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rhythmantics · 2 years

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The Secret Saturdays Iceberg

Original iceberg here.

Jay Stephens’ answers on the Toonzone Forums here, his Insta here, blogspot here. List of comics here.

THIS CONTAINS SPOILERS!

“I watched a couple episodes while it was still airing”

What most people know about Secret Saturdays from having seen it a couple times when it was on. It’s a children’s cartoon.

Doc and Drew have an exchange that goes “when have I ever done anything rash or irresponsible?” “I keep a list. It’s alphabetized,” which has plagued incorrect quotes blogs for years. Many people know the quote without knowing the show it’s from.

“I watched it through to the end”

This tier is about stuff you know about how hard the show goes once you watch it through the first time.

All cryptids in the show are based on real-life cryptids, mythological creatures, or prehistoric animals: true with a single-digit number of exceptions. The TSS wiki has done a really good job of cataloguing them.

Children die on-screen: both Zak Monday AND Zak Saturday die on-screen. It’s great.

Sneople: nagas.

Clone: Francis is a fucking clone! Holy shit!

Fisk has actual dialogue: This one actually belongs in the “I followed Jay Stephens” tier, as he has revealed that Fisk is written actual lines in the script, which are then translated to “Fisk-speak” by the voice actor.

Cheechoo is Inuit / Beeman is autistic / It’s the glasses: Cheechoo wears traditional inuit sunglasses, and also references the far north of Canada as being his “ancestral home” and having grown up there.

Beeman, meanwhile, has a hard time picking up on social cues (”he’s a little rude to everybody,” Jay once said on the Toonzone forums, confirming that Beeman isn’t acting like that because he dislikes Zak or anything -- in fact, he acts the same way even when he’s actively trying to bond with Zak over his fake UFO footage), has a really good time watching hours of (what most consider boring) footage related to his particular interest, and his glasses are probably tinted pink to deal with photosensitivity, a common symptom.

Wadi is Bedouin: The Bedouin are nomadic Arab tribes that live in the desert. So, like. Yeah.

Last will and testament of a guy who drowned: Zak and Doyle find the titular will in the episode where a lake is trying to hunt and kill them, left behind by someone that the lake has previously hunted and killed.

DNA brothers: Do you guys remember the episode where Zak, Fisk, and Komodo all get spliced together? Was that fucked up or what

Forgot to put this one on there but do you guys remember when Argost dressed up in an SS uniform look-alike to taunt the Saturdays in Once More the Nightmare Factory? Incredible.

“I read some character analyses”

This tier is all about realizing the full implications of the stuff they show in this children’s cartoon where they can’t say the word “kill.”

Serial killer that keeps trophies: I think Van Rook literally expresses disgust over how Argost kept trophies during his yeti era. Incidentally, this means Van Rook has ALSO killed multiple people, since at least he doesn’t keep trophies, lol.

Doyle has probably killed people and is definitely a felon: Doyle is cut short before he can elaborate on how many places he has a criminal record; he’s definitely stolen priceless cultural artifacts and other goods well above the felony limit, he has a story he doesn’t give Zak the full details of because “then things get messy. Let’s just say the bird and I took care of it.” Not to mention how many times Zak’s parents stress to him that Doyle has lived a dirty life, and he’s done many bad, bad things. Doyle has killed people you can’t change my mind.

Doc was Drew’s rebound romance: Drew dated Van Rook in college, presumably broke up with him when she realized he was studying archaeology so that he could steal artifacts to sell, and later wound up with Doc. She’s in her 30′s-or-so according to Jay (while Doc is in his 40′s-or-so) and her kid is 11 at the start of the story. She’s a “trained archaeologist,” meaning she’s probably got a PhD after at least 5, 6 years of college (she's a genius, so I wouldn't be surprised if she got it sooner than the usual 8 years We know she's an archaeologist from the Field Guide). So there’s a reasonable buffer of a few years between her dating Van Rook and her meeting Doc while mountain-climbing (Doc mentions this is how they met in the blue tiger episode), so he’s not necessarily her rebound romance exactly, but it’s funnier to word it that way.

Doc really thought Munya killed his family: In Once More the Nightmare Factory, when Doc reaches Munya after being separated by his family, Munya takes the tokens with Doc’s family’s faces on them and throws them in the trash to taunt him. Doc proceeds to go berserk and kick Munya’s ass (and nearly choke that bitch Argost out), while screaming that Argost took “everything” from him. So they can’t, like, have Doc actually SAY “you killed my family, you bitch!” but that is definitely what he was thinking. I also want to note here that part of Doc’s specific baggage throughout the episode is that he blames himself for the 43 secret scientists that died the first time they tried to assault Weird World - people who were his colleagues, if not his friends - so just keep that in mind when Doyle comes in later to rub in Doc’s face how easy it is to break in.

On that note, RIP the 43 secret scientists that died the first time they tried to assault Weird World.

The nagas were really gonna let them die: In the Legion of Garuda, Zak tricks the nagas into letting him into their sanctum by having his parents fight the Secret Scientists above the river, while pretending to the nagas that he’s decided to switch sides because the humans won’t stop coming after him. The nagas let him in and promise to help his family, but once Zak is out of earshot, Rani Nagi tells her guards to leave Zaks’ parents to their fate. “Give the boy a tragedy to avenge.” Bruh.

RIP Von Finster: RIP to the scorpion man, who was definitely killed after Argost caught him to silence him since he knew things about Argost’s past. This is what they meant when they said that people who know things about Argost were “disappearing,” and why Von Finster was so scared.

RIP Mizuki’s body: why does Mizuki in hibagon’s body cry out in rage when he sees his human body crushed under the rubble? Because that body is actually a corpse, man! On that note, RIP Ulraj’s dad, forgot about that one.

RIP xing-xing: so apparently the xing-xing shows up in War of the Cryptids so I messed up on this one. Just replace it with Ulraj’s dad.

RIP Dr. Basil: Yeah Doc’s father figure is dead. Old age probably, but also maybe he was killed as retaliation for scrapping the genetic human/cryptid testing research.

Argost’s body count is so high holy shit: 43 secret scientists, Ulraj’s dad, Von Finster, Drew & Doyle’s parents, Zak Monday, and Zak Saturday - and that’s just the deaths we KNOW ABOUT!

Forgot to put this in there but damn the Legion of Garuda guy was seriously gonna kill Zak, like holy shit. So many people want this 11-12 year old boy dead

“I followed Jay Stephens”

This tier is all fun Word of God stuff if you happened to follow Jay Stephens while he was posting on the Toonzone forums while the show was running, from his old blogspot, or while he’s talking to people on instagram. I have a minor and not exhaustive collection of such postings here.

Smoke mirror is NOT a mirror universe / It’s just a shittier universe: According to Jay himself on the Toonzone forums, and in line with actual Aztec mythology, the Smoke Mirror world is NOT a mirror universe. Aztec cosmology states that the world has ended and been remade 4 times, each stint being represented by a different god as the sun, and we're currently on our fifth sun. "The Smoking Mirror" is an epithet used to refer to Tetzcatlipoca (whose temple the Smoke Mirror was found in), who had the dubious honor of being the first sun, and his sun was black and only shed half as much light as our current one, possibly related to how he was missing a leg. Thus, the Smoke Mirror is not a portal to a mirror dimension - the fandom just kind of assumed it was because that's the common trope, but Jay has explicitly said that it isn't one. Rather, the Smoke Mirror is a portal a world inspired by Tetzcatlipoca's sun, a darker and twisted world where everything is generally much worse. This is further enforced by the fact that the Wii/DS/PS2 game is literally about this myth, as the game is called “Beasts of the Fifth Sun.”

Screwed by the network: The show barely ever had reruns shown and was constantly having its timeslot shafted by sportsball. It was insanely hard to keep up with the show as new episodes came out and even harder to catch up on missed episodes, which was death for a show with such tight continuity. On top of that, season 2 was only ten episodes, which is NOT standard (season 1 had 26 episodes and a half-season would be 13), which means they had to cut more than half of season 2′s contents. You can really feel how rushed it is in the last three episodes.

Dodo???:

The executives at Discovery Kids had spent many hours telling me that my original Tutenstein designs were "too cute" and "too Casper", so, stubborn jerk that I am, I made sure to make this one even cuter. For inspiration, I went over my old Floyd Gottfredson Mickey Mouse comics... particularly the Seven Ghosts and Phantom Blot stuff... excellent, classic work. My idea was to update the 'funny animal mystery trio' by incorporating my love of Cryptozoology into the pitch. It went a little like this:"CRYPTIDS features a crack team of globe trotting cryptozoologists uniquely qualified for the job because they themselves were once cryptids! OKAPI, KOMODO, and MEGAMOUTH, along with their nine-year-old human mascot, FRANCIS, serve as a sort of anti-detective team. Scooting across land, sea, and air in their fantastic CAMPERCOPTER, their never-ending goal is to preserve the mystery of the world’s strangest creatures before they are exposed by humans… or destroyed by the Cryptids' nemesis, MONSIEUR DODO."I pitched it to a bunch of studios and got some interest, but, ultimately this incarnation went nowhere. Nobody 'got' the design, commenting that it looked like a kiddie show but read edgier. When I brought up the classic Floyd Gottfredson Micky Mouse adventure comics, I got blank stares. Not even Walt Disney Television Animation knew who or what I was talking about. Sigh... back to the drawing board.

Doc’s design was based on Harry Belafonte: Said on Jay’s Insta.

Doc and Drew canonically straight but everyone else is open season: Said on Jay’s Insta. FWIW Doyle gives me really strong bisexual energy.

Viral Marketing: The show’s initial ads were found footage-style short videos of horrific puppets of the show’s cryptid protagonists. I think they’re still up on youtube.

List of “hundreds” of creatures compiled for the show: Said on Jay’s Blogspot.

I forgot to mention this one, but Jay Stephens says that in-universe, cryptids aren’t just “creatures unproven to science,” but rather, “creatures that share a common, mystical bond.” It’s never said in-universe but I figured I’d let you guys know that this is what sets cryptids apart from regular animals.

Can’t “stay on the side of good” if show didn’t end how it ended: This is referring to how, according to Jay on the Toonzone forums, Zak losing his powers was the only way for him to firmly stay on the side of good. This is a very contentious opinion in the fanbase, but honestly, I kind of get it. By the end of the show, Zak has enough power to destroy human civilization within a week, anytime he feels like it, just by thinking about it. And he’s 13 years old. Humanity wouldn’t survive if he had, like, an emo phase when he turned 16. As long as he has that kind of unchecked power, there’s ALWAYS going to be doubt as to whether or not it’s safe to let him wander around, there’s ALWAYS going to be people who either want him dead for the good of mankind or want to use and manipulate him to their own ends, and - as we see in Return of Tsul’Kalu - he’s not immune to despair, as he literally says “if even the good cryptids think I’m destined for evil, I don’t know why I should even fight it anymore.” Even assuming Zak is incorruptibly “good” (which, again, we have evidence that he isn’t), at some point he’s going to have to start thinking about whether it’s his responsibility to police humanity. If people are illegally burning down the rainforests, and the government won’t do anything, wouldn’t Zak be morally obligated to do something extrajudicial about that? Where does that slippery slope end? So, like, honestly, I kind of agree. The only way for him to firmly stay on the side of good is for him to lose his incredible power, because you know what they say about absolute power.

“I have done a lot of research into the show”

This tier is about doing a bit of extraneous googling into tidbits that are brought up in the show. The cryptids all being based on real things is pretty common knowledge, but there’s so much more in this show that’s based on real stuff than that.

Drew’s fire sword is Manjushri’s khadga: Drew’s fire sword is based on the blade (khadga is the specific type of sword) that the bodhisattva Manjushri wields. It symbolizes wisdom, which cuts through duality and ignorance. And there are ones from Tibet (where Drew was raised) that look JUST LIKE the one in the show.

Tetzcatlipoca’s epithet was “The Smoking Mirror”: Most of this is covered in the previous section, but did you know that Tetzcatlipoca was considered the rival to Quetzalcoatl? This is especially interesting given that Quetzalcoatl is the feathered serpent, and Kur was believed to be a serpentine dragon (more on that later). I will also mention that Tetzcatlipoca transformed into a jaguar after Quetzalcoatl struck down his stint as sun, by the way. For fanart purposes, you know.

Garuda is a mythological Hindu figure: Garuda is a demigod in Hindu mythology that is depicted either as a giant bird resembling a kite (sea-eagle), or a bird furry. There’s a myth where he eats nagas. This is why the Legion of Garuda is named after him, and why the wizard guy summons a giant eagle illusion to scare off the nagas.

Kumari Kandam, Lemuria, Shangri-La Real: Kumari Kandam and Lemuria are two names for the same proposed (and disproven) sunken land bridge between the Indian subcontinent and Madagascar, which would’ve explained how monkeys got to Madagascar and became lemurs (hence the name). Due to some Hippie New Age Bull Shit, the survivors of Lemuria (often interchangeably used with Atlantis) moved to the Mt. Shasta region of California, where myths and legends of “lemurians” persist to this day. Shangri-La (the Lemurian homeland in the show) is unrelated to the two and is instead a fictional earthly paradise located in the Himalayas.

Dead Sea Scrolls reference: The scroll Wadi finds is definitely a reference to the Dead Sea Scrolls. Related to that,

Methuselah Tree Real: In real life, the methuselah tree is the oldest tree in the world, and - like in the show - its location is a carefully guarded secret. Not because it’s the font of all water in the world (a clear reference to the Norse myth of the World Tree and possibly a reference to the Zamzam Well), but to avoid vandalism, as we all know what people are like.

Inaccessible Island Real: Argost briefly mentions that they’re on Inaccessible Island before he steals Zak Monday’s powers. This is a real, shitty little island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

Tomb of Kur Real: The Official Cryptid Field Guide lists the Tomb of Kur as the “Kohker Archaeological Site.” This is a real place, and is a temple dedicated to Shiva.

Library at Alexandria Real: The Library at Alexandria was a massive collection of books - every book brought into port at Alexandria would be copied, the copy stored in the library, and the original returned to its owner. Such a massive collection... all burned down. Tragic.

Naga fireball phenomenon Real: There’s a phenomenon that happens along the Mekong River where fireballs regularly erupt. The family goes looking for the naga using this phenomenon in the season 2 premier.

Mines set on fire that stay on fire for years Real: The mine that’s on fire in the bunyip episode is probably a reference to Burning Mountain, a mountain in Australia that has a fire under it that’s been burning for 6000 years. There’s many other such long-lived fires in the world.

Judaculla Rocks Real: The rock Zak damages in Return of Tsul’Kalu is the Judaculla rock, which is in the show the same as it is in real life - significant to the Cherokee people and associated with Tsul’Kalu, the Master of Game.

“Kur” used to refer to the first mythological dragon: So we now know that “Kur” referred to a TON of different things - the mountains, the lands, the people who came from the mountains, the netherworld, etc. HOWEVER, at the time, the main person writing about Kur attributed the word to a serpentine beast living at the bottom of the Netherworld, which he then called the first dragon ever depicted in human mythology. This has been more or less debunked now, but it’s what the show was using. Serpentine symbolism is used in the show to represent Kur - there’s a set of snakes on some of the doors in Kur’s tomb, and Kur’s most dedicated servants are sneople.

“I have done TOO MUCH research into the show.”

This tier is about my descent into madness. It covers research that wouldn’t normally be performed, supplementary material that very few people know about, etc.

Men of the Saturday family have biblical names: First we have Solomon Saturday and Zak Saturday, with Zak pretty obviously standing in for some variant of Zakariya/Zechariah. The prequel comics also give us an Elijah Saturday and a Samuel Saturday, so this is a very deliberate choice.

Solomon = “peace” but also associated with the Lesser Key of Solomon: The Lesser Key of Solomon is a famous demonology grimoire that lists several demons, their ranks, what they do, and how to summon them. A little bit like a cryptopedia.

Zak = Zakariya = “God Has Remembered”: That’s what his name means. And, like... kind of spooky considering Zak’s the reincarnation of a god. Now, while lots of spellings of this name exist, I prefer Zakariya. I think Doc initially would've wanted Zachariah/Zechariah because it's more biblical, but I also personally believe Drew (who speaks Arabic and is a white mom) would go for something a little more unique, compromising on the Arabic spelling. Plus, it has the K in it. Which I like. Though it would be in character for Zak to be Zachariah and shorten it with a K on purpose himself to look cooler. Either way, Zakariya/Zachariah/any of its variants is almost certainly what Zak is short for. Zechariah is also, famously, the last of the martyrs. And martyr himself Zak did!

Drew and Doyle are Gaelic / Ginger confirmed: Drew is albino so she wouldn’t have them but we were cheated out of Doyle with freckles. This is, incidentally, probably why Zak has freckles in the Ben10 crossover that I don’t like thinking about.

Wadi = riverbed that sometimes dries up: Wadi, noun. A valley, gully, or streambed in northern Africa and southwest Asia that remains dry except during the rainy season. It’s symbolism about the whole Eterno thing.

Short hair Drew: You guys want some concept art?

Zak’s name used to be Francis:

Abbey sold plundered relics to museums for money: Also from the prequel comics; Abbey was Zak’s favorite babysitter because she used to take him on wild wacky adventures... robbing tombs. And then selling the artifacts she’d find there to museums. Van Rook shows up and does a “not so different” on her for this. And he was sooo right!

Divining rod = Shiva’s trident: This fucking thing HAUNTED ME FOR YEARS

Because that’s not any “divining rod” or “dowsing rod” I know about! Well, GUESS WHAT.

It’s Shiva’s fucking trident. It symbolizes many different trinities, like “past/present/future” and “joy/compassion/love” and stuff. YEARS IT TOOK ME.

Kur is associated with the Hindu god Shiva, known as “The Destroyer”: Kur’s tomb is literally a temple dedicated to Shiva, one of Shiva's symbols is a cobra coiled around his neck (and Rani Nagi famously uses cobras to chat), and the divining rod used to find Kur is shaped like Shiva’s trishula. Furthermore, one of Shiva's aspects is the King of Beasts. So, like, yeah. The cobra tends to symbolize how Shiva has tamed the venomous ego, and his dominion over all animals on earth, so... they are making a really obvious parallel here. Rani Nagi even calls Kur “the destroyer” at one point! The clear implication of this association is both to more strongly enforce the idea that Kur is something divine, or seen as divine, and to cast its destruction in a more ambiguous light - Shiva may be the destroyer, but he is also the preserver, and in no iteration of Hinduism is he treated as an evil deity. Creation, preservation, and destruction is merely a natural cycle, one of the trinities represented by Shiva's trident. But it sure sucks for the people who are getting destroyed, so it's natural a creature whose existence IS destroying things would be viewed as "evil" or "bad" by the unfortunate species getting their asses kicked.

“These questions plague me deep into the night”

These are just questions that haunt me. Someone save me from this madness

#the secret saturdays #zak saturday #drew saturday #doc saturday #jay stephens

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lorei-writes · 2 years

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Match-Up #33

Hi Lorei!! :'D Thank you for doing these match-ups! Submitting one for my OC, Reika. I hope you don't feel pressured to choose Kennyo! I'm just very curious and interested in your analysis. :3c

Hello, @nyktoon-in-otomeland ! I’m terribly sorry it took me, well, a literal eternity in internet years to get to this TvT At this point, I just hope it’s a pleasant surprise this appeared at all. It was never my intention to have it wait for so long, but... Well, some things I could not predict, it appears. But, let’s get riiight into it!

5 positive qualities

Strong sense of justice; cares about people’s well-being

Intelligent; eager to learn & share knowledge

Usually relaxed and easy-going; quick to smile and laugh

A good listener; thoughtful when talking to others

Perceptive; good at understanding others’ motives and making sense of the world

Right off the bat, we have justice -- it makes me wonder, how would she feel about suitors operating more so in the grey area? Using questionable means to achieve their goals? The added details lead me to believe she may be opposed to the ‘end justifies the means’ line of reasoning, and that she’d rather not differentiate between people as those who can be expendable and those who cannot be sacrificed.

