#next post will probably be de characters as transformers :3

[sargentstyrofoam]

That one scene in EEAAO but jeanharry

Also some doodles ^^

[leojurand]

house of niccolò reread rambling thoughts: niccolò rising edition (part 1)

roughly 25% into my NR i'm having the time of my life and also have more thoughts than i anticipated! so post it is.

niccolò rising was, on first read, one of my least favourite dunnett novels. which isn't anything bad at all since i love all her books, it was just not on the same level of insanity as most others. probably bottom 5

also i've always thought this was a fun book, but coming here right after checkmate makes it especially fun lol

so here's the ramble!

starting with nicholas, in his claes era! and god, he's perfect (but ofc i say that, he's my favourite protagonist ever). i found him fascinating on first read, but reading this again after seeing nicholas's growth, after seeing him as a father and husband in gemini... it really shows what an incredible character he is! i've tweeted about this before, and i think some fans didn't agree, but when i read lymond i had this feeling that the person that is francis crawford already existed before the events of the series, and throughout it i slowly unraveled the truth of who that is, as lymond allows us to see, or is forced to show, his true self. but with nicholas there is a sense of becoming. there was no nicholas de fleury before the series, we see him transform into that version of himself. when it comes to nicholas there's a lot of discussion of identity; the idea that he had none, and every aspect of himself was an act, a role he was playing to achieve his goals. and only towards the end he becomes who he truly is.

there are some moments on this reread already that made me feel nicholas was learning, or becoming as i said, like this exchange with tobie:

“You haven’t the choice,” said Tobie. “No one has.” The other was silent. It was a deliberate silence. Tobie pressed him. “You’d never thought of that?” said Tobie. “I think of people dependent on me,” said Claes. The cellar was cold, but he sat quite still, his crossed arms tight round his body. “But no one needs to shoulder my burdens.” “Not even the people who are dependent on you?” said Tobie. That disturbed the boy a little. He said, “You and Meester Julius are not.”

you can almost see the wheels turning in his head, whether because he's learning something new or he's trying to find the right combination of words that will make tobie do what nicholas wants him to do, i don't know! but it's a very interesting conversation.

i could talk about nicholas for hours, both analysing every gesture or straight up gushing, but i'll move on

next is julius, a polarising? maybe straight up unpopular? character. i'm a big fan tbh. i've always thought he's wildly entertaining, the funniest character even, if not super complex. but the reveal at the end of the series does give me a lot more to chew on in this reread wrt his character, so i'm glad!! i really don't know who julius truly is, which is crazy because he seems so simple on the surface? does he care about nicholas at all? he's pretty protective of claes, at first. but how much of it is genuine, if anything? i also really like his dynamic with tobie, they both pay attention to the other like they're wary, maybe. but anyway, i'll pay special attention to julius this time. what a fun, evil little guy lol

katelina!! i've joked about her being the only brown-haired dunnett female character who is a mess. i'm noticing a lot of subtlety with her this time. for example, i think she's funny that she calls julius, claes, and felix "children" in the first chapter, when she's only 19. but she's been traveling with older people, and living 3 years by herself on scotland probably makes her feel more grown and mature than these bruges boys. in her first pov chapter she compares edinburgh and bruges, and in those descriptions you can really tell she missed her hometown. she thinks she wishes she were a widow, to have freedom and independence. and in her bluntness and mockery of simon i saw something of gelis, too. though gelis's tongue is sharper, and she has a madness katelina lacks, as nicholas thinks later on. i think i'm going to connect more with her on this reread... which will make her fate even more sad.

now some more random thoughts:

nicholas's blank expression, and the way he keeps his distance when they meet esota, hits really hard knowing what she did to him. god. and the fact he didn't even want to punish her makes me so sad

the way nicholas and umar become friends so quickly, speaking in sign language and bits of whatever language they share, is so sweet 😭 big boys who are mistreated and much more intelligent than anyone gives them credit for!!

mentioned this on twitter too, but kathi being one of the children nicholas plays with and who adores him is the cutest thing ever

i can't help but hate marian a little. every time there's a mention of nicholas arriving at her home at 10, being brought up with her children, and knowing what happened to him as a child... i just hate that she turned their relationship sexual, i don't care if she was grieving

claes crying after his duel with simon was heartbreaking, knowing that he's not crying because he almost died or because he's in pain, but because he just wanted to be recognized by his father. and to him that duel and simon's pure dislike of him probably meant that it would never happen :( my baby

that's it for now!! but i'll be back. i'm so happy to be back in this world with these characters :') n. 1 series!!

[immaturityofthomasastruc]

IOTA Reviews: Miraculous World: New York - United HeroeZ

So... with the recent announcement that Seasons 4 and 5 of Miraculous Ladybug will air on Disney+, with one episode set to air around March 27th (and it's out of order because of course it is), I figured I would try something new with this blog.

While I'm sure Astruc will be more active while the new season is airing, I figured I'd take a stab at reviewing new episodes of Miraculous Ladybug when they come out, as I already have a Disney+ account that I only really use to watch Star Wars and other Disney Channel cartoons I've never seen before. Well, that and the gloriousness that is Mech-X4.

And I was thinking that since a certain special is already available on Disney+, I'll review it now. Consider it my, uh...

279 Follower Special. Yeah, that’s it.

Miraculous World: New York – United Heroez is the first in a series of Miraculous Ladybug specials with the premise of having our heroes travel around the world. Because I guess that's what you do with your show when you run out of ideas for things your characters can do. Just ask Ash Ketchum and Thomas the Tank Engine.

The special is somewhat polarizing among the fandom, with some loving it, and some hating it. If you've seen some of my earlier posts, you probably already know how I feel about this.

Anyway, let's take a look at Miraculous World: New York – United Heroez

We start off with a logo letting us know this is going to be the start of a series of specials called Miraculous World.

Yeah, I'm sure that'll be remembered among other great cinematic universes like the Dark Universe and Ghost Corps.

In all seriousness, this is actually a pretty decent opening. It has some nice visuals that inform the audience of the globetrotting gimmick seen in the special, and the orchestral cover of the Miraculous Ladybug theme sounds pretty badass.

The special truly starts off in the middle of an Akuma fight, where we see that Mr. Pigeon is taking inspiration from Startrain's plan to escape to the one place that hasn't been corrupted by capitalism... SPACE! Apparently, this is the 51st time that Ladybug and Cat Noir have fought him, which makes you wonder if Hawkmoth is either running out of ideas, or if he just wants to see how insane Mr. Pigeon's plans can get for the hell of it.

Ladybug and Cat Noir transform into their new space forms that they've obviously had for a while, given Alya's familiarity with their names... even though those forms probably would have been useful when they were fighting Startrain. And this is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of things this special retcons.

We get a few interactions between Ladybug and Cat Noir to give new viewers an idea of what the Love Square dynamic is like, with Cat Noir fawning over Ladybug after she leaves, and Marinette gushing over a new poster Adrien is in. I'll get back to this later,

After that, we see a brief clip from a student film teaching the audience about the real life friendship between George Washington and Marquis de Lafayette (the latter actually becoming one of Washington's close advisors during the Revolutionary War), and how it lead to the completely made up, “French American Friendship week”, which is basically an excuse for Marinette and Adrien's class to go to New York for a week.

Their teacher, Ms. Bustier isn't going with them because she's having a baby (God help us if the writers resort to pregnancy jokes next season), so the only other teacher in the school, Ms. Mendeleiev, will be supervising the class instead.

Adrien isn't able to go to New York because his father won't let him, and even he lampshades how predictable this is. But as soon as Lila suggests spending time with Adrien, Marinette immediately declares she will try to get Adrien to come on the trip with everyone, because he's her friend... and then Alya mocks her for saying that in the very next scene.

And here is the first problem with this special: The way Marinette's crush on Adrien is portrayed.

We're supposed to see Marinette as being in denial about her feelings for Adrien, but when you think about how Season 3 ended with Marinette realizing Adrien and Kagami (who will make an appearance in this special later on) are happy together, it makes sense that she wants to do this. She wants to move on from her crush on Adrien and try to be friends with him.

Unfortunately, her “best friend” Alya isn't willing to let her move on, which is extremely hypocritical when you remember how often she teased her for her behavior around Adrien, to the point where her other “friends” made bets about Marinette's hesitance to confess to him (Cat Blanc). Does she even know about Adrien and Kagami?

And throughout this special, rather than acknowledge Marinette's decision to move on, she constantly teases Marinette about how she still has feelings for Adrien, instead of simply leaving her alone. She reaches salt fic levels of unlikable in this special.

It doesn't help that Marinette's anxiety around Adrien is cranked up to twelve in this special, with her constantly stammering, or fidgeting around to the point where she struggles to get through a door. Twice. And as always, this behavior is only going to be played for laughs, because the showrunners are running out of ways to make Marinette suffer for comedy. And it only gets worse from here.

While watching a news report about a necklace and sabre George Washington had given to him by Lafyette, Nathalie, bedridden from the events of the season finale, tells Gabriel that the necklace in question is actually a lost Miraculous.

And as soon as Marinette arrives, Gabriel tells her that he's going to let Adrien go on the trip. His reason?

Gabriel: Letting Adrien go to New York will be simpler than hiding my absence here from him. Besides, this will allow me to continue keeping an eye on him.

Yeah, he seriously thinks it's a good idea to send his son to the same place he's planning to attack as part of one of his plans. At least you could make the argument that whenever Adrien is endangered during an Akuma attack, he's simply caught in the crossfire because he's in the wrong place at the wrong time, like with “Style Queen”. Here, Gabriel is intentionally letting Adrien go to New York, while claiming that he will be able to monitor him while he plots to attack the city. This is like if Grand Moff Tarkin let his son go to Alderaan for vacation. And again, it only gets worse from here.

Though Gabriel waits a day to tell Adrien he's going to New York, because of he did, we wouldn't get any scenes of Adrien moping around about how much his life sucks. Well, that and a scene of him and Kagami, where the latter kisses him. This is Kagami's only scene in the special, and she isn't mentioned again after this.

As Ladybug, Marinette tells Cat Noir she's going away for a few days and trusts him to guard Paris as long as he alerts her of an Akuma or Sentimonster. What will happen to the Miracle Box Marinette inherited from Former Master In Name Only Fu is never explained.

To Adrien's credit, it's Plagg that convinces him to go on the trip even though Ladybug trusted him, and even then, it takes a little bit to convince Adrien, showing he still takes his job seriously, with him coming up with a plan in case an Akuma attacks. It's not perfect, but it's something. That all goes to hell later on, though.

We then see Gabriel once again talking to Emilie's corpse about his plan.

Gabriel: Blah, blah, blah, Emilie. Blah, blah, blah, blah, I'll get Ladybug and Cat Noir's Miraculous this time for sure. Blah, blah, blah, blah, I'm such a good father and sympathetic villain.

Oh, sorry. That's how I hear most of his monologues to Emilie these days. My bad.

The next scene features something I bet you've never seen before, Marinette being late for something. Thankfully, Luka gives her a ride to help her catch up, hoping that the trip will “give her some clarity”, most likely referring to her conflicting emotions. Marinette then kisses Luka goodbye and gets on the bus. This is Luka's only scene in the special, and he isn't mentioned again after this.

On the plane, it turns out that Adrien is conveniently sitting next to Marinette, prompting Alya to tease Marinette yet again while making this face.

Alya: (smirking and talking in a very smug tone of voice) Awesome, Marinette! Go and sit next to your “friend”! So you two can enjoy a nice flight together! A very long flight.

Alya continues to relentlessly tease Marinette and makes fun of her crush for no real reason, suggesting Marinette get off the plane because “New York is the most romantic city in the world after Paris”. And this gives her a goddamn panic attack where she frantically tries to run off the plane. Remember kids, if someone has some kind of anxiety or social awkwardness, it's perfectly fine to tease and make fun of their behavior, and even exploit it for your own amusement.

And after some unfunny hilarious slapstick involving Marinette on the plane, Alya continues her streak of treating Marinette like her plaything.

Nino: If only this trip could help Adrien finally come out of his shell.

Alya: And if only it could help Marinette be more honest with herself and clearer about her feelings!

Nino: Operation New York?

Alya: Operation New York!

Nino: Let's help them loosen up!

Alya: After all, isn't the United States the land of the free?

Well, the only thing you actually got right about America is forcing others to do things they don't want to do. Just ask the Native Americans.

It's scenes like this why Alya is portrayed so negatively in salt fics. And this happens throughout the special. Now, while I'm not really a drinker, I'm guessing there's at least one person reading this post right now who is. So I have a little idea for a game. Every time Alya acts like a terrible friend to Marinette, take a shot. I'd just have a donor ready in case one of your kidneys gives up on you.

After an admittedly nice scene of Adrien thanking Marinette for convincing his father to let him come (undercut by Marinette creepily commenting on Adrien's cologne as they hug), another problem with this special rears its ugly head, as a man with oddly-colored skin arrives on one of the plane's wings.

Alya: Oh, no! That's Techno-Pirate, the supervillain who steals technology!

Yeah. This is happening. The special is just casually introducing this new supervillain, Techno-Pirate as well as some other superheroes, neither of which had any buildup before, not even a throwaway line They're just here now.

So some of the American superheroes are to save the day, now, I guess. Majestia, the Superman knockoff, helps steer the plane back into position, her robotic daughter, Uncanny Valley, helps fix the plane's broken wing, while Knightowl and Sparrow, the Batman and Robin knockoffs, deal with Techno-Pirate. And everyone just treats this like a regular occurrence.

Marinette: Wow! That all happened so fast! I didn't have time to transform or help out!

Adrien: Good thing the American superheroes were here. I couldn't have transformed here. I'm supposed to be in Paris!

Plagg: Relax, Adrien! Let the local superheroes handle their own problems.

I have so many problems with this plot development. Just how common is the knowledge that there are other superheroes besides Ladybug and Cat Noir in other countries? How have they never been mentioned until now? Why is everyone just accepting the fact that there are other superheroes?

I get that these characters weren't conceived around the time the show started, but the way they're just thrown into the story is just so confusing and does so many things to hurt the narrative instead of helping it. In other episodes, Majestia and Knightowl were only seen in comic books, and Ladybug and Cat Noir were seen as the only heroes in the world because the world itself was fairly down to earth, barring some more advanced technology (the police's weapons in “Origins”, Hawkmoth's lair, Max's robot, Markov, the space dumpsters in “Reverser”, and the AI in Startrain).

The fact that New York is apparently filled with all kinds of superheroes for very mundane things like directing traffic and selling hot dogs just makes the Miraculous seem less important. If there was more work done to better integrate them into the story, like maybe making them an American secret or something, it could have worked. To quote a character voiced by Jason Lee...

And the sad thing was that Power Rangers was able to pull something like this off far better in 1995. During the third season of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Master Vile had successfully reversed the Earth's rotation, turning the Power Rangers into children (yes, it runs on Superman logic, just go with it). Because of this, the Rangers are unable to morph, with the villains free to attack the city. In response, Zordon sends out a distress call to another team of Power Rangers from the planet Aquitar.

Now I know what you're thinking. If Zordon had the ability to contact another team of Power Rangers for help, why did it take him so long to do so? The episode immediately answers the question by pointing out that Aquitar is a planet made entirely of water, so it's incredibly dangerous for them to head to a planet like Earth, making their intervention a last resort. And even after they come, a major plot thread is finding ways to keep the Alien Rangers hydrated, which only gets worse when the Alien Rangers' enemy, Hydro Hog, arrives to drain Earth's water while teaming up with the main villains.

The integration of the Alien Rangers into the story generally feels natural, and there is a clear explanation as to why they haven't joined the battle until now, and even then, still place some hurdles for them to overcome. Here, the special just wants the audience to immediately accept the fact that there are hundreds of superheroes in New York.

So as Marinette and Adrien's class arrives in New York, we see Sparrow watching over them, referring to them as “the little croissants”. That's another thing the special gets right about America: casually making racist comments.

Uncanny Valley's civilian form, Aeon, sees Marinette and Adrien, and, of course, she says that they're “made for each other”. If only the writers actually bothered to give us evidence of that fact that everyone loves to say for some reason. Though we do get the only instance of sanity regarding the Love Square in this special, where Sparrow's civilian form, Jess, calls out Aeon for thinking of getting them together.

Aeon: Those two are made for each other.

Jess: Seriously, Aeon? Not again!

Aeon: But I am programmed to help people, Jess!

Jess: Just stop meddling with people's private lives!

Also, I had already mentioned the unfortunate implications of Aeon being programmed to “help people” in an earlier post, but I still want to reiterate that I don't think any of that was intentional at all, and I definitely don't think a single writer on this show is actually racist. Everyone got that? Okay, moving on.

Jess and Aeon are assigned to watch over the Parisian students while they sneak out to a party on the rooftop of the hotel they're staying at, where they meet another superhero, Hot Dog Dan. He gives random people magical hot dogs that give them temporary superpowers. Marinette and Adrien share one, and they both start flying before Adrien offers to slow dance with Marinette.

Okay... It's clear they they're trying to reference an earlier episode, “Despair Bear”, by having Marinette and Adrien dance to the same song they danced to in that episode. The problem is that the context isn't right.

Adrien is dating Kagami, and he's offering to do this... why? What makes him so interested in Marinette all of a sudden? I get that he doesn't realize Marinette has feelings for him, but if someone says they only see you as a friend, do you offer to slow dance with them? Especially if their reaction to your offer is recoiling in fear?

I'm sorry, writers, but you can't try to recreate some of the magic you had in earlier episodes with Adrienette when you have clearly established Lukanette and Adrigami as official relationships at the moment. And don't give me any of that “that's not the point of the special” crap. The season finale showed Marinette and Adrien getting together with Luka and Kagami respectively, so it's natural that a lot of people were looking forward to seeing how they worked as couples. I'll get back to this point later on.

Meanwhile, Gabriel has made his way to New York, and decides to akumatize the arrested Techno-Pirate into Technolizer, asking him to steal Lafyette's sabre from the museum instead of the necklace.

Back to the museum, Alya and Nino decide to send Marinette and Adrien into a room alone where they're locked in and attacked by the supervillain Solutide...'s hologram, which was all part of Jess and Aeon's plan. In a city where there is a superhero and supervillain on every street. They seriously planned on giving Marinette and Adrien a near-death experience to get them to realize their love for each other.

That's... pretty fucking demented.

What if Marinette and Adrien did something reckless in their attempt to escape? They could have seriously gotten hurt. Hell, what if the scare gave either of them a heart attack? And let's say either of them found out what the plan was (which would be pretty easy, given “Solitude” is a hologram). Do you think either of them would be happy with Alya and Nino, even if they confessed their love for each other? And none of them even think to apologize for what they did, and this scene is never mentioned again. To quote a certain internet reviewer. WHAT WERE THEY THINKING!?

Though to be fair, the scene before was the only scene where Alya gets to use a brain cell in this special by pointing how wrong that plan is... for a second before she goes along with it. So close, Alya. So close...

So after Adrien gets a news report revealing that Robustus is attacking Paris (even though Markov is with them in New York), while Marinette isn't contacted by Cat Noir. The situation only gets worse when Technolizer attacks, getting the sabre in the process.

Sparrow and Uncanny Valley try to fight him off, but are quickly overwhelmed, with some of the latter's technology getting stolen by Technolizer. Marinette and Adrien transform and help out the two heroes, naturally being confused by the other's presence.

But while the four heroes chase after Technolizer, Hawkmoth shows competence for once and steals the necklace in the process, while revealing that the Robustus attacking Paris was actually a Sentimonster created by Mayura.

