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time-travelling-chaos · 7 months ago

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Ok. So we need to talk about what Neil Gaiman said about Good Omens S3:

I'm very curious of who could be coming back, here is my opinion about it (based only on my small analysis and hopes) for the S1 characters:

Humans:

Anathema and Newt: I think this one is a given. S1 ends with both of them buring the second volume of Agnes Nutters' prophecies, it's some big foreshadowing and I don't think it would make sense for it to be completely ignored, and if we want that to be used, we need those two characters to be back. So I'd say a good 80-90% chance of seeing them again.

Agnes Nutters: In a similar fashion, it would make sense to see Agnes again in flashbacks, especially as we don't know much about the second volume of prophecies, but I think it would be a little less necessary for the storytelling as a lot of her life has already been explored in S1. Maybe something like a 70% or 80% chance, as this also depends on whether we will see Anathema and Newt or not.

Adam: Once more it would make sense for him to be back. He was the Antichirst, and still seems to hold some power, so he could be an important ally during the second coming. I could picture the story without him, but I think it would be more interresting for him to be back. Probably a 80% chance as well.

Madame Tracy and Sergeant Shadwell: This one is a bit more complex. I don't think that their presence is important for the story, but it could be? And for me a lot of the main characters from S1 have good reasons to come back on S3, so if most come back except for those two, it could be weird. But their story was over, so it would not be a problem to not have them here. Overall, I think it's less certain to see them, but maybe having a small cameo of the two of them without much details or impact in the story. Probably around 40-50% chance of seeing them.

Warlock: And here I have a problem. I'd love to see him back, because he was the starting point of the story, and because I love him and he went through a lot and he deserve better, but I just... don't really see it? He doesn't really fit in story, doesn't know much about it, so I'm struggling to see what role he could have. The only thing that gives me some hope here, is the fact that in the show, he doesn't have an actual ending and is just let there at the fields of Meggido witbout any further explanation which doesn't feel like a proper conclusion. Here my heart make my want to say 70% chance, but honestly, it's probably more around 50%.

The them: I do believe it would be a bit weird to see Adam alone without his friends, which give them quite a good chance of coming back as well. However, they don't have as much impact on the story and were pretty minor characters in the TV show, plus, as some time has passed between the two seasons, there would be in their late-teens/ early adulthood, meaning that it is not unlikely that they don't see each other as much anymore. Will they be mentionned if Adam comes back? Very probably. But will they come back in the show? I'd say there's around a 60-70% chance.

Arthur and Deidre Young: I honestly don't see them coming back. They were here mostly to introduce Adam's character as a child, but here, he will be a young adult, so not necessarly living with his parents anymore. Plus I don't really see what role they could have in the S3 plot. Still, it's not impossible that they will have a few scenes with Adam so probably around 30% chance.

The Dowlings: We barely saw them in S1 so I don't see why they would come back in S3, as they had no major role and were mostly the absent parents. Still, if we see Warlock again, they could come back along him for some continuity. Probably 10-20% chance.

Sister Mary Loquacious: another character that I don't see coming back. The actress plays Nina, which I'm pretty sure will be in S3, so having her play two different roles seems unlikely. Plus, that character was not that much present in S1, so I don't think she'll be there. Still, we never know, so I'd say 10% chance.

Lesley (and maybe his wife): this is such a minor character, so it is not so important for him to be coming back, and I'd actually be quite surprised to see him. But still, as Neil Gaiman mentionned characters that we don't expect coming back, I have the feeling that it could be one of the characters he was refering to, so I think his chances are a little bit higher than for some others, around 40%.

Angels and Demons

Aziraphale and Crowley: Do I even have to say it? 99.999%. (The 0.001%, with probably more zeros than that, being the non nigligible chance that the S3 gets cancelled for some reason and Neil Gaiman is unable to publish a book to finish the story and us being left only with the special spoilers.)

Metatron: Yes. There is absolutely no reason for him not to come back as he is a huge part of the plot for now. 99%

Hastur/Michael/Sandalphon/Uriel: Some of them will definitely comme back, but I am not sure all of them will. However, they don't really have enough plot elements for me to determine which is more or less likely to be back. I'd say a 95% chance we'll see some of them, probably 70-80% for each of them individualy. It might be a bit more for Sandalphon actually, as it would make sense to have the Sodom and Ghomorrah story.

Gabriel and Beelzebub: This one is a bit more complex actually. Their own story is complete, and they are banned from everywhere, which seems to make their comeback more complex. But if their story is complete, the one of Angels and Demons living together and loving each other, as well a defiying Heaven and Hell definitely isn't. My guess is that they will at least be mentionned and maybe have some scenes in the past, but in the present I'm less sure about it. 60-70%

Satan: I honestly do not see Satan coming back in the present, partly for technical reasons, partly because the plot will probably more be centered around Heaven (or an alliance between Heaven and Hell) against the Earth, and I really don't see how he could fit in that story, especially after being defeated(?) by Adam. However in the past? Yes absolutely. It makes sense for a lot of people that the Fall will be in the S3 and he was a major character of that story that would need to be included. So overall coming back in the show? 50-60%

Eric: I don't see why he would not come back? He is a pretty minor character, but he was there in both seasons (mostly for comedy) so I believe he will still be present in S3. Will he have a more important plot? I'd love to, especially as he is somewhat different from the other demons (asks a lot of questions for example) and seems a bit like Hell's counterpart to Muriel, but I have my doubts. But will he be there? Absolutely, 80-90% chance.

Others

Death: 90-95%. For that one, I'm not considering the story as much as what's behind it. Like, it would make sense in the story for Death to come back, but it also wouldn't be a large problem if he didn't. However, Good Omens is a story written by Neil Gaiman AND Terry Pratchett, and Death (even though the character is a bit different in the Discworld saga) is one of Terry Pratchett most famous characters. As one of the reason for which the Good Omens TV show has been produced was to respect Terry's wish and to pay him some kind of tribute, it seems logical that Neil will want to include this character in what is their very last work together.

The other Horespersons: As for Death, it would make sense for them to come back, but I don't see them as essential characters in the plot of S3. However, it was stated at the end of S1 when they were defeated by the thems that they were purely concepts and never far away, so it might be a good indication that they would take part once more in the apocalypse, even if simply in the background. 70%.

Jesus: Yes? The plot is going to include the Second Coming so it would require a strong explanation for him not to be present at all. 90-95%

God: God's voice was missing in S2 and present in S1, which can already bring some questions. However the S3 is the final chapter to that story, and will probably lead to Aziraphale and Crowley finally being allowed to live in peace, which requires to know the precise situation in Heaven and with God. I'm not sure if She will be actually present in the show, or simply narrating the story, or even simply being revealed as having left the whole of Creation alone, but a conclusion on that part seems necessary to have a proper - and peaceful - ending. 90-95%.

To be fair, it is a lot of wishful thinking here, but also, it would make sense for most of the characters to make a comeback (no matter how small) in the final season of Good Omens. But once again it's Good Omens. It's not predictable. Most things can happen and it would still make some kind of sense.

#good omens #good omens meta #good omens theories #good omens season 3 #anathema device #adam young #warlock #madame tracy #neil gaiman #long post

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bennydwight · 2 years ago

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Just read through your two cars and a kid au, and I was wondering some things, feel free to ignore any/all of them obvs.

Does Steven ever manage to get back to his old time?

Do you plan to catch up to canon so to speak, like where Ford asks Stan to come over, or even up to the main run of the show?

How much acsess does Steven have to his powers? Is there ever a moment where they’re in trouble and wham! Big glowing pink shield?

In a similar vein is there ever a bit where stevens backstory gets revealed? Or does he just drop random bits out of context while Stan gets an increasingly concerned look on his face?

If Steven does ever return to his own time without just aging there, is there a bit where he finds the mystery shack and a bit of a Spider-Man moment happens where Stan recognizes his old friend?

Sorry if this is annoying, your au just gave a bit of the brain worms

Okay, so first of all:

I love this whole ask and all the questions because this AU has given me the brain worms too ❤️ Answers under the cut, because this will likely get long!

Does Steven ever manage to get back to his old time?

I was originally debating between two possible endings for this AU: one where Steven returned home, and one where he didn’t. As I think about it more, though, I’m coming to realize that the story makes more sense and has more closure if he does, so the answer is a 90% yes

Do you ever plan to catch up to canon?

Up until the point where Ford sends Stan the plea to come to Gravity Falls. My reason for this being that, if Steven were present for the reveal of the portal, a lot of GF canon storybeats wouldn’t end up happening. A mediator during Stan and Ford’s first interaction after ten years (especially one with Steven’s abilities) would basically guarantee that the inciting incident for Gravity Falls wouldn’t occur. Steven has advanced knowledge of other cultures/species/technology, and his opinion on the portal might sway Ford’s resolve to use it. Even if everything DOES go according to script (which would require a lot of OOC choices by several characters) and Ford gets lost in the multiverse, Steven could call on resources to fix it long before Dipper and Mabel get there. So while Stan’s ten years homeless are marginally better, by the time he reaches Gravity Falls, he’s on his own again.

(I wonder if he would’ve approached Ford’s request with more maturity after spending so much time with Steven? Or would the fresh loss of a long-time friend provoke him into irrationality?)

How much access does Steven have to his powers?

All access! He hides his gem half because 1) he’s enjoying ‘playing human’ for someone who has only known him as such, and 2) he doesn’t know how a relatively conservative kid from Jersey would react to an alien and it’s in his best interest to hide, since he’s in a completely different time period and location and for the moment he’s dependent on Stan for survival. The more time passes, though, the more uncomfortable he is with the notion of sharing. One of his obstacles in this story is that he still struggles with the unintentional release of his Pink powers.

Is there ever a bit where Steven’s backstory gets revealed? Or does he just drop random bits out of context while Stan gets an increasingly concerned look on his face?

Plenty of the latter! A lot of Stan’s concern comes from listening to what Steven says and then forming his own (albeit incorrect) conclusion of what’s happened in his past. Since he’s a Big Strong Man who doesn’t talk about Feelings, he never brings up his suspicions to Steven and that’s how the gem secret has been kept so long. I doubt Steven would be able to lie to Stan if asked outright about his backstory.

As to the former, it’s one of my most anticipated scenes. It involves a song, an accident, and a crater ☺️

If Steven does return to his own time, is there a bit where he finds the Mystery Shack and recognizes Stan as his old friend?

I like to think so. The reunion might be an epilogue piece, but the story of Steven and the current Gravity Falls Gang has been done better by other creators, so this AU basically ends with Stan getting Ford’s postcard.

I think that answers most of the questions, but if you have more or want further clarification, please don’t hesitate to ask! This AU lives rent free in my brain and (as shown) I can talk about it at length lol

#asks #just ranting #two kids and their cars #au #404error-blognotfound #the way i gasped when i saw all the questions omg #made my day so thank you

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reddy-reads · 1 year ago

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The Archive Undying (thoughts in process)

I am still working my way through The Archive Undying (Emma Mieko Candon) but here are my in the middle thoughts.

Oh, and on the very off-chance that the author or a personal acquaintance of same is on this website, please don't read this post, thank you. (I posted about a recent release and then I'm 90% sure the author of that book liked the post and thought I was going to pass out. If you see something, say nothing.)

First impressions: Good gracious this book is making me work. I have completely filled the back of an envelope trying to keep track of the names of people, places, AIs, and in universe terminology.

This is NOT a book I can read before bed. Nor is it one I can read in an environment where i need to half-pay attention to my surroundings.

Due to the need to constantly take notes, I am progressing very slowly. I was like "sheesh this book is taking FOREVER" and then realized I was interrupting myself like every single page trying to keep my notes up to date.

If you have a better memory than I do, none of that might apply to you! I don't know why I've been relying so heavily on note taking while I read this year.

Characters: my personal favorite soft squishy boi got squished so that's a bummer. The protagonist and his love interest have a fucked up thing going on (I mean that in a positive way) (I'm radiating approval) (fictional fucked up relationships can be so interesting). I wish the women in the story got more time, but that's not a problem, I just think the women who are there are neat and I'd love to spend more time with them :)

World building: the world building is interesting, but it's hard for me to fully appreciate it because waves at notes I find it obfuscated by the terminology. I don't know why I can't keep the Harbor, Engines, Frags, Relics, and whatnot separate, but I can't. 😭

Writing style: the writing is good. It pulls me through and I want to keep reading. There is some playing with the person and tense for story reasons, which I enjoy.

Is it like Murderbot?: no absolutely not. Murderbot is snarky and very accessible. That series is super easy to read/jump into, and the pacing of murderbot is very fast and straightforward.

Is it like a memory called empire: also no. One thing it has in common with Memory called empire is a feeling of a big, unfamiliar world and these big political dimensions, and the physically big and intimidating spaces. Big!

Is it like the Locked Tomb 4-book-trilogy? A little? You might notice the cover quote is form Tamsyn Muir, the author of the locked tomb trilogy. But it's not similar because of the tone--the narrative voice is not snarky like Gideon the Ninth--but because if you want to know what the fuck is going on, you need to pay attention. (I myself am not good at paying attention in that way so I suffer as a result.) I guess I'll report back on whether Candon has the same... approach... to ending books as Muir.

What is it like? It's a little like ninefox gambit (Yoon Ha Lee). There's a lot of terminology and a strong sense of big things happening that aren't simply elucidated for you. The worldbuilding also reminds me a little of Ninefox Gambit because you know the author has it all in here *taps head* but only a fraction makes it onto the page.

It's a little like the fifth season (NK Jemisin) the terminology, playing with the narrative form, and a somewhat shifting cast of characters. Information about the characters is hidden from the reader in service to the story and to support an overall suspense. There is nothing wrong with that in and of itself.

Cool things list:

The opening quickly engaged my interest.

I think the world is interesting!

I love the names of the different AIs, and I think it's cool to think about how their different "personalities" shape the different cultures that spring up in their cities.

I like the characters; they have good texture and voice. The author does a great job of making me feel like I'm meeting these people at a point in their lives, like they really do have their own personal histories.

It falls into a school of 'oh hey casual queer representation' like yeah in the future no one has to explain they/them pronouns, everyone just Gets It.

It also isn't explicitly stated but, like, all the characters are POC. For real. It's like in Avatar Airbender, people don't bring it up because it's just there. And I respect that!

Also the cover art is dope.

In summary I like the book so far. It's going to take me a while to finish, but I'm willing to keep pushing.

#am reading #middle thoughts #the archive undying #genre sci fi

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frankenwolf1564 · 3 months ago

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Newage Umibozu: Deep depths, deep cuts

I swear I’m not just going to review NewAge stuff I am not one of those people endlessly sucking their co-

Back with another NewAge offering, H43V Umibozu, aka Depth Charge, sees the legends scale company lightly poke Beast Wars with a ten-foot pole to bring the Transmetal 2 season three star to life in a somewhat unconventional fashion.

Before getting into the actual figure, we need a bit of context, partially because the story behind this release is half the fun. Back when the Kingdom line launched and we got the superb G1 Cyclonus, many fans noted that if you turned his spaceship mode around, it kind of resembled a manta ray. This prompted other, more diehard fans to ponder a potential retool to turn the mold into Beast Wars Depth Charge, in a similar vein to the Transformers Collectors Club Hunt For The Decepticons Terradive (whew!) repaint for the same character. While Hasbro passed on such a release, due to a number of different possible reasons, NewAge said “fuck it we ball” and announced Umibozu. If I’m remembering this correctly, he even came out after their initial batch of Cyclonus repaints, due to the fact this deco was inspired specifically by those fan comments. It’s not too dissimilar to how they announced a G2 Tigerstripe Grimlock after the Legacy figure was revealed. They saw there was a market and jumped into it.

Now, on to the actual toy! Depth Charge wears the Cyclonus mold well. His slim, slender form is a bit of a departure from the notoriously bulky original toy, but it does a much nicer job of matching the trimmed down show model. The round forearms help more than you might expect, being one of the few shapes to make a complete carryover. The chest does its job of evoking the originals fish face, and the colors stand bright and proud. The purples and blues are spot on, really helping bring this guy to life. Honestly, I couldn’t ask for much more outside of a wholly new mold, something that MP scale company Transart is planning on tackling.

