: Hello dears, welcome back to my twisted mind story,,, guess who showed up like 2 weeks late with a smoothie! So things about this new chapter: I am a criminal with italics and someone needs to stop me, hello switching scenes and perspectives because I just want to fast forward to the good stuff but y’all don’t live in my head and don’t know all the stuff that happens to get us there so here we are taking the slow lane, and I keep brainstorming new and horrible things for my characters because I am A Lot, All The Time, and will not be stopped. Also hey, Marcus the Simp is here for you, so much. I hope this is acceptable to be a reader fic still, because I am giving you some serious personality traits... ehh, it is what it is. Tell me if you spot any of my various references, there’s a lot of ��em. Thanks to everyone who has liked/reblogged/commented, y’all are gorgeous and I’m so grateful for the love <3 Drop me a message/ask if you want a secret about one of the characters (specify which one), I need an outlet for my endless b.t.s. plotting >;) Please enjoy p3!

AO3|Masterlist

[Previous Part]

---

There were more casseroles in his fridge that Marcus knew what to do with, and more sympathy and “thinking of you” cards stacked in piles around the house than he could count. He appreciated everyone’s gestures, but he could recognize the difference between people who were kind in the interest of helping others, and those who were kind only to help themselves. It was quite obvious which type were flooding his mailbox.

Hell, most of the people sending him cards, his fans, didn’t even know his wife, never spoke to her, didn’t feel the empty Her-shaped-space in their very souls. They just wanted the clout, the prestige, of being ‘involved’ and sympathetic to a grieving superhero. It was exhausting, but no one seemed to empathize with him on that.

The Heroics upper management, and the director specifically after his press conference and the publicity the attack had brought the organization, had insisted on Marcus taking an undetermined amount of leave from the team so he could “process and mourn his loss in the comfort of his own home.” Like he didn’t look around and see every piece of himself and his wife over the years; the Home they built for their family, filled with all the hopes and dreams of two starry eyed lovers ready to take on the world together. Like her absence wasn’t slowly killing him.

And it wasn’t like she was gone gone.

Dead.

She wasn’t dead.

No way in Hell.

Whether it was because she worked with superpowered people, her experience as a medical professional, or if she was just more paranoid than most, his wife was a planner, and she was prepared for this. “In the event of my death...," like she just knew it would be necessary.

Truthfully, she had schemes and contingencies and all manner of reactionary plans prepared for if (and when) the worst happened; terrified to be blindsided or caught unaware, unable to help those she would have been able to, if only if she had the time to think. Unpreparedness costs lives in both of their careers, and she refused to leave anything up to chance if possible. And so, she’d plan, and he’d listen.

All throughout their relationship, from before they’d even gotten serious enough to discuss marriage, to when they heard their unborn child’s heartbeat for the first time, and just on random weekday afternoons when they would take Missy for walks around the neighbourhood to show her the beauty in their lives, his wife would paint her theories and ideas like artwork. She’d tell him a story, full of action and mystery, humour and theatrics, tragic romance and harrowing adventure; she could spin a tale like she had a silver tongue, but she never lost herself in her own narratives. In the end, they were messages, lessons, for him to remember when everything was going wrong.

“It’s all about momentum, babe. Bleeding off energy and taking a bad hit instead of a fatal hit. You can’t just full stop; you’d absorb all the kinetic energy, and the resulting trauma will turn all your squishy internals into, like, body soup, which is just super unpleasant. And of course, head is always number one priority. Bracing for impact works better at giving you fewer serious injuries, especially for your neck and head. Muscles should absorb as much of the energy as possible, instead of letting it fall to your ligaments, discs, and nerves to take the force. So, tense up and roll in the case of a low air evacuation.”

Low air evac... she was concerned he was going to have to jump from an aircraft without a parachute at some point in his life. Which was probably accurate he’d admit, but still, he wasn’t hoping to actually need that plan.

Thankfully, it wasn’t always fire and brimstone with her, and she had many strange and terrible schemes to keep the common, everyday superhero family on their toes. Always carry at least two lip balms... never tell someone you don’t have plans for the evening... don’t smile in your mugshot... no clowns. Ever.

She was so weird, a total nerd, and so completely the girl of his dreams.

He loved teasing her about her unending train of thought, the brain that never sleeps, how she’d go on tangents while on tangents but always circle back around; even nicknamed her (quite cheekily, and because it made them both laugh) Doctor Batman, which was usually saved for when she was being particularly dramatic and gloomy. Turn the supercomputer off for a second, Bats, come see what Missy’s doing!

He was her anchor, always ready to pull her back to earth when she started drifting off too far from them, but he never asked and never wanted her to change. He adored her, silly or serious, or when she woke him up in the middle of the night to make him promise that he’d never get their kid(s) a pet owl (because they’re “scary”, and “our kids would be too powerful, Marcus. Promise me!”), or that in the event of them inviting a third to their bed, it would “absolutely never, ever, ever be Miracle. No way!”

He thought it was quite entertaining most of the time, listening to her plan for zombies and old gods and what to do if everyone just started hating cheese one day, but if it was all so important to her: having him remember this or agree to that, he’d accede to her requests in a heartbeat. Most of it was cute, harmless stuff he didn’t think would even happen, but sometimes she would hit him with serious stuff. Entirely out of left field, she’d go for his heart, and ask him for things that would hurt him, destroy him inside, if he ever had to follow through with it.

“Marcus, if it’s a choice between my safety- my life, and Missy’s? I’m always going to choose her. Kids come first, okay?”

She wasn’t superpowered, didn’t have a shred of anything other than pure, normal human in her, but she was easily the strongest person he knew. Fearless and brave, kinder than this world deserved, she’d do anything for the people she cared about. And she’d promised him, maybe as a way to repay him for all the things he’d agreed to over the years, that she’d move heavens and the earth to return to their family. That nothing in this world, or beyond, could keep her away. “Eventually,” she’d stared into his eyes, glossy with tears from how forcefully she believed, “I will find my way back to you. I swear it, so keep a weather eye on the horizon.” See? A whole-ass nerd, and he couldn’t have loved her more.

So, she wasn’t dead. Pure and simple. She was somewhere, somehow, and he was going to find her again.

---

“Marcus, the grieving process is different for everyone, but it is always unpredictable and painful. You will have days where you will feel like you haven’t made any progress, or even lost the progress you’ve previously made, but please know that this is natural; it's something everyone experiences, and that it doesn’t mean you’ve failed in your objective. Healing takes time, and a major part of recovery is learning to forgive yourself when you slip up. No one expects you to be back to normal tomorrow, or next week, or next month. Healing from grief is not a race, so we will go at your own pace, and we will work together to accomplish your recovery goals. You aren’t alone in this journey, and you don’t need to handle everything by yourself.”

The grief specialist he was seeing was someone he would describe as an “old soul”. She exuded the patience and peace of someone who had watched empires rise and fall, seen the turning of the wheel of time and drifted along with the current. Her voice was deep, rich in emotion and empathy for those who needed guidance, calming and intriguing with a soft lilt on her vowels. Timeless and ancient all in one, and even if he wasn’t actually mourning the death of his wife, he did find himself deeply grieving being without her. They were two halves of a whole, and though his soul was at a loss without its partner here, he still had their greatest creation, their pride and joy, their baby girl to raise.

He would do whatever he had to do to be the best parent he could for Missy. And so, if meeting with a physiatrist every week was something that would help, then he would be here, every week. He'd learn to live with his grief, his sadness and loneliness, with just the memory of his Everything, and he’d help their kid with all hers too.

It’s what he promised to do, after all.

“If anything ever happens to me, you’ll just have to love her enough for the both of us.”

---

There was nothing they could recover of the people closest to centre of the explosion. No remains, no blood, nothing. Like they hadn’t been there at all.

Suspicious.

Upper Management had brought in a team of private investigators to handle the case, people who would keep the details quiet and the public appeased with what little information they’d choose to release.

Marcus was a superhero, and sure, his job was to hit things until they weren’t a problem anymore, but he couldn’t understand why all the highly trained professionals didn’t question the sheer amount of evidence that just wasn’t adding up.

He tried to bring up the inconsistencies once with the lead investigator, but they had just given the distraught, widowed husband, so lost in his own denial and grasping at straws, a sad smile and told him they would do everything they could to find the truth for him and the rest of the victims’ families.

Typical.

After being brushed off without a second thought, he decided to keep his ideas quiet, and since they’d proven their unwillingness to listen, he’d just have to solve the mass disappearance himself.

“Have you ever thought about how to commit the perfect murder, mi amor? I have. First: If there’s no body, they can’t prove the person is dead. No evidence of death? No murder. Simple. But of course, completely vanishing a full human would be a challenge. Short of having the superpowers necessary to, like, erase someone from reality in their entirety, there would be a lot of chances to leave evidence. Ordering suspicious chemicals leaves a trail, driving out to a pig farm in the middle of the night is shady as hell and all neighbors are professional narcs, and fires? Hah! Do you have any idea how hot the fire needs to be to cremate human remains, and how long they would need to grill for? Huh, maybe the perfect murder isn’t a murder at all...

