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sgiandubh · 7 months ago

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The door faces North

This has been, by far, one of the most complex investigations I have ever done in this fandom, and I am truly sorry for the long wait I had to inflict on many of you & for the uncharacteristic radio silence in DMs and comments. During this peculiar journey, I checked, double-checked and cross-checked as many details as I could and I carefully considered at least two different theories, of which I still think they do not exclude each other. I am now confident enough to make not only an educated guess, but also a daring bet on SRH's next whisky move.

Also, sorry for the length of this post. Truly sorry - think of the completely pulverized night sleep I had to give up, in order to bring this to you.

But first, a word on Marple's obvious PR tip on the Hopetoun Estate refurbishment and distillery old/new project. I am fair game enough to tell you the obvious: her overall recounting of the principals is roughly correct, spare perhaps one or two minor details. Correct, but dry - she limits herself to the technical documentation submitted by Golden Decanters and The Hopetoun Estates Trust to the West Lothian Council for approval. She correctly points out that S is not a visible part of the deal, at this point in time and she does a decent summing up of a very, very, VERY plethoric amount of bureaucratic information. She concludes, and I think she is partially right, that he might be interested in becoming an investor (I am taking things a bit further, though). But in doing so, she focuses on the development phase of the project only: the possible connections with SRH and his own spirits business are less, if at all, obvious.

I am going to give you my view of all this charade and, if I am going to mention (and probably repeat) some things already found by her, I am going to focus on the people: this is where the whole story starts to become remarkably interesting, at least to me. After all, I remember promising you some more clarity. Here's an honest, fair play take.

Little did I know, when I started to write about that (now defunct) company, Midhope Castle Distillery, Ltd (https://www.tumblr.com/sgiandubh/748597198794670080/the-info-provided-above-is-correct-but-outdated?source=share), that my investigation would turn to this:

... for it was to be just an almost random layer of a juggernaut matryoshka of defunct or still active companies, featuring roughly the same people and no less than 6 different name combinations centered around Midhope, Hopetoun, etc.

The following pics will give you an idea - feel free to open them in a separate tab, for clarity . I preferred this synthetic approach, because otherwise you will curse the shite out of me. But it had to be done, with or without Depon, Advil's Greek cousin (and before you ask a graphologist, this is my handwriting, and nobody else's 🙃):

The only explanation for the whole almost frantic Midhope/Hopetoun crisscross/hopscotch (LOL) combos I can think of is two people trying to secure one (several?) credit lines or to attract significant investors for their project and ultimately failing to do so. But I might be wrong (although I doubt that, thank you). Out of this entire maze ( I swear I now have a migraine), there are only two active companies remaining: Golden Decanters Ltd (renamed GD Spirits Ltd, in April 2022) and Midhope Ltd (renamed Skosk Ltd, in July 2023). It is on them I am going to focus my gaze.

GD Spirits Ltd was incorporated in Berwick-upon-Tweed, England (just across the Scottish border), probably for tax reasons, on March 11, 2015, the nature of its business being listed as 'wholesale of wine, beer, spirits, etc.'. It started with a team of two women: Julia Mackenzie-Gillanders and Ann Medlock, whose names we are going to see over and over again in all the eight corporate avatars. Later down the timeline (LOL for three decades and a half), on January 30, 2018, they were briefly (until July 19, 2018) joined by two very interesting professionals: Mrs. Margaret Boswell, an attorney at the very prestigious international law firm Gide Loyrette Nouel (Paris and London offices)...

...and Ken Robertson, former Corporate Affairs Director at Diageo Whisky, a subsidiary of the international Diageo group, one of the major players on the world spirits' market:

The second company, Skosk Ltd, was incorporated in August 2021, in Perth, Scotland, its nature of business being listed as 'distilling, rectifying and blending of spirits', with the clear intention to align with the exacting criteria prescribed by the 2009 Scotch Whisky Regulations:

[ Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotch_whisky - sorry, I don't have time to wax lyrical on this, and neither do you]

This time, we only meet again the two distillerettes, Gillanders and Medwick. Up until now, at least, nobody else (attorney, former sales executive, whisky expert) has joined the platoon - TBC? I would not speculate and leave all options open.

There is little to 0 transparency on Skosk's financial situation, at the moment and to be honest, it looks very much like S's co-star (hehe)'s Irish business venture...

... but I was a bit more lucky, and the numbers more chatty, as far as GD Spirits was concerned:

Paging all shipper chartered accountants out there, but to me, it doesn't look great, at the moment. Cash is ridiculous, the net worth is hemorrhaging and the current assets are negligible, compared to 2020, when I think they managed to secure one or two credit lines, but not nearly enough for what they needed. Just enough to pay themselves and their external consultants and cover the operating costs, if you ask me.

The revised Planning Statement, of 8 February 2024, posted first by Marple, echoes my initial guess (COVID blew it up, see link to the first post) and the above assessment:

Mark this: 'Discussions are now proceeding with investors and there is a realistic prospect that work will begin in the near future (2024/2025) to implement the permission.' Given that they will start with the road and parking rehabilitation and upgrading, probably overlapping with the distillery building, it would make sense to begin this autumn at the earliest, with the most urgent: access to the site itself.

The initial Planning Statement, dated 9 July 2020 and re-posted on March 21st, 2024, tells a more detailed story. This is part and parcel of the current project as well, since the revision is just pointing out the changes operated, not the entire rest, which remains unchanged. You be the judge:

Also keep in mind this tiny, tiny thing: the Business Plan is 'submitted (...) under Private and Confidential Cover'. See where I am looking?

The initial plan was (and still is) for GD Spirits to produce their own booze, using Midhope's own barley (this is very important for the rest of my theory!). They even offer an overview of the real impact of their project on the local economy:

20 to 38 initial new job creations for a £ 15 to 30 million investment is not 'huge', madam Marple. Cumbernauld is huge. This? This is rather modest, if you ask me. But hey, what do I know about the labor market, right?

That initial Statement tells also the story they want to tell about the genesis of their idea, the scouting for the right location and a couple of other interesting details:

So they are telling us they started to look for the perfect location in 2018 and oh, hello, they found the Hopetoun Estate rather quickly, already starting the pre-planning application consultations as early as July 2019 (don't get me started, please):

If so, then why did they incorporate not one, but two different companies clearly linking them to the Estate (Hopetoun Estate Distillery Ltd and Hopetoun Estate Whiskies Ltd) the same day and as early as May 23rd 2017 (and both dissolved in December 2022), as my above penciled timeline (LOOOOOL) shows? Who is really behind this project and why this entire ballet? It's like me pre-emptively looking for rental properties in (let's randomly guess) Lisbon, when it's just wishful thinking, heavily projecting and with 0 guarantees I will be posted there, right? I mean, I adore and deeply know Lisbon and I would be thrilled to go there. But I am not currently looking for any rental property, just like that, because that would be a #silly, rookie mistake. In their case, I think there's a different situation - again, you be the judge.

A first answer, as to who is really behind that project, was given by the UK media, back in 2020:

How odd, when we know that both Mrs. Boswell, the well-traveled attorney and Mr. Robertson resigned from GD Spirits in July 2018. Do they still say hi to the two distillerettes? Do they quietly keep an eye on the project? Are they silent partners? Business angels? Shareholders? Time to remind you that under UK law, there is 0 visibility on the shareholder's structure of a company. You just see the officers (Director, Secretary, etc), on the Company House website. On an umpteenth, last- second cross-check, it became apparent that Mr. Robertson remained involved in another company of the distillerettes, Hopetoun Estate Whiskies Ltd (yes, the one mentioned above), until its voluntary strike-off, in December 2022.

Their best laid plans do mention OL, and how could it be otherwise? But all this £ 15 to 30 million hullaballoo for 20.000 people only (who counted them and how?), on a seasonal basis?

High-end restaurant, luxury B&B, event spaces, you name it. Interesting, to say the least.

And, for the people in the back, who still think SRH has a 100 years lease at Midhope (Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ, the stupidity!):

This is why he commented as a 'member of the public'. At face value, there is no public involvement into that project. Yet. But it is my belief there is a vested interest in all this, justifying the comment, the visit, those papers rolled in his fist, etc. At first, I thought that was a visit to Lallybroch by the Exec Producer of OL's Season 8, to discuss technicalities - and shared that privately with a wonderful friend only. I mean, why not and still perfectly possible. But then, as I could not sleep tonight and felt guilty to have you all waiting, I started to connect some tiny dots.

Like this one, for a start:

Yes, I know, Marple told you that FIRST, I would not dare say otherwise, because if I did there would be a transcontinental screech. That trademark application was filed at the US Patent and Trade Office in September 2023 and I thought (and still partially do) it was a potential rebranding solution to The Sassenach's EUIPO nightmare (much exaggerated by the fandom's toothbrush experts):

But you also know I am an idiot and I always check people's CVs, when I follow a thread. This morning, the one Distillerette I am particularly interested in is Mrs. Julia Hall-Mackenzie-Gillanders (née Scales) and not like *urv would be.

Her LinkedIn profile is exceptionally talkative, too:

... and a BA (with Honors) in Fashion Design, class of 2005, at the Northumbria University.

The Financial Times article 'From packing boxes to wine deals worth millions', you can read on her LinkedIn page, tells a very interesting story. It is the story of a shy underdog (lots of temple bells clinging, at the moment), who made it by sheer persistence. It starts like this:

'When a painfully shy young woman contacted a fine wine merchant and said ' I have no qualifications- can I help?', she got the job and today is signing deals worth millions of pounds.'

It obviously did ring a bell and if SRH knows she exists (she is married, *urv!), and I dare to speculate he does, it must have struck a deep chord. Would I do business with her? I wouldn't speculate, although I am not very sure. Would he? He'd probably listen very carefully to what she has to pitch, for a start.

And what she has to pitch is also very interesting, in his world. A brief look at the Golden Decanters' website shows a first high-end single malt sourced collection of 4 exceptional expressions already sold out:

And when they mean high-end, they mean gold leaf labelling and all the tralala:

And, some last minute news, too:

Remind me, because I am an old woman, after this white night: wasn't The Sassenach (no comment, we agree to disagree and I am very skeptical), a blend?

We have these dots, then:

Bold Underdog ->spirits business->high-end collection of single malts sold out->business partnership with owners of Midhope Castle, fictional Lallybroch in OL, including a distillery and whisky production with Midhope/Lallybroch barley -> visit by the male lead and spirits entrepreneur (also the fictional Lallybroch laird) to Midhope/Lallybroch and vested interest in the estate's most recent business project....

