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sslow-dancer · 4 years ago

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A/N: In celebration of the Stone Ocean Confirmation this past Sunday, have you a sweet Jolyne one-shot 🦋💚

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“I Feel Comfortable With You Too.” (Jolyne Cujoh x Reader)

Warnings: brief mentions of suicide and homicide, rape and self-blame

tags: gender-neutral, gender-inclusive, jolyne cujoh x reader, slight angst, sfw, comfort

Description: You become cellmates with the new girl in Green Dolphin, Jolyne Cujoh. As one of you can’t fall asleep at night, you both decide to speak about your personal lives and further discuss your convictions.

(NOTE: Though prisons in the US are assigned to keep the sexes separated, this one-shot can easily be read by anyone who is not/does not identify as a woman.)

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“FE40332, you got a new roomie! Get along, alright?” one of the main guards says to you, he turns to murmur with the person next to him.

You’re quick to sit up when the guard opens your cell, both people now in full view. You meet eyes with a girl, a rather beautiful one around your age with green and black hair. You notice her choice of hairstyle, you smirk

“Nice hair.” you compliment. The girl shrugs off the guard as he closes the cell. She looks back at you, a spare change of clothes in her hands,

“Uh..thanks.” she replies shyly. She seemed nervous, though that didn’t bother you. You nod, getting up to shake her hand. She hesitates before shaking yours, you smile.

“Don’t worry. I’m no person to be scared of.”

“Yeah, I know. You give off the vibe that you’re nicer than the people I’ve already met...”

You laugh at this, telling her your name after. You ask for hers,

“Oh, right! I’m Jolyne. I’m usually one to say my name first but with the new setting.. I guess I forgot.”

“It’s alright, I totally get you. By the way,” you point at the top bunk “you don’t mind sleeping there, right? I’ve been bottom bunk for the last 2 years I’ve been here; I’m not one for top bunk, believe me, I’ve tried.”

She nods, placing her clothes on the top bunk. She takes off her shoes and climbs up to the top, sighing as she lays down. You furrow your eyebrows,

“You tired? Have you not had food or a drink yet?”

“Yeah no...I don’t really have an appetite at the moment. I just want to rest is all...”

“Understandable. I was the same when I arrived here..well, I’ll be reading for a bit. Let me know if you ever wanna talk, okay?”

Jolyne hums, closing her eyes. ‘They’re really sweet...’ Jolyne thinks, ‘They’re like a breath of fresh air...’

~ Time Skip ~

It’s past midnight now, 3:30AM to be exact. Though both you and Jolyne weren’t exactly aware due to no clock being in your presence. You sigh, as you go to fall asleep after reading a really interesting novel. Your attempt to fall asleep is then interrupted when you hear a quiet whisper from Jolyne,

“Hey uh.. you still awake?”

“Well I was about to sleep but yeah, I’m still awake. What, do you want to speak to me?”

Jolyne exhales sharply, nodding as she replies “yes...if you don’t mind though, you can sleep if you really want to.” You shake your head,

“Oh no no, it’s okay. I’ll listen, I like hearing others talk. You want me to come up there?”

“No it’s okay, I’ll meet you down there.” she quietly hops off her bunk, you sit up yawning as she places herself next to your bed. She sits on her knees, her hands fidgeting with your bedsheets. You turn your attention over to her attire. She only had a skirt and short top on. You blush as you tell her,

“You look really beautiful...”

It’s Jolyne’s turn to blush, she giggles softly, “I- thank you. Since it’s nighttime, I decided to change my outfit when you left to get a new book...”

“I see... so, what is it you wanted to talk about?” You ask curiously, she purses her lips sighing,

“Well ya know, nothing specific really. I just wanted to talk to you ‘cause you seem cool and have been really one of the only persons who hasn’t been an asshole to me.”

“Persons?” Is there more than one person in here that’s actually been nice to you besides me?”

“Yeah, a girl named Hermès. Though I haven’t seen her in a while sadly.. I’m guessing her cell is far from ours.”

You nod, grateful that she has met at least one other person that treats her with basic humane respect. You nudge at your mattress, enjoying the faint artificial lighting from outside your cell. Jolyne speaks up,

“If you don’t mind me asking...why are you in here anyway? Like I said earlier, you honestly don’t seem like someone who would be in a place like this.”

You shrug, “It’s alright. Though I will say, be careful about asking people what they’re in here for, some people can be huge asses about it. You’ll probably hear a guard in here say that it doesn’t really matter in a prison like this but trust me, you can never be too cautious.”

She nods, swallowing as she thinks she had made a mistake of asking. You frown,

“But don’t worry, you’d didn’t offend me. Since you trust me, I think I’m obligated to give that trust back. So, I’ll tell you.” You scoot closer to her, your faces inches away as you keep your voice lower than before,

“I killed a gang of men. A bunch of bastard rapists. I feel no guilt whatsoever. They hurt a close friend of mine-“ you hesitate, backing up from her whilst turning your gaze towards the wall, “-though in a way, I feel terrible because that friend of mine will never get closure...they committed suicide a bit after what happened to them. Not to mention, I threw away whole career opportunities and reputation just because my anger got the best of me... Oh and my parents? Though they say they’re not angry with me.. they’re definitely disappointed. It’s so obvious whenever they visit me, it’s clear guilt.”

Jolyne’s expression quickly saddens, her sympathy taking over as she offers to hold your hands, you frown as you accept it, holding hers tightly. Her eyes squint with sadness as she tells you,

“I’m so sorry you had to deal with that...I couldn’t imagine.”

“Like I said, it’s alright. I accepted my fate the moment I committed the crime and accepted it again when I got my hearing in court.”

She nods, looking down at both of your hands as she takes in your information. She gently lets go, resting her back against the wall next to your bunk. She exhales loudly, stretching her arms as a way to shake off the melancholy in the room. You look at her with curiosity,

“So now that I’ve told you my story...mind telling me yours?”

“Sure...yeah.”

Jolyne clears her throat, her eyes and body facing the cell door. She begins her story,

“So, basically... I’ve been in trouble before. I was in a motorcycle gang and had got arrested for theft when I was in my early teens but for what I’m in now...I had a boyfriend. He was pretty much the stereotypical delinquent who relied on daddy’s money and got whatever he wanted.” she snickers, “you could say I was in love with him... aside from my mom I let him call me “Jojo” as I never liked anyone else calling me that but he uh.. betrayed me. That’s a way to put it, I guess.”

She looks at you for a bit, you nod as a way for her to go on,

“After my dumbass tried to sneak in a kiss when he was driving us home after school, he lost control of the car and hit a pedestrian. Obviously I panicked and panned him to call the police but he wouldn’t..instead of helping a helpless person on the ground he instead went on and on about his reputation and career...” she shakes her head, “he manipulated me into hiding the body. He has this all planned out, he was ready to put me in prison so he could go on and live his best life. He fucking- framed me! I was so stupid...”

You shake your head, saddened by the fact that Jolyne still blames herself,

“No, you’re not. Don’t blame yourself for that. HE’s the stupid one. HE was the dick that did the crime; instead of owning up to it, he made you look like the bad guy. You weren’t, you were just his girlfriend that witnessed the whole thing!”

“Try saying that to the police...they would never believe me.”

“You know, I really wish I could. Stating your side of the story again could really help getting you out of here. I would suggest you ask for a new lawyer. I can even help you if ya want.”

Jolyne shifts in her seat, clicking her tongue as she picked at her fingernails. She began to think about your suggestion and shrugs when she thinks of answer,

“Thanks but it’s fine. I plan to solve all this on my own soon.”

You nod understanding, you didn’t want to annoy her by asking again. You knew after sharing a story like that no one would want to be bugged.

“Okay I’m not gonna ask again but if you do change your mind, just let me know and I’ll be happy to help.”

“Thank you, I appreciate that.”

You smile a small smile at her, she does the same. You look over and pat down on the empty spot next to you,

“Come on, sit.”

Jolyne doesn’t say no to this, she gets up and sits next to you, her legs immediately getting into criss cross position. She was happy being able to get close to you again, your aura was soothing to her. You face her direction,

“I hope this doesn’t come out weird but after our little talk... I’ve grown to be very comfortable with you.”

Jolyne blushes, your face becoming pink as well when you realize you were able to say that out loud. She looks down, a glimpse of her small smile appearing,

“Thanks. I feel comfortable with you too.”

You giggle as you hug Jolyne around the shoulders, she quickly hugs you back around the waist. You blush again when she buries her head further into your neck.

You were thankful that you were already beginning to get close with your new cell mate.

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thanksjro · 4 years ago

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More Than Meets the Eye #31 - Ammo and the Anti-Glowup

So, the Lost Light disappeared, stranding all the crew in space in their little escape pods. 200-some robots just lost their homes and worldly possessions. That’s absolutely horrible. What a devastating thing to happen.

Anyway, here’s Drift with a flashback sequence.

No hips, fingers all the exact same length, hockey pucks embedded in his forearms- Rojo, this is a crime you’ve committed. When will the long arm of the law stop your sinful, pancake-shaped hands?

About two years prior to current events, Drift, Riptide, and Pipes- yes, Pipes!- were wandering around trying to find a ship for the space yacht trip. The gang’s here to see who owns the big honkin’ ship outside. Problem is, Drift is unintentionally terrifying because he has a great deal of swords.

Now, you may say to yourself “isn’t it a bit odd that the species that has members who literally turn into guns would be nervous around a guy with swords?” This is a valid critique, until you remember that at least some of the folks who turn into guns were born that way, and Drift was very much NOT born bladed the fuck out. There’s an entire miniseries devoted to explaining this, it’s called Drift. The swords are a choice, one that he makes every day.

Drift is willing to pay an honestly absurd amount of money for the ship, if he can just find the dude with the paperwork- don’t ask where he got the money. Pipes isn’t being terribly helpful in finding them, so Riptide decides that now is the time to start practicing being proactive and pulls a Coyote Ugly.

No, no, he doesn’t.

He does climb up on a table and start yelling for the ship’s owners to reveal themselves, though. Which they do.

Now it’s time for the world-building portion of our comic issue. Let’s learn about chirolinguistics.

Drift, staying true to his Mary Sue nature, uses his near-perfect Hand skills to strike up a deal with the owners of the ship. This would be impressive, if it didn’t just look like the most convoluted hand-holding session in the friggin’ universe.

Still, Drift is rich enough to make Jeff Bezos weep with envy, so the arrangements are made and the lads go on their way, talking some mad shit about the original name of the ship as they do.

So it is revealed to us that the Lost Light is named after a festival for honoring the dead and disappeared, which makes the fact that Rewind and Chromedome were there all the more sad.

Back in the present, Megatron tells Riptide to shut up so they can figure out what the hell they’re going to do about this whole “our home and also ride has ceased to exist” situation. He’s putting an awful lot of distance between himself and the rest of the Autobots as he does it, something that isn’t lost on the more bitter people of the crowd.

But why were we even talking about the Lost Light in the first place? Not to reminisce, believe it or not. See, it’s time for Nautica to get a little panel time, and she’s going to use it to be a massive fucking nerd and explain how the quantum engines work. As she does, Ratchet notes that his hands feel funny. Must be the weight of his hand-stealing sins manifesting itself in his joints.

Nautica explains that the engines run off of improbability- it is highly unlikely, but not impossible, that the ship can reach light speed, and riding the fine line between what can happen and what can’t, results in the creation of power for the engines. If this sounds familiar, it’s because Brainstorm gave us a watered down version of this explanation back in issue #2. If it sounds familiar for a different reason, it’s because this is how the Heart of Gold runs in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Again, I’m not sure why it is that the British love this concept so much, but there you are.

Oh, it appears someone has a question. Let’s see what they want to know about, shall we?

…Rojo, what the fuck is this.

Our muppety friend here isn’t too keen on how much of a smarmy asshole Nightbeat is being right now, though I’d assume it actually has something to do with the fact that Nightbeat got smacked around with the pretty-boy stick while Getaway very much did not. While the two bicker- there’s a lot of bickering in Season Two- Nautica presents a theory on what happened to the ship; it went too far in the direction of “can’t” and made itself cease to be.

Megatron gives not a shit about quantum improbability, though. He only cares about how they’re going to get out of this mess. Which, y’know. Valid.

Blaster picks up a radio from Rodimus, who tells the gang that they’re to meet up on a nearby planet to regroup and figure out their next move. The call drops before he can get more than a couple Megatron-directed insults in, however. Megatron, in response, tries to be the bigger person, and almost immediately fails. We do get a headcount though, which is good, logistically speaking. This information is communicated to us by way of a splash page full of character head shots. We’ve got 20 ‘bots on board this ship.

Yep. 20. No more, no less.

As our friends approach the planet, we’re informed that it’s actually a Lectureworld- a planet devoted to the study of a single field. Except it’s actually a Smartplanet now, and it’s been privatized by the Galactic Council, so you’ve got to pay to go there. Cyclonus thinks that that’s bullshit, and I can’t help but agree. Crosscut tries to network with they guy about his play, probably because word got around that Cyclonus is rich as hell, when the lights cut out. When they come back on, Crosscut is nowhere to be found.

It’s time for a Whodunnit.

Tailgate immediately pegs Megatron as the culprit in this disappearance, and breaks out a gun over the matter. Megatron thinks that this is absolutely adorable, which only serves to further infuriate our marshmallow friend. I guess he’s still mad about the whole “I was a Decepticon for five minutes and got brainwashed over it” thing, and wants someone to pin the anger on who’s socially acceptable to hate.

Cyclonus and Ratchet both think that Tailgate’s not going about this the right way, but the guy is simply too het up to listen to them. Tailgate suggests that they lock Megatron in the engine room for the time being and-

OKAY WHO LET HIM HAVE THAT

Riptide breaks out his gun, and soon we’ve got a standoff going between the three of them. Cyclonus tries to deescalate, which makes Gears and Huffer break out their guns. Then Hound breaks out his gun, though he seems to be doing his own thing, by pointing it in Nautica’s direction.

Broski, I think that might be animal cruelty.

Megatron manages to shoot Ravage “unconscious” and catches him by the friggin’ throat, stating that he has zero idea how this guy got here. With the heat off the two of them for a moment, Megatron communicates to Ravage to play ‘possum for the time being. Ravage responds, and I wonder exactly how he’s doing that, considering I don’t think he has enough fingers to effectively utilize Hand as a language. Or fingers at all, really.

While this is going on, Cyclonus snatches the gun out of Tailgate’s hand, admonishing him for being reckless about picking his fights. Generally speaking, you don’t want to try to go toe-to-toe with a guy who’s responsible for the deaths of literal billions. Getaway swoops in to comfort Tailgate, calling him gutsy. I wonder if this will become a trend.

Swerve says a thing, as he is wont to do, and it’s made known that multiple folks have disappeared during this incredibly brief standoff.

Wow, Chromedome just fucked off, huh? He wasn’t even in that sequence, just left.

Everyone’s positively baffled by the current happenings. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to who’s being taken. I guess we’ve got a mystery on our hands.

And who better to solve a mystery than a detective?

Nightbeat wrangles all the leftover folks into a corner of the room, so they can figure out what the common denominator is with all the disappearees. He starts with the easy stuff.

And by “easy”, I mean the super-special racism Tyrest subscribed to.

If you’ve read Eugenesis, you know that Nightbeat was also part of the first wave of cold-constructed bodies there. However, the general populace wasn’t nearly as chill about it as they were in IDW. Also, Wheeljack was his dad. No word on if that particular tidbit made it into IDW lore.

It’s at this point that we learn about M.T.O.s- made to order soldiers. They were cold-constructed ‘bots created en masse during the war in order to keep up with the demands for troops. Pretty fucked up, if you think about it, being born to die like that.

Now where have we heard that name before…

Chromedome, can your love life not be part of the plot for five minutes, my guy?

Nautica makes the honestly horrific claim that a lot of folks owe their existence to Megatron being a warmongering fuck, and even Megatron himself seems rather uncomfortable with the idea. Some thoughts we keep to ourselves, Nautica, even if they might be technically true. And even if Ammo wants to tack on his two cents on the matter.

What did they DO to you, Ammo? You’re supposed to be hot! Where are my three-paragraphs of description as Hound stares slack jawed the entire time? I miss Polyhex Wars.

Anyway, it’s Megatron’s turn to get poked with the questioning stick, and he’s not having it. He claims that by revealing his mode of creation, he’s risking a repeat of Functionist ideology. This would be valid, if people weren’t literally disappearing without any sort of explanation as to why. As it is, he’s being a stubborn asshole, but I guess he didn’t get his reputation by being a decent person who knew when to back down, now did he?

It’s at this point that Ratchet remembers he knows all the info Nightbeat’s looking for, and the conversation on Megatron’s birth is shelved for another day. I’m sure it won’t be a major plot point later, not in the slightest.

As it turns out, Nightbeat’s theory doesn’t hold water, and folks are still popping out of existence. We get another splash page, this time with everyone’s mode of creation listed under their names, and we move on to other theories about what the fuck is going on. While Nightbeat has a minor crisis over what the answer could possibly be, the MTOs in the group reminisce on the Ten-Step Program, a series of tests they were put through to make sure they worked well enough to get handed a gun and shoved out the door. Riptide wasn’t a fan.

Riptide has more wood panelling than a 70’s-style ranch house, and I think that’s very brave of him.

It’s at this point that Ratchet remembers it’s been quite a bit since he last shat on religion, and takes the time to do so while informing the reader about Information Creep. This is a concept we’ve seen mentioned previously, during Chromedome’s runaround in Overlord’s brain, but it’s here where we get the juicy implications.

Because memories can become corrupted in the brain due to extreme age, what ought to be objective fact has to be reinterpreted due to missing pieces. This is why nobody knows what the Knights of Cybertron got up to, or if they’re even actually real at all.

The lights go out again, and when they cut back on, Cyclonus is missing, leaving only his sword behind. Tailgate is extremely distraught by this, but Nightbeat gives not a fuck about Tailgate’s impending breakdown. He only cares about the truth!

