#if she's seen as hot or the abuse is used for comic relief then everyone is fine with it and shes an icon apparently

[rantahead]

I’ve seen a lot of people saying NaruSaku would’ve been a better endgame ship and would’ve lived up to Kushina’s words about finding someone like her and that their kids would’ve been stronger, and these are the same people who ship BoruSara, but, like, you wouldn’t have Boruto and Sarada if it wasn’t for NaruHina and SasuSaku.

NaruSaku wouldn't be a good couple and their kids wouldn't even rival NaruHina's kids' strength. here's why:

Sakura's kids are always weak (yes, I'm starting with this first so I can get it out of the way):

the only thing Sakura can really pass on is her strength, as we see Sarada using it quite often. But her chakra control and Medical Ninjutsu can't, which makes Sarada look pathetic in eyes of some fans for not being able to achieve Medical Ninjutsu even tho her mom's one of the greatest (at this point, Wasabi or Mitsuki might unlock the Byakugo Seal because they're the best at it) Sakura has no Kekkei Genkai and we've never seen her use Ninjutsu (I know she has the chakra natures for it, but never actually uses it). so she can't really pass on something that she doesn't have or never uses.

2. Kushina's words:

Kushina's words were never about finding someone like her (personality wise), but like her (deep down).

people say Hinata wasn't fit to be with Naruto 'cause she wasn't like Kushina, but those people were thinking personality wise.

in reality, Sakura was the first person to come his way, because he only liked her because she was cute. she was literally introduced that way.

Kushina never wanted Naruto to marry someone who has the same personality as her, but someone who is like her. literally, all Sakura and Kushina have in common is their hair colors are different from normal shinobis, they were picked on for their insecurities, and they're hot-headed. Hinata, however, has many similarities.

they both care about Naruto

they've protected him with their lives

Hinata was the first person to believe in him after his parents

Hinata was willing to give her own life for Naruto's safety, TWICE, as Kushina did.

Hinata helped him when he needed it the most as did Kushina when he met her for the first time

now we move onto way the ship wouldn’t work itself:

Naruto questioned when Sakura called herself beautiful:

here, Naruto questions Sakura when she calls herself "lovely ninja maiden". if he was so smitten with her, you think he'd question her nickname and not her teaching? yeah, I think so. even if he loved her SO MUCH, he wouldn't questioned, he'd agree.

2. Naruto has never complimented Sakura as a lover should:

in Naruto, not once has Naruto complimented Sakura's appearance. Inari, who barely got to know her and only got to know her for one arc, complimented her as soon as he saw her, yet why not Naruto...? only once he has, but that's when he introduced Sakura. even after their reunion, he said she looked exactly the same.

heck, he even claimed that Haku, a BOY, looked cuter than Sakura.

3. Sakura hits Naruto too much:

Sakura hits Naruto too much. if they had of gotten married, it would be an abusive one (Sakura abusing Naruto). I understand she cares about him and he cares about her, I really do, but there's still A LOT more panels of her hitting him more than her caring about him. but there's a limit of pics a post, and I have much more to add and I don't want Sakura hitting Naruto to take up all the pic space. and not to mention, there's still the anime fillers. I understand that it's supposed to be comic relief, yet there's no need to go that hard. she leaves bruises or bumps on the places she hits, whereas everyone else don't even leave a mark. I understand that it could be because of her being a Medical Ninja and her strength is more than a normal humans, yet she does it too hard, KNOWING it's gonna leave a bump. even Tsunade (who has only hit him at least once) has not left a mark on Naruto and her strength is GREATER than Sakura's. that just shows that she hits him too hard.

and even if they got married, it'll still be an abusive relationship because Sakura hasn't stopped hitting Naruto, even through timeskip. her kids, too, would suffer the abuse of their mother and fear for their lives.

4. they don’t understand each other on a deeper level:

now, Naruto married Hinata because they understand each other on a deeper level than anyone else (other than Shikamaru). she understands his pain and loneliness.

he never understood Sakura's pain and she never made an effort to understand his.

you may argue that because she was his teammate, she'd understand him the most because they went through Hell together. but the only people who understand Naruto on a deep deep level is Hinata and Shikamaru. not even Sasuke and Gaara (the ones confirmed to be his closest friends other than Shikamaru).

5. Naruto doesn’t except Sakura’s crush on Sasuke in part 1:

in original Naruto, Naruto tried everything to make sure Sakura falls out of love with Sasuke and in love with him. he never got to understand why she loves him or never really understood why he himself loved her. he even tried making her think Sasuke was a jerk by transforming into him.

I feel like if he had of ended up with Sakura and never realized his feelings for Hinata, it would be a loveless marriage and Naruto would've turned out as a spoiled brat, because he "won" his childhood lover.

6. The confession:

finally, the infamous confession that ruined Sakura for most of the fandom. honestly, I didn't think the Sakura hate could get any worst, yet this is just... it ruined Sakura for me.

like, Sakura seems okay with playing with Naruto's feelings. she KNOWS he likes her, Sai even confirmed it with BOTH him and her, yet she's reallly okay with hurting him and playing him for the fool?

not to mention, she KNEW about Hinata's feelings ever since the Pain arc, probably even before that because she's told Naruto that Hinata had been watching him all the way back in part 1, so she probably knew from there. was she really okay with playing with her boy best friend's feelings and betraying one of her best friends? she didn't even bother to check with Hinata about it. if Naruto had of said yes, do you think she would've had the nerve to walk in front of Hinata on Naruto's arm? no.

I don't think Hinata even knows of it. goes to show how little it meant to both Naruto and Sakura since they never bothered to mention it to Naruto's own WIFE.

but yeah, Naruto's head over heels in love with Sakura that he is totally in a loveless marriage with someone he finds weird because the girl he really loved is in a different marriage.

[ablednt]

Okay but my least favorite fandom trend is how hard people reach to defend fathers who are iffy at best and blatantly abusive at worst like it doesn't matter how blatantly awful a character is people will be like oh? You don't like them? You think they're a bad father? Well fuck you they're my favorite character now >:[

[ilonga]

rise of skywalker and sequels salt time, y’all

things I’m salty about in the rise of skywalker and the star wars sequels, in no particular order:

- Finn was sidelined 

- FINN WAS SIDELINED

- he was such an interesting character with so much potential (a stormtrooper who deserted!! pretty sure that was the first time we’d ever seen that!!), and it was all ignored and he was turned into background noise for what?? kylo ren??

- seriously! after TFA, the movies should have explored his backstroy! we should have seen his stormtrooper past affect him!! maybe a stormtrooper revolution!! he should have had a CHARACTER ARC!

- also his force-sensitivity being turned into a joke and comic relief was frankly insulting

- they could have done so many things with that side of the character (even though it was kind of out of nowhere)! parallels between finn and rey, finn questioning his identity, the whole a former stormptrooper being force sensitive thing should have been explored!

- Poe was sidelined

- Poe was a spice runner for no reason?? 1) isn’t that a rude stereotype, and 2) Poe is not Han Solo 2.0!! he was his own, different character!

- Finn/Poe didn’t happen

- gonna be salty about that forever, though I guess I saw it coming :( (it’s disney, what did I expect?)

- but they gave Poe a straight love interest that we’d never heard of before this movie and who he had like two lines of dialogue with just to rub it in?? like, really?

- they completely forgot Rose existed

- like, listen, I wasn’t the biggest fan of the finnrose kiss either, but you can’t just pretend it didn’t happen and hope everyone forgets about it

- and sure, rose’s introduction and character in TLJ was a bit clumsy

- BUT YOU CAN’T JUST IGNORE HER AND PRETEND SHE DIDN’T HAPPEN

- she had a lot of potential as a character, and interesting backstory, a practical pragmatic personality, and a lot of ways she could play off the other characters

- TROS could have been where we saw Rose grow as a character and really shine

- instead, she was forgotten

- ugh

- REY PALPATINE WAS THE DUMBEST FRICKING THING OKAY--

- like, first of all, palpatine coming back for some reason somehow was the most ridiculous direction this movie could have gone and didn’t work, at all

- their enemy for the first TWO MOVIES was the First Order and Kylo Ren

- they had a huge moment in TLJ where the Resistance is steadily being destroyed and they won’t last long against the First Order

- now they’re supposed to take on the First Order and a now-supposedly-immortal emperor palpatine who has a collection of unmanned star destroyers he can control for some reason??

- both of them at once? the resistance is barely alive as is, now you’re adding an OP extra army + sith lord to the mix?

- I mean, this is ridiculous. Palpatine’s dead. Anakin’s big sacrifice in return of the jedi was KILLING palpatine. now he’s back, and the resistance somehow realises he’s back and decides he’s enemy #1 now?

- how did the resistance find out a dead sith lord came back to life on a remote planet anyways?

- and WHAT ABOUT, YOU KNOW, THE FIRST ORDER? AND KYLO REN?

- Kylo Ren, who they finally decided was going to be the main villain in TLJ (even with that stupid “rey trying to redeem the mass murderer” plot going on in the background), and now they don’t have the guts to commit to making him evil (which he was for the LAST TWO MOVIES AND THE MAJORITY OF TROS)

- so, since they weren’t committed enough to make Kylo a villain like he actually was and didn’t have the groundwork for a redemption, they just decided to ignore the fact that he was evil and hope it would go away

- like, are we going to forget that he literally MURDERED HIS DAD, HAN SOLO

- or that he and his first order destroyed a whole SYSTEM OF PLANETS? filled with billions of innocent people?

- he personally tortured Poe, he personally tortured Rey, and he was complicit in a system that kidnapped Finn, took him from his family, and brainwashed him

- not to mention that one of the opening scenes of TROS was him literally massacring people

- but no!! it’s all fine now, bc he looked at his dad’s ghost a little sadly and got a new lightsaber color

- like, no. he isn’t “redeemed” because he’s decided he has the hots for rey. heck, that makes it even worse. he’s been trying to manipulate her for all three movies, he’s gaslighted her, he’s threatened her, he’s hurt the people she cares about. NONE OF THAT IS OKAY. and it’s even less okay that all of his evil deeds can be written off because rey’s “”love”” for him “healed” him or whatever the fuck they want us to think

- and why would they have Rey HEAL him? after SHE stabbed him? in what universe does that make sense?? even if rey didn’t defeat him fairly bc he was distracted or whatever, this is still the supreme leader of the army rey and the rebels are trying to defeat. like, rey, are you a part of the resistance or not? it doesn’t matter if he was “nicer” to you than the rest of the rebels. He’s still your ENEMY. Your “”empathy”” here helps no one, least of all yourself. Kylo Ren dead would have been a massive victory for the resistance--maybe they’d even have had a chance against the first order then! you know, the first order? the enemy you were fighting for the last two movies? 

- is this the message you want to be sending to young girls in the audience? that it’s ok if their partner hurts them, hurts other people, is a bad person in general, because their love can “”heal”” him? and that eventually, he’ll turn good if you just try hard enough?

- this is how people wind up in abusive relationships!! that shit is NOT okay

- and the kiss is ridiculous for the same reasons. you don’t owe kylo ren anything, rey. Not in the least for “rescuing” from a situation that was pretty much created bc of him. He’s the one who teamed up with palpatine at the beginning of the movie, remember?

- sometimes I feel like this movie forgot that kylo ren is, you know, a bad person, which the other two movies spent their entire runtime showing us

- like darth vader’s sacrifice was one thing. first of all, it was for his son, his child, and secondly, vader was very much under the power of the emperor and debatably had the mindset of a slave

- kylo ren, on the other hand, was completely under his own power. HE was making the choices, and calling the shots. HE murdered Snoke. And he died for a girl he was manipulating and gaslighting constantly and that he didn’t have much of a connection to other than “the force”

- like, darth vader’s “”redemption”” definitely wasn’t perfect either. you can argue that him killing the emperor and sacrificing him self to save his son didn’t negate any of his actions or him being a bad person. but it was definitely more meaningful and better handled.

- and let’s talk about rey

- I will forever be bitter that rey didn’t get a meaningful character arc and character growth

- which is so disappointing because she was SUCH an interesting (& mysterious) character with so much potential in TFA

- I feel like, in making her palpatine, which was pretty out of nowhere and contrary to the last jedi, they were so busy trying to fit her heritage into the movie in a way that sort of made sense that they forgot to make the movie about her growing as a character and person

- couldn’t they at least have given her her own lightsaber?

- I mean, her being a palpatine is already ridiculous because since when does palpatine have a son? (clone, whatever) And since when did that son have some sort of epic struggle where he refuses to join palpatine and runs away? and when did that son find someone he fell in love with, and have a daughter? and then subsequently abandon her, a seven-ish year old, on a dangerous desert planet? (I mean, wasn’t palpatine dead by then anyways?)

- it just doesn’t fit with the already established star wars universe. we already know palpatine’s story (well, not the beginning of it, but enough). It was movies 1-6, clone wars, and rebels. if he had had a son that had a luke-esque struggle against the darkside, it would have shown up.

- it just doesn’t fit

- but anyways, back to rey

- I guess they were trying to give her some luke-style struggle where she struggles with her heritage and a pull to the darkside that she has to ultimately triumph over? but it doesn’t work

- one, because she never HAS any struggle with the dark side. shooting lightning out of your fingers out of nowhere doesn’t count (and wasn’t that a ridiculous scene. it was more comical than anything else, which is definitely not what they were going for)

- a struggle with the darkside is about being tempted to give into anger, fear, and hatred, and struggling not to do the wrong things and turn evil. In luke’s story, we SAW that. we also saw luke’s horror and eventual acceptance of his heritage, which we never really saw with rey. It was just like, “okay, guess I’m a palpatine?” and it wasn’t nearly as impactful bc palpatine had been dead for the past thirty-ish years. as a contrast, vader was a living and very present villain who the heroes had to contend with, and it was personal for most of them.

- so I guess they tried to make that her character arc, but it didn’t work. so we were left with a stale character who didn’t really have any meaningful victories or losses.

- is she really a “”mary sue”” like everyone’s claiming if they never really made the story about her?

- I think that was the biggest thing that was so unsatisfying about the sequels

- she was hyped up to be the first real mainstream female jedi protagonist (obviously clone wars got there first, but movies are definitely more mainstream than a show, sorry cw :( ), but she never really got a journey, struggles, or real triumphs. which is such a shame because she was this really empowering character in TFA that I was so excited to see more! but her trilogy-wide character arc just wasn’t satsifying

- I wanted to see her really struggle, and rise above her struggles! I wanted her to have meaningful triumphs!

- also I don’t think she ever got injured either, which is definitely a deviation from the star wars trilogy pattern. that’s kinda strange. (luke lost his hand & got electrocuted, han got frozen in carbonite, leia got tortured & shot, anakin got, well, a LOT of injuries, but even before becoming darth vader w/ the foregone conclusion, he had his arm cut off, padme was pretty heavily injured on genosis, and obi-wan was injured in the fight against dooku)

- yup

- also the sith wayfinder was kinda dumb, and I never felt like there were real stakes in TROS

- and let’s address the rey skywalker thing: ok, fine, I get what they were trying to say, kind of

- and I’m not foaming at the mouth about it like some people are. I’m fairly indifferent

- but it would have been a lot more meaningful if rey had had like, a really close, deep relationship with Leia and Luke, so she could say that she and they considered her a skywalker

- but she didn’t have that sort of relationship with them, not really. Sure, she and leia were friends on-screen, but that was it. and luke didn’t really seem to like her all that much. 

- so like, “meh”

- especially since Leia’s technically a Solo or an Organa, so that line working really relied on her relationship with Luke, which wasn’t strong enough

- yea, so that’s that

- the “jedi voices” scene was pretty cool though (AAAAH AHSOKA!! AND ANAKIN!! AND ALL THE OTHER JEDI!!), and I liked her yellow lightsaber (although she could have built her own lightsaber at the BEGINNING OF THE MOVIE, instead of carrying luke’s the whole time)

there are things I like about the sequels, mind you. a lot of things!! but there’s a lot I was disappointed in too.

congrats if you got this far, that was a LOT of salt

[isuzuapologist]

Rank the Sohmas based on how much you like them and why?

wow that’s gonna be a hard one to do..... i’m gonna put them in categories so i don’t have to strictly rank them.

not in any particular order!~

TOP 3:

yuki - first on my list! i already made a post about this but yuki is truly the character i relate to the most and i think his arc is not only my favorite but the most interesting to watch! he’s a treasure and the character i’m most drawn to. i always like to think he’d be the one i’d more easily befriend out of all of them!

isuzu - my sweet punk goth rebel... much like yuki her story and arc is one of the most interesting ones imo. in contrast to yuki, though, i think isuzu’s character allows us to see a very different side of the repercussions abuse has on a person. yuki presents well (overall) and keeps his problems to himself, but isuzu simply can’t do that. aside from that i just LOVE her will to fight and keep going, and her softer side. i adore her relationship with tohru.

kyo - how could i NOT have this absolute good of a boy in my top 3. i love love love his character and how much growth he’s able to achieve. i love his story, i love how he interacts with people!!!!! he has anger issues BUT i believe he is actually much softer with everyone around him than what it’s seen (which is often comic relief). super enjoyable character, and has everything i ask for in an orange haired anime boy. very cool of him.

love!!!:

momiji - very good boy. much brave. great fashion sense. really important member of tohru’s support squad in breaking the curse even if he’s not even aware of it. i think he just needs a tiny push to go at it like tohru and isuzu are doing. plus he really stands out to me for his courage. when akito hurts tohru in the beach arc momiji is the one who goes out to seek help and actively tries to stop the situation. meanwhile we see hatori, shigure and kureno (adults) standing in the back. vibing. even if momiji is scared to death he always does his best to make a change.

haru - adore him. love the way he takes care of people and his personality cracks me up all the time. his scenes are the best. although i wish he kept more of the attitude he had the moment he talked back to isuzu’s parents when he was younger!! he comes off as kind of passive sometimes even if i know he’s got it inside of him (hatori and kureno can’t relate). but anyway! truly love him. ((oh and the scene of his first kiss with isuzu didn’t sit so well with me.. anyone else??))

ritsu - i adore her. i think she’s relatable and a great portrayal of someone with anxiety!! (even if it is a litte clowned and meant for comedy) i don’t care if people find her annoying, i will forever defend her honor. she has a special place in my heart. how cute is she interacting with mitsuru??? how cute is it that she follows ayame around?? AND she’s a trans sapphic character hello?????? that’s canon. if i see anyone calling her a he i WILL throw punches. please refrain.

ok!!:

akito - hate them for obvious reasons BUT THEIR STORY... THEIR CHARACTER BUILDING............... OOF. super interesting, with an immense room for growth, they’re hot and they also make a great villain. pretty cool if u ask me.

kisa - baby!!!!!!!!!!! even though her story is short i love it and i wish we could have gotten more info abour her development in school. that would have been a really great chance to explore bullying without having it be based on flashbacks (also i’d die to see a scene where haru, rin and yuki go scare off her bullies. they’re terrifying. AND WHAT ABOUT YUKI BEING KIND OF HER MENTOR... oof) anyway i just love her. i’m also the year of the tiger so i couldn’t help but feel drawn to her when i first read.

hatori - i really like him but again, i wish he would MOVE MORE. take a stance. do something. please. if he wasn’t so much of a passive character he would be higher on my list. i find him interesting and you know i’m a sucker for emotionally distant characters but.. sometimes that just doesn’t cut it :/

hiro - essential for tohru’s growth!!!!!!!! he’s annoying but he’s so cute and has so much potential. i can’t help but find him to be sweet. i feel like we’ve all been a little like him growing up. belongs to the anger management (and bad bitch) trio along with kyo and isuzu.

ayame - can’t really relate to anything about him but he’s still pretty much here and queer, so props to that!!! also immense respect for mastering the art of being insufferable.

well,, :

kagura - find her kind of annoying to be honest. i still think she’s a cool character and i like that she helps out kyo in his growth + appreciate her humanity but eh... not really interested. her violent skits don’t really make me laugh and get old real quick.

shigure - love all his scenes, he’s incredibly funny and brings a LOT to the story. he’s ESSENTIAL. i just think he’s a deep, deep asshole. from what he does to akito (the ren thing??????), to the other members of the zodiac and to even mayu. i love him and enjoy him a lot but like.. dude. i can’t unsee that.

kureno - i like him and find him interesting but like............ he could have made such an impact and yet. kinda chose not to do anything. he has the potential to be a really cool character but. he’s disappointing.

[everything-person]

Taken

So here it is. The next chapter. This story will never be abandoned. I'm going to try to get at least one chapter out a month. This chapter has gone through a lot of edits. So hoping it came out good.

Masterlist

Chapter 7

Killian, Emma, and David walked back into the station, to find the girl pacing back and forth in the cell like a crazed animal.

“Ah! Storybrooke’s Avengers have returned! I need to report a theft.” She threw herself against the bars, she seemed almost in a panic.

Emma reveals the items that had been weighing heavily in her hand and her heart. The girl shoulders dropped and she sighed with relief, even as her grip on the bars tightened. “Those are mine. Give them back.” She ground out through her teeth.

“I would like to remind you that as a prisoner you aren't one to make demands. Nor are you privileged to have these items.” Emma said authoritatively. Then after glancing at her husband, her voice grew soft. “But as my daughter, if you asked nicely, I might give you the drawing back.”

The girl froze in her place and soaked in the revelation. “So, you finally came around? You really do need evidence for absolutely everything, don’t you? You can’t even trust your own eyes.”

Emma tried not to flinch as she nonchalantly rebuffed, “Nothing wrong with double-checking your facts.”

She rolled her eyes and took a step away from the bars. “Well now that you did your homework, let's get this started.”

“Get what started?”

“One of these is unlike the others but it was also the only one that was seen. Find it, then find its reflection,” she replied and with that turned her back on the group and plopped down on the cold floor.

“A riddle? Seriously?” Emma deadpanned. The girl shrugged in response.

“Why won’t you just talk to us?” asked Killian, a hint of desperation in his voice.

“The best lesson is the one earned not taught.”

David placed on a hand on his son-in-law’s shoulder. With a sigh Killian asked, “What about your name? Can you tell us your name?”

She said nothing for a while, but just as they turned to get back to work she spoke,

“I am the dreaded pirate Roberts.”

“Yeah, sure. And my name is Inigo Montoya. Watch out for rodents of unusual size, Buttercup.” said Emma. Leave it to my daughter to be a pop culture smartass, she thought.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Regina's mansion

The parlor door cracked open. The spy scanned the room that held his mom, his aunt, Robin, and his grandmother. They were all watching the scene in the station play out on a mirror.

He held back his laughter when the references started flying. She definitely knows her stuff, he thought to himself. The mirror showed the sheriff and her backup leave the girl alone in her cell again. Just because she’s in a cell doesn’t mean she should be alone.

“What the hell was that?!?!” Zelena shouted.

“It’s a clue,” Snow replied.

“I don’t want a bloody clue! I want--I need my daughter back! I’m going down there and getting some answers. A little fireball should do the trick.” Zelena said as she turned towards the door. Henry quickly hid. Before Zelena could storm out of the room, however, she was stopped by her sister. Regina waved her hand and Zelena’s feet were stuck to the floor.

“No, you are not. I told you you were only allowed to be here, to be involved, if you promised to behave. Now, behave.” Regina waved her hand again and released Zelena. “Besides if the Dark One couldn’t scare her you won’t either.”

As the adults continued to argue, the parlor door silently closed. Quiet feet ran up the stairs. Operation Princess Bride was about to begin.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Footsteps echoed through the empty station.

“I must be the luckiest prisoner in all of Maine. Getting so many surprise visitors, and by none other than Storybrooke’s most famous. First the Dark One, and now the Author.” She leaned further back against the furthest wall from the cell bars. “Let me guess you want to add my story to the book?”

“No. I just figured you might be bored,” Henry lowered himself to the ground and began rummaging through his bag, “so, I brought you some stuff.”

Her curiosity got the better of her as she moved closer to the bars. He pulled out some comic books, a hand-held video game, and a portable DVD player. “I figured you might want some entertainment,” he said holding up the handheld video game. “But I wasn't sure what you liked. So, I went with some of the classics.” Showing off the DVD’s he brought with him.

“I prefer D.C. over Marvel--”

“Lucky for you I have a couple of Justice League comics right here.”

“And Star Wars isn't a classic.”

“What are you talking about? Star Wars is so a classic. Where would Sci-Fi be without Star Wars?”

“In a much better place. Sci-Fi started with Frankenstein, with actual science. Now it's all about outer space and aliens.” She scoffed, but Henry still caught a smile creep to the girls face and counted it as a victory.