The transformation meets a similar standard of “clever yet simple” that I’ve experienced with some of their other offerings. The nosecone/tail folds up quite elegantly, and the way the back of his legs reshape themselves is exceptionally well done. There is some partsforming to get him into manta ray mode, but considering the mold wasn’t designed to accommodate such features in the first place it is an unsurprising and not all that bothersome element. My only legitimate complaint about it is that the fins pegs are perhaps a bit too tight, making minor modifications to get them looking just right a tad annoying. The outcome for your efforts looks gorgeous, no matter which way you spin it. The blues and silvers are cleanly separated, with some delightful purple accents at the retooled wingtips. The fins still work just fine for the jet mode, the stylized departure not detracting too much from the jet’s profile or making it feel like it could never work as such, especially not in the world of the transformers. Of course, we all know why they’re really here. With a quick hand transplant and literally just turning the thing around, you’re left with a more than serviceable manta ray. Could they have made a more believable/organic alt mode? Not as easily, but almost absolutely. Did they need to? No. This doesn’t feel “off” compared to the original considering its techno-organic nature. Pro-tip though, scrunch up the nose cone for a better-looking tail.

I know I’ve made a fair amount of comparisons to the original but those are completely based on “feel” of the character and he’s had two toys alright?

Articulation is mostly within NewAges standard, with only one or two gripes holding him back. Starting at the bend in his die-cast toes (not a lost art anymore, huh?), he’s got ankle tilts, a 90° knee bend, thigh swivels, ball jointed hips, accompanying skirt flaps, a waist swivel just because this time, an ab crunch, universal jointed shoulders, and a ball jointed head. His arms can hinge outward at the bicep, mostly for the transformation, but if that’s extended even slightly you can’t use the bicep swivel. His elbows are double jointed, and he comes with a wrist swivel thanks to a pair of alternate hands. You can swivel his forearms if you so wish, but again this is another transformation joint and doesn’t look all that natural most of the time. You’re still more than able to get a wide range of dynamic, expressive poses out of him, but the arms are left just a bit cumbersome. Accessories are kept fairly light, with the manta ray fins, a pair of open hands to really sell some of those poses, and a blaster that he can have a bit of trouble holding dead on due to the shape of his arms.

As a new Beast Wars Depth Charge, this obviously falls short, but as a pre-earth Cybertronian Depth Charge? It hits every mark it needs to. It comes in looking stunning and executes the idea presented perfectly. Regardless of whatever flaws the figure may have, it sets out with a concept and completely nails it. This is, I believe, NewAge at their best. Not strictly adhering to cartoon accuracy cMph Devastator, but taking liberties and creating something new. Both this and H60W Mimic (reviewed here!) revive the long-begotten Hasbro days of turning whatever into whoever. We simply don’t get as many imaginative repaints as we used to, despite the apparent rising tooling costs. Gone are the times when we’d regularly get the likes of ROTF Deadend, Energon Tradbolt, Armada Airazor, or nearly the entirety of the Universe 2003 line. There are plenty more examples with convention exclusives and the like, even Depth Charges second actual figure was exclusive to the Transformers Collectors Club, but those have always specifically been more specialized and niche, as well as impossible to get your hands on nowadays. There is one I’ll need to take a look at though… thankfully I won’t have to go on a complete rampage to find it.

#transformers #toy #toy review #third party #third party transformers #newage #depth charge #transformers beast wars

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unfreezed-fire · 2 years ago

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Dive to the Ocean

This piece is made for agency purpose. Not entirely true to Armand's character.

CW: Open water.

The endless yards of water covers almost 70% percent of our world, here are some interesting fact about the ocean!

Thanks to the ocean, most of our planet is dark.

The average depth of the ocean is 12,100 feet, yet because light waves can only penetrate 330 feet of water, everything below that level is black. Given that water makes up the majority of the world, this means that the majority of the planet is always in complete darkness.

Water at the bottom of the ocean is incredibly hot.

In these deepest parts of the ocean, the water temperature may only be 2º to 4º Celsius, with the exception of water coming out of hydrothermal vents in the seafloor. The water released from these vents can be up to 400º Celsius (750º Fahrenheit).

The Pacific Ocean is wider than the moon.

At its widest point, from Indonesia all the way to Colombia, the Pacific Ocean is wider than the moon, by quite a lot. This expanse of ocean is 12,300 miles across, which is more than five times the diameter of the moon!

One iceberg could supply a million people with drinking water for five years.

A large iceberg from Antarctica contains more than 20 billion gallons of water, which could conceivably supply one million people with drinking water for five years.

More people have been to the moon than to the Mariana Trench.

In human history, one dozen people have set foot on the moon, but just three people have managed to make it to the Mariana Trench because of the extreme conditions there.

Oceans have lakes and rivers too.

The ocean is like a completely different world. Trenches, mountains, volcanoes, lakes, and rivers abound. As seawater passes through salt layers, it creates little depressions on the ocean floor. The water around these depressions is denser and sinks into the depressions because it contains more salt than typical saltwater. These are similar to lakes in that they have shorelines and, in some cases, waves.

Most of Earth's volcanic activity happens in the ocean.

When it comes to volcanic activity, the oceans have by far the most going on. In fact, 90% of all volcanic activity on Earth occurs in the ocean.

There are three million shipwrecks in the ocean.

From the Titanic to Christopher Columbus's Santa Maria, the oceans are home to around three million shipwrecks.

The ocean has more artifacts than all the world's museums combined.

Thanks to these millions of shipwrecks, the ocean houses countless treasures and artifacts. National Geographic estimates that there are more treasures on the bottom of the ocean than in all the world's museums combined.

If all the ice melted, the sea level would rise 26 stories.

According to the NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, if all of the glaciers and sheets of Arctic sea ice melted at the same time, the sea level would rise an estimated 262 feet, which is about the height of a 26-story building—just a bit shorter than the Statue of Liberty.

Source: https :// bestlifeonline . com / crazy-ocean-facts /

#agency purpose #oc: armand #original character

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post-it-notes7 · 3 years ago

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Can you tell us more about your Dragato and Falspar dynamic :0?

oh you poor soul, of course I will :)

(rambling under keep reading)

So, to begin! A lot of this will make the most sense if you read dumb luck first, the Dragato oneshot (also a part of the Heart and Soul timeline, just set in the past before MK was separated from the GSA) I wrote that dives much further into my interpretations of this borb and his idiot friend that have a grand total of 10 second of screen time. If you're caught up on In Your Dreams, then you'll have a vague idea of Dragato and Falspar's characters, but neither have had a chance for their personalities to really shine (they're also both... kinda upset too, so only one side of them has been shown)! You’ll even catch a glimpse of other GSA members (cough cough Jecra and Garlude cough cough) if you give “dumb luck” a look :0!

That said, I’ll still summarize what I can of Dragato and Falspar’s personalities and dynamic here! So, Dragato--outwardly, he appears very stict, very cold, and very no-nonsense. He glowers a lot, he’ll snap at those who spread around rumors and try to start fights, and he tries hard to keep the peace, even if it’s strained and you can tell things are two seconds from exploding into all-out chaos.

To quote my own fic, “he’s the unofficial mediator of the GSA—he’s the one who listens to complaints and makes the changes needed to keep them in check, the one who kills off rumors that take on a malicious edge, the one who breaks up fights that go too far—and he has no idea if anyone ever even seems to realize it. Afterall, his technical role is only that of a pilot and an instructor. One of Arthur’s close confidantes. His domain is starships and space travel.”

Basically, he does plenty of work from behind the scenes, and he overworks himself a lot. He shares a lot of similarities to Meta Knight, but while MK can and will push himself to the brink and somehow just keep going anyway--Dragato will pass out from the strain, even if he argues otherwise. He has a lot of grievances with what his nature as a star warrior demands of him, and what he’s actually physically capable of.

Important sidenote! *In the H&S series, star warriors are born as star warriors, it’s in their nature! You cannot become one (at least not through normal means) you simply are or you aren’t.* However--Dragato’s true personality is very different from what he purposely portrays to 90% of the GSA and for what has been shown in IYD. First and foremost, on the inside, he’s complete nerd and an honorary idiot in disguise. He has sass, he has attitude, and he wants nothing more than to show someone how capable he is by challenging them to a brawl at 2am and going absolute feral. Even though he’s constantly trying to put out fights and mediate, he’s a conflict gremlin and he absolutely wants to do nothing more than join in and start tearing things apart alongside everyone else. You might notice in dumb luck that he gets an evil little grin right before charging into a fight, too, and that he despises that.

Once more I’ll steal a line from my fic, “he doesn’t crave bloodshed, but he revels in knowing that he can protect something.” Dragato cares way way too much (in a good way) for everyone in the GSA, and he’ll lay down his life for each of them any day. To him, the most important thing in any situation is that everyone makes it out alive (is his stand-point in IYD starting to make a little more sense :)?) and as you might imagine, constantly fighting with his personality and his nature to act like something he’s not 24/7 makes him very irritable and prone to spiraling over little things when he’s stressed. Star warriors are supposed to fight until their last breath, and Dragato has spent years in the GSA balancing that deep-seated need alongside the constant pressure he put on himself to maintain peace. Fun times.

Does he every actually relax? How is he possibly still sane? Well--enter Falspar: the redeemable idiot.

Falspar is, well, a redeemable idiot. He says stupid things, he does stupid things, he can be incredibly obvious, but he has a heart of gold beneath it all and you won’t find anyone who’s more stupidly loyal as friend. He wants to cheer others up and he’ll do increasingly impulsive things to do it. He’s the social one, he’s friendly, but beware, he knows how to fight and he won’t always just sit there and take it. Also, he has a knack for getting out of tricky situations by complete and utter dumb luck. Yes this relevant to the fic title.

(Another sidenote--this has not been mentioned in IYD and only lightly touched on in dumb luck, but physically, Falspar is incredibly strong. He has a form of high natural strength, which is kinda how he managed to break a mask visor with in a single punch, and he can lift heavy stuff somewhat easily. I straight up yoinked this idea from somewhere in the anime where they call him “the strong one” (possibly in sub of the snack attack episode maybe? I’m not entirely sure it’s been a while) but yeah. If he punched you it would hurt. It would probably break something and then some. Because of this, he also has to keep a close grip on how much strength he puts behind each of his actions, which has the potential to spawn its own kind of trouble)

Falspar and Dragato have been friends for quite a while, Falspar most often addresses him by the nickname “Drago”, and Falspar was there to witness Dragato change from minor troublemaker and local star warrior menace to the overworked pilot instuctor and strict mediator he is now. He knows about how much of a nerd Dragato, is as well as how hard he’s constantly pushing himself to keep up a front--and to Dragato, that’s a lifeline to find comfort in.

The two of them still clash over plenty of little things; Falspar tends to say pretty stupid stuff (some things that are just flat out nonsense arguments or that contradict each other) and Dragato, who’s stuck being constantly irritable almost all the time, tends to react to it all the same--but! They admit when they’re wrong at the end of the day, and they apologize, especially when they know they’ve messed up bad and that it’s hurt the other. “dumb luck” provides a prime example.

Falspar gets Dragato to open up and admit he needs a break every once in a while, and Dragato tends to defend Falspar in the bad situations he gets himself easily wound up in. They work well as a team once they get past any nonsense disagreements, and though it’s not explicitly stated in “dumb luck”, Dragato tends to meet with Falspar on random nights to de-stress and ramble on about one thing or another. They talk, they do little things for each other to make life just a bit easier, and they stick together. They’re close friends who are also idiots that roughhouse and call each other names all the time, but they care.

As a little bonus, I’ll go on to talk about how they are both currently doing in In Your Dreams, too.

It’s not great :)

As you might recall, Falspar was the one to first suggest the rumor of MK secretly being corrupted. Yep. That’s what started this. Now, Falspar is oblivious and does stupid things that he really shouldn’t all the time. That includes telling the overly-paranoid commander of the GSA who just won a war mere weeks ago something that coincidentally is very plausible because MK did a lot of things that could be marked as suspicious in the past and no one has seen him face to face in 10 years. Arthur is certainly still to blame for taking that idea and running with it, but Falspar also is not helping the situation by shrugging his shoulders and going “yeah MK is ambitions enough to do something like this” and then going about his day like that’s no big deal.

Dragato on the other hand, is immediately distrustful of rumors to begin with. He didn’t take this news well. He wants solid evidence before he believes an accusation as harsh as MK (someone he thought was dead for a long time after the GSA was separated in the past and is secretly greatly relieved to learn isn't) could be a traitor, though he’s kept his mouth shut, and he’s been going through it now that the war is finally over.

Dragato cared very strongly for those in the GSA and reaching their goal--he would have die for them and their cause--and now they’ve actually achieved it, but only a mere fraction of the entire GSA remains. He’s sick of losing people. He’s sick of hearing about Nightmare. Honestly, he really needs a break, and he knows that if MK is labeled a traitor with the potential to bring ruin to the galaxy again, then Arthur will stop at nothing to make sure that threat is destroyed for the greater good.

Dragato feels like he’s the only one who still has faith in MK, aside from Sirica and Knuckle Joe, his only consolations, and he refuses to condemn him without blatant proof saying otherwise. The most important thing right now is that MK is alive. The most important thing is that he doesn’t turn his back on that.

Falspar is very contradictory in Ch23 when he argues that “MK would totally do this, but he totally wouldn’t lie about it.” Basically, he's doing a terrible job of saying “this is believable and really incriminating but I still have faith that MK is doing what’s best.” He wants to acknowledge the worst, but deep down, he doesn’t really think MK is trying to do anything that would put the galaxy at stake. He won't go against Arthur so easily, but he’s in a gray area between distrusting MK and still believing in him, and he bounces around it at random.

Where does that put them both? well:

“That’s just your innate ability to test everyone’s patience,” Dragato muttered under his breath, still focused on the controls.

“Ay, what’s your problem today?” Falspar edged back, turning a bit snappish. “What’s gotten you so hung up over this ‘delusional’ myth?”

Unfortunately, when Dragato is very stressed and snaps at Falspar, Falspar’s first instinct is almost always to snap back, for better or for worse. They break into fights easily--and right now is a bad time to be fighting. There’s no time to resolving anything, and they’re seemingly on opposite sides.

Falspar wants to support Dragato, but he thinks Dragato isn’t seeing the fact that no matter what, there’s still a chance MK could be corrupted, and they need to be prepared to accept that. He knows Dragato takes losing people badly, and he sees it as cushioning the blow ahead of time.

Dragato sees it as a betrayal of trust, and no matter how much he doesn’t want to be at odds with Falspar and the others and that despises in-fighting, he’ll chose the option that he believes will keep everyone alive until the end.

WOW that was long, well, hope that gave some insight! Thank you thank you for the ask anon, hope you all enjoyed my rambles <3

#post's rambles #sir dragato #sir falspar #really just went absolutely bananas and rambled about two borbs who don't even have speaking roles #told you the GSA brainrot was bad #IYD spoilers #kinda

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kidflashimpulse · 2 years ago

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seeing that Carol and Preston are contacts in Bart's phone in your new fic made me smile SO big. i love the idea they live in Central City instead of Manchester on Earth-16 purely so they can still know Bart. we know absolutely zero about Bart's civilian life but i've always loved the idea the basics are similar to his Impulse solo: he finds school SUPER boring, he's inadvertently popular and HATES it, and he's got like two or three close civvie friends (Carol, Preston, Rolly)

omg same! like im sorry it is wat it is sdjdjk they've been plucked right out of Manchester into Central City by the E16 relocation program lol

its so interesting that u think this too!! because I've very strongly since forever been thinking about how a lot of the stuff that happens to him in the impulse comics happened to him adjusting to his new life in central city as a civilian, in fact it was the concept of one of the first ever fanfic that I've written that explored all this! I am just SO INTERESTED in his adjustment to civilian life, especially at the beginning because its actually so wild if u think about it, just like in the comics hes literally a time traveller from some alien ridden timeline (to the point of an apocalypse in YJA) and now suddenly, hes supposed to adjust to some stable life with something called school? Just wild lol

in my fanfic and in general I have the same idea! Like not every single scene and moment from the Impulse comic happens in E16, there are a lot of differences, but some rough plot and characters remain (I love Carol Preston Rolly, Assistant Principal Sheridan too LOL, tho I do think Carol has moments of poor characterisation due to the comic being written in the 90s, so in my fanfic I've put the personality traits that were suggested in the comic at the forefront, cut out all of the what I think of as totally unnecessary characterisation and then filled in the blanks with other stuff, but her background remains the same, just like Preston with his parents)

One day Id like to post that fanfic (hopefully after I finished all my current series lol) but because its my first one, it needs a COMPLETE work over, I've really learnt a lot by posting what I have so far and will definitely be putting it to good use for that series too (I can't believe how different my writing is compared to back then and its only been a year), but it will definitely be a while before I start working on it again.

