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calliecat93 · 3 years ago

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Hi Callie! In your opinion, what are the top ten best Mccoy centric episodes in TOS? You don't have to answer if you don't want to, thanks for reading anyways! ❤️

Ooh, good question! This is a little hard because McCoy, compared to Kirk and Spock, didn’t get a lot of centric episodes. Actually I think he only really got like… two out of 79 episodes (depending on how you view it). But he DOES have a large prescence in others, so let me see here…

1. The Empath Technically it’s a Triumvirate episode, but this has McCoy’s best moment in the entire show. Like if you want to understand McCoy’s character, this is the episode that you turn to. I already blabbed about why once so I’ll let that go into it for me.

2. For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky: While some of the execution is a bit iffy, this is still a realy excellent episode. Mainly because DeForest Kelley plays McCoy here with everything that he has and just nails everything, McCoy’s sadness, loneliness, and invevat le fate of dying in a year, masterfully. The episode would be NOWHERE near as good if not for De Kelley.

3. The Man Trap: This and the last one are the only two McCoy-centric episodes, at least that I recall. This one often gets overlooked since it’s first so I think that the emotional impact gets lost. But God McCoy in this episode is just outright tragic. I wrote a whole post about it because it felt so unfair that it was overlooked because there is SO MUCH there. Also mrke amazing De Kelley acting

4. All Our Yesterdays: While McCoy does spend a good chunk of it passed out from hypothermia, he is freakin’ excellent in this episode. He’s not only hilarious (“He means it’s cold!”, De’s delivery made me burst out laughing) but when he’s finally awake, he’s just freakin’ awesome. He put himself at GREAT risk to snap Spock out of his mental state and then went ‘screw it’ and tried to find the portal home cause he wants his life back, with or without Spock (but preferably with Spock). He’s just great~!

5. Return to Tomorrow: This whole episode is super underrated. It’s the one where the alien beings posess Kirk, Spock, and Lady of the Week’s bodies. McCoy is the ONLY rational person in the episode and the one who has to deal with the majority of the problem. He has to both worry about everyone’s minds in the orbs and what the aliens do to their human bodies and is VERY concerned throughout. It also demonstrates how devkted to his profession and oath that he is. He even outright risks Kirk dying for good, as painful as it is for him, because it would mean allowing another to die and like Hell is he doing that. Seriously, this one is so freakin’ overlooked.

6. Bread and Circuses/The Immunity Syndrome/The Tholian Web: Yeah three way tie cause they all have one thing in common: they feature his complicated relationship with Spock. The first one I wrote a whole meta about already. It’s a Spones analysis, but it reflects why McCoy himself is great in this episode along with all hos geneal grumpy snark throughout. Oh and the ending with him throwing a mattess at a guy… and he wins IIRC. Best underrated comedy moment EVER. With the second, he’s not at all happy with Spock being picked over him to examine the amoeba and that Spock may die. Their whole interaction in the hangar, McCoy waiting until the doors close to wish Spock luck, Spock’s seeming final words, and of course “Shut up Spock! We’re rescuing you!”. The last one of course has Kirk gone and McCoy is angry, grieving, and stressed with everyone losing their minds and Spcok pressuring him to fix it all at the same time and he takes it out on Spock. Then they see Kirk’s final message and we all know what happens after. All three do such a great job showing how much McCoy cares about Spock and showcasing how great they really are together, and not even just the shippy sense. Only reason they’re at six is because of how closely tied to Spock he is in those episodes instead of being the central character, but he IS still central in them and showcase some of his best moments. So I hope I got my point across XD

7. A Private Little War: The episode’s message is kind of… questionable. But ignoring thay, McCoy is the real freakin’ hero of this story. It’s only because of him that Kirk survived and he’s more than willing to contront him on his questionable decision making. Which is the very thing that Kirk brought him for to begin with. It’s one of the best episode to show how much he cares about Kirk and the lengths he’ll go for him. Oh and he kept Spock from dying along with Chapel and M’Benga. Thank God he has competent medical staff who can do the job without him XD

8. Journey to Babel: Okay yes this is a Spock episode, but McCoy is VERY prominent throughout. He’s both hilarious in the cold opening and we all remember his reaction to Spock’s ‘teddy bear’ XD. But he managed to conduct a VERY risky surgery that put Spock and Sarek at great risk if he screwed up. A surgery he’s never really conducted. And during a battle that causes frequent rattling to boot. He succeeded and the episode appropriately rewards him by allowing him the final word. It’s not only oen of the best episodes showing why he’s the CMO, but he’s just freakin’ great the whole episode.

9. Amok Time: Again it’s a Spock episode, but I repeat what I said about Return to Tomorrow: McCoy is the real hero. He’s the one who recognizes that something is horribly wrong, puts up with zero excuses, actually usus logic to get Spock to comply, and of course it was him who saved both Kirk and Spock’s sorry butts. They’d both likely be dead had McCoy not been there. He may have had the least screentime of the three, but he damn wel made up for it.

10. Operation: Annahilate: It has one of the saddest but strongest McCoy scenes. Through the whole episode he’s super protectice of Spock, running various tests to get rid of the parasites and trying to keep Kirk’s kid nephew alive all at the same time. Then he gets made by Kirk and Spock to risk blinding the latter… and DOES blind him. Then his face when the test result revelaed that he didn’t need to use an jntense light and being outright unresponsive when Kirk calls him later… just ouch. It’s one of those moments I wish it had gone more in depth, but upseide is we have haply McCoy by the end. Want proof of how much he cares for Spock and others? Here you go

And he has really good scenes in other episodes despite varying levels of prominence (Miri, Space Seed, The Galileo Seven, This Side of Pradise, The City on the Edge of Forever, Mirror, Mirror, Friday’s Child, The Ultimate Computer, Spock’s Brain… no seriosuly he’s the biggest bright spot in that and for certain S3 episodes tbh). It’s a HUGE shame that he was treated like the third wheel both in series and the films, and even now gets the raw end of the deal in popular media. But I hope that this was a satisfactory list Anon. Sorry it got all wordy and long, I can’t help myself sometimes XD

(Image Source)

#star trek tos #tos #leonard mccoy #ask #Anonymous #there was zero reason to blab that much but i did anyways #hope my photo choices make up for that XD

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flowers-of-io · 3 years ago

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The Legionless

So VoG drops tomorrow and I’ll be trying my best at a Day One run! But most importantly, I wanted to celebrate it with some lore analysis until my theories are proven wrong by canon.

So, Kabr.

1) Aspect

We actually heard from him in D2 at least twice. There’s the Kabr's Glass Aegis jumpship from CoO and the Gnomic chapter from my beloved book Aspect. Aspect is weird in itself, but in short, it’s a story about the Black Garden first and foremost, and how what I believe is the Darkness waking up affects the Sol Divisive. And, of course, what it means to Praedyth and the Ishtar Collective teams stuck in the Vex network.

I think what happens in Gnomic is Kabr slowly losing himself to the Vex. I have no idea why he is/is not walking in the Garden, but my theories about how everything that has ever happened and will ever happen is happening somewhere in the Garden is a thing for another time and I’ll spare you the brainworms for now. Anyway, the sentences are crowded and interweaving and messy and I think it’s the Vex collective mind and Kabr’s mind mixing at this point.

(Watch your six don't worry about me grow grow grow)

Ok buddy Goblin

(Who knows what's listening it's listening it's saying grow grow grow)

GROW GROW GROW this sounds so Vexy. That’s what they do. They possess you and grow inside you (see: Asher). And that’s what the Garden does, it grows, it grows into you and you grow into the Garden. “Everything in the Garden becomes of the Garden”. “Everything grows here,” Jolyon said.

There is a shape that is his mind and the shape is protect the shape is sacrifice the shape is (grow)

This is Kabr realising the final shape, I think--”final shape” as in “the state of the universe the Vex strive towards”. It speaks for itself, the shape is protect the shape and sacrifice for the shape and grow towards the shape and uh remember my aiat essay--

A Titan is a Wall a Shield a Cup filling itself to overflowing. The container changes the shape of its contents but the contents change the nature of the container and the nature is eternity.

This just sounds as something Toland would say. The container changes the shape of its contents but the contents change the nature of the container and the nature is eternity and my brain is on fire???

Okay. Kabr is the container. The radiolaria he so ingeniously drank is the new content. Kabr changes the shape of the Vex but the Vex change Kabr’s nature; and the nature is eternity, so they change the way Kabr relates to it? We know Guardians are immortal and the Vex as a collective also (in a way), but these are two different immortalities. Eternity means different things to them. They have a different relation to it. From what I see, the Vex changed the way Kabr perceives eternity, from the Guardian way to the Vex way. But he changed the shape of the content, so he, in a way, is still Kabr.

He was named too well he is his own grave and the cut on his left hand will never heal.

This is both obvious and intricately weird. ‘Kabr’ means ‘grave’ in Arabic; pretty telling. And the cut on the hand that never heals we see in Legends: The Black Garden Grimoire card, but there it is Pujari who has it:

I am Pujari. These are the visions I have had of the Black Garden. [...]

At the end of the path grew a flower in the shape of a Ghost. I reached out to pluck it and it cut me with a thorn. I bled and the blood was Light. [...]

When my Ghost raised me from the sea there was a thorn-cut in my left hand and it has not healed since.

I’m dying to know what the connection here is. I have no idea. No theory, no explanation.

Also what’s with the ^K^V^s? Green from FFC had an interesting theory about this being some kind of music writing but I didn’t understand it so I won’t quote, but I recommend the FFC episodes on Aspect because they’re fascinating. And, well, we know that Vex and music are strongly connected.

2) Aegis

.................Or is he? Is he losing himself truly?

Relic: The Aegis seems to document Kabr’s last clear thoughts before the Vex interweave themselves with him:

I have destroyed myself to do this. They have taken my Ghost. They are in my blood and brain. But now there is hope. I have made a wound in the Vault. I have pierced it and let in the Light. Bathe in it, and be cleansed. Look to it, and understand: From my own Light and from the thinking flesh of the Vex I made a shield. The shield is your deliverance. It will break the unbreakable. It will change your fate. Bind yourself to the shield. Bind yourself to me. And if you abandon your purpose, let the Vault consume you, as it consumed me. Now it is done. If I speak again, I am not Kabr.

Now let me introduce you to the final line of Kabr's Glass Aegis:

it was/was/was not done i/i speak again and was wrong i am still him and i am now them and THAT IS FUTURE^V^V

DO YOU SEE IT? DO YOU SEE THE PARALLEL? I SEE THE PARALLEL

while joined( Glass, Sky )

The Vex are “glass and silica”, the Sky is another term for the Light.

I guess the “cases” (past, present, future) mentioned in the loretab talk about the Vex’s (im)possibility to return to the primordial Garden, or at least the primordial state before the Winnower threw hands with the Gardener.

case Past:

return( i m p o s s i b l e )

// grazing, rocked, major, distilled.

case Present:

return( v e s t i g i a l )

// vault, aegis, awakened, infinite.

case Future:

// return( i n e v i t a b l e )

// light, truth, dark.

Vestigiality is an occurence when in the evolution process some species’ organs lose their previous function because it is not needed anymore, but retain those organs. Make of that what you will, I have my theories but I can’t quite put them into words.

if( t h e w a r d e n s s e e t h e BRIGHT a s d e a t h ) &&

( t h e THINKERS e q u a t e BLACK w i t h e n d ) then

What is going on??? I guess we’re the Thinkers but who is the Wardens??

their/our/their desire is not malevolent it is survival she is/was/is wrong there is no evil there is no despise there is no SEPARATION there is harmony inside if you/you/you allow it

This, I think, speaks about the Exo Stranger. She said the Vex were “an evil which surpasses all other evil” when she tasked us with destroying the Black Heart. The “there is no separation” seems to be about how the Vex are now Kabr and Kabr is the Vex and the Vex wish to see the world be them and everything to be the pattern as they are the pattern and *gasps for air*

Harmony. I. The music.

Also the final flower pattern was repetitive. Is that harmony? No. Does it hit oddly close to home for me? Yea.

Also the ^K^V^s appear in this entry as well and I still have no idea what they mean.

3) Theory

Kabr is not gone. Kabr is Kabr. The Vex did not eat him up, they have woven themselves into him and they are now one, the Vex and him. I think this is what might have happened to Asher, too.

And I think Kabr will come back, in a way. At least that’s not the last that we’ve heard from him.

(I put this quickly and without thinking much & just riding on the hype, so forgive me if it seems a bit incomprehensible.)

#i like my lore with coffee #kabr #vexed #destiny 2 #vault of glass

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ober-affen-geil · 4 years ago

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I just did a post about Alex’s relationship that we see on screen with the two Manes brothers that we’ve met so far and what that tells us about the Manes family that we can’t see. While writing it I started to go off on a tangent, decided it wasn’t relevant enough, and deleted it. My brain has decided “actually it’s going to bother me if I don’t”, so here’s my extra thoughts on the Manes boys, mostly centered on Flint.

*CW for discussion of child abuse, homophobia, gaslighting, and disclaimer: I am not experienced personally or professionally with the kind of deliberate and calculated abusive environment I believe the Manes boys grew up in. So most of this may be me talking out of my ass. Also, this is mostly based around my headcanons regarding Jesse and what the Manes household looked like so like again. Out of my ass.*

I say in the above meta that, while I think Alex got the worst of the physical abuse, the Manes household is one I believe was abusive in general. (I also believe this is something Jesse learned and absorbed through his own abusive upbringing, but this isn’t about Jesse. It’s about what he did.) What I want to highlight is the implication we see in 1x12 that Flint is currently being blackmailed by Jesse. (That’s Dad’s way; blackmail people into obedience. Manipulate them, exploit them...What does he have on you?)

This is abuse.

Flint is being blackmailed (manipulated, exploited, all the words Alex uses) by his own father. This speaks to the fact that Jesse runs his household and his LIFE through a culture of fear. And most likely always has. Fear is how he exerts control, fear is how he gets people to do what he wants. Including his sons. And we don’t know when his wife left this picture so we don’t know how long he had the four boys to himself, but we do know it happened at some point.

In the meta relating to Alex I point out that Flint, in comparison to Gregory, puts the onus of Alex’s abuse on Alex rather than Jesse; mostly by using victim blaming sentiment along the lines of “if you kept your head down it wouldn’t be so bad”. This is gaslighting, but imo because it is coming from Alex’s sibling and the abuser was their father it is coming from someone who was also subjected to the same gaslighting.

Flint thinks that Alex would have had an easier time with Jesse if he had been less “trouble” because that’s what worked for him. As long as Flint fell into line, everything was fine. There were no repercussions if you did what you were told. And we see from 1x06 and 2x05, Alex was deliberately acting out as a teenager. I think Flint would have seen this as Alex tempting fate; Flint is watching Alex know he is going to be physically punished for doing something and then doing it anyway which to Flint would be utterly ludicrous.

(I personally see this as Alex realizing Jesse was hitting him for something he couldn’t control, and deciding to give Jesse a reason to hit him because then it was something he could control but again. My ass is doing the talking here.)

Again, I said in the meta that I don’t believe Flint is homophobic in the way Jesse is (believing Alex is “perverse”) as we have not seen any evidence of it in canon. But he is, if this analysis is correct, homophobic in the way of failing to recognize that it doesn’t MATTER what Alex does, Jesse is still going to hit him because he’s gay. I don’t believe Flint thinks Alex can change who he is, but I do believe he doesn’t understand why Alex can’t “just repress it”. Because swallowing the parts of himself that Jesse didn’t “like” is what helped Flint survive.

We see a couple times in dialog that Flint feels helpless when it comes to his father; the above reference to blackmail, the “chain of command in this family” comment in 2x01, and “What makes you think I had a choice?” in 2x02. This, to me, tells a story of prolonged emotional abuse. This is how Jesse controlled his children, and how he still tries to.

While it certainly doesn’t excuse Flint’s actions and makes him no less of a genocidal asshole, I think it’s important to recognize that Jesse abused ALL of his children. Not just Alex.

