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weaselandfriends · 2 months ago

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BanG Dream! Ave Mujica (anime)

It's 2008, and Doug Walker is confused.

The famous film critic is doing a ten-year retrospective on Pokémon: The First Movie (1998). While watching the opening scene, in which a group of scientists explore a jungle, he poses a series of questions: "What are those things? Who are you? Where are we? What's that thing? Where am I? Is this Earth? Are we in another dimension? Is this the past? The future? The present? What's going on?! Where does this even take place?! Oh, my God, I'm, like, one minute into this movie, already I'm totally lost!"

To Walker's credit, Pokémon is a notoriously impenetrable narrative, known for its high complexity and thematic depth. As he explains: "For those of you who don't know what [Pokémon]'s about, I can't help you because nobody knew what the hell it was about. [...] Nobody could follow it. The only people who understood it at all were the kids."

A similar confusion descended upon me as, on the recommendation of several people in my orbit who called it the criminally underrated sleeper hit of the season, I watched the first episode of BanG Dream! Ave Mujica. They compared it to Umineko, Madoka Magica. None of them told me the show is a sequel (to 2023's BanG Dream! It's MyGO!!!!!), nor any other crucial bits of context: that plot details and twists have been foreshadowed via ARG; that there are music videos for the songs the show's band plays, themselves containing oblique hints to the narrative; that the band itself is real, not in the vtuber sense where rigged anime girls bob their heads on stream but in the sense that each character is voice acted by the members of a real five-person band called Ave Mujica that plays live shows in goth costumes.

Oh no, I thought. I've stepped into a bear trap!(!!!!)

My initial confusion mostly stemmed from the show expecting the audience to already know all the characters, not simply the five members of the band Ave Mujica but also the five members of the band MyGO!!!!!, who are the main focus of the predecessor series. There are few establishing shots, few immediate character beats that cause one character to stand out from the rest, and the character designs have the traditional sameface of idol anime, so hair and eye color are often the only notable aesthetic differences between them. I watch a lot of anime, and sameface doesn't usually throw me, but here it was a struggle to tell some characters apart (particularly Ave Mujica's two blonde guitarists, Uika and Mutsumi).

Disorientation can cause one to stop thinking at all, though, even to understand things that are perfectly understandable. The irony of Walker's baffled series of questions about the opening scene of the Pokémon movie is how most of them pertain to the setting, when the scene's setting (the real-world nation of Guyana) never appeared before or since in the franchise; even the most dedicated six-year-old had as much ability to answer questions about it as Walker himself. It's not even important, really, in the scope of the plot. It's a jungle somewhere, some distant land. It's in one scene and disappears forever. But Walker, like most parents of 1998, encountered a few details he couldn't understand (the franchise's foreign-sounding name, the endless array of unique monsters) and gave up trying to understand anything at all.

In Walker's defense, the most insidious aspect of confusion is not knowing what you don't know. A Pokémon fan watches that opening scene, well aware of the typical setting of Pokémon, and thus knows that this jungle setting is someplace new, some foreign locale, something they're not supposed to know. Walker cannot, at a glance, discern that. To him, maybe this jungle is the primary location where the action is set. Maybe he really is at a disadvantage for not being aware of it already.

The trick to understanding Ave Mujica is that the five members of MyGO!!!!! do not matter nearly as much as their screentime suggests. There is some connection, as two members of Ave Mujica (Sakiko and Mutsumi) were previously in a band (CRYCHIC) with three members of MyGO!!!!!, and Sakiko's abrupt and unexplained departure from CRYCHIC is the root of the interpersonal drama between Sakiko and Mutsumi. Otherwise, the MyGO!!!!!ites serve as outsiders to the main drama who look in and occasionally comment on it; not knowing anything about them is fine. Once I figured that out around Episode 3 or 4, the show became generally comprehensible.

I think.

It's 2019, and Doug Walker is confused.

Everyone is. A collective confusion as, during the climax of his avant garde musical reassessment of Pink Floyd The Wall (1982), an anthropomorphic mustelid slithers onto his shoulder while singing a Cockney rendition of "The Trial". Across a series of discombobulated fantasy landscapes, Walker has been regaled by this and several other digital creatures designed with an almost obscene attention to detail, lavish fur and fabric textures far beyond the pale of Walker's more workman-like VFX flair. If there was context, it has been lost in the characters' impenetrable accents and vocal layering. All anyone watching can do is ask:

What are those things? Who are you? Where are we? What's that thing? Where am I? Is this Earth? Are we in another dimension? Is this the past? The future? The present? What's going on?! Where does this even take place?!

Nobody can follow it...

Except Doug Walker. This isn't the reason he's confused. If anything, he is oddly, uncharacteristically accepting of the situation. He is a critic best known for animated facial expressions and wild gesticulations, but here he stands perfectly still almost the entire length of the song, even as the CGI creatures pluck his hat off his head or lift him bodily into the air or toss him into a little spike-studded Doug Cage. His face is stone.

No, this is a Walker who exhibits, at last, mastery over the raw facts of narrative. It is not plot, character, or setting that confuse Walker about The Wall. When he criticizes the song "Another Brick in the Wall Pt. 2", he correctly assesses that the song is about the cruelty of the education system. What he's confused about, lacking the cultural context of British grammar schools in the 1950s, is what this means, how to interpret it. He can only do so in the frame of the suburban American education system he remembers, and so ascribes to the song meaning relevant to that context; namely, that school isn't that bad, that teachers can be nice, and that anti-school youth sentiment is meaningless counterculture. It's a misunderstanding, not of fact, but of heart. "Pretentious," Walker calls it, a word he repeats across the video. Pretentiousness is a fixation of Walker's. He loves the word; he uses it often. It's perhaps the perfect word for a workman-like man like Doug Walker, one of the first true outsiders to achieve success in the democratized media landscape of the internet.

"Pretentious" means the author believes their work possesses more meaning and importance than the critic can derive from it.

This confusion of interpretation struck me too as I watched Ave Mujica, even when I understood on a summary level the plot and characters. In the first episode, one of the few characters to distinctively establish herself is Ave Mujica's drummer, Nyamu, who starts a catty argument with the band's keyboardist and founder, Sakiko. The crux of the argument is simple. Part of Ave Mujica's gimmick as an avant garde act that blends live music with acted skit segments is that its five members wear masks on stage, concealing their identities. Nyamu, in Walkeresque fashion, wants to dispense with this "pretension," claiming to be bored of it. Her true goal is mercenary; she believes, as the only band member who is not already established in the entertainment industry, that publicly associating herself with her more famous bandmates will elevate her personal profile.

Sakiko, for whom this project is an artistic venture of deep psychological importance, rejects her proposal. But Nyamu disregards her bandmates' wishes and forcibly unmasks them at the next concert anyway.

I understood the argument. What I didn't understand was how to feel about it, how interpret Nyamu's role in the story. In a vacuum, I could only imagine she was intended as the show's villain. She is vain, petty, a shameless social climber, self-absorbed, a YouTuber, and also the driver of the initial conflict that causes the other bandmates to spiral psychologically out of control. Beyond that, she is commercial. In my preconceived cultural understanding of "fiction about art," the sellout is the villain, and the person with legitimate artistic vision (in this case, Sakiko) is the hero. The rest of the first episode supports this reading: it focuses on Sakiko's perspective and home life in a way that lends her significant pathos, while Nyamu exists solely to cause her grief.

Yet the rest of the show does not support this reading. When a band member has a schizophrenic break a few episodes later, Sakiko is framed as the core cause, due to her demanding auteurism. Nyamu, who sparked the inciting incident, is never blamed, either by the other characters or by the narrative as she slips away, unregenerate, into a minor and isolated subplot. She never abandons or even interrogates her crass commercialism, and despite being the most replaceable member of the band and the least interconnected to the others' social circle (she appears, actually, to be a college-aged adult while everyone else is a high schooler), nobody suggests she be replaced when the band breaks up and reforms. Nobody demands anything of her at all. Nobody even really seems to see her as a problem.

I love it. I love it when shameless little shits don't get any comeuppance at all. I love Nyamu. (Honestly!)

But how am I supposed to interpret her argument, within the framework of Ave Mujica as a story?

The obvious interpretation is that Nyamu is correct, or at least in wake of the show's ambivalence toward her, not wrong. Cynical commercialism has value, is at least an important consideration for artistic decisions. This interpretation makes sense considering it's the artiste Sakiko who winds up shouldering the blame for the band's internal collapse, but at the same time it's a bizarre proclamation to make in a show that is otherwise so concerned with rendering Sakiko empathically, with exploring her psyche and motivations, and with -- ultimately -- selling the audience her artistry. Ave Mujica, as I explained, is a real band. All the goth flair, the arcane skits, the oblique narrative hints, and the doll symbolism that are core to Sakiko the character's artistic vision are also core to the real-life Ave Mujica the band. It's inconceivable to me that the show is actually dismissing its own aesthetic as "pretentious." Why, then, does its own in-universe Nyastalgia Critic go unchallenged, escape unscathed? What does it mean that these criticisms emerge not from unconnected outsiders (even with five members of MyGO!!!!! right there, with their significantly more down-to-earth, more workman-like band) but from one-fifth of Ave Mujica itself?

What, exactly, is Ave Mujica's identity?

It's 2013, and Doug Walker is confused.

Existentially.

The video is titled "The Review Must Go On," with an ominous subtitle in the vein of End of Evangelion: "Demo Reel Finale." Something, indeed, is coming to an end here, and it isn't just Doug Walker's lifelong passion project.

In this postmodern künstlerroman, Doug Walker stares into a mirror, but what he sees is not Doug Walker. It is his past and it will be his future. (Is this the past? The future? The present? What's going on?!) It is the fixed and unchanging edifice of 18 long years and counting, an entity unstuck from time, who, despite changes to format, site, contemporary taste, and the internet itself, remains immutable. It cannot be denied, cannot be destroyed, can only -- briefly -- be bargained with.

And Doug Walker bargains. "Not every week," he says, staring his down his creation. "Once every two weeks." His creation, only somewhat put off, accedes. (Now, in 2025, it's once a week once more.) A single word: "Done," and the deal is made.

"Alright then," Walker says, with a beleaguered sigh. "What's next?"

The cold voice replies: "I think you know what's next."

Walker does know. He returns to his desk, where he had been typing the script to the Demo Reel Finale, and dutifully writes what he has known all along. Donnie DuPre, the main character of Demo Reel, that lifelong passion project, that original creative work, was always him.

The Nostalgia Critic.

It's a final surrender. There will be no more passion projects. No delusions of artistic accomplishment. None, at least, that don't involve this thing that Doug Walker has become, this thing to which he has given the rest of his life.

This moment mirrors the argument between Nyamu and Sakiko. Though Walker claims otherwise in the video, the decision to revive the Nostalgia Critic is clearly commercial; the Nostalgia Critic is popular, Demo Reel is not. Walker has abandoned his artistic vision in favor of what sells. Nyamu has won.

Except it's Sakiko, not Nyamu, who makes the demands that the Nostalgia Critic makes of Doug Walker. "I am not going to let this band be just a passing fad," Sakiko says. "I told you. Give me the rest of your life."

Doug Walker is giving the rest of his life to the Nostalgia Critic. Is trapped by it. As Ave Mujica progresses, its members become similarly ensnared. I claimed previously that Nyamu is never punished by the narrative, never challenged by the other band members or blamed for her actions, nobody ever attempts to get her replaced, but the opposite side of that coin is that she is incapable of getting herself replaced despite her desire to use the band as a stepping stone for a personal career. Though she gains industry connections via a bandmate's actress mother, she is crippled by the memory of one of Ave Mujica's most perplexing images, an image that similarly left me at an utter loss: the guitarist Mutsumi, collapsed in a disassociating stupor, on stage before an audience of thousands.

This moment is the beginning of Mutsumi's character arc, in which she is consumed by her band persona, Mortis, in a literalized split-personality storyline that itself has obvious parallels to Doug Walker's relationship with the Nostalgia Critic in The Review Must Go On. What fascinates me about this moment, though, is the reaction of everyone watching. The moment Mutsumi unexpectedly collapses, Sakiko deftly weaves it into the band's narrative, concocting a story about how the song they were playing lulls the "dolls" (Ave Mujica's band members) into eternal slumber, before abruptly ending the entire concert. The other four members step off the stage, leaving only the collapsed Mutsumi in the spotlight, motionless and silent.

The audience loves it. The band explodes in popularity. It's such a memetic event that the fans become disappointed when it isn't repeated at the next concert; Nyamu suggests that they repeat it, even to the point of showing up to concerts and not playing music at all. "Ignoring the audience's expectations -- what's the point of that?"

Nobody, in or out of the band, reads Mutsumi's collapse as a cry for help.

She can't cry for help. No matter what she does. When the band announces their breakup, she screams hysterically on the stage, even as the other four members are quiet. "Mutsumi was cooking until the end," a social media post later remarks. She has a breakdown on the street, arguing with her split personality in Gollum/Smeagol fashion (complete with camera angles swapping back and forth to indicate her two selves), and though people gather around and film it, the audience's only possible interpretation of the event is that it is a promotional stunt for the band. Even Nyamu, haunted by that image of Mutsumi collapsed in the chair, isn't haunted because of the psychological toll her actions inflicted on her bandmate (and, eventually, primary yuri shipmate), but because she believes Mutsumi was acting, acting so ingeniously that it torments Nyamu she cannot achieve that same level of skill.

Mutsumi is entrapped within the narrative ambiguity of Ave Mujica. Like Doug Walker, everyone watching her is confidently confused, only able to interpret her actions within their own contextual framework.

What is the contextual framework of Ave Mujica, though? It is a Babushka doll of meaning, an anime based on a real band that contains within it contradictory proponents of artistic vision and common-denominator commercialism, that is itself contradictorily artistic -- if my struggle to interpret it is enough to suggest -- and commercial, the way its poetic symbolism about dolls and control is draped on samefaced 3D anime girl models that move stiffly and unconvincingly. But the show is willing to make those 3D models contort their faces into distinctively un-idol-like (distinctively Doug Walker-like) maniacal expressions, to throw them on the ground and scrape open their knees with blood streaming out, to have them hurl each other down the stairs in fits of rage, to pair them in incestuous yuri couplings. The story both gesticulates toward a cynical, darker take on the idol industry like Perfect Blue or Oshi no Ko, yet is part of an established idol franchise selling these characters as actual idols. Even in the narrative, the depiction of the idol industry is confused; the band seems to have no managers, no agents, nobody telling them what to do. They don't even have secretaries; bassist Umiri handles scheduling and itineraries. Men only exist in the world of BanG Dream! as fathers or grandfathers; every behind-the-scenes staffer at the concerts, in fact every concertgoer, is female.

Nyamu is not Akane Yonezawa, Ave Mujica's real life drummer. But both are industry outsiders in their first real role, compared to their four bandmates who are already established. Rich girl keyboardist Sakiko is not Kanon Takao, but Kanon Takao was winning international piano tournaments in Milan at age 10. Where is the line between fiction and reality? How real is this anime, and how fake is this band? How much is the Nostalgia Critic a character, and how much is he Doug Walker with a hat?

And isn't it within this endless array of ambiguity, of questions, of confusion, that Ave Mujica ensnares? "Give me the rest of your life," Sakiko says, but with these ARGs and multimedia comb-over-it-with-a-magnifying-glass details and crossovers with other bands, whose life is she demanding? To the incurious, the Doug Walkers, confusion is enough to dismiss out of hand. But for those who want to know more, there are an endless amount of dolls to open...

