#we didn’t get a training montage

[greynatomy]

bookworm

leah williamson x reader

request: either Leah, Lucy or Sam.... married to a writer, someone who's name is well known but face isn't . (could be a pen name) ... the relationship isn't know.... reader comes to a game, the team sees reader and thinks Player should shoot their shot....

the book mentioned is by ciara smyth and i recommend reading it

———

For as long as anyone has known her, Leah Williamson was a known bookworm. Her parents have bought countless books once she’d learned how to read. If she wasn’t playing football, she was reading a book.

Away matches? Reading on the coach or plane, Leah will always be found with a book on her person. Everyone teased her about it, but she always gave recommendations on her favorite reads.

Her close friend, Lia Wälti, did tease her at first, like the rest of their Arsenal teammates, but one time during training, Leah left her book on the lounge chair by the pool when Jonas called her over for a chat. Lia picked up the book to inspect it.

“The Falling in Love Montage by Billie Keynes.” She mumbled, reading the title and author.

By the time Leah comes back to her chair, she sees someone else occupying it, her book in their hands.

“Would it be possible to get my book back?” Leah asks, casting a shadow over Lia.

“Shh. I’m a bit preoccupied.” Lia lifts a finger up to Leah, not taking her eyes off the page she is on.

“Uh, that’s my property.”

“And I’m currently using it, so wait your turn.”

Over the next couple of days, Lia is seen with the same book that Leah had. Some of her teammates ask about it and eventually a a good number of them started reading the book.

Another couple of days later, the team is winding down by the pool at the training ground, all reading the same book.

“This is a really good book Lia. Thanks for the recommendation.” Steph complimented, other gunners agreeing.

“Uh, excuse you all. I have been reading that first. Lia stole the book from me. Had to buy a new one.” Leah complains, eyebrows furrowed.

“Shush. It’s not a competition.”

Leah makes a face of offense.

“Actually, since you’re here, does Billie Keynes have any other books? Preferably with more lesbians.” Beth asks.

“Oh, I’ve got a whole list. I’ll send it in the group chat.”

Two weeks later, they were back on the pitch, ready for a new season. Leah sat behind the bench, still healing from her injury.

After the match, Lia walks over to where Beth and Leah stood.

“Hey! Good game, played well!” Beth hugs the Swiss.

“Thank you, but did you see the girl that was reading a book the whole game?”

“Leah wasn’t reading?” Beth looks at Leah, confused.

“No, not Leah. She’s, uh, she’s right there, just walking off.”

“Huh. Weird.”

Over the next few games, including the ones away, more and more of the team took notice of the girl who reads during the match. Always in the same section, same row, reading a book. Even some fans recognize her, being posted on social media by the team’s administration.

During a team bonding, the team decided to play a bit of truth or dare. One having to eat a spoonful of Vegemite, jump in the pool, tell their biggest fear.

The bottle then landed on Leah, being spun by Katie, who had a mischievous look on her face.

“Oh, no.” Leah was sweating, she didn’t like the look on the Irish’s face.

“Now, we know how much you love to read. You’ve turned some of us, not me, but some of us into avid readers, but there’s one that could rival you as a bookworm.”

“Get on with it, will you!” Leah was impatient.

“I dare you… to go up to the girl that’s always reading during our games and ask her out. On a date.”

So now here she was, walking over to the section after the game against City. She walks in small strides, trying to take longer than she needed to, looking back to see her team huddled together watching her.

“Hey.” She says, when she reaches the girl, who was, no surprise, reading a book.

“Leah.” You replied, not taking your eyes off the book.

“Listen, I was dared to go up to you and talk to you.”

“So, you’ve said last night.”

“Let me finish woman.”

“Okay. I’m sorry.” You give an amused smile at the pout on her face.

“Would you like to go on a date? We’ve not gone on one yet this week.”

“Yes, only if I pick where to eat.”

“But, babyyyy.” She whines. “You know I’m picky.”

“That’s why I want to pick. You can’t deprive your tastebuds from flavor.”

“But—”

“Ah ah.” You interrupted. “Pick me up when you’re done.” You lightly pat her cheek and walk towards the exit.

“So?” Katie questioned, wanting to know what happened.

“She rejected me.” Leah replied with a sullen pout.

“Oof. That sucks mate. Thought she’d be the one for you.”

A month passed since the date was executed. Everyone seemed to forget about it, still seeing you in the stands, but no one paying you any mind.

It was a team bonding night. Everyone agreed to have it at Leah’s place tonight. The thing is, everyone knew except for Leah. On purpose? Only Katie knows.

A loud and heavy knock scares Leah from where she lay on the couch. She cautiously walks to the door, looking through the peephole, eyes widening at the sight of her whole team.

“What are you all doing here?” Leah opens the door just a bit.

“It’s team bonding night. Be a dear and let us in.”

Katie hadn’t waited for an answer and let herself in, the rest following after.

“So, what do you have planned?”

“Didn’t think that far ahead.”

“Actually.” Beth butts in. “Did you guys hear that Billie Keynes is releasing another book?”

“Wait. Really?”

“Yeah, in like a week.”

Lia was looking around her friend’s house, snooping more like it.

“What’s it called?”

“I Think—” Lia’s answer gets cut off as she pick up a book from Leah’s shelf. “Leah?”

“Yeah?”

“How do you have Billie Keynes’ new book before it’s been released?”

Leah’s head whips towards Leah so fast that her head could’ve popped off its socket.

“Uh-well-I-um—”

The sound of the front door opening and shutting cut off her stuttering, leaving everyone else to stay silent, not knowing who else it could be. You walk into the living room, freezing at the sight of Leah’s whole team.

“Hey, you’re the girl who reads during our games.” Beth breaks the silence.

“Uh, hi.”

“Wait.” Katie turns to Leah. “I though you said she rejected you.”

“Well, you see—”

“Oh my god! Where’d you find that? I’ve been looking for it everywhere.” You grab the book out of Lia’s hand, flipping through the pages. “My agent almost killed me cause I thought I lost it.”

“Huh?” The team were now confused.

“It won’t be released until another week. It would’ve been horrible to lose it.”

“How do you have this then if it hasn’t been released yet?” Beth questioned, confused.

“I mean when you write it, you get special privileges.”

“Wait, wait, wait. Hold up. What do you mean by that?”

“It means how I said it.”

“So you’re Billie Keynes?”

“It’s a pen name. My real name’s Y/N Y/LN.”

“That’s so cool.” Alessia speaks up for the first time.

“You’re like our favorite author.”

“Aw. That’s so sweet.”

“How’d you come up with Billie Keynes anyway.”

“Well, people named William are sometimes called Billie and my wife is from Milton Keynes.”

“Leah! You made me dare you to ask your wife on a date?”

“Yeah. Thank you for that. I’ve got some bonus wifey points for it.” Leah had a smirk on her face, making the team groan and you slap her lightly on the arm.

“Since we’re teammates of your wife, could we get some special privileges?” Beth asks, hoping you know what she means.

“I’ll even sign the book for you.”

[cowboys-only]

Season 6 Tournament(s) arc [aka if the writers knew how to have fun]

The team makes it into the Sekai Taikai same as before and is told they have 3 month to prepare

They are told 1 week after getting in that the tournament will be held in Barcelona, but are also told that the events will only be unveiled 2 weeks before the start

Daniel and Johnny meet up to talk schedules and training regimens and Johnny suggests something

-

Johnny : You know how you’re a 2 time all valley champ

Daniel : yes? As are you?

Johnny : well I’m also a 1 time San Francisco Champion, a 1 time Sacramento champ, a 1 time (so on and so forth)

Daniel : !??!

Johnny : you really think Kreese didn’t have us decimating every tournament in the state (and a few in neighboring states)???

Daniel : I wasn’t aware there were other tournaments??

Johnny : well that’s stupid of you ANYWAYS what if instead of just regular training we put them through every tournament happening in the next 2.5 months (on top of regular training of course)

Daniel : that might just be the least crazy idea you’ve ever had

-

Que montage of the kids sleeping on busses as they travel to tournaments across the state, at rest stops buying snack, standing in the cold with duffel bags half asleep at like 2 am, someone screaming to pull over because they have to go to the bathroom, road trip stuff

And each tournament has different rules

One has no gender division, but does have a separation by weight (Bert featherweight champion lmfao)

One only does duo events

One only does skills and weapons

Just a bunch of different tournaments

We get a montage of every tournament happening and different people winning different fights

A little time lapse of the Miyagi-do trophy wall going from like 3 trophies (2 Daniel 1 Eli) to like 35 as they bring home more and more wins from more and more different events

We get to the point when it’s announced that only 6 can go and 2 ppl need to be selected as captains and everyone is 1,000% more chill about it because they all have a trophy by now

Miguel especially is way less snippy because he can wow Stanford with like 7 trophies instead of just 1 (he’s obviously still a little disappointed but that just how being a competitive athlete is)

They all go into the tournament way more confident

(Maybe Tory doesn’t switch sides because she also won quite a few fair and square and since her mom was feeling better she got to see her win. Still dies, but it’s less,,,,, sucky)

[fanfic-obsessed]

Murder Bond

This is a crack idea that came to me while I was waiting on a train. 

As always look not for canon for it is not here. 

Jason comes back to life, does his assassin montage, and beats the absolute shit out of Robin before slitting Tim's throat.  Bruce, Dick, and Alfred are desperate to get Jason back into the family, inviting him over for meals (to which he starts coming, free food is free food).

Tim, when Jason was not present, goes “not to be a nudge, but are we ignoring that Jason beat the shit out of me and slit my throat?”

And Bruce, Dick, and Alfred go “Oh Jason didn’t really mean that” and “Jason has done nothing wrong ever” (in the background Tim is muttering “Jason has done so many murders it is actually impressive”)

On one of the occasions, where Tim was not present, Jason goes “Are we just going to ignore that I beat the shit out of Robin and slit his throat” and everyone rushes to assure him they know he didn’t really mean it.  Jason is visibly more than a little exasperated, the adults are not even making sure there are people between him and the Robin he beat the shit out of.

Jason and Tim talk at some point and Jason goes “Look, I’m not going to apologize, because I am not actually sorry right now. In my head I know that the shit I beat you up for wasn’t your responsibility and it was shitty to do, but I am still more than a little fucked up. If it helps I want to want to apologize, but I don’t do hollow sorry’s”

And Tim goes “No that's fair. I know that the Pit Rage means you were not entirely in control of your actions. I won’t be comfortable around you for a long time, because you did beat the shit out of me and slit my throat but I won’t hold a grudge either.”

They are not friends, not really comfortable around each other but they do bond over their combined irritation at the rest of the Bats, who have welcomed Jason back without even asking for a token apology to the teenager Jason beat up. 

With Damian it is a little different. Damian shows up, sees Tim as his primary rival and tries to kill him. Every time  it goes something like this:

Tim: Damian is trying to kill me

Alfred/Bruce/Dick: There is no way Damian would do that!!

Damian: I am trying to kill Tim Drake.

Alfred/Bruce/Dick: Awww, he is so cute. Who could think this is the face of a killer. 

Not one of the adults takes Damian seriously (Mostly they act like he is a small cat that thinks it is a large tiger). In fact the only person in the manor who is taking Damian with the seriousness he feels he deserves is Tim Drake, who treats the attacks on his life like, well, like attacks on his life.

Over time Tim and Damian also bond over the ridiculousness of not treating a deadly assassin like a deadly assassin, child or no. It gets to a point where Damian compliments Tim on his poison resistance  and Tim thanks Damian for stabbing him on the left side instead of the right (Damian: It was a reasonable request) Just hilarious bonding between Jason and Tim or between Damian and Tim that basically boil down to “The adults in our lives are morons who do not take threats to Tim seriously, I know because I am a threat to Tim they are not taking seriously”.