Mitsuhide (-1) Shingen (-1) Kennyo (-1)

Inteligent! Well, it only seems suitable to pair her with somebody who’d be able to properly stimulate her mind then. After all, a dull conversation partner wouldn’t do, no? Let’s go for the more intellectual and curious suitors.

Nobunaga (+1) Mitsuhide (+1) Mitsunari (+1) Masamune (+1) Shingen (+1) Sasuke (+1)

Relaxed, easy going... I think it’d be mostly appreciated by all, although I also do presume some would take it as a sign of recklessness.

Ieyasu (-1) Kenshin (-1)

My, my, good listener? They surely are looking for coaches and therapists in Sengoku, I believe she’s right where she needs to be! Openly, or privately so, I think all of the possible relationships would benefit from this trait of hers, hence I can’t add any points for it - everybody would just get +1.

Perceptiveness, on the other hand -- that would come in EXCEPTIONALLY handy when dealing with some of the less open warlords. Say, the ones who hide something at all times? The ones who constantly pretend? Keep up appearances? Yeah, those ones.

Mitsuhide (+1) Ieyasu (+1) Masamune (+1) Shingen (+1) Kenshin (+1) Kennyo (+1)

5 negative qualities

Has rage buttons connected to strong sense of justice; can lose composure

Not willing to accept/forgive everyone, particularly regarding cruelty or cowardice

Non-conformist; chafes at being constrained by expectations she disagrees with, which can cause conflict

No sense of loyalty; relationships are maintained on merit

Doesn’t get attached or open up about herself easily, even if she’s friendly on the outside; she doesn’t often expect relationships to last

Given the first 3 qualities, I think her forming any close relationship with Nobunaga is highly doubtful. It isn’t that it wouldn’t be possible after he changes, it’s only that... He wouldn’t reach the point at which he does change. His character development most likely wouldn’t have a chance to begin. As for why: true, his MC is fairly resilient and has a bit of a character... But she doesn’t seem to realise the nature of their bet, or to see through the design of it. She’s stubborn, but she still lets him get away with plenty things. I just don’t see it happening with Reika.

Nobunaga (+1)

Similarly, due to the 4th listed quality, and the previous point I’ve made, I think she’d have a heavy falling in love with Hideyoshi - partially because of his unrivaled loyalty, partially because of the one it falls onto.

Hideyoshi (0)

Now, given the last point, I’d also say Reika has few chances of becoming emotionally intimate with Masamune. A short fling, perhaps, but anything lasting? They seem to think too similarly, and if I understand correctly, she just may let him go when he becomes afraid of losing her. Which could happen.

Masamune (+2)

Now, something more positive -- I do believe certain suitors could appreciate the 3rd and 4th listed quality. I believe they’d take it as a sign of being willing to navigate through this world on her own, rather than to be led through it (and consequently deceived by the mirages created by the likes of them).

Mitsuhide (+1) Shingen (+1)

Lastly: her unwillingness to forgive everyone... In a self-depreciating way, I do belive Kennyo would agree with that. And if she chose to loathe him, he’d probably -- sadly so -- agree with her.

Kennyo (+1)

1st Summary:

Mitsuhide (+2) Shingen (+2) Mitsunari (+1) Sasuke (+1) Kennyo (+1)

5 likes

Reading & writing poetry

Having time to relax; sleeping in

Animals & cute animal-themed items (like shoes with cat faces on them)

Helping people learn new things

Seeing people & animals happy and thriving

Points distributed for likes:

Mitsunari (+1) - reading Ieyasu (+2) - animals, seeing animals happy and thriving (Wasabi) Shingen (+3) - reading, helping people learn new things, seeing people & animals thriving Sasuke (+1) - mixed for reading and helping people learn new things (sharing knowledge) Kennyo (+2) - helping people learn new things (I think he’d appreciate that a lot), mix of animals and seeing people and animals thriving (he has a soft spots for that, I believe)

5 dislikes

Strategy games like chess (she’s bad at them)

House cleaning

Sexism and bigotry

Narcissism / elitism / superiority complexes

Being condescended to / bossed around

Points distributed for dislikes:

Mitsuhide (-2) - strategy (ever-present around him), being bossed around (may happen due to safety reasons -- as a result of knowledge gap) Mitsunari (-2) - strategy (as above, ever-present around him), house cleaning (he’s hopeless when it comes to it, and produces a lot of mess) Ieyasu (-1) - can be seen as condescending Shingen (-1) - strategy (ever-present around him) Yukimura (-1) - can be seen as condescending

I put ‘strategy’ as a category there, as I believe she could find it overwhelming or boring to engage with the topic for too long... And what is worse, with certain suitors, could found herself as a pawn in real-life game of chess. Brr.

Kennyo (+1) - antithesis of elitism

2nd Summary:

Shingen (+4) Kennyo (+4) Sasuke (+2) Ieyasu (+1) Yukimura (-1)

Only characters with positive value by their names will be considered in the final stages of the match-up.

Relationship dealbreakers

Disregarding sexual boundaries

Cruelty; hurting others for self-gratification or gain

Cowardice and apathy towards suffering; someone not being willing to take a stand

Not considering and respecting her as an intellectual equal

Insisting on traditions that are ignorant and/or hurtful

None of the remaining suitors hit any of the deal-breakers.

Up to 3 pet peeves

Making jokes at other peoples’ expense unless the target is like, really a jerk

Ieyasu (-1) - I suppose his approach towards Mitsunari would not be appreciated.

3 Wild Cards

Fourth generation Japanese-American who recently moved to Japan for work and to connect with her heritage, although she doesn’t really feel at home anywhere (yet)

Her undergraduate degree was in Japanese literature; her masters and doctorate degrees were in educational studies / cognitive science (yes, she’s technically Dr. Ishikawa although she’s not quite comfortable being addressed that way)

Has had a few long-term relationships in the past; she learned a lot from those relationships and doesn’t regret them, and she knows what she wants now. Still, she’s uncertain and cautious about getting involved -- although once she’s made up her mind, she’s romantically and sexually confident

Ohh, I have an odd feeling Kennyo and Reika could bound over not having a place that ‘feels like home’, and they’d be sweet building it together... But then again, I also think it would be an interesting mix with Shingen, as he is quite certain where his home is.

Kennyo & Shingen (+1)

Final Ranking

Kennyo & Shingen (+5) Sasuke (+2)

You know, we have two characters on the first place, so I should technically write it with Sasuke... But I’m in a Kennyo mood.

Kennyo

Confessed first: It happened roughly at the same time -- she wanted to tell him, he wanted to tell her. They just had a little problem with who’d go first, though...

Makes tea in the morning: Kennyo. He’s the first to wake up, and he also prepares the entire breakfast.

Hogs blankets at night: Reika. Although it’s hard to call it hogging when he encourages it quite openly. Kennyo always claims he’s warm.

Is the little spoon: Kennyo.

Possible points for conflict: There are few things Kennyo wouldn’t do for his people. What may not come across, though, is that he detests himself for some of those. At first, that may be a conflict point -- one that would evolve to still be an issue later on, as he cannot quite forgive himself, no matter what he does.

Free time ideas: Gardening together, strolls through the forest, foraging, playing with stray cats.

Favourite date spot: Your own garden, steam rising from the teacups in your hands as you gaze over the setting sun.

A secret they share: Kennyo really enjoys when she’s very gentle with him in small gestures. Her preparing him a meal? Hugging him from behind? Giving his hand a little squeeze? The man is absolutely weak against that.

His favourite thing about her: How complex her outlook on the world is.

His message to her: “Reika... You gave my world back to me.”

#match-up #ikesen match-up #ikemen sengoku match-up #ikesen #ikemen sengoku

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kevrocksicehouse · 4 months

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I have a confession. But first I want to emphasize that none of us is perfect, y’all without sin etc. Everybody has some secret shame that if exposed should be penalized with nothing more stringent than forgiveness. Except this. This is worse. Okay here goes (deep breath):

I DON’T THINK THERE WERE ANY OSCAR SNUBS.

Nope. Not even Barbie. Despite Greta Gerwig’s masterful shepherding of what is so far Mattel’s greatest movie, if Zone of Interest (which I haven’t seen yet) is a dog, I’ll give Jonathan Glazer’s place to May/December’s Todd Haynes. Ditto for Robie who was almost perfect (But what’s up with her still using the Harley Quinn accent?). If Nyad isn’t up to snuff I’ll just slide in Past Lives’ Greta Lee.

It was that kind of year. Lots of good movies and for a change most of them got at least some kind of Oscar nod. But. There were those orphans and also-rans that came up all the way short. No nominations. Let’s honor them, okay?

In other words, it’s time for KEVROC’S ANNUAL BEST MOVIES THAT DIDN’T GET EVEN ONE LOUSY NOMINATION list!

Asteroid City. Wes Anderson had a short-lived Oscar vogue in the last decade with Best Picture nominations for Moonrise Kingdom in 2013 and Grand Budapest Hotel in 2014, but this year the consensus was that this deadpan dramatization of the tension between postwar optimism and post-nuclear domination which defined the latter half of The American Century was just a collection of the director’s tropes instead of a humanist masterpiece. It should have been nominated if for no other reason than to give a push to “Dear Alien (Who Art in Heaven)” for the Best Song award it deserves. (But hey, Wes got a Best Live Action Short nod for The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar).

A Good Person. Zach Braff’s directorial rep as the King of Emo, not to mention an early release date kept Oscar voters from this story of two addicts struggling not to relapse in the face of their lives’ biggest tragedy, that gave Morgan Freeman his best role in years and reaffirmed Florence Pugh’s status as the best actor of this decade.

All of Us Strangers. A simple dreamlike plot (a depressed gay man meets his soulmate, and simultaneously gets to see his long-dead parents) becomes a soul-wrenching mystical reverie brought to life by Claire Foy and Jamie Bell as the parents, Paul Mescal as the troubled soulmate and Andrew Scott, who gives a performance so exposed and vulnerable that if it went any further he’d literally shed his skin.

Monica. A trans woman (Trace Lysette) reconnects with her family and is taken for a nurse by her demented, homophobic mother (Patricia Clarkson). It sounds like Joan Crawford doing an Almodovar film but director Andrea Pallaoro goes for subtlety and nuance over camp drama in this quiet gem. Lysette should have been talked about more.

Air. This crazy-entertaining celebration of the marketing synergy of Michael Jordan and Nike got Oscar-overlooked because a whole movie devoted to a celebrity spokesperson deal is maybe just a little too on-the-nose. But it had great work by Chris Messina, Jason Bateman, a Macchiavellian Viola Davis and especially Matt Damon who might be too good an actor to ever win an Oscar for it.

Passages. Ira Sachs examination of why-good-people-love-irredeemable-pricks is a high point in the careers of Adele Exarchoupoulos and Ben Wishaw but was a breakout star vehicle for Franz Rogowski playing the kind of prick who has a one-night stand and is so smitten he can’t wait to tell his husband all about it.

Blue Beetle. You know the superhero movie is in trouble when this crackerjack film about a reluctant Latino champion of his family and community (and whose sidekicks include a Zapatista-veteran grandmother) could only find a fraction of the audience it deserved. And the line “Now is when we cry” made me cry.

Strays. All apologies to Poor Things and American Fiction, but this profane and scatological tribute to couch-humping, trash-eating dogshit producing (and eating) canis lupus familiaris was the funniest movie of the year.

Bottoms. Even beating out this gloriously tasteless and bracingly absurdist tale of high school lesbians who start a fight club to meet chicks that would win the Jean Hersholt humanitarian award if they renamed it for John Waters.

Taylor Swift: The Eras tour. The Academy’s prejudice against performance films is understandable. Certainly the struggle against dictators in Uganda and Invaders in the Ukraine are more important than a superstar juggernaut’s latest step on her way to world domination. But I’m not the only one who became convinced that the juggernaut was a real (and major) artist. And flashing on the closeups of random fans experiencing pure ecstasy was as moving as anything I saw this year.

#kevrock #reccomends #oscar #for your consideration

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speedsitecats · 2 years

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Who directed back to the future 3

And here we are to complete the trilogy of Movies to Watch lists devoted to the trilogy of Back to the Future movies.īy the end of this post, along with the previous two lists you will have a total of 30 recommendations, one for each year since the original installment debuted in theaters. You know, the actual date that Doc, Marty, Jennifer and Einstein travel forward to in Back to the Future Part II. McCaskey’s address to the team at least refocused the players on beating the Lions, but it doesn’t necessarily leave anyone feeling comfortable about the future.Today is October 21, 2015. While it’s now obvious that Nagy was never told he was getting fired at week’s end, there’s still some internal speculation that ownership preferred to make a move following last Sunday’s collapse against the Ravens, but put it off because of the short week. That helped everybody,” Nagy said.Īll the Bears needed Thursday was a win, and they got it, which allows everyone to reset and recharge over the weekend before coming back to Halas Hall on Monday. “For George to be able to come up and talk to the team, internally with us, was important. That confusion led to McCaskey addressing the team Wednesday before the team flew to Detroit, which both Kmet and Nagy said was helpful. So there’s a lot of confusion in that sense.” Then you see things that are true, because you were there for them, and you wonder how those things get out. I’m not going to lie, it’s tough,” tight end Cole Kmet said. Nagy admitted there was an error on the team schedule and it’s fairly obvious more than one player left Halas Hall Tuesday with some confusion about the future, which was confirmed by Bears tight end Cole Kmet in Detroit on Thursday. It simply said the meetings were canceled and it was “a highly unusual move that prompted one source to wonder if Nagy is resigned to his fate.”Īt this point, we’re talking about semantics. If the report was relayed to Nagy that way, then it was done so incorrectly, because Biggs’ report never said he “abruptly" ended meetings. “When somebody told me that I abruptly ended meetings, I literally had to laugh, because you can’t make up how silly that was,” Nagy said. Unprompted, Nagy addressed a report that indicated Bears chairman George McCaskey “directed the Bears coaching staff to name Justin Fields the permanent starting quarterback prior to the Week 5 game against the Las Vegas Raiders.” The report from Shaw Media also said “the move was against the wishes of Nagy,” citing multiple unnamed sources. Unlike former Bears head coach John Fox, whose press conferences got shorter and shorter as his seat got warmer and warmer, Nagy sat in the PNC Media Center at Halas Hall for nearly 25 minutes Friday answering every question delivered to him - and a few others that were not. Nagy showed up to his Friday morning press conference with the same ubiquitous positivity he’s had for nearly four years in Chicago and came ready to push back on a week’s worth of reports that - by his own admission - became a significant distraction as the Bears prepared for the Lions on a short week. And I think we just showed that yesterday.” “But as long as we understand as players, and coaches, and everyone in this building, what’s real and what the truth is, then we’re ok. There’s still going to be rumors that happen,” Nagy said. A two-point win over the Detroit Lions isn’t going to cure the persisting problems with the Chicago Bears, but for Matt Nagy and his team, it was enough to survive a tumultuous week and get his team re-focused on winning football games.

#Who directed back to the future 3

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gamma-squad · 3 years

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The Ultimate Gamma Squad Fic Rec List

From Angst to Fluff to Reveals, fanfiction will make you cry :D

Adrinette

Double Blind Date - Alya knows Ladybug and Chat Noir's identities, and now that they're finally in the same city at the same time, she is determined to get them to meet.

The Bravery of Adrien Agreste - adrien ends up living on the streets for a while, it's extremely well written and has also adrien marrying marinette to emancipate from his father. There's also a sequel, the Bravery of Marinette Dupain-Cheng, which the author is currently writing.

Lovelace - Convinced that he's unlovable, Adrien is quickly thrown for a loop when Marinette confesses her love for him out of the blue. An akumatization and reveal later, he changes his mind about being unlovable.

The Bravery of Marinette Dupain-Cheng - After the defeat of Hawkmoth, Adrien and Marinette are strangers to each other, but somehow… married? - Sequel to The Bravery of Adrien Agreste

Soulmate Survey - A brand new dating app hits the scene, giving you a percentage of how well you match with someone else. And it is taking the world, and certain teenagers, by storm.

Cats are Colorblind! - Reverse Crush AU - Ladynoir/Adrinette - Adrien is blind but he can... feel Marinette’s features? Which happen to be the same ones as Ladybugs (Reveal)

have the stars blotted out in a brilliant morse code - Fluffy Adrinette moments and reveal? beautiful

Strength - Crack/Fluff oneshot with a reveal

Marry That Girl - Adrien finds Marinette’s plans for their wedding and just falls

League of Losers - Slightly Different Superhero AU with crack angst and fluff

You, Me & A Little Bit of the Future - future ladynoir asks adrinette to babysit and everythings cute

Practice Makes Purr-fect - Adrinette/Ladynoir + Reveal and kisses (all you need in life <3)

wish you were here - demon au, adrien is just really confused

The Moving Statue - AKDJSSD - Adrinette + Reveal

Operation Mega-Sleepover - Adrinette Sleepover Shenanigans

Butt Dial - Marinette butt dials Adrien and all his plans for a normal afternoon jumped out the window (Reveal)

The Wedding Plans of Marinette Dupain-Cheng - Adrien finds Marinette’s wedding guest list for their future wedding and he’s like ‘WHERE AM I?’ (boy you’re the groom)

Plagg Meets Marinette

i hope that fate will forgive us (for tempting the sea) - mermaid royalty au and arranged marriages - Felix x Bridgette and Adrinette - also the author is v nice <33

The Player and the Princess - Childhood friends turned enemies turned lovers <3

take me back- By marvelousmsmol

By Design - By marvelousmsmol (Still going!)

Graine de toi - By komorebirei (Still going? I’m not sure)

Smoulder - By midnightstarlightwrites (this is adorable and full of ships! Also, finished 36/36).

Lucky Us - By PrincessKitty1 (Sigh, it’s too cute! Finished 30/30).

Facades - AU with dark!Adrien. Has even a short sequel (lovesquare but mainly centered around the two main ships)

Kiss shy - By emsylcatac (This is a great one-shot!)

i don't have a latte but give me a shot - By marvelousmsmol (The one-shot, i wish was a series).

Under Lock and Key - By EdenDaphne, Maerynn (the antics! Finish 10/10)

The Woman With Blue Eyes - By ghostgirl19 (One-shot!)

Friends By Day, Enemies By Night - By Dristi5683 (This is 49/49, there’s also marichat and angst ladynoir)

A Bride for the Prince - by ChocoluckChipz (Totally_lucky) and TheNovelArtist

Penumbra - Adrienette hurt comfort, rated M for serious topics like implied noncon as a minor

keep me in your thoughts - adrienette soulmate au

Passionfruit- Adrienette soulmate au series with 3 parts

a chat in disneyland - pretty self explanatory, chat noir antics and slightly traumatized workers, everythings great

Finding Diamonds in the Rough - A prince escaping the confines of his castle. A girl who saves a naive visitor. The connection built between these two of different worlds. Welcome to another Arabian night.

Out of Your Hair - Adrien wants to support Kitty Section during their first large concert in the park, but dad says no. So of course there’s only one way this can go

Infatuation - Adrinette childhood enemies to ‘I hate you but i seriously want to kiss you’

Blindsided - Adrinette/Ladynoir - Ladybug gets hit by an akuma and goes blind but hey! Adrien/Chat Noir is literally the most amazing person ever and that helps (Reveal)

Just a Friendly Game Night - The four teenagers arrange a game night at Marinette’s house. What could go wrong

Just Best Friends - The sequel to ‘Just a Friendly Game Night’ where the teenagers deal with what went wrong

We’ve Got It Covered - Marinette needs to create a concept album cover design for Jagged Stone, but when she can’t get anything, the stress builds…

Le Prix du Silence - this is in French, by Etoile-lead-Sama, but it's so worth google translating! Especially her inverted umbrella scene where Marinette gives the umbrella back to Adrien because she wants to rid her feelings for him and in that moment he realises that he's in love with her… *heartbreak* but it's all wonderful and her slow burn is exceptional

Shop, Bake, Eat... - Crack, mature humor and content

Having a Ball - Adrien and Marinette attend a Victorian ball without recognizing each other.

In Which Adrien Agreste Butt Dials Ladybug - Based on NY Special, what if Adrien kept the remote to the cat toy in his back pocket?

