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curlsofsagesmoke · 4 years

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TMNT (2012) DID DONNIE DIRTY WITH THE HALF-ASSED LEADERSHIP PLOTLINE AND HERE’S WHY

not to turn into a tmnt blog or anything but I've been watching the 2012 version and I have some Thoughts about the weird leadership conflict subplot between Leo and donnie that the writers started going for and then abandoned. admittedly I've only seen up until a few episodes of season 3 so I don’t know if they ever do go back to this, but from what I've seen this plot had amazing potential but it was handled in a truly awful way!

keep in mind also that I really love this show. I watched it as a kid, I think it holds up pretty well even now. it does have its flaws (many, many flaws) and the worst flaw is the writing imo, which can be lazy, ignorant, or just straight up bad at times.

with that out of the way, buckle up and hold on to your butts cuz here the heck we go!

you cannot talk about leadership in tmnt without starting with the leader, Leo. the writers gave him a really interesting arc at the beginning of season one where he was really eager to become leader (splinter gave him the job because he asked for it, after all) but then he started to realize the burden that came with the title and started to crack a bit under the pressure. the most well-known character conflict in the entire tmnt multiverse is the tension between Raph and Leo, and this iteration of the show is no different. Raph is very obviously upset about Leo becoming leader and he (and donnie, but we’ll get to him in a bit) tries to argue that he should be leader instead. ultimately he fails and this does create tension throughout the rest of seasons one and two.

this tension comes to a head during an episode where Leo, tired of Raph always questioning his decisions and needling him, decides to fuck off for a little bit, leaving Raph in charge (”New Girl In Town”). from a writing standpoint, this episode is important for many reasons, but in terms of this subplot it is a moment of crisis for Leo which he inevitably overcomes by accepting the burden and responsibility of leadership; and for Raph it is a moment of realization where he finally accepts that he wouldn’t be a very good leader and he doesn’t want the burden that Leo carries all the time. after this episode, Raph and Leo do have their arguments, but overall Raph is much more accepting of Leo’s position as leader and only calls him out when Leo starts to go on little power trips.

which brings us to donnie. donnie also argued that he should be leader in the first episode, but it wasn’t treated as seriously as Raph’s argument, and after that there wasn’t much conflict between Leo and donnie (except for the technology vs. tradition thing surrounding metalhead, but I’ll get to that later). donnie and Mikey are presented as generally pretty laid back. when Raph becomes leader in “New Girl In Town”, they exchange a lot of “yikes” looks in the background but are willing to follow his lead and give him the opportunity to actually be leader. of course, this comes to a head when they confront the villain of the episode, snakeweed, in the sewers. they’re getting their asses kicked, Mikey is knocked out, Raph is having a panic attack, and donnie is left to fend for himself against snakeweed.

instead of having that little “I must meet this challenge and overcome it” moment that you’d expect, Raph gives in to the panic and it’s donnie who not only incapacitates snakeweed to give them time to escape, but also snaps Raph out of his panic attack and tells him what to do (namely, get Mikey out of there and retreat to safety). it’s not given any more attention after this so it’s kind of blink-and-you-miss-it, but this is the first instance we see donnie reveal a bit of his potential as leader.

this is in direct contrast to “Mousers Attack!” which came a few episodes before New Girl In Town. that was the episode that introduced the a-team/b-team dynamic, and in that episode we saw that donnie, while attempting to lead him and Mikey, was able to come up with a bunch of plans to infiltrate dogpound’s operations but wasn’t decisive enough to actually commit to anything. thus in New Girl In Town, we’ve already seen very obvious growth in donnie and the way he approaches leadership, but it’s very much pushed to the background, and for good reason. this is simply laying the foundation for the big showdown between Leo and donnie.

the next significant moment of leadership potential we see from donnie comes in the episode the Pulverizer. donnie gets stuck with Timothy in the lair but soon becomes willing and even eager to teach him the basics of self defense, because, as he tells splinter, he knows Timothy is going to keep putting himself in dangerous situations and he’d rather Timothy be able to protect himself. splinter tells him that anything that happens to Timothy will be donnie’s responsibility, and donnie accepts this and begins training him. at the end of the episode they all make it out okay, Timothy goes on his way, and donnie seems to have become just a bit fond of him.

significantly, this is the first time donnie is given full responsibility over the fate of another person, and we see that even though he doesn’t really like Timothy, he takes this responsibility seriously. here he shows great leadership potential, as well, though again, it’s not really commented on narratively.

the next significant moment is, as you might’ve guessed, The Pulverizer Returns. in this episode we find out Timothy has joined the foot and is willing to pass information on to the turtles. Leo and Raph jump at the opportunity, Mikey is ambivalent as usual, and donnie is the only one who shows any concern. this is most likely because the last time he saw Timothy, splinter told him Timothy was his responsibility completely, and he obviously takes that seriously still. the entire episode, he tries to get Timothy to leave the foot and his brothers to take this seriously, but his worries are brushed off until they find out the shredder is about to mutate Timothy as an experiment.

so they race off to save him, and donnie ends up in a warehouse without his brothers to help, weaponless (because of some bullshit lesson splinter is trying to teach them, and as a side note, this was the first episode where I started to seriously dislike splinter as a character, because the way he was written here is just awful). the villains of this episode are dogpound and fishface. if you’ll remember, these are two serious villains, and up until this point they’d only ever been subdued, never defeated, and even then the turtles had to double team them in order to win. so it was of course surprising and incredible to see that donnie, armed with literally just a broom, was able to hold off a squad of foot ninjas, dogpound, AND fishface by himself for a good while, all while keeping Timothy away from the mutagen.

then Timothy IS mutated and a bomb is activated, and in just two minutes donnie comes up with a plan and executes it, getting them all out safely. when he starts barking orders at his brothers, they don’t even stop to question him. they listen immediately and that’s part of the reason why the plan succeeds. so what does this tell us? it tells us that donnie has a very strong sense of responsibility, protectiveness, and determination; that he is extremely capable when he’s focused and is good at thinking under pressure; and that his brothers trust him enough to follow his orders when he does give them. these are all incredible qualities for a leader to have!

notably the episode after this is Operation Break Out, where donnie goes off on his own to rescue April’s dad from The Kraang and they only make it out because his brothers followed him and intervened. clearly, then, donnie’s not really ready to be a leader and still lets his emotions cloud his judgement, which is a narratively sound writing decision. the big donnie-as-leader showdown doesn’t come until the end of season two, anyway.

and then season two. the tensions between Leo and donnie aren’t as obvious as the tensions between Leo and Raph, but they’re there, even if no one explicitly challenges Leo’s position as leader any more. here’s a quick rundown of the two significant episodes:

“Follow the Leader”--> Leo wants to stick to the old, traditional ways, but his brothers insist on unorthodox methods of fighting. Leo eventually comes to accept this to a certain degree when he admits it’s a good strategy to use against the footbots.

“Metalhead Rewired”--> donnie upgrades metalhead’s AI and Leo is suspicious of it. on the trail of The Kraang, Leo blames donnie for a few of metalhead’s mishaps, but apologizes when they realize that metalhead was leading them to a Kraang mutant prison. metalhead sacrifices itself to save them. Leo is sympathetic here because donnie is really upset, but it’s clear that these two are still fighting over the tech vs. tradition thing

and then we get to The Invasion, the season two finale. the synopsis makes it clear that this is where all of these moments that I've been discussing come to a head: “Leo and Donnie disagree about their plan to stop The Kraang invasion. When Leo makes a critical mistake, he is separated from the team and Donnie must step up as leader.” So we’re off to a good start as far as concluding this character arc goes. I was excited to finally see donnie live up to his leadership potential (and I thought this could be a good way to give Leo some closure regarding his issues with holding the world on his shoulders/blaming himself for every mistake/basing his self worth on his position as leader).

but I was sorely disappointed! in the episodes, donnie’s and Leo’s tech vs. tradition conflict comes to a head when Leo wants to flee the city (this seems very out of character for him) but donnie wants to stay and fight in his new combat robot, the turtle mech. this disagreement lasts until they are attacked in the tunnels and donnie is injured; Leo draws the Kraang robots away (I assumed this was his critical mistake: separating himself) to give the others time to escape. they go to April’s apartment to hide and regroup while Leo is hunted down and almost killed by the shredder. Raph and Casey rejoin the others, then shredder throws Leo through the window of the apartment, and they escape but barely. donnie then makes the decision to fight Kraang prime in the turtle mech (which is, I assume, his big leader moment, though of course it doesn’t even happen on screen). they fight Kraang prime and almost die, but Casey arrives in the van, saves them, and drives them out of the city. donnie apologizes to Leo’s unconscious body and says that Leo was right, and then the episode ends.

so. let me first say that this was quite possibly the worst way to end this really interesting and nuanced character arc that the writers had set donnie and Leo on. first of all, we barely got to see donnie act in any kind of leadership role. in Leo’s absence, they made most of their decisions as a team, where I had expected at least some sort of “I need to overcome my fears and anxieties and lead my family to safety” moment from donnie. secondly, Leo wasn’t entirely correct. yes, they ended up evacuating the city anyway like Leo wanted, but he was wrong about the turtle mech; it ended up destroying Kraang prime’s robot body thing. and donnie wasn’t entirely correct, either: the turtle mech was a great weapon that did some significant damage, but it wasn’t enough to stop the invasion. so we have these two characters who were both wrong in their own ways, both face the consequences, but no one ever discusses it.

so not only did we not see any significant character development from Leo; and not only did donnie not really get to act in any significant leadership role; but also worst of all, these two characters never got any closure! I'm a good handful of episodes into season three, and not one single character has even mentioned the tension between Leo and donnie during the invasion. everyone acts as if it never happened, so now as a viewer I'm stuck here waiting for the other shoe to drop or for one of these characters to finally snap, but I don’t think it’s going to happen, which sucks. in other iterations of tmnt (like the 2007 movie or the show from 2003) we get to see Donatello act almost like Leo’s second in command. I think that’s a really, really interesting direction the writers of the 2012 show could’ve gone in and I think it’s a waste of this subplot’s potential to just abandon it the way they did. I'm not sure what’s going to happen in season three, but I think a good conclusion of this arc would’ve been donnie and Leo confronting the argument they had, doing a little more maturing, and eventually donnie becomes Leo’s second in command. instead I'm really worried about how the writing of this show is going to devolve as I get further into the later seasons.

(as a side note: I'm currently working on a series of tmnt fics that addresses this issue, as well as the sometimes shitty ways the brothers treat each other and the stupid-as-fuck donnie/april/casey love triangle. so if that floats your boat, keep an eye out! I'll be reposting this with the link attached once I upload the first fic, so give my blog a follow or keep an eye on my ao3 account, heyassbuttimbatman)

#if you got to the end of this monster #congrats!#I hope you guys are excited for that fic I'm writing #because I sure as hell am #tmnt #teenage mutant ninja turtles #tmnt 2012 #teenage mutant ninja turtles 2012 #Leonardo #donatello #raphael #michaelangelo #donnie 2012 #Leo 2012 #Raph 2012 #Mikey 2012 #capriltello #rant #fic

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cblgblog · 3 years

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Sorry I’m advance but one of my other favorite accounts just reblogged a Tony scene and people are talking about Civil War and how it made them Stan Tony, and how when they watch that movie they hate team cap👀 Then someone was all about how he was sleep deprived and how much pressure he was under and couldn’t understand how people didn’t like Tony because. Someone literally said that when someone says they don’t like Tony in Civil War they say “did you watch the same movie as me.” I’m baffled. Oddly enough someone else said, “he just wants to help everyone.” Sorry for the rant but I think people forget about what the accords are and what it would mean for people. Side note, I hope you’re having a great day/night 😀

No sorry needed!

I feel you man, I do. Honestly, I’ve unfollowed people based on similar posts when I was in especially Done moods, so.

Look on the one hand, the movie would’ve been a narrative failure if everyone was in favor of one side or the other, right? The whole point of the damn thing—besides giving the Mouse overlords more money—was to spark discussion, debate. Which, yeah, we’ll call that the tame description for what actually happened. But just, the thing was meant to split the fanbase so in that regard…winning? Thanks, I guess?

Film is also very obviously subjective, different strokes for different folks, so yeah, ten people can watch a movie and none of them are gonna see the exact same film. Let’s try to remember that this is, in theory anyway, a good thing. I just read a professional film review yesterday where I had the same reaction. What film were you watching, dude? Incidentally his reviewing partner said the same thing.

So honestly, no, they weren’t watching the same film as you or I or anyone else, because everyone brings their own biases and experiences and knowledge and interests into a thing, and that’s always going to flavor how it’s viewed. Again, let’s try to remember that this is good. In theory. Heavy on the theory.

That out of the way? Let’s get into Tony specifically so his uber stans can find this and scream at me on anon as though I just shot RDJ with a nuke.

Oh yeah, he was stressed. Oh, he was sleep deprived. Yeah, I’ve heard that. And that it’s Pepper’s fault, if she hadn’t left the poor baby, if she was there to rein him in, he’d be fine dammit, leave the baby alone!

Here’s the thing. You know who gets a pass on their shit behavior when they’re upset or tired? Actual babies. Actual babies and toddlers, and children, up to a point. Because they actually cannot always help themselves. Their bodies and brains are different, they have not learned better.

When you’re a 50-year-old man who’s supposedly the world’s bestest superhero, who wants, wants to be in charge of protecting the whole world? You need a little more self-control than that. The sleep deprived excuse works if you snap at someone before you’ve had your coffee, not for this. Roseanne Barr didn’t get to blame Ambien for her racism, Tony doesn’t get to handwave CW away because oops, I was tired.

Really? You’re a superhero, dude. Most of your teammates are tired too, that’s part of the gig. If you crash and burn this badly without your afternoon nap, fucking hang up the armor and go back to your billionaire playboy lifestyle.

Speaking of that, sure, right. It’s Pepper’s fault because she left him. Put aside the argument on whether that was justified or not (cough, it was and she should’ve stayed away even though they are adorable together). It’s not Pepper’s job to keep Tony sane. It’s not any partner’s job to do that for anyone. If she wants out, she has a right to that, without Tony going off the rails and blaming it on her. Seriously, he says part of the reason he backed the Accords was to “split the difference” with Pepper.

Dude. You were an asshole and you lost your girl. You destroyed all your suits, turned an emotional and mental corner in IM 3…and then relapsed 4 minutes later I guess because Whedon. Either way, Tony admits himself that he does not want to stop. So instead of doing that, or finding another partner who can accept that, you back an unjust international law that pits you against your team, your supposed friends? Go to therapy, have a pint of ice cream, cry into your pillow, send her more of those strawberries you sent her in IM 2 that she’s allergic to. You don’t go trying to change international law in ways that could ultimately affect millions of people because your girl left you.

Honestly—and thank God they didn’t do this but—the only way the Pepper excuse works in excusing his behavior in any way is if she’d died. Or been severely injured like Happy in IM 3. Still wouldn’t be okay, but, like Quill messing up their chance to stop Thanos because Gamora died, it would’ve been more understandable. Understandable, not excusable, and the way the MCU treats their women as manpain fodder, we’re probably legit lucky we didn’t get this.

As for him wanting to help everyone. He does in fact want that, I think. The problem is that his need to feel like he’s doing that is stronger than his rational mind, or his want to actually help in a constructive way.

Tony is too smart. He’s dumb as hell in many instances, mostly involving people and relationships, but he’s also too smart, and he’s been told for too long that he’s smart, and he’s bought into it. Ultron. Suit of armor around the world, protects the world, no more alien threats. It’s a simple concept on paper that fails in execution. So there are people with dangerous powers. Okay, we’ll make a set of laws to keep them from being dangerous, problem solved. But again, it isn’t.

Tony is not used to problems he cannot solve. He’s a genius, right? He can fix anything. He should be able to fix anything. That’s how he feels. But not everything is zeros and ones and circuits, things that can be fixed mechanically like his armors can. The people he wants to protect are not built that way. But he needs to feel like he’s doing something, because he’s terrified of what happens to the world if he doesn’t. So he creates these simple solutions to complex problems. The suit of armor, the Accords. They sound good in theory, but the problems they’re trying to solve are bigger than they are. And Tony, way back in IM 1, he sat back for years, clueless that his weapons were being used for bad things. He says it to Cap in CW. When he found out what his weapons were being used for, he went in and stopped it. Whether or not he should’ve known that already is a separate issue here. The point here is that when he found out, too late or not, he went in and did something about it.

Tony needs to do something about it. Again, go back to Cap in AoU, Tony’s nightmare sequence. Steve asks Tony why he didn’t save them. Tony’s ultimate nightmare is that he sits back and does nothing, and his inaction causes everyone to die. Which is where you get Ultron. Something he came up with because of what he saw in space in Avengers 1, then doubled down on in AoU. It’s where you get the Accords. Oops, he caused someone to die, he killed Charles Spencer. Must do something about that right now so it doesn’t happen again, and he won’t have to feel this guilt. He should be collaborating with others to come up with solutions (no Bruce in AoU doesn’t count because Bruce was dumb there), or at the very least, taking more time to think through the repercussions of the things he puts out there. But he doesn’t, because he’s got his savior complex that tells him that he alone can and must fix this, and because he’s too dumb to realize how not-smart he is in certain areas.

“We need to be put in check. Whatever form that takes, I’m game.”

Isn’t that what he says in CW, or something very close to it? Whatever form that takes. That’s the issue, right there, whatever form that takes. Realistically, yes, there should be laws regarding people with powers, the same way there are special laws pertaining to people who carry guns, or people who are licensed to fly planes. You have a thing/can do a thing that not everyone else does, so there are regulations pertaining to that thing. Laws change with the times, they always have. Some new technology comes up, eventually there will be laws that regulate it. As there should be, honestly. The issue with the Accords, Steve’s issue with the Accords, was not the basic idea. He says as much. He says that it could work, but there would have to be safeguards. Safeguards that are not in the Accords that Tony wants him to sign.

It's not a matter of oh, fuck the law, there should be no law governing these people, they’re above it. The problem is that the law as it’s presented here is unjust. There’s what, a month between Lagos and Ross coming by to tell them about the Accords? A month is not enough time to properly analyze such a big issue, Especially when you’re reacting out of fear, which is what happened with Lagos. People died because of an Enhanced person, an Avenger, in this case. Lawmakers don’t want that to happen again, they especially don’t want the political shit storm that comes with it. Damn, we look like we were asleep at the switch here, not having anything to throw at this problem earlier. Quick, let’s throw together this thing so no one can say we’re not addressing the problem.

Patriot Act of 2001, anyone? 9/11 happened, the public were rightfully terrified, the US said oh man, these are unprecedented circumstances, we’ve never had this before. Don’t worry though, we’re on this, we’re protecting you. The reality being that that bill simply gave the government too much power, most of it being used against people who were not actually threats, and it’s debatable, to say the very least, whether or not that law helped more than it hurt.

No law is perfect. No law ever will be. It’s not possible. We still have to strive for perfection though, have to aim there so that the laws we get are as close to fair as possible. Tony’s a big deal. If not for his “whatever form that takes” attitude, he might’ve been able to use his influence to pressure lawmakers into coming up with a fairer bill. Hey, I’m me, the public loves me, I will endorse this bill publicly and work on getting the rest of the team to sign, but you need to change this and this and this first, or no deal. Instead, he took the easy way out, the quickest, easiest way for him to feel like he’s atoned for his sins without actually doing anything. Whatever form that takes.

Tony’s not wrong because he backs the creation of a law that addresses these things. He’s wrong because he says himself that he does not care what that law does, specifically, so long as it exists. He’s wrong because he violates said law upteen times during the movie, while preaching to team Cap about what assholes they are for not backing it. He’s wrong because he cares more about feeling as though he’s tackled a problem than he does about taking the time to make sure that the thing he’s proposing is actually a good idea. He’s wrong because of what he does with Bucky, though that’s honestly a separate issue, for the purposes of this discussion.

Anyway, that was longer than I ever wanted it to be. Damn. Next time you see a comment about CW being the reason people stan Tony, just remember there are other people out there who stopped stanning Tony because of that movie. Everyone’s entitled to see a piece of media however they see it, and although the Tony stans are often the loudest, there are plenty of like-minded people out there who share your take on events. Block who you need to, unfollow who you need to, blacklist what you need to, and don’t let them get you down.

Hang in there, and have an awesome day :)

#pro steve rogers #pro team cap #anti tony stark #anti tony stans #anti iron man #anti team iron man

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bonny-kookoo · 4 years

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Bad Girl (JJK x Reader) 🎀💜☁️🔞

Pairing: Jeon Jungkook x Reader

Genre: Good Girl AU, slight angst, fluff and romance, smut, oh god there’s so much filth

Warnings: DD/LG themes, it’s actually a major part in this so if you’re uncomfy you can skip this chapter thanks, GG is scared to talk to Koo about it, Koo thinks the worst, life lesson to learn from this: talk about shit, cockwarming, Dom!Jungkook, like he’s actually pretty demanding this time, Sub!Reader, non-sexual spanking, Bratty!Reader, toy usage, more to be added if I get carried away writing again

Summary: Jungkook has gotten so used to you being the sweet angel you are all the time, that he’s actually a bit confused when you’re not. Are you unhappy with him? Or do you only need to be put back into your place again?

Good Girl || Sweet Girl || Smart Girl || Brave Girl || Pretty Girl || Charming Girl || Enticing Girl || Bad Girl || ???

Taglist: @sweetenedcooky @ggukkieland @btsismybias22 @darkgvk @daddypkj @flowerprincess24 @crazylittlemay @zeharilisharaban @teresaisla @tangledsparkles @dammit-jjk

Well, this was certainly new.

For hours, Jungkook had been immersed into the screen of his PC- yet he wasn't playing any video game at all. He was desperately trying to come up with ideas, new inspiration, as his mind was seemingly clogged up with random thoughts that didn't fit what he wanted.

Time to get his mind off of things?

