#this would be an excellent way to give some side characters more attention but alas life is full of disappointments 😔😔

[gaillol-13]

I unironically want this to be a spinoff SOOOO bad.

[problematicfavesareproblematic]

A Rare Night of Peace

Ron Speirs x Reader Drabble

Summary: Some truths are revealed over a rare night of peace. A few are more impactful than others.

Warnings: none, some potty words. Literally no plot, just drabble bc why not. It’s not very good but I’m working on writing scenes with dialogue from multiple characters so thank you for your time

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

She gaped at him, and Lip snorted in laughter she couldn’t help but join in.

“You didn’t.” Y/n accused, a note of betrayal in her voice as Ron tellingly smirks while he goes about collecting his winnings.

She couldn't believe it. She would’ve been truly pissed if she hadn’t been so surprised at Nixon’s revelation. Lip is giving her shoulder a squeeze of mock comfort, laughing again when she shakes him off with a hiss of shut it.

“Are you seriously trying to tell me that you were coddling me in poker?!” 

Speirs shoots her a look of ignorance. “I’m sure I don’t know what they’re talking about.”

She rolls her eyes, pushing away from the table and going over to her jacket by the door to get a new tie for her hair.

“You let me play against Malarkey and Carwod!!” she said with a glare when she got back shaking her head with obvious disappointment. “You let me bet against Malarkey and Carwood!”

“And you won, didn’t you?” he asks with a quirk of his brow, undisguised mirth in his expression.. “‘Sides, Donald Malarkey can’t bluff to save his life and Lipton doesn’t know how to play at all.”

Car’s smile of amusement disappears and a look of annoyance crosses his face. “I know how to play—”

“Oh yeah, so why are you playing blackjack at the poker table?”

She leans back in her seat and sighs, glaring at the back of Ron’s head. “Traitor.”

He snorts in amusement, knocking on the table to signal the end of his turn. “Not the worst thing I’ve been accused of being.”

She shakes her head, glaring at Bull’s unmasked amusement at her frustration. 

Narrowing her eyes, she turns to Nixon and smiles sweetly. 

“While we’re sharing harsh truths- Nix?  Bull, Luz, and Gonorrhea have been paying me in chocolate bars to smuggle your whiskey out of Dick’s stuff. They’ve been putting it back with some amber colored replacement they’ve concocted—”

“They fucking WHAT?!”

“Oh, come on! What’d I do to get thrown under the train?” Bull groans, shooting her a glare before turning to deal with the appalled Nixon, who was reaching for his bottle of Vat 69 and holding it up to the light with skeptical horror.

While she pursed her lips and sent Bull an air kiss he angrily bats away like a mosquito, Malarkey took his turn before nodding for Welsh to begin his turn. 

Peeking over Ron’s shoulder, she tried to get a peek of what cards he held in his hand, only to be caught by the man himself when she almost leaned too far out of her seat and had to catch herself on the back of his chair so she did not fall.

“Cheater,” he snarked, a dark chuckle escaping his chest when she smacked his bicep in retaliation. 

Without looking away from the game Ron hooks his foot around one of the legs of her chair, using a strong leg to drag her (and her seat) up close beside him until their thighs are pressed together, the wood of the chair leg whining as it was dragged across the stone floor. “Like I’d show you my cards without making sure you aren’t giving me away with your piss-poor poker face—”

“I’ll have you know that I have an excellent poker face, sir.” she dramatically flicks her hair over her shoulder, intentionally hitting him in the face with the still damp strands. “You’re the one who smells lies or whatever it is you do…”

“I thought it was fear that you said you could smell, Lt. Speirs?” Lipton joked quietly, earning a chuckle from those still paying attention to the game.

“I think you’re thinking of dogs or bees, Lt. Lipton.” Ron says cooly, no inflection in his voice as he watches Lip take a card and add it to his hand.

“Well, that would make your former position in Dog Company all the more ironic, wouldn’t it?” Y/n said quietly, working as hard as she could to keep a smile off of her face.

Lipton guffawed loudly, the sound making her laugh as well. Ron looked like he wanted to kick her chair over, his hatred of puns and wordplay well known to her by this point.

“And just for that,” Ron takes a deep breath, flipping his cards over and throwing them in the middle for everyone to see. “I’m not going to teach you the trick to win this game every time.”

“God, DAMNIT, Speirs!” Bull cursed, throwing his cards down in frustration as Nixon continued to interrogate him about his precious alcohol. “I fucking knew you just were fucking with us...”

“Y/N, what the fuck?” Welsh hit her arm. “I was counting on your tell to tell me what cards he had! Doesn’t your vein pop out of your forehead or something?”

“That’s Joe Liebgott...and he doesn’t do it anymore since someone taught him how to control it!”  Malarkey glared openly at Bull, who held his hands up in surrender.

“Luz had taken all the boy’s cigarettes, Don! What was I supposed to do? It was getting sad to watch…”

She smiles at the scene around her, feeling privileged to be able to see all of these men relaxed at the same time. Malark hadn’t laughed and teased so openly since Bastogne, and she remembered how when they had first met he had been laughing as well.

She hoped this was the beginning of something good for Donald Malarkey. 

He deserved something good.

Ron’s hand on her knee startles her slightly, the heat of his hand unfamiliar and unexpected. But when she looks around and sees no sign of danger, she looks down at his hand as if she’s never seen one before, cheeks heating at the sight of it. 

His thumb moves slightly, almost as if he was trying to offer some sort of reassurance. When she finds the courage to look at his face she sees that he is watching her just as carefully, as if he too is somewhat surprised by his bold action.

Turning to look across the table, she saw that none of the other men seemed to take notice of their exchange, all of them talking about some replacements she hadn’t met and lamenting their greenness.

No one knew that Ron Speirs, the Ron speirs, was touching her. No one had seen how flustered it was making her.

Well, thank God for small blessings…

“Y/N, is this—?” he began to ask under his breath, but she couldn’t bear to hear him second guess his boldness, so she quickly moved her hand to cover his and hold it in place. When he slightly raised a brow she nodded as subtle as she could, confirming that yes, she did want this.

 She did want him.

With a squeeze that she hoped conveyed her whole-hearted invitation to join her, she stood from her seat and made a point to stretch her arms above her head in a big stretch.

“I think I’m gonna call it a night,” she says with a yawn, the sound almost slipping out as a squeal when she feels Ron’s fingertips touch the back of her knee in a way that was so deliberately distracting that she had to really focus on keeping her expression passive. “Unless there’s anything else for me to look over, Lewie—?”

The slightly drunk man shook his head emphatically and pointed to the door grandly. 

“Go forth woman, I free you from your shackles. Get thee to a chaise lounge post haste and rest that big, beautiful brain of yours!”

She can’t help but laugh at his theatrics, making a show of pulling her coat over her shoulders and wrapping it around her.

“Alas, there is nary a chaise in sight, fair sir. Might I perhaps be so bold as to ask his royal highness for permission to substitute a fainting couch for a lumpy floor mattress in an apartment filled with no fewer than thirteen haunted dolls?”

Standing with a quickness someone as intoxicated as he was shouldn’t have been able to manage, he hits his fist against his chest and nods.

“Off with you, then. I tire of your dawdling!”

Bull boos from his seat, throwing a card at her as she slings her bag over her shoulder. “Go do Shakespeare somewhere else, you nerds. You’re hurting my head…”

Making a sound of false sympathy, she walks over to the blonde man and squeezes the tight muscles of his shoulders, something that made Bull groan with relief and her laugh at his reaction.

“Anything for you, Mr. Randleman.”

Giving his shoulders one final squeeze she heads to the door. “Night guys—”

“Wait,” Ron said as she walked by his seat, scooting his own chair back and reaching for his stuff. “I’ll walk you. Gotta find the mailroom anyway.”

Heart in her throat, she watched as Ron casually slung his gun over his shoulder, looking as if he hadn't just taken the first step in what was certain to be a complex dance she never thought she’d actually have to perform. Not that it mattered, she was determined to see this through.

You’re allowed to be selfish, you know. If you want something, and it’s there waiting for you, then why the fuck would you just let it get away?

He’d been talking about stealing from estates at the time, but now she was wondering if he had been talking in riddles intentionally. 

She wouldn’t put it past him.

No one bothered to give more than a wave as the two of them fell into step, the dark of the house swallowing them up. 

When he grabbed her hand in the dark, she smiled.

Y/N had a feeling that Ron was going to make his intentions very clear tonight.

About time.

~ ~ ~ taglist: @mrseasycompany​, @itswormtrain​

[jokerfan99]

My Top 10 Favorite Anime Villainesses by DarkChild316

Evil has never looked this good! Hello everyone and welcome to my list of my FAVORITE, not the best, but my favorite anime villainesses of all-time. So, I've had the luxury of watching and revisiting a lot of anime recently with everything that's been going on, and there’s been quite a few villainous ladies that have caught my eye, so I figured I should give it a go and do a list of My Favorite Anime Villainesses. So, with that said, here's my list:

#10. Diva (Blood+): This was one of the first anime I remember watching as a young kid, and this lovely lady easily caught my eye more than anyone else in the entire show. I can honestly say that I felt that Diva was more relatable than her sister Saya was (my opinion people, just saying) mostly due to her backstory and how she was kept locked away for most of her life while Saya was treated like a princess. I will admit that her rape and murder of Riku was shocking and it did piss me off a bit, but she ultimately won me over again with her treatment of her unborn children at the end when I got to see the caring side of her that I hadn't seen from her towards anyone else, including her own Chevaliers. Ultimately, Diva is one of my favorite tragic villains of all-time.

#9. Mugino Shizuri (A Certain Magical Index):  Don't let the beautiful supermodel looks and gorgeous frame of this buxom beauty fool you. Mugino Shizuri is a woman who's looks are only matched by her ability to physically melt people's heads off. Add to that the fact that she's a total basket case who slowly devolved into a cold-blooded murderer who was willing to kill her own ITEM teammates for even the slightest betrayal, and you my friend have a recipe for a..."beautiful disaster" (that is an excellent pun, sit down somewhere!)

#8. Annie Leonhardt (Attack on Titan): Attack on Titan is a show I've recently started getting into and it's cast of characters really capture my imagination. One of the characters that really stands out to me is Annie, not just because she uses one of my favorite fighting styles in Muay Thai kickboxing (which she uses to devastating effect), but also in her introverted and isolated personality which serves as almost a dark mirror of Mikasa Ackerman. In a world full of terrifying monsters in human form, Annie sticks out as the most unsettling because of how coldly apathetic she remains to her individual actions as a double agent sent to wipe out humanity, and one can never truly tell if she might shake your hand or snap your neck.

#7. Rize Kamishiro (Tokyo Ghoul): Poor Kaneki, it really looked like he'd found the girl of his dreams when he met Rize Kamishiro. She was stunningly beautiful, mature, well-read, and seemed to be genuinely interested in him. Alas, he was soon to learn the harsh reality behind this beautiful face, as she lured him in, only to literally take a bite out of his heart (or neck, depending on how you want to look at it). As it turned out, Kaneki's 'dream girl' is actually a nightmarish ghoul with a ravenous taste for human flesh, and poor Kaneki was on the menu. If not for some steel beams falling on top of her, there likely wouldn't have been anything left of the poor guy.

#6. Raynare (Highschool DXD): Now take everything I just described about Rize and add just a touch of sadism, and you get this fallen angel beauty. Honestly, that's how I've always viewed Raynare's character, as a far more sadistic version of Rize Kamishiro, and when you look at then two, it's not hard to see the similarities between the two: Both manipulated and betrayed the respective male leads of their respective anime by posing as sweet, gentle, kind and shy young women; both are incredibly sadistic, manipulative, and ruthless, and most of all, both continued to haunt Kanenki and Issei even after their deaths due to their betrayals. Although I'd say that Raynare is just a bit more psychotic and sadistic than Rize is, which puts her slightly higher on my list. Also, major bonus points for Rayare's light-based abilities that serve as a great foil to her sinister personality.

#5. Junko Enoshima (Danganronpa): OH I FUCKING LOVE THIS WOMAN! If ever there was a title for "craziest bitch on the block", Junko would take that title and then laugh about it in your face. What other woman would be crazy enough to set up a series of sadistic killing games that would make Jigsaw stand up in appreciation under the guise of a sadistic teddy bear, murder their own twin sister, and even axe off THEMSELVES when their plans go awry! Yeah, Junko is crazier than your average bird, but damn if that doesn't make her all the more appealing, doesn't hurt that she's hot as hell either!

#4. Lust (Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood): Well it's really all right there in her name isn't it! One of the Seven Homunculi, an artificially-created human being infused with a Philosopher's Stone, Lust encapsulates everything that is both alluring and dangerous about her given Sin. Her sensual voice, body, and nature can bring any man to their knees, traits she's more than willing to use to further Father and the Homunculus's goals. And when her target's usefulness is done, they usually find themselves on the receiving end of one of Lust's razor-sharp nails. Unfortunately for her, as hot as she may be, Roy Mustang's flames were even hotter!!!

#3. Cinder Fall (RWBY): When I first started watching RWBY, Cinder was one of the characters that caught my attention almost immediately. The way she played the role of being the ruthless master manipulator just enthralled me like I'd never seen before. I'd seen great manipulators in anime before, but Cinder had the feel of almost an expert chess player, manipulating the pieces around her, and always staying two steps ahead of everyone else in her attempts to checkmate the King. But wat truly sold me on Cinder as a detestable villain, was two incidents in particular, and I think every RWBY fan knows what I'm talking about: Her murder of Pyrrha Nikos, and her attempted murder of Weiss Schnee. Those two incidents to me added a touch of sadism to her character and put her over the top as a truly great villain in my eyes. Oh, and it also helps that she's a total pyromaniac with Fall Maiden powers that can roast you like a Thanksgiving turkey. Yeah, definitely NOT the kind of woman you want to get on her bad side.

#2. Medusa Gorgon (Soul Eater): Ah yes, Medusa! The only woman who could make Orochimaru lust for her (and I'll fight anyone who disagrees with that statement!) But in all seriousness, I can see why people often compare Medusa to Orochimaru as the similarities between the two are incredibly stunning: Both have an affinity for snakes; both are genius scientists with a total lack of care for human life; Both have shown an ability to jump from one body to another, like a snake shedding its skin; and both have shown the ability to manipulate almost anyone to their cause. What makes Medusa even more unique however is her treatment of her own child Crona, treating Crona as a mindless killer and never showing any real form of love or emotion towards her own child except when that child can help further her own twisted desires. Yeah, Medusa definitely won't be winning any "Parent of the Year" awards.

#1. Esdeath (Akame ga Kill): Admit it! You KNEW it was gonna be this woman didn't you, c'mon now! Anyone doing a list of their favorite anime villainesses that DOESN'T make Esdeath #1 is just wrong! She's got everything you could ever want from a great villainess: She's a total sadist with a Social Darwinist personality and a total lack of empathy for humankind. She's incredibly powerful with her mastery over ice thanks to her Teigu "Demon's Extract"; Plus she's a woman who lives for her love of conflict, and her love of Tatsumi (lucky bastard!) Add to that the fact that she registers a perfect 10 in sexiness, and you've got a recipe for my favorite female anime villain!

So that's my list, what did you guys think about it? Love it, hated it? Go on and tell me what you think and let me know who your favorite anime villains are. See you soon!

Deviantart: https://www.deviantart.com/darkchild316

[sparklegemstone]

Taking a break from work so time to write up more of my Loki trailer thoughts since all the cool cats around here seem to be doing it :-D.

In chronological order:

1) Personally I was 'meh' about the trailer starting with the Endgame scene just because I think the Russos did a terrible job matching the tone of that scene with the tone of the original Avengers film's conclusion and I want the Loki series to feel like a continuation of Avengers.  Alas, the Endgame scene grates on me as feeling inauthentic to the story it's supposed to take place in.  But I certainly understand the practicality of needing to put it in to give the audience the context for when/how this new story with Loki is taking place.

2) But five seconds later on the other side of the wormhole…yay, Kate Herron fixed the tone!  This feels much closer in tone to when Thor and Lok depart for Asgard at the end of Avengers.  Excellent job Kate.

3) Was so pleasantly surprised by Owen Wilson's portrayal!  Very different than any of the comedic characters I strongly associate the actor's acting style with.  I like his character a lot with what we've been given so far.  It's instructive reflecting back on the potential concerns I had and that were being discussed in the fandom when we were working with scraps and rumors that we now know don't have merit: things like 'Hiddleston is only there to narrate the series' and 'How comedic in tone is this going to be if Waldron from Rick and Morty is hiring Owen Wilson?'.  Ah the good old days of baseless speculation.

 4) I mentioned the frequently low camera position in another post -- it does a poor job of conveying how Loki carries himself, tall and straight and elegant.  It makes him seem more ordinary, but maybe that's the point -- equalizing him with Mobius rather than it being an Asgardian in a non-Asgardian's presence.

5) The way Loki goes from locked down and not letting any sense of what's going on his head slip to Mobius (what I feel is in-character for Loki) to suddenly being a lot more open with what he's actually feeling and having less guarded, more friendly/casual attitude toward Mobius is weird to me.  I think it's a cut just for the trailer and hopefully it will make more sense in context, but Hiddleston's acting here and the way he has no qualms about being physically guided out of the elevator by Mobius is one of the points where it felt more like Hiddleston playing a different character than playing Loki to me (and lacking Loki's costuming doesn't help that perception certainly).  Which I know is nitpicky, but I was just curious to see to what degree this would actually feel like 'fresh off of Avengers' Loki and so I'm paying close attention to what feels in and out of character for me.  Does Mobius say something to really throw Loki for a loop that would cause him to drop his guard like that?

