#apparently mami is a focus character

[lupin-the-fourth]

man I’m liking doing art again, that’s fun

gotta learn how to do proper backgrounds though I swear it took longer than the rest of the piece

[urfavnegronerd]

welcome to boxer boy

hi hi hi, t i present to u boxer boy! if ur new to this concept (or jus need a refresher) below is all of the resources on characters

character menu!! | kori n lilac! | jakobi n miles! | parental units! | alexei! | aave dictionary

warnings: violence (not unsolicited this is a boxer au) swearing, use of the n word, talks of racism, and i think that's it, lmk if i missed something!

i wrote conversation the way i conversate w my friends family and cousins, so this is very caribbean/ taíno/ afro latine/ in general black! coded!

published: august 2, 2023

w/c: 2.47 k ish

Chests heave and sweat travels, leaving streaks down pretty brown skin and resting, finally, on an upper lip. Groans and grunts bounce off the wall of a run-down gym, filled to the brim with a burning passion, the passion to prove yourself. 

“Miles! Focus up! Eyes up, watch the hands.” 

Miles says nothing, a mere grunt in response angling his eyes up and off the ground. The first time he’s fully taken in his opponent since the sparring match. His opponent has a few good inches on him. Tall and muscular, almost beefy, with a square and set jaw. Ducking and fumbling, he desperately weaves and dodges the strikes his opponent throws again and again. 

“Miles” 

 Falling into a rhythm of combinations, he begins to float, weaving in and out of corners, his feet barely touching the floor. Tragically, this ends prematurely with one good hook that leaves his ears ringing. 

“Damn it, Miles,” Alexei grumbles, Russian accent thicker than clay, rubbing his face in a combination of concern, disdain, and a twinge of disappointment. “The hands Miles, always watch hands and shoulders.”  

Shaking himself back up, Miles exits the ring, climbing between the ropes and tearing off his gloves he groans and sits on the very edge of the ring in front of Alexei who holds his hands out to inspect Miles for any injuries. 

“You did good, for someone that size. I have opening this week for one on one training session. Yes?” Alexei almost stubbornly mumbles to him, cradling his face in his hands and inspecting his head for any damage.

“Yes,” Miles grumbles. 

“I see you Tuesday at six, don’t be late.” Alexei pats his shoulder in an almost fatherly motion. Almost fatherly. 

Pushing himself off the edge of the ring and giving his opponent, apparently named Marco, a quick dap out of respect, he staggers to the locker room, cursing himself under his breath. 

“What? You get fucked up out there?” Jakobi snorts, shrugging a black tee over his head. “Prolly ain’t even that bad, son.”

“Barely, the nigga had like three inches on me, not to mention a different fucking weight class,” he huffs.

“That don’t sound like ‘barely’ bruh, sounds like your ass got pounded out there,” 

“I ain’t get pounded, it was just a hook.” 

Jakobi visibly winces and sucks in air, his face contorting as if he could feel it. Bringing his fist to his mouth, “Left?” 

“Right.” 

“Damn,” he whistles, rubbing the right side of his face. “You good?” 

“Fine,” 

Shaking his head and sighing “Don’t sound fine to me. You ain’t supposed to win every time my nigga, don’t let it go to your head.” 

“Yeah, whatever man, I’ll see you.” 

“Damn straight,” he affirms, clapping Miles’ shoulder and leaving, a duffle bag draped over his shoulder. 

And so it begins. 

Pulling off his muscle tee, he investigates the small bruises that litter his abdomen and ribs, all of which are in different healing phases. Pressing down on the dark purple contusion, he inhales sharply and jolts his hand back. Rubbing his face and running his hands over his braids he lets out a sigh and laces his fingers on the crown of his head. 

“You ain’t supposed to win every time my nigga,” 

But he should be winning every time, fueled with the white-hot grief turned to rage, he should be winning.  

“Ay, pero mami, ¡no quiero ir!” 

Ay, but Mom, I don't want to go

“Kori. You won the lottery. You took the test. We’ve had this discussion for weeks on end. I said you’re going and that’s final.” 

“But–” 

“Kori. No. I work my ass off for you. You are my world, you hear that? And so help me god, I’m not just going to let you throw your life away because you have some conspiracy about this school,” 

“Pero, it’s not a conspiracy Ma! This is what they want, for a bunch of quote-unquote ‘above average’ Black kids to test into some bougie school so they forget where they come from,” 

Alma sighs, places the laundry basket on the couch, and turns. 

“Look, I get why you don’t want to go to Visions, okay? And it’s a big adjustment for both of us. I don’t understand why you have this hatred towards this school, but please try for me. I love how passionate you are about this matter, I just wish you could put this passion, this spark that I see in you into loving this school. Proving to the world that we aren’t just some stupid Taínos. I love you so much Kori, I want the best for you, you deserve it mi vida. ¿Comprendes?” 

A stifled silence follows. 

“Kori.” 

“Fine.” 

“Como que ‘fine’? Por que no dices ‘sí’? soy tu madre” 

What do you mean, 'fine'? Why don't you say yes? I'm your mother.

“Yes, Mom, I understand,” 

“Good. Help me with the laundry.” 

“Miles? ¿Estás aquí mijo?” 

Miles? Are you here/ have you arrived my son?

He stops in his tracks, slightly wincing, a bruise forming on the side of his face from the match earlier. 

“Hey Mamá,”  

Rounding the corner, fatigue lining her eyes, she gasps dropping the empty delivery box and rushing to examine his face. 

“Miles! ¿Qué es esto? Qué está pasando?!? tú cara, mijo, estás herido?!?”  

Miles! What is this? What happened? Your face, my son, are you hurt?

“Ma, no es nada–” 

Ma, it's nothing--

“Miles, ¿como que ‘no es nada’? ¡Mira tu cara! ¿No es nada? Explicame, como eso no es nada. Ahora, Miles, go!” 

Miles, what do you mean 'it's nothing'? Look at your face! It's nothing? Tell me how its nothing. Now, Miles, go!

“Solo fue un spar en entrenamiento, no es serio ma, soy bien, te lo prometo,” 

It was just a spar in training, it's not serious Ma, I'm fine, I promise,

“... por dios Miles,” 

My god Miles 

“I’m sorry Ma I–” 

“I– Miles.” Rio grabs his face, forcing him to look down at her “You, you’re my little boy. No matter how much taller than me you get, you’re my little boy okay? Take care of that little boy for me, make sure he is loved. And safe, mijo. I want my little boy to be safe, ¿entiendes?”  

mijo- my son, entiendes- understand

“I got you ma,” 

Still cradling his face, her face seems to crumple at the edges whilst rubbing her thumb against his jaw.  It had been difficult to raise him on her own, he was old enough to look after and take care of himself, but at what cost? She knew he was trying his best to stay safe and do his best at school, but she still worried. Worried about him, she felt like a ghost in her own home. Barely there, barely scratching the surface of making a difference in his life. She wanted him to know that she cared so deeply, yet how could she? She couldn’t exactly spell it out for him, he’d grown too hard-headed after Jeff’s death, always insisting to take care of himself. She knew it was for her benefit, to have one less person to take care of, but Miles was her little boy. The little boy who used to beg for a spoonful of whatever was being cooked on the stove, the little boy who used to squat on the middle of the pavement and examine the cracks in the sidewalk with his grubby little fingers, the same little boy who would collect dandelions in a bouquet to give her after a long shift. What happened to that little boy she could just cradle in his chest and protect from the bad in the world? Where did he go? 

“Good.” She sighed “Te quiero tanto, Miles, pero ya tu sabes, ¿sí?”  

I love you so much, Miles, but you know that, yes?

“Sí Mamá, yo sé, y te quiero tambíen,” 

Yes Mom, I know, and I love you too

“Lilac I just feel stupid in this uniform” 

“Girl, bye, dudes be likin bitches in skirts and polos now, aren't smart girls the shit now?” 

���That's not the point!” 

“What you don't wanna find some fine-ass nigga there? ain’t none at Oscasio that's for damn sure” 

“You a damn lie bitch and you know that,” 

“And what would you know about that, your ass barely left the damn classroom while you were here,” 

“That don't mean a bitch ain't look, girl, the fuck?” 

“Who were you looking at?” Lilac’s voice calms down to a whisper, and Kori can hear her swinging her feet and smiling over the phone

“That one guy, his boys called him ghost or whatever-” 

“YOU HAD A CRUSH ON GHOST?”

“Briefly–” 

“GHOST? The ghost? Yall so different forreal but–” 

“That's not the point, I'm not gonna be seein none of him at no visions academy” 

“Hh here she go yall–” 

“I’m just saying–” 

“Bitch you been there a month, 31 days, any complaints?” 

“... I–” 

“Bitch exactly, you don't have no complaints, you like it there,” 

“Ain’t nobody say I like it” 

“But you don’t hate it,” 

“I hate that I got all these twisted ass white folks lookin at me weird–” 

“K dot, whoooo gives a fuck? you're just better than them, move on wit it, it's not that serious” 

“Lilac it feels that serious is what I'm tryna say! all these rich-ass white kids who prolly aint been through half the shit I did got a seat at the table without working half as hard!” 

“Look bruh I hear you loud and clear but now you’re just being a hard-headed ass bitch K dot. Visions have the best programs in allat nerdy shit you're into, fucking look around! You’re getting what you need after years of feeling different from everybody else, I watched you hate yourself for literal years because none of the Black kids in our little Brooklyn public school liked the things you did. And now you have maybe a handful of Black kids just as weird and nerdy as you, but you tryna tell me you ain't like it over there? Bullshit Kori and you know this,” 

“Lilac–” 

“Would you just shut up and admit I’m right?” 

“Fine. you’re right.” 

“I know, now listen this kid that hangs around the track team at school, Jakobi or whatever, annoying as shit, knows this kid at Visions. Got his number in my phone from our history group chat, you want me to hook something up so you can make friends up in that nerdy cesspool?” 

“Fuck you know about cesspools?” 

“Answer the damn question, Kori,” 

“Yeah, fine, sure,” 

“I got you,” 

“I know,” 

“Listen, I gotta go do meal prep for track this week, ima talk to you soon?” 

“Yeah, yeah” 

“Byeee K dot, love you,” 

“Love you too Lilac,” 

Sighing, Kori flops back onto their bed. exasperated, confused, and feeling violated for whatever reason. Lilac’s known them since the two of them were tiny, right after she had moved to the States with her mom, she knows her better than anyone. She was probably right, but it felt wrong to be said out loud. In truth, Kori loved and hated it there. She loves the way the halls are clean every morning, never once smelling like a cheap strain of weed or putrid hallway sex. They hated all the dirty looks she got just raising their hand in class, hated the way she could feel their eyes burning into the four braids they keep tightly cornrowed to their scalp in a zig-zag pattern. She didn’t know what she felt, but she knew it wasn’t positive. Not in the least.  

 “Kobi?” 

“Yurrr, what's goody what’s goody what’s poppin Miles?” 

“Nigga, do you see the time?”  

“Whatever, anyway–” 

“I don't feel like opening a window,” 

“I ain’t comin over?!? You miss me or sumn? Want me all up next to you?” 

“Stop being like that, whatchu need Jakobi? You need me to come get you from somewhere?” 

“Nah, some girl at Oscasio is mad tight with a transfer to Visions, Kori or sumn, asked me to hook y’all up. Her friend said she had some big-ass brown eyes and medium brown skin and cornrows in a zig-zag pattern and wears them legend blue retro 11s,” 

“Ain’t looking for a girl man, and you know this,” 

“Not like that, I’m sayin just to have someone on your side in that bougie ass school,” 

“You said her name was what?” 

“Kori I think,” 

“Oh,” 

“Oh?” he mocked “Fuck you mean ‘oh’? I’m over here finding you someone to eat lunch witchyo grumpy ass and all you wanna say is ‘Oh’? Well fuck you too nigga, damn,” 

“It ain’t even like that bruh, I was just takin in her name bruh,” 

“Since when you takin names like that?” 

“Since it’s 11 pm and I was listening to music on vinyl tryna put my ass to bed,” 

“Oh, you all domesticated now?” 

“It’s called a right hook to the jaw, stupid,” 

“Aight, man, I gotchu. Sleep good,” 

“Yeah, whatever, you need anything?” 

“Nah, that’s all,”  

“You said what? Blue retro 11s?” 

“Yeah, them light blue joints with the gummy soles”

“Aight then, see you,” 

“Damn right, you will,” 

Miles’ ear is met with the dial tone and he slumps back into bed, stretching under the covers, listening to whatever vinyl his dad used to play at night. The ringing in his ear had lulled to a dull ache, the left side of his face sore, but not hurt enough to bruise. 

“Kori. Aight then.”  

“Kori, right?” 

Jumping out of her skin, they turn. 

“Yeah,” She clears her throat “I’m Kori. Who are you?” 

“Miles,” 

“Oh,” 

“Tight Js,” 

“StockX,” 

“Them niggas too expensive on there,”  

Tension immediately disintegrates from her shoulders when she hears his slight Brooklyn drawl and what’s no doubt a nuyorican accent. 

“You needa get em when they first drop, then that's retail price without the upcharge,” 

“What are you, some sorta sneakerhead?” 

“Self-proclaimed,” She shrugs 

“Figures, they still white as hell,”  

“I’m Taino,” She cocks her head to the side, gesturing to her skin and cornrows. 

“The shoes I mean,” 

“Oh,”  

“Yeah,” 

“You said your names, Kori, right?” 

“K dot,” 

“Like Kendrick Lamar?” 

“I did it first,” 

“Yeah, whatever, nice to meet you,” 

“You too,” 

Pulling his lips into a loose smile, Miles walks down the hall towards his next class, a small wave in Kori’s direction and he’s gone. 

Miles. 

She liked how he complimented her shoes immediately, most people here don’t pay any mind to them. Liked how he was like her in the sense that he liked, or at least knew of, Kendrick Lamar, liked how the conversation flowed naturally with him and he probably spoke Spanish too. It felt good to them, to know that she wasn’t alone in this huge school and to know that this twin-tailed ass nigga probably was a good person. What kind of monster compliments retro 11s? She doesn’t think Ted Bundy did such a thing, she didn’t believe it though. People usually don’t approach them without a reason, but it seemed like Miles did. Cool and casual as if he didn’t want anything from her, which was weird. What did he care about her? 

“Miles,” She whispers to herself “Aight then.” 

a/n: sooooooo? worth the wait? lmk if this something yall want me to continue!

taglist: @nagi3seastorm @lunarfleur @milesmolasses @hearts4hobie @kombuuuu @hummusxx @n1cole-ghost (lmk if u wanna be on the taglist, i think i'm gonna make a form!)

🩷 reblogs are always appreciated for reach

xo,

a$ap 🩷

[samble-moved]

RoboHomu AU (Reboot)

A hopefully better version of this initial post, now that I (mentally) have the AU further "finalized".

First off, the whole AU is based off the idea that the Madoka Magica setting is a sort of "twenty minutes into the future" setting where technology is more advanced, but nothing crazy or incomprehensible. I use this as a setting due to some canon hints, like Madoka having a holographic keyboard, and the strange architecture shown. The Puella Magi Wiki actually has an article with some speculation on when the series is set, where the Director Shinbo "described the setting as 'in the near future, or a distant future' in an interview".

Now, onto the AU.

Kyubey and Homura's Wish Effect

The whole AU is also based on Kyubey's apparent track record of intentionally twisting wishes and/or taking them as super literal, in ways no human would. He's shown time and time again to almost maliciously misinterpret wishes, ignore implications or intent of them, etc.

Homura's exact wish is two desires in one:

1) I want to re-do my meeting with Madoka

and

2) Instead of her (Madoka) protecting me, I want to become strong enough to protect her.

Obviously, there are many hypothetical ways he could have granted this. But leaning heavily into the sci-fi and futuristic elements of the series, the AU assumes that one of these possibilities is that Kyubey's potential thought process is "stronger than Madoka -> stronger than a human and/or magical girl -> becoming entirely nonhuman". This also ties into later series stuff were Homura literally comes off as cold and robotic due to the timeloops.

Kyubey doing this wouldn't be something impossible or too out there. Some canon PMMM and Magireco wishes include him granting the ability to let a bunch of children literally steal his powers/abilities, have a girl's dead boyfriend's soul literally exist consciously in her mind, turning a girl invisible, granting mind control abilities, etc. So making a human into a robot/android isn't something he'd probably see as unthinkable.

How it Works

But wouldn't Homura (and everyone else) suddenly notice a robot person?

While Kyubey has had instances of girls immediately witching out after contracting (Nagisa, Ui), I imagine he'd like to avoid this most of the time. It seems pretty inefficient for a creature who prioritizes logic above all else to want to push girls into instantly despairing when their prolonged misery and fighting witches = more energy to collect later on and overall.

I imagine magical girls have natural things they just do without consciously thinking, the same way that blinking and breathing are pretty much unconscious things humans do without any manual action or thought to it. Turning one's soul gem seems to be a thing they can just do, and I doubt they have to be 24/7 focused on their gems being in that form to keep it that way. Homura doesn't notice anything immediately (nor does anyone else) because her magic naturally makes her "look" human — it doesn't require constant focus and thought. She believes she should look human, thinks she should look human, and thus does.

But, of course, something would eventually disrupt this. In this case, the Mami mental break event. AKA, "what if Madoka shot Mami a second or two too late"?

Homura gets shot, but doesn't bleed. The illusion shatters, and she doesn't feel pain. Because she's even less human than other magical girls. She trades off (in robot form) feeling pain or having to heal and waste magic in exchange for increased mental trauma. I mean, it's one thing to think you're "not human" for supernatural abilities, it's another to have physical and real proof that you're even less of a person than everyone else.

And I mean — Homura already is pretty self hating in the series, and the other characters really do get some correct but hurtful blows on her, which likely don't help. Mami telling her she thinks like a bullied child when Homura was indeed bullied, being seen as cold and robotic, Kyubey calling her an anomaly, etc.

Not to mention the paranoia potential of Homura realizing she doesn't even have a "brain", so how's she thinking? Did Kyubey do anything or program her to act in certain ways alongside the nonhuman aspect? Null Magical Girl explored this in a different way, but I can see that being a real source of anxiety and concern for Homura. Not even considering the "can a sentient robot have a soul" type deal with her being raised Catholic.

Other Notes

The initial drafts of this had be consider maybe that Homura was always a robot, and any human memories she had pre-hospital were false. But then I realized there's much more potential in Kyubey yet again screwing up a wish, and I feel like he'd comment on it if a robot tried contracting. Let alone the "do robots even have souls to make the initial soul gem" question.

Homura, in her human appearance, has skin/the feeling of skin, but anything deeper or more extreme than a cat scratch would make it obvious that she's not biological/organic inside. Like if she was in "human form" and got her arm gashed, the machinery inside would be obvious. The illusion is really only skin deep, pretty much.

As a robot, her face is more "human" looking than anything else (based off the apparent trend of humanoid robots having expressive faces, but more obviously robotic bodies — just Google "humanoid robot" if you want to see). She does have pieces that meet to resemble her glasses, though, and doesn't like it.