Maybe, but Jungkook had ignored you almost the entire day already, the clock now nearing 4 in the evening. You promptly walked over to him, ignoring his attempts to tell you he did not have time right now, but simply seating yourself ontop of his thighs, taking your rightful place on your throne which was his lap. He bit his tongue as he closed his eyes for a second, refraining from saying anything you could take wrongly. "Baby, I have to finish this-" He started, voice growing a bit whiny at the end as his head fall backwards, chuckle escaping him at your struggle to open his fly while he was sitting. "As much as I love the idea I can't fuck you right now princess-" He said, but you shook your head.

"I'll wait then, I can be good." You stated, making his pupils widen at the way you said that. You pulled him out of the warmth inside his underwear, hands moving over the skin of his length as he slowly grew more firm inside your palms. You moved a bit, Jungkook helping you by holding your waist to make sure you couldn't slip off as he watched you curiously, pulling the fabric of your panties to the side as you began to lower yourself. He held you still before you could move.

"No no no wait, condom-" He said hurriedly, but you simply giggled, shaking your head. "Baby no, we talked about that-" He began again, but you looked at him with an innocent face.

"But we're not gonna do anything!" You said, and it dawned on him what you were trying to do.

Cockwarming?

He'd heard of it, Taehyung having told him once that he'd tried but failed, unable to sit still for so long. Yet for Jungkook this could be a challenge for himself to try and keep himself in check, to train his own will by simply leaving himself inside you. This would be the first time going bare, and he didn't want to mess it up. So he nodded, letting you lower yourself down on him, his member enterin you slowly, entirely new feeling as he noticed the way your walls welcomed him inside, warmth comforting in a way he could not describe. This was.. actually not that bad.

"Hm.. you're comfy baby?" He asked, and you nodded, resting your head on the inside of his shoulder as he held you, pulling his chair closer to his Screen again, mind now a bit more calm as he began to collect sketches and ideas more orderly, finally able to catch a decent train of thought. Sometimes you really had great ideas.

Again you'd bee searching for ways to tell Jungkook about things that had been bothering you. No, bothering wasn't the right word.. it was weighing you down, prohibiting you any kind of full forced happiness, because it always crept into the back of your mind, corrupting your thoughts with harsh visions of him calling you weird or even going as far as to leave entirely. After all, it was quite.. weird.

It wasn't like you were regressing into a full forced baby, no. You'd learned to take care of yourself even when you were falling into your headspace, knowing how to make yourself comfortable without any help of someone to watch over you. However, just like everyone else in this world, regardless of who, you craved to share these moments of full on vulnerability with someone you loved and trusted.

Jungkook.

It wasn't like you didn't trust him, but he was someone who'd put his own needs and interests behind just for you, and you didn't want that to happen. As selfish as it sounded, you wanted him to care for you because he wanted to, not because he felt as if he needed to do it in order to keep you happy. You could let go of it just to stay with him, if that was what it would take for you and him to stay together.

"Baby, I was gonna go to the store real quick, you need some..thing.?" His voice got a bit slower and died down eventually as you shut your laptop with quite the amount of force from being startled by him, making him furrow his brows a bit. "Everything alright?" He asked, now a bit more serious in tone as he could sense something off about you.

"Yeah! Sure, eh.. could you pick up some Milk? We're out of it almost so, uh.. yeah.." You said, smiling, yet without true intentions. Jungkook nodded, telling you goodbye as he put on his shoes, grim look on his face not diminishing at all as he thought about your behavior lately. It was quite worrying, how you now began to pick up on the habit of locking your phone with a passcode, not leaving your laptop open anymore, or how nervous you became every time he caught you on either of these devices.

What else was he supposed to think?

Weren't you happy with him? Had he done something wrong? He tried to think of something, anything that would explain you putting distance between you two so suddenly, yet he could not come up with something that would sound rational. And even with all the signs pointing towards it, he could not make himself belief you would genuinely go out and meet someone else behind his back; you were not like that at all. So what was really going on?

He almost dropped the milk carton in his hand as his phone buzzed, the message something that made his stomach drop.

'We need to talk.'

This was planned way better than executed.

Having Jungkook sit in front of you on the bed was making it even harder to just come out and say it. Every time your brain attempted to send the proper signals to your tongue, trying to open your lips to form words, they just wouldn't come out. It was as if you tried to drive a car with the breaks still pressed; it didn't work at all.

Yet you couldn't seem to loosen your breaks.

Jungkook sighed, running a hand over his face, as he took your hand into his, worried look on his face. "Look.." He began, and you watched him as his thumb gently drew circles on the back of your hand, his eyes averting your gaze. "If you want to break up-"

"NO!" You immediately said, loudly, startling both of you as you sat up straighter, grabbing his hand with both of yours, holding onto it as if it would disappear if you didn't. He looked at you with wide eyes, genuinely confused. That.. wasn't it? Then what had you so secretive and skittish lately? "I mean, except if you want to-" He smiled a bit, scooting forwards to have you closer, legs now on either side of his hips as you sat on his thighs.

"No, never. I thought you wanted to." He said, interlacing his fingers behind your back to keep you close, as he looked at you more calmly now. "But I know there's something you want to tell me." He hummed, trying to coax you out of your shell with a gentle tone of voice. It seemed to work as you visibly began to think. "It's alright, you can tell me anythi-" He started, but you cut him off.

"Do you know what.. uh.. you know, dd-lg means.?" You carefully asked, and his eyes widened for the nth time that day, looking at you with wonder. That.. that was what you were so worried about?

He simply nodded. "I know about it. Why?" He asked, even though now he had a hunch of what was actually the issue. It did explain a lot for him as he thought about all the instances you'd hinted at it in the past, never having the courage to actually say it out loud. "You're a little, is that it?" He wondered, and you nodded, looking down as he smiled gently, lifting your chin up. "Hey no, it's alright, really. I already suspected something like that, to be honest." He said, and your gaze finally found his.

"You did?" Weren't you secretive enough about it? Maybe he'd seen your search history, but then again, you were always so careful to only ever use incognito tabs and to always keep your phone and laptop close so he wouldn't accidentally stumble upon anything weird. Yet he proved again that you could hide basically nothing from him, as he smiled, absolutely not unnerved by any of it.

"Hmhm." He hummed as he visibly relaxed. "I mean it. It's okay." He said, and you fiddled with your fingers. "But that's not all there is, isn't it?" He asked, knowing what you wanted to ask, yet choosing not to take that burden from you. You needed to talk openly to him.

"I just.." You started, before looking at him. "So, you're like.. okay with it?" You asked, and he still smiled, while nodding to confirm your answer silently. "Would you.. like, you know.. take care of me, when I'm like this..?" You mumbled, and again confirmed, before verbally answering.

"I'll admit, I'm kinda.. uncomfortable with you calling me daddy though, if that makes sense, but I guess I'll eventually grow into it." He said, as you shook your head.

"you don't have to." You said, hugging him tightly as you began to rest your head onto his chest. "You'll just stay my 'Koo.." You hummed, as he chuckled, holding you close to him.

Yeah, he could definitely grow fond of that.

"No baby, we can't just order takeout all the time. It's not healthy." He argued, as you sat on the couch, pouting at him as you were getting ready to call back, just to have him turn around. "Don't even start young lady, No means no." He said sternly, making you deflate as you simply rested your chin on the back of the couch, shutting your mouth. Ever since you'd both agreed on the dynamic you now practiced, Jungkook had been slowly setting up more and more rules for you, some being more strict than others. You loved that, you were happy he was feeling comfortable with it, and deep down you knew it was in your best interest, yet you also only now realized how much freedom you'd had before. Yet even though you could feel the need to test your boundaries, you'd stayed compliant and a good girl until now.

Even though you were curious what he'd choose as punishments.

Jungkook had informed himself after your talk, silently learning more about what he should and shouldn't do. He was growing more and more into the role of an actual caregiver, having agreed to simply test things out instead of using someone else's rules or punishments as yours. Communication was key for you, and honesty as well; you were always free to tell him that you were feeling big, in which case your rules did not apply and you were free to do as you pleased. He trusted you to never use that as an advantage, simply believing in himself and his ability to spot lies on your face as soon as they'd leave your lips.

Something crinkling caught his attention.

"Y/n." He simply said, making you halter all movements as you cringed, caught in the act as you'd tried to open a pack of oreos on the couch, hidden from his sight. He'd heard you, however, and the way he called your actual name meant that he was everything but amused by your actions. "I believe we talked about having sweets before a meal as well." He said, feet stepping closer before he leaned over the couch, inked hand easily taking the sweet treats from your hands as you looked down your lap. Yet your toes wiggled in tension. Had you finally reached the end of his patience?

"Go and wait inside the bedroom until I call you out for dinner. No Laptop, and your phone stays here as well." He said, tone not leaving any room for arguments against his statement. Your lips turned downwards, yet you slowly complied, pulling out your phone and placing it on the coffee table in front of the couch, before walking inside your shared bedroom, attempting to close the door. "No, leave it open so I can still hear you." He said, and you sighed, before flopping down onto the bed.

Yet you also smiled.

He slowly learned more and more about what was right, and what wasn't.

For example, whenever you were feeling small, you were absolutely oblivious to anything of a sexual nature, which made him come to the conclusion that your littlespace and subspace actually were two different things. It made sense to him, the way your gaze would change as soon as you'd switch mindsets was a clear sign of what he could and could not do.

Sure, there have been awkward moments as well, and you had been crying a few times from too harsh punishments such as time outs as well- but that was part of the learning experience for both of you. You'd told him that you genuinely never had an actual caregiver in that sense, which only stroked his ego even more as he realized this was another first he'd claimed as his. Even if it was without actually knowing.

He felt proud.

"Koo?" You asked, eyes wide open and watching him from the doorway as he read through an article about a convention nearby showcasing some of the best airbrush artworks the town had to offer. He turned around in his chair, patting his thighs.

"You're feeling small?" He asked, and you nodded, walking towards him as you sat down on his lap, hugging his middle the best you could as you tried to read whatever he was reading. Something caught your attention as you called out his name again, pointing at the screen where his name was actually written. "Yeah, that's me." He confirmed, smiling at you.

"Why?" You asked cursiously, genuinely wanting to know, yet your mind was hazy, making it hard for you to form proper sentences. He didn't mind.

"Koo 's gonna be there and show his work to others." He said, and your eyes looked at him in awe, happy that he'd actually been chosen to be able to show his talent. You wanted to congratulate him, yet the only thing you truly got to do was hug him tighter, mumbling something that sounded like the word 'proud' into his sweater as he grinned, running a hand over your back. "Thank you princess, I'm pretty proud of myself too." He hummed, before closing the tab, picking you up and letting both of you fall onto his bed, tired from the last days of work, trying to perfect what he would be showcasing the upcoming week. You giggled before moving closer, laying flat on top of him as he sighed happily, eyes closing as you both drifted off.

“Huh, so now you wanna be a good girl?” He grunts our as he pushes your wrists back onto the bed, denying you any physical contact you desire to have with him. He decides what you get, and you look at him with wide eyes as his dark ones stare into yours. “Well that’s not how it works sweetheart.” He mumbled, flipping you over so you were on your stomach, pulling your legs towards him to lift your lower body onto your knees, center exposed to him in a for you humiliating position. “You can’t just pull stunts like that and then try to wiggle yourself out of it just by batting your pretty eyes at me.” He said, voice dangerously low and steady. He seemed so calm that it showed how well he fit the role of the dynamic you’d discussed earlier. This was him, through and through. “What was that?” He asked as you mumbled something into the pillow below. He brought his hand down onto your bottom as you still didn’t speak clearly enough, making you Yelp.

“Said ‘m sorry!” You whined out, and his palm flattened out, soothing the still tingling flesh of your behind as if to apologize. He hummed, hands wandering until you could feel his fingers spread your lower lips apart, admiring your glistening center. You moved your hips a bit, only earning his hands on either side of them, holding you still.

“I don’t think you understand yet..” he said, as he unplugged the charging cable from the toy next to him on the bed, the device now charged. “You’ll have to do better than that.” He whispered, as he pushed the toy inside you excruciatingly slow, making you whine. He simply chuckled at that.

“Or don’t you want to be my good girl again?” He mused, turning it on as you squeaked, hands gripping the sheets underneath you as you gasped.

So how did you end up in this mess?

Well, it actually wasn't your fault at all. Jungkook had just been on edge that day, that was it, not the fact that you'd sneaked sweets into the bedroom to brighten up your punishments, how you'd 'accidentally' put one of his white shirts into the same wash your red underwear and dresses were in, or how you'd been throwing a small tantrum when he'd told you to stay seated and finish your meal. Peas were gross and he knew you hated them. You didn't get why he wanted you to eat them anyways.

So yeah, maybe you had felt particularly bratty today, but when you were little, he never punished you sexually at all- it was an unwritten rule not to take any sort of advantage of you while in that absolutely oblivious headspace. So how come this was happening?

Well, Jungkook was too observant for your own good, you'd realized.

Because in the midst of your impish tactics to rile him up, he'd noticed your demeanor change. Whenever you were little, he knew that you would eventually get tired more easily; you'd simply get boosts of energy before taking naps between them. You were also not that interested in being disobedient at all, only thriving from his praise and smile, never enjoying punishments at all. He knew something was off when you'd started to giggle every time he snapped at you, and his suspicions were confirmed when he'd spanked you in the middle of the hallway- earning a very different kind of gasp from you.

In subspace, things were quite different. You were completely sure of what you both were doing, knowingly and fully consciously giving your control up to him while being aware of what may happened. This was a different kind of headspace, where he was free to use and ruin you to every extend he deemed fitting.

And oh how he craved to put you into your place this time.

"I don't think I ever said anything about you touching yourself." He growled, free hand grabbing your wrists back yet again, holding them tightly above your head as you whined, craving a different kind of touch to a different part of you. He knew this, was very well aware of the fact that you could generally only reach an orgasm if you were being stimulated instead of penetrated, but that was his plan. This wasn't about you; this was a punishment, and about his own fun.

"hm, you think I could try and make you cum like this?" He sang almost, changing the settings of the toy still inside you to a higher one, making your hips stutter as you shook your head, trying to tell him not to, as he simply chuckled leaning back on his knees as he watched you squirm. "Huh, that wasn't a question baby." He said, beginning to move the toy before stopping, as he clicked his tongue when you tried to reach for it again. Three time's the charm, you guessed. He however was not amused, pulling the toy out completely as you gasped from the sudden feeling of emptiness as he flipped you over, pulling on your thighs to have your behind facing him, hand falling down onto it with force, making the skin sting and turn pink. "You really love testing me, don't you?" He gritted out, hitting again and again as you moaned into the sheets below, making him scoff. "I can feel you leaking on my thigh, dirty girl." He mumbled close to your ear as he moved you yet again, positioning you on your knees to present your center towards him embarrassingly, making you whine. "Oh you don't get to complain baby. You wanted this, right?" He said with fake sympathy as his fingers moved over your pearl, pace without any form of gentleness as your voice failed, simply breathing heavily as your hands curled into fists, holding onto the cotton sheets as if your life depended on it. The sounds made by his hand on your exposed cunt were absolutely obscene, making the tips of your ears turn red as he continued his pace, inked hand working on your most vulnerable muscle without any mercy.

Not even when you came.

You cried out, trying to reach him but failing due to his positioning, sobbing without tears as you felt something within yourself snap, Jungkook groaning out loud as he noticed the clear liquid bursting out, making his length ache as his free hand grabbed onto it, moving it leisurely at the scene in front of him. "There you go!" He exclaimed, letting you fall down as he turned you over, spreading your legs as you caught a glimpse of him, toned abdominal muscles glistening with your release as he pumped his length, condom already wrapped over it.See?" He said as he chuckled darkly. "You can be a good girl after all." He praised, making you smile a bit as your core clenched around nothing, still sensitive to anything that came close to it. His predatory grin told you however, that this was not over yet. Pushing inside you, you mewled at the sensitivity, as he hushed you, pulling you close by your legs as he began to thrust forwards, rhythmic pace easily found as his hand moved over your breasts, kneading them before his hands wandered lower, holding your waist as he continued, breathing heavily as he growled, head dipping down to bite and mouth at your neck, leaving your skin red on his way, those marks soon to blossom into heavenly shades of purples as he let himself go, mouth finally finding yours, stealing every breath as he kissed you with need, want, as if he wasn't close enough to you already. "Hah you're so sweet-" He moaned, kissing you again before letting your lungs fill with oxygen again. "I love you, I love you so much" He whispered, picking up his pace as he bit his lip, thrusts hard and shaking your body, the sound of skin against skin echoing inside the room with wet noises, yet both of you didn't care as he finally let out a breathy sound, head falling back as he came, before lowering himself again, catching his breath as he still moved lazily, riding out his high as you moved a bit underneath him, making him laugh without sound. "My good girl getting greedy?" He hummed, pushing himself inside of you and staying there, hand reaching between your bodies to find your sensitive bud, fingers drawing circles over it in well practiced motions that made you suddenly cry out, your walls clenching around his cock still nestled inside you, making him humm in oversensitivity.

"Thats okay.." He whispered, moving again as he huffed, sweat running down his temples as he felt himself overcome the almost painful feeling of his most recent orgasm, picking up his speed as a small laugh mixed in between his desperate tries to even out his breathing. His hair was getting curly from the moisture, falling over his eyes and giving him the sheer visuals of the devil himself, making you sob as you desperately tried to keep your hands away from him. "It's alright, you're so good to me, you can touch me, yeah?" He chanted, and you immediately took the invitation, hands reaching for his arms, holding onto them as if your life depended on it. He smiled at the sight, at the simply view of your tears dying down as soon as your hands got in contact with him again, mind now at ease again with his presence confirmed to your closed eyes. "Such a good girl, taking it all so well, so good.." He said, voice low and rumbling as he went faster, now feeling himself tense again, to his surprise. "Can you cum again for me? Just one more?" He asked, and you shook your head, although a bit unsure. "You can do it, I know you can, just one baby.." He pressed out between gritted teeth, breathing hard against your neck as his thrusts began to dwindle, growing more and more unsteady as he suddenly began to pick up his face, mouth opening before he bit down his lip, breath coming out of his nose as his forehead fell into the crook of your neck, hand desperately trying to reach your center, sloppily rubbing over it as you snapped yet again, hot white pleasure painting the inside of your eyelids it seemed as you mewled, holding onto him for dear life as he felt himself cum without spilling, your release however coating his thighs again, if not as much as the first time.

He fell down next to you after pulling out his now softening length, breathing heavily as he closed his eyes, chest rising and falling at a rapid pace, both of you utterly and thoroughly spent. He wanted to take care of you, but all he could really do was tie a knot at the end of the condom after pulling it off of himself, tossing it into the bin, before pulling you close. He could do that after he'd taken a short nap. Right now his bones felt like rubber, his muscles aching in the most pleasing ways as he decided the cleanup could wait after recharging.

You noticed that you were being carried, before you slowly opened your eyes. The scent of laundry detergent filled your senses as you instinctively tried to curl closer to the soft material of Jungkooks sweatshirt, making him chuckle. "Baby you gotta let go, I have to change the sheets." He cooed gently, placing you on the couch as you simply nodded, fists uncurling as you simply stayed where you were, noticing the oversized sweater you were dressed in.

He did this generally after sex. He loved whenever you put on his clothes, yet after being close like this, it held a special meaning towards him, making him feel as if he'd claimed you.

You loved it.

Balling up the sheets in his arms, he began to throw them into the washing machine,open window letting fresh air inside the stuffy room as miri followed him, making him watch his steps as to not accidentally hurt her. He sometimes stopped to pet her head, grinning when her little tail began to wag excitedly. "Come on, lets go cuddle our sleeping beauty, yeah?" He whispered with mimicked excitement, making the dog bark as he hushed her, speedwalking towards the couch as the small poodle ran after him, yapping at your hands as he suddenly threw himself over you, careful not to crush you under his weight as he held himself up on his knees and elbows pressed into the soft cushions underneath, his nose tickling yours as you giggled.

The way he could go from an absolute demon to the softest young man alive gave you whiplash, but you wouldn't have it any other way with him.

"Jungkookie.."

"What is it?"

"Can you carry me to McDonalds?"

"First of all its been two days, second of all, get on my back."

#bts #bts imagine #bts fic #bts fanfic #bts smut #jungkook #jungkook imagine #bts jungkook #jeon jungkook #bts reactions

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wastetimeandtype · 3 years

Text

KUVIRA WINS STORY/ NEXT AVATAR (SUMMARY)

--I’m not going to finish this. I haven’t touched the story in years. Honestly I just don’t want to write something as bleak as this story anymore, I was in a weird place when I came up with this. However, I am still fond of it, and I think it’s some of my more solid writing (I wrote 25k) if you can forgive the more edgelord elements, but I won’t be finishing it. I will say this was never meant to be tonally similar nor do I want this story to happen in canon, it was just an extreme ending to book 4 I found interesting to explore.

CONTWNT WARNING: This takes an extremely uncharitable view of Kuvira and is overall pretty depressing, so be forewarned that this story summary mentions death and one instance of rape.

So, general backstory:

- The hummingbird suits fail and they don’t manage to enter the colossus. Jinora is seriously injured, and the group try and regroup but are captured.

- Kuvira drugs Korra with the toxin that incapacitated her that time in Zaofu the Red Lotus tried to kidnap her. Kuvira executes Bolin, Varrick and Zhu-Li for betraying her (this story is bleak...)

- Kuvira tries to win Korra over by talking to her and appealing that they’re similar. This doesn’t work, and also Kuvira just executed Bolin. Anyway she eventually gets pissed and tortures Asami and Mako in front of Korra. Korra manages to break through to the Avatar State but as she is poisoined she is not all powerful and Kuvira manages to kill her. Korra dies surrounded by Korra and Asami.

- In the months that follow, Hiroshi Sato and Asami and encouraged to work for Kuvira. Asami is aghast and the two plan an escape. Hiroshi dies in the escape attempt. Asami looks around the cells for Mako, but she can’t find him- at this point, they hadn’t seen eachother since Korra died and he was moved. She leaves Republic City by boat, vowing to take back the city. (note. Hiroshi’s fate was never fully decided, but I didn’t write him into my first draft so i assume I meant for him to be dead).

