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danganronpasurvivoraskblog · 1 year ago

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Can you do it?

Of course I can. Unlike you, I am more than capable. My talent's include Ultimate Game Analysist, Ultimate Historian, Ultimate Theorist, Ultimate-

Yeah, yeah, I get the picture. Also, I'm the Ultimate Gamer, not the Ultimate Game Analysist.

I play games. I rarely ever think too hard about the story unless it's really good. Even if they're not, I still enjoy them.

But go on! Hit me with your best shot!

Alright...

The story starts with a man named William Afton, who moves from England to a town called Hurricane in America with his wife and three kids; His eldest son Michael, his younger son Evan and his daughter, Elizabeth. He meets a man named Henry Emily, and after forming a friendship, the two of them open an animatronic-themed family diner called Fredbear's Family Diner. The problems begin when one day, Henry's daughter, Charlotte, is having a birthday party at the diner. The other kids are mean though, and they lock her outside. William then arrives at the diner, drags Charlotte into the alleyway, and murders her. It's unclear why he does this, though it is rumored he was tired and drunk, and had been having a fight with Henry over management of the diner. Now, Henry built an animatronic called The Puppet made to watch over his daughter, but while this was happening, the Puppet was stuck inside a box. When it gets out, it goes outside to try and protect her, but not only is it too late, it's raining, so it ends up breaking down. Charlotte's spirit then latches onto the Puppet's body, and possesses it. The next part of the story focuses on Afton's sons, Michael and Evan, the former of which is abusive to the latter. On Evan's birthday in 1983, Michael and his friends shove Evan into Fredbear's mouth as a prank. However, one thing they did not know is that at least two of the animatronics, Fredbear and Spring Bonnie, contain a device called Springlocks, which allow these animatronics to be cranked open as suits. This was an idea by Henry and Afton to save on management funds for the animatronics, but there is a catch. If the Springlocks get loose on the animatronic suits, they fold back in and crush the person inside them. This is exactly what happens to Evan, who's skull is crushed after Fredbear practically bites his head off; he goes into a coma, and dies a week later. As if it wasn't the case before, William Afton reaches his breaking point following Evan's death, and starts using the Spring Bonnie suit to lure children into the back rooms of the diner, and then kill them; then proceeding to hide their bodies inside the animatronics. He's successfully able to kill 5 children before he gets caught, but due to the fact that no one can find the children's bodies or any evidence of his crimes, Afton gets away with it. After their deaths, Charlotte Emily, possessing the Puppet, starts putting the spirits of the dead children in the animatronics they were stuffed in. Which means by this point in time, the Puppet, Freddy Fazbear, Chica the Chicken, Bonnie the Bunny, Foxy the Pirate, an unused Golden Freddy costume, and Fredbear, are all possessed by the ghosts of the children Afton murdered, with Fredbear being the only exception, as he is possessed by Even Afton. Even though he is able to avoid prison, William Afton is fired from his own company as a result of the scandal. He then proceeds to open up his own business, Afton Robotics, to work with this sister company called Circus Baby's Pizza World. At some point down the line, Afton discovers this material called Remnant that is produced when young children die. Remnant allows one to preserve their soul after they die, and this is what allowed Charlotte, Evan and the other kids to possess the bodies of the animatronics, and using it, you can effectively become immortal. Afton then starts creating robots like Circus Baby and a few others designed to kill children, so that he can harvest this Remnant. However, another problem arises, when one day, Afton's daughter Elizabeth, gets too close to Circus Baby. With Evan now dead and with Michael having left the house, Elizabeth is Afton's only remaining child, and with this, she is then indirectly murdered by Afton's own hand. While the details after this incident are still unclear, supposedly, Afton loses what little remains of his sanity and ends up killing his wife, and puts her inside another animatronic called Ballora. This is still only tentative and theorized stuff though, so it's up for debate. Regardless, Circus Baby's Pizza World is closed before it even has a chance to open, and William Afton is all alone and on the loose. Flash forward to 1987, and there’s a new pizzeria open called Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. The animatronic suits the deceased children possess are stored safely in the back room, and the new animatronics, including Toy Freddy, Toy Bonnie, Toy Chica, The Mangle, and Balloon Boy are equipped with facial recognition software designed to detect the faces of criminals. This is implemented in case William Afton ever comes back, but it proves ineffective. Afton returns, and with no Springlock suits to hide in, he instead uses the empty Golden Freddy suit, since it’s unused, broken, and mostly empty. He kills another 5 children, which thanks to Charlotte Emily in the puppet still being present, possesses the spirits of the animatronics that I just mentioned. This is the second missing children incident focused in on Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. The place is then forced to close down, but before that point, they hold one last party on November 14th 1987. During this party, it is suspected that Jeremy Fitzgerald, the protagonist of Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, becomes the victim of the Bite of ‘87, after moving to the day shift and having his frontal lobe bitten off by The Mangle. The restaurant is closed down for good, and a few years afterwards, suggested to be somewhere in the 1980′s, William Afton sends out a message to his only remaining family member, Michael Afton, and tells him that his sister and mother are trapped inside the now closed Circus Baby’s Pizza World. Michael goes to Circus Baby’s in the hopes of setting them free, which is now an automated establishment. They think he’s an employee, so Michael poses as one and spends a week there while the building attempts to reopen, until he is tricked by the animatronics, and attacked by a scooping device, similar to the one inside Baby that killed Elizabeth. During the week Michael works, the robots in the facility, including Baby, Ballora, Funtime Freddy, Funtime Foxy, as well as a few others, tear themselves apart and reform themselves into a mash of animatronic parts; adopting the name “Ennard”. When Michael gets scooped, he is injected with Remnant and completely scooped out of his insides. Ennard then uses Michael’s body as a suit to escape the sister location. After they escape, Michael effectively becomes a walking corpse, then vowing to find his father and end his suffering. The first place he tries is the new Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, which opens in 1993, which also happens to be the original location of Fredbear’s Family Diner, and uses the original cast of Freddy, Bonnie, Chica and Foxy, as well as refitting the original Golden Freddy suit, but they never actually use him. The original Spring Bonnie is also housed here, but is unused and rotting. Michael was blacklisted from Freddy’s history after the death of his brother, so in order to land a job at the place, he uses the name Mike Schmidt, the name of the protagonist of the original Five Night’s at Freddy’s. However, the possessed animatronics mistake Michael for his father and spend the week trying to kill him. After his week is finished, he is fired, and the place once again gets shut down. Michael unfortunately never finds his father, but William Afton DOES come back to the original location. Because of Michael, he now knows that the kids have possessed the animatronics, and fearing for what they might do, he goes to Pizzeria after it closes down to dismantle them. Every Fazbear Location has a room that is off the map and invisible to the animatronics, which the company typically uses for storage, as well as to hide the victims of the springlocks so they bleed out without the children seeing. William hides in this room, coming out to dismantle the animatronics until all four of them are torn apart. However, once he does this, he releases the spirits of the kids who attack him. With nowhere to run, Afton hides inside the rotting Spring Bonnie suit, in hopes of scaring the kids off. He laughs as he thinks he has them cornered, but the Spring locks, which have loosened over time, fail, and he gets crushed inside. Afton has spent years prior injecting himself with Remnant, so when he’s crushed, he comes back to life, thus marking the birth of the series’ most infamous antagonist: Springtrap. Afton doesn’t have a will of his own though, and is locked in the room until 2023, with the opening of Fazbear’s Fright. Fazbear's Fright: The Horror Attraction is the location in which Five Nights at Freddy's 3 takes place. The attraction is a replica of the old Freddy Fazbear's Pizza located inside a local amusement park, meant to revive the decades-old urban legends that surrounded the establishment. Outfitted with old animatronic parts and suits, as well as dim lighting and true-to-life décor, patrons would walk through the building like a haunted house, reliving the nightmare of 30 years ago. Afton, having spent another 30 years rotting inside of the Spring Bonnie suit, is transported to Fazbear’s Fright. And as luck would have it, the one filling the role of the night guard for the establishment, is Michael Afton. Taking the opportunity before he misses it, Michael sets fire to the building and burns it down with William inside it, using the establishment’s faulty wiring as an excuse. When Fazbear’s Fright burns down, William is killed and the spirits of the original 5 deceased children, who have been possessing Michael throughout the week he was working there, are set free...Or so he thought. As it turns out, William survives the fire and rebuilds himself with the parts that were left over inside the building, and escapes. As things stand, Charlotte Emily possessing the Puppet, Elizabeth Afton possessing Ennard, and William Afton possessing Springtrap, are all out roaming the world. Ennard gets tired of being controlled by Elizabeth, so he spits her out. Elizabeth then rebuilds herself into a new version of Circus Baby called Scrap Baby. Ennard then discards the clown mask and takes on a new Freddy-shaped face, now going by the name “Molten Freddy.” Molten Freddy also has the spirits of the 5 children possessing the Toy animatronics inside it. After all this time, Henry Emily finally learns what’s been happening over the past few decades, and decides to take it upon himself to settle things. At an unspecified time after FNAF 3, he devises a plan to bring all the animatronics into one location, including Springtrap, Baby, Molten Freddy and the Puppet, so he can destroy them and set them all free once and for all. Henry creates an animatronic called the Lure Encapsulate Fuse Transport and Extract device, also known as L.E.F.T.E or Lefty for short, modelled after Freddy, to find the Puppet possessed by his daughter, and capture her. When Michael finds out about this, he goes to the fake Pizzeria that Henry created for his plot, luring all the animatronics together in one place. Henry then locks down the building and burns the whole thing down with himself, Michael, Elizabeth, Afton’s wife, Charlotte, William and the remaining children inside Molten Freddy, freeing all of their souls from the torment. William’s soul is sent to hell where the children are free to torture him for all eternity, but the story of Springtrap doesn’t end there. Some time before his death, William uses his genius mind to scratch his consciousness and memories in binary code into the electrical components of some of the animatronics. The big problem with Henry’s penultimate plan was that Fazbear Entertainment was no longer in his own hands, and was actually still running as it’s own company at this point. Some time during the events of the other games, an anonymous games developer was hired by Fazbear Entertainment, then later hiring a different company called Silver Parasol Games to create the Freddy Fazbear Virtual Experience. The purpose of these games being published was to make it seem as if the events of the previous games were fabrications and old wives tails, and to discredit the real stories of the children getting killed. The issue arises in the computer chips that Silver Parasol Games were provided by Fazbear Entertainment to scan in, in order to make the animatronics in the virtual world appear more realistic. And as you might have guessed, William Afton’s consciousness is thus ported into the game, practically bringing him back to life within the world of the game. Now known as Glitchtrap, Afton programs himself the power to take over the body of the tester, so he can bring himself back to the real world. He tries taking over the body of a dev named Jeremy, but after deciding that Jeremy is a poor candidate, he possesses his body and forces him to commit suicide by using a guillotine paper slicer on his own face. The second person he tries to possess is the unnamed protagonist of FNAF VR: Help Wanted. This fails, and the dev is able to defeat Glitchtrap and lock him away. However, before this happens, Glitchtrap finds another host named Vanessa, and eventually settles on using her. After the VR experience, as well as an additional Halloween themed DLC, Fazbear Entertainment then commissions the creation of a giant mall called Freddy Fazbear’s Mega Pizzaplex. During the run time of the Pizzaplex, multiple animatronics are switched around and the tragedies begin yet again. This leads into the events of Five Nights At Freddy’s Security Breach, and the events that preceded it involve an unknown specimen, Patient 46, and Vanny, Vanessa’s villainous alter ego under the control of Afton, reprogramming the animatronics' systems and make them more deadly. Alongside this, another 9 unnamed people go missing, likely all children, as well as multiple missing therapists, likely killed by Vanny. While the original lineup of band animatronics at the Pizzaplex includes Glamrock Freddy, Glamrock Bonnie, Glamrock Chica and Roxanne Wolf, Bonnie is eventually replaced by Montgomery Gator. With how the game says this happens following a night where Bonnie went down to Monty’s designated area, the golf course, before his disappearance, as well as how his physical appearance in Security Breach’s DLC, Ruin, shows he has claw marks across his body, it’s highly likely Monty dismantled or damaged Bonnie beyond repair, so that he could replace him in the main cast. Roxanne Wolf, or Roxy’s reason for taking Foxy’s place in the main cast is never given a reason. One night, after the Glamrock animatronics have been reprogrammed, Freddy Fazbear malfunctions and breaks down on stage. When he wakes up, it’s revealed that he was placed in low power mode, which likely saved him from Patient 46′s reprogramming. Also, he discovers that a young, homeless, orphaned, anonymously registered boy named Gregory, the protagonist of Security Breach, has been hiding inside his chest. Freddy resolves to help Gregory escape the Pizzaplex before Vanny and the animatronics can find and kill him, and they discover that the Pizzaplex is built on top of the fake restaurant that Henry Emily created to lure Afton and the others years prior. Vanny locates Afton’s corpse in this building and uses the recharge stations for the Pizzaplex animatronics to reanimate his body, effectively bringing him back to life. However, before Afton can return and start killing again, Gregory and Freddy stop him, and he is killed by a creature called the Blob. The Blob is very similar to Ennard and Molten Freddy, as it is an amalgamation of several animatronics that are possessed by the 9 people that went missing. Security Breach has several endings, but the “canon” ending that results in Afton’s defeat results in Freddy and Gregory escaping and sitting on top of a hill, staring into the sun. It is likely that with the eventual destruction of the Pizzaplex, Vanessa’s spirit is freed from the clutches of Vanny and Afton, but this is not guaranteed. Lastly, we come to where we currently reside in the story with Security Breach: Ruin. At some unknown time, Gregory befriended a young girl named Cassie, the daughter of one of the Pizzaplex’s engineers. Apparently, the story goes that Cassie had her birthday at the Pizzaplex, but none of her friends showed up, leaving her to become friends with Gregory, who comforted her, and for Roxy to do the same, becoming Cassie’s favorite animatronic. After the Pizzaplex is shut down, Cassie gets an SOS from who she believes to be Gregory, and goes to the ruined Pizzaplex to rescue him, as he has somehow ended up trapped under it. In reality, it turns out to be a trap created by an animatronic called the Mimic. The Mimic is first introduced in the Tales from the Pizzaplex storybooks, and is a hyper-intelligent animatronic created by Edwin Murray to care for his young son while he worked. The mimic has the special ability to copy the behavior and voice of anything it observes, as well as change its form to fit into any animatronic suit. After Murray’s son David dies via vehicular manslaughter, the Mimic tries to imitate David, after learning his mannerisms and habits through his interactions with the boy. Edwin loses it and bludgeons the mimic to death with his fists. A week before Christmas, Fazbear Entertainment sends a small team to the abandoned factory to "clean up a mess." The team believes they are expected to finish Edwin's projects, and while doing so they come across the remains of the Mimic. From the waist up it appears to be functional but it doesn't move, so the team decides to complete it by attaching legs from a nonfunctional animatronic onto it. Then, the Mimic comes to life and kills each of them in ways eerily reminiscent of innocuous behaviors it had seen from Edwin and David. Several more people come to the Pizzaplex for various reasons in the Tales from the Pizzaplex storyline, and the Mimic begins to claim more and more lives. It’s suggested that prior to the events of Security Breach, Vanny discovered the Mimic under the Pizzaplex and deemed it a problem, so she developed a system called the M.X.E.S to imprison it. However, during the events of the DLC post the original game, the Mimic poses as Gregory, mimicking his voice and pretending he's trapped in the Pizzaplex so Cassie can unknowingly free it. Once Cassie deactivates the M.X.E.S, the Mimic escapes and tries to kill her. In the supposed “canonical” ending, Roxy protects Cassie, then Cassie tries to escape via an elevator. The real Gregory contacts her through a loudspeaker, and tells her that it is not her fault. However, he also says that bringing Cassie back up to the surface will be a huge risk, as the Mimic will also follow them. And after apologizing, the wires to the elevator get cut, causing Cassie to fall into the depths of the underground. Her fate, as well as the Mimic’s, are left unknown.

...That’s it.

Holy $!-!17...

#danganronpa survivor #danganronpa #danganronpa 2 #dr2 #izuru kamukura #chiaki nanami #ask #foundation rising arc #this is the stupidest thing i've ever made #meme

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teddy-feathers · 4 months ago

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gonna talk a bit about my super hero characters

This is cannon for the universe i need to build for them and not necessarily how ive been role playing them.

There's Noah Really. He's Caucasian and got a nose with a big arch, green eyes, and long blonde hair. His power is prehensile hair - if you had a power null on around him itd still work because its just another muscle. He's gay and came from a very large conservative family. They kicked him out as soon as legally able and he's been managing on his own since. While he loves his siblings and had a large part in rasing many of them as the second eldest, hes been completely cut off from his family. He made a new one though. a bunch of other young supers who needed/ need help. He's talkative, flirty, flamboyant, but despite that he very rarely dates. He has too many platonic people relying on him to settle for anything less than a real deep snd long lasting connection.

Jo Everbody is an Asian American kid with shaggy, ear length black hair and brown eyes. They're non binary but look and dress masculine, though the carpet dont match the drapes so to speak. They're younger than most of the rest of the group though only by a couple of years. they have a home though, they lost their parents when they were ten and their sister Cecilia "Cissa" had just turned 18 and was allowed to take care of them. Their power is they are a very powerful empath, when they were younger they got overstimulated by this frequently. Now that theyre older they have better control and regulation of their power... but they crave deep emotional attachments and often date and get dumped seeking them. Theyre quiet and studious outside of their flings and dont know how to handle ofher people's emotions without fixing it for them - something theyre loath to do. But they do like doing emotional feedback during romantic encounters. if they feel good and their partner feels good it can create a positive feedback loop that feeds on itself.

"Deb" Debrah Beat is an African American woman with brown curls, dark brown eyes, and a great smile. Shes very active and physical and would like to be a physical therapist but.... her power is she heals. From everything. Anything. Since it's basically a horrible power she designed and built - with the help of her girlfriend - some large robotic gloves. She can punch like the hulk with those on and she never lets slip her power is healing herself.

"Abby" Abhi Normal is a trans woman. She dyes her hair pink and favors very feminine clothing, rarely wearing pants. She likes costumes and trying different fashions but mostly she is creative. Her power is being able to control what she creates. So she creates everything from paper dolls to mannequins. Shes very handy. She is pansexual and in a very committed and loving relationship with Deb Beat.

Dan Gnabbit is a trans man. Hes a bit of a nerd, bit of a slob, but his power is opening doors. if it looks like a door he can make a portal between it and a place he knows that also has a door like area to anchor to. the fun thing is its all in his head - it doesn't have to be a door like structure. he can just make portals. but hes still learning to control his power and needs the mental connection.

Varie Nearly is a... difficult person. Shes Aromatic but into sex. thats not why shes difficult shes... kinda a bitch. very much a kick you while your down sort of person. very insulting. she like punkish clothing and has died red hair and wears heavy purple makeup. the thing with her is she might be an asshole but shes *our* asshole. surprisingly very loyal to the group. her power is she can talk to birds. youll find her up trees when shes not harrassing someone already having a bad day.

Seren Deputy is a hispanic american woman who really really wants to become a doctor. only problem is that her power is opening old wounds. She wouldve killed deb by accident had deb not been a healer. shes actually extremely smart, very kind, and is working her way to med school. shes just also feels bad that she could have killed deb that one time.

theres probably more to this but I'm tired

#supers

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aspoonofsugar · 4 years ago

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What is your opinion about the Maidens in RWBY and their importance?

Hello anon!

I like the Maidens and especially how they explore two main ideas:

1) The concept of cycles and generations.

2) The trope of the chosen one.

THE CYCLE OF SEASONS

I think it is clear Ozpin created the Maidens partly because he wanted guardians and partly as a way to grieve his four daughters. He has symbolically dragged them into the cycle with him and Salem.

In a sense, the story keeps repeating. Salem kills Ozpin, he is reborn and his daughters are victims of the conflict between them.

Because of this, the four Maidens have become one of the many symbols of this endless cycle, which is clealry breaking its protagonists more and more.

This is well conveyed by the Maidens having a season theme. Seasons are in fact linked to the repetition of time aka one of Ozpin’s motifs:

At the same time, the idea of an older woman passing the torch to a younger one can be easily read as a metaphor for a mother-daughter dynamic. This is not always the case, but so far this interpretation is important for two of our four Maidens:

Penny receiving the Maiden’s powers from Fria is important on multiple levels and it plays on Penny alluding to Pinocchio. Fria (The Blue Fairy) recognizes Penny as a real girl, something she has been struggling with since the beginning:

Penny: Ruby... I'm not a real girl.

And is still struggling with:

Cinder: I don’t serve anyone. And you wouldn’t either, if you were built that way.

That said, Penny is not only struggling with enemies that consider her a robot, but also with the (understandable) overprotectiveness of people who love her:

Pietro: I lost you before. Are you asking me to go through that again? No. No. I want the chance to watch you live your life.

Penny: But dad… I am trying to.

She is not only a robot, who wants to prove she is a real girl, but also a daughter, who wants to grow into her own person.

This idea is made even stronger by Penny having been “created” through Pietro’s aura. She is a part of Pietro becoming someone completely different and independent from him. Still, isn’t it what all children are?

Raven is instead Penny’s opposite since she is not a daughter, but a mother. Not only that, but she is a mother, who fails three times.

She fails her biological daughter Yang by abandoning her and putting her in danger.

She fails Vernal, who dies for her.

She fails the previous Spring Maiden, who clearly looked up to her and was betrayed:

Cinder: Vernal was a decoy the whole time. The last Spring Maiden must've trusted you a great deal before she died. I bet that was a mistake...

This is well conveyed by Raven’s case being the opposite of what should ideally happen. Normally an older Maiden should pass her power to a younger girl, so that the cycle keeps going and that a new generation can keep fighting for good. However, Raven steals the powers of the Maiden for herself, just like she uses her shape-shifting ability for selfish objectives:

Ozpin: Everyone has a choice. The Branwens chose to accept their powers and the responsibilities that came with them. And later, one of them chose to abandon her duties in favor of her own self-interest.

She presents herself as a mentor for young women, but in the end she is a failure because she is too self-centered.

In conclusion, Rwby is both a coming of age story and a story that deals with cycles. Let’s think about the many abusive cycles in the story or the damaging cycles present in society, for example. All these cycles need to be broken and I would not be surprised if this will be the case for the cycle of the Maidens as well.

THE CHOSEN ONES

Up until now, the person who should be a Maiden never becomes one.

a) Pyrrha was destined to be the Fall Maiden, but Cinder stole the power.

b) Vernal is foreshadowed to be the Spring Maiden, but Raven turns out to be the real one.

c) Winter has been preparing herself to inherit the Winter’s Maiden’s role, but Penny is the one chosen by Fria.

Why is that so?

The story is clearly playing with the idea of the “chosen one” and asking some questions.

Are people chosen by destiny:

Cinder: It’s unfortunate you were promised a power that was never truly yours.

Or do they choose it?

Red-Haired Woman: She understood that she had a responsibility… to try. I don’t think she would regret her choice, because a Huntress would understand that there really wasn’t a choice to make. And a Huntress is what she always wanted to be.

What if the chosen person is the wrong one?

Lionheart: She was determined, at first, when she inherited her powers, but the weight of responsibility proved to be too much for the child. She... ran. Abandoned her training, everyone. That was over a decade ago. There's no telling where she could be now.

Finally, is it even right to choose a person?

Weiss: Doesn't it bother you? He practically groomed your entire military career.

Winter: It did at first, when the General first proposed it to me. But the more I thought about it, the more I saw it as a privilege, a chance to do some real good for Atlas. For Remnant.

Weiss: But your destiny was chosen for you, without your input.