6) "Glorious" -> YAASSSS that's the Loki I wanted to recognize.  He's back!  I'm still having a hard time wrapping my head around how blessed I am, but we've got him back for more screen time.  Also, with him back in Stark Tower and the later image of post-apocalyptic Manhattan, I am super intrigued by the possibility of Loki (and me too!) experiencing different ways things could have played out on Earth, if he'd succeeded in his conquest for example.

7) Loki's going to learn about what happened in the main timeline and the choices he made in the future?!  That's huge!  Should be a fascinating character moment.  This bit of Loki turning away from the projector gives me a lot of hope that the writing in the show is actually going to explore, honor, and authentically run with where Loki was as a character at the end of Avengers and the context of what he experienced rather than Marvel just plopping the "general" character of Loki into a genre-fied crime thriller show basically disconnected from the events of Thor and Avengers so they can say they made a Loki show.

8) Do I like Loki in the beige detective jacket?  Nah, not really.  But I do appreciate that even with the earth costume they kept Loki's style of being completely covered up.  Also creates contrast with him not being in control when he's in the TVA prisoner jumpsuit that has short sleeves.

9) Thought that was Nat on Voromir at first because of the purple environment.  Been reading some thoughts on how that's probably not Nat, and while the theories make sense, if that's true, why would Marvel put in a shot of a character that looks so much like Nat that it would cause confusion and maybe get her fans' hopes up?

10) I agree with @delyth88​ on the D.B. Cooper scene.  Didn't think I'd want Loki looking like Hiddleston, but I don't mind it / it's not taking me out of the scene as I might have expected.

11) The fight choreo and edit into the twirling -- I already discussed this before, but the physicality of it is giving me human-strength!Loki vibes.  If instead the guy he's fighting is also super strong, wouldn't the plastic or metal disc thing between them break upon impact?  Also the fact that it seems implied that Loki would get hurt by jumping out of the plane w/o Heimdall’s help to catch him.

12) The twirling -- is Loki legitimately, celebratorily, uninhibitedly happy?  I feel like we've never seen him like that since the Thor cut scene before they all made that fateful trip to Jotunheim.  I read a theory that the roman numerals on the building in this frame might mean he is in Pompeii the year the volcano erupts, which is interesting.

13) Loki saying "Brother”,  “Heimdall", coordinating with at least Heimdall, traveling on the Bifrost -- HOPE!  BEAUTIFUL, WONDERFUL, HOPE!  I was honestly expecting the show to make no mention of anything connected to Asgard, except maybe segueing into Thor 4 at the very end, so the fact that Loki is (indirectly) interacting with Heimdall -- calling Thor "Brother" (even if not to Thor) !!!!!!!!!!!! -- interesting!  

14) The idea of him being D.B. Cooper is very fun! (though I didn't know who that was in advance).  It's very easy to pretend that Loki is real and has been an unidentified part of our history all along.

15) I do not like the last scene with comics!Loki suddenly being brought to life.  In fact I had a very kneejerk dislike of it the first couple times I watched the trailer (so many watches ago :-P) because it presses a very personal button of mine, which is how the MCU is moving toward becoming more spectacle-driven and comic-book-y and therefore away from the grounded, character driven storytelling that I enjoy about the MCU.  I'm here for the character of Loki that I love as he is already established in the MCU, not the comics versions of the character.  Also, IMO the acting is out of character for MCU Loki and more goofy.

That said, I'm hopeful context will help a whole bunch here as @iamanartichoke​ has said.  Given all the timey-wimey multiverse shenanigans, it's probably not even Avengers!Loki anyway, and I'm certainly not going to begrudge the many fans who are excited to see comics references on screen.

Overall impression?  Very excited, very hopeful.  Would I selfishly want a story that's just a direct continuation of the Avengers and hyper focused on the exact context of the character of Loki as he was in Avengers, fleshing out the off-screen bits and up-until-now only implied emotional impact of what Loki experienced between the end of Thor and the start of Avengers, digging into his relationships with the Black Order, and family, reconciling with his heritage?  Uh…duh ;-).  

But you have to give an audience what they need as opposed to what they think they want, and from a craft perspective, this has to be its own story.  The Thor and Avengers stories are their own stories, they're told, they're done, even if certain emotional threads were left hanging / implied / off-screen that we as very detail-oriented Loki fans would like to see dealt with explicitly.

But given that this was always going to be its own story, I'm very hopeful that the series has an explicit creative goal of telling a story that also does a great job with emotional continuity and exploring the fallout of Thor and Avengers and what that means for Loki's character; of honoring, picking up from, and running with Loki as a character in the context of who he was when he surrendered to the Avengers and where he goes from there.

The Marvel Studios executives could have easily decided to make an isolated story featuring Loki that general MCU fans that don't think overly deeply about the character would have been very happy with and probably it would be very successful, and I would have gladly taken that over nothing.  But I'm optimistic that that isn't what we're getting and that they chose to ground their story in the specific context of Loki's character.  We'll see!

[thezodiaczone]

Aquarius Compatibility

AQUARIUS + ARIES (MARCH 21 - APRIL 19) ♥♥♥♥ You're laugh-a-minute friends who make a fine comedic duo, but the romance isn't as hearty as your side-splitting guffaws. You're amazed by how quickly the other delivers a hilarious comeback or a clever opinion, and it turns you on. Banter leads you to the bedroom fast, where the sex is playful and experimental (though not heavy on the emotional connection). It's as though you've met your twin; and alas, you may soon feel more like siblings than lovers. After a couple weeks, the Bickersons sideshow routine gets old, especially for Aries, and you run out of things to talk about. While casual Aquarius likes to keep the conversation light, Aries has intense, brooding spells that demand way too much emotional attention. For Aquarius, problems are solved with steely logic or left alone, but Aries is unable to curb obsessive thinking, which drives Aquarius mad. Your styles of affection are different, too. Cool Aquarius gets overwhelmed by the Ram's passion and physicality—there's way too much touching, grabbing and kissing for the airy Aquarian temperament. If you're determined to be together, push yourselves to go beyond platonic borders by traveling, taking classes, even performing on stage together. Closeness breeds more ennui than affection. Cultivate mystery through time apart. Your independent signs need to develop your own lives, then reunite with thrilling tales from the road.

AQUARIUS + TAURUS (APRIL 20 - MAY 20) Your signs have so little in common, it's hard to make a go of this. Old-fashioned Taurus craves tradition, order and security. Rebel Aquarius is an oddball who lives to defy rules and convention. Taurus is an Earth sign who plants deep roots; Air sign Aquarius is an adventurous nomad who goes wherever the wind blows. While you may start out fascinated by each other, the magic ends faster than you can say "pixie dust." Taurus will quickly offend Aquarius with his heavy-handed opinions and staunch political views. Free-spirited Aquarius will flee from the Bull's possessive grip, which only clenches tighter the more Aquarius flits about. Then there's the matter of your social circles, which rarely overlap. Aquarius habitually befriends the most eccentric people—the corner wino who's solved the string theory, the local fortune teller, his bus driver. While Taurus may humor these characters in passing, all hell breaks loose when Aquarius invites his tribe of wayward souls to spend the weekend, or to sleep on the couch "until they get their act together." Not on Taurus' leather club chair and alpaca throw pillows! You can try to compromise, but you'll only end up short-changing your natural gifts. Aquarius rules the zodiac's eleventh house of friends and society; he's the unofficial mayor wherever he goes, and is meant to spread himself among the people. Homebody Taurus has much more earthbound goals. Neither of you will get the satisfaction you crave unless you work hard to compromise.

AQUARIUS + GEMINI (MAY 21 - JUNE 20) ♥♥♥♥ This match of compatible Air signs can feel a bit like high school romance—teasing, texting, movie dates with jumbo popcorn and licentious groping during the previews. You bring out each other's breezy, buoyant spirits, and that's a plus. You'll bond over TV shows, favorite sci-fi novels and superheroes, obscure philosophers, music. With your clever comebacks and verbal repartee, you could take a comedy act on the road. Although you can both be overly cerebral at times, you prefer laughter and light conversation to emotional melodrama. Eventually, though, you need to get out of the shallow end of the pool. Intimacy is a challenge for your signs. We're talking true intimacy—being caught with your pants down and no clue how to get them back up. Telling each other your entire life stories in monologue form (which could have happened on the first date) doesn't count. You must soldier through the post-infatuation "awkward phase," or you'll end up feeling like buddies. That would be a shame, as you can make excellent life partners and playmates. The biggie: you'll both need to give up fibs and lies—particularly lies of omission. You're excellent storytellers and politicos, gifted at crafting a spin to fit your agenda. However, the naked truth is the only way out of the Matrix. Though it may topple your PR-friendly public image, it's a necessary risk you must take to build the character and depth of a lasting commitment.

AQUARIUS + CANCER (JUNE 21 - JULY 22) This oddball match is as fascinating and perplexing as a Proenza Schouler pump—and like the highbrow fashion house, few understand its power. Here we have Cancer, sentimental and family-oriented, possessive, anchored by deep roots and tradition. Mix in Aquarius, the sci-fi nomad, a butterfly escaping the net of convention, laughing with you and at you all at once. How on earth…? This is a coupling that doesn't happen often, and for good reason. Cool Aquarius doesn't need much affection, and Cancer withers without physical touch. The Crab clutches his loved ones in powerful pincers, and scuttles after Aquarius, practically begging for love. Naturally, free-spirited Aquarius feels smothered and trapped by these demands for intimacy, and constructs little trap doors everywhere—a basketball team, a drama class, a post on city council. Yet, when wounded Cancer withdraws into his shell, Aquarius is suddenly intrigued. Where did my lifeline go? What Aquarius takes for granted is Cancer's loyalty, which can resemble a mother's love for her troubled teen. The Crab can see the vulnerable child underneath the surly bravado. Beyond that, you owe each other a karmic debt so profound, you can't even articulate it. Explains one Aquarius, who's been with her Cancer mate for 35 years: "I've learned that sometimes you have to do what the other person likes, even if you don't like it." In other words, if you want to stay together, eat your broccoli. You'll certainly grow in spirit and character. Sometimes, your soul needs a challenge more than a smoothly-paved road.

AQUARIUS + LEO (JULY 23 - AUGUST 22) These opposite signs can be volatile match. Leo is the sign of the self, a born star and showstopper who commands attention wherever he goes. Aquarius rules the zodiac's eleventh house of groups and society—he's both the class president and its rabble-rousing radical. You're competitive spotlight-grabbers who can fight dirty, especially as you jostle to outdo each other. Case in point: Leo Whitney Houston and Aquarius Bobby Brown. Their destructive, drug-addled marriage brought Whitney's singing career to its knees. Yet, Leo is a hopeless romantic filled with haughty pride, standing loyally by a mate, fiddling while Rome burns. You both spark each other's jealousy, Leo by flirting with everyone in sight, Aquarius by treating his bazillion friends as though they're on equal par with Leo (they are). Leo is needy, demanding constant attention, but cool-headed Aquarius feels smothered by too much affection and togetherness. Aquarius will listen patiently to Leo's dramas, but only to a point. Leo must keep a stable of supportive friends on hand, and not turn the relationship into an exhausting soap opera script. Aquarius will need to show a little more emotion (besides anger) and tenderness, stepping aside to allow Leo's star to shine.

AQUARIUS + VIRGO (AUGUST 23 - SEPTEMBER 22) To say you're an odd couple is an understatement—and there certainly will be odds to beat. Just figuring each other out could take years, and it might not end well. (Remember tabloid train-wrecks Charlie Sheen and Denise Richards, or Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley?) Judgmental Virgo is an introverted Earth sign with a habit of thinking too much. Breezy Aquarius, a carefree Air sign, is the unofficial town mayor, best friend to everyone from the street sweeper to the CEO. While you complement each other in some ways, your lifestyles are very different. Virgo likes time alone with his books and thoughts, while social Aquarius rarely misses a party and can't be bothered to take life as seriously as Virgo does. Where can you come together? You both like to help people in need, and you're passionate about social change, especially through responsible business practices. Saving the planet is a particular passion for your environmentalist signs. You're as likely to meet at a drum circle as you are at a conference on climate control, or volunteering in the Peace Corps. In fact, this relationship is most likely to succeed if you have a larger common vision. Why not funnel your ideals into a successful enterprise? Go start an eco-village, or open a raw juice bar in an up-and-coming neighborhood—Virgo can grow organic produce in a backyard plot. It will stop Virgo from nagging and nosing into Aquarius's affairs, and will keep restless Aquarius from feeling smothered.

AQUARIUS + LIBRA (SEPTEMBER 23 - OCTOBER 22) ♥♥♥♥ You're one of the zodiac's easiest matches: just two carefree Air signs breezing through life with a full roster of friends, travels and adventures. Together, it's twice the fun. Although Libra is more the dashing diva/dandy and Aquarius the quirky Bohemian, your sunny social dispositions pair well. Every stranger is greeted by your hail-fellow-well-met embrace, and you collect friends wherever you go. Indeed, you may meet while chatting at the cheese counter, lounging poolside on the Riviera, or in a dog park scene reminiscent of an Ephron rom-com (picture Aquarius' retriever pouncing on Libra's dainty teacup terrier—what a metaphor). Your conversational chemistry guarantees a great first date, even if the prevailing vibe is platonic. If you hit it off, you'll host lavish parties with an eclectic mix of Aquarius' artsy, leftist comrades and Libra's highbrow circle, bringing them all together with panache. Caution: your casual natures can impede intimacy. In private, you can both be moody, making pouty, indirect plays for affection and sex. Aquarius is also far less romantic than Libra, at least in the traditional sense. That humanitarian bent will clash with Libra's caviar wishes (animal cruelty!) and fondness of bling (blood diamonds!). Most days, you take those differences in stride. Having a lifelong playmate is worth it.

AQUARIUS + SCORPIO (OCTOBER 23 - NOVEMBER 21) Years after their modern-day Mrs. Robinson relationship ricocheted the term "cougar" into cliché-dom, the Scorpio-Aquarius pairing of Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher can still baffle the naked eye. Scorpio is an intense, seductive creature with ruthless ambition, eagle instincts and a complicated psyche. Aquarius is a silly prankster and a cold-souled nomad who avoids emotion, then releases it in embarrassing blurts of sloppy sentiment. You're certainly an odd couple, down to your values, style and interests. Then there's the power issue to settle. Scorpio wants ultimate control over everything, while rebel Aquarius chafes at any restraint. While Aquarius is happy to hand rulership of the household to Scorpio, any breach of personal freedom will be an instant deal-breaker. Possessive Scorpio must accept that Aquarius is a social creature with friends from all walks of life, and curb the jealousy. Aquarius will need to cut off a few friends (the ex you met at a strip club, the swingers "who are actually really cool") and adopt a few of Scorpio's interests, like Kaballah for Ashton. So where's the click? Different as you are, you both prefer a mate who's hard to figure out: it staves off boredom. To keep this strong, borrow each other's strengths. Aquarius needs Scorpio's depth, and Scorpio lightens up from Aquarius' outrageous jokes and impersonations.

AQUARIUS + SAGITTARIUS (NOVEMBER 22 - DECEMBER 21) ♥♥♥♥ Sagittarius and Aquarius are two of the most free-spirited signs, whose joie de vivre and starry-eyed idealism make you perfect playmates. The "best friends with benefits" label was practically invented for you. Finally, someone who cherishes independence as much as you do! Like Sagittarius Brad Pitt and Aquarius Jennifer Aniston (who shared a hair colorist), you may even look like siblings. It's all so beautiful—until one of you messes up the party by demanding a commitment. Strangely enough, you remain loyal while the terms of the relationship are vague, sneaking out of work for mid-afternoon trysts and leaving with carpet burn. You both love the feeling of "getting away with something," the adventure of the unexpected. Yet, once it becomes an obligation rather than a choice, your libido nosedives. You've now killed off the very thing that attracted you to each other: no-strings attached excitement. Instead of trysting the night away, you're hosting Scrabble tournaments and turning in early. Boring. Because you're so alike, you'll need to work hard to keep each other interested for the long haul. Mix it up by developing separate friends, hobbies and interests—then come back and share your adventurous tales with each other.

AQUARIUS + CAPRICORN (DECEMBER 22 - JANUARY 19) This is the match of the traditionalist and the rebel, the rule-maker and the rule-breaker. Capricorn is the guardian of history, and Aquarius is an innovator who has little regard for the past. If you can meet somewhere in the present, it's sure to be interesting. Disciplined Capricorn can teach Aquarius the value of structure, and Aquarius can help Cap think outside the box. You're both competitive and controlling in your own ways, and few signs can rival your work shared work ethic. The wheeler-dealer light never switches off in either of you—you'll hand out business cards at a funeral. Still, you might be better off as professional partners, since your bedside manner is so different. Lusty Capricorn may be aloof in public, but this sensual Earth sign is a bona fide freak in the sheets. Although Aquarius may love to shock people in public, behind closed doors your interest in sex can be tepid at best. (As the ruler of electricity, gadgets may be preferable.) Socially, Capricorn can be cold or snobbish, choosing friends based on status. Popular Aquarius befriends everyone—don't be surprised if the Chinese food delivery guy ends up at the dinner table sharing your Hunan chicken. Still, Capricorn can be an important grounding force for Air-sign Aquarius, preventing you from floating off into the ether. Life is never dull with an unpredictable Aquarian.

