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sacred-stanning · 9 months ago

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Chapter 17 Part 1: Some prep and recollections

I picked up a talisman in the last map, and after looking around at who might want it, I decided on Vanessa. She still doesn't have great strength, but magic units usually have low defense, so this is leaning into making her an anti-mage unit. That's my reasoning at any rate.

(also favoritism shh don't tell anyone)

I also went ahead and sold off some stuff I don't need so that I could buy more weapons and staves and stuff.

And with that, Ephraim and his army head towards Rausten.

"With its seal undone, the sacred stone glistens brightly"

"It's light is a remaining hope for humanity. But the goal of demons is to break it..."

The game then cuts to a scene in the past, when Lyon originally told Ephraim and Eirika about the potential of using the power of the sacred stone of Grado.

Lyon tells them that the stone has amazing power, and that it may even be able to cure his father's illness, or to save people in many other ways.

Ephraim and Eirika say that their father taught them that the power of the stone was not to be used by people, and Lyon mentions that Bishop McGregor also is against the idea.

(This Bishop McGregor gets name-dropped without ever being on camera as much as Holst in 3 Houses!)

Lyon defends the idea by saying that he only plans to use the power emanating from the stone without accessing the power within the stone itself.

At this point, Lyon is obviously still filled with doubts, so he asks the twins what they think.

Ephraim starts off by saying that he doesn't really know much about magic, but if the power of the stone really can be used to save people, then it's worth a try, and he supports Lyon.

Similarly, Eirika also says that she has reservations, but "If Lyon is the one doing it, I'm sure it will be fine!"

Lyon thanks them for their votes of confidence in him.

He then reveals to them something that he hasn't made public yet, and that's that he has already managed to save someone with the stone's power!

He says that there was a fire recently in Serafew (the border town from way back in the game where Natasha and Joshua joined). One small girl wasn't able to escape quickly enough and was burned so badly that even healing staves weren't working. But Lyon was able to use the power of the stone to save the girl's life!

"So you've already succeeded! It figures! You're amazing, Lyon!"

Then Lyon says, "There is still so much we don't know about dark magic..."

And unfortunately, he is very, very correct about this.

"Here, you should eat this" Vanessa, who was seated on Titania and trotting next to Lute on her horse, held out a small fruit for Lute to take. It was some sort of citrus that Lute hadn't seen before.

Lute hesitated. "What is it?" she asked.

"I don't remember exactly what it's called. We don't have these in Frelia, but apparently people eat them all the time in Jehana. Moulder got some while we were there because they're supposed to be good for people recovering from illness."

Lute wanted to be more grateful, but she wasn't sure about eating some strange fruit. What if it tasted awful or had weird pulp or seeds in it?

"I am not recovering from an illness. I passed out from exhaustion. Moulder said so."

Vanessa sighed and pulled her arm back. "Ok, yes, I realize that you weren't sick, technically. That's not the point. You need to recover your energy, and you know that. Why not at least try the fruit?"

Vanessa waited for a response, but Lute just squinted at the fruit and didn't respond.

"Augh! What a difficult patient!" Vanessa thought. She had never dealt with someone so stubborn, even in the face of clear evidence that she needed to take better care of herself!

Vanessa thought back to when she had brought Mouder to the library in Renais castle where Lute had collapsed. After checking on Lute, and doing some spells with his staff, his conclusion had been this:

"You don't seem to be sick, and it's definitely not any sort of spell or malicious magic. As far as I can tell, you're just overworked and tired. Rest up, and don't strain yourself. It sounds like we need to make another long march to Rausten soon, but I and some of the other healers were able to convince Prince Ephraim to give everyone one night to rest in the castle before we move out. Get some sleep, and I hope you feel better soon!"

Vanessa had stayed with Lute while she napped on the sofa in the library, and later in the evening, she went to get food and water. So of course, what did she find when she returned the library? Lute was up and about, and lugging piles of heavy books over to the sofa where she had been seated! In what world did that count as resting!?

"Fine," Vanessa said to Lute. "If you don't want to eat the fruit, I can't make you, but I'm going to eat it, and I think you should at least try a small piece."

Lute grunted and went back to reading her book.

Why was she always reading on horseback!? This was another thing that drove Vanessa crazy. Sure, when they were marching in a large group, the horses would follow each other, but still. It wasn't safe! She should be paying attention!

And the food thing! Even after having been told to recover her energy, Vanessa noticed that Lute still picked through her food and ate only small bits of it before pushing the rest away and returning to reading, or studying a bug she had collected or whatever.

"I am going to make her take care of herself if it kills her," Vanessa thought to herself.

Vanessa peeled the fruit, tore off a slice, and put it into her mouth.

"Mmmm! This is really good!" she said loudly.

She looked out of the corner of her eye and saw that Lute was still reading.

"It tastes kind of like a Frelian Lime, but it's a little sweeter!" Vanessa said.

Lute turned and looked at her while closing her book. "Did you know that even though they are called Frelian Limes, they actually grow much more readily in the climates of Renais and Grado?"

Vanessa swallowed the slice of the fruit she had had in her mouth. "What does that have to do with anything!?" she thought.

"Does it really taste like a Frelian Lime? Lute asked.

"Well, yeah, I think so. And it really is sweeter and less sour!" She felt a flutter of hope.

Lute put out her hand. "I will try a piece."

Vanessa tore off another slice and handed it over. She watched as Lute took it, and examined the slice of fruit closely before slowly putting it in her mouth. Lute chewed for a moment, swallowed, and then looked at Vanessa again.

"I like it. Can I have another piece?"

"You can have the whole thing! I got it for you in the first place!"

"Hmm..." Lute hesitated.

"What's the matter?"

"Would you mind peeling it and giving me the slices? I don't like it when my fingers are all sticky, especially since I have this book here and I do not want to get it dirty..."

"You're lucky I like you so much, or I would have left you behind in the library, collapsed, just like I found you!" Vanessa laughed and asked jokingly, "Sure, I'll peel your fruit for you. Would madame also like me to hold an umbrella over her so she doesn't get too much sun?"

"Actually, I would like that very much. Thank you, Vanessa. You are becoming much more observant of my needs."

Lute's face appeared expressionless, but Vanessa recognized the slight upturn at one side of her mouth that meant she was repressing a smile. Such sass!

"But I'm going to ask for something from you in exchange" Vanessa said. "If I'm going to peel the fruit and hand it to you, can you keep me entertained by telling me what you're reading about in that book that I'm pretty sure you took from the Renais Castle library without permission? What's it about anyway?"

"It is a book about the social customs of common people in different areas of Renais. It is quite fascinating how many different customs there are even within one country!"

"Huh," Vanessa said, surprised, "I didn't know you were interested in stuff like that. I've only ever heard you talk about plants, animals, and magic!"

"I was not interested before," Lute responded, "but now I am."

They spent the next couple of miles with Vanessa handing slices of fruit to Lute one at a time, while Lute told her all about festivals, dance traditions and ceremonies in different regions of Renais.

Next time: A roadblock on the way to Rausten

#fire emblem #sacred stones #fire emblem the sacred stones #fe8 #ファイアエンブレム #聖魔の光石 #lute fire emblem #lute x vanessa #vanessa fire emblem

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its-no-biggie · 8 months ago

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inspired by the notes on this post (definitely scroll through them bc theres some really good stuff in there) heres some more thoughts

first things first, im not exactly sure how this works in canon but heres my interpretation of weapon/weapon duos. we know that its not impossible - we see liz and patty working together on multiple occasions, and theres a certain duo that we find out later the meister was actually a weapon without knowing it. my guess is we dont see weapon/weapon duos often because weapons arent super common, so it makes sense to pair them up with humans to make the best use of their weapon abilities. but there doesnt seem to be anything preventing two weapons from working together the way weapons and meisters usually do? swapping between which one is the weapon would probably be difficult, so they would either stick to one person as primarily the weapon, or train a lot to get used to doing both. but soul resonance and stuff doesnt seem to be a problem. anyway lets get into it

LOLIX. thank you *tumblr user joltning (whoops misremembered who said this lol) i always forget about these two, but my god. lolix in soul eater..... okay heres my thought. felix and locus are both weapons and siris was originally their meister, although when missions went awry lolix worked as a duo (like that one time kid abandons liz and patty in the middle of a mission to make sure his toilet paper is symmetrical or whatever lmao). then siris dies and the 2 of them are already used to working together, so they make for an unconventional duo but their years of history make them deadly. augh and then when they start drifting apart and it physically gets harder to work together, and theyre both blaming it on each other but really they just arent on the same wavelength anymore. ough. just like what happened to maka and soul except they dont fix it. and then locus kills felix. soooo good. in terms of what weapons they would be - i know felix favours knives and locus is more of a sniper rifle guy. so locus is a knife and felix is a sniper rifle?

[i know my weapon choices have been pretty uncreative - soul eater has magical weapons so i dont have to limit myself to whats in halo. im just not very good at inventing new weapons lmao - if i were to actually draw this i would want at least some of these guys to be more fantastical weapons, but for now im staying in the realm of rvb weapons lol]

someone mentioned church and tucker both being weapons..... i think i like that! tex and church used to be paired up, then in blood gulch flowers was versatile enough to work with either of them. then caboose shows up and pairs with sheila (huge powerful weapon thats difficult to use), then flowers dies, so chucker are just kinda like well. lets try it. and they work well as a duo! then we could have both tucker as the sniper rifle (hilarious) and church as the sword (insert joke about crossing swords but more uncomfortable this time). i dont think these two are good enough to swap back and forth the way lolix would though so church is primarily the weapon in this arrangement (he wanted to be the meister but he cant aim for shit lmfao).

im still not really sure what i wanna do with tucker and wash though...... i really like the idea of meister!tucker, with wash being a similar weapon to church, so that he seamlessly fills the gap where church used to be (for angst purposes). but i also like freelancers as meisters..... maybe wash is also both? someone also mentioned pfl like experimenting with swapping around meisters and weapons so it could be like. a special weapons-only program where they focus on making weapon/weapon duos as strong as possible? with a focus on versatility rather than a strong partnership.

if you wanna get a little more unethical with pfl - perhaps theyre experimenting on people to turn them into weapons? so originally the ai fragments were regular people but they undergo a dangerous and experimental procedure and come out the other side a weapon. and pfl is doing this so they can control what kind of weapon the person shifts into - so they start with compatible duos, see where their partners strengths lie, and turn them into the optimal weapon. but maybe its kinda like the black blood where it like. leaves some kind of evil magic in their body that can then affect their partner when they resonate? so the duos are really strong but very unstable, and thats how we get the meta and the epsilon incident. and THEN if wash was already a weapon, but he was the meister for epsilon when the incident happened, he would refuse to be a meister again and only work as a weapon. so then he pairs with meister!tucker, which works great for tucker because hes used to working with weapon!church so its basically like church is still around. and then they both realize this arrangement is preventing them from confronting their own issues, so they grow and heal together and thats represented by them swapping roles. hmmm this doesn't really account for epsilon very well but whatever. maybe ill revisit it another time

last thing. grif as the grifshot. i cannot BELIEVE i missed this. its a little unfortunate bc grif is the one who uses the grifshot in canon, not simmons, but lets be real simmons with the grifshot would kick ass. 10/10 easily my favourite duo in this whole au

fuck it. rvb soul eater au

context on soul eater for those who havent seen it: some people can turn into a weapon. they get paired off with meisters (ppl who wield the weapons) based on soul compatibility. if two people are incompatible or out of sync, theyre unable to fight together - their bodies will physically reject it and they can even get injured by trying. so weapon/meister duos are always very deep and trusting (and often ambiguously romantic) relationships. and then they fight monsters or whatever the rest isnt important

im starting with blood gulch, as usual. although..... freelancer has interesting implications...... okay but reds and blues first

grif and simmons - grif is the weapon (maybe a rocket launcher?) because you know his ass is not running around fighting. this works great with simmons' need for control. 10/10 no notes

church and tucker - i think church would naturally be the weapon here but im thinking about how this applies to tucker and wash down the line..... i kinda had it in my head that the freelancers would be meisters and the ais their weapons, which would make weapon!tucker pair well with meister!wash after church dies, but if i disregard that. weapon!wash could be really really interesting.... i dont really have a plot in mind so i also dont know how epsilon fits into this but hes also here. idk ill think about it. anyway obvious weapon choices for this duo would be a sword or a sniper rifle. (i do think its really funny to make tucker the sniper rifle that church cant aim for shit. oh you wanted the sniper rifle so bad? now you are one and your meister gets no kills with it <3)

sarge and lopez - this one has hilarious implications. is lopez still a robot? is he just a regular ass shotgun that sarge built and insists on using instead of pairing with a person? is he a robot that can turn into a weapon? does he still speak spanish? if he is a robot, does he have a soul???? do he and sarge resonate the way weapon/meister duos usually do???? honestly this is hilarious no matter what, but im leaning toward hes a humanoid robot that can turn into a shotgun. sarge built him and lopez hates him for it but he was programmed to be compatible so they resonate just fine. dont think about the implications of a robot having a soul okay shhhhh its fine

if robots are on the table then you know we gotta do caboose and sheila - is sheila also a robot? i think it works either way. shes definitely the weapon though - something with a lot of firepower. truly i think shes the only one who can balance out caboose in a combat setting and even then they still get church killed. incredible

donut and doc - this one is interesting with doc being canonically a pacifist. maybe hes still primarily a medic but he keeps a weapon on him just in case? and then omalley makes good use of it >:D donuts really just along for the ride. i dont have specific weapon ideas - i know doc tends to favour the rocket launcher and donut is good with grenades, but also. insert joke about crossing swords. anyway no matter what weapon he is, donuts weapon form is pink

(also i want you guys to know that i almost did pastrytrain as a duo and left doc out for the crimes of being a pacifist. i still think it could work, but donut and caboose dont really interact that much compared to caboose and sheila, and also i wanted to keep the teams separate. you understand)

tex and kai - honestly this is a GREAT duo imo. i know the only time they interact in canon is some catty bullshit but its not their fault they were written by misogynists, and honestly they have some really good black star/tsubaki duality going for them. i think tex would be the meister, and kai would be maybe a melee weapon? oooh could do both of the grif siblings as knives..... knife simmons...... anyway tex and kai really good duo. easily the best out of all the blood gulch crew

and then the freelancers would be...... actually remarkably similar to how the freelancer/ai relationships work in canon! although if you swap around whos weapon and meister (as opposed to the ais all being weapons) you could certainly shake things up. also kind of interesting bc theres a lot of partner swapping in freelancer, which doesnt seem to happen much in soul eater. a testament to the poor conditions at pfl perhaps......

anyway i dont really have ideas for a full-fledged au, but its certainly fun to play with - the soul eater designs are already fun and then bringing in the rvb colour coding...... giving them fun dramatic weapon designs...... plus the whole soul resonance thing adds a layer to the relationships that i think would make for some delicious character interactions. force these mfs to communicate with each other lmfao

#'i dont really have a plot in mind' i said. like a liar #<- im kidding - i had a few of these ideas swirling around but nothing this concrete #i also worried that its too similar to my dragon hunter au (also a pfl fix-it au) but its definitely different #it just hits some of the same beats bc theyre the things i like about pfl lol #anyway thanks to all the lovely ppl expanding on this in the notes <3 i love seeing the different directions ppl take this in #rvb #soul eater #biggie tumbles

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miraculouscontent · 3 years ago

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dailymotion

It’s heeeeere! Another summasalt, this time with nearly twice the length of the first one!

(Turns out that not having caffeine doesn’t help me talk any slower.)

