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itstittycitybaby · 4 years ago

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Flirty (Lin Beifong x reader) Part 6

a/n: bro. im having to cram all my ideas and edit it. i have so many plans for these next couple of parts and im excited to write them. i want to say that this chapter has self harm in it along with some other heavy topics. idk if anyone actually reads author’s notes so there will be a trigger warning below. the self harm is caused from anxiety and an anxiety attack/anger moments. please be careful and if you are struggling with self harm, or struggling right now. i encourage you to reach out to someone because someone out there cares about you. as always be safe, ily guys

WARNINGS: ANXIETY ATTACKS, SELF HARM, PTSD/TRAUMA FLASHBACKS, CHILD ABUSE, DEPRECATING THOUGHTS

The room was dark and dingy. The cold air was freezing and the table you were cuffed to didn’t help your comfort either. Your wrists were sore from wiggling and shifting so much. The rawness in your throat from crying and screaming throbbed. You didn’t care if the guards heard you anymore. It’s not like they’d come back in here for hospitality. You were alone again. This was the thing you had to face by yourself.

“It always comes back to this with you doesn’t it?” Her harsh words played on repeat in your brain. The shadows in the dark giggled and whispered amongst themselves. You were frozen and trapped in that awful chair that dug into your ass. You were a victim to the dark’s cruel and twisted ways as its children mocked you with their laughter. This room was perfect for you.

Lin knew you hated the dark. She would hold you tightly and kiss your tears away when it got bad. Those memories used to bring warmth but now they plunged you further into the icy waters of your mind. It made you gasp for air and it forced you to cling tightly onto the past. You laughed and cried as you stayed, rotting in that interrogation room. Time felt endless from being alone in the dark. It always bothered you when there wasn’t a way to tell it.

You hissed in pain as your fingernails dug into your palms. They burned as you kept pressing them into your hands harshly. The red stinging pain filled your senses;the red became deeper as you refused to let go. You whimpered out into the cell, its echoes carrying out from the room and to anyone who passed by.

They weren’t totally cruel. A guard had come in with a lantern before the metal shields closed. They left it on the table without a word and left quietly. They were like a ghost and quiet enough to make you believe you had imagined it. The flame that flickered in the lantern barely did anything to keep the fear at bay. At least it was something, though.

It was eerily quiet. You couldn’t hear anything from outside. Inside held your wails and cries that fell on deaf ears. Your voice was hoarse from screaming and sobbing so hard. The soreness in your throat made you parched. There was no water for you to drink, so you sat there unmoving. Now, you just watched the flame lazily flicker and dance in its little casing.

You fingernails lifted from your palms. They stung like hell and burned so fucking bad. You felt hollow and empty. All the tears you had shed and the mourning you endured now left you with a hollow pit.

She was so angry with you. The tears in her eyes and her tone shook with betrayal as she spat venomous words that had cut into your heart. You didn’t know what to feel. Scared, angry, hurt, betrayed. Aiwei, the bastard, had the perfect alibi. Of course he’d use a traveler and pin it on them. Someone who hadn’t seen the Beifongs in so long, but still knew them. It was perfect.

No one believed you. Not Korra, not Mako, not Suyin. Not even Lin. Could you even blame them? It all fell into place. Aiwei is a bastard, but you’d give credit where it was due. The plan was fucking brilliant, he was brilliant.

The interrogation room reminded you of home. The coldness from your mother and the isolation you had faced due to not being the child they had wanted. Everything in your life was a fucking metaphor now. The metaphor always tracked back to your shitty childhood and your shitty life. The terror and the isolation was always the thing that came to comfort you in the end, with open arms. It was ironic;.the thing that had been killing you for the past thirty fucking years had finally caught up to you. Its embrace was all too familiar. The warmth it held welcomed you loving, but its thorns sunk into your skin eventually.

****

He was crying again. You could hear his wails through the thin walls of the hut. His sobs made you feel horrible, knowing all you could do was stand by the pot. Stir, stir, stir. The wooden spoon stirred the stew your mother asked you to make. Stir, stir, stir. She sat behind you on the floor, staring into the fire. Stir, stir, stir. The stew was red and its heat warmed your face. All you could focus on was the soft stirring of the wooden spoon and the smell. It was a very cold night tonight, so your mother kept the fire warm.

Your eyes stayed on the stew in front of you. Dee’s crying kept getting louder and louder. You felt helpless, trapped there in the kitchen as Dee kept crying. You were rooted to the spot; you knew better than to disobey. You were no good to your brother if you got hurt too. The leverage your mother and father held was strong. It was easy to manipulate and make a person compliant when you dangled what they cared about in front of them like a carrot.

Stir, stir, stir. It was done. “Mamma,” you called softly, “it’s finished.” She didn’t say anything. She kept peering into the fire, observing the flames flickering on the wood. She was alway entranced by fire, even though she’d seen it all her life.You set the spoon down on the counter softly. Your meek footsteps barely creaked on the floor. You stood a couple of feet away from her. Her back faced you stubbornly. “Mamma,” you called again, timidly. No answer. Slowly, you lowered your hand on her shoulder. Smack! You flinched, pulling your hand away. The skin reddened and it stung. “Don’t touch me!”

“Sorry ma,” you whispered, trying to keep your voice from cracking. She didn’t say anything but slowly rose up. Your hand was hot and inspecting it closely you realized it. Your mother had burned you. The edges of your vision became blurry until it was hard to see. Your throat tightened and you struggled to breathe.

Your mother paid you no mind. She grabbed three bowls out and began scooping them with stew. Dee’s sobs turned into whimpers. They played like a mantra in your head over and over. Your hand began to sting more and your throat started to hurt from the stone you were trying hard to swallow. Even as Dee’s whimpers became a crescendo again, all you could think about was stir, stir, stir.

****

You hit your head smack dab on the table. Must’ve fallen asleep. You looked around drowsily and focused on the on the sun’s raise peeking through the windows. It seemed to be early evening. The muscles in the back of your neck had become cramped along with your back. Your ass was numb from the stiff chair you were trapped to. You didn’t even wanna think about your wrists.

The ground rumbled beneath you. The table shook and the lantern rattled. You watched it nervously, praying to the spirits that it didn’t fall and break. After a few moments, the rumbling stopped.

The lantern sat dangerously on the edge of the table but everything else seemed fine. Ears straining, you held your breath and focused for any signs of life. Nothing. You sighed, looking down at your wrist.

The cuffs hid the cyan string bracelet you stubbornly kept on after all these years. Though you couldn’t see it, you knew it was there. It gave you hope. Someone out there still cared about you. Someone out there still loved you. Even if he had forgotten about you, the bracelet served a reminder. That someone at some point, had given you a chance.

***

The door slammed open. You shot your head up. The impact from the door echoed among the cold and dark room. You squinted into the room. The sunlight poured in, blinding you. You hissed, screwing your eyes shut.

“(Y/N?)”

Suyin.

Her face fell. You looked rough. It had been only a couple hours since you were taken in. She was filled with regret at your sullen eyes. The bags under them looked dark and heavy.

“You can get out now,” Suyin said softly. Two guards entered the room and the cuffs opened with a clack. You looked down at your wrists. Your eyes widened at the sight of them. They had angry red marks around them and they were sore. You hissed as you gently pressed your fingers on them and rubbed softly. “Why,” you whispered, voice croaking.

“Aiwei was the traitor.” Su’s eyes shimmered with remorse as she stood there. She glanced down at your wrists. “We should get you to a healer.” You shook your head stubbornly. Placing your hand on the table, you slowly got up. Your ass burned from being forced to sit for so long. Your joints felt like they were on fire, and your feet wobbled as you made you way towards her.

“Please,” Suyin asked. “You must be in so much pain right now.” She had always been stubborn, just like her sister. “Maybe,” you whispered. Her eyes flashed with worry at your sullen expression. The rawness in your voice worried her.

You had hoped Lin had come instead. It hurt all the more knowing she didn’t come instead of Su. You hoped, stupidly, she’d sweep you in her arms and apologize profusely while kissing your face all over. But she didn’t. She left you in that room to rot. Lin had to have found out by now that Aiwei was the traitor. So why didn’t she come for you yourself? I’m just not special, you thought bitterly. She’s gone just like everyone else. She’s done with me.

“I’m so sorry,” Suyin muttered as the two of you left the interrogation room. She refused to leave you alone until you made it to your rooms. You furrowed your brows in confusion. “It’s fine,” you rasped. Su shook her head. “No it’s not and you know that.”

You didn’t say anything. There was nothing left to say. You grabbed her hand and gently squeezed. Suyin lifted her up head, shocked. You didn’t know why you did it. It could have been the isolation that had gnawed into your brain and made you needy. Or, if you tried hard enough, Suyin wasn’t there. In your mind it was Lin standing beside you instead.

****

Your room was torn to shreds. Several plans for new gadgets and tweaks on your weapons were now destroyed. Smashed parts from new projects glinted on the floor. Suyin wanted to stay and help but you shooed her away. You wanted to be alone while you picked up the pieces. You didn’t want nobody to witness you as you fell. Most people came back to a warm loving family after being away. You got to come home to a ruined and smashed room, with a bitter reminder of all your hard work being spilled down the drain in a matter of seconds.

You swallowed the tears in your eyes and scanned your destroyed room once more. You felt nothing more than a husk. The silence rung in your ears. Your breathing was roaring compared to the quiet.

Azure and Ruby were still missing. The space with their birdcage and food were gone. It made that part of the room was bland and empty. “Assholes,” you ground out bitterly. “Had to go so far as to stealing my fucking birds too.” You threw your turtle neck off forcefully, flinging it against the wall along with your trousers. The draws slammed open from the force of your anger. You pulled out a black tank top and pajama pants. The joints in your bones burned as you tugged your clothes on. They felt comfortable and loose on your skin. It made you sigh with relief and give you some sense of comfort. You trembled as you inspected your room. Your eyes flitted across the damaged state and the tears came rushing back. The fury that had been curling around your heart was threatening to let loose. Let go, a voice whispered. Just let me go.

Knock knock. “Can’t I just be alone for five fucking minutes?” You stomped over to the door, turning the handle. You wanted to be alone so no one would have to see it. See the breakdown and the fall you haven’t had in a long time. The thing that was keeping you together was threatening to snap. You were going to slip from the rope that dangled in the sky and crash into the ground.

Your heart stopped. She stood there with Azure and Ruby in their cage. It all came rushing back. The dark room, the disgust, the hatred in her eyes, and you never really meant anything to me.

“Lin,” you muttered thickly. “What a surprise.” You looked down to Azure and Ruby. They were sleeping soundly in the cage they hated. Anytime you had to put them in there they squwaked and pecked you into you bled. Lin’s hands had little scratches and marks on her hands. You shoved the guilt down and replaced it with something easier to feel. Pettiness, smugness.

“Can I come in?” Her voice was strained. She tried so hard to focus on keeping eye contact with you. Lin didn’t want to cry on your doorstep and have the whole world see what was about to occur. You were silent for a few moments. She deserved to have the door slammed in her face and to be told to fuck off. She had left you cuffed to a table for two hours and refused to listen to anything you had to say. Most of all, Lin told you she didn’t love you anymore.

She waited patiently. It all felt so weird, like a dream or a film. What if this wasn’t real? What if you were still cuffed to that table and had fallen asleep again. You wanted to yell at her, or scream at her for leaving you there broken hearted. You hated that deep down, you wanted Lin to hold you and tell you everything was alright. You hated how easy it was to crawl back to her like some fucking sick puppy.

You swallowed harshly. There were tears in your eyes and you nodded. It was slow and sluggish from the way you had jutted your chin out. You left the door way and moved so she could come in. Lin followed after you, closing the door with a soft click. The quiet clinking of her armor pounded in your head. It was the only thing you could focus or you’d drown in the tension that crackled in the air.

Lin set Azure and Ruby on the table gently. They didn’t stir from their sleep, making them look more peaceful. Her green eyes swept over the destroyed room. They followed to the turned over books and sheets, to the paper that had been ripped onto the floor. Lin saw the red and raw marks across your wrists. She felt awful looking at the state of your room but seeing you hurt because of her? Lin didn’t know what to feel.

It was silent for a bit. The both of you waiting for the other to say something. Lin was awful with confrontation and apologizing. You used to be patient with her. Your eyes would be soft as you waited for her words. Now, they were cold and hollow, peering into her soul. You were tired of waiting; you wanted this to be over with.

“You have some balls Beifong,” you said, chuckling. There was no humor or lightness to it. It was the calm before the storm. Before it all blew over and went to hell.

She gulped. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. Her voice had cracked slightly. There were tears in her beautiful green eyes. “I’m so sorry.”

You laughed. Lin’s eyes snapped up to you. It cut through the air as sharp as a knife. It sounded empty and bitter. “A sorry? A fucking sorry? What makes you think a sorry is going to make it all better Lin? What you said can’t be undone. You said what you said and that’s that.”

The tears fell freely now. You didn’t want to move and wipe them away. You wanted Lin to see what she had done. Maybe you were too angry or bitter, but you wanted her to regret it. Most of all, you wanted to love her again.

All you could feel was the rage. The way it curdled dangerously in your veins. You loved her, you loved her so fucking much and you hate that you still did. She had shoved you in a cramped room. She told you that she was done and that she didn’t love you anymore. Worst of all, Lin didn’t trust you and she never did. You were just another shitty person in her eyes. You were nothing but another endless blob in the back of her mind. Lin didn’t care about you.

“I didn’t want it to come to this, I-I never wanted to hurt you. All those things I said were a lie. Please, believe me... I do care about you and I want you to stay in my life.. I want you to be here with me.”

Lin’s eyes shimmered with tears. You watched one fall down to the side of her cheek. You folded your arms and read her. There was nothing but honesty in her eyes. Your lip quivered as more tears fell. You felt like throwing up from the nerves and the anger that threatened to burst.

“I’m tired of pretending. I’m tired of acting like this. That..I’m not happy you’re back and that I hate you. Even when you left I couldn’t hate you for being gone. I-I don’t blame you at all. I was..cold and bitter..I didn’t listen to your feelings..Even now I still didn’t listen..but I want to make things right.”

She bit her trembling lip and cried. Her tears were silent. Lin had always been a quiet crier. She would cry and make sure there was no sign of it afterwards. Lin used to say it was because being angry was better than being sad. You guessed she still thought the same even after all these years.

“It hurts. It fucking hurts. I want to hate you and I-I want to hold onto to the anger..but I can’t. I still love you even after all of this. After all this-” you choked on a whimper. You sniffled, feeling disgusting that snot was sliding out of your nose.

You wiped your eyes delicately. Lin’s eyes were puffy and red along with her nose and cheeks. She hung on every word you said. “Please,” she whispered, “I’ll do anything. Let me make this right.”

You scoffed. There was a smile on your face. It was one of disbelief and you couldn’t help but laugh at it all. At the world crashing around the two of you. It seemed like a never ending reality. The two of you would always suffer together and always have the world trying to end.

“Why should I? Why should I give you a second chance Lin? After all this? Leaving me in that shitty cell and having Suyin free me from those cuffs?”

Lin barely flinched. If it were anyone else they wouldn’t have caught it. But you weren’t everyone else. You were the only thing that Lin knew was worth fighting for.

“I don’t know,” she said. Her voice faltered but it still held strength. Her posture was tight and strong. Lin always faced the danger and the dark with a brave face. Even now she seemed to cower but she still faced your rage and the hurt that lingered in your eyes.

“Oh my god,” you muttered in disbelief. “You don’t know?” Lin was silent as she tried to read you. Your eyes were red and they were slightly crazed. She could tell that your stress levels were high. Your eyes fell from her piercing gaze and instead you focused on the room around you. On the failure your life had become. The one you had built anew was destroyed into a matter of minutes. Everything was gone and all you were was a hollow husk, left to drift away in the wind.

“No. I don’t. But I still love you. It’s all I know. I-I know nothing else but this.” Lin choked slightly and she breathed in deeply before continuing. “I want to fight for this. I want to be able to love you again.”

You laughed. It was sharp and turned into a wheeze. Lin’s brows furrowed in concern as you hobbled over. She rushed to your side as your knees hit the floor. There were tears streaming down your face rapidly and your breathing was irregular.

Lin’s hands cupped your face. “Breathe, breathe with me. It’s okay, you’re going to be okay.” Her thumbs brushed your tears from your face gently. Lin’s eyes watered with tears again as she held you there in her arms.

“It hurts,” you whimpered, “It hurts so bad.” “I know,” Lin whispered, her voice faltering. “I’m so sorry, I should’ve believed you. I should’ve listened to you but instead I let my anger get the best of me and hurt you instead. And I’m so so sorry.”

You clutched her arms tightly. “I could see him in there. I could see Dee. He was crying he was..he was..” “Shh,” Lin shushed you gently. “It wasn’t your fault. Nothing you could have done would allow that to happen. I wish I could take it all back. I wish I turned around and uncuffed you right there so you wrists wouldn’t be so bruised. Then you wouldn’t have to suffer through that alone.”

Your swallowed the lump in your throat. All you could hear were the sniffles from your nose as Lin rocked you gently.

After a while, you wiggled out of her hold. It was quiet again and you could feel Lin’s eyes peering into your back as you turned to Azure and Ruby. “Thank you..for taking care of them.” Lin’s lips quivered as she pulled them into a smile. “Of course. They’re wonderful birds.” You helped her up from the floor. There was still more to be said but the air felt better. It didn’t feel as tight around your throat anymore and the sadness settled lighter in your chest..

“Thank you for the apology.” Lin watched you carefully. Your eyes bored holes into Ruby. They were blissfully unaware of what was going on. “But I can’t accept it right now.”

Lin nodded. Another tear fell from her eye. “I understand.” She moved to your door slowly. Her hand clenched the handle. “I still love you,” you choked out. “I-I..I just need some time.” Lin turned to you. Her smile didn’t reach her eyes and there were tears flowing down her cheeks. “I’ll wait for you. I will always wait for you.”

****

After Lin left, you hurried into the bathroom to look at yourself. Everything made your head slightly spin and your skin felt clammy. Your reflection peered back at you in the mirror. Your eyes were sunken in and your skin looked sickly.You felt your chest tightened as you choked on the crisp air. The panic hit you like a sack of bricks after spending so fucking long in that shitty room. The confrontation with Lin was the final nail in the coffin. You felt dreary and exhausted as you stood there. The adrenaline had finally wore off and pain flooded in every bone in your body. Everyone had thought you were a traitor. They had looked at you with disgust and hate. Like you were some kind of junk to discard. Lin had turned against you and had the guards shove you into the cramped interrogation room, knowing your fear of the dark. She wanted nothing to do with you anymore and left you to rot. But then she came running back, crying and asked for forgiveness.

Were you too cruel? Should you have told her it was okay? You were awful to say those things to her. You should apologize and tell her it’s all okay, that it was your fault instead. The guilt came flooding with remorse and anger. It became a deafening roar in your ears as it threatened to swallow you. You should have just stayed quiet and been a good girl like your mother had taught you.

Crack! Your fists bashed against the mirror in front of you. Glass shards flew onto the floor, slicing your hands. Your knuckles and palms filled with a burning hot pain. All you could see was the red and the white filling your vision. The rage and the suffering had finally been freed. It swept all around like heavy smoke and curled it’s whisps around your heart. All you could feel was the heat inside of your chest and the wrath that prickled your veins.

You looked down and saw that your hands had been cut open. Glass shards had dug its way into your skin. The sharp points had pierced your palms good enough that blood gurgled to the surface. Then, it became numb again. The stinging pain in your hands was replaced by adrenaline again. You felt nothing as you bashed your fist against the mirror for a second time. Then another followed suit. The mantra of the sickening crack was the only thing that rung in your ears. It was the only thing you could hold onto.

