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hertzwritings · 2 years

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Between the pages, chapter 7

A/N: The fact that you guys love this idea and are as invested in it as I am, makes me literally giggle with joy and pride. I love this story and it’s been a dream of mine to finally get to publish it somewhere – I’m really glad that you guys love it.

You can buy me a coffee here, and I’ll write you a personalized drabble, oneshot or multichapter fic – the world is your oyster, so anything you want, you’ll get!

I love y’all. Remember, feedback feeds the soul, and my requests – and askbox – are always open – there’s no limits, because I am me and I have none.

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SERIES MASTERLIST

ASK ME ANYTHING/REQUESTS

Pairing: AU!Henry Cavill x female reader

Contains: Language, fluff, slight angst, Henry being an idiot in love, mentions of death, mentions of a graveyard, sad vibes (but like, also loving)

W.C.: 3.748 (sorry)

Stars and butterflies

When Henry was a child, he watched Mary Poppins probably once a week. It was magic to him, this woman teeming with adventure and fun, and he once decided that if she could fly with an umbrella, so could he. It was the briefest of seconds, where he jumped from the roof of his father’s shed to when he hit the ground, but in between that, between the hard ground and a broken arm, he had flown. He was soaring for the briefest of moments, gleefully and convinced of his own power, before his hubris made him crash on the ground.

That’s how he felt, when he saw Y/N walk towards him in a flowy, light blue summerdress, her eyes sparkling and her smile infectious. Like he was soaring through air, the unknown of the hard ground not really in his mind, because she looked like what he had dreamed of when he was a child.

Adventure.

Before he had met with her, while he was pulling on his shirt and jacket, his eyes lingered on the passage from a book, that hung in his hallway; the frame was flaking and the gold had chipped several places, the page, from which the quote rested on, was frayed.

“When you fall in love, it is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake, and then it subsides. And when it subsides, you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots are to become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the desire to mate every second of the day. It is not lying awake at night imagining that he is kissing every part of your body. No … don’t blush. I am telling you some truths. For that is just being in love; which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over, when being in love has burned away. Doesn’t sound very exciting, does it? But it is!”

It had been one, Y/N had torn from her own, tattered and beat version of Captain Corelli’s Mandolin and it stood out to him in more ways than one. First of all, it was from a book, he had never read – but now had made his mission to read – and second, the unbridled truth that lay between the words, gave his frail, dusty heart a run for its money.

He had tapped the frame with his thumb once, a gesture he had gotten too used to doing as a comfort before he left his house, and closed the door behind him, making his way to the restaurant they had decided to meet at. He wasn’t picking her up, because to her, this wasn’t a date. It was simply dinner between friends.

At least, that’s what he tried to make himself believe.

So when he saw her, the wind catching on the hem of her dress as she walked to him, he had to repeat not a date, not a date, not a date several times over in his head.

“Hi.” She said breathlessly. Her lips were the colors of roses. “Hi.” He replied, just as breathlessly. His tie matched her dress. He offered her his arm and she weaved hers with his, walking to the hostess to find their table. The hostess led them to the table, sitting in a corner near a window, and she smiled down at them as they sat down.

“A waiter will be with you in just a moment.” She left and Henry’s eyes found Y/N again. To him, she was the epitome of beauty; she probably didn’t know just how much space she took up with the radiance, or how large a part of his life, her smile had become. She smiled softly at him. “I didn’t even know this place existed.” She mused. “it’s quaint. Not really what I imagined your scene would be.” He chuckled. “What did you think my scene was?” He asked curiously. She shrugged. “Expensive.” He snorted in a very unsexy way. “Ah, yes. The marvelous taste of expensive.” He smiled widely at her. “No, I quite like these kinds of places. They seem more comfortable and relaxed.” She nodded. “I agree. This is way more my speed.” They fell into silence as the waiter came over, and they both gave their orders and she watched him with careful eyes. “Henry.” The way she said his name made him feel alive, like he had been stuck in a desert and finally found water. “Y/N.” She tried to hide a smile, and for a brief second, he wondered if she felt the same as him, when he said her name. “Can I ask you something?” “I think you’re going to no matter what.” He grinned. She laughed: “Alright.” She took a deep breath. “Is this a date?” he froze, not sure how to respond – he didn’t want to overstep, nor did he want to seem like he didn’t want to be on a date with her. Or, even worse, seem like he was as infatuated with her, as he was. “Do… do you want it to be?” He asked slowly, gauging her reaction. She leaned back in her chair and rubbed a hand on her forehead, her nose scrunching up as she thought. “I…” She paused and his heart faltered. “Here’s the thing.” She looked at him with a measured gaze, almost as if she was trying to remove herself a little from the situation. “I do and I don’t. I can’t pretend that I don’t… Feel something around you, but…” She bit her lip. “Remember the conversation we had at the market? How I’m a grenade?” He nodded. “I meant that. I’m a grenade, I will explode at some point, and I would hate to see you in the receiving end of that.” His heart stuttered and picked back up, impossibly fast now, as if it was trying to beat its way out of his chest and straight into hers.

He couldn’t avoid the truth. The heavy, terrifying truth of the matters of the heart; that she had owned his since she had stepped inside of his office for the first time with her smile and snappy remarks.

“I don’t think you’re a grenade.” He answered slowly, keeping quiet as the waiter came with their food. When she had left, he looked back at Y/N. “I think you’re… Scared. Just as everyone else is. But I don’t think of you as a grenade. I think of you as…” He wondered if it would be too much too soon to tell her how he truly saw her. “I see you as someone, who hides away a little bit to avoid the unavoidable.” “The unavoidable being…?” She asked. “Love, I suppose.” She was silent after that, spinning her fork in the pasta in front of her. “I think… That I want to be this to be a date. I also happen to think that most of what we’ve done already has been dates, although we weren’t really aware of it.” She said slowly, looking up at him. “I don’t want you to fall in love with me, Henry, because I want to spare you more pain.” “Is that not up to me? Is it not my decision, how much pain I’m willing to suffer?” He asked, stabbing a carrot, but kept his eyes on her. Her eyes truly were stars, the small candle reflecting in a thousand suns in her eyes. “Maybe. Maybe I just want to make sure that you aren’t… Going into something without knowing what you’re signing up for.” He tilted his head a little and saw her chest heave. “And what am I signing up for?” “Does it matter?” She smiled softly at him. “Have you not already decided that it doesn’t matter much to you?” It always surprised him just how well she knew him. She ate some of her food, while he thought.

In truth, yes. He didn’t care. Not the slightest. He would gladly take a lifetime of pain and grief if it meant he had a mere moment with her, while she looked at him like this again. Another part of him worried that he was jumping headfirst into a pool of deep water, no end in sight, and he was going to lose himself in it. That she was truthful when she thought herself a grenade, not in the metaphorical sense, but in the most literal of ways. “How about this.” He leaned over the table a little and smiled. “We try. No… Expectations. We just see each other in the way we have up until now. I enjoy your company far too much to deprive myself of it, and if that means you’d rather me be your friend, I’ll take it.” He said. It was the truth. He’d take any moment with her over none. She hummed once, “Okay.” “Okay?” he repeated. She grinned. “Okay.” As her laughter died down, she wiped her eyes. “You know, that’s actually a quote from a young adult novel.” “Is it, now?” he asked, warmth blossoming in his chest. “Mhm. The fault in our stars.” “Ah. The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.” He said slowly. “You know an awful lot of quotes, Henry.” He shrugged. “I read an awful lot of books.”

Dinner went by faster than he would’ve liked and when he paid – she insisted that he shouldn’t, but when she went to the bathroom, he had managed to take care of the bill – he has a small want for a time machine to repeat this night over, and over, and over. “You paid it, didn’t you?” Her voice sent shivers down his spine. He stood from his seat with a smirk, towering over her. “I did.” She rolled her eyes. “Ever the gentleman, I see.”

They left together and, because he was a selfish man who had a hard time letting go of beauty – he suggested a walk through the nearby park. The sky was a deep blue, almost black, littered with stars and a bright moon. The wind was gentle over their bodies. She nodded and they fell into easy steps, walking to the park. When the gravel under their feet began crunching and they were safely tucked away between trees, he reached out and weaved his fingers through hers. The simple gesture was enough to make his entire soul burn. The space between her fingers were right where his fit perfectly.

She didn’t comment on it, but simply held tightly to his fingers, and they walked in silence for a while. “Don’t think this excludes you from finding the joys in life.” She said in a quiet voice. “I never expected it would.” He squeezed her fingers gently. “Can I see you tomorrow?” He asked, uncertainty lingering just on the edge of his words, molded by his lips. She bit her lip. “I, uh… Yeah. Yeah, you can. I want to show you something.” His chest swelled, and without even realizing that the thought crossed his mind, it rang through his head. I could get used to this.

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He frowned and looked back to his GPS on his phone, slightly miffed of where it had led him. He found the message from Y/N and compared the address – it was the same, but it didn’t lessen the confusion. He stood in a graveyard.

He began to move through rows after rows of stones, some old and worn by weather and the years, some new and shining against the sun. His heart lurched every once in a while, when he spotted a teddy bear or angel wings resting on the headstone or near it, and his feet sped up a little to pass them faster. He saw her in under a large birch-tree, sitting cross-legged in front of a headstone. He found her eyes and recognized the sadness that lingered there – he knew the type of sorrow all too well. He sat down next to her, keeping quiet. The graveyard was beautiful, daffodils and swaying grass reminding him that summer was coming.

“My parents.” She finally said, her voice a little constricted, and pointed to the headstone. He swallowed thickly and couldn’t stop the feeling of overwhelming respect for Y/N – to let him see her in this vulnerable state, something so private, made him swell with several emotions. “You know, they are the reason I believe in love. She whispered, fingers twirling a recently plucked daisy from the earth next to her. She glanced at the stone and wiped something invisible off before she began talking again. “They met when they were both young, stupid and living in Cornwall, of all places.” Her lips lifted gently into a smile full of reverie. “My dad… He spent every cent he made on flowers to my mom, leaving them in front of her door, until my grandmother poked her head out one night to tell him off. The house smelled like a morgue, she said.” Henry chuckled a little. “My mom… She, uh, was sick. Had been for a while, when she finally agreed to go out with him. They went to a poppy-field, had a picnic and when the day was over, my dad told her that he’d be happy to be swallowed whole by the world, if it meant he could see her smile again. My mom…” Y/N’s smile widened. “Told him that that wouldn’t be necessary.” Henry leaned back, looking at the names etched in grey slat. “They moved in together after a month, got married after a year. Had me two years later.” She swallowed thickly, her eyes misty. “They loved unconditionally. I’ve never met anybody who loved that deeply, that hard or understood the facets of life better than those two. It was a joy to watch them bicker as a kid, because it always ended with my mom telling my dad he was a dick, laughing and then they would dance in the kitchen, despite the fact, that there rarely was music.” She rubbed her arm, and Henry reached out to take her hand in his. She smiled gratefully. “My mom… She got sicker every day. I knew, somewhere in the back of my mind, that there would be an end. And then one day, they weren’t dancing in the kitchen anymore. My dad sat on a chair, the same table, same room, but so, so different, and he never really got back up. He went a few months after. He had always said, that he’d die of a broken heart, because death sure as shit wasn’t going to get him with something generic.” She sniffed. “I lived with my grandmother for a while, until I was old enough to find my own place. I started studies, she got older and then, she went too. My grandma was waiting, she always said.” She glanced at Henry, who raised an eyebrow. “A story for another time.” She looked down at their intertwined fingers. “And then I was it. All that’s left of the people who loved harder and more than enough to fuel the entire world, lay here. Under stone and cold earth, cobwebs tenting their heads. It's always seemed bizarre to me, that someone who left such a mark is just as easily forgotten.” She smiled sadly. “When I was a kid, I liked to think that maybe, if I thought heard enough, I’d remember names of people, who passed and I didn’t know, just so someone would remember them, because everyone must’ve made an imprint on the world.”

Henry was just about to combust. The sadness and profound truth in her words made his heart ache, and a part of him felt immense sorrow for the child, who didn’t get to experience everything, she should. How Y/N could’ve ever managed to think like that, he didn’t understand. Death had always been heavy, an absolute to the life, we didn’t choose ourself, but the way she talked about people… He vowed to himself right then and there, that he would make sure she was remembered. He didn’t care if he had to write her name and plaster her face on every surface in the world, but that heart, the belief in people, needed to be remembered by more than just him. Her selflessness as well. She spoke again, her eyes trained on the stone.

“My mom was buried with her ring and a lock of my hair. My dad was buried with a picture of my mom. I hope they found each other in the end. Maybe they’re still dancing in their own, little version of a kitchen.” She smiled happily. “I’d like to think they do. And maybe, they’re looking down at me and think to themselves that they did something right.” Henry smiled and couldn’t help himself. He lifted their connected hands and placed a soft kiss on her knuckles.

If he was unsure if he was in love before, he wasn’t anymore. No, he was in love. The certainty of it was the same as the certainty that the universe existed, that the ocean was deep, and that people lived and died.

“I’m sure they do.” He really didn’t have anything else to say, so they sat in silence for a while, simply gazing at the stone in front of them. A blue butterfly landed on the top of it, wings slowly moving. She smiled.

At some point, they shifted, and he was leaning his back against the birch-tree, her between his legs, her back to his chest, and he was drawing patterns on her bare arm. “Tell me about your family.” Her voice was clear as spring. “Oh, er, sure.” He drew a deep breath and a smile ghosted the left side of his lips. “I’m one out of five boys.” She whistled. “Holy hell.” “You have no idea.” He laughed. “I’m second-to-youngest and I’m the only one who didn’t join the military. My parents…” He smiled down at her as she twisted her head up to look at him. “They got married in the 70’s. They’re still very much in love, but in the coy, understated, very British way. I’m the only who isn’t married, much to my mother’s chagrin. We were quite a bunch of kids, us five. Kept our mum on her toes. She says that we’re the reason she’s gone grey, which I highly doubt. I think it’s my father, but who really keeps track?” She giggled. “I love them a lot. Of course, we all have had ups and downs, but mostly, I’m just glad to… I don’t know, feel that kind of respect and familiarity?” he asked into the air. She nodded, her hair sliding against his chest. “I understand that.” They fell back into comfortable silence again, the wind blowing strands of her hair around. He realized with the steady thrum of his heart, that he’d never want to be anywhere but here, right now. Her head against his chest, her steady breathing, the birds singing over their heads – yes, maybe some authors had it right. Love was maybe not a feeling, as much as it was a state of mind, a place, that seemed normal and unassuming to anybody else – but to you, it would seem like the most important part of the world. This birch-tree right next to her parents, after her story of them, seemed to him like the single most important, incredible, and fantastical place, he had ever been. “Can I ask you something?” His voice was a little cracked, the nerves shaking it and she turned to face him, waiting for his question. He swallowed. “Do… Would it be okay if I kissed you?” he asked in a hushed whisper, scared that she’d pull away from him. She glanced at the stone, her eyes scanning her parents’ names, before she turned her head back to face him.