And then a giant eyeball shows up.

It’s Ultra Magnus, coming to us live from his shuttle, via holomatter avatar! He shrinks down to a far more reasonable size, in a panel reminiscent of the first time IDW readers saw Megatron.

Don’t get me wrong, this is a neat parallel, I’m just… not terribly sure why it’s happening. One could say it reflects a reversal in power dynamics, but that theory gets tossed out the window when you remember that this isn’t actually Verity. I suppose it’s just a cool little thing.

Because the comms aren’t working, Ultra Magnus has been forced to use this avatar to communicate with the folks in the Rod Pod. Megatron asks just what the hell is going on, but unfortunately Magnus isn’t sure either. Then his shuttle disappears, and it’s bye-bye grunge girl Magnus.

It’s at this point that Nightbeat decides it’s time to stop pussyfooting around and get serious. He tells Ratchet to throw HIPPA directly in the garbage and write down everything he knows about the Autobots who crewed the Lost Light. And he does mean everything, as we get the splash page again, this time with lots of neat info on our friends, including spark type.

Spark types will become plot-relevant in the storyline after this, but for now let’s focus on some weird gender essentialism that got slapped into the first print of this issue.

As we know very well by this point, Transformers as a franchise has a tumultuous relationship with the idea of women existing. You would think that the awkward introduction of other genders we got in “Dark Cybertron” would have been the end of things being weird in IDW. However, you would be wrong.

In an effort to explain why genders exist, Roberts had the idea to make it spark-based. Nautica, in the solo print of this issue, has an estriol-positive spark. Estriol is a type of estrogen, which is the hormone that develops and maintains feminine secondary sex characteristics, when present in certain levels, in conjunction with other hormones. Biology

This “spark = gender” idea is, generally speaking, not a great idea to be presenting us with, especially when the writer is a cishet male, because it implies biological essentialism- the idea that a personality trait/quality of a person is innate and predetermined by their biology, as opposed to social, cultural, or individual experiences. Because this story doesn’t exist in a vacuum, it’s irresponsible to reduce the experience of being a woman to a single, physical, unchangable asset, especially when all other assets of the same class have zero effect on one’s gender identity. You don’t exactly see many nonbinary robots running around, now do you? And there are definitely more than two spark types, despite the Transformers as a species being... very binary.

It also makes female Transformers into an “other”, which is a problem that has existed from the very start of the franchise, in some form or fashion, and really doesn’t need to be perpetrated anymore than it already is.

The estriol spark type was removed in the trade edition, and Roberts has expressed regrets over its inclusion, having realized that it was potentially offensive.

Getting back to the story, Swerve, Tailgate, and Ratchet have disappeared, though Ratchet seems to have left his hands behind. His stolen, Pharma-original hands.

That’s still fucked up to me. I don’t think it’ll ever not be fucked up.

Riptide reveals the reason that he wasn’t in Season One of MTMTE was because when he went back to grab a receipt for the ship two years prior, he’d discovered that the original owners were worshipers of Mortilus, Cybertronian god of death, and knew about the nasty little problem that was the sparkeater from the first storyline. When Riptide went to confront them about it, they beat him up so bad he was unconscious for two solid days.

Which is a long-ass time to be unconscious. That might have been a coma, Riptide. Jesus, I hope someone got him to a hospital after this beatdown happened, or at least scraped him off the floor.

With this last piece of the puzzle, we finally have the common denominator in this big ol’ mystery. Everyone who disappeared was on the Lost Light when it took off from Cybertron in issue #1, and everyone left behind- Skids, Getaway, Nightbeat, Nautica, Megatron, and Ravage- didn’t join until afterwords.

Of course, having the answer doesn’t do us much good when everyone is still missing, and Megatron seems to agree with me, because he’s about to throw hands, when Nautica lets them know that they’ve arrived at the rendezvous. Problem is, so has something else.

...

I’m sure it’s fiiiiiiiiiiiiine!

#transformers #jro #MTMTE #issue 31 #maccadam #Hannzreads #text post #long post #incoming analysis #overthinking about robots #comic script writing

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maddogofshimano · 4 years ago

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The Woman Who Dyed a Black Stain to White

Major Y0 Spoiler Warning

Lee got a sugoroku event! Look at his chibi sprite!!!

There’s several foreign names and groups mentioned in here that I don’t know the ideal romanization for, but I will try to at least be consistent on them.

This one is seriously heavy. I’m actually going to put a trigger warning on this: it’s about sex trafficked women, and Makoto’s backstory. There’s the start of an attempted sexual assault and a lot of dehumanizing language about the women who are being trafficked. Nothing is shown explicitly, but it’s rough. Additionally multiple people in the mafia commit suicide.

Summary: Lee is ordered to assassinate the boss of the Songyoung, a mysterious crime syndicate behind the disappearances of multiple women in Sotenbori. They operate in complete secrecy, and Lee finds himself facing a terrible choice between his orders and his morals.

<1986--two years before a man's corpse would be found in Kamurocho's empty lot--Iwao Bridge, Sotenbori> Makoto: Excuse me, I'm looking for my brother. Have you seen the man in this picture?

Man: No, don't know him at all. Sorry... Makoto: Excuse me, have you seen the person in this picture?

Woman: I don't know him, sorry... Oda: That woman... she's not bad... I think I'll have a little talk with her...

Oda: Pardon me miss. You're looking for your brother? I've got an idea of where he might be...

Makoto: Really!? Please, take me there right away! Oda: Of course. If you wouldn't mind coming with me then...

Voice on the TV: The case of the repeated disappearances of women in Sotenbori clearly seems to be--

Lee: Young women bein' targeted for abduction... Must be the Omi Alliance, or maybe some foreign group... Lee: The police are stayin' awful quiet on it though. Hard to feel good about all the movement that's happenin' around it... <phone rings> Lee: Ah, the phone... Lee: Hogushi Kaikan speaking. What treatment may I help you with? Voice on the phone: I have a job for you, Lee Wen Hai Lee: Well, sounds like ya aren't after a massage, are ya... Wong, who'd'ya need taken care of this time? Wong: That's cruel, Lee. Do you know the Korean mafia faction, the Songyoung? Lee: Aah, I've been hearin' some things about them. I was gettin' a real bad vibe off of that group... Wong: We haven't been able to pin them down effectively because they don't do anything themselves, they use hired thugs for all the dirty work... Wong: It sounds like they outsource their income streams. That's how they keep everything a secret. Lee: So you're tellin' me this for a reason... right? The Songyoung are my next target? Wong: Mhm, that's right. Wong: These days their thugs are rampaging all over our organization's territory... Wong: If they keep making waves like this, they're bound to bring the Omi down on our heads. Wong: The current pressure the Omi is putting on us is more than enough, and they'll only use this as an excuse to squeeze harder. Lee: Is the big bad mainland mafia's Kotou and the Omi that scared? (Tl note: this gets clarified way later, but Kotou (虎頭) is the Chinese mafia group Lee works for) Wong: Don't tease... Sotenbori is the Omi Alliance's most treasured territory... Wong: There's no advantage to putting the Omi in a bad mood or inflicting damage. But, how much do you even understand that? Wong: Anyways, the more the Songyoung keep rampaging, the more foreign organizations like our Kotou will suffer. Wong: Your assignment is to assassinate the boss of the Songyoung. I'm sure you know the usual payment from Kotou... Wong: For this one, it'll be double. Lee: Well ain't that generous... So what's the catch? Wong: Like I said, the Songyoung is a thoroughly secretive organization. Wong: Naturally, their bosses current whereabouts are unknown, as are the group's hideouts... Lee: So I gotta figure out where the guy even is... Wong: So? Will you take on the assignment? Lee: Well of course. I'll take it. You can transfer the payment to the usual account. Wong: Understood. When I get it, I'll fax you a picture of the boss of the Songyoung. Use it for verification. Wong: Well then, I'll leave you to it. Don't forget to keep in contact, okay? Lee: I'll remember... See ya later then? <Hangs up the phone> Lee: Well then, first things first is collectin' information on the Songyoung... <Prologue End> <A few days later--Shofuku Street, Sotenbori> Lee: After all this time pokin' around I still haven't gotten any info on the Songwong...

Lee: I thought Wong was just cuttin' corners, but even that pro I listened to didn't know shit... Lee: Information fees have gotten jacked up with the current economic boom, and it's hard to rely on anything they say... Lee: This place then. Today I'll pay it a visit... <Lee enters the mahjong parlor> Lee: Let's see, where is that guy... Oh, there he is....

Lee: Hey, been a while... how's things treatin' ya?

Information Broker: Well, if it isn't God Hand-sama himself... Broker: It'd been so long since I heard from ya that lately I'd been thinkin' about closin' up shop and pickin' up massage instead. Lee: Shut it, smartass! All you've been doin' lately is sittin' on your ass playin' mahjong... Lee: ...But, I'll let it slide. I'm here to get some info from ya. Lee: Tell me everythin' ya know about the Songyoung... Broker: ....And if that information isn't cheap? Lee: How much? Broker: Give me... 100k upfront, and we'll see how much it'll cost. Lee: Tch... Ya better watch yourself after this... Here, take your cash! <a wad of bills thumps onto the table> Broker: Of course. So, what do you want to know about the Songyoung? Lee: Their main hideout, and where their boss is at right now. For that information I'll pay as much as ya need. Broker: That's some real problematic info, ya know. These guys are hardcore on their secrecy... Lee: Seriously, I paid out the ass upfront already... So what, ya don't have that info? Broker: I do have a list of their lower rungs... Broker: If ya wanna find the main group, you'll have to squeeze it out of the branches... Lee: Sure, hand over that info then. Broker: You sure? It's gonna be another 100k. Lee: Jeez... Here. We good now? <another wad of bills hits the table> Broker: Thank you for your patronage... Alright, here's the list. Lee: ....This, you're sure there's not some sort of mistake? Broker: I absolutely guarantee it. Welllllll some of them might have cut ties with the main group already I suppose... Broker: The lower rungs are nothin' but nasty, muscle-headed imbeciles, though with your strength it won't be a problem... Lee: Heh.... I can't understand why this information is goin' for only 100k.

Broker: Ha... Findin’ a buyer for that kind of thing ain't easy. Broker: If you're makin' a move on these guys... Well, there's not gonna be a point to holdin' on to that information afterwards, right? Lee: ...That's pretty smart of ya. I'm off then, I'll be back later. Lee: Well, time to get goin' through this list with a fine toothed comb. <Lee goes to the park> Lee: Every one of these organizations is tied to the Songyoung somehow, but I just don't know what's connectin' them...

Lee: Do I really gotta go trompin' through this whole list and hope I stumble onto where the boss is at? Goon A: Hehe... Hey, let's go do some damage today!!

Goon B: It's great havin' the backin' of a big, influential group like that... Looks like our luck is finally turnin' around!! Lee: Well there's some assholes... I wonder what kinda info they might have... <Lee kicks the shit out of them. Like I don't even do the fight it just fades to black and Lee takes care of it himself> Goon A: Hhhh... Please forgive us.... The Songyoung already cut us off! So please don't kill us!!

Lee: Ya better not tell me you've cut ties again, okay? Just tell me all the info ya got on the Songyoung. Goon A: I-I really don't know anythin'! The contact we had, we never even saw their face. Lee: Seriously you guys... This is the tenth time. These Songyoung are damn serious about this secrecy crap, huh... Lee: These bastards don't have any information neither... Goon B: Th-That's true, but it is possible... Lee: What? Ya got an idea or somethin'? Goon B: There’s some guys that have turf near Iwao Bridge, they do way worse dealings than we do, I think... Lee: Worse dealings? Goon B: Yeah, they abduct young women that've just come to Sotenbori, and the Songyoung takes em for a shit ton of cash. Lee: Wait, wait, you mean... That's what's causin' the "vanishing women case" right now!?

Goon B: Yeah... That's right... It's all just rumors, but they go after runaway girls to kidnap... Lee: Then that means, this "disappearance case", it's all the Songyoung's doing... Lee: Now that's the kind of details I want to hear!! Goon B: Y-Yes sir!! Though, there is one other thing you should know... Goon B: In the past there was a real famous gang that was doin' this kind of job, but that gang left Sotenbori just when they were about to take over... Goon B: The organization that's currently makin' bank off of abducting women is called... Well, it's gotta be "Ganryujima". (Tl note: Ganryujima is the island famous for the duel between Miyamoto Musashi and Sasaki Kojiro. Also of note the first kanji in ganryujima is the same as the first kanji in Iwao Bridge) Goon B: That's the full extent of what I know... Lee: So near Iwao Bridge there's turf belonging to "Ganryujima"? That group's also on the list.... Seems like I got plenty to go on. Lee: In light of this info ya gave me, I'll let ya go. Hopefully this'll've been a learnin' experience for ya, and ya won't got gettin' involved with any more groups like that. Goons: Y-Yes sir!! Thank you very much!! Lee: Iwao Bridge is right up there.... I was gonna ask the Garyujima about the Songwong but... this feelin'...

Lee: This ain't just another punk, is it... someone else in the same profession? Lee: Hey, I know you're there. Come on out. If you're gonna tail someone, put a lil more effort in on stayin' hidden... Menacing Man: Are you the one who's been crushing all of our lower rungs? No hard feelings, but I'm going to kill you here...

Lee: As if I'd fall so far as to get killed by some third rate hitman who can't even hide himself properly... Lee: Though, ya did save me the trouble by showin' up. It was gonna be a pain in the ass to get the info I was after on your kinda organization. Lee: I'm just gonna beat every last drop of info about your group out of ya!! Menacing Man: Heh.... Come at me then!! You're going to regret messing with the Songyoung!! <the fight happens for real this time, fittingly Misery Comes On Beat plays and Lee clobbers them> Menacing Man: G-Guh........ Lee: Alright, you know what I want, ready to spill it on the Songyoung? Menacing Man: Heh.... You think I'm going to talk? Lee: Oh, so you've decided I gotta make you talk then... Menacing Man: The organization's secrets are absolute... Letting that kind of things slip, it's just not something I can do... <stabbing sounds> Lee: You! What the hell did you do!! Menacing Man: Guhh..... fool!? Lee: What idiots... All of them went and slit their own throats... Lee: All that to protect their organization's secrets... Finding their boss's location is gonna be a real pain in the ass.

<end part 1> Lee: You bastards are Ganryujima boys, ain't ya?

Goon: Who the hell are you? You got a problem if we're Ganryujima? Lee: Nope, my problem is with all the women you've been ordered to kidnap for the Songyoung. Goon: You... where the hell did ya hear that? Lee: Ya think I'm gonna say? Goon: Heh..... 's all good. If ya knew any better, ya would have gone home to keep on livin'... Goon: Oi, everyone!! Let's end this geezer!! Lee: Sure are a lotta hotblooded assholes... Ah well. I'll just have to convince ya to talk. <once again, Lee crushes them without me even doing the fight> Goon: Haa... Haa... Wh-What the hell's with this old man...

Lee: From now on, be selective when you pick fights. If you pick the wrong opponent on this street, are you ready to lose your life? <metallic noise of something being drawn, presumably a knife or the acupuncture needle, it's unclear> Goon: A-Aahh!? P-Please don't kill me!! Lee: Are ya ready to tell me about the Songyoung then? What's the guy look like that you're handin' these girls over to? Goon: Sorry... we just leave the women we kidnapped in a pre-designated abandoned house on a regular basis, I never seen anyone... Goon: The money just gets wired into our account... I really don't know the guy's face at all... Lee: ....Tch, you fuckers are another dead end. Goon: I-I'm sorry I'm so worthless!! But please, my life... Lee: Fine, whatever.... Actually, one thing! Goon: Wh-What!? Lee: In exchange for me lookin' the other way on this, I'm givin' ya a job to do. Goon: A-A job... What'd'ya want us to do? Lee: It's easy. I'm gonna bring ya a girl, and you're gonna sell her to those guys... can ya do that? (Tl note: misread this at first as "I'm gonna be the next girl ya sell to those guys" and was pogging) Goon: Y-Yeah. I think we should be able to do that... Lee: Good, then I'll be back when I've finished some preparations. <Lee goes to a bar to speak with an anime girl because there is exactly one base sprite for all women> Lee: Yo, it's been a while. You haven't changed a day...

Lee: Makes sense, given nobody knows the number of guys you've swindled out of their cash then bumped off... Woman: .....You know, Lee. Isn't it a bit cruel to call someone out to meet you and then speak about them like that? Lee: Sorry, sorry, I thought I was payin' a compliment to your heinous modus operandi, it's very skillful.

Woman: Sigh~... so what is it? Why'd you call me over so suddenly? I came because I owe you one, but I'm not here on a leisure trip. Lee: I was hopin' to get us squared away. Think ya can handle one bothersome task for me? Woman: Bothersome? Lee: Yeah, I'm trying to get a hold of information on this organization... Stuff like where there hideout is, but since no one's talkin' I'd like to borrow your power. Woman: ....And what do you want me to do? Lee: I want ya to pose as a runaway and sneak into this place as one of the girls gettin' traffic'd. Lee: I've gotten a hold of the sales route they're usin'... Lee: You'll get bought wearin' a tracking device and a hidden mic, and that'll let us infiltrate the hideout. Woman: This is going to be dangerous, isn't it? I know I owe you, but is that enough to risk my life over? Lee: When you're a professional killer, isn't there always a risk of death, that someone will turn the tables on ya? Well, as soon as I know where the place is I'll go and help ya. I'll protect this body you've altered... What d'ya think, will ya help? Woman: ....Ha, I guess so. After this, we're even, right? Lee: Yeah, of course. Honestly I'll feel indebted to ya! <Lee goes back outside> Lee: Right now, you're in the abandoned building in West Shokufukucho. Great, the transmitter just moved into the kitchen...

