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parachutingkitten · 4 years ago

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Y'all suck at dissecting Kai's character, so I guess I have to do it.

And I'm not even a Kai stan. He's a bottom tier ninja for me, which I guess means you can trust me, cuz I'm not biased, but also why am I the one doing this? I don't know about y'all, but recently on my dash, the method by which Kai fans try to make him sound good is... saying the writers hate him, ignore him, and that he isn't written well? Which... I mean there is a little bit of truth to, but like yikes guys, is this the best you got? Kai is a wonderful character with plenty of attention from the writers, a meaningful piece of the cast when put in secondary rolls, fairly consistent character writing with actual progression and valuable qualities that help the team without having to be the smart one- despite what some posts might tell you.

Let's get one thing cleared up: Ninjago isn't the best written show. By high level Hollywood standards, most the character arcs are kinda weak or too heavy handed, character consistency can be iffy, and most things serve the plot rather than the characters. There is no character you can point to and say "wow, this character is written so well! No complaints!" Nya and Jay were butchered by their weird love plot, Cole's one season doesn't actually give him an arc, Zane's been nothing but the robot numbers guy for like 10 seasons now, and Lloyd seems to be incapable of doing anything but relive the same one piece of dad angst for depth. Sorry, it's true. All the characters suck when you look at it from a large scale writing perspective. So when I say Kai is well written, I mean by ninjago kids show standards- cuz that's the scale we're working on. No, you couldn't drop Kai into a well written drama, but as far as ninjago goes... he's got a lot going for him, and by no means is he the biggest victim of poor writing.

(fair warning, wall of text below)

The title is a bit disingenuous. There are plenty of good Kai character break downs. What I am presenting here is a more positive perspective. On the whole, I will tend to give the writers the benefit of the doubt, and credit for what they do right writing is hard guys. That's what I'm doing here. I don't see much sense in getting mad the writers on behalf of Kai, or any other character. Ninjago is a simplistic ensemble show that works because of the identifiable simplicity of its main characters with some deeper layers hidden underneath if you keep watching. They've given us a damn good show with some damn enjoyable characters, so here are some criticisms I feel are a little flawed:

First, let's get the 'focus' thing out of the way. Apparently there are people saying Kai doesn't have a season yet? Which... what? I mean, I get that the pilots aren't a full season, the first two seasons, though he is the central protagonist, aren't "Kai seasons" as we've come to define ninja focus seasons, season 7, though he gets majority focus, he shares with his sister. But like... did y'all just forget about season 4? You know, the season where he had the title card, was on the box sets, got the love interest, and the majority of the A-plot? not to mention it's the best season don't @ me Like... if season 4 isn't a Kai season, I can make a damn good argument that season 3 isn't a Zane season, and I doubt anyone wants to go down that rabbit hole. I really can't wrap my head around this one. And I get that the fandom hates season 11 for some reason, but like you can't just pretend it doesn't exist. Kai has a consistent arc across 30 episodes in which he takes his powers for granted, loses them, and learns that, not only does he have value within the team without them, but that his element is intrinsically a part of him that he reclaims, bringing them back more powerful than ever, and with new respect for them. That's one of the most solid arcs in the whole series- the location is even thematically connected to his element. That's some good stuff right there! (Quick plug for season 11 if you haven't watched it in a while. Give it a rewatch, you might be pleasantly surprised)

Not to mention the writers give him fun side stuff all the time. Lots of fears of tech and water to overcome, a deep protective streak with Lloyd, becoming a chancellor, having a true potential actually relevant to the plot as a whole, blacksmith responsibilities, befriending dragons, hanging out with his dad. Not to mention actual focus stuff we haven't talked about yet, like his whole "my dad is evil" phase, and his "I might be evil" phase with him and Skylor. And on top of that, even when he doesn't have an explicit side plot, he's always just a fun and dynamic side character to make jokes or give exposition.

Now, into character stuff. Let's start with Kai's hot headed-ness. Some people say he's been loosing this quality, and I will admit, that's true! But those that claim this makes him inconsistent... I strongly disagree. In early seasons, Kai's temper would lead him to snap at his friends or make stupid decisions that set the team back (see episode 2 Zane freak out)- these are bad things. These are character flaws, yes? Now, in newer seasons, people say that he's inconsistent, cuz sometimes he'll be hot headed, and sometimes he won't. I'd say, this is exactly how being hot headed... works? It flares up without warning, and as an individual gets control of it, it'll pop up less and less often because they're channeling it into productive things - like say directing the anger towards an enemy (see season 11 end freak out). Kai has gained control of a character flaw, and though it still pops up on occasion, the fact that it's a once in a while kind of thing speaks to his growth. I have a little brother who has this exact personality, and watching him grow up, I can tell you, this is how it is. He used to snap all the time, and he still does sometimes, but much less frequently, because he's a more mature person with better control of his emotions. This is a good thing. This is overcoming personal flaws. This is progression we're seeing.

And while you're hyper focused on this one aspect of him, things like his cocky confidence haven't changed a bit. I mean, that season 3 bit between him and Pixal, and his season 11 "fire maker" streak have the exact same energy. You can not convince me otherwise.

Another adjacent quality that hasn't been dampened is Kai's impulsiveness. This can be a good quality of his, he'll get into a fight without thinking, getting the jump on the enemy. Good stuff. But, this has become such a well defined trait of Kai's that it has been used in a comedic capacity. This is what happens when a character is extremely consistent to the extent that both the audience and the characters in universe would be able to predict their actions. Kai's impulsivity used to be a more serious quality that put himself and others at risk, and was a big power move whenever he did something rash, but it's become such a staple of the show that it's now being used for comedy. That isn't Kai's impulsivity going away, that's Kai's impulsivity being recontextualized for the sake of the show. The season 9 "Who's stupid enough to jump on that thing" isn't a joke at the expense of Kai just for being dumb, it's a joke at Kai's being so predictably impulsive that everyone already knows he'll be the one to put himself in an insane amount of danger without thinking twice (you know, something stupid that might get him killed). But because in this instance, the danger is warranted, this is bravery. It's a complement to his character- it's what ends up defeating the colossus. Why are some people so bothered by this joke?

Oh right, cuz for some reason people want to peg Kai as the smart one? Look, Kai isn't stupid, none of the ninja are. All of them have smart moments (all of them have dumb ones too) and Kai can certainly handle himself, but "smart" is definitely not one of his defining characteristics- I think some people are confusing smart for his actual strength. Connected to his impulsivity, Kai has very good simplistic instincts. He sees the big picture and looks at the most surface level solution- which when the situation calls for it, that does indeed make him smart. But the same logic that led him to think "This snake has a glowing target on its head, lets hit it" also led him to think "I'm in a video game, therefore I am immortal." Are you really going to look at me and say he figured out Lloyd was the green ninja through logical deduction and a careful consideration of the facts? No. He had a gut feeling, and he trusted it. Instincts- instincts paired with his impulsive following of said instincts is what leads him to solve problems- and sometimes, that can be extremely effective. This goes for other ninja too. Jay isn't the smartest ninja- I would really only classify Zane and Nya as having intelligence define them (hence their ship name). But Jay is extremely creative and crafty. He also knows his was around mechanics, and as such, this will lead him to come up with creative tech based solutions which are smart. But, idk about you, if I had to point to another ninja as being 'dumb' it would 100% be Jay. Kai is a lot of things. He's passionate and determined and confident and persistent. He's a good improvisor, he's powerful and he's charming! These are all wonderful qualities, he doesn't also have to be the smart one. I am the worlds biggest Pixal stan, and she's a smart, sassy, powerful character, but I'm not gonna sit here and tell you she's also hilarious and adaptable and strong willed. She's a straight man to all the ninja's antics, extremely tied to her samurai x suit, and lets people push her around all the time. That doesn't mean she can't be funny, or self interested, but when she does act these ways, it stems from her other more prominent qualities. That make sense?

And while we're clearing up what Kai isn't, please stop characterizing Kai as an overly protective brother - especially romantically. The only two times he's been romantically protective to Nya are in Wu's Teas which I mean, come on and in the pilots when Jay is literally a stranger. For crying out loud, by the end of the pilot, he's smiling when Jay and Nya hug. That's not overly protective, that's just normal, any reasonable person would react this way, protective. And it's such a great stereotype break for a kids show like ninjago, having an older brother who actually trusts his younger sister to be her own independent person who can make her own decisions. I mean, I guess it's fine if you HC differently but like... idk, I don't buy it.

Now, is there still room to criticize the writers? Yes. Hell yes. But not to an extent greater than any other character. Could he have had more of a defined reaction to events of the most recent season that I won't name for the sake of spoilers? Yes. But could Zane have reacted for more than .5 seconds at being an evil war lord for apparently 60 years? Yeah. Has Kai taken a back seat in the past 4 seasons? Yeah. But so has Lloyd- and he's literally the main character of the show. Not to mention two of those seasons have gone to people who had to wait over ten seasons to get one to themselves, and one of them is a 40 minute special. Kai's doing just fine.

Anyway. Kai is great. He's a fun, stereotype breaking, impulsively driven, ball of energy and confidence who gets a good amount of screen time and some fun side plots.

One last thing to clear up: no hate to anyone. This isn't targeted at anyone specific, this post has been a long time coming, I've just seen some weird overblown claims on various platforms over the past few months and I finally sat down to write about it.

I like the Kai content we have. After all, if the writers were really that bad at writing him, then no one would like him.

Wow this was so much longer than I thought it would be. Um... if you have other long winded rants you'd like to see from me... let me know I guess?

#ninjago #kai ninjago #kai smith #parachuterants #analysis #lets add this tag:#/lh

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aquaticstyles · 4 years ago

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unchained

A while ago I was asked for a “Have You Ever Been In Love” sequel, and while this is probably not the direction you guys were expecting, this is what I came up with. Also, this one’s (loosely) inspired by the song “Scott Street” by the lovely Phoebe Bridgers (highly recommend listening to the spotify sessions version while listening). Fun fact, for forever I misheard the lyrics, thinking she was saying “unchained” instead of “ashamed.” After noticing that I have, in fact, been wrong this entire time, I realized I kinda liked my version better (sorry Phoebe). And, me being me, I ran with it and it spun into this quick, 1.4k part two. Reblogs + feedback help so much! Enjoy!! xx, Jane

“Have you ever been in love?”

Harry’s heart stops.

The question catches him off guard, and not just because he’s not used to interviewers asking such personal ones (he guesses this is what he signed up for when he agreed to be the first male flying solo on the cover of Vogue). It makes his heart stop because of his answer, because of the woman that had once asked him the same exact question.

Harry has never been one to linger in his sadness; he finds it unproductive, and quite honestly, completely depressing. After a break up, one can find the caramel-colored curls belonging to the world’s latest phenomenon sweating out his sorrow, or frustration, at the gym, pounding the boxing bag again and again and again. “Nothing another set can’t fix,” his trainer, Mike, would often tease the man in denial, knowing good and well by his posture upon entering the ring, slumped shoulders and an ever-present crease between his eyebrows, that another one had bit the dust the night prior. Mike had learned fairly quickly to never ask questions, to simply let Harry work out his emotions as he pleases, even if that means letting him walk out with wrapped fists masking throbbing, crimson knuckles.

Harry has never been one to talk about his sadness either; he finds it prolongs the pain rather than diminishing it, an annoying gnat swarming around an abnormally large bite from a crisp apple, halting his progression in enjoying his afternoon snack because he just can’t catch the bloody thing. His sister has tried to break him from his stubborn ways, even resulting to getting the lanky man drunk off tequila in hopes of him finally opening up about his incessant missed targets; however, that only ever ends up with Gemma’s arms holding up the giggling teddy bear and folding his bulky body into a taxi, mimicking cramming a cotton ball into a straw. Therapy was suggested and waved off with an inked palm, because if he doesn’t want to talk to his sister about it, how on earth is he supposed to talk to a stranger?

Never-ending claims of “I’m fine,” and “It just didn’t work out,” and “Don’t worry ‘bout me,” and “It wasn’t even that serious.” Sure, each breakup took a little something out of the man that insisted he was “fine,” but eventually, a couple dozen inked journal pages later, Harry would be back to his normal, happy-go-lucky, perfectly-kind self.

All of these rang true for most of Harry’s young adulthood.

