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zachsreaderinserts · 3 years

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sapnap, dream, tommy, and c! techno x s/o who cried while arguing headcannons

FIRST REQUEST OOGA BOOGA OOGA BOOGA

also im about to hit 100 followers! thank y’all sm!!!

edit: so uh, i didnt know tommy didn’t like to be written in romantic x readers, that was on me 100% so i changed it to platonic!!

wc: 1,285

SAPNAP

as we all know, sapnap is a little bitch when he’s arguing with someone, compiled with lots of yelling, screaming, and probably physical gestures.

so, it was no surprise that when you had brought up the fact that he had been neglecting his chores around your house, that he retaliated almost instantly

“i’ve been sitting in the office the last few days working! i don’t know what you want from me!”

somehow, with you being you and sapnap being sapnap, the argument escalates really fucking fast

to the point where his voice is starting to get hoarse and you’re pretty much shaking in retaliation, regretting ever bringing up the entire argument

sapnap’s too blinded by his anger to realize that you were not fine and were backing yourself into the dining room table in attempt to seperate yourself from the situation

and when he turned to glare at you and continue his point, he paused when he saw the tears building up in your eyes and the fearful look you had

he dropped the argument almost instantly and darted over to you, holding you by the shoulders. you couldn’t even form any words, just blubbering as he squeezed you close

you apologized for crying, but he didn’t want to hear shit. he felt guilty for letting the argument escalate like that and the both of you said sorry for the entire situation as a whole.

at the end of the day, you still love each other, y’know?

DREAM

dream’s biggest problem when arguing is that he can’t truly decipher what is an insult and what is a light jab to his ego.

it was during a stream that you had made a joke, something about dream resembling his smp! rendition of his character and that irked dream automatically

after the stream, he came into your room and addressed it, but anyone could see how quietly pissed off he was. and already, you were angry because he was angry

so, you bit back. told him that you were sorry about how he felt and how you pressed his buttons, but not sorry for making the joke. it wasn’t meant to be taken the way he did and that was his fault for stewing over it

mans is angry

so, a shouting match starts up, naturally and it gets heated real fucking quick

“you don’t get to decide whether or not i should blow over a joke!”

(wanted to say that in this argument, you’re both valid, but the way you went about it is not)

it gets to the point where dream’s all up in your face, shouting about how annoying it is for you to be making jokes like that and how he found it unfunny and shit.

which isn’t a bad criticism but also, with how he’s yelling it to your face, it hits a little different but not in a good way. you’re practically swallowing back the tears as he keeps ranting about it.

and when he pauses to let you argue back and speak and you respond with a voice crack that gave away how you truly felt. dream looked back over at you to see you wiping at your eyes, trying to push the emotions back

the vibes shift into something calmer, still heated, but not as bad as it was. he walked back to you and hugged you, letting you let all the emotion out.

from then on, you two talked about it quietly and respectfully, making sure to keep the intense emotions on standby.

and hey! you’re still holding his hand by the end of it.

TOMMY

this fucking rat of a man has a hard time trying to keep his emotions on standby and not go ape shit. knowing tommy, it’s probably a longstanding problem that’s been around his entire life

so, you’re pissed at him first for him blowing up your house on the smp. i mean, i can’t blame you, i’d be just as pissed. that house had been around since the beginning and it held everything you worked for on the server

tommy found it dumb that you had such an angry reaction and began to argue back that it truly didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things and that you were being out of pocket

“c’mon, you know that i didn’t mean for it to hurt you like this and this isn’t a reaction you should be having.”

he keeps mostly level headed the entire argument, but you can tell by how he’s gritting his teeth and how his eyebrows are furrowed that he’s getting annoyed

and then he raises his voice, the coil keeping his frustration snapping along with it. you’re shocked to say the least and start to feel invalidated for him reacting the way he is. while his frustration is all anger, yours is more sad.

tommy stops his harsh tone when he notices the sorrowful look on your face and reels back, taking control of himself. he says that you two need a moment to recollect so you can discuss this again at a later time

despite the argument still lingering hours later, tommy is just as kind as he was before it, making sure to let you know that he still appreciates you no matter what the situation was

and whenever you did discuss it again, tommy and you made a little system to let him know whenever he took it too far. he felt better knowing that you were no longer upset with him and you feel better knowing that he was willing to try and understand you.

C! TECHNOBLADE

techno is fucking notorious for being an especially condescending little arsehole, it’s canon both in his character and irl

so, he takes on a more emotionless and rough approach at the sign of any sort of criticism. he’d rather you think of him as a bitch than let you see that he was any sort of empathetic.

it was when you got onto him for never sleeping that he showed this side of himself. you couldn’t even see it in his body language that he was upset and that made you angrier.

techno was pissed, 100%, but he wanted the upper hand. he refused to let you see him vulnerable.

“i don’t think it’s as big of a deal as you’re making it out to be. why can’t you just ignore it?”

he keeps drawing out the arguing, somehow countering your very valid points to about how disorganized or lazy you were. rather than accepting the criticism, he forced it onto you.

and with every point he spoke, you felt your heart hurt just a little more. he was nitpicking at that point and that hurt more than anything else. he knew you felt insecure about certain things and you just couldn’t see why he wasn’t showing the proper emotions in this argument

eventually your mind became so muddled that you were even aware that you were crying. techno immediately stopped talking and stared at you in slight shock. he made you cry.

the voices were quiet, not giving him instructions or advice. he was on his own.

techno marched forward and held your face, wiping away the tears as quickly as they fell. you just looked up at him, showing so much pain, that his expression broke instantly. he looked like he was about to cry at the sight of your crying

you guys never got back to the argument but it was clear that he was sorry for what he had done. every time he came to bed early proved that enough and on those nights, he held you just a little bit tighter.

#sapnap #sapnap x reader #dreamwastaken #dreamwastaken x reader #tommyinnit #tommyinnit x reader #c!techno #c!technoblade x reader #technoblade x reader #technoblade #dream smp #dreamsmp x reader #mcyt x reader #minecraft youtubers #minecraft youtubers x reader

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steve0discusses · 3 years

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Yugioh S5 Ep 18: A Series of Ecological Disasters

Booting up ye old Yugioh, booting up a new aesthetic playlist to type to. (today’s playlist is webcore, which would feel like such a damn fake aesthetic, if it weren’t that every single one of these -core aesthetics are pretty damn fake and everyone knows it.)

Anyway, it’s been so long that, I’ll be honest, I thought I booted up the wrong episode:

I usually skip the anime intro, but I try to watch it once each arc, cuz the intros change, and this arc was like “screw it, here’s all the other villains, just pretend this arc isn’t happening.” They had Pegasus, they had Marik, they have Bakura (who is kind of in this shot as well, you can see him phasing in there.) And like...I guess they’re hiding the villain of this arc or something because that was it. Alexander the Great got just nixed from this villain list and that’s a shame.

Just a real weird choice, but since apparently this arc didn’t air in Japan they probably had to outsource this anime intro and whatever studio in charge of it just cobbled together stuff from every other season and then a couple of shots of capsule stuff.

Speaking of capsule stuff: get a load of how many freakin lines the animators have to deal with every time they draw Grandpa.

Bro saw this and was like “oh yeah, this is a Shonen Jump” and yeah. The hair does give those vibes. We got a good look at what Vegeta would look like if he really let himself go.

(read more under the cut)

Sorry, my playlist started playing a song where every single line of the song is “Adrien Brody” and it took me like a few minutes to realize I was listening to “Brodyquest” completely seriously.

Damn it, webcore, don’t betray me like this.

Anyway, this arc does something super surprising: Yugi actually hugs somebody and doesn’t look like he’s going to pass out standing up.

It is pretty fitting that the good Yugi hug would go to Grandpa.

And, as night falls, Joey Wheeler has gotten hungry, and there is nothing to eat but his new best friend and spirit animal, baby dragon. Unfortunately he shares life points with the dragon, and I think if you eat it that just instakills you.

And directly underneath him--since this world is like 100 feet wide and things just conveniently happen--Tea has told everyone that they needed to stop worrying about Joey. Which is a lot coming from Tea, because her worrying about Yugi/Yami getting hurt is most of what occupies her headspace in this series.

But even Tea was like, screw Joey, I guess.

Who kinda just falls directly into them upside down, and shows us what Joey’s hair looks like when it’s sticking straight up.

For reals, admire how long Joey Wheeler’s hair is. If Tea were upside down, she would have the same length of hair.

Also speaking of Vegeta, I am low key concerned that Joey has what appears to be a significant amount of male pattern balding going on for a teenager.

Apparently getting set on fire many, many times did have an effect on Joey, and this massive pompadour he wears is a combover. Poor baby.

Holy crap, if this is what card stress and getting killed multiple times did to Joey Wheeler, can you imagine what’s going on under Seto’s bangs? That’s probably why his bangs ride so low, Seto likely wears a freakin toupee.

Guys, Joey’s gonna lose his hair at 25 at this rate. Those locks just aren’t long for this world. Poor baby.

After Joey rejoins the party, he immediately eats all of their food. Not sure why they can’t just have Baby Dragon eat like...whatever Baby Dragon naturally eats...and then transform that into shared Joey Wheeler life points, but it’s not clear exactly how much of a life-connection they have with their Yugioh monsters. Not like it matters because Joey Wheeler is default starving all the time anyway.

Tristan has decided we should start laying blame, I guess because Duke Devlin isn’t here anymore to be the local kill joy. This doesn’t seem to be important at any point, and most of the characters are just ignoring Tristan because like...once you’re in the haunted game in a haunted tomb in a random part of India--it’s kind of moot to argue about who’s fault that is, youknow?

Joey reminds us that he found this quest item in a treasure chest under a secret waterfall. No one says “that was convenient that you landed there after getting chased through a ravine by man-eating birds after you got your dragon from when you got your crotch injury from getting spliced by that tree.”

Which is when Tea says “Wait! We haven’t had a plot thing happen in like 4 seconds! Wait!”

Hey what degree of “I don’t trust nature” do you have to be to assume that all the flowers are trying to eat you?

Like what level of anxiety is Tea where she not only is like “pretty sure the flowers are going to destroy us?” but also...she’s correct? Like she’s not wrong.

They set the dog flowers on fire, but unlike the Jungle Book this doesn’t solve any problems (which apparently got taken off the Disney+ kid’s menu so...yet again, I make a Disney reference in these recaps that future generations will not understand because so much of the Disney library has been banned from the vault. It’s almost like Disney should let go of that copyright they held on for like a hundred years, because what they’re holding on to is only going to get more racist with time. But nah. Gotta hold on with their greedy mickey mouse gloves.)

So instead of using fire, Tristan used his monster to electrocute the air (?) and blind the dogs. Wisely, the animators quickly jumped to this other scene so we wouldn’t have to analyze why it’s suddenly daytime or why that plan would even work.

Joey and Tristan do a lot of buddy buddy stuff this arc. Usually we see a lot of Joey and Yugi’s bottomless friendship, but we don’t get this much Tristan/Joey love. So shippers rejoice, these two seem to have several coordinated dances and songs...and I’d say that teens don’t typically do that, but I went to summer camp, there are situational places where teens will sing the entire vacation and make coordinated dances.

Weirdly, since Joey and Tristan share so much time together, this also means Tea and Yugi actually sit next to eachother for a lot of this arc, almost as if they were a couple. Mind you, they’re chaperoned closely by Grandpa, but youknow...that’s a different energy than I’m used to seeing.

That and like, they can’t have Tea dance with them because last time she did a dance, it was like a DDR fight and she elbowed some guy like it was a fisticuffs situation. Like there was some sort of dance war going on behind the scenes of Yugioh’s card war, and it came up once and I guess Tea resolved it and the dance fights haven’t come back since.

Overall, if they did a dance with Tea, they would get kneed in the face, so that’s probably why they insist on doing cancans as a duet and not a trio.

After Joey and Tristan freak out over having no food, Tea decides to just start eating in front of them.

and like...didn’t Joey eat that food yesterday? Like last night? The short term memory loss on all these fools.

Immediately after this we realize something weird in the water. That’s right, it’s a massive head.

Yugi seems to have forgotten they lit this turtle on fire and electrocuted the entire sky the night before. Not that it mattered.

There were like...nesting birds on those trees on that island. What the hell? They just killed so MANY of those man-eating dogs that are flowers.

Seriously are land turtles allowed to just...dive underwater for long periods of time? How does that ecosystem even work? It’s like...That’s wild to think about.

Inside the temple, they have to fight a genie or something.

In case you were wondering, the only reason Tea and Grandpa got iced is because they were the closest to the door. The two who were actually standing out of harms way were the closest to harm the whole time.

Bro tells me this is also what will happen to you if you are in the front or the back of the party while playing Cthulu D&D

Anyway, Pharaoh decides to disclose that his big problem of feeling guilty all the time and taking all the blame, which he did all of last season...is still a huge problem he will probably never tackle.

Straight up, don’t be fooled by my caps, everyone else has completely forgotten about Alex, who is still running around that temple up there. They haven’t even asked Grandpa “hey is this your protege? Is this your mentee you never told us about?” Nah. They already forgot.

How wild is it that Pharaoh thinks this is all his fault when he was the only one who was like “YUGI IT’S A TRAP DON’T GO IN THE- well...OK I guess we’re doing this, fine.” Is he upset he didn’t take control from Yugi and walk back to the plane? Because that’s the only way he could even be partially responsible, He was the only guy who was like “I see the end from the beginning on this y’all, and it’s the massive pyramid in India.”

Speaking of forgetting, they came across this language Pharaoh has decided to have nothing to do with.

This was actually a riddle and it was like...it was a riddle, sure, I guess.

And so Joey Wheeler does not hallucinate his dead wife from a previous incarnation and get on the back of his Baby Dragon to sail away into the sunset. Instead they’re just gonna walk.

Too bad Tea’s orb covered in wings only seems to hover a bit. Every single wing on that weird orb is absolutely useless.

And then Pharaoh’s pokemon is just a fire--which is hard to sit on--and Celtic Guardian...who would allow it, sure, but probably doesn’t fly (I think. He might fly)

And then Tristan’s Pokemon kinda seems like if you sit on it, you will get electrocuted. It can probably fly though. It’s very round. Seems like an anime thing that the more round your mascot character is, the more likely it can at least bounce a good distance.

So, next time, I’m just going to assume that we are going to do even more camping. And youknow, if you told me exactly HOW MUCH CAMPING was in this card game show with super future tech, I would not have believed you. But like...a lot of this series is set in the woods right? Like a lot a lot? I have grown to appreciate the woods.

Anyway, as always, if you just got here, this is a link to read these in chrono order:

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yugioh/chrono

See you next time!

#yugioh #yu-gi-oh #recap #photo recap #S5 #Yugi muto #yami muto #grandpa muto #tea gardner #joey wheeler #tristan taylor #baby dragon #Ep18

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coffeeandcalligraphy · 4 years

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Good Eyes | Writing Update

Hey People of Earth!

Ya girl is back for another MOTH WORK writing update, and this time we’re talking about chapter eleven, aka GOOD EYES. Just a reminder before we get started that I do have a Moth Work tab if y’all want to binge all the updates/catch up on ones you missed! Check it out HERE.

This chapter is a bit of a special one, as it’s the final chapter in Lonan’s POV!

If y’all have been following the updates since before August-ish, you would know that before this, I covered mostly Harrison’s emotional turmoil lmao, but spontaneously decided to add another POV because this is my guilty pleasures project and I wanted to! This POV is Lonan’s.

I really struggled toward the end of writing Lonan’s chapters, and I felt this was the POV’s fault. After chapter six, I couldn’t really sink my teeth into his head, and really raced to the finish line to get back to Harrison. In reality, this was actually me not understanding that the disconnect was because I wasn’t embracing the style the book wanted to be. HOWEVER, since finishing his POV (and the entire book << as I am editing this post), I am! sad! I do miss his Lonanisms.

GOOD EYES is split into four scenes. They go as follows (cw: drug addiction, alcoholism):

Scene A:

After Lonan’s relapse in the previous chapter, good ol’ Eliza takes him to the hospital she works at so he can finally get some professional help.

