#the payoff will be worth it i hope. to all two people who care about my ocs and also (redacted). hashtag trust | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ajokeformur-ray · 2 years

Text

We were born from the same star, destined in a cosmic love // Otto x Kath

A/N: A personalised comfort fic for @tsukiakarinobara, who is lovely and deserves the world. I'm sending you so much love, many many hugs, and some serious cuddles from Otto. It's been a long time since I wrote for YOU, so I extra hope you like it!❤️

I stalked (affectionate) your blog, asked questions, I watched Spider Man 2 while writing this and binged Otto fics on here, so hopefully I got his characterisation and your relationship with him right! I've never written for Otto before; this is all very new to me so I really really hope you like this!❤️

Summary: Otto comforts you by letting you know that he's there for you, that he cares, and above all else, that he loves you.

No triggers but I thought these worth mentioning: mentions of past Otto x Rosie (canon compliant; predates your relationship by some years), fluff, comfort, talks of universe jumping, Peter is a dear friend to you and Otto, personal details are included with permission.

Word count: 1, 841.

THIS IS NOT A READER INSERT FIC (though of course other people are welcome to read this, it is first and foremost for Kath).

"If you keep something as complicated as love stored up inside, it's gonna make you sick."

Words Otto had spoken once, long ago, over tea with you and Peter, had reverberated inside your mind again and again and again in the weeks leading up to the day you switched universes just so that you could be with him. These words, a throwaway statement steeped in wisdom he had gained from a life well loved, well lived, had been the deciding factor in you confessing your feelings for Otto (as well as Peter's encouragement and nudging, which really was as subtle as a sledgehammer, though the man meant well).

Otto had thanked you for your bravery in that moment by meeting you in the middle; a mutual decision to make it happen but then, oh, and then, to make it work. His reactionary smile had blinded you in the face of your confession, and just like the surface of the ocean under the moon, you had given him the same expression.

A love shared was a love doubled.

He, too, had been sitting on his feelings for you, and your developing relationship was the slow burn to end all slow burns. The two of you took what was building between you slowly, so slowly, after your confession, but the payoff had been more than worth it. Long nights spent sat close to Otto and listening to him talk you through his most recent scientific project turned into you sat on his lap, the both of you holding the other close, over months and months. The core of your relationship had remained the same, with you besotted, fascinated, and Otto feeling almost shy under all of your careful attentions and affections. He had reached out to you with his hand, literally and metaphorically, and after all of this time later, your relationship now stable, set in its ways and constantly changing and evolving, you had yet to let go of him.

You had always known (and thus accepted and respected) that, many years ago, the late Rosie had planned to never let go, but one great big miscalculation borne not from the faults of Otto's careful research but from a lack of general knowledge about Artificial Intelligence, which hindered Otto's life's work and made it a ruin, had made her release her grip before she or Otto were ready.

The same miscalculation would not be made a second time.

A mistake once? Was just that.

But the same mistake twice? That would be a choice.

Otto was choosing differently this time, every day, time and again.

In part due to how long it had taken the two of you to get together, due to how many nights you had spent under a blanket together, discussing the most recent scientific theory or gazing at the stars together, swapping stories of your day, quoting poetry at each other or simply being together in the moment - you had always shared such a cosmic love - Otto was able to read you like a book.

Indeed, he knew you as well as you knew yourself, and you would never take that for granted. Not least of all because you knew Otto at his very core, too. You knew of his untold tragedies, of how the actuators and his shared purpose had caused a crossfire between morality and reality, of how he had never been truly able to grieve for Rosie right up until you had dropped through the portal and into Peter's arms (how the two of you had managed to communicate while occupying different universes, you still didn't know, but you suspected that America Chavez had pulled some serious strings to accommodate your wants), and given Otto a new lease of life.

Otto was a brilliant scientist but even he liked to believe that the both of you were born from dust of the same star; why else, how else, had the two of you beat the odds of your individual lives and universes to find one another? It was why he called you names relating to stars; he believed that a star had died so that the both of you could live, and you felt so comfortable and safe with one another because the remains of that star recognised parts of itself in the other person.

Science is another form of modern day magic, after all, constantly changing and evolving, just as humans did from one day to the next.

On this day, you had gone to bed very late. Or, very early. It depended on one's perspective, but either way, the birds had been waking up just as you had gone to bed, and your absence in bed had made it difficult for Otto to sleep solidly, the dark bags under his eyes almost purple; like a bruise. The shade was a sharp contrast to the pale complexion; Otto looked almost sick in his pain; the actuators were at least a couple hundred pounds of metal and they were fused to his spinal column. Many days, they were the only reason Otto could move around the apartment, or continue his work in the lab. Back massages and long hot soaks in the bath were essential for him, and you were only too happy to take care of Otto in every way he wanted and even ways he hadn't considered; each of you liked to expand the other's worldview with your life experiences, thoughts and opinions.

Otto took care of you, too. He always did his best to. You were on equal footing in your relationship; even though you barely understood most of what he spoke of over dinner - at least ninety per cent went right over your head - you still listened, your gorgeous eyes alight with passion, with love and adoration for your scientist. What one received, the other returned, and so on it went, until months had bled into years and yet still were you as in love as you had been on the day you met.

Today had shaped up to be a dark day, and Otto worried after you as you shuffled into the bedroom, your feet muffled by the sounds of the birds outside accompanied with the awful sounds of car engines being turned as the city, too, began to wake up. His chocolate eyes followed you as you striped off and climbed into bed beside him, your light hair and eyes a familiar contrast to his own darker features. You nuzzled your head into the pillow, and Otto sighed in relief as your hand, already warm under the covers, crept across the bedsheets until your fingers wrapped around his own larger ones. His touch was soft, his hands callused, worn from years of manual use, and his fingers squeezed around your own.

I'm here, my little star. I'm here.

You shuffled again across the expanse of the comfortable mattress - Otto's own side designed to be firmer, with added grooves to fully support the actuators and take the weight off his back while he slept - and Otto lifted one arm, calling you instantly into his side. It was where you wanted to be even when you were there. His body is your home. Your face crumpled as a new wave of sorrow crashed over you. It came in like the tide and so all you could do was to ride it out. But not alone, never alone. You were sick of crying, and so you didn't, but your throat was thick and heavy with a lump and your eyes stung both with physical exhaustion, previous hours of crying and more tears you refused to let fall.

You felt so sick.

"Oh, my stardust," Otto sighed, his mouth tilting downwards in sympathy, "come here." It was a superfluous sentence, for you already were here, but you pushed yourself as close to him as you possibly could, his heart pounding in your ear, his skin soft and warm under your touch. Otto's hand was large, his fingers splayed as he rubbed up and down your face in firm, fluid motions, his lips in your hair as you both stayed in that moment together. The both of you knew well that if emotions weren't vented as and when they came to visit, that they would just fester and worsen and show up in uglier ways, and so when either of you needed affection or some extra love, some tenderness, whenever you needed anything, you both made sure to be there no matter what. "When you wake, I'm going to take care of you, but you need sleep right now. Your body needs it, so does your beautiful mind." Otto pressed some kisses to your temple to accentuate his point even as he stretched out under the duvet and touched your shin lightly with his foot. You parted your lower legs just enough for Otto to slot his own between, and the two of you anchored your bodies together, ready for some proper sleep.

You couldn't ever securely rest without being made wholly aware of the others' presence beside you in the bed.

Otto moved once more to cup your face in his hands, his fingers curling behind your ears, your hair spilling over his touch. "The power of the sun in the palm of my hands," he whispered, trying to think of poems he used to read, but unable to conjure up anything more than this, which was everything to you. "I'm always here, my little star. You know that, don't you?"

He pressed a tender kiss to your forehead and you smiled, your hands coming up so that you could interlock your fingers with his, "shouldn't that be my line? You're my sunshine, the light of my life."

Otto's smile deepened so much that you saw all of his wrinkles, crow's feet at the base of his eyes, and the dimples in his jaw. Oh, but he was so beautiful. "I am, stardust, and you need sleep. So do I."

Your heart warmed to hear the implication that Otto knew how much you loved him, without question, and he knew that you knew the same, too. Indeed, he kissed your forehead, then your sore eyelids, then your cheeks, your chin, and your lips, in a carefully constructed pattern, and then he laid down, letting his body sink into the mattress. The actuators settled around his body, and one of them, the one you thought to be called Flo, came up and over Otto so that she could playfully nip at your hair, like a bird grooming its human.

"I love you too, Flo," You kissed each of the actuators in turn, then Otto, and finally, you rested your head on the pillow which smelled deeply of Otto, as if his scent was permeated into the fibres and stitching, and allowed sleep to find you.

You wouldn't be alone even in your dreams, for Otto would follow you anywhere. What was the sun without his moon and stars?

#self-shipping #cosmic love

21 notes · View notes

crisps-craft · 2 years

Note

Hi crisp :D, I have two questions:

1)What can I do to stop being so reserved and be able to enjoy the moment?

2)What would happen if I tell G.M 🍕 how I felt about him in the past? (I know it will most likely not be reciprocated but I want to say it as a compliment and I'm curious if it will be something I will regret later)

-M ♓🐏🍰 (sorry for my english!)

hi M! for your first question, some really good cards came out -

-fool, 9 of pentacles, 3 of cups, world

i really love all of these cards haha. the fool is all about embracing new experiences and taking leaps of faith! i think that this card is telling you to embrace the possibilities of new experiences / new friends, etc. the fool is all about taking that first step which always feels like a risk, but has a payoff. "nothing ventured, nothing gained" - so be nurturing to yourself and take that leap forward!

9 of pentacles came out first- this card is reminding you of who YOU are. the 9 of pentacles is your guides telling me to tell you to remember your self worth and power! the 9 of pentacles shows someone who, throughout the years, has grown and steadily crafted their environment and life with care. the 9 of pentacles is someone who is empowered, grounded, and can be happy with who they are as a person! a very independent and "im doing fine on my own" card which will help with your confidence in new situations! remember that you have so much to offer and nurture your self value / worth! you keep telling yourself that you aren't good enough and comparing yourself to others who have "more achievements"- but be careful because those are just projections from your insecurities <3 you have this lovely grounded energy that people gravitate towards! i think you need to remember how special and individualized you are as a person (we all are :) ) - your energy is more calm, introspective - you might go quiet in social situations as a way of retreating. i see that you might daydream or sort of mentally escape in the moment as a way of protecting your energy and heart? i also feel like you are more energetically sensitive, too - you get drained in social situations easily

your guides want you to protect your energy a bit more - you can do this by stopping the anxiety that you create in your head in social situations. i think that starts with nurturing your self value, taking a deep breathe, and knowing that whatever you say / do has value and that you are so magnetic to people! <3 3 of cups wants you to enjoy the moment with friends - open up your heart to having fun and also to meeting new people because i do see it working out for you- the only person in your way is you right now so have faith in yourself love <3

question #2 - 7 of wands, 10 of wands, 8 of cups, world, page of wands, strength

** remember that tarot is not 100% accurate so take it with a grain of salt

i wouldn't recommend telling GM how you felt in the past - the cards that showed up were a bit problematic. i think that this might possibly bring up emotional baggage? or even just be somewhat overwhelming for him to hear? i dont know why that is - i think that GM would just be really shocked and it would change how he perceives your connection ? i think that GM values you a lot - especially as a friend! you are represented by the world so this person holds you in a very high regard :) i just think that adding the feelings aspect in might be tough for them because maybe they haven't quite considered it that way before? so it might be somewhat of a shock to them? i don't think it would be that bad if you told GM because you do have strength so i think you two would be okay in the end afterwards, but i think it would sort of surprise GM a lot

hope this could help <3 wishing u the best love

#free tarot card readings #tarot card readings #tarot card reading #intuition #intuitive readings #intuitive reading #witchblr #witchcraft #tarot cards #tarot reading #astrology #tarot #astrology readings #tarot reader #tarot deck #tarot spread #tarot community

2 notes · View notes

shihalyfie · 3 years

Text

A meta and analysis on Takaishi Takeru

Of all of the Tokyo Chosen Children, Takeru is lucky enough to get significant attention for two full series from beginning to end, and his character also goes through some drastic changes in the process, especially through Adventure and 02. There’s so much going on with him that it makes it hard to give a short answer to the question “what is Takeru like?” because there’s so much you could say about him at so many different times.

Fortunately, that’s what we’re here to talk about today!

Takeru in Adventure

At first glance, Takeru seems to be the “tagalong kid” -- the obligatory “little kid character” you have whenever you have a party in a fantasy story. Generally, these “obligatory kid characters” are the kind constantly struggling to catch up with the older ones. Adventure being a series that loves to play with tropes and expectations, though, very quickly says no to that.

Seki: ...We also mixed up the children’s ages, for a bit of variety. Kakudou: The oldest one would be the most unreliable, and the smartest one would be one of the third youngest. Just a little to throw you off the usual, conventional track. Seki: The youngest one would feel too much like a burden to everyone else, and conversely would actually have himself together.

Takeru “doesn’t want to be a burden” -- meaning his feelings on this issue are actually rather much like Hikari’s. Unlike Hikari, though, Takeru reacts to this compulsion differently -- instead of simply repressing things and pretending the problem doesn’t exist, Takeru’s reaction to his own negative feelings is to “have himself together” and act as if he’s got everything under control.

Or, more accurately, pretend he has it together and has everything under control.

Takeru, for all intents and purposes, was not supposed to be on the camping trip the others were on, not having gone to everyone’s school -- he had to get special permission to go. Takeru’s family is very, very split harshly at this time, with his mother not even able to treat Yamato comfortably. Yamato deals with the familial estrangement badly -- alternating between approaching everyone awkwardly and exploding like an emotional fuse bomb -- but Takeru tries to take it as a sign that he needs to be “responsible”. A lot of his actions in Adventure are him basically exuding this aura of “I can take care of myself!”, and in fact he works very hard to “assert” himself as if he were yet another peer. We even see him make the complaint directly in Adventure episode 43 -- while he is correct in calling out Yamato for coddling him and him only while recklessly disregarding the others, the fact he specifically complains about Yamato approaching him as someone holding them back if he’s not protected reveals a lot about his own mentality regarding the situation.

One of his first major scenes in episode 2 is him offering his own food for the pile of supplies everyone has, even though it’s just snacks. Which is, probably, a pretty accurate summary of Takeru’s character at this point: on the surface he’s responsible, well-behaved, and capable...but, in fact, he’s still about as immature as an average eight-year-old child would predictably be.

Yamato spends his Adventure character arc pretty openly angsting about his relationship to Takeru and how his family’s split has affected them, but throughout the entirety of Adventure (and, eventually, 02 as well), not only does Takeru rarely if ever touch on it, there are indications that Takeru deliberately tries to dodge the subject or not dwell on it too much. In Adventure episode 12, he actually outright lies to Patamon about his younger childhood memories, claiming he “probably doesn’t remember” anything about it despite the audience very clearly being shown that he very much did, and in episode 26 he comes very close to leaking his actual feelings about the group being separated being tied to what happened to his family, before quickly covering it up and trying to move on with the topic.

In other words, unlike Hikari, who knows exactly what she’s feeling but is compulsively unable to vocalize them, Takeru actively suppresses his negative feelings and tries not to dwell on them too much. Again, this comes from his desire to “not be a burden” on others -- he’s got this situation under control! Everything is fine!

And this has a very, very nasty payoff. While Yamato clearly deals with his emotional issues badly, tending to get very explosive about it, Takeru’s way of coping isn’t actually all that much better in the long run, because Yamato’s frustration and openness about his emotions at least lead him to being very straightforward about his feelings, incredibly self-aware and sometimes even self-conscious, and ultimately able to get at least some degree of catharsis from the situation. Takeru...not so much.

Takeru is a child, no matter how much he tries not to act like one, and it ultimately results in him reacting disastrously whenever something hits him too emotionally hard -- which results in Takeru suddenly becoming irrationally stubborn and even angry. We later see what it takes to actually break through Takeru’s facade of “totally having this together” in Adventure episode 22, which is also the first time he openly breaks down wailing in front of anyone besides Patamon -- and it’s, of course, when PicoDevimon convinces him that Yamato hates him. The interesting part is that this is so blatantly a lie that even Tokomon is able to quickly call bullshit on it, but Takeru, previously having worked so hard to maintain this facade of being responsible, falls for it completely with utter irrationality -- and it really does suggest that Takeru’s fear of losing yet another member of his family, and being a burden to Yamato, runs so deep that it causes that entire facade to shatter in one blow.

Which is where the problem lies: Takeru’s habit of suppression is so bad that once one of his triggers is hit, he completely loses all sense of rationality and blows up, and it becomes nearly impossible to reason with him because he locks down on becoming stubborn. It’s also dangerous because even he isn’t particularly self-aware of what he’s doing when he blows up like this; at least Hikari was very consciously aware of her suppression problem, but Takeru never really seems to have any awareness of the fact that his covering up of his feelings is directly related to some of his worst moments. We see it cause problems between him and Patamon again in Adventure episode 33, when Patamon asks a rather innocuous question about the brothers, and it hits Takeru’s trigger so badly that he snaps at him, resulting in the fight that kicks off the plot of the episode.

Adventure episode 52 is basically a major test for Takeru as to whether he really can hold himself together in a situation where everyone else older than him is gone, and “having himself together” is something he has to actually do instead of just have the surface facade of. He does, ultimately, pass, and this is why the Crest of Hope glows this episode -- but it’s also made clear that it wasn’t quite as easy for him as he would normally pretend it is. Of course, it also helps that Piemon is genuinely the scariest threat they’d faced during that time, but it also reveals that, yeah, ultimately, Takeru is an eight-year-old child who still has to struggle to put on a brave face so that Hikari doesn’t get impacted by his own fear.

For all it’s worth, although we get a ton of depth into his background and mentality, Takeru does not actually change that much as a character over the course of Adventure. This incident is probably what changes him the most in terms of him gaining a more solid core, and he also learns to accept the inevitability of fighting after his stubborn refusal to engage in it all the way back in Adventure episode 12 -- but for the most part he still does remain a bit naive about the world at large, and, more importantly, his issue with trying to cover up his problems with a confident smile never really gets addressed. At most, he’s willing to admit his grief over being separated from Patamon in Adventure episode 54, but even that is something Takeru tries to bounce back from quickly, much like with the first time he cried with Patamon in Adventure episode 12. But there’s nothing to indicate that his problem with emotional management isn’t going to continue being a problem from here on out if left unchecked.

That problem ends up taking another three more years to get addressed.

Takeru in 02

Takeru is one of the first people we meet in 02 (for reasons that end up revealed in the final episode), and right off the bat we learn that he’s a bit...evasive. He leaves a cryptic line to Daisuke about his goggles without coming even close to what we all know is the full extent of what’s on his mind (that the goggles specifically remind him of someone important to him), and later just...deflects Daisuke throwing accusations at him with a mild dismissal. In fact, even though Takeru pretty clearly understands very quickly what’s going on with Daisuke and how touchy he gets with the Hikari issue, he keeps dodging the question and constantly saying things that are evasive about it and therefore never truly helps his case until episode 17, when the circumstances between why Hikari and Takeru knew each other are finally properly clarified to Daisuke and he stops getting on their case about it on his own.

There were multiple points in time before this -- especially in episode 7, when Daisuke is practically at his worst in regards to approaching Takeru -- when Takeru could have easily said something to at least attempt to get Daisuke to stop bothering him, but Takeru never even asks him to cut it out! He simply continues to handle everything with a “yeah, okay, sure! :)” attitude, which of course confuses Daisuke (who’s rather allergic to people not being straightforward) rather thoroughly, and you wonder if he’s practically enjoying seeing Daisuke’s antics to the point he’s just enabling it further.

As a point of aside trivia, the official 02 website adds the fun detail that apparently he's popular with the girls at school but doesn't show much interest in them himself, and the Animedia audio commentary CD for Armor Evolution to the Unknown had his voice actor even express the opinion that he saw Takeru as someone who wasn’t really the type to think about romance at this age (adding in a separate interview for the 02 DVDs that he felt Takeru was respectful of girls primarily due to having been taught by his single mother to be such). The latter part of course isn’t something that comes from the writing, but given the website trivia I’m inclined to personally agree with it -- and, more importantly, the implication is that Takeru is at least aware of these kinds of things, but actively chooses to not think about it and deal with it when the time comes.

So in other words: That part about how Takeru actively suppresses things that are negative or inconvenient to think about, all for the sake of keeping a smile plastered on his face? Yup, still there.

In fact, a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment from 02 episode 17 implies heavily that, even with their parents having developed a more cordial relationship after the events of Adventure, Takeru is now emotionally dealing with the aftermath of his parents’ divorce worse than Yamato is, since Yamato is at least able to speak about it casually and even joke about it openly, whereas Takeru keeps his mouth shut and the framing of the shot heavily implies he’s still extremely sensitive and unable to vocalize his feelings on it. Takeru never brings this up as something eating away at him for the entire series -- but BelialVamdemon uses it against him in episode 49, revealing that, yes, this is a problem that’s still tearing away at him, and yet he’s refusing to be open to anyone about it, even to Yamato himself. (Especially since, again, Yamato seems to be doing a great job trying to move forward; why kill his mood and thus be a “burden” to him?)

Even so, Takeru is very different in 02 partially because his circumstances are completely different. Adventure had him as the youngest in a group of older kids, so in terms of “being a responsible child”, that naturally meant being deferential and polite to everyone due to standards of propriety. 02 is where we learn a lot more about how Takeru interacts with peers his own age and people who are outright younger than him, when he has a bit more leeway to be more assertive.

On top of that, back in Adventure, Takeru was a young child who had a very small “range of periphery” -- as a young child still rather naive about the world, his emotional investment in things primarily pertained to loved ones and the people around him. But now that he’s a bit older, he’s gained a certain degree of strong feelings about “what’s the right thing to do”, and now has very strong opinions on it.

These things ultimately manifest in, unfortunately, Takeru losing his composure much more often than he did in Adventure, and for reasons that pertain to much wider things than just his brother. Still not having recovered from the trauma of losing Patamon back in Adventure episode 13, Takeru starts physically fighting Daisuke in 02 episode 11 because he perceives Daisuke as not doing enough to prevent Patamon from potentially becoming a slave to the Kaiser, and in 02 episode 13 he lashes out at Hikari in frustration about her refusal to do anything about her situation (which he of course ends up deeply regretting later in the episode).

Takeru’s infamous scene of suddenly switching modes on the Kaiser and punching him out in 02 episode 19 is basically the pinnacle of this -- because, yes, the Kaiser really did deserve it, but this really is not a good thing for Takeru either. This is Takeru getting the closest we ever see him to being a genuine sadist, and it’s basically everything to do with his emotional stuntedness coming out at once -- blowing up in anger out of nowhere with a passive-aggressive demeanor, succumbing to the weight of his trauma in the worst way possible, and mixing the ^^ front he puts on with his tendency to blow up angrily at anything that cuts him a little too emotionally close.

And for the first time, we see someone actually acknowledge how bad this is. Iori, one of the most consciously perceptive of the group, witnesses, for himself, the sheer jarringness of Takeru seeming to only really have two modes between “all smiles” and “unreasonably angry”. Sure, Takeru had shown a penchant for getting active as soon as there was something he needed to protect, but the moment it got personal, Takeru suddenly blew up in front of his eyes and almost turned into a completely different person. (Perhaps he’s not that different from Yamato after all...)

This is a very important moment because it sets up the base for what ultimately becomes the Jogress arc between Iori and Takeru. Daisuke ended up reaching out to Ken because Ken was someone who needed someone to accept him and teach him to move forward instead of drowning in the past; Miyako ended up reaching out to Hikari because Hikari knew herself to have a suppression problem but had difficulty doing anything about it, so the extremely in-your-face and aggressive Miyako could go in deep. But with Takeru, since his personality is genuinely volatile, and because Takeru goes out of his way to hide the fact he’s having emotional problems, personalities like Daisuke and Miyako wouldn’t help much because they’re too straightforward for someone like this who’s a bit unpredictable -- whereas Iori, who’s assertive but also methodical and thinks through everything consciously, is eventually much better able to reach out to him.

Once the relevant arc kicks in, in 02 episode 34, Iori continues to observe Takeru, and quietly notes the many “contradictions” in Takeru’s behavior -- since, after all, Takeru starts to sometimes violate what you’d think would be common sense whenever he gets too emotionally compromised. The fact that ostensibly one of the outwardly “nicest” kids in this group suddenly blows up in certain circumstances and basically goes “absolutely nope, needs to be killed!” in the midst of a few moral debates over killing sentient Digimon disturbs him deeply, and really, it’s not even about the killing part (after all, it’s later established in 02 episode 43 and after that Takeru and Hikari have a certain degree of acceptance of the inevitability that the others don’t) as much as Takeru’s being pretty gung-ho about it. Not “I don’t like it, but we have to” like he said earlier, but NOPE, GOTTA DO IT.

Iori refers directly to the duality of Takeru that he doesn’t quite understand multiple times in this episode (including in regards to the incident back in 02 episode 19), and it continues to torment him until the end, when Takeru only gives a very cryptic “clarification” that he doesn’t necessarily hate the darkness per se.

Iori, too intimidated to ask Takeru about it directly, goes to ask Yamato in 02 episode 35, and Yamato finally clarifies the background that we as the audience knew but Iori didn't: the story behind Takeru's trauma regarding the loss of Angemon back in Adventure episode 13. Yamato also makes a conjecture about why Takeru has been acting so ambivalent towards Ken -- you'd think he'd still be under Takeru's scorn after the events of 02 episode 19, but in fact Takeru's judgment of him in episode 25 was simply that he was certain something had changed, yet he couldn't tell what he was thinking (really rich coming from someone who refuses to tell anyone else what he's thinking himself!). Yamato guesses that Takeru is inclined to be a bit more forgiving of Ken due to understanding the feeling of losing a partner -- and the ultimate conclusion here is, basically, that Takeru's behavior is contradictory because he's acting based on what's personal to him, not necessarily via principles that make sense. After all, back in Adventure, it was clearly demonstrated that Takeru isn’t exactly rational when things hit too close to home.

The other important thing that happens this episode is that Takeru learns that Iori is actively trying to reach out to him, when Yamato drops him a line informing him that Iori asked. Despite complaining that Iori could have just asked him directly, after Takeru witnesses the face-off between Iori and BlackWarGreymon and a demonstration that Iori is clearly trying his best to make sense out of this entire mess, Takeru actively reaches out to Iori and says something to comfort him -- “a life is beautiful simply by existing.” It’s still cryptic as hell, but it’s not something he would have said in the midst of his anger in prior episodes.

