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iamumbra195 · 10 months

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!Spoilers for pretty much all of Teenage Mercenary!

I just need to get my facts down about some of the things going on in the background cause it's confusing to me and I have shitty memory. This is pretty much how I've interpreted everything that is going on, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong

Iron is the head of the whole organization that Camp and Forest were a part of. They take in jobs and send them down as orders to either Camp or Forest. Forest was formed after camp and considered inferior to the numbers

None of the numbers know where these orders are coming from and they are currently investigating

They are likely the ones who killed those 26 numbers Ijin disabled during his escape, ordering someone from Forest to do it or directly ordering a traitor number (my theory) to do it because Mad Dog didn't seem to know who killed them that day. They probably killed them because they were becoming too uncontrollable and there was no real leverage they had over them to keep them working for them the way they were doing to Alice with her little brother and Ijin's escape was their best bet to get rid of them all as they were incapacitated and unable to protect themselves

The Camp has completely dissolved at this point in the story and of the 14 still living, we only know 9 so one of the missing five is likely a traitor. Maybe all five of them are and they've been integrated into Forest. 002 doesn't seem to care much about them so it's possible. Or maybe they just died. Who knows?

SW is one of Iron's competitors and is growing relevant in the world of weapons export and war. When Jiye's brother reached out to them to kill Jiye, they were more than happy to do so as that would be a blow to their competitor and would give them a way to destroy SW from the inside if the brother signed a contract with him like he initially wanted to. Ijin obviously ruined this.

The Vorrei Family (which consists of Sophia the blond girl, her brother, and Chairman Andrew) is currently in a contract with Iron but is heavily considering signing a contract with SW and their subsidiary SW defence and whether or not this happens will help with the growth of their weapons export business

This obviously angered Iron and they sent Anna to kidnap Sophia and her brother under the care of SW which would of course ruin the relationship between Chairman Andrew and SW but Ijin ruined this. This created a very good relationship between the Vorrei Family and SW

Alice has infiltrated SW because Iron wants insider information on SW so they could effectively ruin them from the inside, however the mess with the numbers and 004 being a presumptuous little prick (I love him regardless lmao) ruined everything for them

Now the timeline of Ijin's backstory

The plane crashed ten years ago when he was nine (Korean age so technically he was eight and is currently eighteen)

The Camp picked him up from the plane crash and patched him up, forcing him to join the whole training with no memory of himself or his past while speaking in a foreign language. He was trainee #982 out of the initial 1000 ppl that were at the Camp

He met 005 almost immediately after joining

Inhumane training and missions had to have continued at least until he was twelve or thirteen before the initial 1000 was whittled down to a measly group of 40.

During that training, he constantly went against the Camp's teachings, never leaving behind anyone who was injured and taking those who were dying to a peaceful area for them to pass away in rather than dying in the middle of a battlefield. He was punished for it a lot but it made most of the other trainees trust him and see him as their leader. Some of them admired 002 and regarded him as the leader and were later upset when they saw that Ijin was granted the number 001 but 002 was fine with it and followed Ijin's instructions

At some point, Mad Dog assigned him as leader of the numbers and went to kill 016 because he collapsed during a roll call of some kind but Ijin got in his way. They got into a fight and that's when Ijin gave Mad Dog his scar. Mad Dog has hated him since

He remained at camp until he was fourteen and at some point, he had killed a mother and daughter, a memory which stuck with him and traumatized him in a certain way. I believe it also provoked his 'betrayal'.

He disobeyed orders from Camp and Mad Dog sent most of the numbers after him. He incapacitated 26 and some of the other numbers like 006 turned a blind eye to let him escape however they became angry when they were told that he killed the 26 numbers even though he didn't

He was heavily injured and passed out in a river where he was found by Lucas, the mercenary village chief.

All the stuff in the village and the looters (Immortal and his gang) happened and then he became Jin for the next five years. He briefly ran into 018 and that one girl who tried to kidnap Jiye during this time and saved Sophia from her kidnapper. Saving Evelyn and her mother also helped jog his memory and remember his mother telling him "--Jin, I love you" and while the plane was crashing with an oxygen mask on his face, his parents hugged him and told him "--Jin, Mommy and Daddy love you very much." I love the fact that he started to remember after he saved Evelyn and her mom, it's such a nice detail man.

Also, someone thank Grandpa Lucas for trying to protect Ijin from the horrors of being a mercenary despite already knowing he was a child soldier. He bandaged him up after he got injured and told him to take better care of himself, gave him a lot of food and practically raised Ijin for a good chunk of his teenage years. His last message to Ijin (Chp. 163) and Ijin crying for the very first time hit me right in the feels

Ijin met Yeona's dad during his time as Jin and after the dad died, word got back to the Head of SW about Ijin.

Major Kang was attacked six months before canon and because he was Jiye's fiance and this was clearly an opportunity to meet his son's savior (and a potential asset for his developing weapons subsidiary but that's another topic -__-), he hired Jin to save the Major and his troop

I do believe SW was involved in finding Ijin's family both in order to fulfill Yeona's dad's last wish to get Ijin out of the warzone he lived in and because Grandpa Shin is shady af and probably wants to use Ijin. I don't think he's a bad person but he doesn't really have Ijin's best interests in mind. He's a businessman, after all. Good men don't make good businessmen.

Ijin being there has also brought him a ton of opportunities and prevented him from losing his granddaughters and a fuck ton of opportunities if Ijin hadn't been there to save the day so it makes sense that he and Jiye as well, are so adamant about keeping him by their side

But anyway, that pretty much concludes my info dump with a mix of my personal interpretations for now. Like I said before feel free to correct me if I've said something wrong

Now take this random badass panel of my children :)

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bigbrainkatrina · 1 year

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In All the Gin Joints in All the World, He Asks For Coco Moo

"Ah, I'm fuming, Sheila," Drew explains as if that is a very normal hobby. "You remember my arch-foe, James Possible?"

She snorts. Arch-foe. Dumb. "Yes," she chuckles.

"This is his daughter," he growls and then says in an annoyingly shrill voice, "She can do anything!"

"Uh huh," she laughs. "Bitter much?"

i. try the coco moo. it's soothing.

You meet the most interesting characters working late nights in Go City. Weekdays especially. That's what draws out the real sad sacks.

She almost laughs at this Poindexter the second he saunters into her bar. Body so thin and springy, he wobbles like a penguin with each kick of the squeaky shoe. His glasses are unflattering at best, crooked and likely snatched from an old man just trying to read his paper in the park. And God — that suit! Navy blue sport coat with a clip-on bowtie from a party supply store.

Poindexter looks so oblivious looking over the seedy tavern with beady eyes, so it surprises her when his voice scratches like a dog bark and he slouches into the bar and spits, "Appletini. More on the apple, less on the tini and in separate glasses please."

She groans and leans towards him. "Uh huh. Well you know what they pay me for, right?"

He shakes his oblong head. "I'm unfamiliar. A genius like me spends most of their time at coffee shops and libraries, not riff-raff like this, but my dear, it has been a day."

Ah, his braggadocio brings out the nasally underpinnings to his deep voice.

"Uh huh," she drawls. "Cool backstory. Anyways, I'm paid to put a lot of apple and a little bit o' tini into a metal shaker and shakey-shake 'em. Then I give it to you. If you're gonna be a fussy cuss, you can just buy the full bottles and I'll give you your own glass and shaker."

The man scratches his chin — wow, his fingers are like a baby's. So tiny she's surprised they can even bend. "Mm, I would — but then Mother would call me and ask why I spent so much on a bottle of tini."

"Your mother?!"

"Mm yes — well — it's my account — she just — erm — has access to it…" he grumbles and his cheeks glow like mulberries.

"It's not actually called tini by the way but alright," she smirks and slides three glasses over to him. Apple, tini, and whatever Poindexter whatever proportions Poindexter wants it to become. "Closed or open tab?"

"Depends — do you have Coco Moo?"

"What?"

"Nyrgh. Closed tab."

He hands her his debit card and while she doesn't do this for everyone — she sneaks a peekaboo at the name because he's just so much. She needs a name to her pain. "Andrew Lipsky?"

"Yes," his eyes nervously scroll elsewhere. "But if you want to see my work, you can internet my pseudonym: Doctor Drakken!"

Internet my name — what the flip is this guy talking about? She almost asks but spots some regulars somehow managing to jam their entire party of four through the same door frame at once. Ugh. She hands the card back to Poindexter and winds up getting slammed with a rush.

Poindexter gets aggravated early into the rush (it's very noisy) and slaps his notebook shut, leaving behind a very specific clump of cash as a tip. When she has time for it, she counts it off and finds that it's a perfect 15%.

Huh.

ii. to prove that i'm brillianter than the lot of them

If you asked her why exactly he likes her joint so much, she could not even fake a response. But Poindexter struts in every night, at least every night she works. She's a part-timer after all. Monday through Thursday, eight to two thirty AM with one half hour break at eleven. All her other weekday time is devoted to studying — she's a sophomore at Go City U — paying through the nose to get herself a teaching degree so she doesn't need a side hustle anymore.

Well — her weekend life isn't really a side hustle. Her dumb lummox of a brother calls it that — she calls it a charity case. She's actually not that into it — crime fighting that is — but she does have superpowers and regrettably loves violence — so it'd be weird if she wasn't out there saving the world.

It's just part time anywho.

Her big brother though? He wants her to quit the bartending gig and drop out of college because duh um Shego! the city needs you blagh gurmp I'm really stupid. So not happening. Unlike her brothers who never questioned their reality, she has direction. She studies hard and works for those tips because one day — she's blowing this joint. No more superhero antics for her.

God, she's a freakin' superhero. That'll never roll right off the tongue. But yep, she's got the key to the city and everything. You already know who she is. The moody green one from Team Go. And she's the only one with her head on straight. Mego, Wego, Hego — God, she can't believe she let them call her Shego.

To be fair, her pitches — Fuckgo, Shitgo, Pissgo — though brilliant names, were a little juvenile and she should have known better.

iii. the traditional captive - captor relationship

Poindexter ends up being such a character. Beyond that pocket protectin' exterior — he is committed to being a regular at this bar, though he still hasn't decided on his drink yet. But he always ventures to see if the bar has introduced Coco Moo yet, the answer always being no.

So every night is a new concoction. Even an apple with only a bit o' tini is too much for the guy to stomach. She doesn't get what the appeal is for him but he always shows up, and he always sits in the same seat and takes up three other stools with his backpack and binders.

When she has time, she hears him out. He loves the sound of his own voice and over time, his rants become an anthology of all the times that people laughed him out of something. Like the time the kids laughed him off the four square court. Or the time he got laughed off stage in a high school performance of The Tragedy of Julius Caesar. Or the time James Possible laughed him out of college.

Yes, yes. James Possible. She has no idea who that schlub is but he comes up a lot. James Possible this and James Possible that, ugh. She starts to hate James Possible too, if only for making a neat bookends to Poindexter's pathetic life of rejection.

It's about a month into him coming to her bar that he officially becomes a regular. He struts in as always and her coworker elbows her in the ribs. "God, I hate that guy," the coworker growls. "He never fucking tips."

Huh. Weird.

She doesn't know what to say because whenever she serves him, Drew tips a solid 25%.

iv. fo'sheezy it's off the heezy

It's not every night you come out from the kitchen and find that your favorite customer has turned blue, and yet here we are.

He doesn't even seem stressed out about it. No, he's just leafing through the drink menu as always, trying to find something (that regrettably isn't Coco Moo) that could possibly give him some semblance of happiness.

She almost wonders if he's even noticed his new look but she knows she should give him more credit, so she hangs in the back kitchen for a little bit until she can think of a joke. Because something about him being blue is making her anxious, she is so not coming out until she can properly defuse the whole thing.

After ten minutes, she decides to go with the first joke she came up with, even though that now feels stale and disingenuine. But she sells it as an off-the-cuff gag when she leans in and snarks, "Wow. Violet Beauregarde over here, huh?"

Drew looks over his glasses and slides them back up. "Ha ha. And that's not a funny ha ha...but, — mhrm, it is a funny story. You see — it was a Tuesday…"

She rolls her eyes. "Eh, I'm good on storytime." Drew's smile falters and for a moment he actually seems disappointed. But no — he loves it when she kicks his teeth in like that. It's probably because his mom was too nice to him.

There's a quick flush of lime across her own cheeks but she tosses it off. "By the way, I have a surprise for you."

"A surprise?" he licks his lips.

She holds up two fingers and retreats back to the kitchen, already biting her lip. She really doesn't want to go through with this but it's too late now. There's a simmering pot of homemade hot chocolate waiting for her — or rather, him.

She's embarrassed to say but she actually came in early to prepare this: two cups of whole milk, a quarter cup of sugar, two tablespoons of cocoa powder, a cup of chocolate chips, a teaspoon of vanilla extract, and a cinnamon stick. Simmering for hours with the occasional stir. She used the extra time to power through her homework much to the chagrin of the kitchen staff but no one dared give her any lip — she was scary as Hell after all.

She pops out of the kitchen with two steaming mugs in hand and slides one in front of Drew. His gasp of joy ("COCO MOO?!") is so endearingly shrill she can't help but stare as he slurps the drink all over his face. His eyes shine as his lips purse inward, a chocolate mustache spread across his apelike maw. He leans in and raises an eyebrow to her and very cooly says three words that shake her to the core. "You do care."

She fails to fight off an authentic smile and sits across him. They clink mugs and bottoms up.

v. i'm going to open up a can of freak on all of you

Aviarius is always up to some nonsense. Bird Boy says he's taking over the world but she can never quite make the connection as to how his actions will tangibly lead to absolute, infallible power. Hego says that's because she has no imagination, but really it's because their arch-foe is dumber than a sack of bricks. But Hego won't hear it. Dude's positively convinced that Aviarius is Public Enemy #1.

But will her brother kill the dastardly foe? No, of course not. Moral high ground and all that. Hego has all the power in the world and uses it for — what exactly? Sure, big man likes to pin the baddie to the ground and lecture him on the differences between right and wrong — but...big picture?

That's nothing.

Aviarius is deluded to think that he'll actually conquer the world. There's a few months where she's pretty sure he's in on the joke — but no he's dead serious. He's as career about this as Hego.

So every Sunday morning Aviarius pops up and robs a bank acting like this is it — his big break. And Hego takes it so seriously, and of course Team Go downs the bird once again and locks him up in the pokey. Yet somehow the cops are dumber than the villains and Aviarius flies again.

And Hego is scandalized! Aviarius boasts and brags as if a prison escape actually means something nowadays — though it's the equivalent of climbing out of the baby crib.

God, is there anyone in this city with two brain cells to rub together?

So she does something a little — ah — morally iffy? She — erm — she sabotages a classic Aviarius caper. Yes, she lets him get away. Because fuck it, why not. Possible change in the routine, and an opportunity for Hego to understand how fruitless this rivalry is.

"My Gods," Hego is shaken to the core as he watches Aviarius' silhouette dissolve in the sunlight. "We — we failed the planet. Team Go. We must not rest until we stop Aviarius. It could be this very moment that the mad man takes over the world."

She rolls her eyes and grabs her brother's burly shoulder. "Hey."

"Oh don't give me that look Shego!" Hego growls. "You'll see! You'll be talking about him in your political science class tomorrow! The ramifications of what it's like to live under a totalitarian mastermind!"

"Hego!" her voice catches in her throat. Are they really doing this right now? "Aviarius is an idiot who ran off with a big bag of money but guess what? Everyone knows his ugly mug! You think he can go around spending any of that? No! Chill. Out."

Hego makes to say something but instead sniffles. His bulking frame folds in on itself and he storms off.

Guess not. Today's not the day it implodes. She feels the metaphorical blood dripping from her mouth and wishes there was more of a smackdown in her town….

She feels bad — watching the Big Kahuna drag a thick arm across his nosey-wosey to wipe away the tears and snot. This is actually her fault after all. She sabotaged the mission and now she's starting to wonder what possibly motivated her to allow that.

It's just — petty. She's petty and has some work to do.

vi. ah, my teenage foe

It's been a month since Aviarius' hollow victory and surprise surprise — nothing of any significance happens. Except Coco Moo is officially added to the menu at the bar. While the drink is obviously cheaper than anything else on the menu, Poindexter tips tremendous percentages that mirror the money she used to get off him when he was weaning into over-priced self-destruction.

But this night — the game changes a little. Poindexter doesn't have much to talk about and in fact, he hasn't even brought his notebooks; his backpack is still strapped tight to his blazer.

This is the first night he asks for the Wi-Fi password and it take her a few minutes to actually find it somewhere in the employee handbook. He spends hours pouring over his laptop, tossing headphones on when the late night riff raff storms in to make a ruckus. She tries to make small talk with him but he merely grumbles indecipherable words like "Uhrm...nyrgh…" so she gives it a rest until her lunch break.

Ever since she started working here, she used her lunch breaks to go out for a smoke break and fit in some reading for school — and even though finals are coming up — she uses the half hour to slide onto the stool besides Drew. But he's too focused to even notice her, so she peers over his shoulder.

Kim Possible: She Can Do Anything!

She raises an eyebrow and looks over the site. It's some twelve year old cheerleader who is apparently saving the world with this dumb looking kid and his naked mole rat. Also available for babysitting gigs?

Weird.

The name too. Kim Possible. Why does that sound familiar?

"Yo, Doctor D!" she finally says.

Drew yelps and turns to face her, his blush is purple now because of the perma-blue skin. Super weird but she's also used to it. "Um...hello Sheila."

"You're not using our Wi-Fi to look at porn are you?"

"Huh? No! Wh—what is porn actually? Perhaps I am using it for that…"

She stares at him for so long and he doesn't even flinch, so she is forced to put a pin on that and steam ahead. "Don't worry about it. But um...seriously, what are you doing?"

"Ah, I'm fuming, Sheila," Drew explains as if that is a very normal hobby. "You remember my arch-foe, James Possible?"

She snorts. Arch-foe. Dumb. "Yes," she chuckles.

"This is his daughter," he growls and then says in an annoyingly shrill voice, "She can do anything!"

"Uh huh," she laughs. "Bitter much?"

Drew's face drops and he blushes. "Well my hubbub with James was a formative experience for me and to see his daughter do so well — out of sheer luck at that — "

He grumbles some other things but she stays hung up on the sheer luck part because that's a weird thing to say. So she asks him about it.

"Mm," Drew pauses and purses his lips. "I have a theory — see — this site is called kimpossible.com yes? Well — there's also impossible.com — for Team Impossible — you've heard of them I trust?"

Is it weird for a bartender to have heard of Team Impossible? Maybe? But of course she knows them and fuck it, she actually likes Drew so she tells the truth and nods. Strange she has to mull that over for so long, usually she's more knee-jerk in conversations, but something about Drew makes her want to be careful. Because this friendship might actually mean something one day.

Drew goes on to explain his theory that Kim Possible's first contact was actually trying to reach out to Team Impossible but made a typo...fascinating stuff really. Makes sense too, it's just one letter off.

But she can't stop thinking about Team Impossible…see, it was a week ago that she met them; it was for an interview. She likes their style, this whole capitalist heroism angle. Charging people for their services. Makes sense. The lack of a paycheck is why she can't stomach taking time for Team Go anymore. Freakin' bartending at minimum wage pays the bills. Not superhero antics. Those don't do her any favors. Hego refuses to accept any payment. Because of morals.

What freakin' ever.

Team Impossible turn her down though. They give her some corporate schlock about how their team isn't a good fit for her but she sees right through them; the boys' club just doesn't want to split the cut with her. Well. Okay. They will rue the day they — ugh. She's starting to internally rant like Doctor D.

By the end of the conversation, she's actually proud of Little Kimmie for knocking Team Impossible down a peg. But on the flippity, she hates this brat because once again, a hero who doesn't accept payment is storming the scene and that makes it harder for gals like her….