The Jacket - Marinette gives a black jacket to Adrien and he thinks she's figured him out.

Stuck In A Bakery (With You) - during the pandemic, Adrien gets stuck in the bakery with Marinette and family.

MariChat:

Chat Got Your Back - Lila I don’t like you and neither does Chat

Burgundy and Blush - Marinette needs a date for the dance, and Chat Noir is happy to help. But can the two teens in denial make it through the night without catching feelings?

The Trouble With Kissing Boys - When an akuma handcuffs Chat Noir and Marinette together, true feelings are revealed… but only to get the cuffs off. Really

double jeu - An injured Chat Noir leads to a frantic Marinette and frequent midnight visits neither of them had expected to get used to.

Lace or Leather - Sequel to Burgundy and Blush

Stand-In Journalist - MariChat being besties

spark - marichat dating app shenanigans

Forget-Me-Not - Marinette looses her memories a little bit (unfinished)

Jealousy - Onesided reveal and then it turns into a love confession and a reveal

When Duty and Desire Meet - By EdenDaphne, midnightstarlightwrites. (Still going! Its so romantic, the yellow rose hits me the most)

Selfless - By ghostgirl19 ( I wish this fic was still going but it’s not! It’s discontinued!! T~T)

The Cat, the Bell, and the Wardrobe (Malfunction) - ChocoluckChipz (Totally_lucky), Eizabet, KryallaOrchid, Maerynn, midnightstarlightwrites. (I know the embracement... It’s also a one-shot!)

The Wingman Visits - By NiuNiu. (This is completed with 16/16 and rated mature!).

I Won’t Hold You Back - THE BEST PROM FIC YOU’LL EVER READ. Adrien invites Mari to prom. In which Adrien Awkward Awkward Awkward Athanase Agreste makes an appearance.

A Gamer’s Pride - No miraculous but they’re video game partners and they hate each other but they like each other and HHHHHHHH

Diamonds never leave you... men do! - Marinette the cop and Chat Noir the criminal (they’re dating <3)

Kiss and Dash - It starts of when Marinette kisses Adrien on a dare and runs off but it really spirals out of control when Chat Noir takes revenge with his own kiss and dash. Do all people kiss the same way? Adrienette/Marichat/Ladynoir/Ladrien. - I THINK I ASCENDED WHILE READING THE FIRST CHAPTER

No Longer Running From - After an Akuma attack, Marinette runs off in order to avoid Chat Noir, but she didn’t count on him being so willing to come after her.

Chat Blanc - Chat Blanc fights with reveals and Adrien being a good person even when akumatized

Worries - Chat is very concerned for the well-being of Marinette who he has noticed, decides to run into akuma battles in a very much not safe way

Rooftop Tears and Gentle Hugs [Vent] - Marinette goes mute for a week, and everybody is worried. It seems only a concerned Chat is the one to finally reach her.

Tendencies - (series) lots of good writing starting out as marichat and then a reveal

Just Chatting - Chat crashes onto Marinette's balcony and continues to visit. Marinette finds herself impulsively getting closer to him, and then everything goes to shit.

Reves de Noir et Blanc - LISTEN. MARICHAT HURT/COMFORT AFTER A NIGHTMARE MAKES ME FEEL CERTAIN THINGS

Physical Touch - Chat Noir, my amazing child, is touch starved. Marinette is happy to help with some cuddles

It’s Okay to Cry - THE SUMMARY ALONE GOT ME FEELING SOME STUFF LET MARINETTE SHOW EMOTION - Marinette feels the burden of not letting her negative emotions show, since Ladybug cannot let herself be akumatized, no matter what. A cat is there to let her vent.

heartstrings - HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA - they frggin kiss and its dramatic and teenage drama and romace

Crushed - Stuck under a collapsed building together, Chat Noir and Marinette have a heart to heart. (Reveal)

Every Heartbeat: A Marichat May 2021 Story: - Reeling from a brutally difficult day, Marinette finds her life becomes amazingly complicated after impulsively inviting Chat Noir to spend the evening with her. But when the suave feline begins to weave his way into her heart, she realizes rather quickly just how conflicted her feelings for her partner truly are.

A Roll of the Dice - AVERT YOUR EYES INNOCENT CHILDREN - mature (obviously) Alya gives Marinette an adult dice set and at night time, Chat Noir dares her to use it.

tell me something i don’t know - the infamous marichat soulmate au by the beloved carpisuns

Trading (Momentary) Burdens - UM. YOU HAD ON RIGHT?? I AM SAD??- Ladybug gets hurt mid-fight and Chat has to turn into Misterbug to save her

Miraculous Dupont - Marinette finds herself attacked by Chat Blanc, an akuma at the orders of Hawkmoth. But before the akuma can do any damage, she's saved by Chat Noir, a superhero who is fighting the akumas. Chat Noir senses something in her and takes her to the magical school he attends, Miraculous Dupont, where Master Fu, the head teacher, agrees that she has potential to be a Miraculous holder. So Marinette is thrown into a world of hidden identities, akuma fights and mysteries and ends up by discovering that this whole world wasn't that unknown to her to start with, that the boy behind the mask, of whom she desperately falls in love, wasn't a stranger from her too, and it's all connected to two lucky charms, a seal and a mysterious magical potion she (and her friends) should never have been exposed to...

Tyger, Tyger, Burning Bright - chat noir gives the tiger miraculous to marinette. I love her concept of the tiger miraculous, so cool!

Terror on La Seine - Villains weren't supposed to help when there are others in need. But can Hawk Moth truly stand aside and do nothing? Especially when a young woman he knows personally is in danger? TW: implied trafficking

Madness Within - If you want slowburn, feral Chat Noir and dark themes this is a great place to start and I’m super excited for what’s to come. Very highly recommend

you came to me with gold and i mended the pieces - Adrien gets into a really ugly argument with his father, and as a result the poor boy gets a slap right across the face. In a daze, he runs away from home, transforms, and decides to seek comfort in a really close friend of his.

I’ll Be Your (Wing)Man - When Chat Noir finds Marinette sighing over her failed love life, he decides to help her get the boy of her dreams. Nothing can go wrong here. Absolutely nothing.

The Tendencies Series - HIGHLY RECOMMEND and will sure to keep you busy for a while

LadyNoir:

A Summer Treat - LadyNoir Icecream date in Shanghai and lovestruck adrien

TKO - LadyNoir workouts and they KISS

Doctor, Doctor, Give me The News (Your Lips Is The Only Cure I Could Use) - Plagg’s sick, Adrien’s in love, Shit Happens™

Of Yellows, Pinks and Blues - New York Special LadyNoir but with ROSES

Long Live - LadyNoir based on the song <3

Letters of Lovers - LadyNoir writing down all their feelings on letters BUT THEN AT THE END THEY READ IT + Reveal

A Bad Dream - Ladybug tells Chat about a ‘dream’ where he was Chat Blanc (spoiler alert: it wasn’t a dream)

The Bug and Cat Show - ADKLJSASD READ THIS

You’re My Sight - Adrien is blind but with the miraculous, he can see and this is very much a wonderful thing to happen to him. One day he tells Ladybug.

United - OMFG - ladynoir established relationship (+Reveal)

a nine-year-old - i havent met anyone that hasn’t read this fic but still (im still sorry emsy, i believed you were 9 with my entire heart 😭)

Death By Ladybug - Flirty Ladybug and Flustered Chat Noir

Chat Noir’s White French Man Hitlist For Feminist Purposes - (THIS HAS A PODFIC NOW)

Liquid Luck - LadyNoir Banter + Reveal

Symphony - Adrinette/LadyNoir + Reveal (with the best ending ever omg)

The Miraculous Tweets of @luckylady and @chatnoir - Internet Shenanigans

Problems - ladynoir fluff

Only a beat a cat can hear - Ladybug tells Chat when he finds out about her blindness that she scared about him leaving her. He’s having none of this self deprecating stuff and reassures her that he loves her a lot and nothing changes that.

M’Lady - THEIR LAST DAYS AS SUPERHEROES :’’’’))) (Reveal)

It was just a cheek kiss! - Ladybug slowly falling for Chat and them finally getting together (my friends thought I was getting murdered when I readthis. So many screams)

Discordant Sonata - EdenDaphne (Still going!)

like poles of a magnet - By maketea (8/8! It's finished!)

From the Ashes - By MiniMinou (Finish! Btw this is angst and mature rated)

Ladybug and Chat Noir's Guide to the Rooftops of Paris - PipTheMagnificent (One-shot!)

in the dead of night, your eyes so green - this ones by miraculouslycool so you know its good

Day 7: Interview - Chat Noir being cute with kids

Misunderstanding - LadyNoir Identity Shenanigans <3

Not Kitten Around, Badylug - the road to reveal, integrating parts of S4, all in mobile texts. Sweet, funny. The kind of pick-me up you need after an angsty ep.

Two Seconds - perfect for a light morning read.

i think it’s time i told you (im a fan of your universe) - LadyNoir (AND THEY GET MARRIED)

It’s Not PDA If You’re Just Friends - They’re just friends! Friends can kiss each others shoulders and spin each other around, right?

I Guess That Makes Us Even - Chat Noir dying = REALLY SAD LADYBUG AND COMFORT - its by buggchat so you already know its simply superior

Red Strings and Markers - Soulmate AU my beloved

little kitty on the rood, wearing his lady’s boxers - Adrien in Ladybug boxers, Marinette in the pool with her pjamas, Adrien uses his one braincell and realizes some pretty shocking things (Reveal)

dont let me die alone - okay so you may get a lil sad but you know

Return to Base - LadyNoir laser tag baby, Adrienette laser tag with LadyNoir dynamic, reveal

The Ladyblog Comment Section - they like to annoy alya in the comments. and flirt. but they dont realize the last part yet

Irreplaceable - Adrien is insecure. Marinette doesn't let anyone talk bad about her partner.

Where are you Chat Noir? - As the final battle unfolds to their defeat, Hawkmoth and Mayura use plan b and withdraw in a 'Sentiworld', a parallel reality created with an Amok. What's worse, they drag Chat Noir with them. What's even worse, Ladybug can't say goodbye, or I love you. Guilty and desperate, what will she be ready to sacrifice to get her partner back? (Rated R for mature content)

Kitty Chat Kisses - Give Chat more kisses please, this was so sweet and cute and sad and just...someone give Chat some hugs and kisses and tell him he did a good job

i’ll marry you - Chat Noir talks to his sleepy girlfriend about their future.

Upon the Eiffel Tower, They Reveal it All. - Chat Noir spots Ladybug heading towards the Eiffel tower without telling him, and when he checks on her, finds out more than he thought he would.

Two Hundred and Fifty Four - aspik angst :’)

Ladrien:

bang bang - KISSES

whose woods these are (I think I know) - FIRST OF ALL, its a cinderella au and its MAGNIFICENT - Four years after his future turns to cinders, Adrien is a servant in the house he was meant to inherit. Disowned by his father and abused by his stepmother, his days are filled with drudgery until he meets a masked huntress in the forest behind his father's chateau.As his friendship with Ladybug turns to first love, he dreams of a future spent at her side.Then, on the eve of the Princess's masquerade, he meets his guardian—and is granted a wish.

The Tell-Tale Kiss - Adrien gets discouraged when Ladybug turns down Paris’ favorite cat every time. But what if Paris’ favorite model asks her?

The Cat and His Daffodils - I adore Hanahaki AU’s and this was one was really good and wonderfully angsty.

Post/One Sided Reveal:

Serendipitous Fate - With Hawkmoth growing stronger, Chat Noir and Ladybug need to practice. And get teammates. And grow stronger together. Which means learning each other’s identity, no matter the risks. Unfinished, but worth it. Also, there is some smut near the end, but the author warns the reader on the exact chapter and it is very skippable

switch it up - Adrien uses the Ladybug miraculous and everyone simps even harder

Remember That Time When... - Marinette is ready to enjoy her wedding anniversary with her wondrful husband. Except when she wakes up, she’s not going to be able to celebrate her anniversary. In fact, she’s seventeen again.

Divide By Infinity - Post-Reveal Adrinette being adorable and looking at LadyNoir moments

Bad Day - Adrien finds out Marinette’s Ladybug on the toilet and everything just does downhill from there

Get Agrekt - Post Reveal + Drunk Adrien my beloved

Under The Stars - PROPOSAL

Do You Hear That, Love? - Post-Reveal angst and babies

Side Effects of Paw-esome Merch: Model Chokes on Air - Post Reveal Marinette making my poor boy adrien consciously try not to die by wearing Chat Noir merch

Serotonin Boosts - ADRIEN LOVES HIS GIRLFRIEND OKAY?

When the Wedding Bells Toll - Post Reveal Adrinette pretend to date to get free food at a wedding (ha ha guess who fell in love againnnn)

All You Had to Do Was Stay - first of all, OOF - Marinette and Adrien reveal their identities and he panics and Marinette, three years later, sees him again for Alya’s wedding with the urge to both kiss him and punch him in the face

Adrinette April Day 23: Sunset - CUTE FLUFFY PEOPLE (its by sketchy-panda)

Forget-Me-Not - written way before oblivio but basically, oblivio

The Wall Between Us - Lukanette, Adrigami, Alya finding out, lovesquare reveal, Adrien finding out Gabe is Hawkmoth, then theres Adrinette being in love and MarcNath walking in them making out. Its a whole vibe. Two Seconds was written in response to this :D

Mari Me - CHRISTMAS PROPOSALS AND CHILDREN ARE BEAUTIFUL OKAY?

Trolling Alya - After Adrien and Marinette reveal their identities to each other, instead of going right into dating, they agree to just be friends and take their time. Alya is not having it.

The Biological Imperative - excellent explicit story with an interesting concept about tikki being able to freeze the power of all miraculouses in her box in case of marinette's pregnancy. Adrienette of course.

The Closest Thing to Love - god i love a good fake dating story - post reveal Aged Up - adrien decides that the best way to gain independence from his dad was to get married. To who you ask? Of course its his lady, Marinette Dupain Cheng. Nothing could go wrong! They’re just friends after all.

Not A Ship But Hella good Stories

Papa Bear - In which Tom is the one to figure out Adrien’s home life is putting him in danger and helps Adrien escape.

Nooroo Uses a Swear Word - He really, really does. But he has a very good reason, so... let's hear him out, shall we? Crackfic, one-shot.

Move to Safety - Sort of a longer take on the ‘ Adrien runs away and seeks shelter with the Dupain-Chengs’. Involves the final battle and Adrien knowing Gabe is Hawkmoth.

I Know, Kid - Plagg has a very important conversation with his holder when they return home after defeating Guiltrip.

Chat Noir is My Science Teacher - When Mattheu Magan witnesses his chemistry teacher, Adrien Dupain-Cheng, transform into his favorite superhero Chat Noir, he becomes the Monkey Miraculous holder Monkid, going on adventures and learning what it means to be a hero alongside under his new meow-ntor. (OC, Adventure, Aged-up - Yall ive only known Mattheu for like, a month BUT I LOVE HIM WITH ALL MY HEART)

Won’t Tell a Soul - Nino finds out that Marinette is Ladybug and keeps the secret. Kind of.

Motherfucking Superheroes - Directly following the events of the season 3 finale, Alya Cesaire decides to create a groupchat with all the known Miraculous holders, which sets off an investigation into Ladybug’s identity. (Crack, Groupchat/Text fic)

My Boy - Gabriel creates a sentimonster copy of himself to free himself from unimportant matters, but he didn’t expect it to become more human than himself. (Angst, Mentions of torture)

The Malicious Pavilin - Evil gay Emilie is a whole ass mood

Never Sing At Home - Based on that ‘hey, bad news and good news. Bad news, Hawkmoth knows my identity, good news, I know his!’ prompt on tumblr

Bite off more than you can chew and you’ll choke - Lila gets exposed fics my beloved

ouef, ouch, owie - Chat and Rena plan some Aspik-related shenanigans to cover up Chat’s secret identity when Ladybug decides to have all the Miraculous heroes train together. (Crack)

What the Cat Dragged In - MCU Crossover

the last day on earth - Chat Blanc angst is top-tier

Air Miraculous - Miraculous but with Basketball and Shoes

how the strings intertwine - MDC Fic - UNFINISHED BUT AMAZING

Nine Lives - Hurt/Comfort, Adrien Centric

In Good Hands - in which Ladybug tells Chat Noir about her new confidant and Chat chooses his own.

How Nino Waged War with Gabriel Agreste - By ChocolateXMyMouth (Still going!)

The Inappropriate Touching Talk - this is another pure crack. Gabriel finds out that Adrien "touches inappropriately" Marinette and decides to have "the talk" (or rather have someone else have the talk with him)

Broken - Cop AU with lots of angst :D

Informant - miracuclass group chat au with identity shenanigans

Lucky Fox Paradox - Marinette gives succeeds in giving Alya the ladybug miraculous. And regrets it. Enter, the fox miraculous.

“I have plan” - based on the ‘Ladybug joins the fight as multimous and she and rena rouge won’t let adrien leave to transform and its just crack’

Sting - Chat Noir mysteriously vanished, and as much as Ladybug hates it, she can’t do her job alone. Which is why she decides to give Adrien to bee miraculous until her partner returns!

Accidental Dates - The four friends make a group chat to plan game nights. Some people tend to take it further

Leave for Mendeleiev - Marinette is in Mendeleiev’s class instead of Bustier’s, meaning new friends and different relationships

Ridiculous, Utterly Ridiculous - rejected one time too many, Chat Noir ends in tears on someone's balcony. No, not Marinette's. Chloé's. And no, it doesn't end with an adrikloe (or how it's called). Chloé actually ends up being a good friend (*insert ohhhh of surprise*)

I’ll Handle This - Adrien accepts a deal with Plagg for the black kwami to resolve his problems. And Plagg succeeds.

let’s get covered in flames and play some games with the smoke - 1920s enemies to lovers soulmates au that makes me want to jump off a building in a good way

Ruffled - Harry Potter AU

Passionfruit - Adrienette soulmate au series with 3 parts

Repetition - One day adrien stumbles upon hawkmoth’s lair. In response, Gabe wipes his memory and is done with it. until it happens again, and again, and again…

Bite Me. - Vampire!Alya one-shot. Really good world-building in this one chapter alone!

“I have a plan.” - Really funny one-shot where Marinette’s idea of going in as Multimouse doesn’t exactly pan out how she wanted it to.

Back to Us - After a reveal so shocking it rocks the core of Paris itself, the villain Hawk Moth is finally defeated...at a great personal cost to heroes Ladybug and Chat Noir. With the city safe, they go their separate ways, returning to the lives they were forced to put on hold since receiving their Miraculous.

Free Falling - Fantastic story with amazing and well written themes that I really just adored reading. Beautifully written and wonderful plot/story

Other Ships (outside of Love Square):

The Worst and Best Thing - GabeNath, drama and angst with a happy ending

Operation Lovebirds - DJWifi - Alya and Nino try and get Adrien and Marinette together, and get more than they thought they would

Phase Eight - Sequel to Operaton Lovebirds - Three years after the failure of Operation Lovebirds, Alya and Nino’s relationship is tested when Alya comes across a startling secret.

Cola Date - DJWifi - When Alya finds herself on a date with the wrong guy she searches for unconventional help to get her out of this. Luckily, the cute waiter doesn't mind to help her out with a favor.

Soundless - Lukadrien - Luka has the Ladybug Miraculous and can pretty much tell who’s Chat Noir

Hotdogs and Icecream - Lukagami - Luka and Kagami hanging out while Adrinette are being in love during the NY Special

#gamma squad #fic rec list #admin: inimoo and thesquipproject #we worked our asses off on this adkljsds

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merakiui · 3 years

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Okay okay okay I’ve been thinking about this for a few days now here’s my list of genshin boys most likely to least likely to become a yandere and why:

-xiao. Millennia of suffering and he meets somebody who makes the pain dissipate? Hell never let go.

-diluc. People have died in his arms, he can’t risk losing another loved one... it’s not like he doesn’t have the wealth and resources to keep his beloved by his side.

-Childe. I think he’d be the most dehumanizing yandere - he treats you almost like a child (haha) as be manipulates his way into your heart. And god knows that he gets what he wants.