[nixotene]

consider this: the hargreeves siblings numbers are based on how easy to control they are.

Luther is the most easy to control. He always wants to appease Reginald and do what he can to complete the mission and be daddy’s special boy.

Diego is rebellious, but in the sense that acts out for attention from his abusive parental figure. So Reginald puts what he wants to close to his reach, l knowing full well he will always be “number two.” I mean, at the end of the day, Diego was out kicking ass and being a “hero” until the end, just like Reggie trained him to be.

Allison tends to place her own needs first. Which makes sense since her power literally allows her to have whatever she wants when she wants. Reginald had to make things feel like they were “her” idea and use mind games. She didn’t care about her number, but she didn’t care about going against Reginald either. She stayed in her lane.

Klaus is when we start getting a bit harder to control, but not in a way that would affect Reginald’s “dignity”. He ran to drug use in order to suppress his abilities. He constantly was acting out and getting into trouble. But he didn’t act out very obvious ways to Reggie (ie: standing up to him verbally and publicly).

Now, Five. He is stubborn and believes himself to always be in the right. He’s a lot like Reggie, in a way. Which is probably why Reggie did not like him until they met in s2 and Five was mentally around the same age as him. They felt like equals, when before, Reginald saw Five as a child when Five did not see himself that way.

Ben was literally killed by Reginald because he did not follow his instructions. To a mission he did not want to go on. Ben constantly shows how he does not like using his powers (like Klaus) and therefore would be hard to force to train and go on missions.

Viktor. Oh, Viktor. His hard to control nature, high emotions (mostly due to his abuse), mixed with his world ending power level is not a force to be reckoned with. So instead Reggie decided he wasn’t worth the trouble. We see Viktor’s hard to control nature through the montage of Vanya/Viktor as a child throwing nanny after nanny around the house like a rag doll. And breaking the wine glasses with enough power to cut Reggie when he did try training.

Or it could be random because Reginald numbered them since birth. Who knows.

[mintyys-blog]

Saw this in a marvels game a kpop star who has a hero alias silver fox or something(srry frgot)

I wonder if steve found out his teammate and girlfriend y/n has a popstar side he knew when someone showed steve her version of y/n performing star spangle man with a plan . Them having embarasment, fun while he finds it funny her being a popstar recreating it . Lol tony made a side by side video of steve and y/ns version with y/n has the same vibes as sabrina carpenter

POPSTAR— steve rogers x reader

WARNINGS: nothing.

The sound of laughter echoed through the Avengers compound. It wasn’t unusual—especially when Tony was involved—but the sheer volume of it made Steve wary. As he entered the common room, he found several of his teammates gathered around a large screen.

“Ah, speak of the man of the hour!” Tony grinned, gesturing dramatically toward the television. “Cap, you might wanna sit down for this.”

Steve narrowed his eyes. “What did you do?”

Instead of answering, Tony simply pressed play.

The screen flickered to life, and Steve’s stomach immediately dropped at the all-too-familiar opening notes of Star-Spangled Man with a Plan. He braced himself for the black-and-white footage of his wartime propaganda days—but what he got instead made his brain short-circuit.

It was you.

Dressed in a dazzling, retro-inspired outfit, microphone in hand, dancing effortlessly as you belted out his song with modern popstar energy. Your movements were fluid, natural—grinning and winking at the camera, completely in your element. The crowd in the video ate it up. Cheers and screams nearly drowned out the music as you twirled, delivering the performance with an ease Steve never had when he was forced to do the same.

“Is this—” His voice caught in his throat.

“Oh, it gets better,” Tony snickered. With the press of a button, the screen split in half.

On the left: Steve Rogers, 1940s, stiff as a board in his ridiculous Captain America stage costume, awkwardly dancing with the chorus girls, clearly wishing for the ground to swallow him whole.

On the right: You, effortlessly stealing the show, hitting every note, every move, every charming little expression as if you were born for the stage.

The room erupted in laughter.

“Oh, my God,” Natasha wheezed. “This is the best thing I’ve ever seen.”

“Doll,” Bucky drawled, shaking his head, “how the hell did you keep this a secret?”

You, who had been hiding your face in embarrassment, groaned. “I knew this would come back to haunt me.”

Steve finally found his voice. “You’re—when did—what is this?!”

You peeked up at him. “I may have had a pop career on the side before I joined the Avengers…”

Tony waggled his eyebrows. “Correction: she still has one. Billboard charts and everything.”

Steve blinked. “What?”

Sam clapped him on the back, barely holding back his laughter. “Congrats, Cap. Your girl just outshined your entire USO tour.”

The heat crawled up Steve’s neck. He didn’t know whether to be proud or mortified. He glanced at you, seeing your shy but amused smile, and something in his chest melted.

Then, Tony hit play again, and Steve groaned as your dazzling performance once more played alongside his stiff, reluctant one.

“Turn it off,” he groaned.

“No way,” Tony smirked. “I’m making this the official Avengers training montage.”

You laughed, finally moving to wrap your arms around Steve’s waist. “C’mon, Stevie,” you teased, looking up at him with those sparkling eyes. “It’s kinda cute how we both have this in common.”

Steve exhaled, shaking his head with a chuckle. “You’re impossible.”

“And you love it.”

“…Yeah,” he admitted, pulling you closer. “I really do.”

[piratefishmama]

Finders Givers | Part 5

“So why’d you freak out?” Eddie expected the grilling, the second they left that extravagant building, he expected the grilling. “I mean, they were both super nice, I mean… Robin was… wow, I mean did you see her? I just—” he also kind of expected that, with the way Chrissy had just frozen at her entrance? Yeah. he expected that. “Wowzers y’know? But Steve was really nice too! He’d have probably offered us those jobs Eddie, we need jobs! Just cause rent is frozen doesn’t mean we don’t need jobs, we could save up our wages and use it on like, a holiday or something, we could go to Hawaii an be dumb white people tourists like in Lilo and Sti—”

“Did you not feel the vibes that guy was giving off?” Eddie didn’t usually interrupt her, she could go on a tangent, and the tangents were usually pretty cute so he’d often just let her go on with herself until she ran out of topics, allowing her to feel comfortable to just talk without feeling like she shouldn’t, but this time… he couldn’t hold it in.

“Steve?” She didn’t seem to mind though “yeah, I almost offered to let you two have some alone time, he was giving you serious bedroom eyes—”

“Chrissy no, nope! Not that! No he’s—he’s weird.”

“Weird in a hot way? Cause in my humble opinion he was working that suit. Do you think that tan was natural because oo-wee was it working for him.”

“Well yes, we both have eyes, but also no, dangerous weird, y’know? Something felt wrong about him, Chriss.” He felt like he was drifting in open waters and Steve was a huge leviathan type thing just waiting in the depths beneath him to drag him down away from light, away from life.

“You’re just saying that because he’s the boss of this big multimillion dollar company. Next you’ll be saying he’s capitalism personified or something, rich man buys out the neighbourhood, blah blah I can’t do your infamous table speeches, but listen, Eddie, he’s… he seems nice, maybe he is just nice.”

“And maybe he’s the mafia.”

“Eddie…”

“HE COULD BE! We don’t know that he isn’t.”

“This isn’t a movie, Eddie, c’mon let's just go home, maybe we can call up later about those jobs, yeah? It couldn’t hurt to work at a place you play at. Lenny wouldn’t give us the time of day when we tried applying for jobs there before, maybe we can get one now, it’s like… fate! Maybe Steve and Robin will come in one night and we can wow them with our fancy bartender skills, which we’ll of course learn through extensive trial and error, maybe a training montage, I’ll get my very own uptown girl an you’ll get your own hot rich man who’ll buy you fancy things and pamper you like I know you won’t admit you like but I know you’d eat that shit up.”

“Thought you just said this wasn’t a movie.”

“Some movies are based on real life stories! It could happen! It’s more likely than the mafia, c’mon.” Well… she had a point, they did need jobs, and Steve had… well he’d been nice hadn’t he?

There could be so many ulterior motives to what he was doing but why would it have to negatively affect them? It could just negatively affect some dude called Phil who lived two states over, it didn’t even have to involve them, really. Besides getting them a new job, right?

Right?

“…Fine, but you can send over our resumes, I don’t want anything to do with this! If the handsome rich devil man decides to give us the jobs, and comes into the bar, and I HAPPEN to serve him, and impress him then I will concede that the universe would like me to have a nice thing happen, but I will not go looking for fairytale endings, okay?” He knew better than to get his hopes up.

Steve Harrington had looked at him like he was dinner, he’d done the whole stuck staring stupid bit, and it’d been endearing, cute, surprising considering holy shit Steve was like… way out of his league, but… if the universe wanted it to happen then the universe would make it happen!

Eddie would have no part in the process of it happening! He’d just… indulge a little in the end result.

“Someday, Eddie. Someday I’m going to convince you to go and find good things for yourself, and you’ll see just how easy it is to make yourself happy.”

“Someday perhaps, but today is not that day.”

“Be honest now… what did you think of him?” It wasn’t a common thing, Steve sat in front of Robin’s desk, in the chair opposite her big floor to ceiling windows, with Robin looking pretty menacing in her high backed chair, shadowed, her hands steepled at her chin, thumbs pressed into her own throat in thought, her silence stretched long enough for him to tack on “think from a non-lesbian standpoint.”

“I think he looks like a passel of Opossum in a trench coat. A domesticated raccoon, a wet rat that some cruel individual permed for some reason.”

“Well that’s mean, and definitely not from a non-lesbian standpoint.”

“That’s from a person with eyes standpoint.” Steve rolled his own eyes and slumped backwards in the chair like a petulant teenager, arms crossed over his chest. “He looks like he’d scamper, Steve.”

“What’s wrong with scampering?! It’s cute to scamper!”

“It’s reserved for tiny critters, not fully grown adult men.”

“Men can scamper if they want to, don’t you impose your weird masculine rules on us, Robbie, it’s problematic.”

“I swear to god if I catch you on twitter—” shook her head, hand lifted to cut herself off “Steve… is this guy really worth all the money you’re throwing at this?” It was a lot of money, a lot, and they wouldnt get any of it back.

“I mean… I don’t know, but then I didn’t know if Jane would be worth it, or if she’d get any use out of the bakery I bought for her, I didn’t know if paying Nancy’s debts off would be worth it, I didn’t know if any of you would be worth the effort and money I put in to bring you all in and keep you all healthy and safe, and I still did what I did for all of you, so… why is this guy any different?” So far he’d been a spectacular judge of character. “Plus!!! He comes with a very cute blonde!! I’m sure you noticed the very cute blonde.”

“Aren’t you worried that they might be dating?” It was a very good point, and one he hadn’t actually considered. But then—

“If they are then they are, it doesn’t mean I shouldn’t give them a chance like I gave all of you guys a chance.” Anyone who’d knock the shit out of their manager for their friend or partner was alright by him, it showed a loyalty that laughed in the face of authority, he LIKED when people laughed in the face of authory. Authority figures needed to be laughed at sometimes. And punched other times. Robin’s shoulders slacked, her expression shifting to one of soft amusement. “Yooooou wanted me to say that didn’t you?”

“Maybe a little. Just making sure you’re not thinking entirely with your dick. They’re not dating by the way… she’s not even a little bit his type.” Eddie had been quite open about his own sexuality, on purpose or just as a spur of the moment thing, Robin didn’t know, but it was nice to know Steve’s interest wasn’t entirely a lost cause.

“I was wondering why you dropped my relationship status in there.”

“Mmm… I did notice the very cute blonde… she seemed nice.” Bubbly, cute, like a cheerleader “and only because Chrissy seemed very nice… only because I would very much like to see her again… am I going to agree to go along with this nonsense without further complaint.”

“You cant agree to go along with something without complaint while calling it nonsense.”