Gals who just want to put a roof over their head.

vii. has society gone completely to seed

She hates ceremonies — like, she already accomplished the thing, why does she have to show off? It's done. She's not a student anymore, she's alumni. Summa cum laude baby.

And see — now she's annoyed. She wouldn't have been annoyed if she didn't have to doll up for this dumb thing but guess what? She paid for extra tickets and guess who decided not to come anyways? Ah-yup-yup. There's an empty metal chair with a reserved sign over it. She's not stupid; she can tell that the Wegos duplicated themselves to fill out their row.

God fucking damn you Hego.

Among the black storm of everyone throwing tasseled caps in the air she peaces out. Enough is enough. "Where is he?" she growls at Mego.

Mego throws his hands up. "Listen, I don't want a fight right now — how about we just take you out and celebrate?"

"No. Where. Is. He?"

Mego looks aside and grumbles something. Sounds like Aviarius. Unfuckingbelievable. She snarls and spits. "Fuck him," she says coldly. "Seriously. Fuck him."

"I know, he's being a bit of a bonehead — " Mego starts to say.

" — a bit?"

"Okay, a lot of bonehead, I dunno," Mego shrugs. "Fuck, don't take it out on me. Listen if you want to fight let's just do it and get it over with, okay? You can yell and scream all you want right now, but when we're done we're going out — and we're not gonna talk about this — and we're gonna get fucked up. It'll be fun."

There's a long pause. "Should we go home?" the Wegos ask together.

"Yes," she and Mego say together.

After the twins depart, Mego looks her right in the eye. "Hego wants you to exchange your college hours for Team Go hours — "

" — no. I've already committed that time to the bar."

"To the bar?" Mego doesn't mean to sound judgmental but oho — he's really going through the motions of it. "I thought you wanted to be a teacher."

"Yes — what?! It's my job you ass — just because you decided to freeload in Go Tower and not worry about actually trying — you know what? Fuck it. I don't care."

It's not the first time a conversation between them has gone like this, and it's not the last, so Mego doesn't bother. They part ways and she feels kind of gross. He does too, because she's right. She's always been right, but it's easier to call her a crazy bitch and be done with it. But when the chips are down? No duh — Team Go is squandering on borrowed time.

She's shaking for some reason. It's weird. She's quit Team Go like seventeen times — oddly enough she's never thrown in the towel when Hego's around. Only with Mego, whom she actually kind of likes. And she always comes back. Be it a day or a few weeks, she comes back, ready to brawl.

This time though, it takes three months for her to return.

viii. do you think that I'm evil

"Nyrgh…"

"What are you grumbling about tonight? You're kinda pissing me off."

Drew looks up, looking worse than ever. He used to have such good posture — now he's a hunched over lunatic with darting eyes. "Demenz," he says simply.

"Oh God, what is it this time?" she shakes her head. "Did he call you Violet Beauregarde? Because you can tell him I came up with that joke three years ago."

"No, he hasn't quite found his nickname for me yet fortunately — " Drew ponders but shrugs it off. "Demenz invented the weather disruptor machine I've been working on."

"So? He invented it." Drew doesn't even bat an eye so she has to continue her lecture. "He obviously came up with it before you did, if that's what you're implying."

"Ah!" Drew waves a finger in the air. "I did not steal from him! No! I — I invented it too! You see, I came up with the concept independently!"

"Mhm," she smiles wryly.

"He can just build faster because he has an army of henchmen. It's not fair!" he pouts.

Yep. There it is. Another red flag. Drew's been throwing up a lot of them lately; she already knows he's a mad scientist aspiring to be a wacked out supervillain, but he's way too much of a softy for that field. She almost wants to sit Drew down and tell him the honest-to-god truth: that she is a superhero. Then she can give him some real talk pointers on how to get his act together.

Because this Kim Possible kid now? She's huge. She like saved the world six times or something last week. Like she's already graduated from fighting off goons like Aviarius. If Drew — Drakken — wants to compete — then he needs to let go of this stupid James Possible grudge and actually do the work.

"You know Doctor D," she says while wiping off a dusty glass. "You should just steal the weather gizmo from him if you want it that bad."

"Hm?"

"Steal it! You know — spooky evil stuff."

"Aaaaaah…evil..." Drew mulls it over and pulls back his stupid pompadour into a ragged ponytail. "Stealing, huh? Well — I prefer to call that outsourcing and either way, I don't have the manpower to do that, I'm a one-man band."

And that's the end of that for some time.

ix. you think you're all that

Drew gets banned from the bar one night. She's not even there to see it. Apparently Drew comes in with Demenz for drinks on a night she wasn't working and they got into a bit of a spat. Something about Dementor calling him the Genie from Aladdin, and Drew calling Dementor Winnie the Pooh.

Yeah. Dumb. Drew could have cooked up something better. He really needs to spend more time journaling so he can be faster on the uptake.

But there's a spat and that spat becomes a brawl. Everyone starts smashing things and at the center of it is her snivelling Poindexter. It's nights like these that she wishes she helped him out with the whole evil thing because Jesus Christ — someone beats the tar out of him. Yeah. A glass shatters across Drew's face and those splintered shards dig deep. He's got this gnarly scar running down his cheek, leading from the corner of his eye.

Honestly, he got off easy. With the mouth on him it's a wonder he didn't get into more trouble...but yeah, someone got the drop on him and now — that villainy career? It's probably over now. Poindexter doesn't have the moxie. How can he not see that by now?

She feels sad for him. Not enough to go visit him at the hospital but — there was — potential? He had this spark and it could have been fun but now...

...now she's catching herself brewing Drew's Coco Moo. She stops when she realizes he's not coming. She considers drinking it alone but pours it out into the sink.

x. but you're not

By day, she's a superhero. By night, she's a bartender. And every moment in between she's hungry.

She's addicted to job applications. At first she is very selective on what she applies for but there aren't any biters. When she does get lucky enough to score an interview, she hits the employers with everything she's got and somehow never gets a call back. Not even an email. So after some desperate months of that, she just applies everywhere.

She remodels her resume and draws up cover letters as if she's a full time writer. She can sell a book out of her stupid please hire me diatribes. But nothing seems to land and after six months of ten applications a day with no interviews — she gives up.

Because fuck it. It's not her that's the problem, it's the world that doesn't get when they're seeing gold and she's not going to wait up anymore.

So she becomes full time at the bar for some reason. She doesn't know why. Everyone she started with four years ago has moved on to bigger and better things — probably — she just kind of assumes those people are happier than her. The only thing that's consistent are the regulars — aside from Doctor D.

She thinks about him more often than she'd like to admit. She gazes at the door when she punches in, wondering if they'll push open to reveal that ungodly strut he always marched in with. Months pass by as if they're nothing and he never returns.

xi. i do think of us as kind of an evil family

The only reason they're at the chemical labs that night is because Aviarius and Mathter are teaming up to do — something. Who cares anymore. She just shows up because it's an opportunity for her to beat the crap out of someone.

But while she's sneaking around, she sees a man crouched over a safe. He's grumbling very loudly and is apparently deaf because he doesn't hear her footsteps pattering across the metal girder.

Gross, dry black hair, rattail, awful posture, tiny digits, and Violet Beauregarde skin peeping past the high-collar of his coat — oh God.

She squats down and watches him fuck up the safe combination again. He pulls out a notebook and reads off the numbers out loud. "Thirty six...twenty one...four. What — what am I doing wrong?"

She can't hold it anymore; it's like watching your teenager try to march out the door in that outfit. Like — honey no.

"Seriously?" she laughs.

You can hear a pin drop. For a second. And then you can't. Because Doctor Drakken shrieks and scrabbles away, but she grabs him by the boot and he trips into the safe. He looks at her and scrunches into a fetal position almost. Then he blinks and remembers her. "You're — you're — whatsername — the girl from the bar!"

She rolls her eyes but forgives him. Doctor D's not good with names. At least for people he actually likes.

"You're — " he stutters. "A superhero!"

She just grins and lets him process it all on his own.

"You're — you're Shego! Oh that makes sense — your name is Sheila Go, isn't it? I don't know how I didn't get that."

"Eh, most people don't somehow. Everyone in this city's an idiot so…."

"Mm, well I'm no idiot, I'm a genius!" Drakken declares. "I just seem to have copied the safe combination down wrong.

She rolls her eyes. "Are you kidding me with that? Dude, Doctor D, you never use the combination. Those change all the time — you want to bring the equipment — here. Move over."

Her fist lights up into a brilliant emerald and Drakken needs no reminding that he better back up. Her hand closes in on the safe and the metal immediately lights up at the intensity. It's hard to hold a flare this long — but for him? For him it's kinda worth it. So she drags her hand through the safe until she burns a little hole out and pow — the metal gap ker-thunks to the floor.

"So — you're helping me then?" he asks.

Her eyes widen a little. "I guess I am, huh?"

There's such an uncomfortably long silence that it almost makes more sense to kiss him than do what she is about to do.

"I don't want to do Team Go anymore, it's dumb," she shrugs, trying to play it cool. It's not like these thoughts have been tormenting her for years or anything.

"Ah, and I do need an assistant," Drakken grins something surprisingly charming. It's not like he's been a loser with no friends except the bartender ever since James Possible got him kicked out of college.

"I'm def not your assistant, but I'll do with partners."

"Sidekick?"

"Partners."

"Henchwoman?"

"No. Partners."

Drakken eyes her as if any second the cameras are about to swarm him from all over and broadcast his naivete and gullibility all across America. But no one comes.

"We'll stop you Aviarius!" Hego proclaims from waaaay across the lab, saying it with the relish of an actor who can deliver a line one hundred times and somehow always keep it fresh. "Even if it's the last thing I do."

She snaps and grabs his tiny hands, making the decision for him, rocking his arm up and down. "We'll talk logistics and titles later — let's steal the cash before my brother trounces that idiot. Drakken's your monicker right?" She wants it to sound like she didn't already know that — but she's no phony. Not like Hego. And Drakken sees right through the I-don't-give-a-fuck-facade.

He nods along anywho. Because he likes the banter.

She grins. "Good. Doctor Drakken and Shego. I like it. Kinda like Frankenstein and Igor — "

Drakken raises a finger to make the exact same point that just came to her mind.

"So not a lab assistant," she shuts that down fast and laughs as he droops like a rapidly wilting flower. "But we're going to make a big time villain out of you, Doctor."

He smiles and finally grips her hand back.

"Partners," they say together.

#drakken x shego #drakgo #kim possible #kim possible fanfic

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campmurderparty · 8 months

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mattie & joey.

“I’m very sensitive right now, joey.” mattie sniffed, looking more offended than she actually felt. Though she still didn’t fully trust him, she didn’t have any other choice, did she? She would just need to get used to his humor, especially if they were supposed to pretend to be madly in love. Would they actually be able to convince anyone? Would they see right through her?

“I won’t call you joseph andrew then… unless you really piss me off.” at least her own name was long enough that it would be hard for him to call it out in anger, though that never stopped her own mother in mattie’s youth. “It’s normal in brazil to have long names, thank you very much. But you can see why i just go by mattie oliveira here.” less to say and not as memorable, so she could easily slip away into a crowd or start over in a new city if she needed. Sometimes she went by other last names, but always kept mattie for simplicity’s sake.

They had such a short amount of time to craft the perfect cover story. Shit. mattie had been very comfortable making up a backstory on the spot, but for this con, they had to decide on details and stick to them. If she was cornered by someone and forced to give details on her love story with joey, she needed to make sure joey wouldn’t give a different answer if it was him being quizzed. “Tuesday. You’re killin’ me, but whatever. I’ll deal with it. Will anyone care that i don’t know fuck all about hockey?”

Of course she had known about his playboy reputation, but she hadn’t known the extent of it. She had to wonder if that would damn or help her—if people questioned why it was her of all people that tied the infamous joey delima down, would they dig into her past? Would the girls on twitter or tiktok figure out she was a fraud? “I have nothing but time for you, joey dear.” mattie quipped with a strained smile. “So, I have experience in this department, and my biggest advice is to keep things simple. The more detail you give, the more it seems like you’re lying, so make your answers airtight and hard to argue with. Usually i work these things alone, but when you’ve got a literal partner-in-crime, you have to know everything about each other so if your nice, succinct answer doesn’t please ‘em and they start to drill you, you’re not just making shit up off the cuff.” mattie paused to take a drink of her neglected whiskey. “Let’s start easy. When’s your birthday?”

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skunked-up-kicks · 3 years

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About Allison yeah. I think people acknowledge she’s a bit ableist and classist but they erase the fact she was fine/complicit with Seth’s homophobia and treatment of Nicky (tbh it seems like all the upperclassmen were??) + what that post said. This isn’t hate I love Allison! But I think she’s much more interesting as a character with flaws that make sense with her upbringing and backstory rather than just #girlboss.

okay my response to this is ungodly long so, if you're interested...

1. her ableism

the thing is when people do acknowledge her ableism it's always with how she treats andrew (which makes sense cause it's the most obvious, and they're not wrong) but it kinda results in an issue. the way these fics that acknowledge this usually go is that allison calls andrew 'monster' and maybe talks about how he's 'psychotic' or something. then it goes one of few ways:

1) neil tells her (and usually all the upperclassmen as they get grouped together seeing as they all do this) not to speak about andrew like that, maybe he threatens her or something. the problem with this is that he's just scaring her into being silent, her mindset doesn't actually change.

2) neil gives a speech about how andrew is actually good, and generally how he's 'not as bad as she thinks' or something. now correct me if i'm wrong, but the issue i see with this is that, it's not actually telling her that her mindset about people with mental illnesses and/or trauma is wrong- just that andrew isn't the right person to direct her ableism too, but there are people out there who are 'as bad as she thinks'. it's kinda like the attitude that as long as andrew does enough to redeem himself he can be treated as human and not a 'monster' which is... yeah.

3) basically the same issue as the last one, andrew proves he's actually good because allison and the others see him do something outwardly affectionate. thereby proving he is actually all good now.

sometimes fics have a mix of these but basically the thing is that her ableism is never actually 'fixed' (for lack of a better word). most that happens is that it's no longer directed at andrew, but this is a worldview that she has, it's not just a dislike of andrew- realistically it's not just isolated to him.

to clarify though, i'm genuinely not intending to shame people who write these fics cause they are acknowledging her ableism, which is good. and similar with how people approach aarons homophobia, it's incredibly hard to write someone overcoming a prejudice. i certainly couldn't do it, and realistically maybe it's not somethìng that can be done in a fic. given that often it's a long-term process where you have to check yourself often.

it's especially complicated because she somehow needs to come to the realization that villifying andrew isn't right because despite the wrong that he has done- and he has done wrong, we can't deny that- he is still a person deserving of at least the deceny to not be compared to a monster and dehumanised in that way. she needs to realise that while andrew shouldn't do those things and can be called out for it, that the way he acts is a product of his trauma. BUT he is still responsible for his actions, and while she can rightfully choose to not associate with andrew, she shouldn't discourage others from doing so in the way that she does. it really is complicated and there's a lot of nuance there which makes it a hard topic to deal with cause... how do you write someone learning that?

but yeah, that's my thoughts on that.

2. her classism

i honestly don't see people acknowledge this a lot? i think one of the ways we see it manifest is how she talks about the way neil dresses... and in fics she often insists neil buys better clothes, usually more expensive ones. which is portrayed usually as her being a caring friend, which i get, but i think neil would actually find this really annoying lol.

i think an interesting way to look at her classism would be in her and dans relationship given the extreme differences they grew up. same thing with her relationship with seth, as he grew up poor too.

with seth, she might have sometimes been ashamed of the way he acted and dressed, maybe of the way he spoke too...? i can picture them fighting over that and her being a bitch about it. she would probably speak badly about the place seth grew up in too..

with dan, i feel like dan might get frustrated when allison, for example, doesn't know how much ordinary things cost (a thing a lot of celebs have shown to have no knowledge of). or dan might even get jealous or angry at the way allison can just throw away her moneyvand buy things carelessly (think of her reaction when her car got trashed, she could just get another 'toy'), while she was brought up saving money at any instance she could.

not much to say on this tbh... i think it would be cool to see this explored a bit more though.

3. complicit in homophobia

someone made a post on here about how allison would be the type of girl to preach equality while having a homophobic boyfriend... and yeah.. that's it really lol, hit the nail on the head.

again, a lot of people make her very progressive and woke, and i think this is tied to the very common hc of her being bi. (despite the fact that when betting on neils sexuality she doesn't consider bi an option which makes me think she is canonically straight..). i think it's hard for people to address the fact that she is complicit in homophobia while also headcanonning her as bi, cause it seems like she wouldn't be if she actually was bi. from my knowledge, bi women (and bi ppl in general) not being supportive of gay people and/or not standing up against homophobia isn't really a common issue? (pls correct me if i am wrong though) usually prejudice goes the other way due to the biphobia in the LGBTQ+ community. so it's hard to think about and write about.

when it comes to the other upperclassmen, i seem to remember dan and matt standing up against seth? though i could be remembering that wrong or getting it confused with a fic.

4. #girlboss

i highly agree with you that she really does just get reduced to just a #girlboss a LOT. and i think the same thing happens with the other female characters... i mean, just look at katelyn. there's no evidence that she is some kind of badass but many want to make her one.. but she can be an interesting character without having to fit this ideal #girlboss.

i understand wanting to make female characters cool and badass but in the process it feels like we're losing variety... i personally don't want the exact same personality and way of acting plastered onto every female character.

a strong female character is not defined by how much they can kick a guy in the balls but rather how well they are written, and to be written well they need flaws. and when making female characters #girlbosses we usually lose the flaws :(

like you said, this isn't to hate on allison. i just think sometimes we miss the parts of her character that make her truly interesting.. and i think that's a real shame..

anyway, i think that that's all that i had to say lol. if you read up till this point, thank you! and thank you for the ask anon :)

#oof this was long lol #ask #mine #aftg #allison reynolds #cw ableism #cw biphobia #cw homophobia #cw classism #i think thats everything..?

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sevenkittensinatrenchcoat · 3 years

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Cast Interviews From 1986 vs. 2016

So, I’ve found a podcast that’s been interviewing various Cats cast members and superfans. Most of the interviews come from the cast of the Broadway Revival, but there are also several interviews from US Tour III which went from 1986 to 1988. So we’ve got a bit of both old and new. Here’s what I’ve learned about how things have changed over the years and why the Broadway Revival is such a confused mess:

In the interviews of US Tour III cast members, it seemed like everyone was told the story of the play and had a pretty clear idea of what was going on. Some actors were given backstories for their characters, but the amount of detail varied. Actors cast as Munkustrap and Tugger were told that their characters were brothers and the sons of Old Deuteronomy. Actors cast as Demeter were given a full backstory for the character. However, Grizabella’s story remained vague. Bombalurina, Mistoffelees, and Sillabub also had no confirmed backstories, and most of their characters were improvised during rehearsals. Also, since this tour was from 1986-1988, a lot of cast members don’t remember a lot of what they were told. It’s been a while.

Out of the backstory and character information provided, Demeter’s was the most consistent. She was kidnapped by Macavity, escaping shortly before the events of the play. She’s an outsider to the tribe, but she knows Bombalurina and stays close to her. Bombalurina also had some experience with Macavity, but she enjoyed it more than Demeter did. This lines up with what Jacob Brent said about Demeter in the 1998 version.

Some character dynamics are different from more modern versions. Alonzo is Demeter’s love interest, as was typical with Broadway-based productions. Also, in most productions, Alonzo doesn’t get along with Tugger, but he’s a fan of him in this version.

Outside of Alonzo, it was made perfectly clear that Mistoffelees was played as a full adult, the same age as Munkustrap. The actor who played him throughout the tour, Randy Slovacek seemed to have made up most of Misto’s characterization in that production by himself. Misto was friends with Grizabella in the past and wasn’t upset by whatever she did to upset the others. When she first appears, Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer, taking the place of Coricopat and Tantomile, who were cut for the tour, run up to her and try to chase her away. Misto calls them off, but Munkustrap won’t let him do anything else to help her and he respects his authority too much to try anything.

