#fisticuffs has my support at this point | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

bandluvr97 · 1 year

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mbb 🎅

My job is boring, most of it is invoicing bullshit. What I saw of the party was pretty cool I guess, it was a 2000-person event so they could go crazy, and kind of Lichtenstein themed -- there were a lot of dancers in big wigs and big dresses and their faces painted to look like his drawings. I don't work in the parties themselves, though, and I Got Into It with a couple temps that didn't realize they were wait listed, and for some reason were very mad that I was sending them home with pay... so yeah watching movies sounds like more fun than fighting line cooks in a garage. What did you end up watching?

I love Changkyun's weirdness, like, he's unsupervised for two months and releases a music video about drug abuse and promiscuity. And then gets on some app and says "Wait, is God Damn a bad word? I didn't know!" like okay king we all believe you. And you don't know what eating someone like a main dish means. But that outfit was SO good, I'm obsessed with his belt, and I can't blame him cause if I had abs like that I would never wear a real shirt.

Kihyun gets a couple points knocked off for playing the stocks, but otherwise I totally agree haha. And yes I'd seen the "Shoot Out" stage but this made me go back and watch it again and do NOT get me started on Shownu in that performance. Like what the fuck. He needs to come back now it's not funny anymore. Honestly the whole era, he's always stupid hot when he performs, but there's something special about Shoot Out Shownu.

🗣️LET 🗣️ MY 🗣️ MAN 🗣️ SMOKE 🗣️ WEED 🗣️ honestly he deserves it after all of that. But that is SO sweet, I'm glad he noticed and appreciated it, cause everyone was cheering for him! I love "Eye On You", I like his big layered songs like those. (But "Lose" had the best outfits, even if they made him put mesh in the cut outs of his Tom of Finland outfit)

Oh we love multi stans! Literally what fun is it to only like or support one artist and not even look at other artists? I like most of those groups, clearly we have excellent taste. For me, I tend to sample different groups, check out a title track here and there, rather than deep dive into their discography unless they REALLY come for my neck, which is the same outside kpop. At this point every artist has to earn my attention again with every song, I used to be devoted to my favorite rap groups but now I don't have the time or energy to follow releases. Outside of kpop, I mostly listen to rap or punk music -- I act, and just got cast as the Final Girl in a skate punk horror video and I won't nerd out too much about it but the music sounds good and just know that if it doesn't happen I'm killing the entire band.

Hey love ❤️ how did your shift go last night? Oh cool!! What kind of songs did they play? Yeah I could see how the chill evening would be better lol still sounds like a fun job though!! Do you do a lot of clubs or concert things? Lol now when you say fight did you mean verbal or with fisticuffs? 😂😂😂 I ended up watching ghost with my mom and some hallmark movies about the joys of family and Christmas and we were judging them so hard for how cringy it is lmao what movies or genres do you like to watch?

Right??? His weirdness is a little confusing but yet somehow makes sense lol like it might look dark but it works in his own way 😂😂lmao!! I genuinely think he’s lying to us about eating someone like a main dish to be honest I think he’s done it quite a few times in his life like there’s no way lol yeah he knows how to pick outfits out and it’s so choice 👌👌 they all know how to dress well in music videos and it’s stunning lol oh yeah if I had abs too I would wear nothing but crop tops everywhere 😂😂

Lol! Yeah I can see that but kihyun is an investor so I wouldn’t be surprised if he earns more money later in life lol right?!?! Shootout era for shownu was an eye opener like I already knew that he was stunning but the second he starts the tiddie shake and get the mood going for the song it was like OHHH HELLO STUNNING MAN!! And that just confirmed my bias wrecker then and there lol it was dark and it was lovely to see him just kick ass and take names lol and don’t get me started on the other members cus they all did such an amazing job!! Like whooo boy!!

Right?!?! Yeah it was a sweet thing to witness ❤️❤️ meanwhile people are freaking out about him going off for 18 months and I’m thinking “we’re not going anywhere we’ve waited some time and what’s with waiting some more time until he comes back” lol plus nothing wrong with a little smoke of devils lettuce 😂👌👌agreed eye on you and crazy are amazing songs and eras lol his crop tops and outfits are amazing 👌👌

Hell yeah! We love and trust the multi Stan’s lol exactly!! Great minds think alike love ❤️ we can always listen to more than one artist but there will always be ulti groups that will forever remain in our lives lol I’m the same way!! It’s a smart move to start off small and work the way up to listening to more of them ❤️👍oh really? Which rappers did/do you listen to? No way!!!! That’s so cool!!!! What will your role be? Lol fair enough unleash the hell 😂😂

Hope your day is going well love ❤️ no need to apologize it’s all good 😊 I enjoy the chats and the spams

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fuh-king-guy · 3 years

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if the homoerotic fight scene doesn’t have laszlo and nadia cheering “gizmo” on from somewhere right outside the door i’m suing

#wwdits #wwdits spoilers #look #i know nandor is going through lots of awful shit but #fisticuffs has my support at this point

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inevitably-johnlocked · 3 years

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hi!! i recently got into johnlock and the universe has somehow directed me to your blog (which is an absolute godsend omfg). have you got any good possessive!john fics?

Hi Lovely!!!

AHHHH!! I’m so glad you enjoy my blog!!! <3 Thank you so much! <3

AHHH you know what??? I don’t get asked this all that much at all! I think mostly because it’s easier to find Possessive Sherlock fics and people then just... forget LOL

So guess what?? You’re the prompter for any fics I actually tagged or filed with Possessive John! <3 A pioneer you are! LOL I’m combining it with a few of the Obsessive fics as well, since I don’t have many new ones.

As usual, gang, feel free to add your own!! <3

POSSESSIVE / OBSESSIVE JOHN

See also:

Specifically Jealous John b/c of Other People

Jealous John

Jealous John Pt. 2 and Jealous Sherlock Pt 2

Jealous John Pt 3 and Jealous Sherlock Pt 3

Jealous John and Sherlock Pt. 4

Jealous John and Sherlock Pt. 5

Hell or High water by bluefire301175 (E, 2,250 w., 1 Ch. || PWP, Frottage, Alley Sex, First Person POV John, Case-ish Fic, Mutual Pining, Bed Sharing) – John wants. Sherlock wants. Plain and simple.

Display by 221b_hound (E, 2,377 w., 1 Ch. || Post-HLV, Tattoos, Public Hand Jobs, Exhibitionism, Possessive Sex, Possessive Sherlock, Possessive John) – A new client has been flirting with Sherlock and, finding no joy there, with John. John seems annoyed to be second-best, Sherlock thinks, so Sherlock decides to give the departing woman (and maybe also John) a demonstration of who, exactly, John belongs to. But there's more than one level of sexual jealousy and more than one display of possession going on here, outlined in the window of 221b Baker Street. Part 2 of Lock and Key

Apodyopsis by QuinnAnderson (E, 3,347 w.,1 Ch. || PWP, Rough Sex, Table Sex, Anal, Sexual Tension) – Apodyopsis: (æpəʊdaɪˈɒpsɪs) noun. the act of mentally undressing someone. Part 2 of Undressed

Overture by Kate_Lear (M, 4,435 w., 1 Ch. || First Kiss / Time, Friends to Lovers, Angry John, Introspection, Dev. Rel., Embarrassed / Insecure Sherlock, Morning After, Bed Sharing, Cuddles / Limpet Sherlock) – A short snippet on how John and Sherlock might have got together.

Sherlock and John Go Clubbing by wendymarlowe (E, 4,716 w., 3 Ch. || Clubbing, Dirty Talk, Dancing, Coming Untouched, Coming in Pants, Bi John, For a Case, Friends to Lovers, Flirting, Sherlock is Lost for Words, Sexy John, Mutual Pining, Possessive John, Floor Sex/Hand Job/Frottage) – John pinched the bridge of his nose - even for Sherlock, this was a new level of no bloody boundaries. “You want me to go with you to a gay club, wait around twiddling my thumbs while I let you get pawed by a criminal, then out-flirt him and talk you into coming home with me instead?” Part 32 of John and Sherlock's Kinky First Times

Caves in the Mountains Are Seldom Unoccupied by starrysummernights & TheMadKatter13 (E, 7,925 w., 1 Ch. || Were-Creatures || Werebear John, Pseudo Bestiality, Rimming, Heavy Dub Con, Rough Sex, Come Inflation / Eating, Size Kink, PWP, Bratty Sherlock, Rutting) – “This isn’t something to play at, Sherlock,” he snapped. “If it doesn’t work out- what you’re asking of me- we can’t shrug and say 'oh well, at least we tried'. If we do this… I could seriously hurt you. Do you understand? I could lose control. I could… I could kill you.”

My Life for His by QuinnAnderson (E, 8,816 w., 1 Ch. || Guardian/Protector, Greek Mythology || Growing Up, Sex, Religious Themes, Suicide, Minor Character Death) – It began when Sherlock was eight, and he attempted to climb all the way up to the highest branch in the old willow tree in his back garden. He'd thought he was still small enough that it could support him, but the second he'd grabbed hold of it to pull himself up, the branch snapped, and down he went, plummeting a solid twenty metres. The odd thing was, he never actually hit the ground.

Of Course I Forgive You by allonsys_girl (E, 10,735 w., 1 Ch. || Love Confessions, Canon Divergence, First Time, Frottage, Wall Sex, Infidelity) – What if things had gone differently on that train car?

The Invocation of Saint Margaret by Ewebie (E, 15,831 w., 1 Ch. || POV John, Crossing Timelines, Light Angst, Fluff, Series 3 John / Series 1 Sherlock, The Matchbox, Mushy Romance, First Time, Bisexual John, Pining John, Bottomlock, Love Confessions, Sensuality, Emotional Love Making, Snippets of Time) – When Sherlock Holmes opens the matchbox from The Sign of Three and John finds himself years in the past, back to that first dinner at Angelo's with a much younger Sherlock Holmes. Is he dreaming?

Out of the Woods by SilentAuror (E, 20,471 w., 1 Ch. || Post S4, Romance, Slow Burn, Flirting, Drunk Sex, Practical Jokes, POV Sherlock, Bottomlock, Possessive John, Pining Sherlock, Frustrated Wanking, Frottage, Hand Jobs, Blow Jobs, First Kiss/Time, Virgin Sherlock, Love Confessions, Soft Sherlock, Dancing, Bum Appreciation, Hanging out with the Yard) – Sherlock is fairly certain that John has taken to flirting with him of late, but can't be entirely certain of it. At least, not until a case takes them into a forest, along with Lestrade's team and something happens that will change everything about their lives...

The Kepler Problem by kinklock (E, 24,270 w., 1 Ch. || Sci-Fi AU, Alien Sherlock, Space Repairman John, Alien Biology, Horny John) – Working in uncharted space exploration was not as exciting as John had hoped, especially when it turned out to be mostly bot maintenance on uninhabited planets. However, the mystery of the repeated, unexplained malfunctions on planet BAK 2212 might turn out to be exactly the kind of adventure he'd been craving.

Inscrutable to the Last by DiscordantWords (M, 48,842 w., 6 Ch. || Post-TRF, Alternate S3, John’s Blog/S3 is a Story By John, Divorce, Marital Difficulties, John is a Mess, Emotional Reunion, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Grief / Mourning, Pining John, First Kiss, Adorably Clueless Sherlock, Nostalgia, Love Confessions, Eventual Happy Ending, Obsessive John) – He wasn't Sherlock, he couldn't work miracles. All he'd ever been able to do was write about them.

The Hollow Woman by ScopesMonkey (M, 51,335 w., 22 Ch. || Post-TRF, Major Character Death, Mystery, Romance, Friendship, Family, Angst, Crime, Reunion, First Kiss / Time, Nightmares, Doctor John, Jealous Sherlock, Jealous John, BAMF John, Angry John, Dub-Con, Rough Sex, Bottomlock, Possessive John, Villain Mary, Open Ending) – Forced to return to London sooner than expected, Sherlock falls into a case too close to home. Part 1 of the Hollowverse series

Points by lifeonmars (E, 53,791 w., 42 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || HLV Rewrite / Canon Divergence, Married Life, Pregnancy / Baby Watson, Drinking to Cope, Boxing / Fisticuffs, Clueless John, Angst, Minor Medical Drama, Tattoos, Christmas, First Kiss/Time, Eventual Happy Ending, Love Confessions, Doctor John, Sexuality Crisis, Slow Burn, Case Fic, Drugging, Blow/Hand Job, Emotional Love Making, Parenthood, Passage of Time, Obsessive John) – What if His Last Vow never happened? This fic picks up a few months after John and Mary's wedding, in an alternate universe where Magnussen doesn't exist, but Mary is still pregnant. Life continues -- just in a different direction. And slowly, Sherlock and John find their way to each other.

The Bells of King's College by SilentAuror (E, 64,019 w., 5 Ch. || Post-S4, Missed Opportunities, Angst with Happy Ending, Fake Relationship, Case Fic, John POV, Jealous John, John in Denial, Travelling / Holidays, Virgin Sherlock, Wedding Proposals) – It's only been two weeks since Eurus Holmes disrupted their lives when Mycroft sends John and Sherlock to Cambridge to pose as an engaged couple at a wedding show in the hopes of solving six unsolved deaths...

Gimme Shelter by SinceWhenDoYouCallMe_John (E, 159,368 w., 21 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || 70′s Surfer AU || Period Typical Homophobia, Hawaii, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Professional Surfers, Gay John / Sherlock, Angst with Happy Ending, John was a Sailor, Misunderstandings) – All John Watson wants is the feeling of a freshly waxed surfboard under his feet and the hot California sun baking down onto his back. To finally go pro in the newly formed world of professional surfing and leave the dark memories of his past behind him as he rips across the face of a towering blue barrel. To lounge beside the beach bonfire every evening with an ice cold beer tucked into the cool sand beside him and listen to Pink Floyd and the Doors while the saltwater dries in his sun bleached hair. That's all he wants, that is, until the hot young phenom taking Oahu and the Hawaiian shores by storm steps up next to him in the sand in the second round of the 1976 International Surf Competition. (PUBLISHED AS ‘The Sea Ain’t Mine Alone’)

Proving A Point by elldotsee & J_Baillier (E, 186,270 w., 28 Ch. || Me Before You Fusion || Medical Realism, Insecure John, Depression, Romance, Angst, POV John, Sherlock Whump, Serious Illness, Doctor John, Injury Recovery, Assisted Suicide, Sherlock’s Violin, Awkward Sexual Situations, Alcoholism, Drugs, Idiots in Love, Slow Burn, Body Image, Friends to Lovers, Hurt / Comfort, Pain, Big Brother Mycroft, Intimacy, Anxiety, PTSD, Family Issues, Psychological Trauma, John Whump, Case Fics, Loneliness, Pain) – Invalided home from Afghanistan, running out of funds and convinced that his surgical career is over, John Watson accepts a mysterious job offer to provide care and companionship for a disabled person. Little does he know how much hangs in the balance of his performance as he settles into his new life at Musgrave Court.

Free Falling by twistedthicket1 (M, 203,574 w., 38 Ch. || Guardian Angels AU || Guardian Angel John, Fluff and Angst, Humour, Kidlock / Teenlock, Light Mystrade, Passage of Time, Possessive John, Drug Use / Overdose, Victor Trevor, Graphic Bullying, Big Brother Mycroft, Hard Drug Use, Depression, Possessive Sherlock, Possessive John, Panic Attacks, Nightmares/PTSD, Pining, Healing Abilities, Kidnapping, Violence, Torture, Blow Jobs, Virgin John, Emotional Development / Attachment, Mortality, Happy Ending) – All Guardian angels are born with a Chosen human. When this child is born, the angel comes into being to protect and care for them during their life on Earth. For John Watson, all he cares about in the world revolves around his Chosen, Sherlock Holmes. Watching him grow up though, the angel soon learns that God must have had a sense of humour the day he decided to make Sherlock, as trouble seems to follow him like a magnet wherever he goes. John can't decide what's worse, the idea of losing his Chosen one, or the fact that he may be breaking the most taboo law of heaven as he disguises himself as a human to better protect and befriend the beloved detective he's always watched from afar. He was meant to care for him. But what happens when caring evolves into something more? What happens when an emotion an angel is supposed to be incapable of possessing comes to life suddenly and viciously inside John's chest?