#roswell new mexico #rnm #flint manes #jesse manes #alex manes #manes men #tw abuse #tw homophobia #tw gaslighting #my roswell meta #list #roswell season 2 #a riley special

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makeste · 6 years ago

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BnHA Chapter 194: Dream Analysis and Joint Battle Training

Previously on BnHA: Deku had a freaky dream! All the previous wielders of OFA were there (although we couldn’t see all of them clearly), and there was an epic flashback starring the first one, All For One’s Brother. He spent most of the flashback screaming at All for One to stop toying with people and using them for his own purposes. AFO spent most of the flashback ignoring his brother completely and being a bad bitch. He built an army of loyal followers who eventually grew bold enough to start taking violent and even lethal action against AFO’s enemies. Then one day he came to see his little bro again, and they talked about an old comic they read as children. AFO was inspired by the villain in the story, but his bro identified with the story’s hero, who never gave up in spite of the struggle, until he finally won and saved everyone. AFO was all “well that’s just a story,” which was some great fucking irony right there, and then he bestowed his brother with a quirk, thus unknowingly sealing his own doom. OFA Primo then turned to Deku and started talking to him, telling him there was more he wanted to show him but that this was all he could manage right now. But he told Deku “you are not alone.” And then Deku woke himself up by activating some sort of new power in his hand, inadvertently destroying half of his fucking room in the process.

Today on BnHA: Deku tells All Might about the dream and about how OFA Primo spoke to him. All Might says he’s seen the “Vestiges” of One for All in the past, but that they’d never communicated with him. Shimura had told him about that phenomenon though. Apparently the wills of the past OFA wielders are contained within the quirk as part of its power. But All Might has no clue regarding the explosion that took place when Deku woke up, and he tells Deku that for now, they’ll search for the answers together. As Deku heads off to his afternoon training session, he runs into Aizawa and Shinsou in the hall. We then cut to the industrial training ground area, where class 1-A shows off their various cold weather gear, including Katsuki, who’s got almost a whole new look going on and I love it and never want him to go back tbh. Class 1-B then joins them, and we learn that today’s class will be a joint training exercise. Oh, and there’s going to be a special guest -- Shinsou, who is still trying to transfer into the hero department. And he’s also sporting a familiar-looking capture scarf around his neck.

(As always, all comments not marked with an ETA are my mostly-unspoiled reactions from my first readthrough of this chapter. I’ve read up through chapter 213 now, so any ETAs will reflect that.)

so it’s the middle of the night still, and Deku is out running because he couldn’t fall back asleep

ahhhhh look at his cool winter gym uniform!

incidentally, the title of this chapter is “Wintery Sky! U.A. High!” and yesssss we’re finally getting into winter now! THAT MEANS A CERTAIN SOMEONE SHOULD BE GETTING HIS NEW COSTUME ANY DAY NOW, I THINK. I CAN’T WAIT AHHHHHH

and a brief flashback now of Aoyama giving Deku some cheese to make him feel better after his episode

true friendship right here

and now Deku’s continuing to run, and thinking that even though it was a dream, he remembers it as clear as day

that’s because it wasn’t just a dream, Deku. those are memories, obviously. memories which are now a part of you bud

it looks like his hand’s back to normal. I wonder what quirk it was that he activated?

also is he allowed to be out at night like this? you trying to get yourself put under house arrest again or what?

YOOOOOOOOOO

THIS IS THE COOLEST FUCKING SHIT OH MY GODDDD

though it’s looking more like androgynous trenchcoat dude is indeed just a dude. well, whatever!

at least we finally get to see the First’s face! yessss I’m so hyped this is the coolest fucking thing ever

and now we’re cutting to U.A. the next morning!

oh my god

ALL MIGHT YOU GOT SOME ‘SPLAININ’ TO DO

LOOK AT DEKU’S ANNOYED FACE

YOU KNOW HE FUCKING DID, DEKU. WHAT ELSE HAS THIS ASSHOLE BEEN HIDING FROM YOU. HE NEVER TELLS HIM SHIT

still trying to figure out exactly how old All Might was when he received OFA. we know Shimura died before his last year of high school. and he seems to have met her when in middle school. I guess he most likely received it around the same age as Deku but just had a better handle on controlling the strength part of it as he explained in the previous arc

so Deku’s explaining that he watched until the point where the First received OFA, and then after that the dude started talking directly to him

...does Deku actually think that All Might omitted this by accident? does he not realize All Might was deliberately untruthful?

...

...is this true or not. damn it

I’m inclined to think no, because All Might has a history of Not Telling Deku Things

anyways we’re flashing back to when Shimura told him about this

ah, so is this the explanation for why a power-stockpiling quirk would also stockpile memories, and even what appear to be souls? you’re saying it’s his predecessors’ wills?

(ETA: somewhat disturbing but also intriguing thought that just occurred to me. we know that AFO’s quirk and OFA’s quirk are related. they’re more or less opposites of each other, but they both grew out of the same bloodline. so if OFA can pass along the previous users’ wills, does it then stand to reason that AFO can do the same thing? when AFO imparts a new quirk on someone, is he also imparting a little bit of the previous quirk owner’s will? could that be one of the reasons why the process often overloaded people’s minds and turned them into “puppets”? and also, if this is the case, does that mean there’s actually a 10th person’s will hidden somewhere within OFA? whoever it was who originally owned the power-stockpiling quirk in the first place?

one last thought -- if this is the case, wouldn’t it be great if this is part of what leads to AFO’s eventual downfall? all the quirks he’s stolen over the years betray him, with their owners’ wills working to battle against him in his own mind. kinda makes me wonder whether Horikoshi has ever read FMA.)

and in fact All Might did experience this when he fought All for One for the last time, now that I think of it. pretty sure I even made note of it at the time. Shimura was there telling him to remember his origin. although by that point he’d already given up OFA to Deku, so it’s hard to say for sure. but I’m still choosing to believe it really was her, offering him her strength and support when he needed it the most

always with the not saying things. why do I stan this frustrating man so badly omg

the more we see of All Might, the more I recall what he said to Endeavor about having a tendency to push everyone away from him. and it seems like even with Deku, his beloved protege whom he loves and supports with all his heart and is devoted to, there is still some part of him that he has closed off there. either to protect him, or just out of habit by this point. he’s just used to holding everything in and never confiding in anyone. and damn it but why are all of my faves like this

now Deku’s snapping him out of his reverie and All Might’s like “oh yeah wait a sec”

whoa, but it seems like not even he understands what happened there?

so he doesn’t know about the whole passing along the quirks thing? or is he keeping it secret? tbh I cannot think of a single reason why he would keep that knowledge from him if he did know, because it could potentially be super dangerous. and obviously All Might only ever had the one quirk himself. so I’m thinking now that this is indeed something that only Deku has awakened thus far, which is super interesting

(ETA: so the verdict appears to be in, and it seems he didn’t know. also, yet again here is another mention of that quirk singularity shit. you sure have awakened something dangerous my little green son.)

damn it All Might

he seems so genuine... I feel like he really is telling him the truth for the most part. or maybe he knew it was a possibility but he never experienced it much himself and so he figured it would be the same for Deku

so what I’m taking from this then is that while All Might was a natural when it came to figuring out the physical side of OFA, maybe Deku’s more naturally gifted when it comes to the spiritual side? I’m starting to think of it in Avatar: The Last Airbender terms now lol. All Might was more of a Korra while Deku is an Aang

(ETA: and you know, I think that analogy can even be stretched to their respective coming-of-age processes as well. like Korra, All Might went through the normal training process and was given time to master his power. but Deku is more like Aang in that he hasn’t had that same benefit of being able to learn all of this gradually. like Aang, he’s kind of been thrust right into the thick of things before he was fully prepared for it, and a lot of his growth has been of the trial by fire variety.

and this is only going to get worse from here, because the League of Villains is not going to wait until little All Might Jr. is all grown up before making their move. Deku is going to be put to the test soon, and he won’t be ready for it, and he’ll have to do it anyway because the fate of the world may depend on it. I know the whole SIXQUIRKS thing potentially looks like a massively overpowered upgrade at first glance, but the thing is that he’s still a kid, and he has no idea how to use this shit. look at how much he’s struggled learning how to use just one quirk without killing himself. now throw in six new ones with no training manual. and on top of that they’ve all been cranked up to 11 thanks to that quirk singularity(TM) shit. basically it’s going to be a hot fucking mess that will probably get him into as much trouble as it helps get him out of. he’s still going to be figuring out what percentages he can safely use, and he’ll be forced to put his Big Hero Brain to the test in new and fascinating ways as he comes up with strategies to use whatever he does manage to figure out.

and meanwhile he’ll be up against Tomura and the League and -- eventually -- AFO himself. much like Aang inevitably had to take on Ozai even though he was only 12 years old and his training wasn’t complete. I’m anticipating something similar for Deku in the endgame here, and I think it’s going to be an amazing ride and I can’t wait.)

so now Deku is smiling and he says he’ll do his best

oh!

;_;

;_______;

(1) THIS IS THE PUREST INTERACTION THAT’S EVER GRACED THIS MANGA’S PAGES, and (2) HELL YEAH SHE FUCKING WAS

(ETA: this makes me so fucking sad now because I’m sure All Might would give anything to be able to see and talk to Shimura again one last time. if Horikoshi does kill him off I hope he gets to see her first.)

so now they’re heading out and All Might’s escorting Deku to his next class and says he’s gonna watch and that it seems like it’ll be fun

and they’re running into Aizawa who’s stepping out into the hall himself

OH SHIT

WAS HE JUST MEETING WITH SHINSOU??

okay but I’m pretty sure Shinsou hasn’t been accepted into the hero program yet? because truthfully this is another thing I’m pretty sure I’ve been spoiled for, though that was kind of an inevitable development so to me it’s not a huge spoiler. but anyways pretty sure that won’t happen until around chapter 216 though so this meeting can’t have been about that

given that this is not the first time we’ve seen these two together, I think we can assume that Aizawa has been mentoring him off and on? I keep seeing Shinsou included as one of Aizawa’s kids in fanfics (maybe once I finish this arc I can finally read some of those), so I’m guessing it’s something like that. he’s so addicted to being a good dad that he goes out of his way to find even more kids to adopt in his free time. jesus christ

huh, Shinsou seems much happier than he was the last time we saw him!

... [hair ruffles]

LOL AIZAWA

THIS CLOSE-UP STARTLED THE SHIT OUT OF ME LMAO

and now we’re cutting to one of the training grounds! I think this is the one where they had that race that one time right after the Hero Killer arc. but I forget the name of it though

AHHHHHHH

WINTER CLOTHES

why the fuck can’t Momo wear a cape all the time!?

Tsuyu’s winter gear seems less extreme than I thought and I’m a bit surprised! but I guess it must be warmer than it looks

all Mina did was add a fur collar. girl you are going to freeze your ass off

no comment on Hagakure but you all know what I think already lol

AND WHERE IS MY SON WHO I KNOW FOR A FACT HAS A COMPLETELY REVAMPED WINTER OUTFIT WHICH I’M ABOUT TO BE LIVING FOR

AHHHHH YESSSSSS

COME AND FANGIRL WITH ME DEKU!

OH MY GOD YES!!!!!

IT’S SO MUCH BETTER THAN HIS NORMAL COSTUME. 10,000x BETTER!! THE SLEEVES AND THE COLLAR COMPLETELY CHANGE THE LOOK. THE COLLAR ESPECIALLY, IT MAKES IT SO THE METAL COLLAR NO LONGER LOOKS SO WEIRD. I’M SORRY BUT THE DEEP V-NECK AND THE BARE SHOULDERS WERE JUST ODD

like, I think his normal costume was designed more with his future image of himself in mind, and doesn’t necessarily work as well with a teenage boy who is still growing and still has a relatively lean frame. he’s got a lot of muscle, yeah, but his costume is the sort of thing that would look more natural on someone with an Endeavor or Muscle Might type of build. his shoulders are not broad enough yet for it to really look natural

(ETA: and you know what, come to think of it I don’t think he’s ever gonna bulk up as much as either of them, because the more muscle he’s got, the more difficult it’s going to be for him to propel himself with his quirk. he’s gotta strike a balance there. so in conclusion Katsuki your summer costume needs a redesign!)

so the collar really helps here because it hides his whole neck which helps a lot with that awkwardness lol

anyway I’ll stop analyzing Kacchan’s costume now you guys but please rest assured that I fucking love it and this shit was worth the wait

(ETA: oh my god and now that Awase’s gone and busted up his gauntlets too, is it too much to hope he might redesign those to be a bit less bulky as well? dare to dream!? Horikoshi are you listening??)

and now I’ll let Deku have his own fangirl moment

you guys. I can’t oh my god I fucking can’t

but just. he’s so excited. and more importantly he’s interacting naturally with Kacchan without the slightest bit of uncertainty or hesitation or awkwardness, even though Kacchan’s still being a grumpy grump

and really Kacchan is behaving no differently than he would toward any other classmate. there’s no actual heat there, just normal Kacchan banter

in fact, if you look a little closer at this interaction, Katsuki actually invited him to talk. he saw Deku staring at him, and rather than telling him to fuck off and go bother someone else, he actually gave him express permission to start geeking out. (and then got fucking embarrassed by it oh my god)

in other words, they are interacting like normal classmates with none of the awkwardness and unease and hostility that was there before, and it’s fucking amazing. this is all I’ve wanted this entire time you guys oh my god

(ETA: seeing Bakugou and Deku finally interact again in this arc has given me so much joy. this is easily one of my favorite arcs just for that alone)

so now Ojiro’s coming up to Deku and saying that his suit is the one that’s had the most dramatic change lol. and that he even got new gloves recently

oh for fuck’s sake lol

okay at this point I totally support the Dekacho if that’s what they want to do. but why do they have to keep showing it by having Ochako get jealous of every third person Deku interacts with??

(or rather, every third person with boobs. because if this was a bit more realistic and she was paying just a bit more attention, the person she ought to be the most jealous of right now is Kacchan lol)

ohhhhhhh SNAP

I know it would end up just getting shredded, but Kiri might want to think about getting some sort of winterized non-shirtless version of his own costume too regardless. maybe just get something made from an inexpensive and easily replaceable material

anyway! holy shit, I forgot all about this, but I knew there was something with class B coming up soon because the manga was in the middle of this arc back when I first started reading it. and so this was what everyone was talking about

Monoma is surprisingly flexible

where’s Kendou? and that Pony girl?

holy shit Monoma

“my research”

son, I want details on your sample sizing and the way the question was phrased. I’m not sure if this holds up

lol and even then they only won by 2 votes

did you vote in your own questionnaire Monoma

lmao Aizawa is choking him out with his capture weapon oh shit

“shut up” oh damn. you do not insult class A in this man’s presence

so now Vlad is saying they’re going to have a special guest! and Aizawa’s telling them not to embarrass themselves

is it Shinsou. again, this guess is based solely on what I can recall of the fandom atmosphere when I first started reading the series and before I realized that I should blacklist spoilers

(ETA: okay so rereading this recap, I realize it seems like I’ve been spoiled for practically every damn thing in this arc, and I just wanted to make a quick note that this isn’t actually the case lol. I knew some basic stuff about the Joint Training arc, but I had no idea what the battles would be like, who was gonna win, or that Deku’s new upgrade would come into play the way that it did. basically I knew about SIXQUIRKS (but with no context), Kacchan’s costume, Shinsou’s presence (and what I assume is his successful bid to join the hero course), and that it would be 1-A vs 1-B. so basically most of this arc has still been a ride and I’ve really enjoyed it.)

I love that Baku, Kami, and Tetsu are all demonstrating their own unique ways of how they would befriend the special guest

AHHHH YEP IT’S HIM

THE WEIRD MASK THING OH MY GOD

I HAVE WONDERED ABOUT THIS FOR SO LONG YOU GUYS. HE WAS WEARING IT IN SO MANY FANARTS AND I WAS LIKE WTF IS THAT

and is that an Aizawa-style capture weapon?? oh ho?!

you guys, this chapter was only 13 pages long. and it was so good. that’s not fair, you deserve more pages BnHA. why is the page count so damn inconsistent; I’m already dreading once I’m caught up and I never know what to expect each week

but for now I still get to binge. finally my procrastination pays off. thanks to my efforts, I have another 22 chapters to read instead of like 4 or 5 lol. there’s a lesson in that, kids. maybe. or probably not actually lol

okay guys, and unfortunately I have to end this recap by announcing that I’m going to be taking another brief hiatus, most likely for about a week or so. there is some financial shit I need to get sorted before the end of the month, and I need to find myself another job too so I’m gonna need to do everything I can to focus on that.

I’ll try to catch up with some of my asks and the comments whenever I have a chance. and aside from that, I will hopefully see you guys in a week, hopefully under circumstances where I can breathe a little easier! be well, everyone.