<radio static> Lee: I can hear her voice through the bug. Sensitivity is good... Lee: Now then... After that woman gets taken to the main hideout, everything will go flawlessly. <footsteps> Voice over the mic: "This is the collection team. The cargo of women has been confirmed. We'll be returning to HQ shortly, via our transport." Lee: They're speakin' korean... "Recover the woman and take her to headquarters".... huh.... Lee: Seems like it's going well. I hope it keeps up.... Voice: "Be careful not to be seen on the way back! Hurry up and return to HQ!!" Lee: They're not aware of the bug or the tracking device... <Lee gets into a car> Lee: And now I just follow em right to their hideout. <He gets out after a drive> Lee: Looks like the transmitter stopped in this building...

<radio static> Voice: "The shipment of women has arrived. Where's the boss at?" Voice: "Right now the boss is inspecting the warehouse..." Voice: "Aah, that place is crammed full of women isn't it... So, will you deliver this woman there too?" Voice: "Nah, no need to do extra work. We'll just put her in the usual room until the boss gets back..." Voice: "Roger on that!" <radio static> Lee: So this is the main hideout then. However, the boss ain't here... Lee: Ah well, I'm bound to hear where he is sooner or later. ...Ah, afterwards though, I did promise to help that woman out. <Lee kicks in the door> Songyoung goon: "Wh-What are you doing!?"

Lee: "My bad, but I was hoping to retrieve a woman I left here?"

Goon: "W-Woman!? Who do you think you are!? Do you have a death wish!?" Lee: "How about you tell me the location of the warehouse you've got the other women in?" Goon: "Wh-What!? Did you plant a bug on that woman!? Shit!! Everyone! Don't let this man leave here alive!!" Goon: "For the sake of protecting our organization, this man must die!! Kill him and sink his body in the harbor!! Let's go!!" <Lee crushes them and two of the three hit the floor> Goon: "That man... so strong..." Lee: "Well, the place where you've got all those women locked up, ya better tell me where it is.." Goon: "Heh... you really think it's going to be that simple?" <gunshots> Lee: Shit... Shot himself right in the head... Lee: The other two drank poison to kill themselves too. What a commitment to secrecy... It's sickening.... Lee: And even still, I just gotta investigate this place and I'll figure out where that warehouse is. Whoops, gotta help that woman first... <back outside> Woman: Seriously... I'm sorry for this again, alright? (Tl note: extremely in the weeds here, I don't really know what she's talking about)

Lee: Heh.... Searching the house would have been rotten without your help. Woman: I'll send a bill for that information later! Lee: And I'll send ya a whole mountain of gold as payment! Woman: Haa~... That's what I like to hear.... Well then, don't you go and die until you pay me, okay? <She leaves> Lee: Hmm, I need to keep in contact with Wong.... Was there a payphone around here? <He goes to a payphone and dials Wong>

Wong: ...Lee? Lee: Yep, just keepin' in touch. I found the group's hideout. Wong: Oh, good work... Several of their members are dead there. They won't be able to use it. Wong: So? Have you brought down their boss? Lee: No. He wasn't at the hideout... Lee: But, I do know where he is. The warehouse with all the imprisoned women. Wong: Heh... Going to sample the wares? Always was a nympho... Wong: Regardless you've done well. You should head over to the warehouse right away.... Lee: ....? Got it. Once I deal with the boss, is it okay if I release the women? Wong: No, all the captive women should be erased. It would be problematic if this income stream got leaked to the police. Lee: What....!? <end of part 2>

Lee: I'm not gonna kill kidnapped women who have done nothin' wrong! Don't be ridiculous!! Lee: Is that the kind of orders the top mafia Kotou is handin' out!? Wong: Calm down, Lee. This was a decision by the organization. Lee: These women were kidnapped by punks with more lust for gold than humanity and are getting preyed upon by the main branch with their wicked intentions. Lee: And after all that shit, I ain't gonna just go in and kill them!! Wong: If the police find out about this source of income from the Songyoung, the crackdown in Sotenbori is going to be very strict... Wong: If that happens, it will be harder for us to operate in a lot of ways... So these women continuing to exist is problematic. Wong: You do understand what will happen if you go against direct orders from the group, don't you? Lee: (Have they really made up their mind on killing these women? Even though these women, they haven't done anything wrong, they're the victims?) Lee: (But if I go against orders, I'll be the one killed... Either the lives of those women, or my own, I have to choose.) Wong: There's high expectations on you for completing this job. Are you going to betray everyone? Lee: (If I try to run, I won't be able to catch the boss. If I want to bring him down... There's no time to hesitate...) Lee: (That's how I have to think. I'm a pro. An assassin. And... up till now, I've devoted myself fully to this path, just as expected.) Lee: ...I understand. I'll take the lives of those women. That is part of my job... Wong: Is that so... Well then, I'll be waiting to hear good news. <hangs up phone and goes back to the Songyoung hideout> Lee: Shit.... That asshole, handin' out such a sickening order. Lee: Fine!! I'll sink the corpse of that boss, all those women, and anyone else into the damn harbor!! Lee: I'm already black hearted, and this time I'll be stained as black as can be... Lee: With this blood on my hands, I'll just get em even dirtier with more and more. <Lee goes to the warehouse> Lee: This is where the main branch's hideout said the warehouse should be, so the boss and the kidnapped women should be inside...

Lee: (Looks like they got two guys keepin' watch... The entrance to this place is well defended... It's gonna be tough takin' out the boss and those women by myself...)

Goon A: Gah!? Goon B: Guhh!? <they hit the floor> Lee: ...There's probably more guys keepin' watch. I'll have to be careful killin' the boss and women... <Lee moves into the warehouse> Lee: Since there's a guard over there, there's no mistake that this is the main group's warehouse...

Lee: The real question is, where is the boss... Hm? That's... <A man walks by with a woman> Lee: Just now, that guy that brought a woman into that room... There's no doubt about it, that's the guy from the photo Wong sent... Lee: When I go into that room... Lee: I'll lose my chance to run. I'll commit myself to seein' this job through and stainin' myself pitch black. <Lee heads in> Young Woman: Stop it... d-don't come any closer... someone!!

Songyoung Boss: Heh, no matter how much you scream, no one is coming to help you... Lee: Mind if I step in and have some fun?

Boss: Who the fuck are you!? ...Are you an assassin sent by Wong?

Boss: He never gets his own hands dirty with jobs like this... Lee: You figured it out quick. No hard feelings, but I'm going to kill you now. (Tl note: same line that the Songyoung assassin used against Lee) Boss: You're a moron. I'm not going to be killed by some wannabe assassin. I'll kill you first!! Boss: Let's go, assassin!! I'm going to send your stinking corpse to Wong!! <fight, Lee wrecks shop> Lee: Say your prayers... <Stabbing noise> Boss: Guah!? <he hits the floor> Lee: That handles my primary goal... Now I have to... Lee: (Now I have to deal with the women... First I should have her guide me to where they're all being imprisoned...) Lee: Were you bein’ held captive in here?

Woman: Yes!! Please, please help!! There's a lot of others that are being held captive here besides me!! Lee: ...Got it. Could ya bring me to the room they're all in? Woman: Yes! This way!! <they go> Woman: Just ahead is the room we were all held in! We had given up all hope on being rescued, everyone will be so happy!!

Lee: Sorry for the trouble, Miss Guide... Lee: (She looks delighted... Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd be killin' someone lookin' like that...) Lee: (... If my daughter were still alive, she'd be just about the same age as this woman.....) Lee: (This blameless woman that I'm going to sink into the sea... This really is the most depraved job...) Lee: (It would be troublesome if she started screamin' here... Guess I'll take care of her after I handle all the other women...) Lee: ...Ah, that's right! I got a request for ya, miss... Woman: Yes! What do you need? Lee: There's still a lot of thugs around outside... Could ya make sure no one leaves till I confirm it's safe? Lee: Would ya go and close off the entrance and the exit to the warehouse? Woman: Y-Yeah! On it!! <she leaves> Lee: Miss, forgive me... I ain't really here to save ya... <Lee goes into the inner room> Woman A: A-Again... Who's coming in here now?

Woman B: That's not it! The door is still open!! Woman B: R-Run for it! We're finally free from this nightmare!! <the women flee> Lee: (With the door open like that... It's natural that they'd all run off in a panic...) Lee: (All these run away girls, now about to get killed, they really are the unluckiest women in the world.......) Lee: (But if I don't kill them, the organization's gonna kill me... This really is the most abysmal job...) Lee: (I can't save even a single one of them... It's a weight I'll have to bear for the rest of my life, no matter what excuses I try to make.) <knife drawing sound> Lee: Hm? That woman, what is she... Lee: ...Why didn't she run? That's weird... Is she hurt?

Lee: Hey, are you alright....?

Lee: (She's feelin' her way around... This girl, is she blind?) Makoto: A-Are you the one who's helping everyone? Lee: N-No... I'm... <music cuts out> Makoto: Thank you so much... Thank you..... Thank you so very much... thank you....

Lee's daughter: "Hey, dad... are you there...?"

Lee: "Yes, I'm right here!! I'm here!! You're gonna be okay, the doctor's on his way!! Just stay with me!!" Lee's daughter: "....Dad, even with this frail life of mine... thank you so much for raising me..." Lee: "Nonsense! Sayin' stuff like that, raisin' you was only natural!!" Lee's daughter: "Thank you for everything, dad... I love you..." Lee: (Ah... She also, said the same thing......)

Lee: (......) Lee: (No way.... There's no way... I could kill her......)

Lee: (For the time bein' that girl's gone to sleep in that room. Everythin' is still chaotic though...) (Tl note: the word Lee is using for girl here is 娘 which is the same one used for daughter) Lee: (Helpin' that girl means disobeyin' Wong's--no, Kotou's orders...) Lee: (If I'm already goin' against my orders... I might as well save every woman in this damn place!!) Lee: (But what am I gonna do? If I don't kill the women, then Wong's just gonna send another hitman after 'em.) Lee: (If I want these women to live, my only options are gettin' Wong to let them go, or if Kotou was totally annihilated.) Lee: Damn it... There's no way Wong would look the other way on this, so my only option is to wipe out Kotou myself... Lee: Of course, I gotta figure out how to even do that... Lee: I'm gamblin' on a long shot. At least I'm gonna save as many women as I possibly can!! Lee: Alright, then I need to get the women out of here before Wong catches onto what I'm up to... Woman: Kyaaaaaa!! Lee: What!? That voice, did someone get into the warehouse!? <two women are facing a menacing man> Man: ...So you women didn't get killed? I see, I see...

Woman: W-Who are you!? Oh no, are you one of the people that locked us all up in here!? Man: No, I'm not a part of the group that did that. (Tl note: He's speaking very politely, it's kind of unsettling) Man: That being said, I do have a job to do here, so... No hard feelings, but I'm going to kill you now. (Tl note: the third instance of this line, I guess hitmen are very fond of it) Woman 2: You're going to... Why would you kill us!! Man: It's nothing you've done personally... however there are people who would be very inconvenienced if your confinement was ever known about... Man: Well then, let's start off with you... If you're going to hold a grudge, please hold it against your own bad luck... Woman 2: W-Wait... don't kill me.... Lee: Hold it, jack ass!! Lee: Ladies... stay back...

Women: S-Sure... Man: Hmmm... you're the one Wong sent to kill the Songwong boss, aren't you? Lee: What about it? I already took care of that boss a while ago now... Man: Is that so... Thank you for a job well done. ....Though, I have to ask, why are these women still alive? Man: Surely you were ordered to eliminate the women as well? Woman 2: Eh!? Lee: All these women did nothin' wrong... killin' them is completely unnecessary. Man: So you intend to turn against Wong? Lee: .....Yeah, I do. Man: Ah ha ha! I see, I see... You know, Wong-san seemed worried this was the path you'd take. Lee: ...Who are you? Man: I'm the contingency plan Wong-san prepared to handle this if you couldn't bring yourself to kill these women. Man: My orders from Wong-san were to come here and kill any woman left alive. Lee: Hah... Awful conniving of Wong to pull somethin' like this... Too bad that I decided that all these women are gonna live!!

Man: So that's how it is... what a shame. Well, you've made your decision to die here with these women. Man: But that's good! A killer like you will die alongside all these young ladies!! <they fight, Lee tears him up> Man: I'm finished... You're a skilled hitman... Lee: Your arm can probably be saved... Man: But... Wong-san will never forgive you for going against the organization like this... You'll be killed, won't you? Lee: Seems that way... But I'm gonna fight it all the way to the end... Man: I see... In that case, I wish you good luck... <man collapses to the floor> Lee: Hoooo~.... I need to make sure all the ladies are still alright... Lee: I'm gonna wipe all traces of you being enslaved from the records here and in the Songwong hideout... Lee: That should throw em off all your trails... Woman 2: Eh? D-Does that mean... you're helping all of us? Lee: Yeah, that's right... Lee: It'll be best if all of you forget about everythin' that happened here and go back to your old lives... Lee: After that leave everythin' else to this geezer!! Woman 2: Th-Thank you so much!! Woman 1: But, are you going to be alright? That person said that you would be killed too... Lee: The fate of a killer who goes against his organization is set in stone. But, I don't intend to be easy to kill... Lee: If it means savin' all of you, payin' with the life of a killer like me is a hell of a bargain, right? Woman 1: But that's... isn't there something you can do? You could run away with us... Lee: I've got to go smash up my employer... I got a lotta obligations in front of me... Lee: If I run away, other people are gonna end up payin' for it. Woman 1: But... Lee: It's fine... Don't you go worryin' about me none. Lee: Though, sorry to keep askin' things of ya miss, but could I ask one more favor of ya? Woman 1: What is it? I'll do whatever I can!! Lee: In the room ya were locked up in, there's a lady that can't see waitin' there... Lee: As much as ya can, could ya take care of that kid and keep her out of trouble? Woman 1: I-I should be okay... I'll do as much as I'm able-- Lee: Yeah!! Seriously, I'm grateful! Lee: I know it's a lot to ask of ya miss, sorry. Woman 1: No, this doesn't even begin to pay back how much you've helped us... Lee: Alright, you stay healthy miss... <Lee leaves> Woman 1: Ah!? That's right, there's a mafia called "Kotou", please stay safe from them!! Lee: W-Wait a minute!! Miss, what did you say just now!? Woman 1: Umm... To please watch out for a mafia called "Kotou"... Lee: You said "Kotou"... miss, where did you hear that name!? (Tl note: I had been reading it wildly wrong as “Toragashira” until now and had to go back and correct every instance of it. When she says it it’s in katakana, but Lee had been saying it in kanji, so I was just guessing on pronunciation) Woman 1: Earlier, while we were still imprisoned, I heard it from one of the people here... Woman 1: "My group "Kotou" is a Chinese mafia. You can rely on us for backup if you encounter any trouble" is what they said... Lee: H-Hold on... But wouldn't that mean... Kotou and the Songyoung are workin' together...!? Lee: What the hell, what the hell is goin' on....!?

Lee: You're sure they said "Kotou"?

Woman 1: Y-Yeah... That's definitely what they said. Lee: Seriously.... hm? Wait... Thinkin' back on it... Wong did say somethin' strange... Lee: (Back when I first found out the boss was in the warehouse....) Lee: ("Heh... Planning on sampling the wares? ...Always was a nympo...") (Tl note: I had to go back and edit the earlier instance of this to be more vague like this, I confused on who it was directed at but I was looking at it as between Lee or Wong and couldn't see how it would make sense to be self directed since Wong wasn't going to the warehouse. Lee seemed confused by it too, so the vagueness seems intentional, but I’m very glad it wasn’t actually directed at Lee like I initially thought) Lee: (It's like he knew the Songyoung Boss before this...) Lee: If that's true, then that means the same goes for the Songyoung boss! Lee: (In that room where I took him out, he said to me "He never gets his own hands dirty with jobs like this") Lee: (So that means he also knew Wong before all of this...) Lee: It's possible... but what does it all mean? Woman 1: ...Um, is there something I can help with? Lee: Aah! Thank to you miss, I might have figured out a way to avoid dyin'. Woman 1: Really!? Lee: I do have one job to take care of first though. Lee: When ya get out of here and forget all this to get back to your life... I want ya to forget me too... okay? Lee: Oh, and avoid dealin with strange men, okay? Woman 1: Yes sir! Thank you again!! <she leaves> Lee: If I believe her story, then the Songyoung and Wong are connected... Lee: If that's the case, there might be evidence of that here and in the Songyoung hideout... Lee: If I can find it, I might be able to use that to keep Wong silent on this whole thing. Lee: First things first, better start searchin' the warehouse... Lee: Haa~...... I can't find anythin'.... Well, findin' somethin' like that was never going to be easy. Lee: Next is the room where all the women were confined...

<rustling noise> Lee: Hm? Hold on... this is it!! <screen fades to black> Wong: Lee... You just keep betraying my faith in you...

Lee: Ha, you're soundin' awful full of yourself... Wong. Lee: You'd probably tell me I was wipin' my own ass wrong... Lee: Aren't you betrayin' our organization too? I don't think you're in any position to talk about my betrayal. Wong: Lee, you piece of shit...... Lee: Heh... Of course, since you and the Songyoung are in bed together... Lee: Didn’t you let them make money trafficking these women so you could have a little slush fund? Lee: It's all written in this set of orders ya fax'd em anyways... Wong: Are you an idiot!? Get rid of that like you were ordered to!!