“Watch me, Dingus.”

[hyperfixate-on-ninjas]

Based on this post right here

This is called the Ninjago Shuffle AU.

Basically I took every Ninjago Season including DR into a Spin the Wheel and shuffled the Seasons.

Order of the Shuffle

Legacy of the Green Ninja

Secrets of Forbidden Spinjitsu

DR Season 2

Master of the Mountain

Possession

Rebooted

Rise of the Snakes

Seabound

Skybound

DR Season 1

Hands of Time

Crystallized

Island of the Keepers

Tournament of Elements

March of the Oni

Sons of Garmadon

Hunted

(This is an interesting order of Seasons)

[THERE WILL BE SPOILERS FOR NINJAGO DR PART 2 SO LEAVE IF YOU MUST!]

Before I actually end up Rewriting all of the Seasons to fit into a coherent story, I first needed to rewrite the pilot era.

I do not consider the Pilot Era or the Specials a Season, so for the purposes of Story Telling, Pilot Era goes first before all the Seasons and Day of the Departed will always come after Skybound. (Which has a very interesting story of being turned into a SeaWalker Timeline somehow-)

So for the Pilot Era, here we go. In my notes I wrote everything down so here is the order of events.

Battle Between Spinjitsu Brothers

Battle Between Spinjitsu Brothers happens first, Garmadon tries to steal the Golden Weapons, Wu stops him, Garmadon gets banished into The Underworld. In this version of the story, Misako left Garmadon before he got banished so Wu is left alone with baby Lloyd.

Rather than send him to Darkleys, Wu tries to free his brother from The Underworld out of guilt and shame. And also because he knows he literally is too dependent on him at times (Based off of Krux’s line stating Garmadon usually had Wu’s back so basically Wu is just the dependent younger brother in this AU)

This spiral ultimately causes

The Merge

Yeah Wu done fricked up this time. Instead of causing the Merge years later he causes WAY TOO EARLY. The Merge happens and Wu is split into pieces, this alerts Garmadon who still remains in The Underworld after Wu causes the Merge, causing him to immediately deploy his army once the Merge is complete to scan the area and make a map of the new world.

Kai remains in Ninjago without Nya, Jay ends up in The Administration, Zane ends up in Imperium and Cole ends up in the Land of Lost Things. Lloyd remains in the Monastery, but after a while of people not tending to it, he ends up leaving to go search for food and stumbles upon Arin and Sora.

The Pilots

The Pilots start off with Kai as always, however due to his short temper and his weapons not selling well. (The Yo-Yo thing didn’t work out unfortunately) He leaves the Blacksmith shop to go find his sister (Since none of the residents sell Arin’s house/apartment it’s safe to assume no one will sell Kai and Nya’s home)

Kai becomes a street criminal, getting by through stealing food and money in order to survive and traveling the realms to get more information. Ultimately his actions get him into a bit of trouble and he ends up bumping into Cole, who helps him out and takes him back to the Monastery.

Cole introduces himself as the in-training Earth Ninja, being guided by ‘Guiding Light’ (Master Wu) and explains that Guiding Light told him to get Kai. Kai refuses, but thanks him for helping him survive another day, that’s when the Skulkin ambush the Monastery and reveal that Kai’s sister is in The Underworld.

After a few fights back from Cole and Guiding Light…somehow? Kai and Cole make it a mission to get the Four Golden Weapons. Kai does his training montage and boom they go to the Caves of Despair…which is kinda not in the same place it used to be. (But whatever lets just say the Skulkin dropped the damn map)

They go into the Caves of Despair, learn Spinjitsu (In this universe Cole learns it first because Kai’s a slow learner) Kai uses the Scythe of Quakes etc they celebrate.

Guiding Light scolds them of course but they barely take him seriously at times. (Mostly because I made it so that Wu now speaks Tinkerbell) But ultimately they are caught by the Administration for ‘unauthorized use of an unidentified weapon’

So yeah they get interrogated in The Administration, then they escape through elaborate means and high-chase breakout, also Jay reveal

They escape and head for the Shurikens of Ice. However, someone catches up to them first, and we get our Zane reveal, Zane as the leader of the Claws of Imperium. (YAH I DID THIS YOUR WELCOME) needs the Shurikens of Ice under the assumption that it has Dragon Power. (Technically it does)

Kai and Cole manage to get it anyway and speedrun the Nunchucks of Lightning. Most of what happens here is the same as the original pilot, except we don’t get any dialogue from Wu (Which means ‘There’s something I haven’t told you’ is quite literal here cause he can’t fricken speak) we don’t get Jay nor Zane and Garmadon gets Two of the Four Weapons. (All Four would kill him, so after he opens the portal he grabs the two that don’t have owners yet.)

Nya trains to be a Ninja instead of Samurai X because both her and Kai agree she needs really really good protection.

They discover the Green Ninja prophecy early but rather than worry about who was the Green Ninja, they’re more concerned when they realized there is one member not added yet. They decide to train some more so that they can be ready to map out the new world.

Significant changes (To storylines beyond the Pilots)

-Nya is now considered an official Ninja and Wu has no way of correcting them, so to them Nya is the 3rd Ninja, possibly even the Blue one since that’s her favorite color.

-Why is Zane evil? Zane actually showed up INSIDE Imperium surprisingly, and it was discovered by Dr LaRow that he was a robot and she opted to rewrite his programming and systems. So now he replaces Rapton as the Leader of the Claws of Imperium.

-Lloyd is officially Younger than Sora and Arin, for the sake of Story-telling purposes and continuity, but they are Younger than Kai and Cole. On that note:

-Kai, Cole and Nya are all adults at the start, as well as Zane and Jay.

-Ninja won’t get their Elemental Powers until Rebooted, which is gonna make DR Season 2 Interesting.

-Possibly SeaWalker instead of Jaya (Honestly Skybound is gonna be VERY interesting with Seabound Nya)

-Jay isn’t into Nya right away, since he’s now a very mature and very very tired man.

-We mostly don’t get the main four until maybe after DR Season 2.

[distort1xn]

today, i want to talk about pit fighter!vi.

yes, okay, alright *insert relatable lesbian jokes here*. the montage was pretty dramatic, i agree.

what i really want to discuss, though, are the details. so, here follow my thoughts (side note: this is a discussion, so please feel free to disagree and/or add your own thoughts in the reblogs/comments!):

vi didn’t dye her hair to fit in with the brawler crowd or because she was depressed – she dyed her hair to hide from herself. every time she looked in the mirror, she looked too much like the woman who fucked up her own life to herself to deal with. so, she dyed her hair to change that. it’s a classic trauma response. for example, i grew up being told i look so, so, SO MUCH like my dad, and, when he passed away, my own reflection would startle me because all i could see was him. so, i dyed my hair pink.

the black grease paint, in my opinion, served two purposes: to make her even more unrecognisable to herself and to hide her tears. we know vi as an extremely emotional person. she knows this about herself, too. she knew she was crying nonstop after, to her knowledge, she’d ‘lost’ everything. but she couldn’t show weakness in the pit. she couldn’t let her opponents know they had an in to beating her. she also isn’t someone who makes a production of her big feelings. she shows them to people she feels she can trust, and the only person at that point was maybe loris, and even him she mostly kept around to drink and party with.

vi was, for all intents and purposes, trying to kill herself, but she refused to succumb to the weakness (in her mind) of doing the job herself. Hence all the drinking, the pushing her body to its limits, the refusal to heal before more fighting. We see this when she’s uncoordinated and delirious. We see this in her excessive training and the blood she coughs up. We see this in her refusal to stay down, even when she’s in no condition to continue a fight. she’s grieving the life she feels she’s lost – the last person she thought cared about her. she fights and drinks and sleeps, living her life in either self-induced or trauma-induced dissociation. if she can’t die, she at least doesn’t want to feel.

yeah, pit fighter!vi was hot. no doubt about it. but she was also: sick and suffering. in stark contrast to jinx, who wore her suffering like armor, vi let hers strip her bare and raw like an exposed nerve.

there’s also something to be said about vi just needing to know someone cared for her to pull through and jinx knowing everyone cared and alienating them because of that (“everyone that gets close to me dies”), but that’s a discussion for a separate post.

[red-balloon12]

I just “watched” episodes 7 and 8 of Hazbin and I have a lot of thoughts.

But let’s start off with episode 7

Rosie and Camilla were EVERYTHING this episode. I love them both and I didn’t really have much to say about avails before this episode but like…I loved them a lot. Rosie is an absolute sweet heart (despite her being a cannibal)

Vaggie has wings now….Y E S. There’s SO much visual potential for this. I can just imagine her carrying Charlie bridal style through hell and her expressing with them as. I know a lot of people were confused but I’m gonna give explanations now: Lute ripped off her wings, she didn’t cut them with an angelic weapon which means Vaggie was able to grow them back through “The Power of Love”™️ and sheer will power.

At first I was a bit disappointed that Charlie and Vaggie didn’t actually properly and I was a bit underwhelmed by Charlie’s reaction to Vaggie’s but I’ll tell why I’m not as disappointed anymore.

Alastor was behaving a little bit like Charlie’s father figure in this which is funny considering episode 5. (But I know Chalastor shippers are gonna be weird about it and use the scenes for their fuel. Smh.) Not to mention I can see Camilla becoming a mentor/motherly figure for Vaggie in the future. But oddly enough I can also se Rosie being a mother figure for Charlie too.

Camilla’s song is probably my favorite out of the song list so far and while I’m a little disappointed it wasn’t a duet between her and Vaggie like the first song kinda was, we did get a training montage out of it and the explanation about Camilla defeating an angel leading up to it was freaking cool. (I really like how Camilla’s footwear was used as instruments in the song, I love stuff like that)

And now….for episode 8

I really liked Vaggie’s war outfit, Charlie’s was okay too.

I’m not gonna lie to y’all, I lowkey was kinda rooting for Adam when he was going up against Alastor. I’m sorry but I just…do not like him…or his fans for that matter. And GOD DAMN was it refreshing when Adam broke his staff, that man needed to be humbled….I just wish it wasn’t Adam that did it…cus I don’t like Adam either. And I feel like Alastor’s fans are coping with the fact that their precious deer demon daddy lost to a damn angel. (And yes he did loose to him. Cope and seethe) My guy wasn’t gonna land a scratch on Adam without an angelic weapon, what did people think was gonna happen?? But I’ll give Alastor props for holding out as long as he did.

Speaking of him, the reason why I didn’t mention the deal he made with Charlie yet is because it connects with this episode. So I’m 95% certain he has a contract with Lilith and it had something to do with that stick of his. His staff was probably the source of a lot of his power and it can’t be regenerated because it was broken by Adam’s guitar/axe. That “favor” that Alastor wants from Charlie might be to have her make him a new one, a more powerful one that he could possibly…idk…kill Lucifer or Lilith with? Idk dude, the man’s be scheming. But I’m like…98% certain his gonna be the BBEG by the end of this…and if not him, than Lilith.

CHAGGIE DUET- STARMOTH DUET- I’m so ill about them. This is why I wasn’t so mad about them not talking because of THIS SCENE. At this point, I could care less if people still think they have no chemistry after this or they think they’re boring. They’re real, they’re canon and they are beautiful. COPE AND SEETHE, BITCHES! I just hope they get more original duet pieces and not reprises in S2 but the fact they used the same song from Charlie and her dad is really cute.

I liked Vaggie calling Charlie petnames during battle. Little things like that is what makes these two so nice to watch.