AQUARIUS + AQUARIUS (JANUARY 20 - FEBRUARY 18) Aquarius is the sign of friendship, which would be perfect if you were looking for a platonic pal. But…you're not. Which means you're both going to have to get pretty damn uncomfortable to pass Go and enter the spine-chilling waters of commitment. Intimacy is not your strong suit, and heavy emotions make you break out in hives. Although you may have your own personal guru and swami, spirituality is just an escape hatch—a way of convincing yourself that you're "above" all those petty feelings that mere mortals have. Rather than connect deeply, you compensate with charm, impish pranks or your Obama-watt smile (he's got an Aquarius rising). Trouble is, the funny-guy shtick doesn't work with each other. There are better matches, to be sure—at least ten or eleven of them. Your only hope is working together on a shared humanitarian vision. Love could bloom as you defend labor union picket lines, toss paint on fur-wearing fashionistas, or grow your own medicinal marijuana. At least you'll have something to talk about instead of your feelings. Then…only then…you might just give this piece a chance.

AQUARIUS + PISCES (FEBRUARY 19 - MARCH 20) Old and new come together in an interesting combination. Pisces is an ancient velvet boudoir with dripping candles and fainting couches; Aquarius is a modern, steel-and-glass construction heated by solar panel. Yet, this strange match can work if it's built around a shared cause or passion. You're both die-hard humanitarians, and if you share a common vision, you'll stay together for life. Pisces is a Water sign, more emotional and complex in nature than Aquarius. Contrary to myth, Aquarius is an Air sign (not Water), though it's symbolized by the water-bearer holding an urn. The lighter Aquarian touch lifts Pisces out of the murky, depressive swamp, while enchanting Pisces adds tassels and trim to Aquarius' cold, clinical reality. You both morbidly fear being trapped in a boring, conventional commitment. Since you can never really figure each other out, the attraction stays strong. A little mystery will keep you fascinated, though too much (ahem, Pisces) will make the relationship way too much work for Aquarius.

[gunterfan1992]

Episode Review: ‘BMO’ (Distant Lands, Ep. 1)

Airdate: June 25, 2020

Story by: Anthony Burch, Adam Muto, Hanna K. Nyström, Jack Pendarvis, and Kate Tsang

Storyboarded by: Hanna K Nyström, Iggy Craig, Laura Knetzger, Anna Syvertsson, & Adam Muto

Directed by: Miki Brewster (supervising), Sandra Lee (art)

I just watched a new episode of Adventure Time...

That, dear readers, is a sentence that—after the airing of “Come Along with Me”—I never thought I’d get to write again! And believe me, it feels great to be proved wrong in this instance.

In October of last year, we were all treated to the news that four new Adventure Time specials—collectively identified as Distant Lands—would be airing in the next year or so. For months, the Adventure Time fandom has waited with bated breath for these specials to drop. Would these episodes be good? Would they live up to the series that came before? Would they undo the emotional satisfaction of the Adventure Time finale? These were the questions. And now, the first special—entitled “BMO”—is here. Does it live up to expectations, proving that Adventure Time always bounces back? Or is it toast-bread for sure? Read on to hear my thoughts!

Beginning in media res, "BMO" opens with the titular character on its way to Mars to terraform Mars. After running into an errant service droid named Olive, BMO is transported to a fantastical space station known as the "Drift." It is here that BMO becomes acquainted with a humanoid rabbit named Y5, and together, the two help reveal the insidious plotting of the station's capitalist overlord, Hugo, and his henchman Mr. M (who, it must be noted, is almost certainly Finn’s father, Martin, up to one of his many schemes). After much mayhem, hilarity, and poignancy, the special ends with BMO traveling back to Earth and meeting up with Finn and Jake for the first time—revealing that this entire special was a prequel to the main series, explaining how BMO first met up with his good friends in Ooo.

The first thing I'd like to comment on is the fact that many of the show's former crew members returned to work on this special. In addition to Adam Muto (Adventure Time's hard-working executive producer), this special saw the return of: storyboard artists Hanna K Nyström, Laura Knetzger, and Anna Syvertsson; storyline writer Jack Pendarvis; character designers Andy Ristaino and Benjamin Anders; art director Sandra Lee; and composer Tim Kiefer. I was actually quite surprised (and delighted!) that so many of the show's old guard returned to help out. And while this special also saw several new creative voices helping out (including folks like former OK KO! storyboard artist Iggy Craig, former Steven Universe board artist Miki Brewster, and writer Kate Tsang), the overall product was recognizably Adventure Time. I must admit, this was my biggest worry going into Distant Lands; without folks like Tom Herpich, Kent Osborne, or Cole Sanchez, would this feel like the show I know and love? I’m happy to say that the answer is yes!

BMO really is in fine form in this episode—from their singing the "Potatoes (More Exciting Than Tomatoes)" ditty in space all the way to their hitching a ride to Earth on a space lard. (Indeed, the sheer number of humorous remarks the little robot gets makes me think that many of the shows writers were saving up goofy one-liners following the show’s cancellation, just in case.) I’m quite pleased with how the episode handled the character, and, in truth, somewhat relieved. Initially, I was worried whether the character would be able to coherently anchor an hour long special, given BMO’s unpredictable and somewhat unreliable nature (see: “Ketchup”). Would 45 minutes of BMO’s seemingly boundless goofiness work? Thankfully, the other characters in this special do an excellent job counterpoising the lovable robot’s more, shall we say, unorthodox personality features (Y5 perhaps said it best when she noted that BMO tends to “expend energy for no apparent purpose”). The end result feels remarkably balanced, with BMO’s chaotic, goofball energy complimenting the very real plight of the Drift’s residents.

Speaking of other characters, Y5 served as a workable straight man, whose half-heartedly pragmatic personality contrasts nicely with BMO’s boundless and wacky optimism. I must give the writers and producers credit: it was extremely risky for them to feature a brand new character as one of the main players (rather than one of the show’s many beloved side characters), but for the most part, they stuck the landing. I think much of this success is due to Y5’s voice actress, Glory Curda, whose performance really breathes live into the character, giving her an earnest believability. That said, the fast-paced nature of this special precluded me from developing the strongest emotional connection to the character, and as such, Y5′s “my parents don’t appreciate me” subplot did not resonate with me as strongly as, say, “It Came from the Nightosphere” did. (But then again, not every character can be Marceline!)

Strictly in terms of story structure, "BMO" is not exactly groundbreaking, and the special follows the standard "buddy movie" formula fairly closely (You know, the structure that goes: "Two individuals from different walks of life are forced to work together. Despite a rocky start, they begin to function as a team. Alas, they are split up, but reunite just in the nick of time to save the world"). But unlike Grace Z. Li of Vulture, who wrote that the special plays out "expectedly" and as such "is simply unimaginative in its structure," I cannot say that the standard plot structure torpedoes "BMO"—it simply gives the special a solid story frame that supports the characters while also providing an opportunity for the show to drop some timely social commentary.

Adventure Time has never been one to shy away from such commentary, but I do not know if it has ever been more overt than in “BMO.” As Alexander Sowa of CBR puts it, Hugo—the alien-human overlord of the Drift—is a “futurist reminiscent of Steve Jobs or Elon Musk” who long ago used a spaceship to escape Earth during the final days of the Mushroom War. After “biohacking” his DNA with the genetic material of the grey aliens who flit around the Oooniverse’s infinite cosmos, Hugo and his ilk founded an Amazon-esque empire in the Drift, inculcating its inhabitants with a love for rampant commercialism. As a villain, Hugo really is the wombo combo: a selfish capitalist hell-bent on stealing riches, colonizing new lands, exploiting conquered peoples, and then leaving when the situation looks bleak. It is not hard to see Hugo and his followers as stand-ins for the leaders of today, who refuse to acknowledge the reality of thinks like climate change or income inequality—problems that, if left unchecked, will lead to cataclysmic societal collapse. It is a bleak topic for Adventure Time to meditate on, but at least the episode ends on a positive note, with BMO's actions proving that with the right leader(s) and enough people working together, otherwise powerless individuals can topple oppressive regimes and begin to right the wrongs that have been made by the bourgeoisie (if you’ll allow me to invoke the ol’ Marxist term). Now, "BMO" admits that such reformation is one that will require many sacrifices, but nevertheless, the special does emphatically assert that it is possible. And in the hellscape that is 2020, this is a message of hope that so many need to hear.

In addition to social depth, there's quite a bit of existential nuance to this episode, too. Perhaps the most striking scene in the entire special is the scene wherein BMO is torn apart and—for all intents and purposes—dies. It is a chilling scene made all the more haunting by the return of BMO's rainbow personae (last seen in season seven's "The More You Moe, the Moe You Know"), who urge BMO to accept death ("Now your job is to be dead") and recognize that the robot has failed in its mission to be a true hero. (As pointed out to me on Reddit, the scene stylistically echoes an eerie bit of dialogue from Portal 2, wherein GLaDOS tells you: “I have a sort of black-box quick-save feature: In the event of a catastrophic failure, the last two minutes of my life are preserved for analysis. I was ... forced ... to relive you killing me. Again and again. Forever." Talk about horrific!) Thankfully—in the spirit of the hero's journey—BMO bounces back from the brink of oblivion, proving that even in the bleakest of moments, all of us can be heroes.

Or something like that.

All in all, “BMO” was an enjoyable romp that dropped us back into a magical world we all love. While I wouldn’t say that the special was mind-blowing, it succeeded in its mission of telling a new story in a new place, while focusing on a character whom Adventure Time fans care deeply about.

Here’s looking to “Obsidian!”

Mushroom War Evidence: When it comes to the Mushroom War mythos, this episode was full of a lot of little details. CGO’s monologue reveals that, indeed, Earth was ravage by numerous nuclear weapons; what is more, it seems that some sort of doomsday weapon vaporized part of the Earth, leaving that gaping scar in the planet that has for so long fascinated the show’s mythology-junkies. It is also explicitly state that Hugo and his ilk were humans who fled Earth during the Mushroom War to escape certain destruction.

Final Grade:

Also, while I have your attention: Book update! As some of you might already know, over the last year and a half, I’ve been working on a book all about the history and production of Adventure Time! It’s been an absolute blast, and I’ve been lucky enough to talk to quite a few of the folks who worked on the show (including people like Tom Herpich, Jack Pendarvis, Pat McHale, and Rebecca Sugar). I’m in the final stages of type-setting, and should hopefully have the book ready to go within the next few weeks. Here’s a sneak peek of cover (please ignore the faint InDesign lines; they won’t be in the finished product):

Originally, I was going to publish this work through McFarland and Company, but then Cartoon Network got all pissy (long story short: I reached out to Rebecca Sugar and Adam Muto, got in contact with both of ‘em, and asked some questions about Bubbline. Rebecca responded and and confirmed that Bubbline was intended to be canon when she boarded “What Was Missing” but structural homophobia prevented it from being explicitly declared as such. This revelation made CN PR reeeeeaaally uncomfortable and they threatened to sic the lawyers), so I’m now going to be publishing through the University of Kansas Libraries. The good news is that the work will be free to download, and easily accessible! Yay! That said, if you want a hard copy of the book, I’ll post details about that in a bit. Anyway, keep your eyes peeled!

[rannadylin]

Character Interview: Idalia

Tagged by @haledamage​ - thank you, these are fun!

I’m tagging (and I know some of you’ve been tagged elsewhere too but if you want to do it for more than one character, I would love to give you an excuse to! ;-D and feel free to tag me back if you want, I have an abundance of OCs) @ariela-of-aedyr​ @queen-scribbles​ @aban-ataashi​ @serenbach86​ @lunarowena​ @sayonaramidnight​ @risualto​ @fangmich​ and tagging @haledamage​ back too for another character!

Today’s interview is with my shy little Dal of @grumpy-jedi​‘s god squad rpg campaign! Bonus: her most recent picrew image, but you gotta imagine the ears longer and fluffier, alas for the lack of orlan-friendly dollmaker options ;-D (Still this one’s an excellent Dal expression, really)

name ➔ Idalia. Most people call me Dal though. Or sometimes Lia, or Ida, or…well, it’s fine either way. (It’s a big name for someone as small as me, anyway.)

are you single ➔ Oh…yes, I am.

are you happy ➔ I’m…content, usually. Though recent events have been very trying.

are you angry ➔ No. Just…sometimes sad and disappointed.

are your parents still married ➔  They are now! They couldn’t before I was born, but they are now.

NINE FACTS

birth place ➔ Well, I’m still not exactly certain. Near enough to Gilded Vale; maybe I should ask my parents just where it was. I never thought I’d have the chance, and I didn’t think to ask details like that when they were telling me about how they came to leave me at the temple. There were fireflies there, that night I was born.

hair colour ➔ Strawberry blonde

eye colour ➔ Blue

birthday ➔ Oh! I should ask my parents this too! I never knew it for sure; Siofra celebrated it on the day I came to the temple, but I suppose my real birthday was not long before that.

mood ➔ Quiet

color scheme ➔ Sunrise colors – yellow, pale orange and pink. I like blue too, and sometimes a bit of green.

gender ➔ Female

summer or winter ➔ Winter

morning or afternoon ➔ Oh, I am definitely a morning person. I’m not sure if that is by my nature or from growing up in Eothas’ temple, but I think it unlikely to change now.

EIGHT THINGS ABOUT YOUR LOVE LIFE

are you in love ➔ Me? Oh, no. I mean…well, perhaps someday, but no one I’ve met…

do you believe in love at first sight ➔ Well, it sounds lovely. I think it would take me longer than that, though.

who ended your last relationship ➔ No one can end what hasn’t begun!

have you ever broken someone’s heart ➔ I surely hope not!

are you afraid of commitments ➔ No, but I wouldn’t begin one without giving it plenty of thought, you know.

have you hugged someone within the last week? ➔ Yes, I…well, I may not ever see her again. So now I’m glad I did.

have you ever had a secret admirer ➔ Me? Oh, I don’t think so!

have you ever broken your own heart? ➔ By pining, do you mean? Well…maybe once or twice, a little? I mean, I’m…not what most of the folk where I come from would be interested in.

SIX CHOICES

love or lust ➔ Love

lemonade or iced tea ➔ Tea, in any form

cats or dogs ➔ Cats. Dogs are very excitable, but cats make good quiet company.

a few best friends or many regular friends ➔ A few best friends.

wild night out or romantic night in ➔ A night in, whether or not it’s romantic.

day or night ➔ Day; rising early means I don’t care to stay up too late.

FIVE HAVE YOU EVERS

been caught sneaking out ➔ I’d rather stay in where it’s safe.

fallen down/up the stairs ➔ Oh yes, a time or two!

wanted something/someone so badly it hurt? ➔ In a sense…mostly I just want things back to normal, but I think normal is just shifting.

wanted to disappear ➔ Yes; I really don’t like being the center of attention.

been involved in a fight you thought you couldn’t win ➔ I haven’t really been in an actual fight myself – not yet, and that’s good because I probably couldn’t win one anyway – but this whole war that is brewing feels like an unwinnable fight no matter which side I look at it from.

FOUR PREFERENCES

smile or eyes ➔ Smile

shorter or taller ➔ Short as me!

intelligence or attraction ➔ Intelligence

hook-up or relationship ➔ Relationship

FAMILY

do you and your family get along ➔  Siofra and I get along very well. My new-found long-lost family…well, I’ve just met them, but I think we will. It’s a very difficult time to actually get to know them though.

would you say you have a “messed up life” ➔ No, not really. I was very content at the temple. Perhaps it seems messed up that I grew up away from my birth family, but I understand why they gave me up.

have you ever ran away from home ➔ It feels like I’m running away from there now, though I don’t want to – no matter what direction I go.

have you ever gotten kicked out ➔ No, that would be very sad!

FRIENDS

do you secretly hate one of your friends ➔ Of course not! Even if…some of us may be on opposite sides of a war now.

do you consider all of your friends good friends ➔ Some of them I’m closer to than others.

who is your best friend ➔ For most of my life it’s been Weynid – I keep her out of trouble, she gets me into it, but she makes me laugh and she doesn’t mind me being different as much as some do –  but she transferred to another temple, few years back, so we just keep in touch by letters now. And wartime is probably going to make that harder.

who knows everything about you ➔ Well, to an extent, Siofra, but she didn’t know anything about my birth parents, so now I’m not sure that counts. It seems Eothas probably knows everything about me, though.

[divainity-a3]

topic: reggie  +  family   (   relationships & dynamic   ) spoiler tw: archie afterlife, reggie & me,  archie comics (2015) GENERAL TW:  ABUSE, ABUSE MENTION, MENTAL ILLNESS  !

abstract:  it’s no secret that reggie’s parents play an absent role,  both in reggie’s life & overall in most of the original, campy archie comics. we see lots of mr. & mrs. andrews, we never get enough of the coopers & the lodges, and we get glimpses of gladys & jellybean jones, but never really the mantles ——— why is that  ?   what do we even know about ricky and vicky mantle, his alleged parents, if anything at all  ? and what little do we get from the comics and wikipedia to give us clues ? in this essay i will be going through the things that i know and accept as canon for my reggie’s relationship with ricky and vicky mantle and why reggie having a brother according to wikipedia makes absolutely no sense  !