- Wu, meanwhile, managed to escape the encroaching forces from Kuvira as many of the refugees were evacuated to the Fire Nation just before full control was given. He then lives there in political exile.

- The Fire Nation declares war on Kuvira’s regime after they get confirmation that the Avatar is dead, along with the Water Tribes. Kuvira makes good progress conquering some of the islands, but the Fire Nation manages to make Hummingbird suits which destroys the mecha, and out of desperation starting making their own spirit nukes. This forces the war to a stalemate to aavoid further huge losses. However, they do not sign a peace treaty, only a cessation of fighting. Kuvira releases some political prisoners like Iroh and the Air Nation as a sign of goodwill but Izumi and the Fire Nation won’t sign a treaty without the return of sovereignty to the United Republic. Kuvira refuses.

- Kuvira renames Republic City to Empire City, because originality, and makes it the capital. She rules the nation under an iron fist. All benders are made to register, with fire and waterbenders being treated the worst.

- MEANWHILE Kuvira released Opal (airbender) but not the rest of the Beifongs. Opal is PISSED. She teams up with Asami and set up the United Republic Liberation Front, with volunteers from refugees from all over the world.

- Whilst this is happening, Zaheer and the Red Lotus’s ideology sees a resurgence of popularity and Zaheer is broken out of his prison to lead the Red Lotus. So we now have to rebel factions, and the URLF does not trust the Red Lotus because of the whole trying to murder Korra thing, and the Red Lotus doesn’t like that they plan to put Wu on the throne in the Earth Kingdom.

- The Air Nation relocates to the Fire Nation, but some like Meelo join the URLF, and some rejoin the Red Lotus. The Air Nation implicitly opposses the Earth Empire so any airbender is viewed as a terrorist.

- The Fire Nation implicitly support the URLF, the Earth Empire knows it, but the two nations are still at a stalemate due to the spirit nukes.

- Opal and Asami begin a relationship out of shared grief (they have lost their family, friends, and romantic interest (Asami didn’t even get to date Korra). They also vow to try and rescue Mako, as they don’t know what happened to him, but they suspect he’s imprisoned with other lightning benders.

- A young child named Xan is born in the Earth Kingdom. His single mother dies young, so he is raised in an orphanage. He is a talented earthbender, but one day when it’s cold, he warms his hands up with firebending. He is whisked away to Kuvira’s mansion in Empire City. He sees her as a mother figure and is very close with her. Xan, the Avatar, is brought up to be a loyal member of the regime, and doesn’t doubt it otherwise.

STORY PROPER

- Xan is super happy with Unification Day! They celebrate the day Kuvira unified the Empire by conquering Empire City. They even have a play called the Unification Play. Bolin and Varrick are portrayed as evil and duplitious, propoganda runs rife. He is nearly seventeen.

- Xan is very loyal to the Earth Empire but chafes under the rule. He has mastered Earth and Fire, but struggles with airbending (as they have no teachers) and waterbending isn’t coming naturally either. He runs away from his bodyguard Iseul to have some fun on Unification Day. Iseul is a tall, metalbending soldier woman and around twenty-four. She is very by the book and has a strong sense of justice, and does not go out of her way to terrorise the fire and waterbenders like other members of the metalbending ruling class. However, Iseul is incredibly loyal to Xan, and loves him as a brother.

- Xan is reprimanded by Iseul and Kuvira for running off since he is a massive target for the evil rebels. Kuvira gives a speech to the crowd, but is targeted by an airbending assassin who is shot down by metalbending gaurds. She has insignia from the Red Lotus on her person so she is considered a terrorist. Zaheer is moved up to the top of the most wanted list above Asami and Opal.

- After this is Xan sees a vision of Korra. She has been trying to contact him, but Kuvira tells him to suppress these visions and that spirits are trying to influence him. He has no other education so he believes her. So he continues to ignore KOrra trying to get through to him.

- Xan is also generally an anxious mess and worries about the pressure.

- Xan watches soap operas with Kobi, his loyal servant of a similar age. Xan loves gossip and relationship drama. It’s his major flaw other than being an Earth Empire loyalist. He lives at the Air Temple with lots of guards which Kuvira turned into acomodation for him. Xan’s identity to the public is still kept secret, it’s just seen as more training barracks.

- Xan accompanies Kuvira to watch people being sentenced for being horrible people and also being anti regime. A waterbender is sentenced to a re-education camp, and her look to him strikes a nerve and disturbs him. Xan also visits a spirit weapons facility where they are attacked by a corrupted spirit (like in book 2) as all the spirit vine weaponry is causing the spiritual world to be out of whack and the spirits are angry (not helped by Xan ignoring his spiritual side).

- However Kobi briefly mentions that maybe Kuvira isn’t right all the time which causes Xan to snap at him. Xan is loyal.

- A few days later Kobi sneaks Xan out for some underage drinking but the drinks are actually drugged. Kobi is working for the URLF! Kobi is a trained liar so he evaded the truth seers under Kuvira’s employ. The URLF manage to get to the Air Temple, kidnap Xan in a submarine and take him away. This is the worst part of what I wrote because of how easy it was, and would be revised.

- Anyway Opal is on the submarine and takes Xan to the URLF base which is on a Southern Air Temple island (not the air temple itself, if that makes sense). They have an advanced cave system within the mountain to hideout.

- Opal on the trip is like ‘what up Xan’ and Xan is pissed and enters the Avatar State. They calm him down as he has nowhere to go as he is in a submarine. Xan is like ‘Bolin is shit fuck you’ and Opal hates this little shit. Xan can’t stand Kobi, who tries to say this is for the best and that Kuvira is wrong. Kobi is half a waterbender and hasn’t seen his mother in years as she didn’t register herself and was taken away to a camp, so Kobi joined the URLF. Xan has some sympathies, but can’t trust Kobi as Kobi has demonstrated that he is an excellent liar.

- They get to the hideout where we meet Asami. Asami and Opal are the leaders of the URLF. They imprison Xan for a bit where Korra again appears like ‘what up’ and he’s like go away. Asami lets Xan out of his prison to show him ‘Nuktuk’ because Asami is trying to explain to Xan bias and propoganda. She also offers that they’ll teach him airbending and his freedom around the complex in exchange for open-mindedness to their organisation. It’s better than being in a cell so Xan agrees. Asami also tells Xan that Kuvira killed Korra, and that she tortured Asami and Mako. Xan is disturbed, and also has no information on where Mako currently is. Opal is pretty pissed at Asami for basically doing this behind her back. (They have a slightly strained romance). Xan loves this drama. He is roomed with Kobi as Asami is like ‘you can room with your friend’ forgetting that Xan doesn’t like Kobi. Should be clear that Xan is pretty much trapped on this island as he has no control over the Avatar State and can’t bend water.

MEANWHILE

- Iseul really fucked up and Kuvira admonishes her for being a bad bodyguard. Iseul deeply cares for Xan and asks Kuvira to be allowed to go find Xan and Kuvira agrees (note: i do not like this plot point. I think it makes more sense for Iseul to go anyway despite Kuvira’s refusal).

- Iseul travels to a small town where she knows where rebels have had activity the Earth Empire is trying to stamp out. She decides to integrate with them, get close to the leadership, find Xan. She saves two members from the metalbending police starts to get friendly with the rebels. However they aren’t the URLF, they’re actually aligned with the Red Lotus, but on the ground, in towns, they often function fairly similar. Iseul decides to accompany a small group who are travelling down to another town with URLF contacts. She also meets Chatit, a prominent leader of the URLF. They flirt with eachother a little bit. Iseul wonders what she’s doing. THIS IS WHERE I STOPPED WRITING, THE REST IS PURE NOTES.

- Iseul and the Red Lotus gang get sidetracked by a member along the journey saying they think they found a bunch of lightning benders in a prison. The Red Lotus decides to break them out, Iseul reluctantly agrees to this to prove she is loyal to the cause so she can integrated with the URLF when the time comes. Of course, Mako’s in the prison! With a child named Akane. Iseul rescues Mako personally as he has an injured leg and they start to bond. Iseul also gets along with Akane.

- Akane is the daughter of Akane, another lightning bender Mako fell in love with in prison. She reveals she’s not Mako’s biological daughter, but the product of rape from one of the guards. Iseul is horrified, and does make her doubt the integrity of the regime she loves.

- Chatit decides, ‘hey, let’s go to Zaheer instead! We can get him on side when we go see the URLF and Mako is now a bargaining chip’. Mako is very unamused by this whole situation. He just wants to see Asami and Opal. He also likes Iseul not only for saving him but it’s clear that she doesn’t really believe in Zaheer and he likes that she thinks for herself.

- Chatit brings Mako to Zaheer’s secret camp in the woods and he’s like ‘what up Zaheer I brought you the guy who killed Ming-Hua!’ Zaheer does not give a shit as he is beyond grudges and admonishes a Chatit for not getting their philosophy. However doesn’t mind using Mako as a bargaining chip.

- mako is like to Iseul ‘Chatit is as bad with Zaheer as the metalbendera are with Kuvira’ and Iseul is like wait... that’s ME. She doesn’t say this aloud though but she now thinks Chatit is a complete weirdo because he simps for Zaheer so hard. Iseul’s faith in the regime is still shaken but Iseul is still dedicated to finding Xan and making sure he’s safe.

MEANWHILE (we’d cut back and forth between the two POV’s, so this is all mixed in with eachother).

— Xan struggles to learn airbending as he doesn’t know what true freedom is.

- Wu visits and is like ‘hey let’s party! You guys are so miserable!’ Wu also has a hunky Fire Nation boyfriend now. However Xan gleans from Wu that he intends to regain the throne, and also be the last King. The bloodline dies with him.

- Xan and Kobi have a little dance at this party. Opal and Asami make up. Xan is enthralled.

- Xan starts to make some progress with airbending so Opal and Asami decide to bring him on a boat to the Southern Water Tribe to visit the spirit portal in the hope he’ll be able to reconnect with Korra properly there by force instead of him burying it.

— they get to the Southern Water Tribe by Air Bison. The Souther Warter Tribe is attacked by Kuvira’s forces. Corrupted spirits also attack and wreck havoc amongst the general populace and the forces.

— in the chaos Korra reappears before Xan and he connects with her. She brings him to the moment of her death, and he feels her pain and is horrified, and it confirms the torture side of the story. Xan snaps back, enters the Avatar state and leaves with Asami and Opal.

— this is where the story gets a little shaky, but Xan still tries to believe he might be able to get through to Kuvira.

MEANWHILE

Word spreads that the Avatar has returned! Iseul sends some sort of message to the Earth empire forces to ask if they have Xan back. This is intercepted by the Red Lotus. Mako is horrified as the whole group realised she is a traitor. They move to execute her but Mako does step in since Iseul saved him from the prison, but declares to her to never interact with him and his daughter again. Which is sad as Iseul was getting a big sister bond with Akane. Akane does apologise to Mako but he’s having none of it. He just feels manipulated and he is so, so tired.

— not been clear but Mako’s mental state isn’t great. He’s been in prison for around seventeen years, witnessed the execution of his brother, and murder of Korra. He’s a bit fucked. His leg is also in poor condition and can’t fight well, he’s basically just been used to power lightning for years. Akane is the only thing that keeps him going. He wants to make sure she’s safe with Asami and Opal. Plus he’s also being used as a bargaining chip.

— the Red Lotus finally get to the URLF contacts. They manage to speak to Asami and Opal who are like ‘whooo Mako!’ and agree to a meeting with Zaheer. Xan decides to come too.

— Iseul and Mako are transferred to the URLF. Iseul finally decides to give up some crucial information— the Earth Empire intends to use its spirit weapons again soon, as they anticipate that the Fire Nation will use the comet in years to come to destroy the Earth Empire. They intend to use such an intense, short blast that the Fire Nation can’t respond.

— the URLF and Red Lotus decided they must band together, but they have to get the Fire Nation on side to attack the Earth Empire unexpectedly.

— Xan decides he must speak to Kuvira. Get her to see reason. Everyone tells him he’s delusional so he steals an Air Bison to get himself there before the attack.

— Before they fight, Mako, Opal and Asami have a tearful reunion. Mako can’t fight as he isn’t well, but he does bid them farewell.

— once there, Kuvira will not see reason. They fight and fight and fight, while the Fire Nation ships arrive with a shit tonne of weapons s, and the Earth empire prepares to use its weapons. Xan realised that it’s going to be an all out death battle, mutually assured destruction, so he kills Kuvira in a very long fight where he goes into the Avatar state (at this point he is pretty good at airbending but cannot waterbenders still).

— war is averted. Xan is traumatised and pissed. Korra reminds him that he isn’t some weapon— he’s been told what to do all his life, even by the URLF. So against proper protocol as suggested by Asami, he grabs all the spirit weapons in a big hurricane from both sides, and blows them up, forming a massive explosion (it could form a spirit portal like in book 4, but I don’t want to take Korra’s moment).

— the URLF establish control over Republic City. Asami is appointed temporary president. Wu is named King of the Earth Kingdom. Immediate release from the camps occur and the metalbending police are disbanded. Opal is re-United with her family.

— Zaheer says nothing and does nothing more after removing Kuvira, Though he does nod at Xan after the end— is it respect or a warning? Does Zaheer intend to try and kill the Avatar a second time?

— Asami and Mako enter a relationship, with Opal and Asami continuing theirs. It’s a poly life. Mako doesn’t really forgive Iseul but does tell her he might one day, and Iseul vows to make sure there is true justice for everyone.

— Xan is traumatised and hurt and realised he still has much more to learn. He decides to sneak away to the Northern Water Tribe. Kobi tells him it’s okay if he needs to spend some time alone, but he can have company if he needs it. Xan accepts and Xan and Kobi board a ship to the Northern Water Trube.

The endddd.

* I do realise Kobi has little impact on the plot after he spies for the URLF. He would mostly appear as Xan’s friend in the story and Xan would eventually trust him again. Hinted relationship between the two as he was the only person that Xan was honest with that wasn’t Iseul, and only she did it sometimes.

* I realised a while ago there there was an issue with Mako’s subplot not brought up here, that if Kuvira imprisoned him, wouldn’t she try and use him as bait with Opal and Asami? Or even execute him to send a message. Something. So I did come up with a backstory that Mako escaped prison but was recaptured, and went under a false name. It was only noticed that he was Mako because Iseul studied all the history books and recognised him as valuable during his rescue. None of this was developed beyond my own notes but it solves some logic issues, though is a bit contrived still to make this subplot work.

#lok #tlok #legend of korra #korra #mako #fanfiction #asami sato #original characters

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archivingspn · 3 years

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Variety- “‘Supernatural’ Team Talks Doing ‘Justice’ to Show, Characters and #SPNFamily in Final Season”

As “Supernatural” prepares to sign off this year, the men behind the show are trying not to let “the weight of what this season is creep into” their daily work on-set, series star Jensen Ackles said at the farewell panel for the CW demon-hunting drama at the Television Critics Assn. press tour Sunday.

Instead, they want to focus on the work, doing what they have done for 14 seasons, rather than try to “reinvent the wheel,” added Ackles.

“I want it to do justice to what we’ve built for the past 14 and a half years, and right now I think the game plan we have is going to do just that. You’re not going to please everybody — you just can’t — but for the majority of the fans that have been with us on this journey, it’s going to feel right and it’s going to feel good. I know that’s how I feel and I’m still excited to tell that story,” he said.

In the show’s earliest days, “Supernatural’s” future was not so certain. Series star Jared Padalecki admitted that he originally thought the show would simply end when they closed the trunk and said, “We have to work to do” in the pilot. The show had not been picked up to series yet, and the pilot process is “such a bizarre thing,” he said.

The show did get picked up, but in its earlier years it was very much a bubble show, filming (and often airing) a finale without knowing if it would see more life. In the later half of the show’s life, that began to shift, with the CW granting the series early renewals.

“One of the blessings, I feel, has been that we’ve known that we’re carrying on so we don’t have to create a false ending every season,” Padalecki said.

Over the seasons, a couple of spinoff ideas were attempted at the network, as well, but they did not go. Earlier in the CW’s TCA tour Sunday, network president Mark Pedowitz admitted he was not looking at other ways to continue the world without Ackles and Padalecki right now.

“There is something very, very humbling about the fact that this show keeps going. We do see a lot of spinoffs on our networks and other networks and in movies, and it’s humbling to think still want us to be a part of it,” Padalecki said.

Added Ackles: “When you have a show that is so anchored, not in a world but around two characters, it makes it difficult to tell the story without those two characters.”

(...)

The boys and Castiel (Misha Collins) are stuck in this temporary shelter, and although “it’s a triage situation first,” Padalecki told Variety to first stay alive, “there are undercurrents of anger, of tension, resentment [that] we’ll get to when we get to.”

Added Collins: “At the outset of the season [Castiel] is working with the boys but also not feeling emotionally integrated, if that makes sense. We have a fight to fight here, but I think there’s a detachment there, too. And that’s hard, and that plays out later in the season.”

The reason for this, he continued, is that “This is an instance in which Jack’s death is so hard on him, but he’s also dealing with Dean being mad at him about Mary’s death, and I think that Cas doesn’t really feel responsible for that: I think he feels he did his best — he was trying — so it’s a rare instance of him not taking the full burden of something.”

Those pieces of the story come in the second episode, although all three men (Ackles, Padalecki and Collins) admitted they hadn’t thought about how much animosity might have been caused by the fact that Chuck aka God answered Castiel’s prayer in the Season 14 finale, after he had failed to answer the brothers’ prayers for so many years.

“I don’t think they’re there yet, to complain about that,” Padalecki said. “I think Sam and Dean, certainly Sam, is more like, ‘Have we been hamsters on a wheel the whole time? Rats in a maze? What have we done?’ I think we then start dealing with questions of, ‘What is free will? Is it all predetermined? Why try hard if it’s all going to turn out the way Chuck decided it’s going to turn out?'”

Added Ackles: “Basically, is everything we’ve done our whole lives now erased — eradicated — because these things are back? All of that work is essentially gone.” This will lead the brothers — and the show — to “tackle” why one should keep fighting if nothing they do matters, to which, Ackles said the ultimate answer is, “This is what they do. Any excuse to give up is not an excuse good enough for them. This is who they are.”

Although Dean and Sam would be willing to spend “years and years and years” fighting all of these things again, as Ackles put it, maybe the bigger question is how to handle Chuck. After all, if they can get rid of the big bad that brought back all of these foes, wouldn’t that ensure the little bads stop coming?

“The season hasn’t been written yet,” Padalecki admitted, “but I feel like we’re after Chuck. We’re trying to get answers. We’re trying to earn our free will, so to speak. So I feel like what’s been really important to Sam and Dean for many, many years was, ‘Hey, we’re making decisions to make the world a better place — to help the people who can’t help themselves.’ And now we’ve been told, ‘You’re just a story I like to watch,’ and now we’re trying to fight for the privilege and responsibility of actually having free will.”

Executive producer Robert Singer noted that in previous seasons, they would always end on a cliffhanger, but in developing the final season, “it’s a different experience.”

“It’s a true ending,” Dabb added. And “in a true ending, people can’t keep coming back over and over again. They’re going to be facing life or death — this time it’s for real.”

Collins was one actor who admitted that he didn’t feel his character needed to survive the series. “It’s funny, but from the very beginning I’ve always imagined that Cas would die right before the end, because I feel like the show somehow needs to end with Sam and Dean alone,” he told Variety. “But I don’t see a lot of people living at the end of ‘Supernatural’ because I think it needs a kind of closure that only definitive death can bring. That’s very morose, but true. I don’t think we want a ‘Game of Thrones’ ending on ‘Supernatural.'”

One thing Collins did say he wanted before the series ended, though, was to see Castiel truly express his loyalty to the Winchesters. “I would love to see him just be able to say, ‘You’re my people. You’re who I care about that.’ I’d love to see him make a sacrifice,” he shared.

The reason they wanted to go out now, Padalecki shared because they didn’t want to be “the last guy at the party.

“This show is going so strong. It’s going so well right now,” he explained. “We’re such a well-oiled machine, we thought it would be almost poetic and indicative of what ‘Supernatural’ is about to say goodbye too soon.”

However, while “Supernatural” as a long-running drama will definitely end in 2020 after the 20-episode 15th season, Ackles said he felt the culture the show has created and the experience of the show is “a long journey that I don’t think is ever going to be over. I just think we’re going to go away for awhile.”

Does this mean the “Supernatural” cast and crew would be open to a limited series revival in a few years or some kind of movie?

“I’m never ever ready to close doors or burn bridges, I think that’s foolish. Am I saying there’s conversations? No. Am I saying I’d be open to conversations in the future? What’s the harm in that?” Ackles said.

[source]

#2019-Aug #2019:August4Variety #*SMT #*BOG #*TOF #c/m saved the show #Jensen Ackles #Jared Padalecki #Misha Collins #Andrew Dabb #Robert Singer #author: Danielle Turchiano #Variety

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perfectlywisedelusions · 4 years

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The Live Action Mulan Is Unintentionally Hilarious

There are some things I liked about the live action remake of Mulan. The cinematography is excellent, and the locations are beautiful. The action is well choreographed and shot, for the most part. Like all Disney remakes, the sets and costumes are excellent. The score is pretty good. The movie looks nice. Now, it’s time for the things that came across as hilarious.

The acting is consistently mediocre. The best actors are the guy who played the one love interest, and Bhori Khan. Everyone else is really mediocre or bad, or we don’t see enough of them to judge. (I am leaving Rosalind Chao out of this because my Trekkie heart wants to defend her, but she has to try and cover up her very American accent and it’s pretty funny.) Mulan really never shows any emotion, nor does anyone else. (Although the actress who played Mulan was really good at martial arts and did a lot of the stunts, so she gets some acting forgiveness.) Our main characters are faced with death, and they never react at all. By far the worst actor is the emperor, who is supposed to be wise and stern but comes across kind of like a robot. When he’s in the throne room, his line delivery is hilarious. He kind of sounds like a not angry version of Anthony Hopkins in Thor: The Dark World.

