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galaxina-the-pyro · 4 years ago

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How would you improve the episode AYA?

...wait...you’re asking me?

I...I didn’t expect this...

The thing is is that I don’t think I could possibly come up with ideas for this better than, say, @authenticcadence18 or @springsfordays because their ideas are just too good (seriously, check them out, they have the literal best ideas for a rewrite of AYA, holy crap).

But if I were to rewrite it...hm...let’s make a checklist for stuff about AYA that just miffed me:

1. Plot B is fine. Plot B was probably the best part of AYA - Doof’s dilemma made sense for his character (and is hilarious), tied in with the name of the episode, and involved fun little shenanigans. My only gripe is that they didn’t go MONDO insane with it at the end, and said ending felt really abrupt.

(I also wish that, somehow, even Doof was involved with that “everyone knew” bit, but we’re gonna be scrapping that joke for this story - that joke is FUNNY, but it’s also degrading to Phineas, and is sorta a nice way of saying “yeah, you’re stupid for not noticing her feelings even though she’s not entitled to them - you’re the problem. It’s not like the episode is trying to hint at you two having switched roles, no, you’re the only one who was being oblivious and stupid.”)

2. We cut out Plot C entirely. Everyone trying to get Phineas and Isabella together was just...ugh. Why? And they had the audacity to compare what they were doing to all the AMAZING things they did when they were younger, like, guys - you set up some tables, decorations, and cooked them what I can assume to be a run-of-the-mill restaurant dinner - that has NOTHING on a rollercoaster through downtown. And their applause at that sweet but ultimately lackluster confession? Hurt. So much. Now that I think about it, it felt condescending, it unintentionally emphasized HOW uninspired this confession (as much as I love it) was, and it felt like they were taking credit for something they didn’t do.

And if we’re NOT gonna cut out Plot C...have Plot C be about FERB? Leaving for COLLEGE? Out of COUNTRY? Cuz I have a hard time believing that Phineas and Ferb are just OKAY with separating at such a long distance - heck, in “Candace Gets Busted”, FERB is the one who assumes that one day he and his brother are gonna own their own place together. It should at least be BROUGHT UP, don’t you think? (I’m conflicted on whether or not I’d keep Montessa in the ring or at least SHOW US how Ferbnessa happened, because I think what’s weirding people out is that they’re assuming that Vanessa literally waited for Ferb to turn 18 to start dating him - when I think it’s more likely that they kinda JUST started dating during the beginning of Summer? But I think stuff like that really SHOULD be explained because even though I don’t think it’s that weird, I understand why OTHER PEOPLE wouldn’t like the idea)

3. I kinda feel like this should have had more songs? I dunno why, I feel like this all could have been improved if we got a fullblown musical out of this (and...this may be me wanting a “What Might Have Been” reprise, lol) - like, make fun of HSM or something, you can’t tell me you wouldn’t have.

4. I kinda wanted to see more of the “where are they now”. Like, Jeremy, Stacey, Little Suzie Johnson, even that one couple with the lady who’s always like “what did you think, an anniversary dinner was just going to fall from the sky?” - I like stuff like that, it’s so much fun to think about. Also...I legit have so much anxiety over Perry never interacting with him owners ONCE in that episode, and even more anxiety over Pinky never making an appearance at all. Heck, if there was a good time to show us what the HECK happened to Django, now would be a great time.

5. I would have given the episode a unique intro, ala “Night of the Living Pharmacists” and “Last Day of Summer” - like, AYA is as much of a status quo shifter as those two episodes, why was it given the “Phineas and Ferb Get Busted” treatment?

6. Here’s a brilliant thought - NO ONE tells Phineas about Isabella’s crush? How about instead Phineas goes and wants to check in on her, because he really misses her and doesn’t understand why they don’t talk anymore (and he’s tried before, and they’ve nearly had conversations, but Isabella’s just too busy) - did he do something wrong? Is Isabella just too busy now? He needs to know. That should have been his priority, none of this “FrIeNd ZoNe” nonsense.

7. I would have made this into a near movie-length special. With all the topics that this episode brought up, particularly the whole “manipulating the situation” thing, I feel like a longer episode would have given them more time to talk about how stuff like that is...not okay.

[READ THE ACTUAL REWRITE OF THE EPISODE (well, my take at least) UNDER THE CUT!]

Okay, with those out of the way, how I would have written Phinabella the Movie...I mean...Act Your Age (I warn you, it’s not gonna be as good as @authenticcadence18′s or @springsfordays‘s ideas, so if you want quality stuff and not just mushy fanfiction fodder I’d check their stuff out):

I would have sorta made this entire thing take place during the “What Might Have Been” song - what that means is that it’s a collage of memories. How Isabella and Phineas met, how Isabella first got her “crush” (if you can really call it that, girl was full out in love lol), them building stuff with the gang during their canon ages, them going into highschool, Isabella ultimately choosing to give up her crush to maintain her friendship with Phineas (because her choosing to not be as close to Phineas because of a crush isn’t an option), Isabella’s first boyfriend (which probably’s gonna hurt a lot of fans, cuz I envision that to NOT be Phineas; but it’s Phinabella endgame, so relax); the episode just centers on the gang (mainly Isabella since it’s from her perspective) growing up.

Like, yes, all of the memories are gonna be Phinabella centered, but we gotta have SOME side-stories and junk, like maybe how Baljeet gets together with Ginger (and...how they break up...please don’t kill me), what ultimately leads Ferb to want to go back to England for studies (maybe it’s him wanting to be his own person and not wanting people to think he and his brother are just “a pair”), Buford...uh...something with Buford definitely, because I love him and he deserves it. Heck, maybe even the Fireside Girls can have their own arc with a graduation ceremony for their ranks (...what? I’m not linking stuff to the best fanfic ever, noooooo...why would-why would I do that?).

And maybe in this case Plot B SHOULD be different - maybe it should focus on how Doofenshmirtz first got to America, how he first met Charlene, what exactly led him to being evil in the first place, all that good stuff. Though, ultimately, that might be a little angsty - maybe there’s a reason why we don’t see exactly HOW Doof and Charlene divorced, because that could very well be the saddest scene ever, and it’s hard to put that kinda comedic spin on something so tragic (I mean, obviously there are comedies CENTERED on divorce, but like...they always SKIP the divorce part from what I’ve seen). Not to mention that this is a kid’s show, so...I doubt they’d actually show HOW it happened. This is just my thoughts. X’D

Back to the Phinabella.

Phineas and Isabella would have their confession during THIS part of the special rather than the very end (so, like...they’re still in highschool, and Isabella’s already broken up with that other dude in the story, and maybe Phineas had a girlfriend he just wasn’t happy with) - Phineas tries to do something big for Isabella, but it ultimately falls through because of Perry’s current nemesis (we never see who that is, lol), so he settles for something simple (at first he’s scared about it not “being enough” for someone like Isabella, but Ferb’s able to slap that nonsense out of him pretty quickly). He and Isabella spend the ENTIRE DAY together alone, leading to Phineas eventually singing a song he wrote for her to her, and the two have a cute little duet as a result (that has the opposite energy of “What Might Have Been”, so it’s important that somewhere in this episode that “What Might Have Been” is still a thing, it just doesn’t involve Phineas being aware of Isabella’s feelings, and it doesn’t involve Isabella trying to leave somewhere without saying goodbye, this would be more about Isabella, after trying to get over her crush, realizing that she still LIKES Phineas that way). They almost kiss, but they’re ultimately interrupted by Buford being Buford or something, but it implies that Phineas and Isabella are now a couple onwards from here.

Eventually it leads to a small party in the middle of Summer with the gang, with them playing some games and talking about how by the end of Summer, they won’t be seeing each other as much anymore because of college and stuff. They all remanence about the simple times - with Isabella eventually leaving (saying it’s because she needs to check on something, but really it’s because she’s sad that things are ending so quickly and she’s gonna miss everyone especially Phineas), and Phineas going after her to see if she’s alright (he’s oblivious, but he’s always been able to tell if she’s sad for the most part, save for maybe a few instances - but he’s older now, so he’s probably better at telling).

The two go for a stroll outside, and discuss the changes and stuff, how he and Isabella are ultimately going to have to work on a long-distance relationship and how Phineas is going to miss Ferb when he leaves the country, and how he’s gonna miss Isabella. And then they both realize that everything is gonna be okay, because they’ve literally dealt with worse situations and came out stronger for it - Isabella nor Phineas have any doubts in their minds that their relationship with each other or anyone else is going to sever just because of long distance.

Time moves onward, and there are a lot of changes (mainly talking about couples and other stuff - if it were me, there’d be endgame Buford/Gretchen and Ferb/Ginger of all people, and of course Candace and Jeremy would be married by this time). Phineas and Isabella are about to go into their last year of college, and decide to spend one more day together before they, once again, go their separate ways. The gang surprises Isabella by having made an ACTUALLY GOOD AND CREATIVE BACKYARD DINNER for the two per Phineas’ planning (the idea wasn’t bad, the execution was just lame imo), and long story short, Phineas proposes to Isabella. She obviously accepts, and everyone cheers for them as Isabella inner monologues about how change can be scary but it’s okay some mushy stuff about loved ones being there for you when you need them or something.

And finally, we cut to many years later, with Isabella as an adult now, looking out at the backyard of her current home, drinking some tea - this whole movie/special has taken place in this Isabella’s memories (if that makes sense), as she thinks on how she got there. The story ends with a child (we don’t know if it’s a boy or a girl) calling to her and calling her “mom”, and Isabella leaving to check on her kid.

And...that’s how I would have written “Act Your Age”. Again, I recommend this and this over my idea (because again, their takes on this episode are perfect, I don’t think anyone can top them), but if you like it then great. This was still fun to write out and stuff, and I hope you enjoyed it regardless. ^^;

#phineas and ferb #pnf #act your age #phinabella #act your age rant #episode rewrite #galaxina rants #not as good of a rewrite as others but i think it's decent at the very least #but i dunno #what do ya'll think #lol

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thesleepysphinx · 4 years ago

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chp. 1: Whatever, hi

A/N: Here’s chapter 1! Let me know if I made any mistakes, I am super new to this! <3

Masterlist • Next

As you pull up to the historic university, you can’t help but gawk at the architecture and greenery surrounding it. Sure, you had visited her before on tours when deciding which university to attend, but you will never get over the beauty of the campus. You pull your car into the parking lot designated for students moving in and turn it off, draping the lanyard for your keys over the back of your neck to make sure you didn’t lose them. Before you even think about unloading anything from your car, you text your soon to be roommate, Mina.

Hey, I just pulled up! Are you here yet?

You shove the phone in the pocket of your shorts immediately as you get out of the car, grabbing your backpack from the passenger seat. You get the bag situated on your shoulders and peer over towards your new dorm building. It was four stories tall and extremely wide, meant to house quite a number of the upperclassmen on campus. You sighed in relief knowing that you wouldn’t have to deal with 18 year olds who were being let loose for the first time in their lives. But you also sighed in annoyance remembering the dorm is co-op and you may have to deal with boisterous boys at all hours of the night. This should be interesting…

As you get lost in thought, still staring at the dorm and consequently the huge crowd of people forming in front of it, a buzz goes off in your pocket. You reach down and pull it out to see a response from Mina.

Yeah I’m here!!!! There’s so many people! I’ll meet you at your car what does it look like??? Where are you parked???

After giving her a detailed description of your location and car, you lean against the back of it, observing the crowd. You notice there are a few other people hanging back, not wanting to get involved in the frenzy. So many people were so eager to move in all their belongings, but you just wanted to relax. After the two hour drive there, it felt good to just stand. But you wouldn’t be standing for long… Without warning, you’re tackled from the side and nearly fall to the ground, but you steady yourself with your sturdy car. Now draped over you is a pink haired and pink bodied girl in a similar outfit to yours, a black tank top with jean shorts. You recognize her from the selfies you’d sent back and forth.

“Mina! You can’t kill me yet, we haven’t even moved in!” You laugh in feigned annoyance as you embrace her back. Though this is your first time meeting in person, the two of you had bonded a lot over text. She basically told you her entire life story, but it was all too much to digest. The most important details were that she was from Japan and came to the university with some friends from high school in a prestigious exchange student program. Apparently, she and her friends all excelled in different aspects of STEM fields and had worked on a large project together back in high school that earned them country-wide recognition. After she told you about all that, she wanted to add you into her group chat with her friends, but you declined, saying you’d rather meet them in person with her. She had responded to this with an “awww,” saying you were so sentimental and thoughtful. You were basically under the impression that she never has a negative thought at any moment of the day.

After a few moments of squeezing the life out of you, Mina let’s go and excitedly starts talking. “I can’t believe I’m finally meeting you! And you’re even more adorable in person! And look! We have the same style, even!” She gestures to your basically matching outfits.

You blush at her rushed compliment as you respond, “Normally I prefer leggings, but I didn’t want to be dying of heat stroke and drenched in sweat while we move our stuff in! Speaking of, where’s all your stuff?”

She points in a direction, and you follow her finger to a group of cars quite a ways out in the parking lot. There are five total cars all parked next to each other, with four people standing with them, the trunks of the cars open.

“Oh, are those your friends?”

“You bet’cha! Come on! Come meet them!” She starts to pull you by the hand with all the might she can muster. You follow along, letting her drag you to the group. As you get closer, you can see that all of her friends are boys, with three of them standing while one sits on the tailgate of a truck. Mina yells out to them, “Hey, guys! This is her! This is Y/N!”

Three of the boys wave, waiting till you get closer to actually say anything. Meanwhile the fourth one just glances at you, keeping one hand in his pocket while his other hand holds his phone, an earbud resting in one ear. Finally, Mina stops right in front of them and you come to a halt beside her, trying to catch your breath.

As you wait to breathe normally, Mina speaks for you, “Everyone, this is my new roommate!” She presents you to them with enthusiasm, so much so that you almost feel like you’re supposed to be putting on some sort of show.

You nervously lift a hand to wave to them and say, “Hey, guys! I’m Y/N, it’s nice to meet all of you! Mina told me a lot about you guys!” You can recognize their faces from pictures Mina sent of all of them together, but you were having a hard time remembering the names. You rub the back of your neck in embarrassment. “Sorry, but I didn’t learn your names from the pictures she sent very well!”

“Don’t worry about it!” A boy with spiked red hair pipes up. He scoots himself off the tailgate of the truck and walks straight up to you. He holds a hand out for you to shake as he says, “I’m Kirishima! But since we’re in America, you can call me by my first name Eijiro!”

His positive vibes rival Mina’s! You think to yourself. You take his hand and shake it enthusiastically. Before you can say anything, a boy with black hair steps up as well.

“And I’m Hanta! It’s nice t-.” Before he can finish, he’s lightly shoved by a golden blond boy.

The boy points to himself with a thumbs up as he says, “Denki Kaminari! Y’know, Mina never mentioned how cute you are!” He leans in closer, as if to get a better look. You shrink back a little bit at having your personal space invaded.

Mina speaks up for you once again. “I never mentioned it cause I didn’t want you bein’ creepy! Cut it out before you scare her and she never talks to me again!”

You giggle at Mina’s overdramatic nature. If there was one thing you were sure about, it was that you and Mina would get along very well as roommates. But as you surveyed the new friends standing in front of you, you noticed someone was missing. You look over Hanta’s shoulder to see the boy with ash blond spiky hair still has one hand in his pocket and is acting like you don’t exist.

Eijiro notices your gaze and follows it. “Oi, get over here Bakubro, stop being such a downer!”

The boy responds in an angry growl, “Don’t call me that, Shitty Hair.” Though his voice is angry, he doesn’t even look up from his phone.

Eijiro crosses his arms at him. “Dude, come on, you know you’re being an asshole. Just say hi.”

He sighs and finally tears his eyes away from his screen, locking eyes with you. “Whatever, hi, name’s Bakugo.” His eyes instantly move back to his phone. “There, happy?”

You move your hand to cover your mouth a bit to whisper to Mina, “Is he like this all the time?”

Mina basically deflates at this question as she answers, “Everyday since the first day of high school… It grows on you…”

You seriously doubt that, but you take her word for it. You’re broken out of your thoughts as Bakugo speaks up with annoyance, “Are we gonna check in or what?”

You look behind you to see that at this point the check in area is much less crowded. “Yeah, it looks a lot less chaotic now!” You turn over to Mina once again. “So, um… Do we grab our stuff right now or do we grab it later?” You feel stupid asking that question, but you’ve never moved into a dorm before. Before today, you’d always lived at home with your family.

The boys stare at you a little dumbfounded. But out of all the people to speak up, it’s the one that you deem the resident asshole. “Aren’t you a third-year? Haven’t you done this shit before?”

You look down at the asphalt in front of your feet as you explain, “I am, but I just transferred here from another school that doesn’t have dorms, so this is all new to me… Sorry if my stupidness gets in your way.”

You’re instantly met with different phrases of reassurance, all of them melding together so you couldn’t decipher a single one. The only one to not provide reassurance is Bakugo… How the hell are all these positive people friends with him?

“Jeez, Mina, did you pack a damn dumbbell in here? The box is heavier than all hell!” You strain out through your teeth.

She strains to speak as well as she jokes, “Haha! Kiri would be the one packing dumbbells! But no, all of this is - is makeup!” She grunts as the two of you set the box down finally in the center of your shared dorm room. You have to admit that it is much larger than you expected. You each have a full size bed and full sized dresser and desk, all supplied by the university. All you were really expecting was a twin sized bed with little to no closet space. This was more than a pleasant surprise.

You and Mina had worked together to get all of your stuff up to your second floor dorm. Unfortunately, the building didn’t have an elevator. You really didn’t envy those living on the fourth floor. With the last box finally set in the room you step back outside the door to observe your new home. You look to the side of the door to see “Room 226” on a plaque above a whiteboard meant for you and Mina to draw on as you pleased. You were lucky to get a corner room, so you would only have one neighbor. But, lucky you, that neighbor happened to be an asshole.

As you stood there marvelling, a gruff voice took you out of your trance. “What’s with the dumbass look, extra?”

You don’t even have to look to know who it is. Instead, you cross your arms and respond, “What does it take for you to not be an ass?”

Mina looks up from her unpacking to see you standing in the doorway and you listen to her desperate attempt to get you out of his line of fire. “Hey! Y/N, come help me figure out how to organize all this!”

You clench your jaw before making any other move. As you start to walk back into your dorm, you glance at Bakugo to find that he’s glistening in sweat from carrying his belongings up and down stairs in the heat. You only see his face for half a second, but you almost think you see amusement in his grin. How the hell am I supposed to stand living next to a smug asshole like him? Finally inside, you shut the door behind you with a loud slam.

“How in the hell are you friends with that gremlin?!”

Mina obviously tries to hold in a laugh, but fails miserably as she erupts into laughter. You look on in confusion, trying to wrap your head around why this is so funny. Eventually, her laughs subside a bit to answer you.

“I’m sorry, it’s just that normally when people meet him they just avoid him instead of calling him out. He’s pretty rough around the edges, but he’s a good friend.” She starts to organize her makeup onto a shelf as she continues on. “Honestly, the rest of us are pretty eccentric and make a lot of bad decisions. Bakugo is the one to chew us out when we fuck up and set us on the right track.”

You start to rummage through your own belongings, hanging up some shirts in the closet. “Well if you ask me, he doesn’t have to be an asshole about everything. I knew him for all of five seconds and he was a dick!”

Mina giggles at your words, finishing up her display of makeup. “To be honest, so far he’s been pretty tame. You should have seen the guy back in high school. Hell, even last semester he was worse! Maybe something happened over summer to mellow him out.” She reaches for another box of her belongings as you finish up putting all your clothes in the closet and dresser.

You reach for your own box and find it’s the one containing your sheets and comforter for your new bed. As you uncrumple the fitted sheet and turn to the bed, you realize something pretty significant.

“Oh crap, I might have to share a wall with him… Ugh, whatever.”

“I can always switch with you if you like?” Mina suggests.

“It’s fine, I can deal with it.” You fit your fitted sheet to the bed and throw your regular sheet on top of it, smoothing it out. “Besides, maybe I can subtly annoy him if he happens to share the wall. I don’t mind being petty.”

After going back and forth between boxes and in-dorm storage for an hour or two, you and Mina had completed your move in. You both sit carefully deconstructing the boxes for your eventual move out of the dorms. Might as well save the boxes to save the trouble later! With the last boxes folded and tucked underneath your beds, you both step back to the doorway to observe the now decorated room. Luckily, this dorm building allows things to be mounted to the wall.

You are more than impressed. “I still can’t believe the dorm is this big! Are all the dorm buildings like this?”

“Most of them are a lot smaller, but upperclassmen are given bigger spaces. With all this room for activities, we could have huge sleepovers!” Mina reaches her arms up towards the ceiling in excitement as her smile beams.

Just as Mina let her arms down, a knock comes at the door behind you, making you jump a bit in surprise. Mina opens it immediately and comes to face Eijiro. His smile is so big that it matches Mina’s almost exactly.

“Hey girls! We’re gonna go grab some of the free food they have over in the quad, you wanna come?”

Even though you didn’t think it was possible, Mina’s smile grows even bigger. “Hell yeah, perfect timing! We just finished up here! Come on, Y/N!”

You swiftly grab your keys from your desk and clip them onto your lanyard before walking out the door to join Mina and Eijiro in the hallway. As you do, you see he is also waiting in the hallway. You avoid eye contact with him, instead opting to keep your attention on Mina as you walk down the hall towards the stairs. But as your attention stays on her as you walk down the stairs, you feel eye burning holes in the back of your head. You ignore it for now, knowing that Bakugo is trying to get under your skin. Instead of looking back, you allow your pettiness to show.

“I can’t believe how fun today already is, Mina! All of your friends have been so nice to me! Well, almost all of them!” You make sure your voice is projecting enough for Bakugo to hear.

It sounds like you succeeded as you hear a soft, “Tch,” comes from behind you. But another sound catches your attention.

Eijiro starts laughing uncontrollably at the comment, tears clouding his eyesight. He starts to stumble on the steps, unable to fully see where he is. He looks back at Bakugo and says, “She’s calling you out, bro! That’s rare!”

“Shut the hell up, Shitty Hair. Like I give a shit.” He continues walking down the steps past everyone. As he steps past you, the space is tight so he has to brush against you. The skin of his arm is warm, but no longer sweaty from moving in like it was earlier. You also notice the rippling muscle under the warm skin, his form fitting tank top leaving them completely exposed. You scold yourself in your head. Why do the assholes have to be so hot?

You continue after him with Eijiro finally catching his breath and recovering his eyesight. Mina grabs your arm and loops her own through it. “Damn, you really don’t mind petty! I must admit, it’s funny to see someone get Bakugo pissed off like that. And the best part is that he’s stuck with you since you’re our friend!”

You laugh at her point, countering it with, “Well, if he kills me one of these days, he won’t be stuck with me anymore!”

Bakugo continues walking, reaching the bottom of the stairs, as he mumbles back just loud enough for you to hear, “Don’t push your luck, dumbass.”

With a plate of free pizza in hand, you walk towards a nearby empty table. The tables are all round and have a white tablecloth on them. As you sit down, Mina sits on your other side, filling up another one of the 6 chairs around the table. Then next to her is Eijiro… then Denki… and Hanta… until there is just one seat left next to you. Bakugo sits down without hesitation with a plate of grilled chicken and a salad. As you look around, you notice everyone else has followed your lead and gotten pizza. Bakugo notices this too, it seems.

“What the hell are you doing eating that crap?” he says to no one in particular.

Eijiro is the first to answer. “Come on man, you know I’m a health nut, but I can’t turn down pizza!”

Next to you, you hear a, “Tch,” no doubt that it is once again Bakugo. “Health nut my ass, you’ve never even touched a stove to make your own food.”

“That’s a great idea!” Mina yells immediately as she stands from her seat, hands planted on the table. “We should all cook our food together! It’ll be so much fun!”

Once again, Mina’s enthusiasm triumphs over all.

Hanta speaks up to add to Mina’s vague plan. “It’ll be cheaper too. Might as well!”

Everyone nods in agreement, mouths full of their food. Except Bakugo. He just keeps eating with no response towards your friend. How apathetic can one person be?

#learning experience #bakugo x reader #katsuki x reader #bnha #mha #mha x reader #bnha x reader #collegeau

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onebadwinter · 4 years ago

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Baron Helmut Zemo Tropes

Taken from Here and Here

Anti-Villain: Sometimes verges on this, though it's a case of Depending on the Writer.