It would be one thing if it were simply that by itself, but the following episodes further push the idea that Takeru really is starting to change after witnessing all of this. 02 episode 36 has him explicitly acknowledge what Iori’s been doing this whole time in trying to understand him for the sake of their Jogress, and, finally, during their meal later that episode, he says, very openly and honestly, that he thinks they’ll be able to do it now. After two instances of Jogress, these kids are very aware of what that entails -- so this is basically Takeru consciously acknowledging to Iori “yes, I understand that you’re trying to reach out to me, and I accept it and want to understand you.” Because Takeru is such a convoluted sort of person, this “understanding” ended up being something that didn’t span a single magical moment as much as it took several episodes and a diplomatic, conscious affirmation on both ends -- but it’s a fitting way to go for someone who had always indicated some pretty poor conscious awareness of where his feelings were taking him.

This is especially because, in 02 episode 37, his statements to comfort Ken are in pretty significant opposition to the sort of anger he’d displayed in earlier episodes, and are now a more pragmatic view of the issue in light of Iori’s efforts and everything he’d just witnessed with BlackWarGreymon -- and to drive the point home, the episode has, at the very end of it, Takeru making his first true explicit show of goodwill towards Ken after having been a bit touchy with him for so many episodes.

Iori himself, being the youngest of the 02 group, still has a lot to learn, and so Takeru, who had previously been one of the youngest in the Adventure group himself, now has his role inverted to effectively be a guiding mentor to Iori as he finds his own way. Basically, Takeru becomes responsible for the welfare of this young child, and so his way of treating Iori is markedly different from the more detached and playful way he would treat others from here on out. This is especially because, earlier, Yamato had informed him that Iori had taken a very roundabout way to help understand him better, and so Takeru probably understands that he scared the hell out of Iori earlier and needs to do better. While the Takeru of 02 episodes 38-50 still has a way of being playful, and while he still isn’t completely straightforward about his intentions, he is definitely much better about being open with the others, especially Iori, instead of doubling down on his “everything-is-fine” mode.

And perhaps this is what the other meaning of “hope” thus became in this situation -- learning to be forward-facing even in the midst of truly knowing and understanding everything that’s wrong with the situation.

Post-02

Although Takeru’s Spring 2003 track is addressed to no one in particular, meaning that it’s the most likely reason he’s so willing to be open about it, Takeru outright admits he’s having problems with his emotions -- especially those pertaining to Angemon’s death. We do, however, learn that Takeru’s started writing the early, early drafts of what’ll eventually end up becoming the novels he writes as a future career.

This being only a year after the events of 02, Takeru’s position is interesting. His decision to start writing is that he wants to have a record of everything before it’s forgotten -- because these things are very personal to him -- but he’s not emotionally ready for the huge task of finalizing everything in words, to the point he still hasn’t told his mother he’s started writing yet. After all, this is a book we eventually find out takes upwards of twenty years, and so this is the presumable reason why -- being able to get this down in a rational way that’s not emotionally compromising is going to be an upwards battle for him.

Even come Kizuna, there’s still a long way for him to go, because an actual line (in a very fast-paced movie) is dedicated to establishing that he’s still uncomfortable with his novel progress to the point he won’t even let Yamato see it. His official character profile and background details are revealing, too -- although he’s currently taking language classes in university and is even part of a children’s literature club, he still hasn’t actually decided on what to do with his future, meaning that he hasn’t determined that he’s going to be a full-time novelist with these yet. That means that even though he’s clearly still clacking away at his novel (multiple indications in the movie are given as such), his memoirs are still at the level of being so deeply personal, and not something he feels comfortable telling well, just yet.

I’ve pointed out before that despite not appearing directly with them in the movie, Takeru and Hikari have more in common with the others in the 02 group than they do with their Adventure seniors, and this is fully codified in the drama CD when Takeru is content to basically just “do whatever” with the rest of his friends instead of having any particular concerns about his future. And as someone who has a tendency to kind of just let his emotions take him wherever they’re going, this isn’t too surprising. Although he approximates as the closest to level-headed during most of the group’s antics during the CD, he’s still completely guilty of enabling them full-force, after all...

So, with the 02 epilogue, we get the massive meta reveal that the entire series was Takeru’s novels the whole time. This was planned to be the ending for Adventure before recording for the first episode had even started, but was postponed to the end of 02 when the second series was greenlit -- and if you’d followed the Japanese version, there are a ton of meta hints scattered around from day one:

The narrator of the series is Hirata Hiroaki, who played Takeru and Yamato’s father, and is revealed in this episode to voice him as an adult as well;

Episode 12 of Adventure is named “Adventure! Patamon and Me” and is the only episode title in Adventure or 02 to use a first-person pronoun -- and it’s of course a Takeru-centric episode, with the episode title using Takeru’s boku;

02′s first episode kicks off narrated by young Takeru opening the story, with Takeru himself suspiciously omitted from the opening vignettes;

02 episode 18 suddenly has the narration cut in when discussing Takeru’s trauma from Adventure episode 13, with the younger Takeru even filling in part of it himself;

02 episode 49′s “next episode” preview for 50 suddenly also starts using “we”, which also includes Takeru’s boku;

Finally, Takeru starts narrating right after Oikawa’s death, which fades into what’s revealed to be his adult voice.

In the context of Adventure, Takeru was “the youngest child”, so the idea makes sense that “the littlest one” would be the one to grow up and reflect on all of the adventures they had as kids -- and once 02 was added, it practically made sense that Takeru would be the one to recap both adventures, being the one person who was there to completely witness both (it also explains why Takeru and Hikari’s character arcs remain somewhat unresolved by the end of Adventure compared to others, since by this time it was apparent their story would be continued in the second series). So on a meta level, Takeru is, in a certain way, one of the most important characters in both groups.

On a level relevant to his personal character arc, on the other hand, the point here is that Takeru finally managed to put together his book and story in a way that he was comfortable telling the entire world about, to the point of choosing to make his entire career into it. That’s something that requires a lot of coming to terms with what happened, how he feels about it, how others feel about it, and everything about the whole ordeal in general, without compromise or (too much) bias.

And in the end, that’s really a lot!

#digimon #digimon adventure #digimon adventure 02 #takaishi takeru #takeru takaishi #shihameta

290 notes · View notes

cosmicjoke · 3 years

Text

Okay, onto chapter 128 of SnK. There’s some really huge thematic payoff in this chapter which I want to talk a little about!

The big theme that really comes full circle here is the theme of violence, and how it’s intrinsically linked to the human condition. That’s obviously a huge theme throughout this entire series, but in a lot of ways it culminates in this chapter.

I first really noticed it in a big way, in terms of having a big impact on the characters, way back in chapter 50 something, during the Uprising arc, in that scene where Jean, Connie, Sasha, Mikasa and Armin are waiting around, and they start talking about Levi and how repulsed they feel by what they perceive to be his unnecessary violence. They flatly condemn him for it, even going so far as to say there’s something wrong with him, and making bold statements about how they would never kill another person, no matter the circumstances. This statement of course comes back to bite them not long after, when Armin is forced to kill one of Kenny’s squad in order to save Jean, and Jean begins to understand the impossibility and even selfishness that can be inherent to holding without compromise to one’s moral values.

That theme comes back in a huge way in chapter 128, and it’s really interesting to see Reiner try to step in and take on the role of martyr by telling the members of the 104th that they don’t need to fight, trying to save them from the moral dilemma of killing their own comrades. What I found really interesting here was how Jean, Connie, Mikasa and Armin don’t answer at first, and you can see this is a huge struggle for them, the scenario presented before them one which clearly goes against everything they want to believe they’re fighting for. Connie even says that they’re supposed to be saving people, not murdering their friends, etc... But it’s impossible to ignore how it’s Hange who steps in and dashes any possibility of them sitting this fight out against the rocks. They say they aren’t interested in being a spectator, and reminds everyone there that humanity doesn’t have any time left for them to be debating their morality. This ties back in perfectly with what Levi had spoken to his squad about way back in the Uprising Arc, again, when he told them he doesn’t know what’s right or wrong, and that all any of them can do in any given situation is act in the way they think is best, both for themselves and those they care for, and for humanity as a whole. We’ve seen Hange come to terms with this blunt and often brutal reality well before this, during the battle for Shingashina, for example. Hange really began to separate whatever moral qualms they might have had, any emotion they might have had about killing other people, during this arc, and coming to really understand and accept that sometimes morality was something that had to be sacrificed for the greater good. Here in chapter 128, Hange isn’t interested in or willing to indulge in preserving either their, or anyone else’ moral purity at the expense of the Marlyean group. They’re in this together, and Hange understands fully that to accept Reiner’s offer of sitting back and watching while he, Annie and Pieck take on the Yeagerists would be the height of selfishness and a prime example of placing one’s own moral purity over the well being of others. I always think it’s brilliant the way AoT explores these issues, of how an uncompromising loyalty to one’s idea of morality can, in fact, lead to total disaster for others, can in fact worsen the lives of others. How if one has a moral code they are absolutely, under no circumstances, willing to break, that person often is the one who is most self-serving and self-centered, more concerned with keeping their own hands clean than with helping anyone else. SnK doesn’t condemn violence, but instead makes very strong arguments for why it is sometimes not only an option, but the ONLY option, and that’s incredibly bold, and incredibly true to reality.

Armin, as usual, is the first to understand this, after Hange reminds them all. Armin was also the first, back during the Uprising Arc, to extend understanding towards Levi and his violence, and why he had to at times resort to it. Armin flat out says here “I refuse to stand by with clean hands”. He’s acknowledging the selfishness inherent in an uncompromising moral code, and refuses to place himself above the rest of humanity, even if it means once more getting his hands dirty with the blood of other people. He still comes up with a plan to try and avoid any bloodshed, but you can see Armin is willing and ready in this moment to do whatever is necessary, which he does when he and Connie get into the situation they do with Daz and Samuel. Armin is the one who tackles Samuel, which is what gives Connie the chance to shoot him.

There’s this huge moment with Levi I want to talk about, after everything goes to shit and Armin’s plan falls apart, where Yelena says “You can’t separate humanity from violence.” And then she says to Levi “Right, Captain?”, and we get a look at Levi’s face, and once again, he just looks filled with naked despair. I think these two panels are incredibly important in understanding Levi’s own psychology during this entire final arc. Yelena is right, for once, when she says you can’t separate humanity from violence. It’s a part of the human condition. And she asks Levi specifically about it, because if anyone understands this, it’s Levi, who grew up in a world where violence was often the ONLY option, if one wanted to survive, or protect those they cared for. But Levi’s saddened expression in the following panel really speaks to his feelings regarding the undeniable truth of Yelena’s words. Levi knows it’s true, but he wishes desperately that it wasn’t. I’ve called Levi an idealist over and over, and it’s because Levi is someone who understands the way of the world, and understands human nature, with more clarity and compassion than probably any other character in the series, he understands that violence, pain, poverty, desperation, fear, death, are all a part of life, and especially a part of the human condition, and yet, even with that understanding and acceptance, Levi is also someone who strives towards something better, towards a world in which these things AREN’T necessary, aren’t inevitable. Levi has been fighting this whole time in order to try and create a world in which people can live in genuine peace and prosperity, without fear, or violence or inequality. But every bit of Levi’s life experience tells him and reminds him, day in and day out, of the impossibility of that ideal. The impossibility of creating a world in which these things don’t exist. Nothing in Levi’s life would ever lead him to believe true peace and prosperity for all is an attainable dream, nothing in his life which would ever give him real hope in that dream becoming reality. But still, he fights for it. This is part of what makes Levi so remarkable. It’s the very fact that he STRUGGLES to believe in the possibility of a better world, and yet still gives everything of himself to make it a reality, that makes Levi such a hero. In fact, Levi doesn’t really believe that it’s possible, I don’t think, his life having been too hard and too desperate to fully embrace such an ideal notion. But, once again, even as he’s riddled with doubt as to it’s attainability, he sacrifices everything he has for the possibility, no matter how slim. Levi’s naked despair in the panel following Yelena’s question is because he’s being reminded once again of the impossibility of that dream. Once again, he’s being shown that humanity is incapable of achieving true peace within itself, he’s being shown once again that people are by nature violent and warlike, and that everything he’s fought for seems more and more like a distant and hopeless dream. Yelena sits in stark contrast to Levi here. She’s bitterly accepting of the ugly reality, unmoved and unemotional. She doesn’t care. She thinks humanity is a worthless mess, unsalvageable and unworthy of salvation. To Yelena, this is the inevitable result of humanity’s very existence, and to fight for something that unrealistically idealistic is a fools errand. Indeed, Yelena seems almost to revel in it, the violence serving as affirmation of her beliefs, giving her a sense of validation. But Levi, beside her, is deeply affected, his pain and sadness openly expressed in his face, his disappointment and heartbreak plain to see. Levi is HURT by the violence, by seeing it unfold. Levi, despite knowing the truth of Yelena’s words, despite knowing from the most first-hand experience the brutal and violent nature of human beings, and the improbability of humanity ever achieving true peace, still believes with his whole heart that humanity is WORTH fighting for. Levi, despite how hard it is for him to believe in actually achieving a better world, still believes that FIGHT is worth an attempt. And that’s really one of the most vital philosophical difference between Levi and people like Yelena, or Zeke. Despite knowing and understanding better than anyone the brutal and harsh reality of the world and humanity, to Levi, it’s still something that’s worth fighting to protect, and worth sacrificing for. Even against his own, weary doubts as to its possibility. And that just shows a strength of character that is immense. To be so burdened by doubt, but still to fight with every last ounce of your strength, to give to your very last breath. That’s Levi. That strength of character, that unwavering conviction in giving his all to a cause he isn’t at all sure is even possible, is never more apparent than in this final arc, when Levi is in the most literal sense at deaths door, physically wrecked and barely able to even stand, and yet still he fights with everything he has. That truly is remarkable. That truly is heroic.

Just one more note. Floch really exposes himself in this chapter for what he actually is, which is a power freak. He’s been spouting off this whole time about the Empire of Eldia and saving the island and the people on the island and blah, blah, blah, but during his conversation with Kiyomi, he admits that he doesn’t really believe that the island will be safe, even if Eren wipes out all of humanity, that people will still continue to kill each other, and then he starts in about how what’s important now is for people to “know their place”, as he holds a gun to Kiyomi’s head. Floch is a power freak, he wants to control other people, wants to dictate to them, wants to hold power over them. He exposes that about himself here. He doesn’t actually care about Paradis, or the people on it. He’s simply getting off on being able to push other people around and make them do what he tells them to. He’s such a bitch. It was hilarious when Kiyomi took his ass down and messed his arm up.

#attack on titan #shingeki no kyojin #hange zöe #Levi Ackerman #snk 128 #meta #thoughts

24 notes · View notes

2am-theswifthour · 4 years

Text

The 8 Theory-Folklore’s Commentary on Youth

Yesterday, I took note of @taylorswift and her careful attention to the number 8.

“Not a lot going on at the moment” had 8 words. The 8th track is “august,” which is also the 8th month in the year. She has 8 deluxe editions of her album. Many attributed this to Folklore being Taylor’s 8th album. I thought it meant either a.) we needed to pay very close attention to track #8 or b.) that 8 references infinity, a.k.a “forever and ever.”

To my surprise, I was actually selling Taylor Swift short.

When listening to the album, there’s a lot of back and forth in emotion and circumstance. I was confused about the order, especially when the strikingly sobering “hoax” followed the self-aware almost-tranquility of “peace.” Then it hit me. There are two schools of thought going on.

There are 16 tracks on Folklore (excluding the bonus track none of us have heard). 16/2=8. This means there are 2 equal emotional song threads on the album. In other words, you can get two drastically different lessons listening to each group of 8.

When you separate the even numbered tracks from the odd numbered tracks you get the following:

Odd

the 1

the last great american dynasty

my tears ricochet

seven

this is me trying

invisible string

epiphany

peace

Even

cardigan

exile

mirrorball

august

illicit affairs

mad woman

betty

hoax

Odd Interpretation:

Starting with “the 1” and “the last great american dynasty,” the lyrics are very upfront in showing that the protagonists are making fully intentioned mistakes. “the 1” says, “in my defense, I have none for never leaving well enough alone” (I see you “ME!” reference). In “the last great American dynasty” it says, “she had a marvelous time ruining everything.” These characters’ folly is their youth-induced selfishness. They’re casual in the harm they cause because they distance themselves from it. They’re fine with what they don’t look at closely. When you’re young, you make a mess of things in service of YOUR need. Your need for companionship. Your need for the thrill of danger. Your need to make your mark, to be somebody, to leave something behind. The marvel of the excitement and the chase and the very vitality of teens to 20-somethings’ shenanigans blinds us to the scale of our destruction…

…until you have no choice but to face the consequences of your recklessness.

The next track, “my tears ricochet” is not your average track 5. It functions as a pivoting point. Now our narrator is the hurt party, the one baring the brunt of callous treatment. Fickle mistreatment is no longer so casual. Now it’s a torment, and the tormentor learns the scale of their damage. So much so, that they get burned too. They learned their lesson at a terrible price, but what’s most important is that they learned.

“seven” is a long-overlooked memory revisited. In this picture of naïve innocence, the narrator tells of their childish belief in the impossible. Through magic and play pretend and fantasy they are invincible. They have all the control in the world to control the world they live in. Obviously, this is a flawed perspective that everyone eventually grows out of. Fairy tales don’t solve real problems. The point is that their sense of self-importance is in service of a stronger moral compass than the first two songs. If we accept our responsibility to others, to do what we can to ensure their welfare, are we not better and more satisfied people for it?

“this is me trying” hears that lesson and attempts to walk the walk. Part of being responsible to your fellow human is taking accountability when you fumble. The narrator doesn’t know what to say or how to make it right. What they do know is that they’re here, they’ve put the bottle down, and that they’re willing to try what’s necessary to heal what they’ve hurt.

“invisible string” gives us the reward we’ve been waiting for. The narrator says, “cold was the steel of my axe to grind for the boys who broke my heart, now I send their babies presents.” This is someone who has gone from lashing out in anger at a partner from a burned relationship to genuinely wishing them well in their next stage in life. It’s a powerful testament when you can recognize that youth drives us all to make hurtful decisions and that no one is immune to change if they truly want to change. When you let the anger and lies go, the strings that tied you to them fade away. All that’s left is the string you want to hold onto. The string tied to the one who matters, because you’ve made the conscious decision to deduce that their worth as a person should equal yours. It’s a painful path to traverse through, but when you do it’s all worthwhile. That’s why the narrator can say with confidence “hell was the journey but it brought me to heaven.”

In any other album, a song like “invisible string” would be the quintessential emotional payoff for this story arc. However, because this album is a masterpiece, we have a different payoff point in “epiphany.” “epiphany” takes us out of the world of a romantic relationship. We hear descriptions of war and nurses dealing with the despair of this international pandemic. This point in this emotional thread is that it powerfully declares it’s not enough to do no harm nor is it enough to just empathize with your romantic partner. You MUST show your responsibility to your fellow man. Stand beside them. Empathize with them. See them as whole human beings. Do good by them. In other words, it is our duty to do right by everyone, for everyone bleeds, loves, and dies.

The 8-song selection ends with “peace.” The song begins by saying that their, “coming-of-age” has come and gone.” I believe this (along with “invisible string”) to be the most overtly “Taylor Swift” track in perspective. This is her speaking as herself. She lets us know that she’s grown through taking her mistakes, and the mistakes she learned through folklore, into account. She is overly aware of her flaws and feels she pales in comparison to her partner. Rather than allow those insecurities to manifest in unchecked rage or resentment, she takes it as a challenge for herself to do better. She knows she can never give him complete peace (due to inside and outside factors), but she can make the choice to give him unselfish promises and embrace the entirety of her partner’s life. This is a person who has learned the value of selflessness in love and life, which makes this whole thread worth everything.

Even Interpretation:

“cardigan” foreshadows the eventual failure of the even path. The odd interpretation I just described culminated in the narrator finding their place with “the one” because they’ve left everything petty and casually cruel behind. In “cardigan” it says “chase two girls, lose the one.” On top of this directly referencing the first track, it also implies the partner’s self-destruction. By toying with two girls, James is losing “the one.” I don’t think losing “the one” means that you keep one of the two of them. I think it means that engaging in that kind of behavior makes you into a person that isn’t ready, or worthy, of “the one” that they are meant to be with forever. Meeting and keeping “the one” has to require each partner to love themselves and their partner wholly, truly, and selflessly. They can’t be a cardigan you pick up and only wear on the weekends. They must be a wholehearted commitment.

“exile” shows the blowout from “cardigan.” The two couldn’t stay together, and Bon Iver’s (character’s) toxicity comes out full force. He thinks her new man is lesser than him. He’s prepared to throw punches despite being at fault over a hundred times. He’s seen the film before, and he didn’t like the ending because it didn’t work out for him. He wants her under his thumb, not having learned from his prior relationships that that just can’t work. They leave out the side doors, neither fully ready to confront the problems head on.

“mirrorball” is daring in its shift of focus. While all of the tracks I’ve mentioned thus far have dealt, in some way, with the problems that result from a young person’s selfishness, this song doesn’t do that. This song illustrates an extreme that young people participate in at the opposite end of the spectrum; radical selflessness. To be selfless means that you should never allow something that harms someone else to happen just because it benefits you. Young people, girls in particular, are often groomed to interpret selflessness differently. Their definition is synonymous with accommodation. Change your looks, change your personality, don’t object, and embody what your partner wants so that they’re happy. That’s why the symbol is the mirrorball in the song. It reflects everything in the room but itself. By explicitly not factoring in their own sense of self-respect in a relationship, they are unknowingly and tragically enabling their partner’s mistreatment. To be clear, that doesn’t mean abuse is their fault if they have low self-esteem. It’s not, even remotely. But not having the capacity to defend your self-worth is what keeps so many drawn into toxic relationships there for so long. This radical selflessness manifests itself in the other woman too. In “august” it explicitly says that she was living on the, “hope of it all” and that she would cancel plans in the name of a potential hookup with someone who was never hers. The idea of radical selflessness culminates in “illicit affairs” when one of the women deals with their addictive compulsion toward someone who treats them like a cheap lay. Their relationship is a secret that leaves her feeling used in parking lots and as though any trace of her is gone. These three songs have taken the desperate hopelessness of “Abigail gave everything she had to a boy who changed his mind” to the extreme.

Many have speculated that “mad woman” is a commentary on the Taylor/Scooter conflict and I’m inclined to agree. However, if I were to assign an interpretation that goes with my theory, I would say that “mad woman” details the unforeseen consequences of a tormentor’s abuse. When a toxic partner performs bad behavior, their expectation is that they will always be found in the right. After all, Taylor noted on her previous album that for men, “everyone believes [them].” So in the face of lies about her character that everyone believes, she gets rightfully angry. Her anger is their affirmation. For many, a woman being angry on her own behalf is “crazy” and “irrational.” What kind of a society have we set up? A society that promotes women to lack self-worth and, should they find it, they’ll meet a whole other exile.

“betty” is our complete look into James’ perspective. On its own, it sounds like a big romantic gesture to get behind. However, this path is very clear to put “cardigan” first. “cardigan” says, “I knew you’d miss me once the thrill expired and you’d be standin’ in my front porch light.” Lo and behold, in “betty” he shows up to her party when she doesn’t want to see him and asks if she would, “kiss [him] on the porch in front of all [her] stupid friends.” It’s an absolute punch in the gut. Betty knows in “cardigan” that he would come back after he had his fun with another girl, but that she would take him back when he saw momentary value in her again. James in “betty” claims he didn’t know anything, but that’s just an excuse. He knew what he was doing, he knew that he would be able to pick up her broken pieces with ease, he knew he could isolate her from her friends, and he knew that he could capture the imperfect “comfort” of that cardigan again.

This path ends in the final even-numbered song, “hoax.” In the odd numbers, “peace” shows a lesson learned. This even path shows what happens when we don’t learn. The seeds of youth-driven mistakes have led us here. The narrator wants nothing outside the pain of this faithless love. Without learning what it means to be selfless, the traumas of these young relationships create a never-ending cycle. The narrator knows that the “love” is a “hoax” but doesn’t care because that’s all they have. There’s no point to wanting anything else. Without the perspective of age, of truly going beyond that, they’re stuck in a truly dark place.

Final Thoughts:

Taylor Swift is an exceptional artist for a lot of reasons. No one makes albums this good this far into their career. Most artists teeter off after two or three because they retread. Their audience inevitably gets bored of them e same thing time and again. Repeating themselves is something that a lot of artists do because they want to go with the formula of what works. With Folklore, Taylor has done what few artists have dared to do. She’s allowed her discography as a place to uncompromisingly expand her worldview and challenge her listeners. She’s not reiterating previous lessons to make another quick sale. Instead, every album prior has been a steppingstone. As she said at the Time 100 Gala, she has truly turned her lessons into her legacy. From a variety of narrators, she has brought what I decree to be her best album to date. This wouldn’t happen for anyone else 8 albums into their career, but she’s done it by devoutly embracing age’s wisdom.

Learn from the highs and lows presented in these paths. As all good folklore does, it teaches us how to live better. It is our duty to live selflessly and with self-assured dignity. These writings, I have no doubt, will become integral to the legend that is Taylor Alison Swift.

585 notes · View notes

purrincess-chat · 3 years

Text

Marinette Dupain-Cheng’s Spite Playlist: Remix CH2

The feeeeeeels have only just begun! I think this Remix is going to pack a bigger emotional punch than the original, but the payoff will be so, so sweet. :)

As always, I am only sharing these here on this blog for you guys until like June when we reach chapter 21, so I need all of your love and support in the likes, comments, reblogs, tags, everywhere. Give me your feelings. I am fed by your keyboard smashes and emojis,

---

Previous Next AO3

Chapter 2: The Archer

Marinette froze on the sidewalk, scrambling to process what was happening. She closed her jaw and shifted her weight to mask her unease. Of course, she’d expected her friends to question her decision, but seeing Adrien outside the bakery door still came as a surprise. If there was anyone from her old school she was hoping to avoid, it was him. Alya she could handle, but she couldn’t bear to hear Adrien say how disappointed he was in her.

“I, uh…I have a lot of homework to catch up on and-” Her voice trailed off at his pained expression, and she tapped her feet hesitantly for a moment before sighing. She had never been good at resisting him. “Okay, you can come in.”

Adrien followed her up to the apartment silently, gaze fixed ahead. Marinette could only imagine what he was thinking. How could she do this? Why didn’t she tell anyone? Marinette avoided eye contact with him for fear of what she might see.

“Can I make you some tea?” She offered, setting her bag on the stairs.

“Sure.”

Perfect. Tea was a good excuse not to look at him, and she kept her back to him while she worked, pretending that she didn’t know where things were to stall for time. She was hyper-aware of his eyes on her, following her every move. Watching. Waiting. She couldn’t keep this up forever, so she might as well get it over with.

“So, what’s up?” she asked while she filled the kettle.

“Marinette.”

“Do you like sugar in your tea?”

“Marinette.”

“I think we have some honey around here somewhere…”

“Marinette.”

“Preference on cup color?”

“Marinette.”

She pressed her lips into a line, tapping her nail on the counter before turning around to face him. “I know what you’re going to say,” she said. “‘Why did you leave? How could you do this? I thought we were friends. Why didn’t you tell us?’ Look, I know, okay?”