                          SECTION  I.   THE  MANTLE  FAMILY  TREE

i. the  mantles  are  an  upper -  middle class  family.  more upper than middle, given how reggie spends his allowance,  &  ranking - wise, i headcanon  the mantles to be the second richest family in riverdale right below the lodges.  since the dawning of the original archie comics in the 50s, we’ve known richard and victoria mantle as  ricky and vicky  mantle, the well-off parents of their son, reginald victor mantle.

ricky canonically owns riverdale’s most popular newspaper the riverdale gazette and while vicky’s profession isn’t specified, i assume she either works in the secretarial portion of the paper along with the mantles’ other enterprises. y’know, the way heteronormative rich couples do. while the paper’s popularity generates a significant amount of revenue for the mantles, it isn’t their main source of income— investments & other business deals are. using their hard earned (not) inheritance and what they’ve made from paper circulation and subscriptions, they turn it into more profit by investing it in the right places. fiscally, the family is very well-off and happy. in every other department ? debatable.

ii.  the mantles are more or less, absent parents. and always have been. for starters, as i said it earlier: we don’t ever see them in the damn comics. even in cw’sriverdale— ricky and vicky are nowhere to be found. even according to reggie’s  wikipedia, we don’t know all too much about his mother and father aside from their professions but the archie reboot comics offer a different perspective that i choose to adopt.

exhibit a.  reggie and me (2015)  / issue #2 context: reggie coming home distressed after having accidentally pushed archie into a pond. betty went off at him, he ran home crying to an empty house. his dog, vader, is narrating, recalling how reggie describes it as one of the worst days of his life.

exhibit b.  reggie and me (2015)  / issue #4 context: reggie attemptng to make an effort with his dad only to be rejected immediately.

exhibit c.  archie (2015)  / issue #6 context: reggie’s coming back home from a failed attempt at persuading hiram lodge to let him into his inner circle.

exhibit d.  afterlife with archie (2015)  /  issue #9 context:  in a dystopian take on archie comics, reggie is reflecting on his entire life existentially while confessing his sins to kevin keller, someone he’s come to trust.

conclusions drawn:

coming home to an empty house wasn’t and still isn’t uncommon for reggie. across the multiple comics i reference, the narrative seems to be the same. his parents consistently don’t show up for him. are constantly working, and more importantly  never home. and even when they are home, they pay no mind to their only son, seen in how reggie attempts to get his fathers attention after seeing archie and his dad play ball. i can also assume that reggie had to raise/take care of himself, given that there’s no maid to be seen in any of the scenes where the ricky and vicky aren’t there. while the mantles clearly make sure he doesn’t starve, they don’t exactly do… anything else. as we see when reggie comes home crying, no one’s there to hold him. no one’s there to tell him he’s okay and that he’s valid. so he has to tell himself. and as he gets older and more self-sufficient, his parents start giving even less of a fuck about him being on his own. furthermore, reggie also has to teach himself what is right and wrong as a result, having little to no guidance from the people who are supposed to fulfill that role. obviously, we know how that works out.

ricky and vicky missed out on a lot of reggie’s milestones. being out on business trips all the time leads me to believe that the mantles missed out on a lot of reggie’s overall life and more importantly accomplishments (even if he doesn’t have a lot of them). to name a few things, i headcanon the mantles to have missed his middle school graduation, his first football game, multiple recitals through the years, and the day reggie got deemed captain of the football team, something he actually considers one of his bigger achievements in life. i also headcanon that reggie had to teach himself how to drive, shave, ask a girl out and all the other cheesy, heteronormative stuff rich families instill. the mantles sure do come back to reap the benefits though, happy to use reggie for bragging rights.

reggie blamed himself a lot for his parents not being around and developed deep-seeded insecurities about it growing up.i think it’s reasonable to think that a child as young as he was used to believe that something was wrong with him with his parents never seeming to want to be around him. that shit hurt him and that is where reggie’s need to constantly be around people and have companionship comes from—— it’s an underlying desire to be wanted for once. but he’d never tell that to anyone.

reggie acting out started out as an attempt to get attention from his parents. the only time parents will really be forced to pay attention to their children is when they have to answer for them. so it’s reasonable, i think, to assume that a lot of his bad behavior started out at least as a way to get his parents to give him the time of day. i don’t think the same applies to reggie in the present day, but nonetheless, —————old habits die hard. more on that, later.

                                SECTION  II.   THE  MANTLE  LEGACY

i.  reggie is, and always will be, an only child. according to reggie’s wikipedia, he also allegedly has a younger brother named oliver mantle that made a brief appearance once in a single issue like 40 years ago. in my canon, i’m choosing to ignore this for two reasons: a.because it literally just doesn’t make any sense for reggie to have any siblings. ricky and vicky can barely take care of reggie, god forbid they abuse and neglect another child. the idea is nice and it would mean that reggie would have someone to confide in, but alas i don’t think the mantles would be so …  kind.

and b.  because there’s absolutely no significant information and/or canon attached to thisalleged oliver mantle and so i have to conclude that he was just thrown in at some point during the original archie run because the writers realized they didn’t develop reggie’s family background in any aspect.

ii.  however, reggie does have two cousins. the writers do this on multiple occasions to all the characters, throwing in relatives here and there and they actually did give reggie two cousins which i actually do accept in my canon. their names are regina(first cousin) and may (third removed cousin), both of which are from vicky’s side of the family. reggie doesn’t care for may all that much but regina is someone he actually can get along with as they share the same kind of humor.

other than that reggie’s the only mantle heir, putting immense pressure on him to marry rich and carry on the family name———— but that’s a different meta for another time.

  SECTION III.  PHYSICAL AND EMOTIONAL ABUSE   &   NEGLECT

ii.  reggie himself is a victim physical and emotional abuse, mainly from his father, in addition to overall parental neglect. now don’t get it twisted, i’m not saying ms. vicky had absolutely nothing to do with reggie’s childhood trauma, but ricky certainly had the more prominent role as an instigator and we get proof of that on several occasions. i headcanon that vicky never laid a finger on reggie and truly does love him deep down, but her passiveness & allowing the abuse to happen has made reggie view her just as antagonistically as he does ricky ( and for good reason ). she’s a bystander and nothing more, a spineless bitch that never intervened, only spoiled him in hopes it would make up for his emotional scars. she pretends she’s not as bad, reggie thinks and knows otherwise.

exhibit a: afterlife with archie (2015)  /  issue #9 context:  in a dystopian take on archie comics, reggie is reflecting on his entire life existentially while confessing his sins to kevin keller, someone he’s come to trust. the first page of the issue is titled  ARCHIE & REGGIE,  all about comparing the two and their different persona’s but more importantly, their different upbringings.

conclusions drawn:

while the sentiment of this side-by-side is aimed to highlight the fact that reggie is a spoiled kid that likes to act out, what stands out more so to me is what looks like intense pressure to perform from ricky.  while i did say earlier that reggie’s parents have a very absent role in his life, obviously there are public appearances to keep up. the mantles can’t come across as unsupportive an absent, they need to put on an image. while you’d think this is a good thing that would force the mantles to show up more, my concern here comes from the reason for the fight being over the fact that reggie’s team, not just reggie, not winning a baseball game. despite never being there to emotionally support reggie, to me it seems like ricky expects perfection. i believe the pressure might be more so for athletic performance than academic, given that reggie’s wikidoes specifically cite reggie’s natural-born athletic excellence. i think it’s also worth noting as well that since my reggie is asian and i firmly believe this pressure is present (i’m asian myself, the struggle is real). reggie has slowly cared less and less and we’ll get to that later but, you get it.

the panels also have drastically different interactions between parent and child, ricky’s looking borderline abusive and more importantly, public. one could argue that it only looks like ricky only has a tight pinch on reggie’s ear, but i also have concerns about the extent of ricky’s expectations and what lengths he’d go to make them known, especially when reggie didn’t fulfill them as a kid. this leads me to my next piece of evidence.

exhibit b:   archie (2015)  /  issue #30 context: ricky has recently bailed him out reggie out of jail, having been charged with vehicular manslaughter. despite ricky having pulled several strings to get him out, reggie’s still acting out and in getting ready for the riverdale spring dance, has taken it upon himself to go through his father’s wardrobe without asking to dress himself for the occasion.

conclusions drawn:

reggie has an unforgiving memory. rightfully so, as he’s been going through this vicious cycle for as long as he can remember, but take note his ability to citeextremely hurtful things that ricky has been guilty of saying about his own son and, in some cases, said to his own son’s face. he plays it off as a snarky comeback, but to me, that’s a cheap coping mechanism and speaks to a greater desensitization on reggie’s end towards constantly receiving such disappointing and demeaning remarks from his own father. he  expects it, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt to hear.

ricky has a horrible temper. i say this because his temper is shown to go from 0 to 100 extremely quick (literally read any of the new archie reboot, you’ll pick up on it) until reggie puts him in his place. i honestly headcanon that ricky hasundiagnosed bpd  (disclaimer: my mother has bpd) and that this extreme range of temperament is something reggie has had to develop a defense to and it’s taken years for him to do. it’d take a lot of convincing to try and tell me that this temper has never escalated into physical altercations. especially from a toxically masculine man like ricky ? no chance.  

the abuse is physical as well as emotional.  absent parenting aside, look at the way ricky’s holding onto reggie’s collar. that grip is like ice and furthermore it’s also the first thing ricky does in confronting his own son. immediate physical invasion of space isn’t promising in parental maneuvers and yeah, we might’ve laughed all the time at how archie’s parents would grab him by the ear and drag him home when he was in trouble in the classic comics, it was all in good fun back in the day but reggie didn’t get the same, comical treatment. in fact, far from it.

it’s happened before.  the way reggie cuts his father off right in the middle of his alleged apology, simply telling him to get out of his personal space? the fact thatreggie has to tell him to stop makes it seem like ricky is a creature of habit and that he defaults unhealthily to physical confrontation. and honestly who would be surprised ? reggie’s immediate, nearly nonchalant defense makes me think he’s done this many times before. whether or not ricky’s willingness to back off comes from him trying to improve himself as a father, his efforts don’t seem to be working.

reggie’s acting out has become a method of survival. this argument is bit of speculation on my end and comes from what makes sense to me, but in my eyes reggie’s acting out as an almost-adult is both an act of defiance and an act of survival. i headcanon that once reggie grew up and became more aware of his family’s ‘clout,’ he began to weaponize it. remember the  ‘mantle family image’  thing i talked about earlier? jackpot. while reggie might have had to put up with abuse silently growing up, he soon figured out that if his father was gonna do anything, he couldn’t leave a mark. otherwise, people would ask questions.  i mean, imagine if he went to the press with a sob story about all the times conglomerate boss ricky mantle hurt his own son… what would his family do then ?  reggie doesn’t give a fuck about the family, and for that he has leverage. the mantles can’t have a scandal, that’s bad for business !  reggie holds that over his father’s head, knowing it’ll get him to back off the way he does in the last panels and ricky knows better than to test his son’s boldness. so reggie doing whatever he wants, knowing ricky can’t do jack shit to him ? that’shis power source. that’s what gets him out of bed every day. it’s where his hubris comes from, his arrogance. knowing he’s the shit because he is.  this is where he finds his ground, making sure he never gets hurt again, and if he does it’s only on his terms. no one elses.

tl; dr:   ricky and vicky mantle aren’t shit, there’s absolutely no way reggie has a brother, reggie raised himself for the most part since he was about 9 years old, reggie grew up and continues to grow up in an empty house,  a good portion of reggie’s insecurities come from his childhood when he blamed himself for his parents not being around, and reggie is a victim of emotional and physical abuse as well as neglect.

so have mercy on him. he isn’t inherently evil and while his actions aren’t always excusable, it’s worth remembering that no one was there to teach him otherwise.

[airlock]

airlock grades the Punchable archetype

so far, a majority of the Fire Emblem villains I’ve covered in this series are the sort who are meant to be liked, forgiven, sympathized with... these here are not those ones. these are the ones whose singular purpose in the narrative is to piss you the hell off. so, which of them played that role to excellence?

(do note: under cut are spoilers for… everything, and also a significant amount of me criticizing or blamming characters that you might- okay, yeah, no, you probably don’t like anybody on this list, but you may still strongly disagree with my opinions of them. you’ve been warned! ha, no way these fools would set about reading the whole post now... what!? impossible!)

a foreword

so, to be very specific, I’m not rating every flatly irritating miniboss here; the definitive aspect here is that the character has to be a recurring one, whose extended screentime never quite ends up giving them a chance to be something other than vile. but more important than the hair-splitting here is giving some consideration to how exactly I’ll be doing the rating; after all, I’m not supposed to like any of these people, but there’s still better and worse ways to be despicable as a character.

I’m running pretty much on two central critteria: is this character entertaining, and is that character satisfying to take down. it’s more important to hit one than to hit both; a character who hits neither is significantly more likely to be a pure waste of bile, however.

without further ado, let’s start gritting those teeth!

fuck this guy

(9/10)

directly enabling the single most badass scene in all of Book II obviously lands you on the upper echelons of this here character type. but that’s just the effect; we should peer into the cause of what makes him work so well!

of the critteria I mentioned, Lang goes for the latter: he’s not only quite satisfying to defeat, it’s also great anytime someone finally talks back to him and puts him in his place. that’s because he’s not the sort of character for whom this sort of thing is a given. a lot of the ones we’ll see ahead of him are incompetent toadies on top of being amoral, but not this guy; he knows exactly what he’s doing, relying on the backing of the most powerful nation in the continent to plunder, raze, and oppress to his heart’s content. the business of doing something about this dipshit gets severely delayed by the dire consequences of crossing him -- until Marth finally decides that enough is enough.

and THEN Jagen tells him to meet him 9 PM at the Grustian denny’s parking lot for an old man brawl-

fuck this chin

(3/10)

I struggle to understand ol’ Kaga’s obssession with jealousy as a villainous character motivation, I really do. it’s one entirely realistic thing to envy someone for having riches, fame, status, influence, the attention of one’s crush, or other such things that are more or less objective and palpable. it’s also entirely a thing to have an inferiority complex and fear or spite people one perceives as being more talented, better looking, stronger, smarter than oneself. but the way these characters are written tends to come across like they’re furious because they’re underwritten gonk and not everyone else is.

... which hey, would be a pretty upsetting thing if it happened to a real person, but I don’t think meta-commentary is the point here, is it? I sincerely hope it isn’t...

fuck this lady

(7/10)

the second leg of Genealogy of the Holy War finds you facing the same sorts of enemies most of the time: half of them are Satanists, and the other half are unfortunate innocents trapped in the crossfire of courtly intrigue. it’s exactly because of this that the arc desperately needs a villain like Hilda.

Hilda is just someone who doesn’t particularly mind if the most effective path up the social ladder involves destroying her relatives, daughter included, or capturing children and forcing them into murder tournaments. how is the imperial machinery of tragedy and death supposed to run without someone like her cranking a couple of the levers? er, I mean, you don’t really crank levers unless you’re doing something weird, but... okay, moving on

amidst all of the battles you might struggle to feel were worth fighting, Hilda here serves as a reminder, as a face of every reason why the Empire is the enemy and must be defeated.

and yes, making Tinny kill her rocks

fuck this guy IN AMERICA

(2.5/10)

not too long ago I would have dropped him a straight zero, but I’ve recently been reading through the Project Exile text dumps for a new Thracia 776 fanslation and what can I say, they put good work into making him tick properly and I essentially have no choice but to keep that sort of thing in consideration when making the ratings, being that all of the other villains are also characters I only have indirect contact with through a translation that may have improved or worsened things.

but the good work is no miracle -- although given much-needed entertainment value, this guy is still who he is: practically a standard-fare asshole miniboss who ends up getting three whole chapters to chirp into. and to make matters worse, you only actually get the payoff to him in one of two possible routes!

I am strong, I am clever, I am handsome, and most importantly, fuck me

(4/10)

I can’t possibly deny that his antics are some of the most hilarious on this list; the ridiculous speeches, the facial expressions from the manga, the fact that he gets demoted on screen... and I mean, they got Kaiji Tang to put voice to his high drama on Heroes, on top of it all!

alas, it just really spoils the fun to a significant extent that his very introduction in Binding Blade sees him macking on a captive prepubescent girl. however entertaining it may be that she snatches his wig on that occasion anyway.

fuck this morph

(5/10)

yeah, some people wish. notably including Brendan Reed-

the thing with Sonia is that she’s a little less believable than most folks in this archetype -- specifically because she’s not, like, working within the structures of power that would let her get away with being as much of a dip as she wants to; she’s earned her influential position by seducing the boss, which is hard to buy when, however attractive she may be, she never has a single positive interaction with anyone and nobody trusts her (barring Ursula on both counts, but she’s not the one who needs to be brought on board anyway). I realize what a phenomenon it is to think with one’s dick, but come on; surely, you don’t let your new friend with benefits tell you how to do your job just because she’s that good in bed or something.

that said, although her overall spot on the plot feels weakly implemented, she still makes for a tremendous bulwark to overcome specifically within Nino’s subplot. what a powerful confrontation against a lifelong abuser she provides in the end!

do not fuck this guy what is wrong with you

(3/10)

Valter is just uncomfortable as a character, which is limbo as far as emotion-inducing goes; it’s not particularly entertaining, and nor is it artfully terrifying in the way that Orson is. furthermore, I normally praise Sacred Stones’s antagonists for averting the way of behaving like a plot device, but this guy is the exception; he seems to primarily show up to cause trouble because trouble needs to be caused.

I feel like he’d have made for a far stronger character concept if his backstory had been handled differently, being more specific in what part of his mind broke when he held the cursed lance, instead of just being “now he does bad things and talks like he’s vaguely horny throughout”.

at least he’s quite a bit entertaining in Heroes where he gets voiced lines and no particular characters or plots to interact with -- but if that’s what it takes to make the character shine, it doesn’t really say good things about him.

fuck beauty

(5.5/10)

so, the truth come out: does this guy is deserve becoming the absolute teacher’s pet he’s been since Radiant Dawn? my verdict on the matter is: not really.

