#Maybe the next season will actually use him now that he's a more legitimate Guardian than Marinette “trained by initiate Fu” Dupain-Cheng.

[actually-factually-anonymous]

To be blunt, I don't care at all for Luka myself specifically because he was a nothing character for so long.

I'm going to quote someone else here who already summarized things:

You know; I don't like Luka as a character.

I don't hate him, I just find him annoying and without any depth- sans for those brief moments like in Truth when he actually showed something besides an impossible-absurd patience and nigh-vapid acceptance. For most part, I find him to be a 'gentle hippie' relationship sue with less depth or signs of inner life than Adrien at his most basic, like he's some kind of programmed doll who just doesn't experience jealously or frustration or anything else beyond what would be good for Marinette. An android that smiles, acts like a perfect boyfriend, plays guitar and spouts off supposedly insightful metaphors for human nature that could have been found in a fortune cookie like they're hard-won wisdom to be cherished.

The design of his eyes and eternally static 'gentle' expression does not help with this.

I just think he's a ken doll of a character. A pretty teen boy guitarist who exists solely to support Marinette and occasionally give out silly music metaphors about the nature of life and relationships as some stereotypical 'old soul in a young body'. All the while wearing the exact same expression twenty-four seven with those hyper-detailed eyes- I find that he falls into the Uncanny Valley in a way that the actual character named that doesn't.

Ironically, between him and Adrien he's the one who comes across as having an artificially perfect personality- even compared to the Adrien the public sees. That's not a favour to his character, as compared to Kagami who actually has her own motivations, problems and a character arc based around them that lasted through a season, he's just bland on a good day. He's not even allowed to be legitimately upset with Marinette in the same way that Kagami was with Adrien, presumably because that might put a dent in his Relationship Sue persona.

However you bring up a good point: Luka did develop. But even if it gave his character some much needed shades and depth, it wasn't necessarily in a good way.

He's still inexplicably devoted to Marinette- even though a boy like him should have multiple options and Marinette was anything but a good girlfriend to him- but now he's also spineless.

At least it when it comes to Marinette.

The two obvious incidents are what condemn him, the first being in "Wishmaker" when he decided to place Marinette's peace of mind over being responsible and admitting the truth. But what really, utterly buried any semblance of a backbone for him was in "Ephemeral":

Not only does he go along with Marinette's backstab of Chat Noir without a word when he could have attempted to dissuade her of her plan under the basis of acting like a human being to her (alleged) friend and partner.

Not only does he enable it by using the snake when he could have told her to find someone else to help her in her pointless manipulation (seriously if I were Luka and Marinette came up to me with this I would have lost all attraction to her as a person there and then).

Not only does he not finally admit that he already knows their idenitites so the whole thing is pointless, or even just half-lying and saying that he actually knows Chat Noir's identity from "Wishmaker" but not hers.

He doesn't even take the easiest option of just immediately rewinding Second Chance on the first loop (or just pretending to use Sass even) and lie to say that the plan was a success and he knows his identity that way. There was zero reason for "Ephemeral" to happen in-universe beyond Luka not wanting to defy Ladybug in the slightest that episode.

Sure, he has a few moments of respectability elsewhere but seriously: this boy makes Adrien at his most pathetically compliant look like Felix. It's just that it's for Marinette's benefit so apparently his greatest flaw is actually his greatest virtue.

I swear, I see people writing fanfics about how Luka would make a great friend for Adrien, and no. No, Luka has already sold Adrien out to his Boss just so said Boss wouldn't have to be honest with him or have a hard conversation with her Boss. That's not friend material.

That's doormat material at best. Which is more or less what Luka seems to have been designed as for Marinette, whereas Kagami was written as an actual character.

And that's probably why the salters were all but silent about him lying to Marinette in "Wishmaker". He barely has any motives at all beyond "be nice to Marinette" so it was taken as just an extension of that. Any negative implications of that choice can therefore be forgiven because he simply loved Marinette too much, and that's no fault at all.

Do you think Luka was a doormat for Marinette? If so, how?

Sort of? One of the reasons Luka annoyed me so much during seasons 2 and 3 (Aside from Lukanette shippers having a habit of demonizing Adrien, Alya, etc), was that he didn't actually seem to have any emotions or ambitions beyond being there for Marinette, to the point that it felt like he was some imaginary boyfriend she cooked up. I really like to try to see things from other characters' perspectives, but when I tried to do that for Luka, I just felt like I was getting brainwashed.

Luka doesn't feel any emotions that would be inconvenient for Marinette in those early seasons, like jealousy at being a second choice, desire to actively compete for her perspective, or anything except wanting to patiently be there for her if she decided she wanted him, and complete acceptance without a hint of bitterness if she chose someone else. I'm not saying he should have been a jerk about it, but he's so chill and has so few problems that it feels inhuman. I far preferred the plotline with Adrien's and Kagami's relationship, Kagami reacted way more like a normal person who has wants and desires of her own. During seasons 2 and 3, the most that Luka was developed outside of his relaitonship with Marinette, is the 30 second clip in Reflekdoll where we see him assuring Juleka. That at least indicates that he HAS relationships outside of just Marinette.

That being said, Luka DID improve in seasons 4 and 5, if only a little. He's still more chill and accepting than I think is natural or healthy, but with his playing therapist to so many people in Migration, it's shown to be a "him" thing, rather than him inexplicably being warped around Marinette in particular. In Truth, it's shown that he IS bothered by Marinette constantly running off and lying to him, even if he's way more accepting about it than he has any right to be. He DOES feel hurt, even if he suppresses it.

Most importantly, he's given emotional baggage of his own, with feeling insecure and abandoned due to his father abandoning him and Juleka, not even knowing who he was. I love that as Truth, he actually got to be ANGRY at Jagged for that abandonment. And afterwards, there were several episodes that touched on his and Juleka's developing relationship with their father, giving Luka more of an anchor in the story outside of just Marinette.

So basically, yeah, I do think Luka's a doormat not only for Marinette, but really for anyone he cares about. He's good at standing up to random jerks, but not at standing up to those who knows don't have any malicious intentions, but still end up hurting him.

But I also think that with how the newer seasons have developed Luka, there's some interesting space to delve into WHY Luka feels the need to subjugate his own emotions, wishes, and desires so much - because it's been proven that he does have them, and doesn't just exist for any particular person's sake in the story.

[miraculouscontent]

Are you gonna do an analysis or review of Chat Blanc? (Just curious please dont feel pressured to)

This could’ve just been a fun what-if episode that didn’t have anything to do with the main universe, but nooooooooooo.

[Counter Clockwise]

Let’s get the obvious out of way right here and now.

This is the second time we’ve seen Bunnyx this season, making this the second time that time travel has been involved, also in this season (not counting episodes where Second Chance is used).

This is also the second time we’ve had an episode with its events being scrubbed away by the main characters not knowing exactly what happened, similar to “Oblivio” (also in Season 3). It’s not the same plot-wise, but it carries the familiar tone of, “something was left behind in memory of the episode but it’s not anything good” (yes, we’ll get there).

For “Oblivio,” it was that freaking kiss that was spread around on the Ladyblog despite Ladybug being horrified by it and not remembering how it happened.

For “Chat Blanc” here, it was Ladybug’s estimate of how Chat knew her identity in the parallel universe.

And it’s not like this season hasn’t repeated things before. Although “Party Crasher” did introduce Roi Singe, the introduction was rushed and it was just an excuse to get mileage out of Viperion, Pegase, and Carapace one last time a big mess that didn’t need to exist. “The Puppeteer 2″ also had nothing to do with anything and retread the plot point from “Frozer” where Marinette re-learned that Adrien was already in love with someone while also repeating an akuma just like “Stormy Weather 2,” “Gamer 2.0,” “Reflekdoll,” and eventually “Felix” did.

It’s… not a good look, and that’s not even taking into account that this is also the second time that Adrien has presumed that Marinette is Ladybug, with the first example being “Kwamibuster” (technically “Weredad” too considering that’s another episode involving Marinette trying to protect her identity, but Chat didn’t actually have any presumptions there and Marinette just thought he did).

Speaking of “Kwamibuster,” actually, I do believe that “Chat Blanc” goes before “Kwamibuster” (despite production order, which I still view as invalid) because, like… why wouldn’t Plagg bring up that episode when Adrien is rambling since I simply do not believe that Adrien wouldn’t have told Plagg about Marinette being Multimouse and Ladybug being there next to her. I mean, I don’t think much of Adrien, but even I don’t think that Adrien would be dense/dumb enough to just forget that “Kwamibuster” happened.

“Chat Blanc” takes place late in the season because of the “intensity” of it and that’s about it. It doesn’t have any plot-relevant reasons to be put so close to the finale. Nothing important happens that stays important by the end of the episode, and Bunnyx just leaves in the end with no information known.

Even with the information that was in the parallel universe… well…

[All in Bad Time]

First off, not gonna lie; I feel legitimately bad for anyone who held out hope that Gabriel was redeemable.

I mean, it’s not like there’s nothing good in the parallel universe. For once, we got Tom actually taking charge and really defending Marinette. That was nice.

Outside of that though, it’s a bit of a wreck.

Since I already mentioned Gabriel, I might as well start with him. Now, I openly admit to being a very unforgiving person; there tends to be a certain threshold where I point at a character and note that there’s no going back for them and nothing they do will get me to like them or consider them worthy of redemption.

Now, already, I had passed that point in terms of Gabriel, but dang, this episode really goes all the way with making you hate this guy.

Like, after “Simon Says” with Gabriel hugging Adrien, “Queen Wasp” with him quitting and hugging Adrien (sensing a pattern of sorts), and then “Gorizilla” with Gabriel (as Hawk Moth) panicking over Adrien (that one was… weird, admittedly), and also “Mayura” with Hawk Moth telling Gorizilla to protect Adrien, one would think that Hawk Moth has - y'know - standards. We already knew that he didn’t have consistency, but we thought that he at least had standards.

Yeaaaah, not really.

For starters, we have Marinette here and, I gotta say, this is similar to the thing I said about Reflekdoll where it’s just… no fun to have a character with no real limits/preferences? Adrien is obviously going to be the big one here concerning Gabriel, but Marinette is a problem too.

Back in Seasons 1 and 2, Gabriel seemed to have a decent enough opinion of Marinette. He was impressed by her hat (and later goes to compliment her again in “Queen Wasp”), he preferred her to Chloe in “Frightningale,” and even in “The Collector,” he lets her off with no punishment whatsoever when she claims to have stolen Adrien’s book.

But then Season 3 drops, and Gabriel tries to akumatize Marinette multiple times, all with varying degrees of failure. He has no issue teaming up with Lila to go against Marinette, and there’s really no motive for it aside from his schtick of claiming that so-and-so will be his “masterpiece.”

Now, if “Queen Wasp” was before “The Collector,” then maybe I’d understand (because Gabriel would be set up to have a negative opinion of Marinette since she stole the grimoire), but it can’t be because “The Collector” was Gabriel’s reveal as Hawk Moth. It’d also make sense if Gabriel just wanted to akumatize Marinette because she’s alluded his akuma all this time (which has been a common fan joke anyway), but that’s not what’s happening.

And then there’s the fact that Gabriel’s plan to akumatize Marinette here is to have her break up with his son. I’d understand if there was an actual reason for them to break up - then Gabriel is really just capitalizing on an opportunity and would’ve demanded that she break up with him anyway - but there’s no in-plot reason given outside of Gabriel wanting to akumatize her.

Heck, it wouldn’t even be that hard. Adrien might just be shirking some of his responsibilities to date Marinette, or sneaking out to spend time with her/generally not being at home as often. Chat already has a reputation for forgetting about basically everything when he’s around the girl that he loves and the Adrienette ship seems constantly stuck in “honeymoon phase” while they’re dating, so I wouldn’t be surprised if Adrien is wholly out of it.