Adrien waited for her to finish, expression grave, though he didn’t look disappointed or angry. No, there was something else in his expression, those green eyes clouded and hazy. Sad, she realized. Adrien’s eyes were full of sadness and worry, and honestly, she would have preferred disappointment. If he was disappointed, she could defend her decision, but sad only made her guilt worse. She would rather Adrien forget her entirely than look at her with those big sad eyes.

Marinette flinched when he took a step toward her, hands shaking at her sides until Adrien reached out to place his hands on her shoulders.

“Are you okay?” he asked softly.

“Aren’t you mad at me?” Tears bubbled in the corners of her eyes. “Don’t you want to know why I left without saying goodbye?”

“Because you’re hurting.” He trailed his thumb across her cheek to catch a tear. “No one believed you about Lila, and you felt like your friends were shunning you, so you left because you were hurt. How could I be mad at you?”

“I’m not just hurt…” Marinette shook her head. “I’m angry and heartbroken and frustrated and-” Her vision blurred, hot tears streaming down her cheeks. Adrien pulled her against his chest. Burying her face in his shoulder, she let all of her pain overflow.

A week ago, she would have killed for him to hold her like this, but the numbness weighing down her heart left no room for happiness. All of the color had been drained from her life from the friends she left behind right down to the clothes on her back. Everything was gray and dark. Even Adrien couldn’t bring light back to her world now.

“I’m sorry, Marinette,” he whispered. “This is all my fault.”

“No, it’s not!” She shook her head, sniffling noisily.

Adrien brushed another tear from her cheek. “I told you not to confront Lila, but I didn’t know you felt that strongly. If I hadn’t stopped you, then you wouldn’t have left,” he said. “I just didn’t want to cause conflict, and I hoped that Lila could be reasoned with if we could just get through to her, but…”

“There’s something else I should tell you,” Marinette said. “I wasn’t going to tell anyone because I didn’t think they’d believe me, but you already know the truth, so…”

The screech of the kettle interrupted before she could speak. She turned to tend to it, rubbing at her nose. Her hands shook as she poured, so Adrien placed his hands over hers to help her hold it steady. She’d almost forgotten how kind he was. At least this part of her old life wasn’t entirely lost. This precious, beautiful part.

“Talk to me,” Adrien said once they sat on the couch, and Marinette took a deep breath.

“I don’t think that there is a way to get through to Lila,” she said, voice hoarse as she swirled her index finger around the rim of her cup. “The day she came back to school, she came up to me in the bathroom and tried to manipulate me just like everyone else, and when I called her out on it, she turned on me in an instant. She told me that I was either with her or against her, and that if I didn’t play along, then she was going to turn everyone against me.”

“She said that?” Adrien gasped, and Marinette nodded, biting her lip.

“That’s not all,” she continued. “After she left, I was crying in the stall, and…an akuma came—the one that ended up turning her into Chameleon. It was meant for me.”

“Marinette…” He shifted closer to wrap an arm around her. “I had no idea.”

“I fought it off.” She shrugged, sipping her tea. “I’ve always been good at finding the silver lining, but with Lila…”

“Well, that would explain a lot about today then,” Adrien sighed. “She told everyone in class that you didn’t say goodbye because you don’t care about us and that you just wanted attention.”

“And let me guess, everyone in the class believed her?” Marinette grunted, rolling her eyes.

“I don’t think people know what to believe, but it made me sick to hear her say those things about you because I know they’re not true, and I think deep down everyone else does too.” He shifted his gaze down to his lap. “I should have said something, but…I guess I’m just a coward. You must think I’m a pretty bad friend.”

“I don’t think that!” she insisted. “You came over because you knew I was upset which is more than I can say about anyone else.”

“What do you think we should do?” he asked. “I still don’t think outright exposing her is the way to go.”

“No, she’s too crafty. She’ll just lie her way out of it.” Marinette affirmed with a disgusted scowl. “Honestly, I don’t think there is anything we can do to her without backlash. It’s our word against hers.”

“Yeah…” Adrien shifted with a guilty grimace. “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“How did you figure out that Lila was lying?” He glanced up to meet her gaze.

Marinette pursed her lips, debating how much truth to reveal to him. She supposed that lying wouldn’t be ideal in this situation, but she couldn’t exactly tell him everything. Sighing, she set her teacup down on the coffee table and turned to face him head-on.

“You’re probably not gonna like it,” she said, “but I’ll tell you.” She paused for a moment to draw in a breath before continuing. “The first day that Lila came to school, everyone was so impressed with everything she was saying, but the more stories I heard, the more suspicious I got. Everything seemed too amazing, then I saw her talking to you, and… I got concerned, so I followed you two—mostly Lila! I watched her buy that necklace at the store dump your father’s book in the trash, and I heard everything when Ladybug showed up, and so yeah.”

“You really followed us?” He quirked a brow. “So, you know how I know then.”

“Yeah…” She clasped her hands together in her lap and tapped her index fingers together. “I didn’t trust her, and I was worried about you.”

A smile curled on his lips, and he tilted her chin to look at him. “You’re always looking out for your friends,” he said. “I’m really sorry that everyone else sided against you. For what it’s worth, I prefer your company to Lila’s any day.”

She smiled at that. “Thank you, Adrien.”

“I wish you hadn’t left, but I understand why you did,” he said, “I’d never ask you to come back somewhere where you felt victimized, but I am going to miss seeing you every day.”

“You can come by any time you like.” Marinette offered. “You’re my friend, Adrien, and just because I changed schools doesn’t mean that has to stop.”

“You’re right.” He took her hands and gave them a squeeze. “Promise me you’ll keep in touch?”

“Oh, I will,” she said. “One of my new friends is a big fan of yours.”

“I’d love to meet them, and if ever you need me, I’ll always be here for you,” he assured her.

Marinette relaxed at the sentiment before letting out a deep breath.

“I guess we just have to hope that Lila lies herself into a corner,” she said.

“She will, eventually. Then everyone will see her for who she truly is,” Adrien said. “Liars only hurt themselves in the end.”

“Yeah…” Marinette pursed her lips, then taking a chance said, “Well, if you’re free for a while… we could do our homework together. It’ll take our minds off of everything.”

“That sounds nice, and you can tell me about your new school.” He perked up.

The tension in the room faded, but before they could move, Marinette’s dad burst through the front door. “I brought up some fresh baked cookies for you two.” He announced, setting the plate on the coffee table.

“Thanks, Papa.” Marinette stretched up to kiss his cheek. “Adrien and I are gonna do our homework.”

“I won’t get in your way then,” her dad said. He brushed her cheek with his finger. “I can’t wait to hear all about your first day tonight. Your mother and I will be down in the bakery if you two need anything.”

“Thanks, Mr. Dupain,” Adrien said politely. When her dad retreated back to the bakery, he added, “Your parents are nice. I can see where you get it from,” he said sincerely. “You’re always doing your best to help others without ever asking for anything in return. I’ve always really admired that about you, Marinette. The world could use more people like you.”

Marinette covered her face with her hands, cheeks hot with embarrassment. She wasn’t prepared for such compliments today, but she’d be lying if she said it didn’t cheer her up.

He chuckled, pulling her hands away from her face. “I’m happy we’re friends, Marinette, and if you ever need anything, don’t hesitate to call.”

The golden glow of the setting sun through the window illuminated his face, and for one fleeting moment, all of the colors she once loved flashed in his eyes. For the first time since making her decision, Marinette felt like everything would be okay.

She gave his hands a squeeze and offered him a shy smile. “Thank you, Adrien. For everything.”

♪♫♪ Haunted ♪♫♪

Alya stuffed her books into her bag, lacking her usual enthusiasm. Nothing in her world seemed right that day. Every time she glanced over at Marinette’s empty seat, her chest tightened. Now as she stood in front of her locker, staring at old pictures hanging inside, Lila’s words echoed in her mind.

“Maybe she wasn’t really your friend after all.”

That couldn’t be true. Marinette was her best friend. They told each other everything.

“If she really cared about you, she would have told you she was leaving.”

There had to be an explanation, but Alya couldn’t think of one.

“Maybe you don’t know her as well as you thought you did.”

True, Marinette was always running late and coming up with excuses, but Alya always thought she was just scatter-brained. Maybe Lila was right, and Marinette was hiding something from all of them. Maybe all she wanted was attention. The only people Marinette ever clashed with were Chloe and Lila—two people who got tons of attention from everyone. Not to mention she was always strangely possessive of Adrien…

Alya shook her head to clear it, but her doubts remained, questioning everything about her friendship with Marinette. What was real, and what wasn’t? Everything she thought she knew had been turned on its head so quickly that she didn’t have time to get her bearings. Marinette was gone, and from the looks of it, she wasn’t coming back to offer any explanations.

The photos of the two of them smiled back at Alya, and the pressure in her chest returned as angry tears bubbled in her eyes. How could she leave without saying goodbye? Didn’t their friendship mean anything to her?

With a growl, Alya reached inside and ripped the photos out, tearing them to shreds as she sank to her knees. She squeezed her eyes shut, clutching the last picture as tears rolled down her cheeks. Lost in her anguish, she didn’t notice the black butterfly hovering over her until it touched the edge of the photo, and a familiar voice sounded in her head.

“Hello, again.”

#mdcspr #my writing #marinette dupain cheng's spite playlist remix #sorry its late busy day

122 notes · View notes

enigmainvestigations · 3 years

Text

ENI Season 1 Finale (episodes 8 - 14)

AO3 post: ??? Series link: ???

Episode 8 - A New Client

The man on the ground before him was out cold. Edward knelt and checked the hitman’s jacket pockets and found a pack of Lucky’s, which he pocketed. Next, he checked the man’s pants pockets, but those turned up empty. He pivoted on his feet to check the condition of the hitman behind him, hovering his hand near the man’s nostrils. This one’s breath was faster than the first, and Edward figured he must be coming to. But he didn’t need to worry too much about that; they all looked too beaten up to be much of a threat. Edward rolled the man over to get to his jacket pockets, and, as he did, the man groaned under his breath. Stuffing a hand into the man’s jacket, he found a small piece of paper. His eyes scanned it -- it looked like a phone number -- and he pocketed it to keep it out of the rain. Checking the other pocket in his jacket, Edward heard the man groan again. He looked down and saw the young man’s eyes staring up at him.

Edward grinned as he continued to search him. “First time, huh?”

The man moaned in pain, and rolled over, his motions stiff and weak. Edward patted him down, checking for a firearm. The man attempted to push his arm away, but Edward swatted at his hand to stop him. “Oh, stop complaining. Let me let you in on a little secret, it hurts much more the second day. I’d take it slow if I were you.”

Moving up on his feet, Edward made his way down the alley to the third hitman, who was also beginning to stir on the ground. Checking him, he pulled out a photograph from the man’s jacket. It was a photo of Edward himself -- it looked like it was taken on his night out at the local bars. A small smile crossed his lips, and he pocketed the photo; the man didn’t seem to care, instead focusing all his attention on an attempt to stop the blood gushing from his nose. As he stood, Edward looked down at the men who were writhing in pain, one rigidly attempting to sit up.

“Well boys, you’re on his bad side now. I wish you luck,” he tilted his hat to them, a wide grin on his face as he turned to head out of the alley.

He traveled away from the area, taking a few side routes just in case they’d gotten to their feet and made the idiotic decision to try to kill him a second time. He knew better than to assume the Bat had moved on. He was sure the dark figure was watching him, following him from above like a stalking predator. Edward assumed the Bat had left to see what he would do in his absence. It was a test, something he did frequently to observe people’s behavior. He hated to admit it, it was an intelligent move. But Edward hadn’t touched any of the men’s money, even though the thought had crossed his mind. He could consider it payment for trying to take his life. However, that wouldn’t have been a smart thing to do. If he’d done it, then the Bat would come after him once he was at a safe distance from the alley. That was still a possibility even now though, and his eyes scanned the rooftops around him as he walked and listened to his surroundings for any motion.

Edward hoped Batman wouldn’t reappear -- that whole encounter had been quite jarring and confusing. It hadn’t even crossed his mind that Batman would show up, let alone assist him. His mind kept trying to figure out why the vigilante had entered the fray. The logical answer was that it was because Edward was a civilian now, a citizen that had a hit out on him, and the Bat did what he always does in that situation. But that concept felt too simple, too foreign for him to accept. So, his mind continued to speculate what Batman’s play could’ve been.

He had to admit, it was quite frightening to see the man in action from a different perspective. The spine-chilling tales that surrounded Batman made more sense now. He could only imagine what that encounter must’ve been like from the perspective of a regular citizen. Edward had always seen Batman as a foe -- not quite an equal, but close. The fear he instilled in others had always been something he’d considered the woes of lesser men. But now, the chess pieces had moved, and they were both playing on a different board. Perhaps that was it: he was one of the lesser men now, a regular citizen that needed a phantom to swoop in to save him. Edward felt a wave of emotion hit him abruptly; the sensation of not belonging once again invaded his mind. He tried to keep himself focused on his route rather than waste the time letting it control his thoughts.

Edward couldn’t use the underground shortcut to return -- it was too risky with Batman tailing him. Instead, he opted to make the trip as boring as possible, especially now that he was too far for the men to follow. It made his walk longer, but he needed the time to think over the stark amount of new information he’d acquired.

Two of the hitmen had been young and inexperienced. The man he’d crossed paths with in the loading alley appeared just as surprised to see Edward as Edward was to see him. The thing about young and inexperienced hitmen is they’re cheap, and easy to find in Gotham. Ignorant boys trying to make some quick cash, though any real criminal in the city wouldn’t waste their time on them. Those two facts boded well for him. He was dealing with someone who didn’t know what they were doing, and surely this wouldn’t be the only mistake they made. Whoever they were, the need to hire hitmen showed they were afraid, and fear makes people do stupid things. Stupid things like tilting their hands too much, letting information slip, or jumping out into the open in an illogical attempt to hide. It was a human trait Edward had preyed on frequently during his criminal career, an easy emotion to exploit under the right circumstances.

However, what he hadn’t expected was that whoever this culprit was would take the drastic action of trying to kill him. Nothing in the evidence pointed to such behavior being a predictable reaction. To the culprit it was only a bunch of empty buildings, and he couldn’t fathom what payoff could be involved that would be worth murder. Then again, they were playing a dangerous game and were clearly out of their league. Edward poking his nose around might have been just enough to scare them into making such a silly mistake. Though, he doubted they knew very much about him, or they wouldn’t have been so foolish. Nor would they have made the classic mistake criminals did regularly in this city.

They didn’t hire one hitman, they’d hired three -- the logical fallacy that greater numbers mean a greater possible outcome of success. It was a mistake many in the underground made with the Bat. One guy with a gun couldn’t stop him, so get twenty guys with more guns and the plan will be successful. No one ever considered the obvious: the guns didn’t work, no matter how many you added to the scenario. The more men you used simply meant you wasted more money. It was a mistake he’d never made when dealing with Batman, and it was one of the first riddles about the man he’d solved.

Though, Edward wasn’t very happy about having a hit out on him. He was sick and tired of people trying to kill him, and the fact that he’d have to spend even more time looking over his shoulder just made him feel drained. As he crossed the bridge to the south island he checked his watch; it was three in the morning. Much later than he’d intended to be out, but it didn’t appear that anyone had seen him out and about -- anyone other than the Bat, that is. He could only hope Batman wouldn’t pull some passive-aggressive move and tip off some officer to his activities this evening. By the time he’d unlocked his office door, he was beginning to feel very exhausted. So exhausted, in fact, that he might not even have to drink tonight to get his mind to quiet down.

He was correct in that belief, and he didn’t have to lay on the couch for very long before sleep took him. His rest was deep, and by the time he was awoken by the ringing of the phone the next morning, he had impressions on his skin from the cushions on the couch. In a haze, he pulled the phone down beside him, picked up the handset, and rubbed his face, trying to wake up.

“Isn’t this late for your check-in call, officer?” he muttered into the phone.

There was a short pause on the line, “Excuse me?” Edward could hear quite a lot of noise through the phone, and the voice wasn’t officer Blue 334. “I’m sorry, is this Edward Nigma’s residence?”

Edward yawned, fumbling with his glasses on the floor beside him, “Yeah? Who is this?”

“This is officer Wilkes, I’m --”

“Ahh, Wilkes the snitch. How’re you this fine morning, Wilkes?” Edward propped his glasses on and ran a hand through his hair as he continued to wake.

“I-I’m fine?” He seemed confused by the question, but he cleared his throat in an attempt to regain his professional demeanor. “Mr. Nigma, I’m calling you on behalf of the Commissioner --”

“Is that right?” Edward interrupted.

“...Yes, he would like to speak with you, it concerns a case he’s investigating --”

Edward let out a groan of annoyance.

“-- he would like for you to come to his office this evening.” Wilkes finished, a slight twinge of irritation in his tone.

“This evening?” Edward asked through another yawn.

“Yes, he’s very busy, but he can work you in at eleven tonight.”

Edward rolled his eyes. “Yeah, sure, whatever. Tell him I’ll be there,” and he dropped the handset back onto the receiver on the floor.

Immediately, he drifted back to sleep. When he woke again, he adjusted his glasses -- as they’d started digging into the bridge of his nose -- and checked his watch. It was one in the afternoon, and he struggled to pull himself off the couch, his muscles sore from the exertion of the night before. He went through his normal morning routine: he grabbed one of the apples from the kitchen and picked through the new pieces of evidence he’d acquired on his desk. The photo was still a source of amusement for him, and the paper with the phone number didn’t have any other useful information on it. Tossing the apple core into the trash bin, he picked the receiver up off the floor and dialed the number on his rotary phone. He was surprised when the operator picked up the line and asked him to check which number he was calling. Reciting the digits to her, he waited as she checked it again, but, unfortunately, the line was a dead end. He thanked the operator, and, as he set down the phone, he began to fidget. Perhaps they weren’t as foolish as he’d thought, or the number wasn’t a phone number at all.

He flopped into his desk chair, took out one of his notepads, and began working the number through any variation he could think of. He tried to see if there was any alphabetic translation, or if it was some kind of cipher, but everything ended up being nonsense. He flipped the paper over and over in his hand, trying to figure out what else it could be, before tossing it back to the desktop. He was applying too much intelligence to this, there was no way it could be this complicated. The events of last night had proven that, and every time he tried to look at it through a more skilled lens he ended up at a dead end. He was starting to get the feeling that the answer was easy, and it was right under his nose. But right now his mind was foggy -- he was sure he’d gotten too much sleep. He slid the paper and the notepad into his desk drawer and shut it with a flick of his hand. He needed more coffee.

The rest of the day was uneventful. He’d taken a trip down to the diner closer to Old Gotham, thinking a change in environment might help his brain get in gear. A morning paper had been left in one of the booths, and so he’d spent most of his time drinking coffee and scanning the classifieds for any potential work. There hadn’t been any fires yesterday, though that might be because whoever was responsible for the others was now focused on him. After he left the diner, he was feeling more alert and much more energized. He started to make a mental list of places he needed to visit to further the fire investigation, or at least to see if he could get his hands on some records to find a connection between the buildings. He swung back by the office in the evening and grabbed his coat and hat. Then, he headed down to the underground train station.

Once he got onto the platform, he checked his watch; he was early. Just how he liked it. When you weren’t sure what a meeting was for it was best to show up much earlier than the agreed time. It gave the other side less time for preparation and made it more likely that you would enter the discussion at an advantage. He was lucky today -- the trains were on time -- but as he got into the car, his leg muscles tensed. He’d certainly exerted too much energy last night in his malnutritioned state. Edward watched as the lights on the tunnel walls flashed by the windows as it continued on its track, the ambient rustle of the train car almost relaxing. The woman in the car with him kept sneaking glances in his direction. He was sure she recognized him. At one point he caught her staring and stared back, but it was immediately obvious she wasn’t another hitman. He saw nothing but fear in her eyes. Eventually, she got up and moved to the back of the car to put more distance between them and to place herself closer to an exit.

As the train finally approached his stop, Edward stood up and headed to the door, grabbing hold of the railing above to keep his balance. He noticed the woman in the back of the car watching him as he exited the train; at least now she could be at ease. The station was much busier here, and he watched the crowds of people migrating to and from the train around him. He found himself gathered in with the night workers as they traveled up the stairs to the street level. Some of them looked in his direction, but most were too preoccupied with their morning routines to worry. Getting up to the sidewalk, Edward looked around. The traffic was much busier here, even at this late hour. He remembered that this part of the city was very chaotic during the territory wars, but it looked as if it hadn’t suffered too much of the destruction. The streets looked much the same, and to a tourist it would look like it had been nothing but business as usual here. It felt like a photograph, almost like a time capsule.

He looked across the street to his destination, the GCPD headquarters -- the new one, he reminded himself. They had a bad track record of letting these buildings get destroyed, or at least become unusable. He hurried through a break in the traffic and made his way up the wide stone steps to the entrance. He’d only walked through the front doors of this particular building twice, and he was barely conscious at the time. Once inside, he stopped and looked around the small entryway, spotting a plaque on the wall with office numbers. He barely looked at it, just skimmed, knowing the name would catch his eye. And it did. Commissioner and 3rd were all he needed, and he hurried up the steps on his right.

He wasn’t sure what this meeting was for, but he did find it odd that Gordon hadn’t made the invite call himself. Having Wilkes do it could be interpreted in different ways, some insulting and some logical. He assumed Gordon was going to try another tactic to question him about the events inside the Narrows, and he was more than willing to show up for that game. He’d grown tired of his frequent phone calls, and the idea of Gordon trapped in his office with an unrelenting Edward sounded like a good way to spend the evening hours. He wondered how long it was going to take Gordon to figure out that most of the people affected weren’t going to speak. It was Jim’s job, yes; Edward knew that, but it was too ugly of a thing to look back at.

As he climbed the stairs, he noticed many nasty looks from the officers he passed. Some of them looked angry, but others just looked disappointed. Probably that you’re still breathing, Edward thought. Good, I hope it ruins their day. Finally getting to the third floor, Edward began a slow stride down the long hall. The open area to his left was filled with mostly empty desks, and only a few detectives spotted the area, hunched over paperwork or clicking away at their typewriters. He noticed one staring and felt a burst of excitement in his chest. Bullock was sitting at this desk, staring him down, their last encounter clearly not forgotten. Edward noticed he had a new haircut, and that, like last time, he didn't look as rough for wear as Edward was used to. Maybe he finally quit drinking, probably not the best decision in the current climate. With a tilt of his hat he gave Bullock a smile, but Harvey only let out a groan Edward could barely hear and turned back to his work in a huff. Thanks, Bullock, he thought. That at least told Edward he wasn’t here for some empty threat of arrest; Harvey wouldn’t be able to contain his joy if that was the case. That was good, he was tired of that boast.

Getting to Gordon’s office door, he knocked in a rhythmic pattern and entered after hearing an invitation from within. The room was dark other than the lamp on Gordon’s desk, and as Edward entered he noted the slight look of surprise on Jim’s face. Edward closed the door behind him and watched Jim sit up in his chair, and the annoyance on his face made Edward’s mood fly into jubilation.

Jim looked at his watch. “I guess eleven o’clock is ten-thirty in Arkham time.”

“Early bird gets the worm, Jim. I’m a working man now, being overly punctual looks good on all my paperwork.” Edward responded, happily nestling his hands into his coat pockets.

Jim let out an exhausted breath. Taking the work folder off his desk, he shoved it into one of the drawers, but not before Edward could catch a few words off the pages. Jim lit a cigarette as he stood, making his way over to the filing cabinet by the window.

“You want a coffee or anything?” Jim mumbled as he pulled a few files out.

“Got anything stronger?” Edward prodded.

“Yes, but I’m not wasting it on you,” Jim said as he moved back toward his desk with a stack of files in hand. As Jim moved past the window, Edward spotted a tall dark figure there, blocking the moonlight shimmering through the panes. In an instant, his jubilation was gone. Edward glared at the white eyes staring at him from the darkness, and he felt his chest tightened at the realization he hadn’t noticed earlier that the Bat was there.

“Have a seat, Edward,” Jim said as he sat back down at his desk.

“I’ll stand.” Edward blurted out, his eyes still fixated on the dark corner.

Jim’s eyes shifted between the two men, but he decided to ignore the clear animosity Edward held, “Whatever makes you more comfortable, I guess.” He took a deep drag from his snipe and looked Edward square in the eyes, “Alright, Ed. We know --”

“Edward. We’ve been through this, you don’t get to call me that.” Edward interrupted.

“...Edward, I know that you’re investigating the fires.” Jim finished.

Edward stuffed his hands deeper into his coat pockets, giving Jim a stern look. “Is that what this meeting is about? I’m not telling you a damn thing, Jim.” He gave the commissioner a smug grin. “If that’s all, can I go now?”

Jim narrowed his eyes, leaning forward over his desk a bit and piercing Edward with a stern look that only fathers could muster. “How about you let me finish? You think you can keep that smart mouth of yours shut long enough for me to explain?”

Edward gritted his teeth, “Fine.”

Jim puffed on his cigarette, and Edward could tell he’d already gotten on the man’s nerves, which would’ve been enjoyable if it wasn’t for their third wheel. Letting out a deep sigh, the smoke flew around Jim in the bright light from the lamp.

“Edward, I know you’re investigating the fires. You’ve been spotted at a couple of the scenes, and --”

“They weren’t locked down.” Edward interrupted again, but a swift look from Jim made him shut his mouth.

“And, I don’t know how much you’ve figured out on your own. I know this is going to sound strange, but I’m not asking you to divulge all your intel to us. I asked you here to tell you what we know.” Jim finished.

Edward frowned in confusion, then laughed under his breath. “You can’t be serious. You want to tell me what you know?”

“To be honest, this case is pretty complicated,” Jim mumbled around the cigarette in his mouth, “We both decided that the more eyes we have looking at it is a good thing. And then, you’ll have a better idea of what to look for should any new evidence crop up.” Edward could tell he was trying his best to remain professional, to ease any suspicions that Edward had. But the detective knew this was a trick, it had to be. There was no way on Earth either of these men would confide information to him. Edward opened his mouth to speak, but Jim cut him off.

“And, before you say it, no, this isn’t some scheme to get you to tell us what you know. And, again, before you ask, yes, there’s a catch. There’s something we’d like to ask for in return.” Jim huffed out a puff of smoke. “C’mon, Nigma, you’re used to this. We help you with your investigation, and in turn, you help us with a problem we’ve been running up against. It's been causing us some trouble and slowing down progress in the investigation.”

Edward looked between the two men, running through possible options in his mind. He felt out of sorts again, unsure what guise would be the best strategy for this situation. He couldn't play his tried-and-true Riddler shtick, that could ruin everything. But he was too flustered to act out the know-it-all attitude, too put-out for the calm and collected better-than-you routine. The offer was intriguing, but it was sending off every alarm bell in his mind. Then the Bat stepped out of the shadows, and as he got closer to the desk the lamplight made more of him visible. It was much different seeing him in the light than in the dark alley the night before. Edward felt his pulse quicken, and then that grating deep voice finally filled the room.