Lee: You stopped trustin' the Songyoung boss, right? Lee: Nothin' will poison a relationship faster than cash, it's a common story in this line of work. Lee: Seems like for the most part the Songyoung hated the tight leash you had them on and decided to betray you and be more bold about things, yeah? Lee: Then, when the disappearance of women started to become public knowledge, it lit a fire under your ass to hurry up and stamp out this whole operation... Wong: ........... Lee: That's why ya sent me to find the Songyoung hideout that had moved and you had lost contact with... Lee: With myself on the job, it'd be easy for ya to nonchalantly show up and snag the evidence of your betrayal... Lee: And if I failed you had prepared a contingency to get the job done... then ya'd be able to muzzle the aforementioned organization. Have I got that right? Wong: ........... Lee: Hah... Seems like that's a bulls-eye... Lee: If ya don't want this fax bein' sent off to Kotou, I got a condition for ya to accept... Well, Wong? Wong: ....Heh, pffhahaha... you really are a dumb fuck... Lee: What!? The hell's so funny!! Wong: If you had turned over that evidence right away, you might have been fine... Wong: But you're hopelessly stupid if you think you can negotiate with me face to face and I won't just kill you here and now. Wong: If I erase you and the evidence right here, I won't get caught for my betrayal!! Lee: Hmm... So you... are turnin' down my condition? Wong: Of course I am!! I'm going to kill you!! That's why I brought my best men with me!! Wong: Lee, my blood ran cold when you told me you had found evidence of my betrayal... Wong: So I must thank you for being such a dumbass!! Wong: Rest assured, Lee! After I'm done killing you, all those women you saved will be killed too!! Wong: Go to hell alongside the women you risked your life to protect!! Let's do it!! Your certain death!! <they fight, Lee crushes them> Wong: Stupid... even my best men...?

Lee: Heh, bad luck for you Wong. I've been survived more lethal battles than you can count... Lee: Well, that's all been with your help...

Lee: So, are ya ready? This is the endin' you asked for..... Lee: .........You know, it didn't have to end like this if you had just put up with my one demand. Wong: W-Wait!! I'll do it!! Your life, those women's lives, I'll look past it all!! So please... Lee: ....What you're sayin', you really mean it? Wong: Yes! Of course!! I'll talk to the organization myself about the women...

Lee: ......I've owed ya a lot. So if ya say that--

Wong: You truly are the stupidest mother fucker on earth!! <gun cocks>

Lee: Guh! Wong, you bastard!? <Stabbing sound> Wong: Guah--... Leeee.... you.... fucker!!

Lee: Idiot... Why'd ya make me do that, Wong.... <Some days later, Kotou confirmed that Wong has gone rogue.> <Lee's killing of Wong was considered a "purge" and his actions were left unquestioned.>

<A few weeks later> <Sotenbori's Hogushi Kaikan> Customer: Ah, just what I'd expect from the chief! Everything feels great!!

Lee: Hey, Makoto! Could ya grab my needles for me? Makoto: Eh? N-Needles...? Those are, ummm.... S-Sorry, I don't know... Lee: Ah, that's my bad, don't worry. Here, I'll show ya... Makoto: S-Sorry, chief.....

Lee: ....Wanna grab my hand? Makoto: Y-Yeah.... Lee: The needles we use for acupuncture are... right here. For you that'll be about 5 steps past the entrance to the treatment room. Makoto: Got it... S-Sorry... Lee: Hey, I already said it was my bad, don't worry... Lee: Some day you're gonna be able to see again. Until then, it's perfectly fine to get used to things slowly. Lee: We'll start at a slow pace for you... Then when you can do that, we can step it up. Makoto: Yes sir. Customer: The chief sure has changed since Makoto-chan showed up, huh? It seems like he's really happy now... Lee: Sh-Shut it, smart ass!! You say more dumb shit like that and I'll run your tongue through with my needle!! Customer: A-Ahhh!? Please forgive me!!

Customer: Nonetheless... Makoto-chan's been here for a few weeks now. Customer: I was really surprised at first! How'd a cute girl like Makoto end up as your apprentice... Customer: I thought the chief had gone and kidnapped you. Lee: Hey! Don't go startin' nasty rumors like that!! Lee: Geez... You know, I think I won't do the acupuncture! You're not stiff enough to need any hot oil neither... Lee: But it's fiiine, you can scram!! Ain't like you'd appreciate the pain of this needle anyhow... Customer: Ahaha... well then, I better get out of here before the chief starts stabbing. Customer: See ya, Makoto-chan. Be safe... and I hope your vision comes back quickly. Makoto: ...Y-Yeah....... Customer: See ya chief, till next time! <he leaves> Makoto: Lee-san, I'm sorry.... I don't know how to do anything... even though you've allowed me to be your live-in apprentice...... Lee: It's all good, Makoto. Don't fret. As long as ya don't panic and take things slowly you'll have no trouble doin' all sorts of stuff... Makoto: .........Yeah. Lee: Makoto, I'm gonna smoke for a minute out back..... Makoto: Ah, sure... Have a good day, Lee-san. <he leaves> Lee: "Have a good day" huh....

Lee: That look she gave me... I'm going to protect that to the bitter end.... Lee: To protect that girl... I'd do anything... Anything at all....

<epilogue end> Bonus time: first of all OOFA DOOFA this was huge! and intense! and very difficult to translate god damn all this politicking and kansai-ben. In good(?) news, I learned a bunch of fun new vocab like abduction, kidnapping, human trafficking, betrayal, etc. You know, the essential stuff. Also it’s extremely unclear if the femme fatale that Lee leveraged here is the same one he plans to kill to fake Makoto’s death in Y0, or if he just knows multiple women that swindle money out of men and kill them. Here’s an actual bonus: Lee’s thoughts on things from the board game! Let’s see if tumblr explodes from all these images or not.

Sotenbori Our city. It's got good and bad and everythin' else all mixed together. Of course, that's why they call it the city that can't be satisfied.

Acupuncture Needle The acupuncture needle I use. Custom made, but ordinary needles. By using this, it'll start feeling good instantly.

Smokes An item vital to any acupuncturist. If you gently take a drag, the customer's meridians will appear on their back. Don't believe me?

Iwao Bridge A lot of young guys here trying to be pick up artists. A little while ago, one of my customers was an idiot who had jumped into the river after the local baseball team won the championship

Cabaret Grand This place has become the topic of conversation lately. I don't really go to those kinds of places, but, well, I kind of want to head over and take a peek

The Man with the Bat Tattoo I don't have any connection to him, I don't even know his face or his name, but if I ever meet him... I'm really going to enjoy it

Hogushi Kaikan My massage shop in Sotenbori. All ages of men and women, mafia and civilians, come here to get their muscles relaxed. (Tl note: Hogushi means to relax/loosen)

Rumor of Shakedown A shakedown? That ain't gonna happen. Still, some idiot wanting to try to shake me down is just the kind of thing that happens in Sotenbori

Mahjong Parlor I go to the mahjong parlor often. There's a lot of chinese people there. Though, japanese people go there too sometimes. Either way, by the time I go home I'm flat broke.

One Eyed Fella I've started seein' this guy around Sotenbori recently. I got no clue as to why he's here, but he's got the eye of a beaten stray dog.

I didn’t intentionally leave the Majima one for last, his was just the last one I found! I didn’t think there’d even be one, since this takes place a year before they even met, but I’m really glad there is. Now he’s just a fun bonus for anyone who made it all the way to the end. I kind of hoped the assassin that Lee sensed right in front of the Grand was just going to be Majima walking by or something.

Lee’s also got a character story that I’ll translate once I get his bond up, so look forward to even more Lee content!

#rggo #Lee Wen Hai #yakuza #yakuza 0 #Ryu ga Gotoku #ryu ga gotoku online #makoto makimura

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ajbwasntwriting · 4 years ago

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To Serve and Protect (Bucky Barnes x Police!Fem!Reader)

the twd obsession has been interrupted since I’ve started watch TFATWS and have binged bucky fics like I was 15.

Summery: - Reader is an accomplished New York officer but an old case comes back in the shape of a super soldier in need of aid.

Warnings: - Light Spoilers for TFATWS, Cursing, mentions of Human Trafficking, flirty Bucky(kind of I tried)

You had just received your second medal of honor before the blip had occurred. When you came back, you were nearly arrested for breaking into what you had known as your apartment. Luckily, the situation was under control quickly. You had family just outside the city who were willing to support you until you got back on your feet but it still felt like a kick in the gut that your home was gone and you now had to learn a bunch of new skills to do with being a cop. Most of your friends had either died during the five years or had to move out of New York, and those who remained had moved on and didn’t seem to have time for you in their lives.

At least a few of your favourite places had stayed open, including what you thought was the best pizza joint in the state. You got dinner here most nights because it hadn’t changed. The tables still wobbled, the neon sign still buzzed from overuse, and Louis the owner still kept a couple slices of your favorite pie in the back for you.

“Please tell me the back booth is free” you sighed, taking the food from Louis.

“Long day, Detective?” Louis replied.

“New partner thinks I’m an idiot.” You mumble, taking a bite from the pie and burning your tongue.

“It’s clear,” Louis said sympathetically, nodding to the far side of the restaurant.

You slid into the small booth tucked out of the way, tucking into your pizza and soda. After your first slice you noticed a carving on the table. It was your initials plus A.S. equals epic. You smiled as you remembered your previous partner Aarush Sharma. You two had been friends since you joined the force and had come to this booth almost every break hour to fill up on pizza and terrible coffee.

“Detective L/N.” A gruff voice spoke to you. Judging by the shadow he casted over you, he was a big man.

“Look if your here to buy me off or intimidate me,” you snapped, “then you can fu-” you stopped short when you looked up. You recognised the man as James Buchanen Barnes instantly. “Oh,” you sighed with relief.

“You know me?” he asked you.

“Followed the Zemo case.” you explained. He visibly tensed at the mention of Zemo. You held up your hand to calm him. “I know you’ve been pardoned.” You suddenly remembered how your conversation with the Winter Soldier had begun “wait, how do you know me?”

“I need your help,” He spoke low, just so the two of you could hear. He slid opposite you in the booth, leaning forward on the table. “Two-thousand-fifteen, August seventh you filed a report on a human trafficking ring operating out of staten island.” You began eating your second slice of pizza as he talked. “You arrested the main perpetrators, with the exception of Donnie Morris and Frank Abara. You opened an investigation on them but it went cold two months later.” You nodded along to the story. “That’s because-”

“They’re Hydra? Real names Robert Bern and Josh Smith? And the trafficking was for human experimentation?” you interrupted him. He stared at you, just about concealing his surprise. “I was a good cop.” you finished off your pizza, wiping your mouth and looking away in shame. “Was.”

“Why’d you stop?” he asked.

“They threatened me.” You patted the flour off your hands and picked up your soda. “And when that didn’t work, they told my friends to stop me else their family would be hurt, so.” you slurped on your soda and stared back at him.

His piercing blue eyes were reading you like a book, pulling apart your disgust at never catching them, and trying to figure out how to use it to his advantage. He had to admit it was impressive that a normal police officer was able to get farther than he was, but you were still a normal person.

“I need to find them,” he spoke up.

“Why?” you cocked your eyebrow, soda straw still in your mouth. You had been studying his face to find any tell of malintent but the only conclusion you were drawing was that he was handsome as hell, and really good at hiding his tells.

“You don’t need to know.” he retorted. You hummed with discontent.

“See, Mr. Barnes. My job is to protect and serve. Sadly, that includes assholes.” You put down the now empty soda cup and leaned forward to match his position. “And you’ve said enough for me to arrest you under suspicion of planning to commit a crime against said assholes.” His glare hardened and his jaw tightened as he stared you down. “So please answer the question, ideally in a non-incriminating way.”

He looked and huffed, sliding back a little before fixing you with his stare again, but it wasn’t long until he was looking from his hands to the window, seemingly in defeat. “Their boss is dangerous. And I’m the one that made it so.” He forced a bitter smile finally looking back at you. “I’m trying to right as many wrongs as I can but I can’t find this guy but you.” he punctuated by pointing at you with his joined hands. You caught a glint of something metal up his sleeve that you suspect was his arm. “You came very, very close. Apparently, Closer than I thought you did.”

You mulled it over in your head for a moment before reaching into your breast pocket and pulling out your notepad. “Look, I don’t know what to tell you, Mr. Barnes” You looked over the restaurant between bouts of writing, talking all the while in case people were listening. “The case is closed and the records are public so everything you know is everything I know.” You quietly ripped off the piece of paper and pocketed the notebook, picking up your trash to disguise it. He took the hint and hid the paper by putting his hands down and sliding back in the booth, seemingly in defeat. “Good night, Mr. Barnes.” you said, and walked away, depositing your trash on your way out.

Bucky sat their a moment to give you a head start before stepping out himself, piece of paper in hand. As he walked home he opened the paper.

Tomorrow Seneca Village 23:35

Bucky stood in front of the plaque, mind too busy working through every horrible thing that could happen from this little stunt. He was about to run when he heard your voice. “Hey there.”

You walked over and stood next to him, stoically in your repose. You were wearing a pair of jeans and heeled boots with a fashionable jacket and a suitcase in hand. “I don't know which of us is stupider right now.”

“You could have picked a better meeting spot.” Bucky retorted, shifting uncomfortably.

“It’s horrifying,” you commented, putting the case down, Reading over the plaque. “Over two hundred lives ruined by a couple of assholes who wanted a park. Reminds me of another couple of assholes.”

“Yeah?” Bucky replied. You stood there a moment longer, thinking if you could still go back. You bit your tongue and decided having faith was the better bet.

“Burn it when you’re done.” you shot back and walked past him.

Bucky noticed the case just outside his line of vision. He picked it up and walked away from the plaque, trying to remain as inconspicuous as possible despite the case not really matching his attire.

You didn’t hear anything for a couple weeks after the impromptu meeting, having handed over every piece of evidence that had been sitting in your self storage since 2015. Each minute was spent biting your nails with stress, hoping your actions didn’t come back to bite you in the ass. Then the news came on, publicizing that Robert Bern and Josh Smith had been arrested ‘after it was discovered they were connected to a human trafficking ring in New Jersey and a former operation in Staten Island.’

“Looks like somebody did your job for you.”

“Shut up, Louis.” you quip back at him, nursing a terrible cup of coffee. The restaurant was near empty aside from yourself, Louis, a trio of loud drunk women in the corner and a homeless man who had scraped cents together to buy a slice of pizza. The TV above the kitchen archway providing most of the ambiance.

“What’s got you in a mood?” he asked as he cleaned.

“Ever been ditched on a blind date? I get all dolled up,” you opened your coat to show a figure hugging dress with a low neckline, coupled with an elegant necklace. “And the asshole texts me when I’m already at the lounge saying he needs a fucking rain check.”

“Okay, well he’s an ass-”

“Right!” you exclaim.

“But you need to stop scowling before you scare off my customers.” Louis playfully chided.

“Oh, cause there’s so many of them.” you waved a hand out at the restaurant to emphasize your point. Still you leaned over your coffee to stew in your own misery. You couldn’t hear the door open over the women’s third rendition of ‘I’m every woman’ but you noticed someone slide onto the bar stool next to you. You turned your head to see Bucky looking back.

“Have I seen you here before?” Bucky said playfully.

You chuckled involuntarily and sat up on your stool. “You must be mistaking me with someone else.”

He swiveled on the stool to face you fully, leaning on the counter comfortably. “You sure?” he seemed to be playing with you, a sly smirk on his face. “Could’ve sworn I met this detective lady here who looked a lot like you.”

“Was she pretty?” You pressed, a smile now sneaking it’s way onto your face without you knowing.

Bucky looked in your eyes with a soft sincerity. “Incredibly,”

You laughed nervously as you looked away and into the pool of your coffee. “Was that before or after she helped you with your job.” You deflected.

“About that,” Bucky leaned onto the counter. He was still quiet good at hiding his tells but you got the impression he was nervous by the pause. “You gave me more than I needed so I was able to do better than I planned. I know how hard it can be to trust someone. I'm not sure how to thank you for that.”

“Take her on a date!” Louis yelled from the kitchen, looking at you two through the serving window. “She’s already all ‘dolled up’” Louis mocked you.

“Keep cleaning!” you shot back. “Ignore him. He’s just dripping with sympathy since I got ditched.”

“I mean,” Bucky started, you looked over and saw him staring at his hands with nerves as his thumbs tapped against each other. “I just wouldn’t know where to take you.” he admitted under his breath.

A question instantly plagued your mind and it demanded to be asked. “Have you not...since nineteen-fifty?”

Bucky nodded with pursed lips. “You can laugh.”

You smiled at the super soldier. “Right,” you announced, pushing yourself off the stool. “Come on, I know a great dive three down.”

“A dive?” Bucky asked in disbelief, but he was still smiling.

“Yep. Where they don’t give a shit who you are as long as you're buying.” You fixed your jacket with new found enthusiasm. “You are buying, right?”

“For a doll like you,” He stood up from the stool. “I’ll buy the bar.” he held the door as you both left the little pizzeria

“Oh honey, there’s nothing like me.” you said playfully as you stepped out the door.

“Then I must be the luckiest man in the world,” he flirted, offering you his arm. You slide your hand in, curling your wrist around his bicep and off you both went.

#bucky barnes #james bucky barnes #james buchanan barnes #tfatws #tftws #reader x bucky #bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #james barnes #reader x bucky barnes #fem!reader #fem!reader x bucky barnes #bucky barnes x fem!reader #remale reader #reader insert #mcu reader insert #mcu bucky #mcu bucky barnes

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aces-to-apples · 3 years ago

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C, D, I, L and M for star wars if that’s ok! :)

C - A ship you have never liked and probably never will.

Honestly I've just never been the target audience for f/f pairings, so stuff like Barrisoka probably? Totally cool, just not my wheelhouse.

Edit: I just remember Asajj ships exist and also ObiMaul! Iyam also not the target audience for those, although the latter is extremely funny because I like them separately and with other people, I just can't get it to click in my brain.

D - A pairing you wish you liked but just can’t.

Oh that's a tough one. Uhhhhh. Oh! Ships with Quinlan are often something I've never really connected with. I don't know the guy besides I think that one episode (arc?) with Ziro the Hutt, but I swear everything with him in it doesn't really give him a personality besides "dude who probably smokes weed and flirts" and like. Who am I to say "flesh out that minor character in your fanfictions that are for fun and neither homework nor profit" but I still can't be bothered because I have no emotional connection to him even as a jumping off point. (And that's ignoring that I think everything I've ever seen about him in Legends suffers from being, you know, A Star War, so I just accept him as a one-off character I barely remember in a TV show I don't even really like.)

