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kuronekonerochan · 2 years

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Random Hanadan/BoF Shitpost

After hearing that Love in Flames of War, a republican era cdrama had Hana Yori Dango/Boys Over Flowers/ Meteor Garden/ F4 vibes... but eventually failed to deliver on that front I rambled at @dangermousie that, actually, we SHOULD have a Hanadan version of every genre of cdrama.

No...wait...I’m joking...but also not. My reasoning for this is solid:

1) No matter what you thing of Hanadan and all it’s objectively toxic and dated glory, you can’t deny it is a hallmark in the history of shoujo manga/anime/asian drama/ live action adaptation/remake pumping machine. It paved the way for all the ItaKiss, Fated to Love You, etc...and it is still to this day a nostalgia magnet for an easy cash grab with each remake (also the latest one might be the best lol).

2) *Surrender by Cheaptricks plays in the background, talks in “there is no war in ba sing se” mode* There are no new ideas in media. Everything is a sequel, prequel, remake, reboot, retelling, soft reboot, parody, homage, the same thing over and over again but call it by another name (it’s still a rose, yeah Shakespeare, you’re a genius, congrats!).

3) Let’s face it. Dramaland is going through the lowest of lows. Cdramas are bad and boring, Kdramas are scarce and boring and Jdramas are 10 ep cute little intros to the story you really wanna see that’s about to begin...at the end of ep10, last episode, no 2nd season. So, they might as well try Every Hanadan Set Everywhere all at Once.

So, without further ado, introducing...every genre of Cdrama Hanadan (with crazy plot eggs for some and none for others bc I say so):

Starting with contemporary…

1) Reverse hanadan where the fl is a rich asshole and the ml a poor little meow meow

2) Time loop hanadan

3) Modern Fantasy hanadan (sort of like the beginning of Bulgasal but more petty and less angsty lol)

4) Transmigration low budget web drama romcom hanadan

5) *barfs* modern office corporate romance hanadan

6) *barfs again* gaming hanadan

7) Sports hanadan (aka if HanaKimi wasn’t genderbender or cute but toxic instead)

8) Coming of Age/ Youth to Adult Married life Hanadan

Syke! Too late! There is already an OG classic toxic Hanadan of this Genre, it’s called Itazura na Kiss (and it’s my guilty pleasure, my personal hanadan lol)

9) Ice sports hanadan....yesss...get gory with the bullying with ice skating blades muahahaha. The red card locks her on the ice rink and they oil the railings/plexiglass around it so she can't even climb out and she nearly freezes to death. They rope her to the back of a zamboni and drag her through the ice. While she is trapped on the ice rink, they rig a bucket of water to fall over her so she freezes faster.

Now for the period dramas…

10) Republican Era hanadan

They could use the boat scene ending from the finale of the anime as a convenient plotpoint to escape the republican era without dying in the republican turmoil. "Oh, they just reunited dramatically on a boat post amnesia and went abroad together and missed all the political fatal shit and lived happily ever after. Their kids returned to China and lived happily under the great CCP rule (/s)!

11) Palace hanadan

It’s hanadan meets legend of Ruyi where he is the Crown Prince but the Empress Dowager holds all the power and on some humiliation move has him take a barbarian slave as a concubine...and the red card is that it's open season on her from every noble or regular consort of his harem and his friends in the court...all is fair the only rule is she cannot be murdered, everything else is fair game. So she is beating to the brink of death, poisoned daily with agonizing pills only to be given antidotes at the last minute, drowned, flayed, etc.

12) Wuxia hanadan. Similar. Dude is the leader of the jianghu, declares her a demon bc she offended him and has all the pretentious righteous sects go after her with agonizing Gus pushed on her body, plenty of chains, kebab her in multiple ways with stakes in torture chambers to cast out the evil.

13) BL Wuxia hanadan. (this one is just here by popular demand. Mine. No, I will not elaborate on that).

14) And at last…my personal favorite….drum rolls… Xianxia hanadan (here is the plot):

She spilled peach wine on his cloud robes once by accident before the Great Heaven's Ceremony so he scribed her name carelessly on the stone of the doomed as petty revenge hoping she'd get some bad karma. But at the time the Demon Overlord was fighting the Lord of Fate and the Dijun on Kunlun and as they made their final strike the demon overlord turned into a cloud of heavy miasma that swirled away swiftly for miles and landed on the stone of the doomed. Hence, for the next 10.000 years the calamities and heavenly tribulations of every god were transferred into the unlucky FL.

In the first 300 years, the gods were unsure of what was happening, but soon word spread of a small menial demigoddess who seemed to be getting an abnormal amount of calamities and trials and yet never ascended into a higher level god. But other gods were getting past their fated tribulations dates without experiencing the event itself but still ascending afterwards. Soon this bizarre phenomenon was being gossiped throughout all the heavenly realms and the gods were rushing to get their hands on every magical item capable of moving forward their tribulation dates... After all, who knew how long this free meal would last? So it follows that our female lead spent the next 10.000 overbooked from torturing calamity to the next without a break or a reward.

Our cloud cloaked protagonist came to learn of this business about 500 years into it. It was not his intention for the karmic payback to be that harsh...but then again it was his best cloud vest that the annoying, insignificant little demigoddess had ruined...and if the consequences had been that rough, who was he to question the Great Design. He soon forgot all about it, surely none of that pesky matter would come back to bother him...

10.000 later: Our fuming fl finally had enough...after experiencing every form of dismemberment as a human, for eons, though she didn't collect an ounce of heavenly grace to ascend to higher goddess....she sure damn well accumulated enough yin to form a monumental grudge...and she would use all of that energy into one single punch for a certain cloud clothed god that would send him so high the gods would finally know what lies above the heavenly realm...not that he'd get the opportunity to tell the tale.

Congrats! you made it to the end of my loooong ass ramble.

Here’s some Ice Cream...

#hanadan #hana yori dango #boys over flowers #meteor shower #meteor garden #the f4 #f4 thailand #itazura na kiss #anime #shoujo manga #cdrama #kdrama #jdrama #dorama #kdrama edit #kdrama rant #kdrama rambles #shitpost

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survivingthejungle · 4 years

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everybody wants to rule the world (caliban)

When Sabrina was 8 years old, her life got a little more unusual. Being a half witch raised by her two aunts and cousin (all full-blooded witches) in a mortuary was not a common experience for most children. But things became different when another cousin, from her mother's side of the family, came to live in the Spellman house. Her mother, Diana, had a brother, William; WIlliam married and had a daughter just two years before Sabrina was born. She was named Genevieve Sawyer, and she and her paternal cousin had been very close to one another their entire lives. When it was heard that William had been shot and that Genevieve's mother was not fit to parent, the girl's cousin and family immediately stepped up to take her in and be her legal guardians.

Despite Genevieve's unfortunate circumstances, she never lost her bright personality or kindness. She seemed to stick out like a sore thumb in the Spellman house from time to time, but it was a welcome change of pace for everyone who lived there. For the next eight years after she had gone to live with her cousins and aunts, she had grown into a compassionate, driven young lady. Growing with her were several pets she had acquired over the years. Genevieve had a special love for animals and so had adopted many. She had a spotted turtle named Tucker, whom she had rescued from getting run over by a truck one morning. She also had an orange tabby cat named Tex, a green budgie named Pico, and a blue pit bull terrier named Bambi. The latest addition to the family was an albino ball python, whom she was currently in the process of naming.

"Genevieve. I mean it this time," scolded her aunt Zelda. "No more pets. You have barely enough space for them all, and I won't allow any more of this."

"No more, aunt Zelda. I got it. This guy is the last," she affirmed, gesturing with the snake which was slithering over her shoulders and down her left arm. Her aunt shuddered.

"How you can allow that thing near you is beyond me."

"She's sweet!" she defended. "She's just curious."

"She stays in your room only. If I see a snake slithering about my house I won't hesitate to kill it."

"She won't go anywhere. Promise."

Once her aunt had finished scolding her and left her room, she turned her attention back to her new friend. "What do we call you, huh?" Genevieve said. She set the snake down on her bed and flipped on her record player against the wall to fill the silence, and an old Fleetwood Mac album started spinning. "Well," she said, "I have to take Bambi and Tex on a walk, so I guess we should put you in your tank, huh?" She moved the young albino to the mostly empty tank and placed the lid over it, promising, "I'll get you some decorations while I'm out." Then she put on a pair of socks, laced up her shoes, and grabbed two harnesses and leashes from the footboard of her bed, heading downstairs to find the only two of her pets that were mammals. "Morning, aunt Hilda," she greeted the small blonde woman.

"Oh, g'morning my love! Are you taking Tex and Bambi on a walk?"

"Yeah, once I find 'em." "Well you'll eat first, won't you?" She pointed to the table. "Some toast for you."

"You're the best," Genevieve said, sitting down to take a bite of it. The toast was covered with peanut butter and sliced bananas; simple, but a favorite of the girl's. She finished eating quickly and was off again in search of her cat and dog, finding them in the family room. Tex was lounging on the couch and Bambi had seemingly been banished by him, staring at the tabby from the ground. "You wanna go on a walk?" she said to them both, her voice increasing by about an octave. Bambi's ears perked up and her eyes widened; Tex hopped down from the couch and over to circle Genevieve's legs. "Hey auntie," she called into the kitchen, "Do you know where Beans went?"

"Yes," her aunt called back, "I believe she went to go see Harvey, Roz, and Theo?"

"Okay. Thank you!" She then strapped both of the harnesses onto Tex and Bambi and put them on their leashes, and then made their way outside to their usual walking route. About halfway through their walk she and her two companions made a detour to go to Harvey's garage, where Genevieve had guessed their band would be practicing and where her cousin had gone to find them. Heading around behind his house, she found the garage door unlocked and entered in to find the four of them seemingly discussing something important.

"'Vieve," Sabrina greeted as soon as she saw her cousin. "What's up?"

"I was walking Tex and Bambi," she responded, holding up the two leashes attached to both animals. "What's up with you?"

"Sabrina's trying to take us to Hell," Theo told her.

Genevieve's eyebrows raised and she went to take a seat on the couch closest to her. "Why?" she asked Sabrina.

"Nick." She said his name sadly; she knew her cousin missed him a lot and felt guiltier every day she left him trapped there. "I think I found a way to get him out."

"But, like… He's still…" Genevieve trailed off, not knowing how to formulate her thoughts exactly.

"Yes," she responded, knowing what the girl was getting at. "A flesh Acheron. But I might have a solution for that too."

—

Sabrina had brought the five of them through Dorian's portal to Hell with an incantation, where they landed on a cold, dark beach, coughing up the salt water that had gotten into their lungs. "Wait, so… Hell is a beach?" Harvey asked.

"The Shores of Sorrow," Sabrina whispered hauntingly.

Theo stood up and pointed out at the water. "Guys. Look. What are those?" There were tall wooden structures standing above the waves, and from them came pained groans and wails. Hands were reaching out, desperate to grab whatever would come close to them.

"They're the souls of the damned," called a deep, unfamiliar voice. The group turned their heads to look for the source, and saw a large sandcastle and someone walking out from behind it. He had blond hair and was wearing a flowing white shirt that he had left unbuttoned. "They drown as the tide rolls in. Over, and over," he said, looking out at them, "For all eternity."

"Bummer," Genevieve whispered to Roz.

"Hi," Sabrina greeted him as the group approached him. "We're looking for Lilith." He didn't respond. "Uh, Madame Satan? S-Queen of Hell?" The boy looked pointedly at her, on the verge of a smirk. "She's in Pandemonium, if you happen to know the way." He turned his head and pointed left. Sharp jaw, Genevieve thought.

"All blood flows to Pandemonium." Sure enough, there was a large rock through which blood was flowing, that seemed to turn into a path further up the beach. "Follow the blood-red road where it flows, and there you'll find the throne of Hell," he instructed, still pointing.

"Thanks," Sabrina said. He pushed his hair back from the wind blowing on the beach, smirk still present. What does he know that we don't? her cousin wondered. "And you are?"

He seemed as if he were about to respond, but decided against it. "Never step off the road," he advised. He looked at their feet then. "It's clever you're wearing dead men's shoes. Though… any demon worth his salt can smell mortal flesh a mile away."

Genevieve's brows furrowed. "Ew." The boy glanced at her and then turned back to his project.

"Come on," Sabrina said, "Let's go." The four trailed behind her, but Genevieve stayed still for a moment. "Hey! I like your sandcastle," she called to the boy. He looked back at her, intrigued. "Bye!" she waved. He lifted a hand in return, and she was on her way.

—

The journey through hell had been… adventurous, to say the least. Between the field of crucified people beating eaten by crows, to the forest with a magical flower and a bloodthirsty tin man, to a horrific mock-high school classroom, Genevieve and the others were exhausted, scared, and ready to go back to earth. After being rescued by Lilith's helper, a man dressed in a bellhop's outfit and being seated at some hellish feast, she and Sabrina began a conversation about getting Nick out of Hell and taking care of Theo's uncle's soul as well. The Infernal Kings weren't recognizing Lilith's newfound authority, so she struck a deal with Sabrina- the throne for her boyfriend and her friend's uncle. Sabrina, of course, agreed, and the process had begun.

—

"Infernal court, I bid you welcome," Lilith greeted from the throne. The three demonic kings stood before her in wait. "The city of Pandemonium has an honored guest. May I present to the hordes, Sabrina Morningstar, daughter of Lucifer Morningstar." Sabrina walked to stand next to the woman and looked around the throne room. "In his absence, she has come to officially declare me Queen of Hell. Isn't that right, Sabrina?"

"Yes, that's right," she told them.

"This is treason! Heresy!" the Kings protested. "Lilith is a concubine, not a queen. We do not recognize her. She was Lucifer's whore. The realms are in chaos, and the Earth, the Pit, the Heavens, the Cosmos, they all reject Lilith's claim to the throne."

"And who do you propose would rule?" she shot back.

That was the million dollar question, it seemed, because the Kings got a nefarious look in their eyes. "All hail Caliban, Prince of Hell. Molded from the clay of the Pit itself, native son of the inferno, born to restore and rule our dark domain!"

"Hello again," said the supposed Prince Caliban, in yet another open top. He maintained the smug look on his face that he was wearing at their last encounter.

"Uh, hi?" Sabrina said, mildly confused.

"What is this?" Lilith questioned. "This is salvation," he told her. "Since the Dark Lord's desertion, the Nine Circles of Hell have been breaking down. I, Caliban, will restore stability and do what Lucifer failed to do… conquer the earth. Remake it as our Tenth Circle, and enslave the tribes of mortal and witch."

Before anyone else could get a word in edgewise, Genevieve spoke up. "No? You most certainly will not!" she said. He raised his eyebrows at her. "Dude. You're… you're not even a real person." Her brow furrowed. "Someone gets one good blast with a hairdryer and what happens? You dry up and crack?"

"I'm afraid that's not how it works, darling." He stepped closer. "Though you are clever for that." Yet another smirk. Smug bastard. Closer. And closer.

She glared at him. "Thanks," she deadpanned.

"You are pretty, for a mortal," he said to her. "Maybe I'll have mercy on you." He lifted a hand to beside her face and toyed with a strand of hair that had fallen out of her braid.

"Don't touch me." She slapped his hand away, and he stepped back. Sabrina and Lilith had been whispering to each other from the moment that Caliban revealed his plan. But now, she was seemingly comatic; her eyes and Nick's were both glazed over in red and they were both catatonic. But when her senses came back and her eyes returned to normal, she had adopted a newfound confidence. "No, we won't," she said to Lilith. "I am Sabrina Morningstar," she announced to the hordes, "And that throne is mine. By blood, and by birth."

"Here we go again," Harvey muttered. Genevieve chuckled.

"Yours to give me, you mean," Lilith interjected.

"No. Mine. To claim." She sat on the throne herself, and her cousin had to admit that she looked rather regal.

"We do not accept this!" the Kings argued. "The witch lives on Earth. She cannot possibly rule Hell."

"You've obviously never been to high school."

"You are a child, not a queen," another King shot.

"I am a young woman." Right on, her cousin thought.

"You cannot fulfill your father's duties." "I can," she insisted, looking at Lilith. "With Lilith as my advisor." "What?" "Isn't that what kings and queens do when they're too young to rule?" she argued. "They appoint a…" "Regent," Lilith offered. "Yes. As a matter of fact, yes." "Then you, Lilith, are my regent."

"I dispute this." Caliban, of course.

"Okay, Dirt-Man," Genevieve said. She had begun to harbor a deeply personal sense of loathing for him, especially because of how he disrespected her cousin's authority and was a raging narcissist.

After an attempted challenge for the crown, Sabrina dismissed the court and he and his clique left Pandemonium. She and the rest of the group, along with Nick and his tongue, followed Dorian's instructions and used the flower and the incantation to return home.

—

Sabrina had royally fucked up— no pun intended. After fumbling her first soul retrieval and getting locked in an industrial freezer by her second, she was beginning to lose hope. And she was running out of time. While Lilith was out searching for the wayward queen, the clay prince decided to go on his own adventure.

—

Genevieve was occupied in her cozy, bright room when a gust of spiraling flames interrupted her peace. She had been lying in her bed, reading a book and accompanied by all of her pets (which was a rare occurrence). Pico had nestled onto Tuck's shell and they were both napping. Bambi was curled up against her side and Tex at her feet, and the new snake— whose name, she decided, was Rhiannon— was also curled at the end of the bed. "Quite the companions you've got," he spoke deeply, disturbing the silence. "You!" she said, sitting up and starting all but the python. "What are you doing in my room?" she asked, exasperated.

"Here to see you, of course," he told her, sitting down on the edge of her bed. Genevieve

was still perplexed.

"...Why?"

"You amuse me, mortal. And you've caught my eye. Your friend may be the Queen of Hell—"

"Cousin," she corrected.

"Your cousin may be Queen, but it's you who's really captured my attention."

"I… Okay," she responded, brows furrowed.

"No one's ever spoken to me as boldly as you have. Especially for a mortal. If I wanted to punish you, in fact, it would be well within my rights. Even your cousin could not do anything about it; laws in Hell differ than on Earth."

"So, what. You're here to kill me? Because I threatened your ego?" Genevieve rolled her eyes and got up, Bambi following after her. She grabbed Rhiannon and carried her over to her tank, flipping the switch for her heater and closing the lid. She then grabbed Tuck, as gently as possible to allow him to keep napping, and put him in his tank as well.

"Of course not," he chuckled. "You're much too interesting. It would be a shame for your potential to go to waste." "Potential," she said, disinterested. Walking to her door, she slipped on a pair of shoes that sat against the wall. "For?"

"For you to align with me. You may not like me much now, but I'm sure you'll grow to."

"For me… I'm sorry, what? You expect me to betray my cousin for someone who wants to literally enslave my people and take over the Earth?" He said nothing. "No!" she waved her hand at him, signaling for him to leave. "Be gone. Or... whatever you say to banish demons." She left her room and headed down the hallway and to the stairs, but Caliban was not far behind. Neither was Bambi.

She made a pit stop in the kitchen to make herself a sandwich before she left the house. "Do you think me unreasonable?" Caliban asked, leaning against the counter while she worked.

"Well, yeah. Actually I do."

He grabbed her hand before she could continue. Making sure to never break eye contact, he pleaded, "Please. Let me prove you wrong." She pulled her hand away.

"Why are you so dead set on this?" she groaned. "I said no!" A frustrated laugh left her lips.

"I'll make you a deal," he pressed. She returned her attention to her sandwich and refused to look at him. "Submit to me, and I will abandon my plan to enslave the tribes of Earth." Still, silence. Genevieve pretended that he wasn't even there anymore, slipping Bambi a piece of turkey in between the two of them. Once again, Caliban brought his hand up and grabbed her chin; she couldn't turn away.

"You won't get the chance," she spat. "My cousin is the Queen. Your plan will never happen." He opened his mouth to argue, but in a split second, decided against it.

"If that's truly how you feel, then I concede. But know my offer still stands." Genevieve shrugged, straight-faced, unsure how to respond.

"Will you leave now? I have somewhere to be," she told him, putting her sandwich in a baggie and walking to the kitchen table where a backpack was hanging off the back of a chair.

"Will the lady allow me to escort her?" he countered. She threw her food, a water bottle, and a sports drink into the bag as she considered it.

"Fine, I guess." She slung the backpack over her shoulder before kneeling down to scratch and kiss Bambi's head. "Bye, Bambi!" she said, her voice having gone up at least an octave. The blue pit thumped her tail and opened her mouth in a typical pit bull smile. Without a word, she stood up and passed Caliban to go retrieve her sneakers which were sitting by the front door. He followed, attentive to her every move. She locked the door behind her on her way out and began walking into town.

"Where are you headed to?" he asked her.

"The gym. I coach junior high volleyball."

"Is that a mortal sport?"

"Yeah. I played for a long time."

"Why did you stop?"

Genevieve stayed silent for a beat. "When I was still in high school, a few colleges wanted to recruit me for their teams. I would have gone to any of them, but…"

"But what?" "Well, I don't really know what I want to do with my life. I didn't want to just up and leave my family with no plan. So after I graduated this spring, I decided to take a gap year to figure out what I want to do."

