#character integrity is my top priority
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// when you realize most of legends isn’t actually that good and you probably just didn’t see all the weird flaws because you read it when you were a teenager...
I don’t like a lot of Disney’s new content, but it’s not inherently worse than some of the stuff that we used to get. It’s not as easy as “legends good disney bad”- there are good takes and bad takes and meh takes and it’s all scattered throughout canon and legends.
Now I just pick the stuff I resonate with and blatantly ignore the rest. The only way to enjoy fandom tbh.
#ooc#mars talks#especially when we now have some conflicting ideas out there#and some writers are clearly not familiar with all the material#and that's fine they are working for a paycheck#but me?#i do this for the love of Anakin#character integrity is my top priority#because that's what makes it fun for me#i don't care as much about star wars as i do about this one man in particular#and the narrative is trash#it's garbage#sorry georgie#it's not greed it's hunger#feed the man#he has needs
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On Karlach-gate
I’m gonna talk a little bit (lol, lie, a LOT) about Karlach’s endings and her companion storyline in Baldur’s Gate 3.
This feels like opening a can of worms, and it took me a while to gather the courage to do so. Not because of other people, but because of how many thoughts and feelings I’d have to face to put my opinion into words. BUT before I go full steam ahead, a few disclaimers are in order.
First, this is spoilerland. It is full of it, all around you, and there’s no escape. So if you’re not into reading about every single Karlach related spoilery thing I can think of in the game, don’t read this. (There are spoilers of Final Fantasy 16 too, so beware)
Second, I shouldn’t have to say it, but this is merely my opinion. Granted, I enjoy having my opinions corroborated by evidence - to a problematic degree -, so this is gonna be a long and painful text. Still, an opinion is neither wrong nor right (though it can be shitty or nice lol).
And third: I loved the game. I still do. But not as much as I thought I would have based on the first half of my experience with it. Currently I have - and I shit you not - 762 hours of Baldur’s Gate 3 - 500 of which are just in my first playthrough. I bought the game in the pre-sale (I played Baldur’s Gate 1 and 2 when I was a kid/teen, so I squealed and jumped into it when I heard there was a 3). Two weeks after I’d started playing it, I bought 4 extra copies of the game to give to my best friends so they could enjoy it too. I can’t compare the game to others because I am not a proper gamer. But I am comparing the game to ITSELF (and perhaps that is the problem). That is to say: I enjoy BG3 and support Larian and everyone who worked on the game - thanks to them I put (lost) 700h of my life in the Forgotten Realms (and I fucking love me some Forgotten Realms).
Unfortunately, the quality of the main story and the companion’s personal stories are not consistent throughout the game. While I might not be an experienced vidya gamer, I can at the very least attest to my satisfaction in relation to the way the narrative was implemented/delivered in the game - or wasn’t.
Which is where the issues begin, and so does this long rant.
My comments are about Karlach and her story, because she and Astarion are my favorite companions and I am generally satisfied with how we experience Astarion’s story in the game. But I don’t feel the same towards Karlach’s.
//
In regards to the main story, Act 1 - and even Act 2 to a lesser degree - have consistent storytelling, cohesive and interesting narrative moments, with twists and turns. But Act 3… We know it, right? It feels like being in an electronics shop on a Black Friday. Compared to Act 1, Act 3 is a free for all, rushed, disconnected and random festival of “wait, wtf?”
The companion’s personal quests also have issues, but in a different way.
Something that bothered me a lot is that there is no consistent narrative care and quality among the implementation of the companion’s personal storylines. Essentially, some companions have their personal stories aptly and extensively implemented and integrated into the progression of the game, while others don’t - to very different degrees.
For example, you have characters who seem to get priority attention put into their (implemented) writing, questlines, dungeons, dialogues, animations, and insights into their past. Most notably is Shadowheart. She has the only cinematic flashback, 2 fucking huge dungeons and several key personal closure moments throughout the span of the game - Shar, Nightsong, Viconia, parents, her tief friend, cemetery is what I remember off the top of my head (so if you think she still got the short straw I WILL strangle you). And, then, you have severely neglected characters like Karlach.
When I say neglected, it’s not a matter of Karlach’s story being less interesting than the others’ (I think it’s def MUCH cooler than SH’s, for example), but that there is so little of it seamlessly and carefully implemented in the game we get to play. If you don’t believe me, just open the quest journal after your endgame and read through every single companion’s personal quest journals, then read Karlach’s again. There it is. Nothing I say will compare to just looking at it with your own eyes. It’s kinda crazy, honestly. It’s hard to deny that something there went wrong and still argue Karlach is supposed to have the same level of “origin companion” importance.
//
Unlike many people I communicated with, I am not that opposed to the current Karlach endings we get in the game - but I am not "okay with it" either. Let me explain.
The current endings are not ANYWHERE near good (in the sense of satisfying). In fact, if you compare Karlach’s ending to ALL other companion’s endings (yes, even Astarion’s), her possible outcomes become pretty bad pretty fast. When side by side, the others’ ‘bittersweet’ endings quickly start to seem mild or even happy in comparison. Karlach definitely drew the short straw (or the writers put the short straw in her hands - so short in fact that there were moments when I wondered if someone in Larian had something against Karlach).
All that said, I diverge from some people in that I don’t wish for a happy ending for Karlach - I don’t think it suits her, nor does it suit the game. Even a full resolution would not fit, I think. But there seems to be an entire spectrum between “absolute worst” (death and becoming a mind flayer, which is essentially the same shit), “lame and unfulfilling” (no hope of changing her situation, just going back to Avernus to be forever stuck in a warzone - but alive), and something we DON’T get for her, which is “bittersweet”. There are levels of bad endings, and Karlach’s endings are on the worst bit of the spectrum. Though I don’t personally wish for a happy ending for Karlach, I wish we had a ‘happier’ one.
For context: By the time I finished my first (Tav) run, Patch 2 had been released (because I'd stalled and refused to finish with the launch ending for her). Still, I did not get the Avernus epilogue scene for some reason (perhaps because I had not romanced her), so first I watched her die, and it was horrible. Then I redid the save, and decided to go with her to Avernus.
In either case, I got just a black screen and then a cinematic of the city and the narrator telling me how epic, heroic and FULFILLED I should be feeling (even though Tav was never a hero and I never gave a fuck about being heroic in my play) - which sounded like insult to injury as I had basically JUST watched Karlach die and couldn’t care LESS if the people of Baldur’s Gate were saved. Fuck’em. What the fuck do I care about the city or strangers when one of my most beloved companions just burned alive in front of me?
Fuck off, Larian. <- That’s how I felt then (ok, kinda how I still feel when I think about it). Insulted and empty. I felt like the game was trying to railroad me to feeling some sort of epic fulfillment that wasn’t there. That seems worse than regular railroading… Like, railroading my feelings? No, thanks.
For me, there was no ‘epicness’, there was just numbness and a bad taste left in my mouth - a feeling that all my effort and time put into the story turned meaningless in the end. And let me tell you, that is NOT a feeling you want people to feel at the end of a story you tell (esp when some of us sick fucks spent 500+ hours in game).
Since I did not get the cinematic epilogue with Karlach in my Tav ending (just the fade to black) I was left with nothing to hang onto. I had nothing in the game that gave me a sliver of hope of something - anything - else happening after the credits rolled (I have since heard from one of my friends that this might have changed a bit).
//
But, if I don’t want a happy-happy ending for Karlach, and I don’t particularly care for her endings as they currently are, wtf do I want?
Well. I’m not entirely sure, but my best guess is two things.
First, the “easier” one:
If you finished Astarion’s story with him as a romanced partner and as a spawn, you get a conversation with him about the future. Granted, this scene is underwhelming (and he feels quite OOC), but it does have something that I consider very important for us players who cared about him and dedicated hours of play to help him in game. We have the option to say we will try to find a way for him to stand in the sun again. That is not a guarantee that we can do it, nor is it a scene clearly showing us in the future doing so. What it is, though, is a seed of hope, in canon, that lets us believe that there might be a way. So we can use our beautiful headcanons to imagine what the future of our Tav and Astarion could become, based on something canon. It creates the important feeling that the story will go on, and, moreover, that things that are currently shitty for him (losing his ability to move freely under the sun - among other things), might have a workaround. For me, this is crazy important in order to feel fulfilled - and it is one of the reasons I said before that I am generally satisfied with Astarion’s story arc and how it ends. I don’t need the game to spell it for me, just to give me that glimmer. The rest I can do it myself in my own head.
Which takes me back to Karlach and the biggest issue I have with her Avernus ending, and the first thing I wished we had in the game - a sliver of hope for her. At the VERY LEAST, I wanted to have something in game - a dialogue option tweak, or any lazy indication - that hinted that even though we are returning to the Hells with her, it might not be forever. That there might be some secret hidden in Avernus that could still help Karlach become free - or free-er, at least. We might not ever be able to get her heart back, in the same way we might not ever be able to cure Astarion’s vampirism, but if the game gave me a fucking tiny hint that going to Avernus might lead us to fixing/changing her engine to the point she might be able to see the Material Plane again without immediately burning to death… (just a vacation in Faerun, whatever).
Just that would make her Avernus ending less miserable, and minimally fulfilling. My head canon building abilities would still be doing most of the heavy lifting in that one - for SURE - but it would at least be something. The shittiest and tiniest improvement from her underwhelming and terrible ‘best scenario’ ending.
(Just let me add that a friend told me that now she has a dialogue option where Tav can say they’d still look for a cure in Avernus, which might be new. I haven’t checked if it’s a new dialogue tweak or if it’s just the delusional/in denial Tav dialogue options repeating “no, you’ll be fine!” even when Karlach is literally dying in front of them.)
Now, what would I REALLY want for Karlach? (oh boy, watch out for the burst of anger >>)
What do I think would be fair for me (and everyone), as a consumer and a player, who is really into Karlach as a character, who loves her, cheered for her, went around the game always paying attention to anything that might remotely relate to her story and problem?
I want her STORYLINE to be rich. As rich as fucking Shadowheart’s. I want to have to fucking scroll down Karlach’s personal quest page, like I have the other companions’, because there’s so many twists and turns there, because it was written carefully. I want her quest updates to be more than “fetch infernal iron/ bring infernal iron to Dammon/ hold onto the infernal iron and wait/ NOW bring infernal iron to Dammon/ the end.”
I want her fucking quest to not LITERALLY END AT THE BEGINNING OF ACT 2. Because it fucking DOES.
You get a second upgrade as soon as you reach Act 2 and the Last Light Inn if you want (you can walk right up to Dammon). And you also learn Karlach will die and that’s that. And good luck to you, player, to manage to find motivation to go through the rest of the game and finish it already knowing that there’s no helping your favorite companion.