Lonan is in the waiting room and all is going well! Until a lady he doesn't know accuses him of wearing her son’s guardian angel chain + jacket and OOP the tea is that he is!

The woman who sees him in the waiting room is Harrison’s mother, Suzanna. I’ve planned her since I was 15 and never had a project to put her in so it was WILD to finally write her! She’s an AA leader.

Scene B:

Direct continuation of the last scene, except this time Lonan is shook

He’s heard many stories about Suzanna and the last place he expects her to be is here!

He pulls a Lonan and attempts to yeet away from that situation lol (does not work)

Scene C:

We start with Lonan recounting a story Harrison once told him about a knife. He’s thinking about this because he’s helping Suzanna chop vegetables. They’ve since moved back to Eliza’s apartment.

(CW: blood, accidental injury) Lonan cuts himself accidentally and Suzanna jumps at the opportunity to mother him. Her motherly disposition shakes him (he ain’t expecting this).

(CW: abuse) This scene is where this chapter gets its title. Suzanna compliments Lonan’s eyes (which he believes are his worst feature as they’re the physical factor that most closely resembles his father) and calls them “good eyes”. This is the first time he’s considered his eyes as anything but reminders of his abusive father, and is one of the gentlest things I’ve written ahhhhh. Though Suz isn’t in this book for very long, I do think her presence has a profound effect on Lonan who has never had a healthy parental relationship. (AKA we need more!!)

Scene D:

A pretty short scene!

Our girl Eliza gets home after work, and is lowkey amazed that Lonan has helped cook dinner (me too lmaooo)

Lonan is really feeling his work--he out here setting tables, folding napkins, feeling like he could be a wedding planner. In the middle of his #MasterChefMoment, the doorbell rings

And in dramatic fashion guess who on the other side of the door lool

It’s Harrison hahahaha the chapter ends on a cliffhanger hahaaha I feel 13 again!

I really like this chapter! It has some really interesting character work particularly between Suz and Lonan as we get to see two sides of both that we never really do--vulnerability. I wrote this chapter over the first weekend I moved back to school after break and it was such a lovely experience. A really nice, meditative chapter that I really needed. It was the perfect way to leave Lonan’s head.

Excerpts:

(CW: The next two excerpts deal with betta fish fighting)

This is a description of the betta fish in the waiting room that Lonan watches that is totally not an explicit metaphor for his relationship with Harrison def not I have 100% not used this metaphor in another story called Fishbowl starring the two of them noooo should this book have been called “it’s all a metaphor for fighter fish” maybeeee:

The waiting room is fluorescent and empty, the only movement the irregular swish of fighter fish across a fish tank. He read somewhere it’s never a good idea to keep two together, but in the tank they circle. One is pale and translucent like diluted bone, its silk tail fluttering with each jag through the water. The next is a shift of blueness that opalizes with each peck at the water’s surface. They synchronize before one flits its tail so the other jitters toward the glass. It’s a mistake they’ve been put together—they will only kill each other in time.

(I’m a real sucker for betta fish as I had many as a child but Meatball was my #1 right hand man [and the reason why I always seem to describe every betta fish as blue] who lived the longest and I miss him to this day I 100% never ever put two males together tho do not do that!!!)

Here’s another I’m including this because my favourite thing Lonan has ever said in response to someone’s *confusion* is “I need to see a doctor” lmao mooooood (tw: some violent imagery here):

“They shouldn’t be in there together,” he says. His head like the impact of a skipping rock. The rings. He raises his hand when she says nothing, and points to the fish. He doesn’t know which one will die, just that one will.

“You’re wearing his things,” she says.

“They’re going to kill each other.”

“The fish?”

The last time he saw him. The rain. The motel. The neon light eating them both slowly. The things Lonan said—purposefully so he could make a clean getaway. Things that made Harrison wince like Lonan had just bitten his wrist and was holding him there to bleed out.

“I think so.”

Suzanna turns to look at the fish, and then turns back to him. The vacancy in her face is gone—she’s swollen with confusion.

The fire. The dark room. How he knows each ridge of Harrison’s teeth, each metacarpal, each vertebra, each rib, like they’re his own, like they were carved out of the same thing.

“I need to see a doctor.”

(^^ also this whole knowing every bone thing was supposed to be romantic but sounds more like necromancyyy hahaaaaaha Lonan’s bone kink EXPOSED)

Here’s another! TW: blood!! Here’s some description of Lonan accidentally cutting his hand + some Lonan x Suzanna relationship development:

(also Suzanna’s story about the first time she cut herself is ACTUALLY just CNF except I left out some of the gruesome details :’)))

“It happens all the time.” He thinks this might be a continuation of a sentence, but he’s missed the first part. By the time she’s telling him about her first time cutting herself in the kitchen—chopping chives in a hurry for a better omelette--she’s touching his hand again, wrapping a paper towel around it to staunch the bleeding.

Lonan glances down at the stain of red eating the white when two fingers tip his chin up, warm and surprisingly callused. “Not there. Look at me.” He only realizes she’s said this because he’s shaking. “So I tell the guy his advertisement is a lie—no accidents in the kitchen, and what happens when I get mine in the mail? An accident.” She continues easily, like she hasn’t been interrupted.

“What?” Something ringing in his ear. He tries to tip it out with his good hand, but nothing comes out. Again, he looks at his finger—she’s switched to a new paper towel. The blood saturates it, and his pupils dilate at the sight of it—something grossly exciting.

“Up here, honey. I’ve heard I have nice eyes.”

Here’s an excerpt that proves Suz is the *biggest* mood! Her dialogue (the vivid bit) is actually direct mirroring of something Harrison says in an earlier memory Lonan recounted (tho I don’t like the writing in that part so :))):

She leans against the sink for a moment and pinches her nose. He hasn’t meant for his eye colour to upset her, but when she recovers, she moves straight past him to the bloody potatoes on the cutting board. Quickly, she removes the unsalvageable ones, dumps the cutting board into the sink. She begins talking about how much rain they’ve gotten, a show she liked downtown. Something about dogs, or doctors—he doesn’t quite hear what she says. He’s distracted looking at her. How she moves, sturdily. Almost too much. The way she picks up where he left off, dicing, chopping, peeling, like she’s been doing it all along.

“I forgot what it felt like to operate.” He doesn’t know if she refers to being a mother or chopping potatoes. Suzanna is pretty like her son. An edge to her that softens as she speaks. Golden hair that glitters like sunrays, even in the fake apartment light. He doesn’t know how it feels to miss a son. How it feels to carry him in your face, like a second skin. “It’s vivid,” she says.

So that’s it for this update! There are a few more to go (tho I may combine a few) so the Moth Work party ain’t over yet!

For now, I hope y’all enjoyed!

--Rachel

#writing #amwriting #writeblr #writingupdates #writerblr #fostered #mothwork

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ruoyeming · 4 years

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My Top Ten Anime, a chaotic list

This was so hecking difficult, I’m gonna have to do some ‘honourable mentions’ for ones I can’t bring myself to leave out. This list is based entirely on my personal feelings, not an objective assessment of what are logically the best anime. There also may be mild spoilers at points because I can’t control myself. Doing this in quarantine cause I looove ranting about things I like.

10) Attack On Titan

This was the first anime I ever watched, and it blew my mind a bit tbh. The music is iconic, and the animation is great as well. It might have been a bit harrowing for my first experience with anime, but I absolutely loved the story. It’s set in a world where titans (man eating giants) have driven the dregs of humanity to live within giant stone walls. There’s a group of humans trying to research titans, kill them, and protect humanity, and the main character decides to join them after a titan breaks through one of the walls and his mother is eaten. It’s one of those where you think you know everything and suddenly the world gets turned upside down by a new discovery. All the puzzle pieces start fitting together the longer you watch, and you find out that everything going on is much bigger than what it originally seemed (government conspiracy time lads). The plot twists are unpredictable (for me at least) and devastating, and the emotion this series evokes is awesome - you can FEEL the sheer desperation of the characters, their rage and despair as they fight again and again against a seemingly unending enemy. Despite almost every battle being a suicide mission and despite too many losses, the characters keep going out of the human need to survive and protect.

10/10 for brutality and gore, but also theme of hope.

9) Naruto

A founding father of anime. Surprisingly not one of the first I watched, in fact it took me a few years to start. It’s set in a feudal Japan where ninjas are the defenders and servers of the people, and different villages have different ninja styles. Naruto is a young boy with a dangerous spirit sealed inside him which has caused him to be shunned by society (even though it’s not his fault??), and he wants to become a ninja. First off I’m a sucker for the Naruto archetype: dumbass, cocky, obnoxious, but kind and loyal too. Years of solitude and ostracisation as a child mean that Naruto desperately wants people to acknowledge him, and he intends to become the Hokage to prove himself. There’s a huge range of characters and villains, all with cool ninjutsus and different philosophies. Friendship, power, and determination are some of the main themes and it makes me so proud to see my son *COUGH* Naruto progressing and learning from his mistakes. It IS a long boi though and I haven’t even finished Shippuden yet, but I think Naruto captures the essence of shounen anime and is a great underdog story. Manga is lit too.

10/10 for cool battles and great characters.

8) Psycho Pass

One of the earlier anime I watched, and it became an instant favourite for the way it makes you question morality. It’s set in a kinda dystopian future Japan, where a technology called the Sibyl System checks people’s mental state and determines their ‘crime coefficient’ - how likely they are to commit a crime. The main character is a young woman who joins the police and begins to realise that blindly following this system is perhaps not the best way to go about things. For example, they have special guns that automatically kill people whose crime coefficients are over a certain level, but she soon proves that you can easily lower someone’s coefficient by talking them down and negotiating instead of killing them off immediately. It’s got great drama, great government conspiracy, compelling villains, and some really badass characters. It pushes the question of what is right or wrong, and how far technology should go when it comes to justice.

10/10 for sociological debate and horror elements.

7) One Punch Man

OPM is an anime that stands out for me, partially for mocking the tropes of battle anime, and partially for the uniqueness of the main character’s predicament. It’s set in Japan where heroes and villains exist, and the protagonist is a man called Saitama who gained superstrength after doing 100 push-ups, 100 sit-ups, 100 squats, and a 10K run every day. However he’s become so strong that he can defeat every enemy with a single punch. Nothing is a challenge for him anymore so he becomes depressed and unfulfilled; he’s still a good man who helps people, but he feels he’s missing something from his life. A cyborg called Genos makes Saitama his master, determined to learn his ways and they become friends. It’s one of the first anime that made me laugh out loud; it’s funny and entertaining, but also shows us that power is not equal to happiness.

10/10 for moral lessons and good jokes.

6) Tanaka-kun is Always Listless

The only slice of life anime on this list and not very well known, however it has a special place in my heart. The main character Tanaka is a boy who dozes off constantly and acts exhausted when awake; he loves expending as little energy as possible. His best friend Ohta looks out for him and essentially makes sure he doesn’t get lost/ be late/die on a daily basis, including carrying him when he just falls asleep sometimes. Although Tanaka seems uncaring, it’s shown that friendship isn’t a bother to him, and he realises that he actually relies on his friends despite saying he likes being left in peace. His friends all have great personalities, my personal faves are a tough gangster girl who’s rude to everyone EXCEPT her adorable loli girlfriend, and a popular girl who’s trying too hard to fit in and starts to become more herself after befriending Tanaka. All the characters share one brain cell, and it’s genuinely a funny anime - I’ve burst out laughing watching it a few times. Also Tanaka and Ohta are extremely shippable if you want to go down that route; it’s said several times in the series that they’re like an old married couple.

10/10 for wholesomeness and comedy.

5) Ouran High School Host Club

Another lighthearted show, probably the anime that’s made me laugh the most out of any. It’s set at an academy for rich-as-heck kids, and there’s a ‘Host Club’ where all the girls go to drink tea with a group of handsome boys. There’s the cunning Kyouka, prankster identical twins Hikaru and Kaoru, stoic Mori, adorable Honey, and princely but obnoxious Tamaki. Haruhi, a working-class scholarship student who is mistaken for a boy, accidentally breaks a precious vase and is forced by the host club to join them to pay off her debt. The group of boys realise fairly quickly that haruhi is a girl, but she becomes a popular host amongst the girls (LOVE the secret lesbian vibes) so they keep up the charade. I think I have a weakness for groups that share one brain cell because aside from Kyouka, they’re all idiots. I also love how flexible the show is with ideas of gender and sexuality despite being a slightly older anime. The daily antics of the host club combined with their personalities is a recipe for comedy, and they’re all lovable in their own ways.

10/10 for characters, drama, and comedy; it’s well-paced too.

4) Bungou Stray Dogs

Set in an alternate modern Japan where some people have secret abilities that can be activated, this anime became an obsession when I first watched it. The cast of characters is amazing and the villains are awesome too. Atsushi is an orphan who discovers he can turn into a powerful tiger, and is hired by the Armed Detective Agency, a small organisation of powerful individuals who fight crime. NEED I SAY ANY MORE?? Many of the main characters share names with famous Japanese authors such as Osamu Dazai and Ryūnosuke Akutagawa which is really cool and something that might add to the story more if I had an understanding of Japanese literature. Anyways the main character Atsushi is kind of a wimp at first (understandably because the world of ability-users is actually terrifying), but he learns to stand up for himself and use his ability to save people. The show’s mixing of dark and comedic tones is perfect to me; one moment a character is off his head on mushrooms and the next Atsushi’s leg is brutally sliced off in a back alley fight (it regenerates later no worries). The plot is really cool and full of intrigue, and eventually you get the whole ‘Usually we’re sworn enemies but we’re forced to become allies in the face of a greater evil’ thing and it’s great! Turns out our main guy and our main bad guy are actually a pretty powerful and efficient team, hoho??

10/10 for supernatural detectives being super cool.

3) Yuri!!! on Ice

Y’all already know what’s going on. Ice skating, emotional breakthroughs, gay shit, HIT ME WITH IT. The story follows Yuri Katsuki, an insecure figure skater trying to regain his confidence, and his self-appointed coach Viktor Nikiforov. Viktor is enthusiastic in helping Yuri train, and Yuri has been a big fan of Viktor since his childhood *throws pillow across the room*. Yuri becomes determined to, quote, “surpass Viktor’s wildest imagination”, and they end up agreeing - through a series of convoluted events - to get married if Yuri wins gold at the olympics (I think it’s the olympics??). Either fuckin way this series has angst, humour, cuteness, and god DAMN did I get invested. When Yuri was doing his free skate my own heart was beating harder than it did when I finished a 10K. Love the vibes and also it’s the closest to full healthy gay representation that I’ve seen in anime for a while. Not much more I can say, but do I really need to say more???

10/10 for GAY and MY HEART

2) Kimetsu No Yaiba (Demon Slayer)

Ok this one’s kind of a cheat cause I’ve read the manga as well which is way ahead of the anime, but FUCC. It takes place in the Taisho Era in Japan (begins 1912), where Demons exist who eat people. Tanjiro Kamado’s family is killed by a demon one night and his sister Nezuko is turned into a demon - but it is soon discovered she’s different to other demons, and can restrain herself. Tanjiro joins the Demon Slayer Corps to try and track down a cure for his sister, while proving that demons are not inherently evil. I LOVE Tanjiro as a main character because he values kindness over everything else, not forgiving demons for their sins but recognising they are tormented creatures, trying to give them peace before they die. All demons were once human - a fact that only Tanjiro seems to remember when fighting them. He’s patient, gentle, and determined - hotheaded and brash sometimes, but he has this vibe that just makes people become his friend/respect him even if they don’t intend to. He befriends two other slayers - Inosuke, an absolutely feral Best Boy who was raised by wild boars, and Zenitsu, a cowardly but ultimately loyal guy. This trio works really well together and Tanjiro is a great protagonist. Don’t even get me STARTED on the music and animation. Impeccable. Kamado Tanjiro No Uta makes me cry every time I hear it, and the water/fire effects used to show the metaphorical way the swords move like the elements takes my breath away.