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sheikzeldatetra · 5 years ago

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hey im a dumb-dumb, could you describe what’s going on in your gq timeline? Also i wanted to send this from my gq blog its @ohohohallnightlong *winks with both eyes*

Totes! I’m still wrapping my brain around it myself, and I’ve already received some helpful feedback I’ll hopefully add! (I’m also working on a full analysis of the entire show to the best of my ability, so watch for that...... in a few months........ hopefully.............)

Anyways! It’s easiest to understand if you take it branch by branch. In the upper left, you have what I call the “Four Friends” storyline. This is where Dave, Brittain, Gelsey, and Brent are themselves; weird nebulous versions of themselves existing in some weird place outside of time. They start the story with “I Don’t Know,” and progress chronologically through the way the story is told in the show (I only connected songs based on story, not reference; almost all the songs reference each other because they’re also all considered the same simultaneous stories, which is poetic but does not make much for actual understanding.) That story ends with the track “Midnight,” where Brittain remembers her other lives.

The Usher storyline takes up most of the bottom of the page. It’s the most straightforward. It begins either with “Family Meeting” or “Lights Out,” I’m actually not sure, and I need to do some digging. It depends on how old Roxie is in “Lights Out.” Regardless, Roxie grows up, playing with her dead sister as a friend, and eventually has a fling with a different/same astronomer and has a daughter. This daughter is stolen by the time-traveling Rose for the secret baptism (“Starchild.”) Roxie declines and “dies,” Lady Usher goes mad, and the Fool runs away from home. Their story ends when Roxie emerges and attacks Lady Usher, and Lady Usher dies. This occurs in the same track that describes the climax of Pearl’s death on the subway tracks, which is why “Usher Part 3″ connects to the track “Subway.”

The Fairy Tale storyline--the one with the original Rose Red and Pearl White--begins with “The Astronomer” and.... doesn’t really end. This is where the “circular story” elements become really unavoidable. “The Astronomer” leads into “The Telescope,” where we see the beginnings of Rose and the Astronomer’s relationship, the poetry incident, etc. “The Camera Shop” has an overview of the whole story, so arguably that track should connect here as well. “Bad Men” depicts the fallout between Rose and the Astronomer and skips over some details told in “The Camera Shop” and Rose’s journeys through time to her final encounter with the Bear. “The Wind & Rain” tells the aftermath.

The 1,001 Nights story gets real confusing. “Monk” references Scheherazade and Dunyazad, but doesn’t quite exist as separately from the Four Friends world as the other stories do. Regardless, I consider that our earliest point in their story. Scheherazade continues the story in “Bad Men,” and we don’t learn of her fate later in this story other than she apparently lives to become an ancient. She speaks to Rose in “Tango Dancer,” and we hear nothing more from her, Dunyazad, or the Shah.

Finally, we have the Camera Shop and Subway stories, which are almost completely overlapped and have zero regard for the flow of time. Several different songs build up Pearl’s arrival on the subway. “Usher Part 3″ is the only song that completes the story with Pearl’s death. After Pearl’s death Rose sings “Hero,” which actually just now makes me realize I have not placed that song correctly. Regardless, “The Photograph” takes place after “Usher Part 3″/“Subway,” (I think Hero might go here) and Rose goes into the camera shop run by.... Pearl. Bringing us back around.

On top of all this you have Rose Red of the Fairy Tale time/lifetime hopping after the overview in “The Camera Shop” to visit all the timelines, obtaining her baptism during “Starchild” after stealing Roxie’s child, getting the honey from the soldier in “Soldier & Rose,” the stardust from Scheherazade in “Tango Dancer,” and finally getting the photograph in.... “The Camera Shop.”

WOOT WOOT. I hope that makes at least two granules worth of sense, because it’s really nuts. Again, revision suggestions are more than welcome.

#ghost quartet #hope answers #hope says things #wow what a journey #also congrats you're my first ever ask on this blog!#hello ghost quartet community!#girly-in-shades #ohohohallnightlong

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ladylilithium · 6 years ago

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Hans’ possible Redemption Arc PART 1: Deconstructing Hans' character

Hey, guys! So this is my first post analysis, meta, observation, whatever you wanna call it, so if it’s seems incomplete or lacks of depth please add your opinions as well! Also English is not my first language but argentine Spanish, papá, so don’t judge me plz. I don’t want to encounter with any anti or hater, and if you have the necessity to speak your mind anyways, do it but in a cordial way.

I’m going to divide this post in 3 parts I think, since is very long, and I have a lot to say for my favorite Jerk redhead Prince 😆

Ok, let’s start, shall we?

_________________________________________

1) Is he really a sociopath?

You know, this is something that upsets me quite a bit. The fact that you can just say “Oh well, he’s a sociopath so he’s manipulative and lacks of empathy” is something that annoys me a little, or at the very least, disappoints me. TBH, you don’t need to be a sociopath (a psychological and mental condition) to be manipulative, apathetic or cruel. I’m trying not to rationalize his actions in Frozen, because he still was wrong by harming two innocent women, but by saying that he’s a sociopath it makes his character a little more… shallow? Simpler? My point is, that a shitty toxic person can be anyone, and it simplifies the complexity that they brought on the table on the first place.

But the questions still remains, is he truly a sociopath?

Is tricky, since we know nothing except that his family is shit, and that he is a chameleon, a mirror to other people. By the end of the movie, and by the interviews that Jennifer Lee gave to us, it seems to me that he does have sociopathic traits, but he is not a sociopath per se. Hans can be a sociopath, as much as he could be not, if it’s given a proper character in-depth and backstory.

I think that by calling Hans a sociopath is an easy way to make the GA and the Frozen Fandom to disconnect with him since statistically we have normal-functioning brain, and because people with ASPD diagnose have a negative -though justified most of the time- stigma surrounding them.

2) Grey Morality: The line between good and bad, where we all fall.

“All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy. That's how far the world is from where I am. Just one bad day.” ― Alan Moore, Batman: The Killing Joke.

As I said before, I like the idea of a morally questionable prince. A more grounded, realistic, game of throne-like character as Hans is. What I don’t like, is the seemingly automatic white to black view that we have for Hans, while at the same time, we have one of our protagonist letting almost die a whole kingdom, and her sister, to escape her duties and crippling fears –unintentionally, but still-. An empath or normal person can commit crime or bad things given in extremes situations of distress, anger, etc. And we see that with our own eyes in Elsa. She almost gets tempted to kill two men, you can see the fury in her eyes, in her face.

It is self defense, yes. But regardless of that, her people knew nothing about her powers and they just knew that she cursed them and ran away. No matter how morally wrong Hans was by trying to kill Elsa, or letting Anna die, he also helped her. He helped them both.

If she indeed killed those men here, I don’t think anyone whould’ve ever trusted her. Not even her own men, whom remember, they witnessed her actions and they were attacked too.

A normal person lies. A normal person manipulates. Heck, we even can choose to not feel empathy if it is inconvenient for ourselves. How many times did you pretend to feel empathy for someone just to make them feel comfortable? How many times did you see a homeless person asking for a money and you just walked away?

Again, I’m not trying to normalize these negative traits, but to be sincere about it. And is something that makes us very complex as human beings, we are true neutrals, and we can be good or bad, depending of the actions taken at certain moments, and how it impacts to others.

Yes, some people are irredeemable monsters, but I don’t think that’s Hans’ case. And so he does have redeemable qualities as well, even if it might be for personal gain, or perhaps some of his actions were genuine, we don’t know for sure.

When did we not see an ambiguous morality in Frozen? Or when did we not see ambiguous morality in some Disney characters, in general? Is hard to find, but we do certainly have our morally wrong characters redeemed. Here are a few:

- Abused both physically and psychologically Cinderella. CURRENT STATE: Redeemed.

-Imprisoned Belle. -Verbally violent towards his subjects and Belle. -Almost harms physically Belle. CURRENT STATE: Redeemed.

-Killed a bear out of vengeance. -Let motherless a bear cub, that after he would befriend. CURRENT STATE: Redeemed.

-Almost kill a bear out of vengeance too. On top of that, was his own brother (though he didn’t know). CURRENT STATE: Redeemed.

-Tried to kill Simba and take his pride. -(invoked) Forced mating with Kiara. -Almost attacks Simba. CURRENT STATE: Redeemed.

-Tried to kill Simba. -Attacked the lionesses of his pride. CURRENT STATE: Redeemed.

-He was an asshole to everyone. -He ordered a guard to throw an old man through a window (still lol). -He tried to let homeless a whole village for his selfish desires. -He betrayed Pacha’s trust. -He let Pacha on his own fate (probably to die). CURRENT STATE: Redeemed.

-Along with Syndrome, she plotted the death of many superheros, including Mr. Incredible. -Almost kill Mr. Incredible. -She almost kill a whole family, including the children. CURRENT STATE: Redeemed.

-He tried to kill Elsa, and let Anna die alone for personal gain. -Deceived Anna, Elsa and everyone else. -Plotted the death of Elsa at some point in the movie (unclear when exactly). -Degraded verbaly Anna. -He tried to break Elsa’s heart to make her give up her life. Redeemable Qualities: -He took care of Arendelle while Elsa and Anna were gone (though, it still can be interpreted as gaining popularity). -He went off to look out for Anna. -He ordered the Arendelle guards and the Merchant’s not to harm Elsa. -He calmed Elsa’s rage, avoiding her to kill. -He tried to reason with her.

Elsa is shown that suffers of guilt and insecurities, yet throughout the majority of the movie, she still rejects Anna and her responsibilities as Queen. Even to a point where she witnesses hurting Anna with her magic,

yet she just casts her away from her Ice Castle. Or after the misery that she caused -and she’s visibly hurt by that- she’s still thinking of running away, instead of trying to change things. Hans pleaded her to stop the winter and bring back summer, but she said that she couldn’t.

My goal here is not victim-blaming. I’m not blaming Elsa for her insecurities or self-defense actions. But her character at the end of the film, has a lazy realization, and for me, an unsatisfactory conclusion in terms of story-telling, because we never she her develop for herself, or working hard to balance her bad actions throughout the end of the movie, but anyway.

I’m not trying to rationalize morally questionable/wrong actions either. A good action doesn’t cancel the bad one, but my main interest is to analyze the human psyche, character growth and development.

3) Love and Fear: a constant subject in Frozen, and a constant subject for a “Prince”.

So cut through the heart, cold and clear Strike for love and strike for fear See the beauty, sharp and sheer Split the ice apart, and break the frozen heart.

—Disney’s Frozen “Heart”

DID HANS ACT ONLY OUT OF COLD AMBITION, OR HE WAS ALSO AFRAID?

For what we know from A Frozen Heart, interviews and extra information, is that Hans is abused so much by his brothers, that he just accepted their behavior and doesn’t fight back, is something normal for him. Nor he tries to improve his relationship with them. His relationship with his father is also painfully cold and toxic, and their dynamics are comparable to Zuko and Ozai, Tyrion and Tywin, or Theon and Balon. Hans seems to have an inferiority-superiority complex, and so, his pride is fragile and as well (just as previous Zuko, Theon and Tyrion).

But how? He’s very charming, and his body language never shows signals of insecurity (though that’s debatable). Or when he confesses his true intentions to Anna he has a sexy smug smile in his face, and his voice is soft and low, cruel and never trembling. How is that I believe that he was afraid or scared? Well, the movie itself states that he does have a terrible relationship with his brothers, the novelizations extends this to his father.

So by knowing this, a person copes with the pain and abuse in different ways: Elsa’s fear is hurting her loved ones, so she forced herself to an emotional -and literal- isolation towards them, specially with Anna. In Hans’ case, his fears are being trapped forever in his “home”, and being rejected by his father. So his way to acclimatizing himself in such negative environment, is to avoid his true feelings and morality. Avoiding his true identity, in essence. Thus, becoming into the Mirror Hans (more on that later), allowing him to become the very thing that he actively tried to avoid for years.

I think that here’s the point where he started to panic; where the fear of going back to his depressive life, and the taste of power that Anna gave him when she left him in charge, took him over completely, forcing himself to toss apart any bit of true morality and compassion that he had for Anna and Elsa. Where his mind started to realize that executing Elsa was the only way to bring things back to normal.

But is also the fact that Anna dissapeared, and Elsa was the only rightful heir to Arendelle, so his conflict was “What do I do? What’s next?” If Hans decided at the moment to execute her, and Anna was dissapeared, he wouldn’t get to be King of Arendelle, and he would back to his hell home. His conflict is both emotional and materialistic, and fear started to get under his skin too. Some might argue that he��s just reflecting Elsa’s emotions, which is valid, but keep in mind his goals, his backstory; try to read him beyond what the movie told you. Link the dots to picture his mind.

Some other might point out this scene.

[SIDENOTE: To me, it seems like another atempt to make us dislike him more. In my eyes, is like that the creators tried to manipulate us to hate him, but anyway don’t mind my defensiveness towards him LOL. He’s a terrible person Angie! Stop it, goddamit!]

It interpreted this part as Hans joy of finally seeing the chance of escaping his prisonic home, dehumanizing Elsa completly. WHICH IS BAD regardless. Is he a sadist? The book implies that he takes pleasure in feeling physical pain, but he does not take pleasure on harming others.

So to me, is a smile of almost getting to win a big bad in a videogame, or well... that’s the type of face when I’m about to eat a pizza so, IDK :v 🤷‍♀️

THE MACHIAVELLIAN KING VS THE MACHIAVELLIAN PRINCE: The Lion and the Fox.

One of the reasons that Hans didn’t fit his family -besides being the smaller and weaker member of them-, is that his morale and philosophy clashed with the imposing, hard power that his father values. Being flexible and benevolent to the common people is a sign of weakness for Hans’ father and brothers. The king sees himself and his other sons as strong and powerful as lions, and he compares Hans to a mouse because he doesn’t fight back, nor shares his value of hard power. The King’s philosophy is kinda like Darwinism with Machiavellian shades. So in one side, we have the cruel side of the Machiavellian philosophy, the one that values fear over love:

“From this arises the question whether it is better to be loved rather than feared, or feared rather than loved. It might perhaps be answered that we should wish to be both: but since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved.”

“One can say this in general of men: they are ungrateful, disloyal, insincere and deceitful, timid of danger and avid of profit...Love is a bond of obligation that these miserable creatures break whenever it suits them to do so; but fear holds them fast by a dread of punishment that never passes.”

But in Hans’ side, he believes (or puts in practice, at least) that appearances and benevolent acts are better way to influence people, to gain more popularity. This is the softer side of power, the more deceitful and diplomatic Machiavellian route:

“Everyone sees what you appear to be, few experience what you really are.”

“Never attempt to win by force what can be won by deception.”

“Therefore it is unnecessary for a prince to have all the good qualities I have enumerated, but it is very necessary to appear to have them. And I shall dare to say this also, that to have them and always to observe them is injurious, and that to appear to have them is useful; to appear merciful, faithful, humane, religious, upright, and to be so, but with a mind so framed that should you require not to be so, you may be able and know how to change to the opposite.”

So we see the two opposing sides of the Machiavellian philosophy, one relies on hard power, and the other in subtle power. In essence, Hans’ father rejects the soft power because of his imposing pride and ego. But both characters share the same Machiavellian influence in their beliefs, the only difference is that Hans takes no joy in being cruel and tyrannical, thus preferring the softer, more subtle side of power.

Yet at the end of the day, he embraces the cruelty, and fails to become the hero he expected to become, and by the time he realizes his mistakes and regains his morality, is too late.

What I’d like to see in Hans’ Redemption Arc, is a discussion between the characters (mainly Hans and Elsa) about this matter. An intellectual battle, and him realizing that his father was wrong. Not so in-your-face, because I can see people getting bored over political philosophy, but in a metaphorical way. And Hans coming in terms that deceitfulness and fear, aren’t the only way to gain trust, but love and true friendship as well.

He can be a fox, and a lion too.

“The lion cannot protect himself from traps, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves. One must therefore be a fox to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten wolves.”

― Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince

Part 2 Here

#disney #disney meta #frozen #frozen meta #frozen fandom #prince hans #hans #redeem hans #niccolo machiavelli #the prince #elsa #anna #disney villains #disney princes #redeemed villains

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scratchface · 6 years ago

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Long Overdue Thoughts on 71-76

There’s... a lot of ground to cover here. Considering I binged all five episodes, I might also be missing some things. I’ll have to comb over the episodes more closely later.

