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duhragonball · 1 year

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Dragon Ball Super 025

YOU CANNOT DO THIS TO ME!

I AM INVINCIBLE!

I AM BANE!

This episode sucks rotten eggs. In the movie, Goku turned Super Saiyan Blue to show Frieza his full power, and then Frieza responded by transforming into his new ultimate form. In Dragon Ball Super, that moment is spread across two episodes. Goku turns Blue in Episode 24, and the ““cliffhanger”“ is him asking Frieza to show his stuff.

So you’d think Frieza would open the episiode with his transformation, but he doesn’t. He talks and talks and talks and talks and talks and talks and talks and then he finally transforms in to Golden Frieza. While this is going on, Jaco tries to take some photos, and he insists that this is for his report to the Galactic Patrol. Bulma asks what will happen when he submits the report, and he says the Earth will likely be designated a hazardous zone and the GP will destroy it with a missile. So Bulma stomps on his camera.

Then we see Jaco with another camera. This is the “highlight” of this half of the episode, because at least something is happening here.

Now that we’ve finally got Golden Frieza on the board, let me take a moment to critique his design. In this scene, he actually looks.... pretty cool! Honestly, this might be better than he looked in the Resurrection F movie. I think the trick is to stick closely to the Fourth Form Freiza design, and to add plenty of highlights.

Also, he looks pretty fucking sweet when he’s got the aura effects. They put some red into it and it’s very pleasing. He actually looks like he’s made out of gold. When he’s powered up, he looks like hot gold.

The problem is that, most of the time, Golden Frieza winds up looking like this. Without the shiny highlights, without the fiery aura effects, he looks like a bootleg Frieza action figure that got the wrong color scheme. All the yellows are pale and brown. He looks like he’s made of mustard, or baby food, or Super Saiyan 4 Goku’s pants. He looks like shit, figuratively and literally.

Anyway, they fight for a little bit, and then we cut to Beerus and Whis heading for Earth to collect Bulma’s sundae, but they run into Champa and Vados first. Beerus gripes about him trespassing in Universe 7, when Champa belongs in Universe 6, but they end up going their separate ways.

When Beerus arrives, Jaco asks Bulma to take a picture of them together, and she realizes that he was lying about using the photos for his official report. He just wants these for his personal scrapbook. Okay, but if that’s so, then why did he say all that crap about the GP destroying the Earth? I’m pretty sure he has two cameras because he uses one for work photos and one for personal photos.

Also, now that I’ve read the Jaco manga, I’m finding all these Bulma/Jaco scenes really irritating. Isn’t Jaco really powerful? Like, not on the level of the Z-Fighters, obviously, but he dropkicked a rocket away from a city. Yet he allows Bulma to just manhandle him throughout this arc.

What sucks is that this whole Res F business is supposed to be a nostalgia trip to the fight on Namek, and the one (1) thing they managed to successfully carry over from those days was all the pointless filler scenes where Bulma complains a lot to fill time.

Back to the fight. Oh, wait, this fight looks like diarrhea.

They did a great job re-debuting Golden Frieza, then immediately backslid in to the same shoddy visuals. So much of this show looks like a bad flash animation. It’s pathetic. You can accuse me of cherry-picking the uglier screenshots from the episode, and to be fair, I am kind of doing that. There are some more on-model screenshots in my folder.

The point is that it keeps switching back and forth, and the ugliest stills always come from action sequences, or when a bunch of characters are standing around, which is like 80% of this show. When it’s characters standing in a group, you’re given plenty of time to stare at the crappy drawing and notice how crapy it is. When it’s Frieza hitting Goku in the A-plot, the crappy drawings all work together to make a really weak animation that detracts from the story that they’re trying to tell.

The one sequence I’ll praise here is when Frieza descends upon Goku as he lies in a crater. It’s a pretty simple shot. They just to a bird’s-eye image of Frieza and shrank it to make it look like he’s floating down to the ground. They make it a little blurry as he goes, to imitate the way he’d be out of focus in a real-life camera.

The reason I’m impressed with this is because usually Dragon Ball Super will do a shot like this by drawing the character smaller across multiple cels, and each one will get crappier as the character gets smaller and smaller. It’s like someone at Toei finally realized it was 2016, and they can use computers to solve these kinds of logistical challenges.

#dragon ball #dragon ball super #2023dbapocryphaliveblog #goku #frieza #bulma #jaco teirimentenpibosshi #beerus #whis #champa #vados

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orionshounds · 3 years

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I’ve been knee deep in dsmp lore streams and I just want to ramble about it

Dream smp lore is so good, it’s so good!!! Not only is the story itself just fascinating, but how it’s presented so uniquely through the medium of minecraft of all things is just so cool. One of my favorite parts of the lore is seeing how everyone on the smp has their own “style” they present it in, and watching them find the way they find the most enjoyment in is so cool. Literally no two streamer’s lore stream quite like each others and it’s just incredible! It just speaks to the flexibility of roleplay as an artistic medium and really shows everyone’s individual personalities.

Wilbur was dramatic as hell and wrote eloquent speeches. He started a drug operation under the guise as a country, and it lead to a revolution in which he was able to explore the spiral of a man who loses control of everything he had built. And after his arc and he wanted a break from the server? He created ghostbur, an amnesic comic relief with just enough touch of tragedy that he is still able to make heartbreaking monologues when he wants to.

Tommy is able to run around with his friends and cause as much chaos to his heart’s extent, but there is so much more than meets the eye. He is incredibly social and isn’t afraid to start conflict with a lot of people, bringing them into the roleplay. He doesn’t back down from storytelling either. His character goes through terrible situations and he fully explores the trauma that comes from those experiences. His character goes against the “stereotypical” trauma I see alot in media; instead of being shy or scared he’s reactionary, he’s angry, he’s violent, he’s depressed. I’m actually really impressed with the heavy subject matter this 17 year old teen has managed to portray (I’ve connected with it quite personally at certain points), while still being able to keep the light hearted fun that’s so intrinsic to his personality.

Tubbo isn’t really interested in serious lore as much. Even in dire moments he tells jokes and just has fun. So, in his recent lore, he just streams as normal while putting mysterious writing on screen that he doesn’t acknowledge or have to explain, which I think is just a genius work around for him to participate in lore. He still has his dedicated lore streams sometimes, and when he is in the acting zone he has some of the most powerful moments out of everyone on the server.

Ranboo, while having stake in the greater smp lore, is much more character focused. He presents his lore through long monologues and fucking heart-wrenching voice acting. He loves working in themes of horror and causing a specific feeling in the viewer. So he chooses specific music as a themes for events/characters and creates visual queues in his overlays to draw out that desired reaction. He also values improve a LOT, if something unexpected comes up he just runs with it and he has made huge changes to his lore as early as 30 min before a stream.

Technoblade, while arguably one of the most powerful people on the server, prefers a more light-hearted yet dramatic approach to lore. When Dream was at his house looking for Tommy, Techno had no problem joking around and making fun of him for being homeless. He tore down an entire nation on the server and had so much fun doing it! He’s more of an antagonist than a true villain in my opinion. And lets not forget how dedicated he is to the game, he’s cracked at the craft. He spends hours grinding and creating farms on the smp, for amazing pay offs (his several vault reveals, the withers, etc), most of which weren’t even on stream!

Karl Jacobs is extremely social, so he created Tales from the smp as a way to involve TONS of people in lore while exploring the past and future of the server (it was also a way for viewers who weren’t that well versed in dsmp lore to join and not have to worry about it!). And through this premise, he took the opportunity to develop his own character on the smp; making an incredibly tragic story of a time traveler trying to save his home while slowly loosing his memories. Not to mention the beautifully shot cutscenes of the Inbetween and the Other Side. He includes so many people behind the scenes as well, collabing with other members on lore, hiring building teams and people to make intros and credit scenes, and promoting fanart and fansongs from the community!

Quackity explores his lore through heavily scripted events and amazingly shot cut scenes. While the way he expresses his lore comes at the cost of improv, the payoff of the visuals and story is well worth it! The shots he makes of the smp is downright gorgeous, no to mention he’s the first person to include irl footage in his lore (not counting facecams)! He’s not afraid of thoroughly examining his own character, being one of the only people I can think of that shows us “past events” leading up to something that has already happened.

Badboyhalo, Antfrost, Ponk, Skeppy, Captain Puffy, Punz, Awesamdude, Hannahxxrose all work together on shared lore and the payoff is amazing! By introducing the Egg, a constant antagonistic force that constantly pulls on character’s relationships with each other, everyone is able to stream together to battle for or against the egg! There’s also plenty of room for people to do individual lore that's more intimate to their respective character. They spend hours changing vines, putting up posters, slowly shaping the smp in a way that makes it exciting to watch streams to see just what has changed everyday. Because there’s so many people necessary to tell the egg’s story, it does comes at the cost of time (the egg has been around FOREVER). However, they all work together super hard and I just admire their commitment to the story they’re trying to tell!

And Sam! He has several different “Modes” his character is in (and an entirely separate character, Sam Nook) that he gets to explore lore with. He’s a terrifying warden, he’s a money motivated businessman, he’s a conflicted lover, he’s a traumatized victim of the egg, and just so much more. Through having so many different “roles” in the rp he gets to explore relationships and plotlines with a whole array of people. Not to mention he’s absolutely cracked at redstone and has some of the most impressive builds on the server.

And Puffy! So much of her lore is calling into question the morality of the server and really makes you step back and think critically about the characters. Her character also has, in my opinion, one of the most interesting relationships with Dream, the main antagonist of the entire server, which is just fascinating to watch unfold. Not to mention she’s one of the first people to start exploring the backstory of her character!

George doesn’t exactly do lore. In fact he’s slept through so much of it it’s become a meme. And you know what? That mad man took that and ran with it. He explains his absence in the story by having his character literally being asleep through it, creating mystery where there used to just be an absence. He’s able to goof off with his friends and have borderline nonsensical streams, then at the end sucker punch the audience emotionally by “waking up” and have the viewers question just what was real and what wasn’t?

The smp has the freedom for people who want more independent lore to be able to explore their character’s that way as well!

Hbomb, Connereatspants, and Purpled don’t have a lot of lore on the smp, generally only coming on to have fun with everyone, but when they do have their moments it unfolds in very interesting ways!

Sapnap, Eret, and Schlatt maybe aren’t as active as some other people, but when they are on they actively participate in lore and have lasting impacts on the story (Ex: Eret’s betrayal, Sapnap’s visit to dream in the prison, Schlatt becoming president).

Philza mostly does his own thing, improving the server or making some bomb ass builds. He has incredibly devastating roles in lore (killing wilbur, blowing up L’manberg for the final time, starting the syndicate with Techno), but he also has quieter moments that speak to the depth his character has, such as fishing with fundy or reminiscing about his dead son and how it went so wrong. Like Techno, he doesn’t like to take lore completely seriously, often laughing no matter what’s happening or teasing chat after something big goes down, but his character is solid with a lot of potential for future lore.

Foolish has only started on his character and its already super interesting. The hints at his dark past as a “god of death” and his current conflict with the egg are intriguing as fuck. Not to mention the MASSIVE builds he does for everyone, helping to progress their lore as well.

Fundy has a lot of freedom with his character to participate however much he wants in lore. While generally he’s a trickster who loves to prank people he has enough tragedy build into his backstory he’s able to break the viewer’s heart with a flip of a switch. Not to mention his recent, almost surreal, stream that explored his character’s disturbing dreams that may or may not predict the future.

Niki is very character driven, exploring her character's grief of losing her best friend and her anger of being ignored in the very country she helped create. She has incredibly emotional moments, and even though she’s on her own building an underground city she still participates in other lore via teaming with jack manifold or the syndicate.

Jack Manifold’s lore is VERY character focused, and while he’s described his story as a “B plot that occasionally intersects with the main plot”, the story he tells is still fascinating. Being pushed aside not taken seriously his whole life, his character develops into a fun cartoony-esque villain who begs to be taken seriously, that has the depth of a truly conflicted person who is torn between wanting revenge on everyone who’s done him wrong and just wanting a friend.

Last but not least, the man himself, Dream. The most fascinating thing about his lore is that absolutely none of it is from his pov. All we know about his character is only from what we see from everyone else’s povs, and in his case it leads to a very intimidating villain! Not to mention, mans owns the damn server and yet has made himself the main antagonist! He is the only character I consider a “true villain” on the smp. His voice acting and writing is downright sinister. I could write a fucking essay on how his character’s obsession with power has led him to the point he thinks himself an unstoppable god

Everyone on this server is stunning and I love all of them!!!!!

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minamotoz · 2 years

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my hbo degrassi wishlist bc i have a Lot of thoughts about it

• i want them to bring back fictional bands like gourmet scum or dead hand, maybe even release a song like they did with paisley jacket

• better neurodiverse rep, especially autism. no offense to my boy connor, i love him and hes one of my favorites, but he definitely feels like a stereotype more than anything and in his later seasons they treat him like a child and characters have to explain concepts like suicide and racism to him, despite him being 16-18 . i hope if they introduce an autistic character, they dont talk down to them like they did with connor.