Perhaps Walker was right, all those years ago in 2008, to not gaze too deeply into the world of Pokémon. It is a franchise, after all, that has exploited the human instinct toward curiosity to become the highest-selling media property of all time.

("Ignoring the audience's expectations -- what's the point of that?" Nyamu says.)

It's 2021, and Dan Olson is confused.

He is a critic criticizing a critic. In this case, he is criticizing Doug Walker's review of The Wall. Unbelievably, this criticism has over 2 million more views than Doug Walker's The Wall video does. Over twice as many people have seen this criticism than the thing being criticized.

Olson asks:

"What is this? Why does this exist?"

He doesn't know why Doug Walker would do this. Why would he put such elaborate effort into a musical review of The Wall, something Walker barely seems to understand or care about at all, something he only seems to have watched for the first time in preparation for creating the review. Walker's lack of curiosity baffles Olson, particularly because it is balanced against the effort on display in the review itself. How can someone spend months on costumes, visuals, parody lyrics, and celebrity guests, all to call something pretentious?

What Olson doesn't realize is that there is a Doug Walker, wannabe filmmaker, involved in this production, a Doug Walker with -- for better or for worse -- an artistic vision, who is willing to go to great lengths to apply that vision.

But someone else is running the show. Someone to whom Doug Walker has given the rest of his life. He's called the Nostalgia Critic, but, as in Ave Mujica, this avatar of commercial greed is only an abstraction, isn't it? A figment of ambiguity in which all cries for help, no matter how loudly they are screamed, can be extinguished. There's someone else, unseen and unacknowledged, with real control over these dolls, the one who forces them to perform as perfect time capsules, ageless and eternal. I'm not sure what they're called for Ave Mujica, but for Doug Walker, their name can be found with a bit of searching: Mike Michaud.

"Let me show you," says that anthropomorphic mustelid, Lucy Lacemaker, as the first notes of The Trial begin. "Let me show you what happens when your dreams no longer need you."

#bang dream #ave mujica #doug walker #nostalgia critic #essay

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lilith-hazel-mathematics · 1 month ago

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Hi there, I’m not a mathematician, so idk if my question is silly, but why is it that integers in set theory are defined as a composition of all the previous integers instead of something simpler like for example just the set containing the previous integer? Is there something that makes the way we official define integers useful, or was it something like “this works, good enough”?

Hey, thanks for your question. What you're describing is actually Zermelo's construction of the integers, which uses the successor function S(n)={n}. You may recognize the name "Zermelo" from his greatest hit "Zermelo-Frankel set theory", the all-time most popular theory of sets, and arguably the de facto foundation of all modern mathematics. So, you are in good company in thinking that's the obvious implementation. However, the Von Neumann implementation (used in Hazel's "count to 100" challenge) is considered to be superior, which I think is for three main reasons.

The first and probably weakest reason is its convenience in defining the "<" relation. Under the Zermelo convention, you need to define "<" using the Recursion theorem, but it's much easier to prove Recursion when you already have "<" at your disposal. Having to prove the Recursion theorem without ever mentioning "<" is a pain in the ass. It's not terribly difficult to prove Recursion if you have access to the axiom of infinity, but it's way harder from a finitistic set theory, and that difficulty is compounded if you can't mention the "<" relation (I've done it and it's fucking annoying). I'm not a dirty finitist*, but I do have a deep interest in reverse mathematics, so these kinds of pragmatic concerns are important to me. Under the Von Neumann implementation, we simply have n<k if and only if n∈k, and the successor operation S(n)=n∪{n} isn't much more complicated. (*finitism is an unpopular but nonetheless respected mathematical philosophy, me calling it "dirty" is a joke.)

The second reason is its relationship to cardinality: as a set, a finite ordinal n contains exactly n elements, provided we use Von Neumann's implementation. For example, 0={} has 0 members, similarly 2={0,1} has 2 members, and so on. Besides being elegant for obvious subjective reasons, it's also pretty convenient in certain technical aspects. For example, there's an important set theoretic operation called set exponentiation, where Y^X denotes the set of all functions f mapping X→Y. In the finite case, it holds that |Y^X|=|Y|^|X|, hence the name and notation. This overlaps with the ordinary notation for the set of ordered pairs, X^2 = {(a,b) : a,b∈X}. This is compatible with the set exponentiation operation, but only if we use the convention 2={0,1}. That is, the ordered pair can be thought of as a function with domain {0,1}, in the sense that (a,b)[0]=a and similarly (a,b)[1]=b. This doesn't work under Zermelo's convention. A similar issue arises for triplets at 3, quadruplets at 4, and so on, essentially forcing the Von Neumann implementation all the way up, if we want this elegance. There are other technical roadblocks I'm sweeping under the rug (roadblock shaped like "a function is a set of ordered pairs"), but this answer is long enough already.

The third reason I'll say, and certainly the strongest, is its relationship to infinite ordinal numbers. Infinite ordinals are unbelievably important in set theory, for like a trillion reasons I could talk about for an entire decade, so it's pretty important to have some kind of implementation. The least infinite ordinal is named ω, which is the least nonzero ordinal obeying the property ∀(n<ω), n+1<ω. In other words, ω has no immediate predecessor. Under the Von Neumann implementation, we can simply say ω={n : n is a finite ordinal}, albeit the formal way to say "n is a finite ordinal" is a mouthful of logic. This extends to larger ordinals, in the sense that Von Neumann's convention allows us to easily construct ordinals of any infinite size. There's no good way to extend Zermelo's implementation to the infinite ordinals, so it's just not as good.

TL;DR Zermelo's convention works, but it's very slightly more inconvenient in almost every conceivable way. Nobody actually writes out Von Neumann ordinals by hand (except as a fun joke), so there are no downsides.... unless you don't have Axiom of Replacement, since then you have to use a completely different third convention which almost nobody knows about.

-Lilith

#mathblr #ordinal numbers #Lilith posting

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knuckleblaster · 1 year ago

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On some level I understand the rejection or outright denial of V2's death: it was jarring and brutal, especially for a character who, at least in laws of traditional video game rivals and the rule of thirds, seemed like it'd stick around for longer. This said, inferring from in-game lore as well as dev statements, I believe V2's death, tragic that it is, is not unwarranted; and that it is commonly pigeonholed into a characterization it does not fit into due to its assumed role within the game.

This is long, so it's going under the cut.

Considering its name, it's easy to assume V2 is a new and improved version of its predecessor; but it is more heavily implied that it's simply a version of V1 with thicker plating, and nothing more. [1] V2 was an attempt at salvaging V1's design after war became irrelevant, to capitalize on the resources wasted on a highly advanced war machine by rebranding it as an adaptable worker, for security and (theoretically) other peacetime activities (...not an innuendo). This was a failure; there's no reason to invest in something so refined when a handful of lesser machines could do the same job [2].

If V2 is contextualized within its backstory, it makes a lot more sense why it ate shit so quickly. It is, out of any in-game machine so far, one of the least suited for survival in Hell. Sentries and Streetcleaners were created for war. Swordsmachine(s) and Mindflayers are scrapheads, constantly adapting to create (and protect) their perfect, lethal body. [3] If anything, it's on the same level as a Drone, able to defend itself in a limited capacity, but not intentionally programmed or built for combat. Faced with V1, something built for perfect, swift destruction, a machine made for peace would stand even less of a chance than normal, even with an equal level of mobility and build.

V2 is also doomed, in a very literal sense, by the narrative. In a meta sense, it does not matter to the game story whatsoever [4]. V1 is the butterfly whose wing flaps set Gabriel's story in motion, but V2 has no such connection to his story, and is thus irrelevant. Even its lore entry is overshadowed by information about V1/its connection to V1. A third fight, as well, was never in the running, not necessarily due to anything in the game lore, but because its first and second encounters are all it needs: a third rematch would be repetitive and messy [5]. The reason for its extremely violent death sequence is to ensure there was no question as to its fate [6].

In regards to its personality; it is oft-headcanoned as loud, irritable, and competitive, but this characterization is more likely due to its color as well as its assumed role as a "rival" to V1; rather than based upon its in-game actions. Although its initial intentions are up to interpretation [7], comparing its actions and mechanics to other enemies fully rationalizes its anger. Although it's fairly easy to enrage in-fight, the criteria for its enrage state is much more specific than other enemies, and it's quite easy to not trigger it at all. Cerberi will enrage after one of its kind dies, Malicious Faces and Mindflayers after a certain amount of damage has been dealt (on Violent). Most notably, as the only other character with a rematch, Gabriel begins his second fight enraged after his first defeat [3], which can imply by extension that even though V2 is taking its second fight more seriously [8], it is still not outwardly angry. Its enrage state is only triggered when its patience is depleted (the player avoids it for too long), or in its second fight when it has been punched with the Knuckleblaster. These can be interpreted as indicators that V2 likes it when the fight is "fair": when it's not being avoided and picked at from a distance, or being hit with its own arm; which is frankly pretty fucking mean. A side note: Returning to its creation, it can also potentially be inferred that V2 was intentionally programmed with a rational, controlled, and even marketable personality, easily suppressed or overwritten for ease of use.

In another game, or if V1 was the protagonist, perhaps V2 would not be dead. Instead, V2 is doomed by its creators, both in-game and in reality. It mirrors V1 in action and Gabriel in mind, but unlike them, it has no place in this story beyond a truly fantastic duo of fights. Although its story has any number of potential rewritings or epilogues [9], its doom was always intended. It's easy to mourn lost potential, and its end is intensely tragic; but I believe it is a tragedy that meshes nicely with the rest of the game's story. V2 is dead, and not a second too soon.

Footnotes:

Along with the lore entry for V2:

V1’s planned production was cancelled and an updated model, V2, was developed instead, using the standardized plating, since durability was far more important during times of peace when no bloodshed was necessary.

twitter.com/HakitaDev/status/1538313328715513857

3. in-game lore entries, can be read on ultrakill.miraheze.org or here in one document: steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2245904838

twitter.com/HakitaDev/status/1538336055681863680

6. "And then V2 dies as hard as anyone could possibly die to make sure people understand he's fucking dead and is not coming back" - dev commentary, 05:08:09 (youtu.be/kaImho5JioI?si=v4_m90nfLOY-DyEZ&t=18489)

9. Notably, Dream's End Come True / v2isdead.com.

#ULTRAKILL #V2 #meta #id in alt #finally fleshed this out. V2 death manifesto with bonus personality critique!

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mikashisus · 7 months ago

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just as a star dies

SYNOPSIS: a star's fate is sorrowful, but at least it's quiet.

PAIRING: capitano x gn!reader (platonic)

TAGLIST ! @wystiix @tragedy-of-commons @pixelcafe-network

warnings: brief mentions of experiments and blood

word count: 1.3k

notes: this is set in the same universe as my tartaglia fic 'loyal dogs' and the mc is the same one from that fic :3 except this is like... in a future arc and stuff. the only difference between this mc and that one is that this mc is from mondstadt LMAO

eydís try not to write an mc from mond challenge (IMPOSSIBLE). ALSO this is loosely based off ‘no longer you’ and ‘just a man’ from epic the musical!!

“Did you hear me?”

The commanding voice of your superior drew you out of your daze. You blinked, looking up at the figure towering above you.

He stood at least two and a half heads taller than you, with a helmet covering his face and a large fur coat draped around his shoulders. The Northern winds whipped violently, thrashing his long black hair around.

He reached a clawed hand out towards you, picking you up by the hood of your own fur coat and placing you on your feet.

“I said: did you hear me?” He questioned again, a little firmer this time.

You shot him a halfhearted glare and picked up your sword, placing it back in its holster at your hip. “‘fraid I didn’t, Sir.”

He stared at you for a long, grueling moment, before letting out a sigh. “I’ll repeat it once more. This time be sure to listen.”

There was once a prince of a forgotten land.

The blizzards of the North pierced your skin, and you pulled your hood over your head. You followed closely behind your predecessor, mirroring his footsteps.

He fell deeply in love with the princess of a kingdom much richer than his. Falling prey to his wit and charms, she agreed to marry him.

A few years after their marriage, they bore a son.

Stopping to rest for a while, you shook off your now wet fur coat and laid it on the damp floor of the cave.

Capitano knelt to the ground, piling up the logs you gathered and starting a fire. It crackled to life, the flames dancing wildly in the darkness. You removed your boots and took a seat on the cold floor, raising your shaking hands to the fire.

The prince, now a king, was forced to leave his wife and newborn son behind as he trudged off to fight a war in another land.

Without a single death within his army, they emerged victorious from the war, though the cost was great.

The King had to make a difficult choice whether to spare the child of his enemies, or destroy a threat in the making.

The blizzards had somehow gotten worse, though that didn’t mean you could rest from your training.

‘Get up,‘ he motioned, and you could practically hear his gruff voice in your head as you stood with a whine, ‘there is no rest for the wicked.’

Outside the cave, his sword materialized in his hand, the ice trickling and cracking as it formed into a sharp, dazzling blade that oozed with a filthy dark aura.

It sliced the air as he pointed it towards you, challenging you.

Without a word, you reached for your own silvery blade, the words carved into the hilt staring back at you in bold, mocking letters.

And thus he posed the question: ‘When does a man become a monster?’

Breathless, you laid on the icy ground, your vision blurred as you tried to regain your senses. Your head was heavy, and it felt as if there was a large wooden plank pressing down on your chest.

A clawed hand reached out, easing towards you when you made no move to take it. Your vision cleared somewhat as you moved your clumpy wet hair out of your eyes.

Sending the man above you a glare, you firmly grasped onto his hand, and with little effort at all, he hoisted you to your feet.

‘You’ve gotten stronger.’

Staring up at him with an exhausted look, you scoffed and turned back to the cave, leaving him alone in the raging storm.

The King and his forces began their journey home.

The festival of your oceanside hometown was in full swing. The streets were lively, and garland decorated the streetlamps. Lanterns were strung between rooftops, casting a warm glow upon the cobblestone.

The rowdy and vigorous woodwinds of the musicians in the square invited all to join in and dance. The crowds of laughing, joyful faces, pushed and pulled as more were drawn into the festivities.

Traditional, elegantly crafted beer mugs that once belonged in a glass cabinet in your father’s home, were being passed around from person to person.

Tables were found on every corner, filled to the brim and packed with what seemed like an endless plethora of foods and homemade dishes. They sat unevenly upon each other, and just one touch would send it all toppling to the floor.

The first island they stumbled upon housed a cyclops with the biting urge to crush and destroy all who disturbed his peace.

The King’s forces fought back, and some had been lost amongst the chaos.

With heavy hearts, they retreated, only to face the blinding wrath of a sea god who had no intentions of letting them leave alive.

Shivering in the cold of the cell, you cursed. How had it all come to this?

Silently, the aching hurt in your heart that you yearned so badly to blame on something all these years, finally found and locked onto its target.

Narrowly escaping his clutches, they were pushed onto the isle of a powerful witch.

A new foe stood in their way, but the King’s resolve was strong. With the help of divine intervention, he defeated the witch and fled with his men, only to find themselves in the underworld searching for a prophet who could guide them home.

When did the reason become the blame?

Staring out at the vast empty plains of white, you felt as if you had seen this sight once before, during a time when you were small and weak.