The interviews of the Broadway Revival cast tell a very different story of what was going on behind the scenes. Apparently, they were rushed for time and there weren’t as many rehearsals before the show as there usually are. That, combined with the new choreography meant that nobody really knew what they were doing. Munkustrap and Tugger were confirmed to be siblings, but very little backstory information was given outside of that. The few cast members who worked with Gillian Lynne seemed to have a better idea of what was going on with their characters. Andy Blankenbuehler was still figuring things out and wasn’t able to offer similar clarity. The few times anyone was told anything, it was usually by Trevor Nunn.

Basically, Nunn and Lynne invented Cats, and nobody else seems to know how the fuck any of it works.

Tyler Hanes and Sara Jean Ford knew each other before being cast and they came up with a lot of backstory for their characters, which everyone else got drawn into. Ford played Jellylorum as the same age as Tugger. Since the actors are best friends, so are the characters, even though that makes little sense with their personalities. Jennyanydots, Bombalurina, Demeter, and Grizabella were in that same age range as well. It appears that nobody was anywhere between Munkustrap and Old Deuteronomy in age, for some reason. Jenny and Skimble are a couple in this version, so Skimble’s probably also in this group. They have kittens together. Electra and Rumpleteazer are among them, though nothing was said about Mungojerrie. The merge with Coricopat and Tantomile in the US Tour implies that they’re twins in that version. In the Broadway Revival and the tour based on it, they’re apparently unrelated.

Grizabella ended up with a far more detailed backstory, all made up by the cast. She’s Jellylorum’s sister and she stole a man away from her and Jelly never loved again. None of the kittens are Jelly’s, though she’s sort of the nanny to all of them. Griz also had some sort of affair with Tugger and broke his heart, which is why he doesn’t do commitment. Then, Griz ran off with Macavity, got dumped for Bombalurina, and then she got dumped for Demeter who decided that Macavity was bad news pretty early on and ditched him. The relationship was abusive, but no one mentioned a kidnapping. After leaving Macavity, Griz was no longer welcome in the tribe, even though Bomba and Demeter were because Reasons. Forgetting that these characters are not human, she then got addicted to drugs, was driven to prostitution to support her drug habit, had a bunch of kids, and then left those kids to be raised by Jenny, who resents her for it. Nobody says which kittens are Grizabella’s. Portions of this backstory were used in the 2019 movie.

Also, I can say that some of the characterization issues with Tugger were, in fact, a direct result of the choreography changes. Tyler Hanes wanted to play up the sexuality of the character in a way that the new choreography didn’t allow. If Gillian Lynne’s choreography had been used for the number, Tugger’s characterization probably would’ve turned out very different, but the changes meant that what Hanes knew about the character, and how the audience perceived the character, were altered by the new choreography putting emphasis on vanity instead of sexuality.

So, that’s the story so far. Compared to at least one early production, the Broadway Revival was rushed and poorly thought out. The actors were given little information and left to fend for themselves, and they prioritized their bonds with their irl friends over what made sense for their characters. Interviews of cast members from both the revival and the following tour reference Andy Blankenbuehler as the one who had all the information, who the cast looked to for instructions. But, he had no idea what he was doing and couldn’t really help them.

Most of the problems can be traced to Blankenbuehler not knowing what he was doing and never really figuring it out. Though, some blame has to be placed on the cast who, left to their own devices, had a lot of bad ideas. Hanes and Ford in particular, though it was good that someone was trying to take charge, created a bit of a mess. None of Jellylorum’s character resembles any other Jellylorum characterization I’ve ever seen, and it doesn’t even come across clearly on stage. The young cast all seemed to struggle with the idea of playing older characters and nobody told them that they couldn’t age them down. The generation gap between Tugger and Jenny and Jelly is character information that’s now completely lost on the audience. You need older characters disapproving of Tugger to show that he’s a controversial figure to the tribe, not just an annoyance to Munkustrap.

But, some of the worst characterization problems were not entirely the fault of the cast. As I mentioned before, Tugger’s characterization was changed by the choreography. Grizabella had already been aged down by her redesign. Since Demeter’s kidnapping backstory wasn’t explained, this affected how Demeter was portrayed. Her sympathy for Grizabella came from having been on that side of town as Macavity’s prisoner and seeing the condition she was in. Without that backstory, Kim Faure may have not known that Demeter was supposed to have sympathy for Grizabella and interpreted her part differently. This was the result of unclear direction.

What We’ve Learned Today:

1. In the 1980s, Mistoffelees was, in fact, played as older than Jacob Brent played him in the VHS.

2. Munkustrap and Tugger (and not Mistoffelees) have pretty much always been the sons of Old Deuteronomy.

3. The backstory Jacob Brent gave for Demeter was the standard backstory for the character well before the VHS was filmed.

4. Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer were considered twins in the 1980s and most likely continued to be seen as such until the revival era, though I haven’t exactly checked in with every single production.

5. The Broadway Revival was a behind the scenes and nightmare and it’s mostly Blankenbuehler’s fault.

6. Gillian Lynne wrote Cats. Andrew Lloyd Webber wrote a concept album.

7. There are no middle-aged cats in the 2016 revival. I think Sara Jean Ford started it.

8. The idea that Grizabella’s backstory involved Macavity started with the 2016 cast improvising.

9. Kim Faure’s Demeter was most likely OOC due to a removal or lack of explanation of backstory.

10. Sometimes it’s okay to do things the same way they’ve been done before.

#cats tour iii #cats 2016 #andy blankenbuehler is bad at cats #i hate being mean to the 2016 cast #but theatre is a team sport #and most mistakes are made by the team #rum tum tugger #tyler hanes #who i like but also blame #sara jean ford #who is in the same boat as hanes #though i'm admittedly very picky about jellylorum portrayals #kim faure #she tried her best #but basically #gillian lynne #was what made cats a hit #and nobody knows what they're doing without her

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star-going-supernova · 3 years

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So. Madison Russell. Godzilla vs Kong. Welcome to my ted talk.

From a writing perspective, they totally wasted her character. She, Josh, and Bernie were almost exclusively used just as a method of showing the audience what was happening "behind the scenes" at Apex. Pouring the whiskey on the computer was about the only thing of note they did, and even that didn't do much. Mechagodzilla was only slightly hindered by it, and if they'd just written Kong and Godzilla differently in the fight scene, they could have skipped the whiskey part entirely. They could have done so much with having people "on the inside" but Monarch as a greater organization barely had any presence at all, which negated the need to have people on the inside.

Maddie's steadfast insistence that Godzilla wasn't a bad guy at the beginning had so much potential, but it became the conspiracy thing instead. It felt less like she wanted to prove Godzilla wasn't turning against humans, and more like she and her new conspiracy friend wanted to crack open a shady organization, which was frustrating. If they wanted to depict her as someone who was forced to become competent at a young age, which was part of the serious, intense vibe I got from her, instead of the inexplicable personality shift, they should have showed her doing something to help. Getting in contact with her dad/Monarch, giving them evidence to begin a city wide evacuation outside the Apex Hong Kong HQ, messing something up or making it harder for the Apex people to get Mechagodzilla up and running—just, anything.

The fact is, we had Maddie being very proactive in KotM. Stealing the ORCA was the game changer. Instead of taking that to the next level in GvK and giving her an opportunity to continue that aspect of her character—that is, being someone who refuses to sit by when she can do something to help, even if it’s dangerous—they rendered her obsolete.

The movie wouldn't have significantly changed if you took her character out. If Bernie went by himself and ended up in Hong Kong, nothing would have changed, because Maddie didn't do anything of personal importance. She went from being an active character in KotM to being a passive one here, which are a pet peeve of mine. If you saw my post about what I liked and didn’t like about Godzilla (2014), that might sound very familiar.

It would also have made so much more sense if she developed a love for studying Titans instead of focusing on conspiracy theories. Plot-wise, it would have given her claim to her dad that Godzilla was being provoked more credence, and could’ve opened an interesting dialogue between them to reinforce that she knows what she’s talking about. Monarch was obviously still a big part of their lives, given that Mark had rejoined, so it would’ve been the perfect opportunity for Maddie to pursue a Titan-related future.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I loved Jia, and wouldn’t want to take her out of the movie or even diminish her presence in it. In fact, I think they should have focused on Jia, and only on Jia.

Hear me out: Godzilla vs Kong should’ve been split in two. A Part 1 and Part 2 situation.

For Part 1, we keep a lot of the GvK canon, especially the Kong-centric stuff. Include even more scenes showing us that he’s protective of Jia, don’t just have Dr. Andrews say that he is. Have him defend her from something dangerous, maybe even from some humans. Include their backstory, how he saved her during the storm. And start it even earlier, before Godzilla attacks Apex the first time. Keep the whole Hollow Earth plot, keep the fight scene in the ocean, keep the discovery of the temple and the axe.

And on the Godzilla side of things, start earlier on that as well. Keep the other Titans in, have humanity tentatively believing that a time of great peace is upon them. Their mere presence is restoring the planet. There was an emphasis of nature, particularly in relation to the Titans, in KotM that I really think they should have included more of in GvK to better tie the two movies together, if only they hadn’t swept all the other Titans under the rug. They wanted a movie about a fight, not about the Titans. So, undo that. Show us a little of what Mark does, do a sweep of the other KotM cast (cameos at the very least) to show how they and Monarch are working to uphold that peace post-Boston. I’d also have loved to see Boston itself, too, five years later.

Instead of giving us a Generic High School scene, show Maddie learning about the Titans alongside the experts. Bring back the wonder and amazement she had when she saw Mothra for the first time, when she reached out and touched her. She’s second generation Monarch, make that mean something. When Maddie took the ORCA to Boston, she had a conviction. She couldn’t not have. She was there in part to lure Ghidorah in, but I can’t even pretend to believe her plan ended with that. She knew Godzilla would come.

That sort of belief is hard to kill, and if death via Ghidorah wasn’t enough to scare her off, no way anything else in those five years afterwards did. Her belief that Godzilla is good survived to GvK, and should’ve been a main focal point of her character. Godzilla attacks Apex—she and every other Monarch person who has spent years studying the Titans knows something is up.

Keep Mark’s character development regarding his opinions on Godzilla. He believes Maddie when she says something has to be wrong, not just because he trusts his daughter, but because he looked into Godzilla’s eyes and saw more than just an animal.

They’re in Part 1 only minimally, just to establish their presence and how they feel about Godzilla destroying Apex. The focus is clearly on Jia and Kong’s side of events.

Sorry, but I’m leaving Josh out and seriously dialing back Bernie’s role. Instead, the character we follow inside Apex is Ren Serizawa. We see his motivations, his ambitions, and he becomes a character with more than just a few lines. Does he resent Godzilla? Or does he resent his father, too? Serizawa’s sacrifice was willing, after all. He was no accidental casualty.

Part 1 ends in the Hollow Earth, with Ghidorah taking control of Mechagodzilla on the surface. Alter the timeline just enough so that Godzilla has only just arrived to Hong Kong, and Kong’s still in the Hollow Earth. The final scene is Mechagodzilla emerging into the city as the sun rises. The post-credits scene is our KotM cast in the Argo, location unknown, watching a screen with Mechagodzilla on it.

Part 2 begins with a reveal: Ren Serizawa isn’t dead.

Backtrack. This part focuses more on the Godzilla side, and Monarch. It’ll have flashback scenes from the five years between KotM and now, showing exactly why Monarch as a whole firmly believes Godzilla is reacting to something instead of being anti-human all of a sudden. The Titans are not inherently malicious; destruction is a side effect of their size, no more, no less. He earned his title of King in KotM—make it mean more than just trying to make Kong “bow.” Make him a protector, a guardian. He’s nature’s balance. By definition, he must protect humans as well.

What Monarch needs to figure out is this: what is he trying to protect them from?

They investigate Apex in search of the answer, but knowing from past experience the sort of things Godzilla gets proactive about—the MUTOs, Ghidorah—Monarch mobilizes. They prepare for another fight, at Mark’s instructions. He witnessed both San Francisco and Boston firsthand, even if the former was from a civilian standpoint.

Godzilla has more hunt scenes. He targets a second Apex lab after his ocean fight with Kong, telling Monarch that they’re on the right track.

Maddie, being a minor and not dragged into the thick of things (yet), has to stay home. Remembering the podcast she sometimes listened to, when the topic was focused on the Titans, she tracks Bernie down, and he tells her about what he saw: the eye.

The two of them go to the ruined Apex building and discover the eye is gone before getting caught. With Monarch currently breathing down their necks, they recognize Maddie to be Mark’s daughter and take her to Hong Kong. Sorry, Bernie, but that’s mostly as far as you’re involved. Timeline-wise, this is roughly when Kong puts the axe in the temple floor and Godzilla blasts a hole to the center of the earth. Monarch is following Godzilla, but they’re behind a bit thanks to the tunnel shortcuts. They’re still unaware that Maddie has been kidnapped and is en route to Hong Kong.

This is also when Mechagodzilla gains a life of its own. Walter Simmons is killed and Ren Serizawa becomes trapped in the link to Mechagodzilla, serving as the bridge between the robot and Ghidorah’s mind. Ghidorah is essentially controlling MG by controlling Ren, who is controlling MG. Make sense? He’s the puppeteer’s puppeteer.

We reverse some things. Godzilla fights MG first, gets beat around but not as much as in GvK because he isn’t fresh out of a different fight. Kong returns to the surface through the tunnel Godzilla created, having carried the one remaining HEAV out himself, because Nathan Lind has never flown one before and doesn’t know how they work. Kong wants to protect Jia, and Ilene Andrews and Nathan Lind are very lucky that Jia likes them.

Mechagodzilla sees Kong and takes off, and Kong decides now would be a great time to fight Godzilla, who’s having a pretty bad day. Monarch arrives, and half of them split off to follow MG while the rest stay to try and deescalate the situation. Other than Godzilla faring slightly less well, the fight goes mostly the same as in the movie, except for one big difference: one of the Monarch crafts pick up Jia and Co, and she’s able to get Kong’s attention from the back of an Osprey well enough to tell him to stop fighting. There’s a bigger threat out there, and Godzilla definitely needs to be okay enough to fight it. Either they work together, or they reschedule.

She’s very stern about it, and though no one’s really sure what the two Titans decide on, they stop fighting. They leave together to go after Mechagodzilla, who is currently being slowed down by Mothra, because she deserves to be in this movie. The other Titans basically hinder Mechagodzilla as much as possible as it rampages, telling Godzilla where it is. Monarch finally figures out that it’s heading for the nearest entrance to the Hollow Earth, right around when they also figure out that Ghidorah is involved. With Dr. Andrews and Nathan Lind’s input, they theorize it intends to take more of the power source down there to further strengthen it.

They do their best to clear the cities in its path, evacuating as many people as possible. It’s all they can do. As in the past, they must trust Godzilla to do the heavy lifting. Around the same time, an assistant tells Mark that some guy named Bernie called and is asking for him. This is how he finds out Maddie was taken to Apex’s Hong Kong location.

Meanwhile, the Apex guards and Maddie finally arrive to find the facility abandoned and damaged, MG gone, and Simmons dead. The guards more or less split, leaving her there alone. Maddie, being Maddie, goes deeper until she finally discovers Ghidorah’s skull and Ren Serizawa inside, trapped in his own head with Ghidorah. It’s killing him.

He’s aware enough to have a conversation with her. They argue about the Titans. He wants Godzilla destroyed out of anger over his father’s preference for Titans, rather than his own son.

(“You’re not the only one with ghosts!” she yells at him. “You’re not the only one who resents a parent for putting Titans ahead of you when you needed them!” He chokes out, “I do not resent my father—” “Coulda fooled me. Why else would you be spitting on his sacrifice like this? Who are you trying to help, huh? All the other kids out there who are losing their moms and dads because you let Ghidorah out? Sorry, mister, but the last time someone did that, your dad paid the price.”)

Ren is getting worse. He’s going to die if he stays in the link much longer, but he can’t disconnect. Maddie, looking around, gets to work on something. The camera slowly pans around to show that there’s a second pilot seat, back-to-back with Ren’s. It would allow for seamless switching between pilots without MG ever not having someone at the controls.

Even with the other Titans’ help, Godzilla and Kong are unable to stop MG from going through the tunnel and into the Hollow Earth. Monarch is unable to follow, because of the gravity issue. They’re both tired from the journey and their fight, especially Godzilla. This is their last chance. If Mechagodzilla reaches the power source, it’s all over.

The fight doesn’t go in their favor. They’re both bad at working together, so their attacks are uncoordinated at best, actively hindering each other at worst. Kong gets flung off a mountain and MG pins Godzilla. Even thought he caught himself, Kong isn’t going to make it up in time to help him.

Maddie puts on an identical pilot setup, and with Ren’s instructions, switches the link over to herself, freeing Ren. He collapses forward, immediately falling unconscious from the release of the strain. Fighting past the pain and overwhelming presence suddenly in her head, Maddie does what she does best: she causes Ghidorah problems.

She screams, and it echoes like a roar through his skull.

In the Hollow Earth, Mechagodzilla stumbles.

It’s the beginning of the end. She can’t control it or even really stop Ghidorah, but she gets in his way as much as possible, giving Godzilla and Kong the edge they need to finally get their act together and use some teamwork to take Mechagodzilla down. They destroy it and return to the surface before parting on amicable terms.

After too long, Mark arrives at Apex with a whole team of people. Ren Serizawa is found comatose but alive, and he’s quickly removed for medical attention. Though Maddie’s also alive, there’s something else clearly wrong. She’s still wired into the piloting gear, stiff and unseeing, as if she’s frozen. Her eyes are open but distant, pupils virtually gone from how constricted they are, and her jaw hangs open slightly. Despite how tense her body is, she’s limp. Nothing they do wakes her up, even after getting her out of the skull.

They wheel her out on a gurney to where a handful of Ospreys landed, but as they leave the building and step out onto the roof, they find Godzilla has returned. He watches them, and he’s exactly as aware as Mark remembers.

(“She tried to help you,” Mark calls out to him. No one knows exactly what happened in the Hollow Earth, during the fight, but the scene in Ghidorah’s skull was telling. “No, she—she did help you!” For the second time in her life, Maddie put herself in Ghidorah’s path and, ultimately, won. Only this time, her victory came with a price.)

Godzilla snorts before leaning over the roof’s railing, moving toward the gurney. The humans all back away, even Mark, though he doesn’t go far. Spines humming, eyes flaring blue, Godzilla rumbles deeply.

On the gurney, Maddie stirs.

Later, much later, after Maddie and Jia have met—heaven help everyone else, honestly—they sit together on the edge of a pier over the ocean, Jia leaning comfortably against Maddie. It’s quiet. They’re alone, watching the sunset. A heavy footfall behind them, the feel of the vibration trembling through the wood, makes them turn around. Half concealed in the brush at the edge of the island’s foliage, Kong stands, facing them.

They both wave before standing. They sign goodbye to each other, then part ways. As Maddie walks away to a waiting Osprey, we see behind her as Kong crouches to allow Jia to climb into his palm before vanishing into the forest.

The Osprey takes off over the calm ocean. It has a different design than most, with a large door set in the side instead of at the back, more like an ordinary helicopter. It’s open as they go, Maddie secure inside as she stares out. A smile spreads across her face as jagged spines slowly breach the ocean’s surface, easily keeping pace with the Osprey, which lowers to be closer to the water.

For just a moment, in the fading light, Maddie’s eyes almost shine blue. The screen goes black to the sound of Godzilla’s roar.

