#revenge for how we did the heist

[colleybri]

Cassian Andor taking on an Imperial garrison…

The subtle use of echoing lines in Andor (frequently right through to Rogue One) is so well done, and one example shows Cassian’s character development very clearly…

When Cassian is first being briefed by Vel about the heist on Aldhani, he reacts with horror at the news about there being an Imperial garrison nearby. Luthen didn’t mention it, and you get the sense that he might not have agreed to take on the job had he known about this extra danger . But of course, he commits and the heist is a success – of a kind.

But afterwards… he doesn’t want to do anything like that again. He wants to “win and walk away” to “somewhere warm and easy” . The irony is – his actions have helped to inspire Maarva, who refuses to leave Ferrix - while praising the actions of the “brave” “heroes” of Aldhani. She’s just indirectly praised him, and you can see that he’s delighted by a split second little spontaneous smile of pleasure that he quickly suppresses. Ouch. He’s finally done something she could be proud of, but he doesn’t want to give her a reason to stay so he has to stay quiet.

^ Awww 😞

But what’s really interesting is the editing in this masterful and moving scene. On Maarva’s words ‘If there are heroes brave enough to take on a whole Imperial garrison I’m brave enough to stick it out here” we see the flashback of 13 year old Cassian approaching the Troopers with a cudgel, revealing at long last the details of the assault that landed him in youth prison for three years and Mimban after that. The horrifying execution of Clem combined with the injustice and pain of his own punishment has not just traumatised the adult Cassian, it’s also made him somebody who will now avoid a conflict – and therefore the Rebellion– wherever possible. 

‘It’s all useless… it’s better to live!’ is what he told Luthen before Aldhani, but the precise placing of the shot here is very telling.

Cassian is starting to subconsciously associate that act with bravery rather than recklessness. He hates the Empire for what they did to Clem but it has so far translated to trying to ‘live’ and ignore them as much as possible; but his teenage self wanted to fight, to get revenge. Nonetheless it was an emotional response, an impulsive act that was not thought through. This is in total contrast to the calm methodical shots of Wilmon Paak preparing the bomb at the start of Episode 12. Wilmon is balancing emotion with rationality in planning his own revenge, in an arc which otherwise is like a replay of Cassian’s own.

Later in Episode 12 Cassian hears from Brasso his mother’s last words for him - all proof not just of how much she loved him but of how much she knew him too. He does indeed now ‘know everything he needs to know and feel everything he needs to feel’. His reasoning and his emotions are now able to work together to be that ‘unstoppable force for good’. He won’t be making emotional but futile attacks like rushing armed Troopers with a stick anymore. He will think, plan, observe and react. But he will act. He is not going to walk away any more. And he’s not going to leave loved ones behind if he can help it…

…Because in a final bit of lines-linking brilliance - immediately after hearing these words of his mother, Cassian prepares to go into the hotel, via the tunnels she checked were open, to rescue Bix.

Incredulous, Brasso says: “Are you going to take on a whole garrison?”

And Cassian doesn’t verbally reply. The look says it all. ‘I’ve done it before, twice, l’ll do it again, and I’m doing it now.’

It sums up Cassian’s arc so well. From oppression, to fighting back, to running from the fight, to taking up the fight again (now an even more exact mirror of Jyn Erso’s arc too). But this time… having learnt from experience. One lesson being: teamwork matters…

…Because thanks to Brasso and the riot the Troopers are ordered out of the Rix hotel, which is the Empire’s base. Making it possible for Cassian to extract Bix, with the “Imperial garrison” deployed elsewhere. A technique so effective, it will also be used on Scarif to give Jyn, K2SO and himself a chance to reach the data files.

“Light it up …

..Make ten men feel like a hundred “

And that’s how you make a realistic hero. Cassian is somebody who learns and grows despite some bitter experiences.

Better deploy that garrison, because Cassian Andor is taking it on.

[ragde890]

Hunter x Hunter 406 commentary and pseudoanalysis

Chrollo's "Kono Dial 6700" is such a fascinating ability. It really fits Chrollo. With the dial, he can locate nen users that have the kind of ability that he feels he needs at a given time, so it makes sense that he could tinker a set of nen abilities to completely neutralize Hisoka back in Heaven's Arena. With it, if he has prep time, he can basically guarante his success in any battle or heist. He could have even used the Dial back in Yorkshin to find Neon with such a precise timing. What a madman.

It's also really interesting that he's searching for a nen user in the Halkenburg's funeral crowd, because Heil-ly is doing the exact same. We know that Heil-ly is searching for an especialist whose nen is yet unawakened, but we still don't know what kind of person is Chrollo looking for, although we can confirm that they're currently in Tier 1. It would be so funny if the person that the person that meets his criteria is Kurapika. After all this time ignoring so many calls from his cellphone, the one time he picks up it's fucking Chrollo Lucilfer (on a serious note, more on that later).

This panels are very interesting, as they give us more information on how Skill Hunter works. Apparently, Chrollo can make his hatsu stronger by stealing rare artifacts (as a built-in condition for Skill Hunter). This might have been how he acquired the Bookmark, for example.

This explains quite a lot, actually. For starters, his drive to compulsively steal all these treasures that the Troupe doesn't really use in any capacity. Chrollo's been described to "admire for a while the treasures he has stolen before he gets rid of them", so we thought we knew that those treasures served no purpose. Now, however, we know that they did: the Kuruta massacre, the Yorkshin heist, they all served to empower his nen ability even further.

As to why he designed his hatsu that way, it definitely comes from his childhood. His love for treasures stems from when he used to find goods in the trash mountains of Meteor City, hence the way he designed Skill Hunter.

And this time he's up to steal a national treasure. We already knew about the Seed Urn. The Zen Buddha is new, although it is almost certainly responsible for the shadow hands that attack anyone who tries to leave the Succession War (which killed Kacho in chapter 383).

This is specially interesting because destroying or deactivating the Buddha might be key to end the Succession War in a nonviolent way, which we know is Kurapika's plan (or to, at least, find a way for the younger princes to escape). So, Chrollo's and Kurapika's objectives intersect here, and this could all be a setup for a meeting between them, considering they'll soon be in the same Tier. ¡

As for the sword, no idea. But it could be part of Nasubi's (speculated) plans to use the Succession War to make himself more powerful.

On a side note, it's incredible how smart everyone is in this arc. Hinrigh and Zakuro have already figured out that the Hisoka they encountered is fake, and they're out to avenge Lynch. It seems that revenge is a big theme in this arc: Hisoka, the Phantom Troupe, Morena, Longhi, and now Hingrigh and Zakuro. It's very ironic that Kurapika, the character whose whole deal is revenge against the Troupe, is the one who doesn't have revenge as a motive in this arc.

[snarp]

Real True Law Stories

This is heavily-paraphrased because 1) it happened a while back, and the conversations were longer and involved a lot more of me going "no! no! augh," and 2) the case was not actually about Ale-8 bottles, but its actual focus was similarly-specific, which would have made it really easy to look up.

Dad: Can you value a collection of old Ale-8 bottles for me, honey?

Me: ...possibly, but I'm not going to. Is this a blasting case again? Did someone's designated used Ale-8 bottle shelf fall over?

Dad: No, they got stolen. He had this shed or big closet or something totally full of collectible Ale-8 bottles, he's got all these insurance photos, he'd had them appraised by the national Ale-8 bottle expert -

Mom: Dear...

Dad: No, he's definitely really upset about these lost Ale-8 bottles! He's traumatized! Do you think I don't deal with liars? ...He thinks his estranged drug-addict relative stole the Ale-8 bottles.

Me: No. That did not happen.

Mom: That's probably not what happened, dear.

Dad: Drug addicts steal stuff all the time, what is this -

Me: Dad, no, this is fucking logistically -

Dad: - don't, I'm telling the story, stop it - "logistically" -

Me: A drug addict would not steal and hock a huge collection of Ale-8 bottles! They're heavy and fragile and that's a ridiculous specialist hobby, logistically it'd be way too -

Mom: The bottles were definitely stolen, dear?

Me: Why wouldn't you just steal, like, the TV? Or the car or whatever?! You don't steal the Ale-8 bottles!

Dad: They were stolen! He was gone! He'd had a fight with this person, he couldn't get back into the house for a while, he came back and the bottles were gone, he was heartbroken!

Me: No! You don't steal the collection of Ale-8 bottles, that's not what you steal!

Dad: No, they knew he really liked these bottles, it was revenge or something? Seriously, he keeps asking me why I can't make the police go and arrest this person and find out where they put the bottles, he's really angry! He misses his bottles.

Mom: *sigh* Okay, dear. So the Ale-8 bottles were stolen and insurance won't cover them.