A time where all you had to care about was not falling onto the ice as your father tightened the laces on your skates.

A time where you once had to oversee a whole tent of injured soldiers and your only worry was to keep them all alive.

A time where your only fear was to stay alive in a fight with a rabid monster that had emerged from the depths, all grotesque and bloody, with a sole flashing eye and wild hair that stuck out every which way.

A time where your body shook and lost control of its own limbs as a cackling doctor watched in amusement, using you as his labrat.

And thus the prophet said: ‘I see a man who will make it home alive, but that man is no longer you.’

You turned to your superior, a tired look in your eyes and a question on your lips. He met your gaze, already knowing what you were going to ask before the words tumbled out of your mouth.

Did the King make it home alive?

He sighed then, and it was heavy and deep, and that was enough to tell you that yes— the King had made it home alive, but there was more to the story.

After trial and test, and more tribulations thrown his way that led to a series of unfortunate events and many more deaths under that King’s hand, he made it back to his wife and son.

But the man he returned as was a monster, a shell of the man he had left as. He was no longer the same.

You stared into the crackling flames of the fire, contemplating the tale he took the time to tell you. Why had this story been necessary?

Before you could ask, he pointed to the sky.

”Just as a star dies when they run out of fuel and collapse under their own crushing pressure, does a person lose themselves when faced with challenges no ordinary mortal can withstand. The blood of many rests on our hands, and one day, we are fated to collapse and explode under the pressure of the mountain of bodies of the people we have slain.”

He met your wide eyes and placed a comforting clawed hand on your shoulder. “We are not the same people as we were.”

His voice was firm. He stopped there, but you knew he wanted to add on to that— ‘Surely you can understand why I have shared this tale with you, now.’

And you did.

#—stellaronhvnters.#genshin impact #genshin #genshin capitano #capitano #genshin impact x reader #genshin impact x y/n #genshin impact x you #capitano x reader #capitano x you #capitano x y/n #genshin x reader #genshin x y/n #genshin x you #—mikashisus works .ᐟ

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cityofmeliora · 7 months ago

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What does terzology know about the overthrow of Papa III? Do we have a hypothesis about the reasons for it?

very topical question. i was just thinking about this, actually.

as we know, Terzo was dragged off the stage while singing 'Monstrance Clock' at his final concert on September 30, 2017 in Gothenburg, Sweden.

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it's tempting to think Sister Imperator simply hated Terzo and couldn't wait to get rid of him so she could put Cardi in charge, which i think is at least a tiny bit true, but not entirely true.

i watched the Era 3 lore video series 'The Summoning' with some friends the a while ago, and it was the first time they'd watched it. one of them remarked they were surprised that Sister Imperator seemed to be genuinely hyping up Terzo.

this is true! Sister Imperator did actually hype up Terzo during his first year as Papa. at the beginning of Era 3, she was deeply disappointed with the Nameless Ghouls and The Ghost Project's failure to make significant progress in their mission to convert the world to their cult. she was initially very excited for Terzo's reign and believed that he would be extremely successful.

SISTER IMPERATOR: Brothers and Sisters, you know why you are here tonight. This Ministry is now seven years into The Ghost Project. Seven long years of work. Two Papas, two albums, one gold. These are indeed some respectable numbers, but let me give you some others. Churches opened: zero. Governments toppled: zero. World leaders converted to the cause: zero. You call yourselves salesmen? Masterminds? You have done shit! And don't blame the music. The music is the very manifestation of His Dark Majesty. And don't blame this fine merchandise! It's a disgrace! Papa 2 has been let go. He is a miserable, wounded, and bitter old man, and he is washed up! But let's look forward now. This is a new piece of music. And these are your new masks. And this is Papa 2's brother. He is a full 3 months younger. This man will take the band further than any of us could ever have imagined. I present to you now… Papa Emeritus III! The Summoning (part 1) (May 20, 2015)

Terzo did end up being very successful, even before Meliora released.

SISTER IMPERATOR: It has arrived! Some of you did not believe the new Papa would be able to cast a shadow as wide and as far as his great predecessor. Your faithlessness is now dust in my mouth. You should be on your knees humbling yourselves before what has been accomplished here! All you need to do is look outside. Look at the graffiti on the walls, look at the lights illuminated at night, where once there was only darkness. The Summoning IV: The Arrival || Unholy / Unplugged - Los Angeles, California, USA (August 21, 2015)

Sister Imperator felt she was right to have faith in Terzo. she continued to preach about Terzo's power and demanded that others respect him.

SISTER IMPERATOR: Welcome! Welcome, my faithful brothers and sisters! Your presence here is proof of your commitment. If you are unsure, cast off your doubts now. There is no turning back. The rite you're about to witness is but one small but essential movement in our spiritual revolution. We prayed, and he has arrived! But! But! He will demand more of you! He will need to hear from the abyss of your hearts that you are ready. His is a voice of the pit and the pinnacle! His Nameless Ghouls are the music of the [UNINTELLIGIBLE], but your holy noise is the key! You must cry out his name! Say it with me now: Papa Emeritus! Again! Again! Again! Very good. Shh! Shh! Shhhhhh! Listen. Do you hear it? Do you? It's the terrible sound of the ignorant– the mistrust and anger of the masses. The world is unstable and they have lost their balance. But we, here together, are the new foundation. We are the shape of things to come! There's not much time. We won't be able to do the required incantation. We must let the music do the summoning. My brethren, my brethren, bow your heads and raise your horns to pierce the veil of heaven, so the skies will be torn asunder! And Papa may fall into our midst! Now is the moment. Now, there is no other. Papa Emeritus III! Ghost! Ghost is here! Los Angeles, CA, USA (October 26, 2015)

so what was the turning point? the 2016 Grammy win.

listen. Sister Imperator hated that Grammy so fucking much. this seems weird because she wanted the band to be successful, but here's the thing: Sister Imperator is a zealot. a real religious freak. as shown by her words in The Summoning part 1, she fully believes that the true mission and purpose of The Ghost Project is to serve satan and convert the world to his church. she was happy that Ghost's success meant more people were hearing their message, but she was very, very mad that Terzo and the Nameless Ghouls seemed to be enjoying their success a little too much. she felt like they had lost focus, forgetting their mission for satan and instead focusing on their commercial success. and to her, the Grammy was representative of the establishment / mainstream society, something they should avoid as the leaders of satan's flock of black sheep.

SISTER IMPERATOR: The industry has noted our good works with their trinket. And as a result, our message is carried further and wider. But do we take such trinkets as sacrament and the measure of true accomplishment? No! We don't need their approval. The truth of our work is not measured by awards and nods from the establishment. [...] I have here letters from your followers, demanding that we explain why nothing has changed. They have made their own sacrifices. But what have you done? How will you answer them? By holding up your golden gramophone? Is this the change you promised? Is this the sign of a new age? It is nothing! It is another false idol. The Summoning V: The Square And Hammer (September 13, 2016)

notably, she never said anything negative about Terzo while verbally abusing the Ghouls. she still demanded respect for him and his position.

SISTER IMPERATOR: You are supposed to lead. It is your task. Your task! To lead! I think you're afraid of real change. Let's take a breath. I think I understand the problem. You think Papa's words should be enough. But then you misunderstand the nature of true power. Papa is not a mouthpiece for the Dark Divinity. He is not a pawn. He is a mediator. He is the path. His way is the truth and the darkness! And you– you are his apostles. And yet, you deny, you deny! The Summoning VI: The Proceedings Intensify (Oct 17, 2016)

... but that doesn't mean she wasn't also mad at him, too. we just didn't see it.

Terzo was very proud of his Grammy, and he did like to brag about it a little bit. Sister Imperator would have definitely been mad about that.

PAPA EMERITUS III: Alright! How are you feeling now? Quite good, right? Yeah! Alright, I know you like your hard-rocking shit here in Skåne, right? Enough of those ballads– award-winning ballad, actually. AUDIENCE: [APPLAUSE] PAPA EMERITUS III: Oh, thank you. Malmö, Sweden (February 25, 2016)

PAPA EMERITUS III: Yes! A Grammy award winning song! Right here, right now! That doesn't happen every day. Acoustic performance at 93X Radio - Minneapolis, Minnesota (July 28, 2016)

Sister Imperator had respect for Terzo's position as Papa, but she didn't respect him.

it's not like Terzo didn't care! Terzo is actually described as "less rebellious". and we know from the words of Bishop Necropolitus Cracoviensis II that Terzo had always been very dedicated to his church and the people in it. Terzo was a believer in the dark lord, and he was a very hard worker. the problem is that Terzo genuinely wanted a better and brighter future for the world, while Sister hoped to hasten its demise. (don't forget the original explicitly stated mission statement of Ghost was to promote the apocalypse + human extinction). i think they both knew his vision for the future of the church / the world was not in alignment with hers. i think Sister Imperator turned on Terzo when he started acting too confident in himself.

Sister Imperator started making plans to replace Terzo as early as November 2016, almost an entire year before he was dragged off the stage at his last concert. while i do think Sister Imperator disliked Terzo and was happy to get rid of him, i don't think she felt her decision had anything to do with her personal feelings. Sister Imperator talks directly to satan (as shown in Chapter 5) and receives visions (as stated in The Summoning part 5 and part 7). she had a vision that indicated it would soon be time to replace Papa 3 with Papa 4. she started making arrangements accordingly, and Nihil went along with it.

SISTER IMPERATOR: Despite your weakness, and your cowardliness, your failures, I still believe in you. And I believe in you because I have seen the future! I have already been witness to three transfigurations, and each time I can see that we are closer to the final glory, and I have seen you rise to the occasion each time. So can you do it again? [...] After all we have been through in these past few days, all the shames laid bare, are you ready to start anew? The new coming is about to begin. Will you take up your instruments? Will you be able to commit to the utter annihilation of all this is false? All that is greed? All that is staid and conformist and empty? Hm? Then rise. RISE!!!! Now! I give you another chance at transformation. But you must beg. You must demand to be sacrificed! You must prostrate your hearts while you stand tall in the dark, for the fourth incarnation of Papa will guide us. The Summoning VII: Believe This (Nov 14, 2016)

i don't know why Sister Imperator and Papa Nihil decided Terzo's reign would end on September 30th, 2017. and i can't fully explain why they chose to humiliate him by having him dragged off the stage. (even Secondo, who they thought was terrible at his job, was allowed a dignified ending.) and i can't explain why they desecrated his body by using his severed head as a prop for a photoshoot. but idk, it kinda seems like maybe they just hated him.

TLDR: Sister Imperator genuinely believed in Terzo, but she turned on him when he started acting in a way she didn't like. Terzo died as he lived– being used and betrayed by the people he dedicated his life to.

#papa emeritus iii #terzo #sister imperator #nameless ghoul #papa nihil #nihil #radley post #the band ghost lore #analysis #headcanon #asks #quotes

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evilminji · 1 year ago

Text

"!!!" Noise! Quirk is haunted!

Waaaait a second. Oh? My god? You know what would be HILARIOUS?

If Danny was sent on basicly "no, you are still Baby. You can't be King until you're old enough" type Royal Training missions by his Regent Council. Such as? Checking in on Ghosts that, for various Reality Specific Reasons, can't leave their posts and join the Zone yet.

Health and Wellness check, mother duckers.

You know! Like those various Ghosts over in the Haunted McGuffin department! Like? Is YOUR inherited sword or ring or, say, Quirk? Filled with the souls of your predecessors? Yep! That's their royal department! They're with the census and Aid offices.

.........they get lonely.

Why the FUCK does no one remember they exsist? Is it their office's location?

......they bet its the location.

(No, it's because no body wants to file paperwork once they're dead.)

Still! He's sent to be The Intern. Is BELOVED. Finally! People are TAKING THEM SERIOUSLY!!! Oh He's just the BEST! And he... yeeeeah, he's taking the fact he grabbed their department out of a hat? Too the VOID.

Absolutely, boss. This department? Suuuuper important. Very serious.

Please stop crying.

So now he's here! With his uncomfortable uniform, clip on bow tie, and clip board. Trying to interview these guys who are NOT being helpful. All they're shouting is "who are you?" And "how did you get in here?!" And Quirk something or other... Look, buddy(s)! He has places to BE!

Answer the questions!

But they won't! Because Some Dude? Just showed up inside One For All. With a clipboard. He's hanging out in Izuku's subconscious. Keeps STICKING HIS WHOLE ASS HEAD out of Izuku's chest like a chest-burster to try and interview HIM too. Pull Yagi into it.

Like?? Get out of there!!!

No >:/ answer my damn questions!

@hdgnj @babbling-babull @lolottes @mutable-manifestation @nerdpoe @spidori

#dp x mha #dp x bnha #minji's writing

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velvet-vox · 7 months ago

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Why King Candy has been so underrated and misunderstood for a long time (Still is, but to a lesser extent)

(All the images in this post come from the video linked below)

Hi everyone; so, usually, I'm not a trend chaser, in fact, I completely missed out on the hype of the Murder Drones finale by not releasing something for the occasion, as I have been very busy this past couple of months, and still am, but I've decided to make a special, out of program post just for my new current hyper fixation, that being King Candy from Wreck-It Ralph, who, for the past couple of weeks, has slowly risen up to become my third favourite Disney movie villain of all time.

And all of that, as some of you might have guessed, happened because I watched @king-crawler 's two hour long video essay on the character and the movie that he comes from.

Needless to say, just like many others before, it inspired me to add my own two cents to the conversation, and talk about some points that I haven't seen mentioned anywhere else.

This is probably the only Wreck-It Ralph related analysis that I'm ever going to make.

I even thought about scrapping this whole analysis, because midway through development I thought that I was just spewing out nonsense, but I kept going because some of my points may give food for thought to someone who understood this character way better than me.

I may reblog some analysis/art posts of this character, but I'm not going to turn WIR into a staple of my blog; however, if I see a lot of people in the comments or the reblogs adding stuff or points to my arguments, I could always make a sequel post to this one.

But first, I need to get something out of the way immediately.

Spoilers below the cut if you never saw this movie, kind of important, as it is the movie's major plot twist:

King Candy is Turbo.

Who's Turbo? Watch the movie.

With all that said, enjoy the read, I'll now elaborate on the meaning of my title, also, here's the video in question; I highly encourage everyone to check it out, as it is a way better sequel to Wreck-It Ralph than the one who was lost in the depths of Lake Laogai:

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Clarifications:

Wreck-It Ralph is an amazing movie, but one for which I've never had much to think about.

Don't get me wrong, I always considered it to be the smartest Disney movie ever made since my first watch, but I saw it for the first time relatively late, after I had consumed other Disney movies as childhood classics and other crossover movies featuring video game characters, so it never had neither a nostalgia nor hyper fixation factor as reasons as to why I should have put the story under a microscope after that.

Also, as Rando says at the beginning of their video, it is not a movie that blew me away after my first watch. Or the second. Or the third.

Why is this section important? It is important because these are my subjective opinions of the movie, which are unfortunately going to subtly influence what I'm about to say in one way or another, regardless of me trying to speak from a place of supposed "objectivity".

I'm really passionate about this world now thanks to Randomalistic, but you won't get the same vibe from this post as you would get from one made by long time fans of this movie.

Ok?

Good.

King Candy/Turbo has always been... in a weird spot for me.