I've not been very stoked with any AU art I've made, so here's an edit of (vaguely) what she'd look like (mostly the face is most accurate), and here's some concept art (if you want to call it that).

Post-reveal, Homura finds having to consciously hold up the illusion while transformed into magical girl form more taxing and annoying/distracting (akin to manual blinking), and won't do it if in a rush.

Her vision in robot form looks sort of like this.

The initial AU was inspired by kintypes the repeated comments in canon about things like Homura being cold/creepy/robotic, and her being "an anomaly", as well as immediately telling Kyoko she's not a human, and neither is Kyoko. Obviously she didn't mean it in a "literally not flesh and blood" way, but seemed like a cool idea to me. Also inspired by the "Destabilize" series by PrinceWhateverer (WARNING: ponies).

A robotic magical girl seems feasible to me, since (to my understanding) Kazumi Magica introduced the idea of a clone magical girl who also isn't/wasn't "human".

More (non-pony) audio that (at least vaguely) fits this AU is "Hello World" and "AI Dreams". The latter, at least, is what she naturally "sounds like" in robot form, and she doesn't actually need to do things like breathe or have a heart beat that would be audible to someone close by.

[takerfoxx]

Here, have some more of the WN girls watch The Rebellion Story, this time stretching from Moemura turning back into classic Homura while monologuing to herself to when she shoots herself in the head!

Yes, this is the one with the gunfight.

Reminder:

G=Gretchen

H=Homulilly

Op=Ophelia

Ok=Oktavia

Ca=Candeloro/Mami

Ch=Charlotte

...

Op: Dramatic transformation!

H: All I did was take off my glasses and ribbons.

Op: And you did so dramatically! Complete with a slo-mo hair flick while framed by the full moon!

Ch: Which is apparently about to crash into the city, given how close it is.

Ok: “This is a witch’s labyrinth.” Gee, yah think?!

…

Ok: Okay, where exactly are you headed?

H: Deep into the bowels of the earth, apparently.

Op: Quick! To the Homu-Cave!

G: So, uh, can you see all those windows with the witches, or…?

H: Probably not. It probably still looks normal to me.

Op: Now that just sucks! If you’re going to monologue dramatically you at least ought to be able to appreciate the accompanying visuals!

Ch: “Previously, on Homura Magica…”

G: We probably should have watched the show first. Maybe then all of this would make sense.

Ch: I sincerely doubt it.

…

Ch: Why do all of my scenes have me looking like some brand of idiot?

Ok: Have you seen yourself whenever you get within sniffing distance of a piece of mozzarella? If anything, the doll you is way more composed!

Ch: Oh, so I stick teacups on top of my head, is that what you’re saying?

Op: No, usually you smash them and anything else that’s between you and that sweet, sweet cheesy goodness.

…

Ok: Oh, exposition!

Ch: About my idiot counterpart. I really hope I am the villain and this is all some kind of clever ruse, because otherwise, my God.

G: This is really cute, though. And at least you two are close in this universe too!

Ch: I’m basically a pet.

Ca: Well, if I must have a pet, I’m glad that it’s you.

Ch: Woof-woof.

=from outside, Cheese starts screeching=

Che: Bitch-ass cayennnnnne!

Ca: Whoops. He heard.

…

Ch: …Candy? Are you okay?

Ca: I’m…fine. Just memories.

G: You mean it was really like that?

Ca: Well, Charlotte obviously wasn’t a doll, we weren’t trapped in a bizarre facsimile of the city, and there were no Nightmares, but yes. It was a lonely time.

Op: Because of me, wasn’t it?

Ca: Ophelia, you had literally just lost your family, and I…wasn’t as sympathetic as I ought to have been. So no. It wasn’t because of you. Besides, we did make up later. Had a long conversation and everything. There were even tears.

Op: Well, that’s good to hear.

Ca: Actually, it was pretty close to how it is in the movie, once everyone had shown up. The five of us spending all our time together. Fighting together, training together, celebrating together, and just being girls together. For me, it was probably the happiest I had ever been.

Ok: Right up until my love life went sour.

Ca: Oh, there was so much more to it than just that. Besides, it was all just a temporary thing, a staving off the inevitable. What we have now might be much less exciting but is so much better.

Op: I dunno. Fighting demonic teddy-bears every night sounds like my idea of a good time.

Ca: We didn’t have teddy-bears, remember?

Op: Well, we should have.

…

Ok: Um…Homulilly?

H: Well, this has gotten interesting.

Op: You know, there are a lot of jokes I could be making about you freezing time right next to your crush, but I won’t.

H: Thank you.

G: I don’t get it...Actually, I do. Never mind.

Ok: Shoot the rat! He’s right there!

Ch: Oh, no. She’s going after me. Huh.

H: Huh indeed.

=Charlotte and Homulilly shoot each other an odd look=

Op: So…are we gonna get Homulilly vs. Charlotte?

H: More of Homura vs. Bebe, it seems.

Ch: So…I am the villain.

Op: If you’re lucky, you’ll get an overly dramatic and campy solo number, complete with a pipe organ!

…

G: This is getting a little hard to watch.

Ch: It’s not me.

G: It kind ofis.

H: Charlotte, I would like to take this moment to say that you are a dear friend of mine, and the actions of my counterpart do not reflect my feelings.

Ch: Thanks. Same.

=pause=

Ch: Though could your other self please stop choking me? It is getting kind of weird.

…

Op: Okay, that cinches it! Homura can definitely see the weird!

Ok: How do you figure?

Op: The fact that she’s leaping from dessert tray on a stick to dessert tray on a stick! Why would she be doing that unless she could see them?

Ok: I don’t know. Maybe they just look like telephone poles to her.

H: No, the illusion has clearly dropped, at least for me.

Ch: I’m about to get executed and that’s what you choose to focus on?

Op: For all you know you’re about to snap and bite Homura’s head off.

Ch: I…seriously doubt that. I mean, she is kind of the main character.

Ok: Though hey, wouldn’t that be such a wicked twist? To build up someone as a super-important character only to kill them off like a quarter of the way through?

=Candeloro frowns, a puzzled look on her face=

…

Op: Erm…

H: Well, this is certainly condescending.

Ca: It’s not inaccurate, though. I did struggle with many doubts and insecurities, and often found it difficult to put on a brave face.

Ch: That’s just called being human, babe.

Op: Most humans never went through what we went through.

Ca: That’s also true. Like I said, Homura isn’t wrong. I often felt like I was on the edge of cracking. There was more than one time when one of you would get hurt during a fight, and I would make a big show of being calm and unbothered. I’d encourage you and maybe lightly scold you for letting your guard down, and when you were all healed up I’d reassure everyone that I knew everything would be fine and try my best to carry on as normal. And then, when everyone was gone, I’d spend the rest of the night crying. You were right to assume I would react badly if you accused my close companion of being some kind of nefarious villain.

=long, uncomfortable pause=

H: Maybe so, but I think that my other self here wasn’t in the habit of giving people the benefit of the doubt. I think that her frequent failures might cause her to assume the worst of everyone, and act accordingly. I don’t think that she is giving you a fair shake.

Ca: That’s sweet of you to say so, Homulilly. But realistically speaking, she had reason not to trust me with this information.

…

Ch: Yeesh.

H: It’s okay. You can say it.

Ch: Say what?

H: That this alternate version of myself is kind of…shall we say…

Ok: Incredibly terrifying?

H: Just a little psychotic, yes.

G: Well, I mean, considering what she went through. You were lucky to stop after four loops. How many times did she have to relive my death over and over?

Ch: Still doesn’t make watching me get shoved up against a wall and the life choked out of me any more fun to watch.

…

Ch: Hold up!

Op: Well, hey! Wife to the rescue!

Ca: But…how…?

G: Oh. That is…a long ribbon.

Op: Did you have that attached to her foot the whole time?

Ca: I mean, I guess…

Ok: How did she even know you were up to something?

Ca: Intuition, I suppose. Maybe the lack of glasses and the new hairstyle tipped me off?

Ok: Why would that-

Ca: I don’t know, I’m just throwing guesses out.

H: Well, consider me impressed. Clearly, this other me underestimated you.

Ca: Thank you.

Ch: OKAY! If having my stupid doll face on every billboard in town doesn’t tip you off, then nothing will!

G: Homura’s probably the only one that can see it like that. Mami probably just sees a shoe advertisement or something.

Ch: You know what? That’s actually kind of a relief.

…

Ok: Oh, shit!

Ch: Could you stop trying to kill me? Please?

H: Believe me, if I could stop me, I would.

Op, suddenly sitting up straighter: Hold on, is this going where I think it’s going?

Ok: I think it is! I think it is!

Ca: Oh, here we go.

G: What?

Ok: Homura and Mami are going to fight!

G: Oh. Oh!

H: Candeloro, just like I said with Charlotte, the actions and beliefs of this alternate self of mine-

Ca: Homulilly, relax. It’s fine. These other versions of ourselves took different paths than we did. I don’t hold any of this against you.

H: Likewise.

Ca: Good.

=pause=

Op: Fifty talents on Mami.

Ch: Oh, good Lord.

Ok: You’re on! Time stop, Fee! That’s so overpowered!

Op: Which our girl neutralized without Little Miss Sleuth even knowing.

H: Is this really-

Op: Plus Mami’s the veteran fighter, remember? The tanky heavy?

Ok: Uh, Homura’s got multiple timeloops of experience, okay. That trumps Mami’s couple of years.

Ca: It was more like three…

G: I’m in! I’m betting on Lilly!

H: On Homura. I’m not fighting anyone.

Ok: Same diff! You better win, though. We’ve got money riding on this.

Ch: Well, I’m joining Fee and betting on Mami. I think you’ll find her more of a handful than you’re bargaining for.

Ca: Out of all the childish-

Ch: Buck up! You’ve got fifty talents to win me!

=Homulilly extends her hand across the couch=

H: Hey. May the best fighter win.

=pause, then Candeloro sighs and shakes her hand=

Ca: Oh, why not. You’re on!

…

Ch: Well, that ribbon ain’t going nowhere. Time stop, still neutralized.

Op: Ha! What I say?

Ca: My Bebe’s life is in danger. My will is resolute.

Ch: You are not turning Bebe into a pet name.

Ok: Come on, come on. Get with the fighting already!

=long pause as Mami and Homura have their staredown, and then they leap…=

Op: Oh, yeah! Here we go!

…

Op: Holy shit!

Ok: Go! Go!

G: Wow. That is a lot of guns.

…

Ch: Come on, babe. You can do this.

Ok: THIS! IS! SO! FREAKING! COOL!

G: Look at their faces! They still don’t want to hurt each other.

Ch: Oh, come on, doll-me! Get out of there already!

…

Op and Ch: Let’s go, Mami!

Ok and G: Ho-Mu-Ra!

Op: Let’s go, Mami!

Ok and G: Ho-Mu-Ra!

H: This is easily the weirdest thing we’ve ever done.

Ok: Oh, what? The thing with the sea-monster wasn’t weirder?

H: That was just…messy! We’re watching me and Candeloro’s alternate future selves in a fight to the death and you four are treating it like a pro-wrestling event!

Ca: Yeah. And I’m going to win.

=pause=

H: Did I say you could stop chanting?

Ok and G: Ho-Mu-Ra!

…

Op: Downtown is getting fuuuucked uuuup!

Ch: Just wait until she unfreezes time.

G: Jeez, I can’t tell if you’re both terrible shots or just extremely good at dodging!

H: Definitely the second.

Ok: And now we come to the stand-off.

Op: Nowhere to go, barely any room to breathe. Hey, Lilly, is the kinetic force of those bullets maintained?

H: What?

Op: I know they’re stuck in time, but can you just pluck them out of the air, or would you still be damaged by the heat and contained momentum?

H: I…have no idea.

Op: Best not to touch them then.

H: Probably smart.

…

Op: And time starts up…now.

G: Oh, that looks so unsafe.

Ok: Yeah! I mean, sure, if they hold still they won’t get hit with the bullets right next to them. But the freaking air was full of them! What’s keeping a spray of bullets from raining down from above and turning their heads into swiss cheese? Oh, sorry Char.

Ch: Y’know, unlike my moronic counterpart, I can hear the word “cheese” without freaking out.

Op: And that’s not getting into ricochets. They ought to be perforated right now.

Ca: My bullets were magic. They only ricocheted when I wanted them to. Most times they’d either pierce right through or exploded on impact.

Op: Homura’s aren’t.

Ca: True.

…

Ok: So much for your surroundings. Where the hell are you guys anyway?

H: Looks like some kind of cathedral. Only a very…eccentric one.

Ok: City’s getting weirder by the minute.

G: It could be symbolic for something. Like, I don’t know, violence in a place of sanctuary or…something?

Ch: Or gothic architecture just makes for an awesome place to stage an action scene and the animators and directors know it.

Ok: Stop killing the magic!

Op: Though, hell, speaking of which, would they actually die if they got shot? I mean, I know it would hurt, but…

Ca: Hypothetically? No. So long as the soul gem itself was unharmed, any damage would eventually heal.

G: Like we do?

Ca: Er, sort of, but not in the same way. Their bodies are still flesh and blood. Injuries back then tended to be…messy. And healing used up magic, and if those injuries were too great…

Ok: Witch time?

Ca: Bingo.

…

Ch: “Not getting anywhere.” Now there’s the understatement of the year.

G: So who won? Was it a draw?

Ca: So far, but I don’t think it’s over yet.

H: Indeed. I seem to be…up to something.

Op: Okay, if none of those big honkin’ rifles and machine-guns weren’t working, what good is that little peashooter, gonna…hold on!

=Homura puts the gun to her head. Half-a-second of stunned silence, and then everyone starts yelling at once=

G: Oh, no. Oh, no.

Ch: Oh, my God. They are going there.

Op: Okay. OKAY!

Ok: What the hell is she doing?!

Ca: No, no, no, no, no, no, no…

H: What is wrong with you?! Why are you like this?!

=bang=

=collective scream=

[ridiculousn3sswrites]

Please Mami

*Anthony Ramos x Reader

*Request: ‘Anonymous asked: Can you do an Anthony Ramos x reader where he begs like mars in She’s gotta have it??. Yknow, that cute little “please mami, please mami, mami mami please, por favor?” Lmao there’s a vid on YouTube for reference if you don’t know what I’m talking about (Mars Blackmon || Anthony Ramos)’

*Warnings: References to not-PG times, minor argument. Let me know if I missed anything.

*A/N: Okay I’m back from my little break, thanks to everyone for understanding. Also welcome to the resurgence of the Hamilton fandom. (This was gonna be a smut one but I have a different prompt thing I wanna use for my first smut fic and I’m thinking it’s gonna be with Bucky Barnes but lemme know if you guys have any suggestions for who it should be with.)

My Ko-Fi if you want to support my writing

**********

When Anthony got the role of Mars, you were overjoyed for him. The goofy character really fit your boyfriend, and when you actually sat down to watch the show with him, you were immensely proud of him. The downside of watching the show with him right next to you was that Anthony immediately noticed your reactions to everything. You were laying on the couch with Anthony behind you, his arm lazily draped over your middle, when he first said those lines that would become a fan favorite.

“Please mami. Please mami. Mami mami please. Por favor,” Mars was telling Nola on the tv in front of you. You couldn’t help your reaction, tensing a little at the pleading but teasing tone he took on. There was just something about it that you couldn’t quite place, and of course Anthony noticed it.

“What’s up, baby?” Anthony asked, pressing a kiss to your cheek, then another to your neck. A shiver of anticipation ran through your body, even though the actions were mostly innocent. You tried to laugh it off, turning your head so you could look at him better.

“It’s nothing, let me watch the show,” you said, focusing on keeping your voice steady. If Anthony figured out what was going on, you’d never hear the end of it. You turned back to the tv, hoping that would be the end of it.

“C’mon, tell me,” Anthony whined, now pressing his face into the side of your neck. “What’s got you so tense? Please, Mami?”

There was no hiding the pause you took then, and Anthony definitely noticed. He sat back a little, trying to catch your eye, but you kept your stare at the tv. “Shut up,” you finally muttered, trying to ignore the heat in your face.

You were trying to avoid Anthony’s gaze, and when you chanced a glance from the corner of your eye, you could see the small grin on his face. “So that’s what’s up?” Anthony immediately teased, eyes lighting up at the new information.

“I said shut up,” you groaned.

“Don’t be embarrassed, baby. At least you got turned on by me and not someone else.” Of course that’s what he would focus on. Now that he had something against you, you knew he’d use it sooner or later. 

“Please let’s never talk about this again,” you practically begged. Anthony shook his head, and by the grin on his face, you knew he would bring it up again eventually.

“Fine, I’ll leave you alone for now.” Anthony pressed his face back into the side of your neck. You could feel his little smile again and it took everything in you not to swat at him. “I‘m warning you, I do that little begging thing a couple other times so if you can control yourself.”

“That’s not leaving me alone,” you whined. Anthony started peppering kisses to your face, and it didn’t take long for you to dissolve into laughter. The second he saw you weren’t actually mad at him, Anthony pressed his lips against yours, drawing you into a sweet kiss. You broke it after a couple seconds, just looking at Anthony with a small smile before you spoke again. “C’mon, lemme watch the show.”

**********

You were right. Once it became obvious Anthony had something over you, he began using it to his advantage pretty much any chance he got. He wanted you to go to an event that you didn’t really feel like going to? He did the little begging thing, and then you were off getting ready to go meet up with the others. Anthony came home late from the studio when the two of you had plans for a night in? He begged a little, and you quickly forgot why you were upset. If Anthony was in any sort of trouble with you, all it took was two words: “Please mami.”

There was one night that you were determined you weren’t going to give in to him, no matter how attractive you found that little begging thing. Before you left for work that morning, you asked Anthony to do three things before he left for the studio later: turn on the heater (just enough so the apartment wouldn’t be freezing when you got back), run the dishwasher (that you loaded with the exception of the plate and cup he was using when you left), and fold the laundry that was in the basket. You unlocked the door to your apartment, and instead of a nice rush of warmth meeting you, the apartment felt the same temperature as it was outside. Strike one.

You kept your coat on, going to turn on the heater. You were going to keep your coat on until it got warm enough, which should not have happened. Looking around the apartment, you hoped the heater was the only thing Anthony had forgotten about. You put your bag down on the sofa before going to the kitchen. You were going to grab a cup from the dishwasher when you noticed the light wasn’t turned on. There was supposed to be a white light on to let you know the dishes were done, but since Anthony didn’t run the dishwasher, there was no light. You looked in the sink and sure enough, there were the dishes he used in the morning. Strike two.

The apartment was finally starting to warm up so you took off your coat, deciding to forgo getting water. You went to the room, hoping Anthony had at least folded the clothes you asked him to. Apparently that was too much to hope for when you saw the basket at the foot of your bed. Strike three. A groan just seemed to rip itself out of you, but you didn’t have the patience to actually deal with it. You grabbed one of Anthony’s hoodies from the laundry basket and just went to go shower.

Standing under the hot water, you tried to organize your thoughts. You’d asked Anthony to do a few things before he left for the studio that day, of which he did none. You knew Anthony worked a lot on his music, and it wasn’t necessarily easy work, but you worked too, and you still did housework that needed to be done. You never really asked Anthony to do much around the apartment, so when you asked him to do things, you expected them to get done. It was perfectly reasonable for you to be upset, and you weren’t going to give in to him so easily.