What if The Sassenach would be included, for a start, in that new Blended Collection? And could it really be fanfic to imagine a future high-end, limited edition, Lallybroch whisky produced at Midhope, with Midhope/Lallybroch barley? It wouldn't be the first time, would it: after all, they did it with that limited tequila batch.

As I said, because I am (remember Someone? LOL) a 'silly cow', I was hoping he wouldn't do it. But my guess is he might very well do exactly that, with those people and under that label.

It's half past eight AM, local time and I need a strong, black coffee.

I rest my case (and I am bracing myself for the screeching). I will answer Anons later, after I come back from the hairdresser's. Appointments must be kept at all costs. Thank you all for your patience.

#boozewars #business #fandom #shitshow

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should-know-better · 2 months ago

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Today I discovered that Alex Turner was not* in an official relationship both times that TLSP projects started.

Timelines:

Jan 2007 - Alex and Johanna Bennett break up

Feb - Mar 2007 - AM on tour with The Liitle Flames. Alex and Miles write together. (* Nb: they had written some songs at the end of 2006 too so technically I suppose he was in a relationship then but hardly saw her)

Apr 2007 and Jul 2007 - TAOTU demos done.

6-8 Jul 2007 - T in the Park. Alex and Alexa meet but she already has a boyfriend.

Aug 2007 - TAOTU recorded in France.

Oct 2007 - Q Awards. Alex and Alexa officially together for the first time.

Apr 2008 - TAOTU released.

End Jan 2014 - Alex and Arielle break up.

11-20 Apr 2014 - Alex and Miles go on a road trip to Coachella and listen to old TAOTU songs on the way. Miracle Aligner first strummed.

Rest of 2014 - Alex and Miles - Power Couple Era

Dec 2014 - Aviation written.

Mar 2015 - Alex and Taylor get together.

Summer 2015 - EYCTE recorded in Malibu.

April 2016 - EYCTE released.

This is all just a very long winded way of saying what I said at the beginning. However I thought the timeline made the history clearer (well it does for me). I’d never realised that Alex and Alexa weren’t properly together when TAOTU was recorded in France during that idyllic summer…

#didn’t source everything here as I don’t have time #but sources are available #timeline #miles kane #alex turner #tlsp #milex #taotu #eycte

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intothedysphoria · 8 months ago

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Steve started going to the gym the day after Eddie dumped him.

Technically, the two events were unrelated. Eddie avoided the gym like the plague so it wasn’t like Steve was going out of his way to meet him and they had a 30% membership discount the month of April, so really he was just taking advantage of a good deal.

Honestly, Steve worked out when he was stressed and he really needed that adrenaline hit to stop himself from crawling into the fridge and never coming out again.

He’d gotten up at 6AM, made sure that he looked semi presentable to be out in public and was just settling onto the running machine when the sound of Metallica started blasting from the Pilates room just opposite the regular gym.

After Steve recovered from his almost panic attack thinking that Eddie was actually getting fit, and the confusion at the instructor using fucking Metallica for 6AM Pilates, Steve decided in a bored, sad, slightly horny way, to check out the class.

Well, the instructor definitely wasn’t Eddie.

Eddie didn’t have those muscles.

Eddie didn’t have bleach blonde hair.

Eddie didn’t have a fucking tongue piercing.

Steve quickly decided he was in way over his head and frantically started to back away from the door but it was too late. The guy had already seen him and was gesturing him over.

Fucking shit.

The instructor was called Billy. Which was fun. He’d just moved to Hawkins from Los Angeles (why???????) and he was always up for new students so why didn’t Steve give it a go, he promised the Metallica was just a joke since it never failed to wake everyone up.

Steve was not a Pilates guy. That was all he learned from the hour long session. Well, that and when Billy’s tongue flicked out and did a little corkscrew, he looked like he’d be really good at eating- no Steve. Bad thoughts. No rebound.

Billy clapped a firm hand on Steve’s shoulder on the way out and Steve swore he started developing a semi.

This was not going to work.

He did what he always did when considering bad horny decisions and called Carol. The conversation was short and to the point.

“Babe didn’t Munson dump you literally like yesterday?”

She was popping her gum across the line. It was infuriating. Steve took a deep breath before responding.

“Well yeah but-“

Carol cut him off. She had a habit of doing that.

“Yeah but nothing babe.” Her voice trailed out of his phone like cigarette smoke, dancing across his room. “Either you let me key his dumbass weed van or you give up any dreams you’ve ever had about bouncing on blondie muscleface’s dick. Kay babe?”

Then she hung up.

Steve decided to go to Pilates class every day for the following two weeks. It kind of grew on him. Heather, the assistant instructor was bitchy and fun in a way he liked and her long acrylics reminded him of Carol. He made a mental note to himself to introduce her to Robin.

Things on the Billy side of things had not improved however. They’d gotten significantly worse. He was getting boners in public like a teenager, couldn’t speak in full sentences and his heart started doing that gooey mushy thing, especially when Billy told him he’d done a good job.

It’s a rebound not a crush had become his new mantra. Unfortunately, it wasn’t exactly true.

It was definitely a crush. A big one. Even bigger than the ones he’d had on Jonathan or Nancy or Eddie. And it was a problem.

He didn’t do a Clueless and start wearing revealing athletics wear or anything but he did start flirting just a little. To test out if what he thought had been completely made up in his brain or if something was actually happening.

Billy consistently responded with innuendos so intense, they would make Tommy ask him to cool it.

Ok. So Billy seemed to like him back. All Steve needed to do was ask him to dinner or something. No biggie.

He walked into next Mondays class with a mission which was immediately shattered by Billy wearing a signed Corroded Coffin t shirt. And Corroded Coffin was still small as shit, if Billy had it signed, he was friends with Eddie no doubt.

Running out of the class may not have been the most dignified option but it was the only one his dumbass brain could think of at the time.

He ran all the way back to his apartment onto his bed then cried. After half an hour he decided to check his phone only to be faced with a text from a number Steve must have just thought he’d blocked.

Eddie 💖🖤☺️

Can we talk?

Steve messaged back telling him to go away but five seconds later relented and said sure.

The phone started ringing immediately.

“Hey Steve. Why’d you run out of Billy’s Pilates class?”

Steve wanted to laugh. Or cry. Or both. He decided to keep his tone on the cooler side of polite.

“Did he tell you about that?”

There was a long silence for about five minutes before Eddie answered.

“Look Steve……….I know I wasn’t a gentleman when I dumped you. I shouldn’t have just run from the restaurant. That was a dick move. But I really do like Jason and I know for a fact Billy likes you. And you deserve each other. Really.”

Steve sniffled but didn’t answer

“Friends again?” Eddie’s voice was uncharacteristically quiet.

“Friends.”

Billy looked slightly frantic the next Pilates class. His hair was a mess and he was wearing a hat with a food stain on it somehow. His face visibly relaxed when he saw Steve.

Billy wasn’t a rebound. He was kind and friendly and opened the door to people who were struggling to get out. His hair was a stupid 80s mullet in 2024, his tattoos were atrocious and Steve thought it might be too soon to say it but he was pretty sure he was in love with him.

Dinner was a good start though, Steve thought as Billy laced their fingers together after the class. Dinner was good.

#billy hargrove #steve harrington #harringrove #harringrove ficlet

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bekolxeram · 2 months ago

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I swear this is the last time I bring up that air tanker in 2x14 voluntarily. The bottom line is, if you believe Tommy did fly that plane, that makes him not even superhero level cool, but Jonny Kim level cool. If you believe he didn't, then he's just as cool, always knowing a guy from all walks of line, ready to help out with whatever resource on hand the second Chimney says the word. At the end of the day, he saved the 118 and a bunch of civilians either way, and he did it again in S7 flying to that cruise ship. He'll always be our cool heroic pilot no matter what.

With that being said, I have some thoughts about the CAL FIRE line from the news reporter in that episode. If you're not interested, please read no further. And if you don't want to see this kind of posts at all but still want to read my other content, please block the tag #aviation realism.

I know Bobby said "217 incoming" when he saw that C-130, only the news reporter mentioned it was with CAL FIRE. That's why I suspect the CAL FIRE line was shoved in after the actual scenes were filmed, because they realized or someone explained to them how impractical and dangerous for an urban fire department to own a giant air tanker and just dump tons of water all over the city.

I saw the same technique utilized for the tsunami arc in S3. Anyone who has taken geography in high school can tell that in reality, there is no megathrust fault capable of generating Indian Ocean 2004 or Japan 2011 scale tsunami off the coast of SoCal. So where did the tsunami come from? In 3x02, before Sue asks Maddie to "triage" the dispatchers, you can hear once again a news reporter saying the tsunami is triggered by an earthquake off the coast of Alaska. This takes the fictional tsunami scenario from having zero basis in real life, to possible in extreme cases and greatly exaggerated for dramatic effect.

I thank whatever divine intervention or persistent technical advisor that made the CAL FIRE line possible.

2x14 was first aired on April 15, 2019. What you might not remember or realize is that something notable happened across the Atlantic on the very same day: the Notre-Dame fire. The entire world watched the cathedral burned for hours while over 400 firefighters all over Paris tried to contain the flame. A certain f...... former US president then suggested on Twitter that "perhaps flying water tankers could be used to put it out."

The French immediately responded by pointing out that dumping large amount of water from an aircraft at low altitude could "weaken the structure of Notre-Dame and result in collateral damage to the buildings in the vicinity." A retired FDNY battalion chief also told the media that water bombing would likely make the situation more dangerous, as civilians on the street might be hit if you miss the target.

The entire internet was clowning on that stable genius for such an innovative idea all afternoon. Imagine if 2x14 aired later that evening with not even a smaller single engine one, but a large 4 engine airtanker somehow belonging to the LAFD, that would come off extra stupid, even meme inspiring. But with the CAL FIRE line, they could at least claim that it was the extreme and rare circumstances requiring additional assistance from other agencies in the area, and it was not part of 911-verse LAFD's normal operation.

If the writers had done their homework beforehand and the CAL FIRE thing was always part of the script, good for them. If it was indeed shoved into the scene last minute, then they should thank their lucky stars.

I can already imagine the headache Bobby is going to have working on Hotshots as a consultant.

