#this might be extremely out of character but its also past my bedtime so
Explore tagged Tumblr posts
lovebeatriceplz · 2 months ago
Text
Lotr Love Languages ⋆。‧˚ʚ🍓ɞ˚‧。⋆
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
Characters: Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, Frodo, Merry and Pippin, Arwen, Eowyn.
Aragorn :
☆ Quality time, Acts of service
- Quiet moments, partaking in every day domestic tasks. It's enough for him.
- Respects your boundaries and independence, but lives for carrying out acts of service. It's a "I can do it myself" + "Let me do it for you anyways" dynamic.
- Your silent protector. His eyes always find you in any setting.
- He's never one to wait for you to make a move. Not clingy, but if he's lonely he won't hesitate to seek you out.
- Sword bearing lessons.
- Physically places himself between you and the threat, almost subconscious.
Tumblr media
Legolas :
☆ Physical touch, Quality time, Words of affirmation
- Lives for verbal praise or reassurance and returns the favour.
- Hand holding, a five finger grip.
- Prefers to be/stand close to you, otherwise he'll feel a bit awkward and unsure of what to do with his hands (so he'll hold yours).
- Quality time is really just learning about each other, inexorably falling deeper.
- Teaching him how to cook your favorite dish, teaching you Sindarin, braiding his hair the way your mother taught you, he'll impart all his knowledge on to you.
Tumblr media
Gimli :
☆ Gift giving, Acts of Service, Quality time
- I like to think that dwarfs have a hoarding habit. Maybe not hoarding, but he'd never throw away anything you give him.
- His gifts are quite peculiar, and make no sense to anyone but you. That root that he dug up with his bare hands wasn't very romantic, or pretty. It happens to be the main ingredient in a childhood favourite.
- If chivalry is dead then he's 6ft under.
- Quality time can range from drinking games and watching intense boar fights to taking a stroll through a field and climbing a tree.
- Don't try to partake in any manual labour around him, part of it is to flex his strength and show you up, the latter is the desire to pamper you and show that he cares.
Tumblr media
Frodo :
☆ Quality time, Words of affirmation
- Reads books with you. Probably under the shade of a tree, with your head on his chest.
- Has a way with words and can wash your worries away with a heart - to - heart.
- Wandering is better with company, he thinks. Which is why he drags you along on any expedition he finds himself on.
- Has a secret spot somewhere, maybe a dead tree trunk or a quiet spot by the creek, just for the two of you.
-Makes sure you feel included in every situation. Great listener.
Tumblr media
Merry and Pippin :
(I was going to separate them but I got lazy mb gang💔)
☆ All of them
- I'm not going to give an example for all of them so I'll just highlight some stuff.
- 75% of their jokes are jokes that you've shared with them at some point.
- Bear hugs, pepper kisses, hand gripping holding, biting, piggy back rides, you get it.
- Not great listeners overall but very attentive when it comes to you.
- Chivalry but at different levels. Merry is the type to cover you with his cloak if it starts to pour, or carry you across a gap/leap.
- Pippin is the type to shield you from the rain, with his body. He'll bridge the gap to be crossed, with himself. "It's fine you can step on me, I won't feel it😼".
- It's common to have very out of nowhere, deep conversations when they're around.
Tumblr media
Arwen:
☆ Physical touch, gift giving, quality time, words of affirmation
- Gives the softer, purer side of physical touch. I'm talking forehead kisses, cuddling, short but sweet pecks on the mouth, face holding, all of that. Enjoys being on the receiving end of this as well (move aside gentlemen I got this).
- If sentimental was a person it would be her. All her gifts have thought, meaning, and love behind them.
-Likes to sit and observe you in silence, if you don't mind of course.
- Hates when you worry about her.
- Never speaks to you harshly or with disrespect. If she's upset she has the emotional capacity to calm down before she addresses you.
- Has a thing for you skin and I mean that in the most intimate, non creep way. Smooth or calloused she doesn't really care, she likes how it feels under her fingertips.
Tumblr media
Eówyn :
☆ Acts of service, Physical touch, Quality time
- Did I say acts of service? Yeah that's her.
- Likes to have her hands in your hair, she's not great at styling but if it's long enough she'll settle for putting it in a crooked braid.
- Long walks and stargazing.
- Her kisses are lingering and tender, and meant to bring comfort.
- Will insist on helping you get dressed. She'll tie the strings at the back that you can't reach, put the necklace on that you couldn't hook.
- She's a good listener but she loves to talk. Will patiently wait for you to finish your story, then go on a tangent.
- Hates when you fight because her first instinct is put distance between the two of you, then she misses your presence like crazy and loses her mind.
That's it (divider at the top top by @strangergraphics-archive)
179 notes · View notes
c0smiccom3t · 2 years ago
Text
Dimension Dyfenders Update!! (9/20/23)
Tumblr media
HEY, HEY, it's September! You know what that means! (read the above)
Hello D.D fandom, hello followers, mutuals, friends and hello people who curiously stumbled upon this post. You all know who i am, but for those who don't, let me introduce myself. My name's Comet. I'm the co-creator and main artist in the indie webcomic series Dimension Dyfenders! As of right now, i'm attending art school and trying my best to work more on the webcomic while also attending on my studies and get better grades. Now, you might ask, "Comet, what's going on with this series now?", "Why haven't been there more pocket adventures minisode 1 parts lately?" Well, i got the answers right here! First of all, let's start with the most obvious one... The Pocket Adventures situation.
Now, Pocket Adventures hasnt been online as of late, no next parts were being published, and im very sorry for that. The cause for it is the loss of motivation i had, which made me not work on it for a long while. Even when making new panels i feel extremely tired. Feeling like i should do something else (heck, i feel insecure about its panels when i draw them!) But fret not, that doesn't mean Pocket Adventures is getting cancelled. We still have loads of plans on the table and we can't wait to roll them out. But for now, we're taking a break due to IRL situations for example, art school. We, the team, have lives outside of making d.d content. We need to get our degrees and, well, try to survive life. But no worries, because I got plans to get back on D.D P.A Minisode 1 and finish it completely once winter break hits. As long as my motivation gets out of its hibernation phase. But still, i can't wait for you all to see the conclusion to minisode 1. (I just hope you dont mind if i jump right into the 'new designs' in the next pages)
Speaking of minisodes, I've been thinking of releasing minisodes only once a year than every saturday. Though this decision is not final yet. I don't want clout, in fact, i just wanna do what I love. Create stories and comics for everybody to enjoy. But if you guys would love for a minisode to release once a year or once in 3 months, let me know your opinions! Your criticism helps this series, especially its production, grow better!
Now, for the second and final question you may have asked… Thing is, Nothing has changed! But well, if you know me on my social media for my recent Crash Bandicoot fanart, then you might notice that Crash 4: It's About Time, especially it's artbook (and concept art by Nicola Saviori)... Has affected my artstyle, DRASTICALLY. So. The characters, of course, have went through some changes. I'd like to call this new artstyle... "The TFB Effect". As a matter of fact, Dimension Dyfenders (both its miniseries and full series) is going to have a brand new, more cartoony, zanier than ever artstyle! Don't believe me? See for yourselves. Starting with the main ones!
Tumblr media Tumblr media
I decided to add a little bit of the good ol' Squash and Stretch to the characters to make them stand out more in the next comics. So of course, some of the colors have changed, especially designs and bodytypes. Oh, and not just that, our heroes have some new stuff, too! For example: Knockout's Dyfender Element is now refered as "Quantum Strenght", Paintdrop's is called "Cosmic Creativity" and Speedrunner's is called "Light Speed". Neat upgrades, eh? (Still, criticism is accepted.) Anyway, notice that in the first picture above there's something that says: "Dyfender Mode", right? Well, if you see that, that's because we are introducing something brand new to our heroes. Called: Omni-modes.
Now, "what are Omni-modes?", you may ask? Well, Omni-modes are modes that are set on the Dyfenders' Dy-watches, you may see that the Omni-Modes are, of course, the Dyfenders' alternate hero forms, to help them take on a mission in a different, more suitable form. When the day needs to be saved during night time (and rarely past bedtime), they activate Night Mode. For sunny beach days but still wanting to make sure nobody figures out their secret identities, Acqua Mode will be at their service. There are tons of different Omni-Modes to be shown (Especially, Pride mode, which was shown on this year's pride post.) So, yeah. Omni-modes will be shown in both the miniseries AND the full series!
Oh! And refering to characters, we can't forget about our main bad guys! Oh, you know, the Dajo-Crew? They got a bit of a make over to fit to the current artstyle! (ft. the updated height chart):
Tumblr media Tumblr media
Now that we got that out of the way. let's just head over what will the future of the series look like as of right now. Starting off with the full series and pocket adventures. As said before, Dimension Dyfenders' artstyle changed. But that doesn't mean everything changed, things may be different (the more cartoony artstyle and the sillier tone), but nothing about the series has changed! And that means..
MORE POCKET ADVENTURES IS HAPPENING, THAT'S RIGHT! MORE D.D CONTENT COMING THIS WAY!
As for right now, D.D Minisode 1 may still be in development as we speak, but one thing that's completed right now is the script! Now that its finally finished, all thats left, is the panel and comic page-making (hopefully you wont mind the sudden character design changes, though.)! But in the meantime! We got some sneak peaks for not just one of the panels from the next minisode 1 pages, but also a never-seen before panel from the next minisodes of pocket adventures! (notice: some of these are not final and may change in the final product.)
Tumblr media Tumblr media
That's not all! this franchise has got some new stuff coming in during it's run. We got so many plans, but this is the only thing we can show about said plans:
Tumblr media
As you can see, you're gonna see some new characters in pocket adventures. While in the full series, you'll get some new characters too. Except... New baddies will be only in the full series, while in the miniseries then later in the animated series... You'll get to meet some new allies! So, keep your eyes peeled for them! And we hope you like them as much as we do.
Now, D.D has never shown a sign of stopping, even during hiatuses, so im happy to announce that more Pocket Adventures will be on their way after Minisode 1 has completed production! We're thinking of putting the upload dates on hold (which means, minisode 2 is delayed until further notice, sorry guys.). So please be patient when waiting for new minisodes.
And speaking of patience... I think I got a little something to keep you guys busy with while you wait... Introducing…
Tumblr media
DIMENSION DYFENDERS TOONIES!
Now, you may be wondering: "What is THIS?" D.D.T (Dimension Dyfenders Toonies for long), is a brand new miniseries of comic strips that comes out during the weekends. (Starting in October, the end of september, or during the holiday season! No promises, though.) It's a little something i can make up while you guys wait for the next Pocket Adventures Minisodes. Oh yeah, here's one of the cover for it, too! It's not much, but i know you guys would go NUTS for it:
Tumblr media
This will be about how the Dyfenders handle their superhero and school lives in everyday situations. (No worries, the action isn't gone. There might be some strips about school, but there will be more strips about their superhero lives, guarantee!). It's also about what The Dajo-Crew does when they aren't invading dimensions, get into some shenanigans at the castle and also when they plot evil schemes. some strips will be either original with a new short story or a recreation of old strips from phase 1 (not a final decision of course, but you can tell us if you like this idea)! One thing to point out is that some of the strips might take place before some minisodes, now thats another thing to notice, right? And that's the only "spoiler" I can give. So, sorry, no more! OH! And for any of you voice actors reading this who are like: "Wow, i wonder when this series will get a comic dub / animated series. If i'm lucky enough i might be able to voice act for it!" … Boy, do we have a treat for you all. Which will be posted in a few hours. both on bird app, bluesky, insta and on here!  The only thing I have to announce is that during the d.d stuff's production and during art school, i'm not gonna be online on social media. (until during normal/long weekends and festive days.), but no worries, the series is still alive and kicking, even when there aren't posts about it for a few months! Though, in some days, i'll be able to make and share some art for it! You're all in for a wild ride for these months and for 2024! Oh, and about Dajo's account. I'm planning to bring it back. But, Dajo is currently busy conquering Dimensions, but I can assure he hasn't abandoned Sinstagram completely. You'll see more of his influencer side, too. Both in his Sinstagram and in the upcoming strips! (And perhaps in some mini– OOPS! TOO MUCH!) That's all for now! Thank you all for your support on the series, don't forget to share your fan creations of the series in DMs or tag me and the team in your masterpieces, share it with your family and friends, subscribe to the series on Comicfury, and follow me on Tumblr, bluesky, bird app and Instagram if you wish to support the project even outside of comicfury! Once again, thank you all in this slowly-growing small fandom for all of your support, and i hope you're all excited for what's to come! If you have any questions, please drop them on my tumblr askbox, Which i'll be able to answer during the weekends. That's all, back to the offline study and sleep abyss for me. GOODBYE!
20 notes · View notes
husbandohunter · 4 years ago
Text
A Small Predicament [Baby Genshin x Reader]
Tumblr media
Characters: Scaramouche, Diluc, Kaeya, Childe, Xiao, Zhongli, Albedo
Synopsis: Cursed for a week, the boys either have to live with it or find a cure as soon as possible. You on the otherhand hoped otherwise.
(A/n): It only takes ONE glance for me to start having ideas. It was twelve in the morning yall, enjoy~
Oh here's part 2
--------
Scaramouche
• "Oh you shrank? I couldn't tell-"
• Threatens that he will murder you to pieces and burn your remains but his voice was so squeaky and high pitched (voice crack) that you couldn't help but burst into a tearful laughter. 
• Its payback time  Bully him, take his hat and hover it above his head. Truthfully, without his hat Scaramouche looks like a little schoolboy. Overall less intimidating.
• Tries glaring. Cute. He's really bratty as a kid, sitting on a high chair (which you had to help him get on) and demanding his servants to do his bidding. In reality, his personality never changed. You realized that even as a grown up he still acts like this (bratty kid in a grown man body).
• The curse made his week a living hell. Signora had the audacity to pull his ear when he misbehaves. Childe constantly messes with his hair while giving head pats and the WORST of all, pinching his cheeks. Scaramouche never wanted to commit arson so bad in his life.
• Eventually finds a cure so he doesn't have to deal with it anymore and orders everyone to never speak of it again. Though, he's plotting how he'll get revenge on everyone who made fun of him using the very same curse (You better run).
~~x~~
Diluc
• "Oh…Oh my! Diluc you're just so cute!" 
• Diluc grimaces as you glomp him in this state. How can you help it? With his head so small it makes his hair all the more fluffier! His coat no longer fits him to the point the sleeves had made past his fingertips. He tried wielding his claymore again, only to lose balance and fall flat onto his bum
• (insert kid voice "Retribution!") Did I mention the babyface?
• Diluc tries to act as if everything was normal, acting like the Darknight hero and Mondstadt's Tycoon but fun-sized. He couldn't. There was no way people would take him seriously in business meetings. Same with fighting abyss mages, his smaller form was too much of a disadvantage. Thus you ended up doing most of his paperwork.
