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snakeassassins · 4 years ago

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Rabbit Dad Theory: A Weapon to Surpass Dad for One

okay so. I know that the theory about local big bad of the series being the protagonist’s father , but I’m pretty sure the real reason that midoriya’s dad hasn’t shown up in the plot is because he’s a rabbit

no really

[ WARNING: LONG post under the cut ]

Part 1: Rabbit Motifs

To get this party started properly, let’s begin with a bunch of the rabbit symbolism regarding Midoriya himself.

The most notable of which being that his hero costume is literally him dressing up as a rabbit

His freckles are even stylized to look like little rabbit whiskers. fuckin naruto kinnie

It bleeds into his fighting style too

Two big innovations he has that aren’t based on previous users of one for all

are hopping from place to place

and his big, rabbit-like kicks.

(which would also go a ways to explain why the plot thought Midoriya having legs was a big deal)

A lot of this goes into his characterization as well. The most notable bit being how much the first chapter of bnha parallels the story of the moon rabbit.

(Sometimes referred to as the jade rabbit which. Green)

Anyway, the story goes that a rabbit, along with a bunch of other animals (it varies depending on region) decided to gather food for the full moon as an offering, believing that the best one will bring a reward from the gods.

All of the animals bring plentiful amounts of food, sans the rabbit, who brings only grass.

Eventually, a starving old man comes along.

The other animals have food to give him, but refuse to do so to meet their own ends.

The rabbit, sympathizing with the old man,throws itself into a fire he was kindling so that he can be fed.

The old man, touched by the rabbit’s actions, reveals himself to be a god and saves it.

In honor of the rabbits deeds, the god imprints his image on the moon, bestowing special gifts to him.

Along with this there are a number of other mild rabbity traits tho.

Such as his skittishness.

Not to mention his general resourcefulness.

The show regularly conflates Midoriya being himself with him looking and acting more and more like a rabbit. This isn’t too hard to understand from a Doylist perspective; Horikoshi blatantly just likes bunnies. (I mean just look at Miruko)

What’s interesting here is that we’ve never been given an in-universe explanation for why midoriya himself identifies this way. In a series that is otherwise really invested in dissecting the ideal versions of themselves that characters want to live up to, the show doesn’t provide any justification for a character motif Midoriya has that is almost as present as all might himself.

Judging from the title of this post, you can probably guess what my reasoning for this choice is.

**Part 2: Hisashi’s Quirk **

“But snake,” you may be asking yourself, “We already know what Hisashi Midoriya’s quirk is. He breathes fire.”

This is true. he probably does. Consider what we know in-universe, though.

Characters with heteromorphic quirks don’t have their physical attributes listed as a part of their quirks if they have a secondary characteristic.

Tokoyami is the most obvious example. He’s a bird person, but his quirk is dark shadow. The fact that he’s a bird man goes unmentioned because as far as anyone is concerned, the shadow monster is his power.

Characters like Spinner have their animal attributes listed as quirks, but that’s only because he can’t do anything a gecko wouldn’t. If he didn’t make his lizard powers his quirk he’d have nothing to put.

If Midoriya’s dad happened to be, say, a rabbit that could breathe fire, the fire quirk would be listed while the rabbit bit went unstated. In fact, in a roundabout way, the fire quirk makes rabbit dad even more plausible.

You see, most of the animal character designs in bnha are actually recycled from an old series horikoshi did called oumagadoki zoo. Mind you this isn’t a knock at horikoshi or anything. A lot of mangaka do this sort of thing. I’m mostly bringing it up because one of the main characters is a rabbit called Shiina

and one of the early gags in the series is him smoking a carrot like a cigar.

This would be very easy to translate to my hero academia’s setting if said character happened to breathe fire.

I should also say for those keeping score at home that I don’t necessarily think Hizashi is a Shiina expy specifically (tbh I kinda imagine him being more like a fluffy spike spiegel). At most I think it’s probably just some design motifs and some VERY loose plot points.

There is also the somewhat mild rebuttal of Midoriya never attempting to do anything rabbit-like while trying to see if he had a quirk, but I think that’s self explanatory. If Izuku was a rabbit he’d notice right away, so of course he didn’t bother checking.

**Part 3: Why He’s Absent **

Of course, another big question that might be on your mind is why he’s not present if that’s the simple truth of his identity. Why have him fail to show himself for what has now been 300 chapters?

I can think of two simple reasons:

1) It’s really funny

Just fuckin. The Mystique of it all. You can’t tell fans a character is going to show up eventually and fail to have them appear without piquing someone’s interest. It’s bound to make fans speculate, especially with the canon dabi twist hanging in the air. Years to imagine what his presence might entail if it was something big enough to be worth planning ahead for.

And then. Boom. Bunny.

Fucking. Hysterical.

2) The themes. Oh god the themes

You might have noticed by now but Horikoshi has a tendency of making like. The Shounen Jump equivalent to that rpg character you make as a joke that then has like. an undeniably tragic life when you’re actually forced to tackle with the implications of your own character building.

I would not be surprised if the Midoriyas ended up falling into that category.

So let’s get into that.

One of the big things that my hero academia attempts to tackle is the concept of normalcy.

Mostly how it’s kinda bullshit and, in many cases, outright harmful.

What makes this bit interesting within the context of Midoriya family is Izuku’s sort of. Artificial Plainness.

He is a character deliberately designed to look as normal as possible. The key word there is look. Basically anyone who’s been following the series long enough to be reading this post knows that the kid often struggles to keep his head down

which also makes it interesting that the only two scenes where Midoriya wears his rabbit cowl are scenes where he is actively questioning the status quo.

Methinks there is some symbolism here.

Which I guess brings us back to square one.

At the end of the day, the concept of Midoriya’s dad being a rabbit is funny because it’s so unexpected. Without him around, the Midoriyas look like a normal family.

But that’s also the kicker.

Without him around, the Midoriyas look like a normal family.

A lot of people are quick to call Izuku’s dad an absentee father, but technically speaking, we don’t quite know that yet. We’ve only been in a position where we don’t see him as the audience.

And, well, when your kid is being bullied for something as banal as being quirkless, you might not want to give society more ammunition to use against him.

It wouldn’t strike me as strange if he just avoided being seen in public with his son to keep him safe in his own way.

They say that the nail that sticks out gets hammered down the most. Under those circumstances, it’s not too hard to understand why the loosest nail might just feel safer wriggling out of the wood altogether.

#izuku midoriya #boku no hero academia #mha #bnha #bnha theory #my hero academia #bnha spoilers

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secret-engima · 4 years ago

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This. Has been a perfectly terrible day. Can I beg you for a ficbit or a snippet from one of your works, like Team Gremlin or Noctscar or something ? I just - they’re beautiful, and I just really, really need something beautiful right now.

SURE. I don’t have much in the way of snippets, but lemme see what I can find. I might have to throw in something from BNHA cause that’s the fandom the muses are chewing on this exact second.

...

Team Gremlin:

It had been … a very bad few weeks for Qrow all told. And that was saying something. Everything had seemed fine one day, business as usual. Tai was back from his requisite number of missions to keep his license and teaching at Signal again —which he genuinely seemed to enjoy for some reason—, his nieces were as adorable as ever, and Summer was sometimes talking his ear off about maybe taking a teaching position somewhere herself after running a few missions to keep her own license active —she’d been busier lately with the girls than running around kicking butt, but it wasn’t like Qrow blamed her for that—.

Then Leo was found dead in his office. Knifed in the neck, one round discharged from his weapon in the direction of the guest couch, blood pooling all over the chair and low table where the investigators said he’d been dragged from and laid on the floor in some kind of pose. No one unusual had been seen going in or out, there had been nothing on the office cameras —covered by a Semblance of some kind, it was decided, because of the fading, glass-like Aura shards on the floor—. The only warning had been the sound of Leo’s single shot before he died. Qrow had arrived as soon as he could to help investigate, since the primary suspect would … not be one the police even knew to look for. He had helped Dyna —poor woman had been wire tense with rage rather than her usual calm self, and it was no wonder—, search for clues the police would miss, then searched the secret tunnels for good measure.

They had found a Grimm inside one of the deeper antechambers, far too deep to have gotten there by accident, a strange, jellyfish like beast that had been surprisingly hard to kill for something that small. They’d never seen it’s like before, and the thought of it being under the school, where kids were, where Oz and his inner circle were supposed to hold sway-. He’d never seen the otter Faunus more furious as they stood amid the fading Dark dust, her lips twisted, brow wrinkled in a way that had made the black line and red dots of her old bandit tattoos look more pronounced.

They’d found no other signs that Salem knew how to get into the school tunnels, but they rechecked them all and trapped several of the ones leading outward as temporary security measures. With Dyna in place as the new —temporary on paper but soon to be permanent— Headmaster, Qrow had gathered up what evidence they could pry loose from their police contacts and gone back to Oz so they could try to sort this out.

Of course, Qrow’s first impulse was to blame Salem, but Oz had listened to the report of a jellyfish Grimm under the school and his expression had folded into something pained. Knowing. He must have known what kind of Grimm it was, but hadn’t elaborated yet, just told Dyna to investigate all of Leo’s documents, Scroll calls, and communications over the past year, and insisted he would not explain until there was either evidence or not for his theory, for fear of making them biased.

So, with Salem seemingly not the automatic culprit, they had started hunting for info. Summer had offered to come back and help, but Oz had told her to stay on her chosen mission instead.

The pen had been an unexpected complication.

...

Always I Dreamed verse

Summer ducked past her into the shower as Raven left it, pausing to stare at Raven’s tattoos for only a moment before chirping a quiet good morning and asking if she was okay after yesterday. Raven just grunted, because she was combat functional and frankly that was all that mattered. She had already pulled on her clothes from yesterday —all their possessions were in her inventory and she didn’t want questions on where it came from, she’d have to stuff it all in a duffel bag and hide it in the den to explain that away later— by the time Taiyang got up and Raven remembered the uniforms. Raven nudged open the bag while Qrow ducked out of their den and peered over her shoulder, “Everybody has to wear that stuff?” Qrow sneered as Raven pulled out the first button down shirt, “Hardly looks sturdy.”

“It’s just for the school grounds I think, we have our combat gear for training missions and stuff anyway.” Taiyang said as he pulled out a shirt of his own from a different bag. Raven took a moment to glance at his bare torso. He slept in pants but not a shirt apparently, which was stupid, but better than being entirely naked at night. He had a decent build, which she knew from watching him fight yesterday, and a truly appalling lack of scars. Her life had been saved by somebody who had probably never had a truly decent fight in his life before that day. Wonderful.

He also had tattoos, and Raven squinted at them for a moment because despite the differing size and placement, they all looked very much like the ones Raven and Qrow had gotten during a rare moment of total drunkenness at fifteen. He was missing the large asian dragon outline that wound up Raven’s own torso, but he had the blue crow perched as if about to take flight that Raven had, the running blue wolf who’s lower half dissolved into petals, and she thought she glimpsed a blue clockwork rabbit under his right arm. When he turned around briefly to put his back to them, she saw that most of his back had been taken up with the stylized outline of a raven in flight.

She shook her head and looked away. Whatever. Summer possessed a tattoo on her arm similar to the asian dragon winding up Qrow’s arm from elbow to shoulder. Some tattoos were just popular, and blue ink was easier to come by for fill-in tattoos than the black used for outlines.

Qrow must have remembered Taiyang’s words last night about Raven’s uniform being at the top, because he was already rooting down to the outfit right beneath hers —there was more fabric in the bag than that, but Raven wasn’t going to worry about why just yet—. He yanked out a shirt and jacket that looked his size, then blinked when something short and plaid tumbled out with it. Snatching it up, he unfolded it and made a face, “Is this a skirt? With my uniform?”

