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effei-s · 4 years ago

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What shatter-me Warner would do.

The fastest character assassination I’ve ever seen.

Here’s the thing: Warner from original trilogy had character arch. More important: he was a character.

He was mean, villainous, cold, cruel murderer, with daddy who basically bought him regency (like come on, if it wasn’t for Anderson no one would even think about giving him that position; n for nepotism), but he also was deeply traumatized and abused his whole life and had little to none normal human interactions. I loved that fact that the only good thing he did (killing Fletcher because he was abusing his family) resolved into a complete catastrophe (Anderson killing children and wife) because Warner didn’t think it through. He tried to do the right thing and failed miserably, because he was more concerned with making a spectacle for Juliette. And after that he still had the audacity to paint himself as a hero who saved poor family from terrible tyrant in Ignite me.

I didn’t expect him to act and think like a human being. He didn’t need to act like a normal human. Warner gas lighting Juliette in the first third of ignite me is Warner’s thing to do. Him yelling and throwing tantrums and making scenes in Unravel me is Warner’s thing to do. Him forcing Juliette to do things she doesn’t want and traumatizing her in the process in Shatter me is Warner’s thing to do. Him wanting to torture Adam to death is Warner’s thing to want.

There’s a few reasons for this:

a) he doesn’t know how to communicate with people other than giving them orders or making threats;

b) he truly believes that he’s in the right here (he doesn’t see himself as a bad guy in Juliette story, more like a knight on a white horse);

c) he’s physically unable to be honest with himself and always has someone to blame for his own mistakes and failures;

d) he’s ‘results justify the means’ kind of guy.

Changes for good, with trauma that deep, when you basically don’t have a moral compass, don’t happen over night.

Was his ignite-me arch made sloppy? Yes. Everything was too info-dumpy and too convenient (Juliette forgetting that Warner was going to torture Adam to death; Juliette feeling that she’s the one who needs to apologize; Leila’s entire character used only for a sob story; Adam turned into a douchebag so Warner would look a more suitable love interest, etc). But it still was an arch. And the finale of ignite me was so open I really could imagine that, little by little, in the future, he will start to trust people more and really gonna help Juliette and co to make the world a better place. And his redemption arch wasn’t finished in the slightest, and I would even say that it was only the beginning of it, but it was implied that things will get better from there (the most important part of that being him genuinely wanting to make things right with Adam and James; he’s the one who makes the first step and initiate the bond).

So what went wrong in new three books? Ehm… everything, to be honest. Instead of developing a character that was already there, she decided to give him a new personality. Actually it can be said about every single one of characters, but Warner just happened to be the biggest victim of them all.

Let’s look at Restore me.

Okay, we have his pov, and I never thought I would say it but… Warner is kinda dumb. He’s supposed to be this military strategy genius, someone who knows how RE works from within and… it turns out that he just as clueless as Juliette. More than this, we never actually see him do ANYTHING except fucking Juliette. And for some reasons he never helps Juliette with her work??? There’s so much paperwork and instead of helping her to sort though it he’s… just not there???

Those stupid long monologues about how she’s capable to do anything mean nothing if he doesn’t actually help (as we can see at the end of restore me, when Juliette gets captured).

That fact that he doesn’t immediately check if Castle’s words are true? And instead of helping Juliette with Haider (telling everything he knows about him and his family, preparing her for the dinner) he fucks her??? This is a dumb bitch shit. And maybe you didn’t noticed but Shatter-me Warner wasn’t a dumb bitch.

After all, there’s a simple reason I never wanted the job of supreme commander myself—

I never wanted the responsibility.

It’s a tremendous amount of work with far less freedom than one might expect; worse, it’s a position that requires a great deal of people skills. The kind of people skills that include both killing and charming a person at a moment’s notice. Two things I detest.

Remember shatter-me Warner who wanted power because power meant that he could have control over his life? Remember shatter-me Warner who wanted to work with Juliette as a team to change the world? Yeah that’s him now.

No personal ambitions allowed when you’re a walking dildo, I guess.

Off the topic, but Mafi really enjoys making Juliette stupid as fuck:

“Oh, yes, of course,” she says, remembering. “I’ve gotten a bunch of letters about that. I didn’t realize it was such a big deal.”

Let's continue.

Hurting Haider would be enough to start a world war.

Warner says and then Juliette threatens Haider, a foreign official on a diplomatic mission, and instead of being even a little bit worried and think about possible consequences, Warner thinks this:

But I can only smile at her. I want to scoop her up and carry her away. Take her somewhere quiet and lose myself in her.

Okay, I guess it’s official, there’s sperm inside of his head instead of brain cells. I can’t find any other explanation for this clownery.

Shatter-me Warner would… Shatter-me Warner won’t be in this situation in the first place.

Someone tries to kill Juliette and Warner does… nothing about it. He never goes to check the body of the assassin himself. He thinks that Nazeera hides something and he still allows her to go around and doesn’t even interrogate her when Juliette says that Nazeera was there at the moment of the attack. He doesn’t find it even a little bit suspicious? That guy who had tremendous trust issues in the original trilogy? Remember him? Yeah, that guy. Shatter-me Warner would lock Nazeera and Haider up and demanded answers. Shatter-me Warner would be angry as fuck, and would try to kill Kenji with his bare hands, because Kenji was stupid enough to leave Juliette alone. Shatter-me Warner wouldn’t stop until he had answers (and the head of a person who wanted to kill Juliette on a plate).

New Warner is too busy feeling sorry for himself to actually do anything about it. And after one chapter it’s completely forgotten, like that fact that someone tried to kill her is not important at all.

And then Castle enters the picture with his stupid and sloppy info-dumping (I guess Mafi never heard of ‘show don’t tell’ rule). And says this:

“She can’t lead this resistance,” he says, squinting at something in the distance. “She’s too young. Too inexperienced. Too angry. You know that, don’t you?”

and if that wasn’t enough he also says this:

“It should’ve been you,” Castle says. “I always secretly hoped—from the day you showed up at Omega Point—that it would’ve been you. That you would join us. And lead us.” He shakes his head. “You were born for this. You would’ve managed it all beautifully.”

AND HE’S STILL ALIVE AFTER?

This is a fucking treason right there. And Warner A-OKAY with this.

Shatter-me Warner would strangle him right there. Or better yet, he would go along with this until he has 100% evidences of Castle’s betrayal and then he would kill him. Or he would kill him simply because Castle was withholding important information and earlier in books he put Juliette in a great danger by sending her to Anderson without telling her the truth (unravel me).

But not this Warner. New Warner is far more concerned with fucking Juliette then helping her or looking for a way out of this situation (because now he has dick instead of a brain).

After my father’s revelation, my thirst for information became suddenly insatiable. I needed to know more—who these people were, where they’d come from, how much we’d known—

WHERE AND WHEN DID WARNER IN PREVIOUS BOOKS DISPLAY THIS?

When I say that Mafi simply forgot her own characters this is what I mean. Warner from original trilogy didn’t give a flying fuck about them. He thought that they were weak and stupid.

I will lose her.

And it will kill me.

He said this shit and after he nearly had a panic attack because he imagined her dating someone else? Oh, come on, how more pathetic can he get?

There are words for this kind of behavior: toxic codependency.

Oh wait wait! I know! This is not Warner! This is Edward Cullen disguised as Warner! The mystery is solved!

Oh, he fucks her again. Apparently it’s the only thing he’s good at. What a character! The layers! The complexity!

And then Lena came into the picture.

Until that moment I was more or less okay with Warner. Yes, I was very confused, but I was ready to give Mafi benefit of the doubt. He lost his father and was dealing with grieve. We all can act out of character in the face of a tragedy or drastic changes.

“Why do you keep pressing this? Who cares if I’ve been with other women? They meant nothing to me—”

And there I felt in my guts, I’m not gonna like what next to come.

Haider was exhibiting suicidal tendencies. Self-harming. And I got really scared. I called Warner because I knew Haider would listen to him.” She shakes her head. “Warner didn’t say a word. He just got on a plane. And he stayed with us for a couple of weeks. I don’t know what he said to Haider,” she says. “I don’t know what he did or how he got him through it, but”—she looks off into the distance, shrugs—“it’s hard to forget something like that.

Oh, so Warner's words about how he never had any real interactions with anyone before Juliette were bullshit. About how he doesn’t understand people were also bullshit. About how Juliette was the first person who was not afraid to speak with him freely were also bullshit. Because all of the sudden he can help someone heavily depressed. Someone with suicide tendencies? Someone who harms himself? And now he has an ex-girlfriend who’s ready to beat the fuck out of him and calls him mean words (she clearly doesn’t fear him)?

Now his entire character in the first trilogy doesn’t make any sense. And his excuses don’t make any sense.

Bravo, Mafi! Bravo! This was the fastest character assassination I’ve ever seen.

She says that Lena was in love with him—really in love with him—but that Warner broke her heart, that he never treated her with any real affection and she’s hated him for it.

Oh, so he’s not only stupid and absolutely useless, he’s a fuckboy. And if there’s one thing I HATE, it’s fuckboys.

There’s a big-big-big difference between someone who has one-night-stands and THIS SHIT:

“You’re upset, I understand. But it’s not my fault you feel this way. I don’t love you. I never have. And I never led you to believe I did.”

“She and I,” he says, “it was—we were nothing. It was a relationship of convenience and basic companionship. It meant nothing to me. Truly,” he says, “you have to know—if I never said anything about her it was only because I never thought about her long enough to even consider mentioning it.”

“It wasn’t like that. It wasn’t two years of anything serious. It wasn’t even two years of continuous communication.” He sighs. “She lives in Europe, love. We saw each other briefly and infrequently. It was purely physical. It wasn’t a real relationship—”

So he despised her but used her for sex? WOW. Cool. He can go and trip over a fucking knife or fall out of the window for all I care.

“Everything in my life was different before I met you,” he says. “I was lost and all alone. I never cared for anyone. I never wanted to get close to anyone. I’ve never—you were the first person to ever—”

And how exactly he was able to help Haider with his self-harm then??? If he didn’t CaRe for anyone before Juliette?

This was the moment when Warner from original trilogy died in agony.

Okay, let’s see real quick what we have in Defy Me:

He thinks about escape but never really does anything to escape;

(anderson is the one who opens his cell;

he stands in front of a guy who murdered his mother and doesn’t even think about her, yeah I can see how important she was for him;

/again, shatter-me Warner would probably demanded answers, but not walking dildo, walking dildo cares only about Juliette. his excuse in ignite me 'i did it all for my mom' doesn't make any sense now, because he actually doesn't give a flying fuck about her/

he gets captures one minute after he “kills” Anderson;

nazeera is the one who gets him out of there;

super soldier taught his whole life how to survive, everyone. useless as fuck)

He doesn’t know anything about jewelry.

(super ooc, i know what Mafi was trying to do here: she tried ‘sherlock holmes doesn’t know that earth revolves around the sun’ thing Arthur Conan Doyle did, but the problem is WARNER IS A FASHIONISTA, or he was).

He wants to get married because…???

He sees a woman who tried to kill Juliette and he’s a-okay with staying at her place, because she said that it was actually a message (???).

Castle is still alive.

Nazeera who knew all this time about Anderson and was working for him is also alive and well.

Oh and he doesn’t care about Anderson being alive and being a real threat to Juliette (fucking her is more important for him, as usual).

His complete disregard for Juliette’s safety only makes me hate him more with every new book.

Imagine me.

First and foremost: don’t call imagine-me Warner shatter-me Warner. Don’t insult shatter-me Warner like that. With shatter-me Warner Anderson would have to try very hard to get to Juliette. It would be ‘Warner made 100 back-up plans, but Anderson knew him too well and created 101 plan and that’s how he managed to win’ kind of situations.

But walking dildo is too busy feeling sorry for himself (as usual), he just sits by her bed FOR TWO FUCKING DAYS, doing absolutely NOTHING to make sure she’ll be safe.

Nooira says that Juliette should be killed and she’s still alive for some reason.

He’s entire persona is that he’s rude to people (but not bbc’s sherlock holmes kind of rude, when he’s unbearable dick but he’s actually smart and really gets shit done, so we can tolerate him). He’s just rude.

He doesn't care about Adam or James's wellbeing (remember Ignite me Warner who really wanted a family? Yeah that's him now).

But he has gruppies now, because he’s hot and everyone in the sanctuary wants to fuck him.

Oh and he proposed to Juliette. HE PROPOSED. THEY ENGAGED! DO YOU HEAR ME??? THEY GONNA BE MARRIED! HE PROPOSED TO HER! AND SHE SAID YES! THEY GONNA MERRY!

Because god fucking forbid we forget about it.

(mafi really thinks that her readers have the mental capacity of a golden fish, huh?)

I lost count how many times walking dildo implies that he's gonna kill himself if Juliette is not with him (disgusting).

Then our walking dildo cures Juliette by the power of petting (it’s not power of love, lads and gents; you want to see love go watch defenders on netflix; mafi already copypasted elektra’s arch from that show into imagine-me Juliette, you can do yourself a favor and see how this trope can be executed without borderline on sexual assault petting scene).

18-old girl marries a fucking sociopath believing he’s actually a good person.

(we all know how shit like this ends, people like that don't change; and this 'he's different with me cuz i'm very special and i'm gonna teach him the right way' it's really harmful message considering that the audience of those books are mostly teenage girls).

Trust me, there's nothing revolutionary in this trope, it's tale as old as time.

Here's the thing, good written character always defined by connection to other people: friend, lovers, enemies, family, foes, acquaintances, even some random strangers. It's the easiest way to establish what kind of person they are.

Walking dildo doesn't have any of that because all of his "character" revolves around Juliette. He's not a person anymore. By the end of Imagine me he doesn't have friends (his relationships with Kenji or Haider non-existent), no family connections (no talks with Adam or James), even enemies or foes or even people that don't like him (because everyone wants to fuck him, because being hot is his only character trait).

His only family and friend is Juliette. And you know what? It's fucking boring, overdone and lazy as fuck. And insulting to the character he once was.

No redemption arch, no character arch at all.

Happy end.

#i'm gonna pretend that second trilogy doesn't exist #long-ass post #shatter me series #shatter me #aaron warner #nazeera ibrahim #kenji kishimoto #paris anderson #juliette ferrars #eff writes #meta #restore me #defy me #imagine me #fantasy books #tahereh mafi #character analysis

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belliesandburps · 3 years ago

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Not gonna lie, I really love the way Cadmus’ design has evolved over the years, largely because @calico807 has continued to do really excellent work every single time I’ve commissioned her.

The original green tanktop look was back when I originally made some random kink character who also happened to be a bad boy, hence his piercings. And his ability to shift into his Saurian form was so he could do same size vore if the situation called for it. There wasn’t as much thought put into the look beyond I wanted some bad guy who didn’t care one way or the other, so long as he got paid. But once I realized he was a much larger villain in my series than I originally planned, I start re-evaluating a few things and quickly realized that his duds felt too generic. Plus, I wanted Cadmus to have more style to him, so I swapped a few things out. I liked the pants and the hairstyle / piercings, but decided to show off his muscles a little bit more with a tighter shirt, longer boots to give him sort of a “swashbuckling” vibe, and a leather jacket because style.

And his combat gear keeps a lot of what I like about the leather bad boy look, but also reinforces that he’s an assassin and not to be taken lightly. I didn’t realize until after I colored him in that some might think he resembles Bane from Dark Knight Rises, but hey, that was my favorite of the Nolan Trilogy, so I’m okay with that. ‘XD

It’s also a nice contrast to his younger days within the Saurian Brotherhood. One looks more “official” and clean, very organized and simple, while the other has more of a makeshift feel to it, and looks decidedly deadlier. Which isn’t lost when his gear is torn up in his final fight and he’s just itching for more blood, even if a lot of it is his.

I’m thinking I might actually revamp his Saurian look too for a number of reasons. Primarily because Cadmus makes it a point to NOT shift into his Saurian form, and when I get to writing his chapters in HISS, I don’t see him shifting more than once or twice throughout his entire stint as “dragon-tier villain.” And as such, I want his Saurian look to feel a little more dangerous. And because I’m kinda “shrinking” the Saurians so their doesn’t get all torn up when they shift, he’ll still be in his combat duds. I’m gonna do a lot of sketch-ups on that look before I decide on one and make it official with a commission.