The CGI in this movie is atrocious. It is funny how bad it is. The phoenix looks awful. At the end of the movie, there’s this CGI molten metal that looks really bad. There’s a scene where Mulan’s battalion discovers a group of dead soldiers, and they tried to turn the sky gray in post. It looks so bad, especially since the dead soldiers don’t look good either. It’s supposed to be a sad scene, and it’s funny instead. The witch transforms into birds a lot, but the CGI is so bad that they have to cut away or only show reflections of her full transformations. This happens almost every time she transforms and it’s hilarious once you notice it.

Even the characters’ actions are kind of funny. Mulan never thinks to tell the Matchmaker that there is a spider under the teapot, even though it is a good excuse for why she moved it in the first place. There is no reason for her to keep it secret. The general decides to take his entire army out of a fortified garrison to fight mounted troops on a battlefield. His army has, like 6 cavalrymen, and he still goes out and fights. Facing down an army on horseback when you’re on the ground will not end well. This decision is so stupid and destined to fail it’s funny. The Chinese Army doesn’t even have gunpowder or ranged weapons aside from archers, which the bad guys have, too. (Even though China had gunpowder at the time of the Silk Roads.) Anyway, the whopping 6 cavalrymen all die, and Mulan decides to go after the twelve horsemen who killed them. She follows them, at a slow pace, into a geothermal area where the horsemen have disappeared and she fights the witch. She is on what I’m guessing is a buildup of sulfur or other minerals, and we see it beginning to crack. There is a shot devoted to showing that the ground is breaking. Rather than using this to her advantage while fighting the witch, Mulan gets thrown against a wall. All she had to do was to plunge her sword into the ground. She might die, but she’d at least take the witch with her. After fighting Mulan, the witch turns into a bunch of small birds and goes to “attack” the Chinese Army. She turns the movie into Birdemic temporarily, and the army hides out under their shields. They are literally being dive-bombed by sparrows. Worst case scenario they have a few scratches. Then Mulan, rather than going after the twelve horsemen she was after in the first place, decides to go help her friends who she doesn’t know are in real danger. She gets the enemy soldiers to shoot their catapult at her, but the operator is off by 2,000 feet at least. He shoots nowhere near where he thinks the enemy is. He is so off of his target that it’s funny. Mulan returns to her friends and has to leave, but would rather be executed than sent home. She doesn’t consider that her family might want her back alive, and instead wants to die. (She later gets praised for her devotion to her family. And while this is trying to make a point about honor, we never see exactly what dishonor does to a family. The characters say dishonor is bad, but we don’t know why.) Anyway, Mulan then meets the witch again, who says that Bhori Khan is going to take the Imperial City and kill the emperor. That is all that the witch says. This is basically what Bhori Khan’s plan would have been in the first place. He’s trying to conquer China. He’ll probably go for the capital city and the ruler. But Mulan takes this to mean that Bhori Khan and his army are at the gates of the Imperial City, and no army is close enough to stop them. I have no idea how she arrived at this conclusion. Upon being told that the people conquering China were going to take over the center of power, without being given a specific time frame as to when this will happen, Mulan somehow believes that Bhori Khan is right outside the Imperial City and that no one is close enough to stop them. HOW DID SHE COME UP WITH THIS? She manages to get her 6 friends to go help defend the city.(Note-six people will be no help against an invading army.) There’s already a small army inside the city, and then six people show up to help. It’s so pathetic when they show it in the movie. The emperor gets kidnapped and taken to this building that is currently being constructed. Bhori Khan decides to burn him alive by tying him to the top of the building, then he melts metal? He has a vat of melted metal and then three pipes of fire. First of all, it’s impossible to get metal heated to the point where it is liquid without proper equipment. Bhori Khan didn’t have any equipment. Also, what was his plan? Was he going to let the melting metal catch the building on fire? He could have just set the building on fire but instead he wanted molten metal to slowly catch it on fire. Seriously. The molten metal is so random that it’s funny. IT LITERALLY HAS NO PURPOSE TO BE THERE EXCEPT TO DESTROY MULAN’S SWORD AND IT’S SO LAZY. I thought that Bhori Khan was going to pour molten metal down the emperor’s throat, because that happened in history before. But no. The metal is just randomly there. Then Mulan and Bhori Khan fight. The end fight is literally the fight in the blacksmith shop in Pirates of the Caribbean but in a building. Melting metal? Check. Balancing on the rafters? Check. Sword fight? Check. Characters launching themselves up and grabbing onto said rafters? Check. In the end, to kill Bhori Khan, the emperor grabs an arrow and uses Mulan for an assist combo kill. He literally tosses her an arrow so she can kick it. It was really stupid. The end where Mulan returns home is okay. That’s it.

The humor was not great. The one lighthearted, “funny” scene was that of Mulan getting ready for the Matchmaker, and it felt really out of place. There were some fun moments, but not much. One of the “jokes” was when one of the characters, a young, innocent boy started crying at the beginning of training. To me, this was a really relatable moment. This kid had been forced to leave home and had to train very hard under the impending threat of death. Anyone might have cried in that moment. Then the general went “Is he crying?” like that was ridiculous. It was supposed to be a joke, but that moment was literally the most connected I ever felt to any character and they made it out like his crying was stupid. I felt attacked. This movie had very little personality. The characters had very little personality. They weren’t relatable in the slightest, and when they were, they were shunned for it. Any of the strong characters, like Mulan, were special and basically had magic. It was a decent action movie, but it tried too hard to remind fans of the original. If they had tried to make it their own war movie about a girl who had to hide her skills and overcome the sexism of Ancient China while fighting in a war against a witch, it could have been okay. However, they tried to include scenes from the original that didn’t work with the tone or concept. For instance, Mulan creates an avalanche by tricking enemy soldiers into shooting a catapult at her. This shows that she might be smart, but she doesn’t think about using the terrain to her advantage when fighting the witch. She could have broken the ground, or at the very least hidden in the steam around her and used surprise. The avalanche scene is the only scene where Mulan uses her smarts, and it’s only in the movie because it was in the original. Basically Disney tried to fuse their vision with enough scenes from the original to keep fans happy. It did not work. The only sad scenes were the ones that were supposed to be funny, and the sad and dark scenes were actually pretty hilarious. The end result? Disney lost $130 million.

#movies #movie review #mulan #mulan 2020 #disney #disney live action

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lostgirlrewatch · 4 years

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1x11 - Faetal Justice (gettin real tired of your puns, Michelle, jk I never will)

Written by: Peter Mohan

Directed by: Robert Lieberman

Original Air Date: November 28, 2010

Oops. I missed a week. Sorry :( I’m back with episode 1x11.

Dyson gets framed for murdering some Dark Fae, and the gang has to prove him innocent.

Hey, remember the club, guys? Remember what that was like? Also Vex is back. Yay.

I wish my kitchen looked that fancy. I can’t keep vegetables that fresh. Their setup only looks like it will produce tasty food, though, because apparently they can’t cook for shit.

I am excited enough to see Hale that I took this screenshot for no reason.

But anyway, Bo and Kenzi are of course investigating the crime, as they do, while Dyson invokes sanctuary back at the Dal. Which basically means that Trick clears the whole bar out and lets Dyson hang out there for some amount of time where the Dark Fae can’t immediately come after him for killing one of their own.

They end up back at the club that Dyson woke up next to, which is Vex’s club. They start to suspect Vex may have something to do with framing Dyson for the murder. I can’t imagine why.

Vex makes a comment about how “another killer in the room (Bo) adds to the excitement,” to which Kenzi fiercely replies that Bo isn’t a killer. Vex is skeptical, considering how many people she has killed over the years, and suggests that he and Bo compare “scores.”

That hit below the belt.

Evony arrives at the Dal to pick up Dyson, in spite of sanctuary, because she has decided that the rules don’t apply to her. “Just think of me as a VIP,” she says. “I do.”

What a queen. Listen, is she wrong? Do the rules apply to Evony? Need they?

She has such queen energy that I love every time she shows up, even if she does absolutely nothing except make snarky comments. You have to appreciate the dominating energy of the woman in charge of the entire darker half of the supernatural underworld. She eventually backs off though.

Meanwhile, to Bo’s surprise, Lauren shows up at the precinct to discuss the case with her and Hale. (Hale invited her, and didn’t think to tell either of them that the other would be there, because he has no idea what’s going on between them.)

Bo is still pissed as fuck. I didn’t bother getting a screenshot, but the glare she gives Lauren is just as withering as it was last time.

So Lauren does...science-y stuff, I guess. I don’t really listen to what she’s saying when she talks about her science shit. I think Lauren is suggesting that Dyson turn himself in to the Dark Fae, though? So they can compare bite marks or something? Okay, I just rewatched the scene. Lauren suggests that Dyson turn himself in and wait while they go through a whole forensics analysis of the scene to determine his innocence (not acknowledging the possibility that evidence against Dyson may have been planted). Bo is like, “fuck no.” Lauren claims that in spite of the fact that she and Dyson “haven’t always been on the best of terms,” she is “actually trying to help here.”

It doesn’t end well. It’s awkward.

Hmm...*narrows eyes* Wait.

Stick around, Lauren fans. You’ll love this. I’m analyzing Lauren.

Lauren’s solutions to problems are always very...clinical. They’re clinical without fail, often to the point of being...not good solutions.

Lauren’s solution to Dyson’s problem--being accused of murder--is to have him turn himself in so that they can run tests and have the evidence prove him innocent. This is such a clearly half-assed idea, I don’t even really know why she suggested it. This idea is like if you could not care less about Dyson or this entire situation at all but you were dragged into being a part of the brainstorming session and you were forced to contribute something. It scans as laziness. Like either Lauren’s brain is too exhausted to put any energy whatsoever into trying to help Dyson, or she actually doesn’t care about him at all and is only there out of obligation and because of Bo. Hm.

Lauren’s solutions to problems don’t just rely on science, I get she’s a scientist and those are the skills she brings to the table. She goes a step farther. Her solutions are always devoid of emotion. Think about why that is.

I mean, turning Dyson in to the Dark Fae is objectively a terrible idea, first of all because they would one hundred percent immediately string him up and torture him for information. (Which is exactly what they do later in the episode!) Lauren is not stupid. She’s a smart gal. She should know this. If she knows that Dyson would be tortured, why would she suggest he turn himself in unless she has absolutely no emotional investment in his physical or mental wellbeing whatsoever? Again, it’s a clinical solution that treats the people involved as though they are pieces in a puzzle.

Second of all, Lauren suggests they run a bunch of tests and rely on forensic evidence to determine whether or not Dyson is innocent. She says, “Hopefully [the animal hairs on the body] won’t match Dyson’s DNA, and hopefully we’ll get [the results] on time.”

“That’s way too many ‘hopefully’s,” Bo snaps back.

Lauren doesn’t seem that concerned with whether the hairs do or don’t match Dyson’s DNA. I mean, “hopefully” they won’t, but she is content to take the risk, let the situation play out, and let the evidence speak.

But she is also completely ignoring the possibility that even if the evidence incriminates Dyson, it might have been planted there by whoever is trying to frame him. What then? There would be no way to prove that it was planted in time--the Dark Fae would instantly execute him, and no one could stop them because he’d be in their custody. Even a cursory review of Lauren’s half-assed, not-thought-out plan reveals that it’s past risky and more in the realm of stupid.

So you tell me. I’m more interested in hearing what anyone else has to say about her than writing what I think. What is the deal with Lauren? Why is she like this? Is she so cold and unfeeling that she doesn’t have any concern for the physical and emotional wellbeing of others? Does she just not give a fuck about Dyson specifically? Or is she so burnt out and exhausted by the mental strain of her job and her enslavement that she can’t summon any emotional energy whatsoever, and has to completely rely on cold logic to offer anything at all?

I said Lauren fans would like this because I was analyzing her, but I neglected to mention that I would also be dunking on her. Sorry if you were duped. I feel like I offered her a way out at the end there, though. Give me all your pro-Lauren arguments if you feel so inclined.

Anyway, Bo and Hale have a nice little mini-conversation afterwards. Hale confesses that he once thought Bo might be bad for Dyson, that she’d break his heart or he’d destroy himself for her.

He tells her he was wrong, and that she’s “the real deal.” How sweet.

The only witness to the crime is apparently this human girl named Porscha, who reminds Kenzi a lot of herself. Porscha is also young, on the streets, and a runaway from a bad home situation.

I don’t really care about her or like her as a character, but I do appreciate that her presence prompts Kenzi to drop a few more tidbits of information about her past here and there. For instance, she mentions that she’s been on her own since she was 15, which seems like a long time but is actually only like four years because Kenzi is 19 and therefore a literal baby.

More interesting is this exchange. Porscha comments that it must be nice that Kenzi and Bo have each other. Kenzi responds a little awkwardly. She agrees that it is nice, but then she says that she’s still getting used to it. She’s still getting used to “being noticed.” Because when she was at home, she says, it was always better to not be noticed. “That’s when things got ugly.”

Yeah. So as if we didn’t already know, Kenzi comes from an abusive home. A home that was so awful that it was better to run away and be on the streets at 15. Then she was completely alone for four years, and homeless for that entire time.

Think about it. Living with Bo like this must feel so odd. Kenzi has never lived in a house with another person before where it actually felt like a home and she actually felt safe. The way she sort of averts her eyes, tenses a little bit when she says she’s still getting used to it (Ksenia is fantastic as always by the way) is such a realistic portrayal of a response to recovery from trauma.

The way I like to think of it is this. Going from being in a long-term traumatic situation to being in a safe and loving situation is kind of like putting a frostbitten hand in warm water. Warming it up is good, it’s healing, but when your hand is so used to being cold, warming it up is going to hurt like hell. Recovering from trauma is kind of like that. Good things can hurt, especially when you’re not used to them.

But it doesn’t hurt quite so bad for Kenzi that she’s ready to flee and go back to being alone the streets, which is what is familiar to her. It just seems like it’s mildly uncomfortable. And that’s good. Because it means she can get used to being loved and having a family.

Jesus, why am I writing these things every week, they’re so long. LMAO help

So the episode ends with the reveal that it was the bartender all along! GASP! Side note: the whole reason this episode happened is because this bartender, who is clearly an adult man (physically in his 20s or 30s but actually much older since I assume he’s Fae?) was apparently “in love” with the human girl Porscha, who, based on her conversations with Kenzi, is definitely supposed to be a teenager. And also based on her conversations with Kenzi, Porscha has even “stayed over a few times” at his place. Can you say creepy? Adult man taking advantage of a young girl on the street who has no family and nowhere else to go? Grooming her? Just saying.

In a moment that I find somewhat disturbing and rather cold, the main gang all walk out and leave the bartender to be (most likely) brutally tortured and murdered by Vex and the Morrigan. That’s him up there. I mean, I know the Dark Fae are a practically untouchable political powerhouse, and there’s not really anything Bo and the others could do, but still. They totally just left this guy to his death.

But significantly, the episode ends with Bo and Dyson sharing a kiss, as they reaffirm their feelings for one another, and seemingly enter an official romantic relationship.

Oh boy! How cute. :) I wonder what’s next for these two.

Surely not heartbreak and suffering?

Big plot developments of the episode: Bo and Dyson are (it’s implied) officially an item now. This is Bo’s first legit committed relationship in the series. #dybo #neverforgetwhereitallbegan #rip #F and respect to the two people and a potato chip who like this ship #will this actually tag this post

#lost girl #bo dennis #kenzi malikov #lauren lewis #dybo #dyson #lost girl rewatch #1x11

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curious-minx · 4 years

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Left Behind In The Halloween Parade: Late Review of Bob’s Burgers And The Simpsons.

The First Sunday of November, and the Last Sunday of the Trump and Biden election, found Hulu finally uploading the Bob’s Burgers and Simpsons Halloween episodes. So in the spirit of taking your sweet ass time that is exactly what I did with this review. The Bob’s Burgers Halloween episode is probably the weakest of the series, a series that is practically a Hallmark card company in terms of the amount of holiday-inspired content they have churned out. Episode “Heartbreak Hotel-oween” isn’t a particularly offensive in any way it just fails to live up to Halloween episodes such as my personal favorites Season 8 “The Wolf of Wharf Street,” which remains one of the most visually stunning episodes of the series, and Season 4, the series’ second Halloween episode,“Fort Night,” which has incredibly gruesome stakes and the most satisfying entry in the Louise versus Millie feud.

“Heartbreak Hotel-oween” is still ultimately pretty good and though it took a second viewing to fully appreciate it I do like watching the Belcher children deftly sail through the world of adults. The tantalizing plot thread of a Bob’s Burgers Delivery service is dangled and I would like to see more Delivery based plots. Getting these characters into different areas and expanding upon the ambitious Jersey shore town. Having the kids deliver a burger to an older woman using the burger as a lure for her seance is flattened against a brown and forgettable after thought of a hotel. Everything with the Belcher kids is good and interesting and with the help of Andy Daly voicing the Hotel Manager; Lindsey Stoddart doing Quarantine duty and voicing multiple characters including the old woman Dolores conducting the seance, and Loren Bouchard Home Movies collaborator Melissa Robbins stops by as a bystander character as well.

The episode starts getting in its own way with the adults blood bank centric B-plot. The entire plot is given in a single exchange with Teddie being excited about donating blood and everyman Bob with his everyman O-negative blood finds giving blood nauseating and gross. That’s it. That’s the whole plot and besides the blood banker workers being dressed up as vampires there are no other comedic games being played and it is total unmemorable fluff, which has been a common issue for the ongoing series. One thing this episode does right is at least get Bob, Linda and Teddie out of the restaurant and into a new environment. A lot of the verbal exchanges between Bob, Linda and Teddie feel a lot more stilted due to Covid recordings and the lack of non-scripted banter is sorely missed. I have noticed this season having more John H. Benjamin monologue Bob by himself moments, which only work when Bob’s imagination is in full flight. Where was the talking bag of Bob’s blood? Hell I wouldn’t even had objected to hearing a dang song sung by the vampires to help soothe Bob into giving blood or something beyond: Bob doesn’t like giving blood because it makes him woozy, he gives blood and get’s woozy.

Overall this is a perfectly serviceable episode: three Ghost-baiting cheeseburgers out of five.

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Intermission.

Fox is certainly using the Loren Bouchard & Molyneux sisters brand like a blood bag with the recent announcement of the new series The Great North. Wendy Molyneux is a frequent writer, (executive) story editor since Bob’s Burgers inception. She is the writer of “The Wolf of Wharf Street” and the episode of Bob’s Burgers I have watched the most - “There's No Business Like Mr. Business Business,” because I am a cat fanatic, John Oliver fan, and have been the pet companion of a standard poodle exactly like Snoodle named Faust that I love dearly. Basically, I am excited for this show. Molyneux is also a deeply connected collaborator with Megan Mullally writing on all 74 episodes of Mullally’s forgotten by the ages The Megan Mullally Show. A show according to Wikipedia’s citation of Fox News, “viewers were disappointed to find out that Megan is not anything like Karen in real life,” and if there is any white woman out there that is an anti-Karen it is Mullally. Mullally is not the focus of the show but her more visible and commercially accessible husband Nick Offerman is finally being anointed into the annals of TV Dads. With his three sons voiced by Paul Rust, Will Forte and National Treasure Aparna Nancherla and sole daughter voiced by Bob’s Burgers alum Jenny Slate, who recently honorably stepped down from a lucrative tv series Big Mouth deal like the real champ that she is. Mullally will show up as Jenny Slate’s character’s boss andThe cast is undeniable the backdrop of Alaska has a lot of promise for elaborate or interesting set pieces. I am ready for this show! Will this be Bob’s Burgers Futurama? That’s probably a vicious hex based on how Futurama was infamously jerked around by Fox. FOX has already given the show a promising two-season deal, which is already a lot better than what Netflix did for Tuca and Bertie. Faint nowhere discussions of the Bob’s Burgers movie were also mentioned in an interview with Bouchard who has a cantankerous “theater release only” policy, which bums out a little, but I would much prefer they take as long as possible. The Bob’s Burgers movie cannot end up carrying out the Simpson movie curse.

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I am no Simsons scholar. I could not give you an active ranking of favorite Tree House of Horror episodes. I could tell you that I really like Bart as an Edgar Allen Poe’s Raven. You don’t need to be Simpsons scholar to safely state that “Treehouse of Horror XXXI” should be ashamed to show its “funny face.” For starters the entire appeal of the anthology style of storytelling has been completely deflated by having two of the previous episodes in this season being gimmicky non-standard episodes. The only positive thing I can say about this episode is that it is an important teaching tool for what the most broken and shittiest, laziest satire imaginable would look like and the 2020 Election cold opening is actually pretty solid. All of the good will earned by the strong opening is completely squandered starting with an inexplicably CGI Toys Story sketch. I am assuming the animation department went with CGI because the source material is CGI. The CGI is really bad and makes me really miss the 3D models of Simpsons Hit And Run and perfectly charming The Simpsons Game. Instead this sketch’s particular animation looks like the animators were most inspired not by Pixar’s clean and craftsmen like CGI models but were going for more of a Fanboy & Chum Chum look. A Toy’s Story parody in this day and age is asinine in its laziness, but it’s still an evergreen territory. A good Toy’s Story parody is possible, but simply having Bart play out the role of Toy Story’s Sid except he gets lobotomized by his own toys. I did appreciate the writer’s making the explicit moral of the story to not buy toys, which for a Disney product like the Simpsons is pretty rich.

Behold! The last recorded instance of a quality Toys Story satire from China, IL

The next two parodies go down slightly better simply because they aren’t sporting that eye bleeding animation but paying homage to Enter The Spider-verse and Russian Doll/Happy Death Day 2U in 2020 feels just as dated as Toy Story. What kind of fool is still writing about Russian Doll in 2020? The Enter the Homer-verse sketch is at least ambitious and showcases how masturbatory the show has come whenever it is showcasing Dan Castellaneta’s various vocal talents. I get it dude, you like having dump trucks of money given to you for barely making an effort and doing Hannah Barbara impersonations that sound more like a bad Woody Allen. Regardless, this is still the one sketch that makes the most attempt to have comedic games with its multiple iterations of Homer and even throwing out some alternative universe Burns and Smithers for good measure. The final third Russian Doll sketch that let’s you know that this sketch is more Russian Doll than Happy Death Day by using the same exact Harry Nilsson “Gotta Get Up” piano riff. This sketch had potential but once again the show writers and creatives seem to only indulge the worst possible instincts and cast Lisa as the lead of the sketch. So that means we get to watch this 8 soon-to-be 9 year old girl and fellow child Nelson get murdered in a variety of banal and brutal ways, and it’s just not fun or pleasant to watch. The obvious choice is an unexpected Springfield resident and if it has to be a Simpson having Marge or one of her sisters be the Nadia surrogate makes far more logical sense and Marge’s birthday would carry more emotional weight.