Edit: Per the last question's edit: I wish I could get into ObiMaul because I have a couple friends who are into it and there's a bunch of really interesting content for it, my brain just doesn't vibe.

I - Has Tumblr caused you to stop liking any fandoms, if so, which and why?

Yeah I used to be into Teen Wolf on another blog, er, many years ago now, but there were some assholes who were assholes to a friend of mine and that ended up turning me off the fandom. Also I was very into Voltron after the first couple seasons dropped—dark times, I know—but, well. I think we all know how that went. I actually never got more than a couple (or maybe just one?) episodes into I think season 3 (whichever one introduced the Galra twink??) and then after that it um. Was all just terrible, so I cut my losses. I was also into Fantastic Beasts (Despite The Warning Signs) after the first movie dropped and then dipped after Assholes Being Assholes, but that was on discord more than tumblr. Other than that, I donut recall.

L - Say something genuinely nice about a character who isn’t one of your faves. (Characters you’re neutral about are fair game, as are characters you merely dislike. Characters that you absolutely loathe with the fire of ten thousand suns are exempt, as there is no point in giving yourself an aneurysm over a character that you hate.)

Ahsoka is a good addition to the Star Wars mythos, actually. (Same for all the other survivors of the Jedi Purge that continuously pop up because, you know, that's literally how it goes with genocides.) She creates more layers of intergenerational trauma to the Disaster Lineage, helps contextualize where the Jedi we know and the Order as a whole are mentally and emotionally by the end of the war as compared to the start, adds yet another facet of inevitable fucking tragedy to Anakin's dark side-fueled break with reality, has a cool character design, and becomes an intriguing and engaging character in her own right. She's a valuable and worthwhile addition and I appreciate her creation and inclusion.

M - Name a character that you’d like to have for a friend.

Every single person in the Star Wars universe is a disaster and a half who's probably committed crimes against humanity in the background (or foreground!) of at least one Clone Wars arc. They all need incredible amounts of therapy and couldn't maintain a healthy relationship if their lives literally depended on it, and sometimes they literally do and thus my point is proven.

........Darth Maul.

#ask meme #anon asks #answered asks #by apples #listen me being 'friends' with maul would inevitably (and probably quickly) end in my probably humiliating death #but assuming i'm in the gffa then i'm already screwed to start with so i may as well have fun with it!#and sure the 'friendship' is probably hilariously blatant attempts at manipulation and therefore a ticking timebomb BUT!#i would simply take advantage of that in the time that i had to ask a bunch of weird personal questions #and also tell him that whoever raised him was a child-abusing D I C K and he deserved better #also does he eat food because i made banana bread does he want some banana bread it has chocolate chips in it TWO kinds even

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the-cat-chat · 3 years ago

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April 16, 2022

Willard (1971)

A social misfit uses his only friends, his pet rats, to exact revenge on his tormentors.

JayBell: If everyone had an army of rodents to do their bidding, the world would be a much different place. And I’d argue, a much happier place.

Willard is an endearing, awkward character, and he’s perhaps even more relatable today than ever before. All he has is an asshole boss, a disapproving mother, and no friends—until he meets his rat pack. The only person who isn’t trying to take advantage of him is his nice coworker, Joan, who is such a sweetheart. Poor Joan. She must be terribly confused by how everything unfolded in the end.

If you’ve ever dreamed of setting a bunch of rodents on your evil boss, you’d probably get along with Willard. The boss was so despicable I couldn’t wait for the rats to eat his face, which might be my ultimate issue with this movie. The movie does a great job at building stressors for Willard’s character, but the entire time you’re just waiting for it to happen. The film is classified as a horror movie, but I’d argue it’s more of a character study of Willard that happens to contain one slightly horrific moment in the final ten minutes of the movie. The horror elements are definitely watered down due to its PG rating.

It’s easy to root for Willard’s character, even when he commits murder. However, I was surprised by his treatment of the rats after the crime has been committed. I assume this was a purposeful choice so that the viewer’s allegiance can switch from Willard to the rats in the conclusion of the movie, making Willard’s fate easier to come to terms with. In the end, I found myself frustrated with Willard more than anything.

And Willard, stop yelling at your rats to stop fornicating! They’re rats! You’re a grown ass man who put like a thousand rats in an enclosed space and thought they’d practice safe sex.

Rating: 5/10 cats 🐈‍

Anzie: Sooo I thought this movie was going to be nuts, but in a good way…like haha so funny this guy goes crazy and has rats as henchmen. What I can say is the rats deserved better maniac than Willard.

At the start it’s easy to sympathize with Willard, his boss is a JERK (no denying that), his mom and all her friends are a bit much, and he’s kinda a dork in that sort of endearing way that make you think- aw he’s gonna be friends with the rat family in the garden that his mom wanted him to kill.

But as the movie progresses you see what Willard really is… a spineless man child that literally doesn’t do anything…like really what does he do other than move the clock hand repeatedly (what mind game is that) and play favorites towards Socrates and make Ben feel like the ugly step-child. Lot of good it did Socrates.

I should clarify, I love rats, I’ve had three as pets, so to watch this “horror” film with rats as as the villain?? (totally not even debatable that it’s everyone else but the rats) I thought it would be entertaining but kinda left me just mad. And Ben was entirely justified in his actions, and in fact should be awarded a Medal of Honor for his bravery.

🐀 Highlights 🐀

The line, “he’s basically an extrovert, it’s just all on the inside,” and Ben’s very well crafted Death Glare.

Rating: Generously 5/10 Rats 🐀

#movie #movie review #film #film review #horror #rats #1970s movies

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jebazzled · 4 years ago

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They can’t ALL be serial killers: keeping your villains funky fresh

Ah, villains. Spicy assholes. Tricky buggers.

Villains can be very intimidating to write: writing requires you to put yourself in the shoes of another person, which is one thing to do with a decent person. But when you are putting yourselves in the shoes of a bad one - whether it be someone who is simply not very likeable or someone who functions in an antagonistic capacity to a story or rp universe’s hero - well, it can be uncomfortable.

I didn’t start writing villains until well into my rp career, and I can’t think of a single character I wrote in my undergraduate creative writing degree who was an asshole. I now write a small handful of them - and like most things, I don’t think writing a villain is quite as scary as we sometimes build it up to be in our minds!

That said, writing a villain is an exercise in nuance, and this is something that is often missing from antagonistic characters. In this tutorial, we’ll talk about what makes a villain, and what makes a villain a well-rounded character.

Triggers, mentioned largely in passing as examples: criminal activity, murder, assault, child abuse, car accident, drunk driving, animal abuse

What makes a villain?

Generally, when we talk about villains, it’s in the context of a narrative, some sort of overall plot theme where there is Good and there is Evil. Think: Death Eaters, the Dark Side, the Horde, the Daleks, the Orcs, etc, etc etc. For the purposes of this tutorial, I’m talking about characters who serve in that antagonistic role, but everything can also be applied to characters who are just shitty people without a part to play in any larger scheme.

In a plot context, per Oxford Languages, a villain is “a character whose evil actions or motives are important to the plot.” To be important to the plot, you do have to post, and if that’s something you’re struggling with, you might want to check out my Writer’s Block TED Talk ;)

A villain can have any number of reasons for being Like That: perhaps they were raised with a particular worldview, or were targeted by a negative influence at an impressionable and vulnerable stage, or genuinely believe they are doing the right and good thing. Maybe they’re just an asshole. In-character, your character likely doesn’t identify as a villain (because everyone is the hero of their own story) and in-character, your character might have friends, allies, and others with varying knowledge of your character’s misdeeds.

However, out-of-character, you and other writers should recognize that your character is a shitty person. Writing one-dimensional, universally terrible assholes isn’t much fun, though. Which is where nuance comes in.

Give your character other traits than “evil.”

Unless your character is THE Big Bad - the Voldemort, the Sauron, the Hordak Prime - there is no reason for them to be Ultimate Evil, and writing them as an endless wash of evil will be boring for you to write and boring for other people to read. Your character should be something other than naughty.

Using my own handful of villains/bad guys as examples, since obviously I take my own advice, and with apologies that 99% of my rp writing is in the HP verse:

Claude is a Death Eater as well as second-in-command of the magical mafia. He’s an expert blackmailer, has no qualms with murder, and can get pretty gruesome about it if he’s pressed to make a point. He also doesn’t drink, is a devoted father (has framed finger paintings in his study! drinks the pink lemonade his daughters love in crystal rocks glasses!), uses weird slang (”beat it, bozo!”) and takes the family spaniel on daily walks through Kensington Gardens.

Cleo is a Death Eater and a lifelong bully, prone to theft, physical abuse, and with a knack for the Cruciatus Curse. She’s also deeply insecure, with an unshakeable need to be seen as useful; she’s competitive, and she’s horny enough to drop her purist pretense if a Muggle girl is what’s easiest to get her rocks off.

Sadie is a squib spying on Order-organized safehouses for the Death Eaters. She’s also intensely curious and ambitious, determined and self-directed, and if she doesn’t understand emotions, it certainly doesn’t stop her from understanding how to manipulate them to maintain the illusion that she is not a threat.

All three of these character concepts are more compelling than:

Veronica is rude, hates people, is outwardly mean to everyone she meets, uses cultural slurs on the regular.

We get it! Veronica is a shitty person! What else is she? In real life, shitty people typically do find camaraderie somewhere, somehow. Maybe Richie is a total asshole but has made a lot of money from his hedge fund, and he is generous enough with his yacht, ski condo, and jet that he has an entourage he thinks are genuinely his friends. Maybe Kaiytlynn is selfish and entitled, but her access to the entire royal family of Spain keeps her gainfully employed, and she’s genuinely good with her bedazzled bra business. Maybe Claudia is a giant racist, and she’s also YouTube’s most popular craft video creator.

In real life, maybe there are some shitty people who exhibit fully antisocial behaviors and are rewarded for it. But this is fiction writing, and moreover, it is collaborative fiction writing, and Veronica is not a character who is fun or enjoyable to plot with. Antagonistic plots can have more trouble finding their footing than strictly romantic ones - but they can be fun and rewarding, provided that the antagonist is a compelling one.

Let your character be something other than “evil.”

Give your character a cover.

More specifically than a trait other than “evil,” give your character a cover. By this I mean: give your character an angle that obscures their true colors, something that lures people - good people and bad people - into a sense of safety.

Give your character something that keeps other characters from taking one quick look at yours and immediately clocking them as a bad guy.

In real life, it often takes time to realize toxic people are toxic. In real life, people enjoy circumstances that make people less likely to view them as toxic - just look at the number of people who think Jeff Bezos’s obscene wealth is a marker of his merit as a human being.

If your character commits a murder a week, is actively abusive to everyone they meet, and has no relationships with any other characters who might vouch for them - idk, man, I think your character is going to get caught! If your character is a quiet and unobtrusive owner of a vintage boutique, however? Well, they certainly don’t scream “IT’S ME! I’M BAD TO THE MOTHERFUCKING BONE!”

In the case of my bad guys:

Claude is a doting husband and father, notably not ascribing to purist tendencies that discourage women from work outside the home. He does legitimate work in real estate and investments, in addition to his shady dealings, to have a legally-sound paper trail should he ever be investigated. His family money funds an entire wing at St. Mungo’s Hospital, and he contributes to political campaigns for centrist politicians. He presents as a harmless goofball. He killed a man well before he turned seventeen. He almost went to Azkaban before graduating from Hogwarts. (”Oh, but he’s on the straight and narrow now!”)

Claude’s cover is that he masquerades as a genuinely good person, and a nice person. When people think about his old-money Sacred 28 family and what that might mean for Claude’s political activity, they also think about how he is a Gryffindor - not known for churning out Death Eaters - and they think about how he doesn’t seem intense enough to be a Death Eater. They don’t suspect enough to have much to go on.

Cleo works as an Auror, and she’s genuinely good at her job - if only because she manipulates cases away from incriminating Death Eaters and their allies and occasionally Imperiuses a contact or two from her days as a Knockturn Alley bouncer to frame them for a crime. She doesn’t use slurs like “mudblood” at the office and doesn’t talk about blood status there, either. She doesn’t pretend to be nice, and her honesty there makes it easier to believe she’s not pretending when she does her job. It helps, too, that she is not Marked.

Cleo’s cover is that while she seems like an asshole and is an asshole, she works in the agency tasked with eliminating Dark wizards and she’s good at her job, as far as anyone can tell. She is an asshole, but there isn’t reason to suspect she is an asshole who is part of the Death Eaters, and it is not illegal to be a dick.

Sadie goes out of her way to be friendly to every new safehouse occupant, acting as a guide to newbies about how to live in the shadows. She performs the role of caretaker, therapist, and confidant, carefully doling out the reveal that she is a squib for sympathetic effect.

Sadie’s cover is that she manipulates other people into viewing her as too weak to be any kind of threat, and she intentionally manipulates people into relying on her for support and guidance.

If your character is not experiencing social repercussions for being an asshole, they need to have a cover. If they are being an outright asshole, this should negatively impact them somehow.

An outright asshole might be stuck in a dead-end job because no one wants to promote someone who’s not a team player. An outright asshole might be super lonely without the self-awareness to realize that their garbage personality is the reason for their romantic troubles. An outright asshole might not be able to talk their way out of a problem.

If your character is an outright asshole and experience no repercussions whatsoever, they’re probably a bit OP.

Give your character a motive.

Now the big question: why is your character Like That? Like, for real. It’s so easy not to be a dick. Why are they a dick? What’s in it for them?

Yes, some characters might be an asshole because they think it’s fun and they like to watch other people suffer. But if all your characters are like that - isn’t that kind of boring?

If all your characters are like that - are you actually writing distinct, well-developed characters, or are you just spitting out the same edgelord with different faces?

Some of your character’s reason for being a dick can be because they think it’s fun. It can’t be the entire reason. It especially can’t be the entire reason all the time.

Of course you can come up with a big tragic reason why a character is an asshole - but it truly doesn’t have to be that deep. (Tips on tragic backstories here.)

Of my baddies:

Claude is a purist because someone has to be a lesser class, and it’s sure as shit not going to be him! Claude is a Death Eater because his father saw a business opportunity - both direct work (e.g. the DE contracting Claude and his goons out for a hit, trafficking dark goods, doing deals with purist groups in other magical organized crime outfits across Europe) and indirect work (e.g. having stronger appeal to some of the most influential wizarding families.) He doesn’t love being branded with the Dark Mark (HE is the master of his fate, goddammit!) but hey, it’s a living.

This is a motive centered around financial gain and expediency. Claude is shitty to value money over human life, and he has no qualms about violence - but the motive is not “fun.”

Cleo is a Death Eater because, as a girl from a pureblood family of no importance, she recognizes that many of the people in the Death Eaters are important and influential, and she wants that kind of power. Additionally, she does get a kick out of violence, but she’s a weapon more than she is a fighter: she’s a tool who needs someone to wield her, to give instructions, to give her purpose. The Death Eaters offer both.

This is a motive centered around status and around order - Cleo being a person who needs order externally forced upon her.

Sadie is working for the Death Eaters because she believes they will win the First Wizarding War, and she wants to secure a place in their new order - ideally something more than she had previously as a squib. She figures if the good guys are really good they’ll forgive her for keeping herself alive - but that the bad guys won’t forgive disloyalty. Also, her boss in the Death Eaters indulges her research in the Dark Arts, which is fun.

This is a motive centered around security and self-satisfaction. It’s very selfish and cold, but it’s not, like, Sid from Toy Story.

Why is your character Like That? What do they get out of Being Bad? What do they like about it? What purpose does it serve for them?

If you can’t think of a reason your character would be a Bad Guy beyond that you want to write a Bad Guy, you should probably rework the character. It’s tricky to write someone who really should just be a Good Guy as a Bad Guy because, depending on your site’s setting, you might end up being a Bad Guy Apologist, leaning into the positive qualities of your character without writing them as an actual villain/antagonist/baddie - and remember, Death Eaters are shitty people! Antagonists antagonize! They should be complex, but you should never lose sight of an abusive class being abusive!

And finally,

They can’t all be serial killers.

It’s tempting, since we’re writing fiction here and we all love drama, to reach straight for a Big Evil when we’re writing a baddie. They murdered ___! Egads!

If all of your baddies murdered their spouse/parent/sibling, again I ask you: are you actually writing distinct, well-developed characters, or are you just spitting out the same edgelord with different faces?

(If all your baddies specifically murdered a woman, might I ask you to examine this choice? Misogynistic violence is not a shortcut to character development.)

Cast of characters aside - what is it your character does that makes them evil? It is worth noting that bad behavior exists on a spectrum, and to jump to the far end of that spectrum without building the character up to it is often jarring and confusing. There are many, many things your character can do that might contribute to their Bad IdentityTM without killing anyone!

Baby Bads: No one gets hurt in a serious way, but the character is unpleasant. Think: a schoolteacher might not let you go to recess. You might get detention. Examples:

petty theft

general assholery

bullying

lying, small & large scale

general unkindness

minor manipulation for personal gain

Middling Misdeeds: These might cause some harm - physically, emotionally, or otherwise - but there’s some room for smart-talking or otherwise evading major consequences. Think: suspension. Examples:

larger theft and other money-related naughties: money laundering, ponzi schemes, etc

physical assault/battery

blackmail

bribery

large-scale manipulation for personal gain or for fun

hate speech (to be clear, I, JB, think this is way more than middling, but in art as in life, a lot of characters are going to do it and get away with it.)

Terrible Transgressions: The far end of the spectrum of antagonistic behavior. If your character is doing this shit, it shouldn’t be coming out of the blue. If your character is doing this shit, there’s got to be a character-driven reason beyond “flavor.” These are things that would get you expelled and moved into criminal court. A lot of things that are viewed as standard topics requiring a trigger warning fit into this category.

murder

sexual assault

torture

child abuse

It’s easy in rp, where there are often way more criminal types in a character population than we hope exist IRL, to forget that murder is.... like.... it’s a BIG DEAL. It’s not something everyone has done. And thank dog, right?