The problem in this episode is that we just don’t have enough information. Adrien tells us that he’s not going to tell Ladybug anything and then he goes to confess to Marinette, but that’s about all we’re given to chew on. Does Ladybug tell Chat that she’s dating? Does Chat say that he’s dating someone too and just compliments “his girlfriend” a bunch for whenever Ladybug eventually figures out his identity? Does Chat stay vague in case Ladybug falls for Chat too?

(By the way, just sayin’, I see no reason why Marinette shouldn’t have told Adrien about what Gabriel said and no reason why Adrien wouldn’t demand to know anyway; also, Adrien would’ve 100% impulsively ran away from home had Marinette told him what his father said to her. “I’m living my life as Chat Noir now, m’lady.” and then proceed to not care about his father at all. “Gamer 2.0″ already showed that Ladybug is just the most important thing to him and “Frozer” showed that he wanted to live on an island with just her, so yeah, episode resolved there, end of story, too big of a plothole to leave unanswered, please fill.)

Adrien learning Ladybug’s identity is a big deal yet it’s brushed off as nothing (because the big turning point instead is Gabriel learning that his son is Chat Noir). Honestly, had it just been a Ladrien episode instead (i.e: Adrien dating Ladybug instead of Marinette), very little would’ve changed about the actual plot and it would’ve actually made sense for Gabriel to want Ladybug to dump Adrien because Ladybug is his number one enemy (all of his attempts to get close enough to snatch her miraculous would be in vain) and an akumatized Ladybug would’ve been an actual masterpiece.

Point being, for Gabriel to do this when we have no information is bizarre, and doubly so considering the fact that Adrien is clearly happy dating Ladybug Marinette. Even if his plan is to akumatize Marinette and then just tell her to date Adrien again afterward, that’s not stated outright and also isn’t supported by the narrative considering that Gabriel is perfectly fine beating up his own son.

(I also see some potential bad press when reporters hear about the break-up and either demand questions or spread rumors.)

And I’m sorry (I’m not really sorry), but I do not understand Hawk Moth’s strategy here. Yes, Adrien being Chat Noir makes it easier to get his miraculous, but also, two things–

1 - Gabriel could’ve just taken Adrien’s ring in his sleep; yes, akumatizing him would help him get under Ladybug’s skin, but first, how does unlimited destruction get him the miraculous if Chat Blanc’s Cataclysm destroys the miraculous too (he’s been stupid before about this with stuff like Reflekta (Desperada and Party Crasher at least had insurance policies) but from an episode with so much hype riding on it, I expect Hawk Moth to use his brain a little), and second, Chat is Ladybug’s main partner. Ladybug is not defenseless without him, but he’s not completely useless to her either.

If Gabriel can just keep Adrien (who wouldn’t know who took his ring) locked away from Ladybug long enough to make another akuma, Ladybug will have no idea that her partner won’t show up and also won’t be able to go find the guardian to get more miraculouses once she realizes it, because Mayura and the akuma will certainly chase after her. She’ll be all on her own.

In addition, Gabriel can lure Adrien to the room with Emilie after taking his ring, then throw the exposition at him before offering his ring back if he agrees to help (still scummy, but not as irredeemable). That means that Ladybug won’t be around to tell Chat not to fall under Hawk Moth’s control whICH BY THE WAY–

Hawk Moth, in the actual episode, doesn’t even hold Ladybug back. What’s stopping Ladybug from getting the bell away from Chat or telling Chat to tear the bell off (if it worked for Chloe, it’ll work for Chat)? Even if touching an akumatized object gets Hawk Moth in Ladybug’s head too, she can either use her yoyo to break it (considering that her fist broke the bell in the episode itself) or just grab the bell anyway and smash it (because I don’t think Ladybug would fall under Hawk Moth’s control alongside Chat). I know we’ve never seen what happens if you break an object while the person is still pre-akumatized, and it made sense in “Zombizou” because she wasn’t Ladybug and couldn’t purify the akuma, but Ladybug shouldn’t be part of this equation and it adds too many questions. 

2 - Now, of course, I’m not experienced in villainy, but I’m pretty sure that the first rule of getting someone on one’s side is to not being a complete moron who beats them senseless first and then expects them to join.

I vaguely understand that Hawk Moth’s strategy was (probably) to just destroy Chat enough mentally so he’d be akumatizable whether or not Emilie was convincing on her own, but when he’s so sadistic about it, positively gleeful when he realizes that his son is Chat Noir, it seems less like a strategy and more like him not only favoring the wish over his own son, but also getting joy out of hitting Chat around as if he feels like Adrien wronged him by being Chat Noir and now Adrien needs to be punished (which would’ve been nice for him to say since Adrien already knows that he’s Hawk Moth by that point anyway).

I just have no idea what the intention was there. It felt like the episode wanted to have it both ways where Chat was conflicted enough to not reject the akuma, but also throw in the angst and “drama” of Hawk Moth hitting him around (after that opening where he acted as if he wanted Emilie to come back for both of them and not just him) because hey, Adrien’s life is sad, his mom is comatose and the fact that he’s about to kill everyone isn’t enough.

And then, as if that wasn’t already ridiculous enough, they have Chat Blanc be torn on who to shoot with his destructive powers. I understand that Hawk Moth is the one who akumatized him, but we’ve seen from Robostus that akumas CAN go against Hawk Moth. Yes, Hawk Moth is his father, but he’s now a physically abusive father (who is constantly “too busy” for him and tried to keep him from being happy which, again, we don’t know if Adrien knows but I don’t see why Marinette wouldn’t tell him; it would hurt Adrien, sure, but he should still know that his father is trying to sabotage them anyway. The episode cuts straight to Hawk Moth going against Ladybug and Chat Noir, but did Hawk Moth literally come up with this plan on the spot, because Marinette had more than enough time to tell Adrien otherwise!) and the love of his life.

Tough choices, I guess.

And then Chat Blanc just ends up killing everyone anyway, so it doesn’t even matter. He could’ve ultimately chosen Hawk Moth to fire at, but his destructive powers were so strong that he couldn’t control it (which would’ve been better once non-parallel Ladybug fights him, showing that he at least trained because he doesn’t want to destroy anything outside of his target).

It reads like a plot that’s being angst-y just to be angst-y (this episode will get no “edgy points” from me when it doesn’t know how to use that angst properly), and it’s not at all necessary.

Hawk Moth knocks Adrien out of the mansion because non-parallel Ladybug needed to find the Cataclysm’d version of her parallel self (which, by the way, how has Chat not found that already/tried to touch it himself, meaning it’d be already gone?) to make the audience wonder about what exactly happened, since non-parallel Ladybug stumbling upon this room with Hawk Moth, herself, and Emilie freaking Agreste would’ve actually been interesting and given the episode some semblance of value where Marinette either re-considers Gabriel to be Hawk Moth or just generally wonders if Hawk Moth himself took Emilie away for some reason (and later finding out that the peacock is damaged and realize that oh, if that happened to Emilie, then the person who has the butterfly is–).

Chat Blanc is crazy because angst, he’s losing his mind after being alone for an undisclosed amount of time. Bunnyx just leaves Ladybug there with no information (oh, and a comment about needing to jump back in time in case she fails because no one has faith in Marinette - we’ll get there - or Ladybug apparently) and an insane Chat Noir who wants her miraculous despite knowing that Miraculous Ladybug already fixes everything once the akuma is dealt with, meaning he can then worry about his comatose mother and the wish (y’know, the wish that Ladybug told him wouldn’t work as he wants right before she died, not that I expect him to listen to her anymore), but no, he’s insane because that’s boring and ensures that he doesn’t think about the obvious solution or the fact that another Ladybug probably isn’t going to come back if he kills this one too.

Like, just saying; if it’s the akuma making his personality that way where he wants the miraculouses that badly (which is dumb since he’s already seen that his destructive powers destroy the miraculous too, yet he’s still mindlessly trying to kill Ladybug because drama), then my question is how his love for Ladybug doesn’t override that when he already killed her and thought there was no coming back until this other Ladybug showed up (and also the fact that her kiss was the thing that distracted him long enough for her to snatch the bell, so her love worked eventually anyway but come on). Either he’s crazy because of the akuma or he’s crazy because of being alone, and neither are all that interesting because, again, the akuma being purified can still get the result he wants. Threatening to kill Ladybug if she doesn’t hand over the miraculouses won’t solve anything and his chances are better when he’s not akumatized.

And here’s the thing: I’m honestly in favor of episodes that explore the what-ifs, but not in this way; not with Bunnyx and time travel and needing to “save the future” or whatever. If it has to involve this “Bad End” scenario where there’s no other way out except for another Ladybug to swoop in and save the day, then that’s fine, but it has to roll with the needed care and limitations that come with that and also forward the plot and make it matter if everything else is just going to be scrubbed away in the end. I mean, the lesson ��hey, Marinette, don’t let Adrien know your identity” (yes, we’ll talk about the “real” lesson later) is bafflingly pointless being taught to someone who already took secret identities very seriously and literally had an episode in the same season that showed the leaps and bounds she took to protect that identity.

Oh, and speaking of Adrien knowing her identity–

[Identity Politics]

Uggggggggggggggggggh, Adrien, why does it always seem to come to you.

So now we’re at the big start of all this chaos: Adrien determining that Marinette is Ladybug and then proceeding to go after her romantically.

I should preface this by saying that, no, I don’t wholly blame Adrien for wanting to pursue Marinette romantically. He’s a teenager and I legitimately believe that he thinks that he loves Marinette now and has always loved her and blah blah blah whatever. Adrien sometimes has this habit of rationalizing out his own thoughts with himself to make them seem more reasonable, and I imagine that’s what’s happening here.

…What I do blame him for, however, is not telling Marinette that he knows her identity and casually shrugging the notion off as if everything’s going to be okay. I mean, we all knew that Chat had always wanted to do an identity reveal (basically from all the way back in “Lady Wifi”), but we didn’t know that Chat would just not tell Ladybug if he found out without her knowledge. It’d be one thing if Adrien felt guilty about it (i.e: not wanting her to potentially get in trouble and wanting to stay as Chat because that’s his freedom), but instead, he just mentions it to Plagg once and it’s never heard from again until he’s forced to transform in front of Marinette.

Because we don’t see how Ladybug and Chat’s relationship is changed, we as an audience have no idea if Adrien even regrets that decision at all. Even after Chat uses Cataclysm on the butterfly, he doesn’t apologize at all even though this mess could’ve been prevented had Marinette been able to tell him about what Gabriel was doing by transforming into Ladybug and explaining it to him while he’s Chat.

There’s also the fact that Adrien comes to this “Marinette = Ladybug” conclusion basically out of nowhere. Ladybug may’ve delivered the gift to him and it has Marinette’s name signed onto it (which Plagg even suggests himself as a perfectly reasonable argument), but Adrien has no proof that Ladybug signed it herself (could’ve been fixed if Adrien had something with Ladybug’s signature on it and noted that the style was the same), and the on-screen examples we’re given (”Evillustrator,” “Frightningale,” and “Glaciator”) don’t show that Ladybug had any feelings for Adrien specifically; the latter just showed that she had feelings for a boy.

Adrien isn’t even coming to this conclusion because he saw Marinette running away with the gift earlier (i.e: to transform) since he doesn’t remember seeing her later in the episode when Ladybug lies and says that she’s delivering it for someone else. He didn’t even point out that it was odd that Marinette had the gift in the first place, meaning that scene was entirely pointless.

It’s not that Adrien blindly hoping for things isn’t part of his character (he’s been hoping for Ladybug’s love from the beginning), but to suddenly go off on this without a thought while Plagg is reminding him what the risk is here…. s’dumb. Plagg is clearly concerned about it but decides not to go to Fu and just let Adrien do whatever he wants despite the gamble Adrien’s taking.

I also don’t know whose idea it was to think it’s okay to have production codes dictate episode order when “Kwamibuster” is before “Chat Blanc.” “Kwamibuster” is such an easy thing for Plagg to bring up here and it’s not even mentioned. 

And while we’re on the subject anyway, I might as well point out that Adrien isn’t just going after Marinette because she’s Ladybug. No, that’s not enough for him, because we saw in “Kwamibuster” that Adrien had basically no reaction to the scenario of Marinette being Ladybug.