#tommy kinard #911 meta #aviation realism #bucktommy

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do-you-ship-it-polls · 9 months ago

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About the blog:

This is created just for fun to poll people on their opinions on ships, because shipping culture is something that I find fun. I’m sure this has been done before but I haven't seen any active blogs doing it, except for tournaments. Please stay civil and block the people that make you angry. (Or just ignore them.)

I also run the blog @do-you-know-this-baby and @aretheyqueer

I’m mainly going to be focusing on anime or cartoon ships, but you can submit any show/movie/book/game etc.

Pedophilia and incest is not allowed, but am otherwise lenient with it. I don’t consider myself a proshipper, and will sometimes deny ships that aren't technically illegal. If I accidentally post something awful then you can let me know.

I'm not posting Harry Potter, Hazbin hotel or Helluva boss characters. Also no mcyt aside from roleplay/story-telling where they have different names. Why these are banned is in the last tab of this spreadsheet.

This blog is lgbt+ friendly, of course.

Feel free to send me an ask if you’d like to ask questions or have a suggestion, or something else to say.

Other similar blogs (none are affiliated with me):

@do-you-ship-this-comic-ship

@do-you-ship-this-book-couple

@worlds-worst-ships

@are-they-queerplatonic

@shouldtheydivorce

@proshipping-polls

@rpfshippingpolls

Submission rules:

Submissions can be sent through the form below!

No real people

One ship per form, but you can send in multiple forms at a time.

There are currently a lot of submissions so it'll take a while to get through all of them, but your submission could show up at any time since I don't really go in order as much as I should. I'm currently posting 3 times a day.

I also sometimes miss duplicate submissions so if your text isn't included, I apologize!

Here is a spreadsheet with all published ships and their votes, if you prefer it over the blog search feature, or want to check something easily. It also includes denied ships.

Fandom jail

Fandom jail is for fandoms who bother me too much but don't deserve to be banned forever. This means polls featuring these characters will be put on hold. The fandoms currently in jail are:

None!

Tags used:

#anime ; #cartoons ; #movies ; #tv shows ; #books etc

#not a poll ; #not a ship

#asks

#fanart friday (feel free to send me fanart you want to be featured)

#crackship poll and #april fools for joke polls

#tournament poll

#polls #shipping #ships #fandom #anime #fandom polls

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charlesswife · 2 years ago

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Una Noche En Mónaco iii

Mateo con Una T - part ii

unem masterlist

pairing: charles leclerc x latina! reader

summary: after a one night stand between you and charles, he continues on with his formula one career. until two months later, you come back claiming to be pregnant with his child.

warning: charles is an asshole, likeeeeeee proceed with caution. angstttt (i tried my best lmao)

This is the last piece of flashback you guys need to know, everything else you will find out as the story continues 🤭🤭

May 2018

“Charles Leclerc is a fucking asshole and I never wanna see him again,” I said as I got into the car. I took a deep breath and wiped my tears.

“Why? What happened?” Steph asked, “Are you okay? What did he do? Do we kill him?”

I looked at her and told her what happened.

He told me to talk in the living room to talk. He was pretty chill.

“So…” I started, “Um… I’m just gonna be straightforward with you,” I see him nod, I took a deep breath and said, “I’m pregnant.”

He started at me for a second and said, “Really? Congrats! I didn’t know you were with someone already! You could’ve just told me this on the phone,” he laughed, “You didn’t have to come all the way here to tell me that. Good for you!”

What?

“No, Charles. I’m pregnant… with your child.” His smile slowly faded away.

“Nope, I don’t think so.”

“What? What do you mean ‘you don’t think so’?” I asked him.

He got up from his sofa and started pacing around the room, “Question. Do you know who I am?”

“Charles… Leclerc?”

“And do you know what I do?”

“You… race?”

He stopped pacing and said, “Yup. Not mine.”

“But it is!” I told him.

“No,” He said again, this time more aggressive, “And do you know how I know this? Because why else would you come here to tell me this four days before the race? Either someone put you up for this, to mess me up or you are a con artist. So which one is it?”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about!” I shamed my head.

“I don’t? Please, you are not the first one that has tried this trick on me. I don’t even remember your name!” he yelled, “And even if it’s true, what do you want me to do? You want me to love you? To marry you? I would never marry someone like you! How even old are you?”

“I’m eighteen…” I murmured.

“HA!” he laughed, “You probably got knocked up by some random dude and now you wanna blame it on me! The famous Formula One driver! What do you want from me? Is it money? Is that what you want?” He really knows how to hurt people with words.

My eyes started to burn, “I don’t need money from you,” I told him. Tears started to roll down my cheek, “I just want you to be there… for us.” My voice broke.

“Oh please, don’t do this, with your crocodile tears” He rubbed his face with his hands, “Besides, you don’t even look pregnant at all!”

I lifted my hoodie, showing my baby bump, and his eyes widen a bit. “We had sex on March, you would be at least two months along”

“Eleven weeks,” I corrected him.

“Eleven weeks, right? You look bigger than eleven weeks. You probably got pregnant before me and you’re trying to baby-trap me!” He yelled. But he was right, I’ve seen pictures online of women being eleven weeks pregnant, and I am bigger than them.

“No, that’s not true at all! Charles, you were my first time!”

“Wow,” he said in a sarcastic way, “Lucky me. Do you think I’m going to believe any of this? Do you think I’m that stupid?”

“So this asshole basically called you a baby-trapper, manipulator, gold digger, whore?” Steph was mad, and she had every right to be.

I stayed quiet for a second, technically he did, but he didn't use those exact words.

“Steph, let’s just go home”

April 2023

“Mateo come here so I can put sunscreen on you!” My kid dropped his little toy and came to me, “We’re going to go to the bookstore and then get some ice cream. Does that sound good, Mati?”

“Yummy!” he yelled.

After I was done applying sunscreen he started to jump around the apartment yelling “Ice cream! Ice cream.”

“Okay Mateo Alexander, let’s go”

The car rides with Mateo are always fun. He points at all the cars he sees or sings whatever is on the radio — he doesn’t know the songs but he likes to pretend he does.

Once we got to the bookstore, I got him out of the child seat and walked into the store with him in my arms. I approached the register and greeted Steph.

“Pascale is here,” she said. “She finally came with her two sons, I didn’t see their faces though.”

I rolled my eyes, “I’m going to check the store, keep an eye on Mateo, and don’t give him candy,” I warned her, she put her hands up in defense, “We’re getting ice cream later and you know how he gets if he has too much sugar in his system.”

Mateo yelled, “Ice cream!”

I laughed a bit as I was leaving. As I walked around the store, I helped a few customers here and there.

I was organizing a shelf when I heard my name. “Y/n?” My heart dropped to the floor. I turned around but I saw no one. Am I hallucinating or did I hear the voice of Charles Leclerc in my store, calling my name? “Oh sorry, I thought you were someone I know.” The voice came from the other side of the bookshelf.

I speed walked to another section of the store as I was texting Steph “Code Red, you know who is here. Get Mateo.” As I hit send, my body collided with someone else’s. The person grabbed me by the arms so I wouldn’t fall back.

“Wow!” The male voice said. “What’s the rush? Are you okay?” The first thing that I noticed was his blue eyes and then his thin lips.

“I’m so sorry,” I apologized. “I would’ve seen where I was going,”

“It’s all good,” he said. “More than good.” He let go of me.

We stayed quiet for a quick second, “I’m sorry to be so straightforward but you are very beautiful, like breathtaking beautiful.”

“I’m Arthur, by the way,” he extended his hand towards me. I took it.

“Y/n,” I introduced myself.

“Y/n,” he repeated. “Do you work here, Y/n? So I know if I should come back again,” he laughed.

“I own this store,” I told him. “I’m usually here on the weekends,” As I said that, my phone beeped

Steph - I can’t find Mateo.

“Umm… It was nice to meet you Arthur but I have some stuff to take care of,” I said as I walked away.

“Wait! Can I get your number?” He yelled a bit.

“Come back next week and we should see!” I waved goodbye. What’s wrong with me? I need to find Mateo and get out of here before He sees him.

Charles POV

“It’s so nice to spend the day with my two boys, you guys are always so busy”

“Yeah, too bad Enzo couldn’t be here,” Arthur said.

“It’s fine, he’ll come next time,” Maman said.

Maman decided to take Arthur and me to her new favorite bookstore because “we needed to go there” I opened the door for her.

“What a gentleman, thank you, Charles,” She said.

“Yeah, thank you Charles” Arthur mimicked her.

The bookstore had a whole different vibe from the inside, it was like stepping into a new world. We were greeted by a Taylor Swift song that surprisingly I recognized. I Knew You Were Trouble.

“You guys go walk around, I’m going to the café,” Maman said, as Arthur and I were walking away, she spoke again. “soy Charles, don’t go too far. You have to meet this girl, she’s so sweet and she has this kid who is a literal angel. He reminds me of you actually. A lot.” With that, she walked away. I looked at Arthur, who only shrugged.

As I walked around the shelves I saw a very familiar figure.

Is that…? “Y/n?” The lady turned around. It was someone else. Something in my heart wanted to be Y/n. “Oh sorry,” I apologized. “I thought you were someone I know”

The lady left and soon after a small kid walked by, he was looking from side to side.

“Are you lost?” I asked him. He stopped walking and turned around. I held my breath for a second.

“No,” he said. “My mommy works here.” He turned around and was about to leave, but I didn’t want him to leave.

“What’s your name?” I asked him.

“I’m Mateo with one T,” he put one finger up. “What’s- umm” he took a long pause for a second. “You?”

I laughed a bit. “I’m Charles.”

A big beep sounded and then the music at the store stopped.

“Mati come to the front please.”

“That’s me,” the kid said and then he left running. He stopped for a second and came back walking. “Goodbye.” He gave me a tiny wave and left walking again.

I felt my phone vibrate and when I took it out I saw a new message from Arthur

King Arthur: I think I just met the love of my life 🥴❤️

Me: 🤣🤣 in what? five minutes?

King Arthur: Sometimes you look at someone and you just know, brother.

Me: I know you are crazy 🤣🤣

————————————————————

👀👀👀🫣 I APOLOGIZE FOR MY LATE POST AHHHHH but how good was this?! I wanna hear your thought and theories!! What do you guys think is going to happen next? 👀👀

I’ll edit it properly later on after work, but here’s the chapter!!