During the fight, rather than focusing on stopping the already dangerous supervillain powered up by Hawkmoth, Ladybug decides to trash talk Cat Noir instead. I get that she's angry at him for not following through on his promise, but can't she wait until after the fight?

Ladybug: (mockigly) “Just go and rest easy! Yeah, leave Paris with me!”

Cat Noir: I-I didn't know I was going to leave! It was a last-minute decision, that's all!

Ladybug: Do you realize that because of you, there's no one in Paris to protect the city?! Why didn't you tell me that you were leaving?!

Cat Noir: I was afraid you'd get angry!

Ladybug: And you were right, because as you can see, I AM angry!

To quote our recently inaugurated president, will you shut up, man? People say I'm too harsh on Cat Noir for the way he acted during episodes like “Syren”, but this is basically the same thing. Ladybug is prioritizing her own feelings over stopping Technolizer. Yes, she has a right to be angry at Cat Noir, but all she has to do is wait until after the battle to chew him out.

And during the battle, Ladybug outright says she can't trust Cat Noir anymore, making the latter flinch, so Technolizer throws him into Uncanny Valley with his Cataclysm activated, killing her.

In her anger, Majestia punches Technolizer through several buildings before Hawkmoth recalls the Akuma inside him before helping the villain get away. Ladybug casts her Miraculous Ladybug, fixing Uncanny Valley, but that's not enough. Knightowl is pissed, and orders Ladybug and Cat Noir to hand over their Miraculous, not listening to why they're so important, so the two run away.

To make things worse, the two find out about Hawkmoth's plan, and Ladybug explains she can only use Miraculous Ladybug to fix damage caused by a specific villain, and since the Sentimonster is gone, she can't do anything.

In his grief, Cat Noir admits that everything that happened is his fault, so he renounces Plagg and hands over his Miraculous to Ladybug before running away.

So... this scene.

This. Scene.

Where. Do I. Begin?

First of all, this is what causes Ladybug to lose trust in Cat Noir? Not the multiple times he disobeyed her orders because of his own personal feelings? Not the constant flirting and unwanted advances even though she's made it clear she doesn't see him that way? Not the time he trusted an evil doppelganger of Ladybug over the real one? It's this? Cat Noir leaving Paris alone while a Sentimonster attacked?

Okay, let's say that Cat Noir decided to stay in Paris after all. What was he supposed to do when Robustus attacked around the same time as Technolizer? What was Ladybug supposed to do when she found out about Robustus in Paris? Was she supposed to abandon New York and head back there or focus on helping the American heroes?

Second, who does Knightowl think she (yeah, she's a woman, I'll get to that in a bit) is ordering Ladybug and Cat Noir to hand over their Miraculous? What authority does she hold over them? Why should they listen to her? Why can't they simply explain why their Miraculous are so important, and that they can't give them up? Why doesn't Ladybug just explain that she's now the Guardian of the Miraculous? In fact, why does Majestia go along with the order? Ladybug still saved her daughter's life! If anything, she should be sticking up for the two.

There's actually a Superman comic where Captain Marvel storms a police station to interrogate a criminal who killed his best friend so he can find out who hired him. Though he comes close to doing it, Captain Marvel ultimately doesn't kill the criminal's boss, but still flies over to Mount Everest to grieve his friend's death.

Enter Superman, planning to call out Captain Marvel, but instead, he sees him crying. He explains that the boy killed was his best friend before revealing his identity as Billy Batson. Superman's response?

He goes to the wizard Shazam and demands to know why he did this to Billy, furious that a child was forced to go through stuff like that. While Shazam can't take back the powers he gave Billy, he encourages Superman to reach out to Billy, leading to him revealing his identity as Clark Kent to the kid.

I'm not saying that Majestia or Knightowl should have called out Master Fu or ask who made Ladybug the Guardian (as awesome as that would have been), but the point I am trying to make is in that comic, Superman made the effort to understand what Billy had been through, and understood what happened. Majestia and Knightowl made no effort to do anything like that. In fact, they never even knew Hawkmoth existed, which I call bullcrap on, given that he once MOVED THE PLANET AWAY FROM ITS ORBIT. Were you all asleep that day? Why didn't you do anything to help Ladybug and Cat Noir fight Hawkmoth? Were you expecting them to just fight this magical terrorist on their own? They don't have the same support system the American heroes have, and they could really use the help.

And third, Cat Noir. Yeah, just because I'm calling out Ladybug doesn't mean Cat Noir isn't taking any heat either. Again, I have to ask, this is what makes him give up? Keep in mind, when he was Aspik in “Desperada” and saw Ladybug get captured by an Akuma, he reversed time 25,913 times to try and save her before he threw in the towel. At the same time, he was willing to quit in “Syren” because he claimed Ladybug didn't trust him. The level of Adrien's willingness to keep going is incredibly inconsistent, and this doesn't really help his reputation as a character.

And then there's the fact that he's bailing on Ladybug when things are at their absolute worst. Yes, Marinette also briefly gave up in “Origins”, but that was after her first battle, and she was overwhelmed by her screw-up endangering countless lives in Paris in addition to being a nervous wreck even before she got her Miraculous. But here's the difference: She took responsibility. She realized people were in danger, so she jumped into action to save Alya and Cat Noir. Even then, she acknowledged her failure and felt unsure of herself, with Cat Noir helping to reassure her, showing the emotional support their partnership has.

Adrien, who has been a superhero for months, and has faced some pretty stressful situations, as soon as things head south, he immediately gives up and leaves Ladybug to fend for herself while two separate cities are in danger. And he knows that she has no other allies, because Master Fu ran away at the end of the last season, and Miracle Queen exposed the identities of the other temporary heroes. She has nobody to go to for help. He doesn't even show Ladybug her civilian form to apologize, just so he can't get any flak in his regular life. He just gives Ladybug his ring, and literally runs away.

A wise man once said “With great power, there must also come great responsibility.” Adrien has shown no responsibility at ALL in this special, barring the one moment I mentioned earlier.

It's nothing more than a forced emotional moment that has no buildup. This is basically the same with basically every time Miraculous Ladybug tries to be emotional. The writers think that despite never really having any tension or character arcs in their story, they can just have their characters cry out of nowhere, and suddenly, it's a deep moment? That's not how writing works, idiots!

Back at the hotel, Jess and Aeon are getting chewed out by their mothers (Who are the civilian identities of Majestia and Knightowl), and have a conversation about being superheroes... less than a few feet away from the French students. Though at least Barbara, the civilian form of Knightowl (again, I'll get to that later) calls out Aeon and Jess for their stupid “fake supervillain plan”, so there's that I guess.

So we cut to a press conference where the President of the United States, Camilla Hombee (An anagram of Michelle Obama's name, because Astruc has made it clear what his political views are) advises everyone to stay inside while Techno-Pirate is still an active threat. Why does this seem so familiar? And then she... transforms into a superhero too.

Oh, for the love of-- THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES IS A SUPERHERO?! The person in charge of the country and relations with foreign nations is a superhero too?! If she's the president, why didn't she do anything to stop Hawkmoth?! I get that America doesn't really care about news from other countries outside of America, but you would think that the frickin president, WHO IS A SUPERHERO, would at least acknowledge the existence of a supervillain in Paris as a threat!

GOD, this is stupid! And it only gets worse...

Gabriel sends a car to pick up Adrien, realizing the city was too dangerous (I still don't get the point of sending him here in the first place), causing him to tearfully say that he “wouldn't have minded being stuck here a little longer with a friend like her” before leaving. And then Alya...

Alya: What is wrong with you, Marinette?! Couldn't you see that he was just waiting for you to tell him to stay?!

Marinette: What-? But I...? He...? He made his choice. What did you expect me to do?

Alya: It doesn't matter what I expected you to do! Who's Adrien to you?! A friend or more than a friend?! There will never be a better time to be clear with yourself, Marinette! Do you want him to leave or do you want him to stay?!

NO. You do not have the right to say ANY of that! It doesn't matter what YOU expected Marinette to do? This whole special, you've been teasing her about her feelings for Adrien, and forcing her into uncomfortable situations with him all because you want your OTP to be a thing. And now you're saying Marinette had a choice the whole time? Marinette expected herself to get over Adrien and start to see him as a friend, AND YOU WOULDN'T LET HER DO THAT! For three seasons, Alya has made fun of Marinette's crush on Adrien, while at the same time, has constantly pushed her into situations where she was clearly uncomfortable around him to the point where she discouraged Marinette for trying to move on in a previous episode (Frozer). And then in this special, she trapped them in a room with a fake supervillain (which is this world's equivalent to pretending to be a terrorist) just to get them to confess their feelings for each other. AND THE WHOLE TIME, IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE MARINETTE'S CHOICE???

If Obilvio didn't make me stop caring about Alya, this was the moment that actually me despise her.

And the worst part? The narrative frames her as being right. This is somehow enough for Marinette to run out in the pouring rain while a supervillain is lose in New York, with nobody even trying to stop her, to chase after Adrien's car, where she tearfully confesses that she still loves him after the car gets away.

What is the point of this exactly? We already knew Marinette liked Adrien last season, her nonexistent character arc was learning to get over him, and now she's supposed to learn she's still interested in him? What about Luka? Are we just going to ignore Luka? What about the fact that Kagami is already in a relationship with Adrien? None of these questions are never explained.

Gabriel finds the lost Miraculous, the Eagle Miraculous, which represents Freedom, and gives it to Techno-Pirate, turning him into Miraclonizer. Using the Eagle Miraculous' power, Liberation, he can undo any mental boundaries someone has, but since he's using it for evil, it basically drives several heroes crazy without their own moral codes. And while I claimed it was an original power in one of my earlier posts, the more I think about it, Liberation is really just a different version of Reverser's airplanes. All they did was just phrase the explanation a different way.

So despite being a city full of superheroes, Miraclonizer manages to drive every hero crazy in a matter of minutes, with the exception of Jess and Aeon. So do none of the other heroes have sidekicks? Is there not even a Young Justice or Teen Titans-esque team in this city? I'm just saying, if they have a hot dog superhero, there should be at least more than two sidekicks in New York.

Aeon goes to search out Ladybug and Cat Noir, and because of some technobabble stuff, Aeon can easily figure out their identities. Again, this was something I already talked about in an earlier post, so I won't harp on this scene. It's a dumb retcon in a special full of dumb retcons, what else can I say?

So Aeon goes to find Adrien on his private plane to give him back his Miraculous... even though wouldn't it make more sense for Aeon to use it instead to save time? I didn't mention this, but right before this scene, Majestia was pushing the moon towards the Earth. Time is kind of the essence here. It also would have saved us more of Adrien's whining.

Uncanny Valley: Cat Noir, New York and Ladybug need you!

Adrien: (looks at where his ring used to be) I'm no longer Cat Noir.

Uncanny Valley: To err is human, apparently!

Adrien: My mistakes are unforgivable. I couldn't bear to see the disappointment in her eyes.

“i'M sO tOrTuReD. fEeL bAd FoR mE, dAmNiT!”

Cut it out with Angstdrien Depreste already, writers. It's gotten old.

And despite making a big deal about how much he failed Ladybug, he immediately jumps back into action as soon as he hears a recording of Ladybug saying she needs him. I know it's supposed to be a heartwarming thing by showing him wanting to support his lady, but to me, it just comes off more like he needed an ego boost. He was fulling willing to let Ladybug save the day on her own, but as soon as he heard how important he is to Ladybug, he's more than willing to become Cat Noir again. Because it's not like he could regret his decision to abandon his partner, and realize it isn't too late to make up for his mistake, right? That would imply Adrien is motivated by anything other than his feelings for Ladybug. Then there's the fact that as soon as Cat Noir returns, Ladybug instantly forgives him, despite saying earlier that she didn't trust him. It's almost like that whole debacle was only there to eat up about fifteen minutes of the special's runtime.

Hawkmoth issues an ultimatum to Ladybug and Cat Noir. Miraclonizer is ready to fire a nuclear missile (though the dub calls it a rocket, let's be honest, it's not), fully intending to start World War III unless Ladybug and Cat Noir give up. He's seriously willing to risk making The Day After a reality all for his wife. But remember, you're still supposed to feel bad for this literal war criminal.

Ladybug, Cat Noir, Aeon, and Sparrow manage to get to Miraclonizer's hideout, the Statue of Liberty, and take back the Eagle Miraculous, with Sparrow taking it and transforming into Eagle.

And then there's the design of the new hero's suit. While I'm glad it isn't another skintight jumpsuit, and the wings are a nice touch, people have raised some questions regarding Eagle's design, and how it feels like the animators really want to remind the audience that Jess is Native American. I mean, it looks like what Zack Morris wore in that one episode of Saved by the Bell barring the headdress.

And this might be because I'm a history major, and I just brushed up on this subject in class last semester, but I'm a little uncomfortable with the fact that someone actually thought it was a good idea to give the Native American girl the Miraculous of the Eagle, the symbol of America which represents Freedom. I don't want to go too into detail about this, but, uh... let's just say if you know about the history of the relationship between the Native Americans and the colonists, you'll get why this raises a couple of red flags.

Does this mean I think the showrunners are racist? No, it was an honest, albeit questionable mistake. Do I think this is the worst Native American representation on TV. Oh, hell no. Chakotay from Star Trek: Voyager was a walking amalgam of every Native American stereotype in the book, and was featured in an episode that said, with a straight face, mind you, that Native Americans used to be backwards savages, so a group of white aliens genetically altered them so not only could they survive the Earth's harsh weather, but so they would become more creative, leading to the birth of Native American culture. I apologize to any Native American human being who had the misfortune of learning about that for the first time. But over all, Jess is far from the bottom of the barrel of poor Native American representation.

So Jess uses her powers to calm every superhero down, while Ladybug and Cat Noir de-evilize Technolizer. And of course, Hawkmoth assumes that since there are other lost Miraculous, “they will be his”. Maybe focus on getting the two Miraculous you originally set out to get first, buddy.

So Knightowl and Majestia apologize for their behavior, and we learn that apparently Knightowl and Sparrow have been around for at least since the Wild West, and that the Knighowl and Majestia we've been following have been keeping up the illusion that the original duo are still alive for several generations.

Was this special written in the 1950's? Why make a big deal out of this? Why is it so important that Knightowl and Sparrow both have a Y chromosome? The president is a woman and a superhero, the strongest superhero on Earth is a woman, and you were just saved by a female superhero all the way from Paris. I don't think people will be afraid of getting cooties from this Knightowl. Hell, we live in a world where if you don't like a female superhero, people automatically hate you. Just ask the people who didn't like Captain Marvel.

We see that Alya still learned nothing, as she continues to tease Marinete for daring to call Adrien her “friend”, as our special mercifully ends with the class sending a picture of a banner to Adrien to show their support... but not before a brief scene where a Guardian tries to take Eagle's Miraculous, before she makes him instantly pull a 180 as soon as she suggests he help to “create a new generation of heroes together”.

I'm guessing this is meant to be yet another tie-in to yet another Miraculous side project that will go absolutely nowhere. You might as well have had Nick Fury, oh, I'm sorry, Mick Flurry, recruit Eagle and Uncanny Valley for the ZAG Initiative.

But it doesn't matter, because the special's over, and once again, I never have to think about it ever again.

So... what else can I say that I haven't already said. This special sucks.

While the animation is honestly some of the best to come out of ZAG, and the action can get pretty good at times, it honestly doesn't really mean much when the story surrounding it is just so abysmal. Basically the only thing I liked about the Season 3 finale was the idea that the status quo was shifting in terms of Marinette's feelings for Adrien, and this special just ruined this interesting idea by the end faster than you can say “the series finale of Quantum Leap”.

Alya is at her most unlikable here with everything she does in this special. Almost everything she says to Marinette is either some catty comment or making fun of her trying to get over Adrien. Because God forbid she actually try to grow as a person and not let her life revolve around a cute boy. It's stuff like this that I genuinely wonder why Marinette even bothers to stay friends with her when all she does is tease her and force her out of her comfort zone. And according to co-director Wilfried “Winny” Pain, Alya is meant to be like Jiminy Cricket to Marinette's Pinocchio. I don't know which version of Pinocchio he read as a kid, but clearly, it's not the version we're mostly familiar with.

I'm still glad they didn't have Cat Noir revert back into his Ladybug-simping self we all knew and loathed in Season 3, but that doesn't mean he's still enjoyable in this special. The angsting about how sad Adrien's life is stopped being interesting years ago, and it's only done as a way to get the audience to care about him, but it comes off more like the writers are holding the audience at gunpoint and demanding they sympathize with him for bailing on the world when they need him the most.

I thought Aeon was a pretty likable character. Maybe it's because I'm a sucker for socially awkward robot characters like Data or Penny. I just wish we got to know her more, and why exactly her mother felt the need to play God by create her instead of just adopting like what Olympia and Barbara presumably did with Jess.

As a matter of fact, despite being played up as a big deal, there's still a lot about the American heroes that we don't really know about. How were the “United Heroes” formed in the first place? How did Majestia get her powers? What exactly is the origin of Knightowl and Sparrow? Why are all the American heroes so open about their identities to the point where the President's identity as a superhero is so well-known she can casually transform on TV? Hell, Ladybug and Cat Noir barely even interact with any of the heroes, and that includes Uncanny Valley and Sparrow/Eagle.

Generally, the special feels very rushed at times, with a lot of ideas not really being utilized. According to Astruc, there was actually a lot of things cut from the special, including a deleted subplot with Chloe and Ms. Mendeleiev. Although, given Astruc's track record, I don't think it would have been a good one given Chloe is involved.

This leads into a personal theory I have regarding this special, that I want everyone reading this to take it with a huge grain of salt. As much as he claims that he can't change anything he's already written, I personally believe that Thomas Astruc rewrote part of this special so Adrienette could get more focus to renew interest in the ship.

Hear me out on this. During Season 3, there were a lot more shipping debates between Adrienette shippers and Lukanette shippers, with the latter gaining more traction that season. It was also the season where other ships like Felinette, Kagaminette, and even Maribat became more prominent. And all of these ships were featured in post-Chameleon salt fics bashing Astruc's sunshine child, Adrien.

So, given how Astruc already dedicated an entire episode to bashing Felix fans, why wouldn't he use something like the New York special to convince the shippers to have more faith in the Love Square? After all, aren't Adrien and Marinette made for each other? Astruc has already said so on his Twitter.

Unfortunately, right now, I like to describe the Love Square as “Shrodinger's Relationship”. While the show can claim that Adrien and Marinette would make a great couple, they simultaneously show no real chemestry happening between the two in favor of Love Square shenanigans. And yes, I'm actually thinking of talking about the Love Square in a future analysis post.

And then there's the fact that Astruc himself said that everything that happened in this special is going to lead into the events of Season 4. What do I have to say about that?

Bring it.

I already talk about Miraculous Ladybug itself on this blog almost as much as I talk about its creator, and since I have a Disney+ account, I might as well subject myself to everything Season 4 has to offer. I've already seen one of my favorite shows go to hell, so why don't I chronicle another one of my favorite shows going to hell as well?

So yeah, as soon as a new episode is officially released on Disney+, expect a review from your boy IOTA.

I survived Season 3, so let's see if the number 4 is as unlucky as some countries say it is.