• One time you caught him sitting on the floor couldn't reach his office desk  while reading away the various books for a cure. It was three in the morning. You told him it was way past his bedtime and he argues saying when did he ever have a curfew schedule. In the end you managed to convince him and he begrudgingly obliges.
• The type to NOT ask for help even when it's obvious that he really needs it. Before he was the one who helped you reach things from the top shelves, oh how the tables have turned. He avoids Kaeya like a plague unless he was in it for another round of funny remarks. When he wanted to go out and get some fresh air, you insisted on accompanying him. Worst mistake in his life. A travelling merchant bumps into you and commented that you had a very cute son. Diluc was mortified.
• The day ended up with him sulking in his room. Although it was tempting, you resisted from cooing over his adorable form after days of treating him like a child. It wasn't because you were teasing him, Diluc just works so hard that you wanted to spoil him a bit. At least he could still play a game of chess with you.
• When things went back to normal, Diluc ensures that you will NOT see him as your son.
~~x~~
Kaeya
• "Well look who it is, my little Prince Kaeya~"
• Tries really hard not be bothered by it at all. Kaeya still maintains his suave facade, throwing in a couple of flirting lines here and there (and forcing his voice to go a few octaves too low in which puberty has yet to occur HA). Though no matter what approach, he couldn't ignore the sparkling mischievious glint in your eye. You were obviously not taking him seriously.
• Things couldn't get any worse. He lost his masculine physique and boob window, he wasn't able to go to certain places without supervision. But the worst thing of all was that he was underaged. Kaeya hated the fact he couldn't drink anymore, he even insisted you to sneak him a few bottles (which you refused) and had to settle with plain beverages such as fruit juice (what an insult). He was never really grounded since his childhood days but he certainly felt like he was grounded now. 
• Kaeya still kisses you on the lips whether you like it or not. If you ask him to sit on your lap, he will find a way to turn the position into his favour such as resting his face between your breasts. You're not gonna treat him like a kid, nuh-uh, he actively avoids it.
• Since his personality still remains, Kaeya is a naughty child. He will use his innocent appearance to sway people (even you) to get what he wants. That was how he was able to take a sip of the wine he stole somewhere (he wouldn't tell you). Diluc scolded him heavily and threatened to ban him from drinking from his Tavern for a week (they ended up arguing, Kaeya being the passive aggressive little shit he is).
• He was extremely relieved to return back to his normal form again. He has so much to catch up (specifically his bedtime activities with you *wink wonk*)
~~x~~
Child(e)
• "Hmmm to be honest, this actually suits you very much."
• Unlike the other boys, Childe was completely okay with it. Turns out that YOU were the one who was not going to be okay. If you thought taking care of Teucer was energy-draining then expect Childe to take that tenfold and beyond.
• You've officially became his full-time babysitter who is in desperate need of a raise (and rest). You can't take your eyes off of him and archons forbid that he will ever meet Klee. One point he'll be running ahead by your side and the next you'll find him getting himself in a 1vs7 situation with some shady looking treasure hoarders. Childe genuinely thinks he could take them on but the curse downgraded his abilities. You carried him and barely made out of it alive. (This made you ponder whether the best solution would be to strap him against a chair for the time being…)
• Childe being a child will eat all the candies and ice cream he pleases. You wonder if the curse also turned him a few years back or was it that he acts like this simply because he wanted to (it was the latter). He loves being spoiled, spoiled by you! Childe demands your full attention, spoon-feeding his meals, back rubs and head pats. Yep, he's definitely doing this on purpose.
• Did he just call you 'mommy'? (Childe has mommy kink confirmed).  He has so much energy that it was exhausting, you literally had to drag him away from what ever he was doing in order to get him to bed. "No Childe, your sleeping time is 9p.m stop whining." He bargained that he'll sleep if you sleep beside him (you didn't get any sleep. You knew what he was planning. In the end, you tried to make sure he didn't sneak out behind your back.)
• Finally you were able to get out of that hell-hole. Childe promised to make it up to you, you deserve it after all~
~~x~~
Small (aka Xiao)
• "Did you know in the Liyuean language, Xiao translates to small?" You didn't say that out loud. Not when he's this angry (this angy)
• He just stands there, crossing his arms and grumbling. You were hesitant to touch him in case he might hiss at you. Xiao has always been short, maybe an inch taller than you, but seeing him like this made you think 'my almighty yaksha can't be this cute♡'
• He gets mad when you no longer call his name for help. How could you? He's just so precious~ Xiao makes it clear that no matter what form he takes, it doesn't make him weak ("Adepti and you mortals are nothing alike." Or so he says but you could tell he wasn't running as fast as he used to because…small legs). You may not comment on it aloud but he can tell just by the look on your face and it irritates him.
• Also the type to not ask for help but worse. Xiao is an agressive little kid, he seems as if he'll be willing to bite someone's finger off if they try to pet him (He gives strong cat vibes, so thats understandable). His spear was too big for him to wield so he often has to put it away or else he might knock someone over with it. Xiao hates being short so you'll be hearing him complain alot.
• Since he was an adepti, he didn't need to sleep however, the curse must have brought down his power by a significant amount to the point you DID catch him napping. You almost swooned out loud just by taking a glance upon his face. For once he didn't wear his signature grumpy look. Xiao appears like a normal child, one full of innocence. His snoring was soft and breathly but that just meant he was deep asleep. (You wished to take a picture). 
• Of course, everything had to come to an end (much to your disappointment), he still complains about the incident to this day.
~~x~~
Zhongli
• How is it possible for a baby to still look so handsome? (Must be his godly abilities)
• Zhongli is unfazed by this 'curse' since his past lives have already taken many forms. Though for some reason whenever he walks down the streets of Liyue, young girls, mothers, ladies all come him was and start complimenting him and gushing over him (he was suffocating). They'd squeeze him tight or squish his cheeks, it only takes once glance before the little girls start blushing and hiding behind their moms.
• Needless to say, despite what form he is in, Zhongli is still able to get free stuff. He got some free candies and some free kites to play with. You had to help him carry his items. Zhongli ends up tripping too much because his tailcoat reached his feet (he decided to just take it off. You had to hold that too). Seems like he can have anyone do things for him in the end HA.
• He still got that drippy voice and you're just like ???? "What on Teyvat Zhongli, you're a kid." This is why you can't see him as one, its nearly impossible.
• Actively avoids Hu Tao and Childe. Once Hu Tao caught sight of him and chased him for hours, he couldn't stay in one spot knowing that she might just pop out of no where. Childe still spoils him, however Zhongli feels irritated by the fact the only things Childe buys him toys (its different when other people do it.)
• Everytime you guys go back strolling through Liyue, you had to hold his hand in case more women come swarming hin again. You swear that at this rate he might get kidnapped because hes just such a beautiful baby.
• Zhongli learned an important lesson after his curse was lifted: no matter how many years he lives throughout  never take a form of a child.
~~x~~
Albedo
• You find him buried beneath a pile of books and had to dig him out before he suffocates.
• Albedo has the cutest eyes, they're big and round full of curiosity and they sparkle too (he has the prettiest eyes out of everyone tbh). He is the only person who is fascinated by this outcome and immediately goes in the wild to test out his new physique. 
• He was always curious why Klee T-poses when she runs so he decided to try it out himself. She was thrilled to find out that she now has a little brother to play with. In the end, Albedo indulges in the games she always wanted to play but couldn't because he was too old: princess dress up tea parties.
• You felt many things when you saw Albedo wearing a frilly gown and a plastic tiara tucked on his head. Deep down you knew regardless of what gender Albedo was still pretty. Klee even had the guts to redo his hair and hardly anyone was able to recognize it was him at all. He has pigtails, PIGTAILS! You made sure to burn that image into the very depths of your mind forever.
• The only advantage was the he was ablw to fit through small spaces, other than that, being small was way too inconvenient. He knocked down a few of his potion bottles which damaged the floor (thankfully not him) because they were lethal (he wonders how Klee was able to not injure herself when using bombs). You carried him and lifted him to alot of places such as trudging through the snow because Albedo would surely fall on his face due to his small form.
• Enough was enough, he only lasted a day with this and decided to just make a potion and put an end to the curse once and for all. 
7K notes · View notes
uomo-accattivante · 4 years ago
Text
Excellent article about bringing a re-make of Ingmar Bergman’s Scenes from a Marriage to fruition, and the twenty-year friendship that Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain share:
Tumblr media
There were days on the shoot for “Scenes From a Marriage,” a five-episode limited series that premieres Sept. 12 on HBO, when Oscar Isaac resented the crew.
The problem wasn’t the crew members themselves, he told me on a video call in March. But the work required of him and his co-star, Jessica Chastain, was so unsparingly intimate — “And difficult!” Chastain added from a neighboring Zoom window — that every time a camera operator or a makeup artist appeared, it felt like an intrusion.
On his other projects, Isaac had felt comfortably distant from the characters and their circumstances — interplanetary intrigue, rogue A.I. But “Scenes” surveys monogamy and parenthood, familiar territory. Sometimes Isaac would film a bedtime scene with his onscreen child (Lily Jane) and then go home and tuck his own child into the same model of bed as the one used onset, accessorized with the same bunny lamp, and not know exactly where art ended and life began.
“It was just a lot,” he said.
Chastain agreed, though she put it more strongly. “I mean, I cried every day for four months,” she said.
Isaac, 42, and Chastain, 44, have known each other since their days at the Juilliard School. And they have channeled two decades of friendship, admiration and a shared and obsessional devotion to craft into what Michael Ellenberg, one of the series’s executive producers, called “five hours of naked, raw performance.” (That nudity is metaphorical, mostly.)
“For me it definitely felt incredibly personal,” Chastain said on the call in the spring, about a month after filming had ended. “That’s why I don’t know if I have another one like this in me. Yeah, I can’t decide that. I can’t even talk about it without. …” She turned away from the screen. (It was one of several times during the call that I felt as if I were intruding, too.)
The original “Scenes From a Marriage,” created by Ingmar Bergman, debuted on Swedish television in 1973. Bergman’s first television series, its six episodes trace the dissolution of a middle-class marriage. Starring Liv Ullmann, Bergman’s ex, it drew on his own past relationships, though not always directly.
Tumblr media
“When it comes to Bergman, the relationship between autobiography and fiction is extremely complicated,” said Jan Holmberg, the chief executive of the Ingmar Bergman Foundation.
A sensation in Sweden, it was seen by most of the adult population. And yes, sure, correlation does not imply causation, but after its debut, Swedish divorce were rumored to have doubled. Holmberg remembers watching a rerun as a 10-year-old.
“It was a rude awakening to adult life,” he said.
The writer and director Hagai Levi saw it as a teenager, on Israeli public television, during a stint on a kibbutz. “I was shocked,” he said. The series taught him that a television series could be radical, that it could be art. When he created “BeTipul,” the Israeli precursor to “In Treatment,” he used “Scenes” as proof of the concept “that two people can talk for an hour and it can work,” Levi said. (Strangely, “Scenes” also inspired the prime-time soap “Dallas.”)
So when Daniel Bergman, Ingmar Bergman’s youngest son, approached Levi about a remake, he was immediately interested.
But the project languished, in part because loving a show isn’t reason enough to adapt it. Divorce is common now — in Sweden, and elsewhere — and the relationship politics of the original series, in which the male character deserts his wife and young children for an academic post, haven’t aged particularly well.
Then about two years ago, Levi had a revelation. He would swap the gender roles. A woman who leaves her marriage and child in pursuit of freedom (with a very hot Israeli entrepreneur in place of a visiting professorship) might still provoke conversation and interest.
So the Marianne and Johan of the original became Mira and Jonathan, with a Boston suburb (re-created in a warehouse just north of New York City), stepping in for the Stockholm of the original. Jonathan remains an academic though Mira, a lawyer in the original, is now a businesswoman who out-earns him.
Casting began in early 2020. After Isaac met with Levi, he wrote to Chastain to tell her about the project. She wasn’t available. The producers cast Michelle Williams. But the pandemic reshuffled everyone’s schedules. When production was ready to resume, Williams was no longer free. Chastain was. “That was for me the most amazing miracle,” Levi said.
Isaac and Chastain met in the early 2000s at Juilliard. He was in his first year; she, in her third. He first saw her in a scene from a classical tragedy, slapping men in the face as Helen of Troy. He was friendly with her then-boyfriend, and they soon became friends themselves, bonding through the shared trauma of an acting curriculum designed to break its students down and then build them back up again. Isaac remembered her as “a real force of nature and solid, completely solid, with an incredible amount of integrity,” he said.
In the next window, Chastain blushed. “He was super talented,” she said. “But talented in a way that wasn’t expected, that’s challenging and pushing against constructs and ideas.” She introduced him to her manager, and they celebrated each other’s early successes and went to each other’s premieres. (A few of those photos are used in “Scenes From a Marriage” as set dressing.)
In 2013, Chastain was cast in J.C. Chandor’s “A Most Violent Year,”opposite Javier Bardem. When Bardem dropped out, Chastain campaigned for Isaac to have the role. Weeks before shooting, they began to meet, fleshing out the back story of their characters — a husband and wife trying to corner the heating oil market in 1981 New York — the details of the marriage, business, life.
It was their first time working together, and each felt a bond that went deeper than a parallel education and approach. “Something connects us that’s stronger than any ideas of character or story or any of that,” Isaac said. “There’s something else that’s more about like, a shared existence.”
Chandor noticed how they would support each other on set, and challenge each other, too, giving each other the freedom to take the characters’ relationship to dark and dangerous places. “They have this innate trust with each other,” Chandor said.
That trust eliminated the need for actorly tricks or shortcuts, in part because they know each other’s tricks too well. Their motto, Isaac said, was, “Let’s figure this [expletive] out together and see what’s the most honest thing we can do.”
Moni Yakim, Juilliard’s celebrated movement instructor, has followed their careers closely and he noted what he called the “magnetism and spiritual connection” that they suggested onscreen in the film.
Tumblr media
“It’s a kind of chemistry,” Yakim said. “They can read each other’s mind and you as an audience, you can sense it.”
Telepathy takes work. When they knew that shooting “Scenes From a Marriage” could begin, Chastain bought a copy of “All About Us,” a guided journal for couples, and filled in her sections in character as Mira. Isaac brought it home and showed it to his wife, the filmmaker Elvira Lind.
“She was like, ‘You finally found your match,’” Isaac recalled. “’Someone that is as big of a nerd as you are.’”
The actors rehearsed, with Levi and on their own, talking their way through each long scene, helping each other through the anguished parts. When production had to halt for two weeks, they rehearsed then, too.
Watching these actors work reminded Amy Herzog, a writer and executive producer on the series, of race horses in full gallop. “These are two people who have so much training and skill,” she said. “Because it’s an athletic feat, what they were being asked to do.”