I can only tag 50 people :( so the taglist for Una Noche En Monaco is closed 😭 I’m sorry 😭😭

@mac-daddy-210 @infinite-wanders @rbrsavage @itsyogurlkel @bbygrlllllll @nerdreader @imnotcryingyouare1 @killerangel88 @obx-mylove-things-blog @triorion @daniellarogers @insssanemind @bosinclairsgf @rb-danny @shyshva @booksobsess @ogfangirl @ravenqueen27 @masonspulisic @yunnie-f1 @simxican @ushygushybaby @graceverstappen11 @maximoff-xmen @severenswife @ferraribabe @pjofics @harrysdimple05 @mloyer @teti-menchon0604 @imagineadream @reidsworld @scentedskydreamer @christianpulisic10 @formulas-bitch @topguncultleader @hc-dutch @moonclaine @miureiz @tall-tanned-tattoo @madisontaxarn @bisexualbith @diasnohibng187 @im-just-here-toread @tyskills @rafaaoli @heavengirls111 @lighttsoutlewis @leclerc13 @c4ssi4-luv @livsans @ynbutbetter @marigoldgasly @vita-di-moda @sbrn0905 @yesshewrites1 @amsofftrack @fandomxs1 @ludmisorella @japanesekel @leclercsbae @padfootsiriusorionblackthethird @celestialams @dreamcarsound @bhiees @empathypostsf1

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end-otw-racism · 2 years ago

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Timeline of OTW Hiring of a Diversity Consultant

We have been seeing some claims that OTW has already hired a Diversity Consultant. We wish that were true! At this point all that’s been done is appoint a volunteer to research diversity consultants

Here is a timeline, as best we can construct, of this issue.

June 2020

OTW first talked about hiring an external contractor in their June 2020 statement on racism, and said they would start researching options “in the coming months”

July 2021

In July 2021, a year later, they announced that they had created two new “officer” roles, including one to start researching diversity consultants. (OTW uses the terms “officers” & “staff”, but those are currently unpaid volunteer roles)

April 2022

In April 2022, almost a year after THAT, they appointed one of two Diversity Consultant Research Officers & said they would be starting work. (I guess technically that’s still “coming months” from 2020? lol)

January 2023

In January 2023, when asked about the timeline for working with a diversity consultant, OTW said they hoped to “conclude the project” in 5 years. Also they had not yet appointed a second officer.

March 2023

Which brings us to the most recent OTW Board meeting in March 2023, almost another year after the officer had been appointed, when we received the first update on what they had been working on.

OTW was asked about the five year timeline, & this time we were told that they hoped the project would be concluded OR have “made great progress” in five years, again moving the goalposts.

Currently

Looking at this timeline, this could make it eight years before we see anything substantial (3 til now +5 more) in significantly addressing this issue. This is unacceptable. We know they have the funds to hire consultants.

This is why we’re demanding that OTW make good on their commitment and hire someone in the next 3-6 months. It’s not an unreasonable ask given that the officer has already had more than a year to work on this and we are 3 years out since we were told this was a priority.

#otw #ao3 #archive of our own #endotwracism #end otw racism #timeline #image descriptions in alt text

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nexility-sims · 10 months ago

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𝐍𝐎. 𝟐 ❛ 𝐛𝐮𝐫𝐲 𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐝 ❜ | DOWNTOWN NAKAWE, DEC. 1990

❧ 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬 / 𝐧𝐞𝐱𝐭.

❛ The last time all of Nakawe wept had been nearly fifteen years ago. Although many resented Mother Rowena before her death, mourning tended to cascade through the city. It swept even the most recalcitrant subjects into streets already flooded with their neighbors. They formed a white sea, dotted with colorful personal effects, carrying flowers, howling like storm wind, through which the funeral procession would float. That day in 1976 was recent enough that some felt themselves transported back. Arnaut and Matias had carried Rowena. They were paired, each clasping the other’s shoulder as they bore the weight. More grayed now, Matias struggled less then. Today’s chorus of haunting wails felt as familiar to them as the worn stones against their bare feet.

Leonor had been too young to appreciate death—what it meant that she would never again see the boisterous woman who smelled of cigarette smoke and smeared red lipstick on her face with exuberant kisses. She and Mateo stayed home with Rodrigo. Years later, she saw a photograph of her mother, limp and sobbing as Beatriz dragged her along in the procession. Anguish contorted her features in the moment it captured. Still, it was an expression Leonor recognized; she knew how distress reshaped Safya’s smile, dimmed her wide eyes, distorted the placid expanse of her brow. She recalled the image as her eyes trained on the hunched back of her mother’s body. In her periphery, she could also see Olalla and Blanca holding her grandmother. Beatriz departed the palace with squared shoulders and a calm demeanor, but now she could barely keep herself upright. The crowd’s sobbing receded, melting into an ambient hum around them. It was Beatriz’s desperate cries that pierced it. As she listened, wincing, Leonor wondered why she could not purge such ugliness from within herself.

𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐩𝐭 ↓

❧ this scene has somehow been in the works, technically, since april of 2023—nine months since i started making poses, building the set, creating decos, messing with meshes and rage-quitting ... ! so glad it’s done :^)

TRANSCRIPT:

{Crowd sobbing}

{Mourners lamenting}

{Crowd continues crying}

{Beatriz wailing}

{Sobbing continues}

#ts4 story #sims story #sims 4 story #royal sims #simblr #1992.story.post #1992.a1 #1992.e02

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acewithapaintbrush · 2 years ago

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I'm in love with @ashwii Celestial AU. I wanted to write something poetic and beautiful but instead it turned into silly shenanigans between astronaut April and the Disaster Twins. I hope you get a good chuckle out of it at least.

*****************************

"Wait! Hold on! Rewind! Humans do what?"

April grins and adjusts her grip on the outer hull. She briefly gestures with the screwdriver before plunging it back into the innards of the space station she is going to call her home for the next few years.

No matter how much she'd trained for and anticipated this mission, the idea of spending years alone on a space station to research the effects of long term exposure to low gravity had been as exciting as it had been scary. All that scientific and psychological mumbo jumbo aside, she'd been convinced that 'going space crazy' would be a given and had noted it down in her mission log on the very first day (something Ground Control hadn't found very funny, weirdly enough).

She thought the loneliness might kill her before any asteroid or technical failure could. But now here she is, floating in her super advanced space suit in the vast nothingness of space and talking to a floating humanoid turtle who is also apparently an embodiment of all the stars in all the galaxies and who is named like a renaissance painter even though April had to explain what a renaissance painter even is and…

Maybe she has gone space crazy after all?

Leonardo proves that he is not merely a figment of her imagination by tapping one of his fingers against the face shield of her helmet, an action that had scared the crap out of her the first time he'd done it. Not anymore though. Her new friends won't let anything happen to her.

"Hello? Stars to April!"

"Yes Leo, I heard you." She can hear him loud and clear. She wonders if he can too or if her voice sounds muffled to him through the helmet. "Don't know what to tell you, dude. It's just a silly thing humans do. There are websites where you can buy a star and give it a name and then give it away as a gift."

"A gift?" Leo clutches at his chest like an old lady might clutch at her pearls. He floats backwards a few feet. The trails of his mask flare and tiny stars follow his movement, surrounding him and sparking briefly like small explosions before fading away again.

Oh, how April wishes she could touch them. Would they be cold or hot? Would they pass right through her or settle on her skin like a thousand little fireflies?

They don't know if Leo and his brothers can enter the station without harm to them or the ship and April knows that they are too wary to try. Yet.

Which, yeah. Fair enough. Maybe one day.

"A gift!" he repeats. His voice cracks and he looks genuinely distressed. April would feel bad for him if she wasn't trying so hard not to laugh. "How dare you humans sell pieces of me as a gift!"

"Hey hey, calm down. It's not real. No one can really buy a star. It's just… make believe."

"That's besides the point!"

In that moment Donatello joins them, alerted by his brother's shouting and gesticulating. He's been keeping an eye on the two of them from a distance. The moon turtle is the slowest to warm up to April, although her willingness to show and explain to him the various uses of her NASA approved equipment has gone a long way. April is determined to win the celestial being over with her charm and wit, just like she did with his brothers.

"What's all this racket about?" Don looks and sounds tired. It's a waning moon and his arms are already more black than green, his eyes vaguely distant. The black mass traveling up and down his arms like the insides of a lava lamp should look creepy but it's actually quite mesmerizing. April could watch the dance of darkness and light for hours, but Donnie gets testy when he catches her staring so she refrains. Barely.

"Donnieeeee!" Leo wails and throws his arms around his brother's neck. Immediately the stars on his skin brighten. It's fascinating: The darker Donnie is, the brighter Leo shines. The closer they are to a full moon, the more subdued Leo's glow becomes. Neither state seems to affect the other negatively. Rather, they seem to gravitate towards each other even more frequently during full and new moons.

Donnie smiles softly in the face of his brother's antics and April catches herself thinking that it's probably a good thing both of them don't shine at the same time. That might just blind her.

The moon turtle catches her staring and just like a switch being flipped his smile turns into a scowl and he pushes his brother away.

April smirks. So predictable.

"Nardo! What is it?"

Leonardo waves his arms around. Streaks of light paint waves into the space between them. "April just told me that humans buy stars as gifts!" He shudders and hugs himself. "I feel so violated."

Okay, that is so not fair. Now April feels really bad. And it's got nothing to do with the glare Don sends her.

"Hey man!", she says and gently bumps her fist lightly against Leo's shoulder. It feels just like any other shoulder. Corporal and squishy. She wonders if it would feel different without the glove in the way. "They only do that because stars are beautiful. You buy a star for your loved ones, to show them how important they are to you and because you want to give them something unique and lovely. Gifting someone a star is like, the most wonderful thing you can do on earth, y'know?"

She is mostly talking out of her ass right now. April never got the whole 'gifting a star' business. To her it's mostly a scam, just a very expensive piece of paper. No one owns stars so no one can sell them either. But she does acknowledge that it's a cute idea at least and that lots of people are really digging it.

Leo stares at her with, excuse the pun, stars in his eyes. "Really?" His attitude does a complete 180. He twirls in a circle, throws his glowing mask trails around and blows his brother an exaggerated kiss. "You hear that, Dee? I'm the most wonderful gift, ever. Humans pay lots of money for a piece of me. You all get my company for free, be thankful."

Donatello rolls his eyes. "Oh, joy. Though I wish I had paid some money. At least then I'd have a receipt and could return you for something cooler."

Leo only laughs good-naturedly, but April mentally rubs her hands like a villain.

She really shouldn't aggravate the guy. She does want him to like her, after all. But Donnie just offered her the perfect opportunity for some light teasing. And she did promise to teach the boys everything she knows about earth and human customs. She's got a duty to fulfill, doesn't she?