Script below:

Anonymous asked:

Thoughts on Rocketear?

Can you Rocketear the newest episode apart with your salt, my beloved Salt Queen?

Penny for your thoughts on Rocketear?

Aw, anon! You can have that for free! I'm a generous goddess.

"Rocketear" begins with Chat Noir and Carapace - just Carapace, really - holding back a pack of what I presume to be the physical manifestation of the writing staff's age, or at least a representation of how behind the times the writing seems.

Just as the dinosaurs break through Shellter. Ladybug shows up with the scientist who revived the dinosaurs in the first place and said scientist uses a whistle to calm the dinosaurs down. There's also a line from Bob Roth about putting the dinosaurs in a theme park to make money and I know what it's referencing but it's so incredibly random that it doesn't really come off as a proper joke.

Carapace was notably sad right after battle, but insisted that he was fine when Ladybug asked. Rena, sporting a... - I would like to say "new design" but it's a recolor in every sense of the word - is hiding behind part of a building and smiles after the heroes before walking off. Ladybug takes Nino's miraculous back but sees that he's still upset and asks him again what's wrong. Nino asks where Alya was and Ladybug claims that she only needed Carapace for the job, which cheers him up but only until Ladybug is already gone.

Mm, I guess Nino and Adrien relate in heroism not being enough for them unless they have their respective love interest to flirt with.

Also, I know this is an obvious set-up, but the show can't tell me that Ladybug just always brought Nino and Alya whenever she needed one of them. Season 3 required her to go to Master Fu to get the miraculouses, and unless she already knew that Nino and Alya would be in the same location - which, okay, the show does basically shove the two of them together whenever Nino is onscreen, fair, if two characters are in a relationship in this show then it's weird for them to NOT be with that person - but it just seems like a gamble, not to mention proof to Shadow Moth that the two are close if Ladybug constantly brings both of them.

Anyway, Ladybug goes into the sewer and asks Rena if she's seen any sign of Shadow Moth or his traps. Rena didn't see anything and they de-transform. Marinette is about to leave when she thinks of something, but Alya assumes it's about her new look, which was apparently not voluntary on her part and the suit automatically adapted to Alya's new role as Rena Furtive, which she has now named it as.

Marinette reminds her that this is supposed to be a secret and that they agreed that the fox has no owner. When Alya is evasive about whether she told Nino that she won't be Rena anymore, Marinette stresses that everyone needs to believe that Alya won't be using a miraculous anymore so that she can remain an undercover spy.

What's the point in changing the look if you're not going to show yourself anyway? I mean, insurance, I guess, but still.

Alya, exasperated, parrots what Marinette has apparently told her before: that she helps Ladybug with Mirage in case Shadow Moth tries to follow her so Rena can follow him instead. Marinette stresses the situation again and Alya tries to get Marinette to agree on her telling Nino that she's Rena Furtive, but Marinette refuses.

At Marinette's house, Alya talks further and explains that she doesn't know if she can lie to Nino since they don't keep any secrets--Alya, babe, you kept Rena Rouge from him and didn't tell him that you knew he was Carapace until Ladybug was forced to give you your miraculouses at the same time. I don't wanna hear it.

Marinette states that it's too late for that and also not technically a lie, but Alya gets upset and says that Nino will never trust her again if he finds out that she kept something from him. Marinette brings up how she had to keep secrets from Alya too, but they're interrupted by Tom appearing and wanting to play games with them. Marinette makes an excuse about homework that she's repeated many times, as Tom comments that the teachers give her too much. After Tom is kicked out - hang on, lemme just... - Marinette uses the moment to show Alya that she's lied to her family a lot and hasn't played games with her father in months. She states that there's no other option as they have to protect their identities, and Alya agrees to talk to Nino.

In Alya's room - I just presume at this point that Nino's house doesn't exist and Chris is an illusion - Alya tells Nino that they need to talk, but stammers and states that it's hard to talk about. Nino thinks that she wants to break up with him, but Alya assures that she loves him. She finally gets to the cover story that Rena herself made up in "Sentibubbler" and Nino understands, sad that she won't be around anymore but agreeing if it's what Ladybug thinks is best.

Is it weird that Nino respects Ladybug's wishes more than Alya does?

Nino hugs her and is confused by why Alya was nervous to tell him, as she can tell him anything and nothing will change their relationship. Alya feels guilty and hugs back, murmuring about how they don't have any secrets; that's not what Nino said, but sure, push this plot to its already predictable conclusion. I mean, I thought it was vaguely sweet that Nino switched to seriousness immediately when Alya said that she wanted to talk, but how am I supposed to be invested in this couple when their dynamic boils down to "STRONG, INDEPENDANT WOMAN who wears the pants in the relationship because her boyfriend is portrayed as a wimpy coward"? Like, the show constantly dragged Nino down to make Alya look "powerful" by comparison, and then when it comes to characters like Marinette, we get a girl who works very well outside of her relationship with her endgame love interest.

It's the fakest form of "girl power," dragging guys down to raise girls up or actually making a strong girl character but having her love interest be a weakness that creates flaws in her that weren't there originally and having that love interest be who she's "destined for."

I'm rambling, sorry.

In class, Marinette assures Alya that she did the right thing and Alya agrees. As they're leaving school, Marinette talks about how their "night walks" start soon, and Alya non-subtly talks about how Rena Furtive will be on the lookout while Ladybug and Chat Noir patrol. She stops, however, as gets excited about some pictures she took of herself as Rena Furtive, which has a lot of details that Marinette hasn't seen. I don't know whether to groan at what I just heard or remind everyone that Rena Furtive is literally just a recolor and therefore this is the writers patting themselves on the back for this design, so let's just move on.

Alya then shows Marinette her phone--AUGH, MY EYES--and suggests making a poll on her Ladyblog so people can vote for their favorite Rena design. Marinette has to stress again that Rena Furtive is supposed to be a spy and thus invisible, which Alya admits that she forgot about.

Okay, I've been holding off on talking about this, but now seems like the best time to bring it up. Alya has been a trash friend as well as a trash confidant, and her role as Rena Rouge boiled down to, "it was convenient for her to be the fox at the time it was needed." She's not particularly stealthy like one would expect of a fox, and she was easily one of the worst candidates to be told Marinette's big secret. I'll get more into this later, but I have to stress that Alya has treated Marinette no differently since learning of Marinette's identity and has already gone against Marinette's orders once before at the time of this episode airing. Episodes are constantly torn between validating their decision to have Marinette tell Alya, having Marinette be worried about the decision while the show considers her to be ridiculous for it, and then having Alya either consider or make choices that clearly don't gel well with what's good for her role. Much like Marinette, she lacks a sense of self-control and--wow, a female character who's impulsive, never seen that stereotype before.

Point being, "Sentibubbler" stressed over and over that Alya was the right choice and deserved to be both the permanent fox and the understudy for guardian, but then we have "Rocketear" here where Alya is making basic emotionally-driven errors that I'm not even remotely sympathetic to when Marinette has gone through so much worse over the course of three+ seasons.

*sigh*

Alya laments that it's hard to find new content for the Ladyblog - ah, yes, tell me more about your struggles, Alya - but figures that at least she can post stuff about Chat Noir instead of--I don't know--making fake Ladybug theories to lead people off Marinette's trail. Marinette says that it's a great idea, though Alya still doesn't look too happy. The scene then rewinds to a little bit to show a different point of view, this time with Adrien and Nino. Wait, this feels familiar, wasn't there another episode that did something like--ohhhh no, this is going to hurt.

After saying good-bye to Adrien - something I wish I could do every time he's mentioned or on-screen - Nino catches the bit of conversation where Alya talks about the Ladyblog. Nino talks as if Marinette isn't there and asks Alya out to the movies because Marinette is chopped liver and this is about Alya and how sad she is, guys.

Wow, she's turning into Adrien faster and faster.

Alya hesitates, but Marinette assures her that there's still time. Alya excitedly runs off with Nino and they watch what I presume are previews given the narrator, featuring recycled footage from the Ladybug PV. Nino is upset because Rena is mentioned but not Carapace, and the preview features Rena telling Chat Noir to forget Ladybug because it's Chat and Rena herself who are trulu made for each other.

I don't know what's funnier; the complete lack of self-awareness or the suggestion that a biracial couple would exist in this show outside of a special that gives them maybe a minute of screentime and acts more like suggestive canon anyway. I think I might've been too generous with that line about dinosaurs.

Nino is offended by the preview and Alya brushes off his comments, stating that it's just a cartoon and it's made to entertain people, though Nino himself is certainly not entertained. Can't say I entirely blame him considering that Alya doesn't really try to say anything substantial or even agree with him. No cuddling or reassuring kisses, she just gets slightly sad and turns to her phone for a bit.

After the movie, Nino is cheered back up again until he catches Alya on her phone once more. He offers to take her home, but she's distracted, and he comments that what she showed to Marinette looked pretty nice; I don't know because they didn't show it. Nino asks what it was and Alya evades the question, stating that her battery is running out. Nino is suspicious, but spots Andre's ice cream cart and the two head over there. Andre calls them his favorite couple and asks what they want, but Alya sees Ladybug gesturing for her and has to run off, giving Nino a cheek kiss as she goes which feels like too little too late at this point.

Nino catches some conveniently-placed kids arguing over who Chat Noir loves, but they settle on the fact that girls in general love Chat Noir. Nino is then seen at the Seine watching the Ladyblog's latest video, where Alya is talking up how amazing Chat Noir is. I hate to stop every five seconds to complain - okay, actually I don't - but I presume this video must've been made after the movie since Nino seems like the type who would actively follow his girlfriend's blog, yet not only is this video perfectly set up to echo the kids and the movie preview, but Alya - despite apparently caring about her boyfriend soooo much that she kept trying to convince Marinette to bend the rules - didn't even try to warn Nino or text him so he doesn't take it too seriously. It's like "Sentibubbler" with the conflicting messages about identity rules; Alya cares about her boyfriend but both isn't thinking about how he'll take the things she says and apparently doesn't know him well enough to realize that he wouldn't be mad over her keeping a secret that she was told to keep. I already talked about how they play up Nino to be the emotionally weaker one of the relationship, but then they don't have Alya try to cover or make up for that. She's been acting very much not like Alya - you know, the one who in "Sapotis" practically bragged about how great she'd be at covering for Ladybug - with her stutters and weak excuses, so I can't completely blame Nino for being upset after everything that's happened when he sees the writers projecting onto Alya as she talks about how Chat Noir is brave and funny and cute and showing all these images of him as well. I don't agree with all of his actions, but--oh yeah, speaking of which--

Nino calls Adrien and is talking to him about how Alya must be in love with someone else. Adrien dismisses the idea, as Alya and Nino are together basically all the time, and asks who she could possibly be in love with. When Nino suggests that it's Chat Noir, Adrien laughs and jokes about it being Fang instead. Nino points out the video but Adrien did see it but is overall unphased and convinced that it means nothing. Nino says that he'll find proof and hangs up, but Adrien is certain he'll find nothing. Plagg comments that Nino will find someone because Plagg's charisma has definitely contaminated Adrien.

Ugh.

Adrien expresses concern that he put on the cat's charm too much and accidentally made Alya fall for him, and decides to visit Alya as Chat Noir to be sure.

Meanwhile, we get a reference to film noirs as Nino narrates. That's the second blatant reference this episode and now I feel like they wrote this script while doing a movie marathon.

Chat Noir arrives at Alya's house and Trixx hides before Alya opens the curtains to reveal her surprise guest. Nino is nearby watching the scene with his phone as Alya wonders aloud if something's wrong. Chat assures that everything's fine, but brings up the video she posted. He insists that it made him happy, but points out that she's been following him and Ladybug since the beginning and that they know each other much better due to everything that's happened. He has some conveniently-worded dialog as he starts to say that he hopes something's just an illusion and Alya gets worried that he's about to bring up Rena. Chat continues and clarifies that he wonders if she started to feel something for him, though adds that he understands because just look at him.

UGGGGH.

Chat clarifies by making a heart with his hands, which Nino sees. Alya laughs at this gesture and states that she has a boyfriend, doing the same heart gesture and suggesting that her love for Nino is even more than that. Chat Noir apologizes - hm, I didn't know he had the capacity to do that - and hugs Alya, saying that he was just confused.

An absolutely unnecessary hug for two people who, at least in terms of their current selves, have had very little screentime together, but this is also the show where making eye contact basically means your friends and it's all just to push the plot along so Nino inteprets that Alya is in love with Chat Noir, so whatever I guess.

Alya states that Nino is far more irresistable than Chat, then adds that she doesn't even know his secret identity, and she'd never fall in love with someone she doesn't know. Nino then runs away upset and the scene cuts away to the next day where--

Wait, wait, wait, hang on a second. Two things right off the bat there.

First off, we're just gonna sidle past that "wouldn't fall in love with someone you don't know the identity of" while ignoring the existence of the love square? Not even Chat thinking about how he doesn't know Ladybug's identity and trying to excuse that he doesn't have to? This guy is that certain of their relationship?

Secondly, Nino is practically sobbing and Shadow Moth doesn't take this as his opportunity? Same guy who akumatized Mr. Pigeon 72 times and has akumatized Gigantitan more than once? What is this pacing???

But--alright, so Adrien comes into school and sees Nino, still dressed up in his detective gear, which gets ignored completely as Adrien goes to tell him about Chat Noir and Alya. Because the show doesn't know how Adrien would convey this within reason, Nino interrupts him, taking him down into the lower part of the school where he has a desk and chairs set up. Adrien goes to ask when Nino had time to do this, but Nino slams his hand on the desk to cut him off. Nino presents the evidence he took and they go back and forth, likewise with Adrien turning off the background music while Nino turns it back on. Adrien insists that it's a misunderstanding, but pleads innocent when Nino asks how he knows. Adrien states that Alya is just a superhero fan and that she and Chat Noir have nothing in common.

Again, the complete lack of self-awareness is astonishing.

Adrien repeats what Alya said about secret identities and how she wouldn't fall for someone she doesn't know - they're really ignoring this, aren't they? - and continues hitting Nino's soft spots about how unlikely it is until Nino decides to tell Adrien something he's not supposed to.

He tells Adrien, not only that Alya is Rena Rouge, but that he's Carapace. Adrien goes through a range of emotions beyond sAD for once, shocked at the fact that they know each other's identities. Nino states that they don't keep secrets from each other, except now Alya is with Chat Noir. Adrien still doesn't understand and brings up how secret identities have to be protected, or else Nino wouldn't have told him because Ladybug wouldn't agree to it.

Oh, here we go. So that's why they waited.

Nino states that it was Ladybug herself who gave them their miraculouses at the same time; not giving the reason why, of course, nor pointing out that they're temporary heroes so there's understandably some leeway. Adrien is having a moment, but manages to bring the subject back to Alya and Chat Noir, who he still doesn't think are a thing. Nino argues that it's because Adrien doesn't know Chat Noir, but he does because he's Carapace and knows how Chat Noir acts. He says that it's all flowers and confessions when Ladybug appears, but he gets rejected because Ladybug thinks that he's annoying, and she's right. He adds that Chat flirts with Rena Rouge and that's all that needs to happen, with Chat stepping in on the first mission Carapace lost in. Nino laments the loss of the love of his life and wishes to shut Chat Noir up forever; we all do, Nino, we all do. Shadow Moth finally steps in with - oh, less than eight minutes left in the episode, yikes - and Nino is akumatized into Rocketear.