So far each Maiden has explored this concept in a different way. Moreover, the story has highlighted many problems with the method used by Ozpin and his allies to select their guardians.

First of all there is the machine used to transmit aura:

Ironwood: We've made... significant strides. And we believe we've found a way to capture it.

Qrow: Capture it and cram it into something else. (gestures to Pyrrha as she takes a second to realize what that means) Or in your case ...

Pyrrha: (to Ironwood) That's...

Ironwood: Classified.

Pyrrha: ... wrong!

This method has been presented in-universe as sketchy and unethical both for the person who is having her aura taken and for the person receiving it.

It is also interesting that this machine is basically the technological equivalent of the Grimm used by Salem and Cinder to steal the powers in the first place:

One is the product of destruction (The Brother’s Grimms), while the other is the result of creation (in-universe technology is linked to creation). However, they both do essentially the same thing. They steal another person’s aura and change the one absorbing it:

Raven: You turned yourself into a monster just for power.

Secondly, there is the fact that so far several Maidens have died or have been targeted in horrible ways.

Some of them were specifically attacked because young and less experienced than others, like Amber. Some others made their choice without truly understanding it, like the Spring Maiden. And some of them. like Pyrrha, were not even given all the elements to make an informed choice.

In short:

Hazel: You send children to their deaths for a cause that you know has no victory, no end!

It is true that Hazel is a hypocrite that feels anger for Ozpin sending students to their deaths only to be the one killing them. It is also true that he does not respect his sister’s choice:

Oscar: Did she know the risk of being a Huntress?

Hazel: She was only a child! She wasn't ready!!

Oscar: She made a choice! A choice to put others before herself! So do I.

However, the narrative harshly criticizes Ozpin for not giving people all the information, “the knowledge”, they need to make that choice:

Yang: There was so much you hadn't told us! How could you think that was okay?!

Finally, we arrive at the current volumes where we see how Ironwood has tried to control Penny, Winter and Fria aka all the three people involved in the passage of the Maidens powers...only to fail miserably.

And in this failure probably lies the true mistake which has been made over and over again. The whole point is that probably the whole cycle (thematically) can’t and should not be controlled to this extent:

Goodwitch: At first, the only thing that was certain was that the powers were specifically passed on to young women. But as time went on, it was discovered that the selection process was much more... intimate.

Pyrrha: ... Intimate?

Goodwitch: As we understand it now, when a Maiden dies, the one who is in her final thoughts is the first candidate to inherit her power.

The powers are passed from a person to another through emotions. It is not by chance that the last person in a Maiden’s mind is the one who gets the power. It is because the power is linked to emotions and to ties and you should not try to weaponize them.

MAIDENS AND RELICS

Finally each Maiden is clearly linked to the theme represented by her respective relic.

Pyrrha and Cinder are both linked to the idea of destiny and choosing. I have shared some thoughts on them here.

I would say that Cinder wants to be chosen. She wants to be special and to be given value. This is probably why she is serving Salem. It is because Salem has chosen her for an important role:

Salem: When I chose you as my vessel for the Maidens, I put my trust in you.

This is not positive. It is dehumanizing:

Salem: This game is not yours to win, Cinder, it’s mine. Just because you’re more valuable to me than a pawn, does not make you a player.

But Cinder sees this as a chance.

Pyrrha is instead a person, who chooses her own destiny:

Pyrrha: When I think of destiny, I don’t think of a predetermined fate you can’t escape. But rather… some sort of final goal, something you work towards your entire life.

In other words, Pyrrha has an active role in her own destiny, while Cinder so far has accepted it passively.

This might seem ironic because all in all Cinder has been a pretty active character. She was born as nothing and fought to free herself and to become more powerful. However, she is still leaving her own life in the hands of another person, who is specifically coded as an abusive mother-figure. It is probable that her arc will be about taking back the agency Salem is clearly stealing from her.

This might very well be why she is the Maiden of choice. It is because in the end she’ll make an active choice to get her own freedom back.

At the same time, Pyrrha being active in her choices still leads to her demise. This is because she represents a choice without knowledge, as I have stated in the meta linked above:

She had been explained only a fragment of the truth, while the whole point is that one should learn, meet creation and destruction and then make a choice. This is why we have yet to meet the relic of choice.

As a matter of fact it is clear that knowledge and choice are complementary, just like destruction and creation.

This is highlighted also by their respective relics. On one hand the Lamp offers knowledge of the past. On the other hand the Crown gives its user a vision of a future choice.

This is because one has to know the past to change the future:

Bartholomew Oobleck : History is important, gentlemen! If you can't learn from it... you're destined to repeat it.

In a sense, knowledge is the passive condition of choice, while choice is the active goal of knowledge.

This is why one needs both to contribute to the world in the most effective way possible. If one acts without knowledge they might make the wrong choice. At the same time, knowledge without choice is just passiveness, as shown in The Indecisive King fairy tale.

Too much knowledge might lead to indeciveness or even cynism. This is why Raven is the Spring Maiden. It is because she is Pyrrha’s opposite aka knowledge without choice:

Yang: Which is it, mom? Are you merciful, or are you a survivor? Did you let me walk into that trap because you knew I could handle it, or because it meant you could get what you wanted?!

Raven keeps making decisions only to run away from them immediately after. Knowledge did not make her braver, but just a coward.

Finally we arrive to Penny and the idea of creation.

I have mentioned Penny in the meta linked above:

Penny is an artificial human, a creation who was given life because her father loved her so much that he sacrificed a part of his aura for her… twice. She is at the centre of the theme of creation and it represents the good sides of it. She is a creation with a soul, a child, the fruit of parental love. It is because of the love she received that she is willing to protect creation.

Penny is at the centre of the theme of creation in two ways.

a) She is a child, who wants independence.

b) She is a good declination of technology.

On one hand children are new lives that join the world. They are the embodyment of creation.

On the other hand technology is an expression of human creation and a way humans have to change and influence reality.

Penny is both. She is Pietro’s girl and a robot with a soul:

Pietro: When the General first challenged us to find the next breakthrough in defense technology, most of my colleagues pursued more obvious choices. I was one of the few who believed in looking inward for inspiration.

Ruby: You wanted a protector with a soul.

Pietro: I did. And when General Ironwood saw her, he did too. Much to my surprise, the Penny Project was chosen over all the other proposals.

Ironwood choosing Pietro’s project over others is very interesting and ambiguous. Did he choose this project because at the time he understood the importance of “a protector with a soul”?

Probably consciously yes, but the way he has treated Penny since volume 2 suggests also something different. It suggests a desire of domination. The idea that putting a soul into a metallic body would make it easier to control it.

After all:

Ironwood: For the past few years, Atlas has been studying Aura from a more scientific standpoint; how it works, what's it made of, how it can be used. We've made... significant strides. And we believe we've found a way to capture it.

Each one of humanity’s gift has another side of itself. Knowledge can lead to fear and choice is linked to passivity/agency. When it comes to creation, this gift brings with itself the temptation of control.

Why shouldn’t a creator “own” theis creation? Why shouldn’t they be entitled to it? Why should they share it with the rest of the world?

If one looks at Ironwood, at Atlas and at the other protagonists of this volume this way, a lot of things resonate.

Atlas is the most technological advanced kingdom, but instead of sharing its resources it closes off. Ironwood’s embargo is just another declination of this same idea of losing control.

Similarly the Ace Ops and Winter are all repressing their emotions. They want perfect control over themselves. They are taught they should be like drones.

Technology itself is often misused by the characters. Technolofy should be like Penny. It should have humanity and a soul, but Ironwood likes it because he sees it as something logical that can be controlled (and of course he keeps losing control over it). Ironwood wants to become like he thinks Penny is aka a controllable soul. He fails to understand that Penny is special because she has her own free will.

Finally, this same desire of control is present also in familial relationship. It is not by chance that the Schnee Family is in Atlas. Weiss’s story has always been about exploring this specific idea of a family. A family, which is cold and controlling, just like ice. Weiss’s arc is about melting this ice, in herself first and now in others as well.

Technological control and the control of people. In short, the control over two aspects of creation. This is the the idea Atlas represents and this is why it is currently falling.

In short, the creation must be free and it is not by chance the world is in its current predicament because the Gods tried to control their creations with disastrous results.

CONCLUSION

These are my main thoughts on the Maidens so far. That said, they might chance since the story is far from over as the arcs of all the maidens we have met so far.

As a final note, I find interesting that so far none of our four protagonists is a Maiden. It is an interesting choice and I think that it lets the series make a good use of its ensemble cast.

That said, I wonder if our four protagonists will end up calling back the original Four Maidens instead.

The fairy tale is interesting on multiple levels.

In-universe, it is interesting because it tells us something about how Ozpin was probably inspired by the original Four Maidens to try to save the world again. Ozpin is inspired by four normal people, who are just trying their best to help others.

This is a recurring idea in Rwby and this might be why none of the four protagonists has been selected to be a Maiden yet.

If read as a stand-alone, the story is an interesting tale on how to overcome depression.

The story starts with the old man closed in his house and it shows how he progressively opens up until he himself is able to help others.

Winter is the one who teaches him how to work on his own interiority even when the world is cold.

Springs prepares the terrain for him to come out. It makes the garden more welcoming. It is like when a person has to find the right environment to open herself up.

Summer is the one who finally drags the man out and gives him energy.

Finally Fall is the one who makes the man realize he can now share his new found energy with others.

Theirs is a virtuous cycle and I would say it is very different of the tragic cycle that sees the current Maidens as protagonists. Who knows? Maybe it is about going back to that virtuosity.

Thank you for the ask!

#rwby #rwby meta #maidens #cinder fall #raven branwen #penny polendina #pyrrha nikos #asksfullofsugar #anonymous

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katblu42 · 3 years ago

Text

Two

A fic for Virgil's birthday from an unusual point of view. Somewhat covering the "Outside POV" and "Virgil at Work" titles on the birthday challenge list.

Thank you @gumnut-logic for the read through, and for setting up this birthday event to prod me into finishing this one!

The sudden opening of my overhead hatch by remote access wakes me from my slumber. He’s coming. My pilot. There must be a situation. If it were anything else the hatch would have been opened manually, and if it were any other pilot it would be the lower hatch, not the one above my cockpit. He swings down from the end of his chute, his boots hit the checker plate of my cockpit floor and he reaches up to close the hatch. There is an automated close control, so he doesn’t have to do it by hand, but it is quicker and much more satisfying when he does. The solid thunk as it shuts both feels and sounds more secure, more reassuring than the slow, quiet, automatic closure. And it signals the unofficial beginning of our next adventure together. He smiles every time he pulls the hatch closed – there is a certain excitement in the urgency of a launch. Someone needs us, and we have to fly.

My pilot is unique. No one else treats me the way he does, or understands me like he does. He knows me better than any other human, more intimately than even the creator himself. The creator is the one responsible for my original design and build, but I suspect my pilot may have had a little input. He has certainly had a creative hand in upgrades and repairs, and prefers to do as much hands on maintenance work as he can, often working alongside the creator and his robotic assistant when he can’t complete the work on his own. The creator may well know every nut and bolt and wiring loom, every function and capability to the letter of the specifications, but my pilot knows I am more than a marvellous piece of engineering.

He knows me in the air – how I will respond to any weather conditions, any sudden changes, and every little twitch of my controls. My pilot knows my limits in practice, not just on paper and by the numbers. He will push me when it’s needed and knows when I have given all I can. We have nursed each other home battle-scarred and wounded on many an occasion. He will apologise whenever my abilities are stretched beyond capacity, whenever there is damage, and every time he needs to pull me apart for repairs. I don’t need the apologies. He takes care of me, and I will do my best to take care of him.

My pilot feels affection for me. He shows it in so many little ways, like the absent minded way he’ll trail his hand along the surface of my hull as he passes, or contentedly hum along with the rumble of my engines. It’s evident in the way he speaks to me. Barely audible whispers of greeting, or thanks for a job well done. Impassioned pleas to give just a little more in desperate times, often followed by relieved words of thanks accompanied by a loving rub of my dash, or forehead resting against a bulkhead with a relieved sigh once the crisis is over. He speaks to me in words of encouragement and praise. He believes in me and relies on me, and in return I will give him everything he asks of me. For him I will push my limits to do what he needs me to do, to get us all home safe.

He calls me beautiful. I know that I am not, but it is good to hear him say it. Strong and dependable I may be, but not beautiful – except perhaps in his eyes. I am not sleek and shiny like my sister ‘birds One and Three. Nor am I built for speed like them, but I am proud of my capabilities. Still one of the fastest machines in the air despite my grand size and considerable weight, I am versatile and able to carry just about any cargo imaginable. Sometimes I wish I could be faster, but I know that some things are more important. Without me it would be impossible to get specialised heavy equipment to where it is needed, my medical bay is the best equipped and largest in International Rescue’s fleet, and I am capable of carrying a large number of people to safety. If I were to fail in my duties it would make the job of my pilot and his colleagues immeasurably difficult. So, I must not fail.

He sings to me. When he’s working on repairs or maintenance, when he’s tidying the cockpit or restocking the medical supplies, or sometimes, when we’re flying alone. His voice resonates through my systems and reflects off my surfaces and harmonises with my own sounds. I like when he sings. He seems to do it when he’s happy, comfortable – content. None of the others ever sing to me. The Co-pilot – the one who belongs to Four – he sings sometimes, but it’s not the same. He seems to sing as a distraction, to change the prevailing mood in the cockpit, or just for his own entertainment. His singing is loud and raucous, but not necessarily bad.

Others have flown me when my pilot has been unable to. It is never the same. The Commander, One’s pilot, is always trying to rush me, wanting me to be something I am not. He is impatient with me and grumbles that I am not fast enough. He gets frustrated if I do not respond immediately to the slightest adjustment of my controls, and yet he will often take an extra fraction of a second to find the switch or lever he needs because he is used to flying a different ‘bird. I understand his sense of urgency, but flying for him is sometimes hard work, as though he is fighting me instead of working with me.

The Co-pilot, Four’s pilot is better. Four and I are like the closest of sisters in many ways. We are often called to work together as I am able to carry her to locations she cannot reach fast enough alone. As a result her pilot and mine work together often, and he gets to see first hand how my pilot handles my controls. When he is required to take over piloting duties he emulates what he has seen my pilot do, right down to voicing encouraging words when needed. He is a good pilot, but he lacks a little confidence in himself, as though he is afraid of doing something wrong and causing damage to another’s ‘bird. He means well and he is trying to connect with me on some level, but it is not the same as the partnership I have with my pilot.

The little one, Three’s pilot is somewhere in between those two. He has that nervousness about him, the fear of making a mistake flying a ‘bird that’s not his, and he seems to have a desire to prove himself so he’ll try and do things his way instead of feeling and listening to what I need. At the same time he is inclined to want to rush and expect me to respond more like One or Three instead of doing things my way, but he seems more comfortable adjusting his piloting style than the Commander is.

The other – the Voice from the stars – only really flies me remotely. I have no tangible connection with him. Remote piloting is clinical, calculated, precise and impersonal. He does not communicate directly with me through voice or touch, only electronics. He relies on numbers and sensor readings rather than human senses like my pilot does. I know it is necessary at times for this intangible Voice to take control this way, but it is a lonely way to fly.

My pilot’s strong hands are gentle, nimble and sure in their movements across my controls as he completes pre-flight procedures. The module we need for the job has been selected, loaded and secured into place – part of me, but not. The modules, the pods, the machines and equipment I carry are perhaps like accessories or clothing for a human – it is possible to fly without them, but they are still a part of my complete work-ready attire.

The hangar door is opening and we are rolling. My pilot gently caresses a hand across my dash and quietly utters “Here we go, girl.” The launch pad tilts and the countdown begins. I am a Thunderbird, and my engines rumble into a roar. I bring the thunder, and with my pilot, together we ride the lightning.

“Thunderbird Two is go!”

#thunderbird 2 #thunderbirds fanfiction #thunderbirds are go #virgil tracy #thunderbirds #TBBirthdayChallenge2021 #tbbirthdaychallenge

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razorblade180 · 4 years ago

Note

Overall thoughts on V8? Assuming you didn't answer this already.

I meant to do a volume wrap up review but I got incredibly busy and it fell to the waste side. The thing about me judging RWBY I have to come at it from two angles or I won’t feel like I judged it appropriately. There’s the casual, first time seeing the episodes and seeing this through the lens as a casual watcher who probably only sees the episodes once or twice. But then there’s the other side to that coin. I review these episodes, write aus, theorize, check extended lore, listen to the music, etc; that means I have to go back and watch episodes several times for any given reason and that’s when you start noticing the holes or picking up on things you didn’t before.

As a casual watcher, I’d give this an 8/10. There’s plenty of moments where characters do things that got me excited and plot points I wanted explored. This volume actually gave a decent amount of things I wanted for quite some time and some things I didn’t know I needed. Certainly there are things I don’t like in this but I’m open and curious to see where RT takes their storie because it’s their story.

Okay, now as a someone who’s had to deep dive and take a step back multiple times for a variety of reasons. 6.5/10 maybe a 7/10 if I’m being generous. A lot of my problems with this volume are problems that aren’t new to RWBY and that’s just how surface layer portions of arcs are and how a variety of choices/bonds don’t exactly make sense with what we were previously shown, or they only make sense because the writers don’t want introduce other complexities even though they should be there realistically. I’ll give a couple examples of these and yes, I’m aware what I say doesn’t bother everyone but it bothers me.

Qrow was never angry at or brought up Robyn being the reason their airship crashed in the first place because she started the fight; which aids in Clover dying.

Emerald follows Cinder, not Salem. Even if Cinder is working under Salem, why would Emerald be so willingly to complete shift to the side that actively goes against Cinder? There’s been no grand revelation to make Emerald believe Cinder doesn’t give a damn about her. Leaving made sense because she was about to get tortured. Going full turncoat right now doesn’t. No change happened. Emerald always hated being near Salem but adored Cinder no matter the crimes and the show hasn’t done anything to switch that view point.

I’m happy Whitley and Weiss had a touching sibling moment that implies they’re okay and making/made up, but there was never a conversation about the actual problem and thoughts that had them at odds in the first place. Weiss saving his and Willow’s life shouldn’t be the thing that smooths things over. It would’ve been terrible if Weiss do something to save their life. Whitley helping Penny is okay I guess because he really had no reason to contribute but did anyways. Even so, a person doing a morally correct thing doesn’t automatically warrant the conflict between him and Weiss’s resolved.

We got Cinder’s backstory; it didn’t tell us anything about how she eventually came into contact with Salem. Honestly her back story felt more in line of her main goal through the series was an absolute freedom by the means of breaking down the systems that trapped and didn’t give a damn, rather than her quest for power. Yes you can argue gaining power means it’s easier to maintain her freedom to do whatever she wants but I personally think that’s a little off the mark when you gave her a story that involves her trapped by rules and time rather than being too physically weak to gain freedom.

This show has built up that the Schnee family has suffered various types of abuse because of Jacques and uses Weiss as a medium to build towards breaking free from that. Not just overcoming but confronting the abuse by cementing it’s place below you. We don’t really get that. There will never be a moment where the siblings and mother truly get to break out of Jacques grasps emotionally and then put him in his place because he’s dead! Yeah they never have to worry about him again but even last volume they showed Winter still having turmoil and being able to get strung along by him. We don’t even really know how Whitley perceived his father. It feels so lackluster. Then they care to mention how it’s Weiss’s idea to save him like it’s an empowering moment when in actuality, it would be against her character, values of a huntress, and morality to let a person die in cell when you’re the reason they’re in a cell! Letting him die in there would just terrible. I don’t even know why he wasn’t let out in that scene! He’s a coward! He’d follow their orders to save his skin. All he has to do is shut up and walk through a portal.

Ironwood and Oscar both knew they could remove that staff to use it and Atlas wouldn’t drop immediately. Why did nobody have any kind of compromise with one another since there’s nothing stopping them from using the staff for something and then putting it back? They had this morally gray thing going on which I liked but then they decided to make Ironwood go full evil. I’ve never had to say this before but the song he got in V7 and the character they made him be in V8 just don’t connect. I got upset listening to that song recently because I liked that Ironwood.

Clover’s importance. RT tried making a character who had no more than 9 minutes in the series and one meaningful line of dialogue into the cornerstone of a side plot. Clover is such a nothing character. Vine did more than Clover. They try to make him have such a profound impact to the people around him but we never see him bond with his team; Harriet specifically. We get one scene of Clover telling Qrow the kids are fortunate to have Qrow even if he doesn’t think so. First, I doubt Clover knows Qrow decided to get drunk in a ghost town and the kids nearly died and cellar while he did it so that compliment doesn’t hold much weight for me. Second, We see nothing meaningful between the two. V7 has a time skip and just expects viewers to be on board with Clover being this influential change on Qrow without showing anything outside of a witty remark and Clover flexing his semblance. I would’ve bought it more of Qrow almost relapsed and Clover stopped him then had a real meaningful conversation.

Ruby goes against Ironwood only to then want to do a plan that’s aligned to longer term thinking than even his, talks about how everyone should be working together, but then adds a part in her video to actively antagonize and vilify Ironwood. Afterwards, she wonders where everything went wrong and doesn’t think of a plan or do anything to immediately help either kingdom until the final hour between the ultimatum being made, to everything getting destroyed. The inciting incident was disagreeing Mantle should be left in favor of Atlas but the main character didn’t do anything to help Mantle 90% of the season and hindered Atlas’s safety up until the final plan.

Yang is used to be the devil’s advocate in a bunch of situations, but she’s wrong most of the time or her lines just don’t make any sense. They weren’t doing just fine before Atlas. They almost died every step of the way. The team didn’t beat a Leviathan; silver eyes and a robot take credit for that. Why would Blake think less of Yang for wanting to go save people immediately? Blake was never mad at anyone to begin with. Yang consistently calls out people for following orders as if it’s objectively wrong, but is never called out on the fact she hasn’t followed anybody’s orders but her own and added discourse to every situation. I get RT is making her ask questions because that’s what Raven told her to do, but all she’s really doing is picking fights and disobeying every order. Yang states to Ruby they accomplished more than they expected. That’s false, getting Oscar back is correcting a mistake caused by her own plan that she didn’t even complete.

It took 6 volumes before Yang had anything to do with the Summer Rose subplot again and 7 volumes before her and Ruby had a sister to sister conversations; 5 if you wanna count Yang telling Ruby to leave at the end of volume three. The reason I bring this up is because in V8 , they treat their argument as if it’s a big deal but then have every character say it wasn’t that big a deal; but then have two circle back to that conversation later after having neither character discuss to anybody that the argument actually did weigh on them. Yang doesn’t think about Ruby until she sees her again and the closest we get with Ruby is Blake reassuring her that people need her and how Blake admires her. I like that scene but it’s not the same as Ruby actually airing out the specific point that Yang said something that Ruby found hurtful. Vol8 in general people trying to comfort others but nobody ever actually addresses what made them uncomfortable to start with. Except Ren.

This one is a nitpicking but I’ll say it anyways. Penny getting hacked only served as a purpose to go to the vault, a thing Ironwood already wanted them to do. Nobody got her because she was hacked. You can’t even say her getting hacked is the leading factor to her actually dying because Penny became a vulnerable human afterwards that can’t be rebuilt. Pietro was gone, and already stated last volume he doesn’t have the aura to build Penny again. If she died as a robot then it’s still permanent death. No core, no Pietro, and no aura; hacking her was just to create a Hound reveal situation and make them go to the vault on a different set of terms. I’m not exactly upset with this, but I don’t understand why the extra steps. The Hound was hunting her anyways. I would’ve brought some kind of value if she hurt a friend and it caused them to potentially hinder the plan later on or remove them entirely. Penny could’ve rekt Yang and it only adds value to Yang getting one shot later. I don’t know. I’m rambling.