Since it'll be a while until I work on it, ill address the impulse derivative HCs now lol for some satisfaction:

-yep he finds school insanely boring (but also super weird, the concept is so strange to him, hes also struggled with some things A LOT but of course he eventually adapts (to an extent lol))

-hes inadvertently popular and hates it: I think at first (which also happens in the comic but I think also passes really quickly there) people think hes super weird, and first impressions do last, but I think its kinda split, there are people who keep that first impression negatively but also others who like in the comics spin it positively and think hes cool so hes accidentally involved with stuff and yes he totally hates it, because he has so much on his plate at that point with the whole apocalypse thing that school related stuff is literally the least of his concerns so if it gets in the way of his hero responsibilities then he rlly hates it lol

-his two to three close civvie friends being Carol, Preston and Rolly, totally agree

In An Anomaly in Time the principal that Reep impersonates is actually Randal Sheridan, I didn't make any clear reference to it in the fic but just know that every mentioned principal in Barts fics is him lol no matter the school, the guy just loves his job that much

apologies for the essay as always but I have so many thoughts on this lol and im so glad u enjoyed their ref :) I wasn't planning on it initially but I might try to involve them in a chapter at some point in An Anomaly in Time who knows ;)

#YJ asks #bart allen #impulse #kid flash #young justice #An Anomoly in Time #impulse comics #young justice animated

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butwhatifidothis · 3 years ago

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Tumblr is starting to VERY MUCH dislike how long the other reblog chain is getting, so this will be Reblog Chain 2 of my jotting down notes of this fic. Here is the first reblog chain for Chapters 1-20

But it appears as though I was correct in sleeping off Chapter 20, because Chapter 21 is. Hm. bad. Very. Not good.

Chapter 21:

Transcript under the cut:

Chapter 21: It's Called Scars so it Gonna Be Ass

- To be blunt, the constant need to reaffirm that yes, Edelgard went through terrible experimentation and that yes, they were very horrific, is tiring. This is chapter 21. The experiments occurred in chapter 2. Every single chapter between now and then have, at some point, mentioned that INDEED, Edelgard DID in fact go through horrific trauma. It is tiring to the reader to constantly have to reread the same thing - we know it happened. We know it was terrible. There's no need to constantly say so; we already understand as readers.

- "Every time the spark of life broke through Byleth’s blank face, it brought a flickering hope to the Flame Emperor’s heart." ->

- Firstly: Awkward use of the Flame Emperor epithet (its usage is on and off with how appropriate its been - this is off).

- Secondly: Once again, Byleth's face was rarely if ever blank. She was never the Ashen Demon, as even the last chapter showcased. The author is mistaking reservation with emotionlessness, which is simply wrong

- "There had been so many empty days and nights, without friendship, love or joy. With nothing to hope for, except someday, the peace of the grave." -> Suicidal tendencies: another trait that Edelgard doesn't have... (strikes against canon: 89)

- ...but Dimitri does. Counter: 12

- "Dimitri, too, was troubled by the thought, grasping the side of his head and frowning. As the spasm passed, he turned to Edelgard and smiled warmly." -> It seems a little callous to so casually toss Dimitri's symptoms into his interactions with others when such things simply don't occur in the canon interactions. It's not impossible, or strictly against canon, but it does not feel natural; it's more as though the author is shining bright neon signs that say DIMITRI HAS MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES than a genuine attempt at writing Dimitri's mental health issues. This is not the first time this sort of seemingly thoughtless showcasing of symptoms has happened (Noted separately: Dimitri having drastic mood swings)

- "No, this world must be ruled by humans…not cruel gods who ignored the prayers of little girls." -> This statement follows Edelgard internally chastising the actions of not gods, but the Children of the Goddess. This is a weaselly attempt at dodging Edelgard's racist beliefs that Nabateans should not be allowed positions of power by shifting the belief to apply to miscellaneous gods instead. While not inaccurate per se - she does also canonically believe that gods should have no power in human affairs - it is not honest

- "Byleth nodded with childlike simplicity. “We should all try to get along.”" -> Again describing Byleth as childlike and/or innocent. Counter: 3

- For those curious: yes, the rat scene is implemented, yes it is sloppy, yes it is out of character for Claude - so much so that it is being noted separately - and yes it is forced to all hell

- What will be noted here, however, is that this is yet another instance of a man being demeaned/humiliated for the honor of a woman. See quote: "Byleth was on him in an instant, a tempest forming in the sea of her blue eyes. “That isn’t funny.” She crossed her arms sternly. “Jokes are about bringing people together...about making them smile. Right now, the only person laughing is you.”" with Claude reacting awkwardly. Once again, Man Bad Woman Good

- In a showcasing of a complete lack of self-awareness within the fic: "“Maybe if you’d have taught the Deer instead…but since you seem to have no ambitions outside of cleaning up Edelgard’s messes…”" -> This is Claude being portrayed as the bad guy, not the one being completely and utterly right

- " She slapped Edelgard on the back, and smiled heartily. “I agree, Dimitri!” Edelgard grimaced, trying to hide the fact her teacher had just struck the wound she had received during the mock battle." -> As well as where undoubtedly countless scars would be, yes? Scars that still cause Edelgard pain? In fact, Edelgard has been slapped on the back by Byleth and Jeralt numerous times before, and yet expresses no pain or discomfort.

- Another thing, that I had not noted though ought to have: Edelgard, a victim of sexual assault (in this fic), rarely seems to mind people touching her. She gets a little surprised if someone tries to get her attention with touch, yes, but Byleth's constant unprompted and random touching of Edelgard is never said to do anything but bring warmth and joy and comfort to Edelgard. It seems as though Edelgard suffering through sexual assault is just another source of trauma for the author to dump onto her for nothing more than pity points

- This is incredibly harsh to say, yes, and I would usually refrain from attributing such harshness onto a piece of text, but remember that Edelgard's scars only cause her pain when it's convenient, that she only experiences headaches when it's convenient, that she experiences PTSD episodes (when Claude mentions the rat) when it's convenient (note that in this fic he does it outside of battle, where her getting triggered wouldn't compromise her chances at victory). Edelgard not being touch averse and being a victim of sexual assault are not inherently something bad - survivors react to trauma differently, after all - but it is another in a steadily longer line of instances where Edelgard is simply given trauma for the sake of making her pitiable to the reader and the love interest, not something that Edelgard genuinely has to struggle with.

- "As Claude and Dimitri looked at their classmate expectantly, Edelgard was wracked with another bout of guilt. Deep in her soul, the princess knew these peaceful days would end soon. When that happened, no feast or vows of friendship could make up for the chaos and horror she would unleash. It would be better to pull away, close off her heart, rather than fuel the flames of her inevitable betrayal." -> Aka, "Feel bad for me, I feel guilty for planning to cause the death and ruination of countless innocents' lives all because I convinced myself that my way is the only way to get things done my way without ever actually trying to see if more peaceful ways could have worked. I'm going to orphan children, force families to fight each other, have the land be rampaged by banditry, and overall bring chaos onto these days that I ADMIT ARE PEACEFUL all because I feel that my way would be better. Wah wah pity me but I don't wanna be pitied I promise wah wah."

- "Byleth shrugged with a characteristic blend of innocence and spirit. “I guess I just like winning.” She began to blush and grabbed Edelgard’s hand. "It's so exciting! I’ve never had anyone other than Papa to celebrate with before!”" -> Byleth = innocent/childlike. Counter: 4

- The fic likes to reaffirm again and again that Byleth is "now" only acting like this due to Edelgard's presence in her life. Note also these statements written previously: "Every day, [Edelgard] was watching the person she loved grow and change. Become who she always was supposed to be." This, perhaps unintentionally, again enforces the "Lesbian Love is Pure and Innocent" trope; these wlw are only allowed to be their good girl, innocent selves - who they were always supposed to be - due to the pure lesbian love they have found with one another

- Count Bergliez didn't know of the experiments initially, but he eventually found out and did nothing to stop them, fleeing from a young and tortured El who was pleading for him to save her - Unnecessarily painting Count Bergliez as a spineless coward too afraid of Duke Aegir to save a child in pain

- Once again, a man fails to save a woman and further traumatizes her

- It should be noted that Bergliez is fearful not for his own life, but for that of his children, who were the ones Duke Aegir threatened. He, very similar to Ionius, cannot save Edelgard, except Bergliez (unlike Ionius) has a tangible, physical, explainable reason as to why he couldn't, and yet it is him who is painted as the bad guy, not Ionius. He is worthy of Edelgard's scorn and hatred, but Ionius only receives a begrudging feeling of betrayal from Edelgard that she feels guilty for harboring, even though he failed her far more than Bergliez failed her.

- "Daughters must always be loyal to their fathers" trope

- "No decent person thought the things Edelgard did. Just as her body had been twisted and shattered by the experiments, her mind bore terrible scars. Scars that the monster kept hidden, so she could walk in the world of men." -> Dehumanizing oneself as a monster as well as having violent thoughts (that specifically stem from trauma) one feels guilty for harboring are not traits Edelgard shows in canon... (strikes against canon, 90, 91)

- ...but Dimitri does. Counter: 13, 14

- "world of men?" Did the author perhaps mean "world of man," as in mankind? Keep note of

- The reason as to why Bergliez is said to have witnessed young El's tortured state and did nothing to help her is revealed: in canon, he dislikes her. It is blatantly and objectively said that he and Edelgard share a mutual displeasure in the other's company. What this fic had him do will be used as an excuse as to why he doesn't hate her, since no one is allowed to dislike Edelgard on the "good" side

- Edelgard, upon being asked if revenge is the reason she is doing what she's doing (reuniting Fodlan): "“No.” Edelgard put her hand to her chin thoughtfully. “I think for a long time, it was…but after a while, I realized that revenge wouldn’t satisfy me.” She looked at the blue sky above. “After you go through that much suffering…when you beg for help, day after day, and no one cares...you realize that nothing will ever truly make you feel safe again. The only thing I want is for this madness to end.”" -> This is internally inconsistent. See chapter 15 note: ""You know why they created me in the first place.” / “To reunite Fódlan,” spat Hubert. “It was all my father talked about.” / “And I will give it to them. "" This directly connects Edelgard's want to reunite Fodlan to the wants of her tormenters (as this states she is doing it out of spite). Note how Hubert spits at the idea of reuniting Fodlan, and how it was all his father - portrayed as a villain - talked about. This is not what this Edelgard wants, at least not of her own independent want. Earlier in this very chapter, Edelgard internally states a want to hurt Bergliez for leaving her behind. To say that she now no longer thinks vengeance would satisfy her, or that none of the reason that she is doing everything she does is out of a want for revenge, is ridiculous

- Edelgard to Bergliez, upon being asked what will happen to him and his family should Edelgard rise to power: "“All those who distinguish themselves will be rewarded. Given your history, I have little doubt you will be among them.” She nervously played with her white gloves. “All I ask is that when I seize back control of the throne, I can count on the military’s support.”" -> Yes, all who distinguish themselves to Edelgard, for Edelgard's cause, that Edelgard can see and/or know of. How likely is it that a poor farmer who is exceptional at fighting will actually be noticed by Edelgard and be given the credit he deserves, when others who may not be as meritable but do have some merit have the connections to show themselves directly in front of Edelgard? What means will Edelgard give the poor soldiers (that she or Byleth aren't already friends with, notably Dorothea and Leonie) that will allow them to be able to be seen by her and have their merits recognized? Edelgard is the one who says who gains power after all, so it is her they must prove themselves to, but how can they realistically do that?

- What about professions that are not immediately beneficial to Edelgard's cause, such as the arts? How will they fare in Edelgard's society, when their works and talents yield no tangible, objective results (such as, say, farming)?

- Something the fic will address?

- Edelgard does not nervously do anything in front of those she is trying to negotiate with in canon, not even Thales. Strikes against canon: 92

- "[Bergliez] could only laugh in response. “I think we’re going to get along rather well, my lady…and the other?”" -> Except Bergliez and Edelgard don't get along well, ever. Pre ts they are stated to dislike each other, which continues even onto post ts with Bergliez being the only noble Edelgard couldn't bring to heel. Strikes against canon: 93

- As predicted: No one is allowed to dislike Edelgard on the "good" side

- Literally forgot Hubert was with Edelgard and Bergliez lmao

- Ionius tried to consolidate power to be rid of the consort system due to his unending love for Anselma -> A ridiculous idea, plain and simple. Ionius was Emperor. If he wished to be rid of the consort system there was no need for him to try and take away all power from the other Imperial houses.

- If Ionius truly loved Anselma, why did he allow her to be exiled from the Empire? Why didn't he step in and use his influence as Emperor to help her?

- Edelgard, when she is Emperor - passed down a supposedly empty crown, at that - showcases the all-encompassing power the title of Emperor truly holds to one willing to use that power. That Ionius supposedly wanted to do all of these reforms and yet nothing at all was done, ever (save for ruining Houses Hrym and Ordelia, something even this fic has as canon), if Ionius did want to make these reforms, means that he was too spineless and cowardly to truly go through with trying to pass them. This again unintentionally showcases how awful a ruler and weak-willed a person Ionius was when he had power when trying to paint him in this righteous light.

- Lambert was stated to be trying to pass reforms before he died in canon, not Ionius. From parents to the children, the author is attributing traits from Lambert onto Ionius just as he (author's confirmed gender is male) attributes traits from Dimitri onto Edelgard

- " Her father and mother…she had thought their romance a fairy tale-a story from her father to make a motherless child feel valued. But…they truly had loved each other." -> Edelgard does believe Ionius when he told her of the story of when he and Anselma (supposedly) met each other. There is nothing to indicate that Edelgard thought it to be a lie: in fact, in canon: "But I choose to believe there was genuine love between them." Strikes against canon: 94

- It seems as though finally, after around 18 chapters, Edelgard's scars will finally cause her genuine inconvenience due to her complex about them as well as her trust issues. She has a gash on her back from the Battle of Eagle and Lion, but will not have it treated if Manuela isn't the healer, and yet the woman is occupied dealing with the rest of the students who were injured. How will this fic deal with this?

- Ingrid, referring to her and Sylvain: ""We just switched from Felix lecturing us all day to listening to Edelgard moralizing, didn’t we?"" -> The author is trying to compare a childhood friend whose friends have had years to get used to their barbed tongue to a stranger that directly insults the dreams of one of them. Something which Ingrid canonically hates having be done to her, even from Felix, a childhood friend. Once again, Ingrid being so casual about Edelgard being so disrespectful of her dreams is out of character. Strikes against canon: 95

- "Sylvain shook his head knowingly, ignoring Felix’s truly alarming scowl. “You should have seen his face, Edelgard. Dimitri would go on and on about this girl he met when he was a kid…and Felix would complain about her for hours!” He looked at Felix and smiled. “For all his whining about the “Boar,” nobody loves Dimitri more than him.”" -> Oh? A romantic gay male relationship presenting itself within the fic?

- Another vision of SS experienced by Edelgard. Word from a nameless guard: "The woman, Byleth, leading their forces... She’s not human! She killed half my battalion with one swing of that sword of hers. She didn’t speak, she didn’t shout, she didn’t even change her expression!” The panicked man was teetering on the edge of hysteria. “All those people rallying around her, and it’s like she doesn’t care at all. Like she's a walking corpse!"" -> Obviously saying that Byleth becomes the Ashen Demon if not allowed to be with Edelgard.