[scripttorture]

I have a question about torture and organizations. Can a political movement (rebellion in this case) with a history of using torture succeed in eliminating its use of torture? In my story a member of the rebellion learns that some others (on the leader's orders?) have been torturing people. Appalled, this person decides to split off and form a rival faction, bringing with them other rebels who disapprove of torture... (organizations ask 1/3)

Is it likely that this faction would be able to succeed (replace the original faction and continue not torturing people)? How likely is this? What factors would impact the likelihood? Mostly I'm focusing on the contrast between one organization torturing and the other not torturing, e.g., I can see how locals might be skeptical of the second organization because they're on the same "side" as the torturers. (organizations ask 2/3 -- I think I might've accidentally numbered the first one 2/3, aah)  The organization uses torture for mainly punishment (which might include trying to get people to make false confessions) and intimidation (as well as in some cases in attempts to force compliance, like making people supply them with food and materials or making people give them information; this last is the rarest... oops, I just realized that's all of the purposes in the UN definition). (I have read a lot of your posts and I know torture doesn't work.) Thank you!! :) (organizations ask 3/3)

-

Anon you are delightful.

 Rejali spends an awful lot of time discussing the various arguments on whether torture can be eradicated and how that could be practically done. There aren’t a lot of definite answers but I can give a summary of the kinds of factors that we think are important and describe things your characters could practically do.

 I think it’s worth stressing from the start that no country has completely eradicated torture. As a result we don’t know for certain what… works. Or at least not what works completely and permanently.

 I don’t think this means getting rid of torture is impossible. Neither does Rejali. Rejali argues (convincingly in my opinion) that torture has changed so drastically in the modern era because of concerted efforts to wipe it out. Part of that change has been an almost complete eradication of some torture techniques. As a general rule people are no longer broken on the wheel, hanged drawn and quartered or have their flesh torn off with red hot pincers. We have already completely transformed both torture and public attitudes to it.

 And that implies that we can get it rid of it.

 It’s likely that torture is less common now then it was historically but this is hard to prove. Most historical records don’t provide a clear indication of every single person who was questioned, arrested or tried, let alone who was tortured or how.

 It’s also hard to prove exactly how much a particular factor reduces torture. The fact torture is illegal and that victims may not report what happened to them make it difficult to measure how often it occurs. We rely on estimates based on the reporting we have, which is likely to give a lower figure then the real number of cases. (Because we know from more thorough studies on other crimes that there is always a proportion that goes unreported and it is likely this proportion will be higher when the victim could face repercussions for reporting the crime. As is often the case with torture.)

 So what seems to help? I’ll start by talking about the factors we’re aware of that can reduce torture and then I’ll try to talk about how you might be able to apply them to the revolutionary organisation in your story.

 It might sound obvious but making torture illegal is usually a necessary first step.

 A change in the law in and of itself does not really do much. Especially not overnight. It’s about beginning to build a framework where reporting can happen and where people are actively looking for evidence of torture.

 The next steps are well building up that framework. Independent oversight is one of the biggest things.

 Here are a couple of things that can mean:

Anonymous reporting

Independent inspections

Regular unscheduled inspections

Independent medical reports and autopsies

Treating reports of torture seriously

Thorough investigation of all reports

Prosecution of torturers where there is sufficient evidence

Sentencing that fits the gravity of the crime*

Suspension of individuals accused of torture

 I tend to think of those factors as things that are sort of outside the organisation. Because ideally they’re coming from outside the organisation.

 Note that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re outside the system entirely. Using a comparison if you’re trying to stop police torture then the people handling reports, investigations etc could still be government employees but they should not be police. When the people in charge of torture investigations rely on the people they’re investigating for their jobs and wages… you get problems.

 There are also important factors within the organisation. Which are about building an organisation where torture is less likely to occur (whereas the factors outside the organisation are about rooting it out when it’s found.)

 A lot of these things basically boil down to building a positive working environment:

High quality training for all personnel

Regular refresher training with updates to training as appropriate

Appropriate staffing levels (ie there should always be enough people to easily run the organisation)

No one is forced to work overtime

Generous holiday allowance and sick pay

Consistent effort to structure and manage things to reduce stress in the workplace

Reasonable, achievable goals for staff

Appropriate, well supplied facilities

Thorough record keeping for staff and anyone they are responsible for

Avoidance of shifts that disrupt sleep as much as possible

 Torture is much, much less likely when staff are correctly trained, supported and given the resources necessary to do their jobs.

 There are also a handful of things that would probably help and fall into neither category such as limiting (or eliminating) access to devices commonly used to torture. For instance Tasers, pepper spray, particular forms of restraints but also (depending on where in the world we are) chilli powder, hose pipes and cleaning supplies.

 This might seem like quite a lot but it’s funny how much of it applies to the industry I actually work in: drugs testing.

 The place I work is regularly inspected by outside organisations (and usually without notice). Every single person on site has to go through extensive training programs which are refreshed at least once a year. Each and every one of us has to record and account for all our actions and any material and equipment we use. We can report things anonymously. Any allegations of malpractice are dealt with swiftly and prompt massive investigations.

 So I guess I’m saying that I think more of the organisations responsible for people should have the same level of accountability pharmaceutical testing does.

 Depending on the structure of your rebel organisation and what’s available too them a lot of this might not be possible. At least not at first.

 A small, poorly supplied organisation could struggle to combat torture effectively. But where there’s a will there’s a way.

 Size of the group seems to be a big thing here. With really small groups the members can often say pretty confidently whether torture is happening or not. Because they’re all working together so closely that they know more or less everything their colleagues are doing. But the bigger a group becomes the easier it is to lose track of people and for abuse to be hidden.

 My instinct is that genuinely independent oversight probably becomes easier after organisations reach a certain size. Because for a smaller (but not tiny) group anyone who might be investigating accusations could still be reliant on the people they’re investigating. They’re likely to work together, be close to each other and as a result they’re bringing a bias into any investigation.

 I think a smaller, newly founded organisation would really struggle to set up the kind of structured, independent inspection bodies that do most of the grunt work of finding and reporting on torture. Especially early on when they’ve just split off from the older, more established group.

 That’s partly because of numbers and partly because it takes time and expertise to set up these systems. Or at least to do it well. Going back to the comparison with my work, the organisations that inspect and audit my workplace have all been around for decades. Most of the ‘younger’ organisations are mergers or rebrands of much older organisations. The process is updated at least once a year and there is a labyrinth of laws around every single aspect of… well all of it.

 It takes a lot of time, energy and error to build that up in a robust way.

 But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing they can do.

 They might not be able to detect or investigate torture easily in the early stages but they could structure their organisation in ways that make it less likely for torture to happen in the first place.

 Proper training is probably the biggest one that would make a difference. Things like conducting a proper investigation or interrogation, de-escalation tactics, building rapport/people skills and negotiation.

 They could also limit the number of prisoners they hold and the length of time prisoners are held for. This is trickier to do ethically in a combat situation. If part of the point is that this group is more ethical they shouldn’t be maiming or summarily executing surrendering troops from the opposing side. They also shouldn’t be releasing prisoners in places they’re likely to die.

 One potential way around this is to focus on destroying equipment and facilities rather then ending lives. Taking weapons, destroying barracks, supply lines and the like.

 Captured enemy troops can potentially give out valuable information (you can read about effective interrogation here) but the majority of useful information doesn’t come from interrogating suspects/enemy troops in these scenarios. It comes from people volunteering information, whether they’re civilians or defectors.

 It might sound really obvious but a very easy way to avoid torture as an issue to not have anyone to torture. A policy of no prisoners, not in the sense of killing everyone but in the sense of immediate release after the goal has been achieved, reduces the amount of people held and hence the chance of torture.

 This sort of strategy in the beginning could give the organisation time to come up with the facilities, training program and inspection regime needed to keep prisoners in… as safe and ethical a way as possible. It would mean adopting a strategy of ambush style attacks on the facilities and supply lines of he opposing side/s.

 It would also help avoid overcrowding of any prison facilities which is a factor that leads to more violence in prisons.

 I think that just leaves the question of long term success which you’ve defined in terms of avoiding torture and eventually replacing the rebel group that tortures.

 That isn’t a question I can give a definitive ‘yes or no’ answer to. It depends on a lot of factors, as you can probably see from the lists above.

 My instinct is that it is possible. However it would take time. A lot of time. And it would mean keeping up that dedication, the rejection of torture, throughout.

 Supplanting an existing organisation would take years. Easily 5-10 years, and I think I might actually be under estimating things. It also depends on things like how well known both rebel groups are, how well they manage to build up public trust, the supply of recruits, the amount of territory they occupy.

 Part of what I’m driving at here is that doing things well, building systems and organisations that last and keep ethics at their core; it takes time. It takes hard work. And a lot of it feels thankless.

 In the early days your rebels will probably be bending over backwards, making life so much ‘harder’ for themselves in order to avoid torture. Only to have civilians turn around and mistake them for the group that tortures.

 The sad fact is that a lot of people feel destruction is more satisfying. It feels like ‘doing something’, whereas the hard work of building a better system over years/decades… it often feels like you’re getting nowhere. I think that, along with the cultural message that violence ‘works’, is why a lot of these abuses continue to happen.

 Once again I think that what you want from this story is possible. But it isn’t simple, it isn’t easy. It’s playing the long game. And there will be times when that grinds the characters down.

 A lot of stories say that ‘doing the right thing isn’t easy’ and then proceed to show the characters doing some big, impressive act that instantly solves everything. This is a fallacy. Sometimes it’s a fallacy that leads to some great stories! But it’s still a fictional motif that romanticises acts of violence over the hard work of building something better.

 And I think that if you want to show that hard work in your story you can’t gloss over the fact that it’s hard. It’s exhausting, it can be isolating. It can all be wiped away at any moment because of one hot-headed idiot.

 But the hard work and dedication would eventually pay off.

 These rebels would end up with better intelligence networks, better ties to the local communities and a better reputation. Which would probably lead to them becoming the go-to group for defectors, both from the other rebels and the group they’re trying to fight. They’d also probably get more volunteers in the long term.

 Wrapping up I think I’ll end with a note from Kurlansky’s Nonviolence: The History of a Dangerous Idea: Long term victory generally goes to the group that is the most organised. Focus on that. Really think about inventive ways to set up the systems and organisations these rebels are trying to build.

 Follow those points through logically.

 Your group might not end up looking like any rebel group you’ve seen in media before. But it’ll probably look closer to a lot of real organisations and give you a lot of fodder for stories.

 I hope that helps :)

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Available on Wordpress.

*Obviously there will always be debate about what this means but I personally do not think most places treat torture as a grave crime. As an illustration of what I mean American torturer Jon Burge is thought to have tortured at least 200 people during his time as a police officer. Several of the people Burge tortured ended up on death row. Thirty years after the initial reports he was sentenced to four and a half years in prison. He served three and a half.

[bokunoheroanalysisforthefuture]

Alright, and I am back with another update! But first, some stuff a friend noticed in the first few pages and mentioned to me that I didn’t take in when I went over them on my own the first time:

The park they’re in as kids is pretty close to the apartment complex Izuku and his mom live in! Considering that said apartment complex is right there in the background. Which probably isn’t a huge thing, but a neat thing to note.

The age these kids manifest their quirks at seems to be more preteen / teenage years, though I don’t know whether that’s just because it is later activation or because there were (subtle) quirks before that, with the glowing baby just being the one that had people sit up and realize something was actually going on.

Endeavor ad! And it has the time of that event that day, too - 8:14 AM! I wonder what he’s advertising… or perhaps it’s a news report? An interview of some kind? It might just be a ‘breaking news, we got Endeavor on our channel’ sort of thing. The only part that I can read is the first three katakana for the biggest text, which is ‘E-n-de’ and matches the wiki’s katakana for ‘Endeavor’. If anyone can get a good enough look at the smaller text in order to tell me what the rest says, I would appreciate it!

Just a few things, but obviously I need to up my observation game if I want to catch all this stuff!

[No. 1 - Midoriya Izuku: Origin]

So now we’re at Aldera / Orudera Junior High, with Izuku’s class being in their last year before high school. Since Japan’s schools start on the second week of April, we know this has to be that first week of school, because Katsuki’s still 14 and his birthday is April 20th, which would almost always be the third week of April / second week of school. 

What is that writing stance. You are going to have an old man’s back by the time you graduate high school. I mean, I wouldn’t know anything about that personally, cough cough…

Anyways! We get a look at Izuku’s class and their quirks, and what a collection. Also, with an attitude like that, no wonder this school is seen as bad, like, what the fuck dude. Not exactly a competent homeroom teacher, are you?

The ones that I can see, from leftmost row to rightmost row, are [1] floating hair, stretchy fingers, dark matter, [2] smokey arms, spike fists, stretchy eyes, frog throat, some sort of flash/illumination quirk, [3] rocky body, ???, stretchy neck, flamethrower arms, extra arms, [4] sharp hair, big chompers, wedge face, [quirkless], mouth face (seen in the next panel and holy FUCK new sleep paralysis demon), [5] horns, telekinesis, [explosion], buff bod, ???, [6] wind control, ???

WHY.

But yeah, this also establishes the first rule of ‘don’t use quirks in school’ thing that… also gets promptly ignored the several other times we see stuff set in this school. Which, what a shock, people sort of sliding around inconvenient rules.

Anyways, Katsuki has proven that he hasn’t changed since those first few childhood panels way back (checks) ten pages ago. And Izuku is being… very shy and trying to avoid drawing attention. But no shaking, particularly, just… wallflower mode, more like.

But yeah, Katsuki is not exactly on great terms with the rest of the class, who are rightfully pissed off at him treating them rudely and calling them extras. Though honestly, I’m surprised that they’re surprised he’s aiming for UA, it’s not like he wouldn’t have been obvious about that for, like, years at this point. You’d think they’d all roll their eyes and be like ‘yeah yeah we’ve heard this spiel before’ or something. IDK.

Oh man, and Izuku already KNOWS what’s coming, look at how he’s hiding his face!

Katsuki is, of course, Fucking Extra and hops on his desk, and gets right into bragging, where, AGAIN, this should have been stuff this class has known about for ages, why are they so shocked?? And huh, interesting, he’s not only interested in surpassing All Might, but also in being one of the richest people in the world. Wow, I cannot even with him, especially knowing he lives in this house in particular:

Which, it should be clear, is an EXPENSIVE lifestyle when most families live in modest apartments because of space being so valuable in Japan. 

God this is a fantastic image. I wanna frame it on a wall somewhere. Hori managed to convey all the emotions in one face and I admire the man for it. 

With the whole class laughing, there’s a thing I want to note that fandom seems to not pay attention to: they note that Izuku gets good grades! I’ve seen fics that basically have him forced to sabotage his own grades to avoid getting backlash, but like… no, I don’t think that’s actually a thing. 

[Also an aside, we finally see one more class quirk, which seems to be some sort of bulked up arm? It looks a bit like mummy bandages, as far as I can tell.]

Izuku gets into defending himself, saying there’s no precedent, but he IS defending himself against them, so again, he’s not cowering as much as some people seem to think he does based on fics, and clearly he’s still willing to stand up for himself to some degree. 

...then of course, Katsuki blows up Izuku’s desk and sends Izuku sprawling. And is pissed that Izuku apparently thinks he, who is quirkless, can somehow be on the same level as Katsuki. Izuku swears up and down that it’s not about Katsuki, that he just really wants to try, and this somehow pisses Katsuki off even more. 

I want you all to remember this image - save it on your computers, bookmark this post, whatever you need to do. We’ll come back to it in, oh (checks watch) about 284 chapters. Or maybe sooner in a separate post where I can put it under read more and avoid spoiling people more than this does. Because DAMN can I gush on this moment.

Anyways, we have a change of scene, right after noon, with a thief with a sludge transformation and,,,,,,,, legs and pants,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Where the fuck did those pants go, sir. Sir. What the fuck, sir.

Also, we get our first meeting with the OG dad, the sunflower man himself, who blooms into 255 kilos of muscle in one panel. Also, man I forgot about the fucking giraffe neck Hori used to draw him with, holy heck, why are you so l o n g.

L O N G.

...right, anyways, back to the school, which is apparently over for the day. The rest of the class is heading out, and Izuku’s back to his chipper self, even humming a happy note as he grabs his notebook-

Before Katsuki nabs it from his hands. There are a few people who’ve hung back who notice the title and pick fun at izuku, so I guess Izuku actually… doesn’t talk about his desire to be a hero that much in middle school, if the others are all so surprised about it. He apparently doesn’t even make his notebooks obvious to them, since this is the first time any of them seem to be seeing it. Which I mean, it makes sense if the class will tease him for it, but like. Even with Katsuki stealing the book, Izuku’s not super panicked or having a nervous breakdown.

But yeah, Katsuki just blasts the book, but! It’s just the cover singed (and edges) when we know he could have demolished that book entirely. Again, he’s definitely being a bully and a jerk here, but he’s got way more self-control than fandom likes to assume. 

Izuku’s upset because of his damaged notebook, and Katsuki just huffs and throws it out the window while saying he’s gonna be the only kid from Aldera to go to UA. And Izuku, EVEN WHILE STRESSING, thinks of him as vain for thinking that way! That’s not the first thought of someone too terrified to do anything.

Edit: As pointed out to me in [this post], it was Katsuki’s crony who was thinking of him as vain, not Izuku. My bad!

Also note the lack of damage to Izuku’s school uniform. I know I’ve seen fics where there’s a hole made and a burn scar left that Izuku has to tend to, but Katsuki, again, has not directly used his quirk against Izuku. We’ve never seen it, just the smoke and flash used for intimidation. I’m getting more and more confident that Katsuki has never actually used his quirk against a person, which I’m probably gonna get a bit more into during the battle training in a few chapters.

But yeah, the cronies / extras basically call Izuku lame and that he can’t face reality. And then we get this scene:

That’s not the face of someone afraid. That’s Izuku’s determined face.

Izuku is about to stand up to Katsuki again. The way he always has, the way he always will. There has never been a point in the series where Izuku has NOT stood up to Katsuki when he feels it matters, and that’s part of the reason Katsuki is so pissed with him every time he does - because Izuku REFUSES to see his place! Not once!

(Please, for the love of god, respect the Izuku who didn’t need a quirk to stand up to others. Who isn’t ‘broken’ or ‘terrified’ of Katsuki or anything like that. He’s a stubborn kid and we Stan That.)

Izuku, however, is not confident enough in this situation to want to press the issue, so he relents and says nothing when Katsuki prods him to escalate things. And then we immediately get to the ‘you idiot, don’t fucking suicide bait!’ but you can tell it’s been a stressful few moments for him. 

So yeah, the summary of this section is ‘Izuku is not an uwu suffering babey, and Katsuki is way more restrained than people seem to think.’ 

I’m cutting it off here since, again, we got a lot of info and character examination, and honestly this whole chapter is a long ass one (55 pages!!!!) and it’s establishing the entire setting from the ground up. And honestly, I’m just vibing in being Right about how I’ve been viewing the characters at the start of the series… even if i am guilty of sometimes playing with fanon for my own means…

Still, this is fun! Hopefully y’all are having fun too!

[skullhaver]

It's 2021, and I'm watching Buffy for the first time.

The Virgil on my Buffy journey is my long-distance girlfriend, who has loved the show for years. We just finished season 4, and I wanted to write about my favorite episodes so far. I suspect some of my faves are beloved by most fans, but others are weird, personal picks. Buffy fandom, please don't come for me.

I thought this post would be short but I was wrong.

Hono(u)rable Mentions: "Band Candy" S3E6 and "Halloween" S2E6

Both these episodes have fun premises where the Scoobies run around Sunnydale after it was upended by zany, chaotic dark forces. "Band Candy" is fun for devil-may-care teen Giles. "Halloween" is fun for 18th-century-ditz Buffy. These are both very good, and are the sorts of episode I can imagine happily rewatching in the future. I just have more to pontificate upon for the other episodes on this list.