Ah, well. They can become best friends later. After all, she'll be around them for many years to come.

"Oh Donnie!" she drawls and floats closer to him. He eyes her with the usual distrust and she smirks in anticipation. "Did I ever tell you about this thing humans do, where they buy land on the moon?"

#rottmnt #rottmnt fanfiction #rottmnt celestial au #rise of the tmnt #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #rise leo #rise april #rise donnie #rottmnt leo #rottmnt april #rottmnt donnie #I will write something beautiful and poetic for this au #mark my words #But for now have some shenanigans #I love this au so much

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chuuyaspinkmotorcycle16 · 1 month ago

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Day 10: Gems/Crystals of @/Black00Cat’s (twt) SKKtober

“Only a diamond can polish a diamond.”

The first time Chuuya heard the Boss say that, he thought it was the dumbest thing ever, according to his fifteen-year-old intelligence.

The Boss’ saying was only logical, once he read a geology book, and he didn’t understand why the Boss told him that until years later.

Before that time would come, however, he was told by Ane-san about his birthstone: a diamond as well.

Cue his hyperfixation on gems, jewels, crystals – you name it – which led to him being the operations overseer of the jewel trade at age sixteen.

He’d gone on a deep-dive into birthstones at one point, finding out that April had not only diamonds, but also white quartz. Pretty cool, having two.

But then, once he found out Dazai’s birthday, he went down another rabbit-hole and June having three – pearls, moonstones, and alexandrite – is not fair at all.

But he digresses. Most of the information he learned in those early years of being in the mafia is still stuck in his head, engraved to the point that he can’t stop thinking about the significance of those gemstones.

Pearls are simple, a standard of wealth but also a call toward innocence and purity. His partner was never a saint by any means, but there were moments where Chuuya saw the little kid come out in him, heart alight as he beat Chuuya in a game or gushed about his newfound special interest.

Chuuya always found moonstones to be interesting – a symbol for love and passion yet was named that way for its resemblance to the moon. He can’t help but find that it still represents Dazai, though. Despite what the man believes about himself, he’s a light in the darkness to some, like Chuuya and that weretiger kid.

And, deep down, Chuuya believes Dazai has a passion for life. Ironic, he knows, but after seeing the man at his worst and the things he’s gone through to try to do good, he deserves some credit. In the mafia, Dazai’s need to die felt more like a cry for help to understand himself.

There were moments when Chuuya saw the light in his eyes as he talked about his favorite things. Dazai had been searching the mafia for the reason he was still passionate about the world despite its atrocities.

And, finally, there’s alexandrite – the perfect stone for the mystery that is Dazai Osamu. A soft yet vibrant green or blue in the light and a strong red or purple in the dark. It truly matches Dazai. The pendant around his neck now speaks for it, a symbol towards his goal to help others on the good side. No more is the teen dressed in black, eyes a wicked red as he sowed chaos. That darkness still lurks beneath, but Chuuya believes in Dazai.

—

Dazai, not one to be outdone in knowledge, had also done his research on birthstones after Chuuya blabbed about it one day.

That’s when he’d stumbled upon April’s two birthstones out of sheer coincidence. By this time, he’d already heard Mori’s diamond quote, and he can admit it did suit their duo well, but especially Chuuya. The redhead was brilliant from day one, a beacon of potential and worth. Perhaps Dazai’s always admired that about Chuuya.

And the second stone, a white quartz, also fit Chuuya very well. A symbol of strength – which, of course, Chuuya very much is – but also a stone to purify negative energy. Dazai doesn’t believe in the powers of gemstones but the white quartz does paint Chuuya’s vibe well.

Dazai could always count on Chuuya to clear the metaphorical clouds around him. Teasing the redhead always puts a positive spin on Dazai’s day, after all.

The white quartz is also called a moon quartz, and isn’t that just coincidentally strange that they technically both have moon-related gems in their birthstones?

He supposes they really could be one soul in two bodies, an inseparable bond that will never let them truly escape the other.

#soukoku #dazai x chuuya #skktober #skk #day 10 #malaikawrites

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boots-with-the-fur-club · 8 months ago

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Not sure how good it is but here it is anyways!! A non canon AU of the crossover AU that is heavily based on The Last Day of Summer from Percy Jackson The Musical.

@daboyau

@phoebepheebsphibs

@littlemissartemisia

DvD: Until I Found You Donnie

Dee: No Fun in Fungus Donnie

“Hey, you ready to finally leave the competition?” Leon questions, packing away non perishable food he was gifted.

DvD stands next to him, arms folded in thought.

“I…..don’t know. It feels….wrong…..leaving so soon.”

“If this is about Misa, she can come see us any time. She even asked to come babysit Mikey.”

“No, it’s not her. My brain is nagging me like I’ve forgotten something important.”

“Maybe Karai can help you figure it out?”

“You’re right. I’ll go talk to her.” DvD lowers his arms and walks with purpose to their ancestor.

Karai is watching over Mikey and Raph saying goodbye to Misa before she notices DvD walking her way.

“Donatello, is something troubling you?”

“I should have known you’d know already. Does anything seem off to you right now? Anything at all?”

Karai considers this for a moment then shakes her head.

“No, I don’t believe so. Perhaps you still have leftover anxiety over what happened.”

“…..I don’t think that’s it, but if you say everything is okay….”

Karai puts a hand on his shoulder, immediately throwing him off since she knows how he feels about touch.

He’s more focused on how her eyes glow, though.

“You have been betrayed by one who calls you friend.”

“Ex-Excuse me!?”

April suddenly appears and moves Karai away.

“Haha, whoops! Looks like she still isn’t normal after all that mystic weirdness! I’ll take care of her, don’t worry.”

“Wait! April! Where are you taking her-!?…..Aaaand she’s gone. This only confirms my suspicions. I have to find the NFIF group, that Donnie should share my doubts.” He begins walking again.

DvD is surprised when he sees a portal open and 3/4 of the counterpart turtles already gone. He picks up the pace to catch the last member, which luckily is the one he wanted to speak with.

“Dee!”

NFIF Donnie turns his head back.

“If it isn’t the big hero that got rid of the spores.”

“You’re leaving? Without saying goodbye?”

“We said it before, don’t you remember?”

DvD furrows his drawn on eyebrows.

“No…? Wait….vaguely….?”

Dee smiles faintly.

“Tough last day of the competition?”

“I thought when we took care of those spores everything would feel normal again, but it doesn’t. It’s the last day but I don’t feel like anything is truly over.”

Dee turns his whole body around at those words.

“I get it. After I dealt with them the first time, I thought I’d never have to feel the way I did again. We destroyed it. It was supposed to be done. Then we came here and everything just repeated. I was changed, but they were exactly the same. The mod always said no fighting, it’s supposed to be this safe magic space. The truth? It’s so the authors can see us suffer, even if they don’t bother to show their face.”

DvD feels another change. Or, maybe, this was what he felt before. He’s just feeling it stronger now.

“What is going on? Are you causing this? What did you do?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m just telling you what this all really was. I need to get back to my brothers.”

DvD looks at the portal.

“Are they really in there?”

“Technically they’re on the other side-“

DvD suddenly pushes past him and goes through the portal despite the attempts to stop him from doing so.

He takes a gasp of breath as he sits up. There’s a bunch of spores clouding his vision that he waves away. It’s then he sees the reality of the situation.

Everyone in the competition is unconscious on the ground, surrounded by spores and mushrooms. It’s dark in the room but lit up by the eery glow of everything. His brothers are laying near him, Misa tucked under both Raph and Mikey’s arms. April and Karai are there too, although Karai has been moved away from the group slightly. He might be the only one awake.

Or that’s what he thinks, until he sees Dee in front of him.

He’s sitting next to his sleeping brothers. Vines are wrapped around their hands. It doesn’t look painful, more….reassuring in a way. His eyes are glowing somewhat, but not fully.

“Of course it had to be you who broke out. Karai almost did too, did she use her chance to help you instead? Typical.”

“You’re the one who did all this.” DvD hisses.

“Karai warned you. Betrayed by a friend.”

“You spored me! You freed the mushroom! Why!?”

“It promised me the power to keep everyone safe from whatever is back in their universes! All I had to do was add my own nanobots to it so it can generate and feed off emotions other than fear.”

“It’s just using you! It wants to have everyone from every universe!”

Dee stands up, vines keeping him off his feet.

“Good! We’ve been brought here although we’re just kids! I watched everyone suffer with those asks, yeah I did! And for what!? You know our worlds will never be ours! Not as long our authors rule over the stars!”

DvD reaches for his tech bō, Dee sends vines that grab it and him, holding him closer in front of him.

“So I’ll do anything.”

A vine breaks the bō.

“I don’t care if I hurt anyone.”

Dee tightens the vine around DvD.

“It doesn't pay to be a good kid, a good kid, a good creation.” He tears up.

DvD struggles heavily.

“The authors were never on our side, so I think it’s time we watch them fall!” Dee turns to look at the device for the competition that tracks and sorts universes.

“And soon you'll see what I did, soon there’ll be no other worlds at all!”

“What are you talking about!?”

“If there’s only one world, this world, and I’m in charge, we’ll be safe from everything. Forever. No Kraang, no invasions, no bad futures, not even fear.”

“You’re crazy!”

“Maybe I am! But you’d do the same if it kept your Mikey safe! You’re lucky that you don’t have to make the decision! I’m doing it for you! Your whole family is seeing whatever they want! You could be doing the same!”

“I don’t want your fake happiness! Grow up and realize that you can’t just fix everything bad that happens!”

Dee grabs him harshly by the face.

“Watch me.”

#rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #no fun in fungus #rottmnt #2018 tmnt #rise of the tmnt #tmnt 2018 #i’m getting spored now i guess #rottmnt until i found you #until i found you au

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into-september · 1 year ago

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"Destruction" is the worst episode of Miraculous Ladybug

Oh hey guys, remember way back in April or something when I said I was doing this? Well, the one year anniversary of its premiere is a suitable time to post this, particularly since yesterday saw the airing of the last piece of canon to come out in a while, which happened to be set immediately after these events.

With the always obligatory reminder in place that I generally think that “Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir” is in fact a good TV show whose appeal potentially reaches beyond its merchandise-mandated target group, it has an unflattering pattern of introducing the juiciest story threads and then just… do nothing about them.

The topic of today’s sermon isn't in isolation the worst offender. But it is thanks to this that the worst offender happens at all, so I'm not gonna be nice about it.

