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spiritedmyway · 2 years

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Veronica Decides to Die part 2

Summary: A mediocre girl attempts to suicide but things don’t go as planned.

Pairing: Reader x Dazai Osamu

Genre: adventure, eventual romance and um... detective?

A/N: English is not my native language and I’m very self-conscious about that :/ I’ve never written anything in English, so pleease give me feedback (but in a nice and fluffy way).

Part one

We’re reached part two, yay!

Dazai’s apartment was compact, yet practical. It was a typical accommodation provided by the agency and consisted of a small hall, a kitchen, bathroom and a Japanese-style room which served as a living room by day and a bedroom by night. Veronica wasn’t particularly thrilled about staying at a stranger’s place but the explosion and her funds balance didn’t leave her much choice. Besides, Dazai was so insistent and courteous that she gave in.

Kunikida tried to protest against a man and a woman living under the same roof while not being in a serious relationship but Dazai brushed off his comments.

“You shouldn’t worry about the honor of this respectable young lady, Kunikida. I’d never as much as lay a finger on a woman without her consent. Besides, look at Atsushi and Kyoka, they live together and don’t do anything inappropriate” the tiger boy turned red.

“Dazai, I, um… don’t think we are that similar” he mumbled.

Nevertheless, Veronica accepted Dazai’s offer which exhilarated him and quite disappointed Kunikida, so that he even scribed a few lines in his small green book about declining morals of the agency.

That’s how Veronica found herself in Dazai’s apartment. It could’ve been described as neat or pleasant, if it hadn’t been for all the books and pieces of paper chaotically scattered across the place. Veronica fleetingly suspected that her savior wasn’t such a wind headed man as he tried to look. “Welcome to my sweet home, Veronica-san” Dazai smiled charmingly “I hope you find it to your liking”

“Thank you, that’s very nice of you”

The woman took off the shoes Akiko lent her and followed her host as he showed her around.

When the brief tour was over, Veronica clearly felt what an eventful day she’d had.

“It’s getting late” stated Dazai, as if having read her mind. “Would you like to have a shower and I make a futon for you?”

“That’d be very nice” admitted Veronica. “But where will you sleep?”

“I have exactly the place” and he knocked on a tall closet built in a wall.

“Thank you, you’re going through so much trouble…”

“Ah, drop it. It’s no trouble at all,” Dazai gave her another of his charming smiles and Veronica suddenly felt quite at ease with her decision to stay at his place.

“Oh, one more thing, your clothes” and he pointed at the Veronica’s outfit “They’ve had better times”

The woman looked down at her t-shirt and pants and, indeed, they weren’t at their best. The right sleeve of the t-shirt was partly torn and partly soaked in blood and the pants, covered in dust, didn’t look any better.

“Would you like to wash them?”

“That’d be great. I think I could still save the pants. But…”

“I have a pajama.” He said understandingly. “it’s very nice and soft. You could sleep in it and by morning your clothes will be like new.”

“More or less” he added squinting at the sleeve of her t-shirt.

Veronica enthusiastically agreed and soon Dazai left the towels and the pajama in the bathroom and the woman entered it, undressed herself and tossed her old clothes behind the bathroom door for the man to take care of, as he’d suggested.

Feeling the hot, soothing water hit her skin was akin a redemption. Veronica just sat at the bottom of the bathtub pondering on the events of this wild day.

Not in a million years she would’ve guessed that her crazy suicide attempt would end up like that. That she’d be still alive and that she’d have survived a sudden explosion. The explosion. Who could have done it? And why? Was it aimed to kill her? And if so, who could do it and why? She wasn’t any kind of an important person, didn’t work in the government and wasn’t involved with the mafia, the two major powers of Yokohama. So, was she just an unfortunate victim? Maybe the target was someone else? Maybe the explosion wasn’t directed at her? At whom, then? And finally, where the hell did those damn lemons come from right before the explosion?

Too tired of so many frightening questions she couldn’t answer, she exhaled audibly and tried to put them aside until morning.

Her thoughts shifted to the man in the next room. Yet, another mystery. She was very grateful to Dazai for saving her from burning in extinguishing pain in the flames of the fire. She was undoubtedly grateful, but... He’d surprise and confuse her any time he opened his mouth. He was so charming – a bit too charming, even – in the strangest moments. Yet, Veronica felt that there was another, deeper layer of him. The one she fleetingly saw in his eyes when she made a decision to trust him back at the house. After all, all his strange remarks aside, she was lucky to have met him and he was nothing but kind to her. The appreciative feelings quickly vanished as Veronica came out of the bath and grabbed at the scrap of cloth Dazai left her. When he told her, he had a pajama she expected a big, warm, men’s pajama. But this… this was beyond any words.

It was a thin, short slip dress made of red silky material. Was this some kind of a silly joke?! Did Dazai really leave it for her to wear? That bastard…

Exasperated, she tossed the dress onto the floor and turned away. That crazy clown decided to mock her. Well, she’ll never play by his rules. Never!

Ten minutes later, the bathroom door slowly opened and Veronica came out. Her cheeks and ears burning and her expression revealing the deepest displeasure and irritation at the indecency of the predicament he’d put her in. The dress, too short and tight, seemed to reveal much more that she’d hoped even in the places where it actually covered her skin. Dazai had already laid a big futon in the center of the room and a smaller one in the closet and was now sitting on the floor in his own decent black pajama set. A book in his hands. He looked up from the book as Veronica entered the room. His eyes instantly sparkled, eagerly studying all the details of the woman’s figure, and his mouth broke into a satisfied smile. “You look so beautiful, Veronica-chan…” he wanted to continue but Veronica’s icy glance made him prudently quiet down.

“Is that what you call a pajama?” she asked coldly. “That’s the softest one in my closet. Besides, it’s the only female one I have” “Where did you even get it?” “It was a gift” he shrugged casually. “Oh… I see,” Veronica couldn’t hide her confusion and… disappointment? “I’m going to sleep” and with that she sank to the futon and promptly covered her body with sheets. “Good night, Dazai”

“Good night, Veronica-chan, sweet dreams”

He turn off the lights and went to his own sleeping place.

The day was very exhausting and the new futon was soft and warm. The room temperature perfect and the silence absolute. And yet…

Veronica loudly exhaled as she gave up turning and tossing trying to catch some sleep.

“Dazai” she called quietly, not expecting the man to be awake.

“Hm?” came from the closet.

In the darkness of the night Veronica suddenly understood something. “I never really said… thank you. For saving me”

“Not at all,” he answered softly.

“I mean it… you came forward even though you didn’t know me and you didn’t have to help me”

“Do you think I could really leave you there? In the fire?”

Silence followed.

“Well…” she turned to the closet and stared at its closed door, “you could”

“You know me too bad, then” he mumbled. “But I also don’t know you.” His tone suddenly changed. “You were so secretive back at the agency, didn’t share anything with us. Not even your surname”

“That’s true,” admitted Veronica. “What would you like to know?”

“Anything would do”

“Hmm, ok. My surname is Shimura and my birthday is on 15 March. I’m an Aries and my favorite color is… ”

“Veronica-chan” interrupted Dazai. “That’s not exactly what I meant” after a moment’s stop he continued “I know, I’ll reveal mine if you reveal yours!”

“What?!” snapped Veronica

“The secret, of course! What did you think of, Veronica-chan?” she didn’t need to see him to feel that cheeky smile of his.

“Nothing” promptly brushed off the woman. “I agree. But you go first”

“Hmm, fine. I’ll oblige since it was my idea. I had a friend…” he started” a good one. We used to drink at a bar and chat about everything and nothing together. It’s he who taught me to help people whenever I could... He died a few years ago. But before that he actually saved my life. He led me away from a really dark place…”

“He seemed like a very good man” quietly replied Veronica.

“Yes, he was…” he exhaled. And then his tone changed “Now it’s your turn”

Sharing her secret wasn’t Veronica’s initial plan, but the shadows were so dark and her burden so heavy, and Dazai seemed so cordial and sincere at that moment, that she gave in. In any case, she could always blame it on a bad dream in the morning.

“I have an ability… it’s difficult to believe but I… I can cause immediate pain to anyone I touch. Almost like an electroshock you could say. Sometimes I can control it, but other times, especially if I’m angry or sad… it can be too much.”

Dazai didn’t utter a word so she continued.

“When I was a child, I had a dog. A nice plump beagle called Poncho. He was so loyal and cute, the dream dog really. One day, we were playing in the yard and I was so excited that I wanted to hug him and suddenly… let’s just say it didn’t end well for Poncho. That’s how this ability first showed itself… soon after that, my parents started to fight. They didn’t show it but I know it was because of me. They divorced soon after and my father grabbed the first opportunity to work abroad while my mother remarried and said that at seventeen I was big enough to live alone.” “I see,” he said slowly, “I thought it’d be something like that. It all makes sense now” “You don’t think that I’m crazy?”

“No,” he smiled audibly “I think you’re so green, Vronica-chan”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’ll see, soon enough. Tomorrow, in fact”

“Huh?”

Dazai ignored her confusion and tossed on his futon. Suddenly, a shocking idea struck Veronica’s mind.

“Dazai!” she called. “When you saved me from the fire, I touched you with my bare hands and you didn’t feel any pain. How is it possible?”

“Hmm, maybe I got lucky?” he asked lightheartedly. The answer clearly didn’t satisfy Veronica. “Dazai, I’m serious” “Veronica-chan, touches of a beautiful lady can only hurt me if they are directed at another man” “You’re impossible!” Veronica rolled her eyes as Dazai chuckled at her words.

“Now I suggest we try to get some sleep. Tomorrow’s gonna be your first day at work and first days are always so difficult, you know”

“Alright” Veronica accepted disappointedly. “Good night, Dazai”

“Good night, Veronica-chan”

#dazai x reader #dazai x fem reader #dazai x oc #dazai fanfic #dazai x you #bungou stray dogs #bungo stray dogs #bsd fanfic #bsd fanfiction #bsd x you #bsd dazai #bsd writing

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iamanartichoke · 4 years

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I sometimes wonder if it's because it's more in the past when it comes to Natasha and other avengers, or their ark brings them redemption faster, whereas we see Loki fall, it's there in more real time, so I wonder if people are less likely to forgive because we are more confronted with it that way.

I mean, on the one hand this does make sense - the other Avengers’ backgrounds are either in the past (Natasha) or resolved during their first movie (Tony, Thor). In contrast, we see Loki fall in one movie, we see him being a villain for an entire next one, and then we see him villain-coded with a redemption arc (if you can still call it that at this point bc Loki’s arc has been fucked up so much) in the third. We get a lot more “real time” villain Loki than we do any of the other Avengers.

But, on the other hand, it works both ways. We get more real time villain Loki, but that also means we get more real time redemption arc. Like, let’s try to break it down here.

Thor 1: The Fall. Seeing Loki’s backstory play out as it happens allows us to contextualize the circumstances in which it happened - that he found out he was adopted, that he was already a misfit, that he and Thor have been pitted against one another since childhood, competing for something Loki was never actually going to get to have (the throne, yes, but also the respect and acceptance - nay, even love - of his family, friends, and people). We see all of that shatter, and see a Loki driven to so much despair that he literally tries to take his own life. This is not a steep dive into twirling-mustache villainy. This is a mental breakdown causing a rough tumble into morally grey-ism at best. Remember, Loki genuinely thought he was doing the right thing, and there is nothing to indicate why he should have believed otherwise, based on the culture in which he was raised.

Avengers: The Villain. In Avengers, Loki’s one full villain movie, there are many context clues - and later it was ultimately confirmed - that Loki was not acting of his own volition. Not only was he being influenced by the sceptre, but he’d also spent god knows how long being indoctrinated into Thanos’s inner circle. What happens when you take someone who has already had a mental breakdown, tried to take their own life, has literally nothing left to lose, and you twist and manipulate them - possibly even torture them- to suit your own needs? You get a fucking villain.

And even then - even then - there are further context clues that Loki (who at this point has probably lost most of his mind, is terrified for his life if he fails in this mission, and still reeling from whatever put him in such shitty physical condition when he first arrived on Earth) didn’t even want to take over Earth. When the battle finally starts, he doesn’t take any pleasure in it. He is stone-faced while flying through the air on a Chitauri ship. He cries when he stabs Thor, after looking genuinely unsettled (at best) by the havoc he’s caused.

The Dark World: The Redemption. Loki is brought back to Asgard in chains. He’s been muzzled, he’s been defeated and humiliated by Thor, and he’s on the defensive. When he faces Odin - the man who is supposed to be his father - Odin does everything short of spitting directly on him. Loki gets disowned and sentenced to life - all remaining four thousand or so years of it - in prison. His mother isn’t too thrilled with him, and he antagonizes her (but with purpose, bc everything he says to her is true) during what turns out to be the last time he ever sees her. She dies and not only does Loki not get to go to her funeral, but neither his father nor his brother even bother to tell him in person. He has to hear the news from a guard.

And we, as the audience, see all of that. We see the aftermath of Loki having a total sobbing meltdown, after which Thor shows up and refuses to share in Loki’s grief over their mother and further has the audacity to bargain for Loki’s help even while threatening his life. Loki is promised no gratitude, no forgiveness if he helps - he’s offered nothing but a return to his imprisonment. We watch all of that, and then we still watch Loki fight by Thor’s side and save both Thor and Jane’s lives. We see him die for Thor, see him apologize before he dies. We’ve arguably seen more screen time of Loki being wronged and trying to earn redemption than we do of him being an out-and-out villain. Yet it’s never enough.

Ragnarok: The Grudging Acceptance. I’m not going to go into how Loki was portrayed in Ragnarok, bc it just invites too much discourse, but in this movie, Loki’s arc is ... stagnant, I think. He’s not a villain. He’s had the throne for years and I don’t think Thor is a reliable narrator in claiming the realms were all in chaos. Loki didn’t kill Odin, and furthermore he willingly brought Thor to where he’d left him. Loki doesn’t try anything manipulative, like striking a deal with Hela or betraying Thor (I’m ignoring the little bait-and-switch in the garage bc come on). Loki was never in cahoots with the Grandmaster, as it was made clear Loki planned to kill him eventually. He shows up to help save Asgard. He saves Asgard, actually, by bringing a ship and summoning Surtur. At the end of it, he gets this from Thor: “Maybe you’re not so bad after all.”

And I think that kind of sums it up. The audience has seen Loki’s entire arc over the course of four movies. We know his backstory. We saw the fallout. We saw the redemption and the sacrifice, and we saw that Loki, when left to his own devices and away from his family, minds his own business and keeps things running smoothly. And the best he ever got, from anyone, is maybe you’re not so bad after all.

And I just think that when you compare this background with the things the other Avengers have done - assassinations, fighting wars, selling war weapons, destroying Brooklyn - and consider how they are treated (they’re called heroes, they build a cameraderie with one another, they’re given fresh starts), there’s no way that Loki doesn’t come out severely lacking.

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hearts-hunger · 3 years

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together wing to wing || chapter two

Read on AO3 | Masterlist

chapter one

Series Summary: He's offered his protection before, on the Green. In the hospital, Cee wonders if he'll offer it again, and Ezra wonders if she'll even want him to.

Chapter Summary: Cee has a nightmare.

Pairings: Ezra & Cee (platonic!)

Genre: Fluff, hurt/comfort, angst | Word Count: 3.3k

Warnings: hospitals, injury, nightmares, mentions of canon-typical violence

A/N: I love writing Ezra and Cee so much. I love this sad gruff accidental dad and his daughter who’s not as strong as she thinks she is. I love writing them discovering that it’s ok to trust each other. I hope you guys enjoy it too! ♡

The doctors came, and he asked them to be quiet.

They shot him full of something that made him tingly like the syrettes, but at least his wounds didn’t pain him so terribly. They checked his incisions and bandaged him again. They set him another breathing treatment before they left, and he tried not to cough himself into a spin with every inhale.

Cee didn’t wake, and he didn’t rouse her.

He rested back against the pillows, sore with all that coughing, his breaths still noisy but less painful. The sun had gone down, and the room was dark; the city lights of Central sparked outside the blinds like a sheet of frantic, trembling stars. He wondered idly if the people on Central had ever really seen stars - not the dull pinpricks washed out by the city, but the magnificent jewels that covered dark nights on less populated planets, lights so bright up there in the blackness it seemed like they might come to life and start eating you whole. He could read the stars on the Green Moon as easily as he could read his own handwriting, and if he never saw them again it would be too soon.

If he was honest with himself - and he made it a point to engage in honest conversation, whenever feasible - he had never really thought he’d get off the Green. It would have been too much to ask of the life he’d so carelessly given over to violence at every opportunity. He deserved to die on the Green, bleeding out and choked with dust. It would have been the one redemption of his miserable character to have died for a fatherless little girl, and for what it was worth in the grand scheme, he had been ready to do it.

But then, if her commitment to such a sorry, broken-down old bastard had been any indication, she hadn’t been quite so ready for their unhappy encounter to end. He couldn’t imagine why - he’d more than expended his usefulness, and was no more advantageous to her than the mercs they’d left on the Green. Perhaps less, as his wounds had not been lucky enough to kill him outright.

He burned with fever for cycles before they landed on Central, delirious and frequently unconscious. The foam kept him alive, but only just; he could feel it holding bits of him together, sticky and hot and unnatural. The pain was intolerable. In more lucid moments, he guessed the mercs had used the syrettes in the rock jumper’s med pack to get high, and there was nothing left for him to do but grit his teeth. He distinctly remembered how distraught his little bird had been, fluttering nervously around the cabin for something, anything to ease his affliction.

He tried his best to soothe her and to keep a hold of his senses, but control was a rare thing out in the vastness of space; she was frightened, tear-streaked and tightly wound, and there was little he could do to comfort her. He kept it together until he couldn’t, and if he was lucky, she fell into a restless sleep before he submitted to the fevered, painful tears that threatened every waking moment.

He hadn’t been conscious when they landed. He supposed Damon had done some good in teaching her the landing sequence; otherwise, it would have been of little advantage to them to get off the Green just to crash flat into Central. Cee had confessed to him later, with the pale of guilt and distress, just how dire his situation had been: the medics had been doubtful he would make it off the transport to the hospital. By some miracle, or just his own damn stubbornness, he’d made it through surgery and been returned to Cee breathing and neatly bandaged.

Now, several tedious cycles later, he was finally starting to improve. The doctors often remarked on his expeditious recovery, and he wanted to say that he’d rather lose his other arm than leave Cee to a deathbed vigil. He’d recover if it killed him, if only to keep from being a burden on her any longer.