10. "Ted" S2E11

I can’t say I enjoyed this episode, but it did take me for a wild ride. Probably nobody else has strong feelings about this weird story where Buffy's mom dates a stereotypical cheesy family man, who turns out to be a controlling abuser, who turns out to be a robot. I remember shouting at the screen, "Did Buffy just kill a human man?? Is it okay in the moral logic of this show for Buffy to kill a human if he's a direct physical threat to her??" I knew Buffy would have deeper stories than the monster of the week formula we'd seen so far, but this early in season 2, I had no idea when or how that would happen. This was the episode that finally taught me that Buffy is largely not interested in moral ambiguity, or in exploring what it means to be good or bad. Except for season-defining exceptions like Faith and Angel, evil characters are simplistically, essentially evil. But it was wild to believe for a moment that Buffy murdered her mom's abusive boyfriend and would have to live with the consequences.

9. "Helpless" S3E12

When Buffy tries to be genuinely scary, it succeeds with aplomb. The premise of this episode is dumb and contrived ("Giles has to remove Buffy's powers without her knowledge for a seeeecret test by the Watcher's Council") but the chase and fight in this episode are some of the most tense and spooky scenes of the whole series so far. Buffy's vulnerability makes the stakes feel real in a way few other episodes manage. And Buffy's victory is all the more satisfying because she can't punch her way out of this problem, she has to be smart and creative. The fridge horror, of course, is that Giles would endanger her like this in the first place, but that gets sorted out over the emotional arc of the next few episodes.

8. "I Only Have Eyes For You." S2E19

Another spooky episode, this one a classic ghost story of forbidden love ending in murder - but with the twist that the ghosts possess people's bodies to have them reenact their final moments. I love stories about breaking a doomed-to-repeat cycle. I love weird shit like the snakes manifesting in the cafeteria. And I really loved the choice to have Buffy and Angel come to understand their feelings about their own relationship by embodying these ghosts - especially how they embodied different genders than their own to better fit the "roles" of the haunting story, thus subverting the expected pattern. I found this episode clever, poignant, and effective.

7. "Who Are You?" S4E16

"Faith and Buffy switch bodies" is a wild premise, but the real joy of "Who Are You?" is watching Sarah Michelle Geller being an extremely talented actress for 45 minutes, portraying a totally different character. Watching Faith confronted by kindness and love from Buffy's mom, Riley, and her friends, then getting launched into an existential crisis over it is so great. Also, I just dig a good church fight.

6. "Hush" S4E10

As stated above, love an episode that reminds me that these people are talented actors! Featuring demons that render all of Sunnydale unable to talk, we get to watch great physical comedy right next to tense, silent fight scenes. The visual creepiness of the Gentleman and their straight-jacketed weird little helpers is hard to beat. "Hush" is such a clever episode that it ascends monster of the week status to become almost Twilight Zone-esque. Also, for the first time, Buffy sees Riley doing his Initiative thing, and Riley sees Buffy being the Slayer, but they can't talk about it?? That's good shit.

5. "The Wish" S3E9

Both "Something Blue" and "The Wish" feel like the writers decided to use fanfic premises on their own show... so obviously I like them a lot. But getting to watch a dark timeline AU with interesting world-building and attention to detail, a hilarious and horrifying Cordelia POV, AND a smirking kinky vampire Willow? Hello?? And the fact that the Wishverse comes up again in "Doppelgänger" (another truly fun episode) only improves my opinion. I imagine this is the kind of episode fans simply love coming back to.

4. "Restless" S4E22

This David Lynch-ass dream sequence was a weird choice for a season finale, but an extremely ambitious and cool episode. I should say up front that I love David Lynch-ass dream shit. There were creative and well-executed scene transitions as characters moved seamlessly from one dream room into another. Several memorably neat shots - Willow running between endless curtains as she tries to get onstage, Buffy alone in a vast desert with a weirdly high camera angle. And I got myself all excited thinking that the First Slayer would maybe become a different kind of antagonist - maybe not even fully revealed in this episode, or maybe an Id-like aspect of Buffy herself. But I forgot Whedon gonna Whedon, so the First Slayer had to be someone Buffy could punch in the end. And the First Slayer is sadly yet another primitive-themed, emotionally-stunted character of color for this show. Most of her lines in this episode are literally voiced by a white woman speaking for her, and of all the dumb quips to make, Buffy had a line about her hair being unprofessional? Also, I'm a lesbian, so the fact that the most explicit act of intimacy between Willow and Tara this show has allowed us to see occurs in Xander's horny dream sequence... it’s unforgivable, Joss. This episode was one of my favorites ever, deeply marred by some bad writing choices.

3. "Lovers Walk" S3E8

Spike, perhaps the best non-Willow character in this show, is back in Sunnydale, a hilariously heartbroken mess of a man, hell-bent on getting his former girlfriend Drusilla back. (Drusilla left him for a fungus demon.) So Spike breaks into a magic shop to get ingredients for a love spell, where he runs into Willow, who is getting ingredients for a de-lusting spell, because she is worried she and Xander will be too thirsty to behave appropriately in public with their actual partners, Oz and Cordelia. This is a hilarious moment just to exist. This is all the episode needed to do to satisfy me. But the fact that Spike then kidnaps Willow, and it ends with tragic stakes of everyone's relationships coming apart, not to mention me genuinely thinking Cordelia was dead for a minute there - wow. Chef’s kiss. The episode is balanced shockingly well between Spike being an ominous villain, and being the sort of lovable semi-evil (more gremlin-like) side character he'll become in season 4. What a wild ride.

2. "Graduation Day" S3E21-22

I'm counting this two part season finale as one because it's my list and I'll do what I want. "Graduation Day" feels like a quintessential Buffy episode executed to perfection. It has Buffy reaffirming her position as a moral heroine, sacrificing her own blood to save Angel's life even when she thought she had to kill Faith to save him. It has Buffy and Faith (or Buffy/Faith, as I prefer to think of them) getting to square off in a dramatic, tough fight. It has a lot of Mayor Wilkins, a character I truly adore for some reason. Nothing like a public administrator who plays mini golf in his office, wants you to chew with your mouth closed, and will kill a graduating class of high schoolers to gain immortality. The catharsis of the whole school getting to fight back against evil, instead of just Buffy against the world - a real joy. This episode misses the top spot for two reasons. "A special vampire poison and the only cure is the blood of a Slayer" is too contrived for me to let slide, and also I had to see Cordelia and Wesley kiss.

1. "Becoming" S2E21-22

Buffy’s season finales really do have good stories and satisfying payoff. First off, Buffy starts this episode by punching a cop and fleeing from the law. Later, Spike also punches a cop. A.k.a., Buffy said blue lives don't matter. Second - I haven't gotten a chance to comment on this yet, but all throughout season 2, evil Angel is such a joy to watch. As regular Angel, David Boreanaz makes exactly one face ("I am a kicked, angsty puppy") and bless his heart, it gets so tiresome. As evil Angel, he is so expressive, dynamic and terrifyingly creative in his badness. And I love his weird threesome energy with Spike and Drusilla. But also, it's so hard to watch Buffy suffer as she deals with her evil boyfriend doing evil things. Her ultimate choice in this episode, to kill Angel even as Willow's spell restores his soul, gave me some real big feels! Also, this episode marks the first moment of Willow doing big, plot-shifting magic on her own, solidifying her transformation from computer nerd to witch! 

Also, shout-out to the many good smaller moments in this episode: Spike making awkward small talk with Buffy's mom, Buffy constantly dunking on Principle Snyder, and Giles being tortured by visions of Miss Calendar (RIP Miss Calendar, I was your biggest fan.)

"Becoming" is an excellent season finale and the kind of Buffy episode I imagine I will want to re-watch in the future just for nostalgia's sake.

[cytarabi]

Hey! I've become a huge fan of your fics on ao3. I wanted to know how do you push out so many beautiful chapters so quickly? What's your writing process like? I'm working on a big JB fic, which I'm trying to finish timely, but high quality. Always like to see how other writers do their thang! Thank you!

Hi! I remember your name!! <3 Thank YOU for the question and praise, that’s so sweet!!

I love seeing how other writers do their thang, too! And I’ve found it can be very, very different for each author.

TLDR I write a lot of my fic ahead of time. I outline the entire fic, chapter by chapter before I start writing. I use several tools to speed the process and/or to make it more artsy fartsy.

I’ve found that I’m a “plotter” and not a “pantser” (two main ways of writing, unless you hate being labeled lol.)

Plotter means that I prefer plotting out most of the story before I write the details. Here’s been my process for my multichapter fics:

1) I come up with an idea and let it brew! I think about key scenes or dialogue I love and I jot them down in my phone on Google notes. Write down your ideas, you’ll probably forget them.

2) During this brewing time, (for As Black As Thunder and my next fic) I take the time to read, read, read. I read works and jot more notes! I have an entire Google doc for Rebecca by Daphne de Maurier where I wrote down her tone usage, figurative language and summary of each chapter. I can’t tell you how much this has helped get me in the write TONE for the work. Tone is SO important. Readers reading a thriller will expect thriller beats! Deep Fried Drinks was a rom com, so the verbs, adjectives etc are very different from creepy Gothic. When I started As Black As Thunder (ABAT), wow, it was hard to nail the tone at first. But by the second half of the fic, I’m fully immersed in it and it’s much easier to create the tone naturally. Without using inspiration, I don’t think it would have turned out as well. For ABAT, I think I took two weeks of no writing, when I’m used to writing every day. It was hard not to write, but wow, was I ready when I started!

3) When I’m ready to outline, I do! I open a google doc for the fic and start throwing everything I can think of in there. My ABAT doc was only like three lines for 6 months... lol! I’ve only just started looking into story structure, so my older fics are all wonky. BUT for ABAT and Deep Fried Drinks, I tried to follow story structure for plots. First act, second act, third act, character arcs, etc. My longest fic, Time Stops, dropped a bunch of readers in the middle and I think it’s because my middle SAGGED majorly. I didn’t try to follow a structure, just sort of plotted it out how I wanted to, and it was probably very repetitive and boring. For ABAT, I plotted a mid point turn to spice things up, chose things to make the character more proactive, etc. I highly recommend Ellen Brock on Youtube for any plotting advice. She’s an editor, and I’ve learned so much!

4) Organize plot into chapters, write key notes for chapters and fill out background info. The first two are self explanatory, but the third is my favorite! One thing that speeds my writing (I have no idea if people do this or not) but I have lists. So many lists! For ABAT, I have lists of common outfits for characters (I usually hate writing about outfits but I’m glad I wrote more for this work). I also write the character arc for each main character. For ABAT, I have the following for Brienne:

Brienne 

Symbols: white crocus flower (purity, youthfulness, sensitive to rain), White begonia, Small birch saplings struggling for light

Goal: serve public, be idealistic, honorable

Lie: (hidden for spoilers)

Truth: (hidden for spoilers)

Flaw: stubborn, idealistic, watched her father get fame and respect for his engineering, wants to do the same thing and do it perfectly, doesn’t understand systemic racism 

Motivation: serve people, be accepted by the public, belonging, abandonment

Stakes: public rejection, Tarth name on the line, mockery, insanity, failure

So when I think about a curve ball for Brienne at any point of the story, this character section helps me stay true to character. I have a section for Brienne, Jaime, Cersei and Missandei. Cersei has a larger section because she’s a villain... ;)

In addition to this section, I also write down their personalities and strengths. You know, like if they went to an interview lol. For example, I have Missandei have the following strengths: 

Missandei

Adaptability: able to adapt

Intellection: introspective and appreciate intellectual discussions

Consistency: all people should be treated the same

Futuristic: fascinated by future

Learner: loves to learn

I ALSO have an emotion worksheet and this is SO USEFUL. They say in writing: show that the character is angry, not tell the reader. WELL, IDK about you but I can’t keep track of all the little quirks characters do and yet, I want them to be consistent. If while writing a scene, I sometimes think, “Hmm what is Jaime doing if he’s in awe right now?” I search for “awe” at the top of my fic, and bam, I have options, more or less. For a lot of emotions, I brainstormed ideas based on character traits, arcs, Gothic tone etc. I fill all of this out before I write the first chapter. 

Here’s an example of some emotions I have for ABAT:

Emotion List (remember to have introspection, unique perspective) 

Awe:

B: wrinkle deepened between brows, parted lips, fixed gaze, stands still

J: arched brow, open mouth, stare, goes closer

C: lowering chin or raising chin, goes closer

M: adaptable, quick to react

Deceptive:

B: looking away, walking away

J: scratching ear

C: smiling, neatly placed hands

M: long blink

Thoughtfulness:

B: staring off, quiet, daydreaming

J: staring at object important to him, twisting pencil or object in his hand, squeezing his hand

C: squeezing hand, staring at object she wants to get rid of or improve

M: daydreaming, staring off at her own outfit—it’s foreign

5) Now the fun part: writing! I used to write with scene structure outline, but I think I’ve grown off the training wheels. But it really helped me in Deep Fried Drinks to plot out the chapter scenes ahead of time, and I used Ellen Brock’s proactive and reactive videos to help me out with that. I throw on some music to get me in the mood of the story and I write during my kid’s nap, about two hours every day. Sometimes I’ll write at night, but lately I’ve been too tired to do that. My tip for this part is to try and figure out what you want to improve. What are you good at, and what could you improve as a writer? My first fics had like zero figurative language. Awkward. This takes a level of awareness that’s hard to reach but watching or researching creative writing technique really helps me. For example, I used to NEED to write all five senses out for each chapter ahead of time. Now it comes naturally to me! I would say now my main issue is phrasing? Pacing? And I need to tone down the melodrama for my next work....... lol! I write, write, write--and usually, I write 60-90% of the fic before I start editing!

6) Editing. Fun fun fun. I don’t mind editing, I just don’t think I’m that GOOD at it. I try to read through my chapter twice and edit as I go. I look for things I want to take out or add, look for show vs tell, formatting, etc--do things make sense? Did I miss anything? In ABAT, I’ll write something in chap 20 that I need to start in chap 18, so I’ll go back and make a quick note to “add part about document somewhere in this chapter” so I don’t confuse readers. When I edit chap 18, I’ll add that line or paragraph in. It’s all an intricate web! I also have a list of vague words I try to eliminate or replace with stronger words (I have more words if you want them). I found that I have certain words or phrases that echo a lot, like “while”, “turned around”, “turned” or “did not”--now I search for these phrases/words and try to change them:

Get rid of vague words, fix by explaining more:

Some 

While

Thing

Stuff

Very

Really

Big/small

Good/bad

Simple verbs: had, was, went

Got/get

Few

Several

What

Do/Did

It

Like with all writing “rules”, they can be broken, but it helps to know why they are rules. I steered away from adverbs, and I think it improves my writing. Other writers have different prose and adverbs work so well--it all depends on your style! If I find these vague words in dialogue, for example, I almost never change them because dialogue is usually freaking vague lol!

7) Beta reader(s)! I honestly think this work is better than my other stuff because I have a newer beta reader, theunpaidcritic!!! *I bow* She’s literally an expert so it’s SO helpful for me in every way--I can’t fangirl about her enough. If you’re struggling to get a beta reader, I recommend joining a JB discord (transformative werk is my favorite discord, and there is a beta read request thread) or post a request on reddit!

8) Post! Once you’ve edited and gone over beta reader notes, it’s time to post! Congrats!!!!!!!!!!

For time reference, I started this process around mid-May for ABAT, and I will be done by early September. Maybe I’m just a fast writer? Compared to angel-deux, ha, I look slow. Everyone is different! Please let me know if you have any other questions, I am ALL about helping out! :) <3 <3 <3

[darkpoisonouslove]

2020 in Words

After the total exhaustion and lack of motivation of the last few months, I have finally found the strength to review 2020. In terms of writing, that is. Otherwise, we ain’t touching that with a 100-foot pole. But anyway, let’s get to the actual good part of 2020 - the writing.

Word Count:

678, 105 words

And that isn’t actually all. I have started various things that 2021 caught still in progress so there are more words to be added to that number but I’ll count them towards whatever time frame I finish them in (I do not even dare assume that all of them will be finished this year).

A little over 1/7th of that word count was accomplished only in March when I wrote over 100k words. Wow, productivity where did you go? I know that the world is going to hell but do you mind coming back? I can use you. I have so many new ideas that I am really excited about but totally lack the energy to actually get to. Hope that will change in the next weeks because there is A Lot going on in my head that I am actually dying to share.

Fandoms:

Winx Club has totally taken over for me. I have barely written five works this year that are not about that show and I just don’t know what is happening anymore. I have so many thoughts and things to discuss and fix about it and I have a feeling that some upcoming events will only reinforce that position. But what truly matters is that it has truly made 2020 more bearable to be in the fandom and write fic. The interactions with other fans have been lovely which is totally worth the brain damage that some experiences over this show have inflicted.

Once Upon a Time lurked until about the half of the year but I can’t say that I have been actively interested in it. I just rewatched 4A for the Frozen Swan interactions and 4B for Cruella De Vil and that was pretty much all of it this year. I think it’s safe to say that at this point I have more or less moved on from the show and I do not expect a miraculous comeback to it. Which leaves my rewatch dangling over the chasm of uncertainty but I have projects I am far more interested in rn to be thinking about that.

I actually joined the Lucifer fandom this year, though I cannot say that I am active in it at all. It was nice to challenge myself with the small contribution I made to the fanworks in the fandom so I am putting it here because I am not done with watching the show even though I don’t think I have a good enough grasp on any of the characters in order to actually write them.

Ships:

Well, 2020 definitely delivered on that front. I have found myself piles of new ships to ship the hell out. Some I am more grateful about, others leave me slightly bitter over not knowing what to do with them but it certainly hasn’t been boring. Because this is my wrap-up and contemplation, I get to list them and maybe say a couple of words about some of them.

Griffin x Valtor - Not new but it was definitely the biggest part of that year.

Griffin x Valtor x Faragonda - New in the sense of me having written a fic about this now... and having several more ideas on my drives so... beware, future!

Griffin x Faragonda - Also not new but when the feelings catch up with me, they really mean it. Two major bursts of inspiration about them have left me with interesting results and I am looking forward to finding out where this goes.

Marion x Oritel - That was new. It was the first new ship of the year. I have more ideas about them but the muse has not visited lately. I am not giving up, though. Sometimes you gotta sail the ship even when there’s no wind.

Flora x Icy - That was definitely a surprise. I don’t know what happened but I do know that a goddamn look at Pinterest has brought on an entire epic about them (and the other Trix and Winx) so... thanks for that, Pinterest. I wish you could pin free time on Pinterest and go consume it later so that I would actually have the time to work on all of this.

Layla x Stella - Oh, yeah, baby! I have feelings and I really want to do at least an outline of what would be too long to actually write as a fic, especially since I have A Lot on my plate rn.

Griffin x Griselda - Well, that... happened. I have no idea where any of this is going, only that it is a major part of Griffin’s arc in my most major series so... I guess it’s headed somewhere. Just have to stay along for the ride.

Zarathustra x Griselda - So totally trashcankitty12′s fault... But I guess I am the one responsible for actually including it in already ongoing stories.

Ediltrude x DuFour - Okay, that one I totally roped myself into. Do I regret it? ... Maybe a little because it may need to remain just background thanks to everything else that I have going on.

Griffin x Marion - Almost forgot that which is a damn shame because it is one of my absolute most favorite ships.

Griffin x Valtor x Marion - Not gonna lie, this has been sneaking into some stray ideas too repetitively to be an accident. Will it ever exist outside of my head, though?

Samara x Erendor - I just wanted to make them more likable to me because they were my least favorite characters on the show. Worked too well and now I am in fic hell.

Bloom x Sky - I got ONE idea, okay? Too bad that I love it too much for my own good, especially considering that it is sort of a rewrite of the series. Like I didn’t have enough of those already.