All of these were common occurrences, that is, until Harry met you.

You were unlike anyone he had ever met. Selfless, but not in an over-bearing, walk-all-over-me kind of way. Funny, but not in an underlying-hatred, fake-laugh kind of way. Genuine, but not in a look-at-me, fake kind of way. Honest, in a I-want-to-know-everything-that-makes-you-you, ask-you-questions-until-the-sun-rises kind of way. Drop-dead-gorgeous in the most unbelievable, glowing, ethereal, kind of way that he constantly reminded you of. You were the perfect balance, the missing diamond to even out the coal on the other end of the scale.

Loving you felt like the ocean.

In the morning when there’s a hazy screen covering your lenses, clouding the soft sunlight in a muted, white-washed filter. It’s more gray, yet still golden as the shining mass of fire lazily rises from its slumber. It’s calm, clouds stretched apart like cobwebs in the faded blue sky above, waves leisurely, almost too relaxed, crashing along the bleached shore then disappearing back into the horizon. Still sleepy, still new, an entire day ahead of you.

In the afternoon when the sun is at its highest and hottest, radiating down ultraviolet rays that burn your skin, causing alarmingly red shoulders in need of aloe that soon progressively heal and turn into a bronzed exterior. Speckles of light dancing upon excited waves, similar to a neighborhood of children dressed in pink polka dots and orange overalls running towards the ice cream truck filled to the brim with dreams of sugary stomachaches. It’s saturated, every color its brightest and loudest, pops of cerulean and coral. It’s a blanket of comfort, a suffocating scarf. It’s sweet. It’s sour. A cool glass of lemonade sinking into a bed of quicksand. Annoying and astonishing.

In the night, when the yellowing presence is long gone in the awakening of the moon, the deepest indigo swirling in between pockets of stars dotted and flecked into the atmosphere like freckles. It’s black and blue. You don’t know where the earth stopss and the water begins, familiarity lost as the waves erase each new footprint in the sand. The tide is an abuser, sweet as it sings you in, terrifying as it pulls you under. Skinny dipping, vulnerable, exciting, adrenaline, heart thumping, diving, sinking, drowning.

The morning, the afternoon, the night. The happening, the honeymoon, the heartbreak.

Ever since it ended, everything Harry had ever known was cast aside, thrown out like a Gucci jumper from last season. For the first time in his twenty-six years of living, fourteen of those juggling the obstacles that relationships can and will bring, Harry was irreversibly numb, a pair of frozen, gloveless fingertips blue from the icy wind. Not only did he linger in the gut-wrenching grief, he was absorbed by it. Instead of waking up each morning tucked into the bare side of your body diffusing innocent warmth, sipping a steaming cup of black coffee received by hands much smaller than his own, he woke up with a stranger laying on his chest, cold, with a pounding headache the bottle of whiskey had gladly supplied from the night before. The days felt as if they lasted an eternity, time stuck in slow-motion, tick, tick, ticking, one second, one and a half, one and three quarters, two. He watched the seasons pass, the grass dying and regenerating into its natural emerald shade from his bedroom, dust pocketing in the corners of a picture frame containing two pairs of sparkling eyes and genuine, toothy grins sitting on the windowsill. Nights consisted of him lying sleepless on his back, eyes wide awake, thumbs twiddling as the echoes of helicopters overhead drone in and out. Dozens of missed calls remained unanswered: Mum, Gem, Mitch, Mike, Adam, Sarah, Mum, Mum, Gem, Mum, Mike, Mitch, Gem, Mitch, Mum…

He was stuck, a pancake glued to an ungreased pan, charred. It was when this melancholy had prolonged for nearly its sixth month, and all at home remedies (which included drinking, writing, drinking because he was writing, and writing because he was drinking) failed to provide any peace that he decided to give in to the recommendations from almost every single one of his friends: therapy. After the first session, he was ready to book it and sprint off to a deserted island with nothing but a coconut filled with rum to accompany his solitude. Turns out that one session was the mento to his coca cola of bottled-up emotions, exploding months’ worth of buried feelings and memories in an hour. It took the will of God (and Gemma purposefully lying and telling him they were going to get lunch) to get Harry back in the baby-pink-painted interior of his therapist’s office. After months of talking, sorting, compartmentalizing, yelling, crying, healing, unpacking, and reflecting, Harry tackled down the closure he had been chasing. A year and an album later, when he heard your name, he no longer felt trapped, heart beating rapidly, trying desperately to break apart his ribcage, he felt unchained—a prisoner uncaged, pounds and pounds of metal unlocked from his wrists, free.

Before, your name was paired with a colorless photo album, snapshots of vibrancy draining into black and white, frozen, lifeless, still.

Now, your name resembled a film reel of the best moments, your sweater hanging in his closet, your arm thrown around his mother’s shoulder in a polaroid candid, your laugh echoing in the acoustics of his shower after you nearly slipped on the lavender bubbles coating sudsy toes, your hands massaging his scalp, twisting curls into detailed plaits, your foamy lips smushing against a stubbled cheek, leaving remnants of peppermint mocha in the winter air, your satin skirt contrasting from his purple flares in his backyard, playing thumb war and whispering confessions in the moonlight. The good memories built a brick wall to block out the bad, dimming the light of your downfall.

“Have you ever been in love?” The question echoes again in Harry’s ears, causing a grin and a dimple to pop into his cheek. The fuzzies. Once, twice, three times. Click, shake, tape.

“Yeah, I have.”

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acegarlicloaf · 2 years ago

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Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Booster Pack Wave 1 & 2 - My Review!

I wanted to post a review of Wave 2, but then realised I never posted 1, so here’s both!

This DLC has been quite a mixed bag so far. Some courses are actually pretty great, and others are quite dull. And visually, some of them look like they had more effort put into them than others.

One last thing before I get into the track by track review. I just thought I’d mention that I definitely found Wave 2 to be much stronger than wave 1 overall.

Anyway, keep reading for the full review!

Gold Mushroom Cup

Paris Promenade: Boring and flat. Looks a bit pretty I guess. 2/10

Toad Circuit: Not too bad, though the inflatable toads definitely could’ve had a little bit of a higher poly count, lol. 4/10

Choco Mountain: Actually enjoyed this. The little touch ups they did make to the Mario Kart Tour style graphics were actually enough for me. It looked nice. 7/10

Coconut Mall: The visual style of the tour version of coconut mall didn’t capture the nostalgia of the original version at all. It’s still a decent course to play, but just knowing what it could’ve been, it was disappointing tbh. On another, less subjective note, the scale felt a little weird. It somehow felt smaller and shorter than the Wii version, which is odd. Music still slaps. 6/10

Cat Bell Cup

Tokyo Blur: Also quite flat, as to be expected with Tour courses, though I found the alternate routes in this one a bit more interesting… still pretty dull. 3/10

Shroom Ridge: Not bad. Very basic. And I will use this course to address the “bad graphics” everyone keeps talking about. Going from a base game course to these DLC courses definitely does give me a bit of whiplash, though I’d say that more for some courses than others. I liked the aesthetic of Choco Mountain, for example. I think they added just enough texture for it to fit in enough. This course, however? I can truthfully say that the flat, texture-less grass absolutely does bother me. But I will also say, if they had made the courses more interesting - added anti gravity sections and all that good stuff - I would most definitely care about the change in aesthetic a bit less. It is disappointing, and I’m already just looking forward to the DLCs being over so we can start speculating about the next Mario Kart game again. Rant over. Shroom Ridge? 2/10

Sky Garden: Actually very pleasant. Would’ve liked to see some anti-gravity added, but pretty nice otherwise. Visually nice too. The lack of animation on the completely stiff shortcut leaves is a bit jarring. But yeah, I kinda liked this one. 5/10

Ninja Hideaway: Actually pretty cool! Visually it could’ve just used some extra texture here and there, and the pink trees look pretty bad. My only complaint about the actual track though is that it feels quite compact and a little claustrophobic. Overall though, cool course. 5/10

Turnip Cup

New York Minute: Kinda fun aesthetic, a few interesting twists and turns. As I’ll be saying a lot though, quite flat for most of it. Could be worse though. 3/10

Mario Circuit: faithful recreation of the original track… probably? I don’t actually know or care, boring and flat, 1/10

Kalimari Desert: liked the little surprise of going on the train tracks on lap two. Not the most interesting course, but better than the other two. 5/10

Waluigi Pinball: It’s Waluigi Pinball, what else can I say? 7/10

Propeller Mushroom Cup

Sydney Sprint: One of the first Tour courses I’ve actually quite enjoyed! (And I’m not just biased because I live there!) One complaint though: why the actual f*ck was the audience in the Opera House flat, animated textures?!?! They had 3D people cheering literally at other parts of the same course!!! However, unlike that audience, this track was solid. 7.5/10

Snow Land: Aesthetically, this course was surprisingly nice! The course was fairly basic, but the only thing that did irritate me a bit was the hole in the ice you can fall through. Playing this for the first time, I assumed maybe they had a little underwater alternate route, because Mario Kart 8 lets you drive underwater. Overall nice though. 5.5/10

Mushroom Gorge: Top tier course. Favourite DLC Course so far. Didn’t feel like it needed added anti-gravity, and the new version of the big mushroom section is really cool. I was worried that having all three of those routes might over-complicate it, but it absolutely didn’t. Best DLC Course yet! 8/10

Sky-High Sundae: Good course! The hype died down a little after the first lap, since it seemed a bit short, and the way you kinda float up those stairs looked a little odd. Overall though, solid track! 7/10

If you actually read all this…

Have a cookie 🍪

#if I’m hard on them it’s because I know they can do better #though I think in wave 2 I wasn’t that hard on them. they did well!#mario kart 8 dlc #my opinion #mario kart 8 deluxe #text post #review #big post #mario kart

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radramblog · 3 years ago

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Werewolves are still iffy in EDH

With the release of Innistrad: Midnight Hunt, I’m sure many people myself included were hoping that the set’s Werewolf focus would solve some of the issues with the tribe in Commander. Having been a big fan of the creature type’s mechanics and design in Shadows block, and playing a lot of them in Limited and Standard formats, I was excited to see what MID would bring to the table.

Unfortunately, despite the shiny new commander the deck has, I’m not confident that the many, many issues that make Werewolves awkward in Commander have actually found an answer.

Issue 1: The cardpool

Werewolves are kind of in this awkward place where due to mechanically being tied to Innistrad and its double-faced-card Transform mechanic, there just aren’t very many of them, even though we’ve been to Innistrad 3 times now. As well, of the current 6 Innistrad-based sets, 2 of them (DKA and EMN) are small sets and 1 (AVR) doesn’t actually have any werewolves in them. The number of werewolves, therefore, is not particularly big- at time of writing, 83 cards exist with the word Werewolf or Werewolves, and of those 5 are explicit hate pieces. And one is Victim of Night, a removal spell that happens not to hit them. That leaves 78 cards to work with, outside of Changelings.

Frustratingly, WoTC has done very little to supplement this when visiting other planes. There exist exactly 6 Werewolf-related cards printed outside of Innistrad, with only 4 of those actually being Werewolves. I appreciate the slight bones being thrown in the form of WAR Arlinn, Nightpack Ambusher, and AFR’s own Werewolf Pack leader, but that’s about a card a year, which is not enough to support a tribe like this.

There’s also an issue where most of the Werewolf cards are pretty much just limited fodder. Of the 62 cards with the type Werewolf on them (again not including Changelings), I’d wager maybe 30 of them are playable in Commander, using an extremely loose definition of the word playable and with the understanding that this deck is going to be janky as hell. The tribe really suffers from its flavour-based limits, especially with the lack of non-Innistrad support, even though many of the game’s mechanics could be adapted to flavour of the Werewolf.

The final problem with the cardpool is the weak support cards. Werewolves have a fair few support cards, actually, but the issue is most of them are either not scaled for the format or only apply on one side of a 2-sided card. Many tribes in the middle-ground of card quality can get propped up by a handful of really good support cards- as an example, Treefolk have Timber Protector and Leaf-Crowned Elder, and Myr have Myr Galvaniser, Myr Turbine, and basically every Artifact support card ever to exist. Werewolves are stuck with, outside of one or two spicy new cards, mostly just +1/+1 anthems/counters and a handful of keywords, and also Immerwolf/Geier Reach Bandit (but the latter only half the time).