As it was, recovery vexed him something awful. He was a man of action; lying around had never suited him well. All his life, he’d never known more than a moment’s leisure: there was too much work to be done, too many debts to be paid. He’d tramped up and down the Green with a half-rotted arm, breathing in dust with every wheeze of his spent filter, tied to a nervous little girl with a thrower aimed at his back. To be in a clean, safe hospital, in Central of all places, with nothing to do but rest? Ezra had never known such unimaginable luxury, and it grated on him. He needed something to do.

But there was nothing for it. He could hardly sit on the edge of the bed without terrible swings of dizziness, and breath escaped him with the smallest aggravation. So he busied himself with worry - for Cee, for their future, for whether she wanted a future with him at all.

He looked over at her, studying her face in the dim light. She looked even younger when she slept. He wondered again how her father could have justified bringing her to the Green, how he had rationalized taking such a little thing like her to that awful place. Ezra didn’t have children, had never had anyone to care for other than himself; but if he had, he would have done damn near anything to keep them off the Green. He fervently hoped it was pure necessity that drove Damon to bring Cee there, but Ezra knew a prospector’s heart - aurelac was the only thing that mattered, and greed for it drove men to terrible things. Violence, thieving, killing. Ezra knew that well enough, and he’d pay for indulgence in that same greed as long as he lived.

Cee, though. She needed better, deserved better. The galaxy was wide open for her, and he would do whatever it took to allow her access to it. He’d already decided she should have his point collection, as paltry a sum as it was, but he was no stranger to the ways of the world. She was young still, a Floater, with no kin or place to call home. To go off on her own could be a death sentence, or worse. He knew what happened to Floaters like her; he’d been a Floater like her, when he was younger, and would tear heaven and earth apart to keep her from the pain that had been inflicted on him in his youth.

He’d offered his protection, before. Flush with pain and dazed by medication, a thrower pistol held in unsteady hand towards him. Troubled even then with how easily she could be swallowed up by the vilest, most unsavory things. Mercs like those were a dime a dozen, lying in wait for a little bird to come flitting in before they devoured it.

He wanted to offer his protection again. He would stay by her side as long as she wanted him to. But, with all that had transpired between them, all the pain and hardship he’d brought her - he couldn’t blame her if she decided to leave him without a backwards glance. It surprised him, his grief, when he reconciled himself to that possibility - he knew with certainty that he would miss her and worry over her as long as they were apart, and he couldn't remember the last time he’d felt that way about anyone.

The monitor notified him of another release of painkillers, and he sighed when the drug flooded his system. He might have fallen asleep, lulled by the diminished pain and the woozy feeling in his head, but Cee started to stir.

“Ezra,” she said. Her voice was strained, thick with sleep. Like a half-muted warning through a faulty comms system, and it sent a thrill of agitation through him.

He sat up a little. “Right here, birdie.”

She didn’t answer. He saw she hadn’t opened her eyes, and he grimaced. He’d wondered if she’d have nightmares. His sleep was too heavy with drugs to allow any night terrors yet, but he knew once he was sleeping on his own again they would set in with an unparalleled passion. That she was enduring them now spoke of the trauma that still weighed heavy on her, despite how well she seemed to cope while she was awake.

Her expression crumpled with fear as whatever night terror had a hold of her remained unwavering.

“Don’t take me,” she whimpered. He’d never heard her voice so tight with misery, and it felt like a deeper wound than any he’d suffered before.

He winced and pressed his arm over his stitches as he moved to sit on the edge of the bed. Without thinking, he tried to reach out to her with his right hand; the frayed nerve endings protested, sharply, and he gave a growl of frustration. Damn his weak, useless body. He couldn’t do a single thing without an objection or outright refusal.

“Please,” she said quietly.

He moved his left hand towards her, gently gripped her shoulder and shook.

“Come on, birdie, wake up,” he coaxed, raising his voice a little. “Cee, it’s just a dream.”

She seemed to hear him. “Ezra,” she said again. He had never heard his name called so pitifully.

“That’s right, little bird. Go on and wake up. I’m right here.”

He shook her gently, and that seemed to do the trick; her eyes flew open, pupils blown in the dark as she looked around for something familiar.

“Ezra,” she said for a third time, voice ragged with panic and relief.

He withdrew his hand and hoped he hadn’t overstepped. “The very same.”

Then, before he could say anything else by way of comfort, she disentangled herself from her blankets and launched herself at him, throwing her arms around his neck in a bruising hug. His breath came in a slightly pained huff, aching and sore with the impact. It was a good hurt, if there was such a thing. He was so stunned by the gesture he could only act on instinct, and like the warming of a tired old machine that hadn’t been used in years, he caught her against him and slowly put his arm around her.

“Easy, little bird,” he said. He splayed his hand over her back as she held him tighter; he felt her shoulders shake with quiet tears.

“You’re alright,” he said gently. “I believe something gave you an awful fright while you slept.”

He felt her stiffen; not a moment later did she pull away from him, a brilliant blush over her cheeks visible even in the dim light. She hastily wiped the tears from her face and crossed her arms over her chest, defensive.

“Sorry,” she said quietly. “I didn’t mean to - I hope I didn’t hurt you. That was stupid.”

He cleared his throat to fend off a cough. “You didn’t hurt me, birdie. Takes a lot more than that to lay me low, I assure you.”

She sat back on her cot, curling in on herself; she refused to meet his eyes. He hoped she wasn’t embarrassed by the way she’d acted; sometimes a body needed comfort, and was so keen to get it that little could be done to deny such a demand. He didn’t mind, and would not withhold any solace she was willing to take.

“It was just a silly dream,” she said. She was embarrassed; he’d heard that color in his own voice too often to be unfamiliar with it in hers. He wondered how often she’d had nightmares before, and if they had ever been met with any kindness or sympathy.

“I’m afraid I must disagree with you, birdie.” He paused a beat to steady himself, to let the wave of dizziness pass. “Nothing so unsettling could rightly be counted ‘silly’.”

They sat in silence for a moment. It didn’t escape his notice how she continued to brush tears from her cheeks.

“It was the Sater,” she said finally.

He looked up and met her eyes. “Your nightmare?”

She nodded, pressed her hands to her face as if to hide behind them. She drew a hitching breath.

“Thank you for not giving me to them.”

He sighed. “Oh, birdie.”

He had told her the truth on the Green: he was never going to give her to them. He may not have been a virtuous man by any stretch of the imagination, but he could honestly say that he hadn’t considered that, even for a moment. He’d never had problems with the Sater before; he wasn’t religious, but he was of no mind to deny any man whatever consolation he could find. Their proposal, though, a little girl in exchange for his healing - Ezra could have torn the whole place apart and still have not satisfied his wrath. Even now, he felt an acetous, clawing disgust that threatened to overwhelm him at the thought.

He’d placated them as best he could, and the words were bitter in his mouth. I beg your forgiveness for the little one’s impertinence. She’s a nervous thing, fatherless. Allow me to search her out and bring her back to you.

They’d let him go, with the promise that he would be healed if the girl was returned. He didn’t know where Cee had gone, nor did he have any strength to go hunting for her; he’d barely made it back to camp with his spent filter and festering wound. As he set blade to skin, he sent a prayer up to no one - not for himself, but for the little bird in the woods, hoping she would find something or someone to help her find her way off the Green.

She looked less ragged now than she had looked then, stumbling into his tent, breathless, terrified. Food and clean clothes and sleep, even broken as it was by nightmares, had done wonders. And yet, she was still that little bird in the woods, and he was still the only thing she had in all the world. A pitiful hand to be dealt, certainly.

“No thanks required,” he said tiredly, weary with the weight of his culpability in her troubles. “Least I could do.”

Her expression clouded. “He would have given me to them.”

It didn’t take much to guess who he was, and Ezra was wary of stepping into this kind of territory, unsure what he should say or if he should say anything at all.

She twisted her fingers together, wrung them so her hurt would have somewhere to go.

“Dispensable,” she muttered.

He frowned. Surely Damon hadn’t -

“That’s what he called me, once,” she said. She looked up at him, defiant even as tears streaked her cheeks. “He was high, and I accidentally broke one of the rods for the thrower. Make yourself indispensable, he said. There’s barely enough room on this pod for me.”

Ezra wished she would stop telling him things about her father. He felt his hatred towards a dead man, one he’d delivered the final blow to, wouldn’t do him any favors.

Cee shook her head and bit her lip; it did bleed, finally. Ezra raised himself from the bed with some difficulty and wet the corner of a washcloth in the refresher sink, then offered it to her. She looked up at him in confusion.

He nodded towards her. “Your lip’s bleeding, birdie.”

She took the washcloth and pressed it to her mouth, watching him with a careful gaze as he sat heavily on the edge of his bed again.

“You shouldn’t have gotten up,” she said.

His laugh was little more than a huff. “You are mighty keen on fretting, aren’t you?” He took a deep breath. “Mind you don’t worry that lip any more, or you’ll have a hard time getting on to me when I do something that’s not to your liking.”

She studied him like he might break apart at any moment. He felt like he might; the night’s activity was testing the limits of the pain medication.

“Are you sure I didn’t hurt you, earlier?”

He nodded. “Positive. And you know me to be an honest man, whenever possible.”

“Candid discourse,” she remembered.

He smiled. “Precisely. So I hope you won’t take offense when I tell you, honestly, that nightmares trouble every creature from time to time, and certainly trouble those who’ve spent any time on the Green.” He gave a few weak coughs. “There’s no shame in it, birdie.”

She twisted the washcloth around her fingers in her lap, the bleeding abated for the moment. “You have nightmares?”

“Indeed,” he said. He leaned heavily on his left hand to keep him upright. “And I will undoubtedly have many more before my time is up.” Such was the price of a life of violence, inflicted or endured.

“How do you... deal with it?”

He gave a half-shrug; his right shoulder disliked being jostled, and he tried to keep its movement to a minimum.

“Not much to be done for it, I’m afraid,” he admitted. “Best not to be on your own. It’s hard to orient a mind consumed by fear without a helping hand.”

A precious few times in his life had he known someone he could call a friend, and it was only with them that he’d been able to soothe the nightmares that cropped up so often. A hand on his shoulder in the dark, a consoling word - that had made all the difference. He’d been without it more often than he’d had it, and sleep was a common point of contention between himself and his body. Usually he fell asleep when he was simply too exhausted not to, and he woke himself up, alone, in sweat and terror more often than not.

For the first time since he’d woken her, she looked a little less weary and upset.

“Good thing we’re not alone, then.”

Oh, but that eased his ills better than any dose of medication could have. He gave her a smile, pleased when she returned it with a small one of her own.

“Quite right, birdie,” he agreed. “It is a very good thing.”

She settled back against the wall, covering herself up in her blanket for a little warmth. They kept his room cool as the medication was liable to make him run hot, but he knew it was a little chilly for her liking. He reached over to grab the extra blanket from the foot of his bed and tossed it to her.

“The doctors should be in again, soon.” He looked at the clock and determined it was likely time for another one of his breathing treatments; his chest had begun to tighten again.

She pulled her notebook and a pen out of her bag. “I’m staying up this time.”

He gave a soft grunt as he lay back in bed. “Fine by me, birdie. Don’t...” He stopped for a breath. “Don’t worry about falling asleep again, if you need to. I’ll wake you if I fear there’s something amiss.”

She didn’t say anything for a moment; then, very softly, “thank you.”

He turned his head to look at her, buried under her blankets, her fictional world spread out in her lap as she tapped the end of the pen against the page.

“You’re welcome,” he said. He hoped she knew how much he meant it.

He closed his eyes and tried to come to terms with the dull, aching pain. “Read me a little something, birdie. If you’re not opposed.”

He heard her flip the pages in her notebook. “Just a little bit,” she said. “Not enough to give away the story.”

He hummed in agreement. “Just a little bit.”

He listened as she started to read, weaving stories about her favorite characters, her voice steady and relaxed as she sank into the world of her imagining. It was a good thing they weren’t alone right now, and Ezra tried not to think of what it would be like to be alone again.

Read chapter three!

pedro pascal character taglist: @punkgeekchic, @tv-saved-the-teenage-girl, @stardust-galaxies, @theorganasolo, @qhbr2013 ♡

let me know if you’d like to be added to my pedro pascal character taglist or this series taglist! ♡

#i know this series isn't going to be as popular as some x reader fics but i just enjoy writing it so much #it's making me think outside the box because i don't usually write platonic relationships ahbsjhbjhb #and i think their characters are so compelling #idk i'm just writing it for me mainly and maybe someone else will like it too!#ezra prospect fanfiction #ezra prospect #cee prospect #prospect 2018 #prospect 2018 fanfiction #ezra fanfiction #maddie writes stuff!

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evostrashbin · 3 years

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Any backstory or headcanons for your Kiran? It’s fun to hear the backstories of other summoners! Or if that’s too broad uh...why did she pick Grima? What do they have in common how did they learn to get along etc

Oho buckle up now this is about to get LONG since I had a few months to think about these kind of things 👀 (These are purely headcanons for my personal version of Kiran of course! Some of this might be a little dark so TW for abuse mention , please skip parts that make you feel uncomfortable! Also keep in mind I'm no native english speaker and haven't written anything long in ages )

Her backstory is nothing out of the ordinary, she's been summoned to Askr from our dimension & current time and was just a normal person before she became the summoner. She's pretty thrilled by her new role and takes her duty very serious (even if some of my art might suggest otherwise haha) and is absolutely fascinated by now being surrounded by magic, dragons and literal gods, things she normally only knew & loved from fairytales! Coming from an abusive family she not once looked back and never had the desire to return to her old realm and is happily living in Askr now. Her and Grima originally started out on a weird kind of fascination coming from both sides, with Kiran being completely unafraid of Grima the second she summoned him, he found that very odd since the usual reaction of people seeing him is fear, but Kiran was just... happy he showed up and not in a way of „Wow a powerful god I can use for his power“ but just genuine, foolish excitement. Considering he was the first evil dragon god she ever summoned she was just very intrigued by him, wanted to know more about him and why so many of other heroes were so afraid of him. So she made it her mission to get to know him a little better and make him feel welcome in his new home (But making sure to give him space if needed!). Grima was a little annoyed by that at first, asking her why she keeps pestering him but also just perplexed by her actively seeking out his company with seemingly no goal (at least none that made sense to him, why would anyone seek him out on their own if not to appease to him for his power to use it for their own selfish gain). Considering his distrust and straight up hatred towards humankind he's not exactly kind to her in the beginning since he suspects ulterior motives, but Kiran doesn't let that discourage her and she's not taking any of it. If anything it just makes her wonder why he despises humans so much (and yet has chosen a human vessel...) , why he's so full of hatred and since she's stubborn, she just keeps „pestering“ him. Though he would never admit it, he finds himself enjoying her company, this odd little human who doesn't fear him at all from a realm unlike anything he's ever known before and ends up slowly warming up to her (in his own way, means he's getting less insulting and starts having actual conversations with her, he finds himself very intrigued by the fact that neither dragons nor gods exist in her realm and so does magic and yet she's the one Breidablik has chosen to get that kind of power? Also Kiran has the patience of a saint even when Grima is testing that alot at times ) After a while they both start sharing bits of their pasts with each other (Imagine Grima still being kinda snarky, but in a less mean way haha. Also Grima being very much suprised at Kiran not abandoning him after learning about his past), and learn that they're not so different from each other in some ways, touching common ground in the experience of having had the ugliness of humanity having turned them repulsive and disappointed (Due to Kiran's almost life-long experience with physically and mentally abusive parents that were only interested in her as a resource, and not as a person and once she had no use or didn't obey their wishes, they just straight up told her everyone would be better off without her and that she should've never been born and essentially making her believe that everything wrong in the world is her fault & blaming her for it because she's just „ such a terrible child“ (just to keep it very short, we're not going to dive into the really ugly details) . They bond over having parental figures who treat their whole existance as a mistake as soon as they lost total control over it and people just constantly using them as a resource for their own gain. Basically trauma-bonding at its finest, both have seen and experienced some of the ugliest sides of humanity. This leads to Kiran now understanding where Grima's hatred comes from. (Though Grima genuinely asks himself how Kiran doesn't t hate all of humanity after her experiences...) With her newfound understanding she decides to show Grima that not all of humanity is ugly and selfish and cruel ( a lesson she had to learn herself for years and still sometimes struggles with, but she's determined to show Grima that there's people he can trust, even if it might just be her) and wants to give him a chance to start new in Askr and leave his past behind so even he might be able to find happiness. She's not striving to drastically change him though, she wants to help him cope with his experiences and give him a chance to live a somewhat normal life (as much as that's possible for someone as Grima) , following his longing to just be human. Grima in return might not openly show it, but he really appreciates her efforts in treating him with kindness and (mostly) like a normal person and not a lost cause beyond any redemption that's just 100% pure evil and never deserves anything good happening to them. So they slowly build a relationship on mutual trust, Kiran just likes him the way he is despite him not exactly being a good person (she's well aware he's flawed but so is she in the end and all the ‘ugly’ parts of him and his past are just a part of him) .It's... new and not unpleasant to him, having someone who wants him around who isn't just blindly worshipping him or staying out of fear. It's just a whole new experience for him that comes with having to deal with a whole lot of unknown emotions over time ;) That's what it boils down to to keep it short! Do not let yourself get deceived though, the only person Grima is kinda soft with is Kiran and pretty much exclusively when it's just the two of them since Grima does not want to have other people see him kinda vulnerable or think of him as weak, He'll still threaten to kill other people while calling Kiran his worm (in a loving way haha). Kiran herself also isn't just endless patience and kindness, she also likes to mess around at times with Grima and has her own struggles and flaws, if she'd ever get a fallen alt it would probably be a duo unit of her and Grima where she gives up believing into there being some good in the world and turns her back to it with Grima, giving in to despair and seeking to just destroy everything with him when all the bad things get too overwhelming. oh also some random headcanons for Kiran! -She's prone to overworking herself since she takes her work very serious, fell asleep in the library and the castle gardens more than once due to exhaustion, got to a point where even Grima scolded her for it to take more care of her health. -She's nocturnal so you'll find her wandering around the castle at weird times, often makes for nice and silent meetings with Grima just to talk when nobody else is around since he doesn't sleep alot. -She enjoys drawing as a hobby in Askr and keeps a sketchbook which she uses to make sketches and sometimes even studies of all kinds of heroes she finds interesting! She once made a detailled study of Grima's dragon form and gifted it to him on the day of devotion c:

#ask #dentos-wife #me actually taking my time to write something long??#never expected anyone to be interested in my personal and more specific headcanons though #I'm just a big sap #Kiran and Grima just mean alot to me in general #they're my emotional support broken people haha #also fiction is about having fun so I'm not taking things too serious who cares if Grima's a villain he deserves love too #idk. thinking about character dynamics and interactions is just alot of fun to me #especially if it's with more odd and morally questionable characters like Grima #don't mind my terrible writing I usually don't write at all haha #also please don't take any of this too seriously #it's just personal headcanons

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bellatrixobsessed1 · 3 years

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How do you imagine Azulas post-redemption life? Does she hate Ozai or have complicated feelings toward him? Has she made amends with Zuko or do they stay distanced from each other? Is she still in the military or did she decide that it wasn't consistent with the life she wanted to live? Who was the first to believe in her? Was it Ursa or a new friend she made along the way? Does she have a spouse or does she live a solitary life?