I think I’ve wasted enough people’s time. Honestly, I do like this volume. I’ve enjoyed a bunch of it. But there’s things that legitimately make me think it’s not as good others and makes V7 even worse.

#rwby #rwby volume 8 #ask me stuff

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lovely-necromancy · 3 years ago

Text

A Cure for Insomnia CH. 8

Mentions of SELF HARM. Please be aware before reading.

“Yeah, in the end Jenna Rosencali decided that she didn't want to invite Meghhan Levei to her birthday party. And that's what started the water balloon war at eight in the morning.” Little Jo said as she scrunched her curls trying to get them to dry somewhat uniformly.

The poor eleven year old had walked into the shop soaked down to the bone. Her cousin had rushed her straight into the break room to have her get dry and change clothes. Even running across the street to Dunkin' and get her favorite breakfast sandwich and donut. Then Jo had come out not even a minute after he left and proceeded to tell you what happened, knowing her cousin probably thought she'd been bullied.

But you were different, you didn't see her as a target at all. She likes to think you see her as a little sister, one who enjoys hanging out with you. As much as she likes to think that she understands you probably just see her as the boss' kid that you have to be nice to. You don't immediately jump to her aid when things look a certain way, like just right now. You waited to hear what she had to say rather than assuming someone was mean to her because she was different. Jo knows her family just wants to protect her but sometimes she just wants them to listen to her like you do.

“It's always Megans. Lemme guess name spelt weird.” like right now, you heard her.

“Yea she's got two 'h's in the middle. Meghhan.” she laughs as you roll your eyes. She tics and yanks on her hair as she's scrunching.

“Ouch” stupid tics.

“I've got some shea moisture in my locker in the break room, want me to grab it for you? It'd help with frizz.” another reason she likes you, it took a few days before you stopped checking on her tics, so long as she didn't have scissors.

Even her family haven't mastered that and they've been dealing with her Tourettes for six years.

“Please.”

She follows you to the back for the hair masque. Letting her take what she needed you place the jar back in your locker. Letting her know she's free to it in emergencies like this or rainy days. It's not like your locker was ever locked with just you and Nate being here. And you're pretty sure Nate dipped into this emergency hair saver as well. You didn't have an extreme need for it here it was just a habit you've kept from living in muggy humidity most your life.

“How's your week been?” Jo asked as she finally settled her hair how she liked it, with help from the masque.

She startles at the frustrated noise you make as you both leave the break room.

“Bad?” she questions.

“Sort of...there's...this..it's...”

Shit, you hadn't thought about your response. With all the stress this week you just reacted naturally to the question. Who can blame you, what with your stalker being on your mind all week, minimal amount of sleep, plus the weird interaction you'd had with Brian at the start of it. Then yesterday you topped off your stress with a healthy portion of more frustration driving up to the lodge after work to see if Barclay would like some help with cooking or even shopping for the picnic. Stubborn man sent you off with a hearty laugh after getting you opinion on the vegetarian/vegan main course, eggplant teriyaki or tofu and pineapple chipotle skewers.

“Oooooooh a boy.~” she might not be your actual sister...but you're starting to understand the Cain Instinct.

“Half right I guess.” Jo starts bouncing waiting to hear more, she's probably expecting some juicy relationship drama. Sucks for her that you are probably the world's most boring twenty-four year old, and you're content with that.

“Barclay's just frustrating sometimes.”

“Wait! You and Barcl-”

“Nope.” you interrupt, “I asked him if he needed help with any cooking for the picnic and he brushed me off.” You know he didn't mean anything by it and from what everyone said he could more than handle cooking for the amount of people just fine on his own. You'd just thought it'd be a nice gesture to offer, though you did hope he'd accept. He'd been pretty quick to turn you down, had you been any one else you may have even been insulted by the speed of the rejection.

“That's what's bothering you?” Jo's face held a very confused expression on it. It was understandable since not a lot actually bothered you, especially something as small as this. However, it's not like you could tell an eleven year old 'Yea I'm kinda being stalked right now and this week has me looking at every shadow and movement differently but fortunately or...unfortunately no one seems to notice and just brush it off as my hallucinations.'

Yup, totally not the thing you confide to an eleven year old about. Especially now that you have your plan all figured out. You've planned to let the stalker continue stalking you, picking up clues where ever they may leave them. They're bound to slip up at least once after a month of following you through your routines. Should be able to find evidence to have Big Jo help you in no time.

“Well no...I've just had a lot on my mind...”

“We can talk about it.” kid's got a kind heart, but this isn't her problem and you won't put it on her.

“Nah, it's fine.”

There's a pause as silence settles over the shop front. Jeez how long does it take to get an order from Dunkin'? Jo is staring at you as if she can see every part of your being. Breaking open your soul so all your secrets are laid out on display for her. You really don't like it, it feels like being under the microscope and it's making your skin get that familiar itch under it.

“Stop staring.” thankfully she does as you ask.

“...you said it's fine...are you going to be ok though?” Damn Montessori schools, actually allowing children to pick up on emotions and meanings behind linguistics.

You have to pause when you go to respond with the polite 'Yea I'll be good'...because you hadn't given it any real thought. You've made up this best case scenario plan. A plan that requires time and a lot of it. But you never gave thought to the fact that you might not have much time at all. What if the situation was more dire than you thought...what if this wasn't simply a stalker but a serial killer and you happen to fit his MO. A cult who was looking for the perfect sacrifice for their god. And while those thoughts could also be far fetched so is the scenario that you've built up for this past week.

Even if this was a simple stalking case, who's to say it wouldn't escalate? You have an old steel baseball bat in the hall closet and you could use it in case things got dicey. But that would require it being on your person a lot more than it actually is. Maybe you could make it look like you took up going to batting cages...are there even any batting cages in Kepler?

'Fucking focus...stop the rambling. Am I going to be ok?' you think to yourself despite the roaring chaos of your mind. Even with all the possibilities being thrown around you don't have an answer. Maybe that's really the answer after all if you can't get even one 'yes' from any of the possibilities...maybe you wouldn't be ok after all. Maybe you weren't ok.

“I don't want to talk anymore.” It's said so plainly, in such a dull monotone that it throws Jo off.

Jo's not quite used to this but she understands from the two times she's seen it that sometimes you just shut down under pressure like this. This topic, whatever it is, must really bother you. She wishes there was something she could do to make you feel better, but you can be really volatile in this state. Easily going from shutdown mode to meltdown at the simplest action.

With a jolt joined by a 'yip-yup' she remembers something that might put you in a better mood. And if it doesn't she still needs to give it to you so you have it. Rushing off to the back as fast as her legs will take her, having the agility only years of dance can provide.

Nate comes back into the shop as she disappears to the back.

“Did you know the Dunkin' across the street does parties?” What? To the man's credit he had no reaction to your blank stare and lack of response. He clocked the eye contact aversion right away.

You've gone into shutdown mode. Sometimes you just go quiet and that's fine, you're like a robot in this state and if he sets you up with a task that should take all day you have it finished in a few hours.

Once when he asked you just said you needed to not talk at time and that the tasks were good ways to process thoughts. Nate was reasonably creeped out by this but you aren't hurting anyone so c'est la vie.

“Nate?” Jo's calls out from down the hall.

“Yea, I'm back. Brought food.” he set the bag on the counter and handed you the shitty hash rounds you like for some reason.

'It's only cuz they're bad, if they were good they wouldn't be worth eating.' you think as you pop one into your mouth.

Jo comes twirling back into the room. In a broad sweep of motion kicks her foot off the floor to do one final dramatic twirl that ends in a bow with the same leg pointed toward the ceiling. All to present to you and Nate two tickets. Tickets to what?

“Another dance rehearsal?”

“Nope actual thing this time.” she supplies passing you each a ticket.

It's such a formal looking ticket for a recital that only goes up to age twelve max. Most dancers will still be in elementary school. But they want you to treat this like the Russian Ballet. Oh it even says it's a black tie event, completely different from the rehearsals you've been too.

You aren't sure if you have anything black tie status. You'll have to make a trip further out of your normal bounds and go thrifting for an outfit. Luckily it won't be happening for another month, that gives you plenty of time to try finding something in your size that you also like. It also gets you out of Kepler and away from your stalker for a few hours. Hopefully. But there's a chance your stalker will follow you on your outings away from Kepler so you'd need to keep an eye out for familiar faces on the trip.

“YN...will you come?” Jo's looking up at you with her big puppy eyes. Unfair, even if you wanted to decline she pulled puppy eyes. What heartless monster would refuse puppy eyes.

You give a slow nod along with a smile that doesn't reach your cheeks let alone your eyes. And while Jo's a little disappointed with the lack of enthusiasm she's still excited for you to come to her recital. Nate nudges her into her personal reading nook making up a lie that you hadn't finished your task sheet today so he'd watch over her while you finished working. You'd only had vacuuming and organizing the shelves that got mussed up the previous day, needless to say you were done nearly as soon as you started. When he came back to you he had a whole stack of papers for books that would need to be input into the system. You got to spend the rest of the day on the dinosaur computer in the backroom.

The quiet was nice.

After you'd gotten off work you still weren't out of your funk. Frustrated with the idea of going home and not actually being alone with a stalker prowling around. You decided to go to the one place that can calm even your worst of moods. The stream.

There's a reason why you've never been able to do longer than a thirty minute hike through the Monongahela and that's the stream. Every time you've said you'd go further into the forest you're always drawn back into that spot along the bank right under the red spruce. It has the best smell of all the trees, you think.

Just thinking about it has you having a better outlook on the day. You hardly spare the RV a glance as you go along your usual route.

You've said it once you'll say it again for emphasis. You could walk the same path every time you came through and always find something different. Like that cool rock right there. Picking it up to inspect it closer you note the color is a deep dark brown that it almost looks black even obsidian, it reminds you of something but you can't quite place it. It's very smooth and oddly enough fits perfectly in your hand given it's larger size.

You think you'll keep it, this is a good rock. Idly rubbing the smooth surface of the stone as you trek through your trail, you can feel the tension start to ease off of you. You found a very nice worry stone, it works amazingly well. Hopefully no one lost it and it is just a naturally occurring stone that you happened on by chance. As much as you like it you'd hate to think of the chance of someone loosing something they need.

All thoughts cease once you hear the babble of the stream. As if on auto pilot you move with a fluidity through the brush and low hanging tree branches to your spot. Right under the spruce. Just as you did the last week and every other trip before you remove your shoes and socks placing them further behind you, so you can dip your feet into the cool stream. It's very refreshing on this hot summer's day.

Lying down with your feet still in the stream you close your eyes and just loose yourself to nature. All your cares and worries getting washed away by the steady moving stream. It's strange to be here without the buzzing in the back of your head. Oh great speak of the devil and he shall appear. It's fine, after all you're used to this, it's easy to ignore.

However, what isn't easy to ignore is the snapping of a branch, from in front of you just across the stream, how cliche. Cliches aside the sound rockets you back into a sitting position as you look for the source. And you find it...find him standing just on the other side of the stream emerging from the brush on that side. Toby. And he's mask less, not a weird choice considering he probably wouldn't have run into anyone had you not decided to come out for a hike.

Great you can feel your chances at friendship slipping through your grasp just like the water slips down the bend. He's gonna think you're weird when you don't respond to him verbally. Or worse he'll think you were rude for not wanting to talk to him and then never want to talk to you again in retaliation. Whatever relaxation had once been over you quickly dissipates and you are left anxious and with a tickle at the base of your skull.

Toby hasn't said anything yet. Not even a raised hand in a half wave. You also don't see Connor anywhere. Is Toby okay right now? Fuck even with that kind of thought you can't manage to move your lips let alone actually utter a sound, even ones that wouldn't ever be counted as words by anyone who was currently living. So you take the first move, literally.

Raising the hand without the stone in a mock form of a greeting. Toby doesn't seem to quite register it or you but he copies the movement. Oh he must be dissociating either that or in a catatonic state similar to the one you'd been in last weekend. That's probably how he knew he just needed to sit you down and keep and eye on you. You could do that for him...if that's what he needed.

You wave your hand beckoning Toby to come over to your side of the stream. Toby tilts his head to the side before his arms jolt up, going across his body. You assume it was a tic because he didn't keep the pose long. Tilting your head back at him, as if to say 'You coming over?', you pat the spot next to you.

Seems he registered that because he backed up a few steps before taking a running leap to cross the stream. He lands with more grace than you'd given the lanky guy credit for, normally someone with such long limbs would be a lot more clumsy. Not to mention that was a pretty wide jump, and Toby only has a few inches on you, you could probably barely cover the width of the stream. But he not only cleared it but he gave himself a good six inches of coverage away from the edge. You just hope he didn't roll or over exert anything by doing that. With his insensitivity to pain he wouldn't feel it and if he wasn't here mentally right now it's likely he wouldn't even remember he made a jump like that in the first place.

When he just stands in place staring at you, you get a bit uneasy. What's up with everyone staring at you today? You get really uncomfortable with people's stares normally, and now you're overstimulated and stressed it's not a great combination. But you can rationalize Toby is having a moment of his own. And since he helped you the best that he could you'll do the same for him, pushing aside your own issues for the moment. After all what are friends for.

He's standing within arms reach. You don't even have to get up as you gently grab his hand and give a few light tugs. Trying your best to get across that he should sit down with you. This would probably be a lot easier if you could speak right now. Did he speak to you when you were like this?

Toby thankfully gets the message and drops into a criss-cross position next to you. You start to retract your hand, now that the need for contact is over, when Toby's rough hand closes around it suddenly. Looking to Toby he's just staring straight ahead and not at you. His eyes aren't frantic or moving in any way, like yours sometimes do when you're following a hallucination. Physical closeness must help him through this kind of thing.

As gross as the feeling normally would be for you it isn't so bad right now. It seems Toby's CIPA also affects his body's temperature and his ability to sweat. Where there's usually the feeling of burning and clammy moisture coming off of another person, Toby is just tepid and dry. If anything it feels as if you're being held by a leather baseball glove.

Toby's hands are very rough, especially his palms, maybe you should let him burrow some of the goat milk lotion Dia gave you a few weeks ago. It smells pretty good and it only takes a little bit to soften your skin back up. But as you look closer at his hands you can see the spots roughest are around his nail beds. Someone has a biting problem, maybe he needs an oral stim toy. That would keep his flesh out of his mouth, and stop him from injuring himself...hopefully. There's still a chance he'd bite through his tongue without realizing, honestly you're a little surprised that hasn't happened yet.

You had completely forgotten about the stone in your hand until you went to grab at Toby's hand that still held yours in a firm grip. Seeing the dark brown rock again you remembered what it reminded you of, Toby's eyes. They were the same shade as the rock, that's funny...anecdotally at least. This rock helped you maybe it would help calm him down some. Worth a shot.

Since your hand closest to him is preoccupied you have to reach across his body to nudge the rock to his hand. He spares it a single glance before covering it with his other hand. Mission partially accomplished you guess. Now you're just sitting here, with Toby catatonic, by the edge of the water bank. Pulling your feet from the stream you mirror Toby's pose, you'll likely be here a while.

While normally you'd love to just loose your self to the sounds surrounding the stream, in the presence of another person you're too jittery to enjoy that. If only you had something to fidget with... You wonder what Toby's reaction would be if you just... Toby turns his head to watch you when he feels a gentle smaller hand on his own. Dark eyes watching intensely as you pull his hand into your lap. Turning it over so his palm is facing up, before you start tracing patterns into his palm lines and flexing his fingers individually. He watches for a moment before turning back to his original point.

Playing with his hand you noticed a few more things about Toby. From his chipped black nail polish, a look you personally think not enough guys go for even though it makes them look more attractive and approachable. To the single string paracord medical bracelet he's wearing, metal tag simply stating 'TOURETTE'S SYNDROME'. And a little further down you see scars, a few are crescent shapes easily identified as Toby's own nails. But most are straight lines, even a few jagged cuts, that run up and along his forearm.

'Tobais...what on Earth happened to you?' just as the thought rings through your mind you feel a sudden weight on your shoulder.

Toby is resting on your shoulder with his eyes close. You can tell he's just resting them by the lack of movement behind the eyelids. With his head being on your shoulder you can smell him, not in a creepy way but he's just so close that his scent waifs your way. He smells like fresh dirt...it isn't a bad smell. It reminds you of gardening but on an overcast day. It hadn't rained today so how does he smell like it?

Moving your attention back to his hands, and away from how nice Toby smells, you catch sight of the scars again and bite your lip. Not wanting to dwell on the scars and their implications any longer. You curl and uncurl his fingers and start a rhythmic motion of curling them individually.

'You poor sweet boy.' is the only thought you can focus on. Even though the scars may be old and those wounds long healed. Toby at one point made them and it's very apparent that he is still not in the best way mentally. Once the two of you are friends, you'll do your best to be there for him. Like you are right now...you really hope it helps.

Toby didn't make even the slightest movement until the sky had begun to bleed its deep oranges across the horizon. He pulls his hand out of your grasp. And when you try to retrieve it to keep up you activity he softly pushes your hands back to you. Guess he's done for now.

With as late as it is, you'd like to go home. And Toby seems more aware of the things going on. But it isn't until you hear a call for him behind you two and he reacts looking in the direction of the call, that you decide he's safe enough for you to leave here.

Without much hesitancy you push off of the ground and stand. Toby isn't looking at you. Taking that as a cue you head back towards the entrance of the forest. Before you leave the clearing however, you look back to Toby and notice a dark colored stone resting nicely in his palm as he idly brushes a finger across it's surface.

Yea he's going to be fine.

#ticci tobyx reader #ticcitoby #ticci toby #timothy wright #timothy wright x brian thomas #timothy wright x reader #masky x reader #masky #hoodie #brian thomas #brian thomas x reader #creepypasta fanfic #self harm mentioned

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scoutception · 4 years ago

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Yet again ranking the 5 animes I’ve watched most recently

After losing the will to just sit down and watch it for quite a while, I’ve finally gotten through 5 anime series yet again, and, as is tradition for me by now, I’ve decided to just type out my thoughts and rankings of them, with my first two posts of this nature being here and here. As usual, this is just my personal thoughts, and the only other thing worth noting before I start is that, unlike last time, I do think everything listed here is at least decent on its own. With that, I’ll just get to it. 5. Robotics;Notes

Number of episodes: 22. Language options: dub and subs available. Streaming availability: Funimation. Robotics;Notes is an adaptation of a visual novel, which I actually just wrote a review on, which can be found here. Long story short, it’s the third entry in the Science Adventure series, the same series Steins;Gate is part of, unknown to most people, with Robotics;Notes technically being the sequel to it. Originally aired in 2012, the same year as the visual novel was released, and made by Production I.G, Robotics;Notes is in an interesting middle ground between the acclaimed and popular Steins;Gate animes and the downright awful and obscure Chaos;Head and Chaos;Child animes, and until 2020 was the only option those who didn’t speak Japanese had to experience it at all. Since I went into so much detail in said visual novel review, I’m mostly going to focus on how the anime holds up both by itself and as an adaptation. Ever since its creation nearly ten years ago, the dream of the Chuo Tanegashima High Robotics Research Club has been to finish Gunbuild-1, a lifesize recreation of Gunvarrel, the titular mecha of an insanely popular anime that’s credited with starting a “robot boom” within Japan, and the club’s current president, Akiho Senomiya, the little sister of the club’s founder, Misaki Senomiya, is extremely determined to see this dream achieved. Unfortunately for her, the club has fallen on hard times, with its funding being cut, its advisor being completely unreliable, and the few other members it has, namely Kaito Yashio, Subaru Hidaka, Junna Daitoku, and Kona Furugoori, aka Frau Koujiro, being quite difficult in their own ways, and often more than Akiho can handle. While Akiho puts her all into finally bringing the club to greatness, the otherwise apathetic Kaito finds himself involved with a mysterious AI called Airi, who exists within the augmented reality app IRUO. Airi’s creator, the deceased Kou Kimijima, turns out to have also created several AR annotations scattered throughout Tanegashima, titled the Kimijima Reports, which warn of a grand conspiracy that will utterly devastate humanity if unopposed. I’m not the most unbiased viewer, since I had played, and enjoyed, the visual novel months before watching this anime, but generally, it’s actually an enjoyable time. Some of Robotics;Notes’ biggest strengths were always its cast of characters and lighter tone, and for the most part, the anime preserves both well, keeping it mostly silly, but endearing early on. The artstyle actually matches up fairly well with the VN’s CGs, and the dub, which I watched just to spice things up, since I already knew the Japanese voice cast was quite good, is overall solid, with Clifford Chapin as Kaito, Lindsay Seidel as Akiho, and Monica Rial as Junna especially sticking out to me. As an adaptation, on the other hand, it falls short in quite a few places, namely when it comes to characterization. While obviously, no adaptation could feasibly fit in every detail from its source material, the Steins;Gate anime managed to preserve almost all of its cast’s characterization, whereas in Robotics;Notes, several characters lose prominent details to their backstories or personal conflicts, or act differently in scenes unrelated to that, making quite a few of them come off different. While instances of the latter case, such as Junna coming off as less shy and hesitant, don’t necessarily worsen anything for the most part, the former definitely does, as it makes the affected characters much less developed and interesting. Nobody suffers from this worse than Kaito himself, who loses most of his backstory, motivations, and arc, to the point of one of his best moments being changed from something intentional to completely accidental, with the end result making him come off as a completely different character, and an inferior one, at that. Additionally, around episode 16, the anime starts diverging pretty significantly from the VN, and not in ways that are improvements, to the point it even leaves a few otherwise preserved scenes in earlier episodes without context. Overall, I can imagine the Robotics;Notes anime still being a decent, if unremarkable watch on its own, and was certainly an interesting and fun way to reexperience the story, and definitely fares better than many visual novel adaptations, but I can’t quite say I’d recommend it. If Robotics;Notes interests you, the visual novel is very much preferred. 4. Nichijou

Number of episodes: 26. Language options: dub and subs available. Streaming options: Funimation. Here we have one of the most acclaimed anime comedies out there, an adaptation of Keiichi Arawi’s surreal sketch comedy manga series, produced by Kyoto Animation, a name that’ll be showing up here again later. Nichijou mainly focuses on two different trios of characters. There’s the ordinary high school girls Yuuko Aioi, a rather dim and reckless girl with terrible luck, Mio Naganohara, the most relatively normal one of the cast, whenever she’s not having explosive freak outs that involve beating people up, and Mai Minakami, a stoic girl who enjoys messing with people just for their reactions. On the other hand, there’s the far less ordinary Shinonome Laboratories trio of Professor Shinonome, an 8 year old girl who happens to be capable of building incredibly advanced machines, Nano Shinonome, a robot built by the Professor who desperately desires a normal girl more than anything, and Sakamoto, their pet cat who, thanks to a special scarf also made by the Professor, is capable of talking. The series focuses on their would-be ordinary lives, were it not for the seemingly daily chaos they get involved in, from witnessing the school principal wrestle a wild deer, to being trapped in an elevator for hours, to the school science teacher attempting to capture Nano for study. It also follows the antics of several other side characters, such Koujiro Sasahara, the seemingly upper class student who is actually just the son of a family of farmers, to Misato Tachibana, a very typical tsundere towards Sasahara, whose tsun side manifests as assaulting him with military-grade weapons, to little effect, to the equally quirky teachers of their school. Needless to say, it’s a very silly and chaotic series, and that’s exactly what makes it so memorable. The humor is pretty hit and miss in the first half of the series, but from episode 14 onwards, they thoroughly master it, with every episode having at least a few scenes that got me laughing. Beyond the silliness, though, the series actually has a lot of heart to it. There’s a few moments that change up the status quo, or even develop the characters just a bit, and some scenes are surprisingly sweet, if still played for laughs more often than not. There’s also a lot of continuity, which in later episodes often provide the punchlines to some of the best gags, which definitely encourages watching the whole series. The Japanese voice acting is fittingly crazy for each character, and the animation fits perfectly, as while the character designs are quite simple, there’s many would be mundane moments that have contrasting overly impressive and exaggerated animation that makes them very memorable. All in all, Nichijou is a very enjoyable series once it finds its groove, and about the only reason its not higher on my rankings is just because pure comedies aren’t really one of my favorite genres. Still, if you ever want a good laugh, you can’t go wrong with this. 3. Soul Eater