This is part of why I adore writing. Characters can always go on paths you never expected they would, and thinking up designs that fit is just part f the fun. :P

#oc ramblings #hiss #cadmus #mamoru #saurian #my oc's #original character #villain #calico807 #character design #not my artwork #my coloring #ninja #assassin #mercenary

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queen-ofsunflowers · 4 years ago

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DadWorth AU: Part 1 (Pre-Trilogy)

I’ve been thinking about that one post I made a while ago about Edgeworth becoming Kay’s legal guardian after Turnabout Reminiscence, so here’s an outline of what happens with that.

| Part 2 >

So, it all starts with Edgeworth going to actually check if Kay was alright after Reminiscence and the whole gunshot. And then he gets an idea in the back of his mind to take her in. He has no idea why he does this, but its mostly because he sees himself in Kay and doesn’t want her to go through what he did (something he will never admit)

He consults Badd about this. Although there is an initial back and forth between the two, Badd eventually does agree that he should take custody of her. (He would do himself, but Yew is still out there, and he’s afraid that she would go after Kay if she was with him. Yew would never suspect that Kay would be with Edgeworth.) The only condition on Edgeworth’s part is that Badd does whatever it takes to keep von Karma from finding out about it.

If von Karma finds out, Miles isn’t sure what he’s going to do to him or to Kay. (Miles is terrified of von Karma, but will never admit it... yet.) Badd agrees to keep it under wraps and helps him through with the process. So, Edgeworth becomes Kay’s official guardian.

The only ones who know that Edgeworth is Kay’s guardian initially are Badd and Gumshoe -- the latter proving to be very helpful because Miles is new at this and has no idea what to do, and Gumshoe is ridiculously good with kids.

Franziska eventually does find out and teases Miles for it. He makes her swear to not tell her father about this, and after some deliberation, she agrees.

So, Franziska becomes cool Aunt Fran (though she’s more like an older sister than an aunt, but the name stuck.). She teaches Kay how to speak German on the side.

Kay becomes a little more interested in law than canonically thanks to being surrounded by lawyers and detectives. She gets an interest in trials, and asks Miles if she can come and see his when she learns he’s finally gonna get to stand in the courtroom. He agrees, under the condition that Kay both finish her homework and get her room cleaned.

Miles doesn’t expect her to actually be able to fulfill her end of the deal. But alas, she does. He doesn’t mind... at first. Because as we all know, that first case does not end well. At all. Because its Turnabout Beginnings.

Edgeworth freaks out again after calming down from what just happened, because Kay saw all of that. So, he goes out to find her. Luckily, Kay is with Gumshoe -- he kept her from seeing what had happened to Fawles. Miles is surprised that Kay turns to comfort him when she sees that he was scared. (something that he will deny to this day), but this is also the first time that Miles feels any sort of paternal instinct, and something slowly starts to awaken.

keep in mind, though: what Kay sees Mia do out there to help Fawles does stick with her a little bit. Gumshoe explains that’s what defense attorneys are supposed to do. They’re not all like Yew. Under Miles’s nose, Kay does start to idolize Mia after reading about her case the following year, and starts to follow her career a bit.

Miles eventually does decide that Kay needs a few friends her own age when Gumshoe brings up that she isn’t doing very well at that in school. And then he learns that another detective has a younger sister around Kay’s age who is also having trouble making friends.

Needless to say, with two people conspiring together, Kay becomes rather good friends with Ema Skye -- much to Miles’ and Lana’s relief. ...until they get into all sorts of trouble, and there is a little bit of regret. But its better than the alternative.

Fast forward a little bit and it’s 2015. Ema and Lana invite Kay out to dinner, and Miles agrees since he’s busy himself (the only condition is that Kay gets her homework done before hand, which is the usual condition that Kay has to agree to before she goes out anywhere, so to her it’s not a big deal.)

And then Miles gets a call from Lana later that night that has him booking it to criminal affairs.

Yeah... Kay’s involved in SL-9. She was there with Ema when she was attacked. Both girls come out unhurt -- thank god -- but it still scared Miles half to death. This is why Miles takes the case -- because of what happened to Kay. It’s something that he never clarifies on, which catches the attention of von Karma. Miles was insistent on the matter, and gave no explanation why whatsoever. So he’s careful. A little too much. The whole Demon Prosecutor stuff starts, and all the rumors surrounding Edgeworth also begin to make their appearance.

Miles doing his best to throw himself into his work to keep von Karma’s eye off of him puts a strain on his relationship with Kay. He does what little he can, but it’s hard when he’s overly stressed by multiple outside forces. Kay keeps pushing, but it does little to actually break that wall. Edgeworth eventually does start to open back up, but it’s not enough,

Things are fine -- even if they are a little bit more distant -- between Edgeworth and Kay from there on. For the next year and a half, nothing really changes. Kay keeps trying, and Edgeworth’s affection dwindles as he becomes more jaded due to the media and von Karma’s involvement in his career.

Change comes about when Kay starts high school and Miles gets a new case on his desk that involves an old name that he hadn’t heard in years.

And that takes us into Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney.

I want to go on with this into the games and those events, as well as the ripple effect this causes with the Investigation games. I have a lot of ideas in mind. This is just an outline, so I apologize if things don’t make sense either.

I’m just thinking about this a lot and want to share ideas.

#ace attorney #ace attorney au #miles edgeworth #kay faraday #dadworth au #tyrell badd #dick gumshoe #lana skye #ema skye #queen speaks #kay edgeworth au #franziska von karma #manfred von karma #he fucks everything up

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redheadedteatotaler · 4 years ago

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Today’s news section is going to be a little bit different. The video links will revolve around a subject that doesn’t actually have anything to do with Gina, but the reactors that support her. There’s been some bullshit going on between the Star Wars sjw’s and the Pro Gina reactors I follow and use for news. I want to highlight it so that the issue comes straight from the horses mouth, and there’s no question why I continue to follow them.

In other news, I’ve finally come up with header graphics that I’m proud of, and intend to keep for awhile, so the only changes from this point out would be deciding to go with a whole new look, which I do not plan to do anytime soon.

I’m gonna start off with Jeremy from Geeks + Gamers. Believe it or not, this entire thing started because of the sjw’s taking these guys dislike of the sequel trilogy and using it to claim racism. That somehow they used their hate to attack the sequel trilogy and won.

youtube

He also did a piece called Geeks + Gamers Exposed, The Untold Truth I encourage you to watch this, as it shows exactly how diverse they are, and this piece will destroy any narrative against them you might have seen/read.

youtube

Ryan at RK Outpost also weighed in on the hit piece.

youtube

Yellowflash 2 takes a look at the issue, and shows just exactly how many reactors the mob is trying to have cancelled.

youtube

And probably my favorite video over the entire ordeal comes from someone who isn’t being cancelled, but who stands beside those who are. Hijabi Gamer.

youtube

This comment, taken from the responses to the reaction by Geeks + Gamers also sums everything up nicely.

The Babylon Bee....a very well known satrical blog, takes a look at Gina and Counter Culture in their signature style.

To Prove Cancel Culture Doesn’t Exist, Disney Execs Fires Actress Who Condemns Cancel Culture

Bounding Into Comics has a couple of articles of interest today.

Funko Ends Production of Cara Dune Pops

Twitter Manipulating Likes on Gina’s Account

Today’s images come from 16 Carano Workout Images To Make You Sweat There are several more than these, these were just my favorites.

So, someone decided to try and upload another video to the official Star Wars Youtube page after the Shareholder’s Meeting, figuring things would cool off. As usual, they were wrong. As of 1:27am CDT this is the latest ratio:

But their lack of sharing new videos hasn’t deterred Gina’s supporters. They simply switched gears and launched a second offensive. On the Disney+ channel.

#gina carano #the carano files

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blytheblog · 4 years ago

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For the star wars asks-

6, 10, 13, 30, 33, 40

Lots of questions, yay!!!

6 Do you have any ships?

I've always shipped FROM DAY 1 between Kanan and Hera (I don't remember the name of the ship sorry). I mean, they were so beautiful, and finally when we had something real they decided to kill Kanan. Stop playing with my feelings like this 😭

Also, I always loved Obitine, and the way it ended between them makes me cry everytime 🥺🥺

10 Which character do you feel is most like you?

Well, this is tough. I've always seen myself as a mixture of different characters. I see myself as a mixture of Anakin, Obi-Wan and Fives. This is strange, and a bit complicated to explain, but I'm gonna try lol. Anakin because sometimes I understand his struggles to defend the ones he loves and cares most, I behave similarly. I'd do anything for the people I love, unless they betray my loyalty and my love. Obi-Wan because I always try to have an open minded view of what happens around me, and also because he stays loyal to his views no matter what, and I always am true to my thoughts all the same. And Fives because I try to respect the rules as long as they are equal and fair, just like him, and protest if they're wrong. But I could go on because sometimes I feel close to many other characters but I will stop here.

13 Would you want to be a Force user?

Hell yeah! Being a Force user would probably make things easier 😂 it would be so cool to move objects without having to move too much (I'm a lazy person yes),

or to yeet people,

or to convince them to do what I ask with a mind trick,

or to force choke people when they deserve it.

But I guess Obi-Wan wouldn't be too proud about this last thing.

30 Do you have any headcanons?

Personally, I don't have any. I haven't read many fics recently and I haven't thought of anything. 🤔

33 Which movie have you watched the most?

This is easy. The entire original trilogy and Revenge of the Sith. These are the movies I've watched the most. I've watched ANH, ESB and ROTJ like 4 or 5 times, and ROTS 3 times. And yes, I cried every single time I've watched this last movie, and I cried every time I saw Darth Vader taking off his mask in front of Luke at the end of ROTJ. 🥺😭

40 If you could make your own Star Wars trilogy/series, what would it be about?

I like this question. If I would have been asked this question two years ago, I would have probably answered a series about Obi-Wan ♥️ But now it's officially in the making, so I thought about other two ideas that I've always would have loved to see more.

I would make a series about Qui-gon and Obi-Wan's adventures of when Obi-Wan was a Padawan. I'm reading the Jedi Apprentice series of books, and I must say that I would love to see some of these missions in a series. It would give us more about Qui-gon and Obi-Wan's relationship back in the days, before TPM. I loved Qui-gon, and I would like to see more of him and Obi-Wan as a Padawan 🥺

Another idea I was thinking is that I would love to see the years that go after ROTJ and TFA. I would love to see Luke training a new generation of Jedi, and Han and Leia with Ben. It probably would help me understand better how Luke has fallen in that way in the sequel movies.

Thanks for the questions 🤗♥️

Here is the original post with the questions.

#i has fun with these questions #keep asking #star wars #the clone wars #obi wan kenobi #ewan mcgregor #anakin skywalker #gifs #asks #send asks #hayden christensen #darth maul #kanan and hera #obitine #general grievous #General clanka

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twdmusicboxmystery · 4 years ago

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Insights From the Talk Dead to Me Podcast

Okay, I teased everyone over the weekend that I’d have a lot to talk about today, and here it is. There was SO much interesting information in this podcast.

New Mexico Symbolism

TD isn’t by far the only ones to connect the New Mexico symbolism. On the podcast, they talked extensively about that and about how it will probably play into the sequel. One theory they had (and I hope they’re wrong) is that they think Aaron will get Rick’s comic book death. They think it would mess with Daryl’s head so bad, it would “run him out of town.”

Personally, I don’t think Daryl would leave JUST because Aaron died. For all the reasons many of us have already talked about (him taking care of Judith and RJ, etc). If anything, I think it would make him want to stay more and look after Gracie as well. I really don’t want Aaron to die, though. Unfortunately, it would make sense for him to die, what with him being such a heavy Beth proxy so often, but I’d really like him and Beth to meet first. Just my head canon, but I can’t help it. And they may have a point about Rick’s CB death, given that Aaron has already lost his arm.

Why Extended Seasons Instead of Just Doing S12?

You know how I keep saying it’s weird that they’re doing this massively extended S11 rather than just breaking it into S11 and S12? Yeah, this podcast told me why, and it makes perfect sense. In a nutshell: many of the actors’ contracts expire after S11. AMC doesn’t want to renegotiate everyone’s contract for only one season.

And that’s something I’m positive has changed. If they were going to season 15, they would have just renegotiated the contracts, no problem. But since they’ve decided to end it now, it would have been WAY more inconvenient. And the people on the podcast made a good point, saying that if the actors’ agents find out the show REALLY NEEDS them for one final season, they’re gonna come back with astronomical demands. And given the state of the world, covid, etc., those kinds of monetary demands really could tank the final season. So, I’m glad to know that. It makes tons of sense.

Let’s Talk AMC’s Social Media Practices

So, several of these people who do the podcast correspond with AMC regularly for social media reasons. They talked about how they’ll often press the AMC representatives they talk to for more information. For the most part, they get the same, vague promises we all get from Gimple. “We’re working on a script.” Or the classic, “I don’t know any more than you,” crap. But these podcasters said things might have changed logistically with the Rick Grimes films as well. You know how back when Rick left, Gimple said they’d be doing a 3-film trilogy? Well, apparently, people have begun to notice that ever since then, and especially since CoVid, any time anyone close to the shows references the Rick Grimes films, they talk about them in the singular, not the plural. The Rick Grimes FILM, not the Rick Grimes films. And the podcasters think it’s because the show is playing it by ear. Due, again, to financial concerns, maybe they’ll just make one film and see how well it’s received before deciding to make another. Obviously, I disagree with that idea. I do think things might have changed, the same as them ending the series after S11, in that they might use something other than films to continue Rick’s story. But I think they have a specific story to tell and they’re going to tell it, one way or the other.

I also think they got a bigger backlash about the films than they were expecting. People really threw tantrums about the idea of having to pay money to see it in the theaters. People are just used to getting it free on TV, and I think the reaction took tptb by surprise. Anyway, now with CoVid, and theater attendance WAY down, and heaven only knows where we’ll be in a year, it wouldn’t surprise me if AMC and Gimple are rethinking that tactic. Maybe they’ll only do one film and then segue Rick into another series. Either his own, or the Daryl/Carol one. Kirkman ended the comics in the summer of 2019. That was AFTER Rick’s last episode. So I’m willing to bet that all the changes and shuffling started as soon as the comics ended. However it happens, it does show that more than one thing is being shuffled behind the scenes due to CoVid. But listening to this gave me a huge epiphany that I became illogically excited about, lol. It was nothing they said, but just me thinking through the implications of all of this. I’ve always believed Rick would return in some way. And even though I’d be totally cool with him having a reunion with his kids in one of the Rick Grimes films or whatever, I’ve always had a sense that he would return to the series, despite them telling us he wouldn’t. Well, as I said yesterday, the idea of him returning seems much less likely now that we know they’re ending after S11. But…something occurred to me. Gimple has adamantly said Rick won’t return to the TWD series. He’s never said anything about him not moving to any spinoffs. *mic drop*

Thoughts About the Daryl/Carol Spinoff

Nothing too groundbreaking here, but they did say that the Donnie shippers are super frustrated, which I’m sure is true. They said the Caryl shippers are happy, but not too over-the-top happy about it. (Their words. I really couldn’t say whether that’s true or not.)

They also said that, given how much the show has told us there won’t be romance between them, it will either be the ultimate reward for the Carylers (if they get together romantically) or the ultimate tease (if they don’t).

So, my point is that, outside the hardcore shippers at least, most of the fandom isn’t really thinking this is going to be a romance thing with Carol and Daryl. And because of that, they’re wondering where the show could possibly go with Daryl and Carol. Like, they’ve explored their relationship as far as they can and they’re questioning whether this series revolving around them will be worth watching.

Now, if we didn’t know what we know or hadn’t theorized what we have, I would agree whole-heartedly with that. There has to be more to this spinoff than just Daryl and Carol running around killing zombies together. Even the GA is a little confused about this and thinks there must be more to the story. And, you know, there will be.

Coda Replay (And We Didn’t Even Realize It!)

