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carolmunson · 2 years ago

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bad blood (part one) (stella's version)

(A CROSS OVER FOR THE AGES FEATURING @ROLLERGIRLWORLD ’S BOXER!STEVE AND LIBRARIAN!READER) (18+) (ROCKSTAR!EDDIE X ACTRESS!READER)

TENSIONS ARE HIGH WHEN YOU FINALLY RUN INTO STEVE AGAIN AFTER HE MADE YOU CRY IN HIS KITCHEN IN MALIBU – CALLING OUT YOU AND EDDIE’S BAD BEHAVIOR. THE TRAINING FOR YOUR NEW OSCAR BAIT MOVIE IS ON THE LINE, BUT WILL THINGS GO TO BLOWS BEFORE YOU EVEN LEARN HOW TO THROW A JAB? WHY IS EVERYONE SO ON EDGE?

Do they know something you don’t? READ FROM LIBRARIAN!READER’S PERSPECTIVE HERE.

warnings and such: smut implications/almost smut, fingering/teasing, name calling, drug mention, swearing, blood mention, intense toxic behavior from a one steve harrington, angst, crying, some kissing, not really ‘ignoring’ per se – but feeling ignored by partner (also: photo above does not imply that that’s my HC for stella – i don’t use descriptors outside of clothing, just was a cool lady boxer pic) lastly, i don’t use 'Y/N’ in fics, filler name is stella rink, argue with the wall. and super lastly, if you’re under 18, don’t read my content.

“Oh no, I think they took a different exit,” you said with a frown, looking out of the back window of Eddie’s black Jeep Cherokee. Your assistant and manager had been following you from the hotel to the gym, but neither of them knew Toronto very well – to be fair, neither did Eddie. He had one eye on the road and the other on a map propped up on his knee, jaw tight and his grip on the wheel with his ringed hand even tighter. His tongue stuck out on the corner of his lip while he tried to concentrate.

“Baby, I’m not saying this in a mean way, but please stop talking,” he pleaded, “Let me just figure this out.”

The heavy churn of Judas Priest’s Painkiller album was screaming through the sound system, making your anxiety even higher. Ed told you it would be good ‘pump up’ music before you went in for your first training session, but it couldn’t have made you more overwhelmed. You sat back down in the passenger’s seat, watching the road and the piles of snow building up on the meridians of the highway. You’d never boxed before, you barely did your own stunts – and hey, neither would anyone else whose legs were insured for forty million dollars. The training was for a movie – your first big drama, absolute Oscar bait – where an about-to-be pro, female boxer is down on their luck and stuck in a man’s world. If you had just erased the boxer part, you might as well have been playing yourself. Quick witted, snarky, tough, self reliant and self sufficient, all listed in the character description – Eddie laughed when he read it, “All it’s missing is your loud mouth and then it’s just you on a Monday morning.” Since you had just wrapped a few episodes of a new mini-series in Canada, and the movie would be filming here, it made sense to get you right into training here, too. You’d been so preoccupied with filming that you just okayed everything your manager said about getting this set-up through your assistant. “It’ll be the best boxer working in Toronto, you’re gonna be in great hands! Well…gloves? I guess?” she said over the phone. You nodded to your assistant while your manager’s voice droned on through the speaker, trying to focus on getting your hair and makeup done, learning your lines, and a PA coming in to check on you every five seconds. Before you knew it, you and Eddie were on a private jet from Montreal to Toronto with only two days to spare before you got to the gym.

It hit you the night before that you had to do something you weren’t one hundred percent confident you’d know how to do. Sure you were coordinated: you could dance, you could swim, you could figure skate, you could play baseball – could you box? Sure you were tough, you were quick, you were angry – but – could you box? You tossed and turned in bed for an hour before Eddie sat up and turned the side table light on. “Okay, lay it on me,” he said, the sheets shifting down to show off his chest while he pushed up to lean against the pillows, “What’s wrong, sweet thing?” You huffed and turned towards him, pouting, “What if I’m bad and the studio decides it’s not worth it and they recast me?”

He laughed, “That’s the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever said.They’d never recast you, you’re a perfect fit.”

“Can you just listen?” you whined, “Indulge in my bad mood with me.”

“Sweet thing, I’m never gonna indulge in your bad mood with you,” he said, taking his hand closer to you and plopping it on your head, “Especially when your bad mood is telling my baby all that bullshit. Why do you think you’re not gonna be good?”

“I don’t know, I’m not like – I’m not a boxer. I’m not a fighter like that,” you shrugged.

“That’s what you’re being trained for. So you can look like a boxer and act like a boxer,” he explained, “If you already knew, the studio wouldn’t spend the money on a coach for you. They know you don’t know. That’s the whole point.”

“I don’t like not knowing,” you sulked, “What if I look stupid?”

“You never look stupid,” his brows knitted, you were rarely this down on yourself, “What’s gettin’ into you tonight? You’re so pouty.”

“Just nervous,” you whispered.

“You know what helps me when I’m nervous?” he asks with a little grin, using the hand he plopped on your head to put your hair out of your eyes.

“Yeah, you smoke weed,” you replied matter of factly.

“The other thing,” he said, catching your eyes.

“Oh. Fucking?” you guessed, you knew that look.

“C’mon,” he said, tugging his pants off under the sheets and kicking them down to the edge of the mattress, “Come get on top of me angel, show me how tough you are.” You groaned and turned to the other side, hearing him sink into the covers through the crinkle of the sheets. Ed’s body is suddenly warm against your back, his fingers trailing your thigh to catch the silk of your little powder blue nightie and shoving it up to your waist. You giggled when his lips found your ear, nipping at the lobe. Your back involuntarily arches, pushing your ass against him when his hot breath fans against your neck.

“Don’t wanna show me how tough you are? You want it to be a surprise?” he asked, his fingers snaking over the swell of your hip. He tucked a knee between yours to keep your legs propped open, the same hand on your hip making its way between your thighs. Your body gets hot at his touch, the way he talks in your ear, the confidence he has to know when and how you want it without having to tell him.

“Want me to tucker you out, instead?” he asked, two fingers slowly circling over your clit. You could feel the spongy, swollen tip of his cock already trying to probe you from behind.

“Please, daddy,” you whine, your hand reaching for his wrist while pleasure builds between your legs.

“Lemme get you relaxed first, baby,” his voice got deep and gravely, your hips slowly grinding in time with his fingers. Eddie grinned at your silent consent, your little breaths picking up while he touched you. He fucked you hard that night, slamming you into the mattress with your legs in the air, getting you to scream out all of your anxieties into the pent house suite walls. You slept better than you had in weeks, but the wake up wrapped up in each other’s arms was sweeter than the kisses he gave you the night before.

“Looks like we’re here, princess,” Eddie said, pulling the Jeep into the parking lot. A couple of cars were already there and you silently cursed yourself for not getting there earlier. The sound of a sports car pulling in behind you was a happy reminder that your assistant and your manager made it unscathed.

You popped open the door, hopping down from the seat in your silvery white moon boots. A knee length white (FAUX – don’t throw any red paint) fur coat protected you from the bitter cold of Canada. You tugged on some matching mittens, closing the door behind you and meeting Eddie at the trunk while he pulled out your bags, slinging them over his shoulder. You both couldn’t look more different. You in your winter wonderland best, ear muffs and accessories all in the same bright white – you matched the bitter snow filled sky. Then there was Eddie, swallowed up by a heavy duty leather jacket covered in studs, black shredded sweater underneath. His tight black jeans tucked into black socks, tucked into steel toe combat boots. No gloves, no scarf, nothing to cover his ears – his teeth chattered but he didn’t complain.

With the bags on his back, he looked you over, cooing at the sight of you, “My little snow angel, look at you.”

You blushed, “Stooppp! I’m supposed to go in there and kick ass. I can’t be a little snow angel.”

“Shouldnt’a dressed so cute then,” he shrugged, leaving a kiss on your cheek and putting your mittened hand in his. Your assistant, Tiffany, and your manager, Simone crunched towards you in the snow.

“How ya feelin’, Stell?” Simone asked, “You look nervous.”

“I’m a little nervous,” you confessed, your lip quirking.

“Nothing to be nervous about, we go in, we train, we schedule the next training, we leave – done!” she assured you, her coffee colored nails shining while she talked with her hands, “You’re gonna crush it, you always do.”

Simone’s words were always comforting and straight to the point, it’s why she’s been your manager for as long as she has. Normally, she’d never come to something like this, she has other clients, but she knew it would be something you’d want extra support for. It didn’t exactly mean this wasn’t a working trip for her though, because as soon as she finished her sentence, one of her cell phones rang in her oversized purse.

“Simone Mueller speaking,” her voice was cavalier, but her work ethic was anything but. If there was anything you wanted in Hollywood, you wanted Simone Mueller on your team for it. You, Eddie, and Tiffany followed behind her into the gym, the heat of the building soothing your nerves almost instantly. You felt Eddie give your hand a squeeze, kissing it over the mittens.

“You got this, baby. Gonna be so great,” his award winning smile, dimples and all, made you want to take him to the locker room like you did with the boys in high school. When you stopped at the doorway you looked to the far end to see someone familiar. Little feet that could use some Vivienne Westwood platforms attached to a little woman looking at the banners on the ceiling, oh - OH!

“Libby!” you call out, waving at her. The sight of her calms you more than the heat of the gym, a friend, someone safe. Someone who knew you outside of being a movie star. But the comfort faded as her boyfriend came into view next to her – if Libby was here, it meant your coach was Steve.

You never forgot that look he gave you from behind his glasses, the last words he said to you back in September of last year. He had been right the whole time, Eddie would get caught using again five months later and ruin everything. Your jaw clenched when you thought about how satisfied he was when Eddie called him up to get back in the ring when you separated in February. Your heart sank to know that he was right again, you took him back. You fulfilled his stupid fucking kitchen counter prophecy.

Your smile falters when she doesn’t respond, getting tugged away by Steve to have a hushed and heated conversation with his manager. You guessed he was as surprised as you were, because when Simone said ‘best boxer working in Toronto,’ you thought it meant someone from Canada. Not a boxer that just so happened to be working in Toronto the same time as you.

“Let’s go change, they’re almost done setting up,” Simone said, beckoning you over with her hand, “You gotta talk to Tim, too.”

“Let me just get my bearings, Simone, I’ll be right over to the locker room. I promise!” you say, but she picked up a call halfway through your sentence.

“Want me to talk to Simone about getting you out of here? You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to. Not with that fucking asshole,” Eddie assured, his hand rubbing your back while guiding you to the other side of the gym. Unbeknownst to you, Eddie’s heart was pounding at the sight of both of them, a cold sweat pooling on the back of his neck.

“No baby, it’s – it’s okay,” you assured, shrugging your coat off. Tiffany ran up unannounced, her blonde ponytail bouncing behind her to take your things and hang them up in the locker room.

“Thanks Tiff,” you beamed, “Can you get me a tea? If they have that here? Coffee’s fine if not.”

“You want a coffee, Ed?” Tiff asked over her shoulder. Eddie shook his head no, knowing he wouldn’t be able to keep anything down if he tried. He didn’t dislike Tiffany, but something about how willing she was to do things for you made him feel like he was a little useless. Sure, he was there for general spousal support’ but he was perfectly good at getting you coffee or tea or putting your coat away.

“Surprised they even got back together,” Eddie muttered, watching you pull your hair back and out of your face. You made a face, brows contorting.

“They broke up?” you asked, “Where’d you hear that?”

Eddie stuttered for a second, his cheeks turning pink, “Uh, oh, in like, some magazine. It was a while ago.”

Eddie didn’t read magazines that reported break ups, especially ones that might report on a guy he hates. He only read Heavy Metal, Kerrang!, and Metal Hammer – every now and then Rolling Stone. Though, you wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d been trying to find stories about you in Teen Beat and Seventeen when you were separated.

His hand found your waist, stealing a kiss from you, “You wanna go? I can still show you how to box.”

“You weren’t my favorite coach for that, baby,” you laughed, returning his kiss with one of your own, “But thank you so much for the offer.”

When you knew you were getting the role, Eddie brought you right down to the home gym to show you the ropes. He was good at so many things, but teaching you how to box just absolutely wasn’t one of them. Eddie was always getting frustrated that you were getting frustrated, giving vague instructions like:

‘Okay move your arm like this!’

‘Like what?’

‘Just like, punch, baby. Just throw a punch – no, no not like that.’

‘Okay like how?’

‘We’re doing hooks baby, not jabs. You have to put your weight into it, turn your body a little – not all the way, honey. Jesus Christ, we’re gonna be here all night.’

Needless to say, the session ended with you grinding on top of him in the sauna and you both figured that would be a better workout program than whatever you were doing before. You make your way over to meet with Mikey and Big by the ring – Eddie trailing behind you protectively, a straightness in his posture you weren’t used to seeing.

“Hi, I’m Stella! We all met briefly back in September of last year, and I think I’ve seen you all at a couple parties at our place. It’s nice to see you again and, you know, officially meet you,” you put your hand out, getting hand shakes all around, “This is so exciting! I really appreciate you all taking the time to be a part of this project – I know Steve’s got a busy schedule.” It was like Steve never sent you home crying. You’d been acting for a long time. What’s another performance for the audience? The men shared their niceties, Mikey’s stare lingering a little too long for Eddie’s liking.

“Haven’t seen ya since the beginning of March, kid. Where’ve you been?” Big asked, big smile on his face, giving Ed a little shove on the shoulder, “You’re gettin’ fuckin’ ripped dude. You wanna come fight for Mikey? We can put you on the roster.”

Eddie blushed, he always liked Big from when he used to work out with Steve at the Malibu gym, “Nah, nah, it’s just for the ladies, y’know? Well, for this lady.”

“Picked you a winner there, huh?” Big smirked at your eye roll.

“I always do,” Eddie joked back. You let the boys talk more, seeing Steve approaching the group with a face only concrete could love. He sneaks the mitts out of Big’s arms, not making eye contact with Eddie at all. There’s a rigidness to his face, he’s mad, he’s fuming – this wasn’t surprising. “Bet he’s pumped to the fuckin’ brim with roids,” Eddie huffed one night when he got angry again over the whole ordeal, “Probably why he’s such an asshole to his girl, all the fuckin’ roid rage.”

“Hey, Harrington,” you smiled, taking a few steps over to him. You see his jaw tense and eyes darken, you know he hates the informality – so you really lay it on thick. You clapped him on the shoulder, slinking your arms across your chest after, “Long time, no see Steve.”

“Can’t say that bothered me,” his tone was low, his stare sparking with that same glint in his eye from when he used his words like knives to your throat. You havin’ fun, angel? You havin’ fun, angel? You havin’ fun, angel? You havin’ fun, angel? You havin’ fun, angel?

“And still so charming,” you say flatly, a sparkling smile still plastered on your face, a media training laugh pouring out of your mouth. You knew the gym owner had to be here somewhere and you’d be damned if the The Sun got a report that you were a bitch to Steve fucking Harrington and his little woman. You peer over his shoulder and see the woman in question, a nervous looking Libby sitting over by the side of the ring.

“Where’s Lib —oh! Libby!” you call out, hurrying over to her, almost skittering on your moon boots. Just a moment to feel okay, just a little girl chat was all you needed to get through the next few hours.

“Oh, h-hi, St-Stella.” She looks terrified and you can feel Steve’s harsh glare on your back. Something felt wrong, but you shook it off. Maybe they got in a fight after you left last year, maybe things got worse for her. That’s what you feared the most, that before she knew it, Libby would have lost all of herself in Steve. "I was trying to come and say hi, but they were trying to corral me off to change. It’s been so long, we have to catch up!” you urge, but Libby doesn’t respond. She takes a step back and knocks over one of the chairs, a commotion causing the guys to look up and for you to protectively reach your hand out to help.

“Y-yeah, it’s um —wow, yeah —uh…I forgot my book,” she mumbles, getting up. She could barely look at you. Your heart starts to race. Did Steve tell her that you both couldn’t hang out anymore? Just because you said he might lose her?

“Oh, okay–” you start meekly, realizing you might’ve gotten Libby in trouble. Your smile falls a little, suddenly self conscious.

“—yeah, I’ll be right back!” she says before running all the way to the gym’s office and shutting the door behind her.

“Stella! Gym clothes, let’s go!” Simone calls out, walking over to you, her waist length micro box braids swinging behind her. Her knee high black leather boots clicking loud on the concrete floor, her long floor length Calvin Klein trench floating behind her. Simone never asks for something more than twice, so you hurry your way towards the locker room matching her stride.

“I sent Tiffany to get coffee for everyone,” she muttered, “We’re not using a coffee pot from 1982 that’s never been washed in a gym’s back room.”

You nodded, slinking off to the locker room and seeing Eddie making himself comfortable on the other side of the ring. He looked a little jittery, his knee bouncing anxiously, fiddling with the guitar pick on his chain.