- Unintentional statement: Byleth can't be the pure innocent (lesbian) woman without Edelgard's (lesbian) love granting her purity, reverting her to a monstrous, corrupt demon incapable of humanity

- See chapter 20 note: "Implying that choosing SS - aka, choosing the Nabateans - makes Byleth less human. Intentional?" Confirmed to be intentional. Also false: in canon, even when accounting for CF's lesser chapter count, Byleth emotes far more on SS than on CF, which matches with CF having Edelgard call Byleth detached in their A support. Strikes against canon: 96

- The same nameless soldier, same context: "And those Faerghus kids…” / Edelgard leaned forward in her chair. “Ingrid…Sylvain…what of them?” / “They…they were animals. Screaming and ranting about revenge for the King.” -> Is the author really demonizing Sylvain and Ingrid for (potentially!) being mad at Edelgard for murdering one of their childhood friends? Is that really the depths the Edelgard worship will sink to, that friends becoming enraged at a friend's unjust murder from a warlord is being portrayed as something sad for the warlord? Just what else should Edelgard be pitied for?

- "The scared girl desperately tried to drown out the thoughts that reverberated incessantly. / They’re going to despise us…it’s destiny. And how could they not? If we were truly good, the Goddess would have saved us…protected us. But She didn’t. The Goddess took Mother. She took our family. And soon, She’ll take everything else we love. She hates us. / It’s what we deserve." - Now confirmed that Edelgard hears multiple voices in her head tormenting her. That trait that, once again, Edelgard does not have... (Strikes against canon: 97)

- ...but Dimitri does. This is the third time this chapter that this has happened, and far from the only chapter to display such baffling characterization of Edelgard via Dimitri's traits. It is nonsensical.

- " Why had [Edelgard] even been born at all? Nonexistence would have been preferable to watching every faint dream be dashed, to suffering alone over and over. She was just…so tired of being alive." -> Once. Again. Suicidal tendencies/thoughts is not a trait Edelgard shows in canon... (Strikes against canon: 98)

- ...but Dimitri does. The fourth! The fourth time in one chapter the author desperately wanted to just write Dimitri!

- If the fic wanted to take Edelgard in a different direction than canon does and has her display some of these traits, it would be more passable, but this fic is under the delusion that it is in any way following canon closely, especially in regards to Edelgard, and so this can only be seen as a desperate attempt from the author to have Edelgard be sympathetic by donning the skin of an actually sympathetic character such as Dimitri

- "Edelgard looked at herself in the mirror. The back of her academy uniform was stained red, the rhythmic, soft dripping of blood assaulting the princess’ ears." -> And no one commented on this? No one was worried? Not Ingrid, Sylvain, and Felix, who were sitting right by her? Not Lysithea, who saw her take the blow to her back and never get it healed? Not Dimitri, who delivered the blow? It just so happened that literally no one at all noticed this?

- Byleth literally slapped Edelgard on the back earlier? Wouldn't her hand come back red with blood if it were seeping through the uniform?

** The scene that follows the previous note is too long to quote, despite how truly terrible it is. Long quotes, even extremely long quotes, have been presented in these notes before, but the length this quotation would be if the full extent of it were written here would be a mess, and quite frankly, at that point it would do one better to simply go to the fanfiction itself and read the text from there. With the context received from these notes, if one wishes to see the words for themselves, go to chapter 21 of The Emperor and the Goddess, enter Ctrl + F (or Find in Page on mobile devices), and enter the phrase "Byleth crossed her arms, clearly frustrated" verbatim. The following note will not be quoting the entire scene from the fic (merely summarizing it), though context is needed to understand how truly bad the scene is. **

- To have hope in this fic performing anything correctly is proving to be a fool's dream, for it has yet to do anything right; that includes the aforementioned gash upon Edelgard's back. As stated, it did not draw the attention of those who were sitting around her nor did it draw the attention of the one who witnessed the injury itself, nor of the one who delivered the injury itself, so no one commented on the gaping, bleeding wound Edelgard was "hiding" from everyone as she turned her (bleeding) back to them and left for the baths to clean up (it must be heavily stressed: immediately after leaving it is revealed that the blood is seeping through her uniform). As she was washing - naked, of course - Byleth just so happened to step into the baths with only a towel wrapped around her "for modesty," much to the horror of Edelgard, for she does not want Byleth seeing her scarred body. A slight argument arises between the two over Edelgard getting her injuries checked, before Byleth warns Edelgard that she will go to Rhea and force her to go to the infirmary should Edelgard continue to refuse treatment, which drives Edelgard past the brink. She raises her arms from the bathwater and presents her scars (""Fine!... If you want to see so badly, here!""), to the horror of Byleth ("Byleth Eisner was not a woman given to strong emotional reactions, but she staggered back, hands over her mouth."). Edelgard cries in hysteria, fear of her beloved teacher running away in disgust over her ugly, mutilated body overwhelming her. But Byleth, childlike in her innocence, shared that she too is scarred in strange ways, and that she too is scared of failing those around her - that she has no ambitions save to help and protect those around her. Byleth reveals that it is Edelgard whom Byleth looks up to for always being so strong and always moving forward, and shows that without Edelgard Byleth wouldn't know how to handle the pressure everyone else puts on her. The exchange ends with Byleth reassuring Edelgard that she is beautiful and not the monster she thinks she is.

- There is no nice way of putting this: this is a classic example of how not to write someone opening up to another about something. Edelgard views herself as weak, ugly, repulsive, a monster, shameful, but it is Byleth's love and affection that gives her comfort and warmth, that gives her hope of something more. It forces Byleth to behave wildly out of character (the author can try to excuse this with "well she wouldn't normally behave like this!" all he wants, it doesn't matter when it goes against the base, canonical Byleth. Strikes against canon: 99) in order for Edelgard's scarred body to be seen as something that is repulsive, that is ugly, that is stained, so much so that the pure, childlike, innocent Byleth couldn't stand to see something so tainted. And yet it is that same pure, childlike, innocent Byleth's pure, innocent, childlike love that pushes away the pain of Edelgard's scars for just that moment. Other characters become suddenly blind and/or forgetful of Edelgard's obvious, bleeding wound so that it is Byleth who can be the one to save Edelgard with her pure, innocent, childlike presence and her pure, innocent, childlike uncertainty about her own insecurities (but only when it is convenient for Edelgard, as even Byleth didn't noticed the gaping, bleeding wound until she was alone with Edelgard where no one could interrupt their bonding moment). This scene is inorganic and forced, ham-fisting Edelgard and Byleth in the same room - the wash room, where both are either naked or nearly naked - so that Byleth is the one to find Edelgard, no one else. No one was worried enough about the sudden exit Edelgard took from the conversation she was having to follow her and make sure she was alright, and Byleth just so happened to enter the baths right after Edelgard. The scene is, to be frank, insulting.

- There have been a couple of joking references to a book titled Stones to Abigail in these notes, but in all seriousness, this scene plays unsettlingly similar to a scene in said book, where a scarred girl who is naked reveals her "ugly" and "revolting" scarred body to the love interest, who goes on to soothe and comfort the naked girl as best they can. The resemblance is uncanny

- Byleth described as childlike/innocent. Counter: 5

- Edelgard, in canon, never expresses feeling herself to be ugly, or repulsive, or a monster. Strikes against canon: 100

- Again, Edelgard's scars are only important when they are convenient - this time, in helping develop the romantic relationship between her and Byleth

- There are ways in which scars can be utilized without being problematic, but certainly not when this much focus is placed on them and yet they are only truly present when they cannot hinder Edelgard.

- Perhaps particularly insulting is this phrase from Edelgard: "Did she actually love Byleth at all, or just being saved by her?" Yes, Edelgard, you do simply want to be saved by Byleth, because that is precisely what the narrative has been drilling into the reader's heads ever since Byleth showed herself. Byleth is Edelgard's light, Byleth is Edelgard's hope, Byleth gives Edelgard back her humanity, Byleth is Edelgard's one source of joy, Byleth is Edelgard's entire life, and nothing, absolutely nothing in this fic has shown this to ever be a bad thing. This dependence on Byleth to bring Edelgard joy at the near complete expense of everyone else has been propped up as something romantic, and yet it's now, 21 chapters and over 85K+ words in, that we're supposed to believe that this was actually Edelgard being unhealthy? Even though the author himself said that this was what he enjoyed about their relationship, how much they found each other in each other? Even though we see what the author thinks would happen to the two of them should they separate - Edelgard, lonely and afraid without her beloved teach, and Byleth, the Ashen Demon who cares for nothing without her beloved student - in her visions of SS? This is a joke

- It cannot be overstated that Byleth came to the bathhouses completely independently of Edelgard. She did not come to specifically see her because she followed her out of worry for Edelgard due to her injury - she only knows that Edelgard's injured in the first place due to seeing bloody bandages that Edelgard removed in the bathhouse, before Byleth arrived.

- Author's notes: "On Bergliez, we find out very little in-game, but he 1) offers himself for execution so his men can go free in SS and 2) seems to be actually competent at his job. I thought a nuanced portrayal was more interesting, since I've been writing Aegir as the absolute worst person in the world." -> Note: this is what the author believes to be a nuanced take on someone. Someone who likes Edelgard entirely and does nearly whatever they can to help her, but they did one thing that's morally gray (leaving a child behind to save his own children from the same fate) that is portrayed as objectively bad, so now they are nuanced. While perhaps this sort of character would be truly nuanced in better hands, as it is with his actions being portrayed as something that is obviously so completely and utterly wrong and him someone who deserves complete and utter condemnation - and yet Ionius, who does far worse for far less understandable reasons, gets a comparative slap on the wrist - it causes confusion as to Edelgard's lines. Bergliez seeing her the one time and never helping her is enough for her to want to hurt him as she was hurt, but her father repeatedly coming to and "being forced" to watch her actively be tortured and doing nothing does little to invoke similar depths of resentment? Even granting the idea that "she gives more slack to her father," Ionius is objectively and far worse than Bergliez, down to doing hard things to protect their children, and yet it is only Bergliez who is shined in this unpleasant a light

- To be clear, Bergliez's decision was not a good one, but understandable. It is a gray decision to make. But notice how he is called "gray" and "nuanced" and yet Ionius is nearly completely innocent, as described by the author himself, despite their being no given explaination as to why "he was a figurehead" should be a good enough reason to wash him literally standing there and watching as his children - some of whom aren't even teens yet - get slowly tortured and killed.

- "There are many localization changes I understand (Byleth wanting to get drunk after the battle is one of them), but Treehouse's decision to remove Ionius' entire reason for power centralization (eliminating the consorts) was a big, big mistake." -> Given the history of this author's grasp on the Japanese language, this needs to be checked, as he cannot be trusted as a source as to whether this is true

******* Notes of Claude mischaracterization: Chapter 21, section 1, paragraphs 1, 21 & 23, 27 *******

#o captain my captain #is the Cap'n's name fuckin' Greg holy shit #this chapter was baaaaad #b-but hey maybe i'm just being overly critical?

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pascalpanic · 4 years ago

Text

Blood, Sweat, and Tears (Javier Peña x f!Reader)- Chapter One

Summary: You live in Bogotá in the ‘90s, and work odd hours. No, you’re not a DEA agent, but a nurse. These odd hours prompt odd habits, like working out at 2:03 A.M. after a shift. Odd hours attract odd people, and you have a chance encounter with one DEA agent by the name of Javier Peña. Warnings: language, blood and violence (both graphic), descriptions of death and gun violence Chapter 1 W/C: 2.3K A/N: you guys! I am so in love with this fic. I already have quite a bit more written and can’t wait for you to read it! I hope you love it as much as I do! Javi deserves some softness... but not too much. this can’t all be fluff when you’re Javier Peña. Okay, this is not super canon-fitting of Narcos, I’m just gonna be honest with y’all. This is between the time of Escobar’s escape from La Catedral and his final capture and death, but also… Connie’s still in Colombia. Additionally, I don’t really have a year in mind, it’s just somewhere in that period. Please note that this is not a very lighthearted story- it begins with a death, though not of a significant character. Javier and reader both have some trauma, so please check the warnings of each chapter before you start reading. If you’re continuing on, I hope you like it! For the most part, if I use italics here when someone is speaking, it’s indicating that it’s in Spanish. I’m okay at the language, but I don’t want to butcher anything, so… just imagine it. Otherwise, it’s just the way anyone would use italics I guess.

next chapter

Chapter One

You watched a woman you didn’t know die in your arms tonight.

She was beautiful, all dressed up to go out and party, her makeup running down her face with tears. Her lips were the painted the color of the blood that trickled from the side of them, eyes glazing over as she coughed and coughed and ruined the beautiful dress she wore. The nurses had asked what happened, and she had told them, through gurgles of blood: she had slept with one of Escobar’s men. She got too close, learned too much, and they tracked her down.

She flatlined not long after telling the nurses around you. You had stood in the corner, paralyzed at first. You were an experienced ER nurse, nothing was new. You had seen patients die, but something about her was different. Maybe it was the way she reached out to you right before her body went limp. You didn’t make it to her bedside in time to calm her, the panic holding you down, but you finally took her hand right as she took her last breath.

After she passed, you threw up in the bathroom, shaking and clutching the toilet. The night air had grown unbearably hot and humid, causing your scrubs to cling to your skin, and the sweat from the heaving of your stomach didn’t make things easier on you. Lorena, a fellow nurse and your best friend at work, had found you and comforted you, rubbing your back and bringing you water. It didn’t matter. It couldn’t reverse what had happened.

Now, you sit on a bench in the staff’s locker room, redoing the ponytail holding your hair from your damp face. Your shift ended a few minutes ago, but you don’t know what to do now. You don’t feel like drinking; that would only make the visions swimming in your head worse. You know you can’t go home, can’t attempt to find sleep tonight. You look up and spot a bag with tennis shoes and spare clothing and settle your mind on at least one thing: the gym could do you some good. You change into the clothes and put the blood-spattered scrubs in the laundry pile.

As you leave, you give Lorena a little wave goodbye and exit the building. You’re hyper-aware of your surroundings tonight, and you groan as you look at your watch and notice that it’s precisely 2:09 A.M. here in Bogotá. The walk to your fitness club is short, but your step is slightly extra hurried and your hand is on your pepper spray the entire time, extra vigilant to the fact that a hit went down somewhere around here just a few hours earlier. Surprisingly enough, no one catcalls or bugs you tonight.

The little gym is run-down and dilapidated, and there’s no working air conditioning, but it’s the only one near you. You paid the small monthly membership fee to gain access, and you were going to use it to get in shape, you’d decided. As you swipe in and enter, the tiny fitness center looks more depressing in the fluorescent lights, no daylight to sugarcoat the atrocities of the center. There are two of every machine, a punching bag and a speed bag, two weightlifting racks, and a couple of benches.

It’s nice that you get to work out alone tonight, you tell yourself. Even better is the fact that you now get to control the music. Desperate for a taste of home, you flip the large boombox in the corner on and begin scanning the airwaves with the dial. There’s a station in town that plays American music, and you need it more than anything tonight. You listen carefully and nearly start sobbing again as you hear Billy Joel’s voice through the speakers. With a sigh of relief, you lock your bag in the rusty lockers in the corner and head to the treadmill. It’s a beat up old thing, but this is the one you always use. It provides a little bit of comfort tonight, the familiarity of it. You turn it on low and start walking. A few moments later, you up it to a jog, mouthing along to the words of the familiar song.

As the song ends, you push the buttons enough to enter a running speed. Your feet slam into the treadmill harder than normal tonight, feeling as overwhelmed as when you left the hospital. Your body finally works up a sweat, the physical stress overwhelming the mental stress.

As the events of tonight replay in your head to some other song from the late 80’s, your eyes start to water. Everything was so overwhelming, and your mind is just starting to process it. You finally allow the tears to fall, mixing with the sweat coating your cheeks. It’s hard to tell which is causing more of the mess, but you let yourself cry it out as you run for the next few minutes.

The next song that comes on is Venus by Bananarama. You almost chuckle at the fact that it’s a few years old by now, but the song is comforting. It reminds you of home, of a time before you had issues like these. You slow down the treadmill a little, singing to the words aloud once you catch your breath enough. Daring to do a little spin on the rolling surface, you groove along to the music, chuckling a little

After the first chorus, you hear a creaking noise and whip around to find a man standing in the doorway. “Jesus fucking Christ!” You shout before you can stop yourself, hopping off the treadmill and onto the non-moving one before you get flung off. Your heart is pounding from the running, only intensifying the adrenaline rush from the scare.

The man chuckles a little, but the smile on his face doesn’t reach his eyes. He’s tired- of course he is, it’s now 2:30 in the morning. “Lo siento,” you offer in Spanish, cringing at yourself and your reaction just now. “I wasn’t expecting anyone else to be here this late,” you stutter, still panting from the running. He shakes his head lightly. “You’re American,” he says simply. In English, in a beautifully American accented voice.

