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crow-in-a-teapot · 3 years

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tower of nero spoilers

i have just finished the tower of nero. and before i go searching for other people’s thoughts and art and more of the characters i love so much, i want to write down some of my own thoughts because i know as soon as i delve into that ‘ton spoilers’ hashtag there are going to be complaints and criticisms and so much that i don’t want to hear, or essays that’ll make me upset, or things that’ll change my perception on the book (because on this website people really love to hate the trials of apollo).

i want to start with: i loved it. it didn’t feel earth-shattering or huge and momentous like some of my favourite riordanverse books (house of hades, the blood of olympus, the last olympian and maybe some of the magnus chase books take those pedestals for me) but it was satisfying. and i think it was satisfying because it in no way felt like an ending. whether because eventually rick will write that will-and-nico-go-through-tartarus-and-save-bob novella, or because we (or at least i) will continue writing and imagining and creating for this world i don’t know. he didn’t wrap up the story in a perfect little bow like ‘nineteen years later’, he simply put it on pause. gave us a glimpse of where every character was at at the end.

the only thing that makes me so angry and upset is that i did manage to get some spoilers for moments that i know would have been so good to experience for the first time if i hadn’t been spoiled for them. the moment where rachel mentions penguins in a mansion near her house, nico getting mental health advice from mr d, the fact that will and nico were going to be in the book for so much of the story, but the big thing was literally spoiled for me two days ago, it was the reason i sat down to read it as fast as possible because i was terrified of getting more spoiled and not being able to experience the moments for myself, was that piper had a girlfriend. i know that reading that for the first time would have been so cool and surprising, and the fact that when it came up for a moment in the last couple pages all i felt was disappointment because it was spoiled for me and because it was now tinged with whatever that person was saying about her having a girlfriend.

but i still had some warm fuzzy moments, the two parts where apollo thinks he’s going to die but nico comes up behind him - so good. impeccable.

Leader Guy spat. ‘Now, I kill you.’

He raised his sword... and froze. His face turned pale. His skin began to shrivel. His beard fell out whisker by whisker like dead pine needles. Finally, his skin crumbled away, along with his clothes and flesh, until Leader Guy was nothing but a bleached-white skeleton, holding a sword in his bony hands.

Standing behind him, his hand on the skeleton’s shoulder, was Nico di Angelo.

and

Nero raised his hand, ready to give the kill command, when behind me a mighty BOOM! shook the chamber. Half our enemies were thrown off their feet. Cracks sprouted in the windowsand the marble columns. Ceiling tiles broke, raining dust like split bags of flour.

I turned to see the impenetrable blast doors lying twisted and broken, a strangely emaciated red bull standing in the breach. Behind it stood Nico di Angelo.

gods. poetic brilliance. i can’t believe i’m still a nico di angelo stannie in the year 2021. in five years i have not changed (ever since the tv show announcement last summer i have managed to morph into myself from 2017)

from here i’m not sure where to go next i kind of want to go through everything, except it’ll be more difficult than my tyrant’s tomb reaction because i wasn’t reading on a kindle and thus can’t just do funny little reactions to screenshots of quotes, so i’ll just skim through the book page by page and see what i can comment on (i’m not planning on doing analysis today, no thank you, just enjoying the end of my childhood and trying to squeeze as much out of it as possible)

i have an emotional attachment to mr. snake from the very first chapter, and am very upset that he’ll never get off on his baltimore stop and get to see his wife, lu had no reason to shoot and kill him like that.

that brings me to lu, i liked her, it was interesting to see how rick kind of brought in not only the overarching theme of abuse, but also people who let the abuse happen, i have more i could say on this i’m too lazy to right now, and i promised no analysis - or the fact that Lu had conspired to make the show non-lethal to spare Meg’s feelings rather than - oh, I don’t know - refusing to do Nero’s dirty work in the first place and getting Meg out of that house of horrors.

And are you any better? taunted a small voice in my brain. How many times have you stood up to Zeus?

Okay, small voice. Fair point. Tyrants are not easy to opppose or walk away from, especially when you depend on them for everything.

the parallels to meg and lester heading to percy’s apartment, and then to camp half blood to the hidden oracle was so cool to read, every callback to the hidden oracle just there to remind us readers exactly how far apollo has come and how he’s changed; the entire chapter with sally, paul and estelle just felt sickly sweet, it just didn’t seem real how wholesome and good that family is, like i get why apollo broke down and just sobbed in that shower.

also rick really saying acab again in toa, i thought he was done after that elf cop chapter in magnus chase (the magnus chase series is a masterpiece) but apparently not, with A ‘good cop’ is still a cop... still a part of the mind game.

the grey sisters, i forgot about them completely but this threw me back into was it the sea of monsters when annabeth summoned them? i’m not sure, it could have been the lightning thief either, they really remind me of the disney hercules movie. the whole ganymede paragraph was gold, i love gods being canonically confirmed lgbt in the riordanverse. i also love the whole eye-tossing part -

‘He will crush our eye,’ Anger cried, ‘if we don’t recite our verses!’

‘I will not!’

‘We will all die!’ Wasp said. ‘He is crazy!’

‘I AM NOT!’

‘Fine, you win!’ Tempest howled.

also, the explanation for why dionysus chooses to look the way he does was perfect, because it was something i often wondered about and wasn’t expecting to get an explanation for, and i imagine the whole mythological dionysus to look like.. well like a more feminine apollo i guess, beautiful in a gender non-comforming way.

Other Olympians could never comprehend why Dionysus chose this form when he could look like anything he wanted. In ancient times, he’d been famous for his youthful beauty that defied gender.

...

In retaliation, Dionysus had decided to look and act as ungodly as possible. He was like a child refusing to tuck in his shirt, comb his hair or brush his teeth, just to show his parents how little he cared.

every scene with nico at camp just BREAKS ME, i would throw in screenshots of every damn quote but unfortunately, as said above, cannot and would rather not type every one; we’ll start with, obviously apollo confirming to him that jason is dead.

He didn’t look angry exactly. He looked as if he’d been hit in the gut not just once but so many times over the course of so many years that he was beginning to lose perspective on what it meant to be in pain. He swayed on his feet. He blinked. Then he flinched, jerking his hands away from Meg’s as if he’d just remembered his own touch was poison.

ugh then will talking about how nico’s doing, confirming that he’s suffering with ptsd, mr d giving him advice, helping him sort though what voices in his head are real and which ones aren’t, then the paragraph that just recounts every horrific thing poor nico has been through, how will has to reassure him that he’s okay and ‘with friends’ when he wakes up after shadow travel

will’s kindness to apollo, buying him clothes, and apollo finding seymour the leopard’s head in his bed, put there by mr d aaaa AAAA A A A A A THE ORDINARY, EVERYDAY CAMP HALF BLOOD THINGS..

i could go on for years and years about how much i appreciate rachel having a big role in this book, and the visit to her apartment, everything, her art, the fact that she got what she wanted, she’s going to PARIS to study ART, she isn’t forced to be someone she’s not by her dad, and gets to be a big part of a demigod mission and not stand on the sidelines for once.

i love that her landscapes are still visions, that she still paints the quests demigods go on - the burning maze, jason’s funeral pyre, caligula’s ships; and how nico ~appreciates art~

‘And, hey, di Angelo -’ she pushed him playfully away from the canvas he’d been ogling - ‘don’t brush against the art! I don’t care about the paintings, but if you get any colour on you, you’ll ruin that whole black-and-white aesthetic you’ve got going.’

i. love. rachel.

WILL GLOWS!! THE HEADCANONS FROM LIKE FIVE YEARS AGO THAT YOU’D SEE FLOATING AROUND ABOUT HIM MANIPULATING LIGHT!! CONFIRMED!! CANON!! AMAZING

I AM OBSESSED WITH THE TROGS, I LOVE THEM, THEY ARE GREAT, not gonna lie, i was expecting something more dramatic and spooky with how worried will was and how dionysus was going.. visiting the cavern-runners isn’t ♫ good for your mental health ♫ but the little hat frog gremlins were a good addition. i like them very much and their funky little soup shenanigans. quoting the ghost king himself: trogs good. nice hats. (IM SORRY I KEEP MENTIONING HIM BUT I JUST) also how apollo starts wishing for breadsticks a s ajoke and theY STRAIGHT UP HAVE BREADSTICKS? HUH? WHERE DID THEY GET THE BREADSTICKS FROM??

yeah, i’m also still very much upset by every mention of jason grace, it’s funny how ever since his death in the burning maze i have grown to love him more and more and that’s not fun for me, for that boy to become one of my main comfort character’s and have his death and sacrifice and nobility mentioned every few chapters. i’m pretty sure i cried when he appeared to talk in apollo’s dreams, and this time the tears weren’t from the effort of keeping my eyes open and working for hours straight reading this book (i remember staying up until 2am to finish the sequel to beautiful, broken things, it was very much worth it)

‘All right, Jason. We miss you, though.’

ALSO. THE FACT THAT THIS KID. THIS CHILD. HAD TO THINK ‘BUT IF A HERO ISN’T READY TO LOSE EVERYTHING FOR A GREATER CAUSE, IS THAT PERSON REALLY A HERO?’ A KID ISN’T SUPPOSED TO THINK ABOUT THAT AND BE READY TO SACRIFICE THEMSELVES FOR THE GREATER GOOD,, i,, ugh,, he’s supposed to be finishing school and designing temples not being the perfect hero and soldier,, spain without the s,,

as @couldnt-think-of-a-funny-name said: ‘thinking about how ghost! Jason didn’t seem to understand why Apollo was so upset about his death because he’s been raised to believe a hero’s sacrifice is noble and his life doesn’t matter in the grand scheme and also if he doesn’t understand why the person who watched him get horrifically killed is so torn up over his death he probably doesn’t even realize his other friends are grieving him..’

IM SO UPSET THE ARROW OF DODONA IS DEAD D: IT WAS ONE OF MY FAVOURITE CHARACTERS ALL THE FUNNIEST MOMENTS WERE BECAUSE OF THAT ARROW AND IT'S DEATH WAS SO SAD WTH LIKE WE FIND OUT HOW USELESS THE ARROW FELT AND HOW THE GROVE OF DODONA ALL THOUGHT IT WOULD BE CRAP AND WOULD FAIL APOLLO AND THEN ONCE WE FEEL BAD FOR IT, IT DIES??

the entire python battle was pretty grim, there is a part of me that's like because this is the last book series i would have loved say the magnus chase and kane chronicles gang in a giant battle with everyone like the battle of manhattan but even more dramatic, but even so, i did appreciate that python battle and the whole almost-falling-into-the-depths-of-tartarus thing.

him talking to artemis was cool, but JESUS: 'I turned and strode out of my room, trying to recall how the god Apollo walked.' like that HURTS. it was such a huge culture shock for apollo to go throught this huge character arc and be so human and understand the pain of others, to be around gods again who are so.. apathetic. also, zeus. 'Interesting how he put that: I had done him proud. I had been useful in making him look good. My heart did not melt. I did not feel that this was a warm-and-fuzzy reconciliation with my father. Let's be honest: some fathers don't deserve that. Some aren't capable of it.'

OKAY OKAY SO THE END?? CHIRON TALKING TO A CAT (BAST) AND A SEVERED HEAD (MIMIR) ABOUT SHARED PROBLEMS WITHIN THE PANTHEONS!! WILL AND NICO RECEIVING A PROPHECY FROM RACHEL TO GO TO TARTARUS AND SAVE BOB!! THE HUNTERS OF ARTEMIS, INCLUDING THALIA AND REYNA BEING BEST FRIENDS (qpr.. qpr..) HUNTING THE TEUMESSIAN FOX!! PERCY, ANNABETH AND GROVER, THE ORIGINAL TRIO, GOING ON A CHAOTIC ROAD TRIP TOGETHER!! - SO MANY STAND-ALONE SET -UPS PFSJSJSJ

okay quick word on the reunions at the end: funny little elephant visitation program with livia and hannibal. love that for them. calypso and leo's relationship seems rocky and complicated, but that's to be expected, i think even if they do get properly back together again it might not last long, because it does pretty much feel like a teenage relationship where the two aren't very compatible, but we'll see. hazel and frank are so funny with their gold plated necklaces. lavinia - tap-dance icon. almost cried at the mention of jason's temple-extension plan again. percy not being sure about what he wants to do in college is accurate and i like that that's left to be up-for-interpretation (rick does THE MOST for the fanfic writers pfsjsj). i am OBSESSED with aeithales, like i hate deserts so the burning maze setting is not my favourite but GOD that HOUSE, the vibes are off-the-charts. i'd love a house made of living trees that's also a greenhouse filled with dryads. meg gets a unicorn. that is so great.

i kind of wish the book hadn't ended with 'Call on me. I will be there for you.' because every time I imagine the friends theme song and i don't think that's the vibe he was going for, BUT i do love him talking to meg, that was genuinely emotional - 'You'll come back?' she asked. 'Always,' I promised. 'The sun always comes back.' ; i really wish it had ended with that, but i guess apollo does tend to break fourth walls and talk to the readers, like a lot of the protagonists of riordanverse books.

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davidmann95 · 3 years

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So RWBY/Justice League is apparently a crossover that's actually going to happen. Of the little we know right now, how do you think that's going to pan out?

Anonymous said: Those questions about Superman and Batman in RWBY seem prescient, because I'm hearing that an official crossover is in the works

Anonymous said: Um, so there's a legit Justice League/RWBY crossover coming

Anonymous said: So, that official DC/RWBY crossover, huh?

Anonymous said: So, how about that DC/RWBY cross, eh?

Anonymous said: No more speculating how Superman would fit into RWBY when DC themselves are providing their own answer XD

The immediate thing that leaps out beyond the Kingdom Hearts* level of utterly out of nowhere berserk this premise is: while the RWBY comic had a couple minor sequel hooks, and I don’t know how it did in its original digital chapters or in trade, as a monthly periodical it was selling poorly enough that DC didn’t bother to print its last physical issue after the return from the Coronavirus shutdown, and while I thought it was great a lot of fans complained about its art and characterization throughout. I hoped for that sequel, sure, but I wasn’t expecting the book to be regarded internally as anything but a sales failure, nevermind not only continuing it but tripling down in the most extreme and bizarrely specific way possible that’s neither intuitive (unless you have special interests like me) nor surface-level ridiculous enough like Batman/Elmer Fudd that people will buy it just to see how it works. I don’t understand why this comic is happening when no one but me wanted this.

(* The Kingdom Hearts comparison is apt because they were similarly close to the top of things I’d love to see cross over with the DCU that would obviously never, ever happen because that’s too precise and random a combination of my interests. Even if this is legally possible where that isn’t, that would still be conceptually simpler.)