Eddie’s demeanor perked up when he saw you emerge from the locker room in your Everlast shorts, sparkling white. Shorter than men’s boxer shorts, but flowy enough to move around in – you of course still had a reputation to uphold. Your sports bra, obviously a sensible top, clung to your body; suddenly feeling too hot and tight at the sight of Steve menacingly standing in the corner of the ring, his eye following you and flitting to Eddie. You swallowed hard, climbing into the ring, Big hopping in to tape up your hands and give you a little pep talk. Steve crossed his arms, leaning against the posts with the mitts on each hand. When the gloves were on, a little heavy and awkward, Big hopped out to collect his coffee from a chatty Tiffany who came back with the goods.

“I don’t like to wait,” Steve said, approaching you with slow steps in the center of the ring.

“That’s too bad. I don’t like to be rushed,” you hissed back, “I’m the star, here, so.”

He clicked his tongue, “How’d I know you’d bring that little attitude with you.”

“Oh wow, brighter than he looks, folks,” you say, your smile still stuck on your face.

“Comin’ in the ring dressed like boxer barbie and I’m not bright?” he retorts, “You come here to work or t’show off?”

“Well if I knew you’d be here, I probably wouldn’t have come at all,” you glare back.

“Alright, alright, enough – you wanna know how to box? Let me show you how to box. You know how to stand?”

“I’m standing right now,” you said, gloves on your hips. He laughs, an evil snicker, and he wants you to know he’s laughing at you.

“Oh you’re real hopeless, huh?” he said, a smirk curling onto his face, “That’s not a boxing stance, princess. You do any research at all? You watch a match? Or did they send you in here with nothin’ in that barbie doll head?”

Your cheeks burned, this is exactly what you were afraid of – being made to feel stupid. He takes the mitts off and tosses them to his feet, his rough taped hands finding contact with your shoulders.

“You left handed or right handed?” he asked, “D’you know the difference?”

“Left handed,” you responded, shaking off his comment.

“Okay, left shoulder always leading towards me, right at my chest,” he explains, “Feet diagonal apart, back heel up.”

You do as he says, his rough hands adjusting your shoulders position, reaching at your forearms.

“Gloves up, shoulders up, chin down,” he said, “Gotta be blocking your face. You know, the shit fuckin’ Munson doesn’t know how to do? Wouldn’t be surprised if you couldn’t catch on either.” His head flicks a little toward Eddie and you grit your teeth. You get into position, the gloves feel awkward and heavy, but you don’t want to show it – he already knows you’re out of your element.

“You’re punching straight out, just straight ahead,” Steve instructed, bending down to pick up the mitts and slipping them back on.

You lunge your arm forward in a sharp line but it barely makes a ‘smack’ against the mitt on Steve’s left hand. He laughs, shoving them off and leaving them by his feet again.

“Awful,” he says with a smile, coming over to the side of you, “Real fuckin’ awful.”

“Well you know all about being awful, Harrington, so, you’d know,” you huff. He stops, you can feel his eyes on you, he swallows while he grabs your left forearm. Steve sends your arm forward to mimic your previous movement.

“Where’s the power coming from when you throw a punch like this?” he asked, moving your arm back and forth.

“My…fist?”

“Oh my God, Stell. You’re serious?” Steve’s voice is teetering on exasperated and pure rage, dropping your arm back by your side. He runs a hand over his face and then through his hair – but you know, your ignorance could be fun for him. Steve gets behind you, his chest close to your back, the uncomfortable scratch of his wrapped hands reaching around either side of you to cage you in. He’s got your arms up, like he’s using you as a boxing puppet – you can smell the mix of his sweat and cologne and it immediately sends you back to their kitchen in Malibu. His harsh glare, his smile when you started to cry.

“So when you put the glove forward,” he says, slowly maneuvering your arm forward with his hand from behind you, “You’re using your whole upper body behind it, twisting at the waist. Puttin’ all the weight on that front foot. Feel how you twist when I do it for you?”

“Oh, yeah,” you reply, “That makes sense.” It’s the first time you can really gauge how strong he actually is – his soft touches feel heavy. He could kill you if he really wanted. Behind you, Steve catches Eddie’s eye whose arms are crossed in a chair at the side of the ring. His dark brown eyes shining and angry, his cheeks tinged pink, a vein in his neck pulsing while he watches Steve get closer to you. He instinctively goes to chew on the skin of his thumb, a nervous habit he’d had since he was a kid.

Steve’s eyes stay trained on Eddie while he guides you again, jumping when his hand falls to your hip, his voice booming in your ear – loud enough for the spectator to hear it, “That feels better, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah, I can tell where the weight’s supposed to come from now,” you respond, but Steve isn’t listening. He’s just relishing in whatever emotional turmoil he might’ve put your fiance in. Steve’s hands skitter off you and he picks up the mitts again, slipping them on and getting in front of you.

“One, two me,” he said. You throw a jab with your left hand and quickly another with your right.

“Again,” he said, “Keep your arms up, you can’t drop ‘em.”

You go again, but it’s still not enough.

“You keep droppin’ your shoulders, pick your fuckin’ shoulders up,” he hisses.

You tighten your upper body, tucking your chin, a tight one two smacking into the mitts.

“Start over, it’s not clean enough,” he says from behind the mitts, “You need it cleaner.”

You catch Libby taking her seat back by the ring, hoping that with her back around, Steve will be a little nicer.

“I literally just started boxing today, what do you mean I need it cleaner?”

“Start over. If you wanna whine about it, I’ll send you home,” he shrugs.

You keep pulling ‘one, twos’ and he’s moving around the ring while you try to keep up. There’s not one kind word that leaves his mouth, no words of encouragement, nothing. Just his dead eyes and every critique he can think of.

“Stop, stop,” he says, ripping the mitts off.

“This,” he says, performing a punch, “Is a fucking jab. What the fuck are you doing?”

“What you just showed me, if I’m doing it wrong it’s because you showed it to me the wrong way,” you heaved, gloved hands on your hips. You were glistening with sweat, trying to catch your breath.

“No, I showed you the right way. Don’t get smart with me,” he said, hands on his hips to match your posture, “You wanna play a professional boxer, right? So what’cha gettin’ lax for? A pro would never look that sloppy, no matter how tired they are. Fuckin’ commit, Rink.”

“I’m not getting lax, Steve,” your voice toddled on the line of whiny.

“You know what I think?” he asked, his arms crossing over his chest.

“I’m surprised to hear you do,” you snapped, “Could’ve fooled me.”

He shook his head, running his hand through his hair, his step toward you made him close enough that you’d have to look up at him when he spoke.

“I think,” he said, his eyes scanning yours, his wolfish smile curling up into his cheeks, “You need to learn a thing or two about gettin’ some discipline.”

Steve scared you, the way your cousin did when he was living with your family to go to military school. He was ‘going through a tough time’ when you were a teen. Unhinged and unpredictable – the same flash of devilish confidence bursting behind their eyes. You can hear the clinking of Eddie’s leather jacket and the stomp of his boots walking around the ring, but you’re too frozen in fear and the desperate need to keep your cool to toss your gaze over to him. But god damn do you wish he’d give you a little cheer from the sidelines.

“Looks like you still got Libby pretty educated in it, Harrington,” you muttered darkly, getting back into your stance. His jaw is tight, his eyes flitting to Eddie sitting down next to his girlfriend, but he doesn’t falter in his malice for you.

He snickers, “Anyone ever teach you to shut that mouth, Rink? You know what happens to boxers who talk too much?”

“What?” you ask, tossing a hard one-two into his mitts. He peers over the top of them to make direct eye contact with you.

“They fuckin’ lose.”

“Pfft, okay,” you bristle at his words, your cheeks getting splotchy from feeling overwhelmed and inadequate. You didn’t have the energy to fight with him anymore. Your next to punches are weak, they barely make contact with the mitts. He doesn’t let you forget it.

“What is it?” he mocks, his face matching his hatred, “You not havin’ fun, angel?”

You let a breath push hard out of your nose, tears pricking in your eyes – you were so over this. Over Steve’s shitty attitude, over the gloves being too heavy, over the fluorescent lights. You already felt weird over Libby not talking to you and now Eddie wasn’t coming to your rescue either – just indulging in his stupid fucking crush. You’re so preoccupied with your annoyance at this whole ordeal that you don’t catch Eddie and Steve’s quiet stare down. You don’t catch Steve’s satisfied smirk while Eddie makes it back to his seat. All you feel is lonely in the center of the ring.

“Alright, everyone, great work! We’re gonna break for forty, you can put your lunch orders in with Tiffany.” Tim’s voice booms through the gym and shakes you back to yourself. You hear the mitts smack hard against the floor of the ring as Steve makes his way over to Libby. You flinch at the way he grabs Libby from her chair and drags her into the office, it feels like watching an after school special on abusive relationships and you’re the bystander who doesn’t know how to ask for help. Big helps you take your gloves off, tying the laces together and throwing them around his shoulders and he puts two big hands on your own.

“You’re givin’ ‘im hell, kid,” he smiled, “You’re doin’ great.”

Your smile weakly back at him, following him out of the ring toward the locker room. Eddie meets your stride and can immediately tell something’s wrong, reaching for your hand and lacing fingers with you while you walk past the office door.

The stale, humid air hits you but it’s not as stifling as it was to be out in that ring with King Steve. You sit on the bench, leaning up against the wall shared with the office, Eddie squatting down between your knees. He lets his hands spread over each of your thighs, hot to the touch from your quads keeping you in your boxer stance, his thumbs rubbing comfortingly over your skin. He sees your face scrunch and your lower lip start to tremble, a tear twinkling in the white light as it falls to your shorts.

“Oh, honey, no, it’s okay,” he says, “Don’t cry, it’s okay.”

“He’s just – he’s such an asshole,” you shake your head, wiping the streak of tears away as they come, “He’s so fucking mean.”

“It’s the roids, babe, I’m telling you,” he jokes, “His balls gotta be raisins by now.”

You snort at the joke and a real smile floods your face for the first time since you woke up this morning. You wipe your eyes again, hearing Eddie shift to get close to you. You feel his hand snake under your jaw before your eyes meet his, his kiss is gentle and sweet.

“There’s my pretty girl,” he coos. The door opens and Simone peaks her head in, wincing at the stagnant air.

“Stella, your lunch is here if you – Oh, sorry,” she says, seeing your tear stained face, “Everything okay?”

“We’re okay,” Eddie answers for you, “We’re probably gonna eat in the Jeep, Simone. She needs a little break.”

“That’s fine, that’s fine,” she says, “It’s on the edge of the ring, when you’re ready to pick it up. Tiff put your names on it.” She disappears as soon as she arrives, her cell phone ring echoing in the hallway, her clipped steps fading away.

“Just take a deep breath ba–” Eddie starts, but is soon interrupted.

A soft grunt sneaks its way from behind the cinderblock wall, the sound of skin slapping together, and you lean forward to turn your face toward it. Eddie looks up too, sitting next to you on the bench.

“No,” you blush, looking over at Eddie, “They can’t be. With everyone here?”

Eddie shifts his weight on the bench, his cheeks tingeing pink again while he becomes entranced with the bitten hangnail on his thumb. His voice is soft and low while he speaks, still looking down, “He’s a fuckin’ animal, so…”

Eddie watches you stand up and go to the locker with your name on it, scrawled on a white board. You unhinge it, swinging it open to find all of your effects neatly inside. The scent of your perfume sneaking out from where it lingered on your coat. You pull it out and give it a shake.

“I don’t even wanna change,” you sigh, “If I change, I’ll just wanna leave. I suck at this.”

Eddie frowns at the defeat in your voice, you sound so small and hurt. His chest heaves with guilt, it’s clear only three of the four of you know why today has actually been so shitty. Why Steve has been taking his anger out on you. Why Libby is avoiding you like the plague. He wished you demanded to leave, he wished you use your America’s Sweetheart powers for evil just one time. That way you could both get out of this.

He lets out a sigh, “Baby, you don’t suck. Don’t say that.”

“How would you even know? You haven’t been paying attention,” you don’t mean for your voice to be snippy, but the fire in your chest reblooms as you remember him going to sit with Libby. Walking around the gym while Steve degraded you and made you feel stupid.

“Too busy entertaining your school yard crush to even cheer for me,” you say while tossing your coat on the bench. You know it’s childish, but you’re desperate to feel an ounce of power, a shred of the upper hand for just three seconds.

Before he can respond, you’re interrupted again.

“Say it or I stop,” Steve’s voice is ragged and demanding from behind the cinderblock wall, it’s much clearer than the grunting from before. It’s like they’re right up against the other side. You take a moment to really listen – heavy breathing, the sound of slick skin against skin.

”—speak up,“ Steve’s voice rings again, rough and mocking like he was in the ring. You shiver at the sound of it, disappointment flooding your chest when you realize Libby was in too deep if he let her talk to her like that.

"Thank you, daddy!” Libby’s high pitched moan leaked through the wall. Oh. They definitely weren’t fighting.

“You win, I guess,” you say. Eddie blanched at the sound of Libby’s squealing through the wall, sputtering at your words.

“What d’ya mean, I win?” he asks, swallowing hard.

“Didn’t you say a long time ago that she probably calls him daddy in bed?” you laughed a little, “Looks like that’s confirmed.”

Eddie doesn’t laugh, he looks upset and uncomfortable which is unlike him – especially after a sex joke. You go back into your locker and grab your purse, rummaging through it to find your travel size Chloe Narcisse to reapply. The scent is dominated by daffodils with a bite of tropical citrus, violet and sandalwood, something to brighten whatever awful mood you were settling into. The scent hits Eddie and his mouth waters, having felt lucky to have bought it for you that spring. He knew that something about it would wear deliciously on you, but then again, he thought everything about you was delicious. He gets up to meet you, putting your purse back in your locker and shutting it.

“You like that one?” he asks, taking the small bottle delicately out of your hands and putting it in his jacket pocket, “I’ll buy you another before we leave.”

“You don’t have to buy it for me,” you smile, a little ‘oh!’ leaving you as you feel his lips against your neck. The small scratch of his five o’clock shadow against your skin sends a jolt through your body.

“Why not?” he asks in your ear, “I like to spoil you.” His hands are shaky as he keeps kissing your neck and jaw, grabbing at your waist. At this point, Eddie was desperate for a distraction from anything happening in that office.

“Ed stop,” you whine as he hands go to the band of your shorts, “Not here. You’re not like him.”

“Sorry,” he said, lifting his head up from your neck to lean his forehead against yours, “Just wanted to cheer you up a little.”

You hear Tiffany’s voice chirp outside the door, probably to Libby and Steve coming out of the office. You sigh, wanting to run out and pull her into the locker room and lock the door. Leave the boys to their own devices while you yell some sense into her and tell her how much you missed her. It was nice having a friend like her – why did Steve have to ruin it for everyone?

“You know what would cheer me up?” you ask, reaching for your coat. Eddie takes it out of your hands and holds it open behind you, helping you shrug it on.

“What?” he said, getting to the front of you to adjust the collar.

“Judas Priest, as loud as it can go in the Jeep,” you sniffled, the tears from before leaving a crunch of salty cast on your face.

“I love that,” he laughs. He takes your hand while you walk out of the locker room to the gym. It’s quiet when you see everyone and you’re sure they know you were crying so you keep your eyes down to your shoes, squeaking on the concrete floor. You hear Eddie pick up the salads meant for you both from the edge of the ring and you catch the bottom half of Libby sitting on top of Steve’s lap. Your teeth grind in annoyance that she can’t even have her own place to sit, like she’s a fucking trophy he has to parade around – but you don’t say anything. Before you know it, the biting cold is back to whipping your face and the beep of Eddie unlocking the Jeep sends you back to the present with him. His face is colder than the weather outside.

You both hop into the truck at the same time, Eddie shoving the keys into the ignition to crank the heat in the now freezing car. He passes you a plastic bowl of salad, takes it back, and passes you a different one with his name scrawled on it - medium rare skirt steak sitting on top of leaves of spinach.

“They got you breaded chicken instead of grilled, so just have mine,” he said flatly. You know he didn’t mean it like that, but it sounded like he was bored of making things work for you.

“Thanks, honey,” you say. You watch him open the salad bowl and pour a packet of dressing on it, his face flush. He just nods, but doesn’t look at you – suddenly the car feels too hot and you shrug off your coat – your salad sitting abandoned on the dash while you toss the coat in the back seat.

Eddie turns the music up while you open up the utensils packet, Metal Meltdown screaming through the sound system and he can’t help but air guitar the opening riffs to himself. You giggle and he finally tosses a glance at you, warm and cozy like the brown of his eyes.

“Are you okay?” you ask, you can see some hurt behind his gaze, like he wanted to tell you something. He’s quiet for a moment, still looking at you. Eddie’s lips part to speak but he second guesses himself, looking down at the now dressing drenched salad on his lap. He takes a breath in through his nose and out again. Eddie holds his hand out, always an indicator that he wants yours, and you oblige – he pulls your fingertips to his lips to kiss them before starting to speak again.

“I don’t want you training with him,” he says, “I’m gonna talk to Simone about finding you someone else.”

“I’m perfectly fine to talk to Simone, Ed,” you assure, “You don’t have to do that for me. I can negotiate my own stuff.”