Arch-Enemy: After his father's death, he takes this role to Captain America and leads the Masters of Evil after inheriting the title.

Aristocrats Are Evil: He's a baron after all, and believes his aristocratic heritage entitles him to rule.

Avenging the Villain: Helmut's original motive was to kill Captain America because he killed his father. Eventually, Helmut came to the realization that actually, Heinrich was an awful father and an even worse person.

Badass Normal: Has no powers, but regularly fights the likes of Captain America and the Avengers. He usually has a contingency that will allow him to deal with his opponent's plans anyway; it's only when these contingencies fail (as happened during his battle with Moonstone at the end of the initial run on Thunderbolts) that he's in trouble.

The Big Bad: Of his fare share of arcs, particularly those involving the Masters of Evil.

Brain Uploading: He only survived being decapitated because Techno uploaded his consciousness to a computer.

Butter Face: A Rare Male Example. He has the body you'd expect of somebody who can keep up with Captain America in terms of physique... but that handsome form is contrasted by a hideously malformed visage. For a while, he had a young, dashing look again after hijacking the body of the Helmut from another Earth, but only two years later his face got disfigured again. When he got Carla Sofen's Moonstone, he used it to fix that, but when Melissa broke it again...

Calling the Old Man Out: During his trip back in time, he ran into his father while the latter was gleefully doing mad science for the Nazis. Helmut had long since discarded any Nazi prejudices he had once had, and was fuming watching his father put down other races, the handicapped, etc. Finally he had enough and started beating the hell out of him while giving a "Reason You Suck" Speech. Quite the sign of Character Development for the guy who started out worshiping and avenging his father's memory.

Captain Patriotic: At the beginning of the Thunderbolts, he disguised himself as Citizen V, supposedly the son of a previous hero who'd gone by that name, whom Zemo had killed. Zemo went the whole hog, even decking himself in a cape designed after the American flag.

The Chessmaster: Zemo has a plan for everything, and lays them out months in advance.

Cool Mask: Wears a tighter fitting version of his father's mask.

The Cynic: Has a generally negative view of humanity.

Daddy Issues: He loved his father, and his father loved him... until the Adhesive X incident, where he became outright abusive in every way. Originally, Helmut blamed Captain America. Now, he acknowledges that his father was just a horrible human being.

Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: He once shot the Grandmaster, one of the Elders of the Universe and a being way outside his normal weight class, through the head. Admittedly, there were mitigating circustances that allowed him to do this, and the Grandmaster did get better (because, hey, comics).

Disney Villain Death: Many, many times (see Never Found the Body below).

Even Evil Has Standards: Arranged the death of one of his ancestors during a time-travel jaunt, after he found out the man was a rapist and a mass-murderer who did it all For the Evulz. He later clashed with another ancestor when he thought he was harassing a girl (the two were actually in love, and he quickly apologised).

Evil Genius

Evil Is Petty:

The Faceless: He rarely ever removes his mask, due to his face being horribly scarred in a accident.

Facial Horror: His head has been slashed up so badly that it's practically a skull, with ribbons of flesh draping over his eyes and sliced-off cheeks and lips. The sight of his face visibly disgusts everyone in the original Thunderbolts.

Freudian Excuse: Raised by his father to believe in his inherent superiority. There wasn't a lot of dad hugs down in that South American jungle, mostly just rants and lectures.

Good Scars, Evil Scars: Hideously disfigured beneath his mask.

Grand Theft Me: After becoming a "ghost", his mind was transferred to the actual son of Citizen V (Techno noted it was basically him playing a joke). That is, until an energy conflict - the V-Batallion tried to teleport Citizen V as the body was being sucked into a portal - made his mind be expelled into Techno's machinery. But given he arrived at Counter-Earth, this meant Zemo could do a literal case of the trope, and took the body of his self from this world.

Heel–Face Revolving Door: Cannot make up his mind which side he is supposed to be on. He even once took a bullet for Cap despite being his sworn enemy.

In the Blood: The arrogance and the drive for control certainly are.

Joker Immunity: Unlike his father, he can never seem to be put down for long.

The Leader: Of the Masters of Evil and the Thunderbolts.

Legacy Character: To his father, Baron Heinrich Zemo XII.

Manipulative Bastard: Zemo's very good at getting other people to do what he wants, playing on their emotions and desires.

Master Swordsman: One of the best in the Marvel Universe. Zemo's dueled the likes of Captain America and survived several decades worth of warfare on a time travel jaunt.

Nazi Nobleman: Started out as one, though he's moved away from fascism in recent years. Nowadays his goals align more with Dirty Communists.

Never Found the Body: During the run of Thunderbolts alone he was declared dead on four separate occasions, all of which turned out to be false. In each instance, his body was never found. By the fourth time, most of the team just assume he'll turn up eventually (not that they want him to).

Noble Demon: He's much more noble than his father,for sure.

Purple Is Powerful: Signifies his aristocratic leanings.

Secondary Color Nemesis: Purple, to oppose Cap's blue and red.

Take Over the World: He insists it's to save it. Some people (like Songbird) aren't convinced.

Taking the Bullet: Once leapt in the way of an energy blast an insane Moonstone aimed at Captain America. Messed his face up bad.

There Are No Therapists: This guy is seriously messed up and would probably have turned out differently if he got professional help.

Token Evil Teammate: Alongside Techno, he serves as this for the first iteration of Thunderbolts. While most members of the team fall somewhere between The Hero and the Anti-Hero, Zemo shows no signs of having softened whilst playing-hero, and alongside Techno manages to almost conquer the world and turn it into a Darwinist nightmare. He also constantly mocks his teammates for wanting to be heroes, calling them "weak" and "traitors to the cause" when they show the smallest signs of heroism outside of their pubic duties.

Unlucky Thirteen: He's the thirteenth Baron Zemo.

Well-Intentioned Extremist: In his mind, at any rate, after some Character Development, he becomes determined to take over the world for its own good. That doesn't mean that he's not an Axe-Crazy terrorist who's willing to perform some truly heinous actions for the sake of the "greater good." Zemo: I would never have hurt a world I worked so hard to save.

Western Terrorists: More like this than a Nazi.

Wicked Cultured: When being held at swordpoint by his worst ancestor, an evil aristocrat who believed only in the absolute of power, said ancestor's son (who'd struck up a friendship with Zemo) asked what was more absolute than power. Zemo's answer? "To be, or not to be."

Worthy Opponent: Sometimes sees Captain America this way, and definitely sees Sharon Carter this way.

Xanatos Speed Chess: He's good at incorporating the gambits of others into his plans, as evidenced by his deft manipulation of Moonstone when they were both members of the Thunderbolts.

One of his nastiest acts of spite was destroying a box of Cap's treasured belongings, including some of his last links to the past, right in front of his eyes.

What was his initial plan in founding the Thunderbolts? Pretend to be heroes, earn America and the world's trust, become famous and respected, and then gather knowledge on the other heroes to... sell to the criminal underworld? Eventually, Moonstone points out this is a freaking stupid plan.

Taken to the highest extreme possible. When he actually did have the power to implement whatever change he might have wanted, Songbird shut him down with the intention of killing him out of not trusting him. What were what he believed could have been his last words?

MCU Zemo Tropes

Adaptational Attractiveness: He's quite handsome here, while his comic counterpart usually has to wear a mask to hide his hideously charred, disfigured face. This is true to his first appearance in the comics as a one-shot villain, before he was scarred upon becoming a recurring character.

Adaptational Heroism: In The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, when he does don his iconic comic book alter ego, unlike in the comics where he was a straight-up one-note supervillain, Zemo here is depicted so far as an Ambiguously Evil Anti-Hero ally of Avengers Sam and Bucky without mostly ever betraying them until his escape from the hotel in the fourth episode with most of his redeeming and justifiable qualities shown upfront more than his villainous qualities that Civil War mostly showcased, but still likely an on-and-off antagonist simultaneously during his Enemy Mine with the two superheroes.

Adaptational Nationality: In the comics Helmut Zemo is German, but here he is a Sokovian. Ironically, his actor actually is German, and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier sees a bit of his German accent creep in. He also has a vast array of vehicles and a private plane in Germany, and seems very familiar with both Berlin and the German language. Whether this is a Retcon into making him part German or just a Mythology Gag is yet to be seen, though he does identify Sokovia as "his country".

Adaptational Nice Guy: His comic counterpart and that of his father were literal Nazis who wanted mass genocide and world domination, and while the Helmut of the comics did grow out of the former, he still tends to try the latter. This version of Zemo, despite being on a black ops killing team, has a much simpler and more sympathetic motivation, while his father was merely a civilian. Neither have any ties to HYDRA (aside from Helmut's exploitation of HYDRA's Winter Soldier project), while the versions from the comics are both prominent members of that organisation.

Adaptational Wimp: In the comics Zemo is a major adversary of Captain America and the Avengers, with a particular emphasis on his skills at fencing and manipulation. While this version retains his cunning, he is also presented as much less of a direct threat to anyone despite being a former black operative; when Black Panther decides to bring him in alive, he goes down with barely a struggle. Most of his success ties into this, with him exploiting his lack of obvious supervillainous affect to stay under the heroes' radar until his plan requires him to show his hand, then relying on Steve and Tony's flaws and personal issues to do most of the work for him. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier shows that he hasn't forgotten how to do his own dirty work, however, putting his soldier skills to use alongside his usual guile and strategizing once he gets back into the fray.

Adaptation Personality Change: In the comics, Zemo is generally depicted as an unapologetic villain who is primarily driven by a selfish desire to rule over others. His film version, on the other hand, has a much more sympathetic motive for his villainous actions, as he's just a victim of the Avengers' collateral damage in Sokovia seeking revenge for the death of his entire family.

Affably Evil:

Alas, Poor Villain: His defeat in Civil War is treated as an utterly somber affair, with him having nothing left after completing his plan and hoping to commit Suicide by Cop at T'Challa's hands before trying to kill himself when T'Challa refuses to be consumed by vengeance as Zemo has. Even though he got what he wanted (up to a point), it doesn't change the fact that his family is gone forever.

The Alcoholic: Following his escape from prison in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Zemo reveals himself to be a little bit of a tippler, partaking in shots, champagne, helping himself to Sharon's expensive liquor collection, then taking more shots at a club. He apparently approves of the way they party in Madripoor.

All for Nothing: He wanted to destroy the Avengers and was content with them dividing. Thanos's arrival and the events of Endgame undo all of that. In fact, the Avengers are no doubt more beloved than ever as a result.

Anti-Villain: Despite the grim and often hypocritical in hindsight actions he resorts to, he does have some good traits and was hoping for a cleaner way to get what he wanted first. Also, his motive — revenge for the collateral damage-induced loss of his family — is at least a little sympathetic.

Apple of Discord: His Evil Plan is to find evidence that Bucky Barnes murdered Tony Stark's parents while under HYDRA control and show it to Stark, so Bucky's friend Steve Rogers and Tony will turn on each other over whether to spare or kill Bucky, and the Avengers will be ripped apart as they side with one leader or the other.

Arch-Enemy: Since the death of Ulysses Klaue, it seems Zemo has taken his seat as Wakanda's most wanted for the death of King T'Chaka. Not a day after he breaks out of prison, Ayo is already hot on his trail to capture him.

Aristocrats Are Evil: It's revealed in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier that he is a nobleman like his comic counterpart. Though unlike said counterpart, his upbringing had nothing to do with him becoming a villain since his father was by all accounts a decent man in this universe.

Badass Longcoat: The events of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier have Zemo wearing a stylish winter coat, complete with Conspicuous Gloves.

Badass Normal: Unlike most of the Avengers, he's just a plain old human. But, through sheer patience and ingenuity, he still managed to tear them apart. During the trip to Madripoor he proves to be no slouch in combat either, reminding everyone he was former special forces. He also comes much closer to permanently stopping Morgenthau than Falcon or Bucky have ever managed so far, largely because he's fully willing to kill.

The Bad Guy Wins: Downplayed. Zemo has achieved his goals but with never with the fully desired outcome.

Batman Gambit: He's good at finding ways to make other people do things for him by exploiting their predictable behavior.

Beard of Evil: He has grown a beard during his eight years in prison as seen in Episode 2 of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

Beware the Superman: His return in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier reveals his own take on the idea. While he is against the idea of a Super Soldier on principle, he is not specifically against them as people, but more how they are precisely put on a pedestal, their flaws washed away/ignored and subsequently inspire Blind Obedience. He specifically notes how the personal loyalty inspired by Steve Rogers to Sam and Bucky (then, even now) precisely drives them to such extremes—even breaking the law much like they did to free him. Sam and Bucky do not protest the point. He admits that Steve was not corrupted by the power he was given but points out there was only one of him compared to the many who would abuse it. He is proven right on this point by John Walker taking the super soldier serum and going off the deep end.

Big Bad: Of Captain America: Civil War. He exploits and exacerbates the ideological differences between Captain America and Iron Man, resulting in the eponymous Good vs Good conflict that threatens to destroy the Avengers.

Big Damn Villains: As Sam, Bucky, and Sharon are pinned down by bounty hunters in the Madripoor shipyard, Zemo suddenly makes a grandiose entrance in full villain garb on a ledge, killing several assassins by shooting a nearby gas tank with his pistol before going to ground and taking down the rest in close combat, opening up the heroes' window of escape.

Blue Blood: The Falcon and The Winter Soldier reveals that he was always a baron. While the fall of Sokovia took away most of the power of the title he still has a lot of money and connections as a result of his position.

Breaking the Fellowship: Thanks to his efforts, the Avengers are severely compromised, with several of the foundational friendships that held them together torn apart and anyone who sided with Cap imprisoned or branded a fugitive. Even Tony and his supporters still bear physical and mental scars caused by fighting their friends.

The Bus Came Back: After being imprisoned at the end of Civil War, Zemo returns in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, with the title characters seeking his assistance in tracking down the source of the Flag Smashers's Super Soldier powers.

Cape Busters: Has a personal grudge against the Avengers and plots to destroy them by pitting them against one another. By the time of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, he has apparently narrowed his vendetta to all super soldiers, stating that they "cannot be allowed to exist." At the same time, as stated above in Beware the Superman, his is more nuanced compared to other versions of this trope.

Character Tic: He has a habit of tilting his head whenever he's attempting to manipulate someone. It seems to be a subconscious thing he does, as he immediately stops doing it when Sam notices and lampshades it in Episode 4 of The Falcon and The Winter Soldier.

The Chessmaster: He plays all the Avengers like pawns. He frames Bucky for a crime, to have the world hunt him and lure him out of hiding. This partially causes the Avengers to turn on each other, divided over Bucky's innocence. He takes the UN interrogator's place, extorting information out of Bucky and using the trigger words to activate Bucky's soldier conditioning. Before finally showing Tony the tape of what really happened to his parents, sending him into a murderous rage to kill Bucky.

Colonel Badass: He used to be a Colonel in the Sokovian Special Forces, and he is one of the most effective foes the Avengers have faced — though not because of his combat abilities, but because of how effective he is about executing his plans.

Comic-Book Movies Don't Use Codenames: In Civil War, he's never called "Baron Zemo", the title he goes by in the comics, and is instead referred to by his military rank Colonel. This is subverted in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, which reveals that he was Sokovian royalty and has several characters address him as "Baron".

The Comically Serious: His stoic demeanour tends to stick out when he's in the same room as Sam and Bucky, like when he awkwardly jumps to the defense of Marvin Gaye's "Trouble Man" soundtrack, or his crappy dancing in Sharon's nightclub.

Composite Character: He takes Klaue's role as the man who murders King T'Chaka.

Cool Car: He actually has a lot of these. His family owned an impressive collection of classics, with plenty of Rolls' and Bentleys in his garage. It's a taste he himself had acquired, as he, Sam, Bucky and Sharon make their getaway out of Madripoor in a super-charged muscle car he had stashed in the docks.

Crusading Widower: His wife was among the civilian casualties in Sokovia. He keeps a recording of her last voice message on his phone.

Cunning Linguist: Zemo's multilingualism allows him to assume different identities. Aside from his native Sokovian, he speaks English, German, Russian, and presumably French, given that he was able to convincingly impersonate a French-speaking psychologist.

Death Seeker: Once he has put Iron Man against Bucky and Cap, he first attempts to persuade Black Panther into killing him, then decides to shoot himself. Black Panther catches the bullet before snagging him a headlock so he can face justice.

Determinator: He manages to find new resolve after Civil War, and Iron Man's sacrifice has done little to change his views. With Iron Man dead and Captain America retired, he decides he will stop the creation of any and all super soldiers in the world no matter what happens.

Divide and Conquer: His plan against the Avengers, seeing that there's absolutely no chance he can fight them on his own. He even compares the Avengers to some sort of a mighty empire, which can only be felled by using this tactic.

Driven to Suicide: Tries to goad T'Challa into killing him, and then to shoot himself when he refuses. Neither works out for him; making enemies of a guy with Super Strength and a bulletproof suit was a bad idea, evidently.

Elites Are More Glamorous: His family is Sokovian nobility and he was colonel in EKO Scorpion, Sokovia's black ops kill squad. Even if Sokovia was a developing Balkans country, that still makes him pretty dangerous.

Enemy Mine: Downplayed Trope. Despite not personally hating Sam and Bucky, the latter two consider their alliance with Zemo this due to Civil War and the damage he caused; the only reason they tolerate him is that he can accomodate them with the resources they need to take down the Flag-Smashers. To his credit, Zemo doesn't hesitate in helping their cause because of his Beware the Superman beliefs, even expressing interest in facing Karli Morgenthau herself.

Even Evil Has Standards:

Evil Genius: While he has combat training, his greatest strength is his intellect. Aside from his abilities as The Chessmaster, Zemo was able to crack the encrypted HYDRA files on the Winter Soldier program that Black Widow released to the Internet and build a very effective EMP bomb in his hotel room.

Face Death with Dignity: When T'Challa finally catches up with him at the end of Civil War, he's completely calm and fully prepared for T'Challa to kill him to avenge his father, even seeming to acknowledge that in his mind T'Challa's revenge against him is just as justified as his own revenge against the Avengers. Later, in episode 5 of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, he's completely calm and accepting when it looks like Bucky is going to execute him, and later he calmly walks away with the Dora Milaje when they show up to take him into custody, knowing there's a decent chance he's going to be executed in a spectacular fashion in Wakanda for killing the king (for some reason the Dora Milaje went to all that trouble just to turn him over to the U.N. where he'll be held in the same prison that used to hold Captain America's half of the Avengers, but he's got no way of knowing that).

Facial Scruff: His brief appearance in the second episode of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier has Zemo with this due to his time spent in prison. Downplayed in that it looks relatively thin despite having been locked up for eight years at this point, and he shaves it off shortly after.

Fantastic Racism: He has a distaste for enhanced individuals in general, and super soldiers in specific. Specially if such super soldiers are put on pedestals he deems completely unearned.

Flaw Exploitation: He turns the Avengers, particularly Steve and Tony, against each other through a series of Batman Gambits with the ultimate goal of making them fight each other to the death — or if not that, at least to the point of no longer being a cohesive unit. In particular, he reveals to Tony the truth of what happened to his parents knowing that he'll go into an Unstoppable Rage against Bucky and that Cap will prioritise keeping Bucky alive even at Tony's expense.

Friend to All Children: Invoked in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. In the fourth episode, Zemo earns the trust of a few children in Latvia by offering them sweets in exchange for information. But he also uses to opportunity to manipulate them into thinking Bucky and Sam aren't to be trusted.

Four Eyes, Zero Soul: When he infiltrates the UN compound to activate the Winter Soldier, he wears a pair of glasses as part of his disguise.

From Nobody to Nightmare:

Gambit Roulette: The final part his master plan relies on little other than his assumptions on the personalities and capabilities of various characters after studying thousands of pieces of intel from HYDRA and S.H.I.E.L.D. that Black Widow dumped online back in Winter Soldier. The whole thing would have fallen apart if...

Godzilla Threshold: Sam and Bucky see recruiting him to stop the Flag-Smashers at this...and ultimately cross it when they run out of options.

Heads I Win, Tails You Lose: Even if any of the above had happened, Zemo still would’ve won because his entire goal was for the Avengers to disband - whether through an amicable parting-of-ways or a bloodbath - it was always a matter of how big his win would be. The only real flaw in his plan was the interference of Black Panther, and the creation of the Sokovia Accords, both of which he’d have no way to account for.

He Who Fights Monsters: He wants to take revenge for the death of his family, which he blames on the Avengers for causing collateral damage in the Battle of Sokovia. In doing so, he is responsible for the deaths of dozens of innocent people himself. He even earns someone coming after him for revenge in T'Challa.

Hidden Agenda Villain: His motives remain unclear for much of Civil War and are only revealed as the final battle is taking place.

Hidden Depths: Like Sam, he's a fan of Marvin Gaye and considers "Trouble Man" a masterpiece.

High Collar of Doom: He does the Marquee Alter Ego and Not Wearing Tights through the whole of Civil War, but his winter gear in the third act features a large collar turned up, giving off this vibe. His supervillain gear in Falcon and the Winter Soldier also features one of these, albeit with his comic self's fur trim included.

Human Shield: Thanks to his EKO Scorpion training, is fully capable of taking hostages to hide and shoot behind, as a group of assassins in Madripoor discovered.

Hypocrite:

Interrupted Suicide: After explaining his motivations to T'Challa and apologizing for the death of his father, Zemo tries to shoot himself in the head. T'Challa, however, has none of that, and stops him to make sure he pays for his crimes and turns him over to the authorities.T'Challa: The living are not done with you yet.

It's Personal: Zemo has a personal vendetta against the Avengers. His family was killed during the Battle of Sokovia and he simply wants revenge on those he holds responsible. As pointed out in Beware the Superman, he extends this to any Super Soldier held in such high regard, which is why he has no problem teaming up with Sam (who's more or less Badass Normal like himself) and Bucky (who is a Super Soldier, but isn't exactly held in high regard). When he, Sam, Bucky, and Sharon come across the HYDRA scientist responsible for creating more Super Soldiers after the failed Siberian Winter Soldiers, Zemo quietly and stoically shoots the man before the team is attacked.

Jerkass Has a Point: In episode 4 of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Zemo explains why he doesn’t believe that super soldiers should be allowed to exist. By his own previous statements, Sam would probably agree with much of what he says, and John Walker spends the rest of the episode illustrating his arguments.

Kick the Son of a Bitch:

Kill and Replace: Murders the psychologist who was supposed to be evaluating Bucky and takes his place, taking the opportunity to activate Bucky's brainwashing during the evaluation.

Knight of Cerebus: He's a Villainous Underdog, but he manages to tear the Avengers apart through tactics. Unlike previous villains, his methods includes manipulating Tony into trying to execute Bucky to avenge the deaths of his parents and turning on Steve in the process. Averted in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier when his Laughably Evil side lightens the mood.

Know When to Fold 'Em:

Laser-Guided Karma:

Laughably Evil: Downplayed the next time he makes an appearance as he becomes The Comically Serious in an Endearingly Dorky kind of way when he joins in Sam's conversation with Bucky to praise Marvin Gaye's "Trouble Man" soundtrack, or his lame dancing in Sharon's nightclub.

Manipulative Bastard: He is very skilled at manipulation, having studied the Avengers' psychological profiles in order to exploit their individual weaknesses and play them against each other.

Man of Wealth and Taste: Zemo is a baron and more than loaded, owning a private jet, a fleet of classic cars, a personal retainer, and plenty of money and stashed resources.

Marquee Alter Ego: In Civil War, Zemo does not wear a mask — or any kind of costume at all, unlike his comic book counterpart. This changes in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

Master of Disguise: Zemo uses prosthetics and heavy makeup in order to convincingly make himself look like Bucky Barnes in the security cameras, fooling just about everyone into thinking the latter was responsible for the UN explosion. He later pulls a Kill and Replace on the psychiatrist who was intended to interview a contained Bucky with no one none the wiser until things start going wrong. Although the latter example is downplayed as when Tony finally discovers the real psychiatrist's body, he looks decidedly nothing like Zemo's impersonation of him.

Misplaced Retribution: Zemo holds the Avengers responsible for all the damage Ultron caused; while Tony and Bruce did create Ultron (after the former was influenced by Wanda), the "end all human life" thing was still his idea. The rest of the Avengers, however didn't know about Tony's plan, and did their best to stop Ultron once he went rogue.