Reminder to myself to check out this lost late series entry where Natasha Lyonne is the voice of Krusty’s daughter.

I completely understand why The AV Club canceled their coverage of The Simpsons. The whole series has a very masochistic and sadistic pull and tug between creatives and fans. The sweet and simple souls of Den of Geek are still reviewing the Simpsons and offer a far more favorable review: https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/the-simpsons-season-32-episode-4-review-treehouse-of-horror-xxxi/. Google results also yield one another publication reviewing this current season published on medium that has been taken by for violating medium rules. Will the Simpsons be coming for me next?

Skip this episode! Judging by the synopsis of the season’s next ep finding the Simpsons, once again, finding themselves somewhere other than Springfield is looking to be another skippable entry. I want to be proven wrong! The latter day Simpsons seasons usually have a memorable or decent episode here or there. So far the only thing remarkable about this season is how much it wants to try to be different and think outside of the Springfield box but in the process give the season an overwhelming sense of hollowness. I shall forge ahead with my coverage, because I am either a masochist or a sadist depending on the weather.

#The Simpsons #Bob's Burgers #TV series #tv review #Halloween #megan mullally #nick offerman #will forte #Paul rust #aparna nancherla #Andy daly #Natasha lyonne #toys story #spiderverse #russian doll #The Great North

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16ruedelaverrerie · 5 years

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It makes so much more sense to answer this privately, but this message is still one of the funniest things I’ve seen over the last six months, so I need to enshrine it in visible form. @king-kodi I hope you figured out the answer in these SIX MONTHS SINCE YOU MESSAGED ME, I’m sorry! This account is still active, in the way that a lizard that does not move for 10 years is still alive.

The answer, belatedly, is that the little shit cat in question (when not hungry or ill) decides whether it wants to go for a stroll or not. Sometimes it just wants to chat instead of going for a stroll, but them’s the breaks, all control is an illusion and the tiny virtual piece of shit must be left to its own devices to do what it wishes. I love this game. All cats are perfect, even the ones that aren’t real.

ANON!!! YES!!!!! Wow wait first of all can I express how touched I am that you remembered having been in previous disbelief over people liking Theon Greyjoy, then after you started reading the books you came back to this blog to let me know about your changing thoughts THAT IS THE KIND OF ENGAGEMENT THAT I AS AN EDUCATOR CAN ONLY DREAM ABOUT AND WOULD NOT EVEN DEMAND FROM MY STUDENTS

Truly it is a no-good life for Theon, when the only friends and family he has are a bunch of people who are technically licensed to execute him WITH THE SWORD THEY MAKE HIM CARRY AROUND FOR OTHER BEHEADINGS fkl;dhgk and the whole “the Starks are such lovely people” angle that the show takes most of the time... really fails to shed adequate light on how there are so many bigger issues here than individuals being decent individuals! ANON... THEON JUST WANTED TO GO HOME, ANON. HE JUST COULDN’T FIGURE OUT WHERE THAT WAS. ANON HOLD MY HAND.

Oooo did you get around to it? How did it turn out?? I feel like Markus was also working on his own version of a Les Mis crossover! This is always the case when I think about crossovers or AUs of any kind, but what delights me the most tends to be moments that crack me up and don’t necessarily have any staying power as an extended parallel-- like, this is an AU and not a crossover, but just the thought of Javert infiltrating the barricades with a beanie and a wide stance because that’s what he thinks insurgents look like....................................... that is so fucking funny to me.............

This is so kind, thank you! I hope you are taking care of yourself too! All these messages are from a thousand years ago so “taking care of yourself” had somewhat less urgency and gravity then, but it is important to take care of yourself regardless of circumstances. I’m doing okay, overall. Actually my work and life situation are a bit unorthodox at the moment, but in a way that is very conducive to leading a hermit-like existence, so at least in that way I am fortunately equipped to weather these times. Seriously though! I hope you are all taking care of yourselves!

Thank you very much! I think it’s always easier to recognize and define other people’s styles than your own, but I have an especially hard time figuring out what my ~art~ ever is, so it’s very generous of you to say so. Because of my aforementioned unorthodox work and life situation, I find myself with no more leisure time right now than I did in the before, but I am trying to brush up on very basic art stuff a little bit! I feel really unsteady with art most of the time because I don’t have solid basics, so I’m hoping this will ameliorate some of my THIS LOOKS WRONG BUT I DON’T UNDERSTAND WHY problems u__u

~*~THE CONTINUATION LIVES IN YOUR HEART~*~ wow what a cop-out answer. This is one of those things that HAUNTS ME anon! I remain a “never say never” person at heart so I am still refusing to say that there won’t be more comics in that universe, but... in all honesty, it’s been so long since the first one that all the ideas and jokes I had related to it have become... well, I’ve thought about them so much that I’ve become unable to tell whether they’re funny at all, is what has happened. I mean really! Chivalry Comics was posted more than SIX YEARS AGO! I SHOULD HAVE MADE SOMETHING LONG BEFORE THIS POINT, I’VE FUCKED IT UP

And yet, I remain a “never say never” person at heart. One day, anon! One of these godforsaken days.

Ah thank you for this annual message! And for the NAKED REMINDER OF HOW LONG IT HAS BEEN SINCE I HAVE ANSWERED MESSAGES... I am deeply ashamed of this, but some amount of self-abasement builds character.

H-HAPPY NEW YEAR, DEAR ANON! I know, once again, I am rubbing this timestamp into my face while demanding of myself, LOOK AT WHAT YOU’VE DONE, YOU HIDEOUS MISCREANT, but also that does mean that your message has been warming my inbox for the last three+ months! That’s why I take so long to answer these, so that whenever I feel a pang of guilt for not having gotten to them yet, I also at least get to feel a corresponding pang of gratefulness and joy at how nice the message is.

I so vividly remember reading so many instances of Nines noticing Gavin’s core temperature spike that I was like “this is a good trope and I am into it, but also I’ve never seen this much talk of core temperatures outside of, like, natural family planning discussion forums” ON THE OTHER HAND WHY HAVE I EVER SPENT ANY TIME ON NATURAL FAMILY PLANNING DISCUSSION FORUMS????

HAPPY NEW YEAR ALL

AND ALSO TAKE CARE OF YOURSELVES!

#askbox #theon greyjoy #asoiaf #game of thrones #detroit become human #les miserables #chivalry comics

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m39 · 4 years

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History of the Creed - Part 1: Assassin’s Creed 2

So… I’ve decided to do a marathon of my favorite game series, Assassin’s Creed (minus [probably] the first one) because Valhalla (which I’ll not buy until one year after its release) and some part of me decided that I should review them.

But wait a minute… I hear one you saying. Don’t you have over 250 Doom WADs to check?

Well, yes. But then again we kind of like to pile on new idea after another to do when there’s an opportunity. There is still the Galaxia WAD in make for one of you who liked my WAD reviews but I believe that the AC reviews will take a lead for now.

Also the reason that I’m not reviewing Assassin’s Creed 1 is because now when I think about it, it doesn’t sound that good as it was.

You are having a PTSD attack over flags, Templars and “side missions”.

Okay, let’s talk about something else. What I’ve decided to do is to play these games in a semi-completionist style, in other words: if there are some side activities in missions, I am not expecting to replay them to get it all 100% because I would go nuts restarting the mission/control point every time I failed this one, specific side activity. But the rest as in: all collectibles, side missions and places to clear? I’ll do my best to do them all… Even Odyssey…

…

I’m fucked.

But enough of that. Let’s talk about the game that is proclaimed to be the best game in this series.

ASSASSIN’S CREED 2 (The original PC release in Europe: March 5, 2010)

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PLOT

It is Italy in the early Renaissance times. You are Ezio Auditore da Firenze, a young lad from a family of nobles who’s head of the family, Giovanni, is an Assassin. One day you find it out when your father and brothers are imprisoned and the next day they end up executed so you swear revenge on those Templar MoFoes for what they did.

Ah, revenge, the good, old plot device that never gets boring when it’s done right. And by being done right I mean when it has a nicely written characters. And that character is Ezio. I mean, who doesn’t like him? This motherfucker oozes with charm and personality. And Roger Craig Smith only solidifies it. He even gets a good character development. Example: When Ezio kills the guy who betrayed his family, his next goal is to run away to Spain with his mother and sister. After living two years in his uncle Super Mario’s villa, training under his eye and reading about Assassins and Templars, while still wanting to escape Italy, he’s now having a doubts about this plan and not until the harsh talk with his uncle decides that he’ll help destroy the Spaniard’s band of goons and get a revenge on him.

The secondary characters are fine but that’s it. They are perfectly okay with few of them standing out like Leonardo da Vinci (seriously, your best friend is Leonardo. Fucking. Da Vinci.). The villains are also just okay. Some of them have a personality of a Saturday cartoon villain, some of them are more dimensional. Rodrigo Borgia however goes to the former group. I mean, I don’t find him terrible at all, it just I wish he were better. But props to Manuel Tadros for playing him. He did a very good.

Oh yeah there is also some stuff in the modern times. It’s not bad but it basically exists only to move the plot forward and give us a reason why you can see the stuff from the past. But hey, the Desmond Saga is still better than this Initiate bullshit of the modern days plot.

GAMEPLAY

Assassin’s Creed 2 is basically the first game on steroids. You assassinate targets, you sometimes run using your parkour skills and sometimes fight with the enemies. There are some new stuff when you care this to Assassin’s Creed 1 like: Being able to use two hidden blades at once, healing yourself with medicine, shooting enemies with your loud hidden pistol, using smoke bombs, throwing money on the ground (LEAVE ME ALONE YOU BARD HYENAS!) and poisoning people, making them go apeshit (which I used only once in this run, in 13th sequence to be exact). Asides from the regular guards and archers there are three new types of enemies: Brutes, the heavy armored fatsoes, Agiles that can dodge your regular attacks and Seekers, who have a long ranged weapon and can easily find you in a haystack. You can also buy new, better weapon/armor and a bigger sacks for your knifes/medicine/poison. There is also a notoriety meter. When you fill it to 100% the guards will automatically be suspicious when you are in their line of sight. You can decrease it by ripping off posters, paying off heralds and killing the witnesses.

However, in spite of all of this crap that was added, this game feels easier than the first one. It’s not like it’s somewhat major con for me (I would rather play the game that is too easy than too hard) but I can understand some of you have a big problem with that. Imagine this: in theory, when you are spotted, you must use your abilities to run away from the enemies and use combat only as the last resort. But then I ask: why should you do that?! You are so powerful, you can destroy the entire Venetian army in 10 minutes! You are getting more durable and powerful with each sequence! Agiles can die by one counter attack! You can steal Brute’s/Seeker’s weapon, then one-shot them and then use their weapon to one-shot another fool who’s stupid enough to attack you! The fights are that easily! Sure it’s kind of tougher than I remember but still! Even if you don’t want to fight, smoke bombs helps you tremendously in both running away and fighting. Not to mention the enemies being stupid and that they couldn’t catch you most of the time.

Changing slightly the subject, you can also hire mercenaries/courtesans/thieves to help you distract guards. They are pretty helpful in missions, both the main ones and the side ones but outside of them they are rather useless because... well... I already explained you that.

Remember how in the first game you couldn’t swim? Well, now you can do this and use gondolas. Personally, however, I felt like I was faster on my own than on a venetian mini-boat.

ACTIVITIES

There is many stuff to do in this game. Like much more than you think. You can for instance buy paintings, collect money from chests/codex pages/feathers, find glyphs and solve their riddles, (like in previous game) you can climb on viewpoints to reveal a huge chunk of map, deliver letters, race to beat the best time of members of the guild of thieves, beat up unfaithful husbands, collect 6 seals to get Altair’s armor and fund for renovations of many buildings in Monteriggioni. Most of this stuff gives you more and more money every 20 in-game minutes by increasing the town’s status (which you have to withdraw from your villa).

In other words, the predecessor of your typical, modern, Ubiconic game. Personally I enjoyed doing these stuff but be warned; if you want to go after feathers, check a guide on their locations (same with Monteriggioni’s roman gods’ statues). I know at least one guy who went insane after trying to find the last one in Tuscany.

Liquid Bogan (in the background): F̴e̸a̴t̸h̶e̵r̵e̵s̷ ̶a̴r̷e̵ ̵l̴i̸f̵e̶,̴ ̶b̶r̸o̷t̷h̸e̸r̶.̸ ̶W̷e̵ ̶m̵u̵s̴t̴ ̸c̷o̸l̴l̴e̴c̸t̵ ̷a̸l̸l̷ ̸f̸e̸a̶t̷h̴e̶r̴e̵s̵,̶ ̷y̵i̵s̵?̶

He’s definitely fine.

THE GRAPHICS AND SOUND

This is where it turns into mixed-bag. While the sound effect are still very good, the graphics however, didn’t age well. Sure, the landmarks still look awesome and I love some of the details like the fact that some dust from buildings comes off when you climb but the character models… I don’t think they survived the time after the game’s release. The textures look sometimes blurry as shit, facial animation looks from time to time wonky, it looks especially bad in cutscenes. Then again, I don’t think people liked how they looked even in 2009 since I remember watching a review from my native country and the reviewer said that the character models lack polish when you take a closer look.

The soundtrack though… Jesus. Like, what can be said about it after so many people said earlier? There is a reason why people are calling it one of the best soundtracks in video games of all times. I would choose you three of those worth a listening but asides from the first three in the official soundtrack (for obvious reasons) there is too much to choose. So, here’s the whole bloody soundtrack.

STABILITY

Even though I played the PC version (and I heard that the PC version was a mess at the beginning) I didn’t really had many problems. Framerate was constantly smooth and I didn’t notice any drop in it. There were however 2 nasty bugs. The first one crashed the game when you have to choose if you want to play the memory or not; it happened at least 3 times. The second was when trying to assassinate Antonio Maffei and that monk fucker decided to noclip himself into the tower. Like- What the- WHAT THE FU-

Technical Difficulties.

Maybe it was because I paid the nearby herald. I don’t know.

SUMMARY

Despite its graphics getting somewhat dated and the game being kind of buggy, Assassin’s Creed 2 is still a fantastic game and I fully recommend it to you. Check it for yourself (if you haven’t already) and while at it, tell me your opinion about this game.

Thank you all for reading this long-ass review and I’ll see you next time.

Bye!

#history of the creed #assassin's creed #review #assassin's creed 2

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commentaryvorg · 5 years

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Danganronpa V3 Commentary: Part 5.19

Be aware that this is not a blind playthrough! This will contain spoilers for the entire game, regardless of the part of the game I’m commenting on. A major focus of this commentary is to talk about all of the hints and foreshadowing of events that are going to happen and facts that are going to be revealed in the future of the story. It is emphatically not intended for someone experiencing the game for their first time.

Last time in trial 5 (trial 5!!!!!!!), first-time-me broke down with desperate, terrifying hope as Shuichi awakened to the possibility that Kaito might still be alive, Shuichi was amazing at pushing his emotions aside and focusing on the logic, Maki finally acknowledged that she never wanted to kill Kaito and that what she wants matters, everyone was friends, the camera had a pause button!!!, and then both Shuichi and Maki realised the truth that came with Kaito being alive and Maki ran away from it exactly like Kaito did back in Gonta’s trial, while Shuichi could face it but was being a little slow on the uptake in realising why Kaito did this.

We left off at the end of Maki’s Argument Armament as Shuichi pointed out that Kokichi only pretended to drink the antidote.

Shuichi: “Drinking the antidote was part of his lie.”

Shuichi doesn’t properly go into this in more detail, but it was. Obviously Kokichi needed Kaito alive and therefore to give him the antidote – but in that case, why not just let him keep it when Maki gave it to him? Why even pretend to drink it in the first place? Because he wanted Maki to be sure that she’d killed Kaito and not Kokichi, to make it more likely that the trial would come to the conclusion that it was Kaito who died.

I’ve seen some people assume, based on this image that shows Kokichi holding the antidote bottle with the cap still on both before and after “drinking” it, that he pretended to drink it while the cap was still on. But, like, no. Maki and/or Kaito would almost certainly have been able to see that. That’s just the artists not bothering to draw another image of the bottle without the cap on afterwards.

Shuichi: “There’s a strong possibility that all of this was done… to make Kaito cooperate.”

Keebo: “Make him cooperate?”

Exisal Kokichi: “…”

No, Shuichi, that’s not even remotely it. Kaito is apparently staring at you in bewilderment wondering why you’d even think that.

Shuichi: “He needed leverage. He gave Kaito the antidote in exchange for his cooperation.”

Keebo: “In exchange for his own life, you mean.”

Shuichi: “Kaito had no choice, he had to cooperate after Kokichi saved his life. That’s just Kaito’s character, and Kokichi knew that. He swallowed his pride with the antidote, and agreed to participate in Kokichi’s plan.”

What Shuichi’s saying here is that Kaito supposedly agreed to the plan as repayment for Kokichi saving his life, because Kaito is the kind of person who would always repay favours done to him, even from someone he kind of hates. And it’s not that I disagree that Kaito is that kind of person; of course he is. But killing someone and then deceiving his friends about it for an entire trial? Kaito’s own life would never be a big enough price to get him to do that.

Remember Kaito telling Kokichi, “I don’t want to survive if it means I have to stoop to your level”, back in trial 4? Not a word of that was untrue. Kaito has very much been stooping to Kokichi’s level for this entire case – putting on a mask, never saying what he really thinks, hiding the fact that he cares about everyone and hates how much he’s been hurting them, not to mention having committed murder and even hiding that too – but him doing that has nothing to do with his own life. Kaito would never be that selfish. The only price that’s worth all this to Kaito is the chance of saving everyone else.

Honestly, Shuichi is being kind of uncharitable to Kaito to think this. He used the phrasing “swallowed his pride”, making it clear that he knows doing this is going against all of Kaito’s convictions, but he believes Kaito would still be willing to live as someone who broke all of those convictions just to survive. No. Hell no. Not Kaito.

I suppose another part of the reason that Shuichi doesn’t figure out Kaito’s real motive for this yet is because everyone is still being misled by Kokichi’s gloating from a while back into thinking that Kokichi is the real villain and Monokuma is sort of on their side. Given that they’re still labouring under that very mistaken impression of things, it’d be harder to see Kaito as being on their side when he’s working with Kokichi. So instead, Shuichi comes up with this explanation in which Kaito was essentially forced to work for the “bad guy” even though he supposedly wouldn’t actually want to.

(This isn’t even getting into the part where this antidote situation isn’t even really Kokichi saving Kaito’s life, since Maki gave the antidote to Kaito in the first place and Kokichi stole it. Giving it back to him at that point isn’t saving his life, it’s letting events proceed as they would have done anyway! If Kokichi wanted to “save Kaito’s life” then he should have just done nothing and let Maki save his life by giving him the antidote. The only claim Kokichi can make to Kaito here is “I could have killed you to save myself, but I didn’t, aren’t I nice?” That’s something, sure, but it’s hardly saving him when he was already saved.)

Shuichi: “I imagine this was all part of Kokichi’s plan to confuse us. You wouldn’t think that someone would plan their own murder.”

Keebo: “He went so far as to give up his life… just to create this mystery?”

Shuichi: “Only Kokichi could think of something so nefarious. Who else would agree to die just to execute their plan?”

Well, actually…

(Even with their memories of the Hope’s Peak story, though, the general public didn’t watch DR2’s killing game. So it’s fair enough that he doesn’t know about that.)

Shuichi is being somewhat uncharitable to Kokichi in this particular instance to call this move “nefarious”, because killing himself to confuse everyone isn’t precisely evil. It is definitely a thing that only Kokichi and few others would ever think to do, though. Only someone who was so messed-up at the thought of being in a killing game that they’d basically given up on their own survival right at the beginning would be so willing to throw their own life away if it meant they could achieve their revenge.

Himiko: “He’s crazy… Why would he go that far?”

Monokuma: “I bet Kokichi was determined to beat me at my own game, no matter what.”

Exisal Kokichi: “…”

Yep, that’s exactly it. Monokuma knows Kokichi very well, just like Kokichi knew Monokuma very well. They really are alike.

Note the Exisal’s silence. I suppose more gloating at this point would only imply that they’re all correct to think Kokichi is dead, if there’s even any gloating left in the script that Kaito hasn’t already recited. The silence also suggests that even Kaito is still reeling from the thought that Kokichi would go so far.

Monokuma: “But too bad! Shuichi figured out the truth!”

Exisal Kokichi: “…Truth? Are you sure it’s not delusion?”

Shuichi: “Delusion?”

Exisal Kokichi: “A delusion so completely off the mark, to make you think that I died…”

So… this doesn’t quite sound like something Kaito would ad-lib. Meaning, apparently, that despite the Exisal’s silence last time as Shuichi reached the truth, Kokichi did in fact predict this eventuality and script some lines in response to it. Although… the fact that he calls it a “delusion” kind of sounds like he could have scripted this to be a response to something from Shuichi’s baseless desperation not to lose Kaito, rather than a response to Shuichi genuinely putting all the pieces together and figuring out the whole truth. So maybe Kokichi still didn’t properly think through the possibility that his plan would fail.

Exisal Kokichi: “But, who cares what you guys think? This is between me and Monokuma. I don’t give a crap if the extras in this game get it right or not.”

Also very definitely scripted. Kaito doesn’t even remotely see the others as “extras” and cares so much about whether they get it right. At this point, if he were using his own words, he’d be trying to communicate to everyone that he’s on their side as much as he can without breaking character.