Even though Karlach’s quest does not read as complete then, it IS, for all effects and purposes, over. What is left is for her to be taken to Gortash - and not to KILL HIM herself, mind you - freak the fuck out because now she just gotta wait for death, and bam. Companion personal storyline complete. Enjoy the rest of the game (insert BG3 giving you a big middle finger right here).
That is the part that really, honestly, does not go down with me. I cannot swallow it. Karlach has the background story to have richly written interactions with Tav/NPCs and more twists and turns to her questline. SO much more. But she barely gets anything.
The game puts Gortash as her big nemesis (Zariel, her actual enslaver, is whatever, apparently), and you still can simply skip taking Karlach with you in the fight. Even if you care enough to have her in your party when you do, she gets no big wow moment with Gortash (like Astarion gets with Cazador, SH gets with Shar AND Viconia, Lae’zel gets with Vlaakith, the lot). You, Tav (or any other character for that matter) can be the one to finish Gortash. Doesn’t change anything, even though the game clearly puts him as Karlach’s evil guy.
Fun fact, you actually have to kill him anyway regardless of Karlach for the main quest - with or without Karlach. It doesn’t really matter. Karlach doesn’t really matter for this bit of the story. It is NOT really her moment. She has NO real moment of her own (except when she dies - oh, wow, thank you I guess). And I hate it.
We do get the best and most heartbreaking monologue in the game after Gortash’s death (if Karlach is there AND you care to talk to her). Karlach then has the first real meltdown, the first time she lets her truth connect, and feels the feelings she has kept bottled up inside. And it fucking HURTS.
In my first run, this was the moment when I dropped the game for more than a month. Because I realized there was nothing the player could do for Karlach. Not because I, the player, did not want it, but because the game does not let us. The game railroads us into simply dropping her quest.
To boot, we realize when we reach the endgame, that even if you had NEVER cared for Karlach, never upgraded her engine or did her questline’s shallow fetch quests, her ending would be EXACTLY the same. She would not die faster because you did not upgrade her. She would still last until the final fight, then immediately ‘start to die’ afterwards.
There is no REAL influence from the player in Karlach’s destiny. In this sense, she feels like a random NPC that is just there as a companion because fans liked her in EA (or so I heard). Though most ironically, even some NPCs have their outcomes changed drastically by our actions and choices in game. (And if you come to me saying Karlach’s outcome IS influenced in the game because you can kill her or not in the beginning, well, go suck a fuck. Any companion can be killed, and you know that’s not the point)
//
In other words, what really, REALLY bothers me in the whole Karlach’s situation is not the outcome options she has at the end - at least that is not what MOST bothers me.
What bother’s me is that, even if she is the companion I want to know more about, the one I want to run around the map for, have one, two, six fucking humongous dungeons to clear JUST for her, hear about her past for hours on end, meet her friends, her enemies, have her story be told with as much care and detail as all the others are… Even though I want all that - and I should have it, because everyone else gets it - I can't have it.
I just get the basic, shallow and (infuriatingly) ultimately USELESS fetch quests. The fetch quest only ‘truly matters’ if you romance her and want to have sex with her. If you want to help her as a friend, or if you just have her occupying space at camp - it makes NO difference.
You will still end your game with 6 or 7 lines of one-sentence quest journal entries and Karlach’s fate being decided by a 1 and a half minute dialogue (with not even a lazy persuasion dice roll) in the epilogue.
THAT is what seals Karlach’s fate. A dialogue box, once, in the final minutes of the game.
(Watch out, my turn to rage)
The excess infernal iron you found and kept? The ENHANCED infernal iron you got from the Steel Watchers? The WHOLE Steel Watch thing, including the mention that Karlach was a prototype for them - and they are doing just fine in the Material Plane? The FUCKING Gondians? The Ironhands? Them BOTH? Even some random Ice Metal pieces you get in the underdark and shit? The mentions of the House of Wonders? Gale’s scroll of True Ressurection? Vlaakith’s Wish spell? Gale ascended to godhood??!
NO. Fuck you in particular, for even remotely thinking ANY of these things could help your little hellion companion. You dumb hopeful FUCK.
The game was just trying to trick you, giving you all these possibilities and hope, to then pretend they don’t exist and railroad you to the dialogue at the pier - because THAT is what truly matters.
Oh, and do not forget how you should feel the epicness of that ending cinematic all the same, feel fulfilled that you are the “savior of Baldur’s Gate” or whatever shit the narrator tries to tell you with a voice that sounds like they’re smiling and you should be too. You should be thankful, little player, that there is even the chance to get Karlach back to Avernus - because THAT is the bittersweet ending that puts her story in equal standing to the other origin companions’ stories (<- irony right here).
...
Man. I CAN’T. I can’t even continue. I got into a rage typing spree here that no shit gave me a headache. It’s just all so ridiculous that it turns offensive.
Explains why I don’t usually go deeper into this subject, because it doesn’t feel good at all, just frustrates me to no end. I got NO JOY out of my endgame, NO fulfillment. And as I felt it sink in that THAT was it, the narrator talking to me as if I should be glad came across as condescending and insulting to an absurd degree.
//
That is to say... I wasn’t happy. But being sad about the ending of a game is not always a bad thing. Having a beloved character die in a game is not always empty and unfulfilling.
I am reminded of a previous launch this year, FFXVI, and my favorite character in that game: Dion Lesage. Granted, the style of game is completely different, but I will use Dion’s death as an example nonetheless. Dion dies in that game (boo, spoiler, I warned you). His death cannot be avoided because FF has a linear story - his outcome is not supposed to be avoided, whereas BG3 is a choice-based game where the player should be able to influence the narrative with their choices.
Well, in FFXVI my favorite character dies. It IS sad as fuck, it made me tear up and feel melancholic for a while and all that shit. But what it DIDN’T do was make me feel numb, empty and unfulfilled. I didn’t feel his death was UNFAIR. Because the story of Dion until his death was meaningful. It was well crafted, interwoven into the game’s main narrative, and told with the importance it should have. His death also was not meaningless, he died and the story of the game could not have continued on as it had without him. He was an integral part of the narrative, and so was his death. It was SAD, yes, but it was MEANINGFUL. It was important. He didn’t die alone or just dropped dead in a corner after the game was over just because. People cared that he died. He mattered.
I did not feel any of this about Karlach’s death. And I strongly suspect it is because her journey until her death was not as rich, not carefully crafted AND implemented, not meaningful enough (or at least not presented to us as such)… It was not delivered in the way that she deserved. Especially for the companion who will certainly die among the lot. She should have had a journey as deep and layered as the others (if not even more) if the plan was to have her die either way.
Gale also has death looming over him most of the game, doesn’t he? But his death is the one that might have an impact in the grand narrative, be the game changer. And EVEN THEN, he has a way out. He has a True Resurrection scroll in his little secret pouch. He has Mystra throw a deus-ex at the last moment. But Karlach… well, fuck her in particular?!
//
I can’t claim I know much about how Karlach came to be an origin character. I never played EA, and just read about it. Yes, it might have been the case that she was the last added origin companion, that she had to be squeezed into the already almost-ready game somehow. But, excuse me, that is sloppy. And if that was truly the only thing that happened (which we can't know), I doubt no one at Larian was concerned about her becoming one of the most popular companions (cause she already seemed to have been in EA), and people noticing how poor her story progression was.
This might be unpopular but, sometimes I think they should have left her as an NPC, or a secondary companion option like Halsin, Jaheira or Minsc. (Ok, that might be me being extreme and angry due to my frustration, but I still wonder.) If I could not deliver the same level of quality, carefully crafted and integrated character into a story, would I still half-ass it? ...I know. Calling it “half-assing” isn’t fair (I am comparing BG3 to itself and that is a HIGH bar, because when BG3 gets it right, it knocks it right out of the park).
I’ll also be the first to admit that, if she was so 'poorly presented in game', no one, me included, would be so fucking mad about her circumstances at all. The fact I care so much to let this issue ruin my game experience - if anything - attests to the capacity BG3 has to immerse players in its world.
But I also know I am not complaining for nothing.
//
The way I feel has pretty solid grounds - so much it was one of the first things Larian patched. But it was a feeble attempt, in my eyes, because the real blatant issue with Karlach is not in the last 3 minutes of the game - it is in the span of all 3 acts. It is her personal questline in its entirety, the development of her story in game and the level of influence and interaction we as players truly have throughout it all. It is the fact she does not stand at the same level of the other companions (not out of merit as a character, let me be clear, but due to execution and implementation of her story in the launched version of the game), nor do her quests or her (lack of) dungeons and truly meaningful unique crafted content.
She is a charming, beloved character and, even if Larian really truly wants to die on the hill of “Karlach is a tragic character who must die”, they could do so and still make (some of) the players feel fulfilled by having the journey with Karlach, from Act 1 through Act 3 and that damn pier, be rich, intricate, layered, funny, badass, bloody, sad, painful, relatable, sweet… Just like she is.
//
So that is what I wanted:
Not necessarily have her be 'cured', marry and have kids or whatever shit is happily ever after - I think it doesn’t suit her (it might have, in an alternative universe, but not in the one presented in game, with THE Karlach we get in game).
But have her story receive the highlights it deserves, including locations, NPCs and interactions - so even if we just get the 3 outcomes for her we currently have - Avernus, death or death by mindflayer - we could feel some level of closure.
Or, even better: have her journey be richer, AND give us the sliver of hope for the Avernus ending. Make Dammon say that there is something somewhere in Avernus - a blueprint, a special crafting material, a DUDE, or Mizora imply there's a chance to bargain with Zariel (whatever!) - and that we might, perhaps, just MAYBE, be able to finally actually DO SOMETHING.
And then just leave us, the players, to let our minds wander on, imagining how that would go.
That, honestly, could be the thing able to redeem the terrible ending experience I had in my first playthrough. A fully implemented story progression befitting Karlach and just a hint of hope to hang onto.
//
It doesn’t seem absurd, does it? Though the implementation of a richer story (perhaps a dungeon or a sneak peek of Zariel) of course would involve a lot of new work and re-work. But for a game that turned out so big and successful - and a character so cherished - it doesn’t seem out of the question.
Too bad I’m not Swen so I can’t do it myself.
Instead, I write long rage posts on an almost anon account on tumblr. Thank you, tumblr. >>
PS: I got really angry up there, didn’t I? LOL. I’m as easy to get heated as Karlach, it seems. Oops.
#bg3#baldur's gate 3#karlach#long post#bg3 long post#bg3 analysis#karlach's endings#bg3 spoilers#spoilerland#astarion#shadowheart#gale#mizora#karlach cliffgate#opinion#bg3 opinion#bg3 tav#ff16 spoilers#dion lesage#bg3 narrative
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i watched ep 226 and i have some thoughts about it...
keroro being suspected for something he didn't do is often par for the course, and granted it's both because of his status as an invader and for his tendency to actually cause trouble
[pictured: some examples off the top of my head of - mostly natsumi - assuming the worst from him]
but this episode to me is fascinating because of what else it brings up in relation to it. remember red oni blue oni? keroro's conflict about... on one side, keron, on the other, pekopon... about being seen as both the villain and the hero, so his position isn't threatened, while trying not to lose his friends on both sides. he doesn't actually want to be an invader, but it's tied to a lot of shit like his self esteem and... well, stuff I talked about in the past.