The difference here is that Marinette’s gift is covered in hearts - a declaration of love - and that’s when Adrien makes the big jump.

It’s not, “Wow, my lady is Marinette and that’s awesome because they’re both amazing girls and I love them both,” it’s, “WOW, my lady is in love with me (and she’s Marinette too, I guess), I better jump on that.”

(Because Adrien coming up with similar traits they have that makes them the same would’ve been actually sweet instead of him conjuring up a fantasy just because it’s convenient for him.)

Ladybug being Marinette was irrelevant; it was Ladybug (who happened to be Marinette) being in love with Adrien that gave Adrien the encouragement he needed to pursue Marinette.

It’s even technically supported by the fact that Adrien doesn’t go to Fu. If Adrien realizes that Marinette is Ladybug, then that’s it; he doesn’t need her to be Ladybug anymore, and it’s not like he can date her as Chat anyway. Adrien might still want to be Chat Noir, but since the episode focuses so heavily on the Adrienette stuff, I literally don’t know why he’s bothering risking this stuff. Ladybug has even expressed distaste before concerning balancing her hero life, so maybe he’d think she’d want to be away from it (not that I would expect Adrien to remember that but stick with me here).

This is also supported by episodes like “The Puppeteer 2″ and “Ladybug,” where Chat is quick to flip as soon as Ladybug goes in for a kiss or confesses her love to him.

He doesn’t want Ladybug; he wants Ladybug’s love.

And as for how that affects Marinette herself…

[Marifret]

You know…

YOU KNOW–

Every time I think that this season is out of ideas for tormenting Marinette, it just comes up with another. It starts to feel like the writers just have assorted “how to torment Marinette” ideas that they have stored in a little box at the office that they’re constantly plucking out and then dumping into random episodes whenever they feel like it.

Marinette is the only one who gets anything out of this episode because she’s the only one who remembers the important stuff from it, and it’s not even anything good.

Not only did Marinette not need to concern herself with learning more about how important it is to keep her identity a secret, but the Lucky Charm gave her an eraser, explicitly to erase her name on the gift.

Because Ladybug didn’t need to erase her name. She could’ve either gone back further in time and not let her other self get wrapped up in exploring Adrien’s room (the Lucky Charm could’ve been lipstick to hint to Ladybug that she should distract Chat with an almost-kiss to get his akuma, and then Ladybug could’ve still gone through similar motions to realize that Adrien saw her past self leaving his room), or simply told Adrien that Marinette couldn’t get past Nathalie, so she was asked to deliver it instead.

But no. Instead, Lucky Charm explicitly gives her an eraser as if to say, “this is all your fault and erasing your name off your gift will fix everything.”

Even Bunnyx, in the midst of watching the flashbacks, asks, “What did you do, Marinette?!” which just immediately sets up the entire narrative as being Marinette’s fault.

Not Adrien’s fault because he kept everything a secret and presumed that Ladybug was Marinette despite having no visual proof of that.

Not Plagg’s fault for not going to Fu about it.

Not Hawk Moth’s fault for beating up his son and trying to akumatize him.

It’s all on Marinette. All of it.

All because she wanted to confess to a boy that she liked and lingered a little too long in his room.

So all the hard work Marinette put into the hat she made for Adrien doesn’t even matter, just like the scarf she made all the way back in “Bubbler.” It’s just another wasted effort on Marinette’s part.

Even in the parallel universe, she doesn’t get any time to process her thoughts. After Adrien confesses, the next scene with the parallel-Adrienette is the montage, with Marinette being completely unaware that Adrien confessed to her because she was Ladybug.

On an unrelated note since I’m talking about the montage anyway, this episode gives Kagami the dignity of a simple name drop only to then put Luka right in the background as Adrien and Marinette slow dance together. Like, writers, COME ON, show him some actual RESPECT.

There’s also the fact that Chat “I’d recognize my lady in an instant except for all those times I didn’t” Noir has already rejected Marinette in “Weredad,” and I mean firmly rejected, with no doubt as to how little he feels towards Marinette and how much he feels towards Ladybug. We’ve had the “just a friend” gag for three whole seasons now and then “Chat Blanc” comes along to have Marinette believe that Adrien is in love with her.

And when Chat reveals that he already knew she was Ladybug, again, no contemplation on Marinette’s part. She gets seconds to think about it before just collapsing into Chat’s arms because the episode gives her no time because that’s not important to the episode itself. Marinette (presumably) doesn’t even get to know that Adrien only wanted to confess to her upon realizing that she’s Ladybug.

Then we have this repeated problem where we don’t know the time frame. Did Marinette want to go to Fu? Did Chat convince her not to, and if so, why? What’s Tikki’s view in all of this and how was she convinced to let the subject go? Did Hawk Moth show up almost immediately, so Marinette’s only had time to leave and transform for what she thought could be the final battle, meaning that it wouldn’t be necessary to go to Fu?

We have no idea. The only things the episode makes time for concerning Marinette/Ladybug (in addition to a dumb joke about birthday presents that were definitely not crucial to the plot) are her being excited to be in Adrien’s room, her looking like a fool in front of Adrien as she lies, Chat Blanc yelling at her about how tHEiR loVe caused everyone in Paris to die, and her getting berated after feeling self-conscious for not delivering Adren’s gift.

Oh, and just BY THE WAY, going back to the beginning of the episode since I brought it up, can we just not with Marinette’s friends PLACING BETS on whether or not Marinette is going to confess to Adrien? Can we just not with them making a game out of Marinette’s anxiety and self-esteem issues concerning whether or not Adrien will love her?

It’s already bad enough that we get jokes and gags about the universe itself being against her, but now with have this.

This… horrible, horrible thing.

Oh, and of course, the moment where we see Rose finally go off on someone, looking absolutely enraged while doing so, it’s Marinette she’s going off at and almost physically hurting when she nearly slammed the lid of the basket down on Marinette’s wrist.

Not because Marinette self-deprecated and Rose is actually just “angrily” shouting about how amazing she is and how Adrien would be a fool to reject her feelings.

Not because Rose has been given some “tough love” advice beforehand and thinks that it’ll be best for Marinette, only to feel really bad about it afterward even if it worked.

No, it’s because… Rose lost her favorite stuffed animal in the bet and she’s mad about it. That’s it. She’s taking it out on Marinette for something she did.

And no, I don’t believe for one second that the stuffed animal had nothing to do with it; it had everything to do with it. I mean, come on, the fact that the day Rose went off just happened to be the day she lost her stuffed animal in a bet?

I totally acknowledge that it’s probably yet another joke berating Marinette for the hesitance that she apparently has to have, but one, it’s a waste of time that could’ve been spent elsewhere, and two, maybe the episode shouldn’t be fitting in its jokes and gags in something that’s supposed to be taken seriously. It’s not “Party Crasher” levels of tone whiplash but it’s still annoying to see Paris destroyed and then have Chat Blanc follow up with a Kamehameha Cataclysm.

And this is even ignoring the fact that Alix is extremely smug about it and happily takes Rose’s favorite stuffed animal, not at all ashamed that she was so confidently doubtful of someone who’s supposed to be her friend as long as she was right in the end.

Also doubly ignoring the fact that Marinette’s friends have had a history of behaving terribly concerning Marinette’s crush on Adrien (of which I have repeatedly documented) and they never once think for a second that it might be their fault that Marinette is not progressing at all, instead putting all the blame on her.

Oh, oh, and by the end of the episode (you know, since the writers sat down at their desks and thought to themselves, “this isn’t enough”), because Marinette was forced to erase her name from the gift, she doesn’t get the satisfaction of going up to her friends to at least say that she actually gave it to Adrien. She had to make up an excuse, inevitably damaging their view of her further.

It’s just… sad. Marinette goes through a ton in this episode from being nevous about confessing to the boy she likes, being yelled at by one of her friends, being thrown into a future with an insane Chat Noir who wants to kill her and take her miraculous, and then being told by her own Lucky Charm that the way to fix everything is to erase her name off her own work because Chat is going to get akumatized and everyone (including her) are going to die if she doesn’t.

And, on top of all of that, Tikki still has to sneak in a line that scolds Marinette for using her miraculous for personal gain, despite the fact that Marinette is literally just delivering a gift to someone. We’re back to this “Catalyst” nonsense once more because Marinette is never allowed to be selfish.

Implying that, again, all of this is Marinette’s fault because she wanted to use her miraculous for a couple minutes for something non-hero related.

You know, the power that she uses to protect all of Paris, that was thrust upon her and she certainly never asked for.

The power that she has repeatedly used with a perfect record, even when her partner was taken down.

The power that forces the weight of Paris on her shoulders and the knowledge that, if she fails, Hawk Moth wins and it’s over.

Yet, she’s never allowed to use it for herself or everyone dies apparently.

This is despite the fact that, when it was Adrien’s turn to use his power selfishly to set up a date for Ladybug, he not only got an apology from Ladybug for it, but he got double sympathy from Ladybug and Marinette, even getting Ladybug to blush by the end of it.

Oh, and he gets rewarded at the end of “Chat Blanc” too as Ladybug lays her head on his shoulder, despite his impulsiveness being partly/mostly the cause of everything.

Because that’s totally fair.

…This episode is a wreck. The entire thing is just a complete and total wreck.

Just another thing to add onto the list of reasons for Marinette to have a realistic and inevitable nervous breakdown, I guess.

*sigh*

[edenfalling]

[Fic] “Between the Saltwater and the Sea-Strand” - Naruto

Summary: Yukiko and Kakashi run an undercover mission in the coastal port of Asase during monsoon season. Rain can make anyone philosophical. Part of the Apartment Manager AU, set after The Guardian in Spite of Herself and before An Unorthodox Pedagogical Approach. (3,515 words) Note: Written for warriordrgnmage, in response to the prompt: Naruto: Hatake Kakashi/Ayakawa Yukiko set in the Way of the Apartment Manager Series Timeline. For the Bingo card: Monsoon. It is also a fill for the genprompt_bingo square monsoon. For obvious reasons, Yukiko and Kakashi are using fake names while undercover. Yukiko is Aoi, and Kakashi is Hyoujin. Also, you may notice that this is gen! See, while I am perfectly cool with people shipping Yukiko with Kakashi, that is 100% never going to become Apartment Manager canon, for many, many reasons. If anyone wants a shippy AU, you are welcome to write it yourself, because I flat-out CANNOT. Seriously, even if I tried, you wouldn't want the results. They would be awful. Trust me on that. --------------------------------------------- Between the Saltwater and the Sea-Strand --------------------------------------------- Kuwa Natsume looked up as Yukiko slung herself in through the office window in a spray of rain, raised one eyebrow, and then looked back down to her account books. "Misplaced your shadow?" "Does anyone have a shadow in this weather?" Yukiko said wryly as she shut the window, reducing the sound of rain from deafening to merely incessant and inescapable. "I thought I was used to rain, but coastal monsoons are something new, yeah?" "We get that a lot from inlanders," Kuwa-san said as she drew a sharp line under a column of numbers and wrote a sum. "You get used to it, and it's easier for shinobi -- you have all that fancy ninpou and whatnot. But in all honesty, Aoi-san, where is your partner? I can't finalize your supply contract without both of your signatures." Yukiko made a face as she combed water out of her black-dyed hair. "Is it that important to be fussy when this is all ninety percent illegal anyway?"