Dad, to Me: So you're going to try and value the Ale-8 bottle collection for me. It'll be easy.

Me: I am not.

Dad: He has a spreadsheet.

Me: No. - You said he already had it appraised!

Mom: Before the Ale-8 bottle heist...

Dad: He did! I mean. There's this guy who writes Ale-8 bottle valuation books, he lives - somewhere, and the client knows him over, I guess, an Ale-8 bottle club? Ale-8 bottle mailing list? On the internet. - and he came on this road trip to just look at these Ale-8 bottles in the guy's shed or closet! Does that make sense?

Me: If this is an actual collecting hobby that other people engage in, and not a scam - if Ale-8 bottle collecting is something that's real - then yes, that's normal if you've got a valuable collection, I guess? How much did he say all these Ale-8 bottles were worth, is this even a sane case to be taking if he's telling the truth?

Dad: [a very large number]

Mom, who has been quietly thinking about this while we do our manzai routine: Well, there are definitely other Ale-8 bottle collectors, honey. [name] likes them, I think?... That seems awfully high. He had them in a shed? Like a garden shed?

Dad: I've seen the book! He showed me the Ale-8 bottle book! It was a shed or a garage or a side room or something. They weren't outside.

Me: If what you're trying to figure out is whether this guy and the appraiser are for real, I'd just... look around online and make sure there are actually people buying and selling these things, and talking about them to the extent he says there are, I guess?

Mom: If there's a real community and a real buyer base.

Dad: The Ale-8 bottle book had numbers in it, like values.

Me: The numbers don't mean anything if his buddy wrote the book and if they're the only two people who care about Ale-8 bottles!

Dad: You know, you're awfully suspicious of these Ale-8 bottles...

Me: It's a completely ridiculous story. - You're suspicious of them, too! That's why you even asked me to value Ale-8 bottles!

Dad: You're just not a trusting person. You're paranoid. You know, I trust all my clients completely -

*My Ale-8-bottle-related-outrage HP drops too low and I die.*

Mom: No. What she's saying is that their book value -

Dad: Yeah, that's the word, their book value! Like a Kelley Blue Book value for a car, that's what this other guy does, he does the Blue Book for the bottles. So all I have to do is show the insurance company the Kelley Bottle Book, right?

Mom: No.

Dad: It's fine! The insurance company will be completely cooperative. What are they going to complain about, it's right there in the book.

Mom: Does the book reflect the market values of the bottles? The street values? Are these the prices that people pay on eBay or wherever when they're buying the bottles?

Dad: I don't know.

Mom: Are they the prices he paid for them?

Dad: I don't know. Probably.

*I finish my corpse-run and resurrect.*

Me: There's got to be an actual market for there to be market prices. People who buy the things and have opinions about how much they're worth and stuff.

Dad: Can you research that for me, honey? Research the Ale-8 bottle market?

Me: I'm not going to do that. You have [name] in the office, right? You are paying her money to do this stuff for you, correct?

Dad: You never want to help me. Help me research Ale-8 bottles. I don't know why my daughters never help me.

Mom: And then you have to prove all this stuff to the judge and jury. Will they believe that Ale-8 bottles are worth anything?

Me: Please show us how you will emotionally convince the jury that these Ale-8 bottles are worth money. Make it sound like you're really sad about the loss of the valuable Ale-8 bottle collection.

Dad: Nnnno! *laughs* Oh, my god, they're such bullshit! They're these little bottles! And he had zillions of them! He must have some sort of trauma in his past, I'm going to ask [Psychiatrist Who Acts As An Expert Witness In PTSD Cases] to examine him... - Well, this is some southern thing, like the little toy stock cars that guy had. I don't know, maybe a southern jury will buy it?

Me: Say that "a jury of your peers" means "a jury of Ale-8 bottle collectors."

Mom: Yeah, hope you get a collector on the jury or on the bench.

*- several months later -*

Dad: So do you want to hear what happened at court the other day? With my Ale-8 bottle guy?

Me: You're going to tell me about the Ale-8 bottle guy regardless. Did it turn out to be insurance fraud?

Dad: No, actually! - well, I don't know. "A reasonable doubt for a reasonable price!"

Mom: Dear.

Dad: So obviously the insurance guys are like, "this is bullshit! It's bullshit! Ale-8 bottles aren't worth anything, the whole thing is bullshit!" And I'm like, okay, well. And they don't want to go to mediation, and they give us this lowball number to settle, and, obviously, no.

Dad: So we go in front of Judge [X] the other day, and I'm like, *solemn expression* "Judge. My client has had his extremely valuable Ale-8 bottle collection stolen, and his insurance will not pay for it even though he had it personally appraised by The Ale-8 Bottle Man."

Me: Who is his buddy and who may well be artificially inflating the prices of stuff he and his friends have a lot of, sure.

Dad: You don't know that!

Mom: And opposing counsel said…?

Dad: So, [Other Lawyer], he got up there and he was like, "Well, Judge, I mean. Ale-8 bottles, right? They're Ale-8 bottles." And they start - but then the judge goes, "Actually. I wanted to say, I was looking over the documents in this case. And, well, I've got a bit of a collection myself - I've got the - 1492 Foofrall-something Bottle and a mint-condition Bluh-buh-buh Bottle, and" and then he just sits there and lists all these Ale-8 bottles he's got for like, several minutes.

Me: Is this a joke. Did this actually happen.

Dad: It happened! It did happen!

Me: Mom!

Mom: I know, dear. It happened. He is not making this up.

Dad: So I get out of there and I go over and talk to opposing counsel, and just! The looks on their faces! They looked so defeated.

Me: They've got to be really suspicious of you right now.

Mom: "Is this why he took the case? Did he know?"

Dad: No! I had no idea! I was just as flabbergasted as they are, I've never heard him - okay, did you know this terrible fact about Judge [X]? Did you know he was one of them? The Bottlers?

Mom: I did not know this. I knew that he golfed.

Dad: So, long story short, I kind of think that this case is going to settle?

Mom: Unless the bottles are just in his basement, and he posts a picture of them to his Facebook without thinking.

Dad: Huh?

Mom: Like your other guy.

Dad: Those weren't bottles.

[she-posts-nerdy-stuff]

"[...] she doesn’t have an attitude of ‘leaving her until last’ because she’s seen what that’s done to Kaz. She knows that Kaz will never have the satisfaction he’s searching for - I could write essays, he’s in many ways an addict - and so instead of finding the individuals who hurt her and taking them down one by one until only Heleen remains, as Kaz has done by murdering the boy who acted as the roper and by the implied murder of Saskia and Margit as well as many others, [...]"

Could you talk about this? Not just how Kaz is an addict, but him and revenge in general

Hi, thanks so much for your question!

I'm a little embarrassed to have to say that I (more recently than you asked, and if I'd put thought into it at the time/was more sober at the time I would've posted it as a response to your ask instead of it's own thing) I did make a post about this... whilst I was drunk and thinking about Six of Crows... erm...

So you can read that here

But also, possibly more coherently:

So I personally think that addiction is an important theme in the duology and there are 3 major presentations of it: Jesper’s gambling addiction, Nina’s jurda parem addiction, and Kaz’s addiction to revenge. I’m not going to focus too much on Nina and Jesper right now but I do just want to say that I think it’s really important to note how Inej responds to seeing addiction in the others. In the post you referenced here I was talking about how I think Inej would have a different attitude towards killing Heleen than Kaz did to Rollins because she’s seen what his obsession with Rollins did to him and how it's had a negative impact on him in many ways.

However, focusing on Kaz and addiction as a whole I think it's really important to acknowledge that Kaz openly admits to the reader that nothing he can do to Rollins is ever going to be enough for him. When he talks about Jesper's addiction he says (and I've not got my book on me so sorry if I've misremembered the exact quote, I'm paraphrasing from memory) "Someone like Jesper wins two hands and starts calling it a streak. Eventually he loses, and it only leaves him hungry for more" and it's always struck me how precisely this description can be applied to Kaz's own life: he chips away small pieces of Rollins' empire, such as having his steerers acting outside of Pekka's clubs to lead them away from the Dime Lions' businesses and to the Dregs' ones instead, and describes it as enough to keep him going, and then he steps up and 'wins' in Six of Crows when he succeeds at the Ice Court Heist job whilst Rollins fails, this triumph arguably is in part what leads to his downfall in failing to predict Rollins' alliance with Van Eck; he is subsequently tricked and victimised by him all over again, a situation that he describes as being "worse this time" because he is now "old enough to know better", and this experience leaves him desperate and furious to act against him again. He experiences a kind of high when he is able to gain any kind of victory against Rollins, but when that includes such small victories as chipping away at his business the low that comes upon losing is only made all the worse.