“You're such a Leia,” he said exasperatedly. He heard a faint “more like Anakin” and filed it away for later but did not respond to it.

“Oh, I also brought you some snacks,” he said, holding up a couple Apollo bars, “and an offer to sneak you all the hot chocolate with cinnamon you want.”

“I don't care for chocolate.” At Henry’s shocked face, she burst out laughing.

“Are you sure we’re related?” Henry asked teasingly, recovering from his shock.

As her giggles faded away, she asked, “What are you doing here Henry?”

Henry shrugged. “Like I said thought you would be bored. ” he continued after noticing her unconvinced look, “And I thought maybe we could talk.” He looked at his sister. His sister. He still hadn’t processed it completely. He was a big brother. He had a little sister. Of course he had Roland and Rebecca, and he loved them like siblings, but it wasn't the same.

“Talk about… what?” she asked cautiously.

“We can talk about anything. We could talk about movies or books. We can talk about people around Storybrooke,” he offered. Then hesitantly added, “about mom, about our family?”

“Or we could talk about why I'm here. What happened, why I decided to come back. That's what you want to know right? My motives?” She took a step back and scowled.

“Look, we can talk about anything you want. I'm your big brother. You can tell me anything.”

“Oh, is that it? Operation Big Brother, huh? You're my big brother. So, now I'm suppose to spill my guts to you. We have a bonding moment. You convince me that I'm wrong and I deliver the kids to you, huh? You're a town hero and they don't have to worry about the kids or about me, right? That’s why you came here! Why you are giving me this shit trying to butter me up?!”

“No--,” he tried to speak, but she was lost to him.

“Hate to push you off of your ‘big brother’ high-horse. But we don't know you. You're not our big brother. You left and never came back. Being the hero of your own story was more important to you than your family!”

“That's not true. It can’t be...I wouldn’t…I couldn’t...”

“Don’t believe me? Look at the picture again. He barely knows who you are! He doesn’t care about you!” She started shouting, “All he cares about are his mama, his papa, and his great big sister,” she paused a moment to breathe.

Her eyes shined with angry tears and her chest heaved. “You weren’t there, you never were! So stop trying!” Henry looked stricken, but his mind focused on one word.

“He?” he whispered. Then, he remembered the drawing... and the little boy.

Her eyes widened as she realized what she’d given away.

“Get out.” she demanded. She backed away from Henry.

“You...you didn't draw that picture. Our little brother did.”

“Why don't you go report that big bro?” She snapped, as she turned away from him.

Henry paused for a moment before asking, “What happened to him?”

She stiffened. Henry waited a moment before realizing that he’d pushed too far. With a sigh, he pushed off the ground and said, “I really did bring these so you wouldn't get bored. I’ll be back later.” He waited a moment for something, anything from her. “Bye Anny.”

Henry left with his eyes downcast and shoulders slumped. She glanced over her shoulder and watched him leave. Both too trapped in their own heads to notice the shadow in the corner that was watching them.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Regina’s mansion

“So,” Zelena started “does anyone know what we are actually looking for?”

“Something that seems to stand out.” Regina answered her sister.

“It has to be Hansel.”

“Nicholas.” Emma corrected without looking up from the papers in front of her.

“Whatever.”

“We really need to figure out if everyone goes by their curse names or Enchanted Forest names,” said Snow.

“Almost everyone in Storybrooke is registered as their curse name so let's go with that. Those that don't have curse names will be called by their fairy-tale names.” Emma kept looking through papers as she followed the conversation.

“Can we get back to this stupid riddle?” Zelena snapped.

“It has to be Nicholas he was the only abduction that had a witness. The only one that was ‘seen’.”

“That would mean that all the other kids were seen being taken. That everyone is lying and watched her take these kids. That Henry is lying and saw Roland-”

“Wait...Roland!”, Emma finally looked up, her eyes wide and mouth agape. “It has to be Roland!” When no one seemed to get it she continued. “She also mentioned ‘reflection’. You see your reflection in the mirror."

“What?”

“Roland was taken in the middle of the day. Roland is also the only one with a parental figure attached to mirrors.”

“What the bloody hell are you going on about?”

“Regina, if you focus on Roland through your mirrors we might be able to find the kids.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Comics were clumsily strewn across the station’s floor. DVDs were thrown all around the room. The handheld was in pieces next to the wall. The cot and it’s bedding was flipped upside down and ripped apart. The abuser lay on all fours and panting. Voices and phantom noises ringing in her ears. Images flashed behind her eyelids. Her eyes burned with the tears that she held at bay. Her teeth were grinding into each other as she held back the frustrated screams that so desperately wanted to escape. The damn was about to break, the mask flaking off, the facade fading away. She was on the verge of letting it all out. Cracking her eyes open, trying in vain to catch her breath, preparing to let go. It was only when the fluorescent lights began flickering that she brought herself back from the edge of a breakdown.

Before she could lift herself off of the ground, a pair of sleek black oxfords appeared in front of her. She looked up to find a dark handsome man with a gleaming smile plastered on his face. She scrambled away from him while simultaneously trying to get to her feet. Though her movements were nervous, her eyes burned with fury.

“Such power in such a small, beautiful package.” His voice was like velvet she once wrapped herself in and longed for. Now, it only made her skin crawl.

Finally steady on her feet, she took a step back from the man before her.

“Why are you here? You’re not supposed to be here.”

He tilted his head. His eyes were full of curiosity and he seemed almost disappointed. “It seems that I’m at a disadvantage,” his disappointment faded away and he smirked, “but I have a feeling that the next we meet, the advantage will be mine.”

"What do you want?!” She demanded.

“I’ve just come to pay a visit to the newest resident in Storybrooke. Possibly make a deal?”

“Get out! You’re nothing more than a Dark One wannabe!”

The man pursed his lips. “I see a deal will not be made today. But we will make a deal that will benefit the both of us.”

The girl shook her head and snarled, “I will end you.”

“I’m sorry but that is not in your cards,” He chuckles. The lights flickered and she was once again left alone in her cell.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

They all stood in front of Regina’s round, ornate mirror that once upon a time inhabited Sidney Glass. Regina raised her hand in front of the glass.

“Are we sure that this is what she meant? Mirrors didn’t work before and they might not work now,” said Zelena.

“There’s only one way to find out.” Regina said. Robin grabbed her hand and squeezed it in support. She closed her eyes and focused on the little boy she had come to care so much for. She thought of all the moments she shared with him and how she had come to think of him as her son. She poured her love and her magic into the mirror. Her fear of losing Roland and watching Robin lose the last remaining piece of his family made a tear roll down her cheek. Finally, the mirror shimmered and glowed. The looking glass rippled before landing on a scene of children running around and playing.

It’s them. It’s the kids.”

The mirror pivoted across the room and focused on Roland watching over a playpen that held three giggling infants.

“He’s okay,” whispered Regina. She squeezed Robin’s hand.

Emma smiled, “They all are.”

[riancraigjohnson-blog]

Hi, I just saw your post about having legitimate complaints about TLJ... I haven't seen it yet, but was wondering what your complaints were (and whether it's worth me spending my money going to see it). I'm not bothered by spoilers.

good evening dear! to make things easy, i’m just gonna make one hugeass post and do a bullet list.

no consistency to story-telling

you wanna add new force powers? fine! great! but keep them consistent!

yoda appears to tell luke that the jedi are garbage & should end ( yoda???? of all people???? instead of someone who would actually think that given personal experience, like, y’know, ANAKIN )

also somehow yoda can call down lightning and cause real-world damage to a tree by setting it ablaze? why hasn’t yoda or obi-wan or anakin literally just come down and stop the order by doing something like this if they can literally control nature from the afterlife????

someone ( leia )…. with no proper force training…. can somehow defy…. dying in space? and also project themselves through space while barely conscious?

rian seems to want to keep this narrative of ‘evERYonE caN HAve ThE foRCe’ but when given the chance to make one of three kids force-sensitive, one kid being a black boy, one a white girl, and one a white boy, in a series where we have leading white female and black male protagonists and a white male villain………. somehow rian decided it was best to give the white boy the force? in a trilogy where the leAD CHARACTER IS A FEMALE AND ONE OF THE LEADING MALES IS A BLACK MAN?????????? GROUNDBREAKING

snoke connected rey and kyle via force skyping, but if his whole goal was to just……….. get rey to come to the supremacy after he manipulated her to believe in kyle’s redemption, like….. why do all that shit. why not just….. read her mind. clearly he can influence people and affect people from long distances so what the fuck why would he bother with that weird force bond shit. like if vader can fucking force choke a guy over a video conference, i don’t see why it’s that much more of a stretch to just have snoke read rey’s mind or manipulate her without using kyle

luke fucking astral projecting himself onto crait, despite not knowing they were on crait, after shutting himself off from the force like 10 years prior to tlj– somehow he’s able to hold a long-term projection of himself to taunt kyle and buy time for the fleeing resistance? and then, at the end, he just….. gives up and dies? becomes one with the force? ???????

lame foreshadowing/repetition

so, when kyle and rey’s first skype session goes live, kyle makes a point of asking rey if she was causing this, this almost astral projection skype convo from light years away, only to say ‘no….. the strain would kill you.’ cue the end of the movie, where it’s revealed luke was just projecting himself all along, and…. he dies.

there’s also this scene where luke asks rey what the force is, and being inexperienced in it, she makes a comment about it being about making things float. luke says no, everything you said is not-true– its not about making rocks float, ( which is then brought back as a concept at the very end of the movie, when rey has to float rocks to free the resistance from the caves they ran into, again, bad foreshadowing. ) this is then brought back later when astral luke is facing off with kyle, and kyle says something about destroying the resistance and the jedi…. only for luke to, verbatim, say what he said to rey about every word he said being not-true.

this almost bashing it into our heads notion of ‘kill the past, it’s only holding you back’ that’s mentioned by kyle, that seems to be the central thread– the past is just that, the past. it’s time to completely ignore it and never look back. it’s time to wipe away the misty-eyed wonders of your hero worship of your childhood… the reality is that people fuck up and your heroes are nothing and in the end we all die, jan. ( what a fun, hopeful message. )

but with this message, this idea of all your heroes are dead and don’t even think of people as heroes because that’s just unrealistic and you’ll be disappointed when they fuck up because we’re all human :))) – with that message we’re then meant to leave the theater somehow emboldened because luke took up the mantle of being a legend in the end…. even though there’s no reason he should be considered one when the only people who witness this astral fight technically are kyle and the first order– the resistance didn’t watch because they were trying to escape through the base’s tunnels with the time luke was buying them. so we’re supposed to treat luke as a legend now….. or are we supposed to hate this idea of hero worship? i’m getting mixed signals.

literally everything built up in tfa…. rey’s parents/backstory, snoke’s history/why the resistance even knows about him, why kyle became evil, why rey was able to call the lightsaber over him, why luke exiled himself but left a map………… so many questions to be answered! and tfa laid out a beautiful table for johnson to sit down at and serve dinner.

only johnson decided to say fuck you, fuck your dinner, fuck everything you thought about this movie because it doesn’t matter

rey’s parents? nobodies– drunkards. sold their daughter into literal slavery for drinking money.

snoke’s backstory? doesn’t fucking matter if we hyped him up as more dangerous than vader or palpatine– he’s dead now because he apparently couldn’t sense kyle about to kill him. the man can bond two people across light years of distance, but he doesn’t notice the lightsaber that’s slowly being turned towards him? hm.

why is rey so strong with the force? because it belongs to everyone and not the elite skywalkers who literally came from slavery so fuck you for that too

luke’s exile? because he felt bad about considering killing his nephew when he probed his mind and felt he was completely evil. luke skywalker considered killing his nephew, the son of his twin sister, son of his best friend– let that sink in.

kyle’s evil…. but he’s good, right? there’s good in him? or not. for someone who rian says we can all relate with ( sorry but i don’t relate with fascists :/ ) he made it pretty clear that he wanted kyle to be the end all be all villain by the end of 8. so ??????

also why is kyle so obsessed with vader? what the fuck? guess what? you don’t get to know. fuck you again.

character assassination / regression

luke was……… not luke. clearly. mark hamill has said it’s not luke. that’s more than a bit telling.

rey’s whole story literally revolved around following luke around ahch-to while learning jack shit only to then follow kyle around trying to say there’s still good in him. ( another fun fact rian……… luke only was willing to forgive vader when he realized that was his dad. why would rey feasibly trust her abuser / han’s murderer / man who put finn into a coma so quickly unless maybe they had a prior connection, particularly familial? )

finn was turned into a joke, called a coward, called selfish, tased by rose, slapped by hux……. like finn had literally no character progression at all.

poe went from well-decorated commander of the resistance, former officer with the new republic, to hot-headed flyboy who doesn’t take orders and just needs to learn from his white superiors :)))) like……………… do i even need to say it

leia was practically non-existent, and when she was, she slapped poe and later shot at him, stunning him. which, she…. y’know………. never did to han.

chewie and r2 were literally there as props, don’t even try and tell me otherwise. r2 showed luke leia’s hologram back from anh as a means to like…. spur him into action, but??? luke literally did nothing as well even after that?

lack of lando. can i include that? rian said he ‘wanted’ to include lando but he ‘wouldn’t work’ so i think rian just owes me money for having to even try to comprehend his bullshit

hux??? y’know, the fascist general with that terrifying speech before he decimated an entire star system? that hux? he’s just comic relief now. :)

he even has a ‘your mom’ joke thrown at him which is super funny when you remember he’s a bastard and never knew his birth mom so like #goodwriting

kyle is redeemable now!! even though he’s shown no remorse and has already been offered the chance to redeem himself but he took the opportunity to say ‘fuck you’ and kill han so…. ignore all that, ignore the fact that he’s a fascist leader and massacred children and countless others………….. his uncle tried to kill him so he must be in the right :)))

phasma…. you liked phasma? strong villain woman? yeah, well, watch the most unsatisfying fight that ends in finn winning purely by luck because she falls down into a firey pit. mmmmmm that sure was satisfying? :/

regular star wars rules need not apply?

bombs can just be dropped in space because gravity exists in the vacuum of the stars apparently

but a body on a blown-open bridge can remain on the bridge instead of getting sucked out into space….?

a slow-speed ship chase where one ship is running out of fuel? cinematic gold, apparently

for some reason the first order ships chasing the resistance couldn’t have just….. sped up their ships a bit and plowed them over / took them out with tie fighters for no other reason but….. it wouldn’t be convenient that way?

there’s a lot more than this but i’m tired and should have gone to bed hours ago, so i’ll probably just reblog this sometime tomorrow and add more, but here’s this for starters!

[kaibutsushidousha]

Artbook Data - Miu Iruma

This happened on the first try and in the second my antivirus sounded a big alarm as soon as I typed the word “adorable”.

By the way, the untraslated version of the Saihara name list is: サオ原, ハメ原,  ダサイ原,  無能ヶ原, ショボ原 and クサイ原.

Seiyuu’s comment: Haruka Ishida

Miu-chan is a fundamentally adorable girl, but with some other sides to her (laughs). I don’t think I’ve ever seen a character as extreme as her even in the DanganRonpa series. I was worried people won’t like her, my acting included, but she has some traits that make you want to protect her, so please fall in love with her and do the Love Hotel!

Kodaka’s comment: The best and worst dirty girl

Iruma’s keyword was “The naughtiest character in DanganRonpa history”. That’s why had to make her design so cute. We added some BDSM essence to the uniform and the sprinkled some steampunk elements to make it look more inventorish. Some people on the staff pointed out that inventor felt too close to DR2′s Kazuichi Souda’s mechanic, but when I think inventor, I think something like Dr. NakaMats, so I went the current talent because I don’t think the job overlaps with mechanic. Her last name sounds vaguely scientist-like and her first name is as cutesy as it can get. I think the name really expresses how distant both sides of her personality are. I would say the way she gets weak when people stand up against her is what makes vulgar dom personality able to sustain itself.

Her biggest role in the plot is of course the murder trick on chapter 4. I want to make it a “murder that happens in another world”, so the first thing I thought about it was that Iruma was going to be heavily involved. Then I combined this idea with the old idea of “a Trial were even the culprit doesn’t know who the culprit is” and the script turned out as it is. I though of some scenes where she always helping the detective with her inventions, but unfortunately the only one I managed to include in the actual story was the cameras in chapter 1. It’s better like this because the inventions already had their big share of utility with Ki-bo and with one other character, don’t you agree? It shows how much she is better as background comic relief than as an inventor. 

Due to some her more extreme remarks, I was really anxious when it came to the seiyuu selection but Haruka Ishida readily assured me: “I can play even the worst of the worst!”. I found the ridiculously cute voice she used for the most indect lines really good and felt like I really offered the job to the right person. By the way, we made a sprite of Iruma with a terrifying dildo in her hands to use in situations where she would get the most angry, but for ethical reasons we were forbidden to use it... This is honestly regrettable!

Design Notes:

Goggles: You can’t have an inventor without goggles. They have been protecting her eyes for all sorts of experiment. It has some extra purposes like keeping her hairdo in the right place.

Mouth: A mouth that spouts dirty talk, verbal abuse and self-praise every time it opens. Not something you would think it belongs to an “overly hot genius” with “history-changing good looks” and “golden brain cells”...

Chokers: A choker is a tight-fitting neck accesory. The combination of 2 spiked chokers and and a punk-style necklace is painful to look at...

Belts: In order to put highlight the curves she is so proud of, she made a mysterious contraption of belts that doubles a garterbelt.The more you think about it, the more impractical it gets.

Underwear: Sexy undergarments worthy of adorning overly hot great genius’ venusian body. One of it’s high-selling points is how it preserves the wearer’s warmth for a long time after you take it off.

Gloves: Sturdy leather gloves to protect the icefish-like hands of the genius inventor. It’s her favorite type of gloves: gloves without finger covers, that allows to do more delicate work with it.

Boots: Hardtaste long boots with ultra-thin ultra-high heels. It hurts a lot when she steps on you with it, but the world has all sorts of peoples of all sorts of kinks.

Favorite presents:

Bondage Boots: Queen-style super-long super-high-heels enamel boots decorated with chains on the laces. A physical representation of Iruma’s prefered fetishes.

Blanket Overcoat: A blanket fully wearable and a high-collar long-sleeves overcoat. Whether or not it’s easy to move with is irrelevant. An item made for Miu “I want to do stuff while I’m still asleep” Iruma.

Workchair That Makes People Lazy: The ultimate workstation, an overly confortable sofa with an attached computer. 100% guaranteed to render Iruma unable to move.

Tentacle Machine: A nimble magic hand said to have been once used a non-specified girl. Does Iruma want to use it on someone, or does she wants someone to use it on her...?

Key Phrases:

The Aloof Genius Who Loves Slacking Off: People don’t know her name, but everyone knows her inventions. One example of Iruma’s awesomeness is the insanely popular “Eyedrop Contacts”. But she doesn’t give a damn about profiting from it. The only work she cares about the products of her useful “In Your Sleep series”, which include tools to allow you to type while you sleep, read manga while you sleep, eat while you sleep. Her undisciplined personality is clearly visible by her invention history!

Inventors Are Into Robots!?: When an inventor takes the robot in front of her, he won’t possibly leave intact. Iruma had her eye on Ki-bo from the start, and since her lab opened, she has been taking him there and violently pushing him down on the table...! A forceful strong-willed girl and passive weak-willed boy... but Iruma is only doing maintenance on Ki-bo, take your mind out of the gutter!

It’s Called A D...?: Even if you use the ladder in the library, there are still high blindspots you can’t reach. In order investigate this crime scene, Iruma made an unmanned flying camera that greatly contributed to the investigation. But the flying machine is called a drone, not a dogone or a dromon! Yumeno’s “She was intelligent, but beyond that, she was very dumb” quote comes to mind!?

She Opened Her Mind About Prostration: Akamatsu and Saihara immediately go down to their when they want her help to invent something that can lead to a clue. Their desperate act after being bluntly rejected flipped a switch inside her and now she is addicted to people putting their heads on the ground for her...

The Secret Behind The Witness Report...: When Gokuhara tried to forcibly drag everyone to the Insect Meet-and-Greet, Iruma escaped him. Judging she could match him in physical strenght, she avoided the dangerous situation by unleashing her forbidden power, the “woman’s weapon“! However Gokuhara ran away confused at the scene, so we’re left to wonder if those weapons really filled its purposes...

Main Quotes:

“Huh? Oh my, what is this strong feeling burning in my chest? I-Is this... motherhood?“: Monotarou, one of the Monokumarz, lost his memories. Upon looking at how freely Iruma could overwrite the giant VR device’s program, he assumed she was his creator and started to call her “mother“. As this point we would expect her to respond with his usual indecent banter, but instead we get some powerful heartfelt response! Ki-bo turned out as the dad of this surrogate family(?), but how long will it last!?

“It’s The 'Machine That Punches You When You Make A Bad Dirty Joke'!“: Iruma keeps showing new inventions that untentionaly shows her kinks exclusively to her favorite, Saihara, or as she calls him, Dicktective/Fuckhara/Suckhara/Dumbassaihara/Saihairy Balls/Shithara! ...However, her “Hook-up Counter“, “Machine That Punches You When You Make A Bad Dirty Joke“, “Moan Sampler“ and the underwear teleportation device “I See London“ all serve exclusivily sexual purposes. You can tell how much of a weirdo she is when her own invention reacts to her dumb joke and she feels pleased about it!

Final Comment: Iruma looks so cute when she has her mouth shut, but she ruins it all with her over-the-top haughtiness and nonstop vulgar talk. Wanna get down to your knee to get to see her flustered face?

[hencethebravery]

TITLE: CS 0155 Data Witchcraft, 1/1 (Ao3)

SUMMARY: All the books and movies seem keen on operating under the assumption that magic is supposed to make your life easier. But apparently it was all lies, because being in one’s 20s seems to suck no matter what kind of spells you’re prone to casting. Emma Swan and Killian Jones, while “blessed” with the gift of magic, are certified emotional disasters—it’s a relief to know that at least they’ve found each other. A Contemporary CS Witches AU.

CONTENT WARNING (RATED M): Contains brief mentions of childhood sexual abuse; swearing; casual, non-depressing drug use; implicit and consensual sexual content between adults. The sexual abuse is mentioned in passing and not described in explicit detail. If you need further details before reading, feel free to send me a message!

AUTHOR’S NOTES: This was a story that I planned on finishing with about 9k. It ended up being completed about 41 words under the 15k limit, and imo it should probably be longer, but since that’s not an option, this is what we’re left with! I’d like to thank a few ppl that made this possible: @the-reason-to-sail-home, @pritkins-little-witch, @initiala, and @wellhellotragic for all of their time and helpful thoughts. This fic ended up being far more challenging than I had anticipated and I couldn’t have done it without y’all. Especially Tessa and Kat, you are both my shining stars. Thank you for never letting me give up on myself. Literally incredible freaking artwork that I cannot stop staring at provided by @clockadile and @princesse-swan, both found here and here (respectively). If you’re interested in listening to the soundtrack I made to suit the particular vibe of this story, you can listen on 8tracks, here. 

“Watch carefully that magic that occurs when you give a person enough comfort to just be themselves." — Atticus, Love Her Wild: Poems

i. ugly_duckling

Emma Swan learns about magic the same way that most children do—slipped in between the pages of a book. She is not granted the privilege of enjoying a conversation typical of most children; that of parents soothing the inevitable disappointment with the truth that magic is not real. The parents might, for the most part, keep the dream alive for a certain number of years. And so, for that certain number of years, the child will be allowed to live in a world where magic exists. That child will spend a few blissful years staring a little too hard at the creepy house at the end of their street; that child will throw a packet of salt over their shoulder, even at the risk of being yelled at by their parents after the fact. Most children will grow up feeling afraid, and not much can be done about it—but to be able to quell that fear, at least temporarily, with the suggestion that there’s a magical world at the heart of it all, waiting to be discovered? That kind of thinking might make the pain of all those unknown variables worth it, at least for most children.

Emma Swan was not most children. She was “most children,” in the sense that she wandered into a library and plucked a book off the shelf with a flying girl on the cover (she rode a broomstick and wore a black hat). She was “most children,” in the way she jumped off picnic tables and prayed that her feet would never touch the ground. But she was not “most children,” when she brought the book home and showed her new “mother” the particular book in question.

“Oh, you silly thing,” Mrs. Swan had so gleefully informed her, a sharp smirk on her stiff, something not quite right about it face. “Hasn’t anyone told you? There’s no such thing as magic.”