Hey babe...

Always doubt a body, but always doubt no body, more.”

---

You tended to lose time when there was no one else in your room. It was hard to tell when your eyes were open because you started dreaming about the only things you could see since you first woke up: drop-ceiling tiles, white walls, and pale blue curtain dividers. And it was easier that way, in the end. Your heart didn’t hurt when you only dreamt of the room. You couldn’t mourn the things and people only your soul could remember if you thought of the room. Drifting in and out of consciousness was how you were coping.

---

You had been here, left in this room alone, for ages. You had agreed to help the man who had saved you from the explosion that killed your family, but apparently you couldn’t help him until you had recovered enough. You’d read your charts, grilled your nurses and doctors more and more the longer you were kept here. What were they all waiting for? There was nothing wrong with you except the mild post traumatic amnesia, and the whole not-remembering-much-(or anything, really)-about-your-personal-life-and-family-of-the-recent-few-years thing you had going on. It was nothing compared to when you first awoke and could remember nothing. It killed you to be without the memories of your husband and child, to know only of them instead of actually knowing them, but there was nothing you or the doctors here could do. The brain was a tricky thing, and you had to accept that your memory loss might be permanent.

That just meant that you had to put all that you could remember to good use. You could help people here, and work towards getting justice for your family. Years and years of school, practical experience and training, you had gained it all back; re-read textbooks and studies, wrote papers on your re-emerging knowledge and jogged your memory about long nights and early mornings, surgeries and follow ups... it was all still in your head. It had returned to you easily, like diving into a cool pool on a hot summer day. It was like coming home and taking off your shoes; it felt good, freeing, as-it-should-be.

But still they weren’t letting you leave. So: what were they waiting for?

“Ah, Doctor, it’s lovely to see you, as always. How are we feeling today?” Okay, so the guy who “saved” you (read: paid the people who actually saved your life) gave you the heebie-jeebies. He looked like a classic pompous asshole bigwig, like, oil tycoon or something. And he definitely had some sort of thing for you. Gross.

“I’m doing as well as can be expected, trapped in a room with nothing to do, you know, brain rotting, et cetera. Thanks for asking.” The sass was a choice, probably not a great choice, but your choice none-the-less. You really hadn’t had many opportunities to choose anything for yourself in a while.

Well...

You were bored, and that was going to be everyone else’s problem.

“Ah, well, good news then! You have been cleared from observation and you’ll be able to be discharged soon. Isn’t that just delightful!” Mister Craig (“Please, just Greg is fine”), was some sort of horrible group hallucination, you were convinced. No one was that cheery, that animated, unless they were on something, or you were on something. “I’ll have someone bring you your personal effects shortly, and then I can show you to your new apartment. The complex isn’t in the best neighbourhood unfortunately, but it's got some real charm, very vintage! You’ll love it!”

“I’ll look forward to seeing it then; sounds like it’ll be a real interesting place to stay. You can also explain what it is I’m going to be doing with your organization. Because you haven’t specified yet. And I expect a proper contract and wage agreement. Legally binding preferably, for your sake, of course, Mr. Craig.” Even if you weren’t the most physically intimidating person around, you knew how, and more so, when, to assert your dominance in a conversation. Especially with men like him. He was the type of guy who would pinch a nurse’s ass and then accuse them of not being able to take a joke.

“You wound me, Doctor, I am a man of integrity! I promised you an opportunity to make a difference! To get justice for the loved ones so cruelly torn from you! You have nothing to worry about!”

Sounds legit. Totally above board. Can’t wait.

---

Taglist (omg!! thanks love): @killtherandomness

Drop me a line if you want to be added <3

#we can be heroes #we can be heroes fanfiction #marcus moreno #marcus moreno x reader #Marcus Moreno x you #reader x marcus moreno #reader insert #Pedro Pascal #hurt/comfort #eventual happy ending #say hello to doctor batman lol. theres a whole thing i created just for that nickname to happen. ask me about it if you want XD #also you're a sassy BAMF. oops

10 notes · View notes

mirrorballls · 4 years

Text

* liana liberato, cis woman + she/her | you know rory hanna, right? they’re twenty-two, and they’ve lived in irving for, like, their whole life? well, their spotify wrapped says they listened to cool by soccer mommy like, a million times this year, which makes sense ‘cause they’ve got that loud pen clicking rapidly in the corner of kahlo’s, collegiate sweatshirt two sizes too big, and constantly waiting for that deep breath of relief: a longing hope that one day, it’ll all settle down thing going on. i just checked and their birthday is august 26th, so they’re a virgo, which is unsurprising, all things considered.

hey team.

admins made poor decision and let me take up two more muses. i want to plot but we all know i’m butt ass slow at getting to those messages so. i’ll probably make a day of that once i finish starters this all makes sense in my little twisted head.

basics.

full name: aurora catherine hanna. answers exclusively to rory. birthday: august 26, 1998. big three: virgo sun. aquarius moon. capricorn rising. sexuality: bisexual. occupation: social media manager for the local paper. neighborhood: lives in her childhood home on orion avenue.

bio.

rory was born the youngest of three and it shows. i’m not saying third child syndrome is real, but if it is, rory has it. her family was seemingly average in every way: the white picket fence, the house on orion avenue, parents happily married, and not many curveballs coming their way. but as the youngest, rory has always been more of a self-starter. from a young age, she was both fiercely independent and constatnly doing whatever it took to get her parents attention: it’s a paradox, but it’s who she was. she burned the candle at both ends, making sure she was taken care of, on the right track, but always looking for a pat on the back about it.

education had always been a priority in the hanna family: both of their parents were teachers and they were sure to instill a sense of how important an education was. and it left marks on them all in a different way. for her brother, it meant pursuing teaching (smiles at austin) and for her, it was turning her education into something competitive, something she was so passionate about getting the absolute most out of, she was willing to go to extreme lengths. she, like many others, will blame it on the aftermath of gifted-and-talented programs, and being made to feel like she had to achieve at this high level or fail, no middle of the road.

and so, school became almost her singular focus. she was naturally clever, smart enough to learn little ways to come up for air, but for the most part, it was always at the forefront of her mind. and for that, she became her mother’s prize jewel. she would beam and laugh and joke with her bookclub friends about how rory would one day be at duke with the best of them. and her third child syndrome just ate that up. she loved the attention and the praise that dedicating herself to school got her, and she’d do anything to keep that high for a while.

so high school kind of sucked. she had her sights set on duke and knew, that to actually be able to go, she’d have to get enough scholarship money to make that feasible. because the more she talked to her mom about school, the more she indulged her desire to see rory succeed, almost as if she was living vicariously through her, school kept getting bigger. because at first it was getting to the top of her class. then it was duke. then it was law school, preferably ivy league. they had it all mapped out, ready for rory to just succeed and make it happen.

but obviously it’s not as easy as just succeeding. for four years, she was stretched thin. she got involved with as many clubs as she could, she took as many ap classes as her bloated schedule would allow. she played it cool around her friends, whenever she was actually able to see her friends, but for the most part, she spent high school holed up in the library or her bedroom studying and working on whatever paper or project would click her along on her way to duke.

but it all paid off. in the end, she got into duke, and was able to check off that box. but she also got into university of north carolina, and they were a lot more generous with the scholarships. she got a full ride, and with ambitions beyond undergrad, it just made sense to go ahead and take it, save her money for the big league law school she would pick out later. plus, she still got the satisfaction of knowing she got in, she had done enough to impress them, so she convinced herself that was all the payoff she needed.

she majored in journalism and political science, always with intentions of it being a solid base for law school. but she always had a preference for her journalism classes. she got really involved in campus publications and, while it wasn’t all consuming like high school extracurriculars had been, it was something she loved. she loved writing, she loved piecing together each week’s issue, she loved exploring her world through that lens, getting to shine a spotlight on the good and the bad in her community. if she had it her way, she’d pursue that full time. but she didn’t think that was possible.

about a year ago, around the time she was working on law school applications, her parents got divorced. it sent shockwaves through her family, rory and her siblings were largely blindsided by the decision, and it brought her to reconsider a lot of things. seeing her mother in this new light, it felt like half of her decisions for the past ten years had been made to please someone she felt like she didn’t even really know.

so, partly out of hedonism and partly out of spite, she decided to defer law school, eventually deciding to all together not go. she was breaking the cycle and doing something for herself for once. she would take her degree and pursue journalism, she would keep living with her dad and largely cut out her mom, she’d become the person she wanted to be and not who she was expected to be.

but living an amazing life out of spite is harder than she expected. she’s working on finding her footing again, but she didn’t expect to be out in the real world so soon. she took the only job the local paper had available, and she’s hoping to work her way up to writing and editing more, but for now, she’s taking what she can get.

personality wise she’s very determined and stubborn when it matters but she’s also always been a little impish. when she took breaks from studying to go out, she wanted it to count, so she’s been known to raise a little hell. just wanted to make sure she didn’t read as fully joyless nerd even though she is like at least a third joyless nerd.

connections.

high school friends!! rory came back to irving on the weekends/in the summer, but she kind of fell out of touch with a lot of her closest friends from high school. i picture her to have been close with a bunch of other smart girls with ambitions, so maybe its just a matter of them all being in town again to get back in the swing of things

summer flings!!! she hasn’t done a lot of dating dating, but she was prone to messing around a little in the summer. maybe ur muse was apart of that! they could be on the same page as her or maybe they wanted something more and it just didn’t pan out.

former rivals!!! maybe if they were in high school at the same time, your muse and rory were rivals. they still be rivals, and your muse has the upper hand since rory gave up on law school, or maybe they’re more on the same page now.

im very bad at thinking of these. but i would love to make plots with you all :)

but im gonna keep this short and sweet because i have Another Intro to write.... ugh

#irvingintro #1 down 1 to go then im free to play again.....

