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olderthannetfic · 4 years ago

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Escapade Vid - The Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty

Here’s my writeup of my vid, crossposted from DW.

This is one of my two vid premieres for Escapade Con 2021. It spoils all of The Sleuth of The Ming Dynasty, specifically anything involving Wang Zhi. The discussion below is similarly spoilery.

I fell hard for The Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty, harder than for The Untamed or anything else for ages. (Okay, that's a lie, I fell that hard for Kingdom, but I don't ship anything there.) I knew I wanted to vid it for the con because it's so beautiful and because I knew a lot of people wouldn't be familiar with my favorite character via osmosis.

Sleuth is a historical mystery series (no magic/fantasy) based on a danmei novel. It has three leads: the two halves of the book ship and my fave. Facepalm.

I got into the series by knowing it was new-ish, some kind of buddy mystery series, and that fans liked it. That's it. I glanced at a poster, but I hadn't properly osmosed that there were three leads, not just two, so when Wang Zhi showed up, I naturally assumed he'd turn out to be a villain. His introduction is him driving a man to suicide. Practically the first thing we find out about him is that he's a palace eunuch with a high political position whom the politicians fear, look down on, and hate.

Could there be a more stereotypical villain for a historical drama?

So I went through a rapid progression from thinking he'd be the smiling pseudo-ally they have to defeat later to loving him and being like "They'd better not make him a villain!" to realizing I'd completely misosmosed this series.

I had a lot of feelings.

Picking a song / How I got into BTS:

Finding a vidsong for Sleuth was tricky. I had other vid ideas I could have made. I was tempted to make three vids, one for each lead (though not all for Escapade). I was tempted to make an OT3 pimping vid. My problem was that I also have had a lot of feelings about BTS this past year, and I knew I wanted to use them for an Escapade vid, but that presented a problem.

BTS… man… How to explain…

I grew up not really listening to music. My mom was a music teacher and only listened to Classical. When I eventually got into popular music, it was Enya and Alice Cooper. (Yes, syrupy Celtic crooning in various languages + shock rock is a pretty good summary of teenage me, why do you ask?) Also Cat Stevens, who was even more of the wrong generation for anyone else to care. The first time I really gave a shit about music was when I was living in NYC in my 20s absorbing the taste of someone with strong and specific music interests. I would by no means call myself knowledgeable about music.

A year ago, I tried to learn a little about BTS before Escapade so I could pick some shippy vid and stick it in the dance party. I want people to be able to go to the party and feel like they've got their finger on the pulse of fanfic-adjacent fandom even if they aren't into all of those fandoms themselves. I've never been into idol music, and it's not for lack of exposure: many successive waves of jpop and kpop idol-loving friends have tried, and I've been immune. It's the soppy ballads. I cannot. Some of the bouncy stuff is fun, but it wasn't enough.

Unfortunately for me, BTS is fucking confusing, so there was no easy 101. The only way to know anything about the fandom dynamics and which ships are popular was to know a lot. And once I'd bought in that far, I was up for some fic reading because huge RPF fandoms always have tons of AUs that are practically original fic, and hey, that sounded fun… I tried their reality shows a little bit, but my allergy to idol music is second only to my allergy to reality shows. I'm bad at getting things done if I don't sit down and commit properly, so I made myself a spreadsheet of all of their albums, guest appearances, and side projects and sat down to listen to the lot via Youtube…

They blew me away.

I didn't know. No one told me! I would never have predicted what they actually sounded like. It's not that they're good. Lots of idol groups are good. It's that they can rap. Korea has plenty of good rappers, but they're not in idol groups! I cannot properly convey the level of shock I experienced or even how and why BTS are so good. I like hip hop, but I don't know enough to describe anything properly.

When I made it to Hip Hop Lover, it all made sense. Imagine my reaction as a much more confused and incoherent version of this youtube video. Of course RM is into Talib Kweli and everyone else like that. Of course he's into conscious hip hop, a lot of it from NYC. Everything about their dense lyrics and their choice of subject matter made perfect sense after looking at their self-described list of influences. But in a way that Monq can articulate and I cannot.

I love shit that requires buy-in. All nerds do. I swear, hip hop is the nerdiest damn music there is because it's so into referencing its influences and responding very directly to other artists and to current culture, assuming the audience will keep up if it cares to. BTS know far more than I do about hip hop from here, plus they're Korean and like puns in a language I don't speak, so understanding what the actual fuck is going on in some of their songs is an adventure involving multiple youtube explainers. But they also have enough goofy dance music and rap that just sounds awesome to keep me interested even when I don't get it.

Daechwita dropped in May 2020, and holy shit, can we have a fandom just for that video? Historical architecture, hot dudes with swords, be still my beating heart. This is totally why I ended up watching Kingdom. I was dying to start learning some Korean, but then I got distracted by more Chinese media. Damnit. How do I choose?

So Escapade 2021 was rolling around, and I knew I wanted to make my Untamed vidbunny from last March, but I also wanted to vid Sleuth, and I wanted to vid it to BTS. I was now presented with my problem:

BTS is a 7-member group, and most songs prominently highlight 3-5 of them if not all 7. One might be able to do this as aspects of one character's personality, but it's very hard to make it work for a two- or three-person ship. I started looking at the rap line's songs, which have just the three of them, but even then, you're stuck saying that Character A is singer X and so on. How do I divide up the Sleuth leads? Do I make the angry one the angry one and the sunshine one the sunshine one? But the sunshine one is not the bookworm in BTS, unlike in Sleuth, and that just feels wrong!