When Anthony got home, he found you in bed, working on your laptop in just his hoodie (from what he could see). He smiled at the sight, a warmth blooming in him at the sight of you. “Hey, baby. How was work?”

You looked up from your laptop, looking back at the screen before you answered him. “It was alright. I had to stay a little late but it wasn’t too bad.”

Anthony was a little confused at your short answer. Normally by now you’d be in some story about your coworkers, and even though he didn’t really understand your office dynamics, he always liked hearing the stories. He sat at the foot of the bed, reaching for your hand. When you pulled it back from him, he knew something was wrong. “What’s up? Did something happen at work?”

“No, work was fine. My issue happened when I got home,” you said, looking at him once again. You could practically see his thought process as he tried to remember what he did. Once it hit him, he turned to you with the most apologetic look.

“I forgot to do what you asked me to,” Anthony said. “Baby, I’m so sorry. I was writing something new and just lost track of time, then I was running late to the studio-”

You put up your hand to stop his rambling. “Anthony, I don’t need excuses right now. I didn’t ask you to do much. The only thing that would have taken a little while is the laundry. I know you work a lot, but I do too and I still do things that need to be done.”

“I know, baby, please forgive me? Please, mami?” Anthony was looking up at you with those damn puppy dog eyes and you were this close to giving in. But no, you needed to stand your ground, even if it was just this once.

“And that! You always do that when you even think I’m mad at you. Like yeah, it’s attractive, but you can’t just do that every time you’re in the slightest bit of trouble,” you argued, even though you kept your voice soft. This wasn’t really something you felt the need to yell about, you just needed Anthony to know. Anthony nodded, not wanting to say anything just yet.

“Yeah, I get you. I’m sorry, baby. I know you do a lot around here and I gotta help out more. I’m gonna go shower, wait up for me?” Anthony asked, standing up. You nodded, and Anthony gave you a soft smile before leaving the room. You closed your laptop and placed it on the nightstand, not sure if you were actually willing to wait for him or if you just wanted to go to sleep. It took a few seconds of internal debate before you finally just laid in bed, looking through Twitter as you waited for Anthony.

The day’s events caught up to you as you laid in bed, your entire body filling with exhaustion as you scrolled on your phone. Just as you were a second away from dropping your phone on your face, Anthony came back in the room. As soon as you saw him, you put down your phone. You’d fulfilled your promise, now you were okay to go to sleep. You heard Anthony saying something as you were already drifting off, but you didn’t have enough energy to focus on what he said. The light turned off, and then you felt the weight of his arm around you, pulling you close to him as you fell asleep.

At some point in the night, you woke up for a few seconds as Anthony left the bed. You remembered saying some gibberish in your half-asleep state and Anthony laughing before telling you to go back to sleep. The next time you woke up, the sun was streaming in through your window, but the bed beside you was still cold. You patted the bed as if Anthony would magically appear if you managed to reach far enough, but after a couple seconds you gave up and decided to go looking for him in the apartment. As far as you knew, the both of you had the day off and had no plans, so Anthony should still be home.

When you walked out of the bedroom, you could already tell something was different. It took you a second, but then you realized one of your cleaning candles was lit - the candles you only lit after completely cleaning the apartment. You didn’t think much of it - after all, Anthony didn’t really know the difference between your cleaning candles and your normal candles - but when you got to the living room, you saw why it was lit.

Anthony was in the kitchen, putting food on two plates. From where you were standing, you couldn’t see any dishes on the stove or on the counter. Even more than Anthony apparently doing the dishes as he cooked, you saw that the kitchen and living room were completely cleaned, which you were supposed to do that day. “Babe, what time did you wake up?” You asked.

Anthony jumped slightly at your voice, immediately pouting when he looked up and you were standing pretty much in front of him. “You weren’t supposed to be awake yet. I was gonna bring you breakfast in bed.”

“Sorry I ruined your surprise.” You wanted to laugh, but you could tell Anthony probably wouldn’t want to hear that. “But really, what time did you wake up?”

“I dunno, like five? I couldn’t really sleep because I know I let you down, so I wanted to do something for you,” he explained, rubbing the back of his neck. “I didn’t want you mad at me, especially since this is the first day in a while we can just chill.”

You closed the little distance between the two of you, wrapping your arms around his waist as you looked up at him. “I wasn’t mad-“ Anthony narrowed his eyes the second you said that- “okay, so I was a little mad. I just need you to do the small things when I ask you to, all right?”

“Of course, and I swear Imma get better at it. I mean, I live here too, you shouldn’t be the one doing all the housework.” Anthony wrapped his arms around your waist, forcing you to move yours around his neck. The two of you just stood like that for a minute, looking at each other and enjoying the feeling of being in the other’s arms. Anthony was the one to break the silence. “Do you forgive me?”

You had to bite back your smile at the look on his face, he was like a little kid who got caught doing something he wasn’t supposed to. “I dunno, it was hell waiting for the apartment to warm up when I got home,” you decided to tease him instead.

“Aw come on, baby, I’m sorry. Forgive me? Please, mami? Please, mami? Mami mami please. Por favoooorrr,” Anthony whined, stretching out the last word. You couldn’t help the burst of giggles at his antics, only getting worse once he began pressing kisses all over your face. “Please, mami?”

“Okay, okay, I give,” you laughed. “And not just because you did that.”

“Nah, yeah, I didn’t think that’d be the reason.” Anthony beamed down at you. You had a second before Anthony suddenly picked you up, your legs instinctively wrapping around his waist. Once he was sure he wasn’t going to drop you, he pressed a sound kiss to your lips. You quickly found yourself lost in the kiss, barely registering the fact that Anthony was walking.

“Babe, the food you made’s gonna get cold,” you broke the kiss to say once you realized he was walking to the bedroom.

“That’s fine,” he muttered, kissing your neck. A shiver ran through you, and you knew you were about two seconds from completely giving in to him. It would be just in time too, considering you were already in your bedroom. “Please, mami?”

And there it was. “Alright, but don’t complain when the food doesn’t taste as good.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

**********

Permanent Tag List: @treatallwithkindness

[dandivinity]

Madokannon: Religious Symbolism in Madoka Magica

If there’s one word I’d use to describe the show, Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica, it would be deceptive. If you’re wondering how a cute Sailor Moon rip-off with even brighter colors and a moe art-style is deceptive, congrats, you fell for the deception. As the series continues, it becomes clear that the show is not a cut-and-dry monster of the week where good always triumphs. Rather it is a pastel-colored Faustian bargain where even the best intentions can lead to dire consequences. In the end it is only through the titular characters unshakeable hope and faith and no small amount of divine intervention that the series reaches it’s bitter sweet conclusion. This is obvious upon a first viewing. What is less obvious is the nature that this divine intervention takes. While the show occasionally makes direct connections to Christianity, It seems to me that the theology implemented is Buddhist through and through complete with Four noble truths, samsara, vile rebirth, and an allegory of the bodhisattva Kannon. 

Let’s start with the basis of the show, the wishes. This is one of Madoka’s most prominent aspects and the largest concern from the beginning of the series before the villain’s true underpinnings are revealed. For those of you not familiar, 1). Why are you reading this? And 2). The set-up of the Madoka,  like most magical girl anime, involves a cute animal mascot offering the girls magical powers in order to fight monsters. What makes this set up unique however is that the oh so cute cat-bunny-thing known as Kyubey also offers the girls one wish as an incentive so that they would accept it’s “contract”. Now the use of the word “contract” is an obvious red flag meant to alert us to the Faustian nature of the deal. And yes, the agreement comes with several hidden clauses that Kyubey conveniently leaves out such as the fact that becoming a magical girl involves having your soul removed from your body and placed into a gem because it’s “easier to protect”. But Kyubey’s not exactly stealing it like a Christian devil would. More importantly than the hidden clauses though, is the wishes themselves.

Now stories of the devil tempting people with promises of wealth or power are quite common in Western literature, as are tales of djinn or monkey paws providing wishes that always go wrong in Near Eastern lit. But what’s extraordinary about Madoka is that for the most part the wishes the girls grant are simple in nature and rather generous. Our main focus point, and the only wish we see pursued from beginning to end in chronological order is that of Sayaka Miki. Sayaka is established to be crushing on a boy who was a former violin prodigy before a car accident left him paralyzed with no hope of playing ever again. Sayaka wishes for him to be healed, and just like that, it’s done. 

The boy does not relapse, nor does he lead into another accident. He simply starts a miraculous yet slow path to recovery, until the series finale where he is shown without crutches and playing beautifully for a wide audience. The problem? Well as pointed out before Sayaka even makes the wish, she’s wasn’t actually doing it for him: she was on an unconscious level hoping that he’d be forever grateful to her. Does she hold this over him? No. Does he reject her? No. She simply doesn’t ask. Sayaka is too busy with her new responsibilities and ashamed of what she has become to ask. 

And frankly the importance of Kyosuke in Sayaka’s fall is largely overstated by the fanbase. Yes, he’s a large factor but even more so than wanting to heal him or his gratitude, Sayaka wants to be a hero. This is heightened when their magical mentor dies within the first three episodes. Sayaka now feels like it’s her responsibility to protect her city as no one else will. Unfortunately, she’s simply not as strong as her former mentor or the new morally unsound magical girls that seeks to dispose of her (both Kyoko and Homura). This is really what leads to Sayaka’s downward spiral as she comments, “The world doesn’t need a magical girl who can’t even kill a witch”. Sayaka wants to be a hero, and she wants to get the guy and she gets neither. Her desires, both fulfilled and unfulfilled, all lead to her suffering. This is the First Noble Truth of Buddhism. 

I realize this isn’t the most convincing argument on its own but let’s zoom out a bit here. What is desire if not earthly attachments? Attachment and inability to let go of attachment is a concept found in nearly all the wishes in the show. It doesn’t matter if it’s Sayaka’s wishing for her friend’s health, Mami literally trying to cling to life, or Kyoko (in the most directly religious moment in the show) wishing that people would come to her father’s sermons so that her family could have enough to eat. All of these desires are moral in some way and yet they are still desires. More importantly, they all involve a longing for what once was, and are attempts to return things to how they were rather than moving on. This inability to let go is characterized not just in the wishes but in the reason they’re implemented in the first place. 

When Kyubey finally explains why they knowingly cause suffering to countless adolescent girls throughout time, they explain it’s to harvest enough renewable energy from the emotions of magical girls to stave off the entropy of the universe. The whole process is rather convoluted and -let’s face it- an excuse to deconstruct magical girl tropes, but that doesn’t change the fact that preventing the heat death of the universe is still Kyubey’s number one goal. That combined with their inability to truly understand the suffering they’re causing has caused some of the community to question their villain status or at least say they’re a villain with a just cause. And while postponing the heat death of the universe may be noble in the long run, it is a literal fight against the impermanence of the universe. A fight that we know from Buddhism is doomed to only lead to personal trauma in the face of inevitability of a changing world. But it is this fight against impermanence that kyubey embodies so well, and one that is baked into the wish-based magical girl system they run. 

Ok, enough beating around the bush. It’s time to talk about Homura. After spending most of the show as a mysterious red-herring villain that knows far too much, Homura finally gets an episode dedicated to her near the end of the show where it’s revealed she’s a time traveller who restarted the timeline over and over again in order to make her wish come true; to be able to save Madoka. Specifically  Homura has to replay the same month over and over again until she can succeed in saving Madoka’s life and cannot escape until this goal is reached.  This obsession leads to a very literal samsara, by repeating the timeline again and again Homura is actively choosing to trap herself in endless cycles of suffering, death, and rebirth all because of her attachment to the mortal world. Through this process we can see Homura fall apart becoming more and more monstrous in her single-minded focus to save Madoka at the expense of everything else. By the time she arrives at our main timeline that the rest of the show takes place in, Homura is comparable to a hungry ghost. She’s directly accused of walking through the world as if dead, unable to feel anything except for the desire that damned her in the first place, her obsession with Madoka. When even this too seems lost, she nearly becomes a witch. 

In Mahayana Buddhism, rebirth on earth is not the worst thing that can happen after one’s death. If one leads a sufficiently desperate life they can be reborn as an animal, hungry ghost, or in hell. This is where Madoka’s witches come from. Perhaps the most tragic twist in Madoka Magica is that if a magical girl falls into despair (usually due to her wish’s inability to make her happy), her soul gem will transform into a grief seed which then becomes one of the monsters they fight. These nightmare collage monsters have new names separate from their old identities and live in pocket dimensions where they lure people in. These pocket dimensions often in someway manifests the desires of their old lives being filled with sweets, TVs, or (in Sayaka’s case) violinists. Interestingly, when Sayaka first dies and is reborn as the witch Octavia in a train station, her labyrinth is also full of railroad tracks. She relocates to a concert hall and the labyrinth follows suit, but train wheels remain despite having no apparent bearing on her previous life. This could be a reference to Buddhist beliefs about your final thoughts and which direction you look when you die having bearing on which realm you’ll be reborn into. 

Homura’s obsession in contrasted by Madoka’s ability to let go. Madoka’s final wish and subsequent ascension has often been compared to Jesus’s sacrifice on the cross, and rightfully so. Madoka’s wish to become a cosmic force that can take on all the despair of magical girls before they become witches at the cost of her own mortal life has many strong parallels to Jesus suffering on the cross to redeem humanity. However that idea only works if Jesus is suffering. Madoka is stated to be taking the grief of every magical girl who ever became a witch onto herself and we even see a far future version of her becoming a witch large enough to destroy the world. But before it does it is shot down by another version of a truly ascended Madoka in a white dress. This version states paradoxically that since her wish applies to all magical girls that would become witches, that includes herself. The fluidity of time and direct denial of the necessity of suffering or sacrifice are at odds with Orthodox Chriastianity, or at least its perception of Jesus. Rather I argue that the way Madoka saves all the magical girls, her subsequent erasure from existence, and even such mundane symbols such as the white dress all link her closer to the Bodhisattva, Kannon. 

Let’s take a closer look at the scene where we see Madoka actually ascends and manifests to relieve the potential witches of their grief. We see Madoka split herself into thousands shafts of light, all of which appear above different suffering magical girls in different places and time periods. And above all of them Madoka appears, she touches their corrupted soul gems which are then purified before shattering, allowing the magical girls to die in peace. A rather sad ending, but one that’s better than rebirth as a witch, which we already identified as equivalent to the hell realm. So while it is unclear where the magical girls are going to go after they die (or even if they go anywhere at all as we just saw the gems holding their souls shatter, possibly destroying them), we can know that Madoka is saving them from a worse rebirth. This directly parallels miracle tales that surround the Bodhisattva Kannon, especially in her Chinese incarnation as the white-robed Guanyin. 

Kannon is the primary example of Bodhisattva or one who has put off Budhahood to aid those still on earth. Kannon in particular swears to never ascend until all living things have been freed of samsara. She’s often depicted as having 11 heads and a thousand arms to better reach all those suffering in the world at once, like how Madoka splits herself into a myriad of forms. Many of these tales have devotees of Guanyin spared from tragic fates such as beheadings or shipwrecks. However a few, adapt these stories to instead refer to a more metaphorical salvation, especially in the pure land tradition popular in Japan which then says that anyone who calls out to Kannon on the verge of their death will be still die and be reborn to the pure land rather than wherever else they were supposed to reincarnate. Madoka’s god form even highly resembles the Chinese incarnation, Guanyin. Wikipedia states, “Guanyin is generally portrayed as a young woman wearing a flowing white robe, and usually also necklaces symbolic of Indian or Chinese royalty. In her left hand is a jar containing pure water, and the right holds a willow branch.” While we never see Madoka with any water; the flowing white dress, red gems along her collar bone, and branch-like bow (though on that seems to be more of a sakura branch) all bring to mind Guanyin.

Finally Madoka’s ascension ends with her body dissolving into glimmers of light as she explains how no one will remember her, but she’ll still be there. This dissolution of the her spiritual body is a visual symbol of ego-death. Madoka recreates a word where she does not exist, and had never existed, yet still manifests as a concept and virtuous force that leads others to salvation rather than as a sentient entity. This is the Nirvana. Madoka hadn’t just ascended to godhood, she had surpassed it and achieved nothingness, as her buddha nature radiates throughout the world, ultimately changing it into something better. This is the paradox of Buddhism and the goal of any buddhist practitioner, to achieve an inner peace so strong you become a part of the universe like madoka had. And the new world she created was better for it. 

That is at least until the show decided to  make a movie sequel and trick madoka into descending. At that point she stops acting as a Buddha and instead as Pistis Sophia in line with the obscure belief system of 2nd century Gnostics. But that will be a conversation for another time. 

[madokamagicasecrets]

Please tell me candeloro is less disappointing than she looks at face value,,, like the only reference to mami's life that i can see is the familiars,,, nothing about how she fell into despair,,, nothing about how she made her wish,,, i haven't played any of the games so im just hoping she's more than she seems

Alright, so here’s what I’ve gathered.

First and foremost, a lot of Mami’s characterization comes from the spinoff material. Madoka Magica was too short to give a lot of characters the time that was needed to explain their behavior, so it seems the Magica Quartet focused on spinoffs to build up who these girls are. A lot of characterization and lore that’s important to understanding Candeloro is in the PSP game, Madoka portable. 

From what I understand, Mami was in a car crash and wished to live, becoming the only survivor. Her parents died, hence why she lives alone right now. There’s nothing I’ve seen that confirms this, but I imagine Mami’s parents were wealthy. That could explain her very graceful and high-class taste in outfit and combat style, as well as her extremely nice apartment despite seeming to have no job. I’m willing to bet she has an inheritance. 

Mami had to learn how to fight and use her ribbons to build weapons. It’s not explained very well in the anime, but her magic isn’t guns: it’s ribbons. The Magica Quartet explained that her magic is built on having a connection to life, based on her wish to live. What she has trained herself to do is to build different objects out of her ribbons, namely she can extend and style her hair using them, and she can also build muskets. She apparently studied the mechanics in modern guns, but her magic restricts her to muskets. At least she managed to make a really big one, which became Tiro Finale though!

Mami trained a long time to fight, and her skill is build on the foundation of hard work. This does a lot to solidify the idea that magical girls aren’t naturally talented, which also lends some credibility to the theory that Madoka could be an autistic savant, having immense skill as a magical girl with no previous training. 

So here’s where Mami succumbs to despair. In the PSP game, Mami succumbs after an extremely long and arduous battle with a witch, trying to protect a child. She fails, and starts wallowing in guilt over it, eventually becoming a witch. Not even Madoka and Homura can help her prevent this. 

Candeloro’s familiars are very interesting and are built on PSP game lore. Someone who isn’t familiar with the game may wonder why her familiars are designed after Madoka and Kyoko. After all, in the anime she mentors Madoka and Sayaka. However, the PSP game establishes that Mami is a bit of a hopeless romantic, perhaps because she’s so lonely. Namely she develops a crush on both Kyoko and Madoka. She’s too shy to admit her feelings, though, and ends up keeping her feelings inside. Interestingly, in an alternate timeline version of these events Mami gets closer to Sayaka than Madoka, and her familiars are red and blue instead of red and pink. 