I think what's particularly interesting about this presentation, however, is that a) no-one except Inej seems to identify it this way and b) we as the reader aren't encouraged to want Kaz to stop seeking vengeance in the way we're encouraged to want Nina to overcome parem and Jesper to stop gambling. One of my favourite underrated quotes from really early on in Crooked Kingdom (I think it's ch2 but I might be wrong) is when Kaz explains the plan for the Smeet job, which revolves entirely around making Jesper gamble at the card tables for an entire night, and Nina sarcastically suggests that for 'phase two' of this plan maybe she should "masquerade as a jurda parem dealer" because "what could possibly go wrong?", and of course we have the GORGEOUS, beautifully written, famous lines from Inej to Jesper at the Geldrenner hotel later in the book when she tells him that "there's a wound in you" and that the games feel like medicine "but it's poison, Jes" (again paraphrasing from memory for the quotes, sorry). Addiction is very much in the foreground for Jepser throughout the duology and for Nina during Crooked Kingdom, but we never really get a discussion of it for Kaz except in the Bathroom Scene when Inej challenges him about what he would do next if he managed his revenge, and he ultimately had no answer for her (so he resorted to being as dramatic as possible and we love him for it).

But revenge is ultimately what kept Kaz alive. That he admits himself as well, saying that he would have laid down on the Reaper's Barge and died because nothing was waiting for him back on land until he came to the realisation that there was one thing he could strive for if he survived: vengeance. So not only is this arguably why he could give Inej no answer, because it is the only thing he has existed for since he was nine years old, but it also kind of creates this never ending cycle between him and revenge of the concept being both so destructive and so constructive (??that doesn't feel like the right word but I can't think of a better one??) simultaneously - it actually makes me think of a quote from one of Inej's chapters when they're on the roof at the Ice Court. She describes a mural she can see below with two animals, I think wolves but I can't remember off the top of my head I'm sorry, chasing each other and she describes them as being cursed to keep moving in the same circle "for as long as the Ice Court stood". I could talk for days, and probably will do in the future, about how much I freaking love that line as a metaphor for Kaz and Inej's relationship and how the breaking of that cycle comes with the symbolic fall of the Ice Court, but I also think that we can apply it to Kaz indivdually in his relationship with vengeance.

Anyway I hope that this was interesting and that it made some semblance of sense, and I am so sorry that I took an eternity to respond to your ask but thank you so much for sending it this was such an interesting topic to write about!! I love getting asks, please don't let my lateness in replying to them put you off sending one I will get through them all I promise, these things just tend to take a while for me to think about how to answer them first and then I like to write them in one sitting so that all my ideas are fresh so I have to find a good time to sit down and focus on them. But that aside thank you very much for the ask and I hope that this answer was an interesting read 😊

This has been another episode of DK Finally Gets It Together And Answers Her Asks Because It's About Damn Time (Working Title), thanks for joining me & you can check the tag for more <3

[the-somwthing]

Who wants to see how normal I am, AKA,

EVERY SCOTT AND JOEL MOMENT I CAN REMEMBER OFF THE TOP OF MY HEAD IN SEASONS 1-4 (still gotta rewatch SL to get a refresher):

- Joel laments about not having dark oak and having to pay Scar for “future dark oak if they find it” even tho he’s SURE they DO have it, then Scott says that there’s dark oak by his house that Joel can have, and along with Jimmy and Martyn they organize a magic show to take down Scar and Grian’s monopoly.

- Joel burns down Scott’s wall 😁🔥 just to make something else burn like he did

- Scott makes fun of how poorly done the burning of the wall was multiple times before finding out who did it

- Joel also lies about doing it

- Joel also tries to murder Scott with a failed anvil trap at his door 💀

- Scott makes fun of how poorly made this trap was as well. Joel also burns the wall again as he runs away

- btw this isn’t in a super chronological order I sometimes remember things later. Like how technically it was Jimmy who started the “Joeleo oh Joeleo, wherefore art thou Joeleo” thing but Scott DID join in on it so

- also COW HEIST 🥳😅 gone wrong. Joel and Martyn try to steal Flower Husbands’ cows. Make a (very bad) deal with Jimmy to get cows. Try to steal again when Scott’s telling Jimmy not to give away cows. Finally make an ACTUAL deal. Make fun of Joel and Martyn having a tough time getting the cows up the cliff.

- Ren: “we have banners all over the server, if you joined us we could easily pinch the middle” Scott: “so Joel? 🤩” Martyn: “BTW Joel’s already with us” Scott: “so we can’t pinch Joel, dang it 😔😒”

- Scott (and Jimmy) threatening to kill Joel’s dogs 💀😁

- Scott making fun of the red army for Joel betraying them

- Scott being willing to forgive Joel for the burning of the wall if he can do them a favor sometime (to which Joel immediately offers 13 cobblestone)

- Scott making a little secret storage area for potions for everyone in the desert faction MINUS Joel because he doesn’t trust him

- OH ALSO Scott mostly just being upset at Joel for LYING about burning his wall

- Scott burning down the wool castle and saying “maybe I do understand why Joel burned my wall. This is very freeing.”

- The fire spreading to Geraldine who was unfortunately left behind, Scott ALMOST saves her before deciding that Joel deserves it

- Scott stopping by Joel’s house and Joel shows up. They talk and decide that they’re allies and won’t come after each other

- Joel gives Scott a house tour

- He also shows Scott his dogs where Scott confesses to burning the castle and causing Geraldine’s death. Joel is sad but says it’s okay

- Also they mention that Jimmy died and Joel goes “I’m glad he died JUST KIDDING we love you Jimmy 🥺😔😭”. I don’t know what to say about this.

- Oh also at some point Joel says (about the roof above his bed being missing) that he likes to look at the stars as he sleeps. This one is a huge stretch and goes into fanon territory with Scott being connected with the stars but it’s a fun fact nonetheless.

- also love the energy of Joel excitedly showing off his dogs to Scott and Scott being like “that’s cool *chuckles nervously*”

- When they’re doing war strategies Scott would often pair himself with Joel. Just sayin.

- Scott, Scar, and Grian are on that stupid platform above Dogwarts. Joel is below them inside Dogwarts with all his dogs. Grian suggests dropping some TNT down onto him to essentially deal with the problem before it becomes their problem (they’re all terrified of Joel and kind of want him to die despite being on their side so that they don’t have to face him when they win the war). Scott gasps at this and seems to want to argue but the logic is sound and he also wants revenge on Joel, so he just covers his eyes but like this 🫣 and says “I can’t watch”. Ultimately they don’t do it.

- Scott and Joel both really want to kill BigB (the last green) and they go together and kill him 🥰

- Once again Scott pairs himself with Joel to attack Ren and Martyn. Bdubs and Impulse volunteer to tag along but end up retreating before being killed like the others.

- Scott is upset that Joel died but also refers to his death as a “slight ‘woo’!” because of the revenge and previously mentioned fear of having to fight him when they’re no longer on the same side

- Scott takes some of Joel’s stuff and declares that his death won’t be in vain

- It was in vain he died again 💔 THEY DIED IN BATTLE TOGETHER AT THE HANDS OF THE SAME KING THEY SPAT IN THE FACE OF 🥰

- Scott is nervous about being Joel’s neighbor in Last Life. And Scar’s for that matter

- After many failed boogey attempts, Joel comes crawling to Scott’s house for one last shot, pretending that Mumbo was the boogeyman and killed him for THAT reason.

- Joel compliments the house (poking fun at Pearl for making Scott do all the work after finding out she didn’t build any of it) and gets them to invite him inside

- He blocks the exit and starts attacking Pearl. He only switched to killing Scott because he was defending her like a boss. He kills Scott and gets cured, but Scott’s like “PEARL, KILL HIM!!” so yeah.

- They get the enchanting table off his dead body and make fun of him for having that on him while trying to kill people, and they keep it as a reward

- I don’t have the memory to be so descriptive. Joel targets Scott’s base many times, the TNT minecart door trap, the trap at the gate that actually worked, blowing up his roof with minecarts, attempting to grief his water elevator, surrounding the base in walls of lava…

- Scott tells Lizzie that her husband keeps trying to murder him. She says that he does that to her, too, and it’s “a sign that he loves you”. Scott says “oh” and IMMEDIATELY moves on

- Scott kills Joel at the end 😁 As a desperate attempt to get them to not kill him Joel yells “TEAM?” lmao

- start of Double Life they run the same direction at the beginning and kind of yell at each other before finally managing to go separate ways

- Scott of course makes fun of Joel’s death because of the way he and Etho were acting. Not to Joel’s face tho.

- Scott compliments the Relation Ship multiple times

- Scott visits the Relation at some point when Joel is there and just vents to him about Pearl. Joel sympathizes with him.