-albedo is obviously in the top half of this list. We’ve talked about his yandere tendacies before so I won’t relist them but jeez get this boy some therapy.

-razor. Now this sounds surprising but after years of protecting his Lupical, do you really think he’d let somebody he loves and sees as helpless wander alone? I feel hes less captor and manipulative and more of a stalker if he becomes a yandere

-venti. Freedom is his entire world, but can he let his beloved have freedom if it endangers them? One of the most manipulative ones on this list, except he has no clue that he’s doing it.

-kaeya. Maybe you’d gotten to close to one of his secrets. Maybe you’d figured out something he wanted to die. It doesn’t matter much now, all you know is that you were tried and declared guilty by the knights of favonius and were sent into a dungeon protected by the Calvery captain himself.

-zhongli. Has the yandere desires, but refuses to give in. He’s loved and lost so many times over the years and he figures he doesn’t want to take that away from his beloved.

-chongyun. I’ve gone back and forth between him and xingqiu for this one, but I feel like these last 3 are all pretty much tied for not being a yandere. However, if he met someone who could somehow null his congenital positivity than he might move up on this list...

-Xingqiu. He has a strong sense of justice and honor, the idea of manipulating, stalking or god forbid kidnapping his S/O is appalling to him.

-Bennett. Literally just tryna vibe. Devotes as much time as he can to make sure any relationship he has is healthy.

So basically:

Everybody on this list: *frothing at the mouth, thinking of ways to keep their S/Os with them*

Bennett, Chongyun, Xingqiu and to some extent Zhongli: what the fuck

Your list... Simply amazing. Now that I’m thinking about it, I’m beginning to wonder where other characters would sit on the list. Mainly Scaramouche though aha oops Anyways, please never stop sharing your thoughts!! They are so GOOD!

Xiao’s backstory and past is just perfect material to fuel his yandere desires. He’s suffered for so long and has never really experienced positive emotions, let alone love itself. The poor adeptus is always brooding on his own and here comes his darling, bright and happy and just...perfect. They’re like a glimmering star in his murky darkness and he wants to treasure them. There’s no way he’s going to let go of the feeling he gets when he’s with them, nor is he going to let them leave his side.

It makes sense that Diluc would also be at the top of that list. He’s got the making of a yandere, especially considering all of the people he’s lost in his life. Now that he’s found someone so important to him, he can’t risk losing them. It would destroy him if he found out that his darling got hurt or was even killed because he wasn’t taking enough precautions to keep them safe. He’d definitely blame himself if something like that happened.

Childe, pspspspsp!!! The power this man holds... Omg he makes for such a terrifying yandere. On the outside, he seems warm and disarming—just your normal, happy-go-lucky kind of guy. He’s not dangerous at all! No way. But under all of that falsified charm is someone who knows how to pull strings. He’s a Fatui Harbinger, so of course he has the means of getting you wrapped around his finger. It’s not all that hard when he’s got money, power, and strength. Plus, when he wants something he’s not going to stop until he acquires it; Childe lives for the thrill of chasing after you and it’ll be even more fun once he catches you. Someone should send me more thoughts about yan!Childe!!! orz orz

Albedo also qualifies as a neat yandere! Something about yanderes who are into science is just...fascinating to me. It’s also cool because Albedo’s rumored to be a homunculus, so that adds to the intrigue! Albedo has the resources to get what he wants as well. It won’t be all that difficult, and if it proves to be challenging he can just think of other solutions to pacify his darling. He is a researcher, after all, and a good researcher seeks to find the best solution to a problem.

Razor would be a feral yandere. He’s more action than words. He doesn’t put much thought into what he does because it feels more like an instinct to him. He’s just protecting his Lupical. There’s nothing wrong with that! So why are you acting so difficult? D:

Like you said, Venti’s not aware of his manipulation and he just does it because it works. His belief that everyone deserves freedom is probably what really holds him back. He doesn’t want you to feel caged, but that feeling is practically inevitable since he’s always hounding you. Venti is a very suffocating yandere and he doesn’t even realize it.

KAEYA! KAEYA! I love the idea of Kaeya having some sort of blackmail on you—something so bad that you absolutely can’t let the world see. And so he uses that to keep you quiet. If you did stumble upon one of his secrets, he can’t possibly have you running that pretty mouth of yours. But if you do end up spilling his secret, it’s only fair that he shares yours, right? An eye for an eye, as some would say. Kaeya’s very smooth and calculative when it comes to handling blackmail. Whenever it feels like you’re trying to one-up him and possibly escape, he’ll flirtatiously remind you of the power he holds over you. Blackmail is rather compelling, is it not?

Zhongli does have the motive to be a yandere, as you pointed out, but he’s a strange case. On one hand, it makes sense that he’d want to protect his beloved at all costs, but on the other he’d probably be aware of these unhealthy tendencies. Although he probably uses the idea of a contract to keep your relationship going, even if it’s clear you don’t want anything to do with him. But if you do, that just makes it easier on him!

NO BECAUSE I THOUGHT THE SAME FOR CHONGYUN!!! Not the yan!Chongyun piece rotting in my drafts for a month or two now ehehee I had some thoughts about Chongyun but never bothered posting it for some reason. Anyways, I do think Chongyun has potential to be a yandere! As you mentioned, his congenital positivity can become an issue and he doesn’t want that to seriously affect his daily life. So he’s probably very pleased to find someone who can nullify that positivity. It’d be similar to Xiao’s case; Xiao likes someone who can be the light in his dark world. Chongyun falls for the person who can null his congenital positivity and is someone who he gets along with.

The only way I can see Xingqiu being a yandere is if he wants a noble, storybook romance. Okay, that sounds strange, but consider it! He’s a huge bookworm who probably doesn’t exactly experience romance aside from what he reads in his novels. Although he doesn’t dabble in the romance genre all that often, he does like the idea of being a hero and sweeping someone off of their feet. So when he meets you—another fellow bookworm or maybe the two of you are thrown into an arranged marriage—he just feels an undeniable connection. This must be some form of fate or a sixth sense. Maybe he can be the main character of his own story! You’ll just have to cooperate and you can be the valiant knight’s love interest!

Bennett’s vibes are so nice. How could he be a yandere? He’s just too sweet and pure. He’s really just here to chill and gather an adventuring team full of great friends! But if anyone has any thoughts...please share them!

That’s it. I’m writing about Scaramouche even though he’s not on the list. Please, why do I simp so much for him? Anyways, we don’t know nearly enough about Scaramouche to determine his backstory or past. But he just oozes yandere! Most of the Harbingers are probably the same, to some extent. He’s like Childe with all of the power and resources, but whereas Childe relishes in the chase Scaramouche refuses to put up with it. It’s just way too inconvenient for him. He’d rather catch you when you least expect it and then keep you for himself.

Gosh, he’s a very determined and possessive yandere with a strict agenda; this man probably cheats in order to get you. He’ll send his underlings to do the work in his place. They’ll stalk you and report back to him and it isn’t long before he learns of your friends, certain family members you’re close to, and even where you live. It’s terrifying, but this is Scaramouche we’re talking about. For someone so short, he sure knows how to intimidate and beat fear into those below him. Good luck to the poor soul who catches his eye.

I must thank you for making that list! It was lots of fun to consider their mindsets and behaviors as yandere. :D

#chit chat #yandere genshin impact #yandere genshin impact x reader #yandere xiao #yandere diluc #yandere childe #yandere albedo #yandere razor #yandere venti #yandere kaeya #yandere zhongli #yandere chongyun #yandere xingqiu #genshin impact bennett #yandere scaramouche #yandere x reader #this was so fun to write about #xenia-cenia #your brain is galaxy level

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destroyscythe-heck · 2 years

Text

An incomplete list of cursed things that happened in a dream I had about a live action Gundam Wing movie when I took a nap yesterday

1. There was an orchestral cover of “Everybody” by the Backstreet Boys playing during like the boys setting up for the big final showdown

2. The dialogue I remember was mostly MCU style quips and snarky stuff

3. Duo’s character basically got completely gutted and replaced with him being the standard stock action movie comic relief

4. Hilde, Dorothy, Mike Howard,and the Manganac corps all got completely cut

5. Wufei got done realizing dirty “because nobody liked Wufei anyway so it’s fine if he’s just an unsympathetic dick who gets bullied the whole time”, it was very mean spirited and probably also really really racist with how he was handled

6. Relena also got completely gutted to to just make her “Heero’s love interest who is a girl who sometimes also talks about how pacifism is neat” probably to make her seem less “annoying” or “pushy” or “preachy” or “SJW-ish” because people would mock the movie on YouTube

7. Quatre was being played by a white actor but it was justified in the story by none of the Winner kids being the same race or even looking related at all because their parents got a bit creative during the Gattaca-ing of their army of test tube babies

Also out of the script the people making the movie said they were justified in doing that because they added more new diversity by casting Trowa as black and a “plus size” actress to be Sally (Both of which I am ok with but we went through this with the live action Winx Club show, you can’t erase some pre existing diversity and then pretend it’s okay by adding something new, you definitely could have had kept Flora in the show and cast a plus size Latina actress) Also (Yes I’m still mad about that because Flora and Tecna were my favorite Winx Club characters, and erasing her to have Terra be there was complete BS because again, plus size Latina actresses exist)

(Winx Club rant tangent over)

8. Noin was the cookie cutter generic type of “stronk female character ™️” that hasn’t really been anything groundbreaking since the 80’s and also showed that you completely missed the point of why people like Ripley from Alien

9. Treize actually had a motivation this time! But it seemed like it was written by somebody who still thinks that “Illuminati Confirmed” is the cutting edge of the hip cool meme culture for the youths

10. Kathrine and Trowa kissed and then later had a completely out of character-ly dramatic freak out when they found out that they are actually siblings in a cheap attempt to make fun of Luke and Leia Skywalker

11. Une was a complete caricature of herself, like she was so Sat A.M. cartoon villain obviously evil that you’d really wonder why anyone is comfortable having her as an underling because it’s so obvious that she’s that evil and would sell you to satan for one corn chip, but it seemed like if you snatched her glasses off her face she could go from skinning adorable puppies alive with one hand while pressing the big red button with the other to wanting to go bake cookies with Relena or whatever

12. I know that Heero already wasn’t the most emotional character ever but you could have literally replaced him with a mannequin wearing a wig, a green tank top, bike shorts, and a pair of Timbs (for product placement reasons) in his scenes and nobody would notice

13. The already incredibly shallow criticism of drone warfare that was done with the mobile dolls was somehow watered down even more

14. Sally’s rebel group became a stand in for the US army who were obviously supposed to be the good guys

15. The old scientist dudes who started Operation Meteor were also evil because they were also in the Illuminati who are playing both sides with earth and space and the original Operation Meteor was a false flag attack meant to cause total chaos on earth for reasons

16. But everyone ended up okay because the boys got found by Sally and the thinly veiled stand in for the US Army

17. Zechs had a complete mental breakdown when he left OZ and him forming White Fang himself from the remains of the colony rebels was him having a Joker arc

18. … because Relena said she didn’t love him anymore and was mad at him for becoming a war criminal even though he actually could remember what the Sanc Kingdom was like and how their dad was Mr. Pacifist Mc Pacifismface, but she didn’t say all that aloud. Just only that she didn’t love her brother anymore and only that

19. But he ended up okay and perfectly good because during the climactic Libra fight Noin was there and she kissed him and made him not the Joker anymore through the power of redemption arc love

20. And finally, there was a really prominent fart joke featuring Duo Maxwell in like the first 5 minutes

#from the ashes #phoenix speaks #Gundam #gundam wing #heero yuy #duo maxwell #trowa barton #quatre raberba winner #wufei chang #zechs merquise #relena peacecraft #relena darlian #lucrezia noin #lady une #treize khushrenada #completely and totally cursed #I’m amazed that I didn’t wake up in a cold sweat screaming

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butwhatifidothis · 3 years

Note

Who on your side is going to call you out? Literally every recruitable character except Bernadetta and Lindhardt? And you CAN'T objectively say that the route leaves an objectively worse off Fodlan. A lot of the characters have the exact same single endings they do in other routes. Meaning a lot of their endings are nice and happy and hopeful despite the fact they aided in the conquest of a nation. Hell, some single character endings specific to crimson flower STILL end happily despite this. Alois happily moves to remire and becomes a farmer with his family. Mercedes opens up an orphanage. Also you can't really use Felix' single ending as a mark against Crimson flower, seeing as that's also his ending in all his non blue lions endings.

Those quotes aren't actually addressing Byleth's actions beyond said characters being pissed at Byleth.

The demonic beasts are never mentioned. The fact that you are aiding in conquest and genocide isn't talked about, just the fact that you are on the opposing side. And some of those characters that are pissed at Byleth and questioning them ALSO *conviently* forget those grievances once they're recruited. Suddenly everybody's all for blindly following byleth in their aiding the conquest of fodlann and the potential genocide of the last few nabateans.

So what, is edelgard "im going to assassinate my classmates and immediately get murdered by bandits in that attempt and nemesis did nothing wrong!" Adrestia suddenly master manipulator? Are all the characters just so blindly loyal to byleth that they're willing to ignore their morals? a

You broke down exactly why, no matter how you look at it, villain route or not, CF falls flat! Because inconsistent writing dictates that 3H can't go all the way with making CF/Edelgard too bad! The full scope of Edelgard's actions never being addressed, even off of CF (the Demonic Beasts are never called out, but the use of them is very clearly villainous given what they are, to use one of your examples)! This is why I have issues with CF - not because oh shit you're the bad guy, but in this regard they don't go far enough! This is exactly why my feelings are mixed towards CF, because of these exact flaws within it.

But even with that, there are still some things of what you said I don't quite agree with?

Like, Edelgard's and Hubert's endings apparently don't point to CF being a villain route, but Alois and Mercedes' do point it to not being one? Why are the latter's endings being given more weight than the former's?

"Those quotes aren't actually addressing Byleth's actions beyond said characters being pissed at Byleth."

...Um... yeah they are? Because they're pissed at Byleth for siding with Edelgard and the Empire? They're not just randomly mad at Byleth for no reason - the characters know what Edelgard and the Empire have done, they don't have to go down the laundry list when they express their anger at Byleth joining her/them. When Ignatz says “We can’t place the future of Fódlan in Edelgard’s hands. If you’re allied with the Empire, I have no choice but to fight you," him not specifically laying out every single crime Edelgard has done does not suddenly mean that those crimes aren't what he's referring to. Shamir saying “You still align yourself with the emperor? What a shame. Let’s make this quick. I don’t want the loser to suffer," doesn't mean that she's just peaved at Byleth for no reason. Ingrid’s quote, “You have chosen to assist the Empire, even while knowing of their deeds. I am truly disappointed in you, Professor. Prepare yourself, heel of the Empire! A wretch like you will never be qualified to rule over Fódlan!” very clearly lays it out that it is all that the Empire has done that is the reason why she’s mad at you and why she thinks you’d be a shitty ruler (and if Byleth is shitty for choosing to side with Edelgard, then that inherently means that Edelgard is also shitty).

Why are they mad at Byleth? Why are they criticizing you specifically joining the Empire? Why are none of them saying “Gee Byleth, it’s pretty ass of you to join Claude’s side, you heartless bitch” on VW? Or similar statement towards Byleth on AM and SS? Why is the Empire unique in being called evil, bloody, savage, etc.? It’s because the action of joining the Empire - joining Edelgard - is a bad one, one that throws away morals to chase the false image of “revolution” Edelgard posits.

The answer? Yes. The same way that Byleth is blindingly loyal to Edelgard and throws away their canonical hatred of TWS to follow her, the other characters throw away themselves to blindingly follow Byleth. Byleth places their trust in Edelgard despite all of the horrible things she’s done, and their character becomes worse for it - the same thing happens to the cast that foolishly decide to continue placing their trust in Byleth despite siding with the villain Edelgard. They either stagnate in their character progression or outright regress, the exact same as Byleth, because CF as a route is all about regression. That’s Edelgard’s whole motivation. It’s not moving forward to a new future, it’s going back to how Fodlan used to be - back under complete Imperial control, with a Hresvelg as the one ruler of Fodlan.

And Edelgard having one shitty plan and being wrong about history doesn’t mean she doesn’t know how to make others look worse than her, how to prop herself up as the hero of the story - we see this from Ladislava, someone who is genuinely completely loyal to Edelgard specifically, that characters genuinely fall for Edelgard’s words. We see this in how she makes Dimitri and Rhea and Claude into these targets that must be destroyed “for the good of Fodlan,” that she can easily shove any and all responsibility for her actions onto her victims. We see this in how she’s just “taking back humanity’s freedom” when she slaughters a heartbroken and maddened Rhea - maddened due to her actions - only to shove humanity under her actually tyrannical rule. Hell, her being ignorant of history again falls back into how CF is partly about ignorance - you’re always ignorant to the depths of your horrific actions due to blind loyalty, so being wrong about history and never being corrected is par for the course.

Where CF falls short is the following:

the aforementioned endings that always remain the same even on CF,

where certain characters aren’t given enough attention despite being on CF (Ingrid definitely needed a Felix treatment for specifically this route, since she’s going after the Kingdom directly, for example),

where even with the idea of the BE getting influenced by the regression of CF they still way too easily side with Edelgard (Ferdinand is by far the worse victim of this),

where the end result of Fodlan is unification no matter what route you do (more the game overall that suffers from this tbh),

where the characters don’t mention the depths of Edelgard’s actions off of CF (which is partly why the BE staying with Edelgard on CF comes across poorly, because they never really delve into her actions so them not doing so on CF doesn’t come across very well) - VW is the worst offender of this, as while it makes some sense to have Edelgard be a sympathetic villain on the other routes, doing the same here makes literally no sense (you only know her as a warmonger trying to murder you).

I know this isn’t like, the most popular opinion, but I don’t find it to be an intrinsically bad idea to have the player initially think that they’re not playing a villain route until they go back over the numerous, frankly loud undertones of villainy and evil you help participate in and realize “oh shit wait a minute.” Dragging down characters with you on your path of ignorance and regression? Sounds cool! Playing the other routes and seeing what you essentially look like to all of the people you fight on CF - a heartless conqueror stamping down on all opposition - as you play from the infinitely more heroic POV of the other two lords (+ Byleth’s independent POV) and see Edelgard in the light of a villain (that light the non-recruited/non-CF characters see you in)? Neat! Realizing that you’ve helped a lying, racist, imperialistic warmonger get exactly what she wants as she drags down Fodlan in darkness and tyranny? Interesting! The water is just muddied by poor writing decisions/oversights, but it is very much still (villainous) water. CF is flawed, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t what it is.

But I will ask you this nonnie, if you don’t mind! If you don’t think CF is a villain route, what is it to you? Genuinely curious!

#ask #anon #exqueuese me princess #anti edelgard #Anti-edelgard #Edelgard discourse #Edelgard critical #just to be safe #like talking about this made me realize that the other characters being ass on CF might actually be like. intentional #I mean in the idea that they were on CF not just because uwu Edelgard but because it's meant to FURTHER showcase how bad an influence CF is #since Byleth becomes way worse on CF and CF is all about making shit ass it'd make sense for characters that naively place their faith #in Byleth like Byleth did in Edelgard to regress to hell in their character arcs #it's debatable whether some should have been playable on CF at all (INGRID INGRID INGRID) but even with that they're like. noticeably worse #though even then if they're gonna have said characters on CF they should've been VERY noticeably worse - down to endings and shit like that #and seeing the difference between how non-recruited students react to fighting Byleth on CF vs off it kinda opened my eyes that wow #bitches DO NOT like Byleth on CF lmao #Funny how Byleth gets more criticism for joining Edelgard than Edelgard does for actually doing the shit that's bad lmao #(by funny i mean maddening)#but yeah! sorry if I came across rude just imo CF is very much a villain route lol

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wickedpact · 3 years

Text

heres a transcript of that gina & greg interview i mentioned yesterday. literally nothing new is in this, but theres a lot of info in this that was scattered in varying interviews/podcasts and i like having all of it in one place for future reference purposes

(link to vid)

Patrick: Hey everybody, this is Patrick Cavanaugh from comicbook.com here to bring you a very special conversation about Netflix's The Old Guard, which just debuted last week, and everybody has seen it-- I believe people have seen it by now, so that's very exciting. And to dive deep into this film, we're actually very lucky to have the film's director Gina Prince-Bythewood, who also directed Love And Basketball and Beyond The Lights here. Hello, Gina.