Vaggie Vs. Lute…dispite me hoping Vaggie would be on even footing with Lute, it wasn’t realistic, and I’m glad they kept it realistic. Vaggie was out of practice for YEARS meanwhile Lute was not only going at it after Vaggie’s falling but she was also the lieutenant. But this is where Camilla’s advice came into play. Lute fought Vaggie with vengeance in mind as well as her thinking she was indestructible. This lead to her downfall when Lute was so caught up in mocking Vaggie, she accidentally gave Vaggie time to think of a way to outsmart her. Lute fought hard but Vaggie fought smart and it paid off in the end. And we got that BADASS line from Vaggie at the end of it. I love it when my girl gets W’s.

I’m disappointed how Charlie was overpowered by Adam though. I was so ready for her to throw hands with him. But I can see why this is the case as well. Charlie never really had to go all out before in her life. So she’s kinda rusty and inexperienced compared to Adam and Lucifer. (Also rip Razzle or Dazzle. You will probably be missed) But she did get two good hits which I can appreciate and she was the first to actually do damage to Adam. Something I can also appreciate.

Speaking of which, Lucifer absolutely OWNED Adam as he should. We stan a short king who loves his daughter.

Sir Pent was absolutely ROBBED of his moment by Adam and I don’t care that they made up for it by him going to heaven (I do care but sksnjs I’m still salty) And am I the only one that like…didn’t care all that much for his crush in Cherri? Like, I do like it in theory but the pacing…OH THE PACING IS THE REAL VILLAIN OF THIS SHOW. I wish they had a little bit more build up to that kiss. But hey, at least we have confirmation that the hotel does work. Rip Sir Penny. You WILL be missed.

I don’t know how I feel about Nifty of all people being the one to end Adam. On one hand it WAS foreshadowed at the beginning but one the other hand..it felt cheap(?). Like it would have been more satisfying for say Vaggie or Charlie to land the final blow, from a narrative standpoint at least. But…it was Nifty. And uh…was I SUPPOSED to feel bad for Lute seeing Adam die? I’m sorry but they both deserve to get their wings cut off. Adam was a fun villain but I’m glad he’s dead.

Hopes/Predictions for S2

I want more Early Stage!StarMoth. One of the criticisms people have with their relationship is how little set up they have. The best way to rectify this is to show how they were when they were still crushing on each other. A good example of this is Ruby and Sapphire from Steven Universe. Ruby and Sapphire were already established as a couple for Y E A R S but because we got to see how they fell in love and how they worked in the early days, people got more invested in their love story. So I hope Hazbin does the same with Charlie and Vaggie.

I also want Vaggie on her own. I know this is contradictory to my first want but I’ll explain. The theory as to why Vaggie seemed a bit shallow for a lot of people in the show was because they felt like Charlie was Vaggie’s whole personality which is something that I semi do agree with. So I want Vaggie to pick up a new hobby in S2. Whether it be her doing some dancing or maybe she becomes a musician. I just want more of VAGGIE.

And speaking of…I want Camilla to become some sort of mentor for Vaggie. I mentioned it earlier but I’m gonna do it again. Lute’s gonna come back in S2 and she’s gonna want revenge on Vaggie. We’ve seen how underpowered Vaggie is compared to Lute when it came to raw skill. But Camilla knew how to fend off from the angels and Vaggie did use her advice. I think and hope that if Vaggie keeps on training under Camilla, she can definitely surpass Lute and become a better fighter from it. Hell, Camilla can even help Vaggie deal with her anger issues.

It would also be fun if Lucifer trained up Charlie to be a better fighter (or Vaggie and Charlie can train together. It would make for some good moments between them)

This is a smaller want but I want Vaggie to cut her hair…she looks so much more cooler with shorter hair. And maybe a name change??? Maybe?

I want Charlie and Alastor to fight. It’s probably gonna happen with that deal and all. Some one is gonna suffer and Charlie (after having more experience) is gonna take on Alastor and I want her to remind him why she’s the damn Princess of Hell.

I just want the cast to interact with eachother more. Don’t let it just be Charlie and Vaggie or Angel and Husk. I wanna see how Vaggie and Husk would interact. They’d seem like a pretty chill duo.

I predict Lilith is gonna be the BBEG if not Alastor. She’s either gonna have to throw down with Charlie or Lucifer. And if somehow Alastor reforms, he may throw down with her. Lilith is gonna fight SOMEONE. (And Charlie may have to do a sing-nu-jitsu on her)

I predict Angel and Husk are gonna have to face with their soul binders (Alastor and Valentino) and both of them are probably gonna be rushed.

I predict Lute and Vaggie are gonna fight again and I HOPE Vaggie is more ready for it than in the finale.

I predict either Angel or Husk is gone be next in-line to be redeemed (which means either one is gonna “die” next season)

I predict another standoff between Alastor and Vox…and this time Vox is more cocky since Alastor took a BIG hit in the finale.

I predict Emily is gonna become a sinner.

And last but not least…I predict Vaggie and Charlie are gonna have a wedding at the end of the show.

My “final” thoughts for Hazbin Hotel S1: Pacing and tone shifts were the biggest flaw for this season. Moments, relationships and topics suffered from the poor pacing and while some of the blame goes to the lack of episodes, most of it goes to the writers. I can’t tell you how many moments fell flat due to the rushed episodes. You don’t really have time to breath with this show and the moments that you do get to breath are some of the best moments of the show.

(There’s also bias issues but that’s a separate topic-)

But for what it had…it wasn’t the worst. And I’m actually kinda looking forward to season 2.

[riverkingmarley]

My kind of core reason I didn’t like season 2 was the lack of political backdrop for the show.

Something I loved about the original was how all the characters seemed to like and care about each other but were torn apart by politics. Vander and Silco being close until whatever happened at the protest tore them apart. Jinx and Vi being ripped apart by Silco’s power grab and later by Vi’s unwillingness to stay with her sister when she kills cops. Jinx and Ekko basically fighting for the same general goal but Ekko refusing to ally with Silco’s methods. Jayce and Victor torn apart by Jayce’s loyalty to power and victor’s deteriorating health caused by Piltover’s pollution.

None of these people really hated each other personally but we’re all fighting because of the pre-existing political situation putting them at odds.

But in season 2 arc 1 they fight because Cait wants to kill Jinx. This wouldn’t be a problem in itself if they didn’t have this be shown to lead Cait down a path of police brutality and dictatorship that is never dealt with outside of her feeling kind of bad at the end.

Then arc 3 has everyone fighting Victor and Ambessa.

I have no idea what politics Victor is suppose to represent if any so that part isn’t compelling. Especially because it ignores that Victor was dying and it was implied his illness was caused by pollution. His whole story around wanting to help Zaun is twisted into being a bad thing. Which again isn’t awful except that nothing is done for Zaun in the end and they just act like all the problems were resolved.

I found everything with Ambessa really interesting though. Not just because she’s a compelling villain but because I found Mel’s story baffling. Why did she take over her mothers position in the end? Why did she say “you are no Medarda” to her mother? Wasn’t the point to show that her mothers facist ‘we are all equal on the battlefield’ ideology was wrong? Was the lesson just that Medarda wasn’t doing a good enough job? Is Mel just going to do the same stuff her mother did now? That all felt like it came out of nowhere.

The lack of solid politics in the show made it feel like a lot of the characters were just going through the motions rather than a real plot pushing the narrative forward.

Other assorted thoughts:

Did that child know she was going to suicide bomb Jinx’s dad at the end of arc 2? Why did she do that? Was she worried Vander was going to kill the soldiers? Did she just want to disrupt the battle to save Jinx? If so, why did she stand next to Vander when she did it? Not super clear what happened there.

At the beginning of arc 2 when the have that black and white sequence that ends on a shot of caits face I though the shadow on her lapels were suppose to make it look like she had swastikas on her shoulders but I guess that was just a coincidence lol.

Cait and Vi broke up with Cait hitting Vi hard enough to bring her to her knees. Then Cait has a training montage where she learns to fight more and be more like Ambessa. Then when Cait and Vi reunite the first thing that happens is Cait uses the techniques Ambessa taught her to hurt Vi. And somehow this is framed like a meet cute moment where they get back together and not showing how Cait has sunken further and further under Ambessas influence. And then the next part of Vi’s plan involves Cait hitting Vi again.

It’s crazy that Cait is just hanging around at the end after gassing civilians in arc 1. That’s such an anti climactic conclusion. I would have had her living in a cave for a decade to try and come to terms with what she did or something. You can’t gas kids then just walk that off.

Jinx is going to kill herself and then Ekko stops her and they have some sort of heart to heart off screen. But then at the end jinx uses the same weapon she built to kill herself with to explode Vander and herself to save Vi. So the message is… suicide is good? If I were writing it I would not have the suicidal character use their suicide weapon of choice to kill herself in a heroic moment.

I think there was a missed opportunity in showing how Maddie is presented as super pro cop and then becomes a spy for Ambessa as a way to show how Piltovers and Noxus aren’t that different despite their more liberal front.

We’re the purple bleeding Noxians the ones upgraded by Victor? That wasn’t super clear. Purple hadn’t really been victors colour for a while.

It’s weird that they brought back the woman that Jayce killed the child of but it didn’t really affect him or the story. Like when Jayce killed that kid it made him realize that Piltover was wrong and he tried to give up power to resolve things peacefully but he has basically no opinion or impact on Zaun in season 2. Jayce was confronted by the fact he murdered a child and the fact a statue of Caitlyn’s mother got caught in the middle had more of an impact.

The dialog in arc 1 didn’t feel right to me. Did anyone else have that thought? Idk it just felt too cutesy and self referential for coming right after the episode where jinx bombs the council. Maybe that was just me though. I thought it was much better in arc 2.

I though Vi’s ‘i choose wrong every time’ line was a little weird. I feel like all her wrong choices in the show were abandoning Jinx. 1. After jinx bombed the factory 2. After jinx bombed the bridge 3. When Vi became a cop to hunt down jinx. What other bad choices did she make? I feel like the other stuff wasn’t in her control. And then trusting Jinx and letting her out of the cell is framed as the wrong choice? Idk.

Can’t believe they had the sex scene happen in a prison cell. Awful optics with the massive amount of sexual violence perpetrated by cops in cells and the back of Cop Cars. They should have just gone to Caits office or something.

Did Sevika talk at all post arc 2?

I thought Sevika’s arm was a little too silly. I’ve seen some people point out the whole gambling aspect of it which I cool but I think the shark face is just a little too wacky for her character. I cringe every time I see the design.

I cant believe they brought Sky back and still didn’t give her a character outside of ‘woman who exists to impact Victors arc’. It was one of the worsts parts of season 1 and now it’s bad in season 2 as well.

I don’t know why they killed Heimerdinger. They already had a way to write him out of the story by dropping him in the other dimension and I didn’t feel anything when he died. Falls flat.

[gold-rhine]

Inazuma Rewrite Act 3

Please start reading from part one before reading this. It will make no sense otherwise.

Act 3 pays off for Acts 1 and 2, and I made some major changes in them, such as change to reasons of vision hunt\Raiden motivations, Ayaka arc, entire resistance storyline, Transience setup, Yoimiya arc setup, so without reading them first, this part will not make sense.

In this installment:

Transcience pay off

Yoimiya arc

Kazuha conflict

Raiden confrontation

Kujou Sara arc

and more

All disclaimers from part one also apply, I’m not gonna copy paste them.

Yae Miko \ Raiden Preparation Training

ok, let’s start with the fact that current “raiden fight training” sucks. Like I get what they’re going for, and training episode idea is very anime, but like. Running in circles around a trashcan that hits you with boss moves is not fun. it is, in fact, super annoying. 

i want to keep the training angle, but make it more... spiritual. and thematic.

so, yae miko is like blah blah, you need to prepare to face Raiden, and I will train you, as the person who knows her the best.

Paimon is like wow, you’re gonna teach us to fight??

Yae Miko is like haha you’re so stupid, no, of course not. Your goal is to change raiden’s mind. For that, you need to know and understand her and where she’s coming from.