“I don’t like him, Stell,” he continued, his words clipped and bordering angry, “I – fuck – like, all I can see when I look at him is you crying in that kitchen. I don’t like how he makes you feel – the way he talks to you. I don’t fuckin’ like him.”

“You’ve established that,” you say, stabbing at the skirt steak with a fork in your free hand.

“I just want you to have a good experience going into this. This movie’s gonna be a big deal,” he says, “You’re a big deal. You should have the best of the best.”

“Unfortunately for us,” you say, ripping a piece of steak off a bigger piece with your teeth, “Steve is the best of the best.” Butter and steak juice run down your chin, but Eddie catches it with a napkin before it drips to your white sports bra.

“Cut it, baby, don’t eat it like that, you’re wearing white,” he said, shaking his head. You show him the plastic knife in the utensil pouch and he rolls his eyes. He takes his pocket knife out from his jacket, not to be confused with his switchblade, and pulls the salad bowl out of your lap to get the steak into bite size pieces, stealing a few for himself.

“Hey! That’s mine,” you tease.

“Technically it’s mine,” he says, stealing a final piece before handing the salad back to you. He watches you eat, the same gnawing look he had before lingering behind his eyes. He studied you, the way you breath, the way your head bobs to the music that was vibrating the seats.

“I’m gonna get this taken care of for you,” he said, “You’re not working with him after today. You’re not even gonna see him after today.”

You laugh, “You’re funny.”

“You think I can’t make sure of that?” he challenged, crossing his arms.

“We have two of the same endorsement deals, we’re going to have to be around each other again at some point,” you explain, “He’d obviously be invited to the premiere – it’s a boxing movie. He’s America’s favorite boxer right now.”

“You haven’t run into him in a year and some change,” he retorted, “I think I’ll be able to keep that a theme in your life.”

“You sound like him when you talk like that,” you say to your food, “Plus, you never wanna see Libby again? I like her, I wanna see her again.”

I never want to see her again in my life, he thinks to himself. His mind falls back to the last time he saw her, like it had been all day. Hips rolling against his while propped up on the sink, the way his fingertips sunk into her thighs, how she tasted like liquor and bad decisions. He was barely lucid when he called her up there, but he knew, and that’s what made it worse. Stealing glances all day put a stake in his heart, and the way she shook when he approached her – he was about ready to put Steve in jail.

“Hm,” is all he replies, reaching over to your almost finished salad and stealing another piece of steak before you shut the bowl over his hand.

“Enough,” you laugh while he slides his hand out and you close the bowl. You pass him the plastic and he collects all the leftovers in a bag to bring back into the gym to toss out.

“You wanna go back inside, or do you wanna get out of here?” he asks, hand on the keys keeping the car on.

“We have to go back inside, the studio is paying for this. Tim would be pissed if we just dipped out,” you explain, sulking. Eddie lets out a sigh that turns into an exasperated ‘urgh!’, and snatches your coat from the backseat for you to put on. He hops out and jogs to the other side of the car to get your door, helping you step down into the snow.

The warmth of the gym envelopes you again but it doesn’t melt away your nerves like last time. You see everyone still gathered in their chairs by the ring, Steve and Libby sharing a kiss that she looks despondent for. You weakly raise a hand to wave but she ignores you, your face burns for what feels like the fiftieth time, in embarrassment.

“Okay, round two!” Simone cheers, while Tiffany comes to collect your coat and Eddie’s leftovers. You sulk a little until you remember where you are and stick on your bright fake smile again. Eddie gives you a not so subtle pat on the ass before heading back to his seat on the side of the ring. He slumps into it moodily, putting one foot up on the corner post, playing with his box of cigarettes before popping one in his mouth.

“Baby, not in here,” you call out while Big helps put your gloves back on. Eddie rolls his eyes and puts the cigarette back in the box, still playing with it in his fingers. He drops the box onto his lap, slipping his jacket off and putting it on the seat next to him, and nestles the box in the leather and studs.

“You got this, kid,” Big says, pulling the ropes up so you can crawl onto the ring, “You’re doin’ amazing. Can’t believe this is your first day in the ring!”

“Oh, stop,” you blush, “I’m okay. I’m trying my best!”

“That was your best?” Steve asks, back in the ring with the mitts under his arms.

“Hey,” Big warns, “Be nice, why don’t ya? Give it a try.” He walks back over to Mikey shaking his head while Mikey takes another call. Simone is chattering away on the opposite end of the ring into her own phone, Tiffany taking notes next to her. No one is really paying attention to the ring aside from Eddie and Libby, opposite ends – coaching you both in their own ways.

“Have a good lunch?” he asks, he speaks like he’s confident that you cried in the locker room after the first round.

“I know you had a good lunch,” your voice is unenthusiastic.

“Mmm,” he smirks while he remembers it, it’s a lewd smirk and it’s unnerving.

“You know, it helps to get your rage out when you gotta deal with two fuckin’ idiots all morning,” he says, putting the mitts up, “One, two me. Get warmed up.”

“Shouldn’t be taking your rage out on her,” you hiss, slamming your gloved fists into the mitts. Steve almost smiles at the impact. You’d take your rage out on her if you knew what she did.

“Whoo! Looks like you left boxer barbie in the car,” he says, taking one of the mitts off and shaking his hand, “Done cryin’ to your boyfriend about how mean I am? Ready to put in the real work?”

He slipped the mitt back on, back at the ready for you to lay into him. You shoved the gloves back into the mitts, one-two with vigor, but it wasn’t holding up the speed and cleanliness Steve was expecting.

“Arms up, you’d lose your teeth if you were in the ring for real,” he said, “Clean it up, Rink.”

Eddie stands up with his arms crossed, black sweater tight against his body, bulging at the seams when he crosses his arms across his chest. He’s watching Steve with a hard look, rage filling his eyes with every word that comes out of his mouth to you. He knows you can take it, but he doesn’t want you to have to.

You straighten up, hits coming at a steady pace, triceps burning while you keep the jabs as clean as possible. He nods while he moves with you, maybe he was done shitting on you for the day.

When you got to hooks, Big took your gloves off. It would be easier to just learn those basics with your bare fists with nothing extra weighing you down. Steve took his mitts off again, laying them on the top of the post by Eddie. His eyes flitted toward him and then over at Libby, who had turned to walk towards the chairs nearby on the opposite side.

“Hey! Where you goin’, angel?” he asked, his words coming in a little hot.

“I’m just going to sit down, Steve,” she replies, you frown at the sound of her voice.

“Jesus, Steve, what next – you gonna put a leash on her? You don’t need to know where she’s going, she’s obviously staying at the gym,” you glower while he approaches you. He considers your question while he cracks his neck to the left and the right.

“You here to do business?” he asked, standing up in front of you like he had before lunch.

“Yeah,” you said, feeling more confident without the gloves on.

“Why don’t you start by mindin’ your own, hm?” he stared at you down the slope of his nose, you gulp inadvertently.

“Hooks,” he starts, stepping back from you, “Aren’t in the flex of the arm, it’s all about the body. You’re not moving your arm at all.” He shows her the form, but it’s too quick for you to really understand what he means.

“Show me,” he says after demonstrating it again. Even without the gloves, your body moves awkwardly, your arm jutting out at an awkward angle, your elbow nearly hitting him in the face.

“So I tell you that you’re not movin’ your arm at all, so you just move your arm anyway?” he asks, “Were you only half listenin’?”

“Harrington, I don’t have time for this,” you huff, “I’m not your girlfriend, you can’t just keep pushing me around. You’re getting paid to be here.”

His eyes darken when one of his rough, taped, hands finds your forearm again. He gets behind you like before, keeping your right hand up by your face, holding the other one slightly curved out, “Put your shoulders up, and your chin down.”

His voice chills you, “Turn your thumb toward your face or you’re gonna break your wrist.” He lets go of you, and stalks slowly back to your front.

“You’re living on that ball of your back foot, that’s where you’re pulling the weight from,” he explains, “Show me.”

You try again, but it still feels awkward and tight. He runs a hand exasperatedly through his hair – maybe he didn’t really have the temperament to coach. Maybe it wasn’t worth the $400,000 dollar deal for three months of training – especially not with someone this out of whack.

He gets behind you again, but instead of Steve reaching for your arms, which are still in place, he goes to your waist. You jolt when you feel it, stifling a squeal – you’re always so used to Eddie’s calloused fingers and soft grabbing – not the roughness of his wraps and harsh grip. His chest is closer to your back than it was before, you can feel his breath fanning out against the top of your shoulder.

“The power of your hook has nothing to do with your arms,” he says, palms scratching downward, his fingertips at the waistband of your shorts, “And everything to do with the rotation of your hips.”

You nod, your eyes dropping to Eddie who looked so angry he could jump in that ring himself. Not like he really had a leg to stand on, but he knew that at this point Steve was doing this on purpose. He was doing it to remind him that not only was Libby his, but if he wanted – he doesn’t – but if he wanted, he could have you, too.

“You’re gonna twist that front foot like you’re stomping out a cigarette,” he says, his foot tapping your front foot, “So the power is coming from your feet, to your legs, to your hips, then your core.”

“Show me again,” he says, closing the gap between you. His chest is sticky with sweat against your back and your head tilts away from him. You squirm in his grasp and Eddie can tell you’re uncomfortable, his hand reaching for one of the ropes. Eddie clears his throat and you feel Steve’s head raise from behind you – a low, gravely snicker vibrates from his chest.

“Not a lot of fight in him, huh?” he asks.

“Violence isn’t required in my relationship, unlike some other people I know,” you mutter, throwing a practice punch. It isn’t perfect, but it’s much better than your first couple of tries.

“There it is,” Steve says, his hands dropping while he goes to retrieve the mitts at the post by Eddie. He shoots him a satisfied smirk while he puts them on, but with his back to you, you don’t notice. The mitts are lower this time, imitating body shots.

“We’re not even gonna attempt doing different levels of these today, so let’s just pretend you’re hitting your opponents sides,” he says, “Go.”

You try, and they’re shaky at first – it’s different throwing a punch without the gloves. Your hands feel small and weak, you almost feel more stupid without them. Nervous sweat starts dripping down your chest as you follow the mitts, Steve waltzing around the ring quicker than when you were with jabs.

“C’mon, really show me you mean it,” he taunts, “Get angry.”

“I’m not an angry person,” you say, tossing another punch to the right.

“I’d be fuckin’ insane if I had to deal with Munson all the time,” he lets out a dark laugh, “Come on, Rink. Show me – show me how mad you were when you tried to kick ‘im out.”

Bile rises in your throat when he says it and tears prick your eyes. Blood rushes in your ears for a moment, drowning out Eddie’s warning ‘Hey!’ from the sidelines – he’s suddenly so ready to protect you after Steve staked his claim over Libby. You guess you matter to him now. Your cheeks get a little hot while you throw two more hard hooks, the sound ringing through the gym when they make contact with the mitts.

“There we go,” he sneers, “Guess you didn’t forget what I said last September, huh? Hey, hey, keep your shoulders up!”

“It doesn’t matter,” you growl, your knuckles getting red by how hard your punching, even with the wraps, “We’re better now.”

“You sure?” he asks, light on his feet as he gets to the other side of you and you pivot to meet the mitts.

“We’re doing great,” you say, making eye contact with him, “Can’t say the same about you and yours.”

“Of course you’re doing great – shoulders Rink, Christ,” he groans, side stepping and you miss the shot, “You’re doing great, cause you don’t know the truth.”

Your posture stiffens and you stand tall in the ring, staring him down. The words sling out of you like venom, “What the fuck are you talking about? Why are you so interested in my relationship anyway? You and Libby wanna join? We got enough fuckin’ beds in our house. She’d probably be so much fucking happier to be away from you anyway.”

A pin could drop while he heaves breaths out of his nose, that same bull like anger rearing his head. He looks at you through furrowed brows, his lip snarling.

“Yeah, well, Libby already fuckin’ did.”

You hear Libby gasp and watch as her hand claps over her mouth. Eddie’s hand goes to his face, sliding down to his jaw. He mumbles a quiet, ‘Jesus fuckin’ Christ, man,’ to himself, his big eyes already wet with tears.

“Wh-what?” you ask, your voice is weak and broken while reality sets in. You can hear the roar of your heartbeat in your throat. It becomes too clear that since you got to the gym, there have been three people here who have known something that you don’t.

#eddie munson x reader #rockstar!eddie munson smut #rockstar!eddie smut #rockstar!eddie #rockstar!eddie munson #eddie munson x you #eddie munson smut #eddie munson fan fiction #eddie munson rockstar au #boxer!steve #boxer!steve harrington #steve harrington fanfiction #eddie munsn fanfiction #eddie munson x y/n #eddie munson #steve harrington #stranger things au

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yanderenightmare · 3 years ago

Note

i need to watch another anime that isn't mha what would you recommend?

MY FAVORITE ANIME!

MOB PSYCHO 100

PHOTO: LINK, LINK

MY FAVOURITE ANIME.

There's two seasons out already, but you'll be hellbent on more when you finish.

Basically the theme revolves around spirits and spiritual powers. A pretty common trope in a lot of anime. So there's exorcisms and demon battles and cool magical powers.

Story follows a plain school-boy. Who happens to be the most powerful entity in the entire world. But he doesn't think too much about that. Spiritual powers doesn't make him good at socialising with people after all so what use are they really if they can't help him talk to the girl of his dreams?

If you like whacky comedy. If you like slice of life mingled with saving the world occasionally. If you like intense build-ups to epic boss-moments. If you like important life-lessons given to you buy a certified conman.

THEN THIS IS THE ANIME FOR YOU!

I recommend the English dub because it's a comedy. Jokes don't land if you have to read them.

Similar Anime: The Disastrous Life of Saiki K, One Punch Man.

JUJUSTU KAISEN

PHOTO: LINK

Nice anime to start off with and one of my favourites. It's rather new with only one season, so it's a quick watch.

Plot-line and concept are pretty basic, but it's done so well that you won't mind at all. Like, trust me. Every single character is interesting and leaves you wanting to know more.

The theme is basically that demons "here called curses" are everywhere in the world and they're fought off by what are called "jujutsu sorcerers". Only a few people can see curses, therefor most of the world is ignorant to their existence.

Like most anime, the plot follows a regular guy that turns out not to be regular, who's forced to leave his normal life after being introduced to the world of curses.

And then epicness commences.

If you like epic battle-scenes and no filler-episodes. If you like lovable villains and hate-able heroes. If you like deep and contradicting characters that aren't purely what they're supposed to be. If you like strong female characters. If you like feel-good relationships in friendship and mentorship between both the villains and heroes. If you like epic powers and boss-moments left and right. If you like an intro-song you never skip.

THEN THIS IS THE ANIME FOR YOU!

I recommend watching this in sub. The enchantments hit right in Japanese and are kinda cringe in english. Though the dub ain't half bad either.

Similar Anime: Naruto, Demon Slayer, Tokyo Ghoul, and if you take away the demonology it's very similar to Boku No Hero Academia.

TOILET-BOUND HANAKO-KUN

PHOTO: LINK, LINK

Another nice short anime with only one season out.

What to say about his anime? Hmm...

It's seemingly normal but with underlying strange and dark themes.

If you know of Hanako-san the toilet-ghost then you've probably already guessed that this is another show about demons, ghosts and poltergeists.

Plot is set at a high-school where a schoolgirl is struggling with the fact that she can't get any of the guys she likes to like her in return. So she seeks out the wish-granting ghost occupying the girls bathroom. HANAKO.

Who turns out not to be a girl, but a strange boy.

Our female lead doesn't let that stop her from making her wish of making a guy be with her. Hanako doesn't grant her wish at first, but whoops what you know? The guys she ends up being tied together with in the end is none other than him.

And thus the story begins. We're introduced to more ghosts haunting the school and other new characters are introduced such as villains and heroes and victims etc...

If you like a female-lead that constantly ends up being the damsel in distress. If you like a cheeky guy-hero with ulterior motives as well as a whole-hearted guy-hero with altruistic motives. If you like underlying dark themes. If you like amazing animation and artwork. If you like a child-like creepy villain.

THEN THIS IS THE ANIME FOR YOU!

I recommend watching this in the English dub. The voices are a tad bit too childish for me in the original Japanese is all.

Similar Anime: nothing really... it has similar supernatural concepts from a lot of different anime, but the story and characters are very unique I think.

HAIKYU!!

PHOTO: LINK

This has been an ongoing anime for a while. There's five seasons out so far but you'll be crying for more when you hit the end.

An anime about volleyball doesn't sound too interesting.

And it's not.

It's not interesting.

But is it hilarious? Is it feel-good? Is it emotional?

YOU BET YOUR ASS IT IS!

I swear, this show plunges you into that boys-locker-room atmosphere where dumb teenage boys talk about their hopes and dreams and girls and rivals and insecurities and blablabla...

If you like boys being boys. If you like making fun of boys being boys. If you like boys making fun of boys being boys. If you like boys treating a game of volleyball like a life or death situation. If you like bromance. If you like having a whole myriad of boys to root for. If you like suspense. If you like growth. If you like watching people work hard only to be knocked down flat only to get back up again and try again.