“I’ll allow it.”

With his heart in his throat, he bent his head down as she stretched upwards, and before he knew it, their lips met. If he had not been sitting down already, he would have tumbled to his knees. Who knew the world could stop spinning, be sucked into a black hole only to reappear on someone’s lips? Her lips were soft and cautious, just like the blue butterfly’s wings, hesitant even. He kissed her gently, his hand cupping her cheek and he wished for time itself to stop, freeze this very moment, so he could be in it forever. She tasted like peaches and something inherently Y/N, and it was downright addictive. He forgot how to breathe when the smallest of whimpers met his lips, and he slowly, ever so cautiously, let his tongue dart over her lower lip. She greeted him openly, letting him in, and he met her tongue, deepening the kiss – it was truly a work of wonder to kiss her. The kiss seemed to last forever or a second, he forgot to hold time somewhat reliable at this moment, and since one had to start it, someone else had to end it.

She drew back, her soft, pink lipstick smeared a little and her eyes wide, but a small smile playing on her slightly swollen lips. He wished he had a camera to capture her as she was right at this second. She didn’t speak, but simply put her head back against his chest and tangled her fingers with his. He had gotten some color over the last weeks, so her hand looked unnaturally pale and even blueish against his warmer, more tanned skin.

They began packing their things after a while – not without him sneaking several kisses from her lips – and as they left, her in front of him, he put his hand on the stone marking the life of her parents.

“Thank you. For her. For you and for making her believe in things, that seem utterly impossible for the rest of the mortal world to understand.” The blue butterfly returned and landed on his hand.

He didn’t see the way Y/N’s lips curled into a smile, nor did he see her lift her head to the sky, closing her eyes against the sun in a silent thank you.

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perditaalottachocolate-blog · 4 years

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Caterwauling in the Rain

Summary: Marinette and Adrien share their very first kiss after their very first date. Chat is so overjoyed he’s ready to burst into song, albeit not all Parisians share the sentiment. Ladybug comes to investigate the complaints about a feline caterwauling in the spring rain. Luckily, it’s just her very wet boyfriend. A Miraculous Writer Zine story.

A/N: This is my piece for @mlwriterzine . I’m so happy I can finally share it! I feel honored to be among the chosen authors. I want to thank everyone, who made this zine possible, it was an amazing adventure! Make sure to read works in the zine collection, they're all a m a z i n g !

AO3

The whisper of wind in his ears, the tap of boots on the tin roofs, the pigeons nesting among the chimneys, cooing to the spring in his step. Chat Noir ran high over the streets, reveling in this late April evening, basking in the fading light of day.

Everything in his path was blooming recklessly, fueled by sunshine, turning the warmth of spring into an opulent palette of greens, whites, yellows, pinks, and every other color one could think of.

It wouldn’t have been far from the truth if Chat claimed he floated on the breeze. It certainly felt like it. Butterflies, the good kind, not the evil purple ones that’d been giving them so much grief, fluttered happily in his stomach. His chest swelled with affection as if it tried to contain all the smells and scents at once.

His heart was so full he was ready to burst into song any second now. And snugly pressed to his chest was none other than the bravest, prettiest, awesomest, and the most amazing girl he knew. The love of his life, sans the spots. Marinette Dupain-Cheng. His Lady. His girlfriend. His everything.

Her hair tickled the exposed skin under his chin, but he was too focused on carrying his precious cargo to utter a chuckle. It was her who giggled happily instead.

“I really could have gotten home myself, silly Kitty,” she murmured to his sternum. Only his enhanced hearing allowed him to pick up the words over the rush of air and the buzz of traffic.

“A gentlecat always walks the lady home after a date,” he countered, allowing a little bit of flirt to seep into his voice.

A date! he thought excitedly, his heart skipping a few beats. The very first real one, official and everything. Not that anyone paid attention to two goofy teens sharing an ice cream, walking down the banks of the Seine and doing all the carefree, silly things teens did. Bantering, picking flowers, playing tag just because. Holding hands, stealing glances, blushing. Basically half of Adrien’s bucket list went down on that date, more than he could ever hope for. It was still very fresh—the romantic side of their relationship, just like nature herself, coming to life with spring—yet he doubted the excitement of enjoying her company on both sides of their masks would ever ebb.

Alas, their time had run out all too quickly. For unfathomable reasons their parents set a curfew and warned them not to break it. Yet Adrien refused to leave Marinette to return home by herself. He announced his arrival at the mansion, claiming he was exhausted after a busy day, and dashed off to his room. The door barely had time to close behind him when Chat Noir was already leaping through the window. He scooped Marinette into his arms and vaulted them high and away from the prying eyes of pedestrians. Just a little run and they were already on the little balcony of 12 Rue Gotlib.

It wasn’t dusk yet, although darkness already settled over the city thanks to the rain clouds that flocked from the west, keeping the last rays of spring sun to themselves. A silver half-moon peeked tentatively over the rooftops, picking up the slack.

Unexpectedly the sight filled him with nostalgia. “Anything can happen at half-moon,” Chat recited absently. He didn’t remember where he’d heard the verse.

“Anything?” Marinette frowned in confusion. After all, they had just spent a delightful afternoon together. Why would his mood turn wistful so suddenly?

He decided to play it off. He grinned cheekily. “Like maybe … a kiss?”

He was pushing his luck, he knew. They hadn’t reached that milestone yet, still tiptoeing around each other after the accidental reveal, still testing the waters, although neither of them was oblivious to the other’s feelings anymore.

To his astonishment Marinette fixed him with a coy smile and threw her hands around his neck. She climbed to her toes. “Maybe,” she whispered, her lips a hairbreadth away from his. Her eyes twinkled in the moonlight.

Chat released a ragged breath against her mouth. He shuddered from head to toe as he wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her flush against him. His body screamed for her, longed for her presence. But he wouldn’t dare to make the first step. He always followed her lead. He had to be sure it was what she wanted, even if he knew it wasn’t in her nature to tease him like this.

And then Marinette was kissing him. Sweetly, tenderly, with just a hint of passion simmering underneath. The gentle caress shrunk his world to just her and this moment.

He was sure he died, his heart flatlining out of sheer euphoria, his neurons fried from overjoy, his body coming apart at the seams. He floated to heaven and then her kisses brought him back to life. Back to the warmth of her embrace, to the flowery scent of her skin, and to soft kisses he knew he would never have enough of.

All too soon she withdrew, leaving his lips tingling and cold. He stumbled, dizzy with love in his heart and springtime in his lungs.

She must have thought he was being dramatic, because she ruffled his already wild mane.

“Goof,” she giggled. “Go home, before you catch a cold.”

“A cold?” He knitted his brows. “Why would I catch a cold now?”

“It’s raining, you dork.” Marinette bopped him on the nose and turned her hands up. A few plump droplets splashed on her palm.

Huh? How long did that kiss take? He hadn’t noticed when the rain started. Either those clouds had been moving faster than he’d thought, or he might have been more distracted than usual. Lately he tended to get tunnel vision in Marinette’s company, tuning out everyone and everything while soaking in her presence.

From behind the deck chair Marinette produced a black umbrella. She pressed it into his claws. “This is no dew, Kitty. It’s going to pour heavily soon.”

“Really?” He chuckled. She walked straight into this one. “I’m purring already, my Lady.” He grabbed her hand and put it to his chest. Then he released a rumble worthy of a thunderstorm.

“Besides, where I stand, the sun is shining all over the place.” He dropped the cheesy line with a flourish.

“See, you’re already delirious,” Marinette replied matter-of-factly. “Also, yes, I’m very proud of you for getting the ‘Singing in the Rain’ reference, you dorkasaurus,” she added, seeing his pout of indignation. “Now go, before you get wet for real.”

“Didn’t you mean furrrrr real?” he started, but dropped it immediately when she set him with one of Ladybug’s finest glowers. “A kiss good night, purrrhaps?” he asked hopefully.

Marinette grabbed him by the bell with such force, his hand slipped on the umbrella’s handle. She pressed her lips to his, but with more fire than sugar this time.

Snap! The black canopy sprang to its full size, startling them both.

“Sorry! Sorry!” Chat exclaimed, but Marinette just shook her head, launching into a fit of laughter. It was impossible not to join her.

“This umbrella is absolutely terrible,” she wheezed, clutching at her belly. “The ultimate killjoy.”

“You mean this is …” He trailed off, finally giving the umbrella a thorough look. Sure enough, he soon found the loopy ‘Agreste’ carved into the handle. “Oh, wow,” he whispered reverently. Marinette had mentioned the significance of that first rain they’d experienced together.

“Yup. And I want it back, mind you,” she added.

“This is an Agreste umbrella. You’d need to marry me for the name to check out, Princess.” Chat shot her with a toothy grin.

“Did you just propose on the first date, Adrien?” She raised a brow. “You might want to save something for the second one.”

“Ooops.” He feigned a horrified gasp. Incidentally, that absolutely had been on his bucket list. This was Marinette after all. “I’m gonna have to google some new ideas. But anyway, your answer would be …?”

Marinette shook her head again and thrusted her hand into his face. “You’re impossible. Just go home already before we both catch a cold.”

Right. He hadn’t noticed her shivering in the cold evening breeze, and the rain probably wasn’t helping.

“As you wish, m’Lady.” He bowed. “See you tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow it is, my Prince,” she replied with a curtsy, raising the imaginary fabric of a long dress with her fingers. Then with one last playful wink, she disappeared through the skylight.

Chat sighed in contentment, drawing in the chilly, humid air. He didn’t feel even a little bit tired, more like ignited after the spectacular afternoon of romance, flirting, and banter. He leaped to the railing and elongated his baton so that it hit the pavement. Then, like a leather-clad Mary Poppins, he floated down, startling a few passersby.

“Du-dudu-du, du-du-dudu-dee-dudu,” he hummed under his breath, setting into a leisurely stroll. The rain picked up a heavier rhythm, just like Marinette predicted.

“Du-dudu-du, du-du-dudu-dee-dudu.” He continued letting his inner Gene Kelly come out and play. He always wanted to perform that song, ever since he’d watched the movie with his father ages ago. And what better place to do so than the Parisian streets, a classy background to the classic number?

He already felt the tune bubbling in his throat. He couldn’t contain it any longer even if he tried. With a theatrical shrug he folded the umbrella and propped it against his shoulder. His lips stretched into a dreamy smile when he set off again. Then came the song.

“I'm siiiingin' in the rain, just siiiiiingin' in the rain.” His voice carried over the street, earning him a few confused glances. He gave his audience a little wink.

“What a gloooorious feeling, I'm haaaaaappy again,” he claimed, jumping onto a lampost. “I'm laughing at clouds. So daaaark up above. The sun's in my heart ...” Chat’s smile turned into something more smitten as he gazed upon a certain balcony looming in the distance, “… and I'm reeeeeady for loooove.”

“Let the stoooormy clouds chase everyone from the place.” He waved at a couple making their way through the rain, hiding under an already-soaked newspaper. They chuckled at his antics and clapped, rewarding his performance.

Encouraged, Chat turned his face to the sky while throwing his arms to the sides in a truly musical fashion. “Come on with the rain! I've a smile on my face!”

He resumed his walk, nonchalantly swinging the umbrella in large circles. “I walk down the lane, with a haaaaaaaappy refrain. Just singing, singing iiiiiiiin the rain.”

Chat spotted a few phones aimed at him and chuckled inwardly. People always looked for a scoop. Alya was going to be so angry she missed this. He could almost hear her gritting her teeth. Let's give them a show, he thought as his feet carried out the routine, a mix of waltz and tap dancing.

“Daaaaaancing in the rain,” he howled. “La-daaaa-da-da-di-daaaaAAA. I'm happy again.” He grabbed the umbrella as if it were a ukulele and struck a chord, making an elated face, as if he were Luka’s more handsome twin. “I'm singin' and dancing in the rain.”

More tap dancing followed. Chat finally found a way to release all the pent-up energy that had come from the afternoon spent with the love of his life. He tapped, he stepped, he pirouetted, for his joy and for the entertainment of a significant crowd that had gathered to witness his performance. The umbrella was his partner, his pendulum, his microphone and staff. Oh, how versatile a prop this was! Chat leaped like a very wet ballerina, jumped over the puddles or right into them, frolicking in a totally unfeline manner, splashing the water onto himself and all around. A reckless, unstoppable dancing and singing machine.

Slosh! A wall of cold water washed over him, effectively ending the show. He wiped the liquid from his eyes only to see a very familiar red-clad figure holding a polka-dotted bucket, which must have been the source of his unexpected and involuntary shower.

Concern marred Ladybug’s face. She breathed heavily—she must have been running fast to get here. But why did she have to be such a … what had Marinette said? Ah, an ultimate killjoy.

“Why did you go and do that?” he complained, frowning in accusation. Water dripped from his soaked hair right into his ears. Both pairs.

Ladybug narrowed her eyes at him. “The neighbors were complaining about some caterwauling felines and I decided to investigate in case there was an akuma,” she said.

Chat shook his head, trying to get rid of the ear leak. “Well, was there?”

His partner raised a brow and smirked, taking in his drenched form.

“Oh.” It suddenly dawned on Chat that maybe performing a musical number in a city regularly haunted by mind-controlling villains wasn’t the best of ideas. “Sorry,” he said sheepishly, then shivered. “I’m cold,” he added.