We will know you’re ready, when you can pass the Sacred Sakura trial

she leads traveler to the sacred sakura. there are like stone plates with symbols at the base, you know, the puzzle ones.

Yae goes like, do you know what Transience means? Transience is the dream of the nation of thunder. We find the greatest joys in mortal life in fleeting dreams, for is life itself not like the shadow of the thunder? Pursue your dreams into the clouds if you wish, and enjoy the unexpected silence of the dim lamp-lit nights.

traveler and paimon is like yeah wait, we saw smth like that in inazuma shrines and ruins

yae is like great, then show me the symbol of Transience. traveler looks at the puzzle stones, but there weren’t really anything like this in the prev locations which mentioned transience

player can fiddle with puzzle stones, but whatever combination they try, it doesn’t work

after a couple of tries, yae is like okay, it seems you still have much to learn! lets go, i’ll teach you

you go through the inazuma city with her, but seemingly only do bullshit. like, eating ramen, shopping, doing some light novels bs, and like traveler is paying for everything. not too long, like just few minutes, with a couple phrases per activity and fading to black, kinda montage of more and more exasperated and confused traveler and paimon until they’re like wait what the fuck is this. how is supposed to teach us anything??

yae does her signature bullshit smirks like hehe you’re too close-minded, you clearly haven’t understood ~Transience~, so buy me more stuff

paimon does her Angry Stomp, you know the one, like ugh! you’re just fucking with us to get us to pay for stuff, we’re done!

yae narrows her eyes menacingly with a smile like haha is this how u wanna talk to me you little flying shit, paimon hides behind traveler like oops sorry i didn’t say that, but then like, resistance messenger runs up to the traveler and traveler and paimon use this us an excuse to fuck off

Kazuha conflict\ Reveal of the true reasons for Raiden Gokaden fall

turns out messenger is from Kazuha. we meet up with him. he’s in the city despite being fugitive bc he’s heard some maniac is killing ppl, searching for the last scion of the Isshin school bloodline

listen, i love kazuha and i overall like his story quest, but it ends up being more character development for the cursed sword, not kazuha. and like i get it, it’s hard to write conflict for Kazuha bc he’s already escaped samsara, he’s the sole receiver of all therapy in genshin, he rolls 20 on every Wisdom roll, etc etc. 

but that doesn’t mean we can’t explore his character more in depth and give him a conflict, even if his beliefs do not change as the result, but just better articulated.

We’re keeping the quest mostly same, as I said, I like it fine, it’s still about kazuha going on a therapy tour with the cursed sword, but with like. actual stakes

because in canon, when the sword says like oh, together we will have power to defeat raiden, its obviously not really a temptation for kazuha. bc like. the war is already over! kazuha has already won! AND he personally blocked legendary ublockable move that his friend dreamed of doing. why would he go back and fight raiden again?? it makes no sense

so it ends up being just like. kazuha psychoanalyzing cursed sword the entire time. which cool and all, but i want to play quest about kazuha and not the sword??

but, if it happens DURING the war, it’s much more impactful. this is not just revenge, there are lives on the line and no way to fight raiden. so when the sword is like I will give you power to stand up to raiden, then its not only in memory of his friend, but to protect the resistance. It is now a believable choice that can give Kazuha a pause, because situation is dire and they need every advantage they can get

this is also to rhyme with the Delusions motif, the “my own strength is not enough, so I must turn to the corrupted source of power for which i know i will pay”

of course, in the end kazuha decides to not give in to the cursed sword, bc he sees through its facade that the sword is actually weakening and falling apart, but also because he is narrative foil to both scara (scara believes in doing anything to gain power to pursue his obsession, even at great pain to himself, this is why he’s tied with delusions, and then in sumeru quest gets into dotorre’s torture mecha) AND raiden, which i think fandom largely misses. 

both Kazuha and Ei had friends and loving, supporting family, but were kinda sheltered and isolated from people. Ei because she was Makoto’s shadow and didn’t really interact with public, and Kazuha because he was an heir of a falling noble house and he was feeling trapped and focused on trying to live up to his own expectations and anxieties (this btw was beautifully dramatized in his domain in prev summer’s golden archipelago) 

both of them were quiet and kinda introverted, Ei allowing her sister take a central stage and Kazuha admitting that ppl with grand aspirations always captivated him, which obv references his friend. then, they lost everything in one fell swoop. 

Ei lost her friends in the cataclysm and then, her sister. Kazuha’s family died, and later he had to flee his estate, becoming fugitive and then his friend was killed in a duel with Raiden. they both had their small-ish isolated worlds and lost them violently 

and Raiden tried to catch the shards of her falling world and keep them in place, cover them in stasis, as if it could restore what was broken. She saw eternity as the lack of change and decided to never change herself. She closed off from the world, literally destroyed her physical body and isolated her mind in a little locked world, focused solely on “preserving” herself.

in contrast, Kazuha opened up to the world. He didn’t try to stop the winds of change, he followed them. One of this themes is being a part of the world, “One with wind and clouds”, “One with the nature”, “Life has just begun and maybe, the whole world can be my home,” this is why his kit heavily features element absorption and his character stories emphasize how he’s sharp, notices little details in surroundings, even has sharp sense of smell. 

He reached out to people instead of isolating himself, and so he found new friends, he saw the endless beauty in the bigger world even after his own cozy snowglobe was shattered. 

His theme is not only about being open to the world, but also bringing different elements together, and he’s the one who brings people in inazuma arc together. He brings traveler to Thoma, then through him Gorou reaches Beidou and the mercs, etc. this is why he is the one who blocks raiden. 

he is her foil precisely because he can let go and doesn’t let his grief blind him, he will fight her because she needs to be stopped, but not because he wants to take revenge or fore her to suffer. He is the breaker of cycles of pain, not perpetuator

so kazuha refuses, like in original, sword deteriorates more and more, and in the end, becomes weak, but regains memories about his creator in exile in snezhnaya. 

but, with the added twist to the scene where kazuha sees memories of the sword. In our version, Shogun instituted vision hunt decree because vision holding blade smith collaborated with fatui and led to the fall of Raiden Gokaden, 5 sword art schools. 

But now we learn that Kazuha’s ancestor who made this cursed sword, was this very vision-holding blade smith, and he never betrayed Inazuma, instead, he was slandered by Fatui and it was all Scara’s plan on his misguided revenge against Raiden Gokaden.

as in canon, Kazuha reforges the sword with the last shreds of its power. It does not hold its previous cursed strength anymore, but it is a last sword made in lost technique of Kazuha’s family tradition and he swears to restore it, just as he does in canon

Vision Loss exploration\ Yoimiya was always relevant

after this, paimon and traveler are like ugh, we don’t want to go back to yae, we don’t know the answer to symbol of transience puzzle and she will just mock us more. Lets go see how Yoimiya is doing instead!

ok so, I want to address what I see as a problem in how genshin handled vision loss. like obviously, vision loss stands for trauma. and “wow after their vision was taken, they turned into a completely different person” works as initial impression, bc often when someone you know changes drastically, it can feel this way

where this narrative fails is that it never explores further, bc all characters we meet with vision loss are random NPCs we see for 15 minutes, so it ends up being shallow “this guy was very kind and selfless before, but after losing vision he completely ignores ppl he helped with “new number who dis” response”, which like???

framing ppl who are already going through inner turmoil and struggle as like, complete strangers who are not themselves anymore and also completely lose positive qualities tied to their visions, is so tactless and wrong. It’s still the same person, no matter how drastically changed, and they need support, not demonization like “inherently incapable of caring about people after losing vision”.

this is why i think its better to focus on one character players know and care about instead of several NPCs no one gives a fuck about

so we go visit Yoi and meet her with her dad during discussion. it’s festival time and their family always made fireworks for it, they have several orders now too. But, due to Yoi being caught as part of resistance, her family was blacklisted and they can’t get necessary supplies to create fireworks, specifically like special chemical powder. 

so now, Yoi needs to go to all the clients and tell them there will be no fireworks for them for this festival.

Yoi’s dad is very supportive and doesn’t blame Yoi, but she still feels its her fault. She’s not a firecracker she was before, now quieter and harsher, and it does feel like she’s someone new, who traveler and paimon do not know.

we go to the clients to inform them with Yoi, and while doing so learn what fireworks meant for each of them. for some, it was friendship, how now matter how different their lives were, they would get together and celebrate with fireworks. for old couple, its ritual to celebrate their marriage and so on.

they are all sad, but understanding, and supportive and concerned about Yoi. she puts on brave face, but its obvious for the traveler that its hard for her to pretend to be fine.

on the way back, they have a convo about how its tacking a toll on Yoi, and how she feels bad, but also hopeless, and it also feels like something as joyous and frivolous as fireworks is meaningless in the middle of the war and vision hunt

we get back and find Yoi’s dad talking to customers. Its a refugee family, they explain that they live on another island, but once in a few years would visit Narukami for the festival and buy fireworks. They were forced to go to Narukami right now bc of the war, but since they are here already, they want at least something good to come out of it. And they have a cute little girl who is too young and never before saw fireworks and she’s sooooo excited, and the whole time they were running from their home they were consoling her by saying they go to Narukami to see the festival and the fireworks 

Yoi’s dad starts defeatedly explaining that unfortunately they cannot make fireworks right now, but Yoi interrupts him, and for a moment she’s her old self, bright and joyful, she reassures the little girl that its okay, they will have fireworks for sure, and these will be the prettiest fireworks ever!

family leaves, excited, and Yoi drops the facade. she wasn’t “cured” in a moment, but she is determined 

traveler and paimon are like - oh but how will we get fireworks??

Yoi is like “tenryo commission has this confiscated powder in their warehouse and we are raiding it, bc this little girl is getting her family fireworks if its the last fucking thing i do”

bc she realized, viscerally, that actually, fireworks will be more meaningful now BECAUSE of the dark and uncertain times, not despite of them, and whether its someone childhood OR last years of life, time is fleeting and impossible to get back, so giving people joy and hope is more important than ever

she’s not “healed”, she’s not back to her old self yet, but we see that there’s still spark in her and hope for recovery, even if she struggles, and deep down she is still same kind and caring Yoi we’ve met at the start

we do the warehouse domain, fight, do puzzles, get powder, Yoi and her dad make fireworks, we watch basically same cutscene as of the end of Yoi’s first quest now, with ppl looking up at the sky and seeing fireworks and Yoi and traveler watching from the hill.

at which point i want to mention that like, despite some part of fandom calling canon Yoi irrelevant, she always supported inazuma themes, which i will illustrate by using the dialogue from the quest verbatim and showing how i don’t even need to rewrite it to make it fit

Yoimiya: It was by chance that I happened to be born into the Naganohara family, so it was by chance that I ended up learning this craft from my pops.

Yoimiya: It's also by chance that I've met so many people, learned so many things, and discovered that people associate watching fireworks with the things that are most precious to them. 

Yoimiya: Fireworks that disappear in a flash of light are probably the furthest thing away from the eternity that our Shogun desires. 

Yoimiya: But people's feelings don't just disappear, and it's those feelings that give fireworks their purpose. If nobody wanted to watch fireworks, then they wouldn't exist.

Traveler: That's another kind of eternity.

boom! Yoimiya was always a representation of transience philosophy, hoyo just didn’t dramatize it properly and without transience explored during main quest, she felt like she doesn’t belong, while she was an actual Inazuma spiritual end game goal all along.