THEN THIS IS THE ANIME FOR YOU!

I recommend the English dub once again. Simply because this is a comedy. Jokes don't land when you have to read them. Nor does that teenage-boys atmosphere.

Similar Anime: SK8 the Infinity, Yuri!!! On ICE

____________________

Yup, those are my favourites. I have watched them all a thousand times. They're fucking great.

But anime is really personal so it's truly to each their own.

There's a lot of great anime out there, but simple things like lay-up, theme and characters either make things perfect or ruins the entire thing.

Tokyo-Ghoul has terrible lay-up in my opinion, even though I really love the concept.

Attack on Titan has an amazing concept as well, but the characters are bland.

Hunter x Hunter and One Piece and Naruto and Dragon Ball are filled to the brim with pointless filler episodes.

Darling in the Franxx has cool concepts and likeable characters, but it revolves around love which makes the entire show kinda sappy, plus it has a bunch of asked questions that are never answered.

Kakegurui is cool, but every single episode is the same and there really isn't any plot outside the one concept.

They're all amazing good anime that I enjoyed. I just don't enjoy them enough to want to watch them again. And that's the case with a lot of anime.

A way that I often use to find and watch new anime is my searching up a specific voice-actor and by watching all the anime they've worked on.

For example, I watched Blue Exorcist, Haikyu!!, Assasination Classroom, Food Wars! and Maid Same! purely based on the fact that Bakugou's voice-actor is in one of the main roles.

Just me being obsessed with him. No big deal.

#anime recs

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lesbianakaashi · 4 years ago

Text

The Forgotten Shounen: Katekyo Hitman Reborn

This is not a “Why you should watch/read khr” or anything like that. This is just me going into the deep dive and throwing my findings at you. I’m making this because khr used to be my favourite series when I was 15 (I had plushees, posters, tradingcards, the art book etc) and now as an adult I constantly find myself baffled at how unknow it seems to be.

1. Okay first what is khr?

Katekyo Hitman Reborn! or just Reborn! is a series by Akira Amano which was published in Weekly Shounen Jump from 2004 to 2012 (with 42 volumes) and got an anime adaption which run from 2006 to 2010 on Tv Tokyo (with 202 episodes and one OVA).

2. What’s it about?

Khr is a parody of the italian mafia and plays in a world where the mafia is heavily influencial. The protagonist is the japanese middle schooler Sawada Tsunayoshi who is known as “No good Tsuna” because of his failing grades, general weak and cowardly personality and weak physics.

He becomes aware of the mafia world when a 2 year old baby called Reborn arrives at his house claiming to be the greatest hitman and declaring himself his home tutor. Reborn was send by the 9th head of the Vongola famiglia who is ready to retire and looking for a new heir. Which of course, is supposed to be Tsuna and now it's Reborns job to shape him into a worthy sucessor.

Tsuna rejects the violence of the mafia world and refuses the position as the 10th. Thanks to Reborn and his general craziness Tsuna meets different people and starts to make real friendships. Reborn wants 6 of those friends to be Tsuna's future guardians, basically a group of people which will be closest to him in the vongola famiglia. Tsuna might have no interest in those positions but the friendships he builds with them become really precious to him.

Reborns arrivial also brings in the enemies of the Vongola family which leads to Tsuna being forced to engage in battles. Generally Tsuna openly avoids fights and prefers to run away but will put himself in danger for his friends' sake or because of something Reborn did.

Through out the series Tsuna matures and gains strenght but he never becomes a power fantasy. He's just a guy with many flaws who grows through the human connections he makes.

Personally I think the relationship between Reborn and Tsuna is one of the best student teacher reltaionships in all of manga only topped by Mob and Reigen from Mob Psycho 100. Especially the last arc really underlines their unique relationship to me.

Furthermore, khr offers a new and unique battle system: The flames. I'm not gonna go into to too much detail but the general idea is that one fights with their dying will flame which basically turns off your the savety switch so you can fight with everything you have. The flames are seperated into different categories such as: sky, storm, mist, rain, sun, lightning and cloud and have different attributes asigned to each one. Tsuna's use of the sky flame and his transformation when using it is still one of my favourite shounen transformations to this day.

3. What happened?

The series did really well and then not so well over the course of its serialisation. After the manga got an anime adaption it increased in populairty and video games, light novels, and other products such as CDs were created based on the series. Reborn is one of the best selling series of Weekly Shōnen Jump and has sold around 30 Million volumes overall. It was and still is very popular in Japan but rather unknown in the west.

According to the article "The Rise and Fall of Weekly Shonen Jump: A Look at the Circulation of Weekly Jump" khr was the 10th bestselling series in Weekly Shōnen Jump, with a total of 7 million copies sold in 2007.

This number increasing to 15 milion in 2008. Which placed khr into the 4th best selling series of 2008 in Japan.

Between 2008 and 2010 those sales declined but still kept strong with khr as the 6th top selling manga in 2009, 8th best selling in 2010 and then 24th best selling in 2012.

In November 2014, readers of the Da Vinci magazine voted khr number 17 on a list of Weekly Shōnen Jump's greatest manga series of all time.

After the anime came to an apprupt stop in 2010 for unknown reasons the manga sells took a visible hit. (Apparently the studio wanted to put the anime on halt because they were busy with other projects and give Akira Amano time to develop her story but I couldn't find any source for this claim) Furthermore, the rushed last chapters of the manga in 2012 declined the popularity of the series even more. There's no offical statement as to why the manga was ended in such a way but it's reasonable to assume that Jump either cut it considering the decreasing sales or Akira Amano choose to end it for personal reasons.

Nontheless, Tsuna not being included in Jump Force (a fighting game where you can play as different characters from Jump) in 2019 even tho he made it in earlier Jump Stars games also underlines the decreased interest in the series.

Rumors on a reboot or anime adaption of the last two arcs surface from time to time but are genereally unlikely. Artland the studio which made khr has gone bankrupt around 2015-2016. It might be taken on by another studio but rather uncommen especially with such an old series.

4. Art style

The khr anime ended over 10 years ago and the old art style might not be appealing to newer audiences.

Especailly because the anime adaption follows Akira Amanos old art style which heavily developed within the years. Here a picture comparing characters in the new art style:

A modern anime adaption in the new art style would be aesthetically pleasing. It would probably look similiar to Psycho Pass since Akira Amano did the concept art for this series.

(My personal art student hot take is that both art styles are unique and fun. Up to this day Akira Amano still has my favourite art style and even if the amount folds in the characters clothing is a little extreme I love it dearly.)

5. Criticism

The show is not without flaws and even if I greatly enjoy it it wouldn't be right not to adress them.

Daily Life Arc:

A lot of people view the first 20 to 25 episodes as fillers and quickly lose intererst in the series. This is due to the fact that Akira Amano inteded the series to be a gag manga and focuses the first chapters on world building, character introduction and comical narratives. It's rumored that the decision to develop the story into a battle shounen was made because the sales weren't doing well enough at first. So the first chapters/episodes may seem titidious but are necessary for the story and the development of the characters. The tonal shift from a more gintama like gag manga to a darker battle focused story can also be offputting to some viewers.

Either way a lot of people blame this arc when discussing why khr never got an english dub or didn't end up on Toonami. I've also read that the manga never finished serializing in the north america. However, it finished in other western languages like german and spanish.

Censoring:

The anime censors A LOT. From Gokudera's smoking habit, Yamamoto's whole character arc which deals with heavy themes such as depression and suicidal thoughts. The general bloodiness of the manga was censored and sometimes whole chapters and characters were left out even if those were important to the devolopment of others.

Filler episodes:

Out of the 202 episodes the anime has around 29 filler episodes which makes roughly 14 %.

Sexism:

Even if Reborn was written by a woman most female characters are rather flat and their storylines often tied to a male character in one way or another.

Genereal things:

Khr, like many other long running series, is sometimes criticised for a lack of world building or unpopular narrative choices.

6. Hope?

Khr isn't exactly dead. As stated before the series is still very popular in Japan and still gets new merch pretty regulary. There are also petitions floating around for a reboot or a new anime season but those never get a lot of traction. Furthermore #Reborn2期アニメ化 (#Reborn2ndAnimation) used to get some traction on twitter not too long ago. Last year the Anime News Network did a poll on which anime the readers would like to see a rebooot of and khr placed second.

Either way here's a collection of recent khr things I could find.

- In 2018 a new bluray set was released in north america

- The khr stage play reached yet another new season

- A mobile game was released last year

- Currently ongoing anime cafe event called "Concerto di Vongola"

- Last month there was an event with the former VAs and stage play actors where they discussed their favourite khr episodes.

- There has been an increase in blind reacts to the openings on youtube which might bring in a new fan base. The biggest one I could find had around 90k views and was made in 2019. On this note check out the soundtrack. The first openeing Drawing Days by SPLAY still makes me go insane (but I'm biased of course)

There also renewed hope for a new season/reboot because Shaman King, Inuyasha and Bleach got anounced for new seasons after a long hiatus. It's important to keep in mind that the circumstances for those series are differnt tho. For example bleachs new anime is often tied to the immense success of the gatcha game.

7. Conclusion

Khr is a series which used to be a flagship for Weekly Shounen Jump and is deeply beloved by it's fans, especially in Japan. It influenced other shounen series like bnha. It would be nice to see it gaining a bigger fanbase in the west :)

#khr #khr meta #anime analysis #shounen jump #katekyo hitman reborn #mirytalks #long post #manga

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inactive334884 · 2 years ago

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For anyone who read my last post regarding the latest update on Helluva Boss:

Just know that when I give critiques within this blog, that I mean no harm or harassment towards the creators, even with terms such as “heavily disorganized” since that’s exactly how these projects are becoming due to the lack of quality control, planning, and professional management. Our part of the community might exaggerate things for entertainment here and there, but there is no harassment intended, we’re just here to have fun and to give our honest opinion about a show we care about. Even for the show’s faults, the creator is still human.

But people are not “overreacting” for being more than just disappointed. This community has now spent years of our time, and for some, thousands of dollars, and for that they deserve the best from her and have every right to feel upset with her behavior if she does something that’s either below her best effort or harms someone. People are spending millions and giving hours of their time in hopes that she tries her best with what she’s given, and we’ve seen her best: So there’s no excuse for this.

She hyped this episode for MONTHS, even directly calling it the “finale”, and im sick of people saying that her overhyping things, throwing out false promises, or underplanning is “ok”, its not, and it isnt just causing Helluva Boss to be below what was promised, its causing her to overwork herself to the point where its now been effecting her mental/physical health. But despite this, people are still encouraging Vivziepop’s behavior and spreading hate towards those who critique her work like wildfire, and it needs to stop! When it comes to the first season, if she didn’t waste so much time of the first season on rushed character introductions and assassin client filler episodes and instead focused on more on Stolas and Blitzo’s relationship, the world building being given more than just the bare minimum, and fleshing out the characters people wouldnt have gotten so upset. If she just planned things better, Helluva Boss wouldn’t be in the state that it’s in, and it’s creator wouldn’t be overworking herself into a corner. People are acting like this is some small project that’s “just now started” when she’s been doing this for years now and people can only tolerate so much, especially if money or hours of their time are involved and she’s only giving things with the world building, story, and characters that are only the bare minimum, rather than to be given the time of day that they deserve.

The Hazbin Hotel community needs to start taking critique seriously. Vivziepop is overworking herself exponentially and damaging the quality of her projects because of her lack of planning/organization and all people within this community are doing by encouraging this behavior is only hurting both her and her projects further, both mentally and physically. Its causing her to see the overworking and lack of planning towards her projects as a “good” thing and the more this fandom keeps giving positive reactions towards said behavior, the more that she overworks herself to the point where she’s too exhausted to give the other aspects of her content (the writing, the designs, etc.) the attention they deserve. Her wellbeing and her project’s overall quality is more important than putting out HB/Hazbin content at a faster rate, she’s a living being with flaws as everyone else, but that’s another reason why she NEEDS feedback, overworking and lack of planning aren’t just unprofessional tactics towards her work, its effecting her mental and physical health. She needs for people to be honest about her work, to tell her to take time plan ahead and think things through, to give herself a break so she can give both her projects (and especially herself) the best treatment possible before going back into either Helluva Boss or Hazbin Hotel.

Im not saying that “she cant change” or that she is “doesn’t care about her fans”, or that she “deserves hate/to be cancelled”, im saying these things because I know that she can do better, ive seen her do better, we all have. But the more that time passes, the more red flags have been present within Hazbin/HB’s production, and its genuinely concerning seeing how the creator’s lack of critical thinking and planning skills is effecting both herself and her projects.

Please dont take this post as hate towards Vivziepop. Vivienne cant keep going down this road, its going to harm both herself and the overall quality of her projects if she keeps handling them in this direction. She needs to take time to consider what works, and what doesnt, not just with her shows but with how her work schedule is effecting both her mental and physical health. By encouraging lack of Vivziepop’s lack of quality control or planning you’re not just encouraging “bad writing” or “bad designs” you are convincing her that overworking herself is a “good thing”. when its not and is clearly effecting both her health and the quality of various aspects of her content. Vivienne needs time for herself, not just for the sake of her projects but for HERSELF. People need to start being honest or things will only escalate further. There’s nothing wrong with change, there’s nothing wrong with planning extra or working towards improvement.

PLEASE stop harassing those who critique Vivziepop or her content. They are only doing so because they care for her success, its not out of jealously or spite, she is overworking herself and its effecting both the overall quality of her work and her mental/physical health, and it will only get worse if this community keeps encouraging her overall behavior.

Please stop.

#helluva boss

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commentaryvorg · 3 years ago

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Digimon Savers Commentary Episode 15 - Memories of My Mom! Howl, MachGaogamon!

In this episode, on their way to Mercurimon, the DATS trio encounters an enemy that traps them in their nightmares. Tohma is forced to relive the day of his mother’s death, but doing so only ends up strengthening his resolve.

Masaru is always the one who reads out these title cards, but it doesn’t quite work here. It’s not his mom the title’s referring to.

After a very quick recap of the events of last episode, we catch up with our heroes as they… wander aimlessly through a Digital World desert. That good old Digimon staple!

(Okay, technically it’s not aimlessly since they know where they’re trying to get to, but.)

Happily, this is the one single time in this series that we’ll see the protagonists do this onscreen in the present. Some other characters will fill the rest of the aimless-desert-wandering quota offscreen and in flashbacks, and I’m very glad for that.

Agumon and Masaru are doing the whole “are we there yet?” thing.

Tohma: “Stop complaining. We have no other choice. We can’t return to the human world until we reach the Digital Gate in Infinity Ice Ridge.”

Masaru: “That’s wrong! We’re not going there to return to the human world. We’re going there to beat Mercurimon and that snotty little punk!”

Oh, Masaru. Of course he’s insisting on prioritising the fighting part over the getting home part.

Also it is very Tohma to be acting so driven and goal-focused and making a point of not complaining.

(Yoshino isn’t joining in with voicing this sentiment, but she is also not complaining either.)

In their path, they come across a deep gorge with buildings just… sticking out sideways from the cliffs, because Digital World weirdness.

For whatever reason, it doesn’t occur to them that some of their Digimon partners could fly them across it (maybe Masaru can’t get RiseGreymon without an opponent to punch, but Sunflowmon can also fly!), because characters very rarely consider the innovative idea of using their partners as transport in Digimon. So instead, they’re going to carefully climb down it, find a point where the buildings are close enough to let them jump across, and climb back up.

Masaru: “We’ve got no other way to get through, right? Then we’ll just have to go right in!”

Naturally, Masaru is the first one to straightforwardly throw himself into this. Despite having lost all their equipment last episode, they apparently still have ropes somewhere in those tiny waist pouches on their DATS uniforms, so they abseil their way down.

Meanwhile, a Baby-level Digimon called a Kuramon is floating in the gorge and acting like something of a living security camera, transmitting an image of what it’s seeing to a pool of water somewhere in Mercurimon’s palace, where Gotsumon, Ikuto and Falcomon are watching.

Which… brings us to something I want to talk about regarding this episode. This Kuramon-CCTV system allows for these three antagonists to show up in this episode purely to remind the viewers that they’re still here and still relevant to this current arc, even though they aren’t actually at all relevant to the events of this episode. Gotsumon is going to smugly provide some narration about how very terrible and dangerous this gorge is and how totally screwed the humans are to have come here, but the three of them are not going to have any impact on the plot in any way.

As might have already been apparent from the fact that the writers had nothing better to begin the episode with than the main cast wandering through a desert, this is… almost a filler episode. This is the main characters, on their way to their overarching objective, just happening to get waylaid by a one-off enemy who is completely unrelated to their main goal and is never going to be relevant again.

The reason I’m just barely restraining myself from fully labelling this episode as filler isn’t even because Tohma gets a new evolution here, because sure, whatever, that was going to happen sooner or later anyway, and the way it happens here has nothing to do with the overall story. Filler-except-a-new-evolution-happens is still basically filler at heart. Rather, it’s because this episode showcases important backstory for Tohma – backstory that isn’t necessary for the plot, but that is important for understanding Tohma’s character in future Tohma-centric episodes. Character establishment isn’t filler, and that’s why this episode just barely avoids that title. Though it’s still definitely the closest to it that any Savers episode from 12 onwards ever gets, I’ll grant you that.