I mean, Path of Radiance actually writes him into a solid niche; for all the big words he emits about being a patron of beauty, he’s ultimately just the same kind of petty, ostentatious garbage that poisons the governance of Begnion, and finally taking him down for good and all makes for an excellent dive after all the work it takes to set the light of justice on him -- not just in Day Breaks (oh gooooooooddd) but over the course of the several chapters it takes.

it’s all downhill from there, though. his appareance in Radiant Dawn is not only unecessary, but also a deviation from the established writing to focus on pallid, ineffective jokes, like someone invented Heroes writing before the thing itself happened. he fights on your side because now he genuinely cares about beauty and art to the point he’ll fight a goddess over it? yeah, that’s not who he was.

and seriously, one strongly gets the impression that, in that appearance onwards, the punchline is just supposed to be that he’s fat, bald, wordy, and has a shitty mustache -- which, besides being blatant fatphobia, is seriously stale; “it’s funny because he’s ugly” is, like, at least two random minibosses per game, usually more.

fuck the senate

(2/10)

although he jabs a lot of the buttons that should make for an entertaining and stalwart hate sink, it ends up not really working.

his narcisism lacks the performatic grandeur of the likes of Narcian; it lands as pastiche at best, and common annoying smugness at worst. and although he’s powerful and influential enough to cause a bunch of problems, he’s introduced at a weird time that fails to make his specfic capabilties relevant to opposing the protagonists, and he ends up not doing a lot more than severely inconveniencing Zelgius (who is on his team) a couple times.

at least, the battle dialogue against him in Part 4 still provides some of the most fierce drags in Radiant Dawn

fuck the valm arc

(0/10)

seriously, fuck it

but ahem, onto the guy in question: he’s an annoying waste of writing space that doesn’t seem to be intended for any reason other than making the rest of Team Bad Guy look good, plain and simple.

you might be thinking, airlock, this is the third Awakening villain you blammed in four posts, are you just biased? the answer is: yes, but even if I were being perfectly fair, let’s be real, antagonists are just not one of that game’s strengths, overall. that just happens sometimes; I can really say the same thing of like Thracia 776, y’know?

fuck playing f- yeah, okay, that’s just low-hanging fruit

(??/10)

honestly, from this distance, none of Fates’s fixed antagonists bar Anankos really give me the impression of not just being despicable pastiche, but I’m guessing he’s supposed to be the one who actually intended to take it as a niche?

so, I’m just going to assume you hated this, but how was it? are you glad it’s over, or do you regret having read it at all? we’re probably not going to be spared from one of these characters on Three Houses, but specifically how much would you like to hate the one that comes along? to be honest, your thoughts aren’t remotely as good as mine, so I wouldn’t bother replying or reblogging to share them, worm. what? you’ll do it anyway!? how dare you! do you know what I’m capable of!?

[albion-93]

RWBY Analysis: Who is the Main Antagonist of Volume 6?

Disclaimer: Contains intense RWBY theorising and speculation inspired by Volume 6 Chapter 9 that is subject to being made redundant should the rest of the Volume go along like nothing as follows in this post.

RWBY has an interesting history when it comes its villains and antagonists. From Volumes 1 to 3 we saw a succession of rogues who fit the bill, each nastier than the last, from the likes of Roman Torchwick to Adam Taurus, Cinder Fall, and finally Salem. When it came to these four especially, and their criminal cohorts, the terms villain and antagonist went hand in hand. And with good reason, they were in active or indirect opposition to our protagonists’ actions, and their intentions and deeds ranged from petty theft to Machiavellian manipulation, terrorism and mass murder. Roman was a solid rival and foe to Ruby Rose, while Cinder served her role as main villain and antagonist well in Volumes 1 to 3, with Salem’s overarching series antagonist role revealed as a cliffhanger.

With Volumes 4 and 5, there were certainly plenty of villains but the role of main antagonist became somewhat complicated. As Team RWBY split up, most of them faced their own antagonist to overcome in various stages. In Vol 4 Weiss had her abusive father, Jacques Schnee; Blake had the White Fang operatives in Menagerie; Yang’s was at first psychological - the trauma of losing her arm and regaining her resolve to fight - and the second came in the form of her estranged survivalist mother Raven Branwen. Lastly is Ruby, who is sadly the most lacking in this department. Apart from her battles against the Grimm alongside Jaune, Nora and Ren, nothing came close to Roman or a potential enmity with Cinder, alas.

Now that RWBY is back together, things have changed. Cinder is now a month behind everyone else and unable to confront anyone. Salem is moving her minions into place in Atlas but doesn’t pose a direct threat to the heroes, though we will probably see Hazel, Tyrian and Watts out in the open at some point. Emerald is experiencing a crisis of allegiance, while Mercury seems to have chosen his side. Finally, Adam Taurus is as yet unaccounted for with no White Fang support to be found. 

You could argue that we’ve had the threat of personal demons and some excellent opposing interplay within the group, such as Ruby dealing with Qrow’s alcoholism and despair, Weiss’s reluctance to return to Atlas, Blake and Yang keeping a lid on their issues, and everyone falling into despair and anger at learning of Salem’s immortality. As effective as these are, there hasn’t been a single villainous character directly or indirectly circumventing the heroes’ actions. Odd.

So, I ask again, who is the main antagonist of Volume 6?

My personal take might shock many if you.

Since the start of Volume 6, this character’s words, choices and unfortunate past mistakes has led to more problems for the heroes than anything caused by Adam, Cinder or Salem. He’s nominally on the side of good but has failed in upholding his mission and his stagnation and secrecy has become a source of fear, discord, disunity and despair, more so than any servant of Salem. I am referring to Professor Ozpin.

Now let me be absolutely clear about this: Ozpin is NOT a villain.

Ozpin does not crave death, destruction, domination or the suffering of humanity. In the past, he was a kind and wise mentor to Ruby at Beacon, and a fair leader. He is ultimately someone who wants to put an end to Salem’s evil and somehow lift the curse, maybe once he believed he would be the one to finally do it. But now, he he’s a liability to Team RWBY, the remains of Team JNPR and of course his most recent incarnation, Oscar Pine.

If he had elected to tell the heroes that the Lamp attracts Grimm before boarding the Argus Express, and most vitally trust them, they might have avoided separation and being stranded. His constant omission of the truth, while claiming that it was for the greater good, is the same mentality that contributed to the Fall of Beacon. The more his pessimism, bitterness and double standard thinking emerged, the more the group’s distrust grew, culminating in Oscar briefly regaining control and revealing the Jinn in the Lamp. He was even prepared to use force to stop Ruby from asking Jinn what he was hiding. Overcome with despair and shame, he retreated deep into Oscar’s mind. They were left there to endure the Brunswick Farms horrors because of him.

I don’t blame him for retreating as he did, especially given the secrets regarding Salem. But when they finally reached Argus and the truth was revealed to Team JNR, he didn’t even re-emerge to come to Oscar’s defence from Jaune’s anger, and let him take the brunt of it. Again, there was no malice on Ozpin’s part, but in not intervening he allowed the rift between Oscar and the others to widen. In an older post, I said that if I were Oscar I would have taken my chances with the cold weather and Grimm rather than stay with people mad at me for another man’s mistakes. That came true in Dead End. So how is it he went from this...

To this?

The thing that struck me in the recent episode Lost was the reveal that Oscar had seemingly been waiting for the group at the Cotta-Arc house sporting new,  princely clothes and having cooked dinner for everyone. I do not think for a moment that that’s the real Oscar who welcomed the gang back. Absolutely nothing about what we saw in the previous episode, being threatened, isolated and emotionally dumped on naturally leads into him being relaxed, willing to reaffirm his mission to help RWBY, accepting his fate, easily forgiving Jaune and cooking dinner for everyone. Why would he do any of this? 

Looking at his body language and choice of words, he seems too calm, confident and controlled to be Oscar. His new combat outfit lines up with the green motif shared in other past Ozma incarnations, even with the red flourishes and leather fittings. Also, take a read of this dialogue, and instead of Oscar pretend it’s Ozpin saying this to the group:

Many have said that this sounds an awful lot like someone with a terminal illness would say, and that this could be a sign of the Merge happeninng. But why is the story acting like Oscar is the one who will fade away, when Jinn showed the different approaches Ozma had to coexisting with his hosts? 

Personally, I think it’s Ozpin imitating Oscar. He seemed surprised when he found out the group were looking for him, so how could Oscar not know why they were looking for him? For Ozpin, it’s a perfect cover since the group still doesn’t trust him but are are happy to see the boy safe. Asserting his desire to help extends a proverbial peace offering, while keeping the nature of the possession ambiguious. Also, isn’t cooking dinner for someone (or indeed twelve people) a pretty good way of making amends? 

But hang on, how could Ozpin still be an antagonist if he’s promising to help the heroes and wants to bury the grudges between them? He’s not telling the truth and remaining entrenched in the same mindset that has weakened their efforts in the past. Also, if Oscar is being locked inside his own head and being used for deception this is certainly a moral breach.

I think Oscar would have succeeded in running away or done something much worse if Oz didn’t forcibly intervene. Such a move would be very in keeping with Ozpin’s pattern of actions; the idea of committing a little evil in the name of the greater good, i.e. to return Oscar safely  to the group he had to forcibly take over. Also, the omission of vital truths and maintaining an amiable facade in the belief that everyone is happier for not knowing the full story. There’s even escalating a dangerous solution whilst potentially alienating or endangering others and removing the option of choice, just like in Volume 3.

It would be a cruel twist of irony if Jaune’s angry rant at Oscar in the house actually became a self fulfilling prophecy; “How do we know it’s really him?! What if we’ve been talking to that liar this whole time?!” By denying Oscar’s individuality when he was at his most vulnerable, he sowed the seeds for Oz to return and deceive the heroes into thinking Oscar returned of his own free will.

Now, imagine if all this crazy theory-crafting proved correct and the truth came out, Ozpin would have to contend with the wrath of RWBY and JNR, for duplicity, manipulation and subduing another’s will. And yet, unless something changes within him or his soul and Oscar’s battle for survival, there is nothing anyone can do. A once good mentor turned antagonist, with no villainous intent or goal, who cannot be challenged, driven away, imprisoned or killed without hurting his innocent host. Now that is a terrifying foe...

Aside Note: If it IS Oscar talking and this is something that he has decided himself, we didn’t see the process of making that decision for himself and go through classic character development or spiritual guidance to reach that point and signal his newfound commitment to the mission. This isn’t just a plot hole, this is an easy fix, and completely antithetical to good storytelling. After eight episodes where there were no easy fixes in the plot, why is this suddenly allowed? Maybe a character short could retcon character growth into place, but I have serious doubts.

The one point I will give is the look shared between Ruby and Ozcar when she complimented his new attire. That seemed like a genuine Oscar moment and expression, and I could buy that he chose red to earn Ruby’s attention. But I’m still suspicious.

Thank you to all who’ve read this long analysis post. I’m sure the next episode has a very different idea from what I’m proposing, maybe a much less dark outcome, but this was a very interesting train of thought to indulge.

[help-its-a-dot]

Alright so when I took this job they said all I had to do was narrate. You know, just follow this guy around and relay what he’s doing, make it sound interesting, yada yada yada.

Ok now that I say it out loud I realize that I’ve probably looked like a stalker for the past few days.

Fun.

ANYWAYS I was going somewhere with this; I had a point. Right. My point was that I didn’t think I’d end up in the middle of a burned down park, cowering in absolute terror behind some rocks that I really wish were bigger, and longing with all that's left of my heart that I could be one of those people that are, given the situation, naturally sprinting away whilst screaming at the top of their lungs.

Should I run away? I mean, it seems like the more logical option here; If I could get over that bridge, then I’d-

*bridge disintegrates*

Well there goes that.

Looks like I’ll be narrating then! Yippee. So, I should probably warn you, I haven’t exactly been paying attention to my assigned main character, ergo I don't have that much background knowledge. Oh who am I kidding, I have none.

Anyhow, sorry, I know I should be narrating. I’m getting to that. Background knowledge. What do I know?

Uh, actually nothing much happened to this dude. A few weeks ago he found a dead body in his bathtub. Now that I think about it, that’s probably where I should’ve started paying attention….

Ah, fucked this up, didn’t I.

Also, as a side note, I’m gonna be calling this dumbass Jake because my dumbass kind of sort of didn’t ever really at all catch his name.

Alrighty folks! I’m gonna…. Be brave…. And peek out from behind these rocks…. Did I mention how much I wished they were bigger? 

Ahem. *clears throat*. Narrator voice. *nods decisively*. Lets go.

There’s fire everywhere. On the tops of trees like snow at the peaks of mountains (how are there even still trees here) bushes have morphed into bonfires, while patches of grass are practically leaking little flames like a dope game of ‘the floor is lava’.

Jake stands, looking at the devastation with wide eyes. Smoke billows out into the sky, painting the already grey clouds black.

A deafening crash sounds behind him- you know, the kind you get when a boulder squishes a four story building like it’s a three year old’s structure of off brand legos. He’s thrown to the ground, and waits, breathing heavily.

Aw god why did I forgot my flask of vodka today? I freaking need it.

And as if that weren’t enough, a spaceship just blipped into the sky.

Should I run?

I should probably run.

Sorry, sorry, I’m not very good at this narrator thing. In my defense, I didn’t think they were serious! Alright, I’m gonna try that again.

Suddenly, and quite literally out of nowhere, there’s a fatally blinding blue-red light, making everyone in the immediate vicinity-- which isn’t that many people anymore, most have used their last few remaining drops of common sense and fled for their lives --squeeze their eyes shut and hastily bury their heads in whatever was nearest and most convenient to shield themselves from impending blindness, wailing in a mix of surprise and agony. All flames previously terrorizing the verdure are extinguished and the smoke is blown out as a single gust of forceful wind, which also effectively topples the few remaining, yet charred nonetheless, trees, buildings, and people.

Augh, ew, eurgh, I got a mouthful of Martin’s grocery bag. How do I know it’s Martin’s? They have a distinctive taste of mild sadness and resignation. Right, right, the spaceship. 

See, when I say spaceship, I mean cool looking flying saucer thingy appearing like it was plucked right out of a conspiracy theory and given some upgrades. It’s a giant, azure/ultramarine blue, except for the bottom which shines in a weirdly mesmerizing yellowish glow, squished sphere. Oval. Pancake. Sorry, I don't know my shapes. It seems to be practically thrumming with energy, like it drank five red bulls followed by ten extremely caffeinated coffees and finished it all off with a few five hour energy drinks. 

I cannot tell you how much I hope it doesn't do what it looks like it’s gonna do and explode.

Meanwhile, Jake has picked up… a sword. Well shit. Medieval, much? Not a gun? No? Personally, I think a gun would be extraordinarily effective against the horde of what looks like blobs but are probably extravagantly dangerous aliens filing in a weirdly orderly single file line out of the saucer and immediately beginning to lomp closer and closer and closer crap did I mention they were getting closer?

Should I run?

I should probably run.

Hold up, no, that reminds me, I’m supposed to be narrating. God, I’m atrocious at this, aren’t I.

He feels sweat break out on his brow. The sword is heavy in his hands, and he can barely lift it, let alone decapitate a blob, but he’s in too deep to let his weariness show. He’s gotta be strong and save what’s left of these people, this city, or die trying. Which is probably what’ll happen in a few minutes. But ah, well, he’ll die fighting for Americanos , which can’t be all that bad.

Technically, if you think about it, he’s suicidal, because his colossal ego will not, quite literally, for the life of him, allow him to take a smart route, like getting into that convenient truck and bowling over all the blobs, or snatching up a gun from that store across the street, or even just alerting someone who is actually capable at dealing with an event like this like the authorities.

But what can he do, he is American, after all. It's simply unavoidable; part of the culture description. *white people i swear

He watches morbidly as Martin’s grocery bags blow past from the ruins before him, and glances up as the spaceship above him gives one final thrum and blips away, probably back to wherever it came from, leaving him alone with an army of blobs bouncing threateningly towards him.

In truth, he didn’t know what they were. All he knew was that if they kept destroying everything at this rate, there won't be a single McDonalds left in America, and he couldn’t have that. Of course, by then there wouldn’t even be an America, and everyone would have to go to the McDonalds’ in Russia. Russia has McDonalds, right? Oh, he simply could not do that to his fellow citizens! 

He pondered this, along with whether or not Australia exists, all the while counting down the seconds (...7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1… 5, 4, 3, 2, 1… dammit 3, 2, 1… 3, 2, 1… 3, 2-- he’d get it eventually) until his doom and willing his arms not to shake with the incredible weight of the sword in his hands. Whose idea was it to make swords out of metal, anyways? It’s incredibly stupid-- nowadays 90% of America wouldn’t even be able to muster the courage to touch one, let alone the strength to lift one. 

Ugh, he knew he should’ve gone with that plastic light saber he’d seen at the mall. At least then he could’ve gone down with style.

As if on cue, there’s another, at this point expected, crash resounding behind him, and he turns to watch in despair as said mall tumbles almost comically to the ground. 

There goes the light saber.

And another McDonalds.

Ohh, things were getting bad.

The park, if you could still call it a park, is deserted now save for the occasional Martin’s grocery bag skittering about, and he can’t help but give in to the desire to reflect upon his life. He wasted it, playing video games and other shit like that all day, every day. This is the first time he’s been outside in a long time. He now knows with absolute certainty that if he were ever granted such an opportunity he’d go back and redo it all. He’d try harder to beat that level, he’d get the better controller, he’d stay up later working on his technique. But all that was a distant dream now, something he could not hope to accomplish now.