12 notes · View notes

volturialice · 5 years

Text

Spork Haven chapter 24: fucking blinds and curtains

welcome to spork haven, where I spork the EL James fic you’ve never heard of

previous chapter | next chapter | contents

previously on Spork Haven:

panic! at the awards ceremony! the mafia tried to kidnap poor little orphan celloist rich bitch murder witness hotel maid!Bella! they were foiled by Jasper! actor!Edward looked into Jasper’s luminous hazel eyes and had a Moment! Bella dumped Edward’s ass! el james was transphobic!

it may seem like it’s gonna be all downhill from here after the thrilling emotional highs and lows of last chapter, but don’t worry, gang—chapter 24 has Esme! just bear with me until we reach The Part With Esme. there’s also a dog.

we open exactly where chapter 23 left off, seconds after Edward has been blindsided by the dumping of the century.

the first thing he does is grab Taylor and announce that they’re going to go get drunk. the second thing he does is shake Emmett’s hand and bid him a fond farewell. the third thing he does is say “Hale,” and walk out the door. wow. not even gonna look him in the luminous hazel eyes, huh? rude.

then we cut to the next morning, when Ed wakes up hungoverdrunk.

don’t ask me why the chapter couldn’t have just started here, because there is absolutely no reason.

Edward shows back up at the hospital stumbling drunk, looking like regurgitated roadkill, and asks the receptionist which room Bella is in. She tells him the room number, but Ed’s not really digging the look she’s giving him

ah yes. she should totally be rolling out the welcome mat for you, the unstable, visibly drunk ex-boyfriend of a patient who told you to leave and not return.

Emmett is outside Bella’s room and

he refuses to let Edward enter, telling him Bella doesn’t want to see him and he’ll use force to keep him out if necessary. the beautiful feminist himbo we DESERVE! not even erika can ruin Emmett.

Edward leaves, feeling “so fucking impotent.” no word on what this means for the Dicksona.

then we get a nice disorienting time skip! it’s also a location skip. Edward is now in London, walking around a park with his parents and “Pansy my westie.”

Carlisle, Esme, and a dog? sounds too good to be true.

it struck me immediately that having a dog—and a dog with a name—is WAY more of a personality trait than anything else Edward has displayed thus far. and “westie” seemed like a suspiciously specific detail, considering the general detail-less-ness of this fic. my first thought was “erika definitely has a westie named pansy,” so I googled “el james dog.”

but of course erika doesn’t have a westie named pansy! she has a westie named max.

Esme and Edward have a heart-to-heart where she asks him what’s wrong.

you mean you don’t tell her about how “little Bella” makes your dick do the rumba? or about how you like to throw used condoms on the floor when you bother to use them at all? good choice, IDIOT.

Esme is consoling, but doesn’t really weigh in on the Bella situation except to say

which leads him to conclude

LMAO WHO WOULDN’T BE

Edward goes to chill in his old room at his parents’ house for a bit, calling it a “safe haven.” but wait, I thought the safe haven was Bella’s vagina? not anymore, I guess. while he’s lying around in his room, Edward fills us in on all the much more interesting events that have been happening...oh, offstage left. just out of frame.

note that there is no word whatsoever on who Bella’s mysterious drag queen kidnapper was and whether or not they survived being shot. because why would we be interested in boring shit like that when we can read about Edward staring at the Arsenal posters on his wall instead? riveting.

then there’s a knock at the door—someone’s here to see Edward!

is it Bella?

no!

it’s...Alistair. hi, Alistair.

in this fic, Alistair is Edward’s “old school chum” and they go out and get drunk together. there is absolutely no reason for the inclusion of this scene except that erika wanted the fakeout in the beginning where we think it’s Bella, and then she decided to really commit to the Alistair thing for some reason.

the next morning, Edward wakes up in his own apartment with another hangover, and erika delivers another classic Pulitzer Worthy™ sentence:

“light pierces my eyelids with...light.”

I’d like to pierce Edward’s eyelids with a good sharp stick.

the light is there because

lol fucking dumb. he’s awakened again in the late afternoon by someone pounding on his door. is it Bella? no! it’s

hell yeah! oh, and Esme. Esme is also there. jackpot!

Edward instantly jumps to the most horrible possible conclusion, of course—that Bella must be dead.

a+ characterization, for once. but Emmett “cuts to the fucking chase” and assures Ed that Bella is fine. Edward’s reaction to this is to “double over with his hands on his knees.”

okay then.

Esme and Emmett ignore him. Esme goes to the kitchen to make tea and pretend like she’s not listening in on Edward and Emmett’s conversation. she’s gonna have a hard time with this task because

meanwhile, Emmett delivers another infodump full of events ten times more interesting than any of this chapter’s actual contents:

why? because!

Edward admits he thought that Bella would come find him. Emmett says that’s not gonna happen, and Edward’s resulting confusion is conveyed thusly:

then Emmett drops the least interesting ““plot twist”” of all time:

oh gee, really? after getting rawed 24/7 and repeatedly nutted in without a condom? WHOEVER could have PREDICTED such a groundbreaking TWIST??

hey, this means that those of you who voted “she’s pregnant and she’s been poisoned” in the ol’ poll are our Winners! slide into my dms and tell me your favorite part of Safe Haven and I’ll make you a meme or something. in fact, slide into my dms if you voted in the poll at all! special shoutout to the person who specified “pregnant and roofied.” a+ predicting skills! alice is shaking.

of course, Edward handles the news very well

but perhaps a more interesting twist than Bella being pregnant is Emmett knowing about Bella being pregnant:

oh ok. so you came all the way across an ocean without her knowledge in order to share information she hasn’t told you and doesn’t want you to know.

but how does Emmett know about the pregnancy if Bella didn’t tell him, you ask? because he went through her trash and found the stick she pissed on, of course!

I take it back. maybe erika can ruin Emmett.

when Edward asks why Bella hasn’t contacted and told him, Emmett’s answer is

lol, women be shopping!! they sure love to gossip, apply makeup, and hide their pregnancies!!

Edward absorbs this information with the grace and maturity we all know and admire

hello child protective services i’d like to report a shitty author? her characters are too goddamn stupid to be trusted around fictional children of any kind and one of them is a legit psychopath. ma’am? ma’am? oh she hung up

Edward asks where Bella is now, and Emmett tells him she’s back in her New Orleans mansion. but it’s ok, she’s not alone! Jasper is also there as her security, keeping a luminous hazel eye on things. Edward is totally fine with this, by which I mean he immediately throws a screaming rage fit.

ugh, Jasper. what a dick. quick recap, once again, of everyone’s Crimes:

Jasper:

protected Bella for six months

risked his own safety to heroically save her life

Edward:

cheated on Bella with Tanya

refused to take no for an answer when she broke up with him—twice

showed up at her hospital room drunk, angry, and uninvited

fantasized about beating her as recently as ten seconds ago

Edward jumps up and resolves to go to New Orleans right now, and there the chapter ends abruptly. Like, really abruptly:

and that’s it, that’s the last sentence of the chapter. multiple sets of ellipses, but not a full stop in sight.

throwback to the very first meme I made for this series! 🤪✌️

best “fucks”

“I don’t fucking believe it”

“all the fucking madness”

“I stop fucking breathing”

“fuck knows what”

“fuck-off grin”

“so fucking flat” (edward)

“so fucking unnerving” (esme)

next chapter: gone with the fucking wind

#spork haven #twilight fanfiction #anti e.l. james #abuse //#misogyny //#alcohol //#unsafe for work text //#yes I reserve the right to reuse any meme at any time thank you very much

28 notes · View notes

pendingproductivity · 4 years

Text

2020 READING RECAP!

This year sucked ass in so many ways, but it might be the best year of reading I’ve ever had. I discovered so many new favorites, revisited some old favorites, and even read a few books multiple times. In this post, I’ve listed my top five favorite books from this year in the order that I read them because I don’t think I could possibly rank them against each other. They have all become some of my favorite books of all time. I’ve also included a few honorable mentions which are ranked with my favorite listed first. And lastly, I have two notable rereads of some old favorites. I also added links to each book on goodreads and bookshop so you can easily add anything to your tbr or buy it! This is going to be a long one, so buckle up. Without further ado, here is an overview of the books I read in 2020!

s t a t s :

reading goal: 30

total books read: 31

new (to me) books read: 22

average rating: 4.2/5 stars

t o p f i v e f a v o r i t e s :

Beartown and Us Against You by Fredrik Backman

(Yes, I know I’m kind of cheating by counting this as one book but just roll with me here) Beartown takes place in a tiny community in rural Sweden which is defined by their hockey club. When the junior hockey team has a chance at winning the national championships, the entire town throws their full support behind them. The burden of the pride of their community rests on the shoulders of a handful of teenage boys. For one, the pressure boils over and he commits an act of violence that leaves a young girl traumatized, and the entire community divided.