Makoto Reveal

anyway. traveler, pauses, repeats themselves. “Another kind of eternity... Eternity in fleeting things, because people’s dreams give them meaning...”

they get up and run to yae, looking determined, confused paimon following behind

“i know the answer,“ traveler tells to yae and she smirks, leads them to the puzzle stones near Sakura

“So, show me the symbol of transience“

but instead of fiddling with the stones, traveler gestures at the sakura petals, gliding on the wind and people watching theim

“This is the eternity in transience“

yae chuckles in delight “oh, finally, i thought you’ll never get it. How could be fleeting dreams be captured in stone puzzles?”

paimon is like ooooh is this why you led us around eating ramen and shopping? you were not just fucking around on our money, you wanted to make us think about enjoying momentary fleeting things?

yae gives her signature facetious response like oh of course how could you think i was scamming, how ungrateful of you etc etc, but its clear that she both actually was trying to give a hint AND enjoyed scamming them for free stuff

then she gets quieter, says pensively “but it seems the company of your friends was better help with figuring it out... She always did say that we immortals cannot understand beauty of transience the way humans do...”

paimon and traveler are like “She???”

thats when the cutscene revealing that there were two shoguns and that raiden’s sister died at the cataclysm plays. nothing much to add here, i think the existing cutscene works well, but because in canon it’s played AFTER raiden’s defeated, it feels a bit weird, like post-factum excuse.

like raiden goes oh well ok, i’ll get rid of vision hunt decree, by the way i had a twin sister who died, like?? i think pacing-wise its better to learn why raiden is Like That before “punch her until she changes her mind” fight than after she had already changed her mind

so, paimon is like ooooh, so this is why it seemed that raiden changed so much! she didn’t change, we just saw the ideas of the first shogun

yae is like yes, ei’s grief for her sister and differences in their views is important for you to understand for when you will try to change her mind in her hikikomori mind palace

Storming the palace\ Signora interlude

then yae does the ok lets get Kojou Sara quests, which I don’t really feel like changing, bc like. it does its job fine enough. we need to establish that tenryou commission was corrupted and working with fatui AND that kujou sara will go against her only family for justice

the ayato infiltrating like 5 rebellion guys with gorou and kazuha to take the palace is kinda dumb logistically, but tbh this is not game of thrones. genshin works mostly on anime logic where things happen bc its cool and fitting for the character\narrative beats. making actually realistic attack plan i feel like would be too long, complex and derail from the storyline, so i’d say lets keep it roughly same

What I’m gonna change is Signora cameo. And by change I mean remove it completely. I spent a lot of time trying to make her death work, but it just doesn’t. She has nothing to do with Inazuma story or themes, shows up for 2 seconds and dies immediately. This is a shitshow, like, we’d need to derail whole archon quest to insert her and it still wouldn’t be good. 

if Signora has to be dead for like, the strategic plot reasons, here is my version of how it should go down

ok but we need an opportunity for raiden to do her one hit boob kill move, and how are we gonna do this if we remove Signora?

easy, sara confronts her tenryuo adoptive dad in front of raiden. like, rn she runs to him, he has a speech about how he basically doesn’t care about raiden herself, but really only worships the Boob Nuke. he gets defeated and then sara runs off to raiden and gets knocked out off-screen, like??? this is so awkward. what the fuck is the point

instead, sara is like right now is the time when Tenryuo chief is reporting to raiden, we need to tell her he’s lying to her!

we follow sara to the palace and confront tenryuo dude in front of raiden. he’s like you have no proof u insolent girl and this is after everything i’ve done for u! 

sara challenges him to a duel before the throne and raiden agrees. 

we fight the dude and defeat him. he launches into basically same unhinged speech, but now raiden is here to hear it. 

She realizes that even those who she considered the most loyal of her servants worship not her, but her power, because she removed herself from inazuma and all people know of her is to fear the Boob Nuke. this is a important step in her development that we will explore a bit later

then she annihilates him which i think is much more thematically relevant bc he died from the same blade he worshipped

then, raiden is like well, i’ve dealt with a traitor, but don’t think that it gets YOU off the hook, a criminal is a criminal and I’ll destroy you

then we duel, bc like. her using boob sword at the start of battle is thematically wrong. its a finisher, a kill move. in the first duel she used it at the end. she needs to charge her burst first, you know

so, we go to the plane of euthemiya and fight. it basically goes the same, first traveler has elements disabled, then wishes of inazuma people awaken and empower them.

raiden is shaken, but not convinced. bc this is the Gives a Fuck raiden, it’s not that she didn’t know her people had ambitions, tho she could underestimate them, its that she thought these ambitions can only lead them to ruin and she, as an arbiter of eternity who sacrificed her body to lock her mind in a sword and evade “corruption“, is the one who knows best.

she rallies up and counter-attacks. similar scene as in the first duel happens, she throws traveler to the real world and follows, readying the kill move

and thats when kazuha blocks her 

i think in canon this isn’t given appropriate weight for raiden. bc like. that was her legendary UNBLOCKABLE strike. she one-shot gods and monsters with it. this was her personal proof of perfection, she knows she might not be a philosopher and leader like her sister, but she is The best warrior. like if you want to change her mind, you have to fight her in a duel, her mastery of sword is how she justifies that she’s right to herself

and now a mortal blocked her most perfect move

and not just any mortal! She recognizes the style of the blade he wields. Isshin blade, even though Isshin art died as Raiden Gokaden schools fell

she asks him how did he get this blade and he tells her the truth he learned from the cursed sword

her people never betrayed her. instead, she was mislead by the fatui and pushed her own subjects into running away to the enemies because they didn’t believe she would listen and be merciful to them

the worst thing is that she knows they were right. she would not have been merciful.

and now she watches the bitter irony of how her eternity crumbles.

tenryuo commission, who she thought of her most loyal and closest servants, upholding laws and traditions, in truth were corrupted from the inside, tradition nothing but a hollow form, a fake shape kept just to appease her, with no true soul or meaning, lusting only after power

but the last scion of the clan she though betrayed her, an exile and criminal, a vagabond and pirate, is the one who embodied isshin art she thought lost wholeheartedly, the one who preserved the last true blade of his school. the one who blocked her strike that she thought of as the truest.

and with the vision of a man she had once already defeated in a duel

with all of that, with countless visions rallying up to support an outlander against their own god, with the proof that even killing rebels would be useless because ambitions of the dead will be picked up and reignited again by the living, with proof of the corruption rotting in her government, she cannot see herself in the right anymore

this is why she lifts the vision hunt decree

Raiden’s First Story Quest 

I think there’s general agreement in fandom, even among raiden fans, that her first story quest is one of the worst in game. its so boring and pointless. you go on a date with raiden and then she fights some nerd in a duel. who gives a fuck.

it also takes for granted that all players even WANT to hang out with raiden, which like, at this point she was only a giant dick to everyone around and not everyone is a boob worshipper. for people who already disliked her, being forced to babysit her around and take her photos only feels more annoying and antagonizing

Again, our main change in characterization for raiden is that she actually gives a fuck. like, in canon her country is on the brink of complete collapse after civil war and fatui schemes, 2 out of 3 commissions are barely functional, her robot-sona is malfunctioning the storm, and she not only does not give a fuck, but traveler has to jump through hoops to get to her. and she just goes on a date, trying sweets and light novels. like. guuuuurl. come on, get a grip for 5 fucking minutes and do your damn job. we had to randomly stumble into tenryuo nerd being bullied for her to take ANY part in inazuma’s politics

so, logical thing to do for Raiden Who Gives a Fuck is to go out and try to sort out mess she’s now learnt her country was turned into. 

like, she summons traveler and goes hey, i know we’re not exactly on bestest terms, but I need to root out corruption and fatui’s shit specifically, and i don’t trust my government officials right now, so i need your help in being a guide bc i haven’t left the room in 500 years. 

kujou sara is also there since raiden deemed her trustworthy bc sara was the one who exposed tenryuo corruption to her

i got an ask about how canonically Kanjou commission was in a vulnerable state due to commerce falling with sakoku decree,  and so they could be an easy first foothold for fatui to get themselves into the country, and i think raiden quest would be a good place to explore it, while she’s investigation corruption.

i’m not gonna write the whole plot, it doesn’t really matter, the main points is that raiden sees isolation actually doesn’t protect her ppl, but harms them, that when ppl are not allowed to do smth that they want, they will turn to illegal and much more harmful ways instead, for which delusions are an allegory.

raiden can still do fluffy stuff like trying mango milkshakes or whatever, but while going from one commission to another instead of just wandering around on a date

tenruyo nerd can also be there if hoyo wants to include him for some reason. they can even have same useless duel with raiden at the end that makes her appoint him head of commission

Kujou Sara

as I said, Sara is also there, going with raiden on investigation, showing her competence, until its clear that she’s the sole hinge on which entire tenryuo commission depends.

raiden praises her for her loyalty, and Sara, incredibly earnest and grateful, explains her backstory, how she was a kid falling to her death from a mountain while enemies were storming it, and how she received vision during the fall and thus survived, so she now not only owes her life to raiden, but can’t imagine better cause to serve, as clearly, raiden is omnipotent and all knowing and caring enough to save an insignificant tengu child like her

raiden frowns. she does not grant visions herself, in fact, she is not even aware when electro visions are granted - this is canon btw, it’s from raiden’s own voicelines.

tenryuo nerd sees that raiden is about to speak up, and even though he obv doesn’t know vision secrets, he realizes from her expression alone that she’s about to contradict sara’s story

he interrupts her, apologizes profusely, but takes her aside and begs her to not say to sara anything that can shake her loyalty, because again, this commission is going to crumble without her. These are temoulteous times and they need sara the most, raiden can tell her whatever she wants after inazuma is stabilized

but the thing is that being truly honorable is supposed to be raiden’s redeeming grace. she might be stubborn and inflexible, ruthless and inept, but she is straightforward and honorable, she cannot accept loyalty given on false premises, and we need to show that in action

raiden tells sara bluntly that she did not give her a vision, that she was not aware that sara was in risk of death at all

sara is shaken. her world crumbles before her. this is not just bc of her own vision and life that she thought she owed, but in fact, did not. no, much more it’s about vision hunt decree. its about all the people she was sent after, talked to them and their crying families for hours, telling them that this is for their own good, that shogun knows better, sara herself is an example, is a proof. it’s about all the people she didn’t convince and had to take their visions by force, comforting herself in the knowledge that she personally might not understand shogun’s plan, but what she knows is that is infallible.

and now it turns out it’s not true at all.

this, she cannot take. she asks raiden to free her from service. and bc again, raiden is honorable, even knowing the damage it will do, she lets sara go.

after that, she shows up in events and side quests, showing her on a journey to find herself.

we see her in yae miko’s story quest, protecting ppl from the guy who was possessed by the oni spirit, and later, watching yokai spirits dance in the skies and yearning

we see her in an event with a ghost umbrella, being strict and cross with yokai kids for causing so much ruckus, but secretly fond and protective of them, and playing off her funny rivalry with itto

we see her in itto’s quest, in a part where traveler asks ppl about itto’s character, and she’s being fair, says that he might be an idiot and hooligan, but he would never harm or kidnap innocent ppl

we see her in irodori festival, organizing the community, bc she knows how to do it and she’s good at it and *someone* has to (and bc she cares about ppl without any order telling her to)

then, she’s in kokomi quest, bc kokomi asks her to be present at negotiations, bc she’s the only one from tenryuo in whose honor kokomi can really trust. sara tells her that she has no official standing anymore, but kokomi asks her to be there anyway. later, when dishonesty from tenryuo side is revealed and sara helps to stop the ppl who are trying to sabotage negotiations, kokomi asks sara to vouch for what happened in report to raiden, so that this is not blamed on watatsumi and fair deal can be cut

sara says again that raiden has no reason to listen to her and take the worse deal just on her word. and yet, after a couple of days, report comes back. raiden listens to sara’s word and does not force watatsumi to accept the bad conditions. we can see this affecting sara, her being conflicted

sara\kokomi shippers, ur welcome btw

then, raiden’s second story quest. it starts as of now. we accept commission to deal with abyss wolves spawning, go to the mountain of sacred sakura. but instead of just meeting raiden, we first see kujou sara.