#steph replies #johnlock fic recs #possessive john #my fic recs #safebannie

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whatudottu · 3 years

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So I’m sure y’all (ben 10 fans specifically) know about the episode Inspector 13? And how Gwen couldn’t used her mana like she usually does?

Yeah, those are my thoughts today and I’m gonna talk about ‘em.

Let’s get this out of the way first, pure full Anodites will not have the same trouble that Gwen has, regardless of form. Basic reason here same as normal, they’re pure mana and Gwen is a fleshy human with a spark, so inherently there’s already a difference in the flow of mana.

But are other species capable of magic and mana manipulation?

Heck yeah!

Knowing what we’ve seen with Anodites already, sans Gwen of course, they’re the... uh... hmm let’s say playboys of the universe. Much in the same way that humans can’t keep it in their pants, Anodites don’t have pants in the first place and would definitely proliferate with life spanning galaxies. And just like with humans, there is a chance that any hybrid child of an Anodite can have the spark.

But does that mean that Gwen can use mana as each of the aliens she turns into?

Heck no!

At least not on first try.

Now let me explain. Humans have a filter on their flow of mana, one which Anodites don’t possess, but other species have that same filter. Why? Well, it’s their DNA of course, it’s what separates them from the pure energy beings of Anodites, the unfiltered raw flow of mana. This filter is there because while Anodites are filled with mana, a hybrid with a spark produces their own unique life energy that interacts and mingles with the flow of their mana.

But what does that mean for Gwen?

Given that the spark is not... uh... entirely genetic (there’s a need for an Anodite SOMEWHERE in the bloodline for the spark, but it doesn’t come up in DNA), it should exist through each transformation. But the issue here is that, while the spark stays the same, the filter wildly changes.

Gwen, as herself, is athletic and light on her feet, so her mana floats, twists and turns, and when solid, is akin to glass. But as Diamondhead, suddenly there’s more weight and less dexterity. There’s a difference that opens a new set of rules for Gwen that she’s never had to deal with, and just like at the start of her magic career, things don’t work exactly as they should.

I’m done with the whole analysis side of this thought, but the main reason why this is on my mind is because... well... I didn’t like how the show handled the differences in mana manipulation. It’s maybe a sneaky little episode rewrite, and maybe a little more interesting version of the ‘getting-used-to-another-person’s-powers’ trope... which I’m pretty sure is a thing. I don’t know I’ve seen it before a few times so whatever.

ANYWAY! Moving on to what I would’ve like to have happened, let’s go in order of Gwen’s transformations.

As stated (and is obvious), Petrosapiens aren’t very known for their light weight and dexterity, so one’s magic would reflect this. How this will affect their mana would turn the free flowing looseness of floating mana into physics based materialisation. But what makes this different to a Petrosapien’s natural crystalkinesis?

Let’s demonstrate with Diamondhead.

A falling Gwen would realise quick that her attempts at making platforms would fail, seeing them fall alongside her. However, producing these solid objects took nothing away from her physical levels of energy, meaning Diamondhead wasn’t growing fatigued unlike with typical crystalkinesis. Gwen would have the ability to form as much ‘crystals’ as she wants in order to keep her from crashing too heavily into the ground.

This use of mana is more so built upon traps, because they last a lot longer and barely need concentration to work. Used as a replacement for crystalkinesis, a Petrosapien ain’t gonna get very far, because these ‘traps’ work on everyone even if they can disperse the constructs. No, it’s better to stay away from the constructs because they amplify sonic waves (the mana vibrates as if like a tuning fork) and can create shatter explosions if struck the right way. For the latter, if y’all have seen the dude pressure plating a diamond, it’s like that.

Now, let’s talk about the second alien Gwen transforms into, Clockwork!

Chronosapiens are a little more robotic than Humans and Petrosapiens, especially Anodites, so their filter of mana is a lot larger. It is the fact that they are alive in the first place that let’s them use magic at all, but their mana capabilities are extremely limited. It’s like being trapped in a metal suit, where it’s hard to allow the internal spark to manipulate the external environment. But what if one doesn’t use external magic?

Clockwork can work like this.

Gwen may not manage to bypass the filter and create mana constructs, or even a flowing tendril, but she can find ways for her modified magic to work. Clockwork keeps the spark internally, so why not help that along with less offensive and defensive skills, and instead more utility casting. What does this mean? Flight, babes! But instead of the traditional sort of flight, Gwen finds that she can ‘walk on frozen time’ and ‘slip through the seems’.

Okay maybe that sounds a little too much like the Esoterica power set, but it’s not like seeing a fourth dimension and accessing the inaccessible. It may appear to be the same, but just like how people may perceive Clockwork to have super speed, even though he’s just slowed time for everyone else, it’s just a matter of perspective. But in general, learning to use mana outwardly would need more time than Gwen had.

Moving on to alien number 3, we have Humungousaur.

Now, in terms of filters, Vaxasaurians have a little more access to mana manipulation than Petrosapiens and especially Chronosapiens, but they have a whole lot of life energy due to their size, which has an effect on their spark. While the dexterity of their magic can be comparable to Human’s manipulation, the strength of it is quite limited, so while a Vaxasaurian may be dependent on their physical bodies for attack and defence, magic is just a bonus action.

So how would Humungousaur use magic instead?

Well, while Gwen would engage in a good old round of fisticuffs, she can use mana like a lasso/whip to trip opponents and yank them this way and that. And by ‘this way’ I mean directly into her punch, like you’re the ball of a paddle-board. It’s definitely more of an assistance type of magic, and it’s definitely not strong enough to support the weight of Humungousaur, but Gwen can control the battlefield by controlling the stability of the enemy.

Think hunting and gathering, this is where a Vaxasaurian’s magic thrives, where it helps with restraining and retrieval rather than attack and defence, they’ve already got THAT down. Prime Vaxasaurians, with their size increase, would lose the use of their mana when at max height, but Reboot Vaxasaurians can emphasise their tail shockwave with magic to make it even more deadly.

Up next is Upchuck, and boy is this an easy one.

Gourmands already have a natural relationship between themselves and energy, so someone with the spark can super enhance their energy bile. To the point where it’s almost unnecessary to actually eat anything to get at least some sort of fire power. Of course, with a Gourmand’s small squishy body, they are perfectly capable of throwing up defences (I swear that pun was an accident), but who needs defences when you’ve got a whole arsenal of explosive mana.

But there’s a little issue with Upchuck that Gwen has to get over.

The problem? Gwen’s a little self-conscious about a Gourmand’s abilities. Mana is the flow of life energy, so if the flow is restrained by embarrassment, it doesn’t act at its full potential. Upchuck can certainly try to use magic as a crutch to avoid needing to eat and spit her way in, but the free flowing stream cutting off is inhibiting the strength of her defence too.

SO! When Gwen finally caves and eats some metal, there’s enough power to blast a hole into the techadon factory big enough to get inside with time to spare. Aside from enhancing the blasting power of a Gourmand’s natural energy, the use of mana manipulation can change the ‘weaponry’ of the attack, which can turn into a gassy smokescreen (burp) and a sticky ball (loogie) to name a few. A Gourmand’s best strength is confidence, so Gwen would need to adapt her mana the same way.

And last but not least, we have Rath stepping up to the plate.

Now, Appoplexians are... rather straight forward and fight tooth and claw rather than strategically. They have a similar mana to life energy filter ratio to Humans, but that doesn’t mean that they’re just as magic friendly. Mana manipulation typically requires coherent thought other than the urge to beat someone up.

But Rath can use magic, and here’s how Gwen works it.

Cutting to the chase, there’s no range mana attacks, at all. For one thing, Rath would find it cowardly, another being that unlike ripping out a turret and throwing it at something else, there’s not enough brutal violence. And utility magic is not even considered. That needs some planning, and the only plan Rath has going into the fight is to WIN! And Gwen is not immune to the urge for violence.

So what happens instead, Gwen would accentuate a punch, slash or block with the extra kick of mana. Enemy fist approaching at 5 o’clock, t-minus 2 seconds? Mana armour. The techadon warrior is regenerating a little too fast for liking? Mana blade! Inspector 13 is being an annoying little techadon engineer with his constant downplay of their abilities? MANA PUNCH!

And after all that, Gwen gets to be in her own skin again. Some of the abilities she learnt that day don’t translate to her Human form. She can’t form crystal traps, she can’t slip between the seams of time, she can’t modify the properties of her mana. But some of the techniques she learnt can be adapted into her regular fighting. She can manipulate the battle field, she can construct armour on the fly.

But most importantly, she can see the differences of life energy, and how they effect magic use. Seeing a range of different mana manipulation, Gwen has unlocked a more open perspective on magic and can learn so much more, her expectations of Human magic pried open wide.

I think THAT would’ve been neat.

But instead we got same face syndrome not to rag on the episode haha.

#gwen tennyson #anodite #petrosapien #chronosapien #vaxasaurian #gourmand #appoplexian #ben 10 #Inspector 13 episode #headcanon #ramblings #a vague sorta #rewrite #but like not entirely #just a little bit of complaining but i just wanted to look at magic

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thatboomerkid · 3 years

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Giff -- SpellJammer Race for Pathfinder

Giff -- SpellJammer Race [19 RACE POINTS] for First Edition Pathfinder

Known to the gnomes of Markovia as the nilski konj vojnici, to the Hin plantation-owners of Covington Farms as los mercenarios gigantes del río, and to the human field-workers laboring near New Arvoreen most-often simply as “those big goddamn bastards,” the giff -- as they are called in their own guttural, roaring language -- represent a recently-contacted species of huge, violent, powerfully-built, terrifyingly-focused, and dangerously cagey combatants.

In the little-over-a-century since their discovery by the Hin, platoons of giff have already carved a bloody name for themselves across the wilds of Verdura -- and far beyond -- as unparalleled river-guides, rowdies, strike-breakers, mob debt-collectors, private enforcers, heavy-weapons units, siege engines, bodyguards, and elite soldiers of fortune.

Brought to you absolutely free to enjoy, to test & to share – as always – by the fine folks of my Patreon.

original image by the incredible Claudio Pozas, here

Type: Monstrous Humanoid (3 RP)

Ability Score Modifiers: Mixed Weakness (-2 RP)

+2 Strength, -4 Dexterity, +2 Constitution, -4 Intelligence, +2 Wisdom

Size: Large (7 RP)

Giff gain a +2 size bonus to Strength and a -2 size penalty to Dexterity (already included above). Giff also suffer a -1 size penalty to their AC and a -1 size penalty on all attack rolls; they gain a +1 bonus on combat maneuver checks and to their CMD, and suffer a -4 size penalty on Stealth checks.

A giff takes up a space that is 10 feet by 10 feet and has a reach of 5 feet.

Base Speed: Normal speed (0 RP)

Languages: Standard (0 RP); giff speak their own eponymous, curiously poetic language, and most are -- in the modern day -- also conversant in Low Kozah-Talosii (usually spoken with a thick, pompous Verduran accent).

This bastardized dialect, the so-called “Common tongue” favored across Pyrespace for use in international, intercultural, and interplanetary trade, is a degraded mongrel variant of High Kozah-Talosii: the ancient root-tongue of both Arvorean and Brandobarin, still employed by the Church of Yondalla for use in sermons, hymns, and in all official records.

Big Damn Guns: Giff are treated as gnomes for purposes of the Experimental Gunsmith Archetype. (0 RP)

Darkvision: Giff have 60 ft. darkvision (0 RP); giff have relatively poor eyesight while out of water, which is easily corrected with simple lenses -- such as a monocle -- for use while reading. This vision is not poor enough to impart a mechanical penalty on Perception checks or attack rolls made by the giff.

Natural Armor: Giff have +3 natural armor (4 RP)

Natural Attack (Headbutt): Giff receive one natural attack, which is treated as a gore attack that deals 1d8 bludgeoning damage. (1 RP)

Natural Swimmers: Giff have a swim speed of 30 feet and gain the +8 racial bonus on Swim checks that a swim speed normally grants. (1 RP)

Powerful Charge (Headbutt): Whenever a giff charges, it deals twice the standard number of damage dice with its headbutt plus 1-1/2 times its Strength bonus. (2 RP)

River-Sense: Giff can sense vibrations in water, granting them blindsense 30 feet against creatures that are touching the same body of water. (1 RP)

Slow On Land: Giff often select the Clumsy, Easy Target, Magically Inept, Nearsighted, and Slow Reflexes Major Drawbacks (0 RP)

Spell Resistance (Greater): Giff have spell resistance equal to 11 + their character level. (3 RP)

Sporting: The species-wide love of warfare exhibited by the giff draws a sharp line of distinction between “sporting” and “unsporting” combat (see below). (-1 RP)

Sporting combat includes arm-wrestling, fisticuffs, darts, cards, dice, checkers, chess, billiards, cricket, rugby, skeet shooting, tennis, and golf, alongside tests of boasting, carousing, headbutting, toast-giving, swimming, push-ups, and a complex, ritualized sort of thunderous, unarmed mixed martial-art performed solely while stripped down to breeches & undergarments, usually in ankle-deep to waist-deep water, ending in pin or submission, which -- up to a point -- also serves as a type of flirting.

The military mentality of the giff even makes special allowances for a variety of “sporting” duels to the death. Establishing a proper duel requires a huge number of complex ritual elements that -- in the end -- mostly boils down to both giff formally acknowledging that:

Both giff are armed with approximately the same quality of weapons & armor (warhammer, combat knife, pistol, full plate, etc.)

Both giff have equal access to military support, including healing

Both giff have a grievance, no matter how petty

Both giff are suffering approximately the same level of injuries

Both giff have made arrangements for their estate, and for the treatment of their body after death

Once a “sporting” challenge to the death has been agreed-to by both parties, anything up to and including outright murder of one’s opponent is considered fair game.

Several major holidays each year celebrated by the giff include a “violent dueling festival” as part of their celebration; to outsiders, these events have a very bizarre, genteel, 1800s-Victorian-Teddy-Roosevelt-meets-The-Purge sort of feel to them:

“Happy holidays, friend; best of health this year to you and to your kin. And I say, old chap, don’t suppose it’s high time for a kukri-duel, eh, wot wot? Seeing as you got drunk on my finest brandy, made a pass at the missus, wiped your prodigious buttocks with my table linens, and micturated in my hedge-row as of Christmas last, well ... in lieu of an apology, what say I have Jenkins fetch the carving blades, eh? See which of has the moxie, shall we? Cheerio and have at thee then, old sport?”

If this formal challenge to a lethal sporting-duel is declined, the challenger must make all possible accommodations to guarantee the immediate physical safety of the giff she just challenged (at least until such time as the two giff part ways once more): providing the giff with weapons, armor, food, water, medicine, reading materials, a place to sleep, liquor, smoking tobacco, and anything else a gentleman or lady of high breeding could reasonably expect to have access to (even while imprisoned).

In short: if the challenged giff dies immediately after declining a duel, it is considered very embarrassing for the challenger.

For his own part, the declining giff must treat her challenger with the very utmost level of respect ... or risk being guilty of unsporting conduct, a fate far worse than mere death.

Any giff who finds herself about to violate the terms of properly “sporting” conduct instantly becomes aware of the error, just as if she were wearing a phylactery of faithfulness and, at all times, actively contemplating the thought of doing bodily harm to another giff: this behavioral limitation is not built as a trap for players to accidentally stumble into, but -- instead -- as an interesting roadblock to navigate around.

If two or more giff find themselves forced into a position of armed conflict against one another on a battlefield, both groups traditionally retire for at least a day of drinking and sorting-out ranks; on rare occasion, one platoon will join the other; more likely, all giff involved in any part of the operation will quit their current hirings and look for work elsewhere.