Jumping right into it, Bohman’s dueling now completely emulates Yusaku’s style, particularly with the almost excessive abuse of graveyard effects and link-spamming (I say with the utmost affection). Yusaku deciding to trust Ai’s judgement, and then refusing to let Ai blame himself when it goes wrong, was a nice touch. But I’m not sure it will be a good thing in the long run, especially considering how shaky Ai’s current allegiance is. But Yusaku knows better than anyone that Ai is an untrustworthy liar, and sticks with him anyway.

In regards to Ai having instinct, this relates quite a bit to the last section part four of my Yusaku analysis. Ai really does have something AIs shouldn’t have, while Yusaku seems to lack the very same thing, whether you call it self-preservation, fear, or instinct. It looks like Vrains really is going to confirm that Ai took more than he was supposed to from Yusaku, or possibly even pursue the switching angle (Ai is the human and Yusaku is the AI).

Ryoken showing up at the hotdog truck again was a treat. He casually reminded Kusanagi (and us viewers hint hint) how important Kusanagi is to Yusaku’s peace of mind. It goes to show Ryoken’s genuine concern for Yusaku’s wellbeing, and his desire to fight Yusaku fairly, with both of them at their best. I’ll come back to this when I talk about Ryoken and Yusaku’s next meeting, which shows us the darker side of Ryoken’s investment in Yusaku. Gotta say, it was cute how Yusaku had zero hesitation. He really believes that Ryoken won’t use underhanded tactics against him. Like hell Yusaku would ever doubt his special person’s intentions towards him, I suppose.

Earth was very likable, in the end, and his death was upsetting. There are few more terrible ways to die than being cut to pieces, gradually losing everything bit by bit. I hope Queen suffers for this one. Both Go and Akira come out the other side looking bad too; Go for completely losing his sense of right and wrong, and Akira for his powerlessness and inability to control or protect anything (seems to be a running theme with Akira; where’s it going?). I do have to wonder why he sticks with SOL, despite everything; it’s clear Queen isn’t going to allow him to use his position to help Playmaker or do right by the Ignis. (I get why he has to be there plot-wise; Aoi and Ema need an inside source of information.) I can’t help but think he’d at the very least be more effective doing literally anything else.

And then there’s Go, who has really, really lost it at this point. It’s pretty sad to see him twisted like this, but I figured that so long as he stuck with the “gotta be number one” mindset, he would keep on falling until he hit rock bottom. But the introduction of AI implants opens lots of interesting doors: like, couldn’t Lightning put AIs in those implants and put those implants in people in his conquering humanity scenario? Gotta hand it to SOL, if there’s one thing they’re good at, it’s inventing humanity’s doom. Plus, Go seeing a “new world” within the network...it’s very reminiscent of Yusaku’s Link Sense. Does Yusaku already have an AI implanted in his brain (is he the AI implanted in his own brain?)?

But all this talk of “becoming one with an AI” makes me really think we might be seeing a Yusaku/Ai fusion someday. That might be the best shot of beating Bohman next time; combining Yusaku’s skill and logic with Ai’s instincts and unpredictability, into what could even be considered to be the “original Fujiki Yusaku”...

In the early days of Vrains, a lot of people theorized Go would end up teaming with the Earth Ignis; I wonder if that’s still in the future? If Earth can be restored, or if he managed to hide a copy of his programming. Everyones’ reaction to his death had a sense of finality, but I do think Earth will be coming back, if only because of the combined Ignis Bohman was talking about being the vessel for (and because I want to see Earth and Spectre interacting). I think Lightning is going to want Earth’s data back for that project.

Maybe all the Ignis will end up being combined together in Bohman and we’ll finally get to see a Divine Ignis. It is very interesting that out of anyone or anything, Lightning decided that the ultimate Ignis should be based on Yusaku (+Ai, who was also based on Yusaku). But it also makes a lot of sense; Yusaku has already proven that he’s the best duelist in Vrains and, in the eyes of the Ignis probably, the pinnacle of humanity’s potential. Instead of basing an AI on an AI based on a human, Lightning might as well default straight to the best of the original goods, plus the results of the original Hanoi Project. It also makes sense; Ai was born from Yusaku being forced to duel what we presume to be an AI over and over again, and Bohman was finalized the same way: by dueling Yusaku over and over, and watching his previous matches.

I gotta wonder how Ryoken set up that conversation with Yusaku. They’re clearly at Stardust Road, but I don’t think Kusanagi would casually set up shop there of all places anymore.

Did Ryoken call Yusaku up and tell him to come by?

The whole reason Ryoken gave them the program IRL was because he wanted to avoid Lightning’s monitoring. We can assume that’s why they were having the Earth convo IRL too; but the fact that they’re having this conversation at all suggests that Ryoken and Yusaku now feel comfortable sharing what they know with each other. The fact that Ryoken callously used that as an opportunity to incite Ai’s resentment towards humanity right in front of Yusaku’s eyes is...well, there’s a lot to unpack in this short scene.

Clearly a little delighted by Earth’s fate, Ryoken is still trying to drive a wedge between Yusaku and Ai; this tentative alliance they have now might exist for entirely that purpose. It allows Ryoken to take the steps necessary to keep Yusaku out of Lightning’s hands, while pushing Ai towards “revealing” that he’s been humanity’s enemy all along. It’s twisted, but really adds a fascinating element to Ryoken’s character. He sees that the easiest way to get rid of Ai is to dissolve the bond between Ai and Yusaku.

That, or Ryoken is trying to create distance between Ai and Yusaku emotionally. He’s still determined to destroy Ai, but he knows that will hurt Yusaku, so maybe he hopes to lessen that future blow for Yusaku a bit. Either way, it’s not entirely fair to blame Ryoken for being such a jerk; he no doubt believes he’s doing the right thing for Yusaku and all of humanity.

At the same time: Ryoken, you bastard. (I love you)

On Yusaku’s end, its nice to see that while he trusts Ryoken, he’s under no delusions about who Ryoken is or what he gets up to. From easily guessing Ryoken has a spy to not batting an eye at his cold treatment of the not-evil Ignises. Yusaku is as cold and unemotional as ever, while Ai is growing increasingly unstable in the face of having lost everything he originally set out to protect. The contrast is interesting, but whether it will bring them closer or push them apart has yet to be seen.

Now that Aoi and Aqua met, I worry that Aqua will just do the “I see the truth” thing with Playmaker and Soulburner. I’ll be pretty disappointed if that is how Aoi learns Yusaku is Playmaker. But regarding the “truth” thing, we see that Miyu lost a friend because of a lie, which may have led to Aqua developing her lie-detecting ability. But do the Ignis all have unique abilities like that, unrelated to their elements but related to their Lost Kids? It doesn’t seem like it, but there’s a lot we don’t know, especially about Ai.

I want to see more of Miyu--or rather, I still very much want all the Lost Kids to team up! Now that we have five out of six, I would love to see them all interacting together a group. I hope she gets back on her feet and a larger role next season, instead of just existing to hand Aqua over to Aoi. I’m not to sure on where I stand with Aoi getting Aqua as a partner to begin with. On one hand, it was obviously inevitable from the start. On the other hand, it’s kinda like Aoi gets all the benefits with none of the trauma. Plus, what makes the Ignis and human partnerships so interesting is that the Ignis were born from each Lost Kid’s pain. I wonder if Aoi and Aqua’s more indirect connection can compete with that kind of complexity. Aqua might return to Miyu when she wakes up, or Miyu will insist on Aqua staying with Aoi and supporting her. That all said, I really like Miyu and Aoi so far and look forward to seeing them reunited.

RIP everyone that shipped Ema and Kengo; I knew y’all were playing a dangerous game. I want to know so much more about them though. What sort of relationship do they have? What was their childhood like? Where do they get their magenta hair from? Are they full siblings? Are they half-siblings? Adopted? Step-sibs? Blood siblings that grew up separately? I hope we find out.

The fact that Ema is a little sister too does a lot to explain the kinship she feels with Aoi, and why she’s encouraging Aoi to be stronger; its possible she wants Aoi to be able to be there for Akira in a way Ema might never have been for Kengo. It also explains Kengo’s disregard and lack of respect for Ema; of course he looks down on his little sister (assuming I’m not misinterpreting Ema calling him “nii-san”...which I’m pretty sure I’m not.)

There’s undoubtably more in these 5 episodes that I didn’t get to here, but lots of new and interesting possibilities for how the story is going to progress.

#vrains #yugioh vrains #ygo #im back and noisier than ever #vrainalysis

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emiamami-blog · 6 years ago

Text

Phoenix - Chapter 1

“Enough, Kacchan! Can't you see he's crying? If you keep going, I- I- I'll never forgive you!"

A smirk quickly overtook the blond's surprised features. "Even though you're Quirkless..." He loomed over me, my body flinching back as he fired an explosion from his palm. "...you're pretending to be a hero, Deku?" I didn't have the time to respond before Kacchan and his friends charged forwards, fists drawn back. It was over in a flash. The blinding sun passed over me as I lay on the ground, body throbbing with pain. I was weak. I was defeated. Just like always.

‘People are not created equal.'

That’s the hard truth I learned at the age of four. But that was my first and last setback.

It all began in Keikei city in China. With the news that a bio-luminescent baby was born! After that, ‘exceptional’ individuals began popping up all over the world. The cause was unclear. Time passed, and the ‘exceptional’ became the norm. Fantasy… Became reality! At present, 80 percent of the world’s population consists of superhuman with special abilities. The world is in chaos! And a profession everyone once only dreamt about… Entered the spotlight!

Along with the exceptional abilities came an explosion in the crime rate. While nations struggled to overhaul their legal systems, brave individuals took up the mantle of heroes straight out of comic books, protecting people from evildoers! With public support, some quickly acquired the right to serve as heroes in an official capacity. Depending on their performance, they have the potential to earn: Government pay! And Fame and glory!

“You’re also going for U.A., aren’t you, Midoriya?”

I had been ignoring the excited shouts of my classmates, my head on my desk, trying desperately to drown out their voices. However, when I heard those words I felt my body involuntarily twitch, and I cautiously raised my head, only to see the whole class stare at me in shock before simultaneously bursting into roaring laughter.

“Huh?! Midoriya?! No way!!”

“Good grades alone can’t get you into the hero program!”

I swallowed pathetically at their words, meekly countering their taunting. “Th-that’s not necessarily true! Sure, there’s no precedent, but…”

“COME ON DEKU!!” Before I could retaliate, I was blown from my desk by a loud explosion issued out by an equally loud blond. “Forget the crappy quirks. You’re totally Quirkless! And you think you can rub shoulders with me?!”

I could feel the air around me grow warmer with the crackles that threatened to burst forth from Kacchan’s palms. I didn’t know how much more damage I could do by talking, but I figured it would be better than staying silent in case he was to take it as if I was ignoring him. “Wa- Wait, no, Kacchan! I wasn’t…” I felt the air heat up even more, now actually able to see the smoke pouring off of Kacchan. Quicker that I thought could move, I had scurried away from the twitching blond, only to find my back hitting the wall behind me. “I wasn’t saying I could compete with you! Not at all!” I lowered my head to stare at my knees, hating how I couldn’t stop myself from trembling in his presence. “It’s just… It’s always been my dream. Since I was little. And well…” I gathered my courage to look him in the eyes. “There’s no harm in trying…”

Apparently that was the wrong thing to say.

“Try?! Try what?! The entrance exam?! You’re taking the exam just to ‘try’?” That brought forth another burst of laughter from the class. I found myself shrinking away from them even more, their faces becoming blurred, shadowed masses with haunting grins. “What can you even do?!”

I was left speechless.

The bell rang, signalling the end of the school day. I quickly gathered my notebook titled Hero Analysis for my Future, No.13, and prepared to leave. However, as soon as I turned around, my notebook was snatched from my hand by the one and only explosive human bomb.

“We ain’t done here, Deku.”

I felt my heart rate increase. That book meant everything to me. It contained my hopes, my dreams, my aspirations, and all my hard work, research and analysis on heroes. “C-come on. Give it back!”

Two of Kacchan’s friends gathered around him. “What’s that, Katsuki?” “‘For my Future’? Seriously?! This guy, Midoriya.”

Kacchan didn’t respond. He simply stared at my notebook in his hands, a dark expression crossing his features. Without any warning, Kacchan brought his other hand up to the cover of my notebook and blasted it until it was blackened and burnt. He glanced at it, a small ‘Hmph’ escaping his lips before he carelessly tossed it over his shoulder.

I was frozen in place, trembling. I wasn’t sure if it was from shock, fear, or pure rage.

“The best heroes out there, well… They showed signs of greatness even as students. I’ll be the first and only hero from this crappy public middle school! The first to win the honour of becoming a student at U.A. High. I guess I’m just a perfectionist.” Regardless of how correct his statements were, I couldn’t help but think to myself of how vain he was. He wasn’t finished though. “In other words…” I jolted as his hand came down heavy on my shoulder, a crazed smile on his face. “…don’t you dare get into U.A., nerd!” I couldn’t move. I was dripping in my own sweat, the smell of burning material reaching my nose. It was obvious that Kacchan had burnt my shoulder, but I couldn’t feel it. I could only hear my heartbeat in my ears, the blood rushing past my face.

“He's pathetic. He still can't face reality."

Kacchan turned to me one last time before he exited the room. "If you really want to be a hero that bad, there's a quick way to do it. Believe that you'll be born with a quirk in your next life, and take a last chance and dive off a roof!" I was in a state of shock, helpless to do anything but watch his retreating form. His ever-retreating form.

I found myself pulling my soggy notebook away from the nibbling lips of the Koi fish in the school fountain. I could feel my frustrations burning. My frustrations at fate for allowing people with mindsets like Kacchan’s to be born with amazing Quirks. My frustrations at Kacchan, for being so ignorant and vain. But most of all, my frustrations at myself for being so useless.

"Stupid... Stupid... STUPID BASTARD!"

“Again?! Izuku, I think you’re responsible for tens of thousands of this video’s views. It’s a little too scary for Mommy to watch.” I could hardly contain my excitement as my mother set up my favourite video. It was an old clip. There was this big disaster a while back, but in the aftermath, a certain hero made his debut.

“He’s so cooooooool! When I get my quirk, I wanna be just like him!

“I’m afraid there’s no hope for him.”

I felt my body go stiff. I just froze. ‘No hope… No hope… No hope…’ those two words kept replaying in my mind like a broken record that refused to move on.

“No! There must be some mistake?” I could hear my mother, but it felt like her voice was so far away, as if I was hearing it from the other side of a glass panel. “The other kindergarteners have all started showing signs, but…”

“Pardon my asking ma’am, but you’re the fourth generation, yes? As far as Quirks, I mean.”

“Yes, of course…” My mother shot my motionless body a concerned glance before continuing. “I can pull small objects towards me. And my husband can breathe fire.”

“By the age of four, a child should manifest either one of his parents’ quirks of a composite of the two. However, early Quirk research discovered one important finding. It has to do with the presence of absence of the extra joint in the pinky toe. Humans have no need for extra parts they don’t use, you see. And those without the joint represent the next stage of evolution. Izuku here has two joints. It’s becoming quite rare nowadays, but… He possesses no Quirk at all.

“And he’s smiling! Mom, no matter what kind of trouble you’re in, he’ll save you with a smile.” I turned to face her, tears filling my eyes as I tried to keep my own smile on my face. “Mama, I can still be like All Might, right? I- I can still be a hero?"

"I'm sorry Izuku! I'm so sorry!" Mother had run over and wrapped her arms around me, but I had just felt numb. Hollow. 'No... No, mom…’

That was when I decided. I decided not to care what anyone says!! To keep my chin up and keep moving forward!! I clenched my fist and smiled to myself, walking home with a determined spring in my step. I was so preoccupied with my thoughts, that I had failed to notice the voice whispering in my ear.

“A medium-sized body… To hide in…”

By the time I noticed, I had just enough time to turn my head before something cool and wet enveloped me. ‘A villain?!’ My nose and mouth were quickly covered by a slime-like substance, vicious, and unable to grip. I couldn’t breathe, but my other senses were on high alert.

“Don’t worry. I’m just hijacking your body. Clam down. It’ll only hurt for about 45 seconds… Then it’ll be all over. I’m saved. You’re a real hero. I never thought he’d show up in this town.”

I continued to struggle pointlessly, my chest convulsing with the lack of oxygen. I knew it was pointless to try to scrape my way out, but my oxygen-deprived state wasn’t allowing me to think clearly.