- Multiple times Scott says that he thinks the Boat Boys are good

- Joel kills Pearl but like Scott had nothing to do with that despite also dying

- Scott burns down the Relation cuz he felt like it 😁🔥

- Joel wants Scott dead soso bad

- Joel kills Scott with a rocket while Scott tries to hit him with a bucket of water. 🥰💀

- Then um there was something about a nether portal trap uh for some reason Joel’s not here anymore guess we move on to next season

- After the boogey reroll Scott hears Joel complain about not being boogeyman and says “good to know it’s not you!”

- They go into a ravine cave together. They both saw an emerald ore but Scott mines it

- Joel asks where the emerald is and Scott says he mined it and asks if Joel wanted it. He says yes and Scott gives him the emerald. He calls it an Emerald Of Trust.

- Joel thinks it’s really nice and gives Scott a piece of bamboo in return, which Scott is happy about.

- They are stuck bonding in the stupid cave together because neither of them have much food except Scott’s cooking kelp and sharing it with Joel, so they have to wait for the kelp to cook, split it between the two of them, eat it (NOT FILLING AT ALL), and heal, just a very long process.

- Eventually Joel feels ready to leave and get better food.

- Next time Scott sees Joel, he’s with Jimmy and apparently they are now bad boys

- He watches as Joel washes away carpet like a real bad boy

- As Scott leaves Joel begs him to tell everyone that he and Jimmy are bad boys (this is one that I remember from Joel’s POV, pretty much the only thing on the list that isn’t Scott’s POV lol well actually there was probably another)

- Scott decides to live in the ocean. Joel is upset because HE wanted to live in the ocean.

- Scott watches Joel kill TIES cow for the second time

- While having a hashtag flower husbands moment Scott helps trying to put out the fire on the mansion (too late tho nobody could stop THAT)

- oh I almost forgot. After making his island Scott puts a chest on it to “dump random junk he doesn’t need to keep on him” and AS HE SAYS THIS he hovers over the bamboo Joel gave him and doesn’t put it in the chest. I know it’s moreso because it’s a resource but like.

- Also we all know what ended up happening with that bamboo gift! It surrounds the Coral Isles!

- Anyways Scott needs some carpet for his farm so he goes to the bad boys to ask for carpet. Grian and Jimmy tell him to strike a deal with Joel since he’s the one who has all the carpet. Scott walks over to Joel and says “remember when we bonded in the cave?” and Joel hands him the carpet. Scott says “yay 🥳 good boys! 🥰” and the bad boys are horrified, tell him to never say that again they are BAD BOYS and make him leave.

- (also may be worth mentioning that from what I can tell, Joel didn’t have that carpet on him, and actually ran to grab it as soon as Scott asked)

- god that ^ was all session one. ANWYAYS Joel asks people for gold and in exchange they can have unlimited bread. Scott and Impulse give Joel gold.

- At some point Scott goes to collect some free unlimited bread. Grian and Jimmy stop him like “WHAT are you doing ✋🤨 only IMPULSE has unlimited bread” and Scott says “no I have it too go ask Joel” so they go to Joel and say “WHAT is this about SCOTT having unlimited bread…” and Joel just goes “yup Scott gets unlimited bread 👍” so Scott collects his bread while the other bad boys are just so disappointed in Joel

- Now is where I lost track of the timeline, but I remember once or twice Scott would just be talking usually to himself like “the bad boys are truly the good boys of the server 🥰😇”

- Despite this Scott eventually becomes scared of Joel because he did the math and realized that he’s got so many allies who won’t attack him, and the people who aren’t his allies would likely be too scared to attack Scott EXCEPT Joel.

- And Scott was spot on because he was just chilling when out of nowhere Joel just charges at him yelling “SCOTT YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO REMAIN SILENT” and of course after a little more chasing “SCOTT YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO REMAIN STUPID”

- Scott manages to get away and thinks that Joel’s lines were really funny and pathetic and is no longer afraid of him

- Bad Boys try to trap Mean Gills’ secret bed but they get foiled

- The usual Joel wants to kill Scott really bad

- Scott’s like “we have to eliminate Joel” and gets the Clockers to help because he killed them

- Joel is terrified the entire time lmao. I remember “then why is your voice higher pitched?” “BECAUSE IM SCARED” “that’s what I thought” as he lets Joel get away ahahdg

- OH I ALMOST FORGOT Scott letting Jimmy kill him for time and Joel trying to steal the kill cuz lol.

- Back to Scott terrifying Joel. That one time he tells Joel to leave Scar alone and Joel just goes “..ok”

- And then of course Scott kills Joel again 🥳😍 surely this won’t happen again 💀

- OTHER THING I FORGOT TO MENTION CUZ IM MOSTLY GOING OFF MY MEMORY OF THE MORE RECENTLY WATCHED SCOTT POV Joel always destroying Scott’s walls cuz tradition.

So yeah this was all just off the top of my head without looking at anything. I’d love to make a new version when I rewatch SL and/or Joel’s POVs. This proves that I’m normal right

[fandomwe1rd0]

In defense of Rick

Now ik this might be confusing because of the title, but I am NOT defending any of his actions, he is most definitely a piece of shit (I still love him though) but I feel like a lot of people who hate Rick Sanchez don't take enough stuff into account, so that's what this post will be about!

Now Rick has done many, MANY bad things, if I even attempted to list them, we'd be here all day, but I'll mostly be focusing on the way he treats Morty, now the way he treated him in the earlier seasons, especially season 4, is inexcusable, and I'm not defending him, but I would like to explain why he did it, he did it, and to do that, we need to get into his backstory.

So everyone knows the basics, right? Rick Prime went over, offered him the portal gun, but if he takes it, he'll have to leave his family, Rick C-137 refuses, Rick Prime takes it EXTERMELY PERSONALLY and kills his entire family in front of him, Rick C-137 goes on a decades-long revenge trip in an attempt to find Rick Prime, but it was to no avail, and when he finally fell in love again with Birdperson, he got rejected and Rick C-137 distances himself away from the first person he fell in love with after Diane, this could NOT have had a good impact on him, the only good influence on him is no longer a prominent presences in his life, then he helps with the citadel, he hates the citadel, but he helped with it. He created something he hates. This couldn't of done anything good for his self-esteem, which we already know is low since he literally made a Diane AI that was meant to torture him because he felt like he deserves it, he blames himself. Diane and Beth died, Bird person left, see a pattern?

Then he goes back to Prime's dimension and lives with Prime's family, his worst enemy's family, he lives in his house, sleeps in his bed, and due to this, he meets Morty, one of the only things that made him happy after decades of just misery. But in his experience, bad things happen to people he loves.

And it keeps happening, Bird person gets shot in front of him, Unity left him, Daphne left him, no matter what happens, he can't hold onto someone he loves, they either get hurt or leave him. Rick couldn't handle it if something happened to Morty, he needs him, it's not healthy, but it's the truth.

So he protects Morty in the only way he knows how, using insults as a defense mechanism, this isn't ok, this isn't healthy, Morty clings to Rick being his only friend, and Rick, despite knowing it's unhealthy, lets Morty cling to him. He clings to Morty as well, and does whatever he can to keep Morty around. He can't let himself love. So he insults Morty as an attempt to also stop himself from loving Morty, but it doesn't work. Morty is his favorite person and he hates it. He wants to care, but he knows he can't. He can't care or else they'll die.

Then comes the heist episode, one of the major bad things Rick did to Morty, now this is nondefendable, but here's why he did it. Morty was already skipping out on adventures to write his heist script, he's drifting away from Rick and Rick can feel it and it fucking terrifies him. He can't show his true feelings, so he hides it behind insults, then Summer mentions that he could lose him, this terrifies Rick more than anything, he'll do anything to keep Morty with him.

Anything.

So he manipulates Morty into giving up on his dream and it works. Morty stays codependent. Rick should feel horrible, but it's hard for him to hate himself more. He's just proud, proud that he was able to pull this off. To keep Morty by him.

Vat of Acid, Morty starts getting a lower opinion of Rick, this again terrifies Rick, the more Morty insults Rick, the more Morty will realize how true the insults are, the more likely he is to leave him, Rick traumatizes Morty in hopes that Morty will stop insulting him. It works for the moment, but it's not permanate.