This came together for me from multiple sources. I have an Ask in my inbox that I haven’t answered yet. It’s from a Nonny who obviously wrote in when the big news broke. He/she says that AMC announced the end of the series and the spin off…and then deleted the post. I wasn’t sure what to make of that, because it doesn’t seem to me like anything’s been deleted. At least on Twitter, the post with the press release and the announcement is still pinned to the top of the account. And probably different click bait sites have reported on it. So they don’t seem to be trying to hide it. I didn’t really know what to make of that, except maybe one of the posts was deleted for logistical reasons (typo or something) and then reposted, and the Nonny just thought it was suspicious when really, it wasn’t. Then I listened to this podcast. And guess what? One of the clickbait sites that was slated to give the announcement, IGN, posted it like two hours early…and then deleted their post.

One of the women they talked to used to be a social media manager for AMC. She isn’t anymore, but she worked for AMC for several years. And they asked her about the “leak.” She said that she felt badly for the company that leaked it early. She said when there’s a big announcement like this, there are dozens, maybe hundreds, of moving pieces behind the scenes. Basically, AMC has a whole network that they coordinate to release the news all at the same time. So, it didn’t surprise her that someone, every so often, messes it up and releases it early. It’s just a lot people and moving parts to keep track of. So like maybe, if they were supposed to post the announcement at 8am central time, maybe they posted it at 8 their time, which was too early. That sort of thing. And okay, I guess that makes sense. But there’s just one problem with that explanation. The EXACT same thing happened with this announcement as happened with Beth’s fate in Coda. One of the companies released it too early.

(I’m sure this is the post Nonny means that was deleted: because it was released too early.)

That’s why, the day the news of the show ending broke, people were talking about “rumors” of TWD ending before the official announcement was made. Between that, and all the references we’ve seen (‘bringing characters back from the dead,’ and ‘the six episode coda,’) I just don’t think I can believe in good faith that this was a coincidence.

A little more about AMC social media accounts.

This just confirms what we’ve suspected for years. This woman said she was one of many social media managers. But all that means is that she “managed” several of AMC’s social media accounts. As in, she posted on them and interacts with fans and comments.

She in no way, shape, or form had any say about what was posted or when. She specifically said that such things were WAY above her paygrade. She suspects that such decisions went all the way up to Gimple and Kang. Like there’s someone who follows them around, and when one of them says something needs to be posted, that person texts all the social media managers and they post it. Boom. The writers 100% control what goes out on social media. What it is, what graphics to use, how it’s worded. Everything. #TDforthewin!

She also said that if someone leaks the news early, everything is reconfigured and they quickly shore up to protect the narrative and make sure everything is correct and appropriate. Very interesting.

He also asked her if she thought IGN did it intentionally or on accident. She was obviously being careful not to throw too much shade, but you could tell she definitely thought it might have been done intentionally. Oh, and also? The podcast guy said he knew about the leak because he had to wait until a certain time (I want to say 8:30 am, but I don’t know which time zone) before he posted about it. AMC told him what time and he made sure not to sleep in so he wouldn’t miss it, but he logged on and people already knew because of the leak.

So once again, even this podcast, who claims not to be directly affiliated with AMC (even though they totally are) is getting posts, directions, etc. from AMC. And that’s important with what I’m about to tell you, because the people on this podcast have definitely mentioned Beth in suspicious contexts more than once. And this podcast was the farthest thing from an exception.

Talking About Beth Randomly

That leads me to my final and the biggest thing that stuck out to me about this podcast. Let me first say that I generally like the podcasters and their attitudes toward the show. For one thing, none of them are pro-Caryl. Most of them like Carol all right, but don’t want her and Daryl together romantically. Obviously, I like that.

Unfortunately, they were kinda being punks about Beth in this episode. They went on a little TD-bashing session. As I said the other day, they didn’t mention TD by name or anything, but it was more of a “did you know there are people out there who think Beth is alive?” kind of thing. And they were being really sarcastic about what they thought about that. But the entire discussion still felt SUPER suspicious to me. They were talking about the OTHER spinoff. Not the Daryl/Carol one, but the “Tales of the Walking Dead” one where they’ll tell the back story of deceased characters. One of them asked who the others would like to see back stories of. Out of nowhere, one of them yelled, “Beth!” Seriously. Out. Of. Freakin. Nowhere. And then they basically started making fun of TDers. They talked about how there really are people out there who think she’s still alive. Then one of them said “those people” think that Beth had a twin sister we never knew about and she’s the one who got shot and Beth is still secretly alive. I had to chuckle and shake my head at that. Maybe there’s someone, somewhere in the fandom who thinks that, but I’ve never even heard anyone argue that before. Have you? He then called people who believe that a great big pile of stupid. So yeah, obviously they were being punks. But the conversation about Beth went on and on. One of them said they hoped AMC did a Beth back story in that spin off series, just to mess with the heads of the people who think she’s still alive. And then someone else replied that she doesn’t have a back story to tell because we know it all already: farm, prison, Grady. (I’m sorry; who’s one big pile of stupid to NOT notice the missing 17 days in S5?) Even though they were basically laughing at us, it just felt really deliberate and contrived. And then, one of the women says, “I hope she shows up in The World Beyond.” Seriously? After that, they finally kind of went, “Anyway…” and moved on. But they didn’t even mention any other names in answer to the question about who else they wanted to see back stories for in that second spin off. They ONLY talked about Beth. I siriusly sat there with my jaw hanging open because again, it just came out of nowhere, and they mentioned her—extensively—in conjunction with BOTH spinoffs AND threw in TWB. Just saying.

You know how I said earlier that they claim not to be affiliated with AMC, though they totally are? Well, technically these people are part of Skybound. (Upper left corner of the picture below.) So in that way, they aren’t directly AMC. But we all know Skybound has posted MANY suspicious things about Beth over the years. And as I established above, they’re definitely being fed what to post by AMC.

So I feel like that applies here as well. It’s almost like AMC told them to mention Beth in some way, even if it was by way of making fun of people who think she’s alive. So they found a way to bring her up in conversation. And hey, maybe these podcasters really don’t know about Beth’s return. Maybe they think AMC wants them to make fun of or dismiss the idea of her return. But either way, they contrived a way to talk about her, and they would only have done that if AMC told them to. Okay, I’ll shut up, now. That podcast just totally rocked my world. Thoughts?

#beth greene #beth greene lives #beth is alive #beth is coming #td theory #td theories #team delusional #team defiance #beth is almost here #bethyl

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lesbianmarth · 5 years ago

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it’s been a while since i posted about aa but i just finished soj in its entirety tonight. here’s my new list so far

i still have to give thoughts on cases 4 5 and dlc so that’ll be under a cut. spoilers!

6-4: this was such a filler case, almost shamefully so. i don’t know why they thought they could manage to do this in the 4th case when every game with 5 cases has been pretty consistent about making the 4th case plot relevant, sometimes literally just a preamble to case 5. so yeah i think this one was kinda ass

the two things it had going for it: one, athena. in 6-2 i actually got confused about why i ever liked her, because in that case she felt like she was just acting the part of the Peppy Teen Girl With a Rowdy Streak that makes up almost every assistant character. But then as SOON as she started bantering with Simon in 6-4 i was like “oh, THAT’S why i liked her!” was nice to take control of her again.

two, uendo toneido. while i don’t think you can say the DID was portrayed with quite the necessary respect or kindness, it was handled better than i’ve seen other media handle it-- at least it’s not completely demonized. other people have written more on that in better detail so i’m not really the judge, but the basic point is that this witness was mad fun to read, and even the dumb jokes like the changing number of floor cushions were entertaining. thus why this case is in the “hard carried by one side character” tier.

especially since there was like nothing else going on. no connection to the main plot, only two other characters besides uendo, and for some reason the clown tits girl was here instead of the magic show case (and to be honest, she wasn’t enjoyable for me even BEFORE she did the standard aa female villain thing and changed her speech pattern as soon as she fell under suspicion). just a weird, nothing case stuck right around the point aa games usually enter endgame. And especially weird because...

6-5 part 1: inexplicably there are two separate cases in the final chapter and each gets one day of investigation and trial. such a weird setup, and it really shouldn’t work... but i think it kinda barely does. barely. it would still have been better to split it into case 4 and case 5 though.

i have a hard time articulating much on the first case bc it sort of blends together for me. the main thing is that the concept of it being a civil case where apollo and phoenix face off is really good. it was a good change of pace, even though you knew it was gonna be a murder somehow anyway. sarge was reasonably nice, i guess, paul atishon had some good animations and quirks (my favorite being when he tries to just walk away from the stand to avoid answering a question), and the logic of the actual murder was good enough.

but i especially got those strong “oh this is a FINAL case!” vibes during the segment in the cave, and that added so much to it even if not much of it was relevant in the first half of the case. the adventure feel reminded me of some of the (out of context bc i still havent played it) scenes i know from 3-5, which is a good association to invoke imo. and it did a lot to give apollo and dhurke time to bond.

speaking of which, dhurke, holy shit. what a KING. i don’t think i’ve ever liked a dad character in ace attorney this much. he’s so genuine and like down to earth that it’s impossible not to start liking him and believe how much he cares for his sons. the bit where he rescued apollo from the cave flood... i felt it in my heart

6-5 part 2: let me just get this out of the way: ga’ran sucks. her design after she goes full evil is so bad, she’s so malicious that it’s immediately obvious she’s going to be the culprit, her breakdown is ridiculous and just embarrassing to watch, and inga had already established way more charisma as a villain when he did the “those were orders of execution actually” bit in 6-3. with that said,

i actually liked it for the most part. the spirit channeling stuff was excellent imo-- they probably use it to similar or greater effect in 3-5 but as someone who again has not played that, i was surprised and almost impressed by how well it was applied. maya was relevant for something! it feels like it’s been ages!

rayfa was a little underutilized, i think-- her moment of determination where she stops letting ga’ran have control over her was alright but it fell flat bc it didn’t have any weight during the moment. i kept hoping she would like, wordlessly take of her shawl and do the little verbal preamble to the divination seance while ga’ran kept yelling at her to stop, but no, the script can’t be good like that, i guess. and since she didn’t get to be the investigation assistant for long, none of her charm in that role carried through.

but DHURKE!! oh my god! in a game almost devoid of emotional impact, his involvement in this case really hit. the way they painstakingly animated his death, the scene where he makes a promise with maya, and then the weight of knowing in hindsight that everything he did in the first part of the case was after he’d already died and just wanted to see his son again before passing on for real....... it hurt. i felt something during that section. this case would also be hard carried by him if not for the fact that i really liked the murder bits.

amara was good too--liked how they made her suspiciously serene and accentuated it with the lightning strikes to make her look like a hidden murderer character about to reveal herself, only to walk it back and confirm she was being forced to act that way. i thought it worked. nahyuta was boring though, i’m sorry-- i get the motivation with having to be a bastard bc his sister and mom were basically held hostage, but the only time i found him compelling in that mess was the bit where he removed his one fingerless glove and revealed he still has the dragon tattoo. that was it. athena was also completely unused the whole case (not even a single mood matrix? really?) and trucy one again went without any role of importance.

the ending also... yknow, a friend said they had to end it this way bc they never figured out what they were going to do with apollo (since following up on what they started in aa4 clearly wasn’t an option???) and just threw him on a bus to get rid of him. i agree with that-- he really feels thrown to the side, and with that i think trucy’s officially stranded with no hope of any character advancement. and the way they ended the game with phoenix and lamiroir deciding “yeah, maybe NOW we should finally tell those two they’re related” honestly felt insulting lol

but maybe the dlc case will let things go out on a high note...?!

6-6: it was okay.

it would’ve worked pretty well as a filler case in an older aa-- honestly i think it’d be one of the better filler cases, certainly worth replacing the shitty ones like 2-3 or 3-3 or, hey, 6-4. but whether i’d say it was worth paying for... eh.

the time travel conceit was done well enough, i think. the way they tied it back to sorin and pierce’s backstories was nice, and the twist about having two receptions was good, although they needed to treat that as a real twist with much more gravity. when the truth comes out it just feels like “oh of course that’s what happened” rather than a big surprise worthy of the Confessing the Truth theme. it’s sort of important because the case becomes a lot less interesting when you take out the time travel element.

far as characters are concerned, i think they needed more side characters to sell the whole thing-- another sprocket family member or another servant of the household. it felt a little limited-- sorin and pierce are pretty good witnesses and i like their quirks and their secrets, but the only alive woman (ellen) has very few traits and no connection to the deeper story of the case, so she falls really flat. the old aa characters didn’t add much- maya and edgeworth were just there for fanservice, ema didn’t get to do much other than acknowledge for the first time in years that she’s a big edgeworth fan, and larry is annoying as hell like he always is.

and oh my god i actually forgot while i was writing that, how they put in athena and trucy but only used them for brief slapstick where trucy would try to set athena on fire and shit. again-- no mood matrix? couldn’t even try once to fit those two characters into something?

i did like pierce’s transformation into his surgeon form though-- that was really cool. loved him doing surgery on a robot, taking xrays of the lawyers, and his breakdown was fantastic-- he would make a really good culprit if they didn’t whiff the last bit of pathos at the end. i don’t think he should’ve been aiming for revenge on sorin; it would have hurt much more if he was still loyal to the guy and never intended for him to be in danger, but the final “why’d you do it?” talk in the trial just felt flat and one-note, much like the one in 6-4.

... so that’s spirit of justice! not a super positive experience but i’m happy to say it’s done. as much as i want to go and replay dgs, i think when i do go back to ace attorney i’ll be replaying the trilogy for the first time since high school

#ace attorney #aa playthrough

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heyyyharry · 5 years ago

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Chapter 9: Three’s A Crowd

(from the Flatmate Trilogy: Two Hearts, One Home)

…in which Harry learns a big lesson, and Y/N cannot tolerate his assistant.

Word count: 6.4k

Chapter 8: The Assistant - Y/N helps out a friend, and Harry also helps out a “friend”.

Wattpad link

"Hi, I'm Kierra. I'm here to see Harry."

Y/N was taken aback when the girl pushed right past her to enter her living room. They had never met officially, but the walls in this flat were thin. You couldn't pretend like you didn't know someone after you'd heard all the sounds they'd made during sex. Now Y/N couldn't even look at this girl without blushing.

"H-Harry's at a group study. He'll be back at five, I think," Y/N mumbled, eyes on Kierra who had made herself comfortable on the couch.

Idling for a moment at the door, Y/N decided that it'd be rude to retreat to her room, so she ended up sitting down with her flatmate's guest. She always got nervous around the girls Harry brought back to their place, probably because she'd never seen herself as their equal. They always had more than one thing she lacked, and the thought of not being good enough was intimidating to her. She was jealous of their beauty and their confidence, but she couldn't hate them. They weren't responsible for her insecurities.

That was why each time she met one of them, she subconsciously tried to look for at least one quality that she found pleasant about the girl. Only then would she feel slightly better about herself. It didn't always work though. Most of the girls Harry had brought home were mean to Y/N. She couldn't figure out why, but they probably assumed Harry treated her differently because...he liked her. Oh, she could only wish. Deep down, she had always known he treated her differently because she wasn't his type. He would never be interested in her sexually or even romantically.

"Those are cute," Kierra spoke, breaking Y/N's train of thoughts as she poined to the blue tie-dye window curtains. "They weren't here the last time I came over."

Smiling bashfully, Y/N tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and her hand quickly returned to her knees. "They...they're mine."

"You made them yourself?"

"Yeah, the ones in my room are purple, but Harry likes blue so..."

Kierra pressed her lips into a faint smile. The silence took over for a few seconds before she spoke again, "were you two friends before moving in together?"

"No." Y/N giggled. "We hadn't known each other until then. It's a long story but...Harry tells it better than me so you can ask him..."

"Can't. He doesn't like talking about himself." Kierra gave her a shrug.

Y/N could see it in the girl's eyes that she was disappointed. This gave her a different view on Kierra and those before her. Maybe they were equals after all. They wanted someone they could never have. Still, Y/N didn't know if she'd rather be herself or Kierra, to have him but never really have him, or to never get to have him at all. Either way, it probably hurt just the same.

Hugging her knees to her chest, Y/N sat in silence on the couch as her dreary eyes shifted between Niall and Layla.

"I am telling the truth," Niall said. "I've warned him and he didn't listen!"