Any giff who engages another member of her own species in any type of unsporting combat -- attacking another giff with a weapon, for example, or with magic -- immediately suffers a -2 penalty on all skill checks, ability checks, attack rolls and saves; she continues to suffer this penalty until such time as she is able to make amends: presenting her victim with a formal written apology, or seeking our her victim’s family to beg their public pardon.

Each month, this penalty increases by 2. Guilt is a poison that grows by degrees, after all: ever-gnawing.

While she is suffering penalties in this way, if the giff is presented with the chance to punish herself – or a non-giff opponent! – while presented with something that reminds the giff of her betrayal, she may find herself compelled to do so regardless of the consequences:

Any time her betrayal is directly brought to her attention, the giff must make a Will save (DC = 10 + her character level + the Charisma modifier of the wronged giff). Failure means that the giff falls into a rage of abject self-loathing, completely focused on her own guilt for a number of rounds equal to the DC, above. Until she has finished with this exercise in hate, the giff can take no action other than to harm the reminder of her failure or enable herself to harm it: grappling a human shipmate who mentioned her old friend so that she might headbutt the human while strangling them, for example, or calmly loading a shotgun so that she might shoot the human dead in cold blood.

Note that the giff, while wracked with guilt & grief, is not required to do anything or harm anyone: she may simply stare at an old photograph and feel sad, for example, ignoring everyone around her.

During the fury of this black tempest, the giff suffers a -2 penalty to her AC.

Once the giff successfully makes amends, either with the wronged party or with the victim’s next-of-kin, all of the above penalties are removed. Entire subsets of giff society -- mediators, arbitrators, and negotiators -- are explicitly adapted to making absolutely certain that any errors in sporting conduct among giff are resolved quickly, and to the satisfaction of all parties.

Should she fail to make amends before her death, any giff who has harmed another giff in an unsporting way invariably rises again as an undead horror of some kind (often a blood knight or graveknight): reborn as a rotting, lurching mountainside of infinitely destructive hated.

Note that the Sporting Racial Trait is not purely social, but rather acts as a species-wide ingrained psychological virtue: two giff living on Fenris who never expect to see the wide rivers of Verdura again are still bound by the rules of “sporting” conflict; neither could shoot the other in the back any more than either of them could grow wings and fly to the moon.

Undead giff do not possess the Sporting Trait, which is seen -- by living giff -- as the most abhorrent and disturbing quality imaginable.

Note, also, that the desire to behave in a sporting manner extends only to fellow giff: Chaotic Evil giff will routinely massacre unarmed non-giff by the thousands, bellowing with laughter as they do so, and even a Lawful Good giff will rarely think twice before sucker-punching a crude human making drunken threats and impolite remarks at the bar.

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Giff Timeline:

1603 A.D. (118 years ago): The colony of New Arvoreen is established on Verdura; giff make contact with Hin (and their human servants) for the first time.

1620 A.D.: First generation of giff who have always known about the existence of Hin, humans, and -- most importantly! -- firearms fully comes of age.

1636 A.D.: New Arvoreen is significantly expanded.

1667 A.D.: Nation of Markovia -- the technological-marvel nation named for its Founder, Monarch and Supreme Leader, Dr. Adlai Markovitch -- founded on Verdua; diplomatic trade established with New Arvoreen.

1669 A.D.: City of New Arvoreen significantly expanded.

1702 A.D.: New Arvoreen significantly expanded; land officially cleared for Covington Farms, soon to be the largest agricultural facility in the system; rates of forcible immigration of indentured humans to New Arvoreen tripled.

1721 A.D.: (current year)

original image here

Giff Ranks: Lieutenant, General, Colonel, Major General, Lieutenant General, Lieutenant Colonel, Captain General, Brigadier General, Field Marshall, Major, Captain, Sergeant Major, Commandant General, Wing General, Lieutenant Colonel General, Staff Sergent, Master Sergent, Master General, Grenadier General; note that “Lord” may be added to any military rank, alongside the designations of “First” and “First Class” (for example, “First Lord Brigadier General First Class”)

Giff military ranks are, effectively, meaningless noise to everyone except the giff themselves: every member of the species is a decorated officer of some complex rank within some elite military company or another, but such ranks are largely ceremonial and may be inherited, purchased, or passed through elaborate, bombastic ritual.

Further, the only thing preventing a young giff from forming an entirely new military organization & immediately naming herself -- of example -- Supreme Acting Field Commander and Secretary General of the Armies and Navies at Wartime is -- up to a point -- her own willingness to do so.

Male Giff Names: Any invented male Hin name.

Female Giff Names: Any invented female Hin name.

Giff Family Names: Any invented male Hin first name

Society

The giff are military-minded, and organize themselves into squads, platoons, companies, corps, and larger groups. The number of giff in a platoon varies according to the season, situation, and level of danger involved.

A giff "platoon" hired to protect a gambling operation may number only a single soldier, while a platoon hired to invade an illithid stronghold may number well over a hundred.

The giff pride themselves on their weapon-skills, and any giff carries a number of swords, daggers, maces, and similar tools on hand to deal with troublemakers.

A giff's true love, however, is the gun. A misfiring weapon matters little to the giff (occasional fatalities amongst soldiery are simply to expected); it is the flash, the noise, and the damage that most impress them.

Even unarmed, the giff are powerful opponents. Against non-giff, they’ll often wade into a brawl just for the pure fun of it, tossing various combatants on both sides around to prove themselves the victors.

Once a weapon is bared, however, and the challenge becomes “unsporting,” the giff consider all restrictions off: the challenge is now to the death.

The giff prize themselves as top-quality mercenaries, and to that end take great pride in owning -- if not always wearing -- elaborate suits of full-plate armor. These suits usually include massive helms featuring hyper-detailed, semi-realistic images of exotic monsters on the crests, inlaid with ivory and bone along the largest plates.

Armor repair is a major hobby among the giff, although great skill at the craft is surprisingly rare.

The giff are deeply suspicious of magic, magicians, and magical devices; their legendary foes, the Five Tiger Princes, are despised for their esoteric abilities as much for their wicked deviltry.

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Family

The giff are, for the most part, happiest among fellow members their own race, intermingling broadly with the Ghoran -- whom the giff utilize as an edible, inexhaustible workforce -- and the Tengu: another unofficial “servitor race” of the giff, most often used as messengers and household servants.

Ghoran living on giff lands are stoic: dutifully tending the fields of the giff in exchange for protection from ten-thousand other, vastly more predatory dangers. For all that giff treat the ghoran as disposable -- a ghoran living on Verdura produces one seed each year, and can grow a new member of the species in a single month -- the giff do not want the ghoran hunted to total extermination. That, for the ghoran, is saying something,

Tengu, on the other hand, are deeply prized by the giff as staff, usually in the roles of personal assistants, groomers, decorators, butlers, bartenders, man-servants, attaches, major domos, and maids. Since all giff are “wealthy land owners,” to one degree or another, the true power & prestige of a giff can be accurately measured by the number of tengu he employs.

Giff otherwise consider anything larger than them deeply threatening, yet also complain bitterly -- in private -- about the fragility of the smaller races. Outside their own platoons, the giff are happiest among military organizations with a strong chain of command.

For this reason, giff hold the Church of Yondalla in exceptionally high regard.

Giff especially despise the catfolk: although they don’t speak of it to outsiders, a century ago the giff were on the verge of extinction: hunted for sport and trophy by servants of the Five Tiger Princes, their people nearly cut to nothing and their lands held by only a few remaining families. Since their acquisition of firearms -- and the arrival of the Hin -- the catfolk have broadly retreated.

Every giff -- male, female, and giffling -- has a rank within their greater society, which can only be changed by a giff of higher rank. Within these ranks are sub-ranks, and within those sub-ranks are color-markings and badges. The highest-ranking giff gives the orders, the others obey. It does not matter if the orders are foolish or even suicidal: following them is the purpose of the giff in the universe. A quasi-mystical faith among the giff -- who claim to worship, in a vague way, the Golden General Bahamut, who was killed and eaten by the cowardly Five Tiger Princes in order to steal his strength -- confirms that all things have their place, and the place of the giff to follow orders.

This makes the giff very happy.

Giff platoons can be hired from their sprawling, palatial riverside plantations and mountain hunting-lodges by anyone looking for muscle. The social leaders among the giff are contractors: these specially-trained giff review prospective employers according to ability to pay, then make a recommendation to powerful warlords and famous adventurers among the giff. The leaders, in turn, consider the danger of the job, and whether taking it will enhance their giffdom.

Giff jobs are usually paid in firearms & gunpowder, though they often will accept other weapons and armor. Aboard ship, the giff require their own quarters, and will often request to bring on their own large weapons. They favor fire-projectors and bombards for ground work, and will happily blaze away at opponents regardless of the tactical situation.

The giff require the ships of others because they have -- for the most part -- no spellcasting abilities among them.

Giff of both sexes serve in their platoons, and both fight equally well. Giff young are raised tenderly until they are old enough to survive an exploding arquebus, then are inducted fully into the platoon.

The giff practice equality among the sexes in battle and in childrearing. They live about 70 years, but do not take aging gracefully. As a giff grows older and begins to slow down, he is possessed with the idea of proving himself still young and vital, usually in battle.

As a result, there are very, very few old giff.

#pathfinder #SPELLJAMMER #race #options #1st edition

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outbythehighwind · 4 years

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Tifa’s Fighting Style

One of the things that impressed me most about FF7R is Tifa Lockhart’s combat. Her mechanics were dazzling. Her combos left me awed. Her style was so realistic, but... what was it? Naturally, I did some digging, and happened to stumble across a blog where most of the work had already been done. So this post is courtesy of Flowerslightning, with thoughts and elaboration on my part. THANKS AND CREDIT TO THIS WONDERFULLY INSIGHTFUL BLOGGER (do check out her tumblr for more fantastic content).

First, let’s note that Tifa’s combat design is very much in the field of fighting games. To some degree at least, developers take inspiration from real-life arts. The style of Tekken’s Lei Wulong, for instance, is based on the Drunken First. Street Fighter’s Chun Li uses the model of Chinese Kenpo.

The FFVII devs - to my knowledge - have revealed nothing on Tifa’s inspired martial arts background. She adopted the monk style (the fisticuffs of FF-verse) from a traveler named Zangan. That’s all we know. She trained (obviously very hard) as his pupil for the 2 years between Cloud leaving Nibelheim and Sephiroth burning the town. Zangan then brought her to Midgar and continued his travels. The only path for discerning real-arts inspiration is through observing Tifa’s fights - though even such attempt is limited. Her style is not as straightforward as Lei’s or Chun Li’s. She seems to employ a mix of martial arts, specializing in the offense and using speed and dexterity to her advantage.

Here are the main styles that Flowerslightning deduced, supported by some of Tifa’s abilities.

1. Muay Thai [demonstrated by Somersault].

This is the known as the “Art of Eight Limbs” and is commonly referred to as “Thai boxing”. It differs from traditional kickboxing (which has its roots in Japan) most notably in being an 8-point instead of 4-point striking system. In other words, Muay Thai employs elbow and shin strikes in addition to kicks and punches. Tifa’s kicks, I would say, are actually more akin to kickboxing, for Muay Thai places emphasis on heavy kicks involving the shin bone. Yet her acrobatic style is very akin to the latter.

In addition to the key boxing techniques of both the Thai and Japanese art, Tifa’s elbow maneuvers provide further evidence for the former. This is most evident during her fight with Loz, where she uses her elbows for offense and defense. One could say she expanded her Thai-based skills during in the 2 years that followed saving the world.

Running a new bar and raising two under-10-year-olds would have left at least a... smidgen of free time, right?

2. Muay Thai [demonstrated by Refocus].

Some may suggest this move of Tifa’s is a Taekwondo technique (we’ll get to that lovable sport soon, don’t you worry), but I agree with Flowerslightning in that her jumping style is more Muay Thai. Almost all Muay Thai techniques use movement of the entire body, rotating the hip with each kick, punch, elbow and block. This to me is the obvious discerning factor. Tifa exquisitely throws her whole body into the majority of her combos and limit breaks, ground and aerial alike. Specifically through that neat hip rotation. Refocus is but one example of many.

PS. Don’t you just love her boots? The gloves are really something but, those red boots... Just look at them.

3. Taekwondo [shown in Overpower].

Literally the “Way of the Hand and Foot”, this is a Korean martial art set apart by its emphasis on kicks. Head-height kicks, jump spin kicks, swift kicks, the list goes on. (But of course, there’s plenty of hand blocking and take-downs too.) Did you know that Taekwondo is part of South Korea’s military training program as well as their national sport? Its skillset is heavy in self-defense.

Tifa is mostly an offensive attacker (and wow, do her strikes deal devastating damage). Yet her aerial maneuvers and acrobatic footwork certainly have elements of Taekwondo. What makes the Taekwondo kick-style unique is its elaborate, advanced forms. Xtreme 720s, for instance, are underpinned by precise technical soundness and accuracy.

Yes, these are literal 720° mid-air turns with a SERIES of kicks timed in utmost precision. They require extraordinary strength. Something Tifa deceptively pulls off with ease, no?

4. Hēi-Hǔ-Quán [displayed in Starshower].

Flowerslightning deduces this ATB ability to be a Boxing combo. Though to me it looks more like Hēi-Hǔ-Quán (lit. ‘Black Tiger Fist’, a Shaolin striking art from China). Watch her hands closely: the thumbs are curled like the fingers rather than wrapped around them to form a fist. Tifa’s wide stances and acrostic kicks are a little less tiger-esque than Hēi-Hǔ-Quán, but there is definitely resemblance of the style there too.

All in all, she seems to employ a mixture of Shaolin arts and Boxing. Her finger-positions for fast jabs (as in Starshower and the Loz fight) are predominantly of the Tiger Fist. Her more powerful strikes, meanwhile, include Boxing crosses, hooks and uppercuts. The sewer cutscene demonstrates this clearly, when Tifa & Cloud encounter the Sahagin.

And damn, do we love the back-to-back Cloti in that scene. Surely I’m not just speaking for myself here.

5. Boxing [displayed in Unbridled Strength].

Tifa’s aforementioned fist moves and powerful finishing punches are no doubt reminiscent of boxing. Also, she always enters a fight with her fists closed in a boxing stance (whether she will employ Shaolin or other hand techniques is irrelevant). Take her cutscene against the Whispers where she, Cloud and Aerith arrive at Sector 7. She begins with a cross and follows with a rotated hook - one of the most basic boxing combos.

BONUS FACT: Rather than orthodox, Tifa always employs a southpaw stance (right hand and right foot forward). This is the preferred stance of a left-hand fighter. Is Tifa left-handed? Considering her fighting alone, yes is the plausible assumption. Here are a few examples:

- Unbridled Strength has her delivering a finishing blow with her left hand. We would expect such a move to be done with the power hand.

- Her single strike that hurls Loz across the church is also with the left hand. This punch is not part of a combo; she could have used either hand.

- In guard position, her left is the rear hand, to both attack and protect herself.

- And of course, in southpaw stance, she always begins with a left-hand strike.

However, all of Tifa’s general actions (to my observance) - like bartending, catching Aerith in the sewer, carrying the Buster Sword into Corneo’s quarters, etc. - suggest that she is right-handed. So why use the left, the weaker, as her dominant hand in fighting? Could she actually be ambidextrous? That is a possibility. But weighing up the evidence in addition to Tifa's ingenuity, this could well be out of fighting strategy.

Southpaw can give Tifa a strategic advantage, you see, because of the tactical and cognitive difficulties her enemies would have of coping with a fighter who moves in a mirror-reverse of the norm. In other words, she takes advantage of the fact that most fighters lack experience against lefties. Doing this:

- opens up chance for a variety of surprise combos;

- puts her human enemies in danger of KOs by what would otherwise be ordinary strikes; and

- enables her to trick her opponents should she unexpectedly convert to orthodox during fights.