“Awww, poor kitty,” Ladybug cooed. She relaxed her shoulders, no longer alert. “I need to take you home.” She tangled her yo-yo around a chimney, grabbed him at the waist and in the next moment they were already soaring over the streets.

She stopped on a roof a block away from the mansion. Her timing was perfect, as usual.

“AAAACHOOOOO!” Chat’s sneeze was so powerful Plagg flew out of the ring, taking the leather suit with him. The little kwami didn’t look happy in the least.

“Awww, shucks.” Adrien trembled. “Now it’s even colder.”

“You don’t say,” Plagg grumbled. He was dripping wet.

Ladybug sighed in disbelief. She scooped the sprite into her hand and hid him in her pigtail. Then she proceeded to lift Adrien princess style and set off in the direction of his house. Unseen and undetected by the mansion’s security system, she slipped through the bathroom window and into the warmth of his room.

A true hero, the epitome of helpfulness, she grabbed a blanket from the bed and wrapped him tight. Then, with a towel she had taken from the bathroom, she gave Plagg the same treatment.

“I’m gonna leave you to change and go to sleep,” she finally declared. “No more clowning!” She pointed a finger at Adrien.

He gave her an innocent blink. Alas, Ladybug seemed to be immune to his charm. Or maybe it was just late for her. After all he had caused her to leave the dry room and investigate an alleged akuma attack. He decided to step up his game.

“Maybe a good-night kiss?” He fluttered his golden lashes hopefully. That always got a nice fluster out of Marinette.

“Haven’t you gotten like two already?” she frowned.

“Nuh-uh, that was Chat. Adrien didn’t get any,” he complained. “Besides”—he fixed her with the delightful smile of a teenage heartthrob, his voice lowering to a murmur—“three is the charm, as Lady Luck should be perfectly aware.”

Ladybug tapped her lip thoughtfully. “Well,” she drawled, stepping closer, “you do make a compelling argument …” Then she closed the space between them.

Meowrrr, the cat in him uttered. Three was definitely the charm.

- The End -

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2manyfandoms2count · 4 years

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#LadynoirJuly Days 20&21

Today I discovered there’s a limit to how many characters you can type into a note on your phone (if you’re wondering, it’s around 15,000). Anyway, it’s already August and I still have 10 days worth of prompts to write, everything is fine XD

I hope you’ll enjoy this double prompt, it’s a long one! I had a lot of fun writing it :D Ladybug finally gives her umbrella back to its rightful owner... It’ll be continued in the next prompt!

@ladynoirjuly2020

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Days 20&21: Déjà vu and Reveal

The skies had been threatening all day. Ominous black clouds hung low over Paris, ready to burst at any moment, charging the air with electricity. Paris anxiously awaited the release, which would bring back the temperature to bearable levels.

Marinette was prepared for any situation. Her bright yellow summer dress allowed her to be comfortable in the heat, while the umbrella at her side guaranteed protection if she was caught in the rain. And also, she hoped, attention from a certain blond-haired boy.

Indeed, she hadn’t picked just any umbrella as she left her place, going for the large black one that had been sitting in the holder for more than a year, instead of her small, practical one. Surely he’d notice. She wasn’t sure she was ready to give what she had come to believe was a symbol of whatever it was that united her and Adrien back to its rightful owner, but she doubted it would come to that.

Walking home at the end of the day, she didn’t know whether to be disappointed or glad it hadn’t. In fact, the boy hadn’t even noticed her unusually large accessory. The thought that perhaps he didn’t remember their fateful conversation in the rain had crossed her mind, but she’d promptly shut it up. Even if he believed it was only the beginning of their friendship, she couldn’t bear to think it had been an inconsequential interaction.

Thus, it was with a feeling of melancholy that the young girl had made it to patrol, her umbrella safely stored inside her yoyo. Chat Noir’s punning and messing around had done little to cheer up his partner.

“You’re claw-fully quiet today, m’lady. What’s bugging you?” He nudged her as they surveilled the city from the top of the Arc de Triomphe. He kept his tone light, but was troubled by her sullenness.

Ladybug sighed profoundly, her hands cupping her face as she leaned against the railing. “Heart troubles.” She pouted. She wished she had Chat Noir’s confidence when it came to love, and his resilience.

“I’m sorry.” He patted her lightly on the back.

“No you’re not.” She snorted, turning around to face him. He was glad he’d gotten at least a smile from her.

“You know me so well, it’s like we’re made for each other.” He smiled, holding himself back from stroking her pigtail. “I just can’t believe there��s someone stupid enough to pass by you, when you’re claw-ly the most amazing person out there.” Marinette came very close. But Ladybug would always be the top of the amazingness scale. He wouldn’t resist her. She had her flaws, but who didn’t?

“He’s far from being stupid.” She sighed again, recalling the perfect Brevet Blanc grades she’d caught him promptly shove in his bag as Madame Bustier distributed them. “Besides, I’m not sure you’d say that if you knew me as a civilian.”

“Bugaboo, the mask is but an accessory.” He said with flourish, earning himself another smile. “Really, it doesn’t change who you are, deep inside. It might give you a boost in confidence, but that’s it. Master Fu wouldn’t have chosen you, otherwise.”

“Thanks, Chaton.” He was right. Of course he was. She knew she was great most of the time, but sometimes, doubt invaded her mind. Mostly when she was trying to start a conversation with Adrien. Why was it so hard for her to keep her cool in those cases? She inched closer to Chat and laid her head upon his shoulder instead of delving into an answer.

She let herself close her eyes for a second. Just then, raindrops started to land on her face. Lightly, at first, almost inconspicuous, making her nose crinkle at the slight inconvenience. Then the rate picked up, and suddenly her eyes were open and she was sprinting with Chat, vaulting themselves off the Parisian monument and onto a nearby rooftop. They ran, their suits preventing them from slipping on the slick slates, and slid down under a parabola for temporary protection, laughing at the thick curtain of rain that surrounded them. It almost concealed their surroundings. A small stream gathering at their feet had them huddle closer under their makeshift shelter to stay dry.

“Want to join your friends?” Ladybug quipped, lightly nudging her partner with her elbow as she eyed the pouring rain.

“Huh?” Chat looked at her inquisitively.

“You know… It’s raining cats and dogs, you’re a cat, all that jazz…” She trailed.

Chat let out a small laugh and shook his head. He loved that Ladybug was trying to joke around more, but she still had a good way to go before reaching his level of ultimate pun king.

He was about to reply wittingly when a nearby church rang 7pm. His face paled.

“I need to get home.” He was expected at the dinner table in fifteen minutes, sharp, in perfect state. His father was gracing him with his presence, for once.

The rain around them was relentless, the clouds somehow darker than they’d been up until then. They had ventured further from his place than usual. It seemed like everything was teaming up to prevent him from getting back on time. He flinched a little as he got ready to pounce out in the rain.

“See you later, m’lady!” He jogged out with an arm held out over his head, which did a poor job protecting his blond mane.

Ladybug watched him run, his hair almost instantly getting soaked. She thought about the contents of her bag. Well, of her yoyo.

“Chaton, wait!” She raced after him as she opened her multifunction weapon. Chat Noir turned in time to see her pull out a large umbrella. He stopped in his tracks as she approached.

“Have this, I’m in no hurry.” She panted slightly as she came to a halt near him.

“You’re a regular Mary Poppins, you know that?”

She laughed as she opened the umbrella and handed it to him.

A flash of lightning illuminated her face as their hands touched on the handle, her mask paling in the bright light.

Chat felt an odd feeling of déjà vu as he received the accessory, although it felt like he was reliving a past scene from another perspective. Aside from the stronger rain, the way they were both standing reminded him of another umbrella handover, one he’d thought about all day. He hadn’t known how to bring it up with Marinette earlier; she probably hadn’t thought twice about what umbrella she’d picked in the morning, and if she did, he definitely didn’t want it to seem like he wanted her to give it back. He liked to think she had something of his, and secretly hoped she did think about him when she saw or used it.

Standing like this, her arm extended towards him so as to protect him from the heavens, he felt like he was in Marinette’s shoes. Over a year ago, the situation had been reversed, the blond boy handing shelter to a girl in pigtails. The umbrella closed upon his head, and Ladybug laughed freely at the sight, just like he had when it had happened.

He laughed along and tried to shake the feeling away, to concentrate on the matter at hand - the clock was ticking - but as he reopened the umbrella, a very familiar logo on the handle caught his eye. It was discreet enough that an untrained eye would miss it. To a common mortal, what he was holding was the most basic black piece of rain equipment one could find. Well, purr-haps not the most basic, but there wasn’t anything particularly exceptional about it. For the son of a designer, though, and more precisely, of the person who’d designed this particular accessory, there was.

Had it been any other piece of clothing from Gabriel designs, Adrien wouldn’t have questioned how Ladybug had come to own it. Although on the expensive side, it wasn’t rare for him to spot Gabriel sneakers like his own, or even jewellery. The prime example was his classmate Sabrina, who wore the same broach his father had designed for his mother.

The umbrella, though, was a different matter. They weren’t sold anywhere, his father deeming their commercialisation was not worth the manufacturing price. They kept the few prototypes at the mansion for their personal use, and if one of the rare clients his father received in person got caught in the rain on his way back. The number of people who owned one could probably be counted on the fingers of a hand.

Since Ladybug was clearly not one of his father’s clients, who were all at least in their early fifties, there were two other options: either she was one of their daughters, or…

Another flash of lightning lit her face up again, and this time it took all of his will not to drop the umbrella, as her mask almost disappeared in the light. If what he saw was real, he truly was the luckiest boy in the world.

“Bugaboo, where did you get this?” He asked slowly.

She frowned in response. “A friend gave it to me, why?” It was just a black umbrella. Apart from Adrien, Chat was the only person she felt confident lending it to. She’d want it back, though.

“Which friend?” He insisted.

“You know I can’t answer that, Chaton.” She pursed her lips. “Also, weren’t you in a hurry?” She inched closer to him to be within the protection perimeter. Her pigtails were already drenched.

He dismissed her question with a wave. “My father can wait. Can I answer how you got it for you?”

“You can try, but I doubt you’ll get the right answer.” She wondered what the big deal was, but listened expectantly. There was no way he could know.

“My guess is that you stood up for yourself and confronted Adrien Agreste on his first day of class, and this was his version of an olive branch. I didn’t peg you as someone who’d give it away to the first alley cat, though… Marinette.” He kept a straight face, but his heart was beating way faster than the healthy range in his chest. Please Kwami, let me be right…

“Ma- ma- Marinette? Me? No. What?” She stuttered, her cheeks flushing a deep crimson shade. “I- er, well, if you do need to know, she’s the one who gave it to me!” She added hastily.

“Are you lying?” Chat leaned towards her with a smirk, and she hated the sense of déjà vu that overcome her. What was it with blond boys questioning her lies by getting in her personal space?

“N- no?” She slapped herself internally for her answer coming out as a question. She usually was more confident than this. She was Marinette, for Kwami’s sake. The chosen Ladybug. The only person she got nervous around was Adrien Agreste. Who, she noted, sometimes acted exactly like her partner was acting right now.

Chat Noir took a step back, his smirk still plastered on his face. “You know, I would believe you, if it weren’t for the fact Marinette was carrying this particular umbrella all day, and then went home to work on our History essay that’s due tomorrow. Not sure there would have been any time for you to swing by.”

Ladybug gaped. “How… You can’t…”

His smiled widely seeing she’d given up on denying her identity. “Possibly know that? Think again, m’lady.” He winked and strolled towards the edge of the building. “Thanks for giving this back to me, I purr-omise I’ll bring it back tomorrow.”

“Adrien?” Her eyes went wide as she realised the implications of his words.

He gave her a salute as he jumped off, his heart still singing at the reveal.

“Wait!” Ladybug yelled out in the night. “You can’t just drop a bomb like this and just leave!”

Her partner had already disappeared behind a building, though.

Ladybug stood helplessly under the rain, thoughts racing through her head. Blasted cat, what am I supposed to do now?

#i'm so late #oh well #ladynoirjuly2020 #ladynoirjuly #ladynoir #ladybug #chat noir #miraculous ladybug #the miraculous adventures of ladybug and chat noir #mlb #adrienette #lowkey #miraculous fanfiction #miraculous fanfic #déjà vu #reveal #miraculous reveal #elle writes

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shiny-procrastinates · 3 years

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(re)Watching Magia Record S1 - part 12

part 11 here

Hello and welcome back everyone to this kinda watch-along of Magia Record s1. Last time, Mifuyu invited our girls to a lecture about the "salvation" her cult is preaching and took the opportunity to make a psychological attack on Yachiyo, who's now avoiding her team. Oh, and also Momoko was going to tell the truth to Rena. How will the girls react to learning the truth about magical girls? Why did Yachiyo suddenly start distancing herself from the others? We can only find that out by watching, so let's get on to this penultimate episode!

Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story: Magia Record S1 episode 12

Yachiyo's seriously not having a good time since she saw Mifuyu. After talking briefly with what I guess are the illusions of old companions of hers and denying that the girls are her friends, Yachiyo decides to follow after Iroha and co. with the excuse of being unable to ignore other magical girls being fooled.

pft, what a callback, I can't believe she's still tracking Felicia. Yachiyo, please, you look like a stalker lol

Back at Memory Museum, Iroha's having a not very pleasant reunion with one of her best friends (also Felicia's growling at her haha). Iroha refuses to accept the reality that Touka's a Magius, since she thinks that the Touka she knows would never do that, but Touka really doesn't remember either her or Ui.

While Touka Mary Poppins around, Mifuyu steps in on their little argument, reminding Touka that she's supposed to be giving them a lecture, and Iroha also pulls herself together to do what she actually went there for.

Oh, that's a nice transition to the op, I forgot that happened. I forgot this ep had the opening at all.

Back at the bridge, Momoko's about to let Rena in on the truth about magical girls, when a certain person joins them.

Kaede! Long time no see. Normally, I'd be glad to see her back, but there's just something very ominous about her showing up now of all times, with a black umbrella and smiling, after what happened to her.