Layla raised her voice, "warned him?! You should've stopped him?! Gosh, men are dumb!"

Y/N agreed, men were dumb. However, she'd better stay quiet because everything she said now would only add fuel to the fire. In this moment of chaos, ironically, she felt truly at peace. She watched her two friends keep on shouting. Their mouths were moving but they didn't make any sound. And they were in slow motion, almost like a music video without the music.

This took her back to her childhood years. Whenever her parents got into a fight right in front of her and her siblings, she would pretend that they were in a music video, so she wouldn't feel scared. Like she and Harry, her parents rarely fought. Her mother could be problematic yet her father loved that woman more than anything in the world. So Y/N hated whenever they raised their voices with each other. They claimed to be so in love but when things got bad, where did all the love go?

Now that she was older and wiser, she had learned that fighting didn't always go counter to love. Sometimes two people argued because they loved each other too much, and refused to let go even when it was the easy way out. Had it not been for those fights, her parents' marriage probably wouldn't have lasted this long. So maybe Y/N needed to be at home shouting at her husband, not hiding at her best friend's place like this.

"You should've told me everything! You're a liar just like Harry!"

"I'm nothing like Harry, I report everything to you! Who tells their wife about their co-worker getting hair extensions? I do!"

"Guys, I'm going home." Y/N's statement ended the argument in a heartbeat.

"You sure?" Layla asked in concern as Y/N rose from the couch.

"Yeah." Y/N nodded with a smile. "We'll be fine, don't worry."

Layla and Niall seemed doubtful of their friend's decision, still, they let her go. They walked her to their front door and kept reminding her not to throw a tantrum when she spoke to Harry. It was weird coming from someone as bad-tempered as Layla, but then they actually got a point. Y/N kept that advice in mind as she took a taxi home alone. She told herself to stay calm and think this through, for the spoken words could leave permanent damages. Still, a part of her wanted nothing more than to shout at him to release her frustration.

Soon she had arrived home. She took a deep breath before pulling out the key card from her pocket. But right before she could enter, the door swung open. Her husband burst out, frozen completely when he saw her face. He looked as if he'd seen a ghost. He was pallid, his eyes were round and expressionless, his mouth parted and his chin trembling. They exchanged a silent look before he spotted the barrel bag she was holding. She'd planned to spend one night away from him. And now she was glad she'd changed her mind.

Harry frantically grabbed her like she was the last thing in this world that could keep him sane. He panted the words "I'm sorry" into her neck, repeatedly and desperately. Maybe just a second ago, he'd thought his apology would never be accepted again. He'd thought that she'd left him for good.

Y/N hadn't seen him this scared since she returned the promise ring in that hotel in New York. And her heart ached just from thinking Harry wasn't afraid of anything, but losing her.

"Let's go inside and we'll talk," she said, pushing him away though she wanted nothing more than to stay in his arms right now. Her eyes were cold while his were filled with fear and anxiety.

He stepped back into their living room, watching her intensely to search for a sign that they would be okay. "Please hear me out," he said as she closed the door and put down the bag. "I can explain."

"Sure you can. You always have a lot to say, but never when you should."

Harry's eyes quickly shifted to the floor. It was funny how he had just asked for a chance to explain, and when he'd got it, he didn't know where to start.

"I almost stayed at Layla's tonight," Y/N went on, not wanting to waste their time by waiting for him. "Then I realized marriage didn't work that way, so I came back. And I want to hear everything from you. Niall has told me what he knew, and I've also made my own assumptions from the video. But now I want to hear your own version of the story."

"She was gonna send it to me," he finally spoke, his head hung low. "B-but she saved your name as Mrs. Styles so she sent it to you by accident."

"And you believe her?"

He didn't answer. That was how she knew he did. He believed what Kierra had told him.

"It seems to me that...you believe in everyone..." She said with a faint laugh. "Everyone. Except for me."

"No, I—"

"You didn't think I could handle it, was that you lied? Was that why I was always the last to know?"

Again, silence.

Despite all the things she'd told herself on the taxi ride home, she couldn't stay calm anymore.

"Why don't you say something?!" She screamed at him. She was furious. Still, he was just standing there like a statue, his eyes stayed glued to the floor. The frustration building up in her chest made her burst into tears. "You can't just keep doing this, Harry! This isn't the first time, I've forgiven you too many times before. I was always one of the lasts to know when something big happened. Olivia coming back, your internship in Japan, your dad offering you his company, you accepting your dad's offer and relocating an entire business, you hiring your ex to be your new assistant, and now you possibly having a child with another woman, then you going to see this child and staying to play happy family with them! I've always had to find out from another person, this time from a video that woman 'accidentally' sent to me. What do you have to say for yourself?"

"Nothing."

His answer left her dumbfounded. Her mouth snapped shut, her shoulders were tight as her breath burst in and out.

"I don't want to defend myself because I know I'm wrong." He slowly lifted his face to meet her eyes at last, and then, with a sigh, he began, "when...when I discovered that I might be the father, I was...terrified. Not because of the responsibilities that would come along with that, but because...I realized I-I never deserved you."

Seeing his fingers gathered into fists and his knuckles turning white, she wanted to hold him and tell him he was the only one who deserved her. But her limbs were numb and her feet were rooted to the floor. Now she could do nothing but listen.

He swallowed hard. "I told myself...if I kept pretending like my past before you hadn't existed then everything would've been okay. But I always knew I couldn't pretend forever. Maybe that's why I'm so afraid of you leaving me. Maybe at one point, you'll see that I'm not good enough and you'll regret all the years you've wasted on me." He thought for a few seconds and exhaled sharply. "I told myself hiding these truths from you was protecting you. But all along I've been protecting myself from you realizing you'd be better off without me."

He stopped to wait for her reply. And when he got nothing, he stepped forward and cupped her face. This time she didn't push him away. She couldn't. His fingers were shaking as tears shone in his eyes, and it hurt her so much to see him like this. My God, she truly loved him. Her love for him was so massive that all of his mistakes, his stupid, careless, childish mistakes, could not make her love him any less.

He didn't let her go. Her silence urged him to go on, his voice was strained and fragile, "you have every right to be angry at me. Scream at me if you want to, give me the cold shoulders, the silent treatment, anything, just...don't leave me. Tell me how to fix this, and I'll do anything. Just please don't give up on me."

He ran his thumb across her flushed cheek to wipe away a single tear making its way down. His lashes fluttered as his brows knitted. He continued, "I came home, and you weren't here, the closet was opened, some of your clothes were gone. I-I thought I lost you, and I was so scared."

For all those years they'd lived under the same roof, Y/N rarely heard Harry say that he was scared. It might've resulted from him growing up trying to protect the women in his life, since his father had not been there for them. Now standing before her, he had accepted that he also needed protection.

Sighing, Y/N stepped forward and pressed herself against his chest. The love of her life automatically embraced her. "We don't do that in this household," she murmured, one hand stroking the back of his head. "We don't leave."

She felt his muscles relaxed as he gave her a slight nod and a 'thank you'. But his grip hadn't loosened one bit, for a part of him still feared she might change her mind. Still, she pulled away. They were eye-to-eye again, and her hands were on his shoulders, his on her lower back.

"But you need to stop this," she said. "Stop trying to protect me from the truth. I'm an adult and I can handle anything. And stop worrying that some bad news will make me stop loving you. Nothing will. I chose you because I'd known who you were, even before you did. I fell in love with my best friend and I never looked back, not when Olivia showed up, not when you were in another country for months, not when my parents hated me for being with you. Of all the mistakes I've made in my life, you are not one of them."

He nodded, sighing in contentment as she combed her fingers through his hair. She held his gaze, her eyes were much more tender now. "You lie to me one more time and I'll leave for good, got it?"

"Got it," he spoke softly. "Thank you."

She frowned, taking a deep breath. "I want to sleep alone tonight, just to clear my head. Is it okay?"

"Y-yeah, sure, I'll sleep in the guest room," Harry said quickly. Though he wasn't thrilled about sleeping alone, he believed giving her some space could be a good idea for now.

Y/N shut her eyes as she gently brushed their noses together and walked past him toward their bedroom. She felt his eyes watching her go, and something came to her mind as she stopped halfway, turning back to look at him.

"Were you disappointed that the kid wasn't yours?"

"Of course not," he answered right away though the question was unexpected.

"Really?" Her one-word question was filled with doubt.

He sucked in a breath and flashed her a reassuring smile. "Yes. I only asked Kierra to take a photo because...because I knew how much you loved kids. I wanted to show it to you after I've explained everything...I don't know why she recorded a video."

Y/N said nothing more. He wasn't sure if she still believed him after all the secrets he'd kept; however, he was glad she'd come forward instead of keeping it to herself.

"Goodnight," was all she said before going to their room. The door fell shut, the flat fell back to silent, but the thoughts in his head were deafening. How could he go to sleep?

Harry was appalled when Kierra asked him where Y/N was. Just like all the other girls he'd been with, Kierra had never shown any interest in getting to know his 'boring' flatmate, or the fact that he was living with a girl he'd claimed to have nothing to do with. But the first thing she noticed today when she entered his living room was that Y/N wasn't here.

"She's probably babysitting the kid upstairs," he said, thinking the girl would just move on to a different topic, but he was wrong.

"She told me she was making a Halloween costume for that kid."

He widened his eyes at her. "You've talked to her?"

"Yeah, the other day I came over to see you. I had to wait for too long so I left."

"Oh right, she did mention that." He nodded, pointing to the tie-dyed curtains. "Y/N made those. I told her it was a waste of time and she didn't listen. But I think I'm kind of in love with how they look now. She's very good at this stuff."

"Yeah, I see." Kierra giggled. "That's why I asked her to make me a Halloween costume, I'm gonna be a sexy nurse. Can you believe she agreed to do it for free?"

The girl probably expected a different reaction so her face fell as she saw how upset he was. "What? You don't look happy." She smirked. "Role-playing is so hot don't you think?"

Harry let go of a sigh and removed her hands from his chest. "You can't just ask my flatmate to make you clothes for free, Kierra."

"She said she'd be happy to do it."

"She'd say anything to make everyone happy, she's Y/N!"

"Okay, chill! I'll tell her I don't need it anymore. Are we good?"

He stayed quiet for a bit and nodded. "Thank you."

The silence gradually sank back in, adding more weight to Harry's heavy thoughts. Maybe he'd overreacted a bit. To be honest, he couldn't explain it himself. He always felt the need to protect for Y/N even when she wasn't around, for he thought she could never do it herself. It almost became a hard-to-change habit.

"She's a sweet girl," Kierra spoke after a while.

"She is," he agreed, not adding anything else.

Still, the girl continued, "she's so shy though, she needs to go out more."

"That's just how she is." Harry shrugged, trying not to show how annoyed he was. She was getting on his nerves with all this talk about Y/N. "She hates crowds, there's nothing wrong with that. But I hope I can convince her to go with me to that Halloween party."

Kierra was taken aback, and Harry was too. He couldn't believe he was careless and stupid enough to say that aloud. He had no control over his words, thoughts, and actions when it came to Y/N. Though she wasn't here, it was her fault that Kierra knew way too much.

"You two are going together?" Kierra asked, looking slightly puzzled.

He stuck out his bottom lip and gave her another shrug. "I haven't asked her but...Yeah...she needs to go out more, right?"

"Right." The girl pressed her lips into a forceful smile, and then she changed the subject.

"Linen or beige?"

"That's the same color!"

Harry's response made Layla growl. At this point, she'd already run out of patience.

"Are you fucking color blind?" She almost shoved her phone into his face, pointing to each of the two photos aligned side by side. "This is linen. This is beige. Pick one!"

"Uhm...linen I guess?"

With a sigh of relief, she gave him a solid nod. "Okay, beige then."

"Are you serious?"

"What?" She shrugged. "I don't trust your and Niall's opinion so it's easier to go for the opposite."

Breathing into his palm, Harry checked his watch for the third time since Layla entered his office. She'd promised it'd only take around five minutes of his time, but now it's been fifteen and she had only finished choosing the wedding tablecloths. She didn't care how bored he seemed and went ahead to show him two different types of flowers and told him to pick one.

"Ahh, I don't know. Whatever Niall chose."

"I didn't come all the way here to hear what Niall thinks, asshole."

"Fine." He rolled his eyes and pinched his forehead. "White roses. Classic."

"They're Gardenias!"

"Look like roses to me." He chuckled at the look on her face. "Did Niall also choose them?"

"Yes." She shot him a glare. "But at least my baby's an intellectual who knows the difference between roses and Gardenias."

"Lucky you," he teased, only to receive a middle finger in response. "Hey, aren't you supposed to be at your store? It's not even lunch hour yet."

The girl gave him a proud smile as she put her phone away. Thank God, he thought.

"Unlike you, I pay people to work so I don't have to," she said, making him chuckle. "But fine, I'll leave. You can get back to work now."

"Wait," he stopped her before she could walk away. "Has Y/N told you anything lately?"

Layla pursed her lips. "Nope. I thought you two had gone back to normal. It's been several days since the secret child thing, right?"

"Well, yeah, she finally let me sleep in our room two nights ago. But well, I mean, she tries to act like everything has gone back to normal, but it doesn't feel that way to me. She wasn't even home when I woke up this morning. Something's still off."

"Give her time." Layla waved him off. "She's probably still upset. I wouldn't blame her though. Your crazy neighbor threatened her that one day she'd find your assistant sucking your dick, and now the girl you used to fuck is your assistant. How convenient is that?"

"That's bullshit. You know I love her more than anything in the world."

"I know." Layla snorted as she rolled her eyes. "You love her too much sometimes that you forget love comes with trust. By the way, if I were you, I'd fire that bitch."

"I can't just fire an employee for no reason, Layla."

"No reason? Well, first off," she raised a finger, "if you just want a hot assistant for the aesthetic of your office, I'd be happy to fill her shoes, because this bitch is shit at her job. She didn't even stop me when I walked straight in here."

"She knows you, Layla."

"No, bitch, she didn't even see me. She was on the phone with a friend talking about a bikini wax. And if that's not a good enough reason to fire her, she's also obsessive, has no respect for people's personal space and she hates your wife."

"You don't have proof that she sent that video to mess with Y/N."

"Yeah, I fucking do." Layla nodded quickly, crossing her arms. "She literally told me back in uni that she hated Y/N. She knew Y/N had feelings for you, so she asked the poor girl to make a sexy Halloween costume for her just so she could strut around in it and flirt with you when Y/N was around. How's that as proof?"

Harry's expression dulled for a moment before he could speak. "Are you serious?"

"Oh God, how oblivion could you be?!" Layla exclaimed. She sat up straight, placed a hand on her chest, and took a deep breath to keep herself from exploding. "Look, I love you—"

"You do?"

"And I will mess up your perfectly symmetrical face if you interrupt me again."

"Sorry."

"Where was I? Oh, right. I love you, but you could be really stupid sometimes. You're overprotecting Y/N from anything but the things and the ones that actually hurt her. This Kierra bitch is just another Rose in your life, pun intended. She's a psychopath who deserves no sympathy. Like my family marriage counselor used to say, 'three's a crowd, and any problem that arises from a third person is always much harder to fix'. And that man was a genius. Most of my parents' arguments were about another woman and now they're divorced, and me, the product of that failed marriage, is miserable."

"I'm really sor—"

She put up a hand to stop him. "Save your sympathy for Y/N. Want my advice? Fire that crazy bitch and make up with your wife."

Just like that, she clicked her fingers in front of his face and picked up her handbag to go. He watched in confusion as she stopped at the door.

"You don't have to thank me for saving your marriage by the way," she said with a cheeky grin. "Just bring me the most expensive wedding gift you could find."

"Miss, where do you think you're going?"

Y/N looked at the redhead she'd never seen in her life, though confused, she asked, "is Mr. Styles in his office?"

"Have you got an appointment?"

You've got to be kidding me.

"I'm his wife."

The girl squealed so loud that everyone turned to look at her at once. With her face all red, she quickly apologized for her behavior and almost knocked over her own coffee when she bumped into her desk. Where did he find this kid? Y/N thought while keeping a straight face so the girl wouldn't feel more embarrassed.

"Oh God, I'm so sorry Mrs. Styles," she said fast. "Mr. Styles is having lunch with a client. I don't know if he'll come back to the office after."