I think at least subconsciously he is afraid that his precarious position may blow up in his face eventually, and that is why he's jealous of everything that threatens it by being similar enough to him/receiving enough praise that he feels he might get replaced by it. he needs his position to be exclusive, because if it isn't, he doesn't have any merits for it ("leaders don't really do anything..." "I coasted along" "what makes me great?"). it feels like this is not just a random insecurity from lack of self esteem or fear from his unstable situation on its own (as an invader/"freeloader", feeling guilty for living in their house and causing them trouble) either, but ALSO projection from the fact that canonically yeah, he IS replaceable - that is a real constant threat for him. the clones? what makes him special?
[funny how many meetings keroro does where he's actually just venting lmao, he's got his priorities all out of whack ... or rather his feelings don't matter if they can't somehow be integrated into a mission?]
[pictured: the aformentioned projection dearimasu]
[keroro processing his feelings alone like he always does. loneliness and being misunderstood r such key parts of his character.]
But I think a similar emotion is true from Fuyuki's side, who's always been a bit lonely and overshadowed, so he'd be afraid of his trust being betrayed... but nevermind that, I like seeing keroro's situation specifically explored, because...
he knows he didn't do anything wrong, but his relationship with fuyuki means more than ego. he's willing to set it aside, and besides... it's easier with the guilt he already feels due to his situation, to apologize, because fuyuki means more to him than being right... his friends mean a lot to keroro, that's why relationship trouble with them so easily throws his emotions off balance. why he has to resort to everything else (denial, acting out, projection of guilt, people-pleasing, hiding how he feels, selfishness, etc), but with fuyuki in particular, I think it feels like the one relationship he hasn't messed up yet. honestly that person who said he's a dororo parallel was SO onto something...
they both love each other, but they're not infallible, so they'll let each other down, they'll misunderstand, they'll let their own feelings and fears and past experiences get in the way. they're not technically on the same side, after all
[the field trip misunderstanding... or you could say, keroro assumed earth is like keron? that they're two sides at war?]
but at the end of the day they still love each other, they are healing for each other and for what it's worth, they saved each other...
but that's the thing to me is that, by merely existing in his life, I think keroro feels like he's being a weight to him. that he's doing something wrong, that it's selfish of him to want to stay. that he has to earn it and yes, that he's not needed (AKA REPLACEABLE...).
trust is something that has to be built in a friendship but... due to keroro's situation... he can never fully prove himself one way or another (it would mean treason...) and in this ep I see the tragedy of that. fuyuki loves him, and generally trusts him, but it's not like keroro hasn't broken his trust in the past or gone too far, it's not like his planet and plans aren't still a danger for them, no matter how he feels about it...
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Quarry - Chapter 9 (Part 2)
Pairing: Din Djarin (The Mandalorian) x f!reader
Summary: Din Djarin is on what he expects to be his last bounty hunt for Greef Karga. After all, Nevarro is swiftly moving away from its previous reputation as a Guild member’s paradise, and Din has more important concerns now, like finding a Jedi to train his mysterious foundling. However, after capturing a wanted starship engineer who would rather go anywhere other than “home,” the Mandalorian is forced to reassess his priorities.
Your taste of freedom had been brief but glorious. Now you are a prisoner of the most infamous bounty hunter in the Outer Rim – it’s only a matter of time before he turns you in. There isn’t much you would not do to keep from being sent home, but as you find yourself growing closer to your captor and his strange little companion, you start to wonder whether escape is really what you want.
Set after Chapter 13: The Jedi but before Chapter 14: The Tragedy.
Chapter Tags & Warnings: 18+ MDNI! Reader is Mando's live-in starship engineer, second-person POV, no use of Y/N, minimal descriptors of reader character, unresolved sexual tension, pining, discussions of blasters, masturbation (f & m), praise kink, hand and finger kink, glove kink (sort of), competence kink
Series Masterlist | Read on AO3
The Match
“Have you ever fired a blaster?”
You frowned slightly at the question, squinting into the sun as you watched Mando arrange several of the items in question on the rocky slab before you. Though you were still on Trevi IV, the search for his latest quarry ongoing, he had brought you many miles outside the city, deep into the barren plains. It was safer, he said, for your first time handling a weapon.
The landscape was dusty, gravely, and sunbaked, dotted only occasionally with brittle shrubs and thin, twisted trees. The Razor Crest provided nominal shade, and you could already feel sweat beginning to trickle down your spine and pool in the small of your back. A part of you wondered whether perhaps there was a better time or place to do this, but when you had woken this morning, foggy-headed and dry-mouthed, your companion had seemingly decided that teaching you how to handle a firearm was at the top of his priority list.
“No, never,” you replied with a shake of your head.
The bounty hunter nodded slowly, almost absently, and began picking up each blaster pistol he had laid out one by one – examining the sights, testing the weight in his palm, pulling back the action to get a look at the power pack, the gas cartridge.
“How much do you know about them – their mechanics, their operation?” he asked.
You shrugged. “Only a little. Small tech has never really been my specialty.” You thought back to all those months ago, when you had considered attempting to disassemble your binder cuffs as a means of escape. “I could probably…tear one apart? Break it down into its components? But I’m not sure I could tell you what the pieces do,” you admitted.
The Mandalorian nodded again. “In my culture, weapons are an integral part of our religion,” he explained. “Children are given blasters as a rite of passage. We go through extensive training on blaster assembly, operation, maintenance, and safety, and we are expected to be highly proficient by our thirteenth birthday.”
As he spoke, he continued the slow, methodical examination of the pistols. Calmly, confidently, he handled each one, and though you weren’t entirely certain what he was assessing, you felt as though you could watch him do it as long as he wished. There was something reverent about it, and suddenly the connection to spirituality made sense.
“After we turn 13, we can begin training with other, more specialized weapons if we so choose, but you will never find a Mandalorian without a blaster as part of their personal arsenal,” he continued. “However, you are neither Mandalorian, nor are you training to become a warrior. As such, your training will have different goals.”
You raised your eyebrows at that, even as a ripple of relief passed through you. “Such as?”
Mando met your gaze finally, setting the last blaster back down on the slab. “First, safety. Most blasters have a ‘stun’ setting, which is what we will be using, but they can also be deadly weapons. In inexperienced hands, a blaster is far more dangerous to the wielder than the target.” He beckoned you forward with a flex of his orange-tipped fingers. “I’ll teach you how to properly handle a blaster – how to manage the different settings, how to carry it, hold it, store it. And I’ll teach you how to safely reload and how to keep it from overheating. Then, target practice,” he added. “We’ll start with large, stationary targets and, over time, introduce smaller, moving targets at greater distances.”
You studied the selection before you, a total of five different blaster pistols of varying sizes, materials, and configurations, and fresh nerves began to flutter in the pit of your stomach. Before you could allow them to take hold of you, however, the bounty hunter’s big, heavy hand came up to grip your arm, and your eyes snapped to his.
“I don’t expect you to be a perfect marksman,” he assured you, his voice softer and gentler then. “But I need to know that you are able to protect yourself. And the child. In time, I want to feel confident that if I’m away, the two of you would be just as safe out in the world as you would be inside the Razor Crest. You deserve to see the galaxy beyond the walls of a gunship. Both of you do.”
The space around your heart melted, settling your nerves and softening the tension in your muscles you hadn’t even realized you had been carrying. The Mandalorian was no less intimidating to you now than he was when you first met, but at least now you were secure in your belief that he was a good man under all that beskar.
So you nodded, and you squared your shoulders, meeting his visor with your gaze. “I understand. I’ll try my best.”
“Good,” he replied. He sounded pleased, almost proud. “Then let’s begin. We’ll start by seeing which of these best fits your body. Pick one to start with.”
The two of you spent the next several minutes evaluating each of the blasters Mando had selected for you, feeling their weight, ensuring that the grip was comfortable for the size of your hands. He had you extend each one as though to fire it so you could feel its balance, and any that you felt were too heavy or impossible to hold steady he set aside.
When you had finally managed to narrow down your options to two, as promised, he began the safety portion of his instruction. You watched carefully as he showed you how to turn the safety settings on and off on each and how to grip them with your finger off the trigger, only moving it into place when you were actually ready to fire. After demonstrating it himself, he made you practice while he watched – check the safety, pick up the blaster, flick off the safety, gently lay your index finger on the trigger, remove your finger, turn the safety back on, lay the blaster back down.
Only when he was satisfied with the confidence and fluidity of your movements did the Mandalorian move on to showing you how to reload. Open the action, release the spent gas cartridge, click the new cartridge into place, close the action.
Again, he demonstrated, once slowly with verbal explanations and then again faster and silently, and you couldn’t help but be mesmerized by the ease and grace of his leather-clad hands, the dexterity of his long, thick fingers. You recalled the sensation of those hands on your skin – caressing your neck, your jaw, your cheeks. The firm, assertive grip around your arm, the ghost of a touch on the insides of your wrists, the steadying press against the base of your spine in a crowd. Both soothing and inflaming, in equal measure.
You fumbled your way through your own demonstration with your face hot and your throat dry. So thoroughly distracted were you that he forced you to unload and reload both blasters more than ten times each, just to really drive the point home. Only when you complained that the tips of your fingers were starting to go numb did the bounty hunter finally allow you to take a break.
“Think you’re ready to try shooting one?” he asked after giving you a moment to shake out your hands.
You swallowed thickly, the quivering, burning sensation of lust suddenly replaced with nerves. Still, you nodded. You trusted him to keep you safe. And to withhold judgment if you ended up being a piss-poor shot.
Mando inclined his helmet in the direction of a craggy rock formation jutting up out of the dusty desert ground some 20 meters away. It was sizeable, about your height and twice as wide.
“You’re going to try to hit that rockface, as close to the center as you can manage,” he said. Pulling his own blaster out of its holster, he set his feet shoulder width apart and took aim. “Pay attention to how I’m holding my body. My arm is steady but not rigid, my shoulders are relaxed, my footing is firm, solid.”
His invitation had the lust rocketing back up to the surface again as you allowed your gaze to trace his form, silhouetted in gleaming beskar and dark fabric against the sun-washed landscape. Impossibly broad shoulders, long limbs. Thick thighs, strong arms, and his tattered black cape fluttering in the wind, every once in a while giving a glimpse of his perfectly shaped ass. You didn’t know when you had started noticing such things. All you knew was that now, it seemed impossible not to notice.
He oozed competence, and it was intoxicating.