Scroll past to skip the negativity.

So, “Destruction”, possibly the most eagerly awaited episodes of out S5 if you don’t count all the false advertisement that was “Revelation”. I remember finding this episode uncharacteristically charmless for this show when I first watched it. They've been onto heavy topics before, but those episodes still had that je ne sais quoi that gives this show such heart. But re-watching "Destruction" I found it lacking already from the first scene, and felt it only in glimpses. It's just not fun.

The episode is also poorly paced, no way around it. It is inexplicably a flashback to two episodes ago which is not evident from the start. More than half the runtime technically consists of Marinette and Alya having a sleepover. The battle and its game-changing outcome is over at 12 minutes into the episode, which is barely past the halfway point. After that, we spend five minutes - a quarter of the episode's full runtime - on a flashback re-playing the same battle but now with verbal exposition explaining Marinette's clever plan. Mind that the confrontation between Marinette and Gabriel lasts for all of seven minutes, meaning that the flashback is nearing the length of the battle itself.

To top it of, it's bogged down with lengthy exchange between Gabriel and the kwamis just to make clear that the haters on the twitter were totally wrong when they bitched about Orikko being OP because actually its powers were something else than we established last season. Here's a bonus plot hole which has nothing to do with everything else I'm going to nag about: Orikko allegedly can't give out the powers of time-travel because no kwami can replicate another kwami's powers. Except for Nooroo and Duusu, I guess, who have done so on several occasions. One of the more remarkable being the episode which first heralded the event that "Destruction" set in motion: "Timetagger".

And who can forget that this was the second time in three episodes where Ladybug and Cat Noir had Monarch at their mercy but spent so much time giving triumphant speeches that he gets away.

Or that that in fact was the second time on the same night.

But while those things certainly make the episode poor, they are not what makes it the worst.

What makes this episode the worst isn't its technical failures, but about the way it leaves its feces all over the themes and the character arcs it seemed like the show had been building up until this point. Moreover: in the role it plays in S5 and the Agreste storyline, and how the show's refusal to touch it again creates a black hole in the season at large, and arguably in the show as a whole.

I. THE INESCAPABLE CONTEXT OF WHAT CAME BEFORE IT

The art of telling a story is the art of highlighting what matters and leaving out what doesn’t. In a well-crafted story, no matter the medium, no detail is insignificant. Every word is carefully chosen, every line or hue made with intention. The curtains aren’t blue just because, and Miraculous Ladybug has made too many meta jokes to hide behind the claim that it’s just a silly rom-com for kids. It has trained its older audience into looking for context and connections; after “Mr. Pigeon 72”, you can’t insist that nothing that happened earlier in this show matters for what happens later. Titles matter a lot in a show where episodes are titled after the villain-of-the-week who usually is the thematic mirror to what our heroes are going through.

“Destruction” is the fourth episode somehow named after Adrien, and the third somehow named after Plagg. You bet this matters.

As some might know, "Kuro Neko" is not my favourite episode. That's not to say I don't like it! It's cute! It's playing a really interesting scenario! We get Plagg hanging out at chez Marinette! But to enjoy it, I have to willfully ignore the storytelling incompetence it flagrantly displays. Because the moment you peek beneath the surface of the events happening to consider theme, motifs, and narrative parallels, it's just

"Kuro Neko" is the second episode that is named after Cat Noir. The first one was "Cat Blanc". There is a thematic connection between the two; not a very clear one and probably not an intentional one, but all the same: both episodes are about an alternative to Cat Noir. One is the result of his father's violence; the other is Adrien's own attempt to become more like the person he presents around his father. They also both show us Plagg and Adrien negotiation Adrien's relationship to Ladybug, and how Ladybug and Cat Noir negotiate that same thing.

"Cat Blanc", for all its apocalyptic visions, starts and ends with hope. It starts with Marinette’s hope at confessing to Adrien, to Adrien’s hope in finally knowing Ladybug’s identity and knowing her like he’s yearned for for three seasons. Those hopes lead to disaster, but the episode ends with Ladybug finding Cat Noir on the Montparnasse Tower, where he is singing his lullaby about the kitty being "all alone without his Lady". As is fitting, Marinette breaks the pattern: after having just witnessed a world turned to destruction because the two of them loved each other, she leans her head on his shoulder in perhaps the most romantic gesture she's ever given him.

"Kuro Neko", in contrast, starts with Adrien resigning the job when he realises that Ladybug no longer needs him and that makes him feel bad. It ends with him coming back and verbally accepting that Ladybug doesn't owe him any exclusive treatment; he isn't her unique partner, just one of many. Where the final scene of "Cat Blanc" seemed to confirm that Ladybug is indeed the answer to Adrien's solitude, the final scene of "Kuro Neko" and its continuation in the first scene in "Risk" both make clear that the opposite is now status: Adrien has to accept the painful fact that as much as Ladybug might be the most important person in his life, Cat Noir does not hold a similar space in Ladybug's.

(The end of “Strike Back” of course claims to remedy this, but those words don’t ring very true when to Marinette’s knowledge, nothing of what went wrong today had anything to do with her keeping secrets from Cat Noir. More damning: Marinette never follows up on her purported regret. In all of S5, she never once sits down to share all those secrets with Cat Noir. Status from "Kuro Neko" still stands, and Adrien is fine with that now. This has nothing to do with the many problems “Destruction” creates, but talking about “Kuro Neko” by necessity means talking about how it wasn’t fixed even if they put the words in Marinette’s mouth. And now back to our scheduled programming)

"Cat Blanc" and "Kuro Neko" by their very existence bring up a thorny topic: That Adrien being Cat Noir isn't wholly unproblematic, and that both Adrien as an individual and Ladybug as the Guardian might have legitimate reasons to question that choice. This has always been obvious to the viewer who knows Hawkmoth’s identity, but the show itself eventually starts calling attention to that from an entirely different angle - namely that of his powers.

Lest we forget: The first episode of S4 that aired wasn't the first episode chronologically: It was "Furious Fu", wherein we learn that The Order of the Guardians has it out for Plagg specifically, and where Ladybug's status as The Guardian is almost revoked on the grounds that she's letting him run around unsupervised. This question of Plagg's whereabouts comes up again in the only episode that is named after Adrien sans Plagg: "Ephemeral", a re-play of “Cat Blanc” except not good. This whole subplot is quickly forgotten, though it being the only one of Su-Han's complaints that weren't about him being a boomer, it's also worth remember that "Destruction" technically happens a couple of hours after he made his last appearance. One might expect that his one consistent lesson would be important enough to echo a bit in the episode where it’s proven to be justified.

"Destruction", as not only one very early episode of the season promising to finally bring about some significant and not the least permanent changes to their lives, but indeed an episode happening on the same night as Ladybug's declaration of regret and Cat Noir's renewed declaration to be her partner, would by its title and its topic seem like the obvious place to finally resolve what "Cat Blanc" and "Kuro Neko" both asked us to question: The existential terror of Plagg's powers, why it is that Adrien is uniquely chosen to temper them at Ladybug’s side, and how Adrien feels about being the one to carry that responsibility.

Yeah. Well.

II. ADRIEN'S PRESENCE IN "DESTRUCTION"

Where "Kuro Neko" and "Cat Blanc" place significant focus on Adrien Agreste in his civillian life, in "Destruction" he appears on screen for a total of 25 seconds - most of which are another flashback to a previous episode, and whose purpose is to highlight Gabriel's hurt from the cataclysm, not Adrien's thoughts about what is happening.

Cat Noir's presence is also marginal. Three minutes of screentime pass from his first appearance until the battle is over. Said battle is the turning point in the war between the heroes and Monarch, thanks to neither Ladybug's powers nor Monarch and all the kwamis, but Monarch using Cat Noir's powers for an impulsive act of self-mutilation. Cat Noir is distraught over this, turning desperate when Monarch first start toying with the idea and being near tears after he carries it out.

I'll get back to the impact of this event, but for now I'll point out that the aftermath is brief: After Monarch escapes, our heroes have this exchange:

LB: We had him, we almost had him! The kwamis were safe, they were right here! CN: I cataclysmed him! I can't believe this, I just cataclysmed someone! Granted it was Monarch, but - there was a real person behind that mask, and it must have hurt him terribly! Milady, you gotta fix this! LB: Cat Noir, Monarch just ran away with my lucky charm! Without it, I can't fix anything. I can't call on my powers and undo the effect of the cataclysm. There's nothing I can do...

We then cut to the slumber party, where Marinette tells Alya that she and Cat Noir "split up" immediately after, and Alya comforts her. From this point in the episode, Cat Noir and Adrien only appear in flashbacks. First a fifty-second flashback wherein Marinette sets up her convoluted plans, then a few seconds of him moving his statue in the wax museum before Monarch appears.

In the episode that more than anything should thematise Adrien, Plagg's powers, and his relationship to his father, Adrien is on screen for a whooping four minutes and twenty seconds.

And because I am that devoted to proving my point, I went and timed all of Alya's on-and-off appearances, which clocked in at a total of five minutes and six seconds.

Alya is of course core to the slumber party which frames the setting of the entire episodes. Moreover, it is with Alya that the emotional arc of the episode ends: it starts with Marinette tormenting hersef watching a Ladyblog report about Monarch's recent win, for which Alya chastises her. The last scene (before Gabriel pulverises the miraculous) has Alya reassure Marinette that she will get the kwamis back. When she regrets her lack of superpowers, Marinette in turn reassures her that Alyas true superpower is being her friend. The journey of the episode was for Marinette to stop blaming herself for messing up, and learning to rely on Alya's support in the new turn the war has taken.

...

IN THE EPISODE WHERE ADRIEN KILLS HIS FATHER.

III. SIR NOT-APPEARING-IN-THIS-FILM

In the episode where Gabriel commits suicide on his son's miraculous, here are some things that got more screentime than the son forced into using his only source of liberation to kill his father:

Flashbacks to past events (four minutes and fourty-five seconds)

Alya (five minutes six seconds)

The kwamis (six minutes and nine seconds)

Bet you can't guess which one is the only kwami who doesn't appear in this episode!

...okay, and Duusu, but you get the point. In the episode detonating the nuke that is the gruesome potential of Plagg's powers, and the potential damage Adrien might deal with them, Plagg never appears on screen.

In the episode highlighting the presence of the kwamis and their importance to their holders, the kwami whose presence is the most thematically tied to his holder's character arc is completely absent.