Just like the movie where he comes from, I never really cared about Turbo until a month ago, despite always feeling like I should have loved him a lot more, especially since Deltarune chapter 2 released a while ago, and the character of Spamton G Spamton is someone for whom I have very strong feelings about; and Turbo, in a technical sense, is literally the spiritual predecessor of that guy (actually, Turbo is the spiritual predecessor of a lot of similar characters, he kinda was ahead of his time).

If I had made a Disney tier list for their movie villains, a completely subjective one for that matter, I would have put him in A tier, but thinking that he should have gone in B tier... while also feeling like neither were appropriate placements for him.

Randomalistic's video finally helped me fall in love with the character; so much in fact, that it got me thinking:

"Damn, if Turbo is actually this amazing of a villain, why was(is) he so underrated and overlooked by general audiences, when he admittedly is, in my opinion, one of the best Disney villains of all time? Frollo is by and large considered the best villain out of any Disney movie, and the HOND was nowhere near as successful as Wreck-It Ralph when it first released, so it can't just be a matter of first impressions (?). Maybe there are other factors, that stop audiences from recognizing Turbo as the Magnum Opus of villainy that he truly is..."

... And that's exactly what I'm going to discuss!

Let's get right into it.

The minor stuff.

First things first:

He's ugly. I'm sorry to all of the people who ironically and unironically simp for him, but that's a design only a mother could love.

On a serious note, KC and Turbo's designs always felt... not very eye-catching to me? (The bug form is excluded from this conversation)

I'm not saying these are bad designs, far from it; but each form has on them a certain amount of design decisions that, by the authors own decisions, make them unappealing to a viewer like me (I'm using myself as reference point because the topic that I'm talking about is inherently subjective).

Starting off with King Candy, is design has to balance a lot of different aspects simultaneously: it has to be eyecatching, so that the viewer can pay attention to him as an antagonist, and believable enough so that the watchers buy the fact that he is the King of Sugar Rush and not someone else, but it also has to be generic and fake enough so that it can later on add up to the fact this is just a performance, a facade, a ruse, a costume, and not the real character, it also needs to be friendly enough so that the audience can be manipulated together with Ralph into believing that he actually is a good guy;

I could go on and on listing off all the amazing things, that the King Candy facade pulls off simultaneously, but exactly because the design has to feel real and fake at the same time, it also, by proxy, ends up feeling weird, and that inexplicable sentiment can end up alienating the viewers who are watching the movie and the ones who have finished consuming it without thinking too deeply about what the meaning of the KC's facade actually was.

In the case of Turbo's design, all the people working behind the movie did such an amazing job making him look as scary, ugly, alien, and deranged as possible, all the while keeping him relatively PG friendly; the result clearly paid off, but Turbo's ugliness is not as slick as the likes of Ratigan's, nor is it as nightmarishly horrifying as the Other Mother's.

The most nightmare fuel qualities of Turbo's design are hidden out of plain sight, which is basically a recurring theme with his character.

To put it in a funny way, his looks neither end up in the conventionally attractive territory that most other Disney villains fall into, nor do they grab the attention of the Monster Fu###rs crowd.

I have zero things to say about the Cy-bug form, but I do have a section later on where I talk about that entire scene in and of itself.

All in all, it might just be me, but the first impressions of this character's design don't really do him any favours when it comes to his popularity.

I now love both designs, but before, they just didn't click with me, and I think some other people might understand what I'm talking about.

Admittedly, I could have explained this section better, but these were mostly my personal opinions and they are not really important in the grand scheme of things, unless somebody else agrees with me, in that case I'd have to take a closer look at the situation.

Second of all:

The marketing.

To be honest, I feel like what really elevated all of the most iconic Disney villains into pop culture status was a joint push from the company and the artists to include these characters into more stories and products.

Like, sorry to all of the Oogie Boogie fans, but that character is barely in his movie and doesn't do a lot, and he wouldn't be nearly as iconic as he is if Disney didn't use him again multiple times after his first debut.

And the same can honestly be said for all of Disney's most popular villains; they got used multiple times in multiple different projects, that either kept them mostly the same, changed them with some unique twists (that change in quality, but that's up to you), expanded on their preestablished characters, or put them into unique situations that showcased just how versatile they are.

Kingdom Hearts, The House Of Mouse and Descendants are very obvious examples of what I'm talking about, but even appearances in lesser known stories like Lady Tremaine in Cinderella 3, Captain Hook in Jake and the Neverland pirates, or the entirety of Disney Twisted Wonderland help solidify these characters as pop culture icons;

All except Frollo.

Frollo is the only one whose hype and cultural recognizability wasn't built up by the company or the media in which he was featured, but by the fans of the original movie.

And despite Disney almost never used that character ever again after his debut, he, his movie, and Hellfire still get a lot of prise and are talked about classics to this very day.

Because Frollo is just that freaking awesome.

Turbo, on the other hand... is barely in anything.

Let's get the most obvious stuff out of the way first: King Candy is a relatively new character, released in an era where Disney was slowly starting to integrate the new, corporate ideals that we see today.

All of the villains that I've mentioned previously already became tried and true successes by that point, so even if the company doesn't care about having good villains anymore they still use their likeability because it has already shown in the past to bring in audiences.

It's also the main reason as to why Mother Gothel is used so rarely: King Candy, as the last truly great Disney movie villain (excluding Tamatoa, who's barely used anyway, and movies not produced by their main animation studio), arrived at a point in time when the company wasn't pushing for their villains anymore, and instead actively sanitized some of them in their new stories (you know what I'm talking about); therefore, Turbo, being actually incredibly dark on second look, and with no actual intention of tuning him down like Jafar because he hadn't already reached the iconic status by that point, had no reason to make any big appearance ever again or be paraded around as much.

There are some more reasons as to why Turbo likely doesn't have more stuff dedicated to him, like the fact that he is technically 3 characters at the same time, but I don't want to prolong this section too much.

So instead, how about we take a look at some of his other appearances outside of Wreck-It Ralph?

Let's see...

He has various cards in Lorcana, which is his most recent appearance, mind you;

He became a playable character in the 7th season of Disney Speedstorm, a game where I was hoping he would be the main villain, due to a variety of reasons, but hey, that's perfectly fine;

And he was mentioned multiple times in Disney Heroes Battle Mode, a game where he hopefully is the secret main villain, as it would pay off a large amount of story and design decisions chosen for that game, but it's probably just wishful thinking and unless the game's plug is pulled, I doubt we'll see him anytime soon.

Ok, it's more than nothing, but it's also not that special if you ask me.

But hey! At least he got a boss fight in a Kingdom Hearts game! That's more than Randall can say! He was a major boss in Union Cross... the mobile game... that you can't play anymore... and since KH adheres strictly to its own canon most of the time, it also probably means that we'll never get to play through the storyline of the first WIR in any future mainline game, and we're more likely to see a world based around the second movie instead.......

Yeah.

That seems to be it, unless I'm missing something huge (feel free to let me know).

This section is important because Cruella De Vil became one of my favourite Disney villains of all time not after seeing her in the original movie, but after I saw her in 101 Dalmatian Street, a niche show that almost nobody knows; so other medium appearances are important to these characters popularity, especially when not all of these villains are Frollo.

ALSO, PLUS 1+, I was originally going to cut this point, but I decided to add it anyway: the Italian voice actor.

After recently rewatching this movie in English, (I'm Italian, we in Italy translate the movies to our language because it's easier than learning an entirely different language for them), I have to really admit that Alan Tudik's voice performance really does a lot of heavy lifting for the character's memorability.

This is not to say that the Italian voice dub sucks or that King Candy's Italian voice actor does a bad job, in fact, the voices are actually quite similar to each other, it's just that Alan's performance has that small edge of hidden bitterness that really brings the character together; though I do prefer Turbo's Italian voice for its twist reveal: the more raspy, heavy tone of the actor really highlights the vicious, alien nature of his character, as well as the sense of dread that Vanellope is feeling in this moment; I encourage you to give it a watch.

youtube

Again, this is extremely minor, and it really only affects me specifically, but don't worry, it's not going to have influence over the rest of this post.

These were just additional points and not the actual meat of my argument, so now I'll start discussing what I actually wanted to talk about from the very beginning:

Who is he?

I think that one of the main reasons as to why Turbo is so underrated is because we spend way less time than with most other Disney villains (before him) to know him as a person.

Think about it:

Most other Disney villains, or at least the most popular ones, all have moments where they are doing nothing to progress the plot, that are dedicated solely to get us to know them better.

Hades has several moments with his minions to show off his personality and anger, Jafar has silly little moments with Iago that show off his depravity, Maleficent has talks with her crow that make her more dynamic, Ursula has her introduction scene where she spies on Ariel and does nothing but talking, and Captain Hook... has 30% of his screen time dedicated to just that.

Heck, Hellfire, one of the most iconic sequences in all of Disney, is just a character set piece for Frollo, and it's arguably completely disposable, as it doesn't really do anything to progress the story, it just explores Frollo's character in deeper depth and that happens to make the big difference when it comes to him.

King Candy doesn't really have an obvious character centric moment, something easy for the audience to quickly latch onto: every time we see him, he is always doing something to push the plot forward.

Yeah, there's that small character interaction with the Donut cops when he gets glasses, and other small moments here and there, like the would you hit a guy with glasses joke, but nothing truly character-defying.

I also don't count King Candy's first scene as a character centric moment, as that's more of an introduction rather than an elaboration, but it is technically valid, even if it ultimately is just a facade that he puts up to serve his needs.

Speaking of which: the fact that most of what we see of Turbo throughout the story could be entirely fake is definitely something that I could use to make the argument in this section stronger, but I'd rather save it up for later.

Also, side note:

I think that the moment most dedicated to him only, to show off a different, "true" aspect of his personality, is when he is walking back and forth in the castle waiting for his cops to show up again.

This moment is so interesting on rewatch, as it is one of the few moments in the entire movie where I can safely say that Turbo is being 100% genuine and isn't putting up any facade whatsoever, as there really is no benefit to him appearing distressed in this situation.

In general, it's funny to think that Turbo's most genuine reactions are of fear.

Back to point one, do you wanna know why Maleficent was given a crow in Sleeping Beauty? The reason as to why was for her to have someone to bounce off, a way for the writers to showcase more facets of her character, and while Candy has Sour Bill, the movie never uses the relationship between the two to show off a different aspect of his character.

To be clear, I'm not saying that Turbo is a worse character than these other Disney villains, or that without these moments of calmness he doesn't work, one great example

Do you know that Calhoun in early development had a camouflage ability, meant to highlight how she hides her feelings but was scrapped because it made her harder to relate to? Well, let's just say that Turbo's entire character is a What If scenario where that idea actually went through.

It's a double edged sword: King Candy is so interesting because he is so mysterious and surprising all throughout the movie, but exactly because he has to be so mysterious, he is not a character as easy to understand as some of the other villains from the company; it's incredibly easy to miss out on just how cruel he is and the full scale of all the damage that he has done.

I, AM, .......the twist villain.

There's also something to be said about how popular to the conversation the twist that King Candy is Turbo became.

Everyone loves this reveal, am I right?

It may not be the best moment in the movie, but my god if it isn't hype, all thanks to the music, the lighting, the setup, yada yada yada....

But the identity reveal scene is to Candy what the Genocide Boss Fight is to Sans: it's the most impactful moment about his character, to the point where it becomes the entire baseline where most discussions are built around, which, more often than not, lead a lot of people to overlook other things about Turbo.

Let me explain: how many analysis videos have you seen where the person making it talks more about the setup and subtle hints present in King Candy's earlier scenes that slowly build up to the twist and less about the events happening in it?

The reveal is amazing, don't get me wrong, but if Rando's video didn't come along to dive deep into King Candy's earlier scenes with the twist already in mind, the true impact of what Candy had been doing throughout the entire movie up to this point would have been lost on me, and I can imagine someone else feeling the same, as me, casual enjoyer of WIR, have been conditioned to think of Candy more for his well planned out surprise, rather than for how that surprise makes the character more engaging (I hope this makes sense).

I also want to mention this video ranking all the different twist villains from Disney and Pixar where CellSpex says that the Turbo twist is useless, since the movie doesn't do much with it afterwards.

Now, aside from the fact that CellSpex is clearly in the wrong and she's missing the point, I think this lack of reconsideration highlights that casual viewers care more about the Turbo plot twist than they care about Turbo himself.

But honestly, I don't believe people focusing too much on the twist is that big of a problem, more so, the problem stems when you want to use the twist... to discuss something else.

Now, I think it's perfectly fine if you want to use Turbo to explain why other Disney twist villains don't work, but when the villains that King Candy is compared to the most are Hans, Yokai, and Bellwether, you kind of start to think that he is only the best of the worst, and not an actual amazing antagonist in his own right.

It may not be a message that was intended to be sent, but it is something that may subconsciously cling to someone's brain, especially when you consider that there might be a huge audience of people who watch these videos because they saw Hans in the title (wishing for the video to bash him), and have seen Frozen, Zootopia and Big Hero 6, but have never seen Wreck-It Ralph in their lives, and they get all their knowledge of Turbo from them.

It's exasperating, especially when King Candy has way more in common with renaissance Disney villains than contemporary ones.

Yes, through technicality, he is a twist villain, but he's more so a hybrid antagonist to be honest.

And even worse than people just grouping up Candy with a bunch of morons, as I've just discovered by reading a comment from this Turbo Tribute, is that some people apparently despise him for starting the Disney Twist villain trend: even if he's leagues better than his competition, the simple fact that you can attribute some of the blame for the fall of villainy onto him, is enough for someone to despise him.

King of the Cy-bugs (feat Rockotar):

Very recently, I've rewatched Rockotar's video analysis of the first Wreck-It Ralph, and when he arrived at the "Welcome, to the Boss Level!" scene, I decided to analyse all the possible reasons as to why he (and possibly many others, such as, admittedly, myself) wasn't as entranced by it as basically any other scene from the movie, who he had been praising non-stop up until this point.

And I think I understood why: aside from the fact that this scene is only a setup for Ralph's sacrifice (and I wished the actual boss fight to be longer and more creative), the Boss Fight is less of a climax for Ralph's journey and more so a character study for who Turbo/King Candy is.

In my opinion, this is the closest we ever get to a "villain at rest" moment with Turbo because in every other scene of the movie, King Candy is always doing something, he's always active and we never see him doing anything that doesn't coincide with his role.

And, paradoxically to what I've just said about this being a "villain at rest" moment, in this scene, he is still doing something and being active in the plot, only that this time, instead of advancing the story, he's holding it back from its conclusion.

This scene simplifies Turbo's character to his most bare bone essentials: he's a short-tempered jerk, a power hungry murderer, a virus; it's all pretty interesting stuff once you take a sweet moment to break it down.

However, there's a point that I briefly mentioned before that I want to bring up; this creature that we are laying your eyes upon, is now three different people all at once, King Candy (anxious, quiet and manipulative), Turbo (short-tempered, competitive and spiteful), and now this Cy-bug hybrid.

To reiterate what I've said before, if you don't think about it for long enough, you aren't going to understand who either character is exactly.

Because that's the big thing: all of his facades, implied development off screen and reactions are so well constructed that at certain points, it feels like we're following two different characters simultaneously, which fits perfectly with the narrative that so called "real" Turbo died and now he's no longer himself, but...

I'm scratching the bottom of the barrel to bring up other possible points as to why this character is so underrated, and the lack of a clear identity seems like a pretty obvious thing to me.