He wished that maybe, just maybe, heaven would have a nice game console for him.

When he’d gotten selflessly sucked into this adventure, he never thought he’d actually die, never expected anything to really happen- If he had, he of course would never have turned the power of his last 8 braincells away from a computer screen and into the real world to start investigating.

Ah fuck, sorry for interrupting, I think I twisted my wrist or some shit while trying to get a better vantage point on these still too small rocks. 

Should I run?

I should probably run.

On a different note: I’m really sorry guys. When you take a narrator job they never tell you anything about your person. Had I known he was American, I would have immediately sabotaged this entire thing; I could never in good conscience have subjected you guys to.. well.. this.

But alas, now I’m stuck narrating an American who is going to get me killed.

Unless… Unless there’s a loophole. My parents were lawyers, so I excel at finding those.

The rules are, you have to stay with your hero and narrate their adventure. How an American turned out to be one of the heroes, I know not, it must be a glitch in the system. But I’ll be fucking damned if this glitch gets me killed. Literally. So! Once the hero, inevitably, dies, you’re free to go. There’s nothing much left to narrate afterwards. And since Jake is closer to the horde of blobs coming our way than I am, as soon as he’s bowled over I’ll sprint. To the side, like a smart immigrant would do. Not straight back, because then the blobs’d just follow me and kill me, so the only logical conclusion is to circle around them and see if my apartment is still intact. I didn’t finish my cream puffs and I really don't want them to melt.

They’re getting closer. He can hear their squelching, and the chicken nuggets in his stomach churn unpleasantly. There’s bits of goo flying off them in all directions, and when said goo makes contact with something it immediately disintegrates that unfortunate something, leaving nothing behind. Is this really the fate that’ll befall him? Is this how the world ends?

Well, death by disintegration it is then. Oh, he can’t wait to brag to his boys about this.

Oh, wait, no, that’s not right. He’ll be dead.

And, in the last few moments before the blobs reach him, he reconsiders. There’s still so much this cruel world has to offer, and he never took advantage of any of it. Nor was he ever grateful for much of it. 

He suddenly feels a new feeling. Determination. He will destroy every single one of these vile creatures, and he WILL come out of it intact. He has to. 

With new resolve he scrapes together the last of his strength and raises his trusty sword over his head, every nonexistent muscle tense, ready. They’re getting closer. Closer. 50 yards. 30 yards. 20. 10. Just a few feet.

He takes a deep breath, closing his eyes dramatically. Swings his sword.

And is immediately squashed with the most sickening squelch there could ever be.

Ew.

Should I run?

I should probably run.

Yeah, I’m gonna run.

[oldhector]

a big sad drabble!

word count: 3378 content: it’s amazing what one can find in london’s museums, but the surprises aren’t always pleasant ones. an esteemed author is forced to remember a time he’d almost forgotten, many years ago.

Matthew Purcell was an English professor in Washington DC. He’d just published a suddenly successful paper on language in poetry, creating ripples in the literature circles just as the turn of the century was taking place. Innovations in all fields were taking place, and the 19th century promised to be a good one. In both human ingenuity, and his own disposition. Matthew finally felt like he was doing something worthwhile again.

Matthew’s paper, however, didn’t fit into the grand innovations category as far as he was concerned. It was formatted to excellence and painstakingly written, but fairly empty, in his opinion. It really wasn’t particularly profound, simply citing other authors making valid points on the subject, and furthering (or questioning) their discussions. His central argument was how language and the proper use of it could make or break an aspiring author (in any profession), and that sometimes the content didn’t even matter. Perhaps the fact that it had done so well was an experiment in itself.  How amusing. 

Nevertheless, he was contacted by several universities in England to come and give a talk on it. Who was he to refuse an expenses paid holiday? Matthew was due for a change of character anyway, his colleagues and friends had started to notice that he really wasn’t ageing. He’d do these talks, then die in a traffic accident, bribe a morgue owner, and start afresh somewhere new. It was a shame, he’d loved the writing. Maybe he could continue under a new alias and put his paper’s idea to the test. Could he go back to being Hector yet? He didn’t mind new names, but he preferred keeping his original, given name. It felt more like he was still himself that way.

The journey was as enjoyable as it could have been, given the cooler time of year, and he spent three days on arrival sleeping. He’d lost his sea legs, it seemed. On the third day, after a sound breakfast, Matthew decided to take a stroll down to the museum. It wasn’t four blocks away, and the weather was fine. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Birds sung as they always had, the clouds hurried by as they always had.

Matthew always liked to visit the ancient Greek section first. He’d do the exhibits in chronological order if he could, and take time looking at the bits and pieces from everyday life that modern historians found interesting. There would always be something new to appreciate about things he’d taken for granted when they were contemporary. While he enjoyed that aspect of it, looking at remnants of the past often brought memories back. Sometimes they’d flicker behind his eyes and be gone in an instant, he’d need only blink to forget the face of the dying friend once relying on a helmet like the one behind glass. Other times he’d see a toy and imagine that he’d given something similar to a daughter of his at some point in time. He’d imagine the face of someone who looked too specific to have been made up, but the names escaped him. People and scenes would appear in a mist that dissipated if he focused on it. Any memory recall stronger than that would create an ache he could only wait out.

However much he liked them, museums gave him a headache more often than not, but he knew it was important to remember the past. To remember who he’d been in the lifetimes before. He hadn’t always had the wealth he had now, nor the opportunities. It was important to stay humble. That much, he had learnt the hard way. And people really were wonderful, weren’t they? Idolising simple objects from the past as something glorious simply because it had survived through the years. Matthew should have felt proud to stand on the other side of the glass, despite very much deserving being encased.

Pottery. Beads. Rusted sword fragments. Statuettes. Funerary offerings, which still felt a little dirty to have been removed. Matthew tried to distance himself from his old religion once again because it haunted him with a little worry, a little voice saying that Hades would be pissed. It had been nearly two-thousand years since he’d worshipped those gods, after all. But he passed with polite interest. Occasionally his brow would draw closer as another flash of memory showed its face, but he tried to stay relaxed. It wasn’t unpleasant to remember.

That was when he noticed it, out of the corner of his eye. Maybe Matthew had been searching for it all along, and subconsciously inspected every funerary monument in the hopes that he’d see the one he’d lost. This one was the lowest on display - metal rods gripped the marble and held it in place right at the bottom. No glass sheltered this one. The marble had worn a little around the edges, but the faces looked remarkable given the stele’s age. Matthew had been wrong before -- found himself almost convinced that he was looking at the funerary monument that he’d made for his family after their death, but... this was something else. Matthew crumbled to his knees, stinging eyes taking in as many details as they could. He tried to remember what he’d had made all those years ago, but it was still hazy. Three men and a woman occupied the allotted space. All adults. One of the men had his arm wrapped around the woman, another stood behind her, and the last on her left.

And just like that, Matthew wasn’t Matthew anymore, he was Hector. He wasn’t some American author, but a man with more stitches than substance on that old heart of his. A man who couldn’t die, cursed with longevity. If only his life had been as simple as the story cooked up this time around. If only he’d spent his 45 years with his nose in the books, a widower with no children to show for the marriage. Alas, this wasn’t the case. He felt all his years accumulate in a fist that punched him in the gut. This funerary stele was too familiar. The suit felt tight on his thighs, tight on his shoulders and back, it felt strange all of a sudden. Constricting. Untrue to himself. He wanted his bow and arrow, he wanted his tunic and his robes. 

Desperate eyes read a faded, and fragmentary in parts inscription. As he read, he made sense of the missing letters. The Greek translated instantly without a moment’s falter. This was his family’s monument. It had been recovered. The words read in full:

TO STRONG DIOKLES, KIND MATEO, BRAVE SONS TO HECTOR OF SPARTA, YOU LIGHT THE WAY THOUGH YOU ARE GONE.

Thank the gods that he was by himself in this gallery, not that Hector was in the least aware of his surroundings, but he was crying. The building could be falling to pieces and he’d still be stuck in this void. Breathlessness. Amazement. Sorrow. Pure, untainted grief. His body felt heavy and slow. He couldn’t recall the last time he felt such strong emotion. It was awful, but humanising. Hector felt real. He was flooded by memories of the loved ones he’d lost long ago, and flashes of memory were brought to his mind in such fresh, quick succession that they might have died two years ago, not two thousand. The rest of the inscription came to mind, but he had to pause before he could finish it. His chest might split if he didn’t. So he bowed his head, scrunching his eyes shut. Was he happy that he’d found it, or grieved to remember? When he could, he read on:

TO ACHELOIS. MY LOVE, I WILL MISS YOU FOR ETERNITY.

Hector couldn’t take it anymore. Though his hand clasped firmly across his mouth, strangled sobs still echoed in the lonely gallery. He tried to contain himself. He tried to recover, but the longer he stared -- and he couldn’t look away -- the quicker tears sprung to his eyes. Within moments, he was sobbing. His throat closed up, trying to weep a little quieter, but anyone would be able to hear him now. He didn’t care. He reached out with his free hand to brush shaking fingers across the words, the faces. He wouldn’t touch any old monument, but this was HIS property. HIS, by RIGHT. God, he couldn’t believe that he was able to touch it again.

His hands guided the way from words to the figures. He’d almost been afraid to look at them too closely lest the memories take him away. He couldn’t see. He brushed the tears away roughly but more poured. Hector pulled the collar of his jacket up to press into his face and he took a moment to breathe. Unsurprisingly, the peace wasn’t strong enough to withstand setting eyes on his grave marker again. He’d included himself, he remembered vividly thinking, because the true Hector of Sparta died with his immediate family. The man who lived beyond that was a ghost.

Attention drew to man at the right of the funerary stele. He was only fractionally shorter than the other men, with a ground-touching cloak wrapped around his person. He held a staff, or was it a spear, with the top so badly scratched that he couldn’t tell? His expression was softer, with short curly hair and a short curly beard. Mateo. He used to talk about how incredible politics were in Athens, even though he was Spartan. He never believed in the Spartan way, and though Hector wasn’t present for it, Mateo had apparently kicked up a fuss at being called to fight against Athens in the war. Hector lived with Mateo until he too died, but he was older then. They’d talk for hours about the heaviest subjects, never fearing to offend the other because every argument could be talked through. True intellectual equals, but Hector would always say that Mateo was cleverer than his father. He’d made him so proud.

The man who stood in the back was the tallest. Diokles, the first-born son. He wore armour, standing proudly and protectively over his family. Diokles had been such a good child, the most obedient and strong son anyone could ask for. The man calling himself Matthew could remember a scene in a soul-encasing memory. He’d walked into his house to find his mother telling Diokles false accounts. He couldn’t remember the details, but Gaia was trying to paint the image of Diokles’ doting father as some kind of violent killer. Whatever had been said, Diokles looked terrified when Hector returned. Infuriated, he had packed her things and sent her away. He’d kicked his own mother out of the house. Not before, if he could remember correctly, she’d smacked him across the face. But she’d done it outside, away from view. It didn’t matter. When he got back inside, Diokles was practically cowering. He had to be coaxed from the corner, like some kind of frightened kitten. Was he really so threatening? 

Diokles was never scared after that. Hector never struck his family, and barely ever raised his voice. Certainly not in the way Gaia had been suggesting - cruel woman! Had she believed that Spartan boys ought to fear their fathers? Yes... thinking about it, that would make sense to her. The memory ended with his son kissing his cheek. Hector was a killer, but the world was different then. Still swept away in himself, he reached shaking fingers out to stroke the marble carved into his son’s face. Cold, unmoving. Hector had almost been expecting soft warmth. Diokles was fair, and trustworthy. Hector wasn’t able to get to know him much as an adult as he had died fairly young, but he was level-headed in the most necessary of times. The memory subsided, and before he could picture the colour of his son’s eyes, they were lost once again to history.

The woman was smaller than the others, and the sharp angle of her diamond chin was perfectly shown in her front-facing angle. Her stare was regal and controlling, and to coin a phrase not yet known in the Greek world at this time, she was truly the mater familias. She ran the household. She gave the orders. Better suited to be a queen than a mercenary’s wife, Achelois was intelligent as Athene, sneaky as Hera, and far more beautiful than Aphrodite herself. Her curly hair fell to her shoulders, partially tied up at the back, with a band around her forehead. She had a sharp nose, perfectly distanced eyes, and a joke always on her lips. Her draping dress was clasped at both collar-bones, though Hector tended to prefer to on the floor. She still looked beautiful, if lifeless now. Of course she was lifeless now. 

Seeing her face again just about broke his heart. His hands dropped to his lap. Tears stole his vision. Hector couldn’t help the loud sobs now, lungs gasping for air. He longed for something that they’d touched, for them to feel close again. He wrapped his arms around his middle. 

They’d all held him. 

Diokles had been a boy, it was before Hector had come into contact with what turned him immortal. This was the last time he’d hugged his father, before Hector left to fight in the war. He’d been just a man and his son, bidding each other farewell. When they met as adults, Diokles never believed that Hector was his father. He was too young to be, so he’d said. There was no convincing him. Though it made his chest ache, Hector had always been impressed at his unwavering loyalty. How sad that he’d never been able to hold his first born child again. They never even got to say goodbye. Did Diokles know how much he was loved?

Achelois had wrapped her arms around him first when they were children; she was his first true friend. She’d always been a firm believer in hugs -- but she’d never hold the other boys close. It was always Hector, even when he wasn’t there. Hector had been so lucky to have known such a woman. He cried ever harder at the thought of her death. She was so old, and tired, and she’d told him not to weep. But he had been. He couldn’t help it. The world had never quite looked the same since she died. How he’d prayed that he could die with her! How he’d cursed the gods!

Mateo had been there for Hector after Achelois died. He’d welcomed him into his house at first not quite believing it, but he eventually came round. It would have been wretched if Mateo had abandoned him too. But he hadn’t. In fact, Mateo let Hector live with him until he was nothing more than ashes himself. How he’d loved his boys and his best friend. It was difficult to feel grateful to have known them when faced with the tragedy of out-living them.

It was only a matter of time until someone found him. Footsteps. Hector untangled from around himself and pressed one hand against the floor. He was trying to stand, but no muscle in his body would cooperate. Voices. It was a man’s -- deep and unsettling -- in his ear as he felt himself hoisted up off the ground. Hector had almost been calm now, save for the face drenched in sorrow, but the touch startled him. He tore himself free once he found his footing and put distance between them. He heard himself shouting, but couldn’t tell what he was saying. Was he even speaking English? It was like the present was a distant memory that he couldn’t quite locate.

Another pair of hands gripped his right bicep, and the first man lunged forward to take his left arm. Voices were muffled. He could feel his throat tense and strain as if he was screaming. Maybe he was.

Suddenly, a man started speaking in Greek. Hector’s painful eyes scanned for where it was coming from, and for a second, he thought he saw Mateo standing nearby. A man of average build with a cloak around his shoulders, short hair, and a beard, was asking him what was wrong. In Greek. The vision of Mateo faded, and the hair atop this man’s head faded too. He was much older than Mateo ever was, but he looked kind and fair. He motioned to an open door. Hector’s throat relaxed. He hung his head, dragging his feet behind him. Exhausted.

They took him to one of the offices attached to the classics division. Brandy was poured, a cigarette was lit, and a doctor was called. Hector could only sit stock still on the sofa with a shawl around his shoulders. The old man continued speaking Greek to him, but as Hector came round, he finally was able to tell him that English was fine too. Preferable, even.

“Please cancel the doctor, sir,” Hector pleaded once he’d finished his drink. “I’m-- I’m alright. I just received some news that took me by surprise.”

“Whatever could it have been, my boy, to put you in such a state?” He replied gruffly. “And the Greek? You sound American to me. Are you quite well?”

“Greek-- it’s my first language, but I studied in America. I, uh...” he sat back in his seat. This had drained him, he wanted to sleep for another few days. Letting the shawl slip from his shoulders, he raised his hands to rub down his face. God, his eyes ached. “My family-- they’re dead. Please don’t have me explain, I don’t trust that I won’t return to my hysteria.”

The professor nodded, but Hector had his hands over his eyes at the time and missed it. “The doctor shall come. A respectable man doesn’t lose himself like that in public, even in the face of loss. Stiff upper lip.”

Hector’s hands lifted from his face only to send a venomous glare to his company. What a ridiculous thing to say. Imagine if he had recently been bereaved; his whole family stolen from him in one fateful morning. If that had been the case, Hector didn’t count on being able to control his anger. But as it was, he knew there was distance between him and his loss. This loss, anyway. The professor had more of a point than he realised. So his fury dissipated and he let out a sigh, pushing himself off the couch and onto his feet.

“Thank you for your hospitality.” Hector let the old soldier in him take over. He stood tall, chin high, with a voice as strong (if croaky) as any. “I’ll shoulder any embarrassment this may have caused you, and donate accordingly. I let my emotions get the better of me, and I sincerely apologise.”

The professor insisted that he stay at least for the doctor, so out of respect, Hector did. The doctor didn’t have anything revolutionary to say when he did finally arrive. Simply ordered an early night and asked if he’d had a stiff drink yet. He had, so the doctor was satisfied. 

Hector left as soon as he could. He was glad for the old man’s kindness, but also his bluntness. Had he not been curt, Hector might still be stuck in his head. But now, as overwhelmed by pain as he still felt, he knew he could make it back to his hotel without a scene. Sturdy as he seemed now, he still couldn’t bring himself to pass through the gallery again. He felt nauseous, hollow. Alone. His jacket couldn’t protect him against the bleak cold he now felt, but the warmth he longed for was Achelois’ smile. Nothing else would do.