Given that this is scripted, it looks like Kokichi was expecting a disconnect between what Shuichi thought and what Monokuma thought. Maybe he didn’t predict that Monokuma would be relying on Shuichi so much. After all, relying on people was never a thing Kokichi himself ever did, and he always projected his own worldview onto others – and Monokuma is especially like him. And if he really did think Shuichi’s argument at this point would be just a “delusion” – as in, just baseless desperation and not concrete proof – it’d make even more sense that he wouldn’t be expecting Monokuma to put any stock in that.

Himiko: “I’m fine with being an extra!”

Tsumugi: “Huh? Why?”

Himiko: “If we’re just extras, then even if we get it wrong, we won’t get kill—”

Monokuma: “No, I’d still kill you all. Don’t put Kokichi’s words in my mouth.”

I love how gleefully bluntly Monokuma puts this.

And yeah, Himiko – Kokichi only called you that because it didn’t matter from his perspective whether you guys lived or died. Just like he didn’t (or at least, told himself and acted as though he didn’t) for Miu and Gonta.

Exisal Kokichi: “If Monokuma gets it right, then he takes everyone’s lives, yeah? But if Monokuma gets it wrong, then he’d have no right to take everyone’s lives. If Monokuma doesn’t know who the culprit is, then this killing game can’t function anymore.”

Now here are some words that are almost certainly Kaito’s! This basically contradicts what he was literally just saying about not caring if everyone else gets it right or not and therefore lives or dies, since he’s sure sounding glad about the idea that Monokuma can’t kill them. I think this is Kaito realising that Kokichi’s scripted line about “extras” was hugely unhelpful in getting across his real intentions, and now he’s using his own words to try and communicate that he’s trying to save everyone.

Not once at any of the earlier points in which Exisal Kokichi talked about his intentions to fool Monokuma did he mention the part where it’d mean nobody else could be killed – because those lines were all scripted, and Kokichi didn’t give a fuck about saving anyone else. This is only coming up now because Kaito knows that Shuichi knows he’s in there, so he finally has the chance to get his real motives across now that he knows Shuichi will listen and understand that it’s coming from him. He’s trying to do what Kokichi never bothered to do in the script and get Shuichi to realise that he shouldn’t be helping Monokuma find the truth after all. …Even if it’s probably already too late for that.

Shuichi: (Can’t function anymore…)

This line implies that Shuichi has finally realised the reason Kaito is doing this. But, uh, hold this thought and don’t get your hopes up yet.

Shuichi: “Kaito… I believe in you.”

Exisal Kokichi: “…Hm?”

Of course he does, Kaito!

…But maybe Kaito genuinely didn’t realise that, because this is the first time Shuichi has ever said so out loud.

He’s said as much in his inner monologue countless times, but until now, Kaito never heard it. Towards the beginning of their friendship, Kaito would have just assumed it was the case anyway, since being someone their sidekicks can believe in is the point of heroes like him… but he definitely doubted it during chapter 4 and the beginning of chapter 5. He’d also be worrying, having murdered someone and spent the whole trial lying to them all and hurting them, that Shuichi might think upon realising he did all this that Kaito had simply betrayed him, especially with Shuichi’s history of having people he trusted turn out to have murdered someone. It’s got to mean so much to Kaito to hear this.

Another thing I love about this moment is how direct it is. Kaito’s been participating in this trial, but he’s been isolated from everyone else for all of it; no-one’s been able to see the real him and the emotions he’s been going through. Even after they figured out Kaito was in there, Shuichi and the others have still only been talking about him, like he’s just an object for them to deduce around, like they might as well still treat him like they would Kokichi since he’s acting like Kokichi. This, though, is the first time Shuichi talks directly to Kaito, piercing through the Exisal separating him from everyone and properly acknowledging that he’s with them, and he’s listening, and he has been this whole time. That must have felt so refreshing for Kaito after all this. And of course Shuichi knows Kaito can’t and won’t respond to his words, but that’s okay; Shuichi just wanted Kaito to know this.

It’s also adorable that Shuichi is able to still believe in Kaito so strongly even though he hasn’t been able to communicate with the real, genuine Kaito for the whole trial and Kaito has seemingly been working against him this entire time. It takes an incredible amount of trust to do that. They are friends.

Shuichi: (If you’re cooperating with this plan… you must have a reason. To determine that reason, I need to reveal the truth!)

…No, Shuichi, you moron! If you understood why Kaito was doing this then you should know that revealing the truth will do the opposite of helping him! Apparently, despite the line a moment ago that implied he’d got it, he still hasn’t cottoned on to why Kaito is doing this and what he’s been trying to achieve.

Another part of Shuichi missing the point and continuing to pursue the truth when he shouldn’t can be put down to his issues. There’s always been a part of him that never wanted to pursue the truth at all, but over four and a half trials he’s trained himself to push that part down and not listen to it to the point that it’s become instinctive. He’s always forced himself into the mindset of “if I don’t find the truth we all die”, such that it doesn’t even occur to him to re-evaluate this basic premise and realise it doesn’t necessarily apply here.

Of course, it didn’t apply from the moment it became apparent that Monokuma didn’t know the truth. Upon learning that, Shuichi should have figured that it was best to keep Monokuma in the dark – but it was easier to overlook that at the time because of all Kokichi’s gloating to make himself, and therefore his lies, seem like the biggest villain. However, now that Shuichi knows that Kaito is also trying to hide the truth, he should be more capable of realising that maybe this really is a good thing. Yet, even then, he’s stubbornly facing the truth, simply because that’s what he’s always forced himself to do.

Still, even with these reasons for Shuichi being slow on the uptake, they’re only something you’re likely to realise after the fact, and in the moment it can be quite frustrating and awkward to watch Shuichi continue to obliviously ruin what Kaito’s trying to do even when he should know better by now. It’s especially egregious in this moment in particular as we’re about to go into the Closing Argument, in which Shuichi will explain the truth even more clearly and explicitly than he already has done. This is of course happening because the game’s writers obviously want to still have an excuse to have a Closing Argument, even if they have to force it a bit.

But… ultimately, while this may be forced, it doesn’t actually affect the overall narrative in any significant way. The thing is, even without the Closing Argument, Monokuma is still already convinced that Kaito did it. That happened the moment Shuichi declared as such. It’s only after that point that Shuichi would ever start thinking about why Kaito did it and realise that he’s trying to save them, and whoops, maybe figuring out the truth and saying it out loud for Monokuma to hear was a mistake. After all, Shuichi always focuses on figuring out the facts before figuring out the people. So long as Kokichi was gloating so hard over his petty feud with Monokuma that he made himself look like the bigger villain on the surface, Shuichi was never going to consider the idea that maybe this plan actually benefits all of them until he’d figured out that Kaito was the culprit and therefore in on it too.

Which means that no matter how things went down, even if Shuichi hadn’t been quite as slow on the uptake as this, Monokuma learning the truth was unavoidable thanks to Kokichi being an attention-seeking idiot. The only thing that’d be different if Shuichi was being more sensible is that we wouldn’t have a Closing Argument right here. And I love this Closing Argument (as you will be able to tell shortly from how long I’m about to spend covering it), so I really don’t actually mind.

Kaito doesn’t look very sure of himself as he holds his completed crossbow. He knew full well that his “plan” of threatening Kokichi with it was terrible and very unlikely to achieve anything of use, didn’t he. (And so does Shuichi, it seems, since he’s the one imagining Kaito making this face.)

(This is such a hilariously unambiguous Ambiguous Culprit Figure. Who could it possibly be wearing this big purple space jacket in a doofily asymmetrical way.)

I would also like to thank this one panel of Maki in the Exisal as being the only other decent source of what the cockpit of an Exisal looks like.

Fun irrelevant fact: despite being right-fisted based on the times we see him punch someone, apparently Kaito is otherwise left-handed. This actually makes a lot of sense – if you look at his various sprites, whenever he makes some kind of one-handed gesture, it’s always with his left hand. Him wearing the left sleeve of his jacket also fits with this, because if he was going to wear only one sleeve then it being the one for his dominant hand would prevent the flappy non-worn-sleeve side from getting in his way as much. (Any rightie fans of Kaito out there who’ve attempted to copy the way he wears his jacket and found it incredibly inconvenient and annoying? Flip it. It’s nowhere near as bad. No I’ve totally not done this myself what are you talking abou)

And since the question of which sleeve Kaito wears was briefly a plot point, this technically means that this is another very unusual way for a character’s left-handedness to be relevant in a murder mystery! Kaito and Gonta can be leftie bros.

Admittedly this image is just Shuichi’s imagination, but we can assume that his observation skills picked up on these hints from all his time with Kaito, letting him deduce that Kaito is left-handed and therefore imagine him this way here.

Kokichi’s bewildered face here is pretty great. He was probably wondering (quite understandably) what the hell Kaito was even planning to do by threatening him with one arrow. And Shuichi is the one picturing Kokichi doing this, so yes, he is very aware that Kaito’s plan with the crossbow was pretty terrible.

I also like the focus on Kaito getting angry before he fired – like I mentioned several posts ago, he probably wasn’t even planning to shoot Kokichi at all and did so because he lost control like he has a tendency to. (I bet Kokichi was taunting him about how stupid and pointless this plan of his was.) Again, this technically isn’t confirmed, but Shuichi is imagining it to be the case because he knows Kaito so well.

Kaito quite rightly then immediately jumped on him and started fighting rather than continue to threaten him with a crossbow that no longer had any ammo.

Shuichi: “But even with poison in his veins, Kokichi continued to spin his lies.”

Well. Some lies. Shuichi is still wrongly assuming that Kokichi was lying to deny knowing anything about the Remnants of Despair.

I don’t believe Kokichi really looked this shocked at Kaito protecting him. I think he knew Kaito would do that and was probably quietly grinning at his plan working out. (But Shuichi wouldn’t know that, hence him imagining it like this.)

Look at Maki panicking as she realises she just lethally poisoned Kaito! This was probably the moment she blurted out that the arrows were poisoned, you idiot, why did you do that!?

And Kaito apparently did remove his arrow in the main hangar, which really should have left some blood there outside the drag marks.

The way Kokichi’s putting his hand on Kaito’s shoulder here kind of implies that this was the moment he explained the plan. But it shouldn’t be, because Kokichi would much rather have Kaito’s reaction to apparently missing out on the antidote be genuine. So I’m not sure why Shuichi is picturing this?

(Regardless, I very much enjoy Kaito in pain and realising that he fucked up and made everything worse because the arrow was poisoned and now he’s possibly going to die by Maki’s hand.)

Kaito’s hand shakes as he reaches for the antidote, which is a lovely little detail that it was totally necessary of me to make a gif of to show here.

Note Kokichi punching Kaito in the stomach (or close enough) to steal the antidote. He knows that’s Kaito’s weak spot since that’s where his illness is causing him the most pain. And okay, again, Shuichi’s imagination – but this suggests that that’s also where Kokichi punched Kaito at the end of chapter 4 and Shuichi is just imagining him doing the same here.

Shuichi: “Maki tried desperately to break into the hangar, even slashing the control panel.”

She did, but where is the panel of this in the comic??? I am Very Sad that there is not one. (So I fixed this.)

But still, please enjoy this panel summarising Kaito’s desperate attempts to reassure Maki and tell her that everything’s going to be fine, just before one of Maki running away in anguish because nothing is fine.

Kaito’s face after Maki leaves is not looking so optimistic. Even Shuichi didn’t think Kaito would be able to keep that up once she was gone.

Shuichi: “After Maki had left, Kokichi took out another weapon. An Electrobomb…”

No, he didn’t! Kokichi definitely would have thrown the Electrobomb before Maki came back with the antidote. It’s extremely unlikely that he managed to do so in the literal seconds of Maki running from the window to the shutter to attack the control panel, and he should have wanted Monokuma to be blind to the whole antidote situation as well. The Closing Argument is just straight-up wrong here. (If they had drawn a panel of Maki slashing the control panel then maybe they’d have noticed this mistake and fixed it.)

Shuichi: “Kokichi’s plan was to use the Electrobomb to knock out Monokuma’s surveillance cameras. That’s why he commissioned Miu to make the bombs in the first place.”

Yep, the game draws attention here to the fact that he very definitely had the gist of this whole thing planned before killing Miu. Mercy kill? What mercy kill?

Shuichi: “Under normal circumstances, the culprit would never have agreed to such a plan…”

Of course not! But he was dying, and desperate to be a hero in the few hours he had left, and that’s why. …Shuichi still doesn’t know any of that, though.

Shuichi: “But because the culprit owed him for saving their life, they agreed to Kokichi’s request. Ah, ‘request’ is a generous term. It was more like blackmail.”

Still a big nope on that one. That’s not giving Kaito nearly enough credit, assuming that he did all this just because he was coerced into it and that none of it was his choice. Kind of like how everyone assumed Gonta was purely manipulated into his murder plan, but then he turned out to have had more agency than that.

...I was going to say this reluctance here is accurate, but actually, now that I look at it more closely and not on my tiny Vita screen, maybe this one is slightly off. He looks kind of angry and resentful at Kokichi, like he is being forced into this, like he’s hating Kokichi for not giving him a choice. No, Shuichi. Kaito would not. He had a choice, and he made it of his own volition. He hated himself over it, because it was his choice.

This, however, is exactly as anxious and uncomfortable as Kaito would have looked as he forged the crime scene. He was not okay about any of this even though he chose it.

Shuichi: “Kokichi, with the support of the culprit, stood in front of the press’s control panel.”

I love how Shuichi is assuming without any evidence that Kaito physically supported Kokichi up there. Admittedly Kokichi was in pain and dying and probably needed it, but also, Kaito will support anyone, even if it’s someone he kind of hates and is about to murder!

His arms are tucked in so that they are not visible on the video when the press stops, thank you very much Closing Argument at least for being accurate about this and clearing up my confusion caused by the localisation mistake. Admittedly sometimes the Closing Argument can have minor inaccuracies and mistakes like we’ve just seen, but it makes much more sense on this occasion to assume that this is canon to how things were and the video we see in the localisation is the inaccurate one.

(I do also somewhat appreciate that they made sure to show Kokichi in pain as he presses the buttons, since he was still dying from “Lethal Torture Poison” at this point.)

I adore the way Kaito’s eyes snap open in panic as the press gets lower. You can just imagine, as the press takes a tiny bit longer to stop than he was expecting, him having that horrifying split second of thinking that everything was a lie and Kokichi just wanted to get him in the press to kill him all along. (Even though that notion doesn’t actually make any sense because then why give him the antidote, that’s not something that’d come to mind in that brief moment of oh god am I going to die right here.)

Look at how reluctant Kaito is as they switch places! He is so not ready to murder anyone. I like how they’re both not even looking at each other, too. Hard to look someone in the eye when you know you’re about to kill them/they’re about to kill you.

Kaito’s arms shake as he comes to stand on the platform! Another very necessary gif I had to make for this.

I also adore Kaito’s grimace (and more shaking hands) as he presses the buttons and becomes a murderer. It must have torn him apart to do this, no matter who he was killing or why, no matter that he was literally asked to. There’s no way Shuichi would picture his best friend doing this any other way.

The emphasised silence after the deed was done is really nice, too. Just imagine how Kaito must have felt. It’s incredible that he managed to just pick himself up and keep going and get ready to lie to his friends on top of this. Kaito is amazing.

And here’s some of him looking guilty and haunted by it afterwards. Also not looking in the direction of the press.

(He’d have had to get close to it to tear the cable, though. That can’t have been fun.)

I said I love this whole Closing Argument, and the main reason why is that almost every single one of the Ambiguous Culprit Figure’s expressions is, for once, completely accurate. This may be Shuichi’s imagination, and he may be currently wrong about the reason Kaito agreed to do it at all (hence the lone one that isn’t quite accurate), but he is incredibly correct in knowing that there’s no way Kaito would ever be able to do any of this without feeling reluctant and conflicted and awful the whole way through.

(And, oops, a couple of those weren’t screenshots. This is the best Closing Argument with the best expressions, and drawing my favourites but with Kaito’s actual face was one of the earliest bits of fanart I ever did for this game.)

Shuichi: “And here they are now in this trial, pretending to be Kokichi. They’re trying to deceive Monokuma in order to defeat the true mastermind!”

Now this sounds more correct and more like something it makes sense for Kaito to be doing! Technically Shuichi isn’t supposed to have figured this out yet, but I don’t really care because this line makes Kaito sound like the hero he is.

It’s neat how Kaito’s pose for the reveal shot is as if he’s piloting an Exisal. It’s also neat that he’s more in shadow than usual even after the reveal, to represent how Shuichi still can’t see him and can’t even completely confirm that it’s him.

(Also, the space background is pretty great.)

Shuichi: “The culprit is in that Exisal. …It’s you, isn’t it?”

I love the sense of familiarity here. Again, it’s Shuichi piercing through the Exisal and addressing Kaito not as the culprit or the enemy, but as his friend who’s been here with them and somehow trying to help them this whole time.

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[Next post]

#danganronpa #danganronpa v3 #drv3 #ndrv3 #chapter 5 #class trial #commentary

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spiritleak · 5 years

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Narcissists & gaslighting, Jezebel Spirits, journey to abuse healing

Psychologists state that a narcissist is someone who has covered his true self-expression in response to mental injuries and replaced it with a highly developed, compensatory false self. This other self often comes across as above others, self-centred, self-absorbed, and highly conceited.

Many of them also use gaslighting as a way to make many people around them more vulnerable to their attacks.

Gaslighting is a form of peristent manipulation and constant indirect brainwashing that causes the victim to doubt himself, his opinions and side of the stoy. The goal is to ultimately lose one’s own sense of perception, identity, and self-worth. A gaslighter’s statements and accusations are often based on deliberate falsehoods and calculated marginalization. The term gaslighting is derived from the 1944 film Gaslight, where a husband tries to convince his wife that she’s insane by causing her to question herself and her reality.

Many narcissists are gaslighters but it's not necessary to always coexist 100% . Someone could have antisocial personality disorder (sociopathy) and use gaslighting to manipulate, for instance.

Both narcissists and gaslighters tend to project false, idealized images of themselves to the world, in order to hide their inner insecurities. Many narcissists like to impress others by making themselves look good externally. This complex can exhibit itself physically, romantically, sexually, socially, religiously, financially, materially, professionally, academically, or culturally. The underlying message of this display is: “I’m better than you!” or “Look at how special I am — I’m worthy of everyone’s love, admiration, and acceptance!”

Both narcissists and gaslighters have a desire to make decisions for others to suit their own benefit. Narcissists may use their romantic family members, friends, or colleague to meet unreasonable self-serving needs, fulfill unrealized dreams, or cover-up weaknesses and shortcomings. Narcissists are also fond of using blame, guilt and victimhood as manipulative means.

Gaslighters conduct psychological manipulation toward individuals and groups through persistent distortion of the truth, with the intention of causing their victims to question themselves and feel less confident. In personal and professional environments, they manipulate by telling others how they should think, feel, and behave under the gaslighter’s unreasonable restrictions. They often become judgemental, angry, intimidating, and hostile toward those who fail to bow down to their directives. Gaslighter manipulation is often highly aggressive, with punitive measures (tangible or psychological) executed toward those who fail to recognize and obey their self-perceived authority.

Jezebel spirits - the spiritual side of manipulative people

How can you tell if a Jezebel spirit is affecting your actions or using someone close to you?

In her book, “Jezebel’s Puppets” Jennifer LeClaire describes Jezebel as: “A wicked spirit that has roamed the earth for thousands of years seeking someone to entice into sin, Jezebel is more than a spirit of control and manipulation that many make it out to be. Jezebel is a spirit of seduction that works to woo people into immorality and idolatry….”

People influenced by a spirit of Jezebel have fear issues of rejection. They control others so that they will not be hurt. Generally, there is a history of trauma or abuse. They are not accountable to anyone and often accuse others of being a Jezebel. A Jezebel never forgets when they are wronged because they struggle to forgive others. Therefore, he/she will not be at peace until they find revenge, even if it takes years to achieve. Jezebels do not forgive nor forget. Such a person is capable of killing you emotionally or destroying your life. In the bible, such was the case with the Pharisees, they found Jesus teachings offensive and very hurtful to them and they eventually sort to kill and destroy Jesus.Those under Jezebel in position whether in the workplace, ministry or family dynamics; will tend to fear him/her because when a Jezebel is in power, he/she has an authoritative and threatening demeanour. He/she will cunningly make you believe that you need him/her and you’re nothing without their help. A Jezebel spirit is never wrong, unless it is a temporary admittance of guilt to gain favor with someone, make them feel empathy and confuse them. To accept actual responsibility would violate the core of insecurity and pride from which it operates. When a Jezebel apologizes it is never in true repentance or acknowledgment of wrongdoing. It’s unbelievably painful when it’s a member of your own family. People have a hard time believing anyone could be so cruel. It’s life shattering to come to grips with this as reality

No matter what someone’s religious and spiritual views are, I believe we all agree that it is important to heal. To heal from emotionally draining people and situations and eventually get out. Heal from the self doubt and self hate we are being put through when dealing with such a person. Gain our lost confidence back and realize that they are the problem, not us.

How will that healing take place?

Try to get educated on the topic. Watch Youtube videos and read about such behaviors. Knowledge is your biggest weapon against manipulation and hurt. Understand that they are not who they show they are and also realize what they want from you.

Begin to notice that self-care is something you need to participate in consistently. Not sorely because you are healing from emotional abuse, but because healthy people, in general, understand the importance of putting on their oxygen mask before they can help others.Life can be stressful enough without the added obstacle of toxic abuse. It only stands to reason that if your goal is narcissistic abuse recovery, your body and mind require extreme self-care. This might include reducing social engagements, staying off of the internet, saying “no” to friends and family, taking a nap when you feel exhausted, and making time to do meditations.You resist the urge to make excuses as to why you can’t take care of yourself, realizing that even single mothers can work self-care into their schedules. If you are a single mother, you deliberately get a babysitter on occasion to take yourself out. Do guided meditations, treat yourself with spending time doing what you love, listen to relaxing music. One step at a time. You are worth this.