Blood slid from the broken mirror. It dripped from the bottom of the ridge to the sink beneath it. The drops turned into splatters once it oozed onto the white porcelain. Your fingers blazed once the ringing in your ears wore off. The glass in your palms and fists pricked your skin like thorns. You laughed bitterly. Tears sailed from your eyes. The black mold on the cabinet that held the glass stared back at you. At least I can’t see myself anymore, you thought, trying to smile. Your lips quivered as more tears fell from your puffy eyes.

Cleaning would have to come another day. You sank to the ground with your knees hitting the tile. They clinked against the glass on the floor. Your thighs stretched with a burn as you kneeled there on the ground. You were just bad as your parents. They hurt and killed everything they touched. It was futile to try and resist; this was your destiny.

*****

The closet was dark. Dee sat in your lap clinging onto you. The closet was cramped, barely fitting the two of you. It felt like the walls were pushing up against you. The closet muffled your mother and father’s screams. They shouted at one another. “When are they gonna stop,” Dee asked, digging his fingers into your tunic.

A plate smashed against the wall. The both of you flinched and Dee whimpered. “I don’t know,” you whispered. The air was heavy and made it feel like you were choking on it every time you tried to breathe in. “I’m scared.” You swallowed the pit in your throat and pulled Dee closer. “It’s gonna be okay,” you said softly, “I promise.”

You rocked him on your lap. Your knees and thighs burned from kneeling on the floor for so long. Your arms felt heavy as you held Dee close, humming. The screaming didn’t stop for a while. Some glass shattered on impact of being thrown. You hummed over your mother’s weeping, trying to drown it out.

You told yourself that it would be alright. That they wouldn’t hurt Dee or you if you stayed still. It was all going to be okay one day. Yet, even as you rocked your younger brother, something told you that things would never change.

#lin beifong x reader #lin beifong #legend of korra #legend of kora x reader #x reader #reader insert #fan fiction #fanfic #fanfiction #fan fic

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five-rivers · 4 years ago

Note

The "Young Yagi Toshinori|All Might on ao3 covers everything from him being a toddler to just pre-organ-loss so just-got-ofa-teen Toshi is smol enough. (Altho elementary-school-age Toshi ruining some villain's day would be hilarious and awesome) The into mind plot sounds awesome and I'm looking forward to it. Blackwhip -Vigilante- Underground Hero Yagi (and Izu) sounds like a ride!

Sir, you have inspired me. Have some elementary school Toshinori.

Shimura Nana was having A Day.

First, she’d woken up with her bones aching, a side effect of all the microfractures she’d given herself while getting used to One for All. Second, she’d discovered she was out of painkillers. Third, the convenience store she usually frequented for such matters had been collateral in a villain fight earlier that week, so she’d had to jog to the nearest grocery store (her license level didn’t cover quirk use for personal matters). Fourth, the grocery store didn’t sell her usual brand, so now she was stuck deciding between the grocery store’s generics, of unknown quality, and a slightly more expensive brand she knew would mostly work but tended to make her drowsy. The more expensive and effective brands were a little out of the price range of a person like her.

A person like her being a recently licensed aboveground sidekick who was trying to stay out of the direct spotlight due to the century-plus-year-old supervillain who was currently stalking her due to the origin of one of her two powers.

Yeah, okay. So, there weren’t any other people like her. It was a figure of speech. Who could blame her?

The universe, apparently.

One wall of the grocery store caved in, the force of the blast whipping the scarf off from around Nana’s neck and all thoughts of painkillers from Nana’s mind. One for All pulsed in her fists as she turned to face the threat.

(As always, she wondered, was this it? Had he found her? Was she about to die like Six?)

The threat was underwhelming. The villain standing in the hole was skinny, stressed, and clearly new at the ‘escape’ part of the gig, despite the bulging bag of cash under his left arm. Where had he come from, anyway? The nearest bank was... Ugh. Nana couldn’t be bothered to remember the exact distance. It didn’t matter, anyway.

What mattered was taking the guy down before he got the bright idea to start doing whatever he did to the wall to people. For example, the shoppers who were still standing right next to him.

Was the demolished wall not enough of a hint for these people?

Whatever, they were civilians. Even heroes and policemen froze sometimes.

It would be best to avoid a flashy (and damaging) fight in this scenario, especially given that Nana wasn’t wearing her costume, but a random sweater and some old jeans. She began to maneuver around to the villain’s flank, positioning herself in such a way that there were no civilians behind her. She prepared to strike.

And then, because the universe really had it out for her today, a second villain walked through the hole, this one carrying a crying girl in an elementary school uniform. He also was wearing a truly atrocious pair of shorts. They were some unholy combination between Hawaiian print, stripes, and polka-dots. And the were short. And tight.

The kidnapping only barely beat out those shorts as the worst crime the man was currently committing.

“No one get any ideas, or I’ll kill this brat!” yelled the villain. Their quirk looked like it turned their hands into spikes. Simple, not terribly threatening, but more than enough to kill the kid.

Oh, and now there was another kid, a blonde, peeking around the edge of the hole, glaring at the spike villain.

Okay, from now on, Nana was going to assume that no one had any self preservation, ever.

“I don’t know about this, bro,” said the other villain, shaking.

“Shut up! Hey, you!” he shouted at a cashier. “Where’s Kimiko?”

“She, uh, break room,” said the shaking teen.

The villain snorted. “Come on, she’s got that teleport quirk.” He kicked the back of the other villain’s leg. He stumbled forward.

A number of things happened in quick succession.

First, the blonde kid ran at the spike villain, hitting the backs of his legs.

Second, Nana darted forward, intent on taking out the villains before they could kill the suicidal blonde.

Third, there was a lot of blood.

When Nana said a lot, she meant a lot. As in, a worryingly large amount. As in, anyone who lost that much blood needed a trip to the hospital pronto, and that was if they were an adult.

The wall-blasting villain had evidently realized this, was screaming, and, thankfully, not paying enough attention to anything else to notice Nana coming up alongside him and knocking him across the jaw.

She didn’t have her capture gear with her. She’d have to hope he’d stay out.

Then the spike villain just. Collapsed.

Which is when she realized he was the one bleeding, rather than either of the kids. In fact, the blonde kid, who was utterly covered in blood, was helping to extract the girl from the villain’s rapidly weakening grasp. Which meant that Nana should probably do something.

Yeah, something.

First, make sure the villain wasn’t going to get back up and attack everyone. Oh, jeez. That was a giant chunk out of the guy’s leg, right underneath those awful, awful shorts.

Yeah, he wasn’t going to be moving for a good second. She turned to the kids.

“Are either of you two hurt?” she asked.

“No, ma’am!” said the boy, beaming. Underneath the blood, his teeth gleamed whiter than a toothpaste spokesman’s. The girl shook her head.

“Cool, cool,” said Nana, giving them a grin. “Did you bite him?” she pointed at the villain, winced, and started to take off her sweater. The guy needed a tourniquet.

“Yes!” said the boy. “He’s-- Is he okay?” The smile dropped a little, and he started wringing his hands.

Oh, gosh, he was precious.

“Yeah,” said Nana, brightly, trying to staunch the flow of blood. She could hear sirens in the distance. “He’s fine! People just get a bit dizzy when they, uh, lose this much blood. Why don’t you two go over there, and make sure the police have been called? And an ambulance?”

“Yes, Ms. Hero!” said the boy, saluting again. He practically dragged the girl off, over to the cash registers.

Cute.

The villain did make it into the ambulance. So. Anyway. Time to make sure the trauma wasn’t catching up to the sunshine boy. How old was he, anyway? Five? Ten? Had to be younger than eleven with that uniform, right?

(Simply speaking, Nana was not good at estimating ages.)

She slunk over to listen as the police officer questioned him.

“I just want to make sure you know, Yagi-kun,” said the police officer, who was gently dabbing the child’s blood-covered face with a cloth, “you aren’t in trouble, but we need to know if you used your quirk on that man?”

That was something Nana was curious about, too. After all, the kid had just about bit through the guy’s femoral artery. That took talent. Or a really weird brand of luck.

“Oh, no, sir! I don’t have a quirk!”

The officer stared. “You ran at a villain holding a hostage without a quirk?”

“Emi was crying! I had to help!”

Okay. Nana liked this tiny feral child.

The officer sighed. “Can you tell me your parents’ names? And phone numbers?”

“I don’t have parents, sir! I can give you the number of my foster home, though.” The last sentence was said with significantly less energy than all the ones before, and the boy looked down at the ground, kicking at it lightly.

Heck. If Nana didn’t have All for One after her, she’d adopt right then and there.

But she did.

And her bones still hurt.

Also, she was covered in blood.

Well, quirkless or not, she had no doubt that kid would go far. Maybe she’d see him again, someday.

#bnha #boku no hero academia #fic #fanfic #ask #answer #yagi toshinori #nana shimura #kid fic #does this count as a kid fic #smol toshinori #feral toshinori #blood #biting

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lesbianrobin · 4 years ago

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If you had to rank all the 14 ST characters in the main group from most to least fav what would your ranking look like? (And by main group i mean the characters including murray and erica, and excluding karen, basically everybody involved in the final battle in 3x08)

ok let me preface this by saying that i literally love all of these characters i don't hate any of them okay?? let's go... ascending order for the drama!!

14. murray. no explanation needed. no offense to brett gelman he's phenomenal and i honestly think murray is really funny, but he's more or less just a plot device with some comic relief slapped on top.

now things get spicy <3

13. erica. love her to death! but she's fairly one-dimensional, once again primarily a comic relief character. maybe in s4 she'll get some more depth like the older kids have, but for now she's sort of a default next-to-last :/

12. will... no tea no shade but the kid's barely in the show! i absolutely want good things for him but like. i barely even know him. yknow? he’s only above erica bc he’s gay and she’s a capitalist. also that scene in s1 right before he gets snatched by the demogorgon when he just runs straight to the shed and grabs a goddamn shotgun and loads it fully ready to defend himself... that shit slapped good for him!!

11. this Will be controversial among some and i Know this character is many people's favorite... if you follow me already this is probably not going to surprise you but. nancy. i just think her character is kind of inconsistent, so i have a hard time really clicking with her :/ sometimes i love her and i think she's so cool and funny and hot (that hospital scene in s3... my GOD what a badass!) and other times i would like to fistfight her.

also let me get this out of the way right now: i'm aware that jonathan's character is ALSO super inconsistent!! i know okay??? i know!!!! please nobody judge me for how high rat boy gets on this ranking okay i'm literally making this up as i go along so idk if he's next or if he's like in the top five but i have a disease called Unreasonably Invested In Wildly Speculative Meta-Analysis Of Stranger Things which makes it impossible for me to be normal about jonathan and this is my ranking so i pick the bad taste!!!

10. joyce! i love her bro she's MOM and she tries so fucking hard all the goddamn time and she's so STRONG and kind and adorable... joyce is honestly a very unique and refreshing character ESPECIALLY if you’re considering stranger things within the horror genre which is often defined by these very specific archetypes of mothers and motherhood that i can get into if anyone is interested but like basically. love her <3

9. dustin <3 what an icon... i love him i love how he straight up killed a man and hardly flinched because it was to protect his friends and i love how he and his little girlfriend have a song they sing together and i love how he either has an insanely warped perspective on things due to low self-esteem or he just sometimes flatout lies to gain sympathy either way he’s a BABY and he’s so FUNNY and KIND and even when he’s scared he keeps going... ugh god and i love how even when he doubts his friends’ devotion to him he NEVER ever questions his devotion to them and he never ever considers leaving them behind or not stepping up to help them... he’s so brave!

8. mike is such a fucking BITCH but even more than that he is an ANGEL... literally his range who is doing it like him??? nobody!!!! graffiti’d the bathroom stall at school... hates cops.... what a legend. also i like how fucking goofy and dumb his hair looks in s3. also he’s very soft with his friends and it makes me cry. ALSO he literally stepped off a fucking CLIFF he was ready to DIE FOR DUSTIN and i know all the kids have risked their lives for each other but this wasn’t even a monster yknow this was just... bullies.... threatening his friend..... and mike couldn’t fucking let it happen bro he was ready to just step off the edge to keep dustin safe and it’s SO MUCH... and god the kindness he showed el when they first met!!! he’s a total angel and a total shithead and it’s amazing.

7. lucas my tiny baby hero.... he’s so strong and cool and capable yet at the same time he’s such a COMPLETE dork!!! he very seriously believes his slingshot wrist rocket is a lethal weapon and then he ACTUALLY USES IT AS A LETHAL WEAPON TO SAVE HIMSELF AND HIS FRIENDS!!! he hacks off a giant monster’s freaky tentacle arm thing with an axe to save his friend AND he keeps a bunch of action figures and random dice on his bedside table bro he just thinks they’re neat!!! like... i genuinely love him so much god he cares so much about his friends and he’s so brave and smart and loving... i know he is not tiny anymore but he is my tiny baby hero okay...

6. hopper! big man care for little girl... protect and love kids... dance to dad music... be goofy and hot... have trauma.... admit his faults and attempt to grow from them.... what's not to love?

5. jonathan... look i can’t explain it except that he loves his goddamn baby brother so much and i’m a sucker with extensive headcanons alright!

4. el!!! feral little darling girl!!! i literally cannot articulate the love that floods my heart whenever i see her face or think about her for too long she’s just... so strong but more than that she’s so incredibly KIND!! when she has every reason to be selfish and cruel and yeah at times she does let herself get a little mean but on the whole she’s always so goddamn kind and loving and selfless no matter how afraid she is or how she’s hurting... and i hope that with her powers gone in s4 she’ll maybe learn how to see herself as more than a tool to protect those she loves yknow but that’s off topic skdncmn i just think that el is such an incredible character with such depth!! she can be so grave and mature yet she’s still such an innocent child at the same time, and i think that both the writing and mbb’s acting are handled such that both of these things WORK and feel real and they make el (and her trauma) so believable. i just love her to death.

3. robin, light of my lesbian little life!! unfortunately she's wayyy too much like me to snag the top spot lmao. maybe once we get another season with her she’ll trample the competition but for now my baby is in a solid third place <3 i’ve never seen a lesbian on screen who i felt so accurately represented me and my experiences!! she feels so real and in just one season she’s become one of my favorites on the whole show, and i cannot fucking wait to see what else we learn about her and what development we see from her in s4.

2. as u may have guessed... max!! i know i said this was my subjective opinion but here i’ll just say it: max is objectively one of the best characters on the show. she’s so strong and funny and quick on her feet while harboring some real pain and insecurity at the same time, and both of these aspects of her character are married perfectly, logically connecting to one another and joining with sadie’s incredible acting to create an amazing character who feels just... so real!! i absolutely adore her and i CONSTANTLY tear up just from thinking about her skdncmn...

1. what if my number one wasn't steve. like can y'all imagine???? if i just said like will or some shit???? genuinely i did consider giving max or robin top billing here but i just Can't i've dedicated too goddamn much of my life to steve harrington to deny that he's my one and only. is there anything to say that hasn't already been said? look at the bitch. just look at him.

what other answer could there be?

#asks #em talks #long post #stranger things

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dweemeister · 4 years ago

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The Stalking Moon (1968)

By the late 1960s, the American Western’s zenith had passed, and the genre was reinventing itself. Bonnie and Clyde (1967) unleashed a wave of films in all genres depicting violence more openly and graphically; meanwhile, the rise of the Revisionist Western (1962’s Ride the High Country, 1966’s The Professionals) led to the deglamorization of the genre’s protagonists and their sense of morality. Released by National General Pictures (NGC), The Stalking Moon reunites producer Alan J. Pakula, director Robert Mulligan, and Gregory Peck – no longer a dashing young man – a six years after To Kill a Mockingbird (1962). Though the team is a throwback, the mindset of The Stalking Moon fits squarely within a Revisionist Western. Mulligan’s dialogue-light film incorporates elements of atmospheric thrillers and, in its tensest moments, seems to resemble a proto-slasher. As a hybrid thriller-Western, The Stalking Moon – once the narrative pieces are in place – is a sharp-edged, gorgeously-shot affair.

On Sam Varner’s (Peck) last day before retiring from the U.S. Cavalry, his regiment surrounds and arrests dozens of Apache warriors. Among the group is a white woman, Sarah Carver (Eva Marie Saint), and her half-Indian son (Noland Clay; Clay’s ethnicity/race is unclear). That afternoon, Sarah pleads for an immediate escort from the Cavalry’s camp instead of waiting for five days for an official military escort. The boy’s father, Salvaje (Nathaniel Narcisco in redface; Narcisco’s ethnicity/race is unclear), is a ruthless assassin and, according to Sarah, almost certainly in pursuit of their son. The Cavalry commander rejects Sarah’s request, but Sam agrees to take them to a remote train station. At the station, disaster strikes, and Sam invites Sarah and her son to stay with him at his rugged, mountainous ranch in New Mexico. Sarah and her son find the personal adjustments to live on Sam’s ranch difficult, but they have help thanks to ranch hands Ned (Russell Thorson) and Nick Tana (Robert Foster, whose character is a half-Indian scout). But even in this ranch, protected on three sides by treacherous rock formations, Sarah and her son have not yet eluded the violence to come.

Mulligan also appears to make comments on how the United States treated the American Indians of the West, but ultimately never does so. The Stalking Moon never highlights indigenous perspectives, declining to even give Sarah’s son a name or expressive space. These perspectives only exist through implication – the wars of the American West are going poorly for the tribes, and white settlers are moving ceaselessly westward and are cementing themselves in these lands. Sarah and Salvaje’s child, being of mixed race and approximately eight or nine years old, would almost certainly be the target of sociopolitical discrimination and the suspicious gazes of many a stranger. Never discussed by any of the characters is the possibility of such behavior towards the child; if Mulligan and screenwriters Wendell Mayes (1959’s Anatomy of a Murder, 1972’s The Poseidon Adventure) and Alvin Sargent (1977’s Julia, 2004’s Spider-Man 2) attempted to insert subtext regarding the child’s treatment, they do so far too subtly.

Salvaje himself is a largely faceless antagonist who never exchanges any dialogue, let alone a grunt, a cry of pain, a primal exclamation. Like numerous American Western movies too numerous to name, this is a reinforcement of stereotypical depictions of American Indians in Hollywood – anonymous, without specific bearing to the lead characters. Is he pursuing his son to reclaim him or the murder him? The movie never says. To Salvaje’s credit, he is a physical menace that could easily overtake an aging Sam Varner. More often than not during the Western’s heyday, indigenous Americans – whether individually or as part of a collective – would be all too easily slaughtered in a hail of protagonists’ gunfire or explosives (in part because of their antagonistic anonymity). Such developments would serve The Stalking Moon, which is partly a thriller, poorly. Thus, Salvaje is an aversion of the too-easily-killed Indian trope, but his complete lack of non-violent interaction with any character and empty characterization beyond his capacity for violence and vengeance uphold the trope of the anonymous indigenous menace. His physicality and obvious threat to the protagonists serve thriller genre; his nature as a blank slate killer is a legacy from American Western narrative traditions (and now largely a relic to that tradition’s contemporary practitioners).

Now in his 50s when he made The Stalking Moon, Gregory Peck – if only because of Hollywood’s obsession over age – was reaching a point in his career where opportunities for lead roles inevitably begin to decline (but not his influence, as Peck was currently serving as the President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences). The Stalking Moon will, on paper, appear to be typical material for Peck. His Sam Varner, when no one else will tend to Sarah and her son’s safety, will take the initiative even though this decision, at best, is an inconvenience or, at worst, might cost him his life. As it is so often with Peck, his screen presence – assuredness of posture, the timbre of his voice, and calming persona – engineers a great performance. Even with a screenplay that avoids providing dialogue-driven details about his character’s life, Peck makes Sam Varner another entry in his long filmography of upstanding heroes.