Rocketear rejects Adrien's pleas to stop, insisting that Chat Noir is who he's after, not Adrien, and Adrien transforms in sad fashion despite Plagg's reminder of who Rocketear is after. Alya, meanwhile, is in the art club with Marinette - wait, since when was Alya in the art club - telling Marinette about how Chat Noir thought she was into him due to the video, which Marinette groans at. There's an earthquake and they peek outside to see Rocketear firing his tears at Chat Noir, shouting that he stole Alya from him. Chat Noir tries to tell him otherwise, but Rocketear won't listen.

Alya groans at Nino doing this, then she and Marinette set off to find a place to transform. They conveniently go to the same place Adrien and Nino were, so they see the desk that Nino had set up.

Genuine question, how seriously does this episode want me to take itself, because now when I recount all the unnecessary love square drama in my head - because you know that's where this is going - I'm going to have to think, "Nino, dressed in a detective outfit, ripped off his fake mustache and told Adrien both his and Rena's identities, and also that Ladybug was totally cool with it and thinks that Chat Noir is annoying."

Gettin' two completely different vibes here. The episode clearly wants to be important but it doesn't take itself seriously either, which it totally could while including enough jokes to keep things light. Instead, I'm just left scratching my head and wondering what tone they're going for.

Marinette finds Nino's phone on the desk - I'm calling continuity error on that one because he at no point put it on the desk, at least not on-screen - and she questions Alya on the video she sees. Alya insists that nothing happened, apparently completely unphased by her boyfriend having spied on her, and says that he wouldn't have misunderstood if he'd heard the actual conversation.

The two transform and Ladybug immediately uses Lucky Charm, receiving a projector. Ladybug is clueless and Rena Furtive suggests creating an imaginary movie like Nino. Ladybug gets an idea, remembering Alya's earlier comments, and Rena confirms that she remembers every word of it.

Aaaaand, just like that, all of the tension has been completely sucked away. You know, "Backwarder" was a trash episode, but at least when Ladybug was showing every step of her plan, she didn't tell us what it was.

Meanwhile, Rocketear and Chat Noir are still arguing--I started zoning out at hearing the same thing over and over again at this point, so I just presume they were fighting over who does stuff behind their love interest's backs better; I don't think they came to an agreement but they're both losers anyway.

Chat Noir says that he'll prove his innocence, tossing his baton aside to show him giving up, but Rocketear points out that it proves nothing and strikes Chat Noir with his tears.

Our endgame love interest, everyone. Straight As yet about as smart as a sack of bricks, and that at least won't flirt with anyone non-consensually.

Chat Noir makes a point that he doesn't want to hurt Rocketear, and Shadow Moth tells Rocketear to take his miraculous before finishing him. Chat Noir can only weakly tell him not to before Ladybug snags Rocketear's wrist and diverts the shot. Ladybug explains to Rocketear about the projector and how it'll let him hear the audio of the recording he took. She adds that she doesn't know what Chat said, but she trusts him.

Marinette, I'm sorry, I feel so bad for you.

Ladybug turns on the projector and Rocketear relaxes at actually hearing what was going on. Rena then de-transforms and hurries out to meet with Rocketear, hugging him as Rocketear apologizes for doubting her. Alya also kinda sorta apologizes in a way I don't understand and Rocketear then breaks his akumatization, very casually, all on his own.

Yeah, just--casually, in a matter of seconds in fact. You know, it's really sad when people resisting akumatizations are more tense and emotionally compelling than them breaking them. This is twice in one season now and has zero impact considering that Nino's reason for being akumatized was already taken care of so he had no reason to stay akumatized anyway. Him breaking his own object to release the akuma would've at least been different, but instead it's just a repeat of what Alya went through with even less tension considering that Alya's wasn't even that good in the first place, relying on her relationship to Ladybug rather than who she knew to be her best friend.

Moving on, Ladybug captures the akuma and uses Miraculous Ladybug to bring everything back to normal. Shadow Moth monologues about how love and secrets don't go well together and he's sure that she has a lot and I'll talk about this later.

Ladybug hands over the magical charm, which Nino takes but insists that he won't need it, as he'll never let Shadow Moth use his love to manipulate him again. Plenty of other things to get akumatized over, but they gave the supposedly ace character a robot to help him stick out and also gave the supposedly aro character a miraculous back in season one to give her more importance. If characters aren't in love then they need something to ceompensate for it.

Nino apologizes to Chat Noir for being wrong and Chat Noir assures him that everyone has doubts, even him. He gets sad and Ladybug asks him what's wrong, but he insists that he's fine - officially throwing away his right to be upset at her later as far as I'm concerned - and they do their usual fist buuuuu--

...Really?

Everyone then splits up and Chat Noir sulks by himself instead of--you know, talking to Ladybug, or asking her anything, or making any sort of excuse for her because that would mean he actually has faith in her and understands that their partnership is different from temporary heroes, even if the excuse was as basic as her wanting to protect him more than the others because he would be that egotistical if they didn't want to stretch out this unnecessary drama.

Later on, Adrien is staring at a picture on the Ladyblog that might be a metaphor for the show considering how "in the foreground" Chat Noir and Rena are.

Adrien vents about Ladybug giving miraculouses to Alya and Nino, but Plagg states that she's the guardian. Adrien clarifies that he's referring to Alya and Nino knowing each other's identities, but Plagg doesn't see the issue. Adrien gets huffy and asks why the rule exists for LadyNoir but not Ninya, but Plagg again points out that she's the guardian, so she makes the rules, though obviously he uses cheese metaphors to convey it.

Okay, Plagg is only, like--half-right because he doesn't have all the information. If you don't mind me rambling for a bit, I'm on the fence here because, on one hand--yes, I agree that Marinette should be allowed to make her own rules, and I often do that in my writing because I think she should be permitted leeway in order to let herself be happy, but on the other hand, it's not technically her rule, as she had to let Alya and Nino in on their identities back in the Season 2 finale, so Fu was still around for a season. She wasn't even guardian yet!

Now, presumably so the fandom could blame Marinette if anything happened, Marinette never discussed this with Fu on-screen, so I can't say whether or not Fu knew, but I feel like he must've since Marinette had to have told him the heroes' identities off-screen, given "Party Crasher," and thus I imagine that Marinette would tell Fu everything that happened, which is consistent with what she does on-screen even if she'd keep things from him for a little while.

"Furious Fu" had also established that not even Master Fu followed rules completely, meaning that Marinette is in this awkward spot of mostly following what Fu taught her, which aren't all guardian rules anyway, and having to break the rules on occasion for various purposes. I can't say what Fu approved of and what he didn't, because episodes spend so much time on the love square that they forget about Marinette as a person and how she interacts with everyone else. From an emotional standpoint, I can't blame Marinette for not revoking the miraculouses of people whose identities get discovered because of her, as I imagine she feels guilty and it probably doesn't seem fair to force them into another miraculous or have them be entirely without one because of a mistake that she made, meaning that someone needs to be throwing a lot of red flags for Marinette to be through with them.

Though obviously, from the show's standpoint, it's just an excuse to not make new models, but I complained about that enough in "Sentibubbler" and this episode even went out of its way to design a detective model for Nino while spraypainting Alya's bodysuit in the same breath, so this is the world we live in.

Anyway, Marinette is essentially in this position where she still has Fu's rules hovering over her, but she's also trying to step out on her own and make her own decisions to varying degrees of success or failure depending on your point of view. Tikki--wait, no, bad idea--Su-Han then, could easily give input on these things, perhaps with Marinette discussing a modern day set of rules for someone her age and going back and forth with Su-Han on what the right choices to make are, finding something that's comfortable but within a realm of predictable control. Su-Han was okay with some rules being broken after seeing how Ladybug handled them and they could've easily made this episode about that instead, but instead, we get rules being set and then being broken on a writer's whim.

Which now brings us to the end of the episode, where Marinette is on the phone with Alya and apologizes for causing trouble between her and Nino. Alya tells her not to worry and she'll fix things - you know, those things that, to Marinette's knowledge, have already been fixed - and asks if Marinette trusts her. Marinette does, and Alya hangs up in order to face Nino.

Yeah, that feeling of dread in your stomach? That means you know how predictable the writing is and what's about to happen, good for you.

Alya explains that she has to tell Nino something and he's worried, this time trying to sheepishly break the tension. She explains that she's still Rena Rouge, much to Nino's shock, and adds that she's in hiding, which is why Ladybug didn't want her to tell anyone. Nino asks why she's telling him if she's not supposed to tell anyone - proving my point from a while back that he wouldn't have been upset had she kept it a secret - then asks if Ladybug agreed with it.

I want to give him a pat on the back for considering Ladybug, but he didn't even tell her when he had the chance that Adrien knows his identity now, so I'm just beaten down at this point.

Instead of answering the question directly, Alya says that she can't hide her identity from him because she loves him and they don't have secrets.

You know, like Nino telling Adrien about Rena's identity, or Alya saying specifically that she's a permanent holder, which I'm sure both of them will confess to since they said that they don't have--aaaaand the episode ends on happy triumphant music, okay.

I mean, I guess Alya at least didn't tell him that Marinette was Ladybug, but that is such a low bar and not even remotely worthy of congratulations when Alya told Nino the specific thing that Marinette told Alya not to tell; the thing that they had agreed on.

Nino wasn't upset anymore. He won't be getting akumatized either. Alya endured the supposed hardship of being a permanent fox holder for four episodes before breaking down and telling her boyfriend. Even her excuse doesn't hold any water because, again, they're both still technically keeping a secret, particularly Alya who knows Marinette's identity as Ladybug. The episode also apparently forgets that Alya and Marinette's friendship must not be as strong by her logic of telling Nino specifically everything, as Alya kept Rena Rouge a secret from Marinette for all of Season 3, but tells Nino about continuing to be Rena Rouge in Season 4. Boyfriends before BFFs without explicitly saying it, or to be more specific, whatever screws Marinette over the most, because that's what this comes down to, made worse by "Optigami" where Marinette told Alya that she'd tell her everything and I guess that doesn't go both ways.

"Sentibubbler" had Alya stress that no one would ever know. She promised Marinette and told Marinette to trust her, and the episode spent its entire running time talking her up and assuring Marinette that she was the right choice, even considering Marinette ridiculous for worrying when Alya had done something without Marinette's permission the episode right before it. Then, three episodes after "Sentibubbler," when Marinette is finally comfortable and trusts Alya completely, Alya betrays that trust. Nino betrayed that trust, knowing he wasn't supposed to do so but telling Adrien his and Rena's identity anyway, because he was losing an argument and needed to PROVE something.

Marinette gives them an inch and they take a mile. Marinette bent the rules so that they could continue to have the miraculous they'd started with and they disrespected her because it was hard for like a day.

And if this bites them back, it won't reflect poorly on them, it'll reflect poorly on Marinette.

It's not like Alya just overrode Marinette. She didn't go, "Hey, I'm telling Nino, I'm sorry," or tried her hardest to go back and forth with Marinette until they both agreed. No, she did what she told Marinette she wouldn't do without saying a word to her, because LOVE and SEEEECRETS.

And this only applies to her, of course, because don't think I didn't notice the parallels between this episode and "Truth," because WOW.

Episode begins with Marinette hoping for something and it blows up in her face? A date at the cinema that ends on a sour note? Plot-centric couple trying to get Andre's ice cream and the female with a secret needing to leave in a hurry? Boyfriend character getting akumatized over their girlfriend's secret? Boyfriend assumes/suggests that the girlfriend's secret involves Aaaaaadrien - or his alter-ego in "Rocketear"'s case - and the episode hints as much to him even though he's completely wrong? Akuma's colors are blue and black? THE BRIDGE?

But, ahhh, little difference, here and there, y'know, like how Marinette was forced to break up with her boyfriend while Alya got to keep hers, and Nino got to have long talks with Alya while Luka got little to nothing with Marinette.

Because do note that Alya, while trying to convince Marinette and talk to Nino about not keeping secrets, at no point suggests that Marinette deserves to be happy and deserves to have a boyfriend and that Marinette should be allowed to tell Luka her secret so they can get back together, so you have Alya here selfishly prioritizing her relationship with Nino while making no comment about Marinette's relationship, essentially asking Marinette to allow her what Marinette herself didn't have the luxury of, and Alya knows this because Marinette told her. It is both incredibly insensitive of Alya and incredibly insulting of the show to make so many parallels between this episode and "Truth" just to have everything crash down for Marinette because she's Marinette while everything goes well for Alya and Nino because they're not Marinette.

We've talked before about the formulas that are literally baked into the show, and one of those is how Marinette makes a mistake in every episode and has to learn from it. What that mistake is in this episode, I don't know, but considering that she apologizes for Alya and Nino's problems, I guess the show blames her for what they themselves had taught her.

Point being, there's a clear karma system in place, but it only applies to Marinette, and forcing her to mess up in every episode means that she is literally not allowed to be with Luka because had she been able to clear things up between them, he would've eagerly accepted her and they could've been happy. It'd be too difficult for her to mess up when Luka doesn't put mountains of pressure and expectations on her like everyone else. Factor that in with how she can be herself around him and it leads to situation that are too difficult for her to screw up in because her mistakes - more often than not - center around Adrien or her role as guardian.

And because another rule in the show is to bring up Adrien so they don't "lose him for too long," she can't avoid bringing him up either. If he's not in the plot, he has to be mentioned, leaving Marinette in a lose-lose situation that she'll never be free from.

So, let me just get this straight then:

The guy who spied on his girlfriend instead of talking to her about his assumptions gets to keep his girlfriend, not because he realized it was wrong regardless of whether he was correct or not, but because the situation had been cleared up for him, yet the guy who actively resisted his akumatization, saddened by his girlfriend's secrets but wanting her to share them when she was ready, gets broken up with and tossed to the wayside because he's not a rich blond boy who got a miraculous because he happened to be within the twenty meters of space where Fu was searching for new holders?

Meanwhile, the girlfriend who has gone against the wishes and insistence of her best friend - guardian of the miraculouses, by the way, so she calls the shots, something that Alya herself said in "Optigami" BEFORE GOING ON TO DO HER OWN THING IN THE SAME EPISODE AND BEING REWARDED FOR IT - is allowed to go against the wishes and insistence of her best friend again for the sake of "all love, no secrets" with her boyfriend and so she can have the happy ending she wants, yet the girl who was chosen for a miraculous without her consent, forced to screw up and talk about a random boy who doesn't even go out of his way to spend time with her, treated like absolute trash by writers who find humor in her misery, and is the only one to receive overly harsh and long-lasting consequences for her actions while also covering up and forgiving the actions of others within the episode where they do it...

doesn't get her happy ending, and won't ever get her happy ending. That thing Shadow Moth said about love and secrets not going well together? Yeah, only goes as far as the writers want it to, because both Nino and Alya still have secrets, and some of the ones they did tell each other were forced by someone else and kept until that very moment. This idea that people in love have to tell each other everything and that it makes a relationship stronger makes me immensely uncomfortable, and that lesson is also in "Guiltrip."

People should be allowed their secrets, and obviously there are exceptions for things that are being hidden with malicious intent, but being essentially forced to share everything or risk not having a "full and complete" relationship is stifling and sounds like it'd only cause stress.

This episode sucks. It furthers and confirms everything I've already thought about the show, Nino's screentime continues to be dependent on Adrien, Alya, or both, there are pointless references that completely take me out of the experience, and the utter betrayal from Alya and supposed message of the episode just reminds me that Marinette is inevitably going to be stuck with a guy who didn't even DO anything in this episode and is going to let himself stew instead of asking for any sort of clarifications from someone he apparently trusts so much.