Pretty damn awesome, huh?

6. Gymnastics [dodging maneuvers].

Gymnastics, like fighting arts, enhances balance, strength, flexibility and agility - the four areas Tifa excels at. Now, we’ve talked a lot about her strong points. But what of her weaknesses? Players will have noticed immediately that Tifa has a major setback. She can accurately be described as a glass cannon, due to her low HP and defenses that counter-balance her speed and dexterity. That is precisely what makes playing as her so compelling; you get that sense of life or death intensity. The fight feels REAL. She is the least OP character in the party, in addition to by far being the most difficult to master. Utilized properly, she can be the strongest of them all. And wow, is that rewarding or what?

Because of her weak defenses, Tifa must constantly remain on the move, and gymnastics is the quintessential means in doing so. Hand springs, aerial cartwheels - you name it, she’s got it. As if those kicks and uppercuts don’t scream epic enough already. Doesn’t it just make her even MORE amazing?

So I’ve added Hēi-Hǔ-Quán to Flowerslightning’s conclusion: that Tifa’s combat is Mixed Martial Arts, with her dominant skills as Kickboxing, Taekwondo and Muay Thai. And of course, the interweaving of Gymnastics, which adds an elegance to her epic kickassery.

Tifa lost her teacher after just two years, and spent the last five managing & running a bar, serving as AVALANCHE’s funder & treasurer, and effectively solo-raising Barret’s little daughter. Add two more years, and we have a completely absent Barret, a very sick child in addition to the one she is (now permanently) raising, and a depressed, distant Cloud who has left her to struggle as a solo barkeep, full-time nurse and single mother. How on earth did she find the time and will to master her fighting techniques?

Yes, we are talking about fiction, but this woman is nothing short of incredible. Not simply as a fighter - that isn’t even the start of it. Tifa is, to me, the character who has had it the hardest. Yet she perseveres. And not only that, but she gives. She gives and gives, and doesn’t give up, even when everyone else around her has. In addition, she is the only ‘ordinary’ member of the party: Cloud, on top of military training, had his senses enhanced with Mako & Jenova cells; Barret literally has a gun for an arm; and Aerith as the last Cetra possesses exceedingly strong magic. Tifa, like with everything she does, worked hard to hone her skills. And that, to me, is incontestably admirable.

As Flowerslightning put it, she was “ready to go through hell and yet still remain soft”. And those virtues she held to, where most people would have quit. Compassion and perseverance to the end, the two traits that uphold her - to me - as the most inspiring hero of fiction.

#my analyses #tifa lockhart #combat #ff7 remake #ff7 advent children

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nuttyjellyfishlover · 3 years

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One Piece Anime Wano Arc Episodes 890

One Piece Anime: Wano Arc, Episodes 890 This honestly is less going to be a review and more of a commentary as I watch through the anime's rendition of the Wano arc. I've honestly never really watched too much of the One Pieceanime, mostly just looking up the highlights of the arcs I read in the manga. I did watch the filler episodes and most of the movies, as I've talked about at length recently. And everyone tells me that the anime has some rather terrible pacing, particularly around the time of Dressrossa, which is apparently pretty padded out. But then I heard the absolute opposite for Wano, where the anime has received a new art-style and one hell of a fancy makeover. And I thought... hey, I'm on a One Piece kick this year, clearly, so yeah, I think I'm going to give this a shot.

The Wano arc, I think, is one that works a lot better because it has the reverse problem of a lot of One Piece arcs -- there are a lot of moments in Act One of the manga's version of the story that the writer clearly purposefully threw in a couple of off-screened moments that the anime could expand into full action scenes. I already know that Sanji versus Page One is fully animated in the anime, and scenes like Big Mom vs. Kaido or Zoro vs. Basil Hawkins are extended a lot more than the couple of panels we had in the manga. And Wano's got a lot of supporting characters, some of which actually get swept under the rug when I first read through the manga chapters weekly. So yeah, having bright colours and voices and music is going to make this a much more fun experience!

Anyway, here goes my collection of random notes and commentary. Be aware that there will be MANGA SPOILERS, as I will point out a couple of things here and there about stuff I notice that's foreshadowing or whatever:

* Marco's blue-and-yellow phoenix form looks so, so much more vibrant and pops out compared to anything else in the series in colour, huh? I think out of any other character, Marco is extra-memorable in animated format. * That said, basically half this episode is just a recap of the Paramount War. I mean, I haven't seen the Paramount War in full animated format, so it's nice to hear Whitebeard and Ace and Marco speak some of their more famous lines there. But on the other hand, it's also it's kind of one of the more-criticized parts of the One Piece anime that any time they could pad out an episode with scenes from a previously-produced episode, they will. * We actually get to see the Grudge/Payback War in the anime! I think this is less of a showcase of events that actually happened and more of a symbolic one, but hey, we get to see Blackbeard doing some sky-quakes and black holes and Marco turning phoenix. It just shows the Whitebeard division commanders getting sucked into a giant Dragon-Ball-esque spirit bomb Black Hole. Actually pretty neat! * Jozu has both arms in that vision. Whether it's an error or a spoiler or if he has a prosthetic a la Akainu in Film: Z, we'll see eventually.

* This episode also has a bit of a recap of the revelations about Wano from the Zou arc, but it's a lot shorter and feels a lot more relevant to the upcoming arc. * Brook actually expresses some interest on Vivi, apparently having heard of her from the others. I've always liked this from the filler episodes, of the newer Straw Hats slowly learning about prior adventures. Brook being Brook, of course, a panty joke was tossed in. * The Japanese-art style water waves look so pretty when animated! * The random octopus that makes Japanese kabuki theater (?) sounds is another thing that works so much better in the anime. I've always thought it felt a bit forced and random in the manga version. * The high-tempo music when the Sunny sails into the koi waves is very, very fun! * Ah, yes, the very first chapter of Wano in the manga shows off a bunch of carps jumping up a waterfall. You know, considering the whole legend that a carp that jumps over the waterfall transforms into a dragon... i.e., a fish that is also a dragon...

* The first one that's properly and almost fully drawn in the new Wano art style! And it looks gorgeous. * Also a new theme song! I've never paid that much attention to theme songs in anime, but I definitely like "One Dream One Wish" more than "We're the Super Powers". Shame that, as with most anime, the opening sort of spoils, like, half of the things that happens in the arc. * Speaking of great background music... the tempo of that opening instrumental that Komurasaki plays on shamisen is pretty catchy, especially with that octopus going iyooo~ in the background. It also makes for very fun background music for Zoro's rampage at the end of the episode. * Anime Wano is so freaking colourful. The rooftops, the kimonos, the hair... I think I remembered reading that Oda made it a point to subvert the fact that everyone in feudal Japan had black hair by explicitly doing the opposite -- black hair is the exception rather than the norm in Wano. Fun! * The frog on Usopp's hat is a real frog! I always thought it was just a hat! It's adorable! The wiki tells me it's called Gama Pyonnosuke. It's an adorable friend! Forget Carrot or Kin'emon or Yamato, Gama Pyonnosuke for next Straw Hat! * The biggest expansion here is that we actually follow Zoro around as he wanders around the city until he gets arrested by the corrupt magistrate. And Zoro actually bumps into the man-slayer and corrupt magistrate, actually explaining why he recognizes the specific scent of blood during the whole seppuku court. * And then we get around a minute of Zoro fighting the magistrate guards with the seppuku knife and good ol' fisticuffs, something that I didn't think I needed, but is certainly very fun to watch! * This new animation studio loves the angled zoom-in into eyes, and I highly approve. I think we had that like at least three times when Zoro decides to get dangerous.

* I never quite realized that if Luffy hadn't been interrupted by the octopus and washed up next to the Thousand Sunny, the poor ship would be literally left to its own devices. You'd think after losing Merry, the Straw Hats would be more careful with their ships... * Zoro gets to slash the magistrates up even more! It's a single Tatsu Maki, but god damn what a pretty Tatsu Maki. The shot of his feet kicking and breaking the wooden floor, the black aura around his blades, the way that the dragon aura appears behind him, the demonic red eyes as Zoro slams down from the sky, and the shots of the surrounding terrain being cut up into cubes... pretty awesome! * Luffy dodging the bullet from the random Beast Pirate goon with Observation Haki and the gomu-gomu-long-range-bitchslap has always been cool in the manga, and this episode makes it even cooler. Those glowing eyes! This is going to be the whole commentary, isn't it? Just me commenting on the scenes I find to be really cool? * Luffy's Conqueror Haki against the giant baboon is another very cool one. From the expression to the delivery of the line to the sound effect... Luffy's expression is actually pretty cool and borderline scary as he beats up the second goon. No wonder Tama went straight into "This is the I surrender pose!" * Also added in the anime is a vignette of Franky, Robin and Usopp seeing the news of Zorojuro becoming a wanted criminal. Again, not entirely necessary to know the story, but actually scenes that I don't mind being shown to us. Particularly that scene of Usopp utterly bullshitting an officer. * Luffy pets Komachiyo with his rubber arms. Komachiyo is a good boy. This is the most important scene.

* Did the manga show Luffy hiding the Sunny and letting it anchor in a cave? I don't remember it. I know that before the flashback and the raid we see the Sunny there, but it's nice to actually show Luffy not being so callous with the Sunny. * They got a pretty good voice actress for Tama that really makes her pretty adorable! So many times these kid guest star characters end up being annoying if they don't get a good voice, but between the voice-acting and the expressions, she's pretty fun! * Also, I think this is going to be something I repeat a couple of times, but both Tama and Tenguyama are so much more visually interesting with their full colour palettes. * Oh, right, Drake was the one that ransacked Tama's village. Wonder if that'll actually come up later on in the story... * Okay, thanks to the anime, it's really going to drill to me that it's pronounced 'Diez Drake' and not 'Eks Drake'. * I'm pretty sure everyone noticed it, but Ace learned to weave hats in Wano! That's how he became buddies with Oars Junior! I didn't notice it until just now!

* (Episode is the Cidre Guild filler arc that ties in to Stampede.) * What is Tenguyama waiting for? It's probably Oden or his retainers, but I don't think he's part of the samurai that was recruited by Kin'emon's group. Maybe he just missed the big recruitment drive, but that's weird. I wonder what role he's going to play in the arc... * There is a random metal guitar riff when Luffy sees the Nidai Kitetsu. And a glow of Observation Haki on Luffy's eyes. That's a small detail, but very cool! He also uses Observation when Hawkins arrives later on. I love the little trail of glowing red that streams out of his pupils when he activates it. * Tenguyama's sword has a very cool leaf-based handguard! Never noticed that. * Speaking of cool Observation Haki effects, Zoro's apparently activates when he senses sake. Appropriate! * I know it's me repeating this over and over, and we'll get so many cooler scenes later on, but Zoro casually launching that Phoenix Cannon to blow up the two random raptor-riders when he saves Tsuru? Such a simple scene but still so cool. Also very cool is the very brief slo-mo as Zoro re-angles the pathway of his slice when cutting down the second random goon. * Unlike most of the other things, I've always noticed that Basil Hawkins has a very cool Koma-deer mount. It looks even cooler in motion!

* This is perhaps one of the more extended scenes, since it features... fight scenes! In the manga, I think this lasted... maybe half a chapter? Less? A couple of page spreads? It's not just the Hawkins fight, either, Luffy's 'swordfighting' with Nidai Kitetsu also gets extended. Luffy's a bit more successful in using the sword to block and parry here. * Luffy's voice actor really makes the 'de gozaru' sound really funny. * I 100% missed Tsuru the first time I read through this chapter since we only see part of her in a single panel before her full-body debut after the Hawkins fight, and it's a lot less likely that you'll make that mistake in the anime. * Some 'elite' goons show up here, including a guy that uses his ponytail as a whip against Zoro, and a dude that makes fissures with a hammer that fights Luffy. Probably feels a bit more filler-y compared to the rest of the action scenes, but that's honestly nitpicking. * Zoro launching a Phoenix Cannon that slashes Hawkins's face is very cool. * Hawkins' little straw dolls gets an extended scene of it crawling out of his arm. It's so creepy, I love it. * Hawkins' giant straw demon StandBankaigets an very cool summoning animation and it's so creepy. The skies darkens and everything. Most importantly, it makes noises! Again, I love it.

* Luffy and Zoro vs. Hawkins! It's extended beyond just the simple 'dodge, then one-shot-slash' that it was in the manga. I really like Hawkins and his creepy-ass Straw Stand, so I am a huge fan of this. We get a couple of nice juxtaposition shots of Hawkins and the straw monster. Also Zoro goes shirtless in the fight. That's an important detail! * I really, really love how Zoro is having a gritted-teeth expression as he fights the giant straw demon; the straw demon is going gakakakakakakaka like a lunatic... then we cut to Hawkins who has a deadpan, bored expression as he swings his sword in the distance. * The animators really like to let the straw monster use the nails entwined to the tips of its fingers. That's fun! Zoro backhand-blocking the nails from hitting Luffy and Tama? That's cool! * Zoro does Ichi-Gorilla-Ni-Gorilla at one point, and totally slices and 'kills' Hawkins a bunch of times. * Also, speaking of pretty, glowing-eyes motion shots, Zoro using Nigiri: Toro Samon? Yeah. The cut itself is cool, but the zoom-in on Zoro's eyes as he does so? I'm sorry, I have a weakness for that kind of shot, it appears. * To extend the fight so that it's not just a single exchange of blows, Komachiyo gets knocked to the ground so that Zoro and the straw demon can actually fight for a bit. * Also shots I have a weakness to? DBZ-style 'aftermath of a powerful move'. This one isn't too over-the-top, but the slash extending into the sky and the shockwave rippling out from where Zoro slices the strawman thing is cool. * We actually see the scene of Okiku being harassed by Urashima in chronological order, and Urashima scares off a customer. Also, the implied scene of Zoro scaring off Urashima is actually shown here.

* This episode kind of extends the scenes in Tsuru's shop a bit more. Not the most exciting thing, but it does really help to build up Tama, Tsuru and Kiku. * ...wait, Tsuru's shop just displays the Kozuki crest very, very evidently on its door awning. If simply speaking the Kozuki name alone is a punishable crime, how did they get away with that? * Zoro trying to get Luffy to adopt a Wano-ized name is extra-funny in the anime! * Speaking of extended fight scenes, Batman gets to shoot alotmore arrows at Luffy and Zoro. It's kind of over-the-top on Batman's part, if we're being honest, even if Zoro and Luffy very easily dispatches of them.

* The anime does give Batman the ability to control his arrows via sonic waves or something, but he lasted for a much, much longer time than he really should have. * Batman fucking blocks Luffy's Busoshoku-empowered punch! He most definitely doesn't do it in the manga, and sure, knocking Luffy down with sonic waves? I buy that. Blocking Luffy and causing a small explosion in the air? ...I'm pretty sure just some random Gifter isn't supposed to be able to do that. Unless they're thinking of the other Batman? * They make the initial shot of Holdem answering the phone with the lion face pretty intimidating! * Holdem's lion beating their shared balls is still one of the weirdest jokes in the manga. * Some really nice face shots in this one, from Tama to Holdem to the lion to Luffy's group.

* A pretty obvious extended filler is Urashima bullying other sumo wrestlers. Urashima is kind of a dipshit, so it's not a particularly enjoyable filler for me. * Zoro gets to sumo-wrestle with one of Urashima's goons! This one, on the other hand, is pretty fun. We also get a little added bit where Zoro smirks after remembering Kiku's earlier insistence that she's a samurai, so it's less of a 'he doesn't give a shit' and more 'he wants to see what Kiku's skill is' or something.

* Luffy vs. Urashima is prolonged a bit in here, obviously. Not as entertaining as fighting Hawkins or even Batman, but okay, sure. Lots of grunting and growling in this one. Urashima cheats a bit more, Luffy has to use Armament Haki at one point... really don't think Urashima's someone that you should bother using hardening on, Luffy. * The kabuki-style delivery of "I'm going to be the king of pirates" is very well done. * Poor Tama! Holdem's a jackass. * We actually get to see Urashima crashing into Holdem's house, in yet another obvious 'hey, anime team, this is something for you to animate' scene from the manga. * Law gets an extended scene with seeing the sick Bepo, including a Room/Scan showcase and Bepo looking cute and Law being unable to keep being angry at him.