A few other notes I discovered on the PMMM wiki:

Candeloro’s witch barrier reads “happy birthday”, perhaps because she died and was reborn when she became a magical girl

Candeloro’s full name is “ Candeloro du Polignac “, and is most likely a reference to  Yolande Martine Gabrielle de Polastron, Duchesse de Polignac, a duchess in Marie Antoinette’s court who was famed for her beauty. Interestingly, Marie Antoinette was executed by beheading and is associated with religious symbolism, something that becomes more important when considering Holy Mami. 

Candeloro is an Italian name, which makes sense given how much of a weeb for Italy Mami is. However, Candeloro is actually a male name, with Candelora being appropriate for a woman. It’s not clear if this was an error on the part of Shaft, or something intentional. If it is intentional, however, it could be a play on a pagan holiday by the same name that was a foundation for Christmas, with a house lit with Christmas decor and trees actually appearing in her labyrinth. If this is intentional, then the failure to bring down all the trees from the house signals the death of all those attending. 

There’s 3 major pieces of imagery used in Candeloro’s labyrinth: rainbows, apple trees and teacups. Teacups are obvious given Mami’s character, however they can also represent healing and immortality. Apple trees also represent immortality. And the rainbow could represent a bridge between the mortal world and heaven, which fits nicely into the rest of the symbolism discussed so far. The clouds in her labyrinth are black, a symbol of inevitability and death. The waters are red, which could be a nod toward blood, a symbol of life force. Interestingly, this rainbow motif reappears in Homulilly’s design, witha  rainbow appearing when the incubation barrier is destroyed, and also when Madokami descends-the bridge to heaven. 

Candeloro’s design in general could be a cynical and snide look at Mami’s design and personality. Candeloro is designed like a dress-up doll, even being called the dress-up witch. She still has a tag on her, in fact. 

A human design for Candeloro does exist, and is seen in a vision Mami had. Interestingly, like Homulilly, she’s dressed in simple black-and-white clothing, but Mami has some notable differences. She’s flat-chested, and her pigtails aren’t curled into drills. Given she has a large chest because of her wanted role as a mother figure (hence the pun on mommy in her name), she could be cynical of her want for that role. Also, since she has pigtails that aren’t curled in drills, something Rebellion established as being created by magic, that could be a comment on her focus on appearance? She puts on a graceful and beautiful exterior, but she’s actually very fragile inside. 

That’s all I could find, if anyone has any more observations on her design, I would appreciate it. 

[lovemesomerafael]

It’s Complicated                      Chapter 9:  Aggravated Crimes

Source:  @viennainspring

Chapters 1-5   Chapter 6   Chapter 7   Chapter 8   Read Story on AO3

Barba was not happy.  In fact, he was angry, confused, and frustrated.  It hadn’t been a good couple of weeks, and there was no reason at all for that.  It should have been a great couple of weeks.  He’d gotten all the evidence in for the Fowler trial, even with Judge Paul “Evidence?  What Evidence?” Ivanovitch.  He’d practically made Trevor Langan cry when he got both Gonzalez brothers indicted. His Mami had finally given up the idea of a mother/son cruise without him having to actually admit he’d rather be eaten alive by a rabid wildebeest.  And he’d finally gotten somewhere with Adrien St. George.  Life was good.  So why was he so out of sorts?

Well, he knew one reason.  Something was off in the romance department.  He’d taken Janice Edwards to dinner a couple weeks before, thinking he’d just have a nice, relaxing night with a woman who didn’t require a lot of effort, followed by some uninspired but guaranteed sex.  She was certainly a lot less difficult than, for example, Francisca Rojas, with a much lower likelihood of fisticuffs breaking out between the appetizers and the entrée.  And Janice hadn’t done anything wrong or different, except that Barba had found himself bored out of his mind and couldn’t face the idea of spending the night with her. So he hadn’t.  Lunch with Bess Quinn had been just fine until he’d said something she didn’t like.  He’d tried to get her to talk about it – hell, no doubt Francisca would have been perfectly happy to blast him right there at the table – but Bess had simply frozen him out for the rest of the meal.  He tried to remember whether she’d always been like that, and had to admit that she had. He just hadn’t cared before.  And his date with Adrien, who was the worst but sexiest court administrator he’d ever seen, had been – OK.  She was interesting enough.  Maybe not “arrested for murdering her ex-boyfriend” interesting, but that was a good thing, right?  And speaking of Francisca, Adrien wasn’t nearly as difficult, and she actually seemed to like him.  Everything with Adrien was just fine.  She’d even invited herself back to his apartment after the opera.  He didn’t understand what had happened, but what had happened was… nothing.  They’d had a drink and he’d sent her home in a cab.  

At first, he’d thought maybe he needed a vacation or something.  But then he realized that what he needed was to stop comparing every woman to Francisca Rojas.  

The more he thought about it, the angrier at her he became.  She was just like the rest of her privileged ilk, swishing around in her Prada and pearls, positive that the moral high ground was her birthright and turning up her nose at the idea that sometimes life got messy.   And where the hell did she get off bludgeoning him for using a common phrase like “spin a story”?  People said that all the time, for fuck’s sake, it wasn’t intended as a moral indictment of her character.  I can’t date you if you think I did something bad?  What kind of bullshit was that?  Fuck, he hated rich, entitled people like her.

 *********

Her skirt was soft, brushed suede and fit her beautifully, modest and insanely sexy at the same time.  Rafael could only imagine the price tag.   Her silky fuchsia button-down blouse was a filmy, clingy cloud that exerted a draw on his eyes so powerful that he constantly had to refocus, tearing his gaze from the few buttons she’d casually left undone and the swell of her breasts.  It physically hurt him, somewhere in the center of his chest, to look at her and want her as much as he did, to remember what it was like to work and argue and laugh with her, sick with the knowledge that, in truth, she was not who he’d briefly allowed himself to imagine she was.  Instead, he had been right all along.  She was everything he hated.

“I needed to talk to you about something.  I’d really rather not discuss this here, and I’m sorry I had to ask Carmen to put me on your schedule, but I haven’t been able to connect with you.”

“What is it you need, Doctor?”  Was Barba’s voice cold?  Was he purposely continuing to focus on his computer screen rather than look at her?  That was not what she’d come to expect from him.  She had never seen him intentionally impolite, but he was now.

“May I close your door?”

He waved nonchalantly, still not looking at her.

“May I sit?”  The edge that now crept into in her voice finally made him look up.  

“Go ahead,” he said without inflection, flicking a hand in the direction of the chairs before his desk.

Maybe he thought she was still upset with him.  Of course, she thought, that had to be it.  He didn’t know why she was here.  “I’ve learned some things that you deserve to know.  And I owe you an apology.”

He didn’t respond.  He stayed still, not a flicker of emotion crossing his closed features, and he said nothing.  What the hell?

“I know why Juwon Jefferson came forward with his information about Alan Canady.  I swear on my mother’s grave that I didn’t kill Alan, and I believe that every word Jefferson said was true.  But you were right.  He was… coerced.”

Still Barba said nothing.  He kept his face completely neutral, but his breathing had become just a bit deeper and, consciously or not, he was clenching his jaw.  Which didn’t look to Frankie like surprise.  Well, she’d expected him to be mad.  He was entitled to some righteous anger at her for taking such a holier-than-thou attitude with him when she left his apartment. She’d certainly expected a hefty ration of mocking for being so wrong.  Except this looked like… disgust.  Hate, almost.

“I needed to tell you that you were right, and I was wrong.  And I apologize to you for the way I reacted.”

Frankie had said what she had to say, so she waited for him to respond.  Maybe he was thinking about what he wanted to say?  She tried to be patient and give him time to do that.  It ended up taking a full minute.

“And what is it you want from me in return for this blinding revelation that I can, in fact, see what’s right in front of my nose and may perhaps not be an entirely soulless bottom-dweller after all?  Or am I giving myself too much credit?”

Frankie recoiled as though he had struck her.  She felt like he had. 

“I think you once told me you like being on the receiving end of an apology.”  She tried a small smile, which died as she looked into his eyes.

“I don’t particularly like anything about this conversation, Doctor.  What is it you want?”

“Barba, I…  I don’t want anything from you.”

“Then why are you here?”

“I don’t understand.  What…  We were starting to be friends before Jefferson, weren’t we?  And I messed that up.  I’m trying to fix that.  I need you to know that I know you were right, but I’m having a hard time dealing with that, and I…  just…”

“Ah.  So that’s it.  You want absolution.  You want me to tell you that you’re still pure as the driven snow, even though somebody else had to get dirty to keep you that way, and I had the regrettably poor breeding to mention it.” 

“What?  No, I…” 

“Apology accepted.  Now, did you need anything else?  Anything work-related?” 

“What’s this about?  Why are you talking to me like this?  I said I was wrong, and I’m sorry…”

“I heard you.  And I’ve accepted your apology.  You’ll forgive me if I don’t give you a damn parade for it.”

“I don’t want-“

“What do you want?  I’ve asked you that several times since you waltzed in here and I have yet to get an answer.  I have things to do, even if you don’t.” 

Frankie was blindsided and too wounded even to feel anger at this point.  She was too appalled even to cry.  This was far worse than when Alan had turned on her.  With Alan, there had been some warning.  It had come on gradually.  Besides which, she had never had deep feelings for Alan.  But this, with Barba…  she had fallen in love with him, never having the first inkling this side of him existed.  So he had been able to get right next to her heart before he struck. 

She stumbled out of his office, her only instinct being to run.  Just as it had been with Alan.

Unbelievable.  It was exactly as he’d thought.  Expressing all sorts of wonderment at having discovered – apparently all by herself, as though Barba hadn’t said it to her five minutes after it happened - that someone beat the tar out of Juwon Jefferson to make him come forward.  And then she just sat there, all big eyes and expectation, as though he was going to – what?  Thank her for sharing?  Congratulate her on her wisdom and foresight in having friends who would put themselves in that kind of jeopardy for her?  It had been all he could do not to throw her out of his office.  

 ******************

The suspect was a notorious South American playboy, son of a diplomat, who appeared entirely uninterested in the severity of the aggravated rape charges pending against him.  The entire Western Hemisphere knew that Guillermo Maduro could speak English if he chose, but he insisted on being interrogated in Spanish, which meant that Barba and Rojas were doing the questioning.  They both hated Maduro on sight, as did everyone who had been involved in his arrest.  That wasn’t going to get them any evidence they could use, however, which was why, at that moment, Frankie was laughing softly at his inappropriate joke and touching her hair. 

Maduro was a pig.  He kept aiming his hooded gaze at her breasts, then raising his eyebrows.  She wanted to pull a garbage bag over herself to protect her body from his leer, but she swallowed her disgust and preened instead.  Barba wanted to kill him.  As he watched Maduro basically lick Francisca with his eyes, Barba had recurring fantasies of taking him out with a hatchet.  

“Come on, Doctor, it’s different for people like us, yes?” Maduro’s voice, as he apparently tried to sound smooth, sounded instead like a cold lump of Vaseline.

Barba could feel his pulse throbbing in his temples.  He remembered hearing someone say something like that, a long time ago, to differentiate themselves from him.    

“Tell me,” Frankie said.  Every instinct she had told her to punch Maduro in his drooling mug.   Instead, she tried to look demure and interested instead.  “What does that mean?”

“Those people, they have all these tired rules.”  

“Such as?”

“Oh, come now, Doctor.  This woman, she says I attacked her.  I did not attack.  A man like me, I do not need to attack.  But your police pretend to believe her because of the news.  They must look as though they believe that woman over me.”

“But they should believe you over her,” Frankie said.

“Well,” Maduro bestowed his wide, white, greasy smile on her.  “Of course, we cannot say these things too loudly. You know how those kind of people are.  People who do not understand, they will misinterpret.”

It came to Barba in that moment where he had last heard someone so shamelessly asserting that money and social standing came with different rules. It had been at Harvard, during a cocktail party that Rafael had attended as an officer of La Alianza, the Latino student association at the law school.  He was standing close together with two other officers of the group, feeling small and wildly out of place.  His little knot of overwhelmed students were standing just to the side of a large, well-lubricated group in which a tall, red-faced white man was holding forth about how admirable it was that Harvard allowed “those kinds of people” to attend so that they could return home and “fix their neighborhoods.”  The talk went on to a discussion of how “people like that” simply had “different values,” “didn’t understand how we do things” and, after graduation would be happiest if they returned to where they were “comfortable.”  From there, it had only gotten worse.  By the time Rafael finally signaled that they should simply leave, the President of La Alianza, a young woman of Venezuelan descent who seemed mousy until she opened her mouth and blew you away with her rhetorical skills, actually had tears in her eyes.  Maduro would have fit right in with that Harvard crowd except, of course, that he would not have been welcome.

“You can tell us,” Frankie purred.  “We’ll understand.”

“Yes, I can see by your clothes, both of you, that you are not like the police.  We are a different sort, aren’t we?  We understand each other.”

For a moment, Frankie thought that Barba had exploded out of his chair in order to attack Maduro.  She wouldn’t have blamed him, but she prepared to try to intervene.

“Dr. Rojas, a word, please.”  His voice was low and tight.

In the squad room, Rafael poured himself a cup of coffee and drank half of it before he spoke.

¿Estas bien?  ¿Cuál es el problema?[1]  Frankie asked, concern evident on her face and in her posture as she stood and touched his arm.  He roughly threw her hand from him.  That stung, but she chose to ignore it.

“That man is…  I can’t even think of words vile enough.”

“And you know all the good ones, too,” she said, trying to lighten the mood.  “Good idea to take a break for a while.”

They walked slowly back toward the hallway where Benson, Dodds, and Carisi stood in front of the one-way window into the interrogation room, chatting together.  Still speaking Spanish, Frankie and Rafael stayed to the side of that group as Frankie tried to understand what was happening with Barba.  Of course, she had been trying to figure that out since he’d basically tossed her out of his office the other day, but that was a different matter.

“I find it incomprehensible that you can be so obsequious to him.”

“I’m not being obsequious.  Maybe a lot more sympathetic than I really feel…”

“He doesn’t seem to bother you.”  

That got under Frankie’s skin.  “Well, I’m going to take that as a compliment to my rapport-building skills, because I detest that prick.  When he’s gone, I’m gonna bleach my brain to get him out.  This whole precinct.  Maybe the entire city.”

“Really.”  Rafael’s voice had a nasty edge.

Frankie was stunned.  He could not be serious.  He could not be saying that he thought she had any sympathy for that cretin.  “Of course, really.  I fucking hate that asshole.”

“Are you sure?  Because that’s not what it looks like from here.”

“That’s not what it’s supposed to look like from here.  You do understand what I’m trying to do here, right?”

“Yeah, I’m familiar with the basic concept of flirtation, Doctor.”

The hurt in her eyes was unmistakable, as was the shock at this fresh assault.  She physically flinched.  When she responded, there was no trace of challenge, vanity, or anything resembling humor in her voice.  There was only a raw plea.

“Barba, can we be real for just a second?  Please?  This man is filth.  I want to just brick in the windows and doors and leave him in there to rot.  Yeah, I’m trying to build rapport with him by putting my gag reflex on hold and pretending to be sympathetic.  Because that’s my job.   I’m doing it to get him.  Is that not clear to you?  You and I are on the same side.”

“People like you and Maduro, are you ever really on any side, other than your own?”

She didn’t intend to do it.  She didn’t even see it coming.  If she had, she certainly would have stopped herself.  But when she heard Barba, the man she loved, lump her together with the smarmy, hateful rapist in the box, Frankie emitted a loud, wordless yell as the last of her patience frayed and snapped.  She reached back and slapped him across the face as hard as she possibly could.  Which was pretty hard. 

“You prejudiced snob asshole!  I am nothing like him!  And I will finish this interrogation on my own because I really, really need you to get the fuck out of my sight.”

There was no sound but the soft clunk of Rafael’s shoes as he walked out of the squad room.

Frankie turned a deep shade of red and stormed back into the interrogation room.

Standing next to the one-way glass, Dodds leaned in to Carisi, asking softly, “What do you suppose he said?”

“With Barba?  It’s anyone’s guess.  I’m just glad I got to be here to see that!”

“Neither of you saw that,” Olivia said severely.

Carisi blinked, innocence flowing down to cover his expression like a mask.  “Saw what, Lieu?” 

Olivia went into the box.  She wasn’t exactly bilingual, but her Spanish would have to do.  It was enough.  By the time she and Rojas emerged again, Frankie had flirted Guillermo Maduro into a noose he was not going to escape.   Olivia didn’t think some of the names she’d called him after his confession were particularly necessary, but then she didn’t think they were all really aimed at Maduro, either.

 Rafael walked down the hall to the elevators, holding his cheek and smiling like an absolute lunatic.  In one second, the bottom had dropped out of his carefully-constructed self-delusion at the same time a blinding ray of hope pierced the sky.  That slap had hurt for sure.  But now he understood, and he knew that he deserved it.

Francisca Rojas was nothing like the caricature he’d painted of her in his mind, and she’d done absolutely nothing to deserve the way he’d treated her. She had been nothing but her genuine self every moment he’d known her.  It was all him.  He was the asshole.  

He had treated her like absolute garbage when they’d met, for no reason other than his own – well, she’d said it - snobbery and prejudice.  But then, as soon as he could swoop in and protect her from Alan Canady, and be her stability when she’d been rocked to her core by her arrest, he had been perfectly happy to fall in love with her.  Yes, Barba, admit it, you fell in love even before she did. Because when she was in need, he could feel superior to her.  But the moment she’d begun to recover, to show signs of strength and self-sufficiency, he’d reverted to the scholarship kid from Harvard and rejected her before she could reject him.  Or something like that.  It didn’t matter.  What mattered was that he had finally seen the truth of who she’d been all along, and it was so clear and obvious he marveled at his own disastrous ability to pretend otherwise for as long as he had. 

Oh, he was a complete and utter dick; he had no illusions about that anymore.  But he would make that up to her if it took him the rest of his life, and he would love every second of it.  And she’d let him.  No matter what he had to do, he would get her back, and he would make her let him apologize to her until she could no longer even remember what he was apologizing for.  Rafael would never have imagined he could be so deliriously happy about getting smacked around by the woman he loved in front of a room full of cops.  

What to do?  Fill her apartment with roses.  No, she was a little too pissed for that right now; she was likely to stuff them all in his apartment and take a flamethrower to them.  Go to her on his knees with the biggest diamond ring he could find.  No again, and for the same reason.  If he put his chin in the neighborhood of her legs right now, she would boot him into New Jersey.  Hold a boom box over his head outside her apartment window?  Still no.  She said she could shoot the eye out of… something small.  The point was, that wasn’t going to work. 

 OK, he was going to have to find a way to get her to at least hear what he had to say.  He smiled evilly.  There was one sure-fire way to do that.  And he knew some very clever people who would help him make it happen.  By the time she figured out she’d been had, hopefully he would have at least talked her into not killing him.  What was a little unlawful imprisonment after everything else he’d done to her?

 For the rest of the day, Rafael felt really stupid wearing a dopey grin around all the time.  But he couldn’t seem to get rid of it. 