So the takeaway is that Marinette's life is awful, she'll be forced to apologize for rules that she didn't even come up with herself, her best friend will walk all over her for the sake of her relationship with a guy - not even for the sake, really, they were going to be fine, it was more for HER personal comfort if anything - and the guy who actually makes Marinette happy and could've known her identity instead BECAUSE HE AT LEAST DIDN'T HAVE A TRACK RECORD OF SPILLING HER SECRETS gets treated in the exact same way that she does; like nothing, just something to abuse unfairly.

What a waste of an episode.

#MC's Videos #category: episode summaries #category: salt #salt: adrien agreste #salt: chat noir #salt: alya cesaire #salt: nino lahiffe #video: critique #MC's Renders #render: persona #episode: Rocketear #((I would usually apologize for rambling but you guys seem to like it lol.))#((I could still afford to trim down the summary probably and repeat myself/ramble a BIT less but yeah.))#((I'm also feeling a little more comfortable this time around))#((which might come off in my inflections.))

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shinygoku · 3 years ago

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Trust Thomas, the Better Version

I find Trust Thomas to be a guilty pleasure of sorts, an episode of Season 3 that has some serious writing issues but I can’t bring myself to hate it. But I can bring myself to improve it significantly with a rewrite!

Helped along by @mean-scarlet-deceiver ‘s commentary tags on the post I’d made about it before, I present to you my saltier, spicier interpretation! 😼✨

Maybe a smidge over the target audience’s recommended intake.... no actual swear words but still, I give it a PG for Parental Guidance ;3 Also no, I’m not gonna put this on my Ao3 as it’s an Episode Rewrite and not one’a my Original Plots.

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Thomas the Tank Engine was feeling bright and cheerful. It was a splendid day, with warm sunshine, birdsong and lush green fields.

“Good morning!” he whistled to some Cows, but the Cows didn’t reply. “...Never mind, they’re busy with their breakfast.”

He stopped at a red signal, somewhat relieved that Bertie only came by after a brief pause, so he probably hadn’t heard Thomas talking fruitlessly to the cattle. Instead, Bertie was preoccupied with a large jolt as he drove over a hole.

“Owch!! That’s another one!”

“Um, sorry?” Thomas was preoccupied with the signal changing and set back off.

Thomas was still in good spirits when Bertie arrived at the next Station.

“Bad luck, Bertie!” he teased. “Now, if you were a Steam Engine, you’d be running on a pair of Reliable Rails!”

“Huh!” Bertie spat. “The Railway was supposed to deliver tar to mend the road two flippin’ weeks ago! You can’t trust a thing that runs on rails!”

“Oi, I run on rails, you big red lunchbox! I’ll show you, I’ll sort the matter out! You can at least trust me to get results.”

Thomas left Bertie and chuffed away importantly, along the branch line towards the Big Station by the sea.

James was snorting about in the yard. He was saying many rude words and bashing the trucks roughly, cross about having to cover for Percy.

“Ooh!! Arghh! Oww!” wailed the Trucks. They longed for vengeance but were powerless to bump the big Red Engine back.

Gordon watched the events from another rail and chortled.

“You know, James, if you were ill, you wouldn’t have to shunt trucks here, would you?” he offered, safe in his luxurious role pulling coaches that day.

James’ furious scowl lifted, all too ready to latch onto this half-baked suggestion. “That’s a good idea! Here comes Thomas, I’ll start pretending now!”

Thomas was perplexed to see the two big engines looking miserable.

“Cheer up, stick-in-the-muds! It’s a beautiful day!”

Gordon assumed the air of quiet suffering, his face creased with frown lines. “Not for James, it isn’t. He’s sick.”

“Yes he is --I mean, I am.” wavered James. There was a pause, and then he coughed a couple of times. “Ooh, I don’t feel well at all!”

Thomas narrowed his eyes as he looked over James. He didn’t really look so poorly, but then, Henry didn’t often look as bad as he’d felt before getting Welsh Coal, and then that new shape. Shame he wasn’t here to help judge.

“Hmph, really? I suppose I'll help out, if you're ill. Lucky for you that I'm already headed for the Quarry.”

He bustled out with some of James’ trucks. Once out of earshot, Gordon and James sniggered.

The Trucks were still furious over their mistreatment, and Thomas was a tempting outlet for their pent up aggression. They began to plot amongst themselves.

Thomas collected the heavy stone from the quarry and set off back to the junction. “Can’t let James forget he owes me...” he muttered, going slowly over the wooden bridge. There was something else he wanted to remember, but it was escaping him at the moment.

He was too preoccupied with these thoughts to prepare for the Trucks’ plan. “Go faster, go faster!” they shrieked, pushing forwards, assisted by the weight of the rocks they were holding.

“Augh! Slow down!!” Thomas was braking hard enough for sparks to kick off his wheels, but it was no good. He was forced off the track and derailed into a shallow, muddy pond.

He was dazed and confused, but in the wait for help his mind cleared enough to become rather cross. “Lovely flippin’ day, indeed!” he muttered, further disappointed by the lack of onlookers to hear his withering sarcasm. The only audience was a horrible slimy toad, it’s warty arms climbing up by his lamp-iron.

Eventually two engines came to his aid. Duck pulled the Trucks away, giving them a bump on the way out. “Hard luck, Thomas!” he called, over the pained sounds of the battered Trucks.

Edward helped Thomas back to the Junction and patiently listened as Thomas ranted about the horrible day he’d had.

“I’m going to find James and stuff the stones down his funnel! Gordon, too! James barely has enough brain power to think of a stupid plan like that, it must have been his smart idea! Oooh, when I get to him, I’m going to wait until his fire is out and I’ll dump him off the quay!”

“Thomas, you can’t kill them,” Edward said, soothingly. “You’d have to pick up on James’ work, for one thing! That would probably be after the Fat Controller takes Ffarquhar away from you, cause if you off Gordon we won’t have an express! That’s very costly for the railway, you know.”

Thomas muttered but privately conceded. “Can’t take Ffarquhar away, it’s a place…. Oh! Ooh!! Edward, I just remembered something!”

Glad to hear the shift in tone, Edward listened keenly. “Yes? What?”

“The roads are all dodgy down part of my line, Bertie was complaining about it earlier. He said something about us having supposed to have delivered Tar for it, d’ya know anything about that?”

“Tar… oh, yes! There’s tankers in my station, but they never said what it was for! Must be that, Driver will make arrangements when we’ve dropped you off!”

Inside Edward’s cab was a slight sarcastic muttering, but Edward and Thomas ignored it.

Later, James spoke to Thomas. He was having difficulty making eye contact with Thomas, who was still perched on the flatbed and needing to be cleaned from the pond, and whose expression had taken a darker turn once he’d noticed the Red Engine.

“I’m uh... sorry about your accident, and so is Gordon,” he shot a pointed glare back at the Big Engine who was lurking nearby. “We didn’t mean to get you into trouble, honest!”

“No, indeed,” spluttered Gordon. “A mere accident, but all’s well that ends well, isn’t that right?”

“It bloody well isn’t right, you big blue blimp! Make sure you don’t rest too close to the sea or you’re going to find yourself well acquainted, you hear?!”

Thomas’ tirade got cut off by Bertie’s arrival.

“My road’s being mended now!” he beamed, having completely missed the atmosphere of the scene.

“Oh.” Thomas was rapidly rearranging his face to put on a smile for Bertie. “I am glad!”

James was using the chance to slip away. Gordon was a bit slower on the uptake.

“Now I know I can trust an Engine, especially if his name is Thomas! Thank you!”

Gordon slinked away like a dog with his tail between his legs.

Thomas rolled his eyes. “Oh, enough of that soppy stuff.” But he was genuinely smiling, at least.

The toad had managed to stay on for the ride over, but Thomas was looking forward to watching it get put in the ditch when he was washed down. Maybe he should name it after a certain Express Engine who had ended up in that water himself some years before? The thought amused him greatly.

#This is TTTE #TTTE Fanfic #TTTE Episode Talk #or rather a rewrite but myeah #Trust Thomas #Thomas the Tank Engine #TTTE Thomas #and the rest lol

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tiny-smallest · 5 years ago

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STEVEN UNIVERSE FINALE THOUGHTS: SPOILERS ABOUND

My criticisms mostly lie in how short it was. This whole epilogue season needed to be longer. More episodes, or longer episodes. I'd lean more towards longer personally because as much as I'd love to revisit old friends who didn't get any time in SUF (FUCKING. NEPHRITE.), I'd rather the stuff that exists were fleshed out more. If I had my way we’d have more episodes (maybe 30-40, and not all of them painful; some more like Why So Blue or Guidance- ones that hint at his escalating mental illness but aren’t a sheer punch of pain) as well as longer episodes when needed (some of these were perfect for their length; others could’ve used a longer run time to really flesh things out) but if I had to pick one, I’d pick longer episodes over more episodes.

So far the biggest things that bug me are Connie's speech and White's breakdown.

Connie's speech only because she started it. In a show that kind of finally called the adults out for how much Steven had to give to them, it's a different child who rallies them to a clear head so they can figure out what to do. I'd much rather Greg have started the speech and Connie then interject. And then Garnet comes up with the actual plan? That'd have been perfect. They got so close to that too, since Greg is the only adult not falling apart instead of focusing on what Steven needs; he admits his faults and is obviously super upset about it, but his statement is a declaration of action: that this time he’s not running to let the magic people deal with this, he’s going to be there too. THEY WERE SO CLOSE TO THAT MOMENT BEING ABSOLUTELY PERFECT AUGH.

White's breakdown. I get what they were going for here, I really do: we’ve all seen The Big Bad be dealt with by stabbing them real good a lot and rarely is there ever any nuance applied to the concept of toppling a tyrant and where that would leave people, and the show is BUILT on the idea of what happens when you try that (or... fake the succeeding of it), so I get why they decided not to straight up kill her. But you also built White up to be like... Mother Gothel meets Frollo and then SHOWCASED IT IN ACTION and I'm forever gonna have a hard time swallowing the concept that she could ever be so utterly repentant of her crimes, I guess, both on a personal and universal level? I’d have almost rather she remained toxic and kept at a distance?

Add-ons to this are not a word about humanizing Pink/Rose in Steven's viewpoint and not a word about what White did to Steven-- which is possibly the most traumatic thing that happened to him.

That being said, corrupted Steven was a fucking HELL YES. And they USED THE WORD CORRUPTED SO HATERS CAN SUCK IT. I thought the corruption was solved a little too... easily and quickly? If other corrupted gems weren’t reachable just by talking to them Steven shouldn’t have been either even with being half human, and I would have loved if they’d had to go into his mind in order to reach him with their words--which would’ve been an interesting parallel to Change Your Mind, actually. But this is an example of what I mean about wishing episodes were longer. For this to be a thing the episode would’ve needed to be longer. As it was, it was fine. The emotion of it still got through. Everyone got to say their piece and that was important. It teetered a little dangerously close to ‘Connie fixes Steven’ but since everyone else did talk and said some really important stuff it’s more like Connie just happened to go last and not that her words in particular were important above everyone else’s.

Steven hanging up the poster from the song Mr. Universe also is like- another mild criticism in that the implications there could use A WHOLE EPISODE OF THEIR OWN (he has accepted he is a Universe, he has accepted his father; there may or may not have been a talk about Greg’s decisions and why he made them) but the implications are there nonetheless and I love it.

STEVEN. HAS. A THERAPIST. THEY SAID THE WORDS ON CAMERA.

STEVEN'S COOKING AGAIN!!

A final conversation between him and his father and it was of a decent length yes thank you god.

He said goodbye to all the Crystal Gems not just the three he lives with YAY

CONVERSE KISS. AT LAST. Sure, it didn’t get to be the big dramatic moment we were hoping for, but it was sweet and THERE.

A CONFIRMATION OF A TIMESKIP which is good because he'd really need a stable place for those first few months following something that awful.

I'm glad they established there had been time between that and his road trip. I’m also glad they made sure to establish that his support system is going to be in contact with him constantly. My mom instincts are screaming that he’s still too young and too sick to be on the road alone and I’d rather that have happened in a year or two, but since he’s gonna be in constant contact, can, go home at any time, and is probably 1-2 months away from being eighteen at the time he sets out, I can accept that.

The implication that Steven might return is a deeply appreciated one, because I’d rather this ended where it did last time-- a family together on a beach. But Steven needs time to grow and learn and he can’t do that in Beach City right now which is a thing I get- but the fact that he’s just as likely to return as he is to settle elsewhere means that after he’s seen all he’s wanted to see he can always return to his family and find a new adventure waiting in Beach City. (Personally I’d like to think he opens a restaurant.) And for those who’d rather he settle elsewhere, they get to have that, too!

It’s a way to leave it open-ended without feeling cheap, because the whole season has been building up to him needing to get away at least for awhile, and I appreciate that.

I realize that Being Human was sung in pieces by (I believe) Sugar over the course of the season in the way that Love Like You was to hide that the speaker is Steven the way it was previously done to hide that the speaker was Rose, but man, my final criticism: I wish Steven had sung the song as he was leaving. Just. A short version of it maybe as he drove off. If the lack of Steven being musical this season was supposed to be a nod to his worsening mental spiral then it would make sense for him to sing one final song as he’s healing, a sign of hope, and to leave the viewers with one last goodbye from the boy himself.

(And also so our only Steven song isn’t the incredibly sad I’d Rather Be Me With You.)

But all in all? It was a good finale. A solid finale. I adored it and it made me Feel Things. It was amazing to see some theories come to fruition. It was amazing to tackle the wounds that the original series would have left on a child’s soul. It was an amazing experience overall and while I feel some things could have been done better, I am so, so glad I binged my way through the original series to experience Future as it happened. I regret not keeping up with the original series as it aired and I am so, so glad for the experience of getting to do that with this series’ last hurrah. It kind of hurts; I’ll be mourning this show’s loss for a long time. But in an internet littered with cartoons killed before their time, I am incredibly grateful this show got to come to a proper close, got to tell its story through to the end.

In this world of people there really is no one like you, Steven. We will always be your family, and each other’s. Thanks for the ride.

#steven universe #steven universe future #i am my monster #suf spoilers #steven universe future spoilers #steven universe finale

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tavina-writes · 1 year ago

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@unforth hi! No it's definitely okay to ask! I was just feeling low braincelled about it all so I was just merely unsure of like, how to talk about this whole thing that I've been thinking about recently, which is, uh about like how "justified" or not justified wwx is about using resentful energy/etc, and how that also ties into like the golden core transfer, coping with the golden core transfer, and keeping that a secret and the toll that takes on all his relationships.

and I think this comes from like, a sense of how the genre of wuxia is structured, but also about like, protagonist-centric morality in a sense, where there's both kind of a misunderstanding of what a golden core/the ability to cultivate represents and also a desire to ascribe positives to the inventions of the protagonist. (I also want to say now specifically while these vibes were brought back by recent discussion, I have seen this discussion many times over the months I've been in this fandom and it has always made me go hnnnng I just so happened to be in the mood to also ba feck augh about it this time too.)

So, to start with, I think part of the issue is that there are different genre conventions between western fantasy and eastern fantasy when it comes to magic/magical powers/the ability to do magical things etc, and this thought is actually not original to me, I once read a pretty good writeup about this, but a major distinction is that for a lot of western fantasy, "magic" is a gift that you get from some other higher power, or an external source, and if you do have magic innate to you it's because you're born with it. It marks you out as special in a sense. Now of course, this is not saying all western fantasy books are set up this way, but a significant number of them are. There are people who have magical abilities and there are people who don't have magical abilities, and if you do have magical abilities that makes you special and if you don't have magical abilities it's because you aren't able to do them and therefore not inherently special. (Think "you're a wizard, Harry." re: Harry Potter, or Divergent or stuff like that.) Where eastern fantasy (especially the wuxia genre) has this idea that everyone can learn martial arts/cultivate/magical sword flight etc etc and the barriers to this are social rather than largely physical. So being a good cultivator is not a matter of "you either are or you aren't!" And I see no part of MDZS really contradicting this. (Yanli having a health condition that also precludes her from participating in seemingly regular social functions without getting exhausted does not mean that the average random peasant in MDZS is inherently unable to cultivate it's just that they haven't been taught to and that's social issues and classism at work baby!)