(And I guess there’s one other small thing about this episode that slightly leads into the next couple of episodes, but we’ll get to that then.)

Anyway, back in the gorge, a whole group of Dokugumon show up to surround the DATS crew and trap them with their silk. Yoshino is the first of the humans to get webbed up and dragged off, but since Agumon and Lalamon get caught in the silk even before her, I don’t feel like this is Yoshino being all that unfairly damselled. Also, in this particular situation, surrounded by giant spiders in unfamiliar dangerous terrain on an alien world, I think it’s pretty reasonable for someone with Yoshino’s issues (we’re getting to those! Soon!) to just completely freeze up and fail to dodge.

And regardless, it doesn’t even end up mattering that Yoshino was the first to get dragged away, because it’s not long before all six of them are webbed up and being dragged further down into the gorge.

And on that cliffhanger (somewhat literally?), we go to the opening. When it got edited in episode 14 to un-silhouette Masaru’s Perfect-level partner because he’d reached that level, it also un-silhouetted Tohma’s and Yoshino’s too despite them not quite being at that level yet. I guess it’d be too much of a pain for the animators to create more than two variants of the opening just for these few episodes where the trio aren’t all quite at the same evolution level yet.

When we get back to the episode, the three humans are dangling in silk from a building. Tohma and Yoshino appear to have basically accepted that this is their fate for now, but naturally Masaru is struggling and yelling about it.

Meanwhile, the Digimon partners are tied up off to the side and covered in a sort of spider-silk net, which… honestly doesn’t look like the most convincing form of restraint. Sure, they can’t use their arms – or, well, Agumon and Gaomon can’t – but is the net really that unbreakable? There’s still attacks they could try using! Agumon could still breathe fire at it, or Lalamon could shoot seeds, or they could just… pull on it. (Or Lalamon could Sing A Song and put all the Dokugumon to sleep, but the writing often kiiiinda conveniently forgets that ability of hers exists except for when they want it to.)

I’m reasonably willing to accept that the net really is inescapable for them, because that’s definitely what the writing wants us to think, but it’d be a lot easier to buy that if we’d at least seen the Digimon trying to escape and failing to do so.

I still ultimately like this episode overall, because the main point of it is still solid. But the framing device for said main point of the episode is… ehhh. It sure exists, all right.

Also, a silly artist’s oversight: Masaru and Tohma are supposedly tied up such that their arms are stuck crossed behind their backs like this, but… there’s no actual silk keeping their forearms there. They should have much freer arm movement than they ever show. Not that this matters when they’re not going to be awake for much longer.

MetalPhantomon: “Damn humans… You human filth should be cursed.”

Our one-off Villain of the Week sure does seem to hate humans. Though in his case, I don’t know if this has anything to do with the reasons that the more plot-important characters have to hate humans or whether he’s just a boringly-evil dick.

MetalPhantomon: “Sleep… and roam aimlessly in your nightmares!”

After saying this, he puts the humans to sleep with some kind of hypnotic noise. Yoshino and Masaru drop off pretty immediately, but Tohma is shown trying to resist it for a few moments before he gives in. It seems, after hearing a threat of nightmares, that he’s especially determined not to let that happen to him, more so than the other two. Maybe Tohma has regular nightmares along similar lines to the one in this episode more often than he’d like.

The noise doesn’t affect the Digimon, who are still wide awake. Which begs the question: if MetalPhantomon can only do this to humans, and can only feed off human nightmares in the way that he’s about to… what the hell does he do the rest of the time? Humans aren’t exactly in abundance in the Digital World.

Gaomon: “That’s… MetalPhantomon.”

MetalPhantomon’s been speaking and hypnotising them without actually showing his face yet, such that Gaomon gets this dramatic line introducing him. Except… how does Gaomon know about him? He’s been in the human world his whole life. Unless there’s a DATS file about MetalPhantomon somewhere that only Gaomon read, he should be just as clueless as the others.

Gaomon: “If MetalPhantomon steals your heart, you’re done for. You won’t even be considered alive any more.”

Sure, that makes him sound very scary, but how do you know this, Gaomon? Surely DATS can’t have ever seen examples of this happening?

Meanwhile, Gotsumon, courtesy of the Kuramon-CCTV, is also giving similar narration about how MetalPhantomon feeds on souls. It’s a little more reasonable to imagine that Gotsumon might know something about this, since he lives here – but only if MetalPhantomon has been known to do this to Digimon victims as well. I guess we’re meant to assume that his hypnotic noise just comes with different settings, and today he set it to Human-Only.

Gotsumon: “All we have to do is watch from here, and the humans will be obliterated for us!”

Honestly, Ikuto should be more bothered by this notion than he’s shown being. He doesn’t just want the humans to be gotten rid of – he wants to be the one to do it, himself. He was making a pretty fervent point about that last episode.

A sort of glowy energy streams from the sleeping humans towards MetalPhantomon as he begins to give them nightmares and feed on that energy. (I guess this could be a bit like the whole negative human emotions thing, except that MetalPhantomon has found some way to drain that energy from humans consciously while letting it feed him and not control him? Huh, how about that. This will never be shown happening again and is not relevant to anything.)

As Agumon frantically calls out for his aniki to wake up, we get a look into Masaru’s nightmare. Chika is clinging for dear life onto the back of a Drimogemon that’s running off with her as she screams for her brother to save her. Masaru chases after it, but a Numemon gets in his way. So he punches it, which only makes it multiply into two Numemon. He keeps punching them, and they keep multiplying, until he’s overwhelmed and weighed down by the weakest most pathetic Digimon there is, helpless to do anything as his sister keeps being taken further and further away.

I appreciate this nightmare of Masaru’s for what it’s going for. It’s focusing on Masaru’s recent fears about not having enough strength to protect people, especially his family members. The choice of specifically Drimogemon and Numemon as the Digimon causing him trouble is also deliberately referencing episode 4, in which Masaru failed both his missions against those two Digimon. (He would have blamed those on Tohma on the surface, but it seems that just like Tohma, Masaru really thought of them as his own personal failures deep down.)

But still… I feel like there’s so much more they could have done with a nightmare for Masaru here. Even more fresh and recent than his fears of not being strong enough to protect his family is the part where Masaru only just found out where his dad’s been gone all these years. His dad is bound to be much more consciously on his mind right now than he ever normally has been. There’s a lot of delightful interesting subtle things that the writers could have done with that in a nightmare for Masaru, and I’m a little sad that it didn’t even cross their minds to try. Granted, this isn’t Masaru’s episode and it shouldn’t be focusing on him too much, but just a little glimpse would have been all we’d have needed!

In Yoshino’s nightmare, she finds herself in a large room with a piano in it, and a little girl is curled up by the door, crying. Everything has muted monochrome colours. This is a memory, and that girl is her from when she was a kid.

Little Yoshino: “Don’t come near me! I hate Mom and Dad… I hate everyone!”

We only get this short glimpse of it here – we’ll get into this more in a later episode – but it seems like little Yoshino was not having a great time back then.

Yoshino: “What is this…?” [she recoils, shaking, her face in her hands] “Please, stop!”

Yoshino also seems rather distressed at being forced to confront this again. This clearly still isn’t a comfortable memory for her to think about, even all these years later.

(Masaru’s nightmare really is the odd one out here in that it’s the only one that’s not an actual painful memory from when he was a kid. And it’s not like he wouldn’t have any of those! What if we’d got to see little Masaru on the day he realised his dad wasn’t coming back any time soon? He doesn’t show it nowadays, because he’s got used to the idea and always pushes himself to stay positive, but that must have been agonising for him at the time.)

Tohma finds himself in a Japanese town, which he immediately recognises as his hometown, the town he grew up in. It’s foggy or monochrome in many of these shots, perhaps, like for Yoshino, because his memories of this are somewhat hazy.

A series of scenes – strung together with no sense of Tohma actually moving between them, just like a dream – shows him two figures doing ordinary daily activities: visiting the shrine, going grocery shopping, playing on the swings. It’s Tohma when he was a kid, and his mom, a perfectly ordinary Japanese woman.

It’s interesting to note that, though we know Tohma is a genius and he must have already been showing signs of that as this age (this episode doesn’t mention it, but a much later one will establish in passing that he was six), he’s just getting to be a normal kid, doing things that a normal kid would do with his mom. She must have known he was gifted, but she’s not treating him any differently because of it. Perhaps, if tragedy hadn’t struck like we’re about to see it do and Tohma had continued to grow up here, he’d have grown into a much more normal fourteen-year-old than he is today, despite his intelligence.

Then the happy memories fade, and Tohma is abruptly confronted with his child self sobbing hysterically into the sheets of a hospital bed, his mom lying there with a bandaged head and an oxygen mask, a heart monitor flatlining. Teenage-Tohma gasps from shock, tears suddenly streaming down his face too. It’s pretty stark and brutal, as it should be.

Tohma: “Why?!”

Given that he’s dreaming, he probably doesn’t realise that he’s being attacked by a Digimon that’s deliberately tormenting him with nightmares. He was enjoying getting to see his mother again and remember the good times – why did he have to suddenly go and remember that and ruin it all?

Tohma finds himself standing in the town again, but this time things are sharp and in colour. Perhaps because today of all days is one he couldn’t forget if he tried.

He continues to stare into space in shock for a moment, until two women walk past in yukatas. Flinching in realisation, Tohma sees a familiar poster in a nearby shop window that confirms it: this is the day of the summer festival. The day his mom died.

He remembers – or maybe sees – his kid self excitedly pointing at that same poster earlier that day, encouraging his mom to take him to the festival. (If he hadn’t done that, maybe she wouldn’t have…? Was it his fault?)

Tohma’s mom frowns and peers at her watch for a moment before agreeing that they can go. This is a little subtle detail that I love – she probably works a lot of jobs to get by and needed to check if she even had the time to take her son to have fun before her next shift started. After all, Tohma’s father is nowhere to be seen here, and being a single mother in Japan tends to really suck in terms of being able to earn enough money to support your kid(s). Put a pin in this thought for way later on in the series.

Aww, look at little Tohma hugging his mom in excitement. The two of them are just being a normal happy mom and kid, with no idea of the tragedy that’s about to occur.

Tohma: “I can still… I can still make it!”

With this, Tohma rushes off as fast as he can down the street, towards his home where his younger self and his mom are busy getting ready. MetalPhantomon, obviously going for the maximum amount of emotional anguish, taunts him about his mother’s impending death as he runs – though it’s not clear whether Tohma even hears this or MetalPhantomon is only doing it for the sake of his own personal amusement.

MetalPhantomon: “You think if you run, you’ll make it in time?”

Evidently he does. Maybe Tohma’s not properly aware that this is just a dream filled with his memories, or maybe he is conscious of that on some level – but regardless, right now, it feels like he’s really here, back in time. It feels like his mom’s death hasn’t happened yet, and so maybe there’s still something he could do to change it.

Out in the waking world, the Digimon are helplessly watching their partners grimace in agony from their nightmares. Agumon makes a token attempt to pull out of the silk trapping his arms, but come on, why are you not even trying to break the net around you??

Lalamon: “Is sitting here and watching them the only thing we can do?”

Gaomon: “We must believe. We must believe in the strength of their hearts.”

Apparently we’re supposed to buy that this really is all they can do, but I still wish they’d been shown trying harder to break out of their restraints anyway. You’ve got literally nothing to lose from at least trying, guys!

Back in the dream, Tohma’s made it to his house. It’s such a tiny, modest little place, especially compared to the huge fancy mansion he lives in nowadays. Even the Daimons’ house is a lot bigger than this.

Seeing his mom inside the house, he desperately tries to get her attention. The first thing he does is simply try to open the front door, which is a neat detail that shows that he still feels like he lives here and should be able to just… go inside. When that fails, he resorts to banging on the door as hard as he can.

Tohma: “Mom! Mom! Open up! Please listen to me! This is about what’ll happen to you! Please! Please open up! Please, Mom! Listen to me!!”

It’s really striking to see Tohma, who’s usually so calm and collected and rational, being this raw and desperate. There’s absolutely no logical calculations involved in what he’s doing here – he just doesn’t want his mom to die.

Finally, the door opens up, and Tohma lights up in relief, thinking his mom’s heard him – but it’s just his younger self, ready to go in his yukata and sandals, leaving to wait outside the house in his excitement.

Little Tohma: “I’m so excited! I wish I was there right now!”

He does an excited little dance, just a normal happy kid going to a summer festival, absolutely no idea that his mom’s about to die. Aaaaa.

His mom finally comes to the door, in much less of a hurry, both of them heading off without paying any attention to the older Tohma standing there. In his desperation, Tohma reaches out to grab his mom’s shoulder and stop her going – and his hand phases right through her.

He’s not really “here” at all. He’s effectively in some sort of 3D virtual-reality cinema playing out the events of the past like a movie, and there’s nothing he can do to change what’s about to happen.

But even having evidence of that isn’t going to stop him trying. He races to walk alongside his mother, desperately calling out to her and get her to somehow listen to him. She just continues to walk straight on ahead like he’s not even here (because he isn’t).

There’s tears in his eyes, and you can hear in his voice that he’s clearly on the verge of crying. Tohma’s voice actor is excellent in this episode.

Tohma: “Wait! Mom! Mom, please wait! Please! I’m begging you! Don’t go to the festival! Please wait! Mom, listen to me! Stop! Mom!!”

Throughout all of the ways he’s trying to beg her to stop, he can never quite bring himself to say the one thing that’d have the biggest chance of getting through to her – you’re going to die. He just can’t bear to voice that at all, now that he’s right here and it’s about to happen all over again.

Out in reality, Tohma’s emotional suffering has visibly become the most intense of the three of them, as the stream of energy from him to MetalPhantomon grows even stronger.

Agumon: “Damn it! Hey, stop this! I’ll take you on instead! Stop this, you bastard!”

I approve of Agumon’s Masaru-like spirit, being willing to throw himself into a seemingly-hopeless fight that his opponent clearly isn’t interested in in his determination to do something to protect his friends. And points for it not even being his aniki who’s most in need of that protecting right now!

Gaomon: “Master! Hang in there, Master!”

Gaomon, realising that there’s no other way through this (well, apparently, according to the narrative) is still fervently trying to believe in his Master and encourage him to stay strong. I don’t think Tohma can actually hear this through the nightmare, but, Gaomon is a good dog.

In the dream, Tohma is now right in front of his mother, walking backwards, holding his hands out at her as he keeps desperately begging her to stop. After a little more of this, he stops walking entirely, as if in an attempt to physically block her path (maybe he knows she’s coming right up on the street where it happens) – but of course she just phases right through him again.

There’s nothing Tohma can do to stop this. He’s got to know that, from a logical standpoint. But he doesn’t care. The rational Tohma who’s usually ruled by logic and calculations is absolutely nowhere to be seen right now.

He races ahead of his mother and his younger self, out into the middle of the road, arms outstretched in the path of the truck that’s begun to approach.

Tohma: “Stop! There are people here! Stop!!”

On some level he knows that he’s not physically here and this truck won’t actually hurt him, sure. But on the level that he’s consciously clinging to – the sense in which this is happening right now and there’s still got to be something he can do to stop this, that truck is solid and real and deadly. And yet he’d still rather stand out there in front of it and risk getting hit by it himself if it’d have even the tiniest chance of saving his mother’s life. Of course he would. Aaaa, Tohma.

We get a shot from little Tohma’s eye level, holding his mother’s hand, so we don’t even see her face (perhaps because Tohma never saw it) as she sees the truck coming and realises what’s about to happen and makes one final decision. She flings little Tohma backwards and out of harm’s way, giving up any chance she had of saving herself to make sure her son is safe.

She died because she was protecting him. Tohma was probably always aware of that.

And in fairness to the truck driver, it looks like they at least tried to swerve out of the way – but far too late. The truck phases harmlessly right through present-Tohma, who didn’t move an inch from his spot, into a terrible screeching crash behind him.

Little Tohma is sitting where he fell, staring in shock at the truck and… well, from our angle at least, we can’t see his mother, because this is a kid’s show and there’s only so far they can go.

There’s this shot of her broken sandal lying on the ground, though, and that’s more than enough to get the point across. Ouch.

Little Tohma saw it happen – that’s got to have been incredibly traumatising for such a young kid. And now Tohma’s had to relive that traumatic experience all over again while being given that tantalisingly cruel glimmer of hope that he could maybe change it this time, except of course he never could.

After a long, shaken pause, Tohma drops to his knees and just starts screaming in sobbing, broken anguish. It’s only all the more powerful given how calm and collected and unemotional Tohma usually comes across to see him absolutely shatter like this.

As MetalPhantomon taunts him some more about being utterly lost and trapped in his grief forever, Tohma’s physical body screams in emotional agony – and he fights back against it, remembering flashes of the good times with his mom before she died.