Number of episodes: 51. Language options: dub and subs available. Streaming availability: Netflix, Funimation. Soul Eater is yet another adaptation, this time of a manga by Atsushi Ōkubo, produced by Studio Bones, who also did the Fullmetal Alchemist animes, and is quite similar to the original FMA series in that it outpaced the manga and, rather than simply overloading itself with filler, decided to go in an entirely different direction by the end. The Death Weapon Meister Academy is a school founded by Death himself, dedicated to the training of Meisters, who wield Weapons, humans with the ability to shapeshift into weapons, for the purpose of destroying Kishin Eggs, evil beings who have consumed the souls of others, and pose the risk of transforming into extremely dangerous demons. Any Meister who can collect the souls of these corrupted beings, as well as the soul of a Witch, can transform their Weapon into a Death Scythe, the personal arms of Death. Among the students of the DWMA are seven Meisters and Weapons who stand out in particular: the teams of Maka Albarn, a kind hearted and responsible, though temperamental, girl, her Weapon, Soul “Eater” Evans, a laidback and snarky wannabe “cool” guy, Black Star, a prideful and loudmouthed ninja who’s seemingly always out to make a spectacle of himself, regardless of how it hampers him, his Weapon, Tsubaki, a humble and levelheaded woman, Death the Kid, the son of Death and one of the top students in the cool, held back only by a crippling obsession with symmetry, and his Weapons, Liz and Patty Thompson. While these seven gradually come together as a team, a Witch named Medusa begins to put an ambitious and destructive plan into motion, one involving her “child”, Crona, and the strange, insanity inducing black blood that courses through their veins. Soul Eater has a lot going for it. A likeable and crazy cast of characters, even the side ones, like the maniacal Doctor Stein, or the surprisingly goofy and casual Death, or the tragic Crona, or the hilariously egotistical Excalibur, to a lot of fun action scenes, to its great animation and overall unique visual design, including the sun and moon having giant, creepy laughing faces. It has a lighthearted, comedic tone that doesn’t detract from the serious moments, and the main characters get some pretty good development as the series goes on. The dub is also great, with Laura Bailey as Maka, Micah Solusod as Soul, Brittney Karbowski as Black Star, and Todd Haberkorn as Death the Kid especially sticking out to me. In general, I don’t have a lot of significant criticisms, besides how the story is handled once the villainous organization Arachnophobia is introduced, which is also about where it begins to deviate from the manga. Most of the villains part of it never really feel like a threat, and the story becomes much more simple and typical compared to how the manga went, and when the ending arrives, it just kinda, happens, with several notable subplots just kinda left unfinished. It definitely feels like an underwhelming ending, and is a big reason why I place this lower on the list, but Soul Eater is still a pretty entertaining watch that’s worth a try if you want a decently lengthy, but not horribly long shonen. 2. The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya

Number of episodes: 28. Language options: dub and subs available. Streaming availability: Funimation. Here we have the big one, an extremely memetic and famous series by Kyoto Animation, based on a series of light novels by Nagaru Tanigawa, a series that was finally completed back in November 2020 after its start in 2003. Kyon is a lazy and down to earth high school student who wishes for little more for himself than an uneventful, normal high school life- a hope that’s abruptly shattered when, on a whim, he becomes involved with Haruhi Suzumiya, an eccentric, hyperactive, and thoroughly self centered girl, who claims to have no interest in ordinary humans, and instead wishes to discover things thoroughly unusual, such as aliens, time travelers, or espers, and forces Kyon to form a club, the SOS Brigade, with her to achieve this. Haruhi quickly pulls three other students into the brigade, those being Yuki Nagato, a stoic and quiet bookworm, Mikuru Asahina, a shy and passive girl often subjected to humiliation and abuse by Haruhi, and Itsuki Koizumi, a calm transfer student who acts extremely subservient to Haruhi. While Kyon initially writes off the club as an unreasonable use of his time, his fellow members reveal an unexpected truth to him: the subjects of Haruhi’s fascinations actually do exist. Yuki is an alien, of a sort, created and controlled by an entity known as the Data Overmind, Mikuru is a time traveler from some point in the future, and Itsuki is an esper, and member of an organization of similar people. All three of them have been sent to observe the oblivious Haruhi, who appears to have the unconscious ability to change reality itself according to her desires, and is at threat of remaking the entire world if not placated. With Haruhi apparently having taken a unique interest in Kyon, he finds himself taken along for all sorts of supernatural adventures spawned from Haruhi’s whims. There’s a lot I could go on about regarding Haruhi, but in the interest of not turning this into a full on rant, I’ll keep shortish. It’s more or less an insane mishmash of several different genres, from slice of life, to science fiction, to fantasy, just depending on what each individual story feels like being. The episodes are mostly adapted from the early light novels, mostly the multiple stories from the third and fifth novels, The Boredom and The Rampage of Haruhi Suzumiya, respectively. It’s not often you’ll have any idea just what to expect from each individual episode, which makes the series very chaotic, but interesting. The characters are likeable and memorable, including the side characters, and the sheer ridiculousness of what goes on makes for many amusing moments. At the same time, the series is surprisingly complex, with many possible interpretations of its characters and the events they go through, furthered by the antics Kyoto Animation pulled when it was originally airing, such as airing the episodes out of chronological order, meaning the plot would often jump from the middle of an arc to something else. The end result is a very unique and enjoyable product, helped by the fantastic dub, with the actors capturing each character perfectly, from Crispin Freeman as the grounded and snarky Kyon, to Wendee Lee as the aggressively energetic Haruhi, to Stephanie Sheh as the gentle, yet secretive Mikuru. That said, there is one pretty disappointing part of it all, and that’s the second season, mostly thanks to the infamous Endless Eight arc, an eight part arc that’s more or less the same things happening over and over, with only the first and last episodes having anything noticeably different. Regardless of its own uniqueness, more than half the season is taken over by this, and something that may have worked if cut down to three or four episodes instead singlehandedly killed off the series’ goodwill. About the only redeeming factor of the second season is the five part adaptation of The Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya, which has some of the funniest moments in the whole series. Overall, Haruhi is still a very fun series, and I’m really gonna have to watch its movie, The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya, one of these days. 1. Trigun

Number of episodes: 26. Language options: dub and subs available. Streaming availability: Funimation, Hulu. Finishing off this list is an adaptation of a manga series by Yasuhiro Nightow, produced by Madhouse and another adaptation that overtook its source material. Compared to how Soul Eater handled it, however, Trigun went down much, much better, to the point Nightow himself had nothing but praise for how the anime turned out, and the series is generally considered one of the best animes of the late 90′s. On the harsh desert planet of Gunsmoke lives a wandering gunslinger known as Vash the Stampede, the “Humanoid Typhoon” with a large handgun known to leave tremendous destruction in his wake, who amassed a bounty of $$60,000,000,000 after destroying the city of July, leading to an endless trail of bounty hunters out to collect the price on his head. In the middle of all this, Meryl Stryfe and Milly Thompson, two representatives of an insurance society which is often forced to pay for damages caused by Vash, track him down for the purposes of minimizing the chaos he causes. Upon catching up with him, however, the duo discovers that, contrary to his reputation, Vash is a kindhearted goof, and self proclaimed hunter of love and peace, who absolutely refuses to ever take another person’s life, even at great personal risk to himself. Vash continues his travels carefree, helping out whoever he can, with the occasional assistance of Meryl and Milly, as well as a traveling priest known as Nicholas D. Wolfwood, only to one day have an encounter with a mysterious and cruel man known as Legato Bluesummers. Vash soon learns that Legato has hired a group of assassins known as the Gung-Ho Guns to kill Vash, and leave a trail of bodies wherever they go, seemingly for the sole purpose of tormenting Vash. As Vash hunts down Legato, he is gradually forced to face his past, and consider whether he can truly stay committed to his pacifist ideals. In general, Trigun is just a very, very well made series. It has a likeable and developed cast of characters, with special mention going to Vash, who is a very compelling and sympathetic character, and Wolfwood, who makes a great foil to Vash with very interesting development of his own, with characters outside of the main cast being memorable as well, from Legato himself, to even some of the more minor villains, such as the varied members of the Gung-Ho Guns, or Brilliant Dynamites Neon, who makes an inexplicably strong impression for a one off villain not even important to the overall plot. The space western setting is quite good, and the designs are great, with many villains having distinctive looks that further help them make an impression. The action is great, and the animation is also quite good, and has that 90′s anime charm. The dub, while a bit rough around the edges, is generally solid too. From Lia Sargent as the ditzy but kind Milly, to Dorothy Elias Fahn as the hotheaded Meryl, to Jeff Nimoy as the weary Wolfwood, to Richard Cansino as the calculating and disturbing Legato, with special mention needing to go to Johnny Yong Bosch as Vash. Despite it actually being his first voice acting role ever, he does a great job in portraying the many sides to Vash, and absolutely sells many of the biggest moments in the story. Speaking of which, the series started quite lighthearted and wacky, with the first four episodes actually being filler, but gets gradually darker as it goes on. The earlier episodes are still quite enjoyable on their own, though, and manage to slowly reveal new aspects to Vash in each one, before finally setting his nature in stone in episode 5. What really sells the series and makes it so memorable, however, are the themes it explores, of the practicality of unwavering pacifism, and whether taking a life, whether for heinous crimes committed without remorse, or with the purpose of protecting others, is ever justifiable. While quite a few series have touched dilemmas like this before, what makes Trigun stand out with it is the emphasis placed upon it throughout the whole series, with many episodes touching upon it in some regard. It genuinely fairly looks at the different sides of it all, and the consequences of each, with many emotional moments coming from it as a result. While the manga did ultimately take a very different turn from the anime, the anime actually preserves several of the most important plot moments, and manages to come to a satisfactory conclusion of its own regarding the themes. Ultimately, Trigun makes for a very fun and interesting watch that I highly recommend. And with that, my ranking is complete. With the exception of Robotics;Notes, I can pretty confidently recommend every show on this list. Got some more shows I plan to get through soon, so another ranking like this may be soon in the making. Either way, till next time. -Scout

#anime #trigun #nichijou #haruhi suzumiya #the melancholy of haruhi suzumiya #soul eater #robotics;notes #long post

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themadauthorshatter · 4 years ago

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PG-13 NINJAGO REWRITE/UNIVERSE ALTERATIONS!

This is basically if the show was meant for a more teenaged and mature audience. I don't know how long this will be, but I'll just start with the characters first, because I can

Because he's my favorite, and I love him, Zane's first: Instead of being a robot, how about something more tragic? DECADES remotely close to the series beginning, Zane was in a very nice family. An adopted, blended family, but a nice family nonetheless. So, what happened? A storm? A fire? A natural disaster? Worse. A war. A raid made by the opposing side, more specifically. Zane protected his siblings and villagers from attackers, but was grabbed and lined up for execution. When they grabbed and injured an elderly man, Zane attacked the officer and punched him. A lot. Another officer muzzle bumped him off and beat him to death in front of his family. The ally side arrive and save everyone. Too bad they're too late to save Zane. All, but one. A scientist who's been reformed and is skilled in mechanics and artificial organs; synthetics. He's also lost his own son. He deserts into the woods with Zane and gets to work, replacing Zane's skin with a stretchy material close to what you find in the legs of old barbie dolls, where the legs and heads were soft, his hair with- well, wig hair, his bones and joints with metal and clock work, his normal eyes with porcelain doll eyes, and his heart with a core that keeps him running and alive. Think Tony Stark's arc reactor, but if it's removed, Zane has 15 minutes to put it back or else he'll die and stay dead. It took FOREVER, but Zane eventually awoke up. The doctor, fuck it, was so relieved and helped Zane sit up and get used to being alive again-and half metal, but let's focus on his motor skills first. He lived with this doctor for a VERY, VERY long time. For context, if we were to set this in 2021, Zane would have died in around 1923 and been brought back in 1944 and saw the doctor that worked on him die in 2010. He's OLD. Back on track, Zane learned all he does, reading, talking, cooking, and whatnot, until the master of ice pays a visit and spends the day with Zane, asking him who he is, how old he is, and how long he's been with the doctor. After his visit, and Wu's, the doctor starts to see Zane slowly realize what's happened to him, but also question where his family is. Turns out the war wasn't easily won because the doctor shows Zane a family in a graveyard, near where they live. HIS FAMILY. And his name is there too. After this, Zane is traumatized, refusing to eat, drink, sleep, and talk, even ignoring his companion in the form of the Falcon. When the doctor sees Zane shaking sporadically, and sees him drooling a lot, he realizes the toll this is all taking on his son, who breaks down emotionally and mentally in his arms.

"F-father?"

"Yes? What is it, Zane?"

"I'm supposed to be dead, right? The tombstone in the graveyard, I should be under it, right?"

Cue silence from the doctor.

"Do you love me?"

"More than life itself."

"And... you would do anything for me?"

"Anything. Why?"

"I want to die. I want you to destroy me!"

The doctor gasps and hugs Zane close.

"I can't! You're my son, Zane! I can't lose you!"

"Am I your son, or your prized possession built from scrap parts and a corpse?"

"Zane-"

"I had a sister!" Zane snaps. "A mother! A father! And three brothers and a cousin and an uncle! I died protecting them and here I am while they rest beneath the ground!"

"You're my son, Zane!" The doctor holds Zane's shoulders to steady him. "You're my son, and I do love you. You're all that I have now, son."

Zane, broken and miserable, apologizes to his father as he drives a screwdriver into his own head, forcing his father to catch him as he falls down.

When Zane comes to, he's resting in his bed and feels worse than ever, as in he's sad and guilty for going off on his father the way he did.

The doctor apologizes for not telling him sooner, admitting that Zane's recovery took so long that resurrecting his whole family would be impossible, even if he'd taught Zane how to do it, no one in his family had the same blood type and some were even allergic to the medicine used to keep Zane's body fresh.

When Zane feels a poke in his head and notices his foot twitches at random, he gets curious. "What are you working on now?"

"You've been having seizures recently. I want to make sure the small cables and wires in your brain are all set correctly, so I know none of them are causing it."

"I see."

"Can you say your name?"

"Zane."

"Can you spell it?"

Cue some focused humming as Zane struggles a little bit. "Z... A...I-"

"Wrong. Try again."

"Z... A..." Long pause. "N... E."

"Good."

"Can... Can you change things from your position? Effect my movements and mind?"

"I can try."

"Can you make me forget?"

The doctor tells Zane it would be better if he remembered his family, but Zane weeps as he admits he'll tey to destroy himself again, if he remembers his family; it's not just grief, it's also a huge amount of guilt over the fact that he's alive while his family is dead.

The doctor agrees and hides his memories of his family.

He also rigs the same wiring to his heart rate monitor; when he dies, Zane will leave and forget him, and the fact that he is supposed to be dead. He'll forget just about everything, except for his name, how to read, breathe, eat, and take care of himself.

AND THAT HAPPENS.

Zane wanders through the woods, mute and silent until some villagers take him in and give him shelter. It takes a village to raise a child, so the village pitches in. Some children try getting him to play with them, but he only stands and stares, even when a little girl tells him she thinks he's cute.

Wu finds him again, and takes him to the monastery, where Jay and Cole are.

They do not like Zane. He stands, he stares, and he barely pays attention to what they have to say, though he does stare at Wu a lot.

They also think he's creepy because, well... remember that one stance Arthur does in the movie Joker, where he stands holding himself between the door frames and looks really creepy? Zane does that. A lot. In the morning when they wake him up and at night when they're about to go to sleep.

They sort of got what was wrong when he had a seizure while cooking; Cole was talking and explaining why he and Jay were keeping their diatance from him, and then heard Zane fall and the pot OF BOILING SOUP tumble on top of him. He shouted for Wu amd Jay and held Zane until the seizure stopped and Zane just stared at him tiredly and almost like he was about to cry.

"Are you... okay, Zane?"

"... Co... Cole?"

"Yeah? What is it?"

"... I'm sorry. Dinner is... going to have to wait." Zane tries to stand, but Jay holds his shoulder.

"Dude, are you sure? We can just order takeout for the night, if you're not up for cooking."

"I'm... I'm fine... J... J..."

Jay holds Zane in front of him by the shoulders. "I'm Jay. Remember?" Zane repeats Jay's name and Jay and Cole help him to sit down at the table.

"Perhaps you should rest for the evening and allow one of your brothers to prepare dinner tonight?" Wu highly recommends as he holds a hand on Zane's shoulder, in case he has another seizure.

Zane reluctantly agrees and Jay and Cole order a pizza; Zane offered to pay, but they told him to sit the hell down.

Upon meetung Kai, Zane is back at square one, except he has Cole and Jay to keep him in check and to help Kai gor when he gets weirded out.

They all get scared when they hear and see Zane banging his head against the wall, like bending his back and head back and curling into the wall as hard as he can and when he had a really bad seizure while sleeping, but don't bring it up because he stares off into space and stops cooking.

YOU CAN ONLY IMAGINE HOW THEY REACTED WHEN THEY ALL GOIND OIT ZANE HAS BEEN DEAD ALL THIS TIME!!!!!!!

Personality wise, Zane is still smart, funny on accident, and very brave with a sixth sense, he's just the most "ninja" out of all the ninja because he's surprisingly light on his feet and quiet as a shadow. When he meets someone new, he doesn't talk. At all. It's a trust thing, so he'll whisper to anyone he does trust to talk back to the new person.

Still the ice ninja, but Kai made the mistake of interrupting a staring contest between Zane and his mirror reflection by tapping on his shoulder.

Zane spun around to face him with terrifying speed, but Kai backed up and held his hands up.

"Sorry, Zane. I just... You're... really cold."

Zane checked his outfit, which was long sleeved.

"I don't know, maybe... take a bath to warm up? Eat a little more? Get sime sunshine?"

Their one sided conversation ended with Zane staring at him before patting Kai on the head, and trying to make his spiky ass hair stay down, and returning to the mirror.

I should note:

ZANE AND MIRRORS DO NOT MIX.

He hates them. They freak him out. It has nothing to do with memories, he just gets scares that there's another him in another bathroom in another monastery in another Ninjago in another world, where it's all the same, but backwards. Sort of doesn't get that all reflective surfaces like ceramic plates, cutlery, and anyhting else of the sort are just reflecting light.

He doesn't get movies or video games, either. The other three tried teaching him, but he quickly became the player they had to look out for, because he'd get lost exploring the game's map rather than actually playing, which he found boring. Usually he'll just sit back and watch them play, ever the passive observer.

His seizures are due to immense stress and his memories trying to come back, but the little feat of tinkering his father did keeps fighting back, so whenever he's cooking and reminded of the doctor that saves him, he has a seizure.

He can take a lot of damage, but he's not good with getting electrocuted; if he's hit, he's down and useless for fifteen minutes, at least. Remember that cinstricti that almost killed him and Cole? Zane was more annoyed at the snake and concerned for Cole's safety rather than his. AND THE SNAKE DIDN'T FEEL ZANE'S RIBS. AT ALL.

The area around the core that keeps Zane alive is made if a similar material as those squishy slime balls that you sqeeze and the slime spews out of the little holes in the net, but a little more durable. Now that I think about it, it's made of a sort of ooblek substance, but it's a different matieral than cornstarche added. I don't know what, but it's made to keep the core, and Zane, from getting hurt.

Zane actually hides from Nya during her first few months of joining the team. Again, nothing to do with memory, he just got freaked out because she got kidnapped by the skeleton army. She keeps her distance, too, giving him glances and smiles while he stares at her, and Jay even switched seats with Nya to try and help Zane warm up to her, as in he'd sit next to her. He did so and got Nya to talk about something that had been eating her up inside, leading to her hugging him and crying in his shoulder. Kai and Jay were extremely close to yelling at him until Nya pulled away and thanked Zane, because she needed to cry.

When they go off on him for what happened to the monastery, Zane has a mini seizure until he sees the falcon and leaves just as the seizure starts.

Cole and Jay know what to do with these seizures, but when Kai first saw Zane having one, he held Zane and shouted for help until Zane put a hand over Kai's mouth and rubbed his eyes with the other; "I hate when that happens."

For any TLDR people: Zane's basically a reanimated corpse running on robot energy who doesn't remember his past because he asked to not remember. He can talk, he just doesn't much because it's a trust thing. Cooking is his therapeutic thing, he sleeps fine, but he has a hard time going to sleep. Still has his sixth sense and ice powers, he's just more mute and out of tune with the others; guy killed in 1923 is in 2021. Great asset to the team, even though he's the guy they keep an eye on so he doesn't get to badly hurt.

I'll write more about the other ninja, this is just to show how mature this universe alteration is going to be

Oh, yeah, here's Cole's alterations. I didn't change too much of his character, but I hope you guys still like it😅

#ninjago #ninjago rewrite #universe alteration #war tw #character death tw #self annihilation tw #voluntary amnesia tw #seizure tw #angst and distress tw #ninjago zane

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hibiscustea9 · 3 years ago

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10,000 views on “Fire Walk with Me”!

YOU GUYS. Late last night, “Fire Walk with Me” hit 10,000 views. I am beyond blown away by this. Nothing I have ever written has come anywhere close to the reception this story has gotten. To celebrate, I’m going to make the sort of post I don’t usually make and share one of my headcanons for each of the Stardew Valley villagers (excepting the few who don’t have any real impact on the story, like Gil and the Ginger Island villagers). Read on below the jump to see these (some of which have been shared already in “Fire Walk with Me”) and thank you, thank you for all of your support and reading this story. It’s made me so very happy.

Abigail secretly loves disco music. She hates the aesthetic and clothing of the era, but she will rock out to any of the great disco bands or divas when in her room and with her earbuds in. She would sooner die than have Sam and Sebastian find out about this.

Alex had offers to attend several universities on a full ride scholarship to play gridball, but turned them down out of fear of failing out of school. After high school, he was diagnosed as dyslexic. His teachers were encouraged to just pass him through without making him complete the work, which left him deeply insecure. He now has plans to go to trade school, which he feels might be his ticket out of Pelican Town.

Caroline is the wizard’s daughter, and a lay green witch. Her father was a sailor who was lost at sea and Rasmodius comforted her mother (which is the regret Rasmodius has that broke up his marriage). Caroline’s hair is naturally green. She is not aware of her magic, which manifests mostly as being able to grow any plants she wishes.

Clint left Pelican Town to go to college, only to have to come back when his father died to take care of his mother. He was a voice major and has a lovely singing voice, though he’s often too shy to show it off these days.

Demetrius is a skilled teacher and used to adjunct biology classes at Grampleton Community College to help support his family when Robin was getting her carpentry business off the ground. While he enjoyed teaching, the commute and long hours burnt him out after a year and he hasn’t felt the urge to teach since.

The Dwarf is a huge movie buff, but even more than the films, she enjoys turning around while sitting in the front row to look at the faces of the people watching the films.

Elliott is not a citizen of Ferngill but a foreign national. His posh accent and vocabulary rubbed some townsfolk the wrong way when he moved to Pelican Town. He managed to get on the good side of those same townsfolk when he accidentally knocked his bait bucket all over himself at his first Festival of Ice but continued fishing through it, coming in a respectable second to Willy that year.