So where am I going with this discussion? Well, this comes back to the idea that "anyone can be a cultivator, but they have to work hard at it and actually yknow, cultivate." So, the disciples that are born to the inner families of the major/minor sects in the jianghu during the era of these bloodline sects are privileged that yknow, from birth, they've been given training and time that they can spend on cultivating and learning sword forms and those sorts of things, and that is a privilege, but at the same time, anyone who is actually a decent cultivator has to also get there through working hard, even if they're also talented. You can't get there only through accident of birth. Like, if say Lan Xichen and Lan Wangji never spent any time on learning how to cultivate or actually cultivating, they too would presumably be normal not-cultivators.

And this is a dynamic of the golden core transfer I don't see talked about a lot. Yes, Wei Wuxian is giving up his ability to do magic by deciding to give his golden core to Jiang Cheng. Yes, he's giving up the power he gets from being a cultivator. But he's also giving up years and years and years of hard work he spent to develop that core, and he's also presumably, well aware that he is giving up a major part of his identity but also his livelihood. Him parting with his golden core means that he is giving up something that was a major part of his life, (I mean the act of actually spending time cultivating) and thereby his identity (kind of like giving up your profession). THIS is a major sort of sacrifice that I go feral for. It's like an olympic champion fencer chopping off his sword hand to give it to his brother as a hand transplant or something, like, you are giving up your entire career and hopes and dreams for the future and a major part of your identity and ALL OF THOSE THINGS. And you know what the same is also true in reverse, that final take care reveal reveals to us that Jiang Cheng was just as insane and JUST AS WILLING to give either his LIFE or let his sword hand get chopped off if it meant saving WWX and that makes me feral! (It also makes me mildly irked when people say he overreacted or reacted badly to losing his core because uh, okay gain a major disability that destroys all your hopes and dreams for the future and come back to me to tell me how well you coped with that because Jiang Cheng only had like ten seconds to make that choice and five minutes to cope before he was yote back into a coma.)

And NOW we swing around to the point I actually wanted to make about this whole situation which is why uh....using other people's energy has always been villain coded in wuxia.....and that's....you're stealing....from other people....for your own power....you are taking what does not belong to you for personal reasons.

Taking other people's qi has always been a major villain coded thing in wuxia. You are not only stealing their hard work for no reason beyond "I want power," you are also....disabling them. The fact that WWX does this thing where he channels the resentments of dead people and pilots their bodies to kill people because he has no qi of his own anymore bc of the golden core transfer (that he initiated of his own free will) does not mean he's uh. morally good. Like, he very much does this because he wants the power to win the war. He very much takes this thing of other people's because he wants the power to win the war and he doesn't have a golden core of his own and can't cultivate anymore. His reasons are sympathetic! His morality is in the gutter though. People can easily understand that WZL's core melting is bad and wrong, but arguing that having good intentions means that all your actions are correct is....to me at least, deeply flawed. Not...having something does not automatically make you entitled to someone else's. And the reason we leap to justify this, I feel, is bc WWX is the protagonist and he's doing it for "good" reasons. But that still doesn't mean it's actually....correct unless you really believe that the ends justify the means.

Like...idk man. I guess a way to look at this is like, if WWX had cut off his legs to give to JC and then he wanted to design prosthetic legs so he can still kick ass that would be neat but if he started deciding that his prosthetic legs are going to be just hacking them off of a nearby corpse and attached to his own body that would be neat but not at all moral and we would possibly argue less about if it's moral or not.

"Well the corpse is dead! It doesn't really need its legs anymore!" you say, and to that I'm like, "our society would say that it's still immoral and also highly illegal for someone to harvest my organs from my corpse to save people from potentially dying if I didn't consent to be an organ donor and I think we have those laws for a reason." And also if someone started arguing that character x really really NEEDED someone else's legs so he could win a horrible war and save the world especially because he cut off his own legs willingly a few episodes back I would start to back away from them slowly and search for the exit.

This extended metaphor has outstayed its welcome, and is getting progressively sillier, and also REALLY HECKING LONG, so I'll leave this at that.

briefly going hnnnnnnnng at people misrepresenting genre norms and tropes re: wuxia, but this is tumblr so I am merely going hnnnng and getting on with my day.

But god it does make me tired to behold these misconceptions with my eyeballs sometimes.

#idk it's just the intersection of how like in universe people DO have very valid reasons to be skeevy #not just of the necromancy but also the motivations for the necromancy #but also you cannot convince me that utilizing outside power for your own gain esp by taking other people's qi #resentful or no #is not typically for good reason #villain coded #or particularly good n moral n empathetic #meta #my meta #idk can't we just say that necromancy and corpse cuddling is sexy #and that wwx with his new evil vibes are also sexy #must a man be morally good or justified or supported #can't he be sexy and do crimes #sometimes I tragically miss HYS type figures in modern wuxias specifically for that #HYS was a man who did horrible crimes and did them a lot and the author was like 'what a good crimes doer ain't he sexy'#'and also isn't he evil maes hughes with wuxia flavor??? :DD'#but to be fair I suppose if tumblr ever got ahold of HYS's rap sheet he'd be immediately crucified and or poor little meow meow-ified so #this HYS apologist can only just be a clown

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tfw-no-tennis · 4 years ago

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mtmte liveblog issue 19

it’s 2021 now!! time for more transformers

we start off w/a flashback showing tyrest retrieving ultra magnus’s body from the ship - and we get a look at magnus’s spark, which is the green color of a 0.1%er [eyes emoji]

tyrest punching magnus..... grrrrr leave my dad alone bastard man

‘the divided self’ what a good title

rodimus is like listen man this is a lot for my poor thot brain to take in

in flashback land, we see tyrest immediately launch into a crazy person spiel about how he can and will edit the law as he sees fit to conform to the situation, because that doesn't seem like a blatant abuse of power or a huge conflict of interest or anything

oooh the screen in the corner that says ‘thought warfare,’ I see that

oof, poor magnus. its gotta be rough to hear your boss rant about how bad at your job you are....especially bc this is right after overlord called magnus a joke and nearly killed him

its especially brutal bc as magnus says, his job is his life

augh, I love the panel where the armor is falling off around minimus, and then the one where he’s holding the ultra magnus head...poetic

its fascinating that there was an ‘original’ magnus who was an actual guy, and then tyrest chose to make him into this legacy symbol - I'm assuming the OG magnus had no say in this, and probably didn't even know that he was gonna become this lawman legacy figure

I do wanna know though - obviously everyone thought that ultra magnus was one dude, but how did the different guys wearing the armor deal w/that? like, did minimus have people coming up to him like ‘hey ultra magnus old buddy! remember when we fought those guys in that one place? good times!’ like, do they have to study up on the lives of the past armor wearers to prepare for the role of ultra magnus?

augh poor minimus, of course he’s been wondering about what happened with overlord after he was KO’d

oof, drift...I feel like minimus looks surprised and a little skeptical at the idea that drift was the one behind the entire overlord thing - which is interesting bc as we saw at the beginning of the story, he doesn't exactly trust drift, but it’s still pretty far-fetched that one person orchestrated the entire thing

tailgate :(

the concept of a load-bearer is SUPER cool, I love it so much

it also puts a much-needed limit on things - as in, there IS a limit to how much weight/mass a normal cybertronian frame can carry, which is why you don't see everybody upgrading to be Massive - bc they actually CANT

oof, the worst part is that tyrest is RIGHT, minimus essentially DID have a nervous breakdown after the war ended bc of the rigid way he views the world

mental health support is clearly in shambles for cybertronians, yikes. they literally have 1 therapist for their entire race, and he’s not even licensed anymore due to hipaa violations. what a mess

the ‘attention deflectors’ thing is so cool and clever and also a great explanation as to why ratchet or anyone else never said ‘hey wait a minute, you're actually a much smaller dude in a trench coat’

I love tailgate knowing all the stuff about the autobot code bc of magnus...my BOY

and THATS why minimus was asking about skids specifically earlier!

oh minimus, please don't put so much stock in tyrest being stable and resonable...

aaaand there's skids and swerve! brainstorm says it best - ‘because something unexpected hasn't happened for at least nine seconds.’ lmao ily brainstorm

finally checking in w/whirl and cyclonus - god I love that. whirl asking cyclonus how many cons he killed and cyc is like psh I wasn't keeping count....................ok it was six

hhhhh cyclonus IS looking for a cure for tailgate, even though he told tg that there wasn’t anything to hope for....excuse me as I go be emo

and now we flash over to the unethical medical conduct hell zone, where pharma is being weird and horny and ratchet is appropriately horrified

I seriously love how unhinged pharma looks, the art & colors do such a good job conveying his feral energy

ratchet has some massive dick energy for taunting pharma when he’s currently just a head and pharma has dual chainsaws for hands

ugh, I love whirls speech about anger...and I feel like he really does see cyclonus as a peer, despite cyclonus wanting to kill him, which is why he tells cyclonus all of this

I fuckgin love that cyclonus’s reaction to very suddenly getting stabbed thru the abdomen is to just glance down at the sword, looking mildly inconvenienced

back over to ratchet - and at first its like oh wow I can’t believe pharma was stupid enough to let ratchet goad him into this contest....but then you see first aid and ambulon and its like UH OH this is gonna be BAD

the idea that getting sliced in half is no big deal for a cybertronian is wild

‘you're gonna let doctor djd cut us in half?’ yeahhhh that's an appropriate reaction, yikes

FUCKING LENGTHWAYS GOD

pharma you piece of shit

poor ambulon :( :( :( that's fucking brutal. amazing panel but....jesus

and like, to further my point from last issue’s liveblog - the fact that this very gore-y panel is okay, but swearing isn't...that's really funny honestly. I guess robo-gore is acceptable, while I'm guessing regular ole run of the mill human gore wouldn't be

then back to cyclonus, who is still looking only vaguely put out by the sword stuck right thru him

and then cyclonus just pulls it right out, which is a very bad idea for humans but probably not as big of a deal for big near-immortal alien robots

circle of light stuck in capitalistic urban hellscape cubicals

poor skids, being asked to stand trial while having no idea what his crime is due to Big Amnesia

OH SHITTTT I totally forgot that getaway shows up here

that is super clever though, with chromedome confusing the name ‘getaway’ with the concept ‘needing to escape’

cant believe tyrest is really dumb enough to tell minimus all his evil plans

BUT that means its time for some very important forged vs constructed cold lore

jro spelling ‘program’ as ‘programme’ made me remember when he said that he considers everyone on the lost light to be british, which is perhaps the least valid thing he’s ever said vhbghjsdbfjkhasbjk

the idea that they used the matrix - which is portrayed as kind of a holy object - in reproductive experiments is really interesting

AUGHHHHH this is all so good and interesting...im really fascinated w/this particular brand of like, alien robot racism/constructism/whatever you wanna call it - I feel like it does such a good job as a plot device, where many other ‘fantasy racism’ concepts from other franchises fail, bc there's not really a ‘human metaphor’ being used here (as far as I know/can tell) - as in, this isn't a thinly veiled metaphor for something that happened/could happen in human history

in fact, this type of bigotry (or w/e you wanna call it) isn't something that is even really possible in humans - I guess if there was a stigma against being born via ivf or something...? but there isn't, so there's no obvious real-world equivalent, which I take as a sign of good writing and worldbuilding - it makes the cybertronians feel more Real, bc of course they would have their own types of bigotry based off of completely different things than humans

additionally - and this is crucial - tyrest is wrong: there’s no like, inherent moral corruption in cold constructed bots. there's no difference at all, other than method of construction. fantasy racism plotlines often flounder here, with the oppressors having a ‘valid reason’ for oppressing the oppressed, but tyrest is just operated on religious zealot bs and some biased science

like, dude, did you ever think that maybe there are other reasons why your trials only condemned cold constructed bots? like, maybe the trial itself was biased? or societal conditions were to blame? correlation is not causation, my dude, especially when the conclusion is ‘cold constructed bots are inherently SINNERS’ lmao

like, tyrest rlly said ‘FUCK separation of church and state,’ huh

anyways I just think the whole cold construction vs forged thing is really interesting and well-done, and serves as a good precursor to the more fleshed-out functionism stuff we see later

so tyrest is clearly off his rockers w/the whole drilling thing - dude, you accidentally gave yourself a lobotomy, okay - but I find it kinda funny that he’s right about a lot of that stuff he said at the end, about primus and the guiding hand and stuff being real

cyclonus saying ‘tailgate and the others’...I see you, man, I see you

also cyclonus looks fine now??? didn't he just get stabbed???

ah, tyrest sprinkling a little light genocide onto his plan to find salvation. nice, dude!

MINIMUS NOOOOOOOOO

‘fully deserved’ SHUT UP BIIIIITCH

poor minimus is taking a lot of Ls this arc, geez

oof, great issue! again, as usual....I loved the lore we got this issue, its so interesting...and some good character stuff too. I love minimus, I feel like he’s gonna be my fav this readthru; my first read my fav was brainstorm, second readthru was whirl, and I feel like its minimus/magnus this time. I just love his character arc...

hype af for more B)

#lj rereads mtmte

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aikainkauna · 6 years ago

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Fanfic trope meme

Apologies to those of you who see this for a third time, as I’ve crossposted it to both LJ and Pillowfort. Feel free to comment over on there (or my other posts) if you like. And of course, feel free to grab this one and do it yourself, if you like.

***

Grabbed this meme from a couple of people on LJ. It's... well, apparently about fanfic tropes. Some of them more terrifying than others.

I have written:

-Hurt/comfort (Yeah, baby! Most of my fic is this.)

-Body swapping (Sort of? Souls slipping into each other's bodies for a bit? Jaffar feeling what Yassamin feels? Sex swap, I've definitely done.)

-Soulmate identifying marks (tattoo, red thread of fate, etc) (I have! The Throne of Solomon. And maybe The Past Forgotten counts, in its way. I may have written more, but I forget.)

-Snowed-in cabin/isolated together for extended period of time (The Jaffar/Pwinzezz Cavefic!)

-Found families (I guess the Samarkand gang counts for poor old Fadl? Even if Jaffar *is* his brother, so technically it is his family. But he does have his religious congregation and Zainab, and is... well, he always does seem to be seeking something, so he's the kind of guy to go for this trope.)

-Fairy tale/mythology AU (And not just when I am writing in *actual* fairytale/mythology fandoms. Which I am doing most of the time, what with Thief of Bagdad being a 1001 Nights fanfic anyway. So I'm writing fanfic about a fanfic of some age-old RPF (fantasy AU!) about historical figures from the late 700s/early 800s...)

-Enemies to friends to lovers (Yes, please! Aplenty. I'm surprised that enemyslash/FoeYay/Hero(ine)/Villain(ess), whatever you want to call it, isn't mentioned on this list.)

-Characters swap roles AU (Uh... I've written sexual switching in some isolated chapters? Like when Laura briefly doms Torsten in The Fall of Angels, to help him get over some traumas?)

-Friends to lovers (With RPS, Veidtbone in particular, and Theta/Koschei. This also seems to happen whenever I write femslash.)