• idk how possible this will be, but i want them to bring back major characters acting as background characters like they do in degrassi classic. also, but likely even less possible, it would be cool if the child actors could give feedback on the scripts to make things more realistic like they did with DJH/DH. idk i just think everything about the way degrassi classic incorporated the actors into almost every aspect of production is so cool

• i want characters with more relatable interests. i want characters who are into music without being musicians, or characters into drawing or anime or something. idk maybe this is just bc im a terminally online loser with no real life, but its kinda embarrassing when the character whos interests are the most relatable to me is the bigoted, almost a school shooter incel.

• look, im a NC apologist until i die, but i hope the way they go about writing social issues into the show is less... idk.. on the nose than NC was??? like yeah cool lets talk about feminism and how the internet dogpiles women for having harmless opinions, but the entire thing with maya and the feminist club vs the gamers was so over the top and all the characters, especially goldi, felt like caricatures. later parts of NC got back on the right track with more nuanced topics in a less cheesy way (saads story arc in NC4 my beloved <3) but it was a bit too little too late.

• i want the show to incorporate the cultures of the characters into their stories more. like, im somali and hazel is literally the only explicit somali rep ive ever seen that isnt a stereotype, and her culture and background is only mentioned ONCE (she isnt even played by a somali actor which Sucks but also isnt andrea lewis' fault) and degrassi is a pretty diverse show, so it really sucks that very few characters of color have had their cultures explored.

• hottest take of all time: I DO NOT WANT THE OLD CHARACTERS TO HAVE MAJOR ROLES. the amount of people who say that this new show should be a reunion for the earliest TNG cast do not understand the purpose of degrassi as a franchise at all and its baffling to me. it would be cool to have maybe a couple of characters show up but i dont want the show to have storylines about adult characters bc 1. thats not what degrassi is about and 2. it was boring 80% of the time TNG did it. i dont want a spemma divorce storyline, i dont want any character that isnt snake and maybe marco to come back (and i single out marco bc hes one of the only characters that would make sense for them to come back as a teacher). let the show be about a new generation of kids like degrassi has always been about.

• now this may come off as contradictory to what i just said, but i want references to past seasons and characters. i want someone to be like 'isnt it so weird that this school has so many famous alumni like craig manning or manny santos haha' or 'this school is cursed didnt you hear like 5 students have died here' or 'my cousin went here like 10 years ago did you know degrassi had uniforms at one point' idk it would be funny. hell it doesnt have to be dialogue it could be easter eggs in the background like the jt yorke memorial garden or how NC had posters for romeo and jules and captain who in the background

• a trans character who explores multiple different identities before settling on one. no offence to adam and yael, theyre both great, but adam came into the show with his identity already figured out and it took yael one episode of exploring their gender to find an identity they feel comfortable in, and thats fine! but i think it would be cool if we had a trans character who tried different labels and pronouns before settling on one they thought was right, maybe in a multiple episode arc. mainly just bc i know that not every trans person instantly knows what they are. on the topic of trans characters, maybe cast trans actors this time ????

#degrassi #long post #idk im just talking out of my ass

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shadowed-dancer · 3 years

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My Thoughts on the New MHA Opening and Ending

I have thoughts, and I will share them because oh boy if I don’t get this out I’m gonna explode

Vague Spoilers for the manga (up to chapter 258 and vigilantes) because I discuss the upcoming arcs, but I don’t discuss any major plot points in detail. Still, proceed with caution if you’re anime only

Keep in mind, this OP and ED will cover the Endeavour Agency Arc and the MVA Arc, so I will be judging them accordingly.

First, the OP

This is a good OP... in theory (that’s going to become my catchphrase for this post). It’s nice to look at and flows pretty well, but my biggest problem is that it doesn’t do it’s job. An OP is supposed to be a sort of... summary (?) of the Cour it plays for. That means any cool plot points, emotional beats, and important characters should be featured in some way, shape, or form. We’ll talk about that more later, but first let’s discuss the music.

The song is really good. I have a feeling it will continue to grow on me as I listen to it more often, but yeah my first impression is that the song sounds great. My only complaint about the music itself is that it ends kind of abruptly (I noticed this is the JT opening too). The previous openings used to have a bit of instrumental to “play us out” and lead us to the end card, but this one feels like it ends very suddenly and unnaturally.

As for the visuals...

Yeah alright I’ll admit, the visuals are stunning... in theory. I appreciate the variety in backgrounds and colours, it makes the OP really interesting to look at. This was actually one of my biggest problems with the JT Opening, it all took place on the training grounds, so there was no variety (everything was metal tubes with a blue sky, with only 3 shots set somewhere different). I appreciate the style of this OP.

But like I said, that’s only in theory, as in, through screenshots these are all pleasing to look at. The pacing of this OP is wild, and I truly don’t know who to blame for this.

That sunset shot above? It lasts approximately 12 seconds, zooming in every few to make it seem like something is happening (when in reality it’s still the same poses, angles, etc). While there’s nothing wrong with a nice, drawn out shot, it becomes irritating when compared to the pacing of the rest of this op.

At the 41 second mark, we are given the shot above. It has flowed directly from the previous sunset scene. We still have not moved away from the image of the trio (aside from the opening shot and the title card) yet we’re approaching the halfway mark of the OP.

The next shot is the MLA, which lasts about 5 seconds. Ok, perfect. Not too long, but also not short enough to be confusing. It cuts away a little fast once the dude on the far left appears, but does anyone actually know who that is? No, seriously, I’m asking. I don’t remember his name and he’s not on the wiki, so I can only assume he’s not important. Therefore, it’s not all that bad if the shot cuts away shortly after he comes into frame. The audience is able to take in the scene without having to pause...

... And then the problems start

While this shot is fine in theory, it pans up fast and cuts away quickly. You know how hard it was for me to get this screenshot? Really hard. You want to know why I struggled so much? Because, due to the timing of the cut and the way it pans upwards, it’s almost impossible to pause on Dabi’s face. I literally had to go frame by frame to get it, because he’s in shot for so little time that naturally pausing is guaranteed to miss him.

When watching this in real time (without pausing) the cut away makes you feel as if you missed something because “something was there, I just couldn’t register what because now it’s gone”. Unlike Compress, who wears a very colourful coat you can recognize the entire time, Dabi’s pants are more blended into the background.

It also doesn’t help that this shot is literally composed to draw your attention away from Dabi until the last possible second. Due to framing, your eye is naturally drawn to the brightly coloured Toga in the foreground, making it super easy to miss Dabi in the back (until, of course, his bright face appears and contrasts against the background, drawing your eye just in time for the scene to change, leaving you to wonder who or what you missed).

I know this sounds like nitpicking, but this shot is the only group shot we get of the League, and is also the start of a seriously weird trend for the villains in this OP getting the short end of the stick.

Anyways, then we get what I’ll call “The Carousel Shot” in which every Class 1A kid shows up and poses dramatically, as if they were on a carousel. It’s a lovely sequence and I really enjoy watching it but... why is it in this OP?

Seriously, this is a genuine question. Class 1A barely shows up in the Endeavour Agency Arc, and NONE of the students are in MVA. This sequence (not counting the three boys at the end) lasts 8 seconds. Why is this much time dedicated to characters who are barely in the arc? (Unless Studio Bones extends their work studies into fuller plot lines which oh my gosh please don’t do that, or if they do, do it quick).

We then get what I call the “Oh God I Blinked And Missed Everything” sequence, which lasts 3 seconds (not including the longer, moving shot of Shigaraki at the end) and features NINE INDIVIDUAL IMAGES, none of which are related to each other. Not only is this 3 images per second, but the fact that they are all unrelated means you can’t even use previous information to fill in the blanks.

What do I mean by that? Well, imagine if I show you 9 images of various pro heroes posing. If I play that in 3 seconds you’ll absolutely miss some of them, but as long as you catch some you’ll still get an idea of what I’m trying to show to you. Your brain is able to fill in the gaps that “I recognized 4 pro heroes, therefore the rest must have also been pros” even if you didn’t register every single frame.

That doesn’t work if every frame features a completely different subject. The shots in this sequence vary so widely that it’s impossible to find a through line. Some feature multiple characters, some feature one, some are closeups, some are super far away, some are character’s we know, others are characters we don’t. It’s impossible to get a solid read on what you’re being shown.

Now, again, there’s nothing wrong with these super quick shots... in theory. The problem comes from the fact that these shots are the only indicators for some of the major themes that will be explored during this Cour (like Twice’s growth and young Shigaraki).

That being said, let’s move away from criticism and talk about speculation, because hidden amongst this sequence are two... interesting images.

This All Might one is very reminiscent of the shot in Chapter 257, where Aizawa and All Might have a conversation while staring up at the stars. However, this is technically the start of the “War Arc” (or the “prologue”, if that’s what you want to call it), so this might indicate that we’re going to get farther into the series than a lot of us guessed.

(Many people suspected we’d get to that cliffhanger at the start of the season (if you read the manga you know the one), but after seeing the pacing for JT a lot of us assumed we’d be lucky to even finish Endeavour Agency. It seems we’re back to the cliffhanger now though lol).

This is another really interesting shot because it’s indicative of Shirakumo, meaning we might get to see Aizawa and Mic confront him some time this Cour (this also makes sense, since this confrontation technically happens before that All Might scene I mentioned in the previous paragraph).

But the cat specifically is a really strange addition. That cat is named Sushi and, correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think Sushi is ever mentioned in the main series. I think he’s only in Vigilantes.

This might just be a little Easter Egg for Vigilante readers, but I’m personally hoping that they’ll add at least a few Vigilante shots in there to really tug at the heart strings. I’d say I want a whole Vigilante episode but I don’t think they have the time (unless they really cram MVA, which I do NOT want).

I don’t have much to say about the last bit of the OP. The action shot between the 3 boys was nice, and it follows the sort of narrative through line they established from the early shot of them sitting at the sunset. I also like the shot of Endeavour fading in to replace All Might, even if it’s very simple.

But I want to talk about an overarching problem I touched upon earlier in that villain shot: the way the villains are handled in this OP.

This is a good OP... in theory. The problem is, it doesn’t represent half the arcs in the cour! Every shot of the League is so rushed that you can barely register that they were on screen before they’re gone.

I have no idea how many Episodes Endeavour Agency will take, but I’d assume 3 (4 if you count the Christmas episode). 12 episodes for this Cour minus 3 for Endeavour Agency = 9 episodes left. If we truly do get the prologue for the War Arc (and if we assume it’s only 1 episode) that leaves us with 8 villains episodes.

8/12 episodes (aka two thirds of the Cour) will likely be about the villains. And yet they’re pushed to the background so hard in this OP.

I want to dream, and I want to believe that this OP is going to magically change when MVA starts. The song fits super well, and I can imagine like an inversion of the OP but from the Villain side! Wouldn’t that be neat? Imagine right after the “it’s alright” part Shigaraki just freaking decays the title card... oh man that would be so cool. But, alas, I highly doubt they’d do that.

Side rant, but you know what was so fun about MVA in the manga? It’s that, for 21 chapters, we leave the kids behind and the villains become our protagonists. Suddenly Shigaraki is the one we’re rooting for, suddenly we’re learning backstories for everyone, and suddenly we find ourselves just as attached to the villains as we are to the kids. It’s an inversion that’s SO RARE to find, and I think many people (myself included) were hoping it would be reflected in the OP.

A big part of being the protagonist means featuring heavily in the OP, and a lot of us just wanted the villains to get that honour, even if only once. As is, the OP still treats them as the antagonists when... really they aren’t. Not right now, at least.

So yeah, final thoughts on the OP are that it’s good, it’s just not very representative of the arcs it’s supposed to cover. If this was just for Endeavour Agency, I’d say it’s actually really cool, but if we assume that this is what will play for the Villain Arc, then it simply doesn’t do it’s job. And it makes me sad to say that because, again, this OP is really well done.

If I had to rate it? Hmmm

If Studio Bones actually grants my wish and creates a different visual for the Villain Arc (while using the same song) and then this version only plays for the Endeavour Agency Arc and the War Prologue? I’d give it an 8/10. It’s really good, but it could use a few more elements that are clearly derived from the Agency Arc (ahem, Todoroki siblings).

But if this is the OP that will play for the entire Cour? a 6.5/10. It’s nice, but it’s not representative of one of the arcs it’s going to cover. And, unlike other arcs like Pro Hero or Summer Exams, the villain Arc is so important and takes up so much time that it honestly feels like a bit of a disservice.

Now for the Ending

I want to say that I appreciate how soft this ending starts. This cour will likely feature a lot of episodes that end on... heavier themes, and I think the sight of peaceful, falling raindrops is the perfect way to let the audience process their emotions before starting the ending in earnest.

The song itself is very nice, and I like that it’s a bit slower than the more recent endings.

(Side note, but the FUNNIEST moment in the entire series is when Sir Nighteye dies because it’s so emotional and everyone is standing around his bed in his heartwrentching silence, only for the ending to come BLARING IN out of no where. If you forgot how jarringly hilarious it was, go listen to the Eri ending and tell me that’s not the funniest thing this series ever did. Anyways yeah I’m glad that’s not gonna happen this Cour).

This ending is a bit all over the place in terms of it’s visuals, but honestly I think it works. Most endings usually have a theme tying them together (all the Class 1A girls, a fantasy AU, old photographs, planning a party, etc) but this ending’s theme is a bit harder to identify.