Late one evening toward the end of March, a teenager picked up a double-barreled shotgun, walked into the forest, put the gun to someone else's forehead, and pulled the trigger.

This is the story of how we got there.

These two books were downright spectacular. Over the course of this year, I’ve completely fallen in love with Backman’s writing style (we love a good onomatopoeia) but more than anything else I just adore his characters. Each one is multidimensional, and even the most infuriating residents of Beartown have their redeeming qualities. I also love the attention he gives to even the side characters whose motivations shape the story even if they only appear for a few scenes. These are stories about right and wrong, courage and fear, and most of all, humanity itself. I laughed and cried and felt more emotions than I thought was possible. Beartown was amazing, but I actually thought that the sequel, Us Against You, somehow surpassed it, so make sure to read both!! (TW: rape/sexual assault)

goodreads - bookshop (Beartown) goodreads - bookshop (UAY)

When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi

Paul Kalanithi was thirty-six years old and on the verge of completing a decade’s worth of training to become a neurosurgeon when he was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. His memoir, When Breath Becomes Air, follows his journey from being a naïve medical student, to a brilliant neurosurgeon at Stanford, to being a cancer patient and a new father confronting his own mortality.

I began to realize that coming in such close contact with my own mortality had changed both nothing and everything. Before my cancer was diagnosed, I knew that someday I would die, but I didn’t know when. After the diagnosis, I knew that someday I would die, but I didn’t know when. But now I knew it acutely. The problem wasn’t really a scientific one. The fact of death is unsettling. Yet there is no other way to live.

This memoir caught me completely by surprise. It was assigned reading for an English class and I wasn’t expecting to enjoy it let alone completely reevaluate my perception of the world around me because of it. Kalanithi discusses learning, medicine, life, and death as he seeks to answer the age-old question, “What makes life worth living?” and the unique perspectives that he offered fascinated me. When Breath Becomes Air is an unfinished manuscript, since Kalanithi died in 2015, but the epilogue written by his wife might just be the best part of the whole book. To tell you that I was sobbing while reading it would be an understatement. The reason why this book made this list is because I finished it in March, but I still think about it relatively often. When Breath Becomes Air has left a lasting impact on my life, and I highly recommend it!

goodreads - bookshop

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Evelyn Hugo was a Hollywood legend, but after her sudden departure from show business in the late 80s, she completely fell out of the public gaze. Now she is finally ready to tell the true story about her scandalous and glamorous life and she has specifically chosen Monique Grant, a virtually unknown magazine reporter, for the job. For Monique this exclusive is the opportunity of a lifetime. Evelyn tells her story of ambition, friendship, love, and of course each of her seven husbands. However, it becomes evident that Evelyn’s life has intersected with Monique’s own in tragic and irreversible ways.

It’s always been fascinating to me how things can be simultaneously true and false, how people can be good and bad all in one, how someone can love you in a way that is beautifully selfless while serving themselves ruthlessly.

This. Book. It was absolutely captivating. I’m honestly not even sure what to say here without giving too much away. The plot is truly a wild ride as Evelyn leads Monique through the story of her life. There are so many twists and turns: some that I saw coming and others that completely blindsided me. And that not even to mention Evelyn Hugo herself who is one of the strongest, smartest, most compassionate and deeply flawed characters I’ve ever read about. All the characters were complex and layered, but she was really something else. There were so so many emotions and so many tears and I really don’t know what else to say. I’m begging you to read this book; it will blow your mind.

goodreads - bookshop

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

Ove is a curmudgeon whose life is turned upside down when a young, vivacious family moves in next door. That’s it. That’s the synopsis.

Death is a strange thing. People live their whole lives as if it does not exist, and yet it's often one of the great motivations for living. Some of us, in time, become so conscious of it that we live harder, more obstinately, with more fury. Some need its constant presence to even be aware of its antithesis. Others become so preoccupied with it that they go into the waiting room long before it has announced its arrival. We fear it, yet most of us fear more than anything that it may take someone other than ourselves. For the greatest fear of death is always that it will pass us by. And leave us there alone.

You’ve seen the Pixar movie: grumpy old man meets young person who shows him life is worth living and they become buds etc. etc. Sure, you could essentially boil down A Man Called Ove to that simple plotline but it is so much more than that. It’s heartbreaking and hopeful and you’ll laugh and cry while reading it. This was the most wholesome story I had read in a long time, and I thoroughly enjoyed every last bit of it. I’ve already explained my love of Backman’s unique writing style, but this novel in particular does a beautiful job of tackling deep themes such as grief and purpose with a generous serving of humor. I also just adored the ending. While this book isn’t at all fluffy or entirely lighthearted, it gave me all of he warm fuzzy feelings I was craving. I cannot possibly recommend it enough!

goodreads - bookshop

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Elizabeth Bennet and her four sisters must find wealthy husbands because upon their father’s death, the entirety of his estate will be passed on to a male cousin, leaving them penniless. Conveniently, a wealthy gentleman called Mr. Bingley moves into the neighborhood, bringing along his even wealthier although most unpleasant friend, Mr. Darcy.

Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us.

I definitely didn’t think that I was going to enjoy this book nearly as much as I did. The story truly is timeless, and I absolutely adored Elizabeth and Darcy. The biggest surprise I had while reading is that the humor is still funny today and of course Lizzy is fucking hilarious. She is confident, principled, and more than happy to roast the shit out of anyone who deserves it. And then there’s the matter of Mr. Darcy being so sweet and kind (after he stops being an asshole of course) and greatly contributing to the unattainable standards I have for men. It was also nice to have a socially awkward male lead, and in many ways I related more to him than to Lizzy. This book is everything I want from a romance novel plus class criticism and feminism and Elizabeth being an absolute badass. Enemies to lovers is my all time favorite romance trope and I loved reading one of the OGs. Also, I’d just like to add that Mary is the most underappreciated character of the whole novel because she’s really just trying her best. Mostly I was just completely impressed with how this novel has withstood the test of time and it has become one of my favorite classics! Please please give this book a chance even if you don’t typically enjoy classic novels!!

goodreads - bookshop - barnes&noble (this is the edition I have and it’s just so gorgeous I had to include it!)

h o n o r a b l e m e n t i o n s :

The Martian by Andy Weir

Mark Watney is one of the first people to ever walk on Mars, and now it seems like he’ll be the fist person to die there. A raging dust storm forced his crew to evacuate without him and he finds himself alone on the red planet with the entire world believing him to be dead. This book just barely missed being one of my top five of the year, but it was absolutely amazing. I love reading about people finding clever solutions to problems and that is basically what this entire story is. I maybe understood half of the technical science jargon if I’m being generous, but the story is plenty enjoyable even without extensive scientific knowledge. I adore Mark’s wit and mindset, and I loved watching him wriggle his way out of impossible situations with the odds completely stacked against him. The Martian is a story of perseverance and humanity, but it’s also absolutely hilarious. I highly recommend this one if you haven’t picked it up!!

goodreads - bookshop

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

Shaker-Heights appears to be the perfect place to raise a family. It’s progressive, has low crime rates and is all around an idyllic bubble. This all begins to change when a single mother and her daughter move into town with a disregard for the status quo, and a custody battle erupts, dividing the community. This was a great book that ended up being surprisingly thought provoking, and I particularly enjoyed the novel’s criticism of liberal idealism. The story itself was entertaining and I think it’s definitely worth a read!

goodreads - bookshop

Red, White, and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston

Alex Claremont-Diaz is the first son of the United States who finds himself intertwined in a damage control PR stunt with his sworn nemesis, Prince Henry. They have to pretend to be best friends to ensure that their confrontation at the royal wedding doesn’t get in the way of American/British relations. I’m sure you can guess where this is going. This is totally a feel-good love story, but it also finds the time to tackle real issues surrounding politics and societal expectations. I loved this book so much that I read it twice this year (the second time because I was so stressed about the election and I needed to distract myself with the fictional 2020 election that takes place in the novel) and also I’m just a sucker for enemies to lovers. (sidenote: the turkey catastrophe is one of the greatest scenes in literary history and you cannot convince me otherwise) 100% would recommend!

goodreads - bookshop

n o t a b l e r e r e a d s :

The Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling

The Jim Dale audiobooks are my ultimate self-care tool when I’m stressed or sad; I just find them to be so comforting and I can’t explain why. Because of this I probably listen to at least one of the books every year, but it’s usually just whichever one I happen to be in the mood for. But it’s been so long since I’ve listened through the entire series, and this year seemed to be the perfect time to do so!