"The more illegal, the more important to nail down all the details," Kuwa-san said. "What court would adjudicate the case if you sign alone and Hyoujin-san decides next week that he won't pay for his share?" Yukiko personally agreed with Kuwa-san's caution, but her cover persona would probably make one further push. So, "Oh, don't worry about him. Hyoujin trusts me completely--" Kuwa-san raised her eyebrow again. "--nearly completely when it comes to contracts. What's the point of having a partner if you can't split your responsibilities?" "I would say partners split focus, not responsibility. If you don't maintain some degree of joint liability, what's to stop one of you from turning on the other?" "Ethics?" Yukiko said with a winning smile, and allowed herself to laugh at Kuwa-san's carefully calculated answering smirk. "Fair enough. Let me look over the terms and I'll drag him over here to pretend he knows how to use a brush sometime before-- when do you close today?" "Six." "Before six. Actually, let's say before five, yeah? He's not that hard to track or sweet-talk if you know what you're doing." Yukiko held out her now-dry hand for the supply contract and wiggled her fingers until Kuwa-san passed it across her desk. She retreated to the broad windowsill and began flicking through the pages. It wasn't complicated, just a dead drop of miscellaneous dry goods in neutral territory that would hopefully establish her and Kakashi as reliable clients and Kuwa-san as a reliable supplier -- a standard way for missing-nin and gray market merchants to feel each other out. If the goods wound up as a cache for a long-term Leaf-nin mission, well, nothing in the contract specified that Yukiko and Kakashi had to be the ones to make the pickup. And their cash was perfectly legitimate Fire Country tender, so as far as Kuwa-san was concerned, there was nothing to worry about. (Yukiko was fairly certain there was nothing to worry about on Konoha's end of the bargain either. Kuwa-san had a rock-solid reputation for following through on her contracts. Nobody survived twenty years in the gray market without either keeping their word almost religiously or spending a fortune on bodyguards, and Kuwa-san barely bothered to pay for warehouse security.) "Where do you source kunai?" she asked as the rain's intensity kicked up a notch, beating against the windowpane in a nearly solid sheet of water. "Wind Country," Kuwa-san said without looking up from her accounts. "Earth Country's metallurgy is better, but the border tariffs aren't usually worth the slight increase in quality. I could change that if you're willing to pay the difference." Yukiko feigned consideration. "I don't care, but Hyoujin can get picky about steel composition. What would the increase be for this number of kunai and senbon?" Kuwa-san named a figure. Yukiko made an exaggerated expression of disgust. "No thanks! He can whine and make do. I'm not paying that much more for what, a half percent less chance of flaws? It's not like anyone expects kunai to last anyway. Use 'em and lose 'em and buy some more, that's what I say. Or steal whatever's left from your targets! That's economy, yeah?" "Officially, I can't encourage any behavior that would reduce my chance to sell you more equipment, Aoi-san. Unofficially? Yes, that's very economical. If only all my clients were equally practical." "Eh, there's all kinds of ways to be practical. What we're good at is mostly spying and killing -- it's more efficient to hire a ninja than do that stuff in-house, yeah? Just like you're good at moving stuff around to where we need it, so it's more efficient to hire you instead of us trying to figure all that stuff out from scratch. It's win-win, is how I see it." Yukiko tapped the papers to shuffle them into a neat pile, then handed them back to Kuwa-san. "That looks fine on my ends. Me and Hyoujin will be back sometime this afternoon to sign and pay the next installment." "It's a pleasure doing business with you, Aoi-san," Kuwa-san said. Yukiko grinned and dove backward out the window, into the pounding rain. --------------- Kakashi was lurking in one of Asase's numerous quayside bars, most of which were run out of the back doors of warehouses and also did a brisk side business in assorted seafood dishes. Rain pelted down on the roof tiles in a clattering racket that Yukiko found personally soothing but professionally irritating -- it was a lot harder to eavesdrop through the constant noise, not to mention the complications it added to genjutsu. She and Kakashi had spent their first night in Asase mutually grousing about the unpredictability of electric ninjutsu in waterlogged conditions and the difficulty of filtering ambient sounds out of illusions. Today Kakashi was sipping a bowl of lobster broth through a long, curved straw that vanished into the deep blue folds of the scarf he'd used to shroud his face. To the casual eye he was staring out an open window toward the rainswept harbor, his oversized gray hood restricting his range of sight and hearing, but Yukiko followed the combined angle of his feet and chopsticks to their targets: a trio of young missing-nin drinking in the far corner, defaced forehead protectors proclaiming their renunciation of Kiri. They were small-time, only a few months out on their own each with barely a name and one line of description in the latest bingo book editions, but anyone willing to go against the Bloody Mist was worth a second look. Whether this particular investigation would conclude in a job offer or an assassination was still up in the air. "Heya, Hyoujin. Thinking of roping in some new blood for larger contracts?" Yukiko asked as she dropped into a seat across from him (back to their targets) and set her ramen down on the unsanded wood of the table. Kakashi shrugged. "Maybe, maybe not. Three's better than two for flexibility, but more than four on a mission gets awkward without ranks and a chain of command. Nobody who leaves a village wants to go back to those kind of restrictions." Yukiko tilted her hand. "Eh, there's assholes on power trips and there's division of labor -- not necessarily the same thing. I let you take the lead in a fight and you let me take the lead on retrievals. That's just practical, yeah? But we wouldn't throw each other away. Shinobi are tools, sure, but if you don't look out for your teammates, how can you trust they'll look out for you?" Kakashi shrugged again and continued sipping his broth. Targets hear? Yukiko signed under the guise of snapping apart her chopsticks. Yes, Kakashi signed back as he lifted his bowl and drank the last of his broth under the shadow of his hood and scarf. No bite. Yukiko slurped a mouthful of noodles and nicely salted broth. "Grouch. Well, whatever we do for future contracts, today we have to sign off on the supply contract with Kuwa-san. We'll need the goods for that thing in Tea Country and she wants both of our names in writing." "Sign for me," Kakashi said "Tried that. She won't bite." "So fake it. Illusions are your thing, Aoi; pretend I'm there and forge my seal." Yukiko slurped another mouthful of noodles in her best imitation of Naruto's sloppy manners. "Oh, sure. Lying is the best way to establish trust for future contracts, yeah?" "She's a civilian, how would she know?" "Not the point. C'mon, Hyoujin. You won't melt in the rain. Let's go make nice with Kuwa-san and I'll make it real worth your while." She ran the edge of her sandal up the side of Kakashi's shin and gave him her best imitation of her cousin Yura's flirtatious smile. Kakashi twitched. Yukiko slapped the table and let her smile shade into a more genuine grin. "Ha, I win." "Fine. Finish your soup and let's go drown ourselves. Again." "Eh, getting soaked's not that bad. Especially when you've got a partner around to help you peel out of all your soggy clothes and warm up when you get home, yeah?" Kakashi twitched again, then rallied and let a tiny arc of electricity jump between two raised fingers. "And then get wet again?" Yukiko held onto her cover persona by the skin of her teeth. "Now you're talking my language. All right, I'm done. Let's go give a little now so we get more back later." --------------- Signing the contract with Kuwa-san took all of twenty minutes -- half of which was entirely for show, as Kakashi lived up to his cover persona and whined about the kunai quality until Yukiko overruled him -- after which they had the afternoon and evening entirely to themselves and a conveniently established reason to retreat to their rented room and lock themselves inside Yukiko's best privacy genjutsu. "We can't stay longer than another day now that the contract's signed," Kakashi said as he flashed his hands through the seals for a quick and subtle bit of ninjutsu that left their clothes and skin completely dry without spilling any excess heat. "Do you think the targets will be receptive if we approach them openly?" Yukiko shook her head, grimaced at the awkward motion of her still-tangled hair, and began working the tie out of her ponytail. "No chance. I don't know if they'd even be open to a joint mission with Aoi and Hyoujin at this point. Sumire wants security and Kenichi likes profit, but they're still raw enough to see tigers in every other shadow, and Eriko's almost too paranoid to make deals with someone as solid and non-threatening as Kuwa-san. On the bright side, they're wildly unlikely to join up with anyone else." Kakashi slumped back onto the futon with an annoyed set to his eyebrow. "And since they haven't moved against Fire Country assets, there's nothing to justify an assassination without a contract. I hate leaving loose ends." Yukiko dropped down to sit cross-legged beside him, fingers slowly working through her tangles. "Think of it as a guaranteed vacation in a few months. Our agents will send word the next time our trio pass through Asase, Aoi and Hyoujin turn up to sign a new contract with Kuwa-san, and we sound them out for a joint mission. They ought to be the right balance of calmer and hungrier by then, and we'll get a better reading after a week or so of close contact." "Ugh." "Yeah, yeah, talking to people is terrible and scary." Kakashi rolled over onto his stomach and buried his face in his arms, the soft, voluminous fabric of his hood blocking all apparent lines of sight. "Only the living." Yukiko froze, then sighed and flopped onto her back with her arms above her head. "Yeah. The dead talk back just as much, but it's still so much easier." "Sometimes I wonder how many people in Konoha would qualify for a 'Lone Survivor of My Genin Team, Including My Teacher' club," Kakashi said into the futon. "Then I stop wondering because the math is too depressing. But we could start a private chapter just for us." "Sometimes I hate that you trust me enough to say things like that," Yukiko said to the ceiling. "Then I tell myself not to be an idiot, because it means I get to say equally horrible things to you. Like that I'm pretty sure if we recruit our targets, at least one of them will be dead within two years, and I'm not sure that balances the odds that all three of them will die within one year if they keep working as missing-nin. After all, there's always a chance they might retire and start a farm." "Says the woman who got so bored with civilian life she jumped into a chuunin exam the minute Sandaime offered her a chance." "Says the Anbu assassin." Kakashi snorted. "We're all so fucked up." "Yeah." "Might as well be fucked up with other people who understand." "Yeah." They lay in silence for some time, listening to the steady thrum of rain on the roof tiles above. The air was warm and sticky, and the breeze eeling through the open window smelled faintly green beneath the ever-present fish-salt-rot odor of the sea. "Let's accidentally-on-purpose bump into the targets tomorrow morning, buy them breakfast, and float the idea of a joint mission later in the year," Yukiko said eventually. "Might as well plant seeds when the ground is soft." "You pay." "It's all mission funds in the end." "To clarify: you handle all the human interactions. I'll stand behind you and look vaguely menacing so they'll think at least one of us is competent." "To clarify: you'll look vaguely constipated, while I impress them with my social competency. Networking is an important skill for missing-nin." "I object to that assessment." "Which one of us has experience making business deals directly with civilians instead of through the mission office?" Kakashi flicked a gust of wind at her, re-tangling her hair. Yukiko pulled out Aoi's grin as she kicked Kakashi gently in the ankle. "Ninjutsu isn't a valid argument, which means I win. Your forfeit is fixing my hair." "Having teammates and friends is a terrible choice and I should never have made it a second time," Kakashi grumbled, but he sat up and tapped Yukiko's shoulder. "Turn around and hand me your comb." --------------- They hadn't been able to slap any chakra tags on the targets -- Eriko's paranoia was too thorough for even the subtlest of genjutsu threads to make it past her guard longer than a couple hours -- but Yukiko had gotten a decent sense of their chakra signatures over a series of not-quite-encounters during the past week. It helped to have rooms in the same lodging house, of course. Kakashi took first watch, leaving Yukiko to spend the back half of the night with a manual on steam heating systems and the interminable patter of rain. Eventually the sky began to lighten from matte black to flat gray and her spider-light sweep across the building and surrounding streets caught movement from their targets. "Time to go," she said as she stood. Kakashi remained unmoving until she nudged him with her foot, secure that he was actually awake and wouldn't strike her in reflexive defense. "I remember pretending to be a morning person when I was too young to know better," Kakashi grumbled into the futon. "It was a terrible idea then and it's a terrible idea now. Nobody should be awake before the sun is halfway up the sky." "Unfortunately the targets set the schedule," Yukiko said as she tucked her book away into a holding scroll. "Come on, put on your face and let's get to work." Kakashi flicked a minor wind jutsu in her direction as he rolled to his feet, but Yukiko had braided her hair so this time it stayed secure and untangled. "I wonder if I should switch to bulky scarves as an off-duty option. It's easier to eat and drink through the gaps between layers than to yank a mask up and down very fast or while people are looking away, and people have been much less interested in Hyoujin's face than they tend to be in mine." "That's because Hyoujin doesn't have a reputation. There's no glory in pulling down some random missing-nin's scarf." Yukiko grinned at Kakashi's affronted eyebrow and slipped out the window ahead of another wind jutsu. It wasn't hard to find their targets today: apparently Sumire's morning grumpiness had won over Eriko's paranoia and the trio of former Mist-nin were huddled near a breakfast yatai, half-sheltered from the incessant rain, and haggling over prices with the male half of the married couple behind the counter. Yukiko couldn't have asked for a better opening if she'd tried. She eeled her way up to the counter and grinned at the woman scraping down the stove from whatever she'd last been grilling. "Two miso and two fish on rice -- salmon for me, mackerel for my partner," she said, jerking her thumb over her shoulder at Kakashi, who was standing, smugly dry, under a wind jutsu shaped into an invisible umbrella. "Oh, and how much extra for nori with the salmon?" The woman named a price. Yukiko rolled her eyes. "I hate bargaining on an empty stomach, so I'll just pay nine tenths of that and we'll all pretend you're not robbing me blind, yeah?" She glanced sideways to where the three young missing-nin were still arguing with the other cook. "I hate listening to arguments on an empty stomach, too, so how about I cover these loudmouths, too? Or at least the difference between what they're willing to pay and what you're asking." "Deal," the man said, interrupting the mockery of persuasion Kenichi was currently attempting. "Pay up and thank the nice lady for making sure I don't turn you away unfed." Eriko slapped her hand over Sumire's wallet. "No. It's poisoned." Yukiko rolled her eyes again. "There's a difference between reasonable caution and paranoia, yeah? I want a peaceful breakfast and our last mission went well, so I'm willing to pay a little extra to smooth things over. It's not like it's that much money. And hey, if it'll make you feel better, consider it a-- a-- Hyoujin, what's the word I want?" "Why would I know? You handle contracts," Kakashi said as he slipped a bite of mackerel through the folds of his scarf. "Ugh, why are we still partners?" "Because I'm very good with knives." "Point!" Yukiko slapped the yatai counter and turned back to the trio of missing-nin. "Anyway, breakfast. You're right that nothing comes free, so let's say that I'm paying for you to consider a joint mission sometime in the future, if me and Hyoujin have a line on a job that needs more than three people and we're kicking around the same market, yeah?" Sumire blinked. Kenichi looked like she'd slapped his face with a whole salmon. Eriko scowled and said, "That's not how contracts work." "Yes it is. It's called a-- a-- it's an option, that's the word! You can ask any of the suppliers in town, they'll tell you. I'm paying for the chance to run a job past you, because anyone who makes it out of Hidden Mist is worth a trial run, yeah? You don't have to accept. You just have to listen. And now I'm done with this conversation because I don't like having arguments on an empty stomach any more than I like listening to them. Don't die, and me and Hyoujin will see you around." She grabbed her rice bowl, her cup of miso, and her disposable bamboo chopsticks and kicked Kakashi's ankle to make him turn around and stop staring creepily at the trio of missing-nin through the folds of his scarf. Bite? she asked in handsign masked by a low-level illusion -- the chakra for which ought to be covered by Kakashi's own completely explicable umbrella jutsu. Maybe, Kakashi signed back, then added aloud, "What do you want to do for our next vacation, if this job goes as well as the last one?" Yukiko shrugged elaborately as she swallowed a mouthful of fish and rice. "Eh, there's worse places than the ocean. And by then, the rain should be over for the year. I like water a lot better when it stays flat on the ground than when it's trying to crawl up my nose and into my ears, yeah?" "That's because you have no imagination," Kakashi drawled. Yukiko considered countering with her own innuendo, but no; they were leaving Asase. They could leave Aoi and Hyoujin behind with the rain and introspection and return to more familiar ground. So she poked Kakashi with her chopsticks instead, and laughed when he neatly dodged the strike. As they walked past Kuwa-san's warehouse, bickering companionably, a watery ray of sun pierced briefly through the clouds over the storm-wracked sea and laid a path west to the green reaches of home. --------------------------------------------- End of Story --------------------------------------------- Well, that took significantly longer than it needed to, but I won in the end. \o/ Also, Kuwa Natsume (from Whose Allegiance Is Ruled by Expedience) is now officially part of Apartment Manager continuity. You're welcome. :D