That being said, I think it’s just supposed to show everyone going about their day. It’s calm, it’s peaceful, and it’s just very sweet to think about

I like this shot. Actually, scratch that, I like this whole sequence. I enjoy anything that allows Class 1A to chill and have fun.

Hawks is featured quite heavily in this ending which, fair. He’s pretty important in this arc.

I really love the shot where Endeavour immediately switches to Hawks, I thought that was a lot of fun, and very good symbolism on how Hawks wants to be like Endeavour. I also love all the shots of Baby Hawks, because it’s adorable.

Something about this shot is just so cute. It’s the little domestic things like waiting for a bus that make this ending feel... idk the word, real? It shows a side of the characters that we’ll never see in the episodes, but we know have to exist.

Like yes, of course the kids have to wait for the bus. We never see it, but of course there are those moments of quiet. Agh, I love it.

The villains also make an appearance and I’m very happy about that (I’d love to see more of the villains just chilling around, I think they deserve it). I kind of wish they weren’t sitting in a dark room for the sake of being edgy, since I think it would be nice to see the villains just... sort of existing, but honestly it’s still a nice shot. I also like how this shot sort of mirrors the first one with Class 1A (someone coming in while everyone else is sitting and waiting for them).

That being said, as much as I love looking at Dabi and his stupid face (affectionate)... why is Dabi the one getting the closeup?

Mind you, endings don’t need to be connected to their Cours (they can be, like the Eri one, but they don’t have to be). But this ending does seem to be connected to the arcs it intends to cover, given all the Hawks appearances, the boys wearing their work study scarves, etc.

So, I ask again, why Dabi? Out of the six League members, we learn the backstory for four of them in this arc (Shigaraki, Toga, Twice, and we very briefly learn about Spinner). The only two left out are Dabi and Compress.

I can only assume they chose Dabi because he’s constantly in contact with Hawks, and therefore that makes him important? If the OP told us anything, it’s that Bones values the Endeavour Agency Arc over the Villain Arc lol...

... Oh my gosh please tell me that’s not actually the reason Dabi is focused on here BONES WAI-

Anyways, the ending comes to a close with Hawks watching over the kids and Endeavour. The relaxing time is done, it’s time for work studies.

Overall impression? It’s great. It’s hard to screw up an ending, so as long as you have something pretty on screen, it’s wonderful.

I’ll give this a 9/10

#bnha #bnha season 5 #dabi #keigo takami #bnha season five #katsuki bakugo #shoto todoroki #mha season 5 #mha season five #bnha op #bnha opinions #izuku midoriya #bnha hawks #ok to reblog #actually yes please do reblog if you found this interesting #I worked hard on it

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eu1a1awrence · 3 years

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Release the Harpocrates!George analysis??

😳👉👈

OOOOOH ANON U HAVE UNLEASHED THE FLOOD GATES YES. YES I SHALL.

im kinda copy-pasting this from google docs so sorry if any formatting fucks up, and its incredibly selfserving and specific in an attempt to find any and all possible links (do i really believe that they investigated this hard into the mythology? no. would this still be cool as shit? yes!)

so anyway disclaimer i am no mythology historian so if any of this is wrong uh...... artistic license.?. also its kinda long. sorry in advance lmao

okay so harpocrates is a greek interpretation of horus (the ancient egyptian god of the sun). hes the greek god of silence/secrets, but the greeks sorta misinterpreted the egyptian symbol for child (because horus was often depicted as a child/child god) as a symbol for silence, and i kind of relate this to fanon mis/interpretations of georges character being naive (''Naive and weak, George usually doesn't know what to do'' via dsmp wiki.) when he's just as much a seasoned warrior as the others, he just doesnt get involved with it much.

additional meanings/symbols of harpocrates is that he was ‘the distant one’ or ‘the one who is above’, which i think relates directly to georges apathy (regardless of its fanon or canon misinterpretations). also possibly something about his developing relationship with dreamxd & his developing lore to being /more than/ human so to say.

so if we accept that george really IS harpocrates, there are several links - and here is where it becomes distinctly intricate in an attempt to find as many similarities as possible, and youll have to forgive me for it - one may draw between harpocrates, george, and their symbolism.

like that Horus is the form of the first sun, and george is one of the founding members of DSMP.

harpocrates is commonly represented by a sheaf of corn. George was desperate to get back to his wheat farming during the loreman streams

bad told george in those streams to 'ask the sky' if he should take bad's items' when dreamxd killed him. horus>sun god>the sun & moon are commonly referred to as his eyes. this could also be some sort of hint to dreamxd being an omniscient sort of being tho. or both. who knows

Harpocrates (at least, his egyptian form as the young horus) was often depicted on a lotus flower. Lotus flower symbolism seems incredibly relevant to DSMP. they symbolise purity (innocence, childishness, naivety; bad referred to his items as ‘infected’, and george has never been to visit the egg - perhaps he’s pure of it?), enlightenment (there is a lot of emphasis and continued references to knowledge, curiosity, and ‘knowing the truth’. Karl, dream, quackity, and fundy seem to currently be the main purveyors of this and ¾ of them have relations to george), self regeneration and rebirth (resurrection book).

like idk maybe its a huge reach (probably is tbh) but theres a lot of underlying symbolism???

lotus flowers are also used as symbols of the union of higher/lower egypt and the union of two kingdoms, which makes me think of, like, the inbetween and the other-side, or life/death, and sleep/awake, greater dsmp/lmanberg, i could probably go on.

in egyptian mythology, young horus’s parents were osiris (the god of the underworld/death) and isis (goddess of death/magic/healing). There are a few moments where george tries to make amends/healings (like telling dreamxd to apologise after being excessively violent, ‘we’ll make amends’ in his lorestream). also (this part is bullshit and selfserving because i just think its cool) but wilbur playing loreman, being georges dad, and wilburs canonical character being an omen of death and destruction and the fact that (young) horus’s father was osiris.

the fact that egyptian pharoahs were seen as reincarnations of horus to the king george arc but maybe this is pushing it a bit (as if the rest of it hasnt been)

SO. horus is commonly depicted with a falcon or a sparrowhawk head. falcons symbolise freedom and victory, and were also often related to war gods in egypt. Spiritually, a falcon symbolises wisdom and protection (again, another mention to knowledge/wisdom, and george is presumably desperate for protection as seen in his desperation for netherite armour from dreamXD). Sparrowhawks symbolise the need to tap into a warrior at any time; like george calling/inviting dreamXD to the SMP whenever he's online which im fairly sure was discussed in georges lore stream too?

also roses are sometimes symbolic of harpocrates. they are sometimes used to show guests that any topic discussed in the room receiving them is not to be repeated or discussed elsewhere: where have we seen roses recently? the syndicate. (also the in-between and the quackity art, if you want to pull it into other lore avenues. All of these thrive on secrecy; karl keeping his time travel a secret; the syndicate remaining secret; and quackity not telling anyone about much of what goes on las nevadas/his prison visits with dream).

anyway: this was like all just for fun and i dont think it’s going to come true at all, it would just be cool as anything :> apologies again if any of my facts are wrong im just trying to tie knots in the lore with wet spaghetti

also a lot of this was aided by help from @insert-cleverurl bc we spent like. a while brainrotting this on discord. :D maybe one day ill make more lore theory/analysis posts because i have a cool dream/dreamxd one bubbling away

#c!george #dsmp #dreamsmp #lore thoughts #georgenotfound #c!george lore #c!george analysis #kinda analysis #???? lol idk #im gay and i write fanfiction i just like thinking about the possibilities #and as a bamf george advocate i think this is a post i was legally obligated to make

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monkey-network · 4 years

Text

Why EVE is The Best

Heads up. I’m basically gonna sperg about this whole film, so spoilers for this twelve year old film. Enjoy!

Wall-E is one of my favorite films; I would gladly kill and extort to bring the sequel I had in mind to life in any way; animatics would pleased me if nothing else but anyways. I love this film and one of the biggest reasons for that is the character EVE, a character that stuck in my mind longer than most if you can believe. So, better time than any, Imma just ramble about why I love this character. And, before we begin, I’m gonna say EVE is a girl, Wall-E is a boy due to my brain believing they were respectively female- and male-coded for most of my life but do NOT let this stop you from envisioning them however you please. If they’re both girls or boys to you, all power to you. With that said, here we go...

The Design

Now I’m not saying she has the greatest robot design ever; I don’t look at eggs and remember better days when I got to watch that film for the first time in my old house. But Pixar certainly knew how to make simplicity work to perfection. Simple shape, simple mechanics, simple movements. All feeling right at home with her coming from the more advanced future, especially compared to Wall-E where he’s literally a more grounded looking robot. Thematically, this design is fucking genius. A scouter robot with the ability to fly with ease and yet carries a literal arm cannon with incredible fire power. Both expressing how she can have her head in the clouds, observational when necessary, and yet trigger happy amidst the slightest inconvenience or surprise. *MWAH* What the fuck? It’s a great duality where the hard, more logical exterior possesses a sweet and approachable core just waiting to be shown and it’s wonderful seeing Wall-E, this literal block head, fumble his way into having a simple conversation with her. Now I can’t really disassemble how the programming in Wall-E works where they can behave like humans but follow objectives like a machine... but, I can try. With this scene.

Now take this with a grain of salt, the inferencing is more to the imagination otherwise the fun of this movie is tarnished. But from this scene, it’s clear that in this universe robots can show feelings for one another but can’t be romantic with humans because they can recognize human emotions and reactions but do so in an automated sense. The film expresses their curiousity just enough to where their reactions to human things and functions are within reason and yet doesn’t toy with the viewer’s believability. EVE is capable of responding to Wall-E’s advances but doesn’t 100% reciprocate his feelings because Wall-E isn’t her directive (least not yet, that’s for later). Not to mention, she isn’t that adept at romance unlike Wall-E who, by being alone with Earth’s technology, was able to learn and process human romance through the Hello Dolly VHS and potentially other things over the years. So this conversation works with the two having their limited knowledge, we don’t know how much they know, and the film keeps focus on having a balance between somewhat logical reactions and minor impulsive humane reactions that makes them alive but only just enough so it doesn’t feel like them being robots is pointless... Phew. Speaking of which, you know what isn’t pointless? Her motherfucking buster cannon.

Her whole ass arm houses a gun capable of nuking an entire cargo ship in a matter of seconds and it makes sense that she’d have it cuz how can a scouter robot defend themselves but beyond that, it’s just so goddamn cool. Like yeah, I can express how this symbolizes about America and... how they want to fuck their guns or something but who cares. She has a FUCKING ARM CANNON and it’s badass, end of discussion.

The Hanger Moment

Much as I love the moment where the two are in space flying, I honestly say that this moment where the two are in Wall-E’s house during the darude sandstorm is incredibly important. EVE is reasonably taken to his home and naturally, when the lights come on, she looks through the stuff he gives to her. She gets to take it easy for once, things can be quiet after she blew up a whole ship, have a giggle or two at the trinkets he’s collected, with the cigarette lighter being a good tool that’ll be used for later.

She’s curious, bouncy, still a bit quick on the draw, but is nonetheless taking in a lot this robot on Earth has to offer. It’s this and the small 1v1 they had before that is a lovely seedling to not only their connection but EVE’s development on her own, where we hardly need dialogue to show how she’s feeling about it all. And yeah, I’m with plenty of people to say that if this movie was just about the two of them being on Earth it probably would’ve been the greatest Pixar film of all time for many. Fortunately the plot kicks in when Wall-E shows EVE the plant, forcing her to go dormant, thus pulling Wall-E into an adventure on the Axiom ship. And I say fortunately cuz this is where EVE goes from good to great as a character.

The Axiom

While it’s something where we all wish that this film wasn’t the densly plotted, society driven second half, I say the second half on the Axiom carries the film’s themes and character building for EVE to good heights. We enter EVE’s territory, the slick, iPhoney synthetic world where humans have become literal potatoes and everything’s more or less automated. For EVE, the first half of the film lets us see the more playful side of her and doesn’t mind being around Wall-E, but isn’t immediately won over with the concept of love. She’s still goal-oriented and trying to keep the two stuck on Earth would’ve made her arc as open-ended and ambiguous as The Good Dinosaur. Time on the axiom puts her original sense of thinking to the test when Wall-E tags along.

To share the bigger picture real quick, the human element of Wall-E is complimentary to Wall-E and EVE’s humane behavior. To quote RealJims’ honestly flawless analysis, “What better way to show the humanity in a robot than to be among humans that act like robots?” For Wall-E the robot, this works perfectly as a fish out of water story. His time on Earth affects not only a few humans, but other robots like MO and the secretary machine, as minor as it seems.

So when Wall-E seemingly fucks things up, EVE is rightfully peeved. His slip ups especially with the Diagnostics scene tests her goal-oriented nature and patience, to a tasteful comedic strength. Doesn’t mean they now turned Wall-E stupid, the film makes sure the monkey wrenches are only accidents from someone severely out of the loop of things. This leads them and us well into

The Depths of Space

The scene where Wall-E gets launched in the escape pod thrills me with joyfully painful suspense every time. EVE making a mad dash to him as Wall-E madly tries to get out of the soon exploding pod, leading to it exploding and we get this from EVE. The wide eyes of terror followed by the whispering “No”s gives me shivers every time I see it in full.