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

This used to be my favorite book of all time. I’m pretty sure I first read it in sixth or seventh grade and I’ve reread it so many times since. I’ve been planning on rereading this book my first year of university for such a long time, and the time finally came! The book especially hit hard this semester because Cath feels disconnected from everyone at school because she doesn’t want to go to parties or make much of an effort to find friends, and because of COVID, I ended up in almost the exact same situation, (except unfortunately my roommate doesn’t have a cute ex-boyfriend who hangs out in our room). This was definitely another comfort read like the HP audiobooks and it made me feel a bit better about being stuck in my dorm room.

If you actually made it to the end of all that, wow, you’re a real one. I hope you got a few new book recs out of this! If you want to see the thirteen other books I read this year, you can check out my 2020 reading challenge. I read so many amazing books this year I had hard time narrowing down my favorites, so there are still plenty more great reads that aren’t included in this post. If for some reason you feel like keeping up with the books I read in 2021, follow my goodreads account for dramatic and ranty book reviews. Happy New Year, and here’s to 2021 being full of wonderful books!

#booklr #reading #reading recap #reading wrap up #mine

1 note · View note

choicesfanatic86 · 5 years

Text

Through the Storm: Part 1

DISCLAIMER: All characters belong to Pixelberry Studios, except characters unique to my story. Those belong to me. ;)

PAIRINGS: Riley (MC) x OC, Riley (MC) x Liam, Liam x Riley (MC) x OC, Olivia x Drake, Bertrand x Savannah, Maxwell x OC

SUMMARY: Riley Lawson returned to New York a broken version of herself after a failed whirlwind romance. Years later, she has put the past behind her and rebuilt herself into a successful event planner who is happily enjoying her fast-paced New York lifestyle. However, just because she’s put the past behind her, doesn’t mean it won’t come back to haunt her. When an unexpected letter turns up on her doorstep, she’s forced to face the people and feelings she ran away from all those years ago.

Please check out my MASTERLIST.

PERMANENT TAG LIST: @umccall71 @drakelover78 @jamielea81 @bobasheebaby @speedyoperarascalparty @hopefulmoonobject @theroyalweisme @gardeningourmet @jlouise88 @hamulau @traeumerinwitzhelden @blackcatkita @mrs-simmy @kaitycole @alwaysthebestchoice @mfackenthal @trr-duchessofvaltoria @pbchoicesobsessed @liamxs-world @flyawayboo @devineinterventions2 @ranishajay @jayjay879 @alepowell @greyeyedsmile14 @mspaigemoore @princesaakl @annekebbphotography @angelicfangirl @katurrade @cordoniaqueensworld @ao719 @kingliam2019 @custaroonie @lovemychoices @texaskitten30 @harlequinash @smalltalk88 @pixieferry @thatspicegirlssong

Tag List for TTS Only: @herladyshipxx @captainkingliam @cocomaxley @queencatherynerhys @spetstoof @grapefrults @pessimystic-fangirl @dralenamax @hhiggs @penguininapinktuxedo @topsyturvy-dream @diamond-dreamland @pnhanga @ladynonsense @mrsdrakewalkerblog @crookedslimecreatorpasta @liamxs-world @flowerpowell @bruteforcebears @withice @jared2612 @darley1101 @sleeplessescapades @leelee10898 @craftytacotrashdream @eileendannie @bella-ca @x0valkyrie @sunandlemons

11/26/29 - Here we go again. I bet you’re wondering why I’m rewriting/revamping TTS? Five months ago I got a critique about TTS saying that the reader felt it wasn’t realistic enough. For them, things felt rushed and kind of disjointed (examples they gave were the beginning/agreeing to go to the wedding; glossing over Drake/Olivia’s relationship; Riley’s relationship with Paul; Maxwell and Andy’s engagement. I’ll admit, my heart hurt a little because I had put so much time and energy into it and had been getting so much positive feedback that I kind of got blindsided by that critique. With everything that was going on in my life, I kind of just ignored it and moved on thinking that I’d address it when I had more time. Of course, I didn’t really get back into writing again until recently. So, I took the opportunity to reread TTS and I found that the reader who shall remain anonymous (lol!) was correct. It was rushed . . . I did do a disservice to such awesome characters like Paul and Andy and Maxwell and even Olivia! So I’m gonna do right by this critique and rework it so that it is a bit more realistic.

So? What does that mean? The plot is going to change. Eek! I know. Scary. But the general premise will remain the same. Plot twist - I already have the ending written and that won’t change. But Riley’s time in Cordonia will be a bit different. :)

I really hope you guys decide to continue to follow along!

If you want to be removed from the tag or be tagged, please message me! :)

PART 1 - LIFE GOES ON

“Oh my goodness,” I whispered. “Roxy, you’re a magician,” I sighed as I inhaled the delightful cinnamon aroma permeating from my warm cup of cappuccino.

Roxy winked at me. “I know what my best customer likes,” she chuckled. “It’s been ages since you’ve swung by for a visit. I had to make it just perfect for you.”

I smiled brightly at the owner of the coffee shop. Roxy’s Coffee Shop had become a second home to me over the last two years. I had stumbled across it back in college when I first came home to New York. I was in between mid-term exams and needed somewhere to decompress before heading back to campus and happened upon this little hole in the wall café. It was love at first sight. Sure, there were a bunch of mainstream coffee shops scattered across the city, but there was just something that drew you in at Roxy’s. For one, they had the coziest little set up going on. The lighting is dimmed just right and the chairs are extra cozy – which is perfect when you want to get lost in a good book or in my case a really tough crossword puzzle. Another thing? Roxy makes THE best cup of cappuccino this side of the Hudson River. I couldn’t count how many times I found myself huddled in a corner sipping a cup of Roxy’s perfectly brewed coffee after a long day of classes.

And that’s just where I am today – snuggled in a plush, brown chair at the far corner of the shop, steaming cappuccino in one hand and the New York Times in the other. This was the life. I brought the cup of cappuccino to my lips, savoring the delicious taste as I sipped it slowly. “I’ve missed this,” I sighed happily. “I’m sorry I haven’t been around as much,” I offered. “Business has been crazy, and . . . well . . .you know how it goes when you’re your own boss,” I explained.

“Do I ever . . .” Roxy agreed. “Stay as long as you like. I’ll be sure to have Gus bring you a refill when you’re done,” she smiled.

“Best Barista Ever,” I exclaimed.

“Just you today or is that handsome hunk of man joining you?” Roxy asked waggling her eyebrows.

“Just me,” I laughed. “Paul’s in Boston.”

“Too bad,” Roxy winked at me. “I’ll leave you to it,” she motioned toward the crossword puzzle page in front of me. “Mmhmm, she chuckled. Only girl I know that does the New York Times Crossword in pen,” she shook her head as she went off to tend to another customer.

Sighing, I leaned back into the chair getting myself comfortable. Roxy had been right. I hadn’t stopped by in at least a month. After all, it had been just as long since I had an actual day off. I was about due for some nice rest and relaxation. When Alicia offered to do my consults for the day, I jumped at the opportunity to breakaway for a little while. I was going a bit stir crazy in the four walls of my office. Don’t get me wrong, I loved my job and I loved being my own boss even more, but I seemed to constantly be moving at the speed of light. I started Savvy Events right out of college and despite the rocky start I had trying to get it off the ground, things have been booming every since.

I loved the hustle and bustle of my fast-paced life. My weekends were spent planning and coordinating some of the trendiest events in New York City. So I wasn’t planning parties for the Kardashians just yet, but I did plan a party for one of the girls from Sex and the City once and it got featured in Glossy magazine. That was pretty epic. Mostly though, I found myself catering to high-end business professionals who were just too busy to plan parties themselves – corporate galas, year-end celebrations, weddings. You name it; I pretty much could plan it. My weekdays were just as busy – filled with client meetings, scouting visits, and designing sessions. It wasn’t easy, but it kept me busy, the money was great, and I was really, really good at my job – if I do say so myself.

Admittedly, there were times when I missed how much downtime I used to have. I sometimes longed for the days when I could randomly decide to wander aimlessly around the city and discover all of the little idiosyncrasies that New York had to offer. But the Riley back then didn’t have as much responsibilities as I do now. Man, just thinking about how much has changed over the years makes me nostalgic for life pre-business. I’ve come quite a long way from the days when I was waiting tables at that dingy little bar out in Brooklyn. I couldn’t help but smile when I thought about all the late night shifts I spent working at Upscale. I snorted at the memory. Upscale . . . what a totally misleading name. There was absolutely nothing upscale about that crummy, little bar. The patrons were a bit too touchy, and my manager Craig was a giant ass. It wasn’t all bad though. My coworkers were fun and the tips were a dream, especially when I was trying to save up enough money to get back into college. And if it wasn’t for that oh so glamorous waitressing gig . . . my life would have turned out pretty differently. Hell, I never would have met him. Had I not picked up that last party the night he walked into the bar, I never would have met the man that turned my life upside down. I never would have had the opportunity to cross off so many items on my bucket list. I never would have gotten to see the world outside of my tiny little studio in Brooklyn. I never would have fallen in love.