"Have you figured it out yet?" he asked. His tone seemed genuinely interested.

She stayed quiet for a while longer. "No," Genevieve admitted, dejectedly.

"Maybe you should work with animals," Caliban offered. "Really? Why?"

"You seem to like them enough, you've got several as pets."

"Yeah, that's fair. But I don't think I could ever be a vet," she claimed.

"Then don't. Try something else."

"Like what?"

"You're the mortal here, not me," he chuckled. "You know more about your options than I do." Genevieve let out a little laugh as well. "Think about it," he advised her.

"I will. Thank you, Caliban."

—

Sabrina didn't return home until well past midnight. As she walked through the front door and quietly closed it, her cousin broke her silence from the stairs. "Where you been, Beans?"

Sabrina nearly jumped, startled. "I was— Oh, Aunties," she muttered, finally facing all three of them.

"Well, do you care to explain yourself?" Zelda questioned. Sabrina glanced at Genevieve, who was leaning over the top of the banister and mouthed I didn't say anything.

"Oh, I'm sorry I missed your first day at the Academy," she apologized. "I had this prob-"

"How many secrets are you keeping from us?" Zelda interrupted.

Hilda piped up in typical good-cop fashion. "You didn't happen to go to Hell, bring back your father, the Dark Lord, and stick him in the bowels of the Academy without telling us, did you?"

"Putting what's left of the coven, not to mention the entire world, in grave peril, just so you can see your boyfriend."

"That's not why I did it," Sabrina argued.

"Oh, God. Here we go again," Genevieve muttered as Tex jumped up onto the bannister beside her. She gave his head an absent-minded scratch as she watched the scene unfold.

"Oh, I know why you did it. Cassius delivered a stack of books with rituals about soul transference… I thought the Dark Lord was bad. I thought he was dangerous, but Lilith preserve up from his demented, lovesick daughter."

"Aunt Zelda!" Genevieve shouted. "That was so uncalled for!"

"I couldn't just leave Nick in Hell!" Sabrina defended herself. "Every second he was down there, he was in torment. Aunties, every second he was in pain."

"We know, darling," Hilda tried to comfort.

"And it's my fault." Her cousin began to tear up with the thought of Nick's suffering. "He did it for me. I couldn't just… wash my hands of him." Hilda stepped off of the stairs and went to Sabrina to try to comfort her. "I owed it to Nick to at least try and get Lucifer out of his body and into someone else's."

Zelda had begun to abandon her condemnation of Sabrina's actions, instead demanding that she come up with a well thought-out plan. "Whose? Where do you expect to find another vessel strong enough to withstand being turned into a flesh Acheron for the Devil himself?"

In a moment of perfect timing, Ambrose and Prudence appeared in the front hallway with a raggedy, bearded man at their feet. "Aunties," he greeted. "I'm home." It was evident in his tone and lack of breath that he was exhausted. "Any chance of a cuppa?"

Genevieve went downstairs and followed her cousin and Prudence into the kitchen. 'Whatcha want, 'Bose?"

"Something to help me sleep, finally," he rasped. "Thank you, cousin." (They weren't really cousins, but it was how they had referred to each other since Genevieve had come to live with them those 8 years ago.)

"You too?" she asked Prudence. "Yes, please."

—

The next night, Sabrina returned home and immediately headed to Genevieve's room to de-stress from her arduous day. "That jerk Caliban challenged me for the throne," she sighed, laying down on Genevieve's bed. "Again. Legally, this time. And I had to accept it."

Her cousin took a deep breath. "Wow. He's really not letting it go, huh?"

"No. I wish he would, though."

"Well, what was the challenge? What do you have to do?"

"We're both supposed to search for the Unholy Regalia. It's a Hell thing," she explained at Genevieve's confusion. "The first item is Herod's Crown."

"H- King Herod? Like 'kill the babies' Herod?"

"That's the one."

"Jesus," Genevieve exhaled. "...No pun intended." She had been sitting on the floor with Rhiannon, watching as she explored the room, but stood up to sit next to her cousin. "Beans, you've got a lot on your plate right now. Are you sure you're gonna be okay?"

Sabrina considered her question for a moment. "No. Actually, I'm not sure. But I have to do this." She shut her eyes tight for a few seconds before opening them again and sitting upright. "And I have so much homework on top of this."

"You know what? I don't have anything to do tonight. You go to bed, I'll do your homework tonight." Sabrina smiled softly at her cousin.

"Vieve, you don't have to do that—"

"I know. But I want to. You need to rest. Besides," Genevieve said, "I already got through all of those classes once. I can do a few assignments tonight."

—

It was about eleven o'clock that same night and Genevieve was on a productive streak- in terms of getting her cousin's homework taken care of. She had advised Sabrina to talk to Ambrose the following day about looking for the crown and, subsequently, the rest of the regalia. In the midst of her focus, a gust of heat hit her and she could sense a presence in her room. She didn't even bother to turn around from her desk. "Go away, Caliban."

"I take it you've heard about my challenge, then?"

Genevieve set her pencil down and stared at him. "Do you have any idea the shit Sabrina's been going through, lately? I know you don't care, because all you want is power, but she's an actual person with other responsibilities and an entire life that she's dealing with on a daily basis. You're made of clay and you're from Hell, I get it, you must not have any sense of empathy, but this is taking a toll on everyone. You are such a raging narcissist." Caliban's smirk had dissipated by now. "Get out of my house, Caliban. I'm busy."

"You're wrong," he said. He was uncharacteristically quiet. "I can be empathetic." He sat down on the edge of Genevieve's bed, and Tex had allowed him to pet his head. "I do have emotions."

"Showing them from time to time might do you good." He said nothing, focusing his attention entirely on Tex rather than making eye contact with Genevieve. "Why are you here?" she asked, adopting a gentler tone. She felt as if she had been hard enough on him to get her point across. "Don't you have a crown to find, or something?"

"I've not yet located it. I was wondering if you've considered my offer?"

"Of course not," she scoffed. "I don't think you're gonna win. Beans may be busy, but she's smart. And talented."

"Well, she is the Dark Lord's daughter."

"Regardless. No, I haven't considered it. Is that all?"

"I hear there's a carnival in town."

Her brows furrowed momentarily. "What do you care?"

"Would it please the lady to accompany me? Tomorrow night?"

Genevieve went stiff like a deer in headlights. "Um… sure, okay. I guess?"

"You seem confused," he observed.

"Yeah, I- I am. A little. Surprised. Why do you wanna go to the carnival?"

"Is this not how mortals court each other?" he asked, standing up to lean against the desk she had been working at. He seemed his usual self again, another smirk crossing his face. "Or would you rather skip the formalities?" He winked, grinning down at her. Though she was still sitting, it was obvious that he was taller than she was.

She scoffed lightly. "Fine. I will go to the carnival with you tomorrow," Genevieve conceded. "Are you done now?"

"Are you sure you wouldn't have me spend the night?" he teased.

"Don't push it, Dirt-Man."

"As you wish," he told her, and threw his arms up, creating a vortex of fire and returning to the pits of hell.

—

Genevieve finally retired to bed at about quarter till 1 in the morning. Rhiannon was cozy in her tank and Tuck was in his; Pico was sleeping in his cage and Tex was curled up at the foot of her bed. Bambi was laying with her back to Genevieve's, but the blue pit had been awoken by a sudden presence appearing in the room. In the dark, Caliban had returned once more to the girl, this time having astral projected. Bambi's head stuck up, sniffing at him. He put his finger up to his lips and whispered to the dog, "Shh." Bambi was convinced and went back to sleep, leaving the boy to himself. He walked around until he was facing her, and he knelt down at her bedside. He rested his head on one arm while his other hand brushed some stray hairs away from her face. She looked so peaceful he was almost afraid to touch her. "Sleep well, darling girl," he whispered. "And forgive me for what I must do." Without another word, he kissed her forehead and promptly returned to his physical body in Hell.

#caliban #prince caliban #caos #caos pt 3 #sam corlett #caliban imagine #prince caliban imagine #caliban x reader #prince caliban x reader #caliban x oc #prince caliban x oc #chilling adventures of sabrina

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twilightvolt · 3 years

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Well....that was one way to start a new decade, i guess. > >’

Ok, from the death and destruction to the quarantine caused by viral disease to large parts of the world literally going up in flames, this year was like an ominous beginning that revealed the true ugly colors of everyone around us.

But there’s something telling me that that was just the universe releasing all of it’s built up rage from the last decade, so to think on the bright side, the only way to go is up now, right?

Regardless, pushing all the crap that happened this year aside, this feels like one of my best years yet in terms of art. i don’t think there’s any wedge of this clock that i wasn’t completely satisfied with and i had a TON of tough decisions on what to put in said wedges cuz i just luved almost everything i’ve created this year.

If you’re up to it, i’ll have my usual month to month reflection under the cutoff, but if you’re not, i hope to keep giving y’all even better art next year! ^ ^

So without further ado, let’s review!

January: ~ Days ~

Runner up: Team Solar Rises Again! (drawing in celebration of PMD finally returning with a remake of the first game)

Kicking off right where 2019 left off, i was hot on the heels of my Beastars phase, still cranking out countless drawings and doodles, mostly featuring Legoshi, and even hanging around the Beastars Amino and making some new friends there. this piece in particular i think encapsulates what i was mostly doing at the time, making up stories and stuff within canon to give myself more wolf boi content. which is something that i rarely do normally since i’ve mostly just done OC related writing before this.

February: - Sk8ter Wolf -

Runner up: Re:Hukaro (That thing i drew for Moon)

Ahh yes, the day i peaked with punk rock energy and created something in a highschool notebook sketch style. ngl, with the release of Beastars’ english dub on the way and the fandom quickly growing, i felt like i was on fire with the amount of stuff i was drawing. i felt so inspired and things can’t possibly go bad.

Or can it?

March: We Can Be Heroes

Runner up: One More Day, Emo Bird Boi Sketchies

Ahh yes, the month the worldwide quarantine started because they discovered the virus around this time. from this point onward, time pretty much meant absolutely nothing since i was stuck indoors for a majority of the year, only going out if i had to. on top of that, i tried a little attempt at a fandub and got picked on immediately by yahoos on Youtube. it...wasn’t fun.

I tried doing a little challenge i made up called Animarch where i drew a drawing representing anime i liked every day, but i only got about 5 days in i think? ehh, whatever. i did try, so that means something. lol

April: - ANOTHER SIDE -

Runner up: BEAST CROSSING ~Legoshi & Raymond

This was pretty much the final month i drew anything Beastars related as i slowly started shifting back to Pokemon due to the wait for season 2. but not before getting the new Animal Crossing and drawing a thing with Raymond and Legoshi that would blow up with hundreds of notes and interactions across every platform i posted it on. lmao

Regardless, i feel like Another Side was a perfect way to end that phase of my art journey. it’s like a nice finale to a long string of ideas that i will totally return to once season 2 drops next year.

May: - KOUJI -

Runner up: Fashion (that sketch of Alex and Jet in casual clothing)

What happened this month again? oh right, i went back to Digimon for a hot minute cuz i continued playing the copy of Cyber Sleuth Complete that i won from a giveaway on Twitter and created Alex and Jet, my latest Tamer and her Hawkmon partner. i should really do some more stuff with them.

ANYWAY,

June: - DOUBLE TROUBLE -

Runner up: “No Time to Waste! HENSHIN!” (AF attack against IonicIsaac on Twitter), Cafe Mix ~Ace, Yagami, Lance and Seliph

Art Fight. third year. and this time i kicked things up a notch and beat my old record from last year!...after uhh....cramming in 8 attacks at the very last night and totally going insane from the amount of sleep i lost. ^ ^’

But trust me when i say i will NOT do that again next year, i swear.

July: Squad Up

Runner up: Comin’ Out to Stun (Jet the Hawk sketches)

So after playing and beating PMDX, i started fleshing out Lance and Selpih’s characters and made more art and stories surrounding them and the rest of the team. one of those being a drawing for Mystery Dungeon Day, which happens the day after Odaiba Day. which is in August. why did i put this down for July then? some questions just don’t need to be answered.

August: - TOGETHER -

Runner up: In the Storm

You can tell by now just how uneventful life was this year cuz i have literally nothing else to talk about other than the art parts. no life issues, no big adventures like moving or something. just....indoor stuff.

It’s...kinda sad, now that i think about it. but hey, at least i was making the most of my time, trying new things and getting around a bit more.

September: Small World

Runner up: Rescue Together, PMD Forever!, Midnight Adventuring, Down Time

So this year, i turned 21, which a lotta people say is important. not really, if you can’t do much i guess. though, i did crank out a ton of art i’m super satisfied with as you can see by how hard it was to frickin’ pick one to use for this month’s wedge on the clock.

October: Feathers of the Shadows

Runner up: PAPERMOON - Final Mix - (not picked because it’s a touch up of an older drawing)

Hoo boi, this month was crazy. cuz i drew a whole lotta e d g e .....and a whole lotta Murkrow. lol

It was fun letting my inner edgelord out this month. even if nothing really significant happened in reality.

November: ~ One More Game ~

Runner up: UPokerap Project: Frogadier, - LEAF STORM -

This month....was actually kinda rough. it was basically me falling into a depressive episode after a scare at the dentist made me worry about my self image and insecurities again. but this time it really hit me just how much permanent damage i’ve done to myself in that aspect of my appearance. i know i shouldn’t worry so much, but it’s not great when people tell you to smile when the most i can do is grin since i’m just so....unhappy with my teeth.

But then around the end of the month, i stumbled upon a Pokemon themed Discord server with people that made me feel....not as alone as i suddenly felt i was. which i’m glad i could meet them even after only knowing them for a month now. if they’re reading this, i hope you know i’m thankful for raising my spirits when there’s still things i just can’t do due to financial issues.

December: Colors of the Heart + Happy Holidays! ~Grovyle ver.

Runner up: ~ After the Battle ~ (the two part KHII anniversary drawing), - XIII -, Sketchmon: Buizel

And now this month. on top of my insecurities, i’ve now been struggling with my frustration with not being noticed as much as i should, watching as some people quickly climb up in following when i’m going much slower. honestly, i feel like the months when everything started lightening up for the world....was when things started falling apart for me. yeah, i know. pretty depressing way to end, huh? i hit 300 before the year ended thanks to the support from my new friends though, so i’m actually pretty happy.

But that doesn’t mean i’m not still scared of the future. i mean i have my teeth to worry about and also my wisdom teeth are coming in. so next few months...might be kinda rough.

Though, that’s not to say i didn’t soldier through it. this month i pushed myself, plowed through as many commissions as i could get to raise money for my new computer and made some of the best drawings that to me, feel like a great accomplishment. even if a couple of them weren’t as grandiose as some of my previous work. it was a big step forward for me as an artist. at least in my eyes.

And i have a feeling....that it can only get better from here.

#digital art #art meme #summary of art #2020 summary of art #rambles

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coll2mitts · 4 years

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#65 Beauty and the Beast (2017)

I’m burning through my Disney+ subscription, and instead of this forever cursing my drafts section until I work my way through the other lower movies on this list, you’re getting this one now.

Beauty and the Beast was my favorite Disney movie as a child. Belle was smart, she read a lot, and she was a bit of an outcast, which were my only identifiers as a wee lass (other than being obnoxious and constantly having tangled hair). I'm going to bet that this movie is the reason so many girls my age went through a Paris phase in their tween years. I did take 3 years of high school French that I have almost no memory of.

The original's animation is gorgeous, the songs by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman are iconic, and the romance between two people who learn how to trust and support each other... it's probably the reason why I've stayed in terrible relationships for way too long. My father took me to see this movie in theaters when I was 6, and it is the first movie I remember crying during out of sadness. There I was, while the Beast was dying, trying to hide the fact tears were streaming down my face because I didn't want my dad to see I was crying and not take me to see another movie again. When they adapted it for Broadway, I listened to that soundtrack over and over... "Home" was my favorite song, and the end still makes me cry like a 6-year-old. It's perfect.

I had attempted to watch this remake once before. I hated it so much I started drinking, and then peaced out so hard when Lumiere started moving that I had to watch Moana to normalize myself. Visually, this movie is what happens when the Uncanny Valley turns into the fucking Grand Canyon. Little did I know that this movie gets worse... much worse... as it goes on, and that Stephen Chbosky, the author and director of The Perks of Being a Wallflower made it this way. A man who wrote one of my most beloved novels and movie adaptations helped in creating this narrative monstrosity, and that, out of all of this, was the deepest cut of all.

I'm not rehashing the plot, because I have too much to say about why this remake shouldn't exist, and I’m going to guess you’ve either seen the movie or are familiar with this almost 300-year-old story. It took the source material and just murdered it in its attempts to update it. I'm going to start positive and work toward the biggest issue I had with it, because I'm currently writing angry and that never turns out well for me.

Things I liked:

This may be controversial, but I did like Josh Gad's performance as LeFou. I'm not saying what LeFou did made any sense (he suddenly was upset Gaston was making things up again?), but as an actor, Josh Gad was working with what he had, and I think he owned it.

Chip's introduction to Maurice - I actually paused the movie because I was laughing so hard.

The piano playing the funeral march when it tackled LeFou.

When Mrs. Potts said Chip smelled good when he turned back into a little boy. It was a cute little detail.

The guillotine joke in "Be Our Guest" and the Les Miserables barricade reference.

I actually thought Cogsworth was adorable for being a CGI nightmare. I don't know how much of my opinion of this was influenced by the voice of Ian McKellan.

I really liked the costumes, except for Belle's gown, which was definitely a downgrade. Micarah articulated the issues with it perfectly.

Celine Dion singing the credits song was a nice homage to her cover of "Beauty and the Beast", although it sucks she's associated with this nightmare of a remake.

Little quibbles:

Whatever they did to Emma Watson’s voice made her sound like a robot.

Almost all the CGI, especially the Beast, was completely unsettling. The wardrobe was the worst of it, holy shit.

They went out of their way to explain plot holes like "Why don't the villagers remember the castle?" or “Why is it snowing when it looks like the middle of summer in the village?” or "How did Belle get the Beast up on that horse?" when none of that really matters to the overall narrative.

The reaction to Belle teaching a little girl how to read was unbelievably eye-roll inducing. Lindsay Ellis' video on this is so fucking good, watch it now - You don't have to read the rest of my ramblings if you do. #beastforshe

Ariana Grande slurring her way through "Beauty and the Beast".

It was nice to see Maurice updated from a manic inventor to a level-headed, sweet, competent, reserved man who treats his daughter like an equal. Clock-maker Maurice that actually takes care of Belle reads better to me, and I like how they had him wander into the garden to get a rose for her - it's a nice callback to the original story. The problem with doing this, however, is it negates the "crazy old Maurice" narrative that plays heavily into why the villagers don't believe his tale of the Beast in the first place. If Kevin Kline, a put-together man (up until this point), wandered into the tavern looking disheveled and conveying a story about his daughter being kidnapped, I'd be like, "Shit, Maurice, what did you see?!". But instead, the story goes out of its way to put him at the mercy of Gaston, and shoehorn in an attempted murder plot to really turn everyone against him - it's bizarre.

Medium quibbles:

Gaston went from being a well-liked, athletically inclined dude to a literal predator and murderer. Belle was a beautiful status symbol in the original movie, but she becomes literal game to Gaston in the remake, as he refers to her as prey, or something to be hunted. When Maurice gets in-between him and Belle, Gaston punches him in the face and leaves him out in the forest to be eaten by wolves?! What does this add to the story?! Gaston wasn't right for Belle because he wasn't kind and didn't intellectually stimulate her, but that nuance is wasted on the remake, turning him into a full-blown vengeful villain that will literally kill Belle's family to get what he wants.

The first time Belle is brought to her room, there is this long panning shot showing off how nice it is, and she comments, in wonder, how she thinks its beautiful. They had the fucking nerve to play “Home” in the background of this scene, completely ignoring the original context of the song is sadness and despair. But go off, I guess...

The Big Enchilada:

This is where my notes went from eh????? to WHAT THE FUCK, so be prepared. How someone with enough emotional maturity to write Perks can make the Beast into such an abusive asshole is so fucking beyond me, I'm still trying to process it.

Beauty and the Beast is a romance at heart, which you would never know by watching this movie, as Belle and the Beast have so little chemistry it's painful. This might be because the Beast is abusive to Belle at every turn in the beginning, making the pivot from enemies to lovers so completely unbelievable it's shocking. The remake is already at a deficit as the CGI Beast is terrifying, in contrast with the cartoon, which has the ability to make the Beast cuddly with big eyes and an expressive face. But they still decide to take all of the Beast's inner conflict out of the remake, remove his agency completely out of the relationship with Belle, and make him supremely unlikable in every interaction they have together.