Gina: Hey.

P: And we're also joined by the film's writer, as well as the writer of the original comic book series, The Old Guard. Also, you might know him from his DC Comics work, Batwoman, and Lazarus, to name a few of his titles. We have Greg Rucka! Hello, Greg.

Greg: Hello!

P: So this film just first debuted last week, and I know you guys have been inundated with fans, just loving it. And let's just get to what fans want to know, right off the bat; I'm sure you're getting daily questions about this because there's so much for an expanded universe. So let's set the record straight: will there be a Tiger King crossover?

[everyone laughs]

Greg: Uh, we're planning an animated series with giant Mech suits, and, unbeknownst to a certain franchise, we're going to crossover with Transformers and-- no. Come on. [laughs]

P: Okay, alright, we’ll hold onto that big crossover stuff. And I know Netflix, of course, hasn’t fully announced what the future might be for Old Guard, but I'm just kind of curious if you guys have had any recent conversations about what you'd like to do in the future—theoretical, nothing concrete, of course. But since the film has come out and you've seen fan feedback…?

Gina: I will just say, obviously, it's an incredible compliment that people want to see more. It means we did our job in this. It was very important that this film has a beginning middle and end. We wanted to focus on this.

Greg: Yeah.

Gina: And get it right. Having people want more is an incredible gift and I would say those conversations were really… Greg and I, early on in talking through the story... knowing Greg knows where this thing goes --and it's pretty incredible-- helped me in terms of directing this one. So I will say we've had those conversations early on.

Greg: Yeah Gina’s absolutely right. One of the things that I'm really-- one of the many things I am proud of is that the movie is a whole, you certainly leave it going ‘okay, there could be more, I can see how there is more’. But it is a complete work. It is not contingent and does not need anything else. That said, there were plenty of times we were having conversations and would jokingly be like, ‘oh that'll be in the next one, we'll do that in the next one. We had to cut this so we’ll put it in the next one’.

P: I'm sure people would be very thrilled, as would I. So we’ll try to remain patient since it's only been out a week--

Greg: I think that's reasonable.

P: [sarcastic] I mean, fans are nothing but reasonable--

Greg: [very loud laughter] You know what 'fan' is short for right? Fanatic.

P: [laughs] So Greg, I'm curious. You know, since this is a pretty unique situation where you wrote the original books but then also came to write the script-- which doesn't always happen all that often. I was kind of curious what that process was like and if, when revisiting that core story, if you were tempted to kind of go off into a new directions, you know, uncharted territory? And how you managed to stay faithful to that story.

Greg: So when Skydance initially acquired The Old Guard, Matt Grimm and Don Granger were the guys that I was working with. And they were very clear that they had acquired it because they loved the source material. So when I was doing the adaptation, it was ‘adapt this story to be told in a screen format, there are changes that have to be made’. I didn't see it so much as like ‘I can go in a different direction!’ as ‘it's a really rare opportunity to have a second bite at the apple’. Most writers don't get to tell the same story twice. And even with the collaborative nature of comics, making a movie is far more collaborative. So… being able to benefit from a lot of very smart people-- and then when Gina came aboard, and working very closely with her on the screenplay, you know, taking her notes, and talking at length about it was… I mean, I love the comic we made, I'm very proud of it. But I think this is a superior story. Because it allowed me to fix mistakes I had made. And I think that it certainly works as the film that we wanted it to be, but it has a lot more nuance and a lot more ‘shading’ than the comics ever could have had. So yeah, I mean, I'm very proud of the work we've done.

P: Yeah, as you should be, definitely agree with that. And I know, Gina, you've spoken about how you treated the source material essentially as a Bible as the blueprint for adapting the movie. So a question kind of for both of you, I was curious what scene or sequence were you most excited to bring to life? And then what scene were you most apprehensive about whether or not you could pull it off as faithful to that original?

Gina: For me, I mean, there was there were certainly a couple... Joe and Nicky in the van.

Greg: [nodding] Yeah.

Gina: Such a beautiful moment in the comic. And I wanted to get it right. I knew the actors really wanted to get it right. As soon as we started shooting, I was like, 'oh yeah, they're killing it'. Also Booker in the mine, the speech that he gives to Nile, it's everything to his character. It explains both Booker and Andy; where they are, and why they are the way that they are in that moment of time. And I know that as a director, I saw a perfect take. But going into those, you hope that, ‘am I able to evoke what I need to evoke in the audience?’ I think that the hardest really was the Kill Floor, given how iconic it is in the comic. It's just so beautifully drawn by Leandro, it pops off the page. So ‘how am I going to be able to do the same thing on film?’ But it really kind of boiled down to ‘what is the story [of the scene]’ and really focus on that first, but also wanting to really give a bit of a homage to what Leandro did too, which was my use of silhouette throughout it.

Greg: Yeah, I think that… Gina just listed all of the scenes. I mean, I wanted to see the armored car, that was enormously rewarding for me… I couldn't wait to see the killing room floor... You know, when we talk about moments of adaptation, I actually —and I thought this was really well handled in the movie in particular— Nile’s death wasn't wasn't easy in the comic, because it needed to have heart. You know, Kiki's performance and the way it's shot is just, it's phenomenal.

P: And obviously you can't really talk about this movie, which is this big action-fantasy movie, without talking about that scene between Joe and Nicky. I'm curious what both of your reactions have been to seeing that moment hit so hard with so many fans.

Greg: I'm overjoyed that we're able to give that to so many people. I am also frustrated that it's so overdue. While I don't think that either Gina or I felt that this was… It was important and special because it was important and special between these characters. But, you know, I mean I’m in that place where I recognize why we are getting the response that we are, and, I'm frustrated by the fact that it's 2020. And… apparently we're the first people to have done this? And you can say that about a lot of the reactions, you can say that about the reactions to Kiki's Nile. You can say that about reactions about Charlize portraying Andy. There’s a piece of me that's like ‘guys, we didn't invent the wheel here. All we did was show you, THERE’S A WHEEL HERE!’. So.

P: Yeah, it's interesting and it is frustrating that it is 2020 and we have to refer to this as an anomaly. That this is not the norm, that as you said, this is we're showing people that the wheel exists. And so Gina, you know, between having a film with two powered, seemingly super-powered characters, in a comic book adaptation, which is largely been devoid of such characters. [I think he meant to say female powered characters?] and being a black woman, directing a comic book adaptation— again, something in 2020 that we have to treat as a shocking revelation— I was curious, if you felt any sort of pressure about that on set, or if it was like just a confidence in the material, and support from your collaborators, that it wasn't even an issue?

Gina: Um, are you talking about the scene-?

P: Just the project as a whole.

Gina: There was a reason I took this film, because it moved me. It has to start there. There's all these things; I love putting a black female in the world, I love putting Nicky and Joe in the world, I love putting Joe’s character in the world. Those are all such incredible driving forces. But foremost, I have to feel and care about the characters in the story. And I did. And so, for me, it felt... I mean I was honored to be able to be the one to give these characters a life up on screen... or in that big screen in your living room. There's, of course, enormous pressure. Not only just doing a film, like the bigness of it. Certainly me being a woman, me being a black woman, and doing this when nobody has done it before… It's about proving myself and proving that women like me can do this, that we do like action, that we can shoot action… Just changing that narrative. So there's pressure to get it right and do a good job, but I feed off of that. It made me work harder because I felt like I absolutely had a responsibility to get it right.

P: And we've talked about Kiki a few times as Nile, of course. And Gina, I know you said it was within five seconds of meeting her that you knew she was the right one to play Nile. I was curious, how did the rest of the casting process go? Did everybody get hired that easily? Or was it a harder search to round out the ensemble?

Greg: Yes. I’m curious too!

Gina: You know, I knew going into this that I wanted great actors for every role and it's pretty amazing how many of my first choices are in this film. I mean Matthias Schoenaerts who plays Booker is an incredible actor and I knew I wanted him from the get-go. We were told he doesn't do films like this, but he wanted to meet, which was the first thing, like, ‘oh my gosh it’s on me, don't blow this meeting’ and he said again to my face, ‘I don't do these movies, but I love this movie’ and he loved the character Booker. And after that conversation and hearing my vision, he was in, which was amazing. Marwan Kenzari, I saw him in this independent film called Wolf—

Greg: Yeahhhhhh.

Gina: Phenomenal. And he was supposed to read for the part. We had a meeting over FaceTime. Then, Zoom was not what it is now. And it was such an incredible meeting. He was so passionate about the material. So passionate about the character Joe. So passionate about wanting to give that speech. His energy… I just said 'you don't need to read, like, you're Joe'. Luca Marinelli, who plays Nicky, I saw his audition. He has this depth to him, those eyes.. where you just, you felt everything, you felt his soul. But I needed to do a chemistry reading, as I would with any love story. And so, we flew him in to read with Marwan. They did this incredible improv, and it was so obvious that these two were Joe and Nicky. It was a really beautiful moment as a director to just… know, and I was so excited to show everybody what they had. It leapt off the screen, their connection; they’d never met before but, immediate connection. Chiwetel Ejiofor, I mean… [awed silence]

Greg: Chiwetel... yeah.

Gina: Yeah. To hear that he wanted to be in this and work with me on this, I didn't need anything else at that point. He's truly a genius. Charlize, you know, there are very few women who can work in the space and we believe them. And that's the thing about her work, and her action, we believe her. And we needed that for Andy. And of course she's a great actress, so it was, you know, that was kind of a no-brainer. So, lastly Harry Melling, you know our villain. It's funny, Don Granger, at Skydance, says you've done a good job with your villain if the audience wants to punch him in the face. Harry brought that reality of those templates of Mark Zuckerberg and Martin Shkreli and really rocked it.

Greg: I had, you know, I'm the screenwriter, right? And I am pretty much involved in the production at the director’s sufferance, and Gina was so gracious to want me present-- and more than that, want me present and say things, right? As opposed to ‘stand here and be quiet’, but I remember when Kiki… when they knew they wanted Kiki, like in that window before all the paperwork was done and so on. Throughout most of the casting I wasn't hearing a lot from Gina, just the occasional update. Like ‘I think we've got…’ and then the Kiki audition came in, and Gina, you called me, Granger texted me, Grimm texted me. And it was all the same thing. It was all ‘we have found Nile, oh my god, there were these two scenes and she had us howling in one and weeping in the other and she is perfect’. And the exuberant joy, you know, I remember you on that call being like ‘NO, THIS IS HER!!’. It's like, this is gonna be awesome.

P: So, and to open things up a little bit more to the actual mythology of the film and the comic book series, I think one of the coolest things is that this film doesn't entirely explore is why these characters come back to life? But we also don't entirely need to know that to just… witness this slice of time in their journey. So I'm kind of curious, maybe Greg you have more insight on this, but I'm curious if either of you have those ideas in your head of what the root of this, you know, blessing or curse, the curse of immortality? Or is that just stuff that's entirely irrelevant to this journey?

Greg: I think it's irrelevant… to the journey of the first film. That the story is a self-contained story and you don't need to know why they are immortal. And I think that the film actually does tell you, not specifically, but the film does provide you with enough information to allow you to draw certain conclusions. Because there are really a limited number of ways that they're going to get this way, right? We do not, for instance, see Nile fall into a vat of regeneration juice, right? That's not why Nile comes back. There is a mythology. We know the mythology. We know the why and that's for later. Yes, maybe it will become relevant to the story, but for this story that was told as it was told? No, you don't need to know why.

Gina: The striking thing, when I read the script for the first time was I didn't… I didn't care. Like, I didn't need it. And that surprised me because I know Greg had talked about another company who was interested in the project [Gina doesn’t say, but it was Sony lmao] kept asking ‘you have to tell us why though, in this story, an audience needs to know why’. He was absolutely right [for disagreeing with Sony]. Because I didn't need to know why.

Greg: It's the Rian Johnson School of, you know, it's Looper. ‘We can spend two hours talking about time travel or you can accept that we're in time travel. Which is it going to be?’ And I think that that is one of the most brilliant storytelling decisions made in the last 20 years in film! Literally 'here it is—DOESN’T MATTER, MOVING ON!’ you know.

P: Yeah. It's definitely a bold direction to take. And to have an issue with 'oh, well, we never learn [about the] immortality!' proves that you just miss the point of what the movie is, and that that stuff is kind of irrelevant for right now. Although I do kind of hope that because it's on Netflix someone's expecting like a post credit scene, but it's the autoplay feature, right? [Greg and Patrick talk over eachother, laughing]

Greg: We did talk about that button as a post-credit scene, the Booker [scene]—

Gina: That was originally supposed to be a tag.

Greg: And there was, for a while, the contemplation of ‘maybe we can still [put the Booker scene in as a post-credit scene] and really that'll be like a great big reward for those people who actually watch credits on Netflix. It’s like, you got a bonus scene!’

P: So another, you know, people are loving the characters, they're loving the performances, but also the action is so cool in it, and it feels reminiscent of some other films. But the urgency and efficiency of all of the action sequences always feel like they have a point, and they're not just ‘look what we can pull off this week!’ You know, it's not John Wick on a horse fighting motorcycles because we don't need to do that. It's, you know, always to a point. So I'm kind of curious Greg, what does an action scene look like in your script? And then Gina, what was your whole motivation for putting these action scenes together?

Greg: I had two approaches in this script and used both. Sometimes I would write the sequence as you know, as a series-- this is what is happening, ‘he swings and then his head goes flying’ or whatnot. But knowing very well that unless the script needed to see-- because the script has to specify what is a must. It's a must. It's a must document. ‘We must see this’. ‘We must know this information’. So for a lot of the time, I would sort of drop into a narrative voice and say, ‘okay, now we watch the five of them proceeded to kick every ass and take every name that they come across and please bear in mind you are watching over 10,000 years of combat experience, combined between them’. And then that's the description of an action sequence, right? The screenplay… it's a construction document. It's not the interior decorator’s document. It's not even the Foreman's document. It's an architectural document. And then you give it to the Foreman of the whole production, who then goes, ‘I agree, these are the important things’, and then you get out of their way and watch them do the thing that they have, you know, become an expert at doing to make it happen.

P: Gina, what's your reaction when you read Greg’s script saying, ‘oh, you know, just five immortal warriors demonstrating 10,000 years of combat experience’?

Gina: It's like ‘oh shit’. [everyone laughs] Like that's a very cool thing to read—

Greg: But how do you film it?

Gina: Yeah, exactly! Then you start at the beginning of the scene and 'what character can we reveal in the scene'? And when you start like that, it's less overwhelming. Because the best action sequences for me, when I go to the movies, are those that have a story to them and that are character driven, that have an emotion. So I really started there in the vision of what they should be and just working with my incredible, incredible stunt team, Jeff Habberstad and Danny Hernandez and Bryson Counts[? I dont know who that is]. Designing these fights to tell this story, to showcase this part of character, to further the story. And that was important as well, that we never wanted this film to feel like… rushing through the story to get to each action sequence. All of this works seamlessly. The quiet moments are just as important as the action moments. And so that was exciting to me. But being able to tell the story, reveal character, that was fun. And then it's ‘yeah, how do we choreograph so it feels as if these characters finish each other sentences, so to speak, in terms of action, knowing where the other is going to be, knowing when somebody's out of bullets and need another clip?' Like all those things, the way that they're always picking up used guns and used clips, just this dance. And it was very cool, you know, to really put that together and see what the team came up with. And then to see the actors embody that, bring character, bring performance to that. Which is why it was so great that I had the actual actors doing most of the work, so that we can see that performance.

Greg: I think you used a word that I think clearly came from what Gina’s describing and talking about with working with Danny and Jeff and Bryson. Which is 'efficient'. Like, if you watch the film, you will see that there is only one sequence where Andy is ever firing more than twice, and it is on the killing room floor. After that, whenever she fires a gun, it's one bullet. It goes exactly where she wants it to go. Everything she does becomes an issue of ‘her style is efficiency—‘

Gina: Yeah, that was a big—‘brutal efficiency’ is a term we talked about often, where they know a kill shot. They are not the type that are going to go in an environment and spray. It's lazy and not who they are. They are not going to ever hit someone by accident. They are too good. And their moral code is not like an ordinary For Hire who are just trying to get the target by any means necessary.

P: Yeah, and also speaking to what I feel set these action sequences apart from other action films is, we're used to, you know, like thumping techno or hard rock or something kick in. You know, I don't think anyone had like, you know, Frank Ocean being in an action film on Netflix on their 2020 Bingo cards. So I'm just kind of curious how you put that soundtrack together and what that process was like.

Gina: Yeah. I love music so much. It's so much a part of me as an artist. And for me, I love songs for scores, songs that can evoke an emotion, and elevate a scene or the emotion of a scene without taking it over. And music for this film was so important, to the tone. It was such a balance. This is a violent film, yet I never wanted it to feel like a celebration of violence. The fact that there was a cost to the killing and then motion to the killing. So always wanted to keep that in mind-- and music really helped with that. There's also a thing of, you know, I'm the first audience and I actually don't like heavy metal. So, it annoys me when I watch a movie and it's this non-stop thump. In the rectory —spoiler alert— when Andy kills 19 people, the music I chose was important because it took away the sting of that. I didn't want an audience to revel in ‘oh my God, she killed 19 people’. No, it was ‘she killed 19 people and you see on her face that this was not fun, this was not easy’. You see that on Nile’s face when she walks out, and the music helped that. I wanted the music to feel operatic, because what happened in that room did have that depth of emotion, so music again— so important for vibe and tone and it was fun to find these songs that could do exactly what I wanted them to do.

P: Greg, the narrative is definitely very faithful to the first two Old Guard series and, you know, blends together in this compelling and unique way… Just as a —you know, we are comicbook.com— so coming from the purest sense of interpreting the narrative... [Greg laughs] like there's definitely the flashback with Achilles from the comic book, and then also the flashback to Booker's hanging scene. Those are our absent from the film. And I was just curious if those were ever in the script or if you want to rework them for the future…?

Greg: No, I mean we also had, in the original series, the flashback that sort of accounts the Joe and Nicky, ‘we killed each other’, ‘many times’ sequence as well. There were drafts where all of that was there. And sometimes in greater detail than others. There was a version where that hospital scene— [in the movie] you get just the right amount of… when Booker's relaying it to Nile in the mine. But, you know, there was more to that, and you can see sort of Achilles' story’s presence in the mine, right? There's a glimpse of the painting. So those things weren't erased as much as… when you make a comic, every choice you are making is an efficiency choice. ‘You have X many pages, how are you going to spend them?’ And I'm not a filmmaker. I'm the guy who wrote the thing. But one of the things I can tell you when watching is that it's the same calculus but exponentially. It is— every single thing you are doing is asking if it's serving your narrative. And I think the trade —because it is a trade— of the Achilles backstory to build the Quynh story has a benefit that the Achilles story alone didn't have, in that the Quynh story —especially as it's relayed in the movie— not only does it illuminate Joe, Nicky, Booker, and of course Andy, but it's also Illuminating to Nile, in a way that… talking about Achilles would have been repeating a beat. Because as beautiful, and as important, Achilles is to Andy's character… Booker conveys that heartbreak with his story, right? So it becomes an efficiency question as much as anything else. I mean, that that's really what it comes down to.

P: Speaking to some of the changes again, I don't want to get to spoiler heavy but there's definitely a big change with one character and their possible fate. Don't want to ruin anything for anyone, so trying to play it safe.

Greg: [laughing] Yeah, how are we supposed to answer this, Patrick?

P: Why don't we just text each other? [everyone laughs] Well, I'm kind of curious. One character's trajectory has changed a little bit. What were the discussions like over, you know, altering their trajectory and what that could mean, you know, for their future adventures?

Greg: Well, how do we talk around this?

P: Also, if anyone's been watching this for 40 minutes and hasn't seen the movie, they've got to adjust their priorities.