she’s there to protect people because this is who she is, this is the ambition that summoned her vision to begin with, and no lies and manipulations can change that.

like at the beginning of her story, she’s on the mountain, protecting her home from the enemies

like at the beginning, she falls and survives the fall, but she’s too injured and about to be killed by the wolves

but this time, inazuma’s archon has not locked herself in a room.

raiden appears, destroying the wolves and saving sara. this time, she is not just an idea based on false belief of a child. she is there in flesh to finally take action that sara believed she was doing so many years ago.

as in canon, raiden says that she will fight the monsters alone, bc its her duty to protect inazuma.

and this is when sara pledges her allegiance to raiden again.

raiden tells her that her saving sara’s life does not mean that sara now owes that life to her, as raiden’s duty is to protect all of her people

but this is not why sara wants to follow her now. finally, she sees real raiden and not childish illusion of an omnipotent goddess who always knows better. but real raiden is honest, honorable, and despite being strongheaded and often misguided, someone who cares deeply for her ppl and is driven by the same goal to protect as sara

sara tells this to her, asserting that she will not serve her out of obligation or with blind loyalty like before, that she will now think critically and question and tell raiden if she believes she;s wrong, but she will believe in her nonetheless as long as raiden cares about inazuma over herself

raiden says that then they will share an eternity in service of inazuma people, as they should

as sara is injured, raiden sends her to organize evacuation instead of fighting, and quest goes on as in canon

sara\raiden shippers, ur welcome btw

Ancient Sakura Blooms Again

I don’t want to change much else about raiden’s second quest, bc its already pretty fucking good and manages to speedrun raiden’s character development in 45 minutes.

instead, all of my rewrite is meant to be a setup to establish both raiden’s conflict and makoto’s personality and philosophy beforehand, instead of getting infodump from old man ghost in 1.5 scenes

this way, raiden coming to accept the eternity as transience is natural progression instead of speedrun and makoto’s appearance has bigger impact, since she was haunting the narrative from the start and we came to know about her gradually

also, irodori festival can go pretty much the same. scara being behind raiden gokaden fall is now more significant, bc for our version it was inazuma’s inciting incident, and now just like. random lore bit.

also, both raiden and yae miko show up in comedic cameos during festival, but after they learn it was scara, there is a brief serious scene as raiden realizes that while she was blaming fatui for corrupting inazuma, it was only possible bc she neglected her own creation, which is a metaphor for inazuma’s isolation as a whole. she doesn’t explain that ofc, just looks striken

“i thought i’m giving him peace...“

“i’ve told you we should’ve destroyed that puppet“, yae miko spits out (she did canonically wanted to off scara after raiden decided he’s not fit for gnosis bc he cried)

ofc, we won’t give proper backstory before sumeru, but it would be a nice tease that will get deeper meaning once we do know, and also illustrate that both raiden’s solipsistic abandonment and yae miko burning bridges instead of dealing with ppl is not great governing strategies

also, irodori has additional ayaka storyline about how she got involved in all this investigation stuff as a distraction to get away from the house bc ayato asked her to wear family jewels for the festival finale and she sold them in act 2, but she’s too afraid to tell it to ayato

finally, after learning of kazuha’s family keeping secrets from each other that hurt them in the long run, she finally gets brave enough to tell ayato what she did

he stops her mid-sentence and tells her to go check the chests

she’s confused, but obeys. she runs back holding the jewelry, being like oh my god what?? how is that back?? did u buy it back??? did u know the entire time???

of course he knew the entire time. he’s proud of her. he only wished she trusted him enough to ask for his help directly.

you didn’t use the commission funds for this, right? ayaka hesitates for a second and ayato laugh.

of course not. why would he need to steal from commission when there are so many fatui assassins to loot

oh, i always knew you wouldn’t. wait what....

ayato’s quest i’d rewrite completely. he’s still manipulate mansplain manslut, but in better political machinations then sabotaging a wedding of npcs and giving hannibal lector speeches to random goons

we’ve scorched out inazuma’s corruption in raiden first quest, now is the time to restructure and modernize commissions which were gutted by said corruption, for which raiden assembles yae, sara, traveler and ayato, who is the head of only commission that did not sell out to fatui

ayato and yae miko are incredibly petty cunts to each other in a very smiley passive aggressive manner, but they team up to come up with devious machinations for the greater good

sara is there not only for military expert role, but also to speak up for the common ppl which she is finally closer to, and to ground the schemers

raiden sometimes thoughtfully says “why don’t we duel them to death?“ as solution to many problems, and when everyone yells no, shrugs

overall, its kinda rough going and obvious that there are a lot of problems ahead, but also clear that inazuma did change and grew, raiden is no longer a solipsistic tyrant and she has a diverse council she listens to and actively engages with her country’s problems

btw, in ayato vs yae miko schemes off he gets to win and be smug bc its his birthday story quest

Yoimiya’s second story quest

Yoi’s second quest is already v good and obv has a lot of soul in it, i wouldn’t change too much, except for the premise

bc this quest is the reason i decided to make vision loss plotline at all. bc this quest is already perfectly written to be culmination of that plot line, and frankly, gets a lot of ??? without it

like, it starts bc yoi just randomly decides to go on vacation to wish on falling stars. like ok i guess. and she’s like i didnt really care but the whole village really got into it and want me to see it, so i’m doing it for them. like?? why would they be invested in random vacation like that?? mb ok they just love yoi

but then traveler goes to nahida and she’s like sorry, meteor showers happen like once in 200 years. but traveler and paimon are very insistent that they have have to do it for you, they can’t disappoint her. when like. its a random vacation! and yoi is not a type of person to be like ugh i didn’t get to see falling stars, my trip is RUINED

but no, they beg nahida to help like its big deal, and nahida agrees to involve aranara, despite no adult being able to see aranara is a big deal in lore. and then they have a whole conversation about is it ethical to trick yoi into believing this meteor shower is real if it’s just a dream, even if she’ll learn truth later, when like.... it’s a vacation????? she’s just there to have fun???? why are you all so serious

basically, beginning of this quest makes little sense, bc it has no actual stakes until girl in a wheelchair shows up, but narrative treats it very seriously when like “yoi has fun on vacation“ is the only stated goal for the start

BUT, if taken as part of vision loss story, everything snaps into place.

after vision hunt ended, visions were returned to their owners. but not all of them reignited on the spot, and Yoimiya is one of the people whose vision did not activate

and is it any surprise? after all she’s seen in a war, all she’s been through, how could she go back to believing that the world is a good and happy place, in the inherent wonder and joy of it?

her vision stayed grey and silent in her hands. she feels bad and guilty that she can’t be happy go lucky as before, when her father and all of the villagers care so much about her

they nudge her to go on a trip to see the falling stars, inspiration for fireworks, in hopes it will remind her of why she loved them so much before

this is the stakes, this is why inazuma ppl care, why traveler cares enough to ask nahida and why nahida would be moved to break tradition and let yoi interact with aranara, why they have this long convo about if it’s right to trick yoi. bc f it’s about reigniting her belief in world’s miracles, then yeah, it makes a lot more sense to worry about truth of it

not only this, but the disabled girl turns from just random npc to a mirror parallel to yoi. both of them were harshly and suddenly hurt by the world, both lost will to live. and the kicker is that yoi is going along bc she feels bad and bc her family and friends are worrying about her, but she only *really* get into this when she meets this girl

because this is what she was always about, not just happy go lucky girl, but a gold koi, a light of happiness and luck talisman for other people, especially for kids. for this girl, she will believe is the wishing stars

of course, her vision reignites when in aranara dreamland she takes girl’s hand and jumps onto the falling stars to fly across the sky. because it’s not about how the world is cruel. its about how good we can be to each other. what if it’s just a shared dream? We find the greatest joys in mortal life in fleeting dreams, for is life itself not like the shadow of the thunder? Pursue your dreams into the clouds if you wish

[completeoveranalysis]

[1]

Chapitre 209 - The Demon King and The Puppet

Get in losers we’re going to Outo!

We’re back in the sequence of revisiting family bonding moments in the previous arcs, and to my surprise and great delight this one isn’t a Syaoran and Sakura one but Syaoran and Kurogane! I thought these were a recap montage of the Syaoran/Sakura relationship over the journey, but maybe it’s a recap of Syaoran himself? Our son the clone Syaoran and all the nice moments he’s had on over the arcs we spent together? 

And why would they do that unless they wanted us to hurt us very badly with it? 

They’re either being very sentimental or someone might die, so time to turn up the Suspicion dial for the survivability of all our characters!

Either way, the splash text reads: In order to avoid losing everything, I wanted to become strong, like that person…

IN WHICH WE HAVE A CLEAR THROUGH-LINE BETWEEN KUROGANE AND SYAORAN? BOTH GAINING STRENGTH FOR THE SAME REASON? AND IT GOING OUT OF CONTROL FOR BOTH OF THEM?

For Kurogane his trauma led him down a path of increasing violence where he didn’t value life as much and just wanted to kill people to get stronger. For Syaoran his soul broke so he was forced to follow his clone programming and killed presumably WAY MORE people than even Kurogane could ever have dreamed of, leaving countless worlds devastated in the name of “protecting Sakura” and retrieving the feathers. 

Dark parallels dark parallels!

But eventual misuse of power besides, the splash text sounds like it’s from Syaoran’s POV as he remembers admiring Kurogane’s strength and how he wanted to protect people like Kurogane does. And it’s the past tense that makes it so interesting - as if his soul is awake after all, and he’s thinking back on his memories with the Tsubasa family through this final confrontation. 

Which is only fanning my hopes that he’s planning a ruse and whispered to Lava Lamp to play along. And even more tragic that to sell the ruse he had to MASSIVELY STAB Lava Lamp, absolutely wreck Fai and Kurogane until they were too injured to stand, and kill countless clones. 

So, like. A convincing ruse to say the least!

And we haven’t even talked about the image! Kurogane and Syaoran back to back in Outo! Kurogane holding his sword and Syaoran mirroring his pose but holding wet clothing instead! The matching white top and black pants of their different outfits! Kurogane smiling as he explains and Syaoran listening attentively!

While they stand under a Sakura tree. 

Which (like in the Hanshin cover) is an accurate detail to the setting they were in! The park this training took place in had a Sakura tree in it, but here a branch of the tree is visibly cutting them off from each other. Which makes me want to scream in how appropriate that is - because even here, in Syaoran’s memory, the presence of ‘Sakura’ (and the clone programming that makes him focus on the feathers) is cutting him off from the connection he remembers forming. Despite their bond the Sakura tree is in his way from actually reaching Kurogane - just like his missing soul would have wrenched any feelings for his family away from him, and here in the final battle his need to follow Evil Wolverine’s orders keeps him from even speaking to his family, even if he DOES remember their bond. 

WHICH IT SEEMS LIKE HE MIGHT. 

[thesernotthedroidsurlooking4]

Biggest gripe: why didn’t they have Luke train Percy in swordfighting?

Like, they spent plenty of time having Luke build a bond with him, get Percy to trust him, etc, and that’s great, exactly what we need. But was it so hard to also put their first swordfight in there? It wouldn’t have taken too much runtime away! One scene, plus a small training montage/implication of a week or two passing at camp in general. This is all I’d ask for! Without it, there are several ripple effect issues w/the plot:

-how does Percy beat Clarisse and the Ares kids without water or training? Percy is a natural, sure, but it needs to still be plausible. Now, I don’t take issue with showing him having swordfighting talent in the first book without him having to be drenched, actually. If Percy fights well dry, it gives Percy more credit for himself, instead of everything he’s good at being about his powers. But, still, it looks less believable if he’s just that good without an introduction to it.

-if Percy is leaving on his quest now, that gives him zero training time with a sword. Like, at all? And he’s going to have to beat Ares?