#GvK Spoilers #whoops this got long #long post #Star's Stories #kinda #Star's Thoughts about Stuff #life and times of star

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rachelbethhines · 4 years

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Tangled Salt Marathon - Rapunzel’s Return Part 1

We’ve finally made to season three and the entire reason why I made this review series. This season features some of the worst writing I have ever witnessed in a television program. And this season kicks off with the third worst episode of the whole series. Rapunzel’s Return is the iceberg that sinks this show and manages to assassinate everyone’s character.

Everyone’s.

Summary: Inside the House of Yesterday's Tomorrow (as seen off screen in "Rapunzeltopia"), Cassandra is greeted by the Enchanted Girl, a spirit who reveals that Cassandra is the biological daughter of the late Mother Gothel, who abandoned her on the night she kidnapped infant Rapunzel. Enraged that Rapunzel has been (unknowingly) overshadowing her for the entirety of her life, and that she will always be unfairly overlooked, Cassandra snatches the Moonstone Opal, absorbs it, and declared Rapunzel's destiny as her own. She manages to escape from the group and cuts all ties with them, with Rapunzel unable to wrap her head around the entire situation. The group returns to Corona and find that it has been taken over by Varian, who has aligned himself with Andrew and the Separatists of Saporia to erase the King and Queen's memories and enslave Corona's citizens.

Plot Hole Number One: Why Would Cassandra Just Blindly Follow A Ghost While Trapped Inside a Haunted House?

Outside of that one snarky remark, Cassandra never stops to question the literal ghost who is bossing her around. The ghost she met in a creepy haunted house. A haunted house that she was already suspicious of before ever going in and that has tried to kill her and her friends many times now.

Cassandra, the most distrusting and cautious of of individuals in the show thus far, just suddenly decides to leave her brain behind from this point forward for no given reason whatsoever.

If you have to dumb down your main character and have them behave OOC in order to get your plot rolling along, then you haven’t a good plot.

Plot Hole Number Two: Cassandra Sees for Herself How Awful Gothel Was to Her Here, So Why Would She Obsess Over the Woman?

Forgetting for a moment that Cass very well knows that Gothel treated her best friend like shit and tried to murder her other friend, Eugene, as evidenced by Quest for Varian; Cassandra can see for herself right here that Gothel is a crap person who never treated her right.

I mean there’s denial, and then there’s flat out stupidity. Cass being hurt by the this reveal is one thing. Cass believing that Gothel really loved her and blaming everyone else for her death is totally another and not based in any kind of sensible logic.

Plot Hole Number Three: Why Would Gothel Even Have a Child to Begin With?

Look, I’ll accept that the flower can deage Gothel enough for her to get laid and bare a kid, but that only brings up the question of why she would keep said kid?

She kept Rapunzel cause she needed her powers in order to stay alive, but Cass? What reason would she want to have Cassandra around? A baby can’t do chores for you and it's a hell of a lot of work to raise one. Plus the show repeatedly tells us over and over again that Gothel doesn’t really love her or even likes having her daugther around so... yeah, what is the point of this? Why didn’t she just drop Cass off at an orphanage to begin with?

You can’t make this type of reveal and have it go against the what we fundamentally know about the characters without explaining why they would partake in such actions.

This is Manipulative Writing

But of course the real reason why this flashback and “twist” exists is just to manipulate the audience into feeling sorry for Cass. It’s not here to actually enhance the story, further the characters, nor answer any mysteries in any real way. That’s why it’s such a poor plot point.

It’s setting up the viewers to have a bias so that they’ll more readily forgive Cassandra for her irreprehensible actions later. In short, it’s the same bullshit that the writers pulled for Frederic back in season one. Only it makes even less narrative sense here because this ‘tragic backstory’ is so divorced from later events in the story.

It’s also flat out lazy because all it’s doing it slapping Rapunzel’s backstory onto Cass instead of letting Cassandra be her own character with her own battles and character development to have.

And before you say, “well that’s the point”, then let me tell you it’s a stupid point. One that makes zero sense for the character and is insulting to the audience’s intelligence.

Plot Hole Number Four: Why Didn’t Gothel Just Stay Hidden Till the Soldiers Left?

Hell, why did Gothel even come back here? We already established that she doesn’t really care about Cass and it’s a plot point that’ll only be further reiterated as the season goes on, so why? Why would Gothel behave like this? How does this help her in her goal? Gothel’s suppose to be smart remember?

Plot Hole Number Five: How Does Any of This Logically Help Zhan Tiri?

So Zhan Tiri is the blue ghost girl and while the series tries to keep it a secret reveal for later, it’s pretty obvious from the get go, so I’ll just be calling the character by her name.

Anyways, Zhan Tiri’s plan is to show Cassandra her past, in order to make Cass angry enough to steal the moonstone and fight Rapunzel, so that the two powers fighting each other will then release her from her interdimensional prison.

Now ignoring how literally none of that was set up nor previously established, and ignoring that Zhan Tiri’s disciples were trying previously to stop the sundrop and her friends from getting to the moonstone, thereby undermining their master’s plan; just how exactly is any of this suppose to work?

Why would showing Cassandra how her mother was a shitty person somehow make Cass angry at Rapunzel, angry enough to try and kill her even, and somehow keep her angry for months on end, in order to fulfill this clearly illogical action that holds no personal benefit to herself?

I don’t mind Cassandra becoming a villain; I just want it to make sense.

This does not make sense.

Not only does it require incredible leaps of logic and Cassandra acting out of character to work, it also depends far to much upon conquincidence and things playing out just in exactly the right way to benefit Zhan Tiri and her poorly laid out plan.

Would it not have made more sense for this “evil master manipulating worlock” to just, you know, lie?

Like shouldn’t she be trying to make Gothel look good? Shouldn’t she be trying to make it all seem like Frederic’s fault (which it mostly is anyways)? If you want Cass to attack Corona and turn against Rapunzel, then why not lie about their involvement or tell some half truth?

Or better yet why not make Gothel and actual complex figure for real?

Ugh... I got to move on from this point, but believe me, we will be back to this dumbfuckery in later episodes.

Plot Hole Number Six: You Can’t Just Ignore that Cap Exists and Is the One Who Raised Cassandra for Most of Her Life

Like I’m sure finding out that you mom was a piece of crap who abandon you hurts, but that doesn’t automatically erase the fact that Cass’s dad was there for her, raised her, and loved her for the majority of her life. I’m not saying that Cap is perfect, but he at least tried to do right by her (and is consequently the best parent in the show) and Cassandra is old enough to recognize that fact. Pretending otherwise is a disservice to everyone. It’s a disservice to the Captain, to Cassandra, to Rapunzel, to Gothel, and to the viewers watching along with this BS.

Trauma Doesn’t Make You Suddenly Stupid

Look, I’m not downplaying Cass’s trauma here. She is allowed to feel upset and yes trauma is painful and effects us all in different ways. Also yes, past trauma can carry on through into adulthood and still harm you.

However that’s not an excuse for hurting others. Cass’s trauma isn’t any less traumatic than any of the other characters’, but neither is it somehow more important than any of theirs. She doesn’t get a free past to step on people just because she was sad once.

Cassandra is, once again, old enough to know this and more importantly smart enough to realize that what happened in the past, if even true, has nothing to do with what she is currently dealing with right now.

Like why is she believing any of this? Why is she still listening to the suspicious ghost that she met in a magical house that’s tricked her and her friends numerous times before? Why would finding out her mom was shit make her turn that anger against her best friend? What does any of this have to do with her current struggles with trying to build up her career or staying friends with Raps?

Remembering past trauma does not make your brain shut off. Even having a mental breakdown or panic attack still does not render you completely senseless and anything done under extreme pressure like that is temporary. You don’t wind up acting bananas constantly for over a year.

As a woman who suffers from complex-PTSD and is an abuse survivor myself, Cassandra’s story is deeply offensive to me. Not the least of which because it actively dumps her down.

This Is the Point Where Cassandra’s Character Gets Assassinated

Like I said in the opening, everyone’s character gets assassinated in this story. Cassandra just happens to be the first to die and it’s right here with this line.

Not only is this line incredibly cringy and poorly worded, and I have to just feel sorry for the VA here cause there’s no way to make this much stupid sound good, but it’s also completely divorced from what’s going on.

Cassandra is suppose to be explaining to her friends why she’s stealing the moonstone and her answer is “I’m this dead bitch’s daughter”? Like oookaaay, and that has what to do with it exactly?

Did Gothel have any connection to the moonstone? Does stealing the moonstone somehow bring her back or fulfil her revenge? What does grabbing the moonstone actually gain Cass and what does that have to do with her dead abusive mom?

The reason why Cass doesn’t work as a villain because she has no goal nor reason for doing what she does. She just lurches from plot point to plot point with no idea of what she is doing nor why she is doing it.

But watch as the show keeps digging in its heels and keeps insisting that Cassandra’s connection to Gothel is totally a sympathetic motive even as it makes less and less sense every damn time it's brought up.

What Does Destiny Even Fucking Mean Any More???

What Destiny?!

There is no damn destiny. There is no prophecy to fulfil, no world to save, no consequence for just having everyone sitting on their asses for two whole seasons. And even if there was a destiny to even steal; why would Cass even want it? What does actually she gain from any of this? And how does any of it connect back to Gothel?

This Should Have Been the Point of Resolution Not the Inciting Incident for Their Break Up

Look no idea is without merit. You can make the stupidest sounding idea engaging if you present it right.

This was not presented right.

If Cassandra being Gothel’s daughter was to hold any meaning to the story, then it needed to be what brought her and Raps back together again, not what broke them apart.

Rapunzel says it right here. Logically this should be common ground for the two of them. There’s no real reason for Cass to direct her anger at Rapunzel over this.

But this show doesn’t care about logic, reason, or treating it’s audience with intelligence. It’s just flashy bullshit “drama” that pretends to be deep but is really a shallow puddle once you stop to think about it for two seconds.

Let’s Talk About “Sisters”

Cass’s face just says it all doesn’t it?

The creator, Chris, wanted to make a story about two “sisters”, because he has two daughters and he thought that would be inspiring and speak to little girls everywhere.

It’s a nice sentiment. Shame he’s so utterly incompetent at it.

There was no build up to them being sisters. Instead all we got was a bunch of meaningless parallels and a very toxic friendship. Even with the Gothel reveal the connection to them being siblings is tenuous at best because there’s no biological relation and more importantly, they weren’t raised together.

Chris is basically trying to rip off the likes of Frozen or Guardians of the Galaxy here with Raps and Cass’s relationship but it doesn’t work when the two siblings in question didn’t actually grow up together. There’s no reason for Cassandra to project her anger at their abusive parent on to Raps because that parent wasn’t the one to actually raise her. And on top of that, said abuser is dead, and both her and Raps have separate guardians in their lives, so the jealousy angle doesn’t work either.

And to make it all the more confusing, Chris failed to inform his crew of this brilliant plot twist, so we now have two seasons of gay baiting put in by the storyboard artists hitting that Cass is in love with her “sister”, And because the hardcore Cazzpunzel stans are the only fanbase that hasn’t given Chris the boot, there’s still even more gay baiting to come.

Why are We Victim Blaming a Baby?

Seriously, Cass? You are twenty four and have a brain. Why are you blaming someone for being kidnapped as a baby? What kind of sense does this make?

Worse, there’s plenty of real shit Cass could get angry at Rapunzel over and this is what you go with show?

If anything Rapunzel should be the one who is pissed here. Cass got to escape and lead a normal life with a loving father all because she got kidnapped as baby. And now said bitch is trying to gaslight her while stealing the very thing she’s been risking her life to grab for a year now.

No You Haven’t Cass

Once again, you got to live a normal life with a loving Dad. You had plenty of chances to build relationships and further your career for 18 years while Rapunzel was trapped in a dang tower, and Rapunzel returning from said tower didn’t cut you off from anything. In fact Rapunzel being rescued from the tower actually presented more opportunities for you and you spent all of season one climbing up the ranks.

There’s Nothing In the Show to Back Up This Statement

Nothing is at stake. There’s no threat here other than Cassandra herself. Cassandra is dranger to the world here not the moonstone. If you wanted it to be the other way around then you should have kept the rocks active during season two.

So Why Didn’t We Go With the Original Set Up From Season Two?

As said before, there are real reasons that were set up during season two that could have motivated Cass.

Rapunzel is irresponsible and can’t be trusted to save the world

Rapunzel is a shit friend and Cass is better off going her own way and leaving everyone high and dry.

Cass’s hand was injured by Raps and the moonstone might be able to heal it

Cass sees the injustice in the class system and wants to fight back against the royals in order to help everyone, not just herself.

Cass might believe she’s stopping Zhan Tiri and not realize she’s being manipulated by her instead

Or is playing along with Zhan Tiri under the idea that she can stall for time figure out how to stop her.

Cass wants to play her and use the power of the rocks to save people only for it to go wrong later.

Possession (which was the original idea in the concept stage)

Like I said, there were plenty of ways to make this work. In fact some are so dang obvious that you’ll hear Cass fans try to claim that a few of those are what her real motivation was despite the the show clearly going against them later. The “fighting against the class system” is a real popular one despite the fact that Cass herself attacks a bunch of poor people repeatedly and doesn’t seem concerned about anyone but herself.

But I digress.

The real reason why we have this bullshit is cause Chris doesn’t want to hold his favs accountable. Rapunzel’s flaws can’t be called out in any meaningful way and Cass gets a convenient scapegoat in Zhan Tiri.

In short both Cassandra and Rapunzel have their agency stolen away from them by the narrative, while still trying to pretend that they’re “strong independent women”. Even though those two things aren’t compatible at all.

What Exactly Have You Been Denied Cass?

Remember Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs?

Lance, Eugene, and Lady Caine were all denied physiological and safety needs while growing up in an orphanage and then later on the streets as a thieves.

Rapunzel was denied psychological needs while being raised by her abuser.

Varian was denied everything on that dang list.

Cassandra tho?

Trauma or no trauma, Cass was still raised in a safe and loving environment for the majority of her life. She, at best, has been denied “self-fulfillment” needs and even then that’s a stretch cause throughout season one we see her time and time again gaining what it was she wanted.

Cassandra isn’t anything special. She’s not suffered any more than anybody else in the show and in fact has lived a pretty cushy life when all is said and done, especially when compared to other characters in the show.

The worst that she has to complain about is working a crappy job for a little while and having a shit mom that she can barely remember. Boo Fucking Hoo.

Note How Easy It Is For Cass to Control the Rocks Here

The show can’t even keep Cassandra’s powers consistent. Like everything else about the character, Cass’s powers come and go as is convenient for the narrative with little explanation as to why.

This Song Doesn’t Work Because It was Cut In Half Due to Time

I’ve talked about the problems with this song before in my songs from TTS ranking list. It’s choppy and consistent. Yet it only feels that way because it was cut down. It’s missing a full other verse, second chorus, and a bridge.

Which is inexcusable because there’s so much dang filler in this show!

We could have had time for the full song if they had just cut one of the non-essential episodes and made all of this a full episode on it’s own. Just save the Corona and Varian stuff for later if need be.

The management of this show is just atrocious.

Why Wasn’t This the Cliffhanger for Season Two?

Speaking of making all of the Cassandra stuff it’s own episode... Everything we just seen should have been in season two.

It’s more connected to what happened last season, it flows better, it would have had more time to breathe, and it would have given us more time in the Dark Kingdom. Given as that this is what season two was building up too, it would have been more satisfying there.

And if the writers still wanted a cliffhanger to end the season in order to draw crowds then this right here was it.

So We We Spent A Whole Season Getting Here and We’re Just Going to Leave Now?

The Dark Kingdom is Wasted!!!!

And because the Dark Kingdom is a bust, the entirety of season two now feels even more pointless.

Chris said he cut the Dark Kingdom stuff because it didn’t interest him.

Chris is a fucking fool.

Ignoring that different people will gravitate towards different things and you need to keep that in mind when writing for mass audiences; you don’t spend valuable time setting things up just to drop them later.

If you didn’t like that particular plot thread then you needed to just not bring it up to begin with. Once you’ve put it in there you need to commit to it.

Behold the Only Thing Useful Shorty Does This Whole Season

There is less Shorty overall this season which is ultimately a good thing, but it does highlight what a stupid decision it was to bring him along to begin with.

I mean did we really drag him around for a whole season just for this? Couldn’t some other Pub Thung or townsperson have found them? One that could talk.

Adria Gets Put on a Bus

Adria doesn’t get assassinated like some of the other characters, but she does get unceremoniously shoved off without any real closure. The character will return later in the season, but brainwashed and without any lines. Which is doubly insulting to the VA who voices her.

And Here Is Where Lance Gets Assassinated

Lance is drastically dumbed down in season three. Even more so than in past seasons. You could call it flanderization specifically, more so than assassination, but the effect is the same. Lance’s character is effectively dead from this point onwards.

Also this should have ended the Lance & Adria ship in the show for good. She flat out rejects him here, but nope.

Eugene is the Only Person Acting Like a Real Human Being This Episode Thus Far

Edmund spent his whole life protecting the moonstone. He lost everything to it. He was convinced that letting Rapunzel take it would be best only for her to lose it right afterwards. And what does he do? Immediately become the “comedicly bad dad” in show oversaturated with both comedic foils and poor father figures.

Meanwhile Eugene is the only one properly responding to what is going on. Don't expect that to last.

I Thought You Left Cass?

Remember that foreshadowing with Quirin way back in the pilot?

This is just that, but dumber.

There’s no reason for Cass to hang around out of sight only to stare menacingly at Rapunzel and company as they leave. It’s just a lazy hook to get viewers to believe that there might be more going on with Cass then what we’ve been told. There’s not.

So This Map Proves That the Dark Kingdom Is North East of Corona

Continuity and worldbuilding in this show is utterly garbage, so I’ll latch on to any little scrape of info that we get.

According to the map shown here, the balloon is heading Southwest back to Corona. That means the Dark Kingdom is Northeast.

So if Corona is somewhere in Northern mainland Europe that means the Dark Kingdom is either in a Nordic country (Norway,Sweden,Finland, ect) or Russia.

Meta Jokes About Being a Bad Writer Doesn’t Excuse Bad Writing

Get use to this. Season three is full of meansprited meta jokes that try to defend against the quite frankly valid criticism that the show has received. Or more specifically the criticism Chris had received.

Most of season three was written during the hiatus of season two back when Chris was seeing backlash from the fans due to his PR fiasco and that’s not even taking into account the crew walkout after season one.

Not only is that too late to be writing your final season, but it’s also reflective of how Chris can’t handle critique with grace nor listen to other ideas as jokes like this are in poor taste.

Everyone Acts Shocked Here but Honestly this Fits King Frederic’s MMO

This is the same guy who prosecuted poor people for eighteen years with his crack down on crime, and thrented the life an orphaned teen. Is anybody really surprised by this?

I Thought Your Real Name was Hubert?

I guess he just prefers the name Andrew. I don’t know. But what do know is that “the devil is in the details” is a thing my animation teacher in college use to say repeatedly, and no one working on this show seems capable of remembering or keeping up with details.

Why Are There Only Five Saporains?

Saporia was set up as an entire race of people who’d been displaced from their homeland for generations. They’ve been living as nomads for centuries according to season two. Why are there only five of them in this episode?

How did they overthrow a kingdom with only five people? How do they maintain hold of it with only five? How do they expect to further their bloodline and culture with only only five of them?

Why did we waste money on a bunch of one off villians that we sent packing in season two and not built more Saporian models instead?

Like you could have had the core five here, as like leaders, and then imply that there are more of them with background citizens and guards ect.

NO!!!

WE DO NOT IMPLY THAT A 15 YEAR OLD BOY WAS LOCKED IN A JAIL CELL WITH A GROWN MAN FOR NEARLY A YEAR!!!!!

I.... What?!

Who the fuck thought this was a good idea to put in a children’s show?

Did no one behind the scenes stop to think, “Hun, maybe we shouldn’t suggest that a teenager was trapped inside a small enclosed space with no way out twenty for hours a day with an adult who attempted to murder his girlfriend when lying to her stopped working. Perhaps someone might get the wrong impression.”?