That was when I decided to do a character vid rather than a ship one, to pick Wang Zhi, and to choose something off of one of the rap line's solo side projects. And what combination could be more obvious than tiny, angry, beautiful Yoongi paired with tiny, angry, beautiful Wang Zhi?

In the end, I did not pick Daechwita because, much as I love it, it has that kind of monotonous, hypnotic flow, and I feared I'd end up making a boring vid. I went back to Agust D's first mixtape, which is much angrier, and picked a song I felt had more obvious internal structure. I picked it mostly based on sound, as I always do. I needed vocals that I felt conveyed Wang Zhi's personality. Once I had a song in mind, I looked up the lyrics… And kept looking.

This would probably have been helped by not making the vid in like 3 days, mostly after the deadline because my other premiere dragged on way longer than I expected. Doh. Someone said that the vids were great this year because everyone had been stuck indoors with nothing else to do. I can assure you that I was my usual disaster self and was still trying to pick songs like a week before the deadline. There's always next year. Sigh.

So while vidding, I had a couple of okay but not great translations of the lyrics and at least one line I straight up did not understand. My process for all vids is to make a spreadsheet and put the lyrics down one side with clip ideas in another column. If the song isn't in English or isn't straightforward, I have other columns on the lyrics: original writing system, transliteration, translation, notes. I often have a column for song structure (verse 1, chorus, verse 2, chorus version A, chorus version B, etc.), or I might do that part by color coding chunks of the lyrics/translation. In this case, I had a lot of different columns of translation bits that moved around, and I also color coded column A based on whether there was a significant English language lyric. Here's a screencap of part of my planning spreadsheet with colors changing to show song section breaks and some clip concepts I was considering written in. (I usually end up abandoning most of my content notes once I get into actually editing a section.)

I finally found a good translation of it the morning after the vidshow. Sheesh. It wouldn't have radically affected how I vidded that part because the lyrics are so fast that you can't hit every little thing with a relevant clip and still have your audience visually parse anything at all. I still wish I'd had a better translation beforehand.

I foolishly thought it wouldn't be a problem vidding something in Korean, but it turns out I have such a hard time understanding Korean phonology that it's very hard for me to tell which bit is which even with a phonetic transcription. On top of that, most of the translations swap clause order for no good reason--"Your mother will be sad when you lose your last asset, health" instead of "When you lose your last asset, health, your mother will be sad"--despite both working perfectly well in English.

For the purposes of making the vid, I only needed to understand well enough to know how I was matching the lyrics or not, but for posting, I had to come up with something a little more polished. In the end, half before vidding and half after (oops), I have gone through with like 4 different translations, google translate, and an online Korean dictionary to cobble together something that I think is a fairly accurate translation, with clauses in the order they fall in the song, and some attempt at idiomaticness and correct tone and level of informality in English.

Lyrics translation:

The best of the translations I found in terms of being annotated and fairly easy to understand in English is this one by Muish.

Here's my version:

They call me new thang The new recruit is here: take my bags Whole world, concert Not bad, Asiana Asia You could be my new thang Different from the guys who neglect their duties Insubordination from a celebrity Damn, only the strong can fuck with me Some say I made it too easy Fuck you, I'm a thorn in the side of those guys So far from success Honestly, "SSaihanuwar" is embarrassing1 Now, we sell half a million copies a year The k-pop category Ain't big enough to hold me, whoo! Right, go ahead Try booking first class My seat is business You're economy, forever behind me kissing my ass Next goal is Billboard Brazil to New York My passport gets no rest A to the G to the U to the STD I'm d boy because I'm from D I'm crazy, a lunatic on a beat My rap will blow your mind with2 My tongue technology A to the G to the U to the STD A to the G to the U to the STD A to the G to the U to the STD I'll blow your mind with My tongue technology I hunt down those who copy the copiers. Get 'em down no matter who the fuck they are. Doesn't matter if I'm a jerk or if I'm wack or fake, I'm the one who carves history across the field. Among boring rappers, I get the lion's share. I'm about to take your bread. Bros' jealousy making all this noise. Hey ho I don't give a fuck Keep shoveling shit I'll bury you alive in the grave You dug yourself Hey ho you can't handle me You wasted rappers should be grateful I'm an idol Cause I'm busy, I'm busy, 24/7, what rest? Latecomers, go play amongst yourselves. Jealous and childish you wail, Yet you don't know shit.3 Paris to New York, damn My non-stop schedule A to the G to the U to the STD I'm d boy because I'm from D I'm crazy, a lunatic on a beat My rap will blow your mind with My tongue technology A to the G to the U to the STD A to the G to the U to the STD A to the G to the U to the STD I'll blow your mind with My tongue technology I’m sorry. Honestly, I am. I'm sorry I took your daily bread, boy. I'm sorry. Don't be mad. When you lose your only asset, health, Your mom's going to be upset. I'm sorry. Change careers. Amazing how you keep digging, So change, boy. I’m sorry. Honestly, I am. That your rapping sucks compared to mine. A to the G to the U to the STD I'm d boy because I'm from D I'm crazy, a lunatic on a beat My rap will blow your mind with My tongue technology A to the G to the U to the STD A to the G to the U to the STD A to the G to the U to the STD I'll blow your mind with My tongue technology A to the G to the U to the STD I'm d boy because I'm from D I'm crazy, a lunatic on a beat My rap will blow your mind with My tongue technology A to the G to the U to the STD A to the G to the U to the STD A to the G to the U to the STD I'll blow your mind with My tongue technology

1. I straight up had no idea what the "SSaihanuwar" line is supposed to mean when I was making this vid. People said it was a pre-debut song, so I assumed he meant his skills had improved. What it actually refers to is that song bragging that they'd sold 30,000 copies, while as of this song, they were selling 500,000, so that childish bragging about a tiny past achievement is embarrassing now. Of course, as I type this, BTS sells like four million albums a year…

2. This is referencing a movie title, The Wailing, and then a famous line from the movie, which is said in dialect. I haven't seen the movie and nothing online explains the context in which "Important? You don't know what's important!" is used. If anybody's seen it, feel free to drop me a comment. Hopefully, it won't be something I'd radically change in the vid.

