#i could not. there was no payoff for this and i just abandoned this woman on the boardwalk for nothing | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

bettyfrommars · 1 year ago

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Death Becomes Us Part 4: I Love the Darkness in You

vampire!Eddie x supernatural!fem!Reader

Part 3 was a smut extra and you can find it here

Summary: Several new ST characters are introduced in this part, as you come to terms with the fact that you're living next to a cold-blooded killer. We learn more about what Eddie does for a living, and just when you think you're the loneliest person on earth---he comes to your rescue again. Word count: 5.7k

Series Masterlist

18+Only, Pls no minors, mature themes, there are some dark themes in this part (this whole series in general) including addiction, previously inflicted wounds, and mention of child neglect. Mention of a murder, grand theft auto, smoking, loneliness, please read warnings for each part.

A/N: For the sake of this series, all of the characters are the same as the show, but some have different backstories. The Upside Down is a place, but everyone exists as if the events of the show never happened. You do not have to be acquainted with True Blood to enjoy this, but those who are will notice some familiar terminology and situations pop up.

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Part 4: I Love the Darkness in You

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The next morning while you were at the kitchen window, watering the one house plant you had managed to keep alive while you lived in your hearse, the news on the TV mentioned something about the Klemp family. Needless to say, you almost broke your neck trying to dart across the dark orange carpet in your bare feet to turn the sound up.

The news anchor woman with a bob of dark hair looked into the camera as images of the three people in question appeared in the right-hand corner of the screen. “...the remains of Angela Klemp, along with her stepbrothers Doyle and Clyde, were found unresponsive at the bottom of Burns Ravine this morning. Police speculate that they were driving on Highway 96 near Dead Man’s Turn, when their vehicle lost control and went off the edge of the cliff: none of them survived. In other news, Police are asking questions about the…”

You backed up so far, you kicked the coffee table and spilled your cup of soda and ice, cursing as you did so. Sopping up the mess with a few paper towel before it could get on the carpet, your mind returned to the night before when you’d watched vampire Eddie end each one of their lives in a blink of an eye. A blink of an eye, a twist of the wrist; movements that seemed to take no more effort than for a regular human to dial numbers on a phone.

Eddie was a killer.

But then you remembered how vulnerable he’d been while at the mercy of nothing but thin, silver chains that pinned him to the ground and sapped his strength. Angie Klemp and her brothers had obviously been very skilled at trapping and draining vampires, but the risk was huge, and so the payoff must’ve been worth it. You had a flashback of the man you called father; the sound of rattling of pills in his desk drawer, and how he would stay up for days on end. And then there were the other pills in a locked cabinet in his bedroom for when he needed to sleep. He had his own laboratory in the basement and that is where you could find him if you ever really needed anything---but it had to be an emergency. You’d spent many a birthday and holiday alone in your room, reading your books, until your father finally rushed up the stairs, flustered, begging for your forgiveness, and ready to take you out for pizza or whatever; but by then, it was already too late.

He was always very sorry, and you always forgave him. It had just been you and him for as long as you could remember, and there were a few warm, happy memories that you clung to in those lonely days.

With the wad of wet paper towels in your fist, you found yourself staring over the back of your TV, through the far window, at the daytime silence of Eddie’s trailer. If not for the vehicles and motorcycles parked near some of the homes, you’d think that it was an abandoned lot; no sign of life anywhere. But, you could hear the soft lilt of a Neil Diamond song, letting you know that Dolores had her radio out on the porch while she got a suntan on her face with the aid of an aluminum shield braced under her chin.

You didn’t have to work that night, but you had a few things to cross off your list, so you jumped in the shower. This was your second shower since the run-in with the Klemp family the night before, and you were having hard time feeling clean enough. You wrapped a white terrycloth towel around you at the end, dripping onto the bile-green tile, continuing to forget you needed a bathmat, and tried not to slip as you dried off. When you were finished, you dropped the towel on the floor to soak up the water and put your foot up on the toilet to begin the standard ritual of tending to your scars with vitamin E.

You had arrived at a point in your life when you didn’t think about the fact that your body looked like it had once been cut into pieces as often, but in the bright, artificial light of the bathroom, the long scar that crisscrossed over your left knee and went all the way up your thigh to your hip bone, felt so hideous that you had to look away. Wishing the bottle of thick, sticky liquid in your hand was magic and would erase the marking on your flesh forever, you flipped the top and squirted some onto your finger, massaging it along the gnarled fissure with care. You’d been tending to them all this way for a few years, and you had only noticed a small difference, but at least it was something.

The last one you always took care of was the one on your cheek from the corner of your mouth to your ear, and as you were applying the ointment, there was a knock at your door.

You’d been so caught up in your thoughts that you jumped. You were naked, so you quickly snatched the towel off the floor and wrapped yourself in it.

“Who is it?” You called down the hall.

“Chief Hopper,” a deep voice returned. “I need to ask you a few questions.”

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Earlier that day, at the crack of dawn, Jim Hopper sat at the end of his bed, shirtless, in a pair of unbuttoned jeans, and rolled his neck from side to side. There were empty beer cans on the dresser, and a small glass vile of dark red liquid in the ashtray next to a smashed out butt with lipstick on it. He groaned as he stood, fastening his jeans, snatching his pack of cigarettes off the bedside table as he went.

A smoke and some coffee first, maybe some aspirin, and then a shower and shave. There was gray coming in his beard stubble now and he was reminding himself too much of his old man to just let it grow out, even though he knew a beard would help to disguise the double chin he had going on as he entered his 50’s.

“Age is just a number,” is something Joyce would say, and to that he would reply: “Yeah, well why do I feel so fucking old, then?”

Joyce Byers hadn’t aged in a decade; that’s the one gift vampirism bestowed upon its victims. Being immortal? Living forever? Jim couldn’t imagine a worse fate. If someone turned him against his will, he’d give himself over to the sun immediately.

Joyce had chosen the vampire life, though, and for that—a part of him would never be able to forgive her. Sure, their fling was long over, and she’d been with Bob for a while now, but goddamn—he used to be able to daydream about growing old with her later in life, and now he couldn’t even do that.

He cursed as something fell out of his pocket while he was searching for his lighter. It was another small glass vial full of dark liquid—but this one was almost empty---and he held his cigarette between his teeth as he bent to catch it before it rolled under the bed. Picking up the vial, he regarded it between thumb and forefinger so he could get a good look at how many drops were left.

God, he hated this about himself. He hated the way he measured the days of his week around how much he had left in the vials. Every morning, he promised himself that he’d quit, as soon as work wasn’t so stressful and he had some time to himself to stomach the withdrawals.

The kitchen was cold, and it sent a pang through his heart, making him wish there was someone there to make a pot of coffee and sit with him for a few minutes before he left for work. He’d give anything to hear bacon sizzling in the pan and smell fresh squeezed orange juice again while cartoons played on the television. Those days were so long gone, but he could feel both his wife and daughter there as if it were happening in that moment.

He felt the emotions rise in his throat and choke there, making him dig for the vial in his pocket. He knew there was another full one in the ashtray in his bedroom, but he had to make them both last until next week, and it already wasn’t looking good. He tore a tiny corner off of a paper towel, and then bent to unscrew the cap and tap two drops onto the paper, watching the dark red liquid bleed into the fibers. He then placed the square of paper on his tongue and let it dissolve with a hard swallow and some sink water to wash it down.

He squeezed his eyes closed, knowing that relief would be coming soon, if only for a few hours.

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The Chief?

You mouthed it to yourself, panic prickling your hair follicles.

“Um, just a second,” you gushed, scrambling to your bedroom to find something to throw on.

You couldn't help but think this had something to do with the Klemp family, and your mind raced to think of what you would say if he did ask. A pair of loose, worn jeans and a t-shirt were the first two things you grabbed, and you were halfway to the door when you realized that the shirt was inside-out and backwards with the tag sticking in your chin, but the Chief was already knocking again, and you decided to leave it.

Standing tall and broad on your porch, Chief Hopper was handsome and road-weary; brown hair slicked back with gray at the temples and a few strands of gray in his mustache. His posture was intimidating, but his eyes were sad. He took his hat off as you answered the door, brushed his hair back, and then settled it back in place at the crown. He looked like he hadn’t slept well in years.

He asked your name, and introduced himself properly with a firm handshake.

Dolores was standing a few yards away on the dead grass of your yard with her arms crossed, watching the interaction with a frown; probably wishing you’d invite her up on the porch so she could hear every word.

Hopper had a small notepad in his hand that he squinted at before lifting his gaze back to you. “Does the name Angie Klemp ring a bell to you?”

Your voice came out as a squeak, but then you cleared your throat. “Yeah, I just saw on the news that they were….that they didn’t…”

“But, you met her yesterday, correct? At the bar where you work?” He pretended to need to check his notes as if he wasn’t sure of the name. “At Main Vein?”

You hadn’t been the one who killed them, but still your nerves were twitching. “I waited on their table, yes,” you admitted, trying to act nonchalant by putting your hand in the front pocket of your jeans and bracing your forearm on the door frame. “But, what is there to investigate? I thought their truck went off the road?”

You knew maybe that last bit was too much, but the words slipped out before you could stop them.

“Well,” he let out a huff, flipping his notebook closed. “A witness said they saw them draining a vampire in your parking lot. Do you know anything about that?”

Your bottom teeth gnawed on your top lip thoughtfully, as if that was a scenario you would easily forget. “No, I’m sorry,” you blinked a few times, innocently. “They paid and left, but then I went back to work and I never saw them again.”

Hopper’s poker face was set. No one had confessed to seeing the Klemp’s try to drain a vampire in the Main Vein parking lot---but he knew that was a crime they were rumored to participate in. A vampire scorned easily had the strength to snap their necks and send their car off a cliff with its bare hands. Plus, Angie’s body had bite marks on her throat, and most of her blood had been drained. Sure, a fatal crash off a cliff could snap some necks, but how had her blood miraculously been drained to the bone without a drop of it anywhere at the crash?

“What about your neighbor?” Hopper lifted his chin in the direction of Eddie’s place. “He was there last night too, did you happen to see him interact with them at all?”

“No,” the answer was possibly a bit too quick, but you followed it with. “He was there, but he left before they did.”

You wondered how this line of questioning would go if Eddie’s blood hadn’t done the magic work of healing you so quickly. You’d have a rope burn around your neck, a black eye, a broken skull, and a few crushed internal organs.

He asked a few standard questions after that, like how long had you lived there, and a phone number to reach you if he had more questions. He took another long look at Eddie’s trailer before reaching in the front pocket of his shirt to pinch a cigarette out of the soft pack.

He slid the cigarette to the side of his mouth and snapped the pocket closed. “Okay if I ask a personal question?”

“Depends on what it is, I guess,” you answered, convinced he was about to bring up your scars, or perhaps ask if you knew your shirt was on inside out and backwards.

He inclined his head to the rest of the trailer park. “What the hell made a nice girl like you move to a place like this?”

You stepped back into the trailer, about to shut the door, but then you paused. “Maybe I’m not a nice girl, Chief Hopper.”

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Later that day, once you were back from running errands, you took out the stack of Polaroid’s you’d taken so far and spread them out on the walnut coffee table in front of the orange and brown wagon wheel sofa. There was Argyle giving the peace sign in one, offering a no-teeth smile with his eyes closed, the sleeping beige dog at Robin’s bookstore, a stone frog in front of a row of red tulips, an extreme closeup of Bob’s face when he tried to take a photo of himself, and a green Buick with the bumper sticker that said: “God Hates Fangs”.

You smiled to yourself as you looked at the others, lining them up in two rows, realizing it was time to put new film in. Your eyes stopped on the one at Robin’s bookstore, at the ass end and tail of the dog that slept on a large pillow behind the cash register. Was that the same dog who had come to your rescue in the alley way?

You’d gone by there again that day, because you liked bookstores, and found the smell of books comforting, but you were also starting to like Robin. Besides Bob, she had the friendliest face in town, and you felt oddly comforted in her presence.

She was up on a ladder when you walked into the store, putting some hardbacks away on a top shelf. She had on a thin white shirt with buttons all the way up to the neck, a long, fitted chocolate corduroy skirt passed her knees and slouchy leather boots that went up to mid-calf. Her glasses fell off her nose when she turned to look at who had just come in, but the beaded chain around her neck caught them as they flopped to her chest.

“It’s you,” she beamed, tucking hair behind each ear, descending the ladder. “I was hoping I’d see you again soon. I have something for you.”

“For me?” You couldn’t contain the shock in your voice. You’d barely just met her and you weren’t used to strangers being so generous and open-handed with you.

She stepped over the dog to get behind the cash register, and you bent down to get a better look at the dog’s face. Its eyes were closed, chin resting on its paw, but it was definitely the pit bull terrier that had rescued you the night before. You squatted down to pet the animals head.

“Have I introduced you to Lucy?” Robin asked, referring to the dog.

“I think we met by accident last night,” feeling the warm, velvet of her soft fur. “She came to my rescue, I guess you could say.”

You stood straight to find that Robin had been watching you pet Lucy, but then her gaze shifted away quickly.

“Lucy gets off her leash sometimes,” she told you. “But here, I found this tucked away in one of the used book boxes.”

You watched the long, graceful fingers of her hand, adorned in silver rings, slide a book across the top of the desk to you. It was the third installment of the series you’d been looking for. You picked it up and ran your thumb down the image of a woman in a hooded cloak on the front, flanked by two wolves.

You decided to browse around, and at one point, Robin came up next to you as she organized books on a shelf. “Did you hear about what happened to Angie Klemp and her bothers? The whole town’s been talking about it.”

You held your breath on an inhale for a beat and then, “Yeah, I heard about it on the news this morning. I just waited on their table last night and now this.”

Robin walked around to the other side of you, brushing into you a little with her arm as she went, her intense body heat blazing you like a flash of 90 degree heat. “I know you’re new here,” she began keeping her eyes to the books. “But I feel like I wouldn’t be a decent friend if I didn’t warn you to keep your distance from the vampires around here. I know a lot of them are nice, and are trying to do their best to integrate, but they’ll always be dangerous.”

You didn’t say anything in return, and so she continued. “I know I’m basically a stranger, and you have no reason to trust me, but I just want you to be safe.”

“Thank you,” you responded in a whisper. “I generally keep everyone at arms length be it vampire or human, so it shouldn’t be a problem.” You chuckled a bit self-consciously at the end, and Robin continued down the isle with her armful of books, wondering what she could say to make you stay and talk for a bit longer.

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Back in your trailer, with the Polaroids spread out in front of you while you put new film in your camera and watched an episode of Forensic Files, you hadn’t noticed the sun set until you heard the door to the trailer next door open and slam shut.

Vampire Eddie was up and about.

Not that you cared.

But you stood up and moved like you were going to the kitchen to see if you could get a glimpse of him anyway.

Of course, he was looking up at your window as he took a pull on his cigarette, and your eyes met. He bucked his chin at you, grinning, knowing that you’d probably had a dream about him already, and he wondered if you’d enjoyed it.

You went to the kitchen to slap together some cheese and crackers because you didn’t have much food in the house, but then you realized you probably should let Eddie know that the police had come around asking questions so that he wasn’t caught off guard. You went out on the porch, but didn’t see him anywhere. Had he gone back inside? He’d just been standing there 3 seconds ago.

“Eddie?” It was barely a whisper, a sigh on a stolen breath.

In a flash, he appeared; standing below your raised porch balcony, tilting his head back to look up at you, hands in his pockets. “Yes, madame? You called?”

“How did you---oh, never mind,” you shook your head. “Do you want to come up?”

He squeezed one eye closed, tilting his head. “Are you inviting me in?”

“No,” you clarified quickly. “I’m inviting you up, to this porch, so that I don’t have to shout at you for the whole trailer court to hear.”

He made his way up the steps like a normal human would, sauntering over to perch his elbow on the railing. You weren’t afraid of him, not like most humans were, and it made him feel like he could relax around you in a way he hadn’t felt in a decade. Like the two of you were just a couple of humans neighbors, having a chat about the weather.

“Chief Hopper came by to ask me some questions earlier,” you rested your back on the side of the trailer, across from him.

Eddie rolled his shoulders under his leather jacket. “Yeah, I figured he might. What did you tell him?”

“I told him…” you were whispering and glancing from side to side to make sure no one was around. “...the truth. That I was their server, but then I never saw them again that night.”

“Good girl,” Eddie praised, pulling the pack of cigarettes out from inside his leather jacket. He tapped it on the palm of his hand. “I told you not to worry about it.”

You licked your teeth. “Well, I’m not worrying because I have no idea what they did after they left the bar.”

“Damn,” he smiled around his cigarette. “You catch on quick, and I didn’t even have to Glamour you.”

Your forehead pinched. “Glamour me?” You asked, not understanding the phrase.

“Yeah,” he flicked his fancy silver lighter and ignited the tip. “Haven’t you heard of it? It’s a vampire thing. We can wipe out a part of a human memory to make them forget things.”

You considered that, wondering if you’d been Glamoured already and just didn’t know it.

He lowered his chin and looked up at you from under hooded eyes. “Do you want me to Glamour some parts of that night away from you?”

“How do you do it?” You didn’t want him to do it to you, but you were curious.

“Like this,” in a millisecond, he had bridged the distance and was inches from you; full, soft lips parted, golden-flecked brown eyes landing with purpose onto yours. You took in the lines of his face, his long lashes, the slope of his nose, the smell of nicotine and cinnamon on his breath. Without blinking, he seemed to be trying to stare into your soul, but then he clenched his forehead after a few seconds, confused.

He took a step back. “That’s weird,” he mumbled.

“What’s weird?” You blinked a few times. “Did you do it?”

He dropped back against the railing, frowning at you. “I couldn’t Glamour you for some reason. It usually always works with humans.”

You turned your head away at his words, wishing you could just be normal for once, and to your surprise, he let the topic go and didn’t ask any questions.

“I gotta jet,” he said, clearing his throat and flicking his smoke. “Duty calls.”

He was trotting down the steps, wallet chain jangling at his hip, when you called out to him. “Duty? What duty? What is it you do, anyway?”

He lifted his arm in a backwards wave, and that was when you noticed a different car parked at his trailer. It was dark red, and you couldn’t see exactly which make it was...an Audi, maybe? He got in behind the wheel, and after a few minutes of him bent over the column of the wheel, the engine sparked to life, and he sped off, kicking up a dust cloud behind him. You also notice that there were no identifying plates on the vehicle.

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With his cig held between his lips, Eddie hot-wired the car that was very much stolen and on it’s way to the chop shop, and then he sat up and adjusted the rear view mirror so that he could get a look back at you standing on the porch.

He couldn’t figure you out.

He was starting to resent the fact that you were neighbors now because it seemed he’d never be free of the curiosity hold you had on him. He didn’t know a single human who would’ve risked their life trying to rescue him like you had. Partially because everyone assumed vampires could always take care of themselves, and also, Eddie had pushed everyone away who ever tried to stay close to him. Especially since he was turned.

The people he cared about were better off without him in their life.