He met the men who had helped him earlier, and shook their hands. It felt easier than letting awkwardness fester between them. These three gentlemen were much kinder than they had any need to be, as was his opinion of them. Perhaps things were different in actuality, but Hector was grasping at every single good thing that came his way in order to regain just an ounce of his former mood. Truthfully, he felt like he’d just been shattered.

[lokis-lady-death]

Return to Crimson Peak

Disclaimer: This story is written as a sequal to Crimson Peak. If you couldn’t handle the original story, please don’t read, because that would be dumb. 

Sir Thomas Sharpe x Reader

Mini Series Halloween (Special thanks to @bambamwolf87 for going back and forth on this idea!) 

My name is (y/n), and I would like to tell you a story.

A love story. Filled with hate. Filled with sin. Something real and imaginary, exciting and terrifying.

I want to tell you a ghost story.

There were all kinds of ghost stories that have floated through the world, like a dense fog, capturing the imaginations of those who hear them. Some based as far back as when nobility and class were all anyone cared about, some as notorious as Jack the Ripper, some as tragic as children getting taken by monsters. Each story holds some truths, based on some sort of factual event that forever concretes the illusion of a ghost to the world of the living. Alas, they all inevitably fade away. They become fables we tell children, destined to be nothing more than boy scout campfire tales.

Utter nonsense really.

But then, every once in a while, against all reasonable belief, there is a ghost story so rifeting, so heart wrenching -so full of lust, ambition, and murder- that at the end it leaves one questioning their sanity.

Crimson peak is one of those ghost stories.

The first time my brother Luke and I heard the story of Crimson Peak was from our grandmother. I remember visiting the family home in Buffalo, New York, listening to her spin fantisful tales of this or that while pouring me tea. Grandmother was a wonderful storyteller, a trait I was told she inherited from her own mother, Edith McMichael. Better known by her maiden name, Edith Cushings.

She told us that Edith had grown up a beautiful, well educated woman of the upper society of New York. An unwed heiress that only cared about one thing: writing stories. That is, until her own story had an unexpected character added to the plot. Thomas Sharpe.

From there, everyone knows the story, most likely even read the book.

But this story became something more to my brother. He wanted more than the book. He wanted the experience.

He wanted to see and live it for himself.

As he grew older, he researched more into the story and found the home in which everything took place: Allerdale Hall. As it turned out, the gothic mansion had been made over to be a secluded, lavish hotel for rich bureaucrats traveling the English countryside in the 50’s, however in the 80’s the attention died down. It went a long time without use until 2010 when a new owner took over and turned it into a Victorian Bed and Breakfast with a twist: while it’s 50’s counterpart tried to pretend nothing awful happened in that house, the new owner exploited it. There was even an episode of Ghost Hunter filmed where someone stayed the night in the bed and breakfast. They stayed in Lucille’s room but never saw her ghost. He did say the new owner and her husband were rather odd, though he thought they were just trying to give into the haunted theme they tried to portray.

It was disheartening to say the least that other than the story of Crimson Peak itself, it seemed like there was no actual haunting. I eventually lost interest and moved on with my life, diving into school and social life. But not Luke. He still felt drawn to the story and after working doubles for two months and convincing me to split the fees, we were set to travel to England and actually stay the night in Allerdale Hall.

Which is where my story begins.

*****

“This is it!” Luke exclaimed, heaving one bag onto his shoulder and another under his arm. “Crimson Peak!”

I cut my eyes at my brother, almost annoyed at the whole situation. His Ghosts are Real shirt, his bag of ghost summonings, our grandmother’s copy of Crimson Peak all in hand so as to crescent it with what he deems the unholy land. “I can’t believe you talked me into this…”

His blonde curls bounced as he turned to face our home for the next few days. “But… Just look at it, y/n....”

Turning up from the cab, I took in the entirety of Allerdale Hall. Grand, magnificent, dark, and foreboding, it stood against a gray canvas of fog. In front of it, the key part of the entire story, Sir Thomas Sharpe’s mining invention.

My eyes followed upward the structure, absorbing every last archway and stone of the complex before resting on a single window where I caught sight of a pale faced man.

I was snapped back to my brother when he called my name for what I had to assume by his aggravated tone was not the first time. “What?”

“I said grab your shit, I ain’t no packmule.”

I grabbed my bags and followed him through the double doors.

Inside, it was evident all the work the new owners had put into the mansion. It was extravagant but dark, framed perfectly with a massive wooden staircase that opened all the way to the other floors, victorian era artwork lining every inch of wall space, and a single grand crystal chandelier shining over the foyer.

“Welcome!” called out a british accent. A pink haired woman popped up from behind the registry desk with a gleaming, misplaced smile. “I’m the owner, I go by Rain. You must be the Cushings!”

As if the overtly brightness of her hair was too much for the gothic mansion, she countered with a steampunk style victorian dress of silk, leather metal loops and chains that dangled from her sleeves and a leather corset hugging at her waist.

“Actually, that’s not our name…” I corrected while Luke simply began signing the guest book.

“But you ARE descendants of Edith Cushing, right?” she pushed.

“I… Yes, we are. How did you...?”

“I found you on Ancestry.com! I have been a huge fan of your great, great grandmother for a long time! I saved up for years to buy this place,” the owner said as she looked around the empty lobby with a since of overbuilt romanticism. “Crimson Peak has always been a passion of mine.”

“You two should get along swell then,” I mumbled as Luke laid down the pen. “Now, about our rooms….”

“OH yes!” she exclaimed while pulling out two skeleton keys, handing you each one. “You will be in the west wing, Lucille’s old room,” the owner told Luke. “And you,” she said with a sideways grin, “You’ll be down the hall in Sir Thomas’s room.”

I took the key and stared at it, feeling my heart start to race. “I....”

“Excellent!” my brother cut me off, taking the sets of keys. “Are we allowed to explore some?”

There was some mischief behind the owner’s eyes when she answered, “Its actually encouraged.”

While Luke looked more than please, I had to stop and ask, “Won’t that be disruptive to your other customers?”

“Judging by the guest book, we’re the only ones staying here.”

“Correct! We normally slow down on visitors during the colder months. Which is a shame, because that’s when things always get fun around here.” Rain cut me a wink before finishing, “Now, enjoy!”

Luke’s hand grabbed hold of my shoulder to steer me away from the desk. “Yes, we will, thank you, Ms. Rain!” Just passed her I could make out another grand room with a marble fireplace and piano.

“That’s where Lucille used to play music for her brother,” Luke told like an extremely zealous curator at a museum. I wrinkled my nose, remembering that detail from the book. “Come on, let’s go find our rooms!”

At the base of the stairs was a framed layout of the house to help guests find their way around. A large YOU ARE HERE arrow laid out where you began. Luke’s finger followed the line up to the right and down a hall to West Wing where the two of you would be staying.

Luke held out my key before flashing me one of his overly excited grins, he spat out, “Race ya!”

Before I could argue how rude, childish, and annoying he was being, Luke was off. Never one to be outdone, I bolted up behind him, hoping I remembered the layout. By the time I got to the top of the stairwell, I saw my brother’s sneakers right before they disappeared down a hall. When I got to the opening of the hall, I turned and saw no one. Taking a few steps forward, I listened intently to try and pinpoint where my brother had gone.

But nothing.

“Fuck,” I mumbled under my breath. Giving up on the race, I let out an exasperated sigh and wandered deeper in to the house.

‘Do I turn here?’ I asked myself when I found another hall off the main one. I still didn’t see Luke, so I called out for him but I got no answer.

A round window at the other end of the stretch was all that illuminated my path, casting shadows from the intricate woodwork of the moldings and ceiling.

I was distracted when I heard a soft disruption in all the stillness of the house. I stopped and listened. Someone was moving around in one of the rooms, but which one, I wondered. Following the sound, I came to the end of the hall. A light on the other side was so bright that it boiled through the small gap where the door met the floor. Some more ruffling from the other side confirmed I was at the right room, I could even see shadows move through the light.

“Luke, is this your room?” I asked, going to turn the knob. But it was locked.

“No?” I jumped when I unexpectedly heard his voice from the other end of the hall, where I had just come from. “What are you doing down here?” he asked, “We’re this way.”

“I heard someone, I thought it was you...” I turned back, eying the floor where the light shone through. But there was none now. No light. No movement. Just stillness.

“Oh…” I swallowed but shook my head, knowing it had to be my own imagination getting the better of me.

“You’re already getting haunted?” Luke asked with a hint of jealousy.

“No, you idiot, this stupid house just has me on edge is all.” I grabbed up my bags and eyed him. “Now show me where our rooms are so I can sleep off this jet lag!”

Back down the main hall, he showed me where a set of double doors led down a private wing. The West Wing.

“Here’s your room,” Luke said, taking my key to open it. “My room is the last one on the left.”

The door creaked so horribly it felt like it echoed through the whole mansion.

It did not disappoint. The room, like everything else in the house, was massive, the walls solid wood carved and etched with such fine, minute detail it felt like a painting. The ceiling had golden loops around where two chandeliers hung on either side of the massive four poster bed that sat opposite of a fireplace.

“Holy shit…. Maybe this won’t be so bad, “ I reasoned as I pulled out my phone to text my friends back in the US.

Luke’s voice cracked as he watched, knowing what you must be doing. “Actually, I had one thing I had to tell you, and don’t freak....”

“I HAVE NO SIGNAL?” I raged as my eyes narrowed at him. His hands were up in defense, waiting for the slew of slaps he deserved, but I just let it go. “Fine. Ok. Whatever. Have you found the WiFi password?”

“Actually, about that…”

“Luke…”

“It’s good to take a break from modern advances now and then, y/n, you know it’s healthy…”

“Luke.” I stopped him, staring deep into his soul. “Are you telling me you brought me to the middle of nowhere England, to a haunted house, with no working means to contact the outside world?”

“It’s only for a few days…”

“LUKE, I WILL MuRdEr YOU! You will no longer be looking for a ghost because YOU WILL BE A GHOST!” My hands went flying and all he could do was protect his face.

“Come on, y/n. Don’t be so melodramatic,” he said before stepping out of your doorway. “Take it as an opportunity to get to know yourself. That’s why I told you to bring books.”

The realization that he had known the whole time we would be without technology was even more infuriating, so I started chunking pillows from the bed at him until he closed the door

I threw myself onto the bed and screamed into the comforter.

How was I going to stay sane without the internet for three days?

Sitting back up, I couldn't help but reassess my situation.

I'm stuck.

In a haunted house.

For three days.

A strange sensation washed over me, like the sudden chill of someone walking over your grave.

The house, I realized, was quiet. So quiet. Not another soul to be heard.

That was the first time I noticed that I had been hearing a steady movement the entire time I was alone and hadn't paid it any attention until now. When it stopped.

What had stopped moving?

I stayed still and listened for it to start again.

But it didn't.

Wondering why I had unnecessarily scared myself, I shook my head clear of the thought while opening up one of my bags.

My first bag was my safety net.

Junk food (because I’m shameless), sodas (because I’m shameless), and romance novels (because, you guessed it).

I opened the music on my phone and pulled out my thirstiest book.

Chapter One: How They Met

About twenty minutes into my story, the music was interrupted by a tap on the door. One solid knock. Of course I jumped, anyone would have. Then I heard some shuffling as an envelope flew under my door.  

I instantly sprang from my seat- curiosity always being both my best and worst quality- and tore the letter open.

~~We would like to cordially invite you to dinner in the Main Dining Hall this evening at 6pm. PS On the back of the door, you will find attire for the event.~~

Of course my first thought was what a gimmick to pull, but then I had to appreciate their creativity. The place wanted to bring out the Gothic Romance of  Allerdale Hall, and it certainly didn’t hold back. Opening the door to find a white silk dress, I saw the depth of that devotion.

I pulled the dress down when I heard Luke’s door open. “Holy shit!” he cussed. I went down the hall to find him awing at a suit hanging from his door. “Y/n!” he squealed through his teeth, “Holy shit!”

I laughed but really, I was excited.

A dressed up dinner in a haunted mansion. Through all the cliche, through all the irritants, I thought maybe this could turn out to be a fun get away.

After all...

What was the harm in playing along?

Part 2 is up!

The role of Luke will be played by Evan Peters:

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[themattress]

Pokeani: The Evolution of the Villains

In the original Pokemon video games, the villains were Team Rocket, a criminal organization of thugs led by mafioso Giovanni who used Pokemon for profit and, in Giovanni’s case, attempted world domination.  Their actions made the plot exciting, but their personalities were anything but - they were all the most generic of bad guys who were evil for the hell of it.

In making Pokemon: Indigo League, Takeshi Shudo naturally avoided doing the same thing. Instead, he kept Giovanni as a shadowy, distant force up until the last third of the saga where he came into play as the major antagonist of the Mewtwo arc, giving him more charismatic style and personality than he had in the games and even providing him with a backstory. The central villains of the show, in the meantime, were a duo of original creations within Team Rocket, Jessie and James, along with their talking Meowth companion.  They ended up being very complex characters, running the gauntlet from being sinister, efficient and unlikable to being funny, incompetent and lovable, and somehow it all gelled together perfectly in a set of three-dimensional personalities.  They even each had their own sad backstories explaining just how and why they came to join Team Rocket and why they are so loyal to their cause.

Occasionally, there would be other villains too: Sabrina the psychic and psychotic Gym Leader of Saffron City, Daario the cheating racer, Keith the young con artist, and even another Team Rocket duo, Butch and Cassidy, who served as rivals to Jessie and James.

When the Johto Saga (Pokemon the Series: Gold and Silver) came along, the usual Team Rocket trio, while still endearing, were beginning to wear out their villain cred, becoming totally harmless and much more predictable due to the new episodic formula that had been established.  Shudo wanted to make a new story arc centered around Celebi that would have brought Giovanni back into prominence and potentially new Team Rocket agents along with him, but it was not to be, so he instead made a special concluding the Mewtwo arc which included a particularly cool new Team Rocket operative named Domino at Giovanni’s side. The anime also introduced a new set of silver-uniformed Rockets - the solitary Tyson and the duo of Atilla and Hun, all serving under the sociopathic Professor Sebastian. These villains would have been great lead antagonists for a story arc, but instead they only briefly appeared and then never showed up again, the threat they posed never being resolved to the point where one of the Pokemon movies showed that they were still at large in its opening scene.

In Advanced Generation (Pokemon the Series: Ruby and Sapphire), the show adapted Team Aqua and Team Magma from the current games and their storyline. The problem was that there was absolutely no passion in doing so. Usually we only ever got to see Aqua Admin Shelly and Magma Admin Tabitha, who were cool but not particularly well-characterized, and the leaders, Archie and Maxie, literally only appeared in the two-part finale of the arc, which meant that they had no memorable presence whatsoever. None of the other occasional villains were interesting either, and the Team Rocket trio now officially sucked as villains.

Diamond/Pearl (Pokemon the Series: Diamond and Pearl) attempted to do better.  Not with Team Rocket, they sucked ever harder now, but with the other villains. Team Galactic had more effort put into them and their story arc than Aqua and Magma did, and while all save for Charon were mischaracterized when compared to their game counterparts, it was at least some form of characterization. Less excusable was the group’s goal, which was just to destroy the world and make a new one for only them to be in, with the leader Cyrus actually wanting a new world for only him to be in. This is a severe misrepresentation of what their goal was in the games, which was far more altruistic and truly done for what they saw as for the good of everyone. The anime’s version is more like Team Flare in the XY games. And their three-part finale ended in a massive anticlimax, as there’s not even a semblance of a final battle, Dialga and Palkia are freed easily, Cyrus essentially kills himself, and the total destruction of Sinnoh is literally prevented by Ash, Dawn and Brock praying really hard.

Then there was Pokemon Hunter J, a recurring villain who got attention due to how purely evil and shockingly violent she was for the anime, putting Pokemon through some heavy torture and routinely trying to kill the child heroes - at one point, she set fire to an entire forest in order to burn alive all the people and Pokemon that were in it!  She was so vile that she even got killed off in her final appearance, her airship sinking and then exploding! Damn!

The only major problem with this villain is that she was an absolute waste of potential. In a 191 episode series, Hunter J only showed up in 7 episodes - two of them being a two-part story and two others being the first two parts of a three-part story, so really she only showed up five times in total.  There was no excuse for this - Hunter J was not in the games, she didn’t have a single evil plot to adapt, she was purely the writers’ creation and they were free to use her as much as they wanted.  She could have made a great Big Bad-type figure for the DP series, but instead, she disappeared for such a long stretch of time between her third and fourth appearances that it was pretty easy to forget she existed. Worse still, her final appearance and death happened as part of the Team Galactic arc finale, and was treated as just a footnote.  Ash, Dawn and Brock were not even present to see it happen, and nobody ever talks about it afterward. This was an absolutely criminal waste of a good, well, criminal.

Like with many things, I believe that Best Wishes (Pokemon the Series: Black and White) was where a big, important turnaround was made. First off, the Team Rocket trio received a promotion and new militaristic training in order to become a serious, competent threat and a bigger force within their organization - still the central villains as always but now operating on the scale that Aqua, Magma and Galactic did previously.  As such, the writers ended up discovering something important, something that even Takeshi Shudo never grasped: you don’t need Team Rocket in every episode, nor do you need them in a major role if they’re in one. They now got to sit many episodes out, or they appeared in episodes for just a few scenes (sometimes even just one scene) where they made some small advancement in their current overarching plan. After so many years, a little Team Rocket can go a long way, and spacing out their appearances this way was something that was desperately needed. 

