#originally wanted to make a full on maid mechanic but gave up

[rotyolk]

one must imagine a greasy, slimy exhaust pipe of a maid

[minervacasterly]

“Henry VIII was at Whitehall Palace when the Tower guns signaled that he was once more a free man. He then appeared dressed in white mourning as a token of respect for his late queen, called for his barge, and had himself rowed at full speed to the Strand, where Jane Seymour had also heard the guns. News of Anne Boleyn’s death had been formally conveyed to her by Sir Francis Bryan; it does not seem to have unduly concerned her, for she spent the greater part of the day preparing her wedding clothes, and perhaps reflecting upon the ease with which she had attained her ambition: Anne Boleyn had had to wait seven years for her crown; Jane had waited barely seven months.

It was common knowledge that Henry would marry Jane as soon as possible; the Privy Council had already petitioned him to venture once more into the perilous seas of holy wedlock, and it was a plea of the utmost urgency due to the uncertainty surrounding the succession. Both the King’s daughters had been declared bastards, and his natural son Richmond was obviously dying. A speedy marriage was therefore not only desirable but necessary, and on the day Anne Boleyn died the King’s imminent betrothal to Jane Seymour was announced to a relieved Privy Council. This was news as gratifying to the imperialist party, who had vigorously promoted the match, as it would soon be to the people of England at large, who would welcome the prospect of the imperial alliance with its inevitable benefits to trade.

Although the future Queen had rarely been seen in public, stories of her virtuous behavior during the King’s courtship had been circulated and applauded. Chapuys, more cynical, perceived that such virtue had had an ulterior motive, and privately thought it unlikely that Jane had reached the age of twenty-five without having lost her virginity, ‘being an Englishwoman and having been so long’ at court where immorality was rife. However, he assumed that Jane’s likely lack of a maidenhead would not trouble the King very much, ‘since he may marry her on condition she is a maid, and when he wants a divorce there will be plenty of witnesses ready to testify that she was not’. This apart, Chapuys and most other people considered Jane to be well endowed with all the qualities then thought becoming in a wife: meekness, docility and quiet dignity. Jane had been well groomed for her role by her family and supporters, and was in any case determined not to follow the example of her predecessor. She intended to use her influence to further the causes she held dear, as Anne Boleyn had, but, being of a less mercurial temperament, she would never use the same tactics. 

Jane’s well-publicized sympathy for the late Queen Katherine and the Lady Mary showed her to be compassionate, and made her a popular figure with the common people and most of the courtiers. Overseas, she would be looked upon with favour because she was known to be an orthodox Catholic with no heretical tendencies whatsoever, one who favoured the old ways and who might use her influence to dissuade the King from continuing with his radical religious reforms.

Jane was of medium height, with a pale, nearly white, complexion. ‘Nobody thinks she has much beauty,’ commented Chapuys, and the French ambassador thought her too plain. Holbein’s portrait of Jane, painted in 1536 and now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, bears out these statements, and shows her to have been fair with a large, resolute face, small slanting eyes and a pinched mouth. She wears a sumptuously bejeweled and embroidered gown and head-dress, the latter in the whelk-shell fashion so favoured by her; Holbein himself designed the pendant on her breast, and the lace at her wrists. This portrait was probably by his first royal commission after being appointed the King’s Master Painter in September 1536; a preliminary sketch for it is in the Royal Collection at Windsor, and a studio copy is in the Mauritshuis in The Hague. Holbein executed one other portrait of Jane during her lifetime. Throughout the winter of 1536-7, he was at work on a huge mural in the Presence Chamber in Whitehall mural no longer exists, having been destroyed when the palace burned down in the late seventeenth century. Fortuitously, Charles II had before then commissioned a Dutch artists, Remigius van Leemput, to make two small copies, now in the Royal Collection and at Petworth House. His style shows little of Holbein’s draughtsmanship, but his pictures at least give us a clear impression of what the original must have looked like. The figure of Jane is interesting in that we can see her long court train with her pet poodle resting on it. Her gown is of cloth of gold damask, lined with ermine, with six ropes of pearls slung across the bodice, and more pearls hanging in a girdle to the floor. Later portraits of Jane, such as those in long-gallery sets and the miniature by Nicholas Hilliard, all derive from this portrait of Holbein’s original likeness now in Vienna, yet they are mostly mechanical in quality and anatomically awkward. 

However, it was not Jane’s face that had attracted the King so much as the fact that she was Anne Boleyn’s opposite in every way. Where Anne had been bold and fond of having her own way, Jane showed herself entirely subservient to Henry’s will; where Anne had, in the King’s view been a wanton, Jane had shown herself to be inviolably chaste. And where Anne had been ruthless, he believed Jane to be naturally compassionate. He would be in years to come remember her as the fairest, the most discreet, and the most meritorious of all his wives.

Her contemporaries thought she had a pleasing sprightliness about her. She was pious, but not ostentatiously so. Reginald Pole, soon to be made a cardinal, described her as ‘full of goodness���, although Martin Luther, hearing of her reactionary religious views, feared her as ‘an enemy of the Gospel’. According to Chapuys, she was not clever or witty, but ‘of good understanding’. As queen, she made a point of distancing herself from her inferiors, and could be remote and arrogant, being a stickler for the observance of etiquette at her court. Chapuys feared that, once Jane had had a taste of queenship, she would forget her good intentions towards the Lady Mary, but his fears proved unfounded. Jane remained loyal to her supporters, and to Mary’s cause, and in the months to come would endeavor to heal the rift between the King and his daughter.

-          Alison Weir, The Six Wives of Henry VIII

“A story of a later date had Queen Anne finding Mistress Seymour actually sitting on her husband’s lap; ‘betwitting’ the King, Queen Anne blamed her miscarriage upon this unpleasant discovery. There was said to have been ‘much scratching and bye-blows between the queen and her maid’. Unlike the King’s invocations of the divine will, however, there is no contemporary evidence for such robust incidents; the character of Jane Seymour that emerges in 1536 is on the contrary chaste, verging on the prudish. As we shall see, there is good reason to believe that the King found in this very chastity a source of attraction; as he had once turned to the enchantress Anne Boleyn from the virtuous Catherine. Yet before turning to Jane Seymour’s personal qualities for better or for worse, it is necessary to consider the family from which she came … The Seymours were a family of respectable and even ancient antecedents in an age when, as has already been stressed, such things were important. Their Norman ancestry – the name was originally St Maur – was somewhat shadowy although a Seigneur Wido de Saint Maur was said to have come over to England with the Conquest. More immediately,  from Monmouthshire and Penbow Castle, the Seymours transferred to the west of England in the mid-fourteenth century with the marriage of Sir Roger Seymour to Cecily eventual sole heiress of Lord Beauchamp of Hache. Other key marriages brought the family prosperity. Wolf Hall in Wiltshire, for example (scene of Henry’s autum idyll with Jane if legend is to be believed) came with the marriage of a Seymour to Matilda Esturmy, daughter of the Speaker of Commons, in 1405. Another profitable union, bringing with it mercantile links similar to those of the Boleyns, was that of Isabel, daughter and heiress of Mark William Mayor of Bristol, to a Seymour in 1424. Sir John Seymour, father of Jane, was born in about 1474 and had been knighted in the field by Henry VII at the battle of Blackheath which ended a rebellion of 1497. From this promising start, he went on to enjoy the royal favour throughout the next reign. Like Sir Thomas Boleyn, he accompanied Henry VIII on his French campaign of 1513, was present at the Field of Cloth of Gold, attended at Canterbury to meet Charles V; by 1532 he had become a Gentleman of the Bedchamber. Locally, again echoing the career of Thomas Boleyn, he had acted as Sheriff of both Wiltshire and Dorset. It was a career that lacked startling distinction – here was no Charles Brandon ending up a duke – but one which brought him close to the monarch throughout his adult life. Sir John’s reputation was that of a ‘gentle, courteous man’. That again was pleasant but not startling. But there was something outstanding about him, or at least about his immediate family. Sir John himself came of a family of eight children; then his own wife gave birth to ten children – six sons and four daughters. All this was auspicious for his daughter, including the number of males conceived at a time when women’s ‘aptness to procreate children’ in Wolsey’s phrase about Anne Boleyn, was often judged by their family record. It was however from her mother, Margery Wentworth – once again echoing the pattern of Anne Boleyn – that Jane Seymour derived that qualifying dash of royal blood so important to a woman viewed as possible breeding stock. Margery Wentworth was descended from Edward III, via her great-great-grandmother Elizabeth Mortimer, Lady Hotspur. Indeed, in one sense – that of English royal blood – Jane Seymour was better born than Anne Boleyn, since she descended from Edward III, whereas Anne Boleyn’s more remote descent was from Edward I. This Mortimer connection meant that Jane and Henry VIII were fifth cousins. But of course neither the Wentworths nor the Seymours were as grand as Anne Boleyn’s maternal family, the ducal Howards. The Seymours may not have been particularly grand, but close connections to the court had made them, by the generation of Jane herself, astute and worldly wise. Sir John Seymour was over sixty at the inception of the King’s romance with his daughter (and would in fact die before the end of the year 1536); even before that the dominant male figure in Jane’s life seems to have been her eldest surviving brother Edward, described by one observer about this time as both ‘young and wise’. Being young, he was ambitious, and being wise, able to keep his own counsel in pursuit of his plans. Contemporaries found him slightly aloof – he lacked the easy charm of his younger brother Thomas p but they did not doubt his intelligence. Edward Seymour was cultivated as well as clever; he was a humanist and also, as it turned out, genuinely interested in the tenets of the reformed religion (unlike his sister Jane) … The vast family of Sir John Seymour began with four boys: John (who died), Edward, Henry and Thomas, born in about 1508. A few years later the King would speak ‘merrily’ of handsome Tom’s proverbial virility. He was confident that a man armed with ‘such lust and youth’ would be able to please a bride ‘well at all points’. Then came Jane, probably born in 1509, the fifth child but the eldest girl. After that followed Elizabeth, Dorothy and Margery; two sons who died in the sweating sickness epidemic of 1528 made up the ten. Apart from her presumed fertility, what else did Jane Seymour, now in her mid-twenties (the age incidentally at which Anne Boleyn had attracted the King’s attention), have to offer? Polydore Vergil gave the official flattering view when he described her as ‘a woman of the utmost charm both in appearance and character’, and the King’s best friend Sir John Russell called her ‘the fairest of all his wives’ – but this again was likely to loyalty to Jane Seymour’s dynastic significance. From other sources, it seems likely that the charm of her character considerably outweighed the charm of her appearance: Chapuys for example described her as ‘of middle stature and no great beauty’. Her most distinctive aspect was her famously ‘pure white’ complexion. Holbein gives her a long nose, and firm mouth, with the lips slightly compressed, although her face has a pleasing oval shape with the high forehead then admired (enhanced sometimes by discreet plucking of the hairline) and set off by the headdress of the time. Altogether, if Anne Boleyn conveys the fascination of the new, there is a dignified but slightly stolid look to Jane Seymour, appropriately reminiscent of English medieval consorts. But the predominant impression given by her portrait – at the hands of a master of artistic realism – is of a woman of calm and good sense. And contemporaries all commented on Jane Seymour’s intelligence: in this she was clearly more like her cautious brother Edward than her dashing brother Tom. She was also naturally sweet-natured (no angry words or tantrums here) and virtuous – her virtue was another topic on which there was general agreement.

 ... Her survival as a lady-in-waiting to two Queens at the Tudor court still with a  spotless reputation may indeed be seen as a testament to both Jane Seymour’s salient characteristics – virtue and common good sense . A Bessie Blount or Madge Shelton might fool around, Anne Boleyn might listen or even accede to the seductive wooings of Lord Percy: but Jane Seymour was unquestionably virginal. In short, Jane Seymour was exactly the kind of female praised by the contemporary handbooks to correct conduct; just as Anne Boleyn had been the sort they warned against. There was certainly no threatening sexuality about her. Nor is it necessary to believe that her ‘virtue’ was in some way hypocritically assumed, in order to intrigue the King (romantic advocates of Anne Boleyn have sometimes taken this line). On the contrary, Jane Seymour was simply fulfilling the expectations for a female of her time and class: it was Anne Boleyn who was – or rather who had been – the fascinating outsider.

-          Antonia Fraser, The Wives of Henry VIII

“Whilst Jane was always denied a political role, her political interests are clear. She favoured Mary, attempted to save the monasteries and sympathized with the rebels during the Pilgrimages of Grace. Jane’s politics were largely conservative. Her strong character is visible both by her ruthlessness in watching the fall of Anne Boleyn and in the way in which she ruled her household. Jane could have been a queen as strong and influential as Catherine of Aragon or Anne Boleyn had been in the early years of their marriages. Unfortunately for Jane, when the opportunity finally arose with the birth of her son, she did not survive. Had Jane lived, as the mother of the king’s heir, she could have asserted her authority safe in the knowledge that her position was finally secure. After Henry’s death, when Jane’s son was only nine years old, she would have had a very strong claim to the regency as the mother of the king. Jane Seymour could have been so much more and, whilst it is possible to glimpse her potential, much of what she could have achieved will forever be speculation. Jane did not live to take on the political role that would have been open to her as the mother of the heir to the throne and her real legacy is her son, Edward VI, and the prominence of her brothers, Edward and Thomas Seymour. Although Henry would go on to have another three wives after Jane’s death, Edward was his only son and, on Henry’s death in January 1547, he became king aged nine as Edward VI Edward was hailed by many in England as a future great king and Jane would have been proud of her son. Edward’s tutor, Sir John Cheke, for example, wrote of the king that ‘I prophesy indeed, that, with the lord’s blessing, he will prove such a king, as neither to yield to Josiah in the maintenance of the true religion, nor to Solomon in the management of the state, nor to David in the encouragement of godliness’. Roger Ascham, the tutor of Edward’s sister, Elizabeth, also sang the youth king’s praises, writing that ‘he is wonderfully advanced of his years’. Edward was raised to be a king and received a formidable education, writing very advanced letters even in early childhood (even if is clear that he must have received some assistance in the earlier letters). In one letter to his father, Edward wrote: In the same manner as, most bounteous king, at the dawn of day, we acknowledge the return of the sun to our world, although by the intervention of obscure clouds, we cannot behold manifestly with our eyes that resplendent orb; in like manner your majesty’s extraordinary and almost incredible goodness so shines and beams forth, that although present I cannot behold it, though before me, with my outward eyes, yet never can it escape from my heart. Edward was raised to be king in the manner of his father but in his appearance, with his pale skin and fair hair, he always resembled Jane. Jane’s greatest regret, when she came to realize that she was dying, was that she would not live to see her son grow up … 

Jane’s legacy is also her own reputation and her relationship with Henry VIII. Jane never inspired the deep obsession in the king that he felt for Anne Boleyn or the admiring love that he, at first, felt for Catherine of Aragon. Instead, he married her almost on a whim. She was the woman best placed at the perfect time. There is even some evidence that Henry came to regret his haste in marrying Jane after seeing some other beautiful ladies at his court. Jane never raised the passion in Henry that some of his other wives did. Throughout their marriage, it is clear that Henry did not entirely view his marriage to Jane as permanent. It was essential that Jane fulfilled her side of the bargain and that was to bear a son. Until that time, as Jane was very well aware, she was entirely dispensable. In spite of this, with her death in giving him the son he craved, Henry’s feelings towards Jane entirely changed and he came to look back on their marriage through rose-tinted spectacles. A commemoration to Jane was written some time after her death and perhaps best sums up how Henry came to view her: Among the rest whose worthie lyves Hath runne in vertue’s race, O noble Fame! Persue thy trayne, And give Queene Jane a place. A nymphe of chaste Dianae’s trayne, A virtuous virgin eke; In tender youth a matron’s harte, With modest mynde most meeke.