Now one could argue her concern was more for the plant getting destroyed, but I say she was more frightened at the idea of both Wall-E and the plant getting nuked. While Wall-E did make her mad, she nonetheless cared about him and wasn’t expecting the tiny bot asshole to send him to death. So it’s like, “Oh no, both my purpose and the one that helped me are both gone.”

Luckily, thanks to some foreshadowing, Wall-E made it out alive with the plant in safe keeping and EVE seeing Wall-E actually care about her goal makes her beam with joy, being that reasonable spark that brings the two closer together. I mean if your love interest cheated death to help you out, why wouldn’t it? Everything about this moment is what made EVE stick with me long after I watched the film; the emotional journey the director was able to convey with her is so well-built to this point, it’s still amazing how they were able to do it with little dialogue or facial expressions. I especially love the emptiness we get of the two of them in space, where it adds focus to the two of them especially. But my god, that’s only half of it...

The space dance sequence between the two is still one of Pixar’s most gorgeous scenes. The way Wall-E is able to keep up with the fire extinguisher after having trouble in the film’s beginning, the wide shots of space, the lovely glow of the engines, the music. I especially like to think of this scene as a parallel to EVE’s initial flight on Earth. For her, it was that rite of passage after the touchdown and now she gets to share that same moment with someone she’s grown to like or appreciate. Then again, this isn’t the moment where EVE loves Wall-E. We’re close, but we need that one inch to finally show her the truth. That’s when she sees

The Recordings

The moment where EVE gets to see the memories of her time on Earth, including her dormant stasis, is where shit finally clicks. She essentially gets to know how Wall-E felt not only about her, but about love. Even when she couldn’t be there, she sees now that Wall-E cared about her and is able to process what Wall-E processed when he looked at Hello Dolly at one point. Scene also works because getting her directive, or the plant, was generally done and done with, she finally gets time to focus on something else, on her feelings for someone else. This leads well into... the well that leads to...

The Dumpster Moment

The scene with the recordings is where things finally click, but the moment with EVE and Wall-E in the ship’s dump is where it comes together. After getting betrayed yet again by AUTO, EVE’s concerns are now less with the plant and more for Wall-E and thanks to the moment previous, I can totally buy this. It’s teeth gritting seeing her try to rescue a now broken Wall-E from getting ejected into space and losing his energy thanks to a destroyed chip. So when we see her finally toss the plant aside and says Wall-E is her directive now, I tear up. It feels like a genuine, built up declaration on her part; the moment where EVE can rationally return his feelings ten-fold and truly be there for him. But that isn’t all to it, because Wall-E reasonably struggles his way to the plant to show that to save him, they need to get to Earth which means getting the plant back to the core of the ship.

This gives EVE newfound resolve and puts that to the test, where she has to basically defect against AUTO who’s become the physical antagonist of the film. The escape sequence is a bit of a step down since putting humans in danger doesn’t really affect the film’s themes all that well, but I can’t argue that pitting the captain against AUTO is a bad climax.

The Death to Wall-E

Thinking about this film after so long, it is still pretty fucking shocking to realize how punishing they treat Wall-E in the final act. It’s even more shocking when you realize how the roles have reversed, where Wall-E focuses more on EVE’s goal with the plant instead of EVE herself and vice versa. Then again, I say it’s fair that they did this, to show how much Wall-E was willing to sacrifice for the one he loves which makes the painful wails we hear from EVE feel all the more impactful. Like you’re serious with her as she struggles to accept his death before they reach Earth. And speaking of Earth...

The Finale

Now, I can’t help but argue it’s an unfortunate plothole that EVE is somehow able to fully repair Wall-E in spite of never fixing anything else in the film. Then again, it’s fucking pumping seeing her move quick to put him back together and it’s that final stomp on the heart when, even when he’s fully restored, Wall-E bares no memories of her or anything. You see her desperately try to get him to remember anything only to be met with an emotionless, reset shell. In finally understanding Wall-E’s feelings of love, she can’t really be with him. Until...

True Love’s Kiss Saves the day

I can get scientific with how getting his memories back was possible, but I won’t because the scene just works. It’s quiet, takes it time, and that last eureka moment with the two truly get to hold hands makes up for any scattered logistics. I’d say this is where Wall-E finally gets the love, but the same can be said for EVE, after everything she went through. I’ve admittedly seen a few talk about how the female lead is only valid through the love of another, typically male, but I believe what works 120% here is that the two characters basically have themselves figured out, Wall-E more than EVE, and EVE’s journey is never hindered for a sudden realization to love. She still succeeds in her mission, but the stakes for her have risen once she comes to terms with her newfound feelings and these feelings aren’t out of pocket. Wall-E has his feelings for EVE from the getgo, but dedicates to helping EVE with the goal, even if it means death. The connection they get to have is earned and is what drives the plot. EVE earns what she realizes she wants and that makes her a great female protagonist in my eye.

The Conclusion

Wall-E is a pretty warm movie; a film how the love of two brings humanity to salvation and vice versa. How EVE and Wall-E’s love is synonymous to the intertwining of modern and older technology to shape the world. But honestly, that probably wouldn’t have worked as well without how great they made EVE as a character. Wall-E is great too, but it’s astonishing to see EVE’s journey with Wall-E and show her natural growth of understanding something as warm as romance. Her journey is pretty synonymous to how I feel with the movie overall. The time we get of them on Earth is symbiotic to the time we get in space; we get an intimate journey that expands to a film about society but remains personal and intimate nonetheless. And with EVE, we get this superbly fleshed out character that’s emotive, understanding, and above all gets a resolves that’s awesome to see every time I catch or just think about this film. What else is there to say?

They’re the Best.

#wall-e #Pixar #disney #EVE #movies #awesome #analysis #Good Stuff #long post

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mobius-prime · 4 years

Text

248. Sonic the Hedgehog #179

House of Cards (Part Two: Royal Flush)

Writer: Ian Flynn Pencils: Tracy Yardley! Colors: Jason Jensen

Sonic and Tails are still embroiled in their fight from last issue, with Sonic trying to convince Tails to stand down so he can rush off to stop Rosemary and Amadeus from doing anything stupid. Tails, of course, refuses, hitting him again, and Sonic angrily tells him that while he understands sticking up for his parents, he's not cool with this whole "punching your best friend" business, to which Tails simply yells that Sonic's had this coming for a long time.

Oof, this is even worse than we previously thought. Rosemary and Amadeus approach the castle's side entrance, and Amadeus is suspicious when the codes he enters on the keypad let him in without a problem, realizing that since they haven't been changed since his arrest this must mean Elias is inviting him in. Indeed, inside the castle we see Elias urging his wife Megan along with their baby daughter Alexis to take shelter inside the nursery while he deals with the revolutionaries breaking in. He quickly orders Nicole, standing nearby, not to wake up his father under any circumstances, just as Amadeus and Rosemary enter the room.

I mean, while you have a point, Elias, the city is hardly going to fall to anarchy the moment it stops being ruled by a monarch. Keeping the peace is kind of the entire point of a democracy. Rosemary calls him out, insisting he should listen to his people who were just calling for a reformation earlier that same day, but Elias insists he won't step down, so Amadeus draws his sword. Elias reveals two honestly pretty cool-looking short double-ended blades beneath his royal cloak, and thus, the two parties clash swords…

And speaking of a clash, Sonic has finally gotten tired of fighting Tails inside the jail, heckled as they are by all the onlookers. Sonic rushes outside, and Tails follows him angrily, and what follows is possibly the most bizarre and scattered string of accusations he could possibly make. He calls Sonic out for, in order: leaving him behind on a lot of missions when he was younger, teasing him when he talked about his own adventures (to which Sonic objects that he teases everyone), and finally not immediately breaking his father out of prison when he got arrested. Sonic is truly baffled by the last one, considering Amadeus wasn't even in jail for a full twelve hours, and then Tails finally screams out the real reason he's so angry - Fiona. Yep, that's right, he's still hung up on Fiona - or should I say, Ian is still hung up on using her as a weird plot point in Tails' character arc.

Okay. You guys already know how I feel about the whole "Tails loving Fiona" thing. It's weird and unnecessary and just doesn't seem to fit literally anything else about Tails' character. But let's assume for a second that it is a valid thing to be upset about and that the whole plot point isn't weird as hell. A ton of things have just fallen into place with his little speech here. Tails has indeed been acting weird ever since Sonic returned from space, and he and Sonic haven't had a single good, honest heart-to-heart about it in all that time. Things have been strained between them for a while, and honestly, I'd say this is even less about Fiona than it is about Sonic being careless and forgetting to show Tails that he actually respects him. He's gotten so used to taking Tails' devotion for granted that once things started getting tense, he didn't know how to handle it, and ended up settling on the less-than-healthy option of ignoring the problem and hoping it would go away. I've seen plenty of people point to this issue as a bad case of these two being totally out of character, but the problem that people cite always seems to be that Sonic and Tails are fighting at all, rather than what they're fighting about. And frankly, while Tails' initial stated reason for fighting Sonic - to help his parents overthrow the government - didn't make a ton of sense, anyone who knows anything about psychology knows that when one person is mad at another but isn't able to properly express why, those bottled up feelings can come bursting out in all sorts of bizarre ways, including many that don't seem to make any outward sense. And, of course, this can include blaming the other person for things that seem totally out of the blue - because that's not actually what they're angry about at all.

My takeaway from all this is that, again, Tails is not angry about the Fiona thing so much as that the Fiona thing represents a lot of what he has actually been upset about, and he's been carrying around these feelings of resentment that have been slowly building up for years. It's a very believable and reasonable reason for these two to end up butting heads, especially considering Sonic can be quite arrogant and self-centered at times, even without meaning to. In essence, what Tails is ultimately expressing in this whole outburst is that he's no longer content to simply be the forgotten sidekick who always has to take a backseat to Sonic's glory. And if you're wondering why Tails in the comics needs this character arc but not Tails in the games, that very premise is mistaken from the get-go - because he did get this moment of character growth in the games, just under totally different circumstances. Remember how the comics' Sonic Adventure arc never included Tails battling the Egg Walker or saving Station Square from the missile Eggman fired? In the games, that was a very important part of Tails' growth as a character - learning that he could be independent from Sonic and didn’t always have to rely on him or trail behind him, that he could be a hero in his own right. But that entire sequence was cut from the version of the story we got in the comics, and thus, Tails was still left as the sidekick, the little kid, the dependent younger brother without a family of his own. I would imagine that he had to teach himself a lot of that lost independence in the year that Sonic was missing - and it had to be jarring once he got over his initial joy at having Sonic back in his life, the realization that to Sonic, he was still the little dependent sidekick when he'd grown so much since those days. And since his life situation has so drastically changed even in just the last few weeks, all of these feelings have finally come bursting out of him in the form of siding with his biological parents over Sonic. With his above comments about Fiona and about taking away everything he cares about, the entire situation has just become crystal clear to Sonic, and now he wants to make amends, finally knowing exactly what has been bothering Tails this whole time.

But ANYWAY! While all that is going on above, Elias and Amadeus continue to battle it out, only to be shocked by the sudden appearance of a solid wall of nanites in between them. Nicole cheerfully announces from the doorway that while Elias told her not to wake up his father, he said absolutely nothing about waking up Sally, and that's exactly what she's done, with Sally glaring at the two combatants in stark disapproval.

See, this is why Sally should have been involved in the proceedings from the beginning. Outside, Tails has halted his attack after Sonic's words, uncertain about what Sonic is getting at, so Sonic explains himself.

There you go, Sonic. That was what he needed all along - a genuine apology and understanding of his feelings. Tails calms down once Sonic reassures him he's being sincere, and Sonic lightens the mood by joking that Tails has gotten too good at kicking butt for Sonic to want to continue being beaten on by him. Tails says he still wants to talk a few things out, but for now, they agree to team up, rushing to the castle to try to prevent Tails' parents from doing anything they'll regret. They're quite taken aback when they burst through the doors only to find Amadeus and Elias sitting down to a peaceful talk over tea, having agreed on a compromise. The government will be reformed into a combination of a democracy and a monarchy, with a council of six elected citizens being presided over by the king as a seventh member. This way, the people have a government that actually represents them, while they don't lose their monarchical heritage! That's actually probably the best solution that could have possibly been reached, and I applaud these two for having agreed on such an elegant solution.

Oh, Maximillian, so stuck in your old ways. Honestly, though, all things considered, I actually do not think he's a bad person. He's stuck in rigid tradition, but it was something he was indoctrinated into his whole life, and it's not surprising he'd be so resistant to change, especially after everything he's been through in his life. Remember, this guy can't be older than his mid-forties - it's not like he's some old and wizened ruler who has had time to process his life's experiences, he's barely halfway through an ordinary person's life span! That's a lot to deal with in a short amount of time. Outside, Sonic, Tails, and Sally watch the election take place, and Sonic asks Sally why she didn't run for a spot on the council, to which she slyly replies that it's likely for the same reason that Sonic didn't. I presume that means that she wants to have free time to herself to help lead the Freedom Fighters and not continue to be stuck at home, but we don't get a lot of time to think about that, because out of goddamn nowhere, Dimitri shows up in his little head-bubble and scares the living hell out of all three of the heroes, asking after Knuckles and warning them that Enerjak has returned…

#nala reads archie sonic preboot #archie sonic #archie sonic preboot #sonic the hedgehog #sth 179 #writer: ian flynn #pencils: tracy yardley #colors: jason jensen

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himbowelsh · 4 years

Note

paralysis and baberoe for the injury/sickness meme please?

a little fall of meme can hardly hurt me now ( accepting )

AN: So, this spiraled a bit, and turned long... you probably didn’t sign up for all of this, but whoop, here’s a fake snake species created just for the angst!!