I’ve sort of answered this before; the best way to see how I would imagine an Azula redemption arc/a life for Azula post redemption would be to read my fics. I don’t mean that in a pushy self-promo way but as a way of saying that I can see so many possibilities depending on the circumstance and setting for her redemption and I have written quite a few of them out. So I’ll speak about commonalities in my fics for each question.

Under the cut because this got long.

For her making amends with Zuko, in all of my fics, she does. But how fast/slow that goes and how difficult that is varies. In some cases (such as fics like From Chin to Yon Rah) where she has already went off on her own and done some self-discovery it is a bit easier for her as she has already learned to trust and forgive and so on. In other cases (like in The Art Of Remembrance) once she gets her memories back she’s more or less conflicted because amnesia!Azula got along with Zuko and that conflicts with where they left off when she had her memories. In other cases it’s more difficult for her because she hadn’t done any self discovery and so they had to work things out in full. Put it in a modern AU like Wan High and things are more complicated because I feel like in a modern setting their relationship would be quite as bad so there’s less to make amends for. Things like shooting him with lightning didn’t happen. But the bottom line is that (for me anyhow) Azula’s redemption arc involves making amends with Zuko eventually.

Ozai is really hit or miss. Generally I write her as recognizing that he has harmed her/is band for her and she simply cuts him out entirely. She generally doesn’t think about him and sees him as a closed chapter in her life. However I have written fics where she thinks about him from time to time and still wonders if she made the right choice in leaving him behind. Modern AU’s though I usually give Ozai a redemption arc of his own and they end up reconciling.

Her profession also varies. Sometimes I have her as an advisor of sorts for Zuko or a council woman. In one or two of the fics she and Zuko share the crown. But in my newest three Protea, Chin To Yon Rah, & Speak No Evil (without spoiling it too much because they’re still on going) I think that she’s going to have a much different profession. I know for sure what her profession will be in Protea and (depending on what direction I take for SNE) what she’ll do in that one. Not sure on FCTYR yet. But for the most part I usually give her a more political or intellectual role. Lately I’ve been avoiding giving her a Fire Lord role because I think that part of her redemption would be her realizing that power isn’t particularly what she likes--it’s what her father liked. I think that redeemed Azula would realize that she enjoys the intellectual side of battle and go for a job/calling that gives her a chance to flaunt her cleverness and quench her craving for intelligence. I tend to write an Azula who knows that she likes the thrill of a conquer but stays away from the battlefield because it can trigger her into tapping into a much darker side of herself that she is trying to leave behind.

First friend varies so much that I can’t really say there’s a truly common one in my mind. I think that most often its an outsider, Sokka, TyLee, or Zuko (if we count him even though he’s her brother). I think that my favorite of these though is actually an outsider. I think that the most healthy redemption arc would involve her finding someone who has no history with her, who doesn’t really know her at all and this person helps her start to discover who she is and eventually reach out to people that she used to know.

Pretty much 100% she has a s/o but there are a few where she decides to go solo and just have lots of friends. I’m planning on writing an aro/ace Azula eventually.

So short(er) answer; best way to see how I see redeemed Azula’s life play out would be to read the fics. Because it’s almost entirely circumstantial and I think that there are so many ways that it can go. I almost want to say that there’s no right or wrong way to do an Azula redemption/post redemption. But it’s more like there are several right ways and quite a few wrong ways (imo). The key (for me) is to make sure that she doesn’t become submissive (at least not for good) and to leave her less pleasing traits--she’s still manipulative and has her mean streaks--but she channels them in a healthier way.

Also the mental illness doesn’t just poof away. She still has to deal with it, she’s just got better and new tools to help her do so. And so she manages her traumas and breakdowns better.

#Azula #Avatar The Last Airbender #Character Analysis #Character Meta #Azula Meta #Azula Analysis #Headcanons

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aaronmaurer · 3 years

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TV I Liked in 2020

Every year I reflect on the pop culture I enjoyed and put it in some sort of order.

Was there ever a year more unpredictably tailor-made for peak TV than 2020? Lockdowns/quarantines/stay-at-home orders meant a lot more time at home and the occasion to check out new and old favorites. (I recognize that if you’re lucky enough to have kids or roommates or a S.O., your amount of actual downtime may have been wildly different). While the pandemic resulted in production delays and truncated seasons for many shows, the continued streaming-era trends of limited series and 8-13 episode seasons mean that a lot of great and satisfying storytelling still made its way to the screen. As always, I in no way lay any claims to “best-ness” or completeness – this is just a list of the shows that brought me the most joy and escapism in a tough year and therefore might be worth putting on your radar.

10 Favorites

10. The Right Stuff: Season 1 (Disney+)

As a space program enthusiast, even I had to wonder, does the world really need another retelling of NASA’s early days? Especially since Tom Wolfe’s book has already been adapted as the riveting and iconoclastic Philip Kaufman film of the same name? While some may disagree, I find that this Disney+ series does justify its existence by focusing more on the relationships of the astronauts and their personal lives than the technical science (which may be partially attributable to budget limitations?). The series is kind of like Mad Men but with NASA instead of advertising (and real people, of course), so if that sounds intriguing, I encourage you to give it a whirl.

9. Fargo: Season 4 (FX)

As a big fan of Noah Hawley’s Coen Brothers pastiche/crime anthology series, I was somewhat let down by this latest season. Drawing its influence primarily from the likes of gangster drama Miller’s Crossing – one of the Coens’ least comedic/idiosyncratic efforts – this season is more straightforward than its predecessors and includes a lot of characters and plot-threads that never quite cohere. That said, it is still amongst the year’s most ambitious television with another stacked cast, and the (more-or-less) standalone episode “East/West” is enough to make the season worthwhile.

8. The Last Dance (ESPN)

Ostensibly a 10-episode documentary about the 1990s Chicago Bulls’ sixth and final NBA Championship run, The Last Dance actually broadens that scope to survey the entire history of Michael Jordan and coach Phil Jackson’s careers with the team. Cleverly structured with twin narratives that chart that final season as well as an earlier timeframe, each episode also shifts the spotlight to a different person, which provides focus and variety throughout the series. And frankly, it’s also just an incredible ride to relive the Jordan era and bask in his immeasurable talent and charisma – while also getting a snapshot of his outsized ego and vices (though he had sign-off on everything, so it’s not exactly a warts-and-all telling).

7. The Queen’s Gambit (Netflix)

This miniseries adaptation of the Walter Tevis coming-of-age novel about a chess prodigy and her various addictions is compulsively watchable and avoids the bloat of many other streaming series (both in running time and number of episodes). The 1960s production design is stunning and the performances, including Anya Taylor-Joy in the lead role, are convincing and compelling.

6. The Great: Season 1 (hulu)

Much like his screenplay for The Favourite, Tony McNamara’s series about Catherine the Great rewrites history with a thoroughly modern and irreverent sensibility (see also: Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette). Elle Fanning brings a winning charm and strength to the title role and Nicholas Hoult is riotously entertaining as her absurdly clueless and ribald husband, Emperor Peter III. Its 10-episodes occasionally tilt into repetitiveness, but when the ride is this fun, why complain? Huzzah!

5. Dispatches From Elsewhere (AMC)

A limited (but possibly anthology-to-be?) series from creator/writer/director/actor Jason Segal, Dispatches From Elsewhere is a beautiful and creative affirmation of life and celebration of humanity. The first 9 episodes form a fulfilling and complete arc, while the tenth branches into fourth wall-breaking meta territory, which may be a bridge too far for some (but is certainly ambitious if nothing else). Either way, it’s a movingly realized portrait of honesty, vulnerability and empathy, and I highly recommend visiting whenever it inevitably makes its way to Netflix, or elsewhere…

4. What We Do in the Shadows: Season 2 (FX)

The second season of WWDITS is more self-assured and expansive than the first, extending a premise I loved from its antecedent film – but was skeptical could be sustained – to new and reinvigorated (after)life. Each episode packs plenty of laughs, but for my money, there is no better encapsulation of the series’ potential and Matt Berry’s comic genius than “On The Run,” which guest-stars Mark Hamill and features Laszlo’s alter ego Jackie Daytona, regular human bartender.

3. Ted Lasso: Season 1 (AppleTV+)

Much more than your average fish-out-of-water comedy, Jason Sudeikis’ Ted Lasso is a brilliant tribute to humaneness, decency, emotional intelligence and good coaching – not just on the field. The fact that its backdrop is English Premier League Soccer is just gravy (even if that’s not necessarily represented 100% proficiently). A true surprise and gem of the year.

2. Mrs. America (hulu)

This FX miniseries explores the women’s liberation movement and fight for the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s and its opposition by conservative women including Phyllis Schlafly. One of the most ingenious aspects of the series is centering each episode on a different character, which rotates the point of view and helps things from getting same-y. With a slate of directors including Ryan Bowden and Anna Fleck (Half-Nelson, Sugar, Captain Marvel) and an A-List cast including Cate Blanchett, Rose Byrne, Uzo Aduba, Sarah Paulson, Margo Martindale, Tracey Ulman and Elizabeth Banks, its quality is right up there with anything on the big screen. And its message remains (sadly) relevant as ever in our current era.

1. The Good Place: Season 4 (NBC)

It was tempting to omit The Good Place this year or shunt it to a side category since only the final 4 episodes aired in 2020, but that would have been disingenuous. This show is one of my all-time favorites and it ended perfectly. The series finale is a representative mix of absurdist humor and tear-jerking emotion, built on themes of morality, self-improvement, community and humanity. (And this last run of eps also includes a pretty fantastic Timothy Olyphant/Justified quasi-crossover.) Now that the entire series is available to stream on Netflix (or purchase in a nice Blu-ray set), it’s a perfect time to revisit the Good Place, or check it out for the first time if you’ve never had the pleasure.

5 of the Best Things I Caught Up With

Anne With An E (Netflix/CBC)

Another example of classic literature I had no prior knowledge of (see also Little Women and Emma), this Netflix/CBC adaptation of Anne of Green Gables was strongly recommended by several friends so I finally gave it a shot. While this is apparently slightly more grown-up than the source material, it’s not overly grimdark or self-serious but rather humane and heartfelt, expanding the story’s scope to include Black and First Nations peoples in early 1800s Canada, among other identities and themes. It has sadly been canceled, but the three seasons that exist are heart-warming and life-affirming storytelling. Fingers crossed that someday we’ll be gifted with a follow-up movie or two to tie up some of the dangling threads.

Better Call Saul (AMC)

I liked Breaking Bad, but I didn’t have much interest in an extended “Breaking Bad Universe,” as much as I appreciate star Bob Odenkirk’s multitalents. Multiple recommendations and lockdown finally provided me the opportunity to catch up on this prequel series and I’m glad I did. Just as expertly plotted and acted as its predecessor, the series follows Jimmy McGill/Saul Goodman on his own journey to disrepute but really makes it hard not to root for his redemption (even as you know that’s not where this story ends).

Joe Pera Talks With You (Adult Swim)

It’s hard to really describe the deadpan and oddly soothing humor of comedian Joe Pera whose persona, in the series at least, combines something like the earnestness of Mr. Rogers with the calm enthusiasm of Bob Ross. Sharing his knowledge on the likes of how to get the best bite out of your breakfast combo, growing a bean arch and this amazing song “Baba O’Reilly” by the Who – have you heard it?!? – Pera provides arch comfort that remains solidly on the side of sincerity. The surprise special he released during lockdown, “Relaxing Old Footage with Joe Pera,” was a true gift in the middle of a strange and isolated year.

The Mandalorian (Disney+)

One of the few recent Star Wars properties that lives up to its potential, the adventures of Mando and Grogu is a real thrill-ride of a series with outstanding production values (you definitely want to check out the behind-the-scenes documentary series if you haven’t). I personally prefer the first season, appreciating its Western-influenced vibes and somewhat-more-siloed story. The back half of the second season veers a little too much into fan service and video game-y plotting IMHO but still has several excellent episodes on offer, especially the Timothy Olyphant-infused energy of premiere “The Marshall” and stunning cinematography of “The Jedi.” And, you know, Grogu.

The Tick (Amazon Prime)

I’ve been a fan of the Tick since the character’s Fox cartoon and indie comic book days and also loved the short-lived Patrick Warburton series from 2001. I was skeptical about this Amazon Prime reboot, especially upon seeing the pilot episode’s off-putting costumes. Finally gaining access to Prime this year, I decided to catch up and it gets quite good!, especially in Season 2. First, the costumes are upgraded; second, Peter Serafinowicz’s initially shaky characterization improves; and third, it begins to come into its own identity. The only real issue is yet another premature cancellation for the property, meaning Season 2’s tease of interdimensional alien Thrakkorzog will never be fulfilled. 😢

Bonus! 5 More Honorable Mentions:

City So Real (National Geographic)

The Good Lord Bird (Showtime)

How To with John Wilson: Season 1 (HBO)

Kidding: Season 2 (Showtime)

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy Vs The Reverend (Netflix)

#tv #television

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flightfoot · 4 years

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The Redemption of Chloe Bourgeois

Note: I’m specifically talking about in @angelofthequeers fanfic “Hold Me By Both Hands”, which I highly recommend reading. There will be spoilers.

AO3

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Chloe’s an interesting character. She straddles the fence between good and bad a lot, with generally being pretty awful to most of the people around her, but with enough glimmers of compassion and a desire to prove herself that she can feasibly be taken down either the hero or villain route and still remain in-character, just depending on how the exact situation plays out.

Unsurprisingly, redemptions for Chloe are common, especially since the show itself started her down that route in Malediktator and Heroes Day, though it pulled back on it in season 3. Whether she’ll end up finishing a redemption arc in-show, I do not know, but in the meantime fans have taken over.

While personally I like a good Chloe redemption so long as no one else is torn down in the process (which sadly is VERY common in Chameleon salt), it’s not something I usually seek out in and of itself. It can be a nice bonus but it’s not a selling point of a fic for me, so my exposure to it has mostly been with fics that include Chloe’s redemption but don’t center around it.

The redemption Angel wrote for her in Hold Me By Both Hands is my favorite one I’ve read so far. It focuses heavily on giving Chloe a reason to change and her actively trying, needing to be taught how to be better, be nicer, and really working with her from where she was at in the show. And there’s not really one big redemptive ‘thing’ she does to get herself into everyone’s good graces; it’s really focused on her slowly taking steps to change her attitude.

Chloe’s redemption arc kicks off with Despair Bear; fitting, since that was one of the earliest glimpses of her starting on a possible redemption arc in canon. Things go similarly to canon at first, with her pulling the fire alarm and trying to pin it on Marinette. Adrien’s mindset is the point of divergence here; his friends have gradually been boosting him up, getting him more used to and able to speak up against injustice, or just things he doesn’t like in general, instead of just taking it all like his father trained him to. Losing Chloe as a “friend” also doesn’t mean that he’d be totally without peers to talk to or any – well, FRIENDS. He HAS other friends, people who actually ACT like friends. He doesn’t need to fear being alone anymore if he stands up to Chloe.

His and Chloe’s actions are initially the same as canon, with him telling her he can’t be friends with someone who treats others like she does, that she has to be nice, and her throwing a party for everyone in order to get back into his good graces, and… well, it goes more-or-less like canon, as far as the actions and arc surrounding Chloe go.

It really diverges AFTER the party, with Adrien putting his foot down on not being friends with Chloe until she can be nice (or at least not mean) to other people consistently, including people she doesn’t like much, such as Marinette.

“I can’t,” Chloé says pleadingly, stomping her foot. “I’ll be nice to anyone else, Adrikins, please, but I can’t be nice to her, especially when she’s so mean to me!”

Adrien sighs and shakes his head. “Then we can’t be friends anymore. You can’t just be nice to people selectively, and Marinette didn’t even say anything to you there. I’ve never seen her be mean to you if you weren’t mean first. And I can’t be friends with someone who lets me take the blame for something I didn’t do. Twice. I was going to forgive you for that, but I can’t if you can’t be nice to everyone.” (Chapter 15)

This really affects Chloe. She may not care about being nice to other people, about other people’s feelings, but… she does care about being friends with Adrien, even if she’s crappy to him sometimes.

Chloe thinks about what happened for a week and a half – I’m guessing seeing whether he was really serious. Finally she cracks and asks Marinette for help.

“Teach me how to be nice.”

Marinette blinks. For a moment, her mouth can’t find the appropriate words in her brain for this situation, and she wonders if she’s stuck in some dream. Her shock must be plastered clean across her face, because Chloé huffs and crosses her arms.

“Trust me, the last thing I want is to be asking you for help,” Chloé snaps. “But Adrien won’t even say one word to me anymore unless it’s asking if I’ve learned how to be nice. And since it’s your fault that I lost my best friend, you can help me get him back.” (Chapter 16)

Chloe isn’t exactly enthusiastic about the idea, but she DOES want Adrien back, so she’s even willing to go to Marinette for help. She’s still acting like it’s MARINETTE’S fault Adrien isn’t talking to her though, rather than her own for being mean, and acts like she’s entitled to Marinette’s help. But Marinette’s not gonna take her crap on this.

“My fault?” Marinette says incredulously. “What did I do? You’re the one who’s been picking on me and everyone else for years! I didn’t make Adrien do that to you! And if you really want him to be your friend again, you need to stop blaming everyone else for your rotten attitude!”

“That’s exactly what I’m talking about!” Chloé jabs a finger at Marinette. “You have this – this stupid moral compass where you know how to be good and nice and whatever!” (Chapter 16)

This bit’s interesting. What Chloe says here about Marinette having a moral compass indicates that she has some awareness of how Marinette’s, well, good and nice, and also that she has the awareness that she herself isn’t, and doesn’t know how to be. She talked about Marinette being mean to her earlier, but her line here seems to say that while she may have SAID that Marinette was mean, she didn’t really believe it even then. And she also seems to be figuring out that what she thought was being “nice” with how she threw that party didn’t really qualify, so she’s sort of flailing trying to figure out what these terms even mean.

Which is shown in Chloe’s and Marinette’s next exchange:

“Well, do you want to be nice for Adrien? Or for yourself?” Marinette says. “If you want to be nice just to get Adrien to be your friend again, you’re not going to stay nice. You’re not going to want to stay nice. And I’m not going to put the effort into helping you unless I know that you’ll be nice even after you get what you want. Not after you spent years bullying all of us, Chloé.”