-Magical connection (telepathy, etc) (Doctor/Master basically ruined me for all my other ships what with their telepathic ability. So that now, it feels less interesting for me to write love/sex that *doesn't* have telepathy.)

-Fake dating/fake marriage accidentally turns into feelings (see next trope)

-Royals/political marriage turns into feelings (These last two are pretty much the same thing in ToB, as I've had Yassamin marry Jaffar a couple of times--like The Past Forgotten and The King's White Falcon, but without him laying a hand on her for up to a year, until she finally grows a brain and realises how loveworthy he is after all.)

-Seemingly unrequited pining (Emphasis on the "seemingly." Jaffar's unrequited pining is painful enough in the movie, so there's no point in making him suffer any more.)

-Accidentally fell in love with the mission target (Well, *kind of,* what with Torsten. Lars-Erik was definitely his mission target in the original film, and at the start of Because The World Belongs to the Devil, he made no bones about having wanted to kill Laura Erika [the teenage girl version of Lars-Erik in this AU, to those of you just joining in] when she was born.)

-They break up (but then they get back together) (With Jaffar/Fadl. Fadl's stormed off in a huff at least twice in the past. And Doctor/Master is always the same old on-off car crash, isn't it? Although this is not a favourite trope of mine, as the setup would usually necessitate them being an existing couple in the first place, and I tend to not write canon or "plausibly lovers" ships because they're already happily together. What do Two and Jamie, Holmes and Watson etc. need me for? They're already as good as married. Let them have their happiness.)

-Supernatural creature/human romance (Sort of. I've written Time Lords/humans, humans/djinn at least. And surely wizards count as supernatural romance, anyway?)

-Reincarnation/'25 Lives' AU (What's with the 25 lives? Is this some big fandom thing again? One of the darkest, most fucked-up fics I ever wrote was the Master killing the Doctor during sex and fucking him as he regenerated around him. As you do. And there's reincarnation in one of my Jaffar/Pwinzezz fics, but I won't spoil it for the new readers by telling you which one it is.)

-Selfcest (possibly due to time travel) (I am scratching my head trying to remember when I wrote this and in which fandom, but I have the distinct feeling I've written it. I've certainly whacked off to that World Of Simm!Masters clusterfuck what with the pink dress so many times I... I think I broke two clit buzzers during that time. I've certainly drawn it. And drawn some Connies on Connies. And then there's, of course, Sarosh the Sexbot who's a clone of Jaffar, looks-wise, but he is very distinctly just a robot, not a living character as such--not the sort with which you could have a real, interpersonal dynamic. My problem with selfcest, in general, is that I like having that character dynamic--and that requires the characters to be different from one another. If it's two characters that are too similar--if they fulfill a similar role in the canons--it's hard to create a dynamic between them and to make it interesting.)

-Polyamory (Swinging away ALL the bloody time with the Roses!Jaffar and Yassamin, and Torsten/Laura. Sometimes I miss the monogamous 'verses.)

-Amnesia (I've got a post-movie "Jaffar comes back from the dead" WIP I'll probs never finish, because it doesn't seem to get off the ground. If I wrote this trope, I would have the characters gradually regain memory, though; complete mind-wipes are horrid. I did have Handy lose the majority of his cognitive/motor/Timey skills in No More and that was the main reason I had to... well, I'm not going to spoil it if someone hasn't read it yet, but it wasn't the cheeriest of fics. The Past Forgotten *sort of* has this, but I don't want to spoil as to how that happens.)

***

I could write:

-Daemons (Why the archaic spelling? I have written djinn, so I almost put this in the 'have written' section. I can't remember if I actually *have* written real demons, because I might have. Surely, Torsten counts...)

-'Everyone is evil'/mirrorverse AU (Well, mostly, if I want to explore "evil" characters, I write about those types of characters in the first place, without having to turn anyone evil. Devilry is the 'verse for that. Hell, usually it's the other way around; I try to look for the human elements of the baddies, or at least explore their logic--what makes them tick, what makes them the way they are. So, IDK, I could've also put this in the "unlikely to ever write" section.)

-And they were roommates! (This would be terrible and also hilarious, whatever characters ended up becoming my victims. Even if I'm more interested in those hurt/comfort plots, overall. And I have always found it *impossible* to live under the same roof with other people because I need peace and quiet and solitude too much. So this is almost a bit too much like the sorts of negative RL experiences I don't really want to get more of in fic. But I *could* write it as a comedy for cheap lols, especially if the stress were resolved by hot bonking, ASAP.)

-'They all work in an office' AU (Otherwise, I would've put this in the "just no" category, but... the Barmakids were civil servants. So I *could* write Jaffar and Fadl drowning in paperwork--"WHY DID WE EVER introduce paper into THIS EMPIRE?!?" and cursing their fates and Jaffar restraining Fadl from braining Harun al-Rashid with a paperweight. Same with Lina doing Zainab's books and trying to hold back The Fist of Death when Fadl carelessly drops a piece of his lunch over her perfectly calligraphied accounting.)

-'Falling for a coworker/teammate is a bad idea' except this is fiction so it works out (Maybe. Just maybe. But it'd also be in a medieval ToB context.)

***

I will probably never write:

-'Groundhog Day'/karmic time loop (I just never got the appeal of this. Sounds like the sort of thing experimental writers would like? The sorts who really like filling in bingo cards and challenge lists?)

-Vampires/werewolves AU (I'm not that big on either. Super-unpopular opinion coming up: I prefer sex to the sublimation of it that vampires are often all about; bloodsucking in lieu of sex, and/or being seen as way better than sex just always feel to me like a cheap cop-out from writers who are disappointed in sex, or afraid of it. I've never grokked it any more than that stupid, stupid "chocolate is better than sex" quip from women who don't know what masturbation is--yes, it fucking well is sex, TYVM! I much prefer to make partnered sex better than it is IRL by adding supernatural stuff like telepathy to *that*. Immortality alone is interesting to explore, as are Gothic themes, but all the usual themes that vampires *specifically* usually represent just... either hold little interest for me, or then, I can explore them in other ways.)

-'Pride and Prejudice' AU (I don't hate Jane Austen, but it's not my fandom. That kind of society stuff and being witty over teacups in bonnets has never really been my thing--if anything, I usually have my characters exist in their own bubble, isolated from society and its restrictive mores and social stresses.)

***

JUST NO!

-Coffee house AU/food service AU (AUGH! Please, no coffeeshop AUs for me; the world is full of them already. Maybe I could write it as some terrible, short parody? Or doodle it? But no more than that.)

-Hogwarts AU (Haven't read HP. Young Adult isn't really my genre. I know, I know; I've just lost all my WLW cred.)

-High school/university AU (I've done Time Lord Academy-era stuff with Doctor/Master, but I expect this means a sort of American high school/university AU with jocks and cheerleaders and shit. Hell, no. Again, the exact sort of horrid society stuff I would rather have my characters escape from.)

-Adopting/raising a baby (Erm, not unless you count Jaffar/Yassamin adopting a cheetah? They do have kids in some 'verses but there's none of that everyday baby stuff that this question/trope probably implies. I'm squicked by babies, sorry.)

-Unusually specific occupation AU, like, the Author clearly has the same job (It worries me that this is, by virtue of its inclusion here, apparently seen as normal and acceptable..? When it's crap fanfic, inserting yourself into something that should be about the *established* characters instead. Jesus, I don't want to go in expecting a fanfic, and then find out it’s your diary instead! Unless you're Anaïs Nin. And even if you really *do* want to write about yourself, then just... write original fic? An autobiography? A blog? Write an OC that has your job. Don't do this false advertising where you insist it's fanfic when it's not. That's a dick move towards your readers.)

-Loyalty kink (see next trope)

-Alpha/beta/omega (Too creepy. I can write about piss, shit, incest, necrophilia and cannibalism, but not these last two. Any more than I can glorify the Nazis I've written about; I either take the piss out of them, as with Strasser, or just step outside of their politics and bring them into the land of happy sexings like with von Kolb, with the aim of dragging him out of that madness and leaving it behind.)

-Hot single parent(s) (Please. Rundvik: "You love children." Torsten: "I loooooathe themm.")

-Unrequited pining (Too much of an emotional squick. Has to be requited. I write fanfic to fix things, to avenge wrongs, to set things right. I don't write them to make the characters more miserable than they already are. Unless it's for temporary, character-development purposes, that is.)

#writing #meta #personal #meme #and no #idk what's up with the extra spaces in the formatting either

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original-character-archives · 8 years ago

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Name: Nalaagura Ep'ha the Warden (I usually nickname her Nala or just the Warden) Age & Date of birth: 908 years, born on the summer solstice (idk what calendar we use yet in her world), so she’s a Leo Species: Demon Gender: Female Orientation: No fricken idea. She gets with a guy demon later but that’s it, so I’m not sure Fandom/Original: Mostly original, but with some influence from Magic: The Gathering. The RP she comes from, Battle of the Grounded Dungeon, also includes some How to Train Your Dragon, Puella Magi Madoka Magica, MtG, FMA and heavy doses of Norse/Viking mythology.

Warning: Murder, demonic posession, mention of fantasy racism, brief mention of suicide attempt, mild gore and body ick