3. Literally 'take you to Hong Kong', which can be used like "blow your mind" in the regular sense, but is also used to mean "give you an orgasm", hence the italics on 'blow' above. Yes, it's an oral sex joke. Yes, he means it like that.

What the song means and what I did with it:

Okay, so now that we know the main lyric of this song is apparently "STD", what's it actually about?

Overall, this is a diss track. Like most BTS dis songs, the concept is: I may be an idol, but I'm still twice the man and twice the rapper you are.

I'm not the only one who was surprised to hear good rappers show up in an idol group: the underground rap scene that Suga comes out of thinks of idols as both inauthentic sellouts and as embarrassingly girly. They wear makeup and sparkly outfits. Laaaaaame.

This felt like an excellent parallel to the social position of eunuchs in The Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty: Wang Zhi is one of the most competent and ruthless, yet loyal and honorable administrators we see in the entire series. If he were running the government, all of them would be better off. He's like that version of Lex Luthor or Emhyr var Emreis that astolat likes to write.

Throughout the series, politicians and generals see Wang Zhi as less than a man and thus not a worthy enemy or not worthy of his high position, but he's twice as worthy as any of them. He's not only better at being a ruthless badass, but he's better at keeping the body count low. Sure, he's introduced forcing a guy to commit suicide… But Wang Zhi promises him his family will be spared the same fate, where normally a traitor's entire family would be wiped out. The only reason things go poorly later is that the guy's son is too stupid to realize what a favor WZ did them.

Even Tang Fan is a complete asshole to him repeatedly. In this case, he doesn't treat WZ as lesser, but he's so naive and fixated on fluffy feelings that he assumes WZ is cold and cruel when he's pragmatic or that he has no feelings when he's clearly devastated but trying to fix the situation instead of breaking down about it. TF is the worst sort of idiot who values superficial virtue over practical results. It's a good thing he's so endearing!

There's this heartwarming bit at the end of the series about how WZ learned humanity from TF and SZ or something, but it's complete nonsense: him adopting child orphans and pretty much all of the rest of his behavior for the whole series was already merciful within the bounds of their society and the demands of his position.

On to my vidding process: I laid the song out on the timeline and put markers for the sections, color coded by what type of section they were and also made the spreadsheet seen above. That helped me see the structure of the vid. One of the first parts I tackled was the opening, which is long and slow and samples another song. It feels like it should have establishing shots, and it's long enough they could get boring. I realized it was an excellent opportunity to have some text on screen. I love typography, but I normally don't do it because there's no space in the song I've chosen, and I'm making the vid on the day of the deadline and have no time to think about fonts. Poking through all the confusingly-named Chinese fonts I have installed took as long as all the editing in this section.

I then had to figure out what to do with the chorus.

Yoongi's normal rapper name as part of BTS is 'Suga'. He's from Daegu and proud of it. So his solo rapper name is 'Agust D', which is 'DT Suga' backwards. A to the G to the U to the STD is just him repeating his own name. Aside from saying Agust D = Wang Zhi, I didn't have a lot of specific ideas here. Wang Zhi has a really hot mouth, but there isn't that much in canon that's an obvious oral sex joke.

I knew I didn't want to make the vid strictly a linear retelling of canon since the point was more conceptual. I also love the emotional impact of the Yang Fu stuff, both the times it's funny and the times it's upsetting for characters, but it's hard to communicate it in a vid without spending some time, so I decided to use the choruses entirely for Yang Fu. At the very end of the vid I had more story that needed to go somewhere and no more Yang Fu (and I wouldn't have ended on Yang Fu anyway), so I had to vary that pattern.

The final verse is a 2-part one that is slow and even more sneering than the rest of the song, so I picked WZ's most idiotic enemy for that. WZ literally took away his job by killing his father, which caused him to come home from the military and his brother to be fired from his job as an official. His mother is ill because of grief, and everyone keeps telling him to go look after his family instead of chasing WZ around and trying to start shit, so the lyrics are quite apt. This guy is just not up to WZ's weight class, and that's what this verse is about.

The first two verses required more thought. They have a 3-part structure and are fast. I looked for individual Wang Zhi plotlines that matched the specific lyrics of each section thematically. There are shittons of speed effects all over this vid for obvious reasons, but I still needed to pick footage that was naturally more dynamic. The show has a fair amount of talking heads, slow scenes, and cute and fluffy stuff that didn't fit the tone here, not to mention WZ being the least important of the three leads, so selecting the correct bits of WZ plot was essential.

I originally planned to use verse 1 for the horse market case, but there just isn't enough great footage to do the whole thing, so I did the first two thirds. Section 1 has military-sounding lyrics about a new recruit taking over from "hyungs" (older guys) who neglect their duties. This idol (a celebrity) is going to show the underground rappers how it's done. I had wanted to use the 'new thang' lyric with flashbacks to WZ first getting his position at the emperor's side, but that footage makes him look too meek and doesn't connect well to anything. 'You could be my new thang' I wanted for Jia Kui, but again, there isn't good footage that communicates their relationship visually.