Ouch. Let’s not go there. It had been months since I had even thought about him. I closed my eyes at the thought, clinging onto my cup just a tad bit tighter. My heart had a slight twinge . . . of pain? Regret maybe? I shook my head, mentally chiding myself for letting myself go there again. I was doing so well. What had it been three months since I last thought about him? Or them? That had to be some sort of record. They say time heals all wounds, and I was slowly starting to believe it. It had been two years since everything had happened, and I refused to allow myself to ever be that weak again. I’ll never let myself revert to the girl I was back then. I came back to New York a ghost of my former self. I remember feeling like the aching heartbreak would stay with me forever. I thought that I would be doomed to a life of wallowing in my never-ending grief.

It still amazes me that I was somehow able to pick up the pieces of my broken life and glue them back together again. It was a long and hard road that took many months, but here I am . . . almost as good as new. Were the fractures still there? Oh yes, of course. Once something was broken, you couldn’t just pretend that it hadn’t shattered into a million pieces. The cracks of my former life . . . as much as it killed me to still admit it . . . were still dancing along the surface of my rebuilt life . . . although faded they were still very much a reminder of everything that happened all those years ago.

God, how tragically sappy. The buzzing of my cell phone thankfully interrupted my thoughts. Looking down, I saw my boyfriend’s name flash onto the screen. I couldn’t help but smile. Here I was dwelling on the past when my future was calling. Paul had been away for the last three weeks facilitating a corporate merger between two well known companies. Headquarters for both companies were based in Boston, and although his law firm was centered in New York City, they wanted him to go out and meet the clients directly in their neck of the woods. He’d been flying in and out of Boston for the last few months. I missed him something fierce when he was away, but we’d been getting by through countless text messages and many FaceTime sessions.

“Hi, Handsome,” I answered. “I wasn’t expecting to hear from you until later today,” I murmured.

“Hey, Gorgeous, I know . . . but I just couldn’t let a whole morning go by without hearing your voice,” he responded.

“Well, lucky me then,” I smiled.

“Luck you indeed because I also happen to have a surprise for you,” he said.

“Ooh,” I hummed. “What kind of surprise?” I could feel my smile grow wider. Paul was something special . . . he was funny . . . sweet . . . caring and oh so thoughtful. He spoiled me. A lot. And I didn’t know exactly what I did to deserve snagging a guy like him, but I was certainly thankful for whatever powers that be that found us winding up together.

“Guess who was able to book an earlier flight and is flying in to see you in exactly three hours?” He said in a sing-song voice.

I was grinning so big my cheeks were starting to hurt. “Shut up!” I exclaimed. “Paul, that’s the best news I’ve heard all day. And you know what? You’re just in time for movie night,” I almost squealed. “They just haven’ been the same without you these last few weeks,” I laughed thinking about what it’s been like him without the last few weeks. I had used my best friend Andy as my stand-in date and she was less than thrilled at my movie selections. “I’ve had to resort to spending movie nights with Andy and you know how that goes,” I chuckled.

“Oh, I have a funny inkling about how that went down.” He chuckled. “Let me guess, she demanded it be a sci-fi flick?”

I groaned. “YES!” I exclaimed. “She tried to get me to watch Deep Impact three times,” I sighed. “I told her that I had no desire to watch a movie about a giant asteroid pummeling down to Earth, but she scoffed when I suggested Legally Blonde,” I said with a slight chuckle in my voice.

Andy had been the first friend I made when I moved back to New York. We found ourselves in the same creative writing class at Hudson University and instantly bonded over our love for all things French. Before you knew it, we were inseparable. I loved her to bits and pieces, but she drove me absolutely crazy. For every similarity we had, there were at least two differences. For one, I was an absolute neat freak . . . whereas Andy seemed to leave a trail of clutter wherever she went. Even our taste in movies differed astronomically. Andy was all about action-packed sci-fi thrillers, whereas I leaned more toward the cheesy romantic comedies. Despite our differences, and me wanting to throttle her a time or two, she and I became tremendous friends, and I absolutely, positively couldn’t imagine what life would be without her.

“Let’s just say that last movie night resulted in a full blown popcorn fight,” I laughed. “That I ended up cleaning all by myself,” I sighed. “There were many a moment I wanted to shove a handful of popcorn in her mouth just to keep her mouth busy,” I chuckled. I paused for a moment, before clearing my throat. “It’s been a long few weeks, Paul. I’ve missed you,” she murmured.

“I’ve missed you so much, too, baby. Remind me not to leave you this long again. Next time, I’m packing you up with me,” he laughed

I grabbed the newspaper and threw it in my tote bag. “Careful … I just might hold you to it.”

I glanced down at my watch and was a bit surprised with how much time had flown by. “Ah damn, if you’re coming home in a few hours I should head back to my apartment. Get things cleaned up a bit. Maybe we can do dinner at Russo’s tonight if you aren’t too jetlagged? Then maybe catch up on all our movie nights we missed while you were gone?” I asked hopefully.

“Anything you want, babe. I honestly don’t care what we do as long as I get to see your gorgeous face.”

I could feel my cheeks grow hot at his compliment. This guy. My God, was he a sweet talker or what? I got that our relationship was still in the honeymoon stage so to speak – we had only been exclusively dating for eight months after all, but man, did he know how to sweep a girl off her feet or what? Butterflies? Nope, I had full blown moths fluttering around in there, and somehow, he also managed to make me go weak in the knees each time I saw him.

Admittedly, I wasn’t exactly keen on the idea of going out with him at first, but I’m very glad that he was able to wear me down eventually. Yeah, the frequent trips to Boston were hard, but we were making it work. And surprisingly, we hadn’t even had a single disagreement since we first started dating. Our relationship was easy. Comfortable even. And well . . . normal. God, how I craved normalcy. Those were things that I never had with him. Then again, I don’t think there was anything really normal about my relationship with him. Ugh. I’m doing it again. Just stop.

Paul’s voice broke through my internal struggle. “There’s ah … something I wanted to talk to you about, too. Been thinking a lot about it while on the trip, and was hoping to run it by you today.”

“Oh? Okay, that sounds good,” I replied, as I waved a quick goodbye to Roxy. “I’ll see you in a few, babe,” I smiled as I tapped the end on my phone and left Roxy’s Coffee Shop.

The trek back home wouldn’t take me long as I only lived a few blocks away. There was so much I needed to do before he got in, but I was pretty excited to see Paul. FaceTime was great, but nothing could replace seeing him in person or hearing his laugh right across from me. We had met about a year after I returned to New York. I had finally picked myself back up and moved on from my time in Cordonia. I had reenrolled in college, finished my last semester and earned my Bachelor’s Degree in Business. Shortly after I graduated, I went to my local credit union and asked for a loan to start up my own business. It was a gigantic risk at the time – after all, I had no backup plan if I failed miserably. They started me off with a modest loan which I used to get the foundation of Savvy Events created. Even with the loan, money was tight. To cut down costs, I was working out of my apartment with only a single laptop and my design book.

Paul’s law firm was one of my very first clients. I’d been hired to coordinate an event honoring the firm’s newest partner – Paul. When I went in to meet with him for the initial consultation, I found myself surprisingly attracted to him. I hadn’t dated anyone since . . . well since Cordonia, and it wasn’t like I was looking to date again. My heart was pretty shut off from jumping into ANY relationship, and when I met Paul and felt a little spark, I tried my best to snuff it out. I didn’t NEED a relationship and I certainly didn’t WANT one. Especially after the shitshow that had happened back in Cordonia, but there was something about Paul that kept drawing me in . . . even though I wanted none of it. Paul was tall, slender with touches of gray in his dark hair. He was just under ten years older than me, and he had an air of sophistication that was very fitting of a corporate attorney. I tried my best to ignore the growing attraction between us. It was my first major gig and I could not screw it up by being attracted to the guest of honor. That would be a big no-no. I wanted to keep things professional. I also didn’t want my newly pieced back together heart, broken again. I tried so hard to pretend that there wasn’t anything between us . . . but each meeting had me falling a lot more in like with him than I wanted. He was sweet, charismatic and genuinely interested in knowing more about me. That’s why, I wasn’t all too surprised that when the party was over he had asked me out to dinner and wouldn’t accept no for an answer.

I agreed to a single dinner and made it clear that I wasn’t looking for anything serious. I didn’t go into a lot of detail, but just gave him the rundown that my heart had been smashed to smithereens and there was no way in hell I was going to fall down that black hole again. He was oh so patient and understood completely. That single dinner turned into a standing weekly date which then turned into frequent movie nights throughout the week. Eight months later, I’m still in major like with him. LIKE. Not love . . . I mean, yes, there have been moments when he does something so amazingly, sweet that I go all heart-eyes on him . . . but love . . . yeah, no. Thanks to him, I don’t really think I can ever “love” someone so freely again. If there was anything that I learned from my time in Cordonia it’s that love is a four letter word that makes you weak . . . and I’d be damned if I would allow myself to get swept up in that whirlwind again.