Jane spent her entire marriage trying to prove to Henry that she was his ideal woman and, posthumously, she succeeded.

-      Elizabeth Norton, Jane Seymour: Henry VIII’s True Love

“How a woman like Jane Seymour became Queen of England is a mystery. In Tudor terms she came from nowhere and was nothing. Chapuys confronted the riddle in his dispatch of 18 May 1536, which was addressed to Antoine Perrenot, the Emperor’s minister, rather than to the Emperor Charles V himself. Freed from the decorum of writing to his sovereign, the ambassador expressed himself bluntly. ‘She is the sister’, he began, ‘of a certain Edward Seymour, who has been in the service of his Majesty [Charles V]’; while ‘she [herself] was formerly in the service of the good Queen [Catherine]’. As for her appearance , it was literally colourless. ‘She is of middle height, and nobody thinks she has much beauty. Her complexion is so whitish that she may be called rather pale.’ This is a neat pen-portrait of the woman whose mousy, peaked features and mean, pointed chin, are denred by Holbein with his characteristic, unsparing honesty.  So much Chapuys could see. But when he turned to her supposed moral character he gave his prejudices full rein. ‘You may imagine’, he wrote Perrenot, man-to-man, ‘whether, being an Englishwoman, and having been so long at Court, she would not hold it a sin to be virgo intacta.’ ‘She is not a woman of great wit,’ he continued. ‘But she may have’ -and here he became frankly coarse- ‘a fine enigme.’  ‘Enigme’ means ‘riddle’ or ‘secret’, as in ‘secret place’ or the female genitalia. ‘It is said’, he concluded, ‘that she is rather proud and haughty.’ ‘She seems to bear great goodwill and respect to [Mary]. I am not sure whether later on the honours heaped on her will to make her change her mind.’ Whatever was there here -a woman of no family, no beauty, no talent and perhaps not much reputation (though there is no need to accept all of Chapuys’s slanders)- to attract a man who had already been married to two such extraordinary women as Catherine and Anne? But maybe Jane’s very ordubarubess was tge oiubt, Anne had been exciting as a mistress. But she was too demanding, too mercurial and tempestuous, to make a good wife. Like the Gospel which she patronised, she seemed to have come ‘not to send peace but the sword’ and to make ‘a man’s foes ... them of his own household’ (Matthew 10.34-6). Henry was weary of scenes and squabbles, weary too of ruptures with his nearest and dearest and his oldest and closest friends. He wanted his family and friends back. He wanted domestic peace and the quiet life. He also, more disturbingly, wanted submission. For increasing age and the Supremacy’s relentless elevation of the monarchy had made him ever more impatient of contradiction and disagreement. Only obedience, prompt, absolute and unconditional, would do. And he could have none of this with Anne. Jane, on the other hand, was everything that Anne was not. She was calm, quiet, soft-spoken (when she spoke at all) and profoundly submissive, at least to Henry ...”

-          David Starkey, Six Wives: The Queens of Henry VIII

Images: Jane Seymour painted by Hans Holbein the Younger. Variousa actresses from costume dramas that have played Henry VIII’s third consort. Elly Condron from the documentary drama Secrets of the Six Wives documentary presented by Lucy Worsley. Anne Stallybras from the BBC miniseries The Six Wives of Henry VIII (1970). Jane Asher from the BBC film Henry VIII & his Six Wives (1972). Lastly, Kate Phillips from Wolf Hall (2014).

[bluecoloreddreams]

(Disclaimer: this contains spoilers for the Fruits Basket and Fruits Basket: Another manga, as well as taking into consideration tidbits from Takaya’s twitter.) 

So, okay, first of all we have to address the YMMV aspect: Some people don’t like this ship. As long as they’re respectful, I have no beef with that. I’m well aware that some people cannot/choose not to make the distinction between “real life” and “fiction”— I have the luxury of this choice, so some of the “problematic” ships/character aspects within Furuba don’t bother me (for the most part). It’s fiction, and I’m aware of this.  

Again, some people cannot/do not make this distinction, and that’s none of my business because that’s their personal life. I’m aware that people dislike aspects of Akigure, and that’s fine. 

Personally? I’ve been reading Furuba since like, basically the dawn of time. I was reading scans on, like,  MSN groups. I remember a friend at church (of all places) telling me about the Akito reveal because I was behind on updates. It’s literally engrained upon my shipping heart at this point. 

(Headcanons ahoy! Like literally, this is all headcanon/my perspective on the series as a whole. YMMV/YKINMK/Dead Dove, the whole works, if you know you know

YES I wrote it like it’s an actual research paper because I have No Chill At All, please forgive me. It’s long and pretty rambling.) 

Addressing the first elephant in the room: Given my limited interactions with the fandom, my impression of Akigure from a generalized fan POV is that it’s pretty divisive. Every episode she comes up there are “I hate this kid” comments and I cry

Akito is a favorite of mine, and it’s impossible for anime-only’s to make a deep, informed call on her character. On the other hand, a lot of manga-readers dislike her too. 

So, why am I talking about whether or not people like Akito as a character? 

I’m of the opinion that it impacts people’s ability to view her character arc as one that deserves a happy ending. That she doesn’t deserve to have love, happiness, or forgiveness, all of which are given to her when she and Shigure finally end up together on equal footing. (Do I think the way it’s rushed in the original Furuba ending? Yeah, but hey. Sensei had like a huge ensemble cast to wrap ends on. Now there’s Furubana to look to and it’s just chef’s kiss.)

There’s a mental aspect in this, involving the dichotomy between “reality” and “fiction”. 

There is absolutely zero argument that are a lot of things that Akito does that uh, listen, if it was IRL she’d be in jail! Jail for terror baby! Jail for life! 

Fortunately, Fruits Basket is a work of fiction. These characters aren’t real, they’re idealized brushstrokes of human nature created to move a plot and a message along. 

That’s why Akito and Shigure work as a couple and as characters: 

They’re both incredibly deep characters that get passed off as one-dimensional by a lot of people (and the original anime, woof). Some of it is again, because anime-only fans just don’t have the whole story, since Akito’s arc is one that builds gradually until it hits a point where all hell breaks loose, which we are a ways away from. 

So what’s the message that their relationship and characters are supposed to pass on? 

Well, it breaks down into two categories: world building and thematic arcs. The latter is more important and what I’ll be focusing on, while the former is just a little spice that I, personally enjoy, and won’t really talk about in depth. (It’s that the magical realism in Furuba sets up the idea of soulmates, it’s just…. Something I enjoy and it’s really heacanony, so I can’t really justify spending more words on it!) 

When discussing Fruits Baskets in any capacity, I feel like we must first keep in mind the thematic “lessons” of the series: 

There is an inherent loneliness in living as a human being, since loss, grief, and hurt are indelible parts of the human experience, and learning to cope with these feelings in a compassionate manner is a life-long lesson 

People react differently to the loneliness of existence, and their reactions are based upon their personalities, their upbringings, and their own choices 

Everyone is capable of change and learning, if they choose to do so, however: 

Personal agency is taught, but in the vacuum of positive reinforcement, the ability of a person to choose to be compassionate is stifled or outright inaccessible

Therefore, if you are not taught to deal with your grief and existence outside of others, your ability to connect may become warped, manipulative, or abusive, and this is not the fault of the child but instead the parental figure 

Eventually, you will be aware of your actions, and then it is your burden to choose—some people do not take this choice (the head maid, Ren, Kyo’s bio dad, Rin’s parents, Sawa’s mother in Furubana)  

Abuse has long lasting effects on the psyche and can be physical, emotional, and/or mental in nature and must be dealt with in order to grow as a person

“Dealt with” does not mean that it goes away, but that it is acknowledged and given a positive outlet (Yuki’s garden, Aaya’s shop, Rin’s art, Momiji’s violin playing)

Forgiveness is not linear

Forgiving yourself is a long and arduous process, and happens independent of other people’s forgiveness

This is really brought to the forefront in Fruits Basket: Another, when Shiki talks about how his mother interacts with the rest of the Sohma family. It’s shown she’s done what she can to make amends, but recognizes that while she can individually hold relationships with certain family members, as a whole, it's best if she allows them to be away from her. 

This is a whole tangent on its own, but there’s a certain blanket of casual forgiveness given to Akito by the entirety of the shown Zodiac in Furubana, in that they trust that she’s raised a kind and thoughtful son and allow him the grace of his own family. 

Again, in Takaya’s tweets post-series that acknowledges that Akito’s friends with Uo-chan, despite her relationship with Kureno (and it shows a depth of awareness on Kureno’s part that he stays away

People flourish in environments where love and positive reinforcement is given freely, even when people are in the wrong

This doesn’t mean that no one is ever scolded: see Komaki and Kakeru, Kisa and Hiro, Hatori chews out Shigure all the time, but never ceases being his confidant 

So okay, that’s A Lot. But every single character in Furuba follows these themes in their own manner, because the series is about healing and learning how to heal from abuse, neglect, and isolation. Someone’s gonna have to be doing it. Point blank, the end, to tell a story there must be conflict, and boy howdy, there’s a lot of conflict in Furuba. Every personal thematic arc in the series ends up tying into a romantic one, because Furuba is a romcom drama. 

There’s a loop that goes “personal betterment”->”crush”/”friendship”->”conflict”->”personal growth”/”relationship growth” in the series for every character. That’s the bread and butter of Furuba. 

But anyway. To the question: 

I love them because they work, they’re both their own people with their own narrative focuses, motivations, conflicts, and flaws. Both Shigure and Akito are believable in their own right in the context of Furuba, and I think Takaya did wonderfully in crafting a story where their personalities mesh well and give each other reasons to better themselves.

To talk about them together, you have to talk about them separately. 

I’m gonna start with Shigure because, truthfully? 

I just want to lament about how often he’s simply passed off as either comic relief or absolute trash. He’s so underestimated! 

“He’s a joke of a grown man… He is reliable and I trust him.” (Another, v. 3)

He’s incredibly intelligent when it comes to interpersonal relationships, which is why he’s able to do what he does. He’s also incredibly kind—no one made him take in Yuki or Kyo or Tohru. He could have just went “ah, I’d prefer not to” and moved on. But he didn’t, made up some bullshit so Haru would feel like taking in Yuki was a transaction, and let me just tell you, I am the same age as Shigure and if you gave ME three teenagers to be the guardian of?! It would be a full on disaster.

He’s actually incredibly trustworthy (if he wants to be), insightful, and a genuinely good guardian despite his jokes and wisecracking. 

He forced Kyo to go back to school, knowing full well it would be good for him. He lets a whole host of children run rampant through his home. Kids who actually enjoy his presence. He’s shown as having a good familial relationship with Rin (who tries to warp that for her own means), Kisa, Haru, and Momiji. His advice to Tohru is genuine, insightful, and ridiculously helpful. 

Shigure is good with people. He gets up at the crack of dawn to drive Shiki to see Sawa in Furubana. He’s who Mutsuki and Hajime immediately go “holy shit you need to do something about this” to when they find out Shiki’s getting nasty notes about Akito. He’s who Shiki goes to when Sawa fell down the stairs as a child. As much as Shiki and the others make fun of Shigure, he’s obviously someone who’s trustworthy. And that’s not some new development, he’s always been trustworthy in regards to those he loves. No one asked him to show up to Tohru’s teacher conference, he volunteered. Like this dude loves people, he’s the dog spirit after all, and rightly so. 

Does he have his own motivations? Of course! But so does everyone else in Furuba. He’s a complex character, man! 

He laughs and jokes a lot because he’s projecting this image of a laid back, doofus. When you think about who he’s friends with, the whole middling goofball act makes a lot of sense. Just like some of Ayame’s over the top behavior is a defense mechanism, I believe that Shigure casts himself as a generally unappealing man to keep himself safe from advances when he was in school, but also to temper the wildly unequal personalities of his other two friends. He’s the sort of person who would just go “eh, whatever makes it easy”, and that’s just how he is. 

He doesn’t mean the creepy school girl thing, it’s a bit and I think the only people who don’t realize he’s running a bit are Yuki, Kyo, and Tohru who are absolutely too stupid to realize he’s playing them for reactions. He thinks it’s funny. 

Anyway:

When the older Zodiac had the dream of Shigure, Shigure is the only one who made the active choice to seek out that feeling. His soul was touched, and he decided that he wanted that and only that. This doesn’t necessarily mean he went full Jacob from Breaking Dawn, but it does mean he acknowledged there was a bond, and he wanted it. 

When you get into the technicalities of the curse, it’s mentioned that their Zodiac spirits influence how they interact with Akito, and that going against her can cause physical and emotional pain. Yuki cries when meeting her, and it’s mentioned that that’s just the normal reaction for the Zodiacs. 

It’s hard to say how much of their early interactions are influenced by the curse, but it’s obvious that Shigure has genuine fondness for her. She wasn’t always absolutely broken, as shown in Yuki’s backstory, and was a precocious child, one who sought affection openly. 

Shigure has an indulgent personality, and is shown to love being adored. Guess who loves him! Akito! Guess who wants lots and lots of affection! Akito! 

Their personalities are very well matched as they get older: They’re both intelligent and coy. They both have fairly sharp tongues when needed, and have no qualms about doing whatever it takes to get what they want. 

Shigure wants Akito to be independent from the curse. He’s made it clear to her he doesn’t want to be her father, he doesn’t want to be her friend, he wants to be her lover. Those are boundaries that Akito’s never been given before, and his frankness with her and his jealousy with Kureno is something she agonizes over, simply because she’s never been given any sort of serious interpersonal boundaries, or repercussions for her actions. He’s always kept himself separate from her, because of those boundaries, even when they were children. 

That’s important. It opens the door to the idea that her actions have consequences, and is a persistent nagging in the back of her mind. 

“Even though you hadn’t realized it, I was waiting for that day.” (ch 101)

For the bulk of the series, the only person who sees Akito as a person separate from the curse, and sees a future where she can grow is Akito. He has an extraordinary amount of patience for her, and forgives her for a lot. 