There are more, actually, but we will be here all day if I have to list every stray idea that I have entertained so let’s just move on.

Stories:

Winx Club - 80 (4 unfinished and 3 that I have been dragging with me since 2019 for a total of 7/111 incomplete.)

OUAT - 3 (all finished but I have two collections that are still open from 2019 and 2018 respectively)

Lucifer - 1 (it was a one-shot but I am glad that I managed to write it at all)

Original works - 1 (poem that I came up with at 4am)

That makes a total of 85 written works this year which is honestly astounding! My brain has been harping on me about not being productive since June but I have actually gotten quite a lot of work done! (Fun fact - my total for 2019 was 58 stories, and for 2020 it is 85 XD. We’re gonna need some new numbers in 2021.)

First fic of the year - Gold and Purple (Griffin x Valtor AU inspired by a Bulgarian folk tale)

Last fic of the year - New Warmth to Weave in Your Garden of Shine (Samara x Erendor + New Year traditions and worldbuilding on Eraklyon)

Favorite writing moment - that has got to be coming up with a wild idea for my season  rewrite that I will not be spoiling now. It was also inspired by Bulgarian folklore and I am so excited to reveal it (because it is so fucking grand) but we will all have to be patient.\

Wildest writing experience - definitely the entirety of chapter 4 from A Home You Never Knew How to Have. Man, that was... a goddamn ride. In every sense of the word. I still haven’t reread that bitch after posting it even though I have opened it probably a hundred times.

I launched several series this year that will need a lot of work to be brought to completion. Naturally, my focus is not on finishing those but on starting new things. Because of course it is. So here’s a heads-up for another post that will be coming shortly with announcements of my ideas. I would like to call it a plan for 2021 but I fear that will be too presumptuous of me so I will say that it is my hope that those are things that are to be released this year but I will only lapel them as projects that I am looking forward to rather than “upcoming”.

Other Works:

This year actually bore a couple other forms of art so I am going to list my creations in other mediums below because they deserve the attention.

Aesthetics:

Icy

Darcy

Stormy

Marion

Ediltrude & Zarathustra

Siren AU:

Griffin

Ediltrude

Zarathustra

Icy

Darcy

Stormy

Magic-Swapped Transformations:

Griffin Winx

Ediltrude Winx

Zarathustra Winx

Griffin Chamrix

Ediltrude Chamrix

Zarathustra Chamrix

Griffin Enchantix

Ediltrude Enchantix

Zarathustra Enchantix

Videos:

Griffin/Valtor - The Devil I Know

Winx - Trouble

Marion x Oritel/Griffin x Valtor/Faragonda x Hagen - Savage

Bloom/Mitzi - Wicked

Samara - You Should See Me in a Crown

Bloom/Sky - Kerosene

Winx Rewatch:

I actually rewatched all 8 seasons of the show + the 3 movies and I have written out my thoughts on all of them. You can find them here:

Winx Club Season 1 4kids (Stream of Consciousness) (I am actually considering redoing this one because it wasn’t in-depth like the others are)

Winx Club Season 2 4kids Part 1 (Stream of Consciousness)

Winx Club Season 2 4kids Part 2 (Stream of Consciousness)

Winx Club Season 3 4kids Part 1 (Stream of Consciousness)

Winx Club Season 3 4kids Part 2 (Stream of Consciousness)

Winx Club: The Secret of the Lost Kingdom (Stream of Consciousness)

Winx Club Season 4 Part 1 (Stream of Consciousness)

Winx Club Season 4 Part 2 (Stream of Consciousness)

Winx Club: Magical Adventure (Stream of Consciousness)

Winx Club Season 5 Part 1 (Stream of Consciousness)

Winx Club Season 5 Part 2 (Stream of Consciousness)

Winx Club: Mystery of the Abyss (Stream of Consciousness)

Winx Club Season 6 Part 1 (Stream of Consciousness)

Winx Club Season 6 Part 2 (Stream of Consciousness)

Winx Club Season 7 Part 1 (Stream of Consciousness)

Winx Club Season 7 Part 2 (Stream of Consciousness)

Winx Club Season 8 Part 1 (Stream of Consciousness)

Winx Club Season 8 Part 2 (Stream of Consciousness)

Winx Club Special 1: Destiny of Bloom (Stream of Consciousness)

Winx Club Special 2: Revenge of the Trix (Stream of Consciousness)

Winx Club Special 3: The Battle for Magix (Stream of Consciousness)

Winx Club Special 4: The Shadow Phoenix (Stream of Consciousness)

I will not be writing any takeaways because I already talked about some of those in an ask and my brain is too fired at the moment to pull off some actual analysis and compose a proper conclusion. To be perfectly honest, I prefer not to think too much on 2020. It brought a lot of good things along with the bad but I still prefer not to look back on it if it isn’t necessary. I think it received enough of my energy already.

[sing-in-me-oh-muse]

List All the Titles of Your WIPs Challenge!

Image credit.

Aaah, thank you, @ladyofthenoodle for tagging me with the List All the Titles of Your WIPs Challenge! I have... so many... I’ll be listing them for like, an hour. Apparently I’m starved for attention, so here we go!

Published WIP Fics:

These are the fics that already have a chapter or two up. The titles will link to the chapters on Ao3.

Breaking Bread (crack) (1/??? chapters done) - Tom and Sabine drug front AU based off of a cracky chapter from my Choose Your Own Adventure story, The Startling Souffle. I have literally nothing past the first chapter, even an outline. I am also writing a Breaking Bread (hardcore) version that focuses on Luka as Tom and Sabine’s drug mule which I have the first few paragraphs for and half an outline. 

Chat Loaf (2 out of 3 chapters done) - Adrien and Marinette pre-reveal make out where Adrien has cat tendencies and kneads Marinette’s belly, revealing himself. That was all this was supposed to be, but then Rikka had to go and say “oh, by the way, cats knead because they were improperly weaned from their mothers,” and the angsty second chapter and the cute third chapter outlines were born! 2/3 chapters are published, but I have nothing on the 3rd but an outline in my Fics to Write list.

desperation, there’s danger in frustration (5/??? chapters done) - This is my current huge multichapter fic. It started out with a post-Hawkmoth defeat make out session where a 22-23 year old Adrien and Marinette just... went after each other because they were so desperate to be alive. And now it’s ballooned into something angsty and keeps getting worse for our heroes. I’m on chapter 5 out of ???.

I want you I need you I love you (help me) (1 out of 4 chapters done)- Also titled Lovesquare Pining, this fic starts out with Chat thinking about how much he wants/needs/loves Ladybug. I have plans to explore mutual pining on all sides of the square. I have 1 out of 4 chapters complete.

The Song of Silencer (1/??? chapters done) - This is a crack-treated-seriously fic that started as a one shot, but exploded into a massive, multichapter monster. Basically, rather than saying Lucky Charm and helping Ladybug, Silencer uses Ladybug’s voice to say “De-transformation.” Seeing he has hurt Marinette, Luka fights off his akumatization. Song of Silencer turns canon completely on its head. I have 1 chapter and a full outline.

Non-Published WIP Fics:

These are the fics which I have some chapters/full outlines for.

Chat Gets Therapy (working title) - A multichapter fic in which 23-year-old Adrien, suffering from depression and the inability to care for himself, seeks out a therapist. Unfortunately, the doctor is a bad one. I have an outline and a 1 1/2 chapters. 

CYOA: I only have pies for you - This is a multichapter sequel to my Choose Your Own Adventure: The Startling Souffle where a pre-reveal Adrien and Marinette bake pies and can’t keep  their hands off each other. Tom and Sabine are highly amused by the couple. I have a full (very complicated) outline and a few chapters.

Gaslit Marinette (working title) - This multichapter fic came from a prompt from @ladyofthenoodle: “ When the Order of the Guardians show up in Paris and ask him to relinquish his miraculous, Chat Noir refuses, and assumes Ladybug will do the same - after all, with her memory attached to the Guardianship of the Miracle Box, she has a lot to lose. But he’d underestimated her sense of duty, and now he has to contend with a new ladybug holder that refuses to work with him, escalating pressure from the Order, and the fact that Marinette Dupain-Cheng doesn’t remember anything about him. Or anything about the last year and a half - and he’s pretty sure that’s not a coincidence.” I have a half an outline written and a lot of enthusiasm. *sweats* 

Get you a man who... - A cute one shot for my Domestic Cavities series, which involve fluffy domestic scenes at all stages of life for Miraculous Ladybug characters. This fic is all about Adrien being sweet to Marinette and his family, and Marinette telling her toddler things like, “get you a man who will let his baby daughter paint his nails.”

rose-tinted glasses - This is a protanopia one shot. Protanopia is a condition where the person or creature affected cannot see the color red, or anything along that spectrum of colors. In short, cats have protanopia > Chat has protanopia > The more time he spends transformed, the faster Adrien starts losing his ability to see the color red. I have an outline and the first few paragraphs.

Lovesquare Makeouts - This multichapter fic was a group project that never got off the ground, so I begged asked to take the project over for myself. It’s just what it says on the tin: pre-reveal pre-relationship make outs on all sides of the square. I have the first chapter written and an extensive outline.

must be the season of the witch - This multichapter witch AU started as a typo of all things. Rikka meant to curse out Gabriel, but said “Duck Gabriel” instead, leading me to write a first chapter and an outline of a witch Marinette turning Gabriel into a duck for Adrien’s sake. Once again, crack treated seriously, as the two teens take the newly-minted canard and go on the run. I have a first chapter and a vague idea as to where the story goes next, but no full outline.

my bones are shifting in my skin (and you, my love, are gone) - Dead Ladybug fic. Hawkmoth gets ahold of both miraculous and makes the wish, choosing Ladybug to pay the price. Emilie is resurrected, Gabriel goes to jail, Ladybug dies, not in that order. The fic covers Adrien’s journey through grief and anger and pain and healing and letting go of his partner--and of Marinette. I have half a chapter and a single, huge bullet point in my outline.

Fics to Write List

I also have a Fics to Write list of bullet points, which is extensive. Some of the bullet points are stream of consciousness, half-formed outlines themselves. If I were to list them all, I’d probably be here all night, haha!  

People I’m Tagging 

I’ll tag @dramatic-daisies​, @celestialtitania​, @leo112358​, and @torilovesmiraculous​!

[precuredaily]

Precure Day 162

Episode: Yes! Precure 5 14 - “Karen, The Troubled Student Council President” Date watched: 3 December 2019 Original air date: 6 May 2007 Screenshots: https://imgur.com/a/ZVrof8Y Project info and master list of posts: http://tinyurl.com/PCDabout

Karen has a big think

It’s Karen’s turn to hold the character development conch. This time, we get to see how she handles pressure from all directions! We also find out a little secret about Otaka-san and the school’s leadership. Good stuff, so let’s dive in!

The Plot

Various clubs approach Karen, aggressively requesting budget increases. The futsal club can’t afford new balls, the drama club can’t afford costumes, the judo club can’t afford new weights, the list goes on. Karen is taken aback and tries to explain the complexities of the situation to the students, but they are insistent. After trying to come up with a solution, she approaches the Vice Principal and explains her situation, requesting a budget increase for all the clubs. He is reluctant to change the budget that’s already been agreed upon for the year, but because he respects her decision to approach him, he will take it up with the principal. The VP goes to the Principal, revealed (to the audience) to actually be Otaka-san the lunch lady, but she insists that she doesn’t believe they need a budget increase, and there are still solutions the clubs haven’t yet come up with to resolve their budget woes. Komachi talks with Karen, commending her willingness to work hard for the clubs where before she probably would have simply said that the budget was already decided and they had to make do with what they had. The influence of their determined young friends is rubbing off on them.

Coincidentally, Nightmare is also having budget issues of a sort. Although they aren’t in a pinch, Kawarino is scolding Bunbee for blowing a lot of money without producing any results, and implies that his subordinates are useless and the whole department could get restructured. Bunbee decides to go fight the girls himself to get some results.

Back at school, Karen is still being hounded by the clubs, and her attempts at de-escalation aren’t working, so Otaka almost steps in, but Komachi is actually the one to put her foot down, startling everyone. She reminds the club leaders that they agreed to their annual budgets before the proposal was sent to the school administration, and that Karen alone cannot solve everything. With help from Nozomi, she gets them all to line up and explain their problems, to see if they can work together and figure out alternative solutions within their existing budgets.

The biggest offender is the drama club, which is going way over budget because they’ve picked a play with lots of extravagant costumes. However, Komachi gets them to work with the sewing club, who were looking for a platform to display their work, and the two split costs in this mutually beneficial agreement. The Judo club couldn’t afford to buy new weights AND new uniforms, but they also got the sewing club to patch up their uniforms so they could buy heavier weights, and donated their older ones to the futsal club. Now that she doesn’t need to buy weights, Rin can afford new balls, and donates the old ones to the art club, who find their shape and texture very inspirational.

I’d like to point out that the dumbbell Nozomi is struggling to lift is only 5 KG, that’s about 11 lbs.

With everyone’s issues resolved, the girls enjoy a moment of peace as Rin takes her new dumbbells to her club space, but on the way, Bunbee shows up to cause trouble. He turns the dumbbells into a Kowaina and taunts the girls about his own superiority. They transform and fight back, but he is pretty strong. When Mint shields one of the monster’s attacks, he launches a missile that breaks the shield, and he easily dodges when Rouge and Aqua try to fight him in the air. Dream and Lemonade have no luck fighting the Kowaina and they’re all left on the ground, defeated. Bunbee boasts about how much easier it is to do everything himself, and Aqua scoffs. She says she used to feel that way, but now she knows they’d never win if they did that, and the team springs into action. Bunbee tries to missile them again, and again Mint uses her shield, but this time Aqua also blocks it with Aqua Stream and this weakens it enough to bounce off the shield. Dream and Rouge restrain the Kowaina while Lemonade attacks it with Lemonade Flash, then the two throw it and perform their finishers. The Kowaina is destroyed and Bunbee retreats, self-justifying the day by saying you have to spend money to make money.

Back at the lunch table, Nozomi observes that Komachi might actually be stronger than Karen, which gives them all pause. Otaka comes over with a basket full of yakisoba bread, claiming the principal told her how they avoided a budget crisis, and suddenly people from all the other clubs appear, all vying for some of the free bread. Nozomi cries because the crowd beat her to the stuff she really wanted, and that’s the ending card.

The Analysis

What a fun episode. Karen’s commitment to the students is really earnest and inspiring. You can see why she’s the president, and even how much progress she’s made since the start of the show. Old Karen just cared about order, new Karen has the best interests of the students in mind and wants to meet them where they’re at. She fields the ire of the various clubs like a champ, trying not to get overwhelmed, and explaining the delicate balance that is adjusting budgets: since the budget has already been agreed upon, for her to allocate more to one group than previously agreed means the money has to come out of somewhere else, and that could put the other party in a pinch. Important financial lesson for the kids in the audience, too. And when her advice isn’t sufficient for them, she goes to bat for them by requesting assistance from the VP. My only criticism is that she probably should have asked why they needed more money first to see where their funds were tied up at, but honestly I would probably do the same thing, jumping straight to “let me get them what they say they need” and not “let me look into the situation more”.

When they get to the drama club and find out the reason they’re so over budget is because they decided to produce an expensive-ass play, I about died. LOOK AT THIS OUTFIT.

gosh I wonder why

There’s a lesson in here somewhere about working within your limitations. Urara suggests they do a simpler show like Kintarou, which would have costumes and props they could reuse in other shows, but from the club president’s response I get the impression they’ve done far too many shows like that and are sick of it. Also can’t fault them for doing something different. I remember in my junior year (11th grade), my school put on a production of “High School Musical” (this was when that was still a pretty fresh and hot property) and it sold like crazy, so the next year they were able to perform “Little Shop of Horrors”, renting the Audrey II puppets from somewhere. It’s okay to dream big, but you gotta make sure you can afford it. (inb4 ok boomer) However, working with the sewing club was a very good compromise. They get a platform to showcase their work, the drama club gets good costumes for cheaper, and they split the costs. Some of the other deals are a bit more one-sided but as long as everyone’s happy, it works.

By the way, Komachi’s restraint when the club president goes “oh yeah we spent all our budget on that one outfit and we need a bunch more” is remarkable. (I looked it up and I see similarities to Les Miserables: it’s a famous story that takes place over multiple generations and features LOTS of recurring characters) Komachi is, thankfully, very good at keeping herself in check, but if you manage to set her off, she is downright scary. That’s a common attribute for shield-based Cures, and it started here.

For reasons that aren’t entirely clear, since they only have a few of the costumes done, the drama club president is only ever seen in-costume, looking like a prince with a pencil mustache drawn onto her face. If we take the bold assumption that this all occurs in one day, even one lunch period, then this makes sense enough, but it’s still kind of silly.

The first half of this episode is so good, and tells a pretty complete story, that both times I watched it I forgot what kind of show it was because I was so absorbed in the antics of the clubs, so I thought the resolution was just going to be sorting out their budgets, when that was actually only the halfway point. The fight with Bunbee in the second half, while good, feels incomplete. I’m not sure if something got lost in translation for the subtitles, because he seems to indicate he spent money on a better Kowaina mask but the subs don’t reflect him saying this, only the girls’ response that it looks the same as normal. I do like them switching up their fighting style, and it comes with one of the strangest calls to action I’ve ever seen:

previously unsaid sentences in human history

The context is that, earlier in the episode, Nozomi and Urara traded lunch items, and now Karen is reminding them all to trade opponents and work together to beat the monster. Hilariously, even though Nozomi was the one who wanted to trade in the first place, she’s the last one to get this coded message, after Rin explains it to her.

She is special.

The elephant in the room here is that Otaka-san, the humble lunch lady who always adds a million onto every order, who appears a little disheveled, is in fact the school’s principal. Books and covers, ya know. I don’t recall if the girls every learn her secret, but it’s revealed to the audience here. I assume she serves as the lunch lady in order to get close to the students and understand what’s going on without calling attention to her position of authority. That’s the thing about power, even if you act relatable, if someone knows you’re way above them on the totem pole, they’re going to act differently, so she has put herself on the level of students. It’s like Undercover Boss except she never reveals the ruse. And honestly, it’s a very good ruse. She is approachable to the students and they all love her, so she can listen to their problems and make sure that the school is running well from the ground level. Also, as the lunch lady, she wears plain clothes, an apron, and flat shoes. Her only accessory is her trademark silver brooch. As the principal, she wears a suit, her hair is more tamed, she wears lipstick and earrings. She even speaks differently between her roles, sounding more raspy in her disguise, while she adopts a more formal and stern tone while acting as the principal. It’s impressive. I know she appears in this role at least one more time in the show, so I look forward to seeing that.

As usual there were some great moments of comedy, wonderful facial expressions, and you can see those chronicled in the gallery.

Next time, in Precure Daily, Nozomi’s mom is sick, so she has to do the housework! How badly will this end?

Pink Precure Catchphrase Count: 0 kettei!