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A few days went by of you adjusting to your new place, your new job, and figuring out where everything was in town, but you didn’t see hide nor hair of Eddie. You figured he was waking up when you were going to sleep, and back in his trailer before you got out of bed, but one night you noticed he never came home at all. You visited with Robin again at Nightshade Bookstore and on your way to grab something from your vehicle before you went into work, there was a guy cupping his hands to look into the windows, inspecting it.

“Can I help you?” You asked from the sidewalk.

He was tall with broad, with muscular shoulders and arms; white tee under his black and red flannel just a tad too tight so that you could see the outline of his pecs. Worn jeans, work boots, and a thick head of caramel brown hair, and it was slicked back, just long enough to tuck behind his ears.

“Sorry,” his generous mouth spread in a smile as he came around the front toward you. “Is this yours?” He gestured at the hearse.

You nodded without saying anything, waiting for him to explain what he was doing.

“’79 Cadillac, yeah?” He asked it like he was familiar with cars, but you had to correct him.

“76.”

He had a disarming way about him and you started to relax as he backed up to look at the front grille. “My grandpa loved Caddy’s,” he mused aloud. “And I’ve never seen a hearse up close before.”

“You’ve never been to a funeral?”

He turned his head and looked you up and down, dark lashes rimming cherrywood eyes. “Sweetheart, surely you know that not everyone gets buried the same way when they die,” he dislodged the piece of gum that was in his cheek and began to chew it again. “We deal with death a bit differently where I’m from.”

You took the bait. “Yeah, where are you from?”

That was when he turned with his hands on his hips, inclining his head up the street, in the direction of the mountains. “My family are all up in the hills. Private people, we stick to our own. Names Steve,” he winked at you. “Steve Harrington.”

You told him your name, and there was a polite exchange before you you moved to unlock your door and he headed down the side walk in the opposite direction. You both turned back to peak over your shoulders at each other at the same time, just before Steve disappeared into the bookstore.

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That night at Main Vein, a family of four tourists came in with hopes of seeing a vampire, but Argyle was the only one in the building, so Bob begged him to show his fangs and take a picture with them. You took the photo while Erica shook her head in the background.

Erica mentioned being frustrated that she couldn’t meet up with her friends at the movie theater, and since it wasn’t busy, you offered to finish up and take her tables.

“You’d do that for me?” She asked with a squint, waiting for you to have some reciprocity in mind.

“Of course,” you shrugged your shoulders. “I don’t have a life, remember?”

“Well, I’ll try not to make fun of you for it next time,” she reached around to untie her apron and gave you the glimmer of a smile.

Things got so quiet after midnight that Bob gave you and Argyle the okay to close up early.

“Where are you off to tonight?” You asked as you wiped down tables. “Hot date?”

Argyle always looked stylish, but he was particularly flawless that night.

“Nah,” he pulled a joint out of his front pocket and stuffed it behind his ear. “My buddy Jonathan is in town. We’re gonna get blitzed and watch Mystery Science Theater.”

“Is Jonathan a---”

“Vampire?” Argyle finished. “No way. He’d make a good one though. He loves the hours we keep.”

“Let me know if this is too personal,” you went over to the bar where his was. “But how did you become a vampire in the first place?”

As far as you knew, there were only two ways people turned: either they were forced via some brutal attack, or they chose it willingly; there really wasn’t any in between. You didn’t just accidentally wake up a vampire one day.

He folded his cash tips from the night and shoved them in the back pocket of his jeans. “The how and the why are the same, I guess,” he admitted. “And neither one of them matter anymore,” he added on a sigh. “But, why does a fool do anything? I did it for love.”

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Argyle walked you to your car, but you waved him off a bit too soon, because by the time he was already in his orange VW Beetle and buzzing down the street, you realized with a burst of panic that you’d locked your keys inside the hearse when you went out on your break earlier.

“Shit,” you cursed, dropping your head, hands balling into frustrated fists, trying to decide what your options were as you stood alone on the shadowy side of the already dark street. Just a half a block down the sidewalk is where you were attacked by the Klemp family, and it made your hand move reflexively to your throat at the visceral memory.

Argyle had the keys to Main Vein, so you couldn’t use the phone in there. Even if you could, who would you call? The fact that you couldn’t think of a single person you could count on at the drop of a hat made the bell of loneliness ring louder than ever before in your ears.

You stepped back to get an idea of the street, and see if maybe there was something you could break a window with. You’d didn’t have the money to get your window fixed, but you’d seen people who drove around with a piece of cardboard sealed with duct tape to make up for broken glass, and maybe that’s the type of person you’d need to be for a while.

You had no idea where the nearest payphone was, and you weren’t about to start knocking on doors to ask a vampire if you could use their landline. Reluctantly, you started looking for a rock or brick heavy enough to bust the back window out. You were just about to bend over and grab a piece of metal pipe near the parking lot when the sound of approaching music made you freeze.

The sound had a dark, heavy beat, and it was getting closer. Pretty soon, you watched a black Pontiac GTO muscle car swing around the block at high speed and than jerk to a stop in front of you; big engine purring, windows open, music blaring.

It was Eddie.

“Need a ride?” He called out to you.

You looked down at the pipe you were about to grab. “How did you know I locked my keys in my hearse?”

“I didn’t,” he said, turning the music down, leaning over to make eye contact with you through the passenger window. “I just felt the bat signal. I could tell you needed help.”

Well, okay, I guess this ingesting Eddie’s blood thing had some benefits.

“Get in,” he told you, stretching over to unlock the door. “I’ll take you home. I know a guy who can get your keys out tomorrow.”

Eddie had the tools and the skill to get your door unlocked for you in that moment, and it would only take him a couple seconds, but you didn’t know that about him yet, and he’d decided that he wanted some company that evening.

From the looks of it, he was a lunatic behind the wheel, and you had no idea where he was getting these cars from, and for what---but you really didn’t have any other decent options.

You slid into the soft leather seat next to him, and you felt like you were in an episode of Night Rider. The inside smelled like strawberry air freshener, nicotine, and the pleasant spicy whiff of Eddie’s cologne. His hand was cupped over the gear shift, metal rings gleaming, and some type of skull design on the back of his hand.

“I was just on my way to do this one work thing, but then I’ll take you right home after,” he had waited to tell you this until the car was in motion, tearing onto the main street. “It’s on the way.”

You clutched your bag to your lap. “A work thing?”

“You’ll see,” he assured you. “Have you ever heard of Sacrament? It’s a real vampire bar.”

“No,” you swallowed, watching the scenery whiz by, thinking that a broken car window really wouldn’t have been so bad. “But why do I have a feeling that’s about to change?”

“Yes, Princess,” he took his eyes off the road for what you considered to be way too long to look over at you. “That’s all about to change. Some of the vampires at this place are old fuckers. Been around forever.”

He turned the music back up a bit, brought his hand down to shift, and then turned the music back down again.

“Hey, but no one will fuck with you, okay? I promise,” he kept his eyes on the road this time. “You’re with me tonight.”

Part 5

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Thank you so much for reading!

#eddiemunsonseries #eddiemunsonfic #vampire eddie au #vampire!eddie #vampires #stranger things au #eddiemunsonsmut #steve harrington #Spotify

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the-peak-tmnt · 3 months ago

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Hi Peak!! How are you? I hope you're fine!

I've read the last Reciprocity chapter right when you dropped it, but just now I managed to find the words to talk about it in a way that isn't joking! (I was the person who said smth along the lines of "amazing chapter! i will never be happy again!") Anyway I wanted to talk about the fic in general first; it's simply genius the way you wrote and planned the whole thing. The way you introduce the way this world is different from the world we knew in the movie, and now the series, is so masterful that it feels like Raph is taking the reader by the hand and gently, as gently as he can, guiding them through everything that happened like the reader is an old friend that came back from a long long trip and lost alot of things; at the same time that every new information we learn about the accident, about Raph's injurie, about what happened to Leo and the whole fallout with Splinter feels like THE punch in the middle of your face. Maybe it's just me, but at times the prose is so immersive that it makes me feel like I'm a friend that abandoned Raph in the when he needed most, hence the whole punch in the face feeling. I think that's the reason why the softer moments (like the Casey moments or when the brothers reach out to eachother) hit even harder, it's like seeing a friend who's struggling start to get better and find their footing with life again. Just like that's why the angst moments hurt so much. It's a cicle that gives the fic a whole new level of heart and spirit that's simply impressive beyond belief. ITS SO GOOD IT MAKES ME ILL ! Now, about that last chapter [cries]. When I read chap 18 I thought something along the lines of "Ok, we got the accident and we got the injury, but the flashback isn't over. What else could possibly happen?" AND OH BOY I WAS IN FOR A TREAT. And a threat. Maybe it's because I'm dumb but, even after seeing what the principle trigger warning was, it took half of the chapter for me to finally realize what was going to happen and I had to pace through my house like a mad woman just to keep reading. It's a masterpiece in how to write suspense, I STILL DIDN'T STOP THINKING ABOUT THAT ONE LAST SCENE! it's too sad! it's too good!

I hope this whole rant was, at least, understandable. I'm really happy I read Reciprocity and I'm really really reaaaally happy that you wrote it! Thank you so much for it!

Please excuse me while I go cry forever.

This was such a wonderful thing to get in my inbox, oh my gosh. I read this like ten times before trying to come up with a response.

When I started writing Reciprocity, I wasn't sure how readers would feel about the fic starting in the middle of the plot and having to wait for backstory to be gradually revealed. I didn't know if I'd be able to keep anyone's attention long enough with the suspense for the payoff of the eventual reveals...

But I just felt like this was the right way to tell the story, y'know? Raph is lost and confused and missing things in more ways than one, so it felt right that the reader should be a little lost, too.

The incredible way you just described the experience of reading and discovering pieces of the past makes my heart want to explode, and also makes me so glad I stuck with this style of storytelling!

I’ll admit that writing the story this way is more challenging than I was expecting, but it's SO rewarding to watch readers put things together and react to the big reveals! I love seeing people's theories, even if it pushes the limits of my self restraint every time someone is getting close to the truth! I wanna tell people when they're right, but I also don't want to ruin the suspense and buildup!!!

It’s overwhelmingly rewarding to hear that the story feels so immersive, and that the prose makes you feel so deeply for Raph. Because as much as this story is about unraveling the mystery of what’s happening with Leo, it’s even more so about Raph’s own journey of self discovery, forgiveness, and growth. It makes me so unbelievably happy that you feel like you’re not just an observer, but that you’re on this journey with Raph.

Comments like this just mean the world to me, so thank you so much!!!

#reciprocity fic #reciprocity au #reciprocity tmnt #reciprocity asks #tmnt fanfiction #tmnt fanfic #tmnt fic #mutant mayhem #tottmnt #tmnt mutant mayhem

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mamamittens · 1 month ago

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Hi! For the spooktober event; My OC Rena (intersex woman femme), goes with Massacre Soldier Killer (Serial Killer). Rena typically wears femme punk attire. She has fluffy short black hair with a permanent cowlick over her messy bangs and gold eyes, and a 'crooked' smile. There is a leftover bucket with dark and white chocolate. Rena gets a pink schnapps, and killer buys her a Black Jack and Sangrita. She shares her pink schnapps with him later and gets him a Hot Damn, Brain Damage, and Pineapple Upside Cake. They share a Gladiator.

Cut to the Chase (+18)

This ask is part of the Spooktober 2024 Event, for context!

Summary:

Rena always loved the quiet isolation of abandoned buildings. Her explorations cut woefully short when bodies start piling up in her city at the behest of her good friend, and gentle giant, Killer. But she… just can’t help herself to a little bit of mischief. So she plans one last exploration in secret, promising to knock it off until the killer is caught after this. And at first, everything is going great! The abandoned luxury apartment building as spooky and dreary as she expected it to be! But she’s not as alone as she first thought, and soon it’s a chase through a maze of identical, decaying rooms and amenities. Her life on the line as she seeks to make it out alive.

Soon, she finds something inside her awakening as the shadows stalk her with shocking intent. Will she succumb to the killer’s knife, or find a more rewarding payoff for her poor decisions?

(Serial killer!Killer/Rena(OC))

Warnings: Semi-public sex (abandoned building), rough sex, oral, dubious consent, serial killer SO, implied bargaining with sex (it's now low-key a murder kink ig??? But he's only mostly playing with her about it), threats, blood kink/play, and use of a knife during sex.

Word Count: 5,950

“—Police advise all residents in the city remain indoors after eight PM and in populated areas. They further advise that no one travels into the downtown area after that point where several abandoned buildings reside—several of which have been the crime scene of this gruesome serial killer, The Midnight Stalker.” The news reporter informed Rena in an empathetic but serious tone. Imploring all viewers to remember the crucial advice they were being given.

Rena huffed, groaning as she collapsed against her best friend, Killer—yes, really, his parents were… well, not legally parents anymore for a reason.

Killer was fucking built. An avid supporter of anger management through physical exercise and it showed. Biceps thicker than most part trees Rena had seen in her lifetime, few tended to get close to the blond man. But he wasn’t nearly as scary as he appeared, or his frequent stress relief implied. Killer, contrary to his name, was a quiet, somber sort of person. Quite shy, in fact.

Soft blond hair brushing down his shoulders with fluffy bangs covering his eyes. Lips constantly kept in a gentle frown because of how much he hated his smile and laugh. Despite this, Rena enjoyed making him happy. Seeing that rare quirk of his lips a victory in it’s own right. Anytime they were in public, it never happened though, which is why they usually watched tv together. She would hate for him to be uncomfortable because she happened to quip when he wasn’t expecting it.

One day, he’d smile wide with all teeth, just for her. Not even thinking about how much he hates it—just enjoying the moment.

Killer flicked her ear and she yelped, jumping. Turning to look at him sharply, black hair covering her eyes for a moment until she brushed it away to glare at him.

Despite his eyes being obscured, she could feel him staring. Blue meeting gold in an intense, silent communication.

“No.” Killer huffed and she jerked back.

“I wasn’t going to go out!” Rena denied hotly, face flush as she looked away with a pout.

“It’s too dangerous right now. Just… until they catch him, please stay at home after dark. Promise me.” Killer asked softly, his voice unusually tense. Rena glanced at him, running a hand through her hair and toying with her stubborn cowlick. It bounced back into a half curl the moment she let go.

“… Fine! Only because you asked!” Rena huffed, watching him relax as much as he was able to. Tense muscles softening, his head falling back as he sighed, his entire chest shifting with relief.

Seeing him so relieved at her promise made Rena feel… like an asshole.

Because Rena, contrary to her promise, absolutely intended to go out tonight.

And not to any club, either.

No.

In downtown, there was an abandoned luxury apartment building she’d been dying to get a look around. A far cry from her shitty apartment. She wanted to see how good she could have it—so sue her! Killer teased her about watching those renovation shows all the time. It was a coincidence that her hobby of urban exploration happened to take her to somewhere she could never live in a million years. Rena heard that the planned prices for those apartments were in the thousands!

So hell yeah, she wanted to see!

And unfortunately, Killer rarely joined her expeditions. Being too busy during the day to spend all night in some dusty, ruined building complex. Otherwise she would ask him. But it was already getting harder to coordinate movie night with his busy schedule.

So Rena would take this one to the chest—both for her own satisfaction and to have one last hurrah before actually following that promise.

Which lead her to here.

In the most abandoned section of downtown. Where the pavement was cracked along ever block and most of the street lights didn’t work anymore. Some flickering manically in a dying strobe effect until they eventually popped. Not even the homeless that usually lingered in the area were out. All hiding away from the serial killer that stalked the city for the past four months. Every week a body or three were reported. A truly staggering amount of people going missing and being found in pieces. Having clearly struggled, some dragging their bodies several feet until they were finished off.

The details were gruesome, and likely would fuel many podcasts for a very long time.

But Rena wasn’t worried too much.

The apartment complex was locked up tight.

It was only a contact that managed to find an in and let the urban exploration community know with heavy precaution. There may not be guards, the land itself in real estate limbo and likely to be torn down soon, but the half-finished nature promised structural issues at the very least. The upper floors visibly deteriorated from months of rain water seeping in through broken tiles.

Rena dressed comfortably, black cargo pants secured with a belt to keep the heavy pockets from ruining her dignity. Black, ripped sweater keeping the worst of the chill out as her leather gloves creaked. Hood up and a ventilation mask to keep her safe from any pollutants within the building, she creeped around dirty alleyways. Climbing over and through fencing until she reached the back half of the apartment complex.

No less than three fences keeping intruders out, Rena found her contact was correct. The gate appeared to be locked with a heavy chain and padlock, but the lock itself fell open with a light tug. The second fence had a section of wire clipped for a flimsy door. And the third? Unfinished itself with a section almost twenty feet away from the previous entrance.

It was a bit of a bitch to get through, but Rena was pleased when she found herself in the center of a dead garden. Dirt bags piled against raised beds of bricks and concrete. A massive, dry fountain cracked with an angel meant to pour water down several raised platforms. Her face serene but busted like a brick had nailed the upper half of her head. Dead shrubs shriveled in decorative walls up to her hips and ornate concrete benches lining the central pavilion. Scaffolding of what would have been hanging floral gardens left bare and, in some cases, collapsed.

But this was just one recreation area.

Of many.

Just how many, Rena was unsure. The project was kept pretty secret, likely only divulged to those belonging to several tax brackets above herself. But she knew there was an outdoor pool in the center of the building and an indoor one inside the gym. Assuming either finished before the owners were arrested for embezzling elsewhere.

Evidence of other explorers were rare. Not even a lot of tags littered the outer and inner walls of the building as she entered through an unlocked service door. She pulled out her flash light and clicked it on, sweeping the clear beam of light across the area.

The first floor was mainly lobby and reception. Some staffing areas like breakrooms, coat closets, and offices. No furniture, of course, just empty desks built into the space and counters. There was even a bare kitchen, purpose only clear by the broken tile flooring and deliberately built in gas pipes with a heavy door for a walk in freezer.

It was all so… off putting. Seeing a building so close to being ready for its purpose but stopped just short. The air smelled musty, even through her mask, and a thick layer of dust settled onto every surface and piled into corners. Some water stains littered parts of the ceiling and bare walls, indicating how far down the damage had come over the years. There was some carpet but it was molding and ripped in places, perhaps by a stray dog.

With no power, Rena was forced to use the stairs but didn’t find that particularly surprising. It happened often on her little misadventures, after all.

The stairwell was particularly derelict. Just gray concrete and darkness leading up and down. A window on every floor the only source of light, slipping through chewed up corners of plywood someone had placed over them a while ago. Dubious puddles littered the floor and stairs as she carefully made her way up a floor, certain this was for staff use rather than residents since, frankly, it looked like shit even unfinished. Luckily, no floor seemed to be locked from access inside the stairwell.

Rena removed a wedge from her pocket and propped the door open just in case it locked behind her.