I was asked a couple times in the past about how Superman or Batman could make sense in RWBY’s setting, and it turns out I was closer with the latter than the former - that rather than a dimension-hopping traditional crossover, this is reverse-engineering what the assorted members of the League would look like if they had always been part of Remnant ala JLA/Planetary, some of the old DC/Marvel crossovers, or the more recent Batman/The Shadow. Which actually fits really well with the series regularly evoking assorted fairy tales and mythologies with their characters; this bunch is just one more set to be added. Though that raises several more thoughts and questions:

* The solicit refers to them as Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne, and Diana Prince, but will they actually be referred to as such in the story, and will people comment on them not fitting with the color-based naming conventions of that world? Or will they be renamed and evoke their sources purely through iconography, ala Ruby not literally being Little Red Riding Hood?

* How much will the origins of the assorted characters be changed? Batman, Cyborg, and Aquaman would all make perfect sense within the ‘rules’ of the setting with few major alterations, but will Superman still be from Krypton and Green Lantern a space ranger, or will they simply be ordinary humans with thematically reminiscent backstories and Semblances/weapons that evoke the classic powers? I think the latter could work, but I imagine the former is more likely (even if Bennett might keep it vague on some of the details to preserve the aura of mystique and avoid changing the shape of the world too radically) simply because everyone’s surely aware that fans would complain about being ‘ripped off’ for getting the characters ‘in name only’ otherwise.

* Speaking of changes to fit the setting, between being a Faunus and the apparent low-tech traditional armor look of his suit, is Bruce Wayne in here not operating from a position of wealth? You’d just think as a given the Wayne family would be easily plopped in as business rivals to the Schnees and Alfred would be on a first name basis with Klein, but it seems Bennett might have something very different in mind. Also, little disappointing he simply has a katana rather than those collapsible batarangs that turn into swords that Ellis always gave him which would fit perfectly here. And, as so many have already asked: how miserable is he every second of every day in a world where everything is also a gun. At least this isn’t a universe where anyone’s gonna think he’s irresponsible for training teenage sidekicks.

* And if we’re going into individual characters: RWBY Barry Allen is adorable, what the hell. He just looks so dopey and hapless, I sure hope he doesn’t ever have to die to stop the Anti-Monitor. We’re definitely getting a meeting with Harriet that retcons in that he’s the other person with a speed Semblance she mentioned running into, and if he’s tapping into the Speed Force then the jokes that that’s what Harriet does are probably gonna become at least a little bit canon.

* Are the Themyscirans magic, given all magic has a very important common root in this world?

* I don’t think there’s a dud redesign in the bunch? These are all really inspired in their own ways, which is good because unlikely as it seems this is I believe the first time we’ve really gotten any sort of official interpretation of “here’s what the DCU would look like as a Shonen”. Go ahead and say the hell with it and make it Earth 28, I’ve thought before making that an anime Earth would fit with the map.

(By Ag_Nonsuch)

* Bunch of obvious ways these characters can play off of each other: Ruby is paralleled with Wonder Woman on the cover, and I’m curious how Bennett will play that, but she makes most sense next to Flash, a super-fast fan made good, or Superman, a character she so deeply if unintentionally evokes on so many levels I felt I had to make clear when describing her that I didn’t solely appreciate her as a psuedo-Superman analogue. Weiss makes sense up against Batman either as a wealthy heir or a Faunus who’s likely faced his share of pain from the Schees who either way are cold perfectionists defined by inner pain stemming from their families, or Wonder Woman/Aquaman as fellow ‘royalty’. Yang is paralleled with Superman on the cover and that makes sense with the two country bruisers with issues regarding their lost parents, though she’d also make sense with Aquaman as the ‘temperamental’ members a lot of the time of their respective teams, or Cyborg as they both deal with their relationships with their bodies after requiring prosthesis. And Blake pretty much has her pick: like Superman she uses an article of clothing to ‘pass’ and shares the commitment to justice, she and Batman are dark children of privilege (or not in this case, though in this world they’re both Faunus), she and Wonder Woman both left the island homes where their people were safe to try and make the rest of the world better, she and Aquaman are both Faunus royalty, and Green Lantern is about overcoming great fear and in Jessica Cruz’s case specifically about the guilt of running away.

* Will this be entirely flashbacks to the pre-series/Beacon years, or will those be flashbacks set from a ‘present’, and if so when? What happened between the siege of Haven and the train setting off for Argus is the most loosely-defined period in the story and is right on the heels of the end of the original RWBY mini, so I’d imagine it fitting here. And given they apparently join together “to take on a force unlike anything they've seen before” rather than purely the character work of that previous book, what might that be?

* Hey, superhero comics/superpowers as an idea already exist in this universe, will that come up?

* If we can get one single scene in this and it’s going with a “yes they’re still aliens and magic and whatnot” premise I want Clark, who hasn’t thought of being Superman yet and therefore is still at least somewhat hiding his powers, being wracked with guilt over not pursuing becoming a Huntsman and therefore not being there at the Fall of Beacon. Which is a ridiculous thing to take the blame for, but of course he would, he’s Clark, culminating in trying to apologize to JNR for Pyrrha dying he feels in part because he was a coward (when they don’t even have the faintest concept for why he would think he should have been there or could have done anything).

* Once all’s said and done, how is their presence in the world justified as not being a factor in the series proper? It’s simple if they’re ‘ordinary’ analogues who can go off to quietly have adventures elsewhere, but if not then some of them either have to be shuffled off stage or presumably left with their stories incomplete, with a little afterward of “and they went on to be the greatest heroes of all...later, after the scope of team RWBY’s main adventures so that we never have to directly address them again” to avoid them becoming unavoidable major factors in the war against Salem.

In the end, will it be DC’s best comic? No, though I imagine one of their better ones this year. Will it be among the ones I look forward to most each month? Right up there with Yang and Reis’s Batman/Superman baby, this is a miracle freak of fate and I’m gonna appreciate the universe bending over backwards to make entertainment for me and me alone while it lasts. Given I finally checked out RWBY in the first place because I was curious about Bennett’s original comic, this is a heck of a full-circle moment.

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kanri-tea · 3 years

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The TDD get punted into the world of Demon Slayer via illegal microphone, starring:

Ramuda as Tanjiro

Jakurai as Nezuko

Ichiro as Zenitsu

Samatoki as Inosuke

None of them know what's going on and they're all disasters (they blame Ichiro though, this anime-esque shit has got to be Ichiro's fault). The only mostly responsible one has been turned into a demon and Ramuda is panic-screeching in his mind.

Ramuda and Jakurai live together. Jakurai runs a small cliniic and orphanage which he's been running for quite some time before he stumbled upon a child Ramuda and took him in.

Ramuda was not a happy camper when he comes to and comes face to face with Jakurai, but since they're in the Edo period ("We are in the Taisho era, Amemura-kun" "Ugh, whatever! Close enough!"), he figures it'll be safer if he sticks with the old man.

Ichiro is an orphan that gets picked up by Kuwajima like Zenitsu, but no electrocution for this boy. He's a diligent student, but can't seem to really pick up any other of the Thunder Breathing forms other than the first one because of plot device

Samatoki grows up in the forest as well, but he is a civilized person no matter what anyone may say. Plus, he has some experience of survival cooking thanks to Rio. His Beast Breathing is a combination of influence from the wild animals that he grows up with and memories of Rio and Jyuto

Ramuda returns from selling coal when Muzan kills everyone at the clinic and turns Jakurai into a demon, paralleling canon with Tanjiro and Nezuko. Jakurai doesn't recognize Ramuda at first, mind still stuck in the in-between of human and demon. He doesn't eat anyone but he does nearly attack Ramuda when he gets back but regains his mind at the last second.

After an encounter with Giyuu and Jakurai proving that he's still very much himself, Ramuda travels to find Urokodaki with a child sized Jakurai in a basket. It is very awkward for both of them and Ramuda promises that he'll find a way to turn Jakurai back into a human

Ramuda is very much panicking and screeching in his mind because what the fuck is going on and why the fuck do demons of all things suddenly exist and Ichiro, this is totally your fault, what is this, an anime???

Jakurai is a very tired (tm) and kinda pissed that he has to rely on Ramuda now. He's also a little mad about having to be the size of a toddler most of the time

Ramuda learns Water Breathing while Jakurai starts rehoning his assassin skills. He might be a healer now, but with how dangerous this world seems to be, well, someone has to watch Ramuda's back.

Along the way, Ramuda figures out that he can use his microphone's ability along with Water Breathing. His sense of smell is also ridiculously good for some reason, which is helpful to find demons, he supposes. Jakurai on the other hand, finds out that not only can he use blood demon arts, but also use his microphone's ability, except it's more like he can help others regenerate/heal fast. They're both really weirded out, but hey, at least its useful???

Ramuda ends up meeting Ichiro on his way to Tsuzumi Mansion. To say that they're surprised would be a huge understatement. Ichiro had assumed that he was alone while Ramuda had assumed that it was only him and Jakurai. Jakurai is conveniently asleep in the box when this happens and it slips Ramuda's mind to tell Ichiro. Ichiro is slightly suspicious though, because his sense of hearing is really good and he's pretty sure there's a demon in there, but Ramuda wasn't saying anything???

Samatoki is trapped in Tsuzumi Mansion and cursing himself for rushing in without a plan when he encounters Ichiro with a civilian kid. While surprised to see each other, they nearly start fighting before being reminded that hey, they're kinda in a demon lair right now.

When Ramuda, Ichiro, and Samatoki finally reunite, it's a bit bittersweet because on one hand, they're really glad they're not the only ones here, but on the other hand, why are they in this weird ass world?

Also, Ichiro and Samatoki question, if the three of them were here, where was Jakurai?

"Uhhh... Yeeeah... About that... The old man is kinda, uh." Ramuda sweats his way through this conversation, "I'll tell you guys when we get to the Wisteria house, 'kay?"

When they finally get to the House with the Wisteria family crest ("Holy shit, that old lady is creepy." "Stop being a baby, Ichiro.") Ramuda finally reluctantly reveals what happened to Jakurai.

"So, about the old man. We kinda ended up together," Ramuda starts explaining, "Like he ran a clinic and everything and I lived there for a while."

"Eh, did he stay behind?" Ichiro questioned, confused to where this conversation was going. Samatoki is nodding next to him, confused.

"About two years back, we... the clinic got attacked by a demon. Muzan," Ramuda breaths, "And the old man..."

Ichiro and Samatoki's eyes widen. Was Jakurai dead?

"... Jakurai got turned into a demon," Ramuda finally admits. He turns towards the box and raps his knuckles on it.

"Yo, old man. Are you coming out or not? You've been asleep in there for ages!"

The door of the box swings open, a tiny hand revealing itself before its owner crawls out, purple hair splayed everywhere.

"What," Samatoki breathlessly stares, "the fuck."

A toddler-sized Jinguji Jakurai stares back, muzzled mouth quirking down and an unimpressed look plastered on his child-like face.

Both Ichiro and Samatoki are very, very surprised. They quickly agree to help Ramuda find a way to turn Jakurai back into a human. If they happen to spend a couple minutes cooing over how cute he looks, well that's no one else's business, now is it?

They learn that while Jakura has retained his mind, his body is still very much like a demon's. He can't stand in sunlight or eat human food. His energy comes from sleeping and while he can speak, but only when he's in his adult form. He's more or less non-verbal as a child.

Ichiro stews in his thoughts in the meantime. He's fairly sure this is the plot of an anime he saw once... He keeps quiet though because he's not 100% certain, but did the illegal mic seriously punt them into an anime?

Jakurai is very unhappy with what happened at Natagumo mountain and is even more unhappy with being stabbed multiple times while in the box while being put on trial. Honestly, what sort of barbaric trial is this? Hitoya would be so dissapointed.

When Sanemi tries to bait Jakurai using his own blood, Jakurai just sends a "I'm very exhausted and exasperated" look at Ramuda

"Oyakata-sama," Jakurai hears someone scream, "I will present to you the ugliness of what we call demons!"

He's mildly cranky at being woken up by all this chattering and being suddenly stabbed, but even that isn't able to distract him from the sudden scent of blood seeping into the box.

Sweet... But, no, Jakurai had sworn that he would not fall prey to these demonic temptations.

"Hey demon! It's time to eat! Sink your teeth on this!"

As the door of the box is ripped open, Jakurai frowns at the rudeness. The blood is tempting, yes, but more importantly...

Jakurai tilts his head to look at Ramuda. Are they serious?

No fucking duh! The look Ramuda shoots back is scathing and furious, though more because he was being restrained by the man with the snake then at Jakurai.

"Shinazugawa-kun, was it," he sighs as the people watching gasp. He's well aware that he's rather tall, even in the modern age.

"You shouldn't needlessly injure yourself," he grabs a roll of bandages and starts wrapping the young man's wound. The boy looks rather shocked and angry, but Jakurai didn't really have the energy to really care.

"Huh?"

"Eh?"

Jakurai hears the confusion around him, but chose to ignore it. Giyuu and Ramuda could deal with the questions later, he decided, Jakurai was already exhausted from Natagumo mountain.

"Wait a second!"

Jakurai turns, finishing up wrapping the young man's arm.

"I thought the box was stupidly heavy, but you're like the size of a toddler normally," Ramuda starts, "Have I been basically carrying a shit-ton of medical supplies?!"

Jakurai rolled his eyes, shooting the most unimpressed look he could at the pink-haired gremlin, "Well someone has to take care of your injuries, no?"

"You - you stupid old man! I can't believe anyone calls you saint! Aaughh!! I hope you break your back!"

"That would most assuredly be very difficult to do with my regeneration. Though, I suppose object permanence is rather difficult for children like you."

Maybe they should tone down their arguments a little... nah. It effectively derails the meeting, which was the entire point of Ramuda's outburst, of course.

When Ramuda and Jakurai finally arrive at the Butterfly estate, they find Ichiro with shrunken limbs ("The medicine sucks, but it's nothing worse than what sensei's given me before...") and Samatoki with a crushed throat ("Fuck... I was so weak..."). Ramuda is also in a lot of pain. Jakurai manages to recover fairly quickly with lots of sleep and spends a lot of their recovery time assisting the nurses.

Ramuda tries to figure out why he can do Hinokami Kagura and is very confused. Jakurai tiredly reminds him that it's probably because he used to watch Tanjuro, a former patient who lived at the clinic, do it. While Jakurai only knows about Hinokami Kagura as a ritual dance, he is reminded that the sick and frail man had died and left behind a pair of strange-looking earrings.

When training begins, Ichiro, Samatoki, Ramuda are motivated and stubborn to a fault, so they manage to learn Total Concentration: Constant. Ramuda also has a conversation with the Butterfly pillar, Shinobu ("Please do your best, Ramuda-kun. When I see you doing your best in my stead, I feel much better."), it makes him think back on his relationship with the Chuuoku. These people... They care a lot and they're fighting for their lives and humanity every day. They aren't even comparable to manipulations and cruelty of the Chuuoku, and Ramuda wonders a bit if he even wants to go back. Sure, there's Gentaro and Dice, but... here, he's not sick. He's not living day-to-day wondering if he'll outlive his usefulness. Here... he's able to stay at Jakurai's side.