Emily genuinely believes in the healing power of crystals and positive thinking, though she also has great respect for traditional medicine. She often asks Harvey medical questions when he’s at the bar. For his part, Harvey truly enjoys being able to talk about his discipline with anyone else, even a crunchy granola type like Emily.

Evelyn stopped believing in Yoba after her daughter was diagnosed with cancer and died young, leaving Alex in her care. She has never let on, given how George makes a point of attending weekly services. Seeing how much Clara suffered, first in an abusive marriage and then going through the failed treatment for her cancer, left Evelyn unable to believe in an all-powerful deity. Instead, she aims to spread as much kindness as she can, seeking salvation in other people instead of worship of Yoba.

George started watching so much television when Alex came to live with him and Evelyn. He didn’t like TV much before then, but got in the habit of letting Alex stay up late and watch reruns with him. While he claims to enjoy westerns the most, he has a not-so-secret love for classic game show reruns. The way the women dress reminds him of Evelyn when she was young, though he thinks none of them are quite as pretty as Evelyn.

Gus used to run a successful restaurant in the Zuzu City suburbs and is a classically-trained chef. The stress of running the restaurant and being in charge of both the front and back of the house took a toll on his health and his doctors recommended he step back and find something less strenuous to do. With his proceeds from selling the restaurant, he built the Stardrop Saloon and now is much happier with his life.

Gunther is a local son of Pelican Town who moved away to attend grad school in library science. He had a job in Zuzu City but moved back when he learned of the theft of the collection. He secretly resents returning to Pelican Town, which he was eager to leave, but feels it is his duty to stay and ensure the library is taken care of.

Haley’s ringtone on her phone is the National Geographic theme. When she was young, her parents took her and Emily all over the world and she grew fascinated with other cultures and other places. She has planned all the trips she wants to take. As much as she and Emily bicker, Emily is her favorite travel companion.

Harvey and his family were very poor when he was growing up. When he was fourteen, his sister contracted scarlet fever and they were unable to afford a doctor’s visit. A local doctor from a clinic came by and left medicine at her own expense. This led Harvey to pursue medicine as a career; he could make much more money in Grampleton or Zuzu City, but he stays on in Pelican Town because they really need a doctor.

Jas helped Shane with his experiments in breeding the chickens. She has a natural head for science and once she got hold of Shane’s books, she plotted out how to look for recessive genes that would allow for chickens to be bred and emerge with blue feathers. She and Shane have a gentlemen’s agreement to not tell Marnie.

Jodi worked as a travel agent before she married Kent. She always envisioned the trips they would take as soon as they had the money, and then when Sam was grown, and then when Vincent was grown. She sometimes stays up late on the computer, looking at flight plans and planning the most affordable trips that would allow her to travel and see the places she most wants to see in the world.

Kent found comfort in another soldier when they were in the Gotoro prison camp. Though it became physical, it was more about finding something to hold onto than about the sex. His guilt over this relationship kept him distant from Jodi and his sons when he first returned. After confessing his indiscretion to Jodi, they attended relationship counseling. She has forgiven him, but he has yet to forgive himself.

Krobus is technically a liquid.

Leah earned an M.F.A. from Zuzu State, where she met and became friends with Elliott. Prior to attending her program, she interned as an apprentice carpenter in Grampleton. It was these same contacts who told her about Pelican Town and Robin, who let Leah stay at her home while she looked for a house to rent in town. Leah not so secretly has a crush of admiration on Robin.

Lewis, before becoming mayor of Pelican Town, owned a leatherworking business. He misses working with his hands, which is one of the reasons why he always visits the shopkeepers and is insistent on there being booths at the Stardew Valley Fair for the artisans in town to show off their wares.

Linus used to live in Pelican Town. He has a living relative in town. [REMAINDER REDACTED: SPOILERS FOR UPCOMING CHAPTERS OF “FIRE WALK WITH ME”]

Marlon saved George’s life the day of the mine cave-in. He was the only one willing to enter the caves and seek out the last missing miner. It was in the process of doing so that a falling rock blinded him in one eye. Despite his injury, Marlon managed to pull George to safety up through the mine shafts. Though his lost eye made him unable to be an active member of the Adventurer’s Guild, Marlon does not regret anything and would absolutely do it again.

Marnie wanted to be a veterinarian. She did very well in college, earning a degree in animal sciences from Zuzu State, and was on the verge of leaving Pelican Town permanently to pursue vet school when she interned at a vet’s office in Grampleton for a summer. She was so distraught the first time she had to assist with putting a dog to sleep that she gave up on the career and decided to open her ranch. She makes it a point to be present any time an animal has to be put to sleep to give it comfort, even though it wrecks her emotionally.

Maru got into science after Sebastian was completely uninterested in a chemistry set he got one year for the Feast of the Winter Star. She is still passionate about chemistry, despite her other interests in biology and robotics. She was briefly the most popular kid in town, despite being younger than most of the other young adults, when she learned how to make ice cream using ingredients found in any kitchen.

Morris was a child actor who had a small role in Junimo Forest, a nearly-forgotten children’s movie from more than forty years ago. He owns six of the known twenty surviving copies of the film.

Mr. Qi took Sandy on as his ward after her parents, who worked for him, died suddenly. He considers Sandy to be his own daughter and always looks out for her. It’s why the Oasis is still in business despite barely getting any customers.

Pam and Penny used to live above the library. Pam’s husband and Penny’s father was the former curator, who made off with the entire collection on a day when Pam took Penny to an academic competition her senior year of high school. The trailer was the only thing they could afford to move into. This was when Pam started drinking so heavily and Penny started longing so much to live in a house of her own.

Pierre holds a degree in economics that he wanted to use to help boost his family’s business. His secret stash is stock options that he has been investing in since taking over Pierre’s General Store from his father. Neither Caroline nor Abigail knows about this money that Pierre is sitting on.

(I am not the biggest fan of Pierre, in case you can’t guess.)

Rasmodius only built his tower after his daughter, Caroline, was born. He has looked over Caroline and her family ever since. Though his lifespan will last far beyond Caroline’s, he plans to watch over Abigail after she is gone, as well as any children Abigail has, or their descendants. His greatest regret is not being present in Caroline’s life as she was growing up.

Robin wanted to be a ballroom dancer, but at 5′11 was far too tall to actually enter the ballroom circuit. She met Demetrius at amateur ballroom dancing lessons and still knows how to perform any ballroom or Latin dances she learned. Her favorite dance is the tango because of the crisp precision required. After she retires, she and Demetrius have a plan to travel and dance the tango in all of the countries where it is taught.

Sam, despite a love of pranks, only ever really got in trouble once while in high school. He and Sebastian cut class and went to a local park, where Sam skateboarded and Sebastian smoked. A missed trick made Sam get so scraped up he had road rash for a month. After he got home, Jodi read him the riot act for once and grounded him from skateboarding until school was out. That was when Sam got into guitar and started thinking seriously about a career in music.

Sandy met Emily at a holistic retreat. She used to work for Mr. Qi, selling snake oil (literally - his iridium milk sells for a huge amount to those in the know), but was so energized by her encounter and conversation with Emily that she decided to go into running her own store.

Sebastian’s favorite adult in town (other than his mom) is Marnie, who recognizes in him a kindred spirit. Marnie taught Sebastian how to catch frogs when he was young and he still occasionally seeks her out to talk to and ask advice from. He vehemently dislikes Lewis because of his refusal to acknowledge his relationship with Marnie, and wants to see Marnie in a relationship with someone who will treat her right.

Shane was on track to be a major gridball star, and was the hope of Stardew Valley High, before getting in a car accident senior year. He almost lost a leg and had to spend six months relearning how to walk. He began drinking heavily afterward to cope with the constant physical pain. Marnie reached out to friends of his in Zuzu City, who had him come live with them and dry out. He remained sober until three months after he moved back to Pelican Town with Jas, his goddaughter. He started drinking again after working at JojaMart, much to Marnie’s dismay.

Vincent changes what he wants to be when he grows up on a weekly basis. Past desired jobs have included soldier (like his dad), musician (like his brother), teacher (like Miss Penny, but something fun like art, not yucky like spelling), game show host, Flower Queen, surfer, and astronaut. Jodi amuses herself by imagining what her son will wear to work on the weeks where he insists he’s going to be some combination of the above.

Willy is a veteran of the Ferngill Coast Guard. He is from the Fern Islands but vowed never to return after some of his siblings disputed his father’s will and caused a massive feud. He joined the Coast Guard as a way to stay on the water and get away from the islands. He was honorably discharged after suffering an injury on a rescue mission and decided to settle in the most peaceful seaside town in Ferngill that he could find, which led him to Pelican Town.

Once again, thank you all so, so, so much for reading “Fire Walk with Me”! I hope you enjoyed these headcanons and that they give you some insight into some of the way I’ve written characters in the story.

#stardew valley #headcanons

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gwenbrightly · 3 years ago

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Redwall Falls Chapter 2

“He’s looking at me...” Brome heard his sister whisper to herself. She was not so inconspicuously watching Martin, one of the Mystery Shack’s teenaged employees, while she cleaned bobbleheads made in the image of their Great Aunt (or Graunt) Polly. The siblings had been put to work helping out around the tourist trap as soon as they’d had some time to settle in.

“Why don’t you just, I don’t know, talk to him?” he suggested with an eye roll. Rose stared at him.

“After what happened last time?” she cringed. Yesterday, when they’d met him (and the handy-squirrel known as Feldoh), the mouse had introduced himself before saying something about a “rosty nose”, which had taken several minutes to decipher. Brome still wasn’t sure what that was about, but it had definitely been awkward.

“Well, he’s proven that he can speak coherently,” Brome observed, nodding his head at the customer Martin was currently ringing up, “so maybe this time you guys can make it through an entire conversation without crashing.”

“I... Don’t be so pushy, Brome. These things take time. And besides-” Rose’s protests were cut off by Graunt Polly’s appearance from the back room.

“All right, all right, look alive, everybeast. I need someone to go hang up these signs in the spooky part of the forest,” the mole announced, displaying several signs that had advertisements with question marks and directions to the Mystery Shack on them. Rose, Brome, Feldoh, and Martin all glanced at each other.

“Not it,” Rose said quickly.

“Not it,” Brome followed suit.

“Also not it. You needed me to switch out the lightbulbs upstairs, remember?” It was Feldoh, this time. Graunt Polly looked annoyed.

“Martin, go hang these signs.” She ordered. “Oh, I would, but it’s so far. And I just realized I never had my lunch break so...”

“I’d fire all of you if I could,” Polly complained, frowning at Martin’s lame excuse. Her statement didn’t seem to have the desired effect, for she looked rather disappointed when no one took the hint and volunteered as tribute.

“Fine, then. Guess we’re gonna have to do this the old-fashioned way,” she said, “let’s make it.. Eanie, meanie, minie… you,” she pointed a paw at Brome. He groaned in dismay.

“What? No. Graunt Polly, there’s something off about these woods… they’re creepy and I always feel like I’m being watched.”

“Noonvale doesn’t have much in the way of real forests, Brome. It’s gonna take some time for you to adjust to, well, the great outdoors,” Polly told him, giving his headfur a ruffle. He looked to Rose for backup, but she didn’t offer anything.

“I’m telling you – there’s something weird going on in this town. Homesickness can’t explain why the mosquito bites on my arm spell out ‘beware’.” Brome pointed out, rolling up his sleeve to show the others. Feldoh made a gagging noise. Rose raised an eyebrow and said,

“It looks more like ‘bewarb’ to me, and that’s really only if you squint.”

“Look, kid, that whole ‘monsters in the woods’ thing is just a local legend drummed up to attract more tourists,” Polly tried to assure him, but Brome wasn’t convinced. He had only been in Gravity falls for a day and he’d already seen bizarre glowing lights, heard strange noises, and been accosted by possibly radioactive mosquitos.

“But...” he protested as Graunt Polly plopped the signs into his reluctantly waiting arms.

“Stop being so paranoid and try to have some fun with this, eh, Brome?”

_______________

“No one believes anything I say,” Brome muttered to himself as he nailed a sign to a tree. It felt like he had been out in the forest for hours. All by himself. With no one to talk (complain) to. Was it even legal to send children out into the forest to perform manual labor without supervision? He’d have to check the local child labor laws once he got access to wifi – yet another thing the Mystery Shack seemed to be lacking in.

“Ugh!” he cried. “Stupid Mystery Shack! Stupid signs!”

Kathunk! Brome kicked the next tree he came to and immediately recoiled. He yelped in pain, then cocked his head. Trees didn’t make weird echoey noises… did they?

“Weird…” he commented, dropping the remaining sign on the ground so he could investigate further. Rapping gently on the tree – he didn’t want to hurt himself – Brome listened to the oddly metallic sound the tree made on impact. Something was definitely off about it. He took the sleeve of his sweatshirt and rubbed away at the trunk. Textured brown paint and a healthy coating of dirt and grime gave way to old metal. Ahah! The entire tree was fake. In full detective mode, now, Brome examined the tree until he spotted a small handle.

With slight apprehension, for there was always a chance his actions would activate an army of laser equipped robots, he grasped the lever with both paws and yanked it down. Nothing happened. No grand reveal. No explosion. Just the sound of birds chirping in the distance.

The young mouse huffed in disappointment and turned to leave, wishing he hadn’t gotten his hopes up. All his Sci-Fi TV shows and books had lied to him. Cool things never happened in real life. The world just didn’t work that way. But then, the creaking of a rusty hatch forcing its way open somewhere nearby caused him to stop in his tracks.

Brome circled the area, searching for the source of the sound. The switch must have done something, after all. He checked every nook and cranny, below each bush and on top of every rock and stump. His query remained elusive. Whatever the lever had opened was clearly well hidden. Brome took a step backwards, hoping the action would give him a different view of this patch of forest.

In a way, he got exactly what he wanted; the fallen tree he tripped over certainly forced him to see the area from a different angle. But the unexpected fall wasn’t very pleasant and Brome couldn’t help but wonder how badly he’d have to hurt himself before his parents would let him come home. He lay on the ground for a moment, half tempted to sink into the dirt and become one with nature. Thankfully, such drastic actions did not end up being necessary.

It was no wonder Brome hadn’t noticed the bizarre hole the switch had uncovered. Half buried by the log and built from camouflaged materials, he would have missed it completely if not for the fact that he’d practically fallen right on top of it. He sat up, thoughtfully. Whoever had installed this hidden treasure trove obviously hadn’t wanted anyone to find it. How long had it been since someone sat where he now sat? Since somebeast had peered into the hole to examine its secrets? Brome gently removed an object wrapped in old newspapers, bursting into a fit of sneezes at the resulting cloud of dust that had floated into the air.

It was old. Old-old, as in more than just a few years old. The newspapers were from several decades ago. Their edges had curled with age, and some of the lettering was too faded to be legible. Fortunately, Brome had little interest in the newspaper; the item it protected was far more intriguing. A journal. And journals always had juicy secrets written in them – he’d learned that from snooping in Rose’s bedroom (though this journal would inevitably be much more interesting than his sister’s diary).

The journal’s design was simple enough. It was made of thick brown leather with the insignia of a paw print on the front cover. Brome wasn’t sure what kind of creature would have an entire extra toe. He also wasn’t sure he wanted to find out. What if the journal contained something bad? Something he wasn’t supposed to see?

It must have been hidden for a reason, after all. The young mouse sat for a moment, pondering his options. He could, of course, bury the journal and get back to work hanging Graunt Polly’s signs. He could also take his chances and open the book regardless of ancient curses or government Intel. It was a difficult choice.

“Alright, mystery beast. Let’s see what you’ve been hiding,” Brome muttered when his curiosity finally got the better of him. He hummed thoughtfully and flipped through the first few pages. They were covered with sketches of creatures he had never seen before. Detailed notes and memos accompanied many of the sketches.

“It's hard to believe it's been six years since I began studying the strange and wondrous secrets of Gravity Falls,” he read aloud from the page that had the most writing. Six years was a long time to be stuck in this place. The author must have had an awful lot of spare time on their paws to create such an elaborate journal. Flipping through the journal some more, Brome found himself growing more intrigued with each page he read.

Eventually, the writing and sketches grew increasingly erratic and less caretakingly organized. Notes that made no sense lined the margins in some places. One page in particular had the words Trust No One scrawled across its top in large lettering. Brome read the rest of the entry with bated breath, “Unfortunately, my suspicions have been confirmed. I'm being watched. I must hide this book before he finds it. Remember: in Gravity Falls there is no one you can trust." He paused, confused. That seemed… harsh. But if Gravity Falls really did have a dark side-

“Watcha doin?” someone said, sending Brome into a frenzied attempt to hide the journal behind his back. He groaned when he realized who it was. His sister gave him an awkward wave.

“Rose! Thanks for that. I really needed a heart attack today,” he stated flatly.

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” Rose told him, sitting down on the fallen tree, “Graunt Polly sent me to check on you.”

“Oh,” he said. He felt a little foolish for being so easily shaken. The journal’s tone was clearly getting to him.

“So… what were you reading that you didn’t notice me coming your way?” she asked.

“It’s nothing,” Brome said quickly. Rose hummed in response, clearly skeptical.

“Seems like pretty interesting nothingness. You were really invested in it.”

“Well… it’s not nothing nothing,” he admitted, “Just not something I should show you out here where anyone could happen to walk by. Let’s go somewhere more… private.”

“Alright. But now I’m curious. This better not be evidence of aliens, or I’m going to be very insulted that you didn’t show me right away,” Rose teased, ruffling his head fur. Brome winked at her and stood up. He waved the journal at her before taking off in the direction of the Mystery Shack as he said,

“You’ll just have to wait and see.”

After all, surely the book journal hadn’t meant sisters when it said trust no one… right?

#redwall #redwall fanfiction #myfics #gravity falls #laterose of noonvale #martin the warrior #brome the worrier

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a-crash-in-time-collection · 3 years ago

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Chapter 3: Return of the Mysterious Diva

It took awhile for the dark woods to pass the group, desert sand replacing it. It always felt a bit strange to Hat Girl, people always seemed to complain about the desert's heat, yet it never really bugged her. Then again, that simply could be because she was an alien who could more easily handle heat, or this desert was cooler than others. Either way, it didn't stop her from chatting with the others on the way to Dead Bird Studio.

The others informed her about how things on the planet were since she last arrived. It was... the same for the most part. Mafia Town was still Mafia Town. Dead Bird Studio kept making movies, and although slightly more tolerant of each other, DJ Grooves and Conductor still had their rivalry. The captain and seals got a new ship, apparently bigger than before. Alpine Skyline was apparently fine as well, but no one really knew exactly since they kept to themselves.

It made her happy, knowing everyone was still living their lives peacefully. She found herself soon looking forward again, seeing they were now in front of Dead Bird Studios. It felt almost like nothing changed, seeing it. The main thing that was different were two posters on each side of the building. Those posters being for the movies she took part in when she first arrived on this planet. Apparently, her movies were still some of the best the studio ever made.

It almost felt surreal that she was here again, after all this time... She felt herself take a slight breath to calm herself, glancing to her sides slightly. DJ Grooves gave her a reassuring smile, Conductor glanced at her with pride. She felt a ghostly hand remove her hat, ruffling her hair briefly before placing the hat back on. She took another breath, and walked into the building that made her a star.

They passed through the dark hallway, into the reception room. Everything was almost the exact same as years ago, minus the same posters as outside on each wall on each side of the building. The Receptionist owl was typing away at the computer on his desk. The birds there were chatting among each other, Express Owls on one side, and Moon Penguins on the other. Her smile grew slightly as Platinum began glancing around in awe.

"HEY, we're back, Receptionist!" The Conductor called as he walked up to the desk.

"I hear you Conductor, no need to be pushy about it." The Receptionist said, as his typing went quicker, as if to finish whatever he was working on.

"Normally I would agree with your statement darling, but I can't really blame him myself." DJ Grooves said, taking Hat Girl's hand as he walked closer. "One of the greatest stars we ever had has returned. Who can blame him if he's a bit excited."

"Really? The only person I can think of that meets that memo is-" the Receptionist finally glanced over, and although his eyes remained closed, he seemed to straighten up in surprise. "Is that the lil' chiper?"

"Lil' chiper? How many nicknames did you get on this planet, Hattie? Or just, names in general?" Platinum asked as he walked back over to the group, Hat Girl giving a shrug in response.

"Who else do you know that wears a purple and yellow hat almost 24/7?" Snatcher spoke, having shrunk his from slightly to where he was still able to tower the others, but to where he wasn't knocking said others to the side by mistake.

"I'll be takin' her to the back to get her bird passport renewed. Clear out everythin' else in me schedule today." Conductor said quickly.

"Same with me darling." DJ Grooves said, the Conductor huffing quietly to himself. "Oh, and do me a favor. Tell Biddy and Sheryll to bring her over to the picture booth." Hat Girl gained a bit of confusion in her eyes, weren't they already taking her to the photo booth?

"Of course, right away Mister Conductor and Mister Grooves." The Reception said, giving a quick wave to Hat Girl before getting back on the computer.

"This way darling, we'll get your passport ready, then you can choice a movie you'd like to be in." DJ Grooves said, leading her through the doors on his side of the building. The Conductor could faintly be heard mumbling in the background, as he followed them, a rare sight to be sure. Hat Girl found herself glancing around, it was so much like she remembered, yet not at the same time.

"Still can't believe you were in movies without me." Platinum huffed, though it wasn't a serious huff like Conductor's past one was.

"In my defense, I didn't know I was going to be getting a robotic brother when I was starring in them." Hat Girl giggled, smiling slightly as she waved to the owls and penguins that recognized her. It felt a bit strange, walking through the studio instead of just jumping about. Either they built some new pathways while she was gone, or she was always looking for a challenge when she was younger.

"Whelp, here we are, lass!" Conductor said, the large fake golden trophy a few feet away from them.

Platinum froze in his steps, month opening in slight shock. "Woah! Especially when the trophies are that big!" He glanced back at her, to which she rolled her eyes. She loved her brother, and they worked well together. But it takes a few tries to get some facts into his head. Like when the answer he was given was 'no'. But, to be fair, she was guilty of that as well. He turned his attention to the birds. "Where do you two even keep all these trophies!?"

"Well, this one is just a plastic replica, darling." DJ Grooves said, watching disappointment fill the Topbot's face.

"Why do you two have a plastic replica anyway?" Snatcher said, flouting to the top of the fake golden trophy, laying on the top slightly. "Aww, were one of you so insure that you would never win a first place trophy? That's just sooo sad."

The Conductor gave a slight smirk and DJ Grooves, who quickly and magically gained a cough. "Step over here darling, and we'll take the new picture for the passport. I do hope you're more… photogenic with staying still this time around." He said, heading to the camera booth.

"No promises, Grooves." She chuckled as she walked over to where the camera was pointing. She still remembered standing in this exact spot years ago. She made sure not to move this time, despite Platinum making faces at her like a child in the background.

The camera clicked, allowing Hat Girl to breathe a sigh of relief. The Conductor snatched the picture from DJ Grooves and looked at it, glancing back at her with a smile. "You look great, lassie!"

"Daddy!" A voice called before Hat Girl had the chance to say 'thanks'. DJ Grooves quickly got out of the photo booth, as a small blue penguin ran from two moon penguins to him. She was wearing a small pink dress, similar to one she remembered one of the Conductor grandkids wore. She giggled as she got to his feet, as the penguin picked her up.

"There you are, did you miss me, little star?" He asked, booping the young penguin's beak, causing her to let out a giggle. He then turned over to the toppat teens. "This here is Dinenna, my beautiful magnificent little girl!"