Biography: (Small preface: this roleplay was started as a total joke in the HTTYD fandom because we were sad about a character death and spiraled into an actual story written by thirty different people so some of the names and stuff sound stupid and the plot will be random and weird so like just roll with it I guess?? lmao. also this is like STUPIDLY long sorry. You can totally scroll past if you don’t wanna hear the story. Augh sorry I’m so super nervous about this lol please bear with me ;u;) The Warden was born to a massively powerful demon, H'zola R'nalath the Empress. The Warden has seven other siblings: the Matriarch, the Praetor, the Archon, the Centurion, the Baroness, the Guardian, and the Shaper. She is the youngest of the eight and the most important, according to her mother. Her parents are the Empress and the Shepherd, both extraordinarily powerful beings who used to be a single soul created by the goddess Hel. They split into the soul’s intelligence and brute force, the mother and father being the result, respectively, and then the Empress “gave birth” by shaving off fragments of her soul and cultivating them into new demons. Nala was brought to being in the demon city of Bloedrest, in the far north, but she despised her life there and wished to flee. One day she did just that, hopping from vessel to vessel in an attempt to escape her former life. She was suddenly snagged one day by a strange, immature force, and when she manifested in front of it, she was infuriated to see it was a young mage by the name of Darien Whiteland. Furious, she demanded he let her go, but he refused, telling her he needed to impregnate a golem with a kind of guardian spirit. For some reason unknown to her, she was unable to break the holds of the summons and was imprisoned inside of his golem. What she didn’t know was that this mage had made a deal with her mother to allow him to capture her daughter and keep her to guard one of his many dungeons. He was part of a triumvirate that ruled over High Central, the self-appointed capital of the land of Aidorin. The people lived in seclusion in High Central, and harbored strong sentiments against part-human part-animals, known as half-breeds (which appear as anywhere from anthropomorphic animals to humans with a few animal features like ears and tails), and those that used magic outside of their jurisdiction, and began imprisoning and executing anyone they deemed a threat to their rule or their race. The Warden’s imprisonment in the dungeon was not a pleasant one. She seethed against her captors and longed for revenge but she was trapped and had no idea of where the young mage might be. She instead turned her attention to the prisoners and began toying with them. One in particular caught her attention: a passionate half-breed cat named Treepelt. The Warden was attracted by her strong feelings of protection towards her friends and her romantic feelings towards the scout, Vox. Craving these impassioned urges, the Warden left her golem and slowly began possessing Treepelt instead. She started having violent mood swings and acting very strangely around the rebels. Eventually they discovered the truth during the rebels’ escape from the dungeon with the help of a massive seadragon, and led by the ruler of the Wilderwest, King Gareth Haddock. She outright declared war on the escapees. They fled to a safe distance where one of the larger half-breeds, an ice dragon, created a home for the rebels to live in. The Warden attacked them over and over with the dragons she had under control and managed to possess several other members of the rebellion before finally surrendering in a battle. The king came to interrogate her, trying to figure out why the Warden was doing this, and when Tree’s lover Vox came to try and talk Tree out of the possession, the Warden made her stab him through the heart, killing him. His soul was caught in Purgatory, the limbo between Valhalla and Hel. Tree later escaped her confinement with help from a strange hooded figure that could teleport through water. He led them out of the fortress and into the Wilderwest, guiding her away from danger and to a lake. The stranger told Treepelt she was going to be able to see Vox again through the water. When he appeared, the Warden was alarmed by Treepelt’s strong feelings, but rather than try and destroy them as she did before, she attempted to assuage them and tried reaching for him. Vox, however, leaped through the water before the Warden could force Tree to touch the surface and he was immediately sent to Hel. Treepelt was absolutely broken and the Warden scrambled to get her vessel back on her feet before she fell apart. She was much slower in her approach of the rebels, but two of the rebels attempted to stop Treepelt as soon as they saw her. The Warden attempted to attack them as well but Kiri the Viking ninja (long story) took Treepelt down and stabbed her in the hip, giving her momentary clarity as the Warden was driven away by the pain.The Warden returned to the surface of Tree’s consciousness later as she talked to King Haddock about rescuing Vox, who was the King’s loyal battle strategist. She lied to the King about what the soul transfer required, simply saying that they needed his presence at the lake in order to get Vox’s soul back, when in reality she was planning to trade the King’s soul for Vox’s. Haddock agreed and the Warden berated Treepelt on her lack of action, telling her that she was taking the reins now. Haddock returned later to begin the journey to the lake. She took control of Tree the entire time they traveled to the lake. The stranger, Pitch Black, now exposed as Haddock’s old friend and his adopted daughter Akkey’s long-lost father (another long story), expressed surprise at the tag-alongs, and the Warden explained that they’d been insistent on coming and that it shouldn’t affect the soul exchange. The members of the rebellion reacted with shock and outrage, and the Warden responded likewise, threatening to hurt anyone who interfered with the exchange. The king’s bodyguard, Stonegit, registered the threat and threw his ax at Tree, who was saved by the king’s adopted daughter Akkey, a rabbit half-breed, but pushed into the water where both Treepelt and the Warden were sent to Purgatory. The Warden convinced Tree to travel to Hel in an attempt to rescue Vox, but they were stopped just in time by Pitch, who said he would be able to get one of their souls back. The Warden immediately told Tree to go, admitting that she finally understood the pain she’d caused and wanted to make amends for it. But right after she left, she felt a strange pain and vanished from Purgatory. After Treepelt emerged from the lake unpossessed, the rebels assumed all was well and quite forgot about her malignant presence. They let the Warden fade into a bad memory. Unfortunately, she was far from gone. After the ordeal at the lake, Stonegit surfaced, blind and battered, and immediately carved a reaper’s ward into his chest while he was still half-conscious. Throughout the next few days, Stonegit was subtly influenced by an unknown force, able to navigate his way around things and dodge falling objects as though he could see. He also was unable to commit suicide one night after Haddock’s sudden expression of his feelings towards Stonegit, and he assumed it was because of a lack of resolve. Later, he discovered that it was the Warden who had done all of this, as she had been snagged as he passed through Purgatory on his way to Hel. He threatened to kill himself to get rid of her, but she convinced him to let them both stay so long as she stayed alive and whole and he gained sight and access to her power in order to protect the king. Stonegit carved a sigil into his hand marking the contract and the deal was set. The Warden then informed him that the king was currently being attacked by an enraged Pitch Black and he took off, managing to hold off the attack just in time. Stonegit began attending to the king’s wounds and Haddock was alarmed at the young man’s dexterity, demanding to know why he was acting as though he had his sight back. He admitted to being possessed by the Warden and Haddock flew into a rage, under the impression that she was currently speaking to him. Stonegit went into a panic attack and drew on the Warden’s strength to throw the king to the ground and protect him. Eventually both the king and the bodyguard calmed enough to talk through their feelings. Stonegit let the Warden take control of him and speak to Haddock, and the two traded acidic words, ending in the Warden blaming the king for Stonegit’s descent to Hel and Haddock threatening her with his sword. Stonegit took control again and scolded her, and she retorted unapologetically that it was a bad idea for them to have talked in the first place. Stonegit ignored her and said that if she would like to speak to anyone through him, he would have to approve the conversation first. After their conversation, the Warden approached Stonegit again grudgingly while he was training, demanding to know why he had stuffed her away and what his plans with the king were. Stonegit responded that he didn’t know, only that he trusted Haddock to make the right decision. The Warden suddenly picked up on a stream of thoughts running below Stonegit’s consciousness and realized that he had been craving an ordinary conversation for years. She was faintly amused but also strongly curious about his emotions, and when he broke down and confessed his love towards Haddock and his feelings of hopelessness, she comforted him instead of mocking him. Thus began a tentative friendship between demon and vessel. Stonegit asked hopefully if she would be able to restore his sight and his damaged brain. The Warden regretfully told him that she was unable to perform such a task and he broke a wineglass in a flash of damage-induced rage. Stonegit apologized and was amused by her overreaction to the human pain. She helped him take care of the cut and he thanked her, going off to find the king. Later, Stonegit left to interrogate Skye, whom the Warden had confronted earlier and whom Stonegit suspected may have been harboring another demon. He consulted the demon, who expressed uncertainty over whether she could rid Skye of his curse or not. He then asked the Warden to inspect Akkey. Upon exploring her mind, the Warden drew back in pain and told the bodyguard that it was not Akkey who lay within the half-rabbit’s mind. She resurfaced later when he suggested that the magic surrounding Akkey was similar to that surrounding the library as well. After the Warden confirmed this fact, they both came to the conclusion that Hemlock was somehow in control of Akkey. The Warden also offered to inspect Tezzeret as well, for any resident demons within him. Eventually, Hemlock was found out when both Akkey and Vox suffered immense pain from the events at the lake. With everyone congregated in the sick room, Stonegit finally revealed to the rebels that he had been possessed, and unveiled the truth about Hemlock–that she was not actually a human at all, but an empty shell for a fallen valkyrie, Dust, to wear like a skin while she attempted to retrieve her lover from where she had fallen as well. Stonegit and Dust agreed to duel and the Warden helped Stonegit prepare a stone dagger with a rune that would cause it to explode on impact when buried in the valkyrie’s flesh. The duel began and both the Warden and Stonegit fought Dust together until Haddock suddenly intervened, causing Stonegit to turn and press the brand that marked the deal of possession against Haddock’s hand, and it began to transfer. The Warden was ejected from both of their minds during the transfer and she was unable to help Stonegit as Dust dragged him away from the king and took over his mind as well, turning him on the monarch and using his inherent fire magic to advance on Haddock and kill him with a fireball to the chest. The Warden solidified at this moment and was able to attack Dust in a rage, pulling the valkyrie out of Akkey’s body and fight her in mid-air. Dust was finally killed when Stonegit snuck into the fight and buried the dagger in her head. This created a massive explosion that apparently obliterated the Warden into nothingness, along with Haddock’s body. The Warden had been assumed dead and destroyed after the events of the duel, and the camp preferred it to stay that way. They heard nothing from the Warden and thought she was gone for good. They were wrong. Again. Both the Warden and Haddock had been suspended in limbo after the king’s death and she had been attempting to heal his gaping wound with little success, for if he did not gain his health back, neither of them would be able to return. She was clumsy in her attempts to heal him and gained help from her cousin Shaxurohm. Haddock awoke in limbo and was shocked to see the two demons standing above him, not recognizing the Warden on-sight. His angry words spiked the Warden’s temper and she spoke roughly to him, announcing that he was now her vessel due to the contract Stonegit had transferred to them. Haddock resisted, but the Warden took him back into the mortal world and a vicious fight broke out to gain dominance over Haddock’s mind. The Warden crushed him with her words and her consciousness and succeeded in possessing him completely. She then walked him back to the camp and made her entrance clothed in his battered body. Everyone could hardly believe their eyes when the king walked back into camp, clearly alive and whole after his very public and brutal death. He ordered for someone to search for Stonegit. The all gathered near and that was the moment the Warden revealed that she was still alive, speaking the ominous words, “Long live the king.” Soon after, the queen approached the center of camp, attracted by the commotion, and upon seeing her husband alive, went to confront him, leaving her children at the edge of the crowd. Nalaagura brutally taunted her with words and the memories of Haddock’s borderline infidelity, but Mera brushed it off as false creations and tried to speak directly to Haddock. Infuriated, the Warden throttled Mera, and Egil became enraged, rushing forward to protect his mother. He was stopped by Greg, one of the soldiers, and the Warden backed off from harming anyone else, momentarily becoming uncertain and confused. She left them in a huff and headed back for the main fortress to decide what to do next. Stonegit soon decided to show himself though, and despite Kiri’s attempts to stop him, he went to investigate the rumors of Haddock’s return. He soon found Haddock, but having been haunted by specters of the king before, and distraught and half-insane from the loss of his soul due to his escape from Hel, he began to fight the Warden within Haddock, and the fight took them to the roof of the fortress. The Warden attempted to use Haddock’s voice and demeanor to break Stonegit out of his craze, and it seemed to work momentarily, but he suddenly fell unconscious, seemingly for no reason. As the camp gathered around, an enormous, dark figure appeared, announcing herself as the goddess Hel, and told the Warden to relinquish Haddock and let him speak with her. The Warden initially resisted, but Hel put her in her place and Nala gave up her possession momentarily. The king was too broken and submissive to speak, however, and a displeased Hel told the Warden in secret that she would return, that the Warden was to take care of Stonegit, and if Haddock was not in an improved mental state when she did, there would be consequences. A frustrated, angry Warden stalked the camp for a few days, ruminating on what to do. Soon, her brother the Archon arrived at camp with Tezzeret under his control, threatening to kill him unless Nala gave him a demonstration of her previously-denied affection towards the rebels. Nala continued to refuse and the Archon created an illusion of Tezz having his throat crushed, shocking and riling the Warden into attacking her brother with her astral form. Satisfied, Kiaama left the camp and revealed that Tezz was alive. Furious, the Warden retreated back into her stalking and allowing Stonegit to waste away. Blunt and Mera attempted to approach Nala about Stonegit in vain, although Nala allowed Haddock a short twenty minutes with his wife for the first time in over a year. Greg grew curious about her and approached the demon peacefully while she was wandering one day, making conversation with her. She resisted at first but then was drawn to his sincerity and admitted a bit about herself and her past and family. Greg took a few of his friends to meet her and while her greeting was lukewarm, they discovered Central had taken them all prisoner at the beginning, and she entrusted them with her name. A while after, the Empress and the Shaper arrived and brought the Warden her new demon-made porcelain body in an attempt at pacification, and she thanked them cautiously, awed by the gift. Igl stayed behind to make sure the body was in working order while the Empress left, and the sisters sparred a bit later to test the body. Nala admitted to the Shaper that she had changed and she did wish to return home. Later, Blunt took it upon himself to “kill” Stonegit in order to motivate her into action. He locked her out of the room and smashed a melon, pretending it was Stonegit’s head, and throwing Nala into a grieved rage witnessed by Clover. When she discovered he was still alive, she quickly gave him water, and Hel paused time to give her a dry congratulations and tell her to continue taking care of him and the king until the king was ready to face her tests. The Warden did so somewhat grudgingly but thoroughly. When it came time for the tests from Hel, both Haddock and Stonegit passed, and Stonegit was returned to normal. The Warden pounced on him lovingly but cringed when he thanked her for keeping Haddock intact while he was “away.” Stonegit later learned that the Warden’s possession of the king had not been gentle and forced the truth of her breaking him out of the Warden. He was upset and quietly refused to talk to her, which shook Nala and she quietly resolved that she would leave the next day. Stonegit brought her to her new synthetic body and Nala gave him her full name as a parting gift and left the camp. Upon leaving the camp, the Warden found another camp, full of soldiers aligned with Odin, not too far away from the rebels, and she approached with angry curiosity, demanding to see their leader. Their leader, Orskaf, entertained her with some amusement, although sternly telling her if she was aligned with Hel, he would tell her nothing. Confused, Nalaagura demanded answers, and Orskaf eventually told her how he’d gone to the king and tried to get him to sign the rebellion over to Valhalla by torturing Stonegit. Nala tried to attack him in an outrage but was injured and thrown out of camp. She went to sulk in the nearby forest, shaken by her new knowledge of the rebels’ alliance with Hel and of Stonegit’s plight. Hel appeared just then and healed her wounds easily, asking for a heart-to-heart, and the Warden reluctantly listened to the goddess’ petition to bring other souls to Hel’s side for Ragnarok as well. Nala hesitated, telling Hel she would think about it before asking Stonegit’s condition, and when Hel told her he was doing okay, she relented and accepted her offer, thus binding herself to Hel’s cause. The Warden then traveled the land for a few weeks, convincing nobility and chieftains alike to commit themselves to Hel, using force when needed. After a while, she ran into Akkey, who was also collecting souls for Hel. Nala entertained her for a moment, but then caught wind of the noise that a group of rebels captured by Loki inside of an incredibly deep pit in the ground, and she quickly possessed Akkey and forced her to create a portal to the pit to help them, leaving her demon body behind. In doing so, she damaged Akkey’s abilities so they were trapped for a few hours inside the pit. Akkey was extraordinarily upset with the new arrangement until Greg volunteered to house Nala inside himself to take the burden off Akkey. The demon enjoyed the transfer and the two talked for a bit, and then Nala brought up the subject of her name and the possibility of erasing it, and when Greg grew tearful she retracted her offer and receded into his mind. When it came time to leave, Akkey quietly informed Greg that she would be sending him to the north. Before Nala could take control of the situation, Greg suppressed her quickly and went through the portal. Once Nala had gotten over her initial anger, the two of them began to travel back south. They passed through a village where they encountered Central guards attempting to expel the native half-breeds, and Nala used Greg’s new fire magic to kill the guards and save the half-breeds. They continued to travel further, eventually reaching the place where the fortress used to be, the aftermath of a witch that had destroyed the home of the rebels. Greg mourned at the apparent death of the rebellion before Nala found traces of their minds, directing him back to the dungeon where they had taken residence. Greg ran there and reunited with his family, and the Warden watched contentedly, but realized she would have to leave if she wanted to avoid trouble. Upon finding her body where Akkey had left it in one of the lower cells, she awakened Greg to tell him she was leaving. The two shared a tearful goodbye and the Warden cut off the possession, regaining her body and tracking down Akkey, waiting for her to open the door. Akkey felt impressed to check on the body again and encountered the Warden trying to get out. She opened the door for the demon and the two talked for a bit, the Warden admitting her feelings and changed ways to a curious Akkey. She agreed to send the Warden outside the camp with a portal, but as she opened one, an earthquake caused her target to slip and they both fell into the water, emerging far beneath the dungeon and accidentally interrupting a blood oath between the goddess Frigga and the great wolf Fenrir, who had been chained under the Grounded Dungeon for millennia. Frigga attempted to forcefully remove their memories of the encounter, but they fought back, knowing that they had to warn the rebellion of the sudden threat and could not do so with no memories. Frigga succeeded with Akkey, but the Warden managed to escape the goddess long enough to escape back to the surface. By then, Ragnarok had started, and once Akkey had been roused, the two entered the battlefield. Nala immediately tracked down Stonegit’s mind, ensuring that he was safe, and began fighting furiously against the Valhallan army and Frigga’s puppets, protecting those who were wounded and taking down dragons wreaking havoc from above. She came across Vox, who was struggling under Frigga’s army of mannequins, and convinced him to let her possess him, and the two smoothly joined together, trying to fight their way out of the battle in order to tend to his grave wound. However, Nala caught wind of Treepelt’s cry of pain from the dungeon, and she and Vox raced to help her, escaping through the shaking dungeon to safety. One of the seven lesser goddesses known as Eirs aligned with Frigga, Lust, followed them into the dungeon and attacked them. The Warden possessed Treepelt at her urging, splitting her possession between the couple and fighting the Eir all at once. While fleeing, Tree fell over the edge and Vox tried to help, all with the mannequins drawing near. The Warden managed to kill the rest of the puppets and the Eir and helped Vox and Tree back to safety. She fought the rest of the battle doing a head count of the rebellion, frantically keeping track of everyone, but she couldn’t find Stonegit–until it was too late, or so it seemed. Nala approached Stonegit’s unconscious body, he having been knocked out by a tremor from the fighting gods, and saw Haddock with Orskaf’s corpse in the river, assuming he had died in helping Haddock. In a blinding rage, she drew her sword and struck Haddock in the back, unintentionally breaking his spine and paralyzing him. She felt tremendous guilt and sorrow for what she’d done, disappearing for the rest of the battle and only returning after a few days. During the part of the battle where she was absent, the dragon god Midgardsormr controlled the dragons and caused them to leave the rebels, leaving them without their mounts and their best friends. When Nala returned, Greg consoled her and the Warden agreed to deliver a public apology to the rebellion. Later that night, before the meeting, she wandered the battlefield and discovered the fallen remains of her sister. In grief, she called out to her mother, and the Empress immediately began to travel south with Nala’s brother, the Archon Kiaama, in order to exact revenge upon the Shaper’s killer. The next day, Nala confronted the rebellion and delivered her admission of guilt and apology, and while the king expressed outrage at her being there, the rest of the rebels, urged on by Vox’s story of her saving him and Treepelt, cautiously accepted her apology. The king took the Warden in to speak with her privately and admitted that he was actually somewhat grateful for the change in his life, confusing but comforting the Warden. He agreed to share a mental link with her in order for her to do her job as the protector of the rebellion. That night, the Empress and the Archon arrived, and in examining the Shaper’s remains, they found it was the Eir Pride that killed her. They found Pride on the battlefield and fought against her, but the goddess managed to kill the Archon before she died, leaving the Empress in a haze of grief to return back home while Nala stayed with the rebels. Some time after, tremors were felt under the dungeon, and the great wolf Fenrir began burrowing upwards through the dungeon. The Warden protected Akkey as she created an enormous portal to teleport the entire dungeon a few hundred miles north, away from the threat, and coincidentally much closer to Midgardsormr. The rebels decided to confront Midgardsormr and convince him to let their dragons go, and Nala accompanied them. He forced them to undergo a trial of their relationship with their dragons and each other. They succeeded, but at the cost of Greg’s life. Nala was crushed and furious with grief, but then Midgardsormr revealed that he had kept his soul when he died and returned it to his body. The rebels returned home with their dragons and grieved for the rebels lost over the course of the rebellion and Ragnarok, and then finally celebrated the union of Treepelt and Vox. After the rebellion, the Warden became a kind of family figure to the rebels’ children, and they had adventures of their own, including a betrayal of her own family member, the accidental creation of a cult surrounding Nala herself, becoming an archdemon, and birthing her own children. But…I’ve talked on and on and on about the initial story arc so I won’t go into those, haha. Good gods you’re a trooper if you just read through all that. That was way too much info.

