#and steele... well... we both know the backstory about that lmao

[sheisthenorth]

@wolfpackmuses said : ‘ i’m just so afraid i’m going to make a total fool of myself. ’

From a younger Steele for a younger Jenna? Had the brainrot set in of having a more fun and relaxed Steele after what we talked about, so-

❝ Why? You mean because of the race? ❞ Jenna knows it will be Steele's first one next week ; he hasn't been able to stop talking about it, in fact. This is the first time he's said something so vulnerable, though, and it's caught her off guard. Usually, he's joking, bragging, or playing it up for his team. Jenna's not used to a vulnerable Steele.

Over the past few months, they've become friends, somewhat, and she likes him well enough ; he's a joker ━━ a bit of a hothead, perhaps, but she suspects he'll grow out of it ━━ a lingering bit from puppyhood, perhaps ━━ and Jenna knows he's more than just what his musher wants. More than the athletic, useful CHAMPION sled dog he so desperately wants to emulate. At least, Jenna thinks he is. She hopes he is.

Steele, however . . . sometimes, truthfully, she doubts lately if he thinks he's more.

Taking a tentative step toward him, she frowns. She nudges his shoulder gently with her own. ❝ You won't. And I'm sure your human will understand if you don't win. ❞ She smiles, shyly, meeting his eyes. ❝ Humans understand. ❞

[zosociologist]

"Dating Eddie Munson Would Be Like..."

[Eddie Munson x Black!Reader Headcannon]

(A/N: I came out of my writing hiatus for this🥴 I underestimated just how lengthy this was gonna get and I don't think Tumblr mobile has the text break feature anymore, so there's a lot, lmao! And YES, we all know about how everything goes down in Stranger Things and Hawkins and all that jazz.....but consider that as a loose reference for this!)

Warnings: Nothing really, Fluff, maybe a little fooling around but that's about it(:

P.S: 🤎WwaBRiM🤎 but everyone is welcome to read☺; Likes & comments are appreciated and reblogs are highly encouraged👌🏾

YOU TWWOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!😆💫💞

Okay so here's a long ass backstory to how your friendship began: 🍃SPRING OF 1980🍃, the air was crisp outside, middleschool was finally over, you were taking that big leap into highschool in the fall, you finally got over Bon Scott's death, your family got you a bike for graduation, and one of your older cousins became a keyholder at THEE BEST record shop in Hawkins that ALSO had a comic book shop on the 2nd floor. So it's safe to say you knew where you were gonna spend most of your summer.

You'd be chilling around the shop most days, hanging out with your cousin and talking to the other teens that would work there. You'd even help put out records and play them in the store.

You're an audiophile and you take pride in your vast music taste, probably influenced by the fact that you came from a musical family....BUT THAT'S NEITHER HERE NOR THERE.

You and Eddie met because that ENTIRE summer he'd swoop in at the same time every other day at approximately 4:45 PM, and make a B-line for the Rock section.

It always seemed like he'd be walking up to the counter to FINALLY buy something, but if you were behind it he'd chicken out and make a sharp turn for the stairs to go up to the comics.

It was a routine, and you had it down to a T. You kinda enjoyed his presence even though you two hadn't properly met yet. You had to admit he was kinda cute😌

His hair was doing it's own little thing, it was shoulder length and feathered, and on this day in particular, he had on a Black Sabbath ringer tee with denim bell bottoms and sneakers...and he was peaking over the prog section shelf at you...barely even hiding it.

He paced around to other shelves as well, he stopped in the Funk and Soul section and picked up a few records which, honestly, kinda surprised you.

It was finally time for him to choke at the check-out counter, but this time was different~

He rested his 5 records down on the counter and let out a shaky breath that equaled that of someone about to have an asthma attack.

Your heart went out, so you thought you'd break the ice somehow, picking up AC/DC's new "Back in Black" album on top of his stack, "Is this a badass comeback or what!"

Mission accomplished, he immediately loosened up, "Hell Yeah! It's album of the year for sure because Brian Johnson FUCKS!" (okay maybe a little too loose)

You both quickly hit it off from there, it turns out Eddie also was an avid music listener himself. His other items that day included Saxon's "Strong Arm Of The Law", Steel Pulse's "Tribute To The Martyrs", Van Halen's "Women and Children First", and Bette Davis' "Nasty Gal".

From there on out you two instantly became close💫

If you guys weren't at the record shop then you'd be at the movies, if you weren't at the movies, then you'd be at his home blasting music while he played along on his guitar, if it was too late to blast music at his place then he'd be trying to teach you the basics of Dungeons & Dragons (emphasis on trying), if his complicated lessons failed, then you'd both be on the roof at your house reading comics until the sun came up, then you'd go downstairs to eat Count Choculas and watch Saturday Morning Cartoons until you passed out from lack of sleep.

Eddie proposed that you two should get friendship bracelets, but of course, you were both broke after spending what little money you had on music and nerd memorabilia😅

So you went looking through his stuff and pulled out 2 guitar picks. One for each of you. He thought it was cute and immediately had his uncle make them into necklaces for you both.

Freshmen year of highschool started for you two, and it was really a trial and error period as far as cliques go.

Everyone was judgy, and Eddie didn't like how certain groups would be okay with one of you joining but not the other when you both were into the same things.

You were floaters, but YOU more than Eddie. You were nice and social enough to be friends with at least one or more people in every clique. But that didn't mean there wouldn't be hecklers every now and again.

Once, a Jock thought it would be funny to yank on your Afro-puffs "as a joke", and you begged Eddie to drop it, but he hauled off and punched the guy right in the dick!

He got suspended, and when you talked to him about it that night on your roof, he tried to cover his tracks by saying he was "having problems grieving John Bonham's death".

You knew he was lying, he knew he was lying, but he was so scared to tell you how he felt. He thought it would've ruined what you had going on.

Sophomore year was oddly both better, and all the same. But at least Hawkins High finally got a D & D club, obviously Eddie hopped on it the moment he found out, and he wanted you to join too but you were just so damn CONFUSED, and he respected that.

You were more on the Arts Clubs side of the spectrum, and he absolutely loved that for you. He liked that you weren't afraid to put yourself out there.

Definitely your hypeman whenever you had class presentations. You both sat in the back so he'd get this poster board and write "🔥🔥🔥Hell Yeah y/n!!!🔥🔥🔥" on it, and if you had a presentation in a class you didn't share with him, he'd steal the hall pass to sneak in the back of the room and listen☺

Junior year is when the dynamic shifted for sure, and it was so random too?! You were becoming a talented Jack of all trades, and Eddie was starting to perfect his sense of style. His hair was growing out more and you'd be lying if you said he didn't look fine😩

On top of all that, your cousin graduated from college and got a new car as a gift, so it was only fair that you got her old one. And it...was...FUCKING...AMAZING.

You and Eddie started going for joyrides, it didn't matter where or when. Sometimes all you had to do was give eachother a look, and the car keys would basically appear out of thin air.

Anyway on one fine night, reefer may or may not have been involved, and it was somebody's bright idea to play Sade...

You were in a pretty safe yet secluded area, sitting on the hood of the car, stargazing and talking about hopes and dreams, and the future and where you saw yourself in 10 years..................

and Mr. Munson looked you dead in the eyes and said "Hopefully with you."

..........................you kissed him. You kissed the fuck outta him. And he let you, he actually invited it, he leaned into it, he embraced it.

He'd been praying for it, from the very moment he first laid eyes on you in the record shop, to the moment you were headbanging to the "Kill 'Em All" record so hard you fell off of his bed, even down to the moments when you would stare through him while you zoned out as he explained his character lore. Yes, he had prayed on his knees for this exact moment many nights...and he's not even religious.

It got heavy really quick, you put your hand on the windshield to brace you both and he caressed your face, "Can I?" he asked between kisses, waiting for your approval before he slowly moved his hands to your hair.

You got lost there for a little bit, but he had to be the bigger person and snap you both out of it, mostly due to the fact that the munchies had finally set in.

You two spent that night, cooped up on the same side of a booth at a Waffle House, eating All-Star Specials, and talking about any and everything, basking in the peace of your new relationship😌💓

That summer leading up to senior year was truly something else, there were a lot of wholesome learning periods that Eddie had to go through.

He FINALLY got to experience one of your infamous "Wash Days", and he wanted to help so he got to lather up your hair with the shampoo and he handed you the right products so you could deep condition your hair. He got so invested that he ended up washing his hair too, so now you both were just walking around your house with towel turbans on😂

He was one wiff away from going feral one time after he watched you apply shea butter after a shower, THAT was an experience🥴

You had to teach him how to do the electric slide AGAIN because you'd "be damned if your boyfriend had two left feet at the family function"💀

Senior year itself was pretty tough. The relationship was stronger than ever, but academically Eddie was falling behind. He'd get so caught up in the moment and everything around him that he'd push a lot of his school responsibilities to the side.

You'd have him over a lot more solely for the purpose of studying, but it would always end up with him not doing anythinggggg and you hated it because you wanted him to succeed but he's just so damn quick-witted and strong willed!

You'd try to scold him about distractions, and all he has to do is sweet-talk you, next thing you know your straddling him on your bedroom floor in the midst of a feverish makeout session. You just couldn't win😩.

I think the gravity of everything truly set in when graduation was around the corner, and you told him that if he wasn't graduating then you weren't. It broke his heart a little. Especially after he saw all the acceptance letters you got, that you tried hiding from him.

He knew you deserved every one of those letters, and he wouldn't be able to live with it if he knew that you didn't take those opportunities because of him.

Graduation came....he was there for the ceremony and left right after you got your diploma. When the ceremony was over you drove to his place, sat on the porch with him, put your cap on his head and cried on his shoulders.

He cried too, but he didn't let you see it.

That summer was bittersweet, you two did what you had been doing for the past four years, but it was all the more sentimental because by the time fall came around, you knew you'd see eachother less.

Eddie got a camcorder for you to document college life, and of course you used it to document your summer with him.

On the bright side, college is a lot of fun and you and Eddie talk about it on the phone A LOT and how you can't wait for him to get there, and whenever you have a break in the semesters you are on the first plane back to Hawkins to see him.

Highschool ultimately ended up working for him too in his own way, his grades may still be hot ass, and his principal told him he'd have to do senior year over again BUT at least he's the Dungeon Master of Hawkins' D & D club which he rebranded, "🔥The Hellfire Club🔥"

💫When he told you the news, you drew up a cool logo and had your roommate that works at a shirt shop make a bunch of shirts in various sizes, and had a large box commercially shipped to him💫

When you were on the phone with him the night he got the boxes he let out such a horrid scream, it was a slasher movie grade scream. HE LOVED IT SO MUCH!

He caught a flight that weekend which was convenient because family and friends weekend WAS that weekend😂

When '86 came around, you told Eddie during one of your designated wash day phone calls that it was gonna be his year, and yeeaahhh you tell him that EVERY YEAR as words of encouragement but you knew that this was it, and he finally internalized it.

You even hyped him up for college and have been telling him about study methods you could try when he got there, and you joked about bribing your roommate to move out so you could be roomies with him when he got there that fall!

And he said FUCK YEAH to all of it because he loves your positivity, he loves your mind, he loves your efforts, and he loves you!

But you two are BEYOND CUTE together omg😭💞

[detective-gum-chew]

okay okay okay

i know this isnt an orginal idea by any means but roleswap!narumitsu is just so good

so youll have to indulge me because this lives in my head rent free and i want to write it down concretely somewhere (also this gets LONG so ill pop a cut in here)

alright so:

1. at least in my writing of it, this is also a no-dl6/gregory lives au. but as well at that, miles and phoenix didnt go to school together

2. this means that there was nobody to defend phoenix at the class trial (yes i know the money stolen was edgeworths but shhh lets pretend it was someone elses, kay?) this lead to phoenix becoming not only bitter, but somewhat obsessive over the idea of punishing people that do wrong

(if someone can find that quote where phoenix talks about how he could have become a prosecutor because of the trial i will give u a gentle kiss on the forehead) 

3. Edgeworth was raised by Gregory and ends up becoming a defense attorney

4. in this, Von Karma goes down and Franzy is adopted by Gregory, and she assists Miles in his cases. (she can still have a whip, as a treat.)

5. anyway with that set up, lets get into some cases

6. Larry gets accused of Cindys murder, Miles defends with Franzy

7. Lets say Mia was in the crowd of that trial and decided to contact miles, seeing as he appears to be another uncorrupt lawyer and asks him for his help in taking down Redd White

8. He agrees, and she sets a time for him to meet at her office so they can talk. Mia then calls her sister and updates her on how shes going to recruit another person (Redd White hears this)

9. Much like the original case, Mia gets murdered, but this time, Maya isnt here to be blamed. Instead, its Miles himself, as the name that White heard over the phone (so basically we’re speed running to the “defend yourself in court” part)

10. the prosecutor today is Phoenix Wright.

11. but before that lets go into some backstory actually. Phoenix had encountered Mia previously during the Terry Fawles case. He had respected her as a peer, if not for just her determination and deductive skills. (After all, he was young at the time and solely focused on punishing the wicked) After Diego’s poisoning, he had briefly reached out for condolences

12. but anyway, Phoenix had distantly respected Mia, and now that she was dead, he was going to be tough on whoever he thought murdered her.

13. Miles proves his innocence, although it takes some baiting to get Redd White out of his building and actually into court. 

14. Wright is... not pleased about this, but theres not much he can do. His displeasure for Mias murder has shifted, but theres a new displeasure for Miles, the man who could beat him in court. (”well well well, you managed to save your own skin. But you should hope you get as lucky as you did in your next case”)

15. Next case! We know Miles is a steel samurai fan, so even without Maya it takes very little convincing for him to take the case. (Fran is not as amused but trusts her brother... enough.. to follow his lead)

16. Case proceeds mostly as normal, with Phoenix requiring Dee to re-do her testimony (maybe something deep within him still itches to put the true bad guy away, even if its harder than the accused)

17. I dont think Phonix would deliver the unnecessary feelings line, although there definetely is that moment in the lobby where hes like “hm. maybe you arent a bad person, but that doesnt mean i have to like you.”

18. and now, now now now, we finally get to the part where i somehow managed to put the most thought into. (for context it is nearly 2 am when i am writing this)

19. sleep schedule aside, you couldnt have thought i would made this WITHOUT some good angst, so here we go. case four is similarly structured to the original, but with an extra side of Phoenix angst.

20. Miles wakes up to Franzy shaking him. She points to the television. the news is on, but the voices are drowned out by a distant ringing as he stares at the image on the screen.

Famed Prosecutor Phoenix Wright Arrested For Murder

21. it just doesnt make sense. So he gets out of bed and into the closest clothes he can find and out the door with his sister in tow. He sits in the cold detention room, thinking about the other side of the glass.

22. Phoenix Wright looks dull. He asks what they want. Miles says he wants an explanation. Wright sneers and asks why. For some reason, that pisses Miles off. He slams his badge to the glass and Wright looks surprised.

“Do you know what this is? It’s my attorneys badge.”

“the badge doesnt mean youre a good lawyer.”

“Well Mr Wright, its 2-0, so i dont think you have any right to say that.” Miles glares at him and Wright sits back in his seat. He watches Miles for a long time.