In the episode irreparably going into the only kwami whose powers is straight up murder, the kwami who The Guardians have singled out specifically as particularly dangerous, the kwami whose irresponsible nature has previously caused problems both to Adrien privately and Cat Noir professionally, said kwami is never even mentioned.

It's almost as if we're not supposed to remember that it is because of his presence that this whole tragedy was possible.

IV. THE EXISTENCE-DEFINING HORROR OF A CATACLYSM GONE WRONG

And ain’t that a funny one, when the gruesome potential in Plagg’s powers was the driving factor in Adrien’s first true crisis as a hero?

Marinette faced her moment in "Origins", where she gave up on her miraculous after the first disastrous attempt. She knows that she is the only one who can do something about the situation, but refuses out of her own lacking courage. She only becomes Ladybug of her own choice when she realises that she can save Alya's life. After this, Marinette never again questioned her place. She would grieve the burden on occasion, but she never once thought anyone else could do better.

Adrien, as we all know, was the polar opposite: he jumped right into it without reading the manual, had to have Ladybug pick up the pieces after a rash cataclysm, and never doubted his calling again until he realised what Plagg’s powers could do when used on a living being.

The NYC special has Adrien quit for reasons that had nothing to do with being unsatisfied with Ladybug's HR policies. It is in part because he effed up his duty as Paris' substitute guardian, but it's certainly also because of the recent horror he just witnessed: his hand forced by someone else nearly killed Ladybug, and killed Uncanny Valley instead as she stepped between them. Adrien just saw a mother weeping over her daughter's corpse, and how only the lucky presence of Ladybug's powers could undo the damage caused by his, unintentional thought it might have been. Adrien would of course never kill anyone on purpose, but Uncanny Valley’s temporary malfunction was a brutal display of what would happen if he stumbled the wrong direction with the gun loaded. Ladybug might have the duty to protect Paris, but Cat Noir has the duty to not to disintegrate people on touch.

The show never before discussed the weight of this burden in Adrien’s presence. “Cat Blanc” did it from Marinette’s side, but this never was a consistent story thread, only briefly brought up as her remembering why his knowing her identity is a bad idea. The sabbatical in “Kuro Neko” has nothing to do with Plagg or with Adrien’s sense of duty, and where you’d think this would be where Marinette finally brings up the issue bridging the NYC special and “Cat Blanc”, neither of the two are as much as alluded to. That Adrien has the power of murder has yet to be explicitly discussed in the show proper, but in combination with his personal relationship to Hawkmoth being a ticking irony bomb, the question of can he even bear it is inevitable.

That Adrien’s post as Cat Noir wasn’t as given as Marinette’s as Ladybug is echoed in the amount of times that Adrien has either quit or at least contemplated doing so (“Syren”, NYC special, “Wishmaker”, “Kuro Neko”). He likes being Cat Noir more than Marinette likes being Ladybug, but he lacks her iron certainty in the role. It is notable, then, that THE ONE TIME where Marinette questions her part, it is after Cat Noir has quit. She says this, out loud, in words. When Cat Noir’s powers become too heavy for Adrien to carry, then Ladybug, too, disappears.

So surely "Destruction" must be the point where this is finally comes together - where Adrien's history of quitting meets his ultimate crisis, where his powers abused on a human being of flesh and blood forces him into confronting the potential cost of being this particular hero, which will foreshadow the ultimate choice he’ll have to take: between being Cat Noir and being his father’s son. And where his choice, in turn, will define whether Ladybug can exist.

Or not.

Maybe we'll never again have Adrien think about how he probably murdered a man. Maybe we'll just - oh I don't know.

Have him start trying to cataclysm people?

Repeatedly?

While showing none of the horror at himself which he clearly had in the aftermath of accidentally cataclysming the villain responsible for his later victims’ possession?

And in the end, after never calling attention to Adrien’s new and trigger happy ways, we’ll have him give in to his fear, claim that he isn’t strong enough to responsibly use Plagg’s powers, and send his miraculous away for Ladybug to use alone, because it turns out that “Kuro Neko” was right and the NYC special was wrong: she can be Ladybug without him.

Growth, amirite.

V. IN THIS HOUSE WE DON’T TALK ABOUT PATRICIDE

Dramatic irony was the main engine driving "Miraculous Ladybug" from the start, and it was Adrien who bore the brunt of it. Not only did he spend four and a half seasons in unrequited love with a girl who rejected him for himself; he spent five seasons doing weekly battle against his own father.

The superpower war between father and son isn't just a source of story tension, however: it is inextricably mirrored in their relationship as family, where the father is openly abusive and the son is magically incapable of protesting. The show repeatedly makes A Point about how the freedom Adrien so wants, is one that he only gets through being Cat Noir, and the only way Adrien is capable of fighting his father - albeit ignorant of it - is with Plagg's powers.

Cat Noir defeating Hawkmoth was necessary not just for his story as a superhero, but as his character arc as a normal boy.

And in "Destruction", this is exactly what happens. Thanks to Plagg's powers, the path to Adrien's freedom is finally paved, in the most gruesome and unwanted manner possible. Adrien might not get the big cathartic show-down with his evil father, but technically he was the one to bring him down.

But we don't talk about that. Except for his one (1) line after Monarch escapes with Ladybug's lucky charm, Adrien never again brings up the fact that his being careless with a cataclysm certainly maimed a man, by precedent (Aeon) possibly killed him. Rather than a story arc about Adrien being afraid of his own powers, it’s only now that he starts aiming it at people when he’s under emotional duress. This could of course have been one hell of a story point if it was intentional, but by all accounts, it wasn’t. When Adrien never again reflects on his having probably murdered a man, or reasons that Monarch is probably fine since he’s clearly still around so maybe a cataclysm isn’t so bad, and he never dwells on his nearly murdering two of his friends, there can’t have been any connection intended here. Moreover: when Adrien is scared of his miraculous towards the end, it’s not about its capacity for normal murder when he’s having a bad day, but its capacity of ending the world if he happens to be akumatised.

Gabriel is likewise disinterested in the cause of his impending disintegration. You’d think the man would feel some kind of special resentment towards Cat Noir and his powers, you could think this was where he’d get to re-thinking his relationship to the two people who are sitting on the keys to solving all his problems. Maybe he’d start doubting himself now, bearing the ultimate testament to his magical hubris. But no. The cataclysm wound is there and it’s a problem, but the reason it happened is completely irrelevant to the man who did this to himself and unknowingly, to his son.

That is almost as mind-blowing as the fact that they really had a straight up patricide happen on screen. Sure, death was never the intention of either of the two parties, and Adrien certainly holds no blame for what happened. But Gabriel must have at least known what he was risking, and even if the soft-hearted Adrien would somehow reason away the gravity, Plagg would certainly now. By its very nature, this one cataclysm drags out and distils a plethora of questions about both Adrien’s role as Cat Noir, about Gabriel’s vision of himself and his goals, and about their relationship not as father and son, but as villain and hero. The gruesome narrative irony looming over all this is in that regard just the icing on the cake.

There is certainly an Oedipal layer to the drama of Gabriel and Adrien, though the often more scandalous incestuous angle is considerably downplayed here. Even so: By the denouement of S5, Adrien has successfully killed his father and set up a home with his mother. That really happened, but we’re sure not going to investigate how this influenced the relationship between two nemesis, between father and son, between Adrien and his kwami.

The cataclysm in “Destruction” turned Adrien from anguished shoujo love interest to the hero of a greek tragedy, but the show is dead set on pretending that it didn’t.

VI. SO THEN WHAT WAS THE POINT

In isolation, "Destruction" comes across as weird more than anything. It's named after Adrien's kwami, it spends an inordinate amount of screentime on Adrien's father, it reaches back to Adrien's perhaps most defining moment as Cat Noir as it fundamentally changes the game between our heroes and our villains as one of them is finally dealt a damaging blow - which in turn sets Adrien's life down a path towards tragedy that must be interfered with for him to have a happy ending by the end of the season.

And yet, Adrien is a peripheral presence in it. Marinette and Gabriel dominate the screentime, Alya and the kwamis are consistently present as the thematic chorus at their respective sides throughout, the episode plays its events twice in order to make it clear that Ladybug is too clever for Monarch's miraculous, the emotional arcs that are followed are the follow-up on where Marinette and Alya stand after the disaster in "Strike Back" as well as Gabriel's renewed vigour. Adrien's only contribution to the episode is to follow Ladybug's instructions and to make clear that his relationship with his father is still awkward. The episode depicts probably THE most important event of the show, but this event is treated almost as an afterthought, and the horrors of it are confined to one (1) line of dialogue from Cat Noir.

The only thing in “Destruction” that is brought up in later episodes is that Gabriel is now actively dying. If they wanted for Gabriel to live on a countdown for his date with the grim reaper, there were countless other ways about it: Have it be his use of too many miraculous which backfires, have him having used the peacock before it was fixed, have it be too much evil on the hands of Nooroo, have him get a serious call from his doctor, have him screw up Tomoe's machinery, have him develop a drug problem. This is a fictional narrative; its twists and turns are absolutely in the hands of the writers, teenage girls being irredeemable or not. It was never vital that this happened by cataclysm specifically.

So what was the point, then? Did we truly turn our magical girl show into a Greek tragedy for the shocked pikachu faces only?

The one thing I somehow haven't seen people bring up, is that "Destruction" makes it impossible for Adrien to learn Monarch's identity. According to the writers themselves, the reason lies in two of the other episodes named after him: "Cat Blanc" and "Ephemeral", wherein he learns his father's identity and is promptly akumatised. This is of course bullshit: both these cases relied not on Adrien learning his father's identity, but on Gabriel specifically scheming to traumatise Adrien with both the Hawkmoth reveal AND the fact that he's been living in the same house as his mother's dead body for the last year or two (timeline here is spectacularly contradictory). There was anothing inevitable about this. You're the writers. You could've set up a scenario where Adrien didn't learn about his father's crimes as an act of psychological warfare, and where he'd have the time to absorb it, to grieve and to find support by the time he'd confront him with it. Having every person close to Adrien keep life-defining secrets from him “for his own good” is, by god, not a good look on anyone involved here. Still it’s understanable, at least for those who aren't either adults or gods of destruction.

"Destruction", however, serves as an explanation for the gaping plot hole in the epilogue: Marinette tells Alya, she tells Su-Han. The one she doesn't tell, though?