But training and skill and the “All About Us” book hadn’t really prepared them for the emotional impact of actually shooting “Scenes From a Marriage.” Both actors normally compartmentalize when they work, putting up psychic partitions between their roles and themselves. But this time, the partitions weren’t up to code.
“I knew I was in trouble the very first week,” Chastain said.
She couldn’t hide how the scripts affected her, especially from someone who knows her as well as Isaac does. “I just felt so exposed,” she said. “This to me, more than anything I’ve ever worked on, was definitely the most open I’ve ever been.”
“It felt so dangerous,” she said.
I visited the set in February (after multiple Covid-19 tests and health screenings) during a final day of filming. It was the quietest set I had ever seen: The atmosphere was subdued, reverent almost, a crew and a studio space stripped down to only what two actors would need to do the most passionate and demanding work of their careers.
Isaac didn’t know if he would watch the completed series. “It really is the first time ever, where I’ve done something where I’m totally fine never seeing this thing,” he said. “Because I’ve really lived through it. And in some ways I don’t want whatever they decide to put together to change my experience of it, which was just so intense.”
The cameras captured that intensity. Though Chastain isn’t Mira and Isaac isn’t Jonathan, each drew on personal experience — their parents’ marriages, past relationships — in ways they never had. Sometimes work on the show felt like acting, and sometimes the work wasn’t even conscious. There’s a scene in the harrowing fourth episode in which they both lie crumpled on the floor, an identical stress vein bulging in each forehead.
“It’s my go-to move, the throbbing forehead vein,” Isaac said on a follow-up video call last month. Chastain riffed on the joke: “That was our third year at Juilliard, the throb.”
By then, it had been five months since the shoot wrapped. Life had returned to something like normal. Jokes were possible again. Both of them seemed looser, more relaxed. (Isaac had already poured himself one tequila shot and was ready for another.) No one cried.
Chastain had watched the show with her husband. And Isaac, despite his initial reluctance, had watched it, too. It didn’t seem to have changed his experience.
“I’ve never done anything like it,” he said. “And I can’t imagine doing anything like it again.”
###
322 notes · View notes
justice4sasuke · 4 years ago
Text
again, i dont think that that common thread of thought in regards to ichigo and bleach is a fair assessment/a fairly surface level read of events. protecting people is certainly an important aspect of ichigos identity and character mind you, but in practical application hes more of a yusuke urameshi type of character then a more traditional cut that characters like luffy or naruto pull from. -
archer3-13
- that is the emotional journey is more important then the physical journey. not to say kubo doesnt fuck it up in a lot of ways, but to say ichigo is just some dull guy with a protection complex papers over the very much a complex part of that statement that drives a lot of ichigos internal conflict. his natural desire to help and protect others coming into conflict with self preservation and his-
archer3-13
-own delinquent tendencies and general disinterest in pushing himself to the extreme. its why hollow ichigo is fairly important in that regard as a reflection of ichigos literal internal struggle with power and using it responsibly coming at odds with taking the easy way out
archer3-13
sorry, im not tryin to spam you here and i had a lot more to say on the subject then i thought i did, but to summarize as much as kubo fucks up especially once aizens out of the picture, there is a pretty consistent throughline for ichigo as a character that struggles with a lot of internal divisions especially in regards to how to use the power hes been given and resolving conflicting aspects-
archer3-13
-within himself. and as much as it often feels like it copys from yuyuhakusho, i can appreciate that kubo wanted to try his hand at it.
Not to keep going on about Bleach on the Naruto blog I just...if Ichigo's journey is an emotional one I'm REALLY not seeing it. What's the difference emotionally between Ichigo at the beginning and ending of each arc. Ichigo seems to only react to the events that happen to him rather than mature or regress as a person.
If we want to bring up Luffy his journey is mostly physical maybe, but there is emotionality there too. I think maybe it can get missed because Oda makes a point to not give Luffy thoughts ever, but he is maturing emotionally throughout the series and becoming more of a Captain. I mean the point of Sabaody through Marineford is basically to destroy Luffy emotionally because he's a small fish in a big pond and you're going to need more than gumption to make it through. (one day I'll do a thing where I compare Naruto saying he can't be hokage vs when Luffy says he can't be Pirate King bc woof)
Ichigo...once again not seeing the internal struggle. Like I think about how Ichigo doesn't want to do the Soul Reaper duties then he sees a kid in front of him about to get killed by a Hollow and Rukia tells him not to help because he said he didn't want to do it. Then he helps the kid and says he can't just let a kid die and I guess I owe you and I'm a cool guy who repays his debts so I'll help you. And that moment came off to me more like he won't tell Rukia she's right. And I also get the thing where Ichigo tries to act cooler than he is, but it's not well conveyed other than a couple early throwaway lines. And if the hollow is supposed to be like him fighting himself it's kind of ruined by the Trying Too Hard To Be/Look Cool thing shounen does (nine-tailed fox, hollow, anything the we used to make AMVs set to Animal I've Become to) and the hollow coming out during training arcs when I think we should all agree as a society training arcs suck and in the middle of a fight which ruins the pacing just ruins any nuance that might have for me. I'm up way past my bedtime and I need to sleep since I have work so this might not make sense idk. I'd probably have to actually make a Bleach blog to properly convey all my thoughts about how Ichigo is dull and I don't get the point.
7 notes · View notes
theseerasures · 5 years ago
Text
Frozen 2 Reaction Post
surprisebitch.gif
this is 5000% because i don’t wanna do other stuff, but is it not poetic justice that i should come back to the tumbls for Frozen 2: Elsa Runs Away Some More
i’m gonna prologue this by saying that by and large i enjoyed the film tremendously; of course since this is 2019 i would have enjoyed anything that didn’t end with Elsa committing nonsensical war crimes before being put down like Old Yeller or pulling a no-homo to transcend time and space (that’s right, i’m hip enough to know about TWO of the biggest media fiascos this year, you jelly?), but the film was enjoyable even beyond that, mostly in how it affirmed my own opinions about the universe
HOWEVER, there were also huge problems that really have to be addressed, and we’re gonna start with those
cut for length and a truly immense amount of spoilers
things i didn’t like:
so the Iduna being Sami All Along thing was, um. bad! it was bad, and really reads like the team trying to cover their asses after the blowback from the first movie. why was it such a big deal for ~a Northuldran to love an Arendellian~ when Arendelle was 100% at fault in the conflict? were the spirits just like “oh the indigenous tribe that has cared for us and lived alongside us for centuries are fine i guess but OH LOOK the whitest among them just made googly eyes at the son of the guy who wants to colonize and enslave us, let’s root for those crazy kids and make their firstborn the avatar”
making Iduna a White Sami and leaning on the excuse that in real life the Sami people are linguistic and ethnically diverse and some of them can pass as white would have been fine if they didn’t EXPLICITLY RACIALIZE EVERY OTHER TRIBE MEMBER ON SCREEN. come on guys, just admit you liked Last Samurai but knew that that exact premise wouldn’t fly anymore
why couldn’t it be just a nice person who saved Agnar? why did we get yet another version of the old Pocahontas fetish?
why did Iduna being Northuldran REMAIN such a big deal to the point that she never told her kids about it and she and Agnar had to tell separate but equal bedtime stories about the same event??
whew i’m so glad this all happened so Elsa, the whitest non-anthropomorphic-snowman character in the movie, could save those savage natives with spears! They Needed Her Guidance
the songs this time mostly...felt like they didn’t really want this movie to be a musical but were contractually obligated to write songs for Disney until the heat death of the universe
case in point: Some Things Never Change was going for the Happily Ever After vibe that the Steven Universe movie had, but it...didn’t really feel earned. we obviously needed a place-setter song, but it didn’t really establish anything about what the characters have been up to or what might be still bothering them, because apparently everything is great! this worked for Steven Universe because it came off of five SEASONS of character development, but Elsa’s last big character revelation that we the audience saw was “wow guess i’m not the worst scum on earth after all.” the timeskip can only do so much, is what i’m saying
Kristoff got NOTHING to work with. i’m not like, horribly broken up about it since i know they had to keep it tight for the kids, but fucking OLAF got a heavier arc than he did, and it feels like a missed opportunity that they didn’t link HIS backstory to the Northuldrans, what with him being orphaned/abandoned/raised by trolls already set up. it doesn’t have to siphon into the White Savior main story at all, just have--i dunno, a few more scenes with the Northuldrans and him realizing that he’s probably descended from refugees who got cut off from the forest
the proposal thing was cute until i realized that they were going to just hit the same beats over and over again with each scene. it should have been resolved in act 1 instead of Kristoff disappearing for half the movie and then tacking on the proposal at the very end. not every subplot has to be stretched out to the end! in this case i feel like stretching it out actually REGRESSED aspects of Kristanna, since it relied on Anna misreading so many signals that it strained believability even for Anna. we’re supposed to think they’ve NEVER talked about this, despite having dated for 3 years and consistently trading off on being the most Extra person in the room?
the confirmation that Olaf’s fingers can wiggle will haunt my dreams
me when the stone giants interrupted Elsa’s conversation with Honeymaren: yOU COCKBLOCKERS
i find myself growing increasingly weary of the now token Disney Wink at Camera, and Elsa rolling her eyes and her past self doing Let It Go was probably the apex of that particular antipathy. showing that you’re so Over the song that made you billions in a movie that you’re shilling to the EXACT SAME CROWD is the most obnoxious humble-flex i can think of
as much as i liked Elsa jumping into the Pit of Past Misdeeds and freezing to death, i think the scene happened waaaaaayyyy too fast, especially if you compare it to how long it took for Anna in the first movie. she’s not really given any time to process what’s happening, and it kind of lessens the emotional impact.
Olaf is gone!! he’s gone, i miss him so much!! i cry myself to sleep!!!! OLAFFFFFFF!!! false. i do not miss him
i distinctly recall liking Olaf just fine in the first movie and actually found him tolerable here too, but wow i was not happy when they resurrected him, even though i knew it was a sure thing
maybe it’s because NOTHING had consequences in the end and even Arendelle, the place that all the characters have been treating like a thoroughfare for two movies, had to get saved at the last second!! Arendelle the place??? we were supposed to care enough about that to want it to be saved?? it’s not the fucking GALACTICA guys! there weren’t even any people left in the town! it’s bizarre that they tried to go so hard in the reparations route and then swerved at the last second. let Arendelle drown you cowards! let the Northuldrans offer help in solidarity if you really wanted the “bridge between worlds” angle, but come the fuck on! didn’t something like this happen with Life Is Strange already?
why didn’t Elsa go to her sister’s coronation is it just like a thing now for her to miss the major life events of her family members
the statues they unveiled at the end were horrifying
things i liked:
a lowkey thing that i’ve always appreciated about the first movie was its willingness to Go There when it came to depicting well intentioned parents who are still mired in various character flaws and wound their kids deeply, so it was nice to see that return and get expanded with parents who had Lives separate from their kids which made them That Way, and the consequences of those Lives often come back to influence subsequent generations no matter how much they try to keep it contained. it’s a good, logical extension from what happened with Elsa in the first movie.
and it’s another Steven Universe vibe, but they can go further with it faster because Elsa and Anna are the hegemony in this movie. they’re the history-makers, so their family drama very easily becomes political, and the lessons they pick up from family memories immediately end up changing the fantasy history landscape. it’s dope
baby Anna’s lil feetsies
Anna wanted to marry everyone and Elsa thought kissing was gross
everyone does feel palpably older! the first movie had a very teen feel insofar as everything was We Have to Do This or We Will All Die Immediately, but this time around all the characters feel much more comfortable in their own skin throughout the movie
everyone getting more than two outfits and all wearing pants
the revelation after so many headcanons of Elsa being a ruthless pragmatist, Elsa always being two steps ahead politically, Elsa being a literal and metaphorical chessmaster that Elsa is...actually just kind of spacey and weird was for me extremely welcome. i think part of this was done in service of Anna becoming queen at the end, but it makes sense. “attack it with ice powers” and “run away” are still pretty much the only two strings to Elsa’s bow. this is not to say that she was a bad queen, or that she didn’t try her damndest to be a fair and just ruler--when it comes down to it i think Elsa still knows more Facts about how to rule a kingdom than Anna ever will, it’s just that she’s also horribly averse to conflict and “pacing in place while blaming herself” is pretty much the extent of her productivity under serious pressure.
what sets Elsa apart (other than the ice powers) isn’t that she’s prodigiously talented, but that she’s kindhearted and extremely sensitive to the emotions and fates of others. (she’s the one who asks what happened to the spirits when Agnar is done with his half of the story.) she agonized over hurting Anna one way vs. hurting Anna another way for THIRTEEN YEARS and still couldn’t make up her mind until she was literally backed into a corner, and even that decision was “run away but FARTHER.” Anna wanting to reconcile with Elsa even after thirteen years wasn’t just because Anna’s love eclipses all; Elsa also left that door open for her, because she could never be quite as ruthless or even SELFLESS as to send her sister away for good. (”then leave! actually jk i’ll leave instead”)
but Anna wasn’t ever the exception for Elsa, either. Anna wasn’t the only corner of Elsa’s heart that she left open--Elsa’s like that with EVERYONE, even people she just met, or disembodied voices in the wild. Elsa can never do quite as many Right Things as she thinks she should, she can never be quite as driven, as strong, as single-minded as she thinks she needs to be, to fully commit to making decisions for other people. she feels too deeply and wants too much, even after all those years of trying to scour herself out with a lathe. it’s what ruins and saves her.
Anna and Elsa being horrible at charades in diametrically opposite ways was the most life affirming thing to happen to me this year
Elsa couldn’t act out ice
the two of them had MULTIPLE conversations with each other that didn’t immediately result in mortal peril!!! what a world guys
Into the Unknown fucking slaps but i’m now REALLY confused about the diegesis of the songs in this movie. i’d assumed they were all happening in story, what with the Voice and the multiple references to Let It Go, but Elsa literally bays at the moon in the middle of the night here and no one woke up??? maybe they’re all just really heavy sleepers who knows
or maybe the staff just take it in stride at this point--oh, Her Majesty is singing and crying again
Kristoff and Anna CANONICALLY FUCK, and not even in the typical cartoon “look they have kids, they canonically fuck” way in the “hey my sister and her snowchild that we’re all coparenting together are asleep on the sled, shall we fuck a mere three feet away without even putting up a divider or something” way
gotta give Jen Lee kudos for making the “Elsa has ice powers because she’s the fifth spirit” retcon make thematic sense. the most obvious way to go about this WOULD have been the avatar direction, but Elsa isn’t the union of the four elements but the union of the spirits and humanity, which is to say that she witnesses them and keeps their memories, bringing them to life and solidifying them with her powers. she’s obviously the best person for the job, since y’know. she spent thirteen years on one memory alone.
wait does this mean Elsa is basically the Resurrection Stone?? buhhhh i don’t wanna think about it
of course Anna’s sword just came from her grabbing it from an ice statue i don’t know what else i expected
i laughed at both of Olaf’s reenactments i don’t know what to tell you
i feel...Some Kinda Way about the discourse saying that Mattias being black is problematic because it suggests black collusion in indigenous genocide, but it’s not my place to comment on that, so i’ll just say that it was a pleasure to see Sterling K. Brown having fun in a role instead of his usual gravitas and misery
Elsa first making eye contact with the icemander, or Two Feral Creatures Recognize Each Other As Such--i can’t believe i thought Hiccup would be the weirdest horse girl i’d ever encounter in fiction when it’s OBVIOUSLY Elsa
ELSA COULDN’T ACT OUT ICE
what a novel concept to have Elsa charging forward while Anna tries to pull her back, telling her to slow down, that she’s climbing too high
appreciated the subtle seeding they did of Anna’s political savvy, what with her actually talking to the lost Arendellian soldiers and restraining herself from making outlandish promises to everyone she meets
Kristoff made a friend!