Moral Myopia: He seeks to avenge his family, but he ends up killing multiple innocents who surely had family of their own. He acknowledges this, seeing as how he apologizes to Black Panther for killing his father but by that time he’s hoping to be killed so he can join his family, either by T’Challa or his own hand, so it’s more about easing his conscience rather than remorse for what his actions indirectly caused.

Movie Superheroes Wear Black: Instead of the purple and gold costume he had in the comics, he sticks to dark civilian clothes. Near the end of Civil War, he has a pitch-black coat with a large collar. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier trailers and promo images however reveal he’ll be getting a new costume featuring his signature purple mask and even incorporating the classic ermine trim on his collar.

Nazi Hunter: As part of his Adaptational Nice Guy he's no longer a member of the Nazi-affiliated and fascistic HYDRA group, but is shown to despite and openly oppose them, telling Karpov that "HYDRA deserves its place on the ash heap". The Falcon and the Winter Soldier has him openly despise Nazis and reveals that he'd been hunting down and killing HYDRA members for years as part of his quest to destroy the Super Serum, long before the destruction of Sokovia.

Necessary Evil: How Bucky, and especially Sam, view him in their fight against the Flag-Smashers. No one knows more about the super-soldier serum and Hydra than Zemo, and fortunately for them, they have a common enemy in the Flag-Smashers.

Nice Job Fixing It, Villain!: While his plan does succeed in its goal, it does allow Steve to find Bucky, after fruitlessly spending two years scouring the Earth for him, and gives them an ally who can get the brainwashing out of Bucky's head.

Nice to the Waiter: He is quite friendly and courteous to both a staff member of the hotel he stayed at for Civil War, and his old family butler.

No-Nonsense Nemesis: Zemo is an extremely pragmatic man who knows full well that he's just an ordinary person in an extraordinary world, and realizes that it will give him no quarter if he were to dally about with regards to his vengeance. He has no choice but to be utterly cutthroat if he wants to complete his goal. This is especially shown in his first full-blown action sequence in Falcon and the Winter Soldier, taking down assassins after himself and the heroes in a surprise attack that wouldn't be out of place in a first-person shooter game.

Non-Action Big Bad: Although he has military training, he never directly fights any of the Avengers in Civil War, acknowledging that he could never physically stand up to the likes of them. Instead, he relies more on subterfuge and deception. Becomes a Subverted Trope by the time of Falcon and the Winter Soldier, showing he's fully capable of taking down several assassins after the heroes, though all of them are still normal humans.

Not So Above It All: After being freed from prison in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Zemo shows that he isn't a stoic and unpleasant individual 24/7. Notably, he jumps in on Sam and Bucky's conversation about Marvin Gaye's Troubleman soundtrack to give his own thoughts on the record, and he can be seen thoroughly enjoying himself Madripoor, drinking quite a bit of hard liquor and awkwardly dancing at the Little Princess nightclub.

Nothing Left to Do but Die: After getting Tony to fight Steve and Bucky, Zemo decides to listen to his wife's voicemail one last time, before deleting it and attempting to commit suicide.

Nothing Personal: He tells T'Challa that he is sorry for killing his father and that he seemed like a good man in Civil War. While conversing with Bucky for the first time since the events of that film in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, he says this verbatim about using him to tear apart the Avengers.

Not Wearing Tights: He doesn't wear anything remotely resembling a costume in Civil War. However, he dons the purple mask in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

Outliving One's Offspring: His son was a casualty from the Avengers' fight with Ultron.

Old Money: He is generationally wealthy due to his family being Sokovian royalty.

Only Sane Man: In The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, it says a lot about Sam's present circle of associates that (other than Sharon Carter) Zemo is by far the most mentally well-balanced individual Sam has around him at his job.

Papa Wolf: The reason he's out to destroy the Avengers? His family was killed in their fight with Ultron.

Patriotic Fervor: Averted. As Zemo himself remarks ruefully, while he served in Sokovia's armed forces, his drive for vengeance isn't out of any love for the country, as he never actually had much patriotic feeling. The Falcon and The Winter Soldier shows that he does have some serious grievances over how it ended up, though, even chastising Sam and Bucky for not visiting the memorial.

Politically Correct Villain: As part of his Adaptational Nice Guy he's no longer a member of the Nazi-affiliated and fascistic HYDRA group, but is a fan of Marvin Gaye and understands Trouble Man (Sam's favorite album) to be a condensation of the African-American experience. Also berates Sam for stereotyping himself as a "pimp" just because he's flamboyantly dressed.

Purple Is Powerful: The Falcon and the Winter Soldier sees Zemo don a purple mask, coat, and gloves as he resurfaces to the criminal world.

Put on a Prison Bus: Zemo is taken to prison by Black Panther before he can commit suicide, ultimately sitting out the next few years until his return in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. And it happens again in Episode 5 of the aforementioned series, where he's taken by the Dora Milaje to the Raft.

Pyrrhic Victory: Zemo succeeds in fracturing the Avengers and getting the majority of them branded as fugitives, but he is also captured by Black Panther and still has to face prosecution for the murders he committed. It also works vice versa on his capture being a Pyrrhic Victory for the heroes. Best summarized by the following exchange:Everett K. Ross: So how does it feel? To spend all that time, all that effort, and to see it fail so spectacularly? Helmut Zemo: ...Did it?

Revenge Myopia: Getting his revenge was worth anything — including inflicting upon others the same pain he complained about suffering. Lampshaded at the end of the movie, when T'Challa observes that the revenge he seeks has consumed him. Worse still, because he tore the Avengers apart, they had no gameplan and were unable to present a united front against Thanos, leading to even more families the universe over being devastated by the Snap.

Rogues Gallery Transplant: Downplayed. While Zemo is still an enemy of Captain America and The Falcon as he was in the comics, he also ends up becoming an enemy of Black Panther's, due to his involvement in King T'Chaka's death. It extends to the entire nation of Wakanda as well, as they immediately dispatch Ayo to apprehend him when he escapes from prison in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

Royals Who Actually Do Something: His noble lineage while serving in the Sokovian special forces makes him this.

Secretly Wealthy: He may have been living the gritty villain life in Civil War (probably to fly under the radar), but The Falcon and the Winter Soldier reveals that he is a wealthy Baron like his comics counterpart. Sam even reacts with "So all this time, you've been rich?"

A Sinister Clue: Zemo is left-handed and is the Big Bad of Civil War. Shooting a gun with his left hand starts off his Big Damn Villains moment in Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

Sucks at Dancing: While the gang rests and spends the night at Sharon's club in Madripoor, Zemo's dancing moves leave him wanting. Let's just say he was channeling his inner Commander Shepard.

Suicide by Cop: After apologizing to T'Challa for killing his father, he says that he seemed like a good man "with a dutiful son", saying this last part with a meaningful glance, obviously hinting that he's fine with T'Challa taking vengeance upon him now. When T'Challa refuses to do so, Zemo attempts to just shoot himself, but T'Challa thwarts this effort as well.

Superhero Movie Villains Die: Subverted. After completing his plan to turn Iron Man and Captain America against each other, he first attempts Suicide by Black Panther. Attempts being the operative word, as T'Challa refuses when he realises how close he came to turning out like Zemo. As a result, Zemo attempts to shoot himself in the head, but Black Panther stops him and turns him into the authorities, leaving him incarcerated but very much alive.

Supporting Protagonist: Of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, as most of Bucky's and Sam's story and dynamic are sometimes told from his viewpoint during his team-up with them.

They Look Just Like Everyone Else!: There's nothing from his looks that would suggest that he's more than just an everyday guy.

Took a Level in Cheerfulness: He's much more upbeat in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier than he was in Captain America: Civil War. Which makes sense: in the latter he had just lost his family and was on a revenge quest whereas in the former the stakes aren't as personal and he's had time to grieve for his family in prison, meaning he has the time and temperament to joke around, make fun of "allies" and dance badly.

Took a Level in Kindness: Downplayed, but in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, he's much friendlier with Sam and Bucky than he was with Tony and Steve in Civil War. Justified, as this time around he's working together with them to take down the Flag-Smashers and even then he still takes the time to engage them in relatively civil conversations.

Tragic Villain: He pursues his vengeance purely because he feels he has nothing else to live for without his family. This is highlighted by his decision to goad Black Panther into killing him and, when that doesn't work, shoot himself.

Tritagonist: Of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, when he teams up with Sam and Bucky in their crusade to defeat the Flag Smashers, while being more developed as a character in contrast to his debut in Civil War along the way of the narrative.

Tranquil Fury: Despite spending the whole movie on a murderous crusade, Zemo avoids all the theatrics of Loki or Ultron and seldom even raises his voice. This includes when he finally spells out his motives to the heroes.

Troll: Even when he's not manipulating or killing everyone around him, he's kind of a dick, as seen in his reappearance in Falcon and the Winter Soldier, reciting Bucky's trigger phrase, knowing it doesn't work, just to upset him, needling Sam about his experience in the Raft, and later telling his retainer to serve Sam and Bucky them any food that's gone off.

Truer to the Text: Zemo in Civil War was a borderline In Name Only depiction of him. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier retroactively adds a lot more aspects of the original comic character, such as his noble status, his costume, and his physical prowess.

Unknown Rival: To the Flag-Smashers, particularly Karli Morgenthau. Do to being enhanced with the super-soldier serum, Zemo considers the Flag-Smashers to be dangerous individuals, and is more than willing to form an Enemy Mine with Sam and Bucky to take them down. Karli on the other hand, isn't even aware that Zemo exists until he shoots her and destroys the serum right in front of her. Even then, she seems more content to get up and run than to try to confront him for his actions.

Unwitting Instigator of Doom: He successfully managed to break up the Avengers, hoping to bring down the most powerful team of beings in the universe to avenge the deaths of his family. Unfortunately for him, it worked a little too well, as they don't stand on a united front when Thanos arrives and, despite putting up a good fight, get flattened by the Mad Titan. Said Mad Titan then uses the Infinity Stones to wipe out half of all life in the universe, turning the world into a total mess that it spends five years trying to recover from until the Avengers find a way to set things right. Even when they do undo the Snap, the world falls into utter chaos once again trying to handle those that were restored to life, leading to the Flag-Smashers taking rise and causing just enough trouble to force Bucky and Sam to bust Zemo out of jail to help them.

Villain Protagonist: So far of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, when he teams up with Sam and Bucky to take down the Flag Smashers, getting more screen time and more of his development unlike in Civil War.

Villain Respect: As of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Zemo develops this towards Sam Wilson due to his refusal to be ehnanced into being super soldier while maintaining his idealistic outlook. He also concedes that Steve Rogers was not corrupted by the power he held but holds him as an exception.

Villainous Underdog: He's not a Physical God, not an alien, nor a Super Soldier. He's just a former military colonel with patience, a simple yet effective plan, and The Power of Hate. This is exactly why Sam and Bucky decide to bring him into their crusade against the Flag-Smashers.

Weak, but Skilled: Invoked. Zemo is a professionally trained special ops colonel who has the combat skills to take down regular men with ease. However, he knows that no amount of skill can destroy a group of enhanced individuals like the Avengers, and so relies on his manipulation and espionage skills to turn them against each other instead.

Weapon of Choice: A Smith and Wesson 6906 pistol, which he uses to execute the other Winter Soldiers and attempt suicide.

Well-Intentioned Extremist: Zemo's objective in The Falcon and The Winter Soldier is to stop the creation of any and all super soldiers, believing that they create symbols of facism like the Red Skull once did. He accomplishes this in the fourth episode by shooting Karli Morgenthau multiple times and then smashing the remaining vials as Nico is helping her escape him.

What You Are in the Dark: When Zemo corners Karli and discovers the last of the Super Soldier Serum in her possession, rather than take it for himself, which would have made his mission a lot easier, he smashes the vials and would have successfully destroyed them all had Walker not intervened.

Wicked Cultured: He's a connoiseur of music and art, as revealed in Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: He has quite a sympathetic motive for his mission of revenge against the Avengers, namely that he blames them for the death of his family.

Xanatos Speed Chess: He's not in control of everything that happens in Civil War (for one thing, he has nothing to do with the Sokovia Accords), but he's good at taking advantage of unexpected situations to further his plans. Even more so in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. In Civil War, at least he still instigates most of the events, but in the show, he's broken out of prison without having expected to and is more or less thrust into an ongoing conflict he has nothing to do with. He still manages to play the heroes and the villains—that he utterly disagrees with—and so far has gotten away completely unscathed, once again having succeeded at what he set out to do.

He's the Big Bad of Civil War and is more than willing to commit mass murder to achieve his ends, but the times he acts polite or remorseful are genuine. He states he'd rather avoid unnecessary deaths if he can, has a few standards, apologizes to T'Challa for killing his father, has regular courteous interactions with a staff member of the hotel he's staying at, and even eventually apologizes to Bucky for using him. Considering he's just a grieving man who's dedicated to avenging the deaths of his family, it makes sense he wouldn't act like a cackling maniac.

By The Falcon And The Winter Soldier, he is shown to be fairly courteous to those around him (who, apart from his family butler were his enemies before) and he is capable of holding civil conversations with Bucky, even offering him a genuine apology for his actions in Civil War. He also agrees to join Sam and Bucky's crusade against the Flag-Smashers, without the driving of a hard bargain one might expect from him. He is also fully willing to lend his resources from the criminal underground to Sam and Bucky to take the Flag-Smashers down, no questions asked.

While none of the Avengers die as a consequence of his plan in Captain America: Civil War, he accomplishes his main goal in dividing them and is content with this. While the looming threat of Thanos forces them back together in Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, the reunion turns out to be temporary — by the time of Spider-Man: Far From Home, WandaVision, and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, the Avengers are still very much defunct.

In The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, he successfully killed the man who recreated the super soldier formula and destroyed all but one of the remaining samples while inadvertently leading to John Walker gaining the Super Serum for himself. This turns in Zemo's favor after Walker brutally executes a defenseless Flag Smasher in broad daylight in front of civilians, corrupting the image of super soldiers in the public eye. He willing gives up a chance at pulling a Villain: Exit, Stage Left to visit a memorial and allows him self to be captured, his work done.

He framed Bucky Barnes for bombing the United Nations, then relied on everyone else including Captain America hunting him down for it, and further that no one but the Avengers would even be capable of killing Bucky, to get access to Barnes and his knowledge of HYDRA bases.

He arranges for his ruse to be discovered by the media, relying on Tony to find out and make amends with Captain America, so they'll both find the Siberian compound where Zemo reveals to them that Bucky killed Tony's parents.

His entire plan is based on assumptions from the S.H.I.E.L.D. intel on the Avengers he's studied that Captain America's over-protectiveness of his friends and Iron Man's complex over the death of his parents would mean not only that the two would turn on each other if Bucky's involvement in the Starks' death was revealed, but that Steve wouldn't have talked to Tony about Bucky's potential involvement beforehand.

His setup gambled on the fact that it is a conflict that only works if there are no voices of reason to hold either of them back. The fact that the airport fight left only two active members of the Avengers, Bucky and a third party present in the Hydra compound in a place where no one would interfere was a happy accident for him since most of the Avengers present could have prevented things from reaching the breaking point. Of course, this is covered under Heads I Win, Tails You Lose.

Notably, this is also why he finds Bucky a bit tolerable, since he is being bewared of.

In a stark contrast to his comics depiction, he lacks any affiliation with HYDRA and outright states that they deserved to be brought down. A conversation in Falcon and the Winter Soldier reveals he despises the Red Skull and those who idolize him, and he kills Doctor Nagel while the man is gloating about being a god.

Despite his profound hatred of the Avengers, he declined to unleash the other five Winter Soldiers and shot them dead rather than risk someone else doing so, as they were worse than Bucky and would do untold damage to the world given the order. He also seems uncomfortable with the concept of experimenting on humans in general.Zemo: If it's any comfort, they died in their sleep. Did you really think I wanted more of you?

Zemo was "just" a special forces operative, but when his family was killed, he used his intel on HYDRA to take on the Avengers and came closer to destroying the team than any previous villain.

Falcon and the Winter Soldier reveals that at some point, he became involved with the criminal underground, under the simple but accurate alias of "Baron".

A) Captain America and Bucky had captured Zemo before Iron Man arrived (then again, he was in a fortified bunker that would take serious fire-power to break through).

B) Iron Man had not figured out where Cap and Bucky were headed in the first place.

C) Iron Man had not come alone, meaning there might have been someone to restrain him or talk him down after he learned the truth.

D) Black Panther had succeeded in killing Bucky during one of their three fights during the course of the film (of course it’s highly unlikely that he even knew the Black Panther existed).

E) Captain America told Iron Man that the deaths of his parents were orchestrated by HYDRA.

Zemo hates the Avengers after the collateral damage they caused killed his family. So he decides to split the team up and in the process causes collateral damage that kills other people's family members.

Zemo believes that "gods" like the Avengers should not be allowed to exist. Sam points out that be decreeing who deserves to exist, he's speaking like a god.

Tortures and kills Vasily Karpov for information. Karpov is not only a still loyal HYDRA operative but one of the main leaders of the Winter Soldier project and ordered the death of the Starks and his slow death is just desserts. He does the same to the HYDRA scientist responsible for making more Super Soldiers in Falcon and the Winter Soldier, finishing his work from Siberia.

He also happily participates in the interrogation of Doctor Nagel, the Mad Scientist who recreated the Super Soldier Serum via human experimentation, and personally guns the man down.

Zig-zagged; he knows very well that he can never kill the Avengers himself, since more powerful men than him have tried and all have failed, which is why he makes a plan to get them to kill each other for him.

In the secret HYDRA lab in Madripoor, he and his comrades come under attack. Not knowing where the assailants are, Zemo makes a quick getaway, causing Sam and the others to think he bailed... only to show up moments later when the assassins are in plain view, making it much easier for him to take them down.

When the Dora Milaje apprehend him a second time in episode 5 of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, he surrenders himself without a fight, presumably both because he knew he had no chance of victory and because he had already achieved his goal of destroying the current iteration of the super-soldier serum.

He uses Bucky's Trigger Phrase while the latter's locked in an apparatus, making him go on a rampage. By the end of Civil War, he himself is locked in the same apparatus.

He kills T'Challa's father in the course of his Evil Plan. After T'Challa learns the truth about this, he foils Zemo's attempted suicide to ensure he faces justice for his crimes.

#HelmutInformation

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theunvanquishedzims · 4 years ago

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Calming my post-election anxiety with sweet sweet logic

So Trump is a wannabe dictator with crazy screaming fans who are headed toward violent armed meltdowns. What’s to stop him from going full dictator and refusing to leave office?

I’m glad you asked!

You see, the major difference between wannabe dictators and actual dictators is ALLIES. Dictators are surrounded with tight security, aided by the military, cheered on by media that they control, and are either helped, encouraged, or just ignored by other countries with the power to stop them.

Trump has charged the Secret Service money for the privilege of protecting him and his family since day one. You remember the first year, when his wife and son refused to move to the White House so the Secret Service had to RENT FLOORS in TRUMP’S BUILDING to be close to them? And how his extended family went globetrotting and the Secret Service had to accompany them? And when Trump himself insisted on hosting people at his golf club, he made the Secret Service RENT GOLF CARTS from TRUMP’S CLUB to follow him while he went golfing?

The end result was that halfway through the first year of his presidency, the Secret Service could not pay their own wages. Because half their yearly budget had gone straight to Trump’s pockets. And that’s just financially. I think we all remember how the White House came down with Covid and Trump still insisted on Secret Service agents driving him around to wave at people. He has not been kind to the people who are sworn to protect him. These people have had a front-row seat to his circus since 2016. When the time comes from Trump to leave the White House and Biden to take over, I doubt they’ll betray the country out of loyalty to Trump. If anything, they’ll be the ones to drag him out.

As for the military, Trump insulted and fired four generals from his administration staff. He said on multiple occasions that soldiers who get captured or killed are suckers and losers. He refused to visit a cemetery to honor the dead because it was raining. He tries to pander to the military by massive increases in defense spending, but that money goes to capitalists who make weapons and war technology, not the soldiers or veterans. (He also hypocritically accused military officials of being in bed with those same companies.) In a poll of 1000 service members 50% said they disliked Trump. Overall, he doesn’t act like a leader, and the way he skirts responsibility (like taking charge during the pandemic) doesn’t appeal to a group that functions on trust in their leadership.

A proper dictator would have spent the last four years cozying up to his generals and making sure they knew the financial and social benefits of answering to him personally, not the office of the President. And while Trump did adhere to the adage “find a foreign foe” to unite people against, he badly misjudged what most US citizens consider “foreign.” He hasn’t found a villain that we would root for the military taking down, and the people he targets (Latinx, Blacks, immigrants, and people in countries our military has already devastated) are not a minority he can turn the majority of the country against, especially with how many of the former two serve in the military themselves. When the time comes for him to leave office, the military might be the first to cut ties with the wannabe Dictator-in-Chief.

Now, the media. They’ve been treating him like a joke candidate since day one, but after he was actually elected and took office they’ve started to take him more seriously. He’s gotten his catchphrase “fake news!” to catch on, but that doesn’t change the fact that under his administration news reporters have been harassed, illegally arrested, and generally poorly treated by Trump, especially if they’re women. He’s trashed talked everyone, with Fox News being the last bastion of semi-legitimate news that openly supports him (and their credibility has taken a big hit over it.)

Despite this support, in recently months Trump has been increasingly dumping on Fox, even throwing the mediator they provided for the debate under the bus, and risking alienating them in the process. If his supporters listen to him and start considering Fox part of Big Fake News, it might possibly be the death of Fox, leaving most of his supporters adrift and isolated from their source of right-wing news, and sending the more extreme fringes into the arms of conspiracy theory websites. (I’m not saying this is bad, being cut off from Fox and its toxic stream of “information” can actually help rehabilitate the right.)

Honestly, I don’t think Trump ever had a shot at controlling the media like a dictator would, mainly because of social media. He’s in love with attention, and Twitter has provided him a nonstop stream of it. No other President has threatened, insulted, promoted, or hinted at war over social media the way Trump has, and he gets so much direct feedback and interaction with the public and the world as a result. He could have leveraged that by buying the company (through a shell corporation, obviously) and setting it up as The One True Source of Information, manipulating public perception of him and his administration by keeping a tight grip on what information he let out.

But he’s just. Not. That. Clever. He blurts out everything that crosses his mind, leaving his administration to play clean-up on his messes, put out fires he keeps pouring gasoline on, and claim he’s joking when everyone knows he’s testing the limits on what he can get away with saying. He took advantage of the direct communication with legions of supporters, but seemed to forget that his detractors had equal access and would absolutely call him out on things he definitely said, it’s right there on his Twitter account, they have the Tweet pulled up on their phone right now. Instead of operating a single state-run media outlet while crushing all free press and limiting internet access like other dictators, he’s mooned the world’s cameras and acted surprised when they put his saggy butt on tv. “Fake news! That’s not my butt! THIS is my butt! [image attached]” he tweets. “Twitter is so biased, they haven’t censored any of Sleepy Joe’s photos!” he later tweets.

And lastly. The key to a dictatorship’s success. To prevent outside intervention, the country a dictator runs must be unimportant and ignored, wealthy and well-connected, or scary and well-armed. Minor warlords are the former, Putin is the latter, Trump might have weaseled his way into being the middle. But at the end of the day, America’s whole thing is new leadership every four years. It was revolutionary to replace a lineage of kings and queens stretching generations with a non-royal elected leader who only held office for four to eight years, but we’ve stuck to that for 200 years and everyone’s used to it by now. It would take a charismatic and powerful person to move the American people towards abolishing such a basic tenant of our democracy, and despite the mob mentality that lead a small portion of his supporters to chant “sixteen more years!” in the heat of the moment, Trump is not that charismatic. He’s not that smart. He’s not that well-connected. He’s not that savvy. He’s not that good at politics. And he’s not that powerful.

(I was going to say something here about him being the laughingstock of the world’s leaders and shouldn’t expect any outsiders to help him stay in power, especially since his tax returns came out and showed he owes people a ton of money that he doesn’t have, but this post is long enough so let’s cut to the chase.)

Trump is a greedy, small-minded man that has clung to power by appealing to the worst in humanity and scraping away at the best. But he hasn’t succeeded. He’s a sad old man who will say anything to be loved, and I don’t think he even knows what love is, so he’ll settle for attention. He doesn’t have money, he doesn’t have an army, and the only allies he has are using him as a political pawn to further their own interests. They will cut him loose the minute he stops being useful.