“If im going to defend you, you need to tell me what happened.“ Wrights eyebrows shoot up and Franziska squawks at his side

“What do you mean defend him!”

“What she said.”

Miles narrows his eyes at Wright as he ponders to himself the answer. Why is he doing it? the answer comes to him. 

“Because i dont believe you did it.”

For all his snark, Miles cant bring himself to believe that the man in front of him would kill someone. Theres something about him, either in his eyes or the way he carries himself that makes the idea itself preposterous. Wright looks at him for a long time after he says it.

“Very well.”

21. Miles doesnt seem him until court, but at least he testifies. The next person up, a red head by the name of Melissa Foster, gives a testimony that seems airtight.

22. that is, until he looks over at Phoenix, who is pale as he looks at the woman on the witness stand. Phoenix catches his eye, and very carefully, very slowly, mouths one name.

Dahlia Hawthorne

23. (I really wish i could continue with the more narrative parts of this but im honestly running out of steam and ill get to the point lol. Maybe ill finish it later.)

24. Terry Fawles dies on the stand. Diego Armando falls into a coma. Dahlia Hawthorne walks free. Even after what happened to Diego, Phoenix is convinced he can do better. He sets up a meeting with Dahlia.

25. Doug shows up, trying to persuade him away from it, saying he overheard Dahlia’s plan to kill Phoenix when she arrives. Phoenix is cocky, and the pair fight. Doug gets shoved into the powerline. Phoenix, thinking him dead, panics and runs.

26. Dahlia, having overheard, goes back and finishes him off, drops some poison into his mouth perhaps. With an accidental death with a cause so obvious, nobody bothers to run blood tests (until Miles)

27. Its years later, and Phoenix gets a note that tells him they know what really happened to Doug. Phoenix arrives to a meeting place to find a dead body. He picks up the vial of poison almost absently. 

28. After all, Dahlia had gotten rid of Diego and Mia was dead. Now all she had to do was get rid of Phoenix

29. It plays out similarly to case four, with Phoenix being absolved of the first murder, then confessing to the old one. Miles has gone through the work to save his life once, that he cant not do it again.

30. but happy endings (ish) for all, with Phoenix being freed, Dahlia imprisoned and Miles having a better understanding of both him and Phoenix.

31. maybe more happens but we’re at bullet point 31 so its time to stop for now lmao. uh but yeah! roleswap au..... brainrot really.

[luminoushane]

Part 2 of the Pirate x Siren Frosen Steel Au give y'all more of a backstory--

*Later that night*

Penny: I'm really sorry I got you in this, Ruby. I know that pirate only wanted me. You got dragged into this.

Ruby, looking up from what she was doing: Huh? Oh! Don't be sorry! I get held hostage like, allll the time! Nothing new!

Penny: That... Isn't a good thing

Ruby, shrugging: Yeah not really. But it's taught me some stuff.

Penny: Like?

Ruby, breaking free from the net and falling down the wooden floor: Aha!

Ruby, proudly showing off her dagger: To answer your question, I now know that I should always keep a dagger hidden in my boot.

Ruby: You should try it!

Penny: ...

Ruby: ...

Ruby: Oh wait you don't wear boots

Penny: You should hurry along *looks back* I think she heard you fall.

Ruby: What? No way! I'm not leaving you here!

Penny: She'll kill you!

Ruby: We're in the middle of an ocean! I'm going to die out in the sea! If I'm leaving, you're coming with me. That, or I'll face her myself.

Penny: ... Can you at least defend yourself?

Ruby: Wait why does it matter-

Weiss, slamming a door open: You! How'd you get out!?

Ruby: OH MY GOD SHE HAS A SWORD I DON'T HAVE A SWORD

Penny: Run!

Ruby, already running away: TO WHERE?!

Weiss: Get back here you rascal!

Ruby: WAIT CAN WE TALK ABOUT THIS I KNOW WHAT CABINS ARE AND AM A GIRL PLEASE DON'T HURT ME- *she stops before the edge* Woah-

Weiss, running towards her: WHY YOU LITTLE-!

Ruby: WAIT! I CAN'T-

*Weiss runs into her, sending them both falling overboard*

Ruby: -SWIIIMMM!!

Penny: Ruby!

*A splash could be heard as they fall into the sea. Both struggle to get out of each other's grasp, Ruby mostly, because she REALLY can't swim.*

Penny: Ruby! Ruby get out of there! *Her voice falters when the splashing suddenly stops* ...Ruby?

Ruby, in her head: Turns out I actually DO drown to my death. Oh well... Dad would be so furious, I hope Yang forgives me for giving her back the throne... Also I wish I knew what cabins actually were for. Do they store clothes there? Wait no, I'm dying, I should be dramatic.

*A hand suddenly grabs her shirt, and she's pulled over the water.*

Weiss: Are you stupid?! Why the hell would you travel on the water without learning how to swim?!

*Ruby coughs, and notices that Weiss has her hat off, and her hair down. She inspects her closely, and takes note of her scar and-*

Ruby: -scales?...

---

When Ruby said "I hope Yang forgives me for giving her back the throne" it means Yang used to be the crowned princess. This, however, prevented her from going for Blake because Blake is a princess from another kingdom. According to thissssss;

Blake can't abandon her kingdom, so can Yang. So Ruby took it upon herself to be the next-in-line so Yang can still go after Blake and no kingdoms get abandoned. Now, however? With her "death", it means Yang would have to be forced to take back the crown. Conflict, conflict. (I live for that lmao)

Weiss is part siren on her mother's side. She's mostly been searching for proof of her existence since Willow kinda just left her and her brother with their father. So she kinda ran away and vowed to find her mother one day. Finding Penny is her first step to finding out something about her origins, but her approach is kinda violent.

Penny, had different reasons as to why she's near the surface, even if she's strictly forbidden not to. Reasons the other two shouldn't know, not right now, at least.

[the-music-maniac]

I got sucked back into Ever After High, so hoo boy get ready for a long ass analysis about a ship

Did I mean to get sucked into Rapple? Uh, no. Fuck no. I usually make it a point not to sell my entire soul to small fandoms because the inevitable lack of fics will just break my heart. But here we are.

I'm low key distressingly neutral about the canon/popular ships for Ever After High. Namely Dexter x Raven and Apple x Darling. I have absolutely nothing against them, cause they’re both really adorable. I don’t know if appling is canon actually but it is strongly hinted at, and while I’m ecstatic that there’s some form of lgbt rep (however small), and that Dexter isn’t sadboi anymore cause he’s with Raven, I’ve always just liked Apple x Raven way more.

I guess I’m posting this cause I want to analyze why I like Rapple specifically? This isn’t meant to attack either of these ships or shippers in any way btw! This is just my personal opinion, I just felt the need to mention dexter x raven and apple x darling cause they are (for the most part) canon. :))

Tbh i really didn't mean to make such a gigantic analysis about this, but I got carried away lmao.

1. Rapple has a lot of narrative tension and weight:

I feel like rapple has more narrative weight as a ship then most I’ve seen in the Ever After High fandom. These two characters are undeniably the focal point of the story, and while all characters in the show have backstories and well developed characterizations, Raven and Apple are the "leaders" and the main main characters.

Raven with Apple could make for a really a complex and interesting storyline. After all,  Ever After High is ALL about breaking free of your pre-determined destiny, it would be the perfect twist in the story for Apple to fall for Raven and vice versa. There's so much more to write with that kind of turn in the story; the growth of a relationship, character development, the backlash they might recieve from a hero and villain together, fighting what everyone else tells them they should be. Honestly if we're gonna go there, it kind of mirrors what lgbt people have to go through on the daily. In my eyes, appling and dexter x raven (I'm sorrryyy I don't know the proper ship name) pales a bit in comparison, just in the amount of weight they carry (not that it HAS to have narrative weight to be a good cute ship of course).

Darling for Apple is also unconventional and a plot twist, cause it no longer follows the stereotypical hetero-normative fairy-tale, and I absolutely ADORE Darling as a character, but in the end she is still a Charming. Apple is still pre-destined to fall for a Charming, she's still following what her destiny tells her she should be, and while that's good on one hand, cause Apple wants to follow her destiny, I feel like when she pulled Raven back from the brink in Wonderland, she realized that destiny is not so set in concrete and what matters more is the people behind those destinies. I think Rapple would really drive in that point; destiny or no destiny that’s not what matters. So while appling does have some narrative tension as well, it doesn’t make me gleefully go “oh my god FUCK, you wonderful DISASTERS, now you’ve gone and done it. Now you've fucking stepped in it. AMAZING.”, y’know? Dexter and Raven is the exact opposite.  Destiny-wise it's pretty unique and frowned upon, but again, heterosexual romance (not that I expect all the characters to be lgbt, that's not what I'm saying) so it also doesn't hold as much weight as Rapple. I'm greedy ok? I want both. I want aspects of both. Maybe I'm just a shit-stirrer though lmao, maybe I just need a ship that fucking destroys all expectations and fucks shit up in the process XDD. It's possible *shrugs*

2. The amount of growth they go through together.

So it's pretty undeniable that Apple at the beginning is....um. Selfish, if we're gonna go with mild language. Kind of a bitch if we're gonna go with stronger language. She doesn't give a shit that Raven will have a horrible life if she follows her destiny, all she cares about is her part of the story and her happy ending. But the thing is, Apple doesn't stay like that. She becomes Raven's roommate and friend, and when it really came down to it, during the Wonderland part of the story, even though Apple is the one who gives Raven the book, she doesn't push and shows her support in thinking that Raven is too good to become the evil queen. And then when Raven was almost lost, Apple is the one who pulled her back and told her to choose who she wants to be. She let go of her need for Raven to be evil and saw her as her own person; someone she cares about deeply. Raven on the other hand starts off unsure and kind of insecure. She was still figuring herself out, and trying to resist what everyone is trying to tell her; that she has to be evil. I feel like through her personal growth and Apple's influence she starts to be more settled, confident. And Apple's support before and after she signed her storybook in wonderland definitely helped. This mutual growth actually brings me to my next point:

3. Rapple has a very strong basis for a relationship

So there's a definite reason why I love the concept of enemies to friends to lovers SO MUCH, and despite what people say, no it's not just because of UST (i mean that's a bonus but far from the only reason). What I care about is again, the mutual GROWTH.

What enemies to lovers does (healthy enemies to lovers btw, rivalries and stuff, not abusive shit) is force the two people to confront the worst parts of each other first and foremost. Meeting someone for the purpose of dating/because you like them means you'll put up a fake, mellower version of yourself to impress them, but there's none of that if you start off hating each other. Clashing is also often because of some underlying issue or sometimes because of a weakness in character; there's numerous reasons, pettiness, unhappiness, jealousy, anger, but it's never because everything is perfect. This means that, in order for these two characters who dislike each other to end up together in any capacity, they have to grow as people first, become better versions of themselves, and in the process they help each other achieve that. They also have to learn each other and let go of whatever was nagging them and compromise. It takes work and I love that, so much more than just a kiss to fall in love, or love at first sight or any of that fairytale stuff. Because that’s exactly it, relationships take work. It takes people repeatedly choosing to stay and work things out, and compromising, and that’s, in pure essence, exactly what you’re doing in enemies to lovers. Not only that, but it means they willingly choose the other person despite their setbacks, because god knows they're not the easiest option, means they see the worst in each other and want each other anyways.

Raven and Apple already have that set up in Ever After High, the only difference is, canonically, they're only friends (which honestly is just as good, not everything needs to be romance but this is a shipping analysis, so, I’m gonna stay on brand here). They disagree with each other, and they annoy each other, and they fight sometimes and they're still best friends despite it all. They really truly know each other, and that I feel like is such a strong basis for a relationship. Other than Maddie, I don't think Raven truly is as close to anyone else as she is to Apple, and the same goes in reverse. They even live together. *leans forward creepily* oh my god they were roommates.

I don't know, I just feel like, with other Raven and Apple ships, there's always a hint of potential for a relationship that the show and books never really explored or developed extensively, while Rapple already has these solid af steel foundations that could be built on and made into something amazing.

4. We know the most about Apple and Raven respectively

This is a rather minor detail, and more about me personally, but I'm the kind of person that has to really know a lot about characters in order to ship them. I also have to like both characters but I feel like that's kind of a given for shipping. If I know very little about the characters involved I lose interest. I know the most about Raven and Apple, we follow them closely throughout the series, and in the books, we see things from their viewpoints. In contrast, I just don't know as much about Darling or about Dexter.

5. I just find them cute as shit tbh

This is pretty self explanatory, they're just plain adorable. Something about them makes my heart go squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Oof this turned out WAYYY longer than I intended it to be, but anyways, stan rapple- or don’t y’know, stan appling or dexter x raven, or whatever other ships, stan ALL the other ships, ship anything and everything you want, be happy. I’ve been writing this ever since I finished my physio midterm and got this analysis idea that wouldn’t leave me the fuck alone so now my eyeballs feel like they’re about to fall out of my head, I’m gonna go pass out now, peace.

[colombinna]

,okay it's that time of the day again. Sit with me while I ramble about The Vision (and adjacent marvel bots)

Long post filled with unrevised and barely coherent thoughts ahead:

TL; DR: Vision is actually a well made analogy for modern day prejudice without being offensive, and his story about identity, family and self discovery is good as fuck.

So I was reading through wikipedia's pages on Asimov's stories because I wanted to see if I was interested about anything of his in the subject of Robots (which was always so interesting to me, don't really know where it came from I just was always kinda driven to it?? Kinda bad my first contacts with the genre were always via low-key racist media lmao), and yes, I do want to read The Caves of Steel because FUCK YEAH robots being used to ponder about humanity and the problem of punitivism bitch! I also came to the conclusion of WHY I personally like specifically the vision (and the adjacent marvel bots) so much.

My first (and most proheminent) contents with robots before I started reading marvel had been: 1- Star Wars; 2- the BBC TV show Humans; 3- The videogame Humans rip-off, Detroit Become Human and 4- the sheer disrespect in the form of filmed media that is mcu vision. So out of all of these, 2 didn't really go off about the concept of robots, they were a part of the environment that nobody really pondered too long about, and the other 2 fall under that Very Old Trope common to robot stories that is "Oh-oh! Is slavery maybe okay? Are the enslaved class actually not people at all? Wait, does that mean that black people are just like these non-human unliving entities???" (fuck you DBH for that last part btw). And I gotta say, after a while the bias and the racism in this trope gets HELLA tiring.

So this was my background coming into marvel comics. Given that mcu vision has no personality or backstory or anything of substance whatsoever besides "he died and now wendy is sad :(", when I started reading his 80s (and later 70s) appearances I had a VERY pleasant surprise. Instead of your regular "robot slavery" trope, what we had was a character who was purposely made more human (and emotional) than the others, dealing with society's views of him, after he had already figured out who he himself was.