There are a few scenes that illustrate this, starting with the dinner invitation scene:

In the original, the Beast sees the pain he's inflicted by pulling Belle away from her father, and offers her a tour of the castle and a bedroom instead of a prison cell. He also invites her to dine with him, although he could have gone about it wayyyy better. He confides in his staff that she is beautiful, and he realizes she can break the spell, but he doesn't know how to appeal to her. His staff give him tips on how to be charming and not so intimidating. He is receptive, but overwhelmed, because he hasn't had to interact with any other human in years. When he discovers she doesn't plan on eating with him, his anger takes over because she refused his hospitality, and he's a king, so how dare she? The staff try to help him appear genteel, cause again, HE expressed interest in being appealing to her. When this doesn't immediately work, he throws a massive tantrum and tells them not to feed her. When he looks at Belle later in the mirror, he hears the direct result of his actions as Belle is ranting to the wardrobe. He laments she'll never see him as a human because his actions have pushed her away.

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In the remake, it's not the Beast’s idea to give Belle a room, or to invite her to dinner - it is his staff's intervening that puts him in that situation in the first place. He doesn't even want to get to know her because she's a daughter of a thief, and that's somehow below his current social status of recluse animal/human hybrid. His staff persuade him to give Belle a chance as they're all invested in breaking the spell because they'll turn into furniture if they don't! They give him tips to manipulate her into opening the door, he tries it, it fails spectacularly, he gets angry and he leaves - but not before calling his staff idiots... I appreciate he's not as physically violent in this version, but he just acts like he couldn’t be bothered with Belle. He does spy on her from the mirror, but she looks bewildered. He doesn't know if she's lonely, or missing her father, or what... There's no indication that how he treated her in that moment has pushed her further away. Then he just stares at the rose like, "Well, shit, this ticking time bomb is still ticking!". It's completely self-focused.

Oh, and then Mrs. Potts tries to handwave the Beast’s behavior away with, "People say a lot of things in anger. It is our choice whether or not to listen," which, excuse me, WHAT THE EVERLOVING FUCK DOES THAT MEAN?! You are in charge of how to interpret someone's actions, and you could just choose to ignore when they are being abusive?? I CAN'T. She also tries to gaslight Belle into seeing how great the Beast is when Belle has had zero positive interactions with the dude since she's been there. The wardrobe brings it up in the original, but this is after he's offered Belle a room and invited her to dinner himself, not by his staff...

The west wing scene and the Beast turning into less of a dick:

In the original, the Beast himself tells Belle not to go to the west wing. Her curiosity brings her there, because she wants to understand more about him and what he is hiding. She's invading his space knowing full well that she is invading his space. When she is discovered, she's about to fuck around with something that is literally tied with the Beast's livelihood. His anger is disproportionate, but justified, and you see that he immediately regrets his reaction after she runs away from him. That’s why he goes after her. Belle watches him risk his life to save her even though she broke a promise to him, so she decides to repay the favor by bringing him back. They fight while she's trying to clean his wound, and they're both right in their perspectives, but the Beast acknowledges that yes, his temper got the best of him - he realized that the moment she bolted. Belle then rewards his selfless act by thanking him, which sets his entire transformation in motion.

He gives her the library because he expresses interest in doing something to make her happy, and he vocalizes he's falling in love with her. He's delighted by her reaction. During the ballroom scene, the way he looks at her, you can see he absolutely adores her. He asks, "Are you happy here with me?" because he loves her, and her well-being is the most important thing.

In the remake, the staff tell Belle not to got to the west wing because it's a storage area. She wanders over there anyway, for whatever fucking reason, and takes a glance at the rose behind the glass. The Beast finds her looking at it and gets mad at her, even though he never told her not to visit him in the west wing, and she didn't fuck around with the rose. When she runs away, he doesn't even look like he cares. There is no reason for him to go after her, and there is no reason for her to help him back to the castle other than the plot told them to do it. She doesn't help him with his wounds, and the staff are the ones to thank her for returning him. She even asks the staff why the fuck they care about him, because he's such an asshole. They justify his behavior because he had a cruel father, and damn themselves to his fate because they didn't stop a literal monarch from raising his son. Belle continues to take care of him because she pities him? He repays her kindness by insulting her taste in literature.

He doesn't even show her the library because he knows she likes books, he does it because he wants her to read "better" books. Then he makes one joke about not reading Greek and THAT IS WHAT MAKES BELLE SWOON. THE FUCKING GREEK BOOK JOKE. I mean, I sort of get it, I fell in love with my ex because he made a bread pun, but he hadn't been continually abusive to me up until that point. Belle starts to read out loud to him, and that's supposed to be the event that incentives the Beast to be better? Even while Belle is singing about how much he's changed (he hasn't), he throws a boulder of snow in her face. The cherry on top of this sundae is his stoic question after they dance, "It's foolish, I suppose, for a creature like me to hope that one day he might earn your affection?" which not only sounds like complement fishing, it is primarily motivated by breaking the curse! Only after she gives an indifferent answer does he ask if she'd be happy at the castle.

Oh god, and the death scene is cut off in the middle because we have to watch 2 minutes of the staff members permanently turning into furniture, which, like, I wouldn't think they'd want to castrate the emotional climax of the movie, but this whole thing is an exercise on how to fuck something already good up.

This movie fails so spectacularly at this basic love story, I can't begin to justify its existence. I wouldn't recommend this to anybody. If you want to watch new Alan Menkin content, watch Galavant, because this movie just pissed me off.

It was bold of Disney to end it with a beastiality joke, though.

#unwarranted opinion #100 best musical movies of all time rotten tomatoes

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britesparc · 4 years

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Weekend Top Ten #432

Top Ten Games to Remaster

As we continue June’s videogame-themed series of Tops Ten – during what would normally have been E3, but is still something of a prolonged Videogame Announcement Season – I turn my attention once again to great games past. This has been exacerbated by the release of Command & Conquer Remastered Collection, a hi-def spit-and-polish re-do of two of the greatest PC games of the nineties. I have very fond teenage memories of both C&C and its pseudo-sequel, but Red Alert in particular strikes an important chord as one of “the” games that deepened and broadened by love of gaming as an art form. In the way that really only happens when you’re a kid, I absorbed Red Alert, not just completing the campaign and playing hours and hours of skirmish, but also talking about it extensively with friends, designing my own levels, and even going so far as to modify the source files to create my own super-units (nuclear tanks ahoy!). As such, it utterly delights me to declare that C&C Remastered is a phenomenal undertaking, the graphics painstakingly remade to fit modern displays, the interface masterfully tweaked to appease modern sensibilities. But at the same time it offers so many pleasing, knowing, considerate hat-tips to fans, such as a re-imagining of the classic DOS installation prompts. All in all, it’s a must-buy, bringing a 25-year-old series of games more-or-less bang up to date and preserving their legacy for a new generation.

Anyway, all this got me thinking of other classic games, and how it’s so difficult to play them nowadays. Maybe they’re mired in rights issues. Maybe it’s a technological minefield to get them to run on modern systems. Maybe elements of modern gaming – be it graphics or design – have simply passed them by, making them a far more difficult and frustrating experience than they would have seemed Back in the Day. Whatever the reason, these are games that – like classic films from the 40s and 50s – should be celebrated and enjoyed by the young’uns, not left to gather digital dust on forgotten floppies the world over.

So, with no further ado, here are ten games that I would love to see given a bit of digital TLC, renewed and revigorated for the ultra-wide monitors and liquid-cooled systems of tomorrow. In most cases these are just one game that I’d like to see spruced up and re-released, but there are a few “collections” here too, whether it’s a C&C-style pairing of a great double act, or a celebration of a series, a la Halo: The Master Chief Collection.

Oh, and I’m on about remasters here: not a full-on remake or reboot. Stuff like Perfect Dark on the Xbox 360, not Doom 2016. Old games made good on modern hardware, not a reimagining of the property.

Regardless: have at it, games industry.

Lemmings (1991) and Lemmings 2: The Tribes (1993): I definitely think they should be a double-pack, because whilst the first is a well-regarded classic, the second refines the formula, makes it more user-friendly, offers skirmish-style training modes, and amps up the comedy. But they’re both ancient by now, and despite mobile do-overs in recent years, the originals are very difficult to play. Upping the resolution whilst still keeping the character of the scantily-pixelated sprites would be difficult, but it’d be worth it to once again sample one of the gods of gaming.

Sam & Max Hit the Road (1993): other LucasArts classic adventures have had a spruce – most notably the first two seminal Monkey Island games – but it’d be good to see this cult comedy classic come back to life. I don’t know if the backgrounds ever existed in higher resolution, but I’d love to see the sprites re-drawn to more closely resemble a cartoon version of Steve Purcell’s artwork.

The Jedi Knight Series (1995-2003): I’m bundling all four Jedi Knight games in together – that’s the original Dark Forces, plus Jedi Knight, Jedi Outcast, and Jedi Academy – but let’s be honest, it’s the first two we’re really after. DF gave us a compelling mission-based “Doom Clone” (back when Doom was a genre), and one which would be amazing to see tarted up to 4K with texture filtering a-go-go; but it was its 1997 sequel, Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II, that struck serious beskar. Huge, expansive levels, in “true 3D” (as we used to call it), full-motion video cutscenes, finally getting a lightsaber and Force powers, but most of all the Light/Dark Side dynamic offering (very basic) morality and a branching storyline. Again, giving it a glossy hi-def sheen would do wonders to preserve the legacy of one of the greatest Star Wars games of all time.

The Quake Collection (1996-2005): really it should be called The Quake Qollection, no? Encompassing all four mainline Quakes. Although, again, let’s be honest: there’s something deeply iconic about the first three, so no one would complain if we just forgot about part 4, yeah? Anyway: Quake was a stunner, a gorgeous 3D technical juggernaut, offering sumptuous lighting effects and gorgeous architecture. Part II came a year later and offered us coloured lighting and a coherent sci-fi story, whereas Quake III Arena in 1999 gave us a sublimely crafted multiplayer shooter and a character that was an eyeball doing a handstand. Despite being graphical powerhouses in their day, getting them to run can be a drag, so it’d be lovely to see them dragged into the 21st Century, especially if they could offer us ray-tracing on next-gen consoles, a la Quake II RTX.

Tomb Raider (1996): we’ve seen the series rebooted in (generally) excellent fashion, but at the same time it feels it lost a little of the majesty, mythos, and merriment of OG Lara. One of the first truly successful 3D games, it was like nothing before it. A subtle update to increase its resolution, filter the rough edges, maybe offer the option to move beyond the rigid grid-based movement structure, and possibly up the poly count so blocky Lara more closely resembles her rendered box-art cousin, would be terrific. Imagine the dinosaur in 4K…!

Descent (1994): one of those games that’s slipped from public consciousness, this was a full-3D shooter a couple of years before Quake shambled onto our screens. Piloting a craft in zero gravity, it offered full freedom of movement as well as a tense shooter dynamic coupled with some mild, X-Wing-style space sim elements. It was funky, fast, gorgeous, and messed with your head. I’d love a remake that kept the levels as-is, simplified the often-complex controls for modern sensibilities, and just in general made it look prettier. I worry that a contemporary “re-imagining” might lose too many of its crazy rough edges, though.

Syndicate (1993): there have been a number of efforts to re-do Syndicate over the years, but apart from its excellent sequel Syndicate Wars in 1996, none have matched the dark joys of the original. rather than try to go all modern and 3D, I’d rather see the artwork redone, redrawn at a higher resolution, perhaps offering subtle 3D touches such as dynamic light, shadow, and ray-tracing. The fiddlier aspects (getting into cars?!) could be tidied up, but the look and feel should remain the same. I honestly think this could be a big deal.

Total Annihilation (1997): if C&C can get remastered, why not the game that was arguably the first real challenger to its sci-fi RTS dominance? TA had 3D graphics, a new and refined model of base construction, and tactical touches such as line-of-sight and elevated terrain. But the comparatively low resolution of late-nineties machines meant that the robotic units could often appear slightly indistinct, turning into a grey melange; boosting the res and the poly count would do wonders, but – like C&C – the gameplay itself should be kept as authentic as possible.

Warcraft I & II (1994-95): I know, I know; they just did a remaster of Warcraft III that wasn’t well received and got everybody’s backs up. But I barely played Warcraft III (I barely played Warcraft I for that matter). Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness was the fantasy yin to C&C’s sci-fi yang, and it was great; clear, bright, fast, fun. The cartoony graphics were gorgeous and the units had bags of character (reinforced by the humorous soundbites when you kept clicking on them). I’d want to see the sprites re-drawn in hi-res, with the units given some gorgeous new animations to match their character. Other than that? Keep it broadly the same. It worked 25 years ago, it’ll work now.

Fantasy World Dizzy (1989): I nearly didn’t have a game this old on the list. For one thing, I thought pre-16-bit games would require far more retooling for modern audiences, becoming essentially the sort of reboot I said I wanted to avoid; I can’t imagine a new Skool Daze being too similar to its original. Also which Dizzy do you choose? The one I played the most was probably Spellbound (1991). But I think Fantasy World may be the most iconic. Its Amiga port was almost a remaster anyway, giving it gorgeous colour graphics. A modern version would up the resolution with all-new art assets, obviously, and perhaps could offer a more user-friendly jumping dynamic (and maybe – maybe – I’ll allow scrolling). This could be a lovely way to re-introduce audiences to the character of Dizzy, who should really be held up more as a British gaming mascot, without having to go all-in on a brand new title. Egg-cellent (sorry).

So there we are. There are a couple missing here, obviously; Simon the Sorcerer was nearly there until I realised they did do a gentle remaster in 2018. The Settlers would have made the list, except they are remaking that, although in my opinion it looks like a full-on reboot rather than the upgraded version of the original that I crave. Fade to Black just dropped off the bottom on the grounds that I barely played it in its original form, but a third-person 3D Flashback is still on my Most Wanted list (Flashback itself, sadly, has already had a disappointing remake). And the best Star Wars game of all time, Knights of the Old Republic, I decided not to include as – again – I think we’re going to see that reimagined and folded into the new official Disney canon in some form. Maybe that should preclude me imagining the original game in 4K with updated character models, dynamic shadows, and ray-tracing, but – hey – that’s just me. At least that is one game that I’ll still be able to play fairly easily on an Xbox Series X, even without whistles and bells. Here’s to dead old games!

#top ten #games #gaming #remasters #old games #retro games #command & conquer #lemmings #star wars #dizzy #warcraft #quake

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imagitory · 5 years

Text

Review: The Lion King (2019) [spoilers]

NAAAAAANTS IGONYAMA BAGITI BABA -- !

Ahem. So...I just got back from seeing the new Lion King remake, and I guess it’s time to talk about it. For those of you who wish to avoid spoilers... *exhales heavily* how do I say this kindly, um -- you don’t need to go see this. Like, really, you don’t. Not to rain on anyone’s parade, but you would miss absolutely nothing watching the original instead of this one, and honestly, I think it’s fair to say you’ll have much more fun watching the original too. As much as I haven’t loved Disney’s line of recent remakes, I at least found something in most of the films I saw that I could praise, but with this one? I don’t recall ever being so utterly bored sitting in a movie theater in my life.

If you would like a more detailed opinion, here’s a cut!

The Good!

+For once, Disney decided to hire a cast full of singers that don’t require autotune, including Donald Glover, Billy Eichner, and of course Beyonce, as well as quite a few lovely people in the chorus like Brown Lidiwe Mkhize (who sang The Circle of Life). Even some of the performers with weaker singing voices like John Oliver were able to hold their own well enough.

+The voice acting overall wasn’t bad. I’ll have to leave it at that, though, since this is supposed to be the positive section.

+The Circle of Life and Can You Feel the Love Tonight? were well-performed, though I will be getting to other issues I had with them later.

+Zazu was actually given a bit more pathos rather than just exclusively being comic relief. He not only tries to protect Nala and Simba from the hyenas, but he also rushes to go get the lionesses when Simba’s in trouble, makes a distraction for Nala so she doesn’t get caught by Scar, and even helps a little more in the final battle. I won’t act like he was an improvement on the orginal exactly, as the best compromise would’ve been to have him be both funny and supportive, but at least there was an attempt to give him some depth.

+As much as I’ll critique the animation further down, I will give the animators credit for its realism. A lot of hard work was obviously put in, and it shows.

The Not-So-Good...

+The number one problem with this movie is, as I feared, the animation. I can respect that this is my opinion and many others might find some charm in how “real” everything looks, but I’m sorry -- musicals =/= realistic . Musicals are supposed to be over-the-top. They are supposed to be theatrical. Hell, even the Broadway production of The Lion King understood that to tell this story without animated lions, you had to treat it like a folktale. The story was never about lions -- it was a human story told with lions. The ideas of family -- responsibility -- duty -- leadership -- grief -- hope -- these are human values. The Lion King was inspired by Shakespeare’s Hamlet. It also has ripples of the Moses story, given that it revolves around someone running away from their home and responsibility, only to realize their true calling and go back to save their people. And you know something? I am positive that the filmmakers knew full well how ridiculous these National-Geographic-esque animated creatures would look suddenly bursting into song -- that’s why they tried at every single opportunity to depict the musical sequences in wide, impersonal shots that barely correspond to the rhythm or mood of the song at all. Unless it’s The Circle of Life, which is literally a shot-for-shot recreation of the original sequence accompanied by a song sung by none of the characters on screen, the only way that these supposedly “realistic” creatures could communicate energy or emotion during the song sequences was by running and climbing things. And in the end, it just looks lazy and dull. There’s no energy in either the shots or the editing. Hakuna Matata and I Just Can’t Wait to Be King suffer the most because of this, as those songs were so dependent on bright colors, spontaneity, and enthusiasm, but none of the songs are done justice with this animation.

+Another issue with the animation is in the characters themselves. As realistic as it looks in the textures of the fur and the way the animals move, it is utterly lifeless in practice. I swear to God, there are points where these animals looked stuffed, they’re so blank and hollow. You know those live action movies, like Cats and Dogs, where they would have real dogs and cats play the characters and then just “fix” their mouths with post-production CGI to make it look like they’re talking, even if their eyes and faces still end up looking so blank that it never looks like they’re saying what’s coming out of their mouths? THAT’S THE ENTIRE MOVIE. It didn’t matter how good the voice acting was, because it was invalidated by the lack of expression of the characters who were supposedly saying the lines. The only character in this movie who seemed to have any emotion in his eyes was Scar, and that was because his animated model was apparently given permission to narrow his eyes more, presumably to look more “eeeeeviiiiiiil~.” Even the hyenas were just given hollow black eyes that only ever looked alien and inhuman most of the time (clearly to remind you that they’re the bad guys) -- there were no emotions other than “mwehehehe we’re gonna eat you” on their faces the entire movie. But yeah, think of all the really emotional scenes in this movie. Think of Mufasa seeing Simba hanging on that tree -- the fear in his face as Simba almost loses his grip on the branch -- the pain and fear in Simba’s expression when Mufasa puts him up on a small ledge, only to get yanked backward by the wildebeest and disappear from view -- the struggle in Mufasa’s body language as he tries to climb up the edge of the gorge -- the betrayal and horror in Mufasa’s expression when Scar reveals his true colors -- the desperation, disbelief, horror, and grief in Simba’s face when he finds his father and screams at the open air for help. ...Yeah. Now imagine all of those scenes being acted out by EMOTIONLESS PUPPETS. That’s even what Mufasa looks like when he’s thrown backwards off the cliff -- a puppet. A scene that has left people in tears almost made me snort with laughter because of how bad it looked!

+The animation’s realism also, as others pointed out when the trailers first came out, made it very difficult to pick out individual characters. When Nala grew up, there wasn’t even a way to tell that she was the youngest of the lionesses -- they all looked like clones of each other. There’s a bit where one of the hyenas (I guess he’s supposed to be Banzai, but I guess he’s been renamed something else?) confuses Scar for Mufasa at a distance and I almost burst out laughing because it was like the movie characters themselves even realized how identical all of the lions look. Simba’s face “turning into Mufasa’s” in the water had no emotional impact at all because you could barely tell that anything had just happened.

+Geezus, and I thought that Beauty and the Beast took too many ideas from the original? Oh boy. This movie took so much from the original, it was like the filmmakers copied something they found on the Internet for a school assignment and then added and switched around a couple of lines just so they wouldn’t be accused of plagiarism. There were quite a few points while watching this where I was going, “Oooookay, and this is where Simba sees a lizard. ...Yup, there it is. He’s gonna try to roar twice. ...Yup, and...yup. And on the third try, he’s going to roar loud enough for it to echo, and we’ll cut to the top of the gorge. ...Called it. And wildebeest in three, two, one...” Now, of course, knowing what’s going to happen shouldn’t reduce suspense -- if anything, when something suspenseful is done well, it doesn’t matter if you know what happens, because now you’re excited to see those things happen. But in this? How could I be excited when they recycled almost every joke, almost every shot, almost every scene, only with half the energy and sincerity? Even Beauty and the Beast tried to throw in some twists now and again, even if I didn’t end up liking most of them...the only things I can think of in regards to “changes” were some extra scenes that didn’t add much of anything, such as Scar leaning even more into his “Claudius” role and trying to court Simba’s mother Sarabi. Oh, and on that note...