But that's only two out of the three characters I mentioned; we need to take a second look at the Cy-bug form, who, in many ways, is simultaneously the thesis and antithesis of his character.

In particular, there's one thing I want to consider:

There's this theory made by somebody else that says Turbo, upon getting eaten by the Cy-bug, didn't take over the animal's conscience and control his body, instead, upon eating King Candy, the Cy-bug took upon himself his mannerisms, meaning that, according to this theory, neither King Candy nor Turbo technically survived the encounter.

If we accept this theory as true, then that means that even during what is supposed to be a character study, the character that the movie is highlighting may also be just as fake as the act that was put up until this point, meaning that, in a sense, we never saw the real Turbo in the movie.

He was three people at once.

(Yes, I've been spamming this image everywhere, and I'll keep doing so because I can)

In Conclusion:

Turbo is, ironically and unironically, an incredibly subtle character, and that makes it extremely easy for a lot of people to overlook and miss out on the most subtle details and characteristics that make him truly exceptional;

Him being so deceptive and mysterious helps and hinders his popularity, as some either love the mystery surrounding him, others fail to get a good grasp on who he truly is and become disinterested.

He is, by design, a building block, a puzzle to be solved, a character to piece together, that makes him so much fun!

But also, if you aren't interested in putting the pieces together, then he may not be up everyone's alley.

I definitely feel like the best thing that @randomalistic did in her/their video on Wreck-It Ralph was create an easy jumping point for new fans/casual watchers of the movie to get insanely invested over the story and characters;

I'm sure it was incredibly easy for many other people like me to focus only on the most talked about aspect of Turbo, aka the plot twist, and overlook all the other things that were not as much in your face as that; I was blinded by the spotlight, and it made it hard to see the genius that was put everything else;

Now, thanks to Random highlighting King Candy's cruelty and repulsive behaviour, my favourite thing about Turbo is how he weaponized the "disability" of a child to marginalise and persecute her, discriminating her for it all of her life WHEN HE'S THE ONE WHO MADE HER "DISABLED" IN THE FIRST PLACE.

This man, is so HORRIBLE, and he deserves to be publicly exposed for all the heinous s##t that he did, not just for being the best of a bunch of villains who frankly he shouldn't even be attempted to be compared to.

Anyway, I hope someone had fun reading this. I definitely felt like I started to write this with some really good ideas that I wanted to share, but in the end, I feel like they weren't all that interesting to begin with.

Feel free to share your own opinions, and have a great day!

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bayfuzzball7050 · 8 months ago

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My favourite jjba character(s) from each part bc I know it will be more appreciated here than in a Reddit thread

I’ll use this header from now on to yap

Phantom Blood: Speedwagon. Regardless if it’s a whole meme in the community, o genuinely think it’s very brave of him to follow along in an adventure where everyone has powers but he doesn’t. He just raw dog’s every supernatural event and tries his best to be useful. It’s a noble thing.

Battle Tendency: Definitely Caesar Zeppeli. A much more complex and interesting character than his predecessor (William Zeppeli, I mean). I loved his design, personality and charisma regardless if I couldn’t resonate at all with his backstory. I also really enjoyed his rivalry/friendship with Joseph. I’ve always loved the smart/snarky guy x himbo dynamic!

Stardust Crusaders: I love kakyoin with all my heart and soul and I will never shut up about it. I resonated deeply with him since I know personally what it is like to be alone. I like how Araki portrayed his loneliness in a ‘im different than everyone I know’ way where he couldn’t relate to people the way others that. That childhood monologue— god! It hit so, so close to home. I couldn’t help but cry when the scene came up. That is when I realized how much the crusaders mattered to him. A bunch of people ‘like him’ and it’s such a sacred feeling when you’ve been feeling ‘off’ all your life. I also like that he’s always giving little fun facts he’s a bit like yapdollar

Diamond Is Unbreakable: Okuyasu. No question needed. Unlike his brother, Okuyasu is a very kind soul that has never killed anyone (at least on screen) even when he has endured so much abuse from his brother and father alike, something that would ‘justify it’ if he did became an evil character. He stopped looking for a way to kill his father because he can see the good in people and ‘accept them for who they are’. I can’t help but feel a deep sympathy for him. He had taken what his brother had told him about being better off dead so personally to the point where his first question after being healed by Josuke was (paraphrasing bc I don’t remember well) was something like “why did you save me when it would’ve been easier to let me die?”. Josuke came just in time to make him realize how much he actually mattered so he could evolve into the little goofball we all know and love.

Golden Wind: Giorno. I think most people who call him a ‘boring’ or ‘plain’ character often seem to forget that, of course, Giorno will not be a charismatic, sociable, talkative, — joseph — kind of guy. He was severely emotionally and physically neglected in his childhood to the point where showing emotions became useless since he knew he’d be left shaking in his craddle. From this emotional neglect, he started looking up at a gangster as some sort of parental figure. Someone who showed him basic human decency. Later, we get to see his ingenuity in battle. But I think one of the reasons he was so clever in life or death situations was because he has been in a ‘fight or flight’ mode since a very young age. He isn’t even ‘bottling up’ his emotions, he had repressed them deeply inside his brain to survive.

Stone Ocean: The main three. But mainly Foo Fighters bc they’re so silly >_< and I can’t begin to imagine how marvellous it has to be to, one day, become a sentient being

Steel Ball Run: I can’t quite decide between Gyro and Johnny tbh. Johnny is a character who had been always pampered with his ‘rich life’ and was then shocked with the fact that once you’re not useful, or worse, become inconvenient for people, they stop caring about you. I often think about how bad his father was with him, not only rubbing Nicholas’ death all over his face rather often, the whole “God, you took the wrong son” page or just how he never went by to visit him when he had just gotten crippled. It was just plain cruel. Also when they followed Hot Pants to a church and Johnny had to relive some of his most traumatic life experiences again and still try to win. It was one of the best arcs in sbr imo.

Gyro, on another note, wasn’t a son of a wealthy family but had to carry the weight of generations and generations of knowledge on top of the family profession on his shoulders, having to execute a child. He’s also a silly goofball with his jokes that make little to no sense and him trying to explain the spin to johnny in life or death situations always has me cackling up ngl.

Jojolion: I haven’t started to read JOJOLION, but from what I’ve seen, Gappy seems to be a silly goofball who lacks direction and I love that in a man. Also that he’s a 2 x 1 combo, literally.

Jojolands: I haven’t read jojolands either, but good lord they sold me Dragona and Paco when I heard ‘transgender’ and ‘laburantes’. Plus everyone from the Jodio team also seems to be lacking direction and being a pinch silly

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lesmisshippingshowdown · 3 months ago

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Round of 32 Wrapped!

To tide you all over until the next round begins (although I hope you're all keeping busy getting started on your fanworks to steal some votes!), let's have fun with some statistics about the Round of 32 :)

Poll with the most votes overall: Combeferre/Courfeyrac vs Turnchetta (1,554 votes) What else could you expect from a contest between a veritable fandom juggernaut, inescapable as both a main couple and background couple on Archive of our Own, a true bedrock of fandom heritage... and Combeferre/Courfeyrac?

I jest. But it's great to see people turning out in honour of the great fandom tradition of getting a little silly with it. The question remains - how far can a novelty ship like Turnchetta (one could call her the Jedward of this competition, and I of course mean that with the utmost respect #JEPIC) make it in the bracket?

(It's worth noting that Turnchetta also takes home the prize for Round One's Biggest Giant Killing, defeating AO3's 4th most popular Les Mis ship by published works despite not a single fic coming up when I click their relationship tag on that website.)

Poll with the least votes overall: Joly/Bossuet/Musichetta vs. Bahorel/Éponine (546 votes) Again, perhaps this was unsurprising. J/B/M is a true staple of the fandom, and one of only 6 ships in the bracket with over 1,000 tagged works on AO3 (and that's not even counting individual pairings within the throuple!). Bahorel/Éponine, on the other hand, has only 46 tagged works and I wasn't even able to find fanart for them on a sweep through Tumblr tags. This was not a match up that necessarily spurred on hard fighting and intense propaganda, and turned out to be one of the round's most resounding sweeps.

Will J/B/M nation be forced to turn out in greater numbers for round two, or will they be able to rest on their laurels against a - once again - comparatively niche ship like Courfeyrac/Grantaire? And will Bahorel/Éponine's fandom turn out to be small but mighty when given a chance for redemption in the Great Round 2 Steal-Off?

Closest battle: Combeferre/Éponine vs. Enjolras/Marius (47.5% vs 52.5%) I'll say this outright as the bracket's resident infamously unbiased Enjolras/Marius shipping mod - Combeferre/Éponine shippers, I seriously underestimated your game. In a poll where most of Éponine's het ships fell dramatically at the first hurdle, you guys held your own against me constantly reblogging my own posts to yell "PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE" in increasingly undignified ways. You stood behind Éponine's right to date a really nice nerdy man, and I'm very excited to see what you guys pull out of the bag in the Round 2 Steal-Off. I suspect this may not be the last we see of Combeferre/Éponine in this competition.

Biggest whitewash: Courfeyrac/Éponine vs. Cosette/Éponine (4.1% vs 95.9%) As Les Mis's most iconic relatably lovelorn everygirl, Éponine based ship wars have been a fandom staple probably since the actual 1860s. Whether she's battling for Marius's affections or accidentally playing a pivotal role in very, very 2013 discussions about queer erasure in fandom, when there's a ship war to be had in the Les Mis fandom our girl is normally at the scene of the crime. This match up, however, showed none of the fire of its predecessors. When asked if you'd rather see Éponine paired off with Les Amis' lovable centre or patching up her longstanding and complex relationship with Cosette, you overwhelmingly voted in favour of lesbianism. Got to respect it. Happy belated International Women's Day.

Winningest multishipping target: Enjolras (5 out of 6 ships progressed to the Round of 16) For a character who is canonically uninterested in romance to the point that I've seen large swathes of this fandom headcanon him as aroace, you guys LOVE it when Enjolras gets around. Not only did he have 6 ships entered into this bracket (for the mathematicians among you, that means 18.75% of the bracket involves Enjolras in some way), but he won almost every first round contest he was involved in. The only losing Enjolras ship in round one was Enjolras/Éponine, so I guess that's settled*. He really didn't know there was such a thing on earth as woman.

(*It is not settled. If you don't think we're getting a special Enjonine vs E/R face off at some point you don't know me)

Losing-est multishipping target: Éponine (1 out of 8 ships progressed to the Round of 16) Speaking of Enjonine, the other half of that ship suffered basically opposite fortunes. Poor Éponine appeared in a whopping 25% of all ships entered into the bracket, but only one - Cosette/Éponine, her sole femslash pairing in the contest - made it as far as the round of 16. It seems that homosexuality has mutually won out for both halves of 2013's most controversial het ship.

Other stats for the interested:

The average number of votes cast per poll was 770.5 - not bad for a first round! Can you up that number by encouraging your friends to pokémon go to the polls for the round of 16 next week?

In the Round of 32, the balance of different relationship types (going by characters' canonical genders) was as follows: 56.25% M/M, 34.38% M/F, 6.25% F/F, and 3.12% Multi.

In the Round of 16, the balance will be as follows: 68.75% M/M, 12.5% M/F, 12.5% F/F, and 6.25% Multi. I would say "I'm sorry, women" but to be fair both the yuri ships did sail through their respective match ups. Really, I'm sorry heteros. Especially Éponine's hetero ships. I know I keep saying this but it was a rough ride for her.

All of AO3's top 3 Les Mis ships (by tagged works) are still comfortably in the game - as already established, Courferre was this round's biggest loser. Could the Round Two Steal-Off, where the creation of fanworks is crucial to success, offer them a chance at redemption? Tune in next week to find out!

#les mis #les mis shipping showdown

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fanfic-obsessed · 9 months ago

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Pit Magic

This one…This one is going to start a little strange, and with a bit more world building than I let myself indulge in for my Tumblr ideas, but the set up is a bit necessary. As always there is no Canon to see here.

The first important note here is magic and how magic works. Magic here is both sentient and not. Magic does not necessarily have thoughts, but does have opinions about who and how it is used. With Spells powerful enough to leave remnants behind, those remnants do not work well going against their original purpose or used by people whose intentions are too different from their first caster. All magic, after enough time, can be corrupted (made to work against its original purpose- so remnants of a spell made to kill used to heal would also be a corruption) but even corrupted magic is, for lack of a better term, protective of anyone or anything that matches the vibe of its pure form.

This brings us to the Lazarus Pits. There is no recorded history of the Pits, with its mystical water that cures the sick and kills the healthy. No one ever recorded its true origin. The truth is the original Lazarus Water was a non magical spring in a cave system in what is present day Turkey, a location that was long lost even before Ra’s Al Ghul began using the Pits. This cave was the home to a small tribe in the middle of the last ice age. An illness struck this tribe, nearly wiping out the entire tribe in a matter of hours. All except the daughter of the tribe's leader, who had a natural magic. Though grieving, her main intention was to help, to save those she loved no matter the cost to herself. Her magic reacted creating a powerful spell to revive her tribe and kill the illness that afflicted them. She gladly gave her life so that they would live.

The spell was so powerful it left long lasting remnants that sunk into spring water, turning the water of the spring into a healing elixir, the predecessor to the Lazarus Pits. The spell also changed the tribe irrevocably, making them heartier, slower to age and more resistant to illness and infection; these resistances and the healing that came with them passed through the blood of the tribe, which then passed to most of humanity as the generations flew by. Though no one had ever had cause to make the connection, the more of that lost tribe's blood that flows through a person's veins the better the Lazarus Pits work for them, the less the madness affects them.

By the time Ra’s Al Ghul took control of the Lazarus Pits, the original spring was lost to time and the remnants of the original spell were hopelessly corrupted.

This brings us back to what this is setting up for. Due to the nature of the League of Assassins, who their clients are, who their victims are, no one in living memory who had been exposed to Lazarus Water had come face to face with someone whose vibe matches the love and need to help of the original caster. This vibe check can only be done in person, not through surveillance equipment, or photos or reports.

Until Jason Todd attacks Tim Drake at the Titans Tower.

Stubborn, self sacrificing, loving Tim Drake. Feral, protective, willing to do anything for his loved ones. And he loved so deeply, so desperately.

The exact match of a girl so long ago who poured everything she was into a spell to heal the people she loved. Who died gladly, with no regrets, creating a healing spell so powerful that it changed humanity itself.

Jason Todd had broken into Titan’s tower, mind drenched green with Pit Madness, intending on hurting the little Replacement Robin. That is until he entered the room the Robin in question. The madness did not clear, instead it switched from Anger to ‘Mine! Protect!’.

The Pit Madness in Jason’s head screams that this is not a safe place for Tim (someone intending to hurt him had just broken in). Running on adrenaline, madness, and an overwhelming protectiveness, Red Hood scoops up the little Robin and exits the tower stage left to get somewhere safe (depending on which is funnier, he either manages to escape with a struggling Robin over his shoulder-no knocking out Robin, that would be hurting him- , or said Robin figured out that Red Hood was Jason Todd and went quietly for ‘It’s Jason’ reasons). Somehow Jason runs with his captured Robin straight back to the only safe place he can think of, Nanda Parbat.

Later, after he is not running so fully on strange instincts, Jason would not be able to say how he got from San Francisco to the League of Assassins in the middle east, but somehow he did.