Your sweaty brow furrows, a glimmer of hope sparking inside your chest as you notice that he speaks like an American himself. “So are you.”

He nods at that. “That I am,” he says as he puts his things in a locker, snapping it shut behind him. He looks at you for a moment. You’re not working at the Embassy, or he’d know you. It was rare to find an American down here that wasn’t working for the government somehow. He shakes his head and runs a hand through his hair, looking at how tired he appears in the big mirrored wall. He’s curious, but he’s exhausted.

You look at him for a moment. “You going to explain anything, like, tell me about yourself? Or do I have to go first?” You ask, hands on your waist as you hop back on the slowly moving treadmill, back into moving. He doesn’t respond. “Fine. I know you’re government. I’m not an idiot.”

He chuckles and tugs on his t-shirt, moving to the treadmill next to you and getting on. It’s been ages since you’ve held a conversation in English, and you missed this, missed how easily your first language flows from your mouth. “And you’re not.”

“Correct,” you nod, turning up the speed a little on the machine until you’re at a light jog. “My bigger concern was going to be why you’re here at 2-fucking-30, but I’m guessing I know the answer. You get called in around here for the hit?” He nods, starting the treadmill up and walking on it.

“You don’t have to be so guarded, Jesus. I fucking hate Escobar, I’m on your side,” you scoff before turning up the machine until you’re running once more.

Javier shrugs. “Makes sense. How did you know-”

“She died,” you say quickly and firmly, keeping your eyes straight ahead and looking at the room around you. “Add that to your file.”

He nods, understanding a little more now. You knew her somehow. He doesn’t say a word either, cranking up the machine and heading into a jog too.

A few more minutes pass of the two of you silently running next to each other, the American music still playing throughout the gym. It’s a comfort to Javier too. Tonight was shit for the DEA- they had known Escobar’s men would be around here. They had the intel, they had everything ready, but the men somehow had escaped and left a victim in their wake.

The frustration of everything, of the man being something close to home for you yet being a brick wall, threatens your eyes with welling tears again. “I just wanted to talk with an American,” you sigh and cross your arms, moving back into the walking stage of a treadmill.

The man next to you gives a similar sigh, stopping his treadmill completely and offering you a hand. “Javier Peña.” You take it reluctantly, feeling the sweat of both of your hands mix, and tell him your name before retracting it and stopping the treadmill too. “So, what brings you to the gym at 2:30?” He asks, crossing his arms and leaning against the center part of the treadmill.

“I’m a nurse. I work the graveyard shift. Bad night, a patient died because she got fucking shot for having a boyfriend and not knowing he was a narco, I need to get something out, I come here,” you shrug, unconsciously mimicking him by folding your arms as well.

He nods at that. “I’m here for the same. Shitty stakeout, I’m pissed off, I come here.” He leaves out the part about his favorite call girl being taken, and how he needed another way to get the rage inside of him out. He walks off of the treadmill and to the weight rack, pulling a bench beneath the bar.

You turn again and turn the machine back on, slowly jogging. “I see. Odd hours to be here, that’s why I asked,” you say simply. “And to see another American at such a time. I haven’t interacted with one since I came here.”

Javier nods, adjusting the weights on the bar. “Yeah. Weird,” he nods. “And that you’re an American who isn’t working for the government and you’re down here. What, you got a husband who works for us?”

You shake your head, swallowing hard for a moment. “No, don’t have a husband in the first place,” you admit, adjusting the ponytail holding your hair up. “It’s a long story.”

“We got time,” he shrugs as he gets on the bench beneath the rack, looking at you in the mirrored wall. Even with the sweat and the stress of working out, he notices that you’re gorgeous. You have a nice body, and even your face is pretty while you’re working out.

You shake your head. “Fine, if you really want to hear it.”

“Might as well. It’s that or more of this fucking Wham! music, and I’m sick of George Michael.”

“First of all, first person here gets the music, so mind your manners.” This finally earns a chuckle from the man, and you want to smile but it just can’t come. “I came down here with a man. He’s a citizen here. We were going to get married, but he left me. That was a couple of months ago now,” you admit, the tears beading in the corner of your eye again. “My work visa was still valid, and I renewed it so I can keep working at the hospital. I don’t really have anyone down here except the girls I work with, but I like helping out. They need me.” He nods a little as he listens, breaking his focus as he starts his reps with the bar.

“And you’re government, so that explains everything I need to know about you,” you continue to babble. “One of the girls I work with has a husband who’s at the Embassy. Murphy,” you say offhandedly.

Javier’s attention is caught, and he sets the bar on the rack. “Murphy?” He asks, and you turn your head to look at him and give him a nod. “No shit. That’s my partner.”

You chuckle slightly and look back at him, stopping the treadmill. “So you know Connie?”

Javi nods. “Yeah, great gal. She could do better than Steve,” he says, sitting up.

You laugh softly at that. “From what I’ve heard of him, I agree. She’s a really great girl, you’re right,” you nod in agreement, looking back at him. “She’s never mentioned you. She says her husband’s in janitorial, but we all know that’s not true. What, you guys CIA? DEA?”

Javier nods again. “DEA.”

“I see,” you say, folding your arms and leaning against the machine. “Can’t make you many friends around here. I learned pretty quickly to keep my mouth shut about being a gringa. They can usually tell though.”

“You’re right,” he chuckles and cracks his back.

You bite your lip as you look at him, your voice watery when you can finally speak again, suddenly overwhelmed by emotion again. “It’s nice to talk to someone in English again,” you admit with a forced smile.

He can read your eyes easily. You’re a nurse, and you told him that the victim died. You saw it. “It is,” he nods, reading your pain and trying to show you he empathizes with it. Your eyes are beautiful, he notices as he looks into them. So much more hope and trust than anyone else he works with, but the pain in them is unbearable. He looks away, leaning back on the bench to lift again.

“So where you from in the States?” You finally ask when the silence is too long.

“Laredo, Texas,” he chuckles. “Yourself?”

#javier peña x reader #javi peña x reader #javier peña #javi peña #pedro pascal #pedro pascal x reader #jose pedro balmaceda pascal #pedro pascal fanfiction #pascalpanic #narcos #narcos fanfic #blood sweat and tears

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vavuska · 4 years ago

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Who changed Lola Bunny?

Malcolm D. Lee explained, “This is 2021. It’s important to reflect the authenticity of strong, capable female characters. … So we reworked a lot of things, not only her look, like making sure she had an appropriate length on her shorts and was feminine without being objectified, but gave her a real voice. For us, it was, ‘Let’s ground her athletic prowess, her leadership skills, and make her as full a character as the others.'”

(See the complete interview here: X)

So, gone are her curves, thigh-high drawstring shorts and midriff-baring crop top. Instead, Lola Bunny now takes on a sportier look wearing a more standard basketball vest and leggings under her track shorts.

But, let's see more deeply what determinated this choice:

1. Being mad at a fan art is sad, people.

Before, a sad 50 yo guy starts complaing about how "cancel culture" or "politically correct" ruined his life - Really? Changing a cartoon bunny from a movie you didn't see for a decade ruined your life? Wow. Someone should really review the list of their priorities -, let's see how really Lola looked in the 1996 original Space Jam.

Here we have original Lola Bunny:

(Here you can see all Lola's scenes in Space Jam: X)

Yes, Lola walked in a sexy way that show off her curves, or at least she seemed to have curves (a little breast, tight waist, long legs, bootie), but those are not big as in the fan art you are seeing around, and Lola's curves are not evidenced during the match or when she played. Is more her attitude and posture that made her look sexy. However, althought her curves clearly changes every time she is doing something different, from action to action, there are some scenes in which she is purposely made sexy, with saxophone music as soundtrack and male-gaze sections that ends in the same way, Lola surrounded by a bunch of horny and howling cartoon guys.

That's appropriate with Jessica Rabbit: she is purposely made and designed as a parody of the femme fatale from old hard boiler movies, in which attractive, mysterious women were portrayed as evil and manipulative gals who hide criminal intentions. Jessica, with her intentionally exaggerated body, subverted the misogyny of 40s and 30s detective movies: she is kind-hearted, truly loves her naive and goofy husband Roger and uses her powers (beauty and cunning) to protect him. Her body too is used for comic sketches, while this not happens for Lola, that's just a serious and indipendent basketball player. So, the male obsession for her body is out of place, expecially because she reacted with anger at being misconsidered only for being an attractive female bunny. “Don't call me doll” is her catch phrase. So, it seems strange she didn't react at all at the very sexualized presentation at the final basketball match: Lola simply shows her basketball skills, ignoring or accepting passively the reaction of the honey crowd of wolves around her. (Please, notice the association: Lola “admirers” are wolves, predators, while Lola, their object of desire, is a rabbit, a prey)

This is the cartoon version of cat calling: they are like a group of men who sit on their porches and whistle at girls everyday when they walk in from of them. A normal girl or woman would pass over this thing, even if they are bothered, unconfortable or embarassed, because they are more scared by a possible violent reaction of this whistling horny guys at their legitimate anger objections. But here, we are talking of Lola, a strong Looney Tunes bunny, and she could smash that damn basket ball on wolves' face, breaking all their teeth. That would be very a Looney reaction. But Lola doesn't react at all at this situation. Here, on my opinion, screenplayers missed an opportunity, but probably they thought to have already did too much with Lola's personality and “girl power”.

Remember also that Lola is the only young cartoon female character we see in the whole movie. So we can't do a proper comparison with other female relevant characters' rapresentation. (See here for a deeper analysis of Lola's origin and development: X)

However, compared with Bugs, Lola looks more fit, more humanized than Bugs. Lola has clearly a definited breast and booty, but it looks like is more her posture that makes them relevant. Lola has clearly shoulders back to show the rack. Bugs is anthropomorphic but remains an animal, has no shoulders or pectorals more like a human and looks a bit over-weight (fat belly). And his posture don't keep that stomach in, chin up, and march forward.

Lola, on the other hand, has a more human structure. That's why I say she has curves. An example are Mickey and Minnie who are two beans in the same way it is not that Mickey is a bean and Minnie has small tits, they are structurally alike.

Lola's body remembers highly No-Ribs-Jasmine from Aladdin (see the gif for reference). That unrealistic Barbie-like waist that was so popular in the 90s and 80s. (See here for references: X and X)

Now, we are changed a lot from the past 24 years. Barbies didn't have that impossible, unrealistic waist-line anymore, Disney princess concept has changed (see Merida and Moana).

Lola concept is changed in 2012: her design for the new cartoons is totally different and her personality too. She wear a blue or violet dress, almost flat-chested and she was made annoying and silly, just to make a contrast with Bugs smarter. Just like Daffy Duck is dumb as hell and his new girlfriend, Tina Russo (no more dear old Melissa Duck), is way smarter than him. Tina is tough, street-smart, rebellious and feisty. But we will see this thing in the next point.

2. People on the upper floors hated Lola personality.

Lola Bunny had only few lines in Space Jam, but she definitely passed the first impression that she was draw only for make male characters fall in love. Lola was a good basketball player and show it off, in front of a skeptical and then astonish bunch of cartoon guys and also Michael Jordan. She also had a strong personality and said it clear to Bugs she didn't like being called "doll". Lola was beauty and curvy, but not a cheerleader. Lola was a basketball player. Remember this part, because we will talk about basketball in the next point.

If at the box office Space Jam was a success, at Warner Bros there were those who turn up their noses, and they are important people, from the upper floors, who accused the film with Michael Jordan of having completely distorted the philosophy of the Looney Tunes. They blamed Lola Bunny more than everything else. Producers of Warner Bros said she was too perfect for the moody group of Warner cartoons: she was too sensual, provocative and independent, totally alien to that core of crazy characters that act as an exaggeration of the vices of 'man.

And fans hated her too. Chuck Jones, creator of the Merrie Melodies said: "Lola Bunny is a character with no future, she’s a totally worthless character with no personality."

So, Lola Bunny was deleted. Lola would make only some brief apparitions in some comics edited by DC Comics, in Baby Looney Tunes, in which she was a toddler with a very similar personality and resemblance to Space Jam adult version, and also as playable character in some unsuccessful videogames.

Years passed and projects for a sequel of Space Jam never become reality, so in 2003 Warner Bros relased Looney Tunes Back in Action. But Lola wasn't here, because the movie purposely want to make a deep cut with what we saw in Space Jam, according to what said it's director Joe Dante. This movie was a totally failure, but it gave back to Looney Tunes their craziness.

Years passed again, but this time is 2011, 10th of May on Cartoon Network was relased the second episode of The Looney Tunes Show. The series aimed to strongly relaunch the Looney Tunes, long gone from the glories of the past, updating the stories of Bugs Bunny and associates in a sitcom key, with the rabbit sharing a house with Daffy Duck in a suburb of Los Angeles. All interspersed with sketches by Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner done in CGI and the updated return of the Merrie Melodies. But the big news of the second episode is that LOLA BUNNY RETURNED.

And Lola was a character with some relevance within the series, even if something didn't seem right with her. Lola looked different, she was no longer the rabbit version of the femme fatale seen in Space Jam: she was naive, talkative, with her head in the clouds, crazy to the point of becoming Bugs Bunny's stalker. Bugs after having fallen in love with her at first glance understands on the first date that he absolutely can't stand Lola. She is no longer the Lola we used to know, even if the appearance is similar and the name is the same. Lola is effectively a Looney Tunes now. And the fans like her, the public like her, Warner Bros like her.

(See Lola in The Looney Tunes Show here: X)

But this is a big walk in behind from the indipent character we used to know in Space Jam. Lola was turned into the stereotype of the crazy girlfriend for a while. And this is not a surprise, if we remember that in 2012 were popular the "overly attached girlfriend" meme template. (See here for references: X)

However, in The Looney Toons Show Lola has some very funny moments, while in Space Jam she was more serious and a little out of space among the other characters. (See here for references: X)

3. What women wear when they play basketball?

Women's National Basketball Association was only created in 1996. So, women's basketball were not considered - and still is not considered - as important as men's basketball at the time Space Jam was filmed.

In Space Jam 2 there will be WNBA players with a significant role, for example Diana Taurasi and Nneka Ogwumike.

Professional female athletes aren't that curvy because curves are determined by body fat and they have a little.

As a busty volleyball player, I can say, dear people, breats could be very annoying during sport activities: it could be a pain, when you run or jump. That's because a lot of women wear sport bra to compress and support their breast. Sports bra may also include layered cups or a high neck to keep everything in place and protect from painful hits, so women can be safe and comfortable during workouts.

Female basketball players didn't wear crop-tops and tight shorts to play. They wear exactly what Lola wears in the picture above: long sleeveless tees, large shorts and maybe protective gears such as knee pads, sleeves or braces to reduce chronic pain caused by the immense burden put on the knees in basketball, to prevent bruises caused by collisions and hard fall and to provide support after a significant knee injury like an ACL tear. They could wear also compressive arms sleeves to help muscles that are sore or overworked to recover faster. The sleeve enables your blood flow to circulate quicker to the heart, which helps you heal and recover quicker.

Wow. WNBA wears Exactly what wear NBA players. So surprising.

4. This is only a promotional character sketch, not what Lola would look in the movie.

Space Jam 2 would be developed in CGI and there are a little preview frames going around, included one showing Lola jumping and you can see her breast shape. But she totally looks like a comic cartoon character. It's not humanized. It's not designed to be the sexy love interest. She doesn't look out of space among the others anymore, expecially because seems that there would be also Tweety's Granny and Melissa Duck or Tina Russo as players too.

5. Reality.

Really? You want a human anthropomorphic rabbit? Well, Lola as a rabbit would have something like six nipples, but no human-like breast. And, also, real life girls have ribs. No one in real life is that thin. Oh, well, if you don't considered Pixee Fox, a model who had surgically removed six ribs and wears daily a compressive bust corset (yes, like the one that made Elizabeth Swan faint in the first movie of Pirate of the Caribbean) to look like a cartoon fairy (Tinkerbell, you are the one to blame for this).

(See here for references: X)

In conclusion, we can say that all this controversy is based only on a porny fan art and that Lola “new” graphic isn't change too much from the original Space Jam movie. It's just a little more cartoonish.