The villain took note of my struggling and decided to remind me anyways. “No point in trying that. I’m fluid, you see!!”

My mind went into a helpless panic as I felt my body get heavier with each passing second. ’I can’t breathe! My body… Getting weak… I’m dying! I’m gonna die?! Someone help! I’m dying!! No…’ Tears began to escape the corners of my eyes. Whether from lack of oxygen or the fact that I was seconds away from death, I’m still not sure. Just as my body was about to give in, I heard another voice, this one much more familiar.

“Fear not, kid!! I am here!” My eyes had drifted shut, but my brain was still functioning and I could still hear. The voice was so familiar that I was sure it was him… My theory was determined as true when I heard his signature battle cry. “Texas… SMASH!!” The last thing I remember was the face of my idol and a strong gust of wind propelling me backward. Then darkness.

I awoke to tiny slaps upon my cheek. “Hey… Uh. Thank goodness… You’re okay! Excellent!!” By that point, my senses were back to normal and I scurried away as fast as I could. I couldn’t believe it! All Might! In the flesh! Right here in front of me… And he had saved me too! “Apologies… For getting you caught up in my villain hunt. Mistakes like that aren’t my style, but… This is a strange land to me. And besides, I’m off camera! But my success here is all thanks to you!! I’ve contained the villain!!”

‘All Might! He’s here… He’s really here!! Up close, I can really see!’ I quickly scrambled around looking for my notebook, desperate to get an autograph from him. I located it then frantically flipped through it looking for a blank page before seeing his name scrawled out with thick black ink. I was absolutely floored.

“Wowww!! Thank you so much!! What a treasure!! It’ll be my family heirloom!!” I couldn’t help but bow my thanks to him. Unbeknownst to me at that time, All Might hadn’t even spared me a second thought. While I was busy bowing, he had already walked away.

“Now I must bring this fellow to the authorities! You can catch me again on TV!!”

“Um! Wait… Is that it…? I…”

“A pro battles not only enemies, but also time.”

‘Hold on!! I still… I need to ask you…’

“Until next time… Thanks for your support!” Before I could think, I had reacted purely out of instinct. My arms had latched onto All Might’s leg, and we were soaring fast through the skies. “Hey now!! Release me! Such enthusiasm is a bit much!”

“If I… Let go now… I’ll… I’ll die!” I could hardly believe my own foolishness, but that question meant a lot to me. “I… Need to as you… So many things… Gah! You…”

“Okay, okay. Just do me a favour and close your eyes and mouth.” He didn’t really have a choice, but I couldn’t believe that a pro had complied to a nobody like me.

Finally, we touched down on the rooftop of an abandoned building, and I could have kissed the concrete. I had never been happier to have crashed into a solid surface. “Scary…”

“Of all the…!!” I was brought out of my post-traumatic state by All Might grumbling to himself. “Hopefully the people downstairs will help us get down. I’ve no time though! Truly!!” I saw him prepare to jump again, and made a split second decision.

“Wait! Um…”

“No!! I will not wait.”

I knew he was limited on time, but I just had to know! I clenched my eyes shut and inhaled sharply. It was now or never. I’d probably never get another chance to talk to him. “Even without a quirk… Can I still be a hero?!” All Might had to know… He was the number one hero after all! He was the epitome of heroism… the very best! “Can someone without a quirk… Become a hero like you?”

“Quirks are…” I barely heard him though. I had to get it all out! I could somewhat make out him muttering something to himself, but I continued on anyways.

“Because I don’t have a Quirk… Well, maybe that’s not the only reason. But I’ve always been picked on… That’s why… Maybe that’s why… I think saving people is just about the coolest thing someone can do. The way you save people with a fearless smile! I want to be the strongest hero, just like y- WHAAAAAT?!” In front of me was a shrunken skeleton of a man. Hollow cheeks, gaunt skin, and droopy blond hair. “You’re all shrivelled up! Huh?! A fake?! An imposter?! So thin!!”

The blond just stared at me, an impassive look on his face. “I am All Might.” Blood spurted from his mouth, the man lifting his arm to hastily wipe it away.

“Woah! No way!!”

“You know how people hold in their gut at the pool? It’s like that!”

“No way!!”

The man before me slumped to the ground, resting his back against the railing. “A fearless smile, huh… You’ve seen the real me, kid. But don’t write about it on the internet, okay?” I wasn’t sure if I was dreaming or not. The number one hero… Was he really this shrivelled up and frail looking man? “Five years ago… An enemy did this to me.” He slowly lifted up his shirt to reveal a scar, veins running out from it like a shattered mirror. I barely held back a surprised ‘Eep!’. My body shuddered involuntarily, despite trying to keep my face passive. “My respiratory system was nearly destroyed, and my stomach was removed. I’ve wasted away because of the after-effects of those surgeries. I can only do my hero work for about three hours a day now.”

He paused a moment to let his words sink in. “Five years ago…? Was that when you fought Toxic Chainsaw?” He looked surprised that I knew that, but continued on regardless.

“That lowlife? He could never do this to me! This was never made public. That is, I asked that it not be made public. A symbol of peace who saves people with a smile… Must never be daunted by evil. The reason I smile… Do you know why I smile? I smile to show the pressures of being a hero, and to trick the fear inside of me. Pro heroes are constantly risking their lives. That is why I cannot simply say, 'one can become a hero, even without power.'”

His words struck a chord within me. I felt a cold through my body, and I could swear I felt my heart stop. For the second time in my life, I felt completely empty and hollow. But this time was different from before. While I was frozen by shock at the age of four, this time, ten years later, I was filled with disappointment. I wasn’t disappointed in his answer. I was disappointed in myself for believing that I could do what was obviously impossible. I didn’t hear the words I had been hoping to hear, but surprisingly that wasn’t the worst feeling. The worst feeling was that I had allowed myself to be so optimistic even though I knew myself that it wasn’t possible. I was ashamed.

“If you desire to help people, becoming a police officer is always an option. Those villain custody officers are often mocked, but… That too is admirable work!” I stood in silence as All Might shakily got to his feet. He was almost out the door to the stairs when he paused to say a few words of parting. “It’s not wrong to dream. However… You need to be realistic, kid.” Those were the last words he said before he turned away, the door slamming shut with a metallic finality.

“You need to be realistic.”

“Even as a third-year, he still can’t face reality.”

“It’s time to start thinking seriously about your futures!”

‘Even… The best of the best said it… Don’t cry! You knew already, right?! This is reality… It’s because I knew… That I tried to damned hard…’ I found myself on the long, slow trek back to my house, my throat feeling unnaturally tight. I fought back the tears that threatened to spill down my cheeks, my face feeling stuffy and warm. ‘So hard not to see. To ignore reality. Yeah.’ A sudden explosion caught my attention, pulling me from my thoughts. ‘Hey… That explosion…?’ I was so used to gawking. I told myself to stop, to just stop it because I’d only make myself feel like a loser. But I couldn’t. When I saw the scene, I couldn’t believe my eyes. ‘Is that him?! How?! All Might let him go! Did he drop him?! That means…’

“This is my fault!”

I took in my surroundings, seeing multiple pro heroes already at the scene. They were focusing on the other citizens and the surrounding buildings. However, they weren’t doing anything about the sludge villain.

“Why’re the heroes just standing there?” I quickly elbowed my way into the crowd, listening to the conversations going on around me.

“Seem’s the villain’s grabbed a middle schooler.”

‘Grabbed…? So he’s enduring that same pain?! There’s a person in there?! Why aren't the heroes moving to save them? They might not be suited for the villain's quirk, but are they really going to let the person die?!’ My mind flashed back to the moments I had spend in the clutches of the sludge villain. The crushing feeling of not being able to breathe, the fear of impeding death… “Unbelievable…” I focused my attention back on the conversations around me, hoping to get more information on the current situation.

“Hey, that villain… Isn’t it the one All Might was chasing?”

“All Might?! No way! He’s really here?!”

“Yeah, I saw him earlier.”

“Then what’s All Might doing now?!”

My breaths were shaky as I moved in closer, my hands coming up to cover my mouth. “It’s all my fault All Might can’t do anything!! This guy can’t be caught. We have to wait for someone with the right quirk to show up!” This frightened me beyond belief. Heroes were a pillar in society that reassured citizens of their safety. I had never accounted for times that no hero had a suitable quirk for a situation. It had never even crossed my mind that sometimes heroes might not even be able to save everyone. It was a fragile justice system, and I could see just how thin the threads holding it together were. My heart went out to the middle schooler. ‘Hang in there… I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! Someone will come to save you soon… A hero’s bound to come…’ I felt desperation set in the time ticked by. The student’s head was barely visible. I stuffed my shaking Hands into my pockets, before suddenly noticing a tuft of blond hair sticking out from the sludge. I watched in horror as the person fought back, their head finally facing in my direction. As I caught a glance at their face, I felt my blood run cold.

"You're Quirkless. What the hell can you do?"

Those were the words spoken by the boy I had grown up with. The boy who I had admired. The boy that was now in front of me, struggling to get free from the sludge. As much as he despised me, I still considered him a friend. And I wanted him saved. But nobody was daring to run in to save him. I glared at the heroes around the scene. 'And you have the right to call yourselves heroes?! I thought heroes were always risking their lives!'

My feet moved purely on instinct, and I sprinted towards Kacchan and the sludge, skirting around the flames rising up from the ground. I ignored the heroes as they cried out, trying to get me to stop. “Get back here, you fool!! Stop!!”

The villain noticed my presence, and I saw his eyes light up in recognition. “It’s that kid…”

‘Why am I running? What am I doing? Why?!’

The villain began advancing towards me with an intimidating smile that rivalled Kacchan’s. “You’re dead.” His voice sounded garbled, almost animalistic.

‘What do I do?! What do I do?! At a time like this…’ I suddenly remembered my notebook. Page 25 ‘Always blast to keep damage to a minimum!’ With that in mind, I desperately flung out my school bag, hoping to hit something solid. I knew that I couldn't grab hold of the sludge because it was fluid, but the creature must have some form of a physical core, or at least something that I can hit. To my surprise, I had managed to hit him in the eye with one of my books, causing him to stumble back a bit. That gave Kacchan a moment to get his head free again, coughing and gasping for air.

“KACCHAN!!”

"Deku you idiot, why are you here?!”

"I- I don't know! My feet moved me!"

"Why are you doing this?!"

‘There were any number of reasons.’

“There’s no hope.”

“It’s my fault.”

“You think you can rub shoulders with me?!”

“Kacchan.”

“No harm in trying.”

“My dream.”

“A super cool hero.”

“You need to be realistic.”

“Saving people with a smile.”

‘But at that moment…’

“You- you looked like you were asking for help!"

Unfortunately, I didn’t get the response I wanted. It was what I was expecting though. “Stop… It! Just a bit longer. So stop getting in my way!!”

Before I knew it, the sludge had decided to retaliate against me. I could hear the pro heroes faintly yelling to each other over the adrenaline rushing in my ears. “Does he have a death wish? He’ll die for nothing!!” I braced myself, but to my surprise, I felt no pain, no suffocation. Shocked, I looked up to see All Might. He grabbed my arm, pulling me and Kacchan away from the villain’s clutches.

“The lesson I left you with… I should practice what I preach!!” I was astonished. I thought he had already gone over his limit today! “A pro should always be ready to risk his life!! DETROIT SMASH!!”

A gigantic burst of air was directed upwards, and I felt a raindrop as the dust settled. “Rain?”

“No way. The air pressure… That rising air current…”

“Hey hey hey hey hey hey hey.”

“He changed the weather with a single punch!!”

“Amazing. That’s… All Might!!”

Afterwards, the heroes collected the villain’s scattered body, and it seemed like the police had managed to get him into custody. The heroes were really mad at me. “There was absolutely no need for you to put yourself in danger!!”

Kacchan, on the other hand, got all the praise. “You were real tough out there! And that quirk! Consider becoming my sidekick once you go pro!”

I could feel a slight tick of annoyance in my forehead as I watched. Kacchan was getting praised for being a victim who happened to have a powerful quirk. I was getting scolded because I attempted to save someone, yet I lacked a powerful quirk. That's just it. That's how unjust society is, and how having a quirk can get you places in life that you don't even deserve.

With the reporters begging the heroes - along with Kacchan - to give them interviews, I managed to slip away unnoticed. I made my way back to my house in silence, the day’s events playing themselves over and over in my mind.

“I wanted to apologize to All Might, but… I guess I’ll just leave a message on his website when I get home.”

"Oi Deku!" I turned upon hearing my nickname, seeing a blond male running towards me slightly out of breath. Before I could fully comprehend what was happening, he was jabbing a finger in my face.

“I- I don't know what kind of stunt you were trying to pull back there, but you didn't do anything. I wasn't asking for help, and I sure as hell didn't ask for help from you! As if you could!! Huh?! I could’ve beaten him myself. You didn't help me, and you never will help me. Got it?!” I nodded my head. "Good. Stupid nerd!!” And with that, I was left seemingly alone once more.

“He’s right though. I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t change anything. But still… I’m glad. Now I can finally focus on a more realistic future…” For some reason… I remembered what my mom said.

“I’m sorry Izuku. I’m so sorry!”

“No mom… back then, what I wanted you to say was…”

“You can be a hero.”

#bnha #villain deku #fanfic

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pinsplantsandpikes · 5 years ago

Photo

Pick Pocketing (05/03/20)

Am I going to start every post with a pun? You bet your ass I am at least gonna try.

This one is about the pins bit of the name, and my forays into sewing, alteration, and dream of dreams maybe one day clothes making.

So, to start I need to say that my dad got me a lovely coat for Christmas. Black velvety stuff that dirt and water brushes right off, lined with a lovely fluffy woolly fake furry stuff. Can you tell I don't know my fabric names by heart yet?

I didn't wear it for two months, for all of January is was just sitting sadly in a bag waiting for me to move house to join it. And from then I was staring at it trying to figure out its fate. Thinking to myself “How do I make it wearable when it is not waterproof? It has no hood, and most terribly, it has no pockets.”

So I set myself a mission. Before winter was over I would resolve one of those problems. I would make pockets. Which in the middle of February, I finally did.

First, as with many things my brain does on a whim, I planned it. (A contradiction in terms, whims and planning? Just roll with it.) I looked at my other coats and jackets, and measured their pockets. I had already seen videos that suggested a teardrop shape for pocket patterns, but I thought they looked so tacky, and the stitching on the visible side of the coat would look awful. Or at least it would with my current level of skill.

I needed a rectangle. A shape I could relatively neatly sew into place, by just following straight(ish, I’m queer, help me out here, I can’t do ruler-lines) along a seam, sticking out, up, back in and done. With a bit of approximation and analysis later I came to the conclusion that I wanted them about 14cm by 17cm, with a 14cm opening for my hand. That was doable. I plucked up my courage and cut up some old jeggings whose thighs had seen better days (the woe of being thicc, no thigh gap, and no brand that I know of properly reinforces areas of.. friction) of the right size, attempting this magic known as the seam allowance. What I hadn’t accounted for, was the stretch. While cutting the jeans had been stretching, meaning the end result was not the size or shape I had intended - ugh - but I made do. I wasn’t going to cut more fabric and risk wasting more when this was close enough.

I wasn’t able to find the seamripper (though I know there’s one in the house) o used some tiny nail scissors to snip along the coat’s side seams at the height my hands would comfortably sit. I ironed and pinned the jeans segments into place, rearranging and checking a little bit for whether my hands lined up, or rather that the pinned pockets would line up with my hands. After committing to the location and position, I started sewing.

I began with where the pocket would attach to the opening, and about a quarter of the way through made the mistake I had tried so hard not to, by sewing both sides of the opening together. So unpicked a couple centimetres of stitching then went back to it again. I would say “repeat on the other side,” but I didn’t, not for a few hours anyway, because I did the pockets one after the other, rather than simultaneously.

With the opening seam tucked into place I redid my pinning and off I went around the edges of the pocket. Doing my best to make it neat on the outside of the coat, and in nice lines, even if not perfectly angled, parallel, or symmetrical, they were at least subtle.

And here is where the god awful bit of being a newbie hand sewer comes in.

I spent four hours backstitching to try to keep my lines nice and even while strong. I didn’t want to have two lines running next to each other, I couldn’t devote that long even for a nice professional coat. And it was just terrible. My back hated it, my desire to do something else hated it. But I kept going anyway. Because I was going to have pockets dammit.

So after a lengthy montage of my working on one then the other, the pockets were complete and I happily showed them off to the household.