In the Swan household there was no such thing as magic. There was a roof over Emma’s head, and a hot meal three times a day, but in all other matters of importance, it may as well have been another orphanage. To make matters worse there was Betsy Swan’s husband, Mitchell Swan—a man who, on his very best days, could hardly summon the courage to lift his ass from the couch, and on his very worst, slip into Emma’s room every other night when his wife was asleep.

As a child, Emma would disappear into her own head, creating elaborate escape attempts from her supposed home. Sometimes she would don her own pointy black hat, put a spell on her own boring broomstick, and turn Mr. Swan into some small, nasty insect she could crush beneath her shoe.

When Emma turns seven, the Swans buy their first computer. It’s a Power Macintosh G3, which matters little to Emma at the time. At first, when she overhears them talking about it, Betsy mentions something about a mouse, and she finds herself unnaturally excited at the prospect of there being an actual animal in the house. That is until she actually sees the thing, and becomes confused and disappointed at the sight of this small, oddly shaped piece of plastic attached to a length of cord. She stares curiously at the blackened screen for a few moments until Betsy returns, yelling at her to get her “behind” away from the most expensive thing in the house.

Like most major developments that might occur within the pages of any generic fantasy novel, Emma makes her first acquaintance with the digital universe in the dead of night. Closer to midnight, if we’re being specific. A clock chimes from the dining room, and the Swan house is blessedly silent as she sneaks down the hall, past the flickering light of the television, the soft sounds of Mitchell’s snores emitting from his armchair.

The machine sits quiet and imposing atop the desk in the office; the light from the moon casting an eerie glow about the room, the dark screen a seemingly infinite void staring back into her wide, curious eyes. She sneaks a glance back towards where she came, expecting to hear Mitchell’s heavy footsteps, or Betsy’s cruel laughter, but she’s only greeted with silence, the odd creak of an old house.

When she finally works up the nerve to power it on there’s a kind of yawning, high-pitched static that hits her ears in a not entirely unpleasant way. It’s just enough that she finds herself overcome with the urge to open and close her mouth comically wide, like when your ears pop inside the cabin of an airplane and you have to re-adjust all the loose air inside your head. There’s a sound afterwards, a low hum that would never really go away. In later years, she would come to understand that there’s always a vague humming associated with most electronics. What was different in Emma’s case was the sound beneath the hum, or rather, the sounds.

She would learn to ignore them after a time, picking and choosing the most relevant or useful voices. Sometimes they were people, other times they were… something else. The first night she boots up the Power Macintosh, it’s all white noise, and she assumes it’s a thing that everyone can hear. It’s a lot of excited whispers, so hushed and quickly spoken that she has a difficult time making out any one word or phrase.

“Hello?” she utters quietly, still silently praying for the Swans to remain asleep and unaware of her trespassing. “Is there anyone out there?”

The humming cacophony of distant voices and dissonant beeps are the only answer, as if her own voice has gotten lost in the din, and her eyes search the desktop until they land on an oddly familiar image of a piece of paper. It is unlike any other piece of paper she’s ever seen, this bold, flat image outlined in blocks of color—untouchable, and with no discernible smell or texture. She has stumbled upon a word processor, a blank document with a blinking, vertical line that waits and waits.

The moon grows a bit brighter in the wake of her excitement, but Emma is too eager to notice the way the darker corners of the room become less so; even the way in which the computer itself has begun to emit its own soft, illuminated ring of greenish light, as if the office has been submerged in water.

“Hello,” Emma writes slowly, one key at a time. With each selection of every letter beneath her fingertips sounds a satisfying clunk, and she grins as she continues, “My name is Emma Swan.”

The silence that follows in the wake of all those voices is nearly deafening, but there’s a clear answer that sounds from within the four walls of her newly christened safe haven; murky and quiet, getting comfortable from her place seated at the bottom of a pool, “Hello, Emma Swan. It is very nice to meet you.”

As it turns out, there is quite a lot about the Swans’ Power Macintosh G3 that they are not privy to. The Swans, in point of fact, seem to be ignorant of a great many things occurring out in the world and even in their own home about 99% of the time. They have never heard the hum of voices coming from the computer room, nor do they seem to receive the same kind of unsettling, predictive programming that Emma can suss out from within the apparent blankness of a darkened television screen. It’s a blessing and a curse. While it’s nice to know she’s not quite so alone as she used to be—while it seems as if she’s been able to lift a veil and spot the real world underneath, there’s still the reality of the Swans always hovering in another room, at her back, or in her bed.

Betsy catches Emma on the computer late one night about a month or so after her first midnight rendezvous, and the subsequent consequences are about as bad as she assumed they would be. There’s a harsh smack to the back of the head, even harsher words, and a rough tugging of her arm towards her bedroom door, tossing her inside and slamming it shut before Emma can say a word in her own defense. She cries and seethes, the tightness at the back of her throat a painful and vicious reminder of the fact that she is little more than a prisoner.

And while Emma stewed inside her room, her small feet pacing back and forth from door to window and back again, Betsy Swan had tried and failed to turn on her new computer after it had shut off quite unexpectedly. It’s screen remained stubbornly dark, and there was Betsy, angrily and futilely attempting to turn it back on, only to give up about 20 minutes later, returning to her own bedroom, mumbling to herself about how they would have to lug the fucking thing back to the store.

It’s all a bit of a different game after that. Emma has to be more careful about how and when she visits that place she’s found behind the curtain. She’s sure to cover her tracks online, deleting files or browsing data as if she had never been. She spends the next few years doing her best to become a ghost—in both of her lives. Within the walls of her “home,” in the hallways at school, and in the cold, impersonal well of the Internet. She studies everything as carefully as she can, but does her best to leave as little an impression as possible. She excels a little too well in her typing class at school, earning her some impressive marks from a teacher, so she fumbles a few weeks later and drops down a grade.

It goes on this way for two or three years, and it’s about when she starts yearning for more that she obtains a bus pass and starts regularly visiting the library. It is during these regular visitations that she meets Lily Page, and wonderfully, her life is never the same.

Emma is close to turning eleven when she gets a private message from a user called “spyro-huntr3ss” on a public message board. At first her instinct is to block the user—she’s been around long enough to know that people are scum wherever you go, even in this digital world where she had felt so safe at first, this place she had decided to call her own.

“I know what it is you’re trolling for,” her mysterious new contact, likely trying to get her age, number, or address had sent, followed by, “and I can help you find it.”

From what Emma has been able to discern thus far, most people using the Internet were just as oblivious as the Swans, which was disappointing. She had been hoping, in vain it would seem, that once she’d been able to locate more users that they might be able to help explain it. The humming, and the voices, and the stories in the static—the songs lost in the high-pitched chorus of a dial-up tone. Unfortunately, it wasn’t to be. Most people thought she was being metaphorical, or just plain paranoid. Message boards were a breeding ground for those folks made of cracks and dark places; lost people looking for patterns and meaning where there were none to be found.

The unsettling shiver that shrieked down the length of her spine had her head swiveling atop her thin, spindly neck as if she were some kind of anxious, wide-eyed owl; her mouth going dry at the sight of her own name staring back at her in bold, black text. To her profound relief, the library appeared to be just as empty as it had been when she walked in that morning. Not many people would brave the snow-filled streets a few days before Christmas to hang out in a public library, but then again, not many people had the Swans waiting for them at home.

Emma felt her heart beat anxiously in time with the blinking cursor inside her text box, a taunting slowness that seemed to be daring her to refuse the offer. She glimpsed at the library entrance and observed the snow falling heavily atop the empty city streets, tried to ignore the sickeningly sweet melodies of holiday cheer emanating from the head librarian’s office. The truth had been all she ever wanted, wasn’t it? From the very first moment she’d realized that she had come from nothing, that no one had wanted her, and could that be true? From the feeling of Mitchell’s hands and eyes where they shouldn’t be—wondering if all fathers were like this. From the first time she’d booted up the Power Mac, the ghostly chorus ringing in her ears, always ringing, ringing, ringing—

Lily’s “truth” is every bit as exciting as Emma’s painfully beating heart had hoped it would be. That yes, Emma Swan, there is a world behind the world and you have been invited to be a part of it. The people who are “in charge?” Those people that have hurt you, that have convinced you that you don’t matter, that what you might want for your life doesn’t matter—those people are powerless here. But not you, Emma Swan, not us. We’re the powerful ones now.

It takes her some time to truly trust her new informant, “spyro-huntr3ss,” who, while forthcoming about the realities of this world, the potential for what they could do, of what was waiting for them a few years down the line, was quite tight-lipped concerning personal details of her own life. Which was understandable, if not a bit frustrating, especially since she had known Emma’s name without having asked for it.

According to her new source (Emma’s not certain “spyro-huntr3ss” will ever be a friend), there are ways to pick apart the cacophony of sound constantly washing over her in dizzying regularity. There are also, blessedly, ways to tune out the noise. “Invest in a good pair of headphones,” had been one of the first things she’d advised, and after Emma, not yet a teenager, trapped between the freedom of the web and the reign of her parents, had quite logically argued that she had no money for such things, Lily had “laughed,” a peaky mechanical noise echoing in Emma’s ears.

Despite the fact that she was still technically a child and living under the Swans’ supervision, Emma had never in her life felt so independent. If not for her inconvenient need to eat and drink every once in awhile, the Swans might have forgotten she was there at all. There was of course the unfortunate recurrence of Mr. Swan; still coerced by some dark, unspoken perversions that it was his God-given right to appear by Emma’s bedside every few nights. Until Lily had learned of it, of course. It had been a secret Emma had always kept to herself, except for that first night she had run to Betsy, hoping for a savior and finding a stern hand instead. A disgusted voice of disbelief, calling Emma the sick one, the wrong one. “Mr. Swan would never do that you wicked little thing,” she had hissed into Emma’s small, red face. “You’re lucky I don’t send you right back to the orphanage for this disgusting stunt.”

And of course, Mitchell had found out, because the dutiful wife informs her stalwart husband of every single thing going on in their house, and he had made damn sure that Emma never said a word of their “visits” to anyone, especially not Mrs. Swan.

They had been messaging one another back and forth for about two years before Lily discovered her dirty little secret, and Emma was quite happy to finally be able to think of her as a friend. Even still, she had never been tempted to reveal the truth—she was embarrassed and ashamed, and she assumed that Lily would never speak to her again should she ever slip-up. Ultimately, it had been Emma’s penchant for frequently keeping extremely late hours, coupled with her recent cell phone acquisition, which she had been keeping underneath her pillow.

Emma had only recently started cursing, and found that it was one of the few things she genuinely enjoyed. It made her feel like she was older than she was, and the older she was, the closer she was to being free of this fucking place.

When she wasn’t getting lost within the dark, less than reputable corners of the Internet, Emma learned that she loved to read. Lately, she seems to have gotten into the habit of reading the same kind of story—the same kind of journey, over and over again. She’s read these stories so many times, in point of fact, that she’s begun to seek out these same patterns as they might appear in her own life. Is this beginning? She might ask herself, stepping off the bus and colliding with a polite stranger. Is this the end? She would nervously wonder, thinking she had heard footsteps outside the door to the computer room.

Staring at Lily’s direct yet subtle offer on the screen, she knew that this must be one of those moments; the moment where the story is about to take a turn, and no amount of deus ex machina, or praying, or wishing will ever bring back the life you had once lived.

Mitchell Swan is stunned to find an ungodly (and almost certainly illegal) amount of money in his bank accounts the next day, and he arrives home from work in an alcohol-fueled panic. Emma watches the two of them, quiet and unbothered from the darkened hallway as they titter and yell at one another like a pair of screeching birds. Her phone feels warm in her pocket, and she smiles at the thought of what’s in store—all those atrocious, sickening pictures hidden away on his work computer. What will the world think of you, Mr. Swan?

ii. jkillian@aol.com

Killian Jones often feels trapped by the city—little more than a lifeless, concrete prison; he despises nearly everything about the place. And to make matters worse, he has the misfortune to have been cursed with the burden of having too reliable a memory. It is far too easy to be able to slip back, back, back—all the way back until he’s suddenly standing in the middle of his mother’s garden. Until he can hear her voice in his head, laughing, singing, scolding. In these brief yet harrowing moments of nostalgia he can almost always hear her tears as well; her cries of pain that he had been helpless to alleviate. Logically, he knows he had been little else but a boy when she had first fallen ill, but it matters little. He feels responsible for her illness, even more so for her eventual death, alone and searching for a son that was no longer there.

Killian and Cordelia Jones owned a farm about five hours north of the city. Mr. Jones is long gone, and Killian, while in possession of an exceptionally good memory, remembers little of the man who his mother assures him was his father. She maintained his innocence for many years, wanting her son to know that he was loved, but as he approached a certain stubborn, righteous age, she had been forced to admit that no, he was not the man that Cordelia had hoped he would be.

“But it has not a thing to do with you, my love,” she said quietly, allowing him the benefit of thinking she hadn’t noticed his tears. It was truly astonishing that she never once raised her voice to the boy, especially given his behavior in later years. It was almost always at a level tempo, calm and direct, with just a hint of an Irish brogue that her own mother had possessed, although Killian had never actually met the woman.

“She wouldn’t have put up with your nonsense for a single moment.” Shaking her head at the sight of a broken lamp, or a carton of milk left to spoil on the counter. “You are one lucky lad.”

His mother insisted that the Jones’ were a lucky family. But as an adult he would come to believe that they had never been anything other than cursed. It would always be unclear to him exactly why that was, but he assumed it had something to do with the magic. That was always the case, wasn’t it? “All magic comes with a price,” says every single fantasy novel he had ever read, every magically-inclined film he had ever seen. Their downfall, in later years, seemed to him inevitable. If his mother were still alive, he would have asked her, “Did our family make a deal with the wrong demon?”

His bitterness, however, would still take a few more years to develop. As a child, he was enthralled with the sight of the vines and the flowers crawling their way inside the house. The way his mother would reach her hands deep within the soil and a few moments later, up would sprout the stubborn seeds. Cordelia made their living with her magic, often receiving visitors from the surrounding towns looking for quick-fix solutions to their various troubles. They would often come late at night, or when he was out in the fields, trying to make things grow or flourish, or wilt, as the case may be. But when he would see them walking nervously down the drive, quietly knocking on their aged blue door, he would drop whatever it was he was working on and try to sneak a peek at their meetings.

“What do they ask you for?” he wondered one night as she tucked him into bed, his eyes wide and curious, bright with all kinds of vivid imaginings. “Love,” she answered happily, bringing the blanket up to rest beneath his chin.

“Love?” he asked with a grimace, as if he were about to become infected with a terrible disease at the mere mention of the word. “And sickness,” she continued, chuckling at his obvious disapproval. “And loneliness. Or success in their businesses.”

“Can I help?” he asked sleepily, feeling the effect of the chamomile tea his mother had made him drink every evening before bed.

“One day,” she answered, kissing him on the forehead. “Soon.”

Ten years later and he’s not so sure how she would feel about the kind of man that he’s become. What he’s been using his “gifts” for. The harshest parts of him imagine telling her that heis helping them—helping them forget how terrible the world can be; the blissfulness of ignorance. And if he makes some extra money in the process? Well, then so bloody be it. He can almost imagine himself cruelly bragging of it even, taking pleasure in the heartbroken, disappointed look on her thin, pale face.

It hadn’t started this way, to be sure. Initially, the plan had been to go to the city temporarily, to make some extra money to afford the kind of medicine that would keep her alive for longer than just a few months. Of course she had been lying to his face when she had suggested it. Made him think that there was even the slightest chance that she would live another six months. Unbeknownst to him, she had apparently contracted an illness that even magic couldn’t cure (wasn’t supposed to cure, according to her).

“Then what good is it?” he had yelled despairingly, trying to ignore the pitying look on her face from where she was laid up in bed; small, weak, and complacent. No, not complacent.

“Accepting,” she had sternly tried to correct him. “Magic is not meant to prolong that which should end. You know this, Killian.”

But he had been too angry, too determined to seek out a cure, and Cordelia Jones, knowing her son, knowing his stubbornness, his inability to give up, to grapple with the helplessness of being human, had suggested that if he went to the city, used his abilities to make some extra money, perhaps they would be able to afford the medicine that could save her life.

“And take the cat, would you?” she had asked on his way out the door, shakily calling after him from where she dozed. “I want to make sure she’s well-looked after.”

Chammy was a calico with poor eyesight and an even poorer temperament. Most of the time. If you gave her some extra food or a good brushing she might deign to sit with you on the couch for a bit, but most of the time she was content to sit on a ratty armchair that he had pulled in off the street, her ears and tail flicking at the stray vines or weeds when they would grow too close.

The plan had always been to return. As soon as he had stepped foot off the bus, he had felt suffocated. By the polluted air, the distracting, flickering lights, the sounds and smells of too many human beings packed into one place like sardines in a tin. With Chammy’s crate in one hand and a packed duffle in another, he had wandered angrily through the streets until he’d found the shitty apartment he had managed to rent from a property owner who lived nearer to the farm.

“It’s not much,” he had warned Killian, clearly uncomfortable with the knowledge that Mrs. Jones was wasting away at the back of the house somewhere, “but it’ll do for a time.”

“I’m certain it will,” Killian had answered with a bitter grin, “Thanks for your help.”

Dealing in illicit substances hadn’t been the plan at first either. He had seen the kinds of services his mother provided; there wasn’t really a “modern” term for what she practiced other than “holistic medicine,” which wealthy business people in coastal cities seemed to love opening their wallets for. Unfortunately for Killian, he had never had much of a head for such things. The plants he had managed to cultivate back home, for himself and his friends, the kinds of things the local cops had busted him for on more than one occasion, those were the kinds of things he was good at. However, getting scolded by the cops back home was one thing, winding up in a city prison was quite another.

It had taken many frustrated evenings of trial and error, and even a few angry customers, before he was forced to admit to himself that the “healing” part of it was simply not where his true talents lay.

“This is good shit,” one of his recent acquaintances (the people you sell to should never really be considered anything more) had told him late one night from their perch on his fire escape, “You could make some good money with this.”

And that’s where it had all started; a steady stream of high quality product, and more than enough people willing to pay top dollar for it. He had been just about ready to afford the medicine, the whole reason he had moved to this awful city in the first place, to retrieve the cure and bring it back to his mother, when he had gotten a call from his landlord that Cordelia had passed in her sleep.

“I’m sorry for your loss, son,” he had said quietly in a grating tone of pitying condescension, “you should come back soon, collect her things. Figure out what to do with the place.”

“Yeah,” Killian had barked back, his vision going fuzzy and his throat tightening, “Thanks.”

And he had planned to return home for the burial. He knew that was what he was supposed to do. He had even gone so far as to get a babysitter for Chammy, had bought a bus ticket and packed a bag. Only he had smoked a little bit too much one morning (in preparation for the nightmarish journey home) and when he returned to himself a few hours later, found that he had missed his bus by several days. There were a few voicemail messages, mostly from people back home who had watched him grow up—some of them angry and scolding, others sympathetic and patient, reminding him that legally the farm was still his, that he could take as much time as he needed.

Days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months, and suddenly it had felt too hard, and he was too much of a coward. So, ten years later and here he was—still trapped in his box like every other human-shaped sardine he would often glare at on the subway. He has managed to turn the apartment into something of a home, bringing in some potted plants that he had encouraged to grow a bit above their station. It’s something of an oasis in an otherwise barren hellscape, and while it is rare for him to not feel the occasional pang of regret and longing for what his life should have been, there’s still the nagging cowardice that has left him paralyzed in a life that feels unnervingly unfinished.

If he’s awake before sunrise, odds are whatever he thinks might be at his door at such an hour is more than likely a figment of his imagination. Especially if that figment is a grumpy, petite blonde who looks suspiciously like a Daria reject. Most of that blonde hair (imaginary as it is) would seem to be stuffed into an old, slouchy beanie in desperate need of stitching, but a few stray hairs have escaped to fall across her charmingly furrowed brow.

“Well, I must say this is a surprise,” managing to speak despite the dry mouth and still being half-asleep. “What do you say we continue this meeting at a more reasonable hour? Or preferably never? Never also works well for me.”

Normally he might not be so inclined to such rudeness, but a figment is a figment, and he needs his eight hours if he’s going to be remotely personable throughout the day. And drug dealers are famously nothing without their personalities.

One of the admittedly lovely, yet sadly fictional, woman’s eyebrows shoots quite delicately upwards, and he makes note of her especially twitchy fingers moving restlessly against her folded elbow. “Are you always this rude to potential customers?”

“Only when they interrupt my beauty sleep, darling, now if you’ll excuse me—”

He goes to close the door, only he’s found it blocked by a smallish, military-booted foot stuck between it and the frame, the ends of said boot all soft and scuffed; an experienced leather shoe on a tiny blonde female with impeccably groomed eyebrows. He should probably start laying off the more experimental strains. This was an unusually vivid hallucination.

“Yeah, yeah, you’re very pretty,” she says hurriedly, her own tired eyes trying desperately to meet his, “but I haven’t slept in about three days, so, could you maybe help me out?”

“I’m not in the habit of selling to imaginary wom—ow! Bloody hell, what on earth was that for?”

Her fingernails are painted a formidable shade of black, which was an odd detail to have stuck in one’s mind when they’re in the midst of pinching your chest hair unexpectedly viciously. Her eyes were also a little less tired, a lot more manic, and a particularly vivid and enticing shade of green. It made him think of something—a specific memory, locked away somewhere at the back of his mind where it was supposed to stay .

“I can assure you, I am very real,” she says on a grin, her hand still twisted up in his flannel. “And like I said, I am also very tired. So, please?”

It was the sudden, gentle note of desperation in her voice, paired with the residual nipple pain at the very least, that had his circuits re-firing a little bit better than they had earlier. A familiar kind of exhaustion, an intriguing feeling of despair that he had often felt stirring painfully within his own heart. It was the fact that, while he had only known this woman to be real for a few seconds, he knew that the gentility of her voice, the sudden nervousness—that these were hard things for the slight girl with the pale hands and heavy boots.

“My apologies. Please,” smiling and opening the door wider to allow her entrance, he gestures a hand inwards as she walks into the living room. Staring at the stiff slowness of her movements, the way she filled the space around her—that was when he had suddenly remembered. The sight of the farm in the heat of late summer and the dramatic, end-of-day light that would cast the garden in a fiery glow. The smell of the dirt under his bare feet, the warm flesh of ripening tomatoes. And was that his mother’s voice, calling his name from the porch?

“What did you say your name was?”

“I didn’t,” she answered, no doubt distracted by the unusually green and “lively” look of the place. Not to mention Chammy’s guttural chirps at her feet. “It’s Emma,” she said, extending a thin, still hand. “Emma Swan.”

“Emma Swan,” hoping his grin was a little less frenzied than it felt, “Killian Jones.”

iii. vwthi3f

From the outside looking in, most people would probably suspect that the soul-crushing heartbreak, betrayal, and subsequent imprisonment would have left Emma Swan yearning for the so-called “carefree days” of her youth—but those people would be wrong. It would be safe to assume that those same people had probably lived fairly standard, mediocre lives, and there’s nothing wrong with having lived such a life. Mundane lives such as these, they’re usually of the pain-free variety. Aside from the occasional missed birthday, disappointing grade, or sneaking liquor from the cabinet before they’re able, childhood tends to pass quickly and blissfully. It’s one of those things that adults often recall with fondness; they imagine that if they could go back in time to an age before bills, home ownership, and a number of regretful sexual encounters, that they might be truly happy again. Emma Swan had dreamed of the mundane life even before she had started living with the Swans, and certainly afterwards she had desired it moreso. She wished that her pain (and even now, the labeling of her past as “pain,” felt pitiful and tiresome) was the kind of story you didn’t mind sharing, instead of the harsh, ugly thing that she preferred most people not know. Even if they were your friends.

From her prison cell, she often tries to make a list in her head of all the good things that have happened since leaving the Swans. Those times when she’s feeling a bit lonelier than usual, or after she’s spent a little too much time thinking about his smile. As if breaking one’s heart was the worst thing that could happen to a person. And sure, prison is pretty miserable, but it’s not a foster home, and it’s not the Swans. Prison has designated computer time, and there’s no sneaking down darkened hallways at night. And the prison system, unsurprisingly, knows very little of magic, which is how she so easily bypasses the archaic security software, reaches out across the void, and finds the comforting, if not vaguely biting, words of an old friend.

At the very least, she is gracious enough to avoid coming right out and saying “I told you so.”