We can also firmly remeber that Space Jam 2 is going to be developed for children, to relunch Looney Tunes among new generations of children, who are the largest buyers of merchandising (including Happy Meals surprises) and consumers of new cartoons that surely would be developed, if Space Jam 2 would be a success.

However, we should admit that those kids probably know better the 2011 version of Lola than her original version and that 2011 version was more appreciated by fans and producers. Lola's voice actress, Kristen Wiin won BTVA People's Choice Voice Acting Award in 2012 and was nominated for that prize also about three times in the following years. Also Rachel Ramras, Lola's voice actor was nominated for BTVA People's Choice Voice Acting Award in 2016 for her role in Looney Tunes: Rabbit Run.

We don't know anything about Lola's personality in Space Jam 2, so we can't do a proper comparison or a prevision, but, according to what Malcolm D. Lee said, we can assume that original personality of Lola would be preserved.

The controversy is relevant only for Lola's body and not for her personality, and that's is highly rappresentative of what impressed more this bunch of grow-up kids. They grow up to be like the horny wolves and they are howling because their prey is not available anymore.

And, to be honest, being so obsessed with the breast and the body of a cartoon character (that is clearly made up for kids) it's not sane at all. Sorry to say that, but sometimes people need to drink from a bottle of truth.

208 notes · View notes

baeklooming-day · 4 years ago

Text

Meet me at the game arcade | Baekhyun

𓍢 Summary: There is this boy at the game arcade who is determined to win not only the plushie, but you together with it.

Masterlist

𓍢 Mini-playlist 💖 Moodboard by @kjikaila

𓍢 Genre: 90s!AU, Fluff, Cheeky Baek is back (you know the thing!!)

𓍢 Word Count: 6.6k

𓍢 A/N: Big credit to my beloved Tokyo, because I used to hang out at game arcades after school and often cute boys could be found there. 😇

Purple-ish, violet-ish, even blue-ish looking twinkling beams were soaking through the two lonely, candy floss bearing resemblance to fluffish clouds which appeared to cover the city beneath for a little while.

It wasn’t even summer anymore, but the sun seemed to be in a mood to let the light spill on everything beneath, letting little sparkles of vitamin D play on the walls of buildings, shining through the glass in windows, gleaming on all these colorful advertisements plastered around the district and making it seem as if the city was floating in the glinting sensation, warm light reflecting all possible kinds and shades of beautiful lilac color palettes.

Usually, you wouldn’t be the one to appreciate a similar weather very much, but given that the last two weeks had been nothing but wholly rainy and generally anything but pleasant in terms of weather outside, you found yourself being happy to be able to welcome the prickling sunlight on your skin.

You rested your chin on your knuckles, slowly closing your eyes and letting a lazy smile fall onto your scarlet tinted lips. You considered yourself lucky enough that you usually managed to arrive in class before all of your classmates, given that in that manner you could always pick the best seat without having to rush through the hallways to reach the classroom and dash to your desired desk.

And today, after all those gloomy days soaked in cold raindrops and weighing dust grey clouds, you found your seat to be even more than perfect.

The classroom wasn’t big, it was actually way smaller than you would like it to be, but as if to recompense that it had really large windows. And large windows meant a lot of sunlight to pour into the room through them, an obvious fact of which you couldn’t be more content about as you sat comfortably in the penultimate seat right beside one of those windows.

You had stopped paying attention to the lesson for what already felt like a whole thirty minutes ago, the dancing sunbeams only making you feel lazier and also kind of sleepy, completely switching off your usual concentration. You continued letting your face bathe in the pleasant sun rays which, now playfully peeking through the glass were gracing the monotonous classroom in cheerful gold shimmers. Your thoughts in the back of your mind started to slowly mix together with your teacher’s soft voice speaking about the last pages of your Japanese lecture in the background of which, right in that moment, you couldn’t really bring yourself to care about.

Your classmates were surprisingly quiet today, and in that current state you would probably soon drift away into your own personal dreamland even further, if not the little vibration coming from your phone placed under your hand on your desk.

For a split second you almost got a mini heart attack as the sudden text message made your pastel purple Nokia 3310 let out some rattling sounds as it moved ever so slightly on the wooden surface of your desk. You looked around a little bit startled, hoping that nobody noticed the brief faint noise.

Pulled back into reality, you quickly slid the device behind your equally purple colored pencil case, unblocking the screen with a click of one button and checking the received SMS. You felt a wide smile spreading on your lips as you read the text, it being from your friend announcing to you that her classes ended earlier today, and that she would be waiting for you to join her outside by the school entrance.

As you threw a quick glance at both the clocks on your screen and on the wall above the door, you found yourself seriously envying your friend, because it looked just as if she was always getting the cooler and chiller teachers who were actually able to understand that on the last lesson on Friday the kids weren’t the most likely to sit still and obediently follow the lesson anymore. Also given that today’s schedule, just like every other Friday which was simply laughable in your honest opinion, was absurdly long. Your lessons extended from eight in the morning until past three in the afternoon, which compared to the earlier weekdays you just refused to acknowledge.

You let out a deep sigh as another long minute had passed on the clock, mentally begging the time or whoever or whatever might be in charge of time management in the universe to quicken it up a bit.

Almost fifteen minutes left until the long awaited, two days freedom, also commonly known as the weekend. Just like everybody else, you were always impatiently waiting for the last lesson to be finally over and to let you hang out with some friends, and do other longed for fun activities for which you unfortunately didn’t have any time during the normal school week.

Until just now, you had always been included in the casual hangouts at the mall with your wide group of school friends, in going to the theater to check out the latest movie releases, or meeting up at your, by now beloved, cute small diner to eat some cherry cakes which quickly became popular around the area. But as of recently, the loud ringing sound on Fridays which announced the end of the lessons and beginning of the weekend, totally changed its meaning for you.

You weren’t as thrilled as you saw the large advertisement for the opening of a brand new game arcade for the first time on your way home one day, but as soon as you and your friend Miko decided to quickly see what it was all about and peeked inside on the big opening day, you already knew that you would visit and spend your coins at that place much more often than anyone could even imagine.

It was one of the branches belonging to SEGA group, it wasn’t any super large game arcade but at the same time it also wasn’t the smallest you had ever been in.

It was just ideal, and managed to balance perfectly the two things which you used to be crazy about the most when you were a little younger.

With that being said, the new game arcade was divided into more or less two sections, one being filled with all kinds of games starting with The Legend Of Zelda and ending on Pokémon, Super Mario, and many, many more in between. The second section was a little bit different, but not less interesting, perhaps only overlooking the fact that most of the time it tended to be a lot more nerve-wracking than you could ever expect from its harmless and pretty appearance.

The free space was filled with all kinds of plushie and toy automats, the whole room being so eye-catching and colorful that it was almost impossible to just pass by without giving it a proper look. It had literally everything you could ever dream of, soft and lovely teddy bears in every possible color, dolls, game characters, manga figures, even little charms which you could attach to your keys or your bag.

Truly a magical place flowing with milk and honey, if not the one unnerving fact that very often it was literally impossible to get the doll you wanted out of the automat at first try. Of course, it wasn’t such a big deal given that one turn costed exactly one hundred yen which wasn’t a handful of money after all. But if you calculated all your losses and all your future, probably failed as well, attempts together, you were very likely bound to leave at least around one thousand yen at the game arcade for literally nothing in return.

Sometimes you couldn’t hold yourself back from wondering that maybe that was the secret of the success of game arcades, and that the companies designed the automats like that on purpose to always drop the toy before it could even reach the hole and land safely in your hands.

There were times where you would loose even more than a thousand yen in an attempt to win the plushie you wanted, almost throwing your wallet against the glass as it became always much lighter and lighter with passing of each failed round.

There were times like this at the very beginning of that arcade fever, but after a while you found yourself becoming always better and better at fishing out all those dolls and bears. As the time flew by, you also found your bedroom nearly starting to drown in all those soft joys of every childhood.

But you didn’t really care.

And as soon as you got a notice that there was a new plushie automat to be about to be installed in the game arcade, you just knew that you needed to try it out immediately with the first better opportunity.

Which just came perfectly today.

You almost let out a squeak of joy as the bell finally rang, announcing the long awaited end of the last Friday’s lesson.

You quickly collected all your belongings from your desk and your seat, swinging your lilac bag over your shoulder and rushing out of the classroom in the direction of the stairs.

Luckily enough, you managed to dash through the corridor and down the stairs before the crowds of other students could block you.

As you reached the exit of the school building, you saw Miko standing right in front of it, her back turned at you. She was lightly swinging to the left and to the right, probably listening to some music on her brand new MP3 player she’d been talking about lately.

A little mischievous smile fell on your soft lips as a marvelous idea popped up in your head.

You took a few steps forward, careful to be quiet but, considering the fact that the music in her earphones was probably blasting, you didn’t exactly need to. You slowly pushed the glass door open, sneaking up on her and swiftly throwing your hands before her eyes to cover them.

„Holy freak!” Miko let out a startled scream, gaining a muffled laugh from you. „Who’s this? Y/N?” She started to turn her head to one side and to another, making you chuckle even more at the sight.

„It’s me. Mario.” You said, still covering her eyes and trying not to laugh out loud, seeing that you were visibly in a great mood today.

„And I’m Luigi. Can I get my vision back now, please?” She said, placing her hands on yours and pulling them away.

„Do you have enough ready money for the afternoon?” You asked, moving to stand in front of her.

„No duh, I’ve got exactly ten of one hundred yen coins just for the occasion.” She held up her blue wallet for you to see, the sound of loose coins bumping into each other audible as she gently shook it. „And I’m not going to spend a single yen more today, last weekend was fly but I became poorer of a whole six thousand.”

You sent her a scrutinizing look. „And you really think that it will be enough? You know, I’ve already told you before that they have a new automat and stuff.”

„Yes, you have, but still. If I don’t get the doll I want after two tries, I’m bouncing. And I will play Super Mario for the rest of the evening.”

„As if! I know you Miko, you will get just as addicted as every other time.” You let out a laugh, grabbing your friend’s hand and pulling her forward together with you.

„No, I’m telling you!”

The two of you continued to chatter along as you walked in the direction of the game arcade. It wasn’t that much of a long walk, knowing that it was located just a few streets away from your school.

The sun had yet quite an amount of time to start setting, but as you walked between the buildings decorated with bright and colorful advertisements of all possible kinds, it started to throw even more beams which reflected all those purple, blue, and yellow colors, surrounding you with a fairy like atmosphere in the afternoon hours.

„You know, last time as I was in the arcade I asked which dolls will the new automat have, and they told me that it would be supposed to have teddy bears, and-” You talked, being completely caught up in your own bubbling excitement about the new gain in the game arcade.

„Teddy bears?” Miko interrupted your flowing thoughts. „Y/N, you’ve already got like, a whole room of teddy bears. Not mentioning that last time you won not one, but TWO identical Totoro plushies and a Sailor Moon doll, too.” She rolled her eyes, giving you a questioning look. „You own a whole load of them. A whole storage! I’m actually asking myself if there is anything in the entire arcade what you haven’t got at home yet.”

„Well, I mean, that new automat is supposed to have a panda bear plushie and a plain white teddy bear, so, you know, I need to enrich my collection with these two.” You said, reaching your hand to your bag to pull out your phone.

You failed to notice the small group of boys, more or less around your age, walking past you and directing themselves straight into the game arcade building which finally came into your view.

You were just about to answer a text message from one of your other friends, when you were rapidly pulled back into reality with a not so gentle nudge to your side.

„What-” You turned your head to your left to look at Miko, question marks visible in your eyes as you were met with your friend’s amazed expression. „What? Why did you stop all of a sudden?”

„Y/N, I think you don’t see what I’m seeing. Look.” She pointed her finger at some point in the distance, a little blush coloring her cheeks.

You followed where she was pointing, finally noticing the group of boys from earlier which you failed to see.

There were four of them altogether, standing before the open arcade entrance and talking eagerly. Two of them were really tall, whilst the other two were rather short in their height, but all of them were wearing plain white tees. Your eye caught one of the shorter boys, who as the only one among them was wearing a blue bomber jacket with white prints. He had what you would call a baby face, his features were soft, or at least you could observe that much standing a few meters away from him. His hair was of a chocolate brown color, and as his voice reached your ears, you had to admit that it sounded truly so smooth like velvet.

You felt your own two cheeks warming up a little, a sensation which you didn’t like even a bit, as the boy locked eyes with you, his wide smile immediately disappearing from his lips only to be replaced by an expression of awe.

You stood there completely frozen in your spot, clenching your purple Nokia in your hand and feeling slightly flabbergasted by the whole sudden situation, not really knowing what was going on.

The last thing you saw before you were harshly pulled back into reality once again, was the other three boys looking questioningly at their friend who’s eyes were fixed on you, soon the entire group looking right at you.

And then you heard it, the loud ‘ooooooh’, ‘damn’, and ‘oh my god’ followed by the three of them lightly hitting the shoulders of their friend, starting to shake him and becoming even louder when he didn’t react, instead still looking at you.

When you finally snapped out of the weird trance, you quickly turned to your side to Miko who was now covering her mouth to prevent the invasive giggles from escaping.

„Oh snap.” You only said.

„Y/N, THIS, this is exactly what I’ve been talking about.” She said. „You are always so immersed in the games that you totally fail to notice all those cute boys being around!” She almost exclaimed the last words, stomping her both feet on the ground repeatedly, for some reason visibly excited.

„Well that was hella weird.” You said, still trying to process what had just happened. „Do you know them?”

„Um, well, I mean-” She started, now her being the one to grab your hand and pull you forward. „I keep my eyes always wide open, you know. And I just happened to see them at the game arcade the last time we were there. That hottie in a blue jacket seemed to have taken an instant liking to you back then already, but we bounced out too quickly for them to approach us.” She blabbered, instantly becoming a thousand times more cheerful than before.

The two of you were coming always nearer to the entrance of the arcade, and what followed always nearer to the group of boys who, now noticeably quieter, were still standing in their spot.

With your left hand still being held by Miko and your right hand still holding onto your phone, you tried your best to avoid the gaze of the said boy in a blue jacket as the two of you continued moving closer to the entrance.

What was his deal anyway?

„You know what Miko, did you take a good look at them when you said that you saw them before?” You asked your friend, feeling your cheeks heating up once again as you accidentally locked eyes with the boy one more time. „I mean, maybe from a close up they’ll be total monets.” You added, not even knowing what you were trying to convince yourself about, because as you came always closer you had to admit that the said group were even better looking from up close.

„Awe, Y/N, always the negatory. I’m sure they’re not some scrubs too, though. Besides, just look at them now.” She said, an ounce above a whisper. „They could totally be in a boy group with those looks.”

And unfortunately, you couldn’t deny, as with every following step you were getting a more detailed view, as well as you were feeling more and more being practically eaten by those two dazzling eyes which didn’t leave you even for a brief moment.

You just wanted to get inside the arcade and concentrate yourself on the new plushie automat, not on dealing with some random group of boys who apparently enjoyed staring at girls way too much for your liking.

That was right, as said it was too much for YOUR liking, but Miko didn’t seem to mind at all.

Even the whole opposite, she seemed to be having the time of her life, particularly when the other shorter boy with big cat-like eyes sent her a dazzling smile.

„Oh snap, oh snap, oh snap, did you see that, Y/N, I think I forgot how to breathe.” A scarlet blush spread on her cheeks, whilst she nervously squeezed your hand. „That guy is literally so handsome.”

„Girl, Miko-” You started gently, but as you looked at her frozen in her spot with literal hearts in her eyes, you knew she was already gone to make some lovey-dovey unthinkable scenarios in her head.

You talking wasn’t probably going to do much anyway, but you needed to snap her out of it.

You tried to gently pull her with you and finally enter the arcade. „Miko.”

Nothing.

„Miko-”

Still nothing, and as you threw a quick glance at the boys, you saw that the one with big eyes was continuing to unceremoniously smile at your friend, meanwhile she was returning all those candy smiles.

What was it, a smiling contest?

No, you thought, that was completely stupid.

„Miko, I swear-” You snapped your whole arm into the direction of the entrance to bring her attention back to the arcade a little too harshly, forgetting that you were still holding your phone in that hand.

In the result, your phone was sent flying out of your hand all the way across the sidewalk which separated the two of you from the group of boys, before you could do anything to stop it.