Elsa met one (1) girl that wasn’t her sister and immediately decided she had to live in the woods forever
Tribe Leader Lady’s reaction to Kristoff’s proposal
can’t believe Lost in the Woods invented cinema and music videos
the sisters at the shipwreck is hands down the best scene in the entire movie, aided by the drastically different palette they used to color this scene--all grays, browns, and blacks, even the surrounding environment, like Agnar and Iduna’s despair polluted the whole landscape. Elsa and Anna look horribly out of place here, like they can’t possibly be real in a world that looks like this.
it really snuck up on me how much this scene is a pivot for both of their characters: Anna’s instinct here is to look forward, to find clues that will point them to the next step; Elsa’s instinct is toward grief and, after the reveal, self-blame. for all her growth there’s still a part of Elsa that sees her existence as the catastrophe that keeps hurling the wreckage of the world at her feet. it’s something that i don’t think she’ll ever be able to completely move past.
Elsa, looking at Anna like she’s the only real thing in the world as Anna tells her that she believes in her, more than anyone or anything
“i just don’t want you dying trying to be everything for everyone else!” jesus fucking CHRIST guys
Olaf’s growing up crisis was mostly just...kinda there for me, but i will say the cut to his horrified expression when Anna said the word “dying” really did get to me
Anna switching between a Formal Court hairstyle and an Athleisure hairstyle is Bi Representation, Elsa getting increasingly more disheveled over two movies is Lesbian Representation
do i Get horse movies now
Elsa happy crying when she sees her mother in the cave made ME incredibly happy--her face is so much more dynamic this time around!
i wanna make fun of her for her stupid Dance Dance Revolution ice magic during Show Yourself but honestly..........fucking superb you funky little lesbian
aw Elsa you stood up to...an ice hallucination of your racist grandpa! in another three years (six years in production) you might be ready for Thanksgiving dinner
Elsa in the last movie: i’m never going back, the past is in the past!!!!
Elsa in this movie: brb gotta go hurl myself into a Pit of Past Misdeeds and turn myself into one of the embodied memories
Anna immediately understanding what went down at the forest before and that even if she wasn’t directly complicit in the violence she benefits from it every day, deciding to rip down Imperialism Dam without hesitation
The Next Right Thing didn’t really do it for me musically but as a core concept for Anna’s character and ethos it fucking ROCKS (pun obviously intended). i was so worried going in that they wouldn’t know what to do with Anna after the first movie other than give her powers, but instead we got confirmation that this IS her superpower: her ability to forge ahead with whatever life has given her has ALWAYS been her greatest strength.
this also explains why she felt so aimless and intent on protecting Elsa and nothing else before this point; Anna isn’t interested in delving deeply into the past, not when every other member of her family was consumed by it. with this she’s finally able to convert memory into action, and she shines.
(of course she couldn’t have GOTTEN to this point if Elsa hadn’t been so convinced that the past was worth pursuing, confirming my belief that the two of them share exactly one brain cell)
OBVIOUSLY action for Anna translates into “make myself bait for stone giants and STAND ON THE VERY DAM I WANT THEM TO RIP APART” Anna you fucking walnut
Anna threw the first brick at Imperialism Dam, actually
the understated moment when Kristoff just pushes aside his own insecurities and just asks Anna what she needs
the shot of Elsa falling into the water after she’s thawed nearly did me in
Elsa horseback riding over the water is. wow it’s the gayest thing i’ve ever seen
Anna’s coronation outfit made me kinda wistful. she looks so grown up! she looks like her mother
(i mean she always looks like her mother they literally have the same face but whatever you know what i mean)
me on my deathbed: eLSA COuldN’T aCT oUt ICE
stray observations:
is Arendelle just a tourist town where one day the guy who owned the largest house was like “this is a KINGDOM NOW I’M THE KING” and the 50 other townies who lived there were just too polite to argue
i mean it’d explain why the queen, her heir, and the heir’s consort could just waltz out of there for a week long trip and leAVE THE TROLLS IN CHARGE
when they first started getting chummy with the Northuldrans i lost my god damn mind and was like “are they gonna give Kristoff a boyfriend and Anna a girlfriend what’s happening”
is it required that female Disney protagonists have to go to a blue tinted place to realize that the magic answer was in them all along now the same exact thing happened to Moana and Rey
Elsa’s ice creations are confirmed to fade away if she dies, which...is a confirmation we needed i guess
why didn’t Mattias and Yelana fall in love to make the Chosen One instead, they had chemistry
(i mean. i know why)
i hope Anna got to yell at Elsa for at least five minutes and maybe slug her for pulling that “i’m going to Mordor alone!!!” bullshit
for a second at the end i was like “are they gonna do the HTTYD thing where we flash forward to ten years later and Anna and Kristoff take their kids to visit Elsa IS KRISTOFF GONNA GROW A DAD BEARD” but no we just had lesbian wind and origami instead
whatever your take on the movie i think we can all agree that the scene where Olaf calls the Irish “a plague on this planet which is slowly rotting it down to the rind and which must be excised” was NOT okay
102 notes · View notes
monasatlantis · 6 years ago
Text
Okay... here are my thought about Chapter 11 to 14 of Mr Love Queens Choice
Obviously, there are Spoiler for chapter 11 to 14 in this...
Tumblr media
So... lets start with chapter 11, shall we? I was really happy how this chapter was handled. It was so slice of live, taking care of what the events of chapter 10 have done to Victor and MC as well as what that meant for their relationship. Not much drama going on (besides the Gavin stuff at the very end of course) just those two figuring out how to live with the new development. It was good to start the “Darkest hour” chapters that way. I liked how they handled Victor in this chapter. Because characters like him tend to be overprotective, possessive and domineering. That is what makes their characters so appealing (among other things of course) but it tends to become too much if things get out of hand. I hated how this was handled in MysticMessenger with Jumin, because it was going too far for too long without him really realizing his mistakes. Victor was handled much better. Whenever MC complained, he did react by giving in a little bit until he realized that he wasn’t doing her or their relationship any good thanks to her (absolutely necessary) outburst (something Jumin, who overdid it already was not doing...) and in the end you can see, all he wanted to tell her was that he can’t lose her again and that she has to be careful. I loved how when she said she thought he would be mad forever because he didn’t call her dummy, he did immediately call her dummy, to show he has long forgiven her. Ironic enough, though chapter 12 to 14 I kind of regretted getting rid of those bodyguards tho ^^’ And damn that meeting with Lucien. That was... whoa! The moment Victor came into the room, even as a player and despite both of them being reasonable I could feel the tension rising. It was amazing. I mean, in the end, nothing big really happened, but I did still hold my breath until Lucien vanished. The scene was very well done. Moving on to chapter 12. Why are Gavin-chapters always the ones with the most action and the long-lasting-cliffhangers at the end? Gee that one was intense. To be honest, after this rather slice-of-live slow-start Victor-Chapter I felt a little bit overwhelmed by how fast things turned dramatic and hectic in Gavins-chapter. To be honest... I found the part with the room and the fire and the Illusion that Gavin saw rather confusing. If room 404 (did you notice that there was no 0 to be found anywhere? The game constantly made 1 second out of 10 seconds because the zero was constantly missing...) never existed, how could it be found by both Gavin and MC and how did they still first end up in a different room? And how did they end up in the same room after Gavin realized the MC was an illusion? Didn’t quite get it, to be honest. Did you notice, when that other Officer was talking to MC about Gavins scars, how he casually mentioned he thought she would have seen them? Now think about it. The only scar MC noticed was the one on his neck, which was likely because the rest was hidden under his clothes. So what kind of relationship does the Officer think we have with Gavin? I was wondering that MC didn’t notice the underlying question here. But then again, she is not the sharpest tool in the shed and things were already dramatic and hectic then. We’ve learned something about Gavins past, once again it is Drama and Loss. Now... chapter 13. Lets be honest, Lucien was suspicious from the very beginning. Hints that he was with Black Swan were dropped here and there. So it was really no surprise when it was finally revealed. I have to say that I never liked Lucien. I don’t care about him one tiny bit. So even tho his chapters already proved to always give valuable information I always find them boring and am constantly wondering when those chapters are finally over... Regardless of that, I felt MCs sadness somehow when the realization hit her. The scene was really well made. It didn’t matter what you feel for Lucien, it only mattered what MC felt for Lucien and her heart was shattered. Sadly enough, I think she learned nothing from this lesson and will fall back into wanting to see Lucien... but oh well... whatever. Its been made clear that despite everything, Lucien doesn’t want to harm MC. He does like her. I guess he is torn between what he must do and what he actually wants to do. Doesn’t make him any better in my eyes, but with that in mind, I can live with the fact that MC is refusing to see this as a betrayal later on. This chapter too was intense, but in a different way then Gavins chapter was. And now the final Chapter. Chapter 14. Kiro seemed nervous when he called us in chapter 11 so it was clear something big was coming up. Do to some Spoiler I was a little bit aware of what was going on but even without that it was clear he would stop beeing the idol Kiro at some point, especially with the drops of hints we got about his past. I felt like he knew all along when he started this mission with MC that at some point, he would have no choice but to turn into **** (Spoiler, so I keep it to myself) and leave her behind for now. I think he was prepared for that. Still, saying goodbye at that point, that was obvious, was really hard for him. Kiros chapter too was intense and hectic I actually fund it going almost too fast. I wouldn't say it was rushed, because that would sound like the chapter was badly made, which it was not, the pace was just extremely fast and after over 6 hours of playing and when it was way past my bedtime here in Germany it was impossible for me to follow at some point because of the fast pace. I do think it was intentional tho. We as the players should feels as overwhelmed as MC did. I mean all those people and with all the other stuff happening before and why the hell didn’t they kill her immediately? Questions. Questions. Questions. Gavin saving her at the end didn’t come as such a big surprise for me, because I was still missing the picture from the trailer where he fell with her and I knew she wouldn’t die here. Now my overall thoughts about “the Darkest Hour”. I loved how misleading the first chapter was. I mean yes, we were constantly reminded that from now on MC would be always in danger but it never felt live-threatening like in the following chapters. Nothing was hinting at how dark this hours really would become. I did somehow like Ares more then Lucien, if you get what I mean. The moment Lucien showed up the first time I disliked him, when he turned into Ares and was finally showing his true face and stoped with the pretense I actually found him much more... well, let's say likable. Don’t get me wrong, I am not into bad guys or anything, but you could somehow feel that this was the real him and I prefer that over that obnoxious behavior he somehow showed around MC to make her like him. The plot is extremely complex and with timetravel involved that might be cause for a too complicated story to follow. I hope they thought that trough. Sometimes I wish I would have a choice in this damn game. I guess with the complex plot and all that it would be extremely complicated for a big mobile-game like this to add different routes to the story, but I still would love to have some influence on the story or MCs decisions every once in a while. Even if they don’t have any influence on the overall plot but only on this particular scene. You know, after in chapter 11 my phone was constantly ringing in this game, it felt extremely... creepy when in chapter 14 after Gaving and Victor went missing and Lucien has revealed himself as the bad guy, no one called anymore. It was almost too quiet. Besides... I do like the Phone-Calls ^^’ I still wonder about Luciens powers. He can obviously do more then call that protective shield... but what else can he do? And why the hell is he so damn powerful? The music was constantly on point, perfectly showing us as the player the overall feeling of this scene. (Although sometimes the music was too loud. I could barely hear our boys talking...) I also really liked the music. The game shows wonderfully what a little change in music can do. I feel a little empty now... to be honest. We’ve been left with no idea what is going on and what will happen next. I have seen spoilers, but I still have no idea what happened at the end and were Victor went or what exactly is behind Kiros change besides the obvious and we will have to wait for new chapters for months now. They probably won’t come out before Christmas. How can they make us wait that damn long? T.T I really liked the new chapters. tho I do hope we get a little change of pace in the upcoming chapters.
30 notes · View notes
hotchocolatefanfics · 6 years ago
Text
PoTA: Test The Relationship
Hi guys! So this just came to me a couple of days ago and I haven’t been able to get it out of my head so I wrote it out. 
Basically, it’s a PoTA-based relationship test. The idea is you imagine your favorite PoTA characters/PoTA shippings (canon or not) in these scenarios and, based on their personalities, backgrounds and actions in the books and movies, imagine what they might think, say or do in them. These scenarios can also be used to explore your PoTA OC’s character and expand on their personality and relationships.
Some of the scenarios are based off of things that happened in the movies and books and by the actions of the characters (both the good guys and the bad guys) and some are real-life based and others don’t follow the PoTA mold at all (so some are serious, some are romantic/comfort, and some are just random and silly). 
Types of couple that can be used in these scenarios: 
Canon
Made-Up Shippings 
OC Shippings/relations 
Crack Couples 
Ape x Human
Ape x Ape 
Human x Human 
OC x Canon 
OC x OC 
Gay or Straight Shippings 
Literally anything you want! 
Subjects included in (some of these) these scenarios:
Character Death
Divorce/Breakup 
Government Corruption/Propaganda
PTSD/Past Trauma 
Self Harm/Suicidal Thoughts or Actions 
Abuse 
Drug Addictions 
Alcoholism 
Cancer/Serious and/or Fatal Illness
Miscarriage/Infant Death
Adoption 
Betrayal 
Seperation
Depression/Anger problems 
Birth Defects/Disability 
Murder/Attempted Murder
Homophobia/Harassment/Bullying
Oppression
Ape-Based Polygamy (where they have multiple mates)
If any of these subjects trigger you or make you uncomfortable, don’t read the scenario and don’t do them! I could personally direct you to the scenarios that DON’T have that particular subject but please be aware that a good 80% of these scenarios cover these things and the whole point of them is to test how the characters handle them and the relationship of the said couple. It’s all meant PURELY for fiction and character exploration, not in any way shape or form meant to encourage or glamorize these subjects. As a precaution, I may repost this on my DA incase this is taken down.