While that's going on, Iroha's team is getting a very handy educational slideshow on Magical Girls, courtesy of Touka. First, she proposes the scenario of a Soul Gem breaking, asking our girls what would happen in that case. After Sana and Tsuruno get it not wrong but not exactly right either, Touka gives them the answer: The Magical Girl dies.

Alas, that's a very Touka slideshow indeed, condescendingly giving a lot of synonyms for "death" just to make sure you get it. Thanks, Touka.

Back at the bridge, I wasn't imagining it, there really must be something weird going on with Kaede. Did popping a witch really break her this much? Rena hugs Kaede, who apologizes and promises they’ll be together forever now... in any other situation, I'd say that's really sweet, but right now it's really disturbing. Then, Kaede-

Kaede? KAEDE? Why and how do you know about that already?! Did Momoko tell you? Momoko's also acting suspicious. Just what the heck is going on here?

Thanks for this shot anime. Yes, Touka does very much sound like the white weasel here.

In Memory Museum, Touka explains what exactly a Soul Gem is, to the very understandable shock of Iroha and the others. After complaining about their inability to keep up, Touka urges them to move on to the next part of the lecture: "Magical Girl Theory: About Witches". Ohh man here we go.

Exactly what part of being a magical girl is exciting escapes my understanding. Maybe "scary" or "hopeless" would be a better descriptor. That aside, no wonder the rumor says you'd be affected by the memory you saw. Vicariously experiencing it is a whole 'nother deal...

Except that they don't. Unlike the game, they only get to watch the memories, not take part in them. One has to wonder why the script even bothered having Mifuyu say that if they weren't going to do it after all.

In Mifuyu's memory, just like Touka had described earlier, Yachiyo's group, who at the time was her, Mifuyu and one of the girls Yachiyo had hallucinated earlier, Kanae, are having a hard time against a powerful witch. When taking an attack from the witch head on, Kanae's Soul Gem ends up cracking and breaking so, although she managed to reflect the attack and kill the witch, she dies.

So that's how Yachiyo and Mifuyu learnt the truth about the Soul Gems, and now the Mikadzuki girls were proved that through their memories (though it's specifically Mifuyu's memory).

Back at the entrance, Yachiyo has finally caught up with the group (kinda). Touka tries to talk to her, maybe to buy some time, but Yachiyo gives absolutely zero cares and just slides down the rope like she's in some video game. Girl has no chill huh, didn't even wait to hear Touka's name, which means she has no idea that that’s one of the people Iroha was looking for.

Continuing the "practical part" of the lecture, Iroha's now seeing Mifuyu's memories from some time (years, I think) later. By this time, she and Yachiyo already had a new team with Tsuruno, Momoko and Mel, one of the other girls Yachiyo had seen the illusion of earlier, and Mikadzuki Villa was basically back to normal.

That day, when Tsuruno was busy, Yachiyo and team went to hunt a witch who had moved all the way from the east to their own ward. Like in the previous memory, the witch was powerful and her team was having a hard time, so Yachiyo told them to run away while she distracted it (remember Seance Shrine?). However, Yachiyo ends up in a pinch and Mel, the day's lucky girl, ignores Yachiyo's order and comes in to save her.

The result, too, is very much like Seance Shrine. Mel used up all her magic on saving Yachiyo and, before they can go find a Grief Seed to purify her Gem, Mel ends up witching out.

I have to say though, even though it's her own memories, Mifuyu's being pretty damn cold about this. Man, how can you watch this smiling? Are you alright? (from the point she's a magical girl, probably not.)

Rena, who probably just heard this very same story, is having the expected reaction.

Back then, Momoko was indignant to learn this truth, pressing Kyuubei for answers. The stupid cat-rabbit, however, gives the very same explanation he had given on the og about magical girls and saving the universe.

With this, Iroha's team has also learnt the truth behind Witches, whether they wanted to or not. I feel Kyuubei would like to complain about that statement saying that he's fooling someone, considering his stance is "no one asked".

That was the end to that part, but it seems there was still more to be learned here, since the lecture is not over and we continue seeing Mifuyu's memories from after that.

Mifuyu felt pretty damn miserable after what happened to Mel and couldn't get over it even after half a year had passed. Momoko tells her to just forget it already, but Mifuyu just can't. Momoko also says they shouldn't tell Tsuruno, which explains why she didn't know.

Unable to forget and unable to tell anyone about it, Mifuyu ends up witching out... or, that's what should happen normally, but instead of witching out for real Mifuyu releases her impurities to an outside form, just like Iroha, Kaede, the Amane twins and Alina all did throughout the series.

At this point, Touka cuts in to continue her lecture, now on exactly what is this event that we had been wondering the whole series about. Thanks, Touka.

According to Touka, these crystallizations of a magical girl's impurities is called a Doppel and she's the one that created the system that makes them possible. That, itself, is the proof of "salvation" that the Magius are preaching, and their goal is to reject Kyuubei's system, releasing all magical girls. Well... that's fine and all, but 1: how are you doing this; and 2: why do you need Rumors and witches for that? Still fishy.

Poor magical girls indeed.

Oh, oh no Kaede also entered the cult, she's now repeating the salvation spiel!

At the same time, Iroha and co. are also at their last stop.

I really, really like how this last scene fells like Mifuyu is inviting us, the viewers, to join the cult too. Almost makes you want to root for them... almost.

Because being meguka is suffering.

- x - (if you have been reading this as a hamster face, you're right)

Aaand that's it for episode 12! Finally, FINALLY I can call doppeling out by what it is without it being a spoiler, thank god... but now it doesn't matter because there's only one episode left, dammit >:v

So yeah, there's the explanation, kinda. It's not like they were breaking any rules (if we ignore the fact this universe shouldn't exist at all thanks to Madokami), but more that Kamihama is a special place. And yet we still have no idea of how exactly the cult's doing this, what is a Rumor, why exactly are they collecting emotional energy like Kyuubei would... actually there's one more thing that makes the cult not much better isn't it, Touka's saying they reject Kyuubei system and yet they're doing the exact same thing as them, that's super shady. Also there's no way there's no consequence to doppeling out when this series works on equivalent exchange, there's definitely gotta be some con to it. SO MANY QUESTIONS.

Talking about questions, I'm always curious about the exact timeline for this story. Whenever they talk about Mel's incident, they say it was "one year ago", and then half a year later Mifuyu's still not over it and it seems like she doppels out at this point, but in the game they say it takes another half year before that happens, I think(?). Which always left me the question of: When exactly did the Magius start acting then? It should've taken some time to get the organization as big as it is now, so one has to wonder how long ago did the incidents in Kamihama start, since by the time Iroha shows up the magical girls here already seem used to it. This always leaves me feeling like this “one year ago” is closer to “almost two years ago” rather than “a bit over a year ago”. At least by this time in the story, it should be.

Knowing exactly when did The Wings of the Magius start would also let us guess at how long Iroha herself has been a magical girl, since Touka was probably still hospitalized when she made her wish. If Iroha's really been a magical girl for over half a year, that'd explain why she was already used to it by the time she came to Kamihama, despite being weak. Rather, that'd mean she's done a great job surviving thus far considering how she's only been shown sucking at battles lol (I’ll probably never get the answer to this, tho)

By the way, we STILL have no clue as to what happened to Iroha's little sister... I don't think we're making any progress on this front this season anymore. Poor Ui, even the show forgot about her.

So yeah, that was ep 12. Next episode, hopefully, we'll get more on the reactions of our girls upon learning the truth, and see what Yachiyo plans to do, if she had a plan at all coming here... which I suspect she doesn't, she's in fact even too late to do anything about it. I told you she'd regret it! The next episode's also the last one for this season, so you can look forward to having some awesome thing to tie it off *wink*

This is it for this post, hope to see you again on the next one. Have a good morning/afternoon/evening and remember to stay hydrated!

#Magia Record #pmmm magia record #magireco #puella magi madoka magica

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dantays-inferno · 4 years

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All the homages to Tom Hiddleston in the ME! music video

This may seem outdated now that TS8 has arrived, but I’ve been working on this post for a long time, and after a listen to Folklore, I think it’s still a bit relevant ;)

I wanted to share some Easter eggs we unearthed while doing an archaeological excavation of the ME! music video.

I know what you’re thinking...that video came out over a year ago! Aren’t those Easter eggs a little rotten from sitting out there this whole time?

Don’t fret, dear reader. The eggs were well preserved like bread baked in Pompeii just before Mt. Vesuvius blew. That is to say, these Easter eggs pointing to Taylor’s undying love for Tom (who can blame her!) are both deeply buried and in shockingly plain sight.

Our journey into the excavation all started with this:

I was watching this video and noticed the jaguar sculpture on the desk and just about died because I will always associate jaguars with Tom Hiddleston’s ad campaign for them. The ads contain three of Taylor’s favorite things: London, cats, and Tom Hiddleston. I’m not sure what her feelings are on luxury cars, though of course she referenced the commercial on reputation (jag-you-ars.) You can watch them here, but be forewarned--you may feel weak in the knees by the end. You may also be triggered by seeing a human interacting with a big cat (I can’t be the only one who feels scarred by Tiger King...)

After this, I watched the ME! video again and saw one reference to Tom after another.

The living room scenes remind me of a Gucci ad campaign Tom in...fall of 2016. Oh. Seems significant.

1. Why those shoes. 2. How does he not have dog hair on his suit. 3. This very ad hung on my fridge for a month. 4. The color scheme and mod feel of this photo shoot feel very similar to the ME! living room. Taylor even included her own two animals (who are somewhat similar in color to these glamorous pooches.

Here’s another image from the Gucci campaign:

The suit Brendon wears while watching out the window, to me, mimics the suit Tom is wearing above. Not incidentally, the jaguar statue is at Brendon’s elbow. And you’ll notice that the pinkish pillow behind Tom’s right shoulder is basically the same color and texture as the sofas in the ME! living room.

Let me also note that all of the rooms above featured shades of green associated with Loki.

Well, that was fun. Let’s do some more.

The hallway Grace Kelly Taylor walks through at the beginning of the video always puzzled me. It was one of those things that stuck out but I couldn’t say why. Well, I wondered if it represented a place TS had been. I guess so because here is an interior shot of part of the Vatican Museums in Rome:

I saw this and just about fainted. Taylor and Tom visited the Vatican while in Rome in summer 2016. They were heavily papped, unfortunately. I can’t imagine how miserable that would have been, but they also did look very happy together. I get little heart eyes and then cry for Taylor (and Tom), praying for her happiness while listening to New Year’s Day. I might also mention she wore blue kitten heels, remarkably like the pink ones in this portion of the video.

Now this is a find I’m truly proud of...here’s an interesting tie Tom wore many moons ago. And I really mean many moons ago because there are only these sad tiny photos you get when someone cropped a VHS recording they took of that time your were on TV in 2010.

First, what a great tie, and can I get a sundress made out of it too because I just really love floral prints. But besides that, I mean, I’m just getting some deja vu...

And the color scheme shows pretty well (along with the silky texture) in Brendon’s most excellent costume at the Billboard awards (which I would also like a dress of):

And there’s that whole Mary Poppins reference with Brendon teetering down from the sky on an umbrella. I couldn’t help but be reminded of this odd but somewhat talked-about short film “Leading Lady Parts” that Tom had a role in. The basis of the plot being that he wins all the leading female roles in movies because other women can’t live up to Hollywood’s (or whatever the British equivalent of Hollywood is) standards. So at the end of the film, a character walks past a series of posters where Tom has been photoshopped into famous female roles, including...

Something you’ll never unsee, I know.

Okay, the next part needs its own whole SECTION.

Thor Ragnarok References

So partway through Taylor and Tom’s midsummer’s night dream, Tom started filming for Thor Ragnarok, one of Marvel’s greatest gifts to mankind, in Australia. The finished film came out on Nov. 3, 2017, just seven days before reputation.

To start with, the color of Loki’s costume shows up quite a bit:

Beyond this, Thor: Ragnarok takes place on two alien planets: Asgard (Thor and Loki’s home) and Sakaar (a bizarre planet where intergalactic trash is dumped and Jeff Goldblum holds gladiator-style games.)

Sakaar looks a little like this:

An odd pastel palette splashed on a sea of grays. Detritus and occasionally people (notably, Thor) fall from holes in the sky. Also, notice the sky has a strange refracted nature to it that is seen in the ME! video.

So we have another scene of people falling from nowhere down to a sea of pastels and gray with a pink refracted sky.

The sky behind His Lordship Jeff Goldblum in Ragnarok is the best pic I can find of Sakaar’s sky.

Let’s move on to a more exciting one:

One of the movie’s main characters, Valkyrie, rides a gray pegasus (unfortunately not a pegacorn)

The pegacorn Taylor sits on has a rather peculiar eye that evokes Thor’s when he’s in lightning mode:

Valkyrie also has a totally dope cape (so do a lot of characters, but we’ll focus on her):

Which reminds me of Taylor’s cape in the marching band scene:

And the rainbow leading up to the kaleidoscope where Taylor and To--er, Brendon dance? If you’ve watched any Thor movie, you probably remember the long almost-translucent rainbow bridge that stretches from the bifrost to Asgard.

So as you see above, the bifrost leads to a room where Idris Elba controls the bifrost bridge. It look a bit like the kaleidoscope room Taylor and Brendon end up in:

To top things off, Taylor and Brendon’s suits really evoke that old school country feel that stars like, I don’t know....Hank Williams would wear (rest in peace.)

Finally, the hotel lobby resembles the interior of the Asgard palace, but I can’t find good pictures and this has taken me hours.

In conclusion, Taylor is brilliant, love is cruel, ME! is a fantasy fever dream, and Tom is worth the fight. Hopes, thoughts, prayers.

#taylor swift #me #me!#me! music video #me! taylor swift #hiddleswift #tom hiddleston #thor ragnarok #pure brilliance

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khfankeri · 5 years

Text

Miraculous Ladybug Fluff Week 2020 Day #7 Reveal

Okay I’ve sucked at the fluff week stuff. I’ve been writing for all my other fanfics, so it’s not like I haven’t been writing. But today is REVEAL day!! So I gotta do another take on a fluffy reveal!!