Like I hate censors as much as the next person, but editors work in the business for a reason, and that reason is to pull the artists aside sometimes and go “Hey, that shit don't fly with normal folk.”

What’s worse is I don’t think the writers were even trying to be shocking and edgy here. I just think they were careless. They needed a quick exposition dumb to explain how Varian and Andrew know each other, and didn’t think through the implications of that line nor considered how Varian’s age changes the context of his situation.

Which is beyond inexcusable because it’s so damn lazy!

You wouldn’t need rushed exposition had you actually took the time to set up this plot point back in season two. Heck, you wouldn’t have needed to even set this plot point up had you not cut Varian’s original story out at the last minute. Finally, you should care enough about your characters to at least take their age into consideration when writing their development.

There’s also the fact that it makes most of the ‘heroes’ look like assholes.

We’ve seen these dungeons several times throughout the show. We know of their poor conditions. There’s little light, the food is slop, there’s no way to stay clean or use the restroom, prisons are never let out for exercise, ect. Like these are medieval style dungeons that are considered inhumane my modern audiences.

Just because the show tries to play off the horribleness of it for laughs doesn’t mean the audience is going to find it funny that they traumatized a fifthteen year old with it.... again!

Moreover Frederic had promised last time we saw him that he would give Varian help. He idea of ‘helping” Varian is supposedly to throw him into a nasty jail cell with a violent criminal? WTF? And there’s no indication that he tried anything to save Quirin either.

Not to mention that none of the mains act surprised by this revelation, nor comment about how awful Varian’s treatment is. As usual for them.

It’s just sicking and most of the atempts to explain away this line by the fans have been super pathetic.

“Frederic was giving him therapy while in jail” - there’s nothing to indicate therapy exists in this world and even if this were true it would be undermined by stupidly throwing him in a cell with Andrew.

“It’s not literal, Varian was in a separate cell” - once again there’s nothing to back this up and even if that were the case it’s not that much better because it’s still a dungeon cell with zero privacy and Varian would still be close enough to Andrew to talk to him thus invading his personal space to some degree or other.

“Well he tried to help but Varian wasn’t cooperative” - still not an excuse and there’s nothing on screen to back up this headcanon.

“It’s someone else’s fault.” - Who’s? Frederic is in charge of everything. The buck stops with him. If a guard did this without his knowledge then that means Frederic neglected his duties and his promise anyways.

“Well maybe it’s true, but Varian did a bad thing and teens who do really bad things get sent to prison in the real world too” - Not an argument. Teens aren’t typically jailed with adults and the conditions for modern jails are at least somewhat better than those in Corona. Plus kids being sent to jail in any form is major topic of controversy in today's time. I’ve already covered why trying teens as adults is a vile abuse of power in the real world; I shouldn’t have to mention that the current government throwing children in cages is a bad thing as well!

“Well that’s just part of the time period” - Doesn’t make it right, and sadly it’s not something in the distant past either. It’s currently happening right now in the US. It was happening when this episode and season was being written. The writers unthinkingly threw in a very real thing that affects hundreds of thousands of children and didn’t bother to follow up on it or comment about how wrong it is.

There’s just no excuse for the way Frederic and Rapunzel treat Varian in this show. There’s just not, and some of y’all really need to stop trying to do so cause it means you’re inadvertently condoning real life abuses of power.

You can like a character and except that they’ve done wrong. That’s a thing that you can do, you know.

Let’s Talk about Character Design

For the most part the art direction in the show is top notch. It really is the best looking animated show on tv today, and the character design is usually of this same quality. But they really dropped the ball with Varian’s design here.

The structural bones of it isn’t bad. Taken on it’s own it would be fine, but good character design is supposed to give context and enhance the story and this doesn’t do that.

We’ve haven’t seen Varian in a year, but instead of visually showcasing the passage of time by having him physically age we just get season one’s design but in bargain bin hot topic clothes and a drawn on barcode.

Even the color palette is wrong.

Varian’s is suppose to feature blues and earthy browns to go with his eyes and hair but instead we get bright reds, neon chimballs, and sharp contrasts with blacks and whites that just clashes with his base colors.

And what does any of this tell the audience? How does it add to the story? What can we glean from his new design about what transpired in the last year?

Nothing.

At best it just reinforces that villian Varian is a try hard edge lord, but we already knew that. We would have known it even without the villain arc cause he’s a teenager. Not that he looks it. The boy is supposed to be either 16 or soon to be 16 and he still looks fucking 12.

What’s more they spent money on this. They made not one, but two new models with two new outfits, but they couldn’t be arsed just to make him a little taller? And no, he’s not actually any taller in season three. He was always Rapunzel’s height regardless of animation errors and squash and stretch techniques.

It’s a waste. Just like nearly everything in season three.

This Is Such a Cop-out

Speaking of things being a waste. Wiping Frederic’s and Arianna’s memories is taking the cowards way out. It’s them escaping any sort of meaningful consequence for their past actions and robs them of the chance to grow and develop as characters. All cause Chris didn’t want to deal with people pointing out the bullshit his self insert caused.

Well guess what, I’m still pointing out Frederic’s BS, only now I’m extra angry cause I was robbed of a genuine character arc, so fuck you!

Was Varian Actually Needed for This Plot?

No really. What does Varian even do here? The wand of oblivium is Saporian magic and they could and apparently did wipe the king’s and queen’s memories without Varian’s mindwipe concoction. That alone apparently gives them the power to run the kingdom.

All Varian does is give them some alchemy based weapons and a bomb he accidentally invents. Both are things that the Saporians could have made themselves given how they know apothecary according to Rapunzel Day One.

I’m currently in the middle of writing an AU fanfiction where Varian winds up in another world before the events of this episode, and let me tell you it is incredibly easy to write him out of the majority of season three without changing the plot much.

Given how Varian is meant to be a main character this season, that’s not a good thing.

So How Come None Of the “Heroes” Give a Shit?

Like I said above, none of the protagonists show the least bit of concern for what Varian is going through. Even though ignoring his needs is precisely what lead to this mess in the first place. It not only makes them look heartless, but it also makes them look plain stupid as well.

Why is it so hard to just even pretend to care about the fact he’s been orphaned? Half of them are orphans themselves for fucks sake!

Varian’s Not the One in Charge Here Rapunzel

I know Varian is the bigger threat and has more of a personal connection to Raps, but it’s pretty clear that Andrew is the mastermind behind this coup. What good does shouting at Varian do? What makes Rapunzel think that any of the Saporians would listen to him even if he did change his mind? What makes her think ordering Varian around after she helped ruin his life would get him to change his mind. Like, my gosh is Rapunzel dumb!

Why Are We Victim Blaming a Child Soldier?

That’s what he is at this point. He’s a weapons specialist for a rival kingdom fighting for control of the government. A government that has abused its own people leading to such an uprising.

A teenager may not be as blameless as a baby but it's still beyond callous and cruel to blame kids and young teens who join extremist groups in war torn lands out of desperation.

Is This Suppose to Be the Inciting Incident for Varian’s Redemption, Cause If So, That Makes No Sense

This look of regret is the only indication that Varian is questioning where he stands before his redemption in part two. Except there he points out that he’s been thinking about it for while now, even before Raps showed up. Only there’s nothing to suggest why Varian would suddenly change his view point and motives. So the audience is still in the dark about his thought process even with this “hint” and I use that word loosely.

Conclusion

So that’s the end of part one. I hope to have part two up before the week is out.

#tangled #anti-rapunzel #anti-cassandra #anti-tangled #varian #tangled the series #rapunzles tangled adventure

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rigginsstreet · 3 years

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Tell us how you'd write fp different from season one if u were in control 📝

ultimately id probably keep season one the same if we’re still keeping it r*verdale and not... parentdale lmao because then that becomes an entirely different show

but i do think he couldve been utilized a little more like we couldve done some things there.

first and foremost im making that bitch GAY and yes that is very important to his character but i dont need to tell you that. but the layers that would add bitch! the layers! oh but i also wouldve given him and hermione/the lodges a proper backstory because that shit was not explored okay like i made a post about it before how all these people went to school together and then hiram randomly calls fp up one day cuz he needs a plot of land cheapened by his presence ksjgbkjbg and then add on the whole thing with fp hermione and fred. bisexual love triangle i would like to see.

OH and i would like to see his relationship with the serpents explored more i need to see him actually being a leader and making deals and running shit PLUS how joaquin came to be his like.... second in command i mean i know he was being used to seduce kevin but i really need that backstory too lmfao i need to see that conversation and honestly i think fp pulled that from his own experiences like i can 100% see fp in his younger days having to flirt his way through some situations just to gain some knowledge about whatever. but ALSO!!!! if we had a parallel of fp seducing fred to get info for hiram and fp first agreeing to it cuz hes still pissed at fred but then shit gets complicated because obviously hes still in love with him and then fp starts feeling bad and then oh no fred finds out just when he was starting to maybe open himself up to the idea of being with fp again..... we truly couldve done so much. and then you have freds slutty ass being caught betwen his ex girlfriend and ex boyfriend while also being sad about his ex wife still. so much drama

its really not until season 2 that his character fucking derails. I WANTED TO SEE HIM ACTUALLY IN PRISON! HIM RUNNING THE YARD! PRISON FIGHTS! SEXY!

i would have liked an actual sobriety arc. he said he got sober in prison and was attending meetings and then poof. that ended immediately. and fine. we could keep that but like... at least show the struggle and the guilt over it ya know? also he did not struggle nearly enough for coming out of prison for DUMPING A DEAD TEENAGER IN A RIVER like that town truly shouldve been on his ass about that theres no WAY him working at pops wouldnt have caused a scene.

like my main problem with fp as a character is that he truly never suffers any consequences for anything but also hes written to have all these problems that are never dealt with or remotely explored. and for as much as i would love for that bitch to get some therapy i also realize its not entirely realistic for him as a character and thats fine! but i want to see him struggle i want to see him actually acknowledge he has demons to face and work at them in his own way and both fail and succeed.

ultimately what it all comes down to is he wasnt written as a person. which.... no one on this show is. they all just tick their little boxes of stereotypes and caricatures and its very annoying. if youre gonna give fp a drinking problem, show it! not just him passed out on the couch but him actually struggling. show him trying to get better and doing good for a while only to relapse, show how he actively has to make the choice every day not to drink. have him apologize to the people he hurt. let us see the actual damage it did to not just him but those around him.

give him relationships with other people that are fleshed out and actually matter. the fact that he never once checked in on fred after he was shot is INSANE to me. gladys was only ever used as throwaway lines that never went anywhere. he had an entire daughter he presumably never tried getting in contact with based on her reaction to see him again like....but yet he has her name tattooed over his heart? so either that was a hollow gesture to appease his own mind or he actually deeply loves her but was so ashamed of himself and what caused gladys to leave that he couldnt even pick up the phone to call them. SHOW ME THESE THINGS!

show us what the serpents meant to him as a kid who got thrown out by his father at 16 and found a family in them instead. show us why he wound up back there after fred fired him. show us why hes so bonded to them. hell, even if he just went back out of desperation because times were hard and no one else would hire him and he needed that easy money.... fucking explore that shit!

show us him forming these relationships with the younger gay serpents because hes got all this baggage from his own upbringing and he has a soft spot for kids like him and wants to protect them, even if it is through a drug running gang. show us that abuse fucks up your perception of love and how to do it but its all he knows so hes working with what hes got.

fp honestly works best as a tragic character. trying to do good but he can never quite make it. always drawn to shadier things because ultimately its what he knows and its where he feels safe. but he wants to be better at the same time! he just truly cannot help himself. and thats what needed to be explored more with him but not in a way that romanticized it. like he really is a fucked up person when you break him down and the fact we were all supposed to look at him as the hero or something is so bizarre to me and it never worked because we were expected to just forget everything he was.

hes not an evil guy either hes just deeply misguided because thats just the shit he grew up in and he doesnt know anything else. except for fred and what he saw with the andrews and that shouldve been an important relationship like they really couldve played on how opposite fred and fp are and used that to a narrative advantage, them being best friends. theres SO MUCH to be done with that but fuck me i guess.

idk i just always think about how fun fp wouldve been if they had just let him indulge in his devious ways like theres no way fp jones wouldve ever taken a cop job seriously and not used it to his own advantage. theres no way he wouldve been that bent out of shape about gladys running drugs when hes done SO MUCH worse. we shouldve gotten more scamming against hiram and him and hermione being in cahoots.

like hes a street rat. he will always be a street rat. he cannot shake this. fucking play with that! indulge in it! have fun! have him settle down with his husband but he still cant stop himself from living on the fringe of the law

#i went on a whole nonsensical tangent lmfao #it just pisses me off what fp couldve been!#fp jones #briana answers things

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swimmingtvshowghostwoman · 3 years

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I’m rewatching all the Spiderman movies and I just finished Tobys movies and I don’t understand how they made three movies with this man like he is sweet I have nothing against him as a person but I don’t think he is a good actor I would even say he is a bad actor …every time he showed any sort of a emotion it seems the same I can’t read this man to save my life also the plot of the third movie was such a mess there were too many things going on at onceand none of it made since

I like the first two movies plots especially the first but honestly Toby was just not good

I really like the goblin in the first movie and generally the first movie I thought it was really good other than the acting obviously but the movie itself felt very well written and also very well directed I did think the entire portraying of MJ in those movies wasn’t the best but I guess it’s from the early 2000 so I didn’t have that high expectations from it in that part anyways and there was a lot of screaming I had to turn it down so many times in the screamings parts since it was WAY too much but overall I think it was a good movie and the one I liked the most from this 3

I thought the second one was pretty good but I do think they should’ve giving the doc ock more backstory or like more reasons to become evil and not just the machine controlled him or whatever that was because it feels like kind of a weak villain but also a really good one at the same time I don’t think that makes sense but whatever I thought he could’ve been a better villain the rest of the plots of the movie felt weird like they needed to focus more on Harry and less on Mary Jane in my opinion.but still a good movie

The third one was a mess. There were too many things going on ..with venom both Eddie and Peter and there was sandman and Harry and it all felt way too much for one movie and it just felt really long and I didn’t really enjoy watching it i literally just finished watching it and I cannot think of one good thing that happened in it that I enjoyed.like maybe I’m overreacting but still. It felt weird to bring back uncle Bens death and the way they ended the sandman story was also weird so yea…I didn’t like it

Like I watched his movies so long ago and all I could remember from them is that I preferred Andrews movies over his and I couldn’t remember why now I after re-watching them I understand why…

I will be happy to see him in the new Spiderman movie because it’s like nostalgic and all that and cool and awesome and with the villains and all that it just makes sense and it will be good but I just hope he’s better in it because I don’t think I’ve seen him in anything other than Spiderman at least not that I can remember so hopefully he became a better actor

Again this is nothing against him as a person I barely know anything about him but I just really didn’t enjoy his performance in these three movies

#spider man #I don’t think this is a hot take or anything but yea…#toby maguire #spiderman #I’m really looking forward to watching Andrews movies #and toms #andrew garfield #tom holland #movies #marvel #rewatching spiderman and writing stupid posts

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mama-germany · 4 years

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~i have been working on this for MONTHS~

this is a thus-far comprehensive bio of my edgy emo child Keira. I’m using her in a Cyberpunk Red campaign so this is her bio as relates to the campaign, so some modifications have been made. This is not her canon form, but it’s close. if you’re part of the Swordfish campaign, go away, bc backstory spoilers. And trigger warnings for, uhh, a lot.

Keira’s the oldest daughter of Joey Youngwood and his wife Olivia. Her sister Carly comes along two years later, and two years after that, her parents go through a nasty divorce. Because of Joey’s demanding career as a contract Samurai for Biotechnica, Olivia gets primary custody. Keira’s childhood, while not particularly eventful, is marked by a distant relationship with her mom. Keira is a daddy’s girl through and through, she takes after her father, she resembles her father, she cherishes her time with him. Meanwhile she and her mom have little in common, and her resemblance to her father doesn’t really help. Keira’s dad teaches her about guns and how to defend herself and plants the seed of a love for rock music. He buys her her first guitar.

Andrew comes into the picture when Keira’s about 14. Olivia’s new boyfriend, he started out mediocre enough, but didn’t take well to standing off against the rebellious, petulant, and disobedient teenager, especially compared to her agreeable mother and mild-mannered sister. Their arguments turned physical more than a few times and Keira’s mother rarely intervened, on the basis of ‘Keira needing discipline’. For the record, to the best of Keira’s knowledge, Andrew never raised a hand to Carly.

Memories of Keira’s teenage years include studying music, similarly emo (and short lasting) boyfriends, piercing her ears and face by herself or with the help of acquaintances, occasionally stealing cigarettes, hooking up with her boyfriends in shady places, and going to prom in a short quinceanera dress at the behest of her father.

The second Keira turned 18, she moves out of her mother’s home and starts getting tattoos. She moves into her father’s Biotechnica funded apartment. While her father is thrilled, he’s also a busy man and Keira can’t really be trusted to keep herself out of trouble. He asks Skyler to keep an eye on her and keep her from getting herself hurt. That’s how they meet. Keira resents this straight-edge man trying to ruin her fun, but at least he’s cute. Through him she meets the rest of his friends, all elite corporate Samurai and soldiers who’ve been raised most of their lives for this kind of work. Maddelyn takes a shine to her, fascinated by how different her relatively normal life is by comparison to hers. Her boyfriend Dean despises her - seeing Keira as a stupid, obnoxious brat just getting in the way - and the feeling is more than mutual. Alina is ambivalent to her presence. Luce dislikes her attitude and distrusts her, but eventually they come to friendly terms over some common interests. Maddelyn and Keira eventually become close, bonding over Keira exposing her to things normal young women tend to do. They paint their nails, go out to bars, and Maddelyn is always a willing audience whenever Keira wants to practice her guitar.

For a short period of time, Keira’s got a boyfriend, Hunter, whom she meets at a music club. They manage to last a few months, longer than any fling she had in high school, but they too eventually split. Keira was spending more and more time with Maddelyn and the rest of the squad and, of course, Skyler. She’s very good at getting a rise out of this generally very even-tempered man, but at least she’s entertaining. Turns out that when she’s sort of behaving herself, he doesn’t really mind her company. He eventually shows an interest in her guitar, he asks her to attempt to teach him, and while he doesn’t take to it easily, it’s not too long before what do you know, Keira’s got a crush. She secretly considers Bad Company ‘their song’.

So her life’s pretty good, for a year and a half or so. Out of an unsafe living situation and spending time with the people that matter to her, and a couple new friends. That doesn’t last. Her dad’s essentially a soldier, after all. One day he leaves for work, and he never comes back. None of his squad do. Night City’s dangerous. Something took them all out. But Biotechnica’s excuses are pretty thin. Not that it matters to Keira - at first. Her father’s dead. She sees his body sent to the ovens before her eyes. She doesn’t know what to do, where to go. She won’t go back to her mom. Skyler lets her know that she’s still welcome around them. He and Mad look after her at their headquarters for the next few days.

The next few months after are her worst. She’s erratic. She’s impulsive. She’s drinking and smoking more. When she’s not doing that, she’s attempting to navigate Biotechnica’s departments to find out exactly what happened, what could have taken out an experienced Samurai squad with so little a trace, but Biotechnica is opaque. Maddelyn shares some of Keira’s suspicions, Skyler doesn’t. The others mostly dismiss her as well.