It happens too quick to see — even in the aftermath, when they’re both blinking at each other in confusion and wondering exactly what the hell happened. This is what Babe knows for sure: he and Doc Roe are trudging through a wooded shortcut just discovered by Janovec this morning, because Babe wants to show Gene this really cool lake he found, because Gene seems like the sort of person who likes lakes… and Gene is a few steps ahead of him, moving fluidly through the woods, and he’s saying something Babe’s only half-listening to because the sunlight dappled through trees to hit Gene’s inky hair is something to see, okay, and then Gene must ask him a question he completely misses because Gene turns to him, and his eyes are smiling where his mouth isn’t, and he takes a step back…

Crack. Snap. “Shit!”

So, there are snakes in Austria. This would have been a nice thing to mention beforehand.

“Gene?” The word leaves Babe’s mouth like a foreign object. He can’t really process what he’s seeing, is the thing — and from the look on Gene’s face, neither can he. He's bent forward with one leg lifted lightly over the ground, hand clasped to his ankle. It takes a minute for Gene to look up at Babe again. When he does, his mouth is tight around the edges; all traces of that silent laughter are gone.

“This might be bad,” he declares, and lifts his hand to show blood.

“Jesus Christ!”

Babe can’t help cringing, his entire body arcing into himself, like the two tiny punctures on Gene’s ankle are the goriest sight he’s ever seen. Far from it, really… but just the idea of some slimy thing digging its teeth in him stings, never mind actually looking at it. The wound on Gene’s ankle is bright red, leaking blood like twin bullet wounds. It’s not spurting out or anything, not like when Jackson got hit, but… Jesus, those are bites. Goddamn bites. Babe is so busy staring at the snake marks that he almost forgets Gene is staring at him.

“Don’t you pass out on me, Heffron,” Gene orders, voice sharp as steel.

Babe snaps back to attention with army-honed quickness, a wheeze escaping him as he straightens up. “No… no way. It’s fine. Christ, it’s okay, Gene.”

“Actually, it’s poisoned,” Gene remarks mildly.

“What?”

“Two holes means venomous.” Gene’s hand hovers over the ankle, like even he’s uncertain what to do about it, and that scares Babe more than anything else. “Not to mention, it burns like hell.”

Suddenly, the simple act of standing feels like running through open fire. Babe turns his attention to the ground, hopping on his toes, like more snakes are about to slither in and eat him alive… but he only catches sight of movement on the ground not far from Gene. A sleek brown serpent slithers away into the bushes. Other than that, the forest floor is bare.

“Think I stepped on it,” Gene continues, voice tight and aggravated. “No wonder it bit me, but he sure blends in — hopping won’t help you, Heffron, cut that out.”

“Who decided not to mention snakes?”

“You didn’t listen when they mentioned snakes,” Gene corrects. His chest is kinda heaving, like drawing breath takes more effort, but that’s got to just be from adrenaline, right? Or could it be the snakes? Babe’s never seen a goddamn snake before, he lives in South fuckin’ Philly, he doesn’t know these things — “We got antivenom back at base, but ain’t had to use it before. Some of these fellas can be nasty customers.”

“No kidding.” Babe is still eyeing Gene’s bite like it’s about to bite him. Venom… if the bite’s poisoned, then why does it look so simple? Like any old cut his little sister could get from playing with Ma’s sewing needles, or what Babe’s been dumb enough to do to himself on old nails. Just… punctures. Not any weird colors, not leaking anything... except they were made with teeth, from a goddamn serpent, and that’s all the difference.

Not to mention, if that wound’s poisoned, doesn’t that mean...

Suddenly, the word venom clicks in his head, like he’s just translated it from a different language. People get sick from snake bites; they even die from them. Something in Babe’s stomach bottoms out, a new wave of panic gripping him. They’ve gotta get Gene back to town, and to that antivenom. Now.

“Alright, Gene. Up and at ‘em!” In the time Babe’s spent processing this, Gene sat down hard on the ground… which seems like the worst place to be for a fella who's already been a snake’s chew toy once today. Babe leans forward, holding out a hand, but Gene just blinks at it.

“Yeah,” he says slowly, like Babe’s just told a joke he doesn’t get. “Okay.”

“Okay, get up! Not — Gene, we’ve been over this already, for chrissakes —“ Babe seizes hold of his hand for him, and hauls him up in one fell swoop. It helps that Gene doesn’t weigh all that much — but even this weight is a lot, when his legs buckle as soon as he’s on his feet. Yelping, Babe scrambles to steady him, an arm locking around his ribcage. “What the hell, Gene?”

“Sorry, sorry…” Gene forces himself back upright, but has to brace too much of his weight against Babe for either of them to pretend it hadn’t happened at all. “Leg, uhh, feels weird. Getting all numb.”

“How fast does the venom spread?”

“Well, it depends on the snake, don’t it? Should have asked him how quick he wanted to kill me.” And, okay, Babe deserves the annoyed clip in his voice, but Gene talking about death so casually does nothing for his swelling panic. “Seems to work pretty fast. I’ve never seen this before, Heffron, so I don’t know.”

They don’t have any time to stand around bickering about this. Babe leads Gene forward, one step after another. This time, Gene manages to stay upright; even though he’s obviously favoring one leg over another, he matches Babe’s pace. “We ain’t got snakes back in Philly, so this is all new to me,” Babe declares, just to say something in his own defense. “Haven’t you got snakes down in Louisiana?”

“Sure. But in Bayou Chene, our reptiles’ve got a lot more teeth. Not to mention legs.” At Babe’s look of aghast horror, Gene just huffs. “You’ll figure it out, Heffron.”

“Don’t tell me the little fuckers can grow legs. Gene? You’re messing with me, right? He can’t run after us, can it? Jesus, Mary and—“

Gene stumbles again, so suddenly that Babe barely has the chance to catch him. One second he’s walking, and the next —

“C’mon, Gene,” Babe huffs, propping the man back upright. “I know it hurts, but we aren’t too far. You gotta make it back.”

“I’m trying,” Gene snaps, with a ferocity that takes Babe aback. He’s never heard that growl in the old Doc’s voice, or seen such wire-taut frustration in his eyes. Gene’s hands clench into fists, one gripping his knee and the other steadied against Babe’s chest. It takes a moment before he’s willing to put weight on it again. The skin around the cut is already bright red and inflamed; as Babe watches, he swears he can see it swell up a bit more, like a goddamn balloon. It’s hell to look at, so he can’t imagine what Gene’s got to be feeling.

As soon as Gene tests his weight, the leg buckles. He falls to one knee, a sharp curse escaping him; a second later, in his struggle to scramble back up, he just manages to fall sideways and land on his ass.

Babe is left feeling profoundly helpless — eager to help, but certain of wounding Gene’s pride if he tries. “What — what’s wrong with it?” he asks instead, sounding too much like a frightened kid.

Gene’s hand hovers over the swollen ankle... but at the first touch he draws away with a hiss. Instead, he fondles up his calf, brows knit together and face paler than usual. “It…” he says, and pauses for a long moment. When he draws in a breath, it trembles. “It’s really burning. Burning bad, but it’s not… Heffron, I don’t know. Don’t think I can walk on it.”

“Why not?” Babe demands, desperate.

“Because it’s gone numb.” When Gene looks up, his eyes are black and piercing; they cut straight through Babe’s soul. “I can’t feel my leg, Babe. All the way up to the knee, and it’s moving fast.”

“What the hell’s it doing? Paralyzing you?”

He means it as a joke. Gene doesn’t laugh.

“Shit.” Babe presses a hand to his face, then runs it through his hair with earnest. “Shit, shit, shit. Will that kill you? It sounds like it can kill you.”

“Depends on how quick it gets to my lungs.” The amazing thing is how calm Gene sounds, in spite of it all. No one should sound that fucking calm while a deadly toxin’s blazing through their system. If anyone could, it’s Gene Roe — but all the panic he doesn’t have, Babe’s got in spades. For a moment, it’s paralyzing.

The thought clicks in his head too late; he goes still, and barks out a harsh, sudden laugh. Panic is paralyzing him while Gene’s literally being paralyzed.

Goddammit, Heffron, get your shit together.

“Okay,” he says — and finally, finally, he’s not two inches away from tumbling over the edge. Maybe he doesn’t know what’s happening, but he can at least sound like it. “You really think you can’t walk on it, huh?” When Gene shakes his head, eyes grin, Babe’s mouth goes tight. “Okay! We got two options here, Gene. We could sit and wait for your goddamn lungs to freeze up, or —“ Babe swallows hard, like forcing an entire egg down his throat, and straightens his shoulders. “Or, I gotta carry you the rest of the way.”

It’s not ideal. They both know it. Gene isn't that light, Babe isn’t that strong, and a fella has a certain amount of dignity even when he might be dying. The thing is — they don’t have any other options. Sitting and waiting is out of the question, so far out of the question that it ain’t a question at all. If they don’t move, Gene will just get worse... and no way in hell is Babe letting that happen.

Their eyes lock, and a ripple of unspoken communication passes between them. Something in Gene’s expression steels itself, while Babe forces a deep breath.

“Alright,” Gene says. “Let’s go.”

Babe hits the ground on one knee, and Gene’s arms wrap around his neck a second later. Credit where credit’s due, he’s not taking any chances; no way will Babe be able to drop him when Gene’s got a grip like a clingy toddler, locking around his neck like he’s half-set on strangling him. Babe chokes involuntarily, and Gene quickly eases up; a muttered “sorry” rumbles in his ear as the grip adjusts.

When Gene finally feels steady, Babe hauls himself to his feet, dragging the other man up with him. Now, Gene’s full weight is really braced against him, and it hurts. Hastily, Babe scrambles to get a more solid grip, hunching forward to ease him up. After a moment, he feels Gene leave the ground, most of that weight settling on his shoulders and back.

“Jesus, Doc,” he mutters. “You been storin’ food through the winter? Bastogne’s over now, buddy, you can share the wealth!”

Gene cuffs him lightly on the side of the head. In spite of the situation, Babe laughs.

After that, it’s just… putting one foot in front of the other. A harder task than you’d think, because of Babe thought dragging him alone was tough, carrying a guy is even worse. Is this how Luz feels all the time, with his massive radio? Better yet, where’s Bull Randleman when you need him? If Babe was meant to haul fellas around like potato sacks, he wouldn’t have played the goddamn trumpet in high school. Despite the weight, he steels himself and pushes forward. Going is slower than he’d like, but at least they’re moving. Base isn’t that far away, and they’re still going faster than they would if Gene were walking on his own.

Gradually, Babe’s breathing grows more labored. His body working overtime to carry twice its weight, struggling to keep up. It takes him too long to realize he isn’t the only one. Gene’s body is working harder too; his breaths are gradually turning into pants, arms tightening around Babe’s shoulders as his legs slowly grow slack. Through their layers of clothing, Babe can feel Gene’s heartbeat against his back. It’s too damn fast.

“How you holdin’ in there, Gene?” he asks, after his grip on the other man’s ass nearly slips. Not much longer now — it can’t be long, can it?

“I’m — uhh —“ Gene takes too long to answer, and that scares Babe the most. His voice is hoarse, too low to be called anything but a murmur. “Been better.”

“Yeah, I bet.” And that tells Babe exactly nothing. “What are you feeling?”

“Uh,” says Gene.

“Okay, better question, what aren’t you feeling?”

“Well — my legs are still there, right?”

Jesus Christ. “Yeah, they’re still there.”

“All I need to know.”

Forcing the worry out of his mind, Babe charges forward. At last, the path is more road than wilderness, somewhere familiar. More sure of himself now, Babe leads the way, silently praying for a Jeep to pass. Anything that can get them there quicker will be a godsend; as it is, they’re fifteen minutes out from any help, and he’s really not sure Gene can last that long.

The burden on his back only grows heavier as Gene becomes more and more dead weight. He murmurs something about his fingers, and suddenly his hands have grown slack; Babe just tightens his grip, knowing that if Gene can no longer hang on, the situation’s going to get a whole lot harder. What other options does he have? Fireman’s hold? Bridal carry? Hell, he could try it —

“Babe,” Gene mutters, pressing the word into the side of his neck as his head lolls against Babe’s shoulder. “We almost there?”

“Yeah, buddy. Almost. Stay with me, okay?”

“‘Kay,” Gene agrees, and doesn’t try to speak again. Maybe he doesn’t have the energy; maybe he just can’t get the words together. It’s hard to tell which idea scares Babe the most.

He’s just readjusting his grip on Gene’s limp lower body when a distinctive rattle echoes from further down the path. Babe goes tense. A second later, the truck rounds the corner, in all its rattling glory. With a whoop, Babe charges straight for it, practically bouncing in the middle of the road.