 ***************

“Carisi, I got an assignment for you.”

“Yeah, Sarge.  What is it?”

“Well, it’s a little bit off the books.  So feel free to say no.  It’s kind of a personal favor for Barba.”

 ************

Sitting in the back seat of the squad car, Frankie thought this might be what an out-of-body experience felt like.  She had been upset for days after Barba had basically thrown her out of his office, and she still had no idea what she’d done to deserve it.  Then, today, the things he’d said…  The things he’d accused her of…  And then, as though she had never done the slightest bit of work on controlling her temper, as though she was a teenage drama queen or a big-haired siren on a telenovela, she’d slapped Barba across the face in front of the entire NYPD.  Or at least, that’s how it had felt.  

Now, as though she wasn’t unhinged enough, Dodds and Carisi were hustling her to some building somewhere, where there was a man who needed… something. It was all still confusing to her, but Dodds kept reassuring her that they just needed her psychiatric expertise to talk to this guy.  He didn’t have a hostage.  He didn’t have any weapons, there was no danger, he was just a guy who, for some reason unfathomable to Frankie, they needed her to talk to.  It was ridiculous and doomed to failure, because she knew absolutely nothing about this man or what his issues were, but Frankie had worked for a federal bureaucracy for a long time.  Sometimes the brass made decisions for reasons known only to them and God.  And sometimes even God was a little iffy on the logic.  

The car pulled up to a small, empty-looking unit in an industrial park.  In the fading light of late afternoon, the unit appeared to be a few offices attached to a larger space that could be used for a small manufacturing or warehousing business. It was sort of a lonely-looking area since it was after business hours and at least half the units appeared to be untenanted.   

“OK, so, Doc, you stay here.  We’re gonna go in, do a little recon, talk to the guy and see if everything’s secure.  Won’t take more than a minute or two.  As long as everything’s kosher, we’ll come out and get you.”

“OK, whatever.  I still say this is a jacked up way to be doing things.”

“Welcome to the NYPD,” Carisi grinned, unfolding his long legs from the vehicle.

The two walked toward the door of the unit, tried it and found it unlocked, then went in.  In her tired irritation, Frankie nonetheless had a second to notice how good Dodds and Carisi looked together.  She really hoped something nice would happen for them.  Which kicked her mind back over into the track it had been stuck in. What the hell was the matter with Rafael Barba?  And what was she going to do about it?

Only a few minutes later, Dodds and Carisi stepped out the front door of the office section of the unit, signaling her.  Frankie sighed, looped her carryall over her shoulder, and got out of the car.  She went to them.

“So?  What’s the situation?”

“It’s all good.  Come on in,” Dodds said.  “Everything’s copacetic, we just need you to talk to this guy.”

Shaking her head slightly, Frankie walked through the door Carisi held open for her.  She didn’t see the look that passed between him and Dodds behind her.  She found herself in a small reception area empty of furniture, with a short hallway running toward a door that appeared to connect to the larger workroom/warehouse section of the unit.  Two doors opened on each side of the hallway.

“He’s in the last office on the left,” Dodds said.  “We’ll wait here in the lobby.”

Frankie walked uncertainly down the hallway to the door Dodds had indicated, then knocked.

“Come in,” a male voice said.  

She opened the door and was stunned to see Barba sitting on the edge of a bare metal desk.  

“What the hell…?”  She said.

“Come on in.  Have a seat,” he said, indicating two cheap stacking chairs with metal frames and torn fabric seats.  

“What’s going on?” Frankie asked, scowling at Barba and considering backing up out of the room.

“I need to talk to you,” he answered, his voice softer and kinder than she’d heard it for months.

At that moment, she heard the front door of the unit close, and the sound of something metal.  

“What...”  She turned and rushed down the hall to see Dodds and Carisi just finishing padlocking the door on the outside.  She yelled at them and pounded on the door, but they simply waved at her, smiling, and went to sit in their squad car.

She pulled her phone from her carryall and texted Dodds.

Frankie Rojas:

WTF

Mike Dodds:

Listen to him.

Frankie Rojas:

I will break the glass out of this door.

Mike Dodds:

Good luck with that.  It’s unbreakable Hammerglass.  Let him say what he has to say.

 She tried Carisi.

 Frankie Rojas:

Don’t be a party to this BS – you’re nicer than them.

Sonny Carisi:

Dodds is my boss, Barba’s helping me get hooked up with the D.A.’s office.

Frankie Rojas:

I am vengeful and creative and have a long memory.

Sonny Carisi:

He needs to talk to you. Let him.

 Frankie blew out her breath in annoyance as she leaned her back against the wall of the lobby.  From down the hall she heard Barba call, “I could have told you they’re on my side, but you would have tried anyway.”

“I could call other cops.  Cops who don’t owe you favors,” she shouted to him.

“That’s why Dodds and Carisi are staying.  Just in case they need to intervene.”

“I really hate you right now.”

“I know.  But you’ll get over it.”

 [1]   Are you OK? What’s the problem?

@scarletsoldierrr thanks for asking to be tagged and liking "I get around” Barba!

[wheremytwinwatches]

[Where My Twin Watches]: Puella Magi Madoka Magica Episode 9 Review

Tephi was upset that I didn't include this in my last post:

Ah, Farquaad. Who I just looked up the voice actor of- John Lithgow?! Wow, ok then. Farquaad, you may have been one of the few characters who had absolutely no redeeming qualities. I mean, at least the pictures I posted were of characters who had beneficial goals, even if they went about them in the most cartoonishly evil ways possible. Farquaad was just a dick. But that quote does a damn good job of summing up Bunny-Cat.

Afraid that I’ve been busy studying for a test this Monday, but I think I can snag some time Tuesday morning to start Ep 10. Until then, maybe a short post on my thoughts-

Keeper of Tales said:Ranubis you have probably noticed the sharp up-swell in conversation since you began hitting oh, episodes three, six, eight and nine. Part of this is that you came into this series with a very different mindset than usual and there was a real risk of ruining that. If you read this before the next episode could you tell us what your thoughts upon the characters are and how they have changed? The entire cast if you can. Thank you for your time.

Ok, make that a detailed response on each of the characters. Here we go!

Madoka Kaname

Our title character and protagonist… who’s kinda just been along for the ride all this time. She really bucks the trend of main characters that I’ve gotten used to in most shows. No powers, no real strengths of her own beyond her kind nature. Heck, if she wasn’t the first character to appear and the show wasn’t named after her it wouldn’t be hard to call her a side character. I think back to Gurren Lagann, how Simon had the same meek attitude and was overshadowed Kamina. But then, he got his mini-mech by the end of the first episode, Madoka has yet to pick up any tools. Even Sayaka showed up next episode with a baseball bat, Madoka’s just been tagging along.

And yet, everything revolves around her. Madoka had the Future Dream at the very beginning. Sayaka got involved because she was Madoka’s best friend. Homura focused on Madoka that first school day and tried to warn her away from the trials of Magical Girl-ing. Mami tried to recruit Madoka because she sensed she would become a powerful MG in helping defend the city. Kyoko, who showed up as a hard-line Magical Girl, in the space of apparently a few days joined the Madoka Protection Brigade. And of course, it’s clear now that the Incubator’s been manipulating things to ensure that Madoka makes a Contract, that will net it a ton of emergy.

Still, we’re nearing the end of the show, and I’m 50/50 on whether or not that Madoka will actually make a Contract, especially if Homura has anything to say about it. I mean, if the Incubator flat-out tells her that only she with MG powers can save the day, her helpful attitude is going to steer her straight into selling her soul. The question remains: how far is Homura going to go to stop that?

Sayaka Miki

Best friend of the main character, initially I was amused at how she bucked the Red Oni, Blue Oni trope as being much more outgoing and aggressive than Madoka (pink is a lightish-red, it fits). That got flipped around later when she turned into a Paladin and contrasted with Kyoko. Such a fun character, cheerfully bringing a common baseball bat to fight the monsters, calling herself an Ally of Justice, a great heroine. Unfortunately, it seems that that is Urobuchi’s favorite character-type to stomp on, the show could probably be called “Everything goes wrong for this poor girl Sayaka”. She loses her soul, her crush, her idealism… guh,

It was just depressing, seeing how Sayaka kept going further and further into her Paladin identity until she had nothing left. Losing her optimism, going on a Roaring Rampage of Despair fighting familiars instead of getting Grief Seeds… I keep thinking about Homura about to kill Sayaka. She said it was to protect Madoka from more suffering, but I think that there was at least a little bit of mercy to Sayaka there too. Kill the girl, before she becomes a Witch.

I just wish that things could have been better for Sayaka. She meant well, wanted to save people. Yes, there was an element of wanting to be with Kamijo in her Wish, but can you really blame her for that? She wanted to be a hero. Instead, she became a monster.

Kyubey (Incubator)

Yeah. I can only imagine how you jerks were sniggering in my early posts. I mean, I start out thinking “Ok, here’s the show’s mascot, I’m a little creeped out by the red eyes but whatever.” Then I start thinking he’s cute, plays off the girls well. Then I get annoyed at how he keeps acting like a salesman, really pushing the girls on the Contract. Then… well, then Bunnycat was revealed for the absolute jerk it is.

Seriously. The show’s mascot turns out to be the main villain, twisting plans and leaving snide little comments to achieve it’s goal of turning these young girls into batteries. No, not batteries, coal: fit for one quick burst of energy, who cares where the smoke goes afterwards. All that smiling, those cute comments, those pushes for a contract to be made, not telling the girls the true cost of the Contract even when he knows, or rather because, it knows how they will act, implying (but never outright lying) actions that play right into its tiny, bloodstained paws.

And we can’t even kill it, apparently. Homura shot it what I would normally call an unnecessary amount of times. But as it turns out, it was just a waste of ammo, since the Incubator can just show up in a new body. It can show up without an invite apparently anywhere, it can’t be killed… in a show of murdering Witches, it is the real monster.

Mami Tomoe

Mami… :’(

I was so happy when she showed up that first episode. An experienced Magical Girl who can summon a ton of muskets? Standing up to the (apparent) Bad Girl, taking our main character and sidekick under her wing? And she only got better from there, teaching our characters about the world, fighting a Witch one-on-one, destroying it with an artillery piece and then landing for tea.

Classy.

Then we get a tragic backstory, she’s shown to be lonely. But our characters are there to help her fight these monsters and stop whatever plan the Bad Girl is brewing up! And look at that, she and Madoka are so adorable together, I can’t wait for them to-

And then Urobuchi took my heart and stabbed it.

Mami’s story should not have ended there. If she had just listened to Homura about the Witch, if Madoka or Sayaka had Contracted and could help her, if she had not gone into that fight distracted and happy about the future and focused more… but she didn’t. And she died.

Ever since that episode, Mami’s absence has cast a pall over everything. Madoka is understandably terrified from seeing her mentor eaten right in front of her, Sayaka was driven to imitate Mami’s lone fighter style, Kyoko got involved because she was attracted to the “open territory”, and Homura seemed to hope that it would scare off the Muggles from Contracting.

For a while, I thought that “Ok, that took me completely by surprise, but now I see what will make the girl’s Contract! Madoka will wish for Mami back, we’ll get our lovely team fighting these monsters a little more cautiously now that they know the risks but it’ll still be exciting and they will be adokrable on these missions and Sayaka will tease them for being so cute and…”. But nope, it was just the start of the Pain Train.

Kyoko Sakura

Oh jeez, has my perspective of Kyoko changed from that first scene of her looking down on the town. At first I thought she’d just be a competitor, maybe an ally of Homura. Then she spouts off her philosophy of letting Familiars go to kill people, and she supplanted Homura (who I thought planted that Hospital Grief Seed and caused Mami’s death) on my List. Urobuchi then worked his magic and made me sympathetic for a character who had so much working against her, with a backstory more tragic than Mami’s, the discovery of the true nature of Magical Girls, and her growing attraction to Sayaka even as the Ally of Justice was crumbling, all culminating in me screaming at my computer as she kisses her Soul Gem and sacrifices herself to defeat Sayaka’s Witch and save Homura and Madoka.

Kyoko, I would like to apologize. I can understand where you started from, seeing your family die in connection to your well-meaning Wish, and how you would focus on yourself after being hurt so badly. I am so proud of you, for rising from that and regaining your morals, to the point of helping out Madoka.

Homura Akemi

Homura. Homura, Homura, Homura.

I started this show convinced that you were the Big Bad, or at least an agent of them. Then, before I learned the true nature of the Incubator and thought that there was an anti-Kyubey running around causing the Witches (I can only imagine how much you lot enjoyed that, thank you so much for not spoiling me), I considered that maybe she was just trying to secure her own power, remove competition so that she is secure. Then there was the huge “Homura summons Wally-Witch to get a Super Grief Seed, cannot put down what she called up” theory that I thought would culminate as the series finale, give our main characters time to shine and teach Homura the power of Friendship.

Then the true nature of Magical Girls was revealed, and she was not surprised. Then she attempted to kill Sayaka, citing that doing so would spare Madoka pain. Then she killed the Incubator (but not really).

Then we learned that she is a time traveler.

Just… just wow. It actually makes sense. All of my crazy theories, and time travel trumps them all. She knows the truth about Magical Girls because she learned it in the previous timeline. She knows Bunnycat is a dick because it pulled all this shit before. She tried to warn the girls away from Contracting because she knew the costs, and that they would turn into Witches. She knows that Wally-Witch is coming, to the day, because that’s what happened before-

Oh! I get it now! I really get it! That Dream Vision, Homura fighting the Super Witch but losing, reaching out to Madoka… I get what happens now. Madoka arrives to see Homura is losing. She knows that with all the other MGs dead, there’s no choice. She makes the Contract with the Incubator.

And for her Wish? She Wishes for Homura to get another chance, or something along those lines. And the Incubator (who is a dick) ‘interprets’ that in the way that best suits its interests, and throws Homura into another timeline, so that they can harvest Madoka twice.

Damn it. If I understood the credits-teaser right, next episode is going to be Homura’s story. If we see this happen, Homura reaching our timeline only to try and warn people, but no-one believes her… this is going to be rough.

[thegospelofnagisa]

What's your pitch?

OOOH TELL US YOUR PITCH FOR MAGIA RECORD!!

- - - -

Nice! n_nAlright then, it’s nothing particulary complicated, let’s begin:

It’d take place in Madokami’s world and it would have to be slightly adapted to fit this setting, giving an explanation for doppels, maybe relating the rumors with the wraiths in some way…and then you begin the story of MagiReco as it is in the game, but it would focus ONLY on the main five of MagiReco, starting with Iroha as the protagonist, then she meets Nanami and the others and they begin their Puella Magi adventures, eventually they run into the Magius and they begin fighting them, they do the Sana bit, they save her from the Magius  but then….twist.

The Magius unleashes a new powerful foe against them….HOLY MAMI…and she beats the everloving fuck out of the main five….but then before the Magius can capture them, Kyouko and Homura appear to save them! They explain they come from Mitakihara looking for Mami who has gone missing and they tracked her to Kamihama City and they need their help to save her (We also take the chance for some catching up, see what Mami, Kyouko and Homura have been up to since the end of the first season and how Homura is MUCH better, even imparting some of her wisdom to the other girls).Both team up and manage to defeat Holy Mami, sever her connection to the Magius and she returns to Mitakihara with Kyouko and Homura, they do promise to help them if they need it.

Later in the season Mifuyu appears and she does her secret revealing thing splitting the group appart, leaving only Iroha and Nanami together, character development for the two girls and the other three within the Magius, some brief backstory about Mifuyu and a cameo from Alina to explain more details about the Magius…unfortunately, Yui discovers the “TRUTH” about the Magius (I say that since the game hasn’t gotten that far but….it can be filled by the anime), making the three realize their mistake and return to warn Nanami and Iroha…in a bloody struggle for escaping the Magius…that can be a sole chapter, the three of them escaping the Magius HQ or something…but finally with lots of sacrifice and maybe some cameos from other girls, they escape, they reunite with Iroha and Nanami who haven’t been idle and have made discoveries and advances on their own…the two groups reunite all they have and it is time….THE FINAL BATTLE IS UPON THEM….they’re gonna go back and finish the Magius once and for all!

Mifiyu willing to take her goals to the end, takes control of the HQ’s in Kamihama and prepares for the assault, the main five even call back Mami, Kyouko and Homura for a final battle, they storm the HQ and they have a brutal battle, unleashing their doppels and everything…until they finally meet up with Mifuyu who has gone insane, she is mad with power and has a final showdown with Nanami….here two things can happen

1): Nanami Dies in battle, Iroha unleashes her ultimate power, and together with the others defeat Mifuyu and destroy the Magius HQ.

2): Nanami “Dies”, The others fight Mifuyu…and during the battle, Nanami comes back revealing she has survived, wounds Mifuyu for Iroha to finish her up which she does.

Personaly I’d spare Nanami, there can still be stories to be told with her, but hey…it’s up to the public.Either way, they have won…the Magius is gone from Kamihama….but it still exist in other parts of the world, Alina and others are still out there, the girls bow to not let it spread more and continue the fight….AND….IT ENDS……

In a post credit scene….in another city….a Girl….Kaede…. is running from the Magius…she has apparently stolen something they want…she is wouded and she can’t escape…she is cornered by the Magius….but suddently….SHE IS SAVED by Momoko and Rena…they help her stand up and ask her if she’s ok…she says she is and begs for their help, she has something very important…and she MUST deliver it to the “White Witch”…the three join forces….and depart….. “SEASON THREE”…And hopefully many more focusing on the variosu girls from MagiReco…..But that is another story.

What do you think?

[recentanimenews]

Manga the Week of 3/24/21

SEAN: Oh no, the March winds are blowing over all the stacks of manga you have around you! Shore them up with MORE manga!

ASH: This is a solid plan.

SEAN: Airship has two print releases, The Hidden Dungeon Only I Can Enter 3 and Classroom of the Elite 7.5. They’ve also got an early digital release for Mushoku Tensei 10.

J-Novel Club has the third and final volume of The Sorcerer’s Receptionist, as well as I Refuse to Be Your Enemy! 5 and Our Crappy Social Game Club Is Gonna Make the Most Epic Game 2.

In print, Kodansha has In/Spectre 13.

ASH: I really ought to catch up on this series.

SEAN: Digitally, our debut is The Dawn of the Witch (Mahoutsukai no Reimeiki), a Shonen Sirius title about a young man with amnesia at a magic school.

There’s also Farewell My Dear Cramer 13 (the digital version is keeping that title), Harem Marriage 3, My Best () Butler 7, Watari-kun’s ****** Is about to Collapse 9, What I Love About You 4, and When We’re in Love 6.

Two debuts from Seven Seas. Magical Angel Creamy Mami and the Spoiled Princess (Mahou no Tenshi Creamy Mami: Fukigen na o Hime-sama) is an update of the classic magical girl series, a Comic Zenon title that does not star Mami but rather the spoiled princess, who is unhappy that Mami is now getting all the attention.

ANNA: I enjoy magical girls, think I would be more amused if this did focus on Mami though.

SEAN: The other is Otaku Elf (Edomae Elf), a comedy about a spoiled shrine deity who would rather stay inside, thank you. This runs in Shonen Magazine Edge.