PoTA Movies/Books that (some of) these scenarios are inspired by: 
Rise
Dawn 
War 
Firestorm 
Revelations 
Original PoTA Movies 
Tim Burton’s Remake
While these scenarios were made up based off of the PoTA universe, some of them CAN be used for other franchises you’re interested in. The scenarios are primarily romance-based but there are a few that are based on friendships, parent to child relations, and spouse to in-laws.
The scenarios are all open ended. You choose the couple/the characters in them (the “you” refers to the character you chose to be that role), how far it goes and how it ends (This ______ means fill in the blank! LOL). You can use these scenarios as prompts for drawing, one-shots, discussions, or role-plays.
This is not a contest or a challenge! If anything it’s just something I made up for fun and maybe others may find fun in it to. There’s 100 scenarios on this list but you don’t have to do ALL of them if your don’t want to!
Sorry that my description has taken up more room than I thought it would but have fun! Happy character exploration and relationship testing! XD
1 - 10: Falling in love 
1) You have been captured by apes/cruel humans. You just met a/another ape/primitive human. Is it love at first sight?
2) You see your companion being abused/tortured/whipped by your captors. Do you intervene? 
3) Your companion makes a flower crown for you. How does this make you feel? Do you make one for them? 
4) You’re in love. However, the person you love will never love you back due to your species/different opinions on humans. What is it about them that you love so much?
5) You and your companion are not the same species (one is ape and the other is human) but you have feelings for them. Do you hide it? Do they feel the same? 
6) You want to impress your companion by________. It goes horribly wrong and you end up embarrassing yourself. Do you laugh it off? Do you hide your head in shame?
7) You want to give your companion a gift. After much consideration, you decide the best gift would be________. How do they react to the gift?
8) You’re about to be killed by______. Your companion saves your life and in doing so, gets hurt themselves. What do you do? 
9) Your companion suddenly disappears as you’re traveling. Do you search for them? Or go get help? 
10) You and your companion are alone together. You catch each others eyes and gaze at one another. Your heart is pounding. Do you kiss them? Do they kiss back? 
11 - 20: Something Cute
11) You feel like making cookies. You invite your love to join you. How do you know they aren’t going to eat all the cookie dough first?
12) It’s your love’s birthday. It’s as easy to celebrate these things anymore, but you think you can make it work. What do you get for them? Do you attempt to bake a cake?
13) Halloween is coming up. Your love has never celebrated the holiday. Do you dress up in costumes? Go Trick or Treating/eat candy? Watch horror movies and stay up all night?
14) You and the group you’re in are all bored. You decide to play Truth or Dare. You’re group includes apes and humans, some having done wrong in the past and others had gone from friends, to enemies, to ‘not really friends but we can tolerate each other now’ kind of relationship. What can go wrong? And what is the craziest dare you can think of?
15) It’s summer! You decide to take your love on an adventure. Where do you go?
16) You feel lonely but your companion can’t talk. Do you try to teach them how to communicate? 
17) Apes can’t swim. Yet, they see you playing in shallow water. The water isn’t deep and only goes up to your waist at most. Do you invite them in? Do you all end up having a splash-fight?
18) It’s Friday night. That means no council meetings, no hunting, no fighting, no war, no killing, no nothing. You and your human and ape friends know what that means…Party time!!! During the party, you notice your love interest is there. Do you ‘play it cool’ and approach them? Or do you keep rocking out with your friends?
19) Your love is feeling blue. It doesn’t appear to be anything serious, but you don’t like it. What do you do to cheer them up?
20) Your love is having trouble sleeping. You decide to do something sweet and silly for them! Do you sing them a lullaby? Read/tell a bedtime story? Or do you do something else entirely?
21 - 30: Opening Up 
21) Your love has always been secretive and extremely hateful towards (other) humans. One night, you confront them about it. Are you prepared to hear about the abuse and torture your love was subjected to?
22) You came from another planet/the past. Everyone you’ve ever known, your friends and your family, are gone. Leaving you homesick for them. You feel all alone in this new, strange world with seemingly no one to talk to or no one who cares. Still, not all apes in this world are ‘human haters’ and the humans here are good listeners. What’s the harm in seeking company from them?
23) Being locked in a cage for so many years does things to a person. It caused you to have depression and anxiety problems, and caused you to fear humans as well as hate them. It’s hard to talk about these things, even if you weren’t the only one to experience it. Sometimes you cry yourself to sleep, thinking about it. One day, another ape approaches you and asks if you’re ok. Do you let them in? Let them be the one to free you from your cage?
24) Your love suffers from PTSD, due to all the abuse and trauma they’ve endured. They have good days and bad days, but it’s never easy. All you can do is be there for them and help them in any way you can. What happens when a particularly bad flashback leaves your love in tears and you holding them as well as crying with them?
25) Your love tells you a secret. A secret so shocking that, if it ever came to light, it could ruin your love’s life. But keeping it a secret is also dangerous, as it threatens their life too. You don’t want to destroy your love’s trust, but there’s no way you can keep this a secret either. What can you do?
26) You lost your parents when you were young. You don’t like talking about it, not even to your own love. What happens when they find an old picture of you and your parents? Do you tell them how you lost them?
27) You have been made to do horrible things. Things that you never want to remember or speak of again. But one day, something from your past resurfaces and your love demands explanation. Do you lie to protect them from the truth? Or tell them everything?
28) There are certain subjects your love noticeably avoids. Mostly its small things: handling knives, refusing to look at blood, covering their ears at loud noises. You don’t think anything of it until one day…What happens that makes you rethink this behavior? Do you try to find out the source of these problems?
29) Ape Law has always been flaky at best. You never gave it much thought and preferred to live about your daily life as if nothing is happening around you at all. Trouble is, your spouse works very closely with Dr. Zaius and the orangutans. It’s normally uneventful, but lately weird things have been occurring in the village and your spouse is either denying that it’s happening or trying to hide it. You’ve never been interested in this subject before, but you cannot ignore that somethings not right. What is your spouse hiding? What do you do to find out what it is?
30) You decide it’s time to profess your feelings to your love and take the step from friends, to lovers. How do you do it?
31 - 40: Marriage 
31) You and your partner love each other. You live together, eat and sleep and even go out in the forest and Ape Village together. You want to ask the big question, but you’re so nervous of what the answer will be that you keep putting it off. Your partner finally notices and asks about it. What do you do?
32) You and your partner have been through a lot. You’ve survived a virus, dangerous humans, and your spouse has survived abuse and neglect by them. You have your differences and neither of you are perfect, but you love each other all the same. If they were to ask you to marry them, would you say yes?
33) Despite everything that you have done, your partner still loves you and lets you know that everyday. As much as you feel grateful for them, you can’t help but feel guilty for all you put your partner through during the war and the events leading up to it. You secretly wonder if they also resent you for what you did, like everyone else. So how do you feel when your partner, despite all your mistakes, asks your hand in marriage?
34) It was obvious for years that you two were a couple. The entire village knew of it. Not even Dr. Zaius bats an eye when you two announce your engagement. Problem is you have friends who are apes who you want to invite, but you also have human friends too…This wedding is going to be very interesting.
35) You are ape and your partner is human. Your love is forbidden, and seen as a betrayal to many with both sides outcasting you. Fed up with the constant harassment, your partner decides to leave the village and asks you to go with him-as his spouse. This is a hard choice to make. There’s not much left for you if you stay but leaving would mean you’d have to leave your home, your family and all you’ve ever known behind. Will you say yes and go with him? Or will you stay in the village with a ruined reputation?
36) Due to war, you and your spouse have to be separated. The timing is horrible as you have just gotten married and were just about to settle in as spouse and spouse. You talk to each other as often as you can, but it’s just not the same. Can your marriage survive this long-distance relationship?
37) Being an outcast by your own people is hard. Everyday, you put on a brave face and tell your spouse that you’re ok but they know when you’re lying. They know it’s unfair and awful how the village treats you just because of your species. You think it’s just you who they oppress, but it turns out your spouse is also a target. How does it effect your relationship?
38) Some apes have multiple spouses. There are no laws against it and it isn’t seen as cheating or anything wrong. Still, you weren’t raised with it. Your father only had one spouse, and that was what you wanted. One, and only one, spouse. But you have fallen in love with another ape too. You know you won’t be judged for having two spouses and your current spouse wouldn’t  mind either, but do you really want this? Or do you ignore it and stick with what you’ve originally wanted?
39) Your parents are cruel to your spouse. They don’t accept them and constantly tell you that you should leave them. Your in-laws (your spouse’s parents) are the most nicest, most caring people you’ve ever met and you are honored to be part of their family but it also makes you feel horrible about your own parents behavior. On your wedding day, they ruin it by throwing _________  at your spouse and yells at them. This is the last straw. What do you do?
40) It’s your wedding day. The day where fantasy and day dream become reality, and it’s almost mystical. Straight from a storybook. As you and your spouse hold each other, is it everything you’ve ever dreamed of?
41 - 50: Building A Family 
41) You want to have kids but your spouse doesn’t want to talk about it. The subject appears to make them angry and depressed. One night, you decide you have to ask. Would you be prepared for what you hear?
42) You and your spouse are unable to have children. One day, you find an abandoned child while at the Market Place. This child is malnourished and appears hungry. Would you Adopt this child? How would your spouse feel?
43) You and your spouse never thought having children together was possible but it turns out, your spouse is pregnant! Are you shocked? Scared? Happy? What about your spouse?
44) Your child is an outcast, due to you and your spouse being a human-ape couple/past choices made by you or your spouse. One day, your child asks what an ‘abomination’ is. What do you tell them?
45) You and your spouse are currently wanted fugitives and your child is being hunted. If you are captured, your child will be murdered. The only way to protect them is to give up your child and then you and your spouse will have to flee. Who do you leave your child with? Do you fully trust them?
46) You and your friends aren’t related by blood, but you are the closest thing to family that you have. You’re all different, some are apes and some are human, but you stick together as if you were all brothers and sisters and you never let anyone, human or apes, hurt you. How far does it go?
47) You and your spouse find out that your child has a birth defect/has health problems. In a post-apocalyptic world, not much can be done to help your child live a normal life. There is also a possibility your child may die. How do you and your spouse cope with this?
48) You now have two children. As you and your spouse watch them play, do you two worry about their futures? More specifically, if they’d be accepted as equals by the apes and by humans?
49) Your spouse is pregnant and it hasn’t been easy. As you talk about it together, you find that both of you are afraid. Not just for weather or not your spouse and the baby will survive the birth, but also the child’s future as a whole. You try to be strong for your spouse, but can you be strong for yourself too?
50) Your spouse is in labor, and it’s worse than you imagined. You’re scared but you’re more concerned for your spouse than anything else. The baby is finally born. How is your spouse? Are they going to be ok? But then, as you look at your child for the first time, what are you feeling?
51 - 60: Problems 
51) Your spouse has a history of treachery, deceit, murder, attempted murder and manipulation and is outcasted and disliked by many in the colony. It has also put a strain on your relationship, as it makes it hard to fully trust them. Do you ever talk it out with your spouse? Does your spouse regret their past actions?
52) You do not wish harm on humans, but your spouse does. Its to the point where your spouse wants to kill them all. You love your spouse, but you do not like where this is going. Do you try to reason with them? 
53) War has taken it’s toll on your spouse. They no longer seem as confident and powerful as they used to be. In fact, your spouse looks like they’re about to crumble and break before your eyes. One night, they do. They need you to be their strength for the night. How strong can you be for them?
54) You drink your pain away with alcohol. It’s not healthy, but it’s the only thing that gives you peace. You know your spouse hates it, but you’re honestly sick of their nagging. They’ll never understand how bad it hurts. How bad everything hurts…But would you give them the chance? 
55) Old mistakes from the past and continued bitterness over them has made their way into your marriage. Now you and your spouse fight constantly, to the point of yelling and shouting at each other, only to end with one of you leaving and slamming the door behind them and the other to go bed to scream into a pillow. Why is this happening? And how can you and your spouse fix it?
56) Your spouse finds out that someone at work has been mistreating you and they are not happy about it. One day, they show at your work place and beats up the guy that had been bullying you. Did you know it was coming? Were you shocked to see it happen?
57) You decide to do a harmless, non-aggravating, prank on your spouse. The prank you have in mind is suppose to be confusing rather than to make it’s victim angry and upset or cause damage. One of those ‘wholesome and innocent’ pranks. You pull the prank and-!…It’s not your spouse you’ve just pranked…It’s your spouse’s mother!!! How do you get out of this awkward situation?!
58) Your spouse has an awful fear of the dark. It’s so bad that they need a nightlight, something to hold and you to be in the bed with them before they fall asleep. One night, they wake you up and say they think someone/something is inside the house/cave. It could be nothing, but do you really want to take that chance?
59) Your child has a friend who is a bad influence on them. This friend is shady, secretive and always has an answer to everything. You have a bad feeling about them but no evidence to prove anything. You talk it out with your spouse and they too feel something isn’t right with this friend. Then one day your child comes home, badly beaten and bleeding. When it becomes known that the friend did it, you decide then and there that you are going to make them pay for this. What do you do?
60) Homosexuality is not uncommon in Ape Society. In fact, it’s almost as common as heterosexuality. You are perfectly fine with this, as some of your ape friends are married to other apes who are the same gender, however you also have human friends find it ‘unnatural’ or ‘disgusting’ or ‘sinful’. You have been very careful to avoid those friends and keeping them from meeting your ape friends but of course, they eventually find each other. The ignorant friends realize they are looking at two male apes kissing and start harassing them, calling them horrible names right in front of you. That’s it, any feeling of friendship you had with these people dies at that moment. How do you intervene? Do you use just words to stop them or do you have to use physical force? 
61 - 70: It’s A Matter of Life and Death 
61) Your spouse has a disease that could kill them. Thankfully, there is a cure that can save them, but this treatment comes with serious consequences. Would you save your spouse’s life? Do you value their life enough to make sacrifices?
62) Colonel McCullough has kidnapped your spouse! Problem is, he also has the entire colony in the base too! Do you save your spouse first? Or your people?
63) Your spouse and your child are both in serious danger, having been kidnapped by the enemy and are now about to be killed by them/inflicted with a fatal illness. Despite your best efforts, you could only save one of them but not the other. Who do you save? The love of your life? Or your child?
64) Your spouse is an experiment in a laboratory. Every second they are in that cage, their life is at risk. You need a plan but it’s hard to think of one when there’s so little time. What are you feeling? How do you try to rescue them?
65) Your spouse has been acting strange lately. You try to ask them what’s wrong but they wouldn’t say. One night, you catch them with a blade in their hand. You stop them just in time but it leaves you shaking as you now know your spouse has been harming themselves and may have suicidal thoughts. What goes through your mind as you realize this?
66) Your spouse is an addict. One day, you find them passed out and not breathing. You rush to get help, but is it enough to save them? Is it too late?