No longer obsess about the narcissist with their new supply or the fact that they seem so happy because you can come to understand that the narcissist is destined to repeat the same cycle of abuse with anyone they are with at any given time. There is an African, humanist philosophy called Ubuntu. At its most basic, it states that: ‘A person is a person through other people’. Who you choose to associate with will have an influence on who you are. This means that surrounding yourself with narcissists, manipulators, and abusers will lead to deep unhappiness.

WIsh you luck on your beautiful journey!

#narc #narcissist #narcissists #narcissistic abuse #heal #healing #trauma #spiritual #self care #wicca

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voidwaren · 5 years

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[READ MORE] STORY 2/?

Story Title: idk I don’t have one yet Rating: M for language and themes. Like always. Words: 8k+ Warnings: Video game warnings apply, just in case. In addition: explicit language, dark themes, mental illness. You know, the usual ball game for this AU. (Actually, this one has a little heat to it, but it’s nothing beyond a T rating) Summary: Warren’s called to pick Nathan up from the party he didn’t want to go to. Trevor tags along, because Trevor’s now a central part of the whole AU. Shit goes down. Warren continues to hate parties, but what else is new.

(why is the line break gone. wtf. come on, Tumblr. work with me here.)

Warren’s first warning comes in the clipped voice of the Tenth Doctor saying “Allons-y!” as it signals a text coming in, which he ignores at first, because he’s busy reading about gelatinous rainfall in certain parts of America and knows if he lets this Wiki spiral have a moment of pause, it’ll just start up all over again with renewed energy, and he didn’t want to still be engrossed when Nathan decided to show up again.

His second warning comes about a minute after the Tenth Doctor’s deceleration in the form of Daft Punk informing him that they’re up all night to get lucky, telling him both that someone had changed his ringtone yet again—though he couldn’t easily choose a culprit considering both Chloe and Nathan’s past attempts at pranking him—and that whoever had sent the text was also probably the one calling him. With Nathan out at a house party with Hayden and Victoria and her posse, Warren knows he can’t just let it ring in case there’s an emergency. So he answers it.

His third warning, really, should have been tacked-on immediately following his first, because he’s been through enough instances where his life has been threatened before for there to be some kind of Spidey Sense attached to the notion. Like, come on. Where were the perks to almost dying so many times?

Alas, it only comes after Victoria threatens to dislodge one of his favorite body parts and make him guzzle it if he didn’t do exactly what she was telling him to do right now and have it done, like, yesterday. Even if it wouldn’t make sense for him to do it yesterday, since it was happening in the moment, and she wasn’t aware he ever had the ability to fall through time. The guzzling is still threatened, and the fear is still real.

(He wonders if Victoria learned that one from Nathan or vice-versa, because it wasn’t a new one. He also wonders in what capacity either of them might have learned it in the first place, but then decides he probably really doesn’t want to actually know.)

“And you can’t drive him back to campus, why?” Warren risks asking as he wrangles his legs into a pair of jeans he swiped off the floor of his room, cell phone shoved up with a shoulder and plastered flat to his cheek.

“I have business elsewhere, creepo,” Victoria responds. It’s a wonder he can hear her, honestly, because the music at the party she’d gone to sounds loud in the background.

Warren sighs, replacing the phone in his hand and starting the search to find the one sneaker he’d kicked off the day before and didn’t bother locating today, since he had no reason to leave his room. Well, until now. Apparently. “You were supposed to be their DD. I even asked Nathan if you were really going to, and he vouched for you.”

“Obviously. He wouldn’t throw me under the bus like that.”

Jesus Christ.

“Jesus Christ,” Warren echoes in a sigh. “Okay, fine. Only because I know if I tell you no, he’ll ask someone else, and something tells me everyone there is blitzed out in one way or another and incapable of operating heavy machinery. That’s a non-negotiable factor.”

Victoria’s reply is swift and sharp as anything, “You saying no was a non-negotiable factor.”

“Right. Of course. That one’s on me, I should have known.” Ah, there’s the shoe. Wedged between a rule book and a cardboard box filled with comics. Warren grabs it and crams his foot in. “You have his keys?”

Victoria scoffs, and if she’s at all drunk, Warren can’t tell by the perfect execution of the noise of disgust. She would go places, if there was ever a market for Absolute Destestment and Other Annoyed Noises. “Cut the stupid questions and get over here. I sent the address, don’t bother me again.” And then she ends the call before Warren can say a word more.

Warren sighs and stows his phone away in his pocket, grabbing his jacket from where it hung haphazardly from the corner of a lamp Nathan had stored in Warren’s room earlier that day for a reason he had yet to divulge, and grabs only his car keys after hunting around for a good fifteen minutes and failing to find his room key. If someone stole his stuff, he was going to blame Nathan, because it was his fault Warren kept misplacing the damn thing.

(Not that Nathan would care. He got blamed for things that weren’t his fault enough for things that happened to actually be his fault not to matter much, unless they had dire consequences attached. And there was no way Warren could be dire about anything short of someone getting killed—and Nathan knew that.)

“Grow a spine, Warren,” he mutters to himself grumpily as he veers out of his room and slams his door shut behind him, too caught up in his own self-made petty angst to realize someone was directly in his path until it was too late and he was barreling directly into the chest of one poor Trevor Yard.

“Whoa, Graham my man!” Trevor exclaims, his hands planting firmly down on Warren’s shoulders and anchoring him there. Warren notices offhandedly that he was now taller than Trevor, too, if only just. Weird.

“Hey, man,” Warren greets sheepishly, his hands automatically reaching up to cup the points of Trevor’s elbows. “Sorry for nearly steamrolling you,” he says, then fakes a cough and tacks on, “again.”

But Trevor only grins. “You got places to be, no worries.”

Warren snorts, pulling a hand away to rub it along the back of his neck. “Not ones I want to be.”

Trevor’s smile drops. Warren can feel the fingers curving around his shoulders tighten their hold. “Are you being forced into something?”

There’s a look on his face that Warren can’t interpret. He wonders if Trevor thinks it’s Nathan’s doing, and immediately feels a spike of irritation despite himself. He squashes that down, because he likes Trevor, and it’s not like he was wrong. Trevor was only looking out for Warren, which, had the positions been switched and Trevor had still wanted to be Warren’s friend, Warren can’t say he wouldn’t try to do the same. Nathan was still a sketchy individual to anyone who didn't know him—and, of course, that was nearly the entire Blackwell student body, so, really, he shouldn’t even attempt at faulting Trevor in the first place.

… If that’s what Trevor was even thinking that. Warren was probably jumping to conclusions.

Trevor’s eyes dart towards Nathan’s door, and, okay. Maybe Warren wasn’t.

“Forced is a strong way to put it,” says Warren sheepishly. “It’s not what you’re thinking, though. Probably. Most likely?”

Trevor’s lips quirk back into a small smile, the minute reassurance apparently enough for him to relax away from the tension of whatever possible situation he’d been worried about. It makes Warren question just how much Trevor trusted Warren’s word, because, with anyone else, he knew he’d have more of a battle to gain some calm.

That’s because everyone else knows you lied to them, he reminds himself sharply, and he had. At least at some point in time. In Nathan’s case? Despite having basically told him everything the moment he woke up in the final loop? The fact he’d lied in past loops were what kept him from skimming by under the wire most of the time, because he’d been an idiot and told Nathan that part, too.

That’s not fair, he pushes back against himself. Nathan wouldn’t trust you immediately even if you hadn’t told him you’d lied.

And Warren knows he’s right. Because that was just Nathan. Nathan trusted Warren, but he was careful about that trust. He only gave it immediately when he knew he needed to.

“Hey.” A gentle voice accompanied by a slight jostle to his arm pulls him back, and Warren blinks rapidly at the worried face of Trevor, whom he’d totally forgotten about. “Earth to Warren, did I lose you? You alright?”

“Yeah, yeah!” Warren says hastily—too hastily, if Trevor’s expression is any indication. Warren clears his throat, pulls away slightly. “Long night. Wikipedia spirals! They can be a real bitch.”

“Oh, yeah,” Trevor agrees. “Been there too many times. Creepy shit, some of the stuff you can find.” He pauses, but not long enough for Warren to think of a way to get going before he speaks again. “Where are you going, man? Is it bad?”

“No, no,” protests Warren, still too hastily, dammit. He needed to calm down. “Nathan and Hayden are at a house party with Victoria and Taylor and— Yeah, you know the crew. Victoria’s sticking around, I guess, and Nathan can’t drive how he is after partying. I’m picking him up.” He frowns. “I don’t actually know how the others are getting home,” he realizes. “I was just called to pick Nathan up.”

“We can ask when we get there,” Trevor says, finally releasing Warren, and Warren turns in surprise as Trevor starts walking down the hall towards the exit.

“We?” he repeats, no less than a little tentative as he catches up to Trevor’s side.

“You’re spacing out, dude. You’re always a space cadet, but, man, I’m not letting you out at a party alone when you’re losing it on me in the dorms.”

That throws Warren completely off guard. He knows that Trevor is a nice person, he’d shown as much in the past months with how much he wanted to be included in the nerdy things Warren liked to do, but this? This went beyond what Warren had expected out of the guy. And, really, that was his bad.

Why the hell was he so bad at judging the character of his dorm mates? Jeez. And he thought he was a good judge of character, too. So much for that.

“Okay,” Warren agrees faintly as they lope onto the asphalt of the school’s parking lot, his hand already in his pocket to fish out his keys.

Trevor throws Warren another grin as the doors are unlocked, but then eyes Warren’s car warily as he slides into the seat. “You know,” he starts conversationally, snapping his seatbelt buckle into place while Warren turns the car on, “this thing looks so much better at a distance, no offense.”

“Uh, offense taken! I bought it when I was sixteen,” Warren responds, throwing the shift into reverse and backing up, only slightly knocking his head against the roof this time when he turns around to look. He needed to lower his seat a little more, apparently, and does so. “Some of us here actually need the scholarship we’re on. Take the boons of freedom life offers, Grasshopper. Cheap, shitty transpiration or not.”

Trevor holds his hands up, grinning. Most people would look like a dick, presenting the gesture after a comment about how derelict the state of the vehicle was, but Trevor manages to make it look as innocent as it probably actually was, damn the guy.

“So long as I don’t get tetanus, I’m game.”

Warren rolls his eyes in Trevor’s general direction, mentally patting Trevor on the back for even knowing what tetanus is, before the less asshole-ish side reminds him that just because everyone else at the school might not be as smart as him, it didn’t mean they were dumb. Blackwell Academy wasn’t exactly easy to get into, after all. That didn’t make the accusation any less rude, though.

“Everyone’s a critic,” Warren mutters, pulling out of the student parking lot, and Trevor only laughs in response.

They end up needing Trevor’s GPS about ten minutes into the drive when Warren realizes he isn’t as familiar with the outskirts of Arcadia Bay as he probably should be by now, and then stop needing Trevor’s GPS two streets before finding the one that the house actually sits on thanks to the volume of the music the premises is emitting. Warren is both shocked and amazed no one has called the cops yet, because deafening doesn’t even begin to cover the noise that greets him when he parks the car in an empty lot four odd houses down the road and pulls himself out. Trevor meets him at the trunk, looking like he was second-guessing everything about this whole ordeal, and they share a look before turning and making their way down the street and to the party.

“I knew there were big parties around here, but my imagination apparently sucks, because I didn’t think this is what we were getting into, ” Trevor remarks to Warren as they press close together to be heard, his voice a low rumble just barely heard over the pounding of the bass in Warren’s ear, then jerks away in order to narrowly avoid the careening path of a probably-drunken girl as she thundered between them with another girl on her shoulders, both hollering like they were at a concert and the limited-edition T-shirt gun had majorly misfired off into the distance. Warren turns to watch them continue on, both in curiosity of where they were going and in mental calculation of how far they could get with how much momentum they seem to have gained, but Trevor doesn’t, and it takes him a moment to notice Warren’s lagged behind.

“Blood in the water, Shark Bait?” he calls good-naturedly.

Warren winces and turns, jogging a little to return to Trevor’s side. “That nickname is never going to leave me, is it.”

Trevor snorts. “Not for as long as you keep tangling tongues with a biter. Not that I’m judging!” Trevor says quickly, turning so fast to face Warren that he nearly trips over the toe of his own shoe. No wonder he wipes out so much, Warren thanks.

“If anything,” Warren reassures, “I’d say you were one of the more accepting of the whole ordeal, considering you found out before most of the school.”

That seems to placate Trevor, because he gives Warren a smile reminiscent of a happy puppy dog before suddenly going still as a statue. He clears his throat, maybe twice, but the music is so loud that Warren can only judge by the way his Adam’s apple bobs with the movement, and the count is fairly indeterminate.

“You good?” Warren asks him, ducking his head.

Trevor laughs, but it’s a nervous laugh if Warren’s ever heard one. “That’s why you were bleeding, wasn’t it? That whole fight you two had, back in November. Your mouth was bleeding when I found you in the stalls, and it was because he bit you, didn’t he,” he asks, but it sounds less like a question the second time Warren runs it by himself in his head. The quiet swear Trevor tacks on doesn’t make it sound any more like one, either. “He better not be biting other places.”

Warren cringes and shoves his shoulder into Trevor, knocking him off-kilter. He lets out a faint yelp, but then starts laughing, and all the tension is gone in a flash.

“I hated everything about that statement, just for the record,” Warren mumbles, but, judging by the loud “What?” Trevor offers in return, Trevor didn’t hear him. Warren only shakes his head and grabs Trevor by the arm, and into the fray they go.

They’re met immediately by a gaggle of females in smeared makeup taking selfies on the front porch. Warren can’t help but gawk at the shimmering bikini tops they’re clad in despite himself, like he’s never seen a girl in a scanty swimsuit before (which—come on, he technically hasn’t, if movies and porn don’t count), and Trevor yanking him on ahead is the only thing to save him when one of them looks up and gives him a smile worthy of a lioness.

They don’t get far from the girls, though, before one is calling out to them with a “hey, you two!” and Trevor winces to a full stop two steps up the porch.

“You gotta pay to get into this party,” the girl informs them as she saunters up, a little unsteadily despite her bare feet, and her friend giggles and holds her hand out for what Warren presumes is the fee until the first girl gently pushes her hand away. “Not money,” she corrects, her eyes never leaving Trevor. “Give us something good.”

“Good?” Trevor repeats, frowning at Warren, who can only shrug. He’s not exactly a master of parties, and the biggest ones he’s ever hit have been Vortex ones, which, at most, had a monetary fee. “Uh, we don’t have drugs?” Trevor tries, then starts pulling out his pockets as if to prove his statement.

“Or alcohol,” Warren tacks on.

“Yeah, so— Whoa, okay!” Trevor stumbles away, into the step behind him, and nearly falls when the first girl goes in with her arms like she was trying for a hug with some face. Warren makes a noise of surprise and lunges for Trevor, but Trevor’s a lot heavier than he looks, and they both tumble onto the top of the porch with a thud.

“Ow,” Warren moans.

“Sorry,” Trevor croaks.

“Ew,” the girl sneers, and, before Warren can even blink, she vanishes with her friend without another word.

“Did— Did I just imagine that?” Warren says, sitting up and blinking. The girls were gone. Completely. “Where did they go?”

“You didn’t imagine it,” assures Trevor grimly, rubbing his head as he pulls Warren to his feet.

They huddle together as they flee, Trevor’s face so close to Warren’s that he can hear him breathing as they move around the wrap-around porch to the back of the house.

“Dana’s going to kill me,” he whispers, his fingers twisting in the cuff of his jacket absentmindedly, and Warren finds himself nearly physically restraining his own hand against reaching out and stopping the fidget, like he might’ve had Nathan been the one executing the action.

Get ahold of yourself, Graham, he chastises.

“You didn’t ask for that to happen,” Warren reminds him, pressing a hand against Trevor’s shoulder and gently pushing him away again so he couldn’t trip on Trevor’s close steps. “Dana’s pretty understanding anyway. It’ll be fine.”

He should have known better, anyway, considering the lawn was filled with drunk humans having what looks like either the best or worst time of their lives as they trek their way around and through the house. None of them wore anything identifying them as an admittee, so, clearly, the girls were trying to play them.

They break apart when they reach the backyard, where a giant pool sits steaming into the cold air, filled to the brim with people in various states of undress.

Warren swallows and tries his best not to stare. Again. “Okay. We’re here for Nathan. If I were Nathan, where would I be?”

Trevor glances around. “Uh,” he tries, then shrugs, “literally anywhere? This place is massive. Can’t you call him?”

But Warren shakes his head. “Victoria is the one who contacted me. She wouldn’t bother with me if it didn’t mean Nathan couldn’t do it himself for one reason or another.”

Trevor opens his mouth to reply, seems to consider himself, and sighs. “Yeah, okay. Makes sense. I’ll check inside, yeah?”

Warren turns his gaze back on to the pool. “... Sure. Yeah. Fantastic. Wet people. Love it.”

“Enjoy the sights while you can,” Trevor says happily, clapping Warren on the back, and then all but vanishing into the shadows of the party. How, Warren really can’t understand, but he’s seen enough weird shit not to question it for now.

“Here we go,” he mutters to himself just as someone yells “Cannonball!” and five people jump into the pool at once.

Operation “Where’s Waldon’t Make This Easy For Warren, Why Would You Do That?” ... commence.

Finding Nathan … turns out much easier than is expected.

Keeping Nathan, though? Much harder than anticipated.

Warren finds Nathan not even ten minutes after breaking from Trevor on the independent search, chanting “chug, chug, chug, chug!” with a group of people huddled around a keg with someone—is that Hayden? —upside down and, well, chugging.

“Graham?” Nathan says in surprise before Warren can even get close enough to call Nathan’s name without freaking him out. He blinks a few times in confusion, then pulls a face of annoyance when he realizes why Warren must be here after declining to come when asked earlier in the day. “Aw, fuck me. Vic’s bailin’?”

He’s slurring so much, Warren thinks he maybe should have shown up earlier and not wasted so much time, you know, driving the speed limit. Shit.

Warren reaches out all the same and grabs Nathan’s hand, which turns in his palm and latches on.

“Rescue squad, at your service,” he announces. The person on the keg is released, and Nathan whoops his glee at what is indeed Hayden. Okay. Great. “Am I supposed to be taking Hayden home, too?”

“Warren Graham!” Hayden greets happily before Warren can get an answer, lunging drunkenly at Warren and wrapping him up in a hug. He reeks of alcohol and sweat and beer, so much beer, and Warren tries his best not to gag. He definitely doesn't manage. Hayden doesn’t seem to notice, making a noise deep in his throat that Warren is pretty sure is a half-step from becoming a laugh, but that Hayden is way too drunk to bring to completion.

Yikes.

“Hayden,” Warren struggles, trying to not suffocate in Hayden all on his own, Nathan’s guffawing not helping anything at all. “Hayden. Let me go, for the love of Sputnik, please.”

“Oop, ah, sorry!” Hayden says, finally releasing Warren. He grins down at Warren, and if it weren’t for the way he sways slightly while even standing still, everything about him right in that moment would seem perfectly sober.

Warren struggles to regain himself after the interaction. Nathan’s still laughing, bent over at the waist, and so obviously drunk in clear contrast to Hayden’s weird pseudo-sobriety.

“What are you doing here, dude?” Hayden asks before Warren’s recovered, and, there, he sounds drunk. Mostly. It was all smoke and mirrors, totally wouldn’t pass a standardized field sobriety test.

“Vic’s got ‘im takin’ us home!” Nathan offers, apparently over himself, and Hayden’s face falls.

“No!” he stage-whispers, scandalized, and looks to the house forlornly. “I didn’t get to dance!”

“I gotta talk to Vic,” Nathan announces suddenly, then turns and starts to leave. Warren maybe overreacts just a little and literally jumps after him, grabbing his arm to stop him in his tracks.

“Wait!” he calls frantically, and Nathan looks back at him like he’s lost his goddamn mind. “What if I can’t find you again?” he tries meekly once he’s tried at a recovery. He doesn’t release Nathan.

Hayden offers insight on this: “Not that big of a place.”

“Not a big fuckin’ place, bitch,” Nathan echoes, like it was his idea.

“Nathan, there are so many people here,” Warren says, and he wouldn’t exactly deny that it’s a half-whine. He just really wants to get out of there. It’s so not his scene, and he’s so over parties as a whole, Vortex-hosted or not. “So many,” he pushes when Nathan only frowns, bored. “What if I can’t find you?”

“Call me. Duh.”

“And if you don’t answer your phone like you haven’t been all freaking night?”

Nathan seems to consider this, his free hand tapping on his chin, as the party around them screams, shouts, and generally gives Warren a headache. Then, he snaps his fingers, and Warren is immediately sure that the answer he wants is not coming. Nathan was never this easy.

“I’ll come lookin’ for you,” Nathan decides firmly, and, yeah, definitely not what Warren wanted, but Nathan’s hand slaps over Warren’s mouth before he can say so. “Come on, Graham. I’m havin’ fun. Just need t’ talk to Vic. ‘Kay?”

Too tired to argue about it any more, Warren only nods his head once, and he’s released. Nathan pries Warren’s hand off his arm and smiles his half smile.

“Hold this f’r me,” he slurs, swaying forward as he digs in his pocket and deposits a handful of items into Warren’s outstretched palm, then staggers away to god knows where. Warren watches him go, then looks to his hand to find the stub of what he was pretty sure was a blunt, along with a dime, two quarters, a key—his key, dammit Nathan—and three and a half peanuts.

From his left, Hayden bends over and surveys the contents of Warren’s palm with an almost-sober level of scrutiny, then gives a snort of a giggle and plucks two of the peanuts away from where they’re nestled between the dime and the key. Warren hears the crunch before he has the chance to even think of maybe stopping the drunk guy from eating something that had been in Nathan’s pocket for lord knows how long, and the deed is done.

“Gross,” Hayden comments shortly, without any inflection to his garble of the statement, then ambles off in the direction Nathan had vanished, leaving Warren alone amongst the strangers that littered the backyard.

“Why me?” he whispers to himself, and then has to beg off a girl when she tries to answer the question for him in something that sounds like it’s supposed to be English, but isn’t coherent enough to actually be intelligible.