10/10 for morals, music and animation.

1) Mob Psycho 100

Where the fuck do I start here. This anime is so unique in its style, story, and characters that I think it will always be my favourite. It follows Shigeo Kageyama (nicknamed Mob cause that’s what they call extras and background characters in Japan), a plain boy with incredible psychic powers that explode when his emotions are too high. Over time he’s learned to suppress his emotions, causing him to become socially inept and emotionally withdrawn. His (fake) psychic ‘master’, Reigen, uses him to make money exorcising spirits, making Mob believe that it’s for ‘training’. Mob appears naive at times, but he is so simply kind to people that it makes my heart hurt. Unlike many of the egomaniac psychics that Mob comes across, he recognises that without powers, he is just an ordinary boy. Mob’s greatest power isn’t his OP psychic abilities, but his power to show people they can change, that he can change. He forgives (and eventually befriends) people who have tried to kill him. Redemption and empathy are big themes here and they’re done really well.

The other characters are so well rounded and are also given time to grow, including Reigen - at first he’s a seemingly manipulative sleazebag, but later you see that he is a genuinely good man who has taught Mob many lessons and helped him grow up. This is a core message - Mob’s ability to change is due to support from his friends, not purely his own desire - people need other people!

This is also one of the true rarities in anime where the second season is absolutely just as good (if not better!) than the first one. The music is unique to the show, the ops for both seasons get me litty, the animation is incredible, the jokes are great and although it’s not all about big-ass fights, when we do get a big-ass fight it’s so fucking cool. The fight sequences are beautifully animated and visually stunning. MP100 makes me laugh, cry like an actual baby, and want to become a better person. Idk I could literally write pages on it like the big nerd I am but that’s all I’ll do for now.

10/10 for literally everything.

HONOURABLE MENTIONS

Given : about a boy who joins a band which helps him work through his trauma. Lovely healthy gay representation and themes of healing.

Samurai Champloo : ragtag trio consisting of two samurai - one lowkey feral and does breakdancing, the other lofty and withdrawn - and a bold young girl. Themes of friendship and journeys. I simp for the lofty samurai.

Cowboy Bebop: jazzy music, bounty hunters in space, 90s anime WHAT MORE COULD U WANT. Yet another group of characters that share a single brain cell. Love it.

#anime review #anime recommendation

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the-is13 · 5 years

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A Pinch of Salt

Description: You didn’t expect to be working tonight. It was a regular Friday night, or so you thought. Two beautiful men happen to come into the small pizza joint, one with particularly captivating hazel eyes.

Characters: Jared, Jensen, Reader, OFC’s OMC’s

Relationship: Jared x Reader

Warnings: None really, cursing? A bit of fluff

Word Count: 4046, wow that surprised me

A/N: So this is my first fic, I read a lot but have never wrote anything. This stemmed from a dream I had. For the purpose of this fic its set in early stages of the boys filming Supernatural. Jared is a bit younger, late twenties. Him and Gen are friends but nothing more. This purely fiction! I mean no harm to J2 or their families, I love them all the to moon and back. Any hate will not be tolerated. Please be kind and let me know if you liked it!

Beta: A GIANT shoutout to @team-free-will-you-idjits-67 for being a beta and pretty much helping me get this right, haha pun intended. You rock chick.

Oversized t-shirt, fuzzy socks, warm cup of tea, and netflix. That’s how you typically spend your Friday nights since you aren’t one to go out or party. You like your space.You’re content with the quietness of just sitting and reading a good book or just watching netflix by yourself.

That’s how you’d like to be spending this friday night, but alas, Susan called in to work.Again. Apparently her little boy is sick, for the third time this month. You’re pretty sure he’s fine and that she just has a date. It wouldn’t bother you if she would just ask and tell you the truth, but of course, she lies. Well, at least you think she’s lying.

Oh well, more tips for you.

So here you are, at Pete’s Pizza on a Friday night. It's not too busy, but its not slow either. Pete’s is a pretty good place to eat, lots of beer and, of course, plenty of variety on pizza. The owner, and head pizza master, Jimmy, is an amazing cook and is always trying new things to put on pizzas. It's a popular spot. If you didn’t work there, you would probably eat there too.

You’re busy turning in another order for this weekends special; spicy taco pizza with extra jalapenos, when your coworker Nancy bumps you roughly.

“Sorry, y/n!” She went to turn away from you and tend to her own tables when she exclaimed, “Oh! A few guys just sat in your area.” She placed her hand beside her face like she was trying to cover a secret she was about to tell you, but you knew whatever she had to say wouldn’t be quiet. “They seem like a rowdy bunch too.”

You sigh, “Great. First the Johnson’s, now these guys.”

Everyone knew the Johnson’s, they were regulars, the kind of customers you hate: rude, always blaming you for everything, and nitpicking every single thing. od forbid there be an onion out of place on their pizza. They had five kids. Seriously, five, and they were ALWAYS misbehaving. But of course, it was never their fault, according to their parents. You thought differently, they all needed a good whoopin’. On top of it all, they never, ever, tipped. No matter how hard ANYONE tried. It was very taxing to say the least.

Grabbing your pen and paper you waltzed off to table 8 and tried to put on your best smile. You really wanted to make some money tonight, afterall you needed to pay the bills.

“Welcome to Pete’s! What can I..” Looking up from your pad you started to stutter as you noticed who was in front of you. This couldn’t be. You had to be dreaming, it wasn't real. You stared into his hazel eyes, the captivating blues, greens, and speckles of brown. He smiled, oh lord, his smile, so bright and white.

“Wh-what can I start you off with tonight?” You stuttered. Wow, you made a sentence. You were pretty sure you were going to faint.

“I think I’ll have a beer, what ‘bout you Jay?” Oh god, his booming voice, if he spoke another word you might turn into a puddle right then and there.

“Yeah, beer sounds great right now.” said his friend, his best friend. Of course you knew him, well, knew of him.

“I think we’ll just take two beers for now” He smiled politely brushing some hair from his face.

“I-I, I’ll.. be, right.. B-back with those” You smiled back, trying not to sound so foolish, but damn, how could you not? Jared fucking Padalecki and Jensen fucking Ackles just walked into Pete’s, and sat in your area!

You let Nate, the bartender that night, know you needed two beers asap. Then you whipped out your phone to text your best friend, Hannah. You two had been through hell and back, knowing each other practically since birth or before since your moms attended lamaz together. She shared your healthy obsession with Supernatural and all things cooperating. She had to know what was happening. Now!

Y/n:OMG!! HANNAH YOURE NEVER GOING TO BELIEVE THIS!!!

She quickly wrote you back, knowing you had to work this evening

H: What’s up? You get a $100 tip or something, ‘cause that WOULD be unbelievable!

y/n: Wow bitch, thanks. NO this is MUCH MORE EXCITING!!

H: Well.. go on with it…

y/n: JARED AND JENSEN ARE HERE

H: …

You’re joking right?

y/n: OMG NO! WHY WOULD I JOKE ABOUT THIS!? I KID YOU NOT, THEY ARE BOTH HERE SITTING IN MY AREA!!!!!! IM GOING TO DIE!!!

H: BREATHE! You need to be cool, or at least as cool as you can be. Hehehe

y/n: Shut the fuck up, im cool.

H: uhhhhuh you keep telling yourself that.. ;)

You waited for her to be serious, since she probably thought you were joking. The realization of your truth hadn’t hit her yet or else she’d be freaking out as much as you were. You waited, watching her little dots letting you know she was indeed typing back to you. You didn’t get a chance to read it as you were snapped out of your world with your best friend by Nate.

“Eh hemm, y/n, you busy over there, or you wanna take these beers?” You nearly jumped out of your skin. He had been staring at you, watching you frantically typing away on your phone. “OH! Yes, thanks Nate,” you said with a wink. Nate and you flirted all the time but you never really meant anything by it. You were pretty sure he had a crush on you though. You could feel him staring at your ass as you walked away.

Approaching their table you made sure to take some deep breaths. In and out Y/n, in and out, you reminded yourself. With a polite smile you were able to speak, “Here’s your beers, gentlemen.” You didn’t want to seem like the fangirl you were, knowing their names, so you stuck to the informalities. “Are y’all ready to order?” As you smiled once again, trying to keep your excitement under control.

Jensen spoke first this time “Yeah, I think so. That speciality pizza sounds pretty good darlin’. I think we’ll have two with a side of cheesy sticks,” he said before sending a quick wink your way. You gulped, knowing that he definitely noticed you staring at them. Who would blame you though? They were such fine men, and they knew it.

Scribbling down their orders legibly as possible, all while trying not to fling your pen out of your hand like an idiot you chirped, “I’ll put that right in, be out soon”.

You went to grab their menus, meeting Jared’s eyes once more and drowning in the sea of colors, causing you to accidentally knock the salt over on the table. You watched in horror as the top flung off and covered Jared’s lap with salt.

“Oh! My gosh! I’m, so, so sorry! Let me get a towel, I’ll clean this up, sorry.” You rambled. You thought you were playing it cool, but obviously not. You scolded yourself for being so clumsy before you ran off to the kitchen. Handing Jimmy their order quickly, you went around the door of the kitchen to the closet to grab a rag.

Jensen nudged Jared as they watched you run away “Dude, I think she knows who we are. he seemed a little flustered, doncha think?” He hit Jared in the shoulder, noting how he wasn’t phased that his lap was saltier than the ocean.

Jared winced as he rubbed at his arm,”Ow! What?”

Jensen stared at Jared with a ‘are you serious?’ look. “Didn’t you hear me? I think she recognized us.” Jared’s attention had returned to the direction you disappeared in. SNAP SNAP SNAP “Dude, what is your deal?!” Jensen spoke with a little more irritation as he waved his hands in front of Jared’s face.

Jared finally turned to him and stuttered a little “Uhh, yeah, whadya say Jay?”

Smacking his forehead a little dramatically Jensen exclaimed, “Have you heard a word I said? Like, at all?!” He talked louder than he had wanted, drawing more attention to them than he planned.

“Do you really need to shout?” Jared questioned. “I Just wanted to go out and relax tonight and you’re trying to make a scene!” He snapped.

Finally looking down at his lap he tried to gather as much of the salt he could and dump in onto the table. Scooting back in his chair, he stood up to shake some salt off but heard a soft ompf as he stood. He bumped into you, nearly knocking you down.

Now it was his turn to apologize.

Spinning around quickly he grabbed your wrist before you could tumble all the way down, yanking you a little hard as you ended up with a face full of his chest. You couldn’t complain though, he smelled delightful.

You crained your head upwards to look at him, seeing his mouth moving but the words not registering in your head. You probably looked like a fish out of water, jaw slack, eyes wide.

“You okay?” He repeated. Finally, you snapped out of it. Blinking rapidly you managed one word “Yeah..” Jared smiled softly, “You sure? You’re sorta staring at me like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Retreating from his hold, you internally scolded yourself for the third time of the night. This was Jared Padalecki. You couldn’t be looking at him like a damn knight in shining armor. This was not a fairytale. This was real life, or so you hoped. You straightened yourself out a bit “Uhm, yeah, I’m good, so sorry again. Let me clean your table,” you clipped out.

“It’s okay, no big deal really. It’s not like you a-salt-ed me, or anything,” he said giggling, trying to lighten the mood. But failing to contain his laughter from his own joke. Jensen smacked his forehead once again and thoroughly rolled his eyes.

You lifted your head and just stared at him, was he kidding? You couldn’t tell, all you heard was assault. Immediately you assumed the worst, he was going to press charges because you spilled salt. My god how stupid were you! So fucking stupid, you should’ve just stayed home!

“I’m so sorry Mr. Padalecki, please don’t sue me,” you squeaked out. Your voice barely above a whisper, afraid you’d burst into tears on the spot.

Realizing you didn’t take his joke well, he started to back track. Holding his hands up almost defensively. “What? No! I was joking! It was a joke! I’m not going to..” then it clicked, you called him ‘Padalecki’.

“Wait, you know me?” He said with a raised, questioning brow.

“Uhh.. hmm.” Stuttering slightly, your brain went into overdrive to try and explain yourself. But it was working too fast trying to form the correct words. You cleared your throat trying to remain calm and collect yourself. “I guess you could say that, I mean I do watch ‘Supernatural’..” you looked towards Jensen “So yeah, I guess I do know who you are, both of you.”

Jensen’s face lit up “I told you dude! I can always tell when they know!” he exclaimed.

You could feel heat creeping into your cheeks, embarrassed because you thought you were playing it cool. Maybe Hannah was right. You were just a waitress at a pizza joint, and this was Jared fucking Padalecki we were talking about here.

Without saying a word, you began to turn away and head back to the kitchen or to check on your other tables. Hell, almost literally, anywhere but right here.

“Hey…” Jared had snached your wrist once again, “Don’t worry about it, its okay.. D-do you want to take a picture.. Being a fan of the show and all..” he trailed off motioning to Jensen.

“Uh, yeah.. Sure, as long as y’all don't mind.”

They both chuckled lightly, wishing you could hear that sound forever. It was such a beautiful sound, much different in person. “Nah, it's no problem, afterall we try to maintain a good relationship with our fans,” Jensen drawled with a wiggle of his brows. You weren't sure if he was just being friendly, or if he was displaying some of Dean’s flirtiness.

You were still slightly embarrassed as you pulled out your phone quickly, closing your recent conversation with Hannah. You tried to angle your phone to get a good selfie, but you couldn't really capture the behemoth of men behind you. Jared lightly and plucked your phone from your grasp, knowing you were struggling to get a good picture. “Here, let me..”

Click click click

He took a few pictures to make sure you got a good one. You had the the attention of almost the entire restaurant now, since you spilled the salt all over Jared and were now snapping pictures with the two of them.

“There ya go, I’m sure you got a good one.” Jared said handing your phone back to you.

“Thanks..” You trailed off, looking down to try and hide the blush creeping onto your cheeks as your fingers brushed his in the exchange.

“Y/N!! Y/N!!” Mrs. Johnson yelled from across the room waving her hand like the lunatic she is. “Y/N!! Come here!”

Huffing a bit, you quickly said additional ‘sorry’s’ to Jared for making a mess and ‘thanks’ to them both for the pictures. Taking a deep breath, before dealing with the table from hell, you turned on your heel making your way to their table.

Meanwhile, that was the first time Jared had heard your name, y/n. You were too caught up in who you were looking at to introduce yourself upon taking their order. ‘Y/n’ he thought it was a beautiful name.

“Yes, Mrs. Johnson, how can I help you?” You said as you plastered on a fake smile.

“We need more napkins, what do you keep stocked in these things? Two napkins?” she said in a snarky tone while tapping the napkin dispenser. Trying to refrain from commenting on how her children used half the restaurants napkins because they were either such a mess or building a damn castle in the bathroom with them, you made your smile even wider.

“I’ll run and get more right now Mrs. Johnson.”

Turning away from their table you were halted by her grabbing your elbow and not so whispering in your ear. “That performance was horrendous, spilling salt all over that poor boy, just for him to take a picture with you. Pathetic.”

You ripped your arm from her grasp and gave a tight lipped smile, “I’ll go get those napkins now, be right back.” Heading towards the backroom once more, you heard her muttering to her husband how ‘sad and pathetic’ your life was. Like she should give a damn about your life.

Sometimes you wished people would just mind their own damn business and keep their mouths shut. Afterall, that's what you did. You were never one for confrontation. Even as a child, you hated arguing with your older brother or your parents, you just kept to yourself. You never really stood up for yourself. You took the blame for so much, even if it wasn’t your fault or you didn't do it, you took it. You didn't want to upset anyone.

You dropped a huge pile of napkins off with the Johnson’s after taking Jared and Jensen their pizza’s. All while Mrs. Johnson kept nonchalantly whispering about you, either to herself, Mr. Johnson, or ‘non-directly’ at you. It was really tiring.

You tried to keep a smile on while checking on your other customers and, of course, Jared and Jensen. You really wanted to talk to them about the show, their lives, or anything else for that matter. It was still hard for you to believe this was real.