The result of this is that despite arguably being one of the better supported tribes as far as card numbers, Werewolves seriously pale in comparison to the majority of the field, especially compared to their Innistradi brethren- they look real awkward next to Humans, Zombies, Spirits, and Vampires.

Issue 2: The colours

Werewolves are pretty shoehorned into Gruul as far as the cards go. Both legendary Werewolves and the Werewolf Planeswalker are in the colour combination, as well as the vast majority of the tribe’s members. However, Midnight Hunt has added some other options in all 3 other colours, and there are reasons to run each anyway- mostly to do with, you know, that whole cardpool issue.

Because as good as Tovolar is, this tribe needs a little help from another colour, in my opinion.

White is the most commonly added colour to Werewolf decks, due to getting to play Rule of Law effects to stop your Werewolves from getting flipped back over. If I build Werewolves, it probably will be Naya, just because I already have two Gruul decks, but my issue is the lack of a clear Commander. Samut is clearly the best option, mostly on account of Flash and the deck likely being fairly aggressive, but I have an issue with commanders, particularly Tribal commanders, not accurately representing the deck. But then, what am I supposed to go with? Anara/Bruse Tarl? Gahiji? Rin and Seri kinda work flavourfully, if you squint, but they do nothing for the gameplay of the deck. I probably would have to just get over it and play Samut, and maybe you should too.

Midnight Hunt did also throw some Black Werewolves in, to go with the original 3 from back in the day (the utterly terrible Treacherous Werewolf, Lesser Werewolf, and Greater Werewolf), opening Jund as an option, kind of. My issue with this is that aside from just general good cards, Black doesn’t really add much to the deck’s likely plans, and only one of the new Black Werewolves, Graveyard Tresspasser, is really any good. I suppose this does mean you could run 4-colour with Saskia, but…eh…

This set also added a singular Blue werewolf in Suspicious Stowaway, which is actually kinda okay. And also Blue gets one extra Rule of Law effect in Arcane Laboratory. But I don’t think I’m going to see Temur Werewolves anytime soon. I guess you could run Surrak? Blue does notably also get you a bunch of the better Changelings, on account of their recent Kaldheim iterations being in Green-Blue.

There is always, of course, Morophon. But that fucker’s for cowards. The TL;DR is, that Werewolves’s best commanders don’t give you access to everything the deck needs.

Issue 3: The tribes

This is somewhat of a more minor issue, but one worth bringing up. Many of the Werewolf matters cards are shared with Wolf matters cards, and so it’s likely worth bringing a few of the better Wolves into the mix. Sarulf, if you’re including Black, or one or both Tolsimir-s in White. Wolves are a tribe with many, many more members, especially adding in all the Wolf Token producing cards, though there are still fewer Wolf Matters cards than Werewolf Matters ones. Also, some of the Werewolf Matters cards are Wolves, like Nightpack Ambusher, Silverfur Partisan, and Immerwolf. So there’s probably a fair few worth throwing in.

As well, seeing as the vast majority of Werewolves have Human front faces, some Humans matter cards like Angel of Glory’s Rise or the new Katilda are worth a shout. There are very few of these that work unfortunately, seeing as you are actively trying to have your humans not be humans, but it’s potentially worth the look.

The reason I find this to be an issue is that you can only add in so many subthemes like this before the deck’s real synergies start to get too heavily diluted. Every Wolf you add makes your Werewolves worse, you know?

I dunno maybe this one was less an issue and more just a recommendation. And yes I know most of the non-Human Werewolves are in fact Eldrazi, but as much as I love those cards they’re both mostly bad and there’s not enough of them, so don’t bother putting Eldrazi cards in there. You have to dump a lot of mana to flip them anyway.

Issue 4: The gameplay

Werewolves as a tribe are extremely challenging from a gameplay perspective. You have to be paying close attention every turn, in order to make sure that you know when your Werewolves are transforming- and in a format like Commander, they are probably not spending nearly as much time with the back half as they are the front half.

While I appreciate Midnight Hunt’s design efforts to simplify this with the Daybound mechanic, in Commander this kinda just makes it worse. Daybound means you are having to track this mechanic at all times, even when you or nobody else has a Werewolf on the field, as long as you’ve played one of the new ones beforehand. As well, the older cards (which you will need some of) are completely unlinked to this day/night cycle, even though they technically use the same trigger, which can lead to some confusion- if, for example, Tovolar makes it Night on your Upkeep, playing a Duskwatch Recruiter is still going to leave you with a Duskwatch Recruiter, not a Krallenhorde Howler.

Considering Tovolar is likely the leader for most Werewolf decks going forward, I appreciate the effort to make him work with the Werewolves of the past, and that he tries to mitigate the tribe’s biggest issue. But there are a whole bunch of really finicky interactions that are both difficult to get your head around and difficult to explain to others when you pull them off. For example, if the player before you casts two spells on their turn, it becomes Day as the turn begins, meaning all your MID Werewolves will transform immediately, then Upkeep happens, and any of your non-MID Werewolves flip as well. Then Tovolar triggers, and you can transform as many of your Werewolves as you want- so if you stack the triggers right, then something like, say, Huntmaster of the Fells or Ulrich of the Krallenhorde will get to transform twice in the same step and get both of its “when ~ transforms” effects.

The other half of this is just the mental load on your opponents. You know what all your cards do, but your opponents aren’t going to! And this is a typical thing in EDH, the game requires either a massive knowledge of Magic, an ability to pick up on new cards and interactions quickly, or both, but it gets so much worse when each of your cards has two sides worth of text to read off whenever you play one. And people (particularly those with less-than-perfect threat assessment) are going to typically assume that the more words on your cards the better they are, so you might get targeted just based on that even though half the words aren’t relevant most of the time.

The long and short of Werewolves in EDH is this: They’re still awkward and janky. I think you can actually build a deck, but you could already do that technically, and I think the additions from MID aren’t quite enough to bump the tribe up to Actually Good. They are, though, about the level of Jank that I appreciate, so maybe I’ll still just build them anyway.

There is potential hope, though. Innistrad: Midnight Hunt is an Innistrad Werewolf Set that contains no less than 15 Vampires (one of my biggest issues with the set!), and the next set is Innistrad: Crimson Vow, the Innistrad Vampire Set. Due to the mechanical requirements, I can’t imagine we’re seeing 15 Werewolves in that one, but I’m hoping we do at least get a couple extras. And hey, maybe one of that one’s Commander decks will be Werewolves!

…The previous was written under the assumption that we didn’t know what the VOW Commander Decks were. As it turns out, we have the names. Neither of them are Werewolf themed.

God damn it, maybe next time we come back to Innistrad then. So, see you in 2026.

#ramble #mtg #edh #commander #mtgcommander #mtg edh #mtgmid #werewolves

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gemalawasliveblogs · 2 years ago

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Hey, it's Terezi! She's also easily the meanest and most effective troll, even Karkat mostly comes across as silly whereas Terezi immediately tries to hit where it hurts...and phases John, later. She's also the only one to successfully sabotage the kids' session, killing a John and a Dave, even if she really wasn't happy about the actual result of her actions. Rose, however, is not phased by Terezi's attempt at all, even as Terezi continually tries to fuck with her. Terezi says she wants to stay mad forever, and then ends up dating Dave for a while and having a flirt with John much later on (and if you count postcanon, a fling with Rose). She's as comically macky on the humans as Karkat is. But also, lucky us - Terezi's linear, unlike some trolls (looking at Karkat and Kanaya on this one).

It's kinda funny that the two trolls who have end-of-comic canon romances with humans (it's at least seemingly the case for Karkat, definitely for Kanaya) are also the two who troll them the weirdest. I also like how the moment she finds something in common with Rose, Terezi changes gears...though, Rose has no way of knowing that hatefriends is an actual thing for trolls (yet). She also gives us our first instances of canon Classpects (her own, Tavros's, Karkat's, and Aradia's). Also, Terezi is the most hateful to the humans as of yet...but also the most helpful, directly telling us about things like Classpects, Paradox Space, and Exiles right away. She really is the incarnate form of a veteran player in a game who just immediately helps while being a dick. It's also our first hint that SBURB is not about saving or rebuilding the world...but something else entirely. Also, Terezi funnily enough gets tired of explaining and fucks off to when Rose knows more. Hussie also has a LOT to say here. I'll put it under a cut, because this is getting long.

Right here, this is it. This is when the story blasts off with virtually nonstop troll interaction. It pretty much never looks back. In hindsight, the complete takeover of the story by the troll stuff was inevitable. Because of the way they're being introduced slowly—a mysterious conversation here, a wild and colorfully eccentric new character there—they all seem pretty intriguing at this point. It's easy to take trolls for granted as almost the center of the story when you already know about them and have been exposed to them before even reading HS. But man, when this was all just emerging for the first time, through fast and loose storytelling methods, this was Hot Fucking Stuff, let me tell you. People were psyched. By saying "authored by the constellations," I really wonder if Rose, clever person that she is, already picked up on the fact that the twelve losers in her trollslum are zodiac-themed? I know a bunch of readers picked up on it from just a few of the troll handles. Seeing all twelve handles at once makes the theme pretty obvious, but only seeing a few at a time takes a bit of deductive reasoning. It's not instantly evident that "gallowsCalibrator" could be referencing the mechanics of a scale, or that gallows are associated with harsh justice. Or even "adiosToreador." You had to think, like, hmm... Oh, I see, bullfighting. Something about a bull... Oh, I get it now—scales, bulls, Libra, Taurus, twelve characters, it's the damn zodiac. This is how puzzles work. GET IT????? This one section contains a huge payload of lore being revealed. Points that could have been roughly deduced earlier are now being explicitly confirmed, along with the introduction of some entirely new ideas. There's important stuff here, which maybe bears reading a couple times to make sure you've got it all. Thank god it's being conveyed through leet speak in all caps. Terezi was the only one who went about this in a fairly sensible way. I guess once Vriska got around to her trolling stunts, she was pretty logical and effective about it too. It's just too bad her actual goals were destructive, vainglorious, and kind of stupid. That's her brand, though: cooking up smart, cunning ways of achieving incredibly ill-advised goals.

#homestuck #gem liveblogs #gemposting #homestuck liveblog #analysis #under a cut #particularly chaotic

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timerainseternal · 4 years ago

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New theory: the amount that the Hargeeeves' powers are confusing to me specifically is directly correlated to the amount of impact they have on the plot.

To be clear, I'm not talking about how much they break the laws of the universe. This is just a Certified Silly Post and I do not have the brainpower to debate whether monster tummy, Very Convincing, spooky scary skeletons, or the ability to manipulate physics in a very specific way, is the most glitch-inducing. Nor am I talking about how much we don't understand about the powers, just what we do know about them and how consistent they are with the stated power. (Could Diego yeet the moon into the Earth? The world may never know.) Basically, as I watched the show, how much my brain said "that works for me, I guess" is the metric I'm working off of. They're also grouped together, since I couldn't decide on a 1-7 scale, so there are instead three levels of confusing and plot-relevant. This is also entirely memory-based, so I may miss things, and does not account for the character's importance to the plot, only the power's.

The Completely Understandable:

Luther: Strong and Tough™ are not confusing, and nor are they brought up very often. A chandelier fell on him, he punched some things, but like, what did that change, plotwise? Not much.

Diego: Again, this one only sort of gets used, like with the bullets and all, but it's also not really a plot changer. We know he can change the trajectory of thrown objects, which is fairly straightforward to see and understand. Like in my moon example, we don't know how far that extends, but while there are a lot of questions about his powers, what is directly shown is neither too confusing or too contradictory to our understanding. I've seen people curve soccer balls before, and bullets and knives are not different enough from one another to surprise me when he switches.

Ben: Now, you may be wondering why this is here and not later, but that is because we are Not discussing logistics here. I do not know how this power works in terms of physics, and I do not know where the tentacles are when they're not out. However, Ben's power isn't confusing, practically speaking. Open chest: boom, tentacles. It's also not plot relevant because he's dead (oops), though if losing control was how he died it's a bit more important. That's conjecture though, and should be stricken from the record.