While not every Assassin in the League has had a dip in the Lazarus Pits, most have and every single one of them, from Ra’s Al Ghul to Talia to Damian to the lowest Assassin who had been dipped in the Pits takes one look at Tim Drake and go ‘he is our precious cinnamon roll, too good for this world, too pure’. It should also be noted that they do not want Tim to become an Assassin, not even Ra’s; this really is a ‘we must protect the innocent boy from all the evils of the world’ kind of situation (Which is hilarious given the age difference between Damian-who has declared himself Tim’s personal bodyguard- and Tim).

So now Tim Drake has been abducted by the League of Assassins and they all want to give him…hugs? Like Tim knows he’s a bit touch starved, ok, but he didn’t realize it was so bad that an actual villain organization would get concerned. And there is talk about how he needs to be protected. Yeah, they are not letting him contact anyone or leave, but they are also not torturing him or trying to kill him. It is a little strange that he is getting more maternal affection from Talia Al Ghil than from his own mother, who he is not even sure knows he is missing yet. AND Jason Todd is there, which means Jason is alive, so Tim is trying to get Jason to come home. Tim is also trying to figure out if this made his life weirder or not.

Back in Gotham, Batman is losing his whole mind. He has video from Titan’s Tower of The Red Hood abducting Robin, now one has heard from either since. It has been weeks. In addition no one has reported Tim Drake missing. It has been weeks and there is no one outside their nightlife that would notice if Tim disappeared? Bruce has been trying to get in contact with Drakes for all of those weeks (in between his frantic searching for Tim himself). The messenger he sent to find them, one of the Justice League undercover, was told essentially not to bother them about Tim, just talk to him directly and refused to listen when being told he might be missing.

Listen when Bruce gets Tim back from wherever he has been abducted to, he is going to be concerned about the implications of his parents actions. Right now he and Dick are scouring all of their contacts to find their missing Bird. Crime is at an all time low in Gotham, in spite of the Bats not patrolling.

There was precisely one(1) Arkham breakout since Robin went missing. Instead of the normal round up, where the various Rogues all had time to get to their preferred battlegrounds before being gently (and until that breakout none of them would have ever considered that the Bats were actually being gentle with them) recaptured, with fights that served as enrichment in all of their enclosures the four rogues that escaped that night were all put down fast, and with broken bones to would put them out of commission for months, by an impatient Batman or Nightwing. Neither have time for the normal crime fighting until they bring Robin home, they are on a Mission. And everyone knows not to bother the Bats on a mission.

#fanfiction prompt #batman #jason todd #tim drake robin #tim drake #ra's al ghul #talia al ghul #damian al ghul #bruce wayne #Teen Titans tower #Jason Todd did not Attack Tim Drake #The Lazarus Pits made everyone love Tim Drake #this is wierd #world building #lazarus pits

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thisgirlnamedblusy · 1 year ago

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Flowers

Pairing: Donna Beneviento x Fem! Gardener! Reader

Warnings: Drugs? (Idk how to tag the flowers stuff :S), fluff, a bit of angst, reader POV

Word count: 6,352

Summary: She warned me about the flowers but... With them, I can be with her

N/A: Sorry about the language mistakes!!! Requests are open!!! I'm waiting for yours :))) I love you all!!!

I never went near those flowers, until they were the only way to love you.

I woke up like every morning, in that old cabin. I didn't know what had happened to my predecessor, but I assumed what happened to everyone close enough to that place.

My skill with plants was no secret in the village. Envy? Sure, should I have felt lucky? I couldn't say.

When Mother Miranda, in her infinite goodness, entrusted me with a job, I couldn’t, nor I wanted to, refuse. No one needed my gardening skills. No one seemed to care, no one except Donna Beneviento.

Apparently the gap left by the man I replaced was too big. A large plot of land, a large garden that just one woman was incapable of maintaining.

Yes, the job had its perks: a house to myself, all the free time I wanted, and good pay. I wondered why people were so afraid of Lady Beneviento.

Well, I couldn't really say if she scared me or not. I barely saw her.

From time to time, she would walk with her doll through the garden, I assumed to check that I was working, that I was useful to her. Try to seem helpful, (Y/N)… That was the advice my father gave me before I left. That and to be careful with the flowers. Luckily, I was good at my job, and… Well, I couldn't complain.

“Hey! You,” I shouted, pointing at a naughty rabbit that was threatening to eat some plants.

I was used to vermin making my work difficult, but that particular animal had been bothering me for a while. I couldn't just finish it off, but I could at least get it away from the garden.

“Gotcha!” I shouted, launching myself after it, falling in the snow with empty hands. The damn rabbit escaped again and I growled angrily. “You'll see when…!”

I couldn't continue talking, since in front of my face were those strange yellow flowers, the flowers that Donna Beneviento herself warned me about.

“Oh...” I sighed defeated, knowing that it was inevitable to inhale that pollen, at that moment the question was: What was going to happen to me?

I stared at the strangeness of those flowers. It could have been the end of me, the poison would have eaten away my lungs and I would start convulsing at any moment. But that didn't happen.

“Honey, are you okay?” A strange voice, one that I never thought I would hear again made me wake up from those ramblings about my possible death. I recognized it immediately, but I couldn't believe it.

“Mom,” I sighed as she helped me up.

There she was, the woman who gave me life, my mother, in front of me, on that sinister ground, looking at me with that smile, with that tenderness. I wish I could say I was happy. But no, she just couldn't be there.

“(Y/N), how beautiful you are... You've grown,” she whispered with that voice, with that same voice. I shook my head at the impossibility of what I was seeing.

No, my mother couldn't be there, talking to me. She died, she died years ago.

“No, it's not possible,” I murmured slowly, reaching out my hand to touch hers. It wasn't a mirage. Whatever it was, was physical, tangible. I could feel the same rough feel of the dress she always wore, the subtle scent of the cookies she always made for us. It couldn't be an imposter, it was her. It was my mother.

Oblivious to all the signs that told me that this couldn't be happening, I obeyed my instincts and hugged her, hugged her tightly, wishing for a moment that she couldn't do it, that my arms would only touch the air.

But no, it was not an illusion. I could feel the comforting warmth of her embrace as I dissolved into tears.

“Mom... I've missed you so much,” I cried on her shoulder, letting her caresses serve as a consolation for the confusion of that moment.

“Me too, darling...” She whispered, letting me sink into her body, letting my emotions completely overflow me.

“But, but it can't be...” I said sobbing, with a smile. No, it was not possible and I knew it, would I have died?

Suddenly a draft of cold air made me shiver, causing me to feel dampness on my forehead and to have chills.

When I opened my eyes, my mother was no longer there, nor was I outside. I looked around to try to get my bearings. I was at home, lying on the couch, with a wet cloth on my head. What had happened to me?

There were noises in the house, movement that told me that I was not alone.

“Who, who is there?” I asked, sitting up. The answer was immediate.

It wasn't difficult to recognize the dark figure as it approached me. Donna Beneviento, Lord and owner of the land where I worked, approached slowly, with a cup of tea.

“You're awake,” she whispered with a hoarse voice, with a voice I had never heard before. I shook my head, confused

“Lady Beneviento,” I said in a formal tone, blinking several times in case that it was also a dream.

The woman in black nodded, coming closer, standing right in front of me.

“Here, it will relieve your headache,” the lady said softly, offering me that cup of tea.

I was confused. It wasn't common to see Donna near me, much less hear her talking, but that wasn't the important thing at that moment nor was to know what she was doing in my house.

“Thank you,” I said kindly, taking the steaming cup from her hands, which immediately retreated when they felt mine very close to them. “What…? What happened to me?”

“I was taking a walk and I was surprised you were not here, so I looked for you and well, I saw you lying in the snow, you had fainted,” the lady explained, sitting on the couch, as far away from me as possible.

“Have I fainted? I don't remember...” I said confused, bringing that cup of tea to my lips. To have a conversation with her didn't even seem strange to me, I had just seen my dead mother after all.

“I warned you not to go near those flowers, (Y/N),” she said after a few moments of silence. I opened my eyes and looked at her, well… I looked at the black cloth that covered her face.

“Flowers? Oh, I...” I said with a broken voice, trying to put things in their place, trying to think what exactly had happened. “It was, it was an accident. I was chasing a rabbit and well, I tripped and...”

“An accident,” she repeated, with a suspicious tone.

“Yes, an accident,” I reaffirmed, making clear that I didn’t ignore her warnings. “By the way… What happened to me? I, I felt strange and...”

“They are not ordinary flowers, (Y/N), they have special properties. I imagine you've noticed,” she explained without much desire to talk, probably wanting me to go back to work so she could leave that place.

“I...” I sighed, remembering that hug with my mother, her impossible presence… “I saw, I saw my mother.”

“Your mother?” The woman in black asked, this time with curiosity.

“But, but it can't be possible... I... She, she died and... She was there... It was so real,” I said, wanting to know what exactly had happened, what those flowers did to me.

The woman sighed, shaking her head.

“It's what flowers do. What you saw was a hallucination,” she said with a whisper, shifting uncomfortably on the couch. Definitely, just as the villagers had told me, human relationships were not exactly Donna Beneviento's strong suit.

“No, but...” I said, denying to myself that my mother was never there. “It… It was so real…”

“It wasn't, (Y/N),” Donna said briefly, playing with her hands, nervously, before bringing one of them closer to my face, placing it gently on my forehead. “It seems that you are better.”

Her warm hand on my frozen forehead sent a contrast of emotions through my body. It was a soft, delicate hand that barely touched me, but it stirred something inside me.

“Yes, I... I don't know what to say,” I said, lowering my head and looking away from hers, as if I had been embarrassed by something.

Okay, it was true that I haven’t got been a woman in my life for a long time but... But that didn't mean that I had to feel something every time a woman touched me, and even less... With her.

“Just tell me that you will never go near those flowers again,” she said, moving away from me a little, as if she had felt something similar. “You are a good gardener, I don't want to lose you.”

“Oh, no, Lady Beneviento, you won't lose me,” I stated, with a tone grateful for that strange concern.

“People live in their memories, in their whishes...” She explained with an enigmatic tone. “Flowers can revive them or even create them. But they can also make you feel horrible things. They can torment you.”

“I understand,” I said, letting the air out of my body slowly, disappointed. “Well… Thank you…” I said hurriedly, when the lady in black got up from the couch, walking like a ghost toward the exit. “…For, for taking care of me. I promise that I will be more careful Lady...”

“Donna,” she said, interrupting me, as if something had offended her. “My name is Donna.”

“Okay, Donna...”

I was still confused by what had happened. I disobeyed a direct order, but there were no consequences beyond that encounter. I looked out the window, watching this strange woman disappear from my house. It had all been so strange... The feeling of my mother's hug continued filling my mind with that comforting warmth.

I know I shouldn't have done it, but the voices that begged me to feel that way again spoke much louder than my common sense. I got up slowly, finishing that infusion, and I took a breath.

“Wishes...” I murmured to myself, focusing my gaze on a small cluster of yellow flowers in a corner.

The feeling of having what I wanted, that the hugs of my loved ones sent some warmth to my cold existence, made me do something crazy.

I grabbed a cloth from the kitchen, a small empty flower pot, and I left the house with a clear objective.

I put the white cloth over my mouth and nose so as not to breathe in that damned pollen while I bent down to pick one of the flowers. I still asked myself what would have happened if I had been a good girl and hadn't made that mistake.

Everything seemed normal. The cloth had been enough to prevent me from hallucinating while, with a bit of soil, I transplanted that flower into the small pot, taking it inside my house.

My stupid mind thought that maybe, just maybe, those visions would help me fall asleep or not think about doubts or existential torments when it was time to close my eyes. I had seen my mother, damn it, my mother. I wanted to do it again. I succumbed to the temptation of living in dreams.

I put the pot in a glass display case and looked at that flower for a few minutes. How could a simple flower cause that kind of hallucinations? I, who thought I knew everything about plants, found myself at a dead end.

I spent the rest of the day looking through my encyclopedias. Nothing, nothing that looked like that yellow flower.

Then night came and I lay down on the bed. Not even the cold could distract me from my thoughts. My eyes went straight to the glass display case. When I wanted to realize it, something different to the flower came to my head. That woman, Donna Beneviento, fearsome Lords, lonely, inexpressive and dangerous. Her black figure appeared on my thoughts involuntarily; the sound of her soft voice, of that subtle but noticeable accent, the feeling of her hand on my forehead, of her black dress brushing against mine.

I shouldn't be thinking about those things, but I did, thousands of questions filled my mind, thus hiding the curiosity about that flower: who is she really? Why does she hide her face? Why is she alone? What makes her so dangerous? Is she really as crazy in the head as people say? Why do I have the feeling that she is a beautiful woman?

“(Y/N), but what are you thinking about?” I said to myself, rubbing my eyes with my hands, trying to forget the scent of lavender that accompanied Donna, which I now had in my head. “It will be, it will be better… To sleep.”

Before turning off the light, I took one last look at the display case. Do it, don't do it. Like two sides of my same consciousness, those two options appeared in my mind.

A foolish thing, since I began to walk towards the plant, ignoring the strong beating of my heart and lifting the glass cover. I closed my eyes and inhaled slowly, just for a couple of seconds.

Nothing happened and, shrugging my shoulders, I climbed back into bed.

I was wrong. It didn't take long for the visions to appear. My house was no longer my house, but my parents' house. It was Christmas, one of many before my mother left. I was happy, as if I were 9 years old again. After many sleepless nights, this time, I finally managed to fall asleep.

I knew they were nothing but hallucinations, but I felt good, relieved, as if I had been reborn and saw how wonderful life was.

Every day the same work, every night a different vision. Only happy moments came to see me, only positive and comforting emotions. I didn't understand how something that made me so happy could be dangerous.

On the other hand, the strange relationship I had with Donna grew a little. She continued to walk and look at me, but now, just sometimes, she came up to talk to me. They weren't deep conversations by any means but... Well, they were conversations. I couldn't say that I was starting to get to know her, but my strange interest in her grew little by little.

“Have a good trip, (Y/N)” I said with a smile, after breathing the pollen from that plant again, before going to sleep.

The walk was different. That night, I was walking hand in hand with the first girl I fell in love with. It was a wonderful feeling that suddenly stopped being so. We were sitting, Katia and me, me and Katia, on a stone bench. Our hands were intertwined and our gazes predicted a kiss that would not take long to come. Before feeling the warmth of another woman's lips, something strange happened.

The girl's old clothes changed, darkening until they were completely black. It was no longer Katia, it was Donna. I should have been scared, I should have screamed to wake up but... I didn't want to do it. The sensation was no different, a knot in my heart, the relief of her lavender perfume and… her soft hands brushing mine. I should have felt bad, strange, but I didn't. I felt good, I felt like I wanted more caresses, I wanted to be closer to her, I wanted... I wanted to lift that horrible veil and kiss her. I wanted it, I really wanted it. Was it the hallucination or were those strange feelings towards the lady in black getting worse?

“I want to kiss you,” I said in a sigh, leaning towards her, who laughed shyly, nodding.

“Me too,” she responded, letting my hands go to that annoying black fabric, lifting it little by little. Suddenly, before I could discover her face, a cold current brought me back to reality.

“What?” I said, waking up in my bed, ending that strange trip, the one in which I was about to kiss Lady Beneviento, wanting to do so.

At first I thought it was like another dream, a jumble of feelings, memories, and people, something random. I realized it wasn't.