You watched in terror as it ended its small flight right in front of the boy in blue jacket, landing with a loud thud on the ground by his feet.

„MY NOKIAAAA!!” You yelled, not caring at all about the other people around who were now giving you weird or startled looks.

„Y/N-” Miko seemed to finally notice what was going on when you let go of her hand, and started to take large steps closer to the boy to collect your phone.

You could clearly see it as his face immediately lit up and his eyes rapidly fell on your purple Nokia laying on the ground, apparently an idea coming to his mind.

„For the love of-” You mumbled through your teeth, as you watched him bend over to pick up your item. „... all the snaps given.”

You let out a low sigh as you ruffled your silky hair with your hand, starting to finally walk into the direction of the boy, being extra careful not to accidentally lock eyes with him once more.

You had always been that exact type of person who wanted to avoid any unnecessary interaction with other people, in particular if you had other, significantly more important plans ahead of you and didn’t want to lose your time.

That could be an issue right now, you thought to yourself as with every step closer to him his smile grew wider, not even trying to conceal it.

„Um-” You started, as you stood right in front of his frolic face. „That would be mine.” You said, raising your finger up to point at your phone.

Your eyes quickly fell on the purple surface and the screen, trying to thoroughly inspect if any possible damages had been done by the fall.

The boy seemed to notice the visible concern im your eyes, letting out a soft, melodic chuckle whilst handing your Nokia to you. „I wouldn’t worry too much about it.” He said. „This model is practically indestructible. Lasts longer than most relationships.”

His remark made you raise one eyebrow at him, squinting your eyes ever so slightly whilst you retrieved your phone. „What a nice comparison. And you’ll be speaking out of experience, I assume?”

You were absolutely sure that your unpleasant comeback would make him immediately not wanting to continue to talk to you, but to your surprise you couldn’t be more wrong. Instead of a sign of dislike, you could make out a sparkle of fondness shining even brighter in his brown eyes.

Weird, you thought.

“No, I’m not.” The boy replied, smiling contentedly. “I was actually quietly hoping that mine would outlive any model of Nokia 3310.” He added, giving you a smile sweeter than the previous one.

In response, you merely granted him a brief look before taking a step away, intending to finally enter the arcade. “Good luck with that.”

Trying to completely conceal the awareness of his glowing presence still behind you, you quickened your pace, basically dashing through the open doors to the inside of the colorful arcade and not even bothering to wait for Miko anymore.

As soon as you went inside you were met with a lot of frolicsome lights and sparkles, the small alleyways between all sorts of games being flooded with light coming from the screens of game automats, each one of them showing the start menu of a different popular game on the lambent display.

It didn’t take you too long to find the longed for, newest, totally polished and even more so inviting plushie automat which has been continuously on your mind this whole time, basically calling out your name to you as soon as you finally came to a view of it.

It was lovely, appearing even more so enthralling to you in real life than as it did on the mere advertisements plastered around the arcade.

Without losing a single minute, you took your wallet out of your bag and took a large step closer to the automat, your eyes stopping on every plushie trying to decide which one to go for.

Finally, they stopped on a cute small panda bear which instead of being just plainly black and white, was purple and white.

That was the one.

You opened your wallet, taking one shining coin of one hundred yen worth.

Just as you were about to throw it into the automat, you were startled by a sudden familiar voice coming from right behind you.

“Hey home skillet, why did you run off like that?” Miko materialized herself next to your ducked down figure, leaning on the glass of the plushie automat.

You looked up at your friend, feeling a little guilty for doing so. “My bad? But I really didn’t want to talk to that dude in a blue jacket.” You murmured, bringing your attention back to the purple panda.

Miko scrunched her nose, letting out a loud sigh. “Why are you always rejecting all the sweet boys? He even picked up your phone for you, come on.” She said, before startling you again with a sudden squeak. “BUUUUT! Y/N-” She started, covering her mouth to prevent the next invasion of uncontrollable giggles from escaping, jumping up and down in her spot and causing her black soft locks to slide on her forehead. “ That hottie with those big eyes. Oh my god Y/N. I actually talked to him just now, and guess what he told me.” She paused for a brief moment, only to let out another squeak. “His favorite game is also Super Mario! And he asked me if I wanted to play it with him today, oh my god, Y/N.” Miko was breathing so quickly, that as you looked up at her once again, you started to become honestly worried if soon she would start to hyperventilate.

“And I assume you said yes?” You asked, but you already knew the answer anyway.

“Of course! I mean, did you see him? A model!” She answered.

“So you plan on leaving me all alone here?” You asked. “Are his friends still here?” You added, carefully peeking from behind the plushie automat you were still ducked down by.

Your eyes widened in terror as you sneaked a look and spotted the group walking down the aisle.

“I won’t leave you! But just let me have this one? You know how much I would love to get a proper date!” She replied, throwing longing looks in the direction of the boys. “And Y/N, if that blue hottie comes to talk to you, please be nice.” She added quickly.

“Miko, do you perhaps know something that I don’t know?”

“What? Noooooo, not at all, what makes you think that?”

You let out a small sigh, rolling your eyes at your friend. “Whatever.”

You brought your attention back to the display with all the plushies inside, finally inserting the coin into the automat and starting to try to fish out the purple panda bear.

You were still sensing a presence next to you, so thinking it was just Miko who hasn’t left yet, unbothered and completely oblivious, you continued to give all your concentration to the little plush bear you already almost had clasped.

Just as the bear was nearing to fall into the designed hole and right into your hands, the metal claws let it go in a trice, in effect the bear bouncing back, away from the hole.

Unbelievable.

A soft snicker reached your ear, so without even caring to turn your head you just rolled your eyes again. “Very funny Miko, you know that it usually never works at the first try very well yourself.” You said, taking out another one hundred yen coin to insert and try again.

“Sometimes it does.” Said a velvet like voice.

You immediately snapped your head to the left, your eyes widening one more time as you realized that it wasn’t Miko standing next to you, but the boy in a blue jacket.

You involuntarily squinted your eyes at him, looking up. “You again.”

He seemed to be completely immune to you not being the nicest, instead jumping straight into any normal conversation you would usually have with a friend.

Out of all people, and out of all days, why you and why today?

Guess you would never know.

“Your name is Y/N, right?” The boy asked. “Your friend with the black hair told me when we were still outside.” He continued, his melodic voice filling the space between the two of you, for some unexplainable reason making you kind of distracted and causing you to drop the purple panda once again, failing at the second attempt to win it.

You sent the boy a heavy glare. “And your name is...?”

“I’m Baekhyun.” He replied with a sweet smile.

You decided to ignore him, taking the already third coin out of your wallet and inserting it again.

“What are you about to get?” Came yet another soft question.

“The purple panda.” You replied briefly.

Baekhyun’s eyes left your figure for a transient while, to fall on the plushies inside the automat. “Well, guess what I would be about to get?” He said.

“On my nerves.” You murmured quietly, but loudly enough for him to hear.

You weren’t looking at him anymore so you obviously couldn’t have noticed it, but even when he received nothing but snarky replies from you, the boy was all smiles with little dazzles dancing in his brown eyes. “I actually hoped that I would get on your calendar.” He said, giving you a winsome smile as soon as you graced him with your attention again. “On a weekend when you’d be free... Or after school...” The cheekiness audible in his soft voice just seconds ago wasn’t as strong as it was anymore as he said these words.

In the result to his question, you scrunched your nose, looking up at him. “You don’t even know me. You’ve literally seen me one single time.” You said.

The moment you said that, you observed as the cheeky look fell back on his soft features. “Dante wrote forty two chapters of a whole opera for Beatrice after he saw her one time on the street, so I think I would be reasonably justified to ask you out like that.” He smiled at you in the most candy smile anyone could probably ever master.

What in the world?

“You know Dante? Are you into literature?” You asked, a little flabbergasted and surprised, knowing that most of the boys your age weren’t particularly interested in the art of similar old literary works.

That was definitely new.

“I like art in general.” Baekhyun said.

“So, how do you feel about art?” You asked, genuinely curious.

Baekhyun’s eyes seemed to have a whole million of sparkles dancing in them as he replied. “Well, I think you are really cool to talk to.”

Wait-

“What the freak man.” Was the only thing which you managed to say after you connected the dots of what he was really referring to.

This boy surely was having the time of his life right now.

You brought your attention back to the plushies, trying to suppress a muffled quiet scream which threatened to leave your lips because, even at the third try, the purple panda was dropped back into the soft pile of other plushies as if totally mocking you and your efforts to win it.

You aggressively grabbed the ziplock of your wallet, practically snatching a new one hundred yen coin and slamming it into the automat, determined to win it this time.

In that moment, it was a serious matter of life and death for you, and being completely focused on that one thing before you, you were also still completely oblivious to your surroundings.

If only you knew how your small act of chagrin to the automat and throwing the coin inside in a total state of fury made Baekhyun’s heart melt even more for you, thoughts of how cute you were flowing through his mind.

“How many more times are you going to try this?” He asked.

“You know, I’m actually really good at this. Today just doesn’t seem to be my best day.” You replied, without giving him one look.

The claws clasped around the purple panda once again, lifting it up and sliding slowly to the direction of the hole, through which you really hoped it would finally fall out this time.

“I already own a whole room of plushies and dolls I won in the arcade, so this should be no sweat.” You added.

“Well that’s phat.” Baekhyun said, his voice always sounding like a smooth velvet which, for some reason was becoming always more difficult to ignore for you.

“I know.” You said. “But I’m totally buggin’ right now.”

You watched the purple panda hanging just above the destined hole, being completely sure that you would finally win. You threw a content look at Baekhyun next to you, resting your elbows on the automat. “It’s already falling, you see? I’m da bomb. All that and a bag of chips-” You interrupted mid sentence, when to your downright disbelief the panda was let loose into the hole, only to somehow bounce out of it right back into the pile of other plushies, leaving you at the fourth failed attempt of winning. “You sick piece of-” You said through your clenched teeth, clutching your wallet in your hand and trying to stay calm.

You threw a murderous look at the automat, then glanced back at the wallet held in your hand before opening it again and taking out the fifth coin, throwing it into the automat without thinking twice.

You quickly guided the claws to grab the purple panda, but then again, as if to totally make fun of you, it was let dropped back into the pile. “Son of a SCONE.” You said, very lightly hitting your small fist on the glass.

You were brought back to reality by the same velvet voice which was distracting you just moments ago. “Y/N.”

“What.”

“You haven’t given me an answer yet.” Baekhyun said softly. “Will you go on a date with me?”

“No.” You replied.

“You are being so mean today.”

“I’m mean everyday.” You added, standing up from the position you were in this whole time. “You have a really unusual way of approaching, you know?”

“Well, everyone has their own ways. And everyone has their own idea of perfection.” Baekhyun said, looking right into your eyes. “Mine just happens to be you.”

You shot him a tired look. “What the freak.” You said. “Listen, um-”

“Do you know what bees make?” He suddenly interrupted you with this random question.

Without even thinking too much, you simply replied. “Honey?”

You watched as his eyes lit up again. “Yes, dear?”

You were left there completely done with the world as it was and speechless, just standing before him and looking at his smiling, glowing face, visibly happy with his own lines.

Why wouldn’t he just give up?

You didn’t even know anymore what to say to him, seeing that apparently he had a comeback line ready for each and every of your attempts to shove him away.

“You are impossible.” You said.

You observed as Baekhyun’s eyes quickly wandered to the plushie automat and as he bit his lip, another idea visibly coming to his mind. “Will you please say yes if I win that purple panda for you?” He asked, his brown eyes full of glinting hope.

“I would like to see you try. If I couldn’t win this, you won’t be able to either.” You replied.

“If you’re so sure about it, then just agree?” He said, a little smile still visible on his lips.

You crossed your arms on your chest, him instantly mirroring your gesture. “Fine. And if you fail, you will stop asking me out.” You said. “Three attempts.” You held up three fingers.

“Fine.” He said, holding up a shining one hundred yen coin before putting it into the automat.

He ducked down in the spot in which you were previously, laying his left arm on the free surface and lazily resting his chin on it, his right hand managing the little controller on the automat, effortlessly.

In complete and utter terror, you watched as the purple panda bear successfully fell into the hole right away, soon swiftly falling out of the automat straight into Baekhyun’s hands.

You couldn’t help it but let out a gasp of shock.

“No.” You whispered shaking your head, not believing that he just got it at the first try, because how probable could it even be?

“Yes.” Baekhyun held up the purple panda, flashing you the brightest, happiest smile you have seen on him that day. “I told you, sometimes it does work at the first try.”

You just stood there, not able to say a word, still looking at him in a complete disbelief.

Again, how probable could it be?

“I, um-” You really tried to say a full normal sentence, but it seemed like even the language decided to sabotage you today.

Before Baekhyun said anything else, he gently placed the panda in your hands, in the result his fingers softly brushing yours, may it be on purpose or just accidentally. “Please just say yes?”

As much as you despised this whole thing, you were a girl of your word, and you made a deal.

Which you obviously lost, now that you were holding the purple panda bear in your hands.

Even so, looking at Baekhyun’s dazzling brown eyes, you still wanted to give him the benefit of doubt, even though you were perfectly aware that it was pointless at this stage.

You opened your mouth to say something, but he quickly interrupted you before you could say even one word. “You won’t regret it.” He added, a little faint plea visible in his eyes as they looked at you.

You felt one corner of your mouth slightly lifting in a half smile. “What if I will?” You asked, meeting his chocolate gaze.

“You won’t.” He quickly said. “Just give me a chance to win you over.”

He asked you for a chance, but deep down you started to feel that he already was winning you over with his impossible sweetness and persistence.

But that was something which he didn’t need to know right now, was it?

You held the panda plushie closer to yourself, burying your face in it for a brief moment to hide the bubblegum blush which was shamelessly spreading on your dewy cheeks totally against your own will.

“I like onigiri with umeboshi filling.” You said. “And dark mocha.”

A honey-dripping smile fell on Baekhyun’s lips as his chocolate eyes traveled across every feature on your face. “What an unusual pair.” He said, the smile never leaving his lips and eyes.

“If you want to date me, you need to be prepared for weird combos like that.” You said, facing away as you felt the blush becoming stronger, your entire cold barrier finally giving in into the charm of his smile.

“I’m thrilled to know more.” He grinned winsomely.

And who would think that when you left the game arcade, you would have gotten your plushie and a cute boy together with it?

Undisputedly not you.

But sometimes, sometimes the universe put things on your way, things which you would least expect to cherish the most.

Author’s End Note: Thank you for reading! Remember to REBLOG if you liked it! Also, I tried to build in some classic ‘90s phrases into dialogues, so let me know if I did well or not!! 💖 Maybe it won’t be the end of the ‘90s AU. 💜

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cazimagines · 3 years ago

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After seeing @toobruhlforschool post the article, I had to translate it!

English translation by google translate below the cut

Daniel Brühl tried for the first time as a director - and he succeeds very well. His debut “next door” (in theaters July 15th) is full of black humor about how embarrassing, tricky and exhausting it can be to be a famous actor. Especially when you meet a neighbor in the corner bar in a Berlin neighborhood, played by Peter Kurth , who obviously hates you. The story is based on Brühl's idea, and very vaguely on his own experiences, from which the writer Daniel Kehlmann draws("Measuring the World") has made a script in which the price of fame is demonstrated with relish. In addition, allusions to Daniel Brühl himself are hidden in the film, who not only directed the film, but also plays the protagonist, a famous actor, in “next door”. Brühl, who last worked in the international Marvel series “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” , speaks in an interview about what made him decide to make this story into a film and how to approach such a project.

Interview with Daniel Brühl: About the price of being in public and the success of projects

Mr. Brühl, in your directorial debut you investigate the price a successful actor pays for being in public. Why did you want to do this film?

One topic I've always been interested in is gentrification. The initial spark was an observation I made in Barcelona. That was about ten years ago. I moved to the city for a while. That made me very proud, because I've always felt very connected to Barcelona, I was born there and finally wanted to say: “I'm a Barcelonian now”.

Instead, did you attract attention because the actor Daniel Brühl was recognized?

No, I just acted very silly, always walking through the streets with my key fob to show that I don't live in a hotel, I'm from here now, then I always talked loudly to the people in the market where Street, via FC Barcelona et cetera. Then I always enjoyed going to such a lunch spot and one day there was a crusher in front of me, such a real edge, and looked at me piercingly without blinking. Forever long. Like Clint Eastwood.