67) The village has deemed your spouse to be a murderer and a traitor. They were banished and is now locked away forever. But your spouse is innocent. You don’t have proof that they didn’t do it, but the Orangutans don’t have evidence against them either. Suspicious, you do some detective work of your own. No one believes you and Dr. Zaius is determined to silence  you, but you don’t care. You’d stop at nothing to save your spouse’s life. But if your spouse is innocent, who is the actual murderer? And what is Dr. Zaius trying to hide from you?
68) Your in-laws died recently. Your spouse tells you that their parents have told them something about the apes history. Something that should have been buried centuries ago. What did your in-laws tell your spouse? How do you console them?
69) Your spouse had a miscarriage. You take it hard. Everyone knew the pregnancy would be difficult, but you never thought this would happen. Your spouse blames themselves despite you telling them it’s not their fault and you both fall into a deep depression…What now?
70) The forest is on fire and your family is trapped inside! You race through the flames, desperately yelling out their names but their voices seem to come from all directions. The smoke is getting heavier, harder to breathe as the air seem less and less. You refuse to give up, you’re either going to save your family or die trying! Do you get burned? And if you do find your family, which one do you save first?
71 - 80: With or Without You 
71) Your spouse has started a war. You always knew they hated humans, but never dreamt they’d actually do this. When you find out that your fellow apes are also being threatened, and some have been killed, you confront your spouse. Do you try to stop them? Or is your life also at risk?
72) You are finally getting revenge for all the pain humans caused you. Sure a couple of apes died on the way and a couple of them refuse to follow you, but you see no problem with it. But then, your spouse shows up and demands you stop it. It’s getting on your nerves, and you decide you need to make another choice. Do you love your spouse enough to spare them? Or would you choose revenge over their life?
73) You don’t know what the heck your spouse is thinking. They’ve taken control over the remainder of the colony and now some are dead and others are held captive. Your spouse is talking about killing the queen and they’re convincing other apes to help carry it out. What do you? Get answers from others? Or reason with your spouse and try to stop them before this goes too far?
74) Your spouse has enslaved the entire ape colony. Even Caesar is locked up and chained, reduced to another slave. You know why this is all happening, but it just seems so wrong. So against everything that you stand for and believe in. The more that happens, the more you hate it. Do you go against your spouse’s back and help the apes? Or do you confront them yourself?
75) Your spouse has gone off to exterminate the human race. You can’t stop them, and you both know it. Their hate has made them mad, to the point of no return. Do you say goodbye then and there? And as they leave, for what feels like the last time, what are you thinking and feeling?
76) Your spouse has been banished by the colony for their crimes. As of right now, you’re the only one who still cares about them. Do you go looking for them to join them and start a new life somewhere else with them? Or are you so angry with what they did that you just want to forget about them?
77) Your spouse has joined the enemy and is now seen as a traitor to the colony. How do you feel when you find this out? Are you angry with them? Or do you plan to try to change their mind?
78) You have a chance to go back home. Back to your own world, where humans rule the world. But do you really want to go? And leave behind your new friends here in this ape planet?   What does your heart say?
79) You want revenge for the murders of your family but your friends are in the way. To you, they are just waisting your time and slowing you down. You know they mean well and they’re worried for you but it doesn’t make you feel any less angry at them. Do you continue to travel with them? Or do you push them away and go down the rhode of vengeance without them?
80) Your spouse is on the verge of curing a disease that has hurt millions of lives and threatens even more, but is it worth it? Finding this cure means using innocent apes as lab rats and playing with nature…One of the victims trapped in all of this is your spouse’s own adoptive child. Not even they are spared from this. You understand why your spouse is doing this and you know their heart is in the right place, but you cannot agree with any of this. Do you try to convince them to stop? Even if this is wrong, how can you tell then to give up something they have worked so hard on?
81 - 90: I’m Sorry 
81) You had no choice. Your spouse has become a monster. You didn’t want to do it, but you had to. It was the only way you, your family, your friends and your colony would be safe. You had to kill your own spouse…How did it come to this?
82) Your spouse has sacrificed themselves so you live. You never asked them to do such a thing, but they did and it seems they would have done it even if you begged them not to. Wrecked with survivor’s guilt, all you can do is cry for your brave spouse. If you had known that day would be the last day you’d be with them again, what would you have said?
83) Being an astronaut came with consequences. You have left your spouse and children behind on Earth, your home planet. All you want now is to see them again one more time and tell them how much you love them and how sorry you are for leaving them. If you had the chance to do just that, would you?
84) You took part in creating the virus that’s whipping out the planet. Everyone is blaming the apes for this, but you know that’s not true. It’s your fault, and the fault of Gen-Sys for doing this. You say your sorry as your spouse and children die before your eyes, but there aren’t enough sorries in the world that can save them. How can you live with yourself now?
85) You really did it this time. You are now a traitor to the colony and will never be able to return to them. You have no one to turn to and no where to go. Worse of all, you’ve left your beloved all alone. Abandoned them. That was never part of your plan and never what you wanted, but your spouse is now paying the price for your treachery. If you got to see them again, what would you say to them? Do you think they’d still love you and forgive you?
86) Your actions cost the lives of several in the colony and has hurt many others. What you regret the most is how much it has hurt your spouse. You never talk about it with them but you see the hurt in their eyes. You used to have a loving and trusting relationship with each other, now it just feels like your spouse has given up on you. How can you show them how sorry you are?
87) You are haunted by the faces of the people who have died because of you. There are too many to name, some are ape and some are human, but they all form this mob of angry ghosts wanting revenge for their murders. You may not have killed all of them, but you did cause their deaths. How can you put these demons to rest? In fact, are these ghosts real? Or are they just figments of your imagination created by your own guilt?
88) You had to do the unthinkable. You had to kill your own loved ones and friends to save your species. The virus that threatens to destroy your very existence is everywhere you look. In the faces of the people you kill, in the eyes of your enemies, and even in some of your own ‘pets’. You are meant to save and protect your species…But in doing so, you are also killing them…Who do say your sorry to? To those you kill? To all who oppose you?…Or to yourself?
89) You and your spouse had a fight. It was a over something stupid and small, but it got ugly really fast and now neither of you are talking. Who started this fight? And how do you make it up to each other?
90) You have an anger problem and it’s caused a lot of problems between you and your spouse and you with your children. It gets particularly bad one day when your oldest lies to you about where they had been. You get into a fight with them and, in a rage, you smack them. Your spouse intervenes and starts a yelling match with you too. It ends with your children avoiding you for the rest of the day and your spouse giving you dirty looks. Is this enough for you to admit you have a problem? Why was your oldest child lying about their whereabouts anyway? How do you try to make amends with them and your spouse?
91 - 100: The End
91) Your spouse is dead. Killed by Caesar for their crimes. Despite the chaos that had just happened, and the impending danger caused by your spouse, do you still mourn for them? Do you give yourself a chance to say goodbye?
92) Your spouse has suffered a fatal wound and is about to die. You have just enough time to speak them one last time. You don’t want them to go and leave you, but there’s nothing you can do. What do you say?
93) You’ve had enough. You’re tired of the bullshit your spouse has started. Your marriage may have been beautiful at first, but now it’s toxic and lethal. Threatening your own life as well as the humans/apes that are imprisoned here. How do you plan to escape?
94) Your spouse has sacrificed themselves/died during the war. Now you’re at the Oasis, the ape’s new home. As much as you miss your spouse and mourn for them every day, you know one day you’ll have to move on. When will that day come?
95) You and your spouse both have the virus. As you lay dying, the two of you stare at each other in silent sadness. All the things you could have done you never did. Your dreams never came to be. As all this goes through your mind, what do you regret the most? The things you never got to do? Or the things you could have done differently but didn’t?
96) You had cancer years earlier, now it’s come back and it’s worse than before. You have been given less than a year. Within that time, what do you want to do? Rekindle old friendships? Spend time with your family members one more time? Tell your spouse how much you love them?
97) It’s not working out. It’s not your fault or your spouse’s, but you just aren’t close anymore. The spark that brought you together has died out and your marriage is falling apart. You both know it’s over, but neither of you want to admit it. What do you say to each other? Are you ready for a divorce?
98) Your spouse is abusive towards you. You don’t know why they do this to you, but overtime they hurt you, your heart breaks a little bit more. Don’t they love you anymore? Finally, you decide it’s over and start thinking about escape. Do you reach out for help? Who do you turn to?
99) It was an accident. Neither of you saw that car/bear as it came after you. Regardless, it has taken your beloved spouse. Now you’re all alone, despite the constant wave of support and sympathy from your friends and family and nearly everyone in the village. Then, you are confronted with the being that caused the accident. How does looking at them make you feel?
100) You and your spouse have lived a long life together. You have survived war and oppression, been part of creating a new era of human and ape-kind and have had children, and now grandchildren. All your hopes and dreams have come true and all is well in the world. The only problem is, you’re both dying. Your old bodies are falling apart, no longer strong enough to  fight. The good news is, it will be a peaceful death and you’d died together with the one you love. As you and your spouse lay in your bed, waiting for death to take you, what do you reflect on? If you got live your life a second time, would you do it all again? Would you change anything at all?
10 notes · View notes
odogaronfang · 6 years ago
Text
okay here it is!!! the long-awaited (not really) masterpost of hc’s about the background characters!!!
@105ttt and i have been working on this stuff for a couple weeks now and i’ve finally got around to making it into something shareable!! and i’m excited because now this means i get to use them in fics without people being completely lost!!!!
anyway this post is long so i’m gonna put it under a readmore-
Leonel
Tumblr media
-link’s father
-captain of the guard & keeper of the wind key
-close friends with artura and valensuela since childhood
-because of the circumstances, he’s very well-read on the various legends/stories of the past heroes
-is a stand-in father for zelda sometimes because of how close she and his son(s) are
-constantly worried about his kids (sometimes because of the trouble they’ve been in, sometimes because of the trouble they cause)
-definitely the ‘cool manager’ type of captain- does what he needs to in order to run an efficient guard, but he’s also good friends with all of them
-there are days where he wants to take his kids out to town for a family day and there are days where he wants to throw them all out a window
Artura
Tumblr media
-the captain’s top knight
-friends with leonel since childhood; they weren’t in the same battalion until they became full knights but leonel would cut sessions to go train with his group
-specialized in heavy armored combat, proficient in several kinds of weaponry but mostly uses bludgeoning weapons
-the backup dad for vio when leonel is busy because hylia knows vio needs constant supervision
-the embodiment of the gentle giant trope- does a lot of favors for people and the castle town kids ADORE him
-always busy + always tired. give artura his vacation days please
-he has a special room in the castle he goes to when he needs alone time and doesn’t want to be bothered. vio is allowed in but only grudgingly and only if he’s maintained at least one (1) week of decent behavior
-works a lot with younger trainees (mostly around link’s age); has a lot of instructional tasks on top of his regular patrol duties
-he doesn’t take off his armor in public a lot, so most people haven’t seen him out of it. there’s a joke among the younger groups that artura isn’t actually a person but rather a darknut or one of the phantom knights animated by the royal family’s magic. (actually it’s just because he’s secretly a twink and he doesn’t want people knowing that Mr. Top Knight/Mr. Living Darknut couldn’t hit 160lbs if he was soaking wet.)
Valensuela
Tumblr media
-keeper of the water key
-close friends with leonel since childhood; was in the same trainee battalion as him
-trained for armored combat but dislikes wearing heavy plate- if he wears a lot of armor, it’s usually maille
-can dual-wield, but usually opts for one larger sword instead of two smaller ones
-basically adopts green after the pyramid incident. just steals him from leonel. green is his son now. green accidentally calls valensuela ‘dad’ once and leonel’s parentship of green ends right there.
-appears very dignified and serious but actually has a flair for the theatrical. most people are not aware of this but his friends know.
-leonel’s second-in-command, but he’s far more task-oriented and doesn’t deal with people as well as leonel does. he can come across as a little brusque with people he isn’t familiar with so he tries not to take that role if he doesn’t have to.
-not a personality headcanon but he has a scar on his forehead from when green shattered his helmet in the pyramid. and after he’s overcome the trauma that came with that whole ordeal, he definitely brags about it. someone asks what happened to him for him to have a scar like that and he’s like “oh my son did that isn’t he talented?”
Lucien
Tumblr media
-keeper of the fire key
-so chill. extremely laid-back guy. the kind of guy you go to hang out with when you want to do something social but you don’t want to leave your house (or even your couch).
-kinda lazy when it comes to little mundane tasks, which he caught a lot of flak for while he was still in training, but wholeheartedly dedicated to his job when it comes down to it.
-basically adopts red. they’re like best buds. red makes lucien carry him around on his shoulders so he doesn’t have to walk but lucien doesn’t mind.
-absolutely the kind of person to disappear for an entire day and when you find him again and ask him where he went he says he was in the living room the whole time
-very good at cooking, but only the really time-consuming, complicated recipes, which goes directly against his low-effort nature. he rarely cooks, but everyone looks forward to the days that he does.
-also the kind of person to “work out” by doing one push up every five minutes. the second he hears someone approaching he’ll stay in mid-push-up position and when they walk in he’ll say “one thousand”. (he only actually made it to nine.)
-if he isn’t in armor he’s in sweats. “dress more professionally” the captain says to him one day. he shows up to breakfast the next morning wearing sweats again, but this time he also has a tie on.
-the tallest of the group, which artura makes fun of (it’s all in good fun. he just makes fun of artura for being so small.)
Wes
Tumblr media
-keeper of the earth key
-the high-energy go-getter of the group. his energy alone balances out the chronically low-key natures of artura and lucien. basically an eternal child at heart.
-ALWAYS ready to throw down. it isn’t even that he has anger issues, he just needs a way to get rid of his restless energy while also triumphing in his various conflicts, and to him, fighting (within the controlled setting of a spar) is the easiest way to do that.
-one of those people that has to be physically restrained from doing dumb things. “hey i bet i could land in the hot spring if i jumped from the third story balcony” “wes you will break all of the bones in your lower body” “and??”
-also the guy in the group that’s constantly making bets and daring people to do things. he violates the sanctity of the triple dog dare by using it literally every time. he is also eerily good at predicting the correct outcome of bets.
-learns little things like sleight-of-hand tricks just to fudge them at the end; he’ll keep a group of little kids enamored with the “magic” before asking if they want to see the finale where he makes the cards disappear. the kids say yes and he just hurls the entire deck into a nearby bush. “there,” he says with pride as he walks away, “they’re gone.” (he would never actually upset the kids. if they look too disappointed he’ll sigh and go get the cards and do an actual disappearing trick just to make them better.)
-definitely takes blue under his wing. they spar like every morning. the other links might try to go on kitchen raids without their parents’/mentors’ knowing but blue goes WITH wes to go steal the best-looking cookies fresh off the baking sheet. arcy always gives wes grief for enabling that behavior but wes knows she won’t actually do anything about it
Selenas
Tumblr media
-another of the captain’s high-ranking knights
-the exasperated lawful good of the group. he tries so hard to get the rest of them to follow the rules but it never works. he knows there’s no point to the efforts anymore but he still tries.