The second floor was apparently dedicated to amenities. A section of bare rooms, some with prop spa equipment—perhaps for investor photo shoots as proof of concept. There was a shower section, with cozy, private shower rooms with their own electronic locks and numbers on them connected to what would have obviously been the gym. A single rack of dumbbells in the far corner abandoned, bizarrely enough, next to a wall of mirrors. The other far end of the room windows overlooking the pool.

The gym was large, taking up half of the floor plan, revealing the inner shape of the sky well to be a massive diamond. It was dark, naturally, her flashlight only revealing pieces of the pool area littered with debris. Mostly trash, as no trees could dump leaves in the deep end. If she wasn’t so interested in the actual apartments, Rena would have headed down there. But by all appearances, there wasn’t actually anything on the pool pad.

Huffing, Rena jogged back to the open stairwell and paused.

She’d left it wide open.

And it still was… but she could have sworn she propped it open at a wider angle. Not quite to the wall but a few inches away. Now it was open about two thirds of the way. Subtle but… not the same.

She glanced down at the dusty white floor and frowned, noting the scuffs in the dust indicating the wedge had been kicked into place. She tended to set the wedge down and force the door over the wedge enough to keep it in place herself.

A little unnerved, Rena removed the wedge and continued up to the next floor.

It was locked.

Huffing, she went up another floor.

Also locked.

There were twenty-eight floors and Rena had to go up to the twenty-fifth floor to find an unlocked door. It opened up to a hallway, a utility closet left open with wires hanging out of the access point in the ceiling. The hallway was bare, half painted and clearly about where they stopped during construction. Cans of dry paint left out beside an apartment door. Luckily, it was unlocked.

Now, the apartment building was built in a sort of oval shape. With an inner sky well of a diamond shape. Four sections, each with a pair of elevators and two stairways each—one for staff and one a fire exit. This section apparently overlooked the garden she’d come in through, her height revealing it was bordered by a miniature playground and a dry pond. Her view point a massive, window in the living room, white carpet still rolled up against the wall for installation.

The apartment was, naturally, massive. Clearly on the higher end of the building’s price range. Every room spacious with vaulted ceilings. Cabinets made of what appeared to be dark marble and intended to be highlighted with recessed lights. The bathrooms made her want to cry they were so nice. Polished porcelain and glass shower walls with the fanciest set up she’d ever fucking seen. The kind that needs a manual to operate for a few weeks and likely worked as a sauna judging by the crisp seal along the edges.

A total of three bedrooms and two baths, a laundry closet, a walk-in closet connected to the master bath, two regular but still larger than her closet-closets, kitchen, and balcony.

Weirdly, despite the state of the building, there wasn’t any trash or signs of life on this floor. It was the only one unlocked so far, and she’d seen a few tags in the lobby. So she wasn’t sure why there wasn’t any in here. Confused, she left the apartment and ventured further down the hallway. The doors were all locked. Still it didn’t baffle her as much, seeing as the paint cans were nearby the other one.

Why any were locked at this stage in construction was odd in itself though.

Circling around the building and returning to her wedged door, she froze.

It was open only a few inches, wedge leaving a small gap.

Rena swallowed hard, shivering suddenly in the stale air.

Quietly, she resolved to see if the upper floors were also locked and then quickly leaving before she found whoever was fucking with her wedge.

If she’d been able to see more than one apartment, she would have left that instant.

But she was breaking a promise so she was damned if she didn’t make it worth the betrayal.

Quietly, she retreated up the stairway to the next floor.

Locked.

Twenty-seven?

Locked.

Twenty—

Click.

Rena froze, eyes wide as she barely opened the door to the top floor.

It came from below her.

An access door clicking shut and echoing up the stairwell.

Heavy boots following up with deliberate slowness.

Heart racing, Rena made a gamble and slipped in, letting the door softly click behind her. Certain the other person heard, Rena raced down the hallway, circling the building, looking for a second stairway.

She found it next to the elevator, gold doors water stained and the stairwell door broken. Bent out of shape by the handle like a horse had tried to kick it in. Utterly jammed and not going anywhere.

…click.

Rena jumped, head snapping to look down the hallway. Heavy boots echoing on broken tile floors.

Desperately, Rena looked around, noticing the doorway to the next section was blocked by supplies. No way to quietly get through without alerting her stalker unless she grew several feet or risked leaping over.

Stalker.

Midnight Stalker.

Rena narrowly avoided gasping for air as she realized what was happening.

Gorey details of previous victims flooding her mind.

Grown men ripped open with their organs strewn out, each one stomped to on until the victim died. Women with their chests shredded, brutally cut into from the feet up. Faces mutilated. Tongues ripped out. Eyes stabbed clean through.

Her eyes met the door facing the elevator.

It was an apartment door.

Just barely open and clearly unlocked.

Aware she had a few moments left until she was seen, Rena slipped into the apartment and painstakingly locked the door as quietly as she could. Only with the doorknob though, the bolt still uninstalled and sitting on the floor. Carefully, she crept past the kitchen still being built, cabinetry bare bones along the wall and silhouetting the beginning of an island. The living room was massive but empty save the balcony window.

Guest bathroom? Completely empty.

Guest bedrooms? Also empty.

Rena didn’t bother checking the closets, realizing the floorplan was almost identical to the one below but simply bigger.

The master bedroom, however, was set up for a photoshoot. Airy, dusty bedding stained with mildew over a California king mattress. Dark wood for the bedroom suite furniture. Eyeing the wardrobe and the bed, Rena was forced to make a decision as the front door was kicked in.

BAM!

Rena turned off her flashlight and then she dove under the bed, dirty carpet unpleasantly gritty beneath her as she hid to the best of her ability. Holding her breath as the darkness pressed in all around her.

She could hear them walking through the apartment. Gritty glass and tile cracking beneath their boots as they confidently stalked around. Doors slamming open as they went.

Rena felt a cold chill drop down her spine as she realized she left the master bedroom door open. Hearing the stalker get closer.

Thump-thump.

And closer.

Thump-thump.

And then—

Thump.

They were standing at the foot of the bed. Rena barely able to hear steady breaths above her through the thin, showroom bedding that hung low to the floor.

Thump-thump.

Click—thump.

Click.

Thump-thump.

Creeeeeeak.

…

Rena held her breath as the stalker inspected one of the joined rooms. The closet or the bathroom, she wasn’t sure.

SLAM!

Rena jumped, nearly screaming but managing to silence her alarm.

She heard them leave, faster this time.

Thump-thump-thump-thump… thump—thump.

Click.

It was hard to hear the sound, her ears straining to register the noise.

She assumed it was the front door but couldn’t confirm with bootsteps in the hallway since the walls weren’t shitty thin like her own apartment.

Rena waited, counting down from one hundred.

She waited a little longer.

And then she slipped out from under the bed. Walking silently, arms outstretched as she sought the door, flashlight in one hand.

To her surprise, the door to the hallway was closed.

Carefully, she clicked on her flashlight and checked to make sure she hadn’t been turned around.

She stared at the light switch beside the door and cautiously opened it.

It was the bathroom door.

“O-Oh—ahah!” Rena laughed softly to herself, shaking her head. “I’m an idiot--!”

Rena turned around, beam of light sweeping across the room towards the far corner where a massive figure stood, knife catching the light in their hand. Screaming, she ran, this time correctly identifying the door out.

But she was too late.

A thick, bulging arm of steel wrapped around her throat, choking her with the crook of his elbow. Fabric bunched up around her chin as she gasped, dropping her flashlight, sending a beam of light spinning around the room. Knife stabbing into the door above her head, sinking deep into the wood. Arm lifting her up high against their chest as she frantically kicked and scratched.

A deep, growling voice hissed into her ear.

“You. Promised!”

Rena froze, breath wheezing from her lungs as recognition trickled in.

The voice was muffled beneath a mask, but undeniably familiar.

“K-Killer?” Rena wheezed softly, almost pleadingly.

“I told you to stay home.” He hissed furiously, squeezing her tighter as she flailed uselessly. “Told you it wasn’t safe—why do you never listen to me when it matters, Rena?” he asked, voice deep and harsh, more furious than she’d ever heard him before.

She pat his arm fretfully, barely able to gasp for air, let alone beg for forgiveness.

After a moment, he relaxed and let her drop to the floor, still sputtering.

She gasped for air, choking with her eyes burning as she was pressed against the door.

“W-Why do you have a knife—why are you here?!” Rena sputtered, looking up at him. He was cast in faint light, the flashlight facing more to their left and bouncing off the wall. Blond hair pulled back in a ponytail and lower face covered in a blood-stained mask.

Killer sighed.

“C’mon, Reens, I know you’re not that stupid.” Killer huffed, shifting his shoulders under a thick leather jacket. Muscles bulging against the unforgiving restraints of leather.

“You’re… you’re the killer… The Midnight Stalker. B-But why? Y-You’re so…” Rena struggled to explain her feelings. Tears dripping down her face as her heart raced, looking up at the knife still embedded in the door.

“Sometimes, exercise isn’t enough.” Killer shrugged, like it made all the sense in the world. And to him, it must.

“… are you going to kill me now?” Rena asked in a small, frightened voice. “I-I… you asked me not to go out… and now that I know…” Rena swallowed hard.

The air was tense for several long moments. Killer slowly leaning in, arm pressed against the door with the casual confidence of a man who knew the only way out was a window over two dozen stories above ground level.

She couldn’t see his eyes, but she knew he was staring down at her. His hand, bare of any protection, cupped her cheek as he sighed.

“…I—”

“W-What’s frustrating you? I-I can help—I would have helped you if you asked me b-before this… You’re my best friend—” Rena’s voice died as his fingers, so massive against her small face, flexed against her scalp. “But you are.”

“Oh?” Killer growled, curling his hand into a fist in her hair. “Even after you know what I’ve done? The people I killed. How long they must have begged for mercy?” He hissed and Rena squirmed uncomfortably.

The details still fresh in her mind… Rena couldn’t deny it frightened her.

She felt so small against him. Her head barely to his chest. An edge of danger where once she felt total safety. It was jarring.

Dizzying.

Intoxicating.

“I-I…” Rena’s voice faltered as he grasped the knife and yanked it free. Holding her still with one hand while the tip of the knife dragged over her face. Digging across her cheek and leaving a thin, tingling line behind. Just shy of cutting her.

Killer’s breathing picked up as he rubbed the blunt edge down her neck, scraping her skin until it flicked seamlessly down the front of her hoodie. Cutting it down her chest with a crisp sound. With a thoughtless motion, Killer flipped the sides apart.

She gasped as the edge of the knife slipped against the swell of her breast, blood beading up in the aftermath.

“…I can convince you?” Rena panted, uncomfortably hot as Killer pulled the knife away and flicked it in his gasp, blade down. For a moment, she was afraid he would plunge it into her body, but instead Killer delicately slipped the blade between the cups of her bra and cut.

“Convince me?” Killer purred thoughtfully. “I’m not sure you’d be offering me that if you knew how often I imagined making you scream.”

It was only years of knowing Killer that gave Rena the impression he didn’t… strictly mean it in a bad way.

“I can still scream.” Rena offered and was rewarded with a stilted snort.

“Oh, I know I can make you scream.” He sighed, pressing the tip of his knife between the fabric and her shoulder. Slowly pushing it away as she allowed it to fall. A flick of his knife cutting another thin line along her collar bone. “So small, you know? It’s the worst. Wanting what I can’t have without breaking you.”

Rena’s breath came in quick pants, nipples beading under his scrutiny as he tilted his head. The cold, flat part of his knife tapping her breasts teasingly.

“What’s this? Aren’t you scared?” he asked curiously. Knife slipping around the curve of her breast as cutting a thin, hot line between them. Rena gasped sharply and tried to remain still. Certain he’d cut her much worse if she struggled.

“A-Absolutely but…”

“But?”

“You’re still my best friend.”

Killer snarled, knife lashing out into the wall as he pinned her against it.

She felt small and helpless.

And made her rub her thighs together to relieve the edge it inspired within her.

Rena squirmed, slipping down Killer’s chest.

“Do you really hate being called that, Killer?” Rena asked in a soft voice.

“It’s one of many reasons I’m so pent up.” Killer admitted, his voice tinged with confusion as she half kneeled between his thighs.

Rena kissed the harsh tent of his erection and tossed away her ruined sweatshirt and bra.

“Then I guess I just have to make it up to you?” Rena implied coyly, hands tapping at his thick belt.

Killer’s breathing was rapid and deep, chest heaving for air as his hips canted forward.

“Yeah. You should. Before I find a better use for that lying mouth.” Killer warned.

Not needing to be told twice, Rena slipped open his buckle and tugged down his pants. Forcing them over his thick thighs until his cock bounced free. She froze, certain that the light was just not clear enough.

He looked thick and massive. Cock straining to raise under its own weight as the tip caught the light in a wet smear.

Rena reached over and pulled the flashlight closer, propping it up to cast light onto the ceiling.

No.

Killer’s cock was just massive.

A heavy hand settled over her head and his other fisted his cock. Pumping it harshly.

“Scared, Reens?” Killer asked gruffly, concern barely hidden.

Rena nuzzled closer to his cock, allowing his knuckles to dig into her hair as she kissed the swollen balls. Whispering against the heated, curly hair.

“You’re so big, Killer. You’re going to choke me.” Rena’s voice was thick with excitement as his cock throbbed. Killer let her go and shoved down his pants all the way to his ankles.

“Yeah I will.” He grunted, grasping her face and pressing her lips to his leaking tip. Groaning as she licked the hot skin. Despite both of their interest, he allowed her to slowly take him into her lips. The thick tip heavy and dripping onto her tongue as she lapped at it. Sucking it further down her throat in slow motions until it weighed down her tongue and brushed the back. Certain she reached her limit, Rena started to pull away. “I. Will.”

Killer grasped her head and rammed his cock down her throat, groaning as she whined. Choking around his throbbing cock, throat swallowing around the obstruction as her nose buried into his curls. Killer let slip a chuckle and ground against her face. Fucking her face as she fell limp, relaxing to try and make it easier to take his cock down her throat. Letting him control her as she tried to just breathe, lightheaded and dizzy with arousal at the rough treatment her usually gentle-giant friend afforded her.

“N-Ngh, th-that’s it. T-Take my cock! B-Better than I imagined it would be—small throat so tight—good girl, baby.” Killer whined, cumming down her throat with a harsh moan. It spurted down her throat in a hot wave and filled her mouth until it spurted free from her lips. But he kept rocking and trembling against her face. Fucking her in desperate jerks. “P-Pretty convincing, Reens, ssssoooo fucking convincing! Show me! Show me why I-I should k-keep you alive!”

Rena whined, looking up at him through her lashes with tears in her eyes. She moaned loudly, watching as he jerked hard at the stimulation.

“Y-Yeah? A-And?” He demanded, balls hitting her chin with wet smacks.

Rena slipped open her belt and reached into her pants. Rubbing her soaked panties with a muffled moan. Circling her t-clit as her hips jerked sporadically with the growing heat.

“M-Mmm! C-Can hear your next argument—s-sounds promising, pretty girl. C-Can you take it, though? Can th-that tiny pussy take my cock?” Rena swallowed hard and moaned an affirmative, nuzzling into his cock. “Y-You think so? B-Better—that little throat can barely handle me as it is. H-Hurt, baby?”

It kind of did, actually. Rena’s throat burning with exertion as she suppressed her gag reflex. Her saliva struggled to lubricate his cock when he wouldn’t pull out. It turned her on, though, her fingers scissoring her cunt as he continued to fuck her messy face.

It felt good to struggle against him like this. Like he was taking what he wanted. And Rena, despite wanting it too, struggled to give it him. Requiring a firm hand to please him.

It shocked her a little when he suddenly pulled free with a harsh groan.

She sputtered, gasping for air, only for him to cum over her face as she jerked back in surprise. His fist slapping against his cock as he stroked out the last of it onto her open mouth. He grasped her face and squeezed, tilting her head to either side as he inspected her.

“Oh—look at that pretty face. Would be a waste to bust it in. You like that? Like me telling you what I almost did—have done before?” Killer asked breathlessly, the sound of her wet cunt clenching her fingers audible in the quiet room. “I saw you in the gym, you know. Didn’t recognize you at first. I planned on dragging you down the stairs and making you watch as I cut you open. Seeing how hard I am at the sound of your screams. M-Maybe I still will, pretty girl. Maybe I won’t—if I breed that wet pussy you keep playing with. Selfish. Always so selfish with your best toys.” Killer chuckled thoughtlessly.

“A-And waste this pretty cock only doing it once?” Rena asked now that she had caught her breath. “I could be your best toy. W-Want it, please, Killer—I’m so wet.” Rena squeezed her t-clit. Playing with the engorged button as she licked the cum on her lips.

“W-Would be a waste… But maybe I’m not convinced yet? Maybe I need to see if it’s as good as I dreamed to fuck that pussy raw until you scream.” Killer mused, dragging her up and shoving her around. Smacking her ass once before stripping her pants off, Rena kicking off her boots eagerly as Killer removed her belt all the way. “You’re mine, either way.” He sneered, pulling her wrists close over her lower back and tying them together with her belt.

He stepped back, lifting up her hips and dragging her with him. Rena struggled to arch up her spine to keep from folding over his arm as he pressed his cock against her cunt. Rubbing the thick, hot mass between her folds as she dripped profusely onto him.

“I-I… Killer… you know I can’t have kids…” Rena admitted softly.

Killer grunted, popping the thick tip into her pussy.

“…I know.” Killer adjusted his arm under her belly to hold her more firmly before slamming in deep. “Doesn’t mean I can’t breed you, Reens.” He laughed as she screamed, her pussy struggling around his cock. Her ass not even brushing his hips as he railed her cunt open. Trying to force his cock to hilt despite knowing how small she was.

“K-Killer! Killer! Ahn! AH! A-AH! O-Ooh—K-Kill—Killer—yes—H-Hurts s-soooo g-ood! So! Good~!” Rena wailed, her voice bouncing off the walls erratically as she cried out, fucked like a toy over Killer’s arm. Legs swaying with his aggressive thrusts as she struggled to remain horizontal. Pussy burning as his cock bullied her past her limits.

His free hand stroked down her spine thoughtfully for a moment before the cold edge of a knife pressed against her skin. He made a small cut and she moaned, jerking in his hold without thought, fire burning as he sliced across her arm.

The pain twisted her mind as it consumed her. A scream ripping from her throat as her spine snapped back, cumming onto his cock as he continued attempting to hilt inside her.

“L-Looks so cute covered in blood—d-don’t worry, it’s not deep. B-But I sure am. L-Look at that, almost halfway down my c-cock—good girl—good girl~” Killer panted, fucking her through her orgasm as she wailed, mind scrambling to comprehend half of his cock inside her. “G-Good reason to keep you, isn’t it? T-training you to take my whole cock like a good girl? Breeding you every night—how’s that sound? W-Want to save a few lives with that cute pussy?”

The suggestion of a future offering up her body to keep Killer from going out and murdering someone made her moan. Letting him take out all his frustrations on her body, his good girl.