[elisaphoenix13]

Stowaway (Ch.3)

To his surprise, Quill woke up by himself and on time. He even felt refreshed despite all of the energy he used the night before. So he got up and packed up camp so Cassie could sleep in just a little longer, and was putting the last of their things on the ship when she woke up. Quill told her just to go inside and buckle in so they could head to their next destination, and she did so after picking up her sleeping bag. Cassie threw it off to the side and strapped into a chair upstairs, and once the pirate gave her the go ahead to get up and roam, she disappeared back downstairs.

She didn't come back up as fast as she usually did so Quill got a little concerned and put his ship on autopilot so he could go check on her. There was really no need to though. When he went down below, he found her freshly showered and dressed and rolling up the sleeping bag to put away, so he just opened the door to the food storage instead. He had cereal, and even though they didn't have any milk, they were both content to eat it dry and by the handfuls as Cassie tidied up the ship (and Quill was suddenly glad he didn't have that black light. He and Scott made a whole new Pollock painting), and the celestial got his guns and other weapons and tools ready. Rocket left him a message telling him it was similar to the creature they killed for the Sovereign, and that meant he couldn't use his powers unless it was necessary. The moment he lit up was the moment the creature came after him.

"You know what I do miss about home?" Cassie suddenly says as Quill clips a grenade to his belt.

"Your dad?"

The teen snorts. "I love my dad but I'm not addicted to him like you are."

"You'll find someone like that when you're older." Quill says with a smirk.

"Anyway, I could really go for a pumpkin spice frappuccino."

"I'm suddenly very glad you're with me in space right now...if only for the sole reason to keep you away from that garbage." Quill furrows his brows and looks over at Cassie. "Hold on, those aren't even in season."

"How do you even know that?" Cassie asks in a teasing tone.

"Because you're always drinking them! I'm gonna notice when you finally stop drinking them! It's not hard to put the pieces together for that." The pirate argues and the girl laughs.

The rest of the trip to their next destination was spent doing the same thing. Light conversation, Cassie finding something to busy herself with, and Quill getting ready for the fight ahead. A few minutes away from landing, the teen was looking through the alien food thoughtfully and Quill immediately knew what that look meant. She was curious to see if she could make something with it. Better than what the celestial offered at least. He was currently the better cook in space, but he was still more of a barbecuer than a pan frier. Maybe if he bought some alien food on their way home, he could let the teen experiment with it and see if she can make better meals for him to take. She already did that with Earth food, and he certainly ate a lot better since joining the Avengers and starting a relationship with Scott.

He was damn lucky that Cassie enjoyed taking care of her large group of parents. Four dads and two moms (or at least a literal mom and then someone who fit the title extremely well for a man), and even Diana. She and Cassie were nearly inseparable because they were raised together during the snap.

"We'll pick some extra food up for you to experiment with." Quill says and Cassie nods at him with a smile.

He directs her up to the cockpit so he can land the ship, and once he touches down on a small expanse of land near his other ship that the Guardians were using, he looks out the window. It was a desert planet with not a lot of foliage, and it made Quill wonder what an energy eating creature was doing here. His best guess was that someone came here with it and released it to cause problems.

Which unfortunately worked because now he and the Guardians were here to kill it.

Pain in the ass indeed.

"What kind of...monster...did you say it was?" Cassie asks skeptically.

"One attracted to energy. Like my powers or the batteries the Sovereign have." Quill replies as they walk toward the door of the ship.

"The Sovereign?"

"Bunch of uptight assholes I'll never let you meet as long as I can help it." The celestial opens the door and lowers the ramp. "You know the rules. Stay on the ship unless I tell you otherwise."

"I know. How long will this take?" Cassie asks.

"Hopefully we can lure it and kill it in the next couple of hours."

"And then?"

"We go back to Xandar, refuel, get you some food to play with, and then head home." Quill answers.

"Didn't you tell Dad two weeks?"

"Yeah, well, that changed when I found a stowaway."

Cassie blushes and mutters an apology to which Quill waves her away. It was no problem. He was able to give the majority of his errands to his friends because of it, and it also meant he could get home to Scott a lot sooner. Quill steps off the ship and walks a couple hundred yards away to join his friends and looks around. There was enough space to bring down the creature and it was far enough away from the ships that he wasn't too worried about Cassie's safety.

"How are we doing on getting it here?" He asks and Rocket gives him a look.

"We were kind of hoping you could use your light show."

"Dude-"

"The faster we get it here the faster you can go home to your Terran."

"Ugh...fine."

Quill barely willed his powers into physical form before they heard what sounded like a stampede. The celestial gives Nebula a look, and their eyes widen when not one but multiple energy sucking creatures barreled toward them. Quill dismissed his powers in favor of one of his grenades and threw one at the group as he turned to look at Rocket.

"What the hell?! You said creature! As in one! Not CREATURES!" The god yells.

Rocket winces as Drax belts out a battle yell and runs toward the creatures after the grande blows some of them up. "There may have been some miscommunication."

"Obviously! Did you even listen?!" Quill holds up his guns and starts to pick off the ones that manage to get by Drax and Nebula.

"I am Groot!" Groot says.

"You fell asleep while they were--" The celestial starts.

"You try not to fall asleep when they speak slower than space tar!" Rocket yells.

"Damn trash panda."

"I heard that!"

"Good! You were supposed to!"

They stop their bickering to focus on the multitudes of what were basically smaller versions of the Sovereign creature, but there were a lot more than Quill originally thought. They were actually getting overwhelmed by them and the celestial was getting more and more concerned about his kid's safety. If they got past him, they might go for the ships since they had fuel...so he did the one thing he could think of to get the monsters attention off the rest of the Guardians. He willed his powers into being and it worked like a charm. Every single one of the slimy bastards left one of his friends behind and turned their attention to their glowing feast.

Quill fully expected the tackle to the ground and did what he could to keep the aliens from eating him alive while the others picked them off. He couldn't die permanently, but being eaten alive would be pretty painful and he wasn't down with letting that happen. Despite having the attention of what was left of the large group of aliens, the Guardians were still having trouble killing them. They still had thick hides for adolescent monsters.

"Shit!"

Quill grabs the snapping jaws of the closest alien when it gets too close for comfort, and tries using his pillars of light to help kill them. It helped injure them with the first strike, but it was enough for someone to shoot off the pile on top of him and blast them away. When he looks up to see who had given him some relief, he raises an eyebrow when Mantis points in the direction of the ships. There, on top of the Milano, stood Cassie with one of the bigger guns and Quill smirks.

"That's my girl."

Killing off the rest of their bounty didn't take much longer after that. Quill took care of a majority of them with his powers once he got back up, and the ones he only managed to injure were killed by the others. Even a couple by Cassie and he was impressed with her accuracy. Once the last one fell, Quill groans in disgust and wipes off a glob of alien guts from his coat.

"There. You can go let the people know these bastards are taken care of. Next time, FUCKING LISTEN!" Quill shouts at Rocket who glares in return.

"Yeah, yeah. Go take your kid home."

"I'll transfer some of the reward units to you when we get them." Nebula says and Quill nods and walks away with a flippant wave over his shoulder. When he gets to his ship, he finds Cassie putting away the gun and she turns to him with a smug grin.

"Technically I stayed on the ship."

Quill guffaws. "You would find a loophole. Come on. Let's take off so I can go take a long shower and get into some clean clothes."

Cassie nods and sits in one of the chairs, and Quill takes off as quickly as possible so he can put the ship on autopilot. When he stands up, the teen offers to clean the seat and the celestial thanks her before heading down to take a quick shower. He couldn't sit and enjoy it since it used limited water reserves, but at least it was hot. Quill peels off his clothes and steps into the shower after grabbing some clean clothes, and after thoroughly scrubbing himself down, he gets out and dresses in some pajamas. He was fully intending on taking a well deserved nap since it was a long way back to Xandar. If Cassie needed him, she would wake him up.

With that comforting thought, Quill collapsed face first onto his bed and was out like a light. Cassie only woke him up a little while later to make sure he ate something, but he stayed up until it was actually time for bed. It would take about a day to get to Xandar anyway.

"Nice shot by the way." Quill says around a bite of food. "I was legitimately impressed."