Fluff Week Reveal Day #7

Adrien knew they had to wait till Hawkmoth was defeated. He knew if they revealed their identities, it could put them at a great risk of Hawkmoth using their love against them. He knew all of this. But it didn’t stop his heart from longing to know.

Who was she?

Why did she affect him so?

Why couldn’t he let go??

He could have easily been with Kagami. She was willing, and he tried to give their love a chance, but his heart wouldn’t let go of his Lady. Why did he have to love someone who was in love with someone else?

Adrien packed up his bags from fencing class and waved good bye to Kagami. At least they were still friends.

He walked outside to see it was raining. There was a big umbrella with two people underneath it. He realized it was Marinette and Luka. His heart pounded as she reached up on her tippy toes to kiss Luka on the cheek.

But it didn’t look like a happy kiss. It looked like a farewell kiss. Luka looked a little dejected, but he nodded as he listened to Marinette’s words. The guy was the epitome of understanding. Adrien wished he could be like that. Luka waved good bye to her and started walking off in the rain. Marinette called after him to see if he wanted the umbrella, but he shook his head no and blew a good bye kiss to her.

Marinette looked as if she would cry. Adrien ran up to her, concerned. “Marinette! Are you okay??”

She looked startled at first and wiped a tear away. “Oh, Adrien! Did.. did you finish your fencing class?”

“Yes, but never mind me, what happened? You look awful!”

“Um,” she looked a little dazed.

Adrien waved his hands, “Wait, I mean you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to!”

She sighed. “No, it’s okay. It’s just, I told Luka we just won’t work out. I... my heart belongs to someone else.”

Marinette looked off in the distance, avoiding his eyes.

“Someone else?” He asked dumbly. Wait, so the guy she was in love with wasn’t Luka??

She laughed nervously. “Yeah, but uh, he only sees me as a friend. Nothing more. But I can’t help... loving him.”

His heart pounded in his chest for some reason. Wait, did he wish that person was him??? No way!! He was just thinking about Ladybug! What kind of guy would think of another girl at a time like this?? His heart felt like a battle ground.

“I’m sorry about that, Marinette. If it makes you feel any better, the girl I love looks at me the same way...”

She looked surprised. “She only sees you as friend??! The Adrien Agreste??? Heartthrob of Paris??”

Adrien laughed. “Well, to be fair, she doesn’t actually know who I am. To her, I’m just a normal guy.”

Her eyebrow quirked up. “Is this like an Internet relationship or something?”

Uh oh. Back peddle, Agreste. Back peddle. “Uh, yeah, I guess you could say it’s something like that.”

“Why don’t you just tell her who you are then? I’m sure if she knew, she might just fall for you.”

She saw the look on his face and it dawned on her. “Oh. She’s in love with someone else, huh?”

He nodded, feeling a stone pit in his stomach. “Yeah, so I guess I have it worse than you. She can’t love me because her heart belongs to someone else.”

She wrapped her arms around him awkwardly as she held her giant umbrella. “No, I get it. The boy I love also loves someone else.”

He laughed at the absurdity of the pair of them. She leaned back looking at him questioning. “Sorry, I was just thinking what a pair we make. A bunch of heartbroken people on the day before Valentines Day.”

She laughed through her tears. “Yes, that’s true. I’m glad I have you, Adrien. You’re amazing and I...”

“You what?”

“Um, I have to go. This umbrella is getting heavy. I should probably go get the umbrella you lent me that first day of school.”

He remembered that day. It was a lot like this day. It was a fond memory. She had been so dorky.

“You’re laughing at me aren’t you?”

He startled himself when he realized he’d been laughing out loud. “Haha, sorry. I was remembering when that umbrella collapsed on you. Typical Marinette. But it will always be a good memory to me.”

She giggled as she looked at him. But they both stopped laughing and gazed at each other. What the heck was happening???

“I, uh, gotta split! Got homework to do! Bye, Marinette!!”

He started running full speed towards his house. Plagg was snickering in his jacket. “Hush, Plagg. It’s not what you think.”

“Uh huh. I’m sure you feel absolutely nothing for that bakery girl, do you?”

Adrien could feel his face heating up. “Shut up. She’s not Ladybug. I only love Ladybug.”

“Sure. And I’m the kwami of creation. Come on. I know you. You feel something for her. Your heart rate always picks up around her. You’re just denying it because you love Ladybug.”

“I don’t want to hear this from you, Plagg. Ladybug and I were meant to be. As much as I like Marinette, my heart will always belong to Ladybug.”

“Well, I mean, technically you love both of them. And what does that tell you?”

“That I’m stupid and I feel like I’m cheating on M’Lady. Even if we’re not in a relationship.”

Plagg face palmed with his little paw and sighed dramatically. “You’re not listening, kid. I’m telling you to really think about this... who is Marinette? Really?”

Adrien stopped in an alley before getting to his house. “Look, I need time to clear my head.”

“Adrien, don’t you dare...”

“Plagg, claws out!!”

**************

Marinette sighed as she stared off into space on top of her balcony. Tikki floated nearby looking worried.

“I just... can’t let Adrien go, Tikki. He drives me crazy and my heart is all messed up! Even as I said good bye to Luka, he was all I could think about.”

“And having him come up to you right after breaking it off with Luka didn’t help...” Tikki sighed.

“Am I just crazy, or did we have a connection just then?”

Tikki looked thoughtful. “I mean, he looks like he really does care for you. But does that translate to romantic love? I’m not too sure.”

Marinette looked off from beneath her umbrella to the bleak Parisian skyline. “Wait, is that Cat Noir?”

Tikki looked and nodded. “Indeed. And it’s not patrol time yet. He must need a distraction.”

“Why do you say that, Tikki?”

“Just something I’ve noticed about both of you. If you’re feeling down or need to think, both of you transform and jump along the rooftops. It’s quite endearing.”

Marinette sighed. “Cat Noir is an interesting case. I get the feeling he’s lonely a lot.”

Tikki nodded sagely. “That’s probably true. You should go say hi. He may need a friend.”

Marinette felt her heart squeeze. She cared a lot about him. He had saved her life so many times, and even though he was a jokester, they made a good team. Why couldn’t she love him? Why did she have to love someone who didn’t love her back?

“Okay, I’ll go talk to him. Tikki, spots on!”

Before she left, she saw the black umbrella still out. It was the one Adrien had lent her. She didn’t feel like letting the rain drench her, so she picked it up. The chances of anyone recognizing it was slim to none. It was just a regular black umbrella after all.

She felt a little like Mary Poppins, and she had to be careful not to break it while she went swinging from building to building. She found Cat Noir sitting with his back to her, getting drenched. He looked so thoughtful, it surprised her.

Marinette snuck up behind him and placed the umbrella over his head, waiting for him to realize he wasn’t being rained on anymore.

“That’s weird...” he looked up to see the umbrella and whirled around to face her. “M’Lady? What are you doing here? It’s not patrol time.”

She smiled. “I saw you jumping around and thought I’d come check on you.”

He placed his hand on his heart. “Oh, M’Lady, you honor this black cat.”

She giggled. “Here, take this. You can do the honor of holding it since you’re such a gentleman.”

Their gloved hands touched briefly and an electric current went up her arm. What the heck??

Cat Noir looked at her and looked surprised himself. “You CHARGE me up you know.”

She groaned. “WATS do you mean by that??”

Cat Noir grinned. “I will win you over yet with my ELECTRIC jokes. See I’ve already got you using puns too.”

“I doubt that.”

He looked at the small umbrella and realized how close they were. It made his heart thump madly in his chest. “I totally thought you’d own a cuter umbrella than this? You seem like you’d be one for style.”

“Oh, it’s not mine actually. A friend lent it to me his first day of school. I actually need to give it back, but I’m having a hard time letting it go...”

“Why is that? Who’s this he?”

She looked suddenly bashful. “Well, I guess it can’t hurt. You see, there was a total misunderstanding between this guy and I the first time we met. At the end of school, he explained what happened, and since it was raining, he lent me his umbrella.”

When she met his eyes, she was surprised to see him looking really confused. He looked down at the handle then. Crap, Adrien’s initials were on it. Why hadn’t she thought of that??

He looked back up at her in shock.

“What, what’s wrong?”

“Um, I uhhhhhh.”

She’d never seen him speechless before! “Cat, what’s wrong?”

He started laughing then. Like really laughing. “I’m.. such an idiot. Of course, of course you would be her!”

“Her? Wait, wait, you know who I am?? Cat, this is bad!! We can’t know each other’s identities!!”

She started pacing.

“But how can you be so sure?? And how do you.. wait, the umbrella.. No....”

She looked at him as it finally dawned on her. The only one who was there when she received the umbrella was Adrien. “Adrien.”

He nodded and smiled at her. “Hello, Marinette.”

Oh no. Oh no no no. The boy she loved was the boy who was also her dorky partner! And yet, all the pieces fell together in her mind. She started laughing as well. What was wrong with her??

She took a deep breath and looked him in the face. Yeah, no good. She was totally and completely in love with this dork. “Adrien, I...”

He took her hands and kissed one of them. “I should have figured I would fall in love with the same girl twice.”

“Fall in... love?” She squeaked.

He laugh a little self deprecatingly. “Yeah, I mean, I suppose this is as good of time as any. I was falling in love with my best friend. I didn’t want to admit it to myself. I suppose I always knew in my heart who you were, but just couldn’t make the connection in my head. I called you our Ever Day Ladybug for Pete’s sake! Come on, Agreste. I really am a lost cause.”

Marinette wanted to say something. Anything.

“I know you’re in love with someone else. I just had to tell you now, before I lost my nerve.”

She was crying! He looked concerned as he watched her.

“I’m sorry. I’m probably ruining our friendship now. I just couldn’t ignore my feelings anymore. And knowing the most amazing superhero of Paris is also the amazing superhero of my school. I guess you can say I don’t stand a fighting chance.”

That was it!! She took his head in her hands and kissed him deeply. He started to protest but then slowly put his hands around her waist and pulled her closer.

She finally pulled back but remained in his arms.

“Um, well, that wasn’t what I expected.” He mumbled a little incoherently.

“It’s you, stupid.”

He blinked uncomprehendingly for a second. Then realization dawned on him. “Oh. OH.”

“Yes, Adrien Agreste, it’s you. I’ve been in love with you. I could never find the right words, and then, when you told me there was a girl you were in love with the day at the Wax Museum, I was crushed. I didn’t realize the girl you were in love with was me... and before I knew it, I was falling for my best friend and partner.”

He looked stunned and in awe. “I can’t believe it. I’m the luckiest guy in the whole world.”

She blushed deeply. “It’s like a fairy tale.”

“Can I kiss you again?”

Her heart beat wildly on his chest as she stood in his arms. She nodded and pushed up on her tippy toes to meet his lips.

“That will never get old.” He sighed as they came apart.

“Tikki, spots off.”

A bright light blinded him for a second till Marinette appeared in front of him. “Well, this is me.”

He grinned. “Plagg, claws in.”

Her heart hammered as the boy of her dreams dropped his mask. “It really is you.”

He winked at her. “In the flesh.”

Her heart sank then. “But what about Hawkmoth? What if he finds out? What if our love destroys the world again??”

He looked confused. “Again?”

“Ah, that’s right. Although, knowing who you are, it all makes sense now. You see, one day, Bunnix came to me after I dropped that beret off at your house. Originally it had been signed “from Marinette” when I left it on your bed.”

“The beret was from you??”

She nodded a little embarrassed. “Yes, but I made a terrible blunder that day, and you must have discovered my secret. I don’t know the details of the other timeline, but eventually Hawkmoth found out and used our love against us. He akumatized you and in rebellion, your power destroyed the planet and the moon.”

His eyes looked alarmed.

“But don’t worry! I saved you! And fixed the timeline. But that also meant you never knew who I was.”

Adrien looked thoughtful. “If I had found out, I probably would have tried to keep it a secret. Perhaps something happened and maybe Hawkmoth hurt you. But don’t worry, Marinette, I won’t let that happen this time. Besides, Bunnix hasn’t appeared yet, has she?”

She nodded, some hope coming to her eyes.

“Perhaps now is when we were supposed to find out.” He took her hands in his. “And now we can be stronger than ever. We will defeat Hawkmoth. We have no secrets between us anymore. Love conquers hate after all.”

She smiled at him through her happy tears. “I love you, Adrien Agreste.”

“I love you too, Marinette Dupain-Chang.”

He gently tipped her face up and kissed her again oh so sweetly.

Whatever came next, they would fight together. They were a true team in both forms now.

“Bout time.” Plagg interjected floating up between them.

“Plagg! Give them some privacy!!” Tikki chided him coming up next to him.

Adrien grabbed Plagg. “You little weasel, you knew all along didn’t you??”

“Hey, I was just trying to help.”

“Adrien, it’s okay. We had to wait for the right time anyway.” Marinette laughed as Adrien let him go.

“Marinette is right.” Tikki agreed.

“Good to see you again, Tikki!” Adrien exclaimed patting her little red head.

“You too, Adrien. It’s about time. Marinette was going crazy over you!”

“Tikki!!” Marinette exclaimed feeling mortified.

Adrien blushed as he looked at her. “Well, Plagg can tell you I was going crazy over he as well.”

Marinette was so thankful for him. So thankful to have a man who loved her just as much as she loved him.

“Since Valentine’s Day is tomorrow, you should probably know Marinette is the one who replied to your poem a few years ago.” Plagg causally interjected.

“Wait, seriously?? I had wondered if it was you after I saw the handwriting, but I was convinced you loved Luka...”

She nodded, feeling super self conscious.

He picked her up and swung her around. “I love you, Marinette!!”

She felt like she was flying! She looked down at Adrien who was laughing so joyfully. This was right. They were right. And her heart couldn’t take it so she just laughed with him.

He finally put her down and burrowed his face in her neck. “Adrien!”

“Let me just stay here for a second.”

She stopped protesting and ruffled his hair lovingly.

“Okay,” he said eventually backing off, “I’m good now. Though I may need a recharge soon.”

“I will gladly give it.” She giggled.

He sighed as he looked at her. “You’re amazing, Marinette.”

“And you’re the cat’s meow.” She said winking at him.

“Okay, that deserves a kiss.”