Summer poked her head out of the bathroom, a wash of steam following her —oh right, hot water showers were a thing, darn— while Taiyang looked from Qrow to the skirt and back. Qrow was busy staring at the skirt, so he missed the expression of pure glee that flickered over the other teen’s face before he casually said, “What, that? It’s a kilt, man. Old Vale tradition.” Raven blinked very slowly, because that was a surprisingly good lie even though she knew it was nonsense —her memory on early canon was fuzzy, but she would have remembered the male characters running around in skirts—. She debated calling him on it for a moment, but she was from outside the kingdoms like Qrow, so technically she had no way to know that Taiyang was lying.

Besides, if Taiyang wanted to poke the bear that was her brother’s temper, better he do it now and get it over with than later when they were training.

Qrow was still making annoyed noises under his breath as he examined the “kilt”, and a glance at Summer slipping out of the shower in a towel showed she was fighting down laughter. Silver eyes met Raven’s with hopeful amusement and Raven looked away. She was still angry that the Story had forced itself into place in her life. With a shake of her head, Raven finished yanking out her uniform —one of? There was so much fabric in there, did the school really waste money making multiple outfits for each student?— and started pulling off her old clothes to put it on. Taiyang made a noise like someone had knifed him just as she dropped her shirt to the floor and she looked up in alarm. Taiyang had whipped around to put his back to her, and she could see the flush of color crawling up his neck and the backs of his ears. He didn’t look hurt or anything, but when Summer wandered in and dropped her towel onto her bed to put on her uniform —huh, she had the same tattoos as Raven, Qrow, and Taiyang, just with the perched crow as a large outline that went down to her mid back and a large blue raven in flight over her abdomen that looked like the smaller one on Qrow’s back—, Taiyang made the dying noise again, snatched up his bag of clothes, and rushed for the bathroom.

Raven had the feeling she should understand what that was about, but she didn’t get it, and when she risked a glance at Summer, the other girl actually looked just as baffled. So maybe it wasn’t some social thing she’d forgotten. Maybe it was just a thing with him specifically.

...

Feather-Light and Fire-Bright verse (BNHA)

Which was why, the next time she spotted a little red feather slinking over to place a trio of shiny buttons on the park bench she liked best, she hastily caught it with one hand. It was very soft, wiggling slightly in her grip, twitching and fluttering almost like a frightened living thing, so much so she shushed it gently on instinct, “It’s okay, I won’t damage you.” Taking out the note she’d spent days agonizing over, she skewered it to the quill of the feather, “I need you to take a message to whoever controls you.” She let it go and the feather wiggled erratically in the air, like a cat trying to wiggle free of an unfamiliar collar before flitting away. Fuyumi resisted the urge to chase it and see where it led. She’d sent her note, now she would wait for a reaction.

She absently took the three coat buttons and put them in her pocket before going home. It would be stupid to leave them as litter in the park, but it also felt like a bad idea to throw them away and possibly anger whoever was watching her. Besides, she had a collection going now, she almost had enough matching buttons to make a full set for a long coat.

A week went by with no sign of her shadow before she finally spotted a red feather again. It lurked on the edges of the park, flitting out into view as she walked by before slipping off in the direction of a more sequestered part of the park. Fuyumi hesitated, saw the feather come back and swirl around her a few times like an excited puppy before rushing off again and decided she was either about to meet someone shy or about to be kidnapped and potentially murdered. Slipping her hand into her handbag to grip the small pro-grade taser inside just in case, Fuyumi followed the feather into the copse of trees that shielded that part of the park from the street and the rest of the grassy area.

The feather slipped away to rejoin … a lot of other feathers, and Fuyumi paused on the edges of the little forested nook to get a good look at her mysterious shadow for the first time. Golden eyes, piercing and almost predatory in intensity, flitted up to meet her gaze as he stood up. He was about her age she would guess, maybe a year older, so lean that if she hadn’t been able to see the muscles of his bare arms she would have called him scrawny. He was wearing a sleeveless hoodie that looked like it had lost a few too many rounds with a washing machine, clean but all faded and stretched and worn looking. His hair was all tousled and pale gold, and the red feathers were clustered on his back in huge wings that looked like they belonged on someone about twice his size and weight. He smiled a little, a practiced thing that was too nervous to be real, but if Fuyumi hadn’t lived her entire life around Pro Heroes and the children of other such elites, she would never had known.

He held up her note between too fingers, not commenting on the wary distance still between them nor making any moves to close it, “Um, I’m not a stalker, just wanna get that out of the way. Sorry if I … came off that way? I’m, uh, not good at introducing myself and I didn’t … really know what else to do.”

#SE asks #hamelin-born asks #snippets #snippet #Secret Engima Rambles #Melodies and Manuscripts #Team Gremlin verse #Always I Dreamed verse #Feather Light and Ember Bright verse

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recurring-polynya · 4 years ago

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Apparently, if you send someone an ask, but then deactivate your Tumblr, the ask gets deleted. I got this from our old friend k-rukias, and fortunately, I already had it copied over, but anyway, that’s why this isn’t in the standard ask format. Anyway, k-rukias, I hope you’re still out there somewhere and there’s some way you can see this!

k-rukias asked:

you grasp byakuya’s character SO PERFECTLY it always makes me laugh out loud, especially your “Uncle B” stories. i’d love it if you could write more of the kuchiki-abarai family+ichika(maybe throw in some byakuya&toshiro being bffs) I SWEAR YOU DO THE DOMESTIC GENRE SO WELL one can tell you have kiddos 🥺💕

“Give Uncle Byakuya a big hug, Ichika,” Rukia instructed, stifling a yawn. “You’ll see him again on Saturday.” Despite the cheer in her voice, the second Ichika’s tiny face was buried in Byakuya’s chest, she shot her brother a thumbs up and a quizzical look.

Byakuya gave a very firm thumbs up in return. His inconsiderate adjutant was having yet another birthday, and Rukia had asked if they might hold a small family celebration at the manor this year. Byakuya wasn’t sure why. Surely the man would prefer not to see his commanding officer on his own birthday, but Byakuya loved his sister and had made the arrangements she requested.

Ichika finished rubbing her sticky cheeks all over the silk of his kimono. “Here, Uncle B,” she said, handing him a folded piece of paper. “It has to be just like this, okay?”

“Of course, my blossom,” he promised.

“No, it doesn’t,” Rukia mouthed to him behind Ichika’s back. “Okay, kiddo, you ready to go home and see if Daddy missed us?”

“I bet he fell asleep on the couch again!”

“We’ll find out! See you, Saturday, Brother!”

“Enjoy the rest of your evening, Sister,” Byakuya entreated her.

“If you have any questions, please call me,” she begged. “Or send a Hell Butterfly, or however you communicate with people these days.”

“I am very good at Text Messaging,” Byakuya assured her.

Rukia gave him an Extremely Disrespectful Look, which he tolerated, because she looked very much like Hisana when she made it.

“I will not have any questions.”

As his beloved sister and niece took their leave, he unfolded Ichika’s piece of paper.

He stared at it.

He had so many questions.

“I do appreciate that you texted before you came over,” Captain Hitsugaya informed him stonily. “But next time, could you text, like, more than a minute before you show up? Maybe wait for a reply?”

“Is now not a good time?” Byakuya asked. “Have I interrupted Squad 10 napping hours?”

“I just… would have picked up first,” Hitsugaya grumbled, trying to keep a stack of paper from falling off his desk. “And it’s always Squad 10 napping hours.”

Currently, Lieutenants Matsumoto and Kuna were sprawled out on the Squad 10 couches, snoring quite loudly.

“I have seen it worse in here,” Byakuya replied. “I am your,” he swallowed, “friend, and I accept your imperfections.”

Hitsugaya glowered at him. “What do you need?”

Byakuya spread Ichika’s instructions out on Hitsugaya’s desk. “Can you tell what this is?”

Hitsugaya’s eyes scanned the drawing: the lumpy creatures that might be rabbits, the crayon scribbles, the puddle of glitter. “Is this a test?”

“If it is, I am in danger of failing it,” Byakuya admitted.

“Ichika made this?” Hitsugaya guessed.

“I imagine the glitter gave it away.”

“Can’t you get Abarai to decipher it for you?”

“I cannot. I am hosting a ‘Surprise Birthday Party’ for him this weekend, and this represents Ichika’s vision of it. I need to identify the items in the picture so I can have them for the party.”

Hitsugaya nodded slowly. “Ah. These are probably balloons, then?”

Byakuya straightened up. “Balloons or lanterns? Or possibly the overhanging blooms of the wisteria?”

“You’re overthinking it. She’s five. It’s balloons. Can you ask Rukia?”

Byakuya’s mouth turned down at the corners. “Ichika’s art style bears a certain… resemblance to her mother’s. I am worried that if I ask for help…” he trailed off.

“Gotcha,” Hitsugaya replied brusquely. He sucked his teeth, and poked a finger at the page. “Well, this is obviously Abarai.”

“Yes, he is always distinguishable by virtue of the fact that she draws him three times as large as the rest of us.”

“Also, he’s the only one with pink hair and stripes,” Hitsugaya replied, raising an eyebrow. “Oversensitive, much?”

“I am only three inches shorter than he,” Byakuya grumbled. “The hair makes him look taller.”

“You are not getting any sympathy here, give it up,” Hitsugaya grumbled back. “He’s got a hat on, I think? A party hat?”

“Yes, I did get that far. We are all wearing hats.”

“Abarai also appears to either be wearing a lei, or he is in bankai.”

“A lei?”

“A flower necklace? We should have some around here, from the last time Matsumoto threw a luau.”

“Ah, thank you,” Byakuya replied. He had not actually expected Hitsugaya to be quite this helpful, and he wondered how he was going to repay the man’s patience in this matter.

“All this stuff on the table is… food, maybe? Gosh, I cannot tell what any of this is. These things look like fish, but they’re brown… taiyaki, maybe?”

“Oh, yes, I had figured that part out as well. Even I know that taiyaki is Abarai’s preferred celebratory food. I actually have a specially made mold--”

“You should make normal ones. Fish ones.”

“He likes Admiral Seaweed taiyaki.”

“It’s the man’s birthday, don’t make him pretend to like your weird taiyaki.”

“They have more crispy bits because of the arms and legs! He told me that specifically, in a complimentary manner!”

Hitsugaya gave him an Extremely Disrespectful Look. Unfortunately, the young man did not have the advantage of resembling Byakuya’s beautiful late wife.

Byakuya was distinctly Not Sure About This, but Hitsugaya had hit a wall and decided they needed to bring in ‘a bigger gun.’

Byakuya hadn’t actually set foot in the Squad 5 offices since Aizen’s departure. He didn’t have a lot of nice things to say about Aizen, generally, but at least the man had a classical taste in decor. Now, his former workspace more closely resembled the interior of an eclectic Living World coffee establishment for beatniks. One wall (but not the others) was painted orange, and covered in strange, stylized art that appeared to have been done by the captain and lieutenant themselves. The rug hurt his eyes. There was a beaded curtain.

“I don’t know why you thought I was going to have any insight on this, Shirou,” Lieutenant Hinamori grumped, squinting at the picture. “Renji’s the only one who can decipher these things.”

Byakuya could not help feeling the tiniest bit smug that he was not the only one who was sassed by his loved ones.

“Well, I figured you’d been to an Abarai birthday party or two,” Hitsugaya excused.

“Yeah,” Hinamori replied. “The grown-up ones. Unless this thing over here is supposed to be a tokkuri, and Captain and Lieutenant Kuchiki are arm wrestling, I can’t help you.” She frowned. “You’ve been to an Abarai birthday party, haven’t you?”

“They’re a little wild for my blood,” Hitsugaya excused. “And nobody likes drinking around their captain. I’ve been, but I usually leave before he starts bench-pressing people.”

“There are captains who come,” Momo pointed out. “And I doubt your presence would slow Matsumoto down, anyway, she’s impervious to that judgemental thing you do with your eyebrows.” She contemplated the paper. “What are these weird marks? Is this a speech bubble?”