Now, the bad part: crazy screaming fans. Fringe groups on the internet. Mobs chanting “sixteen more years!” Men with guns and bombs and kidnapping plots, men trying to get into voting centers to destroy the election, men driving trucks with black flags that say FUCK YOUR FEELINGS, TRUMP 2020 (available on Amazon for $11.99, I wish I was joking.) I have no idea how many people in this country genuinely love Trump. It is hopefully significantly less than voted for him. There are some big issues in this country that are make-or-break, and unfortunately by reason of running Republican Trump has aligned himself with some of them.

There are people who hate everything about Trump, but he put a pro-life judge on the Supreme Court so they’re voting for him. There are people who are uncomfortable with Trump, but they’ve forgiven their grandpa for saying worse at Thanksgiving dinner, so they’ll vote for him. There are people who don’t know a single thing about Donald Trump, but they see (Republican) next to his name on the ballot, so they vote for him. None of that means those people will side with him if he tries to make a move towards dictatorship.

Now there are people who love Trump. They’ve heard and seen the vile things he’s said and done, and are genuinely okay with it, because they are full of hate and rage and want to change the world to put themselves on top. I do not know how many of these people there are. I know they exist all over the country, not just in red states. I know some of them have guns and want a reason to use them, because they’ve been talking about it for decades. I don’t know if we can trust the police to side with us over them if fights start breaking out. (And I pray pray PRAY people de-escalate any fights, because monkey see monkey do, and one news report of a MAGA extremist shooting someone can inspire a hundred copycats can lead to full-on civil war like we've never seen.) I know we need to be careful the next few months, to take care of ourselves and watch out for the more vulnerable in our communities.

And above all, I know this: Trump is not going to keep this country. He got it through trickery and deceit and foreign influence and national indifference and people not taking him seriously. We’ve learned. We’ve grown. We’re taking him seriously now, and we will not let him take what we’ve already told him he can’t have. The election is over. He’s a loser. He’d better start packing his bags. Because he’s not staying in office.

#politics #long post #best case scenario: he tries to rehabilitate his rep as a man of the people #by pushing massive amounts of money into direct stimulus #funds it by cutting the military budget in half #everyone gets several thousand dollars next month #he screws over every white collar criminal he ever had help from #exposes a lot of corruption and behind-the-scenes stuff #and pardons every convict in jail on weed charges #''he really drained the swamp'' everyone says admiringly #''only took him four years and an impeachment''#then he gets convicted of crimes and runs away to Russia #where he's found dead in a snowbank #because PUTIN IS NOT YOUR FRIEND YOU USELESS LUMP #Melina inherits everything and never sets foot in the US again #the Obamas send her a gift basket every Christmas #at least one of his kids runs for president #and gets laughed out of the party #the kid in question might be Ivanka who gets a concerning amount of radfem votes #it's definitely not Barron though #(watch me eat those words in 21 years)

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pandjseetheworld · 3 years ago

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Getting Out the Door!

Together we made the decision that NOW was the best time to travel, but to actually get out the door there is a ton to do!

Things to figure out before leaving....

1.) Loki

2.) Our Jobs

3.) Our Condo

4.) Our Financial situation

5.) The Route

5) Our Future

There is probably a lot more, I just can’t think about it at the moment.

_________________________________________________________

1.) Loki

People keep asking, “why did you get a dog if you knew you were going to travel?” Well, nunnnya biiinazzzz first off but in all seriousness because I did my homework.

We got Loki August 1, 2020 during the pandemic. Pearce didn’t think it was a good idea knowing that we had aspirations to travel but being all cooped up because of COVID I needed something to keep me busy aside from work. I KNOW and I ADMIT, getting Loki was not the best decision BUT it has been 100% worth it and I’d do it again if given the opportunity.

Before getting Loki, Pearce gave me some restrictions. One, the dog had to be a rescue and two, my parents had to commit to taking him if we traveled. So in July 2020 we called up my parents and had a very serious conversation about getting dog and if they would take him while we traveled and they said YESS!!! So, on August 1, I woke up at 4:00am and drove to PawWorks in Camarillo. I was the 15th person in line looking to adopt and thank goodness for that. By the time it was my turn to look at dogs all the puppies were gone and there were only 2 one year olds left. I looked at Loki, he looked at me, and the rest is history.

I would definitely NOT recommend getting a dog if you plan on traveling to anyone else though. He is expensive, National Parks aren’t dog friendly so the hunt for dog sitters isn’t going to be easy, and he’s probably going to be the smelly guy in the car BUT I made a decision, he’s my best friend, and we will make it work! Also, he’s part of the family so he comes!! :)

2.) Our Jobs

Well, as a Special Education teacher it was easy for me to end the school year as it typically does and then just not return. I knew leaving wasn’t going to be easy emotionally, I have been at Mar Vista for 4 years and I will probably never work at a school this amazing buuuuuuutt sometimes you have to be grateful for the opportunities you have had and then keep going. Ocean View is also a very small district and it is hard for me to move up or even laterally having such little opportunity with in the district. When I return I would like to try a larger district where I could potentially teach an autism class, special day class, or even an ED class and these opportunities just aren’t available in my district. It was time for me to move on regardless of traveling or not but MVS will always hold a very special place in my heart!

Pearce on the other hand, has a lot more at stake. As an environmental engineer and the only civil engineer at his small consulting firm (where he’s been working the past 7+ years), leaving was a much harder decision. So difficult that we has decided he should continue to work but in a part time position. We’re going to purchase a hot spot so he can work on the road and see how things go. He loves where he works and I’m sure he could get another engineering position when we returned but there’s something to be said about working with a small local company where everyone knows each other. Leaving for this sabbatical is hard for him and his company as well but I’m glad he’ll still be engaged and hopefully when we return he can find his place in his old company again.

3.) Our Condo

Since we knew we wanted to travel for the past couple years, when COVID hit we took it as an opportunity to update our condo and get it set up for a renter. It has take a lot of time, energy, and money to complete all of our home improvement updates but it’s been a really fun turning our little condo into our “home” and making it our own.

We took some time to compare local property management companies in the area and when we found the right one (we hope) we set up all the paperwork for them to take care of things. They will be our middle man while we travel, taking our condo off our hands!! Oddly enough, COVID is acting in our favor and the market is very hot right now. We are hoping to at least break even with our mortgage being covered by the renter and hopefully the property management company as well. With them taking care of things, it makes traveling much easier!! It also helps that Pearce takes lead on most of these big jobs so I can sit back and help when/where necessary!! It helps to be married to someone so savvy!

4) Our Financial Situation

Having known we wanted to travel for sometime now, we have been saving for the past couple years. Pearce said at the start that we each need a minimum 25K travel expenses (JUST TRAVELING) per person. That doesn’t include a lot of other expenses and the biggy hoping to come home and continue living a comfortable life style. We have had to be extremely frugal, invest money, save money, have backup safety money, open different accounts, and just be smart about things. Money is such an uncomfortable conversation with most people but when it comes to Pearce and I things are very open and fluid. We are realistic about our expectations, honest with our goals and travels desires, and willing to make sacrifices for each other that financially we are on the same page. Now..... I’m not talking about our income because dear God a teacher will never make what an engineer makes, but when it comes to life styles, travel needs/desires, and adventures we are on the same page. I think this is a very VERY important thing for us to agree on because it sets the tone for the entire trip. If he’s looking to travel and stay at 5star hotels and I’m all about that hostel life, things might get ugly, fast! So I’m grateful we agree on the same page about finances and travel expectations.

5.) The Route

Where the hell are we going!? Great freakin question! Well, we are hoping to explore America for a bit and end up on the East Coast. We have 1 solid plan for our entire trip thus far, by the way - we leave in 7 days as I type. We are going North to hike the Lost Coast Trail. It is roughly 5 hours North of San Francisco and is a 4 day backpacking trail along the coast. It’s supposed to beautiful!! Other than that, we have ZERO things planned. Yupp, sorry people who want to meet up! We have no idea when we will be anywhere and it’s kind of liberating not having a set itinerary (like the rest of our lives). After our backpacking trek, we want to continue to head North into Oregon and Washington hiking and camping along the way. On June 21 (the day after we leave) we will find out if Canada is opening up to outsiders because COVID is still a thing even though a lot of people have changed their ways. So, if Canada opens up we will 100% be visiting and going to Banff and if it doesn’t open we will head East on along the North America. We plan on stopping to camp and see as many of the national parks, state parks, and cool shit as possible. We may stay a week in some places and a day in others. We may stop at friends places for a night and others for a beer, who knows and who cares! We are just going to go with the flow and enjoy the ride.

We do plan on eventually making it to the East Coast and landing in Rockville, MD where I grew up. This is where my friends and some family will actually get to meet my husband. It’s crazy to think that a lot of my friends and family still don’t know my husband because we had to cancel our plans do to COVID and go tiny. We hope to spend some time there, see friends, relax, and investigate the international travel situation. Due to COVID, we are hoping that in late August a lot of international 3rd world countries are open to travelers and we can head internationally.

I really want to go to India and Nepal and Pearce really wants to go to Patagonia and South America. If I could become fluent in my Spanish it would benefit my job in so many ways. That is for sure a goal of mine and I really need to get back into my Duolingo lessons. Everything international is entirely COVID related though but I am very optimistic that in a few months more of the world will be open and we can leave the car and Loki at my parents and head out further into the world. But we aren’t going to make any plans until we get to Maryland and assess the situation so until then we shall life in the moment!!

6.) Our Future

Who the hell knows what tomorrow will bring. We may last a 2 weeks, we may last a month, maybe a year, maybe 3 years traveling- WHO KNOWS! What I do know is that tomorrow isn’t guaranteed so we had better make the most of today! At the moment, our future has a general direction but where that direction is heading....well, I guess we’ll find out when we get there. I am just so excited to be on a journey with my two best friends, Pearce and Loki, that I don’t really care where we go! I know it will be amazing no matter what!

7 days until we depart and head towards the Lost Coast!!

#ave

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0poole · 4 years ago

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Why I don’t really like anime

Alright well here’s one that’s pure “who tf asked” energy but it’s something I’ve legitimately been thinking about. Most of these are just me trying to organize how I think. I try to keep away from this general aura of saying I don’t like something completely unprompted, but my brother is a massive anime fan so I’m around anime a lot more than anything else I’m not into.

Obviously I’m gonna have to preface this with the whole spiel. People can do and enjoy literally anything they want so long as it doesn’t hurt other people. Apart from that, this is just me putting thoughts onto paper and shouting them out into the void pretending people on the internet care or even will hear in the first place. And, apart from THAT, I’m also saying I just don’t like it, not that it’s “bad.” Anyone saying something as expansive as anime can be universally “bad” is objectively an idiot who doesn’t know how things work. Also, I’m not trying to cover my bases as if I expect anime fans to hound me like people stereotypically assume they would, I’ll always cover my bases when saying things like this to catch literally anyone and make the undertones of what I’m actually saying perfectly clear to everyone.

And similar to that, absolutely none of this stems from the less affectionate stereotypes of anime fans. Let it be known that I’ve been a part of various fandoms, including My Little Pony, Steven Universe, Undertale, and probably some others that have just-kinda-bad to horrible stereotypes put on them because of the true weirdos in the fandom who act seriously out of turn. I know the feeling of being lumped in with those unfortunately remarkable people as if this giant group acts basically in the same way/agrees with the same actions. Plus, anime has grown so far beyond the “nerd culture” that I feel like it’s more normal to like at least a little anime than to not like it at all, so people that suggest all anime fans are weirdos are the weird ones.

But yeah, over time I’ve definitely felt a full bias against anime for some reason. Obviously some fit into my interests and get into my mind when I had an anime phase (like anyone), as I’ll mention, but for the most part if something is brought up as “anime” I just lose all interest in watching it. I feel like in terms of my overall biases, there are only three types of series: Non-anime animation, Anime, and Live action. For some reason, live action series are even worse in the bias chart than anime. I literally can’t muster up even the slightest interest in a live action series, while I can at least sometimes get behind the idea of an anime (and it’s a whole different can of worms for movies/other forms).

The reason why I say “non-anime” animation instead of “western” animation is because it really doesn’t have to do with place of origin at all. Also, calling stuff “western” kind of excludes non-Japanese eastern countries that don’t produce anime, like Russia and India. For me, the question is just anime compared to all other types of animation. Aside from the objectively bad art styles of course.

That really just gets troubling with the true definition of “anime,” though, but as far as I care to define it it’s entirely revolving around the art and animation style, and maybe various other stylistic things as well. It’s one of those “hard to define it, but you can usually spot one when you see it” sort of things. But, I feel like even though “anime” might literally just mean “Japanese animation” in general, I feel like there are Japanese animations that could not be “anime.” For example, the big one being anything by Studio Ghibli. It honestly could or could not be anime, but the fact that there is a debate suggests that there’s more to anime than it just being Japanese. If it’s not origin, then basically all of it rests on the style itself. Especially since so many people start off trying to draw “anime style” (like I did), and since some things have been called “French anime” (a term which honestly gets me infinitely more into an idea for some reason, I guess it being “French” reverses the negative bias from “anime”). Then of course it gets into murky water, though, like are Teen Titans (the original) or Avatar: The Last Airbender anime? It’s obviously something that doesn’t have a clear definition and it sucks. But, it’s easier for me to talk about if it’s limited to the art style, because that’s pretty much my main gripe with the whole thing.

I could also just not even remotely know what I’m talking about but just go with it.

If it had to be limited to a single sentence, the main reason why I don’t like anime is that it feels like 90% of it looks extremely similar to one another. See a few paragraphs down for the major exceptions, because there’s always exceptions. Also I’m sure someone somewhere is trying to pull out the “Calarts style” argument here and honestly nothing inoffensive pisses me off more than that and I’m gonna for sure make a separate rant on that some day. Obviously “western” animation isn’t the saving grace either, but it feels closer in general.

It may be one of those things that is supposed to be more functional, of course. I’d have to imagine it’s much more writing-focused, because, if I were an executive at an animation company, I could definitely get sold on a story much more easily if it followed very similar artistic practices that have been used by so many other companies/groups. Plus, for the audience, it’s probably easier to enjoy a story when you are pretty sure you’re going to be into the art style of the show by default. I’d have to imagine that’s why there are so many different anime (animes? Consider it a fish/fishes type thing) out there. For the most part, too, it seems like the vast majority of it is animated simply, with the higher detail and budget being saved for the big events. I’ll never say it’s not a reasonable thing to exist. It just sucks when the one thing made to be so universal is the one thing you don’t like.

But I’m definitely realizing I care about the visual of an animation more than the story. Definitely, a few years ago, I went full stereotypical writer, and cared so much more about the story itself than how things looked, but I definitely have changed from that. I’m much more likely to enjoy a story that’s pretty simple and easygoing that’s told in amazing animation than a highly detailed and complex story that’s told in pretty simple and easygoing animation. I mean, apart from that, I definitely don’t like the idea of a story’s complexity being one of its selling points, but that’s beside the point. Also, not to suggest all anime are “simply animated.” Exceptions are everywhere.

I’m the type of person who can enjoy something by “turning my brain off,” if you want to discredit the value of simplistic stories. Plus, now that I’m starting to try and make animations of my own, whenever I see some crazy good animation I’m halfway between “The animators are legends for putting in the massive legwork of making that” and “The animators are legends for making so impossibly good and high quality.” It also boggles my mind a bit when I see an overly detailed anime character/mech/whatever move. Someone had to animate that.

And then there’s one specific gripe that’s basically exactly that, but distilled into its purest form, and that’s how practically all young male protagonists in a mostly realistic setting in anime look like actual doppelgangers with each other. But, again, that’s a product of japanese society being less racially diverse overall compared to the Americas, so obviously the archetypal male is going to look much more average compared to what I’m used to. Just because there’s a reason doesn’t mean I have to like it, though. And, obviously, a lot of anime doesn’t have this issue, especially with the slightly less prevalent idea of “anime protagonist hair” of the past. Plus, girl characters don’t really seem to have this issue, and lord knows anime girls are a big thing. And, even worse for my case, it’s the same issue I have with the Calarts argument: The protagonists are supposed to look more average/approachable, while the side characters and environment can go the extra design-distance. I will say though that if an anime features the main character who looks just like that one archetype, I just can’t like it at all. It’s too plain. Same goes for when characters attend a school, and their “main” outfit is just their school uniform. Obviously practically all schools in Japan have uniforms, but it’s just so boring from a character design prospective.

Another big part of the style that I don’t like is just the level of detail anime characters/things often have. The worst part of this is always, ALWAYS the hair. It always looks so greasy and stringy, and it just makes me feel gross looking at it for too long. I don’t even care what color it is. Something a little less universal are the more fantastical side of outfits some characters wear some of the time. Obviously some outfits just go too far with detail, or maybe try too hard for a specific look that it thwarts the design as a whole. It’s kind of hard to say that without having specific examples, but I’ll always prefer bigger shapes and relative simplicity over the level of detail most anime characters have. Same goes for items too.

One thing that’s very easy to avoid on the larger scale, but still pretty prominent and a thing I genuinely hate, is how much more sexualized things are in anime. Like I said, it’s pretty easy to avoid sexualization because you can usually tell from the get-go where it’s at its worst, but even in other cases it feels like it creeps in even in the best shows. Trust me, though, I’ll never not admit to being horny, but when I sit down to engage in a genuine story I’m not even joking when I say that there is practically no situation where I want sex to be involved. Romance can be on-and-off, but specifically sexual elements just really throw me off of taking a story seriously, even when it’s actually incorporated into the greater themes and ideas of the story. I don’t know why I’m so averse to it, but I am. But, really, this is more of a writing thing than a visual thing usually. I swear to god, whenever my brother shows me an anime (my family would be completely disconnected from anime without him), there is like a 70-80% chance some female character is going to call a male character a “pervert” (or whatever the untranslated word they use is) and have it play off like a casual joke/remark. That shit actually makes me want to die. It doesn’t even matter whether or not they’re actually being a pervert, the mere mention of the remote idea genuinely pisses me off to no end.

Even though it’s just barely relevant, the way they always draw people with blood shooting out of their nose when they see lewd things makes me feel uncomfortable too. I’m not sure what anime originated that trend, because it sure as hell can’t be a thing from real life. That just doesn’t happen on the scale it happens in anime. Plus, it can’t feel good.

Strangely enough, one of the main things that doesn’t put me off is having to watch with subtitles. For one, if there’s any culture whose animation I enjoy inherently more by default, it’s French animation, so I still deal with it outside of anime. And, even when I understand the language being spoken, I still like watching with subtitles just so I never mishear or misunderstand something. But, also, I’m actually completely on the “sub” side of the age-old-and-probably-ignored-nowadays-but-i’m-behind-the-times “Dubs vs Subs” debate. For some reason, it is extremely hard for me to look at an anime with a very plainly english voice over top of it. It just doesn’t feel right, almost ever. Some get it right of course, but the general state of dubs is pretty low compared to just reading text with the default emotions behind them. It sounds kind of counterintuitive, because I can’t exactly admire the animation as much if I’m reading text, but I feel like I’ve watched and written enough (even though it doesn’t exactly take much to find this skill) to realize what the general effect of a scene is, and when I do, I can usually watch the actual animation itself instead of reading the text. Like with French stuff, I can pick up very few words that repeat and match them to the subtitles to learn just the slightest bit of another language. I actually took a French language class in high school though, so it’s much easier then…

And one thing that I actually wish non-anime did was make different intro sequences/songs for different seasons/sections of the story. Even though some classic cartoon intros are so insanely classic that it’s hard to want to get something else, I can imagine that, for the most part, the alternative intros could be just as good. I guess it’s because we have so many more episodic shows, so the same intro could reasonably apply to the whole show as if it’s practically the same thing over its entire course, unlike anime which are more structured and progress with each season. I just want more music.

Of course different anime differ in levels between these, with some being major problems in some areas and being completely fine in others. I really don’t like going super in-depth about things I hate though, so let’s just skip that.

But the only rule without an exception is the rule that states “everything has an exception,” so there are a few anime that I actually like, or ones that I respect from afar. I did have an anime nerd phase in my past, although it wasn’t super intense or long lived, but in that period a few anime did sneak into my radar and I still like them, mostly because I can’t help but love the nostalgia.

The one that kinda doesn’t count is the Pokemon anime. I like it because it’s Pokemon and I love Pokemon. Plus, it’s based on literally the most profitable gaming franchise ever, so it’s not like a fringe indie series. I will say that I actually really like the artistic direction they’ve taken for both the series and the official artwork/design as a whole. The Sun and Moon series looked pretty cute but maybe took it a bit too far, but the current series has a great balance of the clean, expressiveness of the Sun and Moon series but the solid-ness of the series before it. Apart from that, though, it’s one of those things I only still watch out of obligation, and for the rare good moments. I just love watching Pokemon exist, you know? Since I’ve watched so much of it already, and don’t have too much else to watch on a weekly basis, there’s no reason not to just put on the newest episode. It’s funny, though, because I normally like the dub of the anime more than the sub, but since the Sun and Moon series upped Ash’s expressiveness up to 10 it felt like his old dub voice actress didn’t quite match him anymore. Since I had no impression on what his original japanese voice sounded like, it was easy to start watching the subbed version and apply his new traits onto that voice. Either way, watching the subbed version means I can watch further into the series, and can’t get spoiled on things that’ll happen weeks/months down the line in the dub. As I said, it’s pretty normal nowadays to be into anime, meaning so many more people are following the Japanese episode release times and posting about it ASAP.

One that’s pretty expected is One Punch Man, which I watched once I heard someone explain it as “a parody of anime,” or something to that effect. The greatest thing about parodies is that they can be enjoyed both by those who love the thing being riffed on, and those that don’t. So, I watched it, and loved it. Me thinking about it like a parody also let me pass by the usual gripes I had with anime as a whole, like over-the-top crazy strong villains explaining so much out in the open, only to get one-shot by Saitama. And, the more obvious parody elements, such as Saitama becoming so strong just by exercising a lot, and just being a generally understated guy who just kinda is around. Pairing him with Genos, the more stereotypical anime powerhouse protagonist, is a great choice. For the animation, they even go super hard on the battles partially, I’d have to guess, because it still is just cool, but also to juxtapose how relatively simple Saitama is. There’s even some great character designs in there, like I remember this one single-episode side villain who was like a silhouette girl (?) with sharp teeth and long, seaweed-like hair that I loved the most. There’s also that second-in-command henchman guy under the main season 1 villain who looked sort of octopus-like, and I think had a crazy stupid name. I even liked the second season, which I guess most people didn’t like as much? It might’ve not been the highest of highs but I didn’t hate too much of it.

One of the weirder examples is Attack on Titan because of the artstyle. For some reason, it feels like the characters of AoT are drawn and designed so well that they can look anime, realistic, and just barely cartoonic at the same time, creating diverse and impressionable characters without having to resort to the crazy stuff like colored hair and weird clothes. Plus, this lends extremely well to the overall atmosphere of the show, which of course is more grim in a slightly more realistic setting, but with the occasional guise of happiness some scenes have. It can be everything at once. But, of course, I only realized that after watching it, and the main selling point was actually how interesting and unique the story was, while remaining, at first, pretty simplistic all things considered. I just loved dudes with giant swords jet boosting up to a shambling giant and slicing the back of their neck. Compared to most anime, it was so specifically designed, instead of having a lot of detail put into everything to have the uniqueness. The Scout uniform is basically iconic at this point, while remaining pretty straightforward and, even better, completely unrevealing. Even when you hear the idea of an “anime sword” you also kind of think of something super flamboyant and complex, while the Scouts’ swords are also pretty simple, but very recognizable, basically being a rectangle, and also being replaceable. The whole device they use to get around is also so simple, yet so cool, and relatively reasonable. From a writing perspective, it’s also really good to have all main characters be on practically the same playing field in terms of abilities (aside from, you know, Erin) so each knows their full limitations, and you don’t learn anything out of the blue in the midst of battle. Even better, it’s a type of power you have to be genuinely skilled with, not like how most stories pull the “you’re inherently powerful you just need to release it!” sort of deal (Again, Erin).