A Bit Weird, But I Get It:

Klaus: I'm gonna be honest, I debated where to put Klaus. His power is a major driving force behind his personal plot, but his personal plot doesn't tend to impact the course of events as a whole too much (sorry, Klaus). I guess it gives us Ben, which is nice, but also he's very rarely plot relevant since he's, you know, dead. Also Klaus' powers grow as he sobers up and practices, so it's pretty inconsistent, but given a general understanding of how ghosts work in media there's nothing too out of the realm of understanding. I'm...not sure how much of the Little Girl putting him back on Earth is part of his power--like whether his power annoys her or if he just does that through sheer force of personality--so I'm just...not gonna touch the strange not-immortality that is seemingly not caused by his own doing. In short, if ghosts were just dropped on us without general media context, he'd be way up there, but since it's not, and since the power averages out to kinda plot-important but not completely, I put him here.

Allison: Rumors are obviously very important to the plot as a whole, both in Allison's personal journey and with they key rumors of repressing Vanya's powers and then of being throat-slashed. This normally wouldn't line up with how confusing her power is--mind control is pretty understandable so long as we put away the questions about how it works--but the scene that really boggles me is the "I heard a rumor I blew your mind" part. Like, what? I thought it was just make a person do a thing they can do, not making brain explosions! What is that!!! I know it's in the doomed timeline, but it still counts as a thing she can do. Theoretically I could use this one example to put her in the next category because of how many questions it opens up, but Five and Vanya are so plot important and confusing that they are a class on their own, so Allison gets to be with Klaus on this one in the kinda plot-important, kinda strange section.

The Utterly Wild:

Five: On the surface, Five's powers kinda make sense, except that they don't because the Umbrella Academy categorically refuses to make rules about time travel. Time-travelling back made him thirteen! And also made his siblings briefly children again too, unless that was a metaphor! How does changing the past change the future? How does it change your personal past? He can just completely rewind everything, which is sort of fine except that it also rewound and unshot him, even though he should still be travelling forward in his personal timeline! Also his powers run out even though nobody else's seem to, and maybe if they explained why that happened with even one line I could let it go but they have not! And my, oh my, the plot relevance of Five's powers. They are there to solve everything and kick off the plot, and also create problems on accident. Very confusing in the presentation of the power's rules, and very plot-relevant.

Vanya: Oh, Vanya, destroyer of worlds. Her powers are the exact opposite of Five's in terms of plot: there to ruin everything and end the plot, and also solve things on accident. They are the thing the plot is working to stop, so they're very important. They're also wild. Okay, sure, turning sound into energy, that's fine, I can play ball. Blowing up the moon, sure, that just takes a lot of energy. Destroying the world in the original timeline to a level where things are not absolutely atomized nearby, but also it seems like absolutely everyone is dead, and that's only with an energy blast or something? That's...hard to figure out exactly how it got done, but I guess that's fine. Holding up your siblings with weird energy beams as your skin and eyes are bleached white? Uh... Using your sound-based powers to heal a drowned child and gIVE HIM POWERS TOO??? WHAT? WHAT?????? VANYA WHAT ARE YOU DOING???????

So, in conclusion, the plot relevance of a power is directly correlated to how absolutely bonkers it is. People are free to disagree with my ranking, especially since I did rank this under the caveat of "not touching how any of this works," but I think it's pretty funny that the more the writers have to use a power in the plot, the more they freak out and slap extra stuff onto it and absolutely refuse to explain any inconsistencies that arise. (This is a very fun show to analyze at 3am.)

#well it's neither super strength nor tkme travel #i guess I'll put you here #tua #the umbrella academy #luther hargreeves #diego hargreeves #allison hargreeves #klaus hargreeves #five hargreeves #ben hargreeves #vanya hargreeves #tua meta #i hope this will be coherent when i wake up tomorrow #and i hope you all like my 3am epiphanies #also i think lila would be with allison and klaus in the section of #we'll just have to speculate about the sparrows #if being a cube counts as a power i think christopher gets his own section above five and vanya #tua spoilers

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aceofshitposts · 3 years ago

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I saw that you like CATS the musical. What are your thoughts on the movie?

AAAAH AHHAHA oh man oh boy y'all should BUCKLE IN cuz it's a ride

my simple thoughts? it's entertaining if only because it butchered the stage show so badly in an attempt to idk modernize it? Well, modernization is one part of it I think. The other part I'll go into below lol. I don't necessarily hate some of the more modern renditions of the songs (mostly the ensemble sets like Jellicle Song for Jellicle Cats) but then others are just... so poorly done it's insulting.

I've said this at the end of this whole rant too but I'm gonna put it up here in case people don't (justifiably) wanna see me go on and on about it:

The movie wasn't made for fans of the musical. It was made to make money and I believe they choose, at least partially, to do that through making it the weirdest and worst possible adaptation they could so that people would want to go see the train wreck. Which, really, worked! It was all people could talk about for a good while so like... Goal achieved, I guess.

A MUCH MORE COMPREHENSIVE ANALYSIS UNDER THE CUT cuz i don't wanna. flood your dash with... this

ALRIGHT SO. Most of my friends know I'm actually a huge fan of new adaptations of things. I love remakes (provided the people making it are coming at it with some form of heart and not just... cash grabbing which is more often the case) I love seeing other peoples interpretations of characters, or changing settings. It's one of the reasons I like American comics so much, getting to see different writers takes is fascinating.

I think musical movies can be wonderful ways to introduce people to a stage show that might have been unavailable to them otherwise! Chicago, for example, is one of the BEST musical to movie adaptations in my opinion. It kept the heart of the show, it's funny and the song numbers are done really well.

There are of course other famous examples, such as Grease or Bye Bye Birdie. Hairspray was also a wonderful take. These are simply off the top of my head, there are of course more.

CATS in particular has a history. If you go through my CATS tag you may see a few posts from @catsnonreplica which posts photos from non broadway productions of CATS! It's a fascinating read and I love, love, love looking at the other interpretations of the characters! CATS is a musical full of fun and wonderful characters if you take the time to see past the ridiculousness haha and the Korean and Japanese runs of CATS especially have some of my favourites.

How does this relate to the movie, I hear you say well. As you might has noticed the movie's interpretations of the characters is........ lackluster at best and downright uncanny valley at best.

CATS is, at its core, a ridiculous thing. I will fully admit that! But it's fun, it's entertaining and if you pay a little attention you can actually get the plot. (Honestly I don't understand when people complain it has no plot but that's a whole other rant for another day)

The movie was... obsessed with this idea of like... semi realism? Like obviously, as a fan, I think they should have leaned into the over the top character designs but instead we got...w ell:

Bombalurina:

Demeter left and Bomba right. Demeter was actually cut! From the movie which is. upsetting lmao.

Macavity is one of the worst offenders for me:

Macavity was... I wish I could know what the hell they were thinking there cuz it's even in his song? Ginger cat??? THAT IS NOT... A GINGER CAT...... but I digress. I would show more examples but I think you get the point.

So. We've butchered the characters appearances. Okay that's fine but what about their personalities?

ALSO BUTCHERED.

There's... there's a lot to unpack here. Just for context: the Jellicle Ball happens once a year and the Jellicle leader chooses a single cat to be reborn into a new life. In the stage play all the cats who are nominated for this honour are on the older side (Jenny-Any-Dots, Bustopher Jones, Skimbleshanks, Gus The Theatre Cat, and eventually Grizzabella) AND are always nominated by another cat. Not themself, unlike the movie where they all seem to nominate themselves.

Jenny-Any-Dots went from a doting grandmother figure who's celebrated for her selfless volunteering and tireless work into a conceited, vain younger cat who is obsessed with fame.

It's an incredibly strange dichotomy. I don't doubt some of it isn't the result of the uh people playing the characters honestly. I do think some of them did the best they could! I don't really blame Jason Derulo, for example, for Tugger. And honestly, Tugger was probably closest to his stage version (while being a trouble maker, he's shown to show Deuteronomy an immense amount of respect)

Speaking of Tugger! This will bring us to one of the biggest grievances with the movie and that is how they handled Mr Mistoffelees.

So... Ugh. So. We have Victoria as the pov character, which imo is like whatever in the grand scheme of things, and then we have Misto who they have decided will be get live interest cuz... Of course. Misto is shown throughout the musical to be awkward, unsure of himself and well. Really, kinda incompetent. Which is Wild cuz in the stage show he might be aloof but he's fairly confident in his powers.

So, Old Deuts gets kidnapped. In the stage show Tugger is the one to bring Misto forward! It's really quite sweet, imo, and I'm showing myself as a Tuggoffelees shipper here, but again Tugger is previously shown to be pretty conceited but then here he is boosting and hyping up Misto to bring Deuteronomy back. My friends and I have lovingly dubbed this the boyfriend hype song.

SOMEHOW. The movie manages to make this, easily, the MOST BORING number in the whole thing. Which, again, WILD. Misto awkwardly stumbles through his whole song, which again is... Boasting of his supreme magical powers which movie Misto clearly. Does not have or believe to have. The song, to me, feels super awkward and unnecessarily drawn out in the movie which sucks cuz it's one of my favourites in the show.

The declawing (heh) of Mr Mistoffelees actually reminds me strongly of how they changed Gaston in the live action Beauty and the Beast movie. He's gone from a beloved figure in the animated movie to someone so disliked in the town that Le Fou has to pay people off to say nice things about him. It's just. Wild character choices were made!!

Skimbleshanks the Railway Cat is probably my favourite in movie non ensemble number. It feels the most... Genuine? Compared to the other nomination songs.

Other problems include but are not limited to:

The inconsistent size scale of the CATS which throws me off constantly.

The weirdly overt sexual overtones added to MANY of the songs (Jenny and Bustopher being the worst)

This is just a personal gripe and opinion but I don't like that they used the UK version of Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer. The American version is both better known and tbh way more fun. Teazer's giggle? Adds ten years to my life every time.

Victoria's added solo song, Beautiful Ghosts, while I like the song as a song it doesn't fit the style of message of the musical. In the movie she's singing directly to Grizzabella who's being an outcast for years that she should be grateful she even has memories of being part of the tribe?? What?? But I know they had to add an original song to be able to be nominated for awards in like the Grammys n shit (which is why all musical movies will have an original song, fun fact!!) kinda funny they went to the effort though considering........... I don't think anyone could have genuinely believed CATS 2019 was gonna win anything but golden rhaspberries.

Movie Mr Mistoffelees has made repeated appearances as my sleep paralysis demon

The various cut characters, shout outs to Jemima, Demeter and Jellylorum especially

Bombalurina being a henchman to Macavity rubs me the wrong way

God I've written... So much. You probably get it by now haha. Like I said at the beginning, I try to go into any adaptation with an open mind but... Let's be honest, this movie wasn't marketed to people who are fans of the musical.

It was marketed, and made, to make money. And they choose to do that through, I think, intentionally making the worst possible version ever. Bad press is still press and the more outrageous people said the movie was the more people wanted to go see exactly what kind of train wreck it was.

Which is a disservice to the stage show, honestly, and all the people who've worked on it over the years.

But what can we do, right?

And besides all that, I do... Still own the movie version and I do still rewatch it on occasion. It is entertaining even if it's in a train wreck kind of way. I usually end up watching the 1998 version, then 2019 and then various tour runs that are on YouTube. (I highly recommend the 2016 tour, it's very good)

So in conclusion. It's fun (?) to watch. I enjoy picking things apart and doing analysis (if you couldn't tell!) so like... I don't hate it?

It did what it set out to do, I guess, and I can't fault it for that but. It's not a fair metre with which to judge the stage show imo. But I know it's not everyone's cup of tea, haha.

Jazz hands. I'm more than happy to elaborate or just chat about CATS if anyone wants! I grew up listening to the Broadway CD since I was a toddler so it's been! A very long standing obsession haha. Probably the only other thing on par with CATS is my obsession with Jurassic Park which I've also been a fan of since I was 3 (but that's a whole story in and of itself)

#astrix thoughts #cats the musical #Thanks for the opportunity to talk about one of my hyperfixations anon!#And to anyone who reads this whole mess lmao

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incorrect-ikevamp-quotes · 4 years ago

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[SPOILERS FOR LEO’S ROUTE❗️] okay so i just got to the bit after leo reveals what he is, and mc and comte are talking on the balcony & comte offers to turn her into a vampire if she would like. obviously mc declines but i guess my question is, how do you think leonardo would react if mc DID agree to that offer? i am enjoying his route, but i kinda get the feeling he mostly/only loves mc because she is human :/ im interested abt what might happen if she didn’t say no? thank you v much💖💖ly lots

Aww, ily3 hun tyty 💕💕💕I’ll offer my thoughts below, I hope I can answer your questions to satisfaction!