They flowed smoothly with the silhouette of the coat, not even bulging too much when contents were inserted. I was pleased. And very grateful for the coat after marching along a half hour walk to and from the train station multiple days in a row for interviews. In the rain. Have I mentioned the rain yet? Or the cold? So yeah, the coat was and is very appreciated. And as it turned out, the waterproof issue resolved itself since the fabric, unless absolutely sodden, just brushes water off. The bigger problem is it doesn't let my sweat out!

That was then, and this is now. Now my biggest problem, is that the pockets are constantly dropping things. Their slightly-too-small size is largely to blame, but I have noticed that the seam along the bottom of the entry, which should be secured for 3cm, is coming loose. Again, probably because the pockets are slightly too small, and the stitching isn’t tight enough to hold it all in, and something had to give. So today my project is to reinforce the pocket entry point. In an ideal world there would be a zip, in a slightly less utopian but ultimately better world there would be a button, but as it is, just a slightly stronger, and maybe higher up closure in the entry point will have to do.

And if my phone escapes again, so help me!

#sewing #alteration #adding pockets #stitching #the lighting in my room is so bad for photos #ugh why camera

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enrychan · 7 years ago

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comparison mass effect andromeda / dragon age 2, yeah or nope? i hear that a lot around the fandom

short answer: nope

extremely long answer [lots of MEA negativity and Personal Opinions™ under the cut, you’ve been warned. Please don’t read if you enjoyed the game and/or you are tired of hearing negative things about it, believe me i totally understand the feeling]:

alright i’m not going to act like DA2 wasn’t disappointing because yes, it was. especially after a game like DAO which remains among the best RPGs i’ve ever played. so I would compare MEA to DA2 because they are both disappointments. that said, i still disagree with the part of the fandom that says they are similar because of the “smaller story” and/or “the focus on the characters”. DA2 is a smaller story than DAO, but it’s laser focused on the delivery of that story within a three chapters arc, and through its characters. Exploration is almost non-existent and the fetch quests are few and so unimportant you can skip them without missing anything. The companions are the true narrative and emotional center, and each one of them has a personal mission during each one of the three chapters of the story. Some of them (especially Anders and Fenris) represent a piece of the problems and politics of Thedas and force Hawke to make decisions regarding those problems. Their growth and fate depend almost entirely on their relationship with Hawke and on the choices of the player.

On the other hand, MEA is all over the place. it gives me a number of huge maps filled with nothing but fetch quests that don’t make the narrative proceed in any way and are entirely forgettable. The game also gives me a humongous researching/developing system for weapons and armor with an absolutely ridiculous and confusing as hell UI, which requires three different currencies (milky way tech, kett tech, remnant tech), that you have to collect by scanning things, just to research the projects for said weapons and armor, not to mention the materials to actually build the fucking things - which come in like six or seven different levels, so if you want to update your weapon or armor to the next level you have to gather the materials all over again. That’s insane. At some point I just skipped that mess altogether and went through the rest of the game with my shitty level 2 gear because i was sick and tired of scanning and gathering and researching just to discover lately that i didn’t like how my new weapon worked and i wasted time for nothing. Obviously that meant the combat was much harder for me than it needed to be. There is a more in depth analysis on the researching/developing system in this review, if you’re interested. I’m not going to delve into the ridiculous implications of having to scan the rebels’ tech on Kadara to get milky way tech currency, like on the Nexus they don’t have, I don’t know, archives or books on their own technology?

I’ll also add that while the combat is probably the best part of the game, and it’s much more dynamic than in the trilogy, it’s still much less fun for me because they took away the option to order your companions to use a certain power, preventing me from planning any tactic or combo. this also had the side effect of creating another layer of separation between my Ryder and her companions; like there weren’t enough already, with the mediocre writing and everything else going wrong in this game. Basically I always fought like I was alone and most time i actually was because my two companions were KO and i didn’t care, as they were almost useless to me.

I should probably add that the quest design in MEA is atrocious, the worst of every bioware game i’ve played - and i played most of them. for almost every mission i was required to go to a certain planet, than back to the ship, than back to a planet, then back to the ship… each time going through unskippable cutscenes and loading screens. Luckily for me when i played the game they already patched the galactic map, letting me skip the cutscenes of the voyage between planets, which are very pretty at first but at the fifteenth time they start to really grate on your nerves. And despite the patch, the voyage is still very slow compared to, say, ME3. I cannot even imagine the pain of the day 1 players who were forced to suffer through those unskippable cutscenes hundreds of times. Some missions (the worst ones imo) require you to follow a signal through more than two solar systems, reading a series of five or six “false positives” or whatever, before finally finding the “real one” and conclude the mission; an utter pain in the ass and a complete waste of time. I understand that MEA had huge problems during its development, but this kind of stuff has nothing to do with those problems and everything to do with artificially extending your gaming time with boring activities, just to say that the game is “100 hours long”.

At this point I want to make clear that I would have forgiven everything - the fetch quests, the confusing crafting system, the awful quest design - if Bioware gave me a good protagonist and/or interesting companions. Not even a good story really, I didn’t even care about that, just give me a fully flashed out crew with clear motivations and backgrounds and I’ll be happy. That’s basically the reason why I forgive every shortcoming in DA2 - and there are a loooot of those. But nope, Andromeda fails there too.

With the exception of Jaal and to a lesser extent, Cora, the loyalty missions of the companions are completely disjointed from the main story and universe in which they are set and don’t make us understand more of this new galaxy in any way. This lack of relevance would still be ok if the relationship between the companions and the protagonist and/or the protagonist’s choices actually mattered (like in DA2, where the companions’ loyalty determines who lives and who dies in the end) but unfortunately they don’t, and i mean at all.

Speaking of the protagonist, again the comparison with Hawke doesn’t hold. Hawke could have three very distinct personalities which made them somewhat memorable, for good or bad. Ryder on the other hand has two or more kind of replies that are almost always the same, just with slightly different wording (as this video says: do you know the difference between “now we are building again” and “this is vital to our progress”? - not that i agree with everything said in that review but here i agree completely). Ryder fares even worse if compared to other bioware protagonists like the Warden, who had a wide range of reactions that in some cases could even include outright killing their interlocutor. Combine this with the almost complete lack of choices and/or consequences in MEA and you get the most forgettable and boring protagonist of a bioware game to date; and yeah, I’m including the Inquisitor, because while the choices of dialogue in DAI were similar to those in MEA, at least the facial animations were decent so you could have a connection with your own protagonist on some level.

To be clear, it’s not lost to me what the original intention was with Ryder’s character arc. Ryder is specifically written as inadequate, uncharismatic and sometimes incompetent, because they weren’t the intended heir to the title of Pathfinder. They kinda found themselves thrown into that role and had to adapt. On its own that’s not a bad character arc at all. On the contrary, it could have been even more interesting than Shepard’s, who was a leader even before the first mission in ME1. Unfortunately there is no actual character arc for Ryder, only premises. Ryder never becomes more charismatic or assertive during the story, in fact they make very few choices at all, and even those few have little to no consequences both in the main story and in their relationships with the other characters. Ryder is just kinda there, reacting with various shades of tone to other characters actually making choices. Again compare that to Hawke’s arc, since we are discussing whether or not the two games resemble each other. In DA2 there is a simple premise (Hawke is a poor refugee who runs from the Blight and has to survive in an unforgiving city like Kirkwall) and a very clear payoff (Hawke becomes one of the central political figures in Kirkwall, while ironically still not being able to save their own family and, possibly, friends). With Ryder there is a clear premise but no payoff. At least not on a personal level, which is important in creating a connection with our character. Of course the story goes on anyway, but it doesn’t seem to actually affect my protagonist or change them in any way, so it remains almost irrelevant to me.

Everything said until now would be already experience breaking on its own, but it becomes even more remarkable in Ryder’s specific case, because Ryder comes with an extra passenger, aka SAM - and SAM is a very invasive extra passenger. To the point that most of the time you’re convinced it’s not actually Ryder the one in charge of that brain, or of the Pathfinder team. 99% of the time it’s SAM who solves problems and tells you and the others what to do. Sometimes is becomes frankly annoying. I’m not even talking about the vaults. You have to solve a murder case? SAM doesn’t just gather the evidence, oh no, he also tells you exactly what the evidence means and how it must be interpreted, like Ryder is too stupid to connect the dots. You intervene in a beating or a robbery on Kadara, either to stop it or just to understand what’s going on? SAM tells you not to get involved. And guess what? Ryder does exactly that, instead of, idk, telling SAM to shut the fuck up? SAM also becomes downright unbearable on Voeld and on Elaaden where it keeps telling you that the temperature is rising or falling or that it’s within acceptable range. I don’t know if they finally patched the thing but god was that annoying.

In any case my point is, since it’s actually SAM and not Ryder that does all the work, you have the distinct feeling that you are not actually the protagonist in this story, just a vessel. That could have been a cool premise if, for example, Ryder leaned too much on SAM and then halfway through the story it was taken away or shut down. That could have been a dramatic moment of growth for Ryder, where they were forced to finally rely on their own strenght and actually become the Pathfinder humanity needed. But again: cool premise, no payoff. SAM is taken away only near the end of the story and Ryder almost dies because of that. And even when they can’t access their SAM during the final mission, there is still the SAM inside the other Ryder sibling’s brain to tell them and you what to do. In short, Ryder is almost entirely dependent on SAM throughout the entire story, making them even less memorable as a protagonist, if possible.

Unfortunately, the same could be said of most of the characters that populate Andromeda and particularly the Tempest. Jaal is relevant only because he is an angara, the only new friendly species introduced in MEA (another disappointment), but he is otherwise completely forgettable on his own. It’s repeated over and over again how the angara have an extremely open behaviour towards each other, expressing feelings without many constraints like we do, but the problem is, without good and complex facial/body animations, that kind of behaviour is hard if not impossible to deliver. I think that’s one of the main problems with Jaal’s character. The other main problem is of course the writing, always generic and kind of vague. For example when you ask him about his relationship with the Moshae, he tells you that she “inspires” and he “loves her”, but he doesn’t give you anything that actually communicates that inspiration and that love, even only through the tone of his voice (has anyone given some direction to these voice actors?). It’s only telling without showing. Compare that to Dorian talking about Felix, for example. With just one image (Felix sneaking him treats from the kitchen while he was studying) he gives you an idea of both the person that Felix was and his relationship with him.

Cora is similar to Ryder in the fact that her character has good premises, but no payoff. She has two main character traits: she was trained as an asari commando and has great admiration for them; and she was the second in command under Alec Ryder, so she should have become the Pathfinder, but she didn’t. Aside from the fact that in my opinion she repeats that she was trained as an asari commando a little too many times, like she wanted to be 200% sure we got the message, and that becomes kind of annoying after a while… if we take a look at her character arc we see that there is a great disappointment when she finds out that the asari heroine that she admired the most lied about the death of the asari Pathfinder for her own personal gain. This should have set in motion a series of consequences on her character journey similar to those Liara experienced when she found out that the Protheans weren’t actually the ethereal, moral beings she thought they were, but instead they were conquerors and imposed a totalitarian regime on the galaxy. But while Liara at first gets angry and sad and then she slowly accepts to re-examine her own previous work under a new light, no relevant change can be seen within Cora’s character. More on this comparison can be found in this excellent video. In a similar way, her other main trait (the fact that she was the designated successor to Alec but she didn’t get the Pathfinder title in the end), also doesn’t have any payoff. In fact she is just slightly disappointed/irritated at first but she gets over it very quickly (even if Ryder is clearly not the charismatic figure humanity needs) leaving little to no consequence on her relationship with Ryder. In these conditions, the scenes in which she talks about her hobby ring hollow because I didn’t previously build my relationship with her on anything substantial, so I don’t really care about her plants.

I’d say the only companion who gets a very simple but complete character arc is Peebee, because she starts as kind of an outsider in the group, extremely afraid of commitment (the writers made sure it was super obvious with the “I live in an escape pod” thing), and in the end she learns to relax a little and trust Ryder and the rest of the crew more. Unfortunately I also found her annoying as hell since her first appearance, so that didn’t do a thing for me.

I could go on with the other companions, but this reply would become a bible. I’ll just add that the “good premises - no payoff” thing includes non-companion characters as well, Reyes for example. For the first 40/45 hours I didn’t romance anyone because, well, I found every possible LI either boring, paper thin or annoying af. That’s something I never experienced in any other Bioware game, but hey there’s a first time for everything I guess. Then I went to Kadara, I met Reyes and honestly he was a breath of fresh air. I’m not saying he was particularly deep or complex, but at least he was somewhat charismatic and charming (also, that accent), so I decided to romance him. Unfortunately both his character and his romance get no satisfying closure, as there is literally no change whatsoever, external or internal, if you let him kill Sloane; and you can’t really confront him on the fact that he used you and lied to you, even if you romanced him so it should have been kind of a big deal. bigger deal. whatever.

I’m not preteding that something like this never happened before. Speaking about the Mass Effect trilogy, Jacob is the most infamous example of boring, not entirely flashed out companion. Moving to the most recent Dragon Age, I’d say Blackwall also suffers from something similar, since he has good premises (she is vague and evasive at first because he’s lying about his true identity) but little payoff (even after the big reveal he remains pretty vague and generic about himself and his own story, nor he behaves even slightly different than before), though he’s still more interesting than the majority of the MEA crew. The point is, some shortcomigs are normal and expected and, if counter-balanced with other high points, they can be forgiven. But Andromeda didn’t shine in any way. Outside of combat the gameplay was boring and clunky, basically go from point A to point B, scan stuff, gather stuff, repeat. The sudoku puzzles were boring af and honesly ridiculous. No one ever solved them before you? is everyone in the Heleus cluster a moron?

In fact, the whole foundation of the story is that no one in the Heleus cluster could gain access to the vaults and activate them, despite having known and studied them for centuries. One day a complete stranger from another galaxy comes and solves everything in literally five minutes. And I’m supposed to believe that. I mean my suspension of disbelief can stretch a lot, but this is a little too much for me. Also that makes the angara seem like a bunch of idiots, which is not exactly flattering for the only new friendly species we meet in Andromeda.

The writing in general is poor to say the least. I understand that the writers were included too late into the project due to the huge problems experienced during the earlier stages of development, but some of these mistakes are super basic, like writing from the POV of the omniscient narrator instead of the POV of the characters. So we get dialogues in which the characters know that they are in no real danger even though they have been shot, they are about to get shot, they risk getting spaced, and so on and so forth.

I get that the writers were aiming at something completely different from the grim, fatalistic atmosphere of ME3, but the problem is: if the script doesn’t take itself seriously, why should I take it seriously.I mean I’m all for jokes and lighthearted moments, there were a lot of those in the trilogy and i loved them (most of them), but the entire MEA script doesn’t seem to take itself seriously. The stakes SHOULD be high - the Pathfinders have the responsibility of 100.000 souls on their shoulders - but not for a moment you feel that burden, that responsibility.

Even the real reason of the voyage itself (escaping the Milky Way before the Reapers annihilate every advanced organic society) is kept secret from the player until you gather all the “memory triggers” your father left behind. Until then the whole Initiative - a huge, extremely dangerous and exceedingly expensive project - is presented like a fun stroll through a new galaxy, just because “we are explorers” and we like new beginnings and whatnot. This is another incomprehensible narrative choice that doesn’t make sense, no matter how you look at it. If you played the trilogy, the Reaper threat is certainly no surprise to you so the “plot twist” doesn’t work. If you’re a newcomer to the series you don’t even know what a Reaper is so the “plot twist” still doesn’t work. Not to mention that for some reason Alec Ryder’s “memory triggers” are scattered on planets he never even visited in his life. Instead of placing them somewhere among his things, idk, family pictures, books or music he loved, where it made sense to find them?

And even after you discover everything about the Reapers, and that everyone back in the Milky Way may have been dead for the last 600 years, there is again no consequence in the story or in the dialogues whasoever. Not even Ryder seems to be particularly affected by the terrible news. But we should be happy because we found out that their mom is still alive! Too bad we don’t care about her because we don’t know her. Exactly like in the beginning we didn’t care about Alec’s death because we didn’t know him. Those are extremely basic narrative mistakes. The whole experience is on this same, boring, safe, non-consequential level. Bioware is so much better than that.