Gina: I would say, it was about adding more jeopardy and stakes. It absolutely did that. What I love so much about the story and what Greg created is that these characters are mostly immortal. So there is always that threat. But it just added another level to that. But it also crystallized so well… the fact that the moment that Andy is truly saying ‘I'm done’ a new Immortal shows up in Nile. So it just seemed to work really well and, you know, obviously having Greg be so on board with that and take it and run with it was really important.

Greg: It externalizes the conflict beautifully. And I believe I think David Ellison at Skydance likes the term downward pressure, I believe. [Gina smiles, Greg sees] Did you hear that? Did you hear that during editing? [Gina nods] But it does. Look, here's a fundamental problem; it's actually one of the problems at the heart of Force Multiplied: what's jeopardy to an immortal? Cuz it's kind of, you know, as Joe says, ‘what are you gonna do, tough guy? Kill me?’ You know, ‘if I go, I go. I don't know when I'm going’. So you you need to be able to inject into the story some level of jeopardy. You want to heighten the stakes. And it also externalizes that particular character’s conflict.

P: Gina, hopefully I don't put you too much on the spot with this question. But, you know, any time there's a big comic book project announced its, you know, fans start saying, oh, I'd love this person who's done action movies to do it’ or ‘this person who’s already done 10 Sci-Fi movies…’, you know, like Taika Waititi can't direct every movie.

Gina: I would love him to!

P: I'm just actually kind of curious, Gina, if there are any directors that you're particularly a fan of who don't necessarily have the same, you know, Marvel DC, Star Wars experience that that you'd love to hear get announced as tackling, you know, a big budget comic book movie.

Greg: I would like to know too.

Gina: Certainly, I'm excited about what Victoria Mahoney's going to be doing-- she just did second unit [director] on Star Wars, first woman to ever do that. I dig her brain so much and her aesthetic. I'm really excited to see what she's going to do in the action space, certainly.

P: Yeah, very cool. Really looking forward to her career for sure. And I think we're just about out of time here. We were down—

Gina: [raising her hand] Can I ask a question real quick? Sorry, I just need a definitive answer on this because I got called out on Twitter and I asked Greg--

Greg: [laughing] Ohhhhhhh—

Gina: So is Old Guard, is it a graphic novel? Or is it a comic?

Greg: You got to answer that Patrick.

P: Oh boy.

Greg: [laughing] Literally he's watching all credibility start to evaporate if he doesn't get this right. [holding up a comic of Opening Fire] This is a what?

P: I mean… part of me, knowing that it is part one of a three-part overall series… You know, my brain goes to ‘trade paperback’, you know, like it's a volume collecting a certain amount of issues. But if you ask me before volume 2 came out, it would be collected as a graphic novel, but… they're all comic books. They're all just comic books, everybody. Let's just take it easy.

Gina: Okay, thank you.

P: That's my answer.

Greg: Thank you. Thank you. I think that is the appropriate answer.

P: They're all just comic books. Take it easy.

P: Yeah, but I am curious. Of course, one of the interesting things about the film is that over the course of hundreds… thousands of years, these characters, the old guard have kind of influenced humanity in some definitely interesting ways… And ultimately for good, is a little bit of what we're seeing in the film. And I can't help but wonder… is it possible that the old guard could have unintentionally influenced the world for bad? And have some negative ripples come from their actions, or do I have to wait for a sequel for that?

Greg: I think that is a very reasonable and logical question to ask, especially when you know, there are 19 dead bodies lying in a church. You know what I mean? There is a certain amount— and it's almost fatuous to talk about it but there is always the doctrine of unintended consequences. I will say this goes to something else— and I'll say it really quickly because I know we're running out of time. I think one of the things that I really, really loved about what's being said, in the movie, is that at the end of the film… The definitive statement is, if you take away everything about immortality, what it's saying is that… our choices matter and our actions matter and they matter in ways and to people that we will never see and never know of. We try to put right in the world by doing right. And we do that without ever seeing what the ramifications of it are. And sometimes we're going to succeed, gloriously, and sometimes we're going to fail and we may never know that either, right? It's the choice paralysis that that you get from cheating in The Good Place, right? I can't eat or drink or move because morally it's all wrong, right? But the takeaway from the film is that, ‘yeah, your life matters and what you do with it matters and it matters to people that you're never ever going to see.’

P: So yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, I think that's a great positive, you know, message for us to leave on. And I definitely think that comes across in the film, especially, you know, from the characters like Joe and Nicky just professing… you know, it's about the time that you have. And you don't know when your number is going to be up. So you just try and do as many good things before that happens as you can, and hopefully the world responds to that. So I really connected with that message in the film. Thanks so much for taking the time to chat with me. The Old Guard has been out for… five days. So I look forward to reuniting--

Greg: Does it feel longer to you. Gina? It feels like it's longer for me. [Gina laughs]

P: I look forward to reuniting in maybe 10 more days to talk about the sequel and spin-off and the prequel and all that sort of thing. [Greg laughs] But for now, The Old Guard is still on Netflix. And of course don't be tricked into watching any post-credit scenes because you might end up watching, you know, The Great British Bake Off. Well, thanks so much guys, it was a pleasure.

#tog interviews #i dont remember the tag i use for transcripts

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meantforinfinitesadness · 3 years

Note

Any gen/found family fic recs?

I would like to apologize for taking so long. But, here we are! Uh, I did my best. I'm much more well-versed in other fics so I hope the fics that I rec here are what you wanted!

I had a lot of fics for this (mostly gen) bookmarked, but I'm already very behind on getting this to you, so I chose a few that were recent and a few from the end of the bookmarks. The older ones are at the beginning of the list and the newer ones are at the bottom!

Of cats, naps and Obi-Wan Kenobi by @lowkeyanakin Standing inside of the pet shop with Echo, Jesse and Fives behind him, Rex was at loss. Anakin had told him to spare no expense, giving him access to his personal funds, and instructed him to get something that would stay relatively small. Surprisingly, that did not make his task easier: there were so many animals around him, Rex didn’t know where to look.

In which Obi-Wan gets to take the naps he deserves and everybody loves him. Also, Anakin believes he deserves some nice things, so he takes care of that too.

Enforced Convalescence by @swbumblebee Obi-Wan Kenobi is possibly one of the busiest people in the Galaxy during the Clone Wars, but he is indeed only human. It takes an embarrassing amount of people to convince him of this when he falls ill, as humans occasionally do.

For his part, at the age of 36 Obi-Wan finally learns that illnesses don't actually just go away if you ignore them really hard. But that's not for lack of trying.

Aliit ori'shya tal'din by @neostriatum Reconnaissance missions are never easy. On a far-flung planet in the Outer Rim, Obi-Wan thinks, is not much better. His troops and friends, however, can make his work downright pleasant.

Perpetual Parents & Padawans by @swbumblebee As is the case with all children, Jedi Padawans grow up. And as with all parents, Jedi Masters occasionally find this a rather difficult concept to get to grips with, and no matter how old, Padawan's need their Masters.

These are very short stories, drabbles really, of the times Jedi unwittingly and unconsciously find themselves slipping back into the role of either Parent or Padawan.

Falling Asleep by @iamnotthesidekick Obi-Wan keeps falling asleep on Anakin. Literally.

Farewell There by DestielsDestiny It was a routine mission. In so much as anything was routine since the war began. Which was to say, it was a disaster from the word go.

And that was before the purple squirrel things showed up.

That one where Obi-Wan is so done, but also so BAMF, Mace can’t swim, Ahsoka can’t stop laughing, and Anakin can’t seem to find his way inside.

you'd both be dead without me by askywalkergryff “We can’t seem to find him, nor the rest of your lineage.”

or: Obi-Wan misses a council meeting because he was too busy being the only one with a brain cell

flesh and metal by askywalkergryff Sometimes, in moments like this, Anakin wishes that he still had both of his real hands.

Bedtime Stories by @theagentnerd “Tully the Tooka. It sounds like a baby story.”

“It certainly isn’t,” Obi-Wan said with an affronted wrinkle of his nose. “I enjoyed it when I was your age.”

“Well, maybe you just like baby stories.”

— When Anakin struggles with his reading, Obi-Wan decides to read to him. It becomes more than either of them could have imagined.

Then, a lineage tradition is born.

Family Commitments by @the-last-kenobi Obi-Wan was supposed to be able to leave the gala hours ago, but Chancellor Palpatine refuses to let his token Jedi invitee leave. Anakin and Ahsoka have objections, Dex's has milkshakes, and Obi-Wan is honestly just baffled.

The Moments That Time Remembered by @calltomuster Obi-Wan’s first memory was not his own. Rather, it was a vision steeped in darkness and flashes of red and choking heat and you were my brother and the harsh crash of lightsabers striking one another. He woke up sobbing in the arms of the crèchemaster, Master Kitaddik, who was hushing him and gently stroking the top of his head with her furry hands. Obi-Wan hid his face in the soft folds of her tunic and, still crying, fell back asleep.

The first time Obi-Wan collapsed due to a vision was not long after that.

[Or: in all the various iterations of Obi-Wan Kenobi’s life, the Force spoke to him. But in this one, it never stopped.]

#kalis fic recs #kalis lists #rec list #fic recs #gen/found family

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jerryb2 · 3 years

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I mean….you all knew this was coming ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ : the Star Wars Art of one Mr. Drew Struzan.

And look, the man has done so much and has such a diverse portfolio that Star Wars is only one very small part of his career. If you want to explore some of his other works, then might I suggest that you check out his website.

As for me here, we’ll be sticking strictly to his SW art. Now, with that out of the way, here we go…

*cracks knuckles*

I have to admit that before I really started to dig into this, I didn’t realize just how many Bantam Era (and beyond) Star Wars books this man has illustrated. Nearly 50 titles, ranging from novels to comics, short stories & even an RPG supplement. 🤯

And so, after much consideration, I decided to just pull all the titles that feature his art off my bookshelf and take a few pics for you guys:

First off, I just want to point out that I don’t have every book he’s ever illustrated. Some of them are just harder than hard to find, are hilariously expensive, or I just don’t have an edition that features his art prominently - you’ll see what I mean. Right off the bat though, you can see that he was really hitting his stride in the mid-90′s, with all but a handful of these coming out between ‘94 & ‘99. One of the highlights from this time for me, is The Callista Trilogy.

I just want to stress that The Callista Trilogy is a highlight for me only because of its gorgeous cover art. 🤣 Other than that, this book series needs to go lay down.

Anyway, the designs are all really striking and even after all these years, absolutely iconic. And you can really see Struzan’s distinct visual style at play here; not a painting in the same vein as something from Dave Doorman, and not a simple trace. Rather, something that is stylized in a very particular, very subtle way, almost to the point where it appears photo-realistic at first glance. Beautiful.

Next up is this trio of trilogies (good use of words, me), collected in these Science Fiction Book Club (SFBC) hardcovers:

Once again, these covers are just striking, particularly The Black Fleet Crisis. This is actually what I was referring to when I said that I don’t always have the best editions for a Drew Struzan appreciation post. 😅

Because these are hardcover collections of paperback books, we actually miss out on a good bit of the art. For these SFBC special editions, the publisher just took all three and basically photoshopped the best bits of each one together. The one that suffers the most here is obviously The Corellian Trilogy, where they didn’t even try to blend everything together, and instead just separated everything into columns. I don’t personally mind it (and I do love having the hardcover editions of these books) but if you want to see the covers as they were originally intended, just pickup those mass market paperbacks. 🙂

There’s a lot more to get through, so I’ll just hit the highlights here; even though he didn’t illustrate The Thrawn Trilogy (that was Tom Jung, who I personally think did an okay-ish job at best), he did an absolutely amazing job with the follow-up, The Hand of Thrawn Duology in ‘98 & ‘99:

I’ve always loved these covers. And narratively speaking, they really do serve as one last hurrah on the Bantam Era. Oh, and also please note, Mara Jade on the cover of Vision of the Future, just as Zahn originally described her. ❤❤❤

If you step back and look at Struzan’s work as a whole, it’s all incredibly unified. I bring this up here because even though some of these are books relatively ‘meh’ worthy, Struzan maintained a level of quality that belied the mediocrity contained within. And also to say that he was definitely busy, particularly in 1994:

That’s right - all of these released in ‘94, within a few months of one another. These covers man… *chef’s kiss*

And look I’m sorry, I just can’t help myself: The Crystal Star was a hilarious joke until we all realized they were serious about it. 😳

Alright, that’s a little on the harsh side; it’s not nearly as bad as most make it out to be, and Waru as a source for unlimited power (citation needed 👀😉) isn’t any more ridiculous than the 50 other post-Palpy, hair-brained Imperial schemes that everybody else cooked up, so I guess it fits. And besides, I really wanna be nice to Vonda McIntyre here, but this book was just so so boring. 😴

*clears throat* Moving on, here we have a couple Barnes & Noble hardcover collections of The Jedi Prince Series:

The same thing applies here; cover art photoshopped from across 6 different YA novels to get these. They don’t look bad, far from it. But rather this series has some things that people would rather forget about, namely a supposed son of Palpatine (spoiler: he wasn’t) named Triclops who had - wait for it - 3 eyes.

Like Tien. From DBZ. Yep. 🤦‍♂️

Moving further down the list, we have yet another pair of iconic cover designs, being I, Jedi (the only Star Wars novel written in the first person, and an appropriate riff on Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot - yes ladies & gentlemen, that is as clever as Star Wars gets) and The New Rebellion.

Classics, no doubt….but for reals, did anybody else ever wonder why the X-Wing on the cover of I, Jedi is missing an S-Foil? Or how that one slipped through??? 👀

Ah, at last we arrive at what is arguably Struzan’s most famous work; the covers for Shadows of the Empire & The Star Wars Trilogy: Special Edition.

It’s hard to overstate just how important Shadows of the Empire really was for Star Wars as a brand. In an era where SW books were already extremely popular, the Shadows of the Empire Multimedia Project basically served as a breakout hit and reignited interest in SW media across the board. This was in no small part due to the striking imagery captured on its cover - are you seeing a pattern here?

This success actually renewed Lucas’ interest in a theatrical re-release of the OT in 1997….which of course, feature more beautiful art from Drew Struzan:

These are my OG Special Edition VHS tapes from back in the day. I watched these so damn much as a kid. In fact, they’re basically the whole reason that I’m here, annoying the shit out of everybody today. 😁

After the Bantam Era concluded & the Star Wars publishing license went to Del Rey, Struzan did progressively fewer pieces for SW media. Here we see his contribution for the latter half of the Last of the Jedi YA series, and his kick-ass cover art for the Darth Maul comic:

And when I say that Struzan did progressively fewer pieces for Star Wars, I am of course omitting his turn as the poster artist for the freaking Prequel Trilogy:

Say what you will about the films, but these poster designs are nothing short of genius.

Look guys, it would be pretty easy for me to downplay Struzan’s Star Wars portfolio as just one small part of his incredible career. But my dudes, this is literally just the tip of the iceberg. The man has been a professional illustrator for over 50 years, and his art has delighted and inspired generations. From Star Wars to Indian Jones, and from Back to the Future to Blade Runner - Drew Struzan has played an integral part in shaping popular culture.

Here’s to you, sir. 🍻

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r0zyp0zy0zy · 3 years

Text

✾D.K- Two words: fuck, yeah★✶

Master list

Words: 2535

Warnings/kinks: Somnophilia(?), Exhibitionism(?), masturbation, Denki being a perv

Pairing: Kaminari Denki x reader

Summary: a sleepover with the squad, and Denki being horny

===NSFW under the cut===

Even if you didn't admit it aloud, you were glad Mina dragged you into her friend group. Even if you were in a different class, you still hung out with the group a lot. It took awhile to get used to since you didn't really have any friends before UA, even Mina; she was an acquaintance at most. So having four loud dudes, and an over dramatic Ashido, was a little much.

Kirishima was very patient with you, encouraging your social growth. Bakugo just never talked to you, Sero was like Kirishima and made sure to tone down his energy. Jiro was pretty quiet, but you loved listening to her music. And Kaminari on the other hand.. was a lot like Mina. Over-dramatic, loud, and energetic, oh and not to mention flirty.

In fact, the first words he said to you were, "woah, hey there beautiful."

Needless to say, you avoided talking to him as much as possible after that encounter with him, you didn't want to embarrass yourself. But after you saw him flirting with literally everybody, it gave you a bit of reassurance that he wasn't doing it just to you.

Over the course of six months, your bond grew stronger with the group, and you even started talking to Bakugo when he wasn't as moody. You were still flustered around Kaminari, trying to work up the courage to make him flustered.

"Pass the popcorn," Mina said to you, pulling you out of your daze.

"Oh— here," you handed her the bowl of popcorn. Only about half of the group was actually watching the action movie.

It was strange being in a boy's room, especially since you were sat on the bed with Mina. It wasn't too odd because it was Sero's. It was comforting, it always smelt like Rose incense, and the fairy lights gave it character.

"Y/n if you're not gonna pay attention to the movie at least let someone who actually is on the bed," Sero said with a raised brow.

"Sorry," you said, scratching the back of your head. You slid off the bed to switch spots with Sero, and realized that you were now sitting next to Kaminari. Ahaha, great.

"Oh hey cutie," he winked. He knew what he was doing. It gave him confidence that he was making a pretty person like you blush.

"Hey Buzzy," you replied with a nervous side-smile. You heard his breath hitch at the new nickname, something you came up with about a week ago after training.

As the movie progressed, you could feel Kaminari's gaze periodically land on your face. It made you self conscious, so you thew your hoodie hood over your head and pulled the strings tight. You heard a giggle from Kami.

"Well that was a boring ending," Kirishima said as he switched off the TV. "They could've at least left it on a cliffhanger."

"Well let's just get settled in, then," Sero said.

"I'm gonna go back to my dorm now. Thanks for the movie," Jiro said.

"Oh yeah, anytime," Sero replied.

Bakugo had also left for his room about an hour ago, already two hours past his typical bedtime. So it was just you, Sero, Mina, Kirishima, and Kaminari. One for the hammock, two for the bed, and two on the floor.

"Who's sleeping on the floor?" Sero asked.

"Not it!" You and Kaminari yelled at the same time, pressing a finger to your nose.

"Not it!"

"..not it! Shit," said Kirishima.

"Well at least you won't be alone on the floor," Sero shrugged.

"I call the hammock!" Mina yelled, jumping onto the piece of hanging fabric.

...shit.

"Well beautiful," Kaminari said, slinging an arm over your shoulders, "looks like you and I will be talking the bed."

"Yeah," you grumbled. "Let me get changed, one sec."

You grabbed your bag and headed to the bathrooms. Of course. Of course this would happen to you. You had to sleep beside your unofficial crush! Wait— what. You let out a sigh at your self-confirmation, slipping on a white tank-top. Well, if you were going to try and fluster him, now would be the perfect time. You pulled on your silky black pyjama shorts, and took a slow spin in front of the mirror. You quickly fixed up your hair and brushed your teeth.

By the time you got back, everyone had changed into their sleeping clothes and were chatting away.

"Oh, y/n! We were just talking about how—" Mina got cut off.

"—how cool Hanta's twinkle lights are! See, they have three different colour settings," Kaminari interrupted, flicking through the settings.

Sero let out a chuckle as he fluffed out his pillow. You might be a little bit of an idiot, but you knew for a fact that they weren't talking about the lights.

Denki took in your sleep-ware, and his jaw nearly broke off the hinges. How on earth was he going to be able to sleep beside you when you were wearing that. True, your shirt had a few random stains, but did you not notice that you could just barely see your nipples through the white fabric?!

Kirishima gave him a quick nudge as if to say, "good luck, careful what you wish for".

Denki knew he shouldn't, but he really wanted to tell you how nice your nipples were. For once he kept his mouth shut, and crawled into Hanta's bed. You and him got separate blankets, but that wasn't enough to calm Denki down. He was going to be laying next to you, while you were wearing the most unintentionally sexy tank top ever. And those shorts... thank god those would be covered under the sheets.

"Ok, what were you guys actually talking about?" You asked, sitting against the headboard.

"We were talking about how Kami's gonna be sleeping with a girl for the first time!" Mina yelled before Denki had the chance to butt in.