Ah yes, the point in Leo's route where I essentially get shot in the leg and limp through my walk of shame

Jk jk, but I think there has been a considerable degree of displeasure associated with Leonardo's line in the proverbial sand. No life with him can be spent as a vampire, MC must remain human. Despite his easygoing nature, he remains stalwart in his opposition no matter what the MC or Comte has to say. To summarize it quickly, Comte’s relieved exasperation at the end of Leo’s MS gets more across than I think any of my analysis can convey “Thank heavens one of you has good sense.” It offers the implication that he has tried to broach the topic with Leonardo out of concern, only to be met by a brick wall--or doesn’t try at all for fear that he’ll only ensconce Leonardo further into rejecting a greater future for him and MC.

As to how he would react I......really don’t think it would go well? Only because I think it would serve to reinforce the rifts that already exist in Leonardo’s self-perception. He would believe it was his own fault for pushing her in that direction, and while I don’t think he would hate Comte, he would definitely become estranged from one of his only close friends in life. (What GUTS ME about Comte offering to turn MC is that he is probably well aware Leo might beat the shit out of him, never talk to him again, or both--and he still fully accepts that he could lose his best friend to guarantee a future for both of them. Excuse me while I bawl in the corner) He probably wouldn’t hold it against Comte for too long, but he wouldn’t be any less aggrieved and hurt. And when Leonardo is vulnerable, he will hide and nurse his wounds until he can behave with some level of calm--or at the very least until he can pretend he’s okay after an initial explosion. He doesn’t feel comfortable troubling people with his own problems, so he tends to fall into silence when personal things come up. This doesn’t necessarily mean he resolves all of his emotional turmoil, or heals that fast; it only means that he wallows in those feelings alone unless they’re tugged out of him and worked through forcibly.

Basically, I see only one of two possibilities coming to fruition. The first is that he and MC would wobble only to completely fall apart if some kind of resolution could never be found. He’d continue to blame himself and start sabotaging his own happiness, and that would likely mean some level of selfishness directed at MC--resulting in anguish for the both of them. If MC takes on too much without complaint or Leonardo goes too far...I get the feeling that relationship would either end in shambles immediately, or result in a kind of twisted union in which both feel responsible for the other’s hurt but neither one can relieve it (until they’d be forced to split up before someone gets seriously hurt). They would be the source of each other’s suffering, so much so that the walls climbing between them might never again lower.

This might sound odd, but if there’s one thing that Leonardo needs it’s control when it comes to his relationships with others. It is a subtle, but acute trait that might not seem obvious knowing his magnanimous disposition. He decides if MC gets to be a vampire, he bargains with Sebastian because he refuses to be a test subject, he refuses to validate Comte’s conclusions (despite knowing he’s right) because he doesn’t want to cede the power silence/smokescreens offer his emotional vulnerabilities. Even around villains like Shakespeare and the final serial killer, pay close attention. Shakespeare begins revealing deeply personal information and wishes that Leonardo holds close to his heart on purpose, snatching Leonardo’s agency and ability to control how his feelings are being conveyed. How does Leonardo respond? With explosive, forbidding anger--instantaneous and barely contained, nothing at all like his breezy attitude and calm.

If you think about it, it’s a fairly obvious extension of the humiliating powerlessness by which he was raised (he needs to be in control; he needs to be the one who decides who gets to walk away and who doesn’t. He doesn’t come on to MC because he wants to, he does it for the sole purpose of scaring her out of wanting to be a vampire. He doesn’t even attempt to explain where he’s coming from because he falls into whole-scale panic. When he loses control of the trajectory of others--of how they perceive certain things about him--all of his charisma fails him. If he can’t explain or justify where he is mentally, when he’s too afraid they won’t hear him or care, then he needs to redirect the opposing party). Additionally, he feels responsible; that he can better adjust the outcome with his experience--and while that may be true for some things, sometimes he gets ahead of himself. Only an individual can decide their own future and their own happiness, the most others can do is enhance or worsen aspects of life. He doesn’t have enough faith that his presence is positive or worthwhile enough to guarantee his spouse’s happiness ;-;

The other possibility I see is MC coaxing him as best she can into reassurance that she’s happy with her new life. While he may have doubts, there is absolutely room for her to help him approach those fears little by little. If Leonardo has even a hint of doubt in regards to his dismal feelings about her being turned, a potential for acceptance may be nurtured. I don’t think his uncertainty would ever fully vanish; there will always be a lurking fear that a fate tied to his can only mean suffering and disappointment. Prove his worth and compassion with time, and this man will be unable to remember how life was lived before her. It would take a great deal of patience and a sizable obstacle, but it wouldn’t be impossible. His heart is much too big for that, I think.

I don’t think happiness with a turned MC is impossible, only that it would take a lot of work to swing it after a heated moment of decision. I think the way to go with Leonardo is a more enduring effort. He shows much more receptivity after years of being together. I think time, ironically, helps him relax into the possibility of forever as a couple. I think he cannot conceptualize a world in which he is in love, and that this love is not conditional--not dependent on his ability to be the perfect companion, the brilliant inventor, the equanimous mentor. I think he needs to see for himself that love can be gentle and real and whole even when he’s at his worst (by his self-perception).

Also I put some extra meta under the cut because I have brainworms and just can’t stop thinking about Leonardo rn so read if you like, but it’s more related to why he feels this way abt turning MC than necessarily about the outcome.

That being said, I'm conflicted because I don't necessarily think Leonardo only loves MC because she's human? (Rather, I think it’s more a result of his history and the values he’s developed in response to that upbringing. But I’ll loop back to this in a bit, so stay tuned)

I say this for two reasons. Firstly, I don't want to say that no person in this period shared his values (I mean look at Comte)--this would be an overstatement, even if it was rare. But it does appear that Comte and Leonardo are acute exceptions within vampire society in elevating human beings to an equal status among vampires (if not a higher status at points or depending on the person). As such, a vampire partner he’d be comfortable living with is unlikely. Human beings are more optimal in some regards (more adaptable and more egalitarian than vampires, most likely), but he also knows that he’s more susceptible to falling in love with a human; so he makes sure to squash his feelings or remove himself when his feelings become too intense.

Secondly, he's in close quarters with MC by necessity, and reacts to her isolation by virtue of the situation. That's probably half the reason they get together at all; he was fully intending to keep his distance despite his initial curiosity. One thing this signals to me is that even when Leonardo did feel attraction to any person he was in contact with, he would avoid them until they were removed from his presence--or he deflected their romantic approaches enough times for them to give up. With this in mind, it can come as no surprise that Leonardo has kept to himself for nearly five hundred years now. If it was another vampire hitting on him (especially a pureblood), he would be playing into his parents' expectations and would approach the vampire social hierarchy he was working so hard to escape. If they were human, he would deem himself a burden; he could never love them within the normal expectations of a human couple (growing old together, raising a family, etc etc). So ultimately I think it's less her being human, and more their compatibility and context.

As such, I think he just locks himself into a kind of Catch-22? Because in the end I think this is more about his own fears and insecurities--that he can never make someone happy, that he himself will never be enough (hello child of abusive home). Not to oversimplify his character, but one crucial element of his upbringing must be considered if he is to be analyzed properly.

There's something I often think about:

Comte, quoting Leonardo: "‘Not all parents love their children, or even think of them as such.’" [Though he got away and was able to make a life for himself, he had to do it alone.]

There is. A LOT to unpack here. While we may not have evidence of what his familia is like firsthand, this description tells us...so many heartbreaking things. It tells us that Leonardo never once felt like anything more than a child intended to carry on a legacy. The likelihood that his insights, his feelings, or his entire self-hood were acknowledged is pretty much at a hardcore negative three. While it's been a good number of years since he was the problem child/family disappointment, I feel like so many of those experiences seep into his capacity to properly accept the love of another person. It's a good portion of the reason he struggles so intensely with being loved despite his unfathomable wealth of affection for other people. When a person is diagnosed with unlovable and cringe for having positive feelings for others, it's not really surprising that a person might have trouble accepting a commitment or attraction to another person. There is...a kind of Sisyphus dilemma that surfaces in the wake of that kind of life, a constant push + pull between craving acceptance and either expecting it’s loss and/or fearing it’s disappointment. Though he shows signs of healing from it, there are still portions that linger. (Jean-Paul shakes him from this self-berating in his MS, but after four hundred years he still struggles to overcome those instincts. I wish there were words for the extent to which that knowledge breaks my heart...Many say time heals all wounds, but sometimes I think only others can heal them.)

Keep in mind, I don't think his enduring fallacy that "human beings are the epitome of untainted purpose and vitality" is irrelevant or less problematic here. I just think it's a reflection of a deeper disturbance and loss. It's a reflection of his parents' unilateral rejection of the kinder parts of him; his devotion to patience and understanding. It's a kind of reiteration or what he's already known: he's doing exactly what his parents did in an odd way, he's rejecting vampirism whole-scale despite evidence of both pros and cons (just as it is for humanity). I will always offer that his fear of something going wrong during the change is completely valid--but it does feel more like a fear of admitting that vampires (and eternity for that matter) aren't inherently awful. He ran away from his parents for good reason of course, but for all his running he didn’t escape their black and white logic.

It’s funny too, because his absolutism is kind of reflected in his inability to commit to a single discipline in some ways; while part of it is that he probably exhausts study, I have to wonder how much of him oscillating is a fear of eventual failure. (Think his reaction to MC’s knowledge that he can’t dance, his mortification and utter...shock that she wouldn’t use it as a way to make him feel terrible about himself). He probably prefers to hone his skills helping people because the motivation of providing relief is a much more powerful motivator than knowledge for knowledge’s own sake. He needs the impetus, that drive to move him.

Granted, I won't fault anyone for feeling like Leonardo only loves MC for her humanity. At first glance it really did feel that way! But the more I think about it, the more I feel it has more to do with the weight of his life's experience, and the parts of himself he hasn’t been able to reconcile.

Sometimes, with Leonardo, I urge gentleness. So much of who he is disguises all the ways in which he has been hurt. While his decision is selfish and foolish, it comes from a broken place. My unhappiness will always lie predominantly with the fact that he believes to his core that happiness and self-respect is something he doesn’t deserve.

#asks #ikevamp #ikemen vampire #ikevamp leonardo #ikevamp mc #ikevamp meta #ikevamp saint germain #ikevamp comte #er this response got a lot longer and more detailed than i meant it to be but uh #i hope it's helpful?#this is just how i tend to think about the game but then im also a feral leo stan alhkjadagd #im just that meme like 'i love you but i hate you but i love you' with leo LMFAO #sometimes u just gotta smack some sense into the man (which is why i love that Jean-Paul does exactly that HAHAHA)#but yeah most of the time i look at leo and have to resist the urge to cry and the recent event has been absolutely no exception #i would die for him

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scimitar-and-longsword · 4 years ago

Note

I just read your long post about Booker and Nile and it gave me all the emotions but i wanted to add on one of my favorite moments, which is that Booker tries to convince the team not to find Nile after they dream about her. And it could be because he doesn’t want her to mess up his plans or that she doesn’t deserve this nonsense but like he does try. Long story short I just really love booker and think he’s such an interesting character

Me too nony!! [icymi: Original Post] (Which kinda touched on your point of weather or not Booker tried to to keep Nile away out of care or inconvenience)

Booker disclaimer: He fucked up. Not excusing it, but I just really love his character. He's written/acted in a way that I find so fascinating. Booker apologist is mostly a joke

I've been thinking about the father/daughter dynamic for a while and trying to decide if I'm just seeing things because I have a very close relationship with my own dad and tend to really gravitate towards those relationships in media.

But the more I watch it the more I am convinced that Greg wrote it that way on purpose.

Booker doesn't talk about his wife dying, even though we know he had a wife. What he talks about is losing his son.

Nile and Andy discuss her family and all that time leaves behind. Andy laments not remembering what her mother and sister’s looked like just after Booker has done the same about his sons. Really driving home Nile’s loss of them.