* The fight against the pirates and samurai in Bakura Town gets extended a fair bit in this episode. Luffy throws Nidai Kitetsu's scabbard around again, repeating the thing he did before. * This episode noticeably has a bunch of brief flashbacks to previous episodes. Anime episodes do this all the time to easily eat up like, ten or fifteen seconds of runtime. But I felt this one was particularly noticeable since it's to the previous episode which we already had a recap segment of before the episode begun. * Ball-de-boo!

* We get an adorable crayon drawing memory when Luffy remembers Zunisha one-shotting Jack's fleet. * Luffy and Zoro's synchronized neck-crick is pretty fun. Also fun is their super-speed when they simultaneously rescue Tama and steal the food barge. The question is, where is this super-speed when they were bamboozled by Batman and Gazelleman? * Unlike the anime, Holdem is able to turn his sword into a flaming segmented sword. It's like Zabimaru from Bleach, but on fire! * We get an extra scene of a random goon holding Kiku hostage and Zoro locking eyes with her and saying "I'm not going to help you", knowing full well she's pretending to be a damsel in distress. * Speed also gets to do something here! She gets to shoot Armament Haki'd arrows at Zoro and Kiku! In the manga she doesn't do anything while this is happening. * REDDO HAAAAAWK! * God damn that's a very satisfying Red Hawk. Such a pretty-looking one! This was the scene that a friend showed me that got me excited to sit down and watch the Wano arc in anime format. From Holdem shooting a lion's fire (how does that work?) and engulfing Luffy, to Tama's yelling, to the zoom-in to Luffy's angry eyes, to the orb of flame dissipating, the zoom-in to Luffy's angry face, the impact, the music... it's just Luffy beating up Holdem, who means jack-all in the grand scheme of things, but what a badass Red Hawk.

And I think that's a neat place to stop off, with the initial Hawkins-Urashima-Holdem opening prologue to Wano done with. I'm not sure how often I'll update this little watch-along series, but I certainly am enjoying myself!

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thecringefailintherye · 3 years

Text

Oliver! (1968) Live (re) watch!

i have already seen oliver!, but not in ages, so i decided to watch it again, enjoy

very long post warning

fuckin hell these opening credits are LONG

i love the fact instrumentals of songs in the movie are playing

i have chocolate popcorn, apple lucozade and oliver! on, life is good

yes i know mark lester is oliver ive seen this like 20 times can i watch the film now

OH ABOUT FUCKING TIME

god is love

IS IT WORTH THE WAITING FOR IF WE LIVE TILL 84 ALL WE EVER GET IS GRUELL

i forgot how much of a banger food glorious food is

LOOK AT BABY MARK LESTER 🥺🥺🥺

ads in middle of movie be like

its harry secombe!

AMENNNN

oliver gets bullied the movie

look at this poor kid

MOREE????????

oh yes oliver i love this song

O L I V E R

poor kid

without any bannister yikes

the one who named him........O-L-IV-ERRR

oh were outside now

olivers just been kicked out oh shit

but on the plus side he has a cute ass hat on

BOY FOR SAY AL

look at oliver 🥺 he deserves better

SOWERBERRY MORE LIKE SHITTERBERRY

theres a severe lack of thats your funeral and i shall scream

noah claypole more like noah clayprick

“perhaps... if i had a tall hat?” BABEY

HES GOT HIS TALL HAT ON YES OLIVER

oliver said dab on them haters from your old gaff youre a funeral advisor now and theyre still homeless

DONT INSULT HIS MUM FUCK YOU NOAH

YES OLIVER KILL HIM

yes stuff the nine year old in a coffin and sit on it well done

"OLIVAH ??" "Yes im here: ((("

ITS MEAT!

oliver deserves better man

im gonna cry and were like 25 minutes in.

ik its not mark singing but whoever it is CAN SING WTF

i want to give him a hug

OH SHIT HES RUNNING AWAY

hes in the lettuce

LONDON YOU MADE IT !

yes oliver trains exist

DODGER!!!

whach you starin at aint ya ever seen a toff

the beak

look at lil jack wild

me more hintimate friends

cockney accent™️

the artful dodga

CONSIDERR YOURSSELF AT HOEME COSNIDER YOURSWLF OEN OF THE FAMILY !!!!!!!!!!

im sorry i love this song

look this scene is awesome, but it would be COMPLETE with charley oh wait he was demoted to extra and everything interesting abt him was given to dodger

he should have gotten the nobody tries to be ladeeda or uppity bit I WILL DIE ON THIS HILL

this cast is BIG

okay i am a Charger Enthusiast but do we all agree there is something oddly homosexual about oliver and dodger in this song

note how dodger is scared of the police FORESHADOWING

ive taken to this SO STRONGITSCLEARWEREGOINGTOGETALONG

how many extras is this ???? yall better be gettin paid

its dodga comin up

this set is sraight out of the book i love it

CHARLEY MATE IM SORRY THEY MADE YOU AN EXTRA

“oh not again” does dodger just always show up with random workhouse kids

ah yes fagin the character whos still a negative jewish stereotype

more and more big cast

THESE SAUSAGES ARE MOULDY! (am i going to freak out whenever charley does anything because i love him? yes)

stfu drink your gin

is this a laundry?? no fam

THE BEST FUCKING SONG IN THIS MUSICAL

IN THIS LIFE ONE THING COUNTS

sorry if i dont add to this until pick a pocket or two is done bc its a straight banger

this song is EVERYTHING

hard at work lol ok

did he make those himself??? no

couple a wipes

EMBROIDERED THEM??? no

petition for all oliver twist adaptations to refer to charley as master bates like the book and for him to have actual lines and not have his actor switched at least three times

i dont even now who charley is at this point because his actor is switched many a time im just gonna say purple blazer kid is charley

anyway charley bates supremacy

whos bill sikes??? NO

fuck bill all my homies hate bill

rum tum tum is a banger

go bed now

take your hat off in bed dodger

movie fagin has rights

fagin leaving where will he go

BET IS THAT YOU

FUCK OFF BILL NO ONE LIKES YOU

NANCY NANCY HES HERE !!!!!! bet deserves everything and more ily 💖

NANCYYYY!!!!!!

its a fine life more like its a banger

wheres all of bets lines gone

bet 🤝 charley (being demoted to extras)

its not funny anyore bet.. bet girl please sing youre the best fucking thing about this song

such a happy song about domestic abuse

THERE SHE IS THATS MY GIRL BET I FUCKING LOVE YOU

bullsye rights!

i hate how this movie made fagin more symathetic but he’s still a “greedy jew” stereotype

oliver?????

at this moment fagin knew he fucked up

nancy you deserve better than bill

oh hi dodger forgot you existed

and the rest of you except oliver

ah yes charley “sausages” bates i missed you

THESE FUCKING KIDS THEY ALL LOVE BET AND NANCY MY HEART

im a regular gent i am. no dodger you arent

why is “permit me to assist you across the road” so fucking funny

pov dodgers back on his bullshit so you have to pretend to be a horse and cart for him

not “sir artful” 😭😭😭

anyfink for youu

WHAT FISTICUFFS???!!!

i feel sorry for the child extras man theyve prob had to film this scene like ten times

THESE KIDS CAN SING

the boys dancing with eachother is too fucking wholesome i love this

again, movie fagin rights

weed riissk lifee and limmbb

you promised we could go see the angin!!!!!

ats on boys time were off

THIS IS MY FAVOURITE SONG

HOW COULD WE LET HOW COULD WE FORGET OUR DEAR OLD FAGIN WORRY!!

mate that aint single file did you not hear him

am i the only one who can hear london bridge is falling down in the back??

our pockets hold a watch of gold that chimes upon the hour!!! a wallet fat an old mans hat!!! the jewels from the tower!!!

WE KNOW THE NOSEY POLICEMEENNNN

dodger and charley (i am SURE charley is purple blazer kid even if havent seen this film in ages) are GETTING INTO THIS

oliver 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺

movie fagin rights pt 27238227

DODGER OLIVER COME ON!!!!!!!!! alright dude chill

ARE YALL SEEING THIS SHIT, I WAS RIGHT, I TOLD YOU THAT THE LAD IN THE PURPLE BLAZER WHO SINGS “a wallet fat an old mans hat” WAS CHARLEY BATES AND GUESS WHAT HE FUCKING IS. I WAS RIGHT, PURPLE BLAZER KID IS CHARLEY YOU CAN LEAVE NOW

no dont were only an hour in

three kids on the back of the omnibus what will they do

dodger and charley said be gay do crimes

ah shit now look what youve gotten us into dodger

IT WASNT EVEN OLIVER IT WAS CHARLEY AND DODGER GO AFTER THEM

are dodger and charley straight up framing oliver for a crime they commited while also helping him escape

yes they are why are we surprised

i hate to break it to you dodger but hiding oliver in a meat sack doesnt work

OLIVERS ON THE ROOF????

charley and dodger got oliver into this mess and they are not going to get him out

WHY DIDNT YOU LOOK AFTER HIM????? right calm down fagin

how could i help it :((((

no bill!

stan nancy

“two other boys stole it” no shit

BROWNLOW !

run bitch run

right intermission time now

AND WE’RE BACK!

entr acte

who will buyyy

strawberry girl is carrying this

oliver owns my heart pt 278983728938728

this is a banger wtf

okay its done now right

right?????

UHH BILL???? DODGER???? BITCH WHY TF ARE YOU HERE

have bill fagin nancy and the boys been stalking oliver???

NO SHE WONT FAGIN!

shit.

fuck bill

this scene is far more sadder when you think of how the boys have just seen the only woman they see as a mother figure been hit to the flo or, im not crying, you are

as long as he needs me :(

FUCK YOU BILL

rose maylie is that you?!

look at lil oliver!!

BILL FUCK OFF

i hate bill

“look at his togs! he’s got books too!” charley and dodger are my emotional support kids

anyway have i mentioned i hate bill, bc i hate bill.

I REALLY REALLY HATE BILL

even fagin aka the guy whos keeping these kids as pickpockets has more morals than bill

WE STAY CALM!!

no bill i havent heard a dying chicken

act one was just childish antics now we have THIS

fuck bill

YOURE TELLING ME THE BOYS WATCHED THAT????

jack wild is a banging actor. he genuinely looks terrified 🥺

this film..

a mans got a heart hasnt he?? yes you do!!!

a full song dedicated to movie fagin rights?? did i ghostwrite this?? probably

banger

ithinkidbetterthinkitoutagain!

villains theives and nine year olds

MR BUMBLE?????!!!!!!!!!!

fuck bill pt72898376728909878199

bill youre traumatising him

cmon nance do something!!

also completely forgot abt this but uh does monks exist in this i forgot bc we have had no mentions of him yet

nancy tell him who bill is!!!

bullseye deserves better

uhm what is going on

bill sikes more like bill yikes

oliver what are you doing

BILL TERRIFIES ME

FUCK

omg oom pah pah????

leave oliver alone bill hes like nine

oh banger

OOM PAH PAH THATS HOW IT GOES!!!!!!!!!

just asking are nancy and bet lesbians bc they look it

COULD IT BE OOM PAH PAHHHHHH

god i love this song

IT SHOOOOOWSSSSSS

its the same oom pah pah

“She was from the country but now shes up a gumtree she let a fella feed her then lead her a long” foreshadowiinnggg

OOM PAH PAH! OOM PAH PAH! OOM PAH PAH!

nancy is so fucking smart

getting the whole pub singing and dancing to smuggle out oliver? clever

fuck

bill.. no.. bill.. bill????

FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKC

BILL GET OFF HER

NANCY NO

HE STRAIGHT UP COMMIT MURDER AGAINST THE NICEST CHARACTER

BROWNLOW DO YOU NOT HEAR NOTHING

nancy deserved a better death than to be killed by bill fuck bill

EVEN BULLSEYE HATES YOU BILL

ARE THEY ACCUSING BULLSEYE OF MURDER

FUCK YOU BILL

movie fagin rights + fuck bill combo?

youre telling me fagin had an ESCAPE ROUTE??? AT THE BOTTOM OF THE HOUSE THING??? THE WHOLE TIME???

BILL DONT KILL THE CHILD

BILL

fuck, well. #

“WHAT DO I DO!?” “LIVE UP TO YOUR NAME, DODGE ABOUT”

ten quid says dodgers been caught

oh no all fagins shit is gone

BILL DONT KILL THE CHILD PT 2

FUCK YOU BILL

GOD I HATE HIM

OLIVER MATE ARE YOU OK

never have i been so happy to see a character die

rest in shit bill

hi dodger thought you got caught n went to australia

god, this film is so fucking good.

reviewing the situation 2.0 goes hard

MOVIE. FAGIN. RIGHTS!

FAGIN YOU CAN BE A GOOD MAN YOU KNOW YOU CAN

DODGER??????????

IM TOTALLY NOT CRYING RN

FAGIN NO DONT TAKE IT

FUCKING PLOTTWIST

IT MADE IT LOOK LIKE FAGIN WAS GONNA GIVE THE WALLET BACK TO DODGER BUT NO

once the villain you’re the villain to the end

i completely forgot abt this scene since i’ve been reading the oliver twist book and in that dodger gets arrested and fagin gets hanged but here they get away?

god this is bittersweet

I THINK WE’D OUGHT TO THINK IT OUT AGAIN!!!!!

thats where the film should have ended, i get olivers the main character but it ending on dodger and fagin walking out into the sunset is such a pleasing ending man

oliver gets his happy ending abt time

YES CONSIDER YOURSELF AND BE BACK SOON (THE BIGGEST BANGERS IN THE FILM) CREDITS SONGS!!

well.. that was a journey and half

#oliver!#oliver twist #oliver #oliver! 1968 #oliver 1968 #charlie’s comfort movies #oliver twist 1968 #oliver! the musical #oliver the musical #musicals #1960s #1960s movies #60s #mark lester #jack wild #oliver reed #ron moody #shani wallis #and everyone else in the huge ass cast

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rahleeyah · 4 years

Note

so like...what firsts do YOU think lucien gave jean? and did jean give him any firsts?

This is such a good question, and I loved @gabolange‘s answer, not just for the thoughts on Jean’s sexual life but also for how the answer opens:

“First airplane. First trip outside Australia. First truly fancy dinner. First expensive lingerie. First set of checks she could write and always know they would clear. First washing machine.“

Yes! Hot damn! All of that!! I want to cosign that.

Moving on to my interpretation, then -

I want to say: first dream come true. Jean’s had a lot of dreams in her life, but she’s had a lot of disappointments, too. She never got her daughter, her husband never came home from the war, she never got to see the world (before Lucien). She lost the farm. She had dreams for her boys, every mother would, and while Christopher has grown into a stable, respectable young man - one who found a love sincere enough for him to buck against his mother’s prejudices and expectations, a love so strong that he defends his wife in the face of his mother’s disapproval, a love that matters to him so much he spends an entire episode on the verge of fisticuffs with various people because he just wants to call her - he’s still a soldier, which I feel certain Jean never wanted him to be, and their relationship is perhaps not as warm as she would have hoped, once. And Jack...well, no mother dreams of a son like Jack, or a future like his for her children. I’ve often wondered if, when Mei Lin showed up, Jean felt as if she weren’t meant for happiness at all, as if every attempt she had made to grab hold of it was predestined to end in failure. As if that is simply her lot in life. But. She gets Lucien, in the end. Her dream comes true - she gets to marry him, to be his wife, achieves that dream she’s longed for. And ghost stories, while beautifully made and acted, never happened bye.