“I never had a reason to be nice before,” Chloé says. “Being nice lets people walk all over you.” (Chapter 20)

Chloe’s view of what being “nice” means is skewed, likely from seeing people take advantage of “niceness”. And with this definition and general view on niceness, it’s no wonder she hasn’t wanted to be ‘nice’ before. No one likes to be trampled, least of all someone as proud as Chloe.

“Nice doesn’t mean being a pushover,” Marinette counters. “You can be nice and still stand up for yourself. That’s something I’m learning.”

“Whatever. Look, are you going to help me or not? I want my best friend back.”

Marinette sighs. Is she really doing this? Yeah, she is. Doing this might help Chloé become a better person and stop bullying everyone.

“On one condition,” she says. “You actually try. I don’t want anything from you except a promise that you’re going to try and be a better person and not just pretend to be to get what you want. And I’m not going to hold your hand and tell you what to do every step of the way.”

“Yes, yes, whatever.” Chloé waves a hand. “You can come to the hotel after school and start teaching me. I’m not going to waste my precious lunch time.” She turns and struts out of the bathroom, leaving Marinette to try and process what had just happened and wonder if someone had tried to divide by zero and shattered the universe as they know it. (Chapter 16)

Chloe still doesn’t seem to really understand what Marinette’s getting at as far as being a better person and being able to be nice and still stand up for herself, but she’s at least sort of willing to listen, maybe, and this is part of what she needs to be shown, needs to be taught. So while Marinette’s not exactly thrilled at the idea and doesn’t have much reason to help Chloe for Chloe’s sake (she doesn’t owe Chloe anything), she DOES at least have reason to help Chloe for her own sake, and the sake of everyone else who interacts with her.

Marinette starts on the lesson later that day, and right away it’s off to a rocky start.

“This? Big?” Chloé says. “Oh, right. I forgot that you’re just a baker’s daughter.”

“You know, I can just walk right back out if you’re not serious about learning to be nicer,” Marinette says. “And I can’t think of anyone else who’d agree to help you.”

“Right, like you’re not just doing this to suck up to Adrikins.” (Chapter 16)

Chloe can’t seem to comprehend that anyone would want to do something like this, to do something ‘nice’ that requires time and effort and investment unless it’s to curry favor with someone. It has to be transactional. Considering that her father’s a major political figure and her mother’s a highly influential (and really mean and awful) fashionista, whom people would probably frequently either try to endear themselves to in order to extract favors, or who would themselves try to network with others in order to grow their own influence, I’m not surprised she has this view of the world.

Marinette does actually have selfish reasons for being willing to do this, which she’s pretty up front about. They’re not connected to Adrien though.

“Funnily enough, some people do things because it feels good to be nice and helpful. And if you think the only thing I’m getting out of this is impressing Adrien, you’ve clearly forgotten the past few years before he even came along.” Marinette crosses her arms. “I’m actually being pretty selfish in doing this, you know. My life will be a whole lot better without you being mean all the time. And so will everyone else’s.”

“So, Dupain-Cheng’s got bite.” Chloé smirks and leads Marinette through the right door and into her sitting room, where a tray of snacks such as cut fruit and sushi rests on the glass table. Chloé settles herself on one of the chairs and waits until Marinette hesitantly sits down in an adjoining seat before speaking again. “Alright, chop, chop. How do I be nice?” (Chapter 16)

Chloe seems to respect being stood up to, having people not cave to her. I’m guessing part of that has to do with associations. She thinks being nice means being a doormat after all, and I’m guessing also that people who’re doormats deserve to be trampled on, kind of a “they know their place” thing. So Marinette asserting herself and showing she won’t be submissive earns some respect.

Marinette really needs to start from the ground up with teaching Chloe. None of this will do much good, will be more than performance art if Chloe can’t find some internal reason to change.

“First, you figure out why you want to be nice,” Marinette says. “Because if it’s just to make Adrien happy, I’m walking straight out of here. You have to have a reason for yourself or you’ll never stay nice.”

“Then why are you nice?”

“Because it makes me feel good. I like seeing people happy because of something nice that I’ve said or done.”

“Boring,” Chloé sings. Marinette resists the urge to roll her eyes. (Chapter 16)

This isn’t much of an incentive for Chloe, not at this point. She has to actually care what others think and feel in order for this to matter to her, and well – while she DOES actually care about that, it’s only with a select few people, at least as far as she’s willing to recognize.

The more selfish, materialistic incentives to be nice interest Chloe a lot more.

“Well, if you’re nice then people will like you,” she says through gritted teeth, wondering why she even agreed to do this. “And if people like you then they’ll treat you better. Which means they’ll want to do more things for you.”

“Wait, so I can actually get something out of being nice?” Chloé says. Marinette considers rushing out to Chloé’s balcony and throwing herself over the railing.

“Not that you should want to be nice for selfish reasons, but yes,” she says. “And then once it becomes habit, you’ll find that you like being nice –”

“Don’t worry about that part,” Chloé says. “Let’s focus on the part where being nice gets me stuff.” (Chapter 16)

This is more what she’s used to, and something she’s no doubt seen in action before; being nice on a transactional basis in order to get stuff. It fits neatly into her worldview.

But that’s not good enough.

“It’s not as simple as saying a few nice things,” Marinette says. “You have to keep showing that you mean it, or people will see that you’re being fake. I suggest you start treating Sabrina nicer.”

“What do you mean? Sabrina loves me!”

“You treat her like a servant!” Marinette strongly considers throwing the piece of pineapple in her hand at Chloé – it’ll blend in nicely with the other girl’s hair and jacket – but she forces herself to not lose her cool. “You make her do your homework, steal for you, whatever else you say!”

“I give her gifts all the time! I gave her an old dress of mine just the other day!”

Breathe, Marinette. Breathe. Don’t beat up the annoying blonde. “Just because you give Sabrina your old things doesn’t mean that you’re being nice to her,” she says. “Try thanking her for doing your homework. Ask her opinion on things and don’t think that she agrees just because she rushes to back you up. Treat her like an actual person.” (Chapter 16)

Chloe’s mindset is pretty apparent here. She knows Sabrina follows her, that she does what she says and seems to like her, therefore that must mean she’s being “nice” to her. She gives Sabrina gifts, which she thinks makes everything else about how she treats her okay. Probably because that’s what she’s experienced herself, with her parents not really having much time for actual bonding (or just treating her like crap in Audrey’s case), and substituting gifts instead. Also seen this with other rich parents, since it’s a favorite tactic of Gabriel’s.

Marinette at least tries to get her into the habit of thinking up nice things about other people, about treating people nicely, even if Chloe hasn’t yet really gotten what niceness really is or why she should be nice aside from on a transactional basis.

“Your homework is to think of a nice thing to say about every single person in our class.” Marinette ignores Chloé’s complaining, for her own sanity. “Then you’re going to go up to each person and say it tomorrow. I really don’t care if you can’t bring yourself to do it for me, but I want you to do it for everyone else. And no, it can’t be a backhanded compliment,” she says before Chloé can even open her mouth. “It has to be something genuinely nice.”

“But what if there’s nothing nice to say?” Chloé says. “What if their outfit and their hair and everything is ugly?”

“Think of something!” Marinette throws her hands up. “Offer them advice if you absolutely have to, just in a helpful way! If you want to be nice then you need to practice, and you need to make others believe that you’re trying.” (Chapter 16)

And Chloe does genuinely make an effort, to the point that Alya thinks there’s an akuma. It’s nowhere near being natural, but just the fact that she’s willing to listen to what Marinette says and put it into practice, to make that effort, is extremely encouraging, even if she doesn’t really understand how or why to be nice.

“Thank…you…for doing my homework, Sabrina,” Chloé says loudly. Her voice carries across the classroom, although this is probably just because everyone’s gone dead silent to stare at her. Sabrina looks like she’s questioning reality.

“Um…it’s no problem, Chloé?” the redhead says slowly. “You know you don’t have to thank me for it.”

“Well, I thought it would be…nice. To show that I…appreciate you. You’re…a good friend.” (Chapter 16)

Soon afterwards Chloe shows just how much Adrien means to her, that he’s not just a possession to her, that she genuinely cares about him as a person, cares about his wellbeing, even if she didn’t realize how much before this.

“Cute,” Chloé drawls. “You’ve worried yourself sick over your friend. At least it’s not something super serious like I thought.”

“Nothing super serious? How can you say that?”

“Because his father’s like this all the time. It’s not like I’m happy, but at least I know it’s not something like having a broken leg or me needing to destroy whoever hurt him or something.”

Marinette totally doesn’t buy that. “Rubbish! After you let Adrien take the fall for what you did twice, pretending like you care is a total new low for you, Chloé. You don’t care about him at all, do you, you just see him as some trophy –”

Chloé’s hand shoots out to grab Marinette’s wrist and yank her down the next corridor and into the girl’s bathroom. “Don’t you even dare go there, Dupain-Cheng,” Chloé hisses, squeezing Marinette’s wrist as the door slams shut behind them. “I’m trying to be nice so that my best friend will talk to me again, so don’t you even think of implying that he’s just a shiny thing to me. I just…didn’t realise how special he was until he stopped talking to me for good. I didn’t realise that I was treating him like shit as well as all you peasants since, you know, that’s my default.” (Chapter 17)

This is an important step for Chloe. She may not know exactly why she should be nice to most other people yet, but she at least DOES realize how awfully she was treating the few people she does care about and wants to be better to them, and to ensure that others don’t treat them badly either. And it means she gets the general concept of why to be nice to people beyond a transactional basis, that she DOES actually care about others feelings, it’s just that the group of people who she cares about is very small at the moment. But it’s something to build on, a foundation that can be expanded.

“You hate me, Dupain-Cheng,” Chloé snaps. “I hate you. Forgive me if I don’t believe that.”

“I don’t hate you,” Marinette says. “Not since you asked me for help. I’ve actually been…impressed at how you’re really trying to be nice. I don’t like you, but I don’t hate you. And even if I did hate you, I wouldn’t go spreading around anything that you tell me in private.”

Chloé stares at her for a long moment, then sighs. “You’re, like, the one person I can actually believe wouldn’t do that to me,” she mutters. “Stupid, goodie-two-shoes Marinette Dupain-Cheng. No, I’m not in love with Adrien, okay? He’s like my brother. But I don’t want anyone else to get near him.” (Chapter 17)

Chloe’s actually putting a lot of trust, showing a lot of vulnerability to Marinette here. And even believing that Marinette hates her, she still has a very high opinion of her, knowing that Marinette wouldn’t betray her trust even though they don’t like each other. She HAS this awareness of who Marinette is as a person, she just wasn’t really using it before.

“Why? If you’re really that close, you can’t possibly believe that he’d abandon you for someone else, right?”

“He did!” Chloé clenches her fists and stomps her foot. “He left me for – for you! And that Ladyblogger and weird DJ!”

“Only because you were being mean and he knew that he had the power to push you to become a nicer person,” Marinette counters.

“Exactly! Now I’m stuck turning myself into some fake, nice, smiley person that I’m not just to get my friend back!” (Chapter 17)

Chloe still doesn’t totally get it. She thinks that she basically has to put on a customer service persona in order for Adrien to be willing to talk to her again, and that’s not it. Her abandonment issues also play into it, with how her mom left her. I’m not surprised she’s willing to try to change herself this much with one of the few people who she actually really cares about staying away from her until she does. I feel some sympathy for her though. If Adrien wasn’t the kind of person that he is, if he was malicious, then Chloe would be in a REALLY bad situation with how far she’ll go to get him to be willing to be friends with her again. Someone could use her desperation to make her do things that she wouldn’t normally be willing to do. “Do this thing or I won’t be your friend anymore” is unfortunately a common tactic that kids sometimes use to get their ‘friends’ (though they’re not being very good friends generally if they’re using that) to do what they want. I’ve been on the receiving end of it before when I was younger. In this case it’s a useful tool and the best one Adrien has at his disposal to encourage Chloe to change her ways, but it’s very much a situational one that should be applied with great caution in the real world.

Come to think of it, that’s another reason why it’s really good that Marinette’s encouraging Chloe to find her own reason to want to be nicer, besides wanting to give her a reason that’s likely to last longer than “I want my friend to talk to me again”. Because even in situations like this where using the whole “I won’t be your friend anymore” thing is warranted like this one, it’s still not a great thing to use, to force someone to change or else you’ll withhold affection/friendship/love until they change themselves, especially fundamentally. Good to get that person onto a better, less potentially dangerous reason as soon as possible.

Marinette’s face softens as she regards Chloé, who snarls and looks away, crossing her arms. “Then don’t do it for Adrien,” Marinette says. “That’s what I’ve been telling you. Find a reason why you want to be nice.”

“I don’t have a reason! Don’t you get it? Why should I want to be nice when I can get everything I want anyway?”

“You didn’t end up being class president. You’re always getting kidnapped by akumas with a vendetta. No one apart from Sabrina and Adrien likes you, and Sabrina’s more of a servant than a friend. Those are three good reasons.”

“Whatever, miss perfect know-it-all. Come on, we’re supposed to be at the nurse’s office.” (Chapter 17)

Chloe doesn’t try to deny the truth of any of this, which is especially interesting with Sabrina, that she’s getting to accept that she’s treated her that way. Chloe calling Marinette a “know-it-all” for this is basically her backhanded way of saying “yeah, you’re right”.

And then Marinette hits on it. A reason for Chloe to be nice that doesn’t require holding a relationship hostage to do so, that also isn’t super transactional.

As Chloé storms for the door, Marinette scrambles for one last line of reasoning as to why Chloé should keep being nice. Finally, as Chloé’s pushing the door open, Marinette blurts out, “What about Ladybug?”

Chloé freezes. “What about her?”

“You’re her number one fan, right? Well…why not do it so you can be the kind of person Ladybug would love to have as her number one fan?”

“Are you implying that she doesn’t see me or want me as her number one fan?” Chloé arches an eyebrow as she turns, letting the door slam shut again. Marinette gulps. Now she has to be careful with how she navigates this, or she’ll end up either outing herself or offending Chloé into hating Ladybug again.

“I never said that,” Marinette says slowly. “Look, if you truly can’t do it for yourself, do it to become a person that Ladybug would be proud of. I know I try every day to strive to be the kind of person that Ladybug would approve of. And once you’re in the habit of being nice, who knows? Maybe you’ll find that you really do enjoy having people like you and want to do nice things for you because they like you and not because they fear you.” (Chapter 17)

Marinette hit upon the key here: leverage one of the few people’s opinions Chloe DOES care about, does respect, but without needing to say that Ladybug would drop Chloe as a fan or wouldn’t be willing to spend time with her at all. Wanting to change partly for Ladybug’s approval. It’s not the best possible reason to be nice, but it’s a better one than she has currently, and can get her further on the path to being nice because she cares about other people’s thoughts and feelings as a whole. And it’s one that Chloe seems to take under serious consideration.

Chloe continues trying to be nice, even giving Marinette a birthday gift even though she wasn’t invited to her party. Things heat up a bit once Befana shows up and calls Marinette a ‘spoilt brat’, something Chloe objects to.

“You’re really calling Dupain-Cheng a spoilt brat?” Chloé’s scoff reaches Chat Noir’s ears. “Lavillant might be an airy-fairy princess, but she was actually right for once. Dupain-Cheng’s so disgustingly nice that she makes me want to hurl.” (Chapter 20)

This is a decent preview of the sort of “niceness” that Chloe’s good at naturally; not the nicest terminology, and she still insults Rose, but she’s clearly sticking up for Marinette. She’s good at brutal honesty, which can be very useful, but she needs to train herself out of throwing snide asides at other people.

Marinette actually ends up inviting Chloe to stay afterwards.

“Of course you’d be hiding,” Chloé scoffs. “It’s not like you were in the action like moi. Ladybug would be so proud that I stood up to that tacky akuma.”

“She sure would!” Marinette says. “Chloé…do you and Sabrina want to stay for the party? None of us would mind.”

Her classmates immediately school their faces into totally neutral expressions.

“Oh, no, of course we don’t mind,” Alya says with what looks like a painful smile.

“Yeah, you’re totally welcome,” Alix says through gritted teeth. Chloé smirks around at them, no doubt able to tell that it’s causing them great pain to pretend that they don’t mind her being there.

“Well, I suppose I can cancel my hair appointment this time,” Chloé says. “I’ll stay, Dupain-Cheng. It’ll be…nice.” Her face twists. (Chapter 20)

Chloe’s preening a lot, but at least she’s preening for decent reasons. No one wants to be around Chloe still and she seems happy with their discomfort, but she’s being civil (if a bit haughty) so they are as well. Civility is definitely an improvement.

Chloe’s also sticking up for Adrien even though he’s not talking to her much right now, like when Lila falsely accuses Adrien of assaulting her.

“You what?” Chloé says shrilly. “How dare you? My Adrikins would never treat anyone like that! He’s so sickly sweet that he probably felt worse than you when he rejected you.”

“Thanks, Chlo,” Adrien says quietly. Chloé shoots him a small smile, with none of her usual smugness or nastiness, and tosses her ponytail. The message in her eyes is crystal clear: even if they’re not technically friends right now, she’s always got his back. (Chapter 23)

This is just her protecting her friend for his own sake. It’s been shown before, but… yeah, this is the kind of thing where it’s really good to see it interwoven throughout the narrative, showing that it’s not a one-time thing or something she just states, but is actively demonstrated as well.

Zombizou still happens, which in this case means Chloe backslid a little. Which is pretty realistic, that happens. Which gets Ladybug, Rena, and Chat talking about what do about it.

“Yeah,” Rena Rouge says. “A kissing zombie? And here I thought Chloé was trying to be better rather than ruining birthday gifts and getting our teacher akumatised. She went to Marinette’s party, for god’s sake, and she hates Marinette.”

“Maybe she just relapsed?” Chat Noir says. “I know it can be hard to move past stuff that’s so…well, force of habit. And she’s had a bit of a rough family life.”

“That’s still no excuse,” Ladybug says. “A friend of mine has also had a rough family life and he’s one of the sweetest people I know. But…maybe Chloé does need support. Not coddling, but just enough support to keep her on the right track.” (Chapter 26)

I’m really glad Ladybug was thinking about this. Because Adrien withdrawing support may have been what prompted Chloe to change, but just leaving her without sufficient support is unlikely to be helpful. Ties into my analysis of how Ladybug interacts with Alya, actually; she’s not really focused here on any sort of punishment for Chloe, though she’s definitely not fond of her, but is instead thinking in terms of “Ok, now how can I help Chloe grow to reach her potential?” I think she might subconsciously thinking about her in a similar way to how she thinks of her teammates, which is fitting considering that Chloe joins the team later.