If you’re attached to your character being someone’s cause of death, for specific character-driven reasons, you might think about alternatives. For example, if you hope to convey that Brandon Baddie is a callous asshole, instead of having him kill his roommate over a household chores dispute, you might have him drive drunk, hit a pedestrian, get out of the car, see the body, and drive away. If you hope to convey that Sandy Sadist is cruel, you might have her threaten her sister’s dog, but not actually hurt it, enjoying the fear of the sister and of the dog more than she would enjoy actually hurting either. If you hope to communicate that Ruthie Reckless is thoughtless, you might have her driving 100 mph speeding to the edge of a cliff while her father sobs in the passenger seat, stopping just inches from the edge.

There are so many ways to make a point. If you’re going to kill someone to make a point, do it sparingly, and with very deliberate purpose.

Whether you’re starting your first villain or hoping to hone your villainous sword, I hope you found this tut helpful! Best of luck, and happy writing!

#rp guides #resources #rp writing #writing resources #applications #character development

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annikasafternoonread · 4 years ago

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So. That’s The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. Thoughts. I have them. This is going to be a long one, folks, so buckle in.

I guess my overall report would be... better than expected. That might sound like faint praise, but I had serious reservations coming into this book. I think a lot of people were concerned when it was first announced. And I certainly think those reactions were warranted and valid and I don’t regret them -- this book could have been a mess.

It wasn’t. It didn’t try to rehabilitate Snow, didn’t try to make him relatable or sympathetic or misunderstood or a victim. It didn’t do any of that. Snow was a privileged, bigoted, ignorant, self-centered asshole with a superiority complex the size of a planet. Collins got that much right at least. We can see some of the forces that conspired to make him that way, but they don’t make him any less of a terrible person who did terrible things for terrible reasons.

But. That kind of character... is not the most fun to read, honestly. I don’t love spending this much time reading a book that just makes me angry. I don’t love spending this much time with a person I hate. I think I’m glad I read it, to know more what it was and to gain some interesting context about the world, but I don’t think I’d read it again. And I don’t know that I’d recommend it. If I did, it would come with some heavy caveats on there.

So that’s my overall impression: better than expected, worth reading once and no more. On to some more specific hot takes.

So first off, Lucy Gray. I love her in a lot of ways, but she also confused me and I was a little disappointed by other aspects. She’s fun and talented and sweet, but girl what the fuck do you see in Snow he’s a shithead I mean less of a shithead to you, at least compared to the rest of the Capitol, and he did sort of save her life so like Florence Nightingale Syndrome or whatever, but ugh. Gross. I really really really wanted her to be playing him. And I’m not entirely sure she’s not.

As she says when talking about Billy Taupe being a possessive jealous asshole, flirting with people is part of the job description when you’re a performer and entertainer. It’s what she does. It’s what she’s always done. It’s what’s kept her alive for years, being charming and sweet and desirable and making people love her. And now in the Games, she’s relying on Snow to keep her alive. So the more he wants to keep her alive, the better. And if he’s in love with her, and thinks that she’s in love with him, then he’ll be very invested in keeping her alive. As Snow notes at the end, she killed quite a few people, in ways that could have been self-preservation or happenstance or mercy, but could also have been calculated as fuck. It’s hard to say.

I can’t tell you how much I hoped that she’d be cool towards him after the Games, that it would have been all for show and Snow would run back to the barracks with his tail between his legs. She didn’t, which is a big part of why I don’t think she was playing him. Her joy, her kisses, her invitations to spend time together, her song, it doesn’t seem like a lie. But on the other hand, maybe thumbing her nose at a Peacekeeper and Capitol high muckity-muck wouldn’t have been a smart move. Maybe having a Peacekeeper on your side, and someone with Capitol connections, would have been very handy. After all, he kept bringing them ice and baked goods and such. If they could keep him close, he might stand up for them if the Peacekeepers wanted to ban them (which they eventually did a few months later, so the Covey probably knew it was a possibility). He might or warn them if something bad was coming.

The thing that swung me back to “maybe” is how fast she went from “let’s run away to the woods together and be free” to “I’m gonna sic a snake on this motherfucker.” Like, yes he deserved that, but he always deserved it. That’s a hell of a swing for a few hours. Was it just realizing he might have sold out Sejanus that swung her opinion? Was there something else instead or as well? Did that push her to make new connections, or finally tip over the pile of reservations she’d been ignoring? Maybe. But it just seems... like it might have been more than that. Like maybe she was planning to ditch him anyways, though I can’t imagine why. Idk, the theory doesn’t hold together terribly well, but neither does Lucy Gray’s infatuation with another shitty possessive abusive man. Or maybe that’s just patterns.

The question of what happened to Lucy Gray honestly doesn’t interest me that much. I’m sure there’s plenty of speculation and opinions and headcanons about whether she returned to District 12 or escaped to the wilds or died there in the woods, but frankly I don’t care. Oh, I hope she lived, but it’s not relevant. There isn’t an answer, so I’m not terribly interested in figuring it out.

What I do find interesting is Dean Highbottom. He’s a very ironic character, in my opinion. He tells us at the end that he thought up the Hunger Games in a class assignment “to create a punishment for one’s enemies so extreme that they would never be allowed to forget how they had wronged you.” He didn’t actually want the Hunger Games to be real or think they ever could be, and he felt terrible about even submitting the assignment (against his will). He turned to drugs when the proposal was brought forward and became real, because he was so horrified. He didn’t believe in that kind of vengeance, didn’t want to keep that hatred alive. He didn’t think that was what humanity was or should be.

And yet. His response to Papa Snow’s betrayal in submitting an assignment about punishing innocent children for a crime they didn’t commit was to punish Snow for a crime he didn’t commit. So maybe he’s wrong about humans, or at least about himself.

I don’t think Dr. Gaul is right about human nature being inherently evil and violent and selfish, though. Put us in the right circumstances and maybe, sure, but we don’t have to be in those circumstances. She’s so caught up in the eternal war, and obviously you can’t stop a war if you believe it’s still going. And maybe eventually if you’re not hardass there’ll be another one, but maybe there won’t! And goodness knows being hardass didn’t stop the next war! It’s impossible to say for sure that if the Capitol/all of Panem had been more fair and just and kind, the next war wouldn’t have been sooner, but it’s also impossible to say that it wouldn’t have been later, or never. That seems worth fighting for. Dr. Gaul terrifies me, obviously, but she also kind of just makes me sad. What a depressing worldview. She doesn’t see it that way, I’m sure, just sees it as a challenge and a game, but it is sad.

The rest of my thoughts are less expansive, so let’s just bullet point them:

Propaganda works terrifyingly well. Be careful of your internalized biases and the messaging being fed to you.

The effects of pride and honour and position are wild. Snow was simultaneously crushed and elevated by them, as was Sejanus.

Speaking of Sejanus, he deserved better. I love my son.

The fuck was up with Clemensia? They never really resolved that. Is she actually okay? Did her skin grow back? How the hell did that happen? Could she have turned into a snake? Why was she so cutting and mean and unlike herself? Was Gaul controlling her somehow? Why did they refuse to tell her parents anything? But also how could she manage to escape from her room to sneak in on Snow? What the fuck?

I love the full circle of a Mockingjay bringing Snow up, as Lucy Gray’s voice and fame helped him to rise and bloom, to gain Dr. Gaul’s favor and the Plinths’ money, pulling him out of his , and then a Mockingjay tearing him down, when he crossed Katniss and put her family in danger and she decided he had to die.

This was a fucking essay, which I feel a little bad about, but I had a lot of thoughts and feelings okay? XD For anyone who actually read this whole thing, you are a saint, you deserve several cookies, I don’t have a way to give you any so here is instead a picture of my kitten using TBOSAS as a pillow.

Have a good day! See you soon for Mockingjay Part 2.

#annika reads #Suzanne Collins #The Hunger Games trilogy #The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes #book outro #bookshelf

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ramblings-of-a-mad-cat · 4 years ago

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okay so i just finished season 8, i can see why people didn’t like it but personally i really did. i feel like the thing people are mad about the most is that dany became a tyrant? watching the series knowing everyone’s endings allowed me to see things that most people probably wouldn’t catch on to. one thing is that arya’s end shot mimics the shot of her sailing to braavos at the end of season 4(i think it was season 4). also that danny’s speech to the dothraki, at the end, and her speeches to the unsullied,,, when paired with her actions(and with what tyrion said about how she kills evil men and we cheer her on i admit i did this too, but those cheers allow her to believe that she is always right and that makes her dangerous) it reminds me a lot of speeches dictators used. “you’re freeing the world” “we’re doing a great good” idk,, i like dany but i get annoyed when people say the signs weren’t there from the start, when they absolutely were. i do think that she could have been great, but people put to much faith in her which made her set extremely high expectations for herself and how people would treat her. and that ultimately led to her downfall. in short, i liked season 8. i like jon going north at the end, i like arya going off to explore, i really like sansa being queen, bran being king is eh but i like it overall. brienne writing jaime into the book of the kingsguard did made me cry, but i like that pod got knighted and i think brienne would have done something like that. even though he broke her heart.

My biggest issue with Season 8 is clear in my head, but difficult to describe with words.

Everyone seems to have at least one major plot point that hated to the point of feeling like it ruined the show. Jaime going back to Cersei, Arya killing the Night King, the Clegane Bowl, Sansa’s betrayal, the “R + L = J” storyline not amounting to much/the overall path of Jon’s character. And of course, Dany’s conclusion is a big one for most people. I don’t really have anything like that. (Okay that’s a lie, mine is the Grand Council scene. Fuck that scene in fifty different ways.) I suppose what makes Season 8 the “worst” season for a lot of people is that things just feel different. The writing feels different, the characters feel different, the storylines...it all feels just a bit “off.” I’m not even saying that it’s bad-different, but it isn’t good-different either. In hindsight, the fact that the writers were rushing through GOT to get to Star Wars...yeah, I can believe that.

But there’s a lot to like about Season 8 as well. Several things are carried over directly from Season 7 (which I’ll admit, is my favorite season) in particular, the first three episodes of S8 almost feel like the missing final three episodes of S7. I personally have no issue with Arya killing the Night King. While I did love the echoing of her boarding that ship like she did at the end of S4, and it totally feels like something she would do....I dunno, the line “A girl is Arya Stark from Winterfell. And I’m going home.” just really stuck with me, and I kinda thought she was over all that and just wanted to be with her family. I also have no issue with Sansa becoming Queen in The North. Like, what else was going to happen? Of course she would take up the mantle. Even if she wasn’t ready, who else was left? That said, she was ready and she damn well proved it in the final seasons. Sansa stood up for her people time and again. That was like, the entire reason for her conflict with Dany apart from overprotective sister instincts activating.

But, speaking of Dany...this is something that I always hesitate to talk about, but suffice it to say that I agree with you 100%. Of all the things in Season 8 that bothered me, I kinda saw this coming. Sure, I wish to hell and back that they hadn’t gone this direction, but it’s not even close to being as big a turnaround as Jaime had. I think a lot of fans identify with Dany and have latched onto her for that reason, and she’s a fantastic character to latch onto. But I’d be lying if I said that the signs weren’t there. She always did whatever the hell she wanted, and got away with it by the authority of “I have dragons.” This wasn’t just in the later seasons either. Remember the time she threatened to violate guest right because “My dragons made no such promise?” Tyrion’s speech to Jon in S8E6 was totally him being a loudspeaker for the writers, trying to convince the audience that this made sense...but it’s not like anything he said wasn’t true. As a Jon/Dany shipper, as someone who was rooting for either, or both of them, to wind up on the Iron Throne, as someone who unironically loved Dany’s character...yeah, it broke me. But it could have been worse. Some Dany stans hate Jon for killing her but seriously...at that point, what the hell was he supposed to do? She threatened Winterfell, and his sisters. Plus, y’know, she had murdered most of the population of King’s Landing. She had to be stopped, and Jon was the only one who stood a chance of getting close enough. He clearly hated having to do it, and he got a life sentence for it. So can’t we leave the poor guy alone? He’s suffered enough...

Jaime’s ending...is just depressing, and Brienne did not deserve that. I don’t hate Jaime for it, nor do I feel like it completely reversed all of the growth in his character. But it did yank his storyline in a total 180, and that can absolutely be utilized to tragic effect. The fact is, Jaime didn’t revert to being the asshole he was in Season 1. He simply resigned himself to the inevitability that he would always be that person. That because he still loved someone as wicked as Cersei, and had committed such crimes for her, that he would always be that person and there was no escaping it. The idea of becoming a better person was simply not something he would ever be allowed. This, my good friend, is 100% a symptom of abuse. Jaime and Cersei’s relationship is toxic as hell, not because of the whole twin thing, but because she is an abuser who brings out the worst in him. If Jaime had to die, I wish it had gone a different way. I can respect the full circle, but this is just so not the ending I wanted for him. And hell, seeing him cradle Cersei in his arms, seeing her sob about how she doesn’t want their baby to die...damn it, the character who’s death I was most expecting to cheer at, and I can’t even properly enjoy it. But it was a beautiful death scene, I’ll give them that, and seeing Tyrion’s reaction to finding the golden hand? Kill me now.

The less that is said about the talking computer pretending to be Bran, the better. I won’t go into my spiel about why this enrages me because we’d be here forever, but I’ll just say that it actually made my knuckles whiten when they had the nerve to play House Stark’s theme over his coronation. Why? Why would they do that? It’s not like a Stark is being crowned King. Because, by his own admission, that entity sitting in the chair is not Brandon Stark anymore. He is the Three-Eyed Raven. Bran is effectively dead, and it low-key drives me crazy that everyone, including his family, just carry on as if that wasn’t the case. But I’ll leave it there. “King Bran” was a terrible idea, but I won’t go into the myriad of reasons why.

#Game of Thrones #Game of Thrones Season 8 #GOT Season 8 #Arya Stark #Sansa Stark #Daenerys Targaryen #Jon Snow #Jaime Lannister #The Three Eyed Raven #Brandon Stark

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theredraccoon · 3 years ago

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A Desperate Proposal - Ch 4

Simon never thought that he would be the guy that needed a prenup to get married. That was for rich people with yachts and assholes who didn’t think that marriage meant sharing and compromise. He’d always envisioned something pretty simple: his mom and sister, a chuppah, a ketubah, a person of indeterminate gender underneath it who loved him. Jewish weddings were actually remarkably straightforward.

In sharp contrast to that lovely, hazy vision of a wedding that would now, sadly, never be reality, Simon had been confronted with a stack of paper a solid two inches high, which contained the initial contract that the Shadowhunters had sent over. Simon knew that political weddings were always nightmares and that there was a lot more in that stack than just wedding vows, but holy shit, there were so many details and such a short amount of time to absorb them.

Raphael had explained that the timeline for the marriage contracts had been the first order of business after the initial Alliance had been agreed upon, with Shadowhunters actively pushing for a quick turnaround. The Downworlders had two days to review this first contract and submit changes to the Clave and then the Shadowhunters had an additional two days to respond. After that, each party had only a day to make final small alterations and nothing substantial could be significantly altered. And then on the seventh day, instead of resting, Simon would be getting married.

Sighing, Simon rubbed his forehead and tried to refocus, shifting on the exceedingly cushy chair. It seemed that Magnus had anticipated them sitting down for eight million years during the negotiations and had thought ahead about comfortable seating. Or maybe the chairs in Pandemonium’s conference rooms were always hedonistic; that would definitely be in keeping with Magnus’ personality.

The High Warlock himself seemed to be just as bored as Simon, rings flashing as he covered his face to hide a small yawn, red silk brocade catching the light from the chandelier. Simon felt his lips curl up as he remembered the man’s pout when he, Raphael, their secretary James, and Magnus had entered early that evening and had found the Seelie Queen, Meliorn, and another unnamed Seelie already sitting at the head of a long rectangular table. Magnus had immediately frowned and waved a hand and the table had instantly rearranged itself to be perfectly circular. It gave off a distinct ‘King Arthur and his Knights’ vibe and seemed to piss off the Queen, so it was probably the right move.

By the time everyone had filed in, there were twelve of them around the shiny round table, each contingent sending their leader, their second (usually the one getting married off, like Simon) and a secretary/notary/lawyer-type person whose job it was to sit there and take notes. That’s what Simon had initially thought, anyway, but he was rapidly revising that opinion as he listened to the Seelie secretary argue with the warlock representative about… flowers? The position of Mercury the night of the wedding? Simon had long lost the thread of the conversation. He thought longingly about his imaginary dream wedding, with his sister’s gentle teasing and his mother fluttering around worrying about food. Simon grimaced, now thinking about his future husband’s reaction to the wedding feast including blood. Would they even have dinner afterwards? He couldn't remember. Simon eyed the stack of paper. He thought maybe it had grown in the last hour since he last looked at it.

A sharp slap on the glossy wood stopped the speakers mid-word and made everyone except the three people directly opposite Simon startle.

“Enough. This wedding minutiae is what tomorrow and all the damn lawyers and diplomats are for. We should be talking not about the wedding itself but the marriages and what they actually mean for all of us.” The irritated words came from the strikingly beautiful Black woman that headed the New York pack of werewolves.

Maia Roberts had been the pack leader for the last three years, ever since she’d gotten fed up with the previous alpha and challenged him for control. Apparently he’d been quite the dick. She’d been a positive force since, her no-nonsense attitude smoothing out some of the longstanding hatred between the wolves and the vampires, and some of Simon’s accounting headaches had disappeared when she took over. Turns out when there are fewer fights and fewer things constantly being broken, your expenses went down. Simon might have even tried to make a play for her one day, he was that relieved (and she was that gorgeous) but it was out of the question now.