"I was aiming for you." His daughter sasses and he chuckles in response.

"That's how you aim with alien weapons."

[galacticvampirisms]

So @hkasof‘s amazing art inspired the start of this fic. I’ve still not reached the actual thing I set out to write about because I’m extra af and wanted to sketch in some backstory. And also include this little bit because it’s v meaningful to me. 

I’m still gonna be writing a lot (but it’s all scattered. I literally laid down and instead of working on zine layouts spent an hour writing another 1500 words of this “ficlet” wtf). I don’t know. This art is inspiring. This pairing is inspiring. I’m drowning in inspiration and I can’t get up. 

Also since Haley missed the time I just quietly reblogged it, hopefully @’ng will make sure it reaches your notes. I bolded the first sentence of the new stuff so you can find your place! 

Matsuo wasn’t good with people. Even at Claw, he’d preferred to keep to himself. The other espers considered him odd because he liked being with his spirits more than people, but they didn’t get it.

While Sakurai wore his curse like a badge of honor, Matsuo preferred to keep his Tragic Backstory ™ under lock and key. After all, it wasn’t as though he would be very accepted if he did open up to the others. He was certain of this, even after a group of middle schoolers and their weird guardian destroyed the 7th Division headquarters.

Unfortunately, this meant Matsuo wasn’t really sure what to do with his life without Claw.

Retail? He dropped a vial containing a new pet and found himself fired for the amount of damage she had caused while he tried to coax her back into a better jar, much more cozy for her ballooning body. Not that the manager could see her of course. He just saw the destruction like a tornado after leaving Matsuo alone for twenty minutes.

Factory work? Much of the packaging was too monotonous or would strain his health after a couple weeks working odd, long shifts.

Finally, he chose to work as a regular psychic, specializing in exorcisms. It was hard. He had to be polite to customers, even when they abused or misgendered him or made fun of his style. And then he got the call, like nearly every other psychic in the region.

Asagiri mansion.

There had been so many people at the mansion, it was easy to hide from the loud and talkative Reigen and his strange student. Matsuo watched the rogue ghost wreck havoc of the legitimate and false espers alike, feeling a familiar warmth spread through his body. That ghost was powerful. He wanted it.

And… he got it. Mogami Keiji, a formerly powerful esper that had eaten so many evil spirits that even being exorcised hadn’t drained the spirit’s powers completely. Mogami was kept in a canister at first, the stickers imbued with Matsuo’s containing aura gradually layering on so thick it was impossible to see the original object.

Mogami’s negative energy kept corroding the layers, and sometimes Matsuo thought he could hear Mogami speak. Not like how the other spirits spoke to him, unintelligible to other people not so closely attuned to the dead.   See, ghosts degraded after awhile, metamorphizing into animalistic beasts – beasts that Matsuo could understand and befriend (or control, if they were especially unhelpful). But Mogami wasn’t a beast.

No, he was something else.

“Pudding-chan, won’t you play nice today?” Matsuo spoke to the poison jar softly, picking it up to carry with him as he prepared for the day. He didn’t like leaving his more dangerous spirits unattended, and the weight of the jar was a comfort, grounding him in the moment. The stickers looked less absurd next to the mess of magnets that he collected on his fridge. “We’ve a couple of clients today looking for…” The emails were all on his phone, and he checked it, positive mood immediately dropping. “Oh, fantastic. They’re wanting an escort for a spirit walk. How exciting.”

The jar didn’t move or make any sign that the spirit inside was listening. Still, Matsuo continued on, by now quite used to talking aloud to ease the silence when one of his pets wasn’t out. “You think it’d be easy after dealing with all the low-ranking members of Claw at the base. It’s not. At least they left me alone. These are, ugh, young adults. They’re going to want to talk to me. Have potentially meaningful conversation.” Ignoring the fact that Matsuo himself could be considered a young adult. Under thirty-five at the very least. He set about making breakfast, sucking the spoon he used to scoop jam onto toast as a self-soothing measure. “The pay is barely worth it.”

Rent, bills, things he wasn’t used to after living at the 7th Division base. But now he had an apartment, a small one, but big enough for his books and pets and himself. And Mogami, Pudding-chan, the pet that steadily corroded the stickers keeping him contained. “Are you hungry Pudding-chan? Maybe we’ll find something for you while we’re out.” Mogami was a picky eater after all, and harder still to keep contained when giving him an evil spirit to devour.

It was a quiet existence, lonely in some ways, but Matsuo was alive. Living more respectably, in his own little apartment looking out over Seasoning City and avoiding trouble. All of Claw knew eventually what would happen, figured they’d be bulldozed by their former boss, the one who had given them their scars to begin with. But Matsuo maybe foolishly hoped that he’d be left well enough alone. Just live his life with his spirits like a person might with their cats.

As if.

He saw the television takeover like most people did, but unlike the social media chatter that thought it a joke, Matsuo panicked. Immediately, he gathered his most powerful spirits, Mogami included, leaving his apartment for what might be the last time.

But Seasoning City had been shut down. No one in, no one out. It was Suzuki’s plan to force his hometown to witness its destruction.

Honestly, what happened to Matsuo before running into Mob and Minegishi isn’t terribly important to this story. He hid, he protected himself from Claw lackeys hunting down espers, questioning how they were suddenly so powerful, and he managed to keep a lid on Mogami’s jar to the very end. Until he didn’t.

And we know what happened there.

Matsuo ran from the destruction, following Mogami’s trail to the edge of the city, where they were both still trapped by Claw’s intense barrier. “Pudding-chan! What happened? Why didn’t you destroy Minegishi?” The spirit seemed focused on the barrier, ignoring the esper below. “Pudding-chan… Pudding-chan!” There was a brief pause before Matsuo changed tactics. “Mogami-san?”

“Mm?” Mogami looked down at Matsuo, frowning. Well, frowning more. It had been much longer than his death since he had smiled properly. “Oh, it’s you. You’re the one who trapped me in a jar.”

“Well,” Matsuo started slowly, only a little put off by the negativity Mogami exuded. “I also fed you. And kept you from disappearing.”

“And talked incessantly about anything that popped into your head.”

Matsuo was only slightly offended by that. “Well, you weren’t exactly a conversationalist.”

Mogami looked at Matsuo for a moment longer. “I was in a jar.” He turned back to the barrier.

“Okay… you have a point. What are you doing anyway?”

“Trying to get out. That boy seems to be learning. I don’t need to be here.” The spirit pushed against the barrier, getting repelled immediately with a fierce red aura Matsuo recognized immediately. He reached out, pulling Mogami back. “Hey!” Mogami turned to the esper in anger, but the genuine concern wiped whatever the spirit was about to say from his mind.

“Don’t do that; it’ll exorcise you before you can get through.”

“Why do you care?”

“Because you’re my friend Mogami-san.”

There was silence then, marked only by the sound of air moving, maybe a bird or the distant sound of a TV. There is no true silence in the world anymore, especially not in cities, even cities that were under threat of destruction. But between esper and ghost, former(?) evil spirit and former evil organizational leader, there was a moment of the truest silence to be found. Matsuo released Mogami from his hold, but the spirit didn’t move.

“You realize you say that so casually to someone who has done many evil things,” Mogami finally said, breaking their moment. “Not everything I think I care to regret.”

“I’ve done evil things too… and I don’t think I can regret all of them either.”

Mogami floated closer. “The boy seemed to know you.”

Matsuo let him approach, unafraid. “He definitely knew you.”

“He… taught me that perhaps the world isn’t so dark as I once thought.”

Matsuo nodded in agreement. “His master showed me how to grow up.”

“Grow up? You still eat sugared cereal.” There was a comfortableness in Mogami’s voice now, as he floated to be just taller than Matsuo, though his feet were well off the ground. Matsuo shifted, folding his arms across his chest and trying to stand taller.

“And just what’s so wrong with that? Adults eat sugar all the time.”

“It’s just… cute.” Matsuo blushed and looked away, back towards where they had left. “What are you going to do Matsuo?”

“I don’t know. If anyone can beat Suzuki, it’s that boy. He and his master could probably talk sense into a rock if they chose.”

“No, I mean. Afterwards. Will you keep being a psychic for hire?”

Matsuo made a face. “It’s the only thing I’m good at. But what about you? What are you going to do?”

“…I don’t know. I don’t regret many of the things I did, but it’s pointless to continue the way I was with people like him out there.” Mogami turned to the barrier again. “Maybe I should be exorcised. It’s what he and you were originally told to do by that rich idiot.”

Matsuo reached out, grabbing Mogami again, this time physically, a hand holding onto the spirit’s jacket. “Wait. Why not stay with me?”

“You don’t know the things I’ve done,” Mogami repeated. “There’s no telling how I’ll act.”

“You don’t know what I’ve done either,” Matsuo argued, holding tighter though Mogami hadn’t moved. “But just because we’ve got our burdens to carry doesn’t mean we have to do it alone.”

Mogami’s empty sockets stared into Matsuo’s own determined gaze, shifting subtly to take in his scar, his hair, his clothes. Then back to his face before Mogami let out a sigh, sinking closer to the esper’s level.  “This means the jar again?”

“No… no I think I trust you to stay out.”

“You just want to talk my ear off about your new sports rules.”

Matsuo laughed. “It would be nice if you talked back.” He started to walk, away from the barrier and the edge of the city, towards his, their apartment.

“I always talked back. Your jar just wouldn’t let you hear.” Mogami was following close beside Matsuo, equals in starting a new chapter in both their lives.

[gretchensinister]

The Strangest Thing

For Favorite Ship Week, Day 7: Strange and Unusual

Yeah! I finally got around to typing it all out!

The OT6 has reformed, but though Jack is aware of the relationship and wants to be part of it, he hasn’t had sex with any of the other Guardians yet. And he just wants a little more information before he does so. So, one evening when the OT6 is hanging out and getting drunk at the Workshop, Jack asks some questions.

“Okay, North,” Jack said, gesturing to him with a hand holding a half-empty drink. “If I’m going to be part of this whole thing, then I—I’ve got to know. What’s the strangest thing you’ve ever done—in bed, I mean, and by in bed I mean it didn’t have to be in a bed and, um….”

“Why am I the first one you are asking this?” North asked in return, refilling his own drink as the others giggled.

“I think it’s fair. We’re in your house, after all,” Bunny said. “And you’ve probably already had an emotional heart-to-heart, so this is just the next step.”

“If that was my reasoning, I could have started with you, Bunny,” Jack said, and Bunny ducked his head in embarrassment.

“Can’t I enjoy a nice quiet talk with my new husband without everyone making a big deal of it?” he asked.

That question was never answered, as Pitch spoke next. “It’s because you’re the most human, North. I should think that would be obvious.” He smiled a little. “Then, if what you have to say is simply too frightening for him, he’ll know that he’ll have to take things very, very slowly before he asks anyone else the same question.”

Sandy poked Pitch in the side. Don’t act like you weren’t too overwhelmed for anything but missionary when we started working things out this time.

Pitch turned to give him a pained look. “I didn’t even have enough strength to forego sleep when you approached me—that was why you could approach me. Surely you haven’t forgotten the rest of our history?” he asked, snaking his arm around Sandy’s shoulders.

Of course not. Sandy smiled slowly. And your recovery is progressing so well.

“And that’s very good news,” Tooth said warmly. Pitch looked at her, surprised, and she sighed dramatically. “Did you miss our last very serious talk? We all want you to be back with us, Pitch! That’s why Sandy approached you in the first place, to see if it was possible. If we were just humoring Sandy’s ideas of cosmic balance we wouldn’t keep inviting you over!”

“Bunny hasn’t invited me to visit the Warren, yet,” Pitch pointed out.

“Bunny.…” North began, reprovingly.

“Now hold up, hold up,” Bunny said. “I know you’ve all been busy, but is Pitch really the only one to notice? I haven’t invited anyone to the Warren since we decided to see about salvaging Pitch and letting Jack know just how big his oath was. Pitch, you hit me where it hurt, that Easter. But now that you’re back and we’re working things out, well—I may still be twitchy about inviting you to the Warren, but I don’t think that’s permanent. And so I won’t be inviting anyone until I can invite everyone.”