I think a lot of people take this line to mean Booker was jealous of Nicky and Joe's romantic relationship. Which is valid, I just don't see any real evidence for it.

We don't have scenes of Booker sleeping with people or staring longingly at other couples showing affection. Or even if him looking jealous of Nicky and Joe.

In fact, when we DO see Booker react to Joe and Nicky's dynamic he appears to be extremely fond of them.

So I just don’t feel like he needs or even wants a romantic partner, he just wants to feel like he has SOMETHING.

The other thing I find interesting is that at this point in time there are 6 immortals, with 2 sets of romantic partners. Of course up until recently Quynh was stuck at the bottom of the ocean, breaking up that support structure.

And the order in which they appear is very interesting. Andy > Quynh > Lykon > Lykon > Joe & Nicky > Booker > Nile

They touch a few times in the movie on weather or not they think there’s a purpose to their immortality. Weather it’s destiny or random or God. Personally, I categorically reject it being random. And anything more than random means that there HAS to be some design to it all.

So Andy was alone for thousands of years then whatever force creates them brought her a companion in Quynh.

Lykon is interesting cause he’s there for a fucking blip! 331 bce - ??? but i would guess not later than 500 ce, though it seems to be implied as much earlier. He is brought into their lives and then taken fairly quickly. Now IF there some kind of force making decisions behind the scenes it seems like something went WRONG here. Weather that was Lykon losing faith like Andy eventually does, or it was on the back end I’m not sure. (a meta for another time lol. Something I think/hope they’ll explore in the sequel or at least in the 3rd comic run)

Joe & Nicky come together (da dum tss) After Lykon dies alone without a partner (and I’m using that to mean NOT just romantic partner), I 100% believe Joe and Nicky showing up together is by design.

Then we get to Booker. If Quynh had still been there he would have come into a family of pretty content immortals imo. All 4 of them happy to spout things about destiny, and probably even assuring him that someone will come along to fill the hole left by the death of his family.

But as it is Andy is missing her partner and depressed af. Joe and Nicky lost a close friend too, and I’m sure, that even with them seeming more well adjusted than Andy that they would still have their moments.

So that leaves Andy to be depressed with Booker. and they kinda spiral together, both shown to rely heavily on alcohol.

ONLY 208 YEARS LATER Nile comes along. That is a very short amount of time for them. Maybe not yet to Booker, but how long his life will (probably) be, 200 year is nothing.

It appears to be speeding up, or the *entity* that makes them is getting better at it? idk

- Tangent over lol-

Nile is already shown to still be dealing with the loss of her dad at the start of the movie. She keeps his picture by her bunk, and on her phone. And him (and the rest of her family) are obviously the most important thing to her, and the hardest thing for her to lose with this new gift of immortality. Sound familiar? (cough*booker*cough)

I think it’s pretty brilliant to have this concept of found family and exploring that in it’s different forms. And from a representation standpoint it’s great to have two queer romantic couples and then a child/parent dynamic that places the only two straight characters in a decidedly NOT romantic relationship. (presumably straight, based on Booker’s past with his wife and Nile’s mortal love interest in the comics)

Further more putting both of them in a position to buck stereotypes. The straight white brooding action hero guy who would probably have been the main character in a less nuanced movie get’s to have someone who he cares about and gets to show real vulnerability with. We don’t see him show this emotion with ANYONE else. And Nile who could have been boxed into the trope of “Black women only being stoic and strong,” gets to have someone who cares for her and that she can lean on.

Now this COULD create a weird power (not to mention racial) dynamic if done poorly. BUT I think Gina/Greg have proven that they can handle complex relationships well that had the potential have been big on the yikes scale (Joe & Nicky)

And even in this movie we see that in action: Nile saves them after Booker gets them captured. And she is the only one really who calls him on dragging his feet while looking for Copley (this is less obvious in the movie than in the comics)

Andy does this KINDA, but it doesn’t seem like she’s questioning Booker’s methods and more just that she’s frustrated (and distracted obviously). Nile actually pushes back and it throws Booker off his game.

Bringing this ALL THE WAY back to your original point Nony: The fact that the Nile & Booker sub-arc starts with him being like “We should leave her” and ends with him comforting her and telling her she’s a good kid. And with Nile advocating for him not leaving at all is just *chefs kiss*

It starts with Booker, who is shown to have real issues with watching his Son die and not being able to help him, feel Nile die. This time? He can help, he rejects that at first, but I think he starts to see could help Nile, and how Nile could help him by the end. And their last moments have them displaying peak parent/child vibes:

idk I just find their dynamic really interesting and I hope it get’s expanded on in the sequel!

-fin-

#ask #meta #the old guard #booker #andy #nile #Joe #Nicky #long post #oh my god this is so long #how are my metas getting LONGER????#my stuff #my gifs #Booker & Nile #lykon

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blue-lothus · 4 years ago

Text

Breathe

Summary: It was a misunderstanding, really. But because of it, Akira found himself banished to work at the ship of the terrible captain Kamoshida. But before he could start serving his time, he met a merman, and somehow got both of them thrown in the brig, with a death sentence on their heads.

Or, how Akira saved a merman, got a best friend, fell in love a little bit, and went on an adventure.

Or how it’s @grapeflavoredorange ‘s birthday, and I wanted to write something nice for this amazing person, who wrote amazing things for my favorite pairing. I took the idea from one of our conversations, about how in the sims 4 a mermaid’s kiss gives you the ability to breathe underwater for a few hours.

It was an odd day, the atmosphere felt charged and unnatural. It was raining softly, but the grey clouds were dense, looming over his head. A young man with a mop of rebellious black hair sat at the bay, passively watching the horizon, and the sea.

The rain started to fall harder, and that was the only thing that made him move from his spot.

Akira wasn’t really sure how he even ended up there. The last weeks of his life felt like a bad dream, all disconnect feelings and sudden events that made no sense at all.

How did he end up convicted and then condemned to serve his time on a poacher’s ship?

A year on the sea, for a boy who should have just continued his family business and run a farm.

He sighed under the small shelter he found from the rain.

There was movement in the water, something bright and golden flashing quickly and then vanishing. Gone almost as soon as it appeared, a flash of colour in the white haze of the copious rain. It was pouring at this point, and it was impossible to tell what was that, from where he stood.

Akira had always been too curious for his own good.

He approached, silent as a cat, and leaned over the wooden plates of the pier. For his absolute shock, he found someone staring back at him.

It was beautiful. It looked like a he. His hair was golden and unnatural. But his eyes were a gentle brown, almost human, if his teeth weren’t so sharp. If his hair wasn’t so odd. There weren’t any humanoid creatures around these parts of the ocean, except for merfolk.

This one was surely pretty enough to be one of them. And then, the fact that he was still swimming in that weather was surely proof that he wasn’t afraid of drowning. It was just… a weird place to see one of them. They usually hid from humans, since they started being hunted.

“What were you doing so close to the ship- wait, sorry. You probably have no idea what I’m saying.” Akira shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. It was a well known fact that merfolk didn’t speak human language.

The creature frowned, seemingly deeply offended.

“I’m not dumb. I can speak your dumb language.”

“I didn’t- I mean…” Akira blinked, startled. The creature sounded a bit strange, but he was fluent enough.

“You can stop the bullshit, ok? Kamoshida knows I can speak, and anyone from his crew knows it too.”

“I don’t even know this Kamoshida person. I’m not a poacher. I just got assigned here today.”

The aggression immediately left those brown eyes.

“Oh. I guess it makes sense then.” The blond looked around, swimming in place. “I was just passing by and saw his ship and I thought of throwing some rocks at this stupid thing so it might stall him a bit.”

Akira leaned closer, trying to hear the blond through the thunderous noise of the rain splattering hard around them.

Later, Akira would want to smack himself in the head for being so stupid. It should be so obvious what was going to happen. But they were both distracted, and the rain was too loud to allow them to hear fickle things like footsteps. Akira just noticed when something blocked the partial daylight, a shadow just behind him.

“Who do we have here?”

It was a man’s voice, but Akira didn’t recognize it. The blond, however, seemed to do. His brown eyes got wide, and he immediately yelled:

“It’s Kamoshida, run!”

Akira did turn to run away, but he was a bit too late for that, and the blunt handle of a saber came down hard on his head.

He was too dizzy to see how the merman stopped a second too long when it heard him crying out.

He did hear a pained scream not long after, and then something heavy being brought on board of the ship, still trashing.

“This damned monster, now I finally got him.” Akira heard, and he felt his chest tight with worry. Of course. The captain hunted merfolk. He noticed the hat, and the nicer clothes. Kamoshida was the name of the captain of the ship he had been assigned to.

Kamoshida’s eyes turned to him. “And of course this scum here would turn out to be a mutineer. I knew he was bad news, when my friend asked me for him to join this crew.” And Akira was fairly certain Kamoshida wasn’t ever going to give him a chance.

“I was invited to an important event at the next port so I’ll wait to hand you over to the authorities in the next town.” Kamoshida went on, and Akira’s head was pounding already, and he wished he wasn’t so dizzy otherwise he’d have decked the captain’s stupid face just to get him to shut up.

“And you… I might already have a buyer in potential. If you live that long that is.”

It was clearly a petty vengeance coming from a pitiful man who cared more about humiliating others than he could care about money. He cared about having power over others, and he’d enjoy watching them squirm in place.

Akira was thrown in the brig, and heard the lock clicking heavily. He cursed under his breath, looking around.

There was a metal container there, filled with water and fixed to the floor with screws. It was occupied, unfortunately.

The merman he saw earlier looked in agony, his breathing shallow and fast. The harpoon had caught him by a few inches, and had been torn free of him as he struggled. What remained was an open wound on the side of his tail, ragged edges bleeding a startling red blood.

His scales were a gentle shade of gold. It seemed to gleam faintly in an ethereal way even under the dim light. It was this bit heartbreaking to see something this beautiful with a wound like that.

“I just wanna help.” He held his hands up, in what he hoped was a reassuring gesture.

The creature bared its teeth, snarling. He had very sharp teeth, indeed. Clearly made to tear flesh.

“It’s okay,” he said, trying to calm himself down, because if the merman was going to survive, Akira would have to do something to help. Kamoshida would clearly enjoy watching the specimen die slowly.

Akira reached a hand out.

The merman snapped his mouth, threatening a vicious bite.

The venom was known to paralyze its victim in a few seconds. Painful. Probably deadly, but as far as Akira knew merfolk liked to eat its food while it was still alive, so no one really knew if the venom was fatal.

Those who bought merfolk as exotic pets usually had them muzzled most of the time. Sedated when not. Some pulled off all of their teeth and used it as decoration.

A few tried to get rid of their vocal chords, because they hated the shrills merfolk made.

“C’mon, we need to get that treated. You don’t wanna give Kamoshida the satisfaction of actually killing you.”

That earned him a startled blink from the merman, followed by a resentful glare pointed at the door, where he last saw the captain.

“You’re right.” He seemed to deflate, and allowed Akira to come closer.

“So… if you don’t wanna hunt merfolk, why are you here?” The blond asked in a voice that trembled in pain, but he was bravely pretending otherwise.

Akira found himself telling it all. Maybe because it was the first friendly contact he had since he got arrested. Maybe because the blond made him feel oddly at ease. But as Akira tried his best to stop the bleeding using his own shirt, he started talking about before.

His tale had the merit of distracting the merman from the pain. When the blood stopped overflowing, and as he finished tying off the cloth around the wound, the blond was entirely caught up with the story.

“That’s horrible! It wasn’t fair. I can’t believe they did that to you. And now you got caught up with Kamoshida’s shit.”

Akira blinked, feeling a curious pressure on his throat. It was the first time anyone told him that. It was the first time anyone really looked at him after he was labeled a criminal.

But it made some sense, that another one that was seen as inherently evil and wicked would understand him. They both knew what humans could do to those they deemed too different.

“So… I’m guessing you’ve met Kamoshida personally before this.” Akira was curious about the merman’s reaction at seeing the man, and the disgust in his face at just uttering his name.

“Yeah. He kinda got me once already. He almost caught me and a group of my friends. But I stayed behind and gave them the alarm, and Kamoshida caught me and broke my tail. Sent me back just so all the others would see what happened to those who tried to save one another. He’s trying to divide us, so he can have an easier time catching us.” And he had already broken that one specimen, it wouldn’t be worth that much in the market. But it’d kept the others afraid enough.