Appearance: Oh geez…okay, here we go. Nala is incorporeal to start with. She has no physical form, only an astral one. She’s also an involuntary shape-shifter. In general, her incorporeal forms are tall, feminine, humanoid and graceful to a certain degree, but she changes form with whomever she possesses, taking some of their physical characteristics as her own. Ordinary mortals cannot see her in an ethereal state, but she can alter the minds of those she touches and project herself into their vision, like a forced hallucination. The picture I included is her demon-made body and it’s how I usually like to draw her, and it’s the body she spends the most time in. It’s ten feet tall and made of porcelain and preserved human remains. Her face is a solid mask with only her eyes showing through, and she has two long horns and two shorter spikes on either side of her face. Her hair is reminiscent of space, a kind of astral substance, and varies from deep scarlet to dark indigo depending on her mood. The rest of her body is a sort of simple white porcelain armor, with muscle showing in between the joints (if you know MtG, she’s based on the design of Elesh Norn). I was sort of lazy on the picture above, she actually has a bare ribcage that she keeps her dual swords collapsed inside. She also doesn’t usually have pupils or that shawl, this is her a few hundred years after the main RP story arc ends, but I really liked this picture, so… :P You can actually see all of her various forms here, on her wiki page, same warnings above apply there too. If you want haha.

Personality: Nalaagura is wrath incarnate. She began as the epitome of the demon stereotype. Existing only to cause harm and death (so she thought), she actively sought out lives to ruin and things to gain for herself. Having been born of pure wrath, it came natural to her to be destructive and chaotic. She had a very aloof, condescending attitude towards mortals, viewing them much as a human would view an annoying insect. Bizarrely charming at times, but better off crushed under her foot. If they fought back, she took fiendish delight in toying with them With the events of the rebellion though, it was revealed to the Warden that her purpose was not to cause pain. She was stunned and angry by the revelation that she was meant to care for the mortals rather than hurt them. She spent a good while trying to untangle her benevolent feelings from her malicious ones. She began to care for a few people here and there, becoming fiercely protective of them and more affectionate while retaining her short temper and extreme passion. Her alignment shifts from Chaotic Evil to Chaotic Neutral and her MBTI type is ESTP.

Favorite things: Nala enjoys sparring and fighting, both with her body and her mind; it gives her a buzz like no other to wreck her enemies. She also has a sharp, abrasive wit and loves to trade jabs both jokingly and menacingly. Possessing others always gives her a thrill, though she doesn’t do it as much as she used to, only when necessary and convenient, since she uses it as more of a way to be close with somebody emotionally and protect them instead of a way to control them. She likes celebrating and commemorating things like birthdays and anniversaries of both happy and sad occasions (not with parties though, that’s too much, no thanks). She loves her family and her close loved ones. The sky is her favorite thing to watch, whether in the day with the sun burning across the land or massive billowing clouds racing each other in a blue field or a raging thunderstorm shaking with lightning. And at night, she’s captivated by the stars. Least favorite things: Nala doesn’t like being out of control of the situation, or planning ahead of time. She doesn’t enjoy not being the most powerful thing in the area, it unsettles her a lot. Singing and dancing is dumb, don’t make her do that. Traveling for her is tenuous and boring unless it involves fighting mages or practicing magic or something similar.

Strengths: I mentioned above, but Nalaagura has the ability to possess anything with a brain, basically. She sticks to fast animals and humans because she’s impatient and efficient. She can control one person absolutely and firmly, and that is her anchor, and she can possess more people at a time, but the more she stretches her control, the less control she has over someone. She can interact and fight with with other astral forms and consciousnesses, and can alter people’s perception of reality, mostly in the form of sight and sound. Even among demons she is immensely strong, as her mother was created by the goddess Hel and holds a higher position in the demon hierarchy than most. She has fast instincts, exceptional strength and accuracy, and is able to project images, thoughts, feelings, and her own voice into other people’s minds. Weaknesses: Physical pain, it makes her lose focus and control over her vessel, affecting her more than it would a human. She also can’t interact with the physical world unless she has a body to channel her power into. Other than that, she doesn’t have many physical weaknesses. She has a very short fuse and an explosive rage, sometimes making terrible decision in the grips of her anger. Being a demon, these decisions can have much more disastrous consequences. And it isn’t very hard to inflame her.

Additional notes: Uhhh…the modern AU version of her is pretty sweet, she’s a hardcore criminal carjacker that likes messing with the local college students whose “family” is a syndicate of other lawbreakers. I love her. The blog I use to roleplay and post art relating to Nalaagura is @demon-in-the-dungeon, if you’re interested at all. She’s got a p cool playlist on there.

Fanart: I would absolutely ADORE fanart or her, in any of her forms. They range from furries to just regular woman with a few demonic features if that’s more your thing instead of faceless spooky demon bodies lol. Gosh I’m a mess. rip. I hope you liked <3

#original #murder #death #body horror #gore #submission #okay wow this explains why my phone crashed when i opened the inbox the other day #seriously though wowie #treepelt

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cwdcshows · 5 years ago

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Arrow - S8 E9 - Green Arrow and the Canaries

Here we go, the backdoor pilot for what I'm sure will be another stellar series in the DC/CWU; and it's a shot of someone on a motorcycle buzzing around the city. You can tell they must be in a hurry, because I'm pretty sure I just saw them pop a wheely. Oh, it's Laurel; I can tell by the way she fiercely turned from the bike to the camera like she just got off it. Sigh.... Naturally I'm trying to figure out if the scenes with Dinah and Laurel are set in the present or the future; because they sure as hell don't look to have been aged. The way Dinah keeps making pointed references to "2020" make it clear that it's not 2020 (although it does bring up an interesting point about when Crisis occurred, because that started at the end of 2019...)

....Sigh... So what, even though the Crisis was over and Dinah was shown to be an integrated part of the new Earth reality who J'Onn gave her whatever pre-crisis knowledge she needed; not only did she inexplicably wake-up in the future, but was also wiped from reality.... Fuck you writers. Just fuck you. You had a thousand different ways and opportunities to lay the groundwork for this; and you're just going to pull a dues ex machina out of your ass? I mean, it's typical, but still, fuck you. And I can tell already that it was probably Oliver, as the Spectre, who saved her and sent her to the future; probably to help his daughter. And that's fine. It's stupid, but it's fine. What makes even less sense is Dinah being wiped from reality post Crisis when they had her on the new Post-Crisis Earth; and now they're trying to shoe-horn this shit in. So is Laurel displaced in time too? I'm having difficulty telling, because the few times they showed her in the future they didn't seem to try and age her much, but at the same time I swear she's wearing a shit ton more make-up than I would normally expect. Sigh.... so Dinah's been displaced too, and has knowledge of the future of the future. Has no one involved with these shows figured out yet that they all suck at writing time travel stories? Do they lack any self-awareness? Obviously these are rhetorical questions; because just as obviously the answer to both is, yes. Give me a fucking break; Star City has been virtually crime free for the last 20 years? Just like that? Well, maybe what everybody said about Oliver being a magnet for some of the bad things that happened was true; because otherwise that's some grade A bullshit. This big ass fucking city, which presumably has only gotten bigger by some measure in the last 20 years, doesn't have the occasional murder or robbery? They're all happy, shiny people, who uphold the law out of deference to the man who sacrificed his life for the planet? Is Oliver Queen fucking Jesus now? Is that the big graduation Mia is celebrating, is she becoming the first Pope in the Church of the Green Arrow? Does the choir wear green leather and hoods? So basically the writers felt the need to toss the last year and a half of character development for Mia, in favor of her making her more like Oliver was before he became the Green Arrow. And because of the trailer for this episode, we know that Laurel is going to magically give Mia back her memories; which kind of makes this whole thing pointless. Okay, so that is JJ. Honestly, we saw adult JJ so infrequently, I wasn't entirely sure if that was him or not during the proposal scene. Although Mia's never going to look at you the way her dad looked at yours, dude. I'm going to guess though that he's going to die by the end of this episode; motivating Mia to become the Green Arrow - possibly traveling back in time, giving hopes that this future doesn't play out. Although the fact that they've established that there wasn't any crime in Star City for the last 20 years, maybe that part won't happen, but I maintain that it's a fucking stupid idea to set the proposed spin-off in 2040. We get it, they've changed the future; and now all the angry people who were fighting for control of the city in the previous timeline are now rich douche bags who.... control the city.... Oh come on. I get that it's 20 years later, but seriously, as famous as Oliver is in this future for being the Green fucking Arrow, how does Mia not at least know what Laurel looks like, even if Dinah inexplicably has been erased for their history? Commercial aside - based on the trailer for the Flash, it seems yet another character has been erased from existence, yet inexplicably preserved; and I'm going to stab in the dark and guess Cisco. I'm also further guess that he might opt to leave, either by the end of the episode or the season. A lot of the signs pointed this leading up to Crisis, what with Barry appointing Cisco their future leader, which obviously they weren't going to need when Barry invariably survived. And then they brought black-hole guy on, who was basically a new Cisco; and set it up that he would join the Star Labs crew. And since we don't need two Ciscos..... I originally interpreted this as an indication of Cisco dying during Crisis; which I still think would have been preferable to this speculated departure and erasure. But of course that would mean making bold decisions that have lasting consequences; and they couldn't possibly write off a recurring character in such a way as not to be able to bring them back later. Again, only speculation. I'm sure I'm completely wrong. Anyways.... Jon-Jons? Really? Sigh...... And seriously, he what, put a mind whammy in a ring and sent you off on a time traveling adventure? Using J'Onn as an explanation for giving characters back their Pre-Crisis knowledge was pretty sketchy when they kept it ambiguous during Crisis, but come on, this isn't just the highlights of knowing that there was a multiverse and then and then a Crisis and all the other bullshit; this is legitimately all of Mia's actual Pre-Crisis memories. How the fuck could J'Onn or anyone give her back those memories of her entire life? I mean, Vibe, maybe; that might actually make sense, but if he does turn out to be erased in the new timeline, I can see how they wouldn't want to use him for that during Crisis. (And on a side note, it just occurred to me how, the Monitor made this big deal about Vibe specifically being needed for Crisis and giving Cisco back his powers against his will; and then Vibe was barely in any of Crisis. What's up with that?) Okay, so it was Cisco. I guess that's what I get for jumping to conclusions; because it's not like this and the other shows would be stupid enough to just say that it was J'Onn. I won't however concede that Laurel mentioning Cisco contradict my above theory for the upcoming Flash episode, because Dinah was erased too and Laurel knows her.... The Time Bureau is going to come and stop them from changing time, right? No? Okay. So they're completely retconning Dinah into a completely different character. Whatever, it's not like they had any idea what to do with her for the last, what, 3 or 4 years now? Wait, let me guess, Mia's going to assume the Deathstroke wannabe is JJ, but it'll turn out to be someone else, maybe Connor; because "misdirection" - that and it's doubtful they would still have JJ end up going down that path. And whomever the actual Deathstroke turns out to be, they'll kill JJ or end up killing Zoe again; again, all to motivate Mia into becoming the Green Arrow. Are they going to address who Laurel is Post-Crisis? Because, out of the plethora of Canaries in the Arrowverse, she's the one who shouldn't exist. She wasn't at the dawn of time, she comes from an Earth that was destroyed and may or may have been merged with the Earth's history where Laurel died (we only know for sure that Supergirl's Earth 38 merged with Earth 1; and weren't given any indication that Earth-2 merged with it also). I hadn't really thought about it until either reading one or watching a Crisis review thing that brought it up; and it was suggested that this episode would address just who or what the fuck Post-Crisis Laurel was. But so far they haven't shown her to be anything more or less than what she was before Crisis. And seeing as how she has her Post-Crisis memories, they don't indicate if she's still coping with the loss of her Earth, if it came back or anything that doesn't have to fucking do with Mia. Augh, why is this episode only half over?? Seriously, he encrypted their honeymoon plans? It should have just been porn. Better yet, just a bunch of Diggle/Oliver fan-art. I mean, I get Mia being bitter about remembering all the bad stuff; especially remembering watching her dad die - but at the same time, she also remembers actually getting to fucking meet her dad, so that should probably count for something.... So, Dinah's experience as a police Captain in 2018/19 provides her with the necessary background to be tech savy in 2040? What the hell sort of advanced placement training did the SCPD give her? It's not even like she lived through the last 20 years to be able to grow with and adapt to any of the changes in technology; she just suddenly woke-up one morning and a) somehow managed to procure a bar with no social security number, not cash, no history of any kind; and b) was a full 20 years behind the times. There are older millennial who legitimately lived through the technological changes of the last 20 years, who in spite of being lumped into the artificial classification of people who are supposed tech savy, aren't actually all that adept at technology. I know a guy in his early 40s who doesn't know how to type on a computer keyboard; because he missed out on being young enough to have that transition as part of his education or home life by probably a couple of years. Can you imagine what sort of developments lie ahead 20 years from now? Whatever we guess, we'll probably be wrong. "Thank God for morons." The Arrow writers accidentally include what Greg Berlanti says every time the CW picks up another one of his superhero shows as a line of dialog... So Laurel notes that the building they're breaking into has meta-dampeners all over the place; and Dinah comments that means no Canary Cries - but isn't hers still synthetic? She lost her powers last season and was given a device to replace, right? Modeled after Laurel-1's? So has Crisis undone that and given Dinah her powers back? Which raises a question; why not carry one of those sonic necklace deals that Cisco made as a back-up when their powers are dampened? Hell, for that matter, seeing as how it modulated their own normal voice or something, just imagine what that thing could do with their meta-generated cry. Oh, cool, some guy we met like once and don't really care about is the real mastermind of this bullshit. Just to be clear, this Trevor guy is the first resident of Star City in 20 fucking years to decide to go off the deep end and do something seriously criminal? Really? Why? What could possibly set him off to run afoul of the memory of Saint Oliver? Don't forget the future newspaper Doc showed Marty... I mean Laurel showed Dinah, where Bianca's kidnapping and murder lead to Star City turning into the 9th circle of hell in one year's time. Wait, what? Exploding shrubbery? Oh, flammable shrubbery. Well, that's different.... Random thought, just how expensive must Mia's college education be in 2040? Laurel just mentioned Sara dropping her a bit of knowledge. I take it I glossed over her mentioning earlier Sara's role in helping Laurel do the one thing she and the other "legends" supposedly work to stop? "I can't believe it's been 20 years since he sacrificed himself to save the city." I believe the word you're looking for is world. Or more precisely, the fucking universe. But sure, make it all about Star City. Fucking William. William and Mia's body types are exactly nothing alike; how the fuck would anyone who might have seen her and reported the emergence of a new Green Arrow think they saw someone of William's build if they actually saw Mia? She's practically tiny enough to fit in William's pocket. So much for Mia remembering all that League of Assassins training she received in the previous timeline, for her to be tranq'd so easily... Augh...fuck you writers. So not only does Cisco somehow replicate J'Onn's inexplicable ability to restore Pre-Crisis memories and put it in a ring, that he gave to Laurel (for some reason - I guess because it was an elaborate plan to reawaken Mia?) another one of those rings made its way into someone else's hands, which they used to give JJ his Pre-Crisis memories back. Because whoever did that knows who he was Pre-Crisis. But it's not like JJ only has those memories; he still remembers the life that lead to him not leading the Deathstroke gang and just because he remembers the other life doesn't mean the Pre-Crisis version of him should override who he became Post-Crisis. But lets dig into the minutiae of this whole thing. Who would know who JJ Diggle was in an alternate timeline? How would that person learn of the magic memory ring? Why would Cisco have made two of them? Why did he even make one of them? How many people possibly even need to remember events of Pre-Crisis? Is security at Star Labs still that shitty in 20 years that people can still steal stuff from them?

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