Ladybug goes to talk to Chloe later that night, questioning her about what happened.

At first Chloe puts up her usual haughty, arrogant façade.

“Chloé, you can drop the bravado,” Ladybug says. “I know you’ve been trying to be nicer. Why did you ruin Marinette’s gift?”

Chloé snorts loudly. “Perfect princess Dupain-Cheng? She thinks she’s just oh so good. And how dare Sabrina just tell the class about my mother like that! Dupain-Cheng had it coming.”

Ladybug bites down on her tongue so hard that she’s left with a faint metallic taste. “I hardly think that Marinette’s intention was to make you look bad,” she says dryly. “Especially since she’s been helping you become nicer.” (Chapter 27)

It crumples quickly however. Even in the show she opens up to Ladybug in a way she doesn’t with most other people, and in this scenario where she’s already opening up to Marinette, allowing herself to be slightly more vulnerable than she’s used to being? It doesn’t take long to break.

“Forget it.” Chloé slouches back in her seat and crosses her arms, blinking rapidly. Is she…about to cry? Chloé Bourgeois, crying? “I’ll never be nice. Why even bother trying?”

“Because you can’t keep lashing out, Chloé,” Ladybug says. “I know there’s probably history with your mum, and I’m not going to insist that you talk to me about it, but…other people have hard lives as well and they don’t turn it on everyone else.”

“Yeah? Well, none of them are me,” Chloé snaps. “I’ve got everything I want. Daddy gives me everything. I’ve got a devoted best friend. And it’s never enough. It’s never enough.” She hunches over and covers her face with her hands. “I don’t even know what more I want. How the fuck am I supposed to give others what they want? Why should I even care?” (Chapter 27)

This breakdown is different from the other times she’s questioned why she should care. Those times, she was questioning Marinette. This time, she’s questioning HERSELF.

And as much bad blood as Marinette has with Chloe, she still has an idea of what Chloe might actually want here, even though she herself doesn’t seem to know.

“I think you just want someone to understand you,” Ladybug says softly. (Chapter 27)

Sabrina might be there for Chloe, might serve her, but… well, Chloe doesn’t really engage her as an equal. Her father’s technically there, but he doesn’t really engage with her as a person either – he either rolls over for her and does what she wants and occasionally puts his foot down on her behavior when pressured. He ends up playing a role kinda similar to what Sabrina does, relationship-wise.

But Chloe doesn’t need just another sycophant. She needs someone who really talks WITH her and tries to understand her as a person.

And then there’s Chloe’s mother, who makes up a large part of Chloe’s issues.

“I’m sorry.” Ladybug reaches over and rests a hand on Chloé’s. Chloé gasps but she doesn’t pull away or give any other indication of discomfort. “I can’t imagine what it must be like to have a parent like that. But that’s not an excuse, Chloé.”

“I just want her to love me!” Chloé stomps her foot. “I tell myself I don’t care and then I see her and it’s like there’s a switch that just flips. She’s my mother, but she treats me like – like I’m a nobody! Like I mean nothing to her even though she’s the one who gave birth to me, so you’d think there’d be some affection!”

“I get that.” How long has Chloé been bottling this up? “But how do you think everyone else feels when you take those feelings and push them on the people around you?”

“You think I don’t know that?” Chloé says. “It makes me feel…good. Like they can have half a goddamn clue how I feel.” (Chapter 27)

Taking out anger and pain on others can feel good in the moment, and that’s what Chloe’s been operating on all this time. At her core, I think Chloe’s jealous of everyone else for having people who care about them, for having parents who care about them as people in particular, for not having been treated like a piece of garbage by one of the people who should be the most compassionate and understanding towards you. Which might also factor into why Chloe connected with Adrien in a way she hasn’t with anyone else, even though she hasn’t been isolated the way he was – he DOES have a crappy parent who doesn’t give him affection and treats him badly, though he DID at least have a halfway decent parent as well in this universe (whether Emilie was a good, or even just an okay parent in canon is still very much unknown).

It doesn’t help that Chloe’s view of niceness is very skewed and limited, that she thinks it only means being very sugary sweet and uplifting. Ladybug expands on what she means, and shows her how she can be nice in her own way. Well… maybe not exactly NICE, but constructive and not actively harmful.

Hmm.” Ladybug chews her lip, struggling to find the words that Chloé needs to hear. “You don’t have to be sugary sweet. There’s nothing wrong with being blunt and snarky. But you don’t have to be hurtful as well. You could just as easily turn that bluntness into helpful honesty and that snark into banter. And people will see that you’re trying. I’m sure of it.”

“Wait, so I can be a raging bitch and still be a good person?” Chloé says. “Because that’s probably at least achievable within my lifetime.”

“Well, probably not a raging bitch,” Ladybug says. “But you don’t have to be sugary sweet. Just…work on being less nasty. It’s as simple as not being mean. Don’t say the mean thing you were going to say. Instead, turn it into a snarky half-compliment if you can. Baby steps. But you have to consistently try.” (Chapter 27)

This is a really good path to set her on. One that doesn’t involve completely changing her entire persona and ways of interacting with people, but more modifying it, along with exercising some self-restraint. It seems to really click for Chloe what Ladybug means here in a way that it didn’t back when Marinette was trying to explain being nice before.

“Okay, fine,” Chloé says. “I’ll turn myself into the jerk with a heart of gold trope.” (Chapter 27)

Fiction’s great for this kind of thing, and I’m glad she’s found something to latch onto to help her understand the trajectory she’s on, to kind of use for mental scaffolding. She displays the same sort of self-awareness later that chapter.

“I’m going to pretend that you didn’t just imply that Chat Noir can compare to Ladybug, for the sake of my redemption arc,” Chloé says loudly. (Chapter 27)

It’s encouraging to see her thinking of this as a redemption arc, as her being in the wrong originally and needing to change, and for her trying to get to a destination of being a better person. It’s not transactional anymore, there’s been a fundamental shift in her method of thought about this whole thing. It’s not just a means to an end, but an end in and of itself, something that she seems to see value in achieving. It helps that she seems to actually UNDERSTAND what Marinette meant, what Adrien meant before about being nice. Which to be fair, the way they phrased it as, well, being “nice”, wasn’t best impression of how they wanted her to change. Now that she understands though, now that it’s clicked, she’s on board. She can see how she can be herself AND have support, have friends, and be decent friends to them in turn. She’s got a pretty good handle on it in her banter with her classmates.

“Yeah, which means all you bitches have to get in line behind me,” Chloé says.

“How about you go fuck yourself, Bourgeois?” Alix calls back down at her.

“Eat my entire arse, Kubdel.”

“Yeah, I’m sure this is exactly what we meant by being a good person,” Marinette jokes, seizing the change in subject with both hands like a lifeline so that she doesn’t have to keep hearing about how her classmates would do her alter ego.

“I’m becoming a better person, not turning into a saint, Dupain-Cheng.” (Chapter 27)

She’s altering her tone enough so it’s not outright mean, even if it’s still pretty… colorful, and so that she’s not punching down.

Now that she’s got the basic idea of how she can be her own brand of “good” and “nice”, and sees a reason to aim for it? Now that she’s acknowledging why she’s often nasty in the first place? Now, she’s ready for the climax of her character development.

Her mother comes to visit like in canon, and Marinette tries to get them bond over their nastiness (which seriously, that was weird even in canon), something she recognizes as a mistake. Then Malediktator happens, causing her to go talk to Chloe, like what happened in the actual episode – but with more depth this time.

“I – I –” Chloé swallows and takes a shaky breath. Ladybug smiles and nods in encouragement, and that’s all Chloé needs to let the floodgates slam open. “It – It was me. I hurt my daddy's feelings. Because I want to leave Paris forever!”

“Because of what happened in school with the video?” Ladybug says, and Chloé blanches. “I’m sure your classmates didn’t mean to be so harsh –”

“Oh, it’s not them,” Chloé sniffles. “Actually, I don’t even care about any of them, except Sabrina. It’s because I have no reason to be here – nobody likes me, my only friend is Sabrina and I know I treat her like shit, Adrien’s still not my friend, I can’t do anything – I’m…the only thing I am good at is screwing everything up. And I caused this mess, and I’m sorry, Ladybug, I’m sorry.” (Chapter 33)

Chloe cares. She just… doesn’t feel like she’s capable of being a better person, of not screwing things up, of ACHIEVING something. Her mom appearing and making her feel like crap certainly doesn’t help. Plus, these sorts of feelings happen even when people DO and ARE in a supportive environment; Marinette has wonderful parents and… ok she was bullied by Chloe, but that was about it. And she gets these feelings too, to the extent that she didn’t think she could be Ladybug at first, and that after she messed up, she tried to give her Miraculous to Alya. And while Ladybug can’t tell Chloe THAT, obviously, she does let her know she’s not alone in feeling that way.

“You think I’ve always been Ladybug?” Ladybug says. “You think all of my achievements have been behind this mask? I happened to be in the right place at the right time. The costumes don’t make us anything; all they do is give us powers and enhance what’s already there. We don’t need our powers to be heroes. I’ve seen how hard you’re trying and how far you’ve come.”

“It’s still not enough.” A sob wracks Chloé’s body, and she hunches over as though trying to contain it. “My classmates have given up on me. Even Marinette Dupain-Cheng told my mother how nasty I am. Was she just trying to sabotage me? Ugh, I bet she was –” (Chapter 33)

There’s this recurring line of thought Chloe has. That whatever she tries, whatever her reasons, whatever she tries to do or get, it’s not enough. She honestly has a pretty low opinion of herself, but tries to hide it beneath bravado and arrogance. Actually kinda similar to Chat’s swagger and show-offiness, except that his antics and attitude don’t have a mean bite to them.

I think… at her core, she always wanted to be enough for her mother. That she thought that maybe, just maybe, if she was better, or different, then perhaps her mother would love her. Wouldn’t have left her. Wouldn’t treat her the way she does. That no matter what she tries, how hard she tries, even if others appear to give her a chance, in the end she’ll always fail and be abandoned. That she will always be a failure.

“Ladybug brought me here,” illusion Marinette says. “I heard everything. And I’m sorry for what I said to your mother.”

“Why would you say that?” Chloé stomps her foot. “You say I have to be a good person, then you turn around and tell her what a bitch I am!”

Illusion Marinette’s mouth droops. “I saw how much it meant to you, getting your mother’s approval. I just…I guess I wanted to help, but I went about it entirely wrong. I’m sorry, Chloé, I shouldn’t have done that.”

“You don’t need the approval of someone like that,” Ladybug says. “Remember our talk months ago? You’ve got support if you want it, Chloé, but you have to make the effort to not slip back into those behaviours.” (Chapter 33)

Ladybug makes things clear. That she won’t stand, that Marinette won’t stand, for Chloe going back to how she was, that she has to try… but also making it clear that so long as she DOES try, she won’t abandon her, that she’ll give her support. That it’s not a matter of achieving it or not, so long as she’s at least making an honest attempt. That that’s enough. That she hasn’t failed.

Ladybug goes into a bit more detail on how Chloe can be “good” without being sweet, exactly. Chloe sort of got the idea before, but she needs more reinforcement.

“I know it’s a tough lesson to learn, but you have to learn it,” Ladybug says. “The people you’ve bullied aren’t obligated to forgive you. You should continue to grow whether they forgive you or not; to become a better person because it’s the right thing to do.”

“But I can’t be nice. And I know you told me I just have to be good, but no one’ll believe that I’m trying if I’m not sickly sweet! They’ll just shake their heads and be like, “well, there she goes again”.”

“And like I said before, you don’t have to be nice,” Ladybug says. “There are ways that you can make yourself a better person without sacrificing who you are. You can speak your mind without being mean, you know. Tell others what you think but also tell them what you’d do. Give them another perspective. Not everyone will appreciate or ask for it, but it’s at least better than just outright saying mean things. You can turn a negative comment into a snarky comment. You can direct your negativity towards evil and doing the right thing while you figure out how to become genuinely good. You can use your attitude for good rather than evil.” (Chapter 33)

It’s not really all that new information, but… well, often people DO need things like this to be reaffirmed, to be restated, to be expanded on. It’s the final reiteration of this advice, to really drive it home.

And Ladybug asks Chloe to make her a promise.

“I mean…” Chloé takes a deep breath. “I guess if I can’t be nice, I can at least be…good. But how? I don’t exactly have a moral compass like Dupain-bloody-Cheng.”

“Maybe you should see someone?” Ladybug says. “A professional? I know Marinette’s been helping you, but she and I can’t be solely responsible for guiding you. Look, do you promise to keep trying your best? To work each day to become a better person and to reach out for help if you need it, rather than pushing people away?” (Chapter 33)

I’m glad Ladybug advised Chloe to see a professional; getting help from her peers is a good first step, but… if at all possible, it really SHOULD be a professional that helps someone handle this sort of thing, especially when the other peers are kids themselves.

But back to the promise. This promise is the culmination of Chloe’s character arc, the thing she needs to keep striving for, and something that’s been explained and that Marinette has worked on her with to the point that it’s achievable. This is what she needs to internalize for the redemption arc to succeed.

She agrees, and Ladybug gives her the Bee Miraculous once again, with Chloe promising not to screw up this time.

And she doesn’t; she performs admirably and willingly tries to give back the Miraculous even before Ladybug asks, showing that she’s trustworthy enough to keep it.

That’s pretty much the end of her redemption arc there. She’s around and present quite a bit with her being on Team Miraculous, but it’s mostly just a continuing of the same mindset as she’d been trying, as Marinette had been trying to foster in her, since her redemption arc began. I appreciate that she’s still around post-redemption and has a significant role – I’ve seen bully characters disappear before once their redemption arc is over, since they apparently had no other role or reason to be in the show aside from that, and I find that annoying. But there’s not really as much for me to analyze concerning it.

Overall I really loved Chloe’s redemption arc. In the other cases I’ve seen her redeemed it’s often through her either having a personality transplant so she’s just suddenly a different sort of character without having it explained how she got from Point A to Point B. She also tends to be redeemed through becoming a ‘savior’ of some sort, through doing some particular redemptive act. Which can still be good in its own right, don’t get me wrong, but I’m glad to see a version where she really has to put in the work to change her mindset and work on her redemption FIRST, and the sorts of more spectacular acts to put herself in people’s good graces, like her superhero work, come AFTER she’s done more mundane self-improvement. It feels more realistic to me, and like a good approach considering that her level of wrongdoing was on a more mundane, regular school bully level anyway.

#hold me by both hands #chloe bourgeois #chloedemption #chloe redemption #miraculous ladybug #fanfic analysis #my analysis

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lilymanaged · 4 years

Text

just a little bit of your heart

hello its me, ya girl, back with fic

okay so this was originally supposed to be part of a longer fic, but I lost the motivation because I moved tf on (there was a boy, he sucked, I began to write, then I realized that he was not worth my energy so I stopped), but I really kinda like this bit so here is it! in the original fic, there was supposed to a redemption arc, but obviously that isn't going to happen. enjoy anyway!

AO3

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

It started when she was fifteen.

She had known him before, of course - hard not to know someone who lives just across the common room from you, who was so visible at all times, who was so beloved by students and teachers alike. He was the star of the Quidditch team already, lapping the upperclassmen in skill and devotion. He was the top of the class, naturally smart and hardworking. He Was...and she Was Not. And that’s just the way it was.

Something had changed that day, mid-January, Charms classroom. It was bitterly cold outside, but the castle was warm and bright.

Maybe it was the light from the fire lit behind Professor Flitwick’s desk, or the snow falling gently outside the castle, or maybe Lily had just tilted her head to the perfect angle that her hair fell off her shoulder to reveal her neck in an appealing way, but he approached her as she was packing up her things, halting her movements. She looked at him, wide-eyed, and he smiled charmingly down at her.

“Hey,” James said, voice deep. She shivered. “I’m sorry to ask this of you, but I am really just not understanding mobility charms. You know, summoning, banishing, those kinds of things. Would you mind helping me out a bit later? You’re the only person here who seems to get it.”

Lily’s mouth responded before her brain could catch up. “And what’s in it for me? I don’t reveal my secrets for just anyone, and definitely not for free.”

He chuckled, eyes alight with mirth. “Name your price.”

Lily blushed, stepping back a little. He shifted his weight forward, almost following her, and watched intently as she gathered her books into her arms, pressing them against her chest tightly in a vague attempt to force her heart to slow.

“Flying lessons,” she said, shocking herself a little. “My secrets for yours.”

He nodded, stepping fully into her space. At this point, they were the only ones left in the classroom, the rest of the students on their way to lunch already.

“My secrets for yours,” he repeated, reaching out to tuck a lock of her hair behind her ear. “You’re dangerous, Red.” Lily’s eyes widened, staring up at him in disbelief. His gaze shifted downward, searching her face and causing her flush to deepen.

“Dangerous?” she replied, voice faint.

“Yeah,” he breathed, eyes locking with hers. “Dangerous. For me. I’ll see you later.”

With that, he stepped away, looking over her one more time before turning and exiting the classroom. Lily slumped back down to her stool, placing her books on the table and pressing her forehead to them. She struggled to catch her breath and slow her erratic heart, cursing James Potter mildly in her head, dreading what might happen later.

What she had originally written off as a minor crush, maybe a physical attraction, soon bloomed into full-blown infatuation. Their study sessions stopped being study sessions very quickly, turning into conversations that left Lily shaking slightly under his intense attention. James was nothing if not engrossed in everything she had to say, and she often felt herself losing focus when his eyes met hers, burning with curiosity or confusion. Although they never got anywhere with the flying, really, Lily felt herself being less reluctant to share her so-called secrets as time went on. As long as James kept looking at her that way, he could frankly have whatever he wanted from her.

Which is why, come March, she had given him almost every piece of her heart, despite his lack of asking nor any confessed desire for it. Lily would all but float up to her dorm after spending time with James, gushing to Marlene and Dorcas about every word he said, every time his hand brushed hers, while Mary looked on warily.

“Lily, has he asked you out?” she asked one day in April, eyebrows knit as she sat next to Lily on the window seat of their dorm. The turret looked out onto the grounds, and Lily was looking over the grass, eyes glazed over dreamily, ignoring the book situated in her lap. They were supposed to be studying for their upcoming exams in June.

“Hmm?”

“James, Lily. Has he asked you out yet?” Mary continued, eyes searching Lily’s face.

Lily’s brows knit together, and her smile dropped a bit. “No, Mare. He hasn’t.”

“Why do you think that is?”

Lily shifted in her seat, refusing to meet Mary’s eyes. After a moment, she looked up, tears in her eyes. “I don’t know,” she replied, exasperated, voice thick. “I don’t know.”