“Y-Yeah—yeah—w-why waste your time with them when you c-could be breeding me, baby?” Rena asked breathlessly, thighs trembling as he buried his cock as deep as it would go. Straining her walls as she whined. “B-Breed me—breed me, Killer—wanna be yours! M-Make me—give me—w-want it~!” she babbled, head fuzzy with the impossible stretch of his cock.

Killer leaned down, chest plastered against her slick back as he reached down to where his cock bullied her pussy. Fingertips brushing over her swollen t-clit. Grinding harshly onto it with a deep groan as it made her cunt spasm around him.

“Now that’s a good argument.” Killer agreed, making her squirt onto his cock as he ground into her overstimulated cunt. Hot cum filling her stuffed pussy and spilling down her thighs as he grunted. Brushing down his face mask so he could kiss her shoulders and lick up her throat. “H-Hate wasting time—already wasted so much time trying not to breed this sweet cunt. W-Why hold back anymore when I could enjoy making my brave girl scream?”

Rena cried out, babbling agreement against the molded door as Killer started fucking her again. Keeping her lifted up to receive his cock—as much as she could take and a little bit more.

Rena’s moans bounced off her apartment walls as she clutched Killer’s leather jacket. Legs trembling as she lowered herself onto his cock. Still barely able to take any more of it than she did that first night, Killer was still just as eager to try. One arm thrown over the edge of the couch and the other brushing back his hair as he grinned without a single care. Too enthralled at the way her pussy struggled around him.

Knife gleaming in his outstretched arm.

“Ya sure you wanna try again tonight, Reens?” Killer asked with a smirk. “Been wanting to check out a new building.” He teased.

“U-Uhn—less you wanna fuck there too—no! W-Wanted this all week! C-Can’t wait anymore!” Rena whined, leather creaking between her fists as he stretched out her pussy.

The ‘Midnight Stalker’ hadn’t claimed a life in over a month.

Not since they’d made their relationship official, that is.

Sometimes he’d cheekily threaten to ‘go out’, but he barely needed to finish his sentence before Rena was bent over the nearest table.

They fucked other times, sure, but when he was in a mood… Well, there was a reason Rena was so eager to take his cock. Only a matter of time until he used the knife on her, gifting her little cuts here and there. And every inch of his cock her body could take until she wailed about it being too much. Her sadistic boyfriend not stopping until his bloodlust—and sexual desire—was sated.

She could lie and claim it was for those innocent lives he’d otherwise brutally murder but…

“That’s my eager little girl~” Killer teased, thrusting up into her suddenly to force out another wail. “So pretty on my cock. Struggling to take it all… maybe tomorrow instead. Don’t have work so I’m free… unless you are too?” Killer asked.

She nodded, bouncing on his cock harder, gasping for air between frantic moans.

“I-I am--!” Rena squeaked, falling onto his chest as he braced her ass with one hand. Thrusting up into her as he sighed in faux reluctance.

“Nothing for it. Guess I gotta breed you tomorrow too, baby.” Killer smiled, leaning down to kiss her. Tongues tangling together as they moaned, bodies trembling from pent up aggression.

If he never killed again—it would be a secondary benefit to the city. Mostly just because Rena couldn’t stand not having his pretty cock on a regular basis and Killer willing to indulge her. Only smiling when she’s crying on his cock—too fixated to care about his smile or laugh when her pussy demands every inch of his attention.

#one piece smut #spooktober 2024 #killer one piece #tw: murder #tw: dubcon

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powertaco · 2 years ago

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Vol 9 Spoiler Rant (aka I have waited and thought on it and still dont’ like it/Ranting ahead

I hate Volume 9

I’ll start by saying that upfront so you aren’t shocked or surprised by a conclusion later down the line, and can leave if the notion of disliking it offends you.

I don’t doubt I’ll get many blocks or people who disagree with this take, which is fair since I’m putting the opinion out there and should be able to take it on the chin or stand by it.

This will contain spoilers for V9, my thoughts on a lot of things, ships, and what not so if you want to turn back now the back button is over yonder.

If it’s disjointed I apologize but I’m not feeling my best, and the longer I think about it the more I dislike it and I’m sick of pretending and being toxically positive about it.

First off I’ll get a few things out of the way as things I approve of.

The animation has largely grown phenomenally. There’s a few moments that are a little out of it (yo why you got a 3 foot neck Weiss?), but for the most part considering where we came from in the bass on the wall days of Volume 1. Big win here.

The music. Good work Casey. Red Like Roses 3 is a banger, inside is great, and checkmate is…something. Overall good stuff.

VA work. Good deal. Rob nails his ‘surprise’ villain as he always nails his roles but people seem to be putting their all into it. No hate here, and these guys clearly brought their A game. Good work!

This volume as a whole is very middling to me, bordering on bad depending on if or how V10 recontextualizes things that happened, which I will try to go into later.

Essentially if you were a big fan of Bees this might be one of your favorites, but if you’re just kinda neutral to them like me then the volume didn’t have a lot to offer you and didn’t do much to really move the story forward.

Remember when Ambro said don’t fall in V8 like it was a big ominous thing, and remember how it ended up being almost entirely beneficial? Yeah so V9 was like that. Setting up stuff for an instant week to week payoff regardless of if it hurt the story or not cause we need that interest spiked to greenlight V10.

For a Volume that took so long to make the entire thing is remarkably rushed.

Why do Ruby and Weiss talk so little? Serious question. Even if you don’t ship them they’re supposed to be canon best friends, and yet they share almost as many lines together in the last few seasons as they do with Ren. In case you were wondering that’s not many.

We had a reduced cast of characters and almost none of them can actually be bothered to interact meaningfully.

Why does Weiss and everyone keep ditching Ruby except Little? Ruby has a basically perfect assassin after her, and in the market everyone ditches her cause of nose hairs.

But what can they do against Neo? Nothing, but they could maybe point her out, or talk and help distract her rather than leaving her to her own devices when she’s clearly not feeling well.

Sometimes having someone there for you can help a lot, but instead we need to have Weiss backslide and the others abandon her so she can be alone to meet the smith.

This is bad writing. I’m sorry but it is. Had this been Volume 1-3 Weiss? Sure I could buy this, but this is not that Weiss. If you need to have Ruby be alone to meet the smith, work harder. You had years for this. This would have gotten a C at best in a writing class with a see me after class/don’t keep using coincidences like this note attached to it.

If you’re going to tell me I’m not a professional writer so I can’t critique then that’s asinine. I don’t drive trucks for a living but if I see one ramp off a cliff and into a pit I can tell you that, that guy/gal has messed up.

If Weiss wanted to help cheer on or try to get Bees together then that’s an even worse reason as the aforementioned ASSASSIN is after her partner.

“Oh but Neo wouldn’t attack in a busy market!” My guy do you know Neo “i live only to murder this woman’ AT ALL? There’s an amusing quote I can ascribe to her actions “i will kill as many people as I have to as long as you are one of them!”

There was a reason the meme, ‘squads that would treat Ruby better’ was going around through volume 9 and even included pictures of villains.

Blake and Ruby never talk outside of that one scene in V8, and Yang has focused way more on Blake and way less on being a sister.

I’ve seen people defend her actions as being a target for her sister’s actions when she steps in front of Blake, but please note Yang just let her yell at Weiss and did nothing, until she starts yelling at Blake.

Yeah, no I’m sorry she lets her have a go at Weiss and then when her girlfriend is getting her feefees hurt then she steps in. Her talking to her sister after the hound was nice (but again prob would have been a decent Weiss moment)

That’s bullshit. Had Yang stepped in or tried to when she was talking to Weiss then I could buy this, but as is it’s just another thing to hold against her.

The bees eat a lot of screentime. If you’re a bee fan this is great. If you want story progression, this is not.

The world bends and revolves around them very literally. We need to have a confession bridge show up so they can confess but we can’t get a ‘you have to talk about what’s bothering you’ camp you can’t leave until you talk things out for Ruby?

What are the rules of ever after? Basically w/e so the only reason Ruby can’t get that is cause well we want a breakdown. Again great writing.

But let’s talk about it. Ruby has a breakdown. She complains there’s no time for her. It’s tragic because she’s put a lot of stuff on her own shoulders and internalized it.

Good acting here, even from Jaune.

Weiss puts out a hand and she flies away.

When our heroes next see her she’s drank suicide tea. You can claim after the fact that ascension isn’t that (but i’m sorry that’s how it’s framed and the whole zooming into Yang’s eye thing is explicitly treated like it’s meant to be a big deal and get people talking)

Tragic truly, but you know what she believes in herself now, and now she’s all better. Her depression and desire to die are gone. I don’t know how it helps with Salem, as I’d be willing to bet Summer also believed in herself but it didn’t seem to help her much. If they go more into this in V10 I will retract this and accept it but I’m not in the mood to be forgiving to them atm.

Also again right after Ruby ‘kills’ herself they stop to help Jaune…just I’m sorry what?

Jaune still takes up too much time and serves a role that’s almost not needed and I don’t even hate or dislike him. His interesting development is stripped away at the end.

By deaging Jaune now they can’t explain where they were with any real proof. A few scroll pics of a weird cat thing isn’t going to cut it.

He has a few gray stripes and will likely go back to acting like he normally does and other than Nora ragging him about them once or twice will likely not be mentioned again. He may on occasion get to say something ‘wise’ but I’m doubting it since he went back to being the same almost right away.

So rather than an aged, mature, and slightly damaged man going back and having to relate to his friends/people he knew he’s the same. Awesome development.

Plus side is that now that deaging is canon DWR can still win! Anyway he takes entirely too much focus away.

Ruby complains about how they have no time cause they have to help Jaune, and what do they do almost instantly after she ‘kills’ herself? Stop and help Jaune. It’s tonal whiplash.

I get that JNPR are supposed to be deuteragonist but holy hell almost all the time goes to Jaune who is by far the least interesting of the bunch imo even with all the time dumped into him.

Can we get more Ren and Nora? This could have been a good way for Nora to ‘learn’ who she is without Ren.

If Nora had fallen(say off her hammer into the void at the start from Cinder during the scuffle with Penny in the air) and they met a wizened Nora who tried to act chipper but was clearly putting up a front it would be a great foil/combo with Ruby.

It would also make her reuniting with Ren and being ready for a relationship in the next volume all the sweeter.

We spend an episode on the red prince. Neat. You know what would have been better for it? Almost anything else, say perhaps after Ruby’s ‘suicide’ they spend a few frantic minutes trying to get to the tree until they see the reincarnated paper pleasers and then are like oh, ok so she’ll prob come back/be alright instead of just ‘we did what we can’.

Girl I love you Weiss but you all did jack shit. You made one half hearted effort and stopped, and then every time Ruby might have gotten to talk they needed to help Jaune or something interrupted.

Good work being the best partner ever by the way especially when Ruby spends a large portion of the volume helping you with all your problems and rushing to your side without a bit of hesitation and in return you muster up…about nothing.

They did it in genlock and did it twice in this volume and arguably with Penny/Vine last volume. “Suicide is great!” Please stop doing this.

Speaking of Penny if you like her you might want to get CRWBY to be pallbearers at your funeral so they can let you down one last time.

If you liked Nuts’ and Dolts even more condolences. They’d have many chances to imply deeper feelings than friendship between them and take none of them. Her farewell song is called Friend where she talks about being friends with Ruby.

During the fight with her clones, the Penny clone never once says she loves her. This is Neo, mouse killer and person with the largest hateboner for Ruby in the show.

She is twisting the knife as much as she can so you can bet if she thought there was even an inkling there was more than friendly feelings between them she’d have had the clone say she loved her just to do that little bit more mental damage, but she didn’t.

If there was ever a time to bring it up to put her off balance it was now. Neo is under no pressure and has no reason to not do so, so it basically sinks the ship. Well more than her being dead already does.

I swear to god if they go to Vacuo and Pietro is in a coma or dead and there’s a new Penny I’m going to call Akira Toriyama and tell him RWBY is aping Dragon Ball because there’s no stakes in life or death anymore.

Oh right, speaking of Neo she’s pretty ok until the end where she decides she’s cool with Ruby, gets to get the kill on the cat and then just bows out and leaves, and everyone is…strangely cool with that.

Ascension or not I’m just struggling to think that any of them should just want her to essentially get away scot free. This woman tried to kill Ruby or get her to commit suicide and killed Little and we’re cool with letting her go because she killed the cat who was no longer a threat to them and did a hat doff? Um…yeah sure. I bet Yang is ok with people almost killing her sister, Weiss her best friend, etc. Then again maybe these versions of the characters are.

I don’t care much about how ascension will change her; she's paid for nothing she’s done. “Get your revenge and you’ll get it and still get away scoTt free’. Ok last of us two.

I can not overstate how pointless the suicide feels.

It feels like they wanted her to do it, but have it not ‘take’ or have consequences because they’re in ever after and can say ‘hey the ascension thing fixes it’.

Look, I'm glad the bees got together. Really I’m happy for you, but if you take out the Bee stuff, and the pining you’re left with a threadbare story that is only barely there since it’s all resolved in about five minutes.

We all deserve better than that. The characters deserve better than that.

I could keep going as this just scratches the surface level but it’s pissing me off to keep thinking about it.

#rwby #taco rambling hour #rwby volume 9 #spoilers #volume 9 spoilers #didn't like it that much #sorry #kinda long #my b #bumbleby #nuts and dolts #whiterose

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maybeamultiverse · 1 year ago

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Could you share some fic recs?

Sure! I honestly haven't really been reading any new fics. Lately, IRL life stuff got too consuming, and I don't have the time or attention span right now. Tbh, I don't really gravitate that much toward short-form stories, and I only really want to read novel-type stuff.

I definitely will recommend a couple of full/novel-length (completed only) fics from a couple of fandoms that I absolutely love and have reread a few times, just so I don't end up listing like 100 different things.

No Winter Lasts Forever by TomFooleryPrime (303k words) -- the fic that made me get into Star Trek fan fiction when I read it for the first time. One of the best fics I've ever read, period. A human woman accidentally gets pregnant by a Vulcan doctor, and they move to a remote colony to try to make it work. Excellence.

The Goblin Market by ViciouslyWitty (119k words) -- a Labyrinth (1986) Sarah x Jareth fic, explores events post-film while Sarah is a graduate student in Ireland and Jareth makes his dramatic return... truly an aesthetic, absolutely entrancing, and literally pure mythological fantasy. Plus, there's smut in the end, so there's payoff lol.

The Romulan General's Woman by KKGlinka (105k words) -- a story about Volskiar and Tasha Yar's relationship. It's just super well-written and definitely a real niche story (currently locked and only viewable by ao3 users atm). A must-read for anyone into Romulans.

Vulcan by sunshinepiveh (235k words) -- a story about a Vulcan and human cadet who meet at Starfleet and fall in love. It's honestly pretty cute, and the sex scenes are pretty well written when they happen, lol (warning: there is piss, but not that much).

A Case Study by redrose639 (102k words) -- Amanda Greyson and Sarek's meeting explained. This is probably one of the best Amanda x Sarek 'origin stories' I've found that is completed on ao3 so far. Really super, super good.

Desire/Reserve by Herself_nyc (81k words) -- Excellently written Kirk/Spock smut. Super gorgeously written, split into two parts. Sets the standard!

The Castaways Series by Cheree_Cargill (550k words) -- Spock and Chapel deserted on an abandoned planet, survivalist/smut type thing, not my favorite ship in general, but the smut is very well-written, and the world-building is really genuinely excellent, especially for something that becomes very OC-heavy later on, and it works!

The Elder's Mate by Skadi_Gemini (111k words) -- Yautja x OC. Just forced pregnancy and Yautja stuff. A pretty fun and chill read that I enjoyed.

like warriors from the ancient sagas by fm1978 (150k words) -- it's literally LOTR/The Hobbit meets Star Trek... what more could one possibly want?!?

HAL9550W造谣合集 by Monkey2nd (100k words) -- this is a "rumor collection" of stories, an AMAZING crossover of The Wandering Earth and 2001: A Space Oddysey, basically just explores the two main AI 'villains' in each franchise talking to each other about life, philosophy, and what it means or doesn't mean to be human. Literally BRILLIANT (this story is written in Chinese, but it's translatable on your browser on ao3).

#writing #amira's recommendations #fic recs #ao3

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batmanisagatewaydrug · 3 years ago

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top 5 ouat moments? i've only seen a few eps but everything i've heard about the show is wild so i'm curious

jesus christ let's go

first and foremost I would be absolutely refuckingmiss if I didn't talk about Emma and stupid fucking eyeliner Captain Hook absolutely sucking face in the goddamn cursed jungles of Neverland while an absolutely demonic Peter Pan was skittering around abducting children. absolutely insane payoff to that sexual tension. this woman's annoying 12 (???) year old has been abducted by his own shit-eating immortal great-grandfather and she has this absolute mess of a wet one-handed man dragging himself after her in 700 pounds of leather rambling about how he's in love with her because they have the same abandonment issues... and he was right. she truly said fuck it I will climb this particular leather-bound tree don't mind if I do. this might as well happen. most desperate make out ever aired on a network that doesn't allow kissing with tongue. goth kings do not despair there is a jock gf out there for you and if you go on enough stupid little adventures together she WILL want to peg you.

do you guys remember when Belle went off on an adventure by herself for a episode and she had the absolute KICKIEST little leather booty shorts outfit you ever did see? god. a fashion icon. and then she met this flamboyant CGI Lumiere which absolutely no goddamn sense because he wasn't even, like, IN the Beast's castle because the Beast was just Rumplestiltskin and he had a completely different deal but OUAT was only kept alive through the goodwill of terminally unhinged Disney adults so they had to pepper in little movie references no matter how misplaced and inexplicable they were? okay good now that we've layed the groundwork for that one let's talk about this:

when Elsa and the cast of Frozen showed up as major supporting characters for an entire arc in goddamn live action LESS THAN A YEAR after the movie came out. hello??? HELLO??? unhinged. also very funny how the show played exactly as fast and loose with Frozen as they did with all the older Disney fare up to and including introducing Elsa's Evil Ice Aunt Who No One Ever Mentioned Even Though She Has The Same Goddamn Powers Don't Worry About It.

okay sorry I've sat on this long enough but we simply MUST discuss that a not insignificant chunk of Rumpelstiltskin's backstory is that his wife left him for Captain Hook. and then however many decades later (like every fairy tale character in this show was 500 years old because of *magic* and no one talked about it) Captain Hook came back and. god you guys are not going to believe this. he came back, still the exact same age, and he cucked Rumplestiltskin's son (WHOMST HE ALSO MET AS A CHILD) with tremendous success. please see point #1 again. if you need a reminder. this is so funny and I will genuinely never get over it. this show is nothing but convoluted connections between public domain characters but that is by FAR the most insane. Henry better watch his fucking back when he grows up because this patrilineal is evidently cursed with Getting Cucked By Captain Hook Disease. "Makenzie that's crazy what are the odds it would happen a third time" WHAT ARE THE ODDS IT WOULD HAPPEN TWICE. of all the women you could have fallen gobsmackingly stupid in love with. it was your stepson's baby mama. idiot.

the final season finally coughing up some canon gay rep in its death throes but instead of getting a really popular existing ship like Mulan/Sleeping Beauty together or canonizing a beloved Disney character common headcanoned as queer like the aforementioned Elsa they decided to get Little Red Riding Hood together with never-before-seen Dorothy Wizardofoz in a 5 second scene that was disrespectful to Mulan, Aurora, the audience, and Dorothy's book gf Ozma.

and I'm like barely even scratching the surface here. OUAT is insane. a pre-MCU-fame Sebastian Stan is there for a few episodes. Star Wars is canon. there's an alternate universe based on classic horror instead of fairy tales and everything is black and white there. Christian Gray is a pretty significant character in season 1. Rapunzel showed up like three different times and was a a completely different character each time. Maleficent and Zorro had sex. Emma Stone wishes her Cruella had a SLIVER of what Victoria Smurfit was bringing to the role.