Several months after her father’s death, in that stage where you begin to claim you’re doing better but you’re really not, Keira finds herself with an older boyfriend. A little too much older. More of a sugar daddy, really, someone who can buy her all the liquor and cigarettes she wants. She just wants alcohol and a distraction. He wants a little more from her. One night he plies her with alcohol - she doesn’t exactly make it difficult - and starts touching her and doesn’t really take ‘no’ for an answer. Keira manages to bloody his nose and fight him off, she steals the keys to his motorcycle and leaves on it. But she’s drunk, she’s shaken, her nerves are fried, she barely knows how to drive as it is, and she crashes head-on into a curb. She wakes up in a hospital bed with Maddelyn and Skyler relieved she’s alive but not exactly happy with her. She’s got lots of breaks and dislocations, but at least nothing needs to be removed. Skyler angrily resolves to never let her out of his sight again, and Keira resolves never to let this happen again. She gets wolvers, Wolverine-like retractable claws, implanted into her hand a few days later.

She stabilizes after that, sort of. Sobered up, she spends more time with Maddy and Skyler and the others, taking them up on their offer to have a place to go. She’s grown a lot more attached to Skyler. A lot. He’s barely let her out of his sight for months and she does not mind. Maddy notices. Oh she notices. The sisterly pestering begins. They go out drinking, Mad teases her about her crush on Skyler, maybe it’s a bit more than a crush, and she says Skyler likes her too. A lot. And Maddy’s right about everything, all the time, right? So the day comes when Mad decides she’s had enough of seeing them dance around each other and takes it upon herself to lock them in a room together. Keira takes the hint and makes her confession. She loves him. Skyler........... doesn’t really know what to make of that. He’s shocked. Kinda confused. On the spot. Doesn’t know how he feels or what to do. He tells her people say and think crazy things when they’re mourning. Don’t make big decisions about how you feel like this.

~so that hurts~

Keira takes a deep breath and takes it like a big girl and tells him to forget this conversation ever happened. Forget she told him anything. She will too. And she keeps it to herself, but he’s her best friend. She can’t lose him. She doesn’t have much left. So she won’t press things and make him uncomfortable and alienate him. She’ll back off. Because she loves him. She hates Maddy at the moment tho. So does Skyler. Neither of them talk to her for a little while.

At least things return to normalcy, more or less, after a few weeks of avoidance and non-eye contact. Keira actually spends more time than ever with Alina, because she cares the least about her company. They have so little to bond over, but it’s the most comfortable silence Keira can find around others. But life goes on. Mad and Skyler and Luce are still her friends. As life goes on, Keira’s mind begins to wander to her future. She can’t stay there forever. She isn’t a Samurai. She isn’t one of Night City’s best and brightest, wasn’t born into the elite. She can’t be one of them. Over the next few months, Keira starts pulling away from the group bit by bit. She uses the money her father willed her to move out of his Corpo apartment into a place of her own (it’s small and shit, don’t get excited). She starts heading back into the chromer nightclubs, starts meeting new people. She plays a couple of small gigs, the last of which she actually got paid a meager sum for. Talks of starting a band are swirling around her head. Her childhood dreams of becoming a Rockerboy begin to resurface.

till they don’t.

She’s out on the streets with the squad one night. She met up with them during a routine patrol. Hanging out with Maddy, trading insults with Dean, the usual. They get an impromptu call to deal with a disturbance in the direction of Biotechnica’s offices. No one’s very worried about it. But they’re in one of the city’s combat zones and Keira’s a civilian. She’s gotta go. The rest of the squad’s written her off as Skyler’s problem, so he gets to escort her out. The details are hazy, but when the groups part ways, they never come back.

In Cyberpunk RED In their absence, there’s an explosion and an as-of-yet unknown team picks off the rest of the squad. Maddy barely survives and Trauma Team manages to put back together what’s left of her, and she goes into hiding while she recovers. She eventually hears rumors that the story is, she and her friends were eliminated for selling off company secrets. Framed, of course. It’s unknown what exactly happens to Keira and Skyler.

In my story canon, that takes place 200 years in the future instead of 20, everyone’s on a spaceship, doing routine things, shooting the shit, and they get that disturbance call. Keira begins arguing with Dean about his treating her like a pet. Maddy knocks her out to make everyone’s lives easier, and Skyler leaves with her. She’s given an oxygen mask while she’s out cold to make the transition to the smaller ship easier. While Skyler’s bringing her back to base, he begins feeling faint and passes out. When Keira comes to, and sees Skyler unconscious, she knows something is deeply wrong, and manages to pilot them to a civilian hospital, not the base. Not on her life.

Skyler is sequestered and once he comes to, is told that the rest of his teammates are dead. There was an accident on the ship after he left. The reality is, time-release gas canisters were planted in the air ducts to dull their senses and knock them out, leaving them unable to defend themselves against another ship blowing them out of the sky.

It’s been a few days. Keira’s access to Skyler is restricted. And he’s not recovering. Maybe there’s something to the whole thing about dying of a broken heart, but Keira suspects he’s being poisoned instead. During visiting hours, she asks a hapless nurse to take him for a walk, like an invalid, and she’s allowed to. Once hidden in a back stairwell, she jams an adrenaline shot into his chest, sets the stairwell on fire with a can of hairspray and a lighter, and they escape as the fire alarms go off. She brings him back to her apartment and nurses him back to health as best she can, just weaning him off the poison.

In both stories, at least he’s still alive and he believes her now.

Back to Cyberpunk RED, after a few days Keira helps Skyler find a place to stay, close to her, and they start trying to pull it together and make a plan of action. All Skyler can think to do is Solo work, and despite his protests, Keira refuses to let him go it alone. That’s how they begin their lives alone together in Night City, just trying to stay alive and find out what their loved ones died for.

#keira #my ocs

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alarawriting · 4 years

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52 Project #29: The Last Boy (Inktober #11: Disgusting)

This is fanfic-adjacent; it’s an unauthorized sequel to Alice Sheldon (writing as James Tiptree Jr)’s story “The Screwfly Solution”. It is... less dark than that story, but if you’re familiar with it, that’s not saying much. (If you aren’t familiar, don’t worry, this story explains the backstory necessary.)

This is a horror story... or at the least, dark science fiction. (Nothing supernatural in this one.) I am not tagging any of the triggers inside because spoilers, which are destructive to a horror story, but I will include them at the end, which is below the cut. If you rapidly scroll through the story you can reach the trigger list without actually reading any of the story.

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Roy is very excited, running, practically skipping, ahead on the trail. “Uncle Matt! This is great! I can see the woods up ahead already!”

Matt forces a smile, because he’s very much afraid of how this expedition might end, but he has to try. He has to have hope. “Sure is. Ready to go hunting?”

“You bet!” Roy turns around and flashes Matt a big, heartwarming smile. His face is pocked with acne and he’s late to have lost his last baby tooth; it’s a gap on the upper left side of his face. He looks so young, so boyish. Which he is; he’s thirteen. Thirteen is still a kid. Matt’s sixty; thirteen’s practically a baby to him. They grow up so damn fast. “You think we’ll bag a deer?”

“We might. Or we might bag a goose. Or we might come home empty-handed. The point to hunting is to be quiet and patient, and let nature bring to you whatever it will.”

They hike up to the tree line. This is one of very, very few forest areas that’s still being tended and managed by people. The rocky hiking trail up to the tree line’s been kept clear of scrub; there are bushes and tall grasses on either side of the trail, but nothing on the wide stretch of packed dirt.

From here Matt can look down the side of the mountain, to the acres planted with corn and wheat, the women working in the rows, a couple of men stationed to sit by the road with their guns, watchful for whoever might come by. He knows them both. Good boys. He took Evan out on a hunting trip like this one, ten years ago, and they came home with a deer and a couple of rabbits. Jase was called Lisa back then, and didn’t need to go on a hunting trip like this. The tradition of the hunting trip when you’re thirteen isn’t for the girls, or the gay boys, or the trans kids. Most of them resent that, until they get to be old enough to understand why.

“This is the best,” Roy says. “Just me and you, Uncle Matt. How long has it been since we got to just spend time together, just two men?”

“I think you were 10. We went out to the river and went fishing, didn’t we?”

“Yeah. I didn’t catch anything,” Roy laughs. “You got a couple of fish, though, right?”

“Yeah,” Matt says, smiling as he remembers. “Had to throw ‘em back, though. They were too small.”

“Why don’t we do stuff like that more often, Uncle Matt? Just hang out, without all these stupid girls around?”

Matt sighs. “You have school and I’ve got work; crops don’t grow themselves and we don’t get security by going on vacation.”

“Yeah, but why do we have to even live here? Why don’t we go live somewhere where there’s just men?”

“That’s a little hard to find. There’s not a lot of men around,” Matt points out.

“Because the stupid girls wouldn’t go to them and have their kids,” Roy mutters.

That is a disturbingly misleading viewpoint on what happened, but Matt tries to let it go, for the moment. “Hey. We need to keep quiet now,” he says softly. “If there’s any deer, we don’t want to scare them.”

Roy nods, and the two of them walk quietly into the forest.

***

Roy was such a sweet little boy.

Matt remembers him bringing the pictures he drew to Matt and to his mother – who Matt, despite being called uncle, is not actually related to; Matt is uncle to all the boys he takes under his wing – and being so enthusiastic about showing it to them. He remembers one of the pictures, of himself and Roy holding hands. Another, of Roy holding hands with his mom. Roy hasn’t had anything positive to say to his mother in weeks; he’s been disobeying her, insulting her, calling her stupid and saying he doesn’t have to listen to her because she’s just a woman.

It’s biological. Roy wasn’t raised to even have the concept of men somehow being better than women at anything or for any reason. Most of the boys develop the attitude around puberty, the result of a disease that infected the entire world over a century ago. Many of them get over it. Many don’t. Matt never suffered it at all; it’s linked to heterosexual desire, and Matt knew he was gay ever since he was nine.

He remembers Roy running around with a toy airplane, declaring that when he was grown up he would help restore humanity’s control of the skies, working to bring back the airplanes. He remembers Roy making him lemonade when he was six, cooking him an egg when he was ten. Roy making a card for his mother’s birthday with a big heart on it. Roy asking him what stars were made of.

It’s going to be all right, he tells himself. Evan was a little ass to his mom and his sisters, and it all worked out for him. Lebron actually punched his mom when he was fourteen, and he came through it. Roy’s going to be fine.

All the boys mean so much to him, but Roy is special… maybe because he’s the most recent one. Matt hasn’t been working with the little boys so much, lately. There’s enough men in the settlement now that the younger men, with more energy, are taking up more of that role. When Matt himself was a child, there were almost no men – Uncle Harry was the only cis man he’d known. Of the boys he grew up with, only Andrew, Tyrone and Jose were still there by the time he was an adult, plus Deandre who was trans and joined them in their late teens. He’d dated all of them except Deandre, who was straight. Ended up eventually with Cole, three years younger than him. Cole had a heart attack six years ago, and after that Matt couldn’t bear to open himself up to any of the new little boys, not without the emotional support of an adult man to share his life with. Roy has been the last one to call him Uncle.

“Uncle!” Roy hisses. “Is that a deer? Over there?”

Matt looks where Roy is pointing. “It could be,” he whispers back. “Let’s see.”

They walk closer, carefully, trying to be quiet. But Roy steps on a branch he doesn’t see. It snaps, and the vague outline that might be a deer startles and runs, proving that yes, it is a deer. Roy pulls out his gun and fires, but misses, predictably.

“Oh, son of a bitch!” Roy swears.

“What have we said about language?” Matt asks mildly.

“Come on, Uncle Matt. I’m not a baby anymore,” Roy protests. “Besides, I said ‘shit’ when I stubbed my toe on a rock on the way up here.”

“Yes, but ‘shit’ is disgusting and everyone makes it. ‘Bitch’ is an insult specifically for women, and calling something a ‘son of a bitch’ when you want to swear at it is basically saying that it’s the fault of mothers if their sons are terrible.”

“Well, who else’s fault would it be? Stupid b – stupid women don’t know anything, but they act like they know everything.”

“I think that’s a little bit of an overgeneralization. I know you’re not getting along with your mother lately—”

“She just makes me so mad. She’s always telling me what to do! Like she knows everything!”

“She is your mother,” Matt says mildly. “And she’s twenty-five years older than you. That does tend to make people know more than you.”

“Yeah, but not her. She really doesn’t know anything. Sometimes I just wanna punch her.”

“That happens to a lot of boys at puberty, but they get over it. By the time you’re twenty-five, you’ll be amazed at how smart your mother has suddenly become.” He smiles at Roy.

Roy glowers. “I don’t think so. Girls are just disgusting. I just want to hang out with men, like you. You’re not a dumbass, Uncle Matt. All the girls are dumbasses, but the guys aren’t.”

“That’s the hormones talking. You’ll get over it.” Matt points at the ground. “Do you see that?”

“No, what?”

“Tracks. For the deer.” Matt crouches down and points them out to Roy. “We can see what direction it went in, now.”

“Oh, yeah! I can see it now!” Roy starts to run, but Matt holds him back by the shoulder.

“Roy. Slow. Patient. Quiet. The deer can run faster than you or me, but it burns more energy doing that. If we walk, we catch up with it, because it’s got to rest. But if it hears us, it’ll run again. So we walk, and we’re quiet.”

“Right. I get it, Uncle Matt.” Roy is much more quiet and careful about where he puts his feet after that.

***

When Roy was eight, Matt walked the fields with him and showed him how to sow corn. They went to the vegetable plots and planted carrots and lima beans. Roy was so proud the day they harvested his carrots, and he got to eat one. Matt took him fishing the first time, that same year.

The little boys are always so sweet, so bright, so full of promise. It hurts so much when they don’t fulfill it.

Please, God, let Roy be all right. Let him get past this. Of course he would. Matt has been training him, teaching him since he was small (but there were others, other boys Matt had loved like his own sons, who he’d trained and taught, and they weren’t around here anymore).

He should have been around more often in the last three years. Roy was heading for puberty and that scared Matt. Still does. He visits the boy often, but Roy is right – they haven’t done anything together, just the two of them, in a long time.

“You ever spend any time with any of the young men? Jase, or Evan, or Fred?”

“Yeah, sometimes. I hang out more with the guys closer to my age. You know any of them? Steve, Paolo, Rafael?”

“Sure, yeah, I know them.”

“Paolo has a dad,” Roy says enviously. “When I grow up I want to be a dad.”

“Well, you’re in luck, because humanity needs more men to be dads,” Matt says. “You can go live where they’re using your donation, if you really want to be a dad, and help to raise the kid you helped make, or you can stay here and help raise the boys as an uncle, and maybe go out and visit the places where they used your donations.”

“How come I can’t stay here and raise a boy here?”

“Genetic variation. If we let human men have sons with their sisters, we get inbreeding. All kinds of diseases. Sending your donations to the other compounds makes us strong and healthy as a species.”

“Did you ever donate, Uncle Matt?”

“Back in my day, if your balls worked you had to donate. We didn’t have enough men. You know old Gran Stacie, she had to donate too. She couldn’t take the hormones to look feminine until there was a safe compound for women to live in and plenty of donations so the human race could keep going.”

“She’s okay, I guess. But the other girls are really stupid and gross.”

Matt stops Roy there. “Hey. You keep saying that. It’s like you’ve forgotten everything we taught you about our history.”

“I remember history,” Roy protests.

“So tell me. Why do we live this way? Why do women live in secure compounds with only a few men? A hundred years ago the world was very different. Tell me how it was, and what changed.”

“Do I have to?”

“Yes. You do.” Matt sits on the ground, and gestures for Roy to sit across from him. “Come on. Tell Uncle Matt all about it.”

Roy rolls his eyes. “A hundred years ago men and women lived together but then there was a disease and it made the men sick and the sickness made them want to hurt women so they couldn’t live with women anymore, the end,” he says in a rapid sing-song.

“No. That shit doesn’t fly with me, kid, and you know it doesn’t. Tell it to me right.”

Roy sighs. “Okay, okay. So. Back then, women and men lived together all the time and every kid had a dad, and the men still took care of the women but there weren’t a lot of men trying to kill them, just one or two weird ones.”

Matt, being an adult, is aware of how far this is skewed off the truth of what life was like a century ago, but the boys are being raised with no awareness of historical misogyny. Nothing to give the disease any historical justification it can hook onto. They learn more details when they’re proven to be safe. “So far so good.”

“So back then, there was this thing we used to do to kill flies where we made the male flies wanna kill the female flies instead of mate with them.” This is also a distortion of the facts, but Matt lets it go as well. “Then suddenly, men were trying to kill women instead of having sex with them. But it was just the straight men who were affected and they had to have balls. Women weren’t affected even if they had balls, and gay men weren’t affected, and men who didn’t have balls weren’t affected, and men who didn’t want sex even though they had balls weren’t affected, but all the men who had balls and wanted to have sex with women wanted to kill the women. And a lot of the time, little girls or old women that no one wanted to have sex with, because they thought in their heads it was God telling them to kill women or something. They didn’t know the truth.”

“And what was the truth?”

“That it was aliens. They spread the virus around on Earth because they wanted humans to die, just like the flies, so they could take the Earth for themselves. But humans are more complicated than flies. So there were men who were affected too much, who killed little boys because little boys look like little girls, and there were men who weren’t affected as much, who’d killed their wives but they were trying to protect their little girls. And there were men who didn’t have sex with women even if they wanted to because they were trying to honor God or something, and those men could resist wanting to kill, because the wanting to kill thing was related to wanting sex. If they could resist one, sometimes they could resist the other. Plus, all the asexual men and the gay men and the trans men and other kinds of men without balls like castrated men, plus the trans women, who could fake being men so they could stay alive. And there were also a lot of women with guns, too.”

“So what happened?”

“Well, most of the women got killed, and the men who were doing the killing, they didn’t have any kids. But the women who survived, they went into compounds where all the women had guns and they would kill strange men who came near them. And a lot of the kinds of men who didn’t want to kill women would help women get to those compounds. They called them ‘allies.’ You’d have been one if you were alive in those days, Uncle Matt.” This is said proudly. Roy doesn’t realize how much Matt is still called on to be an ally, even today.

“I would have, yes. So how did we get where we are today?”

“A lot of the places were run by women who hated men even before they started killing women, called rads, and the rads were okay with women getting donations from ally men, but if they had boy babies they wanted to send the babies to live with the men or else throw them outside and kill them. And the moms didn’t want to do that and they thought it was stupid. So they made their own compounds and they let ally men live there. And if boys grew up and they didn’t want to kill women, then they were allowed to give donations and be dads. But if they did, then they couldn’t be dads and they couldn’t live there anymore.”

So much heartbreak, so much agony, skimmed over so neatly and briefly. Mothers pleading with their baby boys, grown to young men, not to do this, before the boy killed the mother… or the mother killed the boy, in self-defense. Entire compounds of women lost because some mother couldn’t bear to kill her son, so she locked him away instead… and he got out. Boys with the compulsion to kill sent to live with the femicidal men, only to be killed themselves, because there were no boys among the men anymore and the young boys were more feminine than anything the killer men had seen in years, by then. Or castrated, so that they would theoretically be safe to stay, except humans were complex and some of them retained the femicidal compulsion even in the absence of testicles, and the horror of boys everyone thought were safe suddenly murdering their sisters. Gay boys in love, their hearts shattered when their love interest proved to have enough interest in women that he became a killer.

They’re more careful now. Things like that don’t happen anymore.

“And the killer men thought that the aliens were like messengers from God or something, but the women and the ally men killed a lot of aliens. And when lots of aliens were dead, they realized that their plan to get Earth for themselves by making the humans die out from killing all the women wasn’t going to work, because humans are complicated. So we guess they changed their minds, because they left and no one has seen them since.”

“And that’s a good thing. We lost a lot of people when the aliens were willing to fight back in self-defense. If they’d had the stomach for it, they might have won, and humanity might have been wiped out. But, we assume, they weren’t willing to die to take our planet; they’d been trying to kill us off so they could have all the bounties of the Earth without doing any damage from removing us. If you try to settle in swampland and you try to kill all the mosquitoes, and instead the mosquitoes start killing you back, maybe you go find somewhere else to live.” Or maybe you come back, later, with a new plan… but humanity has collectively decided that, while it’s important to try to have contingencies for that possibility, it’s more important to rebuild humanity and reclaim what was lost. Matt worries about that, but it’s not something he can do anything about.