The raspy modulation of his voice pulled you out of your musings, forcing you back into the moment. “We’ll get to shooting while on the move or from different positions eventually,” he said, lowering his blaster and slipping back into its holster. “Today, I just want you to get comfortable standing and stationary. Now, let’s see what you can do. Pick a blaster and give it a try.”
___
“Try again.”
You gritted your teeth and squinted against the relentless clouds of dust kicked up by your missed shots. You had missed so many at this point, you had begun to lose count. Sweat streaked down your back and your temples. It coated your palms, making your grip on the blaster evermore precarious. You could sense Mando losing his patience in the clipped tone of his encouragement, and it made you burn with embarrassment. Leveling the blaster once more in the direction of the rockface, you squeezed the trigger again.
A puff of dust erupted from the ground to the right of the rock formation, and you bit back a curse.
“Again,” Mando commanded, short and gruff.
A wave of bitter frustration rose in your chest, and you sighed heavily, pulling the trigger almost carelessly. That miss was worse, now several inches in front of the target.
A sound something like a growl crackled through the bounty hunter’s helmet modulator, and you heard him mutter something unintelligible in Mando’a before saying, “You’re getting further away.”
“Oh, thanks for that. I hadn’t noticed,” you replied cuttingly. You dropped your blaster arm for a moment, rolling your head on your shoulders in an attempt to release some tension. However, when you brought it back up to take aim once more, you caught sight of your companion’s arm shooting out toward you.
“Stop. Hold there,” he snapped, approaching from where he stood off to the side. “Pay attention to your stance, your grip. Does that feel like what I demonstrated?”
You groaned deeply, your head dropping back on your neck and your eyes sliding closed, almost as though in prayer. “I don’t know any more!”
“Yes, you do. Now pick your head up. What’s wrong with what you’re doing right now?”
“Damn it, Mando – !”
Suddenly, that firm, confident grip was back, his time on your shoulder. The Mandalorian had closed the distance between you, cupping the ball of your shoulder in his palm, his long fingers extending along your trapezius muscle, warming, soothing. “Relax,” he demanded, leaving no room for protest. “You’re getting frustrated, and it’s clouding the connection between your mind and your body. Now, breathe in with me, from your diaphragm. I don’t want to feel your shoulder move, understand?”
You swallowed and nodded stiffly.
“In,” Mando ordered, inhaling deeply. You allowed yourself to follow his lead, careful to breathe from your belly, feeling it expand against the heavy fabric of your new boilersuit. “Out.” You exhaled, sensing the slowing of your heartrate and the gradual dissolution of your aggravation.
He nodded once, seemingly pleased with your capitulation. “Good. Again. In…out.” You obeyed once more, and to your mild annoyance, you felt the last of your irritation evaporate on your exhale.
“Now tune in to your body. What’s out of place?”
Dropping his gaze, you turned your attention inward, sending it out into your limbs, your extremities. The warmth of Mando’s hand on your shoulder was a glowing beacon to your senses, comfortable, happy, content, but the rest…
“I…my knees,” you murmured, your voice breathy and distracted. “My knees are locked.”
Your companion nodded. “Good. Unlock them. A slight bend is safer and more sustainable, especially in this heat,” he said, matching the softness of your tone. The sound, the intimacy of it, made the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. “What else?”
Immediately, you said, “My weight is uneven. I’m leaning more on my right leg than my left.” It was so obvious now that you were paying attention. You were wildly out of balance.
“Yes. Correct it.” You did so instantly, centering yourself completely over both feet. “Now tell me about your shoulders.”
Shifting slightly beneath his grip, you felt the ache in the taut muscle, the way your shoulders had somehow managed to creep up around your ears without your permission. “I’m…I’m tense,” you replied, feeling as though you were stating the obvious. Certainly he could feel how stiff you were.
“Why? What are you afraid of?”
Your eyebrows rose at the unexpected question. “I don’t know.” You thought of the way the blaster jumped back in your hands, small, easily absorbed, but always unexpected. The durasteel felt foreign, cold, and intimidating in your palm. “The recoil, maybe,” you mused. “The…blaster itself.”
You felt more than saw the Mandalorian tilt his helmet in acknowledgment. “Having some fear of a weapon is wise, healthy even. It will help prevent you from getting careless,” he conceded. “But a blaster is merely a tool. It is an extension of yourself. Allowing the fear to take hold will only make it more dangerous.”
You nodded, releasing a sigh. He was right, of course. You worked with tools every day that were just as dangerous as a blaster. Your fusion cutter had been nearly glued to your hip lately, and if you didn’t handle it the way you had been trained, it had just as much potential to harm you as the pistol in your hand. You needed to relax. Mando wouldn’t let anything hurt you.
As though he had read your thoughts, the man in question shifted to stand behind you then, bringing both of his hands up to your shoulders and slowly, purposefully lowering them back down to a more neutral position. You felt your heart rate increase at the touch, all while your rigid muscles warmed and relaxed. His palms were hot through his gloves. If you hadn’t already been sweating in the desert sun, the heavy stretch of his hands on your body would have been enough to start.
“Good,” Mando murmured, his rasping praise almost too soft to register to his vocoder. You felt a swooping, dropping sensation behind your navel at the sound, and it took all your strength to not allow your eyes to close, to not lean into his presence mere inches behind you. “Now, take aim at the rock again. Look down the barrel. The rock should sit directly on top of the sight.”
Clenching your jaw, you did as he said and adjusted your aim, raising your arm just enough so that the rock hovered, barely touching, on top of the sight at the end of the blaster pistol’s barrel.
“Are you ready?” he asked. His hands remained on your shoulders. They held you steady, kept you centered.
Swallowing thickly, you replied, “Yes.”
“Fire.”
You pulled the trigger, firm and quick, before you could lose your nerve...
And another explosion of dust burst from the ground to the right of the rock, choking the air around you.
“You’re holding your breath,” Mando accused.
You let your arm drop back down to your side, defeated, and loosed a colorful curse. “Well, how exactly am I supposed to hold my arm steady if I’m breathing?” you snipped. You could feel the tension bubbling back up in your limbs, in your neck. “I’m swaying all over the place, every time I breathe in!”
The bounty hunter’s hands slipped from your body then, and you glanced over your shoulder just in time to see him bring one up to his helmet, almost as though he was pressing on the bridge of his nose through the layers of beskar and padding. “Show me your stance,” he commanded once again.
You didn’t even attempt to repress your groan. “Mando – ” you started to whine.
But he didn’t allow you to continue. “Show. Me. Your. Stance.” If you didn’t know better, you would guess that he was speaking through his teeth. He was calm, but it was an effortful calm, as though he was now fighting back just as much impatience and frustration as you.
Feeling appropriately chastised, you reset your stance from the ground up – feet shoulder width apart and securely on the ground, knees slightly bent, hips centered, weight evenly distributed, spine straight and tall, arm extended, hand firm but not strangling around the blaster grip, the rock balanced gently on the top of the sights. Everything as it had been moments before.
When you had missed. Again.
“This time, when you’re getting ready to shoot, breathe in slowly, exhale, and then fire,” he instructed once you had settled back in.
You pulled a scowl at that. “What’s the difference between that and just holding my breath?”
The Mandalorian was quiet for a moment, the only sound the desert wind rustling through the sparse shrubs, the wiry trees. You dared a peek over the cap of your shoulder once more and found him standing with his hands on his hips, staring at the ground as though contemplating something carefully. You drew your lower lip between your teeth as you watched him, your confusion growing with the silence, but before you could ask him what was wrong, his gaze snapped back up to yours, and you swore you could feel his eyes on you even though you couldn’t see them through is visor.
“I’ll show you the difference,” he said, a note of finality in his modulated voice. He took one step toward you then another, and then suddenly it felt as though you had blinked and he had crossed the distance between you, sliding up behind your back, his left hand slipping around the front of your body to settle on your belly, his right hand wrapping around yours on the pistol grip.
A molten wave of heat flushed through your system at the contact, settling high in your cheeks and low in your abdomen, right under where his palm now spread – so gentle, so steady. You felt surrounded, swallowed by him. His presence loomed hardly an inch behind you, the warmth and the breadth and the power of him so close and yet not nearly close enough. Your knees felt watery, your spine prickling, begging to melt back into him, to mold yourself against the hard planes of his cuirass, his thigh armor.
“This all right?” Mando murmured, his deep baritone a hairsbreadth from your ear. You wondered whether he could feel you tremble at the sensation, whether he could sense how he was affecting you. Your brand-new panties were soaked now. Hot and slick, they clung to your lips inside your boilersuit.
Breathlessly, you replied, “Yes.” Because it was all right, you realized. He could touch you whenever he liked, however he liked, and you would welcome it. You knew that now.
“Then take aim,” he commanded, giving a light squeeze to your right hand where it gripped the blaster. You obeyed instantly, centering the target rock formation over the sight.
“Breathe in.” His abdomen expanded behind you, barely brushing your back, and you copied him unquestioningly. Your belly pressed into the palm of his hand.
“Out.” You exhaled slowly and evenly, and then, at the very bottom of your breath, you felt the pressure over your blaster hand increase. “Fire,” Mando ordered. Your index finger flexed smoothly, easily, and the blaster discharged once more.
Shards of sandy rock burst from the target as the bolt of energy finally collided with its face.
You let out a whoop of victory, nearly collapsing in relief. “Ha! I did it!” you shrieked, gesticulating wildly at the rock formation, pulling yourself out of Mando’s grip.
A chuckle rumbled through his vocoder, and he inclined his helmet in your direction, crossing his arms over his chest. “Kandosii, gotabor’ika. Well done.”
You felt yourself begin to laugh, too, as you swiped the back of your hand across your sweaty forehead. “I can’t believe I hit it.”
“Only just,” the bounty hunter corrected. “You’re still pulling down and to the right when you squeeze the trigger.”
Again, he was correct – the jagged scar from your blaster bolt was nowhere near the center of the rockface where you had meant to be aiming, but you refused to allow such details ruin the rush of your success. “Oh, come on, Mando, that’s the closest I’ve gotten all day! I actually hit the rock. Let me celebrate a little!”
His gaze on you felt warm even through his impassive helmet, as though you could sense a smile on his hidden face. “Of course. We have a way to go, but for your first day of training, you’ve done well. Perhaps we will make a marksman out of you yet,” he said wryly, and oh, you could have melted at the praise.
“Maybe you will,” you replied, the tip of your tongue touching the corner of your smile.
___
The Flame
“Damn it,” you swore softly to yourself as you wrestled with the zipper of your boilersuit. It occurred to you as you writhed and wriggled, working the heavy fabric down your body, that perhaps you hadn’t thought this through. The somewhat claustrophobic confines of the Razor Crest’s bunk alcove weren’t exactly an ideal place to try to disrobe, but when the opportunity for a bit of privacy had presented itself, you hadn’t had time to weigh your options.