After wrestling with my thoughts, I found myself standing on the front stoop of my apartment building. It was the typical New York City brick-built walk up. It was in a pretty good area near a lot of shops and markets. It was also ridiculously close to the subway making it so easy to find yourself in any one of the other boroughs of the city. Because of that it was obscenely expensive. I mean, two bedroom apartments in New York are already obscenely expensive, but one in close proximity to the subway typically broke the bank. Thank God for Andy. Without her splitting of the rent, we never would have been able to afford something in this area.

I climbed up the three flights of stairs to my apartment unit, all the while, butterflies floated around happily in my stomach. My mind raced to what I was going to wear to our early dinner tonight. It also drifted to what Paul wanted to talk to me about. He seemed a bit vague about it.

“Hey,” I said happily as I walked through the front door. I threw my keys onto the island in the kitchen. Andy was sitting on the floor furiously typing away on her laptop. Papers were strewn all around her in different piles.

“How’s the thesis going?” I asked, eyeing a few of the crumpled, wadded up paper next to her.

Andy stretched her arms over her head, yawning. “I’ve been at this since seven this morning and got all of one page done. You tell me.” She snorted.

Andy was an English major who had earned her Bachelor’s Degree two semesters ago. Her educational goals were much loftier than my own. She wanted her PhD. I just wanted to get the hell out of school. It had already taken me a bit longer than expected to get my degree, and I didn’t have the funds or drive to continue any further beyond my BA.

Andy was in her second semester of Hudson’s Literary Studies MA program, and I didn’t envy her in the slightest. While my life had become consumed with all things Savvy Events, her life was consumed by her thesis. I didn’t understand why someone would willingly spend so many hours of their life working on a paper that could either make or break your educational endeavors, especially when there was going to be more schooling and papers waiting for her on the other side of her MA. She’d still have at least four more years in her doctoral program. I internally cringed at even the thought of it. Andy had mentioned a few times that she’d probably have to move out of state to pursue the PhD program that she wanted. I didn’t even want to think about what that meant for our friendship.

Andy had been my saving grace when I first moved back to New York. And if I were being honest, she was the only friend I had for quite a while upon returning. When I had come home to New York, a lot of my college friends had graduated and moved out of state. Even my old coworkers at Upscale had found new jobs and moved on with their lives. A lot changes in six months. I was left in a state of limbo, not really having anywhere to go or anyone to turn to. Meeting Andy was a blessing that I so desperately needed at a time when I wasn’t really sure what to do with my life.

I never really told Andy what happened to land me back in New York, and being the godsend that she is, she never pushed or pried. I vaguely mentioned that I had been traveling out of the country for a while, and she assumed that I had been a part of some foreign exchange program. She never prodded and I never corrected her because . . . well . . . talking about Cordonia . . . and him . . . would just reopen the wounds that had taken so very long to heal. I wanted a clean break from all things Cordonian. I left no contact number or forwarding address. I wanted them to forget I ever existed, and to be honest, I wanted to forget they had ever existed, too.

“Hey, one page is better than nothing right?” I popped open the refrigerator grabbing a soda can out of it. “Want one?” I said as I held up a can to offer Andy.

“I’m good. I’m wired on three cups of coffee right now. I don’t think my body can handle any more caffeine right now. So how was your day off?”

“It was fantastic.” I sighed happily. “Paul’s flying in today . . . in a few hours in fact.”

Andy cocked her eyebrow. “Really? I thought he was going to be gone for nearly a month?”

“Me too, but I guess his negotiations must have wrapped up quicker than expected, so he’s flying back. We’re doing dinner tonight at Russo’s, so you’re on your own tonight okay? Looks like my movie partner is back in action,” I chuckled as I made my way toward my bedroom.

“Thank God!” Andy exclaimed. “Your taste in movies is horrendous, geeze,” she sighed. “Wait . . . does that mean you guys are planning on coming back here and having some post business trip loving, because I was planning on working until at least eleven tonight.”

“Andy!” I yelled, turning away from my doorway. “Seriously?” I narrowed my eyes at her.

“I’m just saying! Every time that man goes away on business, you can’t keep your hands off of each other when he gets back. I mean, I get it, you’re still in the honeymoon phase of your relationship … but can you may be spread the lovey dovey googly eyes crap at his place tonight? I do not like being the third wheel,” she said pointedly.

“Stop it,” I scolded. “And we aren’t that bad,” I chided. “I mean . . . yes when he comes back from his business trips we are quite happy to actually be together in person again . . . but we hardly push any hard limits . . . we always keep it to a nice and comfortable PG-13 level, thank you very much.”

Andy waggled her eyebrows. “Sure, you keep telling yourself that.”

I rolled my eyes and threw my balled up jacket at her head. “I’m going to go get ready for tonight. Get your mind out of the gutter.”

As I turned into my bedroom and started to rummage through my closet for something to wear, I heard Andy enter my room behind me. "Hey, before you go off to get all glamorous for your date … you got mail today. Seems pretty fancy . . . and it looks like it has some sort of foreign postmark. Cor-something? I can’t make out the rest,” she said as she squint her eyes to make out the lettering.

My hand clenched on my closet’s door, an unsettling feeling forming in the pit of my stomach. “Foreign?” I asked, turning to stare at Andy, my jaw clenching. “What do you mean foreign? What’s it say?” I asked, abandoning the clothes in my closet.

Andy had the envelope in her hand and looked at it again. It was a cream-colored envelope. She scrunched up her face again. “Well, the postmark looked weird, and I had to sign some sort of funky slip of paper to acknowledge that I received it,” she shrugged. “I can’t really read the full postmark. Look,” she motioned to the envelope. “It even has a fancy red seal on it.”

My heart beat faster in my chest and my legs felt like they were turning into noodles. A wave of emotions washed over me. Foreign postmark . . . red seal . . . it couldn’t be. Could it? Not after all this time. I mean . . . it’s about two years too late to be reaching out. The thoughts hummed through my head as I eyed the envelope in Andy’s hand.

I cleared my throat, trying to steady my voice. “Does it say who it’s from?”

Andy shrugged nonchalantly, as if the letter she was holding wasn’t the ticking time bomb that it was. “Nope, just some sort of insignia.” Andy handed me the envelope. “Does it look familiar?”

I swallowed hard, my eyes dropping to the seal. My fingers traced the wax seal on the envelope. Did it look familiar? Of course it did. I’d seen the crest hundreds of times during my time in Cordonia. Bertrand and Maxwell had made sure that I was familiar with all of the court’s seals and crests. I wanted to speak, but my voice cracked a little in the process. How could this happen? Fifteen minutes ago I was so excited that Paul was flying home . . . . now all I felt was absolute dread. The butterflies from earlier were gone, replaced by a gnawing feeling of anxiety.

“Ri?” Andy questioned.

I lifted my head. “Hm?” I asked as I felt my eyes glazing over.

“Does it look familiar?” She asked again. I could sense the impatience growing in her voice.

“Y-yes,” I replied softly.

I could feel Andy’s eyes boring into me. “Well? What is it?” She asked. “Who’s it from?”

I licked my lips nervously, and cleared my throat. “It’s the family crest of House Beaumont from Cordonia.” I replied softly. My chest felt tight, and suddenly I couldn’t breathe. I braced myself on the arm of the couch, trying to sit down. I tried my best to remain composed, but I could already feel hot tears pricking my eyes.

Andy scrunched her face up in confusion. “From where?”