Anyway... Everyone around the table was alert now, and Simon could see a frightening gleam in the Seelie Queen’s eyes. She was masquerading as an older matriarch today, her flower crown nestled in dark curls piled high on her head and just the hints of lines on her face. Simon thought she looked like she'd walked straight out of Downton Abbey.

"And what do you suggest we talk about then, Ms. Roberts?” The Queen’s tone was curious, her voice rich and smooth and somehow girlish, which was jarring coming from someone who looked a little like a grandmother. The Faerie was a mystery box that Simon had no interest in unpacking.

“Let’s talk about what these alliances will mean in both the present and the future. What are Downworld responsibilities in terms of patrols and helping the Shadowhunters? Right now and after we defeat whatever the fuck is killing them? How many of our people are we going to have to put forward and potentially lose? What is the role of the couples themselves? Are they figureheads? Propped up for all to see with no other real purpose? Or are we actually going to try and see if we can use them to build better relationships with the Shadowhunters?”

Simon was sitting up straight now. Around the table, the other future grooms were also leaning forward. Magnus’ fingers were sparking ever-so-slightly, Meliorn's eyes had actually fully opened where before they’d been hooded, and Luke’s jaw was tight and his shoulders set back.

A bitter laugh came from Magnus’ right, where his second, Lorenzo Rey, sat. Simon hadn’t met him before and honestly, from the look of him, that was probably fine. Where Magnus’ clothes made him seem fun and eccentric and flashy, Lorenzo’s finery just made him seem snooty and ostentatious. He stared at Maia down his long nose and said, “You don’t know your history very well, young wolf. The Clave might be panicking right now but as soon as they get through this crisis, it will be back to the same; we are regulated to the fringes and we are supposed to be eternally grateful for their help. There will be nothing long term that comes from this, no matter what this contract pretends to say.” The sneer was pronounced.

Simon watched Magnus bristle and puff up, probably in defense of his boyfriend, er, fiancé, but he was cut off by an unexpected source. Raphael hadn’t moved a muscle since the contract negotiations had started hours ago, besides a faint twitch when Maia had pounded on the table, but he spoke clearly now. “I disagree. I think the time is ripe for change and that the Lightwoods are actually committed to using this disaster to change the way Shadowhunters interact with the Downworld. Alec Lightwood has shown himself to be an honorable man in my dealings with him. I say that we should discuss what is possible and put it into the contract to return to the Nephilim tomorrow.”

Lorenzo leaned forward and put his hands flat on the table. “Ah, yes. The Lightwoods. Before I even address the futility of what you’re saying, can someone please explain to me why the Clave only put forth Lightwoods as marriage prospects? Especially considering Maryse Lightwood’s… history.”

This time the response came from Luke; the quiet, even tone intimately familiar to Simon. He rubbed absently at his wrist. Their relationship since Clary’s death, Simon’s Turning, and the revelation that Luke was a werewolf had been turbulent to say the least. But ultimately he was still the same man that Simon remembered being such a large presence in his childhood and the need to listen closely to what Luke was saying was strong.

“Maryse committed terrible crimes during her time with Valentine and the Circle. So did I. No one denies that. In the twenty years since Valentine was defeated though, she has actively worked to make amends. She has her faults, to be sure, but we are all capable of change. If nothing else, look at her children— Alec, who reached out to us, instead of just demanding our help, and Isabelle, who has already been doing her part to help Shadowhunter-Downworld, uh, relations.”

A small amused titter ran through the group. Simon shifted in his chair, uncomfortable. He knew that Luke probably hadn’t meant it that way, but sometimes the misogyny of the Downworld smacked him in the face. Too many beings in this room were born in a time where laughing at women who slept with others was acceptable. Simon opened his mouth but before he could say anything, Magnus chimed in, and took the conversation in a different direction.

“Before she married Robert Lightwood, Maryse was a Trueblood, one of the oldest and most powerful families in the Clave. She is a political creature at heart and she is still very well connected. Her words, in spite of, or maybe because of, her history, hold sway in Alicante. And Jace Lightwood, before he was adopted into the family, was a Wayland, another important lineage. Michael Wayland was earning a reputation as a master weapons maker before Valentine killed him. I think his son still carries one of his swords. So they may all be Lightwoods, yes, but they have reach and power. Raphael is right; if we can make these marriages actually mean something then the Downworld has a chance to be heard for the first time in centuries. We need to try.” Magnus’ voice was firm and unyielding.

Simon cleared his throat and jumped in; he actually had knowledge here. “The contract states that Downworlders will be responsible for joining Shadowhunter patrols from now until whenever they are able to restore their numbers to their previous level. So, like, probably at least fifty years? At least a generation or two, depending on how many kids they produce at a time. And they propose that the couples act as liaisons between the Downworld and the Clave, working together to solve disputes that come up, which I think will be really useful. Living arrangements are trickier though.” By the time he finished, Simon found himself the focus of eleven different sets of eyes.

He shifted uncomfortably and then rolled his eyes. “I’m sorry, did no one else do the reading? I mean, I know there were way too many boring details in there about the exact cut of suit we’ll all be wearing, but there were actually some good ideas buried in that crap.”

Under the table, Raphael’s knee was suddenly pressing against Simon’s, even though his outward expression didn’t change. Simon knew what it meant though, and silently preened at the approval from his Sire.

The werewolf secretary, a hulking fellow with shaggy blond hair, cleared his throat and said, in a surprisingly pleasant voice, “The vampire is right; we are all required to help the Shadowhunters with patrols only until they recover. Maia has a point though, we have room to negotiate what our involvement will be in the future. The other three couples besides us involve immortals. The werewolf commitment might involve multiple generations but to Seelies and vampires, fifty years is nothing. So you should think about what will happen after your Shadowhunters die. The language is pretty ambiguous, I think they are waiting for our response. It’s also really vague on kids.”

“There will be no offspring from these unions.” The Seelie Queen’s words were swift and hard. She was sitting rigidly in her chair, tension obvious. Simon’s eyes flickered to Meliorn and it was clear that he was also holding himself deliberately still. Simon wondered how the Knight actually felt about marrying the woman he was already sleeping with. He was also self-aware enough to realize that he was focusing hard on the Seelie’s reaction in order to not dwell on the idea of having children himself.

Simon’s internal freakout was stopped by Magnus’ equally fast and firm words. “There might not be children from the marriage between your subject and his wife but the language should stay ambiguous. The Downworld might be aligned on many things but we are not a monolith and your words are not law. Who agrees with me?”

“I do.” Luke’s words were clearly symbolic but Simon caught the grateful glance that Magnus threw him.

Simon swallowed hard but said, “I do as well.”

Magnus knocked his knuckles on the wood of the table. “It’s settled, the language about children stays. Your conversations with Meliorn are your own, Your Majesty.” The Queen was glaring daggers at the Warlock but he blithely ignored her, and continued, “I do know that Shadowhunters take their marriage vows seriously in terms of adultery, even in arranged marriages, but there is no requirement that the marriage itself be consummated to be valid and binding.” As the only one who hadn’t even met their future spouse, much less had sex with them, Simon could feel how the others at the table avoided looking at him, but thankfully Magnus just kept rolling. “The marriages and that restriction on outside affairs ends with the death of the Shadowhunter though,” a dark shadow passed over Magnus’ face and Simon felt a surge of sympathy knowing his feelings for Alec, “as do our roles as liaisons, unless we decide to change that.”

Simon didn’t often think about his immortality, for good reason; it scared the shit out of him to think about being in his twenties for millenia unless something killed him off first. Contemplating watching his husband grow old and die while he didn’t added a whole ‘nother layer of fucked up to this situation. Simon wanted to run away from this whole thing and anger and frustration choked his throat and he could feel his fangs trying to descend as he lost control over his emotions.

A cold hand wrapped around the fist he hadn’t realized he’d made and then Raphael addressed the table, saying quietly, “Why don’t we break for lunch. When we return we can hammer out the details of the liaison positions and the living arrangements for the couples. Then we can continue with the other main points of the contract.”

Magnus stood instantly and made his way over to the bar set up on the far side of the room, reaching for a martini glass with one hand and a bottle with the other. At least he’d have company in his misery, thought Simon bitterly. They should set up some kind of club. Shadowhunter Husbands In It Together. SHIIT for short. Sounded about right. Simon sighed.

The others were starting to get up and move around the conference room, although the Seelie Queen was having a heated discussion with Meliorn in whispers, while the other Seelie sat there with an inscrutable look on his face. Simon got up and made his way over to the fridge at the other end of the bar from where Magnus was sitting, opening it to grab a bag of O negative. The other two vampires had followed him so he pulled out two more and looked around for some glasses. He found some fancy highball ones and got busy pouring, letting his hands take over while trying to clear his mind. James, who Simon barely knew because the older vampire had always treated him with a silent sort of awe, thanked him quietly and then fled to one of the armchairs set up in another corner.

Raphael stayed though, and together they watched the other people in the room mill around, most of whom had scattered themselves around the large area, although the werewolves were still a tight knot. Simon’s Sire took a small sip of blood from his cup. “Do you want to meet Jace Lightwood before the wedding? There is still time to do that.” Simon opened his mouth and then closed it a second later, taking a gulp from his own glass instead. Raphael shifted and said, “There is also still time to put my name in before the Clave instead, although you will have to take over as Clan leader.”

Simon startled so hard that the heavy, viscous liquid actually sloshed out over his hand and he swore and put the cup down on the bar before sticking his fingers in his mouth. Raphael watched him fumble, staying still in the way that only an undead vampire could do.

“No. No, I won’t ask you to do that. The Clan needs you, I’d be a terrible leader, I know you’ve said that the other vampires would follow me but I definitely don’t want them to do that, they are all eight hundred years old and don’t understand any of my references and it would be a complete disaster and I’d run the Clan straight into the ground in like, a year, and you would be so mad at me and it’s just a terrible idea. No, I’ll marry this Jace person and hopefully he’s not a raging asshole and we can get along and we’ll figure out whoever is murdering Shadowhunters and we’ll murder the fuck out of them instead. And no, I don’t want to meet him before the wedding, I’ve done so much research on arranged marriages— do you know it’s still incredibly popular in the Mundane world? I totally thought it had gone out of style but apparently not— and most of the feedback from married couples that made it work is to let yourself be surprised at the altar and see your spouse at their finest and best and then you have a really great first impression of them and it’s better to do that instead. Yeah. So I’ll meet him in a week.” Simon finally made himself stop talking and drained his cup of blood instead, feeling the metal in it coat his throat and settle in his stomach.

Raphael was wearing his “Simon Face” again but only said, “All right, Simon. We’ll keep things the way they are. I’m going to talk to Magnus before we keep going.”

Simon bobbed his head, not daring to open his mouth again, and he watched Raphael glide down the bar to where the warlock was on his second drink. He knew how deeply Raphael cared for his friend and Simon hoped that he would have some comforting words for a man who was clearly already deeply in love with the Shadowhunter he was marrying.

Putting the empty glass back onto the bar, Simon thought about the articles and blog posts he’d read from people in arranged marriages. There had only been a few actual horror stories, thankfully, and most had just been about how to live with another person comfortably even if you weren’t in love with them. There were a few entries though that stood out, shining examples of couples who talked about how the person they married ended up being their soulmate, someone they couldn’t imagine being without. Simon knew that his situation was much more complicated than most, but—

He could hope, right?

#chapter 4 #shminibang #jimon #a desperate proposal #still suck at tumblr

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gothamdad · 4 years ago

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THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS PART ONE: CINEMATIC WRONGS AND ANALYSIS COMMENTARY

DO NOT REBLOG.

This is going to be a bullet point list of incidents that occur in the movie, and will either have my general commentary or an analysis of what makes the scene terrible (or in some rare cases, good). TRIGGERS FOR SUICIDE, MENTAL HEALTH, AND DYSMORPHIA

-bruce trying to kill himself in the beginning of the movie.

Hes reckless, and willing to risk his life, but not suicidal. But he just purposefully gets into a wreck at 2 minutes into the movie?? for no reason??? theres literally no reason for it other than it being angsty bc they COULDVE started the movie with the mutants doing crime, as the next scene cuts right into it and the following news reports

-"This reporter hopes that wherever he is, hes enjoying a toast with good friends" said when its the anniversary of batman’s disappearance

this is stupid I hate this movie. You're telling me Gotham forgives Batman for just disappearing on them? DID THAT NOT HAPPEN IN NML AND EVERYONE GOT PISSED??? Like everyone in this movie seems to have forgot he abandoned the city. Not to mention, and I'm gonna go off on a tangent here, bruce will be batman for as long as he lives. He calls himself batman in his mind even when hes retired. He believes that Bruce wayne is the mask. His whole identity is batman. Saying that hed quit because of jason is not only stupid because it implies Jason's death isnt just as important as his parents, but shows that any tragedy is enough to permanently knock him down. And as if the league, or the family, would have let him give up. Anyway the whole reason the retirement in batman beyond works is because it shows bruce was going to fight until he literally died on the spot, but instead he pointed a gun, didn't even use it, just pointed it, and he realized he wasnt fit to HONOR batman anymore. He broke the rule. And he doesnt deserve to wear the mantle. This is so good because 1) bruce still wants to be batman and 2) it doesnt imply that he gave up at all, and at this point with his decreasing wellness his family WOULD be telling him to stop

-Gordon toasts with Bruce on the anniversary

FBKSBSOANSISSB OH MY GOD IT JUST SHOWED HIM SHARING A TOAST WITH GORDON. this is the anniversary of the last time batman is sighted and gordon. JIM FUCKING GORDON. Is celebrating. When they were literally partners and hed shine the batsignal each night TELL ME WHERE THE LOGIC IS!!! I CANT FIND THE LOGIC!!!!! I'm literally 3 minutes into this movie..... and already this is how its going...

-Gordon and Bruce talk

"You're not worried about me, are you?" Asked when hes in clear danger of being attacked by mutants "noT MorE tHAn i aM tHe ReST oF tHis CItY" ah yes. I forgot that Bruce hated gotham and jim Gordon. My mistake. Common misconception.

-the mutants are introduced

Ugh and it's the worst kind of villains too, jim just described the mutants as "the worst kind of criminals. They are only after violence, with no humanity at all" GIVE! VILLAINS! REASONING! I hate these joker wannabes Joker was already enough we dont need a million more "lol I'm just evil deal with it" villains

"Talk to Dick lately?"asks Gordon "You know I havent" Bruce responds

THIS CONVERSATION IS GETTING W O R S E BC I KNOW HOW THIS MOVIE GOES AND HE JUST INSTANTLY HAS CARRIE BE THE NEW ROBIN- WHICH, IS N O T BRUCE'S TO GIVE. ITS ALWAYS BEEN DICK'S MANTLE TO PASS DOWN- WHEN HE HASNT BEEN SPEAKING TO DICK????

-tangent on how it’s overlooked that Dick Grayson was the one to make Robin, not Batman

This is a sin that not just the movie, but the batman franchise in general seems to always make. Robin was made as a tribute to the flying graysons, and is meant to be colorful and aerodynamic for acrobatic tricks. it should always be dick’s to pass down, or the next robin after.

-Bruce begins having trouble with holding back his urge to be Batman

His whole wanting to be batman again thing started because of a newspaper with a family's death and pearls being sold. On the same front cover. I'm. THATS WHEN HE REMEMBERS HIS PARENTS? NOT EVERY FUCKING TIME HE HEARS A GUNSHOT? OR CLOSES HIS EYES? OR SEES BLOOD? HE READS A NEWSPAPER THATS FLOATING IN THE WIND??????NOT EVERY TIME HE LOOKS AT JASONS COSTUME? OR THE OTHER CRIMES COMMITTED??????LOGIC!!!!!!!!!! I NEED !!!! TO KNOW!!!!! WHERE IT IS!!!!!!!! ARE U KIDDING ME NOW THE MARK OF ZORRO, WHICH IS WHO THE FUCK KNOWS HOW OLD NOW, IS ON TV??????????? AND HE JUST HAPPENS TO FLIP TO THE CHANNEL.. Batman telling bruce "you've tried to hold me back. But you're weak. Ypu know it in your soul. You're nothing but a hollow shell." Is so STUPID!! WHY HAS HE BEEN FIGHTING BEING BATMAN!!!!!!!!!! BRUCE SHOULD WANT TO BE BATMAN!!!! AND HATE HAVING TO NOT BE!!!! AND A BAT FLYING INTO HIS WINDOW AGAIN???? STOP THE FUCKING CLICHES IM SICK OF THIS . UR NOT BEING NEXT LEVEL, MOVIE. ITS JUST DUMB. ITS DUMB!!!

-Carrie Kelly

her first ??? Appearance??? Is her going into KNOWN MUTANT GANG TERRITORY instead of going through the rain. And scolding her friend for not having backbone WHEN THEY COULD LITERALLY DIE and saying, and I quote, "its better than out there." then when interviewed about the incident her friend says "It was a flying monster! With wings and fangs!" and she replies with "Reality check, Michelle, it was definitely a man, but he had to be like 12 feet tall" OH YEAH THATS VERY REALISTIC CARRIE. Shes an asshole to her friend and we're supposed to like her. Oh and Carrie's reason for wanting to be robin? She saw the bat signal while her parents were talking about public marches. That's it. That's her reason. Not because she was attacked by mutants and almost died.

-Giving the movie credit

Okay but if theres another thing I'll give credit for, and I'm sure its unintentional, is that Harvey is the first criminal he wants to take down. Because Harvey is always going to be Bruce's priority. He didnt go after the mutants, but Two-Face. And the way that confrontation goes when it’s revealed harvey thinks both sides of his face are scarred. the Arkham staff fixed his scars before he was ready for treatment, and his mental health wasn’t priority. he was going to have dysmorphia either way, but not treating mental illness worsened it. kinda? good writing? But I think it was unintentional to have the idea that Arkham didnt know what they were doing and the belief that scars are important before trauma, and how trauma has to be helped first. I dont believe for an instant that's what's meant.