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breadknight-likes-things · 3 years ago

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Bread's Game Journal 03/01/22: What Garners An Emotional Response In Horizon Forbidden West, Stays In Vegas.

*Mid Game Spoilers for Horizon Forbidden West* Horizon Zero Dawn is a game I had a complicated path to enjoyment in. Mostly just in that, for whatever reason, it took me like four separate tries to get into the game, with each start and stop increasingly more random in ways that never really made sense. Happily, I haven't had that problem with Horizon Forbidden West. Something about this game has clicked fairly quickly, and I'm finding a ton to appreciate every time I play it. I wanted to write, tonight, about one part of the game in particular, the ruins of Las Vegas, and the surprising emotional payoff it brought with it. Horizon is good at mining meaning and pathos out of things that, we as the players, understand mean little or nothing. Most locations in the game world aren't even ever referred to by their actual past names, even if it's clear to the player what those names are, but interestingly, Vegas is spelled out to the player from the start. The basic plot of the section is simple, Aloy needs the Poseidon Program, which has entrenched itself in some kind of dome underneath the ruins of Las Vegas, and there's a team of salvagers already there when you arrive, this is of course, where things get interesting. The salvagers aren't rough and tumble types looking for riches, they're looking for "Embers". It isn't immediately clear what an ember is, but the first real thing you learn is that the leader of this group has a deep emotional attachment to them, and you fully buy into his need to get them out of the watery grave they find themselves in. In the kind of ironic twist these types of stories love, it turns out "Embers" are little more than cheap holograms used to advertise casinos. Importantly though, that doesn't change anything. There's no reveal that crushes the salvagers spirt, he's fascinated by these things in an incredibly genuine way. He speaks of seeing a hologram of a buxom woman directing him towards a buffet as a child, and describes it as high art that changed his life without even a drip of ironic humor. The best part is that the voice over performance is so well done, and so well directed, that you really do believe everything he says. And it's not just the salvagers either, throughout the quest you find brief but enlightening data points filling in a little bit of the backstory of this zone in fantastic ways. The story makes it clear that, long before the world died, Vegas was abandoned. Unable to sustain itself in the middle of a climate change ravaged desert, everyone left, which devastated one man who truly loved the city. Without getting too much into the details of the story, the important thing is, that when Vegas was truly lost, that man made the decision to simply leave Vegas "On", so to speak. Even knowing that it was all hacky lights and tricks, he believed in Las Vegas. In simply leaving all the machinery on in standby mode, he hoped that someday it would mean something to someone else again. He was right, of course, as I said before, Morlund, the salvager thinks of Las Vegas a paradise of wonder on this earth, and he's keeping the dream of this long ago mogul alive. All of this is really a long way of saying: Horizon Forbidden west specializes in finding pathos and genuine emotion in areas that could otherwise be filled with cheap jokes and other played out tropes. It can spend an entire main story quest set in the now underwater ruins of Las Vegas hammering home how important this shackle of ruins is to two people in this world, and it never feels out of place. Those two characters have such a genuine love, that you might find yourself like me in the big payoff at the end. Tearing up a bit because someone, somewhere, just made the choice to leave the lights on, and influenced more than they could have possibly known.

#horizon zero dawn #video games #ps4 #bread's game journal #game journal #video game #vegas #las vegas #ps5 #horizon forbidden west #aloy #aloy horizon #hzd #hfw

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ceph-the-ghost-writer · 3 years ago

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✨OC Awards✨

There was an open tag for this by @athenswrites, so I'll pass out some awards to the Dysthanasia characters. (Vess, Ankaris, Fior, and the rest of the strangers/mind worms from Beyond & Between don't get any--it'll just encourage their behavior.)

Original post and list of questions here. [x]

Best Supporting Side Character: Cpl. Christina Yi

She didn't sign up to have her worldview blown to pieces or be branded a traitor by the Coven. But when they happen she doesn't abandon what she feels is right just to save her own ass.

Whiniest Bitch: Sgt. Areli Zamora

She's the type who wanted a badge and gun to feel bigger than other people. Without those...eh, well, she's still pretty dangerous actually.

Most Unhealthy Ways to Deal with Trauma: Renato Faria Dimas

Parents drowned on a rescue attempt at sea? *becomes vampiric enforcer for a secret society* Cognitive dissonance over what the Coven really does? *cues toxic relationship with first girlfriend* Oh, attacked and tortured an innocent human? *drags said human into plot to overthrow Coven leadership and recklessly flirts with him along the way*

Lost a Parent the Youngest: Isaac Soto

His mom died when he was two in one of the epidemics that are still prone to rip through the Central States. He'll thank you to wear a mask and shove your anti-vaccine conspiracy bullshit.

OC Magazine's Sexiest Character Alive: Ben Zebrowski

The first researcher to report on an unregistered bloodborn named Benjamin Zebrowski in 1934 was eventually pulled off the case. He was reprimanded and cited as having "lost academic objectivity" (i.e. had sexy adventures) and being "morally corrupted" (caught The Gay). After the Coven had to write up the next two men put on the assignment for the same reasons, they resorted to drastic measures: they sent in a woman researcher (gasp). Not just any woman, but one they described as "a spinster", "homely", and "frigid" (yikes). Ben disagreed with those views and proved bisexuality was a thing at the same time. Researchers have been banned from approaching him since 1953. (Spoiler: Some still do anyway.)

Best Fight Sequence: Renato and Melusine

Won't happen until after "Phagophobia", but...Renato fights a mermaid. It's everything his nightmares are made of.

Outstanding Plot Fucker-Upper: Sgt. Alan Curry

Mistakes are made. No spoilers.

Best Monologue: Cassius Mergus

I haven't even written one for him yet, but I already know the award goes to this bastard.

Most Tragic On Screen/Off Screen Death: Jacob Hawthorne

It's a long ways off. Suffice to say, he's among the first awful sacrifices his big sister Isabel makes to gain power.

Best Kiss: Isaac and Renato

Also a ways off. But the path to get there is what makes the payoff satisfying, I think.

Most Sympathetic Villain: Oleander "Ollie" Blume

She was a trans girl rescued from an apocalyptic cult and adopted by Mergus. Mergus, who wound up using the loyalty and gratitude she felt to twist her into a pawn when she grew up. So she's bound to have a few Issues™.

Best Costume Design: Dorian St-Ange

They could be in the middle of a desert at noon, treading water at sea, or standing on the surface of the sun and they'd be bundled up and looking cute in a coat or jacket like the nonbinary icon they are.

Best Playlist: Kinslayer

Emotions are their bread and butter. If you want to be caught crying in the club or run straight into a wall because a song's so good, they've got you covered.

Luckiest Goldfish Ever: Tesoro

They started life as a mere carnival goldfish. A prize to be given to whoever could toss three rings on a bottle. They could have wound up perishing in the clutches of someone uncaring or too young to be responsible for them, flushed down a toilet in an ignoble send off. Instead, they were won by a trans vampire enforcer for his trans vampire enforcer girlfriend. True, the couple got into a shouting match at home and broke up that night. Custody of the new fish went to Renato by default. He bought a fancy aquarium and the whole nine yards purely to spite Ollie. And wound up falling in love instead.

Now, Tes lives in a 125 gallon tank, complete with guppies and a pleco for friends, live water plants, a mini castle, and is guarded by a spectral force who communicates through sticky notes. A true finny fairytale.

Zero obligation tags @thecyrulik @whumpy-writings @whumpsday @the-blind-one-speaks @arigalefantasynovels and anyone else who wants to do this and share their answers with me. :D

#tag game #character info

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shania-twain · 3 years ago

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What’s your top 5 favorite Rollisi moments?

I apologize, as this ask was sent days ago and I'm just now getting around to it because ya know, life, and because I took my sweet time thinking over these scenes.

It's a long one, under the cut!

1. The Scene (the kiss). This kiss has everything. It’s unexpected yet long overdue. It’s tender, it’s loving. There’s swaying. There’s standing on tip toes to reach Tol and there’s bending down to reach Smol. There’s water, city lights, a romantic atmosphere. There's tears (barely) but it's an excuse to touch faces! There's cheek caressing, there's longing, lingering stares, there's hesitance in transitioning from best friends to lovers. Light banter, nervous laughter. THE UNFINISHED SPEECH. I know I'm all over the place with this but SO ARE MY FEELINGS. So much has led up to this moment and I must say, the payoff was excellent. Perfect first kiss.

2. The Fight. Dare I name the one fight they got in that caused them to be labeled “toxic” by haters? I do dare. Why, one may ask? *shakes out piece of paper* Though they are fueled by their lack of sleep and unsaid feelings for each other at the time, there’s still some bite to Amanda’s bark on her part. She’s clearly upset over him leaving her, feels abandoned. Perhaps this is a feeling she’s used to from her own family trauma, but Carisi leaving the precinct particularly hurt not only because she has strong feelings for him at this point, but because he was the only one that ever was there for her in a way no one else was. I think she came to rely on him more than she may have even realized and that all spilled out in that small fight in the squad room. And he was so taken aback, obviously thought she was happy for him but of course she’s going to tell him she is because she doesn’t want to hurt him. The fight is so natural, happens unexpectedly but develops organically. The main reason it’s my number two? Giddish and Scanavino’s best acting, imo. And I’ve only seen the actual scene about three times because it makes me semi uncomfortable. It’s uncomfortable watching people argue. It was so intimate and clearly turned personal, it almost feels wrong to be watching them go at it (in a bad way. Heh). But I think that’s a testament to the acting! A+++ scene! I dream of writing a fight scene as well as this one!

3. The Hospital. Truly, this episode was packed with Rollisi moments from start to finish. I love every moment we get with them individually (hand grab, anyone? Or when he makes her LAUGH at such an emotional moment in the hospital. I could go on about this scene in detail but I’ll stop). My favorite moment of the episode is actually the last scene of them. After Rollins gets rid of her father's (ex) wife, she’s so proud of herself for doing what she feels is right and that reflects in her face when she smiles at Carisi. It’s so simple and subtle, but there’s so much love in that look. Kelli is a master at giving these loving looks and perfect expressions. It’s also a wonderful contrast to how she used to look at Carisi in the beginning - from season 16, when she thought he was a bit of a goof. Now she looks at him like he hung the got damn moon. We don't get to see Carisi's face here, but I imagine he's looking quite amused at her, maybe even charmed by her a little bit. I'm also obsessed with the way Amanda's eyelashes flutter down when he moves closer to her. Flirting over Amanda's bedridden father? The ✨romance!✨ Swoon!

4. The Elevator. This used to be number one for me, until we got the goodness in season 22. There’s something very special about this hug. It’s not even a hug, really. It’s clinging, desperate, need that one particular person and only this person kind of thing. It’s, of course, devastating that Rollins had to go through the whole thing with Bucci and possibly leaving her children without a mother, but like I said, something special about the way this led to letting the audience see who she really trusts as she let’s herself fall apart and into Carisi’s arms. Sure, she trusts her squad, but she also wants them to know she’s ok at all times. Even tells her own therapist this once or twice. She even *begins* to tell Carisi she’s fine, her usual response when asked if she’s alright, but then the second he says her name, it’s like a switch is flicked and she’s sobbing into him. DON’T THINK I FORGOT ABOUT SCANAVINO. He’s always there when she needs it. He’s patient with her, kind, takes her into him with absolutely no hesitation. This scene happens episodes after their fight in the squad room. It’s clear there is no more lingering tension between them in the elevator scene. It’s the way he says “I got you” not once but TWICE, as if he needs her to hear it. Needs to make sure she understands that he’s there not just in the moment, but he’s got her always. No matter what happens between them or with their jobs — and this comes back around in his wedding speech, as well. 🤧 But also, fave part of that scene? When he holds her tighter, leans his head against hers many times, and then closes his eyes. Cannot stand to hear her sobs, or see her in any kind of pain. Oh, my heart. My heaaaaaaart.

5. Rain check. Lots of great acting here. Is anyone surprised? No, but there’s a bit of a range of emotions in this particular scene and it’s acted so beautifully, I could write a whole paper. I’ll try and keep it brief (ha, yeah right). I don’t think Amanda would ever have a problem getting a man anytime anywhere, but I do think it was a big deal for her to ask this man out. I think maybe her intentions at the time may have been less than trying for a relationship, but she was open to trying something with him. I also think it was a big deal because it felt very planned. The outfit felt planned, the way she made him laugh, the hair toss an attempt to flirt. Though she also had this vulnerability about her that only exists with him. She’s putting herself out there, she’s saying that she’s willing to try and I think that is a big step for her, even if she was only open to a FWB situation (that totally 100% wouldn’t have worked bc *feelings*). Carisi, however, rejects her. You can see in his face that he’s so reluctant to do this but he does. Obviously, he’s had feelings for the woman for so long but is protecting himself. Almost like he knows she may think she’s ready to try something with him, but he also knew it wasn’t their time yet. Also, after he tells her he can’t, the immediate disappointment Amanda has? Heart-wrenching, tbh. She looks so upset and gets off from sitting on the edge of his desk so fast. Like. BABYYYYY.

Honorable Mentions: Threats! I’m kind of cheating here, but there’s nothing like an OTP that will kill for the other. I’m -of course- talking about Carisi’s “if Rollins gets shot over this, I’m gonna take ALL of them out.” And also Amanda’s message to Mesner: “if you go after Counselor Carisi or anyone in my family again, it will be your last day on earth. I’ll kill you myself.” Ooh, there’s something so secks see about being violently protective over your significant other. I don’t condone it irl, but let me have the ✨drama✨on tv.

Thank you for this question! I had fun going over some great scenes!

#ask #anonymous

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jadelotusflower · 4 years ago

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It’s Cold in that Fridge: The Case of Nakari Kelen

Since The Case of Mara Jade has been doing the rounds again, I’ve finally gone back to this post that has been sitting in my drafts for literally years. So let’s honour this absolute badass who deserved better:

Once upon a time, the Star Wars universe was but six films (and a tv series) in the story of the Skywalker family. But beyond George Lucas’ story was an absolute boatload of books, comics, games, and other materials that made up the Expanded Universe. When Disney purchased Lucasfilm and the rights to the Star Wars saga, everything in this universe was decanonised and deemed “Legends” - some aspects of this universe were retained or re-purposed, others sit in Disney’s figurative vault and will likely never see the light of day (and seeing how the ST turned out, maybe that’s for the best).

But this transition between Legends canon and Disney canon was not so simple, because the nature of publishing meant that there were novels approved during the time of Legends canon that would be released in the time of Disney canon. In particular, there had been the planned trilogy “Empire and Rebellion”, set between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, with each novel from the perspective of one of The Big Three.

Razor’s Edge (Leia) and Honor Among Thieves (Han) were released prior to the Great Canon Split of 2014. But while the Luke-centric novel had been planned, it was not due to be released until well after the Split. So Heir to the Jedi (so called as an homage to the Legends progenitor Heir to the Empire) became one of the first books of the Disney canon.

What does this background have to do with Nakari Kelen? Perhaps nothing, but I do wonder how the writing process was affected by the shift from Legends to Disney - was the novel a relic of the old EU with any reference the LFL storygroup didn’t like excised during editing, or was it a trendsetter for the new EU, a Sign of Things to Come?

The most salient point being, of course, that Nakari Kelen - like so many love interests before her - was not allowed to go along her merry way at the conclusion of the novel, but was shoved into the fridge.

If there was one constant of the Legends EU, it was that Luke Skywalker’s love interests couldn’t catch a break. Mara Jade naturally lasted the longest relationship-wise, with almost twenty years of marriage to Luke before some bright spark decided she had to go (as per the aforementioned case study). But before Mara there was Jem, Shira Brie, and Gaeriel Captison (who came close to escaping the curse), and in the Legacy of the Force series they brought back sole survivors Akanah and Callista, only to kill them off for good too (and rather brutally, if I may add).

So perhaps when Kevin Hearne began writing HttJ within the confines of the Legends continuity, he was merely sticking to the status quo, or perhaps once subsumed by Disney they needed to make sure Luke's slate was clean (so to speak). And I can’t put all the blame on Hearne since I don’t know whether it was his idea, or LFL mandated - but regardless it was a poor decision.

The root cause of fridging, imo, is limited imagination. How best to cause your male protagonist pain if not kill off someone they love, or at least have strong feelings for? The answer is of course, easily. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The Luke Skywalker of HttJ is fresh from his victory in ANH, a lieutenant in the Rebellion: young, not dumb, and full of...

Nakari Kalen is an absolute Queen a civilian volunteer and crack-shot sniper who loans her ship Desert Jewel to the Alliance. Luke is immediately attracted to her, they bond over a mutual love of fast ships and leaving behind desert home planets, and engage in the inexpert flirting of two nineteen year olds while also risking their lives several times over.

I want to make it clear: I actually really like this book. It's a breezy read, almost serialised as The Early Adventures of Luke Skywalker, and is ofttimes genuinely funny. And credit where it’s due to Hearne, many of of the supporting roles in the novel are female. Other than Nakari, there's Soonta, the Rodian who gives Luke her uncle’s lightsaber, Sakhet the Kupohan spy, and the Givin cryptographer/math genius Drusil Bephorin. In a genre where male characters are often the default for these kind of roles, it was nice to see, but makes the regressive fridging of Nakari even more egregious.

Luke and Nakari make a good team fighting brain-sucking monsters and Imperials, but more importantly they have fun together - she encourages him to work on his Force skills, and he successfully moves objects with his mind for the first time (leading to Nakari adorably dub him "a little noddle scooter"). It's a very sweet, if brief, relationship, and a respite from the danger of the mission. They spend the night together (leaving the reader to decide exactly what happened behind closed doors), and share a kiss before splitting up to try and escape bounty hunters. No prizes for guessing what happens to Nakari immediately after she received the Skywalker Kiss of Death.

I assume there were two motivating factors for why Hearne and/or LFL couldn't let Nakari live:

1. If she survived, fans would wonder why she doesn't appear in ESB/subsequent material.

I recall this bandied about on forums back at the time of the book's release, and to that I say - so what? Fans are always going to wonder, and try to paper over the gaps in canon, to make up their own headcanons to explain any any perceived inconsistencies. It's certainly no reason to kill someone off.