Between the Johnson’s, their herd of children that you constantly cleaned up after, the other customers, and Jared and Jensen, you were feeling a little worn out. Nate could tell, he kept asking if you were okay, to which you always replied with a kind smile, and ‘yup i’m good’. It was nice for him to be concerned about you. He was always a nice guy. He never pushed too far with the harmless flirting, never talked behind your back, and he always made sure you got your tips. It was refreshing after being walked on most of your life.

Jared and Jensen ate their pizza slowly and drank their beer a little faster than they ate their pizza. You kept bringing them refills and could tell they were getting a little loose. Not that you were to judge, it must be hard being famous and all. Plus, you pretty much ruined their evening. They kept smiling at you though, letting you know everything was fine, and damn, were they.

After the Johnson’s finally left and things calmed down a little, you stood behind the bar with Nate making idle chit chat.

“Do you know them?” He asked, pointing to where Jensen was currently laughing at Jared for some joke he made. “I saw you taking pictures with them..”

You were currently making heart eyes at the pair, after all, who wouldn't? They had some damn good genes. You realized Nate was talking to you and not a customer. “Oh, what? Know them? Do you not?”

He just shook his head ‘no’ looking at you like you had two heads. “Am I supposed to?” he questioned.

“NATE!” You said just a bit too loud, causing Jared and Jensen to look your way. You just smiled and turned toward Nate, blocking yourself from their view. “Do you really not know who they are?” He shook his head again peeking around your shoulder to look at them.

You tugged his shoulder and scolded him for staring. Now you were pot calling the kettle black. “They’re famous Nate, that’s Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles. They star on the show ‘Supernatural’, it's like the best sci-fi, drama, family show, ever!” He was still looking at you like you were crazy. “Nate c’mon, you've never watched it?”

You could tell he was wracking his brain by the look on his face.

After about a minute, or what felt like it, he finally spoke up. “Hmmm, Jensen… Ackles… I think he was on Smallville right?” You’re face lit up with excitement but you tried to contain yourself. “YES! Yes, he was! He played Jason!”

“Soo, you took a picture with them?” He pondered. You looked a little dumbfounded, would he not have? I mean, what if he was to meet someone famous? Just pass them by? Nate could tell by the way your face was twisting up in that sour look he thought was so cute, you were not pleased with his answer. “I mean that's pretty cool right? You can tell your grandkids you met ‘the stars of supernatural’,” he said a little too sarcastically as he waved his hands in the air like he could see the headlines of it.

You were still a little offended he was making fun of you but laughed it off and lightly pushed his shoulder. “Oh stop it Nate! You’re just jealous.” He smiled a little but then noticed the guys you had been making heart eyes at were getting ready to leave. “Hey..” he pointed in their direction, “I think your friends are leaving.”

Turning around quickly and nearly tripping over your own feet again, you noticed they were started to fight over the check. You could barely hear them arguing about who paid last time and who drank more. Mustering up all the courage you could, you put one foot in front of the other and marched towards their table. They both looked up at you curiously. “Beer’s on me guys, afterall you put up with the disaster I made earlier and were kind enough to take a picture with me”

They smiled widely, both slightly tipsy, you could tell their emotions were genuine, which made your heart flutter.

Jensen spoke first, running his tongue out across his lip, “That’s mighty kind of you darlin’,” he drawled, his southern accent peeking out more from the alcohol.

“Jay stop flirting, you’re probably scaring her! Then she won’t pay for anything!” Jared said with a wink and grin that made your knees weak.

You took in their drunken state light heartedly. They were much more kind than the other guys who would come in, get drunk and try to cop a feel. Not that you would mind if it was them though. You’d let Jared or Jensen feel you up all day or night.

You waved Jensen off, “Its fine, not like I’ll ever see y’all again..” you trailed off, the thought making you a little sad. You had enjoyed watching them interact, even if it wasn’t with you.

Jensen piped up with a smile that would shatter the moon, “I wouldn’t be so sure about that, sweetheart”, he winked and was out the door in a flash. That left just you and Jared, standing there like awkward teens at the school dance.

Jared nervously ran his hand through his hair and scratched the back of his neck. You were in awe. He looked so beautiful, even with the nervous behavior he was displaying.

“W-would you mind if I asked you for your number?” He stammered

You blinked, what was happening, was Jared fucking Padalecki asking you for your number? You pinched yourself and jumped, he was still there, awaiting your answer.

Noticing your apprehension he began to turn away “It’s fine if you don’t wanna give it to me, I know we just met and all..”

“YES” you replied a bit too eagerly. “I mean, yeah, you can have my number,” you spoke as you grabbed your notepad and quickly wrote it down, handing it to him.

He looked at you shyly, “Thank you, y/n for everything.” He flashed that bright smile and waved before turning to leave.

You stood there for a moment longer, shocked that what just happened, had indeed happened. You gave Jared PADALECKI your number.

Maybe he wouldn’t even contact you, maybe he was just trying to be nice. That was it, he was just being nice, I mean, from what you had seen about them in the media, they were generally nice guys.

You finally moved from your place, noticing that you got off in 10 minutes. You decided to just go ahead and start your cleaning duties and head home. You were wiping down Jared and Jensen’s table picking up a few napkins noticing something written on one. Flipping it over you had to slap your hand over your mouth to stifle the gasp that left your lips.

“Y/n, you are too beautiful and kind to be working here, and you are not pathetic. I did kinda like the a-salt though ;)”

Was delicately written and tucked inside was a crisp $100 bill, by far the best tip you’d ever received. Hannah would be eating her words and you couldn’t wait to tell her.

You did the rest of the cleaning and closing with Nate rather quickly. Anxious to get out of there and phone your best friend.

Biding goodnight to Nate and Jimmy, you rushed to your car, about to grab your phone to call Hannah when a little ding let you know you had a text. Figuring it was her, you click the screen to light it up. Of course you had 12 texts from her wondering what was happening and how she needed the ‘dirty details’. Rolling your eyes you scrolled down noticing you had a text from a number you didn’t recognize. Opening it, you could have burst into tears from the fire in your heart.

I loved the pizza, beer and taking a picture with a beautiful girl, hope to see you soon. :) -Jare

Clutching your phone to your chest tightly you sighed and pinched your leg.

Ow, nope not dreaming, you thought to yourself. Now you really couldn’t wait to get home and tell Hannah.

#supernatural rpf #jared padalecki fanfiction #jensen ackles fanfiction #jared padalecki x reader #jared padalecki fluff #supernatural fanfiction #supernatural fluff #jared padalecki and reader #sam winchester fluff #sam winchester fanfiction

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stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale · 5 years

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I want to make a big post in regards to the survey I put out yesterday and talk about the future of this blog, as well as talk about [with you], my other writings and future posts.

This post is massive, but I want to be thorough about everything I put in the survey and the responses it got.

Before I start, I just want to say another thank you to everyone who has been supportive of me and this blog, and to everyone who took the time to take the survey and leave me feedback.

Except for the 3 people [which I’m not even convinced is 3 separate people tbh] who answered NO on every single question and the proceeded to write paragraphs about how my blog and writings are awful. I’m convinced this is the anon[s] who has actively sent me hate for the past few months based on the style the paragraphs were written. I know it’s you, hate anon[s], and your answers and votes have been completely scrapped.

Anyway, with that out of the way, I do want to add that the survey will be up for the rest of the week in case anyone still wants to take it. I’ll check it every night and close it after this Sunday.

Let’s get into this.

I want to start by prefacing that I understand this is MY blog and I can post whatever I want.

If I wanted to do character nights every night of the week or spend an entire day posting the same picture of Omar with stew on his face with the caption “Omar’s daily skincare routine”, then I could.

I won’t, but I could.

That being said, while there are things that I want to do or have thought about doing, I don’t want to do them if no one wants it. It would be a waste of time to do it anyway and then have no one read or appreciate it. That’s a big reason for this- to get a feel for what I want to do but also know what you want to see.

This was the first thing I wanted to confirm everyone was on board with. I LOVE doing these character and ship nights and I want to keep doing them every weekend! I get so many great responses [hell, most nights I get more responses than I can answer in a single night!] and have a blast talking about them!

So, you can imagine how happy I was to see that 92% of the answers were YES. The 8% who said NO included the 3 hate responses, but also 2 random NO’s that I was curious about. When I made the survey, I thought about adding a WHY after every question but didn’t because I wanted it to be quick.

We’ll continue to do character nights every Saturday and ship nights every Sunday.

We’ve only got three more Ericson kids to do for the character nights, and then we’ll spread out and do some characters from the other seasons. One thing that popped up frequently in the final response at the end of the survey was more attention to the other seasons, which is exciting! S4 may be my favorite season of the series, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love the other seasons and it’s characters.

I mean, c’mon, it’d be a SIN to not have a Lee night, right?

We still have plenty of ships to get through for s4, but when we eventually get through all of those, I’ll draw in other ships from the other games.

This one is important to me.

As far as my list of projects and future posts go, this one is the oldest. I’ve collected one-shots and multi-chapter fics and put them on my TBR list since ep2 was released.

Initially, I thought I was going to read all of them, then make a master list of my favorites with little mini-reviews. And then my list grew past 40 fics. Every time I would look at it, I’d say, “That’s a lot, I do it later lol.”

And then I got fed up and said, “Y’know what? Why am I making this harder for myself? Just take it 3-5 fics at a time and give them the focus and appreciation they deserve!”

So I did.

And if felt good to finally do it.

If any of you out there within this community haven’t ever written fanfiction, maybe you don’t like to and you’d rather just read it or you don’t have any ideas or whatever the reason may be, then you might not know [or fully understand] this:

Writing is hard.

It’s fun and worth it, but it is so damn hard.

And writer’s need to be appreciated for all the hard work and time they put into these stories.

This isn’t me calling out people for reading and not reviewing. Everyone has their reason for not reviewing a fic: They didn’t like it, they don’t know what to say, they loved it but can’t express how much they love it, they don’t think about it, they left kudos or likes and that’s enough- whatever! It’s all valid.

You as the reader don’t have to review things.

I’m just saying that reviews, when given by those who are comfortable doing so, are appreciated, are a great way to boost a writer’s confidence in their work, and let the writer know that they’re creating something good.

As a writer myself, reviews are something I cherish. I don’t care if it’s a review that says “Love it!” or “Can’t wait for more!” or if it’s a long paragraph. ALL of it is important to me. Every kudos or like is important to me.

As a writer, I know that one review can make or break your spirit for writing.

I am more than comfortable leaving long reviews, both on the story itself and on these posts I’ve started creating. I want these writers to know that they are so damn talented and we appreciate them and their work.

The mindset I go into when reading and reviewing these stories is “As a writer, what’s a review that I could only ever DREAM of receiving? What’s a review that would make me want to keep writing and better myself?”

Then I do my best to give them that review that they deserve.

Because you never know. What if this review inspires one of these writers and then they write the most beautiful story this fandom’s ever seen?

What if this writer was having a shitty day, or week, or month, and this review made them feel better?

What if this writer felt they weren’t good enough and was on the edge of never writing another story despite their talent and this review made them rethink that decision?

And if I have a chance at giving them that review? I’m going to take it.

It’s worth it.

THIS is the kind of positivity I want to share on this blog.

Even if I have to do it 3 stories at a time, I will continue to make these appreciation posts, and based on the 92% of YES’s on the survey, you guys want more of them which I’m grateful.

Much like the fanfic appreciation posts, this one has been on my mind for a long time.

Like most of you, I’ve spent years plaything these games and watching Clementine grow. Seeing her story come to its conclusion [after the very real possibility that it wouldn’t] was emotional on every level, and it continues to be emotional every time I replay the series.

If there’s one thing that I LOVE to discuss and read about, it’s how different everyone’s Clementine is.

None of them are the same. Sure, there are things about her that we can’t change [her race and sexuality] but as far as parts of her personality, how she interacts with others, who she falls in love with, and how she raises AJ is in our hands and how we want to shape her.

Even when we’re not playing as her our choices affect her character.

I’ve wanted to sit down and replay the entire series all over again, focus on Clementine, take even more notes, and then write a post of how MY Clementine grew throughout the series.

Like I said, ALL of our Clementine’s are different. I want to make this post and then see how different YOUR Clementine is compared to mine.

I want you to read the post and say “Wait, what? That’s not what my Clementine felt or did, she [blank]” because think of the possibilities for discussion that would open up?

Honestly, I could spend hours talking about Clementine and the effects my choices had on her.

So, yes, this is one that I will be doing. It won’t be done right away since I’m waiting for the Definitive series to release so that I can play that version. Not only that, but it’s not like I can beat the whole thing in a couple hours. This post will take weeks to prepare and I truly can’t wait.

I’m super excited about this one! And based on the 95% of people who said YES, y’all are excited, too!

This one was the most, um.... “controversial”?

That might be the right word, haha. That makes it sound TOO serious.

I actually added a [+other characters] to this question because I was trying to get across that I wanted to do character studies in general with Louis as an example, whether it be an analysis post OR a character study one-shot, like what I did with Mitch and [gross feelings].

However, I’m dumb and was in a hurry, so I slapped down Louis’ name and that point was COMPLETELY lost when I posted this question and that’s 100% my fault.

I should’ve worded it: Would you be interested in character STORIES/STUDIES of Louis AND the other Ericson kids?

I guess I could go on there NOW and fix is but................ would it matter?

I got a few comments about this one, each with the same worry about it. I won’t directly mention it here, but I want you to know that I’ve read through them carefully and I completely understand where you’re coming from.

What I can share is basically summed up in this one sentence [which I hope this person doesn’t mind me using]: “I think your ship posts and fanfics are better for the blog because Character studies I feel like crosses over into some other blogs and it might ruin what they have going for them since you kind of do everything?”

Fair enough.

However, I still want to do them, just... a little differently.

The more and more I thought about it, I think it might be fun to do more stories like [gross feelings] where it’s character-centric, told from only their POV, and delves into their feelings towards a certain topic.

[gross feelings]: Mitch-centric, focuses on his views of romance, how conflicted he is upon realizing he has feelings for James, and how Clementine and Louis’ relationship impacted his views.

It’s not a character study in the sense that I’m sitting down and writing down every single thing I know about him with my observations and theories about his character. It’s a story that dives into his mind.

For Louis, what if I wrote a fic based in the week after Marlon’s death and they’re preparing for the delta? Completely his POV and focuses on his conflicting feelings on Marlon, AJ, and Clementine? It’d still be a character study but within an actual story.

Or after Clementine comes back on the brink of death and missing a leg?

Or, hell, if I want to make myself sad, I could do one based on when he loses his tongue.

That’s more along the lines I was thinking and just worded it badly in the question I put out. In my head, it made sense so I get where those comments were coming from. Y’all are gonna have to give me feedback on if you think that’s a better direction because I think it is.

This one I thought could be fun.

In case you don’t know, another thing that I love to discuss is changes I [and everyone else] would make to certain seasons to improve the overall story.

For example, I don’t like the Stranger in s1 and think Jolene should’ve been the one to kidnap Clementine.

That’s a huge change to the story and opens up a shit ton of possibilities.

This is something that I think could be an entertaining thing to write and read and discuss. Again, this won’t be done for a very long time, since I’ll have to wait until the Definitive series releases and then do the posts between each season as I finish them, which will take a while.

Also!

One comment that was left was “What if we have season nights?” like we so with characters and ships. I think that is a wonderful idea! Not only would we be able to talk about the things we love, but we’d also get to share our different ideas for what could’ve improved the season!

Hell, maybe we could have a season WEEKEND. Since there’s a lot to talk about with each season, a night might not be enough. Maybe instead of doing a character/ship that weekend, we dedicate both days to Season 1/2/3/4?

It could be fun!

I’m still iffy on this one, but I was surprised to see such a high amount of people answer YES.

I’ve always thought about live streaming the final season, but I still don’t have a full grasp of how Mixer works [I play on xbox so I have to stream that way and Mixer is their way of doing it, I guess] nor do I own a headset or microphone to talk to you guys through. I could always do a silent stream, but really, where’s the fun in that??