“Oh,” Pitch said softly. “That’s not what I expected.”

“Well, it’s not what I expected of myself, either,” Bunny said. “But, like Tooth implied, this isn’t supposed to be a night for a big, serious talk.” He turned to North. “You’ve had some time to think, now. Are you going to get on with answering Jack’s question?”

“Ah, well.” North put one hand on the back of his neck. “I do have an answer to give, though of course it is something that is just strange for me. I think we would never get anywhere if we had to think about what is strange in the minds of others.”

“Considering how most spirits do a double-take when they realize we’re not just allies?” Bunny said. “Yeah, that’s legitimate.”

“So answer already!” Tooth moved forward on her seat. “I’m dying to know if I was involved.”

North looked down at his drink. “Again, this is what is strange for me. And, ah, yes, Tooth, you were certainly involved. Everyone except for Jack, naturally, was. And what it was, well, it was not actually me that did anything. I had been persuaded to simply—accept what Tooth and Bunny and Sandy and Pitch wanted to give me. In fact, when we talked about how it was going to play out, I was specifically told many times that I should not even think of reciprocating. I was offered a great deal of oral attention, among everything else, that evening. I, ah, enjoyed it very much, though I am usually wiser than to ask for it, as I am aware of the difficulties.”

“Wait, is that why you never accepted us pampering you again?” Tooth asked. “I mean, I don’t want to speak for anyone else—” She glanced over at Sandy.

Sandy grinned at North. Two of your four partners were able to deepthroat you, he signed. That’s a pretty good ratio. I don’t understand that would keep you from asking for it again.

North made a face. “I only say this because it is absolute fact, but Pitch told me that he and Sandy did a very small bit of shapeshifting to make this comfortably possible for them—”

“Wait, wait, I remember telling you that,” Pitch said. “I thought you’d be flattered! I mean, maybe I wasn’t thinking a lot when I told you, as I was riding your cock at the time, but, seriously? What’s a little shapeshifting between ones like us?”

It really is very easy, Sandy agreed. Fitting together better for any penetration. It’s automatic, almost.

“We…can discuss that later,” North said. “But, there! I have answered the question. It was a time when I only received and did not give. Does everyone agree that this is strange for me?”

The others nodded.

“All right,” Jack said. “So far, I’m not too worried. But, then again, I am going to ask everyone the same question.”

“Pour Bunny another drink, North,” Tooth said. “So he’ll be able to answer when it’s his turn.”

North obliged, Bunny accepted the glass with a roll of his eyes, and Jack turned to Tooth.

“All right. So. Tooth. What’s the strangest thing you’ve ever done?” Jack gave her a look of intense concentration. “You can’t just say the same thing as North, though.”

“And I probably shouldn’t say something in the same theme, either,” Tooth said.

“Well, that just wouldn’t make sense,” Bunny said, nudging her with his shoulder. “It’s much easier to convince you to let yourself be pampered than North.”

Tooth blushed. “I like to make the most of my time off, that’s all,” she said. “All right. Let me think.” She drew her brows together and sipped her drink. “Well, I know that something like mid-air sex would be considered strange for most people, but I have wings so why not? And, thanks to Sandy for indulging me so much in that.” She glanced toward Pitch. “But, as for the strangest thing…well, you know I was often the first one to seek out Pitch after bad fights.”

Pitch nodded. “I do remember that, and I also remember that you sought me out when it would have been far wiser to leave me to myself for a few more days.”

“That’s true,” Tooth said. “But it only got you back sooner, didn’t it?”

“But that’s not what we’re talking about, now, is it?”

Tooth laughed nervously. “All right, well, maybe it wasn’t the best of ideas, but I really liked the feeling of pretty much actual danger I got when we had sex then. That’s why, after all my goading, I always ended up on my back with my wings trapped.”

“It is not only with Pitch that you are on your back with,” North pointed out.

“That’s true, too,” Tooth said. “But usually, I want you all to be careful, and you are. It’s just that rarely, there was an opportunity to experience something close to real danger, and I took it.”

“That’s shockingly irresponsible,” Pitch said, entirely sincerely. “So much could have gone wrong.”

Tooth shrugged. “But it didn’t.” She reached out and put her hand on Jack’s arm. “If you need sex ed, ask someone else for it so Pitch won’t worry.”

Pitch grumbled as Jack raised his hand and solemnly pledged to get any sexual facts and advice he might need from a reputable source.

I think he was excluding you from the category of “reputable source,” as well, Sandy noted. He turned to Tooth. What are you going to do now that Pitch knows about this?

“Savor my memories,” Tooth said with a laugh. “And eventually find something else that gets me the same way. So, Jack, what do you think so far? I mean, we haven’t quite gotten into however much nonhuman freakiness you might be worried about.”

“True, true,” Jack said. “Maybe I should have asked what’s normal to you that might be strange to others. But then again, maybe I’ll end up enjoying any surprises that end up happening.”

Bunny raised his eyebrows just as Jack turned to him.

“All right, I was going to ask you next, anyway,” Jack said. “What are you raising your eyebrows for, and what’s the strangest thing you’ve ever done?”

“I’m raising my eyebrows because I’m not sure what kind of surprises you’re expecting,” Bunny said. “So I figure I ought to tell you that I don’t have a mating season, or a rut, or what-have-you. I don’t think I’m more like an animal than anyone else while having sex, and I don’t lose control or go feral or anything like that.”

Jack gave the others an odd look. “Was this something Bunny had to clarify with you?”

“No, no,” Tooth said. “But when other spirits have learned about our relationship, some of them have said some pretty rude things.”

“It is true, though it is not a rut, that Bunny does become more randy during the springtime,” North said.

Bunny wrinkled his nose. “All right, but it’s not like it’s biological or anything,” he said. “It’s just that the more springtime comes to more people in the world, the better a mood I’m in.”

And the more likely you are to actually relax, Sandy signed. He smiled at Jack. You may not have seen it yet, but it’s incredible how obvious it is when Bunny’s naked and when he’s not, considering that he never wears clothes in the first place.

“You going to say the same thing about Tooth, then?” Bunny asked.

Tooth may work hard, but she never gets uptight, Sandy signed. It’s not as obvious a change.

Tooth preened a feather or two and Bunny shook his head at her gently. “I’m assailed on all sides,” he said. “I’d better offer up my strange thing before this goes any farther. All right. Mine also has to do with shapeshifting. Sandy and Pitch, one-on-one, and together, too. I asked them to shapeshift into rabbits like me,” Bunny said.

“That doesn’t seem that strange,” Jack said.

“Well, it is, because I’m not part of a species.” Bunny looked down at his hands. “I’m one of a kind. I was human before the Man in the Moon chose me. So why would I—why would I want—there’s just no reason for me to want something like that. But I did, and Sandy and Pitch helped me out with that weird little fantasy,” Bunny finished. “And who knows why I’m telling it now, except that I don’t want to keep any secrets from Jack, and North mixes drinks really strong.”

“I don’t think that there’s anything to be embarrassed about in that kind of strangeness,” Jack said. “You just didn’t want to be so different from the people you were intimate with.”

“That’s a better way of putting it than just saying I’m interested in fur,” Bunny said. “And that might still be true, but I don’t know if that’ll be a problem for you, considering that you’re here having this conversation with us in the first place.”

Jack laughed. “Yeah, fair enough. Now. It’s time.” He turned to Sandy and Pitch, resting his chin in his hands. “Should I ask each of you separately, or should I just ask that you give me two stories? I’m kind of guessing that both of you are going to say things that involve each other.”

Sandy nodded at once, and Pitch just a half-second after.

“I suppose that the mention of our own shapeshifting makes such a conclusion inevitable,” Pitch said.

“You’ve also had a few thousand more years to get up to whatever you’re going to get up to,” Bunny said.

“I can’t think that that makes much of a difference by this point,” Pitch said.

But it does make a difference that we’re not bounded by having physical bodies, or by the boundaries of, well, good taste, Sandy signed.

“Uh-oh,” Jack said. “Now I’m really worried about what you’re going to tell me.”

Pitch smirked at him. “I could tell you almost anything, and you wouldn’t be able to naysay it.”

Yeah, only I could do that, Sandy signed. I have an idea of what you’re thinking of, he told Pitch.

Pitch turned to him and raised his eyebrows. “I suppose I could give Jack a joke answer and say that missionary is the strangest thing for us.”

“That’s an answer I would accept,” Tooth said, and Bunny toasted her.

Sandy laughed silently and leaned against Pitch. I would like it if we could cop out that way, but it’s totally not true.

Pitch rolled his eyes, but he didn’t move away from Sandy. “It’s not in your best interest to make fun of me for enjoying vanilla sex,” he said, “especially since you have a fondness for nights when you just lie back and think of Dreamland, or whatever.”

Sandy stuck out his tongue. I assure you I’m thinking of you when we do that sort of thing.

Pitch coughed. “Anyway,” he said, “you can’t be thinking of saying the same thing I’m thinking of, because the thing that I’m thinking of is something that I would never tell anyone about.”

Are you sure we’re not thinking of the same thing? Sandy fixed Pitch with his gaze and slowly, deliberately, licked his lips.

“Well, if that’s the case, we’re going to have to come up with something else to tell Jack,” Pitch said.

“Oh, come now,” North said. “You have made us very curious now.”

“I think Sandy and I could come up with a few ways to make you forget that curiosity,” Pitch said, uncrossing and recrossing his legs.

“No, no,” Jack said. “This seems like something it might be absolutely vital for me to know.”

Sandy tilted his head back and forth. Well, not really. It’s not actually something that would be possible for you or anyone else other than Pitch and me. It’s not something that we could or would ask of you.

Pitch folded his arms protectively across his belly. “Sandy’s right,” he said. “It’s enough for us to know we agree on the strangest thing we did together. What you really want to know from us is the strangest thing, in your opinion, that we would ever ask you to partake in. Don’t you think that would be more useful?”

“Well, I—I guess,” Jack said. “But it doesn’t tell me the same kind of thing about you as North’s Tooth’s and Bunny’s answers did.”

Oh, don’t worry, you’ll learn plenty about us in other ways, Sandy signed. I think you should be interested in what we might suggest to you. I mean, no one else has brought up anything more outlandish than having sex with beings shaped fairly similarly, regardless of how those ways interact with our personalities.

“Yes,” Pitch said slowly. “I have found it strange that North, Tooth, and Bunny didn’t bring up certain things as unusual.”

“Oh, well,” Tooth said, “whatever you’re thinking of, you always treat us well.”

“And you always allow yourselves to be pleased,” North said. “Even when you are, ah, somewhat overwhelming, even to me.”

“You’re forms are always different from mine,” Bunny said, “so it’s the times when they weren’t that are notable.”

“If you don’t tell me what you’re getting at this time, I’m going to have to sulk,” Jack said.

“Well, we wouldn’t want that,” Pitch said. “Sandy, why don’t you do the honor of asking?”

Sandy smiled sunnily and leaned conspiratorially towards Jack. All right. Jack, how do you feel about monsters? In particular, monsters with a lot of tentacles? How would you feel about being pleasured by such a monster? Or, because we are all very lucky, two such monsters?

Jack blinked slowly a few times. “Ah, well….” He downed the rest of his drink in one gulp. “Sure, I’d give it a shot.”

Amid the laughter and affectionate teasing that followed, no one heard what Jack had to say afterwards. “But—I thought that’s what Sandy and Pitch were talking about to begin with! And if not that, then what?”

[themeatlife]

Avengers: Endgame, the Legacy of the Avengers, and the Future of Disney and the Marvel Cinematic Universe

#DontSpoilTheEndgame is over on Monday, so I’ll discuss Avengers: Endgame - the movie itself and the larger impact it has on the legacy of the Avengers and the MCU.