Perhaps it’s because showing him something so unbearably painful only made him even more desperate to find some way to escape it; perhaps it’s because of Tohma’s own inner strength and resilience; perhaps it’s because MetalPhantomon simply messed up by even showing him happy memories in the first place to try and make it hurt more in the end. But one way or another – or maybe all three – this lets Tohma break the hold MetalPhantomon had over him, shattering the stream of negative energy.

Tohma imagines, or maybe dreams, his mother wiping away his tears – him, present-Tohma, not his child self. She doesn’t say anything to him, because he knows she’s not really there and can’t say anything to him ever again that isn’t just a repeat of something from his memories. But still, she’s smiling at him all the same.

Tohma: “It’s all right, Mom. You’ll always stay alive within my memories. Not just the painful memories, but the enjoyable ones as well.”

This whole ordeal may have dredged up a heaping of long-buried trauma – but it also brought out a lot of the good things, about how important and precious his mother was to him. He probably hasn’t thought about that so directly and consciously in quite a long time. This ordeal was intended to weaken and break him, but it’s only ended up reaffirming what he really cares about and making him stronger.

The glow of positive energy coming from Tohma somehow manages to disintegrate the spider silk suspending him – sure, I guess that’s a thing that can happen – and he drops to the ground, freed.

Tohma: “The one who showed me hurtful memories of my mom… is you, MetalPhantomon!” [his whole body begins glowing with Digisoul] “Using the memories of my mom to try to attain my heart… is absolutely unforgivable! Accept retribution for toying with a person’s soul!”

Now that he’s awake and presenting himself in front of others, Tohma’s gone right back to his usual self, maybe even overdoing the refined and pompous demeanour more than normal (likely as a defence mechanism to shield himself from how much pain he was just in). He’s still absolutely acting on very deep, powerful, personal emotion, but the way he’s presenting it manages to come across as carefully rationalised and laser-focused. Tohma still doesn’t want to seem like someone who’s driven by his emotions, even though we’re starting to see that they might actually be the core of what drives him, and perhaps in a lot more circumstances than just this.

So he Digisoul Full Charges and evolves Gaomon into his Perfect-level form, MachGaogamon, which naturally completely breaks the net that was holding the Digimon partners. With an attack blasted at MetalPhantomon, the reaper’s hold over the other two humans is broken, and they wake up as well.

Masaru: “I won’t fall for the same trick twice!”

Masaru yells this as he dodges and weaves past the Dokugumon’s silk this time to punch one of them in the face. Him commenting on it here totally justifies why he somehow wasn’t able to just dodge it like this last time, right?

Believer kicks in now, as Masaru evolves Agumon, which seems a little unfair and stealing Tohma’s thunder. I guess the reason it didn’t start earlier when Gaomon evolved is because this whole fight sequence is quite long and the song just isn’t long enough to be playing through the whole thing from the start? We are going to go back to focusing on MachGaogamon’s fight soon, though, so Believer is still going to feel like it’s mostly here for him.

Masaru only evolves Agumon to GeoGreymon here, perhaps because he realises this is Tohma’s moment and is being gracious enough not to try and steal the spotlight right now? At least this one can hardly be called evolution padding, because RiseGreymon isn’t even going to be needed at all; MachGaogamon can deal with MetalPhantomon, while GeoGreymon and Sunflowmon, through their protagonist power, are more than enough for all these Adult-level Dokugumon.

Also, can we please appreciate how Sunflowmon finally manages to put on a really impressive showing in this fight? She sweeps her Sunshine Beam around and uses it to take out multiple Dokugumon in one go, good on her! Perhaps she learned from that silly incident with Falcomon a couple of episodes ago – just fire the attack, and then worry about aiming it. It’s the last time we’ll see Sunflowmon in this form, so it’s nice that she gets to finish up on a high note.

Meanwhile, MachGaogamon and MetalPhantomon are having a reasonably interesting, not-winning-the-fight-in-a-single-move showdown… probably just because there’s some runtime left in this episode to fill, but still. MetalPhantomon levitates some of the buildings in the canyon to fling them at MachGaogamon, but he dodges most of them and straight-up physically throws the last one right back into his face.

Then MetalPhantomon uses an attack that sends slicing beams of light all over the place, disintegrating the rest of his Dokugumon (good job caring about your minions there, dude) as GeoGreymon and Sunflowmon frantically dodge them through protagonist power. Tohma gets to look like a badass, standing in the path of all these beams without flinching as he orders MachGaogamon to finish it. The big good jetpack wolf barrels right through the attack and, with a move appropriately called Winning Knuckle, wins the fight.

(Don’t, uh… don’t get used to that. Despite its name, Winning Knuckle will not be doing much winning in future episodes.)

Later, with the Digimon now devolved, everyone’s taking a moment to catch their breath after climbing out the other side of the gorge. (Did it occur to them that they could have had MachGaogamon carry them out of there while he was still evolved and could fly? Almost certainly not.)

Lalamon: “If we didn’t have Tohma with us today, things could have ended up badly!”

Masaru: “I guess.”

Tohma: “We’ve wasted time. Let’s keep moving.”

Lalamon seems to be at least trying to open the conversation up to potentially talking about what Tohma did there and what he went through, and, geez, is he even okay after all that? Masaru is being his usual competitive dork self and only begrudgingly accepting that Tohma was pretty awesome just now. And then Tohma… completely brushes aside the praise or the possible opportunity to talk about his feelings and gets right back to focusing on the mission without letting himself rest any more than necessary.

Tohma, dude, you just went through a seriously traumatic experience. It turned out all right in the end, but you’ve got to be at least a little bit worn out from that! Take some time to rest; Mercurimon and the way home aren’t going anywhere.

(I mean, I suppose they think he is, in the sense that they’re assuming Mercurimon is totally super plotting to destroy the human world at any moment and so the sooner they stop him the better.)

Gaomon: (Master… I wonder what sort of dream he had? It seemed like a very lonesome one…)

Gaomon is being very good in worrying about the pain his partner clearly went through just now. But because he’s such an obedient dog who always does exactly what his master wants him to do, which isn’t necessarily always what Tohma needs him to do, he’s not going to actually ask Tohma about this and encourage him to talk about it.

Tohma: “What’s wrong? No dawdling. Let’s go.”

Gaomon: “Y-Yes, Master!”

And Tohma isn’t going to volunteer it either. Not even when he and Gaomon are alone (as far as we ever see), because despite having Gaomon be there for him, he’s still very stuck on the idea that he needs to deal with everything all on his own and not rely on anyone. Damn it, Tohma. Talk to your dog-friend. He is a good dog and would do whatever he could to help you sort out these feelings, and you deserve to not have to bear all of this alone.

Yoshino, the last to stand up, is looking exhausted. She’s still making no complaint as she tries to force herself to her feet – just like Tohma, she’s got to focus on the mission; they don’t have time for her problems – but then she collapses before she gets very far, Lalamon fluttering in a panic around her.

Yoshino’s not just tired from their ordeal; she’s gotten sick, and that at least should be considered a pretty damn good excuse to ask them to stop and let her rest. But it’s so like her to keep pushing herself to do whatever others expect of her without even letting on that she’s struggling at all.

Overall thoughts

Okay, yes, so as I talked about earlier, this is almost a filler episode. The framing device for the nightmares is not especially fantastic and rather transparently exists to facilitate this episode showing us Tohma’s tragic backstory. (Still, maybe we can blame Tohma for that, for being the kind of person who usually keeps his feelings and important memories so close to his chest that this is the only way for us to ever see this side of him at all.)

But I don’t really care about the framing device, because I’m here for Tohma’s tragic backstory itself, and it’s very solidly done. It hits all the right emotional beats to make you feel for him and realise just how much more normal of a kid he would have been if tragedy hadn’t struck. And it really is something and makes things especially painful to see the usually calm and logical teenage Tohma be so raw and irrationally desperate, with how he should know it’s just an illusion and he can’t save his mother, but he doesn’t care. Tohmaaa. Gaomon is also a very good and concerned dog-friend, Tohma please talk to him about your issues.

Points as well for the writers not wasting the opportunity to give us at least a small glimpse of Masaru and Yoshino’s nightmares. That said, Masaru’s is fine and issuey enough, but it could have been so much more. Perhaps that’s because he’s already has his Perfect-level episode, and so the writers weren’t really thinking about leading towards any new character growth for him any time soon like they were absolutely doing with Yoshino’s. The other reason this isn’t quite a filler episode is that what Yoshino went through here is going to be relevant to her arc in the next couple of episodes, and I appreciate having that running thread.

#digimon #digimon savers #tohma h norstein #gaomon #masaru daimon #yoshino fujieda

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thosch3i · 4 years ago

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The finale of Ultimate Note airs 12/9 (tonight in China) for VIP. Thank you to this drama for bringing me my favorite Iron Triangle ❤ Longer discussion of why I love it so much, and why I strongly recommend it to book fans (especially those upset with certain previous adaptations) below the cut, apologies if it’s not fully coherent at times because I haven’t slept enough and also it’s almost 1am. But your TLDR is basically: characterization, plot, pacing, relationships are the best of any DMBJ drama. Iron Triangle especially.

First, the pacing of this show is excellent. Pretty much all cdramas I’ve seen or heard of have been inundated with filler, and the previous DMBJ dramas fall victim to this as well. Ultimate Note took 36 episodes to cover 4 book arcs, whereas previous adaptations have taken more episodes to cover far fewer. There’s really not any content you’d be wanting to skip, as almost all of it is plot-relevant or character-relevant.

Second, the plot is the most cohesive out of any DMBJ adaptation. Frankly, this isn’t saying too much, given the novel plot can also be confusing as all hell sometimes, but Ultimate Note goes above and beyond in pulling in information from later books and, if I heard correctly, common fan theories, doing their best to fill in the plot holes left by the author to create a more complete story.

Third, the female characters are actually done well. (As well as they can be, given the source material’s unfortunate habit of fridging its women.) For example, A-Ning’s decision to go the Tamutuo wasn’t because she was ~in love~ with some man. She is a determined individual who has made her choice about her path a long time ago, and she is willing to risk death to achieve her goals. Even her death was done about as well as it could have been--it wasn’t drawn out to the point of it being sickeningly cheesy, and Wu Xie tried his best to honor her goals and bring her to the Palace of the Queen Mother of the West (even emphasizing to Pangzi, “if you died, I would carry you too”). In addition, Chen Wenjin wasn’t stuck in some ridiculous love triangle. She loved Wu Sanxing, of course, but her loving a man isn’t made out to be her entire personality. Her goodbye to Xie Lianhuan is poignant but not mushy. She’s steady and sure in her goals, and she knows what she has to do in order to save herself. Yuncai’s character, as well, I think was handled about as well as it could’ve been given the source material. Her relationship with Pangzi wasn’t overexaggerated and nauseating, and I think their relationship was more tolerable in the drama than it was in the novel overall. (In addition, I prefer how they handled her death in the drama versus the novel--instead of just killing her offscreen, they give her a redemption, and show how she’d grown attached to her new friends, Pangzi especially, resulting in her hesitation to deal the final blow.)

Related to the above point: no added forced romances that destroyed the female characters’ personalities and reduced them to just love interests for men, thank god. Pangzi and Yuncai’s relationship was already there in the novel, but nothing about their relationship was distorted in the drama to the point of being annoying, and Yuncai is shown to have her own goals for cozying up to Pangzi (at first, at least). If you want to get technical about “added romances”, you could honestly argue that it’s Pingxie. (And Hei///hua, but I’ll be honest and say they’re not my cup of tea, so I won’t really be discussing them. However, I do think their characters, while also exaggerated for humor at points, were also done well, and their relationship--while AFAIK was not a really a thing in the books at all?--was written in a way that the development made sense, and their personalities compatible.)

But anyway, while Ultimate Note does make Pingxie seem closer to each other than they were in the novel, we do have to remember that the novel is from Wu Xie’s point of view, and he’s a little bit of a blockhead when it comes to noticing how much Xiaoge cares about him. (IIRC, he wonders if Xiaoge even considers him a friend in Zang Hai Hua...after Xiaoge’s literally called him his “only connection” to this world in book 8.) However, from an outsider POV, it’d be natural for us to see Xiaoge worrying more over Wu Xie. Because from Wu Xie’s perspective, what did he actually see? Xiaoge dropping in to save him a few times and often vanishing or turning away right after, leaving Wu Xie with mixed feelings and confusion about his value to Xiaoge. Xiaoge being aloof before they set off to Tamutuo, claiming that he is a person with no past and future, and that no one would remember him if he disappeared. (Xiaoge smiles before telling Wu Xie that he’s on Wu Xie’s side--that’s a smile that the viewers see, but that Wu Xie doesn’t.) Most of Xiaoge’s visible worry for Wu Xie in the desert was also when Wu Xie himself was not there to see it. During the scene where the fungus was growing in Wu Xie’s stomach, he was entirely out of it while Xiaoge visibly panicked about hurting him, and after the fungus was dealt with, Xiaoge only stood off to the side--only to smile faintly to himself, relieved, after Wu Xie wakes up. (Again a smile that the viewers see, but that Wu Xie doesn’t.) But because from an outsider POV we can see all this, while Wu Xie remains partly ignorant, lines like “thankfully, I didn’t bring death upon you” and Xiaoge calling Wu Xie is only connection to the world seem that much more logical, now that we can see some of the depth and development of how much Xiaoge does care about Wu Xie.

That brings me to the primary reason why I love Ultimate Note, because the main selling point for me on any franchise is not actually world-building or plot, but rather the characters and the relationships between those characters. And for DMBJ, the relationship I’m always looking for--and the relationship that the entire franchise ultimately centers around--is the Iron Triangle. And the mutual trust and the strength of the bond between this Iron Triangle is unmistakable; no one is treated as expendable.

As much as we have joked about Xiaoge's double standards with Wu Xie versus Pangzi, the end of the Banai arc especially and the last five episodes have cemented the importance of Xiaoge and Pangzi's friendship. Their relationship is often the weakest leg of the Iron Triangle in DMBJ adaptations, but Ultimate Note has nailed it. Pangzi helps carry Xiaoge out of Tamutuo, and Pangzi's the one who primarily takes care of Xiaoge after he loses his memories. There's also Xiaoge's clear worry over Pangzi after Yuncai's death, and his assurance that Pangzi won't die as long as he is here in the later episodes when the two of them are separated from Wu Xie--showing that the Iron Triangle is a triangle; Wu Xie isn't the single connection that Xiaoge and Pangzi's relationship hinges upon.

Pangzi and Wu Xie's friendship doesn't need much explaining: the two of them bicker like they're brothers, and they could probably star in their own buddy-cop comedy together. Both Pangzi and Xiaoge are shown to be clearly worried for Wu Xie after the Xie Lianhuan reveal, and even though neither of them quite know how to handle it, they are there for Wu Xie. And of course, there's the scene where Pangzi pours out the water while they're waiting for Xiaoge to leave the meteorite. Wu Xie cries for Pangzi when they're in the Miluotuo cave and he chooses to carry out Xiaoge first, and once again, his worry for Pangzi after Yuncai's death is palpable. Even when Wu Xie has to leave Pangzi in Banai, he instructs Xiaoge to look after him (not that Xiaoge really needed the instruction, anyway--that’s his best friend, too).

Wu Xie and Xiaoge's relationship needs even less explaining: anyone who's watched the show can attest to how much they care about each other. From Wu Xie's frantic scrambling to grab the tapes upon hearing they were from "Zhang Qiling" and Xiaoge's introduction in the show being him stopping outside Wushanju to stare up (longingly?) at the sign, we see their relationship unfold in all of its quiet pining and lingering looks. When Xiaoge claims no one would know if he disappeared from this world, Wu Xie doesn't hesitate in promising that he, at least, will. Xiaoge smiles before telling Wu Xie that he's on his side, and Wu Xie vows to walk with Xiaoge until the very end. During the entire Tamutuo trip, Xiaoge is visibly worried for Wu Xie--when the parasitic fungus grew in his stomach, that worry was the most clear. But Wu Xie worries for Xiaoge too: insisting on going to save Xiaoge from the snakes that night when they all went blind; swearing that even if he faces death, he would wait for Xiaoge to leave the meteorite; telling Xiaoge that he will take him home. (Related: the soft, almost vulnerable way Xiaoge tells Wu Xie “take me home” in episode 31.) Not to mention--even when Xiaoge loses his memories, he still remembers Wu Xie. (And Pangzi smiles knowingly right after that scene.)

There are too many character/relationship moments I could write about, but one that stuck out in particular was when they were facing the spiders, and Wu Xie stopped Xiaoge from cutting his hand and using his blood to make the spiders retreat. At this point, Wu Xie and Pangzi don't know the extent of how Xiaoge was (mis)treated as a child (and used as a blood bag, apparently), but they know about how "A-Kun" was captured used as bait. Wu Xie and Pangzi would never ask Xiaoge to bleed for them, no matter what. Not now, let alone 10+ years later. (I won't name names, but if you know what I'm talking about, then you know.)