[dillydedalus]

october reading

 books. i read ‘em.

the bird king, g. willow wilson ugh i’m disappointed with this - i expected it to be more about the fall of granada, rather than just taking that as a jumping-off point for a very slow story of how fatima (concubine to the last andalusian sultan) and her bff hassan (magical mapmaker) escape from lady inquisitor luz to a magical/legendary island. that’s more of an expectation mismatch, but i also found this just a bit boring and confused, didn’t like the characters or the emotional moments. 2.5/5

lanark: a life in four books, alasdair gray y’all... this is a weirdo pomo mess which gray himself describes as ‘a portrait of the artist as a frustrated young glaswegian’ (instant love), it’s about duncan thaw growing up in post-war glasgow (not a good place) and lanark, sans memories, finding himself in the city of unthank (probably The Bad Place), where the sun hardly ever shines and people grow dragonskin, but really it’s about art & cities & politics & scotland & hell. it’s completely nuts & has a chapter where the protagonist meets the author in the process of writing and there’s a chapter-long sidebar detailing all instances of plagiarism in the book (incl. the lack of influence from robert burns, more sinister than all plagiarism). it’s a bit flabby in places & could stand to be a 100-200 pages shorter, but damn. 4/5

the memory police, yoko ogawa (tr. from japanese by stephen snyder) very atmospheric, quietly disturbing magical realist(ish) book about an island on which sometimes certain things (birds, roses, ribbons, fruit) just disappear, with the inhabitants losing their memories and emotional connection to the thing. the disappearances seem to occur randomly and on their own, but the memory police makes sure that no disappeared items remain and that those who can still remember also... disappear. really liked the quiet slow dread building here, the mysterious workings of the disappearances, and the interplay between the main story and the novel the narrator is writing while worrying whether words too will soon disappear. 4/5

trick mirror: reflections on self-delusion, jia tolentino collection of nine essays about roughly, life & self-image & politics in the social media age (and its predecessor, the reality tv age), gender politics and uh scams and self-delusions. many of these essays felt vaguely like things i’d read before online (& i might have) & didn’t offer anything completely new but i liked the examinations of big wedding culture, and her take on the ‘difficult woman’ archetype of millenial feminism. tolentino in general is an engaging, sharp writer, and even when she’s writing about familiar topics, she often puts an interesting spin on things. 3.5/5

here in berlin, cristina garcía and the anglophone-berlin-books saga continues. a cuban-american woman with a mild personal crisis goes to berlin (as people w/ personal crises so often do) and there collects a variety of snapshot stories from berliners (by birth or choice or accident), mostly about world war 2 and the latin american diaspora in berlin. some of the snapshots are p interesting or bizarrely funny but mostly they retread the same ground (history, trauma, collective & personal responsibility, commemoration etc) without really saying anything new (except the connection garcía makes between the nazis and south american dictatorships). there’s also a pretty annoying attempt to create authenticity by peppering in german words and phrases which sometimes aren’t even appropriate or spelled correctly* (get a german proofreader you cowards i’ll do it for free... like wtf is ‘volkenbrot’). 2/5 *i ordered it used and got an ARC, so maybe some of these issues were fixed for the final version but lmao. volkenbrot. 

wilder girls, rory power this is annihilation as YA, set on an island called raxter where a mysterious illness called the tox has taken over, transforming the wilderness, the animals (deers grow canines y’all), and most of all the girls at raxter boarding school. the narrator’s eye has fused shut & something is growing under it, her friend has grown an extra spine, other girls have gills or claws. less fortunate girls (and most of the teachers) just die. there was a lot i liked about this, especially the tox and the ambivalent relationships the girls have to their changed bodies, but the last third just... eh. also, like, i like tumblr monster-girl poetics as much as the next person, but this is really overdoing it. 2.5/5

nach mitternacht (after midnight), irmgard keun KEUN HYPE TRAIN!!! this one’s super interesting because it’s the first novel keun wrote in exile, published 1937 and set at around the same time. the protagonist, sanne, is a naive and politically uneducated 19-year-old who is repeatedly & very dramatically confronted with the political reality she lives in, first when her aunt denounces her to the gestapo and later when her boyfriend franz is arrested. for most of the (very short) novel, sanne is observing and not quite understanding the increasing legal discrimination against jews, culture of paranoia and denouncement, and glorification of fascist ideology, which makes for a very disturbing reading experience, especially with the reader’s retrospective knowledge, but the climax is truly nightmarish & devastating. 4/5

children of god, mary doria russell the sequel to the sparrow, which i read & loved earlier this year. in this one, emilio sandoz, still in recovery from the trauma of his first trip to the planet rakhat, is forced to return there (bc the pope thinks it’s god’s will lol) and finds the planet changed after decades (space travel makes time weird) of revolution and civil war. i liked this but it’s not as good as the sparrow, the characters (except my man emilio) aren’t as interesting & well-developed and the dual timeline structure isn’t as well-executed but hey. there’s some closure for emilio & that made me hella emosh. 3.5/5

the wilful princess & the piebald prince, robin hobb a novella telling the true (?) story of charger farseer, the piebald prince, a historical figure that has great influence on the six duchies of fitz’s time, especially regarding the treatment of the witted (people who can magically bond with aninmals) and how fitz is framed & reviled as the ‘witted bastard’. this was cool & i enjoyed how it twists the story, but it’s not worth reading if you haven’t read the main series. 3/5

the inheritance, robin hobb/megan lindholm collection of short stories by hobb under her two pseudonyms - i mostly skipped the lindholm ones (sorry), but the three hobb ones were really really good. the first is about the first expeditions into the rain wilds (i love the cursed shores so much & wish there was a full trilogy about the first settlers there), the second is about bingtown & wizardwood, the third is about how sometimes you gotta kill your abusive ex & if you’re lucky, your cat will help you do it. it’s great & the cat is called marmelade. 4/5 for the hobb stories only

unholy land, lavie tidhar alternate history + multiple realities + high-concept pulp - lior tirosh, a pulp author (it’s meta) returns to his homeland, the jewish state palestina, established in east africa in the early 20th century, and there becomes involved in... rival plots to destroy/stabilise the borders between the worlds, not only between this alternate one and our real one, which tirosh seems to occasionally slip into, but all the million others, including one where the moon broke. love the concept, but this is so vague & confusing on so many points and the ending so abrupt that i was left kinda frustrated & unsatisfied (also bc we never find out much more about the world where the moon broke). 3.5/5

tigermilch (tiger milk), stefanie de velasco german ya book about two teen girls growing up in a poor neighbourhood in berlin. nini’s father is absent, her mother depressed, while jameelah’s father died in iraq and her mother is worried that they might be deported, and their bosnian friend amir’s sister is dating a serb. it’s some pretty harrowing stuff & it’s good to see Issues (TM) addressed in german ya in a way that doesn’t feel super didactic & preachy, but ultimately i’m really not the target audience here. 3/5

sea monsters, chloe aridjis

weirdo brainy dreamy novella about a girl in 80s mexico running away from mexico city to the beach because she’s looking for ukrainian circus dwarfs (???). i liked a lot about this (atmosphere, poetic & mythical allusions, a lot of the writing, the depictions of mexico city and the weird beach culture are both really cool) but a lot of the time this was so dreamy that i just kinda zoned out. 3/5

i am currently reading emma by jane austen bc i forgot about my monthly austen project until the last few days of the month lol & one of the hugo long list anthologies. the one with the cool fox on it.

[michelles-garden-of-evil]

Episode 2 Review: 5 Reasons Why Jacques is the Best Character on the Show

{ YouTube: 1 | 2 | 3 }

{ Synopses: Debby Graham | Bryan Gruszka }

{ Screencaps }

This post is going to be far from a full synopsis, so, if you want to know everything that happens in this episode, watch it or read one of the links above. Really, the only interesting things that happen in Episode 2 are (1) Jacques messes around for a bit as he looks for a place to hide the Conjure Doll and pin and (2) Raxl and Quito enter the Not-So-Hidden Voodoo Temple for the first time on the show.

Neither Jacques nor Jean Paul know about this hidden door, despite both spending a lot of time in the crypt. Seriously.

We also meet Vangie Abbott (Angela Roland), a waitress at the French Leave Café who eventually becomes one of the most interesting characters in the Maljardin arc, and Tim Stanton (Bruce Gray), a starving artist type who is boring and stays that way. (Gray, however, seems to have been quite a funny guy in real life, if his account of filming Strange Paradise (HUGE SPOILERS) is any indication.) I don’t think I’m ruining anything for anyone by saying that the plot line that Ian Martin initially sets up about him needing thousands of dollars to pay off his debt to the Mafia is resolved early on and scarcely a word about it spoken thereafter.

No, what I want to focus on this entry is Jacques Eloi des Mondes, whom I absolutely adore, and some of the reasons why I love him. Yes, I know he is THE DEVIL according to Raxl, but that may just be Raxl’s silly personal opinion of him and he could very well have just been an ordinary man with some evil tendencies (which so far he keeps well-hidden). He may be evil, but he is also fun and funny and absolutely gorgeous. Jean Paul, too, is gorgeous (obviously--they’re played by the same actor and inhabit the same body), but Jacques is more entertaining. There are other great characters on Strange Paradise, but Jacques is unquestionably the best. That is not an opinion; that is a fact.

To recap, Jean Paul has just set Jacques free by removing his voodoo doll from the crypt and pulling the silver pin--or “silver sword,” as the characters mostly call it in this episode--from its temples. Now Jean Paul has transformed into Jacques, complete with doublet, long gold cape, and boots (which he apparently wore indoors during his life), not to mention a huge garnet ring that we will be seeing a lot of in future episodes. Jacques is overjoyed to finally be free again and the joy that he expresses while parading around Maljardin is infectious.

In Episode 2, Jacques is infectiously cheerful.

And that is reason #1 why I can’t help but love Jacques: when he’s happy, he’s so infectiously cheerful that I can’t help but smile. I don’t think that we’re supposed to be happy for him now that he’s free given that he is supposedly THE DEVIL, but you watch this scene and try to refrain from laughing or grinning. Even Danny Horn, who didn’t care for this show, enjoyed the scene, likening Jacques to “a kid who’s managed to convince his mother that he needs to stay home from school and play with his action figures.” Eventually, he actually starts doing devious things and messing up Jean Paul’s life, but he does it with a big, adorable, cheesy grin on his face much of the time--and when he isn’t grinning, he’s usually making one of several other adorable faces. When that happens, I try really hard not to root for Jacques, but don’t always succeed. As long as he isn’t doing anything evil, he’s the more likeable of the two des Mondes.

Jacques: “Freeee~!”

Reason #2: He is very handsome. Colin Fox is almost eighty-one now and still looks good for his age, but, fifty years ago when this show was made, he was downright stunning. He was handsomer, in my opinion, than most actors more widely considered heartthrobs; they tend to look bland, while Fox’s face is full of character. I have long agreed with Sir Francis Bacon that “there is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion,” and his is the kind of strange beauty that appeals to me. He has an unusual nose (someone apparently broke it when he was a teenager) and his lovely white teeth are a little crooked, but these only add to his charm. I like that he doesn’t look perfect, because perfect is boring.

You can keep your blandly attractive Colin Firth. I’ll take this Colin instead.

Reason #3: His voice. Again, this applies to both of Fox’s characters on the show, but especially to Jacques. Fox has a beautifully modulated, deep voice that I just love listening to. In Jacques’ case, his lovely voice adds an extra layer of charm and suavity to his dialogue, some of which would sound smarmy if delivered by a less talented or less charismatic actor.

Jacques playing with the conjure doll and silver pin. I find it noteworthy that Raxl took the time to sew and dress the huge voodoo doll in a replica of Jacques’ outfit before using it to kill him. It suggests that she had been planning the murder for a very long time, perhaps waiting for the perfect occasion.

Reason #4: He’s funny. Martin gives Jacques some truly brilliant lines: something which none of the other writers of the Maljardin arc did, which is one reason why their episodes aren’t as good.  Even when Martin gives him bad jokes, he is still funny. In many episodes, he has Jacques deliver some truly corny one-liners about the devil, but Fox sells them. He’s like an alchemist with the ability to turn cornball into gold.

A 17th-century French aristocrat really shouldn’t have a tan, but he’s inside Jean Paul’s body here. Besides, it doesn’t make him any less gorgeous.

Reason #5: He’s eerily good at what he does. Jacques knows he is smarter than most of the other characters, Raxl and Vangie probably the only exceptions. Jean Paul allegedly has an IQ of 187, but that’s according to his lawyer and therefore probably false. Despite his high IQ, he still manages to fall for Jacques again and again because Jacques knows exactly how to manipulate him. None of the writers can agree on whether Jacques is the devil or a man just pretending to be him, but, devil or not, he is one magnificent bastard.

Jacques: *impersonating Jean Paul* “Raxl, witchcraft is a dead art. Life today is in the hands of the doctors. Now please, leave me be! I must rest.”

There are other reasons why he’s my favorite character, but I will get into those later on when they are relevant. I’ve already listed the main ones and said everything that I want to about this mostly uneventful episode.

In Episode 3, one of my other favorite characters, Elizabeth Marshall, is introduced, so my next post will mostly be about the subplot involving her, her daughter Holly, and the Reverend Matt Dawson. As I have decided to try to write two review essays a week, it should be done by Friday evening. Until then, have a good week!

{ <-- Previous: Episode 1, Part II   ||   Next: Episode 3 --> }

[immaturityofthomasastruc]

#10: Felix, Part Two: The Episode Itself

Here’s Part 1

So, uh... here's the thing. I was going to divide this post into three parts, but I had to cancel the third part where I analyze the stuff involving Astruc defending the episode on Twitter, specifically a certain scene that really showed off some serious double standards in regards to the way Adrien is being written, because Astruc deleted most of his tweets regarding the episode. I wonder why he did that? I thought he wanted to expose himself publicly and interact in a peaceful way.

So yeah, instead of a big three-parter, this is going to be a two-parter, and I apologize for that. I might be able to do a third part if anyone has any screenshots of some of the tweets Astruc made after “Felix” aired. If you did, I would really appreciate it, but if not, it's fine.

Either way, let's just get this over with, because I have SO MUCH to talk about. My friend, can your heart stand the shocking facts about Season 3, Episode 23 of Miraculous Ladybug, “Felix”?

So we start off with what Gabriel does for half of his scenes when he isn't Hawkmoth, monologuing to his (possibly) dead wife, Emilie about how Ladybug and Cat Noir's Miraculous will soon be his and all that crap. Sure, he's sent God knows how many Akumas after Ladybug and Cat Noir, and they've all failed miserably, but I'm positive he's getting close to his goal.

After he finishes cleaning his and Emilie's silver wedding rings that sadly don't allow them to transform into Ultraman Ace, Gabriel goes to check on Adrien, singing to a statue of Emilie (glad to see the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree), intending to tell him that he is Hawkmoth.

Gabriel: There is something important I have to talk to you about. I think about telling you every day, but I don't know how to find the right words.

Adrien: I think I already know, father.

Gabriel: But, how?

Adrien: I've noticed how close you and Nathalie have become. If she can make you happy again, then... as far as I'm concerned, she's already part of our family.

Yeah, apparently it's obvious that Gabriel and Nathalie are close or something, with how casually Adrien assumes they're planning on starting a relationship. I mean, it's not like Nathalie is close to Gabriel because she's his secretary or something like that.

Gabriel's response isn't any better, as he immediately jumps down Adrien's throat for daring to assume he might try to move on from his wife.

Gabriel: How could you possibly think such a thing?! Nobody could ever replace your mother! As long as she is still in our hearts, she lives on!

Even Adrien's face shows he's a little taken back by his father's brief outburst.

Part of me likes to assume that Plagg is trying to not break out into laughter at how crazy Gabriel sounds, while Nooroo is mentally questioning the sanity of his master.

Plagg: Wow! Your father's like a piece of tomme cheese, where the rind's so thick it's almost impossible to get inside the center.

Adrien: Don't be so hard on him, Plagg. It's been a year today since Mom... went away forever.

Oh my God, just say she DIED already! Why are so many kids' shows afraid to say the D-word? How can I cite an episode of Caillou of all shows as something that that actually talked about death to it's audience in a nuanced way?

It turns out that Adrien's aunt is visiting for the day, as it's the one-year anniversary of Emilie's “going away forever”. We also learn that the gene pool in Adrien's family is so shallow, a toddler could swim in it, because Emilie's sister looks exactly like her.

Even better, her name is Amelie. I bet the parents thought naming their kids Emilie and Amelie was hilarious for like three minutes.

And of course, she also brought her son, the asshole of the hour.

Someone cue the Imperial March.

So Felix is finally here, and of course, he looks just like Adrien. It's almost like the animators didn't want to create any new character models for this episode, so they thought nobody would notice if they just reused a few. Seriously, towards the end of the episode, we see Felix wearing the Cat Miraculous on his hand, and none of the animators noticed it.

So while Adrien is happy to see his cousin, Felix isn't. I'll talk more about it in a minute.

Amelie mentions that the wedding rings are actually heirlooms in her side of the family, so she naturally wants them back. Of course, Gabriel, being Gabriel, responds accordingly.

Gabriel: These rings are obviously very special to me.

Amelie: And they're very dear to me too, Gabriel. Those jewels have always been in the Graham de Vanily family, not the Agreste's.

Gabriel: We'll discuss it later.

“Yeah, yeah, these rings are priceless family heirlooms or whatever, but why can't you think about how important they are to me?”

Meanwhile, Marinette and her friends are planning on recording some messages for Adrien to cheer him up on this day, but Marinette isn't sure what to say before she decides to confess her love to him. I'm sure Adrien will get the message and return Marinette's feelings this episode... and Cliff Hanger will finally escape that cliff he's been hanging from for years.

Speaking of, Adrien and Felix are hanging out in the former's room where we learn that Felix's father passed away recently. We don't know how long, but with the way they talk about, it's clear the funeral wasn't too long ago. Keep this in mind.

So while Adrien leaves the room to get a chess board for the two to play a game of, Felix, for no reason, decides to search through Adrien's things and crush a piece of cheese that Plagg had been aging for two weeks. And here is the interaction that helps this episode go from mediocre to aggravating, just because of what they imply here.

Adrien: Listen, Plagg. Felix lost his dad not so long ago, he's probably not himself.

Plagg: I'm sorry, but there's just no excuse! You never touch my cheese, and yet, you just lost your mother not so long ago, right?

Yes. The show is actually implying that Adrien is better than Felix because Adrien isn't acting out because his mom “went away forever”. Keep in mind, we know that Felix just lost his father, while Adrien has had a year to cope. I'm not saying he can't be sad anymore, as everyone processes grief differently, but you can't set up Felix as a foil to Adrien just because they both lost a parent, as their situations are entirely different.

Oh, and when Plagg's statement upsets Adrien, it isn't because he's angry at Plagg for making the comparison, it's because he mentions Emilie. And this argument is never brought up again.

I still can't believe this episode is basically saying that even if you lose a loved one, that's no excuse to get emotional. This isn't just a horrible lesson to teach children, but it pisses me off on a more personal level. Why?

My grandfather died last year after a long battle with lung cancer.

He had been in and out of the hospital for a few years at this point, and part of me was relieved that he was finally free of the pain. I tried not to let it bother me, as I had already mentally prepared myself for the day he would die whenever he was readmitted to the hospital. But it was still painful to go through because he was so important to me. Instead of simply telling someone how I was feeling, I threw myself into my schoolwork in an effort to distract myself from actually confronting my emotions. After seeing A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, a movie where the main character made peace with his father on his deathbed with some encouragement from Mr. Rogers, it made me think about how unhealthy it was to bottle up my emotions, so I started to open up more about how I was feeling. When I told my mom (who was his daughter) about why I was so conflicted regarding his death, she said it was completely understandable, as she had been an emotional wreck as well. I also talked with my therapist about how this was affecting me mentally.

What does this have to do with the episode? I don't think Felix had access to this kind of emotional support when his dad died, or that he tried coping the same way I did initially.

And the worst part is that this could have been used to teach people a lesson on how to cope with losing a loved one. Maybe Adrien could have helped Felix find a healthier coping mechanism, or simply help him open up emotionally, teaching him that it's okay to be upset when someone close to you dies, but that you just need to be honest about your feelings.