Mary turned toward Lily, pulling her friend into her arms. She allowed Lily to cry, stroking her hair gently until the sobs subsided. After a while, Lily pulled away, standing up.

“I think I’m just going to go to bed. Can we study tomorrow?” Mary nodded, and Lily walked away. She climbed into bed, pulling the canopy curtains closed abruptly.

The next morning, Lily was hyper-aware of James, and actively forced herself to be positive around him, upbeat. He sat beside her at breakfast, laughing at all her snarky jokes and playing with the ends of her hair. She felt Mary’s eyes on her, and resolutely ignored her, choosing instead to focus on the positive: James was right beside her, and it felt like she was bathing in his warm glow. Internally, she felt pathetic, vying for any scrap of love he would throw her way, but she was also resolutely ignoring that feeling.

Lily was focusing on the positive.

She was positive that this was going to crush her when it was all over.

And then, everything was fine until it wasn’t. The next year passed in a blur, and nothing changed between them. Lily watched as James dated other people, anyone who wasn’t her, while still calling her his best girl, holding her close and yet an arm’s length away. She tells herself that he is scared - scared of the depth of emotion between them, the absolute understanding that exists when they look at one another. He calls her dangerous to him, a minx sent to drive him crazy, tells her that she’s worth a million of him, places her on a pedestal when all she wants is for him to reach over and take her, choose her, love her. And yet, he never does quite pick her.

A little after Christmas of their fifth year, Lily gets mad and starts to date too, fueled by a desire to show him how it feels, show him what he is missing. Bertram Aubrey, a Ravenclaw in the year above them, agrees to a date to Hogsmeade and, before she even realizes it, she actually starts to like him. Spending time with Aubrey takes her away from James, and the horrible, heartsick feeling he represents. Bert is kind to her, attentive, enjoys her company. And so, she lets it happen.

She is happy with Bert, she realises one day in early April. The feeling takes her aback — she didn’t know she would really feel happy with someone who wasn’t James — and she decides she likes it. She tells Bert, and he is elated, kissing her breathless in the hallway in front of everyone. She smiles brightly at him, and ignores the lingering sensation of guilt in the back of her mind.

And everything is fine, until it isn’t.

Because now, here she is, standing by the Lake after their Transfiguration OWL, staring James down. He’s laughing, and his friends laugh with him. Snape is shouting abuse, and then she is too, telling James to leave Severus alone.

He will, he says, smile widening as he looks at her. It’s a nice smile, and Lily’s heart beats a little faster when she sees it. She quickly admonishes herself, waiting for the punchline.

“....if you go out with me.”

She starts, face heating up, and the words hang in the air between them. He’s making fun of her, she realises, playing on the love that she keeps tucked away inside herself, Lily’s worst kept secret. Lily feels whatever is left of her heart inside her chest break, shatter into a million pieces right in front of his eyes, and shouts at him for the first time.

James stumbles back as if he had been smacked in the face, and Lily gets a little thrill in her chest at his shocked expression. She blacks out a little, emotions high as the exchange continues and Snape ends the last remote traces of their feeble friendship.

When she finally walks away, surface emotion a disgusted rage - at Snape, at James, and mostly at herself for thinking anything would ever change. She frantically makes her way all the way to her dorm, throwing herself on her bed, and unleashes all the pent up frustration and hurt. Her roommates return about a half hour later, presumably after hearing every detail of the big showdown, to the room absolutely trashed. Lily allowed the magic to flow through her, and it resulted in slashed curtains, broken pillows, shoes and clothes littering the floor. Mary and Emmeline curl themselves around her in her bed and Marlene and Dorcas put the room to rights, and Lily cries until she falls asleep. Later, when she looks back on that afternoon by the Lake, Lily recognizes it as the true end of her childhood — any lingering optimism or romantic hopes had shattered the moment her heart did.

#jey? writing angst? more likely than you think #jily fic #james potter #lily evans #jily #please do not come for me I Know its not ideal #also I know its a weird verb tense #my writing

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argyle-s · 4 years

Note

Honest opinion on Supercorp??

Honestly? It depends on the time period.

Early Season 2, up until Ace Reporter, I was mostly indifferent to it. I saw some cute fics, but no one seemed willing to deal with Lena’s problematic behavior like the Alien Detector, and the fact that Lena told Lillian that Kara was asking around after her, which could have had horrible consequences for Kara even if Lena didn’t believe her mother would kill someone at that point.

Season 2 Post Ace Reporter, I was less than thrilled by it. Lena’s behavior at the end of Ace Reporter was unsettling. I wouldn’t call it outright abusive at that point, but Lena sets up a pattern of avoiding responsibility for her darker impulses by shifting that blame onto her family/upbringing.

Early Season 3: Lena was actually pretty good in 3x01. She seemed to be aware that Kara might not want to continue their friendship because of her involvement in what happened to Mon-El. This turns out to not be the case in 3x02 when Lena punishes Kara for trying to set a personal boundary in their relationship (’I don’t want to talk about personal things at work’ to which Lena immediately responds by humiliating her in a cruel and public fashion. At this point, I’m still less than thrilled, but I figure that there are behavioral issues that could be addressed, but none of the writers saw were ever willing to address Lena’s bad behavior.

Mid Season 3: The first moment will point to and call abuse happens in 3x12 when Lena gives the “You’re the only reason I’m not a murderer speech.” At that point, and there after, I began getting more and more uncomfortable with Lena’s behavior, and more and more averse to even the idea of Supercorp as a relationship.

Late Season 3: 3x17 is the breaking point at which Supercorp becomes abusive. There is so much wrong here with the relationship. Admittedly, a LOT of the abuse is focused on Supergirl, so Lena doesn’t *realize* what she’s doing to Kara, but Kara is still suffering.

Season 4: Supercorp is just a NoTP by this point. Lena’s xenophobia and her abusive behavior towards James, Supergirl and towards Kara are both on full display through out the season. Lena lies constantly. She experiments with the Harun-El knowing that she is violating Supergirl’s trust. There is just so much wrong here, that I can’t even begin to list everything without rewatching the season and cataloging all of it.

Season 5: Lena is an abusive fucking bitch with the morality and sense of entitlement of a teenage boy who frequents the incel subreddit. Anyone who thinks Lena’s behavior is acceptable at this point, that her hurt at having the secret kept from her makes what she’s doing “understandable”, or Kara’s fault is absolutely full of it, and I don’t want Lena anywhere near Kara.

That’s my opinion based *solely* on canon and what I’ve seen in Supercorp fic. It does not include any of my own persona head canons for the Kara/Lena interactions.

tldr:

It started out okay, but in the end, comparing it to Romeo and Juliet is a perfect analogy. Romeo and Juliet lasted three days and six people died. Supercorp lasted 4 seasons, and we don’t know the final death toll yet, but I’m guessing it’s going to be pretty high.

Is it possible to give Lena a redemptive arc? Yes. But even if she gets redeemed, I don’t think Lena and Kara would ever be capable of having a healthy romantic relationship, nor would I want to see it. No one should *ever* go back to their abuser, no matter how the circumstances have changed.

#supergirl #kara danvers #anti lena luthor #supergirl season 5 #supergirl season 5 spoilers #supergirl meta #lena luthor #Anonymous

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youreverycolor · 4 years

Text

An Unlikely Love: Perfect Again (Rafael Barba x Anna Stein)

AN: Prompt #156 from 200 Prompts from @drink-it-write-it (“He stares at you every time you look away.”)

Also, I’ve decided to start adding songs to go with these stories. For the previous ones, here is a list (these will all take you to Youtube).

Post-Script: “My Shot” from Hamilton Admissions: “Tiny Voice” by Lexi Walker Unspoken: “Tale as Old as Time” from Beauty and the Beast Redemption: “Skin” by Rihanna

Tagging: @thatesqcrush @madpanda75 @misssirenlove @danahart1 @nikkijmorgan @ele-esposito @dianilaws @sunnyfortomorrow @mommakat32 @lucifersadvisor @gibbs274 @oliviamariathegirl @evee87 @tropes-and-tales @garturbo @delia26 @neely1177 @jennisdirtyimagines @lostintech0011001 @letty-o @lucifersadvisor @sunnyfortomorrow @literallyprentissstwin

Song: “You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman” by Aretha Franklin

~*~*~*~

“So, I’m guessing I won’t be seeing you for a few weeks?” Rafael stirred the salsa that was simmering on the stove as Anna sat on the other side of the breakfast bar, hunched over a book.

She barely looked up. “Maybe.”

He smiled. “Well, your exams are coming up, aren’t they?”

“Mmhmm,” she mumbled absently.

“I guess I’m going to have to hang out with Carisi to fill the time.”

She turned the page. “Fine by me.”

He was entertained by this little game. “And then I’ll do a striptease across the squad room.”

“That’s good.” Then, as if she had snapped out of a trance, her head jerked up. “Wait—what did you say?”

He laughed and checked the beans, which were almost ready to mash. “I see how it is. You ignore me until you hear the word striptease. Then I have your attention.”

She rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands. “I’m sorry. I was just—”

He smirked. “More interested in the Rule Against Perpetuities than in me?” He walked around the counter to stand behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist. “It’s okay. It has that mysterious and sexy vibe.” He pulled her sweatshirt—well, actually, his sweatshirt—aside and nuzzled against her neck.

“You keep doing that and it won’t get any less mysterious to me,” she whimpered, reaching her hand up and around her head to caress the back of his head. “Or I’ll just get turned on in the middle of the exam.”

“Nobody understands that rule.” He gave her a quick nip on her earlobe but released her from his grip and went back to the food. “In some states, you can’t actually be sued for using it wrong.”

“I wish that applied to civil procedure, too. I will never understand Pennoyer.”

He cracked two eggs into a skillet that had once held tortillas. “More stuff you will never use. I do, however, expect you to get a perfect score on your criminal law exam.”

“What happens if I disappoint you?”

He glanced up at her and saw that her face had fallen just slightly. Despite her notoriously great poker face, the longer he was with her, the more he was able to read her micro expressions. “Mi corazón, I was kidding.” He tilted the pan to redistribute the oil and then went back to the beans. “You could never disappoint me.”

She sighed. “I’m worried I’m going to disappoint myself.”

“How?”

“I worked really hard to get into school. And I’ve worked really hard all semester to keep up with the work. It’s a lot harder than I thought it would be.”

“Si, pero you’ve come this far. Exams are just regurgitation of what you’ve been discussing all semester,” he replied. “I promise, the hard stuff is what you do in class. And if it makes you feel any better, how you do in law school—or even on the bar exam—doesn’t tell you how you’ll be as a lawyer.”

She brightened a bit. “Really?”

“Yeah, I mean, look at Carisi—”

“Raf, you know that’s not nice!” she scolded. “Sonny is a perfectly fine attorney.”

He finished plating their dinner. “Sorry. I’m just saying that some of the best attorneys I know were only average in school. It doesn’t mean anything.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Oh yeah? And how did you do in law school?” It was a rhetorical question. She knew perfectly well how he’d done.

He pushed a plate across the counter from her and sat down next to her with his own. This was where they usually ate together; the dining room table had other uses. “Don’t compare yourself with me, Anna. Don’t compare yourself with anyone. You deserve to be a lawyer more than anyone else I know. And I will be as proud of you the day you take that oath as I am right now just for working as hard as you are.”

“Are you sure you won’t be disappointed if I—”

He set his fork down and took her hands in his. “The only way you could disappoint me, Anna, is if you’re so worried about the lawyer you’ll be that you forget about being the woman you are.”

She dipped her head for a second and then kissed him. “Thank you. I needed to hear that.” She took a bite of the huevos rancheros he had prepared and sighed. “Jesus, this is delicious. Is there anything you’re not good at?”

He thought for a second. “Stripping?”

When she threw her head back and laughed, he knew he had broken through the wall of negligence and consideration, theories and rules. After her shower, he caught her singing along to Disney soundtracks in the bedroom as she blow-dried her hair. When she saw him watching her, she motioned for him to join her one-woman concert, creating the perfect harmony. And for the rest of the night, Anna was his Anna again, and there was no way he could ever be disappointed with that.

***

The day grades were posted on the school’s intranet, Anna had to wait all day to check them because she wanted Rafael to be with her when she did. And of course, that had to be the day he got home late; a trial had run over and then he had to meet with the squad regarding a new case that had just come in. By the time he arrived at her apartment, she was clawing the walls. When they finally sat down to look, she couldn’t do it—she made him open up the website and look for her while she paced between the couch and her kitchen counter.

“Well?” she asked, impatiently.

His face betrayed nothing. He took a deep breath and looked up at her from behind her laptop screen. “Do you want the bad news or the good news first?”

Her heart fell into her stomach. This was torture. She prepared to hear that she had done poorly enough that she wouldn’t be able to return for the next semester. “Just get the bad news over with, I guess.”

“Well,” he continued, “you’re probably going to want to get very drunk.”

“Oh God,” she said, walking to her liquor cabinet. “Do I want wine or scotch?”

His face started to twitch. “Don’t you want the good news?”

She turned back. “Oh. Well, I guess that couldn’t hurt. What’s the good news?”

He stood up. “The good news is that you’re going to want to get very drunk celebrating with a bunch of people, because, mi corazón, your GPA is a 3.0.”

Her ears filled with the sound of her own heartbeat. She wasn’t even sure she had heard him correctly. “I’m sorry, did you say—”

A wide grin stretched across his face. “I did!” He threw his arms around her waist and spun her around. “You did so well, Anna! I’m so proud of you.”

But her face was not what he had expected it would be. She didn’t look as happy as he thought she would have. Although she was smiling, it wasn’t the genuine smile he loved so much. She pulled herself out of his arms and sat on the couch to examine the grades more closely. She had an A in criminal law—no surprise there—and another in torts. But civil procedure and property had been her downfall: she’d only managed to pull C’s in those two classes. Her eyebrows pinched together. What happened? she wondered.

Rafael, however, seemed thrilled with her work, and she didn’t want to dampen his mood with her own. She would have plenty of time to analyze what had gone wrong when she was alone. So she put on the happiest face she could muster and stood up to face him again.

“Thank you, honey,” she said. “I appreciate how supportive you’ve been all this time.”

He smiled at her and tilted his head. “Are you all right? You seem a bit—”

“Oh, no, I’m fine!” she said, a little too emphatically. “It’s just kind of one of those adrenaline things. You know, anticipation and then…”

He squinted at her just a bit and took her hands. “I love you. We should go celebrate.”

She shook her head. “Oh, Raf, I’m not—I mean, it’s late, and I’m kind of tired. Stressful day, you know? Can we just—”

“Chinese?” he offered. “You may even be able to convince me to watch the new version of Beauty and the Beast.”

“Sure.”

“Are you sure you’re all right?”

She kissed him on the cheek. “I’m fine, Raf. Really.” Then she went into the kitchen to find the menu for their favorite Chinese place down the street, leaving a trail of lies in her wake.

***

A week later, just before Christmas, Rafael had a surprise for Anna. Between his work schedule and a two-day migraine she’d had, they hadn’t had time to celebrate properly. Getting the squad together was like herding cats, but he had managed to do it. He organized a small get-together at Forlini’s with them, plus a couple of Anna’s friends, to celebrate the successful end of Anna’s first semester of law school. The night of the party, he arranged for the two of them to Uber from his apartment to the restaurant, as if it were just another date night. Anna didn’t ask too many questions, although she was surprised that he suggested Forlini’s, as it was where he usually went to drown his sorrows after a tough loss.

“I’d like to start associating this place with good things,” he said to her as they exited the car.

“Gotcha. I’m kind of excited to go here, to be honest. Maybe I’ll start feeling like I might actually become a lawyer someday.”

Over the last week, Anna had made a few offhanded comments like that, and it concerned him slightly. Ever since grades came out, she hadn’t quite been herself. He assumed it was the migraine and also the post-exam comedown, but something seemed a bit off. He tried to put the thought out of his mind; he wanted tonight to be all about her and her success. After all, they had celebrated enough of his victories.

“Surprise!”

To Anna’s utter and complete shock, she entered the main dining room to find Olivia, Fin, Sonny, Amanda, and three of her friends gathered around a long table, cheering and shouting congratulations. She had no idea how to react at first—she hadn’t been expecting this at all.

“Holy sh—what are you all—”

Sonny came around the table to high-five her. “Rafael thought it would be a good idea to celebrate. He said you did really great your first semester!”

“Yeah, a 3.0? That’s better than I ever did, even in high school,” Fin added.

“No shock there,” Amanda said, elbowing him playfully. He gave her a faux glare.

As everyone else around the table offered their congratulations, Anna was aghast. She had no idea how to react to this. She knew that everyone gathered around this table was there to celebrate her, and that they all genuinely believed she’d done well. But all week, she had been turning the semester over in her head, trying to figure out how she had done so poorly in civ pro and property, and how she could have done better in her other classes. As soon as she got back to school, she planned to ask for copies of her essays, after which she would spend a great deal of time reviewing them and making notes on what she had missed. For now, though, she didn’t want to disappoint all these people who had made time out of their busy schedules to come together on her account. So she plastered a smile on her face and thanked each of them individually before they all sat down to dinner.

All through dinner, Rafael barely stopped touching her. He would squeeze her leg under the table or hold her hand while they waited for their next course. They made small talk with her friends, who would later tell Anna that they couldn’t believe he was as old as he was because he was so handsome, and, of course, they asked all about how she was liking law school. She gave the appropriate answers, told them what she knew they wanted to hear. After a while, though, she knew her façade was starting to falter, so she excused herself to the bar to get another glass of wine.

“I’ll go with you,” Amanda said, signaling to her empty glass. “If I’m paying a sitter, I might as well live it up.” While they were waiting for their drinks, Amanda glanced backward at the table. Rafael was sitting at the end of the table facing the bar, and although there was conversation going on all around him, his eyes were focused on Anna. He was clearly trying to be subtle; his eyes occasionally darted back to someone else’s face, and he would take a sip of his scotch. But inevitably, his bright green gaze would land back on his girlfriend, like he was worried that if he looked away too long, she would disappear. “He stares at you every time you look away,” she finally said.

“Excuse me?”

Amanda smiled and leaned toward Anna, lowering her voice conspiratorially. “If you looked over your shoulder right now, you’d see it. He’s so proud of you. And Barba is never proud of anyone. He barely said congratulations to Carisi when he passed the damn bar exam.”

“I don’t know why,” Anna said sadly.

“Because he thinks Carisi is enough of a puppy dog and doesn’t need any more encouragement.”

“No, that’s not what I meant. I mean, I don’t know why he’s proud of me. I didn’t do as well as I’d hoped.”

