#taking villainy to a whole other twisted level

[retoldflames]

Retold Flames: Succession War

Got the first piece of many for a retelling AU here (holding multiple AU ideas). For some AU world building, Animus Magic has rules such as one has to have the intent to use animus magic to create an enchantment, you must be touching an object to place an enchantment, an enchantment can only do one thing, creating an enchantment has costs (preventing that cost can prevent the creation of an enchantment) enchantments can be overridden unless they are made permanent, enchantments can form a personality, enchantments based in memory or animating an object can form sentience. Twin eggs also have their own thing going on for each tribe with one dragonet being a fire scale variant and the other being of a subtribe. (There is a more detailed version for both on Ao3.)

Burn: Before the Succession War, Burn would be a somewhat kind yet fierce dragon, caring for her collection of odd creatures (getting inspiration for her hobby of poetry from them as they wandered around the Palace and giving the place some life) with help from her brother Smolder and sister Blaze who she would be close to (also including their father Char who would help teach Burn and Smolder about caring for creatures before his untimely death); Being on trusting terms with her mother Oasis and not so with her sister Blister. (Burn was also generally favored in being the one to be accepted by the Eye of Onyx, used as a way to choose a new queen.)

With the death of Oasis at the hands of Scavengers, Burn would enact her revenge on them and lead a small force that would push out most of the Scavenger population out of the Kingdom of Sand. Following this, Burn would find Blister has fled and enacted war on her, being allied with Queen Coral and the Kingdom of Sea (Forming the Shoreside Alliance); Burn herself retaliating with an alliance with Queen Harp and the Kingdom of Ice as well as being joined by Queen Scarlet and the Sky Kingdom. The Alliance itself come to be known as the Burning Alliance. (Scarlet’s involvement would lead the war to spread into the Mud Kingdom and lead High Queen Moorhen and her sibs to ally with the Shoreside Alliance.)

During the early years of the War, Burn would be tempted by Scarlet into choosing to do some unsavory stuff and escalating to her becoming her more brutal self and killing queen Harp. Leading to the Ice Kingdom breaking off their alliance with Burn and allying with Blaze with Princess Glacier taking the throne and forming the Sand-Ice Alliance. (Burn would come to kill and stuff her collection of creatures that would eventually be joined by the remains of dragons with abnormal parts, having her tower constructed to hold said collection.)

During the later years of the War, Burn would acquire an ally in the Mud Kingdom and its monarchy after they were blamed for failing to stop the assassination of Commander Tempest and being cut off from the Shoreside Alliance. (The Mud Kingdom is ruled by a Sibtroop of Kings and Queens with the Bigwing acting as a High Monarch.) Burn herself would connect with Moorhen as older siblings, building into a somewhat close friendship as Moorhen and the rest of her sibs would help temper Burn’s more destructive tendencies over the years. (Burn’s tower would be left to collect dust in the wake of past memories.) 

Sometime after the brightest night 0f 5,005 A.S. and destroying the supposed Skywing egg for the prophecy, Burn would form the Talons of Power; A group tasked with bringing order to the Souther regions of the Kingdom of Sand that have become rampant with crime due to lack of enforcement due to forces being pulled to the war up north. While the Talons would be generally successful in their endeavors for a few years, they would eventually collapse due to internal conflict/sabotage (such as from crime Lord Vulture sending his daughter Cobra to infiltrate the Talons).

As the War nears its end, the Burning Alliance nears complete victory over the Shoreside Alliance, being held back by Scarlet who has continued to cause issues for the Burning Alliance throughout the War; Leading Burn and Moorhen to assist Princess Ruby in usurping her mother Scarlet so they may finish the fight against the Shoreside Alliance.

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Scarlet & Chameleon (& Cobra): When the Succession War began, Scarlet would join the Secret Alliance with Blister and Seawing Advisor Whirlpool then the Burning Alliance with Burn under the pretense of infiltrating; instead using it to prolong the war and its suffering for her own personal enjoyment, taking up a little pet project in shepherding Burn into becoming merciless and brutal. Taking an even greater enjoyment as the War becomes more miserable for others.

During the early years of the Succession War, Scarlet would catch/first meet Chameleon using his Nightwing Enchantment Shapeshifter, along with his enchantment creating scroll, to steal treasure from her. Finding his seeming skill to create transformation enchantments (as well as artistry), Scarlet would seek to use his skills for herself (along with not wanting to personally deal with the consequences of using animus magic). Having him create a Skywing enchantment named Soar and use it to become champion of the arena so she can keep him close without suspicion, getting her guard Osprey (former champion and present defense attorney) to train Soar who would eventually succeed in becoming champion of the arena (suffering through till the end).

With Chameleon an arena champion as Sora, Scarlet would use his skills to her personal benefit from creating small, unnoticeable enchantments dealing with inconveniences for herself to having him create immaculate art and jewelry for her; Even going on to use him for her personal enjoyment, using him as Soar to produce an heir to eventually replace her daughter Tourmaline (as she has done many times with her previous daughters and male arena champions). From this, Scarlet would have her twelfth daughter Pyrite, a bit of a clumsy dragonet that would be adored by her father; An adoration that would turn to grief as Tourmaline, taking after her mother, would kill her sister as a threat to taking the throne and in jealousy of being more loved. Such an act would enrage Scarlet with her plan being ruined, taking revenge by personally using Chameleons scroll to transform Tourmaline into being her thirteenth daughter Ruby and permanently replacing her memories of being Tourmaline with a willingness to follow her mother’s commands (a willingness that Ruby would eventually overcome).

As the Succession War rages on, Scarlet would enact a breeding program to increase a dwindling population, getting her arena champions Soar and Kestrel into the program as well; Eventually leading to Scarlet catching Kestrel fleeing with her Fire Scale and Featherwing (Twin Egg Subtribe) dragonets, getting her to kill one of her dragonets with the promise of letting her other dragonet live; Watching as Kestrel would give in and throw her Featherwing dragonet in a raging river (not seeing any chance of it surviving), leaving Scarlet to attempt to kill Kestrel who she had no plans of letting go; Something that wouldn't come to pass as they would attempt to flee with their Fire Scale dragonet, dropping the dragonet from their burning talons (of the third degree). With Scarlet now in possession of a Fire Scale dragonet, she would use them as another of her arena champions and ensure they make their fight brutal with Osprey training them (teaching a few other things behind Scarlet's back as well).

Not wanting Chameleon/Soar to learn of one of his dragonets surviving, Scarlet would send him to infiltrate the Talons of Power (for the Secret Alliance) as a Sandwing named Platyr (bringing a few other enchantments with him to use). While in the Talons, Platyr would meet Talon members Thorn, becoming somewhat friends, and Cobra who would attempt to allure Platyr (believing him to be an animus due to the new enchanted items he keeps getting and being tasked by her father Vulture in getting his supposed animus magic, something she would be woefully unprepared for due to her general lack of social skills from solely living as an assassin for Vulture. Leaving Cobra to reluctantly go to Thorn to figure out about Platyr and not giving away her true intentions, leading to a comedy of errors with Cobra unintentionally making it seem like she romantically likes Platyr to Thorn; Something that Cobra would roll with, seeing it as a way to get Platyr with help from Thorn who would help her actually be able to somewhat socialize with Platyr. Building into a forming relationship between Cobra and Platyr that would take a bit of an escalation with the two having a twin egg that would hatch into being their Bile Flame (Fire Scale Variant) daughter Rattlesnake taking after her grandfather and their Cactwing (Twin Egg Subtribe) son Sirocco taking after his mother. Eventually, Cobra would come to learn of Platyr's enchantment creating scroll, still bearing a loyalty to Vulture; Escalating into Platyr fleeing for his life, never to be seen again as Cobra would attempt to kill him to take his scroll (unknowingly leaving her with another egg).

With Chameleon returning to the Sky Kingdom, Scarlet would send him out again, this time as an Icewing named Cirrus sent to work with Mudwing Crocodile to infiltrate the Talons of Peace for the Burning Alliance. She would bring Chameleon/Soar back for a short period to enchant a captured Prince Hailstorm, a powerful and charismatic warrior in the Sand-Ice Alliance, to ensure is hidden and not rescued. Scarlet would convince Chameleon/Soar to use it as a way to bring his daughter back, using it as a way to strengthen his loyalty to her; Permanently enchanting Hailstorm to physically be Pyrite and enchanting their necklace to replace Hailstorm's memories with Pyrite's. Scarlet would have Pyrite go with Chameleon/Cirrus to infiltrate the Talons as it would be suspicious if a dead princess was walking around. Cirrus would go on to ingrain Pyrite to never take her necklace off as it is keeping her alive.

During the latter years of the war, Scarlet would assist Blister in a gambit to get Whirlpool to take the place of King Gill next to Queen Coral for political gain. Scarlet would be tasked in capturing Gill but be left with the unfortunate task of making Whirlpool into a dragon that can swoon Coral, working with Nightwing Morrowseer in both tasks. With Scarlet holding Gill captive, she would make him into her pet project; Quite literally in fact as she would deprive him of water to make him insane, using him as a beast of a champion for the arena and for her own personal enjoyment.

As Scarlet's hatching day draws near, Morrowseer would pay a short visit and grant her a chance at some 'gifts'. Giving her directions on where to get them, leaving her to round up a group of guards to do so.

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Blister: Before the Succession War, Blister would be conniving brat that would scheme against her mother Oasis, the rest of her family and other dragons of her home; Ranging from simple pranks to being nearly fatal (the latter more targeted towards her sisters in an attempt to take them out as competition to the throne). Occasionally, Blister would help her siblings in hanging out behind their paranoid mother’s back (not joining them herself), if only to get at Oasis who would seek to mold the siblings into being caricatures of theme selves (attempting to make them not a threat to the throne). This would culminate in Blister not getting Burn to help Oasis in stoping Scavengers from stealing her treasure, instead going to the treasury to steal the eye of Onyx for herself (being rejected by it once she got it).

With her mother’s death, Blister would be the one to start the Succession War against her sister Burn; burying the Eye of Onyx (being believed to have been stolen by scavengers) within her mother’s grave and fleeing. Forming the Shoreside Alliance by manipulating Queen Coral and allying with the Kingdom of Sea, the same being done with High Queen Moorhen and the Mud Kingdom. Blister would also form a Secret Alliance with Queen Scarlet as a way to cause issues in the Burning Alliance and Advisor Whirlpool as a way to gain more power and influence in the Kingdom of Sea (as well as to help gain more influence in manipulating Coral herself). The Secret Alliance would later be joined by Nightwing Advisor Morrowseer.

During the early years of the War, Blister would create the Talons of Peace as one of its founders alongside Commander Tempest. (Tempest would later be assassinated after coming close to uncovering the Secret Alliance, leading to the Mud Kingdom being blamed and being cut out of the Shoreside Alliance. The Talons of Peace would also be ostracized from the Kingdom of Sea) The Talons of Peace themselves would have goal of ensuring the war ends with Blister on the throne, being pushed by the Dragonet Prophecy created by Morrowseer. (The Talons themselves having two groups of dragonets being raised for the prophecy, one hidden with the Talons themselves and another hidden elsewhere.)

During the latter years of the war, Blister would enact a plan to get Whirlpool on the Kingdom of Sea throne. Having Morrowseer ensure King Gill is captured and make it look like the Sky Kingdom solely did it with Scarlet holding the King Prisoner. Blister herself would work to convince Queen Coral to move on from Gill and give at least a chance at dating Whirlpool, giving both Scarlet and Morrowseer the unfortunate task of getting him to be a dragon that can swoon Coral into marrying him. They would succeed in getting Whirlpool and Coral married (the two even having a clutch of eggs with one to eventually hatch Auklet). With Whirlpool successfully married to Coral, Blister would use them both to manipulate the Kingdom into preferring herself and favor her ruling over the Royal Family.

When it is found out that Coral daughter Anemone has animus magic, Blister would seek to use Anemone and their magic for herself; Using her influence over Coral to keep an eye on Anemone without her mother in sight. With Coral generally being quite controlling and heavily restricting what Anemone can do with Whirlpool a very awful tutor that would undermine her use in animus magic at the behest of Coral (going somewhat against the rest of the Secret Alliance now that he has what he desires), Blister would work to ensure that Anemone is skilled in using Animus Magic as well as healthy and happy enough to use said magic to help Blister (along with ensuring she is knowledgeable on how animus magic works as well). Put simply, Blister would eventually become somewhat of a decent parent (much better than Coral) to achieve her goal and unintentionally becoming close to Anemone, becoming an exception in her life.

As the war nears its end, Blister would make preparation for the dragonet prophecy by having Morrowseer acquire the Dragonets of Destiny for the Dragonet Prophecy while she and Scarlet would cover up any traces to the Talons of Peace by wiping them out. (Their plans having to be enacted early due to the Burning Alliance enclosing in on victory over the Shoreside Alliance.)

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Stonemover & Thorn: During the early years of the Succession war, Stonemover would be closely guarded and restricted from moving around the Nightwing Island before it became desolate from the volcano first erupting (wiping out the vegetation and a majority of the Nightwing Islands inhabitants).

As an animus of the Nightwing Island, Stonemover would be tasked with creating an enchanted portal tunnel that would connect from the Island to the Rainforest and to the northern region of the Kingdom of Sand (being used for operations of the Secret Alliance). This would send Stonemover on a journey (as animus magic works differently) that  would lead him to traverse through the Kingdom of Sea and Mud Kingdom to get to the Rainforest where he would create the enchantment for the second part of the portal tunnel, continue on his journey through Jade Mountain into the Southern areas of the Kingdom of Sand where he would meet the traveling Sandwing Thorn who would help Stonemover travel up north (the two growing close along their journey). With Stonemover completing the third and final enchantment for the portal tunnel, he would choose to stay with Thorn where they would return back south away from the war (unaware of the conflict ahead).

During their early years together, Stonemover and Thorn would settle into the Scorpion Den to hide away; The two eventually meeting the deserter trio of Six-Claws, Kindle and Dune with the five of them forming a trusting friendship. Eventually Stonemover and Thorn would eventually have an egg, a joyous time that would turn in the days leading up to their egg hatching as Dune would suddenly flee with said egg. Stonemover would take charge after Dune, enchanting a skulk of foxes (bound by memories) in desperation of finding him; Something that would never come to pass as Dune would succeed in escaping. Feeling shamed for his failure and what he has done with his animus magic, Stonemover would put himself into isolation within the caverns of Jade Mountain; Enchanting his scales to turn to stone for all the enchantments he has created, only being kept alive in his now immobilized form by the skulk he enchanted caring for him (being changed by the enchantment and becoming something more). 

With Dune, her egg and Stonemover gone, Thorn would go on a desperate search for the three (bearing a growing hatred towards Dune for stealing her egg); Eventually focusing her efforts of finding her lost egg/dragonet, finding help and comfort in her friends Six-Claws and Kindle.

Thorn would eventually joining the newly formed Talons of Power in hopes of having a better chance of finding her dragonet (finding a friend among the Talons in an enchantment using Sandwing named Platyr from the Sky Kingdom). In time, Thorn would form a small group within the Talons, eventually splitting off from the Talons and becoming known as the Outclaws (being joined by Six-Claws in leading and Kindle in healing). Thorn would go on to conquer and somewhat restore the Scorpion Den in the wake of the Talons collapse with her Outclaws, eventually becoming an aunt to Six-Claws and Kindle’s daughter Ostrich. (Thorn would also go on to take one of Platyr’s sons from Cobra a few years after his disappearance, raising them as part of the Outclaws.)

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Blaze: During the early years of her life, Blaze wouldn’t really be the brightest; Preferring to go out and acquire treasures and odd gems for her own collection like her Big Sis Burn. (Got herself in-trouble at times cause of it, be it from her own foolishness or Blister playing a trick on her.) Blaze wouldn’t really be close to Oasis as a dragonet, instead being closer to her Big Sister Burn who would help care for Blaze after their father’s passing.

With the death of Oasis and Blister enacting war on Burn, Blaze would side with her sister Burn and wanting to help eventually acting as a spokesdragon for her sister who would stick to leading the front lines. To effectively do this Blaze would come to learn about the common folk of the Kingdom of Sand and its politics (not having interest in them before) with help from Princess Glacier who Blaze would grow close to. The two would come together to comfort each other in their grief after fleeing from Burn killing Glacier’s mother, Queen Harp (Glacier taking her mantle as Queen of the Ice Kingdom). Glacier would bear grief for the death of her mother and Blaze would bear grief for the sister she loves becoming a monster.

In the following years, Blaze and Glacier would grow closer to one another, eventually becoming romantic partners as they form the Sand-Ice Alliance with Glacier being the one to mainly lead. (Their relationship wouldn’t be commonly known as Ice Kingdom Queen’s don’t officially take a partner.) Eventually they would have their first daughter Crystal (being both a pure Icewing along with Glacier and Blaze as their biological parents thanks to some old Icewing Animus Gift, same with Snowfall and Mink) and bring with it a joyous event celebrated in Where-Sand-meets-Ice (a Sandwing/Icewing dominant town formed during the War, south of the Great Ice Cliff); said event unfortunately turned sour as it would be ambushed by a group of dragons (formed by the Secret Alliance) lead by Queen Battlewinner in an attempt to kill Blaze and eliminate her from the war. The attack would be pushed back as the Battlewinner’s forces would retreat with her being incapacitated from Ice Breath, though it would not be without loss, nor without impact.

Following her near assassination and Glacier nearly dying to protect her with many other (some less fortunate), Blaze would find the drive to take more of a leading role in the Sand-Ice Alliance; Taking a more direct approach in the war and growing into a dragon the Eye of Onyx would deem worthy of being queen. (Going through a bit of combat training as well for self-defense, not really liking the training but going through it non the less.)

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Narwhal & Tundra: Hatched around the time of the Sand-Ice Alliance forming, not knowing his mother Harp before she was killed by Burn. Narwhal would be distant from his sister Glacier who would be occupied with ruling the Ice Kingdom and Maintaining the Sand-Ice Alliance. Instead, he would be cared for by his brother Permafrost, learning to live by the beliefs of the Circle Rankings (eventually going on to push those beliefs onto his children), even personally making sure they were kept in order whenever Glacier was occupied elsewhere. Eventually he would meet Tundra who would allure Narwhal and eventually marry him.

Among the Icewings, Tundra would be both one of the more traditional and most disliked; Seeking to take control of the throne so she can return the Ice Kingdom back to what it was before the Succession War. Marrying Narwhal so she can gain a daughter that she could control to usurp Glacier and take the throne, using said daughter to enact her will. Something that wouldn’t come as soon as she wanted with their first hatch being their eldest son Hvitur (an eventual prodigy that would quickly prove himself).

Things would change when they would have a twin egg, hatching their twin sons Icicle with Aurora Ice (Fire Scale variant) and Winter a Ternwing (Twin Egg Subtribe). With Icicle having Aurora Ice, Tundra would have them be raised as a princess to take the throne (Tundra taking to ignoring her eldest) with Winter being neglected and berated by her and Narwhal for being a Ternwing. Something that would take a turn with Hailstorm being captured while taking Winter on a trip to get a scavenger, both Tundra and Narwhal would blame Winter (returning with only a scavenger). 

With Hailstorm captured, Narwhal would leave for the front lines of the War with Icicle in hopes of getting him back. Leaving Winter with Tundra who would continue to berate him without end (even destroying one of the limbs of his scavenger as punishment, expecting it to die from its wounds). Only after Glacier would send Winter to act as a herald (messenger) for Blaze would Tundra stop her tormenting her son, choosing to focus on other things with him gone.

#wof #wof au #Retold Flames #wof burn #quite the bloody fall from grace you got there #wof scarlet #taking villainy to a whole other twisted level #wof chameleon #life can be quite the pain #wof blister #the unbreakable bonds of love and why they suck #wof stonemover #from soon to be father to accidently becoming a god to foxes #wof thorn #stacking up on family #wof blaze #pawn promote queen #wof narwhal #life of pride #wof tundra #ambition or death

[egg-emperor]

This might sound weird or bad, but I think I'd like Eggman to take a backseat as the main villain for a little bit.

Hear me out, tho, he has been the main villain for... A while. But in the majority of modern games, he ends up getting screwed over by a bigger bad that he worked with and that reduces his threat level, kinda making him out to be a joke. And even when he IS the main villain, he's still kinda treated like a joke (like how in forces he says "I decided to learn from my mistakes" as if it never occurred to him as a 300iq genius).

I want him to step back for a moment, regroup himself, let Sonic blast through other threats like Sage, maybe infinite, etc, and when we least expect it, he has the world by the balls and isn't fucking around anymore. I want him to finally find a way to bring Sonic to his knees and solidify his place as the top dog of the villains. Even if he fails at the end, he'll still reclaim his threat level, and Sonic will at least have to actually struggle against him probably for the first time in years.

I think it'd do good for his development. But feel free to share your thoughts, I'd like to know what you think.

The whole Eggman being betrayed thing hasn't been that prominent in a while because they broke the cycle. The only main games from Unleashed to Forces where he was betrayed was Unleashed and Lost World, but they surpassed the expectations with the latter by having him fight to take back control of his plan and still be the final boss and it was a brilliant and refreshing change from the times he was just screwed over last second. Aside from that, there was just Free Riders with him being betrayed by Metal again but that's minor.

Colors, Generations, and Forces had him as the final boss without betrayal and Lost World handled it a good way with a clever twist. And I don't think it's always so bad whenever he is betrayed, though I'd really prefer for him not to be, as long as they still give him time to shine and great moments that still show he is indeed a great threat, like the Adventure games and Lost World, for some examples. But the games in the past 12 years prove that not using him isn't required for this to change.

I'm the last person that feels like he's looked like a big joke in the modern games. The entire story tone and focus on the humor affects all of the characters, not just him, and removing him doesn't change that. It's about the tone and presentation of the stories overall, he's humorous but still evil as ever and he still has serious and threatening moments when scenes require it. If the entire story tone shifted to serious and darker again like Frontiers seems to be, the presentation of Eggman's humor and villainy would follow suit.

Forces especially is one of the games in the "meta" era where he wasn't a joke at all. It may not have been as executed as well as it could've been but he was insanely successful and smart with his tricks and backup plans. He's already been clever with them before so he had actually already learned from his mistakes prior, but seeing him acknowledge it and doing something about it actually shows intelligence. And bringing multiple more tricks from his sleeves and the grand finale was delightfully impressive.

I don't think Eggman being the final boss is ever the problem. I have no issues with him being the main villain for years in a row because he's the main villain of the series and they were already doing that well in the classic games too. And in the modern games, he's never stopped being a great threat to the planet with his great evil and schemes that cause catastrophic global destruction and fear and he's still a huge challenge for Sonic, it's not like he easily gets defeated and doesn't put up a great fight against him.

I don't have any issues with there being other villains as long as they don't have to write Eggman OOC, shit on him constantly, or betray him to make the other villain seem like a bigger threat. And I'd prefer if Eggman still gets to be involved with a good amount of significance, rather than being tossed aside or teaming up with Sonic and friends over and over. And I don't mind these other villains being the final boss as long as they don't do any of that but I'm not specifically hoping that Eggman will stop being the main villain and final boss.

I really don't think those that have any issues with the focus on humor in the later games should blame Eggman because it clearly affects the presentation of all the other characters too. Just not using him won't fix that, it can just as easily change when the entire tone of the story changes from humorous and light-hearted to serious and darker as much as it does for all the other characters too. And honestly even in a good majority of the games where he is betrayed, he isn't just treated like a joke the whole way through and still has good serious moments.

I think Eggman is one of the best and most consistently well written characters in the series, especially out of all of them in more recent games from Colors to Forces. He's still the exact same character he's always been at core, there's just been more focus on his humorous side in some games but he still has great serious and darker moments too, people just tend to overlook it because they don't like the humor focus. But it's definitely there and Eggman doesn't look like nothing but a big joke like a large portion of the fanbase treat him.

I don't think he needs to go away for a while and come back much later in order for him to not have as much focus on the humor and more focus and screentime of the evil, especially because it never actually went away entirely. I'd love for there to be more again but all it takes is the overall story tone shift and Eggman being written and presented well. I don't think that time away is what's needed for that to happen and be capable of having a great impact that reminds people that he's a serious threat that's not to be messed with.

I might sound biased with all this heavy praise and loving when he's the final boss no matter how many times but he's my favorite for a reason and many others that aren't as crazy about him tend to agree lol. I really love and want more of the focus and screentime of his evil too but I also love the humor that's just as important and I'm happy as long as I can see a good balance of them. And while maybe some games don't balance it quite as much as they should, it's still enough to make me happy and would only needs small tweaks to reach perfection.

#dr eggman #eggman #dr robotnik #dr. eggman #opinion #my post #analysis

[theharpermovieblog]

#HARPERSMOVIECOLLECTION

2023

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I re-watched The Devil's Chair (2007)

Saw this a long time ago and have been wanting to watch it again to see if it's as impactful the second time around.

After evil forces kill his girlfriend, a man is blamed and sent to an insane asylum until a doctor decides to take him and a group of students to the place it all happened.

I'm not going to be able to say everything I want about this movie unless I talk about the SPOILERS. So, if you haven't seen it, don't read ahead unless you absolutely don't care about it being ruined.

SPOILERS FROM HERE ON OUT!!

I suppose by just saying "SPOILER", you might immediately guess what the twist of this movie is. Maybe not. I knew nothing about this film when I first saw it and I didn't realize what was coming. I just remember liking a few things about it. .

The Devil's Chair starts off like an extremely cliche horror film. A very typical plot is explained. The very stereotypical characters are introduced, the asshole, the nice hot lady, the bitchy hot lady, the professor, the misunderstood hero. It's, not a great start, but it's fine. From there the film heads toward typical horror for a bit, and then suddenly it turns left and becomes a purposely silly gore fest....... but that's not the twist.

The twist comes after the cliche horror setup, and after the big demon tears Matt Berry's eyes out. The twist comes when, as horror fans, we become at ease with a style of movie we think we know well. It comes while we're smiling at all the blood and goo and villainy of an over the top evil professor trying to feed a demon. It comes at the very end, when we realize the whole film is being told to us by an unreliable narrator. The twist comes when we realize all the silly fun, all the demons and all the magic are nothing more than a madman's musings. We're suddenly and viciously thrust into a brutal rape scene and several grisly murders, all perpetrated by the guy we thought was the Hero.

I actually struggled with whether to put a trigger warning up for this one, seeing as it contains rape and some sadistic things. But, that ruins the impact of the final moments and therefore ruins the point of the film. I don't think I'll ever put a trigger warning for any film from here on out honestly.

Director Adam Mason, who's other work I'm unfamiliar with, made a movie which uses the horror fan's knowledge of the genre against them. It's a brilliant idea, even if some of the execution leaves a lot to be desired, and if the self awareness spoils the reveal a bit.

The movie takes a minute to get going. We don't know what is and what isn't real, and the bad bits of writing can be chalked up to the narrator's sense of movie cliches I guess, but I wish the beginning moved a bit faster. There's not enough B-movie stuff to enjoy in-between the first and third acts.

There are some dated digital effects, which I hate, but a lot of the monster stuff is done practically and is a lot of fun for the short time we get it. I enjoy the strange lovecraftian monster, with it's dark robe and big tentacle things. I'm a sucker for creature designs, even if they aren't amazing.

The writing is fine. I think you could write purposefully cliche characters a little better than this. You could make them interesting at least. Even the hero/killer, with all his poetically crass narration, isnt that interesting. It would be a lot more brutal if at the end, these horrid things were happening to characters we knew and liked on some level. I feel like Mason made a movie that is so giddy about it's reveal that the rest of the film becomes fluff and filler.

Overall, The Devil's Chair isn't as good of a movie as I want it to be. It's a great idea that needs a lot of work. But, the end still has quite an impact. A lot of vicious and upsetting moments. Rape, axe murders, toying with victims, etc...all in a very short span of time. It's harder to take when you aren't expecting it from the movie you've been watching for the past hour and 10 minutes.

I wish this was better, but it's at least trying to flip the script and be different, so it's worth a look for horror fans.

[jeremy-ken-anderson]

Rachel’s Faerie Tale: The Villain

The early plot of the novel, in very broad strokes, goeth thusly:

A coven in a magical realism world close enough to real that they don’t know magic is a thing is doing a spirit calling spell to feel close to magic-ness and a powerful old faerie pops in, admonishes them for doing the spell badly, and kidnaps Rachel, one of the members.

Its members scramble to find workable actual magic, which isn’t easy in the setting, and also we’re introduced to how Arthur - the one technically most responsible for botching the spell (he’s the one who physically broke the circle to go pee) - works as a reporter for a tabloid.

Rachel is returned unharmed. However there are four lasting impacts of her time in the faerie realm. First, she received some offhand training in magic from the old faerie. Second, she made a deal with another faerie and due to word-trickery the sneaky fey decided this means she gets to wear Rachel’s body to hang out in the human realm. Third, she met and immediately fell hard for Tem the Bridge-Keeper, a kind of fey giant entity. This feeling is mutual although both sides of it - how either of them began to have interest in the other - are absolutely unexplained in the course of the novel. And fourth, she was asked to carry a dress back to the human realm by an old lady.

This old lady was the villain of the story.

God-DAMN is that oblique. That is some From Software levels of telling the story by way of an item description in the corner of the room.

The dress turns out to be a magic trap that will let the old lady possess the wearer, which is both awkward and gross because the wearer ends up being a girl who has a huge crush on the villain’s grandson. So he’s being enchanted into this demi-romance with his grandma? Man villainy’s great. The wrongness of this works fine because a villain’s doing it. It’s twisted and horrible and story-wise that is fine.

Anyway the coven works out a way to pass to the faerie realm, uses its mentality-based topology to track down their possessed friend, they all get whammied by the villain’s enchantments, but Rachel’s issues with her own mother end up saving the day because she hates being coddled so much that the idyllic scenario the villain sets them up with grates on her enough that she tries to escape it. She returns less enchanted, they get the coven’s high priestess un-whammied too, and together the group takes down the villain - it’s immortal, so they settle for containing it.

There’s a sense of the character as very powerful and as a threat of what one of the characters could become if she’s not careful, and that’s definitely a positive in villain writing. I feel like I’ve been ragging on the writing so a few positives are worth laying out. The way the magic system works is at once really interesting and possibly too flexible. Basically the Ketterly witches can say things within reason and make them true by saying them. The villain uses this mostly for mind control, but in theory it applies to other things. The limiter is that phrase “within reason,” where they can’t just tell a dude, “You’re about to explode in a shower of gore” and have it happen (unless he’s recently eaten a bomb); Instead they’d suffer a kind of magical backlash from lying. The result is I can write a scene where the two of them are trying to quickly work out what they can say to gain advantage while not being fully aware of what the other can do (and if the other can block their effect, again, that’s backlash city). But there’s also this sense of artifice to it, where a lot of the powers and effects are based around half-truths, intentional double-meanings, and other sneaky wordings that render the whole thing weirdly close to some kind of pun-magic. Which is a really weird place for such a dangerous and self-serious villain to be.

But the biggest two problems are just: She’s introduced poorly, and a lot of that has to do with the fact that I don’t - even now - really know what her motivation is. Her interjection into the story appears to be an attack of opportunity; It’s not like she opened a way between the fey and human realms on her own to craft the inciting incident. No, she made a deal with someone who happened across her path and who by coincidence was a friend of her granddaughter’s? Was she just waiting around to do that? How long has she hung out around that bridge waiting for someone to cross so she could make her sneaky deal?

This is all largely a side-effect of how the first chapter was a short story I wrote, and it didn’t have the villain who ended up there at all. It was just “coven fucks up, Rachel gets kidnapped, everyone panics, a couple days later the faerie returns her no harm no foul, turns out he’s a nice guy.” That, in very short, was the story.

I feel like the layers of what happened to Rachel while she was in the faerie realm are...really weird to have all layered up. Received tutelage, fell in love, made two terrible deals. Fairly reasonable as part of the story but oh wait they aren’t, all of it happens offscreen and we find out about it later.

I think there are two good reasons to keep Rachel’s first visit to faerie mysterious: The wild nature of the place and the coven coming to comprehend it as a group is really fun later in the novel and is kind of important to have where it is in the story. Also, the drama about what’s happening to her would be extremely undercut if we had a chapter from her bemused, mildly enchanted but generally fine perspective.

But it means the easiest first point of contact where the villain could be introduced is occluded. I’d need another opening.

More than that, though, I can’t really define what that opening ought to be unless I first come up with what the villian wants. The reader can make guesses: she seems to be trying to keep some vow at all costs, she might be trying to take over a younger body permanently to live again as a human...but we don’t know, and as the readers we ought to know. Having the protagonists unable to understand what the villains want is no problem. Having the reader unable to understand is an issue.

#writing

[familyagrestefanblog]

Analysis of the Family Agreste Portrait

Quarantine strikes again and since the Agreste family portrait has fascinated me for a loooong while now I decided to put my thoughts into words and write another essay x3

The amount of informations we get out if it is amazing and its not only highlighting the absolute TRAGEDY it is that this family is about to face such a horrible fall out, it also hints at the former family dynamic before everything went to hell.

So make yourself comfortable and get something to drink, because we will be here for a while.

Here we go: My analysis of this beauty of a fictional portrait

Let's start with the most obvious one: Hawkmoth.

Its commen knowledge by now that the background makes it seem like Hawkmoth is standing behind the Agreste family like a bad omen waiting for fate to take its course and cause their doom. The portrait is brilliantly designed so the illusion is created that Gabriels body (here in a blue suit closer to Hawkmoths normals dark purple one) overlaps with Hawkmoths and a darker line is connecting the two faces as well, which rest on the same height right beside each other. The very same line grows bigger as it goes further behind Emilie - coloring her entire background - showing us that EMILIE is all Gabriel sees when he becomes Hawkmoth. But notice that Adrien on the other hand can hardly be concidered part of Gabriels “sight” at all.

Its forshadowing 101 and damn beautiful if I may say so. But this isnt what I want to focus on in this post.

I want to elaborate on two other key factors that tell us about the former dynamic of the Agrestes instead and what they tell us about the present and future.

The heart:

This is hitting me on another level because look at the heart these three form with Adrien right in the middle! He was so LOVED. This family may have never been anywhere close to ideal but still, there was LOVE and now he's gonna loose it all.

Adrien already lost his mother which led to his father getting even more distant and cold and now his father is becoming increasingly more abusive as he falls deeper and deeper into villainy. Gabriel was never a good father, the show has already made this clear with episodes like "the bubbler", “the collector” or "Gigantitan" for example but gosh there was hope for their little family! The end scene in "Jackady" portrayed it perfectly and I wrote a whole other post just covering the sigificants of Adriens and Gabriels hug in that episode. Check it out here if you want, it goes hand in hand with this one.

Miraculous is all about love and the completely different ways it can affect us, our behavior and actions. Because love isnt just wonderful, pure and empowering, it also can be twisted, destructive and cause the darkst nightmares. And with this family the writers know how to portray the complex love in an abusive houshold thats destined to go up in flames and they also know how to hint at their troubled past with the family portrait.

But this heart visual tells us even more in connection with the positions of their hands. And with these two key factors, lets start with Gabriel:

His hands convey it so strongly. He loves/d Emilie and Adrien so much and no doubt this love for them was certainly the reason why he started his quest as Hawkmoth. But he is now losing himself more and more in the pleasure of his villainy to the point where he forgets why he's doing it in the first place and becomes a complete monster (of a father). But this turn and spiraling into villainy didn't came out of nowhere - this root already had to be in him to grow like that. And this is also something the portrait indeed hints at as well.

Because Gabriel is the only one of the three who:

1. We see so completely open and without hesitation reach out and hold BOTH his family members.

2. Is visually “cut off” from them as well.

But this doesn't mean he was excluded and the only one who truly cared and loved, it just shows that things were more... complicated...as usual.

This is best explained with Adriens hand placements:

One hand is holding his mothers but the other one is visibly not reaching out for his father. But as we all know, that's not because Adrien doesn't love him. In season 1-3 it is made more than clear that Adrien does not hate his father - he loves him alot and tries to be there for him and be patient because he knows that the loss of his mother brought his father terribly down.

Sure, Adrien gets frustrated and angry with him, literally how could he not?? But Adrien tries his best to reach out to Gabriel so they can bond and come out of this tragedy stronger.

But this loving willingness to forgive his father for the chance of growing a father-son bond with him doesn't change the fact that these two didn't had a bond prior to this. And let's be honest here, does anybody actually think this distance between them was caused by Adrien? I don't think so.

So notice how Adriens hand - not reaching out for his fathers - is the only one in the portrait NOT inside or forming the heart.

When the connection of the hands between the family members symbolise their connection to another, then Adrien keeping the hand for his father away from the display of love is VERY telling. It tells us very directly what this distance did to Adriens side of the relationship. Despite Gabriels hand being right there, Adrien does not meet the gesture. And I cannot believe that he did it out of resentment, nothing in the show indicated such strong negative emotions from past Adrien.

It's much more likely that Adrien not reaching for his fathers hand is meant to show us that Adrien felt that he either CAN'T return the gesture because he fears that it'll end in an unpleasant reaction from Gabriel - that it isn't Adriens "place" to reach out to his busy and distant father like that, like it's demanding something - or Adrien simply didn't took Gabriel laying his hand on his shoulder, in the context of posing for a portrait, as a gesture of love and affection.

The way I interpret the portrait is that prior to Emilies dissappearence Adrien did not exactly try to reach out to his father the same way he did from s1-s3, which, I mean, of course wasn't the case. Not only is it NOT the 13 years olds (or younger) job to form an emotional connection to their absent parent - when that’s the PARENTS job - it also wouldn't be necessarily "needed" for Adrien to do so.

Because Emilie at this point was still in the picture so and she was the complete opposite. She was a (or maybe the ONLY) safe, reliable and loving constant of parental attention, affection and care in his life and because of these two HARSH contrasts Adrien learned from very early on to focus mostly completely on her in that regard while kinda blocking his father out.

That most likely wasn't even an active choice whatsoever - Gabriel proofed to be an unreliable resource so Adrien learned to subconciously treat him that way out of self protection. That doesn't mean he had any kind of dislike or malice against his father it just means that he wasn't able or allowed to connect with Gabriel the way he needed. Several episodes show that Gabriel deadass only parented like 15 minutes tops in his life with one of the worst offenders kinda being “Gigantitan” ngl.

So yeah, when I see that the portrait wants to tell me that prior to Emilies loss, Adrien - a 12-13 year old at most - is THIS used to rely solely on the strong bond he has with his mother and not even really reaching out for his fathers love, then I can't help but interpret it in the way that... Well... Gabriel was so distant and emotionally unreliable to Adrien for all his life, that Gabriel simply... wasn't needed by his son. Not at that point of time at least.

And while this may seem weird, because obviously Adrien only now starts to stop craving for his fathers affection and approval (which is btw a horrible, HORRIBLE thing and not something good. A half orphan losing the last remaining hope he had left of having the chance to finally get to form a bond with the only other parent he has left, just to be crushed by disappointment and abandonment all over again until he let's go, is REALLY NOT as much of a good thing people will make it out to be. This is... plain awful) it's actually quite logical.

Adriens hand outside the heart doesn't mean that his father meant nothing to him and therefore refuses to meet and accept his affection (that's literally the complete opposite of what the show shows us), it means that Adriens and Gabriels father-son relationship suffers from a fatal emotional disconnection caused by miscommunication/ a lack of communication.

And this was caused by Gabriel. How? Let me elaborate on that by going a bit far afield (cuz lbh we all have time for this. I’m writing this in quarantine and youre reading this is quarantine, so lets gooooooooooooo).

In "The bubbler" Adrien says that his father "always forgot his birthday", but I cannot agree with this in true honesty. Gabriel is controlling his sons entire life, calls him "the epitome of perfection" and temporarily truly gave up being Hawkmoth for him, he definitely never forgot Adriens birthday.

"The bubbler" even SHOWS us that Adriens perspective of the situation is actually not the truth:

This is Adriens first birthday after Emilies dissappearence and it's incredibly telling how Gabriel handles the planning.

What this entire little sequence tells me is that Gabriel is completely and UTTERLY used to NOT be the one to take care of anything related to Adriens birthday. So Emilie was always the one who did it but somehow - now without her - Gabriel apparently still hasn't even considered changing anything about that nasty non-involvement and just expected Natalie to pick everything up where Emilie left it.

Because let's be real here, knowing Natalie she would NOT have forgotten to get a present if Gabriel truly had told her to. Natalie is never presented to do mistakes like that but Gabriel on the other hand IS definitely presented to us claiming things about himself as ultimate, blameless and true when they simply do not reflect reality. A great example: Gorizilla

You didn’t even speared a minutes of your time for Adrien and he DID try to! Asshat… It's a problem guys. The lack of self awareness Gabriel displays in moments like this is legitimately concerning when you think about how deeply this man is falling right now.

But back to the topic:

Because even if Gabriel didn't even consider doing anything himself for Adriens birthday - not even taking the time to SEE his son (who just recently lost his mother, come on Gabe, really?) - one thing one cannot hold against him: he sure as hell remembered Adriens birthday like any decent parent would and it wasnt portrayed as a this-year-for-the-first-time thing.

And yet Adriens statement still makes complete sense. Because a big, BIG problem with Gabriel is just how much he takes things for granted. He EXPECTS things to be universally known and to never be doubted, just because that's how HE sees them. I will write 10 essays if it's needed to make people understand that Gabriel DOES truly love Adrien, it's just that Gabriel HIMSELF is such a rotten, twisted and toxic person that he cannot see how much his (oppressing) behavior and the way he (doesn't) express his love hurts Adrien and that HE is the one at fault. (for more, once again, read this)

Gabriel LOVES Adrien but he takes the love he feels as such a matter-of-fact that he just completely... forgets to show it.

And when we take Adriens words and look at the Family portrait it unfortunately seems that...

…. Gabriel ALWAYS forgot to show it.

Adriens hand - that should at least be reaching out to his father - is outside of the heart in accepting certainty. Because that's what Gabriels non-presence was for Adrien while growing up: an unreliable and unreachable certainty he had to accept early on as safer to not try to emotionally depend on too much or else he will get hurt.

So yeah, Adrien is the one in the portrait who is very openly not reaching out but only because Gabriel never gave him the needed affection and stability to be able to create that bond.

But let me correct what I said a little earlier: Adrien ALWAYS needed his father. Every kid, especially one in a bad situation like Adrien, does need their parents/friends etc as support system to become independent and confident in a healthy way. And if they don’t have that they WILL crave and look for it!

What Adrien has been doing up to now IS normal for a teenager - humans NEED affection, belonging and safety. What ISNT/SHOULDN’T be normal is Adriens disconnection towards his father in the portrait and just how much Gabriel fails to take care and BE THERE for his son in BOTH TIMES!

Collector:

Bother Christmas:

One thing I like about the show is that it portrays their young main cast with one very important truth: The psyche of a child/teenager of their age will react and adapt so it SURVIVES, even if it results in unfortunate consequences in other relationships and places. Thats the psyches main concern and it'll try to cope with the limited experience and development it has in whatever way necessary to get itself to the next day. A coping mechanism is not there to make you a better person, it ensures your SURVIVAL, everything else is a secondary concern.

So seeing pre-show Adrien not react to Gabriels touch and even feel completely unloved and disconnected from him is no surprise to me. Kids are incredibly observant. They may lack the needed experience and knowledge to truly understand that they deserve better and to stand up for themselves but they are masters in picking up red flags in people and can put this danger into perspective while comparing the different danger levels of their options of people and places to adjust their behavior.

Feast:

Stormy Weather 2:

So the broken connection between father and son we see in the portrait (that Gabriel doesn't even notice but Adrien fully internalized) isn’t there because Adrien “didnt needed” or wanted his father, its because Adrien NEEDED Gabriel so much in his isolated upbringing but Gabriel didn’t LET him need him - so Adrien had to adjust to that accordingly. Big, huge, ENORMOUS difference.

Honestly the most miraculous thing about Miraculous is that Adrien was able to bring up the strength to stay positive and friendly and to forgive Gabriel in hope for a better future. That boys situation is 7 kinds of depressing and traumatizing...

It's just flabbergasting to me how well this portrait shows how basically non-existent their relationship was at that point. And it's horrible to know that this estranged and unformed bond is all Adrien had left after Emilie dissappeared, just alot worse because after Emilie incident Adrien states that his father changed alot for the worse as well.

So to think that all Adrien had left wasn't even this former basically non-existent relationship with his aloof father - who would only barely show his true affection for his son because he's either not around enough to do so or he thinks it "unnecessary to proof his affection" for/to Adrien because he already thinks it so obvious and undoubtable.

Well he thought wrong. And GOSH, it breaks my heart!

So now comparing the "Gabriel" hand from Adrien with the one representing his connections with his mother conveys a pretty harsh contrast.

Because last but not least, let's take a look at Emilies hand placements:

But here is now an interesting difference to Adrien. Whereas we openly see that Adriens side of the Adrien-Gabriel relationship is completely disconnected from the heart/love - showcasing just how badly Adrien has always been neglected by his father - we don't see Emilies hand in her Emilie-Gabriel relationship AT ALL.

Once again just like with Adrien, this doesn't mean she didn't love her husband and that Gabriel was used and fooled by the woman he so utterly adored. It just means that from Emilies point of view things were a bit more complicated. What exactly this is, the portrait is keeping secret from us. We have no way of knowing if and how Emilie is returning her husbands gesture. All we can say is that if she does she is definitely not doing it in such an open and unconflicted way as she does with Adrien.

But since when has anything with this family been this easy?

One thing the portrait makes very clear, Adrien and Emilie had a strong and good bond. Definitely the healthiest because the Adrien-Emilie connection is the only one depicted without any kind of disruption from both sides. Both mother and son are reaching out for the other ones hand creating a whole half of the heart, showcasing their affection for another openly and without any of the implied doubts the other connections display. And honestly? Comparing all the hand placements, the one connecting Adrien and Emilie just comes across as strikingly pure and true (which makes it even worse that it was HER Adrien lost…)

As I said it's a HARSH contrast to the one Adrien shears with Gabriel. This contrast is highlighted even further by the way these three face on another.

Emilie and Adrien are positioned facing another and so are Emilie and Gabriel. Telling us that Emilie was "face-to-face" aka involved with both her husband and son. It is Adrien and Gabriel were this looks wildly different. These two have no way of seeing each other in the eyes the way they stand now/then, further displaying their deeply rooted disconnection. It's portrays perfectly how important Emilie was in this family dynamic, because even though Adrien and Gabriel bearly had a connection at all they at least had Emilie as a link between them, keeping the family together. But then they lost her and where this left both father and son off we know oh too well...

So to collect all the informations we get out if this portrait:

-Adriens and Emilies relationship was the strongest and purest. Both of their hands connect and reach out for another in the heart, showcasing that they had a loving and positive bond.

-Adriens and Gabriels relationship is heavily scarred by a deeply rooted disconnection leaving Adrien feeling unloved and unwanted by his father to the point where Adriens side of their dynamic is outside the heart altogether. Gabriel may love and adore his son just like he loves his wife and never thought he displayed his love for him in a lacking way, but fact is: this love never reached Adrien the way it should have and Adrien is the one in their dynamic who got severely hurt and damaged by it.

-Gabriel was the only one completely unconflicted and happily at peace with the former Family situation. He's reaching out to both his family members with open love and affection in blissful oblivion that neither his wife nor son could return them the same way (to different degrees for different reasons). Gabriel was the ONLY ONE in the Agreste family who didn't saw problems in their lives and thought them all happy, hence why he's so obsessed with changing the past and bringing THIS state of their family back. He was happy and he had everything he needed and loved right with him, of course he wants THIS back. He's not aware that Emilie and ESPECIALLY Adrien did not feel the same about their former situation and that bringing all of them back to this is not the perfect happy ending for their entire family as he thinks.

-Emilie may not have been as unconflicted with Gabriel as he was with her but she is NOT feeling the same disconnection her son feels and isn't depicted with negative feelings towards Gabriel. Her side in the Emilie-Gabriel relationship is neither shown outright positive as with her son or outright bad as Adrien with Gabriel. Her side of their bond is depicted through her unseen hand placement in the unknown area in between.

-Despite their not so unconflicted feelings towards Gabriel - and Gabriel himself being aloof - neither Emilie nor Adrien are actively trying to cut Gabriel out. They aren't flinching away from his touch or exclude him from the heart whatsoever. He's happily included, obviously feeling loved. They may not be 100% happy and Gabriel doesn't notice it, but they aren't denying him his happiness and make him unhappy. Again, he's the only one truly happy here. Something neither Emilie nor Adrien tried to take away from him.

-Emilie and Adrien are facing each other as do Emilie and Gabriel, implying the presence of communication and a bond. Adrien and Gabriel do not face each other, showing their disconnected bond. If they could see each others face Adrien would have been able to see that Gabriels hand is a gesture of genuine affection and Gabriel could see that Adriens expression does not exactly display pure happiness the way he thinks. This also goes for Emilie. Emilie just like her husband is placed BEHIND her son, so even if she is facing him she would not be able to really see just how much Adrien is not satisfied and truly happy with his life at that point (meaning how unhappy being looked up, friendless and at distance with his father actually makes him).

- This fascinating family makes me sad and I like it lol

#Miraculous #Miraculous Ladybug #adrien agreste #Gabriel Agreste #Emilie Agreste #family agreste #Agreste tragedy #natalie sancoeur #Agreste family portrait #Chat Noir #Cat Noir #hawkmoth #le papillon #ml analysis #this family is fascinatingly depressing to think about #I love them #I want Adrien safe and sound and loved with the Dupain-Changs #because everything Agreste is doomed and I want my son to be happy #Gabriel Agreste needs priorities #and Emilie needs to tell me what the fuck she did to set all of this off

[parismystere]

great meta on the body language of abuse! really interesting to see a cohesive timeline and evolution of adrien/chat noir’s body language.

I wanted to ask u something bc I’ve been thinking about this for a while and I’m honestly not sure anymore. this might be pretty long so please bear with me! I agree that ml succeeds in being transparent with the consequences of abuse through adrien, but I’ve always wondered if they’ll eventually redeem Gabriel. do you think they might?

they’ve managed to handle the abuse aspect with a surprising amount of care and dignity, but I’m incredibly wary of Disney’s handling of the aftermath of defeating hawk moth. since his intentions can be interpreted as out of love for his wife and in a twisted way (and from Gabriel’s perspective) adrien too, I think it could be pretty easy for writers who have been insensitive, made bad calls, and welcomed plot holes and inconsistencies bc complexity was too ambitious in the past to go towards a route of forgiveness. especially since adrien is one of the good guys, and that’s a trait that generally kids should admire, and one adrien has shown to have.

the target audience being kids makes something as nuanced as rightful anger, estrangement, and an unhappy ending difficult for me to see ML going for when the other option of doing something seemingly unforgivable out of love—with intentions that align with the protagonist’s greatest wish of having a whole happy family again, with his mother back and his father (presumably) back as a result—surface level seems like justice for adrien because it will make him happy, and since he has put in the time as a Good person Good things will happen to him and he gets what he wants as a treat. it’s not so much that I think they’d redeem him bc Gabriel is redeemable but because it’s a kids show and adrien’s happiness is something he deserves because of the kindness, bravery, and goodness he’s put into the world. the moral that good things happen to good people and good people take the high road (adrien) and do things bad people wouldnt (Gabriel) seems like a very plausible route to happen, and I’m extremely worried about the repercussions of that.

Gabriel is not a complex character, but because he’s mysterious with a secret and a “noble” reason to justify his villainy, the writers pretend he is. whereas chloe is an interesting case because they made her more complex than I think they intended, which is why Astruc pulled back on her development and opportunity to be incredibly interesting and complex, because he wants the audience to understand that there are “good” people and “bad” people, and chloe should be recognized as the latter to give the universe structure and a standard that we can hold our protagonists above. juxtaposing that is Gabriel, whom we are continually reminded of his intentions and purpose behind his crimes. as you said, the show is from marinette’s perspective, but this strays the most in the scenes with hawk moth, because, well, she isn’t there to interpret it for us! because of this the show reminds us as much as possible why Gabriel is the way he is, and what his goals are, and hey, maybe he wouldn’t be acting this way if he didn’t have such a sympathetic reason of trying to get his wife back! versus evil chloe who is a bitch for no reason and ohoho did we make it seem like her parents abused her and make her act out? just to be safe let’s have her be an evil gremlin and really drill it in that it’s for no reason besides selfishness and an inclination to be bad that is all on her own with no depth bc we need u to understand that she is Bad.

I’m worried the care and delicacy the topic of abuse in adrien’s case has so far been handled will be completely ruined by the show choosing to eventually redeem Gabriel, because adrien’s a Really Good Person, and gabe Really Learned His Lesson, and overall have the message that you should forgive your abusers if they have a really good reason for doing it and because that’s what a good person would do. also because the message that not forgiving someone, being angry with them, completely cutting them off and allowing them to be punished for their actions is a good thing and that there is no high road or grace to be given to them, while also maintaining that that is not a selfish thing to do is a much more serious route to take, and one that’s highly ambitious given the nature of the show.

wow that ended up being a damn essay, I’m so sorry! thank you if u read all that, very curious to hear your thoughts on the Plausibility and Implications of Redeeming One Gabriel Agreste. what do you think?

hi anon! i'm happy that you enjoyed my meta! thank you for the thoughtful message. i sense that we're on the same wave length, so i'll try to be as honest as possible.

long answer ahead because i don't know what 'concise' means:

i have never thought that they would choose to redeem gabriel, not even once. honestly, the panic over it in the fandom has baffled me a little, but reading your ask... yeah, okay, i understand it now. i can see where this fear comes from. i think i'm relying on gut instincts and knowledge about the logical principles of storytelling rather than objective arguments (which can be a flaw if you're running a meta ladyblog on the internet!).

it is true that the ml creative team has made some absolutely baffling decisions, when it comes to the show. i do try to keep this blog more on the positive side, but, boy, do i want to scream when watching ml sometimes. but like you, i also feel that the depiction of gabriel's abuse and how it has impacted adrien has been startlingly right and subtle (which i appreciate, until i read opinions about how gabriel is just 'a little strict' or something like that, and i want to scream). it took them a long time to confirm that chat noir is just another role for adrien, but honestly, if you are familiar with abuse and/or trauma response, that's something you would've seen coming a long time ago. the way ml has handled adrien's abusive childhood has been insightful and tasteful since day one.

there is a lot of salt towards adrien for being shown as a 'perfect little victim' (usually in comparison to chloe or... felix, for some reason), but i think that the show has been clear how much adrien suffers. the boy is incapable of defending himself. marinette accused him of putting a gum on her spot in class and he froze. he's only capable of gentle reprimands when it comes to chloe. he lets lila and felix take advantage of his hospitality. and if you're a cruel person, you might read this behavior as 'spineless' rather than 'obviously traumatized child is afraid of other people's anger'.

now, if we are talking on a meta level, analyzing the kind of storytelling ml has going on, i believe that the agreste storyline was intentionally set up as tragic and a no-win situation from the start. i don't think that felix was hawk moth's son in the pv, unless i'm mistaken, so that was a deliberate decision done with specifically adrien in mind.

i love the question you posit here: should gabriel be forgiven not for himself, but for adrien? and i think that would be a short-term/easy solution. it might feel good temporarily, but inevitably, the truth that gabriel was his son's biggest enemy would cause only resentment in the family dynamic, and there would still be gabriel's cruelty and obsession with control to reckon with. adrien learning marinette's identity accidentally through a card was easy, so chat blanc happened. marinette being in a relationship with luka was easy, so she didn't fall in love with him. the chat noir persona was easy, so adrien is getting emotional blows that make him reconsider his identity and how he exists in the world. nothing in the ml world is easy.

of course, as you say - ml is a cartoon that strives to teach positive lessons to its audience. the whole ethos of ml is that being nice is everything. sometimes i think that marinette is the one who had gotten the short stick, since she keeps getting overwhelmed with all the things she does for others, and the show never once tries to teach her to put herself first. as much as some hate on adrien for taking the moral high ground, it was about two very specific situations - one, celebrating somebody leaving with a party is indeed tacky, no matter how you feel about that person; and two - it was the exact right approach for lila, whose weakness has always been that she's not as smart as she think she is, and she had to wake up to the unpleasant surprise that the agrestes had an upper hand while she thought that she was the one manipulating them; inevitably, she would have slipped in front of the class. but those two things are hardly comparable to childhood abuse. am i making sense?

you know what my mom, a conservative eastern european woman in her 50s, thought when i told her the plot of 'chat blanc'? she got offended that kids are taught that 'destruction is okay, as long as people get what they want', and then i had to be like 'but that's why he's the villain, moooom :/'. i have to admit that she hit the nail of the head. gabriel can have a sympathetic backstory all he wants (if that is even true, because we still know next to nothing about emilie and his relationship with her), but does the end justify the means when the end is the death of all humanity and the means are adrien's soul? even if chat blanc never happened, gabriel is still someone who makes his son cower in fear. the one time he's shown attempting to be a decent father, plagg is absolutely dismissive. and some may say that gabriel deserves to have his family back because he loves emilie, but does he really, or is he only capable of conditional love?

now. adrien does indeed deserve happiness. he also deserves honesty and respect, and he can't get those things from his family, a bunch of liars and backstabbers who always have an ulterior motive. he's kind of the black sheep of the family, doubly so because they tried to mold him into a personification of obedience, and yet his rebelliousness still sneaks out. anon, i do wonder what's the endgame for adrien, a lot. part of the irony with his character is that he's like a paragon of good child behavior, and he's still dealing with the whole abuse thing (not that badly behaved kids deserve to be abused, but the message here is that even golden children who have done nothing wrong are!). honestly, the only episode that i think was fully happy for him was 'party crasher'. he's a good person, and yet he keeps getting more and more piled on, to the point where i seriously begin to wonder why the hell is he getting 90% of the trauma and all the connections to the main plot, instead of, i don't know, marinette. his mental health is getting progressively worse with each new episode, so i think that the lesson here is that he can't be happy and free with gabriel around? maybe?

as for chloe... god, i wish i had an idea where they're going with her. some say that zag loved chloe and that's why she got so much attention in s2. i do feel that there's some sort of a disservice going on with her character, because i don't think her arc was planned since s1, when comparing her relationship to adrien with their dynamic in s2, when they genuinely felt like childhood friends who have drifted apart. and then astruc goes on twitter and compares her to ivanka trump or something, and i think that he's maybe trolling, but he also seems earnest???? idk. i freely admit that i don't like zoe, and while chloe needed to lose her miraculous, what she needed even more was for her father to change and to stop spoiling her, and for her mother to stay away. i feel like her arc isn't over yet and i'm hoping for a redemption, but i'm not holding my breath that canon will treat her with the complexity she deserves. but see how wishy-washy the situation is? whether they made a mistake or not with how they wrote her is still uncertain.

look, i do see ml as conflicting a lot of times, and i guess that's bound to happen, given the episodic nature of the show. they can portray selfishness as the worst vice in the world (the one time i've ever agreed with salters about marinette being punished is how her toxic femininity gets rewarded instead of questioned), and still ask adrien to be 'selfish' by putting his own safety first, if we can even intepret that as selfishness, because i don't think it is. if they do redeem gabriel, that would be the biggest shock and a slap to the most consistent thing they've explored, and it would ruin all the careful narrative messages they've threaded into the show. so, overall, i don't worry about gabriel's future; i am mostly curious about what his punishment will be and what awaits adrien (good god, where will the poor boy live?). i do think that they show time and time again that there's no happiness for him with his family in the picture, so his narrative reward should be an emancipation from them. did this make sense? i'd love to hear back from you if you have any new ideas!

#anon i love you for overthinking and i hope this helped and covered most bases #like my friend would say 'the writers are dumb but not THAT dumb' hahaha #miraculous ladybug #adrien agreste #gabriel agreste #gabriel agreste's a+ parenting

[sniper-childe]

Hello! I’d like to share some of my notes if I were to Beta-read the most recent Archon Quest. I will be going through what worked, what could be taken out, and what could’ve been better. Note that I’m looking at this through an editor’s lens so I’m going to try NOT to change the plot we were given no matter what my opinions are about it BUT some of the said opinions may slip out.

Also, a bit of a disclaimer: I know that Genshin isn’t an actual literary work but miHoYo is known for its writers’ great storytelling and I’ve always loved their work so it really came as a surprise as to what happened to the mess that is Inazuma Act 3. So yeah.

Contains:

1. What was foreshadowed about the characters and why the payoff of their portrayals felt cheap.

a. About Kokomi and the rebellion.

b. About the Fatui, the James Bond villain wannabe.

c. About Ei and the Raiden Shogun.

2. How Chapter 2, Act 3 could have been the turning point that would have us, as the Traveler, cement our perceptions of the Archons and Gods of Celestia OR what I think the death of Signora was supposed to be but was undermined by this one tidbit.

BONUS: I wrote this before Kokomi’s story quest was released but decided to wait for it before posting. And guess what? I think Kokomi’s Story Quest works better as an Archon Quest. At least, some parts of it.

miHoYo teased us this intelligent leader of the resistance that is well-versed in the Art of War. The end of Ch2: Act 2 showed us a powerful Kokomi. So why was she sidelined all throughout the act?

I actually like the idea of the resistance asking the Fatui for aid. But miHoYo chickened out and made it so that they did it unknowingly. To which I say: how? If Kokomi was so smart she should’ve known better. I figured it was the Fatui within a single sentence, so why didn’t Kokomi?

They should’ve stuck with the concept of the underdogs – or in Kokomi’s words, the little fish – of war in an act of desperation. They could’ve shown a calculated Kokomi “making a deal with the devil” and will do anything to win the fight against the Shogunate.

In her Character Teaser, she was willing to burn the enemies’ supplies – to starve the enemy. She can be ruthless, that’s why Kokomi actively giving Delusions to her foot soldiers would have made much more sense to cause the Fatui to be involved rather than the whole “the Fatui orchestrated everything” schtick.

Which brings me to my next point: when did the Fatui turn into a James Bond villain? I hate that trope so much. It’s like the Deus Ex Machina of villainy. It’s lazy. And it doesn’t even fit the Fatui’s modus operandi.

In the prologue, the Abyss Order corrupted Dvalin and the Fatui was just there waiting to steal Barbatos’ gnosis while the Knights are distracted. Morax decided to retire one day so the Fatui swept right in and offered a test of Liyue in exchange for his gnosis.

The last two locations had their own story to tell while the Fatui was just in the background like the opportunistic antagonist that they are.

It also would have been a stronger plotline to have the already set lore – like the tenuous relationship between Watatsumi and Narukami – be the driving force of the Inazuman Civil War.

The prologue and chapter 1 also delivered what we are told we’re going to get in the Story Preview. That’s why they are satisfying. However, with chapter 2, the way it ended turned out to be more about the Fatui rather than “what do mortals see of the eternity chased after by their god.”

Sure, we got the consequences of the war in the World Quests and some of it in the second act. But making the Fatui the Big Bad in the end takes value away from the actions of the characters that are supposed to be the main feature of this chapter.

How much of the Eternity the Raiden Shogun is pursuing is directly from Ei? How much of it is its own understanding of eternity, coupled with Ei’s memories, and its own response? How much of it is the Fatui’s influence?

I have to say though, I’m fine with the puppet actually. Believe it or not. I have had kinda figured that out with the weird shifting of emotions in and out of the puppet. And the dead glowing eyes. So kudos to the design and animation team for that foreshadowing.

It was also said that the current Electro Archon lost someone dear to her and, while I didn’t think it was a twin, I did figure that the current Electro Archon wasn’t the real Electro Archon. So the whole Baal and Beelzebul backstory didn’t really surprise me. So I guess that was foreshadowed too? But my friends didn’t feel the same way so I don’t know. I’m not touching that.

But I do agree that all of the new lore got info-dumped to us by Yae rather than have us find out about them. To be honest, I would have wanted the backstory of Ei to be in her story quest rather than it be in the Archon Quest. A World Quest could work too.

I just feel like the 2.1 Archon Quest ended up cramming so many themes and subplots when it should’ve been focusing on what was promised: the darkness that is brought by their god.

They already had set up the Visions are people’s motivations/ambitions and that taking them away also takes away their agency.

Then they could’ve played with the idea of the people of Watatsumi looking up to Kokomi as their pseudo-god in-place of Orobashi and so with her actively giving Delusions could fit well in the said theme.

They could’ve made Ei and Kokomi character foils of each other and have the final showdown be about them.

And then it’ll all, of course, end up with the people of Inazuma learning how to work without their “gods” or something like that, which is the overarching theme of the whole series if you think about it.

But as I said, my opinions about the plot shouldn’t matter and I’m only here to make what was already written better.

So let’s talk about something that the puppet has done which didn’t make any sense on the surface level but could’ve been clever if it was done right. Killing La Signora.

Okay. So there is a pivotal moment at the end of the first arc of a three-act story where the main character experiences something that will leave them no choice but to move forward. This usually is a physical thing like Alice falling down the rabbit hole. But it can also be a mental or emotional situation.

Over at Honkai, the first arc ended with the death of a beloved mentor and a shattered world (both external and internal). The characters had no choice but to step up and “to stay alive, bravely” (yes, I won’t stop using this line ever). It was so very well done and even after so many years it still hurt no matter how many times you reread/rewatch the scene.

This reread value is what shows how much a twist is well written.

And that is what miHoYo is known for. So I had high expectations with the plot twist (technically this pivotal moment is called a plot twist because it twists the feel and/or pace of the story). Chapter 2 is the perfect spot to end the first act of a seven-chaptered story. So I’m really preparing myself for the inevitable twist.

But then we ended up with Signora’s death.

Okay. So. They could have used that to show us, as the traveler, how Archons and Celestial beings are unfeeling and not to be trusted. We were told this repeatedly by Dainsleiff and by the Abyss Twin. But it is only textbook writing 101 to show NOT tell.

And Signora’s death could have been this portrayal. Although, to be honest, it would have been more impactful if the one who died is a friend of the Traveler.

Them seeing someone die at the hands of an Archon could have their idea of gods shift. Because there is no turning back once you see the proof right in front of your eyes.

But instead, the puppet did it. So what was the point of Signora’s death if not just a power demonstration? We already knew that the Raiden Shogun is powerful. So why did Signora have to die?

Sure, one can argue that the puppet was enacting the Ei’s will so maybe there was a point. But! In Ei’s story quest, we were told that the puppet would have no hesitation when it comes to killing whereas Ei can show mercy.

Which begs, again, the question: how much of the Raiden Shogun’s actions is a reflection of Ei’s will, and how much of it is a logic response of an artificial intelligence from Ei’s memories?

Honestly? I don’t like that they killed off Signora. It doesn’t feel right. I would’ve taken Beidou’s death over Signora’s no matter how much I love Beidou. There was just no build-up to it and it feels weak. I… didn’t feel anything besides confusion. The anger only came later because of the wasted potential.

But overall, I do think they could’ve made it work if it were actually Ei doing the killing.

--

So I just did Kokomi’s Story Quest and man. The soldiers wanting to continue the war is what they really should have made the motivations of the actual war rather than have it as a post-war response and then have Kokomi fix their mess.

Seriously. While it was really interesting to see the usual trauma response of soldiers who had only known war their whole life, they wasted this idea, man.

Before doing the Archon Quest I had thought that the Watatsumi had a hand on the Vision Hunt Decree. Because if I were a tactician, I would have made something to anger the people of my enemies and have them have their internal issues. And while the Shogunate is weak, that’s when I will strike and claim Inazuma for my people and my god.

Then Orobashi will rise once more.

Yep.

Obviously, I really wanted Kokomi to be a more active character in the Archon Quest.

Anyways. If you reached the end, thank you for reading this ~1.5k words of musings. Tell me what you think. Or don’t. You do you.

#genshin impact #genshin spoilers #genshin 2.1 #baal #sangonomiya kokomi #genshin fatui #la signora #genshin analysis #fatui harbingers #genshin baal #genshin impact 2.1 #archon quests #genshin quests #genshin archon quests #genshin story analysis #genshin lore #genshin criticism #idek what to tag this as ahsajadghhtjj #kokomi #genshin kokomi #genshin signora

[hamliet]

Twisted Skeletons of the Past, Masks of Justice, and Dreams of the Future: the Burden of Legacy

This arc has been heavily hitting us with the idea of legacy, and this chapter in particular shows Compress musing about Dabi and Shigaraki’s heroic legacies and Dabi exposing Hawks’ villainous one. So, let’s examine the foiling between Dabi and Shouto, and to an extent Deku, Shigaraki, and Hawks. 

Hawks having to hide his identity to be a hero parallels Dabi hiding his identity as a villain, and hero society as a whole (cough Gran Torino cough) hiding Shigaraki’s true identity. Gran Torino claimed that he did this because no matter what Shigaraki’s heritage is, he’s still a villain:

Except now we know hero society is just fine with covering up a villain’s heritage to allow him to be a hero; they know heroes and villains aren’t just born. . It’s good that they allowed Hawks to be a hero (though questionable how much Hawks chose to be on his own since he’s more than once implied to be at the mercy of the commission). Still, they won’t let Hawks be himself as a hero because of his legacy, and thereby objectify him by grooming him into a tool. Now because the hero commission forced Hawks into a double-agent role that he did not want, now they’ve only hurt their own reputations when he killed Twice (this isn’t to absolve Hawks).

Hero society focuses on the present at the expense of the past and of the future. While putting on a face of only caring about the present, the hero commission is very concerned about maintaining present appearances, even if it means allowing skeletons to rot in their closets. They prefer to deal with villains heroes and everyday folk as they are, but pay no mind to what made them what they are, nor what they could become in the future. Only what you are at the moment matters. It’s a well-known platitude that is more often than not cheap and overly simplistic, and doesn’t have a place in determining fate. 

Shouto, for one, has always been grappling with legacy as part of his arc, defining himself in opposition to his father rather than as an extension of his father (as Endeavor defined him for a lot of his life). Or so he claims. 

I say “or so he claims,” because Shouto’s actions show that he is well aware he cannot just do away with his heritage, and seems to walk back this claim slightly when he takes an internship with his father not just once, but twice.  On the one hand, he might be trying to learn from his past and that’s good, but on the other, he still clearly struggles with seeing his fire quirk as part of Endeavor, rather than his own. It’s fine if he wants to reconcile with Endeavor (and the series is clearly setting him up to do so eventually), but it’s hard to say this isn’t also symbolic of Shouto regressing after his fight with Midoriya.

After all, we have seldom seen Shouto use his fire quirk after that fight with Midoriya. He lost to Bakugou because he would not use his flames (and Bakugou was pisssssed because of it, thus attracting the attention of the villains who would then kidnap him). Shouto’s inability to use his flames thus helps bring Touya back into his life--and part of the reason Shouto then loses Bakugou to Dabi during the kidnapping is because, well, Shouto does not once use his flames. 

So as much as Shouto says he believes this:

He needs to show it and live it himself, because he hasn’t done this yet. Yeah, there’s probably going to be an eventual “agni kai” between brothers, but I don’t think winning is the purpose. Touya is not just Endeavor and hero society’s shadow; he’s also Shouto’s, much as Shigaraki is Deku’s and Himiko Ochaco’s, and you don’t burn your shadow. You reconcile with it. 

So regarding Touya as a shadow for all of these... as @linkspooky said in her brilliant meta last week, Touya believes his flames are Endeavor’s.

Through challenging Dabi that he can be his own person, that he doesn’t have to be defined by his abuse or even by his villainy, Shouto will likely himself reconcile with his own shadow side. Touya has always assumed his purpose is to be an extension of Enji, because that’s what Enji believed as well:

Touya still views himself that way, attempting a murder-suicide with Endeavor this chapter. Like, his comment about DNA testing likely refers to “test from my dead body” given his suicidal plunge this chapter. 

Touya needs to learn he exists as a person, and because of this he can decide his own purpose, he can take responsibility for his actions (like how Endeavor will probably eventually by sacrificing himself to save Touya): 

The irony is also that Endeavor’s legacy is still, indeed, likely to be defined at least in a major way by Touya. The paneling is brilliant this chapter: Touya is on the back of a mountainous giant monster that is very symbolic of what Endeavor is facing. Endeavor’s words about what he hoped Touya would become are likely foreshadowing: his legacy will be decided by what he does with Touya. Saving Touya might just crush all the frustration/envy/ugliness in Endeavor’s heart to dust. Well, not really. It won’t likely be crushed into nonexistence, because that’s not how the past is portrayed here and not how shadows work in stories. But it might well reconcile Endeavor with his family (this isn’t me commenting on whether I want this or not, just predicting based on what I see in the story). 

Returning to the idea of existing as a person outside of legacy... let’s talk Shigaraki, who is literally being somewhat possessed by legacy right now. AFO is trying to control him, and Shigaraki refuses, keeping his agency... or is he? 

Shigaraki is still driven by his own trauma, trauma that was used by AFO to groom him from Shimura Tenko into Shigaraki Tomura. Even before AFO tried to literally possess him, Shigaraki has not been allowed to exist as a person and discover his own purpose; he’s been groomed as a weapon by AFO since AFO saved him. (It’s also not a coincidence AFO is a long-past-his-time monstrosity: the embodiment of the worst of the past.)

Shigaraki struggling to wake up this chapter is symbolic on a few levels. 

Being controlled by the past, even past trauma, leads to broken bodies and pain. It destroys you as well as the world around you. However, narratively it’s not time for Shigaraki to wake up to this reality just yet, though I believe Deku will get through to him eventually. Shigraki is yes, literally a symbol of the world in that the more he destroys the world the more he hurts himself, which means to save the world is to save Shigaraki.

Deku himself will have a decision to make. He literally carries the past One for All holders around with him. How does Deku want to define not just his legacy, but theirs? Because they certainly have not been perfect; despite good intentions, Nana hurt Koutarou who passed on that pain to Shigaraki. The past continues. The past is the present. Unless those twisted skeletons are exhumed, the future will be poisoned by them. OFA’s legacy is supposed one of saving, but because of Nana’s mistakes (even if instigated by All for One!) is also one of abandonment. If Deku really wants to carry on OFA’s glorious legacy, doesn’t he have to take responsibility for the pain this quirk has caused as well? If he really wants OFA to be used to save everybody, should that not include even the scariest of villains? Shouldn’t Deku confront the burden of having a quirk and being a hero in addition to the opportunity? 

It’s your power, Deku. You get to choose what to do with OFA regardless of the hero commission’s wishes.

The thing about legacy is that it's complex. It will provide links that will likely help Shouto and Deku want to save Touya and Shigaraki, respectively. But it also objectifies, makes it difficult to see someone as a person rather than as a cog in a machine, a tool in a system. Because that is how the hero society views the kids, as we saw with Hawks. Legacy isn’t good or bad: like heroism, it can be used for good or bad, to empathize or to condemn (cough, all the takes good victim/bad victiming Shouto/Touya and Eri/Shigaraki). It’s up to you what to do with it. 

Likewise, the characters can’t bury the past. But they cannot let it claim them, either. They need to decide what they want to do with it: to declare it doesn’t matter at all, the perspective Gran Torino, who was symbolically taken out during this fight, advocates? Or to reconcile with it in order to heal what it left broken and behind, and move forward? 

It’s likely both Deku (with Bakugou) and Shouto (with Endeavor) will save Shigaraki and Dabi respectively by giving them the empathy they are both crying out for (and Ochaco giving Himiko empathy too). 

#bnha 291 #bnha meta #mha 291 #mha meta #bnha theory #mha theory #todoroki shouto #todoroki touya #todoroki enji #dabi #shigaraki tomura #shimura tenko #shimura nana #deku #midoriya izuku #endeavor #hawks #takami keigo #gran torino #hero society #twice #jin bubaigawara #toga himiko #one for all #all for one #afo #ofa

[theopolis]

Extremely long, extremely salty Kindred criticism post

Yk the thing about the Kindred storyline is that it failed at being everything it was trying to be.

It wanted to be like DeMatteis' Goblin Junior arc while simultaneously inverting every concept from that arc. Harry is a gentle soul going down a dark path and hurting not only others but himself in the process? No, he's the comically evil mastermind who would throw his friends - Gwen and MJ, who even by his own standards have done him no wrong - under the bus to get revenge! Norman is the looming influence that follows Harry and motivates him to bend himself into who his father wanted him to be? No, he's the repentant, permanently dewey eyed reformed Norman who we're supposed to feel bad for when he gets dismissed and punched around by evil Harry/his demonic clone vessels/whatever the fuck. Peter is the best friend who, despite of course feeling angry and betrayed, believes in Harry's softness and their love and wants the best for him? No, he's immediately and with zero explanation ready to believe Harry is a literal demon all of a sudden and, I quote, "through with helping him". And I don't even think this (later clumsily backpedaled on) change of mind in Peter isn't justified in-universe - Kindred did uh, dig up the skeletons of Peter's loved ones and put party city wigs on them and also smash him with a big rock a couple of times, so there's that. But that's exactly the problem - Spencer set the stage for a story that doesn't actually involve Peter, or Harry, or Norman. He created mostly completely different dynamics between mostly completely different characters, and decided to project that on the the three of them. While also periodically inserting hamfisted callbacks to the DeMatteis stories, as if he didn't just take a giant dump on everything they established.

And here's the thing, even if I did enjoy the idea of Harry forgiving Norman, or the idea of Harry returning to villainy, or the idea of Norman becoming a character we're supposed to root for - which I cannot stress enough how much I don't - the execution of all these ideas was perhaps the worst it could have possibly been. Rushed, convoluted, and hollow.

Norman's sudden goodness is the result of a supernatural, vague process that apparently "freed him of his sin", whatever that means. Like, how do you quantify sin? How can you take it out of a person when it's their moral ideology and conscious choices that make them sinful/bad/evil? What happened to Norman simply reads like brainwashing to me. He is aware he's done something really bad, but he hasn't actually learned anything, and that impression is only backed by the way he talks about his past actions. It's always "oh it's my fault you're like this Harry" and "oh I can never make it up to you" etc etc but does he ever actually recognize his mistakes for what they were? Recognize where the errors of his past convictions lie? Of course not, because Spencer has zero reading comprehension and therefore no clue about the intricacies of Norman's character, his abuse of Harry, or what motivated it, or what he demanded of his son. It's funny how these four panels from a recent What If issue managed to paint a more compelling, if brief, picture of Norman as an apologetic father than Spencer has in a year worth of comics:

Harry's sudden villainy and the way it evolved throughout this story is just a train wreck. He has not had a substantial role in the comics for a long time now, but suddenly he's back AND he's evil! Who cares about complexity? Who cares about how Harry's feeling? Why he's doing what he does other than some extremely vague idea of revenge on apparently both Peter and Norman? Even though he was neck deep in denial about Norman being a horrible father and person at the time he supposedly launched the whole (checks notes) "create clones from Norman's and Gwen's DNA to stick it to his old man AND Peter in the future" plan, which he concocted because he somehow (????) knew his father wasn't gonna stay dead, which begs the question why he was so torn up about it in the first place, and- Look I could sit here all day trying to decipher the whole Gabriel and Sarah Stacy twist. It's impressive what an inconsistent, incomprehensible mess it is considering it was only introduced two issues ago. ASM 74 sort of hinted that Harry was being piloted by Mephisto when he created the clones so they could later become his hellish lackeys? I uhm, think? It's impossible to tell because no part of that retcon makes any sense to begin with. It doesn’t want to make sense because it was written - most likely on a whim - with the sole intent to garner good will for undoing Sins Past. Harry, for this entire arc, was not a character but merely a tool to bait us with an OMD reversal and ultimately do a Sins Past one. And of course, there's the fact that post OMD Harry - one of the only good things to come out of OMD in the first place - was just a clone all along, putting into question how valid all the amazing and inspiring development he went through since his revival was. Thanks a lot.

Lastly, I don't think I have to say how insulting it is to not just use Harry's character as a cheap plot device, but eventually force him to sacrifice his life for the very man who ruined it in every way. The man who abused him since birth, betrayed him on every level, attacked and murdered so many people Harry loves, including almost getting Harry's son killed. Why? Because he’s had a suspicious sudden onset of goodness that Harry has no context for? Norman and clone!Harry have not even interacted for this entire arc, but the sole act of Norman offering himself up to the rabid Kindred twins makes Harry instantly forgive everything he’s ever done. There was no build up to this whatsoever. It’s bad writing. And I don't think the abuse apologism implications of all this are intentional, I think Spencer just thought up the groundbreakingly subversive concept of "what if Norman good and Harry bad" and ran with that. But those implications are there nonetheless, because Harry and Norman's relationship has pretty much always been about abuse, about being mistreated by your parents, about not feeling good enough for them and eventually realizing that you were wronged and you don't owe them anything.

Spencer had Harry, a man who fought for years to rise to his best, most authentic self and fully turn his back on Norman and his legacy, die to save the father who never valued him for that self. And to add insult to injury, paralleled that with Harry dying after saving his best friend who loved him unconditionally. The latter mentioned death being a direct consequence of the actions Harry took to fit the expectations said abusive father had drilled into his head. I feel like that ending explains everything about this plotline.

#Harry Osborn #theopolispost #I'm tired #long post

[icysaturn]

An Act of Villainy

Hi! This is my first fic so bear with me <3

Summary: You force yourself to get kidnapped by the LOV alongside Bakugou, and you refuse to leave their hideout without him by your side. To do so, you embrace your inner villain.

Pairings: Bakugou/Reader

Content warnings: violence, cursing, fluff!

word count: 3.8k

Your quirk: Water manipulation (basically you’re a waterbender on steroids lol)

-- 

You had been part of the bakusquad since the get-go, having been friends with Kirishima and Mina since your middle school days. Upon entrance to UA, you immediately fell head over heels for their angry blonde friend. You and Bakugou had grown close over the past few months, but he never seemed to show you the special treatment you so craved from him. But, you decided you were lucky to have Bakugou in your life in any way he would allow it.

That’s why now, as you stared at Bakugou’s fear-stricken face and the scarred hand wrapped around his neck, all rational thought flew out the window. You and Deku raced towards him and Dabi, but the warp villain’s quirk had almost swallowed them completely whole.

“KACCHAN!” Deku screamed, the knowledge that he wouldn’t make it in time evident in his strained voice. But you could.

Thrusting your arms behind you and angling your palms backwards, you emitted a great blast of steam from them that propelled you forward and past Deku, barreling for Bakugou. You could’ve sworn his eyes were about to pop out of his sockets as you reached a hand out, grappling for his shirt.

“Y/n... Deku…Stay back,” Bakugou wheezed around the fingers gripping his throat. But you couldn’t; you knew you could never forgive yourself if you let the boy you love slip through your fingers. With a victorious shout, you felt the sweat-soaked material of Bakugou’s shirt twist in your fingers, and you pulled yourself to him as you both tumbled through the purplish-black mist.

…

The three of you emerged in what appeared to be a musty abandoned bar, but you didn’t have time to gather your bearings as Dabi shoved you off of Bakugou in disgust and you landed on the floor in a heap, breaths ragging. Kurogiri quickly slapped quirk-dampening cuffs on Bakugou and tugged him to a chair at the far wall. Bakugou roared as he was tied down, his crimson eyes burning in rage.

“Who the hell is this? You guys can’t do anything right, can you?”

You heart stuttered in your chest as you recognized the gravelly voice of Shigaraki, turning around to see him leaning casually against the cracking wood of the bar.

“It wasn’t my fault she was dumb enough to throw herself at us,” Dabi sighed, annoyance pinching his brow. He stepped up to your shaking form and extended his hand, blue flames flaring to life. “I’ll get rid of her, boss.”

“NO—”

“WAIT!”

You and Bakugou both cried out, you throwing your hands up in a sign of goodwill. Your gaze shot to Bakugou, eyes wide, lower lip trembling. He actually looked… scared. Well shit. If he was scared, then this was really, really bad.

Dabi stopped, cocking his head. “And why shouldn’t I torch you on the spot? You weren’t what we came for, brat.”

You wiggled into a sitting position, leaning back against the wall with your hands still held in surrender. “No, but I should have been,” you say casually, willing the fear out of your voice and raising your chin to look Dabi in the eye. You made sure to wipe all expression from your face, a steady chill creeping over your skin that you mentally shook off.

“The fuck?” Bakugou shouted from his chair. He sounded strained. “Y/n, what the fuck is wrong with you!? Get out, I don’t need your help—"

“Shut it brat. Tell me, y/n… why should we have taken you?” Shigaraki pondered. You slid your gaze over to him, repressing the shudder that crawled over your tired body at the sight of the decayed hands latched onto him.

“Feel free to tie me up with Bakugou, if it makes you feel better, and I’ll explain,” you answer, leveling your stare at the leader of the LOV.

“Oh, I don’t think you have a choice in that matter, dollface,” Dabi grins, nodding at Toga who bounds over and pulls you gently to your feet.

She leans in close and presses her nose to your neck, and it takes all of your will-power to not recoil. She smelled like blood; the copper tang thick around her. “You smell sooo sweet!” she cheers, yanking your wrists together and slapping cuffs on them tight enough to make you wince. You angle your head down and look at her pointed canines through half-lidded eyes. “Yeah? You think so?” you whisper. Toga giggles and Bakugou tugs at his restraints with a grunt at your expression. She marches you over to him and straps you to the chair Compress placed next to Bakugou’s.

You turn to smirk at him, but he’s already glaring at you with… anger?

“Traitor,” he barks, jerking his chin away from you, but not before you catch the tears brimming in his eyes. Your heart clenches painfully and you will your mental apologies to reach him, praying he catches on to your plan.

“Start talking,” Shigaraki snaps, and you swivel your gaze to look at him and the members of the league.

“Hi, nice to meet you all,” you smile. “I assume you watched all of our matches at the sports festival?” Your tone is bold with a slightly sinister lilt to your words.

“Oh of course!” Toga claps with glee. “I thought you were the cutest!”

“Shut it, psycho,” growls Dabi, but Toga only points her knife at him with a sadistic grin.

You smile at her and bat your lashes, forcing a blush. “Yeah? I like this one,” you wink, nodding your head towards her. You want to throw up.

Shigaraki waves his hand. “Yeah, yeah, whatever. You have a strong quirk. So?”

The shackles chafe your wrists and you’re sure your skin is rubbed raw. “Ever since you attacked my class at the USJ, I’ve been trying to find a way to join the LOV,” you answer slowly, gauging the league’s reactions. Shigaraki merely raises his eyebrows, but you see Bakugou whip his head in your direction at his words.

“Well, you see, I’ve been a big fan of how you guys operate for a while now, not to mention how much fun you guys seem to have together! I want that!” You angle your gaze down at your shackled feet and continue in a hushed voice, summoning tears to your eyes. “You see, I never really felt like I belonged at UA. Sure, my classmates were nice to me, but it was all fake, I could tell. I don’t owe anyone anything, and I want what you guys have,” you admit, flicking your gaze up to see tears shining in Toga’s eyes as well and Dabi’s relaxed expression. Seems like they joined the league for a similar reason.

“Why the hell should we believe you?” Shigaraki asks, but Bakugou interrupts.

“You have friends, you shitty woman! Why are you acting like we don’t care about you, dumbass?” Bakugou shouts.

You jerk your head to look at him, willing anger into your features, but it’s a struggle. He looks so hurt: mouth slack and eyebrows relaxed as he stares at you with wide eyes. You force a laugh. “Really, Kacchan?” You continue even as you watch the boy you love flinch away as far as his restraints would allow. “You’re always bullying me! You insult me at every chance you get, and you see how I’m everyone’s last pick during training!” you snarl at him. He looks at his feet, shoulders trembling slightly. It hurt, but for this to work, he couldn’t know what you were planning.

Dabi barks a laugh and Toga pouts. “How rude Bakugou!”

You continue with your pathetic villain origin story full of holes you hoped your quirk would fill. “Plus, there are things I can do with my quirk that are banned, things that are seen as ‘villainous and evil’. Things that I can use to help you guys take down All Might once and for all.” You hated the words as soon as they passed your lips, but you knew they were your selling point.

“Oh? And how do we know you won’t use your quirk on us as soon as we set you free?” Shigaraki drawls, sounding bored, but you can hear the interest piquing in his voice.

You answered with a sneer that would have scared the shit out of you if you had a mirror. “I’ll use Bakugou to show you.” You fixed your crazy eyes and cheek splitting smirk on your classmate. “I owe him one.”

He spat on you and you flinched a bit. “The fuck you will, you traitorous bitch! Fuck all of you!” he shouted, struggling against his restraints with a renewed sense of fear.

You had ranked third in the sports festival and had almost beaten Bakugou a few times even without your banned moves. You could feel the apprehension rippling off of him. Now, it seemed, he was scared of you. Probably fair, given your flipped personality.

“Hm... Alright. Do you have enough space here?” Shigaraki asked, motioning Dabi to untie Bakugou from the chair.

“No, unfortunately. Do you guys have someplace safe we can go outside?” I ask innocently.

“This bar backs onto an alley that should be suitable,” Compress answers, pushing himself off the wall he had been resting on. “We’ll all go with to make sure you don’t have any tricks up your sleeve.” He fixes you with an untrustworthy glare and smiles.

“Of course not,” you smile sweetly. “I want to join your cause, remember?”

Dabi moves to release you too, and you force a smirk, raising your half-lidded eyes to stare at him. “Hey there, hot stuff. You can be rough with me, I can take it,” you purr. You hear Bakugou “tch” from behind you.

Dabi burns through your cuffs and you rub your aching wrists, but freeze as he leans into your ear and says, “We’ll see about that, sweetheart.”

…

You stood in the cramped alley, lit only by the glow of the lights flooding from the bar’s open door. The LOV are stationed sporadically around the alley: Compress at one end and Dabi at the other, with Kurogiri guarding the door to the bar and Toga and Shigaraki standing in front of you and Bakugou. His hands are still shackled, a hitch to your plan that will be a bitch to work around.

“Here are the rules,” Shigaraki calls. He was uncomfortably close given his quirk, but you didn’t have much of a choice here. “You must tell us your moves before enacting them, and you must keep the kid alive. Also, you are forbidden to attack one of us,” he extends his hands near your face threateningly, and you swallow thickly.

“Understood, boss,” you smile at him. “Sorry Bakugou, this is gonna hurt a bit.”

“Shut up,” Bakugou snarls. He’s standing with hunched shoulders, not looking at you. Angling your body away from Shigaraki and Toga, you announce, “my first banned move is my ability to form ice inside someone’s body. For example, I can freeze their veins, their lungs—essentially stopping vital functions. For Bakugou, I will mold a lump of solid ice in his trachea, but only for a few seconds.” That got everyone’s attention. Bakugou whipped his head to stare at you, taking a step backward.

“Y-You can’t, Y/n, please,” he stuttered, his usual angry demeanor lost.

“Oh, but I can. Don’t worry, I won’t kill you,” you taunt. You caught his eye then, mouthing “it’s okay, I have a plan,” before outstretching your wrist and changing the humidity in his throat to solid ice. Bakugou’s hand instantly flew to his throat, trying to gasp for air, but no sound came out. You had never hated your quirk before, but in this moment you despised it.

You kept your hold on him until his face flushed and Shigaraki stated, “that’s enough.”

You instantly released him and he collapsed to the floor, heaving for air. Tears pricked your eyes but with a twitch of your fingers, you evaporated them into the air without a trace.

“Whaddya think?” you gleamed, turning back around to face the others.

Toga looked absolutely devilish, clapping her hands and giggling. Dabi smirked at you, and you winked back. The rest of the league nodded their heads in approval, and Shigaraki tilted his head, thinking.

“I like you,” he rasped. “I think we could use someone like you, yeah?” He glanced around at the league, who smiled back.

Kurogiri spoke up next. “With her, the league would be, well, in a whole other league.” Dabi rolled his eyes at the joke, but the warp villain continued. “What else do you got, kid?”

“For my next trick,” you winked at Compress, “I will control the water flowing in his veins, and thus control his body. I saw it in a T.V. show once, and what do you know? It worked!”

Shigaraki nodded his approval, and you swiveled around to face Bakugou once again. This is when your plan would kick up a notch, and you needed him on board for it to work.

Bakugou finally got up from the ground, his normal pallor back. He shot daggers at you, and rasped, “Don’t fucking touch me, you bitch.”

You turned around and pouted at Toga, whose face flushed pink. Turning back to Bakugou, you wiped the smug expression off your face. His eyebrow quirked in confusion and you softened your gaze, nodding slightly.

“Get ready, Katsuki,” you said seriously, and it seems like the gears finally clicked in his head. His mouth went wide before settling into a hard line as he furrowed his eyebrows.

You threw out both arms in front of you and shut your eyes, sweat sliding down your temple in concentration. Sensing the water mixed in his blood, you seized it like reigns. When you next opened your eyes, you lifted your left arm up, and Bakugou followed suit. The league of villains gasped and Bakugou struggled against your control. Gritting your teeth, you tugged his arms in front of his face and he shouted in frustration.

“He’s like a puppet!” Toga cackled, Dabi laughing as well. You glanced at Shigaraki, who crossed his arms in his appreciation of your quirk.

“Well, Y/n, we have a deal.”

“I knew you’d see my side of things,” you smiled genuinely, taking a few steps to the right, away from Shigaraki and Toga and towards Dabi a bit. You nodded at Bakugou, releasing your hold on him, but you both stayed in the same position.

“There’s one more thing I can do with my quirk,” you say carefully, making eye contact with Bakugou.

“And what’s that?” Shigaraki asked greedily.

“This!” You felt the perspiration on Bakugou’s hands, felt the water molecules trapped between his skin and the cuffs. With enough force, water can break through almost anything. Pleaseworkpleaseworkpleasework, you chanted as you used all of your strength to rip the water molecules through the cuffs.

“Wait, you little shit—!” Shigaraki yelled, but it was too late. The cuffs split down the middle and Bakugou tore them off him, immediately crouching into a fighting stance and igniting a massive blast right at Shigaraki. Bakugou whooped in victory, turning to blast Kurogiri backwards into the bar before he had a chance to warp the two of you somewhere else.

“C’mon!” You screamed at him, tugging his elbow and sprinting towards Dabi.

“Don’t tell me what to do, shitty woman!” Bakugou screamed back, but he raced down the alley with you.

“Oh, shut it!”

Bakugou was about to blast Dabi, but your quirk was a better match for him. You gripped the blood in his veins and thrust your arms forward, effectively shoving him further down the alley. Just as Dabi was standing back up to brush the dirt off of his coat and launch his flames at you, you caught your breath and formed the lump of ice in his throat that sent him keening to the side, pressing a hand to his throat to melt the ice.

You saw Bakugou turn to start blasting at Toga and Compress, who were quickly gaining on you.

“Katsuki! We have to go, NOW!” You shouted over the bangs, turning to throw up an ice wall on either side of you for a moment of rest.

“Fuck! You dumbass! Get on!” he grumbled, crouching down for you to hop onto his back. Once he was upright, you angled a palm at the ground and shot steam from it, shooting the two of you into the air right as Dabi sent a torrent of flames through your ice wall, the heat licking at your heels.

Bakugou used his blasts to fly you away from the alley, and you craned your neck just in time to see Compress throwing his blue prisons at you. You crystallized them with ice and they fell back into the alley where the League of Villains stood, getting smaller by the second, but you couldn’t miss the look of pure rage on Shigaraki’s face.

You rested your forehead on Bakugou’s shoulder, using all of your remaining strength to cling to his back, but the exertion of your puppeteer technique was taking over, your arms feeling staticky and your vision darkening at the edges.

“Fuck, that was scary!” you breathed a laugh, grip loosening a bit.

“You idiot! That could’ve gotten us both killed!” Bakugou barked, the wind carrying his voice towards you.

“I think what you mean to say,” you wheezed, “is ‘thank you.’” And with that, the darkness took over and you felt yourself slip off his back, the balmy air embracing you as the lights of the city rose to meet you.

“Y/n! —”

…

You felt the brightness of the lights burning in front of your eyelids but refused to open them. Shit, did your body hurt. It felt like you had been hit by a truck, and you reached out with your quirk to sense the distortions of water in the air, trying to assess how many people were in the room with you. You only sensed one, your body relaxing as you realized you recognized the caramel scent of the person sitting next to you. Groaning, you cracked your eyelids open and saw a sleeping Bakugou resting on his forearm at the edge of your mattress. You were in Recovery Girl’s office, thank god. You pushed yourself to a sitting position, fighting the soreness in your muscles. Closing your eyes in concentration, you nearly jumped out of your skin when Bakugou shouted, “Dumbass! Lay back down!”

Your eyes flew open just in time to see Bakugou looming over you, his hand pushing you back in the bed. You gulped at his closeness but shouted back. “Shut it! I have a headache asshole! Now help me up.”

He grumbled at you but tugged you up into a sitting position regardless, fumbling with the knobs on the side of the hospital bed to raise the top so you could lean on it for support.

“Thanks.”

“Shut up, shitty woman.”

You rolled your eyes at him, and he rolled his at you. “So, uh, what happened?” You asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

He flushed, shifting in his seat a bit. “You fell off my back while we were escaping. I caught you, of course, but the old lady says the overuse of your quirk and the whiplash from the fall knocked you out… for the past 18 hours,” he finished, his voice uncharacteristically soft.

“18 HOURS?!”

“I THOUGHT YOU HAD A HEADACHE!”

“Oh, right,” you giggled. “I’m a good actress, huh?” you elbowed him jokingly. Bakugou flushed again, moving to sit on the edge of your bed.

“Hell no! You didn’t fool me for a second,” he grumbled. “Dumbass.”

“Sure, boom boom boy.”

You both looked at each other, a tense silence taking over. Bakugou looked confused like he wanted to ask you something, so you nudged him.

“Did you really mean all that shit you spewed back there?”

“What shit—oh. No, I didn’t. I have you and Kiri! Mina, Denki, and Sero, too. To be honest, I just thought you didn’t like me very much, that’s all,” you laughed.

“Then why?”

“Huh?” you scrunched your face at him.

“Why did you save me? You could’ve gotten yourself killed!” he shouted at you. “Do you look down on me or something?!”

Your eyes widened at the hurt expression on his face. It threw you back to the league’s hideout and how afraid yet stubborn he looked.

“Because I knew I could.”

“Bullshit, try harder.”

You swallowed. “Uh, well, I—uh, hmm.” He raised an eyebrow and you took a deep breath. “Because I couldn’t stand the thought of what they could’ve done to you. Because I know even the strongest need help sometimes; I could see it in your eyes.”

He only arched his brow further. “I told you, I didn’t need help! —”

“Because I care about you! Because I-I’m in love with you!” you interrupted.

You ducked your head, your hair falling to cover your face as your heart pounded in your ears. You peeked up through your lashes to see Bakugou sitting perfectly still, his mouth agape.

“Shit—uh,” you looked up at him. “Don’t feel pressured to feel the same. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that… I don’t want to make you uncomf—mmf!”

But you were cut off as Bakugou snapped out of his trance and silenced you with a kiss. He pulled away just as quickly, and you stared at his blushing face. “I love you too, idiot,” he said.

“You do?”

“For a while now. Don’t make me say it again!”

You grinned softly, but it fell as you recalled yesterday’s events. “I’m so sorry if I hurt you, Katsuki. I just—I just didn’t know what else to do,” you admitted, fiddling with your fingers in your lap.

Katsuki reached out and stilled your hands. “As if, stupid.”

You searched his eyes, but they were steady, gazing into your e/c ones. “Promise?”

“Promise. That’s one hell of a trick you got there, but it could use some work.”

Smiling so wide you thought you’d break, you closed the space between the two of you and ran a hand through his surprisingly soft hair. He cupped your face and you both melted into each other.

Gasping, Katsuki pulled back just enough to whisper “thank you” against your lips before leaning in for one more kiss. “But don’t ever do anything like that again, shitty woman!”

You pressed your forehead to his, laughing as you reached up to cup his cheeks. “Hmm, we’ll see about that.”

You felt his smile against your lips.

#bakugou x reader #bakugou fluff #bnha #bnha x reader #katsuki bakugo x reader #mha #my hero academia #mha x reader #bakugou x you #bakugou imagine #bakugo x reader #bakugo imagine #league of villains #lov #dabi #bnha compress #himiko toga #shigaraki #kurogiri

[fannishcodex]

So I love @revasnaslan 's Where One Fell Verse, a SPOP AU. :D (Will add a link to the fic series in a comment or reblog below after remembering that tumblr sometimes has issues with embedded links, I think.)

Like, I really love it a lot, it borders on self-conscious "am I being too much, will this for some reason bother the fic writer??" And really, I’ve realized, no way, it won’t, especially since I write fic too and know I would be delighted if my fic got that reaction; but I think this may be more part of my self-consciousness and shyness. In any case, my affection for these fics is on hyperfixation level. I'm in the WOF Verse fandom. It's a thing I've been thinking about in some way since I found it late last year via @cirusthecitrus, it's one of the things that cheers me up these days. I struggle to articulate my pleasure with this fic, but I want to try to do it more.

This fic is a wonderfully character-driven story.

Fic spoilers under the cut, so recommend reading Where One Fell (fic 1) and Everything But A Door (fic 2) before this--and also, just, this fic has my deepest rec and everyone should check it out:

But, another different note first, even more self-conscious on my part: me writing about this fic more feels long overdue, but I really do struggle to sometimes articulate even my positive feelings about a thing because I want to get it across well--but I'm trying to more just spill it out now instead of trying to refine it more; and just also other things have been...a lot, there's been a lot (good and less good) that's pulled my attention in other directions too. So, long overdue, I wish I could've done more earlier, but I still just want to...gush about the fic; but I get self-conscious and worry about, like, "I don't want to end up pestering/pressuring and asking for immediate gratification for a new chapter/I don't want to guilt-trip for an update especially since I feel like I understand because I write fic too and I write slow and it's hard"...but I still want to gush about WOF verse, especially since it's like any other story I enjoy. I like gushing about the stories I enjoy.

So, again, this fic is wonderfully character-driven, which I love.

I'll bring up some canon for obvious reasons, but mostly in terms of contrast. One of the ways WOF Verse felt refreshing and drew me in was that after SPOP canon--well, in some ways SPOP canon feels like a wasted ensemble show; like many other things SPOP doesn't pull off, it doesn't pull off an ensemble show (especially when it ends up sidelining a bunch of characters that should've been prioritized more instead of a very mishandled character), and it kinda feels like it ends up having too many characters/like it starts feeling like too many characters if some are sort of just there and not really used (and I have my thoughts on who should've been prioritized, but that's another post; though granted I think my interest in this fic really indicates some of the characters I would've prioritized more).

So, I enjoyed how WOF Verse focuses on a smaller cast, giving them more attention and exploring them more. The general summary of the fic immediately drew me in, because I'm a sucker for family themes and dysfunctional families and familial love getting messy and complicated in fiction, and I hadn't realized I needed clone Hordak and his genetic template/progenitor Horde Prime shifted to them being literally brothers, plus the added twist of having Horde Prime actually care for his brother, but Prime's become thoroughly twisted in how he shows that affection and protectiveness--didn't know I needed that until I found this fic. And oh do I enjoy how this fic opened up the original '80s She-Ra/MOTU up to me more, because I just thought "wow, Hec-Tor Kur is a good made-up alt name/'real-ish' name with a last name for Hordak in this AU, and Anillis Kur just sounds cool and it just feels like it fits as an alt name/real name for Horde Prime when he's not always using that title," and I thought making them literally blood brothers was just a neat twist on them being clone and genetic template/progenitor. But nope, apparently Hec-Tor Kur and Anillis Kur are their real alt names from the original '80s canon which also heavily implies they're brothers, and that's really cool. (And I think it would've been really interesting if spop/the latest reboot had actually just explored that more, explored them more as brothers and siblings.)

Again, WOF is very character-driven, and I love that. And I enjoy how this feels like it also fits the story and world of the fic, which involves Anillis Kur/Horde Prime going into Extremely Overprotective Brother Mode and confining his sickly younger brother Hec-Tor (Hordak) to the Velvet Glove because he's that paranoid about anything happening to his brother due to a lot of family trauma that happened before Hec-Tor was even born/when he was just a baby (and baby Hec-Tor himself almost succumbing to illness and dying did not help with Anillis's issues), not to mention that controlling; so much of the fic so far is in a closed world, it adds to the hyper focus on the characters in that closed world. I appreciate how at times the fic really does have this claustrophobic feeling. I like how it sometimes makes me think of like a one-setting/limited setting play on a multi-chapter scale.

And of course, I like the specific characters getting this sort of hyper focus, and WOF makes me enjoy them even more. I love Hordak, his character, his voice, his design, etc. Horde Prime also has such a cool design and again that same cool voice, I adore Keston John's voice acting and his range in it. Canon S5 doesn't give him enough internal depth or character though, and ultimately makes him too much of just an obstacle and symbol/too much of a plot device in the show and a wasted opportunity for a more interesting character. That becomes even more apparent in contrast to WOF Verse, because Anillis Kur/Horde Prime is so much more interesting!!! Like Anillis/WOF!Prime is so much more interesting, it makes me realize how canon Prime is lacking in character/interest.

Ohman, this Prime. Prime has a great design and a great voice, and WOF has an interesting personality to match those elements in quality. There's so much fascinating contrast with him in WOF, and it makes him feel like a more unsettling villain. We've seen him care, and so it feels more frightening when he turns more aggressive and ruthless and cold. WOF's opening scene really effectively sets that contrast with him; it starts with him exhausted but having a really sweet moment with a very young Hec-Tor, and then not long after that when Hec-Tor's asleep in his arms it's a very unsettling mood whiplash with how Anillis coldly treats the clone attendant; it's even very effectively distilled and crystalized even further with the image of Anillis holding a sleeping Hec-Tor in his arms while glaring daggers at the clone attendant, that contrast of love and threat. Like, definitely a character that can do Both and I love that. And contrast adds layers to Anillis, it renders him in even more emotional dimensions, he can be multiple things at once.

And I rather love that he's far less...touchy, with everyone; it more finally struck me that he's rarely negatively touched anyone until a pivotal scene, and it being a rarity made the scene pack more of a punch, and then I looked back and realized he just doesn't do that often, there's another earlier scene that also feels shocking because it's another rare use of explicit touch, his touch is more targeted--he doesn't need to constantly do it to feel threatening at all, and is in fact much more threatening and unsettling without it. (I literally had to pause some instances because I was nervous about what Anillis would do next.) It's so fascinating to watch Anillis steadily grow worse and to watch Hec-Tor gradually have the dawning realization of what Anillis is really doing and the truth of his situation. It's interesting to see Hec-Tor gradually realizing that what he's lived with his whole life and what has felt normal isn't a good thing, it's not acceptable.

And I really do like that familial love is such a motivating factor for Anillis, and that it's something that feeds into a lot of his ruthlessness and villainy; and it feels like something I still don't see enough in fiction. And it just feels more believable, more consistent. Anillis acts horribly, is abusive, but it still feels like what he does is out of love for his brother and he really is blind to what he's actually doing to his brother, that it's the opposite of what he wants, it's not protecting him like he believes. I like that level of character believability/consistency, and part of that also involves how it's overall framed, and it's still framed as pretty terrifying; Anillis cares about his brother, but his methods are twisted.

And my gut feeling does...well, feel connections between canon and this AU--and that may be obvious as source material and fic based on it, but I mean--it's as if canon were the very rough first sketch/draft, and WOF is the fully realized version of the character, plus the change of shifting his brotherly status into a brother that actually does care but goes about it in a horribly twisted way. WOF takes parts and pieces and little details from canon and fleshes them out into something more fully dimensional and more interesting. Like the trace of canon Prime's collection with plants/other things and even arguably the imagery at the end with his ship the Velvet Glove becoming a tree feel connected to a more fleshed out version in WOF where Anillis keeps a garden. And there's so much meaning that can be pulled from his garden--it's another reflection of his controlling behavior with the way he controls/manages the garden; on the flip side, it feels like it further reflects the contrast/dichotomy in his character, as gardens can still have positive connotations too--it can reflect the potential Anillis had (may still have?) for genuine good/for genuinely nurturing care. And it also does more explicitly point to Anillis's affection for family since his late father had kept a garden too and Anillis's own garden on the Velvet Glove still has his father's plants. There's so much done with Anillis's garden.

And with his backstory and the contrast in his character, just his...everything, I also want to know more about Anillis, I'm curious for even more of his backstory, even going more into "why are you like this?" Like this is a genuinely fascinating, charismatic, threatening, multi-faceted antagonist right here.  

And I can go on about Anillis, but I love Hec-Tor/Hordak in this too. I love Hordak, and I enjoy how this still feels so much like Hordak, but with a different life; I feel like there are commonalities that remain from canon within him combined with differences based on the AU he's in and the different experiences he's lived with. Like, there's such an interesting detail with Hec-Tor's growing anger issues that remind me of Hordak--it's there, but different because of their different lives, Hec-Tor's developing because of his isolation but still quieter, simmering, because his brother only has his best interests at heart, he shouldn't act like this... And then it’s so nice to see Hec-Tor be even more talkative about SCIENCE because he does have more space to be a bit more open about his passions in this AU/different life situation. And it's all like another AU I didn't realize I wanted until I saw it--I really dig seeing Hordak/Hec-Tor as a baby, as a little kid, getting to have a childhood and get to have more typical developmental stages and to have more familial experiences, albeit twisted ones. And I love how the story has shifted to Hec-Tor more, love his POV and following him on his journey.

And the clones! The clones are great in WOF and give me feels too. I love how more of them are focused on as individuals, and that we get to see more of their characters and glimpse their differing views. And when Etherian characters join in, they're as well written and interesting too (the Entrapdak is so good). I just like WOF's cast, and the line-up plucked from canon and how they adjust to the AU; this ensemble just feels better, and it's utilized and treated better than canon.

And the worldbuilding with Anillis & Hec-Tor’s race and the clones and their world is so good and seamlessly interwoven with story and character, enhancing the whole thing even more and making things even more interesting.

I just...really love these characters and this story. They have a lot of heart and intrigue.

(Disclaimer: I definitely ended up having trouble figuring out tags for this. Especially since I think only the first five tags actually show up at first? And I think last I checked tumblr freaks out over dashes within a tag so while “hec-tor kur” probably fits better, I don’t think tumblr can handle that for some reason so just going with “hordak,” which also really still just fits.)

#fic rec #spop #anillis kur #hordak #horde prime #not a reblog #where one fell

[murasaki-murasame]

Thoughts on Higurashi Sotsu Ep1 and 2

After what’s felt like an eternity, we’re finally back to our good old fashioned anime about trauma and murder :)

Like with my posts about Gou, this will contain spoilers for all of the original series.

Anyway, thoughts under the cut.

Continuing on from how the second half of Gou went back in time to show Satoko’s descent into villainy, Sotsu is starting off by going back to Onidamashi and showing what was happening from Rena’s point of view, as a way of basically doing it’s own version of the answer arcs from the VN.

This isn’t 100% the same as either Onikakushi or Tsumihoroboshi, but effectively these two episodes were still almost entirely taken from material in the VN, which reminds me of how I still think that this show is more of a reboot than people would like to admit. Even if in practice it’s probably still better to just read the VN first and then watch all of this. I just feel like a lot of VN readers are going to end up kinda bored with this because of how much of it is just retreading stuff from the VN, like with the first half of Gou.

Anyway, I’m entirely on board with this being a new take on the answer arcs, and thus far I think the execution has been done really well. Rena ended up getting kinda sidelined in Gou, so I like how they’re really focusing on her perspective in this. It’s obviously not quite as in-depth as the VN, especially if this arc is just going to be one more episode long, but like with Gou I think they’re doing a great job of getting across the characterization and development without many internal monologues or anything.

Although this ended up basically playing out the same way as Rena killing Rina in Tsumihoroboshi, it turns out that this version of Rina has gone through the same sort of character development as Teppei did, and now she’s way more sympathetic than she was in the VN, with her wanting to cut ties with Rena’s father out of sympathy instead of just being out to extort all of his money no matter what. The way that this new series has been going about ‘redeeming’ it’s more evil characters has been kinda polarizing with people, but I think it worked out really well here. Partly because they don’t really spell out whether or not Rina has gone through the same process as Teppei with getting traumatized by nightmares of previous loops, and we just see her being a more sympathetic person instead. I think it also makes Rena’s actions here even more tragic, since in this timeline Rina would have left them alone if she’d done nothing, and by the time she found out about that she was already past the point of no return. It doesn’t exactly erase or make up for all of the shit that had already happened between Rina and Rena’s dad, though. It still makes sense why Rena ended up snapping like she did.

Which gets into the whole topic of Satoko injecting her with the syringe, which basically sealed the deal on Rena irreversibly going insane in this arc. In practice she ended up just going down the same path that she already did in Tsumihoroboshi without needing to be injected with anything, but it still raises the possibility that she might have been more willing to abandon her plans if she hadn’t been injected.

Sorta like how the VN was already about the inherent tragedy of how in a perfect world none of these things should have happened and nobody should have resorted to murder, this adds an extra layer of dramatic irony with how Satoko’s looping has caused a situation where the external forces triggering people’s insanity have been slowly going away, but because she’s so intent on keeping Rika in the village by mentally breaking her through continued tragedy, she’s having to go out of her way to force all these things to happen, when otherwise all of these loops might have ended up being ‘perfect’ if she’d just left it alone.

And just for the record, a lot of people seem confused by it, but I think Gou already made it clear enough why Satoko is trying to convince Rika to stay in the village by subjecting her to repeated torture. From a meta perspective, it’s all just about setting up the premise of Rika going through the original arcs again so we can have a part-sequel/part-reboot, but in general her whole plan with this seems to be to traumatize Rika enough that she’ll accept the idea that she’s being punished by Oyashiro-sama for wanting to leave the village. Obviously it’s a pretty extreme and convoluted way to try and convince her to stay, but Satokowashi went to great lengths to show how Satoko tried basically everything else she could think of to stop her without resorting to violence.

And yes, the point of ‘she should be able to just talk to Rika directly and work things out that way’ is an intentional part of the whole tragedy of the situation, lol. If this was a story where people were willing to calmly open up about all of their problems and achieve peaceful resolutions, basically none of this entire story would have happened. And honestly, at least on an abstract level, I can totally relate to that feeling of being willing to do literally anything instead of just talking to people openly, no matter how much extra time and effort it takes.

I also just don’t even think that ‘just talking about it’ would even be enough. Partly because Rika is really dead-set on leaving the village and would prefer to take Satoko with her instead of staying in the village just for her sake [which is the entire premise of what happened in Satokowashi], but also partly because in the long run this is more about Satoko’s personal trauma and her inability to accept leaving her childhood behind. No matter what she does, she’d have to eventually contend with the idea of her friends moving on in their lives, or the village itself changing.

She doesn’t just want Rika to stay with her, she wants to keep everything the same forever because this is where she feels safe and in control. And that’s just not something that you can actually achieve without, well, the ability to loop through time, lol. That’s also why I don’t really think it’s ‘unreasonable’ that Satoko was so willing to sit through Rika’s loops, and to enact her own loops. The looping isn’t just something she has to put up with to achieve her goal, it IS her goal. She isn’t exactly aware of it since she’s so focused on the point of keeping Rika with her forever, but what she wants is to keep repeating this time period forever, and that’s what she’s doing. 

Funnily enough I wasn’t really onboard with the idea of Satoko being the villain for most of Gou, but I guess by this point I’m a Satoko apologist, lmao. I just think her whole character arc makes a lot of sense, with her doing everything she can to cling onto the present and avoid the future, but obviously I also get why people think she’s irredeemable.

Either way, I’m kinda curious to see how the next episode goes, since it seems like there’s just going to be one more episode to this arc. It feels like there’s a lot still left to be covered, but maybe I’m over-estimating it. I think they still have to cover the flashbacks with Rena after she moved, her getting more paranoid about Keiichi until finally killing him, and then whatever happened with Rika and Satoko at the end of the arc, so hopefully that’ll fit nicely into one more episode.

I’m still curious to see what happens when we see Rena’s perspective on her fight with Keiichi, though, since there’s been so much speculation about it partly being a hallucination from Keiichi as he rapidly descended into L5 when Rena attacked him. There’s also still the possibility that they’ll reveal that this is an entirely separate timeline to Onidamashi, but I think that’d be a bit convoluted for no good reason. It’s be enough of a twist to just show that the fight scene went differently to how it was originally presented.

Other than that, I think that Rika probably ended up killing herself in despair at the end of this arc, and Satoko kills herself to jump to the next loop. I think that’ll all be pretty straightforward, but hopefully it’ll lead to an epilogue scene with Satoko and Eua.

After this, I guess the next three episodes will be the answer arc for Watadamashi, going by the Sotsu blu-rays being split into sets of 3, 3, 5, and 4 episodes. Unlike how this arc was very straightforward and predictable for people who’ve read the VN, I’m really excited to see what happens in the next arc, since Watadamashi was kinda confusing in a lot of ways, even after we found out about the Satoko stuff. But we’ll get to that when the time comes.

The third arc should then be an answer arc for Tataridamashi, but it’ll be interesting to see if they fit in Satoko’s perspective of Nekodamashi there as well, or if they push that to the final arc, or if the Nekodamashi arc will overlap both arcs. Either way, the fourth and final [unless they reveal more episodes or even another season later] arc will probably then continue on from the end of Nekodamashi and show however things manage to wrap up after that point. It’s really hard to tell how much time they’ll actually need after that to wrap things up, though, which is why I’m not sure if they’ll actually be able to finish things in these 15 episodes, or if we might get more later. Unless we get some major curve balls, I don’t really think it’d be that hard to wrap things up that quickly, but we’ll see.

Anyway, Sotsu is off to a great start, and I’m excited to see where it’s going to go, but mostly at the moment I’m just relieved that the last four months of my life are over now, and I can go back to live-blogging about anime where kids murder each other, lmao.

#murasaki rambles #higurashi #higurashi sotsu

[bestworstcase]

from a reply on this post:

While I do agree that Rapunzel’s “destiny is BS and wished they didn’t just default to her using magic to win the day, I don’t think Cass should have been able to keep the magic herself. Cass’ view on “destiny,” I argue is just as twisted as Rapunzel and Cass used “destiny” as poor justification to cause pain and suffering to innocent bystanders. Her losing the moonstone is one of the few actual consequences she gets.

( @neokonewman )

okay so

idrc about cass suffering consequences or not; with villain-to-hero arcs generally, i’m interested in atonement and character growth, not punishment. one of the biggest bones i have to pick with cassandra’s villain arc is that it is all hangs on cassandra having “stolen” the moonstone from rapunzel. 

it doesn’t, as far as the narrative is concerned, matter that cassandra causes pain and suffering to innocent bystanders. it doesn’t matter that she kidnapped varian, or attacked rapunzel, or tried to kill eugene, or used the mind trap on the brotherhood, or razed corona. all of those things are just, like, seasoning; the real core of cassandra’s villain arc—and again i am talking about how this arc is structured and framed in the narrative, not about actual morality lmao—is that she stole the moonstone from rapunzel and, in doing so, usurped rapunzel’s destiny. 

if you examine the villain arc through this lens—the lens that ultimately what made cass a villain was stealing the moonstone from rapunzel—then it is actually, i would argue, a fairly-well built, classical redemption arc. it follows these beats: 

1 - cassandra, with zhan tiri’s encouragement, steals the moonstone (falsely claiming rapunzel’s destiny as her own: this is her “sin”).

2 - cass, with the moonstone, breaks away from rapunzel, vowing to fulfill rapunzel’s destiny on her own.

3 - cass reconnects with zhan tiri, who manipulates her and turns her into a pawn for zhan tiri’s own agenda. (this is the beginning of the “punishment” phase of a classical redemption arc: cassandra is ensnared in an abusive relationship far worse than the toxicity that developed between her and rapunzel in s2). 

4 - cass, with zhan tiri’s guidance, stages a confrontation between herself and rapunzel with the intention of “proving” that she deserves to have rapunzel’s destiny (“show her how powerful you’ve become!” etc). but this destiny doesn’t belong to cassandra, so—despite the equal power of the drops—she is thoroughly beaten. the moonstone, her stolen destiny, breaks and turns against her, she is thrown from her seat of power and left for dead by her former friends... and all she has left is her abusive friendship with zhan tiri, who has grown more powerful as a result of her defeat. 

5 - now desperate, cass doubles down on trying to stake her claim on rapunzel’s destiny by seeking the mind trap to strengthen herself.

6 - despite the mind trap success, cassandra’s conviction is beginning to crumble. in TOTS and OAH, rapunzel nearly succeeds in winning cassandra over again, and only last-minute interference on zhan tiri’s part is able to drag cassandra away from the brink of redemption. 

7 - cassandra angrily re-commits to taking rapunzel’s destiny on the day of the eclipse, and she comes within a hair’s breadth of victory... only for zhan tiri to turn on her and rip everything she stole away from her. she is emotionally defeated, ground down into the dirt with despair and self-loathing, and only rapunzel is able to pick her up again. (this is the end of the “punishment” phase and the moment of repentance/forgiveness, where the formerly-villainous character changes for the better).

8 - cassandra demonstrates that she has changed by freely and easily surrendering the shard of the moonstone to rapunzel, saying, “no, no, you can use it to fight zhan tiri; rapunzel, this is your destiny.” she has repented from her sin of “stealing” rapunzel’s destiny and now she’s following through by acting upon that repentance. she relinquishes the last piece of her “stolen” power to the person to whom it rightfully belongs—rapunzel—and she does so without prompting or hesitation. 

9 - this follow through continues with cass stepping into a vital role supporting rapunzel as rapunzel fulfills her destiny (the destiny that cassandra attempted to steal). when the drops are united, cassandra is killed by the blast whilst rapunzel is left unscathed—because reuniting the drops was rapunzel’s destiny, not cassandra’s. (cassandra’s willing acceptance of this consequence for her wrong actions—ie her theft of the moonstone—is the ultimate capstone on her redemption arc).  

10 - cass is then rewarded for her successful redemption when rapunzel revives her and allows her to leave corona freely in order to pursue her own destiny. the punishment for her sin—zhan tiri’s manipulation and abuse, cassandra’s repeated failures, and of course literal death—ends because she has repented and been forgiven. 

...now... outside of this narrative frame, cassandra’s redemption arc is sort of nonsensical. if you approach her villainy through the lens of “cassandra is hurting and attacking people” then not a single piece of her redemption arc actually addresses that in any meaningful way and the whole thing falls flat. because, like, duh! the problem isn’t that she took the moonstone the problem is she hurt people with it.

but her whole villain arc and redemption is constructed around this concept that cass taking the moonstone was the problem and that every other bad thing she did was just, kind of, a side effect, and of course fixing the core problem will also fix all the side effects. (which again is obviously stupid on a logical level but... the narrative is so structured around destiny that within the internal logic of the narrative itself it does actually make sense. like, it’s a coherent arc. it just requires you to buy into the moral position that cass taking the moonstone was the real bad thing all along). 

which... to get back to the point of my original post... is why i wanted cass to keep the moonstone through the end of the battle. because taking the moonstone wasn’t the problem—the problem was violent, cruel things she chose to do with the moonstone. and if we approach her villain arc through this perspective—that “destiny” is bullshit and choices are what really matters—then cassandra doesn’t need to have the moonstone taken from her in order to atone for what she’s done. she can simply choose to change for the better. she can use the moonstone to fight zhan tiri and save corona, and then she can unite the sundrop and moonstone in concert with rapunzel so that they can revive everyone and repair the damage done to the city. 

(frustration with this framing is also, incidentally, why i’m so keen on re-interpretations of zhan tiri that make her... not a complete monster and specifically takes on zhan tiri where she actually cares about, and has a genuine friendship with, cassandra—because i’m not interested in narratively punishing cassandra for “stealing” the moonstone, and because i want cassandra’s descent into villainy to be about her actual legitimate grievances with the way rapunzel treated her rather than turning on zhan tiri fueling her irrational anger about gothel.)

#rta

[snowflake-of-destruction]

let's hear about FFVIII seifer, if you're still doing this XD

Why I like them: You know my tastes. A green-eyed man is introduced throwing fireballs around, is kind of a condescending jerk but in a fun way, instigates deep conversations on high ground while staring at the sunset...Well, before we even get to villainy, immolation, and redemption arc, I start going “Is this a favorite character?”  I’m joking...kind of. Some of that does factor in, even the fire. 

Okay, so my favorite thing about Seifer’s arc is that, in the limited focus he’s given, he’s complex and layered from the beginning, and his villain arc is a clear and fascinating illustration of “No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks” ….with a side of brainwashing.

Let’s break this down:

What are some of the words used to describe him by those that know him (by himself, by Squall, by Fuu and Rai)? Romantic. Idealistic. Sensitive. He is the one who believes in making a difference in the world--not just as a wish or goal, but as an imperative to do what your heart says is right even if it’s going to cost you--where Squall is just follow-the-orders-and-do-the-job. If you’re already reading this and objecting, I’m not saying Squall doesn’t care...obviously he does, defrosting Mr. Go Talk to a Wall and getting him to a place where he admits how many layers of mask he wears is his character development...but Seifer isn’t just a hothead. He wears his heart on his sleeve. 

Don’t get me wrong. I am not trying to deny that Seifer can be an abrasive, self-serving, hypocritical jackass sometimes,  who can fight dirty, wants to “wreak some havoc,” and has a history as a bully--though, gentlefolk of the jury, I submit to the courts that he puts on a tough act like Squall does and they are both different flavors of trying to mimic toxic alpha male--but let’s not forget that some of his establishing character moments are throwing out his future to disobey orders because he sees that the higher-ups have possibly misjudged the situation and civilians could be in danger, and, again, going AWOL because he thinks Squall and Rinoa could be killed. And he calls himself the white knight and holds up a code of honor until the end, even though it gets twisted. He is about duty and honor, with honor even over duty.

Oh, this was only going to be the beginning. I haven’t even begun to touch on what I would want to touch on--this is just surface personality and the beginning of the game before we even get to joining Sorceress Edea, and even then not all I would say-- but this post isn’t actually supposed to be my Ted talk on what you missed if you just think of Seifer as a recurring boss fight. Let’s move on.

ONE MORE THING ACTUALLY. Even though we see a lot of Seifer at his worst, you can use Fujin and Raijin as a mirror. What do they say near the end of the game if we paraphrase/summarize? They knew pretty early on, before even the senseless slaughter and torture era that Seifer was going down a dark path with the sorceress, but they knew it wasn’t him and stayed with him, not because they agreed with his actions, wanted power, or out of fear, but to take care of him and try to break through to him--and not because they are saints, but because he, despite what had happened in the past year, is the type of person who deserves and inspires that kind of loyalty. Let’s think on that.

Now the rest goes under a read more, because I am going to keep rambling and be wordy

Why I don’t: He can be an asshole, and he’s an asshole in an embarrassing way. As in, if one is trying to say he’s not the little punk his KH counterpart is, you remember he still uses the insult chickenwuss (though that is a legacy insult/nickname since he’s known Zell since childhood--and, fyi, Squall uses it too) and he had a little gang in school. Even once he’s a military commander of an evil army set on world domination, he has some moments where his level of petty undermines him.

Favorite episode (scene if movie): The Dollet mission

Favorite line: Sorry, not sorry that the following is my favorite exchange of lines and that the prison torture scene is another of my favorite scenes. For context, Seifer has captured Squall, has him hanging up on the wall in crucified hero imagery, implied to be shirtless even though his character model isn’t because they talk about scar tissue or lack thereof from a recent shoulder injury/Squall being stabbed in the chest/shoulder area. Seifer has been electrocuting Squall for information. By this point, I might as well have put the whole scene here. Also, I am now going to blame Squall and Seifer text boxes in FFVIII for my own abuses of ellipses...

Seifer: " I was hoping you'd be there, Squall. So... how'd I look in my moment of triumph? My childhood dream, fulfilled. I've become the sorceress' knight."

Squall: [internal monologue] ...Sorceress' knight... ...His...romantic dream...? But... Seifer... Now, you're just a…[Out loud] "... torturer."

[Squall passes out.]

Seifer: "What did you say? [Steps closer] Passed out cold, eh? This is the scene where you swear your undying hatred for me! The tale of the evil mercenary versus the sorceress' knight!”

This isn’t just me all “mmm, tension.” Seifer has passed the moral event horizon, and it’s not just faceless NPCs that are collateral damage anymore. We’ve seen him on screen torture the protagonist, who is also one of the only people who he’s shown to have a real bond with that goes beyond superficial. Then we get this and see Seifer thinks he’s the good guy still, on a noble mission where he’s had to make painful sacrifices, and Squall is a representative of the power-hungry evil. Seifer’s been playing a different game, and had his will twisted via magic.

Favorite outfit: The Amano art where the white coat is cast off and he’s wearing the simple black shirt and black jeans under it. Symbolic? Maybe. I wouldn’t give up the coat though. I love the long white/gray coat, the outer embodiment of wanting to wear the white hat, but the desire easily getting tarnished, and the red cross that turns into a sword and becomes Seifer’s symbol and soon to appear other places, emblazoned nice and big on the sleeve. It’s the Cross of Saint James. TRADITIONALLY red represents the blood of Christ, the three lilies represent the honor of the apostle and reference Christ as lily of the valley, and the sword shape represents the torture that St.James suffered before his murder. HOWEVER, my opinion is that here it’s more vague/altered symbolism (For starters, there are other gods not the Christian God in this world) with a side of “looks cool.” We still have something that clearly calls to mind a mission from on high, innocence in the lilies, blood and blood cost, and then war/violence with the sword. And I love it. 

OTP: Seifer/Squall. I should not even start, but lest you think I am just in it for kinky torture scenes: We have these two who, in the beginning, are generally callous or mocking toward everyone, but make each other laugh/smile, see who each other are underneath and describe each other in “soft” terms even if they tease each other for it, repeatedly check in on each other to see if the other is okay, respect each other’s opinion and skills, and...you get the idea. In the words of Zell Dincht, I thought you two were rivals, but you’re all buddy-buddy. 

Pause for a second and let’s just say first impression. That opening fight where they scar each other’s faces? It takes place outside Balamb Garden and the area is shown so we see they are alone. Squall passes out. Squall wakes up in the infirmary within the Garden base. Squall has to explain what happened; people don’t already know. This kind of implies after Squall passed out, Seifer, bleeding from a head wound himself, picked Squall up and carried him home, allowing himself to collapse only when Squall was being safely tended to, because he’s that extra. This is his first (okay, second, after fireballs and face slashing) action in the game even though it’s offscreen. I mean, he could have also just called for help/ran for help, but that’s less fun.

 Seifer is so concerned with being a badass, but he’s admits to Squall all he’s ever wanted was to be the fairytale knight, not a mere soldier. Vulnerability and confession he wants romance....with the first time it’s brought up in game being while they are watching the sun set together, the traditional Square Red Sunset of Shipping. 

Seifer hesitates to defy orders, not for himself, but until he sees Squall is with him. Even though there were other “children of destiny” who all came from the same orphanage, Squall and Seifer were the ones who were never apart, never adopted until it was by a military/mercenary training program, and, even though it may speak more to brotherly than romantic from some angles, there’s a feeling of being the same, knowing each other down to the atoms, adopting an us against the world mindset that trumps trying to best each other when it comes down to it because they are the only constant. When Squall has his breakdown/ breakthrough of why he pushes people away/doesn’t let himself care/tries not to need anyone because people leave/are taken from him and he is scared he isn’t worthy of love and happiness until Rinoa challenges him, this may seem like a dismissal of Seifer, but you can also look at it from “I had no friends or family. I didn’t even have interest in speaking to anyone. I strived to be an unfeeling machine, because all emotion is pain...But also I couldn’t go 48 hours without seeing Seifer.”

Yeah, yeah, we know their main form of hanging out was beating the tar out of each other, but sometimes, especially in older media, this was its own brand of subtext. For more on how Seifer miiiight just view sparring let’s point out that “Isn’t this ROMANTIC?” and “Kneel” as a less easily interpreted as innuendo version of  “I want you on your knees” are battle quotes even in Kingdom Hearts sooo draw your own conclusion. 

We get a line where Squall makes it clear these were friendly matches looked at as pushing their limits beyond what they are allowed to in sanctioned spars, and he feels prepared to take on anything  now because of Seifer. Is it healthy communication  in real life? No! Is this real life? No! Plus, the facial scar was an accident, pretty clearly...on Seifer’s side...I could write another essay on how Seifer draws first blood, but it’s because on Squall’s failed block, AND THEN SQUALL GETS ANGRY AND RETALIATES WITH CLEAR PURPOSE AND MAKES THE OPENING SHOT INTO THE FIRST SIGN GOOD VERSUS BAD GUY ISN’T SO CLEAR CUT (even though they both shouldn’t have been going so hard in a friendly training match to begin with).

 Seifer’s later, repeated threats/expressed desire to give Squall additional scars once he goes evil? That is a different animal, and a horrible one, objectively. Not objectively? No comment. Okay, one comment. Mark you as mine. Two comments. He knows Squall’s lost some memories and he can’t stomach being the next thing forgotten so Squall needs physical reminders.

Hmmm, I was supposed to be talking about the ship, not just the sparring and scars. We can wrap it up with a Marge Simpson. “I just think they’re neat”

BUT ONE MORE THING

Squall’s jacket when he becomes Leon in Kingdom Hearts. His outfit is mostly the same, right? Except the back of the jacket now has a red patch of an emblem (of Rinoa’s angel wings, not Seifer’s cross...for the OT3 feel), and his fight with Sora he throws a fireball like Seifer’s signature. Just, you know, if you want bonus references/feeling.

Brotp: Fuu and Rai. They are willing to commit war crimes with this man, nurse him back from death’s door, and go into exile with him if he can’t return to a normal life even after a redemption arc. This section deserves to be long, but I am beginning to get talked out. Don’t take that as devaluing the friendship though. I’m glad he was allowed to keep his ride or dies in Kingdom Hearts. FRIENDSHIP! They love him, ya know?

Head Canon: What we see of him at the end of the game is a temporary situation and after he heals and refreshes for awhile he’d go back to Balamb and face consequences for his actions, and probably insist on consequences instead of leaning into “an evil sorceress bespelled me and slowly took my free will.” No hiding away in the wilderness. No crossing into and living his life in Esthar. No, “but in the end I broke free and would have been an active, onscreen part of saving the world if Square had let me join the party!” He would insist on being cast into a deep, dark cell. Squall uses pull to get him pardoned, but not before just, flat out, yelling at him for being a martyr.

Unpopular opinion: He did love Rinoa. It may have been a “shallow love,” but he wasn’t just dating her to pass time or because she played into his damsel who needs a hero mindset. There was emotion. He was prepared to die for her and Squall in Timber, and almost did--only being saved by Sorceress Edea...which wasn’t a kindness, but it all worked out in the end. Sure, he gets mind-controlled into using Rinoa as, basically, a human sacrifice and it isn’t Rinoa he wants stripped and brought to his room when we’re taking prisoners, but he cared about her. He does taunt her about their past relationship, but we’ve already established this is just part of his communication skillset.  Yes, I will elaborate more if asked, though it’s more feeling based than text based. 

A wish: If there’s ever a sequel, let him have put out the good in the world that was his dream and be seen as a hero. Let us see a matured and peaceful Seifer. 

An oh-god-please-dont-ever-happen: My one fear if they ever remake FFVIII instead of just porting it, is that some of the creative team have said they like the fan theory where you are dead part way through the game and the rest is a dying dream or purgatory. It’s creative stuff; I will say that. It’s not my favorite, and I don’t agree, but those kinds of fan interpretations when they go in depth are super cool. PLEASE LET THE INTEREST IN IT JUST BE THE SAME AS MINE OF THINKING IT’S CREATIVE BECAUSE MAKING THIS  CANON WOULD BE SO, SO BAD FOR EVERY CHARACTER.

5 words to best describe them: stubborn, misguided, paladin, romantic, petty

My nickname for them: I don’t really have one

#seifer almasy #seifer x squall #squall x seifer #such a long post and still not all or even communicated that well probably #you don't have all the facts the facts are i love him #tina-nina

[themattress]

My Top 15 Favorite Gotham Characters

Plus one Honorable Mention.

Honorable Mention: Silver St. Cloud - She's an honorable mention because of how tragically the show wasted her. Silver was a standout character in 2A's “Rise of the Villains” arc, as we see all the layers peeled back from whimsical, kind-hearted, well-mannered young socialite to cruel, manipulative, cold-blooded agent of an evil religious cult to vulnerable, scared and remorseful girl in way over her head who forges a real emotional connection with Bruce. However, despite all the rich potential for her to develop even further as a character, she was never seen again after the 2A finale. 

15. Tabitha Galavan - While as a character she's the very definition of a second-stringer, Tabitha is an interesting case study in what happens when a single ember of innocence is still left burning within the darkest of souls. Raised in the evil Order of St. Dumas and kept firmly under her older brother's thumb, Tabitha is certainly no angel, being the sort of person who will fatally stab an innocent old woman in the back and feel no remorse. But the desire to care and be cared for is still very strong in her, and we see it manifest many times: with Silver, and with Selina, and with Barbara, and of course with Butch. Unfortunately for Tabitha, she is also a case study in how this doesn't guarantee that such a person will receive a happy ending, as she is unable to avoid karmic justice.

14. Butch Gilzean - I didn't really care about Butch initially, since he didn't seem like anything more than Fish Mooney's affably evil muscle. After he became brainwashed into obeying the Penguin's every command, he gradually became more interesting and sympathetic, and by the time he got romantically involved with Tabitha I had become so accustomed to him and his perversely likable sort of villainy that I couldn't imagine the show without him. But maybe the show would have been better off without him after his death in the Season 3 finale, as the immediate retcon afterward of his real name being Cyrus Gold and his resurrection as Solomon Grundy in Season 4 was just nonsense, especially when he ends up just as dead in the Season 4 finale as he was in the Season 3 finale, so what was even the point? Sometimes, dead is better, and I’m sure Butch would agree.

13. Harvey Bullock - For much of Season 1 it felt like the writers were trying to play Harvey Bullock too seriously, and I think that was a mistake because the character always benefits from being played more broadly, and lord knows that Donal Logue can do that very well. Thankfully, that's exactly how he started to be played more often from Season 2 and onward, with whatever serious arcs he did receive such as in Season 4 benefiting from him being so much more likable as a result. I'd rather watch him on screen than Jim Gordon any day.

12. Leslie Thompkins - While initially kind of bland, Leslie "Lee" Thompkins is a character that grew on me overtime. I felt really sorry for her throughout Seasons 2 and 3 as Jim Gordon proved to be the worst love interest ever, bringing her no end of pain, and then in Seasons 4 and 5 she used that pain and anger to shape herself into a total badass anti-heroine who was still all about helping those in need but now was open to using less than moral means to accomplish this. She's a character who finished the show stronger than she'd ever been, and her and Barbara becoming bros is everything I never knew I needed.

11. Sofia Falcone - Sometimes, a sharp and devious mind is all it takes for someone to be a great villain, and damn did Sofia ever put hers to good use. In the comics, this was a forgettable character who was just an obvious thug in design and demeanor, but Gotham's version is terrifying in how petite and pretty and kind and charitable and all around attractive in every way she is...the perfect way to manipulate others and conceal that on the inside she's beyond just a thug; she's a raging, ruthless, vindictive, amoral sociopath who only cares about herself. And kudos to Crystal Reed, whose performance sold the character perfectly. The only real downside to Sofia is that the writers clearly were forced to write her out earlier than anticipated, and her abrupt exit from the show is nowhere close to being as satisfying as the build-up to her gaining power within the city would lead you to believe.

10. Ra's Al Ghul - As wonderful as Sofia was, there was never any question as to whom Season 4's most formidable villain was: the same villain who is the series' ultimate Big Bad, Ra's Al Ghul. Beyond the phenomenally perfect casting of Alexander Siddig, who is hands down the most comics-accurate portrayal of the character in live-action to date, Ra's benefits from the series positioning him as the final answer to the long-running "who killed Thomas and Martha Wayne?" mystery and totally being able to convince viewers that most of this series' events were according to his plans due to the self-assured, in-control and borderline omnipotent way the Demon's Head carries himself. No-one in Gotham City is left unchanged by his machinations, least of all his chosen "heir" Bruce Wayne. 

9. Hugo Strange - The Big Bad of 2B's "Wrath of the Villains" arc is in the running for the show's most despicable villain. Professor Hugo Strange is a brilliant psychologist and scientist, but he is utterly devoid of a conscience and will do anything to achieve his twisted aspirations, from ruining peoples' lives with his experiments to bringing people back from the dead to personally ordering the death of those he considers to be friends. What makes Strange enjoyable in spite of his depravity is B.D Wong's performance: he looks absolutely perfect as a younger version of Hugo Strange and his voice seems to be channeling Corey Burton's Christopher Lee-inspired take from Batman: Arkham City.  He's a much stronger villain than 2A's Theo Galavan, and tellingly got to return in every following season.

8. Edward Nygma - I really wish I could place Ed higher on this list, since the Riddler is one of my favorite Batman villains and Cory Michael Smith is perfect in the role. But sadly, he's the subject of some really weak writing throughout the show that holds him back from breaching my personal Top 5. Whether it be the constant Nice Guy(TM) hounding of Kristen Kringle, the bizarre Two Face-esque split personality angle, the ungodly stupid Isabella plot device and subsequent clashing with the Penguin because of it, his needless romance with Lee that didn't make sense for either of their characters (which wasn't helped by the fact that it happened at a time where he kept on getting made a fool of in a way that undermined how menacing he was just a season ago), and being used as an obvious red herring in the Haven explosion mystery...he really deserved better material, and it's lucky that Smith makes him so enjoyable to watch since it would otherwise drag him down much further.

7. Jerome Valeska - Cameron Monaghan's performance as Jerome single-handedly forced the Gotham producers' hands when it came to their original plans (or lack thereof) for the Joker in their series, as right off the bat he managed to perfectly capture the same maniacal energy that the likes of Mark Hamill and Heath Ledger did, meaning fans would accept no-one else in the role. While Jerome ends up being more of a test run for the actual Joker - the Beta Joker, so to speak - he still is one of the most frightening and malevolent characters in the show's entire run, spreading chaos for chaos' sake and causing pain to others just because he finds it hilarious, and doing it all in the most theatrical way possible.  

6. Jeremiah Valeska - Yes, I agree that this character's whole basis - Jerome's secret twin brother who actually becomes the Joker - and how he was introduced is unbelievably stupid writing; in hindsight it would have made more sense to just find a way to transition Jerome into this kind of characterization as part of a continued evolution toward becoming the Joker. But we're stuck with Jeremiah, and as it stands he is a much worthier Joker than Jerome was. I don't really like the Joker whenever he's written to have no motivation beyond "random crime and chaos because LOL crazy!!!" - the best Jokers always have a reason for doing what they do, it's just that it's always a twisted reason that holds no basis in reality and just serves as an excuse for the Joker to spread pain and chaos across Gotham City and match wits with Batman. (Ex: Heath Ledger's Joker may say he has no plans and just "does things" as a manipulation tactic, but in reality he does make plans and does have the tangible objective of proving his nihilistic, anarchistic worldview to everyone; Batman in particular.)

Jeremiah's penchant for intricate planning combined with the psychotic objectives that lie behind his plans is what makes him more believable as the Joker compared to Jerome, and it really felt like the show's stakes rose to an entirely new, darker than ever before level when he stepped up to the plate at the end of Season 4. I also love his development: being in denial about his own insanity and likeness to his brother until his personal obsession with Bruce overpowers that and causes him to willingly give into the madness so that he can be a worthy enough foil for Bruce as Gotham's Dark Knight, since that gives his miserable life a sense of purpose. Add to this Cameron Monaghan still pulling off that Joker energy flawlessly and you have a Joker that can stand beside Nicholson, Ledger and Phoenix's portrayals.

5. Barbara Kean - This one really took me by surprise. I knew going into the show that Barbara was considered a poorly written, irritating obstructive love interest to Gordon in Season 1, but that she got Rescued From the Scrappy Heap in the following seasons. What I didn't know was the way that rescuing happened - she goes crazy and becomes a surprise villain in the Season 1 finale, and from then on out she is freaking nuts in the most hilariously over-the-top way, with Erin Richards chewing the scenery for all it's worth. Barbara is so entertaining throughout the various guises and positions she goes through across the series, not to mention a complete badass who you just can't help but respect for being true to herself even if she's an awful human being. Her redemption arc in Season 5 was a beautiful way to bring her journey full-circle, and I don't begrudge her the happy ending she got at all.

4. Alfred Pennyworth - We're all used to Alfred the butler, but Gotham got me accustomed to Alfred the soldier. Sean Pertwee is thoroughly convincing in the role of the hard-assed, frequently grumpy or moody yet caring, loyal and dependable Alfred, whose relationship with young Bruce Wayne is perfectly depicted. The only time I didn't care for him was during 2A, where he was cruel and unfair toward Selina because she killed his treacherous war-time buddy who almost murdered him and was planning on doing harm to Bruce. Thankfully, from the midseason finale and onward he managed to redeem himself, regaining his status as one of the show's best-depicted characters and maintaining it all the way to the end.

3. Bruce Wayne - This character was always going to live or die based on what child actor was playing him, and by God did David Mazouz nail it in his performance. Even putting the dead parents and destiny as Batman aside, Bruce Wayne is clearly not a "normal" kid, being raised in the lap of luxury and privileged to the point of extreme naïveté, with an overly formal way of speaking hammering in his distance from the rest of Gotham City. Watching him grow stronger and smarter and more worldly and responsible as the series progressed was always a pleasure, and he naturally made a far more compelling protagonist than Jim Gordon did, with the show ending on the shot that it does making it even more clear that this was primarily his story all along; just one elongated origin story for the goddamn Batman.

2. Selina Kyle - For quite a while in Season 1, the teenage girl who would be Catwoman spent a lot of time just slinking around the fringes of the story and accomplishing little of value. But once she finally met Bruce, Selina's character really took off, and she ended up becoming my second all-time favorite character in the show. Aside from the strong writing and character development, much is also owed to Camren Bicondova, who is utterly charming in her depiction of the cynical, sharp-tongued, street-smart thief with a heart of gold, and she is even able to make her rushed final transition into Catwoman in Season 5 believable. And kudos to Lili Simmons who plays her in the final episode, she is perfectly convincing as an adult version of Selina, looking and sounding just as I expect Bicondova to in a few years. 

1. Oswald Cobblepot - OK, this is probably an unoriginal choice, but I can't help it - Oswald Cobblepot, aka the Penguin, is the one character on this show who just did no wrong as far as I'm concerned (as a character, I mean, he obviously did a lot wrong morally!) In addition to being the role Robin Lord Taylor was born to play, there is a consistency in the writing of his character and in the quality of his development that I think is unmatched by anyone else in the cast. Aside from that one blip in the Isabella plotline of Season 3 that I credit as more of a blemish on Ed than I do Oswald, he was always a fully three-dimensional character who acted and reacted believably, and he always stayed firmly on the line between being a heinous, ruthless, murderous criminal chiefly seeking power and a tragic, sympathetic, even funny and likable person chiefly seeking love.  And he always remained the "noble villain" when compared to the other villains around him; always the one you could count on to join the heroes and do the right thing when it counted because he's a pragmatist with moral lines he will not cross....and because he loves and believe in Gotham City too, in his own way.

#Gotham #Opinion #Analysis

[marvellfashion]

So, another Hellfire Club fashion post, but this time about the Shaw family and adjacent characters. Now, Sebastian is an interesting character (terrible guy, terrible, but a better CHARACTER than he gets credit for in my biased opinion) but he does not have a good fashion history. Like. At all. It's honestly almost worse than his villainy. But you know who DOES have style? His son Shinobi. Sadly created during the 90s when it was acceptable to name Japanese characters things like Shinobi (and Lady Mandarin, and Kamikaze, YES REALLY) Shinobi Shaw has had some LOOKS. Like his father he's made some very bold choices and isn't afraid of color (Sebastian wore HOT PINK through most of the 80s, and once combined it with lilac and orange in the same look, it was hideous but I applaud his courage) but UNLIKE his father, who really should stick to business suits in neutrals, Shin has made it work! Okay sometimes he hasn't either but I love him anyway. While Shaw was all about pink in the 80s, Shin was all about purple in the 90s, whether it was blatant

Or something small, like a vest

This is from a trading card, and honestly I love it? Yes, the huge arm gauntlets and epaulets are PATENTLY RIDICULOUS but Shinobi is extra and I love how it is just the PEAK of how he keeps trying to channel the 80s New Romantic fashion that he was a decade late for. Seriously, the other Hellfire Men are dressing like it's the 1880s, but I think Shin is actually going for the 1980s, just the Adam & the Ants type 80s were people were taking inspo from the 1880s. If that makes sense.

I don't actually know what to call this AT ALL except he seems working very hard to draw attention to his ass and...that tracks for him. He can do "normal" business/upscale fashion well too, of course

This was his first appearence and it was in...'91? The 90s, anyway, and the cut of his suit was VERY on-trend for that era. The 90s mens suits were very baggy.

And check out his bowler hat (with a purple band!) and his fancy cane here! My fave though is this. I can't decide if it's FABULOUS or RIDICULOUS but it is FLAMBOYANT and honestly the most "Shinobi" look to me Look at this. LOOK AT THIS. He has on a big violet pirate coat with contrasting lilac lapels and gold embroidery, a big deep red-pink blouse, and LAVENDAR PINSTRIPED PANTS. This is the exact level of Shinobi Being Extra that defines Shinobi. And, let's talk about the person on the left? Because she NEEDS to be talked about.

So this absolute beauty is Mindmeld. She's Shinobi's bodyguard/mercenary in one issue of X-Force in the 90s and she is short-lived but ICONIC. She's very cool, very tough, implied to be transgender (which would make her the first mutant to be written as trans, not counting stuff like shapeshifters and aliens, but trans like real people are trans), and like look at this LOOK? She's like channeling MAD military glam/army surplus chic with BLING here. I love the suspenders, and her piles of bracelets, and that style of gloves. I really think she should be brought back and updated. The jodhpur pants with extra buttons are like, they're not hot now, but that's another thing I think was high-fashion in her time? Another little-known Hellfire lady is Lourdes Chantel. Like a lot of bad guys, Sebastian has a dead fiancee from before he became a villain. Unlike a lot of bad guys, he doesn't whine all the time and announce it to everyone (and I appreciate that) so maybe that's why most people don't know her, but though she only appeared in two issues, Lourdes had SOME LOOKS.

Lo

Look at this QUEEN. She was from Barcelona, so she's rocking this very traditional Spanish look with a mantilla, which is what you call that style of black veil. And that's gorgeous already but I just love her EARRINGS and her BLACK LACE GLOVES like I don't know how a woman who clearly loved style could also love Sebastian Shaw. Speaking of that, I hope Lourdes stays dead, actually, she doesn't need to see what he became after her death. RIP baby. To Sebastian himself, he does not have a lot of good looks, fashion-wise or in general, but something I think is worth mentioning is that the few times he's dressing like a NORMAL PERSON in the 80s and it's NOT a business suit, it's a sweater, and I love that. Like, look how NORMAL he looks in that cable-knit turtleneck and shearling coat? Dude clearly liked soft warm textures and given he grew up in deep poverty during Pittsburgh winters (he was born in Pittsburgh) I get that. You'll also notice that Senator Kelly is in both of these. The blonde woman? Senator Kelly's wife, Sharon. Sharon used to work at the Hellfire Club as a waitress, so during Kelly's meeting with Shaw, she decided to surprise him by showing up as HIS waitress in her old uniform. I low-key think she was trying to facilate a threeway because like...she's saying she wanted to "please" Kelly....and she's doing it RIGHT IN FRONT OF SHAW (who found the whole thing HILARIOUS, which I love)....girrrrrl. And I include this to mention that Sharon Kelly is ALSO A QUEEN

Look at her. Started at the bottom and now she's here. You get that Kelly money, girl. Unfortunately, that did not save her---she ends up dying shortly after this, having gotten caught in the crossfire of an X-Men battle, and that's what started Senator Kelly thinking seriously about the whole "mutants are dangerous" thing. ....also what drove him into the waiting burly arms of Sebastian Shaw who also knows what it is to lose a wife, but that's just MY twisted fan theory. Anyway, I know this was big, but these characters are all connected and I thought submitting them all together would flow well as a sort of story, plus some of them really need to be better-known!

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Shinobi! We love a flamboyant man! 💁🏻‍♀️ don’t you think in that second image it kind of looks like a weird Torero outfit?! Like the shoulders and the jacket and like the accent on his waist, it gives me that vibe!

Mindmeld that is one ICONIC LOOK! I mean crop top with those pants AND suspenders!!! And we can’t forget the jewels!!! She looks fantastic

Lourdes it’s such a shame that we don’t have the spanish look in better quality because it’s wonderful! And Sebastian well the man is living his own fantasy let’s leave it at that 😂

#sebastianshaw #submission