"Awwww, she's so cute!" Hat Girl said, walking over to the two slightly. Apparently, things had changed more than she had thought. Still, she wasn't going to let that bug her, as she smiled at the little bird. "Hi there, Dinenna!"

Dinenna looked at her slightly, letting out a small gasp in wonder. She then smiled and pointed to her. "Hat Diva! Hat Diva!" She then reached for her slightly. Hat Girl heard a sigh from the Conductor in the background, apparently he was going to take care of Platinum's picture while waiting for 'this' to be over with.

DJ Grooves chuckled slightly, as he looked back at her. "She's a big fan of yours, darling. She even watch the Conductor's westerns that have you in it."

"Don't think I can't hear ye, peck neck" The Conductor grumbled in the background.

Hat Girl smiled slightly at them both, letting the little one garb her hands slightly. Her ice blue eyes looked up at her in joy, she might be able to compete with the seals.

"Alright, we got the lad and lassie's passport taken care of." The Conductor said, walking back over to the three. He then glanced at Hat Girl. "So, which movie should we film, lassie? I've gotten a few ideas over the years."

"Well..." She began messing with her fingers. "I hope you don't mind, but I was kinda thinking I could do a movie with DJ Grooves first. It would likely take less time, and we do need to get back to the others soon. Besides, I figure Dinenna would like that, won't you?" She said, the little penguin giggling slightly.

The Conductor glanced at DJ Grooves slightly, possibly giving him a glare, before sighing slightly in defeat. "Aright, lass. But yer gonna be in one of my movies next!" He crossed his arms and leaned against a nearby wall. Platinum looked at the bird, giving a shrug before walking next to his sister.

"Well, if we're going to be in one of DJ Groove's movies, maybe we can do something with that parade thing I saw while walking in?" He asked, tilting his head to the side. "It seems like it would be a cool idea, and you looked like you were having a lot of fun while making it, Hattie." He smiled at her.

"That sounds like a wonderful idea, darling." DJ Grooves said, looking at the two of them slightly. Dineanna giggled in his arms, making him pause to smile at her before turning his attention back to the other two. "I still remember watching you leading those Owls around the set, like the leader you were."

"Well, if we are going to do that movie, there are a few things I liked to bring up." Hat Girl said as she looked at him. "We should get finger signs in place for us to use. The band tended to get way too close during the parade. And maybe we should have some extra safety measures in place this time around. I loved running around carefree and all, but things would have been bad if I slipped."

"I do see your point there, darling." DJ Grooves said, rubbing the back of his head.

"You better see the point. It would be awful if they fell and broke all their bones, or gears in Platinum's case." Snatcher stated as he flouted to the group with a chuckle. "Normal I say stuff like that in a joking manner, as I want that to happen. But know I will be seeing you in court if something happens to the kiddo." His voice gained a faint threatening tone, hand making a slight fist that was hidden from the others view.

The penguin gulped slightly. "Don't worry, darling, everything will be fine... now, let's get things ready!" He said, picking up his tone again slightly.

Snatcher flouted besides Hat Girl and Platinum as she was being led to another room. "Don't worry, I'll be at the movie set with you in case things go haywire."

"Wow, I really earned a spot in your heart, didn't I?" Hat Girl chuckled, as Snatcher glanced up at the ceiling, likely rolling his eyes. She didn't remember Snatcher being this... nice... or protective. Did something happen while she was gone that made him like this? She didn't bother asking.

Soon, they found themselves in a dressing room. "Platinum, you head into the one over there, I'll go let you know the plans in a few minutes." The Topbot nodded after a brief moment, and headed into the room, followed by a few Moon penguins. DJ Grooves walked over to a nearby closet, and pulled out her... old Parade uniform?

"Wait, didn't you give that to me?" She asked, tilting her head to the side.

DJ Grooves looked over at her, head tilting to the side as Dinenna reached for the feather on the top of the hat. "Not that I recall, darling."

"Weird..." She said, only faintly noticing some Moon Penguins holding measuring tape to her sides. "I could have sworn you did, it was in my closet when I left the planet... same with a bunch of other outfits I don't recall having..." She glanced to the side, faintly able to catch Snatcher starting to mess with his fingers again.

"Must have been a spare, or something." DJ Grooves said, placing Dinenna on the floor with the hat, before grabbing a roll of red fabric off the wall, comparing it to that of the outfit. "I'll admit, I wasn't expecting you to go with me first darling, but I appreciate it." He looked over at her, giving her a soft smile. "I promise, you won't regret it."

Hat Girl giggled. "I'm sure I won't." She said, pausing as she bent down when one of the penguins asked her too. They quickly marked her head length on it before removing it. This was going to be fun.

-------

Hat Girl adjusted her new hat as she glanced into the mirror Snatcher had summoned for her. Her current outfit was almost the exact same as the one she wore years ago, only fitted to her current size. Platinum jumped into the mirror's view as well, wearing almost the exact same outfit, but the gold and silver parts were swapped in color. He looked at her with a grin, warping an arm around her happily.

"You too look perfect, darlings." DJ Grooves said as he glanced over at them, ending the phone call he was on. Dinenna had to go home, as her mother and him agreed it would be a bad idea for her to stay up late, so he was making sure everything was alright there. He then glanced over the two rows of Owls, who were waiting patiently. "Everyone remembers the signals?"

"Yes sir, we got them memorized... r-right everyone?" One of the owls called to the others, who nodded or mumbled shyly their answers.

"Just don't draw attention to the fact I’m here, I don't want to be associated with DJ Peckneck."

"You're in the shadows of the starting building playing cards with a ghost known for stealing souls buddy, I'm pretty sure no one's gonna notice." Snatcher said casually, placing down a 7.

"Ehhh, fair." He glanced down at his cards. "Uhhh... is ace the best card, or the worst card...? This is why I don't play without me grandchildren."

"Alright Darlings, let's get this movie started!" DJ Grooves called, hopping over to a tower-float thing.

"Let's get my movie career started!" Platinum called, racing to another building as soon as he was given the 'go' command.

Hat Girl chuckled slightly as she raced the opposite direction then her brother, hopping onto the nearby building as the owls followed her. She could hear shouts of excitement from the crowd below, she could hear variants of her name shouted in joy below, it made her feel happy.

"Hey Hattie! Check this out!" Platinum called, reading himself up to a wire. He leaned forward and placed his hands on the wire, doing a cartwheel across it.

Hat Girl rolled her eyes, singling her owls to slow down slightly so she could more easily talk to him. "Yeah yeah, I can do a lot more on those wires, dear brother of mine. Watch!" She said, hopping onto one, doing a front flip as she landed on a nearby rooftop. She glanced over smugly.

Platinum made a grin, and singled for his owls to speed up as he raced to his left. Hat Girl was a bit confused, as she hop back and forth between the 'stage' area and a nearby rooftop to get a better look at the situation. She saw Platinum turn around from the rooftop edge and hop off. Before her worry could fully set in, she saw him grab some flags between two buildings just above the crowd, and used them to quickly swing himself onto the next rooftop.

"I'm sorry kiddo, but I'm pretty sure you just got owned!" Snatcher called as he looked away from the card game, chuckling along with the Conductor. Hat Girl gave a glare, then singled for her owls to speed up while looking at DJ Grooves. Then she gave him another single just from him.

"Start the firework cannons!" He called to a nearby group of moon penguins at the controls. They nodded at him, and began to press the buttons. The canons from the nearby flouts started to shoot out fireworks, and some of the ground crew got more safety tarps ready, in case one of the two were to fall onto the ground.

Meanwhile in one of the shops, a storekeeper glanced at the gems on the counter, then looked at the man. "Sir, we're legally not allowed to accept gems as payment."

"Come on, it's basically keeping change." Reginald spoke, voiced tired yet filled with stress and worry. He and Right Hand Man went looking for the kids, but after hours of searching and Reginald falling into water, they decided they should try and get some supplies for the clan. After all, they had to come back on their own sooner or later. Platinum's battery could only last so long after all.

"Look sir, I can tell something's going on, but I can't just give all of this for gems or gold." The storekeeper, glancing at the supplies that were sitting to the side of the counter. Some packs of food, bottles of water, tools, and a few tents. They glanced back at him. "If you don't have anything you can actually use to pay, you have to leave."

"But I..." Reginald let out a groan, glancing over at Right Hand Man.

Right Hand Man sighed as he reached in his pocket. Normally they would likely have just stolen it all, but Reginald refused too. He didn't want to risk them making Hat Girl look bad. Made things a bit more annoying, but he was sure he would adapt over time. He pulled out his wallet and placed some cash on the table, as Reginald had forgotten cash existed. "Alrig't, 'eres yer money. Now we'll be goin'."

"Ohhh, you're from the metro..." The shopkeeper placed their arm in front of the items before the cyborg could garb them. "News flash, your type of money doesn't work here either, pons only."

"Pons?" Reginald asked, confused by the term, before it clicked. This was an alien planet, which meant they had a completely different money system. If they wouldn't accept gold or gems, or the cash they had, they couldn't get anything from the clan... panic began to fall on him as he tried to find words.

"Come on, Reg." Right Hand Man said, holding his husband's hand once he saw panic enter his eyes. He gave the shopkeeper a slight glare, before garbing the money and leading Reginald to the door. It was getting late... they needed to get back. He was a bit annoyed to find the streets filled, which would not make leaving any easier. "It's gonna be alrig't, Reg, we'll figure out w'ot we need to do."

"H-How can you be so sure Righty!?" Reginald asked, some tears forming faintly in the corner of his eyes. "No past leader has ever had to deal with something like this, so I can't use them for guidance! The clan is all going to look to me, hoping I have a way home, but I don't! I can't even keep an eye on my own kids!"

"Easy Reg, easy..." Right Hand Man said, moving some hair out of his lover's eyes. "S'ould 'ave been t'e one keepin' an eye on t'em, knowin' 'ow busy ya would be." He faintly noticed a shadow passed by overhead, but shook it off as he kept his focus on Reginald. "Ya need to trust me, ok?"

"I hope you're right..." Reginald sighed as he glanced at the ground. He could hear the cheering coming from Penguins around him, and giggling, shouting, and taunting from up above. There were two voices that seemed stuck out to him...

"Bet you won't can't do this, Hattie!" A energetic voice called, causing both men to look up at the sound.

"Platinum?!" Reginald asked in shock, as he saw the topbot jump across to one of those large float tower things.

"Wha's the lad doing near the rocket?" the Conductor asked, having longed given up on the card game at this point. Platinum sent a sign to his Owls to have them temporarily stop, as the canon began to glow red. He tapped his foot slightly as he wanted for the faintest sights of a firework. Once one was about to launch out, he jumped over the cannon hole, just barely avoiding being hit. "Wow, the lads really got some skills."

Fear filled Reginald's eyes in a second. "P-PLATINUM TOPBOT COPPERBOTTOM, GET DOWN HERE RIGHT NOW!" He shouted, but was muffled by the cheering of the crowd. He could feel fear itself swimming through his blood, especially when he spotted Hat Girl jumping onto a wire before bouncing up again. "YOU TOO, HATTIE!"

Right Hand Man watched in worry, what were they doing? "Hat Girl, Platinum! Get down now!" He shouted.

Unfortunately, the two were unable to hear their fathers' worried calls, and kept racing around the buildings with the owls following them.

"T'at's it." Right Hand Man groaned, his feet gaining rockets under them as he lifted into the air. He flew over to the two. "Hat Girl! Platinum! Get over 'ere!"

Snatcher caught the flying man out of the corner of his eye, and was naturally confused. He then noticed he was heading to where the teens were, and had to act. He flew over to him, quickly garbing the man by the leg. "WELLLLLLLLLLL... What do you think you're doing?" he coughed slightly "FOOOL!"

"W'ot t'e-" Right Hand Man looked behind him, seeing a large dark figure with glowing eyes smirking at him. He growled, he didn't have time for this! "Let me go! T'e kids could get t'emselfs 'urt if I don't stop t'em!" The ghost didn't respond, just shook his head with a chuckle like he told a joke. Right Hand Man reached for his leg, trying to get it free.

"Oh there's no need to worry sir. As the actor's lawyer, I can say that they aren't going to get hurt anytime soon." Snatcher said, placing a hand on his chest.

"Actor?! Lawyer!?" Right Hand Man shouted as he looked up at him. "Don't know w'ot yer goin' on about!"

"Simple, these two are filming a movie, and I can't have you interrupt them rudely like that."

"It's alright, Snatcher darling. We got enough footage for the movie." DJ Grooves called, as he singled for the filming crew to stop, and for the kids to come back.

Hat Girl and Platinum both raced back to where they were, chuckling all the way. It was only when Hat Girl looked over at the phantom did she notice the cyborg with him. "Snatcher, what are you doing with Papa?"

Snatcher's face went blank as he processed the information. "This is... your father? ...How can you stand being raised by someone so boring!"

"I honestly don't know!" Platinum called up, replacing his parade hat with his normal topbot hat. "No offense Pops, but you're kinda a killjoy."

"A 'killjoy' because I try to protect ya bot'" He called, as he looked at the phantom, before the name Hat Girl called him sunk in. "'ait... T'is is the g'ost who's song I sing for ya, Hattie?!" He shouldn't really be surprised, he knew the ghost wasn't the best person, based on the lyrics. He honestly didn't know why Hattie even liked the song, but it always seemed to cheer her up.

"Yea! Isn't he super cool! Just like Grooves and Conductors are! And everyone on this planet!" She called up happily.

"Righty! Are you and the kids ok!?" Reginald's voice called from the ground below, even more worry inside of it than before. Hat Girl and Platinum glanced at each other, another type of worry growing on their features. They completely forgot about their dads.

The cyborg sighed slightly, as he called out. "Yea, just 'ang on a second!" He then glared at the ghost holding him. "Will ya let me go get my 'usband, t'en we can all 'ave a... proper introduction to eac' ot'er." He mumbled slightly, he rather just garb the kids and start heading back, but that wasn't going to let this ghost let go.

Snatcher glanced to the side slightly with a hum, as if in thought, before shrugging and letting go of his foot. "Sure, why not. You're staying next to my forest anyway, might as well get to know you since you'll be staying here awhile."

The Conductor finally raced out of the shadows next to Grooves, a bit curious at this point. Right Hand Man disappeared from sight, only to reappear with the worried toppat leader in his arms a few seconds later. Reginald quickly, yet somehow gently, raced out of his husband's grip and over to his kids, hugging them both. "You two had me so worried! Are you hurt, you better not be hurt!"

"Relax Dad, we're fine." Platinum said, a slight embarrassed tone in his voice, as Reginald backed away after a moment's hesitation. "We've just been chilling with some of Hattie's friends. Oh! We're also going to be in a movie."

"A movie?" Reginald asked, before shaking his head slightly. "You two should have at least told me or Righty first! I fell into the ocean looking for you earlier!"

"In our defense, you would likely have said no if we told you." Hat Girl said, adjusting her Family Badge on her normal hat before placing it back on.

"Oh, I know for a fact I would 'ave said no." Right Hand Man said, crossing his arms with a huff. "Ya could've gotten 'urt or lost. 'nd Just because ya were on t'is planet before doesn't mean it's any safer for ya t'an ot'er Toppats members."

"The lassie is much more capable than you give her credit fer. But as a father meself, I can see yer worry." The Conductor said, getting the attention of the toppat leaders. "Name's the Conductor, and the Penguin right here is DJ Peckneck."

"DJ Grooves." The penguin corrected, giving a slight glance at Conductor, who just gave a grin in response. He then looked back at the two. "Sorry about keeping your kids for so long, darlings. We just got a little excited when we found her, and didn't think of how her family would react."

"Wha's with the long apology. I would just say 'Sorry' and that'd be that." The Conductor said.

"Ehhh, it doesn't help that we only really mentioned the whole 'crashed on here with the clan' situation to Snatcher." Platinum said, rubbing the back of his head slightly.

Reginald took a few breaths, finally allowing himself to fully calm down after what felt like, and likely was, hours. He then smiled tiredly at the three from this planet. "Well, it's nice to finally met you all, Hattie talks so fondly of you all. My name is Reginald Copperbottom, and this is my Right Hand Man."

"'Ello." Right Hand Man sighed, as he glanced at Reginald. "I 'ate to cut t'is s'ort, but we s'ould be gettin' back to the clan. T'ey're probably worried about us all."

"Awww... but I don't wanna leave yet! There's so much we can do!" Platinum said, eyes glowing faintly in the dark.

"Yeah! And besides... " Hat Kid glanced at the birds and phantom, not finding the exact words. It seemed like she was worried...

"It's alright, Darling. I need to get home anyway. Hazel will kill me if I stay out too late." DJ Grooves said jokingly.

"Aye, same here. I got a busy train schedule tomorrow." The Conductor said, glancing at Hat Girl with a smile. "Besides, ye need to get things with yer... clan, figured out anyway. After that, we can work on our movie!"

"After askin' us first." Right Hand Man stated, a slight glare in his eyes. "I'm not lettin' Reg 'ave anot'er panic attack because t'ey disappeared."

"You really are no fun." Snatcher said, shaking his head to the side slightly.

Hat Girl smiled at them all slightly. Everything was going to be fine...

-------

Burt turned away from the sleeping form of Fredrick when he heard footsteps. He shined the flashlight over, glancing around before his mind took in the figures he saw. "Oh, chief, boss, you're back with the kids."

"Yeah... did anything happen while we were gone?" Reginald asked, sighing as he glanced around. There were a few fires set up, the children sleeping on beds close to each one, while one adult stayed up with a flashlight and a bucket of water near them. Most of the other members were asleep under the broken pieces of the orbital station. A few were still up around what was basically 'medbay' now, likely doing some final checks before heading to 'bed' themselves.

Burt shrugged. "Nothing really. We just got a few fires up and are switching between resting and making sure they don't spread. But uhh, you could probably see that already." He glanced at the small boxes Hat Girl had. "Are those some supplies?"

"No, just two outfits Hattie's friend made for 'er and Platinum." Right Hand Man said. It was true, DJ Grooves allowed the two to keep the outfits. Said to keep it as a welcome back gift. "Store wouldn't accept gold, gems, or cas'. So we're gonna 'ave to find anot'er way to get t'e stuff we need."

"Forgive me for asking, but uhh, why not just steal the supplies?"

"I didn't want to risk making a bad impression to any of Hattie's friends." Reginald sighed, glancing back at Burt. "Besides, based on what Hattie told us in the past, nearly everyone here has a 'trick' they could use to hurt us, even if they don't really mean to. Stealing just seems like a bad idea."

"Bet you some people never thought the leader of the toppat clan would ever say that." Platinum chuckled slightly.

"Well, uhh, do you have any idea what we can do to get supplies?" Burt asked, glancing to the side slightly before groaning. "I'm going to be a wreck without my coffee tomorrow... I blame you, Fredrick." He said, glancing back at the sleeping Toppat.

"Oh! I got an idea!" Hat Girl stated as she glanced at Reginald. "It's a bit away from here, but maybe we can head to Mafia Town? See if we can trade some of the gold for pons, they have a lot of both."

"Well, we did find a boat earlier we can use to get there... " Reginald glanced at Right Hand Man. "What do you think?"

"'onsently? We don't really 'ave anot'er c'oice." Right Hand Man sighed, before he yawned slightly. "W'otever we're doin', we s'ould 'ead ta bed. Can't do anythin' w'en yer basically a zombie."

Reginald nodded as Burt looked at them. "Calla placed some blankets for you all by the power grid. Said you all would likely want to stay close together until you get your actual rooms back."

It took a few minutes to find said power grid, but once they did, they all got settled in. Well, the best they could, as some of the broken walls made the area a bit crowded. Platinum adjusted his position, since there wasn't much room for him to properly stand, before plugging into his charger and turning off for the night. Reginald, Right Hand Man, and Hat Girl stayed close to each other in a nearby corner, having decided it would probably be best for them to sleep together, at least for tonight.

"You know things are going to be ok here, right?" Hat Girl asked as she looked up at them slightly. "My friends won't let anything bad happen to us. There's no need to worry."

Right Hand Man replied with a tried mumble, as he shifted slightly to get more comfortable. Reginald let out a yawn, and brushed some hair out of her eyes, smiling softly at her. "We know, Hattie. We know... Adults just tend to worry about things more than you do. Especially when they're in charge of the clan." He shook his head slightly as he closed his eyes, Hat Girl following suit soon after. "But we have each other... and that's all that matters..."

-------

Snatcher watched the crashed orbital station sight from a distance. He knew the kiddo was bound to leave once again. No contract could make her stay. Why... how did she even worm herself this far into his non-existing heart?! He knew part of the answer, sure, but was that alone enough to make him feel like... this? The fact it felt like part of her was always here didn't help either. He sighed as he floated back down, heading to his tree home. Everything will be fine. He would just have to... enjoy all the time he had with her. Maybe make some extra time as well, if he had too...

Just small little things like a missing tool every now and again... No... that would be cruel... he was already known for being cruel... but to the kiddo? Could he really bring himself low enough to prevent her from going home once again? He'll just have to see what the future has in store... Maybe time will surprise them all...

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kathyprior4200 · 3 years ago

Text

Welcome to Wacky Wally Wackford’s World!

Greetings, I say, greetings demons of all ages! The name’s Wally Wackford, an oh so suave man of business! You may not know me, but surely you’ve seen me…pretty much everywhere. Yes, I’ve never been the type to stay in one place for long. Life can be pretty wild at times. But that’s what makes it oh so fun!

So what’s my story, you say, you say? Well look no further, ‘cause I have a tale to tell.

I’ve been doing freelance work off and on, laboring at one job, moving onto the next. The jobs vary a lot, but I’m a Wally of many trades. (Yes, I’ve been fired many times as well, figuratively and literally…it is Hell after all.) Early on, I found out that living in poverty is never a lot of fun. I quickly learned how to scam other people…and boy did I enjoy it! It was the only way I could inch toward the top, get some power of my own. I’d make a few deals here and there and then when clients got desperate, I’d say something like, “Oh I’m so sorry but there’s an extra fee you have to pay. Forgot to mention that.” Then I’d point to that small scribbled section on the contract I added in moments ago.

“I’m starving, sir!” they’d say. Or, “I left my money at home,” or my favorite: “Shove it up your trickster rear!”

Sometimes they did pay me extra. Other times they didn’t…and those were the ones who soon forgot about everything forever. (chuckles).

Anyway, moving on.

Sometimes when my days got long and hard, I’d go to saloons for a nice bottled drink. The emerald colored Greed Mead is my favorite. Twirling my thin black mustache, I’d wink at some pretty imp gals nearby and say, “Hey there. You’ve been in Hell for a long time. Is that why you’re so hot?”

Most of the time, I’d get a swift punch to the face in response. The glares on their pretty faces, “Take that remark to the Sloth Ring, lazy bootleg fucker.”

So many aggressive people these days. I could tip my black hat to many imps and they’d either fall to my charms or roll their eyes. I was fine with that. There’s not much else to do in Hell then to live your life and amuse yourself with watching others struggle. In fact, pretty much every sin is encouraged, so why not keep going?

After stalking around looking for more people to scam, I came across Loo-Loo Land in the Ring of Greed. I’ve always loved that place, its vibrant atmosphere emitting joyful fun and chaotic flair. I walked on over and asked the vendor, “I say, you have any jobs here?”

“I’ve heard of you, Wacky Wally,” he said at the ticket stand. “You may be a good pick-pocket, but your skills are nothing compared to Mammon. In fact, this whole place is a fucking rip-off of Lucifer’s Lu-Lu Land!”

“All the more reason to love this place!” I exclaimed.