I have written Jean experiencing oral for the first time with Lucien before. I’m not not particularly dedicated to that being a gospel truth of their relationship, however. Like gabolange said, it would be unnecessarily cruel to assume that Jean’s experience with sex is limited or unfulfilling, and I don’t think the text supports that premise. I have never interpreted Jean’s words about Christopher and her life before Lucien to mean that Christopher was anything less than a good husband to her. And sex, good sex, fun sex, sex with someone you love, and know intimately, and have had sex with many times - as it would be with Jean and Christopher - isn’t about what you know going into it, or what you’ve been taught; it’s about what you uncover together. And I think Christopher and Jean uncovered plenty.

And what I think is more fun, then, what is so meaningful and beautiful to me, is not the idea of Lucien being the first person to introduce Jean to oral, but the first time they did it together. The first time they do each of these things - hug, properly, kiss, touch, fuck in various ways and locations - may not be the first they’ve ever done those things in their lives, but it’s the first time they do them with each other, and that is so special, and so beautiful. So I think they have a million firsts, in the bedroom and out of it, together.

As for what Jean gave to Lucien; I think she was maybe the first person who gave him acceptance. In the beginning she is not particularly accepting towards him at all, wanting to force him into the box of her expectations, but she grows across the series, and the way their relationship grows with her is beautiful. By the time they’re married she knows this man. She has seen him drunk, and weeping, and broken, seen him vengeful and compassionate, seen him on top of the world solving a case and seen him getting it so, so wrong. And by the time they’re married, she isn’t asking him to be anything other than what he is. Lucien has felt turned away by his father, and his political beliefs and some of the things he has said make me wonder if he felt out of place in the Army, too. Mei Lin is such a fascinating character, but we know so little about her. What we do know is that she came from an important family, one to whom appearances mattered. She is refined in a very particular, society kind of way. She begs him to leave Ballarat (which like, can’t fault her for that, I wouldn’t want to stay there if I were her, either), never quite seems to understand who he is now, and she certainly doesn’t seem to want it. Which makes me wonder, how much of their relationship was predicated on appearances and expectations, before. I think they loved one another, truly, but Lucien has grown so much in the time they were apart, and I have often wondered what a younger, pre-imprisonment Lucien must have been like. If he was more arrogant, more wild, more...just more. And maybe Mei Lin doesn’t want to see the changes, doesn’t want to see his weakness, his grief, his vulnerabilities; maybe it brings up too many bad memories. Maybe it is too different from the way it was before. With Jean, he can be honest, he can be vulnerable, he can be less than perfect, and she loves him anyway, for all that his is. She is his home, now, a safe place for him to land. She sees him, and she holds out her arms to him, anyway.

But perhaps you’re looking for more solid answers than that? I think Lucien gave Jean her first real diamonds. I think Jean gave Lucien his first hand-knitted jumper. I think Lucien gave Jean her first trip to the opera, and I think Jean gave Lucien his first proper lessons in gardening. I think Lucien gave Jean her first night out at jazz club, and I think Jean was the first person to touch the scars on his back with tenderness, even if the scars are an entirely fanon fabrication you can pull them out of my cold dead hands, I’m certain they’re real at this point.

Now, anon, come back and tell me what firsts you think they gave to one another.

#anonymous

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athela-3 · 3 years

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Rank each Go Home Club Overdose ability?

Ooooh, that's a fun question aight! I assume you mean their weapons as well as their ultimate catharsis overdose things? Lessee… Better put this under the cut, this is gonna get long~

Eiji: Has the same whip-cane thing as Stork, so that’s questionable enough as is. His ult is neither impressive nor bad, though his moveset is pretty useful if you can stomach having him around. Gets style points for the Glasgow grin, but deducted again for the Venom tongue. 5/10.

Naruko: Tbh, not sure what’s going on here. Sure, the Ostinato guys got speaker turrets too, but Naruko randomly has those and I feel like they missed an opportunity to give her something cooler. That said, I like watching her blank 🙂 face when she begins her ult, and also the tummy-tackle move. 6/10.

Kotaro: Ah, good ol' fisticuffs. Ngl, at first I thought he had like machine gun arms, but nope, they're gauntlets. I like pairing him with Kotono and watch 'em juggle enemies. His ult… I don't even remember what it's like. Uh-oh. Not a good sign. He's aesthetically just eh, but at least he's unique. 6.5/10.

Ayana: Taser shield’s a creative choice, I’ll give her that. Girl really said “what if Captain America, but make it electro?”. Granted the animation’s a bit funny for when she just shoves it in your face, but her ult is a ground pound and that’s neat. Overall not bad, I just think it coulda been even better somehow. 7/10.

Kotono: Graceful lady archer with healing? Gotta admit, that didn't appeal to me at first, it felt kinda clichéd and boring. But once you discover her full damage potential, hoo boy~ Fitting for her character arc, I suppose, heh. Also, her ult is awesome, with the crucified hero villain shot and all. 7.5/10.

Kensuke: His Musician form had a weird claymore, but it looks cleaner, if a bit plainer, once he's recruited. I love when he goes aerial beyblade on enemies, and when he hums his theme song during his ult? Perfection. Also has an interesting playstyle since he’s so reliant on counter-attacks. 8/10.

Suzuna: Not really sure why she has a polearm, but maybe it’s the closest they could get to a broom regarding her witchy theme? Anyway it’s fun watching her jab someone repeatedly in her first move, just poke poke poke poke away~ Her ult is where it gets really interesting, maybe a little edgy but c'mon, that's so cool! 8/10.

Mifue: Hehe croquet mallet go bonk~ The sheer cartoonishness of it goes beyond silly and right back to hilariously amazing, especially when she fires up her ult. Super fun, plus she’s also a great enabler to set up for maximum damage. 9/10.

Protagonist: Ah, yeah, the dual-wield pistols. Such a classic choice. Versatile skillset, if slightly "jack of all trades, master of none", but that's exactly what makes 'em useful. Ult animation is pretty cool, and I still catch myself saying "kore wa... OWARI DA!!" sometimes when playing other games. 9/10.

Izuru: How did he manage to be that edgy without being cheesy? Look at his sword, his half-mask, all his acrobatic flips and extra gestures! But he owns it, somehow; his ult is about the only place where it gets a bit narmy with the whooshing stabby bit but it's oddly charming. Also, extremely useful to bring around. 10/10.

Shogo: Look. Look, Imma hand it to you straight, I'm biased here. Shogo is my absolute fave of the entire cast. That said, what's not to love about his revolver? That sweet, sweet damage output? The ultra cool ult animation?? When the game said he synergises well with the MC, they ain't lyin', mate, there’s a solid lead and co-lead vibe going on, during combat and outside. 11/10.

...so yeah, I did say it’s gonna get long. Thanks for asking! And congratulations for surviving the text wall~

My standard team, for the record, is MC (mine’s named Chiaki), Shogo, Izuru, and one of Mifue/Kensuke/Kotono depending on situation; NG+, I like to take Shadow Knife around as the fourth squadmate. Most days, Chiaki’s a support/enabler, Shogo picks up his combos as burst DPS, and Izuru is my main carry DPS.

#ari answers #uniqueheropandapainter #caligula overdose #ari plays caligula

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danwhobrowses · 4 years

Text

One Piece Chapter 986 - Initial Thoughts

That’s some good juice there, though I still have some reservations Chapter 986 has its translations at last and it’s time to see what made the editor cry

Spoilers for Chapter 986, Support the Official Release

Dang they did Pound dirty like that, he finally reunites with his family and they are just put into such an overload that they bounce in disbelief

We begin with Kin’emon and Denjiro strangely having done a full rotation around Onigashima to meet up with the other Scabbards, I guess only half of their unit raided each side of the dome

Kanjuro’s limp body lay as nostalgia gets the better of the Scabbards, though I still am not sure I believe it, why show the cut hand? If he is dead (his paintings did disappear) then I’m fine with that too, it’s just dead bodies don’t tend to “POF” when being walked past...okay so maybe the week has gotten to me, turns out Kin dropped his hat over Kanjuro’s head, still reserve that he may not be dead yet

Izo here though to lift spirits, saying you’ve survived worse though...The Payback War leads to questions but that is a red flag

Back to Kaido’s ultimatum though, it’s unsurprising that Orochi’s men would join Kaido, they weren’t really one for respecting the Kurozumi, though the Oniwaban and Mimawari do seem to have doubts, interesting too was how Kaido acknowledged and respected if the Samurai refused to join him

Hyou however is about to throw fisticuffs over this dishonour, it does make me wonder though, could I really fault Orochi’s forces for choosing to live under a strong banner than die for an honor code you could still personally live by?

Things are not looking good for Nami and Carrot, who have been collected by Big Mom’s new homies and probably gonna be used as bait, I would have to guess that someone steps in for them, Sanji is the obvious choice but how’s about Robin, or Brook! He can Soul King those Homies away and he and Franky have been AWOL for months

Meanwhile Shinobu becomes accounted for as she charges in to rescue Momo

The Kozuki heir himself is given a lifeboat by Kaido though, his growing disappointment in Momo reaching a point where he doesn’t even want him to be Oden’s son, so he gives him the chance to leave that shadow, In a way it’s the same ultimatum as Orochi’s forces: dishonour your culture to live, or die

Yamato is getting kept up to speed too, now they know that Oden’s bloodline lives on and so do his retainers. I wonder if it changes them in any way, they wanted to ‘be Oden’ partly to achieve Oden’s will because they thought nobody else was left

The cuffs actually come off at last, seems that Luffy still needs to focus a little to use his Goken Armament, but at least we won’t faff about with that. It’s strange that Yamato as strong as they’re implied was so surprised by it too

News of Luffy and Yamato’s presence though has begun a convergence, Ulti and Who’s Who pictured (wonder where Drake, Maria and Pay-Pay are), Usopp and Chopper are now going in to save Momo from what looks like the storage room, Chopper seems to imply they’re around the numbers so that means God Usopp’s gotta slay some giants

We get a Supernova shot as well; Law be sneakin’, Kid looks a bit bloodied but having fun and Zoro is still not trying to exert himself. Only ones missing are Killer, Drake, Apoo and Hawkins for it to be all the Wano Supernovas (unless Bege somehow ends up in Wano from the cover story)

Thinking of Luffy and his parents, Momo refuses Kaido’s life boat, declaring himself to the world and finally cementing his goal, he wants to be Shogun, and he basically does it the same way Luffy does his Pirate King speech

Kaido did not like that though, and the crowd laugh at his ‘foolishness’, but as a blow is about to be made Yamato’s cuffs blow up! Kaido really wasn’t kidding

So of course, as any child would if they discovered that their parent had legitimately imprisoned them with explosive cuffs, Yamato denounces Kaido as their father. Though they are really choked up about it, the last panel of their hand is weird too

Luffy with the nicknames, Yama-o. I dunno if it’s some joke, Yama is a god of death but that’s as far as my knowledge goes XD turns out it’s just the same a Tora-o, so it’s Yama-guy. Luffy respecting them pronouns even though I’m not certain if Yamato still identifies as he, would be an SBS one for clarification

Luffy does that badass bait and switch ‘the raid has started, but not for us!’ - From the Back come the scabbards as Jack is given a blast from the past

Izo quickly disarming King was surprising, Neko disarming Kaido was even more

Mid Brag though Kaido sees it, the image of Oden before he was last cut, he still tells his men to be ready but he’s off the balcony already thanks to Kin and Denjiro’s lunge

Sunacci In Fucking Deed!

A big chapter of course, we are officially starting the raid now But it is still very crowded, and we haven’t even seen Brook and Franky, let alone Caribou, Apoo, Jimbei, Robin, Sanji, Hiyori, Drake, Marco, Perospero or Killer in this chapter. Straight off the bat I am still unsure if Orochi or Kanjuro are dead, I feel there may be more to it, but maybe the Nine Scabbards prophecy by Toki wasn’t for Orochi but for Kaido, and it is he who will know the brilliance of the dawn? This chapter mainly belonged to the Scabbards and Momo, the latter finally gaining his courage in the face of death. The Luffy and Yamato stuff was a bit simple, I am still not on Team Yamato for Nakama and Luffy getting their name wrong feels like it could be a hint (I can’t remember, has Luffy every gotten the name of a future crewmate wrong?) but who knows at this point Usopp and Chopper have Numbers to deal with, Law, Kid and Zoro are walkabouts, Nami and Carrot are captured, Sanji nowhere to be Stealth Black’d, it’s not even by the slightest bit evenly matched given that two Yonko are here. And while I expect Shinobu to make it to Momo, I don’t expect Kaido to be killed by the Scabbards like that.

But alas, I did not cry at this, maybe there’s some hindsight required or maybe the editor is a bit soft, we had a similar thing with a My Hero Academia chapter which while tense was not tears level for me. Ah well, good chapter all the same.

Oh, and mercifully no break, colour page incoming as well, time for Oda to wack us out again with unusual colour schemes

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thinkingaboutrwby · 4 years

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RWBY-Pinions #1: My Top Ten BrOTPs

To Celebrate the Hiatus, I’m starting a new post series called RWBY-Pinions in which I make lists about basically anything involving RWBY. Ask for a list of my opinions and you shall receive. It can be anything (headcanons, favorite characters, ships, weapons, scenes, etc.). Anyway, I’m starting with BrOTPs (SO THESE WILL ONLY BE PEOPLE WHO I LIKE TOGETHER IN A PLATONIC MANNER) because friendships can be just as powerful as romance, and I believe they need to be celebrated as well.

So, without any further ado: the list.

#10 Robyn Hill and Qrow Branwen

This one is number 10 because there’s no basis for it. But they are two people who I would like to see be buddies. As a friend, I think Robyn could really have a good dynamic with Qrow for Volume 8 and beyond. She knows what happened with him and Clover, and I think that she can help him through that. They share a similar sense of humor that I think would make them a dynamic duo, and a great BrOTP.

#9 Oscar Pine and Blake Belladonna

They have very similar temperaments. They’re both highly moral, but shy and a little sassy. Oscar is the only character other than Blake who they show to be an avid reader. I can see the two of them forming a book club as they travel. Again, this one doesn’t have too much basis in canon, but I would love to see them become bros over the course of the series.

#8 Winter Schnee and Penny Polendina

Over this volume, Penny and Winter’s partnership has been really adorable. They have a great friendship dynamic and play opposites to each other. Winter, the stoic, Penny the outgoing and friendly. It was an unlikely pair of friends (or at least good acquaintances) I enjoyed watching this volume. With Penny choosing to join Ruby and Weiss, there may be some tension between them, but hopefully that’ll resolve and Winter will come to her senses regarding Ironwood (I personally think she doesn’t support child shooting).

#7 Maria Calavera and Oscar Pine

I didn’t know whether to categorize this as a mentorship relationship or not, but I leaned more towards BrOTP because Maria treats Oscar more like a friend in need than her student. They’re adorable: the shy young boy and the irreverant old woman. I loved how she was able to form a connection with as they both outsiders in the group. I hope to see more of them in Volume 8!

#6 Ozpin and Glynda Goodwitch

They’re an odd pair: the ancient but relaxed wizard man and his more-in-charge right hand woman. I love how loyal they are to each other and how they play foil to one another. Personally, I never shipped them romantically (you do you though it’s not a bad ship), but I could totally see them Ozpin trying to play wingman to Glynda. I don’t think Glynda is coming back anytime soon, but their dynamic Volume 1-3 was fun to watch. Hopefully CRWBY will squeeze her back in to chastise reincarnated at some point.

#5 Penny Polendina and Ruby Rose

I think Nuts and Dolts is cute romantically, but I also love them (and generally prefer them) as a pair of friends. Both Ruby and Penny are optimistic individuals who are just so pure together as friends. Even after all this time apart since Volume 3, they have a great dynamic. I’ll be looking forward to seeing them next volume. (Bonus: for some reason, I can see them being gossip pals).