Denki felt his face heat up as you started giggling.

"Lucky me," you chortled. You put your hands behind your head as the conversation continued.

"—yeah Denki, why do you brag about being so experienced, but you've never laid down beside a girl before?" Hanta teased, nudging Denki.

"Well you gotta have confidence! That's what gets all the ladies," Denki crossed his arms and stuck up his nose.

"Yeah? Where's your proof?" Kirishima prodded.

"Ok, fine. It hasn't worked.. yet!" Kami said, loosening his stance.

"Whatever you say, Denki," Mina giggled.

The four of them continued to talk for a while, you occasionally giving input. You were pretty drowsy, and remembered that you had barely any sleep the night before. You began to drift, still sitting against the headboard.

Denki let out a startled squeak as he felt a pressure land on him. You were asleep, head leaning on his shoulder, and he felt your arm slowly wrap around his, "uhh."

"Hahaha! Denki you're so red right now!" Mina laughed, hand on her stomach. He felt his cheeks with his free hand, and he was in fact blushing profusely. He leaned over to look at your sleeping figure, and couldn't help but stare at your chest. Your nipples.. were so.. perfect..

"Hello, earth to Kaminari!" Kirishima slapped Denki's leg.

"Ah— hmm?" Denki said, snapping out of his trance.

"You might wanna put a blanket over yourself," Kirishima nodded to Kami's lap.

"O-oh, right. Sorry," denki stuttered. He hadn't even noticed how hard he was, and since he was wearing sweats it was on full show. He quickly grabbed his blanket, and covered his lap. How awkward..

"Imagine if y/n knew what she was doing to you," Mina teased.

"You wouldn't," Denki gulped. No way would you forgive him if you found out.

"But I would," Mina smirked. "Unless..."

"Oh don't blackmail me, Pinky," Denki pouted.

"I wasn't finished!" Mina giggled. "Unless you grow a pair and take her out on a date."

"I-I can't," He started to panic. What if you said no? He didn't usually care about rejection, but with you..

"You've asked out literally every girl in our class, you shouldn't have a problem confessing to your actual crush," Hanta added.

"Ugh," Denki leaned his head back, "but it's different with y/n. I really like her, and I don't wanna fuck things up."

"Your choice," Mina shrugged with a sly grin.

"I'll think about it," Denki frowned. He was too conflicted to rejoin the conversation.

He felt you slip down his arm, and he tried to readjust you, and ended up with your head in his lap. Fuck, not what he intended to do. It felt so good to have some relief from his hard-on, but trying to restrain himself from jerking his hips up— fuck. He did not want you to wake up to him humping your head. He felt his cheeks get hotter, and took a deep breath.

He later managed to gently push you off of him, and covered you with your own blanket. He really needed to have a quick shower.

"Hmmph..?" You mumbled, gripping onto Denki's arm as he tried to escape. Shit.. so cute..

He sighed quietly, and decided to stay in bed. His erection would go away at some point. It was easy but difficult to sleep at the same time. On one hand, you were cuddling into him, and on the other, you were cuddling into him.

Fuck. Erection did not go away. Denki pulled out his phone and squinted at the time: 4:15am. He was now even harder than he was before, but he was still trapped. In fact, you had managed to sneak under his blanket and fully drape one arm over his torso. Shit, Shit.

Maybe he could just peel your arm away from him and— ah crap. Your thighs gripped his leg; another restriction. Denki could admit that he was really enjoying your attention, awake or not. The thought of your crotch so close to him made Denki whimper. He couldn't just go back to sleep, he would end up having a wet dream and horribly embarrassing himself.

Denki guilty looked over to Hanta's side table at the tissue box. He glanced at you again and took a gulp of air. Fuck, here goes nothing. He reached his free hand, (thankfully you only restricted his left), and pulled out a couple sheets. He laid them beside his hip for later. He slowly slipped his hand under his sweatpants, and began to pump himself.

Denki was scared shitless that you were gonna wake up and freak out. God, he was such a pervert. He focused on your thighs, and how wonderfully they felt clamped around his left leg. Your arm was still on his torso, loosely gripping onto his T-shirt.

He let out a soft sigh at the thought of you gripping his shirt as he kissed you, "a-ah~"

Denki shamefully glanced down at your relaxed face. Oh what he'd do for you to let him cum on your face. He picked up the pace, moving his gaze down to your chest. He let out a soft groan when he saw how hard your nipples were, breasts practically falling out of the tank top. He was getting close. Just a little longer.

"Oh fuck y/n, please," denki whimpered quietly, loving the way you shifted your position slightly, your hand falling down to rest on his stomach. He felt butterflies explode inside him, and he quickly grabbed the tissues and laid them on your arm.

"Hmgh," denki struggled. Your tits.. so close to him.. thighs.. oh fuck! He let spurts of cum land on the tissue, a little missing and landed on your hand.

His chest heaved as he tried to breathe properly again. He carefully folded the tissue and dabbed the drop of semen off your hand. He couldn't see the garbage from here, so he just stuffed it in his bag. He haphazardly put his dick away, and sighed contently. He couldn't believe he just did that. Needless to say, he had a good sleep after that.

You on the other hand, had woken up in the middle of Denki's activity. You weren't totally surprised that he did what he did, but you were surprised that he moaned your name, (and the fact that he basically jizzed on your hand). You couldn't help the heat that beat through your body, making you gently grind Kami's leg.

No, you thought. You aren't gonna do what Buzzy just did.

You had a bit of a restless sleep, waking up about every 30 minutes. When you finally did fully wake up, you realized that you were basically on top of Kaminari. Your left leg sprawled over his pelvis, and your left arm gently holding onto his broad shoulder. Just as you were about to try and get more sleep, you felt Kami stir awake.

"Oh fuck," he whispered groggily, using his left hand to stroke your hair/head.

"Oh hey Denki," Kirishima greeted, giving him a toothy smile.

"Hey," he replied, rubbing his eyes.

"L/n sure looks comfortable," Kiri teased, wiggling his eyebrows.

"I know," Denki groaned, "she was like this all night. Not that I'm complaining or anything."

"All night?" Kiri asked.

"Yeah, I basically couldn't move."

"Well good luck with that," Kirishima grinned, "I'm going to the gym with Bakugo, tell the others?"

Denki nodded as his friend left the room. You decided now was the time to 'wake up', and you shifted around your weight, "hmm."

"Morning miss cuddle bug," Kaminari said, grinning stupidly as you looked up at his face.

"Good morning," you mumbled, "sorry about that, I kinda latch on to anything in my sleep."

"Don't worry about it, it was nice," Denki blushed.

You peeled you leg off him, as well as your arm, "I'll be right back. Bathroom."

His eyes trailed your ass as you left the room.

"So Denki," Mina popped up, causing him to yell in surprise, "how was sleeping with y/n~?"

"Erm-" he started.

"I know what you did," Mina said evilly.

"W-what?!" Denki jumped out of the bed. "Please don't tell, I'll do anything—!"

"Denki I was kidding!" Mina interrupted. "I don't even wanna know what you did, you big perv."

He gulped nervously, "I-I'm gonna be right back."

Denki sped out of Sero's room, nearly bumping into you down the hall.

"Whoa, what's the rush?" You asked, now in a hoodie.

"Mina— was—," Denki huffed.

"Teasing? Typical," you rolled your eyes, "anyways, I need to ask you something."

Denki got nervous all over again. Ask him what? Why he jerked off last night? "O-ok, shoot."

"Did you know that you're super comfy? Like actually," you continued.

"Oh r-really?" He replied. What a dumb reply, at least say 'so are you' dunce face...

"Mhm! And something else," you licked your lips. "Can we cuddle again sometime?"

Denki practically choked on his saliva, "y-yes! Of course!"

"Cool," you smiled up at him, continuing your way back to Hanta's room.

Two words: fuck, yeah.

#anime #bnha #mha #denki kaminari #kaminari denki x reader #denki kaminari smut #denki x female reader

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arcenciel-par-une-larme · 3 years

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genuine question, how is 'voting with your money' in a conservative society good but 'cancel culture' bad? Surely if lgbt people don't want to work with people who think they are sinners, they should be allowed to fire them, because that's their right? This strikes me as a contradiction but lmk if i'm wrong

You seem to be bringing two issues at the same time into this, but I’ll try to cover them both.

Surely if lgbt people don't want to work with people who think they are sinners, they should be allowed to fire them, because that's their right?

This can easily lead us into very unpleasant territory if you expand this to its logical conclusions.

By definition, we Christians believe that everyone who has ever walked this earth (ourselves included BTW) is a sinner. Romans 3 is pretty much a summary exposition of that. It means that we have committed wrongdoings and dwelt in evil or impure thoughts. If, as such, people started firing those who thought they are in sin, Christians would be completely unhirable in zero time.

Furthermore, although I have no formal legal expertise to speak of, even so I have a feeling that, from a legal standpoint, this would also be nothing short of a disaster area. Imagine telling a court of law something amounting to “I decided to fire this person because he believes that I have offended his God in whom I don’t even believe”: it boils down to theological differences and little, if anything, else. If this somehow managed to establish itself as a legit precedent, it would lead to all kinds of religious discrimination overnight.

how is 'voting with your money' in a conservative society good but 'cancel culture' bad?

There are some important differences between the two, and I shall try to explain them to the best of my ability.

1. “Voting with your money” (henceforth VWYM), as I am aware of the term, has more to do with an individual choosing to support or not to support different businesses, either through purchasing their products or deciding to work for them. Cancel culture (henceforth CC), on the other hand, describes situations where societal clout is mobilised in order to mark certain individuals as “problematic” and as such to make it more difficult (if not nigh impossible) for them to make a living or to be respected in polite society.

2. VWYM is mainly concerned with current causes and practices espoused by a business. CC can be triggered by literally anything, even decades-old tweets which the author might even have regretted.

3. Likewise, people who VWtheirM do not seem to mind granting again their patronage to businesses who correct their practices and espoused beliefs. CC has shown again and again that its adherents are not interested in any sort of forgiveness; they alone are right, always; and it’s always one strike and you’re out.

4. Most people who VWtheirM, although usually making their grievances known and trying to convince others to boycott this or that firm, are not fixated on aligning everybody with their causes and preferences. Cancelers, on the other hand, are rarely satisfied with anything short of nationwide (or even international), unanimous outrage against those whom they choose to target. Hence why CC typically leverages social media outrage mobs, and why anybody who does not join them is also added to the “problematic people” list and considered complicit.

5. Whereas slander and half-truths seem to be CC’s bread-and-butter, it is increasingly rarer in the grand scheme of VWYM. In fact, you might have noticed that one of the most oft criticised aspects of cancel culture is how it relies on demonising people and considering them evil, as well as the lack of proportionality between the alleged “crime” and the sought punishment.

6. VWYM rarely has to do with what we call “punching down”. CC rarely has any qualms about “punching down”.

7. Perhaps the best explanation is given by @Wokal_Distance on Twitter:

The most common form of cancel culture is using social media to create mobs that create social and financial consequences for people who hold views the cancelers don’t like. Usually the cancelers seek to get a person fired but sometimes settle for reputation destruction. This is what people are talking about when they talk about cancel culture.

It’s not that there is a shortage of platforms from which to express an opinion, nor are they upset about garden-variety shunning (“I’m not your friend anymore”, “You can’t come to my birthday” etc) from peers.

Cancel culture means a guy I’ve never met, in a state where I don’t live, can see a video that I didn’t film, of a thing that I didn’t say to him, and get me fired from my job providing a service that he doesn’t use.

Again, that’s as far as I could think about the issue right now. @anscathmarcach @ask-a-baptist @theindependentconservative @siryouarebeingmocked @bransrath and anybody else, please feel free to contribute as you see fit.

#personal post archive #cancel culture

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dreamteamspace · 4 years

Text

MCYT subway au Part 3 because I’m a sucker for attention and the 2 ppl who made part 1 and 2 noticed me

Holiday Shift

- Everybody who works on the holiday gets double. Those that can’t work have to put their name on a list. Lowest entries and those that don’t enter need to work the shift. It’s Phil’s idea don’t ask

- George is the first to put his name there but Sapnap skribbles it out and makes sure everybody else gets their name in first. It’s his punishment for leaving Dream and him alone for rush hour when Karl was sick. Dream wasn’t all that mad but Sapnap Will Not let that shit slide

- Tommy gladly takes the oppertunity to not have to spend the entire day awkwardly hugging relatives and being told to keep their elbows off the table. Convinces Tubbo to join them, supposedly for the Money

- Dream: “So Karl did you put your name on the list yet?” Karl: “What list??”

- Shift staffing: George, Tubbo, Tommy and Karl

- George becomes the reluctant babysitter of what feels like three kids

- “Karl stop WASTING the bread we NEED THAT.”

- Tommy is told to go pull what they need for monday out of the freezer. Tubbo offers to come with him and holds his hand the entire time. They’re best friends your honor. Tommy promises Tubbo to make it up to him

- George does about 60% of the work on a four person shift. Swears to murder Sapnap on sight. Probably slaps a pastry in his face later

Promotion pt. 4: Taking Over

- Tommy begs Techno to join in support of Wilbur. Techno reluctantly agrees because he can’t really say no to Tommy and because he doesn’t really want to become manager anyway (too much paperwork and he’s fixating on the origins of vedgetables)

- Tommy now adds #WilburForManager to his pogway stickers. Wilbur is also reluctantly Growing Soft in face of Tommy’s undying support

- Nobody knows why, but Quackity has the unspoken ability to make Schlatt give him sick leave or remove him from shift?? All Quackity has to do is point to his phone and give Schlatt a smug Look.

- Ppl are suspicious but really Quackity just has a video of Schlatt kissing a baby kitten in the face and talking to it in a high pitched soft voice

- Wilbur needs to visit extended family and leaves for 2 weeks. The day before he leaves is surprisingly light-hearted and Wilbur admits that Schlatt isn’t the worst manager imaginable. He lets them waste things sometimes and has yet to give anybody a cut for not showing up to a shift

- Dream can’t openly go against Schlatt, silently wishing he’d just put the milk in The Right Spot before his shift. But no. It never is. It’s always somewhere else. Always.

- Schlatt continues to place things in slightly different places than they belong and following his whim more than the rules. One time he didn’t order the dark chocolate cakes they sell because “Who likes those anyway”

- Phil is there more often to make sure Wilbur’s work is covered. The war continues to rage in stolen glares and misplaced ingredients.

- Bad and Skeppy are slowly genuinely growing concerned, watching the whole thing go down like a movie.

Promotion pt. 5: Adopted On Sight

- Schlatt tells Tubbo he’s doing great One Time because he literally saved Schlatt’s ass from being fired for the whole cakes thing by biking it to the nearest store that sells them and getting some

- Tubbo will now follow Schlatt around to ask him how he’s doing, if he did everything right, if he needs any help, how his morning went so far

- Schlatt does Not Know how to handle Tubbo and suddenly wishes for Wilbur to just Come Back and Take His Kid. Tubbo wishes him a good morning and good night every single day. How is he supposed to keep up his tough old man appearance like this

- Tommy is still on Wilbur’s side and purposefully makes Schlatt’s life just a little more difficult. Small pranks. Stickers on the cakes, wasting them. Writing #TommySupremacy on the sandwhich wraps with markers while nobody is looking. Taking 4 chairs to the back to stack them on top of eachother and stand on them to reach the ceiling. Being the teenager he is.

- Tubbo think it’s funny and that’s the main thing keeping him going really

- Schlatt confronts Tommy but with no results. He turns to Phil to ask him what to do and Phil is like, you don’t do anything. That’s just Tommy for you. Usually Wilbur keeps him occupied with the Dreamon hunting and now he has too much free time

- Quackity is using the blackmail more and more. Does he even work here anymore? When was the last time anybody saw him apart from looting the expired sodas? He’s the only one who can order avocados on a spanish site online that don’t cost their weight in gold

- But as it tends to be with good friends, Schlatt knows the amount of blackmail he has is enough to fill everybody’s need for drama here for the rest of the year. Also he can’t say no to Quackity

- Fundy recieves yet another apology card from Wilbur from Ireland, a whole postcard with a picture attached and a little doodle of a fox. He finally caves and forgives him, now refusing to do Schlatt’s work anymore.

- Dream is Popping Off. Nobody can stop him from working once he starts. He’s 2 months ahead on Literally Everything. Somebody help him

Promotion pt. 6: The Finale I promise

- Wilbur returns! Schlatt is THIS close to throwing in the towel

- Tubbo says he wants another sleepover, wanting to de-escalate the whole manager war. Tommy has to stay true to his promise in the freezer and they convince Wilbur together. Techno was on board before they even asked

- Unbeknowedst to them, the Dream Team + Karl wanted to stay in that night as well to sabotage Schlatt

- Both groups stare at eachother in confusion at first

-They combine their resources to figure out a way to sabotage Schlatt. Dream is growing increasingly quiet and unsure while Tommy stares at The Adults with dissapointment. Tubbo tries to get a word in about how Schlatt isn’t That Bad but they all yell over him. “The milk, Tubbo! Why can’t he put the milk back like a normal person!”

- Eventually Tommy pulls out his bravery and tells everyone to Shut Up

- Everyone stares at eachother

-Tommy: “How come you guys yelling over bullying somebody out of their work sounds less mature than when my literal nephews are screaming at eachother over 10 year old pokemon cards??“

- The adults stare at eachother even harder

- Dream shyly clears his throat. “From an outsider perspective, you know, uh, I should probably be fired for plotting against a fellow manager-“

- Wilbur finally finds his tongue. “Maybe this wasn’t the most... mature idea.”

- Everybody carefully agrees to apologize to schlatt and never speak of this again. Tommy has unknowingly gotten a lot more pranking rights

- They spend the rest of the night organizing the storage, hunting Dreamon, Dream telling them about that one time he ate a living frog, and taking turns playing some free racing game on Karl’s switch

- Lots of laughter, return to their shifts the next day

- They wait for Schlatt to come in to work and pull him to the back. Only Bad and Skeppy are already allowed inside while they keep the doors locked for anybody else

- Dream issues a formal apology to him and tells him everything, and Wilbur jockingly mentions they were really close to pouring food coloring into his rubber gloves as they try to laugh it off

- Schlatt stares at them

- “You know what? I quit. I don’t want to be the manager anymore. I feel like the dad of lord knows how many kids. Phil is some kind of angel. Wilbur please adopt Tubbo and Tommy again, as long as our store isn’t on fire I’m never going to complain about them ever again. Dream you might wanna phone Quackity.”

Insiders

- After a good, short era of peace within the establishment, the Drama Bois are getting bored and latching onto new things

- The bets on whether Skeppy and Bad are a couple or not are getting ever higher, especially as they’ve started letting them behind the counter. They figured out pretty quickly that they’re officially not together, but that just makes the betting all the more exciting. Do they like eachother? Are they hiding it? Are they just really good friends? Are they THAT oblivious or just really good at covering it up??

- Bad especially becomes good friends with Dream, George and Sapnap, and yet they’re all just as split as everyone else on whether he likes Skeppy or not

- Bad pretends to be but is in fact not oblivious to this at all

- Dream especially will often tell them they’re being VERY close to eachother or how cute they are next to eachother, revelling in teasing his friend, especially as Bad will sometimes start to get flustered while Skeppy manages to somehow stay 100% cool

- One day when a middle aged white woman is extremely unhappy with her order she starts talking down on George about being uneducated, and too clumsy for being useful at all, and how they should fire him. George asks her if he should just get the manager and she gladly agrees, only for Dream to swoop out of a back room, a good head taller than her, and sternly tell her if she can’t treat employees like human beings then he will ban her from the establishment immedietly. The woman stutters, takes her order and leaves, cursing something as she goes.

- Bad and Skeppy were sitting at a table nearby quietly the entire time, and Bad has this a-little-too-wide smile on his face.

- Dream murmurs something about having to go, but the seeds are planted. The idea has bloomed. Bad is ready to get his teasing revenge.

- Just as they’re closing, George puts away the milk that Dream left on the counter, telling Dream that he’s putting it away. Bad: “Wow George, that’s so thoughtful of you!” George: “???”