The feeling I had in that vision was the same one I had when she approached me during the day, when she spoke to me with that soft voice, when she touched my shoulder with her hand, when my heart screamed for her not to go away, for to stay a little longer.

At night, her figure returned to torment me. Not in the way you might believe. Her hands with mine, her caresses, the love I had for leaning on her shoulder and hugging her. Everything was repeated every night, with every dose of pollen I inhaled.

There was only one problem. Those visions had an end. I never managed to remove her veil, I was never able to see her face, feel her lips on mine. I shouldn't have but... I started to feel desperate, I started to feel that it wasn't a good dream, but a nightmare, the torment of not being able to fulfill my wish, of not being able to kiss her and tell her that I felt something for her, even if it was just that, a dream, a hallucination.

“Why did you do it?”

A familiar voice woke me up one night. Just when I thought the effect of the flower had worn off. I recognized that soft tone, but there was no sign of its owner. I was alone in my house, but for some reason, I was convinced that I had heard it.

“(Y/N)...” The soft voice, her voice, called me again. It was out now, or so I thought. A dark shadow walked outside the cabin. Donna.

Happy to be able to relive those moments, those hallucinations, I chased her, but she didn't stop, which made me run, run until I caught up with her. I knew that road, the road that led directly to her house, to the old Beneviento estate.

My steps were automated and my eyes struggled not to lose sight of her dark figure.

“(Y/N)... Why did you do it?” That voice asked again, a voice that was lost in the sound of the wind.

Her figure disappeared at the door of the house and I... I ran desperately towards her, managing to grab her arm, managing to have her close to me again.

“Donna...” I sighed with a goofy smile. There was nothing that would prevent me from enjoying my visions as I wanted, so I didn't waste time, throwing myself into her arms, keeping her body very close to mine.

She stood still for a moment while I covered myself in lavender, while I stroked her back. Soon her arms surrounded my body as well, and, like every night, we melted into a tender, comforting embrace.

“I love seeing you every night,” I whispered in her ear, making her move away, subtly pushing and taking me by the hand, leading me into the house. My eyes shone with her presence, with her caresses in my hand. I sat next to her, determined to explore that figure a bit more, to delay the moment of removing the veil and returning to the harsh reality.

My hands traveled up her arms, the visible skin of her neck was next, making her laugh sheepishly as she felt my tickling. Her hand came together, caressing my cheek carefully, breathing heavily. I explored her body, she explored mine. It was as if we had just discovered each other, it was... Different.

“Bellisima...” She whispered through her veil. I frowned.

I had never heard her speak like that, but all it did was for my hand to travel under her veil, caressing one of her soft cheeks.

“Stop, (Y/N),” Donna said in a soft voice, grabbing my wrist to lower my hand, to leave her face.

I, convinced of what my next step was going to be, shook my head.

“Please, Donna... I want to look at you. I want to know how beautiful you are... I want to be able to kiss you,” I begged, finding myself at an advantage. It was my hallucination. It would have to obey my wishes.

My body trembled as it relaxed after a moment of tension. She nodded and I... I prayed to Mother Miranda to allow me to live in that dream a little longer, just a little longer, just long enough so that I could contemplate the beauty of her, just so I could get closer to her.

My hands gripped the fabric and my eyes squeezed tight. Please don't wake up… My mind repeated as I lifted her veil.

Afraid of finding myself back in my house, I remained with my eyes closed until I realized that her lavender perfume, that her agitated breathing, was still with me. I carefully opened one eye, then the other.

There she was. Donna had shown herself to me. My visions had mercy and let me stay to admire her beauty, a beauty that seemed hidden by that scar, by the lack of one of her eyes. What made you think you were less beautiful because of that, Donna? You were perfect.

“How beautiful you are,” I said, dazzled by that bright eye, by that half smile that she gave when she heard me say those words.

“I want to kiss you...” The lady in black whispered, grabbing my hands tightly, enjoying the sincerity of my words.

I, excited because that dream didn’t end, because I could see her beautiful face and now I was about to fulfill the greatest of my whishes, I closed my eyes and nodded, letting her take the initiative, curious to see how my subconscious acted in that moment, that long-awaited moment.

She moved, laughing shyly, as always. She leaned towards me and to notice her lips brushing against mine in a subtle way didn't take long. It was almost like just an air current. I had to make a huge effort not to get ahead, not to get carried away by my feelings. I wanted it to be her. I wanted Donna to kiss me first.

Her hand reached the back of my head, pulling it gently until finally, I could feel the warmth of her kiss. It was a simple, shy kiss, without movement, just enjoying the feeling of her lips on mine. I acted later, bringing my hand to her face, to her cheek while she deepened that kiss, while preventing everything from ending at its best moment.

Donna followed me, smiling against my lips, imitating my gestures. Was it her first kiss? It seemed like it but... Why would my subconscious imagine something like that?

“I have never kissed anyone,” she admitted shortly after our lips fought not to separate. Well, if that's what my mind wanted to imagine, there was no harm in doing it. It was better to think that I was the first than to imagine other lips on hers.

“Me neither,” I lied, taking advantage of the hallucination effect.

“I don't believe you,” Donna whispered, very close to my lips again, kissing them in a more determined way.

“You should believe me. I’m the owner of this dream,” I said amused, kissing her harder, with more desire, making her lie down on the couch.

“(Y/N), you must wake up now,” she said, when my kisses went down her neck, when my impatient hands passed over her chest, looking for a crack, a gap to get in and caress her body inside her dress.

“No, I don't want to,” I said, shaking my head, unable to separate myself from her.

It was the best vision I had so far, but a strange feeling came over me.

“What?” I said suddenly, opening my eyes to find an overwhelming truth. The dream was over.

I sat up slowly, reaching toward the nightstand, where the headache pills should be. They weren't there, neither my bed, nor my room. I wasn't at my house.

I uncovered myself scared, leaving the small room. I hurried towards the stairs and… I froze. Hanging on the wall, there was a portrait, a portrait of a beautiful woman, a portrait of Donna. It was her, without the scar, but it was her. How far can a hallucination go? How could I know what her face looked like if I had never seen it? And... Well, above all and most importantly... What was I doing in her house?

“Good morning!” A shrill voice brought me out of my shame and confusion. The Angie doll, whom I feared and appreciated at the same time, called me funny from below.

“Angie?” I asked confused, rubbing my head, wishing the pounding in my brain to stop.

“Good morning, (Y/N)” another familiar voice, Donna’s, said. The mourning woman appeared shortly after, with her hands in front of her body, with the veil on her face, looking at you with a stoic pose.

“Donna? What?” I stammered. “What am I doing here?”

She didn't respond. She simply motioned for me to follow her, where a table with breakfast was waiting for me.

Shame and uncertainty made my hands shake as I picked up that cup of coffee. I couldn't look Donna in the face. Did I go too far? Did the hallucination make me go towards the house? What was happening?

“I, I'm sorry but...” I said confused, with my face burned with shame. “I don't know what I'm doing here.”

“I saw you last night outside the house,” Donna responded, sitting in front of you, eating breakfast quietly. How could she be so calm? Please tell me it was all a dream...

“Me?” I asked, hiding everything related to the flower, and to my vision.

“Yes,” Donna answered, nodding at the same time. “You seemed confused. It was very cold so I took you inside the house and put you to bed.”

I couldn't help but sigh in relief. At least, everything that happened was just a vision, right? I didn't kiss her. I didn't caress her body... I didn't feel that good... At least in front of her, the real Donna.

“Well, I...” I said, hiding the tremor in my voice. I had to think of something, something to divert the woman in black's attention, something to tell her that I hadn't disobeyed her and that I hadn't spent weeks hallucinating with that flower. “The thing is…. I'm a sleepwalker,” I said, holding my breath.

“Uh-huh,” Donna whispered, pouring me some more coffee. She wasn't too surprised by that lie, but, apparently, she believed it.

“It happens to me sometimes, you know, I get out of bed and walk around... I probably forgot to lock the door...” I said, a bit more confident because, apparently, my excuse was more than enough to Donna.

“You should be more careful, (Y/N),” she said with a serious tone, but that gave away something that I was not able to understand. “It’s dangerous.”

What exactly was she referring to?

Luckily, routine returned to my life. Well, partly. The dreams continued. Kisses and caresses were already common. She kissed me and I kissed her. We spent the time the visions lasted looking at each other curiously, touching, caressing our skin. It was an innocent act, but one that I enjoyed every night. My obsession with that flower only got worse the closer I got to Donna in my dreams. But… The fear of returning to her house was present in my hallucinations. That fear of saying, of doing something dangerous, something I might regret, forced me to make a decision.

“Well, tonight I will have to see you only in my dreams,” I said listlessly, turning off the light on the table. If I spent another perfect night with her, I would end up going crazy.

At that moment I began to understand why those flowers were so dangerous.

I had a hard time falling asleep, resisting the temptation to get up and smell that pollen again. But I was strong, for once. I let reality control my actions, and not my whishes.

The creak of the door startled me. It was not a night with a wind strong enough to open it. Someone had entered.

Cautious and scared, I opened the drawer of the table, looking for the knife I had to defend myself from the creatures of the night. I couldn't have defended myself from that creature.

Donna, the woman in black, was there, walking slowly towards my bed. I was sure, completely sure that it wasn't a dream, that I didn't inhale that flower before going to sleep. She was really there, which sent a huge amount of thoughts into my head.

“(Y/N), cara mia...” She whispered, sitting on my bed and stroking my hair. I, confused, decided to pretend, to pretend to be asleep. “Will you come with me?”

She extended her hand toward me, and then I understood. That way of calling me, that hand holding mine. It had all been a hallucination but... I couldn't say when it stopped being one. It was real, Donna was there. Donna was always there, taking me to her house, making me stay enthralled with her kisses, with her caresses. I was dreaming, delirious, but... Not as much as I thought. The kisses, the caresses, the words of love... All of that was real, real to the point of wanting to die of shame, of not knowing how to act.

That was not a vision and I didn't know what to do.

She kissed me. She told me how beautiful I was. Did she really mean it? Did Donna want something from me? Did she feel something for me the same way I did? Did she take advantage of my confusion to feel loved? No, that was not a possibility. She never went beyond kisses. Her caresses were tender and respectful. She probably just wanted to know what it felt like when someone loved you. I couldn't blame her for that, especially because I was madly in love with her.

Faking it would be my best option. Observing what she really did with me, if it was a product of the flower, or on the contrary she made me feel as good with her kisses, as always.

I sat up slowly, taking her hand. I followed her like a zombie, like every night, towards her house.

The sofa was still there, waiting for us. I sat down. She sat down, without letting my hand go.

At that moment I wanted to be aware of everything. The walls weren't blurry, the feeling of euphoria was less, but my heart was beating fast when she took off her veil and her lips kissed mine. I was stupid. Her kisses had never felt so good, so real... That flower served no purpose other than to blur the sensations that being close to her produced in me. I, acted as always, kissing her back, cupping her pale, soft face in my hands.

“I can't live without your kisses...” Donna whispered in my ear, making me shiver, pretending to explore her body innocently, like every night, every night I thought I was hallucinating.

“Me neither...” I whispered back, kissing her intensely, running my hands through her tied up hair, touching, exploring now with all my capabilities. The heat of her kisses, the touch of her skin. A stupid hallucination had nothing to do with reality.

“I would like to think that you love me...” She said, smiling in a sad way, moving away, but without letting my hand go, which was wandering along her neck, across her chest, as if it wanted to guide me where was needed.

“I love you,” I said without thinking, affirming my feelings towards her, being sincere, confessing something that, in other circumstances, I would not dare to do.

An even sadder smile spread across her face. What was she thinking? Easy, she believed that I was immersed in a hallucination, under the effect of that pollen. She couldn't think my feelings were real. That sent a pang straight to my heart. What should I do? Tell her the true? It seemed dangerous.

No words seemed good, it would be better to act. I threw myself into her arms, kissing her deeper, making her gasp in surprise, making her hands go to my head while I lay on her, kissing her neck, letting myself be seduced by her lavender perfume while I adored everything I could about her body.

“(Y/N)... You have to stop...” Donna said, nervous about how my hands went down to her legs under her black dress, about how I dared to caress her skin with desire. I didn't know what to do, and I decided that the best thing would be to truly love her, to make her feel loved.

“I would like to make love to you,” I said, faking that soft tone I always had in my visions, going to the buttons on the top of her dress. She shook her head, but only for a few seconds before kissing me back, letting my hand lift one of her legs, wrapping it around my waist.

The atmosphere became too hot. Donna was breathing nervously, unable to contain the urge to continue, clinging to the fabric of my pajamas, looking for a way to control the impulse to taking them off.

“No, I can't do it...” She murmured while my kisses had more skin available to kiss, while my hand opened the top of her dress to delight in her chest. “This… This is not right…”

“It is, Donna, relax,” I said, forgetting about acting for a moment.

She stood up suddenly, roughly pushing me away from her.

“No, (Y/N)... My, my first time can't be like this...” The lady said, getting nervous, sitting down and avoiding my gaze.

“Why?” I asked, studying her gestures.

“It's not you, (Y/N)... You just... Just...” Donna said, her voice shaking, blinking repeatedly.

Seeing the state Donna was in, I decided to act, do something stupid.

“Donna, listen to me, it's me, (Y/N)...,” I said, taking her sweaty hand, a hand that she suddenly pulled away. “I'm fine... I'm not hallucinating...”

“What?” She said scared, looking at me and getting closer, opening one of my eyes with two fingers, checking that I wasn't lying.

She immediately stood up from the couch, desperately searching for her veil.

“Hey, hey, Donna, wait,” I said, standing up, aware of the mistake I had made. “No, nothing is wrong… Don’t, don't cover yourself, please.”

“You’ve disobeyed me, (Y/N), I told you, I told you not to go near the flowers,” she said in a dangerous tone, her face covered again.

“Well I...” I stammered, unable to refute her accusation. “Hey, I don't think you're the best person to ask me for explanations.”

Donna became even more scared, knowing that I knew what she did, what we did.

“Go away, I don't want to see you again,” she hissed, pushing me unpleasantly and passing by my side, which I immediately prevented by grabbing her wrist.

“No, Donna, I'm not leaving...” I said firmly. “I'm not leaving until you listen to me.”

“I don't want to listen to you!” The lady in black screamed, clenching her fists, breaking free of my grip. “What are you going to do? What are you going to tell me? Are you going to tell your friends what we do at night? The way I took advantage of you?”

“What? No, Donna, I...” I stammered, unable to control her shaking, putting my hands on her shoulders. “It’s, it's my fault…”

"You know is not, (Y/N)” she said with a dark voice. “I, I confused you... I, I made you believe that...”

“I disobeyed you, Donna,” I said more calmly, contrasting with her almost deranged attitude. “I wanted, I wanted to continue living those pleasant things, I, I wanted...”

“What?”

“Damn, do you know why I kept inhaling that pollen, Donna? Because when I did it... I saw you... I saw you next to me...”

“Did you see me?” She asked, confused by my clumsy confession.

“Yes, I... I did...” I confirmed, lowering my head, letting her shoulders go, embarrassed. “I don't want you to believe me but I... I'm in love with you and... I knew… I knew that you wouldn't... That you would never love me back... So... well, my visions were the only place I could be with you. I shouldn't have disobeyed you but... I wasn't going to stop doing it if it was the only way I could love you.”