Then again, do y’all really want to hear my cringy voice...? haha

It’s something that I want to do, though.

I even went into the gaming section at Walmart yesterday to look at their headsets and just “.......What does any of this mean??”

Sometimes I feel like an old lady who can’t quite grasp technology.

Then again, I had a lot on my mind yesterday and that might’ve distracted me. Needless to say, I did not buy a headset.

I want to do it, but I’m iffy still. That sums it up.

I was nervous about asking this one.

And I almost cried when I saw 95% of people said YES.

Most of the negative thoughts that I’ve had lately are related to my writing. Like I mentioned above, writing is hard. I love it so much but holy shit, sometimes it fucks me up.

I’ve gotten pretty good at sitting myself down, forcing all the negativity out of my mind, and just writing. I’ve done a lot of other things to help with writing and most of them have worked. It’s just been these past few weeks that I’ve relapsed into that negativity and self-doubt.

I guess I just needed to know that this is something that you guys still wanted, and now I know.

Now, I promised at the beginning of this that I would talk about [with you].

It’s been a long time since it’s been updated. I promised the final chapter a while ago and then I dealt with personal issues that prevented me from doing so. Then, when I went to finish it, I did.

And it was shit.

It was rushed and not everything I wanted it to be. I was writing it just to get it done, and that’s not what I’m about. I want to write something because I love it, not because I feel obligated to.

I want to finish [with you], but I want to finish it the right way and it took me a long time to come to this conclusion.

Here’s the part where I let you in on a secret:

I haven’t just been rewriting Chapter 6.

I’ve been rewriting the whole thing.

Chapters 1-3 have been revised with extra scenes, better grammar, and better flow into each other. Chapter’s 4-5 are currently being reworked, and Chapter 6 is being written.

Not only that, but I’ve split up these long-ass chapters so that they’re easier and less overwhelming to read through.

I can already hear it: “CJ?? Post chapter 6 first??? then go back a revise?? it’s been six months??? why do you hate us??????????”

Going back and “fixing” Chapters 1-5 have done nothing but improve Chapter 6 and the overall story. I’m sorry that it’s been so long that a lot have given up on it, but if I’m going to finish this, I’m going to finish it so that I’m proud of it.

When the final chapter is finished, I’ll be “re-posting” the entire story on AO3, FF.net, Wattpad, and here. And what I mean by that is I’ll go in, edit the chapters and replace them with the new ones, as well as split them into their proper parts, and release the ending. I won’t take down or delete the stories because I want to keep the reviews they currently have.

I’m just telling you this because right now, you’ll see this:

Chapters: 5/6

And when it’s finished, you’ll see something like this:

Chapters: 10/10 [or something, I don’t know the exact number yet]

That’s where [with you] stands.

Thank you to everyone who has stuck with me and this story. I hope you love it when it’s finished.

I added this in as an opportunity to tell me what you wanted to see from me or suggest prompts for future stories.

I’ve looked over all of them and tucked them away in my prompt folder.

I added this as a “final thoughts” section where you could suggest other things or say something that’s on your mind.

Again, I’ve looked over all of these several times and took them into consideration.

I also want to express a huge thank you for the amount of support I received while reading through them.

I hate to get mushy-gushy here at the end of this long post [and kudos to you if you actually made it this far holy shit], but I love you all.

Except you, hate anon[s]. Still iffy on you.

Seriously, you guys make running this blog, writing fics, and replaying these games worth it. I can’t express how much y’all have helped me and I’m happy to still be here. Yeah, Clementine’s story is over but that doesn’t mean I’m over it and I’m happy to have so many people here who I can talk about this with.

Thank you. ❤️

#asks #twdg fanfic appreciation #[with you]#[with you] update #twdg #twdg clementine #twdg louis #twdg mitch #twdg omar #twdg aj #twdg lee #this is long #but important #thank you

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hoshigomi · 5 years

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God of Stars//Éclair Brillant review, Hoshigumi, 2019

I may not have a real summer vacation from work, but my schedule allowed me to take a break this weekend to go down to Takarazuka to catch some of the first/second week of Hoshigumi’s God of Stars and Éclair Brillant!

(I WILL be seeing this show more in Tokyo and I will probably/maybe be able to refine these thoughts by the time it ends there, but let’s start off with first impressions, shall we? ♡)

First thing’s first, I love Hoshigumi. That’s not a secret. It’s not that I think they can Do No Wrong it’s just that I love them even when they Do Wrong. Thankfully, this is a case where I truly BELIEVE they did no wrong. Both the show and the revue were well suited to Hoshigumi and their cast of characters, and well suited to Kurenai Yuzuru and Kisaki Airi, the retiring top stars, as well.

God of Stars

Ooh BOY. Whatever you expected when you saw this poster, multiply that by about a thousand and you’ll maybe be a little closer to right. The English language website has released this plot blurb - feel free to read for some context, if you want!

Tl; dr- It’s kind of about the dangers of gentrification, it’s kind of about two idol groups vying to rise to the top, it’s kind of about loving someone despite their flaws, it’s kind of about being loved as you are, and it’s kind of about Iron Chef. It’s zany and it’s FUN and the music (some of which is by famed anime and other-things composer Hyadain) is catchy and memorable. (I have seriously had the main theme and one of the big group numbers stuck in my head all week.) I would call this the most anime play I have ever seen, and I’ve seen anime plays. I would also compare it to Om Shanti Om, if you’ve seen that. There are STACKS AND STACKS of references to new media, actual people, mythology, popular culture, and the actresses themselves (half of their characters are plays on their names, if they’re not playing someone real, like Chow Yun-fat, literally the lead actor from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.)

If you’re generally a fan of comedies, slapstick, BIG group numbers, anime plays, or things that don’t take themselves too seriously, you’ll love it. It’s just pure fun. It’s light. It’s loving. It’s energetic. It’s happy. It’s Hoshigumi. There are a few very touching scenes between characters - one in particular between Hong (Kurenai Yuzuru) and Lee (Rei Makoto), made someone within earshot of me cry every time I saw it. For me personally, this show REALLY shone in the group scenes- I never knew quite where to look (not because the main action wasn’t engaging, just because WHEREVER you looked in the group scenes, someone was making a specific, motivated, and usually HILARIOUS character choice), and I sincerely wish I could have a star angle of every actress in every big scene. So, let’s talk about some of these actresses!

Kurenai Yuzuru plays Hong Xing -Xing, the chef. He’s an asshole. He has a heart of gold underneath it all, but spends the majority of the play having that bit of him excavated. Again, if you’ve seen Om Shanti Om, think act II Om. I loved it. Beni does shine at this kind of thing, playing loveable assholes. The music ROCKED for her, the over the top RIDICULOUSNESS of this show is where she shines the brightest. She worked with everyone around her to create great moments for some little characters and lent her comedic timing to the whole troupe, it seemed like. I missed the depth that her role in Elbe allowed her to show, and the stillness and emotional intent she’s so heartachingly beautiful at was missing here, but that’s the show’s fault, not hers. I loved this as a taidan role. I’ll miss Beni. I can’t wait to see how her and Hong have grown by Tokyo.

Kisaki Airi as Eileen Chow particularly kicked ass (figuratively and literally, with slipper kung-fu.) She DEFINITELY wasn’t shafted here (hooray!!) with two solos in her wheelhouse and honestly, I feel, a stronger character than Beni even got. She was spunky and sassy and she looked so damn GOOD in all her costumes. Nothing but respect for MY anime heroine, Eileen Chow.

Hanagata Hikaru from Senka played Eric Yang of the Golden Star Group, a straight man to everyone else’s completely whack roles, unfortunately a little unremarkable (she’s so comedically GIFTED, but this role was strictly there to advance the plot.) Rei Makoto, the-soon-to-be-top star, was sweet as Lee Long Long Dragon, Hong’s rival. He’s the classic trope of complete nerd-turned- absolute hottie, when he meets his idol (and literal idol) Christina Chang (Maisora Hitomi, next top musumeyaku). Some of the most universally appreciated humor in this show came from Lee being absolutely FLUSTERED by Christina- and it was really NICE to see these two play together as a couple. They have some SWEET SWEET moments, particularly with their scene together at the end of the play. The seeds of good chemistry are there, and they have the potential to sound really great together. I really hope they don’t sacrifice humor and personality in the long run for pure skill, but I’m optimistic. ♡)

Yumeki Anru as Kitty, Hong’s Kind Of Girlfriend (and later Chow Yun Fat’s arm candy) was a COMPLETELY INCREDIBLE, SEXY, Sailor Moon Villain-esque nuisance- also may or may not have been directly lifted from Crazy Rich Asians.

The boy band, Paradise Prince, made up of Kiwami Shin, Amato Kanon, Amahana Ema, Amaki Homare, leader Seo Yuria, and long suffering (but LOVING and mature and full of her own life and opinions and things to Get Done- my only complaint is I wish they let her sing more) manager Arisa Hitomi were a COMPLETE delight. If I could give them the small group ensemble award for just the sheer bullshit they were CONSTANTLY giving us, God I would. If you didn’t know where to look in God of Stars and you defaulted to them, you’d NEVER be disappointed. From choreographing small routines on the side of the stage to taking selfies and making Tik Toks, they were 100% on all the time. (Also, sounded vocally great and looked great dancing, technical skill wise. I would honestly buy this group as a boy band. Let me know when they release their first single. I’ll buy 10.) (Distinguished performance award goes to Amato Kanon, who is Ken 3 but has the raw power of six upperclassman otokoyaku combined, and is going to be absolutely UNSTOPPABLE in a few years once she learns how to refine ALL THAT.) Kozakura Honoka, Sakuraba Mai, Mizuno Yuri, Seira Hitomi, and leader Maisora Hitomi, make up the girl group, Eclipse, who are used more for transitions and set dressing (albiet FUN set dressing), than plot devices of their own. (Sorry girls, the boys win this idol group battle.)

Kisaragi Ren (Ren), Mao Yuuki (Mao), Miki Chigusa (Lao Hu), Kizaki Reo (Leo) (see what I’m saying about character names....?), and Shizuki Otone (Michelle) are the working class, good people from Eileen’s life who have stakes in the food hawker stalls, and GOD, they, along with the boy band and the underclassmen ensemble characters, really bring the story to life. Every one of them makes a specific character and sticks to it with care and love and humor and stakes and it’s clear and it’s big and it is, in my opinion, so Hoshigumi. (Also, the roles weren’t huge, but these were still nice for Mao Yuuki and Kisaragi Ren’s last roles in Takarazuka. They were usually together and always funny and got to be in PLENTY of the show, which is all we can ask for.)

Tenju Mitsuki and Otoha Minori both got to flex their acting chops as Eileen’s parents. Even if I am a little sad that the two of them are now officially playing parents, they ARE old enough that that shouldn’t really be surprising. Tenju Mitsuki especially got to be funny, and Otoha Minori got to be loving and maternal, and I feel that both really milked their roles for all they could. Also, for PARENT ROLES, they were hardly shafted, so I’ll count my blessings now.

Natori Rei, Mari Yuzumi, Hiroka Yuu, and Sazanami Reira as Demon Bull King, Princess Iron Fan, and The Bodhisattva Candraprabha and Suryaprabha respectively (y’all PLEASE look these characters up I am BEGGING you) were Beni’s family (see the show before you decide whether I’m speaking figuratively or literally) and while the show could have happened without that side plot and only a few tweaks, were a really lovely and worldly addition to the cast. It was FUN to see the Gods and People Of Legends giving context to the story and the other characters, and even more fun to see normal people interacting with them at the end of the play.

As the newswoman and MC Vimmy, Shirotae Natsu was LITERALLY playing her character from Om Shanti Om, and was just as delightful now as she was then (and one of the times I saw the show, worked INCREDIBLY seamlessly and quickly with Beni to fix a mic issue that could have made a whole scene fruitless.) Iroha Reo was Shirotae Natsu’s assistant MC, and Shidou Ryuu was the producer, both in small but still lovingly crafted roles. Haruto Yuuho’s incredible voice was completely wasted as the silent role of cameraman, but she looked cute as hell in a beanie and glasses. Murasaki Rira as Madam Yang was an absolute joy in the back (or front) of every Golden Star Group scene, playing a little batty and a little flirty and a little spacey and a lot wild and fun. Yuunagi Ryou as Chow Yun Fat, actual Real Life Actor (and for the purposes of this play, the deciding judge of the cooking competition,) was a lot of fun if you love looking at the complete storylines people can come up with in the back of scenes, and your kind of character if you’re into the whole bad boy but also kung fu actor guy thing. Toudou Jun (Sheik Jahuli), Asamizu Ryou (Monsieur Lobchamp), and Minato Rihi (Michiba Juusaburou, NOT to be confused with Actual Iron Chef Michiba Rokusaburou) were the other chefs featured by the Golden Star Group, and MAN, they were all funny. Toudou Jun had a particularly fleshed out take on her character, more naan jokes than I can count, and a surprising amount of heart in the group scenes with Eileen and co. Ooki Makoto as the priest had one of the best lines in the show, correcting Hong’s reading of a sign, and Otosaki Itsuki, while onstage very little, got a KILLER solo as the dragon boat singer at the start of the Singapore scene mid-show.

If you get a chance, I really recommend you see this show in person. It is a lovingly crafted, well performed, slapstick ride in an Iron Chef meets Cutthroat Kitchen vehicle. It ends with rainbow gyoza and a RAP battle, y’all. The LIFE of it is so shockingly full force in the theatre, as is the volume and the humor and the love that I think endears Hoshigumi to its fans. God of Stars is worth a watch- and even if it ends up not for you, at least you’ll be able to see you saw Naan used as a weapon in a stage fight. ♡

Éclair Brillant,

(which I learned TODAY is not called ‘Éclair Brilliant’). Is, well, Brilliant. While I wouldn't call this the best Benigumi revue in my eyes, (it's no Killer Rouge, and I am PARTICULAR to Estrellas as fair as Hoshigumi Energy goes), the fact is, everyone has different taste, and besides that, Éclair Brillant is BEYOND good. Here's a quick number by number breakdown (as it goes in my memory.) The opening is CLASSY and CLASSIC. It actually is NOT AT ALL unlike the opening to Bouquet De Takarazuka, but it's silver, not beige. The choreography and music both have moments that DEFINITELY struck me with deja vu. Something interesting is that this revue DOES NOT have a title screen/sign/marquee. I am not SURE why that is. In its place, the music starts (a low hum, very space-y), and the theatre slowly fades to complete darkness, before Kurenai Yuzuru (Beni) is illuminated from the back, the light shining through her gauzy, spacey, alien costume in a VERY cool way that made the audience all ooh and ahh, then the lights come up on her face and we begin. The theme is SWEET. Beni sounds INCREDIBLE in this part of her vocal range. Then, enter the rest of the troupe, Rei Makoto (Coto) gets her solo, Seo Yuria (Seo) and Hanagata Hikaru get time on the bridge, Kisaki Airi (Airi) gets her solo. It's all structurally sound, predictable, and good. This opening is the only place in the revue with a kyakusekiori (actresses in the aisles.)

The opening ends, and Beni is left on the bridge for a solo number. It's playful and uptempo and and not stylistically unlike Leaning on a Lamppost from Me and My Girl, only a little more introspective and slower. She sits on the stairs to the audience for part of it and really focuses on just singing and acting and being present and it's lovely.