Just like in your film a man from the neighborhood, played by Peter Kurth, who takes on an actor who is very similar to you.

Yes, with the man in Barcelona back then, I immediately felt that he couldn't take me. As I sit there with my trolley suitcase, just flown in from Berlin. The jet set that somehow rattles around loudly with the waiters, makes each other mean and wants to please. That totally exposed me. Then my imagination started. I thought it was a scaffolding builder who had been able to look into our apartment from a construction site for months and now wants to confront me with everything he knows about me.

How do you relate this story to gentrification?

There is such a constant feeling that you are not to blame for gentrification but are part of the process. I've been dealing with this since I've lived in Berlin and I noticed it again in Barcelona. Then the mind game started that an actor, someone who is in public, offers a completely different surface to attack.

How do you translate that feeling into a project?

I enjoyed the way such a person was approached in a masochistic way. As he is told, “I found your film poop. I think you shit as an actor. " Then I moved the story to Berlin, the East-West topic was added, but at some point I realized that I couldn't write it alone and approached Daniel Kehlmann. He could do something with it immediately. While we were writing we noticed how much more was there. That was around the time some public careers were collapsing. That was an interesting component, people who outwardly have perfect lives, whose careers are ruined by rumors that come out about them.

Which personalities are you thinking of?

Well, of course the case of Kevin Spacey, the very different case of Harvey Weinstein. There have been many cases, some of them based on real crimes. It became an interesting topic for me because I wanted to play someone who would completely lose himself in his career and then be held up in the mirror.

If so much of you went into the script, why is Daniel Kehlmann the only one who has the credit and you don't?

There are so many Daniels. At some point I just felt uncomfortable reading my name so often. In addition, Daniel Kehlmann did the most on the script. I couldn't have made the film without him. That a Kammerspiel (From what I learnt in my film studies, Kammerspiel is a certain type of German cinema) remains exciting for over 90 minutes depends on the dialogues and they mainly come from him. I was a sparring partner who fed him ideas.

You have had a veritable career as an actor for over 25 years, appearing in blockbusters and playing a leading role in an international Netflix series. Then that's a fundamental step in deciding whether to direct. How do you manage to take such a new path?

You can't take a quick shot. I've been waiting for the right time, but you can't let it pass. That's what happens when you're too scared, too respectful. At some point you have to trust yourself. Now that I've done it for the first time, my humility towards directing is even greater. I consciously wanted to do something small. I would not have believed myself capable of certain other substances. Then I would have the feeling that I am falling out.

How do you know that you are on the right track and that you can get started with a project?

If an idea remains interesting for you after long deliberation and reflection, and does not suddenly become stupid or boring, you can ask yourself whether this idea is reasonable, i.e. whether you trust yourself to implement it. I knew this was a world and that there were characters - I just know my way around that. If you are also lucky enough to be able to set up a good team, then you are on the right track. It is of course a total luxury that someone like Daniel Kehlmann has promised me to write this. Peter Kurth replied with a handwritten letter within 24 hours. We met and hugged in his local pub.

The role actors and actresses play in public is not only the topic of your film, but was also discussed in the course of the #allesdichtmachen campaign, a campaign against the measures taken by the federal government to contain the corona pandemic. Were you also asked about this?

I was actually not asked, but I know many of those involved. I wanted to stay out of this heated Shitstorm number and clarified that privately with those I know. I not only found the action unsuccessful, but also the counter-action excessive and absurd. I can see that in many areas at the moment, how quickly such a thermal rises, which is toxic. That's a bit of the theme of the film.

Then again quickly an easier topic: What is the most absurd thing that has ever happened to you as a public person?

Haha, a scene that also made it into the movie. In Barcelona a couple came up to me in a park, two blondes, with a camera in their hand. It was immediately clear to me that they were Germans and they wanted a photo with me. I instinctively put my arm around the woman. They were Swedes, of course, who didn't recognize me at all, but wanted me to take a photo of them. It was so embarrassing and even more terrible than in the film because then I started to explain in English “You know, I'm a famous actor…” The way they looked at me! Haha, that was one of those moments when you notice how you blush. Well then I think I could tell you about embarrassment for an hour.

#daniel bruehl #daniel bruhl #daniel brühl

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twistedtummies2 · 2 years ago

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Okay, so you've magically gotten the resources, time, and skilled developers you need to create your dream game, what would it be? It can be any genre (fighting, platforming, open world), starring your own original ocs you've had for a while or completely new ones made just for the game. Or a game adaptation of a movie,show, or novel, or even a sequel or spinoff of a video game franchise. Or you could just tell us about both options if you want.

I think someone has asked me this question before, but I'll answer again, since it's been a while if so. If I had the chance to make any video game in the world, it would be one of two things. Both of which are adaptations of earlier works, and both are SLIGHTLY on the obscure side. Only slightly though. LOL

First up is The Shadow. The Shadow is a character who started off as the narrator for a crime/mystery program. The character became so popular, he was turned into the protagonist of his own pulp magazine series, and then a new radio show all about his adventures. Since then, he has mostly survived in comics, and has passed through various publishers over the decades - both DC and Marvel owned him at different points, and he is currently the property of Dynamite Entertainment. The character is most well-known today for being "the father of modern superheroes," as he inspired characters like Batman, Daredevil, the Punisher, V from V for Vendetta, Rorschach from The Watchmen, and - to a lesser extent, mind you - Superman. He also spawned a series of other pulp-y characters with similar concepts, such as the Green Hornet and the Spider. He's even been parodied in cartoons: Darkwing Duck is actually based largely on The Shadow, with a bit of Batman thrown in. For you all, you'll probably recognize him best because his universe was the inspiration for my "Black Dragon AU," with Malleus Draconia as the Shiwan Khan to the MC's Shadow-esque hero. I've always loved the Shadow, and I've always wanted to see him in one of two types of games. One is a Telltale-style choose-your-own-adventure murder mystery game, similar to "The Wolf Among Us" or the "Batman: The Telltale Series" titles. The other is a stealth-action game similar with controls similar to the Arkham series or the PS4-started Spider-Man games. The big draw in either case would be the style: everything done in black and white, with a noir-esque sort of aesthetic and matching music, with splashes of color - like red and maybe occasional hints of gold or green - to emphasize characters and moments. I'd pick Maurice LaMarche or Roger L. Jackson to voice the character, personally; not sure who I'd choose if you wanted someone more celebrity-like.

The other option would be a game based on Frank Beddor's "The Looking-Glass Wars" trilogy. This is a series of novels (with some spin-off comics) that are reimaginings of the "Alice" stories. The premise sees Wonderland as a war-torn universe, with elements of dark fantasy and sci-fi sort of blended together to create its world and aesthetic. The overarching plot of the series has Princess Alyss Heart and her allies - including Hatter Madigan, Bibwith Harte, and Dodge Anders, just to name a few - battling the sinister forces of Alyss' evil Aunt Redd, and a mutual enemy of both of their sides, the treacherous King Arch. I would specifically like to see a game based on this universe done in either a "League of Legends" format, or, even better, a "Star Wars: Battlefront" format. In the former, you can play as different major characters from the books, with different types of enemies to conquer depending on where in the conflict you stand. Or, in the latter, you can actually play as soldiers from each of the warring factions, as well as Hero figures from each end of the spectrum, with perhaps some minigames that allow you to play with those different elements more. Admittedly, both of these TECHNICALLY have games already: the Shadow was originally planned to have a beat-em-up game in the 90s, but the game was canceled. However, you apparently CAN find the unfinished game if you look hard enough to play; not sure if it's an emulator or something, but it's out there, trust me. LGW, meanwhile, has (or had, not sure if it's still up) an online card game you could play themed around the books. However, neither of these are really what I would like to see from either franchise (and the Shadow game wasn't even really properly released or completed), so there's still room for these dream games to exist. They likely never will, but there's room. :P

#ask #answer #q&a #video games #the shadow #the shadow knows #the looking-glass wars #frank beddor

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dreamties · 4 years ago

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Slashers W/ a Punk S/O

T/W- q*eer is used a few times- in a positive, self affirming kind of way. But I can add other trigger warnings if needed. :)

A/n- Literally no one asked for this, but I wanted to make more HCs like the soft pastel one...so I just went wild and made them.

I included a little bit of punk culture into this as well, because it’s not just about the fashion, but since there’s such a vast variety within punk culture I mostly stuck with my experiences in the community, and some bits and pieces from documentaries(mostly live footage from “The Decline of Western Civilization”).

Characters: Billy/Stu, The Lost Boys, Norman Bates, Michael Myers

Will make one(s) for Brahms, Amanda, Helen or Daniel if asked

Billy Loomis + Stu Macher

so early 90s, the Riot Grrrl movement emerges

bands like Bikini Kill, Bratmobile, Heavens to Betsy or Sleater-Kinney

it’s a very female-powered oriented movement, but I notice that a lot of minorities tend to be drawn to this music and community (LGBT folks, people of color, etc).

both boys, and yourself, being outside of the norm and all (polyamorous relationship, gay/bi) are sort of drawn to it!

and sure there’s a lot of really great queercore/homocore bands, and there’s probably a good LGBT+ punk scene out there somewhere, but in a little town like Woodsboro? Hell no. Sticking with this fem punk movement, while again mostly a space for women in music- it’s the most accepted the three of you have felt outside of you’re relationship.

you’ve always been pretty into the music, stuff like Dead Kennedys, Black Flag, or the short-lived Germs- but it wasn’t until you stumbled upon Riot Grrrl that you really got into it.

the music, making zines about local-ish political issues(probably not so much Woodsboro stuff, more Cali in general and neighboring towns) and a few ones with queer themes and hand-drawn illustrations of your partners, and DIYing all your clothes

since you’re so experienced with DIYing your clothes and sewing on patches, you’ve helped repair the Ghostface costumes on numerous occasions. they kind of adore this(Stu is the only one that will- and does, frequently- admit that)

Let’s face it, the three of you do everything together- but you especially enjoy when Stu tags along for thrift dates.

he’s the more fashionable one, and he makes the whole experience more enjoyable- cracking jokes and just being his all-around goofy self.

Woodsboro is a very little town, so they don’t have much...but they do have a few small stores- usually you’ll make a whole day/date out of it though. driving to the next town or so over, since they have more stores and a better selection, and spending hours looking for cheap, old t-shirts, belts, clothes with funky patterns. heading out for pizza after.

Billy’s more likely to get into the music and everything with you(he’s kinda,, angsty, no offense to him)- will definitely go to shows with you.

just- imagine Billy in ripped jeans. and he’d have like one or two patches sewn on to it- one of them is your all time favorite band, and the other is a band that he found on his own time, and actually really enjoyed.

Stu is dragged along with you guys, you can’t just leave him at home- he’s gonna feel left out and sad. :(

He’s mostly there to keep y’all company- he really likes the energy of the shows though!

the two of them are such a chaotic duo though, so much so that you have definitely been kicked out or banned from a few venues. all for varying reasons. good grief these men can not be tamed.

The Lost Boys

as we all know, these vampires are total punks. so they’re gonna appreciate having a s/o who’s also into that whole scene.

How you meet:

you’re a baby punk, and it’s your first show ever, and you look so nervous. you’re dressed up in pretty plain clothes, a single homemade patch for your favorite band barely hanging to your jacket side(you were mid-way sewing it, when you realized you were gonna be late if you didn’t leave asap).

it’s a few local bands, ones you’d never really heard of really. you look anxious. but when they start playing? you look so unapologetically yourself, you’re so in the moment dancing- it’s completely mesmerizing to the boys. the music isn’t even that good, but you seem to be having the time of your life.

they greet you after the show, and you’re a tiny bit flustered- cause gosh, heck, they saw you. dancing. so embarrassing.

David is the one that introduces himself and the group, and initiates conversation. Dwayne’s a pretty quiet guy, so he just listens to what you have to say.

Marko’s pretty excited about you, and initiates in some small conversation, he may have complimented your little patch(Marko- patch jacket KING, complimenting your jacket?? more likely than you’d think)

and oh, oh- Paul is out there being a total chatty-cathy, and is absolutely bombarding you with questions. like, okay, Paul is pretty talkative, but the other vamps are a little worried that he’s scared you off. and you had seemed so cool :(

you end up pretty engaged in your convo with Paul though, even if all the attention is overwhelming. He ends up snagging a date for the five of you the following week.

once you start hanging out/dating:

y’all just hit it off so well those first few days. they all love how sweet & shy you are- but also how much of a badass punk babe you are.

Marko helps make your patch jacket(collecting ones for bands you enjoy, how to make your own, sewing them on, etc). you probably could have done it w/out his help, but my gosh- you weren’t going to pass up this opportunity. Marko gets really soft around you sometimes, since he doesn’t really do this activity with anyone else, it’s saved for you. 🥺🥺

Dwayne likes listening to you talking about the local scene(outside of the shows you go to- mostly about stuff he can’t attend, protests and meetings during the daylight.)

all of them(especially David) are very protective of you. I mean, generally. but also when you go to shows. they let you do whatever the heck you’re gonna do, but the mere second that someone even thinks about starting shit w/ you?? well, y’know. those vampire instincts kick in.

the four of them obviously share a lot of similar tastes in music- but they all have different favorite bands, & fave parts of the community. which, they can’t even fully participate in,, but it’s okay.

they, individually, introduce their favorite bands to you. and they get it in their head that oh, they said they liked it. they must like it as much as I do. and awkwardly coming out to the four of them, as they argue about your favorite band, “Well, actually- this *insert band they’ve never heard of or barely listen to* is my favorite.” and their just kinda like, oh, okay. please tell us more about them.

so it’s sorta like,, you’ve been learning all this cool knowledge from them, now you get to share cool knowledge with them.

idk. I think it’s cute. 💕

Norman Bates

so first off- let’s just pretend Psycho was in at least the 70s/80s for a moment. because realistically- the punk subculture didn’t really exist back then.

baby boy is absolutely fascinated by the way you dress (mother is less thrilled though)

imagine your jacket is getting a bit weathered, and needs some repairs- so he helps you to sew edges closed, and make sure the patches aren’t on too loose, etc

he enjoys hearing your stories of all the past shows you’ve gone to. you always get so excited about them, and he finds that so endearing. But he pretty much leaves the actual punk scene to you because of these stories.

he was already worried from the stories, and made sure you were well prepared for any trouble every time you left for a show.

but one time, you were able to get him to join you. never again though. he was so nervous!

the music was too loud! and he could hardly understand what they were saying- it was so confusing!

you stayed with him most of the night, standing near the back, holding his hand. he’d gently bob his head to the music occasionally.

but you accidentally found yourself swept into the crowd, but you looked so blissed-out in the moment, that he figured it would be okay for you to dance* over there for a little bit...right?

*Norman is still unsure if you’d even call that dancing.

Thankfully, nothing bad happened in the mosh pit.

you gotta give him lots of attention and reassurance afterwards though- you almost scared Norman half to death D:

He’s happy enough helping you out and listening to you though- and that’s okay for you, too. you still love each other lots, even if this particular interest doesn’t overlap.

Michael Myers

he thinks you’re outfits are pretty interesting.

he’s a little worried at first, when you start experimenting with putting things like safety pins in your ears. cause like- that’s not supposed to be in your ear, Y/n, what the fuck

if you make zines at all, Michael really enjoys watching you make the illustrations for them(not that he’ll admit to it though), and helps to find newspaper and magazine clippings to incorporate into the spreads.

you always show michael the final booklet before distributing it

he doesn’t talk a lot, so he doesn’t ask questions- but he often does the little head tilt once you give it to him. since he’s not very privy to current events, and a lot of your zines are political, you spend a lot of time explaining them in depth.

he has no use for any of this knowledge, but he listens on, intently.

Important note:

dear god do not bring this man to concerts and local shows with you.

it is a nightmare, to say the least

Michael is sort of,, emotionless sometimes, doesn’t really care for people at all, and if he does? definitely not in the same way most people do.

so imagine combining that part of michael, the fact that he’s also a giant stabby man, with super loud, energetic- almost aggressive- sounding music and a bunch of strangers that aren’t respecting any personal boundaries.

you need to keep him at the back of the venue- lest your local scene may go missing.

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