I am kinda falling out of interest with the story as it progresses, though, but it’s entirely not the creators’ faults. Part of the appeal initially was how mysteriously cool and terrifying the Titans were, and why everything in this world was the way it was. Like with pretty much everything going on for long periods of time, the explanation had to come eventually, and it never is quite as good as you thought it’d be. Now that I know exactly why everything is the way it is, a lot of the magic kind of dissipated. Plus, that subplot of the false royalty of their kingdom and all the politics of that got very Star Wars Prequels with me. I didn’t come for that stuff. I am still a bit in that “I’m obligated to watch it since I’ve watched so much already” camp, so if they ever continue the series I’ll get back in. I’m definitely not at all the manga type, though. I don’t really like long form comics as a whole, and my eyes genuinely hurt looking at most manga because it seems they don’t use different shades of grey as much as they should. It’s all black and white, and my eyes can’t stand it. It’s the digital age, dammit. Leave the old style behind.

Even though I already said it’s on the verge of being anime and even though It’s all movies (I think?) you gotta admit Studio Ghibli stuff is just impossibly magical. I can only actively remember seeing like 3 of them (Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro, and Ponyo) but I would actually sell my soul to keep these movies in existence. I’m highly considering watching Kiki’s Delivery Service next because I think it’s on some streaming service my family has, where I can literally just watch it whenever with no fuss. They all fall into that kind of foreign fantasy genre that I love to all hell, because the “usual” for western fantasy has gotten impossibly stale and I actually kind of hate it now. Literally whenever any kind of story is a fantasy story, but with fantastical elements coming from some culture that isn’t the norm for fantasy, I can’t help but love it. Even though I’m talking more about the high fantasy genre, I can still love Ghibli stuff for being so adorably casual and local, making it feel so much more like every little thing they show you exists in some magical recess in the real world. The artstyle also has that kind of feel, where it’s cute in that weird-looking way. Plus, it’s a movie, so there’s a more solid stream of higher quality animation, instead of the more necessarily efficient series. Also also, I would die for Chihiro. That’s all.

For the stuff I don’t actively engage with as much, you can’t not mention the big Shonen Jump names, like One Piece, Naruto, and the one I interacted with the most, Yu Gi Oh. I’ve watched all three of those to some extent at some point in my life, but they didn’t really stay too much.

One Piece has another remarkable artstyle, being so weird and quirky and large-faced with everything. I can also appreciate the fantastical pirate elements, as well as the very unique superpowers of Luffy, and the rest of the Devil Fruit powers. I would totally try watching again if it didn’t have over 900 goddamn episodes. That’s the problem with watching super popular stuff like that, it goes on forever, and it’s so hard to make that commitment. Either way, I think that one guy with the cigarette/lollipop was a walking “pervert” joke so I don’t miss it too much. I also honestly think a non-episodic series that goes over like 200-something episodes can’t possibly have a truly balanced and engaging story all throughout.

Naruto also had that “High fantasy of another culture” appeal to it, and is probably the most classic anime that isn’t Dragonball (which I personally am not really into at all, never was). I don’t really have too much to say about it, but I did really like the Wii game I had where it was a fighter with all the characters. I haven’t checked, but I’m pretty sure Naruto’s just like One Piece in that there are too many episodes to make the commitment and I think Naruto might even have a worse problem with “Pervert” jokes, but I don’t remember exactly.

Yu Gi Oh, on the other hand, is actually still sort of my jam. The recent stuff, whether it’s the cards or the series, is completely beyond me, and looks like the true anime BS that I don’t like, but the OG Yu Gi Oh stuff was awesome. I still know how to play the card game, at least with the earlier, simpler rules and card effects. I don’t even know how to play the Pokemon card game, and Pokemon’s one of my favorite things ever. I wish we still had those pre-made decks sorted so I could just play really quickly with those to regain my idea for strategy, and then make an original deck of the hundreds of hundreds of cards we have lying around. It’d be fun for no other reason than nostalgia. The video games are probably a good place to start, and I still have that old PC one where it was split into multiple versions for like Yugi, Kaiba, and Joey I think. I had the Yugi one, and last time I tried I actually had trouble beating him. There’s a semi-decent multiplayer one I have on Steam right now but it’s one of those things where I could either play that, or just… not, and continue life as normal. I might try it out again, but I already feel like I’m wasting my day. Oh my god, then Dungeon Dice Monsters on Gameboy Advance? Who needs anything else for that plane ride, am I right? I think there’s even those semi-story based RPGs on the Gameboy too that I should probably try out again. There’s just so much goodness.

And I haven’t even talked about the anime yet. Definitely the more meme-able of the classic anime, and I can definitely appreciate it for that. It was pretty weird in its own way. Especially with Yugi himself having what might just be the most insane and nonsensical hair style of all of anime. But, even then, I actually think it’s my all-time favorite, and I kinda love it. I have no idea why I do, but I do. I couldn’t even conceive of how to draw it from anything other than the front view. I also seriously appreciate when a character’s main icon/representation is something unique, and the Dark Magician is such an insanely cool character for just being some random dude on a card. Even apart from that, the Millenium Puzzle looks really cool, as does pretty much anything with an Egyptian flair to it. Then, we got the man, the legend, Joey Wheeler, who would not have been the same with any other voice actor. I stand by the fact that Tea and Tristan should’ve been fused into a hot-headed tomboy though, you really could’ve done without them both separately. Kaiba is also a classic anime antagonist/antihero, and he’s pretty lovable for it. Such great characters for something that really didn’t need them at all. I definitely have more nostalgia for the card/video game overall, but the anime definitely has an impression of its own.

There’s also Zatch Bell, which I only know about in full because of that one Billiam video. I did have some vague idea of what Zatch Bell was, but only because we got those cool little books to hold the cards in. Honestly though the average character design in the show kinda sucks considering the fantastical elements are kind of cool. The only reason why I’m bringing it up at all is because I think Zatch’s design might be my all-time favorite character design in any anime property ever. His hair does still look pretty greasy, sure, but overall he has a very simple and clear design, and even though I’d definitely redesign him to look more puppet-like, the only reason why I see him as a puppet is because of the lines going down his cheeks. Those lines might be one of my all-time favorite single character design details for some reason. He also has a giant bow around his neck, and that plus the wide dress seriously makes him feel like a character I’d design (mostly because I have a character with somewhat the same details) minus the uber-generic anime boy protagonist sidekick.

For the list of anime I haven’t engaged with at all yet but can respect from afar, the shortest one I can describe is that one with that skeleton guy who has that average job and it’s animated very plainly, almost like a more western adult animation. You know, that one who got the meme with the subtitle of “Thanks, but reconsider!!!” with him looking all average but also anime-shocked at the same time. I can appreciate the deviation from pretty much every norm for sure.

For the more popular stuff, probably the second most likely for me to watch is My Hero Academia. The artstyle is just varied enough to make it feel better. Sometimes the hero outfits get a little weird, but most of the time they’re alright. What I’m really here for is the base character designs under them. Deku is an amazing average protagonist character design, who definitely looks average but still unique enough to not look boring. Designs like that are hard to come by, because it’s so much easier to use more over-the-top unique elements to make the main character unique. Doing more with less is always preferable though. I could list off all the characters and all, but beyond Deku I really would just be saying things like “The guy who looks like a crow or whatever.” Except for Tsuyu. Tsuyu is best girl, and if you don’t draw her mouth wide enough I’ll be sorely disappointed in you. I think there isn’t a single character I love more from a property I don’t engage with at all. To be honest, I don’t think there’s a serious chance for me really wanting to get into it, though, mainly because I’m intimidated by that little shitstain with the weird latex ball mohawk. As I’ve heard, he’s the walking “pervert” joke type. Could be wrong. I hope so.

The most likely is another Academia, that being Little Witch Academia. It looks adorable as all hell, and the fantasy elements look classically fun, being a sort of bubbly spin on the more generic Harry Potter-type stuff you might imagine for a witch/wizard school. I’ve heard that any Studio Trigger series is animated very well, but somewhat lacking in the story department, but as I said before I can very easily enjoy a simple story with great animation in front of it, so it really seems super up my alley. Plus, it’s just like, ON Netflix. I could literally just boot it up any second and start watching.

I usually try to organize these paragraphs/lists in ascending order of interest, but I gotta break that for something that’s super half-and-half, and sort of the one that triggered me to want to finally write down all this junk. Madoka Magica is occasionally really cool, with the absurd and bizarre imagery of each Witch and Labyrinth, and I seriously love that part. But… Then it turns to the characters, which I honestly hate looking at multiple times more than the average anime character. Maybe it was somehow intentional, but their faces seriously look like those drawn by kids just starting out trying to draw anime, but just barely adjusted to look more polished for the sake of decency. I’m also not really into the story, being this massive juxtaposition of cutesy little magical girl antics and hellish demonic nonsense and brutal events. Trust me, I’m not the one to shy away from intense, adult stuff in animation, but I feel like the two extremes are almost too far apart from each other to really get into. That, and the magical girl dresses they each transform into was the specific inspiration for me mentioning designs that feel like they’re too set on doing one thing that it hinders their overall design. The yellow girl’s dress looks pretty cool though, since she has those weird poofy shoulder things, another character design trait I love. I just had to mention it because of how crazy interesting the Witches and Labyrinths are.

I just remembered Sailor Moon existed as I was writing that, and I’m not insanely opposed to looking into it. It might fight with Dragonball for the title of most classic anime ever. It also looks kind of cutesy-fun, which I can enjoy, but I definitely would expect it being a bit old to be its downfall. The artstyle alone gives me some vicarious nostalgia, even though I’ve never engaged with anything styled like it (and honestly believe it’s objectively worse than the anime style that’s more common nowadays). People as a whole seem to be nostalgic about it, so it’s kind of hard not to also feel it a little bit. As I said, though, I do kinda hate it compared to modern stuff. Same thing applies to Dragonball and really anything of Toryiama’s work. I can see the nostalgia from other people, but I just don’t like it.

I’m sure there are others that are just barely being forgotten about, but you get the point.

So yeah, that’s basically why I hate anime except I talk more about the anime I do like instead of hating on it as a whole. Believe it or not, when I like animation, I truly do like it, regardless of whatever form it is. But still, anime as a whole is not at all my thing. Feed me my generic Disney Channel “Calarts” SJW shlock instead.

#anime #who tf asked #rant #rambling #opinions #poole #etc #animation

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buddaimond · 5 years ago

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Kristen Stewart is due at the Venice Film Festival tomorrow for the world premiere of “Seberg”, a political thriller inspired by true events and a movie that represents one of the boldest choices the erstwhile Bella Swan has increasingly made since she burst to worldwide stardom in the Twilight saga. Stewart has demonstrated an arthouse sensibility — even becoming the first American actress to win a César Award, France’s equivalent to the Oscar — showing range in a diverse array of films while not shying away from big studio fare either, with “Charlie’s Angels” coming in November. She is passionate about her work, gender equality and telling “confronting” stories. Stewart is also conscious of the reach and influence she has as a celebrity, particularly one who broke out in a global franchise. “Everything that I do, every conversation that I have, the way that I vote, the projects that I’m drawn to creatively… It would be impossible to go to bed without being really clear and open and honest in these times,” she tells me below. Seberg (which previously went by the title Against All Enemies and is directed by Benedict Andrews) plays into that. The film is centered on Jean Seberg, the titular Breathless pixie, an American actress who spent half her life in France. In the late 1960s, she was targeted by Hoover’s illegal FBI surveillance program COINTELPRO. Because of her political and romantic involvement with civil rights activist Hakim Jamal (played by Anthony Mackie in the film), she was also a target of the FBI’s attempts to disrupt, discredit and expose the Black Power movement. Seberg died at the age of 40 in what was deemed a probable suicide. That was 40 years ago tomorrow. Of the film’s resonance to today, Stewart says, “I mean, this is America and a bunch of dudes in power are never going to be cool with you taking it away.” Bearing a striking physical resemblance to Seberg in the Amazon Studios presentation, Stewart has more in common with the actress than a great haircut. DEADLINE: In some of the acting choices you’ve made in the past few years, there seems to be more of a European sensibility than where you started out. Was it a deliberate choice to go in that direction?

KRISTEN STEWART: Well I started acting when I was really young and I definitely never got any commercial jobs (laughs). As a little kid, the first few things you audition for are commercial work or TV work or parts for children which tend to obviously be a little less complex. I was seriously, like, thrown out of every “cute girl” audition that I ever went to. At that time, there was no way for me to be aware of my sort of ultimate trajectory. But it makes total sense. I was always a very sort of over-serious thoughtful kid. I was definitely not afraid to tell confronting stories and was much more interested in that.

DEADLINE: You worked with Jodie Foster early in your career, how influential has that meeting been later on?

STEWART: I think I grew up with this default admiration because of her, because I always felt a kinship with her. I sort of consistently used her as an example of something to strive for, so that detail was always very attractive. You know, there’s just something classically more existential and realistic in terms of what it feels like to actually live a life and have a brain and live amongst people that might have different ones rather than telling these compact perfect stories. I was always into that. But (working with Foster) was like the coincidence that luckily put me in a few correct places. I definitely kind of aggrandized that whole world before I even knew about it.

DEADLINE: When I first moved to France 26 years ago, I worked at the International Herald Tribune and that famous photo of Jean Seberg from Breathless was a source of pride for us. But I was surprised how little I knew about her life and the circumstances this film reveals. What did you learn about her?

STEWART: I really only knew her as the Herald Tribune girl as well. I hadn’t seen anything other than Breathless. I knew the dégueulasse moment (at the end of that film). I always found her to be iconically cool. I thought it was rad that this actress had been ingratiated into this culture that I also am really interested in, but I really never went into it any further than that. I read the script and was really shocked, I had no idea about the story about her sort of tragic end. I was interested in the complexity of her life, but I only knew her as an image before.

DEADLINE: Beyond being an American actress who has found success in France, were there any other aspects of Jean that you identify with?

STEWART: I think Jean was really committed to telling not the most commercial stories, it was why she was attracted to the people she was attracted to creatively. It was why she was drawn to the causes that she was as well — they weren’t digestible in the country that she was living in, they weren’t something that people wanted to hear both creatively and politically. So I think it makes total sense that she found a more sort of welcome home in France.

DEADLINE: Jean was also a very strong woman, but one who had a tragic end. How would she fare in today’s Hollywood?

STEWART: We’re living in such a polarized time I think, that luckily there are fewer — I mean I can’t justify this because there are some people functioning in order to preserve their careers and not necessarily reflective of how they feel as a human in a compassionate sense or in a political sense — but I do think that people are less afraid in a way because it’s just so pertinent right now. Not that it wasn’t then. We were just out of the 50s; there was more of a cookie-cutter conformist mentality especially in the States and especially for someone who wants to maintain their success. But I think now, I don’t know, Jean currently would probably have more of a crew to substantiate these ideas. I think that now the political climate doesn’t leave much room for middle ground, so I’d like to say she would fare better. I would like to think there wouldn’t be a f***ing oppressive conglomerate out there to destroy her life. But at the same time, that’s absolutely the world that we’re living in. I think it would depend on what she was getting mixed in with. Cautiously optimistically, I would like to say it would be better. But at the same time, the reason it would be is really jarring right now because I think we all feel like there is probably someone over our shoulders ready to take us down if we say the wrong thing.

DEADLINE: There are indeed parallels to today. Sort of a meet the new boss, same as the old boss?

STEWART: I think this oppressive energy is so ironically the foundation of our politics now. I mean, what was happening then is happening now and it’s gonna continue to happen. I mean, this is America and a bunch of dudes in power are never going to be cool with you taking it away — I don’t think they really care who they bowl over to maintain that.

DEADLINE: How important do you think it is today, and in a position like the one you occupy, to take a stance and speak out and use that celebrity to get a message across?

STEWART: I feel quite strongly. Everything that I do, every conversation that I have, the way that I vote, the projects that I’m drawn to creatively — I think that I wear my feelings and my stance and my politics. I think that some people are really inclined to stand on soap boxes and I think that they should, and some people are more inclined to do it quietly, but with intention and wield your power in different ways. But, yeah, I think it’s absolutely essential that you represent yourself, knowing your influence and the reach that you have. I think that it would be impossible to go to bed without being really clear and open and honest in these times.

DEADLINE: There was a perception about Jean that audiences wanted “the girl in the t-shirt.” As someone who was so closely identified with a role early in your career, do you feel like you’ve shed that connection? Would you want to?

STEWART: I don’t think it’s going anywhere. I think every step I’ve taken to this spot on the now I can say I feel lucky that some of the footprints are gouged out, I’m proud of that. I’m cool with that. I think the whole Twilight thing is pretty entrenched, which is funny and kind of crazy for me to think about now because it has been a really long time. I remember it like it was yesterday and at the same time it was another life. So it’s funny to have it consistently be the foundation of who I am in a cultural sense. But in a literal one, I couldn’t be further from it. But I’m down with it. It’s so trippy. I’m so proud to be part of it, I like the crew. I look at it really fondly and endearingly and silly, sort of like opening a sophomore yearbook, like, “OMG! Wow!”

DEADLINE: You were on the jury in Cannes in 2018, which was a pivotal year there in the fight for gender parity. What that was like?

STEWART: It was such a good year for me to be there. I’ve attended the festival a couple times with films and, oh man, I don’t know, it digs up feelings that I hold in such reverence and ones that not everybody does, quite rightfully, because that would be strange — the world is a lot more than just movies. But being there the year that it became really undeniable and really buzzy and fervently activated in terms of being a woman, I’m so lucky to have been there in that energy. Cate (Blanchett) was the president of the jury, and honestly I think that if we had to represent the earth and send one of ours out to an alien race and be like “Hey, this is us,” I think it would be Cate. So I was just so completely activated that whole time, I went home so inspired and turned on. My on switch was just slammed, so it was wonderful.

DEADLINE: Venice is getting some heat for a lack of female directors in competition. Would you sit on a jury here?

STEWART: Obviously I am a huge proponent of having more women and making films that are accepted… I guess if they asked me to be on the jury in Venice, it would be a step in the right direction. Sometimes if you act selfishly, your intentions and your politics sort of are in tow, so selfishly I would want to do that because I have everything to learn from that experience — and I think it makes a really solid statement.

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#kristen stewart #Deadline #Seberg #Jean Seberg #Venice Film Festival

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andersoncharm · 5 years ago

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He is half of my soul, as the poets say. /Blaine Self Para. February 20, 2020

Para: He is half of my soul, as the poets say.

Rating: PG.

Pairing: Blaine and his troubles. His father, Will, makes an appearance. Mentions of a past, very brief and kinda toxic relationship with Kurt Hummel.

When: February 20, 2020

Location: Boston, Massachusetts

Notes: Blaine can’t keep his mind from wandering to terrible places. His father brings news that causes him more strife.

Warnings: Sad Blaine? I don’t know. Not really Kurt friendly but, this is a Seblaine rp so, you’ve been warned. <3

OOC Notes: I tried to make this simple. I’m terribly sorry if I’ve confused anyone.

Blaine was normally an extremely happy guy. He’d been fun and full of too much positive energy his entire life. There had only been one time in his twenty-three years that he could recall not being able to summon the sunshine. And even then, when his mother, who was his Home, had been ripped away from him he pretended to shine and then cried alone in his room. He spent his teen years after her death pretending to be like any normal kid. Or as normal a kid as he could be considering he was a witch. It took him a long time to admit that all the things he did then were just ways for him to cope. He didn’t do a great job.

Like when he and Sam would steal the whiskey from his father's stash, as if he wouldn’t know, and sneak down to the river where Blaine would hide the bottle away from his best friend and refill it for them each time it would get close to empty and they’d drink it until they were sick. Or when he left his Ohio home to go on one of Sam’s McKinley High field trips that lasted three days, glamouring himself as a student, and didn’t tell his father, letting him worry for days.

Or when he’d let himself be Kurt Hummel’s freaking trophy witch for months. Letting the other boy put thoughts into his head about how even though they weren’t Fated that maybe they should stay together anyway because why not? And besides, no one could possibly understand Blaine better than him considering Kurt’s mother had also died when he was young. She didn’t waste away but, it was still terrible so of course he understood whole heartedly. Turns out Kurt really didn’t. Or if he did he was bad at showing it.

Sure. They’d had fumblings in the woods and sneaks in bedrooms with the doors set up to alarm them if their respective fathers came home. That part was fun at least. It was the very public dates where Kurt would introduce Blaine as “Blaine Anderson, you know, of Willem Anderson fame? His father is a Descendant.” His voice just polite enough to hide its condescending nature from the world. The tinkling little lilt that, for a very short time, made Blaine kind of smile, had started to grate on him more and more and he finally had to cut off the fling when Kurt went a step too far and introduced him as “ Blaine Anderson, you know, his mother’s a hero. Sacrificed herself all for a human stranger…” It was the little shrug like it was no big deal that had done it for Blaine. He’d given a head shake and a laugh of disbelief and left. Because at the end of the day it didn’t matter how sad or lonely he was, he was worth more than being some pretty boy’s boasting right.

Still, it took him years to feel good again. To feel even a little how he felt before she died. Sure, he let his smile come back slowly over the years and the move to Boston. And he let himself make friends at LeFey once he figured out they weren’t just hanging around because he was semi famous for two very different reasons. He felt good enough and seventy five percent himself during his years in Boston. It wasn’t until his beautiful Sebastian, who was actually the fucking sun, and his companion and ball of love, Ras came barreling into his life that he felt whole again. They brought that light and happiness full force back into his life. And now, because of something so stupid it felt like it was going to crumble. Like it was made of the thinnest crystal and one little tap would shatter it. Lately it felt like the sun was setting and nothing he did could stop it. The only time he could preserve it was when he was with Sebastian and no matter what he did there wasn’t a plausible way he could be with him every second without raising the concerns of his father and the Council and from the looks of it… His father knew. Maybe.

The man was pacing his office in front of Blaine, not saying anything but the words seemed to be stuck behind his teeth and if Will Anderson were to open his mouth something negative and harsh would come tumbling out. And it would be directed at him. Blaine sat, Freya sitting at attention on a stool next to him, at his desk, the one he’d spent the last few months learning advanced forms of magic. Potions that only the highest witches were allowed to use, charms and curses and how to break them and detect them. He was supposed to go out into the field next year. As in leave America in favor of England. It was something he didn’t want to think about. He sat there quietly and just watched while his father walked back and forth in front of the ancient stone window in his Headmaster’s office. He waited, dread filling his heart with each sisk of Will’s expensive shoes on the floor as he turned. This was it. Will was going to tell him that he knew all about Sebastian and he was going to try and make him leave him. He was going to threaten Sebastian or something and Blaine didn’t know if he could match his father’s advanced High Witch status but he’d damn well try. He even loosened up his fingers just in case he needed his hands.

Turns out he didn’t need them. Will Anderson turned, gave Blaine a nod, and then sat down on the edge of Blaine’s desk. His ankles crossed, fingers laced loosely together. “When was the last time you played your violin, Blaine?” His father asked, his voice smooth and clear. Blaine face scrunched up in confusion for a moment and he quickly had to rearrange his face to be more relaxed.

“The violin? I don’t know, a year ago?” It had been almost exactly a year ago, actually. Just after he told Seb that he was a witch. He’d be absently tuning and playing the old instrument when he turned around to put it away and his boyfriend was standing stupefied in the doorway. Blaine hadn’t even been trying to use magic and still it had charmed his boyfriend. There was a reason Blaine didn’t play it anymore. He'd practically been born playing the thing. All music, really. But, the violin was the first one he’d picked up and it was like breathing to him. When he used to go to the Charles River and play his guitar or keyboard for the people to calm them he never chose the violin because it was far too powerful and he charmed or healed too much even when he didn’t mean to. “You know I don’t like to play it often. It’s too risky.”

Will fixed him with a exasperated look. “Well perhaps if you spent more time at LeFay practicing instead of gallivanting around Massachusetts then you wouldn’t have to hide your magic so much.” Blaine opened his mouth to protest, all the sudden angry that his father assumed to know anything about his life especially when he knew damn well that his mother had always insisted they mingle with humans and not get so wrapped up in a purely magical world. She probably hadn’t intended for him to fall in love with a human but, well, Fate happened.

Before Blaine could speak up however, Will raised his hand to silence him. “I don’t care to hear your excuses. You’re going to do what you want, I know. But, you need to listen. There’s been some unrest in the community. Strange sightings in foreign countries, magic sprinkled in places it shouldn’t be.” Will cleared his throat and gave Blaine a pointed look. And Blaine could almost swear that his father knew that he was the reason.