Jakurai is the one to become friends with Kanao is this universe, because let's be honest here, Ramuda is really not the type to be nice out of the goodness of his heart, and Ichiro would probably do it, but he's kinda still recovering from nearly becoming a spider.

"You should listen to your own heart," the purple-haired demon hums. He's talking to her, but Kanao doesn't know why. The demon - Jakurai, she thinks - had been taking time out of his day since he'd recovered to talk to her.

She doesn't respond often. Her coin doesn't land on tails that often, but it doesn't seem to bother the tall demon. And tall he is, his height easily looming over her, but there's an aura of kindness and gentleness that tells Kanao that this demon wouldn't hurt her. It's a strange thing to think about a demon.

It's Jakurai's last day here. The other demon slayers, including the one that Jakurai travels with is leaving. Kanao isn't sure, but she thinks she might be a little sad about it. The demon has been good company, she has to admit to herself a little.

"People," she hears him breathe, "are driven by their hearts. If you live by your heart, your heart will grow stronger than ever."

Jakurai smiles down at her. It's gentle and warm and his eyes crinkle a little bit at the edges. He ruffles her hair a bit, a familiar motion over the course of the month.

She knows it's time for him to leave when he gets up. He leans over and straighten outs the butterfly in her hair, giving one last kind smile.

"Live by your heart's desire, Kanao. And stay healthy."

With that, he leaves, leaving Kanao behind contemplating his words. Could she really live like that? Live by her heart's desires...? There was something in the kind demon's words and smiles that made her think that maybe, just maybe... she could.

Samatoki and Ramuda's first impression of Rengoku is that he's a weirdo. Ichiro on the other hand thinks he's kinda cool. Jakurai is asleep and therefore doesn't care.

When they're put asleep by Enmu, they end up dreaming about their respective division (sans Jakurai). It's also a bit of a harsh awakening that they've all gotten pretty complacent of this world and that they need to find a way to get back to the modern age ASAP.

When Rengoku is nearly dead because of Akaza, Ichiro, Samatoki, and Ramuda are inconveniently a little bit attached to the strange Hashira. As a desperate last resort, Ramuda gets Jakurai to try and heal the man. After all, they were all sick of the people they cared about dying and if this could save him...

"There's no point in shouting now," Ramuda hears the hashira call out from behind him. His vision is blurry from tears, and distantly, he recognizes the resigned tone in the man's voice. Rengoku Kyoujuro was had already accepted his death as inevitable.

"The wound on my stomach is opening," the man tells Ramuda, "And your injuries aren't minor either."

Samatoki is watching silently and Ramuda can see out of the corner of eye that Ichiro is making sure Jakurai doesn't get killed by the sun.

Wait. Jakurai. The old man could heal Rengoku, right?

It takes a moment of shouting to Samatoki and Ichiro to convey his idea, but even as Rengoku is staring at them with a single, intense eye, they manage to get Jakurai and Rengoku into the shaded trees of the forest nearby.

"Ramuda-kun," Jakurai quietly says, before focusing his attention on Rengoku's injuries. It's not a promise, Ramuda knows, but Jakurai is a doctor through and through. He'll do his best to ensure that Rengoku survives, he knows this.

Rengoku is watching them confused, a couple of protests having spilled out, but he's ignored in favor of getting Jakurai over as quickly as possible.

Ramuda has seen Jakurai heal a couple of people over the years with his ability, but it's always amazing to see it like this rather than through a microphone.

"Hypnosis Microphone: Medication," Jakurai breathes, and as his hands glows, the injuries beneath start to mend themselves. It starts off slow, but as color returns to the hashira's cheeks and breathing evens out, Ramuda knows that it's working. Knows that Jakurai is doing everything he can to heal the man.

There's going to lots and lots of questions later, Ramuda knows, but for now he's glad. He's glad that Jakurai is here, that Ichiro and Samatoki are here, that he's not alone.

He's glad that he doesn't have to see another person that he cares about die.

#hypnosis mic #demon slayer #kimetsu no yaiba #the dirty dawg #jinguji jakurai #amemura ramuda #yamada ichiro #aohitsugi samatoki #crack treated seriously #this was fueled by the demon slayer movie #demon slayer! au #kanao kochou #rengoku kyoujurou

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warm-starlight · 3 years

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I feel like I am late to the party but I wanted to add to why Levihan is more popular in east from linguistic aspects.

So, I am following a person (he knows a lot of languages and often tries to explain their differences) on instagram and I found his take on Turkish valid so I wanted to write about what his take on eastern and western languages. (Anyone who knows Japanese feel free to point out if I say something wrong please)

He says that in western countries it is more important to be clear in speech (what you say is more important) and in eastern ones speeches are more closed off (what you didn’t say is more important/the context and the person talking is more important than what you say).

He gives an example comparing English and Turkish:

Because I talk

Because I am talking

Because I was talking

Because I talked

Because I have talked

All of them are translated to Turkish as “Konuştuğum için”

And Japanese (and most other eastern languages) are more closed off than Turkish so I think with Levihan having a ton of parallels with Eremika (and most canon couples in “living together” aspect), all canon couples being complementary (not being too similar or drastically different) like them, and that their interactions can be seen as romantic, given it suits their characters (both are adults with great responsibilities and anything lovey-dovey wouldn’t suit them), etc. easterners seeing them as a romantic couple while westerners wanting more (Less subtle apporach? Kissing maybe? Idk...) to consider them canon makes sense. (On a personal note I always found it odd that Westerners use kissing as a “romance indicator” like in west a couple with subtle hints and shown caring for each other seems less canon than a couple kissing in the end of the movie most of the times? Maybe it could be that me seeing the minority in movies? Or maybe it is just lazy writing?)

Huh, that got so long... I hope my take isn’t so bad. And sorry if I said anything wrong/stupid. And thank you for having this blog and reading it this far (and keeping up with my language nerd self ❣️)

P.S.: I wanted to add that in Turkey most see Hanji as a woman because I find it really interesting (because Turkish doesn’t use any kind of pronouns [much less binary ones/ones that state gender] and mostly gender-neutral)

Thank you for sharing!

#snk #aot #levihan #anonymous

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ughgclden · 3 years

Note

bee, love, don’t apologise, please, it’s okay, and first and foremost, are you alright?? i hope you’re taking care of yourself, love, but i understand, i don’t think there’s been a year since third grade that i haven’t gotten pneumonia in the winter. I hope you’re feeling alright!!

honestly, dead poets society is one of my only personality traits anymore, i find myself drawing parallels to it constantly, for no reason but i love thinking about it. i’ve watched it so many times at this point, it’s,,, concerning. those tests always take me way less time than they give me, and i used to feel really awkward, i remember i took a bio one once, four hours they gave me, 45 minutes in, i was finished, and the moderator didn’t believe me. i aced it too, like the silly little neil kinnie i am. i’ve gotten used to the ‘worse’ side of being a neil kinnie, and honestly, now that my mum isn’t as controlling about everything as she used to be, it’s easier to deal with. i remember once, i’d gotten an 89 in algebra, and she threatened to pull me out of the fall show. that was a neil perry moment if i ever had one lol. the biggest thing these days is just imposter syndrome, imposter syndrome like oh you’re not hispanic enough, but also, you’re not queer enough, nonbinary enough, things like that. It’s exacerbated some days, but i try.

i watched the it movies on my cousin’s hbo,,, i may or may not have used it without her permission since she forgot to log out of my computer, but that’s neither here nor there. i remember having such a hard time taking the first one seriously initially, because of all the new kids on the block jokes, having a mum who was obsessed with them made it hard, especially when i actually got them all- in truth, the only midnight premiere i’ve been able to make was the force awakens, and i had school the next day too. i’m definitely a richie kinnie, and i have the internalised homophobia (only towards myself though) to prove it /hj my waterbottle has both a sticker of neil on it and a sticker of the r + e carving on it. in case there was any doubt about me lmao. stan kin makes sense for you, honestly, i can see it, i can see it.

okay so listen- no really, i’d bought them with the intention of only drinking half of one that night and spreading them out like that, but then came 9:45pm, and i had a research paper (on womens’ pockets/lack thereof) due at 10am that i simply hadn’t even started, so i downed them all in an hour and got the paper turned in at 5:56 in the morning. but i scare you huh? /hj bee, you’re too sweet, in truth, i’m fairly inelegant, but i try, as for the comforting and cosy, i’ll take you at your word, since that is something only someone interacting with me could discern. i do try to be kind to others for the most part. mainly i think because i’m usually on the other end of mean people.

i’m just perceptive like that bee, i dunno what to tell you, something just tells me, you know? /j and thank you, i always feel a little silly talking about it, because most of the tattoos i want are dead poets society tattoos, i guess some part of me, within the part of me that feels so incredibly tied to it, feels as if if i were able to get a tattoo i’d owe it to the movie in some way, if that makes any sense. i’ve already begged a friend of mine to go with me to get my first once i get to new york, the question though, is what to get first. i’ve got time to make a decision (for once in my life) i just spend a lot of time thinking about it.

honestly, i have never known a school rule to make sense. banning ripped jeans? banning dyed hair? it’s almost as if if they don’t stifle everything natural about kids expressing themselves they dont feel like they’re doing anything. but i digress. the same-sex couple rules were. awful. 12 year old me had enough going on without having an administrator yell at my friend and i for hugging in the courtyard and not leaving until we were a foot apart, but hey.

okay, jumping over a fence to go to a mcdonalds? how coming of age indie movie manic pixie dream girl of you /hj

200k words, is that a challenge? also ahaha not at all like my italian uncle up there just opened a ‘pizzeria’ /hj but mob!star au? might be a project i should start… granted, i’m not as good a storyteller as you, but i can try.

when i was little, i wanted to revolutionise things, i guess. i even actually wrote out a campaign, i wonder if its still somewhere. thank you for believing in me, but these days, bee, i’m thinking less about changing the world, and more about making it the next few weeks, and then the ones after that. little star was aware of so much, but also so little. i wonder what they’d think of me now, honestly.

i did, in fact, teach archery, it was so fun but my arms got SO SORE, and the kid who challenged my archery skills seemed surprised when i actually,, hit the bullseyes. my inner susan was happy then. incidentally the experience is also why i made a playlist called “touchstarved and wanting to teach you to shoot a bow” which low-key slaps when i’m lonely. and bee omg i cannot believe you said im better than susan pevensie i will be thinking about this for the rest of my life thank you- and yes, yes it was named aslan, however did you guess? /j prince caspian<33333

i’ll let you know my results from the tournament, as soon as they come out, and i say this having just put on pjs after taking off my suit, and sitting in the room with my cat in my dear evan hansen hoodie, frantically refreshing the results page because i’m anxious and impatient.

i hope you have a good night, with fitful and restful sleep, i’m sorry this got to be so long, but you know me, i certainly can talk. i’m honestly shocked i even made it to finals, considering i was running off four hours of sleep, having gone to bed at three last night. whoops.

all my love, hugs, and a warm mug of tea,

yours,

star✨

p.s i said yes so that?? happened?? it honestly feels surreal but we’re not gonna be in the same place anymore come the end of this year, so that’ll be something to deal with

P.p.s might just start adding spanish or latin or russian phrases to these if i keep having to translate your cute french bee /lh /hj

star my love, i know you said don't apologise, but i think the word 'sorry' makes up about 60% of my vocabulary. i'm okay!! was just a bit icky, but luckily i've recovered now!!

that's so nice - and again, makes so much sense for you. i think you would work perfectly in welton, i know it. i love bringing the messages from that film into my own life, as silly as it may sound. i'm astonished, and so fucking jealous of you. i used to finish tests maybe half an hour early, but hours is so impressive??? fun fact i did finish my physics final in about 45 minutes and slept for the other hour <3 neil would b proud my love!!! oh my god - i'm so sorry that happened??? but that is also so neil kinnie??? it seems futile me saying this, but i assure you that you are hispanic enough, and queer enough, and non-binary enough. you are enough, period. more than enough even. imposter syndrome is the worst, and i'm so so sorry you're dealing with it.

she did that to herself, you just saw an opportunity /lh a midnight premiere of the force awakens sounds so cute though omg - i hope you had the absolute best time. the r + e carving actually broke me. as a die hard reddie shipper since 2017, seeing the movie make it basically canon?! had me a mess in the cinema.

you are ridiculously comforting and cosy, everything about you feels like a warm hug from a familiar face and i love it. and the way you write is so smooth, it makes me think of a quill smoothly gliding across parchment, the deep black ink unsmudged and pristine. that seems a little pretentious of me, but oh well.

i also want some dps tattoos!! i desperately want "and still we sleep" from todd's poem, and was also so so tempted to get an outline drawing of meeks + pitts dancing on the roof. i love that, and i can't wait until the day you get it, whichever one it may be. my one concern is becoming addicted to them and making my bank account suffer - at least my piercing obsession is a little easier to fund /hj

i've NEVER gotten that - they claim it's 'distracting' but how on earth would it be?? when i got to college, no one was distracted by my dyed hair, and i certainly wasn't distracted by other people's outfits or painted nails. you were yelled at. for hugging. a friend.. what the fuck is wrong with these people??

just call me ramona flowers star /j it was possibly the highlight of my school career, sans hiding in the back room of the music room to avoid a maths test

i bet you're an amazing storyteller, if these letters are anything to go by. it would be a new york times best seller, i know it

we all have to take things one step at a time, i think. that's the only way i really get through things if i'm honest. one day after another and the cycle repeats. i love wondering what young me would think of me now - i'd probably be intimidated of myself, but i like to think i'd be proud that i'm still here, pursuing something i love

that playlist. sounds nothing short of sheer perfection. i too am touch starved and want to teach someone to shoot a bow - even though i.. cannot shoot a bow... but i can wield a sword so, it's close enough.

i saw your message about the tournament results - im so fucking proud of you!!!! you deserve it so so much and i couldn't be happier for you. see, your words and ideas are changing the world, even if you don't realise it.

ps; that is so fun???? omg im so happy for you star, you deserve tis <33 i hope towards the end of this year whatever happens leaves you both happy, no matter how far the distance.

pps; omg no.. please don't do that.. aha that would be awful... definitely wouldn't make my heart race.. haha not at all

all of my love, star. pardon the pun, but you are out of this world ;) i'll leave you with one of my favourite quotes;

il n'y a qu'un bonheur dans la vie, c'est d'aimer et d'être aimé <3

#asks <3 #anon asks!#star anon #long post

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plounce · 4 years

Text

my Concepts for aj2

so these are my thoughts and ideas about the game that would follow aa4 in a timeline where we got a coherent apollo trilogy rather than aa5 and aa6. as such, i am discarding aa5 and aa6′s apollo backstories because i find them incoherent as an arc and only slapped onto him for the plots of the games. etc etc. theorizing on squandered potential is me-bait. trucy and klavier get to have THEIR place in the narrative as important characters!! (sorry athena. you will get your own trilogy with good writing and a better design in this timeline too)

this is very stream of consciousness and while i think it’s fairly coherent it is also not chronologically organized as i build on ideas. i am genuinely sorry if the read more doesn’t work on mobile because this thing is stupid long.

containing:

apollo, trucy, and klavier being a firm Trio and getting character development and growing closer :)

themes about found family, letting yourself love/be loved, performance and persona, love giving you strength to do good, you being the one to determine your identity

exploration of the trio’s backstories and the development of their skills

prosecutor franziska chipping away at the corruption within the legal system

klavier being the assistant for a case

kristoph continuing to be a corrupt bastard

buildup to the sibling reveal & canon klapollo in the conclusion of the trilogy

- apollo is the main character

- phoenix is absent for like the entire game besides maybe a couple tiny flashbacks, later revealed to be working with edgeworth on anti-corruption stuff (which is also tied to kristoph & kristoph’s ties within the legal system, “old boys club” etc)

- trucy is assistant for first half of the game

- klavier is assistant for second half of the game. his hair is in a little bun or ponytail :) no drill hair for THIS individual person

- klavier is prosecutor for trucy assistant cases. in the 3rd case klavier was supposed to prosecute against apollo but things keep getting fishier and fishier and things keep reminding them of kristoph. klavier is ordered off the case from on high. mysterious replacement. klavier is too invested in seeing truth & justice come to light so he helps apollo

- franziska prosecutes cases 3 & 4. she has short hair and it’s super sexy and hot.