The chance to relieve the molten hunger that had been building inside you all day was well worth a bruised elbow or a bump on the head here or there.
The distraction of your minor victory earlier hadn’t lasted long. As soon as the thrill of watching your blaster bolt hit its target for the first time faded, the longing had returned. The weight of the Mandalorian’s hands on your body, his heat wrapped around you like a cloak, his deep, rasping voice dropping praise in your ear… All of it had felt more appropriate to a late-night tryst than a shooting lesson, and your body had responded accordingly. You could hardly remember the last time you had taken someone into your bed, but you were certain that you had never wanted another person the way you had come to want him.
Thankfully, Mando had not made you continue to practice for much longer. You had been allowed to stop shooting all together, eliminating any excuse you may have had to prolong his physical contact. He simply asked you to repeat your demonstrations of the safety and reloading protocols he had taught you earlier, as a review. You had managed to wrangle your frayed concentration long enough to do so, but when he had met your efforts with a soft-spoken “very good, gotabor’ika,” you had been nearly desperate to excuse yourself.
You had feigned fatigue when he invited you to join him and Grogu in the cockpit for the flight back to Trevi City, claiming to need a nap after overexposure to the sun. He had inclined his helmet at you graciously, encouraging you to “take all the time you need.”
His boots had barely disappeared from the top rung of the ladder before you were ripping off your own, diving into the bunk, and hastily shutting the blast doors.
Now, with your boilersuit crumpled in a haphazard ball at the foot of the mattress, clad in nothing but a matching set of black cotton underclothes, you finally allowed your hand to slip down your body to the place that had been aching for attention. Your heart thundered in your ears, your breath loud in the confines of the bunk alcove as you gently, tentatively cupped your sex over your underwear. You smothered a moan in the bend of your other elbow at the delicate pressure. The fabric was hot and absolutely soaked, clinging to your form like a second skin.
Ultimately, Mando had barely touched you. Your shoulders, your hands, your belly. The suggestion of a breath on the back of your neck. If this was how you reacted to so little contact, what would it be like for him to truly touch you?
You felt that same tugging, swooping sensation behind your navel from earlier at the thought, and your pussy throbbed, clenching around nothing. Unable to resist for another moment, you softly, tentatively slid your fingers beneath the waistband of your panties and between your folds.
“Oh, fuck,” you sighed, swallowing heavily against another moan. Maker, it was good. Warm and slick and perfect, the friction of the pads of your fingers making you quake. Your clit was already swollen and sensitive. You could feel your nipples pebble and tighten under your breastband as your touch barely skimmed it, light and suggestive. Normally, you preferred to work yourself up a bit before you got down to it, but you could tell just from that first touch that this wasn’t the day for teasing.
You could feel your body melt into the bunk mattress as you began to play in earnest. Your knees falling apart to give your hand more room to move, your back arching in pleasure, your other hand dropping to grip and massage a breast. A whine slipped out from between your lips at that, and suddenly, it was as though it was Mando’s hand pulling down your breastband, Mando’s fingers teasing and plucking your nipples. It was Mando’s touch between your thighs, rapidly circling your clit, Mando’s fingers sliding down to your entrance, collecting more of your juices.
You wanted him inside you. You could feel your body grasping, thrusting into your own touch, begging for something to fill you up and give you something to bear down on. You whimpered loudly, no longer aware of your own volume enough to keep it in check. You couldn’t take it anymore, you had to –
Thunk.
The sound of something heavy dropping onto the metal deck plating sounded on the other side of the alcove doors. Mando had jumped down into the cargo hold.
Your hands froze, one still buried in your panties, the other gripping one of your breasts. The continued pressure, firm and stationary, was nearly unbearable, but you drew your lips between your teeth and bit down, willing yourself silent and still. Your heart was racing, and you could feel sweat gathering at your temples, in the small of your back, behind your knees. Wordlessly, you prayed to every deity you had ever heard of for him to leave. You were too pent up to have to stop now.
However, your prayers were not to be answered.
You heard the metallic hiss of the ‘fresher door sliding open and closed again, followed by the groan of the shower turning on.
He was taking a shower. Right on the other side of the thin panel of durasteel that made up the alcove wall.
…if you were going to finish, you were going to need to be absolutely silent.
Without allowing yourself to consider it further, you rolled over onto your front, wrapping one of your arms around the thin, threadbare pillow and burying your face in it. Trapping your other hand between your body and the mattress, you slowly, gently slipped your middle and ring fingers inside your pussy.
You moaned into the pillow at the stretch, tight and hot and absolutely dripping. Maker, Mando was so close to you – just on the other side of the wall, likely stripped naked like you were, standing under the steaming rush of the showerhead. Faceless, as he always was in your mind, but with the golden tanned skin you had seen but once, water streaming down his muscled shoulders, his broad, masculine chest, his soft stomach. You thrust your hips into the mattress at the thought, mindlessly fucking yourself on your fingers, grinding your swollen clit into the heel of your palm.
You weren’t going to last much longer. Having the object of your fantasies so close seemed to have sparked an urgency in you, the thought of him perhaps hearing your whimpers and moans so desperately smothered into the pillow lighting your nerves on fire. Your clit pulsed against your hand; your walls clenched around your fingers. Your hips circled and bucked of their own accord, chasing your release. It was too much, all of it was too much. You were going to come –
And then you heard it.
A soft, low groan, muffled against the wall of the ‘fresher. Purely male. Unmodulated. Unmistakable.
“Oh, fuck,” you sighed, feeling your pussy leaking onto your palm, onto the mattress. He was touching himself, too.
You couldn’t have held back your orgasm in that moment if you had tried. You shoved your face deep into the pillow as your pleasure ripped through your body. You could feel yourself drooling into the fabric, your mouth hanging open in a silent cry, but you couldn’t bring yourself to care. The smell of Mando’s soap, woven into the seams of the mattress, seeped into your senses and drew out your trembling.
By the time the last of the aftershocks had passed over you, your breast band hung loose around your waist, much of your hair had escaped from your braid to stick to your sweating forehead, and your underwear had become so twisted and wet that they were now startlingly uncomfortable. Drawing out your hand, dripping and sticky, you barely managed to shove them down your legs to join your boilersuit before you drifted off to sleep.
#din djarin#the mandalorian#din djarin x reader#din djarin x you#din djarin x f!reader#din djarin fanfiction#the mandalorian fanfiction#pedro pascal#pedro pascal characters#pedro pascal characters fanfiction
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a couple months ago, you mentioned you were working on a fem!mav AU. Is that still something you're thinking about/working on? And if so, do you have any thoughts about it you'd like to share? I find the idea compelling...
unfortunately no because 1. my rate of content production has slowed so much bc of life events (and not being entirely [and perhaps mentally ill-ly] consumed by the writing desire anymore) that my one main goal is to finish my fic series extras before my fickle brain decides my top gun phase is over, so that’s my top priority
2. i have found that the mindless overdisplay of masculinity is so integral to Maverick’s character that as soon as you make his masculinity (butchness?) part of an intentional thought-out strategy to be taken seriously by men, his original thoughtless and impulsive character completely disintegrates and he/she ceases to be maverick (so why write fanfiction & why not write original fiction at that point)
3. i couldn’t figure out how to write goose (a straight man in the 1980s who canonically makes a plan to cheat on his wife). i couldn’t decide whether or not he’d be overtly sexist and the thought made me so depressed i couldn’t write it. not to mention in all my other fics i only ever used goose & goose’s death as a symbol for ice & mav’s military and sexual guilt (he’s the #1 thing they don’t talk about) so i literally do not know how to give him speaking lines lol he might as well be an object like a table lamp for how much agency i have historically given him
#in summation i do not feel skillful enough to pull the concept off :(#im delegating it to the rest of you talented people#pete maverick mitchell#top gun#nick goose bradshaw#just please for the love of god if u write this concept don’t have mav and sexist ice get together PLEASE#str8 icemav does not work ‘the plaque for the alternates is down in the ladies’ room’ it is because of mavericks manhood that they#understand and respect each other
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I was watching the mithian episode (4x11, not the one with Hilda/Morgana) again, and right in the beginning, at around 2:10ish, when Merlin walks into the hall where all the knights and Gaius and servants are assembled for Arthur to make his announcement, Gwaine turns and looks at Merlin. It’s just a glance, but he’s the only one to actually move his face and look directly at Merlin. I don’t know why I love this so much. There was no reason for him to turn and look but he did. Because it’s Gwaine, and his attention and focus has always been Merlin’s.
Anon, you have quite the eye for detail. I would like to say, though, that Leon also looks over at Merlin—though, given that Leon and Gwaine are essentially foils of one another but on opposite ends of the spectrum, I don’t think that this fact detracts from the point you make. Leon probably notices Merlin come in late with mild annoyance, whereas Gwaine is more likely to be all “Oh, my best friend is finally here, and he’s standing right across from me :D Now we can begin.”
Anyways, as you said, Percival and Elyan have their eyes glued to Arthur, as does the rest of the room aside from Gaius (who Merlin is literally standing right next to). Very small moment, but it is quite interesting that—out of the entire room—those two specifically are the ones who look over.
Why was this particular choice made, what was it intended to convey, and what did it actually achieve? Given the context of their respective characterizations and dynamics with Merlin, I’d say that it both speaks to how similar Leon and Gwaine can be in their emotional reactions, as their impulsivity is a shared trait, yet it also establishes their differences in their senses of justice (both of which are incredibly strong, and in constant conflict when it becomes relevant). Remember that Gwaine and Leon’s first meeting is of Leon arresting Gwaine for protecting Merlin.
At the end of the day, Leon’s top priority will always be Arthur (hence the interpretation that he is mildly annoyed with Merlin here), and Gwaine’s will always be Merlin (who he is devoted to not for his station—which is in actuality below Gwaine’s own, opposite of Leon and Arthur—but for his companionship).
It’s the same action, same position, yet for two entirely different reasons, which reflects on their characters in a more general sense: their personalities and approaches are startlingly similar, yet their values couldn’t be more different. And for all their differences, they still show an equal intensity of protectiveness, anger, loyalty, integrity, and care—just… in very different ways.
(Side note: Leon’s relationship to Arthur is much more professional than Gwaine’s to Merlin, hehe)
#this is why i wish the series had dived deeper into their dynamic#the best we get is in Lamia when neither of them is really himself >:(#sir gwaine#sir leon#leon and gwaine#merlin and gwaine#arthur and leon#my meta#merlin meta#bbc merlin
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Out of curiosity why did you choose to have the men and women's tennis teams train separately? Will there be mixed doubles teams as well? I really enjoy Tobin and Rayyan, but would be nice to have them be opposite gender too 😊
Otherwise really liking the story!