The season 6 finale, this is when Rick truly thinks Morty doesn't care. This complety breaks Rick. He gets to the lowest point we've ever seen him at. He completely stops taking care of himself, looks for Prime, isolates himself from everyone else, then when Morty was rightfully pissed at finding out that Rick replaced himself with a robot, Rick doesn't get why, Morty should be happy! He stopped caring about him, so why is he upset that he replaced himself with a more loving version of himself. Rick doesn't understand that Morty still loves him and cares about him, because he didn't hear the words Morty said to Rickbot which was "I love you, Rick." Rick didn't hear this, he thinks, and I quote, "I've become dogshit to you (Morty)"

The things I've mentioned are horrible, but what Rick haters fail to realize is that Rick doesn't do this because he thinks it's fun or because he wants to. He's a broken man clinging to the only thing that makes his life stable, one of the only things that makes him happy. It's not healthy. Rick knows that. But he needs it. He needs Morty. Rick is not a good person, but there's more to him than what he does, and a lot of people that hate Rick don't get that.

[true-bluesargent]

how are people deluding themselves that the six of crows spinoff could have in any way shape or form been faithful to the books. it's already so ridiculous how they were like "guys sorry shadow and bone season 2 sucks BUT if you want us to make a six of crows show that we promise will actually be good then we need renewal!!!!" like first of all why would we trust you to make a good six of crows show after this and second of all. the existence of shadow and bone netflix makes a good six of crows adaptation impossible anyway! the casting is not good (no matter how much you try to convince yourself that 30-year-old, able-bodied freddy carter is the perfect kaz brekker), and they used up all of the meaningful scenes from six of crows and crooked kingdom as surface level throwaway moments in season 2. i don't know how people can't see that the end of shadow and bone season 2 did NOT in any way set up the story ready for the ice court heist. why would inej even need to participate in the heist now? she's free she is killing slavers on a pirate ship that was her ENDING at the end of crooked kingdom. wylan and jesper are already together and happy so there's no reason for jesper to join the heist out of misplaced love and loyalty to kaz, and he could get money to pay off his gambling debts from smaller jobs in ketterdam. we already saw kaz's entire backstory and he already GOT REVENGE ON PEKKA ROLLINS. that is literally his primary motivation for the entire duology so why would he now go on a ridiculously dangerous and near-impossible heist when he got what he wanted already and the money doesn't matter to him anymore. and nina only wanted to do the heist in the first place to help get matthias out of hellgate, but if nobody else needs or wants to do anything about it what the hell would be the point. in conclusion it's good that they didn't get to make a six of crows spin off show because it would have fucking sucked! just reread the books

[writingquestionsanswered]

I plan to write a story about heists, often from the point of view of the investigators' side, but I don't know where to start (or at least, my brain cannot make anything as interesting as I see in the media). Is there any advice on how I can plan it? Thank you very much!

Writing a Heist Story

A Worthwhile Score - The most important thing you need for a good heist story is a worthwhile score. What is the object/thing they're after and why is it important/valuable? How can everyone in the crew get a cut of this object/thing? What makes this thing valuable enough that it's so protected/hard to get in the first place?

Stakes - The second most important thing you have to establish is why the heist is taking place and why it matters. What does the heist crew stand to gain if they're successful, and/or what do they stand to lose if they're not? In Ocean's Eleven, Danny stood to win back his wife's affection while ruining the man who stole her from him. If he failed, not only did he not achieve either of those things, he also risked losing everything by going back to prison.

Sympathetic Motivation - If you want the reader to root for the heist crew, you need to make sure they have a sympathetic motivation--or at least one the reader wouldn't disapprove of. For example, in Ocean's Eleven, the heist motive is revenge against the guy who stole Danny's wife, so not the most sympathetic cause, but not a despicable one. And when we see that Benedict is a jerk who doesn't even treat Tess well, and that there's still something between Danny and Tess, we're able to root for him.

A Solid Crew - Another important element of good heist stories is a solid crew, meaning each member of the crew has to have a solid reason for being there. That means they need to play a vital role in the heist by providing a vital skill no one else can provide. They also need to have a believable motive for wanting to be part of the heist, especially if they're not being hired or rewarded with a large sum of money. And finally, it's nice to give each crew member a compelling personality, interesting characteristics, and unique relationships with other crew members.

A Complex Scheme - If your characters are trying to steal a piece of art from a museum, they can't roll up on the museum, break a window, knock out a guard, disable the alarm, obscure a camera, take the piece of art and off they go. That's too easy. Anyone could do that. There needs to be big, seemingly insurmountable obstacles that only the skills of the unique crew can overcome. Like, instead of breaking a window, one crew member's unique knowledge of the tunnels beneath the museum could get them in--but only if they can avoid detection from the night crews who work in the tunnels. And instead of knocking out a guard, there are several guards, and only the super stealthy wraith-like martial arts expert can do it without being caught.

A Backup Scheme - The one thing that's true about complex schemes is they almost always go awry. That said, you need to figure out what goes wrong, why, how it affects the original scheme, and how they re-route in the moment to get things back on track. Really good heist masterminds will have a Plan B and Plan C, but even these won't be without their kinks. All of these unforeseen pitfalls, unexpected obstacles, and potential failures keep the tension high and make things interesting. Watching the crew deal with things when they go off track is part of the fun of heist stories.

I hope that helps! ♥ •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

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[leblancsvoleur]

M27 Spoilers

I've had a few days to think about it. It was funny for the first day but honestly, I'm quite tired of all of this now. I've fell out of Detective Conan for a long time and have mostly kept to the Magic Kaito side of things. But the writing problems have been growing ever since Gosho started to use Detco's writing format more and more in MK.

For the new reveal, I'm not even that bothered by the "Kaito & Shinichi are related" part. It's been 25+ years, shippers are going to ship. What I hate is that it ties Kaito's story to DC even more, how it makes both the Kudo and the Kuroba parents seem even more unlikable- and for what? What does making Toichi and Yusaku brothers add to the story?

If Gosho really wanted to build up to this reveal, he could've had a flashback chapter in MK. Maybe during Toichi's funeral where Yusaku shows up in the crowd somewhere, have Kaito mistaken him for his father because they look alike. Anything within the story leading up to the reveal.

Kaito's main appearances these days are in DC, where he can only be shown as KID during a heist. Yet whenever we go back to MK, we get the exact same format. Despite years of MK's run, we still have little to no information of who Toichi really was. For a plot whose main character's core motivation is revenge for his father, we get little story about what his father actually did, or any scenes of Kaito investigating past KID heists.

It is true that Gosho has hinted about the reveal in past interviews, and lamp-shaded it in the recent DC Hakuba chapter (Ch1119). But it doesn't change the fact that it contradicts things that he has already written (Shinichi's Childhood Adventures), the fact that it took him 10 years to get to this reveal, the fact that he had years to set this up but just didn't. If your strongest evidence for this reveal having a precedence is, the author has hinted at it before in decade-old interviews outside of the story itself, then it is simply bad writing.

Anyways, if you want a story where a funny thief man is a horrible father and gets thrown through the wringer by the narrative, read Arsène Lupin instead!

[utilitycaster]

i feel like for the critical role trauma thing i HAVE to ask about caleb even if that’s a subject that’s been talked to death. i’m also super interested in your thoughts on Yasha in this conversation

The thing about Caleb is he is very visibly not okay from the get-go. He has a mechanical penalty to killing humanoids with fire which we see very early on. Then his backstory came out pretty much in full quite early as well. And before I continue, I want to stress: I really love Caleb as a character. I think his story is fantastic. He is hands down my favorite Liam character. He is complicated and difficult and sympathetic and heartbreaking.

He also garnered some of the most unbelievably toxic type 2 (ie, "um he is traumatized and can do no wrong?") fans I've seen in my LIFE, and many of them were also mixed with the "there's only room for one traumatized person in this d&d party and therefore whoever fits my idea of What Trauma Looks Like and/or whoever I personally project onto the most is the winner." I'm talking people actually getting on my posts and saying "why haven't the Nein stopped all the pesky adventuring and world-saving they're doing and taken him to Duasad Keef (an NPC only mentioned in the EGTW at the time, ie, post hiatus when the plot pretty quickly went to Eiselcross and stayed there, whose methods of therapy would actually probably be triggering for Caleb and who was probably well out of their paygrade and frankly unlikely of anyone else in the party to have heard of)." Those people have largely left because they hated that Caleb decided the best revenge was doing what he could to heal and living well and ensuring no one in the future would suffer as he had, rather than murdering the entire assembly and presumably dying in the process, but man, they left a mark.