There are only two incidents that Shigure cannot forgive: Her sleeping with Kureno, and at the very end of the series, I’m of the full opinion that if Akito had pushed Tohru off the cliff, Shigure would have been done with her. Look at that expression, that is the look of someone who is toeing the line of throwing away all his hopes and dreams. If she really had pushed Tohru, I just...... The series would have taken a much darker tone. 

OKAY that’s enough about our favorite terrible author! (Okay, an aside, Shigure, please share your work ethic, you goof off so much but you’ve published so many things…how…)  

ONTO AKITO! 

“I’ve  finally realized… she hated her own shallowness all this time, from the very start.” // “It’s frightening because you have no choices.” (ch 121) 

A lot of people dislike Akito because she, for the bulk of the manga, is violent, manipulative and just downright unpleasant. And that’s fine, but it’s not the point of her arc or the themes of the manga.  (It is, however, the point of Rin’s: you don’t have to forgive everyone.) 

She’s not the only violent person in the series. If we as readers can forgive Uo-chan and Kyoko, or even Hana-chan for her moment of violence, why can we not extend the same grace to Akito? 

Violence is often shown as a knee-jerk reaction to fear and sadness: Kyoko, Uo, Hana, Kyo, Rin, and Akito all react violently to negative situations and feelings. Even Kisa reacts violently when she’s at her worst, biting both Haru and Tohru when she’s in her tiger form, which is shown to actually cause pain like a real tiger would. (It’s played for laughs, but has anyone been bitten for realsies by a house cat? That hurts! How much more would a house-cat sized tiger hurt!!!) 

Out of all of them, Hanajima and Kisa are the only characters to show immediate remorse, because they have what the others don’t: A positive support system. Once positive role models and support systems are in place, all of the others begin to learn how to react differently and ease out of the knee-jerk reactions that were ingrained in them. 

It’s made explicit in the manga that you have to be taught how to react positively, you have to learn and choose to be good, to be friendly, to love yourself outside of others’ perceptions of yourself. Look at Yuki’s arc. Look at Uo-chan’s. Kyoko’s. 

Yuki sums it up nicely in the last chapter of the manga, where he tells Tohru that she taught the Zodiac how to become human. She allows them to grow into people who can make the choice to be loving, compassionate individuals. 

Just because Akito doesn’t interact positively with Tohru for the bulk of the manga, it doesn’t make it any less true: 

Akito is kept in a juvenile state of being: No one teaches her to suck it up, that the world exists outside of herself, that other people are people and not things. In fact, she’s actively encouraged to act the way she does. She’s incredibly broken, between the maids of the Sohma estate just… allowing her to do whatever the fuck she wants and her absolutely jacked up relationship with Ren and Akira. She has no moral compass at all. No one bothers to teach her that her actions have serious consequences. 

She knows, in a roundabout way that hey, these people don’t like me. There’s a serious mental dissonance between what she latently knows—these are all people with no connection to her other than the bond of the curse. This is why Tohru is able to break through to her at the climax of the manga: 

She knows she’s wrong, but no one has ever told her she’s wrong but understood why she’s doing it. Akito just didn’t have the words to explain herself. What do children do when they cannot communicate? They lash out. Kids will bite, scratch, yell, kick, fall to the floor and have screaming tantrums out of frustration. Eventually, most kids learn that there are other ways to express frustration, and move along. (Not all, though, but most.)

Akito was taught that this is acceptable, allowable, and is her right as god. She is actively broken and kept that way through the neglect of the Sohma family maids, Ren’s abuse, and how Akira framed her role in the Zodiac. 

I can go on and on and on and on why the way Akito was treated for her role in the Zodiac by her parents and the rest of the Sohma estate was just awful. I hate it, it’s terrible, she never had a chance to learn and grow and be the genuinely thoughtful woman we know she grows into. 

She doesn’t force her path of forgiveness onto others and is fully cognizant of what she did, the repercussions of her actions, and lives her entire life after the curse breaks trying to right what she did wrong. 

“Even if she gets hurt, she says she deserves it. She tells me not to let it bother me, but… I’ve always, always loved her so much.” (Another, ch. 13) 

Tohru opens the door for Akito. She extends her hand, offers her friendship despite having seen the absolute worst of Akito. She tells Akito that everyone is lonely, everyone wants bonds, and acknowledges Akito’s worst fears, that Akito herself is selfish and dirty for wanting something assured and unending because she, Tohru, herself is dirty and selfish. Tohru knows what Akito has done, knows she’s injured some of her beloved friends, had plans to lock up Kyo, hurt Hatori. 

Tohru still forgives her. One of Tohru’s striking traits in the manga is that she is suffering, every day, she struggles with the grief of losing her mother and the fear of being alone in the world. Through nothing but her own empathy and realization that loneliness is universal, she’s able to forgive people. She forgives Akito and cares for her, and through Tohru, Akito is introduced to the realization that she’s been wrong and that maybe, she shouldn’t be forgiven. 

Shigure also forgives her, and this is the crux of their ship. 

To me, that itself is wildly important. 

They’ve always circled around each other, and Shigure has always been waiting for Akito to be able to come to him again, in full control of her life and choices. He wants Akito the woman, not Akito the god. 

He’s been waiting for the day Akito can meet him as an equal. Akito wants it too, and has wanted him to turn and see her for a very very long time. But she’s been terrified, the entire time, that when he does see her as herself, Shigure won’t like what he sees, and will leave. She’s aware of what she’s done post-curse, she’s aware of the impacts it will have on the former Zodiac members, and she’s aware that once the “bonds” of god and the animals is gone, there may not be anyone left for her.

Neither of them are under any illusions at the end of the series: Akito knows she has to atone for what she did, Shigure knows she has to learn to grow into a person who can function alone. They both know that there are people who are against them changing the oppressive structure of the Sohma family. 

Neither of them care. There are things that they want, together, and it’s enough. There’s a whole new world for them to explore and learn about. And in Furubana, this is shown to be a lifelong effort on their parts: 

“She said after meeting me, she learned so many things for the first time. She smiled happily as she said it.” (Another, #13) 

To close, I’d like to take a moment to talk about the curse and Shigure, and how he set things in motion. 

Without Shigure, the curse would have devolved on its own, yes, but the circumstances would not have allowed for the freedom the Zodiac had at the end of the manga. It would not have ended with Akito being able to learn and live freely. Allowing Tohru into the Sohma family cracked open a door to compassion and kindness none of them had ever experienced before, because the Sohma family seems to exist in a vacuum of stability and love. 

It wasn’t that Shigure knew instantly that Tohru was kind and loving and thoughtful, if anything, his read on her was “completely normal, albeit strange, teenage girl who obviously has a rough life”. But she was normal, she was from outside the Sohmas, and he knew that was enough. No one in the family was stepping up to change the status quo and how stifling and abusive it was, so he did it himself. 

He did it because he loved Akito. 

Not because he felt bad for himself, or Hatori, or any of the others, but merely because he loved her to the point of manipulation. It backfired in his face, because he got a big ol’ dose of “loving and respecting” juice from Tohru, but he still got the end he wanted. 

What I mean to say is best summarized in  chapter 123: 

“It would be nice to live in a kind world, without any troubles, without any fear, without hurting anybody, without ever being hurt, only doing the right thing. I wish I could reach this kind world by the shortest path possible. … “That’s wrong”, or “that’s stupid”: If it’s someone else’s life it’s so easy to make such irresponsible comments. ...It would be great, but it doesn’t exist. … Little by little, walking one step at a time, is all you can do.” 

We get to experience the roughest part of the path with Akito and Shigure, we got to watch them be terrible people who were lonely and in want of love struggle and learn how to get up and move on. 

They tease each other, Shigure is thoughtful of the distinction between “the person Akito was raised to be” and “the person who Akito is”. He’s seen her at her messiest, and she’s seen him at his most jealous. They still chose each other, despite the hurt they caused each other, and others. They make up for it, reflect, and live a life that demonstrates that they have learned. They have friends who are thoughtful and loving and would not hesitate to drop everything and help them, lend an ear when they’re frustrated, help them not to make the same mistakes. 

And then we get to see them be wonderful, kind, thoughtful, loving parents in Furubana. 

We got to see their adorable, kind, compassionate child be friends with the children of the people Akito hurt, because everyone in the former Zodiac’s family collectively decided “never again, no”. 

Their child adores them. Shiki in Furubana #13 radiates love for Akito and Shigure the same way Mutsuki and Hajime do. 

They are genuinely good parents, even when they tease Shiki, and I think that is testament for how good they are for each other and how much they’ve changed as adults. 

I think that’s enough of a reason to ship them, don’t you?

[supermiraculousladybug]

The Disturbing Dark Truth about Cat Noir (Theory).

Hello my name is well it doesn't matter what my name is but what matters is this dark disturbing truth behind our favorite kitten, Cat Noir and what is he really behind all the jokes/puns/flirt but mostly what person inspired Thomas Astruc to create Cat Noir.

Cat Noir is actually inspired by a little boy Thomas Astruc knew since childhood. His name is Anthony Cheung-Fernández, son of Wang Lei-Zhang Wei Huáng-Cheung, a Chinese American biker gang member and Catalina-Juana "CJ" Luciana Fernández-Hernández, an underage Mexican-Latina prostitute/stripper but i'm not gonna get into his childhood even despite he's an inspiration for Cat Noir. Behind his jokes , puns and flirtatious motivations, I think it's possible Cat Noir is an abused mentally unstable boy with special needs and so we only see the imagined world and events through his eyes because he's coping with the harsh and cruel reality of the world he's born into.

Cat Noir is a crack baby because his mom smoked all lot of crack cocaine while she was carrying him in her womb and it causes Cat Noir mental and psychological damage for life but he even has tremors from arms and legs to whole body because he's so severely damaged by crack cocaine and since he's severely uncontrolled shaky, you might mistaken Cat Noir's uncontrollable tremors for being cold and having seizures but often he has high-pitched screaming and high-pitched crying which he's often mistakenly thought to be a girl by others and his instabilities are also the results of being a crack baby.

What Cat Noir's classmates didn't know, is the frequent abuse and neglect Cat Noir has endured and suffered at home. Cat Noir is a special needs child who suffer from abuse , neglect and bullying but this traumatic experiences has left poor Cat Noir traumatized , easily scared , shy , nervous , easily startled , shaking-in-fear and easily fearful or easily frightened of others. A bunch of mean kids and bullies would called Cat Noir "stupid" , "dummy" , "idiot" , "retard" , "dumbass" and "dimwitted" since they knew Cat Noir has Autism , Down Syndrome , Mental Retardation and Hydrocephalus, they believe he's too stupid to be in school and having low-intelligence means he can't learn.

Due to Cat Noir having Autism and Down Syndrome it can be hard for him to keep up with other kids because he learns things slowly than others and it's no wonder he's put into a Special Education classes. Cat Noir was born with Down Syndrome due to his younger mother's age and older father's age but some children with Down syndrome (like Cat Noir) are born to women under age 35 because younger women have far more babies.

But if we only see the imagined world and events through his eyes wouldn't that means it's nothing but Cat Noir's imaginations we only saw on the show but if that's the case then how come we don't see the reality outside of his eyes, could it be that outside of his eyes, it's full of neglect , abuse , torture , lies , bullying and harassment that he turned to his imaginations , puns and jokes as a coping mechanism to escape from it. So we're gonna analyzed his relationship with other people and compared to the canon relationship he supposedly has.

Ladybug.

She is a friend of Cat Noir but also the closes he has but is she really a good friend to Cat Noir? In the show, Ladybug is shown to be verbally abusive and physically abusive towards Cat Noir in almost various episodes from Bubbler , Origins Part 1 , Stormy Weather and Sliencer, she uses her yoyo to hit Cat Noir with but surprisingly she never regretted but kept on doing it. Ladybug knew about Cat Noir's condition but instead of sympathizing with him and supporting/getting him help, she chose to convinced him his imaginations is real and everything he believes is reality but that's reason why Cat Noir depicted Ladybug as a stubborn , easily annoyed and bad-tempered person who's so quickly to get angry but this is the tip of the iceberg because Ladybug is not just verbally abusive and physically abusive, she's also sexually abusive towards Cat Noir. Ladybug would take advantage of Cat Noir by raping him but she usually would forced herself on Cat Noir and grabbed his penis and put it into her vagina even though despite Cat Noir not being ready for a proportional relationship, she's willing to do whatever she wants with him even if it means it the cost of their friendship, it also explains why Ladybug flirts with Cat Noir because Cat Noir knew about Ladybug being sexually abusive and sexually active. Ladybug has been doing this since the age of 12 while Cat Noir was 11 but ever since then she's been doing sexual activities with Cat Noir due to her seeing Cat Noir as a sex toy to play and have "fun" with, due it's no wonder throughout the series Cat Noir is never started dating because of the history of being sexually abused. Ladybug has Black hair with Blue reflections and Baby blue eyes but has a slim body, her middle name is Marietta although is a similar name to Cat Noir's elder half sister, Marietta "Marie" Kyle.

Marinette.

Marinette Dupain-Cheng is a teenage Eurasian girl who is close friends with Cat Noir, she's 2 months older than Cat Noir (Marinette was born on July 22, 2001 and Cat Noir was born on September 25, 2001) and she's been mistaken for Ladybug and Marietta by Cat Noir because she looks like them.

Marinette has 2 older half sisters, Bridgette Cheng and Charlotte Dupain, who were born from their parents 1st marriage which it makes Marinette born from 2nd marriage. Her parents are Tom Dupain, an Italian-French baker who love his Bakery and his daughters including his stepdaughter and Sabine Cheng, a Chinese immigrant who moved from China to Paris with her daughter to give her a better life and loves her daughters including her stepdaughter.

Marinette has a mixture of Black and Blue hair with Bluebell eyes but she's always mistaken to be Ladybug or Marietta by Cat Noir very often because to Cat Noir, Ladybug and Marinette looked the same but also it's due to how Marinette and Marietta look very similar because of their names and hair colors.

Much like Cat Noir, Marinette has been bullied by Chloé Bourgeois, one of the most popular girls in Françoise Dupont High School but unlike Cat Noir, Marinette had been bullied by Chloé since Kindergarten. Although due to being bullied at school, Marinette became insecure about herself and is scared of Chloé since then.

Marinette has ADHD , Dyslexia , Dyscalculia and Dyspraxia or "Clumsy Child Syndrome" which it explains about her clumsiness and reading difficulties but she's not alone as Cat Noir had learning disabilities himself so he knew how Marinette feels when it comes to being different from other kids. When Marinette said "But all the teachers say I don't sound natural when I read" meaning all teachers are aware of Marinette's reading difficulty and Cat Noir did a good job of depicting Marinette as a "clumsy girl with reading problems" since he knew her so too well. Despite Marinette being clumsy in front of Cat Noir, he's still doesn't understand her condition even tho he has learned about it before.