But no, rather than portray Felix's actions as a troubled youth lashing out because he's angry at the cards the world dealt him, Felix does several awful things this episode for no other reason than because he's evil, even though he has a good reason to hate Adrien and Gabriel.

So the very next scene, we see Felix has stolen Adrien's phone and is going through the messages that Adrien's friends sent him, but not before insulting his crush on Ladybug. I'm not sure if that's supposed to reflect the fandom's criticism of Adrien's crush on Ladybug, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was.

Nino's Message: Hey, my dude! I'm not quite sure what to tell you, except that, you're my man, dude! And bros are always there for their guys!

Felix: (Mockingly) “Bros are always there--” blah, blah, blah! Moron.

Rose's Message: Unicorns have a saying: even when there's nothing but gray skies and rain, all it takes is one little sunbeam for a rainbow to appear!

Felix: Loser.

Max's Message: It's one hundred percent proven, you should feel fifty-two percent happier with a healthy dose of laughter. So Markov has uploaded a few jokes for you! Starting with--

Felix: Freak.

Chloe's Message: When my mother left for New York, I felt so sad. It felt like she was... (sighs) She came back, and I know how lucky I am. So, you can count on me, my Adrikins.

Felix: Chloe. Just as annoying as usual.

And that line right there is the only time Astruc actually liked writing Felix, as it gave him the chance to satisfy his need to insult Chloe.

And then when he sees Marinette's message, he deletes it because... hell if I know

Again, this scene could have worked if it was interpreted as Felix saying stuff that he wasn't dependent on others for support and that he could easily power through life on his own, but nope! Instead, he hates Adrien's friends and only deletes Marinette's message instead of all of them simply because he's evil, heart blacker than Don Cheadle.

Felix continues to show how awful he is by dressing up in Adrien's clothes and—Oh, son of a bitch, SERIOUSLY? This is the SEVENTH evil doppelganger plotline we've had in THREE SEASONS! You're telling me this isn't doing the same thing over and over again, Astruc?

Yeah, so Felix records some messages to send to his friends that, once again, could have worked if this episode was actually teaching a lesson about dealing with grief.

“Adrien's” Message:  First of all, thanks so much for all your messages, guys, really. Sending me messages on today of all days... (angrily) to remind me how sad I'm supposed to be feeling? Why, that's great! Really, Thanks a lot!

But because nobody ever considers how Felix is feeling, it's never acknowledged, because that would actually involve writing him with complexity.

Gabriel gets a message from Lila, who recently became one of his confidants to spy on Adrien, tells him about the fake message, and decides to use the negative emotions felt as an excuse to get rid of his in-laws. No, seriously.

Gabriel: All this disappointment might just help us get rid of our unwanted guests.

To be fair, I'd probably do the same thing just so I wouldn't have to talk to some of the people I hate at my job.

And so, Hawkmoth akumatizes Alya, Juleka, and Rose into the Punisher's Trio, who are basically just their previously akumatized forms Lady Wifi, Reflekta, and Princess Fragrance. Because why would you expect anyone to use an original character model for this episode?

All joking aside, this development raises several questions. First, why wasn't Nino one of the Punisher's akumatized? He's Adrien's best friend, so shouldn't be just as upset as everyone else? Hell, the whole reason he was akumatized into the Bubbler in Season 1 was just so he could throw Adrien a birthday party after Gabriel said no. Then there's the fact that Chloe could have also been akumatized because she's just as close as Adrien, which is another wasted opportunity here.

Second, why bring back Reflekta and Princess Fragrance of all villains? It doesn't even make sense when you consider their motifs are based off of the circumstances that led to them getting akumatized in their respective episodes. Juleka became Reflekta because of her anxiety over easily blending in, so she got the power to turn everyone into an exact copy of herself so they could understand the feeling. Rose became Princess Fragrance when Chloe destroyed her letter and perfume bottle dedicated to the prince of a foreign nation, so the perfume bottle was the basis of her powers. At least Lady Wifi makes sense as the akumatized object this episode is a tablet used to record the messages to Adrien, but Reflekta and Princess Fragrance have nothing to do with the plot of this episode, and just feel tacked on. If it was just Lady Wifi or the Bubbler, I'd get it, but this just doesn't work.

Third, what exactly is this show's obsession with Reflekta? We saw in Reflekta's first episode that her powers had a huge drawback as if either of the heroes is zapped by her, she can't get their Miraculous, like what we saw happened to Cat Noir. Yet, this is the second time this season that Hawkmoth had the bright idea to bring back Reflekta (even giving her a giant robot to amplify her powers). At least Lady Wifi and Princess Fragrance's powers worked together well (Lady Wifi could freeze someone in place, while Princess Fragrance can brainwash them with her perfume), but Reflekta just feels like the odd one out here.

Fourth, and most importantly, why did we only get to hear the line “At your service, Princess Fragrance!” A single time this episode?

So the Punishers head to Adrien's house to take their revenge, but see Felix, still dressed in Adrien's clothes, and are naturally confused. Adrien pretends to be Felix by running away while laughing evilly (so not too far off from how Astruc sees Felix), while the real Felix and Nathalie put up a good fight against the Punishers.

And then... here is the moment that shows just how skewed Astruc's view of Adrien really is.

Felix pretends to confess his love to Ladybug as Adrien, trying to force a kiss on him, making Ladybug punch him in the face by claiming that the real Adrien “would never be so pushy”.

BULL. SHIT.

Yes, Ladybug doesn't know that Adrien is actually Cat Noir, but it's clear that this scene is meant to solidify just how Felix is far worse than Adrien because according to Astruc, he would never do that.

But maybe I'm being too hard on him.

It's not like Adrien has ever forced himself onto Ladybug, right?

I mean, imagine if the show just ignored something like that.

All while trying to teach kids the importance of saying no when someone harasses them.

Can you imagine if someone was that oblivious to their own hypocrisy?

I'm not saying that the lesson is a bad one, but you can't call someone out for doing something bad, and then ignore one of your main characters doing the exact same thing!

Even in the context of the episode, the comparison doesn't work. We know that Felix is only doing this to make Adrien look bad, and has no romantic feelings towards Ladybug like Adrien does. Felix knows what he is doing is wrong, while Adrien doesn't. Whenever Cat Noir tries to kiss Ladybug, he is never aware that what he is doing is wrong, and while he is almost always stopped from kissing Ladybug for one reason or another.

Like when the episode tried to compare two different characters reacting to losing loved ones when there are different circumstances regarding them, the comparison DOESN'T WORK.

And to add insult to injury, Cat Noir shows up just to insult Felix by implying he doesn't have a lot of friends because of the way he acts, because why would he? After all, he's a complete loser that nobody would want to be friends with, and if you like him, you're an idiot for thinking so! At least, that's probably what Astruc was going for.

Ladybug summons her Lucky Charm, leading to a brief Mexican standoff, until Felix steals the tablet containing the Akuma, making a deal with Hawkmoth that he'll help out the Punishers as long as he gets the wedding rings. Do you hate Felix yet? Come on, do you hate him? WHY WON'T YOU HATE HIM, GODDAMN IT!?

This whole bit is completely pointless as Ladybug immediately finds a way to stop all four of them and de-evilize the Akuma.

And when it looks like Felix is actually apologizing for his actions this episode, it's naturally a ruse he put on to steal one of the wedding rings from Gabriel to give to his mom. Because why would Astruc even think of portraying him sympathetically, or at least have him learn a lesson?

So Felix stares out the window with an evil look in his eye (possibly foreshadowing another appearance), as Gabriel takes Emilie's wedding ring to wear for himself, and the episode mercifully ends.

It also means that I never have to watch this episode ever again.

Do you understand why it took so long for me to fully analyze this episode? Hell, it would have taken longer if Astruc didn't delete his tweets defending the kiss scene and how Cat Noir is totally a gentlemen unlike Satan, I mean Felix.

What else do I have to say about this episode that hasn’t already been said? Well, I do have one thing.

I’m not that big a fan of Felix.

I think he’s an okay character in fanfics, but I’m more indifferent to him and fanfics that ship him and Marinette together. I don’t know, maybe that’s because there are so many Felinette fanfics that are heavily seasoned with salt, or it could just be because I’m complete Love Square and Lukanette trash.

But just think about the fact that the scathing criticism of this episode was delivered by someone who isn’t that into Felix. That is how bad this episode is.

In addition to being an obvious mouthpiece for Astruc to yell at fans why they’re idiots for actually liking Felix, it does so by touching on delicate subject and trying to act like it’s easy to tell how Felix is worse than Adrien when the circumstances are nothing alike.

But the fact that Astruc takes a popular character just to portray him as a complete menace just to antagonize his fans is ridiculous, utterly ridiculous.

[ultradeliciousstudentworld-blog]

You can’t keep a good character down in Hollywood — even when that character has spent most of its existence as one of Marvel Comics’ most notorious villains. The Venom movie based on the popular Spider-Man spinoff character has an action-packed new trailer showcasing the film’s wild alien effects, and now the movie has a few new posters, too.

MORE SUPERHERO MOVIE NEWS

Aquaman

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

Spider-Man: Far From Home

Wonder Woman 1984

Directed by Ruben Fleischer (Zombieland) and set to hit theaters October 5, Venom

will feature Mad Max: Fury Road and The Dark Knight Rises star Tom Hardy as Eddie Brock, a journalist who becomes the host of a powerful, symbiotic alien that gives him superhuman abilities. The movie’s

supporting cast members

include Michelle Williams, Riz Ahmed, Jenny Slate, and Woody Harrelson.

Here’s everything we know about the movie so far.

ALL TEETH AND TONGUE

Just a few weeks before the film’s premiere, Sony Pictures released a set of new posters for Venom that puts some of its titular star’s most memorable features front and center.

View image on Twitter

What big eyes you have, What big teeth you have, What a BIG TONGUE you have. What a big screen @IMAX has for all of the #Venom

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New poster for #Venom has been released.

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These posters were preceded in July by a new, Japan-specific poster for Venom that just might be even more terrifying than any of the footage released so far.

View image on Twitter

日本発ポスター解禁 これが #ヴェノム だ！ ヤツらには＜最悪＞が良く似合う。 11月2日（金）最も残虐な悪、誕生。#venom

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From the multiple rows of teeth to the tentacle-like tongue and dripping saliva, Venom is looking as scary as ever in the Japanese-language poster.

VENOM … FOR KIDS?

Throughout much of development and production on Venom, it seemed like a foregone conclusion that Sony Pictures would follow the example set by Deadpool and make the violent character’s solo debut an R-rated feature. That conclusion proved wrong, though, when the film’s official rating was confirmed to be the more kid-friendly PG-13.

#Venom is officially rated PG-13. Hearing from studio sources the reason is so that Venom and Spider-Man can face off at some point down the line. If the movie is R, it’s hard to do that.

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Rumors first began circulating in August (via Variety) that Venom probably wouldn’t be Sony’s first R-rated film based on a Marvel Comics property.

“Some members of Sony’s brain trust believe that the film should push the very limits of PG-13 without crossing over into a higher rating,” stated the report, which cites unidentified studio sources.

A BIG CAMEO?

The rumor machine shifted into high gear in January when a Collider host reported that Tom Holland’s Spider-Man — the star of Spider-Man: Homecoming and the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s youngest star — might show up in Venom.

Damn @JonSchnepp dropping bombs and saying he knows that Spiderman will be in #Venom on #collidrmovietalk Tom Holland's Spiderman!

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The report was denied by various official sources in the months that followed, but the shared status of the Spider-Man character — who became part of Marvel’s cinematic universe via a partnership with Sony Pictures — kept the report from being completely dismissed. The rumor regarding a Spider-Man cameo resurfaced in August when Venom director Ruben Fleischer gave a conspicuously noncommittal response to questions about the character appearing in the film.

“I honestly don’t know what I’m allowed to say,” Fleischer during an interview with The Los Angeles Times. “I mean, I know the answer — I’ve seen the movie. But I don’t want to get in trouble for saying something I’m not supposed to.”

And just like that, the rumor mill began turning again.

A LATE ARRIVAL

The end of filming didn’t stop the flow of casting news, with Luke Cage and This Is Usactor Ron Cephas Jones announced as one of the actors making an appearance in Venom just a few months before the film hits theaters.

The Hollywood Reporter made Jones’ presence in the film official, but his role in the feature has yet to be revealed.

NEW TRAILER, NEW SYMBIOTES

Another trailer for Venom (see above) arrived online July 31, and it offered the most action of any preview of the film so far. Along with showcasing quite a bit of Tom Hardy as Eddie Brock and his symbiotic alien alter ego, the trailer also offered a peek at some of the other symbiotes and their hosts — including a shot near the end of Hardy and Riz Ahmed’s characters engaged in battle while enveloped in their respective alien partners.

The trailer also debuted some of the footage that was shown at Comic-Con earlier in the month, finally providing everyone who couldn’t make it to San Diego with a peek at the much-discussed preview.

VILLAIN (AND MORE) REVEALED

Sony confirmed quite a bit about Venom during the studio’s Comic-Con panel in July. Not only did the studio show off some new footage from the film, but it also confirmed that Venom would face off against another alien symbiote named Riot in the film.

Ruben Fleischer confirms the other #symbiote seen in the #SDCC2018 footage was Riot. "He has a unique trait. You don't know where Riot is going to turn up." #Venom #SonyAtSDCC

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Ahmed’s character will reportedly be the human host for Riot, but that could change, given the alien’s ability to shift between hosts.

Although the footage that debuted during the event hasn’t been released online, The Hollywood Reporter has a detailed description of the clips, which include a scene that depicts “Venom’s head stretching out of Brock’s body to have a conversation with him, similar to what might happen in the comics, and Venom making axes with his own hands.”

Sony also released a new image of Venom on Twitter.

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We are #Venom. #SDCC2018 #SonyAtSDCC

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LIFE AND SYMBIOTES

The character played by Rogue One actor Riz Ahmed was also confirmed — with some new details — during Sony’s Comic-Con panel.

Ahmed will portray Dr. Carlton Drake, a billionaire inventor and head of the Life Foundation, who believes humanity’s future lies in outer space. His interest in cosmic exploration brings him into contact with the powerful alien symbiotes, and Ahmed confirmed that he would end up becoming host to one of the shape-shifting creatures.

It appears certain now that Venom will be a tale of two (or more) symbiotes.

CONSIDERING CARNAGE?

The film’s high-profile cast got substantially bigger with the addition of two-time Academy Award nominee Woody Harrelson (True Detective, Natural Born Killers) late in 2017.

The initial report of Harrelson’s attachment to Venom didn’t identify the role the veteran actor would play in the film. Variety simply indicated that he would play “a henchman of sorts,” but now the actor himself has offered some clarification.

Speaking to Collider, Harrelson revealed that his role in Venom will be a small one — but will likely increase significantly in the sequel.

“[It’s a] roll of the dice, because I’m just … I’m in a little fraction of this movie, but I’ll be in the next one, you know?” he said. “So I haven’t read that script, but anyways, just rolled the dice.”

It’s unlikely that Harrelson would play the traditional, lower-tier henchman role in any film these days, and rumors have suggested that he might play Cletus Kasady, a serial killer who became the villain Carnage in Marvel Comics lore. His description of the role as a small one and indication that he’d be in a sequel suggests that his character could be introduced in Venom before becoming the primary villain of the second film.

First introduced in a 1992 issue of The Amazing Spider-Man, Carnage is an offspring of the Venom symbiote that bonded with Kasady and lacks any moral foundation whatsoever. One of Spider-Man and Venom’s most dangerous, unpredictable foes, Carnage is a superpowered psychopath who wields all of the same powers as Venom and embraces — rather than fights to control — the bloodlust brought on by the alien symbiote.

Whatever role Harrelson plays in the film, it will be a reunion for him and Fleischer, who directed Harrelson in Zombieland.

ANIMATED HOMAGE

It’s not officially sanctioned by the studio, but a video making the rounds online offers a decidedly different spin on the second trailer for Venom.

YouTube user Darth Blender posted a remix of the trailer that replaces the live-action footage with clips from the popular 1990s television show Spider-Man: The Animated Series. The result is a surprisingly well-synchronized version of the trailer that should evoke some serious nostalgia for fans of the early incarnations of Spider-Man’s famous foe (and occasional ally).

We are Venom, indeed.

AT LONG LAST … VENOM!

After the first, Venom-less trailer for Venom received a less-than-stellar reception, Sony Pictures made up for past mistakes with a second trailer that went all-in on the fiendish black symbiote.

The trailer debuted after the studio’s presentation at CinemaCon in April, and it reveals quite a bit of the story that will connect Hardy’s journalist character, Eddie Brock, with the sentient creature that turns him into the powerful antihero known as Venom. Most importantly, however, is that the trailer offers the first good look at Venom in toothy, tongue-curling action.

The trailer was accompanied by a new poster for the film that depicts Eddie Brock in mid-transformation to Venom.

FROM WAKANDA TO SYMBIOTE CITY

Sony Pictures has reportedly recruited a prominent composer to provide the musical component to Venom’s solo feature. According to Deadline, Black Panthercomposer Ludwig Goransson will score the Venom movie.

The arrangement will be a reunion of sorts, as Goransson previously scored Fleischer’s 2011 comedy 30 Minutes or Less. Goransson is best known for his recent work on Black Panther and his frequent collaborations with that film’s director, Ryan Coogler, having scored both Creed and Fruitvale Station. He is also a frequent collaborator with actor-musician Donald Glover on his Childish Gambino music albums.

FOOTAGE, FINALLY!

After promising that something big would debut February 8, the studio followed through with the very first teaser trailer for Venom, offering audiences a sneak peek at the tone of Tom Hardy’s spin on the popular character.

The teaser (see above) features Eddie Brock (Hardy) prominently, but doesn’t reveal much of his lethal alter ego. There’s a scene depicting the squirming, black symbiote that — in Marvel Comics lore — bonds with Eddie and gives him his powerful abilities, but that’s about it as far as any look at the film’s namesake.

FIRST POSTER

The first, official poster for Venom was released February 7, and the image — which features the character’s iconic white eyes against a black background — was accompanied by a tease that something big will debut “tomorrow” (meaning February 8).

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Tomorrow. #Venom

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THAT’S A WRAP

In late January, Hardy posted a photo on Instagram to announced the conclusion of filming — for him, at least — on Venom.

PICTURE PREVIEW

The first official photo from Venom was released by Sony Pictures in January 2018, offering an early look at Hardy as Eddie Brock, complete with his reporter notebook.

Posted on IGN, the photo was accompanied by a video from the Venom panel that was held during the Brazil Comic-Con Experience in December. The video features a look at the set of the film with some commentary from the film’s director and cast.

Hardy posted a few additional, behind-the-scenes photos from the set of the film in recent weeks on Instagram, often showing the film’s comics-inspired promotional art on his clothing or members of the film’s creative team.

POSTERS, WE PRESUME?

Some of the first promotional material for Venom appeared to have finally gone public in early December 2017, with Collider and Argentinian fan site MarvelFlix both posting photos from the Brazilian convention Comic-Con Experience (CCXP) of promotional images for Venom posted at the Sony Pictures booth there.

Primeras promo a de #Venom me gusta el logo che

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There was no official confirmation from Sony that these images are officially tied to the film, but the “in theaters soon” line certainly gives them some legitimacy.

CAMERAS ROLLING

Given how long it took for the Venom movie to make any forward progress, it’s understandable if some people didn’t believe it would actually arrive in theaters until they saw some photographic evidence of production.

Well, that’s exactly what the film’s Twitter account provided on October 23.

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Day 1. #Venom

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Captioned “Day 1. #Venom,” the photo features Hardy looking on as production begins on the film. Appropriately enough, it’s also the first post on the movie’s Twitter account.