There's definitely his detractors too, and I have no patience for the "ewwww sadboy attention hog" people, many of whom were either of the "I am feeling uncomfortable when we are not about Beau?" variety or that bizarre cohort of people who just fucking hate Liam for reasons I have never been able to fathom, but I'm not going to lie, as someone who likes Caleb a lot, the fandom response was rough because there was definitely a noticeable faction who really just did not accept the idea that basically everyone in the Nein had some degree of trauma. The High Richter Heist is a great example. Fjord holds Caleb at swordpoint for deviating from the plan. We later learn that while Caleb is acting from his trauma (trying to collect as many books as possible to achieve the purpose that is frankly his main reason for living at that time), Fjord is just as much acting from his (was very recently betrayed by Sabian deviating from the plan in an all hands on deck situation, stabbing him, and blowing up the ship leaving everyone, Fjord included, to drown). The infamous Bowlgate, not long after, is also a similar case of Beau and Caleb's respective traumas clashing. It's why Campaign 2 is so good, but man, it really is a litmus test if someone's like "actually Caleb is objectively 100% right in either of these situations;" you know you're dealing with either an idiot or someone who can't conceive of the possibility that trauma isn't a competition that Caleb has obviously won.

So, with that, Yasha: I think Yasha is tough for a few reasons. The first is that she wasn't around a lot early on, so while we learned the basics of her backstory in episode 46 we simply didn't see how she reacted in all situations. The second is that the fandom is specifically really fucking bonkers about people whose romantic partners die young; see again how people were like "see? Orym would be happier dead with Will!" like that isn't the kind of statement anyone with a brain would be MORTIFIED to say. So there was some of that with Yasha. I think the extent of what happened with Obann came up in a pretty dense arc and only got unpacked after the fact (and once Ashley was at the table regularly). And finally, Yasha got a lot of hate from shippers that was not strictly related to her trauma but did sometimes include it. So she's an interesting case of "trauma not so much ignored as frequently misconstrued or taken in bad faith to support interpretations barely related to Yasha herself, compounded by the fact that you had to read between the lines to understand her trauma in the first place."

[op81s]

Please tell me you’ve heard Alex talk about attempting to get revenge on Conor for his golf cart prank. I was dying laughing when I first heard it. This man has never ever done anything by half, committed several attempted crimes for failed revenge. He talks about it in the Off Track episode The Failed Key Heist and the 500. I cannot believe he is so casual about it all lmao

i had not heard this episode but oh. my. god. i'm dead. (i have done a deep dive into alex's eventual respone to this prank tho and you can find it here)

tagging @nico-di-genova 'cause this is very much relevant to your alib alex i feel.

my reaction below the cut 'cause it got fucking LONG.

my favorite parts:

hinch: i'm standing in the gym, minding my own business and alex just walks in right behind me, gets really close in my ear and just goes 'you're fucking dead.' + hinch: i was trying to prove my innocence, which he did not believe, it took a full hour for me to convince him to the point where i was having to show him my text messages- he was like an angry girlfriend, he was like 'sHOW ME YOUR PHONE' *alex starts cackling in the background* ... and i was finally cleared in the eyes of- alex: you were aquitted. hinch: i was aquitted in the court of alex.

poor hinchie, his bestie didn't believe him 😭

alex: i'm not gonna explain the way that i found out with complete certainty. tim: wait- why- why not? alex: well, no because- ....screw it i don't like him that much anyway, i was in the engineering office with colton herta.

lol, i'm fully convinced alex doesn't like 3/4 of the grid 😂

alex: i found her on instagram. hit her up in the dm's and said 'hey there, sorry to reach out to you kinda randomly. i really need your help with something, i'm friends with conor and some of the people you know, get back to me asap if you get this'. twenty minutes later she responds like 'hey what's up?' and i send a picture of the golf cart tyres on top of my bus and say 'i'm trying to get conor back for a prank, can i call you?' i call her and i find out when they're going to dinner, where they're going to dinner. i try and get her to see, if when she's in his car, to kinda look for bus keys and we had a whole plan that she was like gonna try and grab them and drop them outside the car. or when she got out she was gonna leave the car unlocked when she got home. so like, she was completely on board. it wasn't really going well, she couldn't find the key initially at all. so i found out conor was going to a resturant, i drove downtown to that resturant, got the valet in on this situation and got him to unlock conor's car while conor was at dinner. ... and the keyes were nowhere to be found, i was crawling through his tahoe for ten minutes, searching for the bus key. could not find them.

THEY WAY HE MANAGED TO DRAG A COMPLETELY INNOCENT WOMAN HE DOESN'T EVEN KNOW INTO HIS REVENGE 😂 (which also... does kelly know you slide into random women's dm's alex?? 👀😂) AND A VALET??? just how persuasive are you alex?? 'cause that valet could lose their job???? (okay, they're friends with the valet. that makes more sense...)

cont: so then i decided to drive to his house and i tried to break into his house.

THE CASUAL WAY HE SAID THAT JUST STRAIGHT UP KILLED ME. 'CAUSE WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK ROSSI???????????????

alex: colton comes up to me and he's like 'i know where conor's bus keys are. they're in his front right pocket.' and i was like '...okay, cool? how would you like me to get those?' and he was like 'i don't know man, just make a mold of them.' and i said 'uhh, you're still not explaining to me how i'm getting the keys out first of all.' and he's like 'just put a bunch of putty in their and make a mold.'

colton...............i can't figure out if you were fucking with alex or if you're just a little dumb

alex: so that night, we were just going to get him back with his golf cart ... but that night, his golf cart was nowhere to be found. so not only was he claiming to be innocent, he felt the need to hide his belongings. and when i say it was nowhere to be found, i mean i had doug boles looking for the golf cart, the president of indianapolis motor speedway. tim: and his step-dad. alex: -and his sted-dad. i had mechanics. hinch: it was a search party. there was an apb out for conor's golf cart and it could not be located on the grounds. alex: nowhere to be found. and then i was like 'okay. we're not going to do it tonight, but his golf cart is gonna be in pitlane on carb day and while he's in the car there's nothing that he's gonna be able to do.' and sure enough, conor was so concerned his golf cart never surfaced and he rode to pitlane with either his teammate or his team owner. he stopped commuting all at once. 'cause he was so concerned about what was gonna happen. tim: he went to such great lenghts to inconvenience himself to stop you from minorly inconveniencing him. you were gonna mess with the golf cart so he was just like. no golf cart!

the way i can just imagine alex going through the entire fucking ims looking for conor's golf cart and roping in everyone around him to look for it too.

tim: i feel like we could do something else to him. hinch: yeah, i mean we could burn his house down but it's attached to other houses so that's risky. alex: so literally- i literally threathened that, i was so mad at him. 'cause he also, on media day took my golf cart key and hid it. and i literally walked by him and said 'i'm literally going to blow up your house.' i was SO PISSED. hinch: ...wait...i though hunter-reay hid your key? alex: well- hinch: hunter-reay took my key. alex: -still gonna blow up conor's house. tim: i think you've admitted to a couple of felonies on this podcast. alex: i mean. whatever at this point.

THIS MAN IS FUCKING BONKERS AND I LOVE HIM 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

[agirlandherquill]

Ruin's Reprisal - WIP Intro

I was recently tagged by the lovely @mysticstarlightduck in a post of theirs and it inspired me so much I thought I'd put my own spin on it for my novel!

rules are simple, or to my mind, easily breakable (not that I will, because this rule is so broad and so fun) - pick a WIP and post something about it!

so without further ado, here's my WIP Intro!

Title - Ruin's Reprisal

Genre - Fantasy/High-Fantasy (if that's still a thing, sure hope so)

Tags - (ought to come up with some, shouldn't I? ah, well, I'll update this when I do!)

Synopsis - like me with my edits on the manuscript, it's a work in progress

Disgrace. Servant. Murderer.

Three people with nothing in common, except that they were wronged.

And now, they’re willing to do whatever it takes to make things right. Which means taking the one thing that their society rests on; its sins, its saints, its deaths and broken dreams.

The unlikely band of criminals are going to steal the crown.

Everything depends on one heist. Take the crown. Free themselves.

Will any of them survive? Or will they fall to the country that took everything from them? 

Only time will tell.

And they’re running out of it.

Plot Features, Tropes, A Little Warning Of The Chaos You'll Find

Heist. One big, life-risking, soul-aching heist

I killed for you. Because of you.

Life-saving debt, and then some

Royalty, a Court, and gut-wrenching normality - add a hint of rebellion while you're at it

Gifts and Curses, what's the difference?

My heart is in your hands, literally.

Morally Grey Characters

Deniable Feelings

Lies, lies, lies

A Wedding and A Funeral

I'm going to die. I AM GOING TO DIE.

Ballroom dances. Need I say more?

We had a plan. We had many plans. What now?

You love me. You won't hurt me.

Sacrifice

You made me feel. I need you to stop. I need you to break me because I cannot do it myself.

The Crown was never yours, it's mine.

You were supposed to come to me, to be with me, and I'd have made it all stop.

Slow-burn - light that fire, watch it burn

Limping into battle - best idea I've ever had.

Revenge. Revenge. Revenge.

He broke you? I'll destroy him.

I have hated you since the day I met you, and it still isn't enough.