The screenplay also consigns Eva Marie Saint to playing her character as a trauma survivor whose apprehension is pervasive. If one is seeking a role where Saint is able to display the fullest breadth of her acting range, The Stalking Moon is certainly not that movie. But for how the screenplay portrays her character, this is a capable performance from Saint alongside child star Noland Clay as the boy (this film remains Clay’s only screen credit).

Cinematographer Charles Lang (1947’s The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, 1959’s Some Like It Hot) and editor Aaron Stell (1958’s Touch of Evil, To Kill a Mockingbird) pay lip service to the Western genre with luxurious takes of the mountains and rock formations that mark their landscape photography. With on-location filming in Red Rock Canyon and Valley of Fire State Park in Nevada, the low-to-the-ground, slightly upward-angled camera shots suggest that Sarah and her son, while making Sam Varner’s ranch house their new home, have nowhere to escape to. Dry shrubs line this small, sloped canyon with somewhat steep angles that make even walking without ascending or descending hazardous. Yet Lang and Stell’s collaboration truly impresses during the action setpieces – most notably in a scene where Gregory Peck, in a darkened room, awaits the entrance of the man who has been hunting the people he has been protecting. Before the naming and identification of the slasher subgenre of horror film, The Stalking Moon – noting its selective cinematography and editing in its tensest moments – relies on numerous lighting and staging techniques that the likes of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) and Friday the 13th (1980) would later adopt. Though shot and edited like a thriller, much of the film has scenes of people-watching: adults observing children, children observing adults, people noticing small behavioral details otherwise glossed over in a less patient movie. These moments of observation substitute for the dialogue and are as important as the most critical pieces of dialogue in the film.

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An unconventional score from composer Fred Karlin (1970’s The Baby Maker, 1973’s Westworld) is a restrained effort, making use of a full orchestra but rarely employing the aural grandiosity that an orchestra is capable of. Repeated often throughout The Stalking Moon is the opening motif whistled in the main titles, with the sparse melodies – usually performed by the whistler or a limited number of woodwinds and/or brass – suggesting the vastness and emptiness of the American West, even in the days of westward expansion. Karlin’s music has an unsettling quality that permeates into The Stalking Moon’s most joyous scenes. When Sarah and her son arrive and Sam’s residence for the first time, the cue “Sarah’s New Home” opens with solo triangle before the entrance of a lone flute. The occasional dissonance from the triangle conflicts with the flute – a subliminal, harmonic message (in addition to the various string harmonics used throughout) that Sarah’s dangers have not passed. So often in modern film composing, a director will relegate the music as background noise or the composer themselves will dispense almost entirely of melody. In the latter, numerous modern film score composers have reasoned that melody cannot serve action films or thrillers, so they will compose a wall of amelodic texture instead. But, as Karlin so ably demonstrates in his score to The Stalking Moon, the juxtaposition of memorable melodies and effective action scoring is more interesting dramatically and musically.

Today, The Stalking Moon’s influence has been limited in part due to NGC’s dissolution and sale to Warner Bros. in 1974. For anyone willing to dive into this relatively undiscovered piece of American Western, few of the film’s immediate contemporaries adapted its thriller-influenced cues for their own purposes. Its depiction of American Indians is not as egregious as other Westerns and it appears to make some sort of attempt at commentary, but many of the damaging preconceptions of indigenous Americans make their way into the film’s screenplay. Yet considering the undemonstrative approach that Robert Mulligan takes for his film, The Stalking Moon is a serviceable Western torn between the passing of eras for the genre.

My rating: 7/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. Half-points are always rounded down. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found in the “Ratings system” page on my blog (as of July 1, 2020, tumblr is not permitting certain posts with links to appear on tag pages, so I cannot provide the URL).

For more of my reviews tagged “My Movie Odyssey”, check out the tag of the same name on my blog.

#The Stalking Moon #Robert Mulligan #Gregory Peck #Eva Marie Saint #Robert Forster #Noland Clay #Russell Thorson #Nathaniel Narcisco #Wendell Mayes #Alvin Sargent #Charles Lang #Aaron Stell #Fred Karlin #TCM #My Movie Odyssey

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vaguely-concerned · 5 years ago

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I rewatched the mandalorian episode 8 and boy have I got feels for you

- lol gideon’s callouts to all of them though... you have ‘hey cara remember how we blew up your entire planet and killed your fellow soldiers’ and ‘hey din djarin yeah I know who you are lol the mysterious stranger thing doesn’t work on me remember how we apparently murdered a bunch of mandalorian children in one night’ (that’s how I’m taking ‘mandalorian recruits’ anyway) and then finally there’s just ‘greef karga. you’re really old enough to know better.’

- oh bb!din doesn’t cry at any point during the whole flashback :((( bb boy. he’s of course terrified but there are no tears. I’m guessing he’s in shock/dissociated the entire time. (probably also due to having a child actor but I think it makes a lot of sense in-universe too! to put on my trauma hat for a moment he’s always read to me as a combined freeze/flight type; he either dissociates or loses himself in work. I suppose he got started early)

- the look on Papa Djarin’s (I mean I assume) face as tiny din reaches out for him and he knows he has to turn away and leave to save him :) exquisite burning agony

I still wonder so much what his parents did for a living. those red robes look almost like uniforms/religious garb to me or it might of course just be the fashion in this place, people in the background seem to be wearing similar things.

- I LOVE the mando who saves him as a kid because that’s apparently the same actor who’s in the mando suit when it’s not pedro pascal or another stuntman (brendan wayne, I think it is?) so it gives this wonderful feeling that you get now where a lot of din’s body language and general bearing comes from but there’s also just enough difference that it’s clearly another person. with din there’s always this edge of reserve and a slight stiffness no matter how relaxed he is, and this guy has the same basic steadiness as him but seems a bit more open just from these few short shots. (there might be a little bit of character design in this as well -- din’s shoulder pauldrons are naturally uh ‘higher’ than this guy’s, who has smoother/flatter and more rounded shapes, giving the feeling of shoulders just slightly raised and relaxed down respectively)

it’s nice to see the mandos as a protective force even if they have the death watch symbol there to make you go ‘?!?!?!’, there wasn’t a lot of that in clone wars but it’s an ill wind and so on I guess

- this confused jawa looking at the dead stormtroopers is everything. don’t worry you’re doing amazing sweetie

- the context for why din picks up the e-web (channeling the spirit of baze malbus, a man who also didn’t let the fact that his weapon was really meant to be mounted on a tank stop him :’) ) makes it even better: he sees that IG-11 has the baby and that he’s getting overwhelmed and he literally grabs the biggest gun he can find and goes to town to let him get away.

- “I haven’t heard that name spoken since I was a child” ooof but also what are the logistics of that? I’m wondering if it might be the ‘Djarin’ part, if that’s his family name? maybe there hasn’t been a use for that among the mandos? surely someone has needed to call him by name somehow at some point in the last 30+ years lol

- one of the reasons gideon works so well as a villain is that he can get past the beskar. he knows exactly how to kill mandalorians because he’s done it before. he’s not only a huge threat emotionally -- he wants the baby and he’s done some fucked up shit to din’s culture -- he’s also one of the few people who can nullify the physical protection of our main boi in the helmet. and that scares me. because he’s my dad and I love him.

- I’m fairly sure din is properly unconscious for almost half a minute there. (which is very very bad. always go see a doctor if you lose consciousness after hitting your head if an IG unit with appropriate training and equipment is not on hand)

- baby yoda passing out after doing one (admittedly spectacular) thing is a wholeass mood, #same buddy ilu

- din is the first person to explicitly call the baby a foundling ;____;

- poor cara she’s already lost so much and her new bro is trying to convince her to let him throw himself on any sword made available to him. (I do love that neither she nor IG-11 buy mando’s bullshit for a moment here tho lol they’re openly saying they’ll take him with them anyway while he’s listening)

- oh. oh din starting to jumble his words even as the gun remains rock steady in his hand is hitting me really hard this time. ow.

- I think the baby can sense din and IG coming (he gives a little sound right before they show up)

- when cara checks in with him in the tunnel she touches her fingers to his chest so very lightly and he almost falls over backwards sdfaksdljhf

- well he definitely is trembling while picking up that helmet from the pile. so have fun knowing that with me

it’s so messed up too because there’s not that many of them left; he’s all but guaranteed to have known every single one of them.

- this image of him on his knees in front of this pile of the empty armor of the dead feels. I don’t know how to describe it but like a repeat. like he has been here before, this isn’t the first time and it’s hitting him all over again. (considering how things have been going for the mandos recently that might very well be true too. metaphorically this is essentially what’s going on in the background of the entire show, anyway. Friends I think mando Saw Some Shit during the night of a thousand tears or a similar event)

maybe what gives me this feeling is how clearly he is in another time in some way during this part, before the armorer diagnoses him with Dad and brings him properly back. he’s trying to send them away with the baby, who’s like. basically the symbol of his will to live at this point. “I can’t leave it this way”, he can’t leave the dead behind and be alive, some part of him wants to stay with them.

you can see this from how he talks about the baby too: in the scene where he’s hurt and trying to get them to leave he consistently calls him the child or the baby (not to mention the first foundling we get!) and focuses very specifically on keeping him safe. in this triggered state the baby briefly becomes it again and he doesn’t even mention him, he just tells them to take his ship and leave. in that moment all he wants to do is fight and probably die on behalf of those who are already gone. (I think bessel van der kolk has called PTSD ‘a profound loyalty to that which is lost’ or something like that. that rings very true to me here)

the talk with the armorer is basically a very short debate between ol’ coping mechanism!din being like ‘hey I just remembered before all this I was doing my very best to work myself to an early and likely shallow grave, I should get back to that’ and Papa Wolf!din being like ‘except this is my son so we’re not doing that we’re gonna have to improvise something new on the fly here’. bless.

(all of this is so subjective and probably me reading things into it that don’t really exist so don’t quote me on any of this but his anger at greef karga sounds to me like that of a younger, emotionally rawer man too, it’s so openly hurt and... active? I guess? these days when he gets angry he seems to tend more towards getting deathly quiet. then again this is one of the most genuinely upsetting things in the whole show so it could just be that)

- hahahahahaha greef rests his hand on his gun before he follows them into the armorer’s workshop; it would seem he did not think it guaranteed either she or maybe especially mando wouldn’t try to shoot him

- the way the armorer’s voice gains a brightness/warmth when she sees the child! the mandalorian ‘protect babies’ instinct in action haha, she’s like ‘oh this is why you did this bugfuck insane thing. perfectly reasonable, keep up the good work’. the foundlings are the future is not just lip service it really is a central tenet of their culture even when it’s inconvenient

there’s this sense that... in the face of his hurt she’s basically telling him to go be alive, to raise this child, to choose surviving and healing. I think she understands him very very well, I wonder how long they’ve known each other. (she had the mould for his signet ready <3)

- he sounds so crestfallen and lost when he asks if the baby is an enemy. and then she’s just fondly like ‘no it’s your son you absolute dummy’ and he’s like ‘...yeah I know’

- I. love that in these scenes he’s hurt (and not just physically) and other people are there to carry the baby until he can pick him up at the end fully as a father would.

- I have talked about it before but I must restate how hilarious and endearing I find it that mando conscientiously leans the thing he tries to pry the boat loose with against the wall again while cara shoots the place up. one is never too busy to mind one’s manners. (this scene really showcases each of the characters too. greef: just keep fuckn pushing! mando: briefly kicks the thing with a growl then tries attacking the problem from a new angle. cara: GUN.)

- oh the absolute sweetness of how IG says “And you will live”. there’s so much emotion in his droid voice there and all of it is peaceful and affectionate. I agree with din IG don’t goooooooo don’t leave us we need an adult

I keep whispering ‘pls someone think to shield the baby’s eyes’ through my tears in this scene, he didn’t need to see that happen D:

- I really need to repeat that despite what IG-11 says, he goes ahead with his plan anyway even though mando never satisfies his ‘programming’s’ demand. droid’s got free will and a huge big heart Y___________Y anyway... droid rights in the star wars universe when (...it would be very funny if din became embroiled in that fight somehow after this, oh how the turntables)

- another continuity error: mando puts the jetpack on, then we get a shot of cara shooting and he’s standing there with it in his hands again haha. unless he realized he put it on upside down the first time around or something that seems unlikely. (he’s also lying in slightly different positions between cuts in the scene where IG-11 heals him, but that’s so small and subtle I don’t even really count it)

- the jetpack scene is a beautiful encapsulation of din’s fighting style. he flails and gets jerked around a lot. he nearly blows himself up. I don’t think he’s fully in control of anything that whole time. and yet he gets the job done yet again. a disaster, but a glorious disaster still standing at the end of it all. one simply must stan.

- a) I think din remembered how to take off better than he remembered how to land haha and b) BABY’S HAPPY LITTLE FACE WATCHING HIS DAD COME BACK DOWN c) THE BABY & MANDO MUSIC PLAYING WHEN DIN NOTICES THE BABY CLUTCHING HIS LEG *elmo surrounded by flames gif* (it’s a calmer/more grounded version of the same song that plays when they have that moment of connection right before the other mandos come to the rescue in ep 3 and also a few other times)

- baby’s joyful little trilling sound when his dad turns his head to check on him 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 and he strokes the cape with such contentment because it’s a safe familiar texture because this is his dAD (officially and legally too now, mandalorian-wise :’) im so happy)

- the unsympathetic comedy stormtroopers at the beginning could conceivably have survived (if not uh happily lol). if they become a recurring duo who show up and get more and more screwed every time I wouldn’t be mad haha

- I support these jawas in everything they do, I feel a great kinship with these lil goblins

- anyway I love this show so much and I hope season 2 is good too and knows it holds my fragile heart in its hands

#star wars #the mandalorian #meta #get ready to be rambled at haha #can I even tell how much sense I'm making anymore? no but I'm having a lot of fun #the mandalorian meta

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mikkock · 5 years ago

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Uhm??????? Unacceptable?? Please tell me more about your OCs in that last art? I demand it? I want a full report on my desk before morning? Cite your sources please?

Oh no,, you’re asking,,, about my own faves,,, sorry to everyone, but I guess im never going to shut up ever now. (i already don’t shut up ever, what have u done, im now going to speak so much that society will collapse AT LEAST)

But for real. I enjoy pretending I don’t have faves, I love all my kids the same, buT WE ALL KNO THAT’S A LIE, those two my fave bitches (they snatched that title from the last two faves, rip to them, and they also snatched, n I must really make that clear, the title of “the bitches with the most AUs from the previous previous faves. Their power.)

SO. Get ready for a ride, table of content: them, their respective character, their story, and the pLETHORA OF ALTERNATE STORIES I GAVE THEM because i must yell about all the versions of my kids i have (non-exhaustive cause its that serious bro, but ill take extra time for the universe depicted in that art just for u bby). (tbh if clamp is allowed to sprinkle their fave gays in all their universes so am i, except they aint secondary characters there, every story is just theirs. love that concept.)(itll be so long you’re getting a whole novel even if i have to post it in two posts)

So~ Em twos. Dari n Wei-wei as I call em, or Dumbass n Egg if you wanna get friendly.

They’re my proudest instance of “oops i made a squad of characters, and two of them just accidentally were so perfectly compatible and complementary oh no I guess they’re in love now.” And then they became my favourite. Cause I guess their potential was too much (jk its bc they hot)

cuties.

I spent ten minutes wondering which to introduce first cause dang son, I want to talk bout them both so much shefjgfdg

First, as I technically designed him first (like ten minutes before the other), my man weiwei. if u ever saw my art its impossible that you havent seen him at least once. cause i’m legit always drawing him. cause im in love bro.

Demonstration : here are my computer scribbled weiweis of 2020 so far (with a few daris there n there they’re a package deal), that i could find, and they do not include all the paper sketches that i’m too lazy to take pics of. (i just been drawing him with so much hair these days that’s illegal, his brand is baldness)

But anyway, he’s CHEN Chia-Wei, he’s 21, he’s Taiwanese n I love him. Two very important facets of his character when you meet him: he doesn’t talk, and is absolutely, in every single dimension, built to make you fall head over heels for him.

He’s (in the “canon” storyline if i may call it that since it’s def not my most developed one but oh well) an art student, mostly paints but is also great at photography and videography (his vibe is busy hectic pieces with strong bold colours, lots of harsh edges, and very people focused).

Aside from that, he’s also super into fashion, and because he’s part of the rich boy squad (the “im broke so im giving half my characters wealth in compensation) he Can and Does exhibit some quite funky fits when he feels like it. (maybe a reason I draw him a lot, since my fave thing is pretty boys in weird ass clothes)(and then i also draw him in just casual shit cuz tittiful men in plain white tees you know. there’s just something about it.)

Small compilation of outfits. ft me and my band handwriting roasting outfits that id also kill to own but ok u know.

He digs music. (i make playlists for my OCs and i gotta say, his is the best one, i spent so many hours researching it, “arranging” it etc n its still a work in progress but dude. she got many moods my fave part is when it suddenly turns into so many cheesy ballads also she’s enormous cause im as wordy in playlists as I am in writing.) listens to a lot, n also he can play piano n guitar. cause you know. heartthrobs got to win your heart with a song (and if he’s alone he can even mumble some songs, who knows maybe even sing em softly, definitly a sight to stumble on accidentally). Big main artists that have his vibes are Hello Nico, No Party for Cao Dong, n Circa Waves’s “what’s it like over there” album.

He does a lot of sports. He ain’t fit through magic, rip to him. He’s got a serious routine, and it’s a time he likes to use alone, cause nothing like running at the break of dawn, alone with your thoughts, which you can just easily forget through the exhaustion of a workout session afterwards.

he also eats. A lot. Food is just good, bro. (the canon story is def happening some place europe aka his biggest struggle is how expensive food is here. outrageous.)

He secretly loves super cheesy movies. the dramatic romcoms??? the cute shows that are just so cute and worriless?? anything involving soulmates??? yeh dude. he watches it, he reads it, he listens to it, and he may cry about it, but no one will know. That’s the one true guilty pleasure. (and he definitly has a collection of romance dvds, books n manhuas in his old room back at the family home. where no one can see it. perks of studying abroad. no one can see ur hoarding of material that clashes your image. “yes i watch edgy experimental things haha yes i love those smart people movies of course wow the philosophy…” and then immediatly goes to watch the trashiest predictable but oh so sweet dramas all night)

While he doesn’t speak (as in with the mouth) he can communicate in a bunch of language, due to having moved around quite a bit. On top of his native mandarin and hokkien, he’s fluent in English, so he can use those to write, and is also fluent in TSL, and pretty good in HKSL (and from that, other close-in-syntax sign languages). So he doesn’t have trouble getting around, but then he is also overall quiet in public (with close friends and over text though, that’s another story, that’s where he gets chattier, and also where you may get more of his true personality). Also, he can speak with his sister. That’s pretty cool bro.

I was going to say he’s a very “hides his true colours under a shell” type of character but you know, for an egg character, that’s pretty ironic. We love poetic cinema.

He presents himself as a very laid back, chill detached dude, going with the flow and all that great stuff, and masterfully mixes just the right doses of mysterious, flirty and calm to just go around vibing. But ain’t that jUST THE MILLENIAL’S ILLNESS, those dANG KIDS, going around, gettin relationships but never intimacy 👏😢 (there’s more to it dont leave)

First of all, before you see the Drama, the Turmoil, the first thing you notice when you really do befriend him is that he’s c h i l d i s h, he gets sulky when things dont go following the plan, he gets whiny n jealous for not getting attention , he gets competitive over stupid challenges, and way too playful if you start teasing, and when he gets flustered too…you think you get cool stoic dude but actually you get a dude who’s reacting to things with way too much intensity, and boi i thought u were gon be mature what’s that why have you been pouting for three days over losing a bet come on- That’s mostly coming up when he interacts with his sister, but the closest you are to him to more of it you get to see.