-the constant sigh-er of the group. you’d think he had respiratory issues if you didn’t know him.
-is tasked with helping to keep shadow in line because of his lawful good status. he’s the strict parent who insists upon balanced meals with a lot of vegetables and who believes in a strict 8pm bedtime. he will not hesitate to confiscate shadow’s laptop if he’s misbehaving. shadow despises him but he’s doing all of hyrule a great favor.
-doesn’t safeguard a royal jewel so he’s kind of an outlier but it’s fine, everything’s fine, he doesn’t need a jewel to prove that he’s a good knight and no, he isn’t envious, no not even a tiny bit, why would anyone ask that,
-prefers long-reach weapons like pikes and halberds over swords/daggers
[all of the above-mentioned knights are collectively referred to as the cape squad by the links]
Arcy
Tumblr media
-one of the castle chefs
-an ex-knight; had barely made it into full knighthood before receiving a career-ending injury
-decided to continue work at the castle as a chef so she could still be around friends + to provide for her daughter
-was in the same trainee battalion as artura for armored combat, so they’re old friends
-her daughter is adopted; keina is the biological daughter of a late friend of arcy’s who died from birth complications
-is actually still technically in reserve for the guard; in a state of emergency she’s tasked with aiding evacuation efforts
-she’s the most popular chef among the knights because she takes requests. there’s a weekly competition among battalions and the winning one gets to choose the weekend meals that she makes. it’s a good motivator, especially for the ones in training, and it also gets her friends in high places (:
Keina
(see above images)
-arcy’s adopted daughter
-she’s very sickly; she’s never gone beyond the gates of castle town and barely even leaves the castle grounds. the only time she’s been beyond castle town was when she fled the castle with arcy, and she was in extremely poor health the entire time.
-she’s friends with the links + erune; they’ll often visit her and bring her things from other towns (or in erune’s case, her hometown) so she can still experience new things
-has a lot of pen pals all over hyrule since she can’t leave her home to go see people- she gets like two dozen letters a week and it helps keep her busy
-very knowledgeable on a lot of different subjects! because she’s often home- and sometimes even bed-bound, she spends a lot of time reading and writing and will sometimes illustrate as well. she’d like to be some kind of professional scholar so she can still contribute even when her health prevents her from travel.
35 notes · View notes
screenandcinema · 6 years ago
Text
Coming Attractions - May 2019
Tumblr media
Five years ago today, here on the S&C, we presented for the first time a list of the movies what would be hitting your local cinemas that month. That initial list included The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Chef, Godzilla, and X-Men: Days of Future Past. Every month since then over the course of five years we have done the same rundown of movies coming soon and you have been there to read them all along the way. Thank you for that. We thought this was a special day to reflect on in the history of the S&C.
With that said, here are what movies are coming out this month:
May 3rd
Long Shot - Seth Rogen and Charlize Theron star as an odd-couple in this upcoming comedy, him an unemployed journalist and her a candidate for President of the United States. Long Shot premiered to great reviews at South by Southwest in March and I for one can’t wait to see it.
UglyDolls - Quick! Is UglyDolls an original film or one based on existing IP? Do you know the answer? I don’t. (Well I do now, cause I looked it up, but I didn’t know when I asked it.)
The Intruder - Meagan Good and Michael Ealy star in this thriller as a couple who buys a house from Dennis Quaid’s character, and he refuses to let go off his long-term home. The film hails from the same screenwriter as 2009′s Obsessed and 2008′s Lakeview Terrance, so audiences should know what they are getting into with The Intruder.
Extremely Wicked, Shocking Evil and Vile - If you are keeping score at home, it is now Ted Bundy: 1, Oxford Comma: 0. Zac Efron stars as the notorious serial killer in this new film coming to Netflix this month. Reviews of the film have been fairly solid since its premiere at Sundance earlier this year. 
May 10th
Pokémon: Detective Pikachu - Though I have never been a fan of Pokémon in the least, Detective Pikachu looks to me like the film I wanted The Happytime Murders to be, a noir-ish fantasy mystery made in the same vein of Who Framed Roger Rabbit. And while I have no interest in the film, I do have an 8-year nephew who does.
The Hustle - Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson take the lead in this comedy film that is a remake of 1988′s Dirty Rotten Scoundrels starring Steve Martin and Michael Caine, which is itself a remake of 1964′s Bedtime Story starring Marlon Brando and David Niven. Still one remake shy of a full A Star is Born.
Poms - In this comedy, Diane Keaton starts a cheerleading squad at her retirement community and her friends played by Jacki Weaver, Pam Grier, and Rhea Perlman, join up!
Tolkien - Nicholas Hoult is J.R.R. Tolkien in this biography of the famous author. Like similar more recent works Finding Neverland, Goodbye Christopher Robin, Becoming Jane, and half of Saving Mr. Banks, audiences will surely seeing Tolkien’s future works come alive in his life experiences through his time as school and World War I.
May 17th
John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum - John Wick is back for installment number 3. The John Wick film series has been a surprising revelation and it is always good to see Keanu Reeves back on the big screen. Prepare for war.
A Dog’s Journey - This is a sequel to 2017′s A Dog’s Purpose. Did you see that one? Oh, you didn’t. Then my job is done.
The Sun is Also A Star - It is a race against time for two young students hoping to fall in love before one of them is forced to leave with her family forever. My prediction? She is an alien.
May 24th
Aladdin - Disney’s 1992 beloved animated classic is back with a live action version directed by Guy Ritchie and starring Will Smith as the Genie. As a kid, I remember seeing Aladdin in theaters five times and it was a personal favorite. Unlike some of the recent and forthcoming Disney remakes, Aladdin doesn’t appear to be a scene-for-scene rehash of the original, which is extremely refreshing.
Brightburn - James Gunn produces this superhero horror film written by his cousins Mark and Brian Gunn. “Superhero horror” might be the best genre name imaginable. Essentially, Brightburn is a twist on the familiar Superman story - what if a child gave from space with amazing abilities and instead of trying to save us all, he tried to kill us all. Count me in!
Booksmart - Olivia Wilde makes her feature film directorial debut with the coming-of-age comedy in Booksmart. In the film, two smart good girls try to make four years worth bad dumb decisions over the course of the night before high school graduation. The film premiered at South by Southwest in March to fantastic reviews.
May 31st
Godzilla: King of the Monsters - On the surface, it is hard to tell how much of King of the Monsters is a sequel to 2014′s Godzilla and how much of it is set-up for 2020′s Godzilla vs. Kong as Legendary Entertainment continues to build their MonsterVerse. As much as I enjoyed Godzilla and 2017′s Kong: Skull Island, nothing about King of the Monsters is really exciting me at this point, which in itself is disappointing.
Rocketman - The music biopic craze continues with Rocketman starring Taron Egerton as Elton John. The film is directed by Dexter Fletcher, who you may or may not know as the guy who came in and finished directing Bohemian Rhapsody after Brian Singer was fired. Rocketman looks to be everything Bohemian Rhapsody wasn’t, including an actor who sings throughout the movie and a historically accurate portrayal of the musician's life and times. Fans of music who were disappointed by Bohemian Rhapsody should be eager to take a ride with Rocketman.
Ma - Octavia Spencer stars a lonely woman who befriends a group of mischievous teenagers only to viciously turn on them in this upcoming thriller from Blumhouse. Watch this one with the lights on.
Now for a quick look ahead to June, my top picks for next month are Dark Phoenix, Men in Black: International, and Toy Story 4.
-MB-
1 note · View note
jbankai89 · 8 years ago
Text
The Stag and the Snake, Part I, Chapter Four - Boys Will Be Boys
My good friend and braintwin @kuriquinn suggested I try posting my actual fics on Tumblr, rather than just linking them, so I'm giving it a try. For those of you following my work on AO3 or AFF, these will be reposts until I'm caught up and everything is posted. :)
Title: The Stag and the Snake
Author: JBankai89
Status: Complete, Part 1: 12/12 Part 2: 22/22
Rating: Part 1: PG-13, Part 2: NC-17
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing: Harry Potter/Draco Malfoy, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Achievements: None
Warnings: Violence and Gore, Violent Sexual Assault, Minor Character Death
Summary: Vernon Dursley is enraged with the prospect of raising a boy he never wanted. Petunia recalls something that might help them get the child out of their hair more quickly. Overcoming their recalcitrance for anything magical, they invoke The Rite of Betrothal. Who will Harry be forced to marry, and will he be able to cope with all the demands it will entail?
Word Count: Part 1: 46 772 Part 2: 85 442
Other Links: AO3, AFF, LJ
Notes: Please note that this fic also contains Evil!Snape, which is a trope I hate, because Sev is my favourite character, but for the purposes of this story, he worked best.
This fic is based on the story of The Swan Princess, which I will be following the canon of in conjunction with the HP canon. Canon divergences include Voldemort is definitely dead, Lucius Malfoy is a bit OOC, and Sirius did not go to Azkaban. Because most of the story takes place before and after Hogwarts, a lot of the Hogwarts years are glossed over. I tried to keep the links and stuff organized how they did it on the old LJ group MyChemicalSlash, so I hope this is clean enough for you guys to follow easily.
Previous Chapter
Fic Masterpost
Chapter 4 – Boys Will Be Boys
Sirius had not known what to expect when he met his godson, but as he bid the boy goodnight that evening, he felt a tendril of anguish encase his heart.
The emotional abuse he had no doubt endured at the hands of his blood relatives had been apparent in his every movement, gesture, and word. He was strangely articulate for such a young child, and Sirius did not fail to notice how he would curl up, or fold his knees under him when their conversations grew tense, as though he was trying to make himself as physically small as possible. Every time that it happened, it gave Sirius a strong urge to break something.
But at the same time, he was overwhelmed with something akin to joy. He was such a little boy with such strength that he probably didn't know that he had. Little Harry had spent four years with people who made no secret of their dislike for him. They had hurt him, they had ostracized him, and they had utterly neglected him. Harry could have grown up bitter and distrustful, but instead he was a shy but polite little boy, and eager to accept attentions from anyone who offered it to him. Knowing a little about how the world worked, Sirius was well-aware that that could be a blessing as well as a curse.
After they sent Harry to bed that evening, Sirius had all but collapsed into the plush cushions of the sofa. He massaged his temples while he tried to work out his tangle of thoughts. He looked up when he felt a glass being pressed into his hand, and opened his eyes to see a small measure of Ogden's Old Firewhisky in a fingermarked glass. Remus sat down next to him, but didn't speak. The look on his face told Sirius that he, too, had not been ignorant to Harry's physical and emotional reactions over the course of the day.
The slow burn of the alcohol was a welcome distraction while he watched the crackling and jumping flames in the hearth.
“I'm not sure I can do this Remus,” Sirius said at last, “that boy is so...” he trailed off. Sirius kept his voice low to make sure Harry didn't overhear him, though he had no idea how to finish the thought.
“Damaged,” Remus finished for him. His voice was tense with anger, his gaze never leaving the fire. “It will be some time before Harry feels comfortable here. Until then, we should be cautious about how we speak around him. It's clear that he was not treated kindly by those...people. To not even tell him that he's a wizard—” Remus cut himself off with something close to a growl, and gave his head a small shake.
“And we're expected to hand him back to them? I don't know if I can do that,” Sirius said. Remus smiled bitterly to his words, but didn't answer.
The pair sat in silence, and the firewhisky did help release some of Sirius's tension. Despite his concern over Harry's welfare over the past four years, he had never been a parent, and now he was expected to take a five-year-old boy with all the hallmarks of neglect and abuse and somehow help him see that the world was not such a dark, scary place. Sirius had no idea if he was strong enough to do that. Nor did he wholly believe that sentiment. The world wasn't a safe place. This he knew unequivocally.
“There's little we can do about his relatives,” Remus said after a pause, his hand extending to Sirius's, and they laced their fingers together. “I worry that any intervention on our part might make things worse for Harry, not better.” He punctuated his words with another sip from his glass, his eyes never leaving the fireplace, “but we can make things good for him here. He'll know that whatever happens—” Remus broke off abruptly, and turned his head. Though it had been relatively quiet since they had settled down, suddenly there was a soft noise permeating the stillness of the evening.
“Do you hear that?” Sirius asked, shifting his gaze towards its source, the hallway to the bedrooms. His eyebrows knitted together as he tried to make sense of what he was hearing. It sounded like a hissing, a whisper so faint the words blurred together into a singular sound.
“Sounds like Harry's talking to someone,” Remus said. They exchanged a worried look, stood in one fluid motion, and tiptoed towards Harry's room. The door had not been fully closed, and the pair leant forward to peer inside.
Harry was in bed, on his stomach, and propped up slightly on his elbows. His legs were bent at the knee, and they swung back and forth minutely in midair. He was reading  aloud from a  picture book, in a tone barely above a whisper.
“Once upon a time there was a little old woman and a little old man who lived together in a little old house. They were lonely. So the little old lady decided to make a man out of stinky cheese...” the pair watched in quiet wonder as Harry read out the entire story to himself, pausing occasionally to quiver in silent laughter. When he finished, he closed up the book and smoothed his hand across the cover in a motion that Sirius could only describe as a loving caress. They continued to watch as Harry slipped the book back into his rucksack and tucked it under the bed.
“Goodnight Harry,” he whispered to himself, and he turned down the lamp. Harry rolled over, and pulled up the covers to his chin.
Remus and Sirius exchanged a mournful look, and walked quietly back to the sitting room. Remus's eyes were a little glassy, and Sirius felt as though his throat had sealed itself. They sat down on the sofa, and Sirius reached out to clasp one of Remus's hands, desperate for some form of comfort.
“I don't know about you,” Sirius said after a brief moment of silence, while Remus traced lazy circles on his bonded's palm, “but that looked to me like Harry was reading himself a bedtime story.”
“That was highly advanced reading for someone his age,” Remus said, his voice cracking slightly. “I have a feeling his...relatives felt all too happy to exclude him from that particular bedtime ritual.” Sirius raked his free hand through his hair.
“I'm starting to wonder if he has any happy memories from that house...” Sirius muttered, “I don't know if I can do this...” He followed the repeated words by leaning back against the cushions, and stared up at the blank ceiling. It was almost impossible to reign in the burning desire to Apparate to Surrey and do some real damage to those muggles.
“You have to, Sirius,” Remus said softly, but firmly while he squeezed Sirius's hand reassuringly. “Harry has a very uncertain future ahead of him, and we need to show him that he's wanted and loved.”
“He is wanted and loved, Remus.”
“Harry doesn't know that. He has grown up being regarded as a burden. We need to show him that we mean what we say when we tell him that we genuinely want him here.” Sirius turned his head to gaze at Remus. The man carried his familiar look of peaceful calm, as well as absolute belief in his words.