CHARACTER QUESTIONS

First announced as the star of the film in May 2017, Hardy confirmed his involvement in a photo posted on Twitter by Sony Pictures.

View image on Twitter

Tom Hardy is Eddie Brock in #Venom, the upcoming film from Sony’s Marvel Universe releasing October 5, 2018 – production starts this fall.

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Along with teasing Hardy’s attachment to the film, the photo also revealed which incarnation of Venom the actor will bring to the screen: Eddie Brock.

In Marvel Comics lore, Eddie Brock was a photographer who became the host of the alien entity known as Venom — which imbues its host with powerful abilities but also increases its host’s bloodlust and violent tendencies. Its previous host, Spider-Man, realized the danger it presented and managed to separate himself from it after a struggle both psychological and physical. Over the years, the character has spent time outside the traditional villain role and even went through a period in which he acted as a vicious, criminal-chasing vigilante while bonded with Brock.

Venom’s first big-screen appearance featured Topher Grace in the role of Brock, who bonded with the alien in director Sam Raimi’s 2007 film.

SUPPORTING CHARACTERS

Along with Hardy in the lead role, the cast of Venom also includes four-time Academy Award nominee Williams, who is expected to portray the film’s female lead.

According to a September 2017 report from Variety, Williams will likely play a district attorney and possibly the love interest of Hardy’s character. Also attached to the film in supporting roles are Slate and Veep actor Reid Scott, with Mully actor Scott Haze also rumored for an unidentified role. Slate is rumored to be playing a scientist in the film.

DARK AND DISTINCT

Although Spider-Man: Homecoming was firmly set within Marvel Studios’ cinematic universe, Venom will reportedly be set in its own, separate Sony Pictures universe, despite the character’s ties to Spider-Man. The script for the film was penned by Scott Rosenberg (Pain & Gain), Jeff Pinkner (The Amazing Spider-Man 2), and Kelly Marcel (Fifty Shades of Grey).

The notion of distancing Venom from Spider-Man and the Marvel Studios universe came as a surprise to fans when it was first rumored in March 2017, and continues to be the subject of much debate among comics fans and movie industry pundits. Given the critical and commercial success of Spider-Man: Homecoming and the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe up to this point, there is plenty of incentive to tie Venom to those films, but all signs point to Sony positioning Venom as the first film in a new cinematic universe based on Spider-Man spinoff properties.

Updated September 17 with new posters for the film.

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[ladylynse]

can i get a summary of whirlwind? i read it but... i get a little confused sometimes -_-"

Ah, I’m sorry, Anon. I can think of a few things that might confuse you, but I’m sure there are plenty of others; if you decide to continue reading and notice specifics, let me know so I can try to clarify them!

Whirlwind, of course, is based off @queenofhearts7378​‘s awesome Secret Quartet AU, and I decided to set the story in the NYC because that seemed to be the easiest place to get all the characters together. Thing is, since I’d initially meant for this to be a short, quick thing (it...probably won’t be), I cheated a bit in terms of the setup. I’m working off the assumption that Danny (DP) and Jake (AD:JL) already know each other, while Randy (RC:9GN) and Adrien (ML) don’t know anyone. This is important based on how they perceive each other.

Potential point of confusions:

1) Why Danny and Jake know each other. I’ve said that, to make my life a bit easier, I’m setting Whirlwind after Mirrored, even though it’s not an official sequel. Mirrored is my DPxAD:JL crossover. Long story short, Danny winds up in New York, crashes with Jake for a few days, and helps him deal with a ghost problem. (This is a vast oversimplification but I don’t want to spoil things in case you--or anyone else reading this--wants to read it.) The important point is that Jake and Danny know each other’s secrets. (Well, Jake and Susan Long know Danny’s secret; how much the others on Jake’s side of things figured out is a bit more vague.) So, Jake and Danny trust each other and have worked together before. 

2) The timing of the scenes isn’t always chronological. Most of it is in order, but some things happen concurrently and others take a long span of time for the entire scene to play out, occasionally totally eclipsing a scene that is happening elsewhere. This is why there’s a rough guideline of the current time in each scene (most of it being on the Friday) to give you an idea of when it doesn’t occur right after the previous scene ended but rather in the middle of it. I’ve also got a timeline post that gives a brief summary of each scene if you ever need a quick refresher before checking out the next chapter.

Actual summary part: (under a cut because this is getting long)

When Jake meet the Oracle Twins, he's told three main things: 1) very soon, there are going to be attacks, 2) beware of the butterflies, and 3) he’ll have help from friends. Meanwhile, Adrien and his father come to town for a fashion show. Randy, mistakenly thinking that McFist was meeting someone to get more Weapons of Ninja Destruction, wound up in NYC because Marci wanted to go to this fashion show. (Randy is unsure if McFist has any side deal going on, but he’s not ruling it out.) 

Adrien decides to sneak away from the preparations for the opening and explores the city, winding up in Gramps’s electronics shop. Before he can get directions to somewhere that sells camembert, Plagg gets him to leave because he can smell magic in the shop. He’s worried because legends of the MIraculous are widespread, and he doesn’t want Adrien to accidentally get mixed up in whatever kind of magic this is--or to lose his Miraculous (and Plagg himself) while he’s here since Hawk Moth isn’t the only one who wants them.

From Jake’s perspective, it looks like Adrien came in to scout the shop in order to assess their defenses and maybe come back and steal something later, especially he bolted before they had a chance to question him or otherwise learn more about him. This rather paranoid assumption is because Gramps recognized Adrien’s ring as the Miraculous which granted the bearer the power of destruction. The warning of attacks and the fact that there’s also a butterfly-shaped Miraculous mean Jake is instantly wary. He asks a favour from an old friend: Danny, who gets to NYC as fast as he can and gets filled in by Jake, so now they’re both suspicious of butterflies and cats.

The first attack comes at the fashion show. Randy--having tracked down Marci and McFist--is there to help fight the Critic who, despite not being overly monster-y, kinda seems like they’ve been stanked, and he figure it’s Ninja-o’-Clock. Since the Sorcerer is stuck in Norrisville, he thinks he might be dealing with the Sorceress, which gives him zero comfort when she should be in the Land of Shadows and not learning new tricks. When some kid in a cat suit shows up to fight the Critic, he rolls with it, and they defeat the Critic together. Of course, in order to de-stank people, he has to destroy their reason for being stanked (symbolic or otherwise). But when he snaps the pen, it’s not stank that leaves; it’s a butterfly. Chat Noir chases it down.

Danny and Jake (as Phantom and the Am Drag) are patrolling looking for some clue of this impending attacks, and they of course see someone dressed as a black cat running after a butterfly, maybe trying to herd it somewhere. They jump to conclusions. Danny grabs Chat Noir, and Jake torches the akuma (purifying it, though Adrien doesn’t know that). Randy (still as the Ninja), who had started to follow Chat Noir, sees a real, fire-breathing dragon and is utterly enthralled. He’s happy to make a new friend, filling in Jake on his fight with Chat Noir against the Critic. Jake isn’t totally convinced Chat Noir is the good guy and not just pretending--he has the power of destruction; how can that be good?--but he promises to keep an eye out for him and asks the Ninja to report on any sightings of his new friend, giving Randy his Fenton Phone for that purpose. (He’s thinking Chat Noir might either hold both Miraculous or be in cahoots with the other person who does; they have enough valuable stuff in the shop that it makes perfect sense for someone to try to steal it.) Now that he sees the venue where the attack took place, he’s worried for someone there, so he takes off to warn them about what’s going on.

While that is happening, Danny drops Adrien into the harbour. Well. Almost. That would’ve probably killed him, if he had. It was a near thing, but Danny catches him (remembering this is a human he’s dealing with, not a ghost) and lets Chat Noir exhaust himself by swimming most of the way to shore. Before he can reach dry land, Danny grabs him again and relocates them to a quiet rooftop that’s kinda out of the way. Adrien, who now knows Hawk Moth is in town because he just dealt with someone who’s akumatized, thinks that Phantom is ANOTHER akumatized person. He defends himself against this ghost’s ice attacks, but he used Cataclysm to break out of his ice prison earlier and is running on borrowed time. Danny is wary of being touched by someone who can destroy anything they touch, presumably even people (not knowing that Cataclysm is only something that can be used once before Adrien needs to ‘recharge’). He isn’t about to get too close. But Chat Noir isn’t fighting the way he expects, and when he finds himself face-to-face with a very scared boy, who quickly transforms back into Chat Noir and runs away, he wonders if he and Jake have made a big mistake somewhere. He tries to ask questions, but Adrien is having none of it because he’s panicking. Hawk Moth might know who he is now, the Critic’s akuma (to his knowledge; he’s wrong) is loose in the city and will no doubt proliferate, infecting other people, and now he has to figure out how to fight an ice ghost? It’s a lot to ask on top of the fashion show, which he is almost certainly going to be late for. He needs Ladybug, but all he’s got is a maybe-ally in this Ninja, if he ever shows up again, and the whereabouts of some secret magic shop that Plagg warned him to stay away from.

Danny tries to get a hold of Jake, but he’s not answering his Fenton Phone (because he took it off and then gave it away to someone who’s not entirely sure how to use it), so Danny heads back to the electronics shop to see if Gramps or Fu knew what had happened with Jake.

Potential point of confusion 3: Why would Hawk Moth attack when he doesn’t know Chat Noir is in NYC? Well, basically Jake has the right idea but the wrong person. Chat Noir isn’t behind it, Hawk Moth is. Hawk Moth simply isn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth and squander a chance to get the Cat Miraculous while Ladybug isn’t around to help her partner. But if he makes a random attack on a large crowd of people, well, that’s the way to draw out superheroes, isn’t it? So he can see who’s around. Figure out what they can do. Figure out what they have, what they might be protecting and where, and what power of theirs he can steal. There’s more than one reason to come to New York, after all.

Do you have any specific questions? I tried to err on the side of more detail than less, but I’m not entirely sure where I lost you. Please don’t be afraid to ask again--as many times as you need, since I may misunderstand you at some point; it’s happened before--as this isn’t a bother. It actually helps me to know where I lose people, since it lets me know what I need to work on tightening up in terms of my writing. 

[gramilano]

Giselle with Alexander Campbell as Albrecht and Francesca Hayward as Giselle. © ROH, Helen Maybanks 2018

Francesca Hayward and Alexander Campbell are quickly becoming The Royal Ballet’s ‘couple to see’. After recent successes dancing Clara and the Nutcracker, as well as the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Prince, over the Christmas season, they have just debuted in Giselle. An important moment in the career of any dancer.

The Guardian said that Hayward was “nothing less than exquisite” and remarked on the “illusion of spontaneity” she brings to the choreography, while The Telegraph was blown away by Campbell’s “immersion in character” and the “punch of his dancing”. Another test passed triumphantly. Facebook was awash with appreciative comments the next day: critics are useful; a fan-base is indispensable.

The Nutcracker with Alexander Campbell as The Nutcracker, Francesca Hayward as Clara © ROH, Tristram Kenton, 2013

Hayward and Campbell first danced together when she was a last-minute substitute as Clara in December 2013.

It was seeing The Nutcracker that set Hayward off on her ballet journey, though she saw it on video. Her grandparents, wanting to keep her occupied, bought her a copy “on a whim”.

I still feel emotional every time I dance Clara and the Sugar Plum as they are definitely a realisation of my dream. Two of my favourite and most emotional moments are Clara and Hans Peter’s pas de deux in Act One and the Grand Pas de Deux of the Sugar Plum Prince and the Sugar Plum Fairy in Act Two. They are probably the two parts I danced the most from the whole ballet when I was little, dancing them at home by myself, and the music always gives me goosebumps no matter how many times I hear it.

Last season, soon after the end of the The Nutcracker run came The Sleeping Beauty and during that period Hayward and Campbell performed together as Clara and the Nutcracker/Hans-Peter (in Peter Wright’s version of the ballet, Drosselmeyer’s nephew, Hans-Peter, has been transformed into a Nutcracker Doll), the Sugar Plum Fairy and the Prince, Bluebird and Princess Florine, and they debuted together as Aurora and Prince Florimund.

It was probably about three or four months in total rehearsing and performing together — says Campbell — and I feel like it was hugely beneficial to us, as it gave us a lot of time to get to know one another. It felt as though we were able to take things from each of the performances and build on that as we worked towards the next one. It was one of the most enjoyable times in my career.

Hayward adds,

It’s been great to have a consistent partner to learn the art of pas de deux a little better and I think we have a lot of respect for each other. We’ve shared some important debuts and daunting first night shows together!

Made it through today’s matinee! Thanks to my fantastic prince @acampbell_1 for getting me through this afternoon’s Sugar Plum marathon & to our incredible coach Lesley Collier 💕 H a p p y N e w Y e a r 💕 #sugarplumfairy #nutcracker #ballet #royalballet #exhausted #butlovedit

A post shared by francesca hayward (@frankiegoestohayward) on Dec 30, 2017 at 3:24pm PST

So, what makes the partnership work?

Francesca is a very intelligent performer and her approach to performances and to developing a character isn’t too dissimilar to mine. I think we both like things to make sense in our head when we are out there on stage. When it comes together and works well it is a really satisfying feeling.

Hayward senses that she is “very calm and safe” dancing with Campbell:

Most importantly we hear and feel the music with the same musicality. This is great as it means we can be more flexible and adaptable with our steps together. If the music’s faster or slower, I can take a little longer or make a step a little quicker without panicking him as I know he is with me and won’t be surprised! I have complete trust in him to always have my back… quite literally!

An excellent coach can make the difference between a series of steps and a dance, between approximated moves and those executed with all nuances the choreographer intended. None is better than The Royal Ballet’s Lesley Collier, who was a Principal Dancer with the company from 1972 until her retirement in 1995 and has been a répétiteur at Covent Garden for almost two decades. She also happens to be the Sugar Plum Fairy in the video that inspired Hayward to start dancing.

Lesley Collier has coached us for nearly all our roles together. I think she’s a wonderful coach as she has always learned the steps through the music and the story, and the thoughts and feelings that go with marrying the two. I personally find it really hard to be inspired when I am taught something by being given rigid counts.

The Sleeping Beauty with Francesca Hayward as Princess Aurora and Alexander Campbell as Prince Florimund © ROH, Bill Cooper, 2017

The Royal Ballet’s practice to invite its retired stars to coach carries on through the generations; former Royal Ballet Principal Jonathan Cope became a répétiteur immediately after he stopped dancing in 2005.

Alexander and I were also coached for The Sleeping Beauty by Jonathan Cope which was immensely helpful for the technical aspects like lifts and grips. It was also an amazing chance to dance with him — he would often lift me and partner me to show us how to do it!

Campbell says that he feels “inspired” by having Collier in the studio with them:

It took me quite a while not to be star struck by her – this was the ballerina who created Rhapsody with Baryshnikov after all! But, that aside, she is incredibly caring and knowledgeable, and it’s been a real pleasure getting to work with her. I have a real appreciation for Lesley’s commitment and eye for detail and I know that Francesca looks up to Lesley a great deal.

Yet not everyone looks up to Collier — one Royal Ballet Principal famously does things her own way, throwing out many of the choreographer’s intentions in doing so. But Hayward’s eager to learn and learn well:

It’s great to have Lesley pass down comments and notes from Ashton and Macmillan. Lesley was the first Sugar Plum Fairy and Lise from La fille mal gardée that I watched on a video as a child, so it’s incredible to be in the studio being taught these ballets by her.

Not every little girl who watches a ballet video starts taking ballet classes, and very few young dancers get into a company, but for Hayward there was to be a promotion every year with The Royal Ballet from 2013 until she became a Principal Dancer in 2016.

When Kevin O’Hare [Director of The Royal Ballet] promoted me I hadn’t done any big tutu roles yet — The Sugar Plum Fairy and Aurora were yet to come — so I think he saw the potential for that, but really I think he saw that I was capable of dancing the bigger roles because I could convincingly tell a story which is essential to nearly any ballet.

I think he also knows that I’m generally pretty calm and I take everything in my stride both on stage and off.

Giselle with Alexander Campbell as Albrecht and Francesca Hayward as Giselle. © ROH, Helen Maybanks 2018

Giselle with Alexander Campbell as Albrecht and Francesca Hayward as Giselle. © ROH, Helen Maybanks 2018

Giselle with Alexander Campbell as Albrecht and Francesca Hayward as Giselle. © ROH, Helen Maybanks 2018

Campbell’s story started in Sydney, Australia, when he was so excited by what he saw at his grandmother’s dancing school, that he began studying there when he was just five. Inspired by Baryshnikov, he chose ballet over cricket as a teenager:

One of the qualities I most admire about Mikhail Baryshnikov is the sense that he performs everything with real commitment and sincerity. It is something that I try to bring to my own performances and I believe it is a quality that really stands out. I certainly appreciate it in others when I see it.

He crossed the globe to study for a short while at the Royal Ballet Upper School before joining the Birmingham Royal Ballet. In 2011 he moved to The Royal Ballet as was promoted to Principal Dancer in 2016, the same year as Hayward.

I would say that my versatility has probably helped me get to where I am. I think that the biggest joy and challenge for the Principals of The Royal Ballet is having to perform the vast amount of repertoire we have here, often with conflicting styles and demands, at the highest possible level.

Becoming a Principal and being entrusted with roles such as Prince Florimund in The Sleeping Beauty and Albrecht in Giselle has widened his horizons even more.

Both these roles have allowed me to work really hard on my classical technique and it’s forced me to examine the way I do certain things. My aim is always to work hard on the technical elements in class and rehearsals so that by the time we get to performances the steps are just an extension of the character I am playing as opposed to a series of steps and enchaînnements. It’s a lot easier in theory than in practice but that is the aim!

Last night after our official debut in Giselle. So glad @katchkadeem was on hand to snap this picture! Thank you! Thank you also for all the wonderful support we have received, especially on Instagram. Knowing so many people were rooting for us was a special feeling. I also have to thank my beautiful partner @frankiegoestohayward – I feel very fortunate to have been onstage with you for your first Giselle and thank you for being such a pleasure to perform with ⭐ – – – – #royaloperahouse #royalballet #giselle @royaloperahouse

A post shared by Alexander Campbell (@acampbell_1) on Feb 10, 2018 at 3:17am PST

After Giselle, Hayward and Campbell will both be dancing in The Winter’s Tale, though not together, but then will team up again for Manon in April.

Campbell says,

I’ve enjoyed everything we’ve worked on together so far and I hope that we will have the opportunity to develop this relationship further as I feel it could be something quite special.

One ballet to add on to the list of possible future collaborations would be Romeo and Juliet.

I saw Francesca perform Juliet for the first time and I thought that it was a really beautiful interpretation of the role — I’d love to play against it because I think she gives her partners, and all the cast members around her, so much to work with. Here’s hoping!

I mentioned sincerity on stage as something that I admire in performers and I think that Francesca displays absolute sincerity whenever she performs. It makes it very easy for me to play off and it is genuinely exciting to be onstage with her.

Hayward quips,

Who knows what the future’s got in store, but I hope we have a lot more Nutcrackers ahead of us!

END

The Nutcracker with Francesca Hayward and Alexander Campbell. © ROH, Helen Maybanks 2016

The Nutcracker with Francesca Hayward and Alexander Campbell. © ROH, Helen Maybanks 2016

Interview with The Royal Ballet’s hot couple: Francesca Hayward and Alexander Campbell Francesca Hayward and Alexander Campbell are quickly becoming The Royal Ballet's ‘couple to see’. After recent successes dancing Clara and the Nutcracker, as well as the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Prince, over the Christmas season, they have just debuted in…