Heroes and Villains

Light and Dark

Framing for a crime

Who knew a letter could destroy everything?

Character Portraits

Edeva Vitaire - Once a woman with everything: title, gowns, respect, the lot, now she is nothing more than an Exilza, someone exiled to the Half-Lands for a crime she did not commit. Edeva has learned the hardest of ways how someone can lose everything, and she knows what to sacrifice for revenge - she wants her mother's killer more than she wants her innocence restored, and she has only learned to survive in the wilds this long because of it. Mild-mannered by birth, spine steeled by survival, Edeva will do whatever it takes to get answers, even if it means partnering with the last person in the world she would want to help her.

Lucien Vaisey - Trained from birth to serve and protect the Alvarros, Aliria's Royal Family, Lucien understands duty more than most, and what it costs. His sword is at the mercy of other's commands, except when it comes to protecting those he cares for, then, this soldier truly becomes something fearsome.

Fenley Evander - Outcast by nature, damned in soul, Fenley is one of the few with a stomach for violence, and the darkened desire to do something with it. He kills for coin, to maintain a balance in the world, but there is no balance in himself. Plagued by a power deemed unnatural, Fenley is forced to hide his true nature, until the time calls for it. A dangerous man as ever lived, Fenley does not mourn for where his afterlife lies, instead he devours the fear others bestow upon him. He feeds the emptiness inside, and still he continues to hunger for something far harsher than violence - revenge, and to obtain it, he will stoop to wretched depths - manipulation, murder, and even betrayal - no man, nor woman, on this earth can possibly get in his way.

Chapters!

Part One:

Hunt & Hunter

Monsters & Mavericks

Saviour & Solace

Ashes & Absolution

Murders & Markets

Blood & Bravery

Cabins & Crime

Invitations & Irritation

Farewell & Forever

Emancipation & Exile

Puppet & Puppeteer

Part Two (this is as far as I've got with edits and changing chapter names so far, I'll update when I get more done)

Dance of Dismay

Lament of Larkhill

Rumours of Rage

Night of Nothing

Aches of Affliction

Trials of Twilight

Climb of Contemplation

Death of Diplomacy

My Inspiration!

This section is simply me getting to ramble about the things that stoked the fires of my imagination - movies, books, shows - songs, all the works! (as and when i recall/think of more, i'll add them to the list)

The Cruel Prince - had to go far into the depths of my memory for this one, but it was this series that truly got me invested in the likes of Fae and that sort of fantasy, and I took a lot of inspo from that! (in the early days, the Haelish were Fae but I wanted to go outside of that character stereotype and create my own fantasy bloodline/species, for lack of a better word)

Throne of Glass - to this day i'm still in awe of the world, the plot, the characters, everything and though i've only read it once parts of it have stuck with me

Six of Crows - the heist aspect of my novel shockingly came about before i'd read this but it certainly helped that part of the plot along

Red Queen - the villain of my novel, not saying who because who enjoys massive spoilers? (spoiler alert - not me), was deeply, deeply inspired from this series - I'd wager it was the first fantasy novel I'd read that gave me an insight into a truly 'dark' character, and I loved that, and of course, I used it as inspiration and to this day I am still torn between preferring a villainous character to a hero - it's one of the tropes I really, really enjoy

Far From Home by Sam Tinnesz - this was one of the very first songs I'd found for my initial writing playlist, and it's been played many, many times since

Lovely by Fleurie and Tommee Profitt - this embodied the regality and the tension that takes place in so many parts of my story, it was impossible not to be inspired

To Be Alone by Hozier - my ears will never forgive me for this, but it's true of any Hozier song, but this is one of my favourites

Pirates of the Caribbean - grew up watching these repeatedly, needless to say some of the characters did give me inspiration

The Mummy - one of my absolute favourite movies of all time, Rick O'Connell's attitude was an important factor for me to take inspiration from, he's such an interesting character

[detectivereads]

Batman The Long Halloween: The Last Halloween: Prologue #0 by Jeph Loeb

100/5 this was so good; I can’t wait to read more.

This post is for fan entertainment, I am not being paid.

Hi everyone,

I hope you are well.

Ok this comic, I got this on Batman Day, and I was totally stoked to get something from the series The Long Halloween. I love the whole story about The Long Halloween with the crime families, to the murders and this shows how Two-Face came to be, (or at least a version, they have the iconic court room scene with acid.)

Now I did get confused when I was reading the comic, when it said Prologue since this already have Harvey Dent being splashed with acid but looking closer, I saw the subtitle The Last Halloween so that cleared things up.

We also see Glinda Dent, Harvey’s wife, who went MIA for a year and now came back, if you read the Long Halloween, you’ll understand how big of a role she played. I always sympathize with her, that she wanted to spend more time with her husband, but in Gotham you’ll be lucky to get two minutes.

Harvey is one of the villains I always felt sorry for, granted looking at some of Batman’s rogues, there is a lot of people there that are villains of circumstance, either being manipulated to being a villain or just pushed too far. But this comic shows that desire that he wants to be with his wife and have the life before he got horribly disfigure. But not all good things last. Especially when Calendar man has a bone to pick with the Dents.

Now I will say this Calendar Man is freaking terrifying; I played Arkham City and did some background research on the guy and this man is crazy. Tim Sale has done wonderful work on Calendar man on how in the Long Halloween series he has made him so creepy and unsettling.

Calendar Man reminds me of a cult leader when we see him in the church, but way more disturbing. After his acolytes botched a robbery Calendar Man promptly disposes of them.

However, I did find one issue with one part of the comic, where Calendar Man went to the Dent’s house, Harvey was in the other room while Gilda was answering the door for what she thought would be tick or treaters. You think that Harvey would coming busting in the room like the Kool-aid man when he heard his wife’s body dropped to the floor.

Now a real treat that this comic had given us we get to see Robin, Jim had asked Batman if Robin wouldn’t mind going tick or treating with Barbara (Barbara the niece not the daughter, this is the universe where Barbara is the niece).

But Batman gets summon with the bat signal, Two-Face is there he needs Batman’s help on finding Gilda and Calendar Man.

Now this scene where Calendar Man is doing the token bad guy speech, is my favorite scene besides the little color that is on the baby bottle topper the scene is completely black and white. Calendar man has Gilda in the confessional, he is not happy with her roll during the Long Halloween, and he is there to get his revenge on her.

However, before Calendar Man could pull the trigger, Two-Face busts in dressed like one of the acolytes as per Calendar Man orders to show that he is “loyal” to Calendar Man, he has to perform a heist.

Calendar Man wants the Moussaieff Red Diamond, but Calendar Man falls into the trap that Batman set up. We also see the real Harvey and Solomon Grundy busting in the room of the church. After Harvey interrogates one of the acolytes, telling Harvey where she is, he disposes of them and rescues Gilda, but like all of Gotham rogues Calendar Man has the penchant to use bombs.

Solomon Grundy takes the blow, but we all know Solomon Grundy will rise again. But it is bittersweet to see Solomon sacrifice himself for a friend.

Back to the butt kicking that Batman is laying out on Calendar Man.

Calendar Man is again telling Batman how hard his life was on the streets of Gotham but felt alive when he was committing crimes.  Batman finishes whooping Calendar Man and dashes off.

We see Two-Face and Gilda rowing off into the moonlight? (I don’t know if the sun is rising at this point.) Two-Face and Gilda, Batman and Robin all good things comes in pairs.

Batman is worried about Harvey and Gilda, what could happen to them or what they can do together.

I love this series, I can’t wait for the next issues, seeing some of the covers I have high hopes for the series.