Avengers: Endgame - A Review

To begin, it’s kind of hard to judge the film on its own. Even more so than its predecessor Avengers: Infinity War, Endgame is largely dependent on the previous films. So the impact of it is less so on someone that’s only seen a handful of the Marvel movies than for someone who has invested time seeing the now 22-film catalog.  With that being said, for those who have seen most or all of the other movies, wow. It is both extremely entertaining and extremely gratifying.  If you are an MCU fan, Endgame was made especially for you.

Now, SPOILERS AHEAD!

I’m not going to explore all the plot points (because there is a LOT of plot), I want to hit on some of the major ones though.

Much of the first two hours of the film (this thing has a three hour run time) is spent in the melancholy post-Snapture.  The opening scene is Jeremy Renner’s Hawkeye with his family as they disappear from Thanos’ snap.  Just in case you forgot the stakes that were established in Infinity War, well this will certainly remind you.  We see our heroes trying to deal with loss and trying to move on in the aftermath.  I like this touch.  Throughout the MCU, the writers and directors have always tried to a least have a sort of psychological realism, always visiting not only the epic battles but the emotional aftermath.  To reenforce this, next we see Robert Downey Jr’s Iron Man and Karen Gillan’s Nebula stranded in space running out of resources to get to Earth (much of this featured heavily in the trailer). It looks hopeless until Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel rescues them and reunites them with the surviving Avengers at Avengers HQ in upstate New York. She doesn’t really have much of a role in the film outside of this and the some of the final sequences.

After hunting down and killing Thanos in the first 20 minutes of the film (Thor goes for the head this time), time jumps to five years later.  Earth’s mightiest heroes go on what Paul Rudd’s Ant-Man calls a “time heist,” a quest to use the quantum realm go to the past to collect the Infinity Stones.  Ant-Man’s return from the quantum realm having only aged 5 hours rather than 5 years spurs this. Not to change the past and prevent Josh Brolin’s Thanos from the Snapture, but to bring everyone back that was lost by the Snap, mainly because Stark now has a family with Gwyneth Paltrow’s Pepper Potts and a little daughter he doesn’t want to lose.

The time heist features three teams: Iron Man, Ant-Man, Chris Evans’ Captain America, and Mark Ruffalo’s now hybrid Bruce Banner/Hulk going back to 2012 during the Battle of New York in the first Avengers movie to retrieve the Space, Mind, and Time Stones.  Chris Hemsworth’s now broken and depressed and overweight Thor and Bradley Cooper’s Rocket Raccoon going back to Asgard in 2013 during the events of Thor: The Dark World to retrieve the Reality Stone.  And Don Cheadle’s War Machine, Nebula, Jeremy Renner’s Hawkeye/Ronin, and Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow going back to Morag/Vormir in 2014 during the time of the first Guardians of the Galaxy with War Machine and Nebula tracking down the Power Stone and Hawkeye and Black Widow tracking down the Soul Stone.  Highlights from these ventures include Captain America fighting his 2012 self, Thor interacting with his mother on the day of her death, and Hawkeye and Black Widow’s dramatic fight for who will sacrifice their life so the other can get the Soul Stone.  We also get a bonus time jump back to 1970 with Iron Man and Captain America. (My gosh, so much plot here, and that’s not even all of it. No wonder this thing is three hours long.)

While I won’t dive too deeply on what happens, what this part of the movie effectively does is show just how far back the arc of the original six (Stark, Rogers, Thor, Banner, Barton, and Romanoff) goes and how far they have come.  We also get to see how focused 2014 Thanos was at achieving his Snapture goal even back then.  And it’s a good excuse for Marvel to revisit some of the places they have been, kind of like a Greatest Hits album (although I wouldn’t consider The Dark World one of those hits, I would consider it a flex by Disney/Marvel to make one of their lesser movies that important in the long term story).

And then the last hour of the film is all kinds of crazy action, and the results are satisfying and enjoyable. 2014 Thanos gets onto the Avengers plan and sends 2014 Nebula to replace 2023 Nebula to go back to the future (OH I forgot to mention there were a lot of Back to the Future and other time travel movie jokes). So 2014 Nebula opens up the quantum realm portal to 2014 Thanos. That Thanos takes out the Avengers HQ right after the Hulk snaps his finger with the new Stark-made Infinity Gauntlet. There is then a showdown between Captain America, Thor, and Iron Man against Thanos, after which sets up an epic splash-page like final battle between Thanos’ Chitari army and the recently resurrected rest of the Avengers crew. Highlights in this part include a psyched Thor when Captain America not only lifts up Thor’s hammer Mjolnir but summons it and wields it’s power and a touching brief reunion between Tom Holland’s Spider-Man and Iron Man. The battle ends with Tony Stark swiping the Infinity Gauntlet back from Thanos and snapping Thanos and his army out of existence.

This concludes the Tony Stark character arc, for the snap was too much to bare and ultimately kills him. But not before Peter Parker and an Iron-suited Pepper Potts say their goodbyes (Potts with the emotional “now you can rest” line). There is a somber funeral sequence with all the major Marvel characters that are still alive making an appearance, along with a big surprise.

After the funeral, we also see the conclusion of the Steve Rogers story arc. Hulk sends Rogers back in time to return the Infinity Stones back from where they grabbed them. He doesn’t return when Hulk tries to summon him back but Anthony Mackie’s Falcon and Sebastian Stan’s Winter Soldier notice someone sitting on a bench in the distance. It’s old Steve Rogers, who ended up settling down in the past after returning the stones. He hands off the Captain America shield to Sam.

The movie ends with Steve Rogers sometime in the 1940’s in a new house finally having that dance with Hayley Atwell’s Peggy Carter.

Rather than a credits scene, the opening of the credits showcases each Marvel hero over the years with the actor who played them and ends the sequence with the original six Avengers with the actors’ signatures displayed on screen. Cool way to salute the actors in some of the major roles over the years.

Other than a couple of time travel issues (time travel is ALWAYS tricky to pull off in movies and television and maybe some other time I’ll go over those), the storyline works very well. I dug the balance it struck between the emotional weight, action, and humor. It was smart to have a lot of small moments early in the film where it focuses the interaction between characters. And it was a lot funnier than I expected it to be. The film as a whole is emotionally gratifying and clearly wraps up this chapter in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But as I said earlier, it is at max effectiveness if you’ve already invested the time in the characters’ previous stories, in particular the original six. If you know the original six’s stories in particular, you will thoroughly enjoy this movie.

I’ll save my ranking the Infinity Saga movies for after Spider-Man: Far From Home (Marvel President Kevin Feige calls the latest Spider-Man the final installment in the Infinity Saga). You can expect that Endgame would rank very highly in my ranking.

The Legacy of the Avengers

What is the biggest impact the Avengers and Marvel’s Infinity Saga have had on pop culture?

It is crazy to think that when Iron Man came out back in May of 2008 when Marvel Studios was using Paramount to distribute, it was considered a risk. Robert Downey Jr had yet to make his comeback complete (Iron Man and Sherlock Holmes a year later marked his return full return to stardom). Iron Man was a few months before The Dark Knight came out and garnered critical acclaim and helped legitimize the comic book-based genre. And the MCU was in its infancy, no one thought it would become the bohemeth it is now.

Marvel Studios, whether intentional or accidental, helped mold and was molded by the changing methods of which people were consuming their visual entertainment. The early 2000’s saw the advent of binge-watching television, where serial series like Alias, 24, and Lost saw people prefer to consume episodes in bulk. Once Netflix got their streaming service going, the idea of binge-watching caught on everywhere. Television ratings waned as people watched things more on their time on devices other than an actual TV. People only tuned in to things when they are originally broadcast if they were billed as an event, like a series finale (or in Game of Thrones’ case a final season) or a live event like the Super Bowl. Similarly, film started becoming more event-based. Blockbusters had to be built up as an event to go to in order for films to be successful, more so now than any other film era. And in making an event out of their films, Marvel serialized their MCU movies like a season of Lost - individual episodes focused on a character or set of characters with the overarching story in the background until culminating in the season finale, or in Marvel’s case an Avengers movie.

So the biggest impact the MCU has had is shaping other movie studios approach to movie releases. After 2012’s The Avengers, many tried the serialized team-up event concept to varying degrees of failure. Universal flopped trying to launch a shared monsters universe with Tom Cruise’s The Mummy reboot in 2017. Warner Brothers has a semi-successful MonsterVerse going with Godzilla and King Kong. We’ll see how that progresses with the new Godzilla movie this summer. Warner Brothers also has the mostly failed DC Extended Universe. Starting strong with 2013’s Man of Steel but limping thereafter with lackluster installments in 2016’s Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice and Suicide Squad and 2017’s Justice League, DC/Warner Bros has seen more success with the mostly standalone attempts Wonder Woman in 2017, Aquaman in 2018, and Shazam in 2019. DC’s current strategy is kind of confusing though, with some plans to continue the DCEU, and other plans to do more standalone work.

So the fact that Marvel’s shared universe set of movies has worked and has been the only one to work so successfully is an anamoly and an achievement. Marvel was allowed to build its world over time, a luxury that was afforded to them by Paramount from 2008-2011 and by Disney when they were acquired in 2012. The first two phases of the MCU spanned ten films from 2008-2015, building a foundation for what the franchise is today. That type of patience has not been lended to DC in particular, something that ended up looking and feeling rushed and resulted in a less successful and less satisfying result in the DCEU.

The Marvel approach has changed not just the method of outside studios release strategies but also in releases within their Disney family. For studios to make money on these films, they have to culminate in an event to get people to the theater. Fewer and fewer indie films turn into financial successes, at least at the theater. So event movies galore are on the horizon at Disney. Disney proper has “live-action” remakes of classics animated classics Aladdin and Lion King coming out this summer. Pixar has Toy Story 4 set for a summer release as well, even though the third installment was originally thought to be the conclusion of the story. Lucasfilm has what has been announced to be the finale of the Skywalker saga in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker coming out this winter. Each of those marketed as an event, whether it be a nostalgic event, an unexpected continuation, or a conclusion of a story.

Up Next for the Disney and the Marvel Cinematic Universe

While Marvel Studios has changed the movie industry and pop culture, it is hard to say what the next step for the MCU is. We know of a few things coming though.

With the announcement of Disney’s streaming service, Disney+, coming in November, there were MCU projects also announced to debut on the service. Loki, Falcon/Winter Soldier, and Wanda/Vision will all get series on Disney+. There will also be an interesting What If series where they were explore what if scenarios of some of your favorite Marvel characters.

The MCU’s film future is less set. We know that Spider-Man: Far From Home (co-release with Sony Pictures) comes out in July and is set in the immediate events after Endgame. After that, we know a few projects are in production but no definitive release dates have been set. Projects include a Black Widow flashback, origin stories for The Eternals and Shang-Chi, and sequels for Guardians of the Galaxy, Doctor Strange, and Black Panther as well as talks of sequels for Ant-Man and Wasp, Captain Marvel, and Thor (although I think the route for the Thor character should be to join the Guardians).

And then there is 21st Century Fox. Disney acquired the entertainment wing of Fox proper earlier this year (I was scared of Apple taking over the world, but Disney is closer to doing so). Fox owned the movie rights to all the Marvel properties included in the X-Men and the Fantastic Four. Fox’s run of X-Men movies presumably concludes this summer with Dark Phoenix. Since Marvel Studios now owns the movie rights to what has been traditionally two of the more popular Marvel brands, one would think some sort of reboot and integration into the MCU would be coming in this next chapter.

I’ll end on this. The Avengers Infinity Saga, the Star Wars Skywalker Saga, and Game of Thrones are all pop culture epics that will be ending their current chapters this year. It is hard to imagine the changing entertainment world will ever have subjects as impactful as these given the number of formats available and the vast number of entertainment options now available. Those three epics, especially the oldest being Star Wars, caught pop culture at a time when people would watch and experience the same thing. Soon, the event-centered entertainment world will grow smaller with less people gathering to experience and watch the same thing. Or maybe I’m wrong and every generation finds a way to galvanize to have that shared experience (Gone With The Wind, the original Star Wars, Titanic in the film world all being previous examples). I hope for the latter, but I can’t help but feel that the record-breaking Avengers: Endgame will be one of the last of its kind: an event that everyone wants to share and experience together.