The general from this arc has a similar thematic role: He's a ~real man~ who cares only about duty and is rude to the effete, useless official from the capital, while the other local powers fawn on him… Except Wang Zhi responds to this by being amused, showing up the others, and approving of General Chen. (By the end of the arc, Chen is all offended on his behalf that other dudes think he's merely a eunuch instead of a total hottie capable and honorable servant of the empire.) The first section is WZ on 'new thang' and Chen on 'my new thang'. This third ends with 'only the strong can fuck with me' as Chen joins the welcome feast. Out of all of the people in charge of border security, he's the only one who's strong.

The next third of the verse is about people thinking Suga got to his position too easily, which is also something basically every official feels about powerful eunuchs in Sleuth (and also in every single other historical drama with eunuchs because holy shit is this a common trope, and also in actual history, which is why). In this plotline, WZ is there to deal with the incompetent border guards and sort things out in ways they haven't been able to. He is certainly a thorn in their sides. For this part, I showed one of the obsequious officials smiling, WZ toasting them, and Chen being unamused.

This section finishes up with Suga saying his past bragging is embarrassing because he's so much more badass now, and k-pop isn't big enough for him (which I think is less about wanting to break out of kpop and more about definitions having to be readjusted to accommodate his awesomeness). The scenes from Sleuth are WZ suddenly revealing he speaks the local languages flawlessly--something no normal official from the capital does and that he's been hiding up till now as people insult him--and then WZ resolving the case with murder and smart political maneuvering that puts one of the local chieftains in his debt. The category of eunuch is certainly not enough to encompass Wang Zhi's political ambitions or abilities.

The final section of verse 1 is using a plane/flying metaphor to talk about Suga being ahead of everyone. It also has a particularly awesome lyric in English that I wanted to emphasize. This was the last part of the timeline I filled in, and I used a scene that is not one of the major enemies WZ cares about but where he is wonderfully bossy and in charge. The guy tries to pull rank on him, and he throws away his supposed police informant badge, being like I am the police.

The second verse has the really fast part in this song, so I wanted to show a lot of different cool shit WZ does. Section one is about Suga hunting down poseurs, whether they're new or long-established and powerful. Suga says he's going to take the other rappers' "rice bowl" (livelihood). WZ similarly goes after all kinds of people, including very highly-placed politicians. The serial killer duke was supposedly untouchable, but WZ tells him he's an insect. He'll do the low-level dirty work (running around at night in ninja outfits) and the high level supervision (commanding men at the depot). The line ends by talking about other rappers' jealousy making noise. For this, I used Wang Zhi's trial where all of the politicians team up to wrongly accuse him of a laundry list of crimes.

The next line is about how Suga will bury other rappers alive in the grave they dug themselves, and they should be grateful he's an idol (because if he were a fellow underground rapper, they'd be shown up even worse). There's a suggestion in Suga's lyrics that part of the "wasting time" (digging/shoveling used as a metaphor) these other rappers have done is talking shit about him. They hurt their own reputations by doing it, and he had no desire to take them on until they forced the issue. I used WZ's introduction. That politician doomed himself by talking shit about the emperor's consort. Before he goes to meet with WZ, he talks shit about how eunuchs aren't actually powerful or scary to his drinking buddies. WZ spends the whole scene outlining how his downfall is his own damn fault.

The last section of the verse is about how busy Suga is. Losers should go bother each other, not him, because he has real shit to do. They have no idea what's important, unlike him. I opened with a quick shot of WZ's trial and then the silver case. WZ continually waves off concerns about the trial, even while he's in prison for a few days, because he's concerned about the actual problems occurring at the same time, namely that the entire government is about to go bankrupt and collapse. He's fending off assassins and getting people executed. Wan Tong's embarrassing attempt to mindfuck him in prison is laughable. They're just not on WZ's level.

I capped it off by showing the end of the plot and WZ winning. The three shots of his enemies looking upset are all from times he fucked with them earlier in the series. The final shot of him looking smug is from very early on when he'd just informed his chief rival, Shang Ming, about the suicide he caused in his intro. At the end of the vid, we're back at the beginning of the plot: Wang Zhi was always better. He would have worked with his rivals, but they just had to make it a contest. From the very beginning, they should have known they couldn't win.

The vid I’ve already posted to tumblr, but here’s the AO3 link again:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/29573175

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trans-darkwing · 5 years ago

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talk yourself up

DWD + DT17 drabble | written before the the Double-O-Duck ep aired, but I still like it | Darkwing and Steelbeak | ~1800 words

Darkwing scrabbles backward across the floor, his gas gun has been kicked across the room, in the corner behind the director’s desk. His cape is gone, torn away and with it all the other gadgets he kept stored in hidden pockets. Steelbeak stalks closer, a sadistic smirk twisting the joints of his metal beak.

“What now, Darkwing Duck?” he mocks, drawing out the name, “I’m on the edge of my seat to find out what happens next. No, really,” he goes on, “you’ve got a whole script for this, am I right? Or did you not plan this far ahead?” He laughs. Steel beak talks a lot, he likes that. It suits Darkwing just fine.

“Don’t have a script,” he starts to respond, “but I am very good at improv.” His hand hits on something heavy and metal and he grabs for it, flinging it in his best overhand towards the towering titan taunting him treacherously. The wrench flies through the air and hits him squarely on the mouth, with the sickening clang of metal on metal. It stuns him, only for a moment, reeling as he clutches at his face. Darkwing takes the scarce instant to look for something, anything to get himself out of this.