He kissed her again, loving that she was in his arms.

“Ugh, are we going to have to deal with this from now on???” Plagg protested.

“Come on, Plagg. Leave them alone.” Tikki demanded dragging him off.

Adrien looked at her. “Aw man, you’re soaking wet!”

“To be honest, I didn’t even notice the rain.”

He placed his hand on her cheek. “Yeah, me neither. But come on, we should probably get you dried off before you catch a cold.”

She nodded. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. Want to come over to my place?”

He nodded enthusiastically.

“Okay, let me go get the umbrella.”

There was no way she was ever getting rid of that umbrella!!

#miraculousfluffweek #fluffweek #miraculous #ladybug #reveal #marinette #adrien #2020fluffweek #adrienette #ladynoir #lovesquarefluffweek2020 #lovesquare

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yes-that-really-happened · 3 years

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Yanno Mary Poppins? Like her, but less graceful.

So a few years ago, I began working for a family friend. Their 3 small stores were part of a small shopping village on the beach. I grew up in the area so I knew what to expect in the summer season. Tourists, sunburn, spilled ice cream, etc. In the summer, there’s the occasional storm that just kinda rolls through after a hot day to cool everything off.

I’m working alone in one of the three small stores on a fairly nice day. Sun was shining and I had gone to the beach even before my shift started. A fairly normal day. Around dinner time, a friend came to drop off food for me and before we knew it the sky was black. Clouds of grey came barreling over us and literally looked like waves building up. We started to pull our product inside and I started to prep the store in case there was flooding (another very common occurrence) when all of a sudden, the wind picks up like crazy. People are running, napkins and cups are flying, store owners and workers are shutting windows and locking doors, actual chaos. A good friend of mine is trying to grab her flags and umbrellas from outside so I run out to help, since my store is secured. We get most of the umbrellas down and she sees another flag still up.

I told her I’ve got the last umbrella so she can go grab her flag. I unlatch the umbrella and start to pull it out. As I try to close it a huge gust of wind sweeps me and the umbrella up. I was dangling from the umbrella and thankfully, a maintenance guy grabbed me and pulled me down. He grabs the umbrellas and I fell off the table I standing on. Everyone around me was screaming, thinking I was gonna get blown away yet, none of them came to help??

I kindly thank the man and continue to board up my store for our quick storm.

As the storm began, some flooding started to happen. So I place all the sand bags by the door and hope for the best. My friend ended up staying until the storm was over so we just stood and she watched me clean the store when she finds a puddle inside the store. Not near any windows or doors. We figured it was probably from our shoes or something so I mop it up and go back to what I’m doing. After 10ish minutes there’s another puddle in the same spot. We look up to notice that the light fixture was leaking water!! I had to shut the power off and we ended up closing early that day. Just because of a thunderstorm.

The things I deal with for this job.

#small business #funny story #literally #blown away #jersey shore #story time

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applepiewinchesters · 5 years

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The Nanny (Crowley x Reader)

*REQUESTS ARE CLOSED*

Requested by: Anonymous

Warnings: None

When you’d first heard about Crowley and Aziraphale’s idea to go undercover and help raise Warlock, you thought maybe it wouldn’t be that bad of an idea.

Crowley could do secret service, Aziraphale maybe working as the cook, you could be the nanny possibly, but when they explained who they were going undercover as, you nearly hacked up a lung from laughing so hard.

Aziraphale as the gardener, that wasn’t too hard to imagine, definitely not too far of a reach. You were going to be Warlock’s tutor, at least he was currently only five, just basic things needed to be learned. But Crowley as the nanny? The fucking nanny?

Now that was going to be a sight to behold. He may be your boyfriend of a few years, but out of all the things he’s done, he has definitely never dressed up as a woman to take care of the Antichrist.

“It’s not that funny,” Crowley said, trying to defend himself as you were trying to catch your breath from laughing on the couch.

You giggled, wiping a tear from your eye and took a few deep breaths, composing yourself, “It is love, it really is, you’re…you’re going to dress up as an old woman and be a nanny Crowley?” you asked.

The demon standing before you shrugged, looking away.

“You don’t even like kids,” you reasoned.

“It’s the Antichrist, couldn’t be too bad,” Crowley said nonchalantly.

You smiled and shook your head, standing up and walking over to Crowley, wrapping your arms around his waist. “You know, there’s probably better ways to do this,” you suggested.

“Already made up my mind,” Crowley spoke, still looking away from you, although his hands had moved to your waist.

“So stubborn,” you sighed, reaching up to tuck a bit of Crowley’s long hair behind his ear.

He turned to face you, smiling a bit, “It’s one of my specialties,” he said, making you laugh.

“Just be careful alright? I know you want to help stop Armageddon and all, but just…don’t be too obvious,” you told him.

Crowley leaned down, pecking your lips softly, “I’m always careful love, besides, nannying can’t be too dangerous” he told you.

“Surrreee,” you said sarcastically, pulling away from him and sitting back down on the couch.

The demon huffed but sat down beside you, wrapping an arm around your shoulders, you leaned into him. You just hoped this plan wasn’t as ridiculous as it sounded.

At least you didn’t have to dress up, being a plain old human and all.

A week later, you sat on Crowley’s bed, running your hand over the silk sheets absentmindedly while you waited for your boyfriend to emerge from the bathroom, he wanted to show you his nanny outfit.

“Promise you won’t laugh?!” Crowley called from the bathroom.

You giggled softly, “I’ll try my best!” you called back.

Looking up when the bathroom door open, your eyes widened and you immediately snorted, covering your mouth.

He looked…. hilarious. Crowley was wearing an all-black dress, save the little red ribbon around his neck. He looked like a gothic Mary Poppins. Even had the hat and the umbrella.

You didn’t speak, too afraid you would just burst into laughter.

“What do you think?” he asked, holding out his arms.

You shook your head as a loud laugh left your lips, you quickly buried you face in your hands, trying to hide your wide smile.

“Come on, it’s not that funny,” Crowley groaned.

You continued laughing as you got off the bed, circling your boyfriend and taking in the entirety of the outfit. “Y-You look great babe, but I am definitely not kissing you when you look like that,” you said.

“Why not?” Crowley asked, pouting.

“It would be like kissing my grandmother, speaking of, you need one more thing,” you said, hurrying into the bathroom and grabbing your makeup bag from counter.

“Sit down,” you instructed, and Crowley did as told, taking off his sunglasses as he sat down on the bed, looking up at you.

“Close your eyes,” you told him as you pulled out an eye shadow pallet.

Again, Crowley did as instructed and you got to work, brushing on some eye shadow on his eyes, adding mascara after blending the natural colored eye shadow.

You next pulled your favorite lipstick color from the makeup bag, holding your boyfriend’s chin as you very carefully spread the light red color onto his lips.

“Alright, done,” you said, wiping off a tiny imperfection and recapping the lipstick, dropping it into the bag.

Crowley followed you into the bathroom to look at your work, he barked out a laugh when he saw himself.

“See, you look hilarious,” you told him.

“Thanks for your help sweetheart,” he told you, leaning down and pressing a kiss to your cheek.

You shuddered and wiped off the lipstick smudge, “Alright, we better get going, don’t want to be late to little Warlock’s lesson,” you said, going back into the bedroom and gathering up the books and study supplies you’d bought, throwing them into the tote bag on the bed.

Hopefully this went well.

It did go rather well in fact, weeks later and everything was going fine, you still weren’t exactly used to Crowley being dressed as a woman, or, as he was known to the Dowling’s, Nanny Ashtoreth.

You were playing the part of “her” granddaughter, happily helping little Warlock with his ABC’s and 123’s. He really was a sweet kid, was this really the one that was supposed to bring on the end times?

One afternoon you were in the kitchen with Warlock making lunch, he was sitting at the table, quietly singing to himself as he colored.

You were cutting the crust off his peanut butter sandwich, and you looked up when you heard the sound of heels against linoleum. It was Crowley, or rather, your grandmother.

“Afternoon,” you said politely.

Warlock looked up from his picture, smiling widely, “Nanny!” he said happily, jumping off his seat and running to Crowley, wrapping his small arms around Crowley’s legs.

Crowley hugged back, “Good afternoon to you too dear,” he said in his sweet old lady voice.

You giggled at the sight, it was rather cute, although very weird at the same time. “Come on Warlock, lunch time,” you said as the little guy ran back over to the table.

After you set his sandwich down in front of him you leaned against the counter, Crowley moving to stand beside you.

“How much longer do we have to do this?” you whispered, watching Warlock as he ate.

“Maybe another week and we should be fine,” Crowley whispered back, reaching between the two of you to grab your hand, giving it a small squeeze.

“Warlock will miss you, he tells me about all the songs you sing for him at night and the stories you tell,” you said.

Crowley chuckled softly, “He’s a cute kid,” he said, shrugging a bit.

You smirked, “Going soft?” you asked, laughing a bit.

“Never,” Crowley shot back almost immediately.

Laughing, you rolled your eyes, patting his shoulder as you began walking away, “Whatever you say nanny,” you told him.

A/N: I loved this request so much, shout out to whoever sent it in! Thank you so much for reading, I hope you loved it. Also, thank you for all the love! Requests should be open again soon! Love you all! ~ Sara :)

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poetunias · 4 years

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Ahhh so glad you decided to do this! :) I'm also going to cheat and ask about two, if that's cool! 3 and 6!

Thanks so much for the ask - this is really fun!!

empty frames:

the plot - it's 1970, and Sally Wong is settling into life at her very first house with her husband, Roger, and two daughters, Laura and Janie. The moving boxes filling their hallways are filled with possibility and all of their heads are full of big dreams. Until Roger suddenly passes away, and the hallways grow heavy with responsibility for all members of the family.

It's 2016, and Sally Wong is 76. She’s lived with her daughter Jane at the same house for 46 years, but as paranoia begins to cloud her perception of the world, Jane decides to transfer her mother into life at a nursing home. As she packs up the house, she’s forced to uncover memories from the dust and confront the choices and sacrifices she’s made over the years.

a snippet - The house was too quiet. It was like the beginning of a horror movie, quiet tremolo strings running across our nerves, like we'd hear a scream at any moment. It was funny. Whenever we thought of her, she was always like she had been before. Eyes dark and deep, fiery amber in the sun, a little dimple showing just under the right corner of her mouth. The little gap between her front teeth was still there. She'd gone to the hairdresser's that morning, probably, and her hair would be blown dry, framing her face like rich curtains. It was never for a special occasion, because special was a "social construct." If you wanted a day to be special, you made it that way. People made things up all the time, and you might as well do it for good. So she'd be wearing a dress - some frilly skirt and headband, maybe, but always floral - and she'd spin around the house and leap down the stairs so the skirt ballooned like a parachute around her waist, and her bare feet would be pointed and lightly touching each step as she flew down like Mary Poppins, if Mary Poppins had an umbrella skirt instead of an actual parasol.

slow burn (or - he sells sunscreen at the seashore)

some backstory - this is a Percy Jackson mortal au featuring my ~one true pairing~, Percy and Annabeth. It was originally intended to be a one-shot but literally just the very vague first outline of the plot is over 1000 words so...I guess that’s not happening.

the blurb - He sells sunscreen. She gets sunburnt. It’s a match made in heaven – but their relationship is basically from the deepest circles of hell. (She may burn fast but this story burns slow.)

i literally do not know how to describe the plot of this - but it’s basically an enemies to lovers story.

the opening line - Annabeth liked Ray Bradbury as much as the next twentieth century science fiction nerd (namely, her ex-boyfriend, although she doesn’t talk about that), but under California’s sweltering orange sun, it was certainly not a pleasure to burn.

thanks again for the ask!

(send an ask about some of my wips!)

#teriwrites

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liskantope · 4 years

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Some not-so-brief reactions to major Disney films 1968-1988

A little while ago I wrote another collection of quick commentaries on major Disney films (which I’m watching one by one through Disney+) from their inception with Snow White in 1937 to The Jungle Book in 1967. I was planning to round off my next collection at another 30-year mark, but the little mini-reviews I’ve been writing are beginning to look so long-winded in aggregate that tonight I decided maybe I should stop at this point. Also, last time, without fully being aware of it, I stopped at the end of what is considered Disney’s Silver Age (coming after Disney’s Golden Age, also included in the last set of commentaries), and apparently 1968 to 1988 is considered Disney’s (Bronze and/or) Dark Age (the Disney Renaissance kicking off with The Little Mermaid in 1989), so there’s another reason it makes sense to cut it off here.

I’ll keep watching the major Disney features, one a day, through the 90′s works, but whether I’ll find time to keep writing about my impressions of each film I watch, I can’t guarantee anything.

The Aristocats, 1970

This is a beloved favorite of mine. I got the video in later childhood, having previously admired the main number “Everybody Wants To Be a Cat” (still the highlight of the movie, from my adult point of view) and having read the story in a Disney book. After seeing it many times in childhood, I rewatched it only a few years ago when it showed up on Netflix. Around that time (or maybe just afterwards), I noticed that my favorite cartoon/Disney reviewer YouTuber Phantom Strider occasionally mentions that he dislikes The Aristocats -- he doesn’t put it on his top 10 worst Disney movie list or anything, but he’s made some disparaging remarks without going into detail. Watching it once again this month on Disney+, my verdict is that, yeah, it’s subpar in quite a few ways, but my more critical adult sensibilities will never override the fond feelings I have for this movie.

Since this is the next movie on the list after The Jungle Book, I couldn’t help constantly comparing the two, and I did see some parallels. In both cases, the story is pretty weak: this time, a family of cats gets kidnapped and stranded far from home by the greedy butler villain and have to pass through several adventures to get back to their owner. In both cases, the plot is a very linear one involving small adventures and minor characters having little bearing on the overall arc (this is perhaps slightly less the case with The Aristocats, where the new acquaintance Thomas O’Malley stays with them the whole time, and at least Scat Cat’s gang makes a return at the end -- minus the unfortunate and entirely unnecessary character of the Chinese cat -- to fight for the protagonists). In both cases, the voice acting is great and includes Phil Harris and Sterling Holloway. In both cases, the villain’s motives are rather flimsily stated -- the butler villain is more comical and slightly more rounded out, and the fact that his motive doesn’t make a lot of sense is perhaps meant to be part of the comedy. The Aristocats has far more filler material, including a useless but somewhat amusing and ultra-cartoonish sideplot about our butler villain losing his hat and umbrella and having to return to the countryside to get them (it’s more amusing than it sounds, trust me).