The partner who was at her side before Alya or Su-Han ever appeared, and stood by her in far worse storms. Because telling Cat Noir the truth would mean telling Cat Noir that he dealt Gabriel Agreste the killing blow, and ain't that a nifty way to ensure that Marinette won't. Because if Adrien does learn Monarch's identity and the truth about his fall in future seasons, Emilie better hide those garment pins.

The truly damning part of "Destruction" isn't so much what the episode itself does. It's what it doesn't do. It's the storylines it cuts short and leaves behind, and it is the storyline it by its very existence introduces, but which the show refuses to touch.

Per title and content both, "Destruction" should be the culmination of thematic storylines from "Cat Blanc", the NYC special and "Kuro Neko". It’s not; it’s not even about Adrien, and Plagg isn’t even present in it. Moreover: its lacking presence on future episodes make it painfully evident that ambitions, there were none. Those storylines were either aborted like Adrien picking up Felix's spyglass in the S4 finale, or the show never did mean for there to be such a thing as "layers" to this story about a boy who becomes a hero to unknowingly break free from his superhero father.

The real reason why "Destruction" is the worst episode of Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir is that it obliterates the most cohesive character arc this show had going for it, and that this was done on purpose.

#miraculous ladybug #ml criticism #mlb meta #blah #adrien agreste #gabriel agreste #storytelling #mira

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youareinlovetv · 2 months ago

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at some point you have got to remember that every single person is not the same. no one is. everyone has different levels of strength in different areas, and weaknesses as well.

why when someone performs despite something that happened, they are praised, but when someone does not perform because of something that happened, they are criticized? it's a sign of strength to acknowledge that you are NOT doing well and that you need to take care of yourself and take a break, instead of wearing yourself out and potentially making your situation worse.

chappell roan is a human being. and i'm afraid that so many people have forgotten that. she is not a machine meant to churn out music until she dies. she is not someone who can perform shows nonstop. she is not someone you can get photos out of. she is not someone you can talk to. she is a HUMAN BEING.

i saw someone on twitter say that if katy perry can perform 30 minutes after her husband texted her asking for divorce, then chappell can do this. do you realize that chappell may not be suited enough for this yet? for example, that concert where katy performed was when she was done with, like, 80% of her tour already. that was also her second tour, and her 4th year of her career (or at least her 4th year being famous/a celebrity).

chappell had only just blown up in april/may this year. she (technically) is on her second tour, but her first tour only had 8 dates and was a few months before her midwest princess tour. she hasn't performed as much as other artists. she is a NEW artist coming up on the scene. again, it hasn't even been a year since she got famous.

the fact that we are already seeing the fandom act like this; the fact that we are already seeing people complain about her cancelling shows for herself; the fact that we are seeing people harass her to this extent, acting hostile towards her in person and online is deeply saddening.

she is a HUMAN BEING. treat her like one.

#tom talks #chappell roan #music #and yes i know that people paid for the tickets and it sucks to not see her #but its for a festival.. that changes all the time #also you only bought a ticket to see her?? at a festival?? and not her headlining tour?? theres dozens of other artists??#sighhh anyway yeah

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facingthenorthwind · 1 year ago

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So while reading Halo Effect, I naturally became obsessed with the one (1) Jewish character who turns up twice, one as a brief mention and one to write a single letter. Because I am extremely normal, I am writing a fic about him. Technically I've only written the first half (the second half is Peter and Thomas meeting up with him), but it's self-contained. It's been written for literal years, so I figure I should at least post it on tumblr. I hope you enjoy it, @alex51324!! (Also I haven't Yiddishised the Hebrew yet because I only know the standard pronunciation but I'm going to get someone to do it before I post it on AO3.) Hopefully this is comprehensible to non-Jews?? Please let me know if not.

Is it breaking a mitzvah if I say mourner's kaddish for someone who might not be mourned otherwise without a minyan? At most, there's a Green who has a J on his identity disc on one of the wards, but he's currently on so much morphine I don't think he'd remember the words, Issac wrote to his father once he finally got back to his unit. Honestly, he didn't much care what his father wrote back — if God didn't like him saying kaddish for Fitz, God could come down here and tell him what alternative he had. He asked his father to send a candle so he could light it for Fitz, but crossed it out and asked him for ten candles. Fitz may have been the first, but he sure as hell wouldn't be the last.

The news of Fitz’s death had preceded Issac’s return, but nobody had touched Fitz’s belongings yet. Cruelly, the most essential things, the things that meant most to him, had gone down with him, but Rouse eventually laid out everything that was in Fitz’s rucksack so they could decide what they should send back to his family — well, his brother. Fitz had said he didn’t have any other family left.

They decided they’d split his cigarettes between them — Scogs tried to crack a joke about how Fitz had always been so free with his cigarettes it was almost like he wasn’t gone, but he trailed off, and no one laughed. His large collection of letters went in his rucksack, of course (he seemed to get them constantly, all from different people; sometimes he had even acted as some kind of go-between, passing on information from one letter-writer to another, as if they couldn’t just write to each other themselves). The scarf he’d worn every day from Christmas until mid-April, when even he couldn’t deny it was too hot, went in as well — Issac had always thought privately that it was fairly ugly, but then again, if he tried to knit a scarf it would probably turn out much the same.

Dawson got Fitz’s copy of Prester John out of his own pack and removed his bookmark before handing it over to Rouse. “He’s made some little notes in it,” he said. “Nothing all that interesting yet as I can see, but it doesn’t feel right to keep it.”

Rouse packed it and Scogs didn’t mention that he had been next in line to read it. One of them could write home to get another copy, probably. Issac was sure he could — he had already received several yellowbacks which he’d left in the break room once everyone had read them so they could find a new home. Fitz’s sewing kit, playing cards and the various other things he’d been sent went on top and by the time they were done there was an all-too-noticeable hole where Fitz had once slept.

It was only then that Issac noticed Rouse had gained corporal’s stripes. It made sense — Fitz needed replacing and Rouse was an obvious choice, being the smartest of the lot of them. He congratulated him, but Rouse wasn’t offended that he didn’t quite hit the right tone and his smile didn’t reach his eyes. Rouse’s didn’t, either.

When he arrived at the wards for his next shift, Captain Russell clapped him on the shoulder and gave him an extra ration of brandy. And then they just had to get on with it.

------

Fitz’s brother never replied to the letter he sent, so Issac kept saying kaddish for him past the thirty days that were traditional. He knew there were lots of reasons he might not have written — maybe it got lost, or he didn’t want to hear from Issac, or any number of perfectly innocent explanations, but as Issac watched men die day after day he couldn’t stop thinking about how if Fitz’s brother was dead, there was no one to remember Fitz as family.

He said it for eleven months, as he would for a brother — four months longer than he’d known him. About six months in, Rouse wrote to him saying that he’d been stationed with Fitz’s brother at a CCS. He was a corporal, apparently, and Rouse said he reminded him of Fitz — that they said some of the same things, though in temperament they were pretty different. The war dragged on.

He kept a list of people in his units who died as he transferred from place to place, but it quickly became clear that he couldn't light a candle for each of them. The list just kept going, a litany of names followed by the date of their death in the Gregorian and Hebrew calendars. Jerry Scoggins, 30 September 1915/22 Tishrei 5676. Billy Dawson, 2 October 1915/25 Tishrei 5676. Fred Keighery, 4 February 1916/30 Shevat 5676... It felt like keeping track of their yahrzeits was more of a motivation to note the Hebrew date than keeping the holidays, since it wasn’t like he could, not really. Even as he tried to pray every day for whatever service he had free, the words of the festival services just made him homesick, and he didn’t have any of the things you should have: matzah or his mother’s blintzes or a lulav.

He wrote to Moishe about studying the RAMC periodicals at Shavuot instead of Torah; it felt... oddly fitting. He knew, logically, that this war was man's fault and God didn't have anything to do with it, but that didn't provide any comfort when he was on death watch, sitting beside a man who gasped as he drowned on dry land. If the only control he had in this hell was giving two fingers to God, then he was going to take it.

His father sent him a machzor so he could pray Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, but he got to Unetaneh Tokef and didn't even have the energy to be embarrassed when someone found him crying ten minutes later. Reciting the ways people would die in the coming year — who by water, who by fire, who by sword and who by wild beast — felt absurd when he could list just as many from who was on the wards. Who by phosgene, who by sepsis, who by bullets? And for the machzor to claim that repentance, prayer and righteousness averted the severity of the decree — that sure hadn’t fucking worked for the soldiers getting killed. It hadn’t worked for Fitz or Scoggins or Keighery or—

By the end of 1917 he could no longer go over the top, having lost his hearing in his left ear from a shell exploding too close. The letters he received detailing how his nephew he’d never met could talk in whole sentences now and how Mr Rabinowitz had fallen and broken his leg felt like missives from a world he would never return to again; how could he, when all he knew was the war?

The Armistice meant the supply of wounded slowed, but he didn’t go home — he was stationed at a general hospital, so there were still plenty of cases coming through. Even when they offered to send him home because he wasn’t regular army and they were well aware that the other corps had mostly got the wartime recruits out… he knew it was cowardly, but he accepted the offer to stay on until the RAMC left France. He couldn’t picture how he was going to fit back into the Leylands, and perhaps if he put it off long enough he’d finally work it out.

He did not.

When he finally got off the train at Leeds, it felt a little like a fairytale — he kept being shocked that he could recognise the buildings as the train came in, and it sounded the same as it had before the war. The back of his throat began to ache, though he wasn’t sure why, but before he could focus on that his mother was calling his name and hugging him. Had she been there the whole time? She gave him a kiss on the cheek and led him to everyone else — there was Shoshie, who grinned at him and then prompted the child hiding behind her legs to greet his Feter Itzik. While the nephew he’d never met hid his face in her skirt, his father embraced him with a decidedly gruff, “Son.”

And at last there was Moishe, his smile twisted by the scarring on his face. He looked like he understood the slight bewilderment that must have shown on his face. “Glad they let you go eventually,” he said, slapping him on the back. He spoke into his right ear, probably noticing that Issac had turned so he could hear the people in front of him more clearly with it.

“Yeah,” Issac said, not trusting himself to say anything else lest he start crying.

“See, he’s not scary, Dovid,” Shoshie said, having coaxed his nephew out in front of her. “Say hello.”

“Hello Feter,” he said at last. “Why don’t you have a face like Feter Moishe?”

“Dovid!” Shoshie said.

Moishe shot Issac a grin. For the first time in too long, Issac laughed.

#emma writes things #halo effect #alex51324

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