-Carrie Kelly part two

She gets a Robin costume and goes out onto the roof and is like.... almost dies. THEN THE NEXT SCENE WE SEE HER SHES LIKE COMPLETELY ACROBATIC? WHY IS SHE SO ACROBATIC NOW!!! THIS TAKES PRACTICE!!!

-Batman confronting the man who supplied the mutant gang with guns

Oh, this scene...He hands a guy a gun, knowing full well that he was depressed because his wife was dying and he had to make more money to save her by supplying the mutants with weapons, and just walks away as he kills himself. (input from a friend which i like: think about everything bruce did to help mr freeze and his wife now think about this scene )

Batman vs Mutants

oh, and the "batmobile". Aka his tank. Rubber bullets. Ok fine, whatever, but RUNNING THEM OVER AND SHOOTING MISSCLES ISNT LETHAL? AND HOW IS CARRIE KELLY GOOD AT FIGHTING ALL OF THEM WHEN SHE COULDNT HANDLE HERSELF WITH ONE LIKE A WEEK AGO. hate that the mutant leader is just a ripoff of bane with long pointed nipples I hate this. I hate that batman cant take him down, but carrie kelly can. AND THE MUTANT LEADRER TOTALLY DIED WHEN BRUCE THREW ADHESIVE ON HIS FACE AND HE WAS SUFFOCATED BUT LATER ON IT SHOWS HE LIVES ??

Bruce talks to Carrie

"What is this thing?" -carrie "Dick called it the batmobile" -bruce "SIR!!" -alfred over the radio There are no words. Then she pops his arm into place and creates a makeshift cast And he says "where'd you learn to do that?” and because she’s a mary sue she says nothing, because miller doesnt know why she should, so he cuts to "what's your name?" and she says "Carrie. Carrie Kelly. robin" and HE FUCKING GOES "MINES BRUCE." and then immediately tells Alfred hes bringing "robin" to the cave. I hate it here I hate that he forgets what happened to Jason aFTER ITS HIS LITERAL REASON FOR QUITTING. WHAT IS THE POINT IF HE’S GOING TO ACCEPT THIS GIRL HE DOESNT EVEN KNOW AS ROBIN?

-Bruce talks about Jason

OH BRUCE'S FUCKING LINE. HIS LINE. IM FURIOUS Alfred asks "have you forgotten what happened to Jason?" And he says "I'll never forget. he was a good soldier. He honored me" I AM !!!! SHAKING!!!! WITH HOW MAD !!!! I AM!!! Bruce would NOT say that shit. Implying that jason wasnt his son, or that jason was only a casualty in a war, or that HE FUCKING HONORED HIM AND NOT THE CITY, OR THE TITLE OF ROBIN "He honored me" shut the fuck up I hate this and dont even get me started on the misconceptions of Robin in the first place. i dont want to go into the debate on whether or not they’re soldiers, which I personally don’t believe. but its just stupid because Jason considered being Robin the best thing that’s ever happened to him, and he was THE BEST. it wasnt his fault he was killed, either.

-The ending

So the mutant escapes his cell by going through a VENT. A . V E N T. AND ENDS UP IN THE SEWER. I hate that these mutants are just an army of evil people and have no motivation and the leader is just a brute I fucking hate Bruce calling him "son" And the mutants become the sons of batman who fight crime......??? because their leader is gone?? werent they supposed to be evil criminals with no humanity in them?

-Joker

Okay but Joker being absent the entire first part , only to show up in the end hearing news reports about batman, and then smiling as he stands up and just fucking creepily says "darling" holy shit that gave me goosebumps. another credit i have to give.

#long post /#theres still a part two but i am TIRED #i cannot today...... mayhaps if yall like this ill do the second part #ᴜɴᴍᴀsᴋᴇᴅ : OUT OF CHARACTER

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danganronpasurvivoraskblog · 4 years ago

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Mémoire (Part 2) [End of Arc]

You’re engaged!?

Yep...Sora asked me to marry her and...I said yes.

Awesome! I-I’m so happy for you!

So am I. You two deserve happiness after all you’ve been through.

I think there’s a lot of people who deserve happiness after what’s been going on lately...

...

Ra-Ra? You feeling alright?

Huh? Oh, yeah...

Don’t worry about me...I’m feeling a lot better since...you know...

Yeah...

Sora, listen. I said this before and I’ll say it again.

Nothing you do could ever make us hate you, or spite you, or be mad at you. You don’t need to chastise yourself...

...I know...Sorry Teruya I just...

It’s was a tough experience...I really don’t want to go through something like that again...

...

I...I don’t think I want to remove my shackles again...I’d like to keep them on forever if I can...

Well...I respect that...

Also...I just want to let you know...

Sora and I don’t really want to have a ceremony when we get married...we kind of just want some time to ourselves.

That’s fine. I get it.

Take all the time you need.

Mikado Sannoji is dead...

Ouma, Hashimoto and Nijiue have escaped...

And it’s likely they’re all hiding within Future Foundation jurisdiction areas, so we can no longer touch them...

That’s the report...sir...

I see...Thank you...

Sorry Tsurugi...Things looked to be going really well and then...

Oh, don’t worry about it Mikako...I’m not upset...

To be honest...I really wasn’t betting on catching Syobai and Iroha...And I don’t think Saihara intended to let us either...

What do you mean?

All Saihara really cared about was saving his friend Keebo...to do that, he used them as a bargaining chip...

But it’s clear now that he never intended to allow us to capture them...

So he tricked us!?

Possibly...but even if he did...I’m not too terribly upset...

You’re not?

No...There haven’t been any reports of people matching Iroha and Syobai’s descriptions committing crimes...

So...I’m under the assumption that Ouma tried to put them on the straight and narrow...

So long as they stay away from the limelight...I’d gladly consider it a rehab...

I see...Well, I respect your decision on that account.

Truth be told...I can’t bring myself to spite the Future Foundation over this anyway...It’s only thanks to the Fujisaki Family that Zetsubou’s hacker didn’t breach our system...

But it’s only going to get crazier from now on...

There’s one thing that I’m not that sure about, and that’s why didn’t the Zetsubou Hacker try and save Mikado from the firewall blocking him inside of Keebo?

If he was skilled enough to hack into our system, then...

You almost tracked his or her exact location, so I think they wanted to avoid that...

That, or hacking into our system was merely a test of his skill...

I can’t accept that...

I have no way of contacting them professionally as of right now, but I’d like to at least let the Future Foundation know I’m changing my stance in this matter.

Changing it how?

I just want to inform them that I’m willing to stand by their side in this fight to stop Zetsubou...but to do so, I need their trust...

I don’t blame them for withholding information or not trusting me, but my intentions are always good, even if my methods aren’t...

Tsurugi...

“Heaven’s net is wide, but it’s mesh is fine...”

Huh?

A quote by Lao Tzu, a Chinese Philosopher. I’m saying that no one gets away with anything sneaky in the end...

Oh...they don’t do they?

Huh?

*A light smirk appears on Tsurugi’s face.

What are you saying?

Rei, I really appreciate that you remain professional even when office romance is there to distract you from hard work.

For that, I’m extremely grateful...

What are you-!?

Haha...What did I tell you...? It’s hard to get these things by me.

Easy, easy, I don’t intend to spread the word from the rooftops or whatever...

Take some time to yourselves. You’d earned it.

I don’t know what-

Ah!?

...

*Rei is cut off as Mikako grabs her arm.

...

A-Alright...Thank you sir...

Haha...No problem.

Mr Ouma!

Ah! Hey you guys!

*Kokichi returns to his cabaret club, greeted immediately by a worried Iroha and Syobai.

How’d you’re little “shopping trip” go? If that’s really why you left.

Actually, I did grab some supplies while I was out...Just went to go seal the deal with a few old friends now...

I see...

Say...You’re trying to stop these “Organization Zetsubou” asshole’s that Sannoji was working with, right?

Yes? Why?

I know it probably ain’t my place but...

Count me in. If you need an army, I’d be happy to join it.

I...

I would too! I-I’m not that strong or useful, b-but if Mikado was working with these people, they must be bad people!

I-I don’t want something like a killing game to happen again!

...

It’s good to know you guys have my back but for now...

All I’m really concerned about is that it’s getting late and we open soon! Chop chop!

You got it!

Heh...Sorry. I’ll get everything ready...

So you’re Chihiro’s dad, right?

Yes, he’s my son. One I’m very proud of at that...

...Thank you...

You were part of the Demon Hunting Game too, right?

Yes...I got out with some injuries, but I got out nonetheless...I see the same happened to you?

Yeah, but...Hey, a metal arm’s pretty badass, don’t you think?

Haha...I suppose so.

Actually, now that this whole spat is over, the two of you are free to do what you want...So...what are you going to do?

Well, I was actually thinking of moving back to Towa City and finding a job there...

Really?

I know the place should probably bring back a load of bad memories, but...It’s not a nice place when you think about it.

Besides, Toko and Komaru are there. I should probably drop in and say hi every once in a while.

Well, if that’s your decision, then fine. I can help you get settled in for a few weeks if you want?

That sounds great. Thanks.

What about you dad?

Um...A-Actually, I’ve been meaning to talk about that...Hey, Chihiro?

Yes...?

Would um...

Would you mind terribly if I were to ask for a job? To work in your branch I mean?

...!?

I-I would be honored!

...

Hey! Shuichi!

Hey.

*Kaede comes up with two boxes of packed lunch, and they sit down on a park bench. She hands one of the boxes to Shuichi and they dig in.

Thanks for the food!

Kirumi made these for us. I told her she didn’t need to worry, but I changed my mind when I saw how delectable it looked.

My advice would be to not ask too much of Kirumi, but don’t try to stop her when she goes out of her way to do you favors.

Oh, I know...I remember having trouble with that in the past...

Ah, it’s so good to have my memories back...

Even if...most of them are pretty tragic...We’ve sure been through a lot, right?

We sure have...Though, I’m not sure if you’re talking about the killing game, or this past week that feels like it’s been several months.

Shuichi...

Yes Kaede?

I don’t know if I said this already but...Both during the killing game...Before the killing game...And after the killing game at the Hairdressers...

We’ve met each other 3 times now...and each time...I’m really glad that we did...

I agree...You’re a really special person to me...Not everyone gets to meet a “Kaede Akamatsu” after all...

Are you sure about that? Kaede’s a pretty common first name...

*They laugh together, and instinctively, Kaede shuffles along the bench until her shoulders touch with Shuichi’s.

You know...I always one day thought I’d be able to see the real sky with you...

I guess some dreams really do come true, huh?

I’d call this a miracle more than a dream coming true to be honest...

Yeah, I guess...

Oh, and Shuichi...There’s one more thing...

What’s that?

...

You really do look a lot cooler without the cap on...

...

[End of Arc]

[END OF SEASON 1]

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mst3kproject · 4 years ago

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Teenage Wolfpack

This is, unfortunately, not a werewolf movie.

That’s it. That’s why I’m reviewing it. The title suggested a werewolf movie, the film itself would have been way more fun if it were a werewolf movie, it wasn’t, and now I’m annoyed. I felt the same way about The Wolf of Wall Street but that one is way too upscale for this blog.

After opening credits set to some very catchy and extremely inappropriate swing music, we meet brothers Freddie and John Morgan. Freddie, in his early twenties, was driven out of the house by their asshole father and now commits crime and dates underage girls. John, age eighteen, still lives at home but is getting increasingly frustrated, especially when Mr. Morgan mistreats his wife. In search of money to help his mother, Johnny gets drawn into Freddie’s web of crime. Things start going south when the gang rob the wrong postal truck, ending up with mail instead of money, but Freddie’s girlfriend finds something in one of the stolen letters that makes him think maybe, just maybe, he can make crime pay after all.

On the surface at least, Teenage Wolfpack is a pretty serviceable movie. The dialogue mostly makes sense and you can usually tell what’s going on. There are times when it sets things up and pays them off pretty efficiently, but at nearly eighty minutes long, there is also a lot of time spent dithering around accomplishing nothing. The opening, for example, where we are introduced to Freddie and his buddies as they show off their pasty German bellies at a swimming pool. They sexually harass random women, beat up the staff, and annoy their girlfriends. This bit is far too long and ultimately does very little for the story. Later we’re treated to a lengthy dance number, a weird sequence with a boy who admires Freddie throwing away his jacket, and a kidnapped dog, which are similarly useless.

The dog especially. It’s a little wiener dog and it’s very cute, but it never does anything except hang out and be cuddled. I kept expecting it to either get killed or for it to somehow be instrumental in the plot but it’s just a random dog and when things are supposed to be getting intense it vanishes from the story. It also never barks once, which makes me wonder if the movie crew sedated it before filming. My neighbours have two dachshunds and those little bastards never shut up, ever.

Outside of that, the story makes a reasonable amount of sense. There are bits in which you’re not sure what people are actually talking about, but most of those end up not really mattering. The final plot point, about the money at the bar, is not very clear at all – characters talk about what they found in the letter but we never get any details, or even see the text they’re reading (possibly this was simply cut from the English dub), so we only have the vaguest idea what they’re looking for. Worse for this ending, and the thing that pretty much kills the whole film, is that it is entirely lacking in tension. The guys are sneaking into the bar owner’s house to rob him while John, who has had enough of this, races to try to stop them. There’s a four-way standoff between Freddie, John, Freddie’s girlfriend Cissy, and the bar owner, in which the latter two are shot, but somehow the movie manages to make this downright boring.

I think a part of the problem may be that the stakes here are much lower than the earlier robbery of the postal truck, which involved fistfights and sneaking by the police (does anybody happen to know when ambulances were invented? Because there’s a scene in this movie where a policeman flags down a random passer-by to ask them to take an accident victim to the hospital). Here they’re just sneaking around a house and their only foe, besides each other, is a man with a heart condition. I guess we’re supposed to be worried for the bar owner, but he’s not really a character, just an Italian stereotype even broader and more offensive than that skit from Devil Fish.

The other issue is that we’re not really sure what this movie wants to be. Of course it’s a morality play, teaching us that criminals can never win, but it kind of wanders around that point in circles rather than attacking it from any particular angle that might unify the story. There are repeated hints that John is going to end up taking the blame for Freddie’s shenanigans, but the story never follows through on that. Cissy plays it sweet for most of the movie but turns out to be the very worst of this nasty lot, lying and trying to turn the brothers against each other… that was kind of a fun twist, but it’s not at all necessary to the plot. At the end, Freddie and John’s father turns up to identify these two criminals as his sons, but then the movie’s over, without any attempt at exploring what this means for the family. Mr. Morgan is clearly upset to see them getting arrested, but whether he will reconcile with Freddie or just disown John along with him, we never find out.

Cissy, by the way, is supposed to be fifteen. We never find out how old Freddie is exactly, but he’s at least a couple of years older than eighteen-year-old John. That’s a little questionable, but what’s even more questionable is the camera’s loving attention to her ass, especially when actress Karin Baal was only sixteen when she was in this movie.

The thing MST3K would have surely had the most fun with is the characters, which are very flat. John is a Wholesome Young Man who does things like remind his brother, who has just stolen a car right in front of him, to obey the speed limit. Mike, Tom, and Crow would have added their own dialogue to characterize him as a hopeless sniveling Mama’s Boy and it wouldn’t be much of an exaggeration. He’s supposed to be conflicted once the actual crime begins but instead he just comes across as a fool, willfully ignoring what Freddie’s really up to in the attempt to feel better about his own part in it.

Like a number of characters in MST3K movies about young criminals, the movie balks at actually allowing John to commit a crime. He does hit a guy over the head with a gun, but the guy volunteered for it in exchange for some money from Freddie! While Freddie’s gang beat people up and rob the mail truck, John is merely distracting a night watchman by giving him a letter to mail. It’s never very clear how much John knows about the whole plan. He went to Freddie because he knows he needs more money than he can get through legitimate means. He has seen them steal a car and when he’s sent to ‘borrow’ one he must know that the original owner probably isn’t getting it back, even if he’s able to secure it without any violence. Yet in the face of all this, he does his level best to remain oblivious.

Freddie seems at once eager to have John as a partner and yet reluctant to actually bring him into the fold. In T-Bird Gang the bad guys had Frank commit an actual crime as a test, to make sure he was up to it and to secure his loyalty. Maybe it’s because John is family that Freddie doesn’t seem to feel a need to do this… maybe the ‘hit a guy’ thing was the test, but it didn’t feel like that. Freddie can’t seem to decide whether he wants to trust John or protect him, which is another thing that movie could have used as a focus for this story, but doesn’t. It never really tries to get into Freddie’s head at all, which is a shame.

I guess the reason these movies don’t want their ‘hero’ characters to commit crimes is because they want them to seem redeemable. The problem with this is that for a character to be redeemed, you need something to redeem them from. A person can’t pick themselves up if they’ve never actually fallen. Then again, I’m not sure this movie is about redemption. Freddie certainly never redeems himself. Cissy looks for a while like maybe she wants to get together with John and try a life of things other than crime, but doesn’t. And John is only barely a criminal – we don’t even hang around long enough to find out whether his father’s going to think he is, or whether he’s going to take the blame for the stolen car.

Like so many other of these movies, the only goal Teenage Wolfpack seems to have is to make the audience feel crummy. The moral lessons are barely a sketch and deeply unsatisfying. The title seems to suggest an exploitation film but the bad behaviour it showcases isn’t any fun to watch. The most interesting conflict the story sets up is between John, Freddie, and their father, but that is barely explored and certainly isn’t done justice. The film-makers seem to have been competent but the script gave them nothing to work with.

This really should have been a werewolf movie. Freddie’s been thrown out of the family for being a criminal, but when John goes to him looking for money, he discovers instead the terrible truth about the recent slew of animal attacks! John still loves his brother but Freddie’s pack of slavering werewolves are a danger to everybody in town… can he bring himself to break out the silver bullets, knowing that he’ll be labeled a fratricide? Can he protect the Italian bar owner, or even his own parents from werewolfish bloodlust? That would have been an amazing movie.

#mst3k #reviews #episodes that never were #teenage wolfpack #50s

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