One of the first things she notices about Lily Page (and isn’t that just irony at its finest) is her hair. It’s long, dark, pin straight, and some of the thickest she’s ever seen. She always threatens to chop most of it off, but never does (and never will), despite Emma’s playful needling. Unsurprisingly pale, with deep red lips and black, wet eyes that always make it appear as if she’s on the verge of tears. “Ask me if I’m ‘okay,’ one more fucking time, Swan,” she would frequently threaten before fleeing the room. She would eventually, and begrudgingly, admit that being on the receiving end of someone else’s “concern” made her feel slightly nauseous, which Emma had found to be pleasantly relatable.

Lily had been living in a very small studio at the tip-top of a tall, post-war building in the financial district. It was a charming place to live, but not particularly well-suited to housing two people, so they found another. As Emma had already been led to believe, money wasn’t much of a concern when most of it was digital these days anyway, and while they couldn’t go for something especially lavish (so as not to draw too much attention to themselves), it was still a nicer home than Emma could have ever imagined as a child.

The feeling of safety and comfort in her own home is one of the good things on her list. If nothing else, one of the very best. Having the security of a door with a lock on it—a roommate who always knocks. The first night in their new place she has the best night of sleep she’s ever had, and when she woke up in the early afternoon the following day, her blankets unmoved from the night before, her door still blessedly shut, she had to muffle her relieved sobs with the absurdly soft pillow beneath her head, lest she force Lily into an awkward moment of interpersonal comfort she often found distasteful.

“I’m better online,” she had humbly conceded after an awkward, consolatory pat on the back. But it was okay. She was still the best friend that Emma had ever known, and besides, she wasn’t great with people either.

Their apartment was a veritable hive of high-end, up-to-date tech. The walls practically hummed with it all, the various cords trailing in and out between rooms, framing windows and doorways. Another thing to add to the list; the small touches that made it both a home and impenetrable fortress from which they might change the world if they had a mind to. She’s got the friend, never really had one of those before, but on top of that, she gets a teacher—she gets power. A lot of it. She also gets an iBook G4 with 1.5 GB of memory (that she manages, with some magical prowess, to enlarge to around 3 or 4). She loves that it fits in her lap, that she can feel the warmth of it against the tops of her thighs when she hasn’t powered it down for 48 hours. The sounds of the keys beneath her fingertips, loud and decisive, wary of her at first, but after a few weeks, craving her touch.

“We all have different strengths and weaknesses,” Lily had explained over coffee, twirling the length of headphone cord round and round her finger. “You seem to be especially adept at Research.”

Emma huffs. “Couldn’t anyone be good at that?”

“Not when it involves talking to corpses and seeing the future.”

“I don’t think they liked to be called that,” Emma had said uncomfortably, turning the sound down on the phone in her pocket. “Well,” Lily answered smartly, forcing down her cold coffee with a grimace, “that’s why I’m not so good at it, isn’t it?”

Emma eventually learns that when Lily says “Research,” it doesn’t necessarily mean traditional forms of information gathering. She could hop on Google and find an article, probably quicker than most, sure, but what Lily really means is communication and knowledge; she means dipping her fingers into the void and coming back with Truth. Apparently there’s a whole freaking dictionary of witch-related vocabulary that she’s missed out on, and funnily enough, it’s not online.

“Where anyone could find it?” Lily explained, dropping the aged, poorly bound manuscript onto Emma’s lap, “Analog has its uses.” Knowledge is good. Answers are good. The world is vast and old and it’s all in one place, just waiting for her to hit the power button.

It sounds stupid, but she could eat ice cream whenever she wanted. It’s one of the good things, and as Lily had informed her, it’s also one of those things that kind of made her just like everyone else. “Most people enjoy the privilege of being able to eat ice cream whenever they want,” she said, distracted with something or other on the screen in front of her, “congratulations, you’re finally normal.”

There was a note of sarcasm in her tone (surprise, surprise), but  Emma couldn’t suppress the grin that had appeared on her face at the thought of being just like everyone else. If one were to totally ignore the “tech-savvy witch,” thing, obviously. Eating ice cream, “just like everyone else,” while a good thing at first, would ultimately return to bite her quite firmly on the ass, but for a while it had been Rum Raisin and Moose Tracks whenever the hell she wanted. Mercifully, it was sold cheap at the corner bodega and sometimes she would wander out of the apartment mere hours before the sun was due to rise and buy herself one or two pints (even though there were several unfinished sitting in the freezer). She met Neal Cassidy during yet another trip to the store in order to indulge in one or two flavors she hasn’t had the pleasure of trying yet. Like Cherry Garcia or the one with the caramel-filled chocolates shaped like fish. Lily had referred to the fish-shaped chocolate as a “crime against nature,” but she could be a tad dramatic sometimes.

“Gotta cure those night-bites somehow, I guess, right?”

Emma Swan dislikes and distrusts men as a general rule. So when she heard a distinctly male voice at her back, had sensed the way he stood over her, she had felt uncomfortable almost immediately. Her phone started to buzz quite incessantly in her pocket, despite the fact that she had left Lily sleeping and no one else had her number—she had, mistakenly, ignored it.

Emma had never entertained the prospect of a romantic relationship before Neal. At that point in her life she’d been getting closer to 18, so she knew it was about “that time,” but it had never really been something she wanted to pursue. She had only just started getting used to the feeling of Lily sitting next to her on the couch; the non-threatening way she might bump their hips together when she moved past her in order to get to the fridge. And it’s not like he managed to get under her skin quickly (if anything she remembers noting that he had quite the punchable face), but there was something about him she had found charming, and unfortunately she was not quite as repulsed as she might have expected herself to feel.

“What?” she had asked with some confusion, hoping her facial expression was not quite so dumb as she imagined it to be.

“Late night cravings,” he clarified, nodding at the ice cream in her hand, “I know the feeling.”

She managed to surmise he was talking about being high, not that she would have really known. But she nodded anyway, finding herself in the familiar predicament of having to pretend she’s “in on the joke,” so to speak. She had never done any kind of drug at that point, but she had preferred he assume she knew what he was talking about and let her off the hook, rather than come off as some kind of dense pre-teen. Luckily for her it had worked, and he simply smiled and walked off, snagging a candy bar and shoving it into his pocket as he went. Despite the obviousness of the lift the clerk had failed to notice, and Emma rolled her eyes, finally pulling the buzzing phone out of her pocket.

Idiot, read a text from an unknown number, the less frenzied hum of a few dozen voices scrolling in the darkness of her closed eyes, infinite, vertical rows of ones and zeroes. That’s a walking prison sentence if we’ve ever seen one.

Emma stares up at the ceiling of her bleak, unremarkable prison cell and thinks about how she might yell at those numbers now, if she could. Thinking they’re so smart all the time just because they’re dead. Or, ya know, “untethered by their human forms,” or whatever the fuck. In yet another teachable moment, Lily had tried to explain that while most of the time she was in conversation with the dead, sometimes she was just reaching out to other Techies wandering around in the same playground as her.

“You shouldn’t trust everything they say,” Lily had warned, “I know it seems like they know everything because they’re ‘one with the machine,’” her eyes rolling, “but most of them are just as lost and fucked up as we are. There’s no power greater than your own instinct.”

It’s too bad Emma never really got around to the whole “trusting herself” thing. Especially when it came to Neal Cassidy—the first boy to make her feel special. The asshole who had given her a taste of what it meant to love and be loved only to rip the still beating heart out of her chest and squish the particularly sensitive parts between his toes. Not that she had known that at the time. At the time she had simply been relieved to know that she wasn’t completely broken. That someone could care for her, that she could care for them in return. That she could bear the feeling of his hand wrapped around hers (ignoring the fact that she was often bothered by the unusual sweatiness of his palms).

When she’s not walking in circles around the prison yard or in the computer lab, she’s replaying her memories of the last year as if they were disassociated segments of a silent film—a distorted, desaturated mess of key scenes that would ultimately lead her to this very moment, to this hard bed beneath her back. That’s usually when the bad begins, when she goes back to adding good things to the list.

The dead ones always want to know because they’ve forgotten, and they’re hoping that she’ll be able to help them remember what it was like, being alive. Please, Emma Swan, please bore us with the details.

It’s not quite so bad at first. They flirt a lot, which Emma finds fun despite never having really done it before, and then there’s her first kiss, and the first time having sex she actuallyenjoys, and running through the darkened city streets without a care in the world. There’s sharing her story with someone who seemed to care, a lover and not a friend; who upon learning of her abilities got a gleam in his eye that she would live to regret ignoring. There was getting high for the first time and trying not to feel hurt when he had laughed at her obvious inexperience, despite having promised that he wasn’t going to. It was stupid to ignore the hint of warning in Lily’s eyes when she started spending more nights at Neal’s place. Not to mention the dozens of ominous text messages from unknown numbers.

Emma had become defensive and snarky almost immediately. Taking offense at the suggestion that she couldn’t handle herself in her first grown-up relationship, as if she wasn’t a smart, experienced woman with a good head on her shoulders.

As it turned out, the “babysitter” probably would have been helpful. Maybe the babysitter would have been able to stop her from transferring all of those large, traceable funds into Neal’s accounts. When she has a difficult time conjuring up another good thing to add to the list, his smarmy voice pops into her head instead, reassuring her that “no one would ever find out.”

Three years and one prison sentence later she often finds herself haunted by her own words. Disgusted with herself for betraying the one person who had never been anything other than kind in a world full of monsters. “All’s well that ends well,” Lily had said in greeting upon picking her up from prison, her face hidden beneath the shadow of a baseball cap. “Breathe in that sweet, sweet freedom.”

The only useful thing that Neal had managed to leave in his wake, aside from a renewed sense of disgust with humanity as a whole, was the innocuous drug habit. She didn’t consider herself to be an addict by any means, not that an actual addict would admit to such a thing, but she certainly imbibed more frequently than she might have predicted a few years earlier. The problem (if you had to call it that) was using it for normal human things that most people were able to accomplish without the chemical assist—things like sleeping.

Emma has always had trouble sleeping. It was unsurprising given her history, but as it turns out, staring at screens almost 24 hours a day doesn’t really help the situation either. She had tried a handful of other remedies over the years: a hot cup of chamomile tea before bed (that always made her have to pee right on the edge of sleep); some user generated playlists comprised of soothing instrumentals (except for that one “experimental” song at the end that left her heart racing); charge and cast spells left waiting in her camera roll, various hand drawn sigils or long strings of emojis (while effective, often accompanied by odd dreams). For whatever reason, the weed had been the most helpful. She had felt ashamed at first; good little girls don’t use drugs after all (sounding suspiciously like Mrs. Swan in her head), but it was like Lily always said, “If it works, it works.”

4: urbanfarm3r@gmail.com

While their first meeting had undeniably fallen on the rougher end of the friendship spectrum, there’s something about her that insists upon a second. Especially after he’s had more sleep, and his charm is significantly more effective. He’s held her hand for an almost inappropriately long few moments before he comes to his senses and asks after her problem—what is it she’s in the market for? It’s as she’s said, “trouble sleeping,” and he reminds her that his product, while almost exclusively well-received is a bit, shall we say, “stronger” than the usual fare.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asks, glancing suspiciously around his oddly lush studio despite it being midwinter.

“My methods can be a bit,” pausing for effect, a bit of vague handwaving for emphasis, “unusual.”

“‘Unusual,’ like laced, unusual?”

“Good heavens woman, no,” he says hurriedly at the angry look on her face, frustrated with his seeming inability to form sentences this morning. “Let me show you.”

Normally, he might not be so inclined to reveal his “gifts” to a new client, but as he surmised from their awkward yet brief conversation at his door, there was just… something about her. And for whatever reason, he got the sense that she wasn’t about to be shocked or frightened by his admission. He leads her over to a large, round window that looks out over a dismal alleyway. The tops of other apartment buildings with decrepit looking antenna rest precariously on their respective roofs. The glass of the window is warped, evidence of the building’s rather respectable age; dotted with air bubbles and flecked with dirt and pollen. The window itself, while framed by some aesthetically pleasing distressed brick, is also encircled by a rather impressive wreath of thick, green vines.

Beneath the window he’s setup his appropriately named “Alchemist’s Table,” complete with ceramic pots and glass test tubes, even an old microscope he had acquired at a middle school auction. “You some kind of mad scientist?” Her words sound a bit sharp, but they’re nowhere near harsh enough to hide the curiosity and wonder in her voice, and he plays along with a bit of a “mad” grin.

“After a fashion.”

He shows off a bit after that, there’s no denying it, sticking a finger into a pot of soil with a small sprout peeking out of the dirt. A young and fragile thing. Emma watches, entranced, as it begins to grow and stretch itself into being, and after a few seconds, a small, pale green strawberry appears. “It’ll be ripe enough to eat in a few hours,” he says casually, reining in his laughter at the look of shock on her face, “if you’d like to stay for a bit.”

While he’s used to women finding this particular trick alluring, he finds himself quite surprised at what she ends up saying instead. “You’re one of us.”

“Sorry, love, one of who?”

“Us!” she says happily, her hands clapping gently together, “I’ve never met a non-Techie before.”

“A non-what?”

“Do you not know?” she asks, suddenly sobering, her head tilted endearingly to one side. At the blank look on his face she smiles softly, her earlier fidgeting having evaporated at the prospect of revealing this apparent truth. She leans close enough that he can smell the sweetened coffee on her breath, and an oddly familiar floral scent that seems to stem from the blonde tips of her hair.

“You’re not the only one,” she divulges in an excited whisper, and he becomes abruptly alarmed at the likelihood of falling in love with this strange woman who ended up being undeniably  real. “There’s more.”

The smoke tastes sweet on his lips. She’s not sure if it’s magic or something else. Something unique to whoever or whatever he is. They kiss on the first day they meet and she’s not quite sure what that says about her. She’s fairly certain that it says more about him—that perhaps there is something a bit irresistible about a man who has briefly wondered whether or not you truly exist. Which is ironic, because for the first half of her life it was all she could do to make sure that people knew she was there, but that was mostly so someone would feed her or give her a place to sleep. It was only after she had stopped feeling so hungry that she had hoped she would disappear.

“I have a question,” she starts, taking a hit off of his “free sample” while trying not to marvel at the trail of pinkish smoke that escapes from in between her lips. “If you were so sure that I wasn’t real, why did you even talk to me?”

When he exhales the smoke is blue rather than pink, and when it meets the colorful cloud above their heads it blends together in shades of vibrant purple. She can’t help feeling like she has stumbled into a scene from Alice in Wonderland, having found herself in a strange land with an excitable man (who likes to leave empty mugs scattered about his home), as well as the literal toadstools and the rather odd sensation akin to falling down a rabbit hole.

“Rather pretty for a figment, I suppose. Wouldn’t do to ignore such a lovely, imaginary thing,” crushing the the last of the joint against a small, porcelain plate, “might hurt her feelings.”

Her phone buzzes in her pocket and she almost ignores it. But it was hard to forget about the nightmare that had ensued when she had ignored it the last time, and she pulls it from her pocket with a polite “give me a minute,” gesture.

She snorts at the sight of the word “airs,” her mind conjuring a 16th century French courtesan in a dramatically large dress, and silently warns her heart not to get it’s hopes up. Me too.When she looks up from her phone his head whips away too quickly for him to have been doing anything other than staring at her, and she wills the inevitable blush from her cheeks.

“We should exchange numbers,” she says suddenly, “for when I need more.”

Thankfully he ignores her rather abrupt request and pulls a most surprising device from his pocket that has her temporarily forgetting the way he had been so obviously observing her earlier. It’s a Motorola Razr V3 (launched in 2004), and the only thing funnier than the phone itself is the offended look on his face after she bursts into loud, obnoxious laughter at the sight of it.

“I’m doing my best not to feel quite so hurt right now, Swan.”

“I’m sorry,” she gasps in between her embarrassing bout of giggling, “I just didn’t think you could even get your hands on one of those things anymore.”

“It may not be your ‘high-tech’ nonsense,” he goes on proudly, “but she’ll do in a pinch.”

“Oh, Killian,” she says sweetly, “I’m sure she will.”

They start texting with a frequency far more reminiscent of an honest to goodness friendship rather than that of a business relationship, and Emma finds herself having to reassure the small, frightened girl inside of her that the whole thing won’t end in disaster. He’s not Neal, she thinks desperately, trying to trust in the hopeful parts of herself without succumbing to the bitter voice inside her head that struggles to forget the less admirable parts of humanity. What’s another potential stint in prison for such a pretty face, after all?

The first night she tries what he recommended, a strain he refers to as “Sailor’s Delight,” she dreams of the ocean. It’s an especially vivid dream, unlike anything she’s ever experienced—she can smell the sourness of low tide; taste the salt on her lips, and feel the warmth of the sun on her face. First thing in the morning she reaches for the phone beneath her pillow, her fingers flying across the screen.

She hesitates briefly before sending that last text. While it’s true her mind feels calm and her body re-energized, her heart hammers wildly inside her chest—the tiny fists of an anxious child warning her of the inevitable. While her own nervousness is enough to give her pause, she does try and take comfort in the fact that her “ghostlier” comrades would seem to have taken a backseat for the moment.

His texts often arrive in the form of mini paragraphs. Full sentences and words bundled together and sent to her as if they were handwritten letters. She can see his fingerprint on each and every one, a dirt-stained brand that conjures some unknown, vast greenery made of hills and fir trees, winding back roads and cloudless skies.

“He better not track any dirt in here,” Lily warns her the evening before he was supposed to be coming by to drop off another batch. It was to be his first visit to their apartment, and Emma could not be more nervous if she tried. She’s been back to his place a few times since that first visit, but allowing him to come here had been an unexpected offer on her part. Not that it matters, she thinks calmly, what do you care what he thinks?

“Don’t be such a snob, Lil.”

Lily’s mouth is full of frosted flakes as she leans against the refrigerator, glaring at the back of Emma’s head. “This shit’s expensive, and I don’t have time to fix anything he manages to break.” She suspects a note of jealousy in Lily’s ire, so she decides to cut her some slack, pressing a kiss to her cheek with a guaranteed dirt-free visit.

“It’ll be fine,” she says, heading towards her room to straighten up for no other reason than the fact that it has been a while. “Besides, aren’t you curious?”

A playful shout at her back, “Not nearly as curious as you, my little thief!”

The next morning he’s standing at her door holding a potted plant. “It’s a succulent,” he says happily, his hair sticking up in all directions. He smells like the city after it’s been sanitized by a particularly cold frost, and she wonders how he’s managed to keep warm in a half-buttoned flannel and a knitted scarf. “Notoriously hard to kill,” he assures her, shoving the thing into her hands, “I’m sure you’ll get along famously.”

The brief facade of confidence he had displayed while foisting the plant upon her departs rather suddenly at the sight of her apartment, and he looks all kinds of adorable and confused at the otherworldliness of it all. She supposed it would look rather intimidating to a person like him, surrounded by all those green things. Not that the wires and the screens were any less alive—they were just better at playing dead.

He does have some dirt on his fingertips and beneath his nails, but Emma finds herself quietly charmed by the sight of it; the deep impression of his prints highlighted by the dark soil permanently staining his skin. It’s been getting harder and harder to pass off their brief moment of intimacy as a one time thing. Especially when she can’t seem to stop thinking about it. Especially when she does stupid things like noticing his hands and trying not to recall the pleasant sensation of their roughness against her cheek.

“Don’t worry,” Emma says teasingly at the awed look on his face, “this is the most secure room in the city.” With a few magical fortifications no one and certainly no obscure, supernaturalthing was getting past the barriers they had implemented when they had first moved in, and it had only gotten stronger over the years.

Lily pops her head in from the kitchen, most likely with the intention of embarrassing her only friend. “Hey, Sprout,” she says, glaring at Killian from behind her thick curtain of hair, “don’t touch any of my stuff.”

“Don’t worry about her,” and Emma takes a moment to stick out her tongue in Lily’s direction. “She’s trapped in a state of perpetual grouchiness.”

“I heard that.”

There’s something incredibly momentous about the occasion of his entering her room. Lily had only hung out in there a few times, and Neal had never even been inside (she had spent all their nights together at his place). It’s her favorite time of day, which helps. Late afternoon, which often brings a light that seems warmer than at any other time—and with those big windows, the ones she suspects Lily had a hand in ensuring were a fixture of the apartment, the light falls and frames the room in a buttery yellow that makes winter feel that much further away.

In a probable attempt to diffuse the tension of Lily’s condescending nickname (and subsequent scolding), he laughs and runs a hand through his hair, making it bigger than it already was.

“Well, she’s charming.”

“She’s a good friend,” Emma says quickly, irritated with her sudden urge to leap to Lily’s defense as if he had said something wrong. Which he hadn’t.

“I’m sure she is, Swan,” he reassures softly, “it was only a joke.”

Then comes the urge to apologize, which she knows she has no reason to, and fuck, there is no reason why this should be so hard . He takes a seat in a large armchair she’s tucked away into a corner of the room, his eyes making quick work of all the unfamiliar equipment. The curious awe with which he observes her space gives her pause—takes her back to the day when she had first seen the Swans’ new computer in the room at the end of the hall. Forbidden, yet waiting for her all along.

“Make sure you keep her in the light.”

“Who?” Confused by the pronoun and wondering if he’s been seeing imaginary women again. “The plant,” he explains, gesturing towards the small, green twig in her hands, “make sure she gets a decent amount of sunlight.”

A part of her wants to remind him that she’s shut up in the dark most of the time. That was why she needed the drugs in the first place. Aside from the few short hours pre-sunset when she would, occasionally, open the curtains. But he looks so hopeful, she doesn’t really have the heart to deny him. “Sure. Sunlight.”

In the days following Killian’s visit to the apartment, all of the various cords and sundry start growing towards the sunlight as if they were starving for it. She even starts to notice some small weeds pushing their way through her keyboard. It doesn’t seem to be a problem at Lily’s end of the apartment; her equipment seems to have stayed blessedly put, but Emma’s room is another matter entirely. She even goes so far as to make a post on a message board where other witches have been known to frequent, despite the fact that they usually have terrible advice and she’s generally better off not having spoken to them in the first place.

She attaches a picture and hopes for the best, but unfortunately no one seems to have a clue. Someone does suggest watering them and seeing what happens, but that seems incredibly stupid, so she deletes the post and moves on. Or she tries to at any rate—pretends that there is nothing at all odd about her frequent compulsions to text him anytime a meaningless thought enters her head. The way she starts opening her curtains for a few more hours each day; the feeling of the sun on her skin becoming a welcome part of her routine, as opposed to a cruel reminder of the world that exists beyond the walls of her bedroom.

Their odd, somewhat unlikely friendship grows and flourishes like one of Killian’s plants. It is not without the occasional thorn or weed, like most relationships. The both of them are not without their mutual baggage that stings when you poke at it. Neither one of them can help messing with the other’s wounds, it would seem. Emma had always been under the impression that picking at the thing made it worse, but Killian insists on acting as an infuriating salve that alleviates the pain and leaves the injured place stronger than it had been before.

Beyond the niceties of being one’s drug dealer, getting to know another person can be quite difficult, which had been expected. From the very first, Emma had betrayed an innate desire to keep parts of herself hidden from others. Her passion for witchcraft—the excitement with which she had explained her kind to him that first meeting, it was a good trick, but it wasn’t long before he would come to realize that Emma Swan would rather place a curse upon herself than share the sordid details of her past with anyone.

It had been in the aftermath of his own unburdening—his sudden desire to finally reveal to her all of the messy details of his own life. About his mother, her passing, how maybe he was living a life she had not wanted for him. Emma had been nothing but understanding in the face of his admission, just as she suspected, their unexpected kinship made his pain an easy pill for her to swallow, but that didn’t mean she was necessarily ready to reciprocate.

“I barely tell Lily things about my past,” she had shouted angrily, her arms folded defensively in front of her chest, “why the fuck would I tell my drug dealer?”

“Oh, is that all?” Spoken into the sudden, sucking quiet of his apartment, forcing himself to ignore the painful look of regret on her face. She could wish away her words all she liked, he refuses to be anyone’s whipping boy, no matter how damaged they are. “Then you’ve gotten what you came for,” he said, patiently opening his front door for her convenient departure, “and you let me know should you require my services again.”

Her facial expression could not have been more pained—a fervent desire to take back what she had said, to offer an apology and admit to him the facts of the case. The fact that he had, quite unexpectedly, become one of the more important people in her life. The fact that she often daydreamed about the hour or so in which they had forgone the illusion of platonic friendship. The fact that she often considered the Killian-shaped hole in her future where he would almost undoubtedly be. But, alas, stubbornness won out, and she stormed away, so swiftly and in such a rage with herself that she left her jacket behind. A weathered, burgundy leather number, soft to the touch and smelling vaguely like an electrical fire. At least she’d have an excuse to see him again.