From there, the curtain rises on a very pastoral, calm, almost blank stage, save for a tree, a couple outdoor tables, some underclassmen playing couples and waiters and waitresses, and Maisora Hitomi with a hat. You can tell this is going to be a dance scene immediately, and it is. (Side note: The underclassmen in this scene ROCK. They have a lot of moments of complete stillness and freezes into very fluid natural movement, and they all maintain their storylines and relations throughout. It's nice to see.) Anyway, Maisora is minding her own business and then a sudden gust of WIND blows through the beautiful scene, her hat is whisked away offstage, she briefly chases after it and then ah, gives up. She goes back to her table presumably to like continue having a normal day and mourn the loss of her hat but surprise, there is the personification of the wind itself (Coto) sitting on her table like a little wind nymph. They dance. It's beautiful. I'd say more but that's all there is to say- they dance and it IS beautiful. I think right now dance is looking like it's going to be their strength because boy, they move REAL WELL together. They're both pretty top tier dancers, and it's cool to see them move so naturally together despite having just met. Maisora also VOCALLY sounds better in this number than she did in God of Stars, in my opinion- it's a pretty, lilting slow tune that she definitely sounds good on. The dance ends with an attempted kiss and some falling feathers, and suddenly, all the people from the scene come running back on, breaking the fantasy (with the hat! They found the hat!), and Maisora ultimately runs back off with them after a pensive glance out, as if wondering if the Wind Spirit who visited her Will Ever Return. Then Coto sings some more. It’s predictably beautiful.

Cumbanchero (the start of the chuuzume, despite being only three songs into the revue) is one of my very favorite numbers in the revue, probably because I have a big ol’ Takarazuka Crush on one of the dancers, but also because it’s just really high energy and it’s danced so WELL. It starts ABRUPTLY and features Kurenai Yuzuru, Mao Yuuki, Shidou Ryuu, Kizaki Reo, Sazanami Reira, Hiroka Yuu, Yuunagi Ryou, Minato Rihi, and Amato Kanon. Man, they can all DANCE. If Coto’s Hoshigumi features these actresses in dance numbers, they’re gonna look GOOD. It’s a nice reprieve from the so far calm and pretty revue and starts to take things over to the sexier/bolder/more sensual Latin-inspired side, where a lot of the rest of the revue sits, musically. (Though like, Takarazuka “Latin” is what it is and we all know that.) Airi gets a turn in the spotlight next, singing a song I WISH I knew the title of, with either a long curly blonde wig or a short brown bob depending on the show while Ooki Makoto and Kisaragi Ren (hell yeah) get fawned over/pawed at/pushed around by musumeyaku. It’s sensual. Also sensual (but leaning much more towards playful and flirty) is The Next Number In The Chuuzume, sung by Amahana Ema, Kiwami Shin, and Arisa Hitomi. Arisa Hitomi SPECIFICALLY sounds mature and sexy and GOOD and everything a musumeyaku learns to be when you give her a chance to grow up. Some of the kids do coupley samba around them. They’re VERY cute. The stage goes dark and Beni, Airi, and Coto appear- they dance around each other and with each other in every combination possible while Mikkii sings on the stairs- and God, I could talk for ages about how much I love when they let Mikkii sing for duet/trio dances. She brings out all the emotion in the songs and gives the dancers so much space to play in. The END OF THE CHUUZUME is set to The Gift (by Eydie Gorme). It’s too short. The music rocks. It’s all samba stepping and teasing grinning and I loooooved it. Otherwise though, it was a very standard chuuzume. (One of my ONLY complaints about this revue is that I DO wish they took the chance to do something a little more BeniAiri. Anyone can do a Nice Chuuzume. These two have such play and humor in them, and I would have loved to see something more like Championne from Estrellas as their last chuuzume. It was still VERY solid and very good, but lacking in personalization.)

After the chuuzume, Seo comes on surrounded by eight musumeyaku (Seira Hitomi, Mizuno Yuri, Nijou Hana, Kuresaki Rino, Miyako Yuuna, Sumika Amane, Ruri Hanaka, and Ayane Miran. You didn’t expect Seo Yuria to sing Mas Que Nada with the dirtiest bass line I have ever heard, but here she is, singing it (well!). Seo sings across the bridge and it feels filthy somehow and I have NO idea what to do with it. Everyone in this number is trying to ooze sex appeal out of every pore in their body. Some of them ARE succeeding. This number makes me more uncomfortable than excited, but I think your mileage may vary here.

Ravel’s Bolero is the best number in Éclair Brilliant, and may be one of the best numbers in any revue ever. It’s very long, but I don’t think it’s long ENOUGH. There is NO singing. There is no sound from the actresses save for stepping and clapping and the occasional stomp.

These are two pictures from the number but they don’t even BEGIN to do it justice. I am PRAYING the DVD captures it, but the real magic in this number is how groups of dancers use the stage, how they line up SHARPLY and PERFECTLY in place, how they move on and off the stage with incredible fluidity but INTENSE movements, how groups move in sync or against each other, the lighting being low and shadowy- this number was perfect. I am a HUGE sucker for loud flashy funny in your face- and this sharp, understated, stripped down dance number could have brought me to tears. This was one of the most incredible things I have ever seen in any Takarazuka show, and deserves a spot in ANY Best Of list that’s ever compiled from here on out.

It’s hard to top Bolero, so for a tonal shift, next we have our Taidan Number/Rockette. And honestly? It’s well timed. The taidan medley is Hanagata Hikaru (not retiring), Shirotae Natsu and Yumeki Anru (ALSO not retiring), and our incredible, wonderful, brilliant taidansha, Kisaragi Ren and Mao Yuuki, singing Frank Sinatra’s That’s Life. It’s full of heart and earnesty and smiles and it’s honest and fun and these people on this stage love each other, and they love what they do, and it’s so EASY to see. Renta dances and sings with the same 200% she always gives, and Mao Yuuki takes in everything and everyone around her every time I see her do this number. It’s gonna be BRUTAL on the last day. The four upperclassmen join the rockettes for the first part of their dance (which is CUTE), and then run off to let the girls do their thing.

The rockettes end and a new set of feathers takes the stage- Beni, Airi, Maisora Hitomi, Kiwami Shin, Arisa Hitomi, and Amahana Ema in a slinky, sequined leotard bird of paradise number (Beni has some notes in this song that give me CHILLS in the best way)- and they’re eventually shoo’d off by Coto, Amato Kanon, Aomi Sario, Sakishiro Kei, and Kisa Kaoru, in MORE exciting bird-of-paradise costumes, and a more upbeat and aggressive and slinkier dance. (It was COOL to see Kisa Kaoru and Sakishiro Kei included in here- I don’t feel like I’ve really seen them do anything to date, and they’re both solid! Aomi Sario is familiar and Amato Kanon is climbing the ladder quick.)

The next number is nothing short of beautiful. It’s a Beni dance solo (again, no singing at all- the ending of Éclair is a little sparse on vocals), until she is joined by most of the Hoshigumi musumeyaku, all in flowy pink petals, with an electric shamisen. It was VERY falling-sakura-esque. It was STUNNING. They fall and they scatter and they twirl and Beni is in the midst of it all, and by the end of the song...

-the petals have all fallen and we are in place for one of my favorite kuroenbi ever. In fact, the whole rest of this revue is beautiful. This kuroenbi is more electric shamisen, a lot of high kicks, a lot of sharp and bold movement and interesting lines and groups of younger actresses and groups of older actresses taking turns centerstage and (a beautifully funny moment between Beni, Renta, and Mao Yuuki that IS a tonal shift for a brief few seconds, but doesn’t interrupt the flow of the dance at all, and is just so ... heartwarming to see. It’s lovely to see the taidansha honored in a way that’s so purely them.)

All the otokoyaku save for seven (Rei Makoto, Hanagata Hikaru, Mao Yuuki, Seo Yuria, Shidou Ryuu, Amahana Ema, and Kiwami Shin) exit the stage, and Airi enters. Coto sings a beautiful song to Airi as Airi gets to dance with all her otokoyaku in turn, it’s also playful and flirty and loving and Mao lifts her and spins her SO well- the dance only ends at its climax when Beni runs onstage from behind Airi and catches her- Airi has found her real partner and the duet dance begins in earnest with just the two of them. It is, as you’d want for the two of them, very sweet, very loving, very kind, and very much just two people who love each other and have gotten to know each other so well.

It suits them, and their smiles and the amount of HUGGING in this dance is exactly what they deserve. It’s a good taidan duet dance. It’s a good Beni/Airi taidan duet dance.

Overall, I think Éclair was very good. It honored a lot of what has made Beni and Airi’s Hoshigumi what it was, in the little moments, but didn’t drown itself in kitsch. That said, I might have liked to see a LITTLE more of their personalities in the revue- I can almost say it felt like Éclair was ushering in Coto’s new era of Hoshigumi a little early and a little rushed. This would have been a BRILLIANT mid-top-run revue for this pair, because GOD did it show that they’re capable of more than the humor and energy that they’re too often pinholed into by Takarazuka fans in general. That is without a doubt their wheelhouse, but both Kurenai Yuzuru and Kisaki Airi are a LOT more than funny. It was incredible to see so much of that in a revue, because while we’ve seen it in plays, they haven’t really had a revue that feels this classic (to me), to date. It was a good revue to pair with God of Stars, though, because the full three hours gave you little bites (haha) of the incredible range that both these actresses have.

I loved God of Stars and Éclair Brillant. I loved them as a pair. I love Kurenai Yuzuru and Kisaki Airi as a pair. I love Hoshigumi for everything they are and everything every actress brings to the table, and I can not wait to see how this show and the actresses have grown by the time it reaches Tokyo. ♡

星組最高！

#takarazuka #hoshigumi #god of stars #Éclair Brillant #man if there's something like egregiously wrong with this please let me know gyudfh and i would LOVE to fix it honestly #i scanned it...but........god knows what could have slipped through the cracks here

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pepperony3000-archive · 5 years

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Wait Endgame is your second favorite? That's surprising! No judgement though, but now I want to know how you rank all of them

Oh goodness… that is TWENTY-THREE MOVIES to rank! That’s hard! This might get very jumbly at around the midway point…

1) Iron Man 3 - Everything about it is so perfect. The Iron Fam being chaotic but also 100% supportive of each other? Tony being the first superhero in history to deal with mental disorders blatantly!!! onscreen!!! The action is top notch. The final battle needs to be taught in film school because it’s literally a metaphor for Tony’s main personal theme of feeling like he’s nothing without his armor, but then at the end he’s able to leap from one to the other because it’s not the armor itself that makes him powerful, it’s that he has the powerbravery/will to leap from one to the other.

2) Avengers: Endgame - Y’all are looking at it wrong. Pretend the Infinity Saga is a TV show and it just ended, and now the rest of the MCU is a spinoff show featuring some of the newer/recently introduced characters, but without the core group of the original show.Suddenly the most important characters getting to leave with a bang isn’t as frustrating.But I also love it because it got my two favorite characters so beautifully right! Tony and Natasha, because they are the two who are deemed worthy enough to be turned into the big talking points of the movies, got to end their TV show finale with a huge glorious heroic sacrifice that will make them remembered forever!The time travel is also REALLY clever. And this is coming from someone who has watched a LOT of time travel shows/movies. There is literally only one movie I’ve ever seen that handled time travel better, and that was Arrival. They did away with the time travel paradox by having every past even just create an alternate timeline. And really? They only asked for suspension of disbelief in service of a joke that was not even that funny and I sort of hated and because they wanted the old Steve scene to have a particular emotional resonance, and having him come back through the portal old… wouldn’t have done that.

3) Iron Man - I firmly believe that this is the best movie in the entirety of the MCU. It was the first, and yet it has never been topped. (and yet it’s #3 on my list rofl)It gave us a very complex lead character with a supporting cast that had a lot more depth in their first outing than some of the OG6 had after four movies (*cough*Clint*cough*Thor*cough* - Thor only got good development after Ragnarok). There was also subtlety to the story that it seems hollywood writers in general (and MCU specifically) is incapable of anymore.

4) The Avengers - the very first time in history we get a massive teamup of superheroes? sign me the FUCK up!Loki was a fantastic villain, the characterization of all of them (except for Clint… sorry, pal) was absolutely amazing, and it’s just pure unadulterated fun. Not much more to say than that.

5) Black Panther - Live Action Lion King (2019) WHOMST? There was a live action Lion King in 2018 and it was called Black Panther!I have a few issues with it fuck YOU vibranium! but it’s SUCH a good movie. T’Challa is quite possibly the noblest MCU character/lead, and the supporting cast are all incredible. I also loved the idea that the villain was… actually… right? Oh he was wrong a FUCK in deciding that the way to go about getting it was through violence, but his end goal was correct.Which is actually very subtle (and again… one of the very few MCU movies to do that) and very important message - because so often people seem to think that violence is the answer. Because the cause is “right” and “just”, excessive violence or threats of violence are considered the proper course of action. But as Killmonger proved, that wasn’t the way. Instead we all need to be like Nakia - who wanted the same thing, but worked for it through kindness, sacrificing her own desires, and making the first tiny hole in the dam.

6) Captain America: The Winter Soldier - I firmly hold that this is one of the most overrated MCU movies, and it’s what started Steve Rogers down his path to… the character he ended up becoming… but it is an excellent movie!Natasha gets amazing development, Sam Wilson is better in this movie than he has been since, and the emotional stakes are very high and very well thought out. Also I’m sorry but the bold political statement of “nazis torturing people is bad” is… not all that subtle? or bold? I don’t know why people are saying that this is the movie that addresses difficult political questions because… it doesn’t?

7) Spiderman: Far From Home - I’m sorry y’all, but I love my boy Peter Parker and if you don’t like this movie then I might just fight you.It was a terrific followup to Endgame, and Peter’s trauma was dealt with in a very realistic and unbearably painful way. Mysterio was the perfect villain for Peter to face, because he forces him to confront his trauma… even though he forces it by first torturing Peter with it, but Peter is forced to find a way to cope with his fears, his grief, and his feelings of inadequacy. Also Peter/MJ is the literal cutest and I love them so much.

8) Avengers: Infinity War - ngl this was a VERY tough battle between this and FFH, but FFH won by just a hair.Thanos is the greatest villain of our generation, quite possibly of the past 2-3 generations. The characters they chose to pair up together worked extremely well - I didn’t know how much I needed the Thor/tree/rabbit teamup until it happened. And then that ending… never before has the world held its breath together in such shared anguish as when we watched Spiderman all the characters we love so much fade away into dust. And there was a great cry in all the world, such as never has been or ever shall be again!

9) Captain America: The First Avenger - Steve Rogers has never been better than he was in this film. Unfortunately it was all downhill after that, but it’s because of this film that he was my second favorite character for a good five years. There is a gentleness to this Steve that is utterly lacking starting in The Winter Soldier, where he becomes this machismo who obsesses far too much over anything he has one (1) emotion about because he doesn’t know how to handle it.This Steve Rogers is emotionally very intelligent, and is genuinely willing to do whatever it takes to do what is right.And I will say, I can understand why he made the decision he made in Endgame, because Peggy is such a brilliant and dynamic and interesting person, I don’t think anybody could have resisted staying with her (if she agreed to have him). @Marvel please bring back Agent Carter, because I need more Peggy.

10) Captain America: Civil War - This movie did a lot of studio mandated things, and because of that was weaker than it might have been, but I hold that it is a very good and very solid movie. Unfortunately, a big fault of the movie is that I don’t think Chris Evans believed in what he was performing, and so couldn’t give it the complexity that it needed (particularly as the Russo’s take input of their cast into consideration when making their movies… actors get to choose a lot of their own character beats unless it’s a plot-mandated beat). And unfortunately, Steve Rogers suffered for this.If The Winter Soldier is the one where he began obsessing over anything that gave him one (1) emotion, this is the movie where that tendency grew two extra heads and turned into a monster. Steve sees this argument the way a soldier who is used to following orders during wartime would, whereas Tony sees this argument the way a strategist during peacetime might. Steve thinks Tony is “trying to win a war before it starts”, while Tony thinks he’s deescalating rising tensions. And unfortunately, Steve is too blinded by his one (1) emotion to see the complexities in the situation.Which, while it frustrates me how poorly this movie did Steve’s personality, those dynamics are very interesting to watch play out onscreen. Plus, the dialogue is sharp and witty, and the emotional beats - particularly everything that has to do with Tony, is some of the most beautifully written and performed drama I’ve seen in a while.