"Thanks." Y/N sighed. "But I'm sorry, who are you?"

"I'm his assistant, Marie," the redhead said with a beam. "I just started today."

"What happened to Kierra?" Y/N's eyes narrowed with confusion.

"She got transferred to a different department. Uhm...HR, I think. I don't know much, today's only my first day," Marie said while fidgeting with the buttons on her blouse.

Y/N couldn't help but wonder, why had her husband replaced someone as experienced as Kierra with someone entirely opposite, like Marie here? Still, she said nothing more than wishing Marie good luck and a good day before making her way back to the lift.

As she walked past some employees enjoying their pizza for lunch, she wondered to herself if she should get something to eat before calling Harry. But the warm feeling suddenly rising in her chest sent her straight to the ladies' room.

She stumbled like a drunkard to one stall. She kept swallowing, but it didn't go away, and she could already taste it at the back of her mouth. With each step, her throat clenched and ached more and more. Hot tears spilled from her eyes when she dropped on her knees and emptied her stomach in the toilet bowl.

Yup, she was definitely sick.

But why?

She'd been eating fine and exercising regularly for the past month, but she felt like her health was getting worse. Her body had turned on her this morning when she woke up with nausea clawing at her throat. She hated being sick, but she hated skipping an important workday more. So she'd left the flat before Harry woke up to make sure he couldn't convince her to stay at home.

But then, for the entire morning in the office, she missed him terribly. She sat at her desk, constantly thinking about how she hadn't got a chance to kiss him goodbye. And then she almost she burst into tears. This wasn't like her at all, and she blamed her being ill for her acting out of character. She couldn't wait until she got to see him. She needed to see him right away. However, with her condition, maybe she should just go back home and call it a day.

Y/N flushed the toilet and dragged her heavy feet to a sink to wash her hands and mouth. That was when an employee entered the room, looking shocked to make eye contact with her in the mirror.

"Kierra," Y/N spoke, throwing on a smile. "Hi."

She thought it was a must to always be polite to her husband's employees, even the special cases like Kierra here. But this woman didn't need her politeness. Kierra walked straight to a different sink to reapply her lipstick. The only interaction she'd made with Y/N so far had been that cold stare when she first entered.

"I heard you got transferred to HR," Y/N said, looking at the girl who paid no attention to her. "It must be fun. The manager is a sweet lady."

"Just stop faking it, all right?"

"Sorry?"

Kierra put the lipstick back in her purse before turning to face Y/N. "I know you talked Harry into getting a new assistant. So don't pretend to be the girl next door here. I'm not buying that crap anymore."

"Wow." Y/N scoffed, raising both hands in the air. "I have nothing to do with any of my husband's decisions in his company."

"Clearly." Kierra rolled her eyes as she placed a hand on her hip. "You just never grow up. You're still as insecure as you used to be."

"Excuse me?!"

"You were scared of how much Harry enjoyed being around me and my baby girl that you had to find a way to get rid of me."

Y/N laughed wryly, shaking her head as she said, "was that why you sent me the video? To show me that I'm the one who's scared?"

"No, I did it to piss you off." Kierra gave her a shrug. "He came to me first, hoping that my baby was his. It's not his fault that you can't get pregnant."

"How do you—"

"Oh, everyone knows." She smirked. "This rumor has been circling around for a while now, but judging from your reaction, I suppose it's not a rumor after all?"

Y/N's face contorted as the realization hit her like a train. "So you heard the rumor and purposely applied for the job, then you made him think the baby was his to get his attention."

"No, I was just lucky. Maybe we were meant to meet again." The bitch gave Y/N a cold, hard, plastic smile. "You know, the day you and I had our first conversation, I was actually there to tell him that I was pregnant. I thought the baby was his. If he hadn't been so crazy about you back then, maybe I would've stayed and let him believe he was the father. But if he was really the father of my baby girl, would he have chosen you over a real family?"

"Okay, you're obviously sick in the head," Y/N said as she picked up her bag, but Kierra stopped her at once.

"If I were you, I'd work harder to fix my marriage."

That's it, Y/N thought to herself as she turned around, her eyes glinted with rage. The fear was obvious in Kierra's expression as Y/N stepped forward and stopped when their faces were inches apart.

"My husband is a CEO," she said with a straight face, "and your husband doesn't exist. So don't lecture me on how to fix my healthy marriage, when you can't even fix your life. The next time I catch you trying to sabotage our happiness will be the last day you show your face in this company. You understand me?"

Kierra blanched at those words, her mouth fell open. But Y/N didn't have time to wait for a nonexistent response or comeback. She turned her heels and walked out with her head held high. Layla was right, she thought, smiling smugly. This feels fantastic!

Harry was working late again.

He'd been dead in front of his laptop to prepare for the important meeting tomorrow. This was a meeting that would change the future of this company. Just one more day, he thought to himself, one more day, and he'd go home early and take Y/N out on romantic dates like he used to. She surely would love that. After all, the only reason he was working hard was for her and their future. Everything he did was for her. One more day, and he'd have his old life back.

Those lovely fantasies kept him motivated and concentrated. It was only until his mother called to ask about him and Y/N that he realized how late it was and he should probably head home.

Strange. It was usually the thought of going home to his wife that made him sigh in relief, but now he was gripping the steering wheel, anxious as he could be. Maybe he'd been over-analyzing everything. Maybe it wasn't even that bad. Maybe she'd been having some bad days at work. Maybe she still wanted him. He reassured himself with those thoughts as he stepped into their flat.

The living room was dimly lit by the soft light leaking through the gap beneath the kitchen door. His wife should've been in bed by now. Lately, she had overworked herself, thinking he hadn't noticed, but he had. So what was she still doing in the kitchen at nearly two in the morning?

"Baby?" Harry spoke as he stepped in to find a sight he could never have expected.

Y/N was sitting on the floor in her white silk gown, the fridge was open and she was eating the leftovers as if she'd been starved for days. He laughed, shaking his head when she looked up like a deer in front of headlights. Her eyebrows furrowed as she spoke with her mouth full, "you're home early."

Oh, the sarcasm. He'd missed that.

"Sorry, darling. I got held back at work. But just for today, I promise."

"I hate you." She took another spoon of chocolate cake into her mouth and turned away like an angry little girl.

Beaming, Harry put down his laptop bag to join his wife on the floor. He sat with his legs crossed and his chin on his knuckles. "My assistant told me you came to my office today," he said, his eyes bored into her.

She gave him a slight pout. "Yeah, but you weren't there."

"Did something happen, love?"

"No...I just...I just missed you. That's all." Her voice went quieter toward the end, for she was shy to admit that she'd come to his office because she'd missed him. Little did she know, hearing that made him happier than ever.

He stroked her hair and threw on a soft smile. "If you miss me, you can always call me. I'll drop whatever I'm doing to talk to you."

"I know, but I wanted to see you." Then she put down the empty plate and wiped her hand and mouth with a paper towel. Her eyes had never left his. "Did you miss me?" She asked bashfully.

He nodded fast and picked up her hand to press it to his lips. "All the time."

"Good." Her mouth twitched as she stroked his chin with a thumb. "I like your new assistant. Sweet girl, a bit clumsy though."

"She'll get the hang of it," he said. "I was gonna tell you in person, but you'd already found out."

"It's okay." She pressed her lips together, looking slightly amused. "Kierra didn't seem so happy about it though."

Her comment left him surprised. "You talked to Kierra?"

"Yup, she's batshit crazy. She threatened me, too."

"She threatened you?!"

"It's okay—"

"No, it's not! I'll fire her for that!"

Harry, though mad, was now even more confused when instead of agreeing with him, his wife just burst out laughing. Before he could question her reaction, she pulled him in for a sweet kiss on the mouth and a few others all over his face.

"I wish nothing more than to get rid of her, but her daughter doesn't deserve an unemployed mother." She ran her fingers through his hair now that she was straddling his lap. "But don't worry. She won't bother us again."

"You sound sure." He arched an eyebrow.

"Because I am," she said happily. "All this drama only makes me realize how much we love each other. We should only focus on the two of us from now on, building our own family, living the life we've been dreaming of since college. No one else is allowed to change that."

He chuckled. "Three's a crowd, yeah?"

"Yeah." She nodded. "I hate crowds."

Slowly, Harry leaned in to kiss her again and then pressed their foreheads together, smiling contently.

"Oh, wait," She pulled back as her eyebrows snapped together. "One last question about Kierra."

"Go ahead, love," he said, laughing.

"If she hadn't left, would you...would you have fallen in love with her?"

To her surprise, he cracked up. "That's an easy question. Of course not. Why?"

"She was so good at pretending like she wasn't a shit person that I actually liked her. I assumed you would've fallen for her, given more time."

"Nope," he asserted, lips curved into a smile. "I was already in love then. How could I have fallen for someone else?"

"You were in love with me?" Her face lit up.

"No, with our handsome gay neighbor Ben. Of course I was in love with you, Y/N! Why was that even a question?!"

The couple immediately dissolved into laughter Harry held her to his chest and kissed her forehead. He felt so much joy at this moment that he didn't want to ever leave this kitchen floor. But then sadness clouded her face again, and her voice nearly cracked as she spoke, "I love you so much it hurts sometimes."

"Aww, babe—"

"I'm sorry I didn't kiss you goodbye this morning. I got sick, and had to leave for work before you found out, so you couldn't convince me to stay at home."

"You were sick?" He felt her forehead with the back of his hand, his expression hardened.

"I still am, I think. I-I threw up twice today, and now I can't stop eating and I even start crying for no reason," Y/N said tiredly as she scooted closer to nuzzle her nose against his neck. She even grabbed his hand and intertwined their fingers, as if she couldn't get enough of him. Harry loved these intimate gestures, he loved how clingy she was now, but a part of him still found it concerning because she'd never been so needy.

"Also, the smell of pizza makes me wanna vomit," she quickly added. "Maybe I should see a doctor tomorrow. It might be food poisoning."

"Baby?"

"Hmm?"

"I don't...uhm...I don't think..."

"What?" She pulled back a bit to study his face.

He squeezed the hand that was holding his and looked deep into her eyes. "I don't think it's food poisoning."

That was when realization dawned on her face.

"I'm...pregnant?"

#flatmate!harry #ceo!harry #husband!harry #harry styles fanfic #harry styles fanfics #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles fanfictions #harry styles imagine #harry styles imagines #harry styles writing #harry styles series #harry styles fluff #harry styles angst

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rivalsforlife · 4 years ago

Note

oooo i'm sorry but one more scene for commentary if youre up to it: maya and phoenix talking in chapter 6?

Of course, no need to apologize!! Once more, keeping this under a “keep reading”:

Around noon, his apartment intercom buzzed. “Nick, it’s Maya! Let me up.”

Maya? What was she even doing here? Maya never visited him out of the blue anymore… Whatever. She’d probably think he was at his office. She’d go away soon.

There was another buzz. “Nick! I know you’re in there! I called your office, you know!”

Kids these days. Selling out their bosses that easily… Maybe he should cut Athena’s salary. Nah, he wasn’t Edgeworth. … Edgeworth.

“don’t think about Edgeworth don’t think about Edgeworth -- ah damn it”

“Nick! Hello! Nick!”

She had to give up eventually, right? Whatever she was here for, someone else could help her…

“Security’s coming after me, if they arrest me you’re gonna have to defend me, you know, do you want that? I’m not even gonna try to pay you for it since it’s gonna be your fault —”

Ugh.

Phoenix stumbled out of bed and buzzed her in. “Fine. Come up.”

“Thank you!” she chirped in a sing-songy voice. “Hey, you heard him, let me go…”

Maya’s Obnoxious Little Sister Energy is eternal. Her next strategy was to break from the guards and dash as far as she could go trying to break her way into Phoenix’s apartment which... wouldn’t have ended well haha.

Also! Like I mentioned in the previous ask, a lot of this fic was just Phoenix’s Relationship Issues, and the way I characterized him in this fic was a lot of... he needs to have people around or he kind of falls apart, and his history of having people around was that these people needed him in some way -- Maya after she was accused of murder and then hanging around for Mia’s sake, Trucy being abandoned and needing looking after, even Miles to an extent needing to be saved from his corrupt ways and the von Karma influence -- and now that they’re all growing up and don’t need him anymore he thinks they’re going to abandon him.

That’s a long-winded way of referring to that one sentence of “Whatever she was here for, someone else could help her”

Also... I don’t live in an apartment and haven’t visited many apartments? So I’m not totally sure how the whole buzzing someone in process works. no one’s called me out on it though so I guess I’m okay.

Phoenix sighed and wondered if he should make himself look presentable. There probably wasn’t enough time. Maya wouldn’t notice that he hadn’t changed his clothes for two days, right?

She probably would. But he couldn’t do anything about it, as just then there was a knock on the door. Figuring he should appease her so she wouldn’t give security anymore trouble, he reluctantly let her in.

Indeed, there was Maya, looking cheery as ever. “Hey, dude. What’s going on with you?”

“Nothing,” said Phoenix, and in response to Maya’s raised eyebrow as she took in his appearance, “Just not feeling well. Why’re you here, Maya? I thought you were busy up at the village.”

passive-aggressive “oh aren’t you supposed to be busy?” from Phoenix here...

One of the other major changes I made to this fic in the editing process was cutting out a LOT of Maya content. I really love her and wanted her to be here more, but to properly go through the Phoenix Characterization Study I had to make it seem like she wasn’t around as much so that Phoenix would feel more lonely. again, sorry, Phoenix... but like originally she came down for the picnic in chapter 3 and was around at the beginning of chapter 4, so it would be SO WEIRD if she showed up in every single chapter except for chapter 5 and then Phoenix accuses her here of being too busy to hang out with him. She was there all the time! So I only had her show up for the wedding and added in a few more lines alluding to her not being here as much as she used to in trilogy days.

“I am,” she admitted, pushing her way into his apartment. “But your daughter called me yesterday morning and said that if you didn’t call, I should check in on you. So. Here I am. And I know you’re not just sick.”

Kids these days indeed! Like Phoenix didn’t feel bad enough, his own daughter had to go and parent him. “Look, Maya, everything’s fine. I’m sorry Trucy made you think something was wrong.”

One writing tip I got and I’ve been working on implementing is like... trying to have a general idea of what every character is up to when they’re not “on screen”, so to speak. Even then, what they’re thinking about when they’re not the POV focus. So basically after the call with Trucy just prior to this scene, she immediately decided to call Maya (because she could tell something was Off with her dad and Miles, given his reaction when she mentioned his name,) and then told her to check up on him because he really scared her during that phone call... though she wouldn’t admit it. She basically saw it as a hint of returning to a sort of... disbarment-era depression, which she didn’t want, so she wanted to make sure someone could check in on him as soon as he could since she couldn’t.

Also another small aspect of Phoenix characterization (that’s going to be like 99% of my commentary about this fic I’m sorry) is that the way he deals best with depression is like... being around people, and doing things with people. It’s obviously not a method that works for everyone, but it keeps him from dwelling on things and kind of gives him a purpose, helps him feel like he’s needed. Mostly got this headcanon from RFTA where he says he was unable to take on any cases when Maya was gone until Ema showed up... and then even at the beginning of 2-2 he does seem pretty down. Trucy kind of knows some of this since she was the main thing keeping him together during disbarment era, at least enough to know that when Phoenix is depressed he’ll do much better if he’s got someone he cares about around.

Anyways, Trucy probably told Maya just to call in, because she knows her aunt is busy and part of the reason Maya hasn’t been around much is because she’s stuck with all sorts of Master responsibilities at Kurain, but Maya herself wanted to come down and check on Phoenix in person because she knows how he can get and if it was enough to worry Trucy, then she was pretty worried too.

Maya planted her hands on her hips. “No way, mister. I did not take a two hour train ride down here for you to tell me everything’s fine. Do you know how difficult it was to get permission to leave?! I had to pull the old ‘I need to visit my boyfriend’ card for them to let me go!”

Phoenix groaned, despite himself. “Have they still not caught on about that?”

“Their desperation for an heir has blinded them to common sense. They made me drink some disgusting fertility tea before I left, so you really owe me one.” She lowered her hands and sighed. “Look, Nick, I know something’s up. So talk to me. Please.”