Amanda played with her empty glass. “A 3.0 is pretty damn good if you ask me.”

“I’m dating Rafael Magna-Cum-Laude-At-Harvard-Law-School Barba,” Anna said. “The guy who started as a poor kid in the Bronx and moved up to be—well, look at him.” She gestured to Rafael, in his three-piece suit, now debating the latest gun control measure in the state legislature with Sonny. “How the hell do I live up to that?”

Amanda set her glass on the counter. “Does he make you feel like you have to live up to something? Because that’s not what that stare says to me.”

Anna didn’t say anything for a long while, and then she looked at the usually cynical blonde. “So, detective, what does that stare say to you, then?”

“Look, I’m no romantic,” Amanda began, “but I’ve known Barba for years now, and I can tell you right now that I have never seen him look at anyone the way he looks at you—especially when he knows you’re not looking. It’s like a compulsion or something.”

Anna felt a flush wash over her skin. Suddenly, she was very aware of the pair of eyes on her from across the room. It wasn’t creepy; on the contrary, he looked at her the way she always hoped someone would look at her. But she still couldn’t shake the idea that she hadn’t earned that look, that she had somehow failed to live up to what Rafael Barba deserved in a partner.

Just then, their drinks appeared on the bar. “Thank you, Amanda,” she said, bracing herself for round two.

“No problem. And for what it’s worth? Carisi only got a 2.9 his first semester.”

***

“Did you have fun?” Rafael asked as he shut her apartment door behind them.

Anna stepped out of her painfully high heels, suddenly becoming shorter than him again. “Yeah. I’m just surprised you were able to get everyone together!”

He loosened his tie. “It wasn’t easy, believe me. Not that they didn’t want to come, but, you know, kids, grandkids, that kind of thing. You should be very aware of how much they care about you.”

“You mean how much they care about you,” she muttered, heading to the kitchen for a glass of water.

“What does that mean?”

“What are you, a bat?”

“Don’t deflect. What’s wrong, Anna? Something’s been off all week, and I can’t figure out what. Did I do something wrong?”

“No,” she said, a hint of sadness in her voice. “That’s the problem.”

“Well, now I’m very confused.” He took her by the hand and led her into the living room, pulling her onto the couch with him. “Sit. Breathe. Explain.”

She sighed deeply. “It’s not easy being your girlfriend sometimes, you know.”

He laughed a little. “I could have told you that months ago. In fact, I think I did tell you that.”

She shook her head. “No, it’s not—it’s not that you’re doing something wrong. You’re easy to be with, actually—a lot easier than you think you are.”

“That’s an argument for another day. What’s not easy, then?”

She tried to look away, but he turned her head back gently. “Do you remember when we were just barely together, and you asked me why I chose you?”

He nodded. “That was the first time you said you loved me. How could I forget that?”

She gave him a sad smile. “Well, as easy as it seemed for me to say that, it wasn’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because,” she replied, “I had the same question for you.”

It was his turn to be aghast. His eyes widened and he took her hands in his. “Why in the world would you have to question that? If anyone should be insecure, it’s me. But I know you love me. So why do you doubt that I love you?”

“It’s not that I doubt that you love me, Raf. It’s that I don’t know why. And last week just made it worse.”

His brow furrowed in confusion. “What happened last week that would make you wonder—” He stopped. “Oh, Amor, you don’t mean your grades.”

A tear fell from her eye and she tore one of her hands away from his to wipe it away. “I told you I was afraid of disappointing you, and myself. My grades were—well—not what I expected.”

“Mi amor, it is so common for your first semester of law school to be imperfect. And you did remarkably well, especially considering you also have a job.”

“You did remarkably well. I’m just…average. And when I look at you, when I see you in court, when you sit there and debate gun control with Sonny, it becomes all the more apparent to me that you could do so much better, and—”

“Anna, listen to me. There is nothing better than you. I could look for it and I wouldn’t find it because it doesn’t exist. You could work at McDonald’s for all I care. You are not your career. I know I make it seem like that’s a lifestyle, but if you haven’t noticed, I’m not the most well-adjusted person.” He gave her a small smile, trying to make her laugh, but she didn’t.

“I just wanted to make you proud of me.”

“I’m proud of you every day. Why do you think I can’t stop touching you when we’re out? It’s not that I’m trying to tell the world that you’re mine.”

She wiped another tear away. “No? Then what is it?”

“It’s that I want everyone to know that I’m yours,” he said. “I want people to know that you chose me. I told you, Anna. The only way you could ever disappoint me is by forgetting who you are in favor of what you’re becoming. And you shouldn’t be disappointed in yourself, either. What you’ve accomplished in the last two years is nothing short of amazing, and if I have to tell you that every day, I will, until you believe me.”

She looked up into his now-watery eyes, and in that moment, she was so grateful for having a partner who was just that—her partner. He never made her feel silly for having feelings or that she had to be something more than what she was. And then she thought about what Amanda had said about him staring at her, and suddenly she realized that her insecurity wasn’t coming from him. It was only coming from inside her head.

To his great relief, she finally broke into a smile. “You know what really would make me feel better?”

“What’s that?” he asked.

“Seeing if you really are good at stripping.”

#rafael barba #rafael barba fanfiction #rafael barba fan fiction #rafael barba fanfic #rafael barba fan fic #rafael barba imagine #rafael barba x oc #ada rafael barba #law and order svu #law and order special victims unit #l&o:svu #raul esparza #svu #an unlikely love #my fic #svu fanfiction

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all-good-things-dot-dot-dot · 4 years

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All Good Things… Why The Cinema and The Library Don’t Mix

#Blog #Bloggerstribe #AllGoodThings…

12th June 2020

Hello, Chaps and Chapettes,

A warning to begin with. I’m going to give spoilers for Artemis Fowl. However, only the film, so if you want to read the book, you’ll find no spoilers here. Confused? Read on.

(Photo: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/198228821074869925/)

I love a good book. The thrill of opening a story for the first time, smelling that fresh book smell if it is particularly new, and starting a new adventure always excites me. The idea of creating a new world and new people within my imagination is what has urged me towards telling my own stories someday when the time is right for me. You may even see a few shorts in these blogs in the not-too-distant future. Alongside that, I also love the cinema. I love seeing clever stories told and performed, I love the nuances of what scenes mean and when witty dialogue and plots take us to places we didn’t expect.

But I am not fond of adaptations anymore.

I have to add any more to the end of that sentence because in the past, I got really excited when my favorite book series as a child, THE favorite book series for many children (the one about the wizards) were being made into movies. I remember sitting in front of the computer trying to watch the trailer and constantly pulling the status bar back to the start to watch the bits that had loaded while waiting for the rest to finish. I couldn’t wait to see all the characters I knew become flesh and magic on screen, and the teaser didn’t disappoint.

I went to see the first film with my dad and, while I remember enjoying it, I also remember thinking, “well, they missed that bit, and this bit, and where’s that character, and why does this look like that and not how it looked in my head…” I didn’t leave disappointed on that occasion but a few films down the line I would. The fourth book in the series was pivotal for me, it showed to me what power stories had and how they could shock and scare you, even when the characters were not real. However, when it came to the film, the same characters I’d worried about and mourned for were… well, lackluster. The story felt rushed, there were more bits missing, the charm was gone and I was left feeling as though they hadn’t cared for that story the same way I had.

There were other times this has happened to me. Obviously, I was talking about the Harry Potter series there, films which I enjoyed but held in a different light to the books. Another such occasion was the Golden Compass, by which I mean the first time they tried to make it, not the better (but not perfect) BBC version. Then there was the first Tomb Raider movie, based on the games (and movies adapted from games are not much better) yet I found the novelized version of the film before it was released, read it, and… it was SO. MUCH. BETTER! There were reasons for the character motivations, a plot that felt whole not rushed, and genuine peril. Any of these could have been the icing on the cake, yet they’re not the cherry. That accolade goes to the latest adaptation of a book which I watched just an hour ago.

(Photo: https://www.everythingaction.com/2015/11/25/ea-commentary-lara-croft-tomb-raider/ )

Artemis Fowl. These books were brilliant reads when I was growing up. They were clever, the anti-hero was a genuine anti-hero who you did not know whether to love or hate, the plot made sense and the narration did not treat you like you couldn’t follow the story. The world of the fairies was made to feel like it was New York if New York was underground and populated by magical creatures with potty mouths. The film, however, released recently on a streaming service instead of into cinemas, seems to completely ignore everything which made the books good.

I will be honest, I did enjoy parts of this movie. I liked the comedy of Mulch, a dwarf character played fairly well (I saw him as a far gruffer, dirtier character in my head) by Josh Gad and while I love Judy Dench, her character was much more of a Bronx bruiser than a grumpy queen in my imagination too. These were niggles that I could have overlooked, if the film had followed the initial plot of the first book, yet it didn’t. Instead, it took Artemis Fowl (Jr) from an ACTUAL criminal mastermind, who was such as he was simply smart enough to do so and not get caught, to a kid who is only motivated to stop moping around his manor when his dad, Artemis Fowl (Snr) goes missing. Gone is the kid who has proved he’s smart in the first act, now we just have to take the word of the narrator that he’s smart. As for a criminal? He has hardly done a criminal act until the epilogue and even that is excusable at best.

As a stand-alone film, it was okay. Fun but condescending. It forgot the rule that you show your audience what is going on, you do not tell them. The big disappointment was that I was excited to see a book I had enjoyed being shown in front of my eyes on the screen. For that, I’m still waiting.

So what’s the problem? Why can’t a good book be made into a good film? The issue lies in at least two parts as far as I can see. Once, it used to be the limits of what cinema could do, but now with computer technology, those limits are getting less and less. Then, there’s the length a story takes vs the length of a movie. Yet, it is possible to make movies based on books that inspire and films like Lord of the Rings, Green Mile, and Shawshank Redemption have proven that.

( Photo: https://www.shpock.com/en-gb/i/W4Gd2G3j4GCMeIKs/stephen-king-shawshank-redemption )

No, the conflict for movies partially comes from the fact that our minds are built in such a way that many of us can take a few words and create worlds, civilizations, conflicts, and victories. We can go way beyond the scenes in our heads and visualize our beloved characters and lands in ways that movies simply cannot reach. Some have got close, few have gone all the way. A film can say things in fewer words than a book, but a book will tell you it is a far more enchanting way.

The last issue depends on who makes it. Make no mistake, I have great admiration for actors, directors, and every single body who has a hand in making a film. However, that is a vast cast and crew each having a hand in weaving the same vision one person with a pen had before them. When you include the demands, urges, and lusts of the people who pay to have these films made, who will push you off a cliff if they think it will make them back the money they gave you, then you have a problem. The story is no longer about an author wanting to tell a tale. It is about a greedy beast wanting riches and success.

Yet, I will always live in hope with each film I wish to see that it will inspire and urge me to create the way films, television, music, and books did when I was little. If all the stories I’ve absorbed have taught me anything, it is that nothing is won if you don’t want it to be a success in the first place.

If you agree, or disagree, please tell me so in the comments. I love hearing from you and always read what you write :) Stay safe, stay happy.

All good things, Love, Scaramouche. X

#books #blogs #movies #artemis fowl #doh

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sebastbu · 4 years

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My Top 40 Movies of the Decade

***just my opinion***this list is not set in stone either***

1. 12 Years A Slave (2013)

What Steve McQueen has managed to do with this movie in nothing short of the best thing art is capable of. He takes the horror of humanity and turns it into a heart shattering tale of the best of humanity. A film that could have sunk easily among the brutality it contains, instead soars with Solomon’s survival. It is one of the most life-affirming, uplifting works of art I’ve ever seen. It makes you cry, it makes you shout, it makes you cheer, it makes you breathless. In short, all the things movies are best at. Not just a definitive movie, but a definitive work of art.

2. The Act of Killing (2012)

This has my vote for the best documentary film of all time. What begins as a transfixing profile of the mass murders responsible for the 1965 Indonesian genocide quickly transforms into a Brechtian nightmare as director Joshua Oppenheimer somehow convinces these men to stage scenes for a fake movie reenacting their crimes. As the film progresses you can hardly believe what you’re witnessing. Horrifying, yet you can’t look away. Oppenheimer holds your attention for every second. What’s captured for film here is truly unique, ground-breaking, soul shaking. A statement about the banality of evil as profound as Ardent’s essays.

3. The Tree of Life (2011)

Malick has reached his final form here. An organic art form, pure cinema, visual poetry, whatever you want to call it. Nothing but a movie could be this. The images he crafts here are as close to a religious experience as I’ve ever had watching a movie, and probably ever will. In exploring childhood memories, Malick’s style perfectly matches his subject manner. He use of ellipsis and fluidity mirrors the way memories flash through our heads. It is as if we are witnessing memory directly, unfiltered. This movie will move you in ways you didn’t know a movie could.

4. The Social Network (2010)

That Facebook movie? Hell yeah that facebook movie. What Fincher and Sorkin have managed to do is take what could be a standard biopic, or dull tech movie, and made it into an epic tale of betrayal, greed, friendship, coming of age, and identity. Ross and Reznor’s score pulses, as does the dialogue. This movie starts the instant you press play and it doesn’t let you catch your breath for one second until the very end. Endlessly quotable, perfected acted. A masterclass.

5. The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)

What can I say about this movie? Every shot is perfect. Every joke, beat, pan, zoom. Well, I guess I’ll say this. This movie disarms with its charm, its facade. But at its heart is a wrenching tale of loss, nostalgia, and the fleeting nature of everything, especially those we love. A jewel of a film. Anderson makes sure you’re cozy and then pulls the rug out from under you, and suddenly you’re crying.

6. The Master (2012)

Career best performances from Joaquin Phoenix and Phillip Seymour Hoffman. Lushly shot. Greenwood delivers another ground breaking score. PTA has made an aimless film about aimless characters that nevertheless is riveting. At the end, you may not know exactly how far you’ve progressed, but you’re sure glad you went on the journey.

7. Drive (2011)

This is not an action movie. It’s a love story. The now famous dream pop soundtrack. Ryan Gosling doing so much with so little. Refn’s breathtaking cinematography. Diluted dreams. Crushed hopes. Silent gazes, filled with more emotion than dialogue could ever render.

8. The Revenant (2015)

An achievement of pure cinematic insanity. I still have no idea how they got some of these shots. A brutal, thrilling story of survival among nature’s cruelty. Inarritu’s camera is like magic in this film, uncovering the previously thought not possible.

9. La La Land (2016)

A reinvention of a genre that somehow manages to have its cake and eat it too: a nostalgia trip that also subverts expectations. Right up there next to Singin’ in the Rain, in my book at least. How on earth was that only Chazelle’s second ever movie?

10. The Lighthouse (2019)

TELL ME YE FOND O ME LOBSTER! WHYD YA SPILL YOUR BEANS? IF I HAD A STEAK ID FUCK IT. That about sums it up.

11. Parasite (2019)

Bong Joon Ho has made a beautifully twisted psychological thriller that is also hilarious, touching, and a lasting commentary on class and social mobility.

12. The Florida Project (2017)

Baker’s approach of setting this story from the viewpoint of children makes it a glorious romp through a world of innocence as well as tragedy, and also makes it all the more emotionally impactful.

13. Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)

It’s all about the cat. Alongside the Coen’s mastery of dialogue and the side character, as well as the beautiful folk music, this film acts as a deeply moving portrayal of depression, and how sometimes we are our own worst enemy.

14. Moonlight (2016)

Expertly crafted. Expertly acted. Expertly shot. A gorgeously rendered coming of age story. I’m not really the person who should speak of its importance. I’ll just say: it is. Very. A movie that will stun you.

15. Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

Practical! Effects! Yeah, that really is Tom Hardy swinging fifty feet off the ground on a pole as explosions go off behind him. A feminist, post-apocalypse, road trip movie brought to you by the director of Happy Feet and Babe 2. What more could you want?

16. Moonrise Kingdom (2012)

A wonderful celebration of childhood and of fantasy. Anderson crafts a world you want to return to again and again. Anyone else get jump scared when they realized Lucas Hedges was in this???

17. Arrival (2016)

I love Denis Villeneuve’s films for so many reasons. The most important I think is that he balances entertainment and artistic depth so well. Like all great scifi Arrival is not really about aliens, it’s about us.

18. Inception (2010)

A film that runs on all cyclinders. Smart, funny, jaw dropping, just plain fun. Nolan manages to build some surprisingly moving moments as well.

19. Gone Girl (2014)

Ah Fincher and his twists. Rosemund Pike at the top of her game. Ross and Reznor return with another gripping score. Around the narrative, Fincher creates a fascinating portrayal of the media and marriage, one with endless twists and turns. You never quite know where it’s headed.

20. Sicario (2015)

A second thing I love about Dennis Villeneuve: he does point of view characters better than anyone else.

21. Enemy (2014)

A third thing I love about Dennis Villeneuve: he plays with genre and narrative structure unlike anyone else working right now.

22. Incendies (2010)

A fourth thing I love about Denis Villeneuve: he’s given us some of the best female lead characters this decade.

23. Blade Runner 2049 (2017)

A fifth thing I love about Denis Villeneuve: he somehow managed make a Blade Runner sequel work. Here’s hoping for Dune.

24. The Look of Silence (2014)

The companion film of The Act of Killing. Oppenheimer does it again, this time focusing more on the victims of the genocide. Groundbreaking cinema.

25. Shame (2011)

Slow clap for Michael Fassbender. Slow clap for Carey Mulligan. Slow clap for Steven Mcqueen.

26. Hereditary (2018)

Using horror to examine mental illness and family trauma. Aster has made a new classic of genre, taking it to new heights.

27. Under The Skin (2014)

How to make a movie about an alien descended onto earth in order to capture men and engulf them in her weird black room of goo? Make a very alienation movie. Chilling. Otherworldly. Haunting.

28. Son of Saul (2015)

In making any holocaust film there’s always the risk of feeling exploitative. Nemes’s radical camera work, focusing almost entirely on the main character’s face in close up leaves this concern in the dust. The horrors enter only at the corners of the frame, while humanity is firmly centered the whole time. An important film everyone should see.

29. Whiplash (2014)

As visceral and heart pounding as the solos performed, the film as a whole is a perfectly made portrait of a obsession.

30. Amour (2012)

Haneke takes his unforgiving approach and lays bare a topic with incredible emotional depth. The result is deeply moving without ever being sentimental. I’m hard pressed to find another film about old age that is this poignant.

31. Birdman (2014)

A whirlwind of a film. A high wire act. The long takes turn it into something more akin to a play. A pretty damn good one at that.

32. Once Upon A Time In Anatolia (2011)

What’s Chekhov doing in the 21st Century? He’s in Turkey. He name is Nuri Ceylan.