Instead of a shitty bias disguised as "social commentary" in the form of a "robot slavery" story, we had a story about identity and prejudice which beautifully intersected with ANOTHER story about identity and prejudice in the form of Wanda. Both of these stories offered ACTUAL social commentary about current and relevant matters at the time, because that was what Marvel did! (And still does today depending on the author). The way they were portrayed made it crystal clear that they were not supposed to be read as your Perfectly White & Straight American Couple (and that's another fuck you to wandavision). They were an allegory for an interacial couple (as in literally cause Wanda is canonically jewish-romani and Vision is not, and through Marvel's allegories) and/or a queer couple. Their entire relationship was built on both of them not being humans (as in homo-sapiens sapiens), and protecting a society that hated them because being a hero and being good was in the core of both of their characters (and that's literally. The reason why they both became avengers was because they had turn on their respectives supervillain dads). They both had been through all of that shit and they found each other and they found love after a youth of constant trauma and abuse.

And it's also very interesting to see what roles intersectionality plays in their story. When their relationship first became public, Pietro (also a mutant, also an outcast) threw a hissy fit, and uninvited Wanda to his own wedding. She was the only family he had and he didn't invite her to his wedding because he couldn't accept his sister's relationship with a synthozoid. After that and a few panels where random marvel civvies made commentaries about their relationship, some calling it wrong and disgusting, a group of christian fundamentalists became bomb-men and tried to murder Vision TWICE, because his relationship with Wanda was against God. Their relationship being "unnatural", (with some mentions to the fact they couldn't have children) was mentioned countless times to portray the prejudice they faced. (Ah yes, suffering hate crimes because of who you love, the common cis straight white couple experience.)

And after that first attack on Vision's life, Wanda comments about how her, even though a mutant, can still "pass" as human, for looking human enough, whereas the Vision can't, which is why they attented against his life and not hers. (I am talking specifically about those religious fundamentalists attacks, where one of their motivations is "We can't allow a robot to be with a human. Sure, she's a mutie, but she's still a person!") (Obviously Wanda's life is incredibly fucked up because she's a mutant. The trauma and self-hatred she has because of the anti-mutant sentiment that perdured the MU is literally what causes the 2006 bullshit crisis we know as House of M.) (I'm not talking about mutants or Wanda here though. I'm trying to limit my mentions of her to explain how her mutant status intersects with Vision's synthozoid status and how that makes them an allegory for queer and interacial couples considering both marvel's care about current political issues and the time their love story was originally published, which was from around 1970-1988.)

The dehumanization that Vision faces is something that happens all throughout his first lifetime (from 1968-1989, which dates his first appereance and the first time he died in the Vision Quest) (for character reasons we do not consider White Vision, Cop Mind Patterns Vision, Jonas Vision or any Vision that doesn't have 616 Simon Williams' mind patterns in them). From his earliest adventures with the avengers he already has to deal with distrust and blind hatred by homo sapiens, and his first death is caused EXACTLY because of how dehumanized he is. Here's a quick summary: at one point Vision gets partially mind controlled by an alien supercomputer that gets him to try to take over all of the world's computers, to try to "make the world a better place". Vision realizes he's being mind controlled and pulls out of himself the crystal that was doing that to him. After that and being subjected to invasive interrogatory and medical tests in a CIA agency (in order to ""make sure it wouldn't happen again) (also the guy doing that was Gyrich if that tells you anything), he goes back to living with Wanda and their lives are fine until, when they join the West Coast Avengers, Mockingbird feat. All of The World's Governments plot to kill and erase all of Vision's backups, in order to, you know, ""make sure it doesn't happen again"". HERE'S THE THING THOUGH.

If it was Iron Man or Hawkeye or any of those heroes who had been mind controlled and tried to take over the world (which happens way more frequently in Marvel than you'd think), I doubt Gyrich and Mockingbird and Everybody would plot to MURDER THEM. They only do it EXACTLY with the ones who aren't human. They only do it to the ones to whom to commit errors (even if you're NOT in control of your mind) is not allowed. They only do it to the ones who are used as allegories for real life minorities. (However the way that they do it to Wanda is absolutely not to tell a cautionary tale the way that it was in the 80s lmao. Quesada and Bendis just outright hate her)

Where was I going with this again? AH YES. The reason why I like Vision so much and why I've been typing this for over half an hour now and got my dad made at me lol

Here it is: Even if unintetional (which I believe it was, I don't think they've thought about this while coming up with Even an Android Can Cry), Vision's story takes a trope that so easily falls into racism and subverts it by ACTUALLY making the story about a character from a minority group and gets rid of the outdated and honestly offensive slavery analogy, in order to talk about the current issues that the people this character is supposed to represent are going through. Vision does not deal with a robot slavery storyline, he deals with a storyline about dehumanization in modern times and modern prejudice. That, and also how his earlier plotlines explore his search for his own identity, and how that culminates in him denying his idea of self that Ultron put in him through abuse, alongside with finding another family in the form of Simon Williams (thank you for fucking that up, Vision Quest) create one of the most human and complex characters that I've ever read in all of Marvel.

[thatdamnokie]

so, as everybody knows, our man, the lovely mark strong, turned 57 this past august 5th

since the kingsman films have had a huge influence on several aspects of my day-to-day life (gee, wonder what group of people i could be referring to...), i decided to sit down and do something i’ve been thinking about since getting my medical card earlier this year: getting high as a kite and watching them back-to-back.

to celebrate mark’s birthday, i decided to do another running commentary post like the one i did for rocknrolla ages ago, under the cut. it’s a pretty similar style, which is to say not necessarily super coherent and might be hard to understand if you’ve never seen the movies. D:

there are some mentions of the roanoke society, but not many.

if even just one person finds this mildly entertaining for four seconds, then i’ll have done my job. there is a lot of cursing and this is NOT spoiler-free.

enjoy~

edited 9.1.20 to correct typos and such, please remember that i was Not Sober while i wrote this lmao

how many times have i watched these movies at this point? i don’t even know.  

i always liked the nifty like—retro arcade marv opening animation

and the thing with the tapes! we love book-ending devices!

kingsman: badass motherfuckers worldwide incorporated

like why was merlin even with them? i understand why lee and james would be there, but merlin, was he not acting quartermaster then?

i have SO MANY FEELINGS about lee unwin

i think it haunts harry and merlin more than anyone thinks, but these are fun spy movies so we just don’t talk about trauma and shit, don’tcha know

don’t look at how merlin tears up and tell me he doesn’t drink about it *HEAVILY* later

it’s such a stark contrast to see the 1990s interior vs. what it’s like when eggsy’s grown :(

michelle baby i’m so sorry. you deserved better than this.

and BABY EGGSY

omg. like this scene is both heartbreaking but is also adorable.

colin firth has gd anime legs, that dude had to straight up unfold himself as he stood up lmao

aaannnnd swooping logo, whooooo, goin’ over some mountains~

and mark hamill, ladies and gentlemen!

this whole thing with james deciding to kinda go rogue makes me wish that we knew more about his backstory as well. like, is this james being james, or was this a weird one-off situation and he was just unlucky?

YES unlucky. nobody could plan for the hurricane of sleek destruction that is gazelle

who has one of my favorite aesthetic designs as a villain (although i guess i’d put her more on maybe henchman level? but idk, it seems like valentine looked at her more as a partner, less like an assistant? and they had a very interesting chemistry together too, like i would’ve added more valentine x gazelle scenes)

i would LOVE to be this chill about just—draping blankies over bodies

blankies over bodies sounds like a cool band name

DIBS you guys can’t have it

i am SO GLAD samuel l. jackson gave valentine a lisp!

valentine, to me, does fit a lot of the usual spy movie villain tropes

but since this movie doesn’t take itself super serious, it’s more fun than annoying

and we never hear about any of the other knights?? like

half of this is just gonna be me whining for additional footage that there just wouldn’t have been room for realistically lmao

michael caine, you are lovely

MARK STRONG, LADIES AND GENTLEMAN

WITH LEGS THAT DON’T QUIT AND AN ACCENT THAT I’D DIE FOR

i’m an embarrassment

like let’s all stop and thank god that mark didn’t have time to learn the welsh accent

not that i would’ve been disappointed, because all accents are good accents on this blog

but at this point i can’t imagine merlin as—not scottish

“try picking a more suitable candidate this time”

arthur you DICK

like were you this cold-blooded when lee died, you fuckin’ reptilian-ass son of a bitch

no wonder you were charlie’s pledge person thing

and enter the fabulous taron egerton, stage left!

DEAN you are DISGUSTING

god, michelle, you need better friends, if you were my bro this entire relationship would’ve never happened

;-; and eggsy’s so sweet with his sister! i know there probably wasn’t “room” for it but i AM glad that there are scenes showing that family is one of eggsy’s kinda “core values”or whatever you want to call it

dude is a hufflepuff through and through imo

can you imagine eggsy as a villain? we would be so fucked. he’s sly, he’s smart, he could’ve made life v e r y difficult for lots of people if he really wanted to

but look at him with the squad!

eggsy’s just like the british version of a good ol’ boy

this car scene is some dukes of hazzard bullshit (ramp-jumping and fun car horn aside)

if butterflies are harry’s main symbolic critter, would foxes be eggsy’s? or would it be a pug instead? i guess that’s like asking if harry would be either a butterfly or a cairn terrier, like mr. pickle. let’s say both.

this fandom is pretty on top of character associations like that

you get symbolic associations! YOU get symbolic associations! EVERYONE gets symbolic associations whether they’re actually in the canon or not! don’t have any? don’t worry, we’ll assign you at least one!

the guy playing the interviewing officer is ALSO the patriarch in the witch which i didn’t realize until—like, a while after

and it was while @circlesofbone​ was visiting, and we were just “oh, okay, guess we can’t escape this cast at all, this is fine”

“your father saved my life.”

harry you’re such a fucking peacock, waiting all posted up and posing so you’ll look cool

you big doofus

i’d kill to be inside his head during this first conversation with eggsy though

like is eggsy like lee? is harry seeing lee the entire time he’s talking to his son, in his mannerisms, how he carries himself, how he speaks?

or is eggsy the opposite? which—i don’t know if that would somehow be sadder?

there’s just a lot going on in the background of this bit that’s left up to interpretation

“although i’m sure it’s well-founded—“

harry’s just so casual about this entire thing, nobody’s that casual without practice

harry you rabble-rouser, what kind of life have you led

“manners. maketh. man.”

our timeless motto, my flowers

kingsman STILL to this DAY has some of the most well-choreographed fight scenes i’ve ever seen??

like yeah the church scene but even just this initial bar fight

harry could’ve been a dancer

in a way i guess he already is

like he moves so fluidly and gracefully, it is BONKERS

colin you did so good! i’m so proud!

the way eggsy’s just O.O

whether or not you ship hartwin, like, you gotta admit, that was hot

and his BODY LANGUAGE, he’s sitting like RAMROD straight, this poor dude lmao

nobody prepares you for a situation like that in public school is all i’m saying

harry, exiting stage left like a suave, smooth motherfucker

remember when iggy azalea was relevant

ugghhhh i hate this part

“I WASN’T WITH NO ONE”

can you imagine being harry hart listening to your dead friend’s son getting the shit beat out of him

like, surely he heard the cleaver, he knows dean was going to fucking gut eggsy right?

listen to how cold and icy his voice gets, oof

yeah, he’s pissed, and dean is lucky

PARKOUR

ugh, i want to go to london ;-; i want to walk in front of the shop and visit harry’s house and kiss cute english boys

i’d like to think harry’s super excited to show eggsy everything but he’s gotta keep it dialed back because “decorum”

the way eggsy pauses though

“come on.”

and he says it so softly.

if i was eggsy, i’d be nervous, too.

but i didn’t realize how quickly harry tries to give off signals like “hey there’s no reason to be scared.”

“like my fair lady?” “well, you’re full of surprises.” <3 one of my favorite sceneeesss.

harry’s voice is so soothing but eggsy is so freaked out by the elevator that he’s just—there’s no room for anything else beyond processing the elevator lmao

“how deep does this fucking thing go?” asking the real questions

aannnddd KINGSMAN BULLET TRAIN

i’d like to think they have like soft jazz or something playing in there

and then they get to the hangar and there are obviously a buuuuunch of people out on the tarmac that we just—never hear about? i just assume they’re all like technical officers or maybe other agents

“your father had the same look on his face. … as did i.”

harry is already rooting for him.

“late again, sir.”

that. brogue.

fuck, i could listen to him talk for hours, scottish accents are my favorite thing

#squadgoals

not a very diverse cast :/

the body bag speeeeech

and of course nobody was in any actual danger, but merlin doesn’t want them to know that so he becomes mr. hard as steel, i am emotionally stoic at all times, do not test me you bunch of rugrats

“classic army technique.”

ROXY

ROXY I WANT TO JUST HOLD YOU IN MY ARMS TT.TT

aannnnddd charlie, also

who we might’ve found sympathy for if we knew aaannyytthiinnggg else about his backstory

like, could he just be Like That, yeah

but most people i know who are assholes like that are that way because their parents were first /shrug/

can hardly fault the dude for turning out like that when poison was all he was given to drink

anyone else a hundred percent positive they would’ve drowned in the first trial

i would absolutely have panicked and bit it

but then again, i’m not kingsman material, i’m roanoke

and if this is the exact same test that merlin and harry went through, does that mean there might be some weird drowning trauma hidden back in there that’s just ANOTHER thing we’re not gonna talk about?

(yes the correct answer is yes)

god that’s such an american response to the problem though

glass can’t cause problems if it’s in a million pieces!

“yeah you can wipe those smirks off your faces…”

i wonder if there was ever a situation where a trainee actually drowned

and i don’t mean like amelia, i mean some poor kid who just failed the test

merlin knows how to put the fear of god in people though!

and mark strong, very handsome, yes, very scary, also yes

he and colin both look like they’re 80 percent leg in every single scene

harry literally had brain matter smatter ALL OVER HIS FACE and still somehow had the mental facilities to be aware of those dudes, leave a bomb and dive out of a window (and then escape said dudes)

billy badass, y’all

“just get it done.” okay, i took back what i said earlier, maybe he does see her as more of an assistant, less than a partner. their relationship is weird.

the puppy scene!

“it’s a bulldog innit?”

YASSSS the golden trio

because of what happened with our other canon charlie has become a weird character for me to watch, like, yeah, i “watch” charlie be himself in tss but the charlie i “see” is like—”our” charlie.