“Hold it! Hey, stop the damn car!”

The driver is a stranger, a supply man who doesn’t look a bit happy about being halted on his route. “What’s goin’ on here?” he demands, looking Babe and his unusual cargo up and down.

Babe doesn’t even bother replying. Before the guy can protest, he slings Gene up into the truckbed and scrambles in after him, slamming on the hood for good measure. “Sorry, buddy, but you gotta turn around. Get us to the hospital now!”

“Hospital? What for?”

“For crissakes, I’ll tell ya as we drive, just go! It’s an emergency!”

The engine rumbles to life again. Babe hunches over Gene, eager to protect him from the dust and smog. Underneath him, Gene is tense and unmoving; each breath rattles in Babe’s ears, louder than the truck as it begins to gutter down the road. After a moment, it’s safe enough to pull back. Babe forces himself up on aching arms to regard Gene’s face, and nearly chokes on his own heart.

Gene’s face is colorless. Completely drained, a stark milky-grey like laundry water after Ma’s gotten through with it. His mouth hangs half-open, lips shuddering as he clings to every earnest breath. Black eyes, darker than ever in his ghostly face, peer blankly up at the sky. Desperate to rouse him, Babe presses a hand against his face, and finds that his skin is burning.

“Shit, shit — Gene! Stay with me, buddy!”

It takes a minute for the life to stir back in his eyes. “Where’m I gonna go?” Gene finally demands, sounding affronted. God help them both, Babe can’t help barking out a hoarse laugh.

“Nowhere. Goddamn nowhere, cause I’m not gonna let you. We’re almost there, okay?” Babe presses down on his shoulders, like he can squeeze some feeling back into Gene’s rapidly-numbing body; no doubt the terror on his own face is obvious, but Gene’s so out of it that there’s a chance he can’t tell. That’s what Babe clings to, though the agonizing, rattling ride — he’s gotta be strong for Gene’s sake. He draws Gene close to his chest, gripping him tight, feet braced against the side of the truck to support them both. Each breath is precious; he charts the rhythm of Gene’s breathing, trying to steady it with his own. At some point, Gene tried to raise an arm, only for it to flop back down… but when Babe asks him if he’s getting any worse, he just shakes his head. Probably a lie, but Babe’ll take it.

“Gonna be alright, Gene,” he mutters as the town square finally rattles into view ahead. “Look. We’re here. Can you see that we’re here?”

“Can’t lift my head,” is all Gene mutters.

Babe lifts it for him. Something in Gene’s cloudy expression clears at the sight of familiar surroundings — and the tiny group of Easy men, clustered on the street corner, smoking and smirking at each other. Babe doesn’t pause to explain anything, even to their poor driver. As soon as the truck jutters to a stop, he springs out, waving his friends over. “Thank god — Hashey, find a medic, will ya? Or a surgeon, get a goddamn surgeon, tell him there’s a snake bite — the two of you, come on, help me lift him. Doc’s in bad shape.”

This is a familiar song and dance by now. They’ve done this before, after sneak attacks and harebrained patrols, scrambling into action to aid a wounded friend. Only thing different now is that the war’s over, and it’s Doc on the table. Luckily, no one needs to be told twice. Hashey sprints off like the devil’s on his heels, while Ramirez and Alley quickly join Babe’s cause; together, they’re able to slide Gene’s body towards the edge of the truck, laying him out flat. From there, no one’s really certain what to do. Babe stands near Gene’s head, practically cradling him, while the other men exchange bewildered, rattled glances.

“A snake, Babe?” Alley demands.

“A fucking snake,” Babe confirms.

Everything’s a blur from there. Hashey returns, a surgeon on his heels; he’s got a needle the size of Babe’s whole arm, and that’s the point things get real hazy. Babe has to shut his eyes past a wave of dizziness, but he hears Gene gasp in pain, the surgeon mutter something, and the shuffle of men moving a limp body. By the time Gene’s steady on a cot, being hauled into the building, his eyes are shut, head killing back.

And Babe’s left… standing. Useless, alone, and wondering if he was any help at all.

“Jesus Christ, Babe,” Alley hisses, dragging a hand through his hair. Hashey whistles, staring at the ground. Ramirez looks like he’s just chugged three week old stew.

Babe slumps back against the bed of the truck, exhausted. His heart stutters in his chest; his throat feels tight. After a minute, he slumps forward like his strings have been cut, hands coming up to cradle his head.

“Hey, everything alright?” a voice from the front of the truck calls. After a minute, the driver leans his head out, just enough to look at Babe and his friends. “Private, is your friend going to be okay?”

“I don’t know,” Babe mutters — and then, for the guy’s benefit, “Can’t say yet. They’ve gotta… work on him, or some shit.”

“You did a hell of a job getting him here,” is all the driver says — and, when Babe looks back in surprise, just shrugs. “Like a man possessed. I couldn’t have kept driving if I wanted to. Never seen anybody look like that.”

Babe huffs a sigh. It rattles in his chest, hurting as it comes out, but he manages to summon a smile. “Th- thanks, pal.” Giving the truck an affectionate pat, he pushes himself off, and offers the driver a wave.

The driver waves back. With a guttural roar, the engine starts back up again; after a minute, the truck and it’s cargo rattle off down the street, out of sight.

Babe tucks his hands in his pants and sighs. His head turns up to the sky, as if drawn there.

“Okay,” he says to his friends. “Who’s got some damn cigarettes?”

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

“You saved my life.”

He can’t bring himself to meet Gene’s eyes. Babe stares at the blanket instead — the crisp, clean, certified hospital blanket, the kind you’d only find in a town that hasn’t been bombed to hell. Jesus, what they wouldn’t have killed for a set-up like this in Bastogne; a roof over their heads, a warm bed, blankets, even pillows. Fluffy ones, stuffed with actual feathers.

“Who knew all you gotta do to live it up ‘round here is almost die?” Babe quipped when he walked in — a stupid crack, but it brought a tiny smile to Gene’s washed out face, so damn him if it wasn’t a victory.

Now, though… he can’t quite do it. Even though Gene’s okay — and there’s no question of that anymore, now that the anti-venom’s done its work and the fever’s cleared up — it’s all too fresh, too raw to dwell on. Babe’s gotten good at shoving the awful things aside, smothering them under heaps of snow until he can only feel the weight of them, not the sting. Seeing Gene like that… god, it hurt, Hurt he hadn’t felt since Julian, since Jackson, since watching friends choke and die while being able to do nothing for them. That helplessness has become familiar as an aching scar; Babe knows he��ll never forget it, for as long as he lives, but feeling it with this man in his arms was something else.

“You scared the hell out of me, Gene,” he finally manages, still staring at the blanket. “Wasn’t your fault, but… Christ. I never wanna see that again. Never wanna feel that damn scared. Never wanna feel like… like I might lose you too.” Finally, he drags his gaze up, to meet Gene’s impossibly dark eyes. “Please don’t do that again.”

Gene stares at him for a long moment, unmoving. It’s like he’s paralyzed all over again; Babe can barely stand it.

Finally, a flash of movement draws Babe’s gaze down again. There, inching across the blanket — Gene’s hand, fingers flexing, reaching towards home

“Hey, you’re not supposed to try and move ‘til that stuff’s out of you completely —“

“I’m alright.” Gene’s voice is soft, like something fragile. When his hand finds Babe’s, though, he’s strong; he grips Babe like a promise, the sort neither of them are bold enough to break. They’re both alive, both here, and neither one is going anywhere. That’s enough for now.

“Thank you, Babe,” Gene murmurs, and Babe’s heart stutters in his chest.

“Yeah… any time, Doc.”

#baberoe #babe heffron #eugene roe #band of brothers #hbo war #my writing #Anonymous

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aforgottenballad · 4 years

Text

Feelings on Sally Face Episode 5

Under a read more for obvious reasons, includes heavy spoilers and potentially triggering subjects.

Disclaimer: I might miss-remember some parts of the story or have missed a piece of lore that would settle minor complaints. I am however disappointed in the ending as a whole and in some of the very harmful tropes included in it. But I’m also just some dude online with an opinion, and you can stop reading at any time.

Rant under cut.

Alright ya’ll. I’ve had a couple days to digest the ending to Sally Face. While playing, I genuinely enjoyed some elements of the game. The chapter started on a dark but nearly hopeful note. Neil and Ash were still working to bring the cult down. It seemed likely Sal would be resurrected. Todd had apparently escaped the hospital, and that had potential to be either a very very good or very very bad thing. Maple was possessed by whatever fucked up the souls of the other apartment tenants, but hey! At least her and Neil weren’t in on the cult like so many fans predicted. Unfortunately, this series has a way of getting darker and darker as it progresses. First thing that bugged me was the lore drop about how the cult was founded. A Native American tribe. Right. Because why wouldn’t Indigenous peoples be in a story without being part of some mystical occult backstory, portrayed as mysterious historical props who worshiped something dark and evil instead of being portrayed as human beings.

But I continued. I really enjoyed playing as Ashley and getting some insight into her character. I enjoyed the task of planting the C4 in the temple... catacomb... thing. We get to see Travis again! I was excited that a lot of us were right about him being indoctrinated but also working to fight the cult from the inside. We knew he had some good in him after all.

When Ash tries to resurrect Sal, we get even more insight into her character, and unfortunately a lot of it is “Grieving, distraught, and full of self-blame”. I want to hug her. Sal’s spirit is apparently revived by those pyramids, and he can dimension warp. We meet Jim, or what’s left of him, and he doesn’t give a fuck about anything anymore but agrees to help Sal anyway. This is, narratively speaking, weird as hell. His entire character arc for four episodes was “Loved his family so much he sacrificed himself to save them”, and suddenly he’s just some glowy dude attached to Magic Spirit Tubes who doesn’t give half a shit. I guess it makes sense as a way to wrap up why he’s been able to drift between worlds but... if he doesn’t care about any of that anymore why help Sal? And what about Rosenberg? Is she like Jim, or do we just have to assume she’s magical because her family helped found the cult? (Explained in an easter egg later on, because this game doesn’t just drop its lore. Not even the CRUCIAL lore. You have to achievement hunt for it.) Sal can enter various doors in the House In The Void to step into alternate realities, and this was my favorite aspect of the game. Each door has a different art style, and I really liked seeing these alternate realities. Steve probably worked the hardest and longest on drawing out and coding these scenes. I genuinely applaud the man for the work put into this endeavor I’m assuming all by himself.

Meanwhile, Ash tries to unbind Larry’s soul from the tree house he died in, which doesn’t work. Did we ever find out why his body was never found? No? Ok that seems important.

After each puzzle, Sal’s body is restored a little bit at a time, but even after turning on all the pyramids and solving the mysteries behind all three doors, he can’t make it back to the “real” world. So Ashley kills herself. Or tries to. Because apparently that’s the only way to complete the ritual, and also because she feels really bad about not unbinding Larry’s soul and about not fixing Sal. Again, I want to hug her, but I have to watch her hurt herself instead, cause Steve doesn’t let us have nice things.

Okay, so this is a gorey game. We know. But one of the BIGGEST no-nos suicide prevention networks will tell you when consulting them about mental illness and suicide in media is NOT to show a graphic suicide in progress. Steve is aware a lot of his fans are A) Young teens to young adults B) Struggling with mental illness.

His main character suffers from depression and anxiety and this fact has resonated with hundreds of fans. It’s irresponsible to purposefully include a graphic suicide attempt, but he did it last chapter, showing a gunshot suicide’s aftermath, then he did it again with Ashley. Call me a wiener if you like, point out the graphic scenes from earlier in the game and call me a hypocrite for not being upset by that, but you have to admit the Spongebob-close-up-shot look to those scenes have a totally different feel. Speaking as someone who actually has a pretty thick skin, but is concerned about the fans who might be in a worse place or who could be as young as 12, that was fucked up.

Anyway, Ash’s attempt doesn’t take, because she’s struck by magic lightning, which infuses Sal’s soul into her. Now her arm is one of those stretchy sticky hands, but with bio luminescence and the ability to kick cultist ass. I actually thought this part was really cool, and was super ready to go on a cultist smacking spree. But again, we can’t have nice things and before we get to do anything badass we have to look at gruesome imagery again.

You get to see Void Larry, who is now old and a wizard or something, but first...

Surprise! Maple and Neil are dead! Not just dead, but hung up from hooks covered in blood! And naked!

Hey?? Hey Steve????? You know how they’re both POC?? And that lynching imagery is EXTREMELY NOT GOOD?!!????

“Two white people are hung up with them” YEAH? WELL WE’VE NEVER SEEN THOSE CHARACTERS BEFORE. THEY’RE JUST RANDOM PEOPLE.

I’ve seen people arguing “The white characters go through terrible things too” but it’s still really fucked up that by the end of the game, every. Single. Person of color. In the game. Has died. Gruesomely. It’s a gorey, dark, bleak game, and white characters die as well, gruesomely; but not all of them. None of them that are named are shown strung up, naked. That’s fucked up. That isn’t okay.

There are also a total of three gay characters in this game. One is Todd, who goes through the standard “bad bad stuff” the game is used to, is the white one, and he survives. One is Neil, one of the aforementioned people of color who died horribly and who only really existed to be Todd’s boyfriend and therefore a source of angst for Todd when he dies. The third is Travis, another man of color, and an abuse victim, who dies to fulfill his character arc as an abuse victim, which is also really shitty to see over and over again as an abuse survivor.