“We couldn’t figure those out,” Hitsugaya admitted.

“Lemme take a look,” Captain Hirako, who was unfortunately present, announced. “Sometimes you gotta look at things from a different perspective.”

He turned the paper upside down. He turned it backwards. He turned it right side up, and turned his head sideways.

“I got nothing,” he replied. “Kid’s got good style though. And I think Momo may be onto something, actually. I went to Abarai’s last birthday party, and Kuchiki the Younger beat me at arm wrestling in an embarrassingly short amount of time.”

“It’s your noodle arms, sir,” Hinamori supplied. She stuck out her lower lip. “A different perspective, though, is not a bad idea. You know who you should go ask?”

Byakuya did not want to hear the answer.

“This is dango. This is katsudon. This is shaved ice.”

Byakuya was frantically taking notes.

“How… how can you tell?” Hitsugaya gaped.

Hachigou Nemuri regarded him with her serious, dark green eyes. “I have seen many of Abarai-chan’s drawings.”

Akon made a grumbling noise. “Abarai-chan’s drawing fuuuuu---udged up Nemu’s image recognition subroutines for months. I mean, it was a good thing, in the long run, I ended up implementing an entire art appreciation suite of dynamically created subroutines. It took me forever to figure out why she couldn’t recognize normal drawings of things, though.”

“What are these marks?” Byakuya asked, pointing to the funny squiggles hanging above everyone’s heads.

“Abarai-chan can’t write yet,” Nemu explained.

“Yes, I know that,” Byakuya replied.

“Writing is a form of communication that utilizes mutually understood symbols to convey an idea from one party to another,” Nemu recited. “Abarai-chan does not yet grasp the importance of a common dictionary in the delivery of information.”

Akon scratched his neck. “You’re saying Abarai-chan doesn’t know very many kana, so she just makes them up.”

“Correct,” Nemu agreed.

“Can you read them?” Hitsugaya asked hopefully.

“She does not employ a self-consistent character set.”

Byakuya and Hitsugaya’s eyes darted to Akon, who was unwrapping a piece of nicotine gum.

“She makes it up as she goes along,” he elaborated, cramming the gum in his mouth. “There is no translation.”

“Momo thought it might be a voice bubble, like in a cartoon,” Hitsugaya mused.

“Maybe it’s just a title to the piece,” Byakuya surmised. “Father’s Birthday Celebration’, for example.”

“Abarai-chan calls Lieutenant Abarai ‘Daddy’, not ‘Father’,” Nemu corrected.

“It was an example,” Byakuya bit off testily.

“This could be cherry shaved ice or strawberry shaved ice,” Nemu added hopefully. “Abarai-chan likes strawberry shaved ice, but I prefer cherry.”

“You are not attending this party,” Akon reminded her.

“I just thought Captain Kuchiki might be interested to know,” Nemu sniffed. “In case he felt like buying me a shaved ice. As a thank you for my services.”

Byakuya examined Ichika’s diagram and compared it to the celebratory items currently marring the beauty of his garden. He had the balloons. The hats. The dango. The taiyaki. Both strawberry and cherry shaved ice. “I think I have replicated everything,” he declared. “Have I missed anything?”

“You don’t have rabbit ears,” Hitsugaya replied dryly.

“The rabbit ears are symbolic,” Byakuya explained. “I am wearing the lei. You should put on a lei.”

“I am not putting on a lei. I am not in the picture at all, actually, so I think I should probably scram.”

“You could stay,” Byakuya replied, feeling a little odd about it.

Hitsugaya raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t this a family thing?”

Byakuya blinked. “Family gatherings are large, mandatory, and unpleasant. This is a small party and I am very fond of the Abarai.”

Hitsugaya just stared at him.

Byakuya squirmed. “The fact is… I am not good at things like this.”

“Of course you are. Ichika adores you. Rukia and Renji do, too.”

A normal person would have wrinkled their nose, or sucked their teeth, but Byakuya wasn’t really into making facial expressions, so he just made his usual one and stared off into the middle distance briefly. “Hisana was very good with people. At these times, I often think about how easily she would host a birthday party for a brother-in-law, how natural she would have been with Ichika. She loved children.” He contemplated the drawing. “I am sure she would have interpreted this perfectly, text and all.”

Hitsugaya, who did make facial expressions, blew air out of his cheeks. “If it makes you feel better, I can stay.”

“I would, very much, appreciate it.”

Seike, Byakuya’s chief retainer, shuffled out onto the engawa. “Lord Kuchiki, the Abarai are here.”

“Please escort them out here,” Byakuya replied, plunking a hat on Captain Hitsugaya’s head, and one on his own.

“It’s so unusual for Uncle Byakuya to invite us over on a Saturday,” Byakuya could hear Rukia’s voice before he could see her. His impression was that the ‘surprise’ involved in this party was a figleaf for Ichika’s sake. Abarai was a fool, but he wasn’t an idiot.

“What is this?” Abarai exclaimed as he and his family stepped through the doorway, although he did a genuine double-take at Byakuya’s flower necklace.

Ichika’s face lit up as she took in the decorations, the food. But then her expression turned to dismay at her uncle, standing still and awkward. He had missed something. It was the text. It was important after all.

Hitsugaya’s elbow jammed into his ribs. “Surprise!” the younger captain yelled. A voice bubble! Of course!

“Surprise!” Byakuya added, belatedly.

“Happy Birthday!” they shouted together, with Rukia and Ichika joining in a beat later.

“Well, I’ll be!” Abarai did his best impression of a surprised person.

“Were you surprised, Daddy!” Ichika asked, jumping up and down and tugging on her father’s hand. “Were you?”

“I was very surprised,” Abarai reassured her.

“Why is Captain Hitsugaya here?” Rukia asked, utterly befuddled.

“I heard there was shaved ice,” Hitsugaya excused very quickly.

“Uncle B did all of it, Daddy, just for you! Isn’t it perfect?”

“Of course it is,” Abarai snorted. “If Uncle B did it, how could it be otherwise?”

#my writing #byahitsu brotp #kuchiki-abarai family feels #this is over 2k words it's no wonder i can't finish out my drabbles #happy birthday renji!#it's renji's birthday until i say it isn't

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chess-blackmyre · 5 years ago

Video

youtube

Dragon Age Inquisition - Cabinet Battle #1

The Inquisition leadership discusses approaching the Templars or Mages for an alliance. Elsa Trevelyan, a formerly Tranquil mage, makes sure to tell Commander Cullen what she thinks. If you're curious to learn more about Elsa and her story, you can read more about her here on ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1795546

Thanks to @radioactivepeasant for being willing to listen to me rant about Elsa!

Further context (and a bit of ranting) under the cut.

So, the first thing that you should know is that my Elsa Trevelyan isn’t an entirely original character. I based her off of Elsa, Knight-Commander Meredith’s Tranquil assistant from Dragon Age 2.

[image description a young woman dressed in Chantry style robes. She has dark blonde hair, blue eyes and a vacant expression as explained by the sunburst brand of Tranquility on her forehead]

Remember Elsa? I wouldn’t blame you if you don’t, as she shows up in precisely one quest in the game, if I remember right. (My personal headcanon is that she was actually there for a lot more time as the Knight-Commander’s assistant, but Varric either didn’t notice or just forgot about her). But she seemed like the perfect person to use as a jumping off point for a formerly Tranquil Inquisitor. After all, she comes with an interesting backstory and you can fill in the blanks in an interesting way with her.

For one thing, as the King-Commander’s assistant, she goes into this already knowing Cullen. Specifically, knowing Cullen during his lowest “mages can’t be treated like people” point. Even if she was Tranquil the entire time she’s known him (which I don’t think she was, but that’s not important right now) it definitely colors her opinion of him when they meet again in Haven.

Now this whole animatic is a representation fight/debate between Elsa and Cullen about recruiting the mages or the templars to help close the Breach. But, as the song progresses, she uses this fight to basically redefine her relationship with him, and how she keeps hitting him where it hurts argument-wise

[image description: Elsa addressing Cullen with a frown on her face, before her is the sigil of the Templar Order, a giant red X over it to symbolize her disapproval and denial of ever approaching them for an alliance]

While the song is just a stylized version of the debate that actually happened between them, in both ways Elsa found it extremely cathartic to argue against the Templars, even if it was just initially just about the Breach.

It’s also right after this in the song that Hamilton--and therefore Elsa--shift from policy to personal attacks. (I skipped over the slavery portion of Hamilton’s verse because I couldn’t find a way to interpret it into the Dragon Age story. Plus, just less things for me to draw)

[Image description: Elsa walks forward closer to Cullen, a look of annoyance on her face. Cullen, Cassandra, Josephine, and Leliana have looks of surprise that she’s doing this.]

The first big change that happens is that Elsa gets right up into Cullen’s face. Up until now she’s been at the other side of the table, but now she’s crossing the divide to let him know exactly how much dislikes him and his arguments. To me, this is the moment where Elsa voluntarily gets this close to Cullen since she awoke in Haven, as every interaction they’ve had before she’s made sure to give herself some space between the sorta-Templar and her no-longer-Tranquil behind.

[Image description: Elsa is holding Cullen by the collar of his furry pauldron, and getting right up into his face. Both have twin expressions of displeasure]

“Don’t lecture me about the war--you didn’t fight in it!”

From what I understand, during the majority of the Mage-Templar War, Cullen was in Kirkwall trying to restore order. Elsa, meanwhile, was on the front lines of this, as a result of being rescued by other mages who took her along with them when they fled Kirkwall. She had to endure the same hardships as them, the freezing elements, the murder-happy Templars, not knowing where their next meal was going to be coming from, if at all. This is important to her.

Now, getting up in his face is a pretty bold move, even if you strip away the layers of the Mage/Templar power dynamics. Here Elsa is telling Cullen loud and clear: “You are not in charge here. I will not be cowed by you, or by any other Templar anymore.” And this is before she becomes Inquisitor.

[Image description: Elsa pushes Cullen away from her. A good few feet of space between the two as they glare daggers at each other]

She solidifies this by pushing him away from her. The other important thing is that he lets her push him. Because Cullen is a significantly larger and bulkier person than her, and is wearing plate armor besides. But for the purposes of the argument--plus he’s actively trying to Not Be an Asshole Anymore--he lets her push him around a little bit. She then continues on her point by telling him outright: “I’m not scared of you.”

“You think I'm frightened of you, man? We almost died in a trench, While you were off getting high with the French”

[Image description: Elsa huddled down in a trench with an elven woman and a small child, all of them trying to stay quiet and avoid notice. Above, an unseen Templar orders “Spread out and find those damn mages!”. Knight-Captain Cullen, face shrouded in shadow, holds a bottle of lyrium]

Now, here is where I really start kicking Cullen below the belt. Because the reason that Cullen became a Templar in the first place was to protect innocent people. It was no accident that one of the mages I had Elsa huddling with was a child, a little kid who had no say in being born with magic or going to war but is caught up in the mess anyway.

In his big monologue he says “Kirkwall’s Circle fell, innocent people died in the streets.” Also I can’t remember where he says this offhand, but Cullen also believed that being a Templar meant not just protecting ‘normal’ people from mages, but protecting mages as well, be it from themselves or other abuses of magic. While Kirkwall was mainly a watershed moment for tensions that have been going on for ages, it’s still pretty clear to me that Cullen feels a measure of responsibility for what happened. Now here Elsa is, rubbing his nose in his failures, both in the problems that started the war, and what he was doing while all this was happening.

Which brings us to our next point: Lyrium.

To be entirely honest, I wasn’t even planning on bringing up Cullen’s lyrium withdrawal, but then when I was doing storyboards for the next part, the lyrics just fit too perfectly to pass up.

“Madison you mad as a hatter so take your medicine.”