“bollocks!” and then he just runs with jb in his vest, makes me smile

aannddd we see valentine’s super cool factory

harry your hair gets so long <3

“water!” wow, who wants to bet that the fact he was instantly screaming means that maybe he’s gonna have some stuff to talk about in therapy later

roxy baby i’m sorry they made you hold the balloon and have to trust these dumbasses to not shoot you on accident

i would trust roxy to not shoot me

i love, love love valentine’s house

it’s gorgeous

set design is always such a cool way for filmmakers to include details about a character using pure aesthetics and i’m such a slut for it

tilde!

see also: one of the characters done the WORST by these movies imo!

the fact that she not only says no, she says no with enthusiasm and gets blatantly pissed, is one of the best insights we get into tilde’s character and then it just—gets wasted

like it takes three steps and then gets mowed down in the hallway like her guards

i would never be given the opportunity to be asked if i wanted an implant but i draw the line at having stuff put into my neck

awwww harry’s so proud!

that finger point “yeah, see, be more like your uncle”

merlin is SO TALL

“a bit much innit?”

he’s just—tapping a normal clipboard

… nobody wanna talk about how that’s a normal clipboard

anyway

i also love how they show him in professor sweaters for the beginning acts of the movie

definitely a softer aesthetic than one would guess for a dude who apparently did field missions sometime within the past decade or so, but i also have a theory that lee’s death directly contributed to merlin maybe being the man behind the screen as opposed to afield

because trauma is a thing but this is a FUN movie so we’re NOT gonna talk about it

“you’re gonna be all right. you’re top of the class!” this was the scene that made my mom a reggsy shipper

regardless of how you feel about them as a couple, their friendship is one of the best things about this movie, along with their dynamic with charlie, asjdnaskdjna WHY could we not have had a trio movie instead

eggsy you show-off “lemme just throw my arms up and dip outta this plane like it’s not a big deal”

roxy you can do it!

ugh, there goes my baby, off to have a near-death experience under merlin’s immediate supervision lmao

“good girl, rox, glad you made it!”

guys, they’re just kids.

i love this big group scene because it reminds us that these are just young folks, still

“my, my, you’re all very cheerful...”

“rufus, come on!” dude eggsy—and not even just eggsy, charlie and rox too--at least made an attempt at teamwork. you get points for that bro

but man, for all they know, they’re about to beef it in a very permanent way, i’d be freaking out too

merlin getting caught up in the drama

because again, he’s supposed to know that eggsy has a parachute

i think he wasn’t prepared for these two to get that close to not making it and that’s why we see him break face and drop his mug

*WHAM*

i HATE the sound of them landing

it’s not like you can hear bones breaking but it hurts me, guys

and then there were three

plus one daddy long legs quartermaster

“if you have a complaint you come here and you whisper it in my ear.”

yes SIR

“you need to take that chip off your shoulder.”

merlin coming’ in with the tough love portion of the kingsman core squad

there’s no reason for me to think harry’s persona was inspired by cruella de ville somehow but i do anyway

she reveals the mcdonald’s and valentine is just :D

idk if he was expecting a specific reaction or was just excited to see a reaction period

valentine is definitely a fun villain, which, given the tone of the movie, makes sense, it’s all supposed to be fun

one of the reasons i love kingsman is that it’s like, this golden ray of goofy cinematic fuckery in a world of grim!dark remakes and other superhero/spy films who are presented as more serious stories

“and thank you for such a—happy, meal.”

harry got a puppy smile

but see, then, here at his house he’s a lot more relaxed with gazelle! like, patting her butt, etc.

maybe what we see of their relationship is dependent on setting, because valentine himself has it compartmentalized?

perrrrrrhaps

“and i am never, EVER GOING TO AGREE!”

tilde, you deserved better, and i think all the weird hate you get from our ohana is unfair

you don’t twist a runner’s ankle before the race starts and then get mad when they don’t win

your story was mishandled from the beginning

asmr: hanging out with the golden trio watching worrying news in the kingsman trainee bunker room

the way he says “biblical sense” lmao

i have never been able to figure out if the way he says that line is supposed to infer spiritual respect, or lack of it, but i might be looking too into it

“it’s an acquired taste, mate.”

what—what would you even do if you were at a club and three people as hot as taron, ed and sophie all came up and start talking to you at the same time

like i know the target got up and left pretty quick because of the training exercise

but i’d be doing it because i’m ugly and if three hot people are all talking me up at a bar something is Bad and Wrong

which—the CAHONES on both eggsy and roxy

they both literally said “yeah i’m willing to die for this organization that hasn’t even given me a permanent place yet, what of it”

look at harry’s dimples in this scene, he is fighting a huge grin, he’s SO PROUD

i know that charlie’s response is supposed to be just more fodder into the “charlie hesketh is a tool” fire

but given that i’m not unconvinced that his home life wasn’t super shitty, like—

idk, this makes this scene a lot less fun to me. it makes it sad.

like, maybe charlie didn’t even want to be there deep down, maybe this was all for like, arthur, or his dad, or some other person he looked up to

and the way merlin looks when he tells charlie to go home, the way that he’s kinda grimacing? i’m wondering if he’s along the same kind of feeling. he’d know more about charlie’s history

have i also mentioned how much i love harry’s war room?

“YES harry!”

an evil plan is being born!

“true nobility is being superior to your former self.”

eggsy is still in his club clothes, so like—has he slept? y’all let those kids sleep after fucking drugging them, right? … guys?

“—when one is popping ones cherry.”

and eggsy is just CHEESING he is SO EXCITED

am i the only one who wants to learn more about the store clerk guy though?

he’s like the one person around who’s legit just there to run the shop

has no idea about any of the spy stuff happening

his name is donald, he’s married with three children and has two spaniels he loves

“THAT is sick.”

i would KILL for this room.

i don’t need anything in here for any reason but still

foreshadowing, foreshadowing, foreshadowing, more foreshadowing—

harry is such a NERD

“put it back, eggsy.”

the amount of self-control it would take to not have a sudden change in expression in that moment, omg

i wonder how THAT gets trained up in kingsman

“i guarantee it.” ha, get it, it’s a reference to that one commercial

“y’all—talk so funny.”

and this all means that they had a contact at that hat shop and got all that info to them before valentine got there, and somehow made sure he did end up buying a hat that they could also successfully put a bug on, how deep does this goooooo

“jack bauer?”

it says a lot about eggsy that out of all the jb’s it could’ve been, it was jack

uggghhhhhh of course they HAD to do this scene with eggsy with arthur

obviously harry couldn’t do it

i just think most of us would NOT be fans of arthur at this point in the movie, we’re all rooting for eggsy, like, he needs this moment with this other character because we gotta drive home that he’s an asshole

also—would have absolutely failed that test

and i’m not sorry at all

“welcome to kingsman--lancelot.”

i was really happy that it was a female agent who ended up getting the handle

aannddd more echoes of past scenes, man, nobody can say that this crew wasn’t intentional with their cinematography

when eggsy rolls the window down you can see his chest moving up and down, like, he is MAD

dean you asshole

so no wonder he gets so pissed that the car suddenly decides “nope, no, we’re not doing this, c’mon”

this entire conversation at harry’s house is—tense

and you don’t pick up on it the first time, i don’t think, but uh

i’m seeing it now

harry’s not just mad, he’s hurt, and eggsy’s furious but he’s also maybe regretting his actions.

it’s these two men who are rapidly trying to figure out their headspaces and trying to figure out how to navigate this situation with each other

and the way eggsy tries to apologize ;-;

kentucky is a beautiful state, actually

ohhhhhh y’alllll

we’re at the churrrccchhhh

we’re gettin’ closer to the coolest part of the movieeeee

it’s telling that gazelle was trying to make sure that they’d be safe

“… so hail satan, and have a lovely afternoon madame.”

the most metal lines colin firth has ever uttered on camera

the siren noise after it’s switched on bothers me in a way i can’t quite articulate

it might be because i have silent hill-colored trauma, who knows

FREEEEEE

BIIIRRRDDDDDDD

THE GREATEST ACTION TRACKING SHOT IN THE HISTORY OF CINEMA

but then eggsy and merlin are reacting aaaanndddd it’s—a lot less fun

because you realize that they’re watching their bro mercilessly slaughter innocent people and not stopping

and still not stopping

and still not stopping

but plot twist, i’m really glad they kept the track going, because if they’d suddenly picked *this* part of the scene to get serious, that would’ve brought the mood down so low that i don’t think there would’ve been any bouncing back

i just

how do people exist who aren’t attracted to harry hart

that man is a machine

and colin worked so hard to be able to do the scene himself, and that work SHOWS, that man cuts a FIGURE

i don’t know how they managed to somber it up just the right amount, either? maybe because they waited for the “fun action sequence” to be over so there wouldn’t need to be noise that had to be masked by a fun rock track?

“… what did you do to me.”

i cannot imagine what harry was feeling in that moment.

the way he spoke it was like he didn’t even have time to be afraid to die

“that tends to happen when you shoot somebody in the head. feels good, right?”

“no, it does not feel good!”

i love that exchange because we normally hear the opposite.

also—whiplash.

mark has this way of expressing grief without showing any—blatant signs.

like merlin’s not especially tearful, or crying, but his eyes look MASSIVE. and SAD. and he has just the tiiiiiniest tremor in his voice.

and eggsy, dude, like, we’ve all had it come on us really quick and suddenly it’s like your chest is pumping like a piston and when did it get so hard to breathe?

ARTHUR you REPULSE me

like look at how egssy’s shoulders sag when he realizes that arthur isn’t on his team

and in a way, this is eggsy’s final test as a kingsman trainee, imo

do you realize how quickly he had to assess what was happening and figure out what to do, all without arthur noticing?

“you are all alone. it is all up to you. remember all you have learned. good luck.”

it’s a very—almost horror-esque situation from that pov

and he passed with flying colors to go on his first true mission, because after he puts on the suit, that’s his visual cue of graduating, if that makes sense

that’s the knight putting on his armor.

“i’d rather be with harry. thanks.”

“so be it.”

*click*

me: *laughing at arthur’s big dumb stupid head*

… man i’d love a replica of that decanter and glasses set though

not to mention that eggsy recognized the flaws in arthur’s character and weaponized them, which is a whole other level of shit that isn’t necessarily easy; he knew that arthur carried the kind of pride that would leave him open

god, he looks so exhausted though when rox has him at gunpoint.

i think he was being pretty serious, about harry

sick helipaaaaaaad

that thing looks vaguely like a rock-‘em sock-‘em robot but in pieces though

more grandpa sweaters <3

man. you can see roxy swallow, you know she’s scared, but then she just sets her jaw and—

roxy baby you are the best i love you

i like the vintage vibe of the mountain lair

i think that’s another visual poke at the aesthetic themes of some of the older, og spy flicks out there

merlin looks SO LANKY walking back to the plane for some reason??

he stays until the last second for roxy. that’s love right there.

“a bespoke suit always fits.”

which can be good spiritual life advice too but that’s a separate conversation

“what the fuck is WRONG with you people?”

and his fuckin’ disco ball

uuggggghhhhh his speech reminds me of so many… “public figures” that i dislike

even though it’s obviously a bad thing that the chips are everywhere, i appreciate that phones and such are being shown in a positive manner (like, michelle talking to someone in the park, people at a ball game taking selfies, people at the beach, etc.) because i get so sick of that anti-tech boomer humor tbh

and the big reveal of eggsy in his suitttt

A KNIGHT IS BORN

“how’s the view?”

“hideous.”

you’re allowed to be crabby baby, you just let it out.

“lookin’ good, eggsy.”

“feelin’ good, merlin.”

merlin is so calm heading into the fortress and i don’t know if it’s because he’s very, very good at compartmentalizing and that’s genuinely how he is at the moment or if he’s that way through extreme self-control and effort

he can rock a pilot’s uniform though

just like eggsy can rock a suit

they’re both so handsome, help

i also wonder how eggsy’s feeling right then

like, i’d imagine that the pressure of having to perform a role to literally save the world would be enough to distract him from the bite of grief

that’s—probably enough to distract everyone, tbh

i a hundred percent believe there are breakdowns we don’t see

i wonder if eggsy told tilde he’d spoken to lindstrum(sp?) after everything was said and done

like, that’d be some kind of weird foreshadowing in hindsight

this scene is anxiety-inducing in a big way so to distract myself i imagine roxy as a mech pilot

dude i’d totally watch sophie in a role like that, like, let her be in a movie like pacific rim, she’d kick ass

and now we have The Chaos

otherwise known as that point when Everything Is Happening All At Once All The Time

also a thing that doesn’t exist in spy movies: hearing damage

because like his voice is right in eggsy’s ear and without it he’d have a LOT harder time surviving

imagine being an agent, merlin trying to talk to you, but something either hits your ear or goes off right next to it and suddenly it’s just silent

SYSTEM FAILURE

YAAASSSSS

WE WIN

GGOOOAAAAALLLLLL

THE AUDIENCE IS DOING THE WAVE

except JUST KIDDING

The Chaos 2 Electric Boogaloo!

merlin with a huge gun: hot, also, very scary

eggsy is just 10000% done

“this is mine. i’ll show you yours.”

i wonder who e man was supposed to be that valentine called.

like is that a reference to a real person that i just did’t catch?

… elon musk? maybe? idk

eggsy slides like a gd anime character

when he uses the rainmaker, it’s just like harry’s protecting him from somewhere else

(oh—wait, technically kentucky, i guess)

“merlin, i’m fucked.” you can hear the anger there. not only did he fail, but he—and everyone else—is about to die

but this? this is the pinnacle of eggsy showing himself as a kingman agent

he was staring death straight in the mouth and STILL

SOMEHOW

REMEMBERED THE IMPLANTS

so i guess if i say that the moment when he puts on the suit is when he becomes a true agent, then maybe this is the moment when he becomes galahad.

*bobs head to pomp & circumstance*

i remember getting a huge kick out of how colorful they made this

because in real life you know a bunch of people literally blowing up would be like—DISGUSTING

viscera everywhere

no fun rainbow mushroom clouds

“i’ve always wanted to kiss a princess.”

ANOTHER knight reference, very clever matthew

mmmmm Do Not Like that noise

aaaannndddd *that* line

which—maybe that’s mr. vaughn’s sense of humor, or what he thinks the sense of humor his core demographic has, idk

but it always kinda rubbed me the wrong way

the mass brawl scenes are edited so like--jarringly compared to the other fight scenes in the movie

that’s probably for a reason

also, a showdown to the tune of something disco: kind of another trope homage

this shot of gazelle is so sick, i love everything about it, she is so cool

this entire fight with eggsy is awesome tbh

we got a little bit of what gazelle can look like in combat earlier with tilde’s guards, but now we get this epic showdown seeing her at her full potential against someone who’s actually a challenge

and the way valentine is shouting for her to kick his ass from upstairs and yelling encouragement lmao that’s how real friends act when there’s a fight

daisy ;-; ugh, that’s the visual gutpunch that makes it juuuuuust serious enough by reminding us of the stakes

which is why it’s fitting that then we see the Slo-Mo K.O.

and that smile with the fun little chimes in the back, lmao

and eggsy, quick on his feet again byyyy being quick on gazelle’s feet—foot—whatever

man, impalement deaths are always fun.

coulda done without the vomiting but that’s also one of valentine’s quirks that makes him different from a cookie cutter villain

aaannddd have a heavy sigh from merlin

that dude needs a full-body massage and a drink

“is this where you say some really bad pun?”

reminder: i love that this movie is self-aware! i could not picture a super serious kingsman movie! i just picture something depressing!

there had to have been a better option besides—this, for this eggsy/tilde ending scene

i’m not saying i’m mad it ended with them fucking, i’m mad that the extent of the joke was anal and that was it.

also the idea of my boss possibly seeing me having sex would have me a little more concerned about the hardware on my face, but okay??

aannddd the tapes.

gah, we love visual throwbacks!

we love being able to see that despite all this growth and change, family remains very important to eggsy—he hasn’t changed into a different person, he has grown more into himself than ever before! THIS! THIS is eggsy unwin!