-Luke and Percy’s relationship later as foils depends a lot on their parallel abilities with the sword. The whole series’s conflict is encapsulated by the two as antagonist vs. protagonist, Luke vs. Percy, Backbiter vs. Riptide—blade vs. blade. Their common weapon is used to show how they have similar stories, and similar power/abilities, and then choose to do very different things with them. Their initial clash is also a foreshadowing fight—from Luke’s “fluke” defeat, we glean that Percy will be the one who has the power to defeat him with their common ability. An ability Luke himself is training Percy in, showing Luke’s influence upon Percy. Remember, Percy doesn’t remain unwavering in his position throughout the Titan War—Luke leaves his mark upon Percy, and in the end, that comes out as a good thing, with Percy’s victory request of the gods in TLO being a way of honoring what Luke fought for. (Plus, who doesn’t love a good angsty villain-as-hero’s-mentor bond that turns tragic, or the dramatic irony of the villain having helped form the one that defeats them?)

Maybe they’ve mixed up the order of things and will have this scene in the next episode, before Percy leaves, but I still stand by my opinion that it’s not enough training time.

Anyway. Show good, still excited, but stuff needed to be said

[writer-or-whatever]

Training Montage

Wrote a little TAZ Amnesty piece featuring my beloved Aubrey & Duck friendship. Read under the cut or on AO3

Summary: Aubrey decides she wants to expand her skillset and asks Duck for help. Set between Season 1 and Season 2.

Rating: G | Word Count: 1.3k | Fluff & Humor

Duck opened his apartment door at 12:15—Aubrey was only 15 minutes late, which was a personal best for her—to find her holding two paper grocery bags. He didn’t manage to get a word out before she shouldered her way past him into his apartment, making a beeline for his kitchen.

“Nice to see you too, Aubrey. Why don’t you come in?” He muttered to himself as he shut the door.

“Yeah, yeah, niceties. Get in here so we can get down to business, Duck!” Aubrey called back to him. When he walked into the kitchen, she was in the process of up-ending her grocery bags onto the counter.

“What the hell could you possibly need that many frozen burritos for?”

“Training,” Aubrey said without even turning to look at him.

“Training for what?”

Aubrey turned to him with her giant stage-worthy smile and flourished her arms about. “You are looking at the future title-holder of the record for the fastest time to eat a single burrito.”

Duck just looked at her dumbly for a moment before speaking. “This is ridiculous.”

It was clear that the short minutes of Minerva’s visit last night that they’d spent coming up with a training plan for Aubrey were wasted. Which disappointed him a bit. Minerva had sounded so proud of him for ‘Taking initiative. This will aid you well on your journey, Duck Newton!’ Not that he particularly cared about that. At all. But it was a nice change of pace from her usual scolding.

“Well, it’s not like we get any recognition for the whole pine guard thing,” Aubrey said with a shrug. She quickly continued before Duck could remind her that they were supposed to keep that a secret for a reason, “Which is fine. But Mama also said I can’t do any gigs until I get my powers under control better. So, you know, gotta get a little recognition somewhere.”

“And so you chose to become the Joey Chestnut of burritos?”

“Well, his whole thing is eating a lot of things really fast, and I just want to eat one thing really fast. But yeah basically.”

“And you need me for this because…”

“Well, you’ve been training every day and I thought ‘hey, if there’s anyone who knows about discipline and determination, it’s Duck Newton,’” She said, still smiling winningly at him, though he could see little sparks from where she was fidgeting and snapping her fingers.

“And?” He asked, raising an eyebrow expectantly.

“And you have a microwave,” Aubrey admitted sheepishly.

“Well, at least you’re honest,” He said with a laugh. “Go ahead and heat one of those up and we can see what you’re working with, I guess.”

“Yes!” She said, pumping a fist. She unwrapped the first of her many vegetarian burritos while he questioned his own sanity for agreeing.

He and Minerva made a plan for Aubrey’s training and improvement, which he could probably modify for this, and he already set aside his afternoon, so he may as well go along for the ride.

Once Aubrey had her burrito (and let it cool for a few minutes—she already had enough burns, she didn’t need to add the roof of her mouth to the list), she pulled a stopwatch from one of the pockets on her vest and handed it to Duck. ���Just tell me when to start, coach.”

Duck nodded. Step one: establish a baseline for performance. “Alright. Ready? Set? Go!”

The next 2 minutes and 38 seconds was one of the strangest moments in his life—he spent the time looking between her and the stopwatch and tried to ignore the sound of Aubrey chewing. He’d never be able to watch ASMR with mouth sounds again.

“2 minutes, 38.2 seconds,” He said as she swallowed her last bite. “That’s not bad? I think. What’s the record anyway?”

“31 seconds,” Aubrey burped out.

“Okay, gross. I draw the line at talking while burping. It’s just bad manners, Aubrey,” He said sternly.

“Aye, aye, captain,” she said with a salute as she stood up to make another burrito.

It was time to move on to Minerva’s Step 2: make small changes towards a goal and measure Aubrey’s progress.

“Try taking bigger bites this time,” Duck suggested when Aubrey returned with burrito number two.

“Alright. Just tell me when,” Aubrey said as she wiggled her fingers and leaned over her plate.

“Ready? Go.”

It was just as gross the second time. But Duck was starting to get invested in Aubrey’s ridiculous goal, despite himself.

“2 minutes, 29.4 seconds,” He said when she was done. “Maybe try smaller, faster bites?”

Aubrey gave a thumbs up as she headed back to the kitchen.

The third attempt clocked in at 2 minutes, 45 seconds, so clearly big bites were the way to go.

Aubrey continued to work her way through her burrito supplies and experimented with the technique. She tried varying sized bites. She tried chugging water just before she started—”For maximum lubrication, Duck.” “Gross.”—and in-between huge bites as well. After 7 burritos, her time was hovering around 1 minute and 40 seconds and she was starting to look pretty green.

“Duck?” Aubrey said as she slumped over and rested her head against the table.

“Yeah?”

“I think I’m gonna be sick.”

Duck reached down for the little trash can from his bathroom, complete with a fresh bag, which he’d gotten while she was heating up burrito number four. “Here.”

“Thanks,” She said, sitting up and clutching the small bin to her chest.

“Let’s get you to the couch to lay down,” he said gently as he took hold of her arms and helped her up and guided her to the living room. Once she was settled on her side on the couch—laying with her legs stretched over Duck’s lap so he had a place to sit in the small living room other than the floor—he switched on the TV and let Golden Girls reruns fill the silence.

After 2 and a half episodes, they were startled from their stupor by the sound of Duck’s landline ringing from the kitchen.

“Let me up,” Duck said, patting her legs gently.

Aubrey moved her legs with a groan and said, “If that’s Mama with a pine guard emergency, kindly inform her that I’ve passed on.”

“You got it,” Duck said with a laugh.

A few moments after he answered the phone, he yelled back to Aubrey, “It’s Ned. He wants to know if we want to go to dinner at the new Mexican place.”

Aubrey groaned again. “Tell him I’m never eating again! And that I hate him for even asking!” She yelled back.

Duck relayed the message to Ned, who started laughing so hard he sounded like he could barely breathe.

“You knew about her world record aspirations then, I take it,” Duck said once Ned’s guffawing eased off.

“She might have mentioned it.”

“You’re evil,” Duck said with a laugh of his own.

“Perhaps,” Ned conceded. “I also wanted to check that she’s still alive.”

“Well, she is for now, but I better get back before she decides to keel over,” Duck said before saying a quick goodbye and returning to his spot on the couch.

A few hours later, when Minerva made her nightly appearance, Aubrey had fallen asleep on top of him.

“How was training today, Duck Newton?” Minerva said quietly, clearly trying not to disturb Aubrey, which made Duck smile.

“It really took it out of her,” Duck answered with a soft laugh.

Minerva nodded her approval. “And did she acquire any new skills today?”

“Oh, I think she learned a lesson or two.”

“Very good work, Duck Newton. I will see you tomorrow,” Minerva said with a smile before she flickered out of view.

[ihavenomoralsss]

Jodorowsky’s dune is so fucking wild and I’m obsessed. The guy was a mime before he directed it. He broke the rule in Mexico at the time about making movies where they had to get the directors unions permission to film. He wanted Salvador Dali to be Shaddam IV and Dali agreed on the condition that he be payed 100,000 per hour on set. Jodorowsky said “I’ll give you 100,000 per minute of final screen time and we make a robot of you for the rest of the film.” Dali somehow takes this deal on the condition he gets to keep the robot. He wanted Orson Wells to play the Baron Harkonen and Wells didn’t want to but Jodorowsky said he would hire the goddamn chef from his favorite restaurant to do the on-set catering and WELLS FUCKING AGREED TO IT. He literally cast his own son as Paul and made him train 6 hours a day, 7 days a week for two fucking years to play him. He decided that his version of Duke Leto would have been castrated in battle and so Paul was born when Jessica transmuted a drop of Leto’s blood into semen to conceive Paul and there was a graphic montage of how that happened in her fucking body. The movie ends with Arrakis absorbing Paul’s conciseness and flying off into space, never to be seen again. This is the greatest movie that was never made.

[monebula-art]

SPOILER MENTION FOR YYH LIVE ACTION

Positivity post about the new live action but it does contain some spoiler mentions as I rant 💜

Okay listen— I understand the Yyh live action felt a little speed-run and rushed. I understand that certain comedic and character build moments were lost because of it. But imagine you’re the you of 20 Years ago, and you’re watching this for the first time.

I cried during the scene with Keiko and Atsuko— I cried when Yusuke is holding the beam to save Keiko.

I loved how they added Keiko INTO the story as an actual motivation and element of Yusuke’s moral compass. I loved that Kuwabara became involved and interested in Yusuke’s life after his return and I love how they became friends who did things together! I loved his enthusiasm and worry for Yusuke and insistence upon being his rival.

I loved Kurama’s cool and collected acting, but how his care was so obviously simmering beneath the surface of his calm. It’s exactly what I’d expect of Kurama.

Hiei was, as a Hiei lover? Perfect, I didn’t like him quite at first but then he SPOKE and I was hooked. His voice and brutal style of fighting but EVERYTHING he does is for the sake of his sister and his concern for her— and eventually his concern for the other team members as well. I know we didn’t get as many comedic moments as was experienced in a 56 episode 2 season of series like in the original but that’s kinda to be expected? And we got a lot!

Honestly Yusuke’s flying kick at Kuwabara made me choke on my drink, the fight with Gouki was kinda amusing though I did miss the ‘Of course I heard you I’m just stupid’ line.

I enjoyed the banter between Yusuke and Kuwabara and I loved how Kuwabara’s concern for his friends and feeling in adequate in protecting them was his driving force!

The entire training montage with Genkai was AMAZING and fighting her was so funny she was running this boy in circles and I was living for it. God what a legend.

The scenes at the end on the boat where Hiei strolls up and tells Kuwabara to stop talking to Yukina, Kurama getting in between them felt so FAMILIAR and good!

The scene where Toguro comes to her is different and yet so very much the same as in the anime. The dialogue is exactly the same but delivered in this quiet and intimidating and intimate setting. I know we lost out on a lot of the context for it so the scene at the end where they part ways isn’t as impactful— I get that. But we the FANS know the context, so I was absolutely enthralled and bawling at how beautiful it was.

Hiei’s scene with Yukina!!!! I didn’t think they would do me like that but they DID and I was SCREAMING we were SO CLOSE.

Ugh. I loved it. Was it ‘perfect’ as in a perfect 1-1 adaptation? No. Some emotional elements were lacking because of the rush. I’ll admit that.

But was it perfect? Made me happy, perfectly nostalgic as a 20 year fangirl of this series??? Abso FUCKING lutely.