11) Spiderman: Homecoming - This movie did such a good job of giving us a teenaged Peter Parker. All the other movies, Peter didn’t feel like a teenager. He felt like a grownup. This Pete is definitely a teenager - he’s a young kid in a big world trying to be a superhero, and because of that trying to take on problems that he is not experienced enough to take on.The journey he takes on this movie is to learn just exactly that, and by the end he probably is experienced enough now to take on those bigger threats, but he makes the mature decision not to do that quite yet - proving exactly the kind of man he will eventually grow up to be.

12) Thor: Ragnarok - Finally Thor gets developed. Hemsworth really shows off his acting chops in this movie. He’s always been very charming as Thor, but this is the movie where we learned that he’s not just charming, but also a very talented actor. I personally found some of the clumsiness/slapstick around his character a bit much, but Hemsworth performed it perfectly.This is a movie where the story doesn’t actually matter. Honestly… who even remembers the story? The important thing about this movie are the characters, and they are all done incredibly well, except possibly Loki, and even he got some good development at the very end of it. Thor is finally an interesting character, Hela is an amazing villain, Bruce got some fun development, and Valkyrie should have been introduced five movies ago (@Marvel give me a Valkyrie movie! Why the FUCK are we reportedly getting Thor 4 when you could have had Thor stay behind as king of Asgard and giving Val her own movie instead? Especially since all of Thor’s important relationships are dead or in the gotg movie, so he has nowhere to move on to! If we don’t have good characters/dynamics, Thor 4 will suck! It will also suck because the heart of his movies have been his relationship with his brother, and that’s gone now).

13/14) Ant Man and the Wasp/Ant Man - Honestly these movies can just be grouped together, because they’re very very similar, and all I would have to say about one I’d say about the other.

The Antman movies are very light hearted and comical, and the important thing here (like Ragnarok) is not the story, but the characters. The family relationships explored here honestly feel like real families - they just happen to live in a world with superheroes. I think AMaTW is the better of the two, but only by a little bit.

15) Iron Man 2 - This is another movie that was made lesser than it could have been due to executive meddling. Honestly, if you re-cut the movie and just take out all of Coulson’s scenes it becomes a much better movie (and would have gone higher on the list).As it is, Coulson dumps expositional world building that doesn’t really work in the context of the movie.What does work is the chaotic-yet-supportive Iron Fam (once again), and the introduction of Black Widow. I think Natasha might have had the best introduction in the MCU, because the audience was who she was fooling. Her job is to manipulate people and fool them into thinking she’s what she wants us to think she is, and only reveals the truth when she’s ready for it. And that is exactly how we were introduced to her. The underlying plot of Tony struggling with his imminent death was also incredibly well done. He wanted so desperately to not be dying, but there wasn’t anything that he could do. And when he ran out of options, he behaved in such a way to make things worse for him (health wise), because nothing was worse than sitting back and waiting for death to come. Better for it to come quickly and for the agony of just waiting for it to pass. Unfortunately Coulson takes away some of the gravitas of that by forgetting Tony was dying and threatening to taze him…All in all, a weak story but fleshed out by some of the best characters the MCU has ever created and introduced.

16) Doctor Strange - A decent movie with decent characters. There is nothing particularly memorable about it, but also nothing particularly bad about it either (beyond casting a non-Asian actress as the Ancient One).

17) Thor - Sort of like Doctor Strange, a decent movie with a charming lead but mostly terrible supporting cast. I will hold that none of the human characters are actually very good. At all. The best thing Ragnarok did was drop them all like the movie ruining load that they are.Once again, Loki is a good villain and an interesting character, and while Thor is underdeveloped he’s incredibly charming and likable in spite of that.

18) Captain Marvel - Yes I am a woman. Yes I disliked Captain Marvel. Can we move on from that please.If Thor is a decent movie with a charming lead, Captain Marvel is a decent movie with a terrible lead. I do not find Carol to be particularly interesting, and will hold that Brie Larson was incredibly miscast in the role. (if you want to hear why, you can peruse this). In general, it’s also a movie that relies a little bit too much on 90s nostalgia, and as somebody who personally hates when a movie relies on nostalgia to be considered “good”, all of that rubbed me the wrong way. The same applies to Ragnarok tbh, but I didn’t mention it up there because I wanted to rant about wanting a Valkyrie movie. (@Marvel please)Unfortunately, this movie is also not one bit subtle with it’s message. And as a woman, I do not relate to a woman whose only personality trait is “stand up to men”. Every other female character in the MCU is quite capable of standing up to men, and they all have a lot of character outside of that. And I will stop there because even saying that much risks me getting blocked right off of this hellsite…

19) Guardians of the Galaxy - I am definitely in the minority for this one, but I never liked this movie. If the 90s nostalgia in Captain Marvel rubbed me the wrong way, the 80s nostalgia in this movie was rubbing me the wrong way. with sandpaper.But my biggest problem with this movie is that Quill is not interesting enough (in my opinion) to be the central character. These characters all feel like sidekicks, and without a strong central lead for them to be sidekicks to, everything just feels very underdeveloped. I also find the humor in these movies to be very cheap and childish.However, I love that the team very much became a family. I believe in their relationships with each other even if each person as an individual character feels very weak.

20) Guardians of the Galaxy 2 - If you took GOTG1 and flipped it on it’s head, you’d get GOTG2. This is quite possibly the worst MCU movie ever, except that… somehow… it has some of the most heartfelt and meaningful emotional beats out of all of them.I felt every single emotional beat, and the fact that the characters were all sidekicks… actually worked well for this movie. They didn’t need to be more than sidekicks, because the “kick” part of sidekick stands for “kick ass”.However, the story was atrociously bad, and one of the worst the MCU has ever done, which is why it’s below GOTG1. But only slightly.

21) The Incredible Hulk - Does anybody even remember this movie? It was boring, uneventful, had the wrong guy playing Bruce Banner, and was just poorly written throughout.

22) Thor: The Dark World - This movie is a boring, dreary, horribly written, badly directed mess. Some of the stuff up on Asgard was decent except for the fact that they fridged Frigga for no goddamn reason, and everything that happened on earth was goddamn awful, verging on embarrassing. And don’t even get me started on the dark elves. They were rightfully dropped from the MCU and never mentioned again because they are just That. Bad.

23) The Avengers: Age of Ultron - the movie where Joss Whedon fucked up Natasha’s backstory for the sake of his self-insert ship, infantilized Wanda Maximoff by insisting the woman with cleverly displayed cleavage who was clearly in her 20s was actually only 15, did not solidify the team as a family (THIS IS THE MOVIE WHERE THAT WAS SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN GODDAMMIT), and disrespected literally every movie that came before (including his own goddamn flick).Wow I just realized that most of the awful shit he did was done to the female characters. Can you believe this disgusting asshole has the audacity to call himself a feminist? Fucking disgraceful…Fuck Whedon. He doesn’t deserve to come within a thousand yards of a woman.

#ranking mcu movies #Anonymous #Ask me a question #long post

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wxldchxld · 5 years

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Every third question for our favorite fox

Oh y’all better buckle up.

003. Does your character like coffee better, or tea?

Beck’s not allowed to have coffee. The world isn’t ready for that degree of energy. But also she just enjoys tea better.

006. What sense do they most rely on?

It depends on the form she’s currently in. For instance in hawk form it’s definitely sight, fox form most of it’s hearing, bear form it’s smell. In her human form idk if she relies on this the most but she’s probably at least the most aware of her sense of sight?

009. Do they believe in happy endings?

Sure. She’s not really the Debbie Downer type, and she fully believes she could have been truly happy with Harper if not for her penchant for self-indulgence and her overwhelming anxiety when it comes to conforming to society.

012. What makes your character embarrassed?

I’m not super sure this is a feeling Beck has tbh XD. I have a whole headcanon about this somewhere that I’ll link if you can find it. But like, it’s near impossible to embarrass Beck.

015. Are they most likely to fight with their fists or their tongue?

Beck’s not very likely to fight at all. She loves to stir shit up and rile people that she doesn’t like especially (or ones she wants to fuck lmfao), but when things turn into a real fight even if it’s just an argument, Beck’s more likely to head for the door. She dislikes confrontation. It makes her very uncomfortable.

018. Your character wakes up to find that war has been declared. What do they do?

Probably leave. If leaving it’s an option she’ll keep her head down until she has to do something. Like I said Beck doesn’t do fighting unless her back is to the wall and she has no choice. If she had to take some sort of role in a war it would probably be more espionage related.

021. How do they display affection?

All of the ways. TBH Beck is very affectionate even to her friends. Most prominently she wants to touch you and be touched. She’s very touch motivated. But she’ll also make things like knitting scarves and hats or cook food for her loved ones. She spends a lot of time with that person rather than running off into the woods constantly. She’ll sing to you a lot. And basically she’ll just kind of actually listen to you and respect you. Like if you tell her something to do she’ll do it rather than being an asshole.

024. What do they consider ugly in others physically?

Beck’s not super down with bodily hair. It’s one of the big reasons that even tho she’s bi she doesn’t fuck a lot of dudes. She’s never understood why women’s hair is supposedly gross and men can just grow a fur pelt on their legs/arms/chest/underarms and no one says shit. She’s a million times more likely to sleep with a man who shaves.

She also just finds a general lack of hygiene to be a real turn off. Beck makes it a point, even living in the woods, even without the constant use of magic, to look presentable. She doesn’t like people that look nasty. Wash your hair. Take a bath. Brush your teeth. Otherwise she’s taking a hard pass.

027. What is their idea of perfect happiness?

Beck’s idea of perfect happiness is finding someone who will live with her and travel with her and they can be wild wanderers and roam the world together unburdened by people. Where her familiars are happy and safe and she’s free.

030. Do they believe in the afterlife?

Sort of? Witch opinions vary just as much as ours when it comes to what happens to you after you die, with each theory holding a significant amount of weight. Beck’s in the unique position where she doesn’t often thing about it, because she knows her “death” it’s really going to be a thing. As a feral witch her life, unless abruptly ended through murder, is going to end with her spirit being reclaimed by the wilds, and never returning to the world of men or the life she knew before.

033. Do they keep their promises?

Beck generally doesn’t make promises. If she does, whether or not she keeps them depends on who you are to her. She’s a liar and a manipulator and a con-woman, of course she’s going to break promises. When she makes a witch’s deal (something she can’t break) she makes sure only to make them if they’re stacked in her favor and she’s able to fuck someone over if the desire strikes her.

Beck does try to keep promises she makes to people she genuinely likes. Like there are a couple of promises she made to Fen when they were kids, and even though he’s been warped and changed over the years, she still keeps her promises to him, even though he can’t hold her to them.

036. How honorable is your character?

….I mean not really at all.

039. What do they think is the worst thing that can be done to a person?

Imprisonment, probably? Or being forced to change who they really are.

042. What is their greatest achievement?

She’s a very good shifter and a decent dream walker. These are both abilities she was born with, sure, but having any control over your dream walking takes a lot of time and practice, and most witches never learn to take the form of anything aside from their clan symbol.

045. Does your character have any chronic medical conditions?

Not really

048. Do they have any allergies?

She often claims to be allergic to people who annoy her but that’s 100 percent not true and she’s allergy free. Witches on the whole tend to be very healthy creatures.

051. If they knew they would die tomorrow, what would they do today?

Probably contact Fenris and Harper and Cora and her amma. Mostly Fenris and Harper, because there’s still a lot unsaid between them. She’d want to say goodbye to Cora and her amma, but one of her greatest fears is dying without talking to her brother one last time and letting him know some things. Harper isn’t as dire to where it causes her anxiety to even entertain the thought that she might die without having one last talk, but if she KNEW she was dying, she’d want to try and give Harper closure, to let her know their fall out wasn’t Harper’s fault, and to tell her that she still loved her.

054. Does your character want power or authority of any kind?

Nah. Beck’s attracted to women that have both power and authority, but that’s just her type. Beck herself really has no interest in being in charge of anything. That’s too much responsibility. And the only power she needs is the power to do what she wants—which she has.

057. Has your character ever killed anyone?

It depends on the verse. In her verse for t100 yes she has killed and more than once. Each time was out of self defense and she had no other options.

060. What is your character’s attitude toward education and learning?

As an educator myself her attitude toward education is frustratingly apathetic. She was so severely neglected as a child that paired with her dyslexia she never really learned how to read beyond some very basic shit. Math was always frustrating for her. Service was hell for Beck because when it comes to reading spell books she’s useless, and she’s not particularly interested in learning spells she doesn’t feel will be of use to her. So like, she’ll encourage other people if they want to get an education, but she’s going to take a pass.

063. How well does your character handle difficult people?

Fairly well? I guess it depends on the type of difficult. Like I have a verse with @lcgioned where Beck’s life goal seems to annoy Lexa into an early grave, and yet she gets along with post-dictator Octavia just fine. Beck doesn’t really have a temper, and she doesn’t really do fights, so it’s hard to be too difficult for her. She just kind of rolls with it.

The kind of person she really struggles with is the one that wants her to conform. The one that tells her she can’t act that way or scolds her because her behavior reflects poorly on them. If Beck doesn’t already like that person, for example she’s more than willing to behave to make Asha look good in my verse with @ashayara, then they can fuck off. Respect from Beck, in large part, comes from affection, and she doesn’t just listen to people because she should or she was told to. She won’t be controlled and micromanaged, so in order to curb her less desirable habits you have to be smart and endear her to you so that she’ll care about what you think. Because in general she doesn’t care how people see her. She doesn’t care if they think she’s strange or crazy, she’s living her gd life and it’s not their business.

066. Does your character prefer city life or being out in nature?

Nature. She doesn’t even tolerate cities well. They make her irritated and sometimes, if she’s subjected to them long enough, physically ill from all the anxiety they cause.

069. What about your character is heroic?

Hahahahahahahahahahaha………. I don’t know?????? I’m so sorry. I don’t see anything about Beck as heroic. Beck won’t like, stand by and let you murder a child or something horrendous if it’s like, right there in front of her. Like if she’s faced with something that she can put a stop to without it being too much of a risk to herself or her familiars she’ll do it, but Beck isn’t going out of her way to help people because it’s the “right” thing to do and she’s rarely going to put herself in danger unless it’s someone she loves on the line.

072. In a Dungeons & Dragons game, which class would your character be? (wizard, fighter, bard, priest, ranger, etc.)

I have never played D&D, so I honestly couldn’t answer this? I would assume either a wizard or a ranger just from what the name sounds like, but Idk.

075. Is your character ticklish?

Very and in all forms so think on that for a good while.

078. How emotionally stable is your character?

Beck lives in a stone fortress of denial that can only fall if you hit her with some major shit. Like she’s obstinately, often unshakably happy. Even if she slips for a few seconds, even in the worst and weirdest situations, she’ll turn around and be a smiling, ball of sunshine after a few seconds to gather herself.

Of course she does have a history of abuse, and especially in verses like ours she’s going through a lot, so she isn’t on as firm a footing as normal, but Beck’s not easy to shake in general.

081. Is your character religious?

Not really? Which is strange because she’s nominally a priestess to her people. But it’s more of a cultural thing. Like, witches in and of themselves don’t worship gods per se, but they hold their traditions and myths and stories in an almost religious regard. It’s very strange, I have a couple of deeper headcanons on it, but to make it kind of simple: Beck isn’t at all what we would likely call “religious” in our society.

084. Describe your character in one word.

If I’m being serious? Asshole. If I’m being nice? Witch.

087. How would your character describe themself in three words?

“One Foxy Lady”

090. How bodily expressive is your character?

I’m… not super sure what this means. If it means is she like, an animated person to talk to then yes. Unless she’s specifically trying to stay calm and use that to influence the emotions of something else, Beck’s never still. She’s almost kind of dizzying to talk to not because she moves in any crazy, major way, but just because it never stops.

093. What is your character’s goal in life?

To be free.

096. How do they move and carry themselves? What energy do they project?

Beck’s energy is best described as “a lot.” She’s got a big presence and like I just mentioned, she’s very active and animated. She doesn’t walk around slumped over, shy, or ashamed of herself. Unless she’s specifically trying to like fade into a crowd, she’s generally someone who grabs the eye because she’s confident and active and engaging to deal with and it’s almost overbearing over long periods of time.