I took a few liberties to sprinkle in my Kurain headcanons in here... which I’ve rambled about more in depth elsewhere, so I won’t go into too much detail, but basically: hereditary spiritual power leads to a lot of pressure on people who have said hereditary spiritual power to reproduce so they can pass it on to the next generation. Particularly with Maya (and Pearls to some extent though I believe Maya would willingly take the heat on it) since the two of them are the only remaining spirit channelers of the Kurain technique. And since it took Maya a really long time to become the Master officially (I don’t buy the idea that she wasn’t skilled enough by the end of T&T, my headcanon is the Master training process involves two years in Khura’in but she put that off until Phoenix was in the clear regarding Kristoph stuff) they probably don’t want her leaving the village to “goof off” unless she’s doing it to produce an heir. her biological clock is ticking! haha! (... ugh.)

And this kind of leads to -- in the elaborate backstory of this fic that I can only touch on through DVD commentaries which is like half the reason I do these things -- Maya and Phoenix agreeing that if Maya needs to get out of the village but whoever the other people in the village are start putting pressure on her, she can say she’s “visiting her boyfriend” who they think is Phoenix but really isn’t... and I guess they assume they’re getting up to heir-making activities but oh darn! didn’t work this time! guess I’ll have to go again next week! (obviously they’re just out getting burgers or something.)

Hence people in the village pushing fertility tea on her because they think the problem is that she’s not getting pregnant... although they’re kind of misunderstanding the reason why she’s not getting pregnant... because no amount of fertility tea in the world will lead to a spontaneous pregnancy without other activities first. which aren’t happening. I feel like I need to clarify this multiple times just in case someone misunderstands.

Pearls both knows about this agreement and knows that Phoenix and Maya aren’t actually dating because she’s like nineteen now? She’s probably known for years, she never brings it up during DD and SOJ.

“I won’t go into much detail” oops. I’m so sorry.

Phoenix didn’t say anything.

Maya took him by the arm and guided him to the couch, plopping him down none-too-gently before sitting next to him. “You can trust me, right?” she asked. “You’re my best friend. I’m here for you, even if you did something really stupid.”

Phoenix laughed a bit. “Yeah… I did something really stupid.”

“Okay. Tell me.”

Phoenix buried his face in his hands with a sigh, then rolled his head to peek through his fingers at Maya. She looked — angry, sure, he wasn’t exactly being the most cooperative of people right now, but — open. Prepared. Like she was actually going to listen.

I know that SOJ called Miles Phoenix’s best friend, which don’t get me wrong I absolutely loved, but I do wish Maya was ALSO considered Phoenix’s best friend if not one of his closest friends, because they’re so obviously best friends. They’re a different flavour of best friends than Phoenix and Miles, because Phoenix and Miles are the “it’s complicated and there are secret romantic feelings possibly but we trust each other unconditionally” best friends, Phoenix and Maya have a twenty-five step secret handshake they have to execute every time upon meeting.

But of course that doesn’t mean they can’t be serious, Maya is absolutely here for her dumb best friend

“It’s…” He sighed, again. “Have you ever — have you ever wanted something for a really long time, but — but you never thought you’d get it, and then you have this chance, and you just… panic?”

Maya nodded solemnly. “Steel Samurai movie premiere tickets. I won a raffle, but I forgot I signed up for them and thought it was a hoax, and didn’t get to accept them before the deadline. The bad Wi-Fi didn’t help, either.”

“But that doesn’t mean they can’t be serious” um

The one constant among all the ace attorney main characters is that NONE OF THEM WANT TO TALK ABOUT THEIR FEELINGS EVER

Also I struggled a lot with this fic trying to figure out... exactly what was going on in Phoenix’s head, and how he would interpret what was going on in his head. I kept changing opinions all the time and it was so off before I did editing haha. Even this line is still a little weird with the “Have you ever wanted something for a really long time” because he probably shouldn’t be aware that he has wanted this for a long time. ... I’m going to stop pointing out the flaws in my own fic now--

At Phoenix’s glare, she added, “I’m just kidding. Thought I’d lighten the mood a bit. Is this about Edgeworth?”

“What makes you think that?”

“‘Cause when is it not about Edgeworth with you,” asked Maya, cutting straight to the heart of things, as always. “Did he ask you out?”

“Not even that.” Phoenix turned his gaze to the floor, ashamed. “He said he loved me. I… I told him I didn’t feel the same.”

Maya was silent for a moment. Phoenix didn’t dare look at her. “Do you?”

“I like being around him,” said Phoenix. “I like seeing him smile, and laugh, and — and he makes me happy.”

What he wouldn’t give to see Edgeworth smile and laugh at him again.

“Not what I asked, dude.”

“Nick’s being really broody again it’s GOTTA be Edgeworth...”

Anyways that second-to-last line there is sticking out at me and I’m pretty sure it’s one I wavered back and forth on deleting before deciding to keep. ... at least I think I kept it? I’m taking these from google docs so there might be a few tiny changes from the ao3 version but I don’t think there’s anything too major I changed while doing last-minute edits.

Again we run into the problem of Phoenix Is Incapable Of Admitting He’s In Love With Miles -- which is the whole psyche-locks thing that pops up in the scene after this. The psyche-locks were also a pretty last-minute addition plot-wise... I think this fic was the most I deviated from my outline, but I was pretty rushed for time so I didn’t do as much planning as I normally would.

Hm I think there’s another ask where I can talk more about the psyche-locks? I’ll talk a bit here because I put a lot of thought into it. Basically I ran with the idea of black psyche-locks hiding something even the owner isn’t aware of, and that those psyche-locks are (typically? who knows about Kristoph) inflicted through traumatic events. Phoenix has three because I came up with three main Issues he had to work through, but some of them kind of blend together... two of them came up through specific traumatic events (Phoenix guesses them in chapter 8) and another one is just general overall trauma. if no one brings up the particular scenes by the time I get to that other ask, I’ll talk more about them, but basically there are three locks from three separate traumas and three occasions where they break -- someone guessed one of the breaking scenes on the narumitsu discord, but no one’s brought up the other two yet!

Long-winded way of saying that the psyche-locks are the reason that Phoenix can’t admit that he’s in love with Miles yet... and it’s kind of a cheap fantasy visualization of the trauma, basically? Maybe not the most elegant way of addressing it, but I never claimed to be writing for a series which addresses issues elegantly.

“But — but can you even imagine it?” Phoenix demanded, raising his head to gesture fully at the ridiculousness of it all. “Me and Edgeworth?”

“Yeah,” said Maya, simply. “It’s not that hard, really.”

Phoenix had no response.

“You two balance each other out well, and you trust each other, and you both care a ton about each other,” Maya elaborated. “If you love him, what’s the problem?”

oh Phoenix you have no idea. you and Miles are so easy to imagine together that you’re the number one pairing on ace attorney ao3 by a longshot.

Also one thing I kind of wanted to avoid was less of the... “you and Miles are PERFECT for each other how do you not SEE this” thing. nothing against the trope, of course! Just the whole concept of people shipping their friends intensely is something I’m not super familiar with and tbh would make me pretty uncomfortable...? It’s sort of the deal with rpf. Of course this is fanfiction with fictional characters but from an in-universe perspective...

So Maya’s taking the approach of more “Yeah, I can see you and Edgeworth as a couple, I think you’d work well together” rather than “you two are SO perfect together and I’ve been shipping you since 2016!!” because while that may be what Maya is THINKING it’s definitely not what Phoenix needs to hear right now.

“It just… seems like a recipe for disaster. I wouldn’t even know how to… like, this isn’t my first time feeling like this, but when I think about us, me and Edgeworth, it’s…” Why couldn’t he find the right words? “It’s too much.”

Maya brought a hand to her chin and tilted her head thoughtfully. “So — tell me if I’ve got this right — you like Edgeworth too, but for some reason, when he confessed to you, you panicked and you don’t know why.”

“I guess…” Phoenix returned his face to the comforting darkness of his hands. “I don’t know what it is. I-I shouldn’t have a problem, right? But the thought of a-actually admitting that I… or being in a relationship, it feels like I’m standing at the edge of a cliff and am about to fall off.”

Maya was silent for a long time. Phoenix just hoped that whatever she said next, it would somehow magically fix all his problems.

Instead, she said the most ridiculous thing Phoenix could possibly imagine. “Maybe you have trust issues?”

It certainly lightened the mood. Phoenix threw his head back and laughed harder than he had in a long time.

Phoenix is a very trusting person, absolutely, but you can’t tell me this man walked out of the Dahlia Debacle without quite a few romance-related issues. It’s kind of a weird sort of contradiction...

“No, I’m serious,” she persisted, through his laughter.

“What are you talking about, Maya?” Phoenix managed to get out, once he had that fit of mirth under control. “There’s no way I have trust issues. My whole thing is trusting people and believing in people until the end, you know?”

“Yeah, I know. But trusting someone not to be a murderer is a bit different, isn’t it?”

“It’s not like that’s as far as it goes,” Phoenix argued. “I trust you, I trust all of our friends, more than just not being murderers.”

“Yeah, sure, but romance is kind of on a different level.” She leaned back into the couch thoughtfully. “When’s the last time you’ve been with anyone?”

“... At least not since I got Trucy,” Phoenix admitted, only a little shamefully. “You try hooking up with people while having the world’s most perceptive daughter who’s desperate for a ‘new mommy’.”

“Been with anyone seriously, I mean.”

Phoenix winced. “... College.”

“I rest my case, Your Honor.”

Prettty self-explanatory here, I managed to get most of my thoughts on the actual fic instead of wanting to put it in an appendix or something. Basically... you can trust people in different ways? Phoenix can trust someone to not be a murderer to the extent of putting his own life on the line for them... but when it comes to revealing any sort of details about himself, or general emotional intimacy, he’s kind of stingy about it. Of course the out-of-universe explanation is “Phoenix doesn’t talk about this stuff because we need suspense so the player keeps playing the game instead of an exposition dump as soon as the issue comes up” but I like finding in-universe explanations for out-of-universe stuff.

I think I just regurgitated my points in a few excerpts oops.

Last little comment there regarding the idea of Phoenix presumably having a casual sex life -- Iiiiii am super asexual, have known that for a long time, generally kind of squeamish about the concept and also live a very sheltered life. so I don’t know much about people hooking up... like how people just go out and do these things. But I know people do these things so I try to reference it within my limited knowledge. Anyways yeah presumably that was happening in the background throughout the trilogy in the universe of this fic. probably not an important point. i’m moving on now.

“I’m not hung up on that!” Phoenix insisted. “Iris was a good person, she was the person I trusted. I’ve known that for years, now!”

“But she did lie to you,” Maya pointed out. “And you thought she tried to kill you for five years. I dunno, if it were me, I’d have a hell of a lot of relationship issues now.”

“Do you want me to psychoanalyze you too, now, Maya? It’s not gonna be pretty.”

“Oh, no thanks, that’s what therapy’s for,” she said, far too cheerily. “But really, Nick.”

Anyways I’m pretty invested in the whole Iris-Phoenix dynamic post-Bridge to the Turnabout, because like on the one hand, hypothetically the woman you were in love with but you thought was a killer coming out to say that she actually didn’t kill anyone and was actually in love with you should resolve all your lingering relationship issues resulting from that... but I don’t see that actually happening.

It probably took Phoenix the whole five years to come to terms with the fact that Dahlia hated his guts and tried to kill him, because I do believe he was seriously hardcore in love with her at the time. Well, Iris, but he didn’t know the difference. And then finding out Iris actually loved him... but not enough to actually, say, tell him this beforehand?... makes things kind of messy. Phoenix probably thinks he should be all better now but really the whole Dahlia-Iris thing was messed up and undoubtedly messed him up a lot.

Last little bit is just me squeezing in that Maya probably also has a lot of messed up relationship issues and also definitely needs therapy. (And is getting a bit of therapy in this fic! Good for her!) I have a lot of thoughts about Maya’s trauma... but unfortunately this fic is about Phoenix so I couldn’t go too in depth about that. Sorry, Maya. One day.

Phoenix sank further into the couch. “I don’t have trust issues.”

“Y’know, there’s still a lot of stuff I don’t know about you,” said Maya. “You never tell me anything personal until there’s a murder or something and then you have to. What happened to Edgeworth, both times. The whole Dahlia thing. It took me ages to get you to tell me how you got disbarred, even! And, like, romance has this level of intimacy to it, where he’d need to know stuff about you that I wouldn’t know, that Trucy wouldn’t know. And Nick, you know I love you, but I know you’re scared of that.”

“What do you know about it?” Phoenix snapped. “You’re barely ever here.”

He felt horrible as soon as the words left his mouth. Maya gave a sharp inhale and stiffened, her eyebrows knitting above an angry and hurt glare.

“I’m sorry,” Phoenix apologized, looking at the floor. “That was… that was unfair.”

“Yeah,” said Maya. “Yeah, it was.”

yep regurgitating my points from above. Anyways, highlights: platonic “I love you”s are great, we should have more of those. Just... emphasizing that it’s platonic because the Phoenix and Maya friendship is one of my favourite things in the series.

And there’s that “You’re barely ever here” comment that I had to cut Maya out of most of this fic to fit in, because otherwise it wouldn’t make any sense. In the universe of this fic Maya was pretty distant being busy with training and spirit medium Master stuff after the trilogy... and presumably hasn’t seen Phoenix as much as either of them would like. She loves hanging out with her best friend, and probably feels super guilty too, that Phoenix is dealing with all these issues and she can’t be there because she has other responsibilities -- so obviously it upsets her when Phoenix kind of accuses her of not being there for him, because she definitely would be, if she could, and if Phoenix would let her.

Pretty much you can’t always be around for everyone all the time, Maya would be so worn out if she had to juggle coming down to the city to hang out with Phoenix all the time on top of all her other responsibilities. She knows this, Phoenix knows this too, he’s just kind of lashing out right now because he’s hurt and confused and misses all his important people, but Maya just happens to be in front of him right now.

And yeah what Phoenix said was pretty uncalled for, which he realizes right away, and Maya acknowledges -- a pretty short fight, I don’t think these two would stay mad at each other for too long.

They sat in a tense silence for some time, until Maya sighed and brushed back her hair.

“Look, I’m saying these things because I’m scared of it, too,” she said, barely above a whisper. “After Mia, and Mom… I don’t want to be left behind again.”

“Maya…”

“Just think about it, okay?” She extended a pinky towards him. “Promise.”

Reluctantly, Phoenix linked his pinky with hers. “Fine. I’ll think about it.”

points at this and says Maya’s Definitely Got Trauma From Trilogy Events then brushes it off to get off the uncomfortable emotion topics

“Good.” Maya hopped up from the couch and stretched her arms above her head. “I’ll forget about what you said if you buy me lunch, okay? I’ve got a client this evening, so I can’t stay long, but I’ve got enough time to stop by Eldoon’s.”

“If you insist,” said Phoenix with an exaggerated sigh, and Maya laughed, so Phoenix willed himself to push the conversation from his mind for now. Maya would be spending four hours on a train today for his sake; Eldoon’s really was the least he could provide.

and in true Phoenix and Maya fashion we’re just gonna forget about the emotions and go get ramen!

Anyways thanks anon for requesting this scene I apparently have so many thoughts about Phoenix and Maya friendship... sorry if this is totally incoherent I should not have started this so late it’s like 11:30! But thank you! I will do more of these tomorrow... hopefully.

#dvd commentary meme #the catch-up game #asks

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toothpaste-dragon · 5 years ago

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I know for questions, you're probably talking about Far From Home, but what about William, the fish guy? What was he like in the early days of character development? How has he changed since you first thought of him? And I guess, same question for the FFH folks. Thanks in advance.

I was honestly so excited to receive this question because I LOVE my boy William! Plus it’s fun to talk about character origin stories.

Buckle up. This is gonna be a long answer.

Up until 2014 my art largely consisted of fanart or fan characters, so I had never produced content that was truly original. During spring of that year, I stumbled upon and quickly become enamored with some original characters on deviantart, many of which were ‘monsters’ (vampires, mermaids, werewolves, etc.). Seeing these characters inspired me to create my own story with characters that catered to my own interests.