“I just hope he'll still trust us after The First Meeting.”
~*~
Watching Harry over the following weeks had been like watching a flower open.
At first, he and Remus were extremely cautious to keep their emotions in check around Harry. They took him to muggle parks and shops—steering clear of Wizarding establishments where they could—they were well aware that sudden attention from a bunch of strangers would completely overwhelm him, not to mention that on Dumbledore's orders, they hadn't told him about his encounter with Voldemort some four years previously.
During these outings, they did not fail to notice how Harry would flinch if another child came running at him on the playground, or how a sudden loud noise would make him jump.
The reactions were so small they were hardly noticeable unless you were looking for them. Sirius was genuinely disturbed by the boy's defence mechanisms for coping with his emotional triggers—there were almost none. The boy had absolutely no way to reassure himself when something happened, and often it seemed as though he would shut down until the upsetting moment had passed. Disassociation, Remus had called it.
It hurt Sirius deeply that a child so young had been exposed to Merlin knows what at the hands of those muggles, causing him to become so fragile. No matter how bothered he was by this, he was careful to keep his face relaxed and open when he was with Harry. In the evenings, he and Remus would let the masks fall, and they discussed whether it was worth sending an owl to Albus regarding what they had seen.
So far, they hadn't.
Every evening, Sirius could hear Harry reading to himself from the same book. It was the same stories over and over, though never loudly enough to disturb anyone. He wanted to confront Harry in some way about it, but he had no idea how to say it without it sounding like he had been spying on the boy. He never vocalized this worry to Remus, but it was apparent that he, too, had not failed to notice Harry's bedtime routine.
Remus left Sirius alone with Harry in the second week, but Sirius was uncertain how to break to the boy Remus's furry little problem. Of course, Harry still thought very much like a muggle, so there was every chance that he wouldn't believe him.
Instead, he stretched the truth somewhat, and had told Harry that Remus had gone to visit family, which wasn't a lie, exactly. Harry accepted this excuse without any questions, though when Remus returned a few days later, his robes ragged and looking as though he hadn't slept since his departure Harry eyed him curiously, but never actually asked either of them about it.
By the beginning of the fourth week, Sirius watched an extraordinary change come over Harry. His smiles came more easily, his laughter did not sound muted, and slowly he relaxed around the pair. Harry's trust that he and Remus would not harm or demean him in any way had started to be a reality for him, and he began to willingly ask for second and third helpings at meals without he or Remus prompting him, he ran and played with muggle children, and Sirius watched him giggle with delight in the evenings as Remus charmed the fire to take different shapes and colours, from flaming dogs that scampered around him to bright blue birds made entirely of fire.
Despite the drastic change in his godson's behaviour, Sirius struggled to keep his worries in check. True to Albus's desire that Harry be shielded from the Wizarding World at large, they kept what they told him to a bare minimum. Hundreds of worst-case scenarios of the celebration, so to speak, with the Malfoys chased each other around in his head. Despite Remus's reassurances, Sirius had a hard time believing that everything would be all right.
The night before the dreaded day, Sirius exchanged a significant look with Remus as they sat down with Harry at the table for dinner.
“Harry,” Sirius said, his voice coming out a little more hoarsely than he intended. The boy's head snapped up from his food, and he looked at his godfather curiously. “Tomorrow is the—er, meeting with Draco Malfoy. You're going to have to wear wizard robes for the occasion, we'd rather not give Lucius—Mr Malfoy, more reason to kick up a fuss about this.”
Harry glowered at his plate and prodded at the chunks of potato in his stew.
“I don't like them,” Harry replied sullenly, “I feel like I'm in a dress.”
Sirius saw Remus out of the corner of his eye stifle an amused smile. This wasn't the first time they had tried to get Harry to wear his wizard's robes, but his muggle upbringing got in the way of realizing that there was nothing inherently feminine about the garments in his wardrobe.
“You can wear your jeans under them, and every one else will be wearing robes as well, it won't be just you.” In an effort to get Harry used to the concept of normal wizardwear, Sirius and Remus had foregone their muggle-style clothes and wore only robes at home, or whenever they were with Harry. It did help slightly, but they didn't fail to notice that when Harry put them on he looked distinctly uncomfortable.
“It's only for a couple of hours, Harry,” Remus said gently. Sirius relaxed a little as he watched the little boy nod, though the dark look never completely faded from his eyes.
The following day, Sirius and Remus donned their best robes and went to rouse Harry. Though he wasn't normally one to complain, it did take an inordinate amount of coaxing to get him to put on the dark green dress robes.  He sulked through breakfast, while he and Remus resisted the urge to get him to talk with them. It was best, Sirius thought, to keep the boy from getting even crankier.
At 11 o'clock, the trio took a Portkey to a small cluster of trees on the edge of a forest. With Harry between them shuffling his feet a little, his apparent nervousness making him even more quiet than usual, they led him up the street towards the Malfoy Manor. Sirius and Remus glanced at each other more than once, but Remus's reassuring looks did little to calm Sirius's frazzled nerves.
When they turned up the street and the first glimpse of the manor came into view, Sirius heard Harry gasp. He looked down, his mouth twitching in the corners with amusement to see that Harry's eyes were wide and round behind his recently mended glasses, and his mouth had dropped open in shock. He looked up to Remus, then to Sirius, clearly unable to believe his eyes.
“They live there?” Harry asked, his tone almost breathless as he tried to work through his shock.
Remus chuckled a little, but Sirius wasn't entirely sure how to answer him. He had a feeling, 'Yes they do Harry, but they're still evil gits,' probably wasn't a good idea. Harry's pace slowed slightly as they approached the gates, and he stumbled a little over the hem of his robes as he was gently nudged up the cobbled path.
The manor had changed very little since the last time Sirius had seen it. The flutterby bushes that had bordered the walkway had been replaced by skullcap, St. John's wort, and hyssop. Sirius also noted the ostentatious animals he remembered were nowhere to be seen. Aside from that, it was the same tall, imposing estate it had always been. When they had almost reached the door, it swung open to reveal Lucius waiting for them, and immediately Sirius felt a little hand grip tightly to his own, and he squeezed Harry's hand back in an attempt to reassure him.
Lucius hadn't changed. His long platinum hair had been tied at the nape of his neck with black cord, and he wore long sweeping robes of black with silver piping. He regarded them with a look of deep disgust that he did not bother even attempting to conceal. Sirius noted the way Lucius's cold grey eyes shifted immediately to Harry, and he did not miss the minute flick of his eyes as it raked the boy's hairline, staring intently at the lightning bolt-shaped scar. Under Lucius's cold gaze, Sirius couldn't help but notice Harry's knee-jerk reaction of scuffling back half a step.
“Mr Potter,” Lucius said in a tone that balanced precariously between cool politeness and disdain, “welcome to our home. Please, come in.” The man's eye twitched as though the words had inflicted him physical pain, and he turned and swept inside while Sirius and Remus led a reluctant Harry in behind him.
Sirius watched Harry out of the corner of his eye as they walked, his head whipping back and forth in a flurry of untidy black hair as he tried to look at everything all at once. His mouth was still gaping slightly in shock as he tried to absorb what he was seeing.
“Come along,” Lucius said in the same tone, “we will be celebrating, as it were, in the garden.” Sirius felt Harry's hand tighten in his own again, and he did not need to look down to see the boy's fear. He all but felt it.
Lucius led the trio through the manor, weaving through halls and rooms, until he reached a large door that looked out onto the back garden. There was a large, curved patio of concrete and marble, with white tables piled high with elegant dishes, most of which Sirius couldn't name, much less pronounce. A handful of wizards and witches milled around, flutes of champagne or glasses of wine in their hands, with waiters Apparating through the crowd, offering hors d'oeuvres and other small tidbits to the guests. Beyond the patio were long, sweeping lawns of green grass, bordered at the edge by a dense forest.
Despite Sirius's insistence that the number of wizards present remain small, he worried. The First Meeting was supposed to be a public celebration, and given the Malfoys' considerable influence at the Ministry, it could have been much worse. Sirius let go of Harry's hand with some difficulty, it was like a tiny vice grip, and he knelt next to him while Lucius slipped outside without so much as a backward glance.
“Harry,” Sirius prompted, drawing the little boy out of his daze, “do you remember what we talked about earlier this week?”
He nodded stiffly. “I wait here,” he said, though his voice quivered a little, “and when I hear my name, I come out, and go to Draco. We greet each other, then bow to the guests.”
His words left out some of the finer details, but was in essence, correct. Sirius smiled in what he hoped was a reassuring way, and squeezed his shoulder.
“You'll do fine, don't worry. I'll see you in a moment.” Sirius stood up and walked outside with Remus, forcing himself to keep from looking back—he didn't want Harry to know that he was likely as nervous about this as he was.
The couple strode out hand in hand to stand next to the Malfoys, while Lucius set off a few gaudy silver and gold fireworks from his wand to call attention to the crowd.
“Ladies and Gentlemen,” he began, his gaze shifting from person to person, wearing a small smile as though he had no greater delight than addressing these people. “It is my great honour to welcome you to The First Meeting of our sons.” Scattered polite applause followed these words, “we do hope that you will join us in wishing blessings upon their bright future together on this beautiful Mabon afternoon. Now please join me in welcoming my son, Draco Malfoy, and the godson to Sirius Black, Harry Potter.”
Sirius tensed a little as he heard a few soft gasps and fervid whispers follow those words. No doubt this would get back to the Prophet before long. He struggled to keep it from distracting him as two doors at either end of the patio opened the moment Lucius had said their names, to reveal the boys.
Sirius felt it was like watching the sun and the moon greet each other. Harry in dark colours, and Draco in some sort of silvery-white robe that seemed to glimmer when the light caught it. Both boys eyed each other nervously, but strode across the patio towards each other with purpose. The moment they reached each other, Harry and Draco lifted their right hands and placed their palms flat over their hearts, and bowed low. The audience watched in rapt silence as the boys let their arms fall, and Draco stepped forward, took Harry's hand and kissed the back of it, Harry mirroring his actions immediately after. They then joined hands and bowed to the assembled guests, then walked down from the patio to polite applause.
The pair stopped before their parents, and Lucius smiled politely, “welcome, Harry.” He bowed to him, and Narcissa followed suit.
“Welcome, Draco,” Sirius said, mimicking Lucius's feigned politeness as he bowed, and Remus did the same next to him. There was more scattered applause, then the crowd slowly dispersed and the soft babble of conversation returned. Harry was still glancing around with wide-eyed wonder, while Draco was staring at the ground and kicking up grass with the tip of his shoe. The boys had let go of each other's hands, but were still standing in front of the adults as though they had no idea what was supposed to happen next.
“Come along,” Lucius said suddenly, resting a hand on Draco's shoulder, “we'll get you two something to eat and you can get acquainted.” He steered him towards the table, bowing low to speak to his son, quietly enough that Sirius couldn't overhear. The younger Malfoy glowered at his father, but didn't verbally respond to whatever he was being told.
Sirius trailed behind Lucius with Harry, and struggled to keep his eyes off the guests that milled around him. Remus had hung back to speak with Narcissa, though for all his efforts, it was difficult to not notice the sorts of guests Lucius had chosen to invite.
Igor Karkaroff was standing and speaking animatedly with Ludovic Bagman next to a garish swan ice sculpture, Cornelius Fudge was accepting a glass of wine from one of the waiters, and Walden MacNair was leaning close to one of the waitresses, who looked deeply uncomfortable. Countless nameless faces that Sirius recognized as Ministry higher-ups or Death Eaters that had claimed innocence, and, of course, he spotted Rita Skeeter standing a little apart from the festivities, her acid green quill zipping across the parchment before her in a blur.
In the distance, partially hidden in the shadows, Sirius recognized Severus Snape with a surge of hatred and memory. Slimy git, Sirius thought, gritting his teeth. Below him he heard a soft pained gasp, and he realized that he was gripping Harry's shoulder so tightly that his knuckles had gone white. He let go at once, “sorry Harry,” he murmured apologetically.
Despite the brave face Harry had put on, Sirius could tell that he felt completely out of his depth. Sirius loaded the boy's plate with foods that weren't too exotic—mild cheeses, fruits, and roasted meat. He nudged him towards a small round table to sit with Draco Malfoy, alone.
He and Lucius hung back, keeping a close eye on the boys, while they accepted congratulations from various guests that approached them. Sirius took hands and forced his face into a smile, as though he was genuinely pleased by the proceedings. It was supposed to be a celebration, after all.
Finally, Sirius was able to break away from Lucius and he sought out Remus, who had retreated to the edge of the party. His eyes were focused on Harry, his expression frozen in a fixed smile. Though it was just as forced as Sirius's had been, it seemed slightly more genuine on Remus's face.
“Kill me now,” he muttered as he sidled up to his bonded, passing a glass of wine to him, which Remus accepted readily as he chuckled slightly to Sirius's words.
“Harry looks like he's having a ball,” Remus observed with dry sarcasm, and Sirius turned to look, his mouth twitching in a small smile. It appeared as though neither boy had said two words to each other. Draco punctuating his bites of food with glares at the assembled crowd, with a haughty expression of superiority upon his face. Harry's head was bent forward, and he was poking at his food, but not really eating anything. Sirius noticed with a lurch of his stomach that he had curled his feet beneath him on the chair, and he hoped that by the end of this Harry wouldn't be too overwhelmed.
Aside from watching Harry like a hawk and accepting felicitations as best he could while trying to not sound dismissive, he was watching Snape closely. The man had hardly moved, his eyes fixed upon Harry, his lip curled in blatant disgust. Sirius clenched his fist, but Remus, apparently sensing danger, reached down and gripped his wrist tightly.
“Don't make a scene,” he hissed in Sirius' ear, “this arrangement won't be kept quiet, and the last thing we need is to add fuel to the fire by you hexing Severus in front of an audience.”
It was difficult for Sirius to calm himself. It was bad enough Snape decided to show his greasy face, but the man was staring at the little boy as though he would love to hex him. Sirius felt as though there was something awfully familiar about that expression, though.
“He's staring at Harry like—like—”
“Like he's James,” Remus filled in with a small frown.
And of course, Sirius realized with a flood of noisome memory, that was it.
A/N: Storybook excerpt is from The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales by Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith. Otherwise known as the greatest storybook known to mankind. :D
Mabon, for those who may not know, is a pagan holiday, and is more commonly called the Autumnal Equinox. It is the middle harvest of three (Lughnasadh (August 1st), Mabon (September 20th or 21st) and Samhain, the Witches' New Year (October 31st)) and considered a time of bounty, of thanksgiving, and to wash out the old before the year begins anew.
Next Chapter
If you like my work, please consider throwing a few bucks in my Tip Jar! or become a patron on Patreon for my upcoming original horror novel, Keep Looking.
0 notes