Which brings me to my main point: the characters in Ultimate Note are the closest to their novel selves I have ever seen in a DMBJ adaptation, and this is objectively the best adaptation of the DMBJ novel. (Whether you prefer another adaption or not is your opinion--I absolutely love the Time Raiders movie, even though that plot is literally all over the place, and Xiaoge is decently OOC--but Ultimate Note is the best adaptation of the novel, and the characters are the most true to what they actually should be.)

You can see the innocent and naïve Wu Xie, but you can also see the developing confusion, frustration, and anger he feels because he's been lead around by his nose his entire life. And he is angry in the novel; he is a bit of a hot-headed bastard; he's not just a naïve child. I remember seeing some complaints that Wu Xie felt "OOC" in the first episode for being so furious with his San-shu, but I think his reactions were spot-on with how he felt, and how he wanted to react. A similar point is the scene where Wu Xie slammed Xiaoge against the car--aside from just being some fun fanservice, in the novel Wu Xie really was furious at Xiaoge for vanishing on him and never contacting him after leaving the Heavenly Palace in the Clouds. A lot of the novel is Wu Xie's inner thoughts, which are difficult to portray in a live action adaptation, but he really did pretty much want to pick a fight with Xiaoge about disappearing, and Ultimate Note decided on how to express this frustration in a way that suits a drama adaptation. In addition, you can see how Wu Xie’s past experiences like the trip to Tamutuo has changed him in how he manipulates Panma into bringing him to the lake; and you can see how almost losing Xiaoge and Pangzi to the Miluotuo changed him as well, when he thinks he’s lost them for real in episode 36 (leading up to his decision to put on his San-shu’s mask by the end, despite the fact that “some masks, when worn too long, can no longer be taken off”).

As for Pangzi: even though he has scenes that were clearly exaggerated for comic relief, he has plenty of moments that build his character and the Iron Triangle’s bond. These include him pouring out the water while he and Wu Xie are waiting for Xiaoge, his grief over Yuncai’s death, his standing by Wu Xie during the hotel auction scene, and his almost mother-hen-like worry about Xiaoge while they’re entering the Zhang Family Mansion in the last five episodes. Not to mention, he’s really quite a smart and perceptive character, despite his goofiness: he sees through Xiaoge’s worry about Wu Xie, and he knows when to step in and liven the atmosphere (see: Wu Xie being all awkward about his gift to Xiaoge in episode 31, and Pangzi being there practically just for emotional support). Also in episode 31: Pangzi telling Xiaoge that he’s getting more and more humane (the implications about Wu Xie here are pretty obvious). All in all, Pangzi is a funny person; he is often comic relief, but he’s also a steadfastly loyal friend and someone who loves deeply and without regret. Initially we saw more of his humor, but we definitely got the depths to his character by the end of Ultimate Note.

Finally Xiaoge, who I’m discussing last because he’s my favorite character: for once, I can see the humanity behind the title “Zhang Qiling”, and in a way that isn’t OOC. Xiaoge isn’t treated as a free source of bug-repelling blood; he isn’t treated as some overpowered, untouchable idol; he isn’t treated as a rescue machine for whenever another character needs it. He is a human, not a god. For the rest, I think his actor’s words speak for themselves. (And now I really don’t trust anyone else except him with Xiaoge's character.)

Ultimate Note succeeded in capturing the nuances of its main characters: Wu Xie’s loss of his “tianzhen” and slow maturation to the man he will eventually become by Sha Hai; Pangzi’s outwardly humorous pseudo-caricature but inwardly deeply loyal and loving spirit; Xiaoge’s vulnerabilities, painful humanity, and the “heart” given to him by his mother, hidden beneath a seemingly impenetrable armor. This is an Iron Triangle that feels like the Iron Triangle, without needing say so much in words. This is an Iron Triangle with mutual respect and a friendship I can see and believe in.

In conclusion: Ultimate Note does the story justice; it does the characters justice; it does the relationships justice; and it did all this with a low budget and almost no promotion. You can tell the crew definitely cares about the source material.

My only complaint is that they couldn’t film the finale.

Rambling over! All my love to the Ultimate Note cast and crew <3

#dmbj #zjbj #ultimate note #pingxie #iron triangle #盗墓笔记 #终极笔记 #瓶邪 #the lost tomb 3 #shouting into the void #i was supposed to be writing my essay for grad school LMAO #got 2.5k words of whatever the hell this is instead #basically iron triangle superior is what im saying #this is the longer and slightly more grammatical version of what i posted on twitter a couple days ago #FUCK I FORGOT TO TALK ABOUT PAN ZI #you know what its 1am im not editing this now lol

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rachelbethhines · 4 years ago

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Tangled Salt Marathon - The Return of the King

So we’re back to the quasi-filler stuff. This episode does set a few things up for the finale, like bringing Edmund to Corona, but none of those things are actually good and it’s still mostly filled with irrelevant shit alongside the more important stuff.

Summary: King Edmund arrives in Corona to see his long-lost son, Eugene, and to give him the royal sash of their bloodline. Eugene wants nothing to do with him, but Rapunzel invites him to stay. Later, the sash is stolen and a ransom note is left behind. Edmund and Eugene decide to go and retrieve it. Meanwhile, the Stabbington Brothers plot revenge on Eugene as they are both viewed as a joke by the other criminals.

So How Did the Stabbingtons Escape the Prison Barge

Last we saw them they were stuck on a prison barge along with Lady Caine and all of the other season one villains. How did they escape? Did Lady Caine or anybody else make it out? If so then where are they this season?

We’re not going to get any of those questions answered are we?

Man this is just sloppy continuity. Which ironic, because these two were only brought back this season because of continuity. They need to be “redeemed” so that they can be at the wedding. I guess it just sucks to be you if you’re an original villain for this show and not named Cassandra.

Why Is This Deserving of Ridicule?

Like...We’re talking about a world renowned thief and adventurer and his magical royal girlfriend who are well known enough outside of Corona to be mentioned and there for no doubt people know how they both defeated monsters, daemons, and several criminals besides just there two guys, right?

This plot point makes no sense.

You could just kick these dumbasses butts and be done with it. I doubt they’d bother picking on you again if you did.

Did we really need even more motivation for them to want revenged against Eugene?

Rapunzel is Back to Being Her Bossy Self

Rapunzel has not earned the role of “wise administrator” yet. She’s only been out of the tower for two years now and she has yet to prove to the audience that she has managed to learn anything since then. By jumping the gun and forcing her into a role that she hasn’t grown into, and by ignoring that this whole show started out as a coming of age story, it just makes Rapunzel unpleasant to be around. All her “advice” is just her ordering people about with a veneer of chipperness to try and mask her controlling nature. People who should know more about their own lives than she does and have no reason to listen to her.

So We’re Showing Rapunzel Being Responsible... By Having Her Avoid Responsibility?

Part of why the writers made her “acting queen” for the first half the season was to get her to grow into the role of becoming full time queen. However they screwed this up by not having her actually learn anything and having her avoid the real duties a queen preforms.

What Rapunzel is doing her is just being a socialite busybody. The only administrative thing she does is approve some low-scale building plans for a small business. A thing that would have been handled by a lower official in an actual functioning government.

Once again Rapunzel is being selfish and doing what she like, ie bossy people around while having them kiss her ass, as the real work of running the kingdom is left to someone else. This isn’t being responsible, it’s being hypocritical, but don't expect anyone to ever call Rapunzel out for this.

Pointless Action Scene is Pointless

At this point, the low stakes action sequences are just cringe. Like is this an adventure show or not people? Stop forcing crap like this and give us some real conflicts instead.

How Did You Get Here So Fast Edmund?

It took Rapunzel and company nearly a year to get to the Dark Kingdom. Even if Edmund wasn't delayed with pit stops like they were, it would have still taken him several months to get here by horse.

Did he take a boat, or have four to six months already past since Rapunzel’s Return?

I would argue that this episode was aired out of order and should have been later in the season, but Cassandra’s appearance at the end of this story, and Hamnuel’s appearances in later episodes, would suggest otherwise.

Crap like this is why season’s three timeline doesn’t work unless you stretch everything out to two years instead of one.

Read the Room Rapunzel

One could argue that Rapunzel is just trying to be polite, but that doesn't really hold water.

For starters Eugene is clearly upset and has every right to want to set boundaries between himself and Edmund. Ignoring that is incredibly rude and if my significant other ever did such a thing, well they wouldn’t be my significant other for very long.

Secondly, Rapunzel could have offered other accommodations if she felt pressured to be polite to Edmund. Not only are their lots of inns in a port town known for trade, many of which are probably well-to-do, but there’s also that convent that was mentioned back in season one. It has to be somewhere in Corona itself and as the so far only mentioned major religious organization in the country it would no doubt have stately quarters for when royalty and nobility would visit.

So not only would it be a suitable place for a visiting king to stay in, as it would be made for such things, but it’s also far enough away that Eugene wouldn’t feel like his space is being invaded but close enough that Edmund could come and go as he pleases.

By that point it’s still between Edmund and Eugene and Rapunzel can stay out of it, like she should.

Eugene is Right

These are all valid reasons for cutting someone out of your life. Furthermore, you don’t even need a reason. If you don’t want to associate with somebody then just don't associate with. It’s your life. You don’t have to justify how you choose to live it and people who actually care about you should respect that.

Unfortunately no one respects Eugene.

Not Edmund, not Rapunzel, and most certainly not the writers.

Then Why Don't You Get Closer to Edmund, Rapunzel?

I understand Rapunzel’s viewpoint here. Edmund is the only person she’s ever met who has experienced the same isolation that she has. He’s one of the very few people whom she can empathize with.

However that doesn’t give her the right to force her views upon her boyfriend. If she cared so much than she could just befriend Edmund herself and leave Eugene out of it.

Trying to encourage a child to have relationship with a parent who neglected them is super tone deaf at best and outright disrespectful at worst. It’s also highly hypocritical seeing as Rapunzel cut Gothel out of her life for similar reasons and Eugene only ever supported her for it.

No really, flip the situation. If Eugene tried to encourage Rapunzel to give Gothel a second chance everyone would be slamming him for it. So why does Rapunzel get a free pass?

Shorty Already Did That, Eugene. Don’t You Remember?

I mean, you were literally right there when it happened. Are we forgetting season two the same as season one now?

So Why Are Stan and Pete Suddenly Back, But Not Cap?

I mean we went through all that trouble in Rapunzel’s Return to write them out of the narrative and here they are without any explanation. Why are simple set ups so dang hard for this show?

Rapunzel is Overstepping Her Bounds Here

Ok, giving Edmund a place to stay is one thing. Suggesting to Eugene that he should give Edmund a chance is not appropriate but still forgivable. But this?

This crosses a fucking line!

Eugene is not Rapunzel’s subject. He’s her boyfriend, and a prince in his own right. Rapunzel can’t just volunteer him for crap without his consent. That’s just indirectly ordering him about like she would a servant.

Once again, flip the script. If Eugene tried to force Rapunzel to work with Gothel everyone would be up in arms. Why is this then deemed okay?

This is Coercion

Not only is Edmund and Rapunzel trying to guilt trip Eugene here but she even fucking elbows him!

Like this isn’t “cute couple bickering” here. That kind of stuff is reserved only for inconsequential shit.

This a woman trying to strong arm and guilt trip her husband to be into having a relationship with his abusive father! Because guess what? Neglect is still abuse!

Rapunzel has zero say in Eugene and Edmund’s relationship. It’s none of her fucking business! Trying to force her into this plot just makes her look like an asshat.

I mean look at this smug smile! The fucking bitch is proud of being a shit human being and a terrible girlfriend.

And of course don't expect the show to call out this behavior as wrong because of out of date sexist double standards. If you think any of this is okay then just role reverse Eugene and Rapunzel here and then tell me its still alright.

The Show Missed a Real Trick By Not Naming Him Horus Instead

Horus, the sun god, would have been a nice bit of irony and given meaning to the name while keeping the joke virtually unchanged. You could have had both lore and a punchline.

And I would argue that the joke as is, isn’t even funny. Horace is indeed a lame name, but not for the reason that the show gives. It’s lame because it’s not unique enough. There’s already a Disney character named Horace and I’m sure there are real people out there with that name as well since it’s not completely unheard of. So the joke falls flat and winds up insulting anyone with that name.

Don’t Expect Any Pay Off for Eugene’s Identity Issues This Season

Yeah the show makes a big deal out of Eugene having a mid-life crisis through out season three, but then never resolves it in any meaningful way.

Edmund Is an Asshole

I don’t care how “crazy” he is. Calling someone by a name they don't wished to be called is just plain rude. Acknowledging someone’s preferred name is just a basic common courtesy that is expected of everyone. Once again, this isn’t funny, quirky, nor charming, just unpleasant.

So the Animators Wasted a Model on a No-Named Character Who Only Appears Once

Someone said this little girl appears in season one, but it’s not noticeable if she does. She also doesn’t have a name and this is her only speaking role. What a waste of money. Just have one of the braided girls from the movie instead. You already built models for them and haven’t really used them.

And before some mentions race here, this is poor rep already cause the character has no impact.

Turns Out, Varian Didn’t Even Need Those Truth Serum Cookies

Not only does this dumb down Pete to a ridiculous degree, but it also invalidates everything Varian went through in The Alchemist Returns and the grief he got from everyone for using the truth serum.

Oh, and it’s also lazy writing and a plot contrivance.

That’s Not Figgy Pudding!

This is Figgy Pudding.

It’s a boiled “pudding” that’s more like a cake with dried fruit in it. During the 14th through 18th centuries such bread puddings were made to be carried around in ones pocket or knapsack for eating on the go. They’re nothing like the creamy custards we call puddings today.

It also looks nothing like what’s shown on the screen below.

That’s like a half eaten loaf of wheat bread?

That’s jelly filled .. apparently...?

Once Again, If You Have to Make Everyone Else Incompetent to Make Your Hero Useful to the Plot Then You Need a New Plot

Rapunzel has zero business in this plot. She doesn’t even need to be in this episode beyond a cameo. Trying to cram her into the protagonist role in a conflict that doesn’t involve her is just a disservice to everyone.

Winnie The Pooh Is More Mature Than This Show

More of that meta commentary I was talking about last episode, and it just as full of shit as ever.

Seriously Find Her, Keep Her is the best script I have ever seen in any show. It’s perfectly balanced so that anyone of any age can relate to it. It’s real and heartbreaking and perfectly suitable for small children to understand. There’s no shock value, no darkness, no modern satire, but its far more mature and complex and deep than anything TTS has tried.

Also Rabbit is a far better father than any dad in this show, while still being cut from the same trope. There’s no shame in being a children’s show when its done well and this now 30 year old kids show runs rings around what ever mess Tangled is trying to sell.

Eugene Isn’t Exaggerating Here and I Don't Know How to Feel About That

Turns out Eugene did grow up with these guys the same as he did with Lance. It’ll be confirmed only two episodes later. That just recontextualizes everything. He didn’t just betray some rando guys that he held no feelings for, he betrayed people that he’s known and worked with since childhood.

Now just because he’s known them doesn’t mean that they were family to him like Lance, but like the fact that he keeps claiming then as such through out the episode would suggest that perhaps they were like siblings.

That’s ... ingenious. That makes Flynn Rider retroactively an even worse person and gives the Stabbingtons real reason for vengeance.

Only the show doesn't do anything with this! It just makes Eugene an even bigger jerk in the movie for zero reason.

Let Me Reiterate, Edmund Is an Asshole

Just like with Frederic, Cassandra, and Rapunzel the show uses framing to try and make the audience side with people who do unforgivable things.

Edmund is an abuser. He neglected his own son for 25 years. But the show presents him as “funny” and “quriky” and “look at his pouty face, he’s so lonely”....

No!

Edmund isn’t deserving of anything and how he treats Eugene here is garbage.

This show is utter crap writing wise but boy does it know how to gaslight its own audience into siding with bullies and abusers.

Eugene Is One Thousand Percent In the Right Here, But Don’t Expect the Narrative to Acknowledge That

There’s nothing you can do to make up for that.

Eugene might forgive him. Eugene might move on from it. Eugene might decide a relationship it still worth having with Edmund. But the horrible thing still happened and it happened because Edmund allowed it to happen. There’s no going back from that and everything going forward has to be on Eugene’s terms alone.

But the narrative won't allow Eugene that agency.

Even as he makes his grand proclamation about being done with Edmund the cameras chooses to focus on Edmund and his feelings. The story is already priming the audience to prioritize Edmund over Eugene so that when the forced and contrived forgiveness scene comes we won't question it. But it only comes because Chris doesn’t deem Eugene as individual person with thoughts and feels of his own, but as an avatar to fulfill his wishfulment fantasy regarding his own personal daddy issues.

Rapunzel’s Characterization in Season Three is Just....Off

Ok, even ignoring the major stuff, like not recognizing what she’s done wrong, putting her into roles she’s not meant to carry, and making her a shitty girlfriend suddenly, Rapunzel just behaves contrary to her character all through out season three even in small subtle ways like here.

On the surface this seems like a clever call back to Great Expotations, but lets examine more closely, shall we.