It is in fact possible for two young people to have a romance that just fizzles, or doesn’t work out for whatever reason - it should not require great maneuvering or explanation. If Nakari doesn’t show up in the next book in the timeline, what about it? The reader is smart enough to assume she and Luke broke up, decided to just remain friends, whatever. But it seems that the only way for a female character to exit stage left is for her to die, which is bullshit.

And actually, there's no reason why she couldn't have shown up again. ESB and RoTJ cover a month and a few days, respectively, of Luke's life - just because there was no mention of Nakari doesn't mean she didn't exist at that time, whether or not she and Luke were an item. She could have made an appearance in a subsequent novel, or Rebels, or the comics - she could have become a recurring character, showing up when the Rebellion needed her, or - heaven forbid - even have her own comic/book/show! Her existence in Star Wars canon didn't need to begin and end with Luke Skywalker, merely to service his plotline and backstory and abandoning the richness of her own.

No, the only reason Nakari had to die was to facilitate this:

It was a blow to the gut, realizing what that sudden absence meant. I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, but I had felt Nakari's life snuffed out through the Force, and into that void where she had shone anger rushed in - anger, and a cold sense of raw power and invincibility...I took a step to join in the hunt but stopped, breathing heavily, unaccountably sweating even though I felt so cold inside and the power of the Force roiled within me... I shook with emotion and power, and none of it felt the way the Force had before...I saw what kind of space it was , a black hole that would always be hungry no matter how much I fed it. I might never feel warm again if I didn't get myself under control.

Luke feels the dark side and is tempted by the boost of power it offers him, but immediately identifies it as dangerous and unnatural. I can understand why Hearne wanted to include this - it is a book of firsts after all: Luke's first solo mission, his first time using telekenisis, and ending with story with his first experience of the dark side makes sense. But it wasn't necessary, which leads to:

2. How to push Luke to touch the dark side without killing someone he has romantic feelings for?

Also, obviously, shite of the bull (or nerf, if you prefer). Even if this brush with the dark side was absolutely necessary for the novel's climax, there's any number of ways it could be achieved. At this point, Luke is fresh from losing important people in his life - Owen and Beru, Ben, and Biggs - lumping another death on top of that a narrative trick for Luke to react not only to losing Nakari, but the others as well. But it's cheap, the first card in the deck, and why not show a bit of imagination? Luke is young and inexperienced enough at this point that any number of things could be the catalyst - the whole book he's struggling with his growing powers, why not try and reach too far in the firefight with the bounty hunters, his anger and frustration with himself in not doing enough trigger the dark side temptation? It would work thematically and doesn't involve a fridging that ultimately has very little payoff.

Because Nakari is killed less than ten pages from the end of the book - afterwards Luke grieves, but ultimately chooses to honour her memory and be grateful for what he learned with her, recommitting to becoming a Jedi. It's all very surface level, and once again a female character's death facilitates a male character's development. Was it so imperative that Luke lost someone he cared about as part of this story? Sure, this was a time of galactic civil war, and it's far from unrealistic that these stories have a high body count, but who to make collateral damage remains an authorial choice, and in this case Nakari Kelen was (a) a female character of color, (b) a love interest of the protagonist - not just of this book, but the entire Original Trilogy.

I don't know to what extent (if any) race had to play in the decision. I'm sure there was a segment of the fandom absolutely livid that Luke Skywalker kissed (and maybe had sex with) a black woman. Was her death LFL hedging its bets, or demonstrative of the general lack of attention/respect they show their characters of colour?

In any case this was a chance to stand out from the old EU and it's fridge full of Luke's dead girlfriends, but instead they chose to introduce and kill off Nakari for the sole purpose of Luke's manpain and character development, and that's gross.

And then there's this:

A grisly yet reliable fact about custom bounty hunter ships is that you can always count on them to have body bags stashed somewhere for the easy transport of their kills. They often have built-in refrigerated storage, too.

NAKARI IS KILLED AND LITERALLY STORED IN THE FUCKING FRIDGE I COULDN'T BELIEVE WHAT I WAS READING.

I really hope this was unintentional on Hearne's part, because yikes. He was halfway there, this book was full of interesting female characters who had agency - Drusil in particular was a delight with her super math and inability to understand human interaction. Nakari was full of life and fun - capable but relatable, showing a different side of the Rebellion and those that suffered under the Empire's rule. Fridging her in her first appearance is considerably more vile, because it reduces her to a footnote of Luke's story, a plot device to Help Him Grow, rather than a springboard to tell more of her own story.

Because Nakari was a compelling character ripe for spinoff potential. I would absolutely have read or watched her continued adventures, juggling missions for her father's Biolabs company and trying to aid the Rebellion, shooting her slug rifle and cracking wise, maybe even finding a way to amplify her mother's song Vader's Many Prosthetic Parts to really stick it to the Empire, or try and free the political prisoners on Kessel.

The old EU was made great by allies and enemies of Our Heroes showing up again to help or hinder them, and/or branching out into their own material. We fell in love with them, and followed their stories even as they diverged from the main saga, eager to read more about their lives.

Nakari Kelen never got that chance. In many ways, she exemplified what Disney Star Wars was to become: an exercise in wasted potential.

#star wars #star wars meta #heir to the jedi #nakari kelen #luke skywalker #fridging #it's cold in that fridge #star wars expanded universe #nucanon

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snusbandxknifewife · 4 years ago

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How We Got Here/Where We’re Going

Hello yes hi! I am proud to introduce my gift for the lovely and amazing Tess, @clockworkgraystairs ! This started out as a wedding fic, but I couldn’t get it to work right until I was giving @wanderingpages her regularly scheduled Mayari update and saw her asynchronous pregnancy au and was like “!!!!!Holy shit that’s it.” So, without much further ado, I present the beginning of “How We Got Here/Where We’re Going”, an all human, modern au where Cardan and Jude have been a thing since college, ended up getting pregnant and having a daughter and marrying in their late 20s. Now it’s their honeymoon and they’re looking backwards at their past and forward towards their future.

~~~~~~~

Outside, fluffy grey clouds hung over a soft blanket of snow, masking any sound that might’ve accompanied the rising of the sun. Her bed was soft, her sheets warm, her room quiet. Jude couldn’t quite figure out what woke her up. Then, as she stretched out, her fingers hungrily searching as she fought sleep, she realized what it was: Cardan was missing.

Sitting up, her eyes bleary and drool dried on her cheek, she pouted. When she remembered that she didn’t have a stitch of clothing on—and that, plus a snowy log cabin, makes for freezing nips—she grumbled and burrowed back into the comforter.

Oh to have been a fly on the wall in the little cabin bedroom as Jude Greenbriar tumbled around in her nest of blankets, dragging them with her to grab underwear and pajamas and socks and fighting to avoid any cold air as she dressed. Cussing and tripping as she went, Jude scowled into nothing and cursed her fiancé—

Wait. Husband. It’s husband now.

—she cursed her husband for abandoning her to the elements and taking his space heater of a body with him when he went.

Jude wrapped herself up in her ball of bedding and went out the door, now awake enough to listen for movement in the small cabin. A pot clanged from the downstairs kitchen and her husband yelped and she smirked.

That’s what you get, loser.

As Jude walked down the stairs, she couldn’t miss the chaos of the living room. Most of their suitcases were still packed up and set by the fireplace, their skis and snow jackets barely made it in the door, and their wedding clothes were strewn haphazardly across the sofa. She was honestly impressed that they’d made it inside the house.

Just as she made it to the bottom of the stairs and headed towards the sofa to run her hand over her wedding dress, she heard something that made her stop.

“—And how should I know? Honestly Nic I’m not even sure how to bring it up to her,” Cardan sighed from within the kitchen, bustling around like he was making breakfast. “I think it might be good for us. Still, with how everything went when we had Faye, I don’t want to pressure her.”

She couldn’t help but frown in concern as her mind flitted back through everything she could remember about their first daughter and her pregnancy. From the confusion of her missed period to the worry as they waited on the test to the way Cardan’s eyes had lit up when the Ob/Gyn told them they were having a little girl.

What on earth would Nicasia be talking to him about?

Jude tried to tell herself that it was obvious, Nicasia was only days away from popping, and her pregnancy had been a bit of a nightmare. Maybe she was just nervous? But, then again, why ask Cardan about giving birth? Jude had been the one who carried Faye and, far more importantly, Nicasia’s own wife, Taryn, had already had a child herself.

Completely ignoring the fact that calling a man away from his wife on his honeymoon was probably in poor taste, but she digressed.

She kept herself as still as possible, angling her head so she could hear better.

“Yes, I know that, Nic,” he let out a little frustrated laugh, and Jude could just picture the way he would be pinching the bridge of his nose. “But Faye will be starting school soon and that’ll be a circus in it of itself, never mind adding on the stress that this would.”

He went quiet again and Jude crept back towards the stairs, hoping he wouldn’t walk through the kitchen door and catch her spying.

“I know you and Taryn want the little man to have a friend, but you remember how tough it was for Jude our first go round.”

Oh.

Jude’s hand flew to her belly and she had to jump to catch the falling blankets before they made a sound and alerted her new husband.

So she wasn’t the only one who was getting suggestions about expanding the family.

It made sense, everyone had been talking to Jude about the idea as the wedding had gotten closer. Oriana had been completely starry eyed ever since Taryn’s firstborn, Rosemary, had graced them with her presence. In fact, their stepmother had barely batted an eyelash at Jude’s worries when she’d fallen pregnant during college, she was far too excited at the idea of another grand baby. Madoc had gotten past the shock and the disdain for Cardan enough to be hounding them for a grandson. Taryn thought having cousins the same age made for perfect best friends. It was a mess.

Sure, Nicasia being pregnant had bought them a little respite, but she could go into labor literally any minute, so there went that.

Jude rolled her eyes and began loudly making her way down the stairs again, giving her husband fair warning this time as she walked through the living room and towards the kitchen.

“Hold on, here she comes,” he whispered, low enough that he likely thought she couldn’t hear. Then, she hit the kitchen door with her mobile blanket fort and he spun around with a: “hey Hot Mama!”

“Stop calling me that, you dork,” she made a face, instantly regretting her decision not to sneak up and scare him.

He’s stood there by the stove, wearing nothing but his low-slung flannel pajama pants and grinning at her like an idiot as he leaned back against the counter. She refused to let her sneer fall, only growing more annoyed at how he could walk around half naked in such a freezing house.

“Huh?” He must’ve forgotten he was talking to Nicasia because he seemed surprised when she began speaking on the other end of the phone. “Oh, yeah, Jude’s finally awake. Y’know I kept her up last night, heyo.”

Jude let out a disgusted groan and he just started to laugh, giving her an exaggerated wink and thrusting his hips forward in a way that absolutely did not put butterflies in her stomach, thank you very much.

He tilted his head, listening to Nicasia for a moment before finally giving up. “Here I’ll put her on speaker.”

“Hey Nic!” Jude smiled, finally dropping her pretenses and walking over to give Cardan a big, blankety hug and morning kiss. “How did Faye do last night?”

“She was great! Didn’t get up until about seven this morning. Of course the little man already had me up, fuckin’ kid always sitting on my bladder,” Nicasia griped through the phone and Jude snorted. “I don’t know how you and Taryn both did this it sucks.”

“Yeah, but the payoff is really cute,” she shrugged, leaning her head against Cardan’s collarbone. “Especially when they have your nose or your eyes or they start saying how much they love their Mommy.”

“Is Rosemary ready for baby?” Cardan asked as he wrapped his arm around his blanket bundle of a wife.

“You know how she gets, she’s super attached to her moms. Well have to see once Taryn and I actually bring him home.”

“I’m sure she’ll be a great big sister, she’s always been wonderful to Faye,” Jude offered, smiling as her husband pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “She was very sweet when Faye was a baby.”

“She was three then. Seven-year-olds have much bigger personalities.” Nicasia sounded exhausted, more exhausted than a normal pregnant person would be and Jude worried at her lip.

While they hadn’t always been the closest, she and Nicasia had grown into a really solid friendship ever since the other woman had begun dating Jude’s sister, and she didn’t like to see her struggling. Nic had been a huge help in Jude’s own life and relationship, she’d been an amazing friend to Cardan, she didn’t deserve anything but the best, happiest transition to a family of four.

“Well she takes after her mother.”

“What’s that supposed to mean, Jackass?” Nicasia laughed at Cardan, her voice sounding like the tension broke a little.

Jude opened her mouth to give some word of advice or make some statement about how sure she was that it would be ok, but got cut off by the sound of commotion on the other end of the phone.

“What? Oh, yes Faerie-Faye it’s Mommy and Daddy,” Nic said, sounding far away from the phone. “Of course you can darling, here you go.”

Jude’s heart swelled and tears unexpectedly pricked at the back of her eyes as their daughter fumbled with the phone. She felt guilty, having forgotten for a moment that they were on their honeymoon without Faye. It was their first trip alone since her birth, and they’d both been on pins and needles when they’d said goodbye to her at the reception hall last night.

“Mommy?” Faye’s voice, tiny and soft like the twinkling of a wind chime, came through the phone. “Hello?”

“Hey little elf! How are you? Mommy misses you so much,” she gushed, reaching out and taking the phone from her husband in a mindless attempt to feel physically closer to her daughter. “Have you been good for Aunty Taryn and Aunt Nicky?”

Jude listened attentively as her four-year-old prattled on about everything she’d done since she left the reception hall with her aunts and cousin last night. To hear her tell it, Faye had had a great time. While it made her happy, Jude also found herself a little sad at the idea that her baby girl was doing so well without mom.

“And Daddy, Aunt Nicky let me touch her tummy when baby cousin kicked!”

“Were you gentle, Princess?” Cardan asked. He always called their daughter Princess, had since the first moment he’d held her in his arms. “Remember what we’ve said about soft hands.”

“Yes Daddy I used soft hands and nice words!”

“That’s my girl,” he said, that proud grin he always got whenever Faye listened to them plastering itself across his face.

The phone fell away and they heard some distant talking before their daughter was back on.

“Ok Mommy and Daddy, Rosemary is awake and we’re playing Rome. I love you, bye-bye!”

And she was gone before either of them could say another word, likely dropping her Aunt’s phone on the floor, if history could serve as a teacher. Jude tried not to let it hurt too much, she knew how seriously Faye took Rome—her word for the pretend gladiator-style tournaments her and her cousin put on. On any other day she’d be slightly smug at how well her kid swung a sword, but today she was away from her daughter and it really sucked.

“Sorry about that, I’ll make sure she stays on longer tonight,” Nicasia promised before either of them said anything. “But you know gladiator is a serious time in our house.”

“Oh to be sure. My wife is raising a little killer.”

“Looks like it runs in the family,” she laughed back. “Listen I’ll let you to go do gross honeymoon shit. Love you both, I’ll let you know if baby boy makes an early appearance.”

“Love you too, tell Faye we love her,” Cardan said, taking his phone back when she ended the call.

And, just that quickly, the little cabin in the snow-laden forest was silent again. Jude in her mountain of covers looked up at her new husband, her pout from earlier back as she tried not to cry.

“Awe, don’t do that to me Mama Bear; you know she misses you,” he frowned, pulling her close and kissing her temple.

“She’s my baby Cardan,” Jude whined, her voice muffled against his chest. “When did Rome become more important than Mommy?”

He scoffed, gathering her and her extra padding and setting the whole pile atop the kitchen island. “Rome is not more important than Mommy, you know that.”

“Rome sure sounded more important than Mommy.”

He turned his back with a roll of his eyes, reaching for the coffee that he must’ve been brewing before she woke up. She stopped her pouting long enough to take in the sight: Cardan’s messy black hair, his low-slung pants, the blatantly obvious fingernail marks carved up his back from last night. It was certainly a sight for sore eyes; it’s not every day you can wake up to something like that when you’ve got a toddler in tow.

“When you’re done ogling, would you like a cup?” He looked over his shoulder quickly, catching her in the act. His eyes twinkled so bright and full of mischief she didn’t even feel bad about being caught, she just smirked at him as she nodded.

Jude looked outside and saw that the heavy grey clouds had given up the fight and large, fluffy snowflakes were falling, bathing the world in yet another layer of snow.

“I hope Nic doesn’t go into labor early, we may be stuck here if the snow doesn’t stop,” she observed, suddenly quiet as she took the cup from his outstretched hand and brought it to her face, soaking in the warmth.

Cardan followed her gaze as he leaned back against his own counter, sipping from her Mrs mug that Liliver had gotten her as a joke. He looked pleasantly tired, not wired like he’d been after an all nighter in college or exhausted the way he was when Faye’d had a bad night as an infant. He looked like he was fit to curl up in bed with a book and be lazy all day, content with his place in the world.

It was a good look on him.

“She told me earlier that her doctor said she was only at 1.5 centimeters, she should make it to her due date.”

“I didn’t.”

“Well you were full of surprises with Faye’s pregnancy,” he mock-glared at her and she chuckled into her drink, remembering the look on his face when she’d told him her water had broken in her final.

Then his words hit her and her smile fell as she remembered what she’d overheard him saying to Nicasia. Cardan, well tuned in to her body language after so many years, noticed instantly.

“What?”

What good is spying if you narc on yourself?

She sighed and stared into her mug, trying to figure out the words as he watched her, worried something was wrong. Then, finally, “I overheard you talking with Nic about my pregnancy with Faye.”

“How much did you hear?”

“Just the end, you talking about how tough it was, how you didn’t want to pressure me,” she admitted, continuing before he could respond. “I don’t want you to think you’re pressuring me I know we’ve talked about it and I—“

“Woah, woah, woah, calm it down Hot Mama let me explain,” he cut her off, taking her cup from her hands and setting it down in the counter so he could hold her. “That conversation wasn’t about the pregnancy, just the timing.”

“What?”

He sighed, his jaw working like it always does when he’s a little frustrated. “Nic called right after I got a text from my brother. I should’ve talked to you first but the timing just worked out weird.”

“From Balekin?” She crinkled her nose in a frown that she knew he found adorable. “What could he possibly want? He knows he literally missed our wedding, right? The wedding that was yesterday.”

She cursed herself internally as she saw his little wince. She shouldn’t have said it so harshly, it just pissed her off that the man who raised her husband would refuse to be there when they got married.

“No, from Dain,” Cardan said, stopping her thoughts right in their track. “It’s about the company. Rhyia is apparently sick of being CFO, wants a peace of the trust fund baby action like me.”

She couldn’t help but grind her teeth at that, remembering that glorious fight all those years ago at his family’s mansion when he’d announced their pregnancy.

“So what do you have to do with it?”

“Dain wants to keep it in the family,” he chewed at his bottom lip. “Remembers I was in for business and you were in for finance. Thinks we could make a go of it together.”

“Oh so now you’re family,” she laughed angrily, her blood already boiling again after four years of avoiding the subject. “You weren’t family when you were a defenseless kid and you weren’t family when we were pregnant and fucking panicking but now he needs something—“

She broke off with a huff, flexing her fists and aching for her punching bag back home in their basement. It really wouldn’t do getting this riled up, it hadn’t helped them before and it wouldn’t help them now.

“Cool it, Supervillain, I see that look in your eyes,” he chuckled, forcing his hands under the blankets so he could grab her by the hips.

“I’m not a supervillain,” she grumbled.

“You’re my supervillain,” he cooed back, leaning forward to press soft little butterfly kisses to her jawline. “My sexy little supervillain Hot Mama.”

“I hate you.”

“You love me.”

She decided not to answer as he continued kissing down the line of her throat, his breath hot over her pulse and his lips soft against her chapped skin.

Jude couldn’t help the way she tilted her chin up, the little grin that graced her face as her eyes fluttered closed. She missed moments like these, times when they could be overly affectionate without having to worry about the baby seeing and yelling about how gross it was.

He pulled away and her eyes shot back open, ready to complain until she saw the look on his face. He was troubled, almost apprehensive.

“I was honestly thinking about agreeing,” he admitted before she could ask what was wrong.

Her brain short circuited for a moment, too distracted by his kisses to remember what they had been talking about. When she finally connected the dots, she frowned. “But you bought out of the company years ago, babe. Why go back to the headache?”

“A higher paying job,” he sighed, stepping away to run his hands through his messy hair and lean against the counter again. “I don’t like the idea of charging your sister more for my help, but I still want to make sure we have a secure future.”

“Baby, I know our finances. We are fine.” She took a sip of her coffee. “Even without my paycheck.”

“Still, I’d rather be safe. Plus Faye will be going to school next year and I’ll have all that extra time on my hands,” he looked away from her, chewing at the inside of his lip as he watched the snow fall. “We’d be able to really change how we live if we took this job. A better house, vacations, secure college fund for the kids.”

Jude studied Cardan, her eyes roving over his midnight black curls, down his ears—which used to be stretched—across the tattoo of her and Faye’s birthdates at his wrist, and she smiled. He’d changed so much since they first met, given up a lot of his more daring, self-destructive ways to provide for her and their family. He’d stepped up when she needed him to, he’d stepped up in a way that no man in his family ever did for him. She was proud.

“I thought kids is what you’d been discussing with Nic.”

His eyes shot back to her, but his head didn’t turn. She was quiet, almost nervous as she said it. They’d talked about maybe one day having more kids, mentioned it the same way one might say they wanted to hike the Appalachian trail some day.

But it had been so scary with Faye, so hard figuring out how to become parents, how to maintain their relationship and build a home, all while they were just barely adults. The pregnancy had been tough and full of shock, the family had been kind of a mess on both sides. It was just a disaster from the word go.

Still, Jude remembered how Cardan looked when he first saw that positive pregnancy test all those years ago. She remembered how he used to love waking up at night to feed the baby, called it his special Daddy-Daughter Time. She saw the way he still held one of Faye’s sonograms in his wallet every time she took her birth control.

“Did you now?” Cardan barely sounded like he was breathing.

She nodded. “I heard Nicasia giving you the same guilt trip Taryn gives me about cousins.”

“They do seem to think that baby boy should have a friend.” His face didn’t give anything away. He was, for the first time in years, so carefully blank around her.

“What do you think?”

The air, still frigid enough to keep Jude wrapped up in her nest, seemed charged with electricity as Cardan finally turned his head back to face his wife. If she’d gazed upon him with an untrained eye, she would’ve thought he looked like the picture of cruelty, an evil sneer pulling at his lips as he studied her through lidded eyes.

But Jude’s gaze wasn’t untrained, she knew her husband. And, so, she knew that the man in front of her was absolutely terrified as he said: “I think there might be some merit to the idea.”

He took a long sip of his coffee to hide his smile as Jude worried at her deformed ring finger.

“You?”

Well, here goes nothing

“I was thinking about stopping my birth control,” she quietly said, trying not to let her heart leap at the slight quirk of his brows. “Maybe not actively trying but, y’know, also not actively preventing.”

As soon as the words were out, she felt kind of panicked. Up until that point, everything they’d done—moving in after they got pregnant, getting engaged, marrying—had felt kind of inevitable. But having a second baby wasn’t necessarily a foregone conclusion. Talking about it felt nerve-wracking, like they were actually moving to make their family a reality.

“You want a kid with me?” Cardan sounded kind of awed, his jaw a little slack as he watched her.

“I have a kid with you, babe.”

“No,” he held a hand up. “No it was different with Faye. She wasn’t planned, she just happened and we figured out how to make it work.”

He set his drink down and once again crossed the distance between them, digging in to her cocoon as he pressed his forehead to hers.

“Don’t get me wrong, I love Faye with all my heart, she’s the best thing that’s happened to me,” he continued. “But the idea that you’d be more than ok with, that you’d literally want a child with me—“

“Does it shock you?”

He let out a small laugh, shaking his head as if to clear it before gazing up at her with love in his eyes. “Yes, Jude Greenbriar. Yes it does.”

“Well it shouldn’t,” she snorted. “I carried a little you once before and she turned out pretty damn cute.”

“I think I’m going to need to hear you actually say it.”

She laughed, her head thrown back as the sound filled the kitchen. She wrapped her arms around Cardan and kissed his temple, holding him close and thanking the gods that they’d made it to that point.

“You need to hear me say what?” Jude teased, her grin contagious as Cardan looked up at her.

“Jude, my darling my dear, my sexy little Hot Mama,” he started, dutifully ignoring how she dramatically protested at the nickname, “I need to hear you say that you want to have my child.”

Jude leaned forward, taking in the soft, earthy scent of him with a mischievous smile.

“Cardan, my love my sweet, my amazing sexy husband,” she imitated him, tilting her head to drag her teeth across his jaw.

He leaned back, giving her the room to slide off the kitchen counter and into his arms. The blankets fell off her shoulders, exposing her to the cool air as she pressed herself against him, already feeling just how desperately he wanted her.

She let her hands wander the expanse of his chest, her fingers ghosting over his skin until she could reach around to the nail marks on his back. With a smile, she traced them, remembering how he’d earned those scrapes when he spread her legs open on the floor last night after they’d given up on making it to the couch.

Cardan grabbed her by the hip, sliding one of his knees between her thighs and locking his eyes with hers as he waited with bated breath for her to finish.

Jude, not one to deny herself a good time, let the strap of her pajama shirt fall off her shoulder as she bit her bottom lip, leaned forward, and whispered--

“Put a baby in me.”