[inspector-montoya-fox]

this post was initially gonna be like a lazy rant about how the Klaww Gang's team dynamics suck ass but the more i wrote the more i realised there's so much to discuss. so today let's discuss how the Klaww Gang's team dynamics suck ass but not on like surface-level y'know?

i'm not even sure if the Klaww Gang qualifies as an actual gang because they barely even acknowledge each other? their interactions are very scarce. off the top of my head we get Rajan's party which they all attend apart from Dimitri (Dimitri attending Rajan's party would be so bizarre btw) and Jean Bison's phone call with Arpeggio. these are things friends do so maybe they should be the Klaww Friends ? i mean they have the sinister-looking conference room but we never see them hold a meeting there. moreover, they all act out of pure self-interest. they each got a Clockwerk part and just went on to do their own thing like counterfeit, drug production, etc. i mean what's even the point of forming a gang if their goal was to just split Clockwerk parts and then disband? did they have any other operations in the works? Arpeggio was planning on double-crossing the rest of the members anyway and he needed them to actually have the parts for his plan to come to fruition but still seems a bit pointless.

interesting question: how exactly did the Cairo Museum heist go down? was it like a group activity or pulled off by a single member? or did Arpeggio have Neyla break in and take them? because i can't imagine the Klaww Gang members coming together like an Ocean's movie to steal a bunch of robot owl parts? in fact, i can't imagine any of them stealing in the traditional like robber kinda way. with the exception of Bison and maybe Arpeggio, they're all shown to have some sort of prestige in their own part of the world: Dimitri was an established artist and nightclub owner and as shown in the comics hanged out with elitist socialites; the Contessa was a high-ranking Interpol officer; Rajan threw a lavish ball with hundreds of guests. like i wouldn't be surprised if the Klaww Gang members had institutional power. maybe they just bribed the museum to give them the parts?

and then there's the fact that they were a complete failure. i can't help but compare them to the Fiendish Five, who, let's admit it, won. they "won" in the sense that they achieved their goal. it's not like anyone stopped them. sure, Sly whooped their ass years later but they still killed ConnEr and split the Thievius Raccoonus. they went on with their lives until Sly grew up. like the first game is very much a revenge story. the Klaww Gang? not so much. the game takes place right after the Cairo Museum heist so all their scheming and plans could only take place for like maybe a couple of months max. and let's not forget they were also tricked by Neyla. flops.

i'm not sure why but i also think the Fiendish Five can evade the criticisms highlighted above even though they were also a bunch of strangers? Clockwerk was a much more menacing boss than Arpeggio (if Arpeggio can even be considered a boss. more like a final member), like i don't think anyone from the Fiendish Five would dare question his plan or motivations. but also, i think there was an underlining sense of camaraderie when each of them warned us about the next one post-bossfight, like at least some respect. i can't say the same for the Klaww Gang, like i can't even imagine the Contessa, Jean Bison and Dimitri interacting with each other (and now i suddenly can't think of anything i need more in my life). Clockwerk feels like the Fiendish Five's employer and he brought them together to pull off something kinda sacred like continuing the cycle of raccoon murders. basically they got together and did a thing and that was it like they just casually went on with their lives after that. Clockwerk was immortal, for all we know and as i have previously theorised there could have been previous iterations of the Fiendish Five throughout history. just baddies recruited by Clockwerk to help him take down the Coopers.

so yea. the Klaww Gang very much sucked ass but !!! i think it was for the better. even if i compared them to the Fiendish Five, i feel like SP wanted to set the expectations by making it seem like we were going to receive something similar just to then have things go down very differently. the Klaww Gang is different because its members (were under the illusion that they) were autonomous. they weren't let in on the big picture (What is this with clocks, bro? Have you no vision?) and they all thought they were the gang's top dog. this made for something very different, especially when you throw Neyla and outlawed Carmelita into the mix. but their team dynamics still sucked ass.

[kawarikisaki]

What if Hakuba has figured out why Kaito choses to be Kid and that’s why he’s more obviously supportive of him even if he wish he’d stop being a thief.

I think he probably has figured out part of it, but realistically, he's probably missing a lot of the details.

Like, he definitely knows Kaito isn’t doing it for the thrill as he probably suspected early on. All the evidence he needs to Know that Kaito’s motive is something personal is the fact that he has enemies that are actively gunning for him (whether we want to take the specials as canon or not), and the fact that Kid's heists are scheduled in such a way that they normally align with the full moon (we haven’t gotten to see Hakuba witnessing how he checks gems like Conan has, but its not too much of a stretch for him to have noticed the moon's involvement.)

It's even fairly safe to assume that he’s noticed that Kid's disappearance 8 years ago just so happens to coincide with when Kaito’s father died in a tragic stage accident. Which would definitely tell him why Kaito is Kid.

But that doesn’t really tell him what purpose Kid has.

So Hakuba is still left with Questions.

'His dad died, it was reported as an accident, but what if it was a murder?' 'Is Kaito after revenge?' 'What does the moon have to do with anything?' 'Kaito wouldn't kill someone, right?' 'Why is he primarily targeting gemstones?' 'Why does he return what he steals' 'it'd be more efficient to not send advance notices, is there a reason he needs to draw attention? Or is it just for style points?'

And maybe he has a few of those answers... but he doesn't have all of them, and Kaito won't confirm anything.

So if we take the Kaitou Kid specials as potential canon (cause they do change things, but there’s so little canon Hakuba that I'll take some dubious canon as a supplement) then Hakuba knows about Spider and has been specifically investigating him, so its not much of a stretch to think he could also be aware of Snake and have some degree of knowledge about the organization they work for. And if that's the case, maybe he's heard snippets about Pandora, maybe he's able to make some assumptions about the how and why of Toichi's death...

Maybe he wants to pull a 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend' with Kaito, perhaps even try to get Kaito some kind of pardon for helping with the investigation. He may not have the power to grant that personally, but perhaps he could pull some strings or get his dad to pull some strings.

But even if we assume he has that much information on the situation, he still doesn't know for sure what Kaito intends to do.

He's almost certain that Kaito doesn't intend to kill anyone. But he can't be 100% sure, because Kaito won't talk to him about Kid, and even if he did Kaito has a skillset that's optimized for lying. Even so, Hakuba believes Kaito wouldn't do that, he believes that Kaito is simply trying bring his father's killers to justice.

And he wants to help.

He's trying to help. Doing all he can to offer short of outright saying it.

But he can't really do much unless Kaito lets him in.

[eggsaladstain]

elaborate on the wasted potential? What parts would you have liked to explore?

Hi anon, I could go on and on about the wasted potential of Gyeongseong Creature but I will keep it relatively brief for both our sakes.

For the record, I did like the show, particularly the way it combined history with fiction to tell a story about dehumanized Koreans fighting back against their oppressors during the Japanese occupation of Korea. The titular creature is a physical manifestation of the atrocities committed by the Japanese soldiers against the Korean people and seeing the monster going on a violent rampage against those soldiers feels like an extreme version of the Korean people fighting for their country's freedom. But despite its best efforts, the show never really finds a way to tie the central theme of resistance and freedom to the rest of the plot. The resistance is more or less used as set dressing as neither of the two main characters, Tae-Sang and Chae-Ok, are members of the resistance movement, and the central plot of the season is a heist/horror story about uncovering the mysteries at Ongseong Hospital. The character who actually is a member of the resistance, Jun-Taek, has no real impact on the plot at all and his only noticeable contribution is the explosives used in the finale.

Think about how much more compelling a character Tae-Sang could've been if we'd gotten to see him transform from a selfish man who only cared about his own interests to a proud member of the resistance, finally finding a cause worth putting his life on the line for. By the end of episode 7, I thought the show had mostly achieved this, albeit clumsily, because we never really see why Tae-Sang had a change of heart and decided to be a hero, and if we're supposed to believe it's because of his feelings for Chae-Ok, I don't buy that for one second because the romance was half-baked at best. But then by the end of episode 10, he's once again shrugging off the title of patriot, and this is not a man who is humble, so what gives? Is he meant to be a charming rogue with a heart of gold or a selfish man who will be a hero only if it aligns with his personal interests? I still can't tell and I don't know if the writers themselves even know the answer - they kept trying to tell us he was the former but most of his actions pointed at him being the latter.

Even the horrific creature could've had a genuinely compelling arc if the show had bothered at all to humanize Seong-Sim prior to her transformation. I wanted desperately to root for mother monster to get her revenge against everyone who wronged her, but the show didn't give us any time to get to know her as a human, so it was hard for me to see her as anything but the monster she became. I wanted to believe that she still had some humanity, but the scenes of her protecting Chae-Ok ultimately fell flat because we never got to know the loving mother she had once been. Consider the flashback where Chae-Ok discovers the message her mother left for her on the wall. Now consider how much more impactful that scene would've been if we'd gotten to see it from Seong-Sim's perspective in real time in episode 1. It would've gone a long way in showing Seong-Sim's humanity and it would've made us believe in the love she had for her daughter, a love she would continue to hold onto even when she had lost everything else.

Towards the end of the show, it's revealed that multiple people close to Tae-Sang have all betrayed him at one point or another. But we barely know any of these characters or how they all became a part of each other's lives, and that emotional beat is once again lacking. This is what I mean by wasted potential. The show is full of moments like this, moments that should have been compelling and emotional, and could have been, if they've been tied together with a stronger, more cohesive script.

I don't know if you've watched Kingdom, anon, but it executes a similar concept to absolute perfection (in just 12 episodes and 1 movie) by using the supernatural element, zombies, as a vehicle to discuss its broader theme of hunger, both literal and metaphorical (which I've previously written about here and here). If you haven't watched it, I highly recommend it because it's a fantastic show on its own, and if you liked Gyeongseong Creature, I recommend Kingdom even more as an example of how this show could've been so much better than it was.