He waits a few days. Keeps his phone buried in a drawer beneath all of his socks and underwear, resisting the urge to send her a text, to wonder if she had sent him one. Eventually, he returns the jacket with a proposition. “Come with me,” he says, not quite begging, but with a breathlessness that he does find mildly humiliating. “Please.”

They take a bus upstate, far enough away from the farm that he doesn’t feel claustrophobic, but with enough distance between themselves and the city that he feels like he can finally breathe. They wander through small, sleepy towns full of charming coffee shops and bookstores, grabbing a cheap breakfast before venturing further into the countryside, stumbling through various trails and parks suggested to them by the locals. “There’s a particularly nice spot,” remarked the older woman who had served them coffee, “right here.” Marking up the paper map that Killian had insisted they buy.

It is a bit nippy further north, and despite the fresh smell of earth and rain, their noses still turn pink as they walk through the woods. The “nice spot” in question is a ledge of rock that overlooks a large, clear lake that sparkles in the sun. A light mist hovers over the top, and when he takes a quick peek to gauge Emma’s reaction, he is momentarily stunned at the way the sunlight has fallen across her face—how it has betrayed the sheen of wetness that seems to be gathering at the corners of her eyes.

“Swan?”

“It’s not a nice story,” she begins after a few moments of quiet. “I don’t like to tell people. Because it’s just not…” She huffs in frustration, turning away briefly to face the sun, staring out over the water as if it will be able to finish this conversation for her. “I don’t want people treating me differently.”

He hesitates before gently pulling some stray hairs from her chapped lips, and when she looks back at him it feels as if he’s been punched in the gut. Having never seen this particular look on her face before; perhaps moments away from arriving at this emotional plateau, only to shutter it away at the last moment. It is glassy eyed and fragile, her nose wrinkling and her hands fidgeting with the ends of her sleeves—it is a choked admission of all the horror she has known; of her adoptive family, her villainous “father,” the computer at the end of the hall, the young girl waiting at the other end who had stormed the tower and rescued her from a cruel fate.

When the tale is finally done, and he pulls her into his arms, the sun has moved higher into the sky. The fog has evaporated completely from the surface of the water, and now it merely shimmers. Their legs dangle over the rockface, and he presses a firm kiss against the side of her head. “I swear,” he whispers against the shell of her ear, “you are still the same person you were before. And if it seems as if I look at you differently—” He considers his words carefully, her fingers tapping nervously against his upturned palm, “It’s because I am more in awe of you then I was before.”

Her kiss is a salty, stinging thing against his tongue, and he can still feel the occasional soft hiccup resonating from the back of her throat. “I’m tired,” she admits quietly, her head rolling against his shoulder.

“Aye, love,” giving her another squeeze, a brief kiss to her cheek that reddens under his lips. “Let’s go home.”

It’s the fact that he never actually asks that makes her want to do it. That and the fact that he has bared his soul to her on multiple occasions and asked for so little in return. And quite honestly, there’s not much left he could do to her, given the fact that she’s spilled her damage all over him anyway.

Their feet hang over the fire escape out Emma’s window, the chilly spring air keeping it brisk yet refreshing. A hint of warmth that reminds the world of the impending season. “If you could,” she begins gently, taking a sip of their shared beer, “would you want to talk to her?”

He nibbles at his lower lip in response, an infuriating and distracting movement that has her discreetly pinching the top of her own hand. “I’m not sure,” he admits quietly, looking a bit like someone who feels ashamed by who they have become. Although, if she had the strength, she would have stopped him in that moment, reminded him that there was nothing to be ashamed of. That he was every bit the sweet, loving man his mother had suspected he would become. “Not sure she’d very much want to speak with me, if I’m being honest.”

Her heart breaks at the sound of his nervous, self-deprecating laughter, but she keeps her earlier, enamored thoughts to herself. While he’s lighting a cigarette she pops back into her room quickly, grabbing her laptop and returning to the ledge to face his sadness; the light and sound of a sleepless city, awaking slowly from a long, hard hibernation.

“I can’t guarantee anything,” resting the quiet machine on her lap, trying not to twiddle her thumbs, “but we can try.”

When she boots up the laptop, a soothing hum ignites in her fingertips and rushes through her veins. Now this, this she can do. She can feel his nervousness from over her shoulder, can see his fingers peeling the label away from the bottle out of the corner of her eye. “Relax,” she says softly, closing her eyes, her fingers flying across the keyboard. She’s not sure how much time passes, but at some point, in the midst of all the chatter, she hears it—a song that sounds familiar even though she is certain she’s never heard it before. “Do you hear it?”

He doesn’t seem to, not at first, not until she increases the volume on the laptop and slides it carefully onto his lap. “Take as long as you want,” pressing a kiss to his temple before standing and returning to her room, “I’ll be right here.”

It’s hard for her not to let her mind wander, to consider the particulars of a conversation that he’s been waiting to have for years , a voice and a face that he’s been tortured by everytime he closes his eyes. She had never even really considered looking for her own parents. What would she even say to them? Thanks for the childhood trauma, I have multiple lifetimes worth of debilitating baggage and it’s all thanks to you. And what would they do, anyway? Apologize? Fat lot of good that would do.

When he comes back inside she’s petting the soft edge of her succulent, somehow still flourishing regardless of her complete lack of knowledge as to how to properly care for the thing. His eyes are red and wet, and he tries to smile when he sees her obviously worried expression, only it crumbles as soon as she touches him, her hands coming up to frame his face with a gentleness she had not been sure she possessed. “Killian—”

“I’m quite alright, Emma. Thank you.”

It hurts to call the look in his eyes “love,” but she doesn’t know how else to describe the way he admires her with words of gratitude on his lips. It doesn’t matter what it is he’s thanking her for, whether it be the opportunity to speak with his mother one last time, her physical presence, or something else, it seems to encompass all of these things and more. The weight of this realization leaves her grasping for how to react, and in a moment of panic and a heavy, painfully beating heart, she presses her lips to his; aligns their bodies so firmly and precisely together that any suggestion of space between the two of them ceases to exist.

“Real enough for you?”

“Yes,” he rasps hotly against her lips, and the shiver she feels traveling down her spine and between her legs allows the terrifying rush of unwanted thoughts skittering elsewhere. “You are the realest thing I have ever known.”  

The sun shines bright and disarming the following morning. Having left her curtains open the night before, he is able to admire the sight of her eyelashes dusting atop her cheeks in the cleansing light of a new day. The world feels different. The only other time he can recall feeling this way was waking up the morning his mother had passed, sensing that something fundamental had changed, that his life would be forced to take a direction he had not expected. For the first time in years, he can picture the farmhouse in his head as if it were a photograph. Can smell the aged wood, the cooling stove, the chamomile tea brewing on the counter. Time to go home, he thinks suddenly, staring at Emma as she twitches mildly in her sleep.

The way the blankets have come to rest beneath her breasts, her hair splayed over the pillow, she looks not unlike some unnamed renaissance painting one might see hanging in a museum somewhere. Her skin smooth, soft, and warm, he can’t resist the temptation to run his fingers gently over her ribcage, observing the slight, sloping arcs of her.

“Hey,” she says quietly, stretching her arms above her head. “What are you thinking about?”

In the days, weeks, and months following this morning, he will freeze this moment in his head. The way she had looked at him, with a contented yet desirous look that had almost convinced him to put off the conversation for a few hours. Oh, how he wished he had. Perhaps, if he had waited just a bit longer, if he had considered how she might respond with greater care—if he hadn’t been quite so excited by the change in the wind.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said with a smile on his face, “that it might be time for me to return home.”

Hell, if he had even relayed the thought in a way that implied his wish for her to come with him. That he was by no means planning to abandon her , that in all of his visions of the future,of course she played a starring role. But in his haste to share the news, to embark upon this journey that he had awoken to find simmering beneath the surface, he had failed to consider the fragility of her heart. A vulnerability she often hid well, but to his eyes, not well enough.

“Oh,” responding with a deceptive pleasantness, leaving his side quicker than he would have liked. “That’s uh, that’s great, Killian.”

“I think you’ll like it,” he continued, oblivious to her discomfort, a point which he would absolutely kick himself for later. “Might take a bit to get the Internet hooked up, but—”

“Wait, did I miss something?”

For someone with so remarkable a memory, all of the words they throw back and forth seem to grow a bit fuzzy after that. Their voices grow louder and crueler than he can stand; they twist and turn inside the labyrinth of his mind with all the gentleness of a machete hacking through a jungle—sharp, incomprehensible things that end in one undeniable fact: he leaves, she stays.

A year passes. In the city, a year passes in rides on the subway. It passes in television shows and which bars you’ve decided to stop going to. Some new diet you’ve decided to try in lieu of really examining oneself as a person. On the farm, it passes in sunsets—in which vegetables take root at what time, and will they make it? Maybe, and he can hear his mother’s voice, if it’s their time. It passes in whether or not Chammy has decided if she’ll be sleeping at the end of his bed. Can he feel her small, humming warmth atop his feet? Winter. Has he lost track of her hungry chirps each morning? Spring.

The months without Emma Swan are dimmer than he can stand. Desaturated, cornerless days of trying not to think about the jagged edges of her hair. Or the way she smelled, or how she had curled around him in sleep with a fierce, desperate grip. Please, stay. Winter is hard, since winter was when it had all began. With beanies and boots, and pale hands reaching for his. He will wonder, occasionally, if she’s managed to keep the plant he had given her alive without his reminding her to water it. And then, inevitably, his mind will wander to the shape of her face, or the color of her eyes—and the months apart feel more like years. He writes a lot of e-mails that he never gets around to sending. Some of them biting and cruel; others quite obviously lovelorn. Pathetic.

Sometimes, when he stands in his cold kitchen waiting for the fire to take the early morning chill out of the place, he imagines his mother’s voice in the silence. Come now, Killian, she remarks playfully, it’s not all bad is it? And then the sun will shine through the bare trees, and Chammy will scratch at the door, and he’ll take a breath. No, not all bad. The only time he hears the honk of a car horn is when he drives into town for supplies. His lungs never feel as if they were in danger of collapsing (unless he’s thinking about Emma Swan, in which case, he finds himself yearning for the gritty, polluted haze of the city); and his feet feel rooted to the earth.

Life goes on—it grows.

Emma Swan returns to him in midsummer. All solid flesh and sinew, with striking green eyes that appear almost golden in the pre-evening sunlight. She walks towards him in the same boots she had worn the morning they met, only with more tape wrapped around the toes. She walks with a lightness that he had only managed to catch a glimpse of—that day at the lake, when her blessed history had come rushing through her lips like a waterfall after too much rain.

It feels like another year has passed when she comes to a stop in front of him, her bag falling heavily off of her shoulder. The both of them staring at the ground as if it will save them, her bag and his feet, toes wiggling in the dirt.

“Your hair,” he says finally, admiring the sight of the freckles that have begun to bloom across her cheeks. “I like it.”

Grown past her shoulders in the months following his departure in long, soft waves that he has often dreamed of running his fingers through. Only he’s not dreaming now, and has grown sick with waiting. “Thanks,” she begins to say, only he finds himself overcome with the sound of her voice, and before she can complete her thought he has snuck a hand against the back of her neck and pulled her mouth to his—all of those beautiful words waiting in the lovely depths of her soul, and he is ecstatic at the prospect of being able to hear each and every one.

Eventually, he leads her by the hand towards his front porch, newly sanded and finished, replete with antique rockers and potted plants lining the steps. He thinks it might be polite to offer her a drink, to ask her about her trip, but he’s finding it difficult to do anything other than stare at their joined hands—his browned with the sun and the dirt, her’s just as pale as he remembers, only her polish has turned a friendly blue as opposed to the chipped black he can recall with such fondness.

“Lily says ‘Hi,’” she says, her voice thick with emotion.

“I have a hard time believing that.” His heart thumps at the brief, shy smile she sends his way, her knee moving up and down with a familiar degree of anxiety that he knows he still loves—even still, he knows, and although there are few things he knows, this he can say with certainty, he loves her. He places a hand on her knee and she stills, her eyes roaming over his features with a gaze so hungry he finds himself struggling to breathe.

“I’ve missed you,” she says softly, and he can practically feel her nerves buzzing around them as if they were sitting beneath a hornet’s nest, “I thought that, maybe, everything would just go back to the way it was, like always, but—”

Her hair lifts in a warm breeze that seems to engulf them in an almost eerie, magical quiet, and while he wants nothing more than to ease her fears, to reassure her that no matter what she says, he will never let her go again, he lets her speak her piece, her eyes meeting his once more. “I didn’t want it to. I don’t want things to go back to the way they were before you.”

When their foreheads meet, he thinks he might catch a flash of their future. In the next few minutes, they might move inside to find a bright, well-ventilated kitchen that he has renovated with his own two hands. She might meet Chammy with a pleased hum, cradling his old companion in her strong, steady arms. Would she then relax in the garden with him? Snapping pictures of his bare, freckled back with her phone, laughing and sending them to Lily even though she held little affection for such things. Installing wires and cables and slipping them beneath the persian rugs in the living room in order to maintain the illusion that she has fully embraced the country life.

Holding one another tightly each night, perhaps recalling the loneliness, the anger they had once felt and marveling at the seeming improbability of finding each other in such a vast, concrete sea. But for now he makes her tea. He tucks some strands of that new, thick hair behind one ear as they listen to the final, evening chorus of the birds, the water boiling in the kettle. “I am so very happy to see you,” he admits with a smile, relishing in the sight of her flushed, joyful face, “Emma Swan.”

[zee-isaiah-pugnacious7-blog]

In Defense of Junpei Iori

I want to start off by saying this is my own thoughts on the character. Whether you like/hate this character is your own personal opinion; respect my opinion, and I will respect yours. Thank you.

So, Junpei. The token comedy-relief/best-buddy of Persona 3. Friendly, funny, charming and sharing the same voice-actor as Edward Elric (plus several others), he is one of the more memorable characters of the series...

And yet... a lot of people seem to hate him. More often than not, some people comment that he’s one of the most annoying characters in the game! 

Ironically, my boyfriend--- who first introduced me to the Persona series--- was the one who brought up Junpei being a lousy character (He later took it back after noticing how similar the character is--- not even joking, they have similar issues at their homes). But it wasn’t because he thought Junpei was annoying--- it was mainly because... well, Junpei sucked on his team. 

My Boyfriend: Good luck having Junpei on your team. He wouldn’t follow my commands, kept dying, blah blah blah...

Me: *after playing the game* Dude, Junpei is a tank on my team! I’m not even giving him commands, and he’s helping heal the group, he can take a blow, yadda yadda...

(Maybe they can just tell when a girl is playing the game XD)

I get the feeling that’s one reason why people don’t like Junpei--- they have trouble with him on the team. ...Then again, if that were the case, wouldn’t everyone have at least one [other] character they hated having on their team? I guess, depending on the equipment, commands and experience, the characters you choose vary in performance.

...But c’mon guys, how many of us got angry at Mitsuru and her overuse of ‘Marin-Karin/Tentarafoo’? THE COMICS ARE EVERYWHERE!

Me: Okay, Mitsuru--- the Shadow is weak to Ice. Watch me use Bufu. *casts it, destroys enemy* See? Easy. Use Bufu skills. BUFU skills.

Mitsuru: MARIN KARIN!

Me: F*CKING DAMMIT, MITSURU, YOU’RE OFF THE TEAM! 

*ahem* So, yeah, no one’s perfect ^^’

But combat-performance isn’t the only reason I see people hating on Junpei. Like I said earlier, they find him annoying--- maybe they think he’s too much of a pervert (ironic in a game where you play as a guy/girl who can f*ck several people), or maybe they think he’s an idiot (Who’s playing this game, Yukari?), but more often than not, there’s a couple things that always come up...

Junpei’s want for attention, and how he gets jealous of the Protagonist.

Lets start with the fight for attention. During the first mission, Junpei is quick to rush ahead, trying to prove his potential. (And this may be a little late but I’ve never seen all the movie adaptations yet *only the 2nd one* so I’m just going by the game storyline). Clearly he wants to be in the spotlight, and *at first* sees fighting Shadows as some sort of game, up until he realizes just how serious it really is.

But think about it--- before awakening to his Persona, Junpei was a regular teenager. The creators themselves mentioned that Junpei was a crucial character because he acted like a real teenager--- cracking jokes, getting excited about having this power... I mean, how would you react if you were a high school student and found out you had a rare power? You’d be pumped, wouldn’t you?

Meanwhile there’s Akihiko, Shinjiro, Yukari, and Mitsuru who awoke to their Personas early on (for crying out loud Mitsuru awoke to hers when she was just a little girl! She was a chibi with power!). They managed to understand the concept of their potential--- and, since they had serious stuff going on in their lives, took this responsibility to heart. (It really hits you in the feels with Shinji’s case)

Now look at Junpei’s life--- living with an alcoholic father, having little skills and low grades... chances are, he was putting on a mask *no P5 refs intended*; behind that comedic behavior and charming smile was a teen struggling with depression, feeling like he was going nowhere in life. (You all saw his moment with Koromaru in “The Answer”). He awoke to his Persona--- not because he had some ‘mission’ to fulfill, but because he wanted to find a purpose in life.

AndthenhemeetsChidoriandfallsinlovebringinguphisdreamsofbeingabaseballplayerthenshediesinordertosavehislifeandyougethitwiththefeelsandhefindsanewreasontolivegaaaaaaaahhhhh---

Sorry! Got off-track for a moment there!

Point is, the moment he gets his Persona, he feels a rush of excitement, like his life has purpose after all! (This is emphasized after Strega encounters the group, bringing up that once the Dark Hour is destroyed everyone will lose their powers). So of course he’d want to ‘show ‘em what he’s got’ and try to impress everyone, because he’s trying to prove his self-worth.

Now lets bring up the part where he gets jealous of the Protagonist. 

I can hear you all, “Of course he’s jealous--- the protag is a badass who gets all the girls and is acing the exams, etc.* SHUT UP. JUST. SHUT. UP.

First of all, think about the FIRST time you play the game--- where your stats are at an ALL TIME LOW. Your intelligence is ranked at dumbass, you’ve got as much charm as a piece of cardboard, and you have less courage than Scooby Doo!

So you’ve got a guy with zero intelligence, minimal charm, and zip courage... and yet all of a sudden he’s elected Team Leader just because he--- big shock--- awoke to his Persona and *gasp* fought Shadows! Just. Like. Everyone. Else. 

Granted, there were reasons he got the Leader rank--- Mitsuru had to stay behind at the start in order to scan for Shadow activity, Akihiko’s arm was broken, Yukari was having confidence issues, and Junpei was the new guy---

Wait a minute! The Protag was the new guy too! Why was he elected leader? Why couldn’t he and Junpei have had a rock-paper-scissors tournament to decide? What, was it because Junpei wasn’t ‘serious’ enough? I’m pretty sure putting him in a responsible position would get him serious! (...or he’d abuse his power, much like many did when playing the game *cough*BikiniWarriors*cough*)

“But the Protag can use more than one Persona!” you may argue, but I’m talking about the very start of the game--- before you start your Social Links and start acquiring more than 1 Persona (and leaving poor Orpheus behind to rot lol). Like, out of the blue, Mitsuru just says “You can be Leader until Akihiko gets better,” ...then after Akihiko heals up, it’s like “You can keep being leader, you’re doing a great job.”

Okay, maybe I’m overthinking it. If Protag didn’t get the role of leader, we’d have no gameplay. Lets stick with Junpei. 

Granted as the game goes on, your stats do improve by the time you get to the Hotel. And thus when Junpei gets jealous--- everyone fights these two massive Shadows... and the Protag is getting most of the praise. Despite any reassurance you give him, he still gets pissed and ignores you for the week.

(Me: Nuuuuuuu! Junpei, come baaaaack! I’ll buy you ramen!)

And of course this is where a lot of people consider Junpei to be annoying, for throwing a b*tch-fit about the Protagonist being hot-sh*t. 

But, lets re-analyze what I mentioned before--- fighting Shadows is all Junpei considers himself good for. Heck during this time, he realizes he’s going to be a senior by the next year... and then what? What is he going to do with his life after high school?

Also, lets bring up the fact that he’s fighting Shadows with a well-respected valedictorian (Mitsuru), the captain of the boxing-team who has fan-girls surrounding him at the start (Akihiko), the most popular girl in school (Yukari), a girl with a rare Persona who helped her survive in Tartarus for 10 days/hours (Fuuka), and an emo-hunk every woman wants to sleep with (Protagonist). 

DO YOU SEE WHAT HE HAS TO COMPETE WITH?! Throw in a robot, dog, kid and the baddest of the badasses, and you’ve got a lot of pressure on your shoulders! *granted they don’t come in until after the beach trip, but still!*

Keep in mind, these are all high-school students. If there’s one thing I remember about being in high-school, it’s that I wanted people to like me and achieve at something. There was always someone much smarter, more athletic, more creative, and more charismatic than I ever could be. (...I can hear you all making fun of me for being a geek right now. Go on, laugh it up!) 

Junpei got jealous because the New Kid became a kick-ass leader (...depending on how well you play the game...) and he’s working his a$$ off to make something of himself in order to cope with a bad home life, lack of academic potential, and whether or not he’ll have a future after graduation. 

He wasn’t just jealous, he was suffering from anxiety. If he was the least-anything on the team, he lost his motivation. It’s no different than feeling depressed because someone believed you ‘weren’t good enough’ at something. 

I believe many of us have gone through that. It really hurts, and sometimes lashing out at someone who’s ‘better’ than you is the first response; other times you just shut yourself out from others, wallowing in your self-pity, trying to figure out if you’re worth anything...

But there’s something Junpei does that not many people do.

He realizes his mistakes and apologizes. 

He realizes he rushed in too fast during the first mission, and asks for a second chance when the group goes to rescue Fuuka. 

He realizes he was faulting the Protagonist for no reason *kinda like I did a minute ago* and apologizes to him for it. 

Junpei: Sorry for being such a d*ck to you...

Me: *choosing option* Don’t Worry About It.

Junpei: *softly* Thanks bud.

Me: *while fainting* Friendship saved~! 

(okay okay, that’s the last of the fan-girling, promise!)

As the game goes on, his character development gets better. He doesn’t even try to act like a class-clown that much after meeting Chidori (as Fuuka said, he acts more like a gentleman). ...It’s only during the trip to Kyoto that he reverts back to his perverted nature :P 

(Saying it now, DAMN THOSE HOT-SPRINGS!!!)

Moving on.

It isn’t until near the end of the game that we really see him change--- and we all know the reason: Chidori. 

You’ve all seen what happened, so I’m not going into detail here! 

Point is, her sacrifice was what really helped him wake up--- he developed a new reason to not just get through life, but LIVE it. The love of his life didn’t want him to just give up--- she wanted to see him achieve his dreams and be happy. 

After that, Junpei once again apologizes to the Protagonist, letting go of his jealousy and relying on his friend to help get them through this battle against the Dark Hour. 

Because there’s a double meaning to the ‘Dark Hour’--- it’s not just some creative title for Tartarus appearing, but an analogy on how everyone is going through their darkest moments. Losing Chidori is Junpei’s Dark Hour--- and he needs his best friend to help him get through it until it’s over.

Then comes Ryoji, bearing the bad news that Nyx is coming... 

This is where I really noticed a change in Junpei’s character. He’s scared, but reacts with anger rather than humor--- everyone’s losing someone already, then all of a sudden everyone’s going to die. 

Yukari, ironically, tries to crack a joke in order to try and lighten up the tension... and Junpei blows up at her! The vice-versa of the beginning of the game! 

This is proof that Junpei had been hiding his real emotions the whole time--- once things got serious to the point where its all ‘Oh f*ck we’re all gonna die’, he dropped his class clown charade. 

“He should’ve been serious from the start!” you may argue... 

But, lets face it, we had ENOUGH serious characters--- no-nonsense Mitsuru, training-focused Akihiko, hardass Shinjiro, truth-seeking Yukari, vengeance-seeking Ken, humanity-learning Aigis... geez I think Koromaru and Fuuka were the only ones not dead-serious about something! 

As mentioned, Junpei was using humor in order to cope with things; he let out his anger at Shinjiro’s funeral, but once the grieving period passed went on with his humorous behavior, keeping enthusiastic because it was his only defense. Losing Chidori was probably his breaking point--- finding out the world was going to end in two months drove him over the edge, and he just couldn’t take it anymore.

But, he chose to fight, alongside the others, even if there was a slim chance of success. He didn’t want to give up. He wanted to try--- and succeed. 

So I ask again... why do people hate on Junpei? Maybe you all have your own reasons outside of the ones I’ve listed--- whatever they are, it’s your opinion, I can’t tell you how to feel. This is just my thought on him.