- kristoph set things up so that klavier is implicated in things. dig into how klavier and apollo feel unable to escape kristoph’s influence - “he’s too foundational”

- 4th case klavier is on trial. oh maybe 3 isn’t about kristoph but it’s just background stuff about the rampup to the 4th case - klavier is put on probation while things are investigated but he doesn’t know WHY, but he’s still committed to his ideals

- trucy is pursuing her magic career, klavier still loves music - has been releasing solo stuff maybe, just some EPs for free/charity, but isn’t touring. focusing on law

- case 4 has a family friend (NOT A WOMAN FOR THE LOVE OF GOD... A MALE DAMSEL PLEASE) get accidentally poisoned through something klavier gave them. that’s the trial itself. kristoph was the source. klavier is arrested. it’s more complicated that this but it gets to this point. day 2 of the trial is when klavier is implicated and he gets yanked into cuffs from the defense bench

- one of case 4′s pillars is a memory from the gavin brothers’ childhood. discuss how kristoph was as a child. klavier has been realizing how... odd certain things were, and trying to pass it off as like “haha yeah kristoph would dissect dead birds and convince our parents that every mess was my fault. i guess that makes sense considering how he ended up haha? I Don’t Feel Strongly About This I Just Think It’s Funny :)”

- apollo’s perceive abilities expanding to be able to perceive general emotional states as well - along with learning to practice more empathy, being considerate. No Klavier And Trucy, You Are Not Fine. this is kind of like athena’s thing actually huh

- trucy, meanwhile, is learning to be more like. emotionally... independent? no. emotionally... self-caring. both independent in that she’s a young adult and also caring in that she is trying not to force herself to take care of everyone all the time and show her less pretty emotions to apollo. take care of herself

- case 1 has to do with something happening at trucy’s show/her career/her school etc. she’s still a real person etc. trucy’s friends mostly being adults, her feeling isolated at school. nah wait this is a slightly absurd world she’s not overly weird for her classmates necessarily. yeah ok it’s about magic

- case 2 has to do with klavier being a rockstar, the pressure of celebrity and public fascination with his persona. stalker fans, music industry, talk shows, etc. someone trying to convince him to come back to music. klavier has to arrest someone he’s fond of again. no big stadium performance in this game

- the trio all dealing with themes of hiding and trying not to feel “bad” emotions: apollo going “im fine” and suppressing his problems & just trying to do his job so he can cope with how overwhelmed & stressed he feels constantly etc etc + trucy hiding the secrets of her magic which is sort of representative of her hiding a lot of her sad/”ugly” feelings because she thinks she needs to because she thinks phoenix depends on her being cheerful all the time + klavier dealing with having a public persona and the pressures of being Himself, trying to be the person others see him as/want him to be, who is klavier when he is not performing? who are all of them when they are not performing? who are they performing for?

- yes i am a “woman” yes i am obsessed with the idea of performance

- trio all dealing with/feeling lonely wrt family: apollo learning more about jove (possibly during the music industry case - someone knew his dad, who refused a big contract), who he was & one of the cases involving someone from his past in the foster system - maybe it’s even clay! - but in general feeling very disconnected from “family” in general esp compared to trucy&klavier’s family troubles being so immediate and raw for them + trucy feeling lonely and kind of abandoned as phoenix is increasingly gone in this game and seeming very distant from her, similar to how zak abandoned her, and also the pains of growing up + klavier’s parents either are dead or are somewhat estranged after he got kristoph imprisoned, klavier feeling very lonely in general after his pursuit of truth&justice has snipped many of his connections from him

- yes i am gay yes i am obsessed with found family

- franziska having a moment of “i get how it is and it sucks” with klavier about Complicated Feelings About Family

- she eventually does realize during case 4 that klavier is guilty but has to hide it in order to push one of kristoph’s allies out into the open. sorry kid uh... what do you like. i will buy you. an ice cream? or something. look do you want a gift card i’ll buy you a gift card

- kristoph’s lawyer shows up near the start of the game to give things to apollo which he is deeply suspicious of but ema tests them and they come up clean. guy shows up here and there throughout the game. maybe tries to bribe apollo or something. apollo gets invited to a Fancy Lunch because he’s the one that bested kristoph gavin and that shows Promise. in a sense. or something. apollo being manipulated by people who refused to hire him when he got kristoph convicted etc

- themes about being young in a world full of secrets and webs of alliance that you feel barred from because you have ideals and won’t compromise them and also either come from nothing or burned all your bridges. just aa protag things <3

- oh maybe there’s a new judge who is also In On Nefarious Plots

- catching these people doesn’t fix everything but - it’s something. they got a couple shitheads

- trucy continues developing her gramarye abilities. more emotional depth. more exploration on complex feelings wrt phoenix and her childhood and her adolescence and how she’s fairly well-adjusted as one can be but also... the shit still hits yk... she’s like 16 years old so she’s maturing

- ema is there. she and apollo get along a bit better. asks after phoenix. provides evidence against klavier, and then evidence for.

- followup on apollo-edgeworth klavier-phoenix parallels - who is the one bringing them further into the light, chaser/chased, the one who wants more/the one who pushes away, etc etc

- follow through on implied gramarye mafia connections

- klavier isn’t super in the first case besides the courtroom and maybe one appearance, but he is like. worried about trucy if there is cause to be worried about her. set up their dynamic beyond trucy just liking the gavinners

- trucy&apollo and klavier&kristoph compares&contrast

- franziska is(/appears to be) very doubting/dismissive of apollo’s belief in klavier bc it’s like... are you pursuing the truth? or trying to shield your friend?

- apollo does end up almost very close believing klavier was in kahoots with kristoph/kristoph’s friends because it just looks. really bad. like it genuinely looks VERY BAD. and he’s like “i have to find truth like prosecutor von karma said”. yknow how with a lot of aa cases it starts out “oh no it looks open and shut” and then is like “NO WAY THEY COULD HAVE DONE IT... BUT HUH”. this one is reverse. and then straightens back out again. dig the hole then climb back out

- yeah the theme is like. “are you trying to find truth or do you want to protect your loved ones. what is your duty as a person, your job or your loved ones.” this carries through on klavier’s thread from aa4 where he has to work against his loved ones. meanwhile apollo, who is a bit more cool-tempered irritable grump, is the one going “oh god, am i biased towards my friends?” so it sort of flips. what kind of stories will you weave to clear your friends of blame? kristoph’s boys club.

- echo back to “evidence is everything” - this line of thinking (in a certain way) is what saves klavier when kristoph is trying to punish him for his betrayal

- since phoenix is away, the gramarye siblings aren’t revealed yet. but more info is dropped to compensate - stuff about jove and apollo’s childhood in the foster system and how that’s shaped him into someone who keeps people at arm’s length to keep himself safe; trucy and apollo getting closer despite that, trucy busting down those barriers because she needs his support and he’s like “oh my god i have to support her.” older sibling stuff.

- maybe the trucy case involves like. a mafia guy trying to collect on debts or smth and tries to ruin trucy, and threatens apollo. there’s a hint that is very obvious to the audience but is like “wow apollo he thought you were my brother!” like the mafia guy calls apollo “the other child” and apollo is like “hey, i’m 24!” which is humorous but also the audience is like Oh My God I Know What That Means

- there isn’t a deliberate withholding of information from phoenix - he literally is not there to withhold it. but there is still tension and stakes and weight to their relation - apollo keenly feeling his absence of family and trucy feeling sort of abandoned by phoenix

- phoenix is like “ok trucy you’re almost an adult so i’m trusting you to stay safe and responsible while i’m away. apollo will technically be in charge but i’m still trusting you” and privately to apollo is like “If Anything Bad Happens To Her. Your Head Is On The Line.” so it is just them making it on their own

- klavier drops the line “watching you two is like what kristoph and i should have had” and then there’s a couple “...” dialogue boxes as the audience is like I KNOW WHAT HE MEANS and then apollo is like “... are you for real comparing me to kristoph.” haha funny but also THERE IT IS

- very carefully walked tightrope. acknowledged enough that there is still tension/suspense around it but not too much as to be slightly infuriating

- before the last case trucy gets mad at apollo for something - trucy is allowed by the narrative to be angry for real. stand up for herself. trucy and apollo come back together to defend klavier. they see each other in the detention center when theyre still mad at each other - trucy was visiting klavier (he wasn’t there for the fight). “you made fraulein trucy very mad, hm?” then during the trial trucy busts in dramatically with important help when things look very bad for klavier

- aj3 has emotional revelations/high points of the trio - siblings reveal and klapollo canon. aj2 is a lot of building of these connections and building suspense and tension. more more more of these relationships before they emerge fully formed in aj3

- the last trial echoes the “im the only one who can save prosecutor gavin” or whatever gay thing apollo says in the last trial of aa4 because he literally is. just a lot of hinting and them getting along. case 3 is very important because that’s when it’s just them and it’s “oh! we work well together! we’re complementary!”

- implement the dual investigation mechanic from dgs so it does feel collaborative

- just build on the fact that klavier is the first friendly, helpful, cooperative prosecutor. he wants to help you. make that a very positive, very important feeling while still making it extremely enjoyable

- resolves in “you can have truth AND the ones you love”. or smth like that but more nuanced. it’s very inspirational and sentimental etc

- you get to meet vongole and it’s a Pet The Dog moment for klavier. look! how nice he is. he truly loves this insanely sweet and lovable dog. trucy is enamored with vongole as well. “it’s strange that she was kristoph’s dog, hm? with how affectionate she is.” “well, i guess being owned by kristoph doesn’t means she’s an equally bad dog ... ER i mean--” “hm, you always struck me as a cat person, herr forehead?” “uh - well yeah, you’re right. but... that doesn’t mean i don’t think vongole is a pretty great dog.” IMPLICATIONS. SUBTEXT. TASTE IT IN THE AIR

- oh there’s definitely a moment in case 2 when you get to examine klavier’s apartment and you can look at a couple albums and for a gavinners album apollo is like “ugh” but then you get one of his solo eps and apollo is like “trucy made me listen to this. it... was okay. not as bad as the gavinners stuff. sounds more honest. or something like that.”

- oh also when you examine the guitar klavier offers to teach apollo some basics. hee hee (BUT ALSO... JOVE!!)

- maybe for case 2 The Industry Suits want klavier to stop releasing his eps for free/total charity so it’s a whole coordinated scheme. his manager, a devoted fan who hates to see him going his own way and being happier for it, etc. “we want you to be the person you were. the one we could possess.” be more like gavinners klavier instead of honest relaxed current klavier. be who we want you to be so we can make you dance like a puppet. music industry kristoph parallels.

- “i’m sick and tired of being a plaything for other people!” >:( face moments

- a fan broke into his house and defaced the solo stuff etc. >:( face.

- who determines who “you” are? what role do your loved ones have in your life? those who truly love you can save you and make you better. loving and being loved sincerely and genuinely and truly have positive effects on your life. letting people love you and letting yourself love them is good.

- ugh but this kind of contrasts with the “the old boys club is controlling and using/shaping the institution of law to amass wealth and power for themselves while throwing others under the bus.” well actually wait

- lunch with apollo = they don’t actually care about each other, would throw each other under the bus for their own benefit

- contrast between sacrificing the weak to protect the strong and protecting the weak to depower the evil strong

- love and bonds can motivate/enable you to chip away at the system and can help you make a difference. les mis etc etc etc

- the old boys club are all putting up fronts of appearing strong and tough and above everything and in control. real love and friendship let you show vulnerability and weakness and help you & your bond come out stronger for it. (tumblr voice) the mortifying ordeal

- additional stakes of “if you are found aiding this criminal and hiding evidence etc etc we will disbar you” or smth. stakes for sticking with klavier, for winning the trial, for demonstrating care. franziska is kind of like “... apologies. but you had nothing to worry about so don’t worry about it.”

- klavier and apollo damned by association with kristoph, especially as a kristoph scheme was just found to happen, and it depended on kristoph being in jail, so maybe they were the ones to enable that part of the plan... it’s a long con...