Hahaha. Okay, I sense my answer is going to be hella long because it's something I've thought about extensively (I don't know how many of you are that interested in the (over)thinking I do with regard to my world-building/narrative-plotting/character-development), but here we go!
I think there's two questions here: (1) why Tobin and Rayyan are only same-gender, and (2) why the men's and women's teams train separately. I think these are separate considerations, so I've answered them separately! [Technically, Tobin and Rayyan could be same-gender i.e. on MC's team, AND the men's and women's teams could train together].
Why are Tobin and Rayyan same gender?
In the NCAA competition format, men's and women's teams compete separately. The relationships between Tobin x MC and Rayyan x MC are almost wholly dependent on them being on MC's team, e.g. competing together, being doubles partners etc.
(Long answer below the cut)
Why do the teams train separately?
Even the side characters (e.g. Deepal, Jacks, Emerson) have their specific interactions/dynamics with MC based on having to compete for spots on the same team or being possible doubles partners (in the case of Jacks).
Hence, I could write the men's and women's teams training together, but most of the characters you'd actually hear about / get to interact with at length with would still be same-gender. Max or Akimi or Blake etc. could be opposite-gender, though, so maybe it is worth thinking about! [When I played in college (not div 1 or anything), we trained separately so I just wrote what I knew BUT I do know some colleges train together!
Whenever I have the time, I might think about rewriting to have em train together, but it won't be on my top priorities--just because of the amount of work that'd be involved!]
More on Tobin and Rayyan being same-gender:
There are very few competitive mixed doubles matches in NCAA—maybe a few standalone tournaments, and mixed doubles are never really used to determine the college's overall standings/path to the championships)
Hence, if I wanted Rayyan and Tobin to be main characters in the IF that (a) play/compete with MC, and (b) have the chance to be MC's doubles partner in official competitions, they'd have to be the same gender. Writing them opposite-sex would change the entire nature / dynamic of their relationship with MC.
Rayyan's meant to be MC's main rival, first upset that they're partnered with MC (if they are), then grudging respect for MC as they realize that they're actually good, better than anyone else they've ever played with, then grapple with the tension that MC might actually be better than they are.
Tobin's meant to be MC's captain, and also another possibility of a doubles partner—an alternative or narrative foil to Rayyan, and provide the possibility of exploring an arc where one of the team's best players actually does not feel threatened by this young upstart.
Mixed doubles / opposite-gender tennis RO?
That said, I did make Felix, Tobin's ex on the opposite-gender team, a more integral character to the IF. There'll be a mixed doubles session where MC gets to partner Felix, and that'll be fun regardless of whether MC ever wants to pursue anything further with them.
MCs can and will be able to... "do the dirty" with Felix at least once, and have this impact the narrative, even if it'll never be a r'ship that's romantic in nature. So, a half-compromise of sorts?
Another reason why I liked this narrative solution so much is that Sam and Felix are both... kinda chill people (well, Sam's nice/fun, G is too ironic/dry to ever actually give off "I'll fight you" vibes) so I thought someone grumpy and very hostile would round out the semi-RO options for MCs who don't date same-gender characters.
[That said, Felix is written as canonically non-binary, though originally they were written more as gender-selectable (i.e. nb or opposite-sex). So I'm aware it's still not exactly a hetero/'straight' relationship.]
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maybe you've already answered this before, but if you were directing a schonbrunn concert and you absolutely had to cast 2 elisabeths and this was non-negotiable, how would you handle the change? personally, i feel like it would make more sense to put it in the *reprise* of ich gehör nur mir, since that already involves a big dramatic reveal of elisabeth
Omg, what an interesting question! :D Thank you for asking.
I agree, I would absolutely put it in the portrait reveal/IGNM reprise, and I was in fact somewhat expecting that the change would happen then in Schönbrunn too. (I get why it didn't - everyone wants to hear Maya do as much IGNM as possible - but still.)
There's an added irony/thematic element to the audience seeing familiar iconography - the famous Winterhalter portrait of Sisi + the diamond dress and hair - AND a familiar actress :) From a production perspective, it would still be a pretty equal split (Elisabeth barely sings in Act 1 after IGNM), and it would just... make more sense to me. XD
Also, since you asked (you didn't, but I'm using the opportunity)... I've been thinking a little about how I would direct an Elisabeth production in general, so scattered thoughts on that under the cut.
My friend IRL asked me this question and immediately followed up with "you'd just make Tod **** everyone right? lmao". And like... XD While it's no secret that I like the more intense Tod performances, I actually don't think that fanservice would be my top priority at all. In fact, I'd definitely lean all the way in on the rotting/sinking/decaying of the empire from its former glory + the fact that the entire musical is Lucheni's creepy puppet show/unhinged defense speech to justify his actions. So like... okay, this is going a bit into costuming, but I'd definitely have something along the vines of the Vienna original/1st revival on every character except Lucheni. For most characters it could be fine dark/black lace, sewn into the costumes in a way that makes it (in all ots opulence) look like spreading rot, but for Tod it should be very subtle, colour-matched and more integrated into the costume, blink-and-you'll-miss-it.
As for the actual show... Definitely keep the master of ceremonies/puppetmaster imagery for Lucheni in some form in Prologue. He should be really charismatic and engage the audience a lot - it's his horse and pony show and it's on him to make the audience believe the story. This could mean that he introduces Tod in a more outright way - with a visible hand gesture or something, holding his arm up almost desperately until Tod finally appears in the place he was implying he would. And Lucheni is fascinated by, obsessively drawn to, working in collaboration with AND terrified of his creation - you must remember that the real Lucheni, like the one in the show, did take his own life. Tod should gain more "autonomy" as the show goes on - he's a bit stiff and puppetlike in the prologue (w line delivery to match), but starts to become more believable as a character as the show goes on. Lucheni is believing his own story.
As for Tod... I'm not going to tackle an explicitly fem-presenting fem Tod because heterosexual Schatten is so unappealing as a thought and they would never make Rudolf a girl. XD It's not a sacrifice I'm willing to make to have lesbian WITW etc. But he (?) could definitely be portrayed by an actor of any gender - I'd just style him in an androgynous way. Depending on how strong the actor's own gender presentation is, I'd adjust the styling and makeup accordingly - for more fem-presenting actors the look could be 25% pretty and 75% handsome, while for masc-presenting ones it could be the other way around, and for someone sitting in the middle of the spectrum it could be 50-50. On the acting front I'd avoid leaning into aggression - given her history, it makes more sense for Elisabeth's dream man (man as a very loose term lmao) to be quite non-threatening. Tod's "wrongness" and aggression is not human or physical - it comes from the fact that he's fulfilling his role (of taking lives coldly) and that he doesn't feel things in quite the same way that a human would.
Given Lucheni's story, there should still be aspects of romance and especially fascination in Tod and Elisabeth's relationship. But: no KKOG (nice song, completely ruins the story though) - instead insert the very first original 1992 version of Schwarzer Prinz. Tod is a force of nature.
For FJ: just copypaste Arnaud Masclet's performance from the Bruxellons production and go ajdjksjd. He's visibly torn between doing what his mother taught him the country needs (until he completely internalised it) and what he wants himself (freedom!! Every character in the show wants some amount of freedom - for FJ it's the freedom to love an unconventional woman). The show should sell us on their relationship, the tragedy of it not fitting the rigid environment they're forced to be a part of, and it breaking apart. ALSO, we should use the Essen thing where he briefly sees Tod during Der Letzte Tanz. Whether it is as a reflection of his own concerns or as Elisabeth's anxiety brushing off on him, we don't know. But after/at the end of the song he should really comfort her - the audience needs to see that the thing stopping him from being open and sweet to her is the external environment. It makes the betrayal the next morning even more bitter.
For Sophie - we can just copypaste Else Ludwig's performance from the 2005 dvd, it's flawless. She really believes she's doing everything for the best of the country and the people around her, and she's quite kind in scenes like Kind oder Nicht. She's doing unkind things but they're wrapped up in a box of kindness and she herself firmly believes that they're necessary evils.
Jumping to Rudolf - I think most productions haven't really screwed up the portrayal itself! Lukas Perman's performance in Schönbrunn 2022 is really moving in how desperate he is and how he suffers, just put the "skandaaal" high note back in and you're good to go XD But Rudolf and Tod... that needs major reworking. It doesn't need to be a rehash of the original Schatten blocking, just something that shows the depths of messed-up longing and just how much Tod is willing to indulge Rudolf in it. A bit of violence wouldn't be out of place, but it should be intimate and interspersed with moments of extraordinary gentleness - Tod holding him just a little too hard. It should really come across that this is Rudolf's most important all-consuming relationship right now - maybe throw in a little obsessiveness into how he seeks comfort from Tod. We could maybe keep the "Rudolf at Tod's feet" moment from Schönbrunn prologue, just have Tod visibly react to it in a subtle way - puzzled, like "oh, this happened - still have no idea how but it did. Humans are weird".
I'm a big fan of my "Rudolf is Lucheni's self-insert" theory, so maybe it should be made visible to the audience that he throws Rudolf onstage in Schatten (like in some productions). And definitely keep Serkan Kaya's take on "che bambino stupido" - he's actually empathetic to little Rudolf because he too was a child who was always alone.
Fanservice things / random mentions
- Put Tod in the brothel scene. At least in the derniere lol
- Lucheni watching Schatten from the shadows until Tod glares at him
- LUCHENI KISSED AT DERNIERE? 👀
- If they want to put in pyros they should be during Der Schleier Fällt. It's a bit on the nose but it would look epic with the ending choir thing
Banned elements
These elements are banned from my hypothetical production:
- Tod being more feminine in Schatten and more masculine in Elisabeth scenes. He can be genderfluid, I'd love that (more femininity in IGNM reprise and perhaps Sei nicht verzweifelt, to contrast w FJ) but why in the world this way around ??? For Mayerling, I'm fine with Mary Vetsera symbolism, but there should be a reveal soon before the kiss and a flash of recognition in Rudolf's eyes. If we keep Tod stationary like in Schönbrunn, there should be a veil that he (or Rudolf) takes off. And the veil coming off should only make Rudolf more enthusiastic/desperate for the kiss lol.
- Split Elisabeth is banned. It's just sexist to do it for her and not FJ...
- Leather/pleather outfits
- Carry kiss ending - Elisabeth and Rudolf should both get dumped on the floor. There isnt a way to convey the energy of "cat carrying dead prey around" with two humans and that is the only scenario in which I would accept Tod carrying them around post death.
- Die Verschwörung / Conspiracy. It's a good song but also kind of a nationalist conspiracy theory irl lol.
If anyone read this far, thanks for hanging along for my rambles XD VBW should hire me lmao
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I’m still shock, how can Fyodor be dead? He wasn't my favorite character but he was charismatic. I really can’t believe it
Dude, I don't believe it cuz in the beginning episodes in the play, I saw somewhere that its probably fyodor who was hung on that cross, and Christianity is his whole THING.