71 notes · View notes

oosteven-universe · 5 years

Text

Dr. Strange #2

Dr. Strange #2 Marvel Comics 2019 Written by Mark Waid Illustrated by Kev Walker Coloured by Java Tartaglia Lettered by VC's Cory Petit Previously... Operating out of New York City's McCarthy Medical Institute , Stephen is struggling to find a balance between his two lives, surgery and sorcery. But Stephen's two worlds collided when the emergency room flooded with victims from a seemingly mystical attack by the super-powered mercenary the Wrecker! Blindsided by the Wrecker's new reality-warping crowbar, Stephen was overpowered and left for dead...at the bottom of the Hudson River! While I am still not a fan of the constant stopping, starting and unabating first issues I am happy to see this creative team bringing this version to life. While I don't imagine that we can see Stephen staying at the hospital long-term but we'll see. What I find interesting abut this is that we see everyone knowing who he is and there are moments it's endearing and others just weird and I do like that scene with the playset that was fun to see. Of course having Dr. Anthony Ludgate back and his being fully unaware of his return, see Chaos War Avengers for more details, is a delightful change of pace. So Mark is definitely shaking things up and ensuring that this is going to be far from typical. I really do like the way that this is being told. The story & plot development we see through the sequence of events unfolding as well as how the reader learns information is exceptionally well done. From freeing himself from the events of last issue to seeing his old, well Stephen describes that beautifully. Mark is very adept at making the most of the page count and delivering some damn good storytelling within it. The character development we see is flawless if I am honest. From the way Stephen talks, thinks and “allows” we definitely are getting a good look at him and I am definitely intrigued by what we see. The pacing is amazing and as it takes through the pages revealing the twists and turns along the way help to create the books strong, interesting and surprising ebb & flow. There is something going on here, outside the obvious, that is like an itch you can't scratch. You really want to but something is preventing you from doing so. It's like that you know you see but you can't quite put your finger on it. That's Mark for you though the man has more ticks than Houdini when it comes to writing and I am so blasted involved and invested in this so there is no hope of stopping or turning back now. I was a little harsh on Kev's work last issue and I stand by that for while there is no questioning the man's talent there are just times Stephen looks sickly thin and that's never been a look of his. I love his take on Anthony however and all the linework that we see that goes into how he utilises the varying weights in his attention to detail is nice to see. I will personally, my complete preference, if you utilise backgrounds in the beginning panels of a scene and don't utilise them throughout the page it kind of irks me. I know he's capable because we see some but then I just don't get the need for blank backgrounds. I am a huge fan of the way that Kev brings the Wrecking Crew to life! The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a good, strong eye for storytelling. The colour work is amazing. Those excellent pops of colour showing the powers and abilities are extremely eye catching. The utilisation of the colours and the hues and tones within them to showcase the shading, highlights and shadow work is beautifully rendered. I love the fact that Wrecking Crew is still around and that they've had upgrades to make them more than a match for Dr. Strange. Also the mystery person or being behind this remaining a mystery means Stephen has to think and find those detective skills and put them to use. I have high hopes for this, which usually means a short run, and seeing Stephen outside the mainstream MCU and instead finding a way to work both sides of the coin as effectively as it will be allowed to him.

#comic books #comics reviews #Marvel Comics #Mark Waid #kev walker #java tartaglia #cory petit

2 notes · View notes

sepublic · 3 years

Text

Meta Marcy Wu

Marcy really does have that energy of like. Someone who doesn’t have a whole lot of ‘opinions’ on bigger matters (such as the conflict between Toads and Newts, Sasha and Anne, Maddie and her sisters, etc.) so she just sort of. Awkwardly waits and sits off to the side, kind of biding her moment for when it’s finally over. Letting others take charge so long as she gets her own little space to function in. She’s not against or for anyone in particular, she just needs people to decide for themselves who she should follow, Marcy prefers to be a follower and ONLY that- Her debut has her asserting her own control for herself, but she doesn’t seem to care much else about others, I’m afraid.

Contrast that with Anne, who needs her own control- BUT she also has the Heart, so she cares about others, she’s proactive and has agency despite initially being told to be reactive and not stand up for herself. Even if she can’t stand up for herself, she will stand up for others… And I think she was lowkey influenced by Sasha’s obsessive desire to protect the girls, and that played into Anne being a little bit toxic, but ultimately learning and having that inner fire to take a stance on things based on moral reasons, whereas Sasha seems more concerned for power than the actual social plight of the Toads- So even if Anne isn’t with the rebellion, it’s ultimately something she WOULD fully dedicate herself towards, like when we saw her stand up for the Frogs against Bog and the other Toads.

And like, I have to wonder if Marcy’s more hands-off, simple follower approach is lowkey what contributed to Sasha’s belief in controlling others, because it validated that- But at the same time, we talk about how Sasha might care more for Anne than Marcy, and we see how Sasha is frustrated by Toadie, who is but an echo chamber for her. So maybe while Marcy is convenient to her, she’s just a bit too passive and thus not as ‘fun’ as a friend as Anne, who is also a concern because she has genuine motive to question Sasha not just on the basis of their friendship, but people OUTSIDE of it, which Marcy doesn’t.

Anne being fiercely loyal and protective and sticking up for others, it also could’ve fed back into Sasha’s own tendencies as well. And of course these more proactive, in-your-face girls, always on the frontlines, are going to clash, while Marcy the forgotten follower, the wall-flower, the one in the background focused on more ‘nerdy’ things that are less glamorous, like logistics and whatnot… SHE’s the lynchpin that actually tips the scales- Because she’s the third girl who ‘sides’ with Anne between the initial conflict from Season 1. She’s the one with Andrias, flipping things up when Anne and Sasha are going to fight, contributing to that prophesized endgame.

Marcy is the one, ironically, with the power –albeit as an extension of Andrias really- and so she’s the antagonist who’s clashing with Sasha, who is also power-hungry, but really beginning to learn as well. Marcy is caught up in her own little fantasy land and world, both literally and figuratively, happily enjoying and watching as a witness and bystander, almost detached in a sense to really participate and appreciate it as a very real thing… And being separate and an ‘audience’ member, Marcy is of course forgotten by Sasha and Anne, who play the part of characters; Fitting, because in that one flashback, they were Captain Hook and Peter Pan, while Marcy worked back-stage, literally pulling the strings (well, rope) for Anne!

It’s Marcy who’s obsessed and fascinated with the meta of fandom and fiction, so of course she’s the one who steps back and observes it like media, takes the time to comment on it as if it were all tropes, watching and enjoying while for Sasha and Anne they participate directly without that kind of detached meta awareness, the kind someone like Andrias would have, because for THEM it’s real, there are stakes, power for Sasha and people for Anne! And Marcy is the backstage audience, fourth-wall crewmember, unnoticed by all who forget and ignore her, and she’s used to it. Maybe Marcy even enjoys and prefers it that way, and/or learned to- And it’s too late to pay attention, to see themselves as characters in that wider play and story and plot, unlike Andrias who notices and takes advantage… And may have been writing since who knows HOW early?

If I could get into meta, Marcy playing that quiet, unnoticed support role, doing whatever’s convenient- It reminds me of how the visual basis for your typical Ninja in black garb… It came from plays where performers in black garb would maneuver props, and the audience was supposed to intentionally ignore them, see them as separate from the actual story; But every now and then, one play might have a ‘twist’ where that background actor actually IS a character, and assassinates someone to reveal themselves as the hidden Ninja!

So maybe Marcy is like that… The background crewmember, not calling attention to herself in the acting role- In plain sight but we figure we’re meant to ignore, and so we’re utterly blindsided when she DOES strike! It’s Marcy who appreciates the little technical know-how and details, valuing the role that Frogs and agriculture play, considering Newtopian infrastructure, working back-stage in a Peter Pan play… Appreciating the writing conventions and tropes of her favorite games and fantasies, and so that in a way enables her to ‘game’ the system in a sense, play into it with her own hands, or even set up that game and story in the first place, because she knows how to make one!

She is the drummer while Anne and Sasha play guitar and sing, not as glamorous or recognized amongst a crowd, but just as vital as the rest… She’s a very META kind of person, befitting her choice of METAmorphosis as part of her drummer costume! You don’t pay mind to a caterpillar, but then little do you know, it becomes an even more unnoticeable cocoon… Only to sprout into a brilliant butterfly! But while the BLUE butterfly is associated with Anne and her connections back home through Pearl Paddock, who is representative of familial bond, remembering who you are… Marcy is disconnected, she’s a GREEN butterfly, green like the lilypads of Amphibia, and she wants to stay there!

And the best part, I think? I don’t think Marcy herself is even fully aware of what she’s doing… I doubt she sees herself as some clever manipulator. She’s just doing what she can, having her fun plans and machinations like in New Wartwood, but she’s not ACTUALLY approaching this as some devious mastermind- She’s literally just a kid! She gets caught up in her own things, because she is an autistic mood, and I get that! I resonate with that! And so it’s so easy for Marcy to be blindsided by HERSELF, by her own flaws and borderline antagonistic role in the story, to realize what she’s doing is kind of messed up and trivializing- Because we know that she WANTS to care, but it’s so easy and convenient for her to forget and play into the fantasy… Especially with someone like Sasha, and especially Andrias, to enable her, to provide that safety and support net that MARCY doesn’t complain about or take for granted, unlike that ‘ungrateful’ Anne, as Sasha might’ve one said!

And if Marcy isn’t really self-aware of her own issues or even the full messed-up scope of her actions, to take a look back and critically examine herself the way she might a character or even her own friends; Then that can also make her a victim to her own antics, just as Sasha kept burying herself into a deeper hole. And it’s hard to do the right thing, if you don’t even realize you’re messing up in the first place- Recognizing your fault is kind of one of THE foundations of actual reform, growth, and redemption. I think Marcy needs guidance, and she needs to show more initiative and take a stance not just for herself, but regarding others as well… And that can lead to her choosing between Anne and Andrias.

Andrias, whose name is like Anne’s but more fantastical, who is blue like Anne’s motif… And who looks after her like a good friend, makes things easier and promises they will be! And he’s invested into the fantasy, he doesn’t want to go home and complicate things, get into fights with Sasha, because it’s the person in charge who decides how it is, right? Which is why True Colors continues to concern me… Amidst, you know, the many OTHER issues as well.

#amphibia #amphibia marcy #marcy wu #amphibia sasha #sasha waybright #amphibia anne #anne boonchuy #meta #speculation #character analysis

100 notes · View notes