Also from Seven Seas next week: Kingdom of Z 3, Mushoku Tensei: Roxy Gets Serious 5, Our Teachers Are Dating! 3, Rainbow and Black 2, and Species Domain 9.

ASH: I’ve been meaning to give Rainbow and Black a try – better get on that before I get too far behind!

SEAN: Two titles from Square Enix. Balan Wonderworld: Maestro of Mystery, Theatre of Wonders is a novel based on an upcoming platform game, coming out in digital format.

The other is Beauty and the Feast (Yakumo-san wa Edzuke ga Shitai), the story of a widow who can’t stop making food even after her husband has died, so she ends up feeding the teenage boy next door. This runs in Young Gangan, and is apparently one of those relaxed, mellow sort of series.

MICHELLE: I’ve kind of missed having a mellow cooking series to read, now that Sweetness & Lightning has ended.

ANNA: Might be amusing!

ASH: I’ve been looking forward to this one.

SEAN: Lots of Tokyopop next week. BL Fans LOVE My Brother?! (Kusatte mo Ani) is about a girl whose big brother locks himself in his room and draws BL doujinshi. Can she get him outside again? This one-shot ran in Mag Garden’s MAGCOMI.

This Wonderful Season with You (Subarashii Kiseki ni Yasashii Kimi to) is another BL title, from Gentosha’s Love xxx BOYS Pixiv. Nerd. Jock. Romance. Also a one-shot.

MICHELLE: The cover for this is very cute!

SEAN: And there’s a third volume of The Fox and Little Tanuki.

Yen Press moved the majority of its March titles to the last week of the month, but there’s some light novels still due out 3/23 from Yen On. The debut is Date a Live, a relatively obscure light novel series that may have gotten an anime as well, I’ll have to check. A boy is required to save the world from destructive spirits… by making them fall in love with him? It’s 22+ volumes in Japan but only just got licensed, probably because no one was really asking for it. Ow. Sorry, my mouth got cut from all the sarcasm I was using.

ASH: Oh, I hadn’t noticed!

SEAN: Also getting new volumes: Bottom-Tier Character Tomozaki 6, The Dirty Way to Destroy the Goddess’ Heroes 6 (the final volume), Goblin Slayer 11, Last Round Arthurs 4, Magical Girl Raising Project 11, So I’m a Spider, So What? 11, Suppose a Kid From the Last Dungeon Boonies Moved to a Starter Town 5, Unnamed Memory 2, and The World’s Strongest Rearguard: Labyrinth Country’s Novice Seeker 5.

Lastly, the one manga title from Yen next week is Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun 8.

ASH: I’ll be picking that one up!

SEAN: Even with Yen shifting everything one week, it’s still a fair bit. What are you getting?

By: Sean Gaffney

[onceabluemoonwrites]

Rugby, Riots and Redheads.

Fandom: Katekyo Hitman Reborn

Summary: ‘’It seemed sensible not to talk about feelings before! Just conceal, do feel, but HIDE THE CRUSH! But now I don’t know if it’s a date or not! I’m going to be awkward and embarrass myself and I hate asking you this but-‘’

‘’Tsuna-nii, please stop hyperventilating. If it means that much to you, I’ll come.’’ 

There went her Friday evening. Yuni missed her warm blankets already

High school AU

Pairings: 0027 (EnmaTsuna) and pre- BluebellYuniMami

Disclaimer: I don’t own Katekyo Hitman Reborn.

FF.net | AO3      

You can find my fic master list here.

‘’Yu, please, I’ll give anything! Just go to the game with us!’’ Tsuna tugged at his hair.

‘’You’ve done stuff with Enma plenty of time alone. Don’t sell yourself short, aniki.’’ Gently, Yuni took his hands in hers, leading them away from his abused hair.

‘’That was before he was my Almost-But-Not-Quite-Boyfriend! It seemed sensible not to talk about feelings before! Just conceal, do feel, but HIDE THE CRUSH! But now I don’t know if it’s a date or not! I’m going to be awkward and embarrass myself and I hate asking you this but-‘’ ‘’Tsuna-nii, please stop hyperventilating. If it means that much to you, I’ll come.’’ 

There went her Friday evening. Yuni missed her warm blankets already

The first five minutes of the date-not-date-haha-who’s-kidding-anyone? (Tsuna-nii wasn’t fooling anybody ever), went a little like this:

‘’So… My sister’s playing forward. If she’s put into the game, that is. She’s only a first year- maybe you share some classes? She likes science and Tsuna mentioned you did too, so…’’ Enma fiddled with his jacket. The tips of his ears were red, and he kept sneaking glances at Tsuna, sliding his hand closer every time he thought the other wasn’t looking. ‘’Oh, wait, I’m pretty sure I put the food somewhere in here-‘’ he bend over hastily as if not giving them anything right away was a crime.

Yuni covered her mouth to mask her giggles. Tsuna-nii looked at her, eyes wide with panic. You okay? She mouthed, lowering her hands.

How is he so cute?! Taking a quick look at Enma, head practically in his bag by now, Tsuna wailed silently. Yuni bit her lip, trying not to laugh, but Tsuna’s flailing made him fall off his seat, right into Enma. Who had cola bottles in his hands. Open cola bottles, apparently, because they smacked down, brown liquid drenching their clothes.

‘’Ow!’’

Yuni burst into laughter. Tsuna whined pitifully, his face buried under Enma’s arm, the rest of him draped on top of the redhead.

‘’Are- Are you okay?’’ Enma craned his neck to catch sight of Tsuna, patting his back all the while.

Tsuna shot up, turning beet red. ‘’Yes, yes! My fault! I didn’t mean to knock you over, I’m so sorry! I mean, you’ve got a really nice chest and-‘’ Realizing what he’d said, squeaked, trying to retreat into his sweater like a turtle into his shell.

Enma, half-way to getting up, stumbled to the floor again. Dazed, he raised his head. ‘’You too!’’ Cola dripped off his nose as he looked at Tsuna, flush creeping down his neck. ‘’Um. I meant. I mean. You-‘’

‘’Should probably go clean up,’’ Yuni said.

Tsuna nodded frantically and Enma began to make way through the crowd, slipping through with a surprising ease for someone whose back width was regularly mistaken for a closet.  

They’d be fine. As long as they didn’t remember they were heading to the same bathroom. Where they would be alone.

Never say Yuni didn’t have wingwoman skills. She did. She was just subtle about it. She was also pretty sure Enma had shaken those bottles because of the nerves, but some things were just fate.  Or a riot. Yes, that they certainly were.

Her smile disappeared quickly after that. She should have stayed home and watched a movie like she had planned. The crowd is far too loud, the big spotlights too bright, and there was so much colour it hurt her eyes. Hugging herself, Yuni buried her head against her knees. She couldn’t shut the roaring noise out, and I felt like the crowd was moving in on her. She wanted to go home.

No. She’d come here to help Tsuna-nii. His happiness was more than worth facing a little social exhaustion and crowd-phobia.

…But Tsuna-nii wasn’t here anymore and he and Enma had certainly looked like they were going in the right direction. No one would mind if she snuck away, right? A small first year, nobody would even notice. Looking around, Yuni sighed. Not an option. Both Enma and Tsuna would panic and it wasn’t like she had a ride home without them.

Oh- there! Her brother and his almost-but-not-quite-boyfriend where apologizing extensively as they stepped over people’s bags and knees in order to get back to their place in the stands. Yuni waved, but they didn’t seem to notice, far too caught up in each other.

They were holding hands.

They were sitting down.

They were…. Making out.

Right next to her.

Yuni was happy for her brother, but she’d rather not watch him swapping spit with his now-quite-official-boyfriend. Especially not when everyone was squeezed together already.

Focus on the field, Yuni. Keep your head in the game, that was the secret to shutting out any and all crowd-related fears and PDA. Green, the grass was green, the lights were bright and eyes on the ball. Focus. Focus. Focu-

A roar went through the audience as one of the players was taken out of the field, face twisted into a pained grimace. A teammate helped her sit down as another player on the bench stood up. She took large steps, like a predator closing in on the game.

A redhead. Probably Enma’s sister.

Yuni’s eyes widened as the girl walked out of the shade.

“She’s a goddamn boulder.” Staring at the broad shoulders, she covered her mouth, before quickly smoothing out her skirt and tucking her hair behind her ear.

Someone in the row in front of her turned around in a flurry of blue hair flying around her. “I know, right!” The girl beamed, “Bluebell, nice to meet you! Here to see Mami too?”

Yuni’s cheeks heated up. ‘’I’m here with my brother.’’

Bluebell took one look at the direction she pointed, wrinkled her nose and tugged Yuni over the row of chairs. Yuni let her.  ‘’Come on, we can share a seat. No hanky panky, better company and the greatest view of Mami’s back you’re going to get. Believe me. I watched the practice, I checked the angles.’’

Yuni couldn’t help but giggle. ‘’That sounds good to me!’’

Pretty girls would be the death of her someday. Especially with rugby, riots and redheads involved.

Author’s note

Bluebell totally came home, threw herself dramatically onto Byakuran’s bed, and went: ‘’Byaku-nii. I met my second dream woman today.’’

Byakuran, draped over the couch, hand supporting his head, eyes gleaming: ‘’Give me all the juicy details.’’

I was working on my characterization of Bluebell for a Byakuran-centric fic I’m writing, and @i-w-p-chan went: Now you made me think about BluebellYuniMami.

Me: Best. Pairing. Ever.

Then I did some choose games with the characters in mind and GUESS WHO GOT INSPIRED? (and was egged on by M-chan *grins*) Yes, that would be me. 

Also, I can’t get the idea of Bluebell as a mermaid a la H2O out of my head after that conversation with @kyokosasagawa .

[i-w-p-chan]

so, here is that Third Phase Backstage (a.k.a extra details and the fic’s background) + I.W.P-chan’s comments while writing it (all taken from my PMs to @onceabluemoonwrites also, long post is looooong): 

Do you read Hanahaki AUs? when I do, I wonder about technicalities of the AU like the mental and emotional drawbacks of the surgery. 

I’m still hung on the ‘emotional and mental drawbacks of the surgery’ I really need to find a decent post-surgery fic. all of the fics I passed focus on getting the disease, suffering through it and then being cured/dying. none of them really talks about how it would feel to wake up only to find a part of you empty from feelings. 

I’ve passed a Hanahaki AU again and it made me think. I really want a Hanahaki AU (with ‘the disease takes a couple of years before hitting critical stage’ idea) where a person A discovers they have Hanahaki and realizes who the person they have unrequited love for is, and then proceeds to court them.

why do the Hanahaki AUs have to be about gearing up to the confession? are there any out there where the one with the Hanahaki tries to court their love interest? where they try to build a relationship of romantic nature with their love interest to have a better chance with them instead of just putting on the spot with a confession?

I think that would be good?

(bonus: “You know, I used to have Hanahaki.” choke “wHAT?!”)

I truly want the Hanahaki fics I talked about (the post-surgery fic and teh courtship fic) and so my brain started to come up with an idea to mix the two of them with 0027. the two of them meet when one of them is visiting the hospital for the surgery while the other is there for a reason or the other (I haven’t decided yet), they keep meeting up even after the surgery, with the latter helping the former get over the post-surgery Feels (still don’t know what to call them) and ends up getting Hanahaki himself, deciding to court the other after he gets better.

I’m thinking Tsuna is the one who has Hanahaki and takes the surgery, Enma develops Hanahaki later.

Remember the 0027 Hanahaki AU I said I wanted to write? I’ve been thinking about it and Mami surprisingly shoved her way in (and opened up a doorway for me to use to make Tsuna and Enma interact. but this threw a shade of Anyone Can Have Hanahaki in the fic)

Support groups for people with Hanahaki are a thing. Mami also has Hanahaki, she’s in love with her friend who is aromantic, this friend is the one who convinced her to join a support group. there, Mami meets Tsuna who is already half-convinced to take the surgery. Tsuna’s choice to do it convinces her to do it herself. that’s how Enma meets Tsuna: Mami insists on visiting Tsuna the day before the surgery (and then many times after the surgery) and Enma takes her. some time later, when it’s Mami’s turn for the surgery, it’s Tsuna’s turn to visit. Mami successfully undergoes the surgery, Tsuna is around helping her get back to her feet, and Enma realizes ‘holy shit I love him’ (let’s give Enma kudos for hiding the fact he has Hanahaki from two people who had it before and his own family).

the fic is probably going to contrast three cases (Tsuna: hopeless, unrequited love, object of affection never considered him in a romantic light and not even around anymore, possibly via either death or traveling. Mami: hopeless, unrequited love, object of affection is aromantic but is highly supportive of her and cares deeply about her, is there every step pf the way towards the surgery and after. Enma: not hopeless, unrequited love, object of affection is around and on good terms with him, possibility of having his love requited). if I can do the contrast in my writing.

if I wanted to slip in any mafia/Vongola-related things into it and had the chance, this is what happened with the Vongola: Nono goes senile some years before Tsuna is born and decides to step down and give the boss position to Enrico (this is the reason the mafia as a whole declared Timoteo senile, like, who in their right mind would put ENRICO in charge?), Enrico digs a bit into Vongola history and finds out about the Shimon. he is hit with Feels and decides to renew the Vongola-Shimon connections (”let me enjoy a new OTP pseudo-getting together” in reference to GiottoCozart). Deamon tries to pull some shit but Enrico is fueled by shipping power (and ship hate, eh’s still smarting from those Deamon/Ricardo shippers okay?) and successfully gets rid of Deamon. no one really wants to know how it happened.

(and there, right there, is clearly all the evidence needed to tell you that all the madness comes from the mafia. just look at how different the mafia half and the hanahaki half are)

How gay do you think Enma is for Tsuna? if I can do it in the narrative flow, Enma’s first thought about Tsuna in Third Phase will be: ‘that guy has Hanahaki? who wouldn’t want THAT?’ like, Enma, tone it down, you’re making me want to put it in when I’m not sure if I’ll be able to fit it in

(extra: Enma’s inner Mami would metaphorically bash him on the head right after those thoughts, “Hanahaki is about ROMANTIC love not lust!” Enma’s reaction thoughts are like “but two years are enough to grow to love someone, right? right.” it would be a nice foreshadowing for when Enma gets Hanahaki himself.)

me: how should I write Third Phase? me: Enma sees Tsuna and basically goes ‘well, fuck me’ what more do you need?

me @ self: Third Phase is supposed to be about the contrast between the various Hanahaki cases! not about Enma falling in love with Tsuna! self: AHAHAHAHAHA self: you innocent child. give in to the 0027. you know you want to. me: ...damn... you... gah.

I made kind of a differentiation between how far along Tsuna, Mami and Enma are in their Hanahaki. Enma stays in the early stages before it’s gone, so he doesn’t cough a lot of times, OR a lot of petals. not much blood and no flowers. breathing is only slightly labored. Mami is in the middle stages, coughs regularly during the day but not with a lot of petals (and the occasional flower) and blood, gets bad episodes from time to time where she basically coughs too much and ends up vomiting. her breathing gets labored easily but not enough that she ends up winded after a 5 or 10 minute walk. Tsuna is in the final stages with the worse condition, he coughs a lot with a lot of petals/flowers and blood. must take care to do things carefully and to not strain himself else he’ll have episodes just as bad as Mami’s but on more regular basis, his voice is quiet and hoarse as a result.

I really wanted to expand a bit on the Hanahaki to incorporate it in a more... detached? fashion. like, not focusing on handling the hanahaki like the other fics I read (either by character death or confession-then-discovery-of-mutual-love), but do EVERYTHING except confessing. Tsuna is in the most dangerous state between the three (a bad enough episode with no one around to get him help and he’ll be gone) but he doesn’t die, his love-interest is the one who is ALREADY dead. Mami has no chance even if she confessed because her love interest is Aro. Enma doesn’t confess and decides to take matters into his own hands by wooing his love interest.

Enma is lost like, ‘I want to text Cute Guy but how do I do that? how do you text people you think are cute? what is texting? he’s currently agonizing on the couch. Mami is not there to laugh at him, at least. small mercies.

*coughgooglehowdoyoutextcuteguys?cough*

there is now a Tsuna protection squad. Mami is in it adn Enma wonders where he can sign up.

also, Enma is Gone. he keeps being swung about two extremes ‘is he smitten or is this just a passing crush’ he doesn’t know and neither does the author.

on a scale of 1000 to 1000,000, how much do you think Tsuna’s friends will mind if Tsuna dragged Enma to his bedroom for cuddles post-surgery

I don’t know how to write post-surgery!Tsuna. Hibari and Mukuro are clearly the Harbingers of Crack. Things Escalate (That’s What You Call Jumping On A guy You’ve Only Met Last Week And Demanding Cuddles). new definition of being petty: someone sends you cookies that suck and you give all of them to that someone’s love interest. Enma discovers hidden maternal instincts of ‘I MUST FEED HIM’

Hanahaki Fic, I.W.P-chan Style

*squints at screen* is this what they call romance fiction?

help what is even romance fiction I don’t know how to write anymore and the supposed cuddle session doesn’t even happen it moves onto talk about how bad Mami’s cookies were which moves onto talk about Fuuta and holy hell I had no idea that when I popped Mami in as a way to link Tsuna and Enma that she would be ENMA’s link in, and that TSUNA’s link in would be FUUTA. just like Enma is a Concerned Big Brother and is Very Glad his sister has Tsuna in her life, Tsuna is Very Glad his brother’s friend’s family doesn’t hold a grudge against him for Mami’s Hanahaki.

holy shit me, why is this so detailed you need to focus more on Tsuna’s post-surgery state isn’t that one half of why you wanted to write the fic in the first place?

have I mentioned how dramatic Enma is being? also, teh saying ‘tthe way to a man’s heart is through his stomach’ holds true for him. and apparently, mama Kozato’s cooking is heavenly while papa Kozato’s coffee is to die for. adn I just wrote 500 words starring hungry!Enma promising his soul over for Tsuna in gratitude for the food. help?

I just realized that in Third Phase, Enma lowkey has hints of a sister complex stemming from the attempted murder on her when she was little... it explains so fucking much...

500 words later and how much more Smitten can Enma fucking be?????!!!!! I’m serious, I thought the conversation on the first not-very-official date would be awkward but Enma went for the fucking jugular and semi-confessed and I’m trying to keep up with how fast things are going. I wonder why the heck things/places that appear once before in the fic get to reappear. and Enma flipped a fucking switch: once he realized that he was in love with Tsuna he can no longer go a page without reiterating the fact and being smitten over Tsuna.

I’m just... I’m just suffering. quietly. while writing in a fucking rush while trying to keep up.

I wanted Tsuna and Enma to take their time. maybe at least take a month before Tsuna realized what Enma felt for him. but nOPE. it’s all Enma’s fault. you just don’t tell someone what he said to Tsuna and look at them the same way and expect them not to realize that there’s something not exactly platonic happening.

I thought the visit to Shimon Island will go by pretty uneventful but guESS WHAT? ENMA AND TSUNA TOLD ME TO GO FUCK MYSELF AND PROCEEDED TO PLAY IN THE WATER AND LEAD UP TO MOMENTS(TM) AND NOW WE’RE ABOUT TO HAVE TSUNA WEARING ENMA’S CLOTHES APPROX AT LEAST SIX MONTHS EARLIER THAN I EXPECTED.