Also fukuchi mentioned specifically 500 people being sacrificed?? (Which if jouno is apart of that I'm PISSED I want him back. Where is Jouno?) which might mean something specific
So I think he's going to be resurrected, quite possibly with the power of the book. If there is a "cult" around him (which I think is the case - the V is probably different than what Fukuchi was doing with his world peace thing) then they might bring him back. Also we still have sigma and nikolai - sigma can probably tell us about fyodor cause I know he isn't dead. The mystery WILL unravel around him eventually
And nikolai will either chase after him and use him to bring him back OR will do it himself. OR MAYBE !!! Nikolai will do something else. He's 100% a wild card (who should be arrested but obviously that isn't a top priority rn)
Fyodor's story isn't over just yet - even if he's dead, I think there's a lot more to be said about him story wise at the very least which means more content (I'm holding out hope at least. Like cmon no way he'd die and be thrown out like that nuh uh)
He's too integral to a lot of characters story, so he should be heard about at least !!
#lowkey this episode made me feel for him#heavy with nikolai#cause fyodor has heavy heavy trust issues and nikolai cant attach himself to anyone in a normal way#and it shows in the way that despite barely knowing each other they felt comfort with each other#fyodor liked that nikolai NEEDED him in some way even if it was obviously disturbing in many ways#and he planned to kill him because he truly did hate having people who were close to him#nikolai wanted to be what fyodor was but was really an emotional person#and wanted to express that somehow#and he did that in strange and violent disturbing ways#and for some reason fyodor could accept that#they both are really disturbed and can only be vulnerable in the disturbed#just some fyolai thoughts#but their dynamic was nice#and also i like how it shows how fyodor was scared of intimacy on many levels#dazai is ok with being hurt because he likes it but fyodor cant even comprehend realm of life i think#bsd#bungou stray dogs#bsd fyodor#bsd nikolai
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Decided to post this so:
Okay so like I still don't think this episode function well as a season finale even though I LOVE it and I'm going to rip it apart to look for meta. Dennis experiece extreme emotions here, which he masks by anger and frustration, and is excellently excuted by Glenn. The setting is also just surreal and ridiculous enough that it's both not shocking that this is Dennis's daydream, and it fits the style of Sunny. It is, without a doubt, a very interesting episode and a fun ride.
The thing is, even though this adds an incredible insight into Dennis's personality by showing us his coping mechanism, and it does explain a lotand builds up the character, it does not push the story *forwards* from the point of bowling. Sure, it's very important for Dennis's arc, but I still think it's more fundation level instead of a new development. It's kind of like when you learn probability first then later you learn the foundation of it and why it works like that in Integration, but if the whole thing just ends like this, it's extremely dissatisfying, and when you're expecting to see a storyline on TV, it's more upsetting than when you're sitting in a lecture hall knowing you're learning the reason and logistic of something you already know.
I'm not saying that there's no successful movies that are engaging to the general public that relies on showing the thing "before" what happens in the movie (the reasons of it, who kills the victim, or more literally, in stories like memento, what happens first); however, those stories needs to hook the audience's attention by convincing us that thing "before" is important ultimately the goal of the story. In contrast, in this season, indeed we see a Dennis much much calmer, but there's also loads of things going on and every character is acting a bit differently. I have never considered the reason of Dennis being calmer as the one top priority, even though I have to admit, I'd love to know it and now I love that I know.
This season left us with lots of loose ends, which could be explained by they have at least 2 more to wrap it up, but it still makes this season a lot less self contained or satisfying at the end. Arguably Dee gets her ending by defeating the bowling mind game, but the reason why the gang keeps silence her remains untold. Other than her, every characters has something that needs to be explored more, but we doesn't see it here at all.
Once again, my thoughts towards the episode is mostly positive, and there's no queerbaiting involved. Dennis gets really emotional and has his mental breakdowns. They promised us phenomenal acting from Glenn and they delievered. I just don't think it's suitable for a season finale and is reasonably upset about it.
#it's a fun episode but is this what we get for s16 finale???#I think it's a rich episode and there are deliberate choices etc but this isn't what it should be if it's put here#it's whatever it's fine I'm reasonably upset about it#iasip#iasip s16 spoilers#dtamhd#dennis takes a mental health day#it's always sunny in philadelphia#hy speaks#nothing#dennis reynolds#it's copy paste from my convo with a sunnyblr friend so ignore typos <3
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I think fandom is also a place in which the majority of people who are really passionate and most active abt it are fans that happened to be queer in some way, so logically, there is going to have quite a big amount of people making these M/M and F/F ships in general. But ALL of the things in that post applies perfectly in one way or another.
For context, this is post!!
Yep, agree with you, Anon. In fandoms, the majority of the fans who are passionate are queer. That's not to say that there isn't passionate fans who aren't queer, before anyone acts up on me.
While it's on my mind, the part of that post that stuck out to me the most is this one...
Yeah I don’t really ship but I do write a fair amount of fanfic, and in most franchises working with the female characters is a chore.
You have to do so much of the work yourself, because the canon left them unfinished, with huge gaps or unexplored contradictions that you have to somehow resolve. Every female character you decide to integrate into your fanwork in some major role constitutes an undertaking in her own right as you patch together an understanding of her sufficient to model a consistent set of reactions and priorities &c.
The dudes just get handed to you. Even the ones whose canon is a mess have properly developed character cores.
That you don’t have to unearth and piece together like some sort of volunteer archeologist coming up with theories way more complex than the available artifacts truly support.
I really felt that as someone who has been writing Miruko-centric fics since March 2022. So, I'll be using BNHA as an example here.
I talked about it in another post of mine, but to summarize; writing Miruko in fics have so far been a wild ride. But a fun one because I get to add onto her character. Compared to male characters, the female characters are blank canvas and honestly, to me, that's what gets my attention more because then my imagination had more freedom.
[I would like to apologize because I had no intentions to make this ask this long (pictures are here), let alone one about BNHA, and I do tend to ramble, that is my bad. So I cut it from here.]
If you asked me now which character I find more interesting between... Miruko and Hawks (I don't hate Hawks), I'm going to say Miruko. Not because she's my favorite. Because Hawks does indeed have too much given about him and it puts me off sometimes. With Miruko, I continue to have questions and those questions turn into my thought posts or fics.
She was already a favorite, but over time I appreciate her more because writing her in fics surely helped me explore more of what I can do in my writing as well as her as what she could have been as a character if she gotten a lot more to her in canon.
It also made me realize that even though a lot of the fandom is queer, when it comes to shipping, there's not a lot of love for F/F ships. Again, comes with the fact that a lot of the cast is male and the male characters have a lot more given to them.
Here's the current count! Look, at the number of F/F fics compared to M/M and F/M.
Looking at this makes me think back to that post about how female characters are often treated to be more accessories to male characters than actual characters or something along those lines.
With F/M coming second to M/M, I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of those fics are written with more male focus perspectives and the female characters are treated as tools to push the fic along. Or those Dekubowl fics where Midoriya is shipped with every single female character. *shivers*
Now, not saying M/M and F/M ships are bad, I have ships within those labels I like.
It just makes one think, you know?
I pressed on the Miruko tag and these are the top results I get. [Press to see full image!]
Now watch when I reduce the number for just Miruko-centric fics.
And you wanna know something crazy? I'm just learning this bit of info about myself. I didn't realize I was doing this!
First page of those 38 fics, the majority of them you will see are my own fics. Most of the additional tags and the top two relationship tags are tags that I used. Out of those 38 fics, guess how many are mine? 19 fics... HALF OF THOSE FICS ARE MINE AND I'M JUST LEARNING THIS!!
#kiya answers#bnha#mha#boku no hero academia#my hero academia#miruko#mirko#usagiyama rumi#rumi usagiyama
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So hypothetically in IKROAH, House could offer Agnes gender-affirming surgeries with bullshit sci fi tech? but also could easily be too transphobic to do that. im so interested in how different characters are going to be effected by agnes, youve done such a good job integrating queerness/transness into Fallout in a way that feels so natural
Thank you, it's something I'm very proud of with how I've written Agnes' position in the world. I've always hated ideas like, everybody can just get their own personal top surgery autodoc or just go to the Think Tank to get their whole body transmogrified; as a real transsexual existing today I know trans health care is rarely a priority of people capable of providing it, and writing transness as something much more scrappy than that is how I know it best. I've talked about it plenty before, I'm on mobile right now but I'm pretty sure it's in my #gaysteland tag or something.
Mr. House will be appearing before the end of Volume 2, and he's been one of my most favorite characters to write. I hope it'll be worth the wait. And despite what I said about disliking bullshit sci fi tech, if anyone would put some damn good chips on the table, it’d certainly be Robert Edwin House...
#asks#anon#ikroah meta#ikroah will never be canceled because if i can't get to the parts of my script i've been excited to execute for years#i will never forgive myself!
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I'm a fan of Code Geass so I'm glad to find sites like these. It makes me think the Code Geass fanbase is still going strong. How does it feel for you about the Code Geass movies remaking the series with some changes? Are you disappointed about them or just think it's alright.
The answer to this came out way, way longer than I expected. Lots of rambling below! I've also been facing a technical issue with Asks, so I'm sorry for the late reply.
I like to think that Code Geass is good enough an anime to garner interest even now. Fans do exist even if activity is not that consistent (myself very much included.) The fanbase does have some fluctuating activity, and I see lots and lots of wonderful fanart nowadays!
I’ve yet to find an anime I love more than Code Geass. Although I watched it very recently, probably months before said alternate timeline movies were released. I didn’t quite understand what they were getting at with the whole ‘season 3′ thing.
I’m going to start by saying, quality of both anime and movie notwithstanding, it was a very well-thought decision to make an alternate timeline. Don’t want to accept the end of canon? Movies are for you! Not a fan of the movies? Stick with the anime! The audience is given a choice.
But the statement stands regardless of whether or not the movies are good. Now, if we actually consider the production of the movies, my opinion very much changes.
So, do I like the new movies? Above all, I am a fan of Re;surrection?
The answer is No.
Now, why is that?
I successfully passed every stage leading to Re;surrection with no contempt:
- Oh, they’re continuing the series? It’s nice to see more from my favourite anime!
- They’re recapping the anime? Makes sense if they want old fans to return to the series with ease.
- The movies are... different from the anime? Following a different canon seems... unusual. I feel like they suddenly backtracked because they thought of something ‘better’ but I’ll give it some time before I judge.
- The movies have cut some major events that heavily affected Lelouch’s character development (i.e, going against Mao, losing Shirley)? Alternate timeline isn’t looking very nice here...
- And the ‘season 3′ which we have been promised of for a long time, will actually follow the canon set by the movies? Well... I’ll just see how Re;surrection is.
And then we arrive to the movie itself...