- it feels like there should be another legal reform here to make aa4′s jury implementation but maybe this one is more about how reform is often very gradual and like chipping away at a mountain

- in aj3 the death penalty gets reformed. (tension there about kristoph being on death row and this game piles on a lot more GOD KRISTOPH SUCKS but then it’s like. no. we have to fight for True Justice and the legal system is extremely imperfect (how many of our clients narrowly avoided a wrongful guilty verdict!) so we have to prioritize protection over punishment)

- “it’s like chopping heads off the hydra. it feels like we’ll never actually change anything.” “yes, but hercules didn’t defeat it by himself. he had a partner that burned the stumps after he sliced off the heads. ... one person to hold the sword, one person to hold the torch.” NARUMITSU KLAPOLLO PARALLELS. HI

- okay i had some really good discussions on twitter w @henriettamarias about this and here’s a couple more things

- trucy’s case involves her inheriting the gramarye secrets and the legacy. the weight of tradition and the burden of what has happened in her family. trucy’s estranged grandmother shows up - it’s kind of similar to the feys kind of. the grandmother is a complex maternal figure who doesn’t know trucy and trucy doesn’t know her and it’s sort of the idea of... even if your “new” family is related by blood, you still have to choose them. and trucy’s like !!! because she’s openhearted but the grandmother disappears - doesn’t choose trucy. it’s not a Villainous Action it’s just... it’s complicated. maybe it’s to protect trucy or something. it wasn’t done to hurt trucy is what i’m getting at, but it still hurts

- one of the music industry people in klavier’s case is a gavin uncle/aunt/cousin who is pressuring him to go back to being an Extremely Profitable Rockstar. and klavier has to deal with more disappointment from a family that values extreme success and is sort of cold (this contrasts with the warmth of the WAA found family). they liked klavier when he was very successful and famous on two fronts but now he’s opened the door and invited in shame on their family’s name so everyone’s kind of mad at him. trucy and apollo get to be really defensive of him

- apollo’s case is one i’m still thinking on what it’ll be about because i’m deeply uninterested in his aa5+aa6 backstories but there’s not A Concept to go deeper into like trucy magic and klavier music... it does involve his past from being the foster system. i think maybe there’s a teen who he was kind of the older brother of for a while before the kid got adopted who contacts him for help defending himself.

- while trucy and klavier’s stories are about rejection from their blood family, apollo’s is about warmth with a boy who he met and made a familial bond with

- at the end of this case there’s some piece of evidence that mentions kristoph and this is never resolved within that case but it sort of leads into the next kristoph-focused case

- trucy doesn’t get angry at apollo over being like jealous there’s something else that happens in this case... it doesn’t end super satisfyingly and tidily wrapped up in a neat bow. there are a lot of lingering questions and it makes everyone uneasy

- in case 3 apollo gets injured and is feeling really defensive and kind of scared and trucy is upset with him for putting himself in harm’s way to save her and they have a fight and they’re both kind of hiding their true feelings with anger to cover up how scared they were (gramarye secrets) and it just. boils over. klavier tries to mediate but it’s... a lot. they both say some things they don’t mean. :(

- oh my god. the person who got poisoned in case 4 was apollo’s foster brother from case 3. and it HURTS because we’ve spent a whole case getting to know him and working so hard to save him from a guilty verdict and it’s like :D yay he’s ok! and then he just. dies. and it’s so fucking sad

- he got poisoned because kristoph looked through papers and found that him and apollo were close so he’s like “oh i can use that ^_^” because he’s a bastard. but klavier was the one in constant contact with him recently so it’s like UH OH! UH OH! plus other aa level complications etc

- the tightrope of trucy being mad at apollo and the tragedy of apollo’s foster brother dying is one that will have to be very carefully walked bc we don’t want trucy to look like an asshole because above all she does love apollo

- i guess it’s also apollo pushing her away because I’M FINE. STOP TRYING TO MAKE ME CONFRONT MY TRAUMA. IF I THINK ABOUT MY PROBLEMS I WILL GO INSANE. yeah that works

- OH and also she’s mad at him for not telling them about the lunch with kristoph’s lawyer friends. klavier is kind of mad about that too so apollo is like STOP GANGING UP ON ME

- so the setup of case 4 is: day 1: apollo and klavier investigating, in court klavier is implicated and is put in detention, day 2: apollo investigating by himself and missing his friends :(, franziska being like “where is your sister” and apollo being like “ok first she’s not my sister. second IM FINE I CAN BE ALONE, I CAN’T TRUST ANYBODY ANYWAY” and franziska is like “... yeah being betrayed sucks, i get it, but like. are you sure about that. fine whatever you idiot be a fool”, but then in court trucy busts in at a dramatic moment and narrowly saves klavier from getting a guilty verdict, day 3: trucy and apollo investigating and Saving The Day!!!!!

- for franziska in case 4 there’s this tension between her belief that klavier is guilty (because shit looks BAD and also kristoph sort of sent shockwaves through things etc) and franziska being older (she has short hair and it’s hot) and more emotionally mature and being like “baby lawyer. it’s okay to chill. it’s fine. you’ll be okay”. but also being extremely wary and hating the corruption and collusion within the law community because MvF dealt with a lot of that and she will be BETTER than that, she has to work hard to erase the harm that her father did. she’s kind of a superhero in terms of tackling a lot of corrupt-lawyer/cop cases - it’s her specialty now. god she is hot

- aw in case 4 ema is like. kind of reluctant to help implicate klavier. because while she thinks he’s annoying she doesn’t think he’s a bad guy. she feels really conflicted :( like she blusters to cover it up but she does say to apollo at one point “hey... you better do your job right. don’t slack. defend your client.” awww she care him

- kristoph gets brought out from prison as a witness in case 4. this really negatively affects klavier (and apollo too kind of but less so), but the strength of Found Family helps him be strong :) yay

- there’s mention made of kristoph having Secrets, but since apollo doesn’t have a magatama and phoenix isn’t there, the black psyche-locks aren’t explored. it gets revealed in aj3

- apollo does have a conundrum similar to the aa5 stuff where his perceive ability is going haywire at klavier’s entire emotional state because BOY is it screwy (suppressed memories from childhood??) so he just has to rely on plain old logic

- (cw animal death) god what if one of those childhood memories is kristoph poisoning klavier’s pet - experimenting, doing trials. klavier realizes that during the trial. jesus christ. evil bastard kristoph i hate his guts. at least klavier gets to go home and pet vongole so so much

- OH on a happier note we get to meet mikeko... mikeko loves trucy and klavier so much. it’s like a big gooey hint that LOOK APOLLO LOVES THESE PEOPLE - HIS CAT IS PURRING AND CUDDLING ALL OVER THEM :) Express Your Feelings, Apollo

- i think for aj3 it’s apollo & co having their own schemes and plans sort of. bc in this setup, klavier and apollo (and trucy too) are being yanked around by the machinations and plots of the older generation like in aa4. i think in aj3 is when they finally get a leg up and have control over things for once. good for them! good for them

- oh also in aj3, it’s revealed that thalassa has been held hostage by some bad guys, which is why she didn’t come back after some time away to figure herself out to tell them. and then apollo and trucy get to know they’re siblings :)

- okay that’s it. maybe i’ll add more if i think of more. hope u enjoyed :~)

#ace attorney #apollo justice #aj2 #klapollo #trucy wright #klavier gavin #i had a lot of fun writing this post :)#chirps #aa #aa4

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jalytown · 4 years

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Okay so these days I literally have two braincells: one for pjo and one for mlb (with half sometimes for atla)

but then one day the two braincells collided and I haven’t stopped thinking about a percy jackson miraculous AU since HNGGG

I’m sure I’m not the first to have thought about this but I have a Need and this is 100% self indulgent I am so sorry

I’m still figuring out some parts about it but this is what I got so far:

Pretty expected and self explanatory but yeah Annabeth is Ladybug and Percy is Chat Noir

I guess they protect New York now tho??? But yeah i mean they go to the same school and all that of course

Just like in the show, Chat Noir loves Ladybug and Annabeth loves Percy but they are idiots and dance around each other

But also I swear at the very least Annabeth figures it out eventually because she has a little more braincells than the two idiots

Annabeth’s crush isn’t like Marinette’s though where she fumbles and is a Mess, it’s more like she’s extra mean to Percy for some reason and he doesn’t understand why

Yes I’m basically saying Tsundere Annabeth but it’s lowkey canon in the pjo books anyway so it’s absolutely perfect

Also Percy being as oblivious as Adrien is so correct I’m absolutely d e c e a s e d

Chat Noir is essentially the same, maybe a lot more sarcastic than flirty because it’s Percy but yeah he’s got it pretty bad for Ladybug but what’s new

You can’t tell me the Percabeth dynamic doesn’t have LadyNoir energy you CANT

As for civilian life I kinda mixed them up?

Annabeth has the overbearing family that have way too high expectations of her

Her dad is a well known historian and has to keep up a certain image in the academe so he expects flawless grades, proper behavior, etc.

Her stepmom is just downright nasty i guess???

But she gets the whole “designer” thing of Mari but this time yeah architect (wow im so big brain)

Percy has the whole loving warm family with Sally and (stepdad) Paul

They own a bookstore/cafe hybrid where his mom bakes the treats AND sells her books (wow sally really out here being legendary huh)

And to parallel Adrien he can be a beloved, famous athlete (aka swimmer because duh) I guess??? I mean 5 million people already have crushes on him in the books so really what’s the difference HAHA

As for the besties Grover is definitely Percy’s “Nino” i mean cMO N and idk but I’m feeling Piper as Alya

It’s also totally not because Grover would be fantastic as Carapace (because PROTECTOR) and Piper is a perfect Rena Rouge WHAT DO U MEAN SHHH

Ooooo and as for the drama and a n g s t?

Annabeth has run away a couple of times and it was then she met Luke and Thalia who kept her safe and helped her eventually go back home each time

But then one day something happens with Thalia (surprise surprise)

Annabeth and Luke are heartbroken of course but something inside of Luke just snaps

...i think y’all already know where I’m going with this HAHAHA

So yeah Luke becomes Hawkmoth and all that and honestly him manipulating literal children is already canon anyway SO

I’m super obsessed with this okay i might actually even write smth MAYBE IDK

And since there are a lot of Miraculous and all that it’s kinda perfect for the Seven and Nico and Reyna but I have to sort them all out first so uh YEAH

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pennylogue · 4 years

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thoughts on some details in prickly pear. mostly steven’s arc, because that’s where we all are with this show right now, don’t deny:

-remember when people (including me) thought that steven gardening would be a healthy effort to reconnect with his humanity, only for it to be crashed by his cactus?

steven: “me time? i’m hardly alone! look at all of these plants that i’ve sublimated my unceasing need to care for other people into! isn’t it great how they, unlike sapient beings, won’t leave me?”

-like i’ve seen so many parallels drawn between his behavior and white diamond’s behavior in this episode, it would take forever to list them all. but needless to say, it’s extremely unnerving. he wants a perfect, stagnant little world where he’s in control of everything and that is not by any means okay.

but like, i’m so here for it. they are breaking steven down thoroughly and from six different directions, and it’s absolutely fantastic. hey, we got this with like...every other significant character. that’s why they’re such good characters. and it plays into steven’s identity issues, which is just...delicious. this is such a toxic whirlpool, and it’s really getting to him.

-and another gem appearance goes by with me screaming at the gems as they exit to stage an intervention, to please don’t go, stay back and force him to accept the help he thinks he doesn’t want and doesn’t know how to ask for.

-steven is bothered by how the gems aren’t “impressed”. not only is this a massive misread of what’s going on, it’s kind of an interesting insight into steven. dude hasn’t felt like he had to impress the gems in literally seasons...probably because he was doing something important at the time, and felt like he was a part of the crystal gems. that he had a purpose. it all circles back, huh?

-and he wants approval, so of course he goes to the gems, and they give it to him. and it’s fucking cute, if a little worrying that he’s still so heavily depending on magical qualities to get approval from the gems.

-steven needs a fucking therapist. dude says how great the beach is because it never changes (which is also just...not true, beaches change constantly because that’s how nature works, HUH) and then starts venting to a sapient cactus. honey.

-steven, paraphrased: “who am i to decide what’s best for everyone? everyone’s better off learning from the rest of the crystal gems. i used to be helpful, but nobody needs me anymore. Hhhh, why, do I need to be needed!? Steven, pull it together!”

ho boy we got some shit to unpack there. @fanfoolishness has compared steven to a shark that needs to keep swimming or it’ll drown, so here we have the shark being told to stop swimming. as far as steven’s subconscious is concerned, despite him factually knowing he’s gotta chill, he can’t stop swimming. he’s gotta keep it together so he’ll be available when, not if, people need help. and if they won’t ask for help, he’ll project his own issues into them. he can’t stop. he knows that, he’s so sure of it.

if he does--he’ll drown.

-”hhh, i’m so sorry to dump this on you.” leave it to steven to apologize for venting to a cactus.

-”and he said my name.” god pearl i love you so much.

-steven’s thoughts manifesting as something that hurts to touch. HMMMM...

-steven has such skewed perceptions of how his moms are gonna react, it’s actually painful. pearl wouldn’t fall apart on him, because she’s grown past that. amethyst and garnet would want to help him, not give him haughty advice--and if he made it clear that’s how it was coming off, they would try to change their behavior. but steven can’t criticize them. he locks all his negative thoughts about others away and lets them eat at him. combine that with him being needed to therapist people to help them = they can’t grow without them, combine that with amethyst being so obviously happy and satisfied and mature to the point where she’s trying to help him when he used to help her...

ho boy.

-i’ve seen people draw parallels to pink’s behavior when he boxes off the cactus for trying to spill his secrets. tbh, this is how i see pink. flailing and following through on misguided instincts. it sucks to see steven going down this road...in that case, it’s good that he can notice how messed up they are and take a second look at them before it’s too late. boy’s messed up, but he’s not as messed up as rose quartz. HOORAY.

*pathetic little burst of confetti*

-”why’d you stay all this stuff? why’d?

“oh you know why’d.”

it’s that kind of thing where you can admit your feelings to yourself...but you can’t look at them too closely, right? they’re too ugly. but he knows they’re there.

-and of course he doesn’t want help from amethyst. not when it comes with the possibility of pity. and he does not want pity, remember? he’s not pitiful! there’s nothing wrong with him!

-the gem’s being worried about steven...like, you gotta understand, his first priority is for the gems to not be worried about anything. so if they’re worried about him, that’s him screwing up as bad as he could screw up.

-steven springs from worry over cactus steven to anger in the time it takes for cactus steven to say “what’s wrong with you!” HONEY.

-“i wish you wouldn’t talk!” yeah it really sucks when your toxic feelings can’t be easily suppressed and shut down, despite the fact that boxing up feelings causes them to become warped and twisted and it’s only when you let them out into the open they can grow and blossom properly and then leave you.

oh wait.

-so steven maybe thought he had diamond mode on lockdown. or more likely, he’s just too angry to care. like, when you’re angry, you don’t care about lashing out. you don’t care about the terrible things you’re saying...until you’re not angry anymore. and then you care. if you’re steven, you care too much.

wonder if diamond mode was what gave cactus steven that extra jolt to grow so much?

-the slow, careful way steven sets cactus steven down as soon as pearl calls him is. just. so worrying.

-IT LITERALLY BREAKS OUT BECAUSE IT CAN’T STAY LOCKED UP ANYMORE, IT’S TOO BIG AND ANGRY.

-steven slicing up cactus steven with that shield is...probably one of the most violent uses we’ve seen of his shield.