Team Rocket’s story arc of attempted Unova conquest went through five different major operations: the mission to secure the Meteonite and combine it with Dream Energy to produce a threatening new energy flow, the mission to steal all the Pokemon from the Nimbasa City Pokemon Center and escape through the subway system, the mission to draw out the Weather Trio on Milos Island and capture them, the mission to resurrect a Pokemon fossil and use the revived Pokemon to open the Time Gate into the ancient past at Twist Mountain, and the biggest mission of all, “Operation Tempest”, to record Meloetta’s song and then capture it in order to unlock the Reveal Glass of Abyssal Temple that would grant Giovanni control over the Weather Trio. All of these were engaging and you could see a slow advancement of Team Rocket’s presence in Unova as a whole through each one, particularly due to the continuous presence of Giovanni and/or the stand-in Big Bad figure of Dr. Zager.

The evil team from the games, Team Plasma, didn’t fare quite so well. Intended to be a running presence through the show’s Myth Arc, the combination of an unexpected natural disaster and an unexpected development of sequels rather than a third, special edition of the games caused these plans to change, so Team Plasma only showed up as the villains of a 14-episode story arc after the Unova League, in their less ambiguous B2/W2 incarnations. The stories of the original B/W and B2/W2 were hastily cobbled together, and the team leader Ghetsis had an even more minimal presence than Cyrus did, being outshone by the more active Dr. Colress. With that said, the story wasn’t a bad one at all (it got especially good in its second half), Team Plasma was effective as a threat, and Colress was an excellent villain, maintaining his science-obsessed amorality from the games while having a hammier edge. 

For the first two years of XY (Pokemon the Series: XY), there wasn’t much to talk about in the way of villains - various one-shot villains weren’t the worst but nor were they the best, and Team Rocket was schizophrenic: they still kept out of many episodes but were still in more than they needed to be, and sometimes they were competent threats ala BW while other times they were harmless villains ala AG/DP.  The most intriguing villainous presence was Lysandre in the Mega Evolution specials, because he wasn’t portrayed as a villain, and thus gradually and successfully began to manipulate the hero Alain over to his side, and there was definitely the sense that he had big plans for Kalos that he was slowly but surely advancing.

In the third and final year, XY&Z, we got the payoff. Team Flare, the secret criminal subsidiary of Lysandre Labs, launched a plan to capture an infant Zygarde and use scientific means (chiefly Mega Evolution energy that Alain obtained for them) to forcibly alter the state of its being and its powers. This resulted in an explosive, action-packed five-part climax immediately following the Kalos League, and Lysandre secured his place as being on par with Giovanni as the best major villain the Pokeani has ever had. His backstory, motivations and the tragic nature of his villainy was maintained from the games, but the forced sympathy other characters tried to get the players to feel for him was excised in favor of emphasizing just how far gone he truly is. And in the end, he actually gets killed off, falling headfirst into an explosion and being vaporized. It was a suitably epic conclusion to a truly epic villain.

Team Flare had the best regional evil team villain arc to date, with none of the issues that plagued Aqua/Magma, Galactic and Plasma to be found. They were also portrayed better than they were in the games - coldly scientific and believing that they were doing things for the greater good - basically, the anime swapped them and Team Galactic around in terms of characterization.  My only minor quibble with their arc would be that it’s pretty obvious that head writer Tomioka tried to fit in stuff from B/W Team Plasma that he never got to do in the BW series: the evil team attacking right after the League transpires is straight out of B/W’s climax, and sometimes you might as well call Alain and Lysandre “N and Ghetsis.” Also, saving it all for the third year in preparation for the expected Z game ended up pointless, there was no such game.  Other than that, the writers did an unexpectedly excellent job.

With Sun and Moon (Pokemon the Series: Sun and Moon), Team Rocket has undergone a major return to form. Like in BW, they have a new status quo with new supporting characters (Mimikyu, Bewear and Mareanie all feel like unique individuals in their own right, and even Wobbufet feels like a character again and not a cheap joke dispenser) and a higher level of competence than usual, plus no more “blasting off” (thank you, Bewear!)  But unlike BW, where their personalities were flattened into serious professionals in order for their villainous arc to work, this time around their personalities have been brought back to how they were in the Original Series!  They’re not the exaggerated caricatures they were for most of AG and DP, nor the interchangeable zany lunatics they were for most of XY - they’re the three-dimensional characters they were when Takeshi Shudo was around, which is something I never thought would ever happen.  I seriously feel like a kid again when watching them now!

Beyond them, we have Team Skull, represented in the trio of Tupp, Rapp and Zipp who, true to the games, are even sillier and less competent than Team Rocket ever was, and the two trios share an entertaining dynamic as respectful rivals.  And in the Nebby arc, we get Aether Foundation Branch Chief Faba, a self-serving weasel who is usually pretty humorous but can occasionally be pretty twisted and despicable.  He also has a great dynamic with Team Rocket, which may lead to some interesting things down the road if the US/UM games are of any indication. A source of contention is that he replaces the human Big Bad of the games, Aether Foundation President Lusamine, in the role, and Lusamine is portrayed as a good person instead. While that kind of sucks, thanks to Faba’s meddling it looks like we’ll be seeing Lusamine in an antagonistic role yet, even if not a truly evil one of her own choice.

In short, the Pokeani started off good with its villains, got increasingly bad with them, but recently has gotten back on track with them. Who knows what the future will bring?  I don’t know, but personally I’m holding out hope that we’ll find gold at the end of the rainbow.

[sagechan]

Tododeku major character death

Submitter said:

Can i please get feedback on this and how I can improve?

Oh and also can i stay anonymous? Thank You!

No problem, friendo! Here’s what you sent me! I’ll put my feedback under the cut! <3

Blood, everywhere. The thick red liquid gushing out of Izuku that won’t seem to stop. Dyeing Shoto’s white hair red like it’s other half. Izuku gasped in pain as his blood slowly exited his body through the gaping wound in his chest. Shoto’s panicked and desperate cries for help echoed on the brick walls of the deserted alleyway. Then, footsteps. The sound of hope. Uraraka and Iida’s worried voices calling out for them.

But alas, it was too late. Shoto holding Izuku’s limp and lifeless form in his arms, Izuku having bled to death. He trembled, mourning the loss of his closest friend and comrade as he cried out in anguish letting the world know that they had lost a great hero and a great friend.

The funeral was black. Black like the night that swallowed up that boy, once so full of light. Shoto despised it. He hated the wails that clouded up his mind, and he refused to believe that the boy lying in the casket, a cold smile on his dead face was Izuku Midoriya, the boy that would surpass All Might. When everyone had left, he stood there, shaking, but not in sadness but in rage. He hated the villains that had caused the end of such a boy full of love and light. He swore that he would avenge him as his right side shot flames to the sky and his left froze everything in ice. He would avenge him if that would be the last thing he ever did.

He reluctantly started to make his way home, until Izuku’s mother stopped him, tear stains on her face. She silently handed him a piece of paper folded in thirds and equally as quiet, walked away. Hands trembling, he opened the letter, eyes filling with tears. After he had read it, he laughed. He sank to the ground, laughing through his tears. Because even through his death, Izuku Midoriya had never failed to make him smile.

Okay! Let’s dig into this!!

Summary:

This is a quick one-shot/drabble centered around emotional turmoil after the actual character death and how it affects Shouto. It follows Shouto from the moment he holds Izuku’s body, through the grieving and funeral processes, and up to a mysterious letter he receives from Izuku’s mother after Izuku is gone. The scope of the one-shot zooms in and out from broader sweeps to more specific details, like an omniscient eye roving over the scene and focusing in on moments that catch its attention.

What’s working well:

I think what’s really working well is the first paragraph’s use of fragments, like we’re seeing quick shots of a larger scene. It creates a cinematic tension; I could very easily envision this being an actual on-film scene. Excellent use of sentence dynamics right away, too. For example:

“Blood, everywhere. The thick red liquid gushing out of Izuku that won’t seem to stop. Dyeing Shouto’s white hair red like its other half.”

Short sentence followed by longer sentence creates a mental tension for the reader, like placing two different colors next to each other on a canvas. Your first two fragments are also tense-less (since there’s not a typical ‘subject-verb’ setup), but they read like they’re in present tense, which adds urgency to the tone.

You also play with scope, zooming in and then way, way out. For example:

“He trembled, mourning his closest comrade as he cried out in anguish, letting the world know they had lost a great hero, and a greater friend.”

[I tweaked this a bit for clarity/anything redundant. Remember, simplify. Less can be so much more in writing.]

You’ve got this moment where Shouto is curled over Izuku’s body in mourning, avery small, personal detail--and then the narration suddenly zooms out to include the whole world. All in one sentence. That’s very, very good. It creates a sense of universality to the reader: “Shouto is grieving, but so is the whole world, and if the whole world can be in grief, I can too.” It’s a good idea to see where else you can play with that kind of scope. Go from small to large, many to one, one to many, huge to tiny. Zoom in and out on your writing. Fill it with details of the world. Cars rushing by the alley they’re crouched in. People’s voices who don’t even know a hero has fallen. The sound of rain tapping on the roof, just beginning to drop, and what right does the sky have to weep, what right do any of them have to cry but Shouto?

See how I took it from Shouto in the alley, out of the alley, up into the sky, then back down to Shouto? Think of your narrator’s voice not as a voice, but an eye. Where is it looking? If it’s looking at something painful, maybe it needs to look away. If it’s looking at something beautiful, maybe it needs to get even closer. I think you do a great job of playing with scope, but definitely press more on it for this piece! Since you’re not following a “narrative” of action and dialogue, but there is still a “chronology,” I think that lens zooming in and out will definitely help to build and release tension, and to create a richer background for the characters.

My advice for improvement:

Pacing.

Timing.

There is an order.

In which everything is presented.

Which we call.

Chronology.

One thing leads to the next, leads to the next, leads to the next, to the next, to the next... Slow down this one-shot’s pacing. It’s okay to take your time getting to things. That builds tension for the reader, as you slowly parcel out what comes next, until the reader is begging you please just tell me they make it out okay, and then bam, Shouto reads Izuku’s note and you see him crying through his tears and you think, oh god is there anything more tragic than this moment right here?

And of course there is. But you’ve tricked the reader into thinking there isn’t.

For this piece, my only real advice would be to pay attention to your pacing. Slow things down. Maybe add in a scene. You don’t use dialogue in this, but I don’t think it would take anything away from it if you inserted a few quick scenes to really focus in on the moment, to slow the reader down and let them revel in the anguish. Remember our narrator’s lens, the eye that roams. Let it focus on a scene. One place I wanted to see a scene was when Ururaka and Iida show up. I want to see some interaction between them and Shouto, that we you show us Shouto’s grieving, you show us it’s too late, you don’t just tell us. Remember, show don’t tell. It’s an old rule, and sometimes you can overlook it, but it’s still generally a good rule to follow.

Another place I wanted to see a scene was during the funeral. I want more of Shouto’s grief. I want it to become tangible. I want to feel what he’s feeling. I don’t want to be told what he’s feeling. The way writers communicate emotions is not through “emotion” words. Grief. Anger. Horror. Depression. Sadness. Joy. Confusion. As great as these words are, they are empty. They’re just abstracts. Fill Shouto with details. Fill his world with his grief. You started doing that here:

“The funeral was black. Black like the night that swallowed up that boy, once so full of light.”

This is great because you’re moving into metaphor. You’re creating an image the reader can grab hold of, instead of just saying “At the funeral, Shouto was very sad.”

Another thing to think about: like I said above, simplify. Sometimes, less is more in writing. Let the reader infer things. Trust your readers, they’re pretty smart. For an example, I’d write something like this...

“When everyone had left, he stood there, shaking, but not in sadness but in rage. He hated the villains that had caused the end of such a boy full of love and light.”

...more like this:

“When everyone had left, he stood there, shaking. He hated the villains who had taken Izuku from him.”

I cut “not in sadness, but in rage” because the very next sentence tells us why Shouto is trembling. He’s full of hatred. I did some rewording of the second sentence to emphasize Shouto and Izuku’s connection, using the phrase “taken from him,” to imply their relationship, and how much worse it is for Shouto than just losing “a friend.” I was originally going to write:

He hated the villains who were capable of killing a boy full of such light and love.

But that sounded too clunky to me. So then I tried:

He hated the villains who had killed Izuku.

This really emphasized “killed,” which is what I thought I wanted from the first rewrite. But it still didn’t sound right to me. So I thought, okay, well, what’s really going on here? Shouto isn’t upset that villains are capable of atrocities like murder. This is something he already knows. What doesn’t he know? What is he unfamiliar with that would make him so upset?

Losing a friend.

It’s not death or murder Shouto hates. It’s that his friend was taken from him.

And then I got my sentence.

See how I edit for clear, simpler language, and then suddenly the sentence becomes stronger, and the scene more impactful? There’s a whole lot more to unpack from Izuku “taken” from Shouto than there is in simply saying he was killed. Izuku’s death affects everyone, but being taken from Shouto affects only Shouto.

General comments:

JRHGADRHGHRGOLFJKHJN HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO MY BABY BOYYYYYY????????

I’ve been waiting the entire post to say that.

This is very, very good practice. That’s all writing is. We practice and practice and practice, and eventually something comes out we’re proud of. Be proud of your writing. Be proud you can make someone hunch over a screen for an hour writing an honest-to-god dissertation about anime character deaths. Be proud of what you’ve created. Keep practicing, keep developing your style. Remember that all I’m giving you is guidelines, a little nudge in one direction or the other. Your voice is yours, and it’s important. Please continue to make good things full of love and careful attention to the world.

Thank you for the exercise, dear one! I feel nice and limber now. Time to go do some writing of my own!

Ready? Set. Go!

[dramaruni]

I think these are some excellent points and while I don’t agree with all of them, I do understand why people feel this way.

So first, I do agree with the fact Vincenzo is the main lead and I don't fault the drama for having the main focus on him at all. After all, the drama is named after him and he is the one running the show, I find absolutely nothing wrong with that. I also agree with the fact that Chayoung does have an important role, and she is the entire reason Vincenzo has stayed as long as he has to fight Babel when it was mostly against his own interests in the beginning of the show. I also think she plays a big part in his development.

But I also think there is something to be said about the fact that Chayoung is the reason for him staying in Korea and fighting Babel. The fight against babel doesn't mean as much to Vincenzo until Chayoung joins. In fact, it doesn't really begin until the two of them are on the same page, even if they have different motivations driving them.

But while Chayoung does take up a lot of space in Vincenzo's motivation to take down Babel, the same cannot be said for Chayoung’s motivation. She is mainly doing this to avenge her father, in fact the sole purpose for her in the beginning is to do right by her father and the side effect of that is needing Vincenzo for revenge, and that is what causes their closeness. So, when she is mostly doing this for reasons beyond Vincenzo, then I feel we could have gotten more insight to her as character, especially considering the route she has chosen is unconventional and not one she would have taken alone. Which is also something you mentioned, Chayoung isn’t used to this life-style Vincenzo is presenting. So no, I don’t expect her to be the problem-solver or be the one to execute their plans because it is out of her scope and so even if she is the instigator, she would need help regardless.

But we don't even get to explore her descent into this lifestyle, it's just thrusted upon her and while they hint at her difficulty with it, I just don’t think it gets the attention it deserves. We get one line in episode 19 where she says she had a hard time enduring this but eventually came to the conclusion this was the right path, however we don’t see this process. The only times I can actually remember her showing signs of hesitations towards the plan is when the “drunk” driver is killed in prison and she asks they don’t kill anymore, or when Vincenzo kills the man with the bomb where she needs a moment to gather herself. I don't think the drama would have lost anything by giving us more insight to her inner thoughts. Especially because they introduced the idea of Vincenzo thinking of himself as a monster that didn't deserve love, so having Chayoung explore the darker sides of herself and how she even came to accept Vincenzo’s way of life would have been interesting to watch.

I know I wrote I wanted her to be charge of the story and I can see why some would misunderstand this as me wishing was the lead. So let me just clarify, I actually don't need her to be charge of the entire narrative of Vincenzo. I just need her to be in charge of her own story. I think she is a complex and nuanced character, but she is often neglected in the show and I think that is a shame. There are many unexplored parts of Chayoung’s story that I would have love to seen but alas, I don’t think we get to see any of them.

I also think if you have twenty episodes which are all around 80 minutes long, then surely you have time to dedicate some screen time to the female lead’s story. Had the drama been shorter, I might be less inclined to say this and be more understanding of viewpoint that Vincenzo is the main character and thus he gets all the moments to shine. But when you have this many hours to tell a story I definitely think it's a mistake to not explore Chayoung’s narrative in more depth.

They really went with the abduction trope. It's not like they have to fill anything. They're only missing one episode and this is the route they took?

It's not that I had high expectations for the ending, but I really hoped they would give something to Chayoung that showed her capabilites or let her shine in any way, really (I mean they even had Vincenzo be the one talking in court).

But she will remain in shadow of Vincenzo, and now she is even getting abducted to lure out V and taking a bullet for him. Can we get super angry Chayoung for being shot next episode? Or is it just going to be Vincenzo going on a revenge-rampage again for someone daring to hurt "his" woman.

Honestly, I can't think of a single moment where Chayoung is in charge of the story. Feel free to correct/remind me of such moments because I would love not to have this disappointment towards the drama. But they really have underutilized her character throughout the 19 episodes so far.