“Nigma.”

“Don’t,” Edward interrupted, yet again.

“Nigma --”

“I’m here to talk to Jim! I don’t want to hear anything you have to say. If I knew you were going to be here, I wouldn't have come at all.” Edward’s breath hastened, and he cursed himself mentally. That came across less direct and more childish than he’d intended, but the Bat remained silent.

He hated that, he’d always hated it. That expressionless, silent stare always grated on his nerves. Edward hated it even more now that he knew what it was, and that, before, he’d fallen for it so easily. It was an interrogation tactic: remain silent to entice the other to continue speaking. He wasn’t going to fall for it this time, he’d learned this tactic as well, so he simply stared back. Which seemed like a good idea at first, but the longer he looked, the more uncomfortable he became. The light showed him how different the cowl was now, and the cape had changed as well. It always annoyed Edward when the Bat would show up with a whole new suit -- keeping up with all the variations was tedious work. He saw a small nick in the cowl on one side, Hit with something no doubt. Edward’s first thought was that he hoped it hurt, but that thought brought on a strange melancholy sensation. He remembered that the Bat had been hurt a lot recently, and he had no idea how badly since he wasn’t there to see it. He had been... preoccupied at the time.

He’d heard some of the stories, but when it came to the Dark Knight those were mostly untrue. He wasn’t as extravagant as the tales made him out to be. Then, all of a sudden, one of those stories flashed in his memory. They said he’d stayed outside the barricades for a whole week, trying to find a way to break in to save people. But, all his attempts were unsuccessful. Edward hated that one in particular; it sounded exactly like the sort of thing the stubborn idiot would do, and the thought of it made him uneasy. He broke the long stare, his eyes wandering around the room as he tried to look unbothered.

Jim’s gruff voice broke the uncomfortable silence. “Edward, we need your help. That’s what he’s trying to say, that’s why we called you here.”

Edward froze and attempted to hide his shock at that statement, but his gaze darted to Jim’s. He saw genuine pleading in the commissioner’s eyes, and he let out a howl of frustration. Jim arched a brow at the sudden outburst but only watched as Edward reached up and removed his glasses, rubbing his eyes in annoyance. Placing them back on, he stomped over to the chair in front of Jim’s desk and sat down with a completely defeated look on his face. Jim seemed to relax at this development, his eyes rested on Edward for a few moments before standing up, “I’ll get you that stiffer drink.”

“Yeah, you better.” he replied, ignoring Jim as he walked past him toward the front of the office. Edward took his coat and hat off, tossing them in the vacant chair beside him. He flinched; suddenly, there was a large file being slid in front of him by a gloved hand. It opened the folder and flipped through some of the pages before stopping on a pile of photographs. As the hand retreated, Edward began to sift through them. There were a lot more fires than he’d known of. But it was what he’d come to expect: the fires all started on different floors, there were different levels of damage, and they were in all different areas of the slums. He heard Gordon pouring some liquid into a glass, which he placed next to him. Flipping through the investigation notes, Edward noticed that they’d already answered one of his questions. The building’s owners had no connection -- at least that was one lead he wouldn’t have to waste his time on.

“You’re sure they’re all connected?” Edward’s question was directed at Jim, and he hoped he’d take the hint.

He heard Jim’s voice move across from him as he sat back down. “That’s what he says. There are some connections, but not many, on paper at least.”

Edward kept that in mind as he continued to read through all the statements from those involved, noting the lack of actual witnesses. He took a sip from his glass without thinking, scotch, he noted. Of course, he’d have scotch. A familiar address jumped out on one of the pages: Mrs. Hattie’s previous residence. He noted the lack of a witness report from her as well as he took another sip from his drink and removed his cigarette pack from his jacket pocket.

“You think it's arson?” Edward asked, though this question was directed at Batman.

There was a pause before that grating voice spoke. “It's possible.”

“It’d have to be someone who had direct access to every building.” Edward stated plainly.

“Not necessarily. A lot of the buildings have been vacant for an extended time.”

“So there isn’t a lot of foot traffic. I get it, but you’d think that it’d be in just one area. It's up north, south, all over.” Edward slid a snipe into the side of his mouth and lit it with a match.

“That’s one of the issues with that theory,” the Bat said. “It's possible, but someone blending in in that many neighborhoods would be difficult.”

“Unless they’re some public servant or something. No one ever suspects the mailman.”

“It's possible, but there are other theories as well. I’m sure you’ll figure them all out.” said Batman. The tone of his voice sounded rather final, as if he was putting an end to the questioning.

Edward put the file back on the desk, taking a drag on his snipe. “Have somewhere to be, do you?”

“Is that satisfactory, Edward?” Jim cut in, Edward shifted his gaze back up to the commissioner and gave him a tired nod.

“Good. Feel free to take it with you, and give it a good look over. Not sure how many of those folks are your clients, but hopefully it helps.” Gordon leaned back in his chair, and Edward could tell he was about to be put in an uncomfortable situation. Jim rubbed his mustache, giving Edward a stern yet pleading look. “We’re having trouble getting people to cooperate with us on this. The owners of the buildings are the only ones speaking to us, the people who lived there or even nearby don’t want to talk. It puts us in a tough spot, and we’re really strapped on any potential witnesses. That leaves us with just paper trails, and stakeouts to see who shows up at the scene. As you can see, it's not much to go on.”

Edward saw the opportunity for a dig right away, and his eyes narrowed, as he took another drag on his snipe. “Did you expect any other reaction than that? Only a fool would think the people in those areas would cooperate with you two.” Edward noted Jim’s quick glare and held up a questioning hand. “What does that have to do with me?”

Jim took a deep breath, snuffing out his cigarette in the tiny ashtray on his desk. “You didn’t seem to have too many issues getting them to talk to you.”

Edward’s eyebrows raised, a knowing smile crossing his face. “Ah, I see. Were you all tailing me on my bar crawl the other night?”

“Maybe. And you didn’t appear to have too many issues. People were willing to talk to you --”

Edward waved his hand in a flippant gesture. “Jim, they’re a bunch of working people. They get off their shifts, and head to the local watering hole. They only talked to me because they were intoxicated, and, well, because they live in the damn slums. They’re not used to us flashy people who are all over the news showing up in their area.”

Jim raised a brow. “You think they talked to you because you were a super-criminal?”

Edward shrugged, draping his arm over the back of the chair. “Is it that hard to fathom, Jim? They’ve only read about me in the papers, seen me on the television. Or they’ve seen my mugshot on wanted posters plastered around the city. I’m sure they never thought I’d show up in a tiny dive bar in the slums wanting to talk to them.” Edward looked between the two of them, a smug grin crossing his face. “I know you two think I’m terribly dangerous, but you need to understand that to some people, dangerous is exciting.”

Jim contemplated his reasoning and briefly looked to Batman, who nodded in response to his questioning look. Edward’s eyes shifted between them again, and he took one final drag on his cigarette before snuffing it out in the ashtray. “So that’s it, huh? You want me to go bar hopping for you two?”

Jim rested his elbows on his desk, his fingers brushing his mustache. “Do you think they’d speak to you again? Would more people talk to you if you tried?”

Edward shrugged, crossing his arms across his ribs and his ankles under Jim’s desk as he slumped in the chair. “It's an idea. I could canvas the areas, but it will require some door-to-door visits. That’s not exactly the safest situation to put myself in.”

Jim nodded and looked to Batman again. “We should do some thorough background checks on these people, make sure none of them are sympathizers or supporters.” Batman nodded in agreement, and Jim looked back to Edward. “We'll send along a list of people to avoid. I guess we’ll try to take another crack at them while you’re gathering intel.”

Edward pressed his lips together, fixing Jim with a serious look. As long as they were agreeing to do that for him, it wouldn’t hurt to see what else he could get them to agree to. “So, how much am I getting paid for this job? And who is buying my drinks? I’m not spending my own money buying booze for people all night long.”

Jim huffed as he leaned back in his chair, gesturing towards Edward as he looked to Batman. “See? I told you.”

Edward smirked, but Batman shifted his gaze down to him. “You’ll be compensated, Nigma.”

“Oh, you’re paying for it? How do I know this isn’t some scam to get a bug into my office?” Edward’s eyes narrowed, but the Bat didn’t react, still giving Edward that silent, annoying stare.

“You’ll be compensated.” he said again, and Edward let out the breath he was holding. That had been too easy, and he decided to see how far he could go until he encountered some push-back.

“Fine, but there’s one more thing. I’m going to need some help.” Edward uncrossed his arms, draping them over the armrests of his chair.

“What kinda help?” Jim asked, giving Edward a suspicious look over the rim of his glasses.

“Well, some people do find chatting with me to be exciting, but others might need a little push to be more upfront with their information. Sometimes it can take people a while to start opening up to me --” Edward decided to ignore Jim’s eye roll of agreement to that, “and since time seems to be a factor in this, it would be smart to have some backup. Some... persuasive backup.”

Jim frowned. He could tell this wasn’t going anywhere good, and Edward was attempting to manipulate the situation. “Alright then, who are you suggesting be your persuasive backup?”

Edward grinned, his fingers tapping out a rhythm on the armrests. “Robin.”

Jim’s eyes widened. “Really, Nigma? You’re gonna pull that kinda shit?” Edward could feel the Bat’s intimidating presence grow as the mood in the room drastically shifted.

He quickly held up his hands. “Calm down, gentlemen! I have my reasons.” Both of the men were glaring at him with anger so tangible he felt like he could cut it with a knife, and his mood improved in an instant. “Okay, number one. He’s,” Edward flicked a finger toward Batman, “too intimidating. He’d just scare the shit out of them and they’d clam up. Number two, I’m unwilling to work with him under any circumstances.” Jim rested an elbow on his desk and rubbed his eyes under his glasses. “Number three, the kid can actually take direction. He has ears and he knows how to use them. He doesn’t interrupt me every couple of seconds. Number -- whatever, look, no matter how much I hate to admit it, the kid isn’t a complete imbecile. He can keep up with me, at least, he seems like he can. He’s not going to slow me down, and I’m sure he can take a clue if things get too sketchy.”

Jim’s expression was still very untrusting, but now he appeared to be listening to Edward’s explanation. The Bat, on the other hand, wasn’t buying it, though Edward didn’t blame him. The more obvious solution to this problem would’ve been one of Gordon’s detectives, and Edward was sure Batman could see right through his weak reasoning. “Robin carries the impression of Batman being involved, without all the messy consequences of Batman being involved. I’m sure he can be persuasive enough with people that might need it, and I’m more than confident he can handle himself when I inevitably piss off the wrong person. It’d only be minimal involvement, I want to be around him about as much as he wants to be around me. Another perk is, I don’t have to talk to him during this whole investigation.” Edward concluded, flicking a thumb in the Bat’s direction.

Jim was mulling over what Edward had said, looking at Batman with an exhausted look. “I’m sure it’s just bullshit, but it does make sense. You two would just be at each other’s throats the whole time.”

Batman gave Edward a piercing glare, “No.”

Edward scoffed. “Why? What do I look like to you? I’m not the Joker --” he quickly held up his hands as Batman’s fists clenched at his sides, a light growl leaving his lips. “Okay fine, that was too far. All I’m saying is, you let the kid follow me around, break into my house, but actually putting him to work is too much for you?”

“Him tailing you and monitoring your movements is completely different than having him be in a situation where you are expected to watch his back. You know that, and you’re pushing my patience.”

Edward rolled his eyes. “Stop being so dramatic. They’re just a bunch of people who lay down tar, or dig ditches for a living. It's not like they’re hardened criminals. All I need him for is to be a second pair of eyes, and to be there in case someone thinks it's more exciting to talk to a vigilante than an ex-super-criminal.”

Batman continued his intense glare, but he went back to being a silent presence in the room. Jim let out an exhausted sigh, rubbing his temples with his hand. “Sweet lord, you two are tiresome.”

The Bat leaned closer to Edward. “Fine. Minimal involvement.” With that he turned and climbed out of the open window, gliding off into the night without a sound.

Edward leaned over the side of his chair to stare at the vacant window, surprised. Jim just waved a hand, “He does that, don’t take it personally.”

Edward looked back at Jim as he grabbed his belongings off the chair next to him. “Good to know he’s just as rude to you as he is the rest of us.” Putting his hat on, he downed the rest of his drink with an uncomfortable hiss and stood up to put on his coat. “So, do we schedule our next team meeting now? Next time, do we meet at the bat-signal?”

Jim let out another tired sigh, handing the large evidence file up to Edward. “Nigma, just leave. I’ve dealt with you enough tonight. We’ll be in touch.”

Edward snatched up the folder and tucked it under his arm. He gave Jim a slight tip of his hat as he exited the office, a proud smile crossing his lips the moment the door clicked shut. He headed toward the stairs to leave, a happy air to step as he went. But his good spirits were short-lived. By the time he’d gotten to the ground floor, a sense of anxiety had started in his chest. As he stepped out of the front doors, he could feel the thoughts trying to pry into his consciousness. He tried to push them down, to ignore them, but that only made them press even harder.

After all these months you finally get to see him, and you messed it all up, as usual.

Continue reading:

Ep 9 * Ep 10 * Ep 11 * Ep 12 * Ep 13 * Ep 14

#writing post #Season 1 episodes #Season 1 Finale #Edward Nigma #batvillains #Batman #S1 eps 8 - 14 #zorasublime #fic

46 notes · View notes

ordinaryschmuck · 3 years

Text

What I Thought About the Climax of "Reunion" from Amphibia

Salutations, random people on the internet who are already scrolling right past this. I am an Ordinary Schmuck. I write stories and reviews and draw comics and cartoons.

So, Season Three of Amphibia is coming pretty soon. And I am...excited, but not as much as most people.

If you've seen my reviews, you'll know that while I do like Amphibia, I wouldn't go so far as to say it grabbed me as well as a series like The Owl House. With a show like that, it took me until Episode Five before I realized The Owl House was something special that was worth remembering. For Amphibia? It took me until the Season One finale before I had a similar reaction. But, to be fair, that's because this series is really good at making an ending. "Reunion," for example, takes a lot of the small things the first season has been building up, taking plots from episodes I considered filler and tying it all together in a pretty satisfying ending. I know people are still reeling over the epicness of "True Colors," and all for a good reason, but I want to start the new season on the right foot by discussing a moment that made me consider giving the series a chance.

But it also contains spoilers, so if you haven't seen Amphibia yet, now might be a good time to check it out. It may not have grabbed me and might not even grab you, but trust me when I say that it's worth it just to get to that final scene.

Now, let's review, shall we?

Grime Explaining Flipwart and Bogjump: One thing I will always defend about this series is its humor. More often than not, it succeeds in getting a chuckle out of me with perfect timing and solid comedic delivery. And stuff like this? Where Grime takes a break from his evilness to explain how two board games work to two teenagers? Only to then give up and stick with a simple answer? Yeah, I'm sorry, but that's funny to me. A good thing, too, given how this show relies more on humor than anything else. It may have an overarching plot and its fair share of grim moments (I give you Marcy's maybe death), but Amphibia knows when to keep things light amongst the darkness, which I always appreciate.

Anne Pleading with Sasha: Here, the scene showcases Anne's own personal struggle with Sasha. We know Sasha's a bad friend, primarily because we have eyes. But Anne still needs convincing. Because while she speaks up, she still doesn't assert herself. Anne doesn't yell at Sasha or tell her she's going too far. Instead, she just begs and pleads, hoping to seek the bit of humanity of this girl that Anne sees as a friend. Only for Grime to cut things short in demanding Hop Pop.

Anne Grabbing a Sword to Defend Hop Pop: This, on the other hand, was a defining moment for Anne. She spent so much time with the Plantars, risking life and limb for their own personal health and safety in multiple episodes before this one. So in desperation and due to being backed into a corner, she yanks out one of the guards' swords and orders people to back up, including her "best friend." This moment is when Anne is right on the edge of standing up against Sasha, ready to do all she can to help a person, er, frog that treats her right.

Sasha Talking Anne Down: But she isn't fully ready to fight back yet. Sasha sees the panic and desperation and uses that to her advantage and takes control. She speaks calmly, attracting Anne with talks of going home and pointing out the ridiculousness of standing up for Hop Pop. And my blood boils with how easily she does it. It was like a light switch, turning off her intensity just so Sasha appears to be empathetic. Even though she isn't. You can tell just how cold hearted she can be with the way she says the line "End of discussion." Does the way she say that really sound like a person who has Anne's best interests at heart. I wouldn't think so.

Sprig’s Reaction to Anne Lowering the Sword: And neither does Sprig. I mean, look at Sprig's expressions when he sees Anne lower the sword:

First, there's shock and empathy in seeing Anne crumble to Sasha's will. And unlike the fake empathy Sasha offered, you can see that it's real.

Almost as real as the look of pure disgust he gives Sasha afterward. Personally, I can't blame him. Sprig cares deeply for Anne, as the two of them have the most real friendship out of everyone else in the main cast, one built on mutual trust, respect, and willingness to have the other's best interests at heart.

Sprig Standing Up for Anne: This only proves my point. By slingshotting mud (was that mud?) into Sasha's face and praising how incredible Anne is, Sprig proved he really is the true friend that Sasha can only wish to be. And it's just the boost Anne needed to snap out of her stupor and do, in her words, "something that [she] should have done a long time ago."

Anne Standing Up to Sasha: If standing up for Hop Pop was a defining moment for Anne, defending Sprig from Sasha was a moment Anne could never go back on. It was one thing to fight for her found family against soldiers she's never met before. It's something else to do that against Sasha, Anne's best friend, who she pleaded with earlier and was so close to falling into submission for. But not anymore. At this moment, Anne decided to think for herself and do what needed to be done. Rather than let a bully tell her what to do instead.

Grime’s Words of Warning for Sasha: Grime’s little warning is similar to how a commander gives tips to a fellow commander in leading the troops. Because that's what Sasha really seems like. Not a friend, but someone who takes charge and orders what Anne and Marcy should do rather than listen to the opinions of the group. You see it more in "Battle of the Bands," and that's why I think she follows his advice to "stamp this out." Especially with how he finishes his warning: "Fail, and nothing will ever be the same."

There are two things to take away from that.

The fact that Grime was right. Sasha failed, and nothing was the same because of it. Anne now stood up to her and won't take her orders anymore. The thing is, that would have happened if Anne failed or not. Sasha winning may have stamped Anne's spirit a bit, but it still shows a dark side to her that wouldn't have been forgotten for long.

The fact that Sasha vocally admits that she won't let things change. It proves how twisted her mindset on friendship is that Sasha would willingly partake in a sword fight with her "best friend" because she refuses to have Anne standing up for herself. She likes being in charge and refuses to lose her power no matter what needs to be done to keep it.

If Anne defending Sprig is a moment where she crosses the line for the better, Sasha listening to Grime is a moment where she crosses the line for the worst.

“Anne, you don’t have to do this”: I love how Hop Pop tries to talk Anne out of the challenge. It's his life that's on the line, but he cares just as deeply for Anne as she does for him, that letting her duel Sasha, her supposed "best friend," is a choice he doesn't want her to make.

“Yes, I do.”: But Anne isn't about that. She now knows the type of person Sasha is, and letting her get away with more control is something no one should allow. And Anne won't. Not anymore.

The Fight: The fight isn't all that special compared to other action animation, and even to a certain fight scene we see in "True Colors." But as is, it is still pretty tense. I mean, for f**k's sake, it's two thirteen-year-olds fighting each other with swords! It's a miracle that only Sasha got a small scar at the end of it. Plus, while not the show's highest standard yet, there is a lot of effort and attention put into this battle. Anne is a lot more inexperienced and frantic with her attacks, where Sasha shows she was trained well in her time with the toads and is rotten given that she cheated by blinding Anne to force a victory. In a way, it illustrates the desperation the two of them have for winning, making Sasha's actions, in particular, easier to root for Anne.

Anne Wins: So when Anne is victorious, it's all the more satisfying. Primarily thanks to the look on Sasha's face. Look at it:

That is the definition of shock and anger, mostly shock. Sure, Sasha might be ticked that she lost, but it's Anne's words that I think really hit a specific soft spot: "You're not going to push me around anymore." That's probably the first time that Anne called Sasha out on her awful behavior. Saying that she's standing up to her huts, but pointing out how Sasha basically controlled Anne and how that's something she won't allow anymore, could be an eye-opening moment that Sasha needed.

Grime Goes Against the Deal: Ok, full disclosure, while this post is meant to shine a light on how great a scene is, there is one complaint I've got to get out of the way. You see, Grime going against his deal to let Hop Pop go free if Anne wins was way too predictable. Because why the f**k would he?!

I mean, does this seriously look like the face of a man you can trust? This scene may excel at everything else, but this one predictable moment is just a little off to forgive.

The Tower Blowing Up: This predictable moment, however, is done flawlessly. Because there's a difference between a twist and a payoff. Where a twist is meant to shock the audience, a payoff has to, well, pay off a setup brought up earlier in the story. And Wally's boom-shrooms going off at just the right time, transitioning to the most iconic moment of the series? Yeah, that's a payoff done right.

(Also, Wally cursing his one eye is hilarious)

“Lean On Me”: By the way, NOT joking when I say what follows is the most iconic moment of the series. All of which is aided by the inclusion of "Lean On Me" by Bill Withers. I'm not a music theory major and have no idea if the song itself is actually mildly appropriate to the scene, much like how "All Star" and "I Need a Hero" work perfectly for Shrek and Shrek 2, respectively. With that said, "Lean On Me" really does add an extra Umph! power to what follows. And as Matt Braley, series creator, describes, it is the coolest thing, but it will never happen again.

(Apparently, the song was too expensive).

Anne Goes to Save Sasha: Believe it or not, I actually do love this decision. Sasha may be a bad friend...Actually, no. Sasha is definitely a bad friend, but that doesn't mean Anne wants her to die. Not after all the good times that they had with each other. Anne might refuse to let Sasha push her around, but she's not ready to cut Sasha out of her life. Not yet.

Anne Holds Onto Sasha, the Plantars Hold Onto Anne: ...I mean...just f**king that! Through this moment, we get a perfect idea of how Anne's relationships work.

To put it simply, the Plantars raise Anne up and keep her safe, where Sasha just weighs her down and risks her safety. And the saddest part is that Sasha knows this.

“Anne. Maybe you’re better off without me…”: Some say that this could be Sasha trying to get in one last manipulation, using her own sacrifice to stick to Anne for choosing talking frogs over her. While I could see that perspective as a possibility, I personally take this moment as Sasha finally realizing the damage she causes for Anne and admits her faults. Sure, Sasha might have backpedaled in later episodes. What with refusing to change and even directing her anger towards Anne instead of towards herself. But that's because she had time to process these events and unfairly aim her negative feelings at Anne for wanting something better. So it doesn't seem implausible to me that Sasha admitting that Anne's better off without her is something she believed deep down and, for just a moment, allowed herself to accept this heavy truth. I won't deny the possibility that she's still trying to manipulate Anne, but to me, with the tone and expression Sasha has with her admission, you can't fake that. And you can't fake what she does next.

Sasha Lets Go: This...shocked me right down to my core.

I knew Grime would go back on his word, and I assumed the boom-shrooms would pay off somehow. But Sasha, willingly and unhesitantly, letting go of Anne's grip and falling to an expected demise? I...I couldn't have ever predicted that. Not with what we've seen from her before. When I hear how people see this as one last manipulation tactic, I just can't see it. Yes, there are monsters on this planet who would go this far, but I don't think Sasha is one of them. Later episodes like "Battle of the Bands" (despite a rough start) show signs of a person who could be better, and the Season Three trailer hints that she might actually learn from her mistakes. So her letting go, with no way of knowing her survival, could be the first sign that Sasha would one day make that first step. She might not be able to become Anne’s friend again, thanks to burning that bridge in "True Colors," but she'll at least try to become a better person. She just needs to do one good thing in her life first.

Plus, whenever I see this image:

I’m reminded why I could never say that I didn’t like this show.

Grime Saving Sasha: A lesser viewer would say this cheapens Sasha's sacrifice, but not to me. She had no way of knowing Grime would save her, so to her, so this is still a bid decision to go through with, even if she couldn't have gone all the way. In no way does it take away from the sacrifice, just as much as it doesn't strike a chord deep in Anne's heart.

Anne Breaks Down: Because what else would she do?

It's true, Sasha isn't a good friend, and Anne would likely be better off without her. But that's not what Anne's thinking at this moment.

She's thinking about the good fun she had with her best friend.

She was thinking about the person she could lean on.

And she was thinking about how she almost lost this person forever.

So when it all comes crashing down on Anne at once, there's nothing left to do but cry. It is such a real moment that proves one thing: There was effort put into this finale.

IN CONCLUSION

Would I say Amphibia draws me in as much as The Owl House does? No. But it still has my respect. A finale like this proves how hard the writers try to give a good experience. Even if a Schmuck like me thinks that all the pieces don't come together, they still do all they can to make a beloved series.

Season Three is on the way, and while I'm not as hyped as others, I still can't wait to see how it ends. Because if "Reunion" taught me anything, this series really nails an ending.

(And if you want me to do a scene breakdown of the finale in "True Colors," I'll tell you now: I won't...alright, maybe I'll do something for the mid-season premiere. But no promises!)

#amphibia #amphibia reviews #anne boonchuy #sasha waybright #captain grime #hop pop plantar #sprig plantar #reunion amphibia #what i thought about #scene breakdowns

12 notes · View notes

quicksilversquared · 4 years

Text

Traps and Sneaks: Chapter 2 (of 2)

As the Guardian, it’s Marinette’s job to protect the Miracle Box and all of the Miraculous inside of it from evil. Obviously just sticking it away somewhere hidden isn’t going to cut it, so Marinette makes a box to hide it in. A booby-trapped box. A very dangerous booby-trapped box.

And if a certain someone gets their thieving little fingers caught in it, so be it.

links in the reblog

Lila sniggered to herself as she snuck up the stairs in the Dupain-Cheng bakery, unnoticed and unhindered.

Really, it had been way too easy to get in. All it had taken was feeding Alya a lie about how she had lent Marinette something to help her finish with their most recent Literature project but hadn't gotten it back, and she was worried about approaching Marinette to ask for it because, well, Marinette had been so busy recently that she probably thought that she had returned it. Lila was worried about appearing like she was accusing Marinette of stealing it if she asked about it, and they were only just starting to fix their relationship after getting off on the wrong foot. Alya had swallowed the lie like it was the most believable thing in the world, clearly thrilled that Lila and Marinette might be on the road to reconciliation, and from there all Lila had needed to do was suggest that maybe it would be easier for her to just fetch her things herself than it would be to ask Marinette.

Alya had been too eager to help, going into the bakery herself and getting permission from Mrs. Cheng to go in. Then she had let Lila in the side door- "I can't possibly go through the bakery myself, what if they recognize me and blame me for the time when Marinette got expelled and don't let me in!" Lila had exclaimed when Alya suggested that she just go in through the front herself- and made sure that she knew the way up before leaving. There had been a dicey moment when Alya moved to come up with Lila and help look, but Lila had waved her off with another excuse, insisting that she didn't want to eat up more of Alya's free time, especially when she knew that Alya and Nino had been thinking of going out for ice cream.