The Aristocats is simply weaker in almost every way than The Jungle Book. Although I like all the music, including “Scales and Arpeggios” which I only just learned was written by the Sherman Brothers and I appreciated a lot as a kid who practiced the piano every day, the only truly memorable song was “Everybody Wants To Be a Cat” (not written by the Sherman Brothers), whereas in The Jungle Book there are multiple numbers of that caliber written by the Sherman Brothers at nearly the top of their form. This film can also be compared to One Hundred and One Dalmatians and again comes out looking worse -- Dalmations sort of perfected the whole “animals coordinating a rescue” type plot, and The Aristocats only seems to make a feeble attempt at it.

One interesting thing about the pacing of the film that as an adult I’m a bit taken aback by is how quickly the ending of the movie runs. I was shocked when I rewatched this for the first time as an adult on Netflix, got to the ending of “Everybody Wants To Be a Cat”, and saw that there were only 15 minutes of running time left: that includes the late-night discussion between the romantic leads, the arrival at their home, Edgar re-kidnapping them, Roquefort going for help and nearly getting himself killed by Scat Cat’s gang, the whole action sequence of the actual rescue, a final scene with Madame welcoming O’Malley and rewriting the will, and the final song. We don’t even get to see Madame’s reaction at seeing her beloved cats alive and well, which is one of the ways this movie compares unfavorably with Dalmatians. There is some real artistry in The Aristocats, but the amount of effort put in is clearly not up to the standard of Disney’s finest.

Bedknobs and Broomsticks, 1971

I mainly knew this movie through the song “Beautiful Briny Sea” growing up. Eventually I did watch the film one time; I also read the book it was based on (I can’t remember which came first). I remembered very little outside of that one song, the fact that the characters travel in a bed, and David Tomlinson (who I knew well as Mr. Banks) being in it as an jarringly un-Banks-like character. I had entirely forgotten the fact that the story takes place during World War II and that this is crucial to the plot. I knew this as the Disney movie that tried to be Mary Poppins and failed to be anywhere near as exciting or resonant. However, I was still very curious to rediscover, two decades later, what the movie was really all about.

The story is really quite good on a level that appeals to grownups as well as children -- not as deeply as Mary Poppins, mind you, but distinctive and captivating. (I think this has something to do with the story being as much to do with the adult characters as with the children.) The acting is also solid. It only increased my respect for David Tomlinson’s versatility as an actor, in fact, and it was fun to see the likeness of the dignified and proper George Banks display so much awkward vulnerability and eventually get himself into so many slapstick situations. Unfortunately, the only memorable song is “Beautiful Briny Sea” -- I mean that quite literally, as sitting down to write this a couple of weeks after watching, I’m finding it hard to remember much about any of the other songs.

Also unfortunately, the song “Beautiful Briny Sea” is sort of a beacon in a murky area as, halfway through the film when we switch to the animated portion, the movie suddenly gets... quite bad. The live-animation hybrid is consistently done to weak effect, first of all. For some reason, only Mary Poppins made this effect believable, ahead of its time. Secondly, I understand that we have to suspend our disbelief to enjoy a children’s fantasy film, but having the group plunged into water without themselves or their book appearing wet or having any issue breathing is pushing this a bit far. Thirdly, the writing gets rather silly. As soon as they come across an animated codfish who welcomes them to the area, the oldest kid Charles (always the skeptic) says, “Now I’m hearing things! Fish don’t talk.” Nor do fish “walk” along the bottom of the sea with a cane while fully clothed and smoking a cigar, Charlie, so what was your first clue that you’re in a story where things you thought impossible are happening?

The whole crew later gets up onto the animated island of Naboombu, where Mr. Banks Professor Browne is forced to referee a soccer game between teams of anthropomorphic animals as part of his efforts (somehow) to get his hands on the lanyard of the island’s arrogant monarch (who rather resembles Prince John from the next film on this list) which winds up evaporating as soon as they get back to their own world anyway. The ensuing soccer match is by far the most bizarre part of the film, or of any of these films really -- it feels much more like some wacky Saturday morning cartoon than Disney animation. Browne the referee winds up getting (literally) dragged into the game; the live/animation hybrid is done especially poorly here. Once the characters get back to the “real” world, however, the movie becomes good again, with a fantastic climactic conclusion that left me smiling at the overall effect of the film despite its weaknesses.

Robin Hood, 1973

This was a Disney classic that we owned from the time I was fairly small, and that I watched more times than almost any other one, with Alice in Wonderland being the only possible rival I can think of. I went what was probably close to a twenty-year period without seeing it or missing it until a couple of years ago, on a transatlantic flight when it was one of the movie options on the plane. I was taken aback on that rewatching by the fact that... Robin Hood just isn’t that good. When I later saw my parents (I think this was on the way to visiting them), I told them of this revelation, and they told me, “We never thought it was that good either, but you seemed to like it.” I guess I can see some of the appeal to my much younger self, but less easily than I can see the appeal of the some of the other so-so films like The Aristocats -- there is something about Robin Hood that is eye-catching on the superficial level but ultimately shallow. At the same time, I’ll always have to feel a bit sentimental about this one because of the role it played in an early period of my life, introducing me to words like outlaw and in-law and taxes (I vividly remember thinking in early watchings that Taxes was just the name of the unpleasant wolf character), helping to develop my understanding of what poverty looks like, and also introducing me to the concept of political satire (under an anti-free-speech monarchy no less. The scene shown in the video just linked is my favorite scene of the movie, by the way.)

I think my main criticism of Disney’s Robin Hood could be summarized by saying it oversimplifies what could have been a nuanced story, way more than it needs to. This shows most starkly in its clearly-marked division between good characters and evil characters. Naive Good-vs.-Evil plots are very much part of the Disney brand, but I can’t think of any of their other films which takes that aspect to this much of an extreme in developing the characters, so that the entire cast is very openly divided between the white caps and the black caps and (this is the most important part) to the detriment of individuation between the characters. The personalities of all the characters on the Good Side seem pretty much interchangeable throughout the film. Oh sure, Robin Hood has Plucky Hero stamped on him with Designated Sidekick Little John, and Maid Marian has Love Interest stamped on her, and so on. They get into different situations because they all play different roles in the community. But there are no deeper differences between them. Friar Tuck, for instance, is the local religious leader, and you think he might present a more thoughtful, pacifistic, and spiritual point of view to his comrades and enemies. But no, he shouts at the Sheriff and chest-bumps him out of the church and engages him in physical combat just like all the other characters do. All of the people on the Good Side are in complete lockstep throughout, and this makes their part of the story deeply uninteresting.

King Richard is never developed as a character; he is a faraway abstract entity throughout the film, which makes his sudden appearance at the end (which is what really saves Nottingham and finishes the story) very ineffective. (Let’s not get into the fact that he’s described as heroic for going off to participate in the Crusades -- “While bonny good King Richard leads the great crusade he’s on” -- talk about sugarcoating history!) This is part of what I mean about oversimplifying: they could have injected some complexity into the political story beyond “usurper taxes all the money out of the people because of his personal greed until the real king returns and makes everything lovely again”. I strongly believe it is possible to present real issues in a way that is both mature and engaging to children and that it has been done even in other Disney features. Disney didn’t try very hard to do it here.

I’ll give the writers credit in that the three main bad guys, Prince John, Sir Hiss, and the Sheriff of Nottingham, are somewhat individuated, partly I think out of necessity because the Bad Side of any story has to consist of people who quarrel amongst themselves. Prince John is actually well enough developed as an insecure, petulant child with no idea what it means to lead a country that I enjoy watching him even as an adult. The parallels between him and President Trump are unmistakable, and I’m surprised that I haven’t seen more memes about this. Still, by the end of the film, even he was starting to wear on me.

Another aspect of the movie that bypassed my attention as a child but bothers me as an adult is its blatant American-ness in retelling a very old, extremely British story. As in One Hundred and One Dalmatians, all of the accents, except for those of two of the main bad guys, are American. The rooster narrator of the story sounds particularly American and plays folk music throughout of a style that strikes me as the epitome of American.

The way the script and animation deal with bodies and obesity is particularly interesting in this one. Four of the characters I can think of are portrayed as fat, including one of the main bad guys (the Sheriff “Old Bushel-Britches” of Nottingham) but also three of the good guys. Minor quips are made about this by some of the characters, but overall it could arguably be considered a rather positive, good-natured treatment of this issue for its time. It is the source of some physical humor, and some of the body-related physical humor in general slightly raises my eyebrows as an adult -- there is a boob grab, for instance (well, fake boobs as part of a disguise, but still).

The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, 1977

I had avoided watching any Disney rendition of Pooh for a long time before watching this one last week. I got to see a lot of Pooh in earlier childhood because of videos given as gifts by other kids’ parents, which my mom (who loves the original books by Milne and hates Disney’s interpretation of them) let me watch only with great reluctance. I soured to the Disney Pooh franchise as I got older and remember in high school getting sick of how many things were decorated with animated Pooh characters, and how few people knew the original books.

Starting to watch this film, I had no idea which of the Pooh stories would be included or whether I would remember seeing them before. As it turned out, I remembered almost none of it: I knew the theme song well and was slightly familiar with the early song about Pooh climbing the honey tree (it must have been on one of the Disney Sing-Along videos) but didn’t remember anything else until vaguely recalling some of the later Tigger stuff (I remembered, before it happened, that Tigger escapes from the tree by sliding down a paragraph of text in the book, one of many instances of extreme fourth-wall-breaking that runs as a theme throughout). As it happens, although The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh seems to go along pretty smoothly given that it makes no pretense of having a unified story arc -- something I give it credit for -- it is actually composed of four short films produced throughout the decade beforehand. This explains why I only remembered the Tigger stuff near the end: we must have had the quarter-length film Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too at my house for a while, but not the other three. (What I actually watched the most, I think, was a video of TV episodes called “Newfound Friends”, which I’ll look up on Disney+ out of curiosity but probably won’t include in this list.)

I remain anti-Pooh[Disney_version], but this anthology film wasn’t as bad as I had thought it might be. The first story about Pooh and the honey tree was actually pretty good. I am not opposed to Sterling Hollaway’s portrayal of the title character. Eeyore’s voice is way too flat, but otherwise most of the characters are portrayed okay. I distinctly remember reading Rabbit as a female character as a kid, and on hearing his voice again I suppose I can understand why. Tigger is the most offensively adapted: he is one-dimensional in a very obnoxious, not-so-amusing slapstick way. His portrayal would have come off better if they had given him more of a child’s voice, which is more appropriate to the book version of his character anyway. The gopher character is pretty annoying as well; he’s rather useless and unnecessary given that he’s not in the books (he even has a fourth-wall-breaking line about not being in the book). Some of the stories from the book are meshed together in a way that does a disservice to each of them, and the movie might have been better if it had committed to adapting fewer of Milne’s chapters. The story about Pooh getting stuck in Rabbit’s front door is done in a distasteful way, with Rabbit turning the back half of his body into part of the upholstery (an idea that Walt Disney had himself when he first read the book!). The songs weren’t great, and I wish that some of Pooh’s poetry from the books had been adapted to song instead.

Leaving those details aside, this is an earnest attempt at turning Pooh into an animated feature which turned out to be not too terrible given my low expectations.

The Rescuers, 1977

I remember watching this once as a kid and almost nothing sticking with me apart from the fact that the main villain (who I remembered nothing about, not even really the gender) had two pet crocodiles. I watched it a second time on Netflix a few years ago, I think within the same week of watching The Aristocats on Netflix.

I have one word for this Disney animated classic: weak. The story is not all that interesting. Having watched Dalmatians and The Aristocats in the few weeks before hand, coordinated animal rescue plots were starting to wear on me. There is no music except for a few forgettable songs not sung by the characters. Eva Gabor makes Ms. Bianca a beguiling character, but the rest of the characters are completely forgettable. The main male character, Bernard, has the blandest voice ever. Even the little girl being rescued, while sympathetic, is not very unique or interesting. (There is something subtly heavy and haunting about having her teddy bear as her best friend through most of the film, though.) At the time of writing, I’ve already halfway forgotten what the villain’s sidekick was like. There are a bunch of other animals who are fun to watch in animation but don’t stick in my mind, apart from Pat Buttram’s drunken rat character (because it wouldn’t be a Disney film of the 40′s-80′s without some alcoholism in it).

The villain, Medusa, is a particular fail here. She is basically a lame Cruella de Vil 2.0: modern, non-fairy-tale-ish, greedy and materialistic, drives like a lunatic, etc. After watching, I found out that the story writers initially thought of simply bringing Cruella back as the villain in this movie, but decided against the idea of it being in any way a sequel to Dalmatians (remember that at this point no Disney sequel had ever been done -- the 1990 sequel to this film was the very first!). I think they should have gone with that idea: bring back one of the most celebrated Disney villains, rather than come up with a new one who is a lot like her but with subtly less pizazz.

Random observation: this has to be one of the only classic Disney stories where the animals can talk to exactly one sympathetic human (the girl) but no other human. If I remember right, I don’t think even Cinderella can understand the words of her mouse friends.

Anyway. Some people say the sequel is much better than the original here. I haven’t seen The Rescuers Down Under yet, but I hope it’s true.

Pete’s Dragon, 1977

This is the first movie on this whole journey that is so obscure that I don’t think I’d even heard of before, let alone seen, and that’s despite the fact that there was a remake in 2016. (The one thing that rang a bell for me while watching was the idea of a dragon playing tic-tac-toe on its belly, an image I possibly saw in an isolated context.) I questioned whether I should watch yet another 1977 Disney film at all, when it would be mostly live-action and was obviously so obscure. In the end, I’m glad I watched this, partly because the story did grip me on some level, but mostly because this film is so very entertaining in how badly done it is.