On one end we have yo-yos; an invention that’s been around since ancient Greece and is so wide spread across the globe that the word “yo-yo” itself is theorized to come from Indonesia and the Philippines.

On the other end there is Rapunzel. A woman who spent 18 years isolated inside of a tower, because of this she is both ignorant of somethings and insatiability curious and eager to learn. Or at least she was, until striking out onto a year long road trip, and having now been out of the tower for only two years, claims to know better than the entire fucking world about this object who’s existence she didn’t even know about until only a year and half ago!

Like what kind of sense does this make? Why would you abandon the core of her drive and motivation, to learn, explore, and grow, and then call it “development”?

How Did Edmund Get Beat By These Guys?

Edmund took out Adria. The Brotherhood is suppose to be the best physical fighters in this world and Edmund is supposed to be best out of all of them. Yet he’s taken out by two random, mediocre dudes who didn't even jump him. They gave him time to respond and he stood up to fight them.

Was all his physical prowess tied into that axe? Is the axe magic?

If you characters have to be depowered for unexplained reasons for the plot to work than you haven’t a good plot.

This Isn’t as Heartwarming as You Think It Is Show

If Edmund knew where Eugene was this whole time then he could have actually provided for his son. He could have arranged adoption with someone by letter, sent money, food, clothes, ect, maybe even wrote to Eugene directly and kept up a long distance relationship to be there for him emotionally.

There is literally no excuse anymore for Edmund to hide behind. He literally neglected his duties as a parent, just cause.

Finding these things shouldn’t make Eugene happy. Finding these things should piss him off even further because that’s how any logical adult would respond to this bullcrap.

I sure know I’m angry. I’m angry that Eugene is a pawn for the creators’ writing wank-off rather then being treated as human being; as an actual character.

“Nice” Isn’t the Same Thing as Kind, Rapunzel

One could argue that she’s not even superficially nice in season three, but the real problem here is that the show, and by extension Rapunzel herself, doesn’t understand the difference between being “pleasant” and actually being a good person. Outwardly polite people can stab you in the back, can kill you even, and not care, as Rapunzel has demonstrated repeatedly since season one.

Do They Have to Be “Family” for Eugene to Give a Damn?

Can’t Eugene just do the right thing, because it’s the right thing to do? People don't need to be friends and family to care about each others lives. Kindness isn’t transactional. Empathy and true charity doesn’t come with strings attached. If Eugene’s whole arc is about becoming a better person, then making the Stabbingtons “family” kind of undermines this.

Don’t Reward the Dude for Doing the Bare Fucking Minimal

No seriously. Edmund forfeited the right to ever be called “dad” by Eugene a long fucking time ago. He doesn’t get to be called that now just because he stopped being a piece of scum and showed the bare minimal of human decency. Even if Eugene decides to have a relationship with Edmund after this, it doesn’t mean that he has to be recognized as his dad or that that relationship will be a parental one.

Eugene, and by Extension the Show, Places Rapunzel Upon a Pedestal to the Detriment of All

Only 4 villains out of 20 get redeemed in this show. Four, and yes I’m counting the Stabbintions as one entity here. That’s 16 times Rapunzel failed to give someone a second chance just cause she didn’t feel like it that day, and even here she did fuck all in trying to give the Stabbingtons any sort of chance. That was all on Eugene.

The more this show goes on, the more it looks like Eugene is just in love with the idea of Rapunzel rather than who she actually is as a person. It’s a disservice to both their characters but it damages Rapunzel most of all because the show perpetuates this over idealization to everyone she interacts with.

It’s really sickening to watch and terrifying to know that some uphold this selfish brat as a “role model” for little girls. There’s nothing empowering in being an inhuman “goddess” who can do no wrong....even as they do several wrongs and never gets called out on it.

This Isn’t “Cute”

Eugene can’t even have an opinion on a fucking toy!

Look if you still like New Dream despite how horribly written it is this season, then good for you. That is completely understandable, especially since this is mainly a problem with season three and not really in the first two seasons and certainly not in the movie.

But if you try to deny that they aren’t toxic in season three, that people who do have problems with how they’re written aren’t valid in their concerns, than you’re either someone who hasn’t been paying attention or someone who has gross double standards for women in relationships.

This Scene Is A Waste of Time

This doesn’t tell the audience anything. It contradicts what was previously established concerning her powers without explanation and then just throws the creepy girl voice in there for a lazy hook. It doesn’t work at foreshadowing since we repeat this info all over again in the next episode and it doesn’t expand upon neither Zhan Tiri’s nor Cassandra’s characters.

In fact it kind of contradicts Cassandra’s characterization in the last episode as well. Is she a remorseless bad bitch or a vulnerable woobie? She can’t be both. Not in the way show is going about it anyways.

It’s poor time management and poor storytelling.

Conclusion

It was mildly better than Rapunzel’s Return, but that’s not saying much. Everyone’s character is still circling the drain and there’s no escape line in sight.

But before I close out, here is a real world update. I had to quit my job at Amazon for personal reasons and am currently job hunting. I’m not hurting right now, I do have money saved up to cover me for at least a month and I’ve been doing commissions here and there, however despite having more time technically to write these reviews, I’m now having to juggle it along with artwork and job hunting.

If you would like to support my reviews and other personal projects you can send me a tip over at Ko-Fi and more public commissions will be opening soon over there as well.

https://ko-fi.com/rachelbethhines

#eugene #anti-rapunzel #anti-tangled #tangled #tangled the series #rapunzel's tangled adventure

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laora-inn · 4 years ago

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Supernatural - Some speculations about the last 7 episodes of 15th season

Well, after 2 trailers, episodes descriptions on IMDB and some unfinished plot-lines of SPN story I’d like to share my own speculations. Some of them are definitely wrong.

Destiel positive, happy end positive, don’t like - don’t read.

Season 15 | Episode 14. Last Holiday

A filler - that’s how we anime fans call episodes which have no deal with the main plotline, though can contain some interesting moments and nuances. In “Supernatural” these episodes usually have no Cas in them. Sometimes they are very good... but mostly not. They are “just for fun”, and fans enjoy them, because they can be really funny. No angst.

Like this one - no angst, no Cas, a wood nymph who looks like Mary Poppins to me (or Mrs. Marple whatever). Some British origin of the character.

That’s the episode which shots with Dean in purple nightgown are from (trailer short version).

I suppose the shot with Dean, Sam and Jack flying in the air could also be here from. But maybe not.

I don’t know where Cas may be. His absence should be explained to us in some way. In episode 10th he was missing because of talking to the angels. What’s now? Some preparations for the next Jack's trial?

In this episode Dean should come closer to Jack’s forgiving.

Season 15 | Episode 15. Gimme Shelter

I have NO IDEA what this episode is about. Maybe the next trial for Jack? Or not?

I think the shot from the last trailer with Cas protecting Jack on the truck bed is from this episode. Also, some tortured person on the bed with the “lust” written above could be from it.

And what about Sam and Dean? Where are they?

I think they may have their own journey here, separate from Cas and Jack. Possibly the epic shots with them entering some building are this episode from. Possibly not.

Season 15 | Episode 16. Drag Me Away (From You)

I don’t like this episode title. It looks like Destiel mocking to me - maybe, I just don’t have enough faith. I want to trust SPN writers but can’t. Somebody help me to believe, we all need that now! :)

THE ONLY episode in ALL THE SHOW except this one that had brackets in the title was 12x12, Stuck in the Middle (With You). Yahoo.

Obviously, 12x12 was a parody to the Reservoir Dogs, a movie by Quentin Tarantino. Parody in a good sense of this word, but still. The plotline, the scenes (oh, this lunch scene from different points of view!), the scenes’ order, the roles, though changed - all of them. In case you didn’t watch Reservoir Dogs, just go and watch it, and then re-watch 12x12. You will understand.

"Stuck in the Middle with You" is Stealers Wheel song which was in the OST of this Tarantino’s movie. This allusion should deal with boys’ and Mary relationship - because it’s her who betrayed them involuntarily, and now they are stuck in the middle with her.

But somehow this episode title also deals with Destiel relationship. Maybe ‘cause that’s Cas who is dying, not Mary. Maybe ‘cause even on his deathbed he doesn’t confess something important - not about his betrayal, there was no one, but about his feelings. He says "I love you”, but then adds “I love all of you”, and Dean is literally stuck in the middle with Cas here.

Back to the brackets in the episodes titles. Because of them I suppose that 12x12 and 15x16 could be connected. But how exactly?! That’s the question. I want them badly to be connected in Destiel way, but know too little.

Back then I supposed that Dean could be dying in this episode and it would be his turn to confess something to Cas. But now I don’t know if there will be Cas in this episode at all, I just don’t have enough information.

I hope he will.

Btw, the words “Drag Me Away (From You)” are in Toto’s song “Africa”. And in case you didn’t know, in 2018 this song was used for half-an-hour Destiel video made by fan here. It covers ALL the Destiel moments then far. Link for this video is in Supernatural wiki, in the Destiel article. Half an hour, 10 repeats of the song, author’s comment:

Along the way it stopped being funny and started getting insulting because this has been a literal decade (as of 2018 the vid features seasons 4-13) and the show has explored ALL of the tropes and yet and yet and yet...

I mean the fangirl shipper part of me also loves it. And then I get mad because I love it. I have a very complicated relationship with Supernatural but that's okay.

Have you heard the good news about Tragic Widow Dean?

TLDR: Have a supercut of all the DeanCas stuff set to Toto's Africa.

We can speculate a bit about this fact, but the truth is we know only about young Sam and Dean, who certainly will be in this episode.

I think shots with Billie talking to Dean from the last trailer also belong to this episode, as well as shots with young Dean with Samulet, who is a ghost now. But these assumptions could be totally wrong.

What circumstances will take us to the young Sam and Dean? Time travelling? Flashbacks? The parallel world?

Personally I think it will be the third option. Because how the hell young Dean can be a ghost in “our” universe? Unless it’s not Dean, though I doubt it. But if it’s not Dean, it can be a flashback, you know, with the young boys. Yep?

We’ll wait and see.

I don’t think that Sam’s appreciative words to Dean refer to this episode.

Also I don’t think Sam is going to sacrifice himself AGAIN (I’ve heard such an opinion). But maybe it’s my hope that makes me think in a wrong way.

Season 15 | Episode 17. Unity

I think some of Chuck’s shots are from this episode. Maybe the red lights in the bunker too. Maybe not.

There also should be Amara and some angels. I saw Uriel in the cast! Maybe there also be some light lit on the all situation in Heaven now, when Jack made new angels.

Some interaction between all of them + Sam, Dean, Cas and Jack should take place. Here the shot with sigil could be taken from.

What side the angels will take? How it happened that Uriel is alive? Was he resurrected by Chuck or Amara? What plans does Amara have, how is she planning to deal with Chuck?

And what’s for Naomi? Will she come back or not? I think she won’t, not in this episode for sure, and I’m already disappointed ‘cause you know, she should be alive. Dumah said she is. For me Naomi is an important figure considering Destiel, and I think she’d be the best Heaven runner.

All in all, in this episode should happen something that will make Cas happy. I suppose by the end of 15x17 or in the beginning of 15x18 they all will be sure that they have won the game, and Dean will forgive Jack for Mary.

The episode title may refer to angels’, Winchesters’ and Amara unity.

Season 15 | Episode 18. Despair

Well, in Supernatural wiki I also saw “The Truth” title for this episode.

Most of us are convinced that in this episode Cas will tell Dean about his deal with the Empty and will be taken by it. I believe the same.

I think shot with Billie knocking with her hand rotten belongs to this episode.

I have some doubts, but also think a shot with Dean leaning on Cas is from here.

I’m sure that “You fought for this whole world” and Dean’s crying scene belong to this episode. ‘Cause you know. Despair. And the truth - about Cas’s deal and possibly about their fake win.

Billie’s with her scythe and bunker intrusion symbols could also be from here (or from one the previous episodes ends, especially for Billie - as a cliffhanger). And it should be the case for Sam and Jack, I suppose. Because there is no other way for Dean and Cas to face Cas’s deal with just two of them.

Destiel confession will be here, in more explicit form that it could be in 15x16, because there will be A TALK, but I don’t think we’ll see something real explicit.

Maybe, Dean’ll say he loves Cas. Maybe not. I’m sure only about the fact that we’ll cry by the end of this episode. And that will be AN UGLY CRYING, just as Jensen said.

Well, maybe there will be a hint that Cas can be brought back, but I think it won’t. So prepare yourselves, my friends.

Season 15 | Episode 19. Inherit the Earth

Here I think Sam’s appreciative words to Dean are taken from. They are definitely comforting. ‘Cause you know, Cas is dead, Chuck is alive. Possibly Cas was in his way and Chuck erased him by making him believe in their win.

I also think Dean’s crying words “this whole mission, saving the world” belong to this episode and will be in conversation with Sam.

They still need to fight Chuck, and Jack is still alive. Here Michael will appear and helps. And there is one moment Sergey mentioned in 15x07, about the key to the Death’s library. He even described what it looks like! Cas heard that as well as Eileen. Well, if Cas is taken, then Eileen should return to the Winchesters, maybe with Sam and Jack, or just tell them about this key.

I don’t know what they are going to do after. Open this library? How? Find how to kill God? Or not? Will they try to save Cas?

I think they will not talk about Cas’s saving. And he will be dead in this episode for sure.

Also I think they’ll deal with God in this episode, one way or another.

Season 15 | Episode 20. Carry On

This is a land of unlimited speculation!

I hope Dean’ll have Cas back by the end of episode. I think Cas’ll save himself from the Empty, ‘cause, you know, he has a big goal there. The Empty tortures all the dead angels and demons, as far as we know. It should be fixed - Cas’s already made a promise to Ruby. And we know that Cas has no problem with ruining something and messing it up - he is basically THE GREAT TRICKSTER of this show.

Rebelling against Heaven and ruining angels’ plans? Check. Stopping Apocalypse? Check. Opening Purgatory? Check. Becoming a new God? Check. Bringing the Leviathans? Check. Casting all the angels out of Heaven and burning their wings? Check. Becoming human? Check. Becoming an angel by devouring other angels’ grace? Check. Getting an army of angels? Check. Giving up this army for one human? Check. Kidnapping angels’ prisoner? Check. Letting Lucifer in? Check. Helping “an abomination”, Devil’s son, to be born? Check. Annoying Empty so much that it brought him back to life? Check. Making a deal with the Empty? Check.

It’s very dangerous to mess with Cas, you just don’t know what he could do for the greater good, and yep, in some way Dean was right when he said that Cas is “something that’s always going wrong”. So I think the Empty is in trouble here, not vice versa.

Also, there is one more thing that bothers me. When Nick in 14th season was praying to Lucifer, he woke him up in the Empty. Theoretically, Lucifer can be awake by now. It could be a dead end, but still. Lucifer’s “true face” is similar to the Empty’s, sooo...

I don’t know what to think about it and the fact that Nick could reach Lucifer and return him from the Empty, so let’s move on.

I hope for the happy end for Sam (maybe with Eileen) and for all the hunters we know. They are family.

NO MCD here! If someone’ll die - they shouldn’t be Sam, Dean or Cas. I don’t want to see Eileen’s death either. I don’t know what about Jack. I don’t want him to die, but he is 100% supernatural being, and I am not sure what it means for him to die.

Monsters should stay, hunters should hunt them. We’ll see that the “family business” thrives.

There should be an order on the all levels - in Heaven, Hell and on Earth. There should be the new Death - of they should return Billie. Rowena running the Hell would be perfect. Wonder if Naomi could run Heaven. Maybe it will be Chuck? If he will be redeemed. Or Michael.

I don’t know what’s for the Empty and Amara.

I don’t know what the end for Jack will be. I’d like he will be alive, but I just don’t know. He can’t be a human. That will be right thing for Cas, but not for Jack.

I hope for Destiel endgame, as well as for Sam/Eileen. Cas should become a human, maybe, with some supernatural skills left.

I doubt that we have proper scenes of these ships together or Cas’ humanity. Just hints. But they can be very obvious - especially if we’ll see Dean’s reaction to Cas’s returning.

So, I hope to see them.

But, as I said, it's a land of unlimited speculation. We’ll wait and see.

What else should be resolved:

- Kevin can’t stay a ghost! It’s my main point here. He also can’t go to Hell. What will happen with him and in which episode? I don’t know. I just hope they won’t forget about him.

- There is the shot with Bobby from? 15x20? He should be somewhere.

- Also, there should be Charlie in this season unless something’s changed. Where is she?

- What are they going to do with alternative!Winchesters from 15x13? They will rest? They will make another HunterCorp? They will be gone?! Come on, something needs to be done with them! Of course, they are not so important here, so the writers can forget about them, but still, I’m interested.

What am I going to do:

I'm going to watch all the last episodes of the season. AND THEN, if there will be no happy end for the Winchester boys and Cas won’t be with them, I'm going to rebel. :) In every possible way - petitions, letters, actions etc. We are grown-up people here. We can fight for our rights, and it's my crucial right - to be happy about my favorite show ending. :)

__________________

Feel free to ask me anything or to comment. My ask is working!