+...The original movie was about an hour and a half long. This one was two hours. You want to know how they stretched that run-time out? Largely by adding in extended nature sequences. Perhaps if you really like the “realistic” animation, you might enjoy the gratuity of it, but some of them just got ridiculous. Remember how in the original, Scar caught a mouse and kind of taunted it? Now we get almost a whole minute just watching the mouse running around and doing nothing before Scar even shows up. Remember how we got a short, smooth transition from Pride Rock to Rafiki’s tree with a rainfall and soothing music? Have one that’s twice as long and is devoid of any of the epic, solemn atmosphere. Remember how we got a cute little giggle when Timon and Pumbaa sang The Lion Sleeps Tonight, only for it to get interrupted by Nala’s arrival? Now that song is treated like a full musical number with lots of danc -- sorry, walking around aimlessly, because it’d be stupid if animals actually danced or something. Remember how Simba collapses into some leaves, which sets loose some dust which in a ten-second-long cut scene is blown through the wind into Rafiki’s hand? Now it lasts almost two whole minutes and involves a tuft of Simba’s fur landing in a river, being picked up by a bird, becoming stuffing in a nest, being tossed out of the nest, being accidentally eaten by a giraffe, being shat out by that giraffe, being picked up by a dung beetle -- OH, COME ON. NOW YOU’RE JUST SEARCHING FOR EXCUSES TO DRAG THIS MOVIE OUT.

+I love James Earl Jones, but he should not have reprised his role as Mufasa. I’m sorry, but the man is 88 years old now, and he just sounded so tired. He didn’t show even half of the energy and enthusiasm he had playing the part the first time. If he was Simba’s grandfather, that’d be one thing, but he’s not. Half of what makes Mufasa’s death so tragic is how alive and young he seemed and how close his bond was with his friends Rafiki and Zazu and his family Simba and Sarabi, but thanks to Jones’s low-key performance and the lack of emotion in Mufasa’s animation, all of that is lost.

+Just like with Jafar in the recent Aladdin remake, this movie tries to give Scar some depth, but the halfhearted attempt only serves to take away what made Scar a great villain in the first place -- namely, his dry wit, ruthlessness, talent for manipulation, dynamic attitude, arrogance, immaturity, and most of all passion. Combine this not-deliciously-evil-but-definitely-not-sympathetic characterization with such bland animation that neither conveys energy or intrigue, and we’re once again left with a very forgettable, uninteresting villain. Come on, Disney, you used to be so good at writing villains -- just because you’re trying to make a more “realistic” story doesn’t mean your villain can’t crack a smile every-so-often, geezus!

+If Sarabi was chasing off hyenas with the lionesses, how in the world did she and the lionesses get back to Pride Rock fast enough for them to be lounging around when Simba came to get Nala? Scar and Simba’s interaction isn’t nearly long enough to encompass Sarabi finishing up with the hyenas and returning home. This is a problem that comes from how much this remake copies from the original -- because it wants so many scenes to play out identically to the original, it gives any subtle line changes the writers do make the potential to create plot holes.

+Oh yeah, and the joke of Simba pouncing on Zazu really doesn’t work if we see Simba getting ready the entire time and Zazu makes it easy for Simba by spinning around in circles looking at nothing. One would think Zazu was trying to let Simba pounce on him.

+There’s no kind way to put this -- Timon and Pumbaa were just flat-out INSUFFERABLE in this. Not only were their deliveries of lines from the original movie pretty awful, but they also added in a bunch of new, often fourth-wall-breaking jokes that just made me hide my face in my hands and groan. In Hakuna Matata in particular, they act offended by Simba not being more excited when they first say the phrase, ruin the joke of Pumbaa farting by having him say it and Pumbaa then being upset that Timon didn’t interrupt him, AND give Simba a hard time for continuing the song until it fades out by saying that Simba’s “gained 400 pounds” since they started it! This isn’t even touching on how TERRIBLE Seth Rogen was as Pumbaa while singing -- like, I know that’s supposed to be part of the joke, but Ernie Sabella was “a bad singer” by being over-the-top, not by being off-pitch and painful to listen to! Not to mention that Sabella packed so much more characterization into his line deliveries -- the chasm of quality between Sabella and Rogen’s performances all the more highlighted to me the difference between an actor and a voice actor. You can’t just get away with speaking your lines in an ordinary voice when you’re voice acting -- you need to emote solely with your voice, as your face is not doing any of the work, and with animation this emotionless and bland, one really needed to have given 120% in their voice work for it to be even passable. (And honestly, none of the actors stood out well performance-wise...not that they should have to singlehandedly bear the burden of depicting their characters’ emotions just with their voices: this is an animated movie, not a radio drama!) As if breaking the fourth wall for no reason, telling bad jokes, and singing poorly wasn’t enough, Timon and Pumbaa also come across as infinitely more selfish and mean-spirited. They say they’re outcasts, and yet there’s a whole friggin’ community of animals in their jungle home. Simba actually hears Timon and Pumbaa selfishly decide to “keep him” because having a creature bigger than them around might help them out. Timon flat-out tells Simba to only look after himself and no one else. Whereas in the original film, Timon and Pumbaa almost raise Simba like adopted parents, having fun with him and genuinely showing concern for him -- here, Timon and Pumbaa act more like a pair of frat boys who adopted the “new kid” in college and induct him into their friend circle, even though, yeah, Simba first meets them as a cub and they’re already adults. Rather than just laugh at the thought of “royal dead guys watching them” for a quick moment, they openly roar with laughter at Simba, dragging it out even when it’s very clear Simba is hurt by their amusement and not even bothering to apologize. At least in the original, Simba acted like it was funny and then left abruptly, but here? Simba never laughed or showed any amusement, so it came across as Timon and Pumbaa bullying him. Oh yeah, and speaking of bullying, remember how there was that one-off pop culture reference where Pumbaa gets mad at being called a pig? Now that’s been replaced with Pumbaa saying he doesn’t like bullies -- seems like that would’ve been a lovely thing to set up earlier, maybe to give that line some emotional pay-off, but nope! There’s no joke AND there’s no point. But you want to know what made me hate these two beyond reason in this movie? You want to know what finally pushed me over the edge? They broke the fourth wall beyond repair by -- rather than randomly putting on a hula skirt and dancing goofily, because of course we’re a SERIOUS animated movie, one that’s so REAL -- singing Be Our Guest from Beauty and the Beast, French accent and all. ...Excuse me for a minute. *buries her face into a pillow and screams in rage*

+By the way, those other animals who live in the jungle Timon and Pumbaa are from and therefore invalidate their assertion of being “outcasts”? Completely pointless. They don’t even come with Timon and Pumbaa and fight for the Pridelands! You could have cut them completely and lost nothing.

+As much as Hakuna Matata was the most irritating of the numbers, I Just Can’t Wait to Be King and especially Be Prepared were just pathetic. I Just Can’t Wait to Be King largely suffered, again, due to the “realism” of the animation, but the slow editing and even the vocals slowed the whole sequence down and sucked out any energy or excitement from the piece. I’ll give credit to Nala and Simba’s voice actors for their vocal quality, but there was still none of the spontaneity and recklessness in their voices that the song requires, so it just came across as Disney karaoke, rather than anything professional. But Be Prepared was easily the worst of the lot. It would be a challenge to try to evoke the level of dread and demented thrill you get from the original song sequence, but here, the filmmakers didn’t even try. Not only do we only get part of the song, but Scar’s voice actor Chitwetel Ejiofor barely sings a word of it and brings none of the dynamic, power-hungry, conniving, almost hypnotic mania that’s supposed to define Scar in that moment. He’s mostly just shouting like an old man yelling at a kid to get off his lawn -- there’s no attempt at persuasion or temptation in his voice at all. And just like in most of the other musical numbers, the only way Scar’s character model can emote during his song is to climb on things. Even in songs that were performed well, there were notable problems. The Circle of Life was basically animated on autopilot, replicating every single shot without taking any time to show any genuine emotion anywhere, whether when Zazu and Rafiki greeted Mufasa or when Simba sneezed away the dust in his face...and Can You Feel the Love Tonight? Haha, yeah, right -- more like “Can You Feel the Love in the Mid-Afternoon”! It was absolutely comical, hearing them sing “tonight” when the entire sequence was done in daylight!

+I’ve always liked The Lion King, but...wow, after seeing this remake and how much they tried to lean into the “hyenas as outsiders” idea in this, I have to acknowledge that there are some uncomfortable elements to this story. In the original, we solely focus on Shenzi, Banzai, and Ed with other hyenas in the background, so them being outside the Pridelands could just be seen as the case of a few bad apples, rather than it being an indictment on an entire group. But here, in this version, Shenzi is depicted more seriously as the leader of all the hyenas and it’s established that the war between lions and hyenas has gone on for a long time. Basically this movie turns Shenzi into Zira from The Lion King 2...and yeah, that makes it so that the hyenas -- as the outsiders -- should theoretically be slightly sympathetic, right? You know, to show that it’s wrong to cast others out because they look or act different from you? Nope! Nope, they’re all just evil! They’re manifestations of greed and hunger with no potential for redemption whatsoever. They’re not like our good, pale-colored lionesses who all look the same -- they’re dirty, and conniving, and they seek to creep out of the shadows and leech on everything the lions hold dear. I could very, very easily see how some vile, disgusting people could embrace such a narrative in this current climate, seeing themselves in the lions trying to “take their land back” from the shadowy, evil hoard of creatures who have come from outside to tear down their way of life. I can’t act like this adaptation added something that wasn’t at all in the original movie, as, let’s be honest, it plagiarized most of it...but perhaps because of how they reused this story and in some cases leaned into some elements of that story, this remake has very, very bad timing in when it was released. Those elements of the story probably wouldn’t have been read into it back in the 90′s, given the relative stability of the political landscape, but now? Now I could see how people could read it that way. It’d be like trying to make a movie like Independence Day, where national monuments get blown up, right after 9/11.

Looking back on what I just saw, I’m still absolutely stunned. Never before have I felt like my time has been more wasted than when I decided to sit down and watch this movie. I’ve tried to find shreds of praise, but whenever I try, it feels like I’m grasping at straws, only to fall back into a big pool of “blah.” I have never been so bored by a movie in my life -- and if there’s anything Disney, and especially Disney musicals, should never be, it’s boring. I would still say Maleficent makes me the most angry of Disney’s recent remakes, considering that that one openly insulted the original it was based off and this one is just clearly so up the original’s ass that it’s obnoxious...but this one was easily the biggest disappointment. I went in with almost no expectations, and yet still came out disappointed in the result. That, I think, says a lot. I could see someone who simply wants to see some cute animals and ride a bit on the nostalgia train enjoying this...but forgive me, but that bar is way too low. Disney is capable of doing so much better -- the true Lion King, the 1994 classic that broke records and surpassed all audience expectation, is more than enough evidence of that.

Overall Grade: D-

#the lion king (2019)#the lion king #disney #the lion king spoilers #opinion #oh boy here i go #reviews #disney remakes #remakes

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achtung-attitude · 4 years

Photo

CHAPTER 26: Abraxas - Part 4

While ACHTUNG BABY does what it can to defend its master from the onslaught of fists and blows, Shizuka can’t help but feel a pain not only on her body, but within herself as well.

“I can’t do this… I’m not strong enough… I’m not like them… I never will be…”

“Well, of course not. How could you be?”

In an office surrounded by bookshelves and starfish in display cases, a large man in a dark coat inspects the contents of an aquarium on his desk. His hat is pulled low over his brow, as he diligently takes notes. Behind him is a pale young girl, with dark hair, standing against the wall, with sunglasses positioned on her head. The office sways slightly, rocking gently to and fro.

“So you agree… I’m not strong enough.” the girl asks, staring at his back.

“That’s not what I said. I meant, of course you’re not like us. You’re your own person.”

“Yeah, maybe I am... but that doesn’t mean I’m good enough. Even if I’m my own person, it’s not like I’m really… a part of you all. We’re not really family…

“I know why I’m here, Jotaro. I’m not stupid. You took me out on this trip because you felt sorry for me. But it’s OK. I don’t feel sad anymore… I don’t feel anything.”

The man says nothing, taking his notes on a clipboard.

“I clung to Daddy and Mamma for everything. Everything. They were my foundation. Every person needs something to build themselves on. But mine was built on sand. I’ll never know who my real parents were, who my own family is. All I have is Mamma to cling on to. And when she’s gone, I’ll disappear completely. I’ll just be… empty.”

There is silence in the room for a while. Then, Jotaro calls out, “Shizuka, come over and look at this.”

Shizuka does, after a moment of confusion. “What?”

“Look at this,” the man says, pointing at a rock in the aquarium, “see that, encrusted on the rock? Look there, it’s opening its shell to release its legs.”

Shizuka looks, and what she thought was some sort of stone opens up to extend an appendage similar to a feather duster. “What is that?” she asks as Jotaro rolls up his sleeve and dips his hand into the aquarium, picking up the rock the thing is attached to. He presents the rock, water dripping all over the floor.

“An acorn barnacle. Those feathery things are modified legs, left over from their larval stage. Most species of barnacle attach themselves to substrate, but many others cling to animals. These, for example, like to latch onto to humpback whales. At first glance, they resemble bivalve molluscs like clams or mussels, but in fact they’re crustaceans, closer to crabs.”

“Ohh, ok… Does it have anything to do with what we were talking about?”

“No. It just fascinates me.”

“...Ok.”

“Come outside with me for a second.”

Jotaro gets up from his seat abruptly and steps out of the lab. Shizuka follows him outside, bewildered. On the deck of the research vessel, she can see land in the distance. Gulls cry overhead. Jotaro stares straight ahead. The name painted on the side of the vessel is OCEAN MAN.

“2 years ago, the world nearly came to an end.”

Shizuka blinks. “What?”

“A man named Enrico Pucci, a follower of an old enemy of mine, set in motion a plan which would give him the power to end the world and remake it in his image. Jolyne and I tried to stop him, and we failed. STAR PLATINUM couldn’t touch him. I couldn’t touch him.”

“... Well, it couldn’t have been that bad, considering we’re all still here.”

“Yes. We have Giorno Giovanna to thank for that.”

“Who?”

“Giorno Giovanna. The son of that old enemy of mine, the very one Pucci lived for. He appeared out of nowhere, drawn by fate to Cape Canaveral, just like we were. He saved our lives, stopped Pucci with the most terrifying ability I’ve ever seen. But with his death came something I can’t explain; things were different. The world seemed different. Maybe the nature of Pucci’s ability was that it would affect the world in spite of his death. I don’t know. But in spite of everything, I was still alive. Jolyne was still alive. We all were still alive.”

Shizuka grimaces, looking down. “But then Daddy died six months later anyway! So you got upstaged, what difference does it make!?”

“It makes a difference. I was afraid. I still am.”

“... You are…?”

“I’m afraid that the world we’re in is the wrong one. I’m afraid of Giorno Giovanna’s power, however much he seems to intend to use it for good. In that moment when Death stared me straight in the face, I truly felt powerless. I feared that I would die, unable to do anything to protect the ones I love.

“I was afraid of losing my family. But I didn’t. I still have my daughter, and all of you.”

“But... we’re not family. I’m… not your family.”

“Yes you are. We might not share any blood, but that’s not what families are made from. Connections don’t start with the blood, but the Will. The old man chose you, made you his daughter. You dishonor his memory by denying that connection.”

“But Daddy isn’t here anymore…!”

“He lives in you. He left behind a legacy of adventure and justice, and spent his final years raising you. As long as we live with pride, he’s always with us.”

Too busy stifling tears to pull away from Jotaro’s gentle embrace, Shizuka buries her face into her nephew’s shirt. “What-- What do I even do?”

“I don’t know. You have to decide, but whatever you do, you’ll be fine. You are Joseph Joestar’s daughter.”

Shizuka sniffs, and dribbles snot into the fabric of Jotaro’s coat. Shaking his head, he says “Good grief…”

---

“My own way of doing things?” Shizuka murmurs, staring in the mirror. “What is my way of doing things? Who am I, even?” She has returned home, standing in the bathroom of her parents’ New York apartment, where she has lived her whole life.

Once again, she places the sunglasses over her eyes, casting a reddish veneer over her vision. She raises her hand, and concentrates. Before her eyes, the hand turns invisible. “This power… That I’ve always used to hide away… To disappear… I don’t want that! I don’t want to disappear! I want to be real!!”

She began with practicing smiles in the mirror, her face so unused to it. A spirit gripped her, a new determination she had never before known. Having mastered smiling, she began further preparations.

Sunbathing herself beet red, experimenting with all manner of make-up, nearly bleaching the hair right off her scalp. Every misstep only fuelled her determination, to take the next step in her transformation.

She would no longer be someone who hid, who disappeared. She would draw attention, burn herself into people’s memories. Like a star, shining light in the dark.

She would be Shizuka Joestar.

---

Back in the present, Phantasma swings a heavy fist at her. She jumps back, losing her footing and stumbling backwards into the ropes. Her ears are ringing and there is a whirlpool in skull. Beneath her feet, shards of shattered glass crunch. Leaning back over the ropes, Shizuka sees the broken skylight above her. The shaft of light that illuminate the dim place.

“Phantasma…” she murmurs.

The masked woman listens, her eyes till covered by the makeshift blindfold. “Hmm?”

“Do you know… about whale barnacles?”

“... Excuse me?”

“Whale barnacles. Like the barnacles that you find stuck to piers or rocks in tide pools, only these ones attach themselves to live whales, especially humpbacks. My nephew told me about them.”

“... I seem to have struck you so hard you can’t think straight. You were doing so well before, and now you’re making a fool of yourself, once again.”

Shizuka gasps, gulping air into her harried lungs before speaking again. “The thing with barnacles is, they live their whole adult lives cemented to a single object, but they are not part of it. They are wholly independent.

“In extreme cases, a lot of barnacles can provide a humpback whale with armor, protecting it from rivals or predators. But it might also cause extra drag, slowing it down. But only in extreme cases, and even then, the barnacles do not serve the whale at all. They are completely, independent beings. Phantasma… I’m sure you think you’ve already won, yes?”

Phantasma cocks her head to one side. “I don’t follow what you’re saying. You are right, of course, I look forward to your final moments. I expect them to be glorious. But what do barnacles have to do with anything?”

“It’s just the first… the first thing you need to understand.” She says, pulling herself, facing forward. Her vision is unfocused, as she stares straight past Phantasma, at the gap in the ropes where Moya fell through.

“The first? What, then, is the second?”

“The second thing is my name,” she stands, no longer leaning on the ropes. “You heard it before, but I don’t think you were paying attention, so I’ll tell you again. My name is Shizuka Joestar. That name is why you’re going to lose.”

“Oh? How so? Will your family’s lawyers litigate me to death? It’s worth a try, I suppose,” the masked woman sneers.

“It’s not about money, it’s about tradition,” Shizuka says, her smile weakly returning. “Within the Joestar family, there’s a technique that’s been passed down through the generations. A surefire move that not even Moya knows about.”

“A secret technique?” Phantasma asks, her grin becoming genuine.

“That’s right. You told me to fight until my last breath… well, if all my other options are through, then I have no choice… I hope you’re ready for this…!”

“I am ready. Show me, Shizuka Joestar!” ABRAXAS emerges, banging its chest before readying itself behind Phantasma. “Show me what your blood is worth!”

#jjba #jojos bizarre adventure #jojo no kimyou na bouken #achtung attitude #shizuka joestar #jotaro kujo #ch26

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ahtohallan-calling · 4 years

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chapter 4 of love is the only thing we can carry with us (kristanna slowburn/angsty but cute/no magic au, rated t) is up!

next chapter // all chapters

“What a sweetheart,” she cooed. “At least you’re not grumpy, huh? I bet you love to make new friends.” “Trust me, once you get Sven started talking, he won’t stop,” Kristoff deadpanned, and Anna looked up at him, blinking in surprise. “Did you just make...was that a joke?” “Keep talking to him, and you’ll find out,” he said, doing his utmost to sound ominous.

She must hate me, Kristoff thought, wincing as he closed the door behind him. The conversation had stuttered to a halt, no thanks to him. He’d never been good at talking to people, especially strangers; he’d always avoided that side of things growing up, preferring to run errands or do chores while his mother and grandfather did the actual nursing work. But after his mother had passed away, and Grandpapa had needed a new full-time helper, he’d been forced to at least start trying to make conversation with people in their care.

Trying, of course, didn’t always mean succeeding.

It didn’t help that he had a nagging feeling that maybe he actually had met this girl before. When he had come running and found her standing over that pile of ragged old curtains, nose pressed to the window like she was looking for something...well. He’d wanted to ask her, there and then, what she remembered of her first visit to the mountains. Because seeing her stand there, seeing that look in her eye, like an animal caught in a trap…

And instead, he internally berated himself, you said something stupid about the drapes.

And then he’d stayed up there for far longer than he needed to, remaking the bed he’d just gotten ready that morning, arranging her trunks, straightening the furniture, all in an attempt to put off making further conversation with her just a little bit longer. It wasn’t that she annoyed him, though he had a feeling that was what she suspected; it was that he couldn’t stop racking his brain to figure out if he knew her or not, and that made coming up with something worth saying even harder than usual.