I need to reiterate that it was a very good decision to have a dual canon, and I do acknowledge all the effort that was put into the movie and the attention it gained worldwide.
However...
My own opinion is that Re;surrection is not a good movie.
Well, I hope no one comes after my blood. But that’s really how I see it.
Re;surrection by and in itself? Great. Wonderful animation and voice acting. An adequately interesting storyline.
Re;surrection, compared to the anime? Bad.
First thing to address is that events have nothing to do with this. One timeline having an event--Lelouch 'staying alive' or any other thing-- that the other one doesn’t is not integral to my opinion. My thoughts are only based on story- and character-writing, character development, depth of plot, etc.
So you see where I’m going with this?
If the character development cut by the recap movies wasn’t enough, what I saw of Re;surrection was enough to show me how terribly ‘out of character’ everyone was. Cornelia, who despised Zero, teamed up with him with no second thought. Suzaku, who loathed Lelouch and made his vendetta his top priority, hit him with the “yeah no it’s nicer to have you around :).” Lelouch himself felt out of character, and most things his character stood for were easily betrayed in the movie, i.e “the only ones who should kill are those prepared to be killed”, leaving Nunnally at the end, etc.
It felt like the producers just said, “bring Lelouch back to life, that’s what everyone will care about, and we can just do random things with the other characters.” (I know that’s not the case, but this is how I see it.) The characters just feel so different than they did in the anime, like the existed solely for the plot.
The writing is also very underwhelming (again, compared to the anime.) The things that happened at C’s World felt so rash and had minimal explanations. Even the villains didn’t have the character-depth the anime characters had. Mao, for instance, seems like a much deeper character than any of the new ones introduced in the movie. It’s like, as with the rest of the cast, the villains were only there to satisfy the plot. Combined with the pacing that was all over the place, the writing feels like the aforementioned “bring Lelouch back and that’s all we need.”
And, finally, the movie as a whole just lacks the intricacy the anime had. Lelouch’s brilliant plans felt really watered-down, nothing like himself. The world-building was rather shallow. Everything from the conflict to the climax felt poorly put-together, with loose explanations just barely tying it up.
And, well, that’s only my opinion. Zero contempt (pun not intended) against people who love Re;surrection, and mega shoutout to all the wonderful fanart and fanfiction creators. Now those things I actually enjoy.
#ledouche answers#asks#anime asks#code geass#code geass lelouch of the rebellion#code geass lelouch of the resurrection#lelouch lamperouge#lelouch vi britannia#cornelia li britannia#suzaku kururugi#nunnally vi britannia#anime#anime movies#anime rant#rant post#i'm so glad I could finally let this OUT
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I've got to get this shit off my mind or I'll go insane
GUTTER PROJECT:
TOP PRIORITY to preserve house integrity
I have 2 in shape downspouts. I need AT LEAST 3 more. unsure, I need to measure my house. How to do this? Will one of those long measuring tapes work well enough? I will need 3 adapters and 3 extenders to go with the 3 downspouts. I will also need the appropriate amount of brackets. I need the actual gutters that go around the fascia (?) of the roof. This will include 5 outside corners, 1 inside corner, and two end caps.
Last but not least, I need A LADDER so I can REACH. I will price check all of these tomorrow.
Should i buy all new gutters and downspouts to replace the aging ones that's on my house now? Vinyl stuff seems pretty cheap, but maybe that's for a reason. Aluminum is sensory hell. I could also get PVC pipe to extend the downspouts 10 feet away from the house as is recommended. Not sure what to do on the north side of my house, since it's directly beside my neighbors but I'll hopefully figure out some sort of drainage situation. Anything is better than what I have now, lol. Maybe I can hide it in the yard, and that way when I plant my native grasses, they'll have a little irrigation system.
Need to get three more flood lights for the motion sensor light in the front porch.
LIVING ROOM PROJECT:
NOT top priority functionally, but it depresses me how ugly the living room looks so I'd like to improve my QOL...
Currently have enough supplies to scrape and sand all the wood trim in the living room. Also have the appropriate amount of drop cloths and tape to protect the floors. Nothing is stopping me besides executive dysfunction and the front door. I really would like to take the front door off the hinges so I can scrape it and install the weather stripping properly. i don't know anyone locally that can help me, so I'm kind of fucked there. Once that's scraped, I will buy some semi-gloss Kiltz oil based primer, prime the trim, and ponder on a color scheme later (though I have ideas.)
Once that is done, I will start scraping the walls to prepare for my attempt at skim coating. Should I buy stuff to fill in the cracks in the plaster? Is that something within my skill set? or will this just add another layer of executive dysfunction that will block me from doing this?
Supplies needed for skim coating: Drywall mud, paint roller & long arm, bucket for drywall mud, tray for rolling off paint roller, drywall knives (whatever they're called), sanding blocks with an extendable arm. Eggshell Kiltz primer (probably not oil based, but I'm not sure yet.) Will ponder on actual paint colors later, though I have ideas.
Want the bamboo roll up shades, as they're pretty appropriate for the house and I like them more than these ugly wide white blinds. Want the rainbow privacy film you can apply to the windows so they offer some privacy while allowing light in.
BATHROOM PROJECT:
LOWER PRIORITY but it's also pretty ugly and since i have all the supplies, why not...
Pretty much have all the supplies necessary for this. Need to take down the things screwed into the walls (shelves, hand towel holder) and commit to scraping the wallpaper and old paint off the walls. Sand a little. Spackle some of the holes. Prime. Also need to scrape & sand & prime the wooden trim, same method as living room. Will ponder on actual color schemes once everything is scraped and primed. Probably no skim coating needed in the bathroom. Want rainbow privacy film for that as well. Maybe a bamboo roll up shade as well? Also find out if HVAC people can do a bathroom vent installation.
Want to get some floating shelves, or perhaps one of those storage things that goes over the toilet. Far in the future, I want to pull the old shelves out of the linen closet in there, clean it, spackle the cracks, scrape old paint off, and then repaint and install new wire shelves for better organizing. It'll look more "modern" but it won't affect the character of the house since it's behind a door.
YARD PROJECTS:
Rent chainsaw, buy triclopyr, cut down the nandina and other invasive bushes i have in my yard, paint cut stumps to kill.
Start planning what to plant in the early spring. Thinking of bushes for around the house and in front of the fence to block visibility to the road. Native grasses and small trees in the front and side yard.
Eventually I would love to have the fence facing the road replaced with privacy fencing, but this is not a priority yet. Also would love to find out if we could somehow pour a concrete pad on the south side of the house for parking, so I don't have to park in the street, or in the back yard.
OTHER THINGS THE HOUSE NEEDS
Get quote for bringing electrical up to code -> MEDIUM PRIORITY
Get HVAC unit tuned up -> HIGH PRIORITY
Get more insulation blown into attic -> HIGH PRIORITY
Get roofer to evaluate the water damage -> MEDIUM PRIORITY
Get plumber to look at our pipes and see if any of the old ones on the sides of the house can be removed, so there will be less holes in the roof (Plus it will look nicer) -> LOW PRIORITY
Get quote for installing a tankless water heater -> MEDIUM PRIORITY
Kitchen projects, mud room, and back area of the house are unfortunately the lowest priority right now but there's so much that I want to redo there too. It's just going to be way more involved, and currently it's "functional" so whatever.
#I love my house SO MUCH i have so many plans that I know will probably not come true#because eventually we want to move to north carolina#but it's kind of depressing me because my god i love my house#i want to live in her forever#why can't i pick her up and take her to north carolina with me#she is expensive#but i adore her#she feels safe to me#the more i work on her#the more i feel connected to her#personal#howse#house projects#house
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Just curious, what about the analysis of Mike doesn't hit necessarily and is it just down to personal preference and what you relate to? Not saying there aren't issues in the writing because there are. I guess I just think there are with other things as well. Not being in the central storyline didn't help for sure. I do see fic (or at least before season 3) that dealt with him being a middle child which was great because lately the show certainly isn't doing that.
Hm, maybe it's personal preference?
I also want to say, most of the analysis I've seen boil down to, "And this is why mileven/byler will be endgame." I can count on maybe 2 fingers on analysis that are about Mike as a character and not who he'll end up with since I created this blog in 2017ish. As someone who doesn't ship either ship, those essays are not for me to read you know? Especially if I just want a character analysis.
I say maybe it is personal preference because I've realized for some people, their romantic life IS their life, whether it's a fictional person or in real life. It is integral to the character for some people, they cannot be separated or sectioned off.
But I can view the various aspects of someone's character as if they're completely separate, so it becomes bothersome when I can only see one angle of a character, if that makes sense. It's like when your wired headphones break and you can only hear in 1 ear. Or when one side of your sunglasses fall out leaving you to suffer from the sun.
There's no way I'd be able to recall or find them now, but I swear I remember at least one or two posts discussing Mike being a middle child and how he may feel about his family and friends because of it. Always looking for an out or to feel important to someone or anyone. I can SEE that angle even within the show itself. It makes a lot of sense and I'm totally on board with that point of view. But.... it's.... quite understated in the show and the fandom.
Maybe if I were a middle child in a nuclear family, I'd be able to extrapolate more about his feelings and motivations like I can for someone like Jonathan or the Byers. Jonathan's arc is super understated too in both the show and fandom, but because my family is similar to his, I GET it and can write about it. So yes, it might just be a personal preference.
Then again, I'm not looking very hard for Mike analysis for most of the reasons stated above. Most content I see these days are for shipping which is not my lane so I skim over them. As a result of the show and admittedly, some of the fandom, I'd say Mike is not exactly my top priority to look for content wise.
I haven't read an ST fic in ages, probably because I'm still, all these years later, plotting my own fic a little every day. Pfff
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I just wanted to tell you, all your ACOTAR rewrites are so good. I love them. If they were actual books I'd totally read them.
Awwww thank you Anon 😊. Honestly I've thought about it and I think the plots are still too similar for me to write in all seriousness and someday publish. I already don't talk about my own work on here because I don't need her Stans ripping it apart without actually reading it. Which is sad to me because I love talking about my stories. I actually stopped writing a story of mine because it shared too many similarities with aspects of Crescent City. Now that the sequel is out I can confidently return to it without that fear. On top of that, I have a lot of stories in the works that take priority. I'm really glad you like them and maybe someday I'll integrate parts of them into a plot that's solely mine. Or if everything magically goes incredibly well I'll write them because I'll have "Fuck You Money", copious amounts of time and a head empty of stories left to tell (this one is super unlikely because I've been telling stories since I could mumble out speech).
A lot of my rewrites are just making the plots flow, giving characters more depth and taking out the stuff I personally find distasteful or add nothing. All of the potential is there, it just feels like Maas didn't slow down and find all the pieces that could make it great.
#anti sjm#anti acotar#anti sjmaas#anti ccity#sjm critical#ask holly#send me asks#thank you for the ask!#my asks#ask box#answered asks
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