Marinette does have a close bond with Cat Noir as they're best friends and their friendship is stronger but they can very protective of each other at times because for Marinette, she knew Cat Noir has Autism and is very vulnerable to getting hurt easily and getting attacked by bullies and mean kids but for Cat Noir, it's due to his feline instincts of being protective of their owners, since Marinette is the closest to an "owner" Cat Noir actually has.

Marinette have sleepover with her friends and Cat Noir but mostly it's with Cat Noir because he's the only boy who's interested in girl stuff like makeups , dresses and skirts.

Marinette is aware of Cat Noir's instabilities and knows he's not given any help but she's able to give Cat Noir support. Marinette knew Cat Noir has long-term tremors since he's a crack baby and knows he has a hard time controlling his body movement. Marinette does frequently often visits Cat Noir in Mrs. Caroline's Class, a Special Education Class where Cat Noir goes in because of his learning disabilities and it was thought that because of Marinette's reading and learning disability, she would be in Mrs. Caroline's Special Ed class but instead she's currently in Mrs. Bustier's class.

Chloé Bourgeois.

Chloé is the most popular girl in Françoise Dupont High School and is the head cheer captain of a cheerleading squad.

She is the daughter of the Mayor of Paris and Queen of Fashion magazines and owner of a fashion company. Chloé is spoiled rotten by her father and verbally and emotionally abused by her mother.

Chloé knew Cat Noir before preschool and it was when his mother worked as a maid for The Bourgeois family but unfortunately she saw Cat Noir's mom sleeping with her father and Audrey was so angry at Cat Noir's mother that she wanted her fired but however André kept her on. Due to this it causes Chloé to take her anger and frustration out on Cat Noir by bullying him for being the "son of a hooker" but most importantly it explains why in fanfiction stories, Chloé mistreated Cat Noir. Chloé has always bullied and making fun of Cat Noir for coming from a very poor family , living in a shack to living in a 1960s motorhome , wearing baggy outfits , not being as rich as her , not being as popular as her , not being as smart as her , being dirty , being weak , being a mama's boy , not being muscular like other boys and not having masculinity like other boys. But however Chloé can go too far whenever she bullies Cat Noir, like she's been beaten him up causing Cat Noir's injuries to be more visible and bleeding.

His mother.

Cat Noir's mother is Selina Kyle, an alcoholic , drug addict and smoker young mother who gave birth to 8 children from 7 different fathers. She became a mother at a young age and she's an mentally unstable person who barely could take care of her children. She went from having multiple boyfriends to having multiple girlfriends. All of her children look more like their fathers than their mother. She bears a passion hatred towards man because she was physically abused by her father when she was a child. Her mother committed suicide when she was little and since she's the only one who looks like her mother, it's no wonder her father abuses her physically.

She had Cat Noir at 17 from a father she hardly knew and the baby daddy was 38 when Cat Noir was born. Since the baby daddy was arrested for supposedly "gang raping a minor", not only he'll never meet his baby but she'll have to raised Cat Noir on her own. She was so unstable both mentally and physically, she abused and neglected Cat Noir often 24/7 but she did leave him in a neglected state. She left her children in the care of her boyfriend but her boyfriend wanted nothing to do with Cat Noir and so as a result, he locked Cat Noir in the room for an hour or days or even a month/years whenever he has to deal with Cat Noir.

Selina abuse drugs and alcohol when she was a kid but due to this, the drugs completely fried her brain and gave her permanent brain damage but the alcohol cause her brain damage to worsen, she had memory loss. Thanks to the drugs it caused her to be unstable both mentally and physically, she went to a rehabilitation facilities for drug addicts and alcoholics like herself but she went from going to rehab often to now staying there until she's drug-free and alcohol-free because of her history of drug usage and overdosing on them but surprisingly surviving it, due to this she became absent in not only her kids but Cat Noir's life as well and she also became very sickly , extremely tired , supposedly weight gaining and severely skinny.

Rose Lavillant.

Rose Lavillant is one of Marinette's closest friends and the most nicest person Cat Noir has ever met. Rose is lead singer of a rock band, Kitty Section and Kitty Section band is a hybrid of a cat and unicorn but Cat Noir likes to call Kitty Section "Unikitty" since it is a combination after all. Rose loves unicorns which it's why Cat Noir sees her as a playmate and is depicted as sweet , kind and playful according to Cat Noir at least. Princess Twinkle Peach is Rose's favorite plush unicorn although Cat Noir finds Princess Twinkle Peach interesting because of her designs but again with his schizophrenic condition, he thought Princess Twinkle Peach can talk to him and move on her own.

She likes to sit on a soft pink cushion seat so it smoothed Cat Noir.

Lila Rossi.

Lila is the most popular girl in Françoise Dupont High School, she's from Italy and back in Italy, she used to bully a girl for no reasons. Lila is the biggest slut in school.

When Lila was at school in Italy, she used to sleep with popular guys for popularity. Lila most likely slept with Cat Noir because she knew he's the most vulnerable child and would get easily taken advantage of but Lila always raped Cat Noir which it causes her exposure in the first place and she barely took advantage of Cat Noir.

Much like Cat Noir, Lila grew up without a father in her life and is only raised by her mother but unlike Cat Noir, Lila lies about her home life , parents , why she's not in school , why she had bad grades , where she's at , why she's late , why she's failing and why she's tired.

Last but not least Cat Noir (even though he doesn't count as a relationship).

Cat Noir was born premature and as an accident on September 25, 2001 to an underage prostitute and a grown biker gang member. When he was born, he was in a incubator in the NICU room. He was an unexpected , unplanned and unwanted child because he has his dad's looks such as blonde hair , green eyes and orange-tinted skin.

Cat Noir has Autism , Mental Retardation , Severe Schizophrenia , Down Syndrome , Bilateral Complete Cleft Lip and Palate , Congenital Heart Defect , Fetal Alcohol Syndrome , Alcohol-Related Birth Defect and Hydrocephalus but he has 3 types of Autism, Low-functioning Autism , Asperger's Syndrome and Severe Autism or Level 3 Autism. Due to his condition, he even has a learning disability as a result from his Autism , Down Syndrome , Mental Retardation and Hydrocephalus. Cat Noir even has a stunted growth as a result of his mom's alcoholism and it's no wonder he's short and looks younger for his age.

Cat Noir comes from a very poor family and lives from a shack to a 1960s motorhome. He's the 7th child of 8 children and each of Cat Noir's siblings have different fathers but they all have the same mother, Cat Noir is the oldest male in the household full of girls but his mom only wanted daughters so by the time Cat Noir was born, she's disappointed her baby is male and blamed the father for giving her a son instead of a daughter.

Cat Noir's mother was only 17 years old when she gave birth to Cat Noir although he was brought into the world irresponsibly by his mother because of her drug addictions and results due to 5 times of broken condoms. Cat Noir was raised by his absent on-and-off again mother and his mom often neglected Cat Noir 24/7 but she left him in a care of someone else except they neglected and abused Cat Noir too because he resembled his mother.

Cat Noir was often abused and neglected by his babysitters and other caretakers. What's even more messed up is the fact that he's a special needs child since he's autistic and have down syndrome but one of his babysitters would leave him in filth and one of his caretakers would beat him if he make noises.

Cat Noir transfer to Françoise Dupont High School at age 11+1/2 years old when he was in the 7th grade due to frequent bullying , abuse and neglect at a previous school, he's in a special ed class. The first person he met was Marinette Dupain-Cheng who was 12 years old at the time and since then he became inseparable towards Marinette due to her kindness , good nature , sweet tendencies and being nice to him.

Cat Noir sees Marinette as a mother figure and often calls her "mommy" but he likes to cuddle with Marinette and rub his face on Marinette to his affection towards her. Marinette knows Cat Noir has Autism and Down Syndrome thus she's patient and gentle with Cat Noir. Marinette taught Cat Noir how to walk and talk at 13 years old despite what everyone told her she can't teach Cat Noir speech.

Cat Noir has a developmental delay and due to this, he can't meet his milestones like dressing up on his own , feeding himself , cleaning himself , tying his own shoelaces , brushing his hair , brushing his teeth , taking a bath on his own and toilet training.

The before and after Aftermath of abuse and neglect.

Cat Noir was placed in the care of his mother's boyfriend but sadly he was further abused by his mom's boyfriend and neglected by him, he was even locked in his room 24/7, due to this isolation and neglect, Cat Noir's only companion was his stuff animals and his schizophrenic state is worsen but he believes his stuff animals could talk to him and move by themselves but it however freaks out other people because "what kind of kid believes his stuffed animals would talk and moving on its own" but he supposedly is always talking gibberish to "someone" else when actually he's talking to himself.

Cat Noir was born premature and as an accident due to a broken condom. He has Autism , Mental Retardation , Severe Schizophrenia , Down Syndrome , Bilateral Complete Cleft Lip and Palate , Congenital Heart Defect , Fetal Alcohol Syndrome , Alcohol-Related Birth Defect and Hydrocephalus but his Severe Schizophrenia , Bilateral Complete Cleft Lip and Palate , Congenital Heart Defect , Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and Alcohol-Related Birth Defect. His Autism , Mental Retardation and Down Syndrome were due to his mom's age being 17 and his dad's age being 38 but most importantly he has Hydrocephalus because of unknown reasons but what if it's actually due to his older father and young mother then it makes sense.

Does Lila really hate Ladybug for embarrassing her in front of the boy she liked or Is it actually in the mind of Cat Noir thinking that's what it is?

Ever wondered why Lila hated Ladybug with a passion, you may think it's because of Ladybug embarrassing Lila in front of Adrien but it's actually not true in fact it's nothing but in Cat Noir's mind, Cat Noir thinks this is why Lila hated Ladybug but in reality it's because Ladybug exposing Lila on how much of a skank oh she is because that bitch sleeps with every guy at school for popularity but however Cat Noir was unaware of Lila being a slut. In Volpina, Lila lies to Adrien about being a descendant of a fox-themed heroine, Volpina but after Ladybug humiliates her in front of Adrien Agreste by exposing her lies about the both of them being close friends and her owning the Fox Miraculous, she hated Ladybug ever since then, however this is not what happened, what actually happen in Volpina is Lila slept with Cat Noir for fame and popularity even despite Cat Noir being the school's outcast and misfit but it didn't matter to her she can sleep with any guy at school. Not only did Lila slept with Cat Noir but she also raped him, Lila knew Cat Noir has a history of being sexually assaulted and is the most vulnerable child but sadly she kept on touching him inappropriately. Ladybug later saw Lila taking advantage of Cat Noir and exposes her as "a bitch who sleeps with every special needs guy at school for personal game , stardom and being well-liked or well-known" since then everyone at school knew Lila is a hoe and loves to sleep with guys with special needs at school for stardom and popularity so that day she hated Ladybug since then.

Is Marinette a normal girl or did Cat Noir sees her as one?

In the theme song it said "In the daytime, I'm Marinette, Just a normal girl with a normal life. But there's something about me that no one knows yet, Cause I have a secret." You heard it "just a normal girl" now the question Is Marinette really normal? Cat Noir depicted Marinette as a shy and clumsy girl who's nice to everyone but Cat Noir knew Marinette doesn't sound natural when she reads so in reality it's due to her Dyslexia and Dyscalculia.

Why does Cat Noir wear a mask?

Cat Noir is known to wear a mask but ever wondered why he wore a mask?, you would think it's because he's hiding his secret identity from others but I think it's because he's hiding a large burn scar on the left side of his face because his mom accidentally spills hot boiling water onto the left side of Cat Noir's face causing the scar to be badly burned and permanent when Cat Noir was younger, as a result of this incident, Cat Noir wore his famous iconic mask to covered the burn scar.

From aftermath of abuse and neglect to foster care.

Since before the age of 13, Cat Noir was frequently abused and neglected by his mother's on-and-off again ex-boyfriend who beats Cat Noir 24/7 whenever he has to deal with Cat Noir and never likes to care of/babysat Cat Noir whenever Cat Noir's mom goes out for work , with one of her multiple boyfriends , to a bar , to the movies with her friends , shopping and going to jail for crimes but most importantly she's currently in a rehabilitation center so this means her ex-boyfriend has to take care of Cat Noir fulltime but he doesn't want to so he locked Cat Noir in his room 24/7 so didn't want to deal with Cat Noir. Everyone started noticing different about Cat Noir, he was severely malnourished , has bruised fingers , bruised toes , black-eye , broken nose , bruised lips , badly bitten arms , badly bitten legs , swollen arms , swollen legs , swollen gums , badly bitten ears , badly bitten fingers , badly bitten toes , knocked-out teeth , scraped knees , scraped elbows , slapped cheeks , bruised bottom and bruised-up back but worse of all, Cat Noir even had a bruised forehead and the fact Cat Noir is a special needs child, is still shocking.

Not long after Cat Noir turns 13 years old, the abuse and neglect became far more worst until one of the school's Child Psychologists took notice of Cat Noir's wounds and find out he's been frequently terribly abused and neglected by his mom's on-and-off again ex-boyfriend since the age of 8. The Child Psychologists decide to contacted the polices and social services to come and take Cat Noir away from the home. Cat Noir was taken to hospital and one of doctors found out Cat Noir is actually 13 with the body of an 11-year-old child but they even find out Cat Noir has a small severely damaged brain.

Cat Noir's Severe Schizophrenia is already worsen up due to again being a crack baby. He believes his imaginations are a reality because of how much he's been convinced too often. Cat Noir hear voices in his head and see things that aren't there but he often talks to himself despite thinking he's talking someone else.

First foster home.

After Cat Noir's mom's ex-boyfriend was arrested for child abuse and child neglect, Cat Noir was placed in Child's Care Services (CCS) because his mother is too unstable to care for him but however Cat Noir is badly affected by the abuse and neglect he suffers for so long that he didn't want to be touched and he has a shock look on his face whenever he break things he didn't mean to which it explains why in the episode, Simon Says, Cat Noir gave a shock look after scolding at Gabriel because in reality he thought he's going to get beaten. Originally Cat Noir was gonna be placed in one of his relative's house but his social worker didn't know how to get in contact with them and he was originally going to be placed in the care of his dad but no one knows where he's currently lives and he has permanent record so he can't be around kids not even his own child.

Cat Noir's social worker decide to put Cat Noir into foster care since there's no one who can take him in. Cat Noir's 1st foster home was bad because his foster parents frequently abused and neglected him but bad enough, the only reason why they take Cat Noir in because they're only doing this for money so they can spend it on and rottenly spoiled their biological kids. His foster mom did the worst things to Cat Noir, such as locking him in his room , refusing Cat Noir to have any contact with anyone and her biological children , refusing to feed Cat Noir , refusing to clothed Cat Noir , leaving Cat Noir in a filthy state , strapping Cat Noir to a potty chair in the daytime , putting Cat Noir into a straitjacket and locking him in a cage-like crib in the daytime and letting her kids bullied Cat Noir 24/7. One day his social worker notice Cat Noir in a terrible state and deciding removed Cat Noir from this terrible house.

From Second foster home to 11th foster home.