Because, if you think about it, in some way we’re similar to the character. We often hide our real feelings until we just can’t take anymore. We get jealous of others, we get depressed when we can’t find a purpose in life. 

But many of us still want to try.

And I believe we shall succeed. 

Just don’t give up. 

[no-signs-no-lights]

Do you know of any meta or analyses that go into how Guren is a Gary Stu?

I know like a thousand?

But it’s so easy to tell?

How to tell a character is a gary stu/mary sue: 

Unrealistic characters’ reactions

Everyone loves them??? for no reason??? Like, the gary stu might not really have anything all that great but somehow everyone wants to fuck them, even when there are better/hotter/nicer characters around who would be seen as more attractive or better in general by regular standards

All the hot characters want them

If a character doesn’t like them, they’re automatically seen as the one in the wrong

The narrative makes the character look like the victim, even when they’re not

Sharing similarities with the author

The character doesn’t seem to be able to actually learn from their mistakes

Actually, what would be a realistic mistake is seen as a good trait by the narrative when it comes to this character

Other characters get punishment for what this character would not

Usually, the “punishment” this character has to go through isn’t really bad or it’s only meant for this character to look even more like a victim and not for them to change and learn

It’s quite easy to notice the narrative supports this character because they are always either the victim or a hero

No one truly scolds them, or the one who scolds them is seen as the one in the wrong

The character might have a tragic backstory, but nothing is really seen as the character’s fault

They’re stronger than the rest of characters, usually op even, without a logic explanation behind it

Just- any character who is favored by the narrative is a gary stu/mary sue.

Well written or normal characters usually commit mistakes and learn from them. Not everything is justified by the world attacking them, BECAUSE THEY DO MAKE MISTAKES.

Shinoa has been scolded for not being serious in the way to her mission, which makes sense because her jokes might get in the way of the battles. Yuu is never serious and has fucked up COUNTLESS TIMES but he has been punished ONLY ONCE and the story hadn’t even started. He was supposed to learn that he should listen to his teammates but HE DID NOT.

Mika was called out for trying to run away with Yuu, was constantly punished for every single mistake he did, was scolded by Yuu repeatedly for not trusting the squad, has been humiliated for not trusting Guren, and all of this even though many of these actions would have been justified in a realistic setting. ESPECIALLY the last one.

Mitsuba saw her teammate dying right in front of her because she was reckless in a battle. YUU IS ALWAYS RECKLESS BUT HE FACES NO PUNISHMENT FOR IT AND KEEPS DOING IT WITHOUT LEARNING.

Guren literally killed 90% of humanity and he’s still seen as a victim and everyone still wants to sit on his dick so there is no need to look into the story too deeply to see why he’s seen as the biggest Gary stu.

He makes fun of an abused child whose life was ruined because of him and everyone still thinks the child is the one in the wrong.

Everyone loves him despite him being an asshole 90% of the time.

Yuu does everything he wants without questioning him just because he took him in four years ago even though Mika, who literally sacrificed for him, is repeatedly ignored by him, and Shinoa and the rest of the squad, who are also supposedly part of his beloved family, are ignored by him too.

Heck, Guren is an ally with the one who ruined Yuu’s life and he still trusts him.

Guren seems to be able to knock out his whole squad (5 trained adults??) in the blink of an eye. Sure, Shinya was still conscious, I guess??? But he also defeated him??? Makes sense, sure.

Everyone trusts him despite having proved repeatedly that he is not to be trusted, has done terrible shit and it’s hard to tell when he’s possessed and when he’s not. At the very least, I would expect some of the characters to be very wary of him and question him about his possession constantly.

Apparently everyone is okay with simply trusting his word.

Mika, who does not trust him, is indeed seen as the one in the wrong, and it’s an undeniable fact because everyone defends Guren from him. His anger towards Guren is even used as COMIC RELIEF, for crying out loud.

And about all of his squad being in love with him and Yuu being obsessed with him... it’s not justified, because there are many characters who are more attractive AND nicer than him and for some reason absolutely no one is in love with them or anything.

Damn, I think it’s unrealistic for Yuu’s whole squad to want a piece of him, but to me it makes like 100x more sense. I’d take the charismatic energetic smiling funny attractive guy over the asshole any day.

Still, neither of that makes sense. I’d at least expect for some characters to show interest in Shinoa or Mika or Kimizuki, who have typical traits that would attract the opposite sex (being pretty and funny, or just plain gorgeous, or tall and caring) but apparently everyone is too focused on Yuu, huh...

[sickofyourfandombullshit]

Heathers 2018

So when I saw @princess-has-a-pen​ post about the new Heathers remake I had to look it up for two reasons:

1. I’m a huge fan of the Movie and Musical and 2. I had to see the fucking horror show that Spike TV was no doubt going to turn it into.

Now Princess asked in their tags the exact same thing I asked myself when I saw the post:

“Why?”

Well friends, strap yourselves in cuz I’m about to take you for a fucking ride.

Why remake Heathers? A movie that has solidified itself as a cult classic for it’s gritty, fucked up story and characters that took pretty much every kid who went to high school in the 80′s (or any time really) life and amped it up to 11?

Cuz the original Heathers is full of 'problematic' things and they can now remake it to be more 'progressive' while snagging a new audiance of younglings who know about Heathers because of the musical.

Now my friends, as I stated before, I love both the movie and the Musical, but as a mature, rational fan over the age of 30, I can look at something I love and point out it’s flaws and believe me, when it comes to the source material, Heathers the Musical is stuffed full of flaws and that creates some problems.

I am pretty sure all the Tumblrinas who idolize ‘Heathers’ have only seen the musical because honestly, the ‘date’ scene where Heather McNamara gets raped in the background would be enough to make them REEEEEE all the way to the fucking bank.

Like legit, she is literally struggling under her date (and not in a fun way) to make him stop and Veronica just fucking leaves her there. We don’t see her get away or anything, so you can only assume that that whole thing didn’t end well, especially given how miserable McNamara is in the movie to begin with.

The Muscial made light of a lot of the grim parts the movie worked to highlight, specifically bullying and suicide and the dangers of giving into pressure and just  being a fucking terrible human being. Not to mention it twisted things in a way that actually reinforced some harmful tropes. Specifically with the two main characters JD and Heather.

JD in the movie is a completely sociopath who physically and mentally abuses Veronica for almost the entire thing and in the Musical they gave him the stereotypical ‘troubled boy who wanted to make the world better but it just got out of hand’ treatment. Like “Oh yeah, he murders three people and tries to blow up a school but his dad’s a jerk and his mommy committed suicide so you can’t blame him! Deep down he’s just a tortured soul who really loves Veronica!”. Spoilers! He doesn’t love Veronica, at least not in any way that should be even entertained as any sort of ‘love’. He and Veronica’s relationship coupled with his ‘sacrifice’ at the end of the play made me cringe extra hard because it felt like it was romanticizing abusive relationships and in all honesty it was. A specific scene from the Musical where I thought they were actually going to address the toxicity of their ‘relationship’ (at the end of the ‘Our Love is God’ musical number where Veronica seems to have a mental break down as she screams ‘Our Love is God’ over and over again as if to drown out the fact that she just assisted in the murder of two people), was brushed under the rug the next scene and seemingly forgotten about till something ELSE big happens and then it’s fucking Ground Hogs Day apparently.

Veronica in the movie joined the Heathers before the movie even began because she wanted to be popular and due to her skill in forgery is pretty much made their pet project. She’s not as much of a cunt as Chandler or Duke but she's still pretty fucking bad. She kills Kurt herself, blows off her actual best friend in exchange for shallow popularity, laughs over Heather Chandler dying and only turns on JD when the suicide note she writes for Heather Chandler backfires and causes people to glorify Chandler as a saint. This as well leads her to realize that it’s pointless to kill people because someone else just takes their place as “The Mythic Bitch” ala Heather Duke’s transformation (also because JD straight up slaps her in the face for trying to back out on him). She only ever does anything semi sweet at the VERY end after JD gets blown up. In the Musical she is portrayed as a sweet innocent little buttercup who is super besties with Martha and sticks up for the little guy and never meant to hurt anyone and was just dragged into everything bad by bad people. She feels constantly guilty for it and seems unable to make any actual choices herself outside of breaking into JD’s house to fuck him. She’s totally innocent guys. Totes.

And before you say “C’moooon it’s a fuckin’ Muscial!” you need to go watch you some Dear Evan Hansen or Les Miserables because those two Musicals are heavy as fuck and had no problem in showing how fucked up serious shit like war and suicide was through flawed characters.

Now with this new series coming out it seems destined to fail. It has only been releasing Instagram videos to promote the show and already it’s hitting all the same old PC points while being SO EDGY at the same time. It’s Riverdale all fucking over again.

“The terrible trio is more like a set of outcasts who have taken over Westerberg High School.” -EW article

Like really? Fuckin’ really? The Heathers were all popular girls due to their wealth (McNamara), beauty (Duke) and over all exuding of confidence and attitude backed up by all of the previously stated assets (Chandler). They weren’t a bunch of outcasts. They took pride in how they looked and how people saw them. I don’t understand this fucking need to make every kid nowadays an ‘outcast’ in an effort to make them ‘relatable’. They did it to every kid in the Power Rangers remake and MJ in Spider-Man: Homecoming and it’s starting to  get fucking annoying. Oh well, gotta get them kids with all that EDGE!

So let’s look at the ‘Heathers’ (I can’t bring myself to not put that in quotation marks when talking about these piles of hot garbage):

Heather Chandler is a plus-sized, Skrillex haired edge lord who looks like every Tumblr Feminist/Suicide Girls reject and literally gives off no aura of power or fear at all. She just comes off as some fat bitch who found the HAAS RadFem movement on Twitter and used it to fill herself with enough undeserved self importance to justify being a cunt to everyone. Yes, where the original Heather Chandler got her power and reputation through sheer intimidation and personality, this Heather Chandler looks like the type of girl who will physically assault you in the bathroom and threaten to sit on you till you die.

Gee golly, I see Heather Duke is a sassy gay male now (and a white one at that). Wow, it’s not like that hasn’t been done a billion fucking times. Funny that he’s a white dude whose character in the movie and play turns out to capitalize on Heather Chandler’s death to raise their own status to the ‘queen bitch’ of the school. That’ll do GREAT for gay stereotypes I’m sure.

Aaaaand Heather McNamara, our possibly Asian possibly Latinx butprobably just party bag of mixed race token character who is the literal punching bag of the group. At least that seems to have not changed but I am sure it’ll help add shallow sympathy since now it’s not a bunch of white kids beating up on a little white girl, it’s a bunch of white kids beating up on a little minority girl. Goodie goodie.

The rest:

JD literally gets nothing to show from his video except one speaking line where he is telling Veronica that she’s “Not like Heather Chandler” she’s “better” while quick cutting a bunch of random shots from the show that mostly seem pointless and just confusing with one flash of him apparently running the flat of a knife on his palm behind his back? So we get nothing from our poor, tortured sociopath. I can just hear the producers of this show now: “We can’t show him being too soft or the old fans might not watch it and can’t show him being a psychotic asshole or the Musical fans won’t watch it, so make it just as cluster fucking and confusing as possible so no one will ask questions and just be drawn in with all the cheap visual click bait!”

For Veronica we again get nothing. One line of “Dear Diary, I hate my friends but that doesn’t mean I want them DEAD!” followed by more random cuts of shots from the show, many of bloody scenes and hints of violence but a lot more of just weird confusing scenes that make no sense. It’s kind of funny for the sheer reason that they seem to be banking on people just already knowing who these characters are ala the original movie but at the same time are trying to pull in new audience members with all the vague quick cutting which they seem to have mistaken for ‘mystery’.

And last  but not least, we have Betty Finn. What’s that? “Who if Betty Finn?” all you fans of the Musical ask? Well you wouldn’t know who Betty is unless you watched the MOVIE cuz Betty is who Martha Dump Truck replaced in the Musical because Betty wasn’t fucking sad sacky enough and they didn’t want to clutter the script with such a minor character. Betty was smart and an actual good person, the only good person in the movie honestly, who was Veronica’s friend since they were in diapers. She didn’t have a huge part in the movie outside of providing some blackmail material for JD to use against Heather Duke and trying to get Veronica to stop being such a moron (which failed). Now she’s appears to be the stereotypical side character that will be prominent in the show, probably as a comic relief character or plot device to be used against Veronica at some point.

Now, there is a huge question you have to ask:

Where is Martha? Will Martha even be in the series? Alright, it’s two questions but you get the point.

I have two guesses;

1. Possibly

but more than likely

2. No. Absolutely not.

Why do you ask? Because Martha’s character served as a plot device in both the Movie and the Musical to show how awful the Heathers really were and how their bullying was actually dangerous. Martha was a fat, slow, ugly dump of a girl. Problem is, you can’t make fun of that anymore. It’s not ‘progressive’ to make fun of people with those flaws. As well it wouldn’t make sense, Heather Chandler is fat in this remake. Unless they’re going to go full retard with some kind of ‘internalized fatphobia’ shit it wouldn’t make sense to make fun of Martha for that. Heather McNamara is the stereotypical ditzy airhead which doesn’t seem to have changed in this remake so to make fun of someone being ‘slow’ while laughing at an Air-Head-of-Color would just be super duper mean!

If they DO put Martha in, she will either have to still be dumpy, slow and fat and end up being the most popular character in the end for ‘not giving into societies beauty standards’ or some shit, OR she will have to actually flat out die from her suicide attempt to push the EDGE and drive plot.

Either way this whole thing is going to be a train wreck that will either take off at the idiotic rate in which Teen Wolf and Riverdale did or be an utter failure.

I seriously hope for the latter. Sorry this is so long and there are probably some spelling and grammar errors. It’s literally 2:30 in the morning and the Monster I drank is starting to ware off so I’m running on fumes.

[recentanimenews]

Bookshelf Briefs 11/28/17

It’s a cornucopia of briefs!

Ace of the Diamond, Vol. 6 | By Yuji Terjima | Kodansha Comics (digital only) – Training camp continues, and the coach has arranged for some practice games right afterwards, the better to gauge how well the first years play when exhausted. For Furuya, the answer is initially “not well,” but he never loses his determination, and once he swallows his pride and asks Miyuki for advice, finally internalizes the truth that, at Seido, he’s got teammates who are going to back him up, even if the batter does manage to get a hit. Eijun’s fun and everything, but Furuya is not your typical shounen protagonist, and I’m pleased that he’s getting his share of attention. I also liked that the boys hang out some with varsity teammates we’ve barely glimpsed, and we learn how awesome the captain is. I am already relishing the thought of future marathon rereads of this series. It’s a keeper for sure. – Michelle Smith

Cells at Work!, Vol. 5 | By Akane Shimizu | Kodansha Comics – Once again, Red Blood Cell is absent from this volume except a brief cameo. This allows us to focus our attention on the ‘normal cell’ from prior volumes, who still has a tendency to do dumb things on impulse. Fortunately, the cute adorable bacteria he’s harboring in his room are the GOOD kind of bacteria. Unfortunately, his attempt to get them to where they can do good is thwarted by a host of crises from which White Blood Cell and company must rescue him, most notably the return of Cancer Cell, who brings back the ethical ambiguity to the series as he asks essentially “are the needs of the many less important than the needs of the one?” The one being the body. This was a lot of fun. – Sean Gaffney

Delicious in Dungeon, Vol. 3 | By Ryoko Kui| Yen Press – The cast expands a bit in this third volume. We see one of our team’s old comrades, who left them due to actually wanting to get paid, and the complicated relationship she has with them, particularly Marcille, and it’s made clear she’s not a bad guy—everyone has their own needs and drives. As for Marcille, we also get a flashback to her school days, which shows how she met Laios’ sister (still being digested by a dragon, if you recall), which is rather cute. And of course more ridiculously gross yet amusing monster recipes. And plenty of humor, as it turns out tentacles can be peeled sort of like bananas. Still good, though I’d like to get the sister rescued or declare her dead. – Sean Gaffney

The Full-Time Wife Escapist, Vol. 6 | By Tsunami Umino | Kodansha Comics (digital only) – It was inevitable that Mikuri and Hiramasa would discover that they are in love with each other, but I am still kind of surprised that it actually happened. It’s lovely to see him grinning like a doofus at the office after an evening of fooling around, but I appreciate that the transition into a real marriage isn’t exactly going to be smooth. Mikuri is worried, for example, that she’ll be expected to do the same amount of work for free, while Hiramasa worries about his waning sex drive. Somehow I doubt we’ll ever see the latter issue addressed Everyone’s Getting Married! I also really enjoyed the scenes where Mikuri’s aunt and Kazami get to know each other better—I wholeheartedly approve of them hooking up! – Michelle Smith

Haikyu!!, Vol. 17 | By Haruichi Furudate | Viz Media – And so our heroes pull it off, and get to advance, while Aoba Johsai has to suffer an ignominious defeat. This is done in the best possible shonen way, with lots of noble tears and resolve to get even stronger. The cliches don’t FEEL like cliches—the author is adept at making this feel fresh even when you know where every plot beat is going to be. And so it’s on to the finals, and I suspect this game may drag on a while, as it’s a best 3-sets-of-5 game. Their opponent is Shiratorizawa, who I’m sure we’ll find out more about as we move on, but who clearly have one player who’s REALLY good, and the volume ends with our heroes down by quite a bit. I think they’ll come back, though. Just a hunch. – Sean Gaffney

Hana & Hina After School, Vol. 3 | By Milk Morinaga | Seven Seas – This turns out to be the final volume, and honestly you get the sense it was cut a bit short—the last half feels rushed. Of course, considering all we were getting before that was a slow-burning pile of angst, it might be best that it got the push. Morinaga Milk has always been better at fluffy than angsty, so it comes as something of a relief when our two heroines finally get over the whole “is it just me? Did she mean it when she said she’s not that way?” drama and get together (in all respects—as with previous MM titles, there’s a brief, not-that-explicit sex scene here). In the end, this was a cute read, but I’ve seen better yuri from this author. – Sean Gaffney

Horimiya, Vol. 9 | By Hero and Daisuke Hagiwara | Yen Press – Horimiya has always tried to be at least slightly more realistic than a lot of romance manga, and thus watching Yuki’s ongoing angst regarding her lies and deceit and how it’s impacting other people is particularly painful. I’m not really all that sure I want her to win here, even though the alternative will also suck. On the bright side, Hori and Morimiya are doing better than ever, and as Hori is forced to think about her future—something which she seemed to have given not a single thought to—but she realizes here that no matter what she does, she wants to be with Miyamura. This leads to a sort of adorable reverse proposal, which fits the general characterization. Still good, but I hope it’s wrapping up soon. – Sean Gaffney

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders, Vol. 5 | By Hirohiko Araki | Viz Media And so, finally, JoJo’s has run up against my ability to get 500+ words out of each volume. Yes, this is the first volume to get a Brief rather than a full review, and I put the blame entirely on the rambling Road To Cairo plot that Araki has chosen to use this time around. Individual moments are as striking as ever—I felt the killer baby was more interesting as a killer within dreams than in the real world, and the surprise non-death of a character feels a bit cheap. But JoJo’s still has its bizarre visuals and grotesque violence, and as long as it keeps that up it should stay interesting, even if Jotaru continues to be the dullest Jo we’ve had to date. – Sean Gaffney

Kiss & White Lily for My Dearest Girl, Vol. 4 | By Canno | Yen Press – Most sports manga fail to show the heroes moving on to a professional career, with a few exceptions like Captain Tsubasa. In reality, a lot of sports careers end just the way we see Mizuki’s end here—she comes close to the Nationals, but doesn’t make it, and realizes that this is it, she has to stop doing track and decide on an actual career. There’s also her relationship with Moe, which may actually be hindering her for a spell—it’s gotten to the point where she forgets running was fun—but eventually proves stronger than both thought, and we get a proposal (of sorts) and a kiss. This is a bit stronger than Hana & Hina, even if it’s just as fluffy, and I’m pleased to see it continue. – Sean Gaffney

Log Horizon: The West Wind Brigade, Vol. 7 | By Koyuki and Mamare Touno | Yen Press – The comedy is kept to a minimum here, as we get the more dramatic parts of the third and fourth novel, intermixed with how it’s affecting the West Wind Brigade. Kawara’s on the cover, and we get a bit more insight into her character—basically, she’s an instinctual fighter but a bit of an idiot who got into the game because she wanted to be a shonen hero, and the West Wind Brigade was the only one that would take her in. It does also show off her strengths as well, though. That said, easily the most interesting part is the ending, where we get a surprise appearance by a seemingly insane Nureha, who’s met by a battle-crazy Soujiro. I want to see how this battle turns out. – Sean Gaffney

My Hero Academia, Vol. 10 | By Kohei Horikoshi | Viz Media – I appreciate that Horikoshi is willing to let Bakugo be a completely unlikable jerk, driven by rage and jealousy and every single negative emotion, and yet still show that he realizes the difference between good and evil—that he’s decided that he wants to be a HERO rather than a villain, even if that means going against what comes more naturally. It’s a terrific scene that really made me like him. On the flip side, the disguises used to infiltrate Evil HQ are hilarious, particularly Deku and Momo. The humor is needed, as this is something of a grim arc, especially with the arrival of a Bigger Bad towards the end. This volume shows off everything that has made this the hot new Jump title. – Sean Gaffney

Nisekoi: False Love, Vol. 24 | By Naoshi Komi | Viz Media – Even though it’s obvious Onodera’s going to lose, give credit to the author for not making it easy. She and Raku have really developed a close relationship, and even if it’s not romantic I hope they can stay friends. More to the point, the fact that Onodera is willing to help Raku track down Chitoge by FLYING TO AMERICA with him (because Chitoge has, like many tsundere heroines in denial, literally run halfway across the Earth to escape her love issues) shows off her truly ridiculous kindness. There’s the last popularity poll in this book, and Chitoge and Onodera are separated by barely 100 votes. That’s impressive for a harem title. In any case, it wraps up next time, so keep reading. – Sean Gaffney

One Piece, Vol. 84 | By Eiichiro Oda | VIZ Media – It’s been a while since we had a volume that focused on further sad backstory for one of the Straw Hat crew, but that’s what we get here, with many hard-to-read scenes about Sanji’s abuse at the hands of his family, intercut with a silly fight in which Luffy defeats a bunch of cracker soldiers by eating them. Because Big Mom is threatening to kill Chef Zeff if he doesn’t comply, Sanji is forced to both insult and attack Luffy in an attempt to get him to abort the rescue, but of course this doesn’t work. In addition to this riveting drama, there’s also the question of whether Pudding (Sanji’s seemingly sympathetic bride-to-be) can actually be trusted, more information about the ponegliffs (yay!), and a glimpse at the unintended consequences of toppling Doflamingo. Plus, Brook actually gets something important to do! This series is still excellent. – Michelle Smith

By: Michelle Smith

[absolutelybifurious]

can i be real a second? just... just a second... just one, tiny second. i wanna talk about ryuji sakamoto. for. just. a. milisecond.

so i haven’t done a ton of browsing in the persona 5 tag because i just... don’t really care that much about who likes what or why. bc the fact that people were in love with g*ro ak*chi 5 seconds after his introduction baffled me straight to fucking jupiter so like... whatever. i clearly have Different Preferences to most fans.

but can i just fucking go off for 2 seconds?

why the FUCK do so many people not like ryuji? i’ve seen so many people say “people just don’t like him” smh or “it wasn’t him, it was the writing.” CAN. WE. JUST. STOP. just pull the reins, hop on out of the stirrups and put our backwards ass cowboy boots on the ground.