099. Do they talk to inanimate objects?

She’s got a weird concept of inanimate. Like, in her world there are spirits all over the place, and they have a varying degree of sentience depending on the spirits, their age, their type, and the population density. So she’ll compliment a waterfall on how lovely it’s looking today but a small part of her thinks that like the spirits in the area take note of that and enjoy it even if they’re only semi-sentient. She struggles with seeing how those things aren’t transferable to stuff like computers and cellphones. In cities where most of the natural, open spirits that interact with everything without their own ulterior motives have been driven out, there aren’t any “cell phone” or “computer” spirits, but she’s so in the habit of it that (generally when she’s frustrated she’ll forget) she’ll curse at them or ascribe motive to something an inanimate object is doing.

Harper once bought Beck an extremely expensive sports car, only to immediately sell it after Beck amassed 4 speeding tickets in a month and got her license suspended because, as Beck put it, “the car wanted to go fast.”

#justicescreaming #i'm-----not putting this under a cut #y'all can get over it this is my blog #hc #long post

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savagc · 6 years

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has anyone pointed this out yet?

likely not because you’re fed the narrative and it’s swallowed up by most without thought or question.

this is for everyone saying that luna went ‘evil’, for no reason, even those saying that it was out of character for luna to do what she did. you’re right, it was out of character, but luna INTENDED THAT.

luna did not intend to win the conclave. she didn’t try to win the first one, she’s not going to suddenly go for this one. she had nothing left, she lost her clan, she lost everyone she loved. it is luna to sacrifice her own life, it is not luna to take away the choice of life from others. here’s a few fun facts.

octavia would not have survived this conclave against every clan. if you believe this, you do not know the character and just might as well stop reading right now because this isn’t an anti-anyone post. if you’re looking for that, get off.

every clan was fighting for their own, including octavia. “accept the sigil of your clan and fight with honor as their champion ”

luna made herself the biggest threat to all of the clans. all of them. every single one, luna became their greatest threat which took all of their eyes off of octavia and made it more pressing for them to try and take luna out.

easier said than done. luna is scripted (fact. canon. legit. by the writers) to be the strongest warrior in the 100 universe. sorry, i love lexa i do so much, but she would not have won against luna. even lexa knew this, it’s why she would not talk about the victory being given to her. (don’t @ me about this. it’s a canon fact that luna is the strongest warrior within the 100 that the writer’s created, opinions do not change that) that being said, easier said then done.....right?

luna barrels through every clan she is faced with. she decimates them with precision and without even being winded AT ALL. we see her stroke mid-air at a warrior’s throat and IN THAT SWING, she manages to also cleanly remove his tag from his neck as it’s left dangling on the end of her trident. (in the shot of bellamy you can see her stop and remember....just how goddamn lethal she is when she sees his tag hanging there.) another clan is down.

luna finds octavia hiding among the armory and she approaches her slowly, patiently. luna is seen talking to her, approaching her gently, toying with her own weapon. she barrels through every opponent but goes soft in octavia’s presence. instead of the lethal fighter that luna is, we see this...

she has to make it look good, why? because she still has other clans to kill and get out of octavia’s way. luna wanted to hear octavia speak of lincoln and know that she remembered his beliefs. octavia did this. one clan, one people. luna knew then what octavia was fighting for, not only skaikru. luna questions this to be sure, and here you are...killing for your own clan.

even when she closes in to raise her trident and say ‘yu gonplei ste odon’, she does so slowly and octavia is given the chance to evade her. come the fuck on, we already know how luna fights with speed and perfect accuracy when she locked onto her target. i should not have to gif her fight against HER OWN LOVED ONES ON THE RIG. luna does not intend to kill octavia. if she intended to, she would have been dead. she has more clans to get out of octavia’s way. more darkness to rid the world of, those truly killing for their own clans, something that luna does not even have the luxury of as she states...she is the last. she is expendable, and she truly believes she is.

when roan and octavia form an alliance, we can hear in the background the struggle of the woman luna is currently fighting. that’s not luna panting and grunting and struggling, nor is it luna fleeing. the woman takes luna’s trident to the back and falls. another clan is down. roan forms an alliance because he knows he’s no match for luna, and it’s a given he knows octavia is not a match if he isn’t. that is the only reason, octavia’s presence in a fight could give him the advantage to kill luna and then he would have likely killed octavia if he had managed to secure a victory himself for his people.

if we’re not catching on to the fact that luna is getting rid of octavia’s competition....

roan is next. “that’s mine.” in referring to the tag that luna rightfully and skillfully won. “come and get it.” referring to roan proving his douche-baggery in this moment. luna would know better than anyone how azgeda plays. luna’s glance to spot octavia there as well, was on point in showing a lack of fairness considering luna’s response is that of the caged animal by cruel captors, and she’s had enough of that. she’s been cornered and backed into walls and now she is finally done with that. can you blame her? if you can...please cease reading and get off.

luna notices the alliance between roan and octavia and that’s fine. in the midst of the fight with the two, we see luna striking roan with many critical shots, and yet she backhands octavia away, kicks her back, as if to press....stay out of this fight octavia, take a break, sit the hell down for a minute little one and let me handle this. luna turns on roan every chance she gets and attempts to keep octavia back. luna is not trying to injure octavia. SHE IS ALL THAT REMAINS OF HOPE, OF LINCOLN, OF HONOR AND INTEGRITY AND HUMANITY IN THIS FIGHT. this is a fight between roan and luna, and octavia is very clearly the third-wheel here, and one luna wants to remain alive.

luna is simply done with living, she wants her peace, and she wants her death, she wants to be deserving of that. luna would not have trusted roan to keep his word to anyone. after all, he as placed two of his fellow grounders on a table to be drained of blood. but this....THIS IS AZGEDA. even echo managed to ‘kill’ octavia. she is no match for luna or azgeda. if luna had not killed roan, he would have killed octavia if it meant securing the bunker for his people only. it would have gone to azgeda. don’t @ me. echo was in the tower, azgeda plays dirty and they play for their clan, roan likely saw a window and utilized it; there is a reoccurring habit of it. echo’s banishment felt more like a show for skaikru only because he believed echo was aiding luna’s agenda; should he have won thanks to echo he would have taken her back.

look at this ugliness octavia. would lincoln have wanted this? welcome to the scared straight program, hosted by luna.

the tags are then counted. luna knows she is the last with octavia.

luna then sought out octavia again, with patience, admitting to her own darkness, admitting to her own faults, the victory to octavia was already secured because luna made it so, ensuring that octavia would win the conclave. luna admits to the difference in herself and those who will stop at nothing to survive, she admits to believing that if people were taken from the world, the might be saved from the darkness, she admits to wanting to survive as well, despite her darkness, she admits to being just like everyone, to being human, something she has always been more of than most, like lincoln, she admits to killing to survive, to protect her clan, she wishes to hear that she is not darkness, that she not wrong for hoping for a world with peace, but luna does not even believe that within herself. her self-esteem and confidence has been shattered, her body violated, her blood taken, her bone marrow, her free-will gone with that.

she hoped she would hear words of hope from octavia, that she would be received and understood and met with forgiveness over something she was called a coward for, not killing. she hoped to be told she was not the darkness, she hoped, but this was still a suicide mission. luna wanted to be seen in that moment. luna wanted her pain to be seen, but we instead see....the shock of being stabbed in the back.

the look of sadness as luna looks up to octavia, as she is again let down, and without the words of her clan’s water burial. she is told that she does not deserve to be saved, and thus the suicide is validated and luna dies believing that she is the darkness. octavia confirmed what luna thought of herself.

if that doesn’t break you, you’re not fucking human. that is some limbo shit, lack of ‘rest in peace’ if i have ever heard it.

luna’s death...is not for nothing, octavia vows to take the bunker for all clans, but then low-key salty as fuck because skaikru nearly took it even without octavia and even SHE was forsaken and let down. all grounders would have honored the winning clans right to the bunker but they would not have honored luna’s, which luna knew.

there is a reason all clans were welcomed into the bunker, it’s because luna was right to put her last hope in octavia, all that remained of it, lincoln would have been proud of them both. luna would have loved octavia, protected her, and offered her sanctuary on the rig where lincoln had trusted to send her. she would have never wanted octavia dead, and it saddens me that octavia did not see through what luna was doing, but blame the goddamn writers for this one.

but one more thing. the most overlooked detail of luna being at the conclave, did y’all think she was there to claim the bunker for herself, a selfish act? that she would just aim to be chilling down there alone for 6 years?? she went there, to kill herself. check your humanity if you can’t understand all that led luna to such a place of hopelessness.

rest in peace luna kom floukru. you are the reason so many lives were saved. your blood and bone marrow is the reason clarke is alive. the reason she could take off her suit to save echo and help emori, the reason she was there to find madi who would have otherwise likely not survived. clarke wouldn’t have been able to leave becca’s lab had she even made it long enough to, but there wasn’t enough food in there for five years and the other’s would not have made it to the ring, jesus christ i’m done.

#luna kom floukru #octavia blake #the 100 #;;important #luna things

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em-be-lievable · 6 years

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Split-Brained

A/N: Aight, I know this isn’t what y’all wanted but in light of recent events I’ve found myself getting triggered and wanting to vent with Patton to cope. Thank @virge-of-a-breakdown for inspiring me to purge my feelings in fic form (also if you haven’t read their fic ‘The Invisible Language’ you really should because it’s great 10/10 would recommend not reading this self-indulgent garbage and reading that instead kkkkkkkk) No explanations, we project our problems on our favorite characters like men.

(Song pairings for this fic are: Girl Anachronism by the Dresden Dolls, Flagpole Sitta by Harvey Danger, and We Know Where You Sleep by the Paper Chase)

Words: 3255

Warnings: mentions of psychosis, disorganized speech, memory loss, visionary/auditory hallucinations, paranoia, mentions of hospitalization, mentions of medication, mentions of gaslighting and abuse, kinda sympathetic deceit (If you count making him a dog being sympathetic- Deceit has become my own personal meme guys, I’m sorry.)

Ships: LAMP/CALM (Because you should know by now if I can shoehorn in a healthy, supportive, polyamorous relationship I 100% will)

Summary: Patton was ‘Split-brained.’ If people were computers, then he would be a pc still running with windows 98, dial-up internet. It wasn’t bad, but it was something he had to live with every moment of every day.

Recovery was a game of chance. He could go into a psychosis tomorrow, and never get out of it, or he could wake up a week from now and never have another symptom again. Medication kept him functioning, and therapy helped him deal with the worst of it. But both could only do so much with the chemical war in his brain. That was just the volatile way life was for him, and he had long since learned what to avoid and how to make the best of living day-to-day

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Waking up in the morning always had to be the hardest part of the day for Patton. Getting to sleep was tricky in its own right, but it didn’t compare to the struggles that were coming back into consciousness. Morning was when his mind was the loudest.

Remy was actually the one to wake him up. The black and tan german shepherd barking, and nosing him until he came to. He couldn’t even be mad at the dog- after all this was a service Remy had been task trained to do. It wasn’t the puppo’s fault that auditory hallucinations of his phone alarm kept waking him up until 4am (eventually rendering him immune to the very real sound of his actual phone alarm now in the daylight hours. He’d have to change it again.)

“Danger. Don’t leave. Not safe. Stay. We’re not alone. We’re in danger. Don’t leave. Don’t move-”

Prying himself from the warm cocoon of soft blankets, Patton pet and praised the dog for performing his task, before getting up and sleepily stumbling to the bathroom. Once he was in there his eyes darted to the vibrant pill case one of his boyfriends, Roman, lovingly decorated for him. It was Logan’s suggestion, having the case be brightly colored, and in plain sight on the counter would make it easier for Patton to remember to take his medication- and Ro was all too eager to support his partner however he could.

Pat was grateful for his three, wonderful partners- but he couldn’t shake the intrusive thought of him being a burden on them. They did so much to help him out- Logan leaving him little reminder notes, and checklists all over their shared apartment, Virgil constantly responding to frantic phone calls and texts to give reality checks, and Roman always taking breaks from work to take Patton to therapy, and appointments with his psychiatrist (going alone gave him a lot of anxiety.) And despite their constant reassurance that they wanted to be there for him, he couldn’t help but let the negative thoughts creep up into the back of his mind.

He looked down at the multicolored tablets in his hand. “Poison. Don’t take it. It’s poison. They’re trying to change you. These are going to kill you. They’ll just turn you into a zombie. Don’t trust it. Poison-”

Sipping on a glass of water, he popped the pills in his mouth and swallowed before they could reach his tongue. The whispers were on a tirade again, but it had been a long time since he stopped really listening to their opinions on medication. He couldn’t always tune out, or ignore what they were saying; but he was getting better at managing his responses to it.

The voices weren’t always scary, sometimes they were just odd. Most of the time they just echoed thoughts he had. As Pat stepped in the shower there was an chorus of “Water. Warm. Shower. Water. Hot water. Soap. Shower. Warm-” that eventually cascaded into white noise. Before he started taking his antipsychotic medication they would talk to him, or amongst themselves and it would get so loud he couldn’t hear his boyfriends shouting directly into his ear. There also used to be more ‘types’ of voices too. Some he’d hear like people were speaking next to him, others were more like thoughts that didn’t have his voice or would have really weird accents. Then there were the really bizarre ones that felt like a tingling in the back of his head. He couldn’t ever make out what they were saying but he could always tell if they were mean or angry.

But, if he was being honest, auditory hallucinations were the least troublesome part of his mental illness. When he was first getting diagnosed they were terrifying- but now they were just annoying. Just a low thrum softly filling his head as he got out of the shower, got dressed, and began the trek downstairs to the kitchen.

If he had to pick the most troublesome part of his disorder, it’d be the stuff that you never saw portrayed in media. Hallucinations were just the tip of the iceberg- and out of every movie about a person like him he never saw the part where they addressed the other stuff. Things like memory loss, fractured thinking, compulsive behavior, or disorganized speech patterns.

“Coffee. Stirring. Cup. Warm. Hot. Coffee. Mug. Warm. Cup-” It was honestly irritating. Then again the only time he saw people like him in media was in horror films. But even then they had perfectly coherent Hannibal Lecter type people who just occasionally see stuff. The reality was much less pretty- if it wasn’t for Logan’s lists everywhere, and Remy, he wouldn’t remember to brush his teeth, or eat. On a good day he only had a minor stutter, and on bad ones he couldn’t talk at all.

He remembered he tried to explain it to Virgil once. He and his emo boyfriend couldn’t sleep and were chatting on the couch when Virge asked him what it was like. Patton, not being the best at explaining things, had decided to show him. So he found a few of Logan’s unused note cards, and asked Virgil to write out a thought with each word of it being on a different note card.

“Okay n-n-now lay it out in o-order.” Patton instructed, earning a raised eyebrow from the emo as he quickly laid out the sentence in order on the coffee table. Once he was done, Patton took the note cards and scrambled them- shuffling them up so they were completely out of order.

“N-now lay-lay it out ag-agai-again.” He said, handing back the cards and watching as Virgil sifted through the cards to find the first word, then the second, and so on until the whole sentence was on the coffee table in front of them.

Patton explained that while neurotypical people had their thoughts in order, like the first deck of note cards, his were constantly scrambled. So he has to put everything back in order before he does anything. That the metaphor applies to everything- talking, actions, thoughts. It was why he physically froze when he couldn’t remember what he was doing, or why sometimes he’d stare at his boyfriends looking for an answer for a question he forgot to ask. If people were computers, then he’d be a pc still running with windows 98, dial-up internet.

“But what about the…” Virgil paused, taking a moment to find the right way to phrase his question, “...other...stuff?”

Patton thought that was a bit more tricky to explain. He could spend the rest of his life talking out the small nuances of the ‘other stuff’ and only scratch the surface of what it entailed.

It was the way him, his thoughts, and his feelings felt like separate entities and not