… GET READY FOR IT

time for tgc! (and to get into my roanoke feels, maybe, this is the nexus where our canons connect)

the BAGPIPES

okay

i did not stop to consider how unpleasant this was going to be to watch stoned but we’re gonna power through it and get through it together

if i cry i cry

the way the music swells into the main theme <3

and the perfect reveal for our boy eggsy!

reflected in gold, looking sharper than broken glass

and SUDDENLY CHARLIE

the pacing in tgc leads me to believe that matthew had huge plans for this movie, and a lot of cool stuff probably ended up on the cutting room floor for time

i also love that they brought charlie back

i love his voice box and his cool robot arm

and i’m not just saying that because it made it super easy to blend him into our canon, either, this is like—charlie’s evil twin in terms of his new aesthetic, the contrast is really cool

YYAASSSS THIS SCENE

WITH PRINCE PLAYING??

*CHEF’S KISS*

like we are IMMEDIATELY thrown back into the gold parts of it all, like how physics is a little broken so we can do cool shit like have a knockdown drag-out fight all within the space of a small cab

i wonder what would’ve hurt charlie worse—being thrown onto his organic side, or having all his weight land on his metal arm if it hadn’t disattached

but then he’s up and standing so i guess we’re fine?

MERLIN! <3

otherwise known as the character entrance that literally changed my life

i try not to think about it too much or i get weirded out

ANYWAY

(and to think i almost never even saw the movie)

Sick Car Chase, Bro

and as an american, like, everything’s on the opposite side to me, it’s stressful to watch a little bit

“i seem to remember in your training you were rather good at holding your breath.”

man, that’s uh—kind of a macabre thing to say, merlin

just a little bit

i’m not even gonna attempt to hold my breath to see if i’d survive this scene just assume i’m dead in that universe

we all live in a kingsman subarmine, a kingsman submarine, a kingsman submarine~~

“not boasting, but i trained him well enough that even he wouldn't mess that up.”

merlin are you okay??

gah, i love that chest-deep laugh though.

is it real love if they won’t crawl through the sewer to get to your house in time

i love that harry’s house looks basically the same

i know they talk about eggsy not wanting to change anything in the novelization but i haven’t read it yet so I’m not a hundred percent sure what all is in there

and we still get to see him hanging with his friends, and his girlfriend, like, this dude is still all about the family

“wwwwOOOOO!”

i love this group so much omg

for as much as he’s galahad, he’s still eggsy

the transition in the weed bag looks super cool

… oh, i guess watching this while high makes the main storyline hit a bit different

welp

i love that poppy is an aesthetic slut and really doesn’t give a shit about anyone’s opinion about how she makes her space

like, “i want a big 50s-style diner with a gourmet kitchen that i can cook people in, soooooo i’m getting one”

it’s also refreshing to see julianne moore in a bad guy role!

not that i’m super familiar with her filmography but i feel like i’ve mostly seen her cast as like a good guy?

i could be wrong

awwwww jet and bennie!

there’s so much to love about this set

cannibalism and the fact that she bulldozed jungle to build all this aside (suspend that belief!)

the breakfast sceeeeeene

it’s so bittersweet, for obvious reasons

and it’s more evidence that he’s not super ready to move on into new territory yet, like making new memories with tilde that ring close to home

“i wish i could have met him.”

and the way he has to turn away, ugh.

eggsy. i’m sorry.

tilde, i’m sorry, too. you had good intentions, but they lost against his pain.

michael gambdon! the new arthur we didn’t know we wanted until we got him.

charlie had a moral glo-down, it’s fine, happens to everybody

FFFFFF his imitation of merlin lmfao

man, poor charlie, like

you wake up, you can’t make a sound, your arm has been blown off and your family’s dead

like his reaction to that entire scenario isn’t entirely unrealistic, i’m just saying

also LOOK AT ROX

omg everyone in this movie can wear the FUCK out of suit, y’all

man, i’ve gotten a few tattoos that were exquisitely painful—i can’t imagine how much it would suck to do it with literal molten metal

dude this means clara laid on her stomach and probably screamed at the floor as she got hers D:

this kinda—riffs off of hannibal, a teeny-tiny bit

like we’re so overloaded with the aesthetics and behavior of a certain character so it’s like, we forget about the much darker parts untillllll there’s a mood change and we’re looking at that dude’s legs, to the burger this other dude puts in his mouth, and thinking “oh, oh dear, ew”

i love eggsy in the orange jacket <3 snaps for the wardrobe crew across this series.

tilde’s face, omg, she was heart-eyeing so bad. and like, that little proud nod at her dad (who was of course being Like That on purpose)

and roxy, coming in in the clutch, you are tonight’s MVP

uggghhhhh i hate this part

because again, it’s just--a bunch of bad shit colliding outside of anyone’s control

(it was also really jarring seeing the war room with blank walls the first time i watched this)

like—granted, you should maybe not touch stuff that’s not yours, but…

like we *just* saw eggsy and brandon in a very casual, intimate scene with each other, how can anyone get angry with brandon?

this is all stress-inducing

i remember being in the theater watching this and feeling like i was watching some awful slow motion car wreck and i couldn’t look away

idk what other story i would’ve wanted to see but i was NOT a fan of Sudden Death For Christmas, especially concerning roxy!

and poppy is such a *bright* villain, not just because of taste but because of her personality, which is another weird thing to have next to the cannibalism

gaaahhhh charlieeee your arm is so cooooool

this shot is gorgeous and incredibly depressing.

what do you do?

gah, and the way merlin comes out of the dark, like

i probably would’ve drawn a gun on him too

“you think *i* would?”

this scene shows 1. how much he trusts eggsy to not shoot him, and/or 2. how good merlin is at compartmentalizing, because this is an even bigger blow than harry’s death, and he’s following the protocol like it’s an art form

i hope that we see some reference to this safe in the next movie, that’d be a cool way to tie the narratives all together

“i suppose that must be upper class humor. … i don’t get it.”

reminder, merlin is working class.

if you’re a ho for this fandom and went and bought this whiskey specifically because of this movie clap your hands *clap clap*

and they proceed to just get HAMMERED

“country rooaaddsss… take me hoooooome…”

another reminder: kentucky is a beautiful state!

i would love to tour a whiskey distillery, that’d be super cool

“shame it’s not scotch”

again, with his weird night vale clipboard.

who would win: two highly-trained kingsman agents vs. one (1) cowboy

channing tatum, ladies and gentlemen!

“y’all look damn sharp!”

i am forever gonna be mad we didn’t get more of tequila in this movie, and not just because of roanoke either, but like, “that dog don’t hunt,” whatever he has in his mouth sealed a leak in a barrel, and it took him all of two minutes to incapacitate both eggsy AND merlin? hello??

i’m glad we’ll get to see more of him in the another movie.

“you know why the measurement of alcohol is called proof?”

just dumping it on their laps, so disrespectful

“—and you can go fuck yourself.”

eggsy fucking just giggling.

these two doofuses

also it’s hot to see merlin be sassy ngl

“HARRY!”

these guys have been fast thinkers in stressful situations but as it turns out, people being unexpectedly not dead can kinda fuck with your day

aaannddd halle berry, everybody! i love ginger ale omg

(and so does merlin, he is instantly enchanted)

;-; this reunion scene

i don’t know how colin manages to be two completely different people at once

like there’s a huge difference between former agent galahad and harry hart the lepidopterist and i can’t explain it

i really, really hope we see at least one little hint at kinsman’s relationship with statesman in the new movie, i just think it’d be really cool

in roanoke canon, there’s an office rumor that the nanobot tech used by statesman was influenced directly by the same technology developed by dr. wernicke in the outlast games. i still think it’s one of my better crossover ideas.

also

god bless whoever decided to get elton john involved with all this?? because i was DELIGHTED

i love poppy’s wardrobe as much as i love her weird 50s-land in the jungle

i also really love the main statesman theme? it reminds me of all those fun epic westerns

jeff bridges! :D

champ vaguely reminds me of my dad

“can you imagine us in the tailor business?”

and he’s super quick with the questions. my headcanons for champ are all over the place but one that i really like is that he was maybe a sheriff or in law enforcement before being recruited by statesman.

aaanndddd pedro pascal, everybody!

otherwise known as *another* character that this movie did dirty, that’ll probably come up in this later

imagine being harry hart, not remember all of yourself, and suddenly your entire room just—fills with water

that had to have been so terrifying, and it was just as hard for merlin to watch (and possibly remember something unpleasant)

and like

that sounds like SUCH bullshit, too, like “yeah we thought if you came close to drowning it would help”

which, is that what merlin meant, no, but is that what harry heard, probably

enter jb the second ;-; <3 sweet baby

tilde’s trying so hard. i see you!

aha, penis jokes.

and all of the unnecessary weird festival stuff, uuggghh

there are so many different things they could have done, like, all of this is just weird from the get-go

first of all, whiskey striking out? hello?? saying no to a man like mr. pascal???

not realistic

the way whiskey takes a shot as he walks away lmao, relatable

and poor clara, like, it’s not like she was asking for any of this D:

hmmmmmmm don’t know how i feel being a stoner watching other stoners get this blue rash thing when i know it kills some of themmmmmmm

i love charlie in his newsboys cap!

poppy has a little bit of a point. like, booze is way more dangerous than pot, as is tobacco. like i would never advocate anyone try meth or heroin, but i think weed and some hallucinogenics get bad wraps.

seeing a dude get torn in half in the reflection of elton john’s sunglasses is the surprising bit of gore we need to remember that oh, yeah, the villain isn’t fun, she’s a murderer

uuggghhhh the TENT SCENE

and, look, i’ll defend tilde forever, but i did NOT like the weird marriage ultimatum. i still think it’s a dick move, like, in that situation either decide to trust your boyfriend or break up with him

the tent interior is super cool-looking

and like, man, he tried, he tried to bounce D:

/sigh/ work hazards, i guess

mmmmmm we don’t need any of what’s happening on screen right now so i’ll just sit patiently and wait for it to be over

and like, there’s nothing funny about merlin and ginger being able to hear everything that’s going on, it’s so grosssss, poor ginger has to have heard some shit before to be so nonchalant about it

everything about this sucks

and then he tries going to the one person who he needs the most and having to deal with him still existing in some state between alive and dead

his body is here

but harry is not

“maggots turn into flies, perhaps you mean larvae!” :D he is SO CUTE

but this entire conversation, with harry still not remembering and eggsy trying so hard to reach him through the fog, is so depressing

like, i’d need a drink too

*and* a joint

i’m seeing my coping mechanisms on screen here folks

the way he comes up with the idea is kinda ingenious though

like, he’s looking at stuff to make himself bummed on purpose, but therein he finds the thing he needs to fix the issue

harry’s smile when eggsy hands him the puppy TT.TT

and then eggsy just becomes a stone cold motherfucker with no emotions

“no one’s sick enough to shoot a puppy!”

hi, flashback!harry

and as SOON as he remembers himself, it’s like his eyes are different, something about him looks like it did before kentucky

“… eggsy.”

one of my favorite movie hugs

and eggsy has to stand on his tiptoes because harry’s so tall

like yeah merlin and harry’s reunion isn’t as overtly emotional, but there’s definitely a sense of joy and relief there.

harry my baby ;-; much better with the sunglasses (and merlin was so close to telling him he looked spectacular)

“now is that any way to welcome a visit from outta town, moonshine?”

he! tried! to! defend! harry!

i hate that jack got a villain story line!

we could’ve had something so much better and infinitely more compelling!

“hurrrr durrrr morgan you just like redemption arcs because you don’t want anybody being a villain permanently” i also like them because sometimes that’s better writing, y’all sit down

“that is NOT what i call a kentucky welcome.”

i love so many things happening in this scene, like

we get to see whiskey kick ass, like yassss gimme those sweet action sequences and give us some character development by showcasing his fighting style

and also NOBODY shits on harry for not being able to handle the situation. both eggsy and merlin were like “dude we’re still celebrating the fact that you’re alive tbh it’s fine if you’re not back up to speed right this second”

you can really tell that this was penned by british people writing american slang because having grown up in the southern half of the u.s. i have never ONCE heard ANYONE say shit like “i feel like a tornado in a trailer park” lmao

and poppy’s fun little death threat infomercial, so great

“what have you done to me you FUCKING BITCH” oof, that’s a mood

!!!!! gonna be honest i kinda forgot that bruce greenwood plays the president

okay but save lives, legalize isn’t an entirely bad idea tbh

hnnnnnnng the scenes about people not being able to get into the hospital hits different in the year of our lord 2020 huh

… y’all i’m being weirded out by all this hospital scenes, this is unpleasant

i, too, wish i could pull a tequila and just be slipped into a chilly coma until shit wasn’t so fucked up

“the fact is, this presidency has won the war on drugs!”

THIS SCENE!

look, y’all can come into my inbox and call me a pothead, or a lazy stoner, or some third insult, but this dude’s VP is bringing up some very, VERY important points when it comes to any kind of discussion about drug use in the u.s.

am i drug-friendly, sure, but i’m more friendly to the notion that we stop demonizing addicts/users

harry looks fucking SCANDALIZED when he sees champ spit into his spittoon thing

i don’t think whiskey even brought up harry not being ready to return to the field in an insulting manner, he literally just saw him get his ass beat in a bar, but eggsy’s faith and loyalty are up there in the category of unstoppable force/immovable object, so here we are

am i the only one curious about the whole charlie x clara thing? because he’s definitely grown up a bit by tgc, and i wanna know how much of that might be because of clara

and he MISSES, e for effort harry

“so sorry about this—“ WHAM

and now that guy can say colin firth busted his face with a fire extinguisher, which is very cool

“*you’re* wu ting feng?” “… yes?”