Cat Noir had to be moved from foster home to another foster home due frequent abuse and neglect happening but it's like to Cat Noir, no matter where he goes he'll always get abused and neglected. His second and 11th foster home was so bad that he had to be removed again and be placed in a new home but he's always getting bruises all over him as if his previous foster parents don't care about him and only seems to be interested in financials than caring for their foster child. But however it did take 2 weeks for the social workers to placed Cat Noir in a new home and it's always gonna turned bad, no matter what home Cat Noir was placed in and good thing the social workers decide to removed Cat Noir from a terrible home.

12th and Final foster home.

Not long after Cat Noir was removed from his 11th foster home, his social worker almost decide to give up trying to find a good place for Cat Noir to call home and a family to belong to but one of the employees told Cat Noir's social worker that there's one more chance of finding a good home for Cat Noir. Cat Noir's social worker found a home to placed Cat Noir in, The Jackson Family, they have a stable home , love , affection , enough food and care but most importantly at least it's safe place for Cat Noir to call home. He was so malnourished that he became hungry often despite he just ate.

Adoption

Not long after months of Cat Noir being placed in the care of The Jackson family, Christine Jackson, Cat Noir's foster mom decide to adopted Cat Noir and her husband, Harold Jackson, Cat Noir's foster dad agreed to this since they are parental figures to Cat Noir but at first when Cat Noir was placed in their care it was difficult for them to care for a child with special needs but they didn't give up on him and kept providing love and affection towards Cat Noir. Cat Noir was 13 when he was placed in the care of Christine Jackson and Harold Jackson but at first Christine thought Cat Noir was 11, only to find out he's actually 13 and this causes her to take Cat Noir to the hospital but that's when she find out everything about Cat Noir. 3 months later, Christine and Harold officially adopted 13-year-old Cat Noir but they continue to take care of him.

I hope you love this theory.

[mel-loves-all]

“Mayhem, Moonlight and a Merry Christmas”

A Christmas Olicity Historical AU: What happens when a handsome Earl is visited by a beautiful young debutante in the middle of the night?

A/N: Wishing you all a wonderful Holiday season and a very, Merry Christmas.  This one-shot was inspired by one of my favorite Historical Romance books called, “To Wed A Wicked Earl” by Olivia Parker.  

~~~~~~~~~~

1820 London

Long, cold fingers, of the frosty December night, trailed over the bare chest and sculpted arms of the slumbering Earl of Starling, Oliver Queen.  

They startled him from the heated depths of a particularly, enjoyable dream. One filled with a beloved, bespectacled visage, peony pink tinted lips and lustrous blonde curls that his sleep muddled brain swore could still be felt wrapped around his fingers.

Oliver shivered then sat up.  His silk bedsheet pooling around his waist as he peered through sleepy eyes in the direction of the loud thud that echoed from the far corner of his master suite.   The French doors of his second story bedroom balcony stood open and he watched in dismay as a dark shadow twisted and fought within the tangled curtains and took shape into the form of a woman.

“Lord, help me,” he mumbled under his breath. Not another crazed debutante, who thought she was in love with him, attempting to sneak into his room.  He’d had his share of misguided attempts over the years.  As one of the most sought after bachelors of the ton, Oliver had to be very careful.  Matchmaking mothers and eager daughters doth make an interesting season.

“Oliver?” came a familiar voice, its normally melodic tone, now full of disbelief and sharp reprimand. “Is that you?”

Is that you? Was he still dreaming? It couldn’t be, Felicity, sneaking into his bedroom.  The Lady Felicity Smoak, younger sister of Oliver’s best friend and the woman he was secretly, hopelessly and completely in love with, was not this reckless.  She was in fact, one of the most intelligent, steadfast and kind women he had the pleasure of knowing.  He could only fault her for one thing.  She could not see that his heart was utterly hers, had been for a very long time and would always be.

Another frigid gust of wind came through the open balcony doors, ruffling tendrils of her normally proper chignon that had fallen loose in her struggle with his curtains.

Even now his fingers rubbed together with the typical want to reach out and touch her; to see if her tresses were as soft as he thought they were.  

Her glass spectacles sat askew on the bridge of her nose and twigs and winter jasmine petals were caught in the fabric of her winter cape.  She was breathtakingly beautiful.

And apparently, she was extremely reckless.

What adventure was she up to?  For as long as they had known each other, since she was 10 and he and her brother were 14, Felicity was always involved in something. Either it be a scientific experiment or original play from one of her many books or mechanisms of human nature; she was in constant motion.  Her mind racing almost too fast for her words to catch up. Almost.  Her enthusiastic babbling was well known amongst her closest friends and family.

“Yes, of course it’s me.  Who else would it be, in the middle of the night, in my bedroom?”

She stilled, one of the few times Oliver had ever seen her entire body come to a stop, “Oh dear, um, did you say, ‘your bedroom’?”

”Fe-li-ci-ty,” Oliver said, as he gave up the idea of being left alone to his dreams of her.  He stood up, wrapped the silk sheet around his naked body, and stalked towards her.  

“This isn’t your bedroom.  I specifically counted three windows from the chimney.  This is your library,” she said, as she calmly re-adjusted her glasses with all the aplomb of a woman who thought she was in the right.

Unbelievable.  Oliver shook his head and chuckled under his breath.  This explanation was going be very, very interesting.  He wondered if his state of undress had even registered with her yet.   It had certainly registered with him.  The slinkiness of the bed sheet chafed against him as it slid along his already over-sensitive skin.  His awareness of her always made his body raw.  Every cell in his body screaming to touch her.

“I would know if I was in my library.  It’s the third room from the ‘west wing’ chimney.  And by the way, why are you climbing up my trellis in the middle of the night?”

Oliver’s body surrounded her as he leaned forward and closed the balcony doors.  The curtains floated down sealing them in secluded moonlight.  

The fire in his room had long since burned down to a low radiant glow.  He watched as a deep blush bloomed across Felicity’s cheeks and down the elegant line of her neck as she finally realized how naked he was.

He really should put on a robe or a shirt, but damn it…he was tired, frustrated and ravenous for her.   He wanted her to see him for the man he was.  Not the man she thought him to be.  

The scent of heated jasmine mixed with the seasonal fresh pine and holly, his room decorated for the Yuletide holiday season, filled his lungs as he took a deep, fortifying breath trying to stem the need to close the last few inches between them.

“You’ve been ignoring me,” a breathless whisper brushed against his neck and his body went hard.  He groaned internally as the softness of her voice reminded him of the sighs she’d made in his dreams as he pleasured her.

Their bodies swayed closer as he looked down and became lost in the stunning blue of her eyes.  This was dangerous.  He was already holding onto the last threads of his control around her.

He stepped away and grabbed a hold of the bed sheet, that was resting precariously around his hips, before his body gave away just how aroused she made him.

Bloody hell, this woman would be the death of him.  And yes, he had been ignoring her.  Not well, but he had tried.  He thought he had escaped her inquiring glances by leaving the Christmas Eve ball early.  

A month ago, Felicity had decided she needed to help him recapture the eye of the woman he loved.  Little did she know that she had the identity of that woman totally wrong.  

At the beginning of the season, Oliver had tried to move on from his hopeless love for Felicity, by courting, the Lady Eliza Thornton.   He had been miserable.  Every moment spent with the wrong woman had hurt his already tender and bruised heart.

One dance and a walk in the park had shown both he and Lady Eliza that they made good friends and nothing more.  In fact, his brief courtship had roused the interest of the man Eliza truly wanted and Oliver had gladly stepped aside and wished them the best.

But now, the ton and Felicity thought Oliver still had a chance to win Eliza back.

All in all, it was a mess.  Oliver had been trying to stay away from Felicity’s good hearted efforts, but it would seem she was on a mission.  With the thought of her wanting to help him, find love with someone else, intense pain seared his soul.  

Oliver knew he was notorious.  The frolicking ways of his youth had earned him the legendary title of Rake, but as his admiration and respect for Felicity had matured into love, he had stopped all that behavior.  And that personal devotion to her had gone unnoticed below society’s and Felicity’s impressions of him.  

She saw him only as a friend.  And if he ever lost her friendship and regard, he could not bear it.

He was in a constant battle between leaving her alone or kissing her senseless.  The more time she spent with him the closer he was to losing the war of good intentions.  

“My maid, Martha, knows your maid, Margaret.  They have been friends for years. Perhaps friends since both their first days in service to our families.  They gossip worse than the ton.  And drat, I must have had their hastily drawn map to your library turned the wrong way.”  

At Oliver’s bemused look, Felicity just kept on talking. “Oliver, you truly have been trying to avoid me haven’t you? I sent you two notes this week arranging to meet you in your library after the ball. I swear, it’s as if you don’t wish to win Lady Eliza back at all.”

He may have just reached a surrender.

“It’s because I don’t want her back,” he growled, as he ran his fingers through his dark, thick hair.

“But, you agreed when I offered to help,”

“I did not agree,” he responded quietly.  

“But you didn’t say no.  And ever since then, you’ve been avoiding me.  Don’t you want to be happy?”  Felicity asked in confusion.  “You are one of my dearest friends and you deserve happiness.”

And at Oliver’s continued silence she repeated, “Oliver?”

“...she isn’t the woman I love,”

“What? But,…you courted her. And you have never courted, anyone,” Felicity whispered in bewilderment as she stepped closer and lifted her hand.  “Wait, you said she isn’t the woman, …is, is there someone else?” her last words spoken in a voice so small and so tenuously vulnerable.

Her breaths quickened and her chest rose and fell faster, almost touching his.  

She had no gloves on.  Her fingers hovered, slightly shaking, above his golden skin and her heated gaze slid over his broad shoulders and the taught, defined muscles of his chest and stomach.  Oliver’s body burned from her attention and their bodies hummed with their scandalous proximity.  The air went heavy with heady, acute awareness.  

He watched her lick her lips before she looked up at him and the undisguised hunger he saw in her eyes shook him to the core.  She wanted him.  Good god, she wanted him.

He lost the entire, god damn war.

“Oliver?” Felicity’s voice quivered with wonder and hope as if she sensed something incredible was about to happen.  

He reached for her.  He finally reached for her.  

Oliver cupped the back of her neck and pulled her flush against her his body.  

The both moaned as their bodies touched.  Softness melted against hard maleness.   Her hand was caught between them and now lay over his heart.   He swore the entire world must hear it beating out of control.  

His hands slid into the thickness of her hair.  Pins flew everywhere as he finally touched the luxurious weight and her hair fell in fragrant waves over her shoulders.  The scent of jasmine would forever be hers.

Felicity’s eyes closed and her body shuddered against his.  

“Felicity,” Oliver watched as her passion heavy eyes fluttered open at his voice and Oliver allowed his feelings for her to show.  “The woman I love, is you,”

“Me?” Felicity whispered, as joy and love swirled in her eyes.  

Could his dreams come true?  How long had she cared for him like this?

“I’ve been a fool.  I was so afraid of losing your friendship.  The small part of your heart that I had, that...I didn’t, couldn’t show you how I really felt.  It’s always been you, Felicity.”

“Oliver...I have loved you, for forever. I can no longer remember when I did not.  I’ve always wanted you.  I never thought, you, wanted me.  And then you turned to Eliza,”

“Forgive me, please...I never meant to hurt you. Never. I didn’t feel I was worthy of you,”

“Oh, Oliver,” she said as she soothingly rubbed her palm over his heart and Oliver placed his forehead against hers.  

Their hearts and eyes met and all of their pent up want and need took over.

Oliver took her lips in a kiss that was as gentle as warm summer rain, exhilarating as a storm over the moors and as addictive as the most divine confection.

Her mouth opened at his sensual coaxing and he tasted heaven.  Her essence.  Her love.  

Felicity’s hands traveled up his torso and into his hair, holding onto him, as he showed her the decadent advantages of loving and being loved by a Rake.    

A little while later, he reluctantly pulled his head back, allowing them both to catch their breath.  He watched her mouth curve into a smile more radiant than any he had ever seen before.  He was going to shower her with all the love he had in him and if she’d have him; he was going to marry her.

“I need to take you home now, my love, before I can no longer be a gentleman,” Oliver groaned as he brushed his lips against hers once more.  “And then, at exactly 10 am, I’ll be right back there to ask you a very important question.”

Felicity’s smile grew even larger and incandescent as she nodded her head.  “Merry Christmas, Oliver.”

“Merry Christmas, Felicity.”

~~~~~~~~~~~

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[letterboxd]

Loopy.

Andy Siara, writer of time-loop romcom Palm Springs, talks to Ella Kemp about having one foot on a banana peel and the other in the grave, and the expansive magic of being a ‘desert person’.

If you could re-live a perfect day again and again, would you do it? Would you be alone, or would it be better if your favorite person in the world was with you? Would the endless company, repetitive and increasingly claustrophobic, make you snap?

There’s a reason that time-loop movies tend to favor loners: watch as the hapless hero has to figure out the meaning of life! Harold Ramis’ 1993 comedy Groundhog Day is the gold standard for the device—Bill Murray trapped in a bizarre national holiday that’s become a universal adjective (which feels especially apt now). But Palm Springs, the new film from The Lonely Island comedy team, finds a way to dismantle the genre, play around with the ingredients, and cook up something entirely new.

There is still a time loop, we’re all still stuck, but here’s the thing: we’re stuck with two people now. Andy Samberg and Cristin Milioti are wedding guests Nyles and Sarah—he, someone’s random boyfriend people pretend to know; she, the reluctant maid of honor and sister of the bride. Through one freak twist of fate involving a cave, they end up reliving the same wedding day, taking advantage of the daily ‘reset’ to throw as much life at the wall as they can, while probing every possible escape route.

It’s a first for the genre, and a first film for the writer-director team (Samberg produces the film alongside his Lonely Island brothers Jorma Taccone and Akiva Schaffer, who have years of glorious Saturday Night Live sketches and comedy specials under their belts). Director Max Barbakow cut his teeth making short films for the past decade—just like his closest collaborator, debut feature screenwriter Andy Siara.

Barbakow and Siara developed the story together over five years, and then Siara turned it into the fast-paced, razor-sharp, at once feather-light and often deeply moving script that became Palm Springs.

Cristin Milioti and Andy Samberg in ‘Palm Springs’.

A quick scan of Letterboxd activity finds plenty of fans already. Jacob recognizes the paradoxical brilliance of the film, calling it a “high-concept romcom that wears its influences on its sleeve”, while still praising how it’s “so smart moment to moment that it absolutely feels like its own original story”. What makes this so special, so fresh—a movie about one day on repeat, released during, you know, a global pandemic, that neat event that makes so many homebound days blur into one—is just how much heart it has. “The little moments, the little cues, the timing,” Neema Sadeghi points out. “Everything felt so right and my heart was so so warmed.”

The following interview contains discussion of plot points and soundtrack choices, and has been edited for clarity.