He’s also an affectionate dude actually. Like physically. As in you’ll get spontaneous hugs. He’s come nap on your shoulder. That’s a perk of befriending him if you ask me.

Also he tries to look so cool, so tough haha. He’s actually a lil sensitiv boi. he gets fluffy, he gets flustered, he heart eyes. you turn around and he’s gazing at ya as if you were the whole universe. he gets a mini crisis for holding hands with his crush. ya know. he’s secretly a softie.

nerd.

Then in the “what he doesn’t show” (my fave part), where you stock all the anxieties, all the trauma… Obviously there’s a lot of anxiety here (selective muteness being a symptom of it, he hides the other ones very well) mostly fear of inadequacy, of abandonement and of loneliness. mmmmmmmaybe that’s why he was v reticent to continue pursuing that one guy he was into when he realised he was just a tad too into him oh no is that some,, like?? some lovey-love?? cant have that im afraid of gettin heartbroken bro. Aint that sad for a someone who’s one true goal is just findin someone to love and to be with forever, the struggles of yearnin for a soulmate when there’s nothing you fear more than getting attached to a person and letting them see you and your flaws.., delicious.

Now tho (because its so alone speaking about a character on their own and i just wanna get to the part where i can speak bout em together and how they bring out bits of each others ya kno, the good kush….), Dari…

He’s pretty, i must say, and got the funniest hair to draw, and comes from the most opposite background to weiwei’s.

Darian Andriev PARVANOV, also 21, comes from the remote Bulgarian countryside, but i still love him (this makes it sound as if i wouldnt normally love someone from the bulgarian countryside. its not what i meant. by default ud remind me of my son so you’d start being liked if u came from the bulgarian countryside) Now for the first instance of “wow, the complementarity”. The first thing i thought making Dari was that he looked too cool, and that he obviously was a dumbass, and mostly that he was physically unable to shut up. (o fuck he’s me)

best picture i could find of him. He’s got the dilemma of “wow he looked so pretty n cool until he opened his mouth”

He’s ALSO an art student (cause they were initially created for the purpose of filling the gap of “i have ocs in every field except the one i sorta know that’s so stupid”), painting major (def vibes differently than weiwei though, he’s doing those soft pretty landscapes n flowers, everything real pretty and peaceful, we got some impressionism nerd in here folks).

He was/is a real country boy, farm family, he helped tend the fields, he worked in plantations for pocket money, he knows how to take care of cattle and chicken and goats and all the cool babies you can take care of, he can tell whether the soil is good or not, he can drive a tractor, and doesnt fear dirt.

but then also he’s kind of a neat freak, he hates getting paint on himself, so the duality of man, dirt ok but paint? disgostin. his spaces are real neat and spotless, he likes cleaning (its relaxing) and does it nearly too often.

his dumbassery comes from lack of common sense and impulsiveness, aside from that he’s actually what you’d call “mad smart”, dude had em good grades, he can memorise pages upon pages of the most trivial information, he has an accumulation of knowledge beyond limits, and is good at problem solving. so he can recite all the words of the F letter of the dictionnary, but would also put a curling iron in his mouth to see if it would curl his tongue. (side note, he does have a problem with heat n fire, most his “oopsie how i wound up hurting myself on acccident” story involve burning -that stove was just too tempting…)

while he doesnt feel very attached to his home country, he does feel strongly for his family. he’d do anything for his mum (and actually does everything to make her proud already, that’s his one main goal), and he’s ready to sacrifice a lot for her (as in, spend years working non-stop a really uncomfortable job so his mother wouldnt have to pay a cent of his expenses even though she said she could by doing some sacrifices herself,and then being ready to come back as soon as needed if anything happened, and potentially drop his career and dream n go back to the farm life to provide for mama)(also he still does hold onto some parts of his home country’s traditions, and does sometimes feel homesick but more in a ‘i left the most beautiful landscapes n the city feels cramped and claustrophobic and i dont know people and i dont feel in the right place cuz im a forreigner with a thicc accent who doesnt master the language of this place and straight up have different body language communicators due to cultural difference oh lord i wanna be home where a nod means no and a head shake is yes i keep misunderstanding everything”)

if you want background noise he’s the perfect pal to call over, he’s just so chatty, he got hours and hours of non stop speech ready for you. you can shut him up once you’re done listening with the offering of food. works everytime.

he’s definitly not shy. neither in terms of talking to people, nor when it comes to making decisions. he’s quite bold, and rarely hesitates to go towards something he wants. he’s direct in his approach to most everything.

he likes partying. mostly the socialising part, talkin to people is just fun ya feel. and being in the crowd, doing whatever, pressure free? ya can dance n enjoy yourself, and people wont notice? yeah that’s nice. but doesnt do it super often cause broke bitches aint got the party time n budget.

he likes arm. (just an excuse for me to drop this thing here cuz i like it)

While he’s an overall bubbly looking character, with a cheery loud personnality, he does carry some youth trauma that has him more reticent to engage in happiness, he comes from what you could call “not the wokest background” and he may have fallen victim of it : he’s kind of a flashy noticeable character, both physically and in his personnality, and doesnt exactly matches the expectations of dudes in the area he comes from (delicate, emotional and sweet guy? that doesnt exist bro). He went through it, and it has definitly had some impact on his confidence in many aspects. But he’s 100% the type of guy to put on the fake happy front because if feeling bad is sad, making the people you care about sad for you too is Unacceptable Right??? relying on friends?? what???

But then what are we supposed to be doing with such charming characters huh,,,

Make them fall in love obviously.

Their story obviously has to do with falling in love and workin a relationship cause if I dont write romance i literally die, but I make the center pivot of all of it communication, and barriers in communications. Most obvious being them coming from wildly different cultures, having different native languages, and also the ways you adapt to muteness (what i love most bout that part is even then they fucked up given the easiest quickest small body language things to communicate are head nods n then i managed to make one come from the one country that reverses those like iconic how do they even understand each other -through a lot of work and love bro) but also on more “introspective” points, how to say things that you are even afraid to think about, how to open up and share your burdens and trauma with someone, how to say words you’ve been convinced you weren’t allowed to, the inner turmoil of communication in short. And then also communication through art, and through alternative unusual ways. If i were snobbish i could call it something like “a thinkpieces on how humans overcome obstacles in communication, and adapt, all for the sake of pursuing love” but fact is its mostly boys being in love n learning how to speak, figuratively and also quite literally. And also its me having fun with making characters evolve from each other, be able to influence each other for the better, helping each other be more comfortable with themselves and express the true things of their personnality, and discover new aspects. I just wanna write intense and soulful love bro.

So in less concept and more facts, weiwei meets dari, dari being his puppy self just immediatly strikes a conversation and weiwei gets interested cause “oho nice pretty boy? very good. i want some of that”. they get closer because you cant fight off the Power of friendship (and also the power of “what your friend is bestie with my friend?? guess we hanging out”) and then friendship and interest turns into pining, held back by respective dread of what romance with the other would mean (as in “romance?? cant have that we cant feel” and “with him?? cant do that, convince yourself he’s just a friend immediatly what would the family think”) but eventually they do have to just crash into one another cause that’s just the gravitational pull bro, its physics bro. and from then on its all unlearning destructive behaviours, bettering oneself with the help of the other, and getting over trauma to finally live ur best life. and gettin fckin married bro they’re both cheeseballs theyll wanna wed

BUT MAKING EM FALL IN LOVE ONCE ISNT ENOUGH time to make 3894853 alternate universes about em.

Lets speak bout my fave of those for a hot second.

First of all, the one of the art that brought this ask, guess i could call it “Pretty Tribes” AU, bunch of tribes live and do their things, having nature and energy powers. Dari n Weiwei’s tribes are bros, the latter’s powers needing them to move around to get energy from different places, enabling them different abilities. So basically they get to hang at the other’s place while the regenerate energy from there, and in exchange they help them out with various tasks (dari’s tribe is a rly farmer oriented one, with plant magic, while weiwei’s got more poyvalent powers, and have very good healers notably, so it comes in handy). The two boys were born a few months apart in their respective tribes, so naturally, anything the two clans meet, they’re put together to play and all, and from that they became besties, and each time they meet, after the gaps of time separating the two groups, they feel more and more of a little something else~ story is themed round growing up, friendship between clans, their traditions and cultures, and pretty boys in pretty clothes in pretty landscapes interacting with nature.

The superpower AU, i fuckin love it bro. Its an old one, made for other characters, but i just love it so much that i had to inject my faves in it. Its got a grimy ugly setting, bad government, propaganda, and fights between super-people (heavily mediatised for entertainment and reinforcing the idea that “look at these evil villains thank god us the good government protects you from them”), with a side of bad ethics in science. In all that, those two have the role of “those two young enemy warrior and villain, they were so powerful and fought so hard”, public figures, legendary and admired by both sides, everyone followed their fights, til one day they presumably died in one of their showdowns. (haha sike they actually found themselves talking for 5 seconds and realised they lived in a society, n built a plan to run away). The main characters get to find they’re alive because one of em had history with super-warrior-golden-boy and go to seek their help to overthrow the Big Bads. (stealing them from their nice gay cottage hermit life smh so rude)

Mermaids. I like those. Sailor weiwei sees merman dari, they both save each other in different occasions, they grow fascinated with each other, they’re at sea, water romance. Amazing. AU made half cuz i just like water n fish. and shirtless sailors.

(i couldnt find art of it in five minutes so have a link to that lil animatic piece i made of it once)

Indie band AU, where i was listening to songs that vibe so well with those two in general n then my brain was like “what if they’re the ones playing”. They’re (along with the rest of the art squad) a nice little alternative rock band, doing their thing, then one of their songs blows up, and they get quite the attention, to the dismay of dari who wrote that song in a moment of “oh no im so in love with my bandmate but i cant tell him what if i ruin everything we have going on ill just have to love from afar and deal with that” and now has way too many people interested in who he wrote it about and theorising from his every move when performing it (a mix of music, secret crushes and social media) (ft a picture of neither of them but its the least ugly art i found of this AU cuz its old and instruments are the bane of my existence)(also kelana is so pretty i gotta flaunt her around)

in kind of the same vibe, as in we’re in a music world overexposed to social media, i also integrated em to an AU i did for fun, “boyband AU” as its called aka idol based band system cuz you kno, i got a hobby, lets apply it. Band boy Dari and bodyguard Weiwei got a thing going on, but can’t really act on it in any way, because they’d just destroy the whole band if it ever came public. Featuring annoying bandmates, catchy pop songs and people making fanaccounts of that one hot Mr.Bodyguard cause dang he hot.

(all the art of this one so ugly im sorry)

SPY AU, one of my fave brand. They spies, they get assigned on the same mission, they work real nice with each other. spies hot. fights. strategy. i just like the concept. Gays taking down the worst traffics imaginable??? I love that song.(i actually have so much on this cause s p i e s are fuckin great)

Fashion. U kNOW i have an AU for fashion. Supermodel and his private stylist, trying to maintain the line of professionalism. And failing to do so. Lets make out in unpractical designer clothes.

Have an highschool AU for a bunch of characters, injected them as “spinoff”, start chatting online being art buddies, fall in love without meeting (ft. all the iconics of internet friendship like knowing tiny details of their personnalities but not the fact that they have a sister or “waIT ur a GUY i thought u were a girl wow wild good news for my gay ass”)

n those are my faves as far as i remember, i got a fuckton of small other ones that arent fleshed out enough, or some that are more of a guilty pleasure universe, and some that are more like “projects that i can expend on as soon as i run out of daydream material” (like u kno those hospital drama shows with super innacurate medicine n shit like idk scrubs or whatever, yeh i want some of that but im keeping it for later)

#thats way less talk than i thought id do #prolly bc i wrote half of it when it was between midnight and one AM #wait no it was 2 am #but ye #sry if shit messy af #those two are my faves tho n talkin bout em on the spot is hard cuz my brain is screaming about everything bout em at once #if u wanna get more info on em do ask i love them so much n i feel i didnt do em justice here cuz speaking is a fraud words dont exist #im glad they caught ur interest tho #nothin more gratifyin than not being the only bitch who likes his own children

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semi-imaginary-place · 5 years ago

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fe3h blogging 6 because organizational skills are for losers

oh hey yuri get to join chess club[3:24 PM]balthus DID go to the officers academy twice I’ve been trying to reconcile the route differences... it should be that everything that happens in a different route is also possible in the route you are looking at which ever one that may be. Now all there is is figuring out why those differences exist. or alternately to come up with a probability model to explain those differences. Let’s take the major difference of CF vs VW, AM, and SS. In CF unlike the other routes, Rhea is not captured, she organizes the knights and joins with Faerghus. In CF unlike other routes Byleth chooses to side with Edelgard and Rhea attacks them in the Holy Tomb, this is the only difference. Rhea is incredibly entitled when it comes to Byleth and so takes Byleth’s choice as a deep betrayal as the one who was supposed to be on her side chose not to be. In the battle of Garreg Mach, Rhea then also doesn’t entrust the Church to Byleth. Now how does this connect to Rhea avoiding capture in the battle? It could be she was more on guard after the Holy Tomb in BE, it could be that overall Rhea is likely captured but there is a chance she isn’t. Either way because she isn’t captured, she is there to rally and organize the knight’s of Seiros. In the other routes why didn’t Seteth do it? idk man. The Knights and Faerhgus together are better able to fend off the Empire and with the added security, keep Cornelia, the Agarthans, and Edelgard from framing Dimitri with assassination. Thus in CF Faerghus is in a more unified and powerful position with Rhea running the show. Never quite got why Garreg Mach was abandoned by all the sides given how much the characters talk about its strategic location etc. etc. In SS Rhea degenerates and causes the church to become a rampaging hivemind. Rhea is assumedly also in the palace in AM, but we do meet her in VW. This leads to a few possibilities, either she also dragon degenerated in those routes but the credits roll before we get to see that or she doesn’t. Either way she hold the potential to do so. This is probably the strongest probability argument in the game as we are shown no reason why she does in SS but does not in VW. Rhea is like a ticking time bomb. Maybe they should have blood minstrated like half the church. And then the Agarthans, are they just chilling around underground in AM? yeah, probably. They’re probably back to biding their time just like they have the past 1000 years.

I would like to talk about the three categories by which I evaluate how much I like a character in a series. 1. Personal preference: how much does the character's personality appeal to me on a personal level. Would I want to be friends with this person in real life. Do I just really wish they were real and want them in my life? 2. Character writing: how well written is the character. How good is their character arc? What is the grade of execution? 3. Role in the story: what do they bring to the series as a whole. If they are a villain, are they a good villain? Comic relief. The Bro character. No matter the archetype, how well is it done. What is their narrative and thematic significance.

Let's look at the 3 Lords of Fire Emblem: Three Houses. Please note that due to the branching story line and the ability of the player to choose the cast, I will not be focusing on a character's role in story as much as I usually do. Edelgard Personal preference: low. Her personality clashes with mine Character writing: high. Three Houses characters in general are well written. Edelgard feels like a person, her behavior is internally consistent, she's always herself. One of her main flaws explored in the game is how Edelgard will tunnel-vision and double down on a decision, a path even when it is no longer the best option. Role: high. In Crimson Flowers and to a lesser extent Silver Snow Edelgard acts as the central character, she drives the story. As the villain in 3/4 routes, Edelgard is incredibly interesting, acting as a counter point to the other Lords as well as to Byleth in Silver Snow.

Dimitri Personal preference: low. At first I didn't care, and then he was just annoying. He was solidly #2 on my to-punch-list in Azure Moon after Gilbert. Character writing: high. Dimitri has the easiest to notice character arc in the game as it is the main focus of Azure Moon. As such the most time is spent on his arc and it is very strong. The journey Dimitri goes on as he struggles with himself and his trauma is well written, its only weakness being that it hinges on the player (me) caring about him (which I do not). Role is the story: medium high. the overarching story of the rightful king reclaiming his throne nicely parallels the story of Dimitri reclaiming himself. Thus the external journey mirrors the internal one. Azure Moon most strongly brings the human element to Three Houses and this is both a strength and a weakness.

Claude Personal preference: very high. I wish I had a Claude in my life. His personality meshes well with mine and my life would be enhanced with the addition of his company. When I say Claude is my favorite, this is the category I am usually talking about. Character writing: high. Claude has the subtlest characterization and character arc of the Lords, this is further obscured due to mischaracterization by the English localization team and English voice actor. The characters in Three Houses in general are brilliant and Claude is no exception. He's complex and multifaceted as any real person is, and seeing him grow in to his own in Verdant Wind is a beautiful thing. Role in story: high. Claude's role in the Three Houses is also very interesting, his objectives especially in White Clouds turns the game into a mystery thriller which is breaking edge for a Fire Emblem Game. Claude's background is also a bit different from the others and so following along his story, you are able to gain perspective and see all of Fodlan for what it really is.