~~~~~~~~

A/N: Ok so a few things, one the tumblr app wouldn’t let me copy and paste all the story on mobile so I had to retype some online so I’m sorry if the format fucked up. Also I have a bunch of ideas for these kids so if you want to see any more of this AU, feel free to send in requests! Happy holidays @clockworkgraystairs , I hope you enjoy cute Parent!Jurdan doing cute adult shit!

Tag list: @cardan-greenbriar-tcp @hizqueen4life @slightlyrebelliouswriter23 @thewickedkings @aelin-queen-of-terrasen @cheekycheekycheeks @queen-of-glass @b00kworm @doingmyrainbow @jurdanhell @thesirenwashere @illyrianwitchling @courtofjurdan @clockworkgraystairs @st00pid231 @booksandlewks @fateandluminary @addies-invisible-life If you want to be added, just let me know!

#jurdan #cardan greenbriar #jude duarte #tfota #tfota fanfic #tyrannosaurus lex writes #au #how we got here where we're going #hwghwwg #modern au #jurdannet secret snusband #secret snusband

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jinxquickfoot · 4 years ago

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TFATWS Script Notes

Ok, so while I genuinely enjoyed so much of TFATWS, I have...thoughts. And as a few people have asked me about said thoughts, and said thoughts have been living rent free in my head since the show ended, I’ve made this stupidly long post. (For context, my day job is as a script reader and editor, so here are my TFATWS script notes for anyone kind enough/crazy enough to read them.) And...here we go.

1) More World-Building

This is a common compliant I’ve seen about the show, and it’s a fair one. While we hear a lot about people being displaced after the Blip and the problems that’s causing, we never really get to see it. Firstly, this is such a wasted opportunity to finally show us some of more of the post-Blip chaos, which is a super interesting world that they didn’t really dive into. Secondly, we would identify more with Karli if we saw what and who she was fighting for instead of just being told about it. You could also add in the woman who dies who was so apparently important to Karli and her community but doesn’t get any screen time while she’s alive, which means we feel very distant from Karli with this loss, when we could feel closer to her. This feels like Karli’s Yinsen or Erskine and we didn’t even get to meet her.

While it was nice that we got an entire first episode dedicated to setting up Sam and Bucky’s arc, that did not need an entire episode of screen time - they don’t even interact until episode 2. Make the opening exposition more succinct, and leave room to set up, if not Karli, then at least the world and the stakes that she’s fighting for.

2) Reveal Sharon is The Power Broker in Episode 3

I know a lot of people didn’t like Sharon as the Power Broker at all, so bear with me, because I like the idea behind this at least - that Sharon has become so jaded after the events of Civil War that she’s turned to crime and has given up on the idea of heroes. As Sam is currently trying to figure out his own ideology and what the shield means to him throughout the series, and he’s already got Zemo pushing his thoughts on him, this would be another challenge for Sam to overcome. Maybe that’s what they were going for, but it’s ruined when they don’t reveal why Sharon is doing what she’s doing and instead save it up for a cheap twist in Episode 6. Most of us picked that Sharon was the Power Broker anyway and it had very little effect on the plot to the point where she felt tacked on as a poorly done set-up for Season 2.

So bring it out that info in Episode 3. It would have been a better twist in that episode, and would have made Sam even more unsure of the right path seeing a former ally as now a potential antagonist. You could also have Sam trying and failing to bring Sharon around by promising her a pardon, which she turns down, making him even more unsure of himself. And then, instead of her feeling tacked on in the last episode, she can come through and help them save the day, revealing that Sam did get through to her after all, the way he always does - empathy and understanding.

3) Wrap up John Walker in episode 5

Walker in the sixth episode was just…weird. They clearly set up him as an added obstacle for Sam and Bucky and then he was their…ally? After killing a man and clearly going for a kill on Sam when they were fighting over the shield? And as cool as that shield construction teaser was, it didn’t pay off, and John Walker did not deserve a redemption arc. So cut the shield scene, and cut Walker out of the final sequence, which would leave more room for Sam and Bucky to actually team up in that final battle. For a show that’s meant to be about their relationship, there was a very little payoff of showing them working together in the final takedown of the Flag-Smashers. Then bring in Madame Hydra and US Agent in a post credits scene for a Season 2 set-up.

4) Bring in Torres as the new Falcon in Episode 6

That’s it, that’s the note. This show definitely suffers from trying to set up too much for later seasons or other Marvel properties. If you’re going to set up Torres as the new Falcon in Episode 5, give it to us in Episode 6. Don’t devalue the show we’re watching for the sake of future content.

5) Have the Flagsmashers turn against Karli

This was such an obvious route that they seemed to be going for, so it kind of amazed me that they didn’t do it. Karli starts off as a Robin Hood-style figure who turns villain, and it’s so clear her followers are starting to doubt her - and her followers should be doubting her. One of their number died, Karli’s threatening to kill hostages, it’s so clear they’re no longer the good guys. So have them back down and abandon her when she goes too far, which leads us into -

6) Have Karli sacrifice herself

Zemo shouldn’t have been proven right. Because he was partially right, and Karli was partially right, and this show should have been about Sam trying to work out the balance between them and figure out what he thought was right, which is what the entire Captain America corner of Marvel has been about. Instead of having Karli go totally evil in her final seconds and trying to kill Sam, give her the clarity that no one is going to listen to her except if she becomes a symbol. Because people listen to and follow symbols - that’s been a major theme in this show already - and that becomes easier to do if they’re dead. Look at Steve Rogers. Her friend even refers to her as the next Captain America - the seed for this has long been planted.

Karli wants to do good but also recognises the harm she causes. Sam tries to talk her down (I’m imagining he’s put down the shield at this point to talk to her, so they can talk as human beings and not symbols), but at the crucial point she raises her gun with the apparent intent to shoot Sam, causing her to get shot instead. Her death still inspires Sam’s speech and gets her cause won, but it feels more earned and tragic because now it really is a sacrifice - one that maybe didn’t need to be made if she and others like her were listened to in the first place. It also comes with the interesting idea that both Karli and Steve have now sacrificed themselves to win a war, while Sam is still living which, as a certain Washington put it: “Dying is easy young man; living is harder.” Sam choosing to live and fight as Captain America despite knowing the hardships that come with separates him from both Steve and Karli, setting him up to be a new kind of Cap.

I’m so attached to this idea that I have three ideas for who could end up killing her

a) Have it be Sharon

In this version, Sharon embodies a more grey area that Sam would struggle with, and killing a young girl to save a friend would definitely fall into said grey area. Also, Sharon still gets her pardon, but for “eliminating the dangerous terrorist Karli Morgenthau” which…you get it.

b) Have it be Torres

So we’ve established Torres is there as the new Falcon, and all he sees is Sam about to die and takes the shot, only to realize what he’s done when it’s too late. This would add to the price of Karli’s death and be something for Torres to wrestle with in later seasons. Bonus points for one of Karli’s last acts being forgiving Torres.

c) Have it be a faceless law enforcer

This one is the most on the nose, but there’s something in the idea of the government thinking Sam still needs ‘backup’ when really they just make things worse, and Karli letting herself get killed by the system in order to improve it. These are just my opinions - doesn’t mean I’m right all or that all of these would work! But I do think it’s fair to say that the show mostly worked, but it wasn’t a home run, and this is just my script editor brain yelling at me about how they might have got there. (P.S. If this is interesting to anyone except me I have a Iron Man 3 and Age of Ultron one ready to go)

#tfatws spoilers #tfatws #the falcon and the winter solider spoilers #the falcon and the winter soldier #sam wilson #bucky barnes #captain america #winter soldier #writer things

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serpenteve · 3 years ago

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Are you still taking hotcakes? I'm literally still so mad at the TV show for swapping Alina's action of dooming the skiff at the end of Book 1 with her dooming her cartography crew at the beginning of season 1. Because there's no payoff! She hardly even mentions it again and then later tries to blame Aleksander for "her friends" dying in the Fold as though she didn't 100% cause them needing to go through. Like I get that ultimately LB in the books tried to walk back Alina's use of the cut on the skiff's main sail by having people still make it out alive and ~she didn't directly kill anyone~ but it still was undoubtedly morally grey and deliberate. The show could have done better with it in the same way they had given her more agency overall in Ep 5. By having Darkles kill the political visitors there (even if we did get the hilarious "I'm going to need to make that speech again" line) instead of it being Alina's fault, the show took away that grey edge to her and I'm >:c

They most likely were forced to change it because the crows were on the skiff and needed some other way to get them out of the Fold.

That said, I hate the way this moment is treated in the later books! Alina doing the Cut on the skiff is the most badass moment arguably of the entire trilogy imo. Especially with the Darkling asking her if this is her idea mercy and her replying back "It's the mercy you taught me" 🙌🏽 Just *chef's kiss* perfection

At that point in the story I was like "Okay, so I guess Darklina is a doomed ship unless Alina develops a collar kink idk but at least she's slowly grown a spine and learned to embrace her powers and kick ass..............right?????"

But then it's like her entire character development just resets at the start of S&S. She's back to living like a mouse, deliberately suppressing her powers and making herself weak, back to being nothing but "Mal's girlfriend" and wants nothing more than to run away and abandon Ravka to its fate. The only time she starts to go through that positive character arc again is when she takes the second amplifier and we all know how Bardugo feels about powerful woman 😒 😒 😒

#viv answers

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jngles · 4 years ago

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Thoughts You Definitely All Asked For on ‘The Mandalorian’ Season 2 Finale!!

These are in chronological order for the show.

One of my biggest fears about them reintroducing Boba Fett was that by removing some of his mystery, they would make him less cool. Thank god that has not been the case. He’s still an aloof and nasty piece of work but with dimensions added.

We all know the Empire is most often a metaphor for America right? At least when it’s not being Nazi Germany? The Imperial pilot talking about destroying an entire planet (of peaceful weaponless civilians no less) to stop terrorism hits a little too close to home of the nuclear bombs the US has dropped and the endless destruction of the Middle East in the “war against terror.” And of course we frame all our wars in similar language like “our troops died to keep our country safe,” which hasn’t really been true since WWII.

I do think it’s worth noting that this is the first time SW has had someone acknowledge the human losses of the Death Star blasts. Usually it’s framed as a loss in construction time, strategical advantage, and power. The Empire proved time and time again that the lives of its soldiers were utterly expendable, which always made me question why people remained loyal outside of fear. Through this pilot’s phrasing, you can see the propaganda Imperial superiors used to twist the truth to their followers, always blaming those deaths on Rebel aggression instead of prideful Imperial neglect (I.e. not abandoning ship when there was still time) or even direct Imperial aggression like Operation Cinder where they fired on thousands of their own (discussed in S2E7.)

You can’t tell me Din wasn’t into it when Cara shot that asshole pilot. That cold faced revenge shot? 100% Mandalorian style, and also very very hot.

I appreciate that it was a pretty equal match between Boba and Koska Reeves. So much of Boba’s advantage comes from his suit, but since she also has one, it’s a battle of wits on how to use it, and they even out. This both maintains his legendary badassery and also that of highly trained Mandalorian warriors, and hopefully avoids asshole chauvinist SW fans on the internet complaining abujt “pandering to feminism” (fuck off @ all of them, especially since Mercedes Vernado who plays Reeves is a WWE champ and could kick all of your asses.)

Din point blank asked how many Death Troopers there are and Dr. Pershing never answered, and that annoys me.

Why is no one suspicious why Dr. Pershing is being so helpful and revealing so much information? He totally did not have to tell them about the Dark Troopers or any of the specifics of locations on the ship. He’s still with the empire post-fall, implying he’s a loyalist, so... wtf on his part (since no tricks come of it), and “be smarter” on the part of everyone else. Unless he’s been captive as a clone engineer all this time. But couldn’t he have made his escape back in Season 1 when Din killed everyone at that lab to get the kid back?

Bo Katan really could’ve just told them how the retrieval of the dark saber needs to work in the flight before the mission instead of being vague about “he belongs to me.”

Boba Fett’s usage of “Princess” and “don’t worry about me” are a good throwback to Han Solo and the culture they both grew up in. You can never quite tell if it’s based in misogyny or resentment for upper classes, but both of them seem to use it as a shield for begrudging respect they hold for a woman they think is brave but following a fool’s errand (the Rebellion and retaking Mandalore).

The Comms Officer (Katy O’Brian) assisting Moff Gideon will forever and always look like Ilana Glazer to me, and then I get swept up imagining what would happen if the Broad City cast accidentally got transported to Star Wars.

The launch tube sequence has some amazing cinematography.

The second I saw Boba was cut off from the pack, I really thought they were going to kill him again and make his return bittersweet. Glad they didn’t.