Could you tell me about your relationship with Groundhog Day, before and after writing Palm Springs? Andy Siara: Before and after, I still consider it one of the greatest, if not the greatest comedy of all time. Doing a time-loop thing in this movie was never initially the idea, five years ago when Max and I first started talking about it. It organically evolved to that point. What was helpful to me was thinking about how at the end of Groundhog Day, Bill Murray’s character figures out the meaning of life, to a point, and it ends with the time loop breaking. In our film, Nyles figures out whatever he thinks the meaning of life is, and at the end, nope, the time loop doesn’t break, you’re still stuck here for eternity. So then what do you do? That became the jumping off point. Palm Springs is potentially a sequel to a movie that doesn’t exist, and that helped free myself of repeating too much of what the time-loop genre, and especially Groundhog Day, has done so well.

If the time loop wasn’t the starting point, what was? Nyles. Max and I knew we wanted to do a tiny-budget movie in Palm Springs. We didn’t know what that was, but the first idea was of this character of Nyles. We never outlined anything, so we let the character lead the way. In doing that, I got a full grasp of who he is on a deep level and everything else built from there. We never once were like, “This is a wedding time-loop romcom about two lost souls!” Max and I joked that the earlier version of this was our version of Leaving Las Vegas. The story grew from Nyles, thinking: ‘What is the best way to deeply challenge this flawed character?’ And that’s where we came up with Sarah, who became even more fully realized. And the best way to challenge her was Nyles. Putting those two characters together and seeing the friction it causes, the story grew around that.

Their dynamic, and the film more broadly, feels very philosophical. I’m thinking of a line like “Your best bet is to learn to suffer existence”. When you were writing, were there any conscious thinkers you wanted to incorporate? Max and I talked a lot about Albert Camus, and Jorge Luis Borges… but when I got to actually writing, Max gave me his copy of Be Here Now by Ram Dass. His copy, when he gave it to me, had over 100 Post-it notes. We’d talked in abstract ways in a philosophical sense, about individuation and what not. But every day before writing I’d take Be Here Now and open up at any page, read a page to kickstart the day. I think even that idea of suffering existence, that might actually be in Be Here Now…

Quyen Tran (operating camera) and director Max Barbakow (right) on the set of ‘Palm Springs’.

It felt so refreshing to see these characters delivering such epic lines seriously, but the film never becomes somber or dramatic. It stays light. Comedy is balanced with sincere emotion so well—especially when it comes to romance. In a scene outside the cave, when Nyles is giving his big speech, he says, “I’d rather die with you than live in this world without you.” Reading this out of context, it could be from an epic romance. How did you manage to marry the wit with such big feelings? That is one of the lines that, read out of context, could feel heavy-handed, so I appreciate that! From the get-go, it was important to set the tone of this movie, that we will never take ourselves too seriously. Max and I would joke about having one foot on a banana peel and the other in the grave, being able to go from slapstick to serious was always an important tonal shift for us. There’s a silliness to the movie, and so therefore with those lines, my hope is that even in reading the script, by the time you get to a line like that, you as a reader would know what Nyles is like in your mind. Also, I credit Andy Samberg for knowing how to deliver lines like that without them feeling cheesy. When we first met Andy and the Lonely Island guys, he understood this character, by the end better than I did. The character was just words on a page, a figure that existed in my mind. He created this character.

What did you learn from working with the Lonely Island guys, in terms of taking inspiration from their comedy experience while creating something brand new? By the time it got to them, the script was finished to a point that I was happy with. But Max and I didn’t know that much! So those three guys, and Becky Sloviter who was the producer for them, they know so much more than we did. We were able to not only on the practical side make people want to make this movie, but also on the other side, I’d say primarily in third-act stuff, they helped me dig deeper, and find a satisfying conclusion to the movie where the earlier version of the script just wasn’t as satisfying—you still got to the point, but we were able to mess with the mechanics a little bit more. And they got me to dig deeper on the science part too, where I let this journey into the subconscious via a Jungian, individuation approach maybe take hold a little too much!

I’m not very familiar with Palm Springs as a place. What was the appeal to build everything around this specific location? Both Max and I grew up in Southern California, and since the late 1980s I’ve been going to Palm Springs every year—my aunt had a condo out there. The place is a primarily LA retreat, with golf courses and retirement communities. Over the years, it’s just become a place for a lot of weddings to happen. So there’s that side, my own personal history of having seen the change and having gone there so many times over the past 34 years. I remember camping trips to Joshua Tree [National Park]—and I also got married in Palm Springs and went out to countless friends’ weddings there. But then also, I think there are mountain people, desert people, city people. I think I’m a desert person. There’s this mass openness that I find has a magical quality to it. Even if I don’t believe in magic, there’s somehow a magical solitude that comes in the desert. And there’s all sorts of literature, even going into pseudo-science, that is centered around the desert. Specifically the one surrounding Palm Springs.

Andy Samberg and Cristin Milioti in ‘Palm Springs’.

It feels like a blank canvas on which anything can happen—and if anything, having more space can make you more anxious about being trapped there. I agree. And I had written two Gram Parsons songs into the script, and he was also drawn to the desert in the 1970s, [the] Joshua Tree area. He wrote a lot there with Keith Richards. There’s some kind of draw to the desert that I don’t totally understand to be honest, it’s on a deeper subconscious level that it strikes that chord for me.

Speaking of the music, the film has so many satisfying needle drops. I’m thinking of Leonard Cohen’s ‘The Partisan’ and then Kate Bush’s ‘Cloudbusting’ in that amazing final scene. Were these written in from the start? A lot of songs were written in from the start that didn’t make it in for various reasons. ‘Cloudbusting’ came up in our first or second meeting with Andy—it was his idea and we were like, that’s perfect! Andy and Max [and I] all wanted to make sure Palm Springs didn’t use songs we had seen a million times in other movies. It was so important to us. And then we also wanted songs that spoke to a more magical quality too. I think the Leonard Cohen one was Cristin’s idea, so it was a very collaborative field, but we all knew what kind of stuff we wanted. It was about thinking, let’s try and find a sonic happy place.

What film first made you want to be a filmmaker? Jurassic Park is my number one. It made me want to do everything.

Related content

A list of films set in and around Palm Springs.

More films produced by The Lonely Island

A list of time loop, paradox and causality movies

‘Palm Springs’ is streaming on Hulu from July 10 and screening at select drive-ins. With thanks to NEON.

[rizegreymon22arts]

I want to clarify first that the following content has some material that is not appropriate for sensitive people.

I want to clarify first that the following content has some material that is not appropriate for sensitive people.

For starters, what is Thrill Kill? Some gamers may know it, but for those who do not know, Thrill Kill is a canceled game that was going to launch into the original Playstation in 1998, the game consists of a hell-fighting championship in hell organized by an evil entity called Marukka, the participants are the souls of several people who were sent here for their most terrible sins, becoming physical manifestations of their crimes, filias and sins, the winner would get reincarnation as a reward and return to earth. This game could have unleashed Mortal Kombat when it comes to bloodthirsty fighting game, but the distribution house EA canceled it at the last moment because with fear that the game would ruin its image they said they did not want to publish a game with such senseless violence , not to mention that the game also had some sexual and sadomasochistic content, so Thrill Kill was never released, but still an incomplete version is found on the internet, but it is not known how more violent the full version could have been.

The game seemed ahead of its time, which is why it was canceled, but it had reasons to distinguish itself from other fighting games, for example they could be played with four fighters instead of two, and instead of the typical health bar or a Percentage bar as in Super Smash Bros., the characters had a power bar that when filled after taking more hits, the character could execute a fatality to eliminate an opponent from the round. There is a saying that says "The forbidden is sometimes the most attractive" so this would be a somewhat retouched version of how the characters would be if the game were something more modern and complete.

TORMENTOR

Previous name: Daniel Carlson

Sin: Sadism, torture and murder

History: Earlier in his previous life, Daniel Carlson lived in Pheonix, Arizona and his former occupation was a vigilant judge, being one of the best in the country. But he had a dark secret, he believed he was the angel of mercy who would cleanse the souls of mortals and punish them with what he thinks they deserve; he acquitted criminals and other prisoners not to prove his sentence, but to take him to his personal torture chamber, to torture them with all kinds of horrible things that man could imagine, chains, whips, fire, punches, etc., for Daniel the The purpose of this is because the system does not punish criminals enough, and he believes he is the judge who decides the type of punishment he felt they deserved, almost always for him the final sentence was death. He was found guilty when he discovered what he did with the missing criminals, and in the end Daniel died when he was executed to the electric chair. Upon reaching hell, Maruka gave him a new physical form based on his acts, an executioner and at the same time an inquisitor, a medieval nightmare of leather and chains whose main weapon for the hell tournament baptized as "Tormentor", are the sentence chains of his adversaries, and although his opponents are already in hell for their actions, for him it is not enough and he is willing to punish them with his own hands.

Finisher moves:

Embed his hook in his opponent's stomach with the chain wrapping around his waist, and then pull the chain tightly by splitting the opponent in half.

He extends his chain on his opponent's neck, jumps over his opponent to stand behind him with his chain hanging him, and after a jerk he cuts off his head.

It invokes four chains with hooks, each one is embedded in one of the four limbs of the opponent, they begin to stretch until each arm and leg of the opponent is torn off, leaving it without limbs.

Throws his chained hook over his opponent's head, piercing it, then rips off the head still attached to the hook of the body, and uses the head as a medieval mallet to destroy the rest of the opponent's body.

ODDBALL

Previous name: Raymond Raystack

Sin: Dementia,Sociopathy

History: Originally as an FBI criminal analyst in Belfast, Maine, he had a noble career and what was thought to be a good life, seeking evidence for horrible people in this world to be put behind bars. However, these criminals put Raymond on the limit, spending years of tracking all evidence and location, driving him out of his mind, until he finally reached the limit; He slowly began to enjoy sadly as other criminals ended up executed, until he admitted to predators that he had promised to track down and become one of them. Raymond was put in a psychiatric hospital, put on a straitjacket and in a bleached room, despite many treatments there was no change, every time Raymond's sanity faded, all that remained of him was his intelligence, cunning, since he adapted to his lack of the use of his arms and was very skilled just using his legs, saying that he attacked one of the hospital nurses and took an ear from a bite. It was decided that Odball had no choice, they had to sleep like a dog. Upon reaching hell for Marukka, he named it "Oddball" which means "Weirdo", with compassion and sympathy outside his vocabulary, representing the incarnation of madness and inhuman anger, with his straitjacket still tied to him even after death, fully adapted like all predators.

Finisher moves:

Jumps on top of his opponent and with both legs hits him in the face and throws him to the ground, crushing his face as if he were a cockroach, and after a leg he rips his head as if kicking a ball.

Throws himself on the head of the opponent and holds him with his legs, then turns at the same time holding the head, causing the vertebrae to break and this turns like a screw, and when released, the head of the opponent will fall.

With a kick he throws his opponent into the air, and with a great jump he ends up piercing the torso with his head, and then gravity takes effect and the corpse hole will be enlarged causing it to fall to the ground and filling Oddball's body with blood .

Throws his opponent to the ground of an onslaught, and begins to jump on his spine, until the opponent bleeds through the mouth and dies.

BELLADONA

Previous name: Bella Linares

Sin: Murder/Nymphomania

History: To think how an entire nymphomaniac was in past life a placid and calm woman, as was Bella Linares, a housewife and librarian who lived in Savannah, Georgia, and happily married. Unfortunately, her happy life plummeted, when she discovered thanks to a detective she hired to find out that her husband was being unfaithful, and yes, Bella's husband cheated on her with no one but Bella's sister. In an attack of hysteria and after an emotional crisis, Bella decided to do the same, betraying her husband with other men, even other women to have had sex, and using sex to let off steam, but there was a time when Bella realized that cheating on her husband and lover were not enough and decided to take revenge in another way. Bella and her husband loved doing sex games, mostly role-playing games where everyone dressed like the characters in that game, so while her husband came home from work, Bella waited for him, wearing a tight maid outfit latex of one of his sexual role plays, and carrying in his hand an electric baton with which he murders her husband, and her sister murders her more discreetly, giving her a pie that was filled with belladonna fruits, which killed her of poisoning Once her revenge is completed, to avoid being arrested with the authorities, Bella committed suicide by electrocuting her electric baton while in the bathtub. Marukka took Bella's soul and gave her the shape of her old form, wearing the same maid outfit and cane with which she murdered her husband, and named her Belladonna, not for being the fruits with the that poison his sister, but Belladonna means "Beautiful, exotic, but lethal." Feeling an untiring appetite for sex, gigmuting pleasantly when he saw his opponents suffer in the game of hell.

Finisher moves:

With her electric baton she puts it inside her opponent's mouth until he buries it to the bottom of his stomach, and then electrocutes the opponent from inside.

In a moment of calm, Belladonna seductively approaches his opponent, hugging it, and then bends down, as if he were about to approach oral sex, but as moves away from the camera, she ends up electrocuting the sensitive parts of the opponent with the electric baton.

Takes a whip and starts pounding his opponents, leaving it lying on the ground because of the intense pain, and that is when Belladonna uses the whip to tie him around his neck and tear his head off.

Extends her electric baton, and when perching behind and below the opponent, it focuses on the face of the opponent, which shows gestures of absolute pain while it sounds like Belladonna was sticking his cane from his anal hole, until finally the end of the stick comes out by its mouth, while killing him.

DR. FAUSTUS

Previous name: Franklin Rodriguez

Sin: Murder, Sadism

History: Franklin Rodriguez was a plastic surgeon at a hospital in Los Angeles, California; Franklin's job was to fix damage to the face and body of his patients, but he had other specialties, since since he has memory he has spent days and nights studying medical books, filling him with great doubts such as the functioning of organs and other things, but his thirst for knowledge would make him go beyond the edges of madness, getting to see some of his patients, and dig deep into his organs, to the point that Dr. Rodriguez interplanted mechanical joints to his patients, which He lost his job. But that did not stop him, since he anesthetized innocent people who had the bad luck that he would find them and took them to his basement to serve with test subjects, having interplanted the same jaws with the appearance of bear traps and use them to Bite by bite, however, an infection caused by grafting your jaws would end up killing Franklin. Already with his soul in pain of hell, Marukka did not doubt that a madman like Franklin would be one of the perfect competitors for the game of hell, shaping and baptizing him as "Dr. Faustus", name of a character of a Work on a doctor who, in order to gain power and knowledge, made a deal with the devil. A depraved combination of bloodthirsty diabolic and surgical steel, who will honor his name by making a deal with the devil's lover to return to the earth and continue his deadly studies.

Finisher Moves:

He throws himself on his opponent and biting his neck shakes him like a rag doll until he rips his body and then spits his decapitated head.

With his scalpel and other metal artifacts, Faustus makes a very bloody operation to the face of his opponent, and in the end we see the face of the dead opponent and with bear traps interplanted in his face.

With his scalpel he makes a huge cut to the opponent's torso forming a huge hole that shows the thorax box and other organs.