Pete’s Dragon, in almost every way, is bad -- hilariously bad -- the sweet spot of Bad: the kind of bad that’s actually interesting to examine and yet also shallow enough to make for good Bad Movie Night watching. It’s hard to know where even to begin. The consistently terrible acting of almost everyone, especially in every single line of the boy protagonist (I hate to trash a child actor like this, and part of it was probably bad direction: for instance, someone should have taught him to go easy on the pointy finger). Almost none of the right emotional notes are hit at the right time in what is a very heartfelt story. Only Helen Reddy as the female lead and Jim Dale as the charlatan doctor strike me as good actors doing the best they can with a terrible script and bad acting around them. Then there are the cheesy, poorly-written, often poorly-sung songs. (Did I mention that in one song, each of Pete’s main abusive guardians continue to sing, each in an unperturbed, full-throated voice while being flung in the air by an invisible dragon and plunged into the water?) The awkward choreography. The weak visual effects (as with Bedknobs and Broomsticks, they really didn’t know how to pull of hybrid animation well. I’d go easier on them for this if Mary Poppins hadn’t nailed it 13 years earlier.) I could go on and on.

It made a lot of sense to me when I read afterwards that Pete’s Dragon was originally written as a stage musical, because there is something unusually stage-musical-ish about how the songs are written (for instance, having subsets of the ensemble throw out response lines in unison) and the way the choreography is done. I’ll say as someone who has been in stage musicals that these elements can feel a bit awkward even on the stage; they look to me more awkward in the medium of film; and they’re especially awkward when the songs, choreography, etc. is as poorly written as it is in this film -- someone who hates musicals wanting to teach a friend to hate them too might well choose to show their friend this movie and pretend that it’s a representative example.

Even through all this, I was able to appreciate that the story is pretty good, and I came to care for the sympathetic characters, however badly acted they were. I also enjoyed the atmosphere of a small coastal village in northeast US (called Passammaquoddy, apparently a real bay in Maine). So, by the time I was partly through watching this (fairly long) movie, I felt very committed to continuing, enjoying it as I was just as much for its entertaining badness as for anything else.

I want to end by mentioning one musical scene in the movie that took me by surprise because it was actually good, and funny and catchy and overall entertaining. It’s our introduction to the charlatan Dr. Terminus, and so it’s self-contained. If you want a taste of a part of the movie that I think is head and shoulders better than the rest while reflecting exactly what I mean by a stage-musical-style musical number (not making any claims about how good in absolute terms this scene is, though), here is a YouTube video of it (the song “Passammaquoddy”) (warning: mildly off-color taste on body type and disability stuff). I would actually enjoy leading a song like this in a musical.

The Fox and the Hound, 1981

These more obscure Disney films are getting more and more interesting. I distinctly remember knowing about this one as a kid, seeing VHS boxes of it at friends’ houses, etc., but I never had much interest in actually seeing it. I watched it for the first time on Disney+ with great curiosity, coming in knowing literally nothing about what the story would be about except “a fox and a hound are friends”. I was pleasantly taken aback by the new setting of backwoods American farmland and by unusually quiet, low-key tone.

The main thing I can say about this movie is that it’s far and away the least Disney-ish of the animated ones I’ve seen so far. If nobody had told me which company made this movie, it would never even occur to me that it was done by Disney, except for the presence of Disney icon Pat Buttram’s very recognizable twangy voice (perfect for this movie, not really appropriate for the setting of Robin Hood). It’s hard to explain just why I feel this way. Maybe it’s something to do with the pacing and the sort of quiet story. Or maybe it’s the fact that none of the animals seem to be drawn in the traditional Disney fashion (that is, we’ve seen fox and owl characters before in Disney, and for some reason their counterparts in The Fox and the Hound aren’t recognizable to me.) Or maybe it was the almost complete lack of songs. Honestly, trying to write this, I can’t quite pin down what made this a slightly offputting Disney-watching experience.

Despite feeling affection for the characters from the get-go, I actually found myself rather bored throughout the first half of the slowly-progressing movie. Then I perked up in the middle, actually thinking there might be a death, and of a rather morally ambiguous character too (this didn’t feel like a Disney film, so it might break the rules?). After that I felt enthralled to the point of breaking down and finishing it after having previously decided to leave a bit left over for the next day. I’m really not used to not having any idea how stories will end when going through Disney movies, and I guess I couldn’t handle even that small bit of suspense.

In the end, I thought the story, and how the story was rendered, was pretty good -- not stellar, but genuine. I don’t know about how overly-neatly everything was wrapped up with the main antagonist Amos Slade doing a complete 180 at the end, but after all this is Disney even if it doesn’t particularly feel like it and I shouldn’t be surprised at a happy ending.

Random side note: I wonder if Big Mama (the owl character) could be criticized as sort of an African-American stereotype and thus what Disney+ would call an “outdated cultural depiction”, or if it will be in another ten years.

The Black Cauldron, 1985

We continue with our sequence of more obscure Disney flicks. I guess this era is called the Dark Age of Disney for a reason, and one could say that this movie epitomizes such an era both in its role in the evolution of Disney and in its actual content. I don’t recall even hearing about this one as a child. I’ve heard it referred to as an adult only in the context of its successor being advertised as fun to provide a contrast with the overly-dark box office failure that had just come out, so I came in expecting a not-very-worthwhile movie that would be uncharacteristically dark and un-fun.

All I can say is, wow! The Black Cauldron, while indeed uncharacteristically dark (in ambiance at least, less so in subject matter), is genuinely, seriously good!

Within literally the first two seconds of the film, I knew that I was in a Medieval setting (not having known anything whatsoever about the story prior to watching) both from the music and from the backdrop. This remained the case throughout the movie. Everything in its style is boldly, wholeheartedly Medieval, not like some other Disney movies where the Medieval setting is watered-down and phony *cough*swordinthestone*cough*robinhood*hack. The only other movie on this list so far which comes close to succeeding at this was Sleeping Beauty, but that is such a different type of film, with such a different animation style, that comparing the two is like comparing apples to oranges. Honestly, I don’t think that the flavor is so thick even in Sleeping Beauty. The art of The Black Cauldron actually feels closer to that of Magic the Gathering than anything else I can think of from Disney. The effects of the animation are absolutely gorgeous -- in a rather dark way, mind you, not bright and colorful like what is usually associated with Disney.

The story is complex by Disney standards and I had zero familiarity with it beforehand, so for the first time I actually had to check myself to make sure I was paying attention. The characters are reasonably developed with engaging dialog (though slightly hesitant and sparse, with unusually little humor). It was a little jarring to hear “the Forbidden Forest” mentioned by one of the characters and remember that Harry Potter wouldn’t be around for over a decade. The main villain is one of the scariest ones of Disney and I would imagine may have been somewhat influenced by Ian McDiarmid’s Emperor, who had made his debut only a couple of years earlier.

I said that the last film on this list seemed distinctly un-Disney-ish, and I can say the same about this one in its own way -- maybe this was an experimental trend at Disney studios during the first half of the 80′s. The Black Cauldron has even less music in it than The Fox and the Hound and may be the only animated feature I’ve seen here with nothing resembling a song at all. One strong impression I got throughout, especially when the dungeon sequence started and the princess was introduced -- and this isn’t exactly a compliment -- is that something about the pacing, dialog, body movements, etc. seriously makes this movie feel like I’m watching a video game. (For personal context, I’ve never been a gamer, and most of my exposure to video games comes from watching college roommates play during the late 00′s.) I can’t justify exactly where I get this feeling. Also, the princess is strangely voiced and feels particularly like a non-player (video game) character somehow. I’m now curious as to whether there have ever been any games based on this movie or whether it had faded too much into oblivion by the time gaming reached the right level of progress.

Anyway, The Black Cauldron may not be especially fun or enjoyable to kids, but for an older person in the mood for some spooky Medieval fantasy animated entertainment, I recommend it as a fine movie.

(Fun trivia: I had believed that the successor on this list was the first animated feature to use computers to assist in animation, in the clock/gear sequence, but apparently this one actually was. Also, to date it was the most expensive animated film created.)

The Great Mouse Detective, 1986

Now for a classic that I had been greatly looking forward to. We didn’t have The Great Mouse Detective at my home growing up, but I know I saw it a number of times and later remembered liking it so much that on a whim in college, around the time I revisited Mary Poppins, I borrowed it from the local Blockbuster. I distinctly remembering feeling a little sheepish checking it out, but the young guy at the register actually said something like, “Yeah, that’s one of the best ones.” Years later, one of my best friends during graduate school was hanging out at my place and the conversation went to us agreeing on how excellent The Great Mouse Detective is and musing over the fact that nobody ever seems to talk about it, and we decided to watch it together as it was on Netflix at the time. We didn’t bother to log out of my roommate’s Netflix account to watch it, and he was later very irritated at me about the fact that Netflix was now constantly offering him children’s animated features. Anyway, it seems I’m far from the only one who has often viewed this one as perhaps the most underrated Disney classic of all time. (Further evidence: it comes second in WatchMojo’s list, with their winner being its predecessor!)

The Great Mouse Detective was billed as “All new! All fun!” to assure audiences that it would be a departure from the heavy seriousness of its predecessor, and in this it generously delivers all the way through. It’s based on the just-silly-enough-to-be-delightful premise that in late Victorian London there was a mouse version of Queen Victoria living in Buckingham Palace and a mouse version of Sherlock Holmes (our title character) living under the human Holmes’ flat in Baker Street. Our villain, the dastardly Ratigan, is hatching a plan to take over all of Mousedom via a plot which is incredibly silly, but the movie, which is consistent in its unpretentiousness, is able to pull this off just fine. All of the characters are nicely fleshed out (there’s a case to be made about Fidget’s character reflecting ableism but let’s leave that aside). Ratigan is the juiciest villain we’ve seen since Cruella de Vil. The plot is actually pretty complex, not at all like the predictable fairy tale / fantasy type plots we’ve often seen, yet not so complicated that it would lose the audience (or if it loses some kids, they will still be entertained by the great voicing, music, and animation). The action is, bar none, the very best I’ve seen so far on the animated movies of this list, and the movie is somehow packed with action -- every single sequence of it is superb, and the climactic scene inside of Big Ben is a revolutionary masterpiece of animation (by the standards that existed at the time). The abrupt transition to that scene, beginning in near-silence, is one of the more delightfully, deliciously chilling Disney moments for me.

This is not one of the great Disney musicals, but all three of its three musical numbers are still very enjoyable. I remember learning in college that the same person wrote “The World’s Greatest Criminal Mind” and “Goodbye So Soon”, but I only just now internalized that the composer was Henry Mancini who I love from The Pink Panther and Victor Victoria. There is a certain type of wit and humor in the lyrics of both of those songs which I don’t know how to characterize in words except to say that it’s sprinkled with phrases either containing self-contradictons (“You’re the best of the worst around”, “You’re more evil than even you”) or redundancy (“No one can doubt what we know you can do”) or just plain wordplay (“Even meaner? You mean it?”, “With time so short I’ll say so long”). None of it makes a pretense of being extremely witty or anything; it’s just mildly dry. I don’t know what to call this kind of humor and can’t think of another example of it, but it consciously (though subtly) influenced the vibe I was going for with the section headings in certain of my earlier Wordpress essays.

Perhaps Lady and the Tramp can make a case for winning the Most Underrated Disney Animated Feature prize, as it seems more mature and elegant, but I’m not ashamed to say that I find The Great Mouse Detective every bit as enjoyable and that I still have enough inner child in me that I can rewatch the movie in my early 30′s and come out of it smiling broadly.

Oliver and Company, 1988

The first major Disney feature that came out in my lifetime! As with The Fox and the Hound, I always knew about this one growing up but was never really interested enough to watch it (even despite the fact that it was somehow loosely based on Oliver Twist, whose musical adaptation I was raised on pretty heavily) -- at least, I don’t think I ever saw any of it until one day in my young adulthood cable days when I caught it on TV. By “caught it on TV”, of course I mean that I probably didn’t see all of it, and it was interrupted by commercials and I was probably doing something else at the same time and not paying much attention. Literally the only thing I could remember was the line “Don’t want to mix with the riffraff?”

It’s just as well because in the grander progression of Disney creations, Oliver and Company turns out to be pretty skipable. Now I will say that I appreciate the variety of locations and cultural backdrops in Disney films and the amount of effort the creators put into carrying them out (something that was mostly lost on me as a kid). In this case, we are transported for the first time to contemporary New York, and it’s clear that the writers, voice actors, and animators went full throttle on making everything seem as in-your-face New-York-ish as possible. I don’t fault them for doing this, but it’s all done in a slightly brash way that doesn’t at all attract me to late-80′s New York culture.

I was struck in the first few minutes by a change I don’t quite know how to describe in words, except to say that the animation and even more the music feel palpably distinctly more modern than anything I’ve visited so far. The animation is simpler and more generic (luckily I have a fondness for kittens and they do succeed in making Oliver look adorable, but otherwise the visuals left me cold), and the music is a sharp reminder of the blander forms of pop music I remember growing up hearing. “Why Should I Worry?” triggered a recognition of the song that I had long forgotten -- apparently I used to know it very well but I’m not entirely sure how. The other songs are forgettable enough that I’ve already forgotten them. Interesting to find out that the principal voices were done mainly by Billy Joel and Bette Midler, marking another step on Disney’s road towards featuring more big-time celebrities in their voice acting (culminating in Robin Williams’ role in Aladdin several years later).

The story is very watered down compared to either the book or the musical version of Oliver -- understandable, I suppose, but I didn’t find it very interesting. The characters were lackluster, and the main villain Sykes managed to be even more forgettable than What’s-her-name from The Rescuers. This movie normalizes hitting on women by making catcalling noises, as done by two of the non-evil characters -- I wonder if this was put in because it’s considered a distinctive feature of New York culture, but either way I found its presence in the film obnoxious. I will say that the character of Georgette (played by Midler) stood out as very funny, and I enjoyed all of her scenes, but I don’t have much else positively positive to say about this one.

#disney films #the aristocats #bedknobs and broomsticks #robin hood #body issues #winnie the pooh #the rescuers #the black cauldron #Harry Potter #episode vi #the great mouse detective #ableism #oliver twist #catcalling #Our Current president #alcoholism

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