-”why don’t you come back in, oh, let’s say, a couple of hours, for ne reason whatsoever?” su has no patience for sitcom rules XD

-amethyst, at cactus steven: “cool.” they aren’t going to attack his thoughts on sight, even if they seem strange. it’s only when cactus lashes out that they’re going to fight it.

-sweet, sweet catharsis. look how surprised the gems are when cactus repeats all the things steven has said. feels good to have some of this steam let out of the boiling teakettle that it steven universe right now.

-on one hand, steven has to embrace his dark thoughts and let himself get feel the pain of them so they can finally make peace with him, turn into something better, and leave.

on a less metaphorical perspective, though, this does feel a lot like old su in a worrying way. steven has to help someone else be okay, even if it means he takes collateral damage. sure, this time the negative feelings were on him, but to me, it feels like it’s not going to shake steven out of caretaker mode in the way that he obviously needs to.

like, he learned to be less aggressive towards people who don’t deserve it, but i don’t feel like he’s learned to...you know...not repress everything so that doesn’t happen. what, is he just going to try to contain his emotions even harder?

-like, you could take that closing line two ways. “I think i’ve said enough.” one way, he could be looking at all of this collateral damage and decided he’s gonna zip up even more. but also, i’ve seen @faelapis say that steven thinks enough of his inner thoughts have been put out into the world that there’s no going back, and this is him acknowledging it.

it could be either. it could be both. who the hell knows.

-god but seriously that depressed way he says “i think i’ve said enough.” a hand to zach calliston, who’s voice acting this season has been ludicrously good.

-but wow, this episode went heavy into steven. i feel like even after all this, i’ve not really managed to sum up the turmoil that’s rolling around inside of him. identity issues, self-loathing, controlling behavior, misplaced aggression and violence, inability to process change, not wanting to inconvenience those he cares about with his problems, it’s a wonderfully balanced cocktail where each issue brings out the worst in the other issues.

he’s getting dragged downwards by it, and he needs an intervention. cause there’s no digging himself out of this on his own.

-like the entirety of steven universe, yeah, he was getting traumatized. season 4 and season 5 were especially brutal. we all knew it. we all joked about.

i just didn’t, you know, expect them to address it in canon.

#su #su future #su spoilers #su meta #steven unvierse #steven universe future #character analysis #character reference #*wraps myself in a soothing blanket of steven angst*#yum

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dippedanddripped · 3 years

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Debbie Harry doesn’t believe in harbouring regrets. “I have made many, many errors, but nobody leads a perfect life,” she reflects down the telephone from New York. “So, should I regret anything? No. It is a waste of time. It really is a waste of time.”

Dial back to the turn of the 70s and the life that Harry led before fronting Blondie – prior to her image being burned onto the retina of popular culture – was colourful to say the least. “I was so desperate to live life,” she says of her time spent hanging with the outcasts and artists of downtown New York. “I was jamming in as much experience as I possibly could and I don’t know if I could have done anything differently. I learned a lot.”

The old Bowery music venue CBGBs has long passed into music folklore as the place that called the likes of Television, Patti Smith, and the Ramones their house bands. It was also where punk and new wave progenitors Blondie cut their teeth before they sashayed into the wider world with the protean panache that would make them a household name. Classic singles such as “Heart of Glass”, “Call Me”, “Atomic”, and “Rapture” have been responsible for more worldwide rug-cutting than an industrial carpet tool. To imply that they were merely a solid singles band is to do them a cardinal disservice, however.

And although they’ve always cocked their attention to the things ahead of them, Harry and her Blondie cohorts have spent a lot of time looking back just lately. Harry’s long-awaited autobiography, Face It, hit the shelves last year, and Blondie co-founder and one-time partner Chris Stein published Point of View: Me, New York City, and the Punk Scene, a photography book featuring personal snaps taken during the band’s pomp in the 70s and early 80s. “We can’t keep on touring and doing club dates the way that we used to. It would be physically impossible,” Harry concedes. “Living through this pandemic has certainly made us take a long look at the value of what we’ve got with our body of work.” Asked if it is a process of attempting to frame their legacy, she admits it’s something that they “have to do”.

This deep-dive into their canon has culminated in a mouth-watering archive set, Blondie: Against the Odds 1974-1982, slated for release next year. Coming in four formats, it promises to include extensive liner notes, “track by track” commentary by the entire band, a photographic history plus rare and unreleased bonus material. The group will also go out on the road – coronavirus permitting – for an autumn Against the Odds UK tour with Garbage.

The artist born Angela Trimble was put up for adoption only a few months after she was ushered into the world in the summer of 1945. A loving New Jersey couple took her in, rechristened her Deborah Harry, and raised her as their own. She grew up in a suburb that she “never left”, was voted best-looking girl in her high school yearbook, and oscillated within a social circle that consisted of “many of the same people” throughout her childhood. “I was somehow shy within that,” she recalls, “(but) somebody once said to me that being shy was an ego trip and a light went on in my head. I thought, ‘Oh, uh-huh, let’s have none of that!’”

Harry travelled by bus as a curious teen to nearby Greenwich Village, imbibing the febrile inner-city atmosphere. In 1965, she graduated from junior college with an associate of arts degree and New York’s allure became too enticing to resist. She decamped to the bright lights of the city and made ends meet with a succession of odd jobs, including secretarial work for the BBC, waiting tables and an infamous nine-month stint as a Playboy Bunny.

The period was a traumatic one, too, with Harry enduring an ex-lover-turned-violent-stalker and a near-miss with serial killer Ted Bundy (although Bundy’s identity is contested by others). In her memoir, she writes candidly of the time she was raped by a man wielding a knife while on her way home from a concert with Stein. Music offered a vessel for her creativity, and she spent time as part of girl group The Stilettoes and folk ensemble Wind in the Willows before her meeting with guitarist Stein which set the foundations for Blondie. Their classic lineup was completed by Gary Valentine (bass), Jimmy Destri (keys), and Clem Burke (drums).

“Somebody once said to me that being shy was an ego trip and a light went on in my head. I thought, ‘Oh, uh-huh, let’s have none of that’” – Debbie Harry

Although they self-identified as punks, the parochial and nihilistic mandate as promulgated by the genre’s militant diehards never fit Blondie comfortably. The group looked outwards from the moment they started, drawing inspiration from their cosmopolitan city. Their sound was a melting pot pulling at the seams of culture’s fabric, and they would weave their own patterns from it.

Harry agrees that their eclecticism was down to good fortune in coming from the “metropolitan area of New York” where they ingested “a lot of musical influences”. Taken as a whole, their catalogue bears this out. Blondie never stood still musically – yet never sounded like anyone else – and they loaded their songs with more hooks than a fisherman’s trawler. 1976’s punchy, eponymous debut married surf-rock textures with 50s girl-group sensibilities, and their palette had expanded exponentially by the time of seminal third album, Parallel Lines (1978). Eat to the Beat and Autoamerican followed, by which point they could boast flirtations with disco, rocksteady, funk, hip hop, and more within their enviable output.

When asked to pick one track that encapsulates the essence of Blondie, Harry opts for their 1981 US number one single “Rapture”. “What happens in ‘Rapture’ is very comprehensive,” she says. “It took a form of music that was, or still is, very modern and can be very political. Rap and hip-hop songs back then didn’t have their own songs. Rappers would just rap on somebody else’s music. (‘Rapture’) was crafted specifically for that rap. Until then that hadn’t been done. It was a breath of fresh air.” It stands as one of the things in her career that she feels “very good about”.

Blessed with the sort of features that could sell sand to the Saharans, Harry’s appearance caused a stir from the band’s earliest days. “That’s part of showbiz,” she says to me, trying to downplay it. “We always had an eye for that, the entire band. We always had an idea of making a look that represented our sensibilities and links to British pop and mod.” Maybe so, but it was Harry alone who was immortalised by Andy Warhol in one of his iconic silkscreen prints, and who posed for era-defining photographers including Robert Mapplethorpe and Anne Leibowitz.

Did the disproportionate attention she attracted ruffle feathers within the Blondie camp at the time? “Yes and no,” Harry remembers. “We were all happy that it was working. I suppose there was a certain amount of competition or jealousy but ultimately, no. I think that’s a better question for Clem or one of the other members in the band. Of course my relationship with Chris was so close that he was very happy about everything.”

The band’s wheels eventually came off after their muddy and unfocused sixth album, The Hunter, dashed against the commercial rocks in 1982. They had to abandon their subsequent tour after Stein became gravely ill with a rare autoimmune disorder, pemphigus vulgaris, that proved extremely difficult to diagnose. Blondie had no option but to bow out of the public eye, and they broke up quietly.

15 years later, with Stein fully recovered, the group reconvened and released a critically acclaimed and commercially successful comeback album, No Exit. They even topped the UK charts with lead single “Maria”, but faced tussles with erstwhile members at the time too. Former bassist and co-writer on “One Way or Another”, Nigel Harrison, and guitarist Frank Infante attempted to sue the rest of the band over their omission from the reformed lineup. And when Blondie were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006, Infante grabbed the microphone to express his ire publicly.

Fast-forward to 2020 and the settled iteration of the band are working on a new album with John Congleton, who produced 2017’s Pollinator. Does Harry have a formula when it comes to songwriting these days? No, as it happens. “When a phrase or a sentiment makes me respond emotionally or physically, I write it down and I save it,” she explains. “At a certain point, I’ll sort of review things. A lot of times I like to just work with a rhythm track. Just a drumbeat or some kind of drone-y rhythm, a groove. Other times people will give me a rough sketch of some chord changes – an idea that they’ve got. I seem to work in a lot of different ways.”

Thanks to her effortless chic and timeless looks, Harry’s relationship with the fashion industry has been a mutual love-in since forever, and she recently announced a revival of her partnership with ethical fashion designers Vin + Omi – the duo responsible for her profane ‘STOP FUCKING THE PLANET’ cape worn at the Q Awards in 2016 and throughout Blondie’s Pollinator tour. They have teamed up for a new sustainable clothing line entitled HOPE, and her enthusiasm for the project is palpable. “I love Vin + Omi,” she says. “They are so creative and adventurous. They have this desire to prevail and do things that are smart and modern in terms of recycling and making energy count. I think that is brilliant.”

As a fledgling bee-keeper, the plight of the bees is also something close to Harry’s heart. It was one of the reasons why 2017’s Pollinator was, well, named exactly that. “You’re either being stung by a bee or you’re going to eat its honey,” she chuckles softly, marvelling at the absurdity of the contrast. “But bees and water are two issues we cannot escape from. We should be concerned with finding better ways of living, using our resources in the best way possible.”

Help is coming, she hopes, through the election of Joe Biden, who is “firmly attached” to the idea of helping the environmental cause – and she believes his ideas can help the economy, too. “I’ve been saying for quite a long time that solar and wind power are renewable (energies) that can create jobs,” she says. It’s a far cry from her feelings towards outgoing President Trump and his “daily infusion of bullshit” and “thunderstorm of endless diatribes”.

“One of the most exciting things about rock’n’roll was that it was about breaking the rules, and (‘WAP”) is certainly a part of that. It’s titillating and aggressive and it is part of what is exciting about popular music. The nature of what we try to do is to shock and entertain at the same time” – Debbie Harry

What strikes you when you speak to Harry for an extended period is not only her warmth, but her unexpected humility for someone so staggeringly famous. I reference a Bob Dylan BBC interview from the 80s in which he observed with sadness how his fame had the ability to change a room’s energy and how he missed seeing people act naturally around him. She paws the comparison away, saying she’s nowhere near famous “to the degree of Bob Dylan”, whom she calls “such a megastar”. This could sound like false modesty coming second-hand, but in person it feels like a sincere statement, even if it is a little bewildering coming from an international icon. She will concede, however, that she has “definitely noticed and felt something like that” and has often wished she could simply be “a fly on the wall”.

There is also an inquisitiveness that makes the conversation a more two-way affair than your quote-unquote typical ‘interview’. She fires questions back at you, not as a deflection tactic, but to expand and explore a topic further. This happens when conversation turns to Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s ubiquitous “WAP”. A recent interview had her fangirling over the track, but Harry’s feelings no longer appear to be as clear-cut and she wishes to discuss the song further. “I love it and hate it at the same time,” she now shares. “One of the most exciting things about rock’n’roll was that it was about breaking the rules, and (‘WAP’) is certainly a part of that. It’s titillating and aggressive and it is part of what is exciting about popular music. The nature of what we try to do is to shock and entertain at the same time.” She pauses. “I don’t know. Everything is revealed and maybe sexual explicitness has come of age.”

Pushed about what she dislikes about “WAP”, she says she would “hate it” if any young girl or woman was hurt by the song’s message. “I think that, in a way, men have to know that women think like this, and that there is this component,” she says, “but I would hate it to mean that everyone should be treated like this. I don’t think anybody should be hurt by sex”.

Harry has long championed the LGBTQ+ communities. When she refers to her dearly departed friend and Hairspray co-star Divine as a ‘drag queen’ in Face It, she acknowledges the term in some instances is no longer accurate or politically correct. I suggest that it can often seem as though the evolution of our language is speeding up in the digital age – by necessity, of course – and ask her if online culture fills her with concern when it comes to using the right terms. “Yeah, (because) in many cases it can be a slip of the tongue, especially for an old dog like me! Things do move so very, very quickly. It is hard to keep up,” she observes. “Fortunately, I have a lot of godchildren!”

Speaking of younger generations, Harry likes to think she’d have coped with social media if she were coming up today, but is thankful that she had her “dark cocoon” in which to “bloom out of”, a place where she was able to “ripen”. “When you’re under the harsh glare of constantly being analysed, that shapes you whether you want it to or not,” she says. “It’s a germ or a seed that’s planted in your mind. It can take surprising turns and it can affect your growth. For good or for worse, who knows?”

“When you’re under the harsh glare of constantly being analysed, that shapes you whether you want it to or not. It’s a germ or a seed that’s planted in your mind. It can take surprising turns and it can affect your growth” – Debbie Harry

One thing that remains is her fierce level of self-criticism. “I always want to do better,” she declares matter-of-factly. “I’ve always been very critical of everything. I hear things or look at them and say, ‘Oh God, it should have been that (instead).” Maybe this hypercritical inclination is what still drives her forward. “I honestly don’t like resting on my laurels. I like working and I like creating. I always beat myself up about not being more creative or more prolific.”

When looking at the bounty of projects she has lined up, no one in their right mind could put Debbie Harry and laurel-resting in the same sentence. Aside from the new album, archival set and fashion project, the paperback edition of her autobiography will be released with a brand-new epilogue in April of next year. (Just don’t ask her what’s in it – “I don’t remember what I wrote. I’ll have to look it up!” she says with a laugh.)

The signs are that the musician is done looking into the rear-view mirror, though. Time may be passing, the tide may be higher, but Debbie Harry is doing more than merely holding on. Her eyes are locked to the future and she’s positively thriving.