#4 Yang Xiao Long and Weiss Schnee

We haven’t seen too much of them together (as buddies) recently, but I love the dynamic the two of them have. They’re both blunt, straightforward, characters, and bring out the more extroverted flavor of Team RWBY. Seeing them work together in Volume 5 was really touching, and it’s fun to see them fight in the same ring as well (with Yang's fisticuffs and Weiss’s graceful fencing style)

#3 Jaune Arc and Ruby Rose

They’re the two awkward team leaders, and really each other’s first friends at Beacon. Ruby still calls him Vomit Boy, and they really deeply trust each other to make decisions and plans. I love watching them make plans together, and I can totally see Ruby being Jaune’s wingwomen at some point. They’re a great pair of buddies.

#2 Ruby Rose and Weiss Schnee

Ruby and Weiss are cute as a couple or a friendship, and because I don’t think RoosterTeeth is making it canon (that’s just my opinion, feel free to disagree), I’m putting my faith in them being best buddies for all eternity (I also happen to be an avid Rosegarden shipper so there’s that too). There’s is the type of friendship in which I can see them vibing together until they’re old and wrinkly and messing with the kids in the neighborhood. They’re the best partners.

#1 Sun Wukong and Blake Belladonna

There’s is probably one of the most touching friendships like ever. I never really shipped them as a couple, but they totally have a platonic life-partner’s vibe. I feel like Sun would be Blake’s best man at her wedding or something. I know a pair of friends in real life who have the exact same vibe as these two, and honestly, I don’t think death can separate this type of friendship. I love it! Best BrOTP almost ever.

#rwby #rwby volume 7 #blake bellodona #sun wukong #ruby rose #ozpin #oscar pine #weiss schnee #yang xiao long #maria calavera #penny polendina #qrow branwen #robyn hill #winter schnee #jaune arc

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inevitably-johnlocked · 4 years

Note

Any fics in cannon where Sherlock is on drugs? (ie not a rehabAU or something no hate against those tho!)

Hi Nonny!

Ahhh, I do actually have some fics where drugs are either a part of the story OR referenced in the past-tense. This is a part 2 to an old list and I hope that it is alright

As always, gang, feel free to add your own fics

DRUGS or DRUGGING Pt. 2

See also: Self Harm, Danger Nights, and Drugs

Experiment by Gwen’s Blue Box (K+, 4,222 w., 3 Ch. || Non-Con Drugging, Hurt / Comfort, Friendship) – Of course John has always known about his flatmate’s irregular sleeping habits, especially when they’re on a case. This time, however, the case is taking longer and longer, and soon John starts to worry. But there’s not much he can do, is there? Because drugging Sherlock isn’t an option. Not yet, maybe, but will it be soon? {{CW: John drugs Sherlock without his consent}}

Angel by MrsNoggin (T, 1,513 w., 1 Ch. || Winglock, Friendship, Chromoesthesia, Drugging) – John is an angel. That can be the only explanation. A response to the challenging request for a realistic wingfic one-shot.

My Life for His by QuinnAnderson (E, 8,816 w., 1 Ch. || Guardian/Protector, Greek Mythology || Growing Up, Sex, Religious Themes, Suicide, Minor Character Death) – It began when Sherlock was eight, and he attempted to climb all the way up to the highest branch in the old willow tree in his back garden. He'd thought he was still small enough that it could support him, but the second he'd grabbed hold of it to pull himself up, the branch snapped, and down he went, plummeting a solid twenty metres.The odd thing was, he never actually hit the ground.

Kintsugi by distantstarlight (E, 14,772 w., 1 Ch. || Post S4, Emotional Hurt / Comfort, Regret / Remorse, Loneliness, Separation, Drug Use, Healing, Protective John, Sad Sherlock, Dev. Rel., Complicated Relationships, Love, Angst With Happy Ending, Sherlock is Called Freak, John’s Penance, Voyeurism, Doctor/Caretaker John, Guilty John, Detox, Fingering, Love Confessions, Cuddling, Slight Non-Con Turns Enthusiastic Consent, Virgin Sherlock) – Sherlock Holmes becomes estranged from the man he had once considered his best friend after John lets him down horribly in public. It seems that the world's only consulting detective will be on his own once again...or will he?

The Palmyra Atoll by elwinglyre (E, 16,609 w., 3 Ch. || TSo3 Divergence / Episode Fix-It, Stockholm Syndrome, Kidnapped John Watson, John Whump, Evil Mary, Angst, Cuddling & Snuggling, Toplock, Limited 3rd John POV) – As John's preparing for the wedding, Sherlock is preparing to have his heart broken, and Mary is prepared to do the unthinkable. Intervention required. Enter Sherlock. Set before Sign of Three with a far different outcome. John is drugged, kidnapped, and left on an island, but not just any old island.

Wonderful, Etcetera. by VictoryCandescence (T, 16,955 w., 3 Ch. || Wonderful Life AU || Alternate Timelines, Brotherhood, Homophobia, Suicidal Ideations, Mentions of Drug Use, Friendship, Different TRF, Sherlock’s Past, Victor Trevor is Past Boyfriend, Depression, Hallucination?, Love Confessions, Christmas, First Kiss) – Sherlock thinks everyone would be better off if he had never existed, including and especially himself. When he finds himself in a world in which his wish has been granted, he begins to think perhaps even he could be wrong – but it takes an unlikely chaperone to make him not only observe, but understand.

Silhouettes by allonsys_girl (E, 28,585 w., 7 Ch. || Canon Compliant, POV John, Heavy Drinking, Sad/Depressed John, Grief/Mourning, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Reunion, Foot Jobs, Blow Jobs, Infidelity, Cheating, Drug Use/Abuse, Anal, Switchlock, Rimming, Parentlock) – Sherlock and John find comfort in each other's arms, but as ever with these two, it's not your typical relationship. It's fluffy at the beginning, gets deeply angsty in the middle, gets porny at the end.

The Whore of Babylon Was a Perfectly Nice Girl by out_there (E, 32,897 w., 1 Ch. || Past Drug Use, Blowjobs, Toplock, Mentions of Switching, Rough Sex, Background Cases, Sherlock’s Past, Sherlock’s Sexual History, Experienced Sherlock, Past One Night Stands, Fingering, Cuddling, Possessive Sherlock, Paris Holiday, Bed Sharing, Naked Lie-Ins, Bathing Together, Confessions, Worried Sherlock, Laying in Bed All Day, Meddling Mycroft, Naked Lazy Day) – Sherlock walks into a room and takes all the space right out of it. He does the same inside John's head.

The Real Great Perfumers by shelleysprometheus (E, 45,355 w., 68 Ch. || Case Fic, Alternating POV, Gay Sherlock / Bi John, Canon Compliant with Divergence at TRF, Friends to Lovers, Oral / Anal, Pining, First Kiss / Time, Dev. Rel., Drugging, Body Worship, Bathing, Love Confessions, Travelling, Bottomlock, Cranky Sherlock, BJ’s, Alternating POV, Jealous John) – The case, this case. This extraordinary, fascinating, scintillating case. A house. Designed entirely by its eccentric owner, built by no less than five hundred expert tradesmen in the heart of Marrakesh. A house that had, seemingly not only driven its owner out, but also to his quite unpleasant death. And a perfumer, a chemist no less, the very thought of the secrets that house could reveal, would reveal was irresistible. Sherlock had to have this case ... and it seems, he also had to have John! Part 1 of the Forethought and Fire series

Impossible to Feign by achray (M, 49,204 w., 12 Ch. || TRF Rewrite / Reverse Reichenbach, Suicidal Ideations / Discussions, Drug Use/Abuse, Mutual Pining, Friends With Benefits, John Accepts his Sexuality, Anxious Sherlock, Meddling Mycroft, Depression, Hallucinations, Secret Agent John, BAMF John, Reunion, Make-Up Sex, Ambiguous Ending) – Sherlock leant forward, his long fingers curving round to grip John’s.“I won’t let him win,” he said, eyes hard. “I will do whatever it takes to get you out.”

Points by lifeonmars (E, 53,791 w., 42 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || HLV Rewrite / Canon Divergence, Married Life, Pregnancy / Baby Watson, Drinking to Cope, Boxing / Fisticuffs, Clueless John, Angst, Minor Medical Drama, Tattoos, Christmas, First Kiss/Time, Eventual Happy Ending, Love Confessions, Doctor John, Sexuality Crisis, Slow Burn, Case Fic, Drugging, Blow/Hand Job, Emotional Love Making, Parenthood, Passage of Time) – What if His Last Vow never happened? This fic picks up a few months after John and Mary's wedding, in an alternate universe where Magnussen doesn't exist, but Mary is still pregnant. Life continues -- just in a different direction. And slowly, Sherlock and John find their way to each other.

The Thing Is by TSylvestris (E, 56,743 w., 21 Ch. || Case Fic, Dev. Rel., Anal/Oral, Blow Jobs, Meddling Mycroft, Drama, Romance, Humour, Casual Encounters, Pining Idiots, Possessive Sherlock, Orgasm Delay, Rough / Alley Sex, Public Sex, John Whump, Drugged John, Emotional Love Making, Awkward Relationship, Marriage of Convenience, Switchlock, BAMF John) – The problem with living with Sherlock, John thought, was that you never, never, ever knew the significance of anything. Like your flatmate's nose buried in your hair. Whilst you're in bed. Part 1 of Nitroglycerine

A Further Sea by i_ship_an_armada & ShinySherlock (E, 125,492 w., 23 Ch. || Historical Pirates AU || Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Doctor John / Pirate Captain Sherlock, Sailing, UST / RST, Masturbation, Action / Adventure, Mild Angst & Peril, Romance, Shaving, Molly/Janine, Bottomlock, Hand / Blow Jobs, Past Drug Use, Slow Burn, Mild Violence, Happy Ending) – Here be a tale of adventure for both body and soul, but beware if ye be not of stout heart, for this be piratelock, ya savvy? Luckless ship's surgeon John Watson takes a chance, and finds himself eye to eye with The Ghost, the scourge of the seven seas and a definite thorn in the side of the blaggard, James Moriarty. But when John finds there's more to this most cunning pirate than be meetin' the eye, he has to choose... is it a pirate's life for him?

The Adventure of the Silver Scars by tangledblue (NR [M], 142,458 w., 41 Ch. || S3 Fix-It, Post-HLV/ Post-TAB / Canon Compliant, Case Fic, No Baby, Angst, Humour, UST, Slow Burn, Angry John, Reconciliation, Not Nice Mary / Leaving Mary, Dependent Sherlock, Pining Sherlock, Caretaker John, Fist Fights, It’s An Experiment, Virgin Sherlock, Dancing, Drugging, John Whump, Pet Names, Sherlock’s Mind Palace, Scars) – It’s been thirteen months since Mary shot Sherlock and John finds he’s still pissed off about it. Sherlock had thought everything was settled: John and Mary, domestic bliss. But when John turns up at Baker Street with suitcases, the world’s only consulting detective might not be prepared for the consequences. A new case. Some old scores to settle. Certain danger. Concertos, waltzes, and whisky.

Free Falling by twistedthicket1 (M, 203,574 w., 38 Ch. || Guardian Angel John, Fluff and Angst, Humour, Kidlock / Teenlock, Mystrade & Johnlock, Passage of Time, Possessive John, Drug Use / Overdose, Victor Trevor, Additional Tags to be Added) – All Guardian angels are born with a Chosen human. When this child is born, the angel comes into being to protect and care for them during their life on Earth. For John Watson, all he cares about in the world revolves around his Chosen, Sherlock Holmes. Watching him grow up though, the angel soon learns that God must have had a sense of humour the day he decided to make Sherlock, as trouble seems to follow him like a magnet wherever he goes. John can't decide what's worse, the idea of losing his Chosen one, or the fact that he may be breaking the most taboo law of heaven as he disguises himself as a human to better protect and befriend the beloved detective he's always watched from afar. He was meant to care for him. But what happens when caring evolves into something more? What happens when an emotion an angel is supposed to be incapable of possessing comes to life suddenly and viciously inside John's chest?

#steph replies #johnlock fic recs #drugs #drugs cw #my fic recs #Anonymous

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lily-of-the-eyrie · 4 years

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🎓🔍 Scene Commentary: Colonel Edition ①

Welcome to the first in a series of posts about taking a closer look at the Colonel’s scenes, in which I’ll be analyzing all the sections in which he appeared to:

get a clearer idea of his character, and

maybe squeeze just a liiittle more content for HCs etc.

For this post, I’ll be doing Sequence 3-1 “The Color of Right”. As you can expect from the Colonel’s first appearance, this scene’s straight up packed with key details about his character—I’m talking mannerisms, value systems, ideals, and more.

Highlights! 　❗️The Colonel’s Negotiation Skills 　❗️The Colonel & Templar Beliefs

I’m essentially writing out my thoughts on what’s happening on screen as they go, so I highly recommend keeping a Rogue playthrough open in another tab for maximum clarity.

🌟 Thanks to the-colonel-who-cares for assisting with the beta reading!

This post has a lot of text and a lot of screenshots, so the rest of it goes under the cut.

[SQ3-1] The Color of Right

— Part I: First Meeting — Shay took down the gang members in the Greenwich HQ, and met the Colonel for the first time.

　The scene opens with Prosperity and Decay, an ominous and rather foreboding track which does a great job at underlining this scene's uneasy calm and tense undercurrent. Although Shay's opinion of the Colonel, whom he just met, did get better towards the end of the segment, at the beginning he's still very much unsure of what to make of the man.

　We start with Shay feeling alert and suspicious: upon noticing the Colonel, he narrows his eyes at him and his hand goes straight to his pistol. It's pretty clear at this point that he's not going to be instantly cooperative.

　Now the first thing the Colonel does to deal with this is raise his hands, which, together with his telling Shay to be at ease, and that they're friends (promptly name-dropping the Finnegans to make sure that his point gets through quickly), says something very, very clearly―"I'm NOT your enemy". Then, and only then, does he introduce himself.

　The Colonel follows up by thanking Shay for taking down the criminals, but Shay's first and almost reflexive response to this show of gratitude is, surprisingly, contempt. He combatively, condescendingly questions the sincerity of the Colonel's concern. Watch his tone and body language as he spits on the very idea that the Colonel could even actually feel anything about the city and its people. The way he blinks and throws out his arms questioningly before saying "What do you care?", and the contemptuous tone with which he says that line, is absolutely dripping with poison.

　And in this moment, we catch a glimpse of Shay’s infamous troublemaker side. Here he is, raring to go—a commoner challenging not just any redcoat, but a goddamn British military officer right in his face. This is the Shay that gets into bar brawls, the one who can't stay out of fights for long; this is the Shay who has zero innate respect for authority, and this is the Shay who can and will fearlessly call bullshit on anybody, even his "social betters", if he thinks they deserve it.

　Now to be fair to Shay, he’s not just looking for trouble out of boredom. We know there’s no love lost between him and the redcoats, judging by how he treats them from the very first scene. They were his enemies, plain and simple.

　However, in the wider scope of things, his behaviour isn’t anything particularly unusual—historically speaking, during the period Rogue is set in, there's a lot of tension going on between the Irish and the British, since the latter is pretty much on an all-out bender to subjugate the former. Needless to say, this creates a lot of bad blood between the two sides, so Shay’s reaction, while quite aggressive, isn’t really out of place considering the social mood of the time.

　But one thing is clear―Shay is straight up looking for a fight, and he was no pushover; he's totally ready to back up his fighting words with an actual fight. He would have no qualms (and might even rather enjoy) socking a redcoat in the face...or worse. Their shared acquaintance of the Finnegans is probably the only thing that reined him in for now, and had that the risk of causing his caretakers further trouble not been on his mind (he certainly seemed to have momentarily forgotten it when he taunted the Colonel). Hell, he might've even thought of roughing him up. I mean, he's a trained Assassin―he's got good reason to believe that he could 100% beat the stuffing out of this guy AND escape afterwards.

　Now watch the Colonel totally avoid falling in line with Shay's predictions by simply not fighting back. Normally, you'd expect any other redcoat, common soldier or otherwise, to whack Shay right across the face to teach the rude, uppity brat a lesson. And he’d have a pretty strong case in his defense too, since it was undeniably Shay who "started it".