(sorry for the long rant. I had a lot to say)

#MEA negative #MEA critical #enry replies #sorry for making you wait so much and also for the super long reply I'm so so sorry #i even derailed a lot from the actual topic whoops #mass effect is important to me ok

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redhawke-bluewizard · 7 years ago

Text

So I just finished watching Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Bladeworks

and oh boy do I have a lot to say about it. In fact, I kept Tumblr open the entire watchthrough and sent a stream of real-time commentary to @fragrantricepaddy. Since I know a few others who will want to hear my thoughts, I’m going ahead and making a big post about it. Commentary is below the cut-off. SPOILERS AHEAD

SEASON 1

I'm loving it so far: -90% Shiro, +200% Rin.

Rin's first Command was probably the single best use of a command seal I've seen in Type Moon so far

Rin and Archer's banter gives me life

So, there was a problem with Archer's summoning, and Rin says she'll "figure out what to do about it later". Judging from previous Type-Moon, that means a magic ritual involving Rin and Archer f**king, right?

they keep showing the same shot of the Tohsaka manor, and the laziness in that regard is really bothering me

somebody get Sakura a teddy bear. she looks dead inside

the whole "Servants consume minds and souls" thing makes Type-Moon magic sound even more Lovecraftian. adding it to the evidence list

Rin's faith in Archer is just... I can't even... "Handle the landing", goddamn iconic

hmm, that was a suspiciously aggressive first action by Saber.

wtf was Sakura doing meeting with Gilgamesh in the middle of the night

man, Shiro just served Shinji with a smile. Unlimited Blades is characterized by +300% sass

every single highway shot is giving me Berserker flashba- oh this is actually that scene

The teacher character has many virtues, one of which is being an age-appropriate crush. More importantly, I don't think I've ever seen a more relatable character in all of anime

omg Shiro's nickname is Brownie that's adorable

Saber: "My sword will be at your side" Shiro: "Wait" Saber: *immediately runs off*

SHE ACTUALLY CALLED HIM A HACK

Plot twist: Shiro is the tsundere

The huge chest-window on Saber's outfit never bothered me this much before

"Tohsaka, what kind of person is this priest?" "An asshole" ~Rin, probably

"The status of master cannot be given to another" and other lies he tells for filthy karma

"It's a fight to the death" "Oh Kirei shut up!" get him girl

"So then, are you all done chatting?" I fucking snorted XD

Saber's looking at Illya, and I still can't figure out if she's lacking memories in this series.

Rin just Ice Caged that motherf**ker

Shirou's having his existential crisis

Kirei seems thrilled that Shirou's participating, but after Kiritsugu, it really seems like a downgrade as far as rivals go. His standards must have really slipped over the years.

Rin just tried to fuckin end Illya. cold.

Anime gets +2 points for Shirou NOT falling on Rin's chest when they bump into each other. Another +2 points for Rin putting him in a hold anyway.

The dialogue contains a lot of sexual subtext. Terms like consent and intercourse are thrown about in reference to Master-Servant and Servant-Servant interactions. What's your game, Type-Moon...

I see your resurrection and raise you a DRILL ARROW

"I never should have introduced Archer to Gurren Lagann" ~Rin, probably

Everybody in this show has daddy issues

I feel like they got a different writer for Shirou's dialogue than they did for every other character in this show - and they paid Shirou's writer a lot less money

Oh my god, you're having breakfast with a lovely Heroic Spirit, stop making discoveries about Rin

Ms. Fujime seemed to have the strongest objections, but she's going to be single-handedly responsible for the harem aspect of this anime.

Rin, why are you surprised to see him at school? You both go here.

So, Aioko goes missing, and they're all like "She was last seen with Shinji, but no one can find him." Doesn't that mean that they should be worrying about two missing students? There was a nearby murder. Why is Shinji under immediate suspicion?

Man, Rin's aim sure sucks.

I appreciate her class in not just smashing the door down and smoking him out instead.

There's something about magical inheritance that I'm not quite getting. It's been established that only one child can inherit family magic, but it's unclear why. One possibility is that the magic can only be physically held by one person at a time. As such, all a parent can do is teach their kid and do some kind of preparation that makes the magic pass to them upon their own death. However, that doesn't explain why Rin and Sakura were seperated in Fate/Zero. That seems to be entirely political. The impression there was that other families would not allow the Tohsakas to have two mage children, which indicates that multiple kids CAN be trained in the family magic. In that case, the restriction to only one child is probably to prevent families from raising small armies of child soldier-mages.

Shiro to Rin: "I know I'm not a mage" Shiro to Archer: "Fuck you, I'm a mage"

Saber: "You gave me your word that you would return before sunset" Shiro: "Well I also told you I'd summon you if I was in danger, but I didn't do that either" Saber: "..." Shiro: "YOLO"

Shinji: "Don't throw around false accusations" Shirou: "Oh no, you're doing a swell job of making everyone suspect you without my help"

Shirou knows Detect Secret Doors, Jon must be so happy

Oh no, Caster's seen Inuyasha

"So within these walls, you are able to mimic true magic" Caster Servants can't use true magic?!

Is Shiro the only one that seems concerned at Shinji's mental breakdown and maniacal laughter?

Man, Shiro just turned on the sass for Rin with NO MERCY

Wait, she scolded him so fiercely for going to school without Saber, and then she leaves Archer just so she can have some alone time with her new beau.

I can't believe that Shiro just "but no funny business"d Saber

Goddamn Shinji is such a little shit

My assumption is that Shinji didn't get the Mato magic because it's Sakura's by right of inheritance.

Rin's voice acting just got 50% more moe

And we interrupt this Holy Grail War for some boyxboy fanservice.

"You already checked him out?" "I sure did." The audience: He sure did.

"The heart of a mage chooses results over ideals" That sounds important - adding it to the list

Shiro, there comes a time in every young man's life when he experiences 'sword envy'...

I fucking KNOW Caster's voice actress, but pride prevents me from Googling it. Jesse?

Goddamn Saber needs to get a shield. She keeps injuring her left arm.

Shirou seems to be learning more from his enemies than from his allies.

You can tell the Matous are on the decline because their rapey bug-room has much fewer magic rape-beetles than normal.

Command seal seems to be a bit of a misnomer, considering we've seen them used as power sources for other magic. They're really just minor plot devices. I bet you could just use them to reconnect Saber and Shirou's link so she could get mana from him.

Jeez, I think the magic circuit overload must have fried a few of Shirou's brain cells. He's certainly slow on the uptake this morning.

"Oh to be young and in love!" shut up Fujimora, you're in your twenties

God he sucks at dates

Holy shit Saber's eye-sparkles at the sandwiches give me life

she actually went in to wipe the sauce off he actually chickened out of it

Rin's banter makes Shirou think that she's gonna fight him, but I swear she's talking about sex He's just failing every sense motive check

Fujimora: Hey Kuritsugu, do you know someone named Saber? *grave cracks straight down the middle*

SEASON 2

"Well, I have nowhere to go but up" ~Shirou, probably

Did the subs explain why Shirou stole that depleted healing gem from Rin?

Aaand the animators are really getting their kicks out of Saber's enslavement

"Your Servant body cannot resist me."

Yeah, even without having seen the original series, I'd call BS on her having killed Kirei.

More flashbacks to the Keyblade graveyard - I mean, Archer's past.

Archer went from sassy older brother to Rin's personal motivational speaker in no time

Rin is the ballsiest motherf*cker wanting to take on Caster. I can see that Archer considers her wanting Shirou and Saber back together to be a weakness.

I get that Rin thinks she can beat Caster, but why would Rin think that CASTER would think that Rin could win?

"Come down here so I can kick your ass." get her, girl

Looks like Archer's looking ahead and playing the long game. He knows that he has to keep Caster in one place or surprise her. Head on confrontations won't work on her. I hope.

Good to see Shirou getting faster with that, but it looks like he's not fully recovered.

I would like to think that Rin can see what Archer's doing.

"I've always adored and watched you from a distance." your execution sucks

"I don't hate you, and your cooking's pretty good" need me a freak like that

I like how neither Rin nor Shirou consider asking Shinji to join them for even a moment, but the crazy child who tried to murder them sounds like a Good Idea

Aaand Caster's flashback suddenly went even more Instrumentality Project than the Fate/Zero finale

"Not like this!" whatever, I hope you get eaten alive by beetles

Aww hey, I remember this courtyard

I went from being ticked at these homunculi nurses to fuckin loving them in two seconds flat

Aww, damn

I-Iris?

WHAT IS THE GRAIL CURSE DOING HERE?!

why do u make me cry

I want nothing more than for Shirou to be like "Shinji? Last time I saw you you were pissing yourself running to the church."

Tohsaka: "Your PTSD is bullshit and your coping mechanisms are crap"

Shirou: "I wanted to become a man like him." Audience: You really don't.

So if I'm getting my analysis right, if Shirou neglects his own happiness in the pursuit of saving others, all he will ever do is save people so that they in turn can martyr themselves (in the same way that Kiritsugu "saved" Shirou). But by the same token, if Rin keeps saving Shirou without making it clear that it's for her own desires, then she'll never be able to convince Shirou to be selfish.

Shirou just got all clingy bf. wow.

AND SHE'S INTO IT

*Lancer breaks the fourth wall*

"If I have to put up with this I'm gonna kick Caster's ass all by myself!" oh she'd do it too

Everyone with purple hair in this show needs a teddy bear and a warm hug

Oh my god the Archer/Lancer banter is like a couple of old men. It's hilarious

"Like I would ever walk on somebody else's grass!" XD

The Archer/Lancer fight is turning out to be my favorite anime fight scene

I feel like Rin was gonna warn Lancer that Archer likes to taunt and throw off his opponents, but the pridful fucker didn't listen, and now he's getting goaded. MAN I hope Archer's bluffing about his heel-face turn.

... Did Archer just manifest an AT field???

Archer. Cold.

ARCHER

So, is Archer some kind of Shirou Alter?

SABER AND RIN. HOLY SHIT

He's seen Excalibur. Oh noe

This is what I'm talking about. Learns more from his enemies than his friends.

Break his nose, Rin

So earlier, Archer pronounced his AT field as "Ayas", but I'm pretty sure it would be spelled as 'Aegis'.

KICK HIM

oh that was even more satisfying

and Lancer's dialogue continues to be perfect

Aww, man, Lancer can't get a break

oh. Lancer got a break :)

please not another choking scene

I was about to say, Lancer hadn't disappeared yet

Well, Archer turned out to be a huge asshole, and Rin's been tied up for the last two episdoes, so Lancer is my new favorite.

Archer's gonna burn up all his mana before he kills Shirou at this rate

Waitaminute, what happened to Assassin?!

Oh. Oh, Archer.

Ah, is Shinji finally gonna bite the dust? Thanks, Gilgamesh.

I am very content with their pre-battle resolutions and meal. The scene has a feeling of rightness to it.

"Saber doesn't stand a chance against him!" "On what basis do you make that judgement?" "On the basis that he's smoked every other Spirit he's fought without taking a scratch, while you got beaten up by a teacher with magic punches."

Aww, Rin doesn't want to tell Shirou he's their only hope of beating Goldy. Not sure whether it's her pride or that she doesn't want to put that pressure/risk on him.

Waitaminute, are Rin and Saber banging to do something magical circuit related?!?

NOPE

"All I told you to do is take your clothes off!"

But boy, Rin sure was acting like they were gonna have to bang to do the transfer. Type-Moon is using their own sleazy rep to fake-out the audience.

Anyway, Rin's plan for Shirou to use the reality marble is great, but she doesn't know about World Ender.

C'mon Shirou, a girl gives you her magic crest, you gotta at least do some pillow talk.

She fantasizes about him doing high jumps all day? Kinky.

The conversation they're NOT having is that, one way or another, Saber won't be here tomorrow.

Also, I'm reasonably certain that Gilgamesh was corrupted by the Grail when he got drenched in it. He didn't give a fuck about it before, but now he wants to do something symbolic about wiping out humanity with their own wishes. He was a chronic narcissist before, but now he's gone full megalomaniac.

oh, nevermind, there's the conversation

Jeez, I can't believe a key component of this plan is "save Shinji"

THERE'S FUCKIN ASSASSIN

I'm assuming that Goldy has just been steadily leeching off of others for mana over the course of ten years, so he's not gonna run out anytime soon.

I think Grail!Iris wants to kick the shit out of Goldy as much as I do.

"A mage is simply no match for a Servant" Pft, like when?

I really want Shirou to summon Eya (sp?) while Goldy is laughing, just to shut him up.

Rin, goddammit, stop being proud and let Saber help you

WHAT? WHAT? WHAT? ARCHER?

YES RIN-ARCHER DREAM TEAM TAKES THE WIN

WOOH, GAINAX BOOM!

So, last time the Grail's destruction caused fire and death to rain upon the city. This time, the Grail's destruction causes... a rain of pretty sparks?

FINALLY DREW BLOOD FROM THAT MOTHERFUCKER

Goldy, you sore loser!

"But first, take a step to the right."

Emiya-Archer making an appearance at the end did not at all fit with established mechanics and I am 100% okay with that.

HE WAS ABOUT TO PROPOSE

He's her bodyguard/apprentice? Sweet.

Who the fuck is this chick?

THIS is Luvia??

Her dialect is obnoxious.

Rin in tight clothes is a gift

The Epilogue seems a little late in the series to try and wedge in a love triangle

Join the Mage's Association? *pft*

I'm terribly peeved that Shinji survived this thing. The worm.

Oh boy, Tohsaka got bold - planning rendevous in the student council prez's face.

"I should have known you would take advantage of me again." SPILL THE TEA, SHIROU

"Look me in the eyes and say that you'll come." Honestly, I'm just adding this line to the list to mess with Carlos.

WAVER!!!!!!!!!!

Rin has been giving Shirou bedroom eyes in every scene of the epilogue

"Got some things to work out of my system" like all of the sexual tension built up over this series?

Closing thoughts: -What pretty animation -The romance/fluff was excellent -Archer and Lancer clearly got the best dialogue -Shinji can go jump in a lake -Sakura still needs a teddy bear -Iris deserved better -Caster Did Nothing Wrong -Why is there an after-scene after the f*cking Epilogue? -Archer is such a buzzkill

#fate/stay #type-moon #unlimited blade works #fate/stay night: unlimited blade works

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deathlygristly · 7 years ago

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I can’t do multiple replies anymore?

Anyway, I actually overcame the anxiety enough just now to look at the replies! :)

@gentle-marzelline *hugs* Thanks. :)

@108sims Thanks! I also still need to call the dentist and get my medical insurance added as a secondary insurance, since it covers TMJ stuff where the dental plan doesn’t, and make an appointment to get fitted for a night guard.

And I really like the Avatar shows! I’d seen so much about it here on Tumblr but I hadn’t watched it. The spousal person has watched both of them before, and I think he likes watching them again with me and seeing my reactions and thoughts and guesses about things - which of course, being on the internet, I already know the last shot of Korra, which makes this love triangle stuff in the first season amusing. ;) I’m like “It’s okay Korra, forget about him, you get the girl in the end.”

They’re both really well-made and thought out and the world building is awesome, especially with the changes in the society between Aang’s time and Korra’s.

That reminds me, I need to google and see if anyone else noticed the bits of Aang’s show that were a lot like WoW, like at one point when they were in the desert in the Earth Kingdom the buildings looked just like Gadgetzan and then there was even a huge hive of big bugs.

@shanhammer *hugs* I don’t know if it’s good, really, but I think I will write a longer post about that later. I think that the complex PTSD and the habit of reading and research and analysis do not work together very well, lol. Like one part of my brain is all “Hmm, so this and this and this all work together to form this social problem”, and the other part of my brain is all “DANGER DANGER humans will hurt you!!!”, and the combination ends in my fallacy of assuming that other people are doing the same research and analysis, but coming to the conclusion that they like to cause suffering and that they want the probable consequences of their actions and beliefs.

I don’t know why people get so upset about giftedness and think that gifted people are arrogant and awful and that it’s something that is always good. Being able to read and understand and comprehend books on the Holocaust that were written for an adult audience when I was nine had a very profound effect on me, and not all of it was good. And then of course having a brain that can do all that research and analysis while living in a society that runs on straight up id just leads to pessimism and anxiety and powerless rage and existential depression. Nothing to be envious of or offended by, unless for some reason someone just really really wants to have anxiety attacks where they have to fight to breathe when they think about the power that other people have to shape their lives and their fate, and how the people who wield that power decide how to use it based on extremely obvious propaganda that they saw on Facebook and that they didn’t know any better than to believe.