Alya had left, Marinette's parents would be busy in the bakery for hours, and Marinette herself was across the city at some sewing techniques workshop that she had won a full-ride scholarship for and hadn't shut up about all week. There would be no one to catch Lila and plenty of time for her to investigate Marinette's room and find- well, anything she could use against her.

A diary with embarrassing secrets, perfect for blackmail. Money, perfect for- well, money was always a good thing, and so was jewelry that she could pawn. Photos, also for blackmail. Sketches of designs for any other contests Marinette might have her eyes on, to copy and claim that Marinette had taken Lila's ideas. Maybe in-progress commissions that Lila could mess up, all the better to put a dent in Marinette's reputation if the damage wasn't found before she sent the pieces off to whoever had bought them.

One last flight of stairs, and Lila pushed open the door to the Dupain-Cheng apartment. Another set of stairs led up to a trapdoor that Lila could recognize as Marinette's (thanks to Alya's instructions), and she scampered up the steps and into the obnoxiously pink room at the top of the stairs.

The first thing she noticed: it was neat, unlike what Alya had warned her. There wasn't fabric draped all over the place or notebooks left out. On one hand, that would make things more difficult because she would have to search to find anything interesting, and unless Lila wanted to raise suspicion right away, she would have to put away anything she took out. On the other hand, well, it would probably be easier to find some things if she didn't have to dig through piles of fabric scraps or whatever it was that Marinette apparently usually had scattered around her room.

"Okay, first impressions," Lila said out loud as she glanced around. Marinette's school bag was by her desk- maybe she could tear out a couple pages of notes, so Marinette wouldn't have them to study from on the next exam. Next to the desk was a mannequin with what looked like a fairly complete outfit on it, leather pants with a lot of detail work and a matching jacket. Lila fingered the material, glancing at the seams on it. Since the piece was complete- or at least it looked complete- Marinette probably wouldn't look at it too closely before sending it off to its recipient. The recipient who, if the size of the pieces and the look of them was any indication, was probably Jagged Stone.

If she could mess with Jagged Stone's perception of Marinette and maybe mess up their working relationship, that would be perfect. Then he wouldn't feel inclined to do Marinette any favors like, say, coming in to call Lila out on her stories.

Lila decided that she would look for a seam ripper later, when she was poking around the desk. There was no point in stopping her assessment of Marinette's room now for that. After all, she had plenty of time.

The desk was otherwise pretty clear of anything interesting, though Lila was sure that she would dig through it later if she had time. The boxes on it probably just had sewing stuff anyway, and that- well, mixing it up or taking things might annoy Marinette, but she probably wouldn't think that much of it.

Across the room, though- well, there was a storage chest doubling as a bench, and Lila would be very surprised if there wasn't anything interesting in there. There might be a lock to deal with, but she had expected that and brought along her lock picking kit along. A few pokes and she would be in, ready to find out any secrets that Marinette might prefer stay hidden.

"Why couldn't she leave her diary on her desk like a normal person," Lila grumbled anyway, because it was also very possible that she would unlock the chest and find...nothing. Maybe Marinette didn't have any juicy secrets for Lila to exploit, and this whole trip would be- well, not for nothing, because she was still fully intending on causing ill-intentioned chaos, but not nearly as productive as she had hoped.

And considering that Lila was running quite a large risk with her lies to Alya about the thing she had 'loaned' to Marinette, a large payoff would be really preferred.

After a few more minutes of poking around- Marinette didn't keep a diary up near her bed, either, or any jewelry of any value, not that that stopped Lila from pocketing a few exotic-looking necklaces that she could always claim were gifts from people that she met around the globe- Lila turned her attention back to the large storage chest. The lock gave after a minute of working on it, and she flipped the lid eagerly, hoping that- well, hoping that there would be something interesting inside. Instead, she came face-to-face with...presents.

Boring. Knowing Marinette, they were probably all homemade and not worth anything.

Lila scoffed, wrinkling her nose at the pile of gifts. There was nothing interesting about Marinette being so disgustingly organized that she had gifts for her friends prepared well ahead of the holidays and their birthdays. She shoved a couple of the presents to the side, her nose wrinkling further at the next row of equally neatly-wrapped presents underneath.

Except... they were all labeled as being for Adrien.

Lila's eyebrows raised as she glanced at the top row of presents and- yep, all for Adrien. On closer inspection, all of them had little post-its on them with what event- and what year- they were meant to be for.

She sniggered. Marinette was a little obsessed, wasn't she? But as interesting as this was, it wasn't exactly something that she could easily use as blackmail. A bit disappointed, Lila kept digging, shifting packages aside. One more layer, and her fingers brushed against a dark wooden box, one that looked like perhaps Marinette had put it together herself.

It was exactly the sort of thing that a girl like Marinette- someone annoyingly craftsy- would store her diary in. Jackpot.

Smirking, Lila pulled the box out and considered it, her smile dropping as she did. Really, upon second glance, it was surprisingly sloppy, with uneven, dripping varnish and wonky nails. It was ridiculously heavy, even for its size, and especially considering that it was clearly made out of some cheap plywood. And oddly enough, it had two locks on it.

Frankly, the locks were the only reason why she didn't immediately lose interest. If they hadn't been there, Lila probably would have assumed that it was actually a failed project that Marinette was trying to hide.

"Well, it doesn't take a genius to figure out which lock to try," Lila scoffed, setting the box on the floor in front of her and settling down more comfortably to work on it. "That second keyhole isn't even in the right spot!"

Really, had badly had Marinette messed up that she had managed to insert a keyhole in middle of one of the side panels, nowhere close to where the box and the lid had come together? It wasn't even straight- in fact, it was upside down. Shoddy craftsmanship, all around.

(The fact that Lila had never made anything like the box and had no idea how to even approach putting a lock like that on a box or even make any sort of box herself was, of course, completely irrelevant.)

Unlike the lock on the storage bench, the lock on the box wasn't very straightforward. There were more pins in this lock, and each one had to be individually maneuvered into place. Lila worked on it, scowling in concentration as she slowly picked it open.

Either Marinette had just happened to have a lock sitting around that she used, or there was something good inside of the box. No collège student was going to spend the amount of extra money it would take for a fancier lock like this for no reason at all.

With one last careful nudge, the lock gave. Lila grinned in triumph, flipping the box open. The lid seemed a bit heavy- for some reason it seemed to be lined with a strange metal band, but who cared- and there were a few stray papers and a thin journal sitting in the top compartment, on top of a wooden shelf with- you have GOT to be kidding me- another lock, just barely visible. Lila reached in to move them, and suddenly metal flashed, quick as a blink. Lila shrieked in surprise, automatically yanking her hand back, but she was far too late. Pointed metal teeth had snapped shut around her arm, keeping it in place, and- oh god.

They hadn't just closed around her arm. No, they had gone straight through the skin and- oh god the pain-

Lila fainted.

Marinette had been having a lovely time at her sewing techniques workshop. Their instructor had walked the small class through all sorts of different ways of handling material, and next week they would be covering more tricky materials. They had gotten an entire binder with step-by-step photo reminders of what they had learned, and Marinette's already had notes scribbled up and down the margins.

She was so glad that she had won the scholarship to the class. It wasn't that she couldn't afford it herself- after all, with the commissions that she had done lately for Jagged Stone and Clara Nightingale, she wasn't left wanting for money- but considering that she often had to miss things because of akuma attacks, Marinette wouldn't have wanted to spend the money on something that she might not even be able to attend. With the scholarship...

Well, if an akuma showed up, that would still suck. She was learning so much from the class and it would definitely up her design skills. Having to duck out on the class because someone got upset and Hawkmoth had to akumatize them would be a huge disappointment, because she would miss out on so much valuable instruction. But at least she wouldn't be spending her own money on it.

She still felt a bit guilty that she was doing the class and not spending the spare time working on learning more Guardian stuff, but the Order and Master Norbu had assured her that she should make sure to balance her superhero duties and her civilian life. After all, they didn't want her coming to resent her duty as Guardian because of everything that it made her miss out on.

The last section came to an end, and everyone turned off their machines and started packing up. Marinette tucked her sewn samples into her bag with her binder- at some point, she wanted to actually file the fabric pieces in next to their respective instructions, but that was a project for another day- and pulled out her phone, opening it up to check for messages. She had put it on silent for the class- silent with the sole exception of akuma alerts, thank you Max for that setting modification- so that no one would accidentally distract her. Sometimes the class chat blew up over the weekend, and having that pinging constantly throughout the class...

Well, it wouldn't give anyone a very good impression of her, that was for sure.

-and oh boy that was a lot of messages.

"My parents tried to call me ten times, Tikki!" Marinette hissed, all of the relaxation and good feelings from the day gone in a heartbeat as she tried and failed not to catastrophize. "Oh my god, what if one of them had a heart attack or a machine broke and sent pieces everywhere and they're at the hospital and it's really bad and I should have been there and-"

"Call them back!" Tikki urged, sticking her head out of Marinette's jacket as soon as they were clear of the rest of the group. "And- look, it was both of your parents calling, not just one or the other. So that means that they're probably fine, right?"

"Oh!" Marinette considered that for a minute, then dove straight back into her worrying. "Then maybe the bakery caught on fire and burned down and we're homeless and-"

"Just call them back, Marinette!" Tikki exclaimed, though she was looking worried, too. "Then they can tell you what actually happened."

Marinette wavered, then pressed Call. Her mom's phone rang once, twice, and then she picked up.

"Marinette! Ah, is your class over?"

"Yeah, we- we just finished," Marinette responded, her heart rate slowly dropping back towards normal. Her mom didn't sound overly upset, so- maybe it wasn't super-serious? "I- I saw you called? And papa?"

"Yes, I hated to call during your class, but- well, there was an incident," her mom told her, sounding a bit hesitant. "Right away- your dad and I are fine, the bakery is fine, the house is fine. But your classmate- Lila Rossi- she broke into the house and into your room. She got into your storage bench and- anyway, long story short, there was a box in there that was, ah, quite severely booby-trapped?"

Marinette's heart skipped several beats, jumping straight into her throat. The- that was the box where she hid the Miracle Box. It was very well hidden- after all, it had been in a locked storage bench, hidden under Adrien's presents, and then locked (several time over) itself- and she had assumed that that would be enough to keep it undiscovered. If Lila had gotten into it- even just into the first layer- that could be enough to put the Miracle Box in danger. The police might want to know what was in the box, or they might have broken it open to get Lila's hand out- because presumably Lila had gotten her hand caught when she tried to get the box open, and getting the trap open wasn't exactly straightforward- or maybe Lila hadn't been caught too badly and had somehow persuaded someone to open the box for her. "It- yes?"

"Whatever the box is hiding- well, it's still hidden," her mom assured her, and Marinette couldn't stop herself from letting out a sigh of relief. "The second level is still locked. And the doctors did manage to get it off of Lila's arm- well, after a bit of puzzling, at least, they said that set-up was very clever. That was why we called you, actually. We didn't want to bother you, but it was just taking the hospital and the police so long to figure out that lock mechanism and they had been hoping for a clue."

...well, at least her mom didn't sound upset with her. Yet, anyway.

"We've gotten the box back now," her mom continued. "And we've already dealt with the police, so you don't need to worry there. They understand that Lila wasn't meant to be in our house, much less your room, and that the box was securely hidden and locked up. The only reason they might want to talk to you is to learn more about why Lila might have broken in."

"To make me look bad, I bet," Marinette said dryly. "To steal things, or plant evidence, or try to find something to blackmail me. Why else?"

"Lovely girl." Her mom said something to someone else on the other end of the line, muffled and indecipherable, before she came back. "That's all, really. Will you be coming back soon?"

"Yeah, I'm heading for the bus stop."

"All right. See you soon!"

With that, the call disconnected. Marinette stared at her phone for a minute, then glanced down at Tikki. Her kwami looked just as worried.

"I thought that you had hidden the Miracle Box really well!" Tikki exclaimed. "That was a really nice place, and no one ever goes digging in there! Add in the fact that you had it locked, and it should have been fine."

"Yeah, but clearly Lila was digging around with the intention of finding anything that I had hidden," Marinette told her. She let out a sigh, the stress starting to inch back in on her, taking all of the relaxation from her sewing class away. Maybe the Miracle Box hadn't been found today, but- well, this was hardly going to be the end of this whole fiasco. If (when) Lila got akumatized again, she would probably go after the box again to see if she could break it. She might tell people at school about it- changing, of course, the reason why she had been in Marinette's room in the first place and making up completely different circumstances as to how she had ended up with her hands on the box. While Marinette really had no choice but to return the box to its previous spot for the moment- after making sure that it was re-set, of course- it wouldn't be completely safe for the long term.

At least summer break was coming up soon and she had already been doing research on how to DIY hidden compartments. Clearly she would need to use that knowledge earlier than intended.

"Maybe she'll actually get in trouble this time," Tikki offered hopefully. "I mean, breaking and entering, trying to steal- you could try to press charges."

"Maybe, but considering how injured Lila probably is, she'd probably pull the sympathy card." Marinette groaned. "I don't understand how she even got in! We've been keeping the side door locked, and mom knows better than to let Lila into the house."

"If she got through the locks on the bench and the box, Lila probably knows how to pick locks," Tikki reminded her. "She might have just picked her way through the door downstairs."

That was a terrifying thought, honestly. That someone like Lila could just pick her way past a door lock and get in her house...

"If that's what happened, I'm definitely going to petition my parents to get better locks." Marinette checked her room again, then headed back down the stairs. Tikki flew after her, phasing into her purse. "I don't think they would agree to put in booby traps, too, but- ugh, I'm going to be worrying about people getting into the house now."

"Maybe it's just a matter of the lock being old and needing to be replaced," Tikki suggested. "Hopefully your mom knows more."

"I hope so!"

It felt like it took forever for the bus to come, and then it trundled along the streets far too slowly for Marinette's taste. She spent the entire trip worrying over different scenarios where Lila could twist things around to make Marinette look like the bad guy and trying to figure out where she could add a hidden compartment to her room, somewhere where no one would notice the addition.

This far, she was coming up blank. Maybe she could put something on her balcony- but that just didn't seem secure enough. It would be far too easy for a passing akuma (or, perish the thought, a passing supervillain) to accidentally knock into and destroy a hidden compartment. No, it would be better to get creative inside her room.

Once she hopped off of the bus, Marinette wasted no time in hurrying home. The bakery was still open- hopefully business hadn't been interrupted too much by Lila's injury- and she headed in, sparing a quick smile for a few regular customers that she recognized. Her parents had one of their normal bakers working the counter in her mom's place, clearly finishing up the day so that the Dupain-Chengs would be able to deal with the mess going on in their home.

Hopefully it wasn't messing production up too much. If both of her parents were upstairs and they had one of the normal back kitchen bakers at the counter, that meant fewer hands on deck to start preparing things for the next day. And since the staff wouldn't stay overtime, that meant that her parents would end up working long hours.

Freaking Lila. Of course she just had to make life difficult for everyone else simply because she was spiteful and fixated on revenge.

Not wasting any time, Marinette headed upstairs. Her mom was in their kitchen and on the phone, her back to the door, but her dad wasn't anywhere in sight. That meant he was probably downstairs, which suggested that she actually wasn't in trouble because she had the trap. If she had been, her dad would be there too, his arms folded and a frown on his face.

Her mom, though, was more than making up for the frowning as she argued with whoever was on the other end of the line.

"No, I am not arguing the definition of 'breaking and entering' or 'trespassing' with you," Mrs. Cheng snapped into the phone, mere seconds after Marinette entered the room. Marinette paused, blinking over at her mom in confusion. Normally her mom didn't raise her voice over the phone. "You are not a resident here, you do not get to let people in who we don't want inside. That is outright irresponsible behavior- no, I do not care what your interpretation of the situation was, I already told you that. And I will be contacting your mom about this. Perhaps she can get it through your head how unacceptable your actions were. Good-bye."

With that, Mrs. Cheng hit the end call button with a flourish, scowling at the phone for a moment before noticing Marinette. Her scowl was promptly replaced with a smile. "Marinette! How was your class?"

"It went well," Marinette told her, biting back the urge to gush. That could wait until dinner, after the more pressing issue of Lila's break-in had been dealt with. "Who was on the phone?"

"That was Alya," Mrs. Cheng told Marinette with a sigh. She pocketed her phone and washed off her hands before returning to her dinner prep. "I was calling to ask her if- well, she stopped by earlier to get something, so I wanted to know if she saw or heard anything out of place while she was here. I just wanted to try to get a better idea of when Lila might have broken in so we wouldn't have to go through as much security footage-"

"Wait, why did Alya come over?" Marinette interrupted, frowning in confusion. She hadn't borrowed anything from Alya recently, and normally Alya at least texted her to let her know if she was borrowing anything from Marinette for some reason while she wasn't home.

"I was getting to that, don't interrupt," Mrs. Cheng gently chided her. "Anyway, Alya seemed pretty surprised about us having a break-in... until I mentioned that it was Lila."

Marinette groaned. She was getting a sinking suspicion that she knew where this was going. "Please don't tell me that Alya let Lila in."

"...Alya let Lila in," Mrs. Cheng confirmed, sighing. "...on the plus side, at least she didn't pick her way in through our doors. I would be looking into swapping out our locks if that were the case."

"Why on earth would she think that that would be a good idea in any way?" Marinette exclaimed. "And- well, presumably she let Lila in and then just ran off instead of supervising her, which- even if Lila somehow made up some reason for having to stop by my room, why wouldn't Alya at least have the common sense to stay with her?"

"Well, from what Alya said, Lila said that she had loaned you something and you had forgotten to give it back, and she was worried about bringing it up and making you upset... because you might think that you had already returned it and think that she was trying to frame you. Or something." Mrs. Cheng pinched the bridge of her nose, clearly exasperated. "It sounded like Lila was making it sound like you two were starting to mend bridges. And I told Alya that Lila was found with a lock picking kit and some jewelry from your Nonna Gina in her pockets, but she's still insisting that it was all a misunderstanding. "

"How- how much did you tell Alya?" Marinette asked suddenly, brain all of a sudden dancing with pictures of Alya hearing about the trap and trying to dig into what, exactly, Marinette was trying to hide. She presumably had enough sense to not go digging through Marinette's things in hopes of an interesting discovery, especially considering how hurt Lila had gotten, but that didn't mean that Alya wouldn't incessantly ask her questions, and within hearing distance of other people, too.

Not that Lila probably wouldn't bring up the trap on her own- or would she? Why would she? There would be no way to talk about it without making herself look bad. But if Lila's reputation was tanking anyway, maybe she would bring it up just to make Marinette look bad, too.

"Not much," Mrs. Cheng assured her. "I didn't have to. I implied that Lila got into a locked box of sewing things and cut herself that way, which is very believable. Your fabric scissors are sharp, as are your rotary cutters, and it's not hard to believe that someone who wasn't familiar with that box might get themselves injured. I'm not going to tell your most inquisitive friend about your very mysterious and heavily-guarded trap box."

Marinette breathed out a sigh of relief.

"On a related note, I suspect that Alya might not be very keen on coming over here for a while," Mrs. Cheng added. "I was not subtle about how irritated I was with her. And she just kept on digging her heels in more whenever I pointed out things that she wasn't considering or just flat-out missed." She paused, looking slightly sheepish. "And I may, before you got back, have insulted her investigative and observational skills. Just a little bit. I just got too mad about the fact that she fell for such an obvious lie and didn't even try to check with you about it before she went ahead and let Lila in."

Honestly, Marinette couldn't blame her mom for exploding. She couldn't believe that Alya would have done that- and apparently still thought that she was completely justified in doing it. If Lila hadn't gotten herself injured and had gotten away without being caught, who knew what sort of damage she could have caused or what information she might have gotten her hands on?

Frankly, if things had gotten to that point, once she realized what had happened, Marinette probably wouldn't have been able to resist the urge to pull out the Horse and Portal Lila to somewhere dangerous. The arctic, maybe, or the surface of the Moon. She wouldn't be able to cause trouble there.

After a pause, Mrs. Cheng nodded towards the couch. "Your box is there. I think the police said that it's currently disarmed, but be careful with it."

Marinette nodded, scooting around the table to grab the box off of the couch. She was planning on being super careful. After working so hard on the trap- well, she had once gotten a cut on her finger while she was assembling the booby trap, and that had been without any force behind it. She had no intention of becoming acquainted with those same blades with force behind them.

Besides, the box was completely safe when it was disarmed, and Marinette really didn't think that she was likely to ever just forget to disarm it, not with all of the safety measures she had deliberately built in. All that took was unlocking the second lock first- the crooked one that looked like it had been a mistake, or just a practice run on a spare piece of wood that ended up not being a spare piece- and then she could unlock the lid itself. There was a visible latch on the inside that would give away- to her- if the trap was set or not, and she always checked it just in case before sticking her hand in.

"I know how to open it safely and make sure that it's disarmed before I put my hand in," Marinette assured her mom. "After all, I designed it. I won't forget how to do it."

"Honestly, I figured that much. It wasn't a reassurance when I looked at the box at first because honestly, it doesn't look like an expertly engineered box." Mrs. Cheng smiled over at Marinette. "But that's deliberate, isn't it? No one would suspect that there's anything inside when it looks like a beginner's project."

"It was either make it look like that or try to make some sort of ornate box with a hidden key hole so that no one could figure out where the lock was, but- well, I don't have the time or skill to do that sort of carving." Marinette ran one hand over the box, remembering how much effort it had taken to make the box really solid and then go back and make it look like a beginner's project, ramshackle and not at all sturdy. If the person looking at the box knew anything about construction, the presence of the lock would probably give away the fact that she knew what she was doing, but Marinette was willing to bet that most people wouldn't know that. "It would have been cool, though. I've seen some locks online where people would never figure out how to open it unless they had been shown how, and that would have been nice."

Hawkmoth would probably just try to slice the box open then, but- well, if he did, he was in for a surprise. The wood might crack, but the enchanted metal underneath wouldn't budge.

"You've done quite a bit of research about this, then." Mrs. Cheng considered Marinette for a long moment, and she resisted the urge to squirm. "Honestly, there's a part of me that really wants to question the box and say no to you having it, because it's clearly dangerous- I mean, I saw the damage that it did to Lila- and even though I know you'll be careful, it's hard to be comfortable with the idea of that being in your room. But clearly you've been responsible with storing it, and I trust that you wouldn't have gone so far out of your way to get the materials and do the modifications to that trap if you didn't think it was important to protect whatever is in there." She took a deep breath, and Marinette could tell that her mom was severely torn about whatever she was about to say. "So your dad and I are going to allow it, and we won't ask about what you have in the box. Heaven knows you deserve some privacy."

Marinette let out a sigh of relief. "I- thank you."

"And- I didn't want to say anything over the phone, but the police had originally wanted to talk with you about why you had that trap on the box," Mrs. Cheng continued, and Marinette's heart dropped right back into her feet, the moment of relief gone. "Because- well, normally kids your age don't have stuff like that. But- oh, you should have seen it. Your dad got very puffed-up and huffy with them about how this was the second time in less than two years that a classmate of yours had been caught breaking into your room with ill intentions and were you not allowed to protect your things? And one of the police was Officer Raincomprix, so of course he was in a pretty big hurry to drop that line of questioning. Particularly when he was reminded that his daughter was the other classmate that had snuck in."

Marinette hastily muffled a laugh. She would have loved to see that, honestly. "And they didn't say that they would, like, come back later or anything?"

"Only to get a statement from you that Lila wasn't meant to be at our house at all. Your father and I discussed it, and- if it's all right with you- we'd like to pursue pressing charges. We've heard enough about Lila that we want to make sure that she won't be bothering you in the future. Breaking and entering is just- she's taken it too far. She's been taking it too far, and I apologize for both your dad and I that we haven't taken it seriously. No disorder is going to compel someone to target you to the degree that she has been, much less plot to break into your room." Mrs. Cheng shook her head, clearly disgusted at herself for having fallen for the lie. "At the very least, we want to look into getting a restraining order. That should keep her away from you."

"What if Lila spins some tale or tries to get sympathy and we can't get the order?" Marinette asked. Even with their evidence- well, from the sounds of it, Lila's hand was probably pretty mangled, and she didn't have the magical healing potion that Marinette kept on hand just in case to put it back to normal. "What if they decide that her hand is punishment enough?"

"Then we'll argue that." Mrs. Cheng's voice was firm. "If you testify about what Lila has been like, then the courts will know that she's likely to just go back to school and cry about her wrist to get sympathy. And they've seen people like her before, I'm sure. They're not going to be as easily fooled as your teachers and classmates and- well, and your dad and I."

Marinette swallowed and nodded. That would be nice. That would be really nice.

"And if they do- well, and even if they don't- I will be talking to Lila's mother. There's no way she knows what her daughter has been up to, if she still was letting her run around." Mrs. Cheng nodded once, sharp, and Marinette knew that there would be no stopping her mom now. She was determined to keep Lila away from Marinette and force her to see the consequences of her actions, and so it would happen.

Honestly, Marinette had the best parents ever.

Marinette let out a sigh of relief as she tucked the box back in its spot, piling the presents for Adrien back on top of it and shutting the lid of her storage bench. It locked with a thud and a sharp click, sounding sturdy and secure.

It was too bad that that was a lie. Marinette ran her fingers over the lock, wondering if she should try switching out the lock for a different style, something that would be harder- or, even better, impossible- to pick. It might be hard to do that without attracting attention, though, and if she messed it up?

It would be better to not have signs of tampering on her bench, just in case. Maybe she should practice with putting in and taking out locks on a bit of scrap wood first.

A blanket went over the bench, set at a jaunty angle, just casual enough that it didn't look arranged. Marinette's backpack went next to it, the perfect picture of nothing here to see.

And still Marinette worried her lip.

"It'll be fine, Marinette!" Tikki told her, zipping up next to her shoulder. "Downstairs is all locked up, the box is hidden, and the bench is locked. No one is going to be breaking in- and Lila is in the hospital anyway."

"I know, but..." Marinette trailed off, glancing around her room. Whenever someone entered her room without her consent- when Sabrina broke in, after Jagged Stone's camera wandered in while broadcasting live to all of Paris, and then now with Lila- she always felt thrown off kilter and uncomfortable, out of place and not as secure as normal in her own room. It wasn't ever a nice feeling.

She couldn't even safely leave her diary out in her room. Not her diary, not anything that might be the least bit valuable, not any signs of her crush or anything that might even hint at her double life. Maybe it would be a good idea to tuck those things away anyway, but there was a difference between having to simply put things away instead of leaving them out in the open and having to lock everything away under several layers of protection.

Marinette was starting to get the feeling that once she was older and had her own place, there would be a lot of personalization with false walls and hidden compartments where she could hide away- well, everything, really. All of the parts of her life that she might be at all leery of anyone finding out about.