The rooster lowers his hand, baring his teeth furiously, “I think you just gave me a dent. That’s gonna cost ya. An arm and a leg!” The man lunges for him, apparently growing tired of playing with his food. But Drake has already started scrambling to his feet and rolling out of the way. He’s off balance though, being thrown across the room seems to have done more than just knock the breath out of him. He steadies himself and dances further out of reach, letting the loquacious lug of larceny lumber closer to him.

“So... how do you fix a dent in your face?” Drake wonders conversationally, going for diversion now, “you just open it up, pop the dent, and buff it out…? Or do you just have to replace the whole model?” He inches around him as he does, slowly circling the scoundrel in a stagnant stand-off.

“They really only have to replace the one joint that’s dented, but you got me in two.”

Darkwing Duck’s face splits in a grin, trying not to let on how woozy he feels. “Ooh, two for one, do I get a prize?”

“Yeah, I’m gonna give you a dent of your own,” Steelbeak says sweetly, “how do you fix those?”

DW gives him a look of faux innocence. “My face? It just always looks this good,” he shrugs, all bravado.

“Not when I’m done with you,” he snorts, “and don’t think I don’t know where you're going. Your stupid little toy-gun is over there, but you also backed yourself into a corner. Deadmeat Duck.”

Darkwing stays silent this time, darting his eyes around the room once more, this time though, it’s an act.

“What now, pretty boy?”

Drake backs away from him further, reaching the edge of the desk. He clutches at it blindly, pressing himself against it as he holds onto the edge with tense fingers.

Steelbeak sneers, “guess that’s gonna be a big nothing, then.” Still getting closer, right where Drake wants him.

“Have you ever done a coordinated stunt fall?” He asks calmly, looking up at the rooster with his hands gripping onto the lip of the desk behind him.

It takes Steelbeak off guard, looking bewildered by the sudden change in his demeanor. “What? No.”

“Oh,” Drake says gravely, “then this is gonna hurt.”

With that he deftly throws himself up, using the table for leverage and kicking out as he does, and landing the blow to Steelbeak’s head, knocking the man heavily to the ground. Then he uses the backwards momentum of his movement to flip behind the desk. He stumbles on the dismount, clutching at his own head and willing the dizziness to dissipate. Without further hesitation he reaches for what had been his actual goal, sliding his hand across the underside of the desk.

“There,” he mutters to himself, flipping the switch and activating the silent alarms. “They’ll know you’re here now, Steelbeak,” he announces helpfully, to the man now just recovering enough to stand, “in fact, we should have company in just a few minutes.”

“That’s still plenty of time for me to kill you!” he roars, diving over the desk now. Drake doesn't dodge quick enough this time and gets tackled bodily to the ground, his head knocking into the polished marble flooring once more. This time— rather than just dizziness and the fuzz of pain at the back of his head, marking the start of a headache— it feels like his head is splitting open. He doesn’t mean to let out the breathless noise of pain, but he doesn’t seem to be fully cognizant anymore. He struggles for breath, this fall also having forced the wind from his lungs.

“What are you gonna do now, huh!?” Steelbeak demands, looming over him and lifting Drake by the collar. Limp form hanging from the grip fisted in his shirt, his head lolling back uselessly. He drops him again, giving a low chuckle as he pushes himself to stand over him, staring down at him and lording himself above Drake.

“Now that you don’t have all your weapons and your little gadgets, what are ya gonna do?” he asks, metal jaws gleaming in the low light, “you’re nothing.”

Everything is still blurry and Steelbeak sounds far away, as if he’s underwater. Still, as he listens to the words, it’s nothing he hasn’t heard before.

So Drake gasps a laugh of his own, fighting back control of his voice if nothing else. “You know... back before I had all that stuff, way back... I used to deal with guys like you,” he shifted, trying to push himself up little by little as he forced the words from his chest, still recovering his breath. “The kind of person who hurts people because they can. Does it make you feel good?” he asks from his place on the floor.

“A little,” Steelbeak responds, his smile curling awfully.

“Does it make you feel like a big man?” Drake hisses furiously, propping himself up on his arm now.

At that, Steelbeak laughs, hearty and cruel. “You really took this hero thing to heart, huh?” He laughs again, stepping back to look down at Drake on the ground like he’s admiring his handiwork. “So, what did you do when these big mean bullies pushed you on the playground?” He asks, pitching his voice like he’s talking to a child.

“I got back up,” Drake breathes, voice low and barely audible.

Steelbeak leans closer, holding a mocking hand up to his ear, “What was that?” He asks.

The thing about Steelbeak is that he likes to hear himself talk. And for a long as Drake can talk back— which is forever because Drake is about exactly as full of hot air as Steelbeak is— Steelbeak will draw it out. He likes gloating. He likes boasting, and preening, and talking himself up. And that suits Darkwing just fine. And it’s useful.

“I got back up!” He shouts and without hesitation he forces himself to his feet, coming up swinging. He spins his fist out, catching the man in the stomach first, then he whirls another fist towards his face. But this time he stumbles back after his hand slams into solid metal plating. He laughs in hysterical panic, shaking out his aching hand.

Steelbeak looks at him wild-eyed and grinning, “you know, I’m starting to like you. Too bad this is where you die,” He grabs for him again, Drake just barely staggers out of the way, falling to his hands and knees as he does and scrambling to get on his feet again.

“Well, you’d better hurry up—” he starts, and as if on cue a door in some other part of the building opens with a bang. Drake grins up at him, feeling jovial and entirely off-kilter as he says, “time’s up.”