“You think they’re ever going to come back, Uncle Matt?”

Maybe. “No. We kicked their butts hard enough I’m pretty sure they’re gone forever. But they left us with this giant mess to clean up.” He sighs. “This stuff you’re feeling about how girls are stupid and irritating and you can’t stand being around them? That says, you’re in puberty and you’re going to grow up to be attracted to girls. Maybe guys too, but definitely girls. And the virus is waking up in you, trying to turn your desire for girls into hatred, but it doesn’t have to win. A lot of guys make it through this stage no problem, and never hurt anyone.”

“It doesn’t feel like a virus. It feels like they’re stupid and boring and gross and I hate them.”

“Of course it does. If it felt like a virus, the men a hundred years ago would have figured it out before they killed most of the women. It messes with your emotions, Roy. It takes feelings that are natural and normal, and twists them around. But if you understand that, then you don’t have to let it win.”

“Okay,” Roy said, and rocks backward, looking around him. “Can we go hunt for the deer now?”

“Sure, kid.” Matt gets to his feet. “We’re done here. You remember what they taught you about controlling your anger?”

“Yeah. Take deep breaths, take a step back from the situation, walk away if you hafta.”

“Right,” Matt says. “Let’s get a move on. That deer won’t shoot itself.”

***

They amble along through the woods. Another deer makes itself known, and Roy takes another shot, but misses. “Dammit! I was sure I had that shot!”

“I thought you did too,” Matt says. “But they move fast. You gotta be able to sneak up on them and shoot before they hear you coming.”

“Can you do that, Uncle Matt?”

“Used to. I’m older now; wouldn’t be surprised if the deer could hear the creak in my bones.” He grins.

And then they circle around a big rock, and there’s a girl.

She’s a teenager, about Roy’s age, maybe a little older. “Hi!” she says cheerfully. “I wasn’t expecting to run into anyone from around here! You’re from the compound down the mountain, right?”

Roy’s face twists into visible disgust, and he backs away. “That’s right,” Matt says calmly. “I’m Matt, and this is Roy.”

“My name’s Jennifer!” Jennifer has dark, wavy hair and tanned white-person skin. She’s wearing cutoff shorts, sneakers that have been patched many, many times – there are no companies that make goods from the old world like sneakers anymore – and a short-sleeved blue buttondown shirt that’s been tied up under her breasts to show her midriff, and opened in the front far enough to see her cleavage. When Matt was young, women were advised not to wear anything that could be arousing, because if they ran into a killer male, their life might depend on how much he was not turned on. By now, though, so many of the killer males are dead, and with women outnumbering men by three to one, the women and girls dress in whatever they want. It was never a good strategy for dealing with the killer males anyway; too many of them were willing to kill women dressed in nun robes, so it plainly had nothing to do with revealing clothes. There are numerous large lumps in her front pockets, which could be rocks, or animal bones, or any number of things.

Matt’s gay and far too old to see teenagers as anything other than young kids, but Roy is plainly very uncomfortable with Jennifer’s state of exposure. “What are you doing here?!” he half-shouts, angrily, at her.

“I’m from a compound on the other side of the mountain, and I hiked up here to try to collect mushrooms,” Jennifer says, her voice just a little bit too loud.

“Well, we’re hunting, so I’d like it if you could be a little quieter,” Matt says. “Don’t want to scare the deer.”

“Ooh! Hunting sounds fun! Can I join you?”

“No,” Roy says, loudly.

“Oh, come on!” Jennifer pouts. “I’ll be quiet!”

Matt takes in Roy’s trembling hands, the whiteness of his lips. Terror, or rage, or both. Roy’s expected to control himself no matter what the circumstances, but Matt… really doesn’t want to push him. Not now, when he’s so fragile. “Sorry, Jennifer, but Roy and I really came out for some uncle-nephew time. Maybe you can join us another time, but not now.”

Her eyebrows go up. “Huh,” she says. “Okay! I know a lot of guys like to go hunting with their dads or uncles when they’re thirteen. You’re thirteen, right?” This is directed to Roy.

“None of your business!” Roy snarls.

“Yeah, he’s thirteen,” Matt says tiredly. “Nice meeting you, Jennifer. Maybe we’ll meet again someday.”

“And maybe we won’t,” Roy mutters. He and Matt hike up the trail, away from Jennifer. “Good riddance.”

“I want you to think about this anger you’re feeling. It’s really out of proportion to the situation, isn’t it?”

Roy sighs. “Uncle Ma-att, I just wanna go hunting with you! I don’t wanna talk about my feelings!”

“Sure, but it’s safest for everyone if you do. What’re you supposed to do when you feel really angry?”

“I already took a step back from the situation! I told her to go away!”

“Didn’t hear any deep breaths,” Matt says.

Roy manages to deeply breathe sarcastically. It’s an impressive trick. Matt would never have thought it possible to breathe in a sarcastic way. Most of it’s with body language and facial expression, but there’s definitely a sarcastic note in the breath itself. “Now can we go find a deer?”

“Maybe we’d have better luck setting up a snare to trap rabbits.”

Roy’s whole body sags. “I wanted to bring home venison, Uncle Matt! Nobody cares if you bring home a rabbit!”

“All right,” Matt says mildly. “We’ll keep going.”

***

The forest is full of sound. Birds chirp and call. Squirrels and other animals rustle in the branches and bushes. Many of the sounds go silent as Matt and Roy approach, but not all. They come up into a clearing, someplace where someone, long ago, had a concrete pad. Most of it’s broken and destroyed, but there’s enough of it that even after a hundred years, the forest hasn’t completely taken it back.

And then there is the deer, quietly grazing on the other side of the clearing.

Matt whispers to Roy as he points it out. “Quiet, now.”

Roy nods. There’s a broken half-wall part of the way through the clearing, blocking the deer’s view of them if they go low. Matt and Roy crawl toward it. Once they’re behind it, Roy pokes his head up, very slightly, following Matt’s hand signals. He lifts his rifle. Quietly. The deer doesn’t stir.

Matt hears a tiny click. His eyes go wide and his blood runs cold.

Jennifer comes bounding into the clearing behind them. “Hi, guys! Didn’t think I’d run into—”

The deer leaps and runs off. Roy spins around, utter rage in his face, and screams, “You stupid bitch!”

“Roy, don’t—” Matt tries to grab Roy, tries to pull him down, throw off his aim, but it’s too late. The gun goes off, twice. Splotches of red explode on Jennifer’s chest, and she falls backward, twisting as she does so she lands on her front. Red oozes out from underneath her.

Roy drops the gun from fingers suddenly dead white and shaking. “I – I didn’t mean to – I was so angry--”

Wounds where the red had blossomed on Jennifer would be fatal; she’d bleed out almost immediately, and the quantity of red seeping out from under her body suggests that that’s what happened. It looks like a strike to the aorta, or the heart itself, maybe. Matt cannot stop himself. “No, no, no—”

“I’m sorry!” Roy screams. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to, I’m sorry—”

Matt gets hold of himself. “Roy. Roy, come here. Come here, son.” He means it as an endearment – Roy is neither his literal son, nor has he raised the boy as a father – but it’s real as well. Roy is like a son to him. All of them have been, and he loves Roy so much, and his heart is shattering.

Roy collapses in his arms, sobbing. Matt holds the boy tightly with one arm. “It’s not your fault, Roy, it’s not,” he tells the crying child, tears welling in his own eyes. “It’s the virus. I know you didn’t mean to. I know you’re a good boy.”

“I’m so sorry—I just got so mad, and the gun was in my hand—”

“I know,” Matt says, as the boy’s wet face presses against his shoulder. “I know. I love you so much, Roy, you know that?”

“I love you too, Uncle Matt,” Roy says into Matt’s shirt, still sobbing, and a sob escapes from Matt’s chest as well as he raises his pistol with the arm that isn’t holding his nephew, his child, his son, the little boy who trusts him and loves him, and as Roy cries against his chest and cannot see what he’s doing with his other hand, he lifts the pistol to Roy’s temple, awkwardly, being sure not to touch him with it, and fires.

The sobs stop. After a moment they start again, but they’re only Matt’s.

Jennifer gets up. “I’m sorry, Matt,” she says quietly.

“Get the fuck out of my face,” Matt snarls. “You provoked him! I told you to back off! I told you we weren’t having you join us!”

“I have to do my job,” Jennifer says wearily, and there is no longer any mistaking her for a teenager, despite the expertly applied makeup on her face. She’s short, she looks young, and with the right makeup none of the boys ever guess she’s not a teenage girl. There’s red all over her shorts, soaking her legs and belly, from where the bags of fake blood in her pockets burst, and splotches of red over her heart and her liver. The paint pellets look horrifically real; they even smell like blood.

No, wait, that’s probably Roy’s blood he’s smelling.

"Fuck your job.” Matt holds his little boy in his arms, with both arms now that he doesn’t need one free anymore. “You pushed him. If we’d just given him a little more time – a little more training—”

“And who might he have killed while you were giving him a little more time? His mom? One of the girls his age?”

“He wouldn’t have had a gun!—"

“He could have had a rock. Or a steak knife. Or a baseball bat. I’m so sorry, Matt, but—”

“If you say ‘that’s the law’ or ‘those are the rules’ to me, I will hit you,” Matt snaps. “Not because you’re a woman, but because you’re a piece of shit.”

She sighs. “I know you’re distraught. It’s horrible, having to do this—”

“You didn’t even know him!” Matt screams. “You didn’t watch him when he was little, you didn’t teach him to tie his shoes, you didn’t play airplane with him – you didn’t—”

“I had a son,” Jennifer says sharply. “Don’t tell me I don’t know how much it hurts, when we have to—I was 16 when I had my son. It was six years ago that – that he took his test, at thirteen, and he failed it.”

“There’ve been so many,” Matt whispers. So many little boys. Slightly less than half of them pass; that’s why the ratio of women to men is around 2:1. He was so, so relieved when Blake turned out to be a girl and took the name Cassandra, twelve years ago; the trans kids are immune to the violent impulses. He’d known that Cassandra wouldn’t have to face the test, that he’d never have to take her on a hunting trip she might never return from. So relieved when Joe, eight years ago, reported himself gay at eleven and then showed no sign of aggression toward his mother or sister or any girls his own age.

But all the others. All the others, he’d loved, and they’d loved him, and trusted him, and he took them up the mountain on a hunting trip… with a gun that could only shoot paint pellets and blanks, and the paint pellets only after the bait’s radio transmitter came into range and switched it on.

Roy would never have bagged a deer with that gun. But if he hadn’t shot Jennifer, if he’d controlled himself and proved he could overcome his femicidal impulses, Matt would have “discovered” that there was no ammo in it, and given Roy a different gun, and then they could have had a real deer hunt. Like Evan, ten years ago. Like Jamal, five years ago. Like LeBron… how long ago had LeBron even been?

He’d already decided he wouldn’t take on any new little boys, after Cole died. Roy was the last one, the last child to shepherd to adulthood, the last he had to test. “God,” he cries, holding the little boy he’s just killed in his arms. “Why couldn’t you have let me have the last one? Why didn’t you give him the strength to overcome it?” He rocks the body back and forth. “Why did you let any of this happen? Why do you make us have to kill our sons?”

“God’s got nothing to do with this,” Jennifer says softly. “This is evil. If God allowed such evil as this to exist, then She’s not worth worshipping, and if She can’t stop it, then there’s no point in blaming her. It was the aliens.”

The aliens his ancestors drove off planet, who he’ll never have a chance to fight, or get revenge on. There’s no one he can blame who’s here. He understands the system, he understands the necessity. Little boys who try to commit femicide once don’t have the control to stop themselves from doing it again, and if it’s not the bait with her paint bags in her shorts and the radio transmitter to make the gun fire paint pellets, it’ll be a girl or women who really dies because the boy will have a real weapon. They can’t let the femicides live among them, and they can’t send them away to live with the few bands of roving femicidal men that still exist… the only reason those still exist was that once upon a time, femicidal sons were turned out into the wilderness. Where they could grow up to be bandits who invaded compounds, stole the food, and murdered the women. The men, too, because the men would defend the compound, but the women they’d hunt and kill for fun.

He would never have wanted a future like that for Roy. But he didn’t want this, either.

“I’m… I’m going to go. I’ll radio the compound and let them know the results of the test.”

“You do that,” Matt says bitterly. He knows his anger isn’t fair. He knows his attempt to drive Jennifer off, put off the test at the last minute and get her to come back another day so Roy could maybe develop stronger self-control first, was wrong. He knows it could have resulted in Roy murdering someone he loves. Loved. But how much better is it that Matt had to murder someone he loves? Why do they need to kill the teen boys to protect the women? Oh, he knows why, he signed on for this job years ago because he knew why, he’s seen what happened when a boy grew into a killer and turned on the women he knew. But why has God or Fate or Allah or whatever the fuck is up there listening to human prayers allowed this? Why is this horrible thing something that they are forced to do?

After what seems like hours, crying and holding Roy’s body and whispering how sorry he is, he’s finally out of tears. He looks down at his pistol. Cole’s dead six years on now, and there’s no man in his bed waiting for him, back home. There’s no little boy he’s working with, and there will never be one again. Is there anyone to care if he lives or dies, now? What if he ate a bullet, right now, so he could stop seeing Roy and Jason and Manuel and little Matt, named for him and he still shot him in the head while the boy was bent over the bait’s body, and all the others, all the boys who loved and trusted him, and failed the test he brought them into? Was there any good reason not to?

…there were the boys who’d lived. Adults now, all of them, but they loved and respected him as their old uncle, and they still were willing to spend time with him, sometimes. There were the girls, who yelled “Mister Matt! Mister Matt!” when they saw him and crowded around him, showing off their accomplishments, and he’d never have to take any of them up the mountain. There are trans boys who just figured it out, and need an older man to mentor them and teach them how to be a man, and none of them will ever need to go up the mountain either. There are the gay boys who want to talk to him about boyfriends, and how to date a guy, and how sex works, and all the other things gay boys need to know.

He can still help the children. But he’s never going to take on a little boy as his nephew again.

After a few more moments, he picks up Roy’s rifle, which can’t fall into the wrong hands, and his own pistol, and slings them into the holsters he has for them, on his belt or on his back. Then he picks Roy up and cradles him. A fireman’s carry would be easier, especially with the long hike down the mountain, but he wants to give his boy’s body as much dignity as he can. He won’t sling Roy over his shoulder like a flour sack. He’ll carry the dead weight of the boy down the mountain, and then he’ll carry it for the rest of his life.

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triggers listed at bottom because they are spoilers

dashboard removes all the line spaces

so I have to put lines in

Triggers: Child death. Serious misogyny. A backstory from the original story that involves a worldwide near-complete femicide.

#52 project #inktober 2020 #alara's october 2020 prompt fics #horror #science fiction #spooky5 #more horrifying than spooky though

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path-of-my-childhood · 5 years

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Taylor Swift’s “Beautiful Ghosts” might be the best part of the Cats movie

Vox // By Aja Romano // November 20th 2019

“Beautiful Ghosts,” the song that Taylor Swift put words to for Tom Hooper’s upcoming Cats movie, has arrived - and guess what? Swift might be Cats creator and famed Broadway composer Andrew Lloyd Webber’s ideal lyricist.

Lloyd Webber is the man who brought the world Phantom of the Opera, Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita, and one of the most recorded songs in theatre history, “Memory” from Cats. He is notorious for writing musicals with beautiful music and weak lyrics. But “Beautiful Ghosts” makes a compelling argument that what every ALW musical needs is a shrewd lyricist who was once a teenage girl - and who, consequently, is not embarrassed to embrace the gushy romantic heart of his music. Here are five reasons “Beautiful Ghosts” is worth a second listen, or several.

1) It adds to our understanding of Victoria, the White Cat. “Beautiful Ghosts” isn’t a showy end-credits pop song; it’s a new song inserted into the plot of the show. It will follow “Memory” in the upcoming film. The cat who sings it, Victoria has a bigger role: Now, the entire story is framed through her point of view, and Victoria is a younger mirror of Grizabella.

In “Beautiful Ghosts,” Victoria echoes “Memory” and reflects on Grizabella’s tragic life, as well as her own. “Memory” keeps calling for “new life,” while through “Beautiful Ghosts,” Victoria transitions from “Memory’s” sadness to a joy that’s all her own - through the realization that she loves the life she has. Where “Memory” is fuzzy, with vague hints of former happiness, “Beautiful Ghosts” weaves a mini-narrative of Victoria’s life: cast onto the streets, apparently by cruel former owners, she distrusts other cats, but eventually befriends them and comes to love her life. With this one song, she goes from being opaque and silent to having depth, complexity, and a backstory that doesn’t involve her being a sex object.

2) It helps us understand “Memory.” Even though “Beautiful Ghosts” is sung by Victoria to Grizabella, it also gives us crucial insight into Grizabella’s life. When Victoria sings lines like, “Should I take chances when no one took chances on me?” she’s simultaneously referencing her own life and Grizabella’s: Grizabella at least knew a time when she was loved and admired, and had human companionship to look back on. Victoria has only known rejection.

Taylor Swift has clearly asked herself, “How can I bring more coherence to “Memory,” a weird-ass song about a cat who is also a sex worker who is also dying and friendless and stuck with her memories of having once been very hot?” The solution, which she provides in “Beautiful Ghosts,” is to give Grizabella slightly more of a past.

In a recent radio interview, Swift described her approach to creating the song - which involved contrasting Victoria’s life with Grizabella’s: ‘Memory’ is Grizabella singing about how she had all these beautiful, incredible moments in her past. She had these glittering occasions and she felt beautiful and she felt wanted and now she doesn’t feel that way anymore.’ This is fanfic on Swift’s part. While this glittering history can be implied, it’s not literally in the lyrics to “Memory,“ or anywhere else in Cats - the most concrete detail “Memory” offers is that Grizabella once enjoyed “days in the sun.” It’s a huge bonus to see Grizabella given a more concrete backstory that has nothing to do with her, uh, hanging out in brothels.

“Beautiful Ghosts” explains that Grizabella was “born into nothing” but now has memories of “dazzling rooms” and a time she was not just beautiful, but loved. In essence, Swift has not only crafted a satisfying character song for Victoria - she’s deepened Grizabella and “Memory” too.

3) It’s clearly a song that could be sung by a cat. This is hard! “Memory” couldn’t manage it and from the first line of “Beautiful Ghosts,” the song feels like one that could be sung by a cat - one who has wandered the streets, hearing the voices of its fellow cats in the dark. Victoria sings of the “wild ones” who “tame the fear” within her as she longs to “get let into” the rooms inhabited by the humans she once knew and yearned for love from. These are bittersweet lyrics, but more importantly, they’re lyrics that pretty clearly describe the life of a cat.

The extent to which Swift has thought about how cats feel becomes increasingly apparent when you realize that “Beautiful Ghosts” is a hymn to found family and the alley cat existence, the freedom of a life lived on the streets, and the beauty of, well, a gang of stray cats. (This may also sound like a metaphor for marginalized communities finding strength in each other after being turned out of their homes.)

4) It hints at what a new Andrew Lloyd Webber musical could be like with a smart lyricist who embraces his romanticism. The typical trade-off with Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals is that his lush, lofty melodic lines take priority over lyrics. The general wisdom among musical theater fans is that ALW was only truly great when he was composing with his earliest collaborator, the brilliant lyricist Tim Rice. The ALW/Rice shows (Jesus Christ Superstar, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Evita) are fantastic - witty, satirical, and incisive, ranging from complex political themes to rollicking whimsy and charming pastiche.