- Dream, softly telling George he can go home earlier and he’ll take the rest of the shift so George can catch up on sleep: “It’s okay, just go. I’ve got this.”

- Bad, just as George left, slurping his milkshake innocently while Wilbur and Sapnap are in earshot: “Awww, Dream! That was SO nice of you!”

- Dream, knowing exactly what this is for: “I’m just... nice to my friends!“

- Bad: “Really?! How many times do you let Sapnap go home earlier?” Sapnap: “You let George go earlier AGAIN?” Wilbur, having waited his entire life for someone to finally notice this: “George is getting so much favored treatment, Dream. But you’re really just good friends, right?“

- If looks could kill they’d all be dead at that point. Especially Bad, who continues slurping his milkshake as the chaos unfolds and Dream knows there’s no escape

@labbyyyyy @karlljacobs

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everythingsinred · 3 years

Text

Let's Talk About NatsuMikan: Natsume (pt. 6)

Last time, we talked about Natsume's growing crush on Mikan. As the festival continues, his feelings will only grow. Today we'll discuss how these new feelings will affect him, and particularly how they have the potential to create tension in his friendship with Ruka.

Chapter Twenty-One

Mikan is guilty for not having already gone to Iinchou’s haunted house in the latent ability class area. So they end up going together. Although Mikan is easily distracted and wants to try everything in the latent area, Natsume is strict on going straight to the destination with no tangents.

Iinchou lets them in right away without having to wait in the hour-long line. Mikan puts on airs about being a country girl and, just like she’s unafraid of bugs, she’s also not afraid of ghosts. Except she totally is.

Ruka and Natsume don’t seem particularly scared of the haunted house so far, but Mikan is, and she clings to Ruka, desperate not to be left behind, even if it means she hurts him with her grasp.

The person who posted these TokyoPop scans forgot a couple pages so for the longest time the beginning of the chapter was so confusing to me...

Natsume looks behind to see them and is jealous, yet again. Just like with Tsubasa, Natsume is unhappy with his fate to be the bad guy in general. He goes out of his way to look bad to protect people and as a result will not be the one clung to. It’s different from Tsubasa though, because this isn’t some nameless middle schooler that Natsume can take his anger out on: this is his best friend, somebody he’s never felt anything but affection for. Natsume doesn’t want to hurt Ruka; he’s just sad that the situation is so messed up.

Lucky for Ruka, Natsume gives up before there can even be a competition.

It’s for the best this way, after all. For Ruka to be happy, for Mikan to be with somebody kind who deserves her, and even for him, because maybe this way Mikan won’t be used against him like everybody else he cares about.

Natsume makes this decision without talking to anybody and before anyone can even figure out that there’s a choice to be made in the first place.

Then they run into a crawling hag and nobody’s immune to the terror that being chased after by that demon brings. All three of them run for it, but they end up in a new spooky room, which freaks Mikan out so much she screams and faints, foaming at the mouth, causing Natsume to fall and twist his ankle and for Ruka’s rabbit to run off. He chases after it, leaving Natsume and Mikan alone. Iinchou breaks whatever causes the electricity to run in the building and now they’re trapped alone in the dark, unable to get out.

Mikan tries to figure out a way for them to escape, but climbing the wall is out of the question since Natsume’s ankle is twisted. He suggests that he blow up the wall, but Mikan is adamantly against that idea because the latent students worked hard to make the mansion. Natsume acquiesces. That’s fine. He doesn’t mind spending more time with her. It just means she’ll have to stay in the dark for longer.

She is very clingy when she’s scared, and although he complains he doesn’t really make any moves to get her off. I mean, why would he? This is exactly what he wanted, though he did only get it because he was the only person around that she could cling to. There’s a moment where he spooks her, perhaps so she would hug him more, but then she whines for him to stop scaring her and the panels are quite sparkly. Natsume is distressed about his new crush and the effect it has on him. Really her whining and puppy-dog eyes are not any less powerful on Natsume than they are on Ruka. He’s just better at hiding it.

He looks at her softly and then has a moment where he looks almost peeved to have felt so fond at all... but it won't last. These days he has more affection for her than irritation.

Mikan tries apologizing about getting angry with him at Anna’s cafe, but he pretends like he has no idea what she’s talking about. To me, this cements that Natsume wants to look bad to her in particular. He doesn’t really want her to figure out that he’s kind deep down or that he’s selfless 99% of the time. He doesn’t want her to think he cares at all because it’s best for him to continue being the same jerk he has been for the past twenty chapters. He’s okay with her hating him, because that way she won’t become the new Ruka, used by the academy as a pawn to get him to jump through more hoops.

She tries to make him smile and that’s another big deal. Most people think Natsume is cool for being so unaffected. His fans think he’s the man, a tough guy who frowns all the time. Even Ruka’s approach to this issue was to stop smiling too.

Mikan’s approach is to tell jokes.

Of course, it doesn’t work, and the jokes aren’t any good, but Mikan is trying something nobody else has done: instead of looking up to him or going down to his level of misery, Mikan’s trying to lift him up. She wants him to smile and be happy and that sets her apart. She’s immature and childish and that brings out the childishness in him too. And like I mentioned a while ago, childishness in Natsume is a good thing. With her, he can bicker and argue and tease like he used to before he came to the academy. She has no idea what he’s going through and her mood changes so quickly she can’t even stay mad or upset. She’s just a joyful and loud girl who rubs off on everyone she meets and Natsume is far from being an exception.

He can just mess around like a kid for once. He doesn't have to be serious around her all the time.

Thus, the next important thing in regards to analyzing their relationship is that the last page of the chapter has him teasing her and then smiling at her reaction. We’ve only seen Natsume smile twice before: with Youichi for a brief moment, and then with Ruka on the cover for Chapter Sixteen (Natsume's evil smile when Mikan gets bullied by middle schoolers doesn't count as a real smile). This officially adds Mikan to the incredibly short list of people who can make Natsume smile. She’s angry with him, arguing, but being able to let go of all his darkness and just tease a girl and have her act with such strong emotions is enough to make him happy. And that’s what this is: Natsume is happy.

Chapter Twenty-Three

The musical creates some tension between Natsume and Ruka, as expected, because liking the same girl can make rifts between friends. On the other hand, this isn’t your typical love triangle. Usually in love triangles, the two guys are already positioned against each other. Though Natsume and Ruka may be opposites in many ways, they are not rivals at all. They love each other, and that love is not at all damaged by the conflict of falling for the same girl; it just becomes tense between them.

In fact, the beginning of the chapter has some Class B pals eagerly going backstage to find Ruka before the somatic ability class musical. When they find him, Natsume is the only one to not laugh at or tease him, and seems to be the only one really concerned with Ruka’s feelings about being cast as Snow White.

When the sticky ball incident occurs, there’s a lot more damage done than there is in the anime. In the anime, some cast and crew get stuck, but ultimately nobody was in any real danger of being hurt. In the manga, there were potentially catastrophic consequences for the blast and a lot of equipment got damaged in the process. A somatic child playing one of the seven dwarves is about to be hit by a stagelight when Natsume rushes to get him out of the way, resulting in them getting stuck together. If Natsume hadn’t stepped in, that kid could have gotten really injured, at least.

As a result of Natsume’s heroism, Narumi suggests that he dress up as a forest friend. When Natsume refuses, the child is to be kicked out of the play, and the seven dwarves will be changed to six. Natsume sees the kid pout and with absolutely no more need for convincing he goes to get changed into a cat outfit.

This is noteworthy because the cat outfit is humiliating (not that Natsume hasn’t worn similar things in official art… just saying) and it’s something he truly does not want to do, but he does it, even though he doesn’t even know the kid. It’s some random somatic kid, not Ruka or Youichi or even Mikan, and yet he goes out of his way to do something truly selfless so that the kid can perform what he’s practiced. Natsume is kind in quiet ways, and not just with the people he cares about. Like with Anna, Natsume puts the needs of someone he isn’t close to in front of his own reputation.

Now, Natsume is in a horrible mood, embarrassed to be seen in the costume, and Ruka is confused why he’d even bother, until he sees the smile on the little kid and everything snaps into place for him. Mikan is a very intuitive and emotional girl who can sense things about all sorts of people, but when it comes to Natsume, nobody knows him better than Ruka, who can tell right away the motives for any of his actions.

I work at a restaurant and kids Natsume's age will be like, "I don't want a kids' menu" and act all grown up and then see how big the adult portions are, so they end up eating the Cub Pancake anyway LMAO. Do you want extra whipped cream and chocolate chips, Natsume?

Onto the actual NatsuMikan portion of this analysis, at long last, Mikan is overjoyed to see how adorable he is in his costume and she is the only one who won’t hold back from saying so because she’s not scared of him. I’ve seen someone complaining that Natsume says “Don’t call men cute,” but I always found that line funny because Natsume is a literal ten-year-old boy… He is not a man at all. It’s the sort of thing you’d expect a kid to say, especially one who wants to be a grown-up as soon as possible, which makes the line endearing to me, but that’s my personal feelings about it. (Like the above caption, I find it very amusing when little kids pretend they're all grown up.)

Anyway, Natsume is as much an idiot as he is in the anime, volunteering Mikan to be the prince, even using one of his three wishes to make it happen. This is all motivated by his feelings of humiliation, and he’s taking it out on her, arguing that he doesn’t want to wear the outfit for no reason so the show has to go on no matter the cost--but this will bite him in the ass sooner rather than later.

Chapter Twenty-Four

The chapter begins and Mikan is very nervous about playing the prince, particularly about looking the part as she is very uncomfortable with her hair down.

This is actually the first time we see Natsume’s feelings about it, but he’ll only make it more clear in about ten more chapters. Here, Mikan wonders if she should put her hair back up and Natsume snaps, “No!” before walking away in a huff. It’s a small scene, and it’s even told through tiny text, but it’s enough to let any reader paying attention know that Natsume also thinks Mikan looks cute with her hair down. Yes, he’s embarrassed to have said anything, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t say it.

Don't worry about him, he's just in a bad mood.

Natsume mainly observes, and nothing noteworthy happens. He eventually goes and gives his line and his aura alone is threatening enough to discourage anyone from laughing or “aww”ing.

The next important moment is when Mikan sees the stage direction to kiss the princess directly on the lips. Narumi says it’s because he’s trying to make up for the loss of sizzle due to the accident, but knowing him, there’s probably more to it. Naru likes stirring the pot and causing drama, although I can hardly tell what his motives are half the time. Truly, I believe he is the most mysterious character in the whole story.

Natsume does not allow this to happen, so he throws something at Mikan’s head--some random box thing--and Hotaru shuts off the lights.

Natsume does something kind of selfish here. He didn’t want them to kiss, so he stopped it. The fact that he grabbed the first thing he saw meant it was a sudden choice to chuck it. I wonder if he had any intentions of just toughing it out and dealing with it, but eventually jealousy won out and he did the selfish thing.

When I say selfish, I don’t mean “bad”. I just mean that for once Natsume is acting based on what he wants, rather than what will make somebody else happy. When it comes to this kid in particular, I actually want him to do selfish things more often, because he very rarely does. He’s been selfless and heroic enough for one day, having saved a kid from getting injured and then wearing that embarrassing costume. He’s allowed to have done this one thing for selfish reasons.

It’s not like it was a bad thing to do either. It would have only benefited Narumi, and possibly the somatic class to have a spicy musical kiss, but it wouldn’t have been good for Ruka or Mikan. Having their first kiss under such conditions, especially when Mikan was just doing the class a favor by acting in the play to begin with, would have been sad. Natsume essentially saved her from the consequences of his own actions, because it would have been his fault if they’d had no choice but to go through with it.

Moreover, like I said earlier, Ruka can simply tell what Natsume’s motives are from a single look. It’s more obvious in the anime, of course, but I still think manga!Ruka is aware that Natsume intervened. He knows Natsume better than anybody, and he’s too smart to think that box came out of nowhere.

This is just the beginning of a long-standing tension between them, one that they will dance around and pretend isn’t happening for quite a while before actually addressing it properly. For now, they have undiscussed feelings and jealousies that will go unchecked and unresolved for some time, building an even deeper divide between them. After all, Natsume and Ruka have enough of a gap on account of Natsume’s missions and his general feelings of not being able to fit in with anybody. This only broadens the gap.

Chapter Twenty-Six

The dance will be very fun to analyze from Mikan’s perspective, but we’re not nearly finished with Natsume’s, so that will have to wait.

For now, we’ll discuss Natsume’s softening, which Permy points out bitterly on account of being surrounded by closet fans. Previously, she says, they were terrified of him, and why wouldn’t they be? We talked ad nauseam about Natsume’s first thirteen chapters of misery and coldness. He was a scary and unkind guy, definitely unapproachable. Even his admirers in Class B were scared of him, equal parts affection and terror. In a very short time, Natsume has softened and it’s obvious. He even dressed as a cat for the somatic musical! His reputation for being cold and dangerous is softening and the girls who used to fear him are now flocking to him to ask if he’s willing to accept their last dance proposals.

But with all this talk about romance and dancing, Mikan feels left out and can’t relate. Her frustrations only grow when some girls start gossiping about her and she ends up taking it out on Natsume, saying she would never ever wanna dance with Natsume for the last dance. He brushes this off, but he still pouts, obviously affected and a little hurt. Their relationship was on the rise, after all. They were starting to hang out more and were bickering often, something Natsume doesn’t make a habit of doing with most people. But just because Natsume is feeling more fondness for her, that doesn't mean she feels the same way.

He expects this in some way, of course, because it's partially his intention. He expects that she would only tolerate him after everything that happened with them, but that doesn't mean he likes the feeling of rejection.

They're so cute when they pout!

Having a crush is bad enough, but hearing that girl shout that she’d never wanna go out with you is even harder, even if you were maybe purposefully making her angry with you to try and protect her. It would be a tough emotion to bear, especially for a kid unversed in romance. He proceeds to be just as huffy as her.

And as twisted as it is, I’m happy for him.

Natsume was cold and mean and difficult to talk to before he fell for Mikan. Now he’s way more approachable and expressive, willing on occasion to show an emotion that isn’t rage, like hurt or grumpiness or amusement. He can now sit at his desk and pout, something he wasn’t doing before, like a kid throwing a fit.

At the actual dance, Natsume is still hurt, still pouting. It doesn’t help that Mikan glares at him upon spotting him. It’s interesting to see how much this affects him. One girl said something harsh in the heat of the moment and he is taking it so personally. Of course, he gets hurt or angered by many things. Upperclassmen bully him and call him a murderer and he simply uses his alice on them to shut them up. He keeps his face straight, moves on, and forgets it. Naturally, the hurt and resentment sit there in his gut to torment him, because he’s a kid and they’re awful things for anyone to hear, but he’s not acting like that here. Here, he’s grumpy and pouty. His feelings are hurt but they don’t come with urges to punish like being called a murderer does.

And it’s obvious he has no genuine hard feelings because Natsume then shoves Ruka onto Mikan, since Ruka was being transparent about his gaze. He goes on to dance with someone else, anyone else, because Mikan made it clear that she too would rather dance with anyone else, just as long as it wasn’t him. He’s clearly still in a bad mood, though.

He's so used to not getting what he wants that he will do all of Ruka's work for him, so that Ruka can get what he wants.

Later, when Mikan and Natsume are singletons in the middle of the dance floor, they notice each other. Here would be a perfect opportunity to dance, but she made it clear she hated the idea, and he’s not about to embarrass himself to ask. Hence, he huffs again, pouting because there’s no way he’ll ask her to dance once she’s said such harsh things. They stand in silence for just a moment, until he finds some other girl to dance with and leaves Mikan all alone.

They’re both grumpy over the way they’re being treated by the other. Natsume is being immature and petty with his feelings, almost childish (heehee it's all I want for him!). With all the dark and depressing divide between Mikan’s academy life of fun and laughs and Natsume’s life of secret missions and physical abuse, he’s somehow found a way to wedge himself into hers. He’s taking something so minor so seriously. He’s been on the front lines, used his alice to hurt enemies and been hurt by enemies and dangerous ability types alike. He is literally dying and he’s aware of it! But he’s still pouting because the girl he likes was a little mean to him.

But the dance with the girl obviously wasn’t much fun, because Mikan quickly finds him again, away from the party, along a secluded path by some trees. He’s in a pouty mood and obviously needs some time alone with his thoughts.

It shows that he’s done some thinking because he doesn’t even mention her angry words from earlier.

Instead, he just calls the whole festival stupid.

We’re reminded here of a scene from way before they liked each other, when the festival was first announced. Then, she also found him playing with a dog, all on his own, using anger to mask his feelings of hurt. He said the same thing back then, that the whole thing was stupid and it was dumb to get all worked up about it. He’s doing it again now, but it’s a little different this time. Their relationship has changed, improved. They actually care about each other now, and although Natsume starts off just talking through his anger, he eventually turns honest.

The truth is that these periods of childishness will always have to end. It’s just an extended version of the dodgeball game. No matter how much emotion he puts into these experiences, they will be overshadowed by his real life. Now matter how much fun he has, he will always have to stop smiling and go kill himself on Persona’s orders. And even more honestly, the more fun he has, the harder it will be on the people he has fun with. It’s not enough for the ESP and Persona that Natsume completes his missions and does all his work; they find pleasure and relief in his constant misery. The second he cares about something, they use it against him. His joy is never meant to last and will always have consequences for the people he loves.

I hate tumblr's 10 image limit. I hate it. I despise it. I abhor it. I cannot come up with a caption. So instead I'll say again. I hate the 10 image limit.

And so he explains, for once, that he’s simply different from everyone else. The festival is something that doesn’t belong to him. He’s merely been an observer this whole time. He’s never actually been a part of it. And then he tells her that she should stay in the light, stay out of the dark. He calls her naive, but it’s not as much an insult as it used to be.

She is childish and loud and optimistic and annoying and a little sweet and even though he hated all these things about her before, he now realizes that these traits are things to be protected. The more she mingles with him, the darker her life will be. After all, her light is not the only thing that’s contagious: his darkness rubs off on people too, and in his mind it will only hurt her to be involved with him. She should stay in the light--in the shiny, sparkly side of the manga, where everyone is concerned with sports and coming up with ideas for the festival--and keep out of the dark--where there’s murder and blackmail and danger and death. It’s bad enough he can’t keep Youichi or Ruka out of it: Youichi is already in the DA class and Ruka came running after him. He can’t distance himself from them. The most he can do is protect them and raise their star ranks or keep them off of dangerous missions. But with Mikan he has a chance to really protect her, prevent her from being used against him at all. Ideally, she’ll stay away and he won’t need to worry about her as much.

And he wants her to be safe and gone, so when she asks what he means, he changes tactics and decides to be rude and mean instead, telling her to get lost and insulting her. She gets angry and it almost seems like it’ll be another bickering match, where they will both be childish and hurl insults at each other, but he doesn’t take that path.

She is complaining about how he doesn’t seem to know that she has a name, thank you very much--and then he calls her Mikan. He concedes to her demands. He does what he perceives to be the mature, adult thing, ending the argument so she will leave for good. When she has nothing left to argue about, she will have no choice but to walk away, and she does, once he makes it clear that his last command is for her to stop complaining about what he calls her.

Natsume chooses to do the selfless thing again, and gives up the first thing in a long time that made him happy. He barely had any time with her at all, but he lets her go, because she can only continue to be sunny and cheerful away from him. He’s giving up before anyone can tell that something was around for him to give up.

He has no idea how much one word has affected her.

Conclusion

Natsume is a selfless kid. He gives up on what he wants very easily, but especially because he knows that the second he gets what he wants, those things could be destroyed, just by association with him. He just wants the people he loves to be happy, even if it means he could never be.

In the next segment, we'll talk about what Natsume is willing to do to protect Mikan, even if it means being cruel and hurting her. NatsuMikan is the living embodiment of the "break her heart to save her" trope, and I very much adore that trope with my whole heart, so we're going to be having a LOT of fun with the next essay!

Also, disclaimer: I'm not smart. I refuse to take responsibility for any mistakes I make in these essays. There also are no mistakes. I've never misspelled a word in my life.

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