He took a deep breath and shrugged. “Stuff like this happens in the magic community all the time, dad-” He was abruptly cut off by his father standing suddenly, causing Freya to step in front of Blaine’s chest as if to protect him. His father watched her for a moment before speaking. “Hmm. It’s good that you’re so close to her… All of that being said, stuff like this does not happen often. Not to this degree… I asked about the violin because I think you should start using it more. You’re powerful with it. Did you know the Oracles are stirring? Of course not, you’re never here. However, you might need that power to protect us from any sort of threats that might come our way.”

“The Oracles? That doesn’t necessarily mean anything, dad.” It did though, and Blaine knew it. Were they going to start spitting out details of his and Seb’s life together? Were they going to tell the world that Hunter and Tony had helped them along? Why were they so important that Oracles were getting involved. He felt sick and once again wondered how any people would get hurt all because he fell in love with a human. As if he could help it. “You’re acting as if we’re going to have to go to war or something. It’s not 1692 anymore.” He attempted to joke but, knew it was in bad taste. He couldn't help it. He was terrified.

Will wasn’t having any of this. “103 year old Edna has been spitting out random words all the way over in Wales that nobody can make out. No amount of magic is moving her along towards her tellings. She keeps shutting down and starting back up. While three year old Zoe is so fussy and confused and babbling gibberish her parent’s couldn’t take it and felt the need to call it in. I don’t know what it means but I do know it means that something is coming. Something big. And I need you to be prepared. You need to start taking all of this seriously, Blaine.” Will leaned forward, his eyes softening for a moment as he really looked at his son and for just a second, a glimpse of his old dad and Blaine though he might touch his shoulder and say something kind. But, he shouldn’t have gotten his hopes up. Will stood up straight and made his way back to his desk where he sat down and instantly busied himself with work. “Now, I expect you here and learning more often. Not doing gods know what around the city. You’ll be here at five am tomorrow morning. Do you understand?” He spared a look up long enough to see Blaine nod, swallowing hard as he focused on Freya’s worried silver eyes as opposed to his dad's stormy blues. His dad gave a curt nod. “You may go.”

Blaine scooped up Freya, he didn’t need to, she was capable of keeping up, but he wanted something solid in his arms. He wanted to feel relief that what his dad knew wasn’t for sure about him and Sebastian. Only maybe. But, he only felt dread. Why were the Oracles stirring? If the Witches Council and The Order were exchanging information there must be more than just the Paris incident to look at. Had they seen Sebastian and him elsewhere? Was Blaine leaving magic traces? Blaine had always prided himself on being careful. But, if he could get caught in Paris then what the hell else was he messing up?

He tried not to think too much about it as he cautiously popped himself and Freya into Sebastian’s apartment. Ras greeting the two of them with fervor. His boyfriend wouldn't be home for hours but, Blaine needed to feel close to him. Needed to remember that they were real and worth the fight. The apartment felt and smelled so much like the him that he started to relax just a little bit as soon as he walked into the kitchen.

He made himself some Chamomile with a dash of calming magic in the kettle Seb had gotten him. Smiling softly to himself at the not so distant memory of Seb remembering that Chamomile was for calming a person down as he told Blaine to drink some. He drank his tea down as he slipped off his shoes and curled up on his side of the couch. The pup tucking himself behind his legs and Freya settling on the arm next to his head. He pulled the familiar and comforting Harvard blanket over him and Ras and let himself drift off to sleep to the soothing sounds of pup snores and Prince Henry bantering with Danielle. He told himself that he just needed to calm down. But, in reality, Sebastian and everything he touched was his sanity right now. The only bright thing in a dark day. Being near him and in his home almost took away the pain of thinking too hard about the possibility of losing him. So he let himself sleep off the conversation with his dad.

And when Seb came home later he didn’t tell his boyfriend about Oracles or the conversation or magic trails. He just pretended it was all okay and allowed himself to press kisses into Sebastian’s skin and then lose himself in Sebastian’s embrace. This was his. And this was theirs. Here he didn’t have to think about Sebastian hurt, or Sebastian loosing his mind, or Sebastian alone... Blaine could let himself think that the Council and the Order couldn't touch them when they were together like this. And as long as he believed that, they’d be okay.

They had to be.

/fin.

#he is half of my soul #self para #seblaine #seblaine witch rp

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louisedebourgwetterlund · 5 years ago

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Reading journal #2, “The Hate U Give” by Angie Thomas

(this text is 1000 words, because it's about the whole book. 500 words + 500 words = 1000 words. I hope that's okay!)

This week I was supposed to read the first half of the book “The Hate U Give” by Angie Thomas. I didn't manage to do that. Because I read the whole thing instead.

It's been a long time since I basically finished a book in 24 hours, but I just couldn't put it down. That's because it managed to make Starr Carter alive on every page and it made me see North America in a brand new light.

I come from Sweden, a country that might honestly be one of the whitest places on earth. No joke. Alot of people seriously thought the n-word was just the spanish word for black. I wish I was kidding.

I didn't learn about Segregation, MLK or Malcolm X in school, but on my own. (In Sweden the schools usually concentrate more on the holocaust when we talk about racism.) I thought I had some idea about the ongoing racism in America after reading about the Black Lives Matter movement, but after reading this book I understood how severe it actually is. I have been so geographically far away and the black experience. This was a good but difficult eye opener for me.

So I guess I should talk a bit about the book and some examples of the institutional racism in America it presents. When Starr Carter talks about having “the talk” she isn't referring to the birds and the bees. She's explaining the talk every black parent has with their kids. The talk about how you should act around cops so you won’t face police brutality or get shot.

This is brought up as one of the reasons why Khalil was killed, because his mom didn't have “the talk” with him. For me as a white, blond scandinavian I feel secure around police. This is obviously not the case for the black community, where the people who are supposed to protect you can shoot you for picking up a hairbrush while being black. The worst part of this is that it is real. Too many black kids have been killed for having a hoodie on. They get shot because of racism and prejudice. It's absolutely heartbreaking.

One of the things that really drew me into the story were the descriptions of Starrs community. It felt so alive and you as a reader really get to know these people and start to care for them (I seriously want a book about her parents). But it also shows that it is a troubled space and you have “to get out” of it to succeed in life.

Starrs dad wants to remain in Garden Heights. He moves away with the family anyway because he has to for his kids success in life. The neighborhood just isn't safe because of all the crime in the area. But as he explains it, the crime also has to do with the people living there might not have a better choice to get money. Another institutional problem.

The black culture and their value of life is not accounted for in the making of the american white dream of success. If Starr wants to succeed she has to act white in her white school because they will only accept whiteness. It's really a racist system in the US that never seems to change. Its an example of how segregation in the US is very alive and a way to keep the black community seperate. Being white is the norm that all the other communities has to aspire to. It’s an endless spiral.

I also think this book is a prime example of why it is important to have diversity in art, media, culture and in pop culture. Im so goddamn tired of stories about racism through the white gaze with a white saviour as the main character (Hello the Oscar winning picture of 2018, “Greenbook”!) . Here we have a book that is written by a black woman, who knows the struggles, the language, the culture and who has a real life connection to the black experience. Of course it's feel more real and has a different emotion to it - it's her life and reality. The dialogue, and the way it is written feels so genuine and makes me as a reader see this incredibly difficult situation from a new light. I see it from the black perspective.

It made me, a person from the other side of the world, more understanding of the huge issue of racism in America. As soon as I finished reading the book I went on my computer to learn more about the subject. I had to because I couldn't stop thinking about it. Now that is a sign of catching one's attention.

This book made me mad that the politicians in the US doesn't seem to care enough about this issue to actually make any change happen. Many different movements have been trying to get the politicians attention for ages. But now many republicans seem to care that the race issue puts white people in a bad light? Wait, what?

In contrast to Europe, I think in many parts the aftermath of the holocaust still lingers for many of us. We talk about the holocaust a great deal in our schools, so it will never happen again. We take the racism aspect of it incredibly seriously. Nazi symbols are strictly forbidden and frowned upon.

Unfortunately, now In Europe we are starting to have huge issues with politicians with connections to the far right and nazism. But for a long period of time it being a nazi and a racist was the absolute worst thing you could be. In the US it seems that a lot of people still thinks its the south against the north and that the confederate flag is okay? How is that not a hate symbol like the swastika? Lawful segregation wasn't even that long ago! With this mentality it will be impossible to make change happen!

So to wrap this up. I'm truly happy that I read this book. Hopefully I think it will make me a better person. I will listen more to other experiences than my own. But most importantly, I hope it makes me into a more enlightened, empathic and thoughtful human being.

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yaz-the-spaz · 6 years ago

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Beautiful Monster (Part 3)

so this is the last installation that will be posted on tumblr! the complete fic will be posted on ao3 later tonight has now been posted on ao3!

also this was supposed to be my New Year’s Day gift to you guys but i just didn’t have a chance to review it like i wanted to in time so it’s just gonna have to be a (way) belated New Year’s gift lol but on the bright side inspiration did happen to strike for the threequel fic during the interim of me finalizing the edits for this fic so it all worked out in the end and you’ll actually be getting a double feature/double belated New Year’s present cause the latest chapter for that will be up soon too (most likely by tomorrow)!

Summary: Zayn is a homeless vampire who, unbeknownst to Liam, has been routinely breaking into Liam’s van for a warm place to sleep. When Liam catches him in the act things end up going in a direction no one expected. And then shit gets weirder. Because Liam might also be hiding some secrets of his own…

Part 1 here

It’s a Thursday afternoon when Niall pops by out of the blue.

The doorbell rings and Zayn goes to answer it cause Liam’s in the middle of feeding the dogs their dinner. He figures it’s probably just someone trying to sell something anyway and he’d rather just let Zayn be the one to tell them to bugger off, but he snaps up when he hears a familiar voice on the other side, that familiar Irish brogue that he’d recognize anywhere.

“Um…hello. You’re not Liam. Liam does still live here, yeah?”

Zayn nods politely. “He does. Who’s asking?”

“His mate, Niall. And you are?”

Zayn perks up at this news, seemingly excited to be meeting a friend of Liam’s, sticks out a hand and smiles brightly. “Zayn, Liam’s live-in booty call.”

Liam blanches, rushing over to the door stiffly.

“Um, Niall, hey,” he says, ushering Niall inside quickly, hoping the previous topic of conversation goes forgotten. “I didn’t know you were in town, when’d you get in?”

“Just a couple hours ago. Only here for the weekend really, but I came straight here cause I had to see my Payno of course. How’ve you been, mate? Pretty well I’m assuming,” he says with a grin, dropping his bags just inside the door and turning back to size Zayn up appreciatively.

“Uh, yeah, you know, same old, same old mostly. Work’s been good and the dogs are okay, can’t complain. Zayn is—” he stops, not quite sure how exactly to describe what Zayn is and opting instead to just skirt around it. “Zayn’s been a great help. He’s just, um, he’s staying here temporarily until he can get back on his feet.”

“Oh…okay.” Niall nods but he still looks a little confused, though he doesn’t inquire any further, maybe sensing somehow that it’s not something Liam’s really eager to talk about right now in front of present company.

Zayn smiles at Niall politely, offering to take his coat and Niall shrugs out of it obediently, kicking off his shoes in the process.

Niall follows Liam into the kitchen as Zayn goes to put up his coat and bag and when they’re a safe distance away Niall leans into him and says, “So, what exactly is going on here? Is this, like, a roommate situation? You short on cash or something and renting out your couch? Or are you two dating and you decided to jump the gun and let him move in early or…? Cause, I mean, I know I miss a lot sometimes when I’m gone especially when I have no cell service but when I last FaceTime’d you a couple months ago you said you still weren’t seeing anyone and now you’ve apparently got a live-in boyfriend? What’s the story there?”

Liam shrugs, avoiding Niall’s eyes. “None of the above but also sort of…all of the above?” Liam sighs, scrubbing a hand over his face. “It’s complicated, okay? But he’s not my boyfriend. We’re just…”

“Sleeping together while you let him stay in your house till he gets back on his feet?”

Liam looks at him miserably but Niall raises his hands in defense. “Hey, I’m not judging. If it works, it works. As long as you’re happy, you know? That’s all that matters to me. And I mean, he’s well fit so, y’know, good job there.” He smirks. And then a thought seems to occur him and leans in a bit closer, lowers his voice even more, serious now. “Does he know about your…you know?” he asks.

“No,” Liam says emphatically. “And I plan to keep it that way.”

Niall nods solemnly in understanding, dropping the subject and Liam’s grateful.

Niall’s the only “normal” mate he’s got who knows about his secret and has still stuck around. But he travels a lot, always backpacking through Europe or spelunking in Asia or hitchhiking across the Americas (yes, Americas as in plural, as in hitchhiking his way from Canada all the way down to Argentina) so Liam usually only really sees him about twice out of the year most years—for the holidays and whenever else he happens to be in town and decide to pop by Liam’s out of the blue like he’s just done. They’ve been friends pretty much since they wound up roomed together at uni, where Niall, the only actual geography major Liam had ever met, would stay up late talking Liam’s ear off about all the places he wanted to travel to (not that Liam minded cause Niall’s a great storyteller and Liam actually learned a lot from him over those years about all sorts of different places). When Niall discovered travel blogging and found out there was a way he could actually get paid to travel he jumped at the opportunity and has been pretty much steadily country-hopping ever since they graduated. They talk on the phone as often as they can when Niall’s got service or access to decent working wi-fi and Liam’s got a whole drawer full of postcards Niall’s sent him over the years. But even though they don’t see each other as often as Liam would like Niall’s still one of his best mates and apparently still knows him too well.

He stays for dinner and after a bit the slight awkwardness hanging in the air seems to dissipate and the three of them are eating and talking like they’ve all known each other for years instead of just him and Niall. Niall regales them with stories of his latest travels; an incident with goats stealing and apparently trying to eat his luggage in Papua New Guinea, the triumphs of winning over and befriending the meanest donkey in all of Greece, how he was unofficially adopted by one of the elders in a bamboo-weaving village called Ngũ Xã and now has a Vietnamese grandmother.

Liam laughs so much his cheeks are sore by the end of the night, as are his abs, but such is the usual with Niall. As is also the usual with Niall though is the inevitable goodbye and Liam’s already dreading it before it comes but he’s still glad to have had this surprise visit at all even if it was a bit awkward at first. As he hugs Liam goodbye Niall promises he’ll be coming home more often from here on out though and that’s enough to warm Liam’s spirits for now despite his too-sudden departure as Niall sees himself out with a wave and bright grin, rucksack slung over his shoulder. And then Liam is alone with Zayn again. Alone with his own uncertainties and feelings and his messy thoughts.

“So what do you guys actually do at these conferences?” Zayn asks in the van on their way back from another highway roadkill stock-up just before Liam’s due to leave again. “Do you just, like, sit around eating barbeque, crushing beer cans against your heads, arm wrestling and organizing pissing contests whilst talking about construction stuff?”

Liam snorts, flashing an amused grin at Zayn. “Is that what you imagine we do? Like a giant frat party or something?”

“Well, yeah, I mean, it certainly sounds kinda like one. I mean you meet every month at some super secret location that—considering you have such shoddy service the whole weekend has gotta be, like, way out in the wilderness somewhere—just to eat a bunch of meat and drink beer with a bunch of other guys for three days. Sounds a hell of a lot like something a bunch of frat boys would do to me.”

“Bit unfair of you to assume that everyone who’d go to a construction conference is a guy, and a butch one at that,” Liam says deftly trying to change the subject.

“Touché. In retrospect, I guess that was an unfairly stereotypical judgment to make,” Zayn concedes with a nod. “But seriously though, what do you guys actually do besides grilling meat cause I’m having a hard time imaging what riveting events you could possibly get up to at a construction conference that would make everyone wanna come back as frequently as every month. D’you lot, like, exchange insider secrets on the performance of the construction trade in the stock market? Make elaborate bets on who’s gonna sell the most piping this year? Build a giant secret fortress in the woods? I mean, like, what is it?”

“Christ, look, it’s just a gathering of a bunch of like-minded people where we can just get together and blow off a bit of steam for a few days, okay?” he snaps, tone a bit too terse, a bit too defensive, although it’s not entirely a lie. Not really. But anyway he hadn’t even meant to snap, it’s just Zayn’s asking too many questions and it’s both not the time nor is Liam in the right mood or headspace to deal with being given the third-degree right now, even if it is half-jokingly. He’s wound up and on edge and he just really, really wants to get on the road already and be far away from here and away from Zayn and all his questions. “It’s not that big a deal, alright, so can we just drop it?”

Zayn raises his hands in defense. “Okay, okay, sorry. I didn’t mean to pry. I know you tend to get kinda testy and stressed out before these things, I didn’t mean to upset you, I shouldn’t have pushed.” Zayn’s quiet for a little while before he says softly, tentatively, like he’s afraid of setting Liam off again, “But maybe—I mean, I don’t know if you’re allowed to bring, like, a plus one to these things, but maybe…if you are…maybe one time I could come along with you—I mean, only if you want of course—but it’d just be nice to meet some of your mates, you know? I mean it’s been three months and I haven’t met any of them yet except for Niall, although, like, if you don’t want me to that’s cool too, I totally understand, but I just thought it’d be nice to, like, hang out, you know, like outside of the house.”

Fuck. There Liam goes again not thinking about anyone but himself. He hadn’t even considered that Zayn might feel like Liam’s hiding him. Like he’s a secret to be ashamed of. He wishes he could tell Zayn that that’s not why he hasn’t met any of Liam’s friends. That it has nothing to do with Zayn himself or their current living arrangements or Liam being ashamed of him and wanting to hide him away or keep him a secret.

But he can’t tell Zayn any of that without inviting more questions that he won’t be able to answer so instead he just mutters a noncommittal, “Maybe,” and leaves it at that, knowing full well it’s an empty half-promise because Zayn knowing anything about what actually goes on at these weekend gatherings would be a monumentally bad, bad idea.

Predictably he finds out anyway.

“What the he—Liam?” There’s a gentle touch at his shoulder. “Liam…Liam?”

Liam blinks gritty eyes open to bright sunlight streaming down on him, Zayn’s blurry face slowly coming into focus above him, sunlight bracketing his head like a halo. There’s a soreness that penetrates every muscle in his body, every fiber of his being, sunk down into his bones, his very cells, pumps through his blood like a visceral thing, but none of that’s new. This isn’t where he’s supposed to be though. The previous day is a blur and as usual he’s groggy as all hell but he’s aware enough to know immediately that this is not where he usually wakes up. Not where he’s supposed to be waking up. The grass, the trees, they’re too familiar. As is the face still currently looming above him.

“Zayn?” Liam croaks hoarsely in confusion, trying to sit up, to re-acclimate himself to this body.

“Are—are you…okay?” Zayn says, eyes full of concern as he looks Liam over.

“Course,” Liam says automatically without thinking. That gets him an even more concerned look from Zayn and Liam sits up properly, trying ineffectively to clear his throat of the raspiness that he already knows won’t fade for at least another couple of hours as he rubs at his eyes and takes in deep breaths of the crisp winter air to wake himself up fully. It’s not until he’s more alert and full awareness of the situation catches up to him that he realizes just how fucked he is—how this must all look to Zayn—and finds himself scrambling for some sort of halfway believable explanation but coming up completely blank.

He’s naked, covered in dirt and possibly a bit of blood, being woken up in his own backyard miles from the “conference” Zayn believed him to be at and smelling like absolute filth. And his first response had been to act like everything was totally fine and this was all completely normal—which it is for the most part, for him, with the exception of waking up in his own backyard. Zayn though is looking at him like he has two heads and Liam shakes his head quickly, trying to backtrack.

“I mean…um…” Liam falters, grasping at straws for to how to explain any of this without revealing everything he’s tried to keep so carefully hidden. “…Would you believe me if I said I was kidnapped and I have no idea how I got here?” he tries.

Zayn just blinks at him.

“So…your not-butch, not-all-male, not-douchy mates from the construction conference...that you just told me wasn’t at all like a frat…kidnapped you, stripped you, and left you naked and covered in dirt and blood in your own backyard…all as part of some sort of elaborate hazing ritual?” Zayn repeats slowly, squinting at Liam dubiously.

Liam nods, fidgeting in his seat at the counter in a lame attempt to avoid Zayn’s eyes. He’s showered and fully clothed now and nursing a mug of tea Zayn made for him to “warm him up” after being left naked in the freezing cold for so long. He doesn’t bother telling Zayn that he doesn’t really need it. The cold doesn’t much bother him in his other body, and even once he turns back it takes a little while for normal human sensitivity to really set back in anyway.

“So, then, are they gonna bring back your van too? And your clothes and all your other stuff that got left there?”

Liam looks up at him, startled two-fold. One, because he hadn’t expected Zayn to actually believe him, though he supposes he still might not but it could just be that he doesn’t wanna pry and is just willing to go along with it because he thinks it’s what Liam wants. And two, because he hadn’t thought of any of that himself and is now wondering how the hell he’s gonna reach the others to let them know what happened (and see if they can bring back his stuff for him) without his phone.

“You know, on second thought, I don’t think I wanna meet your friends after all if they’re the kind of arseholes that would pull some shit like this and just dip. Leave you with your dick swinging in the wind. Literally…” Zayn says, plopping into the seat next to him at the counter and shaking his head.

To be continued...

[Read the full rest of the full fic now on ao3]

#my fics #ziam #ziam fics #beautiful monster fic #homeless vampire zayn fic

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imagine-loki · 7 years ago

Text

Love Is Healing

TITLE: Love Is Healing CHAPTER NO./ONE SHOT: 14/? AUTHOR: [email protected] ORIGINAL IMAGINE: Imagine Loki trying to convince you of his love for you for months after your constant disbelief. One day at the Avengers Tower he pushes you up against a wall, holding tightly as he kisses you, only to have you wildly fight back as you scream and cry begging him to let you go. As Steve helps your trembling form up from your spot now on the floor, your best friend Natasha explains to Loki that there was once a man who claimed to love you when you were a minor and said he would wait for you as long as it takes, only for him to turn around and molest you and eventually rape you, admitting that he never loved you all along. Ever since then you’ve never believed in love, but Loki promises you that he will spend every moment with you trying to convince you that his love for you is true. RATING: PG-13ish NOTES/WARNINGS: Very brief flashback of torture and very brief and vague discussion about rape. Also, as a side note, I had no idea it had been 3 weeks since the last update. I’ve been so busy I’ve lost track of time. SORRY!!! Also, I’m expecting there to only be able 20 chapters to this story, but I’m going back and forth on how to end it. It’s hard!!!

Chapter Fourteen

“I don’t know what I’m going to do now that I’ve … become this creature.”

Arianna was still in Loki’s room, now seated on the bed with him beside her. They were no longer holding hands, but Loki had relaxed some once he’d realized he could touch her without harming her. True, her hand had become cold, but not so cold that it would damage her.

“Well, I don’t think it would change anything. I mean … we all get along with Bruce, and he can turn into the Hulk. Bruce thinks he’s a monster too, but we don’t. The others don’t.”

“I don’t think it’s the same thing.”

“Okay, let me run through what will happen if you don’t let them know. Tony will want to know why you hid this – and he will find out. He’ll use Jarvis to check in on you if you don’t come out in a few days. You could say that you’re sick, but again he’ll check on you. You’re one of us now because … because you care about me, so he’ll check.”

“And my appearance?”

“Tony will be curious because he’s Tony Stark, genius, scientist, engineer person. Bruce will be curious too, but more reserved about it. Natasha won’t care, not after she knows it doesn’t change anything. Steve won’t attack as long as you don’t pose a threat, which you don’t. Now … Clint … I’m not gonna lie. He might try to shoot you. I might have to warn him about the change before he sees you.”

“And what of Fury?”

“I technically no longer work for SHIELD. I don’t answer to him. But Fury can’t know that you’re no longer completely mortal. It wouldn’t end well.”

A small grin briefly took over Loki’s mouth.

“You may have to learn how to lie, then, Miss Arianna.”

“I can lie very well, actually, I just choose not to unless it’s completely necessary.” She shrugged. “As an agent, I was trained in the art of lying. I still prefer the truth.”

“Of course you do.”

“And so you know I speak the truth when I say … If you don’t want me to tell anyone, I won’t. I’m behind you one-hundred percent.”

She knew what it was like having a secret she didn’t want anyone knowing for fear of them looking at her differently, so she wouldn’t try to make him tell the others.