[Image description: an illustration of a lyrium kit used by Templars, the same one that Cullen throws at the wall during his “Perseverance” quest]

[Image Description: An uncertain, shadowy look crosses over Cullen’s face and he crosses his arms. Elsa’s back is to him, an glib, uncaring look as she steps away]

“Damn, you're in worse shape than the national debt is in“

[Image description: a close up on Cullen, his hands shaking as he grips the hilt of his sword. Not in a threatening way, but as it he’s holding on to ground himself]

Now, to be clear, Elsa has no idea that Cullen has stopped taking lyrium at this point. She vaguely assumes that he’s still taking it.

In the “real” version of this argument, the mage would say something like “You’re not looking so hot, are you up to date on your lyrium?” but in a snide, sardonic way; the implication being that ‘you’ll always be a Templar no matter what you do’.

His hands start to shake and he grips the pommel of his sword. To be clear, he doesn’t want to hurt Elsa. It’s just a habit of his that we see in the game, and many people besides me think it’s a way to sort of self-soothe, if I’m using that term correctly. At the very least to keep people from noticing how bad his hands are shaking.

Elsa has turned away, not seeing how badly her words are affecting him. When she does look back Cullen has now quickly put a lid back on his reactions.

[Image description: Elsa, scowling, dramatically points at Cullen from across the room. Cullen has a much more measured expression]

But Cassandra did notice, and intervenes to separate the two before the situation can escalate.

[Image description: Cassandra and Cullen have their backs to the camera, Cassandra has her hand on the man’s back as she leads him away, an expression of concern on her face.]

Anyway! Sorry for the rant! I hope you enjoy the animatic!

#dragon age #dragon age inquisition #elsa trevelyan #inquisitor trevelyan #cullen rutherford #cassandra pentaghast #anti-templar #templar critical #lyrium #lyrium withdrawl #mage templar dynamics #meta analysis #my stuff #knight captain cullen #hamilton #cabinet battle 1

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monkey-network · 5 years ago

Text

Good Stuff: Ernest and Celestine, the Collection

WARNING: It’s always good to throw your sheets in the dryer, warm ‘em up for bed. Thank you, take care out there, and enjoy.

Honestly, I can be a pretty edgy fella. You might not see it in me, but I fancy in enjoying vulgar, raunchy, offensive, tasteless, sometimes brutal stories and humor if not the standard, to ease the mind of the brunt reality I sometimes find brazenly empty, like a cigarette. Then again, and I said this before, in life one should have a nice “feel good” show, a show that doesn’t just pull you away from your problems, it should also encourage you to have a better mood when you wanna take said problems. A show like this, which is, hands down, the coziest show I’ve seen yet.

Ernest and Celestine is the TV series to the 2012 film of the same name, based on children's books published by late Belgian creator Gabrielle Vincent. The film was about a talented yet destitute bear Ernest encountering and soon befriending a young and adventurous orphan mouse named Celestine. The two become literal partners in crime and in the end are together after the courthouse they were tried in burns down. I won’t explain much else, you gotta see it for yourself. The movie’s like Paddington 2 mixed with Beastars subtracting the romance and gritty parts of the latter. It’s just as good and cozy as the series and makes for a setup to it, which is more an episodic lot about the two having small scale adventures in their town. Our Charabiovian bear is one to be prideful, superstitious, and often miffed at slight inconveniences, but is very generous and caring, especially to Celestine, basically a father figure to her. Celestine herself is a curious, optimistic, and sometimes mischievous younging that is there for Ernest as much as he is for her. They look out of each other as they enjoy the natural pleasures in life like making homemade jam, facing a blizzard, confronting the unknown, playing music for the bees, and meeting all kinds of faces.

Beating Spiderverse to the punch of having good 2D stylized 3D animation

The only problem I have is the English dub because the lip sync can be very distracting since the animation accounted for the French voices. And while I don’t mind the English version, the French version has... better emotion in the characters from what I’ve seen. I don’t know, Celestine’s English VA is soft-spoken but can sound phoned in or bored time to time. But really, that is a nitpick compared to everything else because I love everything else because it is SO COZY!

It’s like the perfect snuggly teddy bear that smells of fresh towels or a luscious herbal tea leaf

The atmosphere, the characters, the music, the artwork, the animation, it comes together like a beautiful tapestry! Ernest and Celestine have the most heartfelt character dynamic since MLP’s Mane Six. Regardless of everything, I love how it comes down to our main duo looking out for each other. Shoot, I wanna be Ernest, he’s such a lovable and grounded protagonist and loves his adopted daughter so. And it feels like a world you would want to live in, want to retire or settle down, do what they do. It’s all so cozy, that’s the best way I can describe it. It’s shows like this is why I like reviewing cartoons, I said this before, it doesn’t just distract you from the hard and testing times reality puts on you, but gives you a moment of honest bliss and happiness that can influence your outlook on looking forward to better things because things like this, cartoons like this, CAN make you feel better. This series came to me out of nowhere, I only figured the movie was all there was to the bear and mouse, but I’m glad this surprise showed up in my life.

I highly recommend this to everyone who spots this post, I also recommend checking out the official blog for the film, colorful and easy to jump in look of how the movie was made, the look and all. Ratings be darned, I love this series, plain and simple.

#ernest and celestine #ernest et celestine #cartoons #animation #reviews #Good Stuff #so wholesome

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universal-kitty · 5 years ago

Text

.: Day 1 - F/O February :.

Reverse Self-Ship: You are your F/O’s F/O!!

I’m from a video game series akin to an odd mix of Watch_Dogs and Grand Theft Auto. Things can get a little pervy, hijacking cars is involved, stealth and adventure abound...but so is a bunch of ridiculous, silly things, like a petting minigame that triggers randomly when interacting with my cat.

There’s a single-player mode focused on my background and meeting up with past friends or exes...and is story-based, allowing you to attack and kill them, befriend them again... All sorts of stuff.

Also, the option to adopt more cats and become a crazy cat lady...in spirit.

Shit, romance people if you want! Live life!

Marcus got Wrench (Reggie) the game as a birthday gift. It was mostly a joke, because Reg REALLY thought he wouldn’t like it....and what else do best friends do but give their bffs prank gifts?

Still, Marcus bought it for him new... So Reg boots it up and gives it a chance, anyways.

......holy shit, he actually likes this WAY more than he first thought he would.

First of all, he HATES animals; every one he’s ever met seems to hate him and hurt him, so he’s turned his back on animalkind. However, throughout the game, I’m NOTHING but kind to every animal and suspicious of every person I meet.... Some of which he understands completely. There are some ASSHOLES in this game!!

Also, the way I croon to my cat and get into baby talk... It’s so damn cute to him. Really makes him feel some kinda way, which he flushes over. (Haha, wow that’s embarrassing.)

The point is, he ends up hating animals a little less and starts loving cats a LOT more.

Actually had to put down the controller and walk away from the game when doing a dancing minigame. He could barely focus on the button commands with how cute I was being while doing the dances.

Proceeds to look up people who 100% the dances just so he can save them to his phone. Watch them whenever he wants.

Later deletes them, 100%s them on his own, and THEN saves them onto his phone. Is a lot more happy with them, cause they’re HIS gameplay videos and not someone else’s.

LOVES messing around with outfits. Someone on the staff was either a big fan of cats or just...made that my most out-there personality trait (second only to the games and show in my world that are obviously knock-offs of real-world games), but he’s not complaining. Running around in cat ears and a cat tail? So damn cute.

His personal favorites are the masks I have combined with the matching jackets; it makes me feel more relatable to him...but he’s a greedy man and always eventually takes them off so he can look at my face.

Has SO MANY PICTURES on Facebook of him playing this damn game. Marcus kinda thought he was pranking at first, but now the whole squad knows Reg is a bit of an addict.

They got him the other games on Christmas and he cried. Everyone was....kinda in awe.

Josh got him a t-shirt with my character on it that reads “Bee Paw-sitive~!” on it. He wears it a LOT.

He definitely started up a collection that rivaled....basically no one else in the fandom.

HATES seeing the fandom pairings. And since you can romance anyone due to my sexuality canonly being Panromantic...it’s frustrating.

(Well, he’s Bi, so some of the people he wouldn’t mind sharing with, yeah....but he’s specifically venomous over the people he’s SURE are my friends only. Or are/were super toxic to me in my past. So, so bitter that anyone likes those ships, but holds his tongue only bc he got a figurine of me doing some cutesy pose next to his monitor. It helps him keep his head.)

Literally has a savings account reserved for merchandise. If it exists, he wants to buy it. If it doesn’t, but someone’s commissions are open? He’s gonna buy it.

Has bought art, jumped on art-trades/requests to get MORE art of us together. Has two plushies of me, as well as a body pillow. Continues to seek more things.

Is honestly upset that my size is medium (and so he can’t wear my canonly fitted clothes), BUT that doesn’t stop him from owning a single shirt in my size AND getting items that mimic my wardrobe.

He likes to imagine we can match together....or I can wear HIS version of my fave shirts when mine are dirty~!

Is still debating getting a kitten. Until that day, cat plushes are among the only other plushes he has (aside from mine).

Weird as he felt about it, he later admitted to his friends that he....kinda felt romantically towards me? And was thinking about just being fictoromantic...

Josh was the first one to see no problem with it and fast. People can be hard to work with, so... You do you. (Reg then felt bad about bullying him so much....oop.)

Horatio was also quickly on board. “Hey man, they make you happy. If it helps, it helps.”

Marcus....was a little more confused, but got in the spirit of it, regardless. “man, if I knew you would’ve actually liked it, I woulda got it for you a lot sooner!! Have fun, man.”

Sitara doesn’t quite get it, but.... It sure explains why Reg kept pestering her to tag “Purrfect Anarchy” in certain places and commissioning her for stylized art of him with them.

T-Bone....kinda harasses him about it, but the group stands by Reg. Josh is pretty upset about it, though.

He also follows every piece of news and publicly shares it, after admitting to being ficto. LOTS more pictures like, “Cutie’s got good taste.” [selfie with him sticking out his tongue and wearing one of the replica shirts] “Dinner date with bae!” [screenshot of me looking at the screen of his laptop, dinner and candlelight between us]

Everyone rolled with it more and more over time, so now it’s entirely not uncommon for them to bribe Reg to do things by dragging me into it...

Sitara: Hey, you leaving? Wrench: ...yeah, why? Sitara: Can you get me a coffee while you’re out? Wrench: Wh-? Why should I get you-? Sitara: I bet Rachel would like you doing something like that, y’know. Wrench: .....That’s cruel. You’re cruel. Sitara: I know~! You know how I like it, thank you, and Rachel loves you. Wrench: [sputters audibly and shuffles out the door, muttering to himself, embarrassed]

They don’t do a LOT of crimes anymore, but... Definitely still fuck shit up w/ cops. Reg daydreams a shitton about a masked romance and the anarchy we could commit together... After all, I helped him be braver. So he could help me, too, and then..... So much glorious chaos. Maybe makeouts in his car...

Was literally the type to not give a SHIT about marriage or kids, but now nonstop thinks about our lives together. Anarchy and domestic lifestyle shit can coexist, right? We can be married, have our cute lil’ two story (three, if you count the attic AND a basement), and some kids.....and also go create anarchy and throw bricks at cop cars and cause so much damn trouble..... Right?

He’ll even get a CAT for our home. It’ll be our first kid and not only will he be SO COOL, but they’ll name her (yes, a girl) Princess Leia and I’ll probably cry in happiness!!

Reg is DETERMINED to be the best husband/boyfriend ever. Doesn’t matter which, cause whatever speed I’d like to go at? Hell yeah, he’s down for it. Just as long as he can still hold my hand and gush over how cute I am and-

Has gushed about me and my series before and WILL do so again, prompted or not.

Actually participated in the fandom a little. Mostly does reblogs and such, but has written a few stories (self-inserts are the majority), done some not too shabby art, and prides himself on being the BIGGEST fan of the series with all the merch he has AND commissions bought.