“Are you telling me the truth?” Donna asked curiously, pushing her veil away from her face, tears running down her cheek. “I don't... No one has ever... I don't... No, you can't love me.”

“I wanted... I wanted to stop having those visions and... When I found out that you felt the same way, I... I simply believed that it was the only way to...”

My words were interrupted by a kiss, a hurried one, tender, salty. Her trembling hands grabbed my head, her body was warm close to mine, her breathing stopped being agitated, the complete opposite of the beating of my heart.

“I thought the same...” Donna sighed, on my lips, letting her hands go down to my waist. The shadow of disbelief was still visible in her eye, but a different shine ended up overshadowing it. “(Y/N) you… Would you want to be with me?”

“Yes,” I said dryly, too abruptly. I was waiting so long... So long for you to ask me that question...

“No flowers...” she said, kissing me tenderly, letting our bodies sway together.

“You are my only flower...”

#donna beneviento #oneshot #donna beneviento x reader #re8 donna #re8 village

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militantinremission · 5 months ago

Text

Did Fat Joe show his Whole Hand?

Safe to say that Jose Cartagena has been an outspoken HipHop Revisionist. In recent Years, Joe along w/ John Leguizamo & Crazy Legs have been offering their narrative on who created HipHop Music & Culture. The Pioneers have stepped to the Mic & set The Record straight on WHAT happened, WHEN it happened, & WHO was there. Fat Joe, like KRS One is caught in a contradiction. Kris is actually 'Of The Culture', so he has a Lane available to say: mea culpa & come back into the Fold. Joe on the other hand, didn't respect his place as a Guest in the House of HipHop- as a result, he's getting his privileges revoked. I appreciate the degree that Joe chose to Stand on his Square, because it reminded many of Us of previous Bad Behavior.

In his Barbershop interview w/ Math Hoffa, Fat Joe had a few cringe moments. He disrespected Lord Jamar by saying that he was a 'Looney Tune looking to go viral', & called him the 'wackest member of Brand Nubian'. That said, his most cringe worthy statement had to be referring to FBA as a 'Radical Black Hate Group' that only wants to associate w/ their Own. He defined FBA as: 'Foundational Black Authority', & called Our Lineage 'a bunch of broke N-s'... Black Alpha, Lord Jamar, Phil Scott, & Jason Black were among the first to respond; All pointed out his White Supremacist Talking Points. If we're being honest, Joe sounded like a straight up Conquistador.

As We come to the End of Our 'Year Of Affirmation', We find Ourselves Standing firmly on Our Convictions & calling out ANYONE that questions them. Fat Joe, like many others who were allowed access into Our Culture are discovering an unexpected Reality- Houseguests don't get House keys. These Folks have been given so many passes over so many Years, that they actually believe that they KNOW Us. This is the same Story, from Michael Rappaport to Drake & Cardi B. Fat Joe's tantrum was ill timed; Our Collective Antennas were up, & Everyone heard the same language. Black Alpha in particular, pointed out how Joe wasn't even talking about HipHop anymore... This thing has many layers.

We all see that this attitude towards Indigenous Black Americans is nothing new. We know the History of the Immigrant Experience in America; the Ethnicity changes, but their actions are too similar to just be a coincidence. We saw it w/ the Irish, Italian, & Eastern European (Slav & Askenazi); now We see it w/ 'Black & Brown' Immigrants. The Black- Latino Dynamic is complicated, because Hispanic/ Latino Culture is rooted in Colorism (Blanqueamiento). Their Society is divided by how close one is to their 'Castilian Roots'. How does someone aspire to Whiteness in an Area where folks are 'Black & Proud'? When We look at Latin American Leaders like Fidel Castro & Hugo Chavez, who touted their Afrikan Roots & included Afro- Latinos in the Body Politic, We see how they were demonized as Bad Men.

ALL of their predecessors kept the Afro- Cuban & Afro- Venezuelan Population in a State of Poverty & Oppression. It's clear that the 'Blanco' contingent preferred the leadership of Fulgencio Batista (Zaldivar), Ramon Jose Velasquez, & Rafael Caldera Rodriguez. We need to look no further than Miami, where folks like Gloria Estefan are STILL lamenting the Cuban Revolution. Fat Joe glossed over 'Radical Puerto Rican Extremists' as he focused on FBA, but can We call it 'Extremist Behavior' when The Majority of The Population practices it at Home, & bring it w/ them when they Immigrate Here? Black People aren't respected in Hispanic/ Latino Culture, they're victimized. Latino Police Officers can be more Anti- Black than Irish & Italian Officers; certainly more aggressive towards Blackfolk. Again, Joe is silent on this Note.

As I said, this thing has layers. In the same way that Great Britain left the door open for America to step in & assume the role of Dominant World Power; AmeriKKKa is leaving the door open for Hispanics/ Latinos to hold the reins of Power over Black America- as long as they acknowledge their Position in White Supremacy. In the same manner that Whitefolk & Azkenazis assumed Ownership of Jazz, Big Band, Country, & Rock N Roll; Latinos think that they can assume Ownership of HipHop. They were successful in taking 'Tango' from the Afro- Argentinians that created 'The Forbidden Dance', but We're a Lineage of Fighters! If we're being honest, We have to acknowledge how the Latino influence on HipHop has done more harm than good. Stand Outs, like Mantronix & Immortal Technique are revered as Legends in The Game. Super Lover Cee & Casanova Rud also deserve an honorable mention. Now I could be wrong, but I haven't heard ANY of them side w/ Fat Joe.

Joe has been on many Platforms trying to push his narrative. He has emboldened other Puerto Ricans (Nuyoricans) to chime in on 'Out Of State' Cats speaking on something that started in NYC. Content Creators point out how HipHop may have been BORN in NYC, but was CONCEIVED in The South. Jason Black & Black Alpha point out the cultural differences between Us & Non ADOS/ FBA Communities, & how little they know about Our Lineage. First off, the Slave Experience in AmeriKKKa affected Us differently than it did those in Latin America & the Caribbean. While they exhibit Tribalism & Colorism, We exhibit Unity. From the East Coast to the West Coast, & from the Great Lakes to the Gulf- Blackfolk are an Extended Family. Those of Us in the Northeast & Out West tout Our Southern Roots like a Badge of Honor. We are the Descendants of those who survived AmeriKKKa's Killing Fields. Immigrants don't have that experience, & therefore can't truly understand what motivates Us Culturally.

Another clear cultural difference between Us & Non ADOS/ FBA Ethnicities, is how We deal w/ White Supremacy. We have a Global Reputation of fighting White Supremacy, no matter where it exists. As a Collective, Immigrant Groups tend to be Anglophiles; They aspire to Whiteness. They 'Get In where they Fit In', & that classically means harboring Anti- Black Sentiment. Fat Joe & Busta Rhymes aren't exceptions, but typical examples of how these people move. They Rock w/ Us- copying Our 'cultural mannerisms', until they get a 'Come Up'; then they shift to White Supremacist Talking Points & Anti-Black Sentiment. Busta thought he 'Made It', & began an onslaught of disrespectful opinions regarding Black America. He began w/ disenfranchising Blackfolk from HipHop, & went on to say that 'American Culture' comes from Latin America & The Caribbean. The Man had a much anticipated World Tour scheduled, but the backlash from ADOS/ FBA has led to Investors pulling out & the Tour being Canceled. This Tour was supposed to solidify Busta's Legacy, but he's been reduced to doing a wacky Walmart Commercial... Safe to say that he made a misstep.

As bad as Busta has been, Fat Joe has been worse. He admits that he's "the product of The Product", but somehow believes that he knows about Events that happened before he was born. His arrogance has revealed an Anti- Black Racist sentiment that is pretty common among his people. Content Creators have pointed out Joe's excessive use of The N- Word, & how he ignored pleas from his Fans to stop using it. As a Native New Yorker who spent his Formidable Years in Spanish Harlem, then lived in Bushwick for 4Yrs & Inwood for 5Yrs- I can say w/ certainty that NO ONE uses the N- Word more than Hispanics/ Latinos. Dominicans top The List, but Puerto Ricans & Cubans aren't far behind them. Caribbean Folk are also pretty frequent w/ their use of the N- Word; is it a coincidence that many of the Rappers spewing this word aren't from 'The Soil''? Regardless, what We are witnessing, is a clear effect of Delineation. As We Circle Our Wagons, the Opportunists (i.e. Tethers) are getting nervous. They depend on Us believing in 'Coalitions' that benefit them to Our detriment. Times have Changed! These folks no longer have Us to lean on for Financial, Social, or Political Support. Since these people believe they're Superior to Us, they should have No Problem w/ Going it Alone in the 'Wilderness of North America'.

-As I said before, They better get used to The New Normal.

#B1 #ADOS #FBA #FreeMen #Indigenous #The13Percent #AfricanDiasporaNetwork #BlackAlphaNetwork #TheBlackAuthority #TheGodPod #GatekeepingTheCulture #BootlickMarginCall #ColonizerJoe #BussyBuss #OnCode #TheCulture #AgeOfProphecy

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undead-moth · 11 months ago

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Most of the criticisms of The Bear this season can be dismissed if we recognize that this season exists as a before to an after, which I imagine will be season 4.

People are saying that this season didn't advance the plot, or that nothing happened, or that it had no storyline - but this season had a very specific and very clear story arc take place. It just wasn't the one people wanted.

Season 2's finale refreshed the trauma Carmy endured as an upcoming chef under an abusive predecessor. The entire first episode of season 3 is essentially a montage reminding us of Carmy's past as a chef, and of that trauma, and the impact it's had on not only his mental wellbeing, but his understanding of what it means to be a chef or what it means to run a restaurant. Though he has parted from that environment, he's unable to stop himself from, or even recognize that he is falling into, old patterns. Carmy is caving to the idea that everything needs to be perfect, that everything needs to run at the highest possible caliber of excellence, and that the same environment he was abused in is the environment he must recreate in order to successfully run his new restaurant.

Meanwhile, the narrative is constantly reminding us that this is not the way. This is not the path that will lead Carmy to peace. And moreover, it is not what is, in reality, best for the restaurant, or what running a restaurant should be about.

In episodes 9 and 10 of this season, we have a lot of moments in which stock characters take center stage and are given unusually long opportunities to speak.

The beginning of episode 9 opens with a monologue from Martin Scorsese who is talking about film, and specifically the magic of filmmaking, which he explains requires honesty and spontaneity. Cicero talks about dreams, and how they start from a place of passion, and how if you nurture them, you can make an impact and change the world.

In the beginning of episode 10, an unnamed mentor of Carmy's speaks, and it's brought to our attention that this unnamed mentor was once in Carmy's exact place. He teaches him how to remove the wishbone from a chicken, and brings up making a wish with the wishbone as a child. He outright asks the question, "Why do cooks cook?" which is the overarching point of this whole show, but especially with this season, wherein Carmy loses sight of why cooks cook. Then this same chef explains that cooks cook to nurture people, to nurture themselves, to nurture their team, and to nurture their guests, and that it is enough to try to do just a little better than the day before.

Then many chefs are given the opportunity to speak at the funeral dinner for Ever, and each one of them offers different insights, really, on "Why do cooks cook?" One of these chefs compares cooking to magic, which brings us back to the Martin Scorsese monologue at the beginning of episode 9 and makes it clear that everything being said about filmmaking in that monologue is meant to be applied to cooking for the purposes of the narrative.

Then the floor is given to Chef Terry, who is the foil to the unnamed NYC head chef that abused Carmy, and for the purposes of this show, acts as the narrative's voice, delivering the message of this season. She begins her speech at the funeral dinner by mentioning that being the head chef of such a successful restaurant never happened in her "wildest dreams." She places a huge emphasis on the people she served, and says, "People don't remember the food. It's the people that they remember," which is in complete opposition to everything Carmy is currently believing is important about running a restaurant.

Then he confronts the NYC head chef, and this chef states rather explicitly that his behavior was justified because it made Carmy a better chef - and it's clear that to him, a chef isn't someone who nurtures or has passion for a dream or thinks cooking is magic. No, his idea of what it means to be a chef is being the best. He even says, "You wanted to be great, so you got rid of all the bullshit." Bullshit, in this case, referring to everything that wasn't the pursuit of being the best chef. Love, happiness, passion, etc.

Then he has his one-on-one with Chef Terry. She points out that the very reason she's closing her restaurant is because she wants to live - she wants the "bullshit." She continues to place an emphasis on the importance of people, who she worked with as a chef, and her hopes to meet more people in her retirement. When Carmy asks her what she would tell herself if she was in his place, she tells him that having no idea what you're doing makes you invincible.

None of this is by accident. None of this is aimless. There is a very clear message here, as well as a very clear character arc. In this season, the combination of losing Claire and opening a restaurant sends Carmy down a path of negative character development - negative character development is still development - in which he loses sight of what it means to be a chef and recommits to a belief system that once harmed him, and that he is now using to harm others, especially Syd.

At every turn, the narrative tells us, and Carmy, that this isn't right. This isn't the direction he should be going. And in the next season, or at least, in later seasons, Carmy is going to realize this. He's going to find his passion for cooking again, he's going to understand that it's about connecting with other people, and nurturing them, and he's going to accept that he can't be perfect, and that this doesn't make or break him as a chef, or his restaurant as a restaurant.

Meanwhile, Syd's own character arc is almost completely driven by Carmy's this season. Syd first applied to work at The Beef because she wanted to work with Carmy. She says outright that he is an excellent chef. He made her favorite dish ever. He is her idol. In this season, she is forced to grapple with the possibility that Carmy's behavior might be the reality of anyone who is that great, but also that if this is what it takes to be great, maybe she doesn't want it. Maybe she doesn't want to work with Carmy if this is what it means. Luca, another narrative foil, is meant to tempt Syd, because he so clearly values her as a chef, and currently isn't exhibiting any of the same toxic behaviors Carmy is.

This also plays an important role in their developing romance. While Syd has to determine whether or not she wants to work with Carmy, she will also, subconsciously, be determining whether or not she wants to be with Carmy. Does she want to be with someone who doesn't see her as an equal? Prior to this, even though Syd was clearly not cooking at the same professional level as Carmy, Carmy afforded her respect, and treated her like an equal even as she was growing as a chef. Now, because of the arc Carmy is on this season, that isn't the case. He is not respecting her, and he is not treating her like an equal.

I will bet anything that the story goes as follows from here on out:

Syd gets fed up with Carmy's behavior and determines that it's not worth it to work with him, that he's not who she thought he was. This in turn leaves the restaurant in pieces, because Syd was the only person holding the restaurant up this season. Carmy then fails miserably without her, and he's forced to realize - remember, really - how badly the restaurant needs her. He will also realize how badly he needs her.

Then it will be time for his redemption arc. He will have to earn Syd back. Eventually, he will earn her back, and when he does, he will demonstrate that he respects her, and sees her as an equal. Then it will finally be time to begin their romance, as both of them will see in each other exactly what they need in another person. At the same time, this is what will save their restaurant.

But. In order for any of that to happen, this season - the one everyone is pissed about for not canonizing SydCarmy and thinks had no plot and wasn't saying anything - needed to happen first.

This season was a very purposeful setup for the rest of the series. It all needed to happen in order for the rest of the story to happen. It should not need to be said that this isn't bad writing.

It's excellent writing.

#the bear #sydcarmy #no one is going to read this because it is too long but I don't care I'm sick of seeing rancid takes #long post

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