F R I C K

I’m reading what I last wrote for Third Phase and I found out that I can’t write pining for shit...

while writing Third Phase, i keep getting flashes of ‘am I reaching the end at last?’ but then the fic goes ‘SIKE we still have more to go’

holy shit. wait. wait. wait. am I actually... really truly about to write the ending scene? *kneels on the floor* oh my god I though it was going to drag on some more.

I... I... excuse me while I sob as I write the final scene...

how much of a bad author would I be if I told you that I never intended to write the entirety of 0027 dating and the moment Enma’s hanahaki fades away and that I decided from the start that the final scene will be post-time skip post-Enma’s hanahaki recovery with established 0027?

[weekendwarriorblog]

The Weekend Warrior 4/30/21: SEPARATION, LIMBO, THE OUTSIDE STORY, WITHOUT REMORSE, ABOUT ENDLESSNESS and More

Everyone recovering from the Oscars? I’m certainly not, but trying hard, especially cause I gotta jump RIGHT into the Emmys cause the nomination process begins in just six weeks… WTF?! Well, if it’s any consolation, I plan on continuing to include my thoughts on box office as things seem to be slowly getting back to some semblance of normalcy.

There aren’t a ton of new wide theatrical releases this week, at least not many particularly high-profile ones. Open Road/Briarcliff, one of the first studios to begin releasing movies during the pandemic with Liam Neeson’s Honest Thief and The Marksman, neither which grossed more than $15 million domestically, is the only studio taking on the 2nd weekends of Mortal Kombat and Demon Slayer.

eThis week, they release William Brent Bell's supernatural thriller SEPARATION (Open Road/Briarcliff), which stars Rupert Friend as Jeff, a failed comic book artist, whose wife Maggie (Mamie Gummer) wants a divorce and is fighting for custody of their daughter Jenny (Violet McGraw) in said divorce, before she's killed in a hit and run. That leaves Jeff and Jenny alone in their brownstone with Maggie’s father (Brian Cox) wanting to take Jenny away, and...oh, yeah, the vengeful ghost of Maggie causing all sorts of trouble.

Before we get to my review, which I wasn’t able to run until Thursday anyway, let’s talk about box office. We’re coming off one of the best weekends at the box office since the pandemic hit with both Mortal Kombat and Demon Slayer opening with over $21 million each. While I don’t expect Separation to have much of an effect on either, there’s no denying that both movies are very likely to be frontloaded, and I would be surprised if either of the movies has less than 55% drop-of from opening, but I think Mortal Kombat may stay ahead for a second weekend at #1 with around $10 million. I’d put Demon Slayer at closer than $9.5 million.

I’m not sure how many theaters Open Road will get for Separation, although theaters chains should be grateful to them for taking a chance on movies back in the fall when New York and L.A. were yet to reopen. I think it may be able to swing close to 2,000 theaters and that should be enough for it to do around $4 million this weekend, which would be better than Screen Gems’ The Unholy a few weeks back. I wouldn’t expect good reviews or a CinemaScore above a C-, so it’ll act like most horror movies and will probably will end up in the $12 million total domestic gross.

So let’s get to that review of Separation, which looks like your typical cliché-ridden horror movie, because guess what? It is!! Bell is a perfectly capable filmmaker, but somehow, he keeps directing complete horror schlock like last year’s very bad Brahms: The Boy 2. I have to assume his Orphan prequel next year isn’t going to be much better. It’s another classic case of white male filmmaker failing upwards, because he keeps getting movies to direct after every bad previous movie.

We meet young Jenny as she's talking to her creepy dolls while her parents fight, and when Jenny falls, it’s the last straw for Maggie who files for divorce with her lawyer father really putting the screws to Jeff. To be honest, Maggie is such a bitch that you don’t really feel much sympathy when she’s suddenly dead. Her father has no sympathy for Jeff and just wants to get Jenny away from him. During this time, Jeff starts getting work as a comic book artist, and while references to the Eisners and Maus are certainly entertaining, there’s another part of the movie that just gets the whole “comic book artist lifestyle” pretty wrong.

The thing is no one will come into Separation for most of that stuff, which is why one wonders why Bell would spend so much time on the family drama aspect of the movie while throwing in a few occasional scares, mostly of the variety we’re used to seeing in “ghost movies” these days, complete with the “bendy bone” apparition, in this case with a creepy clown face.

Even though the cast is good, especially the adorable Violet McGraw, who is constantly stealing scenes from her more experienced co-stars, there is just too much about the movie that makes you laugh, and not deliberately. Besides the odd overall portrayal of the comic book business, there’s also Jeff’s adoring babysitter Samantha (Madeline Brewer from A Handmaid’s Tale), who starts making overtures towards him despite their obvious age difference.

Then every once in a while, we get a creepy scene like Jeff’s experience on a subway or we see a black robed ghost that represents Jeff’s angry wife, and the whole way through this, you can’t help but think, “Boy, Mamie Gummer was lucky to get hit by a car early on, so she wouldn't have to be here for the rest of the movie.”

It all leads to a last act where the movie suddenly starts to get good then throws an absolutely horrible twist at the viewer that just doesn’t work. That and all of the many horror clichés that pervade the movie just makes this an awkward and disjointed mess that never really manages to define itself from dozens of similarly bad horror movies.

Another movie getting some sort of of moderate to wide-ish release is Ben Sharrock’s LIMBO (Focus Features), which was recently nominated for a couple BAFTA film awards. It stars Amir El-Masry as Omar, a Turkish refugee in a dreary Scottish seaside farming village, who is just trying to make his way surrounded by other refugees.

Every once in a while -- like every other movie -- Focus Features releases a movie that I just don’t get why they’re bothering with, and here is one of those quirky movies that I feel will appeal to a very small niche audience. I have no idea how many theaters Focus might get this into, but this would be a platform New York and L.A. platform release at best in the “before times,” so trying to put this into more than 100 theaters is just asking for a lot of near empty rooms. Facts are facts.

I guess I can say a few words about this, even though I don’t have much to say. It’s certainly strange -- not necessarily witty or even laugh-out-loud funny -- and that doesn’t exactly make it very good. The main actor has the charisma of a piece of cardboard, so he struggles to get the audience really behind him. Most of the time he spends interacting with other characters and talking on a remote payphone in the middle of nowhere to his mother and father back in Turkey.

Oddly, this movie reminded me of the movie Lemon for some reason -- maybe the four letters in common?-- and as “luck” would have it, two of the actors appear in ANOTHER movie opening this week -- how’s that for a strange coincidence? It might be due to the couple of Helga and Boris who are teaching the refugees on Western ways, including an opening dance sequence that’s actually a class titled “Sex: Is A Smile An Invitation?” (Spoiler: It’s not.) They are generally more interesting than any of the refugee characters, which probably wasn’t Sharrock’s intention. The refugee performances are just kind of dry and non-dynamic, and that’s a real hindrance in getting the audience to empathize with them.

To Sharrock’s credit, Limbo never goes to some of the more obvious places in terms of putting Omar in a romance, and it only starts paying off in the last act when we get an emotional moment between Omar and his brother, and we finally get to see him playing the “oud” (a Turkish lute, of sorts), which he’s supposed to be a master of. Otherwise, the movie just seems to drive home the obvious, that life sucks for refugees, and that’s about it.

Limbo isn’t a terrible movie, but it’s just so bland and disjointed and even somewhat generic for so much of it that even the eventual payoff doesn’t necessarily win you over.

Also getting a theatrical release this weekend is Chinese auteur Zhang Yimou’s latest film, CLIFF WALKERS (CMC Pictures), which I tried to get a screener for but sadly, too late to review it. It’s a spy thriller about four Chinese special agents who embark on a secret mission to the puppet state of Manchukuo in the ‘30s. It stars Zhang Yi, Yu Hewei, Qin Hailu and Zhu Yawen, and I wouldn’t be surprised if CMC gets this into 200 or 300 screens. With very little promotion here in the States, I don’t expect this to make much of a mark here.

Apparently, Terrence Howard also has a new movie out this week called TRIUMPH, in which he co-stars with RJ Mitte from Breaking Bad and is directed by Brett Leonard. Apparently it’s only in Cinemark Theaters, and it’s inspired by Michael D. Coffey’s true story with Mitte playing a high school senior who tries to be a wrestler despite having cerebral palsy.

Also if you’re looking for something to see in theaters, Edgar Wright’s Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is finally getting its 10th anniversary re-release in theaters this weekend, including Dolby Theaters for the first time. That’s what I’m doing on Sunday with my movie pals, Erica and Mike Streeter.

Another movie getting a limited theatrical release is Roy Andersson’s ABOUT ENDLESSNESS (Magnet), the latest from the auteur king of Swedish existentialism, which will also be available via virtual cinema as well as in those select theaters.

I’m not quite sure what to say about Andersson’s latest, because I’ve never really understood the appeal even as other film critics rave about movies like A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence and You, The Living and others. Like those, Andersson seems to specialize in disparate episodic segments about random characters that seem to have absolutely no connection. In this case, there’s a priest who has lost his faith who is first shown dragging a cross up a hill as onlookers barely batting an eye that turns out to be a nightmare.

If you think the movie is going to spend any time following this priest’s struggle, you obviously don’t know Andersson, because instead, we keep being introduced to different characters from a bored woman’s voice-over, every once in a while cutting to a couple floating over the city for no apparent reason. Every once in a while, a few words are spoken but then we’re off to the next vignette.

Sorry, but I have very little time to watch a movie that doesn’t seem to have any interest in plot or story, two of the most important things for any movie in my book, and believe me, this is not the first time I’ve tried to give Andersson a chance because a few hundred cinephiles can’t be wrong, can they?

Yes, in fact, they can and they are, because the almost-80-year-old Andersson is the type of filmmaker who will continue along with this super-niche audience enjoying his quirky non-sequiturs that I just find super dull and pointless.

The latest movie based on a Tom Clancy novel is TOM CLANCY’S WITHOUT REMORSE, which begins streaming via Amazon Prime Video starting Friday. It stars Michael B. Jordan as Navy Seal John Kelly, who has a mission go South in Aleppo, Syria, and when he comes home, he becomes a target for Russian Nationalist soldiers who end up killing his wife. In order to find those responsible, Kelly is pulled into a mission by CIA Agent Robert Ritter (Jamie Bell) and fellow Seal Karen Greer (Jodie Turner-Smith from Queen and Slim) to go after those responsible for his wife’s death only to discover a plot to try to put America and Russia back at war.

Before you get to my review, you can read my interview with director Stefano Sollima over at Below the Line.

So let’s get in this. I’m by no means any sort of Tom Clancy fan, neither of the books nor the movies, not that I haven’t tried, at least with the movies, as I haven’t read any of the books, nor have I gotten around to watching John Krasinski’s Jack Ryan yet, but other than the Harrison Ford movies, nothing has really gotten me very interested in the “Ryanverse”... so WIthout Remorse and join the list of not-particularly-interesting movies based on Clancy books.

It’s certainly not Michael B. Jordan’s fault, since he’s a great lead, and I even thought Sollima did a decent job particularly with the bigger action set pieces that would have been great to see on the big screen rather than on a television set.

I guess part of it is that I really didn’t have any particular interest in knowing more about the John Clark character from the Clancy movies I have seen to see his origins modernized and pulled out of the ‘80s Cold War in which Clancy very deliberately set them vs. the modern political world with everything happening overseas.

Part of my problem is that I just didn’t really care for Jodie Turner-Smith as a soldier with her beautiful hair shaved off, as I just didn’t think she could pull off the toughness that one expects from a soldier of Greer’s status, especially after seeing her in Queen and Slim. I know I’ve seen Jamie Bell in things I’ve liked and better than he is in this movie, which seems to be him basically phoning it in as a character who should have far more layers.

I guess when it comes down to it, we do have to blame Sollina for not working from a stronger script, even though this movie has been in development for over a decade, but it’s also not too surprising after watching it why Paramount Pictures figured it would make more money selling it off to Amazon than releasing it theatrically.

Essentially, Without Remorse is another action-thriller with lots of bullets and explosions that still comes across as exceedingly dull and bland. Surely, Clancy’s books must be better than this to have built such a fanbase over the years.

Opening digitally and for download is Casimir Nozkowski’s THE OUTSIDE STORY (Samuel Goldwyn Films), starring the great Brian Tyree Henry, recently seen in Godzilla Vs. Kong, as editor and filmmaker Charles Young, who is getting over his break-up with his girlfriend Isha (Sonequa Martin-Greents) when he gets locked out of his apartment building. As he tries to get back in, he (and we) meet all sorts of strange and funny characters who may or may not help him.

I ended up really liking this movie a lot, because as with most of his characters, Henry creates a really likeable hero for us, and Nozkowski gives him a great story to really explore a lot more areas of humor than we get to see him do in most movies. This is pretty much a straight up comedy of errors, but it also offers quite a bit of poignancy through Charles’ interactions with various neighbors and them commenting on how he misses his girlfriend. (He broke up with her because she confessed to making out with another woman.) Oddly, I can relate to a lot of what Charles goes through, which definitely helped me connect more with his character.

Nozkowski’s fun script managed not only to get Henry on board, but also the likes of the great Sunita Mani as a beat cop writing up cars whose meters have expired and Matthew Maher, who you’ve seen in everything. The only real weak link as far as the ensemble was young Olivia Edward, who just isn’t up to the other actors in terms of the humor. I can understand why Nozkowski would want to include a young girl in the movie as one of Charles’ neighbors but that was my least favorite part of the film.

Otherwise, The Outside Story is a wonderful and lovely indie, showing off Brian Tyree Henry’s terrific range as a genuinely likable character, and I guess that makes it my favorite movie of this particular week.

Another movie opening this via streaming this week is Dave Grohl’s WHAT DRIVES US, which will be available via something called “The Coda Collection,” which I really have no idea what that is, and unfortunately, I also didn’t get to see this, because I’m sure I would have liked it as much as Grohl’s previous docs and the HBO series Sonic Highways. If I do find time to watch it, maybe I’ll add a few thoughts in an upcoming column.

Hitting Disney+ on Friday is the Soul prequel short, 22 Vs. EARTH, directed by Pixar editor Kevin Nolting, who I also interviewed. It features Tina Fey voicing her lead character from Soul, 22, and it takes place before she meets Joe Gardner as she’s trying to find a few young souls to help her in her boycott of going to Earth rather than remaining in the Great Before. It’s fun and quick (just six minutes) but it’s cute, and something obviously only meant for those who want to know more about her Soul character.

A movie I missed when it was released back in late February but will be available on DVD this week is Nicholas Jarecki’s CRISIS, a tense ensemble thriller about a different pandemic, the rise in opioid addiction and the huge criminal (and legal pharmaceutical) industry that feeds that addiction to the tune of billions of dollars a year. It features an impressive cast that includes Gary Oldman, Armie Hammer, Greg Kinnear, Evangeline Lilly, Lily-Rose Depp, and Michelle Rodriguez, and it’s a really strong dramatic thriller that reminded me a bit of Steven Soderbergh’s Traffic.

I have a feeling that all the issues Hammer was facing around the time (and still) may have prevented Jarecki’s movie from getting much publicity, but Hammer plays one of the three main characters, so if his presence bothers you, I can’t really do much about that. Hopefully that doesn’t put you off learning about a very serious situation facing many families, and Jarecki takes a tough situation and manages to explore it with a decent and entertaining movie. I also thought Lilly was fantastic as a mother trying to get over her own addiction when her son dies seemingly of an opiate overdose. She doesn’t believe it, so she starts her own investigation.(Hammer's federal agent also deals with a family member addicted to opiates, in this case his sister played by Lily Rose-Depp. Of course, Oldman is always great, and that’s the case here, too. It’s just another intense drama from the director of 2012’s Arbitrage that goes as far and deep into the topic of opioid addiction as that movie did with the stock market.

Also on digital this week is Michael Loven’s dark comedy-thriller MURDER BURY WIN (Gravitas Ventures) about three close friends trying to make a game, and it’s quite witty and entertaining. Also out digitally this week is Michael Parks Randa and Lauren Smitelli’s inclusive summer musical, BEST SUMMER EVER (Freestyle Digital Media), which is also kicking off this week’s ReelAbilities Film Festival on Thursday.

The new Apple TV+ series THE MOSQUITO COAST will also debut on that streamer service on Friday, while the very entertaining animated feature THE MITCHELLS VS. THE MACHINES, which I reviewed last week will stream on Netflix starting on Friday, as well.

This week also sees the start of the 50th Anniversary New Directors New Films at Film and Lincoln Center and MOMA (Museum of Modern Art), which I wrote about a few weeks ago, but unfortunately, there really isn’t much in there that interests me, so I haven’t seen anything.

Movies that I just wasn’t able to get to this week, mostly available digitally:

DUTY FREE (This is actually opening for a one week preview at New York’s reopened IFC Center)

WILDCAT (Saban Films)

THE RESORT (Vertical)

PERCY vs. GOLIATH (Saban Films/Paramount)

THE VIRTUOSO (Lionsgate)

FOUR GOOD DAYS (Vertical Entertainment)

GOLDEN ARM (Utopia Films)

That’s it for this week. I always feel a sigh of relief when I actually get to sit down and write this column, and I’m actually able to finish it. It feels like a bit of a pyrrhic victory, but I’m still not quite up to where I was last year in terms of watching and reviewing. We’ll see if things improve this summer. The next few weeks are absolutely slammed with new movies, too, because even though Black Widow has been delayed until July, there are a ton of movies still being released. Next week, the latest from Guy Ritchies, Wrath of Man, reuniting him with Jason Statham.

[takerfoxx]

Magia Record, Season 2, Episode 2, "You’re Nothing Like Me," First Impressions!

God, going back to this show is so weird.

Okay, full disclosure!

While I certainly enjoyed the first season, I wasn't as invested as I was with some of the other stuff that I've reviewed. And it's been so long since the first season finished up and I haven't revisited it since, so might've sort of forgotten a lot of the supporting characters, and will probably have to relearn a lot of stuff going forward. Like, it wasn't until the very end of the episode that I remembered Iroha getting dragged away into that pit and was like, "Wait, did something happen to her?"

ANYWAY!

Here we pick up where things left off. Much like the original show slowly shifted focus from Madoka's story to Homura's, Yachiyo is shifting into main character status. And like her spiritual predecessor Homura Akemi, she has had quite enough of everyone's bullshit and is now relentless. However, despite all the comparisons, there is one striking difference between her and Homura.

Homura never had anyone until one single special person came into her life, and then that person was taken from her, leading to her obsessive mission to keep going back and find a way to save that person from her fate.

Yachiyo has had several important people in her life, people she was close to, and all of them were taken from her, as noted by that rather poignant intro scene about the dissolution of her original idol unit transitioning to her sorrowfully putting Iroha's cup in the Dead Friends Cupboard. Yachiyo is something of an anomaly, an older magical girl who has survived longer than most, and has seen more tragedy as a result. And she's mad as hell and isn't going to take it anymore. And since the Wings of Magius is responsible for her losing her current group of friends, with Iroha presumed having been killed with the fight with Mami and the others having been absorbed into their ranks, she has a powerful need to speak to the manager.