　But here's the point: the Colonel isn't just any other redcoat. Not only did he accept Shay's pointed accusation (which would've been doubly hurtful if he did truly care about the townspeople), he did so with grace; you don't see him squirm, you don't see him trying to deny or make excuses for his colleagues' behaviour. Neither did he get defensive and try to justify their wrongs. "Not getting reactive" seems like a simple action, but it suggests the presence of a significant amount of self-control―and, in extension, control over the situation. He didn't get angry, or violent, or emotional, which would surely have led to a confrontation where everything spins out of control and would surely end with one of them bleeding out on the ground; instead, he was able to keep Shay talking, and also gain a foothold in the argument by introducing the idea, the possibility, to Shay that whatever "the redcoats" had done, this redcoat in front of him intends to do differently.

　Of course, Shay's not stupid or gullible, so he doesn't immediately trust this weird fellow who had not only completely circumvented his open invitation to a fisticuff, but also actually continued to try converse with him to boot. As far as he's concerned, the logic of "redcoats=bad people=enemies", an observation doubtless fed by years of experience that agreed with that statement, still held strong. Even so, the Colonel managed to get Shay, who is suspicious as heck and obviously not a big fan of anyone with his profession, to at least let him try to prove himself different.

　Okay, now let's take a look at the Colonel's side of the conversation, which plays like a masterclass in conflict resolution. After explaining who he was to take the edge off Shay's defensive stance, and taking the brunt of Shay's scorn head on afterwards, we see him accepting the fact that yes, a lot of his comrades have indeed "been less than helpful", and it can't be helped that Shay feels animosity towards him.

　Now look at his body language here―he averts his eyes when speaking of his less compassionate colleagues, and his talking speed noticeably drops, like he's looking for the right words to say. Shit, I'd even go as far as saying he looks visibly sad about this―watch his eyes, the crease in his eyebrows. But far from being a sign of refusing to look at the unfortunate truth, this comes across as a very empathetic gesture―it's less "yeah, I guess so...I guess //shrug" and more of a "yeah, I know―what a shame, isn't it?" The slight, almost imperceptible nod at the end of it just seals the deal―this is the Colonel telling Shay that he isn't about to run away from the charges Shay had brought up against him.

　But he wasn't just going to take it all sitting down, and not do anything about this injustice whose existence he just told Shay he's well aware of―he will, he tells Shay, take a different approach. If his comrades are going to abuse their authority and mistreat the common people, he claims, then he won't do the same thing. Now clearly this isn't something Shay hears very often, much less think possible, so naturally he's rather suspicious of the Colonel's intentions. His first instinct would've been that if this guy isn't in it as a "landlord", oppressing the townsfolk for his own gains, then well, he's probably after something else just as selfish. So this is where the Colonel's words again pulled the rug right out from under his feet, because, going entirely in the opposite direction, the object of his suspicion instead said the most selfless thing―that he cared for the welfare of the citizens.

　Okay, here comes the most important line in the Colonel's primary characterization. Questioned on his motivations by Shay, who doubtless wondered why the Colonel would take the trouble of going against the party line (a thing that Shay, who freshly broke away from his Brotherhood doing just that, may even have a personal interest in knowing), he answered:

"I care."

　First, let's talk about the delivery of this line (or, well, phrase) itself. It's short, it's sweet, it gets straight to the point―in two words, the Colonel posits that he does what he does out of a highly personal sense of duty to look after the people, plain and simple. It's only after a pause to let this sink in that he elaborates on the statement by saying he wants safety and prosperity for New York's citizens, but even then it's all very bare-bones, and its straightforwardness is supported by his tone, which sounds like the very embodiment of someone saying something just like that―no stumbling, no doubt, no hesitation. With no flourish to it, it doesn't look like he's trying to make a show of flexing his moral muscles here, either. He answered Shay's grilling with an answer that rings like a simple truth, and that gives the line the impact it needed to make an impression on the still suspicious Shay.

　Now let's look at the gestures: speaking of his wishes for New York's welfare, he throws his gaze down the street and lightly spreads his arms, motioning to the city as a whole. That, and his following expression, gives him a very vulnerable air. He'd stated his thoughts on the issue, and laid them out for Shay to judge. These are the actions of a man who has nothing to hide, and the effect is instantaneous―Shay still hasn't been completely won over, but there's a considerable drop in the combativeness of his behaviour from that point onwards, and he's now more open to the idea of keeping up a conversation with the Colonel.

　With Shay still skeptical but more importantly somewhat calmed down, the Colonel now has a fighting chance in trying to get Shay to at least allow him the opportunity of proving his sincerity.

❗️The Colonel’s Negotiation Skills

　 The Colonel’s methods here reminded me of crisis/hostage negotiation techniques, which generally places a huge emphasis on staying calm, building rapport with an uncooperative/emotionally wrought individual, and working on convincing the other guy that they can trust you enough to help them resolve the situation in a less destructive way. Of course, their first encounter is more of a standard argument between two parties who are supposed to have a lot of mutual antagonism than a hostage situation, but I did find it interesting that one key phrase that comes up a lot in the context of such negotiations is that the ideal resolution to the conflict is gaining what they call “voluntary compliance”—that is, getting someone to do what you want them to do without forcing them into it—from the target. I’m sure the Colonel most likely didn’t have any formal training in that craft, but the idea that you can actually codify what you need to do to win someone’s trust does add a more sinister sheen to his intentions.

　On my end, I think the Colonel’s being honest with a lot of things here, and professional negotiators do tend to stress that their techniques need some actual sympathy from their end in order to work at all, but for people who want to write an unapologetically manipulative Colonel, I think it’s a interesting topic to look into.

― Part II: Freedom From Want ―

　The Colonel attempts to prove his "noble words" immediately by putting them into practice, and instructs Shay to use the gang's stolen funds to renovate an old church in the city.

　The Colonel says what's on Shay's mind, impressing upon the still wary man that he understands what going through his mind―that Shay has no reason to trust him yet. Shay's reply this time is decidedly tame; he's no longer spitting bile by default. Instead, he now asks for more elaboration on the common ground the Colonel introduced earlier: their shared friendship with the Finnegans, whom we know Shay thinks of dearly.

　The Colonel states that his relationship with the Finnegans is tied to the fact that their late son was a subordinate of his. He further extends the common ground by saying that Shay's "much like him", drawing a straight parallel between the two men. Now, you don't make a comment like that unless you expect the other guy to ask why you said that, which is exactly what Shay does next. This can be a normal conversation...or it could be the Colonel deliberately reeling Shay further into that common ground to build a connection. Is this just friendly talk that naturally evolved from Shay's question about the Finnegans? Or is it a calculated move by the Colonel to draw Shay into trusting him more? Or is the Colonel honestly reminiscing about the past, slightly shaken after being caught totally unaware by the fact that the Finnegans had decided to give Shay his late protégé's robes? You decide ;^)

　The Colonel then elaborates on the late Finnegan Jr, painting the picture of a saint―a young man who had cared about the townsfolk, who had wanted to "do good by the people", and wanted to make the world a better place. Now all these are good things, and only it would take quite a disagreeable personality to shit on that at this point. But this isn't just about Finnegan Jr.; by stating outright that all this was a dream both Finnegan Jr. and himself shared, intentionally or not, he's essentially also painting himself in the same light. He might’ve planned that, or he might not, but Shay would likely feel that the Colonel’s a more agreeable person given that he shows great appreciation for the charitable spirit of people like Finnegan Jr.

　Next, here comes the Freedom of Want line. It's really important, so I'll tack the whole thing here:

"Mere survival is not enough. Full bellies, warm clothing... Freedom from want is the greatest freedom of all."

　There are two things I want to talk about when it comes to this line. The first is the nature of benevolence in these lines, and the target of that benevolence. Now, the Colonel made it absolutely clear from the get-go that he isn't concerned only for the wellbeing of what we might call the “important people” (a.k.a. the higher social class, the “somebodies” of society), but all the citizens of the city―this includes the absolute poorest members of the society, who would most likely long for this "freedom from want". Speaking of that freedom from want, how did he define it? He outlines it as having "full bellies, warm clothing"―he's talking about the right to a comfortable life, to the basics of not just barely surviving, but of a life worth living on a physical, biological level. Now this is important because, aside from having a very humanitarian angle to it, it will strike Shay in a raw spot―Shay, who spent his childhood in a harsh environment, who's got a lot of brushes with poverty, reeling from one tavern to the next, feeling like he was never taken care of by anyone. And it's a strong callback to Shay's first accusation to the Colonel―that he was no different from a landlord wringing his poor tenants dry while said tenants are breaking their backs trying to earn just enough to not die of hunger in the streets.

　The second thing is, of course, the obvious jab at the Assassins―I don't think anyone would deny that the Colonel is a Templar through and through, and, looking for all the world like he'd known and fought Assassins for a long time, he likely already knows their arguments about the concept of freedom by heart. Given that he's likely very much aware of the importance of the word "freedom" to the Assassins, and also that he knows that Shay's one of them, it's highly possible that the Colonel picked his words very deliberately for this line. But I would argue that it's not malicious; I don't think he's sassing the Assassins' ideals here, because he never seems to be the kind of man who indulges in petty sarcasm like that (although whatever he thinks the Assassin brand of freedom is, he very likely disagrees with it, or at least figured the Templar take on it is preferable). What I'd say he's trying to do here is introducing a different sort of freedom―one that he hopes Shay could get behind.

[PS. On a side note, “freedom from want” is recognizably one of the Four Freedoms, which can be rephrased as a “right to an adequate standard of living”. I wonder if it’s a reference... In any case, I just want to say that trying to figure out why this seems to be a topic of personal importance to the Colonel is a great way to start working on his backstory.]

　Shay's sarcastic side then comes out again as he prods the Colonel about his goodwill. On one hand, it's just Shay being Shay―giving people playful grief is just a part of his personality. Under the surface though, we see him buying more and more into the idea presented by the Colonel: when they first talked, Shay ridiculed that very same goodwill, acting as if it's only common sense that it doesn't really exist, but at this point he's like, hey, idk, maybe it could be real this time? You can see him get more comfortable around the Colonel; whatever techniques the Colonel's employing to get on Shay’s good side, it's clearly working.

　Now let's see how the Colonel takes issue with Shay's idea that the relationship between the Colonel and the citizens is that of the governor and the governed. One interesting point here is that Shay is still talking to the Colonel like he's "the British Government", not an individual in his own right. Shay is still subconsciously conflating the Colonel's actions with his party's actions, and this is where it gets very interesting―the Colonel staunchly, flatly, even snappily, denies that claim.

　The Colonel is, generally, a very calm speaker―his tone is very stable, and he talks in a very measured manner. This makes any sudden rise in his voice very noticeable. Listen to the way he says that line:

　"I do not govern, Master Cormac. I merely assist."

　He's clearly put off by Shay's words; compared to his previous line, there's an obvious change in volume and force in his denial, and his voice only returns to normal at the back half of that line. Now I don't know about you, but the speed at which he shot back makes that part sound...unscripted. That's either top-grade acting, or the Colonel’s instinctive response to Shay stepping on his tail.

　As for why this caught my eye, I think it's interesting on two levels―on a personal level as a hint to what the Colonel thinks of his own role in society, and on a grander level as a reference to the position of the Templar Order in the world as an organization.

　Starting with the first one, if the Colonel did in fact shoot this line back reflexively, that's a huge hint to his personality. It's interesting because it's a rejection―he claims to not be a "governor", someone who rules over others and calls the shots only expecting his subjects to obey, but an "assistant", who is here to help others along. By the way he said this line, he might have even viewed this distinction with pride.

　On the greater scale, this line can also take on a shady note to it because "assisting, not governing" is very much in line with the Templar Order's overarching strategy ever since the time of the Borgias (AC:Revelations’s Abstergo Files are a good read for more on this).

　As such, there's a lot of complexity in how we can interpret this bit. Is the Colonel just calling back to his party stance? Or is he, through the actions he carries out, trying to write his own version of how to execute this Templar strategy, in direct opposition to how most of his other comrades (read: ye standard-issue villainous Templar) interpret it? Does he take this line to mean really "helping people out and guiding them to greatness", not just "manipulating them like pawns as part of your personal agenda"? The striking difference here, and whether one believes the gap exists or not, is pretty much what sets him apart from the generic Templar.

　Next, they arrive at the dilapidated church. Watch his phrasing here:

　”We can make it better."

　See how quickly he reels Shay in as part of the team, not an outsider. It might feel a bit sudden given they literally just met, but it’s definitely a good line for building camaraderie—it’s the Colonel quietly stressing that they’re on the same side now.

　He also mentions that urban renewal is “a new science that had already proven effective on the Continent". In addition to showing that he takes the Templars’ focus on being people of science and technological advancement seriously, this bit also gives us a look at his other interests outside his immediate occupation. And from the look of it, it's not the first time he's renovated a building; arranging for resources means that he had to organize the logistics at some prior point, and these materials needed to be sourced, paid for, transported―if you want to get really grounded, this isn't something that easily just happens without a lot of paperwork. Had he built an existing logistics network for this?

　Having fixed the church, he suddenly brings up the topic of watching over New York. Judging by Shay’s outburst of anger towards the “landlords” mismanaging the area earlier in the scene, the Colonel can probably make a educated guess that this responsibility’s something that will resonate with the man at this point.

　He ends their meeting by saying, “after all, a man needs purpose". Now, everybody knows "purpose" is an extremely important keyword in Templar ideology, so I doubt he used this word on a whim here. He's obviously trying to give Shay a sense of direction―a direction that, unsurprisingly, lines up with the Colonel's interpretation of Templar ideology.

❗️The Colonel & Templar Beliefs

　Despite its shortness, this scene does a great job at encapsulating a lot of things about the Colonel’s personality, and his particular idea of what his Order’s beliefs stand for, ie.-”doing good by the people”.

　As in any other belief system, the “true meaning” of the Order’s philosophy is likely something hotly debated among the Templars themselves, much like how various Assassins have incongruous ideas of how their Creed should be put into action (Mackandal v. Ah Tabai, Bellec v. Arno, etc. etc.). Given that the Templars are supposed to play the antagonist in the Ass Creed series, their ideology’s unethical applications inevitably tend to take center stage whenever they get mentioned, but the presence of Templars like the Colonel who register as “good” does bring up the fascinating topic of what Templar ideology looks like when exercised in a righteous way. That said, the Colonel seems to have a strong attachment to the concept of being a charitable Templar, which begs a lot of questions—how does he feel about his less-than-helpful comrades in the Order? The British Rite under Birch, or even the Templar Order in general, likely has a great proportion of dodgy figures in it—how does he deal with having to work with them? Assuming he’s not the only member of the Order who believes that a Templar has the responsibility of executing their ideology in a morally upright way, could there be factions within the Rite that are at odds with each other’s take on their shared belief system? All this would make the British Rite’s internal politics incredibly interesting to think about.

🤔 Extra: Chapter Questions

Okay, now that we’ve reached the end of the sequence, there are several unanswered questions that presumably had crossed the viewer’s mind at some point:

Q1. Why did the Colonel even let Shay live? What’s his game plan? Q2. How much did the Colonel know about Shay's personality/background? Q3. How much of this encounter is staged?

Since these questions need the whole of his cutscene discography to answer properly, I’ll do them in a later post, but they are intriguing Qs to keep in mind as we go! :^D

#⟪Monrology 🎓⟫#⟪Headcanon Hour 💭⟫#⟪✠ Honour and Loyalty ✠⟫#⟪Cutscene Commentary series⟫#I feel that there aren't enough long-ass reads on Monrology and I plan to help rectify this #I've been planning to do this for a very long time but hhhhh what is editing #but yes I want to hear YOUR thoughts on these scenes too #and if you feel like taking a shot at the Chapter Questions right away well #I'm listening 👀👂#Rogue may be short but nhh there are so many scenes that lend well to in-depth analyses and we might as well capitalize on that

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