Steekbeak does back away this time. “Next time,” he growls and Drake can only smile and nod at him, still half-way fallen down.

Steelbeak then breaks through the window and dives out and for a moment Drake can’t fathom why until he watches him catch onto a rope ladder he hadn’t known was there and is pulled away with the roaring sound of a helicopter flying off.

Drake collapses fully to the ground at that, in relief, and maybe exhaustion. The door behind him bursts open not a moment later. And Drake lets himself be rolled over by strong paws, squinting up at Grizzlykoff kneeling over him.

“Great, it’s my favorite SHUSH agent,” Drake intones dryly.

“Darkwing is alive,” he calls out flatly over his shoulder.

“You’re late,” Drake informs him, lifting one heavy arm to point out the broken window, “I already fought the bad guy, as you can see.”

He ignores that and helps Drake to sit up, pulling out a thin flashlight to shine in each of his eyes.

“You definitely have concussion.” The bear says gruffly in his thick Russian accent.

“I could have told you that,” Drake bemoans bitterly, blinking spots away with his headache growing. He rubs a hand to the back of his head where it had hit the floor, not once but twice. Then he glances around, suddenly realizing he'd lost his hat at some point.

“You are acting childishly immature, as always, along with your unnecessary jabber. It comforts me to know your head is in normal state,” the agent responds in a heavy deadpan.

“I always have some spare sass for you, Grizz,” he tells him with a single pat to the shoulder, “now, do you see my hat a— Ah! Hey!” without preamble, the grizzly hefts him up to toss him across his back. Then looping an arm around Darkwing’s leg and securing his wrist with the same hand

“I can walk!” he protests, though he's not certain it’s actually true. “And you could at least carry me like a gentleman!”

“This is fireman hold. Standard procedure for transporting injured civilian out of potentially dangerous area.”

“I know what a fireman’s hold is!” he screeches, punching his free first into Grizzlykoff’s back. It doesn’t do much. “And I am not a civilian!” he growls furiously, then, once more for good measure adds, “and I don’t need you to carry me!!”

The bear shrugs, unfazed, “Procedure still applies.”

Drake just groans heavily dropping his head where it hangs freely beside Grizzlykoff’s shoulder. His heartbeat pounding too loudly in his skull, which felt as if Steelbeak had taken a sledgehammer and opened it up like a coconut. Actually, why would you open a coconut with a sledgehammer? Seems like overkill. Just— however you open a coconut that is his brain, a coconut. He needs help.

The agent doesn’t pause his walking but he does ask seriously, “do you want me to cradle you like baby, instead?”

Drake snorts, but that just makes his headache worse so he’s moaning in pain again, “no, just— get me to a doctor.”

“That is what I am doing.”

“And call Launchpad.”

“I will.”

#darkwing duck #ducktales 2017 #Drake Mallard #steelbeak #dt17 #ducktales fanfiction #i had fun with this #the ep made me wanna revisit it so i did a quick edit and decided to post #i wrote a continuation to it but idk if ill post any more #fanfic #my writing

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emypony · 6 years ago

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ARES HEADCANONS WITH THE BOYS, AFTER THE BREAK

Some ARES (more like ot2/ot3/ot4 headcanons with Haizaki, Asuto, Nosaka and Nishikage) headcanons for @ozrockbitway (if i remember right dfljkghfdg it’s been long ago since we talked about it, I think??) and @producktions @someatsu @blueberry-pastel @suzunofuusuke @kirinoisbestboy @sinfonylanglader @therealruney @calmystorm-saltycandy (hope u dont mind the tag ^^’’) @shawn-and-aiden-frost-9 i guess if u wanted to read as well @mimirk63 ITS NOT YUUICHI but ya kno ;w;’’

i literally dont even know who else would care about these (mostly joke) headcanons so iM SOWWY if i like, dont tag some ppl ;;

also im sorry that these are like all over the place tho jfldghkfk

ANYWAY with that out of the way

1. so I was discussing about Nishikage baking and. i got it. Nishikage works @ Tasty part time. He makes ambitious creations. Nosaka enjoys watching the behind the scenes. (Asuto will eat anything he makes)

2. Asuto starts hanging around Nosaka and Nishikage thought this would be bad and that Yuuma would stop hanging out with him but is thankfully proven wrong as Asuto pretty much always invites both of them to hang out with him. Nishikage starts to 'adopt' Asuto as Nosaka's friend and feels the need to PROTECC him as well. they also become great friends and this eases Nishikage because Nosaka finally has someone to spend time with that can somewhat get him out of his shell. Related to #1, Asuto will bother Nishikage and ask him if he's cooked something new yet. Nishi is afraid to cook more things at first but is prompted by Asuto because THAT BOY will literally eat anything, bad or good.

3. Nosaka actually likes dry jokes but no one knows since nobody really likes dry jokes and doesn't make them. Asuto ends up with a book EXACTLY about dry jokes and he finds them interesting and funny but not as much as Nosaka, so when he uses one of those jokes it makes Yuuma laugh and it takes everyone by surprise (especially Nishikage)

4. Nosaka snorts when he laughs.

5. I see Asuto and Nosaka becoming friends before Asuto and Haizaki (even if they're acquaintances) Haizaki comes on later along.

6. Asuto is claustrophobic and that's how the ot3 friendship starts. He, Haizaki and Nosaka somehow end up stranded in somewhat of a locker and he starts freaking out. Despite the issues between Nosaka and Haizaki they don't like seeing the cheerful Asuto being scared like that. Asuto asks them to hold his hand and they reluctantly did that even if they didn't like being next to each other. After that incident Asuto was a bit more open around them and uses his 'persuasive' powers to get them to hang out with him.