Jeralt personal preference: meh writing: good role: dad

wait. wait. so are the 4 apostles are called saints in the intro, but were they also children of the goddess? so i can see indech and macuil dipping after the war of heroes and cethalenn went into a regenerative coma so that takes her and cihol out of the picture, but where were the 4 apostles during the war? and why does balthus' pants have a specially colored patch for his crotch. ... did balthus go to the academy twice? dimitri really went “i’d be nice to just sink into the earth you know” huh. i just started cindered shadows so i can't really comment but... the whole "abyss is necessary for garreg mach" is such horse shit. like oooohhhhh we must have an oppressed underclass to maintain our standard of living. why do the ashen wolves even exist. its not like there's a school down there and yet a bunch of people have uniforms. its not like they took some of the officer's academy uniforms either. why waste resources making custom uniforms? oh hey yuri get to joisn chess club. balthus DID go to the officers academy twice. I wonder what happened to Constance. Also hello??? Intsys you have a kidnapping and torture as backstory problem, especially when its happening to female characters. Hapi get’s kidnapped, tortured and then imprisoned, no wonder the life has left her eyes. Also I don’t trust this Aelfric dude. He set up the ashen wolves “house”, but wouldn’t those resources be better spent on food and medicine. nepotism ho! your parent were good so you must be too

anyone else find Jeralt and Sitri's relationship a little weird. Hundreds of years old dude romances incredibly sheltered 19 year old with little life experience. and she and alfric idolized Jeralt when they were young. sitri was born in 1139 and died 1159 from childbirth. I mean yeah Sitri's an adult and totally consenting and loving, and the relationship is pretty cute and sweet, but.... its kinda weird.... Like when you hear about a 30 year old dating a 60 year old, everyone's well into adulthood, they're consenting adults who can do whatever they want, i have no objections,... but its still kinda weird. WHAT'S WORSE IS THAT THEY DEVS HAD LITERALLY NO REASON TO DO THIS they could have made her any age they wanted to. She could have been 35. but nooooo they didn't do that

the part that bothered me about maneula's writing. Is how the writers talk down on her for having emotions. You see this strongly in the hanneman+manuela paralogue. Where they make her do something impulsive which has negative consequences, which is fair. But then the game punishes her for being too emotional. "being too emotional" now where have i heard that critique before. This is especially in contrast to the game praising hanneman's intellectual rationality. how do i say this... whenever hanneman and manuela argue the game always takes hanneman's side and is overly harsh on manuela. Oh hanneman is right that she should not have run off after a rumor about the death knight like that, but its the framing of the scene that bothers me.

the way people talk about the abyss reminds me of the goldfish bowl metaphor. the abyss provides sanctuary, but in it thye are also trapped. huh so edelgard doesn’t recognize dimitri. people sure do like aelfric, reminds me of a cult of personality, but it seems so genuine... A great rhea’s golems are back. they talk!! I was just joking about people’s souls being bound in there!!! aelfric is one of the cardinals!!!!! I've been trying to find these dude for months!!!!! you hear these lines going on and on about the cardinals. oh. he’s part of the seiros hivemind then. hey kids. if he’s a cardinal than the church probably already knows. this don’t tell the church stuff sounds like a trap. that letter is suspicious af. yuri clearly wants something, but what is he up to,,,

Yeah.. it really sounds like the 4 apostles were nabateans, but if that were so are constance, hapi, balthus, and yuri really descended from them? the 4 saints bloodlines in adrestia are from those gifted blood by the saints. yet i do believe the 4 apostles fled to different corners of fodlan, what remains in question is only if there in their new homes they gave blood (like rhea did to save jeralt), or actually did have kids.

i cant believe balthus got put on the bus via giant bird. ah so aelfric and yuri are cooperating with the agarthans. thats what they were up to. wow yuri really is fandom claude, i can still hear those idiots complaining that claude wasn’t up to anything and that he didn’t betray byleth. huh so yuri is struggling with split loyalty and the solution he came up with was to help aelfric but give byleth hints.

constance calling the holy mausoleum a wretch hovel in on par with sylvain calling the dining hall filthy. huh so that was what yuri was planning. wasn’t expecting the double agent ploy.

so this does not take away from aelfric's decisions, but if rhea hadn't been a coward and just buried sitri instead of keeping her is storage where anyone could find her, this never would have happened. who know's maybe aelfric would have still made horrible decisions, but not this one horrible decision.

wait wait wait. rhea, what happened last time you used the chalice to try and resurrect sothis. what beast was created then? wait wait. nemesis dies and sothis’ heat and bones were retrieved in 91. the blood chalice ritual happened in 185. That’s enough time for rhea to have conducted her first experiment implanting the creststone into someone and having them live out their full life.

prior to cindered shadows i thought claude had 2 given names much like many real world people of dual identity do (multiracial people, chinese americans, japanese americans, etc.), so claude is his name but he also has an almyran name. now though I am leaning towards the idea that claude is a name he took up upon entering fodlan given what he says to balthus at first and the presence of a claudia riegan in the past. from the feast of decadence: where is boramas? and i hope the bit about watching northern swordsmen ripped apart by wild animals at dinner was a play or something. why do books end up in the abyss anyways. why not burn them throughly. rhea certainly knows people have been living down there. i wonder who built abyss. its older than garreg mach for sure. real ironic how the blue lions idolize loog when he was an agarthan pawn not unlike edelgard. rhea's choice contributed to the power imbalance between sreng and duscur compared to faerghus chevalier became village elder and gave everyone blood during wars. half got crests half turned into demonic beasts. that solves that. 1/4 down

i can’t believe aubin almost died in a ditch before yuri’s mom saved them. well that’s one more person with a really long life span

balthus: describing "bashbros" me: its called a life partner. "Balthus became son-in-law to the great commander, Nader" ... what. also why is the balthus yuri pairen ending the only one balthus ends up broke and on the street in. also where's my holst supports. scratch that. WHERE IS HOLST. oh yeah and you all were crying about byleth potentially outliving everyone, well yuri does too

ashen wolves supports that should have happened. Balthus: Manuela. Yuri: Mercedes. Hapi: Ignatz, Petra, Claude. Constance: Lorenz

Also let judith be a playable character. Claude and balthus already have like half a support with her.

why do feel like yuri and sylvain would be a disaster. and disaster in that they'd hurt each other's feelings

claude whenever balthus opens his mouth: shut up shut up shut up. shut up and go away. goddess. please. no. i enjoy seeing claude annoyed more than i probably should

me taking the fe3h developers by the shoulders and shaking them furiously: WHY DON'T CLAUDE AND HAPI GET A SUPPORT. THEY EVEN BOTH HAVE CELESTIAL MOTIFS! claude would also empathize with hapi as an outsider of sorts, as well as both sharing a desire to explore the world. i think the riegan crest and timotheus crest got mixed up in development. in tarot readings the moon is associated with darkness, an unclear mind, madness, creativity etc. it suits "dark dragon" far more than "star dragon". but that doesn't explain why claude gets the unique combat art Fallen Star me one again taking the fe3h developers by the shoulders and shaking them furiously: WHY DON'T YURI AND ASHE HAVE A SUPPORT!! THE APPARENTLY ALREADY KNOW EACH OTHER. THEY HAVE SIMILAR BACKGROUNDS. THEY'RE BOTH FROM FAERGHUS. THEIR BATTLE DIALOG SAYS MEANS THEY WANT TO BE FRIENDS

No bathus/manuela support either LET THEM MAKE POOR LIFE CHOICES TOGETHER. Balthus can have a little milf, as treat

... yuri is very pretty in part 2

Edelgards biggest flaws are her desire for control and her stubborness or the way she will double down on a decision and refuse to budge. Claude's biggest flaws are his inability to trust, and showing his hand too late. A bit more on that last part. A large part of Claude's strategies involve downplaying his side and biding his time. This strategy is especially weak though to an aggressive opponent like Edelgard who can bulldoze him before he has time to play out his plan. Part of the problem is that Claude is very reactive but not very proactive (its one of the reasons I like pairing him with Edelgard and Petra). He won't just go for something the way Edelgard does, he's wait for the right opportunity. This difference you can also see in how the deal with the Church. Edelgard declares war on them because she thinks they are the root of Fodlan's social problems and need to be taken down. She makes a decision she believes in and readies herself for the consequences. Claude actually believes much of the same (The Church is the root of Fodlan's problems) but would much rather avoid those consequences (fall out with the Church). You see in Verdant Wind he will make use of the Church because the are useful. He's even willing to spout Church rhetoric and propaganda (Byleth as a Church symbol) if it suits his end goal of transferring power to an individual who will shape Fodlan's future to his liking (he does have an altruistic and humanitarian goal much like Edelgard). However in doing so he risks empowering the Church even more. In short Claude will put up a facade that he doesn't agree with on an ideals level and so is always in danger of that facade becoming real and failing his goals. yeah so claude character development has him learning to trust and being more proactive in his goals. so i like pairing him with characters that put him on a similar growth trajectory

wait how are the Fetters of Dromi (Aubin) and Vajra-Mushi (Chevalier) around simultaneously with Aubin and Chevalier. Aubin was last seen 20 years ago and the tales of elder giving blood don’t seem ancient, so were they recently killed?

ok if the vajra-mushi is a replica, what’s it a replica of? that implies an original. and its still able to turn people into demonic beasts. how????

unpopular opinion: I hate seteth. his face pisses me off and every time he opens his mouth I want to punch him. please die.

You know... i'd expected someone to have written a modern au of felix and sylvain being roommates with unresolved sexual tension.... but no its been 9 months and I haven't seen anything. Oh I've seen roommates where its like the new and uncomfortable experience of sharing space with someone you dont know and I've seen modern au where they are childhood friends. But i seriously have not seen the specific scenario where they are childhood friends AND roommates. Like... uuugh its just sylvain. But also uuggh its just sylvain?!? Maybe I'll just have to do it myself... but im no good at writing...

What if glenn was 160cm but the kids never noticed (except sylvain) because they're so much younger

I want a spin off fighting game starring ferdinand and caspar. Honestly i just wanted to see ferdinand get into a fistfight with someone like in his support

On a fandom level I think the golden deer are the least popular for a number of reasons:

1. some of the characters only reveal their depth in supports and paralogues. Or in other words you must seek out these character to get to know them. Ex: Lorenz, Leonie, Ignatz. I mean without doing their supports you'd never know that Ignatz is the smoothest out of the Golden Deer the the most likely to get a date. If Sylvain is a poser, Ignatz is the real deal 2. Related to the above the writing sometimes relies too heavily on a character gimmick. Ex: Raphael, and Lysithea to a degree 3. Compared to other houses there are less established dynamics. Other characters (Linhardt and Caspar, BL childhood friend squad, etc.) can play off of each other and this can make them more emotionally accessible to a player. In the beginning especially the golden deer act more like co-workers than friends, they are the least cohesive as a house (which means their growth is that much more delicious). 4. the golden deer route in general is less popular and some characters don't appear in other routes so the sheer amount of exposure these characters get is less than other houses. a lot of people in the "fandom" have only played one or 2 routes and those usually include either azure moon or crimson flower/silver snow. people will also just delete or add things to characters.

OK Jp audio thoughts: tiny grandma sothis Alois is gravelier and yells a lot I've been replaying the line where claude giggles in the jp audiio. How do i record audio ignatz is such a BABY in the japanese version. Like a small bunny Edelgard sounds more princessy Claude is more light hearted, less sassy more... boyish? like that one old school boy character trope that used to be a main character thing and is now more a side character thing eng dimitri more yell-y and feral. jp dimitri is a lot more subdued and dead inside. but the delivery of the lines makes what he is saying all the more disturbing. dissonant serenity.

your path lies across my grave is such a raw line

Why did yuri get a different part 2 sprite. he should age the same rate jeralt did. And in his paired ending with byleth? He apparently looks about the same after decades

Hilda and catherine would be EXCELLENT war masters if the devs weren't sexist

So almyra's big. We don't know how big. Fodlan is 2/3 of europe and almyra is bigger so i imagine there's a diverdity of biomes. I imagine the south coast is mediterranian. But that hinges on how subtropical adrestia is. Medditerranian climates are most common at 30-40 lattitude. The map of almyra we can see on the map is the same lattitude as faerhgus. This could be the greenest part of Almyra. I imagine almyra has both hot and cold deserts with a large plain covering the center. The rest would be scrubland/chaperral. All we know is that claude grew up somewhere with no big trees. I imagine that almyran government is more meriocratic than fodlan but that may vary region to region. I have an idea for both a centralized and decentralized almyra. Each regions leader is like the strongest most organized person around. A bit of nepotism may be involved. The exception would be the coast region which is more sedentary (some parts of almyra are semi nomadic) and may have a republic. Decentralized almyra would work kinda like the eu or us with seperate nations and a mediator for when almyra needs to act as a whole. That mediator aids negotions between regions and keeps things together. Mediator would be a council/appointed position. In a centralized almyra there still wouldn't be a monarachy. The king would choose a sucessor. So the king's kid would have a better chance than anyone but its no garuntee. I like the idea that like the 30 closeat relatives has a last one standing system as part of the selection system. This would allow for a dynastic style if ruling where there's a ruling clan but not direct line of descent

Everyone keeps drawing older felix with long hair but I'm half convinced that 3 years post game he just lops,it off one day or gets a buzzcut

So a lot of people including me have long suspected Claude had an Almyran name and the validation right now just feels so great. Khalid! Given his dialog in cindered shadows I think its more likely Khalid is the name his parents gave him and Claude is the name he took up upon coming to Fodlan

Things have never been easy for Claude, he says in his s support that he's going, to do it (the whole game/war) all over again. It's heavily implied that things to not end well for Claude outside of VW. i don't think the Almyrans would value a surrender to a fodlander tho. Claude in VW proves his competence as a military commander and leader by controlling all of fodlan. Its stated in some of his paired endings that the current king has some say in who the next king is as Claude had to earn his father's approval to ascend the throne. Don't forget that the general Almyran populace hates Claude. He has to prove himself by their standards before any respect is given and in SS/CF/AM he doesn't do that. Remember that the Fodland stereotype is of cowards and that Almyra values spectacles of strength/fighting prowess over tactical efficiency (invading fodlan's throat isn't for the purpose of gaining land/etc. its for the warriors to show off how strong they are), so they wouldn't value strategically weakening your nation (leicester) to stave off imperial invasion, to them that just looks like cowardice and incompetance. not only that he endangered and wasted Almyran soldiers in fighting a foreign war. Remember that no one really knows about Claude's plans outside of VW, he keeps his cards (too) close to his chest, and in non-VW routes the facade of weakness becomes a reality and all his schemes crumble. and he has little to show for his time in fodlan. Claude is less likely to experience character growth outside of VW, but I think there is potential for Claude's character growth outside of VW. One reason for this I'm just not a fan of Byleth's dating sim powers where everyone just falls head over heels for them. For every character and especially the lords, Byleth acts as a catalyst for the character's growth, but Claude (of the lords) is the least dependent on Byleth so I do believe he could have found some of the connections seen in VW if not to that extent. (also I'm a sucker for found family)[4:22 PM]But Byleth does act as the heart and glue of the golden deer so things wouldn't be that great for Claude and co

So we cam see both turkic and persian influences in almyra but I've always wondered at the balance. From the turkic side we have the warrior culture and horse riding. This is also where my speculations on a nomadic society and non monarchy forms of government come from. Also note turkic (central asia, like the mongols) and not turkish (one of the turkic ethnicities). On the other side is ancient persia which was a center of science, technology and learning, a materially wealthy empire with imperial dynasties. These are very different and so balancing headcanons has always been challenging to honor both sides. You can see people are all over the spectrum in fandom.

Me shaking dorothea by the shoulders: YOU ARE VALID. I AM PROUD OF WHAT YOU HAVE ACCOMPLISHED. EAT THE RICH

im a caught between the dual desires of seeing sylvain succeed at something and be really cool, and seeing sylvain publicly make a fool of himself. sylvain miserable for mundane reasons is such a good look. I pin Sylvain in a headlock and force 2 gallons of respect women juice down his throat

In any universe. Claude's weekly schedule would fill me with terror.

Leonie and dorothea both have "I know a guy" vibes

A while ago I complained that the fodlan calendar doesn’t make sense. Why does the year begin on month 4? Well I recently got around to reading through the abyss library and it confirms that fodlan used to be on the gregorian calendar with months 1-12 lining up with our january-december which in a lot of countries are just month/moon 1-12 and then seiros and the church brought in a new calendar system (imperial year and "___ Moon" naming system). so combined with the other hints from the agarthans (un symbol, ICBMs, etc.), pretty much confirms that fodlan is indeed a post apocalyptic modern world. So the weird calendar system DOES have an in universe justification!

#fe #fe3h

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aspiratinganxiety · 6 years ago

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Got it! If you wouldn't mind writing some bro bonding with Dick and Tim (in and/or out of costume), I'd be happy to read it! Wow I come off very energetic when I'm just a very nervous very awkward person, lol, I think I should stop talking now because at this point I'm rambling okay I'll stop talking now! (Gah I hope I did this right)

Baby, I don’t think you’ve ever done anything wrong in your whole damn life, and you’re not being awkward as far as I’m concerned! I’m a chatterbug when I’m nervous too, especially via text. Without being in person to gesture or emote through a conversation, I feel the need to explain every little thing in super detail so as not to be misunderstood.

Don’t worry about it, Boo. I gotchu’ 💋💋💋

This one turned out pretty short. I hope you don’t mind.

Dick realizes as he raps his sore knuckles against the heavy door that he has never been inside of Tim’s apartment. This sudden knowledge disgruntles him, and his mouth turns down in a confused, offended frown.

Of all his brothers, Tim stays in contact with him most consistently. Entirely of his own volition, at that. They text almost daily and call or video chat up to a handful of times a week. They actively schedule time to hang out, no uniforms or nettlesome undertones of competition like the biweekly Thursday evenings he spends downing scotch with Jason. Certainly not like the challenging, though extremely rewarding, social effort he puts toward peeling Damian out of the Robin costume for one-on-one brotherly bonding time.

Why hasn’t he been to Tim’s place?

Is it like… a failing on his part as an older brother? Is Tim hiding something in there? Has Jason been here before? Surely Damian hasn’t. Bruce?

Unlikely.

Oh, god. What if Tim’s feelings have been hurt for years because nobody comes to his place? And he’s just not saying anything because he’s Tim and he doesn’t want to make a fuss? Because he never wants to make a fuss. Not over himself.

Why has no one been to Tim’s apartment?! Why does Dick have no fucking clue what kind of house his little brother is living in?

What a massive freakin’ oversight.

Maybe Dick’s been here before, but suffered enough head trauma near the visit that he can’t recall it?

Dick supposes, in the event that head trauma had not stolen his memory, that the reason he hasn’t been invited (or invited himself) over to Tim’s is due to the fact that their face-to-face meet ups are typically prearranged to take place in the manor, somewhere around the city, or at Dick’s.

Or Jason’s.

Or one of the many safe houses.

The door swings wide before he can school his features into a more cheerful expression, and Tim’s welcoming grin falters.

“Dick?” he questions, motioning his brother inside. “You okay?”

Dick shakes his head dismissively, scoffing and running a hand through his hair. “Ah, yeah. Sorry, bud. Something on my mind.”

Tim lingers in his entryway, head cocked to one side like a confused pup. He watches as Dick wanders into the posh, modern condo with a strange, cautious gait.

He asks, “Something bad?”

“Not exactly,” Dick says, somewhere between proud, envious, and disgusted as he surveys the clean lines and tidy state of the open concept living area.

The decor of Tim’s home is gray… only gray. All of the walls, furniture, and flooring. Gray.

Literally 50 shades of the damn color tint everything from the coffee table to the kitchen cabinets. For half a second, Dick is repulsed by the stony, lackluster complexion of his brother’s living space. After a moment though, the sleek lines of the space slowly come into focus as carefully articulated design elements. Clearly the style was meant to seem effortless while being a tangled web of complicated technique. Like the shading of an elegant grayscale sketch?

More and more curious geometric features appear as Dick continues to glance around. The fixtures and materials are all of ludicrously expensive natures. Marble, silver, and leather.

Dick has not spent an exorbitant amount of time imaging the interior of Tim’s home. However, the cluttered, hectic mess of red tartan and disarticulated computer guts that continues to be Tim’s bedroom in the manor set his mental precedent. Any domestic images of Tim that Dick conjured up always involved plaid, old coffee cups, and notebooks.

When confronted with this oddly sterile environment of ambiguous gray elements, Dick’s mental impression of Tim itches as though it craves to be entirely re-rendered.

“You look absolutely horrified. I’m going to attribute this to extreme modern interior design not being your forte, Dickie-boy,” Tim says, sauntering past him and into the kitchen. “Not whatever it is that was squatting on your brain in the hall.”

“I was upset because I realized that I’ve never been inside of your apartment,” Dick shares, still gawping at the ever-unfolding touches of elegance and wealth that seem to materialize out of the profusion of gray around him. “And I had never thought of you owning a place that looked so… that was like this. I feel like a crappy older brother. What the hell is that?”

The question cuts Tim off before he can dismiss Dick’s ridiculous sentiment. He’s touched, and amused. Choosing to humor his house guest instead of berate him for investing in their social bond, Tim glances at the abstract cuboidal metal cage affixed so high up on his wall that it nearly touches the ceiling.

“Ya’ know…” he says, pushing a freshly opened glass bottle of root beer across the countertop to his older brother. “I don’t have a clue.”

Dick cuts his eyes at Tim.

“The couple I bought the place off of did all the design.” He takes a swig. “I don’t really mind it. Some of it’s sorta’ out there, but, honestly? I don’t have the time or half the inclination to go through the trouble of changing it.”

Dick is caught somewhere between wanting to laugh and suppressing the urge to slam his face into the stone counter. “Are you kidding me, Tim? You didn’t pick any of this furniture or art or these lights or… anything?”

“The TV is mine. So’s the mattress.” He takes another drink, distinctly avoiding eye contact and grinning in admission of the absurdity that is living in a home without a single personal touch. “But the bed frame’s from the previous owners.”

“Dude,” the older brother chuckles into his soda, shaking his head. “You set me up for quality jokes about smutty books and colorblindness like this, then you pull the rug right out from under me like that?”

“Ah, sorry Dick. Jason beat you to all of the E. L. James jokes about a year ago.”