He finds Trevor again next while he’s trying to hunt Nathan and Hayden back down, looking a little lost in the small sea of people surrounding him as he stands in the dead center of a tiny kitchen with a multitude of snacks in his hands, all the cabinets around him flung open and more than one person petting his face and arms.

His eyes light up the second he spots Warren, but his hands are too full to do anything more than nod his head enthusiastically for a few seconds before one of the girls in the cluster reaches out and jostles his shoulder in that sloppy but endearing kind of way only drunk people can really execute. He looks down at her, blinking in surprise, then says something Warren can’t hear over the noise of the party and starts opening one of the many bags clutched in his grip. Granola, it looks like from where Warren stands. Or trail mix? Something like that.

“Hey!” one guy slurs as Warren tries to wiggle his way closer to Trevor, grabbing Warren around the waist to stop him from continuing his journey. “Wait your turn!”

Warren blinks down at the guy. “What? No, I’m— My turn for what?”

The guy releases Warren to gesture at Trevor like he was presenting Warren with the presence of a god of some higher status. “Magic fingers!” he declares, fumbling on the word “fingers” and punctuating the statement with an ill-timed thrust of both hands. “He’s got magic fingers! You have to wait your turn to use them!”

Warren blinks owlishly, first at the heavily-intoxicated man, and then at his friend, who’s now in the middle of ripping open a packet of fruit snacks and handing it to a sobbing boy who doesn’t look any older than Warren himself.

“... He’s opening food for you guys?” Warren concludes and, as if the universe was on his side for once, witnesses his confirmation in the form of a redheaded girl with raccoon eyes fumbling with a family-sized bag of Cheetos before Trevor takes it from her and does the deed, earning himself a squeal of delight and a clap of the hands like he’d performed a miracle.

“My fingers aren’t magic!” Drunk Guy informs Warren in wonder. Warren realizes a second later that the hand is back on his waist, but he’s not sure if the guy himself realizes it or not.

“I mean,” Warren tries, taking the guy’s hand off so he can move again, “that’s great he’s pulling a Rasputin on you and all, but I kinda need to talk to him.”

The response he gets is one of incredulity, and the guy looks legitimately offended even as his hand latches back onto Warren’s torso the second it’s freed from Warren’s grip of removal. “You gotta wait your turn!”

And then, the next thing Warren knows, he’s being forcibly removed from the kitchen.

The next thing Warren knows, Hayden’s arm is in a vice-locked grip around his shoulders and he’s being lead into the fray of sweating, writhing people the next room over.

Exactly the place he had been avoiding since even being aware he was going to have to set foot on the premises of the party.

“Whoa, wait, hold up,” he says frantically, scrabbling at the hold Hayden has on him. It’s no use—Hayden was a big guy, and his grip was akin to that of King Kong, with Warren as the unwilling damsel in distress. “No, no, nuh-uh, no. Can’t dance, Hayden!”

Hayden laughs, the music doing nothing but amplifying the sound of it. “You don’t have to know how to dance! It’s a party, man, you need to chillax a little more! Have some fun.”

“I’m not here to chillax,” Warren protests as Hayden’s hands grab his and tries their best to get Warren to add to the communal gyration happening all around them. “I’m here to take Nathan back to the school, but he keeps vanishing on me.”

“S’cause he’s having fun. They got all the good shit here—Nathan doesn’t have to play delivery boy for once!”

“Hope he’s not mixing drugs,” Warren mutters to himself, trying his best to twist out of the way when someone’s ass bounces into his hip and pushes him further into Hayden’s hold.

“He doesn’t do that kind of stuff anymore,” Hayden replies, like he heard Warren somehow, then spins Warren around while he’s too caught off guard to physically revolt. The noise he releases in response is decidedly not girly, and, no, he won’t take constructive criticism on that.

Hayden laughs all the same, and then his head drops dangerously close to Warren’s as he leans in, still dancing awkwardly against Warren’s half-stuttered forced moves that are somewhere between trying to get away and trying not to get smothered by the people way too up in his personal bubble right now. “Okay, Sherlock, he’s right over there,” Hayden half-sings. Why, Warren can’t deduce, because his tempo is nowhere near that of the song’s. He also gives no indication of where “right over there” is, exactly, and Warren’s jolted looking around doesn’t remedy the mystery.

Hayden groans, then wrenches Warren’s head in the right direction.“You’re being such a mood-killer,” he grumbles. “He’s gonna hate that if he sees.”

Warren doesn’t have an answer for that, and he doesn’t have a moment to think of one before he finally catches sight of Nathan, sans the jacket he’d been wearing the last time Warren had run into him, dancing in what seemed to be dead center of the dance floor (of course, where else would Nathan Prescott be?) with Victoria close at hand.

They make a remarkably good-looking pair, is the first thing that Warren thinks once they register in his brain as people he knows and can put names to amongst the sea of strangers. Nathan’s head is bent in such a way that his light brown hair, freed from its usual styled prison by means Warren doesn’t think he wants to know of, mixes with Victoria’s golden blonde as their foreheads press together, Victoria leading the dance with one hand wrapped around Nathan’s jaw and the other at his hips. Nathan, high on whatever the hell it is he’s actually taken, does nothing more than sway with Victoria, and yet it still manages to come off as exactly what the music calls for.

It’s hot—they’re hot, Warren thinks, and holy shit—it spikes a hot flare of irritation from somewhere deep inside him, that they looked so perfect together, that they looked like they were made for each other—and that, in reality, they probably were. It must result in some physical reaction, because Hayden stills momentarily, something like a question coming from his mouth without registering as actual words in Warren’s head, but then Victoria’s eyes are opening and centering on him in, and the green coating his vision immediately melts away as she throws him a smirk and pushes away from Nathan.

“About time, Pumpkin Boy,” she calls cryptically, Nathan raising his head just in time to witness Victoria grab Warren by the collar and haul his ass right where she wants it—which apparently is where she’d been dancing just previously. He nearly wipes out when his foot lands wrong on the floor, but Nathan catches on fast enough to keep Warren from eating anything more than his own yelp of alarm, his cold hands gripped tight on the skin under Warren’s shirt where it had rucked up from Victoria’s ministrations.

“The fuck am I going to do with you?” Nathan asks acidly as he helps right Warren, shaking his head in a way Warren’s pretty sure he’s seen on a principal once. In a movie. About delinquents. Which he certainly wasn’t.

(Those past brawls notwithstanding, as they weren’t part of his current loop, thank you very much.)

“I’m not here to dance, Nathan,” Warren protests, but he’s already moving along with Nathan despite himself, and it seems like all of Nathan’s moves were in Victoria, because he’s not much better at it. “I’m here to take you home.”

Nathan all but ignores everything coming out of Warren’s mouth in favor of sliding his fingers through Warren’s belt loops and holding him anchor. “Yeah, well I’m here to fucking dance,” he all but growls, somehow sounding leagues more sober than he had just before. “Pick up your feet.”

“Oh, at least make it worth my while,” he whines sarcastically, voice low, and then sighs heavily as a new song starts up, a little slower than the previous one. He isn’t aware Nathan can even hear him until the moment when Nathan’s eyes flash something dangerous in response. His lips curl, his hands tug, and, before he realizes what’s happening, Warren finds himself flush up against Nathan’s chest. His heart nearly stops right then and there.

“Nathan—” he chokes, then stops abruptly when Nathan tilts his head back and runs the sharp of his teeth against Warren’s ear. It’s more action than he’s ever gotten in real life, and the fact it’s not happening in his head sends him into a tailspin of contradiction as his body both wants to respond and knows now is not the time or the place.

He feels, rather than sees, Nathan grin in triumph, and Warren realizes he was having trouble breathing, making his mindset on the whole thing blatantly obvious. Nathan’s hands crawl up Warren’s sides, his ever-cold fingers tracing icy paths along Warren’s skin, and Warren closes his eyes and gulps loud enough to break the sound barrier.

“Oh, my god,” he gasps, and Nathan’s laugh puffs against his neck. “Now? You’re choosing now to do this? You’re playing so dirty! I’m supposed to be taking you home, Nathan.”

Nathan hums, deep and enticing, and Warren feels it resonate in his sternum.

Jesus. That was so not appropriate. Warren hates what that does to—well, all of him. He’s lucky Nathan isn’t in the consenting mindset, because, otherwise, he wasn’t so sure he’d be able to stop himself from allowing Nathan to take it elsewhere. Thank you, moral code.

It doesn’t stop Nathan from being the most attractive thing he’s ever seen, though. He wonders, vaguely, if he can convince Nathan to keep the messy look, but the thought is gone in a blink when Nathan presses his nose into the hollow under Warren’s ear.

Shit.

“Nathan—” he tries again, only to fail once more when Nathan’s fingertips turn to nails and it’s all he can do not to outright gasp.

“Tell me to cut the shit, and I will,” Nathan murmurs, the words ghosting along Warren’s jaw, and everything in Warren’s brain comes to a screeching halt. Nathan’s breathing hitches, the warmth of the bodies around them seeping in deep, and Warren feels it race all along his spine. “I will stop,” Nathan continues, so quiet Warren almost can’t hear him, “I swear.”

Warren swallows, gentler this time, and Nathan brushes his lips against Warren’s chin.

“Tell me,” he breathes, “and I will.”

Warren drops his head and doesn’t say a word.

The night from there is a blur, up until the point where the songs pick up to a speed even Nathan finds he’s too tired to keep up with, and Warren is positive he doesn’t come away unscathed. A public setting and dubious consent from Nathan while drunk means he didn’t allow anything more than a lot of close movement and fluttering touches, fingers drifting and breathing stuttered—but that doesn’t mean he won’t be having dreams of more, even after Nathan pulled him from the trance he’d been put under with a jostle of a shoulder and a grin so sharp Warren could have used it to carve ice.

They find Hayden sprawled out on the porch deck when they go looking for him, waiting for them to wrap it up and move on with their night, a few equally worn out people sitting around him and listening as he told a tale Warren doesn’t manage to catch more than a few words of before they’re all saying goodbye to one another and Hayden is walking away with a few numbers and emails scrawled on his arms in purple ink. They stumble away from the party and head towards Warren’s car, heads echoing with the phantoms of the songs they leave behind.

Warren doesn’t see Trevor anywhere on the outskirts and, if he doesn’t find him along the way, decides he’ll just text or call him once he gets the other two safely in the car, because he doesn't want to risk taking them back in and potentially get caught up in something else, like he knew his luck was bound to allow.

Nathan and Hayden flank Warren’s sides as they amble along, Hayden with his eyes closed and humming one of the songs from earlier, and Nathan with his hands shoved deep in the pockets of his jacket, recovered from God knows where, because Warren hadn’t seen him do it, and his cheeks ruddy from either the cold or his own ministrations, Warren isn’t sure.

His heart is just managing to slow its rhythm after the strain it’s been put through, and he tries to focus on relaxing completely before starting up the drive back, listening to Hayden softly hum his own tune, completely different from the bass that still echoed from the house and down the street. It’s an easy thing, Warren thinks.

But then he spots something out of the corner of his eye and turns to it fast enough to get whiplash, almost knocking himself off his feet with the momentum of the action.

And, suddenly, Nathan is completely sober.

“What? What is it? Where’s the fucking inferno?” he barks, the words coming out so fast they nearly clip each other off as they’re spoken. “Graham? Hey!” Nathan pushes when Warren only slumps down, holding his chest like he’d nearly been startled to death. He grabs Warren by the shoulder in a pinching hold and shakes him. “What was that, you bitch? Tell me!”

“Deer,” Warren explains tiredly, gesturing to the only animal decoration capable of giving him a panic attack by doing nothing more than existing. It was just a plastic deer that lit up at night, sure, but it was a bastard in its own right, adorable exaggerated eyes and all.

Nathan curses sharply in response. Warren reaches up and presses a hand to Nathan’s, and Nathan’s fingers immediately relax.

Hayden stares at the both of them, the alarm on his face so wrong that Warren accidentally lets out a startled laugh. Hayden’s gaze centers on Warren alone, and Nathan leans away from Warren in obvious distaste.

“The fuck was that?” he accuses, and Hayden nods his head once.

“Uh, yeah, was gonna ask both of you the same, actually,” he says hesitantly. He doesn’t stop looking at Warren. “Did you just get jump-scared by a fake deer?”

“I, uh—” Warren starts, but Nathan smacks him in the chest to stop him and finishes quickly with: “got attacked by one as a baby. Walked right up to his stroller and tried to eat his face off!”

Warren blinks down at Nathan, and Hayden looks as if he isn’t sure Nathan is exactly telling the truth, but doesn’t know enough about deer attacks to exactly question it.

“Er—” Warren offers, scrambling, and just then Trevor manifests on the scene, looking haggard.

“Who tried to eat whose face off?” he asks breathlessly, turning wide, haunted eyes on Warren, and Warren immediately feels bad for leaving him alone.

“Graham,” Hayden offers faintly, then frowns and reaches out to finger the object Warren just then realizes is hanging from around Trevor’s neck. “What—”

“Is that a bathtub plug?” Nathan asks loudly, effectively cutting the quieter inquiry from Hayden off.

Trevor ducks his head. “Uh, yeah. They gave it to me. Said it was a prize for being the miracle man and—um, saving the party.”

Nathan gapes. Warren tries not to start laughing again. Hayden hasn’t removed his fingers from the rubber bung.

“The shit did you do?” Nathan asks incredulously.

“Opened—food?” Trevor replies, so hesitant that Warren thinks he’s possibly questioning the reality of what he just went through. Warren can’t say he doesn’t relate.

“Wow,” Nathan muses. “The world has low standards.”

“Look who’s talking,” Warren mutters, and only snickers when Nathan turns and slugs him on the arm before walking off again.

Hayden releases Trevor’s makeshift medal, and they all follow after. They’re maybe a house and a half away, walking in relative silence for no more than a minute, when Nathan does what he always does best: decides quiet is not his favorite way to occupy the time.

“So why’d you bring that fuckbucket?” Nathan asks, eloquent as always, jabbing a thumb in Trevor’s direction and effectively breaking the—in Warren’s opinion anyway—enjoyable silence.

Trevor jumps, blinking rapidly, like someone just slotted a coin in and brought him to life. The plug swings violently with the motion. “Ran into him in the hallway,” Trevor explains after a moment, and Warren thinks it’s pretty nice of him to dignify Nathan’s childish acid with a response they all know it doesn’t deserve. “Didn’t think it was a good idea sending him into the fray alone like that, when people could take advantage of him.”

“What?” says Warren, blinking at Trevor in surprise. He didn’t know that last part.

Nathan scoffs. “It’s just a college party. Warren’s not some candy-assed pansy man, he can manage the scene. Victoria wouldn’t have texted him if he couldn’t handle it.”

Trevor just slides his eyes in Warren’s direction, radiating dubiousness over Nathan’s statement, but he thankfully keeps his mouth shut. Warren wants to be on Nathan’s side, because Warren certainly can handle it, but Victoria? Would truss him up in a Chicago overcoat and throw him in the deep end just to watch him drown. She’d even supply the cement to help the deed along. There was no love lost between them, and Warren knew she would have texted him to come collect Nathan even if it meant bodily injury along the way.

Nathan meant far more to her than Warren did, far more than Warren knew he ever would. And Warren was okay with that.

“Shotgun!” Nathan hollers suddenly, nearly leaping off the street as he bolts towards the shadowed shape that was Warren’s car. Hayden makes a noise of offense, reminding Warren of his presence, and takes off at a run after Nathan.

“You still happy you signed up for this?” Warren asks Trevor as they watch their two classmates barrel into first the car, and then each other, cursing and spitting and laughing.

“No,” Trevor admits, fidgeting with his rubber prize, “but I’m not mad I came with you. I really didn’t want to just let you go to something like this on your own.”

Warren huffs quietly. “I can handle myself, you don’t have to be my knight in shining armor.”

Trevor looks over at Warren, his face wrinkled up, and he shakes his head. “No, not like that. You’re my friend. I got your back, Warren.” Trevor’s arm reaches out, and Warren feels his hand pat once, twice, before transitioning into that comforting rub Warren could never quite perfect without it coming off as slightly creepy, but that Trevor seems to be a master of. Warren feels tension he hadn’t realized he’d been holding in his shoulders relax.

“Thanks, man,” Warren says, and he means it. “Not exactly easy finding the real ones in a school full of wannabes and fakesters.”

“And yet you seem to be racking them up,” Trevor replies with a pointed look in the direction of the car, where Hayden and Nathan have piled in the back and can be seen pushing each other back and forth in the back seats. So much for Nathan’s declaration of shotgun. Trevor sighs. “You ready for this drive back?”

“Not even close. Don’t be surprised if Nathan argues with you about getting the front seat.”

“But he’s in the back.”

“You think that’ll stop him?”

Trevor puffs his cheeks out. “Right. Prescott, coming in hot. I’m ready.”

“That’s what you think,” Warren mutters, then reaches for his door in the same moment Trevor does, and into the car they go.

They stop at a drive-through farther away from the school than where they started, solely to distract Nathan from pestering Trevor about taking his seat up front and from badgering Warren to do exactly what he ended up doing. It’s a little chaotic, going through the window at such an early hour when only one poor employee was working the entire establishment, especially when both Hayden and Nathan decide they absolutely have to give the guy their order themselves and not relay it to Warren because they “know Warren will fuck it up” (Nathan’s words, but Hayden’s nod had been an affirmation, so Warren was holding the insult against him, too), and then take entirely too long trying to make their order coherent.

Warren tries to give the guy his best “I’m so fucking sorry we exist” expression when he rolls up to the window, but the guy is not impressed, and Warren really can’t blame him. Nathan shoves his card up before Warren can even reach for his wallet, decidedly paying for all of them, and Warren only sighs when Nathan refuses to let Warren hand the card up.

(Nathan nearly climbs over Warren’s lap to give the card over, and Warren finds absolutely none of the action enticing in any remote sense. Not even when Nathan sloppily smacks his lips against Warren’s forehead on the way back, because the guy sees, and he only raises his eyebrows before silently handing the food over and closing the window in their face.)

They scarf their meals down with no small amount of stealing from first Nathan, then Hayden and Trevor, and finally Warren once he hits a red light and nearly throws himself across the car to snatch the curly fry right out of Trevor’s grasp, laughing and jabbing and essentially having what Warren might dare even call one of the best late-night escapades he’s ever had in his life.

The food is gone within fifteen minutes of receiving it, and Hayden begs Warren to crank the radio up as high as it’ll go for the remaining ten-minute drive they had into the sound-restricted street the school sat on, his hands on Warren’s seat and his chin digging uncomfortably into Warren’s shoulder. Warren obliges, and they all crow and sing off-tune to 80s favorites—courtesy of the only station his sad excuse of a car can get so late at night. Trevor proves to have the best voice of them all, and Nathan retaliates to this newfound information by trying to smother Trevor’s mouth with his hands, which he fails epically at.

They cut the music as they pull up on the street, but they’re laughing loud enough for it not to matter, giddy and high on the energy between them.

Tumbling from the car, Hayden and Trevor lock arms and take off towards the dormitories, singing Bon Jovi’s You Give Love a Bad Name in what could probably be considered acapella if Warren had any understanding of music whatsoever, and Nathan and Warren trail behind them, tangled up in each other, Warren laughing so hard he’s sobbing and Nathan’s eyes bright with all the things Warren didn’t have names for. Warren has to stop himself from grabbing Nathan and pressing him close, but Nathan has no such qualms, and the moment on the dance floor comes rushing back when Nathan stops them both in their tracks and tugs Warren down, slotting their mouths together with a practiced ease, the heat between them all but searing him right down to his bones. He feels Nathan gasp into his mouth when he scrapes his teeth against Nathan’s lip in a mimic of a move he’d been shown before, and just about loses it right then and there.

It takes the combined wolf-whistling of Hayden and Trevor to get them to come to their senses, and then both boys grappling them into a foursome of a hug to get them back in motion, and they somehow make it into the hallways as the conglomeration of far too much testosterone and no small amount of affection shared between them all, only to get yelled at to shut the fuck up two feet in the door. Nathan doesn’t go after whoever had yelled, only because he’s laughing too hard to speak.

Though Trevor’s room is technically the closest, they fall into Warren’s room when no one is able to procure a key, discarding clothing and pulling off each other’s shoes. Trevor looks up at Warren with his eyebrows gently raised in silent question from the floor when it becomes clear both Nathan and Hayden are both staying by the way they roll into the bed nearly as one in a botched fight to get to it first, and Warren only has to smile and nudge him with his one socked foot in response. Trevor’s shoulders relax, and Warren reminds himself to maybe treat Trevor as more of a friend in the future, because he knows now he wouldn’t have made it out of that event easily without Trevor there to watch his back. Warren drops to the floor next to him and hooks the metal chain of the bathtub plug Trevor still wore around his neck between his fingers, and then smashes his nose against the curve of Trevor’s shoulder when a pillow nails him in the back of the head.

“Whoops!” is all Nathan offers, his hands out in a pathetic excuse of an apologetic shrug, when Warren whips around to locate the culprit and finds Hayden hanging off the bed in obvious defeat. Warren flips him off, and then gets rewarded with a second pillow right to the face, which sets them all off again.

Three of them end up only in their underwear by the time the communal helping of cloth-removing has ceased, spurred on by no small amount of jibes and playful taunting all around once they had regained their breath and rushed to finish getting undressed for the night, with only Nathan the victor of a shirt in addition to the boxers that were—fuck, Warren’s, okay, alright, he can handle that, sure—and they pile into the mess of what once covered Warren’s bed like the children some of them were robbed of being.

Warren falls asleep with Nathan’s head on his chest, Hayden’s on his stomach, and his head resting under Trevor’s chin, all boundaries lost, at least for that night, in the moment they all needed to share, and Warren thinks, as he drifts off under the hazy blanket of sleep, I wouldn’t trade this for anything in the world.

And it’s a comfort that, never again, would he have to. This was his end.

This was his.

And no one was going to take that away.

#[RM] spoilers #grahamscott #life is strange #warren is strange

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