William is the first original character I ever created, so he has a special place in my heart. This is my very fist sketch of him! (Sorry for the low quality.)

My initial idea for his story was disorganized and had a lot of missing pieces. In the early days of character development, William was nothing more than a character I liked for his design and personality. I had very little experience with character creation, so I put a lot of myself into him. He was shy and timid and anxious at times, but he also had low self-esteem and didn’t feel like he fit in anywhere. And for good reason — his backstory was one of confusion and grief. Originally, he was an orphan that had been kidnapped by scientists and genetically modified to resemble a fish, all while retaining his previous characteristics and a humanoid shape. The scientists raised him and were training him for some unknown task, of which I never decided before changing the direction of the story entirely.

William and his story turned six during March of this year, and both have changed A LOT since then! He’s no longer a chemist, nor does he have any experience in the sciences. I also gave him some glasses and a nice argyle sweater (which now serves as his classic look, haha), and I’ve decided he’s of Asian descent for reasons explained in a few paragraphs. Not only have I refined his story to be more practical and understandable, but I’ve also given William a purpose, something to pursue. He’s still anxious and feels like he doesn’t belong, but he doesn’t stay that way forever.

I always liked stories about monsters, in the sense that something not-quite-human longs for a place among normal people. Society views these ‘monsters’ as unnatural or potentially dangerous, and yet the monster displays more humanity than the humans themselves. I really want to lean into that idea as I tell William’s story. He may not be your typical monster, but he certainly feels like one. Different, unnatural, out of place. Yet he has a kind heart and a childlike fascination with the world. The road is difficult, but with a bit of help he eventually finds his niche.

Here’s my most recent sketch for comparison, and a lovely depiction of William by my pal HareSoup!

Besides the few changes mentioned above, Will hasn’t changed much design-wise. He has fins in place of ears, gills on his neck, scales scattered across his face/trunk/limbs, and a bit of webbing between his fingers/toes. He can breathe underwater and on land, but his scales and gills have to receive moisture every 1-2 hours or he’ll develop health issues/fall ill.

I don’t remember when I decided I wanted to write a full-length book telling Will’s story, but it’s still a goal of mine! To give you a brief synopsis of the current story, now titled “Fish Out of Water”, it takes place some years after the signing of the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty, which officially brought the Arms Race to an end. During the Arms Race, nuclear weapons were tested without concern for radiation and the effects it had on nearby civilians. In one particular scenario, Asian civilians were evacuated from a small town-turned nuclear test site, but they were not properly protected. The offspring of these civilians developed unnatural deformities/features, such as extra limbs or feathers, as a result of exposure to unhealthy levels of radiation. Worried that this development would mortify the public, the government hid the children in a science facility stationed in a secluded part of the ocean, and they remained within its walls for years. After 28 years, William escapes the facility with the help of his guilt-ridden caretaker and is found unconscious on the shore of a coastal city by marine biologist Martha Collins. The story follows Will as he attempts to shake his government pursuers, but it’s really a story about friendship, self-worth, and discovering what it truly means to be human.

Though unfinished, William’s story is very special to me, and I’m looking forward to sharing it with the world someday :>

As for the Far From Home folks, they came from simple beginnings. It all started with a sketch — this one to be exact!

Back in the spring of 2017, I was stressed and tired and frustrated with school, so I thought it’d be fun to create some new characters. Specifically, comfort characters that fit my favorite tropes. I took a lot of inspiration from the movies “Ernest & Celestine” and “You Are Umasou” when it came to personalities and character dynamics. I loved the idea of a tough, grumpy man who is completely unqualified to be a father stumbling upon and eventually adopting a small, bright-eyed child. There’s just so much you can do with that concept!

I specifically remember sitting in the library at school and just…drawing. I had no initial designs in mind besides something big and sharp, and something small and soft. Two opposites that would become a makeshift family.

I liked the designs enough to digitalize them, reworking aspects of their designs in the process. This was the first ‘accurate’ drawing of Baz and Toko. (I don’t like it too much anymore, but it’s a good color reference!)

I never like leaving a character without a story, so I eventually came up with a couple ideas that adequately described their relationship. In fact, my first idea presented Toko as some sort of child princess and Baz as her assigned bodyguard! That one obviously didn’t stick, but it did allow me to gain a better understanding of what I wanted.

Over time, I did a bit of world building and expanded upon the FFH universe, which opened and closed doors for potential storylines. I realized I wanted to add more characters too, leading to the creation of Gerdie and some other important figures. Gerdie looked quite a bit different than he does now — in fact, he was originally supposed to be an android! I played around with that idea for a while before eventually discarding it.

Here’s my most recent size chart featuring all three main characters!

I honestly never expected Far From Home to expand beyond a simple idea, and yet here I am, thinking I can turn the story into a trilogy someday. There’s still a lot of work to do if I want to reach that goal, but I genuinely enjoy these characters and their dynamic is really fun! They’ve grown very dear to me over the past three years. So I think that’s reason enough to try, anyway.

To give a bit of background on the story itself, it’s set in a fictional version of outer space where humans don’t exist. Intelligent, technologically-advanced aliens from neighboring planets/galaxies have established contact with one another, leading to the gradual formation of an intergalactic government and melting pot mega-society. Due to the unforeseen complexity of this endeavor, strict rules were put in place to regulate the selling/purchasing of certain goods and services, transportation between galaxies, and other related activities. This system is not without complications.

Baz and Gerdie work as intergalactic merchants, but that’s just a cover for their job as smugglers. Together, they travel to different galaxies and exchange goods for the designated currency, as well as deliver illegal substances to specific planets. Baz is the captain and pilots the ship while Gerdie is an engineer and works as the mechanic. They’ve known each other for quite some time when the story first begins. Baz has quite the interesting history, much of which ties into important aspects of the story.

Toko is a young alien who gets separated from her family and wakes up in the storage unit of Baz’s ship, with no memory of how she got there. Baz finds her and suspects she’s a thief, but she quickly explains her predicament and asks that he help reunite her with her family. Baz is reluctant at first and denies her request, only to discover there’s more to her story than he originally thought. Unintentionally dragging Baz into a frightening adventure full of old friends and all-too-familiar foes, Toko eventually inspires a change of heart in the smuggler. The story explores themes like forgiveness, what it really means to be good/bad, and the idea that family isn’t defined by blood.

I know that was a lot, but I hope it was at least somewhat interesting! Thanks for asking about my characters and sticking with me through this <3

#ask #ihavebeencalled #Far From Home #Baz #Toko #Baz and Toko #Gerdie #Fish Out of Water #William

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elriedreamer · 5 years ago

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Read in 2020: May

That month was almost all about fantasy reading marathon, and obviously I coudn’t just read 4 books of 7, so I’ve read a lot. Only one comic here, because I couldn’t find another long enough series that I really wanted to read. Also, for the Native Language at first I took Andrey Rubanov’s Finest, the brave Falcon, but was grossed out by POV character that dropped it after 65 e-book pages and started reading Chimeras instead.

Theodora Goss – The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter. Last year I’ve read this author’s short stories and as you know my problem with short forms I didn’t like them. But as I was participating in the fantasy reading marathon I decided to try another of her works. And! This book was actually fun to read! Imagine taking Sherlock Holmes, Frankenstein, The Island of Doctor Moreau, Jack the Reaper and probably some other stories I couldn’t identify (I think I’ve read something about poisonous girl when I was in school, but can’t remember), shaking them well and adding a dash of wit on top – and you’ll get the idea. The only downside is that there’s not very much characterization, since there are a lot of heroines, but I hope it’ll be fixed in the second book.

Nicholas Eames – Bloody Rose. The first book of these series was one of the best of the last year, so I had really high hopes about this one. But it was not what I was expecting. Very different tone comparing to the 1st book, not funny at all. I’d still give it 5 stars (because I liked the writing and some scenes were really emotional) if not for characters. The POV character, Tam, is so meh. She’s like a blank page — which is for purpose I believe, I just didn’t like it. The others are also not as charismatic as in the 1st book. Overall it was still not a bad read, and I definitely will read the final part.

Jean-Philippe Jaworski – Même pas mort. This is a fantasy about ancient Celts, and I like Celtic mythology. But since it’s a dark fantasy, I was kinda torn about whether I should read it. And yep, not my thing. I can appreciate the authors obvious knowledge of history and his writing style is good, but the way story is told didn’t make me to care about MC since at the very beginning we know that MC lived very very long life and succeeded in his goals, and the whole story is basically about him, so... Thus, it was really boring for me.

Becky Chambers – The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet. I’m gonna tell you what. This is so wholesome and nice and relaxing read, that I couldn’t expect from the space opera genre (not that I read much of that, just a feeling). And maybe there isn’t any global conflict, but I don’t care. The characters are normal people (and aliens) that act normally. The world-building is so interesting and detailed, the way communication between different species is described is phenomenal. I’m gonna read the next books in these series (though I’ve heard they are not about the same characters).

Rachel Ignotofsky – Women in Science: 50 Fearless Pioneers Who Changed the World. Should I even comment this? Though now I wanna read something like this book, but more long and detailed. And maybe I liked Brazen more.

J.R.R. Tolkien – The Children of Hurin. Just so you know, I had read The Lord of the Rings when I was 12 yo and through school years reread it like 20 times. Silmarillion — around the same time, but only a couple of rereads. The Hobbit was earlier, probably the last year of elementary school. I haven’t read anything from Middle-Earth world for ten years or even longer. And even this story is incredibly tragic, I was happy to return into this world, and probably should plan to reread the trilogy again.

Yaroslava Kuznetsova, Anna Stein – Chimeras. Vol 1.

Yaroslava Kuznetsova, Anna Stein – Chimeras. Vol 2. This gem wasn’t officially published, which is sad. The world here is a fantasy world with a mix of Tuatha de Danann/Fomori and original mythology, but what unusual is that the story takes place when there are computers and planes. The world-building is brilliant, very detailed, very complex, you’ll know not only legends but historical events, and that was my favorite part. The plot itself was good too, a little slow at the beginning, but interesting to follow, and the ending’s tying up almost everything, only leaving a few side-plots open. The characters are well written, flawed but likable, there is a character growth arcs, there is a really good written redemption arc, the only thing that was kinda disappointing (for me) is Amarela’s storyline, but other than that — no complains.

Fables: Book 6.

#read in 2020 #books

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ask-the-guiding-light-cast · 6 years ago

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Guiding Light turns two years old today!

It’s crazy to think this all began only a couple of years back... and also hilarious it falls on the same day as “International Mystery Dungeon Day” over on Twitter. More after the cut. This is gonna be a long one, so I appreciate anyone willing to read this. ^^

For a long time, I had been a casual consumer of fan fics. It started in the late 2000s when I was in a Spyro craze thanks to the more story-driven Legend of Spyro trilogy. I had an itch that I needed scratched and FFN fulfilled that to some extent. I also looked at some Mario fics, including Paper Mario: The Temple of the Sun, which I greatly enjoyed and thought did a good job adapting the formula that made Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door so beloved and putting a unique spin on things.

But it was until the early 2010s that I actually started getting back into Pokémon games with Gen V. After Emerald, I fell out of touch with Pokémon for a time. When Gen VI came around, I dipped my toe into the fandom through Twitch livestreams, but also through reading a few anime-based fics that are very long and still going, even now.

At the same time, I ended up buying PMD: Explorers of Sky... and damaged my cartridge before I could properly finish the game with my Vulpix/Riolu team. So, I watched cutscenes for what I missed on YouTube, then got Gates to Infinity and, later, Super Mystery Dungeon and had fun with both of them... though more for the stories and characters than the actual gameplay. Truth be told, I don’t care much for roguelikes at all.

It was during the gap in time between Super’s release and the first official footage of Sun & Moon in mid-2016 that I found myself hit with a recurring thought: “What if someone made a PMD story where the hero and the partner are forced to fight one another with the fate of the world at stake?” I wound up (loosely) brainstorming an idea for a PMD story revolving around an antagonistic Hoopa character who would use its ring portals to collect entire communities, including the Pokémon living in them... all so that he would never be bored. This would lead him to “collect” the partner to add to his “toys,” so when the hero shows up, he’d sic the partner on them.

But that was as far as I got with the idea. I ended up graduating college and took a job with late evening hours. It left me pretty tired and exhausted and unmotivated to do much of anything. I withdrew from the parts of the Pokémon community I was involved in.

Then the Generation VII games came out and, while divisive in the fandom, I found myself really liking some of the concepts. There were so many times when I thought, “Gee, I wonder what this would be like if it were in a PMD game?” For example, one of the ideas I had was a sort of edgy rival rescue team akin to Gladion, which would have a Midnight Lycanroc, a Zoroark, and a Type: Null character in it.

So, toward the end of 2016 and early 2017, I started creating an idea for a Choose Your Own Adventure story with the intent of putting it on this really small forum I was a part of. It would be a Gen VII-themed PMD story, but because I didn’t think that sounded interesting enough, I decided that, not only would the human keep their memories, but they would be from the real world and be a major Pokémon nerd. The idea was that the choices the readers made would affect the relationship between the human and partner. I even came up with a point system. The more points the readers earned for their choices, the “closer” the relationship the hero and partner would have and the happier an ending the story would get. If the hero and partner couldn’t stand each other, one of them would likely end up working with the bad guy and winning. If they became steadfast friends, they’d work together to save the world.

Unfortunately, the forum shut down before I got too far into planning it, so I shelved the idea and continued focusing on my job. And things stayed that way for several months, until I ended up getting into med school and scrambling to move.

During the downtime I had when I wasn’t doing moving related stuff, I decided to look at FFN again and found Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Defenders of Warmth. I wound up reading through the entirety of the story quite quickly. I guess you could say it sparked something in my head. The fic itself focuses on what, at the time, was the newest Gen (Gen V). It also has multiple humans and is set on a continent separate from the canon locations (which were just the Air and Grass Continents, since Gates and Super didn’t exist when the fic was written). In short, it renewed my desire to pursue my idea of a Gen VII-flavored PMD story.

So, I set about creating my story outline. It is so... so much different from the actual story, though I’ve gone into that in previous posts (search for #amby answers). Originally, I used Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time as the framework for the fic: an alien invasion in a colorful, comedic world. I took more specific cues, too. Zero was meant to be a (mostly) silent antagonist a la Princess Shroob, for example.

The problem was, I really didn’t have much confidence in myself or my abilities. I’d like to say I was writing for myself, but I really did want validation, too. I think any author is lying to themselves if they say they don’t feel this way at some point. Because of this, I figured if I put the fic on FFN, it would get ignored. The site’s huge! There were, at the time, around 85k fics in the Pokémon section alone. (That number’s since gone up to over 90k!)

Given I had experience with forums, I decided to post it to Serebii, because the fic community seemed much smaller and more open to giving feedback to one another. In an effort to try and, y’know, establish some connections, I actually read other pieces and reviewed them before posting any stories. This also helped me build up a backlog of chapters and prove to myself I enjoyed writing this enough to keep going.

When I finally did post the fic, it was a bumpy start, for sure. I do think I made a lot of mistakes out of the gate, including uploading chapters way too quickly for readers on Serebii to (reasonably) try to keep pace. That probably cost me a few potential readers... or made them silent readers who I never ended up hearing from. Which is why I’m especially thankful to @girl-like-substance (who I can seem to tag, drat) for all of the well-thought-out feedback given throughout the fic’s run. I don’t think I would’ve made such significant strides in my writing otherwise... and there are plenty of long-running fics where the quality tends to stagnate.

In any case... it was thanks to a request from @deliriousabsol to put the fic somewhere more mobile-friendly that I chose to mirror Guiding Light on FFN starting in October 2017. I would’ve kept going on Serebii had she not asked so nicely, so she’s the one you can thank for it showing up there! (She’s a fellow author who does cyberpunk-themed fics and art and her characters have cameoed in the fic.)

And, honestly, I’m just... beyond shocked at what wound up happening to the fic once it hit FFN. Well, actually, for the first several months I was lucky if I even got a comment when I put up a chapter. I’m not sure any of the people who first commented on FFN still follow the fic anymore. I haven’t seen/heard from them at all, so I assumed they moved on with their lives.