Incredulity and a twinge of honest offense swells in Dick’s chest. He nearly chokes on his pop. “Jason’s been here?”

“Yeah,” Tim responds casually, leaning against the counter and pegging Dick with a teasing, lofty look. “He comes over every month or so to be absolutely destroyed in Call of Duty. Damian tags along every now and then too. If Jason’s been drinking, we need a ref.”

Dick’s jaw is practically resting on the counter. His tone is hoarse with the overly dramatic edge of upset he stresses for affect. “Well, goddammit!” Dick delivers a swift punch to Tim’s shoulder, suddenly realizing that he is the one being excluded where this apartment is concerned. Not Tim. “Why haven’t you invited me over?”

Tim barks an awkward chuckle, rubbing his shoulder as though Dick hit him with any force at all. “Didn’t you hear me? I said I like to win PvP matches. You can’t be here if I’m going to be the best player in the house. And it’s my house. I should be the best player.”

Dick gives him another thump on the shoulder. This one is clearly more of a pat. “You dork,” he huffs, tickled by the undue credit and oddly relieved to hear that his brothers are all socializing successfully outside of his influence. After the initial offense, of course.

Nobody beats Tim at Call of Duty. Nobody.

He could just say they thought it would be lame to have Dick actually refereeing their game and their behavior. He’s a big boy. He can handle it.

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daleisgreat · 5 years ago

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The Wizard

Today I am covering a movie I have been itching to write about here for years. It is an admittedly subpar film from 1989, but seeing it then as a six year old videogame kiddo, I absolutely adored it. Yes I am talking about the 1989 Nintendo adver-film, The Wizard (trailer). I have had a nostalgia-driven love/hate/love relationship with The Wizard throughout my life. Absolutely loved it as a kid, when I got around to re-watching it with adult eyes for the first time shortly after its first DVD run in 2006, I realized a lot of it then was hard to watch and thought the film took itself way too seriously. I embedded an old episode of my old podcast I recently un-vaulted at the bottom of this entry where we do a roundtable breakdown of The Wizard right after its first DVD release in 2006. Watching it again in 2020, I kind of came around to digging it again as you will soon read on to see. The Wizard never got a deluxe edition home video treatment until this year. Its DVD release in 2006, and initial 2018 BluRay release saw a basic home video release with no bonus material other than a trailer. After much fan outcry, Universal finally granted access to home video distributor Shout Factory to release a much desired special edition jam packed with extras. It hit BluRay at the beginning of this year, shortly after the film’s 30th anniversary. If you are unfamiliar with Shout Factory, think of them as the equivalent as the Criterion Edition, but for beloved B-movies instead.

This is a road trip film, where through the magic of Nintendo, a broken family is reunited…..yes I am embellishing, but only ever-so-marginally! After an earlier childhood crisis that is not revealed until late in the movie, nine-year-old Jimmy Woods (Luke Edwards) is left in a quasi-autistic state (his condition is never fully explained). Jimmy consistently runs away from home until his mother decides it is too much and puts him in a permanent childcare facility. Jimmy’s half-brother Corey (Fred Savage) would have none of this treatment to Jimmy and sneaks him out of the facility. Jimmy infamously references ‘California’ throughout, Corey decides to take Jimmy on a road trip to California to see just what Jimmy wants to go over there for. Along the way they meet Hailey (Jenny Lewis), who joins them on the run and helps discover Jimmy’s hidden talents at getting top scores at arcade games. The trio decide to embark to a huge videogame tournament in California they see a flyer for and think that must be what Jimmy is talking about that is awaiting them there. Watching the Wizard now in 2020 compared to the last time I saw it in 2006 what popped out to me was surprisingly the ‘heart’ of the family dilemma the whole film is predicated on. As I stated in my entries here chronicling the seasons of Roseanne, the reason that show is one of my favorite sitcoms is because my family was not too far off from how dysfunctional the Conners were. The Woods family here has their own twisted backstory that gets kind of fleshed out on why the family is split up and struggling to overcome a recent crisis that has had a lasting impact on them. I can relate to that with my various family qualms over the decades, so seeing Corey & Jimmy’s brother, Nick (Christian Slater) and father, Sam (Beau Bridges) go from being on rocky turmoil throughout the film, but managing to put their differences aside to go on the road after them kind of resonated with me a little bit on this viewing.

Nick and Sam playing catch-up on the road is an entertaining B-plot to The Wizard. The father and son team have a comedic foil in one Mr. Putnam (Will Seltzer), a professional tracker of runaway kids who I would imagine would be a realistic good kind of person, but the film portrays Putnam as a ruthless, slimy scumbag in it solely for the money. It is laughable to see Putnam get the villain stereotype checklist treatment. Balding, slicked back hair? Check! Cowboy-collar-string-tie? Check! Always chomping on gum? Check! Weasel-y voice? Double check! During their father-son road trek, Nick introduces his dad to videogames, and soon enough Sam is just as hooked as Nick in trying to conquer the dastardly original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game on NES. Videogames are featured predominantly throughout The Wizard and goes to show how big arcades were in the late 80s to the point where you can find a stray machine or two at any gas station or restaurant. Watching Hailey and Corey train Jimmy to get as much gaming knowledge in time for the videogame tournament in Los Angeles was a riot. The requisite-training montage scene perfectly encapsulates NES-mania at the peak of its powers in 1989. As you can see in the linked video it has the perfect training material for any grade school game player of that era in the form of arcade game practice sessions, Nintendo Power magazines and calling the Nintendo-endorsed game counselor’s hotline for pro tips! Countless games are shown off throughout. One of the most recognizable scenes of the film is when Jimmy meets his antagonist in the form of pro-gamer, Lucas (Jackey Vinson) who makes his unabashed love of the Power Glove the must-have NES accessory of the ’89 Christmas season.

Eventually Lucas and Jimmy clash at the ‘Videogame Armageddon’ tournament in LA. They are two of the three finalists and for their final challenge the AWESOME over-the-top host (Steven Grives) bestows upon them a brand new, unreleased game in the form of the madly anticipated Super Mario Bros. 3! The three compete for the next three minutes of film in what is essentially an infomercial for SMB3. Nintendo and Universal timed The Wizard to hit theaters several weeks before the release of the game, which only fueled demand and likely played a factor into SMB3 selling more than 17 million copies worldwide. I vividly remember being on edge in my childhood viewing of that contest finale making SMB3 seem like the coolest game ever, and re-watching it 30 years later the scene still gets me wrapped up all over again! Just click or press here to see it for yourself! Jimmy’s family is so proud of him that the whole family vaguely patches things up in a touching moment at a tourist attraction shortly thereafter to end the film on a feel-good note. As positive as I am on the film so far, it is all in a so-bad-its-good, B-movie way. I could rag on the many imperfections of The Wizard with its out of touch dialogue, overuse of New Kids on the Block in the soundtrack, misrepresentation of some of the videogames and some out of date cultural norms, but as you can tell The Wizard is somewhat of a special film for me so I will leave that to you to scour the Internet for those astutely valid points of criticism.

As I alluded to above, this Shout Factory edition of the film is loaded with extra features. There is 38 minutes of deleted scenes! Highly recommend checking them out, as the deleted scenes mostly consists of early first act backstory setting up brotherly differences with Corey and Nick, and also a whole abandoned sideplot that sees Corey sneak Jimmy out of the childcare facility multiple times to introduce him to the NES and becoming a pro at videogames. Director Todd Holland has a feature commentary track filled with tons of insightful factoids. Some highlights include regretting how unsafe parts of the production were, justifying why a lot of scenes were cut, pointing out a blink-and-miss-it Toby McGuire cameo, fighting to the bitter end to get his feel-good family reuniting ending and how a throwaway joke panning Universal Studios lead to a last minute final re-cut of the film to omit that line due to peeved Universal executives. There are two Q&A panels included totaling an hour and a half. Both feature Luke Edwards along with original writer, David Chisholm and producer, Ken Topolsky. A lot of good anecdotes and memories from everyone involved, but not necessarily required viewing since a decent amount of their responses are touched on in the last of the bonuses. Rounding off the extras are three more behind-the-scenes bonuses tallying up just under an hour. Critical Analysis of The Wizard is a 12 minute look at Jimmy’s childhood trauma and the psychological effects of his condition. How Can I Help You is a six minute interview with a former Nintendo Game Counselor detailing his work experiences. Road to California is the standout making of feature with it being a 40 minute comprehensive look at how The Wizard came to be with interviews with most of the cast and crew. It dissects the casting, selecting the gameplay footage from Nintendo-provided tapes, explaining the ending, making all the cuts down to a 90 minute film, dealing with the critical fallout and the belated public adoration from fans online who grew up with the film and spread the love once it hit DVD. There are a couple heartfelt fan testimonials it included towards the end with some passionate stories from serious fans of the film!

These last several days have been a ride to say the least while taking in everything this Shout Factory edition had to offer. I knew a part of me enjoyed The Wizard in a guilty pleasure kind of way, but taking it all in again with a 37-year old perspective made the family crisis element of the movie, regardless of how corny it is implemented, somehow make an impact on me and appreciate it in a way I was not expecting. Combine that with it capturing the aura of late-80s NES fever, and seeing all the ubiquitous love from the cast, crew and fans of the movie in the bonus feature interviews and it all adds up to The Wizard going from guilty pleasure to childhood favorite that I did not expect to find myself still a big fan of today.

youtube

If you somehow quench for more Wizard coverage, then check out this episode of my old podcast I recently re-uploaded to my YouTube channel where we reviewed The Wizard right after its first DVD printing way back in 2006.

Other Random Backlog Movie Blogs 3 12 Angry Men (1957) 12 Rounds 3: Lockdown 21 Jump Street The Accountant Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie Atari: Game Over The Avengers: Age of Ultron The Avengers: Infinity War Batman: The Dark Knight Rises Batman: The Killing Joke Batman: Mask of the Phantasm Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice Bounty Hunters Cabin in the Woods Captain America: Civil War Captain America: The First Avenger Captain America: The Winter Soldier Christmas Eve Clash of the Titans (1981) Clint Eastwood 11-pack Special The Condemned 2 Countdown Creed I & II Deck the Halls Detroit Rock City Die Hard Dredd The Eliminators The Equalizer Dirty Work Faster Fast and Furious I-VIII Field of Dreams Fight Club The Fighter For Love of the Game Good Will Hunting Gravity Grunt: The Wrestling Movie Guardians of the Galaxy Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 Hell Comes to Frogtown Hercules: Reborn Hitman I Like to Hurt People Indiana Jones 1-4 Ink The Interrogation Interstellar Jay and Silent Bob Reboot Jobs Joy Ride 1-3 Last Action Hero Major League Man of Steel Man on the Moon Man vs Snake Marine 3-6 Merry Friggin Christmas Metallica: Some Kind of Monster Mortal Kombat Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpions Revenge National Treasure National Treasure: Book of Secrets Not for Resale Pulp Fiction The Replacements Reservoir Dogs Rocky I-VIII Running Films Part 1 Running Films Part 2 San Andreas ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery The Secret Life of Walter Mitty Shoot em Up Slacker Skyscraper Small Town Santa Steve Jobs Source Code Star Trek I-XIII Sully Take Me Home Tonight TMNT The Tooth Fairy 1 & 2 UHF Veronica Mars Vision Quest The War Wild Wonder Woman The Wrestler (2008) X-Men: Apocalypse X-Men: Days of Future Past

#random movie #The Wizard #fred savage #luke edwards #jenny lewis #todd holland #christian slater #beau bridges #ken topolsky #david chisholm #jackey vinson #steven grives

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wearegeth · 8 years ago

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Betty/Bruce AU ( I lost you ;A; )

Man, I loved this. So if you see this, hit me up! Pretty sure I lost you due to my internet connection.,..

You're now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi!

You both like Science Bros.

Stranger: { The one where mutants have lost nearly all their civil liberties. Bruce Banner is owned by none other than Thaddeus Ross and Betty, when she finally tracks him down, is not happy. She passes Banner a burner phone on the sly. } How many years has it been? BR I'm getting you out of there, Mr. Green. By the way. BR

You: Too long. Even for me to keep track. - BB I'm not betting on anything. - BB

Stranger: Are we edging up on a decade? BR I'm hoping that was a pun. BR

You: Unintentionally. - BB It's dangerous to even talk about this. - BB

Stranger: I wasn't accusing. BR Lucky for us, no one's gonna see these messages. My network is secure beyond belief and I'll send you the code to prove it. BR

You: As secure as it may be there's a different between sneaking messages and sneaking out a.. Well. Something like me. - BB

Stranger: A human being. BR

You: I'm assuming you have a plan. - BB

Stranger: I'm working on one. The bastard who gave me half of his chromosomes isn't making it easy. BR

You: There's an easier way to end this. - BB

Stranger: Bruce. Don't. BR God knows the last time you've had your antidepressives. It's not you that's talking like that. BR

You: They keep a pretty close eye on me after the first couple of times. -BB It's simpler. Safer. Merciful. - BB

You: There's nowhere I can go where they won't find me. - BB

Stranger: You didn't have me. And I'm sorry that it took me so damn long to find you. BR I can't tell you how sorry I am, Bruce. BR But I have faith. I've lost faith in this country, in this world, but I trust myself. And I trust you. I still trust us. BR You gotta try to have faith in me too. BR

You: I trust you. I know that you will do what you can to the best of your abilities. But I can't have blind faith. - BB

You: Promise me that if you can't find me a way out you'll finish it. Don't make me stay here. - BB

Stranger: [...] I will. BR I promise you this because I know you'd do the same for me. BR

You: Thank you. That's all I ask.. - BB How did you find me? - BB

Stranger: You're so brave, Bruce. BR Many years of searching databases and breaking down government firewalls. BR

You: I don't have a choice. It's not bravery, it's just survival. - BB

Stranger: You're still yourself beneath it all. BR

You: I don't think that's true. - BB This place has changed me a lot. Not for the better. - BB I can't talk much longer or I risk them finding this. - BB

Stranger: Text me when you think it's safe. I'll keep you updated when I can. BR Text me about the day I graduated from the PhD program, eh? Our date, if you can remember. BR

You: I don't know if I'd call me stumbling through an attempt at romance a date... - BB

You: Well. Not a good one. - BB

Stranger: We'd properly kissed at that point. It was totally a date. BR

You: When I first got here I thought about that day a lot. I thought about us a lot. - BB

Stranger: Do you remember when you got here? BR

You: The date..? - BB

You: It was a long time ago. I don't know. I stopped counting and things get fuzzy between transformations. - BB

Stranger: He forces you into transformations or is it a self-protection instinct? Both? BR

You: Both. - BB

You: It's not good. Both of us have done a lot of bad here. - BB

You: Maybe I shouldn't leave. - BB

Stranger: Bruce, listen to me. Listen carefully. Please. BR

Stranger: You are currently experiencing so, so, so much trauma. This is not you. BR

Stranger: There is life outside of these walls and you deserve it. This is not up for debate. I'm asking you to survive a little longer. BR

You: You don't know that. - BB

You: There's a line between survival and.. Something else. Desperation turned cruelty, I guess and.. I crossed that a long time ago. - BB

You: When you realise what I've done you'll want me here or dead. - BB

Stranger: Ten years later and I still love you. BR Does it make sense? Maybe not. We've changed, we're different now, but I can't help it. BR And I will keep loving you. BR

You: They.. Don't feed me a lot. They don't want me to be too strong and the other guy he's just.. God, Betty. I try not to let him out. - BB

Stranger: What do you wanna eat? Your first real meal. BR

You: I don't know.. - BB Not meat. Never again. - BB

Stranger: You were a wonderful cook, back in the day when ramen was all I ever ate. BR

You: Anything was better than ramen. - BB

You: Instant ramen. - BB

You: Maybe we could have real ramen. - BB

Stranger: But you made real, genuine Indian. It was fantastic. BR That sounds perfect. BR Chocolate for dessert? It fights dementors. BR

You: Something lighter. - BB Maybe.. I don't know. - BB Oatmeal cookies. I want oatmeal cookies. -BB

Stranger: With raisins? BR

You: And cinnamon. -BB Apples. I want apples too. - BB

Stranger: Raisins are disgusting, I'm sorry. BR But I can always get behind apples. All fruit and cinnamon. BR Fruit and yogurt? Fruit and Bailey's? BR

You: Glad to see that hasn't changed. -BB Everything. A little bit of everything. - BB

Stranger: We'll have a feast. I'll even try cooking. BR

You: That's one way to fulfill my death wish. - BB

Stranger: I promise I won't burn the building down all at once. BR

You: You're welcome to burn this place down. -BB

You: There's sellers and buyers that come by sometimes.. Maybe you can exploit one of them. - BB

Stranger: Dad's house is not standing for much longer. That's for sure. BR

Stranger: I've got a gateway with one of the caterers. BR

Stranger: No one thinks twice about the low wage workers. BR

You: Smart.. - BB

You: He'll know it was you. - BB

Stranger: He won't prosecute me. BR

You: Maybe ten years ago he wouldn't. - BB

Stranger: [...] Right. Well, he won't kill me. BR

You: There are worse things. -BB

You: We need a safe place to go. There aren't many of them. Not for someone with my reputation. - BB

Stranger: I'm still his daughter. BR

Stranger: I've got a safe house in Fiji. BR

Stranger: And a friend with a boat. BR

You: It sounds nice in theory.. - BB

You: He has too much power behind him. - BB

You: And I don't have much fight left. -BB

Stranger: We don't have much other choice. BR

You: We don't have another choice that you like. - BB

You: There are easier people to get out of here. - BB

Stranger: But I don't love them. BR

You: But they still deserve a chance. -BB

Stranger: I'm biased. Sue me. BR

Stranger: I'm working on it, Bruce. I'm trying. BR

You: If you can get a few of them out vs. trying and failing to get me... - BB

You: Just consider it. - BB

You: They'll be coming for me soon. At least they go by patterns now... - BB Can we just talk about something else for now? -BB

You: (( Also it's storming p bad where I am so if we get disconnected I'm [email protected] :) ))

Stranger has disconnected.

#omegle #bruce banner #omegleRP #Bruce/Betty #Sciencebros

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blueflamebird · 8 years ago

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Stands are weird and so are the users

fandom: jjba

summary: In which Jotaro tries to bond with the Morioh boys by teaching them a thing or two about stands. And star platinum bonds with Crazy D a bit

Also on AO3

notes: This is my first time writing Jojo so sorry if it's a bit OOC. this is just fluff and rambles. beware a bit of language and a mention of Jotaro having PTSD (my forever headcanon)but enjoy!theres this small part with star and its based off a drawing by lintufriiki <3 the way they draw star platinum is amazing and i couldnt help but add that little bit

Star Platinum was a terrifying Stand. Josuke was well aware of this.

It wasn’t just the fact he could stop time. His punches were rapid fire, strong enough that when his fist connected to someone’s face, it sounded like a shotgun going off. According to the few details Josuke has managed to annoy out of Jotaro about his adventures in Egypt, (seriously, Jotaro was so tight lipped about it, what the hell even happened) he knew he had yet to see Star go all out.

Which was a bit scary if he thought about it, since everyone Jotaro faced (especially a certain serial killer with a hand fetish who shall not be named because he still had nightmares about it) always looked like mush whenever he was done with them.

So yes, Star Platinum was terrifying. Josuke was glad he was never on the receiving end of that power.

Don’t get him wrong, Crazy Diamond was great. He was just as strong, able to fix almost anything, and just an all around cool Stand. Josuke would be dead ten times over if his Stand wasn’t so great.

But with Crazy Diamond standing in front of Star Platinum, the difference was obvious.