Blondie: Against the Odds 1974-1982 will be released next year; Face It is out now via Harper Collins

#debbie harry #blondie #Vin + Omi #ethical fashion #explicitness #music blog

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silver-wield · 4 years

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Honestly? I will never ever get what Cler!ths have against Zack/Zerith. The guy loves and treasures her; they're so damn cute together; they actually spent quality time together, so their relationship is believable; A in the remake is clearly not over him; and he's available (as in she won't be trying to steal him from someone else). What's to hate about all this? A will surely be happy with Zack, so if you love her, wouldn't you want that for her? 1/3

But I guess it was never about her happiness, huh? I know they must think CloTis just root for Zerith to get rid of A, but to me it’s not about that. After all, before Zack came into the picture, I couldn’t care less about A since I hated her in the OG. But I liked the way she was with Zack in CC. And now with Remake!A that I don’t feel so strongly about as in the OG, I want her to be happy too. 2/3

Also, at least our side is decent enough to not shove A with someone she has 0 chemistry with (hint hint Barret x Tifa). Having CloTi and Zerith as the canon couples is the best thing that can happen to those characters. No one gets left out, and all of them win and are with the person they love and is suited for them. But hey, maybe it’s just me. 3/3

Because he’s canon and ruining their fanon lol That’s pretty much the whole reason they hate him. I was watching the entire gameplay of Crisis Core yesterday because of a thing nagging me about Cloud where I heard he and Zack did some kind of claw arm minigame and that’s why Cloud was upset during the collapsed expressway bit, but I didn’t find it because the reason Cloud’s upset is different, but still because of Zack.

But, at least I got to see a whole lot of parallels between Cloti and Zerith. And these aren’t just FF7 to FFCC, no, these are parallels going from CC to 7R meaning the devs looked over CC, picked out these scenes or lines and then deliberately inserted them into Remake so that we’d see the couple parallels between the two. Because that’s how canon works. They associate the couples to each other so that people see and understand this is how it’s gonna be.

But some people are just dumb and keep sticking their fingers in their ears and putting blinders over their eyes. They don’t wanna see and hear the truth and then get butthurt and crazy at everyone who can. Because they wanna be the blind leading the blind. Only, we’re not blind and don’t wanna be.

Aerith definitely has very low interest in Cloud. I mean, she literally brushed off being concerned about him during the drum after she saw him go off at Sephiroth. She didn’t care. Red and Barret asked if Cloud was ok and Tifa said she was really worried about him, and what was Aerith’s reaction?

“True, but it’s Cloud—I’m sure he’ll be fine.”

That’s after literally seeing Cloud freak tf out the last time she saw him. Aerith doesn’t care about him. Not like that. Seems he’s more like a useful tool for her to battle Sephiroth with if I’m being honest.

I’d feel sorry for these people, but they’re just so nasty I can’t bring myself to. They spent years dragging Tifa: her appearance, her clothes, personality fucking everything. There wasn’t one single thing about her they haven’t tried to destroy just to prove how much better than her Aerith is. This is a character that Nomura designed to be Cloud’s ideal woman. Even if they’d never got together and just mutually pined for each other forever like the absolute dorks they are, do these people really think that treating Tifa like this would make Nomura want to be kind to them? Do they think scrubbing out the canon story is respectful to Nojima? To any of them? They’ve worked on FF7 for 23+ years. These trolls might have loved the game for that long, but this is their work. Something they love even more than anyone else does. Nojima kept coming back to Cloud over and over because he had such a deep connection to him. He has NPCs talk about Cloud like a relative in game (yeah because Johnny’s dad is totally a message from Nojima to Cloud about how he feels like he’s family and he’s sad to say goodbye to him) and people are shitting all over it.

These morons better get their attitudes sorted because no matter how much they cry and scream and complain the story is still Cloti and Zerith and always was.

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ckret2 · 4 years

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The Unofficial Symbiote Fan Club

Written for @symbruary Day 21: "team". Before this event started I was like, one day, one day, I need to write a team up between a bunch of hosts who actually love their Venom symbiotes.

So here it is. A pack of symbiote-loving Venoms: Eddie, Alea, Ngozi, and Gwen. Plus a token Peter Parker who has never met a Venom, just to make things awkward.

Because this is what big crossover events should be used for: loving symby.

###

Venom stumbled out of a portal.

Four humans, three of whom were clearly wearing symbiotes, looked at them.

"What—?"

One of the symbiote-human combos started at the sight of them. "Eddie?!" She stepped forward, reached out, stopped, drew back slightly. "You died years ago! How...?"

Eddie reached back toward her; their symbiotes bridged the distance between their hands, connecting in the middle. Their symbiote, rather. The same symbiote, separated by decades. A single symbiote and two hosts, Eddie and—

"Alea," said Venom—which Venom? their minds were briefly tangled together—2020 Venom. "You're taking care of my other now?"

"You're the famous Eddie Brock I've heard so much about." Alea's face and legs were revealed as the majority of her symbiote oozed off her and over to Eddie, stirring through its past self like colors roiling in an oil slick and nuzzling over its past host.

"So, what is this," Eddie asked, "a time travel thing?"

"Or a parallel universe thing," said another one of the symbiote-bearers, a woman wearing her symbiote like a hooded jacket. "I've got some experience with these cross universe duplicate things. I was just catching everyone else up to speed on how this works, I can give you the abridged version."

"We're good, we've done some universe hopping too," Eddie said. "How do you know we're all from separate universes, though? Are all of us...?"

"Venom." Jacket-symbiote raised her hand. "Briefly. Going by Ghost-Spider now."

"Black Panther," said the one with wings. Her dreads were stretching out toward Eddie, as if trying to reach him the way Alea's other had; she calmly brushed them back behind her shoulders. "But my other was once Venom before coming to me. Ngozi."

Ghost-Spider shrugged. "No secret identities today, huh? Fine—I'm Gwen."

"I'm not Venom," grumbled the final member of the party, a black trench coat-wearing man lurking near Gwen.

"Yeah, outlier. He's my plus one, I think," Gwen said. "I've run into him in a couple of these universe-hopping gigs, guess that's how he got sucked in. Some kinda quantum entangled nonsense or something. This is Spider-Man, I call him Noir to tell him apart from the others."

The other three Venoms immediately tensed. "Spider-Man of the Peter variety?" Eddie asked cooly.

He nodded.

"Oh," Alea said.

"Great," Ngozi said.

Gwen winced. "Ooh, is there a history?"

The other three vaguely muttered about their others' bad breakups.

Gwen glanced at Peter questioningly.

He shrugged. "Never met a Venom. No bad blood here."

"Right," Gwen said. "Well. Sorry, looks like you're all stuck with him. We can all be mature and professional in front of an ex, right?"

Ngozi nodded, but with some effort that made it obvious she was fighting her symbiote to do it. Alea hesitated, but nodded more willingly. Eddie just crossed his arms and grumbled.

"Cool," Gwen said.

Eager to move on from the subject of Spider-Man, Eddie said, "We should probably figure out what we're all doing here. Any of you aware of any inter-dimensional experiments or reality-blurring mystical rituals that might've caused something like this?"

The others all shook their heads. Gwen said, "Maybe if we look at our similarities. There's usually some parallels between the people that are pulled in these things."

"Obviously, we're all some variety of Venom," Ngozi said. "Except Gwen's friend." She only gave Peter a sideways glance, clearly trying to remain neutral despite her other's antipathy. Eddie glared at Peter on her behalf.

Peter shrugged.

Alea said, "But there should be billions of Venoms across the multiverse, right? Why are we the ones that are here? What's the common thread?"

"You and I are both close to our others," Eddie said. "I felt that when we touched. You care for it in itself, not just for what it can do for you. That's rare enough it might mean something—maybe we've been hauled in on some kind of symbiote rescue mission." He looked at the other two Venoms. "What about you? Would you fight to protect symbiotes?"

"Absolutely!" Gwen said. "If they're anything like mine? Mine's basically a big gooey baby made out of gummy spiders. If I'm not looking out for it, who knows what could happen to it?" (Eddie and his other briefly pondered over the "gummy spider" description.)

"I've never had to protect mine before," Ngozi said. "But when I met it, it was a captive. If I met another in a position like that, I'd fight to save it. How could I not?"

Eddie felt his other's mood bubble up in the face of not one, not two, but three alternate hosts that considered it and its kind worthy of protection simply for its own sake. "So we're all pro-symbiote. Looks like we have a solid starting point for a theory."

Peter raised a hand. "Question. Why is being pro-symbiote noteworthy?" he asked. "Isn't it like being pro-stomach?"

All four Venoms looked at him in bafflement. Ngozi was the one to ask first, "How do you mean?"

"Everyone's got one inside 'em and you'd be pretty screwed without it. Like a stomach," Peter said, as if this was a perfectly obvious thing to say.

There was a pause, and then the Venoms exploded into questions. Alea's voice managed to carry above the others, "What do you mean, 'everyone's got one'?!"

"What do you mean, what do I mean? Egeryone's got one!" Peter declared. "You're born with one! It splits off your mother's in the womb! What, are you saying not everyone keeps 'em on your worlds? Is it some kinda cross-universe circumcision? Did your twenty-first century rock concerts scare them all off?" He addressed the latter question directly to Gwen.

She crossed her arms. "Hey, mine loves rock. And, no, none of us are born with symbiotes!"

"Then when do you get them?"

"Mine came to me from heaven," Eddie said, and at his other's prompting, clarified, "Space."

Ngozi said, "A jar."

Gwen said, "A lab."

Alea said, "Space by way of jars in a lab."

Aghast, Eddie asked, "Were all your symbiotes jarred when you met?" Poor things.

Gwen asked, "You guys have aliens?"

"Wait," Peter said. "The rest of you—is your Earth not covered in symbiotes?"

"No! It's just my other and its offspring," Eddie said.

Ngozi nodded, and Alea added, "A few more have come and gone, but that's it."

"Only one's been made in my universe," Gwen said.

Ngozi asked, "Made? Yours was invented? On Earth?"

"By Dr. Elsa Brock."

Eddie warred over what questions to start with —whether this Elsa was his sister or his genderbent alternate was high on the list—but settled on, "So when you called it a gooey baby, you meant that literally?" She nodded. "Once we've resolved whatever crisis brought us here, want to trade symbiote parenting tips?"

Gwen laced her hands together in faux prayer. "Please."

"And you!" Eddie pointed at Peter. "Are you saying your Earth is covered in symbiotes?"

Peter pointed back. "Is this why you've got colors and we don't?"

"Hold on, hold on, everyone hold on." Gwen turned to Peter. "You have a symbiote."

He nodded.

"With you?"

He gestured at himself, indicating his clothes, as if it should have been self-evident that his black trench coat had been a symbiote all along. "Man's best friend. Wouldn't leave home without it." He paused. "What do people in your universes wear?"

Gwen went on excitedly, "What do you call it? Do you call it anything, does it have a name?"

Peter hesitated. "I've always called it Vinny."

"Vinny! You're a Venom too!" Gwen laughed in delight.

Eddie's, Ngozi's, and Alea's symbiotes stretched longingly toward the mythical symbiote-sympathetic Spider-Man.

###

Until and unless canon specifically says otherwise, we don't know Spider-Man Noir doesn't have a symbiote.

Fic crossposted to AO3, link in my description. If you enjoyed, I'd appreciate a comment or reblog!

#symbiote #venom #gwenom #ngozi #spidernoir #eddie brock #symbruary #fanfic #my writing

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lawbreaker13 · 5 years

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Why is everybody so upset with Stormy Weather 2? This was like a super important episode??

Seriously guys, I don’t know what the problem is. There are flashback episodes in basically every show, but this was a crazy important marker for Miraculous Ladybug. I’m gonna go into detail about everything that was learned, but I just want to start by saying that what this episode did for us indefinitely was set itself on a timeline. It explicitly stated that everything through Chris Master happened within a year-and-a-half timeframe before this episode. It also set Marinette in a place where she’s officially declared, in writing, that she and Adrien are “just friends.” Like, she used Adrien’s “just a friend” line. And we know how this show is with parallels, so I count that as a pretty big one.

I’m gonna get more into this now though, so here we go.

Right off the bat we have the idea of change. Chloe taunts Marinette with the idea that she’ll never change (and we all know how much Marinette likes to challenge Chloe’s words). The word “change” is something that is brought up throughout the whole episode, so watch out for that.

We have Marinette genuinely reflecting. Like not just thinking on her rooftop and complaining about how Chat Noir is a glutton and would drop his guard for a couple of macaroons, she’s really thinking over her life’s choices. It’s framed in such a different light than the way we normally get our characters thinking.

“Adrien has become a true friend.” “Adrien’s become a friend who I can talk to about anything.” “Can you still be in love with someone even after they become your friend? Do you think I’ll ever be able to tell him that he means much more to me than ‘just a friend?’” This is what Marinette thinks of relationships. She thinks that the friends-to-lovers trope is crap and that you have to dive straight into a relationship. And that’s why whenever Adrien talks about her as a friend she becomes so heartbroken. She doesn’t think it’s a step in the right direction, she thinks it’s completely on the opposite end of the spectrum.

I don’t know WHAT Gabriel is plotting with “Ms. Tsurugi” or whether that means Kagami or her mom, but I’m a little terrified.

"Things may not be going exactly as we had planned, but change can be a good thing.” Gabriel’s first line is about change. Hm.

Nathalie’s entire monologue gives us so much background I don’t even know where to start.

She’s starting to regret having taken the job in the first place

She really, genuinely cares about Adrien

She officially, canonically, is in love with Gabriel and it’s because his dedication to his wife is admirable which show how much of a detail-oriented person Nathalie is because WOW she’s missing the big picture here, and also that there is going to be some major love triangle stuff going on towards the end of this between Gabriel, Emilie, and Nathalie (but how might that work?? Redemption arc??? Prison marriage????)

Emilie’s condition is progressively getting worse

Nathalie is still getting sicker, despite only having used the peacock miraculous once (on-screen)

(Also, side-note, hearing Nathalie speak so much at once was like an out-of-body experience for me and her passionate voice about Gabriel was...something)

Adrien really just wants to talk to his dad about his day and their relationship is so screwed up that he can tell by LESS THAN a side glance that Gabriel doesn’t want to hear it from him. Like geez.

Gabriel can recognize familiar emotions. So...does an emotion from Chat Noir feel the same as emotion from Adrien??? Guess we’ll find out soon enough.

Nooroo just wants to see Gabriel and Adrien happy together. Gabriel is a dick. This is not new information, just needed to be reiterated again.

Also, save Nooroo, please.

Gabriel does in fact have the ability to feel remorse. However, he chooses to ignore it, in his own words “at any price.” The only things worth changing his mind are his family, though he does care about Nathalie too. We’ll see how well that holds up.