Made a select few friends who also are fans, but... Is constantly anxious about his self-shipping. Either that they might eventually think he’s weird, send more anon hate (he’s gotten some in the past for “being a creep”), or- worst yet- also self-ship with me and he’s still dealing with that idea.

Until then, he’s got a wedding ring he bought cheap at the jewelry section of some store, so.... Coping skills, babey.

#FOFebruary #FOFebruary2020 #Aki speaks #otp; purrfect anarchy #self ship #self ship community #oH LOOK I'M DOING THINGS ALL OF A SUDDEN.....#O D D #anyways have this thank u

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buddaimond · 5 years ago

Photo

Rob Quotes (in bold) extracted from Variety. Photography by Matthew Brookes for Variety

About being Batman

“When that thing leaked, I was f—ing furious...Everyone was so upset. Everyone was panicking from my team. I sort of thought that had blown up the whole thing.”

“I was sitting next to Christopher McQuarrie...I’d never met him before. Oh, God! He’d seen me Googling myself for the past hour!” Pattinson tried to explain to the director behind the latest “Mission: Impossible” films what had happened. “No worries,” McQuarrie said, nodding. “I’d probably be doing the same thing.”

“Big movies, generally the parts aren’t as interesting — at least the stuff that was coming my way,...I guess there was some fear...I think I probably would have been a little bit nervous to have gone straight into it immediately afterwards,”

“When I was a kid, it was the only outfit that I had,” “If I actually said it in an interview (where I worn it), I would definitely have a lot of abuse afterwards,” he says with an outburst of nervous laughter. “If I successfully play the character, I can say it at the end.”

“To be honest, it was less vitriolic (casting response) than I was expecting,” he says. And he’s not deterred by the doubters: “It’s much more fun when you’re an underdog. There’s no expectation of you.”

Pattinson reveals he had an informational meeting with Marvel around the time of “Guardians of the Galaxy,” but nothing came of it. “I don’t know what I would really be chasing,” Pattinson says. “The idea of trying that transition after ‘Twilight,’ I never saw a road in that direction.” Batman was different because he was the only comic book character Pattinson always loved. “It’s actually an interesting part,” he says. “I think it’s because he doesn’t have any superpowers.”

“I’d had Batman in my mind for a while,” Pattinson says. “It’s such an absurd thing to say. I sort of had an idea to do it, and I’d been prodding Matt. He didn’t accept any prods. I kept asking to meet him.”

When Reeves finally finished a script, he relented and agreed to a meeting in Los Angeles. “And then I had to kind of try to imagine what he’d written, and I hadn’t even read the script,” Pattinson says. “I’d come with this pad full of notes.” As discussions continued, Pattinson arrived in Cannes in May, and all hell broke loose in the press. “It was terrifying,” he says. “I was like, ‘Oh f—! Does that screw me because they are so intent on secrecy?’” He found himself attending the “Lighthouse” premiere in the middle of reading the script pages that he’d just been sent. “I’m literally in Cannes in my hotel room [rehearsing],” Pattinson says. “The whole thing was a lot.”

After “The Lighthouse” screened to a rapturous standing ovation, Pattinson promptly flew back to L.A. to try on the Batsuit for the final phase of the high-stakes audition. “It’s maybe the craziest thing I’ve ever done in terms of movie stuff,” Pattinson says.

“I put it on. I remember saying to Matt, ‘It does feel quite transformative!’ He was like, ‘I would hope it does! You’re literally in the Batsuit.’” Pattinson describes what the moment was like: “You do feel very powerful immediately. And it’s pretty astonishing, something that is incredibly difficult to get into, so the ritual of getting into it is pretty humiliating. You’ve got five people trying to shove you into something. Once you’ve got it on, it’s like, ‘Yeah, I feel strong, I feel tough, even though I had to have someone squeezing my butt cheeks into the legs.’”

Although he had a clear take on how he’d play Batman, he had to adjust his movements to his new latex body. “You’re trying to think of the way to balance, how to bring something new to it and not want to scare people off,” Pattinson says. “And work in the confines of the costume.”

About himself and the movie industry

He’s noticed how much the entertainment industry has transformed since the first “Twilight” hit screens a decade ago. “It felt like the mid-budget movie completely disappeared, but then it kind of came back with Netflix and the streaming services,” he says, adding that he wishes Netflix offered a better way to navigate all its titles. “Hardly anyone sees independent movies at the cinema anyway. It would be amazing if people did.”

“I think I’d come back and my house would have flown off,” he says. “I would have absolutely nothing. I’m constantly living in terror.” Of what? He searches for an answer. “If you experience a loss of momentum, you don’t want that to happen again,” he says. “And I really enjoy working. There’s no part of me that can go off and disappear.”

Besides, he’s come to appreciate the camaraderie of the movie-making business. “There’s something about people who work in the film industry — they very much wear their heart and dreams on their sleeve,” Pattinson says. “There’s so much desire falling out of them. I think people in other jobs, their dreams aren’t valued as highly. Also, there’s nowhere to put them.” He says that if he’s in an Uber and a driver starts to pitch him a movie idea, he doesn’t shudder like other actors would. “I’m so, so into it,” Pattinson says. “I don’t want to be in L.A. to talk about f—ing restaurant reservations. I want to be in L.A. because I love movies.”

At least he still does. Pattinson says he can sneak into a multiplex, and nobody will bother him. He tried to do that the other day for Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood,” but all the shows were sold out. “It’s literally impossible to get a ticket anywhere in London,” Pattinson says with a sigh. Couldn’t he have called in a favor? “I used to have a tiny bit of power. And the power is completely gone. I can’t do anything anymore. I actually just called my publicist: ‘Can I get some free stuff? Just anything!’” he says in a mock-pleading voice. “‘I just want a package.’”

About “The Lighthouse.”

“I remember doing it thinking I don’t know how I’m going to promote it,” Pattinson says. “Every single scene is just sprinting up to a cliff.”

To settle into the character, Pattinson grew a mustache, which he’d been trying to persuade directors to let him do for other parts. He’s not offended when a reporter asks if it was a prosthetic. “It’s actually real,” he says. “I thought it looked a bit fake as well.”

Dafoe says that Pattinson will sometimes use humor to disarm others. “He’s wildly self-effacing,” Dafoe says. “If you ever talk to him about performing, he acts like he doesn’t know what he’s doing. That’s a little bit of a device to allow him more freedom. And I might add that Rob really wants to jump into things, sometimes with his eyes closed.”

On “The Lighthouse,” he had trouble seeing anything due to the stylized cinematography. “We realized, because of the combination of shooting on black-and-white negative and the 1920s lenses, you need so much light just to get anything,” Pattinson says. “We were doing one scene which was talking to each other over a table. The light is so bright, you couldn’t see the other actor. OK, this is an unexpected turn of events.” Since his character is inebriated for most of the film, Pattinson had to double down on throwing his equilibrium off-balance. But he didn’t attempt a Method approach like on 2011’s “Water for Elephants,” where he actually got plastered. “All you’re doing is trying to stay sober afterwards and hoping that no one will find out you’re drunk for a drunk scene,” he says.

Pattinson relishes all the peculiarities of “The Lighthouse.” He reveals that the crew had to move a sex scene from the frigid waters of the ocean to the shore. “We were just sitting there convulsively shivering,” he says. “It’s not very sexy at all.” And he’s eager to discuss the moment when his character pleasures himself while thinking about a figurine of a mermaid that he’s just found. “I keep masturbating,” Pattinson says of a theme that runs through his recent work. “In the last three or four movies, I’ve got a masturbation scene. I did it in ‘High Life.’ I did it in ‘Damsel.’ And ‘The Devil All the Time.’ I only realized when I did it the fourth time. But when I saw the clay figure of the mermaid, if you’re getting turned on by that, you’re in a very strange place in your life.”

About Christopher Nolan movie

Nolan wanted to meet him. “I couldn’t believe it,” Pattinson says. “He’s one of those people who seem quite out of reach.”

Five days later, he officially became the Dark Knight. “I was absolutely relieved when Matt called,” says Pattinson, who got the role over actor Nicholas Hoult. In fact, Pattinson received the career-changing news on his first day on the set of Nolan’s film. “It’s so bizarre,” he says. “I was like, ‘What a coincidence this is happening. It’s absolutely crazy.” A surprise benefit was that he was able to pepper Nolan, who made the “Dark Knight” trilogy, with questions. “I was talking about things to do with the Batsuit,” Pattinson recalls. “How to get more movements in it.”

Pattinson won’t say whether he’s committed to additional “Batman” movies. “I don’t know anything,” he says. “I’ve got an idea how to do about four scenes, and then I’m working on the rest gradually.” At one point in our conversation, he offers a mundane comment about Joaquin Phoenix, who stars in “Joker” (a movie he hasn’t seen yet), before asking to retract it. “Oh s—,” he says, adding that he’s not accustomed to thinking about spoilers. “I definitely should not say that. I’m so used to pretty art-house movies, where you can watch the movie three times and still not know what it’s about.”

It’s likely that playing Batman will invite the paparazzi back into his life, but he’s not concerned. He says that Instagram has taken the pressure off movie stars, because there’s so much free photo content of celebrities (and wannabe celebrities) on the web. “There’s no money in it for people to follow you around,” Pattinson says. “There are just so many photos of me you can get in a black baseball cap getting a diet peach Snapple. Or on Friday night, getting a Kit Kat.”

Like Bruce Wayne, Pattinson has taken shelter in his own Batcave. “I made it impossible for people to follow me,” he says. “I’d be completely hermetic. It wouldn’t be worth it to wait outside my house, because I wouldn’t come out.”

#Robert Pattinson #Batman #The Lighthouse #Variety #Christopher Nolan #Tenet

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a-man-for-hire-and-his-archives · 6 years ago

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Toby Stephens Sets Sail

In a lot of ways Toby Stephens is living the dream for boys ages 5 to 50 on a daily basis while filming the Starz series Black Sails. He dresses as a pirate and gets to play with swords along the coast of South Africa. Luckily for the show, his performance as Captain James Flint, the crestfallen commander on the hunt for Spanish treasure, is far from a game to the London-based actor. The show’s high drama quotient, intense battle scenes, and quick dialogue follow the current cable series trend of upping the stakes.

“It’s a pretty grueling schedule,” says Stephens, on location in Cape Town. On top of the demanding production schedule, the filming conditions during winter are far from ideal, and the water is, in his words, “Beyond cold.” Fortunately, Stephens comes from good acting stock, his mother being the incomparable Dame Maggie Smith of Downton Abbey, and his efforts, along those of the talent of showrunners Robert Levine and Jonathan Steinberg, result in glorious sea bound tale that will no doubt shiver your timbers. Difficult as it is, Stephens was happy to explain why it’s a pirate life for him.

How are you enjoying South Africa? This is my third year here. It’s a pretty good place to be working; there are certainly worse places in the world to be filming for seven months out of the year.

Do you get to actually swim off the coast of Cape Town for this show? Partly the filming is in a tank and part of it is in the actual sea. The unfortunate part is not far from Cape Town in Antarctica. Where we are, it’s the Atlantic side, and it’s just freezing. So you get in there, and the joke is that we’ve got to pretend it’s like the Caribbean; the Bahamas. I think it’s about nine degrees.

I’m sure you’re like, “Let’s get these scenes in done.” Yes, I ask the director to please get me out of there as quickly as possible.

Were you a big fan of pirate movies when you were growing up? Or was it a world that you had to orient yourself to after you got the Black Sails gig? I watched Captain Blood, some of those Errol Flynn movies. But it wasn’t something I ever saw myself doing to be honest with you. It had intrigued me slightly for a while, but then I moved on to Star Wars. It’s been a bit of a discovery for me. The way we’re doing it is so different from the generic pirate form. Just reading what piracy was about in those days and the kind of life they lead and the kind of things that they did, and my God, this is much more interesting than any of the fictive narrative that I’d read as a child. It’s much more daring, it’s much more incredible. We’re trying to do it slightly more in a real historic narrative rather than in some sort of fantasy version of piracy.