She did know, though, that she’d been wrong. Tony knew and didn’t treat her any differently. He was more protective and slightly less sarcastic with her, but she was fine with that. Clint knew because she had worked with Natasha and him for a decade and there had been situations that had called for him to know. Steve knew and, though he never mentioned it, he was supportive in every way he could be. Bruce didn’t know her past, but she knew that he wouldn’t see her as weak because of it.

The point was that this part of Loki would take some getting used to, but she was sure everyone would if he gave them the chance.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

For the next few days Loki kept to himself and, much like when he’d first gotten there, Arianna brought him food three times a day. She claimed he wasn’t feeling well.

As Arianna had predicted Tony wanted him checked over after the third day of Loki not coming out of his room. He was seriously considering sending Bruce in if Loki didn’t get better. So Loki was considering letting the others know out of necessity.

“Maybe one at a time,” Arianna suggested. “Remember, none of them know what a Frost Giant is either.”

That would definitely work in his favor.

“I think I can tell Steve first. Clint and Natasha together, and then Tony and Bruce.”

“Why Steve alone?”

Loki shrugged and smirked. “Steve is level-headed, and I think I can bring him over to my side. Three is better than two. Steve, then Natasha. Natasha will bring in Clint – Natasha is key there.”

Arianna smiled, almost laughed. “There’s the mastermind coming out.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Arianna found Steve in the gym – of course that was where he was. That was his go-to place when he was alone. Steve got about as much sleep as Tony did.

She stepped in the room to see Steve killing a punching bag. He stopped when he noticed her, and caught the bag to make it still.

“Something you need?” he asked.

The fact that she hadn’t moved to find a workout station herself must’ve clued him in on her wanting something from him.

“There’s something you need to see.”

“Okay.”

Arianna gestured for him to follow her, which he did. He seemed confused as to why she wasn’t speaking as they were walking.

“Is everything okay?” he asked.

“Um … depends on how you take this.”

“That kind of has me worrying, Aries.”

They reached Loki’s room and she knocked so Loki would know they were there in case he’d changed his mind.

“I need your word that you won’t say anything to anyone, okay?”

“Will this hurt someone if I don’t?”

“No. This won’t go against any moral code you may have, but what you’re going to see is something the others can’t know about yet.”

Steve grabbed her arm and looked in her eyes. “How bad is it? He’s been sick.”

“Well, he’s … not himself, I guess, but he’s still Loki. Okay?” Then, “Loki, can we come in?”

“Yes. Come in.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Steve hadn’t known what to expect when he walked into Loki’s room, but seeing Loki with blue skin definitely wasn’t it. Even if he hadn’t been warned, he would have known the man was Loki. He had the same black hair, his build was the same, and the man had Loki’s clothes on.

He still stood there in a defensive stance, ready for a fight if one were to start.

“I am obviously missing something,” Steve said. “When did this happen? How?”

Loki briefly summarized what Arianna knew and Steve especially paid attention to the race war bit. He’d had enough of that just living on Earth and fighting in World War II what with the Nazis thinking the Jews weren’t the perfect humans and so deserved to be eliminated. Steve knew there had been experiments done in the war camps, and the Nazis wanted to create the perfect race. He didn’t know all the details because science wasn’t his thing, but he knew enough to know it had been horrible.

He also knew that America had been less than kind to the Asians living in the country once Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor. People usually blamed a whole race for the acts of a few individuals. It wasn’t fair, but that was how it usually worked.

He still didn’t understand the whole of what Loki explained. He wasn’t that into mythology or any religion that wasn’t Christianity, but he understood enough to understand that Loki had been treated unfairly. It didn’t excuse anything Loki had done, but it did help Steve get into his mind a little. It didn’t change how Steve felt about him.

“Blue or not, I don’t particularly like you,” he said. “I don’t trust you, and I probably never will. You wanted to take over my world. That being said, that has nothing to do with where you came from; it’s about what you did.”

Loki seemed to accept that. He probably would’ve been the same way had someone come in and destroyed part of his world and tried to take over. He may have, Steve didn’t know.

“Arianna knows how I feel about you two. She came to me before you went on your date. I’ll tell you what I told her.”

Loki tensed. Steve could tell he was waiting for something negative to be said. It was what he was used to. He hoped what he said next helped Loki get over that – at least a little.

“I don’t know how you feel about the rest of us, but I know you care about her. You’ve risked your life for her. Fought to protect her – killed to protect her. I don’t believe you would ever harm her on purpose, and would never willingly let harm come to her.”

He looked at Arianna then. She had a small smile on her face and tears in her eyes.

“I know you weren’t asking for it, but that’s my blessing. Or as close to it as you’re going to get from me.”

“You’re right. I wasn’t asking for it,” she said. “But it’s nice to have it anyway.”

To Loki Steve said, “If you do hurt her …” Steve shrugged. “Let’s just say I’ve survived being frozen before. I can probably do it again.”

Ironically, that was what made Loki relax.

Go figure.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Natasha was surprisingly accepting of Loki’s backstory. She didn’t even ask to see Loki’s true form. All she did was give a nonchalant, almost uninterested shrug. Clint was almost as uninterested; he really didn’t care about Loki. He tolerated him for Arianna’s sake and that was it.

Letting three people know in one day was enough for Loki. He would let Bruce and Tony know later. As for that moment? He just wanted to rest, and he knew Arianna needed rest. He was emotionally drained from all the worry he’d had about how she and the others would take his change, but Arianna was physically exhausted.

Loki had been selfish, not that that was an unusual trait for him, but he usually didn’t care about that selfishness, much less who it was directed at. This time he did because it was Arianna.

She hadn’t complained once about having to bring him meals or spending time only in his room because he didn’t want to leave it. She was better, healthier now than when she’d come with food the first time. She had her color back, and she hadn’t had a fever since taking the antibiotics. The medicine had obviously worked.

He, not for the first time, wondered what he’d done to deserve her loyalty, because he couldn’t think of a thing. He was almost 100% certain that if any of the others had been made to be his keeper it would not have turned out as well as being with Arianna had.

His mother had done the right thing by leaving him there with Arianna. His mother had known how kind she would be and how much Loki needed that kindness. She’d also known that had he had his magic as a defense mechanism he never would’ve let Arianna close.

Well played, Mother, he thought.

“You’re grinning,” Arianna said. “What’s funny?”

“Nothing. Passing thoughts.”

“About?”

“You,” he admitted freely. “And my mother. About how she knew what she was doing when she left me in your care.”

She gave him a smile. “Well, she couldn’t leave you completely defenseless.”

“No.”

They were both seated on his bed, side by side. She turned to bring her hand to his cheek. She caressed him despite his skin color and despite the cold.

“For what it’s worth, I’m glad she made you stay. I’m glad you’re here with me.”

Since no one was around to see or hear him he admitted he was glad too.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

That night Arianna left Loki to his own devices. Speaking of, she needed to talk to Tony about upgrading Loki’s room. The only form of entertainment he had was books. He didn’t even have a phone. Until recently he hadn’t needed one because he hadn’t even wanted to leave the Tower.

He would need one, however, because they couldn’t not go places. They couldn’t not live their lives. Plus, they would take care of the people trailing her and they’d be free to go wherever they wanted.

The point she’d been thinking of, though, about upgrading Loki’s room was … he at least needed a TV or a laptop. Especially if he was planning on staying in his room for the foreseeable future.

She’d get with Tony about it. She’d even buy the stuff herself if Tony had a problem spending money on an ex-villain. He’d never had a problem before, though.

Loki was on her side, at least, and at the moment that meant he was on their side. Besides, this whole getting kidnapped thing had brought them all closer together, and Loki had slowly let them all see his kinder side. The side that allowed him to care about her.

As for that moment, she just wanted to go to sleep. She felt better than she had just days before, but taking care of Loki’s insecurity issues was emotionally draining on top of everything she’d been through.

Once in bed she pulled up a book on her phone. A murder mystery series with a leading woman who reminded her of Natasha and a leading man who reminded her of Tony, sarcasm and all.

Mysteries were a weakness for her in the realm of fiction. Probably because she was a real straight-shooter in real life. Given the recent circumstances, however, she maybe should have chosen something else to read before sleeping. She didn’t need another reason to have a nightmare, not like the ones she’d been having since being kidnapped and tortured.

And that was where she was when she dreamed: back in that room with Blondie and Brown eyes. She was bound to the chair like she had been in real life. The blond one was in pain and somehow she knew she was the one causing it; the one with brown eyes was talking to her about needing to learn control, which she already knew. It wasn’t like she meant to crush people to death.

Brown Eyes grabbed her and shook her despite her being bound, and she glared at him.

“You’re killing him like you killed David,” he said. “If you could, you’d kill David all over again.”

“No,” she said. “No, I wouldn’t.”

That was the truth. She knew if she had it all to do over again, knowing what she knew now, she would’ve realized what David had been and she would’ve been … not taken in by his false charm.

As her mind usually did when she thought about David, it threw her back to that night. As she normally did when she relived the violation she jerked awake with a scream dying on her lips.

What was not like usual was that when she woke up Loki was at her bedside. Luckily he had turned the light on or else she may have gone on the defensive.

His hands were on her shoulders, chilly but not ice cold. He hadn’t shaken her awake either; he’d grabbed her when she’d jerked up.

Still, considering what she’d been dreaming about … if the light hadn’t been on she may have freaked out just a little.

“Loki? What’re you doing in here?”

“You were screaming. Again.”

He stood up straight then, pulling away from her now that she was away.

“Is this because of your recent capture? You didn’t have these nightmares before then. If you did, it never led to you screaming or crying.”

She wiped the tears away quickly.

“Perhaps it’s something else,” he said. “Something from your past.”

Her body tensed at his words and he sat beside her.

“I have a feeling I know what happened to you, Arianna, and I’m not asking you to talk about it. That’s not something you have to do. Just know that you can.”

Her heart was racing and her eyes were stinging now. He knew. He definitely knew at least some of it and he was still there, not looking at her or treating her any differently.

“It … happened a long time ago, years,” she said. “It’s hitting me again because of what happened when I was taken. And that’s all I have to say.”

“Okay. Do you wish to be alone?”

“Absolutely not. Thanks for checking on me.”

“Well, you know.” He shrugged. “Damsel in distress and all.”

“Hey!”

She shoved him playfully, still slightly shocked by the coolness of his skin, and something loosened in her chest and stomach. For years she’d woken up alone and she was mostly okay with that. It was lonely, though, when she woke up from a nightmare and there was no one to comfort her.

Now she had more than one someone to do that for her.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Loki stayed with Arianna for about an hour, which was how long it took her to go back to sleep and for Loki to know she was at peace. Loki slept too, but he had to wake up earlier than he really wanted.

In Asgard he’d been used to getting up almost as soon as the sun came up. Asgardians didn’t have clocks, didn’t tell time as Midgardians did. Since becoming mortal, however, Loki had taken to sleeping until at least ten. He seemed to need more sleep now that he was human – or whatever he was considered now, what with his new skin color and body temperature.

But that was why he was awake. He was going to see Tony and Bruce in the lab. Maybe they could help him go back to how he normally was. That would be a miracle, and it would be what Loki wanted most at the moment.

He got up, got dressed, and walked out of his room only to see that Arianna was leaning against the wall across from him. She was not dressed for the day, he noticed. She was still in her sleepwear.

“I asked Jarvis to let me know when you woke up,” she said. “I didn’t know if you wanted me to come with you or …”

Loki had learned to be a solitary person, even in his youth he preferred to surround himself intimately with only a few people, and even then he craved his alone time away from them. With Arianna there was none of that.

He’d be with her always if she allowed him to.

“I – of course,” he responded, holding his hand out to her.

She grabbed it and they began walking hand-in-hand. It hit Loki then, when her hair was a mess, her cheeks still a little pink from sleep, and her clothes wrinkled from lying in them all night that he more than fancied this girl. He believed he loved this girl.

That revelation almost had him stopping in mid-step. It probably would have had she not been there beside him. As it was, there she was helping to keep him steady without even knowing it.

He … didn’t know what to do with that information, but he shouldn’t have been surprised by it. He wasn’t ready for her to know, not from his own lips, that he loved her. Besides, she hadn’t admitted it either, not in that way. He couldn’t be blamed for hesitating.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Tony stood in his workshop with Bruce, both unmoving and looking at the blue man in front of them. Arianna was beside the guy and Tony’s system read that it was Loki, but …

“Why are you blue?” Tony asked first thing after the shock wore off. “Decide to fall into a vat of paint dye?”

“That’s obviously what happened,” Loki answered, sounding mostly unoffended and a little amused.

“The short answer, Tony, is that biologically he isn’t Asgardian,” Arianna said.

“Hm.” Tony shrugged. “Thor did say he was adopted. Still doesn’t answer why you’re blue.”

And so Loki briefly explained why he was blue and after he was done seemed confused.

“Why is everyone so calm about this? I explain that I am a monster and you don’t even bat an eyelash.”

“It’s not like you’re being particularly frightening right now. Besides, people change, and you are not defined by your race or what it’s known for.”

If Tony had let something like that stop him, he’d probably still be making weapons and selling them, no matter how unwittingly, to other countries to use against his own. People could change once they had their eyes opened to something they’d been blinded to.

“And I happen to be able to change color too,” Bruce said. “And at least you’re not smashing things.”

Tony liked that Bruce was lightening up about the whole Hulk thing. He was learning that people accepted him, too, green beast and all. More than that, they weren’t afraid of him. Aware of what the green guy could do, yes, but also aware that the Hulk and Bruce were two different individuals. Sometimes – more often than not – Bruce wasn’t even aware of what the Hulk did until he became Bruce Banner again.

“We’re all assuming Fury doesn’t know about this, and we should definitely keep it that way,” Arianna said. “I don’t want SHIELD or Hydra finding out.”

“Agreed,” Tony said.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Arianna noticed as she and Loki walked back to their rooms that Loki seemed more relaxed than he had in days.

“I told you,” she said gently, more reassuring than triumphant.

“So you did,” he admitted.

She grabbed his hand when they reached his room only to pull him towards her own.

“We can watch TV or something.”

Once inside the room Arianna basically plopped onto the bed. She felt better than she had in days as well. Maybe it was because Loki now knew he didn’t have to hide anymore, or maybe it was something else, but she felt good, happy.

Or … she was until she realized that Loki was just standing there and not sitting on the bed.

“You can sit.” She grinned. “I brought you in here. You don’t need an invitation to get in my bed.”

Loki’s eyebrows quirked up and he pursed his lips to hide a grin. When Arianna realized what she’d said and how it could’ve been taken she face-palmed and felt her face heat up.

“You know what I meant. I should’ve stopped at you can sit.”

“Oh, but then your face wouldn’t have taken on that very appealing shade of pink,” he teased as he sat down. “Oh, look, now you’re turning red.”

She actually giggled. She slapped a hand over her mouth at the sound. That had definitely not come from her. Nope. She didn’t make sounds like that.

But Loki had a huge grin going on, and it was a sincere one. If it made him react that way, maybe she could deal with giggling.

#Loki #Angst #Submitted fic #submission #creativewoman88 #love is healing #chapter 14 #trigger warning #mentions of rape #kiss #avengers tower #screaming #Natasha Romanoff #steve rogers

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takaraphoenix · 7 years ago

Note

Hellooo I read some posts of yours under the hashtag “Riordan Critical”, and I really liked your opinions. I was curious, what do you think about Magnus Chase’s serie and, more importantly, about representation in his books?

Warning: The following text will contain high levels of salt that will make the dead sea seem sugary.

This turned out longer than intended, so I decided to shorten it here. Klick and read all of it, but seriously, I am overly salty in this, as a heads-up.

Well, what I mainly think about Magnus Chase is that it’s a cash-grab.

Riordan had one really huge hit with Percy Jackson and the Olympians.

He wrote the Kane Chronicles about the Egyptians and they were… not as popular as that. So he decided to crossover and tie-in and essentially try to convert PJatO readers into “Look, here is your Percy! Check those stories out and discover that you might like Carter so you will buy my other books!”.

Then he tackled the Romans, but straight-up went sequel to PJatO with that, because he saw that non-Percy material wasn’t working as well.

And with the Norse he essentially clickbaited.

“Magnus CHASE. Look at that name! What could it mean? Is it perhaps next gen about Percy and Annabeth’s son? But oh why would he have Annabeth’s last name? Oh, I simply NEED to know!”

That… is literally the only purpose that Magnus being Annabeth’s cousin fulfills. To make really-very sure PJatO readers would also read Riordan’s new series.

There is virtually no other reason why those two are cousins. It would have splendidly worked if it was just about Magnus Hunt, or whatever kind of alternative last name you might like. Just something that doesn’t tie it together with PJatO.

So, that was kind of a turn-off for me.

Additionally, as you did notice due to reading my other Riordan Critical posts, I’m not exactly a fan of Heroes of Olympus. It had a lot of potential, but the author didn’t feel the need to explicitely write even half of said potential. It also showed that while Riordan was great at writing kids and dealing with them, he flat-out sucks at teenagers because inexplicably all they seem to care in his mind is romance.

So the idea of a book-series where we right away start off with teenagers already gave me a mighty migraine caused by Riordan’s shipping history.

Another turn-off.

Lastly… please call back your bald eagle and roll up that star-spangled banner, Riordan, America is not the center of the universe.

PJatO was written during a time where yes, America was very centric and even respected. 90s and early 2000s, yes, I agree, America was basically the center of the world. So to have the Greek gods move there, okay. I’m buying it.

But to have the Greek gods live in New York City and then tie the Kane Chronicles also into the same universe and also have the Egyptian gods sit in Brooklyn, New York…

And then add the Romans, who - hey, wow, San Francisco and not New York! What a shock. Such surprise.

Yeah, no, that’s still the US. You could have, at the very least and to make it at least a tiny bit realistic that you’re retconning Romans in, have them be seated in Europe. Instead of also the US. Because sure, totally, Egyptians, Greeks and Romans never-ever run into each other while they all got their home-base in the same damn country.

And now, what a shocker, the Norse gods also moved to the United States of America.

Newsflash: America really actually isn’t the center of the universe and, this might come as a surprise, America is not that popular anymore either.

The sheer egocentrism of having Greeks, Romans, Egyptians and Norse gods all abandon their original continents to move to the US kind of makes me nauseous at this point.

No. No, America is not that great. No, not all the gods of the entire world want to move to the country where trans people aren’t allowed to use restrooms anymore, where unarmed black people are shot by the police, where children have to march for the right to not be shot at school, where women have to travel to another state to maybe get an abortion.

No, your country is not that great, Riordan, please stop acting like it.

It’s quite frankly very insulting that Riordan treats Europe like a pesky, underdeveloped little thing that’s not worthy its own gods attention.

I could buy one pantheon moving on the US. I don’t buy four.

If you want to write US centric god stories, how about you give native Americans some rep and start writing about their gods. Who, you know, would thus also just stay in their own country for a change.

I just really can’t accept the fact that he now also moved the Norse gods up to the US and that oh my such coincident, Frey fucked the sister of Annabeth’s dad so now the Chases attracted two different pantheons.

That’s just too much bullshit, click-baiting and things that make me weary from experience with his last series.

So. Yeah. I haven’t read it and nor do I have plans of reading it, because literally not a single thing about it seems worth reading and all the things I just listed make alarm bells go off in my head.

Also, just one more salty add-on: Personally, I think that his representation in Magnus Chase is also click-bait. He realized there is a huge audience for LGBTQ+ characters when he made Nico gay so he is now focusing more on representation for popularity’s sake.

Look, I know that last part in particular is really very bitter and everyone who reads the books and is happy about the representation given in them should. Of course. We don’t get enough rep in YA novels.

Nico di Angelo was handled horrendously. In my opinion.

I loved House of Hades and the plot of Nico coming out to Jason. Don’t get me wrong, not everything Riordan does is awful, obviously I also like a lot of his stuff, otherwise I wouldn’t have read it.

I one hundred percent believe that Nico was intended as gay from the get-go, because the evidence for his canonical love for Percy is all over PJatO. It was good writing. It was a brilliant set-up.

The level of angst Nico dealt with in HoO was good. Realistic, especially for a kid from the 30s.

But then Blood of Olympus ended and Riordan, I don’t know, panicked. He completely rushed and butchered everything that he had been setting up for years now and it is... At its very core, this was the moment where he lost all of my trust, really.

When Nico flippantly confesses to his feelings for Percy in public. A week ago, he couldn’t even admit it in front of Jason and a god, even with high stakes, but all of a sudden he has the confidence to confess not just to being gay but to his feelings for Percy.

And then this utterly rushed job of “Well, he was in love with Percy for years, but over the past five days, he totes 100% got over it and now he has a crush on Only Other Gay, whom he spoke a total of about 5 sentences to”, just because Riordan can’t live without shipping.

Nico had been through so much. Give the boy time. Yes, okay, let him bond with Will, but there was no need to rush the “suddenly over Percy” shit and the coming out of the closet thing.

Riordan’s middle-aged straight man was showing hard there and as a lesbian, who went through the spiel of denial, hiding and coming to terms myself, I felt... I was genuinely emotionally crushed for weeks by what a shitty job he did with Nico’s coming out.

It’s not even about the ship. I never expected Nico and Percy to get together at the end, I’m not an idiot, I know he’d never break his OTP up.

It’s solemnly about the fact that Nico coming out to Percy was handled like a fucking joke. Flippant and fun and “You’re not my type haha now I’m off with Only Other Gay”.

He could have had Nico bonding with Will. He could have had Nico getting over Percy. He could have had Nico confessing to Percy.

But it all needed more time. The book was ending though, so he rushed through it and slapped a shotty, shitty ending to Nico’s coming out arc and it still makes me so intensely angry.

There is just no way that Riordan didn’t know he’d force another sequel outta those books. So there was absolutely no reason to rush it all.

He could have just had it end in the infirmary. Even with Will making his comments and even with Nico being flustered. But end it there.

Give us a Nico who is more settled at Camp Half-Blood and who is more settled with his sexuality and who would have then come out publically and confessed to Percy. Months after that book, in the next series. Time that would have given Nico the chance to fully embrace himself before opening up to others.

But that’s not possible for Riordan. Riordan needs a happy ending and both PJatO as well as HoO proved that happy endings only work with romance. The great happy ending of PJatO was less about the end of the war but had to be celebrated in an overly cheesy underwater kiss between his OTP. The great happy ending for HoO was that Piper and Jason were happy, Frank and Hazel were happy, Percy and Annabeth were planning to go to college together wtf how is that even possible Percy just missed an entire year of school he ain’t graduating high school any time soon, Nico and Will were going off into the sunset together and the grand finale was literally Leo and Calypso flying into the sunset together. Not a single friendship or family based happy ending. It’s all about the romance and everyone has to be in their one true love best by the age of 14 because that is so wildly realistic.

Riordan has so completely lost my trust over the course of Heroes of Olympus that I can’t help but wonder about the actual motivation behind the things he chose to do there, because many of his past decisions really can just be tracked back to money and popularity.

Many of his decisions made in Heroes of Olympus themselves, for example, directly reflect him rolling over onto his back to try and please his readers (-> spoiling the finale of HoO over a year prior to the final book being published by tweeting how none of the Seven will die in the finale. Thanks for taking out all of the suspense). It’s a habit of his and it keeps getting worse and I’m just… not there to stay and witness.

I’m the kind of girl who doesn’t want to continue being dragged down by something when it’s shitty. When something loses quality so drastically, I do the healthy thing - and quit. And I quit after Blood of Olympus and I have absolutely no intention of ever touching another Riordan book again, unless it’s PJatO for rereading purposes - because that was still actual quality.

Now, lastly, on the matter of representation. Well. It’s a bit pathetic?

I mean, PJatO had Charles Beckendorf, who’s black, and Ethan Nakamura, who’s Japanese, and… literally every other character who was in any way or shape important, was white. And the only two POC were killed off during the Titan War.

Then he wrote the sequels. Leo - Latino. Reyna - Latina. Hazel - black. Frank - Asian. Piper - native American.

It was… Let’s be real, it felt like he was trying to cram as much representation in there as humanly possible to make up for how white the first series was. But I wouldn’t particularly call it representation, because aside from stating their ethnical backgrounds, he didn’t really do a lot with it. It had very little effect on the books and on the characters themselves.

There was like one tiny scene of Piper in a flashback with her grandpa and for a second there I thought he was using that to set up the next spin-off books about native American gods, tied in with Piper’s family, but that didn’t happen.