“People don’t change, they only grow.” Huh. Episode themes from Gabriel Agreste.

“My father will never change.” YOU GUYS PICKING UP ON A THEME HERE????

Plagg’s “I like people who never change. You always know what to expect!” is first off, adorable, second, reverse psychology. He does this to Adrien consistently throughout the series. Considering he’s the one who keeps trying to change Adrien’s mind about Ladybug, he obviously knows what he’s saying isn’t entirely truthful. But Plagg is an adorable, cheese-loving psychopath. Whatcha gonna do?

On the complete other end of that, Plagg talking Adrien through all the ways he’s changed shows how much he cares about him again.

Why Plagg is defending Gabriel, I don’t know. But this is definitely something to note. Does he really think Gabriel is changing for the better? Is Gabriel supposedly changing for the better? (I vote no) Is he unintentionally setting Adrien up for disappointment in a later episode? Guess we’ll see!

Side note, Plagg pretending not to know Marinette’s name is one of my favorite things. It’s not like he can’t say it because Tikki can talk about Adrien, he just chooses not to. And he knows very well who she is. This was confirmed in Weredad.

The scarf has been brought up again. Everybody note this immediately.

ZAG does, in fact, have somewhat of a legitimate animation budget. That volcano is sick.

Of all the villains to use as a filler, Stormy Weather was a solid choice, you all have to admit. Especially when you contrast the repetition of a villain to the episode’s theme.

Ladybug puns. This has been confirmed.

“A little change is good, don’t you think?” HMMMMMMM. Just think about how this was followed by the line “I love that girl.” HMMMMMMM.

Nino and Alya chill on Alya’s bed. Nino never regrets meeting Alya. He loves his girlfriend. Alya loves her boyfriend. They are one of the sweetest canon couples ever to exist.

Nino has a flirty voice he uses on Alya. This is important information.

I don’t want to get into what would’ve happened had the twins not burst the door open, but I want this thought to be noted.

Nino has been adopted by the Cesaire family.

Chloe literally stands on her rooftop with a bat signal every time there’s an akuma. Obsessive much?

"There’s nobody nicer than me!” *cue reel of Chloe being the worst human in the country* is honestly one of the best jokes in this series.

“Once a villain, always a villain,” has an incredible amount of significance but it can pretty much be summed up into the idea that Chloe doesn’t understand change.

Ladybug knows that she and Chat Noir know each other really well now. She reflects on how much they trust each other, literally with their lives, and how their relationship is the reason they have new powers and fighting abilities.

Also, character development. Did anybody see that super soft look Ladybug gave Chat Noir when he said he always agrees with her? Would Ladybug have stopped to admire anything about Chat Noir 2 seasons ago? HMMMMMM.

I would like it to be noted that professional cinematography equipment is several thousands of dollars and it physically hurts me to think of that camera screen breaking in the cold.

Apparently you can take down a super villain with a photocopier and a pencil. Take notes, people.

Alya’s sisters have an akuma victory dance. More important info.

Marinette has gathered up enough courage to write Adrien a note. Last episode she tried to express her feelings. She very well had it in her to do that again, and what she chose to do was to make it clear that they were just friends. She wants Adrien to know that they’re on the same page. It’s in writing. And in Adrien’s hands.

“Good job, we’ve got ourselves a new and improved Marinette!” Change, anyone???

“She’s always been that way. She never changes.” HMMMMM.

Plagg wants Adrien to move on. He’s genuinely trying to convince him by reminding him of how Ladybug is not interested. But maybe there are other girls out there? Hint hint.

*Looks at valentine from Marinette* “You can’t just change your feelings just like that.” *conveniently timed note from Marinette arrives* GUYS. IT’S CALLED SYMBOLISM. Or something like that. Also foreshadowing.

Now this I need to explain super in-depth because there are so many complaints about this part. Adrien was just looking between the two notes. He knows how Marinette gets around him and he knows how it compares to when she’s talking to Chat Noir or Alya. He remembers things from Troublemaker. And he’s holding the two notes in his hands at that moment. Incredibly similar handwriting. He thinks. He remembers how she had pictures of him in her room. And he consciously knows that the valentine he got in response to his own is not from Ladybug. He knows it’s from someone at school. Doesn’t think, he knows. Adrien has figured it out. “No, Marinette couldn’t possibly be in love with me,” he says sadly with slight question in his voice. “She’s just a friend who loves fashion. Besides. There’s Luka.” *cue flashbacks of Adrien watching Marinette and Luka on a date, with the absolute saddest music I have ever heard play in this show playing in the background while he reflects* Guys. This is how Adrien thinks. This is what Adrien thinks of relationships. He believes that you can only like one person at a time. He can’t like Marinette, he likes Ladybug. And Marinette can’t like him, she likes Luka. He DID figure it out. The only reason he dismissed it is because he doesn’t understand her feelings. He doesn’t understand that love isn’t clear-cut, finite, one-and-done. He knows for a fact that she went out with Luka once, so how could she like both of them? That’s not possible...is it?

And are you telling me that “It’s just a person that has similar writing, that’s all,” wasn’t spoken in the most melancholic, disappointed tone of voice that Adrien has ever used on anyone other than his father?

Adrien’s 14. Marinette is 14. They don’t understand life. They don’t understand how complex feelings and relationships are. They think you fall in love with your soulmate and it’s golden from there. They’re dumb kids, but they’re not stupid. Adrien did figure it out. But he can’t bring himself to believe it. He doesn’t understand. And be honest. Did you understand when you were 14?

A couple side notes about the episode that didn’t fit directly into my play-by-play.

That valentine thing went full-circle. Dark Cupid was the first episode with any real lovesquare plot-progression and here we have the exact same setup, but this time with internal monologuing. We start with Marinette reading Adrien’s letter and end with Adrien reading Marinette’s letter. Just like we did in Dark Cupid, but this time it’s in reflection. It’s a parallel. I’m not fabulous at analysis, but I do know this much. Parallels.

This was a Valentine’s Day episode in the same way that Chris Master was a Christmas episode. Themed but not centered. It was a nice change of pace if you ask me.

The end card is always kind of a mini-synopsis of the episode. In this one, we see Marinette, confident and proud of herself for accepting Adrien’s friendship, and Adrien, staring longingly at a valentine that he knows isn’t from Ladybug, wondering if it could possibly, possibly be from Marinette. Huh. That feels a little backwards, doesn’t it?

And I’m just still so stuck on how sad that music was with the Luka flashback. Like, that kinda hurt to listen to??? Wow Adrien.

Side note, I just...I can't get over this. When you were a kid and you heard someone liked you (let alone was in love with you) did you believe it? I'm an adult and I wouldn't believe it if someone told me they liked me. When you feel as unloved as Adrien does every single day, the idea of a good friend of yours being completely in love with you sounds almost...too good to be true, doesn't it? Why should he think she likes him? Especially since he’s just drawing that conclusion on his own?

I personally would like to believe that the reason the rest of the episodes have been postponed is so that we can mull this over for a little while until the rest of them come out. Because from this point forward, there will be some changes. And speaking of which.

CHANGE. Can we all agree that that’s what this episode was about? Why would they place it on a timeline otherwise? Why would they explain to us what came before unless we’re supposed to know what comes after? IT’S THE CONTINUITY THAT WE’VE BEEN ASKING FOR. ACCEPT YOUR GIFTS.

This is the best continuity and information we’ve been given since episode one. And it’s set up in a way that my 6-year-old cousin could understand perfectly. It’s a show for everyone, guys. And this episode was the perfect example of it.

I personally think this is one of the best episodes thus far. In fact, if it weren’t for my Marichat-loving heart, it would be number one by a long-shot. Of COURSE they needed a recap episode. Because if they didn’t have one, do you know what we’d say? “Oh, but Thomas Astruc says there IS no continuity! Did he LIE???” Let the man win for once. We asked. It was delivered. This. Is. Continuity. This. Is. Character development. This. Is. Plot. This. Is. Miraculous.

Thank you for coming along on this journey with me.

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dnawield--a · 4 years

Text

actually fuck it I feel like babbling

Anodite!Ben is so in tune with his alien half- way more than his human half. He finds out later in life, so the summer with Gwen when she found the Omnitrix was more of Gwen teaching him self defense, and his grandpa showing him how to shoot a laser gun. He’s significantly more skilled in hand-to-hand combat than he is in his main verse, and MUCH more weapon savvy in the Gwen 10 verse.

He’s not. As close with Gwen in this verse as he is in main verse, but more in the sense of he doesn’t feel comfortable being as obnoxious with her, even when it’s on friendly terms. He’s a bit more respectful (sounding anyway- he has NOTHING but respect for Gwen in main verse), and looks at her more like a leader than family. Sometimes he’ll crack a joke with her, but there tends to be an awkward tension between the two since Ben seems more distant with her in this verse.

It’s also because his powers awakened when he was alone, and more abrupt. Since Ben wasn’t into magic like Gwen was when they were kids, and never took to really understanding any of the stuff Hex would use on them when they fought, he spent a good year on his own (from 13-14), during a time he and Gwen didn’t hang out much (haven’t figured out why- probably similar reasons Ben took the watch off before OV gave us a possible reason he took the watch off, which was maybe just letting the teens actually live like normal fucking teenagers for a short time). He’d just go out in the middle of the night, fuck around in the deep woods just figuring things out.

He still has ADHD and is still autistic in this dimension, so paralleled with Gwen who’s more about focusing, Ben. Doesn’t do like. Meditation or reading since he a) doesn’t like to read, b) wouldn’t know WHAT to read aside from magic or witch books which he’s not keen on buying, and c) will get distracted. However, when he’s developing a new skill using mana, he tends to hyperfixate on it until he can do some cool shit or be able to do it without using up that much energy. He’s already REALLY high energy in his main verse, and it still carries over in the Gwen 10 verse. He also developed a routine with going out into the woods late in the nights until early in the mornings that it’s nearly over a year of constant self training. He’s very in tune with his emotions, and has accidentally destroyed some parts of the forests due to frustration. You have to get him SUPER SUPER SUPER pissed for him to start to lose control of his powers.

His preference is to create things out of his mana that ranges from whole ass mech suits to surround himself (that he and Gwen had to investigate and Gwen for a long time going “what the FUCK how do a WHOLE MECHA go missing??’ and ben somehow managing to pull off being absolutely clueless until he decides to tell her about it), to weapons made from mana, the platform stuff that Gwen does in canon, and Ben eventually decided to play hero for a bit to test out his powers outside of the woods, and learned his mana can just make shit, so he just designed his own costume and changes into it while he plays hero. He’s silent when he’s in “hero mode” ‘cause Gwen sometimes showed up, and didn’t want his voice to give him away.

His mana’s green ‘cause fuck you I’m keeping the green aesthetic (and Gwen’s omnitrix is blue ‘cause also fuck you), but his body shifts into anodite!mode.

Verdona makes a comment about this when they meet her the first time at how tf he still has his human body when he’s CONSTANTLY changing into anodite mode and he’s like “huuuh???? i don’t get the question- anyway check out my big energy sword!!! cool huh?!” Him and his grandma actually get along, and Ben just tells her, Iunno- lemme think about the whole destroy my body thing. Maybe ask me in two or three years,” which is lit the ONLY reason she doesn’t pull what she tried with Gwen ‘cause he actually is debating on it. He doesn’t care much about being human, and is like, “bruh I can do MORE STUFF if i JUST destroy my body? AND I can just learn to make a whole new one? lit but lemme think about it and see if i still vibe with that in a couple years.”

Verdona visits way more in this verse, though Gwen isn’t vibing too much with it since Verdona is constantly seeing if Ben is willing to destroy his body NOW since she can’t be bothered to wait the equivalent of a week to her for Ben to be like, “alright let’s get this bread *destroys human body* oh heck yeah we got the bread.” Also ‘cause Verdona tends to be a bad influence on Ben since she just ups his desires to do w/e the fuck he wants, which is often going HAM on bad guys and ‘causing some public property damage ‘cause he’s vibing and moving literal mountains, and slowly picks up on warping reality around people that annoy him.

The issues with anodite!Ben lie more in he’s a lot more. Morally grey. The SECOND Verdona mentioned how there is mana in every living thing, and you can absorb it, Ben has always had that on the back of his mind, and he HAS completely drained one enemy (haven’t decided which- probably a low stakes guy like Ssserpent) because of some other factor that made him snap and go, “Nope I’m angy now you go die while I just take your mana :/” which. KINDA DOESN’T SIT WELL WITH GWEN OR HIS GRANDPA. idk when Kevin comes into all of this, maybe when Ben’s alien side if still a secret to his family and is the only one to identify WHAT kind of alien ben’s alter ego is, which is nice ‘cause then Ben just fucks around on the extranet to look up more about his alien side. Which is 10x funnier when they all meet Verdona and he’s like “yeah Kevin figured it out so I just looked up info on it. what you told me I already read on like 50 different sites.”

He has a bit of a fall out with Gwen and Kevin, probably showing he’s going a teeny bit too chaotic to be safe, and they end up being enemies for a short time (probably an evil arc). Ben DOES end up accidentally destroying his own body, and just going HAM on their cousin Sunny. She ends up being REAL scared of Ben, and even Verdona shows a bit of discomfort. He ends up just chilling as an anodite ‘cause he doesn’t feel comfortable going to Anodyne now. Verdona herself even says that might be for the best that he waits since she’s worried he’ll get hurt. That’s what she says anyway. With how bad he ended up hurting Sunny, she genuinely is both worried for his safety, and the safety of OTHER Anodites on the planet.

He does EVENTUALLY go to Anodyne for a couple decades when he’s like 40, and then comes back. The other Anodites vibe with him, and he genuinely enjoys being there. He mains a pretty high chaotic energy all his existence, and he’s slowly showing them just ‘cause they’re super powerful doesn’t mean they can’t learn to have some kinda fucking morals. He wants them to know being human was pretty cool, and they could learn shit from them. He always boasts about Gwen and Kevin and their escapes together, and uses them as role models for other Anodites.

They only started listening to him ‘cause he never shuts up and every single time they tried to fight him to shut up, he just kicked their asses for trying to kick his ass. Eventually they just learned to let him ramble, but ended up actually liking what he was talking about and rolled with it. Some Anodites DID decide to go travel back to Earth and actually learn more than just keep going along with the rest of the Universe. A lot of them still go “it’s not that great man,” and he’ll always be like, “Hey but now you know for sure,” and they hate that. But he had a point.

#ch. study. \ ʏᴇᴀʜ ᴍᴀʏʙᴇ ᴍʏ ʜᴇᴀᴅ·s ғᴜᴄᴋᴇᴅ ᴜᴘ #long post /#// anodite ben when he starts off: chaotic and a lil bit of murder sometimes #// mature anodite ben: vibing and showing other anodites to give a shit once in a while

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