“you motherFUCKER” ohhhhhh charlie maaaaaad

ginger and merlin though, #couplegoals

the only person more pissed off about the hallucinations than everyone else is harry

imagine remembering that you’re one of the top people in your field and you just keep seeing imaginary butterflies everywhere

like, yeah, i’d be pissed at not being able to do what i knew i was capable of, too

if it wasn’t careening towards a random retirement center, getting stuck in a wildly rotating gondola thing could be fun

nice tuesday afternoon activity

i would loved to have seen more galahad/whiskey field stuff

“you’ve got to be fucking kidding me—“

meanwhile, in the continuing adventures of eggsy and jack: shit goes from bad to worse like a formal spiral only going downward

their expressions as their both just SCREAMING always make me laugh

”that’s the first decent shit i’ve had in three weeks.” <- as does that line, that old dude’s just telling it like it is

eggsy’s comment about the antidote just reminds me of when boromir looks a the ring and says something like “all this for such a tiny thing”

dun dun DUN what are THOSE? hints that whiskey may not be who we think he is??

great. so excited about that. i say, rolling my eyes into the sun

“i’ll fix their wagons.” no one says that matthew!

i. love. this. scene. because now we get cool gun tricks AND the second most metal thing that happens with a lasso in this movie (we’re coming up on the most metal thing)

like please please PLEASE show us more lasso tricks in the statesman movie

“well thank fuckin’ christ i didn’t need any backup.” i wonder if whiskey’s acting angrier than he actually is to throw off the fact that he might’ve caught harry’s glance at him betraying suspicion

RIP jack

imagine the timeline where whiskey was never a bad guy and harry hart just blew a dude away for NO REASON

now THAT would be an interesting movie

because harry and eggsy, for all they went through in the first film, never had a conflict where it was harry in the position of mangling the ropes up

but of course eggsy would never, never tell merlin what happened because he’s still ultimately on harry’s team

damn, charlie, literally blowing up your girlfriend seems kinda extreme

“THIS is vital!”

and here we get to see the biggest difference between merlin and ginger

now, i know there’s extra stuff in the novelization about their relationship and i can’t talk about it because i have no idea what’s in the book

but!

i DO still headcanon as merlin quitting fieldwork after lee’s death

his comment is either what he genuinely believes, or maybe what he fashioned his beliefs into after stepping down from his field role, and ginger is just as sincere in her desire to break into that aspect of working for statesman

it’s like seeing the same character but in two points in time, and it’s really cool

that balance would’ve also been a fun aspect of their romantic relationship to explore but alas! ’twas not to be

colin and mark could both play slenderman

look at those limbs.

gracious.

also this facetime scene with eggsy and tilde T.T

that has to be so terrifying to watch when you know the steps of death and what they look like as they get closer

but it also puts a fire under eggsy though

“i’m leaving with, or without you.”

and of course they’re both gonna go because that’s NOT characteristic eggsy behavior based off of how we know he views family/squad

that’s how they know he’s being for cereal

uugggggGGHHHH and THAT FORESHADOING

stacey pruitt, attorney at lawwwww

hmmmmmmmmm

what does this conversation between poppy and the president remind me of

gonna just sigh into the void

and now we have harry and eggsy on the jet along with the BIGGEST LIE harry hart has ever told in his LIFE

kingsman and statesman aesthetics at least tend to be the same color schemes. lotta golds, yellows. browns.

eggsy, yeah, it’s a bummer your gf dumped you, but this relationship wasn’t very well-developed or written so i’m not as bummed as i could be

“… and in that moment, all i felt was loneliness and regret.”

harry shut the FUCK UP

you felt NOTHING??

you weren’t thinking of, gee, i dunno, EGGSY? or MERLIN?? your MOM???

like these lines from him just seem to come out of left field and i can’t even halfway suspend my belief long enough to come close to believing him

like mr. hart you just gonna be like that in front of jesus and everybody????

so, yeah, of course he’s on board with saving tilde! because he recognizes (apparently just right that second) that “having something to lose is what makes life worth living”

and i don’t know if they felt like there need to be some weird, deeply contrasting reason for harry to swing around to being in support? or something?

like

i’m forever pissed about this characterization and i don’t even know if i’m expressing my anger in a way that makes it easy to understand lmao this is fine, i’m fine, literally not a single person in this fandom ever believed those lines anyway, it’s fine

moving on

... and even if they WERE true then honestly that just makes me more excited about butterfly knife, because that means that harry acknowledged both the bad side of the coin, and also the side with rae on it (which would mean seeing her for who she was and also recognizing his feelings for what THEY were) and drew the ultimately correct conclucision that love! is! always! worth! it! let that shit in like a welcome guest in the home of your heart, and they will stay as long as you let them!

as SOON as he wakes up ginger looks a thousand percent done lmao

and the “process” that they use to wake people up or whatever is—interesting

because all it is, is trauma turned into a tool which is kind of a weird concept to see in a “fun spy movie” imo

and this is one of what i feel were like only what, two? glimpses we get into whiskey’s Tragic Backstory

and the other scene isn’t a glimpse it’s just straight up exposition in his dialogue :/

jack, i’m sorry, you deserved better than this as a character

i’m sure the name “silver pony” is a reference to something but i don’t know what

“lookin’ GOOD merlin!” “feelin’ good, eggsy.”

ladies and gentlemen when i tell you that i lost my pool-noodle mind seeing him put on that suit watching this in a theater, i--

ANYWAY

because now that i have the horrible burden of having seen these movies a million times

i know it’s more symbolic

he stays in sweaters so long, as an agent of the background, because he walked a man to his death

so it figures when he puts the armor back on for the first time in ages

he walks to his own

uuuggghhhh the minesweeper

i hate this

i hate it

i hate everything about the feelings i’m having while this is happening

*beep-beep*

“you move, we die.”

i HATE IT

but like, i don’t know, how preferable is this to the end scene we almost got, which was merlin dragging his newly-legless corpse through a doggy door?

because it’s been literally multiple years and i still have no fucking idea

they’re both horrible in their own terrible, awful ways

damn, matthew, it’s not often someone manages to come up with multiple versions of a thing and have every version be so gut-wrenchingly horrific, i’m truly impressed and completely disgusted

“do as your told!”

god

everyone just going through twenty shades of Bad Feelings in the space of fifteen seconds here in the jungle

and colin and taron do this thing where it’s like—their eyes go dead? like, there was a light here, it’s gone now

it SUCKS

oh

oh no

ALMOST HEAVEN

WEST VIRGINIA

… fuck

LIFE IS OLD THERE

OLDER THAN THE TREES

“… singing?”

this sucks.

this sucks this sucks this sucks

MOUNTAIN MAMAAAAA

TAKE ME HOOOOME

COUNTRY ROOOADDSSSSS

*THUNK*

and he even took off his glasses before he hit him, he had his end coming towards him and he was still a gentleman

TAKE ME HOOOME

COUNTRY RROOOOAAAADDDSSSSS

his EYES AT THE END

FUCK

… okay i had to get up and go for a lil’ walk

anyway

(and again, roanoke canon, fucking fixing’ shit left and right, because we’re the goat)

harry and eggsy look MURDEREROUS

MERLIN SAID KNOCK YOU OUT

it DID make the grand ending fun action scene a lot more satisfying

because like, without merlin there, that means harry and eggsy get to go full feral

poppy you big idiot you just robbed them of all their motivation to show any kind of restraint and now everybody’s gonna get blown up

except for those dudes who get kicked by elton john

which would be an HONOR first of all

(the part where eggsy’s using his gun and shield vaguely reminds me of the specialist, @bloodofthepen​)

and harry and eggsy just—they’re drift compatible! that’s it! the teamwork! the grace! the flow! my god!

eggsy vs. charlie: round like 4 if you count the first movie

it was also satisfying to see charlie’s new arm in action

we love fun robotics and gadgetry in this house

colin firth is really just not afraid to throw himself full force down a bowling lane huh

ugh, seeing charlie slam eggsy over and over again makes my chest hurt

the sound mixing on all these films is top notch which isn’t always a good thing T.T

ROCKETMAN~~~

that shit will never NOT be funny

a wild elton john appeared!

eggsy is indestructible, he can walk off anything

but charlie, charlie i feel really sorry for, imagine being attacked by a superior version of your own limb, i.e. something that you can’t exactly quickly remove from yourself, that would be TERRIFYING

harry + elton = dream teaaaammmm

“darling if you save the world, you can have a backstage pass.”

i love you elton john :(

i would have been the most OBNOXIOUS hype man in the background of the entire kingsman vs. poppy land face-off

“let’s make this fair.” eggsy you’re fuckin’ cheeky

and poor harry, all that lank just getting tossed like noodles

i thought the robot puppers were very cool

“for the record charlie i’m more of a gentleman than you’ll ever be.”

mmmmmm do NOT like this death for charlie

SUPER glad we fixed it

and another scene where i can’t stand the sound mixing T.T it makes me cringe every time

“i don’t consider genocide especially lady-like.”

and are we gonna talk about how merlin knew how to make heroin?

… no?

nobody wanna talk about that?

ugh that houndstooth dress is so PRETTY though

high!poppy is weirdly comedic for all of two seconds and then it stops being funny real fast

whiskey D:<

this is so dumb

this is all so, so dumb

“our agencies were founded to uphold peace, to protect the innocent—“

there’s that nobility again

is what happened to whiskey fucked up, yes

i’m not saying we have to completely remove that from his story

i just

literally anything but this would have been preferable

and then HOT DOG it’s one of my favorite shots in the movie with the whip where harry’s just chucking it away from his face like a bamf, YES

how great is this cover, let’s be honest

like, i’d be lying if i said i didn’t enjoy this scene visually

plus

HARRY GETTING PEGGED RIGHT IN THE FACE WITH A FRYING PAN

gracious

it’s one fluid tracking shot, so kinda in alignmentment with what we’re used to

some people get annoyed with repeated junk but when you can do it THIS WELL you can get away with anything

D:

but then jack

you did NOT desert that

yes, you were in dire need of an attitude adjustment but jesus

“this is for you, merlin.”

/ugly sobbing/

and tilde is all betterrrrrr ;-;

you guys did itttttt

COUNTRY ROOOAAADDSS

TAKE ME HOOOOOOMMEEEE

TO THE PLAAAAAACCCEEEEE

I BELOOOOONNGGGG

and the scene with jamal and liam T.T #wholesomecontent

poor tequila, after i knew that you would have a bigger role in another movie, i was less annoyed by the fact that they iced you so quick into the story

#FOX2020

“… now we’re brothers, working side by side.”

spoiler alert i actually love champ’s toast

“y’all shittin’ in high cotton now” WHAT DOES THAT MEAN???

and ginger becomes the new whiskey like she always wanted T.T

merlin is proud from heaven (or london, depending on which canon)

iiiiiii have mixed feelings about the whole wedding scene, which is probably because i take HUGE issue with the weird proposal ultimatum thing that happened earlier

but the way eggsy says “not a doubt in my mind,” he says it so seriously and i remember that tilde almost died

there was such good intention packed into this couple that was so badly written that i just

augh

“but it is perhaps the end of the beginning.”

there’s ***merlin! lmao i see you dude, they did you dirty

look

i was pissed off about a lot of things that happened in this thing but i was honestly hype seeing tequila at the very end walking into the tailor shop

like, yeah, i’ll stick around to see what happens in this universe but i’m gonna complain the whole time

GO JACK RABBIT

RUNNING THROUGH THE WOODS

and again, i almost didn’t see this movie.

… i think about that morgan sometimes.

hope she’s doin’ okay.

…

she’s probably not. D:

[volzaannir]

The 30 LDB questionnaire

So there was that 30 LDB questions ask meme floating around, and I decided to answer them all for the sake of character building and reference for myself skjfhksdjhf

Questionnaire below!

1. What is their background and backstory?

Signe was born in a small home in the Rift on the 9th of Evening Star, 4E 173, to Ragnar and Freyja, two Nords who abandoned their lives to be with each other and start a family. Ragnar (aka ‘Ragnar the Berserkir’) was an infamous mercenary in Skyrim, who would be hired through out the land and even some places beyond for his battle prowness and seemingly inability to fucking die. Freyja was an assassin for the Dark Brotherhood, an archer/mage type who was going to be chosen as the next Listener until she dropped all connections after meeting Ragnar.

She was raised a warrior and avid hunter by her father, and a novice mage and singer by her mother. Unfortunately, at the age of 6, a fire engulfed her home one night after sneaking out to climb trees. It killed both her parents and left a nasty scar on her face after some debris sliced it while trying to free the two. Signe was taken to Honorhall, where she was bullied most of the time by other kids and of course Grelod, some accusing her of starting the fire - even though she swears it was a dragon that had started it. They say grief can make a child believe many things.

At age 17, with only a few more months to go before getting kicked out of the orphanage, she encounters Brynjolf. He’s a few years older than her, and is on his own mission to prove that he’s a valuable asset to the Guild at such an age. She assists him in his little heist, and runs away to join the Guild.

At age 28, after a small mistake during a heist near the border to Cyrodiil, she attempts to cross the border to escape being caught. Of course this doesn’t work, and thus brings us to the events of the game!

2. What “class” do they follow (i.e. warrior, archer, mage, thief, etc.)?

She’s a warrior, archer, and thief! 

3. How do they feel about being Dragonborn- does the identity feel right for them and did they embrace it immediately? Do they consider themselves a true dragon?

At first, Signe took to it slowly, still rattled from the suddenness of it all. First Helgen, then needing to tell the Jarl, then fighting a dragon and absorbing its soul, then being yelled at by four old men at the top of a mountain, and being thrown into quests here and there for so many reasons. She takes to it easily and enjoys the bouts of praise here and there during the events of Dawnguard, but it’s not until after defeating Alduin that she realized how much of a toll it takes on her mentally. While the authority is nice, she’s still too humble to go about bragging about it to those who don’t know her off the bat. She wished she could have earned her reputation like her father, rather than becoming a legend overnight. 

4. At present, how are they perceived by the people of Skyrim? By the general population, and by different factions?

By the general public, she’s of course seen as a hero, but a hero that causes a little too much damage for what’s needed. Not to mention she’s chaotic, loud, disrespectful, sleeps around, and takes no shit. But they know she’s necessary.

She’s a constant contract by the Dark Brotherhood and Morag Tong, competition to fractions like the Comonna Tong and Summerset Shadows, and always pressured into joining the Companions. (She would, but they don’t offer a big enough thrill for her- not to mention the whole werewolf thing)  

5. How were they perceived before their Dragonborn identity became widely known?

She was a Thieves Guild member and Nightingale, so within the ranks she was looked up to and respected. Outside of the ratways, though, she was just any other Nord citizen; only few knew of her amorous adventures though, as she makes sure it’s kept under wraps.

6. How are they perceived by the major villains- Alduin, Harkon, Miraak, etc.?

Alduin: He sees her as he sees the LDB in game; an obstacle and threat he needs to eradicate.

Harkon: An asset that immediately turns into a threat when she refuses to help them.

Miraak: Similar to Alduin, but grows more and more frustrated with how skilled she is in her young, young age. 

7. How much do they utilize the power of Thu'um? Do they actively try to expand their inborn abilities through research and exploration? Or are they less invested?

Signe uses Aura Whisper like how we need to breathe to live. She uses it to see where she should either avoid or take caution of, as well as alert her followers where enemies may be! It helps for when she’s looting too, as she need to plan how to knock them out first. Signe doesn’t like to kill innocent folk. As for others, she uses Unrelenting Force mainly when she’s annoyed by something in her way, Dragon Aspect when the enemy is insanely powerful, and Storm Call when she needs a distraction! The Thu’um is useful, but she’s not heavily invested in it, until way later on in her journey after the events of Dragonborn.

8. If they were to invent a shout, what shout would they create? Bonus if you can come up with the words of the shout in dragon language.

It works similar or such to Dragon Aspect, but could like, literally turn you into a dragon for a short time. I thought since the DB has the blood and soul of a dragon, then with some effort surely they can call forth their soul to turn their flesh to match, right?

It would be a Shout containing some from of these words: Ofan (Bestow), Dov (Dragon), Slen (Flesh), Sil (Soul), Rii (Essence), Gron (Bind); I haven’t found an order that really ‘rings’ yet. 

Otherwise, it would be the name given to their dragon soul, like how you call to Odahviing. In Signe’s case, it would be ‘Volzaannir’: Vol (Horror), Zaan (Shout [as in yell, shriek, etc.]), and Nir (Hunt). All three words are reference to a barn owl, which is her pet/familiar, since they’re known for their horrific shrieking and astounding hunting skills.

9. Whether they are magical or not- if they were to invent a spell for their own uses, that does not already exist in Skyrim, what kind of spell would they come up with?