RYUJI. the kid who is stressing when you first see him about an asshole teacher creeping on ann. RYUJI. who lies within the first 5 seconds of fucking meeting you to try and save your life when he’s about to DIE. ryuji who is shit-talked and bad mouthed by everyone in the school because he REACTED TO ABUSE. the person who spent his bus fare on a present for his MOTHER. the person who is CONSISTENTLY kind to everyone (save morgana who, let’s be real, literally enver stops insulting him - actually while we’re talking about it, the whole fucking cast never stops insulting him.) nevermind the fact that he’s the one who’s kind to makoto when everyone else is writing her off as useless and stupid and god knows what else. never/mind/ that he’s the first one to reach out to you and be your friend. nevermind that he insists on going back into some hellscape clusterfuck palace without a power with you because he cares.

i just want to know. what in the writing, at any point, makes ryuji not likable? is it his temper? because, honestly, his reaction was one of the most /real reactions/, and the most consistent, (also - one of the only strange things done by characters that actually got an apology) or was it the fact that he got into being a phantom thief, because oh, i don’t know - literally he was shunned by everyone. he’s treated like shit, so yes, he gets too into the popularity thing of the phantom thieves, but uh... thats his fucking arc?

or maybe it’s the perversion thing, because he looked at ann like, twice, (so did joker) because hes a teenage boy (which let’s recall that y*suke literally asked her to get naked and pose and obsessively touched her in situations she was uncomfortable with) and ryuji was the one who got mad when a camera guy was hitting on her and told her not to promise HIM a date as some kind of a reward because she shouldn’t use her sex appeal like that.

is it one of those? because i have so many issues with that. so fucking many. 

so, like, i can name about 12 different things ryuji did and contributed to the plot. meanwhile, we have y*suke who honestly... did nothing. at all. in the plot. but be fucking weird. who is regularly adored and loved and... like why? i did not give 2 shits about him. he did /nothing/ relevant. he had his arc, where he was a douche to anyone that wasn’t ann because they weren’t hot, and then he... stopped?? being relevant????? completely. even his social ink was just fucking POINTLESS. ryuji brings a team back together and takes more literal abuse and y*suke like... draws and has some arbitrary, bizarre realizations about human nature. that just end up being masked behind more weird, strange dialogue.

and then ak*chi was every tragic-backstory villian ever. was horribly wronged by the universe and so goes a little maniacal and then at the very last second has a change of heart and sacrifices himself bc he sees the power of Friendship. which, like, i get liking him a little more... though he’s so removed and scripted for so much of the story he just did... very little for me. also the whole... shooting in the head was... no thanks.

i’m really not meaning to bash either of them, but i, for the lief of me, cannot understand how someone can sit there and say “i loved y*suke or ak*chi but i just couldn’t get into ryuji” or “i just hated ryuji but ak*chi is SO CUTE OMGGG” son he tried to murder you.

ryuji risked his life to save yours, twice. ryuji is an abuse survivor who blames literally everything on himself but is still consistenlty the one who believes in and is there for joker. and can we just,,, do you know who the first person to tell ak*chi he wasn’t a piece of shit was? after all the fucking bullshit insults ak*chi hurled at him? wow. ryuji.

yeah, i totally get why you think the writing just didn’t do him justice. god forbid he have flaws, or a temper, or, like, a character arc. the writers made him comic relief, which yes, had moments of being wildly annoying, but the character of ryuji was so solid and so sweet that it INFURIATES ME to see people write him off because, what, he’s loud? 

he’s loud because he’s literally two-time abuse survivor with no friends attending a school who hates him. the best thing he could be is enthusiastic and passionate. better than, you know, a crazy ass murderer. and honestly, i can’t even speak to y*suke for his flaws because mostly all his character was for me, was weird. he was a survivor of abuse too, yeah, but... all he was was weird and occasionally douchey, which i didn’t hugely mind, until people start saying he’s a beautiful sunday morning delight and ryuji is just ~beyond likable~. 

okay i’m done. literally, fuck you if you don’t like ryuji. i’m not even sorry.

[pluckyredhead]

Daredevil 101: Gay Panic Roadtrip to Albany/Hell

That title sounds like the world’s most amazing concept album.

CONTENT WARNING: Homophobia, transphobia, animal abuse.

Anyway! When last we left our hero, his entire life had been ruined yet again: he had cheated on Karen with Typhoid Mary, lost his home and place of employment, and had the shit kicked out of him by basically all of his rogues. He’s still floundering around at rock bottom when he decides to drink his woes away at a bar (not Josie’s, but very Josie’s-esque), and is joined by a Mysterious Stranger:

Though Matt doesn’t notice anything odd about the stranger, everyone else in the bar very clearly gets a bad vibe off of her. They also all seem to perceive her differently.

As the stranger speaks cryptically about the nature of good and evil and the terrible things she’s witnessed, tensions in the bar rise. Two brothers who were having a friendly conversation at a back table start fighting. As the fight escalates, Matt is inexorably drawn to the stranger:

Matt sort of dazedly realizes that something has gone terribly wrong, but it’s too late - a man is dead. “You could have stopped it if you weren’t busy making out with that guy!” some rando accuses.

“A guy???” Matt asks.

Well, yes and no:

This is Mephisto, who is basically Satan in the Marvel universe. Mephisto generally presents as male (so I’ll be using male pronouns from here on out) but doesn’t really have a gender per se, being the embodiment of evil rather than a living being. That said, there is definitely a strong element of homophobia/transphobia in this encounter. Like. “You hook up with a hot chick at the bar but she turns out to be a dude and also the actual devil???” That is vile transphobia. (This comic is 27 years old, but still. There’s using dated terminology, and there’s playing out harmful tropes that get people killed.)

This also picks up on a lot of the themes we’ve seen with Typhoid Mary, with Matt as a relatively passive figure who is deceived and violated by a gender-bending/gender role-flouting woman. This is his rock bottom, though: from here on out, conventional gender roles start to reassert themselves.

Anyway, this is the last straw for Matt. He burns all of his and Karen’s remaining belongings (excuse you, Matthew, not all of those are yours) and hits the road, traveling upstate towards Albany. Along the way, he witnesses a private plane crashing, and springs into action to rescue its pilot. However the pilot, a wealthy farmer named Skip Ash, turns out to be hella shady:

Curious about Skip’s strange behavior and illegal cargo, Matt decides to abandon his aimless northward wandering in favor of looking into this guy a bit more.

Meanwhile, Mephisto has created a demon “son” named Blackheart to torment the people of upstate New York. As if they don’t have enough to deal with already. #newyorkjoke

Blackheart attacks Matt (and randomly appearing guest star Spider-Man) for an issue but it’s boring so I’m skipping it.

Meanwhile Skip Ash has returned to his factory farm, run on ill-gotten drug money and dedicated to getting the most profit possible out of his stock, no matter the cost to the animals:

This is Skip telling his scientist to bioengineer legless pigs so that they can just sit in their overcrowded cages to be force-fed until they’re slaughtered. Skip is a fucking monster.

But that’s just the tip of his monster iceberg, because Skip is also experimenting on humans. Specially, young women and girls who have been made insecure by the beauty-industrial complex and come to his farm/lab to be “perfected” - and he’s selected his favorite to be his future wife:

SKIP YOU ARE A CREEP AND SHOULD BE IN JAIL

One person in complete agreement with me on that is his daughter, Brandy. When she realized what kind of man her father was, she stormed out, but still lives on the money he sends her. She’s also become an animal rights activist, and Matt - who has been following Skip around - catches her planning to set off some (harmless to humans and animals) explosions at Skip’s farm to draw media attention to his inhumane practices:

Matt is sooo smug here, which is especially rich considering that his whole attitude during this arc is “ugh it’s hard to care about people and things, why won’t everyone with problems leave me alone?” Yeah, Brandy’s activism is more about anger at her dad and there’s no follow-through that actually helps the animals, and yes, she’s arguably a hypocrite for living off her father’s drug money. But one could just as easily say that Matt’s heroism is more about thrillseeking and there’s no follow-through that actually reduces crime, and that he’s a hypocrite (and in violation of his own professional oaths) for getting paid to try cases in which he has a conflict of interest as Daredevil. So.

Brandy is something of a straw activist (and later, we’ll see, a straw feminist) - shrill and angry but not actually effective, and with very selfish and personal motives. It’s notable that she shows up around 1990, on the cusp of the capitalist 80s and disaffected 90s - her character would’ve been treated very differently in the 70s.

(It’s also interesting that Nocenti's run is fiercely environmentalist, between Kelco’s pollution and Skip’s factory farm, and yet actual environmentalists are consistently portrayed as ineffectual idiots. Not totally sure what her point was there besides nihilism.)

Anyway, Matt rides along with Brandy as she sets off her explosions, which have the unintended effect of freeing the human experiment we saw earlier, Number Nine. However, Skip’s scientists and guards have no intention of letting their prize go that easily:

Luckily, Number Nine has a healing factor, so she’s okay. Matt and Brandy take her back to Brandy’s house to recuperate, where they discover that she’s...well, very odd. She’s been programmed to cook, clean, primp, and fawn over men, to the point of being manic about it, and also keeps having flashbacks to the traumatic things she witnessed while being experimented on.

Brandy, of course, has no patience with Number Nine’s “perfect woman” behavior:

“Haven’t you ever heard of feminism?” “No, but it sounds awful.” Woof. I mean, Number Nine isn’t exactly a reliable narrator either, but she’s certainly more pleasant than abrasive Brandy. (Who I fucking love, I WILL FIGHT YOU.) Matt certainly enjoys Number Nine’s fawning. What a relief after Typhoid Mary, huh, tough guy?

Skip, meanwhile, wants his property back, so he hires this guy, who is a precursor to literally everything about 90s comics:

Look at that ridiculous gun! Look at those shades! Look at those spiked gloves! This is so silly. Also this character is called “Shotgun” even though that is DEFINITELY NOT A SHOTGUN.

Anyway, a couple dangerous skirmishes with Shotgun ensue, but Matt manages to keep Number Nine safe, though he can’t keep her and Brandy from fighting:

As annoyed as I am by The Reasonable Man rubbing his temples and soothingly saying “Girls, girls!” as Those Crazy Women scream at each other, I am genuinely amused by “GET BACK IN THE KITCHEN!”

Anyway my best guess is that the Brandy/Number Nine conflict is some sort of embodiment of the conflict that women still have between being independent/feminist/liberated and performing femininity to an acceptable level, but which was especially difficult to navigate at a time when more and more women were getting divorced and/or working outside of the home and/or keeping their maiden names, etc. Like. I do think that Nocenti was trying to tell a feminist story here, especially since Number Nine was driven to subject herself to Skip’s experiments because of unreasonable beauty standards in the media, just like I think she was trying to subvert gender roles with Typhoid Mary. But it gets muddy.

After a few battles with Skip and Shotgun, Matt and Brandy basically tell Skip they have access to his various stockpiles of contraband and will turn him in if he doesn’t leave them - and most importantly, Number Nine - alone:

Skip gives up and sort of wanders out of the story at this point...but here’s where it takes a trippy turn:

So some of Skip’s illegal contraband is from Attilan, a city on the moon. Attilan is the home of the Inhumans, who, if you don’t watch Agents of SHIELD or read the comics, are very similar to mutants - a genetic variation from humans who each have their own superpower and sometimes a very visible mutation. Ms. Marvel/Kamala Khan is probably the best known Inhuman these days.

The Inhumans are ruled by King Black Bolt and Queen Medusa, who at this point in continuity had recently had a son, who was taken away from them and sent to Earth because of his potentially dangerous powers. Two cousins of the royal family, Gorgon and Karnak, decide to go to Earth and look for the child so that they can return him to his parents.

So Gorgon and Karnak turn up basically out of nowhere, and Matt, Brandy, and Number Nine are like “Sure, superpowered strangers, we’d love to go on a road trip with you in this pickup truck to find a missing space prince.” It’s bizarre.

It’s on this road trip that they encounter Blackheart (remember Blackheart?), who has taken human form so as to fuck with humans more subtly. He’s hitchhiking, so they give him a ride, and he immediately starts playing up the tension between Gorgon and Karnak and their mutual interest in Number Nine:

That’s Gorgon driving the truck and Karnak in the weird hat in the backseat. Gorgon, by the way, has goat legs and the power of stomping, which is 100% not what the gorgons of mythology were. Karnak has the ability to see - and hit - the weakness in anything. They are some of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s more ridiculous creations.

Anyway, Blackheart - the balding dude in the turtleneck - spurs them into a fight that wrecks the truck. Matt, who can’t see Blackheart’s disguise, picks up on the fact that there is something seriously wrong with this dude, and attacks:

Blackheart, you creepy.

The humans - and Inhumans - manage to calm themselves down and make up, and Blackheart, frustrated, moves on to fuck with some other people. Specifically, the people in the small town that our missing Inhuman prince - currently going by the name “Pope,” though his real name is Ahura - has landed in. Pope, as we’ll see, is kind of an odd and creepy kid:

Yeah, Pope’s power is the Evil Eye. He didn’t mean to kill the sheep, but...shit happens, I guess?

The town, somewhat understandably, decides he’s a demon and they need to kill him, but Matt shows up OUT OF FREAKING NOWHERE - seriously, I have no idea how he found Pope - and stops them:

Blackheart, frustrated by his failure to corrupt anyone, turns to Mephisto for help, and Mephisto pulls all of our major players at this point - Matt, Brandy, Number Nine, Gorgon, Karnak, and Pope - down into Hell.

Yes, actual Hell.

They’re separated into groups by the fall. Brandy and Pope find themselves trying to climb out of a vast canyon, and they meet an angel:

The angel wakes up and is lovely and wonderful and kind, but Brandy is so shrill that eventually just peaces the fuck out of there, leaving Brandy and Pope to make the climb alone.

Number Nine, meanwhile, finds herself in a “Heaven” that is actually her version of Hell:

She winds up being dazzled by hunky angels but befriending a nerdy one named Lucifer? The metaphors are all over the place here.

Gorgon and Karnak are boring, so I’m skipping them...and Matt? Well, he finds himself in a snowy wasteland with nothing in it but a confessional. He breaks off the cross on top and uses it to start a fire:

Only Mephisto is permitted to make fire in Hell, so Mephisto LOSES HIS SHIT. He attacks Matt with demons, and for a while Matt fights off wave after wave of them before realizing that the only way to win is to stop fighting. Sure enough, this stops the attack on him and his friends, and he makes plans to walk out - but an enraged Mephisto proves that he still has power:

That’s Brandy in the last panel, and yes, she’s dead. :(

Then the Silver Surfer shows up out of nowhere to fight Mephisto??? SURE, JAN. Whatever, it gives Matt & Co. the necessary cover they need to get out of there and they return to the mortal world, shaken and grieving but alive.

And Brandy?

I...guess that’s a happy ending for her? I’m still pretty troubled by how the straw feminist doesn’t get to be loved by an angel because of how shrill she is until she ACTUALLY DIES, but again, the metaphors are so incoherent that it’s tough to suss out exactly what the message here is. (Also, Gorgon and Karnak take Pope home, and we never see Number Nine again.)

Anyway, that’s the end of Romita’s run on the main Daredevil book, though Nocenti’s got one last arc to go. Tune in next time when Matt returns to New York, confronts Bullseye, and finally reunites with Foggy!

[thelillykane]

Where are those FNL moodboard/aesthetics i asked you for, you nerd. Also, rank every FNL character from best to worst. That oughta help relieve some of your boredom.

Main Characters: they’re all tied in my heart fuck you 

Matt Saracen/Vince Howard – i genuinely??? have no idea who i love more? both of them??? so much?? my hot mess children who are PURE AND GOOD AND KIND AND TALENTED AND BETTER THAN YOU 

Matt Saracen/Vince Howard – see above but with more emotion because i love them

Lyla Garrity – why the FUCK IS SHE ONLY THIRD Lyla was the first character I fell in love with on this show and ??? this is how I repay her?? she’s lowkey the kindest, most selfless person, and she gives so much of herself to everyone and she’s so kickass and i LOVE HER 

Eric Taylor – what the fFUCK!!?? he’s the best man and he would die for his kids and he cares for them so much and !!!! fuck you

Tim Riggins - fifth??? i DON’T BUY IT 

Julie Taylor - THIS IS A BOLD FACED LIE I WOULD DIE FOR HER AND THIS FANDOM IS FUCKIGN AWFUL TO HER YOUR FAV COULD NEVER

Tami Taylor - SEVENTH??? whatever. she’s a hero and she loves every single one these kids so much and just ask her husband she’s right 100% of the time 

Jess Merriweather - why are you making me do this!! she’s so talented and has such goals and she’s going to kick ass everywhere she goes my daughter 

Brian ‘Smash’ Williams - my son!!!! he achieved his dreams and he’s so funny and the scene where him and every other black player walk off the field is maybe??? the best/most powerful FNL scene ?? MAYBE

Jason Street - WHY IS HE SO FAR DOWN ALSO listen Jason is probably maybe the best person on this show. I love him so much wtf 

Tyra Collette - I hate that she’s so far down on this. Her college application sticks with me forever and I adore her 

Becky Sproles - LOVE OF MY LIFE her line “What’s it like to be the guy who used to be Tim Riggins?” nailed the essence of small town football where the players are Gods until they’re not players anymore 

Landry Clarke - Comic relief of my heart who never got the girl. Still mad he wasn’t included in the big group hang out scene during the finale, but 

Luke Cafferty - I love Luke. (I love everyone) but I feel like his only purpose on the show was to get injured somehow and therefore not to be able to play? His friendship with Vince though was GOLD as was him and Becky. 

Hastings Ruckle - he was good but only in one season, where let’s be honest he did not get a lot of screen time, beyond forcing the boys to drink moonshine(?) and get branded, which i LIVE FOR  

Significant Reoccurring Cast (only the first 15 i thought of so the lists could be equal in length): 

Mindy Collette - NICE TRY AMERICA she’s so great?? her relationship with Becky is TO DIE FOR and her heart to heart with Tim and that drunk scene with her and Lyla?? iconic I love her

Grandma Saracen - her and matty!!! her and julie!!!! her and eric ESPECIALLY WHEN SHE’S MAD AT HIM!!! her and landry!!! her and tyra!!! her in the tiara!!!! can you tell i’m obsessed  

Regina Howard – ANOTHE R SINGLE MOM DOING HER BEST i would die for her she overcome addiction and a lowkey abusive relationship and she’s doing it for her son and i love her 

Waverly Grady – we could have had it all!! writing her out with no explanation was inexcusable. she kicked ass and i missed her  

Dallas Tinker – i’m shocked and APPALLED that he wasn’t a main. i love him. 

Billy Riggins – raising his little brother and mostly making a mess of it. a huge giant mess. but he loved him and that’s important 2 me 

Corinna Willaims – I WORK AT THE PLANNED PARENTHOOD YOU PROBABLY HAVEN’T SEEN THE LAST OF ME she’s a star all around especially for that line 

Shelby Saracen – all we know about Matt’s mom is that she abandoned him and tHEN WE MEET HER AND SHE”S A DREAM never expected to love her as much as I did but it was!!! 

Angela Collette – she loved her daughters so much!! she’s so strong 

Buddy Garrity – i don’t hate buddy, which this low ranking might seem like i do. eric’s face every time buddy rolls up to the house late af and gives him bad news is the DREAM. also buddy was Team Eric when all the shit went down which i appreciate 

Epic – did she have a last name? my girl got a bad rap and Tami loved her so much and when everything went down with her I was so sad 

Santiago Herrera – one of the best things to come out of season two which is why it sucked when he was dropped. he had so much potential 

Herc – god was he funny. it was his constant bashing on my number one girl Lyla Garrity that got him bumped to thirteen. 

Levi Burnwell – he was severely underfunded at his school, but he tried his best to make things work. supported eric and tami in the end. 

Mac McGill – don’t hate him either, which was surprising because after the events surrounding that season one storyline i thought i would hate him forever. but he grew on me. 

[ampwich-blog]

SPOILER review of Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Alright, I’m just gonna dive into spoilers and go all out. So if you haven’t seen this movie, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

My thoughts coming out of the theater: WHAT THE HECK JUST HAPPENED? By far, the WEIRDEST Star Wars movie ever! It made me feel like I was on an acid trip or some crap. All psychedelic and what not.....It didn’t help that I hadn’t gotten much good sleep prior, either. I had kept putting off seeing the movie until a day I was more AWAKE. But I decided to get it over with and just go see it already. And boy, is it a weird experience.....I had to actually pinch myself once to make sure it was all real and wasn’t some crazy dream. It is real....WHAT THE HECK. Rian Johnson, Lucasfilm,.....yall need Jesus, lol.

Anyway, let us actually begin.....

The title crawl......The main theme is better this time around. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it’s actually the theme used in the prequels. (At least, that’s what I could have swore my ears heard) Or at least, an updated version of that same tune, if that makes sense. The scenario the crawl introduces us to is absolutely horrible, in my opinion. The First Order are now in total control?? The Resistance are seriously just another rebellion? REALLY? They legit say it straight up in the crawl, and like a dozen times in a movie....THEY ARE REBELS. UGH.....so much for that good New Republic action.....

The way the movie starts off is pretty neat. I don’t quite remember it, but I do know it showed a bunch of Resistance ships, and panned down to D’Qar. Pretty cool, and I am glad they didn’t just do another star destroyer opening. I was a bit nervous it was just gonna rehash the original trilogy in that aspect.

The bombers leave the planet just as their base is blown away. (Well, I guess destroying a Death Star to save their base in the nick of time AGAIN was pretty pointless) While the ships are cool, they don’t do a whole lot as they just get destroyed all on the spot.....We only see 1 do ANYTHING, and all it does is destroy a frigate (Which has super lasers.....ugh, more super weapons?) before it, too, is blown away. (A lot of luck and chance involved in that whole scene, too) Well alrighty then.....

“This is Poe Dameron of the Republic fleet.” I got chills! I was like, “YEAH!!” “The Republic is gone, Rebel scum,” says Hux. (Something along those lines) I was like “AW, COME ON!” The conversation between Poe and Hux over the intercom was alright, but a little too comedic for a Star Wars movie. But that aside, it was pretty neat and funny. Poe makes a remark about Hux’s mom or something....kind of odd for Star Wars, but still legit, I suppose. Pretty funny moment, anyway. “Can...you hear me?” (Hux would have done a good job working for Verizon) Again, a little too silly, but oh well, fun moment. Hux is tossed around by Snoke (Who had a huge face hologram) from who knows how far away, which felt very rehashy of the Empire days. It took Vader, being the one who communicated with directly and commanded the officers.....and the Emperor, who is a scar faced dark sider who is the leader.....and basically combines those aspects to make Snoke. The First Order really IS another Empire. (And the Resistance really is another Rebellion) They totally act like it in the movie. UGH!!! More on all that stuff later.

They then go on this space chase with loads of First Order capital ships after this 1 Resistance ship and it’s support ships. (Man, the Resistance is WAY smaller than we imagined! And the First Order, likewise, is way bigger!) The whole movie basically revolves around the First Order ships going after the Resistance ships, since apparently the First Order has this new technology that allows them to track ships through hyperspace. (Getting some JJ Abrams’ Star Trek reboot vibes over here.....) So they basically just chase them until they will run out of fuel.....that was more or less the entire movie. Disappointing, yet alright at the same time. I don’t know how to feel about all this......

Finn and Rose go on this weird side quest to do.....THINGS. I honestly forgot what they went to do.....but it had something to do with this key or whatever to Snoke’s ship. They go to Canto Bight, this casino city. Which I thought was gonna be the Cloud City/Kamino of this movie, but apparently not too much, as there isn’t a bunch of landing platforms. The whole city is sort of a big circle-ish platform, SORT OF....so I guess it rhymes in that a little....The horse-thing riding was a bit lame. SO MUCH CGI! SO MUCH SILLY GEORGE LUCAS HUMOR! AAAHHHHH!!!! They had, in the process of running away from the police, freed a bunch of animals. (Basically, mirroring those horse races in real life. The track, the animals in stalls, the rich people betting.....the whole 9 yards) I am told (I was going to the bathroom at this point in the film, as I didn’t care too much about what was going on, and had to pee, lol) that Rose removes a saddle off of one of the creatures and says something like, “NOW our mission is complete.” THAT’S why SHE wanted to go? To save a bunch of “abused” animals? WHAT ABOUT THE SLAVE CHILDREN?! Screw them, I guess.....they’re not animals able to be ridden to escape. So basically, they just USED a bunch of animals for their own needs sake, and called THAT heroic. LOL, what......

Now, about the characters...

Speaking of Finn, he is much more chill in this movie. He was the in-your-face comic relief (Despite his tragic backstory) in the last movie, which I really disliked about his character. But I was pleasantly surprised to see how they treated his character in this movie. He blended in nicely, and was on the same “level” as the other characters. Toward the end, he decides to sacrifice himself to save his friends in the big hanger....place....on Crait. He is flying a ski speeder and going to ram into the big cannon.....I was like “NOO, FINN, NOOOO!” (I actually cared about his character! I’m shocked, too!) But here comes his new lover, Rose, to crash into him and save the day. Kind of ruined the moment, sort of, but oh well, at least he lives!.....? Rose just compromised the Resistance forces to save her crush.....interesting.....and in turn, they will be CRUSHED....ha. But I guess it ultimately all worked out in the end....sort of.....Finn’s sacrifice would have saved more lives though, and been a meaningful, heroic death. But you know.....this movie just isn’t about that life.....heroic, perfect opportunity deaths, what’s that, right? More on that later.