Crazy D was taller than Josuke, and more built. He wasn’t as tall or wide as his older nephew (which…it was still bizarre to call Jotaro that), but Josuke doubted there were many people who would outgrow the 195cm man, who insisted he lost some muscle due to not getting into as many fights in the past 10 years to focus on getting his PhD. Josuke could only hope he would reach that height and that physique.

Star Platinum was the exception to those thoughts. Even with his feet firmly on the ground, Star was a few heads taller than Jotaro, much wider at the shoulders and much more muscular. One of his arms was the equivalent of Jotaro’s leg, and Josuke knew for a fact it could break bones easily. If Josuke and Jotaro went all out against each other, Josuke knew it would take him everything he had to take his nephew down.

And with Star Platinum grinning down at Crazy Diamond like he was a mouse caught in a lion's den, he was on edge, which seemed to transfer into his Stand as Crazy D glared at Star, body tense.

“He’s not going to attack.”

Jotaro’s deep rumble snapped him out of his unease, sparing a glance to his nephew (seriously that was weird). Jotaro continued speaking, only looking slightly annoyed.

“He may be a pretty violent Stand, but he’s always been reliable. He won’t attack unless you try to attack me first. And even then I doubt he’d seriously hurt you unless you seriously piss me off.”

“S-so uh,” it was Okuyasu this time who interrupted, looking a bit confused where he sat in his chair, rubbing the back of his neck. They were all at Josuke’s place, sitting in his kitchen. Tomoko was out at work, so they had the place to themselves for a while. “So…why did you ask us all to come here? I know I’m not really smart, but Koichi doesn’t know either so I thought I’d ask.”

Koichi nodded besides him., “Y-you said something about helping us controlling our Stands, right?”

Jotaro nodded, and as Josuke lowered his guard just a bit, Crazy Diamond relaxed as well.

“Yes. Do you remember what I told you when we first met, Josuke?”

“Besides that punch to the face?” Josuke answered, and when Jotaro continued to stare unimpressed, Josuke tried to remember what happened what felt like a lifetime ago. “Uh, something about Stands being energy?”

Josuke could see it was taking everything in Jotaro not to roll his eyes at him.

“Good grief. Close enough. I don’t know much about them myself, but I figured telling you what I know can help you guys understand. They’re a physical manifestation of your psychological energy.”

Okuyasu opened his mouth.

“Basically, if you have a strong will, you’ll have a strong stand.” Jotaro explained without missing a beat.

Okuyasu closed his mouth and continued listening.

“Stands can only be seen by other Stand users, and you all seem adept at calling forth and using your Stands already.”

“Yeah, I usually just have to either feel like I need to defend or that I want to kick someone’s ass and…” Josuke trailed off as he willed Crazy D to return to him, then made him reappear.

“Yes, but there’s one other thing I want you to be aware of,” Jotaro said, tipping his head so the brim of his hat covered his eyes. “You guys know that DIO stole the body of my great-great grandfather, Josuke’s great grandfather, before he acquired his Stand, right?” When silence was his answer, all eyes staring at him intently, Jotaro continued. They all knew Dio was a sore subject for him and always hung onto every word he said about his time in Egypt. “I believe the old lady he was with, Enya, used the bow and arrow on him to give him the power of a Stand. As a result, Joseph, Josuke and I all developed our own Stands.”

“Enya...that’s the old hag my big bro stole the bow and arrow from, right?” Okuyasu asked, an unreadable look in his eye. Jotaro simply nodded.

“Wait a minute,” Okuyasu continued. “If you guys got your Stands from DIO, how come Keicho had to shoot me with the bow and arrow so I could get mine?”

There was an uncomfortable pause, Jotaro and Josuke both hiding their eyes behind cap and hair respectively as they chose their words carefully. Koichi looked between them, slightly uncomfortable with where this conversation was heading.

Josuke had told Jotaro enough about Okuyasu’s past for him to understand why Okuyasu’s older brother, Keicho, had the bow and arrow in the first place. If Jotaro was one thing, it was blunt. He wasn’t good with delicate situations like this.

Luckily for him, Josuke seemed adept at dealing with his friend’s trauma.

“I think it’s just a Joestar thing, Oku.” Josuke turned, pulling his collar down so Okuyasu could get a glimpse of the star-shaped birthmark where the left side of his shoulder and neck met. Jotaro felt his own birthmark tingle in response and had to resist the urge to cover it with his hand. Joestar blood truly was strong.

Josuke continued his explanation, “It’s like how my old man got Hamon from his grandfather. Or like how Stand users attract other Stand users.”

“Mr. Jotaro, you have a daughter don’t you? Does she have a Stand?” Koichi asked politely.

Jotaro paused. Jolyne getting involved in the dangers of being a Stand user was something he never wanted. She was still a toddler, but she was able to see Star Platinum clearly. Despite the fact that Star absolutely adored her, even more so that she could actually see him, it still kept him up at night. “...She’s still a child so I’m not sure. My mother however, had a Stand. She was too weak to maintain it so we defeated DIO in order to save her life. That was also around the time Josuke got sick with a fever. She can also see Star Platinum and Hermit Purple, the old man’s Stand.”

Seeing Okuyasu was as confused as ever, Josuke tried to steer the conversation back to topic, “You don’t have to worry about it, Okuyasu. It’s just a Joestar thing.”

When Okuyasu nodded and fell silent once again, Jotaro continued. “I’ve met people who were born with their Stands, and as a result their bond with them was almost flawless. I figured if we use our Stands in something that wasn’t battle, we could see for ourselves the type of personality they have and bond with them as well.”

“What? But Crazy D and I get along great,” Josuke protested, watching as his Stand continued to warily eye Star Platinum, who seemed to have gotten bored standing there and was now floating around the room in what Josuke almost thought was curiosity.

“I don’t know Josuke, your bond with your Stand seems a bit different than Echoes and I.” Koichi said, summoning his smaller Stand. Echoes automatically floated up to Star Platinum, who was holding a pan and inspecting it with a close eye. “I haven’t had Echoes for long but I guess we’re pretty close.”

Okuyasu summoned The Hand, squinting as he watched his expressionless Stand for a bit. “Are you sure Stands have a sort of personality of their own? The Hand has never really done anything on his own. Then again I probably haven’t figured it out since I’m not really that smart.”

“Shut up, you’re plenty smart,” Josuke responded fluidly. Jotaro guessed he had to say that a lot. Josuke watched as his Stand followed Star Platinum around, both of them curiously floating around the kitchen, though Crazy D had to stay within Josuke’s range, which was shorter than Jotaro and Star Platinum’s. That was another thing Josuke was a bit jealous about.

“And besides,” Josuke continued, leaning his elbow on the table and holding his head up in his hand. “I’ve had Crazy Diamond since I was a kid. I never met another Stand user until recently. So I don’t really know how any of this is supposed to work.”

“You said you met people who had their Stands since they were born, Mr. Jotaro?” Koichi asked kindly. Jotaro nodded. “How was their relationship different?”

Jotaro seemed to think for a second, fiddling with the bill of his cap.

“I guess they were just...closer. Both user and Stand had their own personality but was able to think in tandem like all other Stand users. It was...more of a partnership than controlling another being.”

Jotaro tried his best to explain it. But it was difficult to describe what it’s like to walk into the hotel rooms he shared with the other Crusaders and see Polnareff use Silver Chariot’s rapier to cut up fruit and use it like a fruit shish kabob. Or to constantly have Kakyoin use Hierophant Green to get things from across the room, often almost tripping Jotaro. Or even Abdul giving Magician’s red scratches under its beak. They all used their Stands so casually and it made Jotaro feel out of place, having just acquired his and still learning how to use it. Even Joseph used Hermit Purple for the most mundane things, but Jotaro always chalked it up to him being Joseph.

Granted, Jotaro’s bond with Star Platinum might have been a bit different. He was no Stand expert, and even before he knew what Star was, his Stand was always eager to please, extremely protective of his user, and made his own personality clear. Then again, this could have been a simple reflection of Jotaro’s own will, as most things with Star Platinum were.

During the two months he traveled to kill DIO and save his mother’s life, he had very little time to fully experiment with his Stand. He managed to figure out a few things about Star almost immediately though: Star was curious, Star was strong and enthusiastic during battle , and Star would do anything to protect his beloved master. Star absolutely adored Jotaro, that much was clear once he learned what his Stand was and stopped being weary of it. After all, how would he save his mom if he didn’t know anything about his own Stand?

Their bond simply became more apparent during their fight with DIO. After all, Star learned to stop time for him. It was an ability he hated, and who could blame him? He went through hell with DIO, he lost the only friends he knew, and even to this day, ten years later, he still had nightmares about it. Post Traumatic Stress, the Speedwagon Doctors had diagnosed him with it, and the ability itself was just a reminder of how fucked up his bloodline really was. But in the midst of all that, he couldn’t find it in his heart to blame Star. His Stand did, after all, save his life with it. He did it to protect him, and Jotaro was all the more grateful for it.

It was after those two months, during the final years of high school going on to college to pursue his career in marine biology that their bond simply clicked. While not having to fight made them both a bit weaker (although, he figured the fact he had Star stop and restart his heart had something to do with it), it was like meeting Star once again for the first time. He summoned himself whenever he felt his user needed assistance, was always there for a quick and precise fix, and even when Jotaro was just lounging about, Star would materialize next to him, floating in the air next to him or settled in such a way that he could curiously watch what his master was doing and communicate his thoughts to Jotaro via their mental and spiritual link.

To voice these intimate thoughts was something Jotaro wasn’t good at, so he simply sighed out a soft “good grief” before looking at Josuke, who had his Stand the longest.

“It already seems Echoes has a personality of his own, modeled after how Koichi has grown.”

“Of course I have,” Echoes replied in his mechanical voice. Jotaro spared the smaller Stand a glance as Echoes gave him a look Jotaro could have sworn was an eye roll before going back to watching what the other three Stands were messing with. Jotaro paid them no mind.

“Has Crazy Diamond done anything of his own accord?” Jotaro asked the younger Jojo.

Josuke thought for a second, watching as Crazy Diamond and Star Platinum silently communicated with each other, curiously getting into everything and anything they could. “Not really I mean...I’ve had him since I was a kid? So sometimes I can feel what he’s feeling or thinking. Like there are times I get hurt and I know he wants to heal me, though I know it won’t work. Or there’s times he’s reacted faster than I could and blocked a punch or stopped me from doing something dumb. Sometimes I don’t know if the anger I feel at a person is my own or his. But other than that he doesn’t really do anything?”

Jotaro paused for a second, before suggesting, “I know you have a close relationship with your Stand, but I think you mostly associate him with either fighting or fixing things, and put up a sort of mental wall between you two. Try reaching in and feeling what he feels, see what he sees.”

Josuke locked eyes with Crazy Diamond, who turned away from Star Platinum in favor of seeing if his user needed anything. Everyone seemed to paused as Crazy Diamond floated just a bit closer to Josuke, keeping their eyes locked.

Josuke tried to reach into the edges of his mind. He wasn’t exactly sure how to do this but now that Jotaro brought it up, he wanted to try, he wanted his Stand to know Josuke cared, and that he wanted to know his thoughts as he knew his user’s.

Come on, Crazy D, let me in, I trust you, don’t you trust me too? I want to share everything with you, not just physical pain, but whatever goes through your soul or whatever.

It took a few seconds, before Josuke felt something like a curtain being lifted from his mind and heart. And suddenly, he was getting feedback that wasn’t his own. It was a strange feeling, like he was aware it wasn’t him, but he felt it anyway, enough that he knew it was there, but not enough that he knew it didn’t belong to him, but his Stand.

And suddenly he was overwhelmed with adoration, a fierce protectiveness, loyalty, pride.

So this is what Crazy Diamond felt for him. It was overwhelming, to say the least.

Suddenly, he felt a slight tug, a sensation, and he knew his Stand wanted to hug him, but was afraid to step out of line. Josuke couldn’t help the goofy smile that spread across his face.

“You. You’re helpless. You don’t need to ask, you big corn-ball. Come here.”

The moment the words were out of his mouth, Crazy Diamond scooped him up easily and, careful not to mess up his beloved hair, hugged his user gently, enough so Josuke could feel the affection of the hug but not enough to accidentally hurt him. Josuke never really touched Crazy Diamond, and was pleasantly surprised at how warm and solid he felt for a being of mental and spiritual energy. The looped feedback he was getting, both from his side and Crazy Diamond’s was weird too, super intense, but it felt good to know just how cherished he was by his Stand. He knew he could always count on Crazy Diamond.

“You’re great, Crazy D.”

Their moment was ruined, however, when the sound of one of his mother’s favorite mugs shattering rang through the air.

Crazy Diamond set him down, turning back to Star Platinum with an exasperated expression.

Slight annoyance, admiration, the need to impress.

Well, at least Josuke knew his Stand felt the same way about Star, that Josuke felt often about Jotaro.

Star was looking at Jotaro guiltily, Tomoko’s cup on the floor in pieces. He looked so apologetic Josuke couldn’t find it in himself to be upset even if Crazy D couldn’t fix it. Jotaro just sighed, glancing at his Stand tiredly. They seemed to mentally speak for a moment before Star Platinum relaxed slightly, looking at Crazy D pleadingly. If he didn’t know the kind of power Star had, Josuke would think this was a completely different Stand to the one that Otoishi was so afraid of. And of course Jotaro would comfort his Stand silently, ever stoic on the outside.

“S.H.I.T” Echoes swore, looking down at the fallen pieces. Crazy D made his way over, and with a quick swipe of his hand, the cup reassembled. When Star made a motion to pick it up, the other Stand quickly snatched it from the floor and put it on the counter.

“Ora?” Star said pleadingly.

“DORA!” Crazy Diamond shook his head with a stern cry of his own, as if telling a child no.

Josuke could have sworn Star was pouting, but held back his laugh in fear that he would get punched.

A silent battle seemed to go between the Stands before eventually Star Platinum accepted defeat with a huff. How much Crazy D looked up to Star as a mentor surprised Josuke a bit, but then again, didn’t he feel just a bit pressured to be as cool as Jotaro?

“Dammit. I want to read my Stand too! But I can’t figure out how to do it.” Okuyasu whined, watching as the Hand slumped it’s shoulders in defeat.

“Your next line is, ‘maybe I’m just too dumb for this shit.’”

“Maybe I’m just too dumb for this shit- woah! How do you do that, dude?”

Jotaro promptly choked on his spit, pulling his hat low in order to recompose himself. Josuke was a lot more like Joseph than he gave him credit for.

Josuke shrugged, ignoring Jotaro’s strange reaction. “You’re not exactly hard to read, bro. It doesn’t mean you’re dumb it just means I know you well, dude. Besides, Jotaro and I have had our Stands for a while, you just need more practice.”

Okuyasu beamed brightly, smiling widely. Jotaro hid his own smile behind his hat. They truly were good kids.

Suddenly, the hat on his head was swiped off, and before he turned to yell at whoever took it, though he knew who was the culprit, he paused, hesitating as he watched his Stand place it atop his head. Star posed, flexing his muscles at he let out a strong “ORA!” As annoyed as he wanted to be, the pure happiness and admiration Star felt was enough to keep the complaint from passing his lips.

Josuke, Okuyasu and Koichi all laughed, and Jotaro felt his lips twitch despite how hard he was fighting it.

“You should have seen your face! You were so angry!” Josuke said between gasps of laughter. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you without your hat.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you without your hair up.” Jotaro shot back, stiffening as he realized he might have crossed hot water again. He felt Star tense but it was short lived as Josuke laughed again.

“Yeah, it’s terrible when it isn’t in my totally kewl style.”

Jotaro exhaled the tension from his body, as Star went back to being a pest with Crazy Diamond and Echoes, obviously trying to get some sort of reaction out of The Hand.

“Jotaro-san,” Koichi spoke up. “Can you tell us another story about Egypt? If it isn’t too uncomfortable for you.”

“Yeah! We want to know what it was like! Were the Stand users as tough as the ones we faced?” Okuyasu added.

“Good grief,” Jotaro mumbled, these kids often made him feel older than he really was.

“Guys, I’m curious too, but don’t pressure him into talking. He’ll talk if he wants to. That sort of thing...is kind of delicate.” Josuke interrupted. A look flashed in his eyes, a look Jotaro knew too well, because both himself and Joseph shared it.

Maybe the Joestar bloodline was just cursed.

With a heavy sigh, Jotaro crossed his legs, trying to think of something that didn’t really trigger him, that would be easy to talk about. Maybe talking about it in a good light, remembering the fun with the others instead of replaying his fight with DIO over and over will help with the nightmares. Eventually, he settled for one.

“Did I tell you guys about the time I scared this guy so badly when we were playing poker he passed out? Or the time I beat the shit out of my best friend before we actually became friends? Or the time one of them licked a toilet?”

Right away, the three high schoolers fixed their attention on him and Jotaro couldn’t help but feel at ease. Stands weren’t all bad. After all, without Star Platinum, he wouldn’t have this moment.

#blueflamebird writes #star platinum #jotaro kujo #crazy diamond #josuke higashikata #im too lazy to tag this correctly #fic #fluff #minor cursing #mentions of PTSD #i cant tag

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confusedunit · 4 years ago

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Universe of Unreality - Chapter 12

Chapter 12 - "Well, they'll need help soon enough." Tommy talks with Dr. Coomer. Dr. Freeman talks with Benr(e)y. Darnold talks with himself.

When Tommy woke up that was the last thing he wanted to be. Awake.

He still felt the exhaustion settled deep, and with all the memories he had flipped through in his sleep, he felt all out of sorts. Concern for a group of people he hadn't been able to think about due to having to always think in the moment, anger he'd shoved to the side and still hadn't talked about, loneliness as he missed his dog. Where was his perfect Sunkist? He was safe, he knew that for free, but he wished the pup was at his side. Especially then, when he was feeling so...conflicted.

He wondered for a moment if that's how Bubby had felt. Conflicted.

…Okay, time to not think about that anymore. He couldn't come undone now, he had to keep holding the team together. Benrey couldn't take all of it, he didn't have the practice like Tommy did.

Speaking of Benrey, as Tommy looked around he noticed the guard was gone, as was Dr. Freeman. But Dr. Coomer and Bubby were still nearby. Dr. Coomer was sitting on the edge of the tram tracks, legs hanging over the edge, while Bubby slept while still clinging to his back.

Dr. Coomer smiled as he noticed Tommy waking. "Hello, Tommy!"

"Hello...Dr. Coomer." Tommy rubbed at his eyes, sluggishly walking over. "What are you...doing alone?"

"I'm not alone! I've got Bubby, and you!"

"I- I know that..."

"But as for why I am sitting here, I was waiting for you!" He grinned. "Benry started getting antsy, so he said he was going to go on ahead and clear out the rest of the boot boys for the rocket launch! Then he came back to get Dr. Freeman, and told me to let you sleep for a while."

"...Thanks." Tommy smiled a bit.

"You're quite welcome, Tommy!" His smile faded slowly, and he stared off a bit into middle distance. "...Tommy."

"...Yeah?" He side glanced at him.

"...I don't know what it is that you're doing. I don't know if I could." His voice was back in his lower register, again. Almost...lucid sounding. "But thank you. I...I know Bubby should not have been able to survive what he did. In the rocket test room." He adjusted how he was holding onto Bubby, ever so slightly. "...I tried to thank Benry, and he said to thank you. So." He smiled ever so slightly. "...Thank you, Tommy."

He felt his heart swell, at the thanks. He'd never been able to be thanked for anything as serious as this before. To not only be able to hear that, but also to be able to admit that he was doing it...made him happier than he could explain. His eyes flashed through a few colors, before settling back onto a glowing yellow. "...You're welcome, Dr- Dr. Coomer."