33. The Favourite (2018)

Lanthimos turns down his style and turns up his humor. The result is the best of both worlds: a dark, twisted tale of power and a hilarious parody of monarchy and British costume drama.

34. Phantom Thread (2018)

PTA delivers again. What could easily have been another tired tale of the obsessive artist and the woman behind him is instead a fairy tale-ish ensnaring of two people’s ineffable pull towards each other.

35. A Hidden Life (2019)

Still fresh in my mind. Malick’s late style is given the backbone it needed in the form of a relevant tale of resistance and struggle. A meditative, prayer-like film about the power of belief.

36. Prisoners (2013)

A sixth thing I love about Denis Villeneuve: his movies have layers, but only if you look. Otherwise, the ride is pretty great as well.

37. Manchester By The Sea (2016)

A masterclass in doing less with more.

38. Foxcatcher (2014)

Bennett Miller does biopics unlike anyone else. That is to say, maybe better than anyone else working today.

39. The Witch (2015)

Eggers’s first foray into historical New England horror. A chilling commentary on the evils of puritanism.

40. The Kid With A Bike (2011)

The Dardenne brothers managed to make a gut-wrenching tale of childhood, masculinity, abandonment, the power of empathy, belonging, and redemption in 84 minutes. Here’s a suggestion. Watch this movie. Then watch it again. A better use of the same amount of time it takes to sit through The Irishman. Oh wait, no you still have 30 minutes left over.

#movies #top10 #decade list #movies list #2010s cinema

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leilawhittaker · 4 years

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how do bucky and leila get along? how does her presence affect the way steve and bucky interact during tws and cw?

Oh, I LOVE this question. So I’ve always seen Bucky and Leila as having a sort of antagonistic relationship at first, mostly because they’re lowkey fighting over who Steve loves more lmao. At this point, though, I see this toned down a bit on Bucky’s side due to Anya’s presence.

Without Anya, Steve is basically Bucky’s only link to the present, and seeing him building a life with someone else, moving on from their shared past, makes him feel lost, like he has nothing to hold onto.

With Anya, though, by the time Bucky meets Steve again as himself in CW (or rather, in Under Siege, which is my replacement plotline for cw--it still achieves the end goal of splitting up the avengers, but goes about it somewhat differently), he’s gotten attached to Anya, and they’ve sort of become each others’ anchors. So Bucky is less dependent on his relationship with Steve to ground him in the present.

I was gonna put a read more here but tumblr won’t let me...rip your dash (UPDATE! Managed a rm!)

Still, I do think there is some tension between the two because of their respective relationships with Steve, which I’ll get into in a second. First, TWS: Leila’s presence doesn’t really change anything about Steve and Bucky’s interactions, simply because Steve and Leila for most of the movie aren’t on good terms. Not only are they not together, there’s actively some bad blood between them, and Steve in particular is very distrustful of her to the point of questioning whether she’s actually Hydra. (Leila replies by implying that he’s Hydra--”someone as self-righteous as you could justify just about anything to himself, don’t you think?”--although it’s more out of spite than any real suspicion.)

This dynamic continues up until the end of the arc, where Leila risks her life by giving up her healing ability to help stop project insight. (I’m still fuzzy on the details here, but that’s the basic premise for her redemption.) Between this, and Leila telling him about her past, it’s the turning point for their relationship; they become friends again, start growing closer, they help each other grow (for example: Leila is the one who talks Steve into telling Tony that Bucky killed his parents), until they eventually, finally, get together in AoU.

But none of that exists in TWS yet; whatever friendship they had pre-C:SW has basically been shattered, and they haven’t started repairing it. So Leila’s just not a big enough factor in Steve’s life at that point in time to impact how he relates to Bucky. That doesn’t come in until Under Siege, whether Steve and Leila are together.

I think that at that point Leila in particular has a lot of insecurity over Steve’s past life--part of her feels like she’s a consolation prize, that Steve’s life with her and the Avengers is just some fluke and he was really meant to stay in the 1940s and have a life there. And having Bucky around just compounds that for her. She’s scared that Steve’s going to realize that Leila isn’t good enough compared to what he could have had, and that he’d rather be alone than be with her.

(It’s funny because Steve, meanwhile, by this point is pretty convinced that him going into the ice was destiny, or God’s will, or something, specifically because it brought him to Leila, and Bucky re-entering his life really only makes him more sure of that. I like Steggy a lot but I think Leila forces growth in Steve that Peggy never really did, and I think Steve is aware of that. All he’s ever wanted was to be a good man. Peggy helped him believe he could, but Leila makes him better.

Obligatory Taylor Swift lyric: “Look in my eyes, they will tell you the truth / the girl in my story has always been you” from the Lover remix ft. Shawn Mendes)

So that’s Leila side of things that makes her vaguely cold towards Bucky. Then on Bucky’s side, it’s toned down like I said due to Anya’s presence in his life, but he still feels a sort of discrepancy about how Leila factors into his relationship with Steve--like, if Steve’s managed to move on so much, does he actually really love Bucky? (Platonically or otherwise, your choice.) Bucky knows it’s irrational but it’s a neurosis he has trouble shaking. Bucky and Steve were the most important people in each other’s lives for a long time; Bucky only broke free of Hydra because of Steve. And yeah, he’s happy that Steve found someone to ground him, that he found happiness, but it’s still hard.

(It’s funny because Bucky has this part of him that thinks Steve stopped caring when in actuality a lot of how Leila and Steve got close in the first place was through Leila helping Steve look for Bucky. They probably wouldn’t have grown as close as they did if Steve didn’t care as much about Bucky as he does.)

Bucky could probably muscle through it if Leila wasn’t like, weirdly cold to him though, because he doesn’t know why. It never even occurs to him that //Leila// could be jealous of //him//. This tension causes them to start snarking at each other, while Steve tries to keep the peace between them, because this is the love of his life and his best friend and he wants them to get along so why won’t they just cooperate. It’s frustrating for him.

Eventually this tension is somewhat resolved when they’re forced into hiding. A big part of it has to do with Anya. It’s a weird trait for a spy/assassin to have, but Anya’s very good at resolving tension and keeping the peace, and she’s hard not to like. She and Leila end up striking up a friendship, and from there she manages to mediate between Leila and Bucky, and they eventually reach a sort of understanding.

I think, eventually, Leila and Bucky manage some semblance of friendship, although neither would ever admit it. They bond over having been brainwashed and feeling guilty over things they’ve done, and they have similar senses of humor as well. They keep snarking back and forth, but the malice behind it kind of disappears.

This all happens very gradually and Steve isn’t sure how it happens or what to make of it, but he is grateful, although he still wishes they’d bicker less.

(Plot point: I could see this mutual tension getting to the point where Bucky says something to Leila that’s way over the line, and Steve sticks up for her, which causes Bucky to storm off. Steve would also stick up for Bucky if it was Leila that went over the line, but I don’t think she would, not out of principle or anything but because she’s just that terrified of losing Steve. Bucky, for all his insecurity, knows that he and Steve will always be in each others lives, even if their roles change; whereas there’s still a part of Leila that thinks that Steve’s going to realize he can do better and leave her.

This plot point could be the catalyst for Bucky and Leila finally finding some peace, though, because there was a point where Leila did lash out like that, and she can definitely understand where it comes from, and I think, weirdly, whatever Bucky said to her ended up humanizing him to her a lot.)

By the time IW rolls around, they’re on good enough terms that Leila mourns him when he gets snapped. And by the time Steve and Leila get married after Endgame, she trusts him enough to let him be present for the wedding--the actual wedding ceremony, that is, not the reception. Plenty of people are invited to the reception; the actual ceremony itself is, at Leila’s demand, extremely small, consisting of Steve and Leila, the priest, Sam and Bucky on Steve’s side, and Tony and Anya on Leila’s. (And possibly Isabella; I’m still deciding.)

Anyways. As for how Leila impacts Steve and Bucky’s relationship in Under Siege: I think Steve’s attention is kind of split between them, whereas in cw he was pretty hyperfocused on Bucky, in US he’s also focused on trying to figure out what’s going on with Leila and why she’s acting so cold. I think there’s also already some tension between Leila and Steve bc the accords, while not as big of a factor, do exist, and while Steve is steadfastly against them under any circumstances, Leila has suggested that if the plan to sidestep them doesn’t work, they should try to negotiate a better deal out of them (not accepting them as they are, but trying to work with them).

(I think these responses come down to this: on Steve’s side, I think the Hydra thing left him with a lot of moral injury, and that’s why he’s hesitant to operate under another organization--he’s not even thrilled about the Avengers answering to SWORD, and only really agrees to it because he trusts Leila, who helped build it.

Part of Leila takes that personally, she feels like Steve not trusting SWORD means he doesn’t trust her, and part of her thinks that maybe he’s right not to. Leila herself has a lot of moral injury, because of the things she’s done but also stemming back to her childhood and how she was talked to and about, and ideas she internalized--and part of her still thinks she’s not capable of doing good.

On Leila’s side, I think she’s just desperate to keep the team together because she doesn’t quite know what she’d do without it. I don’t think she’s aware that that’s her motivation, but it is a big part of it. It also goes back to the moral injury thing--Leila finds solace in the Avengers because she feels like working as a team, she’s able to do good, and she’s scared she won’t be able to be a good person without them.)

So Steve’s attention is somewhat split between her and Bucky during US, which only leads to more insecurity on Bucky’s part.

I think? This answered your question although I know I rambled a lot lol sorry.

Tl;dr:

-Bucky and Leila are initially threatened by each other’s relationship with Steve so they have a relatively cold, snarky relationship

-Eventually this comes to a head when Bucky crosses a line, and it weirdly makes Leila see him in a new, more sympathetic light, which helps them find some common ground.

-Anya also plays a role in them developing a better relationship.

-Leila doesn’t really change Steve and Bucky’s dynamic in tws, because she and Steve aren’t on good terms at that point.

-In Under Siege (the replacement arc for Civil War), the big change is that Steve’s attention, instead of being hyperfocused on Bucky as in CW, is split between the two of them, which only causes more jealousy from both of them.

#leila whittaker #anya maximoff #steve rogers #bucky barnes #meta #qna #ava

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nautiscarader · 4 years

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2019 in animation - very selected summary

So, I dunno if anyone’s noticed, but this year was crazy strong when it comes to animation, both in terms of amount and quality of it. No matter what type you liked - traditional...

...3D...

...cell-shaded...

...hyper-realistic...

- oh, wait, wait, no, my mistake, that’s clearly live-action.

Anyway, no matter what type of animation is your favourite, this year gave you something. and I’m gonna go chronologically, listing those that I have been able to see. Keep in mind, day only has 24 hours, so I couldn’t see every new season or premiere (for example, I had no interest in OK KO, or She-Ra). Some spoilers below. And Gifs. LOTS OF gifs.

In January: we were still riding on the Spiderverse bandwagon from last year,, which culminated with an Oscar in February. And though as I’ve said, the movie would have worked better imho as a, say, Netflix series, as only two of the spider-people were properly fleshed out, I have to admit, it was a well-earned prize.

Then we were hit by the finale of Steven Universe, and while some complained about the another redemption of cosmic regime, it was an incredibly satisfying ending to a great cartoon... so much so that a whole movie and an epilogue series was made.

plus, it had a segment animated by James Baxter, so it’s automatic win..

January also blessed us with a reboot of another old-forgotten property, Carmen Sandiego, with her second season arriving in October. And it proved that reboots do make sense, but only if you actually do something with it. The story was fresh, creative, and yet, similar in its serialised form to capture the imagination of viewers. Also, grappling hooks for the win.

February was the month of dragons. Not only we got the conclusion of How to Train Your Dragon franchise, but Netlfix gave us second season of The Dragon Prince. While I still consider HTTYD 1 as the best movie of the franchise, as it cleverly told the story of a conflict without any obvious villain, HTTYD 3 was a satisfying conclusion, strengthened by the Homecoming special in November.

TDP S2 on the other hand, did everything season 1 did, except better. For once, the studio finally broke their piggy bank and bought a new graphics card, so the choppy 15FPS animation of S1 is gone. The story got darker, more mature, yet whimsical, and it only made us hungry for more. Luckily, S3 was just around the corner.

March gave us season 2 of Craig of the Creek. I have to admit, I missed out on this cartoon in 2018, and it was a humongous mistake. CotC is quite possibly the most wholesome cartoon out there, telling amazing story about a boy, his friends, and his family, glorifying the mundane adventures in the creek to truly epic proportions. The family is especially important part, I do not remember a cartoon where bonds between family members were as well written as here. Definitely a must-watch if you have missed it as well.

On 8th of March, the International Women’s day, DC Superhero Girls 2019, aka My Little Pony But Humans And With Superpowers, started, and it was a blast. Creator. Lauren Faust, has once again proven that whatever she touches turns into gold. The shorts were funny, clever, and changed just enough of the DC universe to feel familiar, yet show us new, interesting scenarios.

In April, Missing Link had its premiere, showing that traditional, stop motion animation not only has place in modern times, but it can deliver spectacular scenes, though of course, we expected nothing less of studio Laika.

In May, one of Disney’s long-running series, Star vs The Forces of Evil had its finale, and that brings us to the first screech of the list. Many people complained about the direction the show has taken, some claiming it has gone off-track in S3, some saying it was S4 that dropped the quality. Some, like me, saw nothing wrong with it, but the finale let people dissatisfied. If anything, it was too short, and definitely could use an epilogue movie that would tie some of the remaining plot threads in something bigger than one single pan-shot.

Rest in piece, laser puppies

Wait, they’re alive? Well, then... rest in piece, Hekapoo and her puppies.

This month also presented a first contender for this Summer’s line-up, Twelve Forever. The cartoon took us into wild, bizarre land of imagination, and offered quite a few very mature lessons about growing up and acknowledging one’s responsibilities. It also provided much needed representation, both in terms of colour and sexuality.

Sadly, amidst scandals with its creator, the show was canned, though it’s also Netflix’s fault for not marketing it enough.

A-and maybe the show was just a tad too... creepy....

Also somewhere in May some Games might have been lost and some Thrones burned, but no one cares about it anymore. i think it was popular for a while, though.

However, 12 Forever was just a start. June gave us Amphibia, my personal top-bingeable cartoon of the year. Disney has hit a jackpot, giving us an incredibly creative fantasy show with rich mythology and enough emotional conflict to create fantastic storytelling. The only slight complain was the scheduling, as episodes aired daily, meaning the season was over by the end of the month. But honestly, the amount of humour and adventures with Anne in the forg world we got compensates that thousandfold. Book 2, coming in 2020, can only makes thing more interesting.

Going for a hat-trick, in August we got the premiere of a cartoon that I was betting would be my personal favourite, Infinity Train... Until I learned of its schedule, even weirder than Amphibia’s. While Amphibia took a right turn, and gave us 20 episodes, a perfect amount for both plot and filler stories, Infinity Train... turned out to be a mini-series with just ten episodes, airing daily, two per night. And that, in my opinion, was a fatal mistake. Not only we now know that the story is not over, as Season 2 arrives in January, but the short episodes and its density gave very little time to leave an impact on us. If it was at least spaced out, then maybe I wouldn’t be so judgemental, but for me it was a blow that deflated the balloon I was clinging to since 2016 pilot. Still, there is more to come, and the story was more than interesting, so we’ll see if I get used to the pocket mini-story arcs.

September. Remember Steven Universe? That cartoon that ended? SIKE, HAVE A TV MOVIE. And by gods, old and new, what a phenomenal movie it was. A musical telling its own, contained story of betrayal, trust and finding yourself, based on Rebecca Sugar’s mis-adventure with a phone that reset itself... I have seen this movie at least ten times, and its OST is one I come back to constantly on Spotify. The songs are amazing, catchy, incredibly-well written, deep, and, as usual, send very adult messages about growing up and finding one’s identity, which SU was already famous for. Must watch.

Continuing the theme of reboots that actually make sense, Ducktales finished its second season after duck-bombs in March and May, with a heart-breaking story of Della Duck and humongous finale, extending DT’s universe to other Disney Afternoon shows. Season 3 promises even more, and DT is a golden standard of making a reboot that stays faithful to a more than half-a-century old material, while adding enough material to keep things fresh and funny for modern audience. What I’m saying is, Disney could really learn from Disney (pictured below).

But while some things start, some have to finish. October saw the end of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, a show that has taken Internet by the storm in 2010 and...

...okay, cringy brony things aside, this was a clever re-imagining of the decades-old property, and its popularity, especially amongst the people outside the target demography is a proof of its quality. The ending was perfectly serviceable, nothing that stood out, in my opinion, but it definitely didn’t disappoint either. MLP FiM will live in history as the cartoon about pastel tiny horses that made adult men cry and gave them enough passion to create years of of visual crack. And porn. Lots of porn.

November: Just In case if one season of human and elf adventures was enough, The Dragon Prince Season 3 arrived in November, and it provided a thrilling conclusion to its first smaller story arc. Though I wish the season was longer, and it dived into the history of Elves’ and Humans’ animosities, I would be lying if I said I didn’t binge-watch it all in one sitting, gripping my chair.

Do you like Green Eggs and Ham? Yes, yes, I do, Sam-I-am. Question: how do you take a classic poem, made purposefully of limited vocabulary, and turn it into a thirteen episode series with a beginning, middle, and end? The answer: You add bunch of weird stuff and the mother of all complicated backstories... at least by the original’s standards. And here’s the thing: this is the first Dr Seuss’ adaption where it works. Somehow the writers were able to stretch each verse of the famous poem into a surprisingly emotional story about friendship, losing and restoring hope, as well as following your dreams. Plus, it gave us Fargo-esque team of Bad Guys. Come on.

And just in time for Christmas season, we were blessed with Klaus, a clear contender for a Christmas classic in my opinion. This STUNNINGLY beautiful traditionally animated original Netflix movie is a very, very clever reinterpretation of St. Nick’s mythos, telling a deep, and very realistic story of greed and selfishness, and how can one turn their life around by changing their life, one present at a time.

We’re about to end the year, so HOW ABOUT SOME EMOTIONAL TRAUMA, KIDS? Yes, Steven Universe Future is here, and from the looks of it, Steven’s problems are just beginning, since they mature with him. The show’s too real, man. However, it also provided much needed levity, giving us a familiar taste. Nothing more to say, as the show is still airing, and it will surely give us more emotional moments.

And that’s a wrap for 2019. As I’ve said, it is not exhaustive by any means, and from the looks of it, 2020 is gonna be as packed as its prequel. So yeah, the world might be on fire, but at least we got some nice cartoon to binge-watch.

Happy new year everyone! At least I have time until 6th of January when the first episode of Infinity Train Season two arriWHAT DO YOU MEAN IT’S OUT ALREADY

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