He pulls out a huge syringe, digs it into the nape of his opponent, and sucks all of his blood causing the opponent to pale and wrinkle like a raisin and die.

THE IMP

Previous name: Marcus Ronald

Sin: Genocide, rape, megalomania

History: Bad things can come in small packages, as evidenced by the rumor of the three-foot terror is The Imp. Its devastating size is its most unpleasant place, suffering from a Napoleon complex to the end. Originally in his past life in Albany, New York as Marcus Ronald, he lived a hard life due to his short stature, victim of teasing and that no one wanted to give him a suitable job for his state; what led Marcus to devote himself to the world of adult movies, but led to films in the darkest of the network, from pedophilia, gay sex, and his favorite Snuff, where he was lucky to be the executioner and was for him the best part of his work, since they felt him feel a giant ready to take revenge for all the teasing of his stature. His work in the pornography industry gave Marcus very good money, but Marcus knew that he could do something else and not stop degrading, so that with his saved fortune and the hard studies he had in his youth, they were enough to becoming a government employee of the United States, with the dream of becoming president of the country, he was clearly thirsty for power, but Marcus was always bothered by his short stature therefore he thought that no one wanted a president of half a meter, so he put in an operation to transplant long legs for something taller than an average man, but there were several complications in the operation that caused his death. The soul of this man with a Napoleon complex and acts of rape and murder in his youth was Marukka's choice to participate in Hell Den, baptizing him with his pornographic career name, "The imp" and in order to be at the height of his fellow henchmen, he has mounted improvised stilts and has permanently grafted them on the legs and arms. An angry and tortured soul, the Imp doesn't think of anything, but it causes pain to those who dare to belittle him.

Finisher Moves:

Throws his opponent to the ground with a kick, and before getting up he crushes his head with one of his stilts.

With a magic he enters the opponent, and then returns to his normal size causing his rival's body to explode.

With an evil magic he shrinks his opponent the size of a mouse and gives him a bloody stomp with his stilt.

With a spinning kick with one of his stilts with an attached vanaja, he cuts off his opponent's legs by falling on the floor on his amputated knees, and then Imp impacts him by digging his stilt into his chest through him.

SERPENT

Previous name: Violet Santiago

Sin: Misandría, asesinato

History: Violet was born with a strange condition, was taller than a child can measure and could twist her body as if it were made of rubber, the moment that marked the life of little Violet was when she was sexually abused by her biological father, after the child protection society took her father and moved her to a new home, raised by a lesbian couple, after that trauma suffered as a child and that her new moms avoided men, Violet developed a disdain for sex masculine, growing up becoming a young liberal with the aim of protecting the rights of women and the death of the patriarchate, in other words, a feminazi. Violet believed herself independent enough to leave her adoptive family and live alone, so that when the circus arrived in the city, given her condition she could twist her own body, she was hired as a cortorist. One night after her performance, a man entered her dressing room with the intention of raping her, due to the tall stature of the young woman she did not take into account that she was a minor, this brought Violet several disturbing memories of her childhood, so that the young woman decided to defend herself and kill her attacker by twisting her neck, Since then, every man who wanted to take advantage of Violet, was sentenced to death what for her was a step of making a better world, and to avoid conflicts he was going circus in Circus like a parasite. It was not until several spinal problems were detected in Violet after so much writhing, which would end up killing her; The death of all these men and their disgust for male sex were the reason Violet was not welcome to heaven. Although it is barely more than a skeleton, it is a crooked and ruthless opponent capable of twisting and twisting to get out of any situation. Like a thin snake, it is fast, agile and deadly for anyone who crosses his path, hence Maruka brought her to the game of hell with the name of "Serpent".

Finisher Moves:

SHe is held head and back in front of the opponent, with her legs held on to the opponent's shoulders, and then bends his body by splitting his opponent in half like a bear trap.

Bend the opponent's arm in the opposite direction by splitting the bone, then do the same with one of its legs, and with the opponent on the ground it rolls backwards bending the opponent's spine killing him instantly.

She turns her head on the floor and rolls in a circle at high speed with his legs extended, kicking the opponent's face to the point where the jaw is split, then the neck and finally beheading him with one more kick.

Throws herself on top of his opponent, then squeezes it with arms and legs, and hugs it with such strong pressure that he causes his opponent to drown and its eyes come out of his corneas and coughs up blood.

MAMMOTH

Previous name: Maurice Kingston

Sin: Murder, Wrath

History: Before becoming a bloodthirsty golem, in his past life as a postal counter in Covington, Indiana, Maurice was nicknamed "Mammoth" because of his great stature, as a young man he always had serious anger problems that when he took him to the limit he became violently, he had already spent on psychologists to get him some anger control treatment, but for Maurice his anger sent the devil all the therapy sessions he had paid for. There came a time when Maurice was on the verge of insanity, as if it were not enough to be forced to attend to weak and rude clients at the local post office, and that his salary was not enough to pay the many bills and the demands of his ex-wife for the maintenance of his children, instead of giving him an increase as he requested, Maurice was fired, this was the missing trigger for all the accumulated anger of Maurice to explode as an atomic bomb and in an attack of anger, he murdered all your coworkers and all clients with the strength of an army of one; realizing the similar killing he has caused with his own hands, Maurice knew there was no remedy for this and decided to commit suicide with a shot in the head. The numerous deaths that Maurice caused cost him his entry into heaven, but it was enough for Marukka to make him the next fighter for Hell Den, taking his soul and transforming it into the ure incarnation of primitive rage and brutality, Mammoth, a Nightmare for the eyes. With gigantic size and strength that make it able to crush a man in a pulpy red meatball, or break the spine of his opponent with a simple finger movement. But behind the glassy and blank stare of this beast hides a furious soul and distressed by his lost humanity.

Finisher Moves:

Rips his opponent's arms and uses them to hit him to death.

Load with his fist and with a big punch sends the opponent's torso to the wall to fly causing the head and limbs to fall to the ground.

Grabs his opponent by the legs, starts spinning in circums at high speed causing the body of the opponent to break from his legs causing him to fly out and crash into the wall.

Holds his opponent with his feet and prints him several times against the ground like a carpet, and crushes him bloodyly with his fists.

GOURMET

Previous name: Cleetus Walker

Sin: Murder, canibalism

History: If an old Kentucky farmer and owner of a slaughterhouse, ever invites you to come to eat something, you better pass. This dismissed to the homage to the saying "We are what we eat", in times of famine, to avoid killing some animal of his own cattle, Cleetus used the thieves who entered his enclosure to assassinate them, and use their bodies to satisfy their hunger, the Deranged he found 1001 recipes on how to prepare human flesh, until later he stopped catching the thieves who entered his property, his appetite for pain and suffering has taken him to a new place in the food chain. Not content with simply defeating his enemies, Cleetus prefers to devour them that innocent people entered there. There was even a point that made cannibal food for the rest of the country, since when a health inspector was going to close his slaughterhouse, Cleetus threw it into a machine causing it to be crushed and mixed with the meat, a shame for all those who bought and consumed Uncle Cleetus' sausages. It is a glutton for fresh meat, the rarer the better. No one has escaped his appetite, except one who managed to lose only one leg, which Cleetus leads to good luck. But being a cannibal he did not keep his victims' meat well refrigerated, which caused him to die of a parasite infestation. Marukka saw enough potential to participate in the Hell Den, in a new being called "the gourmet", who uses his victim's escape as a weapon and as a lunch between battle.

Finisher Moves:

Throws himself against his opponent by throwing him against the ground and begins to devour his chest until he opens it.

Rips his opponent's head off with a heavy blow with his leg-mallet, takes it, and then drinks the blood he spills.

Throws his leg-mallet, plucks a leg at his opponent and eats it like a fried chicken leg.

Vomits a torrent of disgusting vomit on his opponent that melts on contact as corrosive acid.

CAIN

Previous name: Lawrence Candito

Sin: pyromania

History: Lawrence Candito is a classic case of an arsonist. From a young age he was captivated by fire. When I was a child, I put fires in his backyard and burned insects with a magnifying glass. In his early teens he began to catch small animals and burn them. By his late teens, he was burning houses and other buildings. Although he got tired of this quite quickly. One day he had an idea. He waited at a bus stop one night, and when a young woman got off the bus, he grabbed her from behind and dragged her to the shed in her backyard. There he tied her and gagged her. Then he covered it with gasoline and put it in a coat of arms. The horror in his eyes as he died really excited him. This continued for some years until one day, he broke into a house and sprayed it with gasoline while the owners slept. When he threw the match and started running towards the door, he tripped and dropped unconscious. He woke up to be covered in flames. He died with a smile on his face.  And just being a pyroman who died in flames, he came back to life as the phoenix in hell Den with the name of Cain.

Finisher Moves:

Throws his opponent to the ground, he releases a small spark on which he burns him completely.

Sets his feet on fire as an exhaust pipe, throws himself at high speed on his opponent and with such a blow he flies it in a thousand pieces.

Causes his opponent to drink a Molotov cocktail, then he swallows a spark of fire, causing the opponent's head to catch fire and his body to explode in flames.

Spit a gust of high pressure smoke that ends up skinning your opponent until it leave it in the bones.

JUDAS

Previous name: Jeffrey Adams/John Simmons

Sin: Murder, ilegal hacking

History: Jeffrey Adams was in his childhood a prodigious child, interested in reading, puzzles, weightlifting and computers. By the time he turned 27 they were very educated in computer programming, advanced enough to work for the United States government. One night, while the other prisoners slept, someone entered the asylum security system and disarmed it long enough for prisoners to escape, it turned out to be Jeffrey, who led a double life as a criminal murderer by the name of John Simmons, since the subject suffered from a double personality disorder. The murderous uproar that followed his escape would not be forgotten soon. Three years later, after several sightings and reports, Jeffery was located in an old condemned factory where he had apparently been hiding. The FBI surrounded the building and discharged a large amount of tear gas into the factory. Minutes later, when the agents entered the building, they found the two-faced man unconscious on the floor. A few syringes filled with cyanide were injected into it and the factory was burned to leave no evidence. That double life was the admiration for Jeffrey to be manifested in hell, but with his other personality, John joined to him instead of his bottom, and his high betrayal of the country was what baptized this being as "Judas," The man with two faces.

Finisher Moves:

Throws himself and holds onto his opponent, and with extreme force and a leap back he rips off the upper part of his body.

Between their two arms, they rip limbs of their opponent to place them in badly placed belts.

Gives several hooks to his opponent which causes his upper half to fly up.

Each half of him takes turns and alternates a series of punches on his opponent until they create a punch at the same time as he punches his opponent's stomach.

MARUKKA

Previous Name: Whendy Jonhson

Role: The devil's lover, Founder of The Hell Den

History: Wendy Johnson was a true satanist. All her life it was she who was chosen and mocked. Having few or no friends, he started reading in company. He especially liked books dealing with the occult. She ventured into witchcraft, black magic and voodoo before engaging in satanism. At the age of 23, she had become an expert in satanism and the occult. She began summoning the spirits with an Ouija board. It is rumored that Wnedy is the only person who has contacted Satan through enchantment. He even changed his name to Marukka, which means: The devil's lover according to what he had read in an ancient black bible. Soon she began to see everyone else as inferior to herself and left in a murderous uproar, seducing and mutilating men. Killing women who were prettier than her. After reading a book about sacrifice and future life, she decided to offer herself to her mentor. She placed a ring of fire around her naked body and began to sing an invocation. He cut his wrists with a snake-handled dagger and drank his own blood. Then, she sank the dagger into her abdomen while she finished her singing. Pleased with his sacrifice, Satan decided to abide by his only desire. She chose to become "the devil's lover" and become a winged demon to rule those below with her mentor! However, Marukka had a great appetite for the most sinister, evil and sinful souls, it was where I created a trap called The Hell Den, a death championship where tortured souls would participate in a death match, with the reward of reincarnating and returning to the land, completely ignoring what Marukka wants is a feast and devour the winner as dessert.

Finisher Moves:

Throws herself on his opponent and devours his head bloodthirsty.

Opens a black vortex where it enters and absorbs its opponent, from the vortex begins to expel limbs, entrails and blood of the victim like a giant crusher.

Take possession of the opponent's body and force it to tear off its own head.

Teleports the opponent from the sky of the earth, which causes a great speed to fall at an infernal height and when he falls he is stamped against the ground turned into a bloody mass.   ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now, the question is, would Thrill Kill receive a second chance? Surely, as I said before, Thrill Kill was a very advanced game for its time, which led to its cancellation, given its content that the gamers of that time, not even the adults of that time were prepared to watch in a video game . Later there were more violent and controversial games, such as subsequent installments of Mortal Kombat, Postal, Dead Rising, Silent Hill, Manhunt, Grand Theft Auto, Madworld, God of war,Hatred and others. So in these times Thrill Kill would have been welcome.

[sanctferum]

Dangan Ronpa V3

OK, got my copy of the game. Gonna be trying to liveblog my thoughts on Dangan Ronpa V3 here. May contain spoilers for the rest of the series, since I’ll be referencing past games/animes/novellas, so if you’re not caught up on all that don’t read these, that means YOU, Eric.

I managed to make it to release date almost entirely unspoiled regarding plot details, so here’s what I DO know:

Anything covered in pre-release material

Anything covered in the demo

The names and mechanics of some of the new trial stuff (Mind Miner, Psyche Taxi, Lies/Perjuries, V-spot weaknesses, Scrum Battles, the new multiple-argument-at-once thing, etc. I’m still not entirely sure what Scrum battles contain of, as those weren’t covered in the demo. It’s possible they could be the new Bullet Time Battle/Panic Talk Action, I suppose - I haven’t seen a V3 equivalent to that mentioned. I also heard that rebuttal showdown returns, though that wasn’t in the demo either - makes sense, it wasn’t introduced till chapter 2 in DR2.)

The names and Ultimate talents of the students, except the usual “Ultimate ???” that every Dangan Ronpa seems to have. The demo also gave me a bit of a look at their personalities.

The school mode/island mode equivalent includes characters from DR1 and DR2 (dunno about DRAE or DR3). Some of them have had their voice actors altered, possibly? In the demo, Hajime definitely sounded different than in DR2.

There’s a dungeon crawler unlocked post-game.

I heard there’s a true ending, which implies multiple endings.

Things that I don’t know are of course, plot stuff. Who lives, who dies, who kills whoever it is that dies in whatever chapter, how many chapters there are, who the mastermind is, what the huge shocking endgame plot twist is gonna be, what the deal is with the academy the students are trapped in, whether they were attending or planning to attend the academy before being trapped inside, what the V in Dangan Ronpa V3 means aside from a way to differentiate it from the DR3 anime, etc.

Some thoughts I have before I begin:

Supposedly this game is not in the same continuity as the previous games, but rather is a full reboot of the series. Despite this, I find it very hard to believe Junko Enoshima won’t turn out to be the mastermind or connected to the mastermind somehow. I dunno how much of this statement is even a joke.