The royal family had owned this cottage for years, but he hadn’t remembered them using it in ages, at least not for anything more than an occasional quick weekend away for the king and queen, but even that had been years ago. At first, he’d dismissed the thought that maybe he’d met Anna before, thinking he would remember a princess without much effort. But if she had come when she was very young, back when he was too busy adjusting to life with his adoptive family to think of much besides proving he was worth being kept around, when he’d spent every waking moment trying to prove he could be brave and strong and useful and every sleeping moment trapped in nightmares where it still wasn’t enough…

Kristoff shook his head in an attempt to clear his mind; just remembering those days opened a cold, yawning pit in his stomach. More than likely, he was just imagining things; Anna had probably come and gone long before he first arrived. But as he made his way back down the hill, his eyes lighted on the massive oak tree in the front yard. Feeling drawn to it somehow, like he had been pulled into a dream without quite realizing it, he turned and walked towards it, pressing his hands against the rough bark. It was taller now, and so was he, but somehow standing here he felt very small again, in more ways than one.

Hidden by the branches, he dared to look up at the house.

She was there in the window, looking out at something in the distance, sunlight glinting on the copper of her hair, and suddenly the memories rose in him as if a hidden well in his heart had just been struck. The little girl he had hated so much, the one with the red hair and so many visitors. He hadn’t understood then why she was so sad, why she had been kept inside for so long. And now that he did--

Kristoff turned away and headed down the hill, shoving his hands in his pockets. No point on dwelling on things he couldn’t do anything about. And besides-- so what if he remembered her? That didn’t mean she remembered him.

The whole way back to his cabin, he thought he could hear the soft sound of weeping carried by the breeze.

The next morning, he found himself trying not to nod off into his bowl of oatmeal while his grandfather gave him very firm instructions for Anna’s care.

“You didn’t have to come over,” he said through a yawn. “I promise, I know what I’m doing. You guys taught me well enough.”

His grandfather’s lips pressed together into a thin line. “You’ve never cared for a princess before.”

“Well, she’s still a person, isn’t she?”

“She’s more than that, and you and I both know it,” Grandpapa said sternly.

Kristoff bit back a response. He didn’t know why his grandfather’s attitude about Anna bothered him so much; after all, she was royalty, the heir to the throne, and if her heart were to give out before Elsa or she had married, it could spell tragedy for Arendelle.

Grandpapa, sensing his surrender, resumed his list of instructions. “She needs sunlight and fresh air, but not too much exercise. She’s still recovering from pneumonia, so there’s already a heavy strain on her lungs and her heart, and as the queen said, her heart has always been weak. Any further exertion--”

“I know, I know,” Kristoff said, standing up suddenly and shoving his chair back into place. He didn’t know why he couldn’t bear the thought of his grandfather finishing that sentence; it was just a reality, after all, that even once this girl finished recovering from pneumonia, eventually, some other sickness or accident or shock to her system would come and that would be that. It happened to everybody; it had happened to Kristoff’s mother; it just would probably happen a little sooner than normal for Anna. It would happen to him someday, and the world would move on just fine.

His grandfather was still sitting there, eyebrows raised. “Are you sure you can do this?”

Kristoff gritted his teeth. “Do her shopping. Take notes of her breathing, her coloring, her appetite. Update you with any change. Update the queen once a week. Don’t let her know that really getting better will never actually happen. Am I forgetting anything?”

He didn’t bother to wait for an answer. Before his grandfather could respond, Kristoff was already out the door. Part of him felt guilty for being so rude, and a deeper part wondered if his grandfather ever regretted letting his daughter take him in in the first place. But he shoved those thoughts aside and made his way to the small stable, digging a carrot out of his pocket for Sven.

“You see how messed this up is, right, buddy?” he asked the reindeer, scratching behind his antlers. “They don’t care enough about her to tell her the truth, so they shove her off on me?”

The only response was a grunt. Kristoff sighed. That wasn’t that part that was bothering him, not really. But if he let himself go down that path, then he really wouldn’t be able to get through this without ruining everything. Don’t question it, he reminded himself firmly as he finished hitching Sven to his wooden cart and climbed in, snapping the reins and heading off for the cottage on the hill at a clip. Just do what they say and think about how much the Queen is paying you.

It was more than enough to cover what he needed to survive, and beyond that, he didn’t want much, anyway. The rest was all going to his grandfather, then the extended family if they needed it. Maybe that, at least, would make up for his rudeness at breakfast.

He was still brooding when the cart crested the hill, so deep in his thoughts that at first, he didn’t notice the door to the cottage was wide open. It wasn’t until he heard a cheerful, “Good morning, Mr. Bjorgman!” that he snapped out of his reverie.

“Anna?” he called, jumping down from the cart and hurrying towards the door without even unhitching Sven. “Are you alright?”

She emerged with a bright smile, wearing a soft green dress that hung just a little too loosely off her frame. She was halfway through braiding her hair, with only one shoe on. “I wasn’t sure if I should expect you today, so I was going to take a quick walk into town. There’s just a few things I need, and I wanted to see if--”

“You can’t do that,” Kristoff interrupted with a frown.

Her face fell. “Why not?”

“You’re sick. You’ve got-- you’re getting over pneumonia, aren’t you?”

“Well...yes. But really, I feel much better. How long can it last, anyway? I’m sure I’m all better now, so no need to go on babying me. Elsa nearly drove me batty this winter, with all her--”

As she spoke, she tied off her hair and began searching for her second shoe. “Ah-- there you are! Anyway, Mr. Bjorgman, there’s no need to fret. You can go on and do whatever you need to here. It’ll probably be easier when I’m out of your way, anyway, won’t it?” He was questioning again whether or not this was really worth it. She had a point; if it really had only been pneumonia, she just might have been able to manage walking into town, provided she went slowly and took lots of breaks. But considering how weak she had already been before falling ill, how much more damage this had probably caused-- she couldn’t risk it. And he couldn’t risk letting her-- but how could he stop her from going without telling her why?

“I was-- well…” he started awkwardly, casting about for a reason. “Well, I figured you would need things. So I was coming to ask about them. Ask what you needed, I mean. And then pick them up for you so you wouldn’t have to bother.”

“Oh, it’s no bother at all! But I wouldn’t mind the company. That is, if you don’t mind company. If you do, then I guess I will just go on and--”

“I don’t mind,” he interrupted quickly, seeing his opportunity. “I still have the wagon hitched. Sven and I can take you down.”

She bit her lip, considering this. “Well...I was looking forward to a walk…”

“A walk is better than a reindeer?”

She brightened at this. “You have a reindeer?”

He stood back from the doorway, letting her peek out into the yard. With a squeal of delight, she ran out, still holding one shoe in her hand, and stopped in front of Sven. She paused to catch her breath, leaning on the corner of the wagon, and Kristoff hurried over. “You alright?”

She nodded, still smiling. “Can I-- can I pet him?”

“Sure.”

She reached out one hand to gently stroke the top of Sven’s head, eyes wide with wonder. When the reindeer snorted and rubbed his nose against her palm, she let out a surprised laugh.

“Here,” Kristoff said, offering her a carrot. She looked confused, and it was his turn to laugh. “Not for you, for him. He’s begging you for a treat.”

She took it then, and held it up to Sven’s muzzle, giggling when he delicately plucked it from her palm. “What a sweetheart,” she cooed. “At least you’re not grumpy, huh? I bet you love to make new friends.”

“Trust me, once you get Sven started talking, he won’t stop,” Kristoff deadpanned, and Anna looked up at him, blinking in surprise.

“Did you just make...was that a joke?”

“Keep talking to him, and you’ll find out,” he said, doing his utmost to sound ominous.

Apparently, it worked, because Anna gave Sven a sidelong glance before looking back at Kristoff. “So...are you ready?”

He nodded and held out an arm to help her clamber into the wagon. He climbed up after her, making sure to maintain a respectable distance from her. “I’ve got a blanket down here if you need it,” he offered; despite the sunny weather, late April in the mountains could still feel chilly, especially for people used to valley life.

She seemed to debate for a minute-- probably doesn’t want to seem weak, he thought-- before nodding. He unfolded the blanket he always kept stowed just behind the seat and carefully draped it over her lap, making sure not to actually make contact with her. When he pulled back, she was staring at him, an odd expression on her face, and he looked away, feeling heat creep up his neck. Could have just handed it to her, Bjorgman, he thought irritably, before tugging on the reins and directing Sven back down the hill.

For a few minutes, they rode in silence, which suited Kristoff just fine. His eyes kept sliding towards Anna, wondering what she was thinking. It wasn’t hard to grasp the gist of it; she was looking wide-eyed at the rolling green expanse of the mountainside as if it were a feast and she had never tasted anything but gruel. The third time he glanced her way, she caught him and flashed him a starry-eyed smile. “I’ve never seen anything so beautiful,” she said breathlessly.

Me neither, he thought, surprising even himself.

When he didn’t respond immediately, she bit her lip again and turned to face forward again; Kristoff mentally kicked himself for messing up the conversation yet again. “Sorry, I was just-- yes. It is beautiful,” he said. “I’m really glad I got to grow up here.”

The smile started to creep back onto her face. “I wish I’d grown up here, too.”

“But you’re a princess. The mountains are beautiful, but what have they got on a castle?”

“Everything,” she breathed, and the way she said it made him feel oddly proud of his home.

He sat up a little straighter. “It’ll be even better in a couple of weeks when the flowers start blooming.”

She sighed happily. “I’ll have to write Elsa about this. She’ll have to come see it for herself. This is definitely happy ever after material.”

She had lost him again. “Happy...what?”

“You know, happy ever after. Like in books? Didn’t you ever think about what you’d want yours to be?”

“Not...really?”

She considered this for a minute. “Maybe it’s just something my sister and I do then. We spent a lot of time cooped up in the library growing up, or listening to our governess tell stories, and after a while we started thinking about how we’d like our own stories to end. So when we read a new story we really liked, or when we saw something really beautiful, we’d add it to our happy ever after. Sometimes just talking about them was even better than reading a book, because it was like a story, just for us. Especially when we--”

She paused suddenly; her hands had been fluttering around for emphasis as she spoke, but now they laid tangled together in her lap. “I’m-- I’m sorry. I know I tend to go on and on about nothing, so please just-- you know, tell me to shut up, or-- or whatever if I start to irritate you. Which I think I’m probably doing now-- so.”

Kristoff shook his head emphatically. “I don’t mind, really. Talk as much as you want.”

“I-- really?”

He nodded. “Like you said, we’ll be seeing a lot of each other. Might as well talk.”

“Well-- are you sure? Even if I’m talking about something strange? I think now, after actually explaining it, the happy ever after game is probably really weird, so I’m sorry if that freaked you out, or if you think I’m crazy, which I’m not, which now that I think about it is what a crazy person would say--”

“I don’t think it’s weird. It sounds sort of...nice. I don’t have siblings, so I didn’t do anything like that growing up.”

She brightened. “Well, it’s never too late to start!”

“I wouldn’t know where to begin.”

“It’s easy. Just think about what would make you happiest, and what you’d like to do with your life, and who you’d like to spend it with, and there it is! And you can change it, of course, whenever you’d like.”

“What’s yours, then?”

“Well, I’ve had to change it just now, because it will have to include trips to this mountain to see the flowers every chance I get. But in my happy ever after, I fall terribly in love with a very handsome prince, and he whisks me away to a palace where there’s chocolate with every meal, and I have six cats and a dog, and a garden of my own.”

Anna peeked up at him from under her lashes. “It is silly, isn’t it? I’ve-- I’ve never told anyone besides Elsa about it. It hasn’t changed much since I was a little girl, really, just the number of animals.”

He shook his head. “Nothing wrong with doing something that makes you happy. Besides, it seems to be working out for you in a way, doesn’t it? Considering you’ll be getting whisked away by a prince after you leave here, right?”

She didn’t answer him. After a few moments, he glanced down and saw she was staring off into the distance, a sudden melancholy in her eyes. “Anna?”

“Hmm? Oh-- I’m alright. Just...got distracted. Anyway, now that I’ve gone and embarrassed myself by spilling my heart’s desires to a near stranger, it’s your turn. What would be in your happy ever after?”

He turned the question over in his mind. What did he want his future to look like? He’d never thought too much about it, had always assumed that his future would look much the same as the present: staying in the mountains, helping Grandpapa, taking care of Sven, spending as much time as he could in the woods. Beyond that, he wasn’t even sure what he would want; wasn’t all of that enough?

“Mr. Bjorgman?”

“You can call me Kristoff,” he said absentmindedly. “Nobody calls me that. I just thought maybe princesses were supposed to.”

She laughed at that. “Well, maybe, but up here I really don’t feel like a princess at all! So no point in following etiquette, is there? I like it that you call me Anna, anyway, instead of “princess” or “my lady” or something like that. It’s nice to just be me for once.”

Before he could respond, he heard a voice calling, “Kris! I didn’t know you’d be here today!”

How did we make it to town already? he wondered, blinking in surprise before waving hello to the boy that was already running over to hug Sven around the neck. “Olaf, hey. What are you doing here?”

“Grandpapa sent me for more oatmeal,” came the cheerful response. “But we already have enough. I think he just got tired of me.”

Next to him, Anna snorted in amusement. Olaf looked up at her, excited to have a new person to pester. “Hi! What are you doing here?”

“Just visiting,” she responded. “What are you doing here?”

He laughed. “I live here, silly!”

Two peas in a pod, Kristoff thought drily as he climbed out of the wagon and held up a hand to help Anna get down. He couldn’t help but notice how small her hand felt in his, how soft her skin was against his callused palm, and how small she looked standing next to the cart; he had forgotten, sitting next to her, just how short she was.

“Well, I’ll be living here for a little while, too,” Anna said brightly. “So you’ll have to show me around. How do you know Kristoff, anyway?”

“Oh, we’re cousins! Kind of, not really, because neither of us have parents so we ended up in the same family.”

“Olaf--” Kristoff began, then stopped. Anna would have found that out eventually, anyway, and he’d long since come to accept that fact of his life. Still, he was grateful she didn’t look at him or Olaf with pity; she just let the boy lead her, still chattering away, to show her the highlights of the small village, leaving Kristoff to tie up the cart and wonder for the millionth time that day just how he had gotten in so far over his head.

#i'm still experimenting with the best way to share my fics on here i'm so sorry thank u for ur patience #anyway if u havent kept up with this one it's an au where instead of having a frozen head/heart as a kid #anna got really sick and no one told her it damaged her heart #and she's in the mountains and kristoff takes care of her and he cant tell her the truth #so basically it's frozen but with the scarlet fever plotline from little women and also me crying about mountains and kristoff's butt #my fics #litotwccwu #cw: chronic illness

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millennial-star-gazer · 5 years

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The Draconic Demon Within(Reupload from cosmicdragonwizard accounts): Chapter:2

The Draconic Demon Within (Originally for Nalu Lovefest 2017 on previous celestialgeekmage accounts and Angst Week 2015 on Twishadowhunter/teamedwardjace2 in the past and Vera's April 2018 prompt challenge on cosmicdragonwizard account )

Genres: Drama/Angst, Hurt/Comfort,Romance, Friendship/Family New Adult Fanfiction

Vera's April 2018 Prompts: Soul, Empyrean, Savage, Memory, Trust, Fear, Unstoppable , Resilient, Supernatural (Implied) Lost (Implied) and Loathing.

Nalu Lovefest 2017 Prompts: Dreams

Pairing: Nalu/EndLu,( Natsu x Lucy/ E.N.D. x Lucy)

Rating: M for language, steamy and mature adult sexual content (all consensual) in these and future chapters. Reader Direction is advised.(You have been warned!)

Summary: Now faced with the reality of who he is truly is, the son of Igneel must come to terms with the new emerging, darker instincts of his new demonic identity- all while navigating through his ever-growing, intense feelings for a particular celestial wizard. Originally a Submission (semi -au) for Nalu lovefest 2017 (on my previous celestialgeekmage account. (Also was on my earliest previous accounts of teamedwardjace/Twishadowhunter in the past. Also part of Vera's April 2018 prompt challenge from fic-writers appreciation on cosmicdragonwizard)

Chapter 2: Incinerate: A Demon's Protective Rage

A/N: Hey all, here's the next installment of The Draconic Demon Within! It was originally part of what was a longer first chapter, but has since been further revised and divided into more chapters (along with others)— enjoy and don't forget to let me know what you think!

Disclaimer: You know I unfortunately don't own Fairytail which belongs to the most Hiro-sensei instead!

Read More Here:

1. The Draconic Demon Within

A. Tumblr:

Prologue and Chapter: 1 (Click Here:) or here: (https://millennial-star-gazer.tumblr.com/post/179816192273/the-draconic-demon-within-reupload-from/amp?)

Chapter:2

Chapter: 3 (Click Here:) (or here: https://millennial-star-gazer.tumblr.com/post/185917542578/the-draconic-demon-within-chapter-3)

Chapter: 4 (Click Here:) (or here: https://millennial-star-gazer.tumblr.com/post/614628807073251328/the-draconic-demon-within-chapter-4-a-demons)

B. Fanfiction (Click Here:) (or here: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13113898/1/The-Draconic-Demon-Within-Reupload-from-cosmicdragonwizardaccounts)

C. A03(Click Here:) (or here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17365061/chapters/40861472)

2. Tantric Flames (To Be Added Later)

3. Grey Days

A. Tumblr (Click Here:) (or here: https://millennial-star-gazer.tumblr.com/post/179767381833/grey-days-reuploadfrom-dragon-shield-maiden/amp?)

B. Fanfiction (Click Here:) (or here: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13112482/1/Grey-Days-Reupload-from-dragon-shield-maiden)

4. The Rest of My Writing

A. Master Fic Rec Post (Click Here): (or here: https://millennial-star-gazer.tumblr.com/post/179665258923/master-fic-rec-post

Legend:

Italics: Mainly Flashbacks

Bold: First Person Thoughts

Bolded Italics (Within and Outside Bracket): A/N: (Author's Notes)

"And she's thinking of rage, like an ember or a burning acid swallowing up her knotted viscera. Blindness like the kind that leads men to perpetrate horrors, animal drunkenness, the jungles of the mind. "

(Alden Bell: The Reapers Are The Angels, Reaper Series)

"If you lay a hand on her, I will destroy you. I will rip your head off with my bare hands and watch you burn in the sun ."

(Dimitri Belikov: Vampire Academy, Book 1)

(What'd you know? Found two quotes that really fit the overall tone of this chapter again)

" You okay Natsu?"

Lucy's gentle call of Natsu's name broke through his reverie bringing his attention back to the present."

"Yeah Luce, just trying to figure out how to wrap my head around all this" came Natsu's reply, sincere words nothing but reassuring. The dragonslayer knew he mostly wasn't one to lie, but also didn't wish to run the of risk alarming his best friend any further than she was .

Besides, I am actually okay—for the most part . Just gotta try and stay positive for Lucy's sake.

Natsu did notice however, that if he concentrated just enough, he could actually will the newly-sprouted leathery wings to retract just enough until they were gone completely— a tremendous relief if nothing to say the least .

"What about you? How are ya ' holding up?"

"Not entirely well, but a bit better with you here . "

"I know, it's a lot to take in right now—believe me. But I promise we're gonna be okay."

"There's not a doubt in my mind but what're we going to do?"

"We'll figure it—"

The sound of approaching footsteps echoing on stone broke through their conversation putting Natsu's senses on high alert. It was then to the realization dawned upon the fire demon that in all the mayhem, he'd forgotten they weren't alone; mentally cursing himself for having let such a critical fact slip his mind. Not to mention the sinking knot in settling the pit of his stomach when it was the demon Tempester, Natsu lifted his head to see striding towards them with a sinister expression; which raised his hackles enough for his lips to pull back revealing a flash of canines in a savage show of teeth.

"What do you think you're doing?!" He growled, a flare of stonecold fury ticking through scarlet eyes, The sound of his warning was downright ferocious, not to mention lethal with the threat of violence if the other etherious even so much as tried to lay a hand on Lucy. "Stay the hell away from us!"

Tempester merely raised a hand in response as if to silence him, clearly not deter any of Natsu's feral growls ripping from his chest.

"Easy there Lord E.N.D— no need to be so hostile" The etherious's voice was seemingly unruffled , a chillingly stark contrast to the malicious smile gracing his lips—so much so it sent off alarm bells off in Natsu's head. "I only wished to officially welcome you to our ranks as Master for which congratulations are in order. You've finally returned home to us, all while starting to realize your true potential in the process—though we didn't know it was you at first. Still, it's good to have you back after being away so long Now allow me to be of service by disposing of the celestial wizard for you as an act of good faith."

The thinly- veiled threat kicked Natsu's already fiercely protective instincts to keep Lucy safe into high-gear, manifesting in another guttural snarl of bestial proportions he let loose when his arms automatically tightened against her of their own accord at the same time.

"Touch her you bastard and I swear I'll burn ya' to a crisp!"

If he even tries anything... I swear to God...

Something strange seemed to stirring within Natsu just then, the infinite possibilities of all the unimaginable amount of the blood he could spill if the other demon didn't heed the warning ; appealing to a darker part of him that was once dormant. His words clearly seemed to fall on deaf ears however, when Tempester took another step forward—which only served to make the dragonslayer's blood boil.

"Hey! didn't you hear what I just said? stay back—don't come any closer!" Natsu hissed, baleful voice laced with venom that bordered on lethal. "Unless you want me to incinerate you you stand." One of his hands not pressed against Lucy's back was immediately engulfed in flames to empathize his point at the same time.

Pretty sure I could quite literally roast this guy if I have to. I'm not afraid to have little blood on my hands if it means protecting Lucy.

The ominous-sounding, residual, voice Natsu heard earlier seemed to stir again ; whispers echoing in the recesses his mind of just how easy it would be to set Tempester blaze, quite literally going up in flames without so much as being touched. Thoughts swimming, tempting Zeref's most powerful etheriouswith sadistic images of sizzling flesh melting off bone, blood vessels rupturing, liquified internal organs being broiled from the inside out until there was nothing left of the worthless lesser demon- scum known as Calamity but a charred pile of ashes. Oh the demon lord thirsted for this bastard's blood, how he's—-

Wait— just what the hell am I thinking?! Natsu railed against himself. I may be a demon, but I'm not some bloodthirsty monster! Butchering people like that ain't my style—not anymore anyway. God... what's wrong with me? Still , I'm gonna keep Lucy safe regardless of who or what I am.

"Master, if you just hand the girl over me I promise to make her death as swift and painless as possible."

Tempester's coldblooded voice snapped the fire wizard out of his reverrie.

"Not a chance ! There's no way in hell that I'm giving Lucy up to you!"

"Oh? Is that you already exercising your authority I hear?" Tempester praised, words pulling the corner of lips up into a smirk as if caught was between genuine amusement and pride. "I'm impressed."

"Yeah? Well that's just too damn bad, cuz I couldn't give a crap bout being your stupid master!"

" Yes, well, you might feel that way now but you'll change your mind— you'll see. It's only a matter of time before you realize who you're truly meant to be and help restore our guild. Not to mention remake this pathetic world in our image."

It was then that Lucy finally opted to speak up who no doubt probably had been watching the tense encounter with uneasy eyes up until this point.

"You're clearly out of your mind if that's what you think Natsu is all about!" She seethed , honey-brown eyes, alight with a obstinate fire. "Don't you dare you talk about Natsu as if you know him! He's not the monster you say he is—not anymore!"

"Oh really? That so, little girl?" Tempester's scoffed , disdain colouring his patronizing tone. " Now tell me— why should I listen to pointless chatter from a pathetic human like you ?

"Cuz she's right,"The son of Igneel's words rang with steely conviction when he chimed in response to the other etherious . "And definitely not pathetic. In fact, hearing you run your god damn rotten mouth about her like that makes me want to help her bash your ugly face in." Hearing Lucy's words of faith was honestly enough for his heart to trill, Tempester's of utter contempt in regards to his best friend for his blood to boil; All in all, steeling his nerves for combat.

"Yeah? I'd sure as hell like to see that!"

"Oh, you will— trust me."

His body automatically steeling himself for battle, Natsu pledged a vow to keep his the celestial mage safe from harm.

No matter what happens, I swear I'm gonna do whatever it takes to protect Lucy and to fight this darker part of me for everyone's sake . I will prove this Calamity bastard who think he knows me wrong, not to mention make everyone I love and care for proud— especially Igneel, Lucy and Happy.

To Be Continued

Fic tag squad: @writer-appreciation @soprana-snap @phoenix-before-the-flame @nunnatheinsanegerbil @mautrino @rougescribe @goddesofimortality @phoenix-before-the-flame @nalufever @petri808 @thecelestialchick @nalu-natic @superdomo360 @pyroandtheprincess @rayhneatess @nothingbutwordsstuff @petri808 @thecelestialchick @chiire @nalufever @shootingstarssel @chamilsanya @rougescribe @lover-of-the-light117

A/N: That's Chapter 2 folks-hope you all enjoyed and don't forget to leave a review ! The next chapter should be up ASAP once I'm able to begin work on it. In the meantime, feel free to check out my other works including Tantric Flames (with the writing process for Chapter 6 underway). (Respective links above along with the rest of my writing in tumblr post, side bars and bio of my blog of on tumblr . Also on Fanfiction profile of the same name except as MillenialStargazer ). All right y'all, that's all for now! Many thanks to all those who've been supporting me and my writing thus far—stay tuned for more! Peace out!

#Fairytail #FT Fanfic #nalu #natsu x lucy #e.n.d natsu x lucy #natsu dragneel #etherious natsu dragneel #lucy heartfilia #tempester #my writing #reupload #cosmicdragonwizard #please reblog #submit to writer-appreciation #enjoy #millennial-star-gazer #millennial stargazer writes

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fictionerd · 5 years

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Good to see you, friends!

Oh boy... This is LATE getting out, huh? Oh well I’m covering so few series at this point things are bound to get a little sloppy. My apologies for that. Still that’s enough dwelling on my problems let’s talk about the show.

Synopsis: So Nurse Magical girl transferred to Asuka’s school as we saw at the end of the last episode. Now you may think that this was done by SDF guy who is acting as Asuka’s guardian. Maybe he thought having her old comrade-in-arms around would convince her to join up with the new spec-ops group. However, you would be incorrect. See, Kurumi actually twisted SDF guy’s arm into getting her transferred there by threatening to quit her post. (Yeah, real solid morals you have there.) She again lays on a nice big slathering of guilt for Asuka. Telling her the enemy obviously thinks she’s still a part of this and that it’s best for them to be together as often as possible.

[takes a deep breath and exhales]

Then she goes so far as to say it’d be good if they could live together too, but that gets interrupted by the arrival of Sporty and Bookish. This is when we start to get the very clear picture that Stalker Nurse is completely infatuated with Asuka and is a jealous bitch on top of it all. She starts strutting around like some sort of territorial animal trying to simultaneously reaffirm her relationship with Asuka and let the other two know that she’s the Alpha-Bitch in this scenario.

Believe it or not this is not helped knowing how she was recruited to become a magical girl, and it’s also not helped by the flashback we see this episode that reveals Stalker Nurse was bullied in her younger days. Apparently getting drafted into the magical war effort was the best thing to ever happen to her.

I’m sort of skimming over points so let’s back up a bit. Stalker Nurse officially joins the group as I said before and the four of them start hanging out. Stalker Nurse gets petty and jealous and is kind of obvious about it, but I guess Sporty and Bookish are too kind to mention it. In the lunchroom one day a sound like a suppressed gunshot is made. I couldn’t really tell how the people were making the sound, but it triggers Bookish to have another panic attack. Sporty, having seen Asuka help bring Bookish down once walks her through it herself this time.

They discuss how intense things have been lately, and Sporty spouts off that if things get really bad then the Magical Girls would appear to save them. This visibly irritates Stalker Nurse who seems about to say something dumb when Asuka interjects by quietly putting her hand on Kurumi’s under the table.

I like this. It sort of harkens back to how she’s been handling questions about Magical Girls. It’s a move informed by her character and the secrecy she has to uphold. Quietly telling her friend to just smile and nod because in an ideal circumstance: YES they WOULD show up.

Picking up on the awkward vibes Sporty is quick to try and think of a way they can all get back to some normalcy and invites them all swimming. Asuka and Stalker Nurse agree (Largely because Stalker Nurse starts fantasizing about Asuka in a bikini) and they all end up meeting up for this. We get to see a bit of them hanging out at the pool, swimming, and Bookish climbs up to the tallest diving platform and jumps off as a way to symbolically face down the fear she’s been dealing with. I’m hoping that this doesn’t magically make said fears go away. It works to show she’s moving forward and to feed into Asuka’s character. She really is a lot like Bookish. She’s letting her fear and weariness keep her from truly moving forward. Whether to officially put her foot down about not being a magical girl, or to step into the fight where people need her.

After the swimming trip the four decide they should hang out like that more often and Sporty suggests they all catch a movie together and of course picks what appears to be this universe’s equivalent of a SyFy original: Samurai Cheerleader vs Megaton Shark. She buys them all tickets and the four part ways presumably because the tickets are for another day (Do movie theatres work that way in Japan?)

Now, I’d like to introduce a secondary section: WORLD SYNOPSIS. This is specifically for this show (And any future ones I cover) Where I feel world events need to be addressed separate from the main cast’s progression. So without further ado.

World Synopsis: In world events for MSSO this week we get to see a bit more detail of what the one magical girl in Mexico has been up to as she raids a drug cartel’s den. There she and her team find a barely-alive guy reciting numbers over and over who makes mention of something called “Babel” and “A more terrible war.”

SDF Pops introduces Asuka to the magical combat specialists in training from his group which, naturally ticks her off since she doesn’t want to get involved in the law enforcement stuff (At least not without having her arm twisted into it by necessity). He conveys to her that the world has been forever changed by interacting with other realms. There are criminals from the Magical realm trading magical items to people in exchange for valuable materials. Thus giving us an explanation as to where Babel is getting their toys. Finally he drops the bombshell of illegal Magical Girls. Asuka, of course, is still hesitant to join the fray.

Cut to the foreign affairs department of the Japanese police. Sporty’s dad has apparently been personally torturing mophead from episode one until he spills a few choice tidbits.

“Magical Girl..” “Prey..” “Remake the world” “New Organization” “Library of Babel” “Babel Brigade”

And the repeat of that phrase from the guy in the beginning.

“A more terrible war.”

Sporty’s dad speaks to some one who I assume is his partner in the investigation or a subordinate or something. He says that regardless of how big this is they’re police officers. It’s their job to uncover the truth and do everything in their power so normal people can live peacefully.

The final World Synopsis event of the episode which kind of coincides with the Character synopsis is Sporty, on her way home from hanging out with the Protagonist Posse, gets abducted by shady looking dudes working for Babel. Obviously they know who’s been interrogating their man Kim, and have decided to get to the officer through his daughter.

The episode closes with Asuka receiving a text (Presumably earlier) from Sporty saying she’s looking forward to seeing the movie. CLIFFHANGER!

Thoughts: I think this series is okay. Just okay so far. It still feels a bit rocky in places, but so long as you aren’t coming to this expecting the usual sugar and sweetness of a magical girl series you should be fine. I feel like the focus of the story is a bit scattered, but that could be helped as the world plot and character plots become more wound together in future episodes.There is, however, one thing that bugged me in this episode. To explain I need to introduce you to some one.

This is Kuroko Shirai. She is my favorite character in A Certain Scientific Railgun (And to a lesser extent in Index since so far she’s hardly shown up there). She is a blatant lesbian in love with the main character. I often refer to her as “The Teleporting Lesbian Stalker” because she really is one. She is viciously jealous of time Misaka spends with other people. Is suspicious of any guy Misaka meets or shows even passing affection for. Pulled strings to get herself assigned as Misaka’s roommate. Basically worships the ground Misaka walks on, and a running gag with her is her throwing herself at Misaka.

Now you may be wondering to yourself “Aren’t these qualities strikingly similar to Stalker Nurse Kurumi?”

Very astute you are correct, and yet I do NOT like Kurumi in the slightest. Why do I find Kurumi’s actions detestable when I see them as charming from Kuroko? I think the reason is that in the case of Kuroko and Misaka there’s a level of obvious friendship and trust between them. Between Kuroko’s delusional fantasies and inappropriate behavior we see that their relationship is one of friends. One might even say confidants. It also helps that Misaka is able to easily bugzap Kuroko if she gets too hug-happy. Underneath the over-the-top antics there’s a healthy relationship burried away.

So far there’s no indication of that with Kurumi and Asuka’s relationship and that’s a problem. I pointed out last week how Kurumi seems to be positioned as some one meant to manipulate Asuka into working as a magical girl again. Now it seems that she personally needs Asuka to rejoin the fight in order for her to function. She’s desperate to... well I’ll just out and say it. She wants to get in Asuka’s pants. She has this ideal of Asuka built up in her head it seems, and I can’t exactly blame her.

The problem is that Kurumi makes a big deal about her being “Asuka’s Best Friend”, but she doesn’t seem to be able to read Asuka at all. She’s not picked up at all on why Asuka doesn’t want to fight anymore. She doesn’t even have a mistaken impression as to why. She just thinks it’s wrong for Asuka to be trying to sideline herself, and while that opinion isn’t precisely incorrect she’s not exactly coming across as some one concerned about a close friend.

Now I’ll grant: If all this is intentional. If Kurumi’s arc is to realize that she’s been selfish. To learn to love who she is without her powers, and to see Asuka’s flaws instead of this ideal she’s built up. This will all have been worth it. I could enjoy that sort of story for Kurumi’s character. She’s supposed to be the support unit, and she needs to learn better how to support others.

My fear, as it has been for the first two episodes, is that I’m seeing potential which will ultimately not be fulfilled.

Until next post keep talking fiction, friends. I’ll see you soon.

#Anime #Let's Talk Anime #Mahou Shoujo Tokushusen Asuka #Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka #Magical Girl Spec-Ops #Magical Girl Spec Ops #Spec Ops Asuka #Fictionerd #In-Character #Winter 2019 #Winter Season 2019 #Winter Anime 2019

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gamearamamegathons · 6 years

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Dragon Quest V: Baby Dungeons

Circe here! I've only just started Dragon Quest V, but I've been thinking, given the sheer size of my last post on Dragon Warrior IV, maybe I should be writing shorter, more frequent posts rather than letting a huge amount of plot build up before posting, especially now that the games...actually...have plot. Besides, there's a lot to talk about right off the bat. First thing I should cover is that the SNES version of Dragon Quest V has never been localized to English. Dragon Quests IV through VI eventually got DS remakes that were released in the US, but I'm sticking with the original version of every game, so that means either rolling with a Japanese version or finding a fan translation. I know I talked a big game about playing untranslated games earlier, but these games have gotten a lot more text-heavy in the interrim, so that would probably slow things down a lot. I'm still not ruling out the possibility for future games, but for now, I think this works fine. This does mean that there may be localization choices that aren't consistent with any official localization, so this may be quite interesting, we'll see.

As for the game itself, as you might expect from an early SNES RPG, it's a weird mix of graphical and mechanical improvements paired with weird holdovers from the NES era. I was really hoping that the DOOR/TALK/SEARCH menu items would finally go away, but no, it's still here, and it looks even weirder next to the considerably better SNES graphics. However, with the extra buttons, they've added another button that appears to be a context-sensitive shortcut, so I may be leaning on that a lot instead. Menu navigation on the whole is pretty similar, although our characters have a bigger inventory, and equipment purchasing is even further improved by showing how each item in the shop will change each character's stats. I can't say it's not improved, but we're not really at the point of 'hey, this is a modern RPG now' quite yet. And that's...very weird, actually, because Final Fantasy IV was released the year before this game, and despite also having some weird NES holdovers, the UI is better in almost every way (except purchasing equipment, actually, I have to give DQ5 credit there). In fact, I don't know if Final Fantasy has *ever* had anything like Dragon Quest's clunky menu-driven interaction system, so it's very weird that it's lasted, in some form, for five games. But it's not like I haven't acclimated to it by now, so it's not a big deal.

So what is Dragon Quest V about? Well, it opens with our hero's birth. We see our papa...named Papas...and our mother, whose name I forget, celebrating the baby's birth and fretting over a name. As you might guess, they just happen to settle on a name I picked (Papas initially complains that it sounds 'too feminine', which is weirdly on the nose) and then the mother dies. So, uh...well that's kind of a downer to open on. In any case, our gender is fixed in this game (male, as you might guess) but I can't complain too much, since this one is probably going to be even plot-heavier than in the past. I think our character even talks. But it's a good thing, then, that SEN is a gender-ambiguous name. And no, I'm never going to stop using allcaps.

So, skip ahead to when SEN is a young adult...haha, just kidding, you're six. Apparently, Papas is a bit of a wanderer, but we're on a boat just about to make port in his hometown of Santa Rosa. Here on the ship we're going to get acquainted with one of the big changes in Dragon Quest V. At least here in the early game, you're pretty hemmed in, and the game expects you to talk to NPCs in the area in order to advance the plot. A far cry from the wide-open world of Dragon Warrior, but it's little surprise, since each game up to this point has taken little steps in this direction. And our character is, after all, six. Once we reach the dock, Papas immediately busies himself talking to some guy, so of course we wander off and immediately get into an encounter with some slimes. After a couple turns of feeble swings at the monsters, Papas steps in to protect us, taking out the slimes easily with blows upwards of 70 damage. So okay, he's pretty tough. He heals us, and we walk the short distance from the dock to Santa Rosa. This is a scripted sequence where Papas leads the way, but there are still random encounters like normal (okay, they're probably scripted, but it gives the appearance of random encounters). Papas handles the monsters with ease, and we head into town.

Here Papas bumps into the wife of his friend who runs an inn in the nearby town of Alcapa. Apparently, he has fallen ill, and his wife came here to get medicine. And we meet her daughter Bianca, who quickly gets bored of listening to the adults talk, and goes upstairs with us to pass the time. Being two years older, she's able to read, a little, so she takes out a book to read to us. It doesn't take her long to give up, though, complaining that the words are too difficult. It's not long before Bianca's mother comes to pick her up, and then it's just us and Papas again.

Papas seems to be a bit of an inattentive father, to be honest. He's busy with grown-up stuff, and we're left to our own devices. You can wander around town and talk to people, and find out that a man who went to find the medicine has gone into the nearby cave and hasn't come out, or you can, like me, just find the cave and decide this is an excellent idea without finding out why you should go there. There's a guard keeping six year old children from wandering out of town, but the cave is unguarded -- well, no, that's not true, there is a guard by the cave entrance, but he merely warns you that going into the cave is a bad idea and it's not his fault if you get lost. I know we're an RPG hero, but I want you to consider for a moment that by all reasonable standards, this adult human just stands there and watches as a literal six year old wanders to his likely death. Oh well. It would've been inconvenient if he'd stopped us. Don't let the fact that we're six years old give you the idea that we won't be fighting slimes, bats, and moles, or buying weapons and armor at the local shops. It's much funnier to instead picture our hero beating monsters to death with a stick using his tiny baby arms.

At the bottom of the dungeon we find the man trapped under the rock, and give him a hand. So, uh, probably good that someone came down here eventually. That done, Bianca and her mother are ready to return to Alcapa. Papas doesn't like the idea of them traveling on their own, though, so the four of us set out together. Once the medicine is delivered, Papas seems anxious to leave, but it seems that Papas's friends wants him to stay awhile and he, relucantly, agreed. I get the impression that Papas is concerned with...something. Something that's keeping him from his family and friends. But it's too early to say what it is, really. I'll admit, it reminds me of my time playing Taloon in Dragon Warrior IV, getting up in the morning and leaving his family every day to go stab monsters, except this time I'm the child instead. Did Taloon's kid understand why he left for so long, or why they eventually uprooted their lives to move to the much bigger and busier city of Endor? There's no telling, I suppose.

Alcapa is pretty similar to Santa Rosa, although it has a nicer shop and no dangerous open cave for children to wander into. Here, we spend more time with Bianca, and if we chat around a bit, we find a couple more kids tormenting a cat, presumably for no other reason than that they're assholes with nothing better to do. We try to intervene, and they tell us they'll let the cat go if we go fight ghosts in the haunted castle to the north. Okay. This seems a little artificial, especially since, if we're strong enough to do that, we're strong enough to deal with these little shits, but the quest is clear, so that's what we gotta do. We can only leave town at night when the guard is asleep, but that's no big deal, since the shops and everything are still open.

Bianca starts out at level 1 with pretty pitiful equipment, so the first thing I do is grind -- mostly for gold, but I get some decent levels in the process. This game introduces an interesting new feature -- weapons that can hit multiple enemies. I get a boomerang for myself, which can hit every enemy, and a thorn whip for Bianca, which can hit a single enemy group. The downside is that they do less damage to each consecutive enemy, but it's still a huge benefit, reducing large enemy groups to nothing in one or two strikes.

With that done, we head north to Lenoire Castle. I think one purpose of this dungeon is to show off a lot of the new event scripting stuff, kinda like Taloon's chapter in Dragon Warrior IV. This place is pretty damn haunted, with object moving around, doors opening on their own, and, uh, also there's ghosts everywhere trying to kill us. That's, I guess, the biggest hint probably. But it's also clear that they wanted to show off what this new engine can do. Along the way, we meet the ghosts of the former king and queen of the castle, who are apparently being hassled by bad ghosts. Eventually we meet the boss of the bad ghosts, called...Boss Ghost...and he's pretty tough. Bianca drops in this fight, which kinda sucks, but I get through it. Oh, and offensive spells and attacks are finally animated, which is a touch that has been sorely missing until now (our characters don't appear on-screen, so naturally, anything that targets them is not animated). With that done, the good ghosts are at peace, and we get...oh no. A Gold Orb. I mean, okay, we don't know what it's for yet, but I'm wary of generic macguffins at this point.

We hang onto the orb and head back to Alcapa. The shitty kids let us have the cat, and it joins our party...uh, apparently it's a baby panther, which raises a lot of questions about why it's tame and in town. But whatever. Bianca names it Borongo. I think we can rename it if we want, but I decide not to. Papas leads us back home, and we leave Bianca behind, but Borongo sticks with us. Back in Santa Rosa, there doesn't seem to be much going on at first. A lot of townsfolk are complaining about random little objects going missing, which sounds significant. Eventually, if we poke around, we see what appears to be a ghost. The ghost is surprised we can see her, and she says she's been messing with people in order to try and get their attention. Apparently she's really an elf, visiting the human world through some kind of, spirit projection I guess? She leads us to the basement of our home where nobody else is around, and says that the world of elves needs help, and we need to go there right away. Um...so everything I know about fantasy tells me that when an elf tells a very small child to go to their world with them, it's a pretty bad idea. But this isn't really that sort of story, and we don't really have a choice, so off we go.

In the world of elves, we're told that a magical flute has been stolen, and we need to get it back, because they need it to change the seasons, so the human world will fall into eternal winter without it. That sounds pretty bad. The elves have a lot of confidence that a six year old child and his cat can fix this problem, but to be fair, we've got a surprisingly good track record up to this point.

Well, that's all for now. I guess I was right to start writing a new post now, because this turned out to be pretty long anyway. I guess these posts might end up getting a lot more frequent to keep up with the plot, so stay tuned!

#circe #marathon #dragon quest #dragon quest v

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sage-nebula · 6 years

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The thing about Kukui is that, his annoying speech pattern* aside, he could have been such an interesting character.

(*Note before I go further: It’s not the slang I have a problem with, it’s the over-abundance of slang. Hau used some Hawaiian slang as well in his speech, but it was peppered in naturally. Kukui broke up every sentence with a “hoo!” or “whoa!” and it just . . . read as very unnatural and difficult to get through. Had NoA / Game Freak toned it down some, it would have been a lot more tolerable.)

As annoyed as I am by the fact that so much focus was put on Kukui and his desire for a League, rather than letting Burnet be the prominent professor given that her career focus actually has relevance to the overall plot, Kukui’s desire to make Alola into a region with a League system for government could have been an interesting story to tell as well, particularly since the seeds are there for it to actually be a lot deeper and more serious than it is actually presented in the game. Alola, as we know it, is a religious oligarchy; multiple mentions are made to the fact that the people of Alola actually worship the Tapu, seeing them as guardian deities (and that Solgaleo and Lunala are, similarly, seen as deities, albeit far less present ones), and we know that the Kahunas are a.) chosen by the Tapu, and b.) basically govern each island. It is said that someone who is chosen to be a Kahuna by a Tapu cannot refuse the duty (or else Nanu would no doubt have refused), and also that the people more or less follow the Kahunas without much question. Team Skull are the exception to this, but they’re seen as outcasts and degenerates, to the point where they have to steal food from the Berry Gardens in SM just to have something to eat (I noticed they cut that bit out of USUM, probably because they didn’t want to make Team Skull seem sympathetic, even though they still are). Considering the fact that the Kahunas are also the ones who choose the Trial Captains, Alola’s entire system of government is essentially dependent on the whims of four pokémon, most of whom don’t even show themselves to the general populace with anything even approaching regularity.

Over the course of the game, Kukui tells us that he got the idea to form a League in Alola during his Badge quest in Kanto. Now, while we know from a Doylist standpoint that Kanto was chosen as the region Kukui journeyed through because it was the 20th anniversary and Game Freak wanted to pay tribute, from a Watsonian standpoint this actually makes the fact that Kukui decided to basically overturn Alola’s system of government after a journey abroad very interesting, because while there are many other regions that have a League system of government, none of them are the antithesis to everything Alola is like Kanto is.

Of all the regions we have had so far, Kanto is the region that is the least steeped in faith. Its sister region, Johto, is very faithful to its legends, history, and traditions; the closest Johto ever got to truly stepping away was during the war that set the Burned Tower on fire, and after that the Johtoans learned their lesson. Although they do have a Radio Tower in Goldenrod City, as well as the Magnet Train connecting Goldenrod and Saffron, it’s clear from cities and towns such as Ecruteak, Azalea, and Blackthorn that Johto is still very traditionalist and isn’t moving away from that any time soon. Similarly, while Hoenn is more modern in some respects, cities such as Sootopolis still deeply respect their culture, the Draconids (while they have been marginalized pretty severely) still hold fast and true to their traditions, and places such as Mt Pyre and the Sky Pillar make it clear that Hoenn hasn’t forgotten its roots and still cares for its history. Sinnoh is so deep in myth and lore that it’s a tagline, and its Champion, Cynthia, actively works to keep those traditions alive. Statues, markers, and sacred sites to legends such as the creation trio or the lake trio are everywhere in Sinnoh. The fact that Johto and Sinnoh are so connected (via the Sinjoh Ruins) just goes to show how deeply faithful both of these regions are. Unova is very modern, but again, it’s founded on a legend that it adheres pretty strongly to, what with the Tao orbs sticking around after so long, and random citizenry telling you about the djinn trio, et cetera. Lastly, I can’t recall Kalos having any shrines or the like for its legends, and it’s not as if the ultimate weapon is a good thing, but while it probably comes second to Kanto for being the least faithful, it still hasn’t quite committed the slights that make Kanto seem, to me, like an anti-faith region rather than a neutral-faith region.

You see, Kanto once had a tower that was built to house and honor dead pokémon. Kanto then, in the span of three years, decided to rip it down in order to build a radio tower there instead (and then wondered why the radio tower was haunted, I mean, ffs guys, you desecrated a sacred pokémon burial gound to build your gaudy radio tower, why do you think it’s haunted?). Kanto has four natural legendary pokémon (the birds + Mew), and yet there is not a single tribute, shrine, or marker for any of them. Instead:

Zapdos is forced to hole up in an abandoned power plant. Three years later the power plant is in use again, so I’m assuming Zapdos got told to gtfo.

Moltres is forced to hole up in an abandoned laboratory on Cinnabar Island in the first gen. Three years later the volcano on Cinnabar erupted, so Moltres’ home was gone and it had to gtfo. In the FRLG remakes, Moltres has a mountain in the Sevii Islands instead, so I guess that’s a bit better, but it’s still not a place in Kanto proper, unlike how Ho-Oh has an entire tower to itself in Johto.

Articuno is in the Seafoam Islands. So, not much worse than what Lugia has, I guess, but still nothing approaching any sort of tribute.

And Mew . . .

Oh, Mew.

So, most Kantonians know nothing about their myths or legends. Even in regions such as Unova or Kalos, where things are quite modern and you don’t often see shrines or the like, you’ll have NPCs telling you things about the various legendary pokémon. The people still know of them, but this isn’t something that you see in Kanto. Or at least, despite the fact that I remember random dialogue from Team Rocket grunts in Kanto (e.g. I squealed when a Team Rainbow Rocket grunt said to me, “I won’t go easy on you just because you’re a kid! It’s time you learned to fear adults!” in USUM because a Team Rocket grunt says that to you in I think Silph Co. in RGBY (and if not Silph Co., then the Game Corner), I don’t ever remember NPCs talking about the legendary birds. Instead, the legendary birds were just there, and you could find and capture them if you wanted. No one in Kanto cared about them.

Mew . . . is a slightly different story.

You don’t learn about Mew through NPC dialogue. Rather, you learn about Mew (and Mewtwo) through journals that were left in the ruins of the abandoned laboratory on Cinnabar Island (called Pokémon Mansion in game, but the journals tell you what it was used for). It turns out that one Kantonian did care about Mew, enough to seek out and capture Mew for his own research, and that Kantonian was Dr Fuji. Dr Fuji traveled to Guyana, South America Faraway Island, and while the journals left in the abandoned / destroyed laboratory say that they “discovered” Mew there, and that they “christiened” the pokémon Mew, I . . . find it extremely hard to believe that Dr Fuji didn’t know that this was Mew, and that knowing that this was Mew wasn’t his reason for wanting to clone it, especially since the journals don’t . . . exactly give an accurate account of what happened. (For instance, the journals say that Mew “gave birth” to Mewtwo, which we all know is impossible and thus did not happen.)

Back to the point:

Dr Fuji traveled to Faraway Island, captured Mew, and brought Mew back to the laboratory on Cinnabar Island in order to clone it. The fact that Mew was so far away from Kanto (presumably; Faraway Island is called Faraway Island in Emerald, meaning that it’s “far away from Hoenn”, so it could be close to Kanto, but the journals in Gen I say that Mew was found in South America, which is quite far away from Kanto if Kanto is presumably in the same geographical location as Japan, so . . . who knows) might speak to how Mew found life in Kanto, whether that be “horrible” or even just “not worthwhile.” I mean, again, there are no shrines to Mew, despite Mew supposedly being the origin of all pokémon (things get a bit dicey considering Arceus, but perhaps Arceus created Mew first, and then all others spawned from Mew? Who knows). You would think Kantonians would be proud to call Mew their own, but no one does. There are no tributes to Mew anywhere, Kantonians just do not care. Though that said, Dr Fuji cared . . .

. . . at least enough to want to clone it. Now, the journals don’t say why Dr Fuji decided to clone Mew (and no, it wasn’t because Giovanni paid him to; that’s only in the anime, in the games Giovanni had nothing to do with Mewtwo’s creation, at least in the non-mega reality). In fact, again, the journals don’t say that Mewtwo was cloned from Mew at all. This is literally all the journals say:

“Diary: July 5 Guyana, South America A new Pokémon was discovered deep in the jungle.

Diary: July 10 We christened the newly discovered Pokémon, Mew.

Diary: Feb. 6 Mew gave birth. We named the newborn Mewtwo.

Diary: Sept. 1 MEWTWO is far too powerful. We have failed to curb its vicious tendencies…

The Japanese text for the last entry is a bit different, but not really.

Diary: September 1 The Pokémon Mewtwo is far too powerful. It's no use… I cannot control it!

The most notable difference is that, in the Japanese version, Dr Fuji talks about wanting to control Mewtwo, whereas that implication is left out of the English version. Nonetheless, Mewtwo’s Pokédex entries tell us all we need to know about Mewtwo’s creation, even if Dr Fuji tried to deny accountability in his journal entries:

RED/BLUE:

“It was created by a scientist after years of horrific gene splicing and DNA engineering experiments.”

GOLD:

“Because its battle abilities were raised to the ultimate level, it thinks only of defeating its foes.”

CRYSTAL:

“Said to rest quietly in an undiscovered cave, this pokémon was created solely for battling.”

RUBY/SAPPHIRE:

“Mewtwo is a pokémon that was created by genetic manipulation. However, even though the scientific power of humans created this pokémon's body, they failed to endow Mewtwo with a compassionate heart.”

FIRERED:

“A pokémon whose genetic code was repeatedly recombined for research. It turned vicious as a result.”

DIAMOND/PEARL:

“A pokémon created by recombining Mew's genes. It's said to have the most savage heart among pokémon.”

And so on and so forth. Though Dr Fuji chose to omit this fact in his journals, Mewtwo was created through “horrific gene splicing experiments”, and given that Mewtwo was created to be extremely powerful (“its battle abilities were raised to the ultimate level” “created solely for battling”), but also because Dr Fuji wanted to see if he could (“repeatedly recombined for research”), we can pretty easily piece together exactly why Mewtwo was created, and why it’s the vicious, heartless killer it is today. (Because while anime!Mewtwo has a kind heart, game!Mewtwo does not. This is canonical fact. Please stop trying to force game!Mewtwo into leather pants before it murders you for the act, thanks.)

I bring all of this up because the one Kantonian we have who, canonically, probably paid at least some modicum of attention to legends, decided to not only not pay any sort of faithful adherence to said legendary, but actually chose to capture and imprison the legendary he found, perform horrific gene splicing experiments on it for years, and then created a new pokémon which then proceeded to . . . well, we don’t actually know what happened to Dr Fuji’s team. The games don’t tell us, and again, anime =/= games. However, given that Dr Fuji failed to control Mewtwo, and given that the lab was abandoned, and given that this incident caused Dr Fuji to realize the error of his ways . . . well, we can guess. Mewtwo escaped and went to hole up in the Unknown Dungeon off the coast of Cerulean. Dr Fuji survived, and renounced his Ph.D to become Mr Fuji instead, keeping watch over the Lavender Tower until his fellow Kantonians tore it down to build a radio tower there instead (and then he kept watch over the Soul House). But before he did that, he made one last trip to Faraway Island, and given that you can capture Mew there in Emerald, I’m guessing that Dr Fuji personally released Mew there, rather than Mew escaping (perhaps Mew was too weak after so many years of being horrifically experimented on to escape? Who knows). Dr Fuji also left a note on a sign there, and though it’s worn away:

“…ber, 6th day If any human…sets foot here… again…et it be a kindhearted pers… …ith that hope, I depar…” …ji”

We can assume it read like:

“…ber, 6th day If any human being sets foot here ever again, let it be a kindhearted person. With that hope, I depart.” Fuji”

So, Fuji admitted that what he did was not at all kindhearted, and certainly was not done as any act of reverence toward what would, in a region other than Kanto, be considered a god.

And that brings me back to my original point.

Kanto is not only not a faith-based region---Kanto tends to be the opposite of that. The Alolans, from what we see of them, would be horrified by anyone even suggesting they do to one of the Tapu what Fuji did to Mew (and particularly for the reasons that Fuji did that to Mew). It was to the point where, in order to give Lusamine somewhat of a redemption for wanting to sacrifice Cosmog, Game Freak had to write USUM in such a way that Lusamine’s actions were seen as antiheroic rather than straight-up villainous. (Which, yes, I have a lot of issues with, but that’s a discussion for another time.) Alola is deeply faith-based, to the point where their system of government is a religious oligarchy. Kanto is not only not that, but they have absolutely no awareness of their legendaries at all, and when they do get that awareness, they see it as an opportunity to capture and experiment (or make a buck from) rather than pay adherence and reverence to. Kanto is, as I stated earlier, the antithesis of Alola, in so many ways.

So it’s interesting, to me, that Kukui decided to (in a logically written story) dismantle Alola’s system of government after traveling through Kanto. The conclusion I draw from this, as a writer and someone who studies character therefore, is that as Kukui traveled through Kanto on his Badge quest, he actually dismantled and rebuilt his own internal system of meanings. Kukui traveled through Kanto and saw a region where the people don’t worship legendary pokémon. In fact, it’s highly possible that Kantonians would laugh at the mere idea, because to them, pokémon are pokémon, no matter how powerful. Why would you worship something you can capture in a ‘ball and make fight for you? The only person who would likely disagree with this notion is Fuji himself, but even then, Fuji once captured Mew and performed experiments on it. Even if Mewtwo was too powerful for him to control, and even if he regrets his actions now, I still wouldn’t say that means that Fuji would think that pokémon should ever be worshiped. Fuji would instead likely say that there are some pokémon better left alone, or at least left to powerful trainers with kind hearts, but I think even he would balk a little at the idea of pokémon being worshiped like that. At the very least, I think that the people of Kanto might see the people of Alola as being . . . backwards, and yes, that is very nasty language, but Kanto is not all sunshine, butterfree, and rainbows, you know? And I really do think that the people of Kanto would look down on Alola’s religious oligarchy, and would see the fact that the Alolan people defer to pokémon as being especially hilarious. That said, the Alolan people treat Kantonians with similarly touristy vibes (see: the “Kantonian Gym” in USUM), so it’s not as if this isn’t a two-way street.

Nonetheless, back on subject: What I see in this story is potential for Kukui to have, as I said before, completely dismantled his systems of meanings and beliefs during his journey through Kanto. I think that, at first, the fact that Kantonians have absolutely no reverence for or adherence to any pokémon as anything other than companions (for battling) or pets would shock and confuse him. He’d balk at this, he’d question it. But more and more as he traveled, he’d come to see things the way they see it. He would see how much more respected Kanto is in the grander world scheme than Alola (particularly in the way that Kantonian influence hits pretty much every other region; we have Doylist reasons for this, of course, but from a Watsonian standpoint the implications of that are pretty interesting, particularly when you consider that Johto still relies on Kanto to a degree, and Sevii is basically a Kantonian territory). And I think that, over the course of this journey and a long period of thought, the conclusion Kukui would reach would be that he would want something at least similar for Alola, which would mean dismantling the old system of religious oligarchy and switching to a League system instead.

Now, the games didn’t go all the way with this, because of course they didn’t. Kukui’s actual plan would create something akin to a civil war in Alola, complete with the Tapu themselves no doubt getting involved because they would not want to face such disrespect, and Game Freak couldn’t / wouldn’t show that. So instead what we got was Kukui just creating an Elite Four for the player to face, and naming the player Champion, and having the player therefore take on some Champion duties, such as protecting the region from region-wide threats (i.e. Team Rainbow Rocket). That’s all well and good, but a League system of government is much more than that. Leagues have Gyms and Gym Leaders, for instance, rather than Kahunas and Trial Captains. And Gym Leaders, well . . . they’re not chosen by legendary pokémon. So in the actual games themselves, Kukui didn’t actually dismantle Alola’s religious oligarchy. He just sort of . . . half-assed it, in a way that makes Alola’s League seem like a cute thing the rest of the world will kind of smile at rather than take seriously the way Kukui wanted. But if they did go all the way with it?

Well, like I said. It likely would have amounted to civil war, with Kukui at the head of the revolution, assisted by the Kantonian player that he specifically helped move to Alola for this very reason.

Kukui is, presumably, a smart guy, so he would know that this plan of his would not go over well. He would have some help; Burnet is originally from Unova, which also has a League system, and so presumably she would see the merit in what he’s doing, particularly since I don’t think Kukui would come to hate the Tapu so much as he would no longer agree that they should get to dictate who their governmental leaders are. Molayne is Kukui’s amicable ex childhood friend, so he might help as well. Guzma hates the Kahunas and the Trial Captains and everything else, so count in him and the rest of Team Skull. It’s possible (though I don’t have sound reasoning for this other than “they joined the Elite Four”) that Kukui could convince Olivia, Acerola, and Kahili as well. Oh, and Nanu, because Nanu hates his job, so.

But the others?

Hala in particular would no doubt be very against it, considering factors such as his own role, his age, the fact that this has apparently been passed down his family, how deep into tradition he is, et cetera. I can’t see characters such as Illima and Kiawe being for it either, especially given how passionate Kiawe is about his own historical traditions and the like. And all of this isn’t even considering the average Alolan citizen, all of whom would be wrapped up in this, particularly if the Tapu themselves got involved.

And as for the player?

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I can’t see a Kantonian, born and raised, finding much sense in the Alolan traditions or religious oligarchy. It’s clear that the player and their mother didn’t move to Alola because they want to adopt these belief systems; the protagonist’s mother pretty clearly moved them there because Alola is a good vacation spot. She’s clearly there just to party. The protagonist, having been born and raised in Kanto for the first eleven years, would no doubt experience some severe culture shock upon moving to Alola, and might even balk or have some shocked laughter when the Alolan people mention worshiping the Tapu, because that’s just not a thing in Kanto. And yes, that’s very ignorant, but just because the protagonist is, well, the protagonist doesn’t mean they have to be nice and the very best person ever! They were raised in a culture that is just the farthest thing from this that you can imagine, and so when you tell them that these people worship pokémon---not just use their names as vulgar interjections when stubbing their toes, sometimes, but actually worship them, with shrines and festivals and everything---they’re likely to just . . . smile and nod, at best. It’s not going to be something they understand, believe in, or take very seriously. Even when Tapu Koko saves them, well, Tapu Koko is still just a pokémon. How is Tapu Koko any more special than a golurk? A golurk could have saved the protagonist just the same. Is everyone going to start worshiping golurk now?

And that’s what Kukui is counting on.

Kukui guides the protagonist through Alola because Kukui is counting on the protagonist to be a key component of his revolution, particularly since the protagonist is a Young Person™ who can speak to other Young People™ and convince them as well. (Such as Hau, who would follow his grandfather’s ideals at first, but with the right influence . . .) When the time comes and the protagonist captures Nebby (either form), Kukui points to the protagonist and says, “See? Solgaleo/Lunala was a supposed god, but [protagonist] captured it! These aren’t deities we should worship, yeah? They’re pokémon like any other, and we should take them---and our destiny---into our own hands!” Kukui then is the one to urge the protagonist to capture the Tapu as well, and the protagonist does . . . well, not only does half of Alola see them as a heretic, but the other half’s voices and argument grow louder and stronger. It’s complete chaos, but Kukui feels it’s necessary to “modernize” Alola and move it to a place where it can stand equal with the other regions of the world (who, while they may have faith, still don’t defer to legendary pokémon to decide their fates for them).

Again, I can see why Game Freak didn’t go this route. How do you resolve a story like this? Either way you send what is no doubt a very polarizing message. But it does frustrate me a little bit that the tease is there, that Kukui had potential to be such a dynamic and interesting character, and instead he just . . . was not. At all. At least, not to me. I actually find him to be one of the most grating and annoying of the professors. Elm had no personality, but at least he wasn’t irritating, you know?

But oh well. Wasted potential is nothing new for this series. Maybe I’ll do a rewrite of the Alola games to feature this story instead. Someday . . .

#obviously everything i write re: Kanto is GAMEVERSE only #anime!Kanto =/= game!Kanto #not by a long shot #anime!Kanto has a lot more locations that feel more faith based #like Maiden's Peak (among others)#game!Kanto has nothing like that and it sends a very strong message about their region #among other things #pokemon #professor kukui #dr fuji #mr fuji #pokemon worldbuilding #meta

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drv3imagines · 7 years

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Hey, what up friends of this blog. If you were expecting Mod Ouma, But Ironically (Mod Tojo) to answer an ask, I deeply apologize because that’s not what this post is about… HOWEVER. I would like to pay special attention to a few characters we’ve missed out on for birthday bashes. I was waiting until Rantaro’s birthday to go ahead and compile the birthday bashes we’ve previously missed out on. I had no intention of JUST doing Korekiyo, Ryoma, and Kirumi (Everyone deserves the love the killing game didn’t give them). I’m gonna go as far back as Angie Yonaga, Kokichi Ouma, Tsumugi Shirogane, Shuuichi Saihara, and finally our boi who’s birthday is today! Rantaro Amami! No one placed these asks in our boxes, so technically we aren’t obligated to write for them? But, I like being fair, and those poor kids deserve more.

So without further ado. Have a VERY LONG POST.

Angie Yonaga You weren’t exactly sure what to get Angie, which is a little more complex than you thought it should have been. She found a lot of gifts from you pleasing through the eyes of Atua. New art brushes? Atua thanks you for the offering of tools to further Angie’s craft for His eyes. Cute hair pin? Atua says that s/o is kind to bring forth ornaments to decorate Angie’s hair~ Once you tried to make her dinner, but that didn’t work out too well… Atua said it sucked and you ended up ordering out instead. Atua was right on that one, pizza was much better than eating burned meatloaf… You didn’t want to separate Angie from her religious views, but you honestly wanted to hear what she had to say for once. Even though you’ve been dating for so long, was it possible to hear just her thoughts on something? Especially since today was her birthday. That’s when you started to formulate your plan… Angie had just finished leading a prayer, when you stopped her just before she could go off. “Hey Angie, y'know what today is right?~” You asked in a sing-songy voice. The artist closed her eyes -probably asking Atua- before humming out the answer. “Atua says… Today is the day we celebrate a devout follower!~” “That’s right! And I got you som-” “S/o finally wants to donate blood for sacrifice!” A twinge of panic caused your heart to leap. Not that you didn’t wanna appease her wishes in donating…it’s just that you already agreed to do that nearly four times this month…any more blood and you’d end up in the hospital… “Maybe…next month…or three. Actually, it’s your birthday~ And I got you something! I think you’re going to really love it this time, Angie!” “Ah, but Angie already loves everything you offer. As s/o’s kind heart is pleasing in Atua’s eyes. He sees you and loves how you treat his dear children.” Perhaps…Angie really does appreciate everything you do behind her religious veil…if this is the best she could do to admit her feelings then you’d just have to accept it. You’d love her either way… You pulled your gift to her out of the bag anyway and she squealed. “It’s an avocado!~ Thanks!~ The gracious avocado is a blessing that Atua sends to Angie’s island as a gift for our devotion to Him! However…Angie thinks the best gift she has received from Atua…is you, s/o.” You blush at her comment before muttering, “do you think you can ask Atua if I can kiss you?” Angie pretended to think for a moment before cheerfully giggling, “Atua grants you permission~”

Kokichi Ouma It was never a quiet day at the Ouma household. Your boyfriend was as childish as he was in high school, always the jokester and prankster. Still cuter than a button, and a huge tantrum throwing crybaby at times, but that’s what made him special. Who cares if he’d grow to be a man-child? He was loving and cared for you like no other. That’s why you reserved all your rest for his special day. Each year since you’d known him he’d been a guy to go all out- But… When you woke up this morning…it was quiet. You immediately thought he just got a super early start and wasn’t here, but you found him in the kitchen making a breakfast. It was a tad cleaner than when he normally cooked but- “Okay, who are you and where’s my energetic boyfriend?” He turned to you with that infamous devilish grin of his accompanied with his ‘evil laugh’. “Nishishishishi~ Good morning s/o~ I decided this year I’d shake things up for my birthday~” What. This was automatically suspicious. What was this dork planning? “Awww, don’t you trust me, s/o?” No Well, of course. But if Kokichi made an unexpected change, something very bizarre was going to happen…you’d just have to keep a close eye on him for the day. Unfortunately…you were left with nothing. Your boyfriend was completely unreadable all throughout the day. You spent a whole day with him, indulging in activities you wanted to do??? Was it like some April Fool’s Day prank he was pulling?! But it isn’t April… maybe he’s got something really strange planned up ahead…better brace yourself. Yet nothing happened. It was actually well into the evening and the two of you were having dinner at a restaurant the two of you would frequent on really special date nights. Okay, seriously what is going on?! “Kokichi…are you alright? We spent your entire birthday doing things I liked to do? Did you do something I need to know about?!” That same smirk he gave you this morning reappeared, but it was softer…and very loving… “You’ve been so suspicious of me today, s/o,” he whined, “don’t you trust me?~” This time you vocalized your answer, “yes… I trust you, Kokichi. Please tell me why you’re doing this?” “Well, since you’re so nosy today~ I guess I should spill, huh?” For a moment you thought he blushed, but whatever it was, it immediately disappeared. “You’ve trusted me this long. I guess I should start acting like I like it or something. Every year you’re always making my birthday memorable, so I thought I’d be selfish and make this next memory one I create for us~” You didn’t have the slightest clue of what he was talking about until he pulled out a small box from his pocket and kneeled down at your side.

Tsumugi Shirogane Plain. That was the single thing your girlfriend asked from you on this day. She wanted the day to be a reflection of who she was. Plain. No surprises. No cake, unless it made a specific cameo from her favorite anime episode. And definitely no parties. Definitely no. She just wanted to cuddle her human dakimura and watch some of her favorite classics. Even though Sailor Moon was typically for normies, she was glad the remakes were staying true to the classic. You decided you would obey her demands…for now…and cuddle your otaku til her heart’s content. Eventually, noon rolled around and you had started to get hungry. Offering her lunch was pointless when she was fully immersed in whatever you two had been watching (Sailor Moon had to go when a new episode of her fave was on), so you took it upon yourself to make her something cutesy. While you were cutting up vegetables to put on her side, you checked your cell phone really quick before returning to your otaku. You thought you heard her mumble something, but you figured it was about the show, and started your at lunch. Just as the next episode began, the doorbell rang. “I’ll get it,” even though it was pointless to announce when she wasn’t paying any mind.

Tsumugi had finished her lunch a while ago, but her focus was on this crucial exchange between the protagonist and the antagonist. It would determine whether a successful escape would be possible for the protagonist and the future of anyone else who received this fate, or if the antagonist would have the advantage and would continue their plot even after death. She figured it would be a pretty cool reference for her next cosplay. Maybe she should discuss this matter with someone who had appreciated her– Oh? But… where had you gone off to. Tsumugi paused the episode, worried that she had lost your interest by being to delved into her favorite show. Even though it was her birthday…she should have considered your feelings too. Deciding she’d apologize, the cosplayer picked up her plate and placed it in the kitchen, before searching the house for you. “S/o? I-I’m sorry I got lost in the show again… Ill do my best to give you more attention if that’s what you- Oh?” Had she somehow reentered the fictional reality she just left? Blinking repeatedly, she made sure she was awake, but nothing had changed. You stood before her, dressed as her favorite character, but not only that, you turned your shared bedroom into the world the character came from. It was nearly perfect, almost as if she had done the work herself. “I know you said you didn’t want a surprise, but I just wanted to do something special for my not-so-plain girlfriend. I had a speech prepared, but I think I’ll wait to deliver it when I’m not in character.” Her heart is completely overwhelmed at the work you put into impressing her. You’re almost worried she might faint, so you embrace her gently, steadying her balance. “Th-thank you… For not only taking the time for putting this together… making my belief that cosplay is an expression of love real.”

Shuuichi Saihara Today is my birthday. Shuuichi thought to himself. A few years ago if he said that to himself, he’d have mixed feelings about it. He didn’t really like big social gatherings and only kept the celebratory matters amongst his family members. And even then, he insisted they kept everything on a low profile. That is…until he met you. You were very exciting, and persistent. You always helped him out of his shell every now and then, allowing him to comfortably be able to celebrate this renewed day knowing love and care. He couldn’t wait until he found out what you had in store to- He turned over to see your side of the bed very much empty. It wasn’t even like warm, meaning you had been absent for some time. Curious of the situation, Shuuichi climbed out of bed and began to investigate. And investigate was definitely something he was going to have to do today. He smiled at the sticky note on his door, a symbol scribbled on its surface. So this is what he had in store today. After getting dressed, Shuuichi had accumulated nearly twelve sticky notes all of which had some kind of symbol scrawled on it. But he was at a dead end when he collected all of the notes. This can’t be right, none of these sheets have words on them. Shuuichi closely examined each of the notes splayed across the table, then he examined the area once more before his eyes rested on an out of place book. It looked like it had been recently removed from the shelf as the other books were more settled. Shuuichi removed the book finding his guess to be accurate when he discovered a sticky note with a smiley face tacked on the first page. It was a book of codes, you’d bought him for his previous birthday. He didn’t want to spoil himself as to what could be in store next…but he was practically bouncing in his shoes with excitement at his guesses. Turns out he was right! You had used previous gifts to give him clues as to where you could be hiding…all leading up to the final destination. Shuuichi saw you patiently waiting underneath a gazebo in a local park…the scene had looked vaguely familiar to him… but he couldn’t recall why… After your normal greeting, Shuuichi followed your movements carefully, trying to note what was it about this place that was ringing so many bells at once?! “Would it be too much trouble to ask you out on a tea date next time? I could perhaps bring my novels and we could talk about our favorite characters.” Almost on instinct, Shuuichi replied, “that wouldn’t be any trouble at all. If it’s with you, I would-” Oh. My. Gosh. You were recreating the moment when the two of you first met! “I see the light bulbs going off Mr. Detective, have you finally solved the case?” “I think so. I think the culprit is definitely you this time. The crime you’re being charged with……stealing my heart.” He’d have to look up some better pick up lines next time! He was not prepared at all, but at least you blushed. Maybe even-…even after all these years you still took his breath whenever you kissed him.

Rantaro Amami “S/o!~ Rise and shine (ursine…//shot).” You grumbled in response to the cheery voice, turning over to put your pillow over your head. “Come on, s/o, you promised.” You could almost hear the pout he was doing. Rantaro was easy to understand in these moments… But it is his birthday today, so it was understandable. And, honestly, you were looking forward to it. Heck you were really excited to celebrate with him……but this year he had a little something daring saved up for this afternoon. And that thing was rock climbing. We aren’t talking about your basic run of the mill indoor plastic walls with artificial hand and foot holds. No, we are talking a real terrain. A real terrain with steep cliffs. A real terrain with natural sharp rocks. That kind of extreme rock climbing that only your boyfriend would suggest. You trusted he would make it safe for you since your skill was no where near his, but you still had your doubts. The bed sunk as you felt an extra weight approach you. He was getting persistent. You mentally sighed; it wasn’t fair for you to lie in bed and make him go by himself…especially on his birthday… “Okay, okay… I’ll do it for the birthday boy.” You mumbled in your half-sleep state. Whatever he was planning, stopped and he immediately retreated. “Great, I’ll see you at the rendezvous then?” Wait?! We’re leaving now?!? “By that I mean breakfast~” he chuckled and headed out of the room, leaving you to reluctantly get ready.

“Rantaro…are you sure you want to do this today? Have you checked the weather? Do we have enough supplies? What if we get lost and our phones die? Or they lose signal?” Your worried state didn’t phase your lover as he winked to you and passed a slice of cake to you. “It’s early, but consider it our last meal together.” He stated gravely, holding back a laugh. “Rantaro, that’s not funny! I’m being serious!” Your green haired lover froze at the graveness of your tone. It was silent for a moment before he turned back to the counter and moved the entire cake to the center of the table. You weren’t sure what he was up to, and became even more confused when he returned to the table with some candles and a lighter. He offered you some of the candles and you begrudgingly assisted him. Once he lit each candle, he gave you a small smile, then closed his eyes and blew out the candles. “Hopefully, that will keep us safe and not make you worry any more.” Huh? “What are you talking about? What did you wish for?” “If I told you it might not come true and we really could die~” “RANTARO!!!”

#Tfw you write for some of the shadiest characters in the game but you gotta act like they're pure for the sake of their fans #RIP Mod Tojo #also really sorry that I used the infamous Monokubs phrase... I've been playing V3 and I can't stop thinking about it lol...#Also shoutout to all you vine fans who caught what I did in Angie's story #lol #Rantaro in-canon actually has a pretty dark sense of humor #I think it's during his character introduction that he makes a light joke about their situation lololol #of course it was due to spoilers but it was still funny #Mod Tojo is so cheesy...but it's 1 am on a Tuesday I've extorted all my 1am resources lol #¯\_(ツ)_/¯#Mod Tojo #Angie Yonaga #Kokichi Ouma #Tsumugi Shirogane #Shuuichi Saihara #Rantaro Amami #Happy Birthday Rantaro #long post

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weekendwarriorblog · 4 years

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The Weekend Warrior Home Edition April 10, 2020 – Trolls World Tour, Sea Fever, We Summon the Darkness

Yeah, there isn’t a ton of stuff coming out this week that I’m particularly excited about, but lots of stuff to watch at home.

The world is still reeling with the decision by Universal and DreamWorks Animation to release their animated sequel, TROLLS WORLD TOUR, directly to digital and home download (although it might play in the dozen or so drive-in theaters still open nationwide, presumably). The original movie made $348.9 million nationwide, so it’s an odd decision to release the sequel in a format that almost guarantees piracy and little chance of further international expansion later. It’s also a choice that has annoyed a lot of theater owners who had been expecting for the movie to do well over this coming Easter weekend. I wasn’t considered one of the “chosen ones” that were allowed to see this movie before its release on Friday to review it, so this will probably be all I write about it.

Other limited releases that didn’t get a fair shake in theaters before the rolling nationwide lockdown include Sally Potter’s The Roads Not Taken, starring Javier Bardem and Elle Fanning, will be available digitally this Friday. I wrote a little about it in my last full Weekend Warrior column.

Before we get to the new movies on Digital and On Demand, I just want to mention that this Saturday, April 11, will be the first ever “Film Festival Day” with the participation of 30 film festivals associated with the Film Festival Alliance (including my beloved Oxford Film Festival). They’ll collectively be premiering Gary Lundgren’s Phoenix, Oregon, starring James Le Gros and Jesse Borrego as two friends experiencing their midlife who find an opportunity to reinvent themselves by restoring an old bowling alley and serving “the world’s greatest pizza.” Lundgren’s film was supposed to open on March 20, but a lot of film festivals were cancelled due to Covid-19 and weren’t able to get a proper theatrical showing, so you can buy a ticket to Film Festival Day here, and it will start on Saturday at 12AM Eastern and be available for 48 hours with a special QnA (hosted by Oxford’s executive director, Melanie Addington) on Saturday at 5pm PT/8pm ET.

The movie hitting digital airwaves this Friday I would probably recommend is Neasa Hardimann’s at-sea thriller SEA FEVER (Dust/Gunpowder and Sky), starring Hermione Corfield as Siobhán, a marine biology lab-rat, who has to spend a week on a fishing trawler with a tightly-knit crew, including Connie Nielsen. When something very big attaches itself to their boat, each of them begin to get infected with nowhere to go but the open waters. I generally like claustrophobic creature features like this, with Ridley Scott’s Alien and John Carpenter’s remake of The Thing being two of the best. I might need a few more years before I decide if Hardimann’s film is quite on par, but it’s pretty solid. I definitely like the way things build slowly as you try to figure out what is happening. Sure, there’s a few bits that are a bit too much like homages to those other two films, but Hermione Corfield is a great find, and Hardimann does a fine job with her second feature that really uses the environment quite effectively. I kind of wish I had a chance to see this in theaters but like Saban’s other films, it was always gonna be a VOD special.

There will be a very special live stream premiere of the movie on Thursday night at 5pm Pacific that you can watch for a fee here.

Just two short weeks after his last film Human Capital hit digital, director Marc Meyers is back with his second movie of the year, WE SUMMON THE DARKNESS (Saban Films). This one stars Alexandra Daddario as Alexis, a young woman attending a heavy metal concert with her friends where they meet three guys who they invite to party at the estate of Alexis’ fire-and-brimstone preacher father (Johnny Knoxville). That party quickly turns dark. The movie also stars Keean Johnson, Amy Forsyth and Austin Swift.

I really wanted to like this more, because it was nice seeing Meyers doing something different, and it once again shows how good he is with younger actors -- okay, Daddario is 32 now, so I’m not sure why she’s still playing girls nearly half her age -- but the first thirty minutes feels very by the books in terms of it being a ‘80s movie. Yes, this is Meyers’ third period piece in a row, so he gets to play with lots of fun references, but he didn’t write this script (as he did with the excellent My Friend Dahmer), and it’s such a straight-ahead premise that you can kind of know where it’s going at any time. I guess I just don’t like movies like this where it seems violent for the sake of violence, and you never really like any of the characters much or understand their motivations. I mean, I’ve seen worse, but this is just kind of bleh compared to Sea Fever (and Meyers’ previous work). This movie just wasn’t for me, and the worst part was that the Johnny Knoxville role that seemed so promising? He doesn’t show up for an hour into the movie.

There’s also Sonejuhi Sinha’s Stray Dolls, a mix of cultures (oddly similar in terms of premise as Netflix’s Tigertail – see below) as it follows Geentanjali Thapa’s Riz who arrives in the United States to take a housekeeping job at the Tides Plaza Motel. There, he must contend with Cynthia Nixon’s Una, who hires other people who need help including Oliva DeJonge’s Dallas, Riz’s new roommate. Oh, she’s also the motel’s resident drugdealer. I haven’t watched this yet, so I’ not sure if it’s a comedy or a drama, but it’s another movie available digitally this weekend.

There’s also the documentary, The Mindfulness Movement (Abramorama / Mangurama) from Rob Beemer and exec. produced by Deepak Chopra and my mortal enemy, Jewel. It looks at how the use of “mindfulness” – a type of meditation that makes one focus on the present moment in a non-judgmental way – is the root to creating a happier world. There’s a lot of talk now about using meditation to deal with the stress, pressure and fears that go along with the current pandemic, so this doc couldn’t be better-timed! It will be available to rent via VOD starting Friday.

STREAMING AND CABLE

This week’s Netflix premiere film is TIGERTAIL, the new film from Alan Yang, who some may know from his collaboration with Aziz Ansari on their Netflix show, Master of None. This one stars Hong-Chi Lee as impoverished Taiwanese factory worker, Pin-Jui, who decides to leave his homeland and the woman he loves in the ‘50s to seek opportunities in America. Decades later, the older Pin-Jui (played by Tzi Ma) has been worn down by his work, a loveless arranged marriage and a daughter Angela (Christine Ko) who he can’t connect with. This will debut on Netflix Friday but unfortunately, I’ve been embargoed until then, so nope… not reviewing.

Also on Netflix is the debut of THE MAIN EVENT, the network’s first collaboration with WWE Films, which I couldn’t get a screener quickly enough to include in this column. It stars Seth Carr as 11-year-old Leo Thompson who discovers a magic wrestling mask that gives him super-strenth, which he uses to try to become a WWE Superstar. Directed by Jay Karas (Break Point), it also stars Adam Pally, Ken Marrino and WWE Superstars, Kofi Kingston, The Miz and Sheamus. Should be a fun kids’ movie, but I’m not so sure about The Big Show Show, a new sitcom starring Paul Wight, aka WWE Superstar The Big Show, because it looks pretty stupid. Remember when The Big Show (once known as “The Giant”) was absolutely intimidating? (To be fair, this also seems to be meant for kids.)

Now playing on Amazon Prime is Hanan Harchol’s About a Teacher (Amazon Prime), following the journey of an inner-city high school film teacher (Dov Tiefenbach), who starts the job not realizing what is demanded of him as a teacher. Many of Harchol’s own former students are a part of the cast and crew of this film, which looks at the difficulties of being a teacher in New York City.

I’m super-excited that Sunday is the third season of Killing Eve on BBC America, but I still have to watch all of Season 2… plus most of Season 2 of Westworld… and rewatch Season 4 of Better Call Saul. So yeah, I’m glad there’s lots of stuff to watch, but I still just don’t have the inclination to watch all or any of it.

I guess Amazon Prime premiered the first season of the sci-fi series Tales from the Loop last Friday, and that’s another thing I’m hoping to get to soon.

Next week, more movies not in theaters!

By the way, if you read this week’s column and have read this far down, feel free to drop me some thoughts at Edward dot Douglas at Gmail dot Com or send me a note on Twitter. I love hearing from readers!

#Streaming Cable Movies Reviews TheWeekendWarrior SeaFever WeSummonTheDarkness TrollsWorldTour

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