“That’s... that’s horrible,” Akira breathed out.

The merman fell silent, and it was just then that Akira noticed how quiet everything was. The late afternoon had probably turned into night without him realizing it. The ship was rocking slightly, a bit differently from when they were at the shore. With a pang of anxiety, Akira realized they had set sail.

There was no way out, and the ship was silent as a tomb as the night grew late. Akira was glad for having company.

Until the next port at least. And then the merman would be sold off, and Akira would be handed over to the authorities and arrested.

They had little to occupy their days, but they had each other, at least. Theyplayed games, and talked, about nothing and everything.

“What do you miss the most, from back home?” Akira asked, one day.

“My mom. You?”

“I don’t think I have anything to go back to.”

Over the days, Akira learned that his new friend’s name was a couple of whistles he had no idea on how to pronounce. He was feeling a bit self conscious about his inability to say it, but the blond looked very frustrated as well as he tried saying his own name.

“Air is so weird,” the merman complained, trying saying his name again and just ended up producing some hisses.

Since he couldn’t tell his proper name out of the water, the blond insisted on Akira suggesting some human names that would fit him. He got into his head that it’d be cool to have another name. He was also extremely picky, and wanted something that sounded cool enough, and that had a relevant meaning.

After many names were discarded, one day, he settled on one.

“Ryuji. I like the sound of that. And I like that it was a warrior’s name. Ok, I’m Ryuji!”

Ryuji had a lot of scars. As if he had cut his back hitting his back on a sharp rock. A slightly crooked finger. A cut next to his eyebrow. Akira had expected for merfolk to have smooth and unblemished skin, but Ryuji wasn’t like that.

Akira wondered why he couldn’t find the blond any less pretty because of that. It was probably the smile. Ryuji had a beautiful smile, and a cute laugh.

Akira had never heard him singing, and he wondered if it was true their voice could put spells on people. His breathless laughter seemed to have a similar effect.

On that day, Ryuji started on the measly breakfast Kamoshida deemed to offer the prisoners, namely, a portion of fish.

“So… does your kind eat humans?” Akira asked, while he was gently washing the wound with what he could spare of the small supply of fresh water they were offered. Fortunately, merfolk seemed to have a much better time recovering from wounds, because it didn’t look infected. Could it be the seawater? Akira had so many questions. It was partially because he had never met a merman before, but it was also a lot just because he wanted to get to know Ryuji better.

The blond hummed as he acknowledged his question. Akira wondered if he should’ve started from another topic. He didn’t mean to sound judgemental. He really should try to improve his social skills...

“Some of us do,” Ryuji answered easily, seemingly unbothered by Akira’s bluntness. “Well, we’re all carnivores, and we are kinda similar to fishes, and humans, but we’re not those things. We wouldn’t eat another merfolk, but humans and fishes ain’t merfolk,” he reasoned. “Oh, but I’ve never eaten a human.”

He was born and raised on that specific part of the ocean, where hunting merfolk was pretty common, so it wasn’t really worth it to any of them to go after humans while in their original form. But they still learned human language so they could trick sailors into thinking they didn’t capture a mermaid, it was just that drunk lad over there who thought he saw a fishtail but he was wrong can’t you see my human legs and how I speak? Please let me go. “That’s kinda those poachers’ fault, tho.”

Akira looked thoughtful, but not afraid, and he didn’t stop treating his wound. Ryuji felt a swell of affection for that boy, so human and fragile, but so daring. So reckless. He’d probably try to befriend anything partially capable of understanding his words. And get his kind hand bitten by the creature. Mangled beyond recognition. Ryuji felt an uncomfortable twinge in his chest.

“I’d never eat you, tho.”

Akira tilted his head, apparently surprised.

“Why not?”

“Well, it’s like if you had a friendly... what do you guys eat for meat?”

“Fish as well. Duck. Pig. Rabbits.”

“Well imagine you had a fish as a pet. Or this pig you said. You think of it as your friend right? You wouldn’t eat it. You wouldn’t wanna.”

Akira huffed a laugh.

“What?! I’m being serious here, y’know?”

“Thanks.”

“What the hell…” he said, but he was laughing too, and Akira felt his heart beating a little too fast inside his chest.

At night, the chilly wind from outside passed through the gaps of the wood, dropping the temperature to an uncomfortable amount. Ryuji ran colder anyway, used to the water temperature of that region, so it took him a few nights to notice Akira wasn’t fairing very well. He woke up in the middle of the night to a small wound.

Akira’s naked torso shuddered as he drew in a breath. His shirt was being used as a makeshift bandage for the merman’s injured tail, and his ragged pants were made of a cheap and too thin fabric.

Ryuji gets out of the water then, lying down next to Akira.

“Will you be okay out of the water?”

Ryuji startled a little at hearing Akira’s voice, not having expected him to still be awake at that hour. But he supposed it was hard to fall asleep when he was that cold.

“If it dries up, after half an hour or so, my tail just changes into legs and I look like a human. I only need a few minutes in the water for it to come back, though.” The blond shrugged, coming closer and blocking a bit of the wind. “I’ve heard not all merfolk can do that, but our species around here can. My grandma says back in the day we used that to charm humans and trick them into falling in love with us. But I don’t know if it’s true.”

Akira considered the concept for a while, then made the very important math that soon enough Ryuji would be naked. Human naked. Of course Ryuji was kind of naked before, but that was different. Akira considered his options. Under his pants he was still using loose shorts as underwear. He could perfectly do without his pants, since his shorts came down to almost his knees. It wasn’t that proper, but who was he trying to impress anyway? It was more important not to have his attractive friend walking around naked.

“What you doing?” Ryuji curiously asked as he saw Akira getting up and taking off his pants.

“You can wear this when you get your legs. I-it can get a bit cold when you have legs,” he said, even if it was an excuse.

Ryuji shrugged, but seemed to believe his words, and kept the clothing in his hands.

They stayed close together, Ryuji trying to trap in a bit of Akira’s body heat. He’d probably be more comfortable in the water, which made Akira feel a bit guilty.

If the blond could make it to water, he could get away. Merfolk could swim miles, and too fast for any ship to pursue if they started running away, which was why they were mostly caught by using traps and other underhanded methods.

“What if I thought of a way to return you to the sea?” Akira asked quietly. “I could make a distraction and buy you a few minutes to swim away.”

Ryuji hesitated for a moment. It wasn’t something he liked to talk about, but then again, he trusted Akira.

“... I don’t think I’d get very far.”

“Why not?” Akira asked softly.

You know you can tell me anything.

Ryuji knew it. It felt a bit shameful anyway.

What’s a merman worth if he cannot even swim properly?

“I’m not… I mean, I can still swim, but I’m really slow. After… Kamoshida broke my tail, I couldn’t swim as before. I’m slow and I tire easily,” he admitted, looking away, missing the crushed look on Akira’s eyes as he realized the extent of the damage Kamoshida had inflicted on his friend. “Sometimes I think I should give up on the sea.”

“But you love it, right?”

Ryuji wasn’t used to anyone being able to look at him and… see him. It was incredibly nice, even if it made his heart hurt a little.

“Yeah, I do.”

They were silent for a few more minutes. The tiniest window on the opposite side of their cell allowed for a stream of moonlight. Akira contemplated it for a bit, until he heard Ryuji hissing, and he turned to look.

His hair was still messy and spiky, but it was tinted a common black, and his teeth were rounded and human. His canines still looked a little too sharp, but it was mostly imperceptible.

Akira very firmly didn’t look down.

Ryuji noticed him staring at his face, and he half smiled, making a valiant effort into putting on that piece of clothing Akira offered. It felt weird on his skin. He put one leg in one hole, and the other in the other hole, and pulled the cloth up. Then, he tied again the bandage around his newly formed leg. The wound looked more gruesome on his human skin, located somewhere close to his shin.

“So… how do I look?” he asked as he finished putting on the ragged clothing, and dressing his wound on his leg.

“You look like a thug.”

“Hey!”

Akira huffed a laugh, and Ryuji laughed back.

He took a moment to look at Akira’s eyes, the gentle curve of his nose, the pale pink of his lips. Ryuji’s heart did a funny thing in his chest when he did that last thing. Akira wetted his lips after a moment, and Ryuji looked away as quick as he could, his heart jackrabbiting against his ribs.

When he thought he had escaped that weird feeling in his chest, Akira’s deep and smooth voice sounded again, and Ryuji’s heart continued racing. It started doing that lately, when Akira did or said some things.

“I barely know how to swim,” Akira offered with a shrug. “I mean, I don’t think I’d drown if I fell in the water, but I wouldn’t last much there.” He could dog paddle and that was about it. Did it work? Yes, but that surely as hell wasn’t meant to be done for more than a couple of minutes.

Swimming wasn’t something he was expecting to need in his life, since his parents owned a farm, but then again since when his life went according to the plan?

Ryuji perked up at the information, though.

“I could teach you! You may need it someday! It’s… everything is so heavy outside of the water. You can’t go up, you have always to walk on the stupid ground and it’s…” He just couldn’t find words to tell. “Swimming is just the best thing. And the fastest you go, the better it feels. It can be useful even when you go back home.”

“I’d like that.” Akira’s gaze was far away, and he sounded oddly melancholic.

“Yeah… anyway, after we get out of here, we could travel the world together.”

“You… Will you want to stay with me? Even after you’re free to go?”

“‘Course. We’re friends, and I think it’d be awesome to go on an adventure, and help people on our way.” And he would have a chance to finally feel worthy, and to make his mom proud of him.

And there was no one else he’d rather go with on an adventure than with Akira. The realization hit him all at once.

“You’re my friend. And… Y’know how I told ya swimming made me feel? Being with you is kinda the same. I feel free.”

Ryuji aimed a bright smile at him, and Akira felt his heart skipping a beat, tripping over while doing something it should know how to do.

“I know a mermaid,” Ryuji continued, excited about the idea of their new adventure. “She’s travelled to other seas, she might know her way around. After we break out of here, maybe at the next stop for supplies, we could ask her for directions and then when Kamoshida notices we escaped, we’ll be far from his stupid ship.”

Akira nodded, thoughtfully.

“Sounds good.”

“Awesome! Then we have a plan.”

It was the thinnest skeleton of a plan, but it was enough for them. They could always wing it from there.

The day their lives really started to change started off as any other. Ryuji was restlessly sitting on his small container of water as he told stories about his life in the sea. Akira had started teaching him how to properly walk on two legs, in exchange of being taught on how to swim at the next chance they got. They had just stopped their training when they heard a commotion outside.

And then a small tuxedo cat gets thrown in the brig with them, screeching bloody murder. One of the poachers used one side of a manacle to put around its neck, and chained it to the wall just outside their cell. The crewmate looked warily at the animal, and threw the keys inside, hoping that the monster the captain caught would dissuade the cat from trying to get to the keys. Akira found it particularly odd, that anyone would put that much effort into capturing a cat. And found it even more odd that the crewmate somehow thought the cat could escape if he got the key.

The cat screamed well after the crewmate left, and it needed a minute before noticing there were more people in the room.

“Woah! A huge tuna! Looks yummy…” the cat actually talked.

“Gah! Aki, what is that thing?!”

Ryuji grabbed Akira’s arm, hiding slightly behind him and glaring at the newcomer. Just in case- he had never seen this cat thing before, but apparently it thought he was food because he had a fish tail- the blond leapt off the container, hoping to get his legs back soon.

“Huh… a cat. But I’ve never seen a talking cat before.”

“And I’ve never seen a talking tuna before.”

“Cat, stop saying my friend looks like a tuna.” Akira didn’t know enough about fish to tell, but Ryuji’s tail didn’t look like a tuna's tail.

“I’m not a cat and I have a proper name.” The cat tried to stand a little taller, but the metal of the manacles was suffocating him a bit. “I’m Morgana.”

They blinked at him. Akira knew he should have started to expect the unexpected since he befriended a merman, but seeing a talking cat was still weird.

“So… will you two let me out? Please, I can help you two as well!”

Ryuji hesitated.

“I dunno… Should we trust him, Aki?”

The cat looked quite miserable, and Akira pondered his options. He hated to see how they trapped such a small animal, and if the cat was imprisoned like them, he probably was an enemy of Kamoshida. Something in his guts told him it was an important decision, and that he kind of knew what he would be choosing from the start.