Was there any particular pirate that you read about that you decided to base your character on? I saw him more as a kind of a figure from a Western. So because there was always a more Western cowboy feeling more than the classic guy singing, “Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum.” When I was basing my character I was thinking more of Clint Eastwood.

There’s a bit of swordplay in there, did you go through training for that? I’ve done quite a lot actually back at drama school. When you’re kids doing a Shakespeare play at school there is a lot of flailing around on stage with these swords and it looks pathetic. I always strived to help the drama by making the scenes as vibrant and as real as they possibly can be. The combat in Black Sails is quite different because it’s so close quarters. It was all about the cutlass back then. You might shoot the gun once, then throw it at someone, then you move on to your cutlass. The fight scenes are very visceral, hand-to-hand, and there’s a lot of grappling. There’s not much fancy sword-work going on. Which I quite like. It’s not romantic, stylized fights, its just knuckles, desperate, and pretty nasty.

Now that Pirates of the Caribbean 5 is coming out, why don’t we interlink the two? What if Captain Flint gave a nod as he passed by Captain Sparrow? [Laughs.] I think I’d be totally out of place in something like Pirates of the Caribbean. It’s such a separate feel to it.

You’ve got the wardrobe and everything, though. That could be something, who knows? Talking about the next season, what are you excited about? The storylines, where Captain Flint is going, he’s trying to get his ship? Through the first season Captain Flint was surrounded by a lot of mystery, but that’s what’s great about season 2; it answers all these questions. It takes the audience back to when Flint was younger, and so you see what has formed him, and what is driving him. It’s really fun to get going. It’s balls-to-the-wall kind of action but also has this very kind of interesting personal development. With all of the characters in it, you begin to follow and understand who they are.

Your mother, Maggie Smith, is a brilliant actor. Do you ever talk shop with her? Obviously I watch everything she does, she always eventually watches everything that I do. We really enjoy all of that. But it’s quite fun because at home we’re quite good at separating what we do as a job from our family life. You know what I mean? When you’re with them, it’s family. You want to just be family. You don’t start talking shop.

She’s a force to be reckoned with on the show, are you ever shocked by how brash she is on Downton Abbey? She’s basically like that in real life, so it doesn’t shock me at all. [Laughs.] I grew up with it.

#toby stephens #interview

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weirdmarioenemies · 6 years ago

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It’s a Super Mario Odyssey masterpost!

Sorry to take a break from the Halloween goodness, but it’s the one year anniversary of Super Mario Odyssey! Hard to believe it’s been a whole year, isn’t it? There’s no denying this game is absolutely, how do we put this, “perfect” for a lack of even better compliments, with some vast, detailed worlds, many small fun challenges, and of course, lots of cool new Weird Mario Enemies!

...But today, we aren’t going to talk about enemies at all, because what this game also has is some fantastic Weird Mario Friends! To put things simple, there’s a lot of kingdoms in the game, and most of them have their own NPCs that we all love as dearly as the many friends and foes and spooky tree aliens we’ve featured on this blogs in months past, so sit back, as all three WME mods talk about the wonderful new NPCs we see in this game!

Talking about Bonneters, Tostarenans, and Steam Gardeners is Mod Chikako!

Talking about Lochladies, Shiverians, and Moon Rabbits is Mod F Boy!

And talking about New Donkers, Bubblainians, and Volbonans is Mod Hooligon!

With that out of the way, let’s-a go!

Name: Bonneter

Mario’s grand adventure starts off on an EXTREMELY strong foot when he regains consciousness in a land populated by... g-g-g-g-GHOSTS! The precious Bonneters live in the delightfully spooky Cap Kingdom, where there is rarely a color present besides white, gray, or black, and the whole land is enveloped in a thick fog. To top it all off, the music is simply perfect for a spooky, yet friendly town of ghosts! Also, they all have British accents.

Of course, there is one Bonneter who stands out from the rest, and that is Cappy, Mario’s newest friend! He embodies the ability of the Bonneters to take the form of normal hats and Capture other beings. Yeah, it’s basically possessing people. It’s okay. It’s fun.

What do you think is under their hat? Is it part of their body, or are they stylish? They don’t LOOK very natural, but Cappy has a few tufts of hair on his hat/head, so the answer is... I don’t know!

Also, there is no spooky-themed area in this game. The only ghosts in the entire game are your friends! Score one for ghosts!

Name: Tostarenan

Here they are... the first ever new characters we saw in Super Mario Odyssey! Remember that Switch trailer way back when? Where we saw like three seconds of Odyssey? Those three wonderful seconds? I do!

Tostarenans are, of course, based on calaveras, the decorative skulls used in the Mexican celebration of the Day of the Dead. They live in a cozy little town just as colorful as they are, and love nothing more than having fun and eating frozen- I mean, freezy treats!

As I’ve touched upon in their own post, Tostarenans have their own undead version, the Chincho! Which means... these are living skeletons! How does this work? They’re the same shape, so do they have exoskeletons? Again! I don’t know! But wow, that’s two sorta-spooky friend species already, huh? Like we said! This game is perfect!

Name: Lochlady

Lochladies are the world-famous fashion designers found in the Lake Kingdom... a Kingdom whose industry relies entirely on fashion! Peach/Mario’s very pretty wedding dress was made here. According to the brochure, they’re known for their flexibility but also their strength, and that’s kinda funny... they might look dainty, but these fish are strong!

A fish? A mermaid? They’re really a bit of both. Of course mermaids are their main inspiration, but these things very clearly have scales, right? It’s nice that even the very-human designs in Mario are still a little bit silly.

Though, I suppose the term “mermaid” wouldn’t really apply to them, since mer comes from the Latin for “sea”... instead, they’re named Lochladies... a loch, of course, being a Scottish word for a lake... Like Loch Ness! And Dorrie, the incredibly-Loch-Ness-Monster-inspired friend, even shows up here. If you ignore the fact that Lake Lamode is a French name, it all works out.

Name: Steam Gardener

That’s no watering can! Just kidding, it is. But it’s also a robot! And most importantly, it’s a friend! Really just a wonderful combination of things to be.

Steam Gardeners live in the Steam Gardens! They’re steam-powered! They garden! And they are very good at it. They come in different magnitudes of rustiness, but don’t worry! It seems they can very well go on forever as long as they stay charged. Their heads can be empty, but can also contain flowers or even seeds that they can dispense!

I really love the Steam Gardeners because they don’t really look like a character at all, you know? They look robotic, sure, but there’s not really much of a face or anything. And if you ask me, that makes them even more fun! The flashing lights seem to act as a face, if anything, since that’s what they point toward you while speaking. Oh yeah, they’re even asymmetrical! They’re really just a mishmosh of things that most people wouldn’t consider “cute”, but guess what! I think it’s precious! Sue me! (I would probably win because this isn’t a valid reason to sue someone!)

Name: New Donker

When the first trailer for Super Mario Odyssey came out, one thing that immediately caught everyone’s attention was the New Donkers! Usually, when humans appear in the Mario series, they are very heavily stylized, like ol’ Mario Mario himself! But these humans are hardly stylized at all, looking like your average businessperson you’d pull off the streets of New York in the 1950s!

Seeing Mario interacting with these much less stylized people is as jarring as it is hilarious, with lots of people questioning how this sort of image could be from a real Mario game. This is exactly the kind of off-the-wall wackiness we all appreciate over here!

...Of course, then there’s the question of if the New Donkers are technically human. We know Mario is human! We’ve gotten numerous statements from Nintendo that confirm it, aside from one old advertisement which listed him as “homo nintendonus.” What we really should be talking about is the New Donkers! We have no official source considering them humans, as they are exclusively referred to as “New Donkers” in-game. One statement from Nintendo says the reason Mario looks so different from the New Donkers is because “there’s lots of different kinds of people in the world,” but when the definition of “people” also includes dancing skeletons and garden robots, I think that it can be considered a pretty broad term.

Of course, even then, New Donkers and humans are obviously two very genetically-similar species capable of cross-breeding. How else do we explain Pauline?

Name: Shiverian

I love many many things in this big blue Earth of ours, but chubby seals are definitely way up there. So, these guys? Absolutely... wonderful. I love them. I love their dopey voices, I love their cute widdle faces. I love their cosy little town, and I love that they hold competitions where they literally roll around a racetrack, because they’re just that round and fat!!

Shiverians are one of the few NPCs you can capture, too! When in Fat Seal form, you can compete in their Bound Bowl races... Humans aren’t allowed to participate, but the brochure makes it clear that only a fat seal man could survive such a race.

And above all, I love their funky elder. Look at those shades. He’s a cool old man. He’s not like your grandpa- he’s hip!

Name: Bubblainian

I think one thing we can all appreciate here at Weird Mario Enemies Dot Geocities Dot Io is gastropods, no matter what shape or form they take. In Super Mario Odyssey, they take the form of giant French snails with flesh-lips, but better off to be a snail with weird flesh-lips than not be a snail at all, am I right gamers?

I’m glad that they picked snails as their “easy-going beach populace,” (though snails are a good choice for anything, really) but what stands out most about Bubblainians to me isn’t the Bubblainians themselves, but rather, one very particular run-down I had with one during my playthrough of the game!

Bubblainians hide in their shells whenever an enemy gets too close, a small detail I really love. However, one time when I was playing, I was wearing the chef outfit, and was running up to talk to one of these guys when without warning, it hid in its shell! I assume a nearby Gushen might’ve just gotten a little too close, but I just thought it was silly because these French snails were afraid of a chef!

You know, because escargot is a dish in France that’s made from snails and...

Well, it was funny to me at least.

Name: Volbonan

My absolute favorite world in Super Mario Odyssey has to be... New Donk City. I feel that that’s most peoples’ favorite. My immediate second choice, however, is Mount Volbono, and I just love its inhabitants to death. Before I die, you’ll see me laying down, on my deathbed saying “man, I sure love the Volbonans from Super Mario Odyssey” and then I’ll be dead.

But why do I love Volbonans so much? Well, I guess it’s just that I’ve always sort of had an affinity for inanimate object creatures (anyone who’s met me knows how much I love Vanilluxe) and Volbonans are just a perfect design for a fork character! I tried a few shots at designing fork characters in the past, but I made the dire mistake of putting the face on the part with the tines, rather than the handle, a mistake which the Volbonans so excellently fix! Really, I never considered using the tines as limbs, it’s a design that works so well that I’d be cursing myself if the Volbonans weren’t so inherently blessed in and of themselves.

Throw on the chef hats and neckerchiefs, and they go from perfect to extremely perfect, having a design befitting of their hobby of cooking! It feels weird that an entire species has a life focused on cooking, but I suppose that if you’re a giant fork in a land of giant food, there’s nothing better you can do. One of the souvenirs you can buy from Mount Volbono is a set of forks based on the Volbonans themselves! Cute! A little freaky, but still cute!

I think it goes without saying that I want the Volbonans, alongside every other Odyssey NPC, to be playable in the next Mario Kart. Let me race around the whole Mario world as a giant fork or 1950′s (ambiguously) human man!

Name: Moon Rabbit

I am summoned once again from the depths of my cave to talk about Japanese folklore, because I enjoy doing that! The Dark Side stage, unlocked after you beat the game, is also known as “Rabbit Ridge”, and features food-shaped rocks and a whole lotta bunnies... Why? You may or may not have already heard of the story of the moon rabbit (it’s pretty well-known), but in case you haven’t:

According to our friends in the east, the markings of the moon kind of resemble a rabbit pounding mochi with a mortar and pestle. And yeah, I can totally see it. Of course, Mario Odyssey very prominently features hats, and it prominently features the moon in nearly every Kingdom.... and rabbits, naturally, are pulled out of hats! It works on so many levels!