Rose is OKAY, I guess.....though a little crazy. I thought that was her in that bomber in the beginning, but apparently that was her sister. What up with those necklaces, though? Looked like 2 halves of the Rebel emblem, but it didn’t have the middle thing sticking up....basically a big U.....lol, I don’t know. Whatever it was, it looked pretty cool. Reminded me of the real life fan necklaces of the Rebel emblem in half, one side saying “I love you,” the other, “I know.” (AAWWEEE how romantic) This one in the movie, though, of course wasn’t a romantic thing, more like a sibling....bond....thing. By the way, I like how DJ later takes it, in this seemingly desperate situation of barter, but later gives it back, because turns out he just needed it as a conductor for a second, ha.

That new dude, DJ or whatever, is an interesting character. He’s this alcoholic (??) guy who somehow manages to escape jail (Along with Finn and Rose) and make a very not-so-clean getaway. (I mean, seriously....those horses went through walls like 3 times.....Which, by the way, the physics in this movie just defy logic, but more on that later) He turns out to be a traitor and sell them out to the First Order for them good credits....which was a bit odd and not done that well, but it is what it is, I guess. So long, DJ, we hardly knew ya. 

Poe and BB8 are alright in the movie. Poe seems to be this hot head who can’t seem to take orders well, and BB8 seems to show off more of his tools he’s got hidden inside that little sphere body of his. How is all that even possible, anyway? ALL those “fingers” and crap, on top of what was already in there, like that lighter he uses for thumbs up, etc.....How can all that fit in him? Eh, whatever. Poe also meets Rey for the first time (”OH YEAH, they haven’t met yet!” we all realize) which is pretty cool. Yeah.....that’s about it as far as he is concerned.

That new commander lady.....what’s-her-face.....I forgot her name. But anyway.....her character is alright, but kinda lame. She has this whole weird plan that is for the good of the Resistance, yet she acts like it’s this big secret and keeps Poe and everyone else in the dark, making us think she is this traitor person. (Kinda like that Jedi dude in The Clone Wars series) Which, honestly, would have made a way more interesting story. But nope, just a “good guy” with communication problems......The way she goes out, though, is AMAZING! We never seen anything like it. The ship crashing into the bad guys ships by light speed.....slicing through it all like a butter knife....making science question itself as the First Order’s fleet is pretty much obliterated in a weird, stunning, Fruit Ninja fashion. THAT is probably my favorite scene.....However, it should have been Leia who sacrificed herself. It would have been a perfect send away to her character. 

Leia.....She is quite underwhelming in this movie. She does little to nothing....which is a real shame, considering the actress, Carrie Fisher, has now passed away. :( Her last time on the big screen, she didn’t get to do much.....which is very sad and unfortunate. She does not die in this movie, when there was a few opportunities to do so that would have ended the character and done it justice! She could have gone out in a blaze of glory! That should have been her on the Raddius....Whatever-It’s-Called ship! And knowing her character, she would have stubbornly refused to let someone else sacrifice themselves, when she full well could have done so herself. But no.....she’s just like, “Yeah, alright, sure. Good knowing you,” after being convinced way too easily, and she just kinda escapes with everyone else. Before that, (Sorry, this is a bit out of order) she drifted off into space after the bridge was blown up. (Which, by the way, how is it just in tact later in the movie as if that explosion never happened? Am I missing something here? Did I see that right?) That was ALSO a good opportunity to kill her off. (But NO, she’s just still alive and they will have to explain her absence in Episode IX now, seeing as how Carrie Fisher is no longer with us) And what the heck happened there? She just floats in space, (Reminded me of that moment from the Guardians of the Galaxy movie) for a good few seconds, her skin glowing or whatever, and then she manages to use the Force, being all Superman-like, to get back to the ship. ??? WHAT?? Apparently, you can do that with the Force; attract yourself like a magnet to a location.....I shook my head in utter disbelief at that part. I was like “WHAT THE FRICK? BULLCRAP!” To quote Han: “That’s not how the Force works!” I’m sure many of you felt the same way. Did she pull the ship closer to herself, perhaps? No momentum to push herself forward, like all the characters in this universe had to do previously. Just.....WWOOOOOOSSSHHH, steps inside. WELL AIN’T THAT CONVENIENT?

Luke is AWFUL in this movie. He just went to that island to DIE?? He turned his back on the whole galaxy out of self pity, as I suspected. The Luke we knew from the original trilogy would never do that! As I said in my review of The Force Awakens, this is the same dude who stubbornly and stupidly put everything on the line twice just to save the ones he cared about. And now, he just gives up because his nephew went rogue? (For whatever reason...just....SNOKE....?) WHAT?! Unbelievable. Luke became a total coward! What was the deal with the map that led to him in the last movie? They never explain that! It was just kinda there.....for no reason.....He wanted to be left alone and wither away on that island planet. Who the heck created that map and why?? He also went a little crazy. Much like Yoda back in the day, he’s this insane old hermit. I swear, he’s just Mark Hamill wearing a Jedi robe now, the way the character speaks and acts. (Not intended as a diss on Mark Hamill, he’s awesome) And apparently you can just melt away brick buildings? To be fair, the buildings are probably centuries old and he is a powerful Jedi.....(More of a “what the?” moment, really).....The way he dies at the end, while great and cinematic....I guess.....is also a missed opportunity. At first, we are led to believe he somehow went to Crait, and now is walking out to face all those walkers. They fire everything at him, and he doesn’t die! Then, after his fake duel with Kylo, (Do they ever even touch lightsabers? Man, that is a weird sentence.....) it turns out he was never there in person. It was just him.....doing....whatever THAT was. (Astral projection? Making everyone think they saw him there through the Force? I DON’T KNOW) I guess he never did reunite with Leia after all. I mean, sort of, but not really. Were those dice he gave her in memory of Han fake, then? Or can one actually manipulate physical objects while Force projecting or whatever? Honestly, the whole thing was just so confusing and unneeded. He could have actually gone there and went out in a grand way. (Perhaps via his underwater X-Wing, lifting it out like Yoda had in the past. Flying in and surprising those walkers from behind, maybe crashing down into the hanger to join them on foot) But no...he just falls over and dies because he was too exhausted.....or something....It is in his genes to tragically die for no real reason, I guess. After all, his mother died of a broken heart or whatever. I was happy they remembered the lore about disappearing when one dies, though. However, that is only for people who learned that trick of retaining your identity after death. (For those who saw The Clone Wars series) Qui-Gon taught Yoda, Yoda taught Obi-Wan. I guess they taught Luke? Who knows. By the way, milking that weird cgi creature, and drinking it on the spot, was just gross.....A bit.....much......ha.

Speaking of Yoda, he is actually in this movie, it turns out. He looks SO WEIRD. I don’t know what effects they used for him, but it is painfully obvious that it ain’t practical. He looks so different.....less like all those movie versions (Fair enough he would look different here too, I guess, since his look changes a lot) and more like the version of him from the Rebels tv series. Just....WEIRD looking. Apparently, a Force ghost can materialize and physically effect things? Because he was able to hit Luke over the head with his cane, and even send fire to rain upon the old Jedi books or whatever. (Which, by the way, I guess he has since changed his outlet on all that stuff? Being dead now and all, I’m sure he’s had time to reflect and see the true nature of the Force? I don’t know......) If Force ghosts are so powerful, why don’t they ever help out? They can only give advice, I guess? But yeah, he is also pretty solid looking, (Not as in “good,” as in literally, SOLID) and only has a subtle blue glow around him, as opposed to what Force ghosts are SUPPOSED to look like. Weird......Disappointed that we never get to see Anakin, though. Or Obi-Wan for that matter. (Well, that reason is obvious, since the actor is long gone.....but they still could have done Anakin! Since in canon now, thanks to the special editions of the originals, he appears as his young, Hayden Christensen self. I wanna see his reaction to everything that happened......) 

Rey is pretty great in this movie. Especially her whole arc with Kylo Ren. She tries to convince Luke to come back and help the Resistance. (Which I totally predicted would happen....Luke walking away, saying he can’t/doesn’t want to, and Rey walking after him, trying to convince him) Though, surprisingly enough, she never did convince him. However, there also wasn’t any training going on, really. He trained her in “step 1″ or whatever for a couple minutes, but that was IT. All of a sudden, she is now a Jedi, I guess? She is just SO good at everything without any training. We all thought they would at least explain what made her powerful in the first movie. All THAT (What she did in The Force Awakens) could be excused and explained away, I suppose, but this movie definitely hits the nail in the....coffin? (Whatever that saying is)....and makes her even more of a Mary Sue. As for the questions about her origins, like who are her parents, what is her last name, where is she originally from, etc.....KIND OF answered, but not really. Apparently she is a nobody who was sold by her parents for drinking money......Well, there goes all those theories flushed down the toilet, lol. SHE IS A NOBODY? Then why was her family ties kept so mysterious in the last movie, as if she is special? Her last name is never mentioned, (Still not....) we never see what her parents even looked like, nothing. To add to that, everyone seemed to know who she was in the last movie. “If what you say about this girl is true....bring her to me,” Snoke said. Kylo Ren, at least in the book, from what I hear, is like “It IS you.....” Han seems to have a sort of idea who she is, and the way Luke looked at her at the end made it seem like he, too, knew who she was. Wasn’t it confirmed as such, by Lucasfilm themselves, that Luke knew when he saw her, who she was? Guess they changed their mind on all of that. I mean, she can still be someone special. Perhaps Kylo lied to her? 

I mean, anything is possible at this point. Which brings me to another point....Everything that happens in this movie isn’t predictable at all. EVERYTHING you thought you knew going forward was all a lie. Not saying that is good or bad, just saying you’re in for a surprise either way. I do like THAT, at least. How unpredictable this movie is, as opposed to the last movie, where everything was PAINFULLY obvious what the result would be. As soon as you think this movie will go left, BAM, it goes right. Now that aspect I can get behind! (They even mentioned the prequels a bit, regarding how the ignorance and hypocrisy of the Jedi allowed for someone like Darth Sidius to change the fate of the galaxy. I thought they were ignoring the prequels now, but I am relieved to know they aren’t, fully)

Kylo Ren is great in this movie. He is still conflicted, and still a main character, just like Rey is, despite him being a villain. He nearly kills his mom, but decides not to, since the light still has a hold of his soul. I imagine after killing his father, he is more conflicted than ever before. He definitely has some struggle going on. The way he goes about everything, especially as far as Hux and Snoke are concerned, is just intense. He makes them his....b words....and just moves on. It’s insane! Apparently he is the supreme leader of the First Order now.....interesting. We shall see how all THAT plays out. Mother’s army vs son’s army.....Despite him never amounting to his grandfather in terms of being a total boss of a villain, he is still ahead of him in terms of rank and progression. Vader was a slave his whole life....legally one in the hands of slavers during his childhood.....then a “slave” to the Jedi’s strict ways.....and later a slave to the Sith and Empire. He was never the full on LEADER of anything, really, in the grand scheme of things. Kylo, however, is now legit LEADING the bad guy faction. How crazy is that! He just easily kills his master, and full on DESTROYS his rivalry with Hux, basically slapping him in the face and making him bow to his wishes. WHAT A TWIST! Good or bad....I don’t know quite yet. But I can say I am curious what becomes of him in this next movie.....

(By the way, that whole meme...picture....whatever....thing....of him being shirtless, and having this over sized bulgy body was REAL! I thought that was just some random, silly meme someone made. But no, that’s his actual body! WHAT THE HECK? That HAS to be fake! NO WAY! Well, I mean, I think the meme picture thing exaggerated the proportion a bit, but it’s still bulgy and weird in the movie......Wow, listen to me....going on about a man’s shirtless body. This is weird......MOVING ON!)

Kylo and Rey have this weird connection through the Force, being able to not only talk to each other, but also SEE one another in real time. (Force Skype?) That is only one of the few “new” abilities of the Force that apparently exists. (Would have been helpful earlier in the saga, eh?) Turned out, though, it was all Snoke doing that....

Speaking of the devil, SNOKE......WHAT THE FRICK, LUCASFILM? So this butthead of a villain is apparently also nobody significant. I thought he was gonna make it to the end of the trilogy, and be the ultimate bad guy to face later. The ultimate end villain of the saga. Perhaps the dark side itself personified....this....ancient entity of pure evil. NOPE! SLICE! He is dead now, in this crazy twist. As awesome as that twist is in a way, I would still like to know.....WHO THE HECK WAS HE?? Why is yet another dark side Force user leading the bad guys once again? What the HECK does this guy have to do with the extremist remnant faction that is the First Order? From my current knowledge, (That the movies never even talk about) the First Order was formed by Imperials who had fled into the unknown regions, after having been defeated by the now restored Republic, at the end of the Galactic Civil War. They had now sought revenge against the “Rebel scum,” and formed a new organization. This time, they would remove all weaknesses the Empire had, and stop at NOTHING to destroy the Jedi and Republic once and for all. Where the heck does SNOKE fit into all that?! He didn’t even need to be a character at ALL! Take him out of the equation, and the story is still pretty much the same. (I guess, apart from seducing Ben Solo to the dark side, but you could explain that otherwise) You could have had, instead of yet another pale, scarred dark sider.....(Rehashing the Emperor, much? Where did Snoke even GET all those scars and crap?) he could have been some leading general or something, who wanted Kylo Ren as an asset. (Him being from the bloodline of the mighty Vader, after all, as Snoke said) The way he dies, while an awesome twist, is just kinda lame in regard to his character. Here is this, apparently, omnipresent and unstoppable being, brought down by an object that he just kinda ignored, that was turning RIGHT NEXT TO HIM and about to ignite. He could sense EVERYTHING, but apparently not THAT? He can pretty much read peoples thoughts, and control the gravity around them, even from across the galaxy! He can sense EVERYTHING, so it seemed. Then they went all Darth Maul with his death....unbelievable. I’m sure he’ll be back in one way or another. Whether his ghost, or some contingency plan like the Emperor had, or WHATEVER. They can’t just introduce an insane character like him and NOT do something significant and major. We’ll see what happens, I suppose.....If nothing else, at LEAST explain who he was, and why he was leading the First Order to begin with. Please tell me we won’t have to pay for the “DLC” (Books, etc.) to unlock the full story of the movies......

General Hux.....he was alright in the movie. Just kind of a stereotypical “Imperial” officer guy, though, but still the Hux we knew from The Force Awakens. Really nothing much to his character other than that.....I found it hilarious how Kylo Ren just shot down their rivalry and made him lesser than in rank. Pretty funny.....

Captain Phasma SUCKS in this movie, too! She apparently survived being thrown into a trash compacter on a base that got completely destroyed a short while later, 0 explanation given. She just....kinda shows up out of nowhere, “REMEMBER ME?” and has a last stand against Finn. The fight between them was pretty epic, don’t get me wrong, but was very out of place. Then she dies just as stupidly as she was used in this trilogy. Granted, at least it was more of an honorable and epic looking death than being TOLD she was thrown somewhere.....Still, a VERY disappointing character. We never even get to see her face.....really. I mean, part of her mask is ruined and we see her eye....but never her face with her helmet removed, like the promo pictures showed. All around, just an unneeded and awful character. What a crappy villain.

The First Order in general is treated like the Empire in this movie. I guess the people who worked on this movie didn’t see The Force Awakens or get the memo about the era? Even still, I like how toward the end of the Battle of Crait, both sides seem to be rusty and toward their end. I thought they could easily both stop fighting and shake hands any second, realizing the greater good. (You know, one of THOSE cliches) Similar to how in real life back in World War I (Was it?) two sides just started singing Christmas songs, and they both stopped fighting and came together for that 1 day. That didn’t happen in the movie, however. The First Order kept trying to kill the Resistance off, but still, I got the vibe it could end right there at any moment, is what I mean....when they seize fire, and it’s Kylo Ren vs Luke having that stare down conversation. The First Order actually seemed SMALL again, in that moment, as opposed to this mighty reestablished empire the movie presented it as in the beginning. However, they are sort of more like the Separatists at times, seeing all these dang super weapons they got. The big cannons on the Dreadnaught....frigate....pizza slice ship......thing.....The crazy artillery of the Supremacy.....just to name a couple. There was also that battering ram, miniature Starkiller cannon at the Battle of Crait.....All that just reminded me of the Separatists in The Clone Wars series, ha. I guess make the Separatists this smaller, human faction, and give them the ideals and attitude of the Empire, and you get the First Order. Interesting...

So by the end of the movie, the Resistance is apparently a new rebellion now, and ALL OF THEM can fit inside the Millennium Falcon.....I don’t know HOW they are ever going to defeat the First Order, but knowing how plot armor works, I’m sure it’ll be done somehow. I almost think they won’t win in the end, and the First Order will reign supreme in the galaxy. A weird sort of dark, yet oddly hopeful, potential ending to the Skywalker saga. I don’t know how to feel about it, really. The movie broke me!

The movie ends showing these slave boys on Canto Bight, one having the Rebel ring Rose had given him. He looks up to the stars as the distant Millennium Falcon (Which apparently can sort of be seen at that distance?? Geez, I can’t even see Mars when I look up.....lol) speeds away into hyperspace. A neat ending, but a little crappy. I guess we’re just stuck with the Rebellion again......There goes our chances of EVER seeing the New Republic military in action on the big screen. But even still, oddly enough, I found myself kind of LIKING the movie by the end. I found myself being oddly okay with the choice to go back to Rebels vs Empire again. The way they went about it and appear to be heading with the last movie, I get it now. I can finally see what they are going for, and I think I can get behind it. It’s like the END all be all. The end of our rope....Everything has been pretty much destroyed, and here we are in a hopeless yet hopeful situation. Wars can definitely change things for the worse in the long run. 

I am a bit dumbfounded about the whole scenario all over again. (I know, I know, I keep mentioning it. Just bear with me!) It makes the original trilogy and all that happened prior POINTLESS. Jyn Erso and the Rogue One team sacrificing themselves, getting the plans to the Death Star....and Luke later destroying it despite all the odds.....The Rebels having a major struggle against the mighty Empire that is pushing back.....Luke going to save his friends, and putting everything on the line.......The many Bothans that died to bring the Rebels the information that would ultimately lead to a final showdown, with all the Rebels got vs the Empire.....Luke finally managing to bring his father back to the light, and with COUNTLESS losses, to destroy yet another Death Star....and finally bring an end to the Empire once and for all..........EVERYTHING was all for nothing. I mean, first of all, in the last movie, an even BIGGER Death Star comes along, so that’s pointlessness number 1. The Republic was destroyed, so there goes what the Rebels worked hard to restore, pointlessness number 2. NOW, it’s just another rebellion vs the new empire, this mighty First Order, and it’s not looking good for them.....WHAT WAS THE POINT OF IT ALL? That one lady even says in this movie that the Resistance (New rebellion? WHATEVER) is fighting to restore the Republic. AGAIN??? The Rebel Alliance already did that years before! WHAT THE HECK EVEN MATTERS ANYMORE? Same goes for the new Jedi Order, and everything else.

The “rhyming.”.....It doesn’t really do that great of a job. And no, I am NOT complaining that it was “too different.” (More on that after this) As far as the middle movie of a trilogy, it didn’t really do things WELL, as far as fitting like a puzzle and poetry....crap. First of all, the title. The last 2 middle movies are 4 words long, and have something to do with the offense of the stormtrooper faction. This title is just about the last Jedi person.....Granted, if it was something like, “The First Orders Retaliation,” or something along those lines, it would definitely be a rip off of The Empire Strikes Back. So, I guess there wasn’t too many good options for the title. Now for the events in the movie. There is no space chase through an asteroid field, (There is a chase, but no asteroids, according to my memory) no place surrounded by landing platforms, (I guess Canto Bight sort of was 1 giant circle?.....) no Fett flying the Slave 1, (Or at the very least, a bounty hunter showing up to assist the bad guys. I guess, “law breaker dude?” DJ? I don’t know) etc. There IS, however, a battle in a wasteland, with walkers involved. I was afraid that the Battle of Crait was going to rehash the Battle of Hoth, but much to my surprise, it didn’t. I thought they were going to have to find a weakness in the walkers to exploit again, but nope. I am glad! As for the traditions that comes with every movie....I don’t remember anyone saying, “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.....” I heard it was BB8 at the beginning? But does that really count, though? We can’t understand him! No subtitles, even! I also don’t recall hearing a Willhelm scream anywhere. Granted, I did go to the restroom once, (While Finn and Rose were running from the police on those horse things) so maybe those things happened during that time? Or perhaps I overlooked it, one ear and out the other, so to speak. Aside from the Battle of Crait and the space chase, (Not involving asteroids, I don’t think) it didn’t really rhyme with The Empire Strikes Back and Attack of the Clones. I may have to see it again. Perhaps I missed a lot of aspects. But yeah, the whole “rhyme” thing is more of a minor nitpick. Believe me, I am NOT complaining that we get something completely new and different. That was exactly what I was hoping for, after the last movie left a bad taste in my mouth. Though, I mean....does it really HAVE to be all the way left or all the way right? Either total blatant rehash or no “rhyming” at all? Can’t we just be somewhere in between, where it’s new and different, but still carries those traditions? That is all I ask. Again, not complaining. If modern Disney-fied Lucasfilm can only pull off one or the other, all the way left or right, I will choose the one that doesn’t rehash any day. So for that, at least, I breathe a sigh of relief.

By the way, just a side note; there is some curse words and a little bit of potentially crude humor in this movie. I was a bit shocked. Instead of being for kids and something in there for adults, or for both in general, it seemed more like it was for adults, with some things for kids sprinkled in. Though as far as I, myself, am concerned, I don’t care. I mean, I’m an adult for one thing, so yay for me, lol. But I never really minded that stuff. You get that sort of thing with comic book movies, as well. A lot of people still take their kids to see those superhero films, so why not this? It isn’t even as bad as I am probably making it seem, really. Just an observation I had. Do with that info what you will.

All in all, this movie sucked, yet it was alright for what it was, ultimately. I don’t know, it all felt like a dream. From the weird visuals and humor, to the outright crazy twists in the plot, this whole movie was just a WEIRD experience. I am glad they did things differently, though. However, different doesn’t always automatically mean the movie itself is good. I hate that argument that fanboys make against other fanboys. (”The haters”) “You complained it was too different, (Prequels) now you’re complaining it’s too similar. (The Force Awakens) And NOW you’re complaining it’s too different again! You guys can never be happy, can you?” WRONG! I wish this argument would just DIE already. It’s flawed, it’s way too simplistic, and makes no sense. Nobody is complaining that this movie is different. (At least, I’m not) If you even tried to pay attention and hear people out, you would know that. The complaints (At least, from me) are about the plot, the visuals, the characters, etc. I LIKE how it is different! THAT, I applaud. It was actually one of the highlights of this experience for me. I like how it didn’t rehash. But again, just because it is DIFFERENT does not automatically mean it is a GOOD movie. WAY too black and white of a view to hold. Rehashing is BAD, always, in my opinion. But different, while the very fact it is different is good, can still end up as a bad movie. Depends how it’s made, and what happens in the movie. I think this movie is just one BIG miss. SO much missed opportunities, so many plot holes, CGI overload of visuals, out of place humor, and crappy treatment of beloved characters. That’s not to say this movie was a TOTAL disappointment, however. There definitely was some enjoyable parts. The more I made myself feel like I was watching a parody and whatever happened didn’t effect my “fandom....ness,”...the more I actually found enjoyment. When the humor and weird visuals came along, I laughed AT it as opposed to with it. So, looking at it as a silly parody of a movie, or I guess, as an “outsider,” I actually enjoyed it more. Because when I care TOO MUCH and am too invested in this fictional universe, I end up hating it and saying “SCREW YOU DISNEY! YOU RUINED STAR WARS! AAHHHH.” Which is kind of true, lol, but still. We have to remember this is all fiction and does not matter in reality. It’s JUST a movie. Looking at it that way, I find myself to enjoy this new generation of Star Wars just a little more. Anyway, excuse my rambling, I probably lost you.

(By the way, “The Force Awakens.......The Last Jedi.......From Slumber?” HA, I don’t know. Just an idea)

I will give this movie, I guess......a 5/10. It failed, and it succeeded, simultaneously. All around, it is a wacky, just....WEIRD Star Wars experience. You will have to see it to decide for yourself. (If you’re reading a spoiler review without having seen it, I mean.......??) You will, for sure, leave the theater, wondering what it all means.....wondering what the heck your eyes and ears just beheld. You may question what this galaxy far, far away really is all about. At the very least, crappy or great, we have to admit that this movie sparks discussion. Some crazy good fan conversations are on the horizon, that’s for sure. There has been an awakening.....have you felt it?