In any case, around March of 2018, the word count on FFN passed 300k and... somehow, the fic starting getting more attention. Like, a lot more attention. This was... not really something I was even remotely prepared for.

(Yes, this means there’s gonna be a giveaway. More on that later.) I never would’ve thought I’d reach a number like this. I never imagined I’d meet another PMD author who’d be willing to do a fun collab (thanks @virgil134, Spiteful Murkrow, and Namohysip). I really did not imagine that I’d ever get fanart of characters that I wrote (huge thanks @thebreak-ofdawn, @ask-nicky-and-others, and @cresselia92). I mean, above everything, I not expect the fic or characters to resonate with anybody the way it wound up.

A part of me feels like I don’t really deserve it. I’ve made a lot of serious gaffes with writing this. When initial Serebii feedback had people intrigued by Shane’s jerkass attitude (when I didn’t actually intend for him to come off as a jerk), I dialed things up in the hopes I’d keep their attention. It probably cost me readers. Then there’s the slow pacing of the early episodes and the mistake of making Special Episode 3 as long as it was... which my speaks to my (bad) tendency to give into some of my strongest impulses even though I had an outline I was trying to stick to.

And, I mean, there’s also some of the “shamlessly shameful” stuff I’ve done with the fic. I’m not fooling myself. Guiding Light has grown progressively more furry and, uh, probably fanservicey, too. All the big furbait (and some scalebait) ‘mons are accounted for. There’s a lot more sexual humor when I initially promised myself I would stay away from romance and keep everything platonic. I practically turned Xerneas into waifu bait, if some of these asks are anything to go by. This blog certainly didn’t help in that regard. Maybe I’m just being my usual nervous self?

I am worried that this fic’s performance has, somehow, affected my thoughts and behavior. There are very popular fic authors who let their popularity get to their head... or chose to open up Patreons (something that makes me uncomfortable) or start doing things like taking commissions for written pieces, which is understandable... though I think it’s an easy way to lose your passion for writing. I guess some of that worry stems from a debacle I learned about on a Discord server I’m in, but that’s not something I’m comfortable discussing publicly.

And I haven’t even talked much about the blog itself. Like, it somehow passed 100 followers? Where? When? How? I don’t actually draw stuff like many other Pokéasks. And, like, for a lot of folks, I have no idea if they’ve actually read the fic or just check in on the blog. It’s the same with the fic, I suppose. If you’re a silent reader/follower, I would really love to hear from you! I promise... I don’t bite or anything. I’d love to know what (if anything) you’re thinking. And if you’re a blog that’s following this one and we haven’t interacted, please feel free to reach out! It’s honestly hard to tell if people like what I’m doing, so any feedback is always appreciated.

In any case, if I haven’t lost you by now, I guess all I can say is... thank you. Thank you all so much for all of the support... whether it’s on the fic, the blog, or both of them. I really do hope this final episode can meet your expectations. I’ll try my very best to make this an ending to remember. Nothing would make me happier than to hear you guys enjoy it and feel it does justice to the PMD series.

Sorry for all the rambling. The inbox is open again if you’d like to send any messages for the ficaversary. Again, thank you all so much! You’re the best!

#ooc #long post #fic anniversary

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joesbbqandfootmassage · 5 years ago

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Jane and Carlos in D3:

A Thanksgiving Feast

So I have already made my obligatory Janelos defense post that every blog on this website owes them, and I will link that here.

But I kind of barely touched on just how good they are in D3. Like, insanely good.

Devie and Janelos are the God tier Descendants ships and somebody had to say it.

It figures that Disney would choose to focus on the basic dynamic that is Bal even though they have two amazing VK/AK pairings to work with.

I ain’t saying they needed to kick Ben and Mal from the series because I do still think they’re cute, I’m just saying that Devie and Janelos also deserved their own Enchanted Lake First Date Scene.

Now in D2 both ships were given roughly three major scenes to work with and then of course all of their background dance scenes in You and Me.

Both Janelos and Devie doing different variations of the hug and spin number. (Holy fluff the Devie one was fantastic)

And they both had pretty good character arcs as well.

While Bal pretty much have the same character arc every movie, Janelos and Devie approach one thing at a time. In D2 that was Evie reaffirming to Doug that she wants him, not a stereotypical prince. Strengthening their relationship.

Meanwhile Janelos was giving both Carlos and Jane the chance to step out of their bubbles and explore this new sensation called love.

And you can really believe the time that has passed between these relationships when D3 finally rolls around.

Naturally Jane and Carlos are a touchy-feely kind of couple, linking arms and wrapping arms around shoulders and a lot of background hugs that were cut from the film.

Normally this would probably annoy me, but in this case it makes sense for Carlos and Jane because of his touch starvation.

Jane is able to hold onto him like it's just something normal for her to do with him, unlike any person on the Isle ever.

So in D3 you can see how comfortable they are with one another and just with affection in general.

But that's not all D3 has to offer for them, oh no.

Because D3 is also the movie where Carlos' evolution to Hero of the Isle is the most evident.

It's something you can finally see in every little action.

I'm gonna be honest, D3 should have been Evie's movie.

My sister and I pointed this out as we read all of the VK's posters and saw that Mal's had her’s as, "The Liberator."

To which we both went, "That is a bunch of fluffing BS."

Because everybody knows that it was EVIE'S idea to start transferring kids over to the Isle.

I can't even imagine how many meetings she had to attend, presentations she had to give and trouble she had to deal with from the higher ups.

Because D3 is when they are finally able to bring Dizzy over to Auradon and they've already graduated high school at this point.

And yet, Mal gets the praise.

Mal gets the credit.

And when they encounter their first bump in the road, it's Mal who shuts down the program. Destroying all of Evie's hard work.

While it’s not an official term used, I’ve been calling Carlos, Evie and Uma all “Heroes of the Isle.” Mainly because most, if not all, of their most prominent actions in the films (when actually given any) have been for the sake of the Isle and the children they wish to protect and save.

And it can switch from Heroes of the Isle to Heroes from the Isle, mostly depending on what stance my argument has.

This stance being tilted toward Janelos, though I will probably post another rant talking about how Evie should have been the main character of D3.

Now this is the first time we see Carlos actively having someone to protect since Dude in D1, the second he returns to Auradon from the Isle he calls Jane several times. He then spends a good deal of the movie before Jane comes back being mopey. Which is something you notice if you watch a movie three times in a row and those two other times all you do is look at Carlos.

It’s an interesting thought to have in your head, Carlos - A Protector.

While interesting, it never surprised me.

You can see a lot of his protectiveness in D2 when they return to the Isle, with him usually being the first one to charge.

And it only took me so long to notice that because I’ve had an image of Carlos built in my head.

Nothing can ruin your outlook of a character faster than the fandom’s perception of them.

If you listened to all the people going on and on about how Shaggy from Scooby-Doo is clearly coded to be a stoner, you might miss that he was a star gymnast and a pro-golfer. How many of y’all knew that Daphne was a straight A student?

The Descendants’ fandom has usually painted Carlos as the obligatory, “Smol bean, too precious for this world. Must protecc.”

Which is fine, if the character is clearly supposed to be interpreted as those things.

Carlos, while definitely too good for both the Isle and Auradon, is not a weak and helpless character. Sure he’s soft spoken and really really nice, like omg there is no way him and Cruella share the same DNA, but he also did really well in tourney and fencing.

He’s perceptive and quick to adapt.

And on top of all of that, he’s hurt.

So many years of being a doormat on the Isle, not only for his mother but every other person that looked down on him.

Despite all of that, he still cares about people.

He still has so much love to give to people he knows need it.

And in D3, Carlos seems to finally know who he is when separated from the VK or AK title.

He wants to help VKs transfer onto Auradon.

He wants a place to house lost boys and girls who were like him, no safe place to go.

He wants to be a vet.

And he wants to love Jane.

When he reunites with Jane in the second act of the movie, you can see that it’s not just Carlos that feels this way.

Once again, just like in D2, Jane fully reciprocates all of his feelings maybe even more so with the way she always renders his breathless every time.

Jane and Carlos give and receive love with no counter or limit in sight, they snuggle and hug and just... touch.

They make promises to stay safe, to keep each other safe, to stay together.

Always surprising the other with the reminder that they do indeed love each other.

Because they were two lonely kids that needed to love and be loved.

And the trilogy ends giving both of them exactly that.

And this is all just whatever I can glean from the movies.

When Amazon finally decides to send me all of the books it’s over for you hoes.

#Believe it of not #i still have plenty of things to say about carlos and janelos #but i just really needed to cover the importance of them in d3 because it was keeping me up at night #i also have a lot to say about evie because i adore her almost as much as i adore jane and carlos #so hopefully i get around to writing an evie post #descendants #descendant 3 #carlos de vil #jane daughter of fairy godmother #janelos #jane x carlos

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jerrydog · 5 years ago

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I had absolutely no intention of watching The Rise of Skywalker. In fact, I’ve never even bothered watching a single trailer for this movie. The only way I’d watch this is if someone dragged me into it, which is exactly what happened. Thanks to The Last Jedi, I started viewing Star Wars movies in a different light— more objectively, so to speak. It made that cloak of nostalgia that was hindering my vision vanish completely. Because that’s all there was to it. I realized that I only liked Star Wars because of nostalgia. Because of its great significance in pop culture for the past few decades. Take that away, and I realized that most of these movies were average at best.

I was old enough to watch the prequels in cinemas. Maybe I was too young then, but I loved The Phantom Menace. This made me look forward to Attack of the Clones, which I didn’t really like at first. But everyone else seemed to like it. Everyone else was so hyped up over it, because duh— it’s Star Wars. So I somehow convinced myself that I should like it as well. Call it peer pressure or whatever. Revenge of the Sith had its issues, but overall I found it entertaining. At least entertaining enough to make me seek out episodes IV-VI on home video. Maybe it was the influence of nostalgia again, especially since my parents were huge fans. After watching all episodes from I to VI, I was already somewhat of a Star Wars fan.

 I was one of those who were so excited to see The Force Awakens. After such a long time, we were gonna see a new Star Wars movie on the big screen! And it had a lot of the original cast returning! That was surely a case of pandering to nostalgia, but heck everyone including myself lapped it all up. Sure it was mostly a rehash, it doesn’t hold up that well on repeat viewings, but it sure was fun to watch for the very first time. Especially once you see all those beloved characters back on the big screen. And with that cliffhanger ending showing our first glimpse of Luke Skywalker after all these years? Man, everyone sure as hell were hyped up for the sequel.

Which was the aforementioned The Last Jedi— definitely the most divisive Star Wars movie ever made. I can’t understand how some people loved it, because I think it’s downright horrible. Apparently I didn’t think it was so bad the first time I saw it— I gave it a 3/5 on my review here. That time though one of my friends fell asleep while watching. another one was so bored he wanted to walk out. These were HUGE Star Wars fans by the way. The fact that two huge fans couldn’t finish viewing a Star Wars movie was quite telling. I saw it again with my cousin after two months because she had not seen it yet. It’s a struggle to get through such a pointless plot on second viewing. I was shocked to find out that Rose Tico didn’t die. lol. Apparently I was no longer paying much attention towards the end on my first viewing. After this second viewing I’d give it a 2/5. I managed to see it alone at home for the third time, when I did a Star Wars marathon of sorts. It was the only movie that I was struggling to finish. Since I was watching it alone in the comfort of my own room, I could rate it the most objectively. After the third viewing, I’d give it a 1/5.

I know we all have different tastes. If you liked The Last Jedi, if you enjoyed watching it, I’d respect that. But please do not refer to it as excellent, as perfect, or the best Star Wars Movie ever because it isn’t any of those. I wouldn’t call a movie with such a useless plot perfect. That main plot could have been told in 15 minutes or less. The entire movie just wasted 2 ½ hours over nothing. The side quest was just as pointless. Plot holes were numerous. Beloved characters were quickly set aside. Beloved characters start to behave in a way that’s completely out of character. A bunch of new main characters pop out of nowhere, with no other purpose than to serve an agenda. Many things did not make sense even on a science fiction movie. Characters show new skills, even though such skills were never foreshadowed in what’s supposed to be a saga. It also diverged from any logical path following The Force Awakens. In fact after viewing all Star Wars movies in succession from episodes I to XI, The Last Jedi stands out because it doesn’t conform with the universe set in the other episodes. In doesn’t fit the overarching narrative at all. They might as well have called it The Last Jedi: A Star Wars Story.

Look, I get it. Innovation and non conformity should be praised, but only when it’s done in a proper setting. If you’re going to make a movie that’s part of a trilogy or part of an entire saga, you have to be a team player. You have to stick to a certain theme. You can’t push boundaries too far, else your movie won’t feel part of a whole even though it’s supposed to be. Rian Johnson knew The Last Jedi was gonna be part of a Trilogy. You can’t verge too far when you’re making an episode in a trilogy— especially not when it’s the second installment you’re making. So yeah, I’m glad JJ Abrams did a retcon and basically ignored Episode VIII. It wouldn’t take much to ignore it anyway, considering the fact that close to nothing of significance happened in that episode. Oh yeah, Luke died/ vanished. Also Snoke, in what was the only awesome scene in the entire movie IMO. Anything else that happened were basically non events.

 Now critics are complaining that The Rise of Skywalker ignores the narrative threads that were set by Rian Johnson. Oh you mean the same way he ignored the narrative threads set by JJ Abrams? I didn’t hear any critics complaining then. All I heard were praises because the movie was so inclusive, it was so empowering, it was refreshing because it didn’t feel like a Star Wars movie. How can “not feeling like a Star Wars movie” be a good thing about a movie that’s supposed to be part of the Star Wars Saga? Look, general audiences couldn’t care less about the race or gender of characters they see onscreen as long as a good story is being told. Majority of people who hated The Last Jedi aren’t single white men who are still living in their parent’s basements, so SJWs should quit that tired narrative. A lot of people who hated The Last Jedi are ordinary moviegoers who just wanted to have fun watching a movie set in the universe they’re familiar with. A lot of people hated The Last Jedi because even that was taken away from them. 

Critics are also complaining about several plot points. Like how Emperor Palpatine is still alive (not a spoiler: it’s on the movie’s official synopsis, and it’s stated right at the very beginning.) I know, that totally came out of left field. Palpatine clearly died on episode VI. There were no hints or foreshadowing that he was still alive on episodes VII and VIII, even on repeat viewings. Thus is comes off as a cheap and desperate attempt. Whose fault was this though? Who decided to kill off this new trilogy’s big bad on the second episode? Rian Johnson didn’t leave much for JJ Abrams to work with here, he was basically pushed against a wall and working with his hands tied. Creating an entirely new villain would be anticlimactic, but since it’s a part of a 9 movie saga, the next best thing would be to revive a villain from the past. Another common complaint is that this new movie feels rushed, that so many things were being packed in a little over 2 hours. Again whose fault is that? If Rian Johnson didn’t waste 2 ½ on the previous movie and told a story with significant events that would feed naturally onto the next episode, an episode that would serve as a bridge between two episodes instead of looking like some disjointed amalgamation, this wouldn’t have happened would it? JJ Abrams had that unenviable task of trying to tie up so many loose ends. It would have helped if Rian Johnson tried to be a team player by tying up some loose ends from The Force Awakens and then tying up some of his. But no, he preferred to do things his own way. He preferred to be different, he preferred to leave his indelible mark. Instead of effectively bridging two episodes, he left the Skywalker Saga with no clear direction.

 I agree. This movie seemed rushed. It seemed forced. It could use a lot more time to tell the story. But considering the difficult task that JJ Abrams was given, those faults are easily forgivable. Yes a lot of it is fan service and obvious pandering. But isn’t that only fitting for what’s supposed to be the final chapter in the Skywalker Saga that started way back in 1977? Anyone who grew up with these movies would enjoy this finale. it contains a lot of the things that people have loved about Star Wars. This series has been around for more than 4 decades, fans belong to different generations. Episode XI is not a perfect movie, but it’s a perfect thank you to everyone who has been a fan. I had no intention of watching this movie, but I’m glad I was forced to give gave it a chance. It’s not the best Star Wars movie, but it’s good enough to restore my faith in all things Star Wars.  …  My rating: 4/5

#star wars #the rise of skywalker #Movie Reviews #movie review #movie #movies

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