God this team of Bo Katan, Koska Reeves, Fennec Shand, and Cara Dune is SO BADASS. I’m just obsessed with all these characters and their various motivations to get shit done. I honestly didn’t even think about the fact it’s all women until my re-watch, showing that the writers made it feel natural, the way women deserve to have their representation done. You can bet I am SO EXCITED for my future daughter and the wealth of possibilities she’s going to have of characters to play pretend as, action figures she can relate to, Halloween costumes to wear, etc. It’s so validating that we’ve gone from only Princess Leia as a female main character to all these women + Rey, Jyn Erso, Ahsoka, etc. etc.

Can’t wait for the trap remix of the Dark Trooper activation noises. (And the transition from that to the minimalist flute theme is perfect.)

The spy movie version of the main theme music is sick.

The Dark Trooper droid faces have a lot of similarity to Darth Vader’s mask. That callback is especially apparent when the one is literally lit from the inside with fire. He was already a martyr/legend to the Imperial remnants, Kylo Ren didn’t start the trend of ignoring his redemption.

Cara’s “excuse me” right before shooting up Stormtroopers is hilarious. Literally “can’t talk rn, doing hot girl shit and murdering space Nazis.”

Finally an Imperial ship got some frickin security cameras. Truly- the amount of times people just wander down hallways they’re not supposed to be in with no one being able to find them throughout the course of Star Wars is ridiculous when you think about the degree of surveillance our real life society carries out. I also love that this means The Mandalorian characters have also seen The Mandalorian.

The storytelling does such a service to Pedro Pascal and his already heroic efforts to portray emotion through a helmet. For example: Din easily could’ve killed the one stormtrooper outside Grogu’s cell much more efficiently, but instead, to show his absolute rage, they wrote in Din choking him out with a spear.

Moff Gideon would have been the BIGGEST pain in the ass in philosophy class. “Assume I know everything” my ass. I want to hear about his backstory (he would’ve been “coming of age” at the time of the Clone Wars) mostly just to hear about him getting bullied at school.

Smart move honestly, to try to tempt Din with the Mandalorian throne, given the Mandalorian power struggles of the past. Proud of our boy for keeping his priorities straight.

So has the blood from Grogu been transferred out of the ship and back to the remnant empire already, or do they have to find a new “donor” to help with building Snoke and Palpatine’s clones? Will they continue to go after him with Luke?

Lmao Din being so annoyed by Bo Katan being stringent about the tradition of winning the Dark Saber through combat is HILARIOUS, coming from a man who up until like a day ago hadn’t shown his face to a living being in decades.

The dark troopers can punch in blast doors but NOT Din’s helmet?? That’s a wild testament to beskar. Somehow that’s the comparison that sticks out to me, more even than its resistance to lightsabers.

This show works because of the cynicism of so many characters adding contrast to the moments of heart. Cara Dune is not a “fan” the way Rey was (for the record I love Rey, don’t come at her, it’s just different). Cara doesn’t see an X-Wing and go OMG THE REBELLION I LOVE THEM. She’s been through too much to believe in the magic saviourism of the “good guys,” and is instead thinking strategically when she, the one Rebel present, brushes off the usefulness of “one X-Wing.” The only positive things she seems to feel in battle situations are moments of relief and brief satisfaction in hurting the empire, with a dark knowledge that it will never make up for the hurt they did to her.

How do you keep a cloak hood on while fighting? Both from a technical standpoint (my hats fall off without me even having to move- is he expending force energy just to keep it on and look cool lol?) and also because idk, maybe it’s just me, but peripheral vision is helpful when surrounded by killer robots on a thin bridge above oblivion. I know his first lesson was to “see” through the force, but every resource helps, right?

Now that she has the ship, I wonder if Bo Katan can reprogram any salvageable Dark Troopers to help with retaking Mandalore?

There is nothing like seeing Luke’s fighting style, with its efficient choppiness and twinge of darkness. I always wonder how much is natural and how much is influenced by his first fights with Vader (that Skywalker diva flair). I love how they’ve advanced his technique but also kept him extremely “grey” here- like to straight up COMBUST a Dark Trooper takes some violent energy lol.

How tf is Moff Gideon alive after threatening Grogu’s life twice directly? That’s a wild testament to Din’s regard for Cara.

I love how seeing Luke slice through a bunch of murder droids like butter probably was a huge point in his favor for Din actually letting Grogu go with him. Like he will only send his child to boarding preschool if he knows the teacher will be a certified killing machine.

Oh my god they finally brought in some OG Star Wars theme music for Luke to take his hood off to 😭 It felt weird seeing him fight to different music, so the emotional payoff is huge when his themes come back for the face reveal.

Whoever added the digital young Mark Hamill face NAILED those classic shining Luke eyes and the earnest eyebrow lift.

Whoever shines the glass of Baby Yoda’s lil puppet eyeballs each day deserves a raise. The light caught in those babies is devastating.

Din is shaking as he takes off his helmet. This is the most enormous show of love he could give him, and possibly the last he’ll be able to for a long time. He only just got Grogu back and is desperate for a moment of real connection before letting him go once again.

This is the first time anyone has touched Din’s face since... likely his parents as a child.

Whoever wrote this scene clearly actually has kids. Anyone who’s ever had to leave a young child even just to go out for a bit or to drop them off somewhere knows that heartbreak of seeing them look in your eyes and hold on to your leg, trying to keep you with them. Especially when they can sense your mutual separation anxiety. The one thing that starts to make them feel better is something fun like a new toy or friend who can be their guide in the new environment, and R2’s friendly introduction is exactly that (since digital Luke isn’t being particularly emotive or child friendly... I hope that’s just because he’s reaching into Grogu’s mind while also keeping an eye on the multiple people with guns trained on him, not because he’s going to be totally unfeeling raising this kid.)

I love that Grogu and R2 are immediately buddies in contrast to Episode 5 when R2 was like “fuck this guy” @ Yoda stealing food and hitting him with a walking stick lol. I would imagine Luke must be reminded of that first introduction too and entertained by this display of playfulness in a *positive* light between R2 and mini-Yoda.

I need to know if Luke and Ahsoka have met- it is KILLING ME.

Does this mean Grogu will get killed by Kylo Ren when he fucks up Luke’s academy??? I will reincarnate Ben just to kill him again if that’s the case.

How does Luke not even fully SMILE at Grogu?? An adorable little baby version of his beloved master Yoda, and you’re telling me he doesn’t have the same heart stopping gasp we all did when we first saw him?? Maybe he did when they first connected through the force. He has a bit of bemusement on his face, and also wonder in his eyes, but I want a grin of recognition and welcome, dammit.

I really wish Luke had somehow acknowledged Cara Dune. Everyone else seems to see the tear drop Rebel sign and know it means Alderaan. He could’ve been like yo I have a badass warrior sister from your planet that you should meet. Or just “thank you for your service.” (I know this actually wouldn’t have been cinematically good but my heart wants it.)

Luke didn’t tell Din his name?? Or ask for any details about the kid and his care?? I could literally never let my kid go with someone, regardless of how worthy, and not be like, “Excuse me sir who are you and where tf are you taking my tiny beloved green goblin in case I need to find him? Here is my contact info. He likes to eat frogs and eggs, and he can have macarons as a treat. He’s 50 years old and his favorite toy is still a ball. Bedtime is 8pm and he’s allergic to dairy.”

Another reason I wish Luke had identified himself would be to see the mishmash of reactions that would ensue. Cara would be like DAMN IT’S THAT GUY WHO BLEW UP THE DEATH STAR AND KILLED THE EMPEROR, ACT COOL (and she would indeed act cool). Fennec would be like ugh it’s that guy who helped kill my best paying client Jabba the Hutt and then fucked over my boss Boba, I helped save the kid for THIS? And I would LOVE to know how Bo Katan feels about him, assuming she’s heard of him, and especially if she knows he’s Anakin Skywalker’s son. That confusion is probably the reason WHY the writers didn’t have him reveal himself- they didn’t want to break the emotion of the scene.

Let‘s all be real I’m just being needy about wanting things from Luke because of what he meant to me as a kid and my resulting innate need to have more canon of him, whatever it is, whenever I can get it. Especially in this form that’s so similar to ROTJ, a movie I watched on endless repeat. Even getting this was incredible though. Who else could we trust this lil heart-stealing green bean with so fully? Yet who would be so arrogant as to try to train a baby yodling (see: Ahsoka’s wise refusal)?

R2 is reckless as hell lmao. Not that we don’t already know that, but for him to just head on in, effectively abandoning Luke’s ship (how can they know if there are more troopers or not who might blow it up?) and also putting himself in the path of the ridiculously deadly Dark Troopers is NUTS. I’m usually on his side but he absolutely deserves a scolding by C3PO for this one.

I wonder if Grogu has any memories of R2 or vice versa since they did occupy the Jedi Temple at the same time. Can Grogu understand droids? They could swap stories about mutual acquaintances.

Does Din pretty much have to go with Bo Katan now since a) he’s shown his face and may not be able to go back to the Watch, and b) because he has the darksaber and has to figure out how to get it back to her without dying?

How in the hell did Bib Fortuna (whose chins age was not kind to) go from being butler to being boss? Were all the henchmen just like, “Fuck yeah, no Hutt parents no rules, let’s do what we want!!” And then they’ve spent the last ten years living off of whatever money they could salvage from Jabba’s non-banked wealth? Why has no one challenged them for that prime real estate and loot? I would love to hear that story.

Fennec Shand says “respect sex workers” so you better fuckin’ do it.

Idk dude Bib Fortuna really was a good butler, and he seemed pretty willing to comply with whoever’s in power. Did he screw Boba over in his attempt to return from the dead and earn that killing shot somehow? Or was this to make sure there was no one left who would have a claim to loyalty? Or maybe Boba just really wanted to sit in that chair.

Does “The Book of Boba Fett” mean we’re not on Din Djarin’s story anymore? Or is it a new show? I would much prefer the latter. I want to see Din help retake Mandalore or at least get a hug.

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just-the-mage · 4 years ago

Text

Review-Love Death + Robots (Pt 1. Episodes 1-4)

So here we are again. You, dear readers, and I, a mostly defunct tumblr page. I was thinking...I’ve written a few reviews on here before, and I’ve rather enjoyed myself to be honest. So until RP starts up again for me, I’m going to grab some popcorn and start reviewing some of the media I’ve been indulging in during this exceptionally fun pandemic we’ve all been saddled with (and are becoming increasingly more and more used to as time goes on). Here we go!

Spoilers incoming! I don’t like to discuss a show without going through it entirely-no stone unturned. You have been warned!

Love Death + Robots is a compilation series-each episode is self-contained content, based on what I have experienced thus far. The content varies wildly from cute and sweet to surreal, to horrific. For right now I’m going to stick with the first four episodes since they are fresh in my mind.

Episode 1: Three Robots

Three robots shows a short adventure shared by, you guessed it-Three robots exploring the crumbling remains of human society. It comes across as three tourists making their way through an area that they are completely unfamiliar with, attempting to define and understand elements of the environment as humans once did. Their analysis and attempts to understand not only human culture, but also basic human biology, were entertaining to say the least. Each robot has flair, character, and a their own take on humans and humanity. Over the course of the episode, the fall of mankind is referenced a few times, being initially explained as a mass extinction due to environmental disasters (global warming is probably a factor-one of the buildings has an entire ship sticking out of it). However, the twist ending throws that whole theory into question once the cat that has been accompanying the robots for the last leg of their journey reveals itself as capable of speech. And, interestingly enough...being in possession of opposable thumbs. It was certainly unexpected, and a bit odd-the cat (and its many, many brethren) manage to finish out the episode by convincing the robots that if the robots do not pet them, the cats may explode. I will say that the ending, though it was rather silly and fitting with the tone, felt like an out of place twist intended mostly to give a bit of closure to a story that had no real need to have an ending. It felt a little out-of-left field, at least to me.

This first episode, I think, is one that I could recommend to a much more general audience than almost all of the other content of the show. It’s whimsical and cute, despite inhabiting such a grim setting (and grim it is-post apocalyptic is not taken lightly here. There are plenty of corpses, some skeletal and some not quite so much. At least one of them appears to have died by suicide). I found it to be a nice addition and a good introduction to ease people into the tone of the show. Definitely give this one a watch, even if the ending sort of comes from nowhere.

Episode 2: Beyond the Aquila Rift

This episode was definitely a change of pace from the first. It begins as a high science fiction story starring a hunky, middle aged man and his two crewmates, making some sort of cargo run (?) through a wormhole of some kind, but promptly finding themselves in a completely different place from what they expected. Hunky space captain wakes up first, finding that he is greeted by an old friend (read: lover) of his, who explains that there was a navigation error that led them off course-way off course. They’re in a completely different area than they expected. The ship’s navigator wakes as well, swearing that there couldn’t have been an error in her calculations, but seems ill and is placed back in her future tech cryopod to rest. Space captain man then bangs it out with his ex-lover (Greta) in a scene that was almost definitely written by a man, and she reveals to him that she lied, and that him and his crew are actually hundreds of light-years further off course than they had thought they were, basically dashing any hopes that he could have of returning to his old life. The two then wake the navigator again, who immediately starts ranting that ‘Greta’ isn’t who she says she is. At this point, enough clues have been given that the captain catches up with the audience (it was all a simulation the whole time), and he confronts Greta, demanding that she reveal herself as she truly is. She does, after some prodding-and the captain finds himself in an infested husk of a ship, aged and haggard, obviously dying of starvation. Greta reveals herself as a lovely spider-beast, and the captain wakes up from his pod again-back in his comfortable illusion once more.

I love the premise of this one. Crazy aliens and shit like this is a huge draw for me-sci-fi horror is probably my favorite subgenre of horror when it’s done well. I would count this episode as doing it pretty well. They don’t go into much techno-babble, which I think is a pitfall for some sci-fi stories. The writers are well aware that we aren’t spending too long in this world, so we don’t need to know much about the rules under which it operates outside of ‘computer mistake your ship fly here.’ The twist ending didn’t end up being too much of a twist-in my opinion there were too many clues given throughout the episode to make it that much of a surprise that things weren’t as they seemed. The odds of this man meeting his ex-lover in the infinitesimal reaches of space just by chance were a bit too impossible to make it believable-and the navigator was far too convinced that her work couldn’t be incorrect. In the end, it was an expected twist, but still pretty jarring. Execution is pretty good overall though-and the sex scene is pretty decent as well, even if its strictly a dude-fantasy thing. Also, call me a sucker for cool looking beasties, but I adore the design on spider-Greta. That’s a lady right there for you.

Episode 3: Ice Age

The only live action episode I’ve seen so far-this one gives an *entirely* different tone than the majority of the other episodes in the series. Topher Grace and Mary Elizabeth Winstead happen upon a lost civilization that exists entirely within their refrigerator. They watch in awe as it develops incredibly quickly-hundreds of years passing within the civilization in roughly an hour or so of real time. What starts in the morning as a town in the viking ages eventually develops into a modern society, almost destroys itself with nukes, and then rebuilds from the ashes into a fully futuristic society that quickly ascends beyond physical form, appearing to disperse itself into the cosmos, no longer bound by such petty rules as the laws of physics. A disappointed Topher asks if they’ll return-to which he receives a sad ‘no’ from his partner. It seems all is lost, and the couple go to bed for the night-only to find that the cycle has restarted overnight, and they probably won’t be able to keep any frozen chicken in the freezer for quite some time.

This one is probably one of my favorites of the series so far. It’s fairly well acted, but the real beauty of the episode is getting to watch the mini-civilization develop itself in a glorious time lapse-the work that must’ve gone into it must have been monumental, to be honest. The final product certainly felt that way, in any case. What I also found fascinating was a specific scene in which the protagonists were abandoned in place of some of the tiny denizens of the lost civilization-which made me realize exactly how slow the ‘normal sized people’s’ actions must have looked to the diminutive people of this rapidly developing society. Reminiscent of the earth’s motion in relation to our own perception-and reinforcing the concept that to an individual, perception is everything.

Episode 4: Sonnie’s Edge

This episode opens with three people transporting mysterious cargo into a heavily guarded complex, quickly encountering and interacting with a ‘bigwig’ of sorts with a beautiful woman on his arm. Through context clues the audience is easily able to discover that the three (pictured above) are here for a fight-and that their cargo is their fighter, a living creature of obviously immense proportion. The bigwig asks the team to throw the fight, and they refuse, even after he offers a large amount of money. (It’s worth mentioning that during this scene, ‘Sonnie’, the leader and controller of the beast fighter, shares an EXTREMELY homosexual gaze with the bigwig’s beautiful lady friend. Don’t think I didn’t notice the setup, because I definitely noticed the payoff, even though it was rudely interrupted). Sonnie and her teammates enter the ring, setting up as it appears that she will be piloting her fighter in some way. Her opponent is also introduced, though he is hardly important in the story-imagine a cake of beef with a big sticker on him that says ‘mysogyny’ in bold print. What follows is one of the most brutal fight scenes I’ve seen in animation (this is just my personal opinion though). These creatures fucking tear each other to shreds, with Sonnie’s beast only just barely emerging as the victor, tearing the opposing fighter’s head clean from its body. The bigwig is obviously angry, as is Sonnie’s opponent, and Sonnie and her team retires to a hotel room of sorts, with the exception of Sonnie-who slips away into the room that houses her fighter, promptly encountering the beauty from earlier! (Payoff time)..and it gets gay. Fast. I love me some wlw content, and there’s some nice tension here, right up until the beauty stabs Sonnie through the head. Rude. The bigwig reveals himself, which was a bit of a surprise-the part of me that hadn’t seen much of this show yet was hoping for a fluffy little happy ending. It wasn’t to be though..after the beauty crushes Sonnie’s skull, the two promptly realize that ‘Sonnie’ wasn’t Sonnie at all-just some biotech. The *real* Sonnie...was the fighter, the whole time. Who promptly makes short work of both the beauty and the bigwig, (implied), in what I can only describe as the most satisfying moment in the series that I’ve seen thus far.

This was easily my favorite episode of the show, and has continued to be, and I assume will continue to be my favorite through the rest of the series. It’s not just because of the lesbian rep (my people!), or the misogynists getting fucking destroyed, but the strength of the reveal, the choreography of the fight scene, and the *power* of the protagonist. I love her. I love her sooo much. We are seamlessly introduced into the world, shown a woman who has been beaten, scarred, faced sexual abuse, and she remade herself into a being of pure power. She fought back, and *look how she fights back*. I cannot describe just how much of a cheer-worthy moment it was to watch the smug smile be summarily wiped from the face of the bigwig. I *love* seeing a villain who has full confidence in their victory suddenly realize that they don’t have the upper hand anymore...and that they are, in fact, absolutely screwed. This was one of those wonderful, wonderful moments, and I can think of nobody more deserving than this villain of being torn to shreds. This was an A+ episode for sure-100% recommend this one for anyone who can handle a bit of gore.

Thank you so much for reading! This is only part 1...more to come!

#ooc #not ffxiv #review #show review #tv show review #love death and robots #love #death #robots #animation #sonnie's edge #ice age #beyond the aquila rift #three robots #wlw #lesbian

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