The older man smiled more genuinely, as he slowly got back to his feet. "Well, I'd say that's enough time away." He turned to look at him.

"Ready to meet up with the other two, and get some more shut eye?"

Tommy laughed. "More than anything."

Dr. Freeman slowly opened his eyes with a wince, as he felt the vertigo hit him again. Where was he? No longer down on the floor, that was for certain. He was sitting up, leaned back against...something, something that was cold against the back of his neck but not hard.

He mumbled a confused sound, and arms quickly wrapped around him, adjusting how he was sitting ever so slightly.

"hey."

He relaxed immediately. Thank God, it was Benry. He trusted Benry. "...Hey." He reached up to adjust his glasses, surprised they weren't cracked. "...Where..."

"look around, bro. though, more importantly, look out that window. the show's about to start."

He didn't have time to speak, eyes widening as he noticed the rocket ascend from the ground, and fly up into the atmosphere. It was remarkable to watch. He'd never even dreamed of being able to see something fly off into space, but it seemed that today was a day of giving. …And taking. A day of near lethal give and take.

Benry nudged him, after the rocket had faded off into the sky. "...how you uh, feeling?"

"...Honestly?" He cleared his throat. "...Like shit." He reached for his chest with his left arm, pressing the symbol.

"User health currently, 34%."

"oh shit."

"Yeah, that's...that's not great. Ow..."

"Warning! Internal damage, detected! Blunt force trauma, detected! Major fracture, detected!"

"...Well, at least that...that explains why even the thought of moving my right arm hurts." He tilted back his head, until it rested against Benry's shoulder.

"...we found a health kit, but uh...we didn't wanna pick who to use it on. without you, uh, being awake."

Oh shit, wait. "Where's Bubby? Did he- is he okay?"

"outside with coomer. wanted to look at the stars. though, he is pretty hurt." Benry shifted a bit. "...can't walk, right now. patched up what i could, but my voice can't fix bone."

Dr. Freeman thought for a few moments, before he nodded. "Give Bubby the kit."

"what? bro, you're at like, real low hp."

"But he's got a broken leg, and you said you can't fix that. But you can probably fix up most of the rest of my problems."

"not your broken arm, though."

"Yeah, well, I've already got an unfixable health condition." He huffed. "What's another? ...Besides, at least I'll probably be able to walk. We need Bubby to be able to, so that we've got all hands on deck."

"except yours."

"Yeah, well, it's not like I know how to shoot a gun, anyway."

Benry went quiet for a while, before finally speaking again. "...you really want my help?"

Dr. Freeman blinked, turning to look back at him. "...Yeah? Benry, you're my friend. And you're also able to help me. Why would I ask you not to?"

He stared down at him for a bit longer, before a set of yellow to blue floated out of his mouth.

"What do those ones mean?"

"...means i wanna protect you." Yellow, to blue. He'd make note of that.

"...Well, you can." He smiled a bit. "Right now."

Benry adjusted how he was holding onto him, before he started to sing with teal and green.

Dr. Freeman closed his eyes, with a smile.

Darnold looked over his computer screen, and his notes, multiple times. "Hmm...of course..."

The data he had was absolutely batshit crazy, but he believed it enough to trust it. Best case scenario, he got to take Black Mesa down a peg, and hold them accountable for their actions that had hurt the lives of far too many people.

Worst case he got, what, arrested? Not arrested. Probably. Definitely fired, but honestly that didn't sound half bad at that point.

Absolute worst case was he got shot and died, but that had basically nothing to do with the data he'd read.

He checked his computer again, to track the progress of the HEV suit currently carrying around a G.Freeman. The trackers were definitely a concern, but at least for the moment he could use that to his advantage. It also showed his current health status, and that was even more concerning.

If he read his notes correctly, they'd arrived at his lab two days after the one he was now experiencing. If that was the case, and Freeman was that wounded, than they'd definitely need his help regardless of if they wanted it.

"Just need to whip up a few healing draughts up, for their arrival."

He'd called his department the potions department for his own enjoyment, he remembered that clearly enough. And they let him get away with it! Sure, it was mainly because he was one of the only people who actually knew the composition of the medical supplies for the Medical Stations, and he was also one of the even fewer who knew exactly what doses of chemicals were in the HEV Liquid Power Cells, but if anything that made his department name even more reasonable.

He'd had so much fun, before, sending them soda compositions and claiming that they were some kind of potion to test. All they'd ever given subjects had been a sugar high and exacerbated one employee's obsessive caffeine dependency, but hey? Who else could claim they'd made their own workplace's soda? Still had to pay for the cans, if he didn't make a batch in his own office, but you couldn't have everything.

...Were they selling the soda outside of Black Mesa? He'd need to remember to add that to the list of things to sue for. It was way at the bottom of the list, but it paid to be through.

Darnold smiled, rolling up his sleeves. "Let's see...if I make five per person, six including me...plus a few extra batches just in case...I should be able to have them done by their arrival. Time to get brewing."

#*confused fanfiction noises*#UoU AU #Universe of Unreality

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boystownbirdie · 8 years ago

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LMWTV4U: GOT S7E3

Welcome back! In case you’re new, this is LET ME WATCH TV 4 U (?), the blog where I watch tv so you don’t have to! If you missed it, I wrote a special mid-week post this past week which broke down the main characters called: new phone who dis? Check it out here.

Also reminder that I have a new feature called “Why does this scene even matter?” (WDTSEM) for those seemingly useless scenes which may or may not actually be important later.

Tonight’s episode featured the FIRST EVER meeting of Bae and Khaleesi, so let’s get into it!

************************SPOILER ALERT************************************

We start off on Dragonstone….

...which is the island where Khaleesi and co have posted up. Bae rows up with no-knuckles in a tiny rowboat and meets his old pal Tyrion on the sand. T is like remember when we met in season 1 and I peed off the edge of the wall that you were guarding lol jk lol jk? And Bae is like yep you were so wasted, bro. They also meet Khaleesi’s hottie translator with the good hair who’s like welcome, please hand over all of your weapons. And Bae’s like BUT I THOUGHT I HAD TSA- PRE CHECK! And T’s like naw, we’ve really had to tighten up our policies here. Some horse-dudes also take their little rowboat away.

As Bae and No-Knuckles (NK) are walking up to meet Khaleesi, her dragons do a quick perimeter sweep and really freak out poor little bae (see gif above). Watching all of this unfold from a creepy high-up-spying-spot is the Red Witch Lady who brought Bae back from the dead but then got kicked out and also Sleevey. The Red Witch is like I did my part, I brought Khaleesi and Bae together. And Sleevey’s like… don’t you want to see their first meeting? I think it might be like the Hamilton-Burr meeting in the musical Hamilton? And she’s like nope I got kicked out for burning a kid alive so not really welcome around him or NK. And he’s like ya you better get to steppin’ back East. And she’s like NO YOU better get to steppin’ back east.

WDTSEM? Truly no idea. I guess we’re supposed to be reminded that Sleevey hates religion because a religious zealot cut off his who-ha and ho-ho’s and therefore they do NOT get along?

Now, if you’ll recall Khaleesi is a pretty kewl lady. She campaigned on an anti-slavery platform back in the East and brought together a bunch of different groups of people all while keeping dat hair and dem outfits on point. And Bae is also a pretty kewl dude. He supports refugees and fights for the underserved and also looks fly as hell doing it. I know what you’re thinking, ARE THEY BOTH SINGLE? THEY SHOULD BONE? Well, unbeknownst to both of them, they’re actually related; she’s his aunt. But considering this episode featured a sex scene between a man and a woman who happen to be TWINS, I feel like aunt-nephew is not too weird for GoT-land. Back to the point, this is the first time Bae and Khaleesi are ever meeting and due to their similarities on paper, you’d think they’d get along. But turns out they do not.

Khaleesi is basically like #bowdownbitches and Bae is like naw dawg. They go back and forth for awhile, with Khaleesi explaining how/why she should overtake Queen Pixie Cut (QPC) and Bae basically agreeing but saying his real concern is the giant army of ice zombies. And she’s like lol wut? Ice zombies? Nice try, dude. Next thing you know, Sleevey rolls up and is like ruh-roh! Remember last episode when our pals Previously-Traumatized Theon (PTT), his sis Yara aka the Kween of the Iron Islands, and the Sand Queen lady sailed off to Southern shore to be mobilize our forces down South? Well PTT and Yara’s uncle, Uncle-Crazy-Pants (UCP) attacked them, burned most of their ships, and took Yara and the Sand-Queen lady hostage.

Next, we get a shot of PTT washing up and getting pulled into a boat where he reports that his sis was taken hostage and no, sorry, he wasn’t able to get her back. His peeps are like ugh what’s your deal, bro? But poor bb PTT has been through a lot so give him a break, ok?!?

WDTSEM? Well the Sand Queen and Yara were supposed to bring together all of Yara’s fleet of ships (which was approx. a buttload) and then head to Sand Queen’s home (Dorne) and bring together that whole army and then march up to King’s Landing, where QPC is sittin’ on dat throne. Now that they’re captured and their ships are burnt, this is a huge loss to Khaleesi.

Speaking of Uncle-Crazy-Pants, let’s check in on him in King’s Landing…

UCP is marching down the streets of King’s Landing doing a pretty good impression of Aladdin during the “Make Way for Prince Ali” scene. The difference here is that he is dragging along his niece, Yara, as well as the Sand Queen (SQ) lady and one her Sand Snake daughters. He struts up to QPC on his horse and “delivers” her the gift of SQ and her daughter. Now if you’ll recall, one of QPC’s kids, her daughter Myrcella, got kissed on the lips with poison by SQ a few seasons ago and proceeded to die on a lovely boat trip in which her dad/uncle (Jaime) confessed that he was her real dad. So needless to say, QPC and Jaime are NOT FANs of this lady.

UCP is like here, QPC, I brought you these prisoners, can we get married and/or bone now? And QPC is like yep, sure can! But first let’s beat Khaleesi in this giant, ongoing war. She tells him he’s in charge of her naval forces and that her bro is in charge of the Lannister army. And since UCP is cuckoo, he’s like hey Jaime, can you give me sex tips for when I do it with your sister (honestly, fair question) and obvi Jaime is like NOT KEWL BRO but he has to pretend to like this guy so he bites his tongue.

Then QPC makes a big deal of locking up SQ and her daughter and then kissing the daughter on the lips with poison to be like #reciprocity I guess? And she’s like SQ will have to watch her daughter die and then also hang out in this cave forever. I guess all this torture is really a turn-on because next thing we know, she’s making out with her brother and giving him a blowie right there.

The next morning, they’re all post-coital and he’s like I should...go? And she’s like naw, I’m the kween we can do whatever! And her maid sees them in their nudididity and is like eww?

Then QPC takes a meeting with an important banker who’s like…bitch...you broke. And she’s like gimme a minute, I got dis.

We stop back by Dragonstone to catch Bae bein’ Bae…

By which I mean he’s brooding by a cliff. And Tyrion is like damn I was trying to brood but you look hawter doing it, which is v. true really. They chat about what went wrong back at that meeting between Khaleesi and Bae. Tyrion tells Bae to take a chill pill and think about how crazy he sounds talkin’ bout ice zombies and whatnot. He also tells Bae about all the good things Khaleesi has done and how she’s actually a pretty cool lady. Then he goes and does the same with Khaleesi, basically. He’s like Bae’s a cool guy and all he wants from you are these rocks that you have under your castle that you’re NOT EVEN USING so just let him do that. And she’s like ok fine.

So then we get to Bae-Khaleesi-meeting 2.0 where it’s just the 2 of them, standing on this cliff chatting kween-to-king. She agrees to let him mine the “dragonglass” (rocks that kill ice zombies) under her castle and he kind of agrees to support her in her campaign against QPC? Well mostly he agrees that QPC is no good and Khaleesi would be a better kween. Then Bae’s like… does this mean you believe me re: ice zombies? And Khaleesi is like… no comment.

We head North to Winterfell, where Bae’s sis Sansa was left in charge

And boy is she doing a good job! Which is kind of surprising, only because we’ve never seen her utilize these skills before. She’s walking around telling people to start storing their barley for winter and telling the metal-workers to line their breastplates with leather and generally being a BOSS. Littlefinger, AS ALWAYS, is creeping around behind her doing nothing helpful. He stops to give her some advice about imagining every possible scenario at all times which is like, sure, a good idea in theory but who has time for that?!?

Suddenly her little bro, Bran, who she was told was maybe dead, shows up in Winterfell. She’s like OMG YASS KWEEN YOU’RE ALIVE! And Bran is just sitting there (to be fair he is paraplegic so he couldn’t get up) staring straight ahead and is acting all robotic. I guess it’s because he’s been through some trauma but at this point so has almost every character on GoT and they still manage to register human emotion.

They proceed to have a heart-2-heart by the old-family-magic-face-tree and she’s like so...what’s been going on in the last 6 seasons? And he’s like I am the three-eyed-raven now I can see the past and the present and all scenarios at all times (hmm interesting that this is exactly what littlefinger just advised her to do...) And she’s like cool….so….do you want to be in charge now since you are the oldest living official Stark male and gender roles are apparently still a BFD up North? And he’s like can’t… I have to prophesize. Btw where’s Bae? We know as savvy viewers that he’s looking for Bae because he needs to tell him about the paternity results.

And then he vividly describes the night she was married off to her psychopath-ex-husband who then proceeded to rape her. He keeps talking about it, too, which I guess is to prove that he can see the past but also NOT trauma-informed and not a welcome conversation. It’s weird.

We stop by Old Town which is more and more like Hogwarts every day…

Mostly because Jim Broadbent is there and because people are getting miraculously cured from turning-to-stone-diseases. Sam, Bae’s bestie, is still interning at the “maester” academy, learning to be a doctor/librarian and you’ll recall that last week he did some under-the-radar experimental surgery to treat Stoney, who happens to be one of Khaleesi’s besties. Now get this, STONEY IS CURED! The artist-formerly-known-as-Stoney is like thanks, Sam, I gotta get back to Khaleesi! And Sam’s boss is like I know you did that amateur surgery and you’re in big trouble but also good job I’m proud of you.

Our last scene is really a montage of scenes so let’s get into it…

I have to admit that even I, GoT-viewing-expert (lol), was confused and overwhelmed by this last scene. So I’ll try to break it down as clearly as I can, but bear with me. We start with Tyrion laying out the current battle plan. Since Khaleesi is pretty ticked that their ships (well technically Yara’s ships but under her direction) were all destroyed by UCP, she mentions finding UCP’s ships and burning them up. How? Well duh, she got dem dragons! It’s strange because I’m pretty sure she’s talking about riding them and commanding them while at the helm, but she never really says this clearly. And Tyrion is like no that’s too dangerous, someone else should do it. Does he mean himself? MAYBE? TBD...

But for now, let’s get into the current battle zones:

Greyworm (fresh off his recent sex scene from last week) and the rest of the “unsullied” army, were sent by Khaleesi and Tyrion to overtake T’s family home, Casterly Rock. There’s this whole montage that Tyrion helpfully narrates about how if the unsullied were to attack Casterly Rock by just popping up on the fortress, they’d be crushed since it was built so well. BUT since Tyrion used to sneak in his sex ladies and booze and other “unsavory” things through the sewer system, he knows it very well. So he instructs Greyworm and a small group to come in through the back and engage in sneak-attack-warfare. They successfully take Casterly Rock, but they’re like...that’s funny...there were supposed to be a lot more people here? And they look out to the sea where it looks like UCP’s ships are burning up all of the ships they rode in on. Which is a real bummer.

Meanwhile, the rest of the Lannister army (all the people who were missing when Greyworm and co. attacked) led by Jaime, is shown marching on “Highgarden” which is where Grandma Tyrell (Gma) lives, apparently completely alone. Remember that Gma’s son and grandkids all got burned up in that church-explosion by QPC last season and then she decided to back Khaleesi? She also told Khaleesi not to trust Tyrion and to “be a dragon.” Gma is looking out at this whole army of Lannister dudes and is like well...IDGAF at this point, really. Important to note that Sam’s Dad (who is a major dick) and Sam’s bro (who’s actual name is Dickon) as well as Tyrion’s old pal Bronn are on the front lines with Jaime, even though last week Sam’s dad was like I could NEVER betray Gma Tyrell.

WDTSEM? Remember when QPC said she’d pay back all of her debts to the banker? Well Highgarden is famously wealthy and has lots of important exports (like grains, for example). So with Jaime and QPC in possession of all of that, as well the coffers of Casterly Rock which he says he cleared out, they can now pay them back, theoretically. Also, Highgarden is down South so now QPC and co have a stronghold down there.

Jaime meets Gma in her study for some light refreshments and death threats. Gma is like well… shoulda seen this coming. Also, did you know your sister/lover is the worst human ever? Like seriously a sociopath? And Jaime is like, oh you think she’s so bad? Well how about this? She is going to let you die from poison rather than torture- isn’t that sweet?!? And gma is like ugh whatever give me the poison, put it in my wine plz. She drinks it in one gulp and then she’s like oh, BTW, I know that Joffrey (the evil little prince dude who was poisoned and killed at his wedding to Gma’s granddaughter, Queen Makeunder) is your son cuz of incest and also, I’m the one who poisoned him. And Jaime is like maybe mad or maybe not? Maybe just surprised? Gma is like tell QPC that it was me who killed Joffrey, k? Ps I hate QPC ok bai, time to die.

WDTSEM? For so long QPC’s only redeeming quality (as told by all of the other characters) was her love for her children. After all 3 had died, she took over the throne and started in on this crazy reign of terror. Now she has SQ captive and is torturing her for killing her daughter and with this admission, she’s also killed the person responsible for one of her son’s deaths. Will ticking off those responsible for killing her main motivation in life help her find closure or make her more of a monster? I’d guess the latter.

Now let’s break it down:

Biggest surprise this ep: The attack on Highgarden! I did not see that coming and also did not fully understand at first. The way the scene was shot, it seemed like gma was in on this invasion, but obviously she was not, as she was later killed by said invaders.

Biggest letdown: Bran was so lackluster and un-enthuz’ed about finally seeing his sister and his hometown again. It’s like we get that you have magic powers now but could you show some effort here?

Important fashion moments: Bae’s meeting-the-kween-but-I-also-have-armor-on look was pretty fly and even though she is THE WORST, I was feeling the red-witch-lady’s linen-y red scarf/cape

Who died this ep? The Sand Queen’s daughter (the last of the “Sand Snakes”), a bunch of unsullied soldiers out at sea, and Olenna Tyrell (aka gma Tyrell) RIP.

Check in this time next week for more LMWTV4U and thanks for reading. Tell your friends!

Correction: I’ve recently discovered that I’ve been spelling Jaime Lannister’s name wrong for my entire blog-writing career. My apologies.

Also, you might IDGAF this but just to lay it out there, I purposefully avoid all other recaps/reviews/think-pieces about the latest episode in the time between watching the ep and writing this recap. Sometimes I will hop on to the GoT wiki page to find out a character’s name or check a fact but mostly it’s just my own notes that I reference.

WHY AM I EVEN SAYING THIS? I often will read other recaps/reviews after writing and posting this one and I’m like OMG WE HAD THE SAME REACTION/ SAID THE SAME THING about a scene or a character. So I guess I just wanted to say that any similarities between this recap and any other recap are unintentional and coincidental.

I know what you’re thinking: PROVE IT. Well, much like Bae trying to prove the ice zombies are real, I can’t prove it, I can only state the facts and hope that my time-worn face and honest peepers will be enough :)

#LMWTV4U #got #gots7e3 #the queen's justice #khaleesi #jon snow #tyrion lannister #olenna tyrell #jaime lannister #game of thrones #game of thrones recap #the queens justice recap #game of thrones review #game of thrones season 7 episode 3

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