Look, I know Steve pulled a lot of inspiration from old TV shows and horror series that probably weren’t all “politically correct”. I know it’s always been kind of an edgy and dark game. I know Steve probably didn’t think about the repercussions of all his narrative choices. But I also know he actively ignored some people offering to educate him on issues he has no experience with. I know he worked hard on this game, by himself, but we as fans have paid him and waited for years and it isn’t selfish or ungrateful to be hurt and disappointed. He knows his audience is diverse, he knows a lot of us were attracted to the game because of a gender nonconforming main character, a main character who struggles with mental illness, a cast that isn’t 100% white and conventionally attractive. Of course he didn’t need to change the plot for us! It’s his game, his vision, but the least he could have done is research how to not actively hurt and alienate a good portion of us. I don’t think anyone is bad or racist for still finding solace in the characters and in what the story was before this, I’m not attacking you personally, whoever is reading this. I, personally, still have loads of Sally Face art in my queue, I still have active role plays going on, my Sal wig is sitting like 8 feet away waiting for the next time my friends want to take cosplay pictures. I still enjoyed playing the game for the most part. Without this game I wouldn’t even know most of my current friends. It’s just really shitty how it ended like this, and a lot of people I talk to daily either feel too sick to even talk about the game anymore after seeing people like them treated like trash by the narrative or try to focus on the good things they got out of just being part of the fandom but don’t feel comfortable supporting the developer anymore.

Even if there wasn’t all these hurtful tropes packed into the game, and yes, even after unlocking the epilogue, the game just feels cold. It feels rushed, probably because of how much time went into the alternate dimension gimmick. I wish Steve had at least consulted people over the script. It felt like not only did he pour all his work into experimenting with the mixed media, he also just took whatever expectations the fans had and went somewhere completely different just to have his story be “unpredictable”. That isn’t always a good thing. Plot twists, downer endings, dark and scary imagery, all of these things can be done beautifully, but in this case it felt like he just wanted the series to end. The game didn’t subvert expectations, it fed into the harmful stereotypes and tropes all the fans were so hopeful it wouldn’t.

...On top of not making any sense unless you’re able to 100% all the puzzles. And even when you do, it feels like all the bad stuff happened for no reason. The ending doesn’t conclude anything. Even when you unlock the epilogue, all it tells you is that a third of the world has died and that the main cast haven’t accomplished much besides “Trying to help”. Sal and Todd have powers now, but that isn’t elaborated on much. Larry’s spirit is missing, if he even exists in any plane at all anymore. It doesn’t even mention what’s going on with Ash. It just feels like nothing mattered.

#sally face #long post #analysis #sally face spoilers #chapter 5 spoilers

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possessedartist · 4 years

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Okay Castlevania Season 3 Thoughts

I’ve been watching it on/off for the past four days since I got busy at points but I just finished it about a hour ago.

(seems like everyone is either shitting on it or liked it lol)

Okay so, it was a fun season as someone who’s played (about half??? ish?????) of the series’ games. There’s a ton of easter eggs and nods, particularly the biggest ones being The Infinite Corridor (of Curse of Darkness fame) and Legion (I’ve only battled them in two games, one being SOTN). I didn’t realize it was Legion until they all started flying up in the air though lol. I’m very much glad that they weren’t all naked though dodndodn. Also the monsters!!! Very good!!!! I loved the Cthulhu one and they even included some of his in game attacks AND THE ANGELS UGHHHHH THEY WERE SO COOL AND THEY HAD THE GAME MUSIC PLAYING TOO

anyways I digress

Okay so plot line wise! I think Issac and Trevor/Sypha’s plotlines were the strongest imo. Just mostly because they both had the most screentime out of the four plotlines.

I don’t think either Alucard’s or Hector’s plotlines were particularly weak (or as weak as people are making them out to be). I think the problem is that since this is a twenty minute episode show, most of the build up shown in their plotlines won’t really pay off until the next season.

Hector is most likely going to go through his Curse of Darkness arc next season, likely whenever Issac launches his assault on the castle- and him being manipulated is the beginning of his arc. He basically realizes at the end of s3 that “Hey, I’m being way too trusting because every single time I place my trust in someone- I get used in the end so I should stop.” And so I think Issac might end up helping Hector unknowingly or unwillingly whenever he reachs Carmilla’s castle but that remains to be seen.

Alucard wise- yeah that sucked but it was needed (though I won’t necessarily agree it should’ve been in that way). I think it’s the beginning of his arc toward the SOTN and later games. The only humans he’s ever known was his mother and Sypha and Trevor and it’s here I’d like to draw a interesting parallel to Sypha and Alucard this season. Both by the end have their expectations betrayed because both unrealistically believe that monsters are bad and humans can never stoop down so low- and are proven very much otherwise by the end of their arcs. Between Castlevania III and SOTN, Alucard is said to have been sleeping the entire time. By SOTN, the only reason he wakes is because something happened in Dracula’s castle. If these are the events that lead up to him putting himself to rest for over a hundred years, I don’t blame the dude.

I’d like to also point to a post I saw earlier drawing parallels between Jesus and Alucard. There’s way too many parallels between them to not say there’s no connection, and that whole post is a good read for anyone interested in it (here’s the link). Anyways, the post points out as of right now, we’re at the point where Jesus is betrayed by his own disciple, Judas gives him the kiss of betrayal, and then Jesus is crucified. Likewise, we have Alucard being betrayed by his own students/disciples, he’s given a kiss of betrayal, and then crucified in literally the same position Jesus was. What happens next in the Bible is Jesus being placed in a tomb (assumed to be dead) and he ‘rests’ for three days and then rises and washes humanity of their sins (very much a brief bad retelling of the Bible but anyways). What’d make the most logical sense is that in Season 4, Alucard lays down to rest only to wake up at the events of Rondo of Blood/SOTN, and then ‘save humanity’ or in this case, Richter- the descendant of the one and only Trevor Belmont- thereby finishing the ‘Jesus Arc.’ While I don’t agree too much on how Ellis went about it, I can see how and why he set up Alucard’s storyline like he did- and it’d be unfair to say that I didn’t see it coming. There’s some really off lines they say at the beginning of the season which already made suspicious of those two, so it’s not exactly like it came out of nowhere- especially given their backstory (though they took it to a extreme I wouldn’t have thought they would).

Other characters wise, god I should’ve seen it coming but I’m sad about the judge character (anyone who follows me knows how into AA I am currently). He seemed so nice, but I realized that was over as soon as he told the monk dude to go to the apple tree because I was like “there’s no way there isn’t a trap for him there.” And then when they showed him falling into the pit, I was like WHELP THAT KID FROM EARLIER IS DEAD. Ugh I hate he’s a serial killer (and may have done more? Don’t want to think about it) and he collects their shoes uGHHH COOL BUT I WISH I KNEW EARLIER I WAS LEGIT GOING TO DRAW THE DUDE BUT IM NOT SURE NOW.

St. Germain was so cool! I loved seeing him (and even more nods to curse of darkness ughhh) and while he wasn’t a time traveller (at least not yet), he was such a treat to watch on screen. I’m very interested to see how he’ll act if he pops up later into the shows timeline, overall he was just a joy to watch on screen interacting with the other characters and I loved watching him talking about snorting mysterious drugs and waking up weeks later not knowing wth happening and of course, the toilet paper.

(Also the lesbian vampires DO own my heart thank you very much)

Anyways!! I didn’t think the season was bad! Still much better than any other plotlines I’ve seen most tv series try to do, so I refuse to say it’s bad writing (at least all of it). I couldn’t tell in Season 2 how this was going to link to any of the later games but I think with the end of Season 3, I’m starting to see how it’s linking together- at least in the way I’m thinking it’ll be. It’s very interesting watching this unfold as someone who’s been playing the games and watching other people losing it especially if they’re unaware of the events of rondo/sotn/ and the games with reincarnated dracula and alucard except now he’s decided to be a secret agent (which I haven’t gotten very far in). I won’t say people are being unfair in saying this was bad, because there are points where I was definitely un-invested, particularly during Alucard’s segments- which I think definitely needed more length and more time dedicated into making the story a lot better than it was- but I do believe despite some of the cons of this season- there was some pros as well.

EDIT: I’d like to also add I don’t think this is the end of St. Germain! If they decide to keep his timetraveling, although Issac and Hector’s roles are basically reversed as of rn, he comes in Curse of Darkness to stop the two from killing eachother so that could also potentially happen in a season 4. Just my thoughts and theories though lol

#castlevania #castlevania anime #long post #my thoughts!#very brief ones though id love to spout off more about this but ugHhh

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duhragonball · 4 years

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Gonna take a minute and pour one out for Dragon Ball Z Abridged.

I feel bad for Team Four Star, because the series actually ended in 2018, when they published the epilogue to Episode 60, and they seemed kind of uncertain about whether they’d continue or not. The final moments of Episode 60 had a teaser for “Season 4″ (the Buu Arc), which was supposed to be this big confirmation that they were really going to go through with it after all.

But almost immediately after that, they started trying to manage fans’ expectations, talking about doing S4 differently, and releasing the episodes in a different timetable, and probably nothing would actually happen until 2020 or 2021. All I really expected was their treatment of Movie 9 (the Bojack one), since that was next in line, and they seemed fairly confident in their ability to tackle that one movie.

Then came the announcement in 2019 that Bojack wasn’t going well, and then they postponed Movie 9 indefinitely, and now here we are. I feel bad for these guys because they clearly regret that it took them this long to finally admit that they couldn’t go on. Copyright issues are the main logistical reason for ending the series. They’re not a fan group anymore, they’ve been a business for years, and they can’t afford to have their YouTube channel taken down over a show full of IP they don’t own. But that was an issue three years ago. The bigger problem is burnout.

I’ve experienced this before myself, and I could kind of sense it from TFS when Lani talked about how hard a time they were having doing the Bojack parody. They spoke of Bojack Unbound like it was just so impossible to get a good script going, and maybe it is a tough nut to crack, but I just couldn’t help but wonder if the movie was really the trouble. They had several months away from DBZA, only to come back to it and have an even harder time writing new stuff for it. And yet they didn’t want to give up, because it should have been a fresh start, and yet it just wouldn’t come together.

Some naive part of me hopes that they’ll get their groove back and tackle Season 4 one of these years, but I’ve already kind of made peace with it never becoming a reality. I’m more worried for the fate of TFS’ other projects, which I keep hearing about, but I never seem to see. My fear is that their burnout goes beyond DBZA, and they just haven’t realized it yet. I hope not, because they’ve got this murderer’s row of creative talent, and I’m totally cool with following their original stuff.

I guess what I’m really concerned about is that this could happen to me some day. Well, like I said, it already happened to me once, but it was more of a professional burnout, and once I changed jobs and got back on track, I was fine again. I had my internet presence to fall back on as a refuge. They say if you do what you love you’ll never work a day in your life, but that kind of sounds like putting all your eggs in one basket. I like to write, and I draw stuff once or twice a decade, but if that was my job, it would be sheer hell trying to force myself through a period where I just didn’t feel creative. I’ve watched a few TFS videos where I get the sense that there’s been some periods of low morale, where they have this whole brick-and-mortar building where they have to play video games and be funny for a living and they just don’t feel it. And when that happens, where do you go from there? I hope Team Four Star can find an answer.

Anyway, I discovered DBZA back in the fall of 2010, when I was somewhere in Month 2 of a four-month unemployment. There’s some other hard times I’ve been through where looking forward to their next episode helped me get through it, but... I don’t know, burning through those first dozen episodes in 2010 seems to stick out for me. I just liked that there was something new in the fandom. Before 2010, I couldn’t really tell that there was a DBZ fandom at all, so it was a relief to see people who were even more passionate about it than I was. I just really needed to see that at the time. I know there’s other DBZ fans who think Abridged is dumb or jumped the shark a long time ago, but the point is that I probably wouldn’t even be aware of those folks without DBZA. So I’m grateful for that.

I’m also grateful for this. TFS may not have made it to Bojack and Buu, but they got Perfect Cell sworn in as the mayor of Sassy City, Sassyland.

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#dragon ball #dragon ball z abridged #team four star

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jack-fruit · 5 years

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Paint the Stars

Hey gamers this fic is apart of my personal swap au which I also wrote this for. You really don't need to read that one to understand this one, but its short lol. All you need to know that's mentioned there is Aziraphale is a bat demon so like

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When the starmaker first learned to paint, he was going by Anthony. He had no reason to go by an alias, but he had grown rather fond of it after providing it to a rather polite demon. His decision to dip his fingers into what was the original sorry excuse for paint, however, had nothing to do with his name, but everything to do with his title.

He had hoped after the fiasco with Adam and Eve, She would allow him back into the expanse of space to make stars once again. She told him he had more to do on Earth, much to Anthony's chagrin. So he walked among man bitter and with hands itching to create.

They'd only been a few generations into humanity when a girl first found that mixing together egg yolk and red soil would make a substance that would trail bright and stick to the rock. She used it to make crude drawings, which Anthony watched, impressed.