It was always going to be a good idea to hide the Miraculous stuff, especially while Hawkmoth was active, but Marinette should be able to expect some measure of privacy in her own room. The fact that she apparently couldn't...

Maybe it was a better idea to not dwell on that too much. And, with any luck, they wouldn't have any trouble going forward. She and her parents had talked over dinner and come up with a new rule for letting in friends and classmates: all visits had to be approved by Marinette before they set foot through the door. If she let them in herself it was fine, of course, but if they came in through the bakery and wanted to be let up then Sabine had to have a text on her phone from Marinette approving it. There would be no more surprise visits from her friends- or at least no truly surprise visits, since she would at least get a couple minutes' warning from her mom's inquiry text- and no more people going up to her room when she wasn't there 'just to grab something really quickly, honest'. If someone tried to come over as a surprise and Marinette didn't see her mom's text right away- either because she was just busy or because she was out as Ladybug- then that was just too bad. They didn't just get to saunter up and poke around in her room unattended until she got back.

That- well, security reasons aside, it was a really good change. There had been multiple times lately when Marinette had been in the middle of trying to catch up on homework and one (or more) of her friends burst in and interrupted her, and that had both thrown her completely off and eaten up time that she really didn't have to spare because she felt bad about sending them away when they had come over to see her. There hadn't been any times yet where Marinette had been out as Ladybug and came back to find someone in her room, but, well, she couldn't get lucky forever. If they hadn't made the change, then it would probably only be a matter of time before Ladybug slipped into her room after a long fight and found Alya waiting there.

(That would be a disaster.)

"At least I hadn't gotten around to painting the trap with the poison that the Order sent me," Marinette commented after a pause, pushing away thoughts of her new visiting arrangements and how she really should have implemented them earlier for the time being. The poison was a new suggestion from the Order, something to completely ensure that Hawkmoth wouldn't be able to steal the Miraculous, and it was a suggestion that made her really, really nervous. She fiddled with one of the tassels on the blanket, then resolutely turned and headed up to bed. "The police might have been fine with the bear trap- if only barely- but a bear trap coated in poison? I would have gotten in so much trouble."

"I still think it would be a good idea to put it on," Tikki told her. "I know it ups the scary factor even more, but in case Hawkmoth finds the box and he doesn't pass out from the trap- or if it doesn't catch him as much as it sounds like it got Lila, since he might be expecting a trap!- then it should still keep him from getting away scot-free. You have the antidote and the healing potions, so you should still be safe!"

"In theory, at least." Sure, the Order had assured her that it would take some time for the poison to kick in, enough time for her to get to her remedies- a delay of sorts, followed by it absolutely flooring the unfortunate person affected- but that still depended entirely on her keeping her head long enough to actually get to them.

Maybe she needed to consider a rearranging of where things were so that there would be less distance between the box and the antidotes, just in case that very dangerous and (hopefully) very unlikely scenario of the box snapping shut on her ever happened.

Ugh. More things to do, as though she didn't already have enough on her plate. But Tikki was right- Hawkmoth was too much of a threat to keep putting off the secondary level of protection. She would just have to be super careful around the box- even more than she had been before- and prioritize getting her remedies located closer to the hidden Miracle Box.

That, and she definitely had to make sure that she kept her remedy up-to-date, no slacking and letting it come close to expiration. And, well, she had to make sure that she didn't use up the healing potion- the potion that would immediately reverse the damage from the trap in case something went wrong- with injuries that she got while sewing or tripping over her own feet.

At least she knew how to make the healing potion. As long as Marinette kept an eye on how much she had- and her (poorly) hidden supply of potion ingredients, those had to be next on her list of things to build hiding spots for after a new spot for the box and a close but not too close location for the remedies- and made sure to top it back up whenever she got low, using it for other injuries shouldn't be a problem.

"I'll tell Mom no babysitting next weekend, and do the poison then," Marinette said, realizing that she hadn't said anything for a minute. "If I do it right away and the police end up wanting to see it again, then that'll be an issue. If I give it a little time, then I won't end up putting the poison on and then having to take it right off again. And I need to get some more supplies- a dedicated paintbrush, and some gloves so that my skin doesn't come in contact with it at all."

Tikki nodded, approving. "I didn't think of that! That's a good thought. I think that should be fast enough. And it'll give you time to think about ways you can shake up your set-up so that no one else will know about it again!"

"The biggest changes there might have to wait to summer, honestly," Marinette admitted. The amount of work it would take to make a hidden cubby- and to make it fast enough that no one would notice it- would be absolutely insane, her biggest project yet. "But I'm sure that I can make some changes to up my security before then, and dream up improvements that I can make so that I'm ready to hit the ground running as soon as I have enough free time."

Her mind was whirring with more ideas already, actually. She would have to ask the Order to enchant more metal so to be Miraculous-resistant, pieces that she could put inside of the storage bench and keep it from being destroyed. If Hawkmoth (or his akumas) couldn't pick locks, that should be enough to stop him. And then if she practiced with taking out and putting locks in, then she could put in a lock like one she had seen online most recently, the one that had a hidden keyhole. Both improvements wouldn't affect her ability to get in- which was a good thing, since speed was super important during akuma fights- but should make things for difficult for anyone with nefarious intentions.

It would be a lot of work, of course, and might mean skipping out on a few outings with her friends to get things done quickly just in case, but she could make the Miracle Box safe and secure again. It might even end up helping her in the long run, since now she knew where the weak points in her security were and could fix them before they were put to the test by an akuma or Hawkmoth. Sure, it wasn't ideal that people knew about the box at all, but- well, it wasn't worth crying over spilled milk.

Marinette would come back from this, and she would come back stronger.

#Miraculous Ladybug #My writing #Traps and Sneaks

87 notes · View notes

hopevalley · 3 years

Text

Season 8, Episode 8: A Parade and a Charade

A lot happened in this last episode so there’s plenty to discuss! I’ll try to keep my thoughts...a manageable length. :)

Plotlines:

The Christopher Report

Triangle Tribulations

Bill’s Wounded Pride

Miscellaneous Stuff (FloYo, The Canfields, Dress Shop, Jesse, Infirmary)

This episode has been a little different from the others this season in that we had two pretty big plotlines going on, one medium-sized one, and a bunch of small flickers of plots. Things still managed to flow together pretty well over all, though, I think, but it was a shift I felt was noticeable.

For what it’s worth I mostly enjoyed this episode. There were a few little nitpicks (as usual) but I’ve really been feeling this season that we have a good batch of actors that work really well together and that’s been nice to see.

The Christopher Report

Mr. Christopher Hughes, resident Bad Boy™ and the object of Rachel’s immense and expansive Thirst™...

I’m sure his character arc is going to match that of the average Adopted Child. That is to say, I feel that his arc will follow the same patterns that characters of his archetype usually do. He hates his biological parent who abandons him but becomes curious against his better judgment. He meets his biological father and feels anger/resentment at first, but there’s something there that feels Human and he can’t ignore it. Over time he starts to care, again against his better judgment. In Christopher’s case, it seems likely that the original reason for striking up a relationship will present itself later in the story (perhaps not this season, but next); it won’t be a wholesome attempt to connect, but rather an intent to bamboozle.

Remember Rosemary’s words from earlier: she knows a performance when she sees one. But we’ll get to that.

It’s a good idea for a storyline, and I have some faith in the payoff being worth it if we keep the same head writer for next season. This is the kind of thing best explored over a period of time and they’re doing well with the pacing.

This episode, we first see Christopher when he surprises Rachel at the dress shop.

He mentions they haven’t taken in the sights in town yet, and Rosemary overhears from the back room. She asks him what sights and he switches his story to saying that he was thinking that Rosemary and Lee could take both he and Rachel around town and show them everything. Rosemary says it’s a great idea and of cOURSE they can do that! As soon as Christopher is gone, Rosemary starts lecturing Rachel on the type of freedom she’s trying to experience in Hope Valley. She pretty much says she and Lee don’t approve of Christopher while Rachel ignores her and sneaks out the back door.

The very next scene Christopher surprises Rachel again, but this time with a, uh...hands on approach.

He tells her he’s not afraid of her aunt or uncle, and she says she knows he’s not afraid of Lee because she saw him steal his pocketwatch when he arrived in town. He’s surprised that she didn’t say anything and he calls her “a little sneak.” She starts throwing things at him playfully and he asks, “You’re not afraid of me?” She says she isn’t and he tells her he’s as gentle as a lamb.

She says she doubts that, and he walks through the fire of her throwing hats (or whatever they are) at him and grabs her wrists. She takes the opportunity to kiss him and he laughs. They’re broken up by the sound of people coming closer so he tells her he’ll come to her house tonight and to listen for a sound at her window.

In the next scene, Henry walks into Nathan’s office where Bill seems to be...assisting Nathan? That’s my best guess as to what’s going on. Bill strikes up a conversation with Henry and Henry says they could have gotten drinks to chat if that’s what Bill wanted (it seems very Small Talky but Bill ain’t that kind of man). In fact, Bill destroys the peaceful atmosphere instantly and makes it clear that this is a business discussion, and his questions were business-related.

If I was a bettin’ man I’d wager that Bill will piece together some problems in Hamilton with Christopher, but eh, let’s not overextend my brain just yet.

Bill’s first and only real question is to ask when Christopher arrived in town but Henry gets upset and says Bill just wants to blame someone. I’m surprised Henry didn’t mention the bad blood between him and Bill leading to this, but I’m pretty sure that’ll be coming in the future. Nathan comes in and says nobody’s accusing anyone, they just turned up at the same time so they have to check everything.

Later, Christopher runs out of Henry’s office and to the infirmary yelling for help. Henry was having trouble breathing and he got dizzy. There’s a big commotion about it and Faith tells Christopher that his father has very high blood pressure and they’ve been struggling to get it under control.

Christopher hones in on Lucas and goes after him for hiring Henry back even though he knew he shouldn’t be working. Bill intervenes and stops Christopher from getting too close to Lucas.

(Aside: I haven’t lost hope that they’ll do something with Bill and Christopher, at least from the angle of Bill having raised Christopher’s (dead) half-brother (which means Henry abandoned two women and two children straight-up), but I am starting to think it won’t happen this season.)

Around dinnertime, Henry talks with Carson and is in a good mood. When Carson asks why he’s had a sudden change of heart with wanting to get better (health-wise), he says Christopher called him “Dad” when he was worried about him, and it makes him want to do better because it means Christopher cares about him.

Y’all...that scene was so good. But. BUT. I feel like Henry has a big storm comin’ as it relates to Christopher. I just hope Henry’s self-improvements don’t backslide when he inevitably ends up disappointed in Christopher for one reason or another.

Outside, Christopher is sitting on the steps of Dottie’s Apparel across the way from the café and Rachel approaches him. She asks why he didn’t come to see her and he gets sassy about it, but she actually seems to understand exactly what he’s going through and calls him out excessively gently about it. I don’t like her instant attachment to Christopher but they’re young and dumb and at least she seems to Get Him.

She tells him that he’s not having dinner with his dad because he’s scared—scared of getting close to him, scared of feeling an attachment to him. The only way to protect himself from that attachment, and from the inevitable loss that you will one day experience in regards to them, is to not let it form in the first place.

He asks her what the solution is and she says he needs to take a chance. And then she ruins it by saying “Like when you stole Uncle Lee’s watch.” ?????? This is definitely some Into Bad Boys Teenage Girl Logic right there. There is literally no connection.

She gives him his handkerchief back and when he mentions it still has her lipstick on it, she says, “I know.” THIS GIRL IS TRYING TO GET HER A MAN AND SHE IS TRYING VERY HARD. I wouldn’t be surprised if these were things she read about in her tame bodice ripper novels though LMAO.

They then share a kiss and he promises to come and see her the next day at the store.

Rosemary and Lee mention to Elizabeth that Rachel’s mom wants her to come back home right away, and the next morning Rachel confides in Rosemary that she’s afraid that once she’s back in Bellingham she won’t ever be allowed to return to Hope Valley. Rosemary explains to her that she shouldn’t worry about that; leave it all up to her instead.

Christopher is busy working, digging a trench. He’s getting out some of his frustration and anger by doing this and Lucas seems a bit annoyed by him but otherwise accepting of his, uh, issues. At least...for now. Lucas seems to have come up to the worksite to suggest Christopher spend more time with Henry, as he feels bad that he didn’t realize Henry’s health was actually as bad as it was.

But Christopher won’t go and just keeps angrily digging his ditch, and in fact he’s so consumed by this he doesn’t notice when Rachel leaves town. When he’s on break, he comes back into town only to find that the store is locked up for the day.

Seeing as how Rachel just found out the night before that she was leaving town, I think it’s plausible to imagine that...he doesn’t know she’s actually Gone. I almost feel bad for him.

Honestly, this young man is a whiz of an actor. He’s likable in that Fun Character kind of way where you never know if you should root for him or not. I’m not the type of person who generally likes characters like this, but color me intrigued. This show rarely has interesting characters in it that get to remain interesting. I hope Christopher gets to develop for the next couple of seasons if indeed they choose to keep him around. The guy can act! He plays funny, slimy, rude, arrogant, emotional, and even twitterpated really well, and he ain’t afraid to get dirty to sell the part. I respect that.

Can I just say how sorry for Henry I feel though, knowing—or at least feeling—that he will be blindsided in the near future with Christopher’s uh...faults? Woof.

Triangle Tribulations

There’s a huge part of me that doesn’t even want to discuss this. I just want to say, “That’s a yikes from me, Chief” and move on to the next point. It seems easier. And less awkward. And also...let’s be honest: I have no horse in this race.

I don’t care that much about Elizabeth as a character, and I care even less about what gentleman she might choose to set her sights on in the long run.

But it’s become the central talking point of the show, so let’s discuss it!

Three years is a perfectly acceptable mourning period, but I think the show’s inability to hold its horses these last couple of years is just now catching up to it in the worst way. It puts Elizabeth in this awkward position where she has men interested in her and the show has framed her as being ready ish to move on, but then a new writer stepped in and was told to make sure the triangle lasted through most of the 8th season. How can he make it last when things have been set up for her to move on? Uhh, quick! Come up with something!

Oh, realism! She’s not actually ready to move on!

I mean, I don’t blame John Tinker for this. I blame the writer for S6 and S7 that rushed through the storytelling and gave us...whatever that was, where two men showed up out of nowhere and both set eyes on Elizabeth. I blame the marketing that made sure to sell S6 and S7 for the love triangle instead of the family-friendly or heartwarming elements of the story. It’s really sad that the triangle has come to...this. It didn’t have to. If they hadn’t tried making it a central point in S6 (literally months after Jack died when nobody was ready to really move on and nobody felt that Elizabeth would be ready, either) I don’t think things would be so awful, but it’s too late to go back, now.

Don’t get me wrong, the triangle feels pretty good this season. It’s tense. It’s interesting. Lucas really has shone in this season thus far (instead of coming across as creepy as he sometimes did for the first two seasons he was in), and Nathan is learning to be a little more...forthcoming with his feelings. I guess.

But it should have been S7. S7 should have had this level of care put into it for the triangle so that S8 was a chance for the choice to get some air.

Anyway, I’m not happy with it. I’m glad it’s almost over. I just want it to end. I do not care who the choice is, I just want her to choose.

In this episode, she confronted Nathan right out of the gate, and he wasn’t exactly pleased about it. She acts like he went into the adoption ceremony knowing damn well what Allie had done, but he insists he didn’t know and seems a bit hurt that Elizabeth would accuse him of being mean to her when he tells her that Allie’s list didn’t even have her on it.

Elizabeth later mentions this as a truth (the list, her name not being on it), so I don’t know what we’re supposed to think here. I’m gonna go with: her feelings were hurt and she lashed out.

Nathan’s temper is apparently done with Lucas, as he tells him to Save It at the end of the scene. I want to say I’m living for it but Lucas hasn’t really...done anything wrong, so...it feels misplaced.

(I want to say something about the fans being divided and this feeling more like fanservice/an attempt to stir the pot than anything that makes any sense.)

Elizabeth goes on to spend a little time with Lucas and it was very cool to see his office for the first time ever! Also, “pardon my French” was actually pretty funny here.

Nathan wants to talk to Allie about the adoption ceremony catastrophe but is called away before they can sit down and talk, which Allie is...sad about...for some reason? I guess even if it’s negative attention it’s better than no attention? That seems in line with her age. Elizabeth comments to Lucas about feeling sorry for Allie and wanting to comfort her, but in my opinion this is kind of misplaced and Lucas points out that he doesn’t mind her sharing a friendship with Nathan, but that...he doesn’t think Nathan will settle for it.

I’d probably be against Lucas on this matter but I already know that Lucas is right. Elizabeth seems to not to want to believe that but...I dunno. Part of the problem is that in a town this size, it’s really hard to have space. She wants to forget Nathan and focus on Lucas, but she’s constantly seeing both Allie and Nathan, and that makes it hard.

Around dinnertime she goes to Lucas’s office and he begs off dinner because he’s just not in a good state of mind after the whole thing with Henry, and he also seems like he’s had a few drinks. She offers to let him sit with her and it’s...uh...very cozy (probably the closest two bodies have ever been to one another on this show, hahaha).

He says he doesn’t want to be impatient and that she should leave. Which she does.

Fanning herself.

The next morning, Nathan approaches Lucas at the oil derricks to tell him that he hasn’t given up on Elizabeth just yet, to which...Lucas says he can do whatever he wants, but he needs to make sure he has the best interests of Allie and Elizabeth in mind, not his own. Nathan tries to say something else to him and Lucas says, “Save it.”

Which is fair and valid. I’d respect it more if Nathan’s “save it” had felt more believable earlier, though.

Either way, I’m at a point in this series where I’m starting to think Nathan’s just being selfish. His writing took an absolute beating in this episode and this isn’t even the worst part!

Allie invites Elizabeth to dinner. I hated this scene mostly because I think it will only make the hatred for Allie worse. Team Lucas fans tend to hate her because she acts so unreasonably and this scene was the worst example of it so far. She’s a young teenage girl (13/14 years old I’d guess) but this childish illustration card? Is something a 9 year old might pull (circumstances considered).

I’d find it more plausible if we just had more time with Allie, but we get so little and everything we’ve been getting hasn’t felt...quite right to me lately. I could understand the whole “inviting only Elizabeth and Nathan” because that’s actually quite clever of her, and even funny. She’s young and doesn’t understand the...bigger picture, or the Adult Feelings involved. I’m fine with it. But this? Oh please. They’re not doing Allie any favors.

I think she could have done something else that was more in line with her age. It could still be cringey, but not...like this. I’m certain it was meant to be a sassy response to being scolded because neither of them were aware they were the only ones invited (and Allie’s hand-drawn invitation makes it clear they’re the only two invited lol), but...eh.

The very next scene is Elizabeth confronting Nathan, though, which I do appreciate. This thing with Allie is so far out of hand by this point that he needs to absolutely sit her down and have a VERY serious heart-to-heart. She’s hurting and it feels like nobody is telling her the right thing.

Just before the adoption ceremony Nathan told her that Elizabeth was seeing Mr. Bouchard and Allie complained but Nathan did a great job of telling her that they should be happy that Elizabeth is happy and I LOVED THAT. So why does it feel like he didn’t mean any of it? Why didn’t he confront any of the other things Allie is probably feeling?

Like, you know...that Elizabeth can still be her friend even if she’s seeing Mr. Bouchard?

Elizabeth asks Nathan for a word, and when she tells him that she wants to speak with Allie he tells her that Allie is home and is afraid to talk to Elizabeth without him being there.

She asks why Allie is afraid but the fanfare starts for Bill, and Nathan doesn’t want to be rude but Elizabeth insists on continuing their conversation.

Elizabeth tells him she was afraid it would happen if things didn’t work out between them.

Nathan says he doesn’t know what to tell her. He’s tried talking to Allie but nothing he says has convinced her that Elizabeth isn’t to blame. Elizabeth tells him that she thinks Allie should blame her because it’s Nathan she’s attached to/loves.

Their conversation is paused for a moment by Bill’s appearance but they pick right back up after Bill rides away on his horse. She says she tried to tell him at the parent/teacher conference that he is everything to Allie and he says he knows that, and that’s why he’s trying really hard not to show Elizabeth how he feels about her, and it’s why he turned down the promotion to inspector.

He wanted to leave but he couldn’t do it because Allie was so happy in Hope Valley. Elizabeth says that’s why they have to figure out how to make things okay again, because he said it himself, he stayed because Allie was happy!

He said, no, I said that was part of the reason.

And he looks away like he didn’t mean to say that, like in saying that, he’s said Too Much. And this isn’t about his feelings. This is...something else.

Elizabeth has suspected all along that he was hiding something and not telling her the whole truth about Fort Clay, but this behavior isn’t like him and she calls him out on it. She says she knows he’s hiding something and she wants to know what it is.

He tells her that at Fort Clay he was in charge of the training mission, not Jack. But he was disciplined for an earlier incident and they sent Jack instead. He says he’s sorry but there was never the right time to tell her.

The episode ends there.

I am...disappointed. I was hoping it would be something small that might have still weighed on his mind, like finding Jack’s body—having never met the man, having never known him, it would be so odd to know his wife and the home he loved but to have never known him. And to never really have a right to...ask about it either because it’s not your place.

But no, they really had to go there. They really had to make it like that. We’ve been guessing this since Nathan arrived in town as a possibility and I wish it had never happened.

I agree with all the people who think that there would be no point in the love triangle without Nathan being end-game, but ugh.

I’m fine with forgiveness and moving on, but back in S5 and S6 I made it very clear how I felt about the direction they were taking Abigail and Henry. For the purpose of clarification, Henry was actively awful (he was cruel to Abigail many times over and was part of the VERY DIRECT reason her husband and son died) and that was the biggest reason I opposed it. I think comparatively Nathan is harmless. But... I dunno.

It feels to me like they really want to tell that Type of story and...I’m not a fan. You can forgive someone without hooking up with them. In fact, that’s a way better moral to be dropping on this specific audience anyway.

I’m mostly disgusted at Nathan and have to now worry how they will write Lucas next to make sure he’s on equal ground. :(

Maybe Nathan’s posting in Hope Valley wasn’t out of guilt but the way he reacted to Elizabeth sure makes it seem like it was. Like he chose to come to Hope Valley to keep an eye on Jack’s family. And if it stayed at a friendship level I could respect it. I might even like it.

But... ugh. I mean, Nathan feels guilty. He knows his actions indirectly killed Jack. No, he is not to blame for it and I don’t think he blames himself—at least not in a traditional way. But the knowledge is there. He should have kept his feelings to himself. He should have NEVER decided he wasn’t going to give up on Elizabeth after she walked away from him. She didn’t say no but she shouldn’t have to.

So he knew he was indirectly responsible for Jack’s death and he still let himself tell Lucas he wasn’t giving up on her. What the hell?

I guess you can consider me #teamstaysingle now.

Bill’s Wounded Pride

This wasn’t a long or deep storyline but I wanted to dig into it a little bit since Bill’s my favorite character and all.

I really appreciate that they are giving Lee a chance to be a good listener. He got kind of overshadowed by Rosemary’s personality a bit in the past so it’s good to see a consistent show of it now. He’s so nice to Bill. I don’t feel like they’re great buds, but there’s a kind of...mutual respect there that has definitely been earned on both sides. Lee’s offer to listen to Bill vent was really nice.

After Bill goes off on Henry (sorta? barely?) Nathan calls Bill out for placing blame on Christopher by association of Henry, since he knows he and Henry have some bad blood between them.

But then Nathan kind of gets this self-righteous ramble about how maybe he’ll feel differently when he’s asked to hand in his serge, but it’s not helping Bill to prolong the process/put it off.

Which...while Nathan has a point, he’s just written throughout this entire episode like a selfish jerk. I get that he’s not that attached to his uniform (he’s younger, he’s willing to quit to settle down and marry), but you’d think he’d have a little sympathy for someone whose entire career was the Mounties and who is struggling to give up the last connection he has to that part of his life.

If Nathan was 18 or 19 I’d feel his reaction would be fully believable, but he’s probably in his 30s and should have a little more emotional maturity than this.

Again, yes, Bill should just get rid of the uniform and be done with it. But it’s not as if Bill doesn’t know that. He’s struggling! A word of encouragement might help more than telling him to rip the bandaid off. If he talked this way to Allie it’s no wonder she’s so messed up.

Later that morning, Molly greets Lee about the lumber shipment Carson ordered for the infirmary and Jesse is grumpy. She jokes that she’s dealing with that, too, but with Carson and Faith. Lee adds that Bill is also in a bad mood, because he has to turn in his uniform. They briefly discuss that nobody has ever seen him in uniform.

Lee tells Molly that she’s in charge of fixing everyone else’s problems and leaves.

The next day, Bill walks into Nathan’s office to see Molly spying on his stuff...

She claims she’s there to wish him a good trip and he says he’s not looking forward to riding all the way to Hamiliton. She mentions his uniform and he’s surprised she knows about it, but says only that “word gets around.”

Bill says yeah, well, he should have told them that if they want it so bad they should come and get it. Molly tells him that “rules and regulations can strip a man of his pride.” Which is. A weird line of dialogue but okay.

Bill tells her that it was a proud day when he put the uniform on—even though back then it didn’t have any of the decorations on it, of course. She says he must have felt ten feet tall he and replies with, “Ten years and three months.”

You know it meant a lot to him if he remembers the exact amount of years he wore the damn thing. Molly encourages him to try it on and he tries to excuse it by saying it doesn’t fit. She tells him he’s hard to read (probably because she thought he wanted the excuse to try it) but he’s “worth it, cover to cover.”

She goes on to say that “WE” know that turning it in means a great deal to him, so it means a great deal to his friends, too, and as he should know, the uniform doesn’t make the man.

She goes to leave and tells him it will definitely fit (HAHA maybe she was checking that while he was gone) and to do everyone a favor and put on a good show.

A short time later, Mike and a couple of others from town start playing some fanfare music outside the Mountie HQ and Bill emerges.

He’s touched by it, but also maybe a little confused lol, and asks them if they know that he’ll be right back.

And then...it’s off and away with Bill.

I’d have liked this storyline so much more if it felt...deeper? A little extra fanfare for him is nice, but it doesn’t really...deal with any of the emotions he feels. That said, I’m almost certain this is to get him to Hamilton where he might run into Christopher’s parents and/or hear more information about potential misdeeds of Christopher to move that plot along.

Miscellaneous Short Plots

FloYo: Florence and Ned were cute but I wish they hadn’t tried to do anything with it in this episode. We didn’t really need to see Ned being grumpy about things as a like...Moment. It just didn’t feel very meaningful even though they had that cutesy “nobody can replace you” resolution. This episode was a bit of a miss for them for me because of that. And hey, don’t get me wrong; I generally like them, but trying to make everything wholesome all the time gets draining and there was so much other stuff that felt more rewarding to me comparatively.

The Canfields: Very cute, good. I need to know what Joseph’s plans are. And Angela learning braille and being so sweet... AHHHHHH I LOVED HER.