“Robo Fizz is putting on another show at 7pm tomorrow,” said the beefy imp vendor. “Made in Mammon’s factory and modeled after the famous imp Fizzarolli.” He then spoke in a low whisper, “It includes some behind the scenes moments for the VIPs…you know, with tentacles and ‘special features.’”

“Oh that sounds delicious!” I said with a slow grin. “It’d be great to see how his…mechanics work someday…”

The imp vendor rolled his eyes and flinched at my lighthearted comment. Always know what to say to get that grimace reaction.

“Anyway,” said the vendor, “We’re running low on staff, so you can go sell those torches over there.”

The imp pointed to a pink cart with Mammon’s jester face on it. I shrugged and got to work.

I happily rolled my cart around, selling torches wherever I went. I could honestly stare into those mesmerizing green flames all day.

“Torches here!” I drawled in my Foghorn Leghorn southern accent. “66% off when you buy four! Parties, decoration, destruction and more!”

One time on my break, I got to talk to Robo Fizz about money, shows, sex and chaos. We even cracked some jokes together. The robot seemed a little nervous in my presence but then again, he was very unpredictable on a daily basis.

“A duck, a frog, a demon and a skunk go into a bar. The bartender told them that the drinks were one dollar each. How did they pay for them? Answer: The duck had a bill, the frog had a greenback, the demon had a soul…but the skunk only had a scent!”

“Hahahaha!” Robo Fizz laughed, sparks flying near him. “Your jokes are much better than Blitzo’s corny puns!”

“Why thank you,” I replied. “But nothing beats your organ-playing animatronics in your ‘Wonderful World of Evil’ puppet show you did last month.”

Robo Fizz grinned at the compliment. “You do anything else besides selling torches?”

“I scam, I kill, I do a little bit of both. Oh and I’m also a great inventor!”

“How marvelous!” Robo Fizz grinned. “Perhaps if you have enough mayhem in you, you could perform with me at the next Fizzarolli N Friends show!”

“I say, I’d love that! I’m sure your show will be top notch, copyright be dammed…won’t it?”

Robo Fizz smiled widely, hiding a strain. “You bet it will!”

It was during one interesting day when I pushed my cart by a large tent where several Robo Fizz posters were posted. I held up a troch with a hand and called:

“Torches, I say! I say! Get your inconvenient torches here!”

Then before I knew it, the robot and a random imp crashed right into the cart.

“Ow, I say OW!” I cried as the green flames quickly spread around. After getting the flames off me, I ran for the hills out of the burning park. I sat, dejected shortly afterward. So much for that job. Along with figuring out what to do next, I also happened to watch the imp fight off Robo Fizz…and the robot falling into the dragon’s mouth.

How unfortunate.

After helping Robo Fizz from the dragon’s insides, (killing said dragon, pulling out said robot, cleaning and making quick repairs), I inched closer to him and said, “You made some new friends, I say.”

Robo Fizz stood tense with just long wires for his body, a metal skeleton of his previous appearance. “Yes…an old time co-worker of mine. A clown of an imp named Blitzo. He and his sisters were once part of a circus act called “The Amazing Imp Siblings. A bit dowdy if you ask me. ”

Robo Fizz looked around. “Hahahaha! That was some chaotic fun. But now the park is ruined!”

“I say, if I were you,” I told him, “I’d do all I could to get this park repaired and back on track. Costs a whole lotta money. The last thing you need is to have your boss disappointed in you.”

A brief look of fear came on his face. “Oh yes, yes, good idea, Wally.”

“And your friend…whether you upstage him or what, you’d best be sure Blitzo stays out of trouble. I lost my job and almost my life because of that fight!” My yellow eyes shined in a show of sadness.

“I-I will not let master Mammon down…not that I have a choice.”

“Let Asmodeus know what’s up as well.”

Robo Fizz nodded, spun away and laughed. “Time to find that rodeo clown imp!”

0 0 0

Later on after leaving Greed, I got a brilliant idea. It was after I saw some old fashioned 1800s snake man in Pride plow down buildings with a metal bulldozer vehicle. That was it! I could start my own business!

I walked over to 666 News station. “Oh Katie,” I said in my sweetest voice.

“What is it, scum?” she asked, sitting at a mirror and doing her hair. “Can’t you see I’m preparing for a back to back broadcast right now?”

“I was considering doing my very own commercial about me exploiting…erm, employing other demons for my new factory.”

Katie barked out a laugh. “Good luck with that, filthy old man! Now get out of my studio.”

“Very well,” I said. As quiet as a hell mouse, I snatched a camera with an eye at the center and made my way out the door. The rest of the materials I needed came from a nearby junkyard. (Thankfully I avoided the wrath of some hungry kangaroo parasitic queen demon). I was running out of money fast; with no job around the corner, I figured I’d start my own!

Even I don’t really know where I got my inventing skills from. Many say it was my natural trait. Others say I learned from other experts in the trade. After all, one of the quickset ways to a man’s wallet is through the latest technology.

But I, Wally Wackford would not settle for your standard modern devices. No. I preferred to make things…well, wacky.

In no time at all, I had built myself my own mini studio where I could film my commercial! Now, what to call my company? Hmm…

The Onceler One In a Lifetime Opportunity? No, not enough Ws.

Wowing Whimsical Wonderous Wonders? Nah, too many Ws.

Ah…of course! What is a company if you don’t have your name on it?

0 0 0

“Uh huh, keep going, keep going, keep going!” Blitzo insisted at the I.M.P. office.

Moxxie switched the channel again. This time, an imp appeared wearing a large black top hat, a white shirt and pants, gray vest, black bow tie and black boots. He held a cane in his hands and he also had a thin curly mustache. A mischievous grin of sharp teeth appeared on his face.

“I say, I say!” the imp exclaimed, briefly pointing his cane at the camera. “Are you looking to get work making crazy contraptions and goofy gadgets?” “Crazy Contraptions” and “Goofy Gadgets” appeared in bold spiked icons to the imp’s left and right. The imp twirled his cane.

“Well call me at Wacky Wally Wackford’s Wacky Idea ‘Factory!’”

He pulled down another screen. The title appeared in bold red, gray and white letters surrounded by pinkish circles reminiscent of classic cartoons. “Factory” appeared in quotations. Wally Wackford appeared again.

“Where you make the things and I make the money!”

Wally Wackford then got up closer to the camera with a pleading look. “Please, I’m very desperate!”

“Bingo!” Blitzo called, shooting and exploding the TV again.

0 0 0

It was actually really easy to find where Blitzo was and the new sinner inventors. The killing company of imps had me very curious. If they could start a business, why shouldn’t I? And being in the company of amazing inventors…

I could almost see the soul dollar bills floating into my hands.

I snuck up to the building, merged into the floor, eavesdropped on their fascinating conversation…

0 0 0

Crash!

A metal plank crashed into the room from above as Moxxie scurried out of the way. Loopty Goopty strolled down the plank. “Blitz!”

“Loofa!” Blitzo called, saying his name wrong. “We can explain everything. I was…”

Crash!

Millie pulled Moxxie out of the way before another metal plank landed in the spot where he would’ve been. From on the floor, Blitzo’s butt was very much in view. Blitzo glanced down at him and remarked, “Oh chill out Moxxie, if you kiss my ass any harder you’ll go right inside me.”

Moxxie turned beet red in the face and scooted further back. Millie helped him up again.

“Thanks for saving me again,” Moxxie said. “I would’ve foamed at the mouth and maybe died again.”

“Why would you think I would ever ignore you?”

Moxxie shrugged.

Just then, the demonic form of a man rolled down the plank. His body was black and spherical, with a mint green head wearing a black bowler hat on top. He had a large bushy light gray mustache and pince-nez goggles with dark red spirals on the lens like Loopty. His grinning teeth resembled piano keys.

“Lyle Lipton?!” Millie, Moxxie, and Blitzo asked in unison.

“I don’t understand,” said Millie. “We thought you went to Heaven.”

Lyle Lipton chuckled. “Heaven?” He rolled toward Loopty Goopty. “You don’t make millions in technological advances in robotics by not experimenting on the poor!” He laughed.

Loopy Goopty grinned as he unleashed his weapons in front of Lyle Lipton. “Finally! We meet again at last! Now that you’re dead, you have no money to keep from me!”

“Well, I’m a better inventor than you!” Lyle scoffed. “And I’ll make the most money here first!”

“Nonsense you no good son of a bitch!”

“Tie yourself in a knot, loony Loopty!”

“Roll in your grave, fat shit inventor!”

“Two robotic inventors?!” called a nearby voice. A steampunk blimp hovered in the air and a well-dressed snake demon appeared from a hole in his ship.

“Who is that guy?” Lyle Lipton asked.

“I’m the one and only Sir Pentious!” he declared. Several Egg Bois were steering his ship. The eye on his dark top hat peered at the other sinners in curiosity. “With my dominating machines, I aim to take over all of Pentagram City!” Then he muttered, “The repairs were a fucking nightmare to endure.” He glanced at the leftover cracks and holes on the metal sides of his ship.

“Oooh!” Loopty exclaimed in admiration. “I’ve only seen such inventions in old time history books. How long have you been here?”

“Since eighteen eighty eight!”

“Love the loopy numbers!” Loopty grinned, making three small eights with his contraptions. “I’m Loopty Goopty! Lyle is my could’ve been partner in crime but actually rival!”

“When you’re rich as me, who needs a dead partner!” Lyle exclaimed.

“You’re dead too, you know!”

“Where did you cowardly sinners get here?” Sir Pentious asked.

“Well we just got here,” Lyle called. “Experimenting on the poor made us millionaires! Just…be careful when messing with anti-aging machines. Made us both old.”

“A machine that changes one’s age?” Sir Pentious pondered. “That could prove to be ussseful in the future,” he hissed.

“Oh, you should join us, snake man!” Loopy suggested. “Or me, rather.”

Sir Pentious briefly glared. “Hmm. While I’m perfectly capable of spreading my constrictive terror on my own…I suppose having some…lackey sidekicks would suffice.”

“Don’t call us lackeys!” Lyle sneered. “And I’m not working with him!”

“Maybe if we briefly collaborate as a team…”

Lyle grumbled in annoyance.

After a moment, Sir Pentious sighed. “Okay, you may join me, but…”

He spread out his hood, revealing pink eyes. “Don’t even think about crossssing me.” He pulled his hood back. “Now go gather your contraptions and help me manage those scrambled fucking eggs!”

A bunch of eggs in top hats and suits rolled out and jumped on the two inventors, who were stunned.

Loopty then laughed evilly. “Inventors to inventors it is!”

Just then, I popped out of the ground in the room.

“Did someone say, I say inventors?! Name’s Wally Wackford, and I am lookin’ for creative new people to exploit! I mean employ.” I twirled my mustache with an evil grin.

At last, a chance to expand my business of the mass production of robotic Fizzarollis! All of Hell will go crazy when they get a chance to buy all the sex robots, the merchandise, everything...and all to profit ME!

“Everyone, stop fucking up my walls!” Blitzo yelled. “Moxxie’s gonna have to fix all this shit! Satan’s balls! First we deal with Heaven’s table-scraps, now this?”

I smiled. “Well I guess you can say, you say, you have a holey operation here, Blitzo!”

I slapped my knee and laughed at my own joke.

“Get out,” Blitzo muttered.

Soon I doubled down on the floor laughing. “Oh! I said, ‘o’!”

Blitzo yelled, “No, I’m serious, get the fuck out!”

Everyone in the room looked at Blitzo in shock and surprise.

0 0 0

And then, that one other time where I helped host the Harvest Moon Festival Pain Games!

Wally Wackford a.k.a. me…stood on the wooden stage, holding a gray microphone decorated with an eye in the center and small horns on the top. I wore my usual white shirt, vest, white pants and dark boots. I twirled my black cane and tipped my black top hat.

I spoke dramatically through the microphone.

“Welcome, I say welcome all to Wrath Ring’s annual Harvest Moon Festival! To kick things up, we have the great prince Stolas-a here to user in this here Pain Games!”

Stolas took the microphone from me and chuckled in slight embarrassment.

“How kind, Wackford.”

Stolas then addressed the audience. “Greetings tiny Wrath Ring imps. I hereby welcome you all to another year of celebrating the spoils of your labor that continue to feed the citizens of Hell!”

A crowd of imps glared at him and several boos were heard. Many of these Wrath imps were impoverished farmers who lived on scraps, meat or good crops if they were lucky. The food they worked so hard to produce was consumed by royalty and those in the other Rings. But the reward for their work was being underfed, underpaid and underappreciated instead. The unbalanced cycle had lasted for generations.

I, too, stared at Stolas with a glare in my eyes. That rich royal thinks he can parade around, doing whatever he wants. Well unfortunately for him, I have plans of my own. Once he sees what I’m capable of…

He will know who really rules the roost.

Stolas obliviously continued. “I’m happy to kick off the start of these games that will challenge the toughest imps to show their skill and dominance.” He did a little wave with his fingers. “Good luck to you all!” He noticed Blitzo in the crowd beside Moxxie and Striker and spoke lower. “Especially that sexy little one there! Yoo-hoo, Blitzy!”

“Oh fuck me,” Blitzo scowled.

A gun went off and the games began.

The first event was the race. Moxxie was instantly trampled by the other racers.

The second event was the high jump. Striker climbed over the high wooden ramp structure with ease and raced after Blitzo who jumped past him. Moxxie struggled to keep his balanced as he reached the top. He slipped down, trying to use his claws to hold on. He fell with a splash in a small puddle…and was promptly chewed on by a monstrous black and white shark with several red eyes.

The third event was an event with rope. Striker grinned as he held a tied up Blitzo. Blitzo’s arms, legs and horns were all tied up. Moxxie gulped as a stronger grinning imp tied him up with ease.

The fourth event was tug of war. The crowd cheered as the two teams pulled hard. Striker, Blitzo and Moxxie were on a team. Moxxie stumbled and fell into nearby water, where the shark attacked him again.

The fifth event was mud wrestling. Blitzo and Striker grinned as they wrestled each other, Striker getting the upper hand as he held Blitzo down, arms locked. Moxxie was instantly crushed in a football hurdle by a group of imps. As they got off of him, Moxxie sat up. And the shark leaped out of the water and over the fence.

“Mother fucker!” Moxxie screamed as the shark crushed him. (Moxxie somehow survived all this.)

I hopped back on stage.

“I say, I say for the first year ever, we have a tie, for the winner of the Harvest Moon Pain Games!”

Stolas took the microphone from me again.

“The winners are…Striker, and my darling Blitzy!” Stolas did a one-legged pose as the crowd cheered.

“Just say my name right!” Blitzo complained. He muttered “Fucking dick,” as he and Striker walked onto the stage.

0 0 0

After the event, I noticed that I.M.P. and Stolas had left. After sharing an undiscernible look with Striker, we parted ways.

I soon returned to a special place in Greed, tired but determined. I walked alone down dark hallways, torches burning green flames on either side. I wagged my pointed red tail.

I pushed open the double doors and came across a marvelous sight.

Gold. Heaps of it, just shining brightly all around the vast spacious chamber. Gold pillars held up the cavern-like ceiling, a chandelier made of bones and diamonds hung from above. There were chests of necklaces, precious gems, goblets and weapons of every shape and size. Hanging on a far wall, concealed in shadow were angelic weapons…at least half a dozen.

I stared around in amazement. Even Lucifer would be surprised if he could see this place.

I raced around and tossed the gold coins into the air. In a craze, I rolled around in a nearby pile of green dollar souls. With a grin, I stood up and stared with pride at the grinning face of the jester printed on there.

A face confident in his ability to deceive others, pursue wealth and bask in endless entertainment.

The grinning face was all too familiar…

…because it was my face.

Wally Wackford leaned his head back, mouth open in a high pitched shriek as dark magic flickered around him. The imp form fell and morphed into shadow. In the imp’s place, a large black beast with thick fur, razor sharp claws and red eyes decorating the body. The figure stood up on two powerful furry legs and sat comfortably in a giant golden throne that occupied the center of the chamber. Angular jester clothing of red, gold and purple stripes adorned the wolf body. And finally, a large spiked black crown sat atop the dark loopy jester hat with bells at the ends. A white and gold jester face showed sharp white teeth and glowing yellow eyes. Dark clawed hands juggled fresh demon skulls into the air and popped them into his large mouth. He crunched loudly before swallowing every bit.

My imp disguise was perfect. Literally no one else save for Robo Fizz and a few elites knew who was underneath. And even then, my magic was so powerful it could easily confuse anyone around me.

Being an imp has its advantages; you can travel anywhere and gather information along the way. You can track imps from a killing company and find out where they’ll likely travel to next. You can affiliate yourself with your own robotic creations, some slave imps and succubi…and then in your own form, work with a fellow Deadly Sin on the next stage.

A wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Funny, really. Wally Wackford could easily be a separate being, born into poverty, learning to scam others at an early age and go up from there. I, however, didn’t need to learn anything…deceiving others and attracting material wealth was a natural talent. As was shapeshifting.

Lucifer might not be happy with me coping his idea of a theme park…but business is business…and in Hell, anything goes.

That incompetent prince Stolas would be dead soon enough. No more Goetia showoffs to get in the way of my rule and reputation. At least the prince’s wife was rightfully concerned with maintaining tradition that has existed for centuries. Aside from my dear friend Lucifer, I was, and should be, the most powerful being in Hell. I’ll keep exploiting those I choose because money is money.

Those I.M.P. assassins have no idea who they were dealing with.

I let out a crazed evil laugh, intermingled with a wolf’s howl. With a single touch of my hand, my nearby scepter turned into gold. I admired its shiny flawless sheen. Asmodeus, Leviathan, Lucifer, Satan, Belphegor, Beelzebub and myself…the Seven Deadly Sins…circus-loving rulers of the Overlords and in charge of maintaining chaotic order in our respective Rings.

I, Mammon, had much to do.

#wally wackford #helluvaboss #helluva boss theory #mammon

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rawsanma · 3 years ago

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In Memoriam of "Shin Evangelion: Curse"

*The following article contains a full spoiler for "Evangelion 3.0+1.0".*

I sat together with a person who was not in birth when EOE was released, and after watching the film we talked a bit and thought about the people who passed away without ever seeing this. I understand that fans from the old series and those who came from the new series may have very different perceptions of Shin-Eva. So I'd like to first correct a few things I said in my first impressions.

It may be somewhere between an honorable movie and a mediocre movie in general, but as Evangelion, it's garbage.

After about halfway through the two hours and thirty-five minutes, I started to look at my watch again and again. The double ending, which is both a personal novel and a product, was a fleeting fantasy, and the two songs "One Last Kiss" and "beautiful world (da capo ver.)" were not used effectively in relation to the story, only being played in the staff roll.

When I saw the first 10 minutes of the movie that was released last year, I thought that perhaps Paris was chosen as the setting for the story of "humanity fighting together in the face of destruction" or "the expansion of the Eva world (not G Gundam, but G Eva!)", but that was not the case at all. He just wanted to depict the battle using the Eiffel Tower as a FATALITY,　I realized that he hadn't made a single millimeter of progress since when he asked Hayao Miyazaki if I could film only this action scene of Her Highness Kushana in the re-animation of Nausicaa, he was scolded, "That's why you're no good!"

At the beginning of the film, they try to carefully describe the things behind the scenes that were not told in Eva Q. The third Ayanami like the TV version is the main character, and they go on and on about living in the countryside, copying "My Neighbor Totoro". The large family of our parent's home that we go back to during the summer vacation is presented as an image of happiness in life and a decent human being. It is also connected to Gendou's narrative during the Human Instrumentality Project but isn't it too Showa-era and too simple a solution? I am interested in how the young fans who are children of nuclear families who left their large families in the countryside and moved to the city saw the too sudden depiction of "life in the countryside". It was almost a gag to see Ayanami walking around in a plug suit which is a sexual orientation that has manifested itself after Space Battleship Yamato, in the images of pre and post-war farming villages depicted by recent NHK morning dramas. The director, influenced by his wife, must have been immersed in the LOHAS and vegan lifestyle as a fashion statement, which is only possible because he is an urbanite with too much stuff and too much money. As for this theme, it has already been presented in the watermelon field scene in the second film, and it is merely a re-presentation of the same theme in a diluted form.

I've pointed out before that Eva Q is "a crack in reality because of the loss of reality to rely on. "It's rude not to eat what you're served!", Shinji was scolded by Touji's father, who looked like a subversion of Hayao Miyazaki's work (Gedo Senki!). I have a simple question, how can the interior of a house become so old and wretched after only 14 years? How can a community of people of all ages be formed in just 14 years?　There was a line that implied that Touji had killed someone for the village, and it is possible that the director had extremely beautified the "Showa era" as a sanctuary where people who are hurt and regret their committing murder during the war as a soldier live nearby, and when he opened the last drawer after using up all the materials, he found the image of the original landscape of his childhood.

Misato and Kaji's child, which is only described for a few minutes, is also abrupt, and I don't feel that it is more than a plot device for the purpose of staging the reconciliation with Shinji later on. Some people seem to be moved by the fact that "behind Misato's cold attitude towards Shinji in Q, there was such a conflict in her mind," but it's the opposite. All the answers are just excuses after wasting nine years of work. Even if the wounds healed and treated with a gentle "I'm sorry," after being beaten severely by a raging DV husband, the fact of the beating would not disappear, and the wife would feel nothing but fear at the sudden change in her husband. To a situation that he had set to minus 100, he spent 2 hours and 35 minutes gradually pouring water drawn from other places and past works to bring it back to zero...I've never seen such a horrible match pump. Well, now that I'm writing this, I'm thinking that I've seen this before.

The relationship between Eva Q and Shin Eva is very similar to the relationship between "The Last Jedi" and "The rise of Skywalker" in Star Wars. In a self-absorbed rampage of conjecture that did not listen to the opinions of others, the historical stage of the series that had been built up was turned into a mess, and then the destroyed story was carefully built up again from the ground using unnecessary length, and only the shape of the story was created to end it without being disgraceful, and every scene that tries to make things more exciting is a copy of past work. As for Star Wars, since 8 and 9 were directed by different directors, I was able to settle my feelings of resentment towards Ryan and gratitude towards Abrams, respectively, but as for Evangelion, the director looks like a child who has been proud to clean up his own mess and have his female cronies praise and pat him on the head. Moreover, what kind of sympathy do you expect when you are told to "I'll make amends" for the mere act of wiping your ass after defecating, in a cool, Showa-era chivalrous tone?

In this film, as a recovery from Q and a summary of new Eva, there are elements throughout the story that critics can easily relate to the old Eva. “Oh, I can talk about this in connection with that!” This is what gives them a good impression and it has nothing to do with how the old fans perceive it. The director seems to have a dedicated person in charge of communicating and negotiating with the outside, but now he wants the critics to communicate with the fans about Shin-Eva. As long as he doesn't speak for himself, he can correct their interpretations later based on the "misunderstandings" of the people in between himself and his fans. This is a very Japanese-style system of surmising feelings, a system of authority that is formed when only a limited number of cronies are informed of the true intentions of the president. If I talk about it in too much detail, right-winged Yakuza will show up very soon, so to make it short, it is an indigenous control structure unique to Japan that originated from the "Mikado behind the bamboo blind". This time the director was very conscious of that, and I was able to see that Eva, who was a challenger, has become an authority that does not tolerate any criticism.

And what fan from the past could enjoy watching the endless battle scenes after Shinji returns to Wunder in the middle of the film? One after another, the sister ships of Wunder appear--there's almost no difference in appearance, but Ritsuko is able to guess their names the moment they appear. Right after the line "I'm pretty sure there's a fourth ship," the fourth ship comes crashing upon them from underneath, with no intention other than to make us laugh, right? As well as the repeated tenseless bombardment fight with no description of damage no matter how many artillery shells are hit, and it's quite painful being poured Asuka and Mari's Me-Strong Battles which are already enough by the time of Q, continuously down my throat like a goose with a funnel in its mouth. There's no way to synchronize my feelings with the screen, and it just creates an atmosphere as if the story is going on with the unattractive super-robot action that I pointed out in Q. It's no use pointing out, but the repair and supply problems of Wille side in a world where the industry has been destroyed were shown in the farming village part, though it was inadequate. But those of NERV side, an organization of only a man and an old man, was completely thrown away.