The regular Moon Rabbits aren’t all that talkative, but of course, there are some fairly notable rabbits, too! Yup, the Broodals are from the Dark Side of the moon... which might even be why they look like UFOs when they fly around in their hats. I won’t talk too much about them here, but you’ve gotta wonder... why are they so much more anthropomorphic than their fellow Moon Rabbits? Is this a Goofy/Pluto scenario?

#super mario odyssey #mario #mod chikako #mod f boy #mod hooligon

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jmkitsune · 6 years ago

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I wanna talk bout this more and not HIJACK the op’s post.

the idea is not far from exaggeration, like my grandmother asked me what Umbrella Academy is about and I explained “...so a rich guy goes around the world trying to adopt 43 super powered babies all born in 89, at the same time kinda thing, he only gets 7 and raises them to be child super heroes.”

she was like confused, so I went on to explain how one is super powerful, one can throw knives and like NEVER misses, another can “see dead people” one essentially can change reality by saying she heard rumors, etc etc etc

she was even MORE confused and I had to explain- IT WORKS in its universe, its our world...but their stuff is just accepted, and she asked how and why

I pointed out- no one questions why in Marvel there are super soldiers in spangly patriot uniforms, a Norse God, an alcoholic billionaire and a giant green rage monster agreeing to help co-parent a poor teenage kid with spider powers....it just IS

so that made me wonder will Millennials (through comics and other story telling mediums) literally break away from conventional plot conveying and move towards more “stylized” stories where sure its BALLS TO THE FUCKING WALL but the core of the story will be relateable characters that are HELLA HUMAN and analogues for different groups/types of people who need to be represented WHILE STILL GIVING AN ESCAPIST fantasy

like ok let’s look at pop culture stuff I love at the moment-

Umbrella Academy- I just explained it above

Lore Olympus- Modern High Society Soap Opera styled Greek Mythology focused on how Hades got his shit together and fell for Persephone all while the other Olympians...do fuck knows what (oh and Hermes is a gem and needs protection)

Kingdom Hearts- Disney fucked Final Fantasy- had a baby, gave him GIANT shoes, and told him - swing this sword sized key, and save the world from darkness! OH and messages about friendship and whatever lol

the Marvel/DC universes- again kinda covered above

Grishaverse- ...alternative Russia has essentially elemental benders, one of which is a shadow bender, and a girl discovers she is a SUN BENDER and oh did I mention the Prince of Russia is a pirate who is the BIGGEST self insert for someone like ME? (anymore and I’d spoil 3 books let alone the later 3 books that have came out since the Original trilogy)

Percy Jackson books- young teens find out ADHD is a sign of being a DEMI GOD, a kid is given a PEN THAT BECOMES A SWORD, his dad is Poseidon oh and did ya know all the gods are kinda shitty parents- making their kids (who are ...we think mortal) do all their dirty work cause “we’re gods- do what we said!” oh and apparently Zeus/Poseidon/Hades can’t have kids anymore cause the last time they did- world war 2 happened (neat right?) OH don’t forget- Apollo is the original FUCK BOI (he invented mansplaining in universe- HE ADMITTED IT)

like explaining these series...they sound weird as FUCK but they’re not, they’re actually HELLA good

and these types of stories are gonna be influencing millennials, gen z and beyond AND LETS BE REAL- we’re gonna do what WE LIKE READING/SEEING so odds are who knows how balls to the wall crazy/style > practicality we’ll do

yes- we’ll follow OBVIOUS rules (all mediums have them) but the first rule of writing is- learn all the rules- so you can break them RIGHT

Millennials are probably gonna BURN THE FUCKIN RULES and start over cause we can

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au-tumn-al · 6 years ago

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TTGC has been out for 2 weeks now and since it’s been enough time for me to stop crying and actually do the post-game stuff, I want to get all my thoughts out about it. It’ll be under a cut because it’ll be long, and I’m not sure how many of my followers are actually interested in what I have to say. Which is ofc fine, I just like talking about it and I’ve been sitting on some of this for a while.

To start off, I loved Torna ~ The Golden Country. It’s the best expansion DLC we’ll be seeing from Nintendo, and probably from most other games in general, for a while.

I like its core cast of main characters than base XC2, and I think I like it a little more than XC1’s as well. I didn’t actually like any of the characters more than my favorites from base XC2, but as a whole, they were all really likable and never felt like they were falling behind in the background. I never felt like “yeah, I like them I guess” to any of the cast members like Sharla was for me from XC1, and a pretty decent chunk of the protagonists in XC2. ...Because XC2′s cast was way too huge with too much focus on the antagonists and somehow not enough at the same time, but that’s neither here. Technically Team Hugo isn’t really as important to the story as Lora, Jin, Addam, and Mythra, but the sidequests very easily fixed that for me. All the characters were very present in the side-content so I never forgot about them. I regularly did sidequests when they popped up so it felt like a natural part of the story.

I would say that it delivered in everything that I was hoping for from a story standpoint but it really, really didn’t. One of the things I was looking forward to the most was seeing more of Amalthus and Malos’s dynamic before Malos left to start his rampage. Their relationship is only told through subtext in the core game and what we saw was interesting. Even in some of chapter 8 and 9, it almost felt like they were trying one-up the other on how much destruction they could cause. Malos’s “Amalthus, you never disappoint” line delivery even makes it sound like he was looking forward to what his driver would be throwing at Alrest.

The only thing we got from Torna about how they were initially with each other was

Malos shows up and Amalthus’s knee-jerk reaction is a deadpan “oh god, it’s this asshole” look. I enjoyed it probably more than I was meant to, but I wish we got to see more. Maybe it was a little unrealistic to expect it, but considering how much of the story depends on their relationship with each other, was it really?

Another thing I was hoping for was more backstory for Minoth. I wanted to know if he knew Malos (which was actually answered though, so that was nice) since they shared a driver, and I really wanted to know how he ended up becoming a flesh eater. Judicium was already destroyed by the time TTGC rolled around and we barely went into what a flesh eater even was, so that was lame. That said though, the game did go into his relationship with Amalthus and it told us all that was really important, on top of giving us some other stuff I wasn’t expecting (a North American wild west motif, Spanish, a weapon deadass called “gunknife”, and Elma’s specials except more stylized) so you certainly won’t hear me complaining. I loved what we got with Minoth even if it wasn’t exactly what I wanted, and I think he’s great.

Another thing that I was expecting was for Malos to have more screentime. He was heavily advertised so I think I’m justified in expecting this. There wasn’t necessarily anything about Malos I wanted expanded upon, I just wanted to see him more since he makes everything about a billion times more entertaining just by being there. He completely stole the show in every cutscene he was in and I loved every second of it. He was kicking everyone’s asses in his first boss fight and even won, but I was loving his script, animation, and voice acting far too much to care.

there was a nice little detail to his animation too

After he punches the ground for the Monado Cyclone(?), you can see him shaking his hand off because like damn, that probably hurt. ,,,I just liked it. Don’t ask me why.

He’s probably the main reason I only play in English to be honest. His voice actor sells the script and character so perfectly. I seriously don’t know if I’d like Malos as much as I do if he was played by someone else. He might be the only Xenoblade character other than maybe Shulk and Lin that I can say this about.

and his monologue to the party right after his first boss fight where he says “they see the divine flame of life and piss all over it” while sauntering away was actually the best scene in the game. We didn’t see as much of Malos as I would have wanted, but every scene we did get was the best so like with Minoth, I can’t complain. I love this man. He’s the most entertaining sack of shit I’ve ever had the pleasure of enjoying.

My ruined expectations and Malos aside, what the game actually gave us was so good, I can’t even complain about the things I wanted to see because they gave us plenty of stuff I didn’t know I wanted. The two biggest ones, for me anyway, are Mythra and Addam.

I had no idea that TTGC would flesh her out the way they did, and I am not disappointed. Mythra was amazing in TTGC, and really made me appreciate her and her character arc in the base game a lot more. I loved how generally unbearable and unlikable they made her. She’s completely self-absorbed and full of herself, and just overall extremely similar to Malos. The way the game handles her attitude was really well done too. Because the other characters are constantly calling her out for her bad behavior (esp. Jin and Brighid. Lora chips in too sometimes) and lack of awareness on top of being the verbal punching bag and the butt of a lot of the jokes in the game, she’s not obnoxious to the player. She could have been really annoying, but she wasn’t. On the topic of the jokes though, I laughed at more of TTGC’s comedy. They relied less on anime tropes and were more character focused, which are usually the jokes I like more. The game felt a lot more like XC1 in that aspect, and that was really great.

Moving on, I loved Addam. He was my favorite character in the game. Making him act like Mythra’s dad was something I wasn’t expecting and I loved it. I have a pretty big post in my drafts where I talk about him extensively so that should go up at some point. It’s mostly about how he’s a really good foil to Rex and how he failed as a driver rather than about his pretty fabulous dynamic with Mythra (even if he ended up rejecting her as his blade, he did accept her as person for him to take care of, and he did everything he could in that area) though. Oh, and because there’s no way to shoehorn this in that Addam post, I want to bring something up. I don’t know if there’s any good footage of this (if there is, please send it to me so I can edit it in), but there’s a post battle conversation between Mythra and Lora that goes kind of like this:

Mythra: “Hey, Lora, what do you do when the going gets tough?”

Lora: “Just think about the people I care about.”

Mythra: “Think of loved ones, huh?”

Lora: “Yeah. If I do that, I’m usually grinning like an idiot.”

Now, let’s look at Mythra when she’s at one of her lowest. She’s scared and feels alone. Malos is attacking her with everything he’s got, and she’s is looking for anything to hold on to. ...You see where I’m going with this.

She flashes to memories of her friends, and thinks of both Addam and Milton specifically. The thing is though, for all she knows, Milton could be dead from Malos’s initial attack, and Addam is doing everything he can to hold her back from fully transforming into Pneuma because of his distrust and fear of her. Mythra trying to think of all her loved ones wasn’t enough, and then all she got was a confusing vision of a person she’d never met before. She’s completely alone, confused, and hurt, and she doesn’t have anything there to ground her. That’s when she breaks down in tears, and then starts sinking Torna in a daze because she can’t control her power.

...on a more positive note, two of the visions she gets of Rex is of him accepting her in chapter 7.

So that was finding comfort in a loved one, but it was just too soon. Like Jin told her, her true driver and real time to come as her own as a person wasn’t in Torna. It certainly didn’t help at the time, though.

At that point in chapter 7, she was in a similarly low state as she was in TTGC, except she had Rex that time, and then was fully able to achieve her full power as an Aegis. It should be noted Mythra’s “I just...want...to save...” line was apparently horribly translated, and the original was more along the lines of her begging for someone to save her. That’s what I hear anyway and I can believe it. It makes more sense that way.

Good God, was this a great expansion. It was already pretty fantastic with just its setting and premise alone, but it does an even better job in making me appreciate a lot of the scenes in XC2. Even the already-amazing scene in chapter 7. sPEAKING OF ALREADY AMAZING SCENES MADE BETTER BY TTGC

Rex: “I don’t even know what I’m doing here anymore... Did...did I go wrong somewhere...?”

This is one of my favorite Mythra scenes in the entire game, TTGC included. It’s so small but it’s so good. I don’t think I even need to explain why this is made better by TTGC.

XC2 is very loud, and unabashedly anime, but it has quiet scenes like this and dammit, are they the best parts of the game. I think they’re even made better by the fact XC2′s tone is generally so upbeat and anime.

I said this before, but TTGC didn’t tell us anything new. We already knew pretty much all of the events of the game before it came out. Maybe we were missing a few details, but in the end, we knew how things were going to go down. Mythra becoming a much more interesting character because of the expansion pass just by being able to see her growth just shows how important the “show, don’t tell” rule is.

I love Haze a lot. I hate how she’s a third wheel in Team Lora, I hate how Addam and Jin are the only people who really pay any attention to her, and I hate even more that no one hugs her when she’s crying at the end of the game.

oh yeah, Lora and Jin were the main characters. They weren’t very interesting to me (Lora barely had an arc and all of Jin’s intricacies mostly come from the base game) so I don’t have a lot to say about them other than I really liked them. The ending would have completely broke me if the game forced me to watch Lora die so I don’t even care that it was left out.