Dress Shop: I’m disappointed they had this plotline drag out for episode after episode and then die out. I guess it could be interesting if they blew it wide open by Dottie selling it at the end of the season to someone unexpected, but what bored me about this was that nobody was that stressed out about the situation and nobody seemed relieved that Dottie wasn’t selling. I’ll hold out hope that something comes of it anyway.

Jesse: FINALLY. I appreciated that he and Mike got to talk. It explains where Jesse was all that time...and Mike is a good friend. I love him. I hope he gets more screentime next season because he honestly deserves it. Also, I’m glad Jesse went to talk to Clara and asked if they could sit and talk. SIT AND TALK. YES PLEASE. Thank you. It was a simple step forward but I really appreciate it. Also, the Canfields and Bill hightailing it out of there as soon as Jesse shows up...haha.

Infirmary: GOODBYE HAM SANDWICH CARSON. I mean... I’m of two minds. Expanding the infirmary would be a good idea. It wouldn’t hurt to have a little more room for patients that might need to recover for longer, and to have a little bit more privacy for them. On the other hand, Carson’s sudden lashing out against the Hope Valley infirmary is...odd. I loved how he and Faith both got so excited but for different reasons that culminated in a completely different mindset. You can tell Carson really wants to go to Boston but feels weird about it. I love Faith’s dedication to the town.

My brain feels dry and crusty after typing all this up, and I didn’t proofread it at all, so sorry in advance if there are any errors in it. As always, I’m looking forward to the drama next episode, particularly with Carson and Faith (BREAK UP BREAK UP BREAK UP).

I’m still kind of stunned they went the route they did. I find it hard to imagine that Elizabeth is capable of a choice within the next four episodes, but I guess we’ll have to see what’s in store for us.

Also, for a little laugh, my husband watched the full episode with me for the first time in a few seasons. He was pleasantly surprised by Angela Canfield and said that he liked “the property brother.” I think he’s #TeamLucas but he told me later last night that actually they’re both fine and he’d take either one for himself if the opportunity arose LMAO.

What are your thoughts on this episode? Opinions?

#when calls the heart #analysis and meta discussion #character studies and information

11 notes · View notes

popculturebuffet · 3 years

Text

The Legend of the Three Caballeros: Shangri-La-Di-Da and Sheldgoose Squaredance Reviews: The Last Ride (Comissoned by WeirdKev27)

SALUDOS AMGIOS.. THIS IS IT! The finale review of my retrospective on the Three Caballeros THE RIDE OF THE THREE CABLLEROS. It’s the final ride. While there will be, as i’ve said the last few time, a little epilogue to celebrate finishing this, as clocking in at 15 reviews, one best of list coming next week and covering a film, two sizeable comic book stories, and 18 episodes of television, this has been one of my largest projects and one of my proudest. But there will be time to look back next week. For now i’m amped up, excited about this series and excited to finish. So after the cut join me for one last full ride as our heroes face their final hour!

Shangri-La-De-Da: Our penultimate adventure begins with the Cabs returning home after training with King Arthur, where they apparently got a years worth of training in a day.. because apparently Camelot is one giant hyperbolic time chamber. But the training’s paid off as our heroes are now at their most skilled and most powerful: As a result Jose skifully and perfectly cuts an orange in seconds, Panchito ropes an apple from a nearbye stand (and the owner’s really cool about it since Panchito gives him the money for it “Thanks magic rope!”) and Donald.. breaks everything but in a really impressive ways. Our heroes are at their best and ready to take on Feldrake when the time comes, while Ari and the Bear.. are hiding what happened last episode with the girls investigating. Hey can’t win em all. Meanwhile Sheldrake is leading Sheldgoose into the Manor.. after a few goofs on him running into the barrier because he’s a petty asshole. They decsend into the depths bellow leaving Leopold to guard.

Back at the Cabana Donald just wants one more thing... Daisy.

I’ve.. gone on about why he shouldn’t do this last time. He deserves better. Xandra is right there and while she’s treated him shabbily from time to time. it’s more human error versus... everything with Daisy just everything. This plot point has been nothing but pain and suffering for me and it’s not changing that track record in these last two episodes, though thankfully it’s barely in the finale, so my own track record of screaming about daisy in text form every time she shows up will also remain in tact. He does this because Xandra offered them a vacation so he won’t be distracted.. again why isn’t she the love intrest? I dunno maybe sh’es more into Jose. And Daisy sucks on arrival, phrasing, as her response to Donald’s call wasn’t to just.. tell him no but to go to his place to clearly tell him no to his place saying “Let’s recap, you abandoned me in a bad part of town, spent our date in the bathroom all night in a hula skirt, then brainwashed my nieces into helping you trick me with a dummy”. Okay Daisy, you want to recap, you insufferable, pompus, selfish, self absorbed, overly demanding, overly haughty, golddigging rose colored shrew?

Let’s fucking recap: He left you in a bad part of town because he got FIRED from his job and found out his house burned down, something you REFUSED to let him explain. You found out about this and then proceded to berate him over dinner, saying he couldn’t possibly help people. While he did spend a while in the bathroom with a hula skirt nad never explained it the ONE point you have.. he LEFT to go help his friends, with you once again leaving instead of letting him come back and explain later or leaving but going to his place to hash this out or just dump him. THEN, something you CAREFULLY omitted, you moved on which is fine.. as a way to make him jealous, bringing the guy to his door to rub his beak in your new relationship with not a hint of shame,a nd ran off whie he was fighting for his life clearly. Now seeing things were more complicated, you asked NO follow up questions, imposed a date on him and while he did lie your nieces WERE NOT FUCKING BRAINWASHED. This was of their own free will you unbleivible she demon. You are so up your own ass you can’t even see the obvious. And then you came here JUST to say all this and be mean to Donald one more time. While Donald shoudln’t of called you up it’s not because of all that it’s because your a heartlress, selfish, shrivled husk of a person. You care about NO ONE but yourself, and that includes Donald. Fuck you and the horse you rode in on.

So Xandra just zaps them away and says she’s perfect for Donald.

Donald and Daisy end up in the himlayas.. cue the music.

youtube

Why isn’t this game on Switch? Questions for later. Point is our heroes find a cave to duck in and a yeti.. who after clearing their throat reveals Xandra left them at the entrance for Shangri-La, and the inside is intorduced.. with a very lackluster musical number. A weak note for the songs to go out on but not bad, though Donald is pissed off because that’s his schtick here.. though credit where it’s do: Since I didn’t know everything and hadn’t finished it turns out his anger was delebrate.. but we’ll get to that and why it dosen’t work in a moment. Back at the Cabana the boys fence with bread before Panchito gets a flash as Sheldgoose puts the first amulet into..some kind of melting pool... and the girls confirm what happened seconds later. Feldrake has the amulets, which were used to seal him last time as revealed in last episode, and is melting them into his own power. The final battle is nigh! So Xandra goes to fetch Donald.. and comes back as she CAN’T. Donald and Daisy signed a contract and they can’t leave till ALL their problems are solved. And given Donald is carried off after his anger issues not only are evident when, given a pillow representing his frustratoins he destroys it, but he DENIES having anger issues, he’s dragged off to some extreme thereapy.. i.e. a Self Reflecting reflecting pool that manifests his anger as a giant, sausgey, pissed off version of himself and he reacts as you’d expect and gets flattned. Back at the Cabana, Xandra breaks the bad news.. and whie Jose TRIES to reassure them, his amulet is next to go so he gets a flash of it being destroyed and our heroes now have to scramble to take on Sheldgoose.. WITHOUT Donald. Back at donald’s inner hulk.. man I love this fucking job, Donald is pounding away until his own flash breaks things for a moment.. and sends him into his own head. We’re then treated to an acid sequece, an homage to Donald’s surreal reverire from the original movie that while not as wild, is still gloriously bizzare. Donald rencounters the teapot ghost thing that’s apparently part of his psyche from the first episode that gets him to consider why his life is like this and he goes through a lot of moments of the first episodes.. conviently eddting out daisy’s questionable behavior and the fact some things had actual catalysits. See the idea of Donald FACING his anger issues and growing from them is fine. But this has two faults. One, it assuems you can just.. cure anger issues. You can’t. Anger is a normal emotion and as someone with them I hope to generally work thorugh mine with a therapist.. but I know they just don’t magically go away and therapy is a process and your mental issues are lifelong things you have to grapple away. It’s not the MOST insulting treatment of emtoinal issues i’ve seen, as Total Drama you know had someone with MPD cured with a fucking button press, but it’s not great. And the second is this was poorly set up. Donald was an angry asshole all series yes and it was an issue.. but it wasn’t really FRAMED as a character arc. Just Donald being donald. So while having that be the source of his issues is a good idea for a character arc for im it comes off sloppy and forced because it’s been treated more like a joke or a character trait and less like a SERIOUS issue or the problem with him and Daisy. Hell they put the whole Dapper duck thing in there when he was fine that episode and is rightfully angry about that if at the wrong person. This whole thing just feels rushed, forced and unsatsifying and is a hsame for such a good idea

The payoff is good though, as when Donald awakens and let’s his anger wash away.. he just stands as the anger donald tries to beat the crap out of him.. but can’t do anything to him since he’s calm. He’s fine, and he’s released.. and his shock collar is disabled. Good quick gag. Meanwhile our heroes aren’t sure what to do despite having tons of magical items.. until they think what would donald do.. and he’d just at least try and thus corm a GIANT FUCKING MAGIC CANON OUT OF THEM. Very nice. They blow the doors off.. and through the back.. and into the money bin where we get a scrooge cameo.

And he’s voiced by Eric Bauza.. which is sadly not great because it’s far from his best work and dosen’t even really attempt a scottish accent.

But our heroes storm the gate.. after Xandra easily disposes of the dog guards.. who Sheldgosoe apparently raised to do this... still not entirely over that. They find the staircase and the triplets op to go back while the rest charge in and prepare to fight leopold.

Back at the Cabana, Donald and Daisy return via tub and Donald, seeing the swirling vortex of darkness outside sheldgoose manor, tells daisy he has to go his friends need him it’s his destiny, gives her one hell of a kiss she dosen’t deserve.. oh and earlier he told her “Thanks for being patient with me” and she tells him it was worth the wait. Ha ha... I hope you get hit by a rusty tractor you unfathomable blight on duck kind.

So part one ends with Donald heading for the treasure chamber to armor up.

Sheldgoose Square Dance: Part two begins with Sheldgoose putting the staff in place, and an egg emerging. Weird.. and as a result of that Leopold sense his ‘Daddy’ and leaves, and before the cabs can charge in donald shows up, now confident, at full strength and after tripping as you’d epxct, with the other cabs armor and in his. The guys suit up, and we get to see both jose’s.. amazing.. toned.. stomach.

And Panchito’s big belly.. which I have one of those so we’re twinsies. And Xandra of course watches Jose change slyly. Eh i’ts a bit creepy but I can’t blame her for sneaking a peak as long as she didn’t linger.

So our heroes are suited up, look awesome and have their trademark weapons Let’s fucking go!

Back at the ranch, the Nieces talk to daisy and having grabbed a weird document last time, are trying to piece it together. Daisy.. is suddenly really good with puzzles and helps them with it. They reform it and.. don’t really do much until after the danger has passed and I avoid another cornary yelling innterally at this unpleasant pile of hippo excrement.

So while the Cabs dash to stop feldrake feldrake awakens.. as a demon baby. And Sheldgoose has about a minute of mockery before feldrake smacks him around with telekensis and agrees while his mind’s affected by his current state, he’s still fully aware and can talk and seeing the cabs are coming gives him a bit of power, i’d say about as much or a little more than what feldrake had as a staff, and sends him after the cabs.

So we get one of the most awesome moments if not THE most awesome moment in the entire series as something from EVERY episode makes a come back as shelgoose, after trying some zaps, back in full robe and cloak, MAKES HIS OWN ZOOM POINT. Thus it becomes an utterly awesome back and forth as sheldgoose summons one thing from the past and xandra summons another to counter. And it avoids reptititon as the sheer sight of characters from each episode battling it out, and never knowing which ones next, keeps it intresting.

In order: Sheldgoose summons the moon bots, Xandra summons the roman gods to hack them to pieces, after the boys get some shots in too. Sheldgoose blocks the way with lava lizards, the cabs respond with a goblin army who block the lava river and use a cat launcher against them, courtsey of king vomit. Sheldgosoe unleashes the tengu, the cabs unleash king arthur.. and we get the immortal line from donald “Thanks king arthur!”. Sheldgoose summons his ancestors, the cabs summon the ghost presidents! And in a call back that had me clapping Sheld summons the termintes.. and xandra summons THE MINOTAUR! And Sheldgoose thirsts over him. .huh.. so shledgosoe is bi good for him. And for a final distraction sheldgoose summons.. the dragon.. that was from the adventure they just had he had no way of knowing about.

So with that out fo the way our heroes and villians both reach feldrake.. whose awakened and is.. this

Really.. weird , if still threanting, deisgn aside, Feldrake now at full power turns new quackmore into the psycadelic starry battlefield we saw in the intro to the series and thus the final battle begins. We see the fight from the start.. but it’s now even MORE beautiful and glorious with context. Before we saw three strangers, if ones we knew from other works fighting some evil we never met. Now we’ve seen our heroes grow, both as people, and as heroes, learning from every encounter, getting stronger with every fight and slowly getting noticably more compitent: going from falling all over themselves just to work a ship, to defeating dragons, tengu, and other horrors as a team. And we’ve seen jus thow petty and cruel feldrake is.. and how serious the stakes are and what our heroes tand to loose should they fail. It’s not perfect.. we could stand to loose daisy and new quackmore dosen’t mean much, though Sheldgoose gets to zap regina into a worm, but it’s still AWESOME and feels like a tremendous payoff and Donald’s predator bro fist thing with Panchito has more weight. Our heroes have risen to their peak and now they face one last obstacle to becoming legends. The fight is fluid, awesome and gorgeously animated and utterly epic in every sense of the word and we catch up to their seeming defeat.. only for something we DIDN’T know about last time to help.. Xandra who gets htem out of the way. It’s a long and fantastic fight, with our heroes eventaully getting knocked over to a pool while Xandra tries her best to hold feldrake off, but is clearly wearing down despite doing her best.

Yeah while itw as established Feldrake was melting down the amulets and we saw a pool of resdiual magic, so teh magical pool of stuff the cabs find them at WAS set up.. but what happens next remotely wasn’t. The cabs fall in and commuincate with blazebeak the creator of the amulets who embues them with their power. Where he came from, why he’s just showing up n ow.. I dunno, it comes off as a really badly setup deus ex machina.. but it still dosen’t hurt the finale that bad. A little yes, as everything else is so well paced and feels like so much payoff.. but the awesomeness of our heroes glowing with their signture colors, rushing in to save xandra and then ari, who swiped the rest of the magic goop, giving it to xandra to reivvie her.. overrides it. Sometiems somethings too stupid to be awesome.. and sometimes it’s so awesome it overides common sense. So yeah poorly set up yes.. still fucking awesome also yes.

Our heroes tear feldrake apart and realize once they see the now empty staff floating in the void they can simply reseal him. Sheldgoose interupts it.. but the nieces arrive riding on humphrey and knock him inot a golden toilet... again I fucking love this job. Our heroes then try ghost bustering him back into the staff and SHeldgoose tries saving him by breaking it. And it seemingly fails.. new quackmore is restored, Sheldrake’s gone and the town remembered EVERYTHING, cheering at their new heroes and saviors. Sheldgoose finds the staff gone and bemoans his lost master.. and soon looses his presidency as regina strips him of it. With his own powers gone Sheldgoose flees on Leopold, and while Regina tries to take the presdiency for herself.. the girls reveal the document explains if a sheldgoose is absent.. a coot takes his place. And since Donald is the only remaning coot apart from Della and she’s busy actually raising her kids in this continuity apparently, Donald is the new president. While Regina vows to beat him in an election.. our heroes are now happy, with the lawyer from the first episode backing Donald’s claim up. So Donald now has a new job, a new purpose in life, his girlfriend back, which is negiably a good thing, and a new family he dearly loves and tells them as much. Awww. Also he gets the mansion, which our heroes promptly plan to move into. Donald and Daisy fight, of fucking course, our heroes claim roms and Xandra and Jose share a moment. The series gets a truly satsifyign and happy ending.. and a sequel hook as it turns out feldrake is now in sheldgooses body and the tow are going ot have to share it as Sheldgoose has leopold take them to a house with legs.. so the baba yaga then. Sadly we’ll probably never see with this leads.. and this is the end.

Final Thoughts on the finale two parter: While the first half is a bit weak in the yeti stuff, the rest of it is incredibly strong and Sheldgoose Square Danc,e while having the worst name of the series.. is easily it’s best episode, tying everythign together greatly and being one, tense and epic finale the whole way through. A true masterpiece and a clear sign the series would be even BETTER going forward had it actually been allowed to live and a true shame.. but even with the sequel hooks aside.. it’s still an utterly sastifying, joyous note to go out on and i’m GLAD I saved this one for last, as it provided a great capper for both the series and this retrospective.

Final thoughts on Legend of the Three Cablleros:

This series.. was excellent. While at first I wasn’t sure it’s rep was warranted, as the first three episodes were good but had flaws and four and five were not great.. everything after that is sublime. The series has it’s flaws, the character devlopment is uneven, the characters can be made into caractures of themselves once in a while and the writing on Daisy is horrid and i’ve said enough on that to last me a lifetime and is easily the worst part of an otherwise fantastic show. But yeah.. as I said OTHERWISE fantastic, as while the daisy stuff is very bad, it’s for the most part in the background of a VERY good show with great voice acting, fun pacing, and beautiful animation. It’s a loveletter to clasic disney animation, holding tons of mythology gags and refrences and having humphrey as a main character, but with unquie touches like letting the nieces have a starring roll and everything about xandra and sheldgoose. It’s a unique, wonderful and awesome addition to the disney animated canon and deserves a second season or some other sort of revivial. This was a wonderful note to go out on and I’m throughly glad I finally watched it. So with this the Ride of the Three Cablleros is almost over.. but come back, let’s say next week, for one last party as we count down the top 12 cabs moments and celebrate these happy chappies in matching serapes one last time. Until then.. it’s been a pleasure.. and Kevin.. thank you.

21 notes · View notes

piermanwalter · 3 years

Text

Thief’s Apprentice: Core Gameplay Part 1 - Fights

Index: You are Being Warned

Index

Overview

FIGHTS

Figures 1 and 2, Table 1

SUPER SUMMARY

How Stats Affect Fighting

Status Bars

Weapons

Figure 3

Fight Controls

Purpose of Fighting

Aesthetics of Fighting

Final Thoughts

OVERVIEW

Thief’s Apprentice is a shitty evil retro open world game about Medieval zombie crime. Being an immortal corpse with no physical senses should be reinforced in every aspect of its design, as well as the day-to-day functions of an entire undead city fuelled by maniacal devotion to half-forgotten joys of life.

The aimless story composed of seemingly inconsequential and unrelated events culminating into huge payoffs and/or disasters should be reinforced by the gameplay, with the same set of stats influencing and being influenced by every mechanic.

Most fights can be headsmashed through with your gigantic healthbars, so fights should be ended in ways conducive to your goals, not just by winning. To compensate for fights technically being easier than most games, many abstractions and widely accepted quality of life features have been removed from dialogue and inventory to make them as infuriating as I can get away with.

Unsecured objects will move, rot, break, sprout, and form junk piles in your inventory. There is a very simple turn based RPG hidden in the dialogue with “elemental attacks” based on various methods of persuasion, “status effects” based on political affiliation, and “items” based on rare information.

FIGHTS

Fig. 1: Health, soul, and stagger bars. 1A-C: Charming Conman, Fleetfooted Housebreaker, Greedy Pickpocket. 1D: Housebreaker partially staggered. 1E: Housebreaker fully grounded, soul partially depleted. 1F: Conman health low (Note: After some changes after rendering in Godot, Fig. 1 is already out of date.)

Fig. 2: Evil bullshit damage formula, made to maximise evil bullshit

Table 1: Material impact type grid (values placeholders for now but it should get the vibe across)

SUPER SUMMARY: Revenants don’t usually fight to kill, since even the most deprived madman is very hard to kill and injuries don’t heal naturally. They fight to run away or establish social hierarchy. If you are careful, you can fight a lot through the entire game without being a nohit speedrunner and not heal even once.

Two out of three bros are bad at fighting, so it is not a priority, but if you want to attack, fighting is based on staggering people until they fall over and using the right type of attack on the right type of tissue to maximise damage while making sure it doesn’t happen to you.

HOW STATS AFFECT FIGHTING

Secret stat: weight. The bros have a base minimum and maximum weight based on how much of each type of health they have, but it can go over max by carrying items in inventory or holding heavy containers. Having a giant weight makes your soul decrease faster, makes more noise while walking, and breaks certain types of floors, but has great benefits otherwise, such as increasing your “tipping point” and making you harder to stagger, and as a damage multiplier. It is both thematically appropriate and mechanically advantageous to carry many things and be heavy as hell. Most weapons increase damage simply by increasing your weight. Hopefully there are some playstyles and outrageous cheat methods based on being light, but in a game about gutting the wealth out of an entire city, being heavy should not be discouraged.

Strength: Allows the bros to carry heavy objects and move faster while carrying them. Also acts as a damage multiplier. Damage is calculated when hit boxes on different individuals intersect, as...

((Enemy Stagger X Vector Difference X Weight X Strength X Attack / Hit Point Conversion)) + (Sharpness Boolean or Maybe Not a Boolean if Weapon Sharpness Will Be More Extensive X Sleight) - (Enemy Defence X Defence Conversion X Material Impact Type Grid) = Points of Damage per Material

This looks like absolute bullshit, but a majority of these stats don’t change a lot during fights and can be precalculated and reduced into a Super Fight Multiplier (Weight X Strength X Attack / Hit Point Conversion) and Super Damage Additive (Weapon Sharpness Boolean or Maybe Not a Boolean if Weapon Sharpness Will Be More Extensive X Sleight) - (Enemy Defence X Defence Conversion X (Material Impact Type Grid) . The values of the Material Impact Type Grid, while changing depending on material and impact type, can be called upon with no calculation, so maybe it is a good idea to store nine Super Damage Additives at once. If not, the Super Damage Additive should be calculated without the grid part and there’s also a Super Defence (Enemy Defence X Defence Conversion) to compensate.

There will need to be some kind of iterable that cycles upon all three material types for damage calculation and skips over materials that aren’t there. For the sake of sanity, each attack can only have one type of impact.

The Super Fight Multiplier and Super Damage Additive can easily be stored somewhere and only updated when their component stats change, to prevent processing meltdown hell from calculating the entire damage formula each frame.

Thus the entire formula in terms of frame by frame calculation can be reduced to...

(Stagger X Vector Difference X Super Fight Multiplier) + Super Damage Additive = Points of Damage per Material.

Or with separate Super Damage Additives...

(Stagger X Vector Difference X Super Fight Multiplier) + Super Damage Additive - (Super Enemy Defence X Material Impact Type Grid) = Points of Damage per Material.

I am not sure if the vector difference should just be the speed stat and be consumed by the Super Fight Multiplier, or if it can be calculated in real time based on the movement vectors of each hit box with “approaching” vectors of great difference and “retreating” of little difference upon the first frame of interaction, but the point of this pointlessly complicated damage system is to not have categorical differences between different hit box interactions.

Essentially, this means attacks will hurt more if they are faster and hit head on, and not hurt at all as glancing blows dealt to someone actively running away. This also means it’s easy to accidentally or “accidentally” hurt someone or break things by filling your pockets with bricks and running into them.

This also allows multiple hit box interactions at once. For example, a kick where one corner of your hit box clips slightly into your enemy’s shoulder does one box interaction worth of damage, but if you bodyslam someone, you have so many hit and hurt box interactions and a lot of damage is done.

Attack priority will be easier to figure out after I can see all the boxes, so I’ll do that later.

I hope making the graphics and loading zone sizes purposefully shitty and limited will allow large numbers of hit box interactions and vector calculations to happen relatively quickly, to achieve situations like running away while people throw rocks at you, but the rocks are doing no damage, or charging into oncoming traffic and exploding, or loading your pockets with bricks and ganking someone by jumping off a building on top of them.

Defence: Decreases damage taken by a set amount. Also used to generate a minimum damage threshold, which governs whether or not a regular box turns into a hurt box during box interactions. If not, no damage is taken.

This is EXTREMELY NOT the same as turning into a hurt box and taking no damage from set damage reduction. I will explain this in the Starting and Ending Fights section.

This also means you can whale to your shrivelled little corpse heart’s content beating on a monolith of defence and they won’t care.

Charisma: This is used to get into and out of fights, which is technically a part of dialogue.

Attack: As you may remember, this is also a damage multiplier.

Speed: Increases movement speed, including fight animations. Increasing speed by a single point is barely perceptible, but the evil bullshit damage formula means this may be enough to reach victory.

Sleight: Also a damage multiplier, but solely acts on sharp and/or finicky attacks. Does nothing otherwise.

Stamina: Increases your rate of stagger and soul regeneration.

Class: Class may enable the bros to get into or avoid fights, but once a fight starts it doesn’t matter in terms of stats. Enemies may use certain attacks against specific classes.

STATUS BARS

As seen in Fig. 1, there are three health bars: metal (grey), flesh (red), and bone (beige). There are two other indicators: stagger (dark square turns red while depleting), and soul (light green loops).

With at least one health bar still there, you will still be alive. When all three bars are depleted, you die. In practice, this means when fighting a knife-wielding enemy who slashed all your flesh apart, you are still alive because your bones and prosthetics are still intact. In 1E, the health bar gets a pointy end, as an indicator of low health, and also because if it stayed square, it would be very hard to see how much you have left as a tiny triangle of pixels stuck behind the stagger bar. I hate when that happens.

Most importantly, all these health bars are gigantic. I won’t know how the numbers behave until this gets programmed, but assuming fights with regular non-towering-prosthetic-monstrosity Veilheimers deal 0-40 damage per hit, it is normal to have a total of 6000 hit points across all health bars. In practice, this means you die after getting impaled by a spearman running into you at full speed 50 times. This sounds incredibly lenient, but remember revenants are sustained by Death Magic and feel no pain.

At high metal, you are very heavy, highly resistant to physical status types of damage, increases defence and strength greatly, but decreases stamina. High metal also reduces the rate of soul regeneration, to the point where you might die from having more prosthetics than your soul can support. At low metal, you are lighter, speed and stamina increase, but charisma decreases because your fit is busted as hell.

At high flesh, you are heavy, strength, speed, and stamina increase colossally, soul regeneration increases, but you are highly likely to get physical status effects, like burning, smelly, maggots, or rotting. At low flesh, you are light, but charisma and sleight increases because being a skeleton is a lifestyle.

At high bones, you are heavy, strength and defence increase a bit, and soul regeneration increases massively. At low bones, your charisma and sleight tank catastrophically. Take care of your bones.