If she can find her.

The Wings of Magius are very interesting. On the one hand, the discovery of the Doppels is nothing short of a miracle, a way to cleanse soul gems without needing to hunt down witches. Like, it's a win-win, right? Just spawn enough of your witch, one that you can even control, and then dissolve it, freeing you from that negative energy buildup. I was even wondering why they were considered the bad guys, and theorized that there's something nasty going on behind this.

Well, there is. I'm still not sure why Doppels need Uwasa to function, but they do, and Uwasa need the sacrifice of innocent people to function. And like witches, Uwasa are probably also made from magical girls, like with what we saw happening to Mami, and later to Iroha. But at the same time, I can't really fault those who have joined them. I mean, these kids are desperate. They're trapped in an inherently exploitive system that destroys them by design and need a way out, which the WoM gives to them, thereby filling their ranks with the weak and the scared, as Mifuyu pointed out. And considering the sort of thing going on in the world right now, that's strangely topical, with the only difference is that the WoM can actually deliver the goods. You just have to swear yourself to a psuedo-fascist cult that disposes of innocent people in order to do so.

But things are also breaking down behind the scenes. From the look of things, Nemu, one of Ui's friends from the hospital that we saw in flashbacks, is the main force behind the Uwasa, but she apparently made too many or something of the sort, and one has escaped her control, or that's what I gathered. And anime-original character and former ally of Iroha Kuroe is sent to deal with the problem.

I think.

Look, it's been a while. I'm putting this together as I go along.

Anyway, there's some chasing with Yachiyo finding her and wanting her to to take her to the WoM's floating headquarters, Mifuyu gets involved, mini-Kyubey shows up to make Kuroe's life difficult, and Yachiyo and Mifuyu proceed to have a pretty kick-ass fight, in which Yachiyo again unleashes her Doppel and just dominates. I still think it looks ridiculous, but it looks less ridiculous here than it did the last time we saw it. And it's here that we learn another drawback of the Doppels, in that it's pretty easy to succumb to the enslaved witch's negative emotions and be consumed by them.

But yeah, Mifuyu splits, Kuroe gets left behind thanks to mini-Kyubey, and then the Uwasa she had been tasked to find shows up, and wouldn't you know it, it was made from Iroha.

I should probably go watch those recap episodes.

[classicallyelegant]

I have brought about a helping hand......lol Maxey and Matt are attempting to help Alejandro and Joe! This should get interesting, right?  Let’s hope it does!

FANTASY COMES TO THE RESCUE

Once I left Matt and Russ, I went home. I still don’t exactly understand how I ended up there. I was wondering and somehow, Matt recognized me and….things went from there. Matt did say he and Maxey were neighbors before…..maybe I was unconsciously trying to find her. I want to see her! I want to fall apart in her arms!

When I got in, Antonio heard me and came into my room. He put his finger to his lips to tell me Mami and Papi were asleep. “Hermano, where have you been? Do you even realize how late it is?” I look over and the clock blinks one in the morning.

“I didn’t realize. Sorry!” I start to undress to get into bed, but he stops me before I go to the bathroom.

“What is up with you? You’re not acting right and you’re not getting out until you tell me why!”

“I don’t want to talk about this right now! I have to sleep because I have a show to record for later.” I try to walk past him, but he pulls me back.

“Out with it, hermano! ¡Ahora! You tell me now, or I will go wake them up and listen as you try to explain to them!”

“Tonio, that’s not fair! I’m tired and I want to try to sleep!”

“OK, you go to the bathroom, but I’m not leaving, so you better think of a good story!” He’s in one of his over-protective moods I see. Great! With everything going on tonight, I don’t need this added to the pile! I go rinse off and come back to find him sitting on my bed. >sigh< Guess I have to tell him! “You ready to tell me now?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“Not really! I can tell something is wrong, Alex. You can’t expect me to read your mind though!”

“Hermano, I know you’re looking out for me. I get that but some things are just hard for me to tell you.”

“I’m your brother! You can tell me anything!” He brings me down on the bed beside him and puts his arm around my shoulders. For as long as I can remember, Antonio has always been the big brother I could count on. He had my back so many times! I really could tell him anything and he listened and helped me if he could. Now that I’m older, I feel guilty relying on him so much, but he always finds a way to get me to talk to him.

“Ok hermano….>sigh< I was out with one of my old friends…you remember Joe?”

“The guy who has been in love with you since high school? Yeah, I remember!”

“You knew!?!?!”

“Alex, he didn’t exactly hide that fact. I remember he used to watch you constantly. You got in trouble, he felt bad. You won an award, he celebrated right with you. He used to spend more time around you than he did at home.”

“Well, I sure didn’t see things that way! He was my friend.”

“Was? Did something happen tonight?”

“Like I said I went out with him. We ate then he said he had a place close by and asked me to come over. He was telling me about this video game, so I went to play. He got up and came back and threw himself at me! I was shocked!”

“Slow down, slow down! He came on to you and you had no idea of how he felt about you?”

“NONE! I thought I was playing a video game with my friend that I hadn’t seen in a while.”

He covers a laugh but then he clears his throat. “Hermano, you are so innocent sometimes!”

“Whatever! I told him I was in love with Maxey. I thought telling him that would end all of this but it didn’t! He says he wants to meet her to see his competition!”

“Oh Alex! Of course he wants to if he sees her as a threat! What were you thinking?!”

“I don’t know! I panicked at everything going on! I didn’t mean to tell him that but I blurted it out when he told me he could ‘relieve my loneliness’.” Antonio really starts laughing then. I go to get up, but he pulls me back.

“OK, OK, I’m sorry for laughing! I see this is a serious matter to you. Pero Estupido! You don’t tell someone that is in love with you that you are in love with someone else! That’s just rude!”

“I didn’t know what to tell him! I didn’t expect any of this to happen!”

“Alright….so that was where you were tonight?”

“No, not entirely. He got mad at me I think, and I left. I don’t know how but I ended up going to Matt and Russ’ restaurant and I told them what happened.”

“You saw Matt outside of work?! You dog! Man! I wish I could have been there!”

“Tonio, that wasn’t the point! Matt says he will talk to Maxey and they will help me out of this mess. I wasn’t thinking very well but I grabbed him and begged him to let me see her. All he said was he will talk to her.”

“You? You grabbed Matt? Now I REALLY wish I could’ve been there! I miss all the good stuff! But you never saw Maxey?”

“No, he said Rod had taken her home and she was most likely asleep.”

“You and the messes you get yourself into. I guess it’s a good thing that he will help you out. Matt is a good guy, I could tell when I saw him. Maxey is also quite exceptional herself. This should all work out soon. I don’t think Joe will be very hard to shake, but he has been in love with you for a while, Alex.”

“I didn’t see that at all! It was all out of left field to me. When I first saw him, I was trying to get away from Katie. I was relieved to see Joe, but then he did that and I didn’t where to turn.”

“Katie is still hot after you?”

“Yes, and Matt told me that he and Maxey were led to believe that something was going on between Katie and me. I told him that was not even possible!”

“Katie told them that?”

“Apparently she hinted at it. I came up on all of them laughing when our work was over. She told me to meet her and she wanted to go out to eat but I got mad so I left but she came behind me until she saw me talking to Joe.”

“To be young and popular!” Antonio picks his head up in his best hero pose.

“Don’t try to be funny!” I hit him with my pillow. “I’ve got to sleep now!”

“And you must look pretty for your fans tomorrow!” He ducks my second pillow and goes out. My brother! I love him even when he rags on me! I try to sleep but almost every time I doze, I see Joe and his bathrobe or Maxey trying her best to comfort me. It’s another restless night for me!

When I finally manage to get up, it’s after 10. The house is quiet and I go to see everyone is gone, but Mami left my breakfast in the oven. I smile as I eat and try to focus on how to handle things for the day. I’m hoping I get to see Maxey. I’m not sure that Matt even told her though. He would like to keep her away from me, so when I need them, it wouldn’t surprise me if he conveniently forgot. After eating, I get dressed and head on out. Derek said to be there as soon as possible but no real time. I know the script I saw was full, but I don’t really have much to get into. It’s more the other characters.

I have to walk again as the bus had people staring at me again! That gets old and so uncomfortable! I don’t understand why girls especially keep doing that even when I turn away to say that I don’t want that attention. Do they really not understand it or is it that they just don’t want to? Either way, it only annoys me! I get up to the studio doors and I hear my name.

“Alex! Hey, Alex! Over here!” Joe is beside the door. Oh no! Do I answer him? Should I just pretend I don’t hear him? PANIC! Before I decide, he comes and brings me to the side with him. “Alex, I need to talk to you!”

“Joe, what are you doing here?”

“I wanted to see you. I didn’t want to leave things like last night.” He touches my face but I jerk away. “Alex, don’t shut me out!”

“Says the guy who ran to his bedroom when he didn’t get his way last night!”

“You think I’m being childish, do you? You’re the one who can’t see a fire right in front of his own face!”

“Chip away at me all you like! You’re only making it easier to walk away from you!” I try to step around him.

“No! Don’t!” He has my arm and his head down. “Don’t just walk away from me. I didn’t mean to scare you last night. I was shocked to even find you again and I let my emotions run amuck after I did. I was so happy to see you and you looked so handsome…..I let things get too heavy too soon.”

“Why, Joe? I thought all this time we were friends and then you come out of nowhere after me.”

“You think it was out of nowhere? UGH Alex! You still don’t seem to understand! I’ve always been attracted to you….even before I realized what it was. You were why I joined theater! You were also why I left!”

“Me? I didn’t make you do anything! I certainly didn’t ask you to leave!”

“I didn’t say you did but I had to get away from you if you wouldn’t see me. No one seemed to hold your attention for long and my heart couldn’t take it, so I had to leave!”

“What are you even talking about? You know what, nevermind!” I put my hand up and move towards the door. “I’ve got other things to look after right now, so you can keep running!” I finally get in and just leave him outside. I look back to see him looking so defeated. I was too harsh! I feel bad but I don’t understand what he’s going on about….besides, I’ve got work to do!

I walk to my booth and I hear voices. Is that her? I open the door and there she is! That’s all I see….her standing there glowing! I’m speechless in the presence of this goddess! I take her hand but I can’t stand it any longer and I throw myself on her. She’s finally here! “Maxey, you came! I’m so….I can’t believe….thank goodness you came!”

“Alejandro, you sound like you doubted I would.” She holds me so lightly. “When Matt told me, we both came to see if we could help you, but we need you to tell us how.”

“I didn’t doubt you. I could NEVER doubt you!” I am so happy to be near her! “I just wondered about Matt telling you. I should have never questioned you, Matt! I apologize! I’m so relieved to see you both here!” He didn’t forget! He speaks but I don’t even hear him. I can’t let her out of my sight again!

“Alejandro, care to explain what this is all about?” Derek’s voice snaps me back to reality.

“I just wanted to see these two, yeah, that’s about the size of it.” I want to get Maxey away from here and try to figure this out with her by my side. I put my arms over both of them…leading them out. “I won’t be long! I’ll just get them out of the way here!”

“What was that about?” Matt looks at me.

“Nothing, I only wanted to get you two away from all the prying eyes.”

“Derek is hardly what I would call ‘prying eyes’. He will want to know.” Maxey says.

“Maybe so, but I would rather deal with him later.” I smile. “Right now, I have you two here and Joe was right outside.”

“So that was who I saw!” Matt tells me. “I knew I saw a guy outside.”

“You saw him? Sheesh, how long has he been out there?”

“I don’t know. We haven’t been here long, but I noticed some guy hanging around the door when we came in.”

“Well, that’s creepy. Is he stalking me now?”

“Now, now, Alejandro. We can’t go assuming the worst.” Maxey puts her arm over me and smiles her bright smile. Oh I just melted! The three of us sit in the reception area.

“So, how can we get this remedied?” Matt says

“I don’t really know. I tried to reason with him, but nothing I say seems to make things any better.”

“Can you tell us what happened last night?” Maxey sits up to say. How can I tell her with her innocent face right here?

“I….well, he….oh I don’t know how to do this.”

“It would help if we had a better idea of what he told you.” Matt answers

“I don’t know if I can say all of this to you two.” I mean her mostly! “I just never expected him to tell me all of this. I’ve known him for so long and I just thought we were good friends.”

“Would you feel better telling Matt and he tell me?” Maxey offers. Matt smiles as he brings his arm around her.

“No, no, please….” I can’t let her leave me. “Well, first he told me he could relieve me of my loneliness.” I cringe to say this in front of Maxey. “Then he told me he has been in love with me for a long time. He said no one held my attention for long and he couldn’t take it, so he left.”

“He sounds awfully determined to get you to notice him.” Maxey tells me. If only it were her instead of him!

“It sounds to me; he needs you to be more decisive in how you really feel about him, Alejandro.” Matt says.

“How can I tell him to back off if he won’t listen to me? He says I’m the blind one but he seems to be the deaf one. I get angry listening to him but then I feel bad for being rude to him.”

“So you do care about him, but you’re not romantically interested?” Matt asks

“I guess that’s it. I feel like he just sprang all of this on me! I can’t just automatically go along with this when it came out of nowhere to me.”

“What is he like?” Maxey asks.

“We grew up together. We liked a lot of the same video games and music. We always had each other to talk to. I used to get excited when I saw him but then he left. No goodbye or see you around…nothing! He was just gone! It hurt at first but I figured that was just how things went and left him in the back of my mind.”

“You were close then?”

“I guess so. I mean, my brother was the one I counted on more but Joe was not very far behind him.” I look up to see Maxey and Matt both grinning at me….but he still has his arm around her. “Why are you two looking at me like that?”

“What do you mean?” They say in unison.

“Both with those grins….what is that about?”

“Oh that!” Maxey says and lets out a giggle. “I think we’re both happy to hear that you really care for him. It’s in your voice and on your face that, at one time at least, he really meant something to you. Have you forgotten that?”

“No, I haven’t forgotten anything. He left! I didn’t! I moved on but it appears he hasn’t even though I had no idea he saw me that way.”

“Be that as it may, two wrongs don’t make a right. He left so now you want to get back at him? No, Alejandro, that’s not the way to handle things.” Matt says.

“You’re taking his side, Boss?”

“No, I’m not taking sides. There are no sides to take. You’ve both let your hurt feelings show like two little boys. Now it’s time to talk this out like adults.”

Maxey turns to face him and I see her smile as she reaches to bring his face closer to hers. She turns back to face me saying, “Yes, Alejandro, dear. This is probably not what you would like to hear, but Matt’s right. Joe has been angry with you for not noticing his feelings and you’ve been angry with him for leaving without explanation. I’m sorry to say this but I don’t think there is much we can do. This is for you and Joe to work out.”

“You’re NOT going to help me?”

“Didn’t we just do that?” Matt says

“But nothing’s changed! Joe is probably still outside and I still can’t talk to him.”

“You want me to get him?” Matt starts to move but Maxey pulls him back laughing.

“Matt, this is for him to do. We can only support him.” He sits and hugs her close, his hand on her belly. So, he wants to make sure I remember that’s his baby, does he? Just wait! Once she’s born, I’ll have my Maxey! I’ll find some way around Matt!

“Guys, please! I need something here.”

“Alejandro, we can’t make him just magically disappear. We’ve listened to you and we’ve told you what we both think.”

“But he wants to meet you, Maxey. He told me he wants to see his competition.”

“I’m his competition? The boy must not get out much if he sees me that way!” she laughs.

“Seriously, Maxey! Don’t underestimate yourself, but I really need something to happen here.” I’m getting desperate.

“Well, now Princess, if you are his competition, you must, at least, let him see you.”

“Matt, you’re not helping here!”

“Princess, he obviously wants to meet you. Just a quick hi and bye.” He brings her face around to his and smiles. The look on his face says he loves her. Now I feel like I’m the one in competition!

“Please, Maxey? PLEASE?” I come to sit by her and take her hand. I see her face change but she agrees to it. I go out and sure enough, he’s still out there. “Joe, I’ve talked to Maxey and she’s agreed to meet you.”

“Oh really? Well how generous?! Look, I just wanted to apologize so I’ll go”

“Wait! OK, I was a bit harsh earlier. I didn’t sleep well and I had a lot on my mind, but come in now, OK? Maxey and Matt both want to meet you.”

“Who is he?”

“He’s her best friend. They came here to try to help me figure this out and now they say they want to meet you.”

“The one you say is so protective of her? He brought her here to help you but you complain about him?”

“This is not an everyday thing, OK? I have my reasons for talking about him that way! Will you come in now?”

“On one condition…”

“A condition? This is just a meeting!”

“Then I guess I’ll be going then….”

“Alright! What is your condition?”

“That you come out with me again!”

“Huh? No dice! Not happening!” I shake my head.

“Bye, Alex!” He turns to walk away. Oh this is too much! Maxey is just inside and he’s using this as a way to get what he wants! >sigh<

“Fine, Joe! You win! Remember this though….I resent having Maxey thrown at me like this! I’m only agreeing to this because I know she’s right inside!”

“Whatever works for now……you’ll see things differently one day!” He puts his arm around my shoulders as we come into the building. I see Matt and Maxey both stand when we come in. Ugh, I wish there was something else I could do here!

“Hello! You must be Joe.” Matt greets him and Maxey smiles beside him.

“That would be me.” He smiles as he shakes Matt’s hand. “So you’re the famous Maxey? Well, it would seem my boy has good taste at least.” He looks her up and down before I nudge him.

“Umm, thank you, I think. Matt and I should probably leave you two alone now, but it was nice to meet you.” She says.

“You don’t have to rush out! By all means, please stay and chat for a minute.”

“We’re not who you came to see though.” Matt tells him.

“True, but I must admit I’m intrigued by what I see before me. Besides, I’d like to get as reacquainted with Alex here as I can.”

“But you have the genuine article right here. We would be in the way.” Maxey smiles.

“On the contrary, you would be able to tell me about him in a way he wouldn’t notice.” I feel like I’ve been put on the spot, but I see a twinkle in Maxey’s eye.

“What could we possibly offer you?” she asks.

“Insight! A perspective…..think you can handle that?” Joe steps closer to them. Matt looks hesitant but Maxey actually seems to accept his challenge.

“OK, but this is not the place to do this.” Maxey says and turns to Matt. “Darling, could we be alone a few minutes? He has a point but we need a different atmosphere, so I’d like to take him out for a few minutes. Could you take Alejandro with you and let Rod know for me, please?” She snuggles up to him as far as she can. UGH I wish it were me! Then again, I’d never let her go! He brings her back and looks at her face. I see him smile as he seems to understand what she wants. Slowly he nods.

“Alright, Princess. I’ll do my part.” He tells her. They hug each other so tight. She smiles then whispers her thanks. She turns back to Joe and offers him her arm.

“Shall we?”

“Sure!” he says and takes her arm to go out.

“We won’t be long….just taking a short trip to talk.” She says as she leads him out.

“Did we just get left out?” I ask Matt. He smiles and puts his arm over me.

“That, dear boy, was a classy way of handling things.”