Reyna being Puerto Rican only… came into play when they were in Puerto Rico, but that was also… not really of actual importance. Like, the scenes as they were could have as well happened in Miami with a white girl.

The thing is, I recently watched One Day at a Time and it’s about a family with roots in Cuba and their Cuban heritage is important. They’re by no means reduced to being Cuban, but it’s integrated into the story. It’s important to the plot and it’s important to the characters’ personality. Now that is what I would call representation.

To actually go and do something, work with the ethnical backgrounds you give your characters.

Traditions, language, pride in their heritage. Cultural clashes, maybe.

Like for Hazel, who is a black girl from the 40s and from whom I would have liked to see more wonder or maybe even anger upon what has changed and what hasn’t changed since her childhood. Riordan teased it, a little, in the flashback about Hazel and Sammy, but in the end, that was only mainly for more love-drama too because it wasn’t enough that this 13 year old girl had Frank in love with her and Leo crushing on her, no, it was vital to add some past romantic drama for her.

And that’s just not something Riordan does. He slaps an ethnical background onto the characters and that’s kind of… it. He writes romance novels by now, where everything else has gotten rather secondary.

I can’t speak for Magnus Chase because I haven’t read it. I’m aware there is a Muslima lead, a genderfluid lead and a character who is mute or deaf, I’m unsure about that one I just know ASL is represented in the series in some way.

All of those can be good. If he actually does a good job with it. If it’s just sub-plot stuff that’s tagged on and not worked with, well, that’d be a shame. Personally, I don’t trust him to prioritize any of those things over his shipping, but I’ll hope that it’s good and at the very least, it seems satisfying enough.

Then again... I don’t read too much critical thinking in this fandom and too much blind love for “Uncle Rick” who can’t do no wrong, so... I don’t trust that to reflect how the books really do.

#Riordan Critical #I mean this takes the critical part to a new level I guess #salty as the dead sea #roseateblossom

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wilma-flintstones-mother · 6 years ago

Video

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In Memorium of ALL that was lost 17 years ago and Also Intentionally Slotted Here This Evening Most Thoughtfully to Act as Motivational Fuel for the Fires that will Rage from Within the Very Core of the hearts and minds and conscience of the soon-to-be in Revolt citizenry of these United States of America in one Final, bloody, intense and all too necessary Shoot-em-up Stand-Off to the death against the Evil Spectres of World Domination and specifically to thwart and completely overpower them before they are able to initiate the communications, media, finances, military, government shutdown and beginning of an unspeakably brutal, inhumane, uber-violent and nightmarish new era of civil war, revolution, mass execution, starvation and instantaneously unleash mass catastrophic casualties not only to the populace but also to the environment, the animal kingdom in it’s entirety, the planned destruction of entire continents through previously un-imagined and practically instantaneous destruction of the planet’s protective ozone layer, resulting in the immediate genocide of all of Earth’s indigenous carbon-based life, it’s plentiful flora, wide variety of fauna and also contaminate what hadn’t already evaporated upon impact the small remaining amounts of precious life-sustaining water, through their perfected secret mastery of previously undiscovered directed energy weaponry that is some form of combined nuclear energy, microwave technology, anti-gravitational frequencies, pure dark anti-matter (!!!seriously!!!NO SHIT!!!), weather, climate and tectonic plate manipulated modification turned up to astronomically dangerous, unstable and very likely mass extinction level event status catastrophic disasters and result in essentially prematurely creating and ejaculating another end of the world as we know it holocaust to end all previous civilizations falls and final death knells (but this time, intentionally caused by the control-freakish political, financial, industrial and military combined governing lords over mankind itself) all inclusive planetary die-off and single, solitary jumping off and into the bottomless abyss, resulting in a.) spill over into the pan-dimensional multiverse (which WAS previously thought to have been theoretically an absolute impossibility!) into the ninth, tenth and twelfth dimensions, respectively, but simultaneously also extinguishing out every last vestige of life-force on the planet in less than a tenth of a second and managed to obliterate each and every one of us from a dimension of sight, sound and mind directly into a (imminently far, far greater than simply a mere) other dimensional plane, consisting of layer upon layer upon layer (infinitude) of vehemently dangerous couplings of essentially MATTER and ANTI-MATTER coming in and back out of direct contact with one another, frequently, shockingly silently co-mingling into and between and surrounding and even bridging and exchanging protons and atoms and black matter as well as sub-atomic particles and potentially even communications, emotions, entanglements, relationships, births, deaths, momentary sharing and exchanging one another’s very fundamental opposite identities and dimensional realities and physics, with the identifying forces of one’s positive matter actually momentarily embracing and becoming the other’s negative anti-matter in a unproven but most undeniably sexual and familiarly interpersonal most extremely noticeably peculiar and identifiable fashion of cosmic similitude and the commonly shared consciousness of which we all are, have been or one day will be a consciously living, breathing and existing extension of and only temporarily branched out from, as we and every other pattern of energy and cosmic memory perpetually re-emerge from as brand new energy patterns of a dangerously unstable and eventually formidably destructive and destroying on all levels of all layers of all dimensions and each and every one of the millions of universes, galaxies, solar systems, planets, continents, countries, cities, neighborhoods, square blocks, autonomous buildings and personal dwellings, individual living spaces with identifying names defining what activity or necessity of everyday life is executed within each specified room and it’s functional purpose, personal effects, family heirlooms, furniture, keepsakes, entertainments, elemental nourishment preparatory appliances and implements,unique individual life forms laying in bed, tossing and turning back and forth, unable to achieve sound sleep, the myriad cacophony of inner voices, fleeting thoughts, obsessions, scheduling of things to accomplish the following day, what they were going to wear, weather or not so-and-so was interested in dating them, worrying that their car might break down again and having to shell out another $500 out of their laughably inconsequential savings account, the linear dream state of human beings, as it continues to develop and move forward and shift from reality to reality and from moment to moment, never actually ceasing in it’s eternal clockworks, weather the unconscious host dreamer is currently wide awake and existing, thinking, acting and forgetting all about what they had experienced within it’s hyper-reality surrealism and meditative, curative phantasmagoria just a few hours previously when they were still fully immersed in it’s calm and collected, REM-activated trappings and grasp, and even then, the dream they had suddenly woken up from unexpectedly as their alarm clock went off at 8:30 am sharp and they ever so slowly, lackadaisically began to forget all about the wild, memourable, erotic, funny, exciting, evocative dream they had been enjoying just prior to waking up, in which they even got to hang out and experience many different kinds of abstractly disjointed variations and totally irrational and illogical combinations of being in their parent’s house/but also at Disneyland/which was also a Bob’s Big Boy Restaurant/and the hospital corridors you would endless walk through at a time when your grandmother was a patient and died there/which was also your place of employment (probably several jobs ago, the one you really liked but that you really did self-sabotage your being able to remain at) / which also had a little hidden rumpus room on the other side of the wall from your high school cafeteria, where you and another kid you had a crush on disappeared into so you could smoke a bowl together and then engage in sloppy, failed attempt at performing oral sex upon/which also had a really cool roller coaster right outside the main entrance that you could ride for free/ that would also just so happen to make a stop halfway through just outside of your very own bedroom door/ just as you hear the voice of your little brother who died when he was 10 calling your name as if he were lost somewhere and couldn’t find his way/but that’s stupid, because I KNOW and I REMEMBER that HE DIED YEARS AGO, but I’m glad he’s home and I wonder if he’ll want to go see STAR WARS with me and Jill and Kessie later on tonight at the Rialto in South Pas, that is, if I we can find each other... I hope he doesn’t get too scared/so just as you open your bedroom door and are about to walk in/suddenly you are startled by an annoying loud buzz which you can’t comprehend at first but then you/suddenly open up your sleepy eyes and it’s your alarm clock right on buzz-killing schedule as always, and your bedroom ceiling is awash in vibrant hues of yellowish-orange morning sunlight and all of that provocative zaniness was all just a dream...as always....except you never realize it fully until you have wake up and have emerged out of it’s hypnotic and compelling desire-answering and mood-fulfilling magick theatre-isms, it’s so obvious now that that was all only a dream, even though I remember dreaming that I knew it was all just a dream, even though it always more-than suffices as an even-better alternative to waking life and this reality in lieu of living in it... and those faceless character-actor-ish phantasms who you were never privy to the common knowledge of realizing or even imagining that those people and those images of people you know and knew in real waking life actually do just continue on about within the reality and time frame and space and time curvature of which their usually entertaining, carefree, monstrous hybrid of all things, real, imaginary, past, present and future, entertainment fiction real life trauma as experienced from the top hill of a b&w animated roller coaster originally drawn way back in the late 1920′s just as it begins to spill over the rather substantial incline just as the maximum momentum and locomotion has achieved it’s hand-drawn cell-animated maximum velocity, you notice the entire back half of the train of cars is literally lifting feet above the noisy pencil-drawn wooden tracks they’re allegedly connected to, a few of the people in the last two cars even fly out of their seats at the top of the hill, safely settling back into their chosen seats on the coaster by the time it reaches the bottom of the first hill.... the Fleischer Brothers ain’t got nothin’ on the power and limitless freedom of movement, imagination, unlikelihood, a human animals natural-born connected-ness with the psychic and telekinetic energies, patterns and the Earthen natural resources of magnetism and magnitude, unyielding and unrecoverable decimation, the violently opposing layers and volumes and channels and dimensions and and conflicting reams of liquid space, psychic vibratory beings consisting of nothing but pure energy, shadow and darkness ; abject, complete and unimaginable total non-existence, sequencing which would begin the intention of their callously chickenshit and much, much too prematurely arriving at that moment to end all other moments throughout the nights of time, as they safely secure themselves and their self-importance and their loved ones, pets, favourite records, movies and books, computers and internet connectivity, porn, King James versions of the Bible, all of their very favourite processed, GMO and cloned foodstuffs, wellspring library of alcohols, sodas, sundry recreational drugs, nibbles, snacks, more cases of bottled water than anyone has ever seen in reality EVER and aperitifs... But they also DIDN’T forget to bring along all of their unnecessary baggage and dirty laundry and bad, bad, bad, bad, and I’m talking... fucking detestable, shameful-ass as-a-mother-fucker bad-bad-ass karma (that is so sullied and so soiled and so unrecognizable as still actually being legally able to be referred to tastefully and realistically as `karma’) Oh, as well as their wealth of compassionate and trustworthy and still gainfully much, much better, handsomer and more worthy, deserving and overall just plain better than you, and all of the expected limited intelligence and tunnel vision perceptions, ever having been able to just kick the fuck back worry-free and enjoy life, goddammit, being born into old, white, American money and profitably living his life day to day, year to year, lost decade to shitty new world-ordered decade, far too privileged for far too long and all the while having succeeded in incontestably lying, deceiving, murdering, littering, poisoning, manipulating, cheating, raping, pillaging, warring, creating unnecessary tensions and divisions out of friends and neighbours, guilty by treason for a lifetime consisting of literally absolute and complete incompetency, crimes against humanity coupled with a competently inhumane disregard for any and all creatures and beings and families and communities, ever able to not just survive but perpetrate every last conceivable attribute of nihilism, misanthropy, xenophobia, sexism, conservative republicanism, needlessly controlling power freak and (just short of legally being able to qualify as tangibly having lived your life and carried out your position of power over all others) just two-steps short of having followed closely in the same footsteps as Hitler, Mussolini, the George W. Bush Dynasty and Justin Bieber himself... having acted upon on all of the very worst and lowest common denominational rhetoric, politics of never more than dirty fucking pool at it’s very lowest n-word notches and, now, safely watching the pandemonium and fiery, avalanche of unprecedented 9.4 earthquakes, tsunami that stay quite far inland wracking up even more unbelievable devastation for weeks at a time, volcanic overflows overtake the Hawaiian island which are now nothing but molten lava and bodies and beaches covered in sizzling, razor-sharp newly born land, otherwise, the rest of the whole of the planet’s surface remains awash in uncontrollable fiery flames that give any imaginings of Hell a sincere run for it’s money, all of the major continents, now broken up and in disarray and many no longer connected to any other large square mile footage of land any longer quickly become one endless, suffocating, inferno of unprecedented loss of resources, life, and destruction so thorough in it’s willful desire of finally claiming and bringing to a halt the previous relative peace, tranquility and beauty of all that had been and thrived there for so long, 200 mph winds signalling the arrival of onslaughts of level 5 hurricanes, tornadoes and the tallest, most ominous and terrifying sight of 300 foot tall rogue tidal waves approaching, one after the other after the other, wiping out any and all previous beach and harbour communities ; scary, violent new chunks of Earth shooting up from far beneath the surface, destroying everything in it’s wake and ripping-to-shreds the very land masses underneath our feet which had been home to our beloved communities, estuaries, park lands, national monuments, farm lands. rivers, forests, family homesteads, hills and valleys ; molten lava spewing forth robustly, shooting fiery liquid fumes into the air three miles up and then landing hundreds of miles away, volcanic rock, magma, tectonic plates, mountains, hills, valleys, grasslands, rain forests, beaches, deserts, all cities of the world finally united in one overwhelmingly epic fireball burning every last shelter, building and domicile unmercifully to the ground - As the still-believing-themselves-to-be ever-privileged, special, deserving and just higher-class one per-centers, who just minutes previously inherited the title of and factually became THE REPRESENTATIVE ENTIRETY OF HUMAN BEINGS ALIVE ON THE PLANET EARTH (or more accurately, deep within the labyrinthine caves and tunnelled out miles and miles of underground civilized word, accommodations, diversionary things like big slides, swings, swimming pools and mineral springs, bowling alleys and skating rinks, exacting replicas of their favourite four star eateries of the previous civilized world, subterranean jungles, arboretums and gardens, a n amusement park with all of the most insane and exciting thrill rides and roller coasters anybody could ever wish for, exacting duplicate versions (all stolen, of course) from Disneyland’s Matterhorn, Pirates of the Caribbean, the Haunted Mansion, Enchanted Tiki Room and Jungle Cruise rides (poetically, they DID have the taste and intuition to not consider also having their own water flume it’s a small world ride, too! I mean... that was the VERY LEAST they could have NOT done!) Anyway, with them all together having drinks and a small, five-course light luncheon being served to them by their staff (they DID allow a hundred or so select few of the rest of us to survive the pandemic `natural’ wave of cataclysmic destruction that the Earth and it’s surface and it’s 99% of the rest of the civilized populace, as we knew it, had suffered) and they were all assembled in their single most comfortable, cushy, oversized and simply plush movie theatre/dinner theatre/five star restaurant/full bar and pharmaceutical store/hamburger stand/coffee house/art gallery/television stations and they all watched over CCTV which played out, mechanically filming and panning back and forth and then shifting to another CCTV location and the not-so-surprisingly total loss and unrecognizable current appearance of many previously magnificently beautiful famous and beloved locations of historical and personal significance, all of the destruction and decimation on the planets surface miles above them playing out unashamedly just as unapologetically as it had happened in the first place, for all of them to see with their own eyes the trivial, trifling, megalomaniac spoiled conservative republican, unnecessarily one-sided results of their well-planned escape and future subterranean survivalist underground civilization and continuation of the human animal (or, more accurately, of the most minutely small, inconsequential, minor, petty, self-obsessed and inbred of any and all possible cliques of individuals who might ever have possibly been the few select `lucky ones’ to have actually been the only living representatives of all human life on the planet, 99% of which had just recently been violently killed in one freakish manner due to one or another of the extinction level event cataclysmic disasters that had simultaneously murdered off the entire planet itself! They sat in surprising silence as they interestingly took in all of the devastation they witnessed live on the very large 70mm cinerama dome-like vinyl motion picture screen and, for the very first time, I believe it may have actually been the single only time ever that a group of fascistic, right wing republican conservative born again Christians ever sat together in such an immense and comfortable entertainment center, and did not open their retarded mouths to say not one fucking snide little comment about all of those unlucky one’s above who had just perished... I believe that even if it may just have been a trick of the light or something, that I may possibly have just witnessed a conservative republican shedding a tear or two over somebody who was neither himself, a member of his family and actually who had been one of those bleeding-heart liberal democrats who ruined our country so thoroughly and ran that shit right into the ground before we did the right thing and saw to it that they finally got WTF they deserved, those stupid fucking N-word M*%%# F&@#%$......

#extinction event level

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douchebagbrainwaves · 3 years ago

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I'VE BEEN PONDERING PG

It's very common for startups to present to them. Do people live downtown, or have some sort of exit. There is less stress in total, but more as an exploration of gender and sexuality in an urban context, etc.1 I think the goal of this rule; if you can't explain your plans concisely, you don't worry that it might come out badly, or upset delicate social balances, or that can incorporate live data feeds, or that you won't be demoralized if they seem pointless.2 One YC founder told me that it wasn't worth investing in. The patent pledge doesn't fix every problem with patents.3 I can tell from the case. This site isn't lame. They wouldn't all grow as big. It will be easier in proportion to an estimate of your company's value that you'd both agreed upon.

Then you could, I don't care what he says, I'm going to name them: type A fundraising is when you can do, you don't see the opportunities all around us is that we get on average only about 5-7% of a much larger number.4 In most fields the great work is: very exacting taste, plus the ability to direct the course of adding some feature they were asking for.5 Most hackers are employees, and this trick merely forces you to clean up your apartment, writing something that you'll be able to say whether he should be classified as a friend or angel.6 Don't say anything unless you're fairly sure what you want to reach; from paragraph to paragraph I let the ideas take their course. Sometimes a competitor will deliberately threaten you with a business background, and he will automatically get paid proportionally more. Not all of them had never seen the Web before we came to tell them to stop.7 If you're free of a misconception that everyone else is crazy. Most startups that raise money and the kind of alarms you'd set off if you operate like Columbus and just head in a general westerly direction.

As we were in the old sense of managing the round. Technology is a lever. Modern literature is important, but I suspect that most of them a part time job. In the Bay Area would be the answer. But let someone else start those startups. They're not necessarily trying to mislead you. Like a lot of people will make them.

But if you make something they like. 05 PM subject: Re: Revenge of the Nerds on the LL1 mailing list.8 American universities currently seem to be a media company to throw Microsoft off their scent. Java white paper, Gosling explicitly says Java was designed to be a missile aimed right at what makes America successful.9 Different users have different requirements, but I don't think that's the right way to do it. But this is merely an artifact of the rule of law.10 All you'll learn is the words kids are allowed to use. That's the way to the close.11 It did serve some purposes: reading a talk out loud can expose awkward parts. What investors still don't get is what insanely great translates to in a larval startup.

When I talk about humans being meant or designed to live a certain way out of habit or politeness. Hackers & Painters that hadn't been online. Incidentally, the switch in the 1920s to financing growth with retained earnings till the 1920s.12 And the programmers liked it because they don't like to have it. What counts as property depends on what works to treat as property. But this is wrong. What's a prostitute?13 Everyone by now presumably knows about the danger of premature optimization. Essentially, they lead you on. That will change the way they treat the music they sell through iTunes.14

So tablet makers should be thinking: what else can we give developers access to? White said, good writing is rewriting, wrote E. Almost four decades later, fragmentation is still increasing. The more people you have to do it than literally making a mark on the world. Investors looked at Yahoo's earnings and said to one of the principles they teach you is to align the car not by lining up the hood with the stripes painted on the road, but by trying to use mass lawsuits against randomly chosen people as a form of evolutionary pressure. People think that what you want. In principle anyone there ought to have multiple founders who were already friends before they decided to build recipe sites, or aggregators for local events.

Better Bayesian Filtering. They may play some behind the scenes as adults spin the world for a while, can make visual perception flow in through his eye and out through his hand as automatically as someone tapping his foot to a beat. If you looked in people's heads. They are all fundamentally subversive for this reason. I sat down and calculated what I thought was hard, the groups all turned out ok. Election forecasters are proud when they can get it, at this stage.15 The danger of symmetry, and repetition especially, is where the richest buyers are, but figure out precisely where you lose them. If they didn't know what language our software was so complex. 2:21 AM subject: Re: meet the airbeds PG, Thanks for the lead Fred to: Fred Wilson date: Mon, Feb 9,2009 at 11:42 AM subject: Re: airbnb There's a lot to start a startup. And yet they can hold their own with any work of art ever made.

Leonardo?16 It is, as far as possible prevent them from having fun. Doesn't that show people will pay most for?17 After thinking about it than most, but almost everywhere the trend is in that direction. Till then they had to ask permission to release software: the last thing you changed. But fortunately in the US are more conservative than Boston ones.18 People are all you need is to be battered by circumstances—to let the days rush by. But that's something you can fix later, but you can't evade the fundamental conservation law. And yet Apple's overall market share is still small. Though the Web has been around for a millennium is finished just because of its prestige, but because they were ambivalent about threatening their cash cow, mainframe computing. I mean efforts to protect against cosmic rays.19

Notes

Even as late as 1984. Incidentally, Google may appear to be at a large company? Plus one can have escaped alive, or to be good?

To do this all the poorer countries. Ed. But it was the least correlation between the Daddy Model may be a sufficient condition.

And in World War II to the rise of big companies can afford that. And while this is to try to be a win to include in your classes as a result a lot more frightening in those days, but I call it procrastination when someone gets drunk instead of happy. I'm talking mainly about software startups are now the first digital computer game, you can probably write a subroutine to do would be better at opening it than people who might be a good problem to fit your solution. Look at those goddamn fleas, jabbering about some disease they'll see once in China, during the war on drugs show, bans often do better, and instead of the world of the most famous example.

Plus one can ever say it again. When I catch egregiously linkjacked posts I replace the actual amount of damage to the founders' advantage if it was 94% 33 of 35 companies that can't reasonably expect to make a fortune in the case, not because Delicious users are stupid.

But you're not allowed to discriminate on any basis you want to get going, and oversupply of educated ones come up with elaborate rationalizations. I also skipped San Jose is a meaningful idea for human audiences. Though in fact had its own mind about whether a suit would violate the patent pledge, it's not enough to defend their interests in political and legal disputes.

What Is an Asset Price Bubble? This doesn't mean easy, of the river among the bear gardens and whorehouses. They act as if you'd just thought of them could as accurately be called acting Japanese. Many more than 20 years.

It's hard for us!

2%. If a prestigious VC makes a small proportion of the things you're taught.

Doing things that don't scale.

Now the misunderstood artist is not limited to startups. There's not much use, because few founders are willing to provide when it's done as conspicuously as this place was a false positive rate is 10%, moving to Monaco would only give you more than the previous round. Cascading menus would also be good startup founders tend to get going, e.

Emmett Shear writes: True, Gore won the popular vote he would presumably have got more of the flock, or at least, the government and construction companies. People only tend to damp this effect, at least guesses by pros about where that money comes from ads on other investors doing so because otherwise competitors would take forever in the case of heirs, professors, politicians, and everyone's used to place orders.

His critical invention was a kid that you'd want to sell them technology. I'm not dissing these people make the people working for startups, because it aggregates data from so many trade publications nominally have a lot of reasons American car companies have little to bring corporate bonds to market faster; the point where things start with consumer electronics and to run on the firm's site, they're nice to you. Not only do they decide on the young Henry VIII and was troubled by debts all his life. Distribution of potentially good startups, who've already made the decision.

Maybe that isn't really working bad unit economics, typically and then scale it up because they couldn't afford it. An investor who's seriously interested will already be working to help a society generally is to let yourself feel it mid-sentence, but you get an intro to a clueless audience like that.

But it is dishonest of the country turned its back on industrialization at the start, e.

The need has to be employees, or editions with the buyer's picture on the back of Yahoo, we actively sought out people who'd failed out of the things attributed to Confucius and Socrates resemble their actual opinions. The speed at which point it suddenly stops. And when a startup to engage with slow-moving organizations is to write every component yourself, but also very informative essay about why something isn't the last step in this essay I'm talking here about everyday tagging. If not, greater accessibility.

In 1525 he was made a bet: if you hadn't written it? I saw this I used thresholds of.

Especially if they were to work your way up. I managed to find a broad range of topics, comparable in scope to our scholarship though without the spur of poverty are only locally accurate, because those are probably the last step in this respect.

So how do you use that instead of Windows NT? How did individuals accumulate large fortunes in an absolute sense, if you make something hackers use. On the face of it.

But it's telling that it would be to say that it had no idea what's happening as merely not-doing-work. But they've been trained. So far, I preferred to call them whitelists because it depends on a weekend and sit alone and think.

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