Conjure dragon familiar! A spectral dragon will appear to fight for you for 90 - 300 seconds.

10. Which factions are they aligned with? Including civil war sides, Thalmor, guilds etc.

Thieves Guild, Dawnguard (not active), and TECHNICALLY the Imperials even though she considers herself a neutral force who just wants this shit to end.

11. If they had a pet or magical familiar as in ESO (excluding the dogs in Skyrim) what creature would it be?

She actually already has one! It’s a barn owl named Hyl (Danish for ‘shriek’).

12. Which standing stone have they used for the longest and why?

Thief stone, since it levels up sneak and such easily. 

13. Dungeon delving- are they a fan? Do they do it for fun, or money, or just because of circumstance? Do they prefer Dwemer or Nordic ruins?

Signe did it in the past for the loot, and still kinda does, though after becoming Dragonborn it’s kinda become her daily tasks lmao. She’s more familiar with Nordic ruins, but Dwemer ruins are unique and fun to explore.

14. What is their personal favorite place in Skyrim- a town, hold, home, dungeon, or just a natural spot they happen to have a fondness for?

One is an area just above the Twilight Sepulcher, where you go to defeat the Guardian Bear in Kyne’s Sacred Trials; there’s a fairy ring and a shrine to Akatosh here, as well as a beautiful view!

Another one is where I also envision her old home being, before it was burnt down, as there are remains of a possible building there. It’s a little Northeast of Ivarstead, on top of a hill where you would meet a Whispmother.

15. What is their personal LEAST favorite place in Skyrim- somewhere that annoys them, or comes with bad memories, or otherwise?

Windhelm. It’s a beautiful city, of course, but the PEOPLE…. They’re just so awful and rude (Not including the Grey Quarter). Every time she’s there she always finds herself getting into a fistfight with some racist Nord asshole.

16. Where did they choose to live and what drew them there? Does it really feel like home?

She chooses to settle in Lakeview Manor, as it’s close to Riverwood - one of the only places Teldryn finds habitable, and she can agree. Although, she always finds herself missing the beautiful golden and red birch of the Rift. If she could have one of the homes from ESO in the Rift, she’d absolutely choose one of those. 

17. What’s their style- do they tend to wear armor and if so, what sort? Otherwise what’s their average day-to-day clothing?

Signe’s armor is an alteration of Nordic carved steel mixed with dragon scales/bones, and has a variety of rune engravings and patterns befitting a walking prophecy. Before being Dragonborn, she normally wore the usual Thieves Guild attire, or her Nightingale uniform. Her day to day wear is typically a comfy fitting tunic and pants with well worn boots, and her sleepwear is similar to a miner shirt, but longer and only the shirt.

18. Your Dragonborn is now an actual dragon- what do they look like? Do they possess any unique features or abilities?

OHHH YES I WAS HOPING FOR THIS KIND OF QUESTION.

Signe actually has a dragon form! But she doesn’t harness it till way later in the game, after all the main quests. Her Dragon Aspect form reflects some of it, however.

Her dragon form is called Volzaannir [see question 8 for details], and she’s what I would call a Crested Dragon; a dragon that is partially feathers, the end of their muzzle is beaked, and is a tad thinner to allow more fluid aerodynamics. She utilizes shouts that call upon more natural forces, or invoke fear/frenzy, or conjure a variety of types of thralls. (Storm Call is a common one, Animal Allegiance, Cyclone, Dismay, Drain Vitality, Marked for Death, Soul Tear, and sometimes Frost Breath if fighting head-on).

19. Which NPC have they killed and regretted it?

Signe doesn’t like to kill, at all. It stems far before she even joined the Thieve’s Guild, and was thankful that they valued that rule as well. But, just because she doesn’t like to, doesn’t mean she won’t; she has to survive after all, and that means killing when justified. 

She hasn’t regretted any of her intentional kills; however, she does mourn the loss of lives when they have become collateral damage. After a dragon attack, or rescuing travelers being attacked by bears, anything like that, there’s always lives she could not save in the pursuit of rescue. She often times feels survivors guilt - terribly so after Helgen, especially.

20. Which NPC have they killed and absolutely NOT regretted it (excluding the major villains)?

Ulfric and Mercer Frey.

Mercer was the first person she ever intentionally killed, driven near mad at the hurt from his betrayal. She squeezed his throat and held him under the water of Irkngthand, effectively drowning him slowly, eyes locked on his water-distorted face. The pure bloodlust she felt frightened her afterward, leaving her shaken and vowing to keep whatever that was under check.

She did not personally kill Ulfric, but she was the one who decided his fate in the end. When the Civil War is won, she summons Ulfric to death by Blood Eagle, and remains face-to-face with him until he dies - making sure her disappointment is the last thing he ever sees.

21. Do they worship any of the Divines, and if so, which do they have the strongest affinity for?

Kyne and Akatosh! (Or any name they go by in each culture). She mainly worships Kyne, feeling the strongest connection to her through culture, history, and soul.

22. Which Daedric Prince(s) do they end up most aligned to, if any? Which artifacts do they own and which do they actively make use of?

She aligns to Nocturnal majorly, thanks to being a Nightingale, and finds her to be surprisingly well-tempered and benevolent sometimes. Signe also finds herself more familiar with Azura, thanks to traveling with Teldryn most of the time - but she holds no judgement, and encourages worship if it brings others comfort or clearance.

While Nocturnal’s artifact, the Skeleton Key, is in its rightful place, she still holds the powers of Nocturnal’s Agents; typically switching between the Agent of Shadow and Subterfuge. 

23. Which non-Daedric artifacts/magical items do they make regular use of?

A Stahlrim bow, dragonbone arrows, dragonbone swords (dual wield, one has electrical damage and the other traps souls), and two Stahlrim daggers affectionately named Frostbite (frost damage) and Freezer Burn (fire damage).

24. How did they respond to Miraak and what do they feel about him? Do they regret killing him? Did they spare him?

She saw Miraak as a threat at first, obviously, but there is of course that melancholy feeling of wishing he wasn’t so power-obsessed… He is the only other Dragonborn she (or anyone, in the 4th Era) has ever met, and he could have helped her in her quests, in defeating Alduin, in teaching her how to live with these powers and their consequences - being a mentor. Signe had planned on sparing him, attempting to convince him to escape Apocrypha with her, to live a new life on Nirn… But in battle, when his mask falls off, she finally gets a solid glimpse at his soul through his eyes, and realizes his mind is too far gone to save. Too tortured, too desperate, too power-hungry. Death is the kindest thing she could give him, while still keeping Nirn safe.

25. Which of the Dragon Priest masks do they favor and wear the most? If the answer is Konahrik, pick the second favorite too.

Signe doesn’t wear the masks, as she feels there’s too much evil floating around in them, no matter how fuckin’ cool they look. She’s not against the Dragon Priests themselves, just that the history and power held within the specific masks makes her anxious and uncomfortable. If she were to create her own (and she does), then she would wear it.

26. Which follower(s) would they never go anywhere without? On a personal level, what is their relationship with the follower(s) in question like and why do they stick with them?

TELDRYN. SERO. He’s her partner in crime, the only one brave enough to be her damage control, and who's always been at her side at the worst of times… and still willingly chooses to be. Signe met him when she was delivering a letter to Glover from Delvin (well before the main quest, but after Dawnguard), and decided to rest a bit in the Retching Netch overnight before heading back to Skyrim. His stupid charm and humor was enough to convince her to let him tag along, and she’ll never regret it.

Not only does she find out later on that he used to be good - if not best - friends with her father, the two of them being infamous mercenaries for hire in their respective countries. They slowly fall in love, cliche I know, but trust me - after the shit they’ve been through and bond over, how could they not?

27. If your Dragonborn were an in-game boss fight, what would their lair be like? What enemies would help them in the fight (if any) and what quest might lead to another hero having to fight them?

Ohhhohohoo boy, this one’s a fun one. 

First off, her lair would be similar to ruins like Skuldafn, or the Blades headquarters, somewhere difficult to get to and holding this ancient aesthetic to it. Either that, or her very own plane of Oblivion, a pocket containing a strange mix of both Apocrypha, the Evergloom, and the Quagmire. A place of knowledge and wisdom and history that still holds unimaginable terror and secrets and madness. 

What could lead to battling her perhaps is due to how she devotes her life after the events of Skyrim; seeking to bring forth her dragon blood and soul forth to not only give her a dragon form, but extend her life as well, as she has an underlying fear of death. If she cannot go to Sovngarde and be with her parents due to her soul being promised to Daedric Princes, then the afterlife is not something she looks forward to. However, she did not anticipate the toll an extended life would take on her human mind. Perhaps Teldryn and Ondolemar passed away somehow and she can’t bring herself to take another lover, she can’t make friends because she knows she’ll see them die too, and dragon companions to not hold the same kind of compassion or humor or affection her fellow mortals could. 

She becomes reckless, often times falling into episodes of paranoia and madness, and people have noticed. Some worship her like the Dragon Priests in ancient times, but the others fear what she may be capable of. Signe may have holed herself away in that lair of hers, but the public still fears her power, and knows she was not meant to live as long as she has. Soldiers and mages and wizards and heroes alike are sent to grant her death, but are never successful, as her insanity and fear has brought her to sending dragons of all kinds after anyone who dares try and approach her with malice-intent. If your aura holds no hostility, however, you could be lucky and hold a conversation with a possible demi-god such as her; beware, as her dragons watch over your every move from the stone arcs and towers above.

She is the Last Dragonborn, and you WILL show her respect, even if it means getting on your knees and praying to her as if she were a god. And perhaps she is.

28. What are their greatest assets, both in terms of in-game skills and otherwise? What gave them the upper hand that allowed them to defeat Alduin?

Archery, dual-wielding, sneak, lock-picking, pick-pocketing, charisma/speech, and smithing have been the most helpful throughout her life thus far. As for defeating Alduin and Miraak and Harkon, though, it would have to be her resilience and determination to protect the life amongst Nirn. Without such personal strength and wit, she would have given up for sure.

29. What do they do post-Skyrim, once all the main quests are finished? What happens to them in the aftermath?

It’s tough for Signe to come to terms with the thought that technically, everything is over. The journey’s have made her an adrenaline junky, they’ve brought new nightmares, and there are fractions up the wazoo who still want her dead despite doing nothing to harm them. The Black Books and Herma Mora haunting her have caused her to act relatively ‘insane’ at some points; she’s gained too much of a reputation as a hero to really return to her Nightingale days; and being a mercenary isn't up her alley. 

Her overall dream in life was to just settle in a cottage somewhere in the Rift and carve wood and bones for a living, take up smithing and open an armor and weapons shop called “Helm of Awe”. But of course after having her life altered so intensely in such a short time, it’s taken its toll on her, and left her too restless to fully settle down. 

So, she takes her band of Merry Mer (Teldryn and Ondolemar lmao) and they travel all over, looting burrows and taking high-risk jobs. 

She also takes up researching and meditating on Words of Power, aiming to create a Shout that allows her to harness the entirety of her dragon soul - all the way to flesh. Signe also looks into ways to bring her dragon blood and soul more forward, less buried in her spirit, to lengthen her life more; purely for the sake of her Mer lovers, though there’s an underlying fear there too. [See question 27]

30. Are they proud of themselves? Do they see themselves as a hero?

She is proud, deep down, because she knows in the end it’s for the betterment and safety of the world. A hero? Absolutely. Signe may be humble in the present about her position, but not even the kindest person on Nirn could pass up the chance to brag about saving the world thrice over.

VERY IMPORTANT BONUS QUESTION: In their opinion, who is the best dog in all Skyrim?

MEEKO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[flying-elliska]

What are the important bisexual characters that you said helped you? I am having a hard time finding good bi representation in which they aren’t considered promiscuous or unstable

Hiya anon ! What a quality question, thank you ! Here’s another mini essay about bi rep lmao.  If there are some that I forgot please tell me ! And to everyone, tell me about the bi characters who made an impact on your life, I’d love to know !!!!

Okay so.

-  When I answered the anon and talked about the characters that helped me come to terms with my sexuality, I talked about two in particular. Jack Harkness from Torchwood is depicted as very promiscuous, and somewhat instable. He still meant a lot to me because a) him sleeping around was never that much of a problem, it was because he was from the future, where things were different, which I thought was refreshing and b) his instability was because of the weight of being an immortal hero. Also fanon!Dean Winchester from SPN, as an older, more macho, emotionally witholding, badass dude written as bi meant a lot to me, but he doesn’t really avoid that stereotype either. But at least they were heroes.  However, I can understand wanting bi characters that actually don’t fit that stereotype, because bi people irl aren’t all like that, even if there is nothing wrong per se about sleeping with a lot of different people, or having mental issues to struggle with. And that was a while ago and now we have more and more cool characters ! Such as :

- Rosa Diaz from Brooklyn Nine-Nine. One of the best portrayals of bisexuality on TV imho. She didn’t start out as bi, she was this tough, cool, scary but with a heart of gold cop who had a lot of other plotlines before. But then, since they saw that a lot of wlw got this vibe from her, were really into her, and the actress came out as bi herself, they decided to use this. So it was super organic, and the way they introduced the subject was true to Rosa herself ; she’s a super private person, she doesn’t like anybody knowing about her life (it’s actually a running joke and Rosa Diaz has been implied to not even be her real name). But then she is dating a woman, and struggles with her parents not understanding and her coworkers find out, help her and support her. Her gay captain is there for her in his typical stoic but hilarious way. They organize game night with her when her parents won’t anymore. We see her crushing on women and dating, but it is treated exactly as the other character’s love life, they never make a big deal out of it. She isn’t the token queer character. She says outright she is bisexual and there is a specific point about her mom not understanding it’s not a phase and thinking she’ll end up with a man anyway, which #relatable. The focus is on the team as found family. Also right now she’s dating a butch woman, which is awesome since they are so underrepresented on TV and I hope we see more of her. That show really is my comfort show, it’s still bloodly hilarious and it really transcends the format to say some really deep woke stuff too, but never in a way that feels on the nose. Everyone should watch it tbh. 

- Korrasami ! Oh my god, I was so blown away when they got together. They’re two characters from the animated series Legend of Korra, they start out as rivals in love who have feelings for the same guy, but as they have to fight baddies together, they become bestest of friends, and both fall out of love with the guy. Then in season 3 and 4, their relationship becomes central to the show, as Asami stands by Korra through some really tough shit. Also, they’re both ultra badass and fight really well together. A lot of fans started reading their chemistry as romantic, but we’d never thought they’d actually go there. But the show ends with them walking into the ‘sunset’ (well, the spirit lands) together, holding hands. Now, it was never completely explicit on the show BUT they were dealing with a lot of censure from the networks and you have to be willingly obtuse not to read it as romantic. And after that the creators drew them on dates, and there is a comic series in which they are shown kissing, talking about their feelings, introducing each other to their families, etc. It made me feel so validated when it happened, and I just adore the whole ‘love triangle ditches the middle one and fall in gay love with each other’ trope. (is it a trope yet ? it should be.) It’s still a kids show at its core, but it has amazing depth and deals with some very deep shit. Korra starts off as a bit annoying but she has a really cool development, she’s a girl character we need more of - brave, dynamic but also brash and reckless and action driven in ways that are almost always exclusively shown for boys. And Asami is a more typical girly girl but she’s also a brilliant engineer and has a spine of steel and she’s also very slyly funny. They’re amazing. And the comics are super cute. 