He really hoped he didn’t regret that choice.

He freed the cat, who took his time to stretch its lean spine and flex his legs. But, true to his word, Morgana leapt up and started trying to pick the keys to their cell from the hook where they hung. He had to insist for a few minutes, but he eventually got them and picked it up with his mouth, treading to their cell.

“There! It wasn’t a bad deal, was it?” He preened, while Akira made a quick job of opening the cell.

“But now what, cat?” Ryuji sullenly asked.

“There’s a storm coming pretty soon, you dumbasses. I’ve been roaming this ship since we left the port, I know the crewmate’s schedules, so we can sneak around them. And then you two can swim to the shore, we’re not that far away, but they won’t notice you’re gone, and they wouldn’t go after you in this weather.”

“What about you?”

“I still have some business here, but I can get out when we reach land. I can hide, I just got caught this time because the stupid captain got up at night out of nowhere…”

“Whaddya think, Aki?”

“Well, I think it’s the better shot we’ll have. I think we can manage to swim, if we’re that close to land. You can swim as slow as you need, and I won’t have to swim a big distance, I think it’s doable. After that, we can hide for a bit, and then go after your friend and ask for directions, and then we’ll see what happens.”

Ryuji nodded, and they all waited until he got his legs again and dressed up, and then they were on the run.

They parted ways with the cat somewhere along a corridor, with instructions about how to get on the deck.

The storm was fierce, having picked up in a matter of minutes, and Akira barely managed to keep upright as the ship lurched to the side. They emerged from below deck to the howling wind and thundering skies. Ryuji faltered, his leg still hurting from the wound, and from using muscles he wasn’t used to.

When the blond crashed into a few crates, they swayed to the side and slid downstairs just to crash into a door. The captain’s door, by the look of it, but they were sprinting on the slippery wood of the deck and running for their lives.

But of course, they weren’t alone above deck.

“They’re running away!”

The storm was sending huge waves that were washing over the wooden floor, tilting the ship in absurd angles, making it absolutely impossible to run. Akira froze in place, and whirled around to look at any possible weapons. Maybe if he took down that group of sailors, before anyone else noticed, on the off chance no one heard the alarm over the roaring of the storm-

It was then that Kamoshida showed up.

“Shoot them!”

Ryuji collided against his side, and the world tilted off its axis as they plunged into the water.

Akira tried to keep his head above the crashing waves, but he only managed to swallow an entire mouthful of seawater. As another wave passed above his head, his body was thrown to the side.

As he tried to swim up, he realized he couldn’t tell up from down even with his eyes wide open. The water was too deep and his lungs burned for air. Everything was salty water that burned his eyes and constricted his lungs from the outside.

The stormy sea at night was every bit as terrifying as he had heard about, and he was lost.

Ryuji’s voice was forming a series of shrills and clickings but everything was drowned out by the roaring in his ears.

Akira shook his head desperatedly, not understanding a single sound out of Ryuji’s mouth, his lungs spasming as he couldn’t hold his breath anymore.

His panic was suddenly cut off by soft lips on his mouth, strong hands framing his face gently. His heart swelled, and it was the sweetest thing he had ever tasted.

It was entirely like a breath of air.

Akira instinctively closed his eyes and let himself savour it, feeling a sudden rush of life running down his whole body.

There was a gentle thumb caressing his cheek, and suddenly Akira forgot entirely about menial things like air. His hands cradled the hands on his face, and he kissed back because he had sort of been wanting to do that for weeks.

It felt absolutely amazing.

They pulled apart, and Akira remembered again he was still underwater.

Ryuji’s lips mouthed human words for him, gesticulating his meaning.

Breathe.

Akira realised then and there that he really trusted Ryuji with his life. He tried to breathe.

It was the weirdest sensation ever. He shouldn’t be able to do that. But somehow as the water rushed into his mouth, his lungs stopped hurting as if he had taken a breath of fresh air.

Ryuji pulled him along, swimming slower than ever with his still human legs, away from the ship. After a minute or two, he got his tail back, and then he started to swim more easily. He brought them away from the eye of the storm, and away from Kamoshida, deciding to take the longer way to the shore, just in case.

They slowly made their way back to the surface, and when they emerged, Akira immediately turned to look at the merman. He felt a lot conscious of the fact that Ryuji’s strong arms were keeping him afloat. They were also really close, and Akira felt his cheeks flushing.

“W-what? How did I…?” It was raining softly over their heads, but he barely noticed.

How am I alive?

“A-a mermaid kiss can make you able to breathe underwater for some hours.”

“O-oh.” So Ryuji was just trying to help. Akira felt oddly disappointed. “Thanks.”

“A-anytime?” As soon as the words left his lips- that felt like they were still tingling with the kiss- Ryuji realised how much he meant it.

“Really?”

And Ryuji wondered if he imagined the small spark of hope in Akira’s voice. On the off chance he had been right, he decided to push it a little bit.

“Yeah. I liked it.”

Akira’s lips curled into a small smile, but he looked a little embarrassed, a blush still high on his cheeks.

“... You know, I think I’m still feeling a little out of breath.”

“For real?!” Ryuji blinked, confused. It should have worked! Maybe he didn’t kiss him right?

Akira huffed a laugh.

“No.”

“Then what- oh. Oh.” Realization dawned on him all at once, and Ryuji felt his heart soaring.

“Ok?” Akira asked.

Ryuji excitedly jumped him, and his kiss tasted like the sea.

Akira couldn’t stop himself from smiling throughout that kiss and the next one, and the next one.

If they kept that up, he’d have enough in him to spend his whole life living in the sea and never come up for air ever again.

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story-collector · 4 years ago

Text

AU TIME!

This time it’s green lantern style

This entire thing is going to be based of an oc that I have not yet actually created...just fyi...

The Green Lantern I chose..*dramatic drumroll*

Hal Jordan!

Let’s make something clear...I don’t read a lot of the comics (I try but I don NOT have the attention span for that)

I watch mostly Batman based movies

And what I saw...I didn’t like

I know in one series (I believe it’s Young Justice) they are trying to decide who to let into the league

The other green lanterns already in the league are steadfastly against Hal joining the league

He is childish, immature, irresponsible and they just off about him

They don’t give him a chance

If you want to go off the live action movies (which I am entirely tying that into this AU) Hal was the FIRST and ONLY human to ever be a green lantern

We can pretend the others came a little later

So let’s say he was the first green lantern on earth

He fought hard to protect the planet (it’s that one animated movie when the JL first meets and it has Cyborg and I think Shazam’s origins in it... I forgot the name)

He was the only green lantern, fuck they didn’t even know he existed till he showed up

But the big three found him to immature and slowly edged him out till he didn’t become part of the league

He was like okay, what ever, I’m still a hero and this is still my planet (and sector of space) to protect and I’ll keep doing that

He’s a little hurt but it’s okay

Until the other green lanterns show up

When he became green lantern he was one a very tight schedule and had to learn a lot of things on the fly because he couldn’t get a full training from the green lanterns

And after he defeated the threat he just kinda...forgot, to bust protecting the planet and his people

So compared to a lot of new lanterns he is very undertrained, but no less serious

Now the other lanterns show up

And they are almost immediately brought into the league

And.. he has to admit, that kinda hurts

He was the first

And now he will be the last

They got more training and despite him being their senior as a lantern, the act like the bosses of him

The act superior to him and treat him like trash

It hurts

And brings down his self esteem a lot

The other hero’s still hang out with and talk to him like nothing is wrong

Like he hasn’t been slighted

And pushed to the side

He realizes they just keep getting his hopes up only to let him down later

And he just kinda sits on it and simmers and it gets worse and worse and suddenly there’s a red lantern ring coming right for him

Now this is where and OC would come in

I’m making the example female because I have never seen a female Green Lantern and there might be but not a popular one

Suddenly the ring is stopped by a ball of green light

Another green lantern

This one female, her eyes glow with an unearthly shine, even with her mask

Her hair seems to float around her and she has marks across her face and horns on her head

She’s not human, but she came in the direction of earth

She motions for him to follow her and she opens a portal to the green lantern base

The other lanterns can’t meet his eyes

They know why he’s here and they know where they failed, she made sure of that

She releases the red ring to some heavy duty greens and the salut her as she walks with him down the halls

She’s short, barely coming up to his shoulder, but it is very clear who has the power here

She brings him to a nice sitting room and deactivated her ring, and to his surprise, removes it

He had never seen a lantern remove their ring at the HQ and barely ever on earth

She sits him down and explains as much as she can

She’s not human, but she has been living on earth since Krypton fell

(For this AU I’m going to make the Krypton sector a fairly toxically radioactive place so only few species can withstand it, green lanterns can with the glowing shield around them, but not without it so they couldn’t stay on the planet)

This was her sector as she was one of the only green lanterns that could withstand the radioactiveness of the planet

Her home sector was much the same before it was destroyed by war

She reveals that she protected this sector on her own for millennia, through generations of the royal family (I’m making Superman the last prince of Krypton ok)

She was devastated when it fell because she wasn’t strong enough, to injured, to tired, to save them

She saved Supes pod and brought it to earth, a place she knew vaugely from her own planets war

Krypton was gone and she felt like a failure so she set down her ring and hadn’t even looked at it for almost 40 years

Until she caught wind of a lantern on earth

Who wasn’t fully trained

Who was treated like shit

Who was slighted and used and manipulated

And basically said fuck it, I’m going to train another lantern

Now she was one of the first

One of the oldest lanterns (though she didn’t look a day past 25 if Hal could say so himself)

She knew all the wisdom he would need

And she would stand beside him and protect the Milky Way sector

Hers were gone, so the elders reassigned her to the Milky Way and assigned Hal as her apprentice

They knew that he was destined for greatness and that he would blossom under her training

They agree to keep their knowledge of each other and her reassignment between each other

The other earth lanterns did not protect the sector like they were supposed to

So they would do it themselves

So she brought him under her metaphorical wings and trained him

And he became better

And because I love batman so much let’s say she lives in Gotham

And she’s fairly high up their on the social scale

Obviously she can had and transform her very not human characteristics flawlessly

And she’s been around for millions, if not billions of years, she’s basically a goddess I guess

So she knows her way around money and the good hustle

So she probably knows Bruce Wayne

And probably knows he’s Batman, not that he knows this

So there’s a gala like mabey a year after Hal starts his training

And he’s a fucking fast learner, which is good because the galaxy really needs its protectors

(Some how the JL haven’t noticed that their are next to no alien attackers in the last year, the word has spread and no one wants to go against Kryptons Guardian and her apprentice)

She’s literally shown him the universe

(And this isn’t necessarily a love story, I’d like to think of it as brother sister relationship that they end up developing,or like best best friends, but not lovers)

Anyway Wayne Gala

She’s invited and as a regular guest she is allowed to bring a guest

So she Chooses Hal

She knows that the rest of the JL was invited and some other hero’s as well

And she makes sure Hal knows as well

She tells him he doesn’t have to come

But no, with her guidance he has grown so much more confident and fuck it he’s probably almost as scary as her now and can almost as easily command a room

He’s come far

So they show up

And at first no one really recognizes him

He’s changed

He looks more confident, but he’s still got that childish spark (she told him she never wants him to lose that)

He has a new haircut

And the suit

It matches her dress

Green, for justice

So they don’t recognize him at first

Now the OC is a regular so while Hal gets them drinks and brings their jackets and her purse to Alfred (“a pleasure to see you here Master Jordan”) OC is found by one of the batboys

Let’s say Dick

Because he loves the lady’s

And he brings her over so Bruce can show off this lovely lady, and powerful business partner off to his friends

She know who they are (the other two lanterns are their and for some reason they feel very nervous around her)

She introduces herself and somehow she senses Hal come up behind her and introduces him without even looking

They all sweat drop

And then they start talking

They share story’s together, and laugh and act like nothing is wrong and it all comes to a point to where she responds to a story from... let’s say one of the other lanterns (sue me, I don’t know their names)

And she’s all like “oh that reminds me of this one time on Krypton”

And Hal is like “oh you mean the time...”

And the others are like wtf, who is this girl

The party ends and they go home, but that’s just the beginning

I don’t know what else to put so feel free to add your own stuff!!

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