ALW’s later shows’ scores were often gorgeous, full of beautiful melodies. But the plots were often too soapy, and he bounced around between lyricists who frequently paired his music with asinine words. When ALW was working with someone equally as or more talented than he was, he managed to create popular, lasting shows, including Cats and Phantom of the Opera. But ALW didn’t always work with equals who could rein him in. And so he only kept getting more extravagant in his desire to combine deeply emotional musical motifs with schmoopy, overblown storylines. In other words, post-Rice, ALW has always been hampered by his own self-indulgence and the lack of a lyricist as good at writing lyrics as ALW is at writing music.

That’s why a Taylor Swift-ALW collaboration is genuinely exciting. In the annals of ALW collaborators, Swift may be the first lyricist with the range, experience, and stature to stand alongside Rice. But more importantly, she clearly loves Cats, loves the music, and loves actual cats. In that interview quoted above, for example, she discussed Victoria’s cat psychology at length. I cannot imagine any circumstances in which Tim Rice would say, as Swift did in that interview, “I got you. I know what that cat would say.”

And that may be what so many previous ALW musicals have lacked: the enthusiasm of a smart, savvy songwriter who’s also not afraid to unironically love and embrace her subject matter. Taylor Swift isn’t just a brilliant songwriter who credits the lyrics of Fall Out Boy’s Pete Wentz for teaching her to write music with sharp edges and blatant emotive power. She’s also a fangirl. And fangirls know how to deliver deep, smart character studies while amplifying the emotional core of the stories they love. That combination of shrewd songwriting and passion is what propels the final verse of “Beautiful Ghosts” into something truly great.

5) “Beautiful Ghosts” has a surprise twist ending. Taylor Swift learned a lot from brilliant country songwriters, and one of the common country song traits she likes to carry forward is the “twist.” That’s when the final stanza upends the original meaning of the song and shifts the refrain into something new, surprising, and even richer. Throughout “Beautiful Ghosts,” Victoria has emphasized the fact that Grizabella still has her memories: “at least you have beautiful ghosts,” she sings, and the ghosts are the memories of Grizabella’s life of being beautiful and adored.

By contrast, Victoria herself has always lived on the streets, eventually taken in by the stray cats she eventually began to see as family. Initially, she describes the strays as voices she can only hear in the dark, while she wanders the streets, “alone and haunted.” Later, they become “phantoms of night,” as they lure her into her new exciting life. Finally, when Victoria has her epiphany that she’s happy with her friends, and she loves her alleycat life, she shifts from singing enviously to Grizabella about the “beautiful ghosts” of her memories. Instead, she sings, “So I’ll dance with these beautiful ghosts.”

The ghosts at the end of the song are the cats! Victoria’s ghosts are flesh and blood, and also have you ever met a cat, cats are clearly ghosts, with their silent paws and their eerie glow-eyes, and their ability to vanish into thin air. (Holy shit, the ghosts are the cats!) Only Taylor Swift could turn a metaphor about lost memories into a literal description of cats that is also a metaphor for found families and friendship. Don’t argue with me, this is perfect.

#this was a very fun read - it is however shortened a bit so go read the linked original #thanks anon for sending me this =)#it helps to understand everything a bit better #taylor swift #article #beautiful ghosts #andrew lloyd webber #cats #about taylor #Vox #songwriting

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laurawritesandgames · 4 years

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I can’t draw, but I can do this

For @upperstories’s birthday. Yes, it’s a song-fic. Yes, it’s about CATS. Am I ashamed? Kinda sorta.

“Halfway through this movie, and I still don’t know what a Jellicle cat is,” Adam grumbled.

Barbara cuddled in closer to her husband. Adam had one arm around her shoulders and one arm around Beetlejuice’s shoulders. The Deetzes were at work and school, so it was just the three undead members of the Deetz-Maitland household watching the movie. “Just listen to the music, sweetie. The lyrics are based off of children’s poems. The words don’t matter.”

“Guys, do you wanna–” Beetlejuice began.

“We do not want to make love as the terrifying cat-humans from 2019′s CATS, Beetlejuice,” Barbara said.

Damnit, speaking for Adam again…. They’d talked about this in their latest couple’s counselling session with Delia. She mouthed ‘Sorry’ to her husband, who smiled and made a small, dismissive gesture with his hand. Barbara was completely right about Adam’s lack of interest in…furries? is that what the cat-people in this movie were?…but that didn’t mean she should speak for him as much as she did.

It was a bad habit she’d picked up since she and Adam started dating Beetlejuice. A little way to exert control now that their relationship had more chaos in it. Polyamory was new to the Maitlands; this was probably the first of many issues that would come up.

In a way, the adjustments they needed to make were a good thing. That meant she and Adam were changing and growing. And wasn’t growth the point of life? Or life after death, as the case may be.

Beetlejuice scowled at her, but only briefly; he’d barely taken his gaze off the TV screen since they’d started CATS. “Maybe I wasn’t gonna say ‘let’s bang as sexy cat-people.’” He paused. “Eh, even I didn’t believe that. You guys know me too well.”

“And we’d like to get to know you better,” Adam said. “When did you first get interested in CATS?”

He glared. “What?! I told you–everyone kept talking up how scary the movie was, so I wanted to see it! That’s all! And everyone was lying, by the way. I haven’t been scared once.”

“It’s more confusing than scary,” Adam said. “Why do some of the cats wear clothes? How does Rebel Wilson Cat take off her fur–”

“Jennyanydots,” Beetlejuice snapped. His eyes widened and he cleared his throat. “Or whatever.”

Barbara and Adam shared a look. To push or not to push? Sometimes an innocent question about the demon’s backstory meant hours of consoling him after triggering a memory of his mother. Barbara wasn’t sure she was up for that today, so she tried to keep things open-ended.

“Sorry if we’re making fun of something you like. I’m sure the stage show is lots of fun.” People in leotards and makeup had to be better than this. Jason Derulo Cat had been about to suck Victoria’s toes. Ugh!

“Never saw it,” Beetlejuice said. “But the old lady you bought this dump from loved the Webberverse. She played his CDs all the time. JC Superstar, Phantom, Evita, Starlight Express….” He sounded wistful until he caught himself. “Y'know, all that ‘80s schlock. Drove me batshit. If I’d had my powers, I could’ve made every musical she ever played turn into Satanic chanting or screams.” He grinned, teeth turning pointed and eyes gleaming green. “That woulda been fun.”

All Barbara could think of was the demon floating behind an old lady as she went about her day, cursing her out while secretly getting swept up in the music. Lloyd Webber’s songs were catchy as heck.

“All Andrew Lloyd Webber all the time must have been difficult,” Adam said. Her husband usually had good Beetle-senses, as Barbara called them, so she didn’t add anything, and the conversation died down, except when Beetlejuice complained about “how they no-homo’d Mr. Mistoffelees and Rum Tum Tugger.”

It was Jennifer Hudson singing “Memory” that set the demon off. He started sniffling, his entire body and suit turning dark blue. Barbara, who was also sniffling–Jennifer Hudson had made this entire movie worth it–reached across Adam and held Beetlejuice’s hand. Beetlejuice rested his head on Adam’s shoulder, while Adam gently stroked his blue hair.

“Tell Lydia about this, and I’ll send you back to the Netherworld when you least expect it,” Beetlejuice hissed gloopily, before blowing into his tie like it was a handkerchief. (Given the greenish stains on his tie, it seemed like he used his tie for that a lot.)

“Your secret is safe with us, beetle,” Adam said. They were still working on pet names.

Beetlejuice wiped at his eyes. “Ugh. Worst part is, I can never dump you guys now. You know too much about me. You can ruin my rep way too easy!”

He’d mentioned leaving them before in a jokey way, and they’d let him joke about it, knowing that was a way he coped with things. But now the pain behind the joke made her heart ache.

Touch me, it’s so easy to leave me, all alone with my memories of my days in the sun.

“We’d never do that,” she assured him. “Not that I want you to leave us, of course. But you should stay with us because you want to, not because of what might happen after.”

Beetlejuice looked surprised, some of the blue draining from him. “Babs, baby, I was just bullshitting. I’m…Jesus, you know.” He squirmed, colours roiling between blue and purple, before he finally muttered, “In it.”

Barbara understood his reluctance to say it. Being vulnerable enough to want the Maitlands was hard for Beetlejuice. They were a married couple who loved each other. They’d gotten along fine before him. He probably assumed they could probably get along fine without him. But Barbara was finding it harder and harder to imagine her and Adam’s future without Beetlejuice in it.

Adam gave a pleased hum and kissed Beetlejuice’s hair.

Barbara squeezed his hand. “I’m very glad to hear that, BJ. It’s good to hear that your ‘Love Never Dies.’”

The final hint of blue disappeared from Beetlejuice as he stared flatly at her. “Keep those bad puns up and it will.”

Adam flinched. “Oh, God, Dame Judi Dench Cat is staring at the camera. Why is she staring at the camera?!”

Barbara didn’t have any answers. All she could do was kiss her husband’s cheek.

#beetlejuice musical #beetlejuice #birthday gift #beetlelands #goldenrat

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comesassylostchild · 5 years

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Why Cass IS Worse than Varian and Also A Worse Villain

Alrighty let me just start by saying NONE OF THE BAD THINGS EITHER CHARACTERS DO IS EXCUSABLE OR OKAY Now with that out of the way I’m sick to death of people excusing Cass but still treating Varian like a horrible person So lets take a moment to actually analyze the differences between them Lets start with this The main excuse for Cass is that she is being manipulated by ghost girl. Remember that MANIPULATED she’s not being controlled she’s being manipulated. Cass has the power to not listen to ghost girl, actually think about what she’s doing and stop doing bad things but she chooses not to. All for the sake of getting power that she wants to satisfy her personal issue of wanting something Rapunzel doesn’t have. Rapunzel and Varian have given her multiple opportunities to back out of the villainous path she’s on and even work out the problem and she still chooses to keep going. All of this to make herself feel more important while she throws herself a jealous pity party. A tragic event that happened when you were 4 doesn’t justify her behavior especially when Rapunzel didn’t have any choice in the matter. As for her current life, I do understand that she is in a job she doesn’t like and wants to do more with her life. I also understand how it must feel to be the lady in waiting to Rapunzel and feeling like your dad kept something important from you. But I’m sorry to say, most people get stuck in jobs they don’t like and have something more they want out of life. That’s just the way life works out a lot of the time and you have to make the best out of it. She’s also an adult and can just leave to find her own path if she isn’t happy. She’s an adult she is capable of making her own decisions of not doing bad things and can choose to leave if she isn’t happy. And again she’s being manipulated not controlled so she has the ability to not listen to blue girl but chooses to do what she tells her to despite Rapunzel trying to solve the problem and work things out with her. I know it must be hard for her to be Rapunzel’s lady in waiting when others tell her she’s a servant and Rapunzel has some big destiny and Rapunzel can unintentionally say or do something to make her feel less important. But Rapunzel has at every opportunity done everything she can to show Cass that she values her as a person and friend. Cass is the one who refuses to talk things out even to solve a problem between her and Rapunzel so you can’t fault Rapunzel for not being able to read her mind and I know Rapunzel can slip up and say or do the wrong thing that hurts Cass unintentionally but Rapunzel is still learning how to interact with others and deal with the world. She’s only been a part of the world for around two years of course she won’t perfectly handle complex issues and emotions. Cass also is flat out rude to other people including Eugene and sometimes even Rapunzel and she gets upset when Rapunzel unintentionally makes her upset but Cass refuses to talk things out. Cass has not only gotten angry at her own father but even attacked him for not telling her Gothel was her mother but attacked him without even letting him explain himself. Cass makes an assumption that her own dad lied to her out of selfishness and attacked him even though he has only ever tried to be a good father to her and she attacks him without even a chance for him to explain himself. The problem with Cass is that she is hurting people when no one is trying to hurt her or even treat her like a villain. She attacks Rapunzel and even tries to kill her even though Rapunzel is trying to work out the issue with her not fight but Cass refuses to listen and fights anyway She attacks her dad even though he has only ever tried to be a good dad to her. The kingdom isn’t out to get her but she says ‘give me the scroll and I’ll leave Corona in peace’ meaning she would attack the kingdom if Rapunzel didn’t give her the scroll. Cass is being a villain to people even when no one is trying to hurt her. She’s deluding herself into thinking there’s a war when there isn’t. Yes I know that’s what blue girl is trying to trick her into thinking but one tragic backstory doesn’t excuse her for not being able to think logically like an adult 5 seconds and see that what she’s in the wrong. She has the power to choose but always makes the wrong choice. Cass is also upset about not getting a chance to shine but she was awarded for taking down Andrew, given a chance at a guard assignment and being trusted to lead the battle against Corona. She gets what she wants but its never enough for her Now Varian Let me start off by saying I know his actions are wrong and I know they were his own choice. But there is a big difference between Cass and Varian 1. Varian was in a really bad situation that he was trying to get out of just going about it the wrong way and was pushed to his breaking point while Cass is fighting a war that only exists in her head which I will always say I know is ghost girls manipulation but Cass has the power to choose and see what’s right and wrong and chooses wrong anyway 2. Varian had the kingdom against him before he did anything wrong while Cass is hurting people even though everyone wants to resolve the issue, she’s the only one making this into a bigger deal then it should be, she’s starting a war where there isn’t and refusing to resolve the issue. Once again I know that’s ghost girls manipulation but Cass is still capable of making choices and she’s given multiple opportunities to resolve the issue but refuses every time. Also Varian was very much a kid on his own and scared while Cass has people reaching out to her that she refuses to listen to. 3. Varian was fighting for the specific goal of saving his dad he just went about it the wrong way until he hit his breaking point and snapped while Cass is fighting for vague destiny that doesn’t belong to her but she says it does like a child and wants to hurt Rapunzel who has basically done nothing to her while Varian actually had a reason to be angry at Rapunzel who let him down in his time of need (it wasn’t her fault during the storm I know) and didn’t bother checking on him so he suffered a great loss alone. Cass gets angry at Rapunzel for saying wait when Rapunzel has no idea why that bothers her while Varian gets upset that Rapunzel said promise when Rapunzel would know exactly why that would bother him, because she broke an important promise to him. 4. Varian blaming Rapunzel is wrong no doubt about it and we know the amber is in part his own fault. Firstly though part of the reason Varian even touched the rocks when he was told not to is because Quirin wouldn’t be honest with him of why he should stay away from them while the situation was getting worse. While things were getting worse Quirin just expected Varian to take his word without being honest why he should listen to him. Varian still disobeyed him which was wrong but it was partly Quirin’s fault for not being honest. Varian not excepting his own fault in Quirin’s encasement and blaming Rapunzel is wrong. But Remember, as far as Varian knows his dad is dead, which means accepting its his fault would mean Varian accepting that he killed his father which is a terrifying thought for any kid. Its wrong that he blames Rapunzel but its the reaction of a scared kid terrified that he killed his dad. Cass simply targets all her anger at Rapunzel because she needs something to be angry at. Both Cass and Varian are kind of the same for blaming Rapunzel just because they need something to blame. But Varian at least has the reason of being a kid who is terrified of being the reason his dad is dead. Cass has 0 reason to blame Rapunzel other than she’s sad and needs someone to blame even though she’s an adult targeting her anger at someone because she needs someone to blame like a child. Cass and Varian do most of the same things so lets look at it side by side Choosing to take the sun/mooddrop Varian did it because he was in a desperate situation running out of options because knowing Varian he defiantly tried everything he could to free his father but nothing was working and the sundrop seemed to be his only hope of getting his dad back. Tricking Rapunzel was the only way of getting it other than force because the kingdom already hated him for attacking the princess when he didn’t. He even was driven out of his own home by the kings men trying to cover up information, There was no way he was going to get the flower other than tricking Rapunzel or force and he had to trick Rapunzel because he knew she likely wouldn’t let him have it either. And he has a point that it is just sitting there rotting and this is his only chance he has of saving his dad. Also we see later that Varian crushes it so the sundrop is gone and it doesn’t effect anything. The kingdom is against him when the flower being gone doesn’t effect anything and it does not belong to the king. He wanted it to save his dad but of course he wouldn’t get it other than tricking Rapunzel or force because the kingdom was against him for attacking Rapunzel which he didn’t. I will say Rapunzel begging him not to take the flower was his only chance out but he thought he had the solution to his problem and everything would be over while Rapunzel had no solution to offer and already let him down which makes it understandable why he didn’t back out when Rapunzel told him to stop. But that is the only time someone tries to actually reach out to him. Varian didn’t have everyone reaching out to him like Cass did which he desperately needed and would’ve taken while Cass just keeps turning down people reaching out to her. And before anyone says anything whether or not Varian unintentionally hurt Rapunzel a little in his panic it was clearly obvious that he was scared and begging for help so the kingdom being against him for attacking her wasn’t fair because it was only an assumption that he attacked her when he was clearly begging for help and scared. So Varian only chooses force to get the sundrop later because he has no other options and the entire kingdom is against him. I am in no way saying that makes what he does okay but Varian was not given any other options Cass stole the moonstone knowingly putting the fate of the entire world on the line for her own personal gain just because she’s jealous and wants her own destiny. She’s only thinking of herself not caring that she’s putting the world in jeopardy for her own personal satisfaction of destiny. At the very least even if what Varian was doing was wrong which it was it was to save someone’s life. Using the truth potion Both Cass and Varian used the truth potion to get information. However with that information Varian was only planning to steal the flower to save his dad, he was not planning to use that information to hurt anyone. Cass used the potion to get information she would use to hurt someone. Varian did drug the palace as a distraction. But he had done it by giving adults cookies so he used a trick and didn’t force anyone into take the potion and adults were dumb enough to fall for off colored cookies from a stranger in a bush. Varian didn’t force anyone into taking the potion, adults were just dumb enough to fall for off colored cookies from a stranger in a bush and Varian didn’t mean any harm to the palace by doing it or any harm with the information. Cass drugged an unconscious minor to get information with the plan of hurting someone. Cass drugged an unconscious minor which is giving him literally no choice in the matter. Drugging a conscious adult with an off colored cookie from a man in a bush at least means the adult had the chance to see the red flags and they weren’t forced into taking the potion. Varian literally had no choice in the matter because Cass drugged him while he was unconscious. She also put an entire bottle of potion in his mouth while he was unconscious which he could’ve choked on and used an entire bottle on one person. And let me just say Part of the reason people are disturbed by Cass drugging an unconscious minor is because of the real life uncomfortable territory. Drugging a kidnapped minor while they are unconscious to make them give into what the adult wants. That is very uncomfortable territory that I know the tts crew was in no way trying to allude to but it is uncomfortable that they wrote that in without thinking of the real life uncomfortable territory that the scene is unintentionally treading around making the scene a bit uncomfortable. Both Varian and Cass threatened people Rapunzel cares about to get to Rapunzel. Both are not okay. Varian at least has the reasoning of not only trying to get at Rapunzel but his kingdom failed to help him when he desperately needed help and the kingdom was against him even before he actually did anything wrong which made it why he grabbed Arianna and Cass who were innocent. Not only to get at Rapunzel but because the kingdom failed to help him and hated him before he actually did wrong. And no one ever reached out to him which is why he went as far as he did while everyone is constantly trying to reach out to Cass but she turns them down. Cass even decides to hurt Eugene similarly to Varian hurting Arianna and Cass but Eugene literally had nothing to do with the conflict so she is involving and hurting Eugene just to get at Rapunzel and no other reason. Varian was a desperate kid in a really bad situation who needed help and no one reached out to pushing him to him to make bad choices. Cass is a grown adult acting like a child wanting to hurt someone for selfish and petty reasons just to make herself feel better and and her excuse of being manipulated doesn’t work since she is being manipulated not controlled she has the ability to choose but chooses wrong every time because she’s too busy wallowing in her own self pity to listen or think clearly. Varian did what he did because of a really bad situation. Cass is doing what she’s doing because she’s wallowing in self pity and making a mountain out of a molehill.

#tangled the series #tangled #tts #rapunzel's tangled adventure #tts cassandra #tangled cassandra #cassandra #Varian

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