- Now there are a lot of characters who are bi/pan that I love, and are good characters in themselves, but their arcs do intersect in some ways with promiscuity and mental instability. I’m thinking about Even from Skam and all his remake variants, Magnus Bane from Shadowhunters, several characters from Black Sails, Sarah Lance and Constantine from Legends of Tomorrow, Eleanor Shellstrop from the Good Place, Bo from Lost Girl, Ilana from Broad City, Joe McMillan from Halt and Catch Fire, God/Chuck from Supernatural (lmaooooo), several characters on Penny Dreadful, or in a totally different category, Vilanelle from Killing Eve or Hannibal from the series (who are hella bad guys but it’s never linked to their sexuality, and are also incredibly compelling to watch.)

 And even though these characters taken individually, I would argue, are good rep because they’re complex and layered and interesting and never one-dimensional (and watching them feels incredibly empowering at times)....it’s still a trend. I feel like when writing a character that is attracted to multiple genders, there is always this sort of...tangle of tropes that writers default to, unconsciously. Some negative and some positive. It used to be this trope of bis being villainous, instable, jealous, flaky, immature, perverted, manipulative, cheaters, amoral, greey, etc...and then it evolved into something of a reclaiming and subverting this trope. So now you feel like the Bi Character kind of has to be badass, glamorous, seductive, often superpowered or extraordinary in other ways.. And they also for multiple reasons (they’re immortal, they’re sensitive artist souls, they’re from the future, they’re psycho, they’re exccentric comic relief, they’re daring adventurers and pioneers) don’t care about social norms which allows them to sleep and fall in love with whomever. And so they tend to have those super busy romantic/sexual histories and very troubled backstories. In the past it was a bad thing, now it’s often presented as this positive, enlightened or at least fun and badass thing. They’re heroic, with big hearts, a tremendous lust for life and a cool rebellious attitude. They’re complex, dramatic, tortured. Which can be super cool, too. 

But it would be nice to have more ‘normal’ bi characters. I mean, boring bisexuals need to see themselves represented too ! Our sexualities don’t give us super powers. At the same time, it is true that bisexual ppl have higher rates of mental illness, which deserves to be explored, but it would be nice if it was actually articulated and not just part of this trope.  But still. We need rep, I think, that is more grounded and varied. So I think that’s also why I read a lot of fanfic. (I was really into the idea of bi Steve Rogers for a long time, partly also because he’s both very mentally resilient, kinda boring in a good way, and very unexperienced in terms of sex/romance, which is pretty much the opposite of the trope)

- I think books, and YA in general, are a good place to find these ‘normal bis’ characters. I’m thinking in particular of Leah from Leah on the Offbeat by Becky Albertalli (from the same book series that gave us the ‘Love, Simon’ movie) which is a super sweet coming of age/romance story about a super normal teenager who just happens to be also into girls (esp her best friend) and is loud and funny and very lovable and has zero doubts about being bi. You also have Adam Parrish from the Raven Cycle, another one of my forever faves ; he has an abusive family so PTSD from that but it never feels tropey, and it’s completely detached from his sexuality. He has magic powers, too. But his character feels completely opposite to the trope. He’s hardworking, somewhat withholding, prickly (and sometimes awkward), ambitious, determined, down to earth, and has a beautiful love story with another boy. And also Jane, from Jane Unlimited by Kristin Cashore, also really cool ; she’s a nerdy, smart girl who is actually inspired by Jane Eyre who has cool adventures in a weird house where we can follow her on different paths depending on the choices she makes, several of which are love stories. And finally the main character from The Seven Husbands from Evelyn Hugo, kinda fits the trope yeahhh since she’s a super glam actress who well, has seven husbands but it’s a pretty clever deconstruction since it turns out (slight spoilers) that Evelyn is actually through most of her life faithful in heart to the same person and the rest is mostly out of necessity, and her story feels very real and raw and down to earth. 

- I don’t go there yet but I really want to check out Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and Schitt’s Creek which I have read have very good bi rep. And I want to catch up on Orphan Black (Cosima and Delphine both don’t have exact labels but they’re multi-gender attracted and they’re this cool couple of scientists in a relationship that gets a happy ending). I will never forgive what they did to Lexa so I stopped watching but I do think that Clarke Griffin from The 100 is very good bi rep. Alexia from Skam France, meanwhile, is a bit of a boundary case for me because, even though she’s presented as the ‘weird one’ from the group, very colorful and liberated and exccentric, she’s still a very normal teen who’s happy and comfortable in her own skin, which is awesome. 

- Disclaimer, I included characters in here that are also pan/omnisexual or don’t have a label but are attracted to several genders, for the purpose of this discussion i don’t think the difference is all that relevant at least to me (i mostly identify as bi for the sake of simplicity but tbh i could also fit under pan so i feel represented by all those characters). But I understand the importance of characters that state their identities more clearly and with pride. 

- So in conclusion : there is nothing wrong with having a sexually active life or struggling mentally (even tho that one is not fun). And I do love all my badass casanova time travelling super powered bis. 

But we need more bi characters that don’t fit that trope. We need bi characters in children’s shows, or that don’t have more than one relationship, or that don’t have a relationship at all, to break the tendency to always show bisexual ppl as overly sexual. We need bi characters in committed relationships to break this idea that bi characters are bound to cheat or can’t be satisified with only one person. We need bi characters that are mentally stable and successful and happy, to show that it’s possible. We need bi characters that are boring, bookish, nerdy, ordinary, clumsy, not particularly seductive, socially awkward, rule-sticklers, etc...to show that bi people are not all party animals, or doing it for attention, or to be wild, rebellious and socially progressive. It’s just a sexuality, it doesn’t say anything about your personality. Even though there are some correlations with MI or being bi might bring you in contact with more progressive ideas and to see life a bit differently, there is nothing automatic about it. 

- In conclusion, reading testimonies from real people also helped me a lot. It’s a very dated but I got the book “ Bi Any Other Name: Bisexual People Speak Out “ when I was struggling with my own sexuality and it helped a lot, to read that even back then (1991) you had all sorts of regular ppl claiming to be bi and that it was not a phase or a fad or whatever. 

[dbphantom]

Canon: Zane Flynt fucks

Me: haha u know what this means ;))))

Me:

Me:

Me: merfolk glamour time

[[MORE]]

Alright but for real tho u wanna see how deep I am in this fucking universe? Lego

I don't even know where to begin with this universe (Zer0 is an alien! Hammerlock is a werewolf! Troy is psychic! Tannis is a skag! Wait, no, wrong shitpost...) so imma open the 140 page document and start from the beginning

Annnnd Clay! Junpai-7.

When Zane meets Clay for the first time he mentions they did a smuggling job together on Junpai-7, u know, the water planet, so obviously this is good news (This made me super happy because my discord channel's name had been the junpai-7 moon pool for a while so I was like 'holy shit it's canon now' :') )

Timeline wise this isn't the beginning, but I don't write in chronological order and I don't order anything in chronological order, either, so. Eh.

Speaking of chronological order, I once got a line where Zane was like exclaiming something and used the moon instead of idk a god or powerful figure or smth and I was like 'lmao that's canon now'

So the moon... Elpis fucking got yeeted halfway across the galaxy or smth, and, considering we've seen (more) ocean on Pandora in 3 instead of just, like, Liars Berg (getting to THAT) or Tretchers landing, I feel bad for the tides. But that's good news for everyone else. Unless you were on Elpis, I guess.

Also hoh boy the 'end' of the game where Troy Phaselocks the moon was fun to write (it actually wasn't, I lowkey hate writing Moonstruck phases because... It hurts and I can't do it well.) also can we talk about how in tps the psychos are called Moonstrucks in tvhm because this makes me so happy. I really hope they did that intentionally considering H2O is an Australian show because my two favorite things combined can and will kill me. Wait actually the Troy boss fight is gonna be hilarious to write mostly because of that one attack with the tidal waves lol oh no

Also, also, also, you guys it's only explained in a guide book and never actually in-game as to why Captain's ship is Like That (TM) so I took some liberties and uhhh blame the Crackening. I mean the crackening happened after dahl pulled out of Pandora/Elpis so it works. It sorta works. It mostly works. Fuck. It works okay? shut. That's why Liars Berg is all frozen ocean [shoves 3 page essay about climate change on Pandora into the trash] don't need that anymore.

I was gonna talk about smth else

Oh yeah

Mostly brain freeze and trick of the light. That one meme video I made of Tannis and the Flynt Brothers imposed over that one clip of H2O (so let me get this straight: you freeze things, you explode things, and you boil things) wasn't just for laughs, it was actually a warning.

Each Flynt has a thing and Zane's is ice, Baron's is explosions, and Captain's is fire. (Glorious cleansing fire) Because it fits. It fits so well. I will say right off the bat that Mako Mermaids isn't my canon. I lowkey want to write out Charlotte as well (lol) because I've seen the 2nd season so many times and tbh I much prefer them having 1 really strong power over having 3+ really weak powers. Also Charlotte did nothing wrong in the first half of that season. Cleo was just a bitch to her. And Mako Mermaids is just. Not great on the power side of things. You can TURN INVISIBLE. USE IT. Soooo. (also cam got destroyed in s1 and I'm so glad they ended up making him work in s2 and 3. Because he deserved better and Zac was a terrible friend to him and only got away with it because he's a main character). /rant sorry I have so many feelings about these shows. Grew up with them soooooo.

And if ur wondering why I brought up trick of the light it's cause the 13th year exists and that movie was bopping. U guys remember Jess? Good times... Tuba pool scene is iconic. U know the one. I would also bring up aquamarine but ngl that movie was weaksauce comparatively. They hid that bitch in a water tower and iunno talked to earrings. Meanwhile in the 13th year they bring Jess back from the fucking dead and climb on walls like Spiderman. Clearly one is superior.

"but cruddy Aurelia has ice powers too and she's not a mermaid" no she's a werewolf like her brother we already went over that. Did u think I was kidding? No! I'm never kidding unless I am and I fucking love werewolves so I'd never kid about that. I love werewolves and I love Hammerlock and it's perfect I just love the idea of this gentlemanly hunter being a werewolf because I want to see a giant hulking monster being all proper and shit. They're just really cool. Werewolves > vampires and ngl I'm sad skyrim screwed over werewolves with the dawnguard dlc. Anyway Aurelia's ice powers are nanobots as explained in-game and listen I already lore-scienced this okay? Let me say it's amazing the things science is capable of when it thinks it's trying to beat out a competitor and doesn't realize non-Siren magic exists. Even better now that we know Sirens are not Eridian and actually existed before Eridians. Makes me giddy to think about. The universe is tearing me APART Lisa.

Oh speaking of, can we talk about the witch's brew quest on eden-6 because holy shit I had been writing Hiromi and her fascination with discovering all the secret circles long before the game came out and then learning about the group of witches and The Pact (TM) made me lose my shit because 'oh my god it's actually canon now'. We're on the canon path nowwwww. Soon. I hope we get a water planet dlc. I wants it, GB, I wants it.

Also I was totally gonna write a clip in the main story of the game (because I write a lot of backstory stuff if you can't tell, I only have like 3 scenes that take place during the events of the game and like 4 that are speculatory from before the game came out (including a scene from before I realized Troy was Like That but I edited it so he's more in-line and also has Maya's powers now so that's... Hm. In line with the storyline somewhere, but not an actual scene in the games story. Because its not possible with how the game does things (seperating Vault Hunters) I suppose I could just insert a 5th Vault somewhere and say it's the 4th Vault connected to the Machine (with nekrotefeyo's being the 5th). Fuck it.) and then 9,000 are backstory) where Hiromi comes back after like decades of the two not seeing each other and she's been hired to assassinate Zane by one of the many corporations looking for his corpse for a multitude of reasons (And Emma and Nino are both d e a d a s f, you know, for context). And like Barnabas (ya old bastard) Zane is still joking around and just having a grand old time catching up with his black ops buddy meanwhile she had just tried to blow his brains out (she's a sniper) and got pretty damn close. She's not even amused because of her psychic powers so she's just like 'ok' every time he opens his mouth because she already knows what he's going to say she's mostly just frustrated that she missed because she thought she knew him well enough to go off instead of just listening to her intuition but alas people change after, like, 3 decades of not seeing them.

Oh since we're talking about Hiromi that reminds me why Zane wears the black suit. In my non-h2o universe it's because it looks cool and provides some protection from dots. In the H2Oniverse it is because it's waterproof. Okay wait hang on context so Hiromi doesn't like take off his suit or anything, she's extremely gay and not interested, because I realize now how that sounds me relating Hiromi to the clothes, they just get into an argument about how Sirens don't have to follow any arbitrary rules to hide their magic and how it's easier to hide magic without giant glowing tattoos (and mind you this is before Zane even knows Tannis exists though he does immediately know she's a Siren and that's a whole nother can of worms) and hr's like 'I wear a bodysuit for most of my waking hours, so I am pretty sure they can try wearing long sleeved shirts and makeup for a day. Just a suggestion' but like way more in character (and for the scene) because do I sound like I'm in character right now? I'm not. I'm me. And God what a terrible thing to be.

So context for the context: ~magic is real~. If you've got it then you can usually tell who else has it if you're looking. It's especially clear if they're 'similar' to you (if ur a werewolf and u meet another werewolf then you sorta just know they're a werewolf) or if you're psychic (like Hiromi) then you can make some informed guesses. Like. Same Hat? Same Hat!!! Sirens are basically such powerful magic users that they are in literally a whole nother ball park. They're leagues above everyone else. Kill you just by looking at you sort of deal. So sirens normally don't feel other magic because their own magic is so strong it just 'overwrites' the other signals. You know, to not only explain why Lilith isn't immediately like 'who the fuck are you' to Zane and also how Amara couldn't tell Tannis is a Siren. I had a whole thing with Troy (who is psychic) being able to tell Zane had magic despite being near 4 Sirens at once because Troy grew up with Tyreen always at his side so he's used to it and knows how to look through it. Meanwhile Hiromi is basically incapacitated when she's near a Siren because she gets overwhelmed because her powers make it easier for her to read other people's magic.

Oh, context, the black ops outfit worked with Atlas for a short time (the group being Zane, Hiromi, Emma, and Nino. Emma is the yeehaw captain. She's the leader) and ended up meeting Steele for a little bit. Hiromi was just dead the entire meeting, Zane was totally out of it, and Emma and Nino were too busy eyefucking to really care that there was a Siren in the room so. Just imagine one person lying face down on the floor and crying, another staring at the wall without blinking, two undressing each other with their eyes, and then Cmdt. Steele standing in the middle like 'how the fuck did I get here'.

So that was everyone's first experience with a Siren.

There are more but ehhhh I'm tired and I mostly wrote this because I wanted to talk about it with someone else but they haven't read the whole thing yet so now I can scream into the void about it and not feel like I'm bothering them.

Hooray!