And of course, when you combine those two things, you get a brain that is constantly screaming at you that all the things you read about when you were 9 are about to happen to you IRL. And it’s so hard to separate out what’s the PTSD, and what’s the actual real pattern that your brain is seeing.

After decades of living with this brain, I know that it is actually very good at seeing underlying patterns and at predicting things. I also know that it is very good at anxiety and at working itself up into a panic over things that turn out to actually not be a big deal. I don’t know, maybe both are at work here. Maybe my brain is really seeing the same cultural and social patterns that it saw in all that reading about Nazi Germany. But maybe, twisted into strands along with that accurate perception of reality, is the trauma and the anxiety and the distortions that come along with those.

I guess that makes sense, really - I am accurately seeing the patterns, but the trauma is twisting that perception into the fallacy of humans with agency purposefully choosing to enact the patterns.

Okay, I just read a story about polls on universal health care, and the whole thing was so irrational that I need to go lie down and be quiet in the dark before I do that struggling to breathe thing because my fate is tied to the decisions of people who a) change their opinion of extremely important public policies based on the terms used to describe the policies, with no other differences, b) think that creating public policy based on polls of an ignorant and credulous populace is a good way to govern, and c) does not talk about the actual program itself or give any details or plans or explanations of how it would actually work to people before asking them for their opinion on it, and then acts like those uninformed spontaneously assumed in response to a pollster’s question and mostly based in social pressure and how the person being polled wanted to appear to the pollster opinions are a good base from which to make major decisions that will have huge effects on a society of 325 million people.

#gentle-marzelline #108sims #shanhammer

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vtmusicomp · 5 years ago

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Monday - Thursday

I’m just going to plunge right in. But first, how cute are we in our matching Primus 25 years of NYE t-shirts? That’s the show referenced in the previous post. It’s been long enough that I probably don’t remember everything in order. I’m pretty sure I’m missing one meeting with Dr. Pikul somewhere in there, but the gist of it is mostly here. I spent the night at the hospital with Grant because I didn’t want him to wake up by himself - or I tried to, anyway. They had one of those fold-out chairs where you pull the bottom and it opens up into a flat bed with a hard surface. Unfortunately for me, I didn’t know it folded out because I’d never spent the night in the hospital for someone else before. I tried to make it work sleeping upright in the chair, but I tapped out around 3am and went to my car. It was still raining and pretty cold, but I had a blanket in the car so I thought I’d recline the seat and maybe get a couple hours.

MONDAY

Alicia called me back somewhere between 6 and 6:30am – which didn’t really wake me up because I was hardly sleeping anyway. I told her what was happening; she was shell-shocked, but she couldn’t talk because she had to get the kids off to school. She called me back a couple hours later crying and asking if she could come to the hospital, which was fine. I went back up to Grant’s room at about 7am, and he was already awake. He thought I had gone home, which I felt a little bad about because the whole point was for him to not feel alone.

Both Kim and Alicia came later that morning, I don’t quite remember what time. Just imagine the three of us sitting in Grant’s ICU room while he dozed in and out – it’s actually kind of funny looking back on it, an unlikely trio. We saw an internal medicine doctor and someone from neurology. They gave Grant a consent form to do a craniotomy and there was some talk of him going in to surgery that day at 2pm. This seemed insane because we hadn’t seen the surgeon yet. At the time it was presented to us like he was in a critical stage and the tangerine (I’m calling it that because that’s how they described its size to us) needed to come out right away, but then they postponed the surgery. This was a relief, because none of us were mentally ready, and some of the procedures performed later in the week were done to help the neurosurgeon remove the tangerine as precisely as possible.

Connie and Larry arrived late afternoon, and I left to get some stuff from home and give Grant some time with his family. I grabbed every electronic item I could think of that Grant might want, several chargers, an extension cord, changes of clothes, and a Chiefs blanket. I went back and dropped the stuff off, hung out with him until bedtime, then went back to my house again with Connie, Larry and Colin; who had arrived sometime after I left. They spent the night at my house and moved to Jenny’s house in Hollywood the next day, a much closer location to the hospital. Here’s a picture of Grant and Colin at a bar after Temple of the Dog at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco, November 2016.

TUESDAY

The next day I thought I had time to go in to work that morning – I don’t think I really processed how serious everything was, and in general I am paranoid about unscheduled absences from work. I saw my boss and updated him on what was happening, and I managed to tamp down on my feelings while doing it. That’s pretty much what I did with my emotions in those early days. I suppressed the hell out of them just to get through all the talking. Around 10am I realized, ‘what the hell am I doing at work?’ I left and picked up a coffee for Grant on the way back to the hospital. When I got there, the room was packed. Connie, Larry, Julie, Kim, Colin, Alicia, and Kelly were all there, along with Grant and our neurosurgeon, Dr. Pikul. They sent me a text while I was parking to let me know Dr. Pikul was giving us the low down. Grant told me afterwards he tried to stall the doc until I got there.

Dr. Pikul told us that the location of Grant’s tangerine in his left hemisphere, coupled with the memory issues he’d already had, meant he would likely lose 100% of his short-term memory from the surgery to remove it. The example he gave us was this – if we told Grant a short list of, say, five items to pick up from the store, Grant would forget why he was there by the time he got to the store. He also would have trouble remember the names of things. It was devastating news, and at one point, Grant said he didn’t know what the point of having the surgery was if that was the result. Grant’s other options were to do a biopsy, so they could figure out what it was before determining treatment; or he could jump straight to radiation to try and shrink the thing without having surgery at all. If he had the surgery, how would we solve the problem of helping someone who is like the character in Memento? Were we going to tattoo important dates and names on Grant’s body? Would he remember me when he woke up?

After Dr. Pikul left, Grant stood up and asked everyone to leave the room, then he asked me to stay. We put our foreheads together and cried. He was so scared, he didn’t want anyone to see it and worry about him. I forced myself to stop crying because I had to get it together – he needed support and I wasn’t going to be a blubbering mess. There was no glimpse at all on our horizons of what the tangerine was, other than a statement by Dr. Pikul that he thought it was a glioma. Grant asked me what I thought he should do; I told him it appeared as though removal was the best option, but I understood if he didn’t want to jump right to the most aggressive thing. We broke down the timeline for biopsy vs. radiation and how long it would take to get results vs. how fast the tangerine was growing. The problem with this kind of situation is any choice is garbage…they’re all bad. I believe Tuesday is also when MieLing and Terry arrived with Ayri, Kai, and Olive. The Stoners took over that waiting room next to the ICU. And now for a gratuitous shot of Grant and the kids at home.

WEDNESDAY

I don’t remember if it was Tuesday evening or Wednesday morning, but after consulting with the neurologist, Dr. Pikul told Grant he wanted him to have a Wada test. During this test they inject you, via an artery near your groin, with a drug that shuts down half your brain so the other half can be tested for function, and then vice versa. They wanted to map out Grant’s brain as much as possible in advance of the surgery, to try and mitigate the side effects. On Wednesday midday they took him down to do the Wada test, and Colin and I went with him. Colin commented that it seemed like everyone was excited to do the test because it’s not something they routinely perform. They outfitted Grant with this contraption that looked like the helmet from the Netflix series The OA. The test went well, and the neurologist was excited because he exhibited language and recall ability in both hemispheres of his brain. That meant the side effects that scared us so much the previous day might not be as bad as we thought. We know the left side of the brain is the logical side (math, language, analysis) and the right side is the creative one (art, imagination). Julie opined that because his talent and creativity involved words, it made sense that the right side would have some control over his language ability.

When he got back from the Wada they had to tilt his bed upright for several hours to recover. He was flushed red and fairly out of it. The day before we had decided to celebrate Naomi’s birthday at the hospital with the Stoners – we didn’t know about the Wada test at the time, and I believe this was the only night we could do it with both kids. Kim brought cupcakes, Alicia brought the kids, and the whole group crowded into the ICU room. The nurses weren’t happy about it, but they understood it was an occasion, and they let us stay for about 20 minutes. Naomi and Wyatt got next to their dad and tried to smile. I think that day really brought home to the kids their dad was in trouble, because the next day they told their mom they didn’t want to come to the hospital. I am sure Grant was relieved; he hated having the kids see him when he was sick.

THURSDAY

Because the Wada test took a toll on him, Grant was not able to have surgery on Thursday. When I got to the hospital that morning, Julie and Connie were already there with Grant. At some point I was able to ask the nurse if we could wash Grant’s hair. That nurse was my buddy – she figured out I was half Filipina (she herself was Filipina, most of our nurses were) and was really nice to Grant after that. She washed his hair pretty thoroughly and it helped him feel kind of normal. The day was mellow because he needed to rest before his big surgery on Friday. I brought an overnight bag so I could be with him when they took him down. THIS time, I was armed with the knowledge that the chair folded out. I still didn’t sleep, but at least I was there with him the whole night.

One of the hardest feelings to manage about everything that happened that week and beyond, was the feeling of helplessness. We are a group of driven people who set our eyes on a goal and achieve it. In this, there was nothing we could do other than ask a lot of questions and trust in his medical team. Of course, there’s a lot of outside influence. People have opinions, but in the end, the decision lies with the person who is undergoing the treatment. Grant had to make all the decisions by himself; even if he asked us our advice, he still needed to decide his own fate with a huge amount of ambiguity about the outcome. I can’t imagine a scarier thing. I don’t know that I could have been so brave myself. But I can say this with certainty: I am glad he chose to undergo surgery. He did not run in fear.

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words-writ-in-starlight · 7 years ago

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The Great Animorphs Reread, Part 7

Book 7: The Stranger

AKA “The PTSD squad sees the future and finally fucking wins a round, the Ellimist shows his not-face, and Rachel antes up her battle morph”

MOTHER

FUCKING

GRIZZLY

BEAR

Anyway. *clears throat* Real talk. Gear up for some incoherence. This is a favorite book to be honest. Because this is the book where it really grinds home for them, on a bitter, visceral level, just how truly fucked they are—they see the future, where the war is lost and Rachel is a Controller and they are all dead—and they give up! They surrender! They agree to let the Ellimist take them to another planet! And then…they win a round. They win quite a round, with the destruction of the Kandrona. I’m so proud.

Have I mentioned that I live for Rachel. She’s so strong, and she doesn’t believe that she is—when they attack the Kandrona, she claims that she’s not brave because she believed the guards were humans. But Rachel knows that humans would be carrying guns (probably BIG guns, given what they’re guarding), she knows that being shot is awful, she knows it fucking sucks, she knows that even a rampaging bear is going to notice a bullet. And she still trucks right on in there because she has a war to fight and a battle to win and I just. Love her.

It’s easy to forget how much damage Rachel does and takes in battle. Marco takes the most really spectacular injuries (there’s a statistical analysis of how many times the various Animorphs are dismembered/disemboweled floating around the Interwebs somewhere, and he ‘wins’ by a landslide), but I think for sheer numbers, Rachel takes the cake. I cannot think of a single battle in which she doesn’t take any damage whatsoever, and the injuries are frequently “you better demorph before you bleed out” levels of severity, either individually or en masse. I think this is partly because she’s their tank, so that’s her job—they’re a pretty well-coordinated D&D squad, someone remind me to write down my headcanons for an AU where the war is all a tabletop RPG and they are happy and trauma-free children—and also because, since she’s the tank, she would rather suffer than watch her friends take the injuries themselves. She throws herself headlong into battle because she would rather take the bullet/rampaging Hork-Bajir/hungry Taxxon herself than let the others get hurt.

Also! As the opening bullet points might have suggested, this book includes the advent of my favorite of Rachel’s morphs: the grizzly. Ursus arctos horriblis. Like, okay, if you want finesse in combat, the gorilla is a good one, it has hands. If you want mobility, the hawk is decent, what with the flying and all. The wolf has the advantage of sheer endurance, they can run for days. An Andalite…um…has a sword attached to its body, I feel like the advantages of this are self-explanatory. For a balance of speed and strength, Jake’s tiger is unmatched. But for sheer raw power—aggressive power, not bulldozing power—nothing tops a grizzly bear. I lived in Montana, just outside Yellowstone, where grizzlies were a plague, kids, I know of which I speak. A grizzly bear can take your head off with one swing, and those claws and teeth aren’t just for show. As battle morphs go: grizzly bear. Yeah. I would want a grizzly as my battle morph.

I don’t…like the Ellimist much. Like, I think he’s a really interesting character, and I’m actually super into the concept of the handpicked dream team to face down the Yeerks being just…people, not soldiers or heroes, just kids with the backbone and grit to do what had to be done. But that being said. The Ellimist jerks the Animorphs around largely just to prove he can. I don’t honestly care what he says about having some grand master plan, he’s just doing shit. He’s well-intentioned—although more from the motive of stopping Crayak than saving people, but I’m not going to fucking split hairs over the fate of the Earth, okay, he can have whatever motive he damn well pleases—but he basically spends this whole book yanking the Animorphs’ chain. And I get why he does it, I understand his logic, but just for the record: fuck him.

Future Rachel is a scary motherfucker. I mean, so is present Rachel, but at least with present Rachel it’s a good, clean fear of being eviscerated. I’m a little sad Rachel didn’t get to whomp her future self in grizzly form.

Speaking of future selves, I continue to be a fucking wreck about Rachel and Tobias, that is all we are talking about for the rest of this thing. Of all the people at Visser Three’s disposal to put the screws to Rachel—and of course he guns for Rachel, because Jake is the leader and Cassie is the heart and Tobias is the soul and Marco is the schemer and Ax is the brains but Rachel is the fighting spirit, the part of humanity that has to break if the Yeerks want to win—he goes for Tobias. Not her best friend, or her cousin, he goes for Tobias. He talks about how they killed Tobias and roasted him and Rachel ate him because he wants to break her, and you know what? It works. It works. She goes back on her decision to fight, in order to save the people she loves—her family, her friends, and Tobias.

Rachel and Tobias go to visit each other when they’re stressed or upset or bored. Rachel worries about Tobias’ safety so much and stresses about how dangerous life as a hawk is for him. Tobias is so careful with Rachel when she’s upset, and he’s so distressed when she flies away from him to acquire the bear at the Gardens. They get each other on this really visceral level, Rachel who’s learning to be a killer and Tobias who’s learning to be a hunter, and they have so much in common on that level. I? Cannot handle this? I need someone to request some early war era Rachel/Tobias fic from me, I NEED to wallow in this.

OH. AND WE SEE TOBIAS AS A HUMAN AGAIN. Okay, fuck the Ellimist for many things, but this ain’t one of them. Tobias is so surprised and cautious and sad about being in his own body again, he has so clearly missed being a person, and also? The others? I am distraught? The others have clearly missed him, too, missed having him around, being able to see his eyes and watch him smile. And Rachel—who, to remind you all, is habitually described as extremely beautiful and effortlessly smooth, and who could therefore probably walk into her school and have every guy in the building panting over her—is so glad to see him. Tobias is a dweeb, he’s the quintessential bullied kid, not the kind of kid who traditionally gets that kind of response from a pretty girl. And to boot he’s a neglected, outright abused kid, so having someone whose response to seeing him is just sheer delight must be weird as fuck to him. I’ll bet you cash money, here and now, that part of the reason he can’t control the hawk’s immediate response to panic when Rachel runs at him to hug him is because that has never happened to him before. I’ll bet he’s never in his life had to deal with someone rushing toward him like that except to attack him. Of course he gives in to the hawk instinct to try to escape. And she’s so upset with herself for having scared him, and he’s so embarrassed for having reacted badly, and these kids deserve a movie night or some shit. It’s so fucking sad, God, I’m a mess.

#animorphs #the great animorphs reread #rachel berenson #the stranger #rachel my bold beloved bloodied sister #you will pry the headcanon that rachel had a bit of a crush on tobias pre-war from my cold dead hands #i had that tag already?#where the fuck did i use that tag already?#anyway yes talk to me about animorphs as a dnd au where it's all good and happy #with rachel as the tank and tobias as the ranger and obviously tom as the dm #it's all good and happy and no one is dead and the only major conflict is that they find out that tobias' family sucks #so ax is like 'hey you could crash with me and my much-older brother' and tobias sleeps at ax's sometimes and rachel's sometimes #and elfangor finds out about the situation of this kid staying with him and is like 'um fuck no' and kind of pseudo adopts him #and then they find out other stuff and elfangor actually gets custody and everything is immediately better #anyway #it's been like a month since i posted the other one #if you get impatient feel free to remind me that this series exists because i just forget #it's not that i don't have a backlog of these posts

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