There might not be a mastermind, for that matter. It’s possible that this time around, Monokuma will truly be its own independent AI encased in a robotic/plush body. I dunno. If there is a singular mastermind, it’s strange that the Monokubs and Monokuma need to interact with each other at all.

The presence of Ultimate students makes me wonder what the backstory for the whole Ultimate thing is gonna be. This is a reboot, so it’d be kinda lame if the developers just took the Hope’s Peak thing and changed the name of the school.

Speaking of Ultimates, our protagonist this time around is actually a genuine Ultimate! No “you got lucky so you got accepted here”, or “you just paid a shit-ton of cash to technically be a student here but you have no actual talent” or “you’re the heroine cause you’re related to a previous protagonist”. Kaede appears to actually, genuinely possess a respectable Ultimate talent - that of a piano player.

So, before I start up the game, I might as well make my guesses as to who lives and who dies.

I’m gonna start out by saying that Kaede is gonna survive, since she’s the main character and that K1B0 is fucked, on the basis of no AI or robot surviving till the end of a Danganronpa game or anime.

I don’t have most the other students names memorized in front of me so I’ll just call them by their Ultimate talents.

Kaede, Tennis Player, Child Caretaker, Artist, Entemologist (I remember his name, it’s Gonta, and he is an aspiring gentleman), and ??? will make it to the end.

K1B0, Astronaut, Neo-Akido martial artist, Magician, Supreme Leader, Detective, Anthropologist, Inventor, Cosplayer, and Maid will all die.

Besides my reasoning for K1B0...the astronaut, magician, and Supreme Leader all have executions that I can very easily imagine, the cosplayer would be able to pull off a murder disguised as someone else, the anthropologist has a very off sense of morality and whenever he talked about humanity I am reminded of Nagito Komaeda talking about hope, the Neo-Akido girl I can see being a victim, for the irony in having a Neo-Akido master be unable to defend herself from the killer, but also with her being killed by another girl for the even bigger irony (she’s a huge misandrist in case you didn’t know). Don’t have any strong reasoning either way for Inventor or Maid. Detective...Kyoko survived the entire original DR series, though it was a close thing in DR1 chapter 5 and an even closer thing in DR3. So, with that in mind, I can’t see this guy making it. I would not be surprised if he was killed early on, in chapter 1 or 2.

Other predictions: Inventor and Magician are gonna really hit it off - one makes inventions that let you function while sleeping, the other is constantly low-energy and wants to sleep.

K1B0 and Anthropologist are gonna have friction, since Mr. “humanity is...beautiful” probably won’t include a robot in that regard. Then again, he is a creation of humanity, so who knows. If they don’t get along, K1B0 is gonna go ham on anthropology guy with his whole “robophobia is bad” thing?

And one final note: in the grandest tradition of Leon’s duck face and Ibuki’s nose, I find the neo akido girl’s facial expression hilarious. You probably know which facial expression I’m referring to. If not, it’s this one: 

tfw degenerate males?

[supermiraculousladybug]

The Disturbing Dark Truth about Cat Noir.

Cat Noir is the loveable dorky flirtatious jokester from Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir who loves to flirt with Ladybug and making her laugh by using jokes and puns but is he really a jokester or is he using jokes and puns as a coping mechanism to escape the abuse , neglect , cruel and harsh world he's born in? But whatever it is it's obvious that everything in Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir is nothing but a figment of Cat Noir's imagination and is actually an abused mentally unstable boy with special needs who sees the world differently than others due to having a childish-like personality and sorta kinda behavior.

Family Life Income.

Born to a prostitute with an unknown father, Cat Noir comes from a lesser fortune poor family who are struggling to make ends meet and making money. He's an complete opposite Adrien Agreste who lives a life of luxury and wealth while Cat Noir lives a life of slums and poverty but growing up in a ghetto-like town side of Paris wasn't easy it's full nothing but violence , rape , robbery , burglary , aggravated assault , total violent crimes , motor vehicle theft , total property crimes , battery , prostitution , street gang , kidnapping , sex trafficking , child trafficking , street gang violence , bribery , fraud , racketeering , drug trafficking and vandalism but it's sad to see Cat Noir grew up in a horrible neighborhood side of Paris where this "village" is one of the worse shanty town neighborhoods that evolved ghetto crimes which it gave Cat Noir paranoid trauma for life.

Clothing , home life and house.

Clothing.

Since Cat Noir grew up in the slums of Paris, his mother barely could afford clothes so she made his clothing from a left over fabric from a trash can and gave him her old clothes which surprisingly it fits him. So technically he shares clothes with his mother but it's sometimes he wears his dad's old clothes. His mother is a seamstress so it makes sense she made Cat Noir's clothes.

Home life.

Cat Noir comes from an abusive household where it's just him and his younger half brother, Connor get punished by their mother because they're both born male and look like their fathers but it's just their mother but sometimes their stepfather would beat them because he dislike their fathers and both Cat Noir and Connor look like their dads thus their stepfather abused them physically.

House.

Cat Noir lives in a small shack house that is a mixture between a cabin and a cottage that is located in a Western Shanty town, one of the worst ghetto neighborhood in Paris , France. In the Western Shanty town, they have cheaper old wireless TVs from either the 90s or 70s and have old TV show programs from 1920s-late 1990s but for cartoons from 1910s-late 1990s as well. Cat Noir and his family slept on an old abandoned dirty mattresses that are so uncomfortable to lay on and often the children (mainly Cat Noir) gets bed bug bites at night. Cat Noir and his family sat on old abandoned couch but mainly his mother get stoned and drunk on that couch.

Forced child labor.

From age 9-12, Cat Noir was forced to be a sex slave stripper against his will but he was taken out of school by forcedly "dropping out" during the 4th grade and ever since then the principle of Françoise Dupont Elementary School was and still wondering why Cat Noir wasn't at school like he's suppose to be. Then he was sold to Copycat, a pedophile neighbor who has sexual fantasies of Cat Noir and sexually abusing him but Copycat a lot of horrible things and stuff to Cat Noir

Molesting Cat Noir.

Raping Cat Noir.

Giving Cat Noir bruises , scars , chafing or bite marks and bleeding in/on his genital area.

Masturbating Cat Noir's teeny weeny peeny.

Smacking Cat Noir's bottom in sexual way.

Forcing Cat Noir to dress up as a french maid for sexual purposes.

Forcing Cat Noir to be in bed with him.

Removing Cat Noir's clothes so he can just have "fun" with him.

Turning Cat Noir from a sex slave to a house slave.

Raping Cat Noir in his sleep causing his insomnia to be worsen up badly.

Touching Cat Noir inappropriately from his whole body to his teeny weeny peeny.

Using sexual punishments on Cat Noir.

Using erotic spanking on Cat Noir's bottom for sexual purposes.

And Smacking Cat Noir's bottom as a form of sexual harassment.

Due to this harassment it causes Cat Noir to be extremely afraid of adult men because of the fear that they could sexually abused and harassed him even tho they're not gonna do it but Cat Noir was and is traumatized by this experiences it made him think they would do it without excepting it but he didn't want to be around grown men and not even his male aids he can't trust but everytime a grown men sit next to Cat Noir, he would cry because he amused they would molest him.

"Operation saving Cat Noir from a child molester"

In October of 2013, 12-year-old Marinette Dupain-Cheng was looking for the 10th and last child to be sold to a pedophile but it was no luck, until a random guy shows up to Marinette and tell her where that kid is but once she found him passed out on the floor, it turns out he's the boy that Ladybug was talking about and he was wearing a black tank crop top-like shirt and a blacker granny panties-like undergarments although he was underweight and severely malnourished. After Marinette notice the poor living conditions Cat Noir was in, she decide to take Cat Noir to the hospital immediately to get medical attention, once she and Cat Noir got to the hospital everyone knew Cat Noir was one of 10 children who were sold to pedophiles by their parents for money and were sexually abused. When Cat Noir woke up in a hospital bed, he sees Marinette and went speechless because he didn't know how to interact with people very well and Cat Noir mistaken Marinette for Ladybug because she and Ladybug looked like and because Cat Noir is insane-like crazy, he's unable to know the difference so it went like this

Cat Noir after he woke up: *seeing Marinette* Ladybug?

Marinette: no i'm not Ladybug🤔.

Cat Noir: *confused* then who are you?

Marinette: my name is Marinette Dupain-Cheng, what's your name?

Cat Noir: *realizing* wait Marinette as in Marinette Dupain-Cheng, daughter of the best baker in Paris?

Marinette: yes

Cat Noir: nice to meet you Marinette🙂😄😊.

Marinette: same here😁.

Cat Noir: well then i'm Cat Noir Athanase Blake-Kyle.

Marinette: *realizing* wait your Cat Noir? As in Cat Noir Athanase Blake-Kyle, son of a seamstress prostitute?

Cat Noir: *sigh* yes I'm the son of a hooker who steals your man for no reason😓.

Marinette: so what's with the outfit you were wearing?

Cat Noir: I work as a stripper and a sex slave😣😖😟😫.

Marinette: why?

Cat Noir: to help my mom make ends meet.

Marinette: I get it but why as a stripper or sex slave?

Cat Noir: I had no choice but to be a sex slave stripper and because my mom wanted me to work in the sex industry due to me having a material of being someone's object or toy.

Marinette: so what you're basically someone's property or something?

Cat Noir: yes i'm nothing but everyone's "favorite" little toy to "play" and have "fun" with.

Marinette: were you uncomfortable with it?

Cat Noir: honestly yes because I don't wanna hook up with someone I don't know for money.

Marinette: so you were forced to do this against your will?

Cat Noir: yes exactly that's what it is.

Cat Noir: *bursting into tears* then 3 years ago, I was 9 years old when my mom sold me to an artist for money😭.

Marinette: wait how old are you now?

Cat Noir: *stops crying and sniff* I just turn 12 not so long ago.

Marinette: i'm 12 too.

Cat Noir: wait so we're the same age then?

Marinette: yeah

Cat Noir: What a coincidence.

Marinette: We're born in the same year but just 2 months apart.

Cat Noir: What do you mean by "we're born in the same year but just 2 months apart"?

Cat Noir: When is your birthday?

Marinette: My birthday is on July 22, 2001 and yours?

Cat Noir: interesting my is on September 25, 2001.

Cat Noir: *realizing* you're right we're born 2 months apart.

Marinette: that's right

Cat Noir: What does it mean?

Marinette: it means i'm 2 months older than you and you're 2 months younger than me.

Cat Noir: make sense

Cat Noir: But I was born 2 months premature.

Marinette: What do you mean "2 months premature"?

Cat Noir: I was originally suppose to be born on November 25, 2001 but I came out 2 months premature.

Marinette: Oh so you're a preemie?

Cat Noir: yes

Cat Noir: *arms and legs starting to shake uncontrollably*

Marinette: are you okay?

Cat Noir: *arms and legs still shaking uncontrollably* yeah why?

Marinette: because why are your arms and legs shaking-like crazy?

Cat Noir: *arms and legs still shaking uncontrollably-like crazy hard* sorry I have tremors.

Marinette: Tremors?

Cat Noir: Yeah I still have tremors since birth but sometimes i'll get seizures.

Marinette: Oh that it explains while we were on our way to the hospital, your whole body and head was shaking for 3 minutes.

Marinette: *realizes while reading facts on the article called "Crack babies" on the internet* are you a crack baby or something?

Cat Noir: Crack baby?

Marinette: Yeah are you?

Cat Noir: What's a crack baby?

Marinette: A crack baby is a baby born to a crack addict mother who used crack cocaine during pregnancy.

Marinette but you're a 12-year-old boy who still have seizures and tremors.

Marinette: so I guess you're a crack kid.

Cat Noir: What's a crack kid?

Marinette: A crack kid is when a mother who smokes crack while having a kid, when the kid is born it will be a crack baby/retarded or have problems.

Marinette: So that's what you are, a crack kid because your mother smoke crack cocaine while she was carrying you in the womb.

Cat Noir: it's not the only thing have because of my mommy's neglection action.

Marinette: What do you mean?

Cat Noir: mommy is not just a drug addict but she's also an alcoholic and smoker too.

Marinette: I look at a picture of your brain and I realize your brain is small , malformed , severely damaged and is permanent damage in your brain.

Then after that Marinette took care of Cat Noir in the hospital by being a mother figure towards him with her maternal instincts because it is something Cat Noir's mother never done before since she always ignoring him and Cat Noir needed a good parental figures and guidance in his life due to having bad parents, he doesn't know better but then again Marinette knew Cat Noir has a hard time understanding other people and everything around him in general.

Cat Noir is an autistic individual who can't understand everyone's social cues very well due to lack of interaction he barely had. Cat Noir was diagnosed with Low-functioning Autism , Asperger's Syndrome and Severe Autism or Level 3 Autism since he was 5 weeks old and due to his diagnosis, he has troubles of looking people in the eye , having interacting with others , living up to everyone's expectations of him what he should or shouldn't do including Ladybug's expectation of him how he should or shouldn't act when he's in public or when it comes to Ladybug forcing him , understanding boundaries or personal space , asking people what he wants or permission or where he wants to go , understanding sarcasm , when other people's jokes or when they're joking or when others don't understand his jokes.

Is Ladybug really convinctive , manipulative and abusive towards Cat Noir?

Ladybug and Cat Noir have been friends since 3rd grade but as they got older it was Ladybug who outgrown Cat Noir because she's more mature than Cat Noir due to him being immature , childish and baby-like but one of her other friends told Ladybug she's better off with someone who's more mature not someone who's baby-like person who can't handle "big kids" stuff and she frequently prefers hanging out with mature guys than Cat Noir so she decide to avoid Cat Noir at all cost and she forced him to grow up to act his age so their so called "friendship" isn't ruined in fact she verbally abused him for not maturing and acting his age in which Ladybug would yell at him and insulting his baby-like personality. Ladybug convinced Cat Noir his imaginations are real and she does it so often that the more she convinces him, the more Cat Noir believes it but then it got to the point where Cat Noir thinks everything he believes in his imaginations are a reality. Through every episodes of Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir, Ladybug gets easily annoyed with Cat Noir's childish-babyish personality even tho he acts like a child or baby at times, he can't help it and be he's pressured to be "normal" , "average" and "perfect" that it's starting to stressed him out. In the New York special, Ladybug is excited to go to New York City with her classmates for French-American Friendship Week but she realizes she needs to tell Cat Noir about her absence and she gave cat plush toy with a ladybug-printed remote bottom on it but Cat Noir presses the remote button several times in excitement, making the toy in Ladybug's hand squeak and he presses the remote button again which it made Ladybug groan in annoyance. But when Cat Noir was in New York City, Ladybug was angry at him because he's suppose to be in Paris and is too insane-like crazy to come due to the risk of being put into a mental asylum or hospital.

Altho this is a big theory, it's obvious Cat Noir has a problem and why it seems unreal so I hope like it.