It wasn't until there was a suitable array of colors avaliable that Anthony felt the tug of longing hard enough that he sheepishly approached a group painting across an expanse of cave walls and scooped up some of the yellow paint.

He created starbursts across stone and nebules across rock. He didn't have all the colors he wanted to work with, but the thrill of a challenge only spurred him on. He may have also been there to nudge the Egyptians in the right direction of finding blue paint, okay? Sue him- blue was one of his favorites.

It wasn't until around 300 BC that Anthony picked up a paintbrush. There had been other attempts at something similar before, but all the crude sticks and leaves could not capture the fine detail a brush of a fingertip could.

Anthony was perfectly content using his hands and fingers, just as he always had, but the man selling the brushes assured him they were intended for caligraphy. The angel picked up the thin bamboo with animal hair attatched to one end, and decided that perhaps a certain demon would get a kick out of it. After all, Az loved the written word, perhaps he would like a tool to help create it.

He had originally only meant to try it out. To make sure it worked as advertised, but as he dipped it into the ink that he'd purchased alongside it, he slowly realized things were not going to go as planned.

The gentle sweep of the brush across parchment was a sensation he liked almost as much as fingerpainting. And it kept his hands blessedly clean. He created a void in the paper, a sinkhole from which there was no return. He then got up, grabbed his paints, and wove a galaxy around it. He tucked the concept into the back of his mind, deciding to ask Her to let him abandon post for just a while to play around again.

He was going by Raphael when he realized that he could paint more than just space. He had been out in the cosmos for a few decades, having gotten the okay to return to where he belonged. He had ended up quite liking the brush idea, which is where the staff came from.

His staff was a long piece of carefully maintained bamboo that he was able to miracle from brush to staff with minimal effort. The staff worked a bit different from an actual paint brush, it didn't even have a proper brush end, really, but the angel would push his power through it in arcs and waves in ways he hadn't really been capable of before.

But he missed Earth, much as that fact irked him. He missed the browns and the greens and the greys. He missed the food and the wind and the sounds. Above all, he missed the sparkling darkness of a certain demon's gaze, which he would certainly never admit.

So he returned to earth and decided to give a new name a whirl. Raphael. When he told Az about it, he laughed, but did start calling him by the new name. It put something at ease in his chest, that approval.

Raphael had known that people painted things other than space, of course he did, but he never thought to do it himself until he saw a man painting a landscape.

"Mind if I join you?" Raphael had asked without thinking. The man looked at him, curious, but nodded his consent and offered Raphael the paints he was using. All earth tones, nothing like the angel liked to work with.

Withholding a sigh, Raphael decided to paint the same landscape. It was more challenging then the colorful and shapeless bursts he was used to, but it was easy enough to get. Sharp bursts of brown-green, yellow spikes of grass, grey-brown bark. It was the same concept, the pallete was just different, the angles a bit sharper.

"What are you doing?" Raphael jumped and whirled to face the fanged grin of his adversary. The original painter and his canvas had vanished.

"Why are you here?" The angel tried very hard not to sound pleased.

"I asked first, Starmaker," Az said, taking his brush from him and narrowing his eyes at the carvings on it. "Are these snakes?"

"Snakes are cool," Raphael hissed, turning back to his painting. "And I'm painting, now you."

"Oh just spreading some chaos here, michief there."

"Which I will inevitably thwart," Raphael noted. "You know, maybe-"

"No! No we are not..." Az's voice dropped to a harsh whisper, "we are not teaming up Ant- Raphael."

"Antraphael?" The angel teased momentarily, before his expression turned thoughtful. "That sounds like an angel I knew- a principality. Wonder what happened to him...haven't heard from him in ages."

"Doesn't matter," Az snapped, aggrivated. "I know what heaven is like. They find out you're helping the enemy and you know what they'll do? They'll toss you out, and thats if you're lucky!"

Raphael's brushstroke shot up, ruining the entire painting.

"Let's go get drinks," he grumbled, waving the project away. It would be years before he would finally rediscover, fix, and finish the damn piece.

The name didn't last, of course it didn't. Anthony knew Az was really quite uncomfortable with the name Raphael, despite his insistance of it being fine. The closest the angel got to an answer was 'reminds me too much of someone else. Not you.'

So he was Anthony again when he realized how truly and utterly fucked he was. It was the 19th century, and realism- true realism- was coming into style. The more detailed and real looking a painting looked, the better. And for the first time since paint had been invented, Anthony couldn't master a style of art.

Of course, he would eventually, but at the present everything he painted looked cheap and fake. The concept of shading was new to him, nothing cast shadows in space and his landscapes were more stylized than anything. Along with that, still life was a bit drab to him- lots of looking and staring at inanimate objects doing nothing and feeling nothing for hours.

In contrast, portraits had the opposite issue. The subject was too squirmy, and the constant annoyance and boredom that flared up would effect his brushwork.

Plants were a good compromise, just alive enough to entertain him, but not squirmy enough to distract him. He spent hours trailing greenery across his canvases, adding bursts of color where flowers decided to plant themselves.

He ended up surrounding himself with plants, expresing his annoyance if they began to wilt, which would quickly make them perk up once more. He accidently scared the plants, he thought, what with all his frustrated yelling and the torn canvases strewn across the floor, but it did lead to them looking exquisite. He'd be lying if said he hadn't been hamming up the dramaticness that came with destroying his less than perfect works.

Az had come over once, sitting properly in a plain, stiff wooden chair he summoned while Anthony sprawled out across his own sofa. Az was looking at a half finished painting of a plant.

"Do you ever paint anything other than plants?" Az asked suddenly. Anthony sat up and followed his gaze.

"Space."

"Other than space and plants."

"Like what?"

"People?"

Anthony snorted and fell back against the cushions, "nah, people move too much."

"Oh," Az said. The two fell quiet for a few minutes before Az spoke again. "Well if you like, I could...you know, model for you. If it would help."

"I- you- what?" Anthony sputtered. The demon scowled at him.

"Mind out of the gutter, Anthony. It's simply that...look I can hold much more still than any human could, I would be an easy model to start with to get the human-esque form down."

Anthony was quiet in his consideration. Much as he loathe to admit it, it did make sense. And as much as he loved painting plants and stars, he did want to branch out, if only to prove he could. He was a stubborn bastard that way.

"Fine," he grumbled. "Just...stay there, then," he launched himself off the couch and collected his paints.

"Now?" Az asked, and when Anthony turned to face him, his dark eyes were curious and wide and just...beautiful.

"I- er- that okay?" Anthony asked, taking his brush and twirling it in his fingers. Az nodded; Anthony nodded back in reply. The angel turned his easel towards the demon and, with a slow breath, began to paint.

He had always found Az remarkable- with his intelligent eyes, his soft, slightly singed curls, the curve of his delicate pink lips...

He was practically in a trance, looking more at Az then his canvas. It felt like no time at all before he had finished enough for Az to move if he wished. The demon cracked his neck at an inhuman angle, then stood to look over Anthony's shoulder.

"Oh...Anthony," his breath ghosted across his ear and he had to surpress a shiver, "this is perfect, how have you been having trouble?"

Slowly, Anthony tipped his head back. He let his curls brush against Az's shoulder as he did so, and when he looked to the left he could see how close the demon really was. With his eyes that reminded him so much of his night sky that it hurt.

Oh.

Oh fuck.

"S'not done, still time to mess up," he said over his mounting panic. Az laughed that soft laugh of his and grinned, revealing those delicate little fangs perfect for-

Anthony's entire brain ripped like a canvas in a desprate attempt to get that image out of his head. In the meantime, Az had pulled away and offered him an apologetic farewell. Anthony was still sewing his brain back together when the door closed firmly behind him. He was still stitching his sanity back into place as he found himself setting up a new canvas. He was still lost in a daze as he found himself wondering how many years it would take to draw Az perfectly from memory.

The first time he wrote out the name "Anthony J. Crowley" had been on the deed to his studio. A studio he had not planned on getting at all, but when a giddy bat demon bounced up to him only about 60 or so years after the whole gay crisis thing Anthony had no choice but to follow. He wasn't sure if the blindfold made him more or less eager, if he was being honest.

"Watch your step!"

"I can't see, idiot, there's a blindfold over my face."

"Stop sassing me or I'll gag you, starmaker."

"Kinky."

"No!"

Anthony laughed, feeling a warm flutter in his chest as Az very firm stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. Then, he removed the blindfold.

"Tada!"

"A...building?" Anthony raised an incredulous eyebrow at the demon.

"It's for your studio!" Az enthused.

"My-?"

"I originally bought it thinking about making a bookshop out of it, but then I realized thst would require me to, um, you know, sell my books? And so I thought instead I'd give it to you. I've already found a quaint little cottage for my books And I to stay, so I have no need for it, obviously-"

"Azzy..."

"No need to thank me, you're just taking it off my hands," the demon pushed on, shoving a deed into Anthony's hands and then bolting like the devil himself was after him. Anthony looked at the deed, then at the building.

It could use some paint...

1967, he'd been going by Crowley for 25 years as far as close friends were concerned. Well, close friend. After tonight, though...

He leaned heavily against the door to his studio, against the painted grasses and flowers that stretched across its surface, growing towards glow and the dark stars. Against his chest, Crowley clutched a jar containing a single, wild spark of hellfire. Uncontrollable, untamable, and all Az's.

'What, not going to offer me a lift?" Crowley had quietly asked, sitting behind Az on his motorbike.

Crowley moved as if he were walking through the thickest of oil paints. He entered his room, set the jar on his desk, then returned to the studio itself. Half finished projects were littered everywhere. Crowley looked at them and felt empty.

A soft, pained laugh. 'I know I go too slow for you, Crowley...' Then, the most heatbroken admission, 'I am... quite unsure if I will ever be capable of catching up with you.'

Crowley's whole body began to shake. Hands balled into fists, and then he screamed. He grabbed a wooden stool that Az could often be caught sitting on and threw it right into one of his paintings. It splintered and ripped and Crowley felt good.

He tore paintings from the wall, shattered frames against the floor. He ripped apart each brushstroke, each secret hope. He only stopped when he tore his paintbrush off the chain around his throat and tried to snap it. Lucky for him, past Crowley had enchanted it to be basically invincible, so his efforts simply drained him. He let it expand into his staff so he could lean heavily on it as sobs wracked him. He was angry, he was heartbroken, and he had never felt less holy.

In the years leading up to the apocalypse, Crowley hadn't been painting much. Any attempts to bring his brush to the canvas were hindered by the fact that the world was ending, and that in less than eleven years all these things he was making would be destroyed. Again.

He thought maybe after everything, after escaping heaven and hell, he would be able to paint avain. Yet, as he sat with a sketchbook in his lap in Az's livingroom he felt no spark, no drive.

Well, that wasn't true. He felt something, but it wasn't the need to create. He took a swig of wine and looked up to where Az was quietly contemplating his own glass.

"I-"

"It's Aziraphale."

"...what?" Anthony sat up straight for the first time possibly ever. Az flinched.

"My- my name...my angel name. I never," he bit his lip, "all the other demons were changing their names, but I never meant to fall. I liked the name the Almighty gave me, even if She...so, so perhaps you can call me Aziraphale from noe on? Since I guess I'm technically not a demob anymore..."

The name was familiar. It brought Crowley the memory of a flash of white wings and blue eyes watching him work. However, that image very comfortably faded to fit the face of the demon he so loved.

Aziraphale.

"Aziraphale," he spoke it in a way that made one think of blasphamy. He caught the demon's shiver. Slowly, Crowley set aside his sketchbook and his wine and he prowled forward.

"Crowley?"

"Yes, Aziraphale?" He breathed, close enough to count the lashes framing Aziraphale's dark eyes. They fluttered closed.

Lips pressed against lips, soft and full of longing and hope. It took Crowley a moment to realize he hadn't been the one to close the gap. He framed Aziraphale's face in his hands, like the work of art it was, and kissed back.

A gasp and then hands fluttered against his back, gripping at his jacket as the angel pushed him back in his chair, thoughts scattered so only one thing remained.

Aziraphale, Aziraphale, Aziraphale.

They laid in a bed conjured earlier that evening. Aziraphale didn't own one, since he was used to hanging upsidedown from the rafters when he slept at all. He made an exception tonight, though, and was now curled up fast asleep in Crowley's arms. He traced the blue-purple-red bruises scattered across his lover's skin and smiled fondly as Azirphale wrinkled his nose and turned in his arms. Slowly, Crowley untangled himself and moved towards the easel he'd put in the room back when Aziraphale was sleeping for a century. He had wanted to be around the demon, even if he was fast asleep with no plans to become concious again until he thought his books were in danger.

He brushed the dust off a blank canvas and set it on the easel. It was facing out the small window, revealing the expanses of space for Crowley to record again and again. He hesitated a moment before changing the angle of the easel, pointing it towards the bed where Azirphale was still curled up.

He looked over at where his brush had been reverently placed on the nightstand at contrast with everything else he'd been wearing previously. He looked at it and then shook his head. He opened a pot of red paint and dipped his fingers into it. The excess dripped from the tips before Crowley set then to the canvas, and he began to paint.

#good omens #good omens swap au #ineffable husbands #ineffable partners #crowley #aziraphale #good omens crowley #good omens fic

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