The last part of the story about the Human Instrumentality Project is like a fanzine where Gendou, Asuka, Kaworu, and Rei are lined up in a row and complemented in turn and then dismissed, whereas EOE was a total complement through Shinji. The director has tried to upgrade his framework by borrowing them from EOE and has failed miserably. Someone who has created works by putting his emotion and flair into a copy has dabbled in copying his own work. As a result, he had to confront his own sensibilities from when he was young and had to compare the old and the new by his old audience. Frankly speaking, only the techniques have been traced, the sound and the screen have become gorgeous, but the emotion and the sense have deteriorated. The face of the giant Ayanami that was replaced with a live-action one -- probably based on the face acting of Shinji's voice actor, and the "untested ordeal" of her tweet means this -- appears in the background like a gold folding screen in the high sand at a Japanese wedding reception. You're getting tired of all this, and you're not making it seriously, are you? The battle between Eva Unit01 and Eva Unit13 in Tokyo-III, which I expressed my anxiety about before the film's release, is a scene where the company's CG team can't produce what the director expects and he is so frustrated that he has the same mindset as in the final two episodes of the TV version, "I'd rather get a minus than a red", and after that, it became like a gag scene, including Eva fights in Misato's apartment and Shinji's school classroom, as if he was staged them in desperation. The side-shooting screenshot of the little Wunder charging at the head of the giant Ayanami is a picture of ”Cho Aniki (Japanese STG)” itself, and it's also meant to be funny, right? It's a series of loose, sloppy, and tenseless scenes that can't be compared to EOE.

What the hell have the CG team been doing for the past nine years, getting paid with no progress and making Eva look like an outdated piece of crap? Didn't anyone have the chivalrous spirit of the Showa era like "Don't embarrass our boss!"? Don't be so relieved when you get the green light! The director has just given up on you! There were a few scenes where the person at the top of the editing and collage, who has been making the coolest pictures, was not given as much good material as he used to be and seemed to make desperate staging in a way that he would never have given the green light in the past. It's been more than 10 years since Xapa was established, but I guess they don't have enough talent to meet the director's vision. Perhaps because of this, the conclusion of the film is exactly the same as the old one, that the director has no choice but to use his personal feelings to finish Eva, but the film ends up being a self-imitation of "Sincerely Yours". It is sad to see a person who "surpasses the original by putting his heart and soul into the copy" start to copy his own past works on the big screen of the theater, because he has become a big name in the animation world after reaching the age of 60, and there are no others left to be copied. However, right after "Komm, süsser Tod" started playing in the old movie, the scene where the titles of each episode and the reverse side of Cels were played in succession was projected on the wall of the studio using a projector -- the title of the new movie was added. It made me mad and thought, "Don't touch my EOE with the dirty hands of the merchant. I'll kill you."

The last things that the man who "transfers his own life onto films" presented in his costly self-published private novel were a naked confession of his own mental history up to the point where he met his wife, which he temporarily entrusted to Gendou, and the words "I think I loved you" and "I loved you" exchanged between himself and the former lover who could not be together and themselves who had separate spouses, just a reckoning of the muddled love affair that existed behind the scenes of EOE. I half-jokingly said that the distance between the director and Asuka's voice actor was important for the end of Eva, but it turned out to be true in a different way. During the recording session, Asuka's voice actor was told by the director, "I'm glad Miyamura is Asuka," which sent chills down my spine as it conveyed the horror of a creator who doesn't hide everything about his life and relationships and uses them to create his works.

In the scene where Shinji says "I liked you too" to the adult Asuka, who is wearing a tight latex suit and drawn in a more realistic character design (making us aware of the cosplay by Asuka's voice actor), while she is lying on the EOE beach, I thought "You guys should do this in a coffee shop or something between recording sessions! Don't make us watch middle-aged man and woman having unpleasant conversations on the big screen of the theater!", I almost screamed out. I think that's the scary part, the director's one-sided love for Asuka's voice actor is falsified by having the character say that she liked him, as if it was a mutual love. The director's statement at the beginning of the pamphlet says that he started working on the sequel right after Evangelion 2.0 without hesitation, using the worldview of "Q". I'm not trying to quote the line "You can change the reality you don't like by getting on Eva.", but it's not as if he's trying to cover up the fact, but he really believes that using his strong imagery, and it made me feel a bit chilly that there was no one around to correct his misconceptions.

At the end of Human Instrumentality Project, I wondered if the fact that a senior member of the movie industry had praised the shooting of EOE by flipping Cels over as a "tremendous deconstruction" was still fresh in his mind. This time, too, it was postponed after postponement, and even though the makings have been done in time, he showed the other side of the production with line drawings and roughs. The reason it was so innovative was that it was the first time anyone had tried it then, and now, 25 years later, it's just a rut. It's disgusting that everyone is praising the master's strange drawing habit and saying, "Oh yeah, that's it, that's it." As I've said before, it's like "defecating in a sixty-nine," which was successful because the first partner happened to be a scatologist. The expression of EOE was sharp and ”Rock’n’‐roll”, but Shin-Eva's "fun of anime images" has gone into the realm of traditional art, like slow "Gagaku".

The director hadn't decided who Mari Makinami was for a long time -- he was so indifferent to her that he threw the actor's acting plan to a sub-director -- but with Shin-Eva, he's changed her into an equal to Moyoco Anno, his wife. In other words, the flashy battle in the middle of the film, which is unimportant to many viewers, is revealed to have been a very pleasant pretend play for the director, in which he has his former love and his current wife fight on his favorite robots. Once again, we are shown the director's so-what-attitude, which has not progressed even a millimeter since "I'm an asshole," and which he can complete his work only by masturbation. So it's no wonder that they couldn't depict the extremely simple catharsis of Shinji's great success with Eva Unit01, which is what most of the old fans want. Because a robot with a pathetic old man on board can't get an erection due to impotence, let alone masturbation!　Oops, excuse me, sir.

And as I said before, it's time to realize that the English language has become so popular in Japan that it's become lame. You use Infinity, Another, Additional, Advanced, Commodity, and Imaginary, just because it sounds cool to you, right?　Everyone criticized the naming "Final Impact", but I never thought I'd see the time when I'd faint from the lack of taste and coolness in Evangelion, such as Another Impact, Additional Impact.

And the ending, with the wedding report in a live-action aerial shot of the director's hometown, newbie fans are screaming that it is like, "They're doing a very positive version of the old "Return to Reality!". But I felt it was too empty and cynical because it was intended to be read that way by the director. It depicts only the elation of marriage, and the pain of getting along with a partner and his or her family with different values is cut off (well, maybe Q was expressing the hardship of married life......). But isn't the emotional weight of a marriage report much higher when you meet your partner's parents?　The fact that he ended the movie by showing his own hometown instead of his wife's hometown leaves me with the impression that he's definitively an egotistical geek through and through. "You may have graduated from a good university and are making good money in the city, but if you're not married and don't have children, aren't you somehow humanly flawed?" After 25 years, Evangelion, which was such a forward-thinking Sci-Fi, is now completely in sync with the earthly ethics of Showa-era's farmers and farm horses. "I got married and it saved my life. I don't know about you, but why don't you try?" You can think what you want, but if you want to convey it as a message of salvation, you have to express it in the content of your work, not in your own talk.

I've been married for 20 years, I have two children, both of whom are about to reach the age of adulthood, I've paid off the mortgage on my home, and I'm finally at the end of raising my children, but all of that is just an outer shell of a social skin that has nothing to do with my true nature or where my soul is! There's no connection between what kind of life an individual lives in the real world and the Sci-Fi sense of wonder, in fact, there shouldn't be any connection! If you're a science fiction fan, take a page from the great Arthur C. Clarke! I was a nerd with a negative value of 100, but when I got married, I gradually poured the "common-sense values" of the Showa era into myself, and now I'm a true man with no negative value? Don't write such pathetic fiction proudly! Listen, what you presented to the audience at the end was the same thing that someone would say to you, "You seedless stallion!" It's the same kind of unethical and vulgar message that you shouldn't be giving! The old Eva became a classic of Japanimation, and no one was able to properly scold you, or you keep away those who tried, and the result of this is directly reflected in the ending of Shin Eva!　You've reached your 60th birthday and you only have such poor social common sense, damn it!

I'm sorry, I was so excited that I lost my control a little bit, just a little bit. I think the director is relying a little too much on his wife, who is ultimately a stranger on, to be his laison d'etre (lol). If they were to break up in the future, it would certainly be the soil for the next Eva, the content and development of which is completely predictable, but that is no longer my concern. I wonder if his wife doesn't like the fact that he's mentally dependent on her like this, and that it's being shown on screens all over the country. If it were me, I'd be furious, but since she's a creator, I guess she understands how he feels. Ignoring the other person's feelings and continuing to force what he believes to be love on her, thinking that it will make her happy, seems to me that there has been no progress at all since the way he treated his girlfriend 25 years ago. The person I want to hear from the most right now is not the self-proclaimed Eva fans who are looking at each other from the side and giving positive feedback in celebration of the final episode, but his wife. If the director had a child, he would not have been able to distinguish between his own ego and that of the child, and would have doted on his child, making a documentary film about his or her growth, but would most likely have turned into a controlling and poisonous parent in his or her adolescence. And he animated his feelings for his child who was rebelling against him, without the child's permission, considering it as a one-sided redemption for the child, and the child who was exposed to the whole country about their home life would have distanced from his father more and more.

In the end, Evangelion did not become a product like Gundam, but rather a robot animation that was the director's weird personal novel. The repeated use of the word "job" in the film has stuck in my mind, but in order for the studio to survive, it had to make Evangelion a product in this new series, and I'm sure that was the initial motivation behind the production of these new films. Your real "job" was to make Evangelion the same as Gundam, to protect the people who came to you because they loved Evangelion. Years from now, I can see a future where Xapa will be like Ghibli, behead the staff and continue as a copyright management company. The director, who didn't want to be embarrassed as a creator by a new challenge adopted the safe way -- I can't believe that I have to use the word "safe" for Evangelion -- to end the new series that relied on EOE only for himself, not for the future of the people who came to admire him. That's what Shin Evangelion is all about.

The good part? The fact that he didn't bring Shin Ultraman trailer at the end of the film makes me think he has grown up a bit. If you're declaring "Farewell, All Evangelions" with the intention of hurting, disappointing, and disinterested old fans like me, then your malice is unfathomable, and that's quite a feat. Brilliantly, your intentions have permanently killed a part of me that used to be an Eva fan.

As horrifying as it is to imagine, it must have crossed the director's mind to reschedule the film and set a new release date for March 11. The only reason he didn't do so is not that he has grown up to be a sensible adult, but rather because the idea of linking Evangelion 3.0 with the Great East Japan Earthquake was a fact that is too painful for him to make it public.

Ten years ago today, many lives were lost and Evangelion was destroyed.

This fact will never disappear, no matter how much the director denies and covers up with the "true" history. If there is any mission left for me as a fan, it is to continue to pass on this fact to future generations as a storyteller. It is a huge loss for Japanese fiction that the end of the great Evangelion has become a self-recovery work of the great failure of the reboot affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake, and that the potential of the great Evangelion has been consumed by the self-defense of someone who cannot admit his own mistakes, and I sincerely regret it. Shin Evangelion will be forever cursed by the dead, who yearn to see the sequel of Evangelion 2.0, and the living, who yearn to see the sequel of Evangelion 2.0.

This curse will be completed when it spreads, arrives, and is burned by the powers that be as a false history. I pray that my thoughts will reach him!

#evangelion 3.0+1.0

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the-blind-assassin-12 · 4 years ago

Text

The Decision

A/N: Well, well, well... it seems as though I have fallen victim to the things I said I’d never do yet again. What a clown. I do place a portion of the blame for this piece coming into being on @something-tofightfor who literally recruited backup to coerce me to write for Mando... but I like honesty and I believe in owning up to things. So to be fair, I probably would have ended up writing this anyway. That doesn’t make it less terrifying to share it, because it is so far from what I normally write, but one of my writing goals for the new year was to branch out so, no time like the present, right? (aka lemme post this right quick before i chicken out.)

ANYWAY THAT’S ENOUGH OF MY BABBLING. This falls into the season 1 storyline. You’ll know where.

Word Count: 2,540

The Mandalorian had been a member of the guild for years. Hunting was second nature to him, his skills in tracking and combat making him perfectly suited for the job. Fighting was simple when the only acceptable outcome was victory; win, and maintain his honor, dignity and reputation, or die in defeat. Do whatever necessary to ensure the latter never happened. There was no middle ground. Even if these ideals weren’t written into the code that he followed, they would still be a part of his code.

The Way.

He never questioned the rulesets that he lived his life by. He was never given a reason to. How many bounties had he collected? How many pucks passed across tabletops or fobs followed to the far reaches of the galaxy, to dusty desert planets and backwater swamps? The number wasn’t worth even thinking about. He didn’t keep track, he kept busy, quickly moving from one quarry to the next, collecting his pay and setting a course for his next destination.

Why then, after all those years, all those successful missions, had this one caused him to go against everything he had ever known? He never cared to learn anything about the bail jumpers and criminals that he captured. He never asked what would become of them once they were handed over to whoever it was that was after them. It mattered less to him than the number of completed jobs he’d done. They’d made the wrong deal or stolen from the wrong person, gotten in over their heads and gotten their heads assigned a price. Mercenary or nobleman, gambler or thief, it didn’t matter to him. All that mattered was getting the job done.

He hardly made a profit after spending on fuel and provisions, but he wasn’t in it for the credits. He wasn’t looking for riches or fame. He wasn’t really looking for anything. Just a life that didn’t require him to stay still for any length of time. It didn’t suit him, settling down. He’d had a home, twice. He’d lost his home, twice. His ship was the only home he needed anymore, and since it was just him, he didn’t have a need to profit so long as he had food and fuel enough to carry him through his next mission. So the questions? The hang ups? They weren’t about negotiating his prize or garnering recognition.

Then why?

He sighed, leaning back in his seat and letting his gloved hands fall from the controls to his lap.

Why this one?

It had started before he’d set out to track his bounty, before he’d even agreed to the job- a prickling sensation in the back of his brain. Whether it was an instinctual warning, some cosmic intervention, or a simple lack of sleep he couldn’t say, but it started as soon as he saw the first brick of beskar.

He wasn’t thrilled about the prospect of taking on an imperial client. But the presence of a few stormtroopers wasn’t enough to give him pause. There had only been four of them, and for all the resources that the Empire had at its fingertips during the height of its power, top of the line weapons and armor for their foot soldiers had never been a priority. He liked his odds at four to one even if they had been properly armed and armored in more than the flimsy white gear that he had no doubt he’d make short work of. Regardless, once the door had opened there was no going back, not with a client like this.

The pin pricks in his brain weren't due to them at all.

It was the heavy ingot, dark ribbons of silver-gray running through it, a distinctive clanging sound reaching his ears as the client set it on the table that had ignited the sensation. Beneath his helmet his eyes widened and his mouth fell open as the feeling intensified.

Expensive, Greef Karga had said of the Mandalorian’s rate. Expensive typically translated to bulging sacks of coins, the origin of which didn’t matter much to him so long as the spending of them didn’t line imperial pockets. The Empire is gone. He’d said the words himself, but he knew that there were still hold outs, still those benefiting off of the crumbs of the former regime. He also knew that gone didn’t always mean gone forever, and he refused to play a part in its return by continuing to circulate the currency of the corrupt. Lower pay in less offensive coin was preferable to him, but lower pay wasn’t going to be the case with this one. He knew that going in.

He’d taken unconventional jobs before, certain clients looking for an extra level of discretion or speedy results. His reputation as the best in the parsec was hardly a secret nor was it an exaggeration, and it got him more than his pick of pucks from Karga’s stack. A few times it had gotten him private meetings, face to face rendezvous in locked rooms and hidden basements with desperate customers seeking a chance to hire the Mandalorian. The pay for jobs like these was always as unconventional as the nature of the job itself, coming in the form of black market weapons or obscene amounts. Expensive.

He’d never been paid in the stolen riches of his own people, though.

He closed his fists tightly, the worn leather of his gloves groaning as he curled his hands into clubs. He could still feel the weight of that one single bar and the way that holding it made the foreign feeling intensify. His breathing was deep and heavy as he tried to fight the frustration and anger that were rising at his inability to reconcile his code with his creed.

The alloy, stripped from the bodies of his fallen brothers and sisters, melted down and stamped with the symbol of the Galactic Empire, looked almost grotesque to him in that form. It wasn’t currency. It wasn’t something to be traded or sold. It had more meaning than money. And it didn’t belong in the hands of the client.

It belonged in the hands of his people. The Tribe. And it was his duty to secure it. This is the way- he could already hear the Armorer’s modulated voice speaking the words as she hammered away at the metal, forming it back into a piece of gleaming, impenetrable plating. He could already see the flashes of his past that sparked each time he watched her work, the flames melting the walls he built around the memory of the last time he saw his parents. Each strike was a blast that brought him back to that day- his mother’s arms strong and tight as she hugged him one more time, his father’s steadfast determination to get him to safety. The day his future was written- in blood and beskar.

Even though he hated the thought of being paid in it, there was no scenario in which he was presented with the metal in any amount or form and he denied it. And with the promise of more upon the capture and delivery of the asset? The Mandalorian was many things but fool wasn’t one of them. This job wouldn’t be like others before it. It would no doubt be one of if not the most difficult and dangerous assignments he’d take in his life. But the unsavory demeanor of the client, the overly eager troopers, even the unusual tingling inside his own mind- none of it was enough to make him walk away from the brick or in turn, the job. Not the lack of information on the target or the zealous way that the man across from him spoke of having the asset in his custody.

But that was before. Before I saw the kid.

He moved without wasting time to think, and without taking his eyes off of the child that was staring up at him. Before the IG unit had even locked on to the small green thing peering up at them, his right arm was raised, his blaster putting a gaping hole straight through the bounty droid’s head.

It was supposed to be fifty years old. An adult. It... It wasn’t supposed to be a-

When the hatch on the hovering carriage that the child was tucked into opened, he saw more than the tiny being’s giant ears and enormous eyes as it shied away from the droid’s weapon. He saw himself, felt the helpless fear that he would never fully forget as the bunker that his parents had sacrificed themselves to get him to was torn open, a robotic assailant greeting him with the end of a blaster. But before he could even cover his eyes there had been another flash of movement as a man encased in armor, his face completely covered by a sleek helmet, appeared to dispatch the droid, extending a hand to help him climb out to safety.

It wasn’t supposed to be a foundling.

He had done his best to shake the unexpected connection to the child, closing the carrier and bringing it back to his ship, trying to treat it like any of the countless other targets that he’d captured. But it seemed that the more he tried to ignore it, the more that feeling in the back of his mind grew, two words bouncing around his brain as he set the course for Nevarro. Asset. Foundling. Asset. Foundling. Asset. Punching the shifter into drive, he took off before the other word had a chance to be the last.

He had naively hoped that once he made the drop off, delivering his quarry to the client, that he’d be free of the conflict- that he could collect his payment and return to the covert. That false hope popped and fell flat the second the first question was out of his mouth.

“How many fobs did you give out?”

It shouldn’t have mattered.

It never had before. Occasionally he’d run into another guild member while on assignment, and, more often than that he’d have to stave off other sloppier, non- guild hunters and mercenaries. High value targets tended to draw a lot of greedy attention from multiple sources. He had always come out on top, leaving his challengers empty-handed or incapacitated, and his target shackled or dead. Their presence was always negligible to him. Guild or not, no other bounty hunter came close to the Mandalorian in any measurable way.

Instead of a numerical answer, the client had merely stated that obtaining the asset- the foundling. The asset. The f- had been of great importance. The man had then set a camtono on the desk, pressing a button to open the pressurized unit and silencing the war of words. It was more pure beskar than he had ever seen outside of the covert. Stacks. He’d been drawn to it like a woolly moth to a flame, mesmerized by its dark shine. Stacks of the invaluable metal that belonged to his people, the people who had saved him, raised him, made him what and who he was. Taking another step, he couldn’t resist reaching out to touch it, feel it’s weight and know for sure that it was real. Stacks of the very same beskar that had been pillaged from the corpses of men and women who had taken the very same creed that he had.

He wondered what illicit riches the client had used to tempt the others into taking this job. Setting the bricks back into the container with the rest, he wondered if perhaps some of them hadn’t been offerings, but threats. He wouldn’t put it past the man, who still proudly wore the empire’s symbol around his neck- the symbol that had been pressed into each brick of beskar, as though it gave him some kind of right to possess it. He wondered why he was wondering these things, and before he could answer himself yet another question was tumbling from his lips; one brought on by movement in the corner of his vision as the child’s carriage trailed behind the doctor into an adjoining room.

“What are you going to do with it?”

While asking questions about the fates of the unfortunate beings he collected, most frozen in carbonite to keep them quiet and cooperative for the return journey, wasn’t standard procedure for a guild bounty hunter, following his instincts was, and the prickling had not ceased even after the camtono was sealed and handed over to him.

If anything it had become less of a needling, nagging feeling, and more of an acidic burn.

He hadn’t gotten an answer. He’d been paid, the job finished. It was time to move on. What was it that the client had said? Those parting words that had been laced with authoritarian venom? Something about restoring balance, about the beskar being returned to the Mandalorians, and things being as they should be?

Why then, had the entire trek back to the covert been consumed with those large round eyes as they seemed to plead with him not to leave? Where before there were two words, now there was just one.

Foundling.

It echoed through his brain with each spur studded step he took through the city. It followed him as he descended to the underground hideout that the Tribe had been forced into. It was what he heard when another Mandalorian had called his honor into question. Coward, the man had called him.

Was he right?

The Armorer had ended the scrum by reminding both men of the creed they’d taken. This is the way, she’d stated with finality before continuing to forge the beskar he’d reclaimed into a sleek new full set of armor. Again he saw his past with each strike of her tools against the hot metal. Again he saw himself in the same position that he’d found the child in. He’d refused the Mudhorn as his signet, and he’d left the excess beskar to be used for the foundlings under the Tribe’s care. But neither of those acts of penance erased the thing that had replaced the prickling; the guilt of turning the child over to those men and their agenda.

“The foundlings are our future.”

“I was once a foundling.”

Beskar may hold up against most forms of force. But not even the glinting, impenetrable breastplate he now wore could keep the guilt from curling around his heart beneath it. It squeezed tight as he reached for the small round piece that the child had unscrewed from the gear shifter.

This is wrong. This one is… He swallowed, eyes locked on to the silver orb between his fingers. This is wrong.

Slipping the ball safely into his pocket, he quickly flicked every switch back to the off position, the Razor Crest’s engines powering down as he stood.

The conflict between code and creed had come to a head, one superseding the other by a large margin of personal importance. He was a guild bounty hunter, and he’d delivered the asset to the client.

But he was a Mandalorian first, and the child was now his responsibility.

This is the way.

I have no real clue who to tag here, so if you would like to be removed from or added to this or any of my stories, please feel free to let me know!

@something-tofightfor @pheedraws @valkblue @gollyderek @alraedesigns @malionnes

#the mandalorian #the mandalorian fic #mando #din djarin #the child #mando fic #the decision #idk what else to tag here i am out of my depth #this is the way i guess

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