People consider the lyrics of “A Moment of Eternity” a message from Lora to Jin but I like to pretend that it’s Addam to Mythra because it’s less depressing that way. The singer is encouraging their loved one to find someone to help them move on and if it was to Jin, that meant that Lora’s last wish for him never happened. He met Malos and then

but seriously though, it could be both. The song ties in pretty well to “One Last You”, and that was very obviously from Pneuma about Rex. It was probably supposed to be up to interpretation anyway. ...a little off-topic, but there’s a line in the song that goes “time flowed differently for us/not to say it was all bad” and then there’s a scene where Addam talks about how he doesn’t have enough time to adapt to Mythra so...idk, maybe that’s something? I mean, Lora got 17 years with Jin, so she didn’t exactly have the short one year Addam had with Mythra.

i’m done now.

Half of this was me gushing about Mythra. I don’t even care because I loved her. Please forgive any of the obvious signs that I didn’t spend very long proofreading this thanks--

#personal #xenoblade chronicles 2 #torna spoilers #this is a long-ass post lmao

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erickadracula · 6 years ago

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The last good-bye

They were in one of the great halls that overlooked the beautiful garden of English roses, which recalled the times when Abraham used to live there. They were just blooming after a long, dark winter. The sun's rays were warmer and the days slightly longer.

"Why have you asked me to meet you here? , it is something unusual of you, grandfather" Willhem adored the frescoes of that room and the harmony in the decoration. High ceilings in cream color with golden motifs and pastel colors with frescoes of deities and gloriously dressed characters enjoying mass parties full of abundance, were magnificently captured. Of all the residences, this was the least somber.

The Van Helsing State was a set of four residences divided, according to their use and time of the year. The main one was where the family members lived and the other three served to guard relics, extensive libraries, art or as offices and chambers to receive ambassadors, politicians, philosophers and nobility and sometimes, royalty.

They were in the spring-summer residence, almost a month before Van Helsing officially began the Easter celebrations.

"There are less people here who can spy on us, most of the servants are in the main residence.”

Abraham had always been a cautious man, but he could not deny that with age he had also become a little paranoid.

He saw his beloved grandson, putting on his three-piece suit and using his distinctive cane as if he were a dandy. He had grown so much, he had become a faithful portrait of his father and sometimes forgets that he is not talking to his son, but to his grandson.

His platinum blonde curls, his mustache perfectly waxed, with harmonious features, he might look like an angel, if he didn’t have a scar on the eyelid of his left eye. He was a stocky man who liked extreme sports and adrenaline in its purest form.

"Grandpa, thank you for entrusting me with this mission of God. You know that I am proud to belong to this institution."

He kissed the hand of the person who had offered him so much wisdom and challenges. Abraham had raised him to be at the same level and likeness of his deceased son and Willhem had a complete devotion.

"You are my pride, I know that you will do a good job and you are willing to run any necessary risk in this mission."

His trip to Africa was not just a diplomatic visit, but a covert mission.

The Dutch ambassador of the Congo had something in his possession that was required for his mission, a map with coordinates that could give the location of the lost city of Atlantis. Inquiring for years, there were only two books that contained what appeared to be a map of that fictional place and Abraham had one of them in his possession but it was incomplete. He had bought it in one of his expeditions in an antique market. Having almost scarce information and hiring secret investigators, he could find the location of the other map several decades later.

"How can we know that we can trust him?”

They were very troubled months, there were many social nonconformities and were difficult times where there was no certainty of anything or anyone. There was also much fear of the monsters, and in some regions, there were rumors that they were causing unfortunate massacres and events.

"We just know, he owes me many favors. And he was the only one who found the person who had this. "

He pointed to the book with worn leather cover that had as its title a series of indecipherable characters.

"When we have this in our power, it is when you say we will embark?" Showing some displeasure at having to depend on others to carry out things, maybe he was not entirely brilliant but he was a man of action.

"Yes, as you know I do not know how many years it will take us, it could be hundreds, but it will be necessary to kill the monsters and especially with Dra ..." Putting his hands together and making faces of displeasure when trying to pronounce that name.

"With Dracula. Are you saying that there is no chance that I would beat him in a close-quarter battle? What are the chances of beating him with this object? "

Abraham loved to see the disposition of his beloved boy.

"If the legends are true, he would perish without any problem. It's something so powerful that it wiped out an entire city. "

That vision was really terrifying and grandiose, Willhem felt like his body was filled with an emotion too difficult to stop.

They heard a few steps and suddenly, the great doors opened wide. It was Dagmar, who entered with her elegant and provocative step, behind her came the butler as well, his face visibly agitated.

"Excuse me, I told the madam that I had to announce her before, but she did not listen.”

Van Helsing,throwing a quick glance of boredom at his grandson, quickly changed his expression to one of joy.

"Oh Daggy, my favorite ornament, how have you been? I'm glad you dignified to say goodbye to me. "

Dagmar made her entrance dressed in a white business suit, with some inspiration in the costumes of the first explorers of Africa, with a matching hat and a cascade of pearls around her stylized neck.

“Don’t come to me with hypocresies dear, but I'm always perfect and you, squeaking as usual?"

The relationship between the two of them had been at first honey on flakes, until she had discovered the true perception that he had about her, and the position that everyone handled in that house, the sun king and the other planets that surrounded him.

"I like this girl, her audacity and her lack of consideration towards elders, I like it" pointing to her while she sat next to her husband.

"Oh don’t start, you look like children. Without further ado grandfather, we will have to retire. The driver is already waiting for us to take us to the hangar. "

"You already told him my conditions, my love, that I want to be active in the missions. I no longer want to be just the companion" Stroking his shoulders as she lay her chin on one of them and watching Abraham laughingly.

“Yes, he already knows sweetheart, I think it's fair that you also take part in this"

Van Helsing hiding his annoyance, swallowed hard. "I'm glad that you're finally taking your role seriously"

"Well, we have to leave" Dagmar felt more than resentment in her heart for that antiquity as she called him in private, and it was difficult for her to contain herself "I hope he takes good care of her.”

That separation was painful, in spite of being a rather cold mother, her little one was the only being in that house to whom she could show love and of whom she felt genuinely concerned.

"You do not have to ask me, you know I would give my life for my great-granddaughter" feeling slightly assaulted by that comment.

Willhem hated being in the middle of that field of fire before two such explosive personalities, he had learned to get all of that out during in his workouts and always kept the composure.

“I did not talk about my daughter" lying to herself made her feel like she was winning some kind of battle against him. “I spoke of my mare, I already left the servants the instructions for her care" Looking at the butler who watched them silently.

Van Helsing was baffled at that clarification while she gave him a quick kiss on his cheek. He hated being approached too much, except by his grandson.

Leaving him a red lipstick mark, she just smiled as she saw the surprised face of her husband. It was her little revenge.

"You already know that I detest these unnecessary expressions of affection" he said while cleaning the place where he had been kissed without realizing that he was getting even more stained.

"At least you did not say it was Judas' kiss. Is it because of the connections my family has with royalty.” She straightened her hat and took her purse, “or because my grandfather was a great friend of yours? Oh yes, thanks to him you could work for the queen, I had forgotten. "

Going to the exit, and stopping just before to make him, with a cynical pose, a farewell signal before disappearing in the hall.

Once again the two alone, returning the sight towards one another, felt that whatever happened in that trip would be the last thing.

"Dear boy, take great care of yourself" somehow he felt a great weight in letting him go and he couldn’t explain it. "I'll wait for your return."

"Please do not take it the wrong way, do not listen to Dagmar, and please take good care of our daughter. If something would happen to us, I know she would not be in better hands" embracing what was left of him.

"Don’t say nonsense boy, the next time we see each other, it will be to embark, and to finally conclude our legacy" he took his hands and shook them tightly.

That was just another mission of the day-to-day life he carried out in the name of Abraham, he was used to being his spokesman and being the public image of the family. Even if there were risks, he would be willing to take them.

Taking his cane and heading for the exit decisively, he stopped short when he heard his ancestor with a loud voice telling him.

"The Van Helsing honor you and you honor them."

#hoteltransylvania3 #abraham van helsing #fanfiction #fanfic #mini fic

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mediaeval-muse · 6 years ago

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Book Review... Sean Gordon Murphy, “Batman: White Knight”

Rating: 4/5 stars

Summary: He’s been called a maniac, a killer and the “Clown Prince of Crime” but “white knight”? Never. Until now… Set in a world where the Joker is cured of his insanity and homicidal tendencies, The Joker, now known as “Jack,” sets about trying to right his wrongs. First, he plans to reconcile with Harley Quinn, and then he’ll try to save the city from the one person who he thinks is truly Gotham City’s greatest villain: Batman!

Reviewer Comments: I’m a huge fan of Murphy’s artwork, so I’ve been eagerly waiting for this trade to come out for months. This story had a lot of the things I love about Batman comics: moral conundrums, a found family, over-the-top villains. It also had a lot of heart, so I wasn’t just reading a dark, gritty story; more than once, I was touched by the interactions between characters and was reminded why the Bat Family is one of my favorites in comics. The way the narrative itself was handled reminded me a lot of Batman: The Telltale Series in that it took Bruce Wayne and the Joker to places that collided with “canon” but to great effect.

Things I Liked

Art: As I said above, I love Murphy’s art. His work is very stylized, which is delightful in itself, but he is also very good at capturing motion and facial expressions. I also really love pages where there are a lot of details: Joker’s cell, for example, is covered in Batman memorabilia, and the detail put into these scenes blew me away.

Harley Quinn: I was surprised at how much I really enjoyed Murphy’s portrayal of Harley Quinn. In this story, the original Harley leaves Joker, only to be replaced by someone else who is more indulgent of Joker’s violence. When Jack goes to reconcile with the original Harley, Murphy really takes the time to delve into her character: he reminds the reader that she is a medical genius; that deep down, she’s a good person; and that she has made mistakes that she realizes are truly unforgivable. I really loved this complex look at Harley, and every character interaction with her was a delight to read.

Complexity: Murphy’s story does an excellent job of putting Batman in a spot that might cause readers some discomfort. Realism or believability isn’t really the point, I don’t think. This comic is less interested in unfolding a “realistic” story than it is thinking through ideas. It forces us to acknowledge that Batman’s methods are, indeed, a strain on taxpayers (he damages so much property), and that Bruce has a tendency to snap and become more villainous than heroic. The comic doesn’t completely destroy Batman as a character - I still walked away loving Bruce Wayne. But it did set up an overarching narrative where the resolution was deeply satisfying on an emotional level - it wasn’t just punching the bad guy and throwing him in jail and calling it a day. Batman comes out on top, but does so in a way that isn’t rooted in him being the bigger badass, which I honestly prefer in my comics.

Bat Family: I loved that Dick Grayson went head-to-head with Bruce in some scenes, and that Barbara was a balancing force that highlighted how similar and alike the two are. I also loved Alfred’s letter to Bruce at the end, and that a major aspect of the story was Bruce realizing how valuable his family was.

Things I Didn’t Like

Undeveloped Ideas: This comic had a limited run, so I completely understand that there isn’t the space or time to do everything. I would, however, have liked a bit more setup at the beginning to show where Bruce was at mentally and emotionally (maybe working in the Jason Todd stuff earlier?), or some more exploration of the relationship between Gotham and Backport. I know Murphy has previously expressed his dislike for putting heavy-handed politics in his work, but in this case, more political setup may have helped explain how Backport was so quick to turn on Batman or join up with Jack.

Recommendations: I would recommend this book if you’re interested in:

Joker stories (especially “what if” ones), Batman/Bruce Wayne, Harley Quinn, relationship between Batman and the Joker

deviation from canon

difficult moral and ethical situations