7. Haizaki is the tallest, followed by Asuto and then Nosaka. Nosaka is a bit conscious about his height and even if Haizaki makes fun of him, Asuto reassures him and tells him its okay.

8. Nosaka would be really bad at portraying his feelings even if it's something simple or complicated so he makes really weird comparisons and nobody understands except Nishikage even if sometimes even he's wondering what's going on in his mind.

9. I originally planned Nosaka to be a Vegan but I don't wanna do that he's just been taught to always eat healthy because there was no other alternative. he sometimes sees Asuto stuffing his face with unhealthy (fast food/other) stuff and it confuses him because he's still like perfect and fit and he doesn't get it. With time Asuto makes him try things he wouldn't normally eat by himself and even if he doesn't eat that regularly, he'll sometimes accept Asuto's invitation to get things he hasn't tried before. He's really big on trying foreign food but maybe once every few months.

This is a lot of Nosaka fdkjghd im sorry i love him a lot AND I DIDNT EVEN KNOW IT

10. One day Asuto's friends find him, Nosaka and Haizaki playing cards in his room (i think they'd keep the friendship hidden for a while don't ask me why). Norika would take a liking to Nosaka but not romantic. She ends up doing his nails or make up as a thing. He looks dashing with black polish. Haizaki has none of that and even if Nosaka is really :| and stoic he'll pretty much go with anything.

11. this was like, a multiple headcanon thingy with @suzunofuusuke and @producktions alike

Nosaka is a heavy sleeper and Nishikage is the opposite. #Nosaka and Nishikage share a bed, fight me. Due to his past Nosaka has nightmares and moves a lot in his sleep so frequently he'll fall from the bed which'll make Nishi wake up and freak tf out because dfljkgf where's Yuuma?? and hes just sleeping on the floor

12. Nishi and Nosaka sometimes both stare at Asuto and how pure he is dfljghfdg like "damn Asuto's a nice friend"

i'll uh, try some Haizaki too since I've basically neglected him holy shit

13. Things get better with Akane and after Asuto basically has him talk things out with Nosaka, he becomes a lot less stressed and angry and finally starts to open up to Asuto, at least. He's a bit awkward at interacting outside the soccer field so it takes a bit of time to be comfortable around both of them, but Asuto always made it easy. He's still a bit intimidated by Nishikage though, even if he has no ill intentions towards Haizaki and they've even successfully hang out together alongisde the other two a few times. They share a love for spicy food.

14. HAIZAKI NEEDS GLASSES and he doesnt like wearing them but he's really cute in them. Asuto would always tell him that he looks cute in them and he wouldn't like it. Men aren't cute. Haizaki isn't cute!! >;C Nosaka would just quietly tell him that they look good on him nonetheless and he'd blush and say 'thanks' and thats their interaction okay #stolen from @someatsu

15. Haizaki has his ears pierced but nobody knows cuz of his long hair and that it's not allowed @ school. He likes to try out diff earrings in his spare time. Asuto catches him one day and never lets him hear the end of it but when they sometimes go walking around shop districts he'd loudly proclaim "Those would look real good on you, Haizaki!" when he'd see any cute earrings and such. poor Hai chan will try to hide from view at that. Nosaka chuckles. also stolen from @soatsuko w permission dw

16. starring guest hiro again with headcanons he shoved into my arms: Haizaki doesn't use social media because he doesn't see the point of it. Had Twitter once but got bored. likes baggy hoodies. probably has a collection of berets (this one's on @araiguma-koon)

17. @arbegagordon gave me an idea so Haizaki and Akane used to play Toontown so now that Akane isn't playing anymore, Haizaki still logs in but gets sad. Through some kind of unconventional means Asuto starts playing Toontown with him because he wants to make him happy and even if Hai chan won't admit it he's pretty happy that Asuto does this for him Nishihkage plays cooking mama Nosaka tries a lot of games but he gets bored fast because he thinks he's not good at them. He REALLY likes the pet games though. EDIT: I FORGOT. NOSAKA PLAYS ALICIA ONLINE AND NONE OF Y’ALL CAN TELL ME OTHERWISE. he likes collecting pets and clothes. he would defs cosplay his AO character omg

18. this was a collaboration of my ideas and @producktions and her analysis post basically she said that no one usually cheers for Nosaka SOOOOOOO, after Asuto finds that out he goes to all his matches and screams like fucking crazy for him and even if Nosaka won't show it he'll smile sometimes to himself because Asuto does this for him and expects nothing in return and just wants to see him smile and it’s OOF so pure

19. Asuto has both Nosaka and Haizaki merch. (you know, for support! Asuto is big on making his friends feel loved) They're both embarrassed by it and whatever they say they can't make him NOT wear it in public, as he's hanging out with THEM.

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todaynewsstories · 6 years ago

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Polish victims of Nazi terror need Berlin memorial, says historian | News | DW

The “unimaginable suffering” begun during Hitler Germany’s 1939 invasion of Poland must be remembered, Süssmuth told the KNA Catholic News Agency on Friday.

Where exactly and which type of monument should be erected in Berlin was still open to discussion, said the 80-year-old historian, who described German actions in Poland during World War II as a campaign of “total extermination.”

By 1945, six million Poles had died as a result of the warfare, half of them Jews – many in death camps run by occupying Nazis until these were liberated by Soviet troops towards the close of World War II.

Berlin site for Polish victims needed, insists Süssmuth

“First we should design the [Berlin] monument and then determine its location,” Süssmuth said, admitting that questions remained about “how the other Central and Eastern European victims of the Nazis should be remembered” in the German capital.

Problematic proximity

One suggested site for the Polish memorial – on Askan Square in Berlin-Kreuzberg – was problematic, said Süssmuth, because it would “provoke the next discussion” on proximity to a documentation center being built for ethnic Germans expelled at war’s end from a redrawn Poland and their descendants.

Polish victims as well as Germans expellees both had a “right to admonitory remembrance,” said Süssmuth, 80, who is now president of the Darmstadt-based German Poland Institute. and a veteran of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic (CDU) party.

Call for German-Polish reconciliation

Last November’s call to erect the monument on the square – directed at Germany’s then newly elected parliament – came from 100 prominent figures, including former Social Democrat (SPD) party chairman Kurt Beck and another former Bundestag president, Wolfgang Thierse.

Berlin’s Catholic Archbishop Heiner Koch and the German capital’s Protestant bishop, Markus Dröge, were also among those appealing for a Berlin site to remember Nazi atrocities inflicted on Poles.

“A memorial to the Polish victims of the German occupation of 1939-1945 has long been a common concern of many Germans and Poles striving for understanding and reconciliation,” wrote the signatories.

Every sixth Pole died

The Die Welt newspaper at the time remarked that “no country of Europe suffered more under National Socialist dictatorship than Poland.”

“Every sixth Pole died” as a result, said Die Welt, noting that a Communist era memorial to “Polish soldiers and German Antifascists,” located in Friedrichshain in former East Berlin was not favored by present-day Polish leaders.

Poland’s current President Andrzej Duda still lacked “a place in Berlin where he can lay a wreath for the Polish victims of the Second World War,” noted Die Welt’s leading historical and cultural author Sven Felix Kellerhoff.

Other memorials in Berlin

Already located in central Berlin is the large memorial to Europe’s six million murdered Jews as well as monuments to Nazi persecution victims among homosexuals, Sinti and Roma, and individuals – often Germans – murdered in so-called euthanasia schemes.

Visiting Warsaw last June, German Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier recalled former German Chancellor Willy Brandt’s 1970 gesture of kneeling to ghetto victims and admitted that historical dissension still remained.

We cannot talk it down,” said Steinmeier, referring to lingering debate among Poles and Germans about how wartime history was understood.

Warsaw: Then and now

The old city today

Sigismund’s Column stands in the middle of Castle Square in Warsaw. King Wladyslaw IV Vasa commanded it be constructed in honor of his father. Sigismund moved the royal court from Krakow to Warsaw in the 16th century and made the city the seat of the Polish king. The city was founded in the 13th century. Sigismunds’ Column now symbolizes the reconstruction of Poland after World War II.

Warsaw: Then and now

Oil paintings for reconstruction

The Venetian master Bernardo Belotto, known in the city under his nom-de-plum Canaletto, immortalized Warsaw in his 18th-century oil paintings. In 1945, when the Polish capital was in ruins – and with it most of the maps of the city – the paintings were used as plans for reconstructing the city. Today, Warsaw’s historic city center is listed as a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Site.

Warsaw: Then and now

Warsaw’s famous son

Like no other, composer Frederic Chopin represent Poland’s contribution to European culture. He was born in Warsaw to a French father and Polish mother. The city named its largest airport after him, while several memorials honor him, and museums are dedicated to his life and work. Chopin’s body was buried in Paris – his heart, however, was sent to Warsaw upon his request.

Warsaw: Then and now

Paris of the East

Poland did not exist on European maps for more than 100 years: Russia, Austria and Germany divided the country amongst themselves. In 1918, Poland regained its independence and the capital bloomed. In the 1930s, Warsaw boasted 20 theaters, 70 cinemas and tens of thousands of university students.

Warsaw: Then and now

Europe’s largest ghetto

The Nazi invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, started World War II. A year later, German soldiers built a ghetto in Warsaw where as many as 400,000 Jews were forced to live. Most of them would later be transported to the Treblinka extermination camp. An uprising broke out in 1943 when Nazi SS troops attempted to remove the last prisoners from the ghetto.

Warsaw: Then and now

A Polish tragedy

On August 1, 1944, the Red Army reached the banks of the Vistula River and German troops were retreating. That was when the Armia Krajowa, Poland’s so-called Home Army resistance movement, took up arms against the Germans in the famed Warsaw Uprising. But the resistance waited in vain for support from the Soviets. The Armia Krajowa held out for 63 days before having to surrender to the Germans.

Warsaw: Then and now

End of the line

The Germans destroyed large swaths of the city after crushing the Warsaw Uprising. In October 1944, ash and rubble covered the bombed-out city and all the bridges had been blown up. Of the 720,000 residents who lived in Warsaw before the uprising, only about 900 remained in the ruins. The Warsaw Uprising was seen as the largest Polish resistance operation against Nazi occupation.

Warsaw: Then and now

‘Stalin’s revenge’

A gift from Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin in 1955, the Palace of Culture and Science is a relic of Warsaw’s communist era. For the people of Warsaw, the building became a symbol of totalitarian repression. Yet the Palace has also become a symbol of the city of Warsaw, and of the age of so-called Socialist realism in Poland. It currently houses cinemas, theaters, museums and offices.

Warsaw: Then and now

Warsaw today

Poland’s capital has blossomed since the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989. The city has seen a rennaissance, attracting more people and international companies than other city in the country. Warsaw is now home to nearly 2 million people – new buildings have been sprouting up as well, with some offices more than 200 meters tall.

Author: Rosalia Romaniec / sms

ipj/ng (KNA, dpa)

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