Realistically there would also be a fabric health bar, but the UI is cluttered enough already and the in-universe explanation is that the bros are Cyrenean and good at repairing clothes.

Bear in mind that health isn’t the only thing affecting stats.

Because revenants feel no pain and are horrifying tanks in general, there are very few damage indicators like flinch animations and particle effects. To make sure the player understands revenants are horrifying tanks while still being aware when damage is taken, the health bars will break off and fall down the screen. The status bars need to be in the top left. The health bars also need to be this thick because I feel like a single pixel falling down is hard to see.

Note that this only applies to revenants. The living have one tiny health bar and die if it depletes.

The stagger bar, the pink square, determines when you will fall over, and basically acts as a traditional stamina and balance meter. Every action from walking to doing hit animations increases the stagger bar because revenants don’t have a sense of balance. Being in windy or slippy environments automatically increases stagger. Having high stagger, as seen in the evil bullshit damage formula, increases the amount of damage you take as a percent of max stagger, which I realised i did not properly convey in the evil bullshit damage formula, but I can’t be assed to change it. When your stagger reaches maximum, you fall down and your movements are much more limited on the ground, but hopefully you can take someone down with you because it counts as an attack. For the sake of sanity, the stagger formula for getting hit is...

(Vector Difference X Weight X Strength / Stagger Conversion) = Points of Stagger

With the Super Stagger Multiplier (Weight X Strength / Stagger Conversion)...

Vector Difference X Super Stagger Multiplier = Points of Stagger

The stagger formula for getting staggered by your own actions is...

Arbitrary Stagger Value X Weight X Strength / (Stamina X Self Stagger Conversion) = Self Stagger

I’m not sure how the maximum stagger should be calculated. Should it just be...

Stamina X Weight = Max Stagger?

Stagger is still tracked above the maximum and you can only stand up when it goes under the maximum. It should be really easy to get stunlocked. Being grounded is debilitating for Conman because he can’t do anything except get up. Housebreaker also can’t do anything on the ground, but he does a devastating attack while getting up. Pickpocket can crawl and roll around and has a new set of attacks on the ground, so it may be advantageous to intentionally get knocked over.

The soul bar is the overlapping green line and is basically your magic meter and level of motivation. Bear in mind as a revenant, every movement and thought is done with magic and every action burns soul. Conman is not physically violent by nature, so his attacks burn a lot of soul. Pickpocket is totally amoral, so his attacks burn some amount of soul. Housebreaker is a belligerent asshole fuelled by violence, so his attacks burn very little soul and the simple ones actually increase soul. In practice, this means you can hide in an alley punching the air until you feel good enough to talk to people without insulting them.

You can also burn soul to empower activities by pressing and holding the soul button (haven’t decided which key it is yet) before pressing another button. If you hold the soul button while running, speed increases, and if you attack while burning soul it will increase attack. I’m not sure if using soul counts as an all-stat boost or if it uses button press context to only boost specific stats. Latter is better I think.

You can also burn soul with a different button to empty your stagger bar, or refill your health bars, except the metal bar. For shitty evil reasons, this burns a ton of soul. Revenants will instinctively let their bodies fall into ruin to conserve soul, which takes huge chunks out of the flesh and bone bars. It should be possible to make a terrible mistake by burning soul to heal flesh, but it’s too much soul, so now you have less flesh than you did before. Fortunately, the bros are also shitty and evil and can increase soul by doing crime.

WEAPONS

Fig. 3: Circumferential movement increases effectiveness of polearms. 3A: Short star mace. 3B: Long star mace. 3C: Vector difference is calculated by this frame data and previous frame data, meaning you will never get a perfect instantaneous velocity tangent. Deal with it. I will also have to deal with it, to prevent frame disasters leading to infinite damage.

The best and hopefully not the only good thing about the evil bullshit damage formula is that it allows weapon damage to scale in accordance to the range and shape of the actual weapon, not just base stats, although those are also here. As seen in Fig. 3, the hit box of long weapons physically move faster than short weapons, increasing damage.

This technically means damage is affected by framerate, since many frames means smaller vector differences and less damage. Maybe the framerate can be capped, or damage be based on a specific time unit, but it would be super funny if the game was unplayable at high frame rates because the vectors become infinitesimally small and deal no damage.

Weight in the evil bullshit damage formula is actually (Total Weight + Weapon Apparent Weight), which I realised i did not properly convey, again. The Master Design Document is stored somewhere else and posting a scrungy and unreadable design doc draft only makes my ideas harder to copy. In fact, I’m counting on people to not read this.

Weapon Apparent Weight takes into account deliberately unbalanced weapons like maces and gourds on a stick that concentrate weight on the end to hit harder. Sharpness Boolean or Maybe Not a Boolean takes into account weapon sharpness and proper edge alignment. If it’s not a boolean, it could be a Sharpness Proficiency Type Grid.

Different attacks with the same weapon can have different damage types. For example, hitting someone with the flat side of a shovel is blunt damage, hitting them with the edge is cut damage, and piercing them with the point is still cut damage. Stabbing someone with a sword is stab damage, but hitting them with the hilt does blunt damage.

There should be some button to press to change grip, thus changing damage type without needing to open your inventory and switch weapons mid fight. I hate doing that. It also won’t fit the shitty and evil design ethos to switch between weapon loadouts quickly.

There should be breakable weapons, but I haven’t decided how to do it yet. Ideally, a random object like a gourd on a stick breaks instantly, a regular intended weapon’s health bar is as big as yours, and well made weapons are nearly indestructible.

Weapon sharpness and apparent weight worsen by either the boolean or by the grid. I haven’t decided.

Holding weapons can have different effects on stats aside from weight. Holding a menacing weapon increases attack. Holding something that’s not a weapon decreases attack for Conman, but increases attack for Housebreaker because he’ll beat your skull in with a gourd on a stick if he has to. Conman also gets more attack from having weapons in his inventory, not just by holding them. Pickpocket is not emotionally affected by weapons because he lacks awareness of many things.

GETTING THINGS STUCK IN YOU

I can’t think of a better way to word this mechanic, but basically when a barbed or sticky attack lands and its damage exceeds the Stuck Threshold, or when you grab someone, when one of you gets staggered, the other takes the same amount of stagger, you can only move within a set radius of each other, and the strongest one gets to drag the other around until either the weapon is let go of, or the equal amount of damage to the Stuck Threshold is taken to get unstuck. Getting stuck persists between loading zones, allowing you to get dragged across the city.

The Getting Things Stuck in You Formula is...

Sticky Boolean Like an Actual Boolean X Sticky Conversion - (Points of Flesh X Sum of Sticky Status Effect Additives) = Stuck Threshold

Maybe it would be better as If Sticky Boolean = Yes, then...

Sticky Conversion - (Points of Flesh X Sum of Sticky Status Effect Additives) = Stuck Threshold

This is something else that can be only recalculated on the frame any of its components changes. Basically, the fleshier and stickier you are, the more likely it is to get things stuck in you.

This is potentially one of the most broken mechanics and I’m willing to cut or simplify it if it gets too off the shits, but it would be super funny to steal weapons by covering yourself with glue and deliberately getting attacked.

For the sake of sanity, it would be best if you are sticking someone else, you can’t get things stuck in you, but it should be possible to form “sea urchins” of many people sticking one person.

But it would be even funnier if you could form geometric webs of an entire loading zone of people stuck together, even though this is impossible to make.

Conman is the only bro who can get stuck in things while unarmed.

It would be shitty and evil if being stuck only tracked radius so you can move and turn and the weapon stuck in you just carves its way around without doing anything.

STARTING AND ENDING FIGHTS

As stated above, one way of accidentally or “accidentally” starting fights is to run into someone, and surpassing the minimum damage threshold. The minimum damage threshold deserves a formula but I can’t be assed to formulate one right now. Basically it allows people to get into fights even when no damage is taken, or damage is taken but they let it slide. It should also be possible to lower the minimum damage threshold by making someone hate you through dialogue and reputation.

Assuming you aren’t running into people all the time, the main way to start fights is mid-conversation, by insulting one specific person or group. You should also be able to yell at people without starting conversations, but I am still not sure how to make that target specific people.

It would be really funny if cursor targeting was solely used to start fights with specific people.

Alternatively, it might be better to pick a madlibs type fill in the blanks statement that you say whenever you press the designated yell button, that can be used for many other things, but also for starting fights. For the sake of playable character insignificance, other people will also be yelling things, often completely unrelated to the current situation.

For example, you can yell, “(demographic) ARE (adjective)” and use “MASONS ARE A BLIGHT” to piss off every mason in earshot, or start fights with specific people by using, “(greeting) (individual)”. That said, some people are getting yelled at in the street so much that insults from you from you will be ignored.

This is EXTREMELY NOT the same as being in the middle of a conversation and picking an option or pissing someone off to the point of starting fights.

You can also start fights by breaking things and causing problems.

Obviously, you can also purposefully attack people.

Obviously, other people can also just attack you for being there.

If you bother the living in any way, all civic-minded Veilheimers will attack you.

There isn’t a specific fight mode instigator for you, meaning that you get to decide if the person insulting you or running you over in the streets warrants attacking. For shitty evil reasons, this does not apply to Housebreaker, who will automatically go into fight mode when he sees someone holding one bottle of wine in each hand, a three-legged dog, or a yelling guard.

Obviously, fights end when you or your opponents die.

But the best way of ending fights is by negotiation. You have “I won. You give up.” and “You won. I give up.” buttons that you can press any time during fights. Surrendering usually works, but whether demanding your opponent to surrender depends on achieving secret objectives like 3 knockdowns or destroying 50% of their flesh before they surrender. Bear in mind some revenants will kill and die for the pettiest reasons imaginable.

FIGHT CONTROLS

To make fighting as shitty and evil as possible, I’m taking inspiration from Dark Souls and making it worse. Not only are attack animations slow and laborious, they only start after you let go of the attack button. The purpose of this is to make you feel like a sluggish insensate creature, and make fighting feel so viscerally bad that you try to avoid it. For the sake of sanity, most opponents will also be sluggish insensate creatures.

There are three attack buttons. One for dealing high stagger but low damage, one for purposeful attacking, and one for mauling the hell out of people. If you press and let them go like any normal game, all the attacks suck, which may be useful if you want to intimidate someone without killing them.

You can press and hold the buttons for up to 3 seconds for better versions of the same 3 attacks, at the cost of increased self stagger.

For shitty evil reasons, using weapons gives you only one attack for the weapon-related button at any given time, until you change grip and get a different single attack.

Should there be combos? No. Die.

Should there be crouch attacks? Only one and it sucks.

Should there be running attacks? Ok. Fine.

The reason for 3 attack buttons is using the last button for items.

PURPOSE OF FIGHTING

You won’t achieve your objectives by killing everyone in your path, unless your objective is to kill everyone in your path. For example, if you kill someone while trying to get information out of them, that information is gone. If you kill someone while robbing their store, the store closes and you miss out on potential later goods. If you try to put a dent in the guard population by killing them, that just summons more guards.

The main objective of fighting is to figure out what to do in order to make your enemy surrender, so afterwards you can ask for whatever you want. There are some obvious physical and personality indicators for how hard you are supposed to kick someone’s ass before they comply, but as i said before, some revenants will die on one degree hills.

For shitty evil reasons, there are no direct ways of finding exactly how to make someone surrender beyond incidental information like “If you knock him over enough, he’ll just sit there and give up.” or “She’s in debt. Bought too many nice prosthetics.” Maybe there can be expensive magic items that tell you what to do, but sometimes they don’t know and lie.

Sometimes fights have multiple stages when you have to kick someone’s ass to make them hear you out, and you ask too much of them, so you have to kick their ass again.

Even fighting your hardest all the time won’t help you.

If you are having a fun shoving match between friends, but you start mauling people, the win condition may go from “stagger 3 times” to “You dare try to kill me? You pitiful mad traitor. I’ll kill you first.”

Be careful how you behave during fights.

If you have a gun, the win condition may go from “break 50% metal” to “holy fucking shit dude. do whatever you want.”

If you keep demanding surrender to a proud opponent, the win condition may go from “break 20% bone” to “Go fuck yourself. Break 20% bone and +5% more bone for each time you demand surrender.”

If you are seriously losing, but you keep demanding your opponent surrender, the win condition may go from “stagger 30 times” to “Are you ok? I’m worried about your sanity. I surrender.”

If you keep using magic items against a wizard hater, the win condition may go from “hit 20 times or break 10% metal” to “Wizard. Die.”

In practice, the win conditions will be more specific and include things like fire tolerance and how far you need to run away before they grant you mercy, but these are just for demonstration purposes.

AESTHETICS OF FIGHTING

It needs to look shitty and evil. These are rotting zombies clawing and bumbling into each other, with no flinch, knockback, or invincibility frames at all, just taking turns smacking each other until the other gives up or dies. Fighting is less about being actually good, and more about deciding how much of your health and soul you are willing to destroy to achieve other objectives.

If you see anyone fighting with real grace and technique, get out.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Here are things that I can’t be assed to fit into specific categories.

Bear in mind that all of this is intended for 8 directional movement. Theoretically, this makes it easier to line up vectors for better damage, since there are much fewer possible orientations of boxes.

Pressing and holding buttons seems to tie similar mechanics together while also making you feel slow and numb, which massively suits the setting, so I will work it into other controls.

I hate when writers or directors form an idea in 30 seconds and it takes the rest of the team ten thousand hours to realise it. For the sake of equity and good game design, I should spend at least 20% amount of time thinking of something as it takes to realise, which is one of the reasons I put all my thoughts here. Another reason is as a screening method, because if I can’t even be assed to fully articulate and write down an idea, it probably sucks.

I know firsthand making funny and cool comic about interpersonal relationships gets the most attention, but that’s the least useful thing for me to make in order to actually finish the game. Bathe in love for something that doesn’t exist, or watch as everyone forgets about something that does? It’s the game designer’s eternal crisis.

#thief's apprentice #long post #game design #graphic injuries

3 notes · View notes

justthehiddleswrites · 3 years

Text

Destiny Has Other Plans | Loki x OFC (Alexis Randall) | Chapter 6

Pairing: Loki x OFC

MASTERLIST IS HERE

Summary: When Loki goes to ask his father for permission to marry, he is shocked to discover his destiny has already been made for him. He is already betrothed to Sjofn, the daughter of the King of Vanaheim. An arranged marriage to bring the two kingdoms closer together and strengthen the bond. Never mind that Sjofn and Loki can’t stand each other.

After The Battle of New York, Loki is sent to live at Avengers Tower as punishment for his misdeeds. But it doesn’t mean he has to like it. A year later, he has adjusted to life on Midgard but has avoided any romantic or emotional entanglements, still bitter over his lost love. Dr. Alexis Randall is skilled at helping others fix their relationships as a couple therapist, but can’t help her own love life. A chance encounter with Loki in a dive bar has life altering consequences for both of them. Now, Alexis and Loki must figure out a way to co-habit without killing each other in the process, plus navigating impending parenthood and other roadblocks along the way.

This Chapter: Alexis comes clean with Clint and Loki, Alexis and Clint decide to get the better of Tony and Bruce.

Warnings: Arranged Marriage, Forced Marriage, Pregnancy, Unplanned Pregnancy, Smut, Angst, Semi-Public Sex, Mentions of law enforcement, Oral Sex, Cursing, Vaginal Sex

Taglists are Open, please let me know if you wish to be added.

Clint stood there with his arms crossed as Alexis told the entire sordid tale of Loki and her, from the encounter in the bathroom at The Whiskey Front Room to the dinner and Ashlynn to last night. There was a sense of relief as she told Clint everything. A weight lifted. No one but Loki and her knew everything, not even Hannah. Clint continued to stare at her as she finished up.

Her feet shuffled from side to side, scooting pieces of cereal around on the kitchen floor. “Are you going to say something?”

Clint pressed his lips together. “Did you really get arrested for punching a guy at a club who grabbed your ass?”

Alexis stared at him for a moment before bursting into laughter. “That is what you took away from that?”

Clint chuckled with her. “I mean, it is a badass move. Pregnant woman bloodies a guy’s nose.”

“I had to learn to take care of myself at an early age. I didn’t have people looking out for me.”

Clint threw an arm over her shoulder. “That is all changed now. We are your family now. Which means taking care of each other. Besides, I have never seen Loki this happy… well, ever. And I would like to keep him that way.”

“Me too.” She bent down to pick up the scattered cereal.

“Allow me to help.” Clint grabbed a broom by the fridge and swept up the cereal from the floor and threw it in the trash. “Speaking of keeping Loki happy, you should probably know about the bet between Bruce and Tony?”

Alexis’s brow furrowed. “What bet?”

Loki woke to Alexis shoving his shoulder hard. “Wake up, Loki, it’s important.”

He jolted upright with a start. “The baby! Is everything okay?” His hands flew to her belly.

She frowned. “The baby is fine. It’s about Bruce and Tony.”

Loki’s eyes narrowed. “What have they done now?”

Alexis gave him the quick rundown of Tony and Bruce, conspiring to get photographic evidence of their relationship. Loki clenched his fists.

“I’ll straighten this out.” He rose to get dressed. Alexis caught his wrist.

“While I appreciate your willingness to beat the shit out of them, may I suggest something a little less bloody?” Her eyes twinkled as she gazed up at Loki.

“What do you have in mind?” Loki sat down beside her on the bed.

“What if we have a bit of fun with them? Ratchet up the discord between us. Have a big blowout right in front of them. I am sure Clint would be willing to help.”

Loki’s eyes flashed. “How is Barton involved in all of this?”

“He is the one who told me about the contest.”

“And he would help?”

Alexis’s lips curled into a smile. “I am certain I can convince him to do so.”

Loki dipped her into his lap and kissed her. “I love the way your mind works.”

“Why thank you.” Alexis chuckled.

Tony and Bruce watched Alexis and Loki like a hawk, often making excuses to pop in unannounced. Loki and Alexis started locking not only the front door but the bedroom doors as well. They also no longer stole kisses and glances in the common areas. Alexis missed pulling Loki into an empty room to make out, but knew the payoff would be worth it.

“Legolas,” Tony caught Clint one day. “You still lurking in the vents these days?” Tony popped a chocolate-covered pecan in his mouth.

Clint’s mouth twitched. As expected, Tony came to him with information on Loki and Alexis. When Alexis came to him for help, Clint jumped at the chance. He often felt excluded from the Avengers’ activities because of his more unusual habits. Plus, he loved seeing Tony taken down a peg or two.

“Why?” He raised an eyebrow.

“Noticed anything unusual going on between the Trickster and his baby mama?” He popped another pecan.

Clint shook his head. “Not really. What are you looking for?”

Tony shrugged his shoulders. “Signs of a relationship. Hugging, hand holding, kissing. That sort of thing.”

Clint rubbed his chin, making Tony sweat for a minute. “Now that I think about it, I have noticed something different between the two of them.”

“Yeah… Spill.” Tony offered a pecan. Clint waved it off.

“They seemed to despise each other. I even saw her hurl a glass at Loki’s head. If you ask me, they are one argument away from Alexis up and leaving.”

“Really? I thought they were looking pretty cozy the other day.”

“Well, you don’t live on the same floor as them. You don’t hear the yelling.” Clint hooked his thumb. “Now if you don’t mind, I have to meet Nat in the gym.”

Tony waved him away, deep in thought. “Yeah… sure… whatever…”

Clint waited until he was out of sight before smirking. He had sowed the seeds. Now for Loki and Alexis to finish the job.

Loki stomped into Bruce’s lab later that day.

“You’re late.” Bruce didn’t bother to look up from his screen.

“Are all women so infuriating, or is it the pregnancy that causes them to be so?” Loki groused as he leaned over Bruce’s shoulder, breathing on the man’s neck on purpose.

Bruce scratched his neck in irritation, turning to face Loki, hoping the god would step back. He didn’t.

“Trouble in paradise?”

“More like a continuing hell.” Loki rubbed his forehead. “She is insufferable. Whining and complaining. I am contemplating having Stark relocate Alexis to her own quarters for the duration of this pregnancy.”

“Is it really that bad?” Bruce wrinkled up his nose.

Loki threw him a derisive glare. “I would rather share a bed with my brother at this point.”

“Doesn’t he snore?”

“The walls shake.” Loki retorted. “So excuse me if I am not in the mood for chitchat.”

Bruce became flustered, hands waving in the air. “Right… right…” And he hustled away to find something to pass the time until he could leave the awkward situation.

Loki shut the door, and Alexis popped up off the couch.

“So…?” She wiggled her eyebrows.

His face pulled into a wide grin. “Bruce appears to have believed our ruse.” Alexis jumped in place and spun around in glee. Her chest bounced up and down that caught Loki’s attention.

“Excellent!” She came over and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Clint says Tony took the bait too. Now to let them stew.”

Loki’s arms wrapped around her waist. “You have become close with Barton. Should I be jealous?” He raised an eyebrow.

Alexis’s lips twitched into a smile. She ran a finger along Loki’s chest. “Are you jealous?”

Loki leaned down to nuzzle against her neck. She smelled of perfume smelling of vanilla and spice. “You minx.” he purred. “You are mine and mine alone.”

Alexis gasped as she gripped his arms. Loki’s lips ghosted over her neck, causing her to shiver. Her nails dug into Loki’s jacket.

“Bold words.” Alexis countered, breathless.

Her hands slipped underneath Loki’s jacket and pushed it off his shoulders. He shook it off to the ground. As Loki undid the buttons of his shirt, Alexis tugged her dress over her head, dropping it to the side.

“I have only just begun, my love.” He kissed the tops of her breasts, fumbling with her bra.

“It clasps in the front. You mean having sex in a bathroom is not bold.”

With the flick of a finger, Loki undid the clasp and slid the straps off her shoulders. He squeezed her breasts with his hands.

“You lack an imagination, my darling. Allow me a small demonstration.”

His lips latched onto hers, nipping about her lips with his teeth. As Loki walked her back in the room, Alexis tugged at his belt and trousers. Her fingers made quick work of his zipper, pushing them down to Loki’s thighs. His cock popped free.

“I appreciate your lack of underwear these days.” Alexis teased as she stroked his shaft.

“As do I.” He turned her around and eased her onto the couch, placing her on her hands and knees facing the back of the couch.

Loki’s fingertips ghosted up and down the back of her thighs. Alexis moaned, her head dropped onto the couch.

“Loki, please… I… need you..” She hissed.

“But teasing you is so much more fun.” He cupped her ass while rubbing the tip of his cock along her slit. Alexis wiggled her ass against him. “It appears I am not the only one who likes to tease.”

Loki impaled himself with a single thrust.

“Fuck!” Alexis bit her lower lip. Her breasts and belly hung low while she propped herself up on her elbows on the back of the couch.

Loki gripped her hips and continued to snap his hips against her. He pressed against her back and reached over to pinch her nipple. Alexis came with a moan. Her walls clenched around Loki. He grunted as he thrusted twice more and spilled inside of her.

Alexis collapsed onto the couch, spent and exhausted. Her head spun.

“Loki, I need…” She grabbed his arm, and he shifted out of the way to have her lie down on her side on the sofa.

“What is it, darling? Are you hurt? What can I do?”

Alexis wasn’t sure what was going. It was the third dizzy spell in a week. She made an appointment to see her OB/GYN later in the week, and Dr. Cho found nothing unusual in her tests.

“I just need a glass of water.” She lied, not wanting to scare Loki unnecessarily if it turned out to be nothing.

Loki rushed to the kitchen and came back with a large glass of water. He lifted her head up to sip.

“Here…” He slipped his arms underneath her and lifted her off the couch.

“Loki, I—”

He cut her off. “Please allow me to take care of you.”

Loki pulled her close to his chest. She relented and allowed Loki to carry her to bed. The bed they were now sharing. Her head hit the soft pillow with a sigh. Loki pulled the covers over her and settled next to her.

“Hmm…” She hummed. “I’m sorry.”

Loki kissed her cheek. “No apologies. Rest. We still have the grand finale for Bruce and Tony.”

“Bruce and Tony…”

Loki laid awake until he was certain Alexis was asleep. He did his best to convince himself Alexis’s fatigue was nothing out of the ordinary, but deep inside where he didn’t want to admit he knew something else was going on. He pushed away his fear drifting into a restless sleep.

“I’m telling you, Bruce, you are being punk’d.” Tony snapped back.

Bruce scratched his head. “I don’t know, Tony. They seem to be on the outs. I think you are wrong. “

Tony held up two fingers as he leaped over the back of the couch to lie down with a bounce. “Two words.. fore.. play.”

“That’s one word, Tony.”

“Whatever. They have it. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were already sleeping together.”

A door slamming down the hall punctuated Tony’s sentence. And then another door opening and slamming. Alexis stomped into the living room.

“Speaking of the devil…” Tony started, oblivious to Alexis’s mood. Loki soon followed.

“Darling, I—” Loki started.

Alexis whipped around and stopped in her tracks. “DON’T EVEN TRY TO EXPLAIN YOURSELF LOKI! I’M DONE, I’M LEAVING!”

Loki chuckled. “No, you’re not. You are being hysterical. Come back and we can talk—”

“HYSTERICAL?!” Alexis screeched, resisting the urge to smile. Loki was playing it perfectly. She noticed Tony sitting up on the couch. Clint had appeared from nowhere. Time to drop the bomb. “You think I’m hysterical for being upset at catching you fucking someone on the couch?!? I sleep on that couch, LOKI!” The tears flowed freely from her eyes. The adrenaline pumped through her. “I trusted you.”

Loki stepped forward towards her. “We never agreed to be exclusive. Was it not you who said I shouldn’t change my life just because you were here?”

Alexis reared back and slapped Loki across the face. “You fucking bastard! HOW DARE YOU! I never want to see you again!” They now have a full audience, with Steve and Nat slipping into the kitchen. Even Thor peeked his head into the room.

She stormed away towards the elevator. Loki grabbed her wrist, but she yanked free. “Touch me again and lose the hand.” Alexis’s vision darkened at the edges and her head became fuzzy.

“But, the child—” Loki protested.

“Loki…” she called out, her voice wavering.

His eyes snapped to her, and he saw panic reflecting at him in her eyes. “Alexis, darling, you are—”

“I don’t feel…” Her legs wobbled before giving out underneath her. Loki lunged for her, catching her before she hit the floor, cradling her body in his arms.

“Alexis, wake up.” He shook her gently. “The trick’s over.”

Alexis groaned but didn’t wake. Loki glanced over his shoulders to find the rest of the Avengers staring at the two of them, frozen in place.

“Don’t just stand there, call the doctor!” Loki bellowed.

Everyone scurrying about, Tony yelling out to JARVIS and everyone else pretending to be busy at something. Thor came behind and grabbed Loki’s shoulder.

“I am sure everything is going to be fine, Brother. She is strong.”

“I wish I shared your confidence.”

#loki #loki fanfiction #loki fanfic #loki imagine #loki fluff #loki smut #loki angst #loki x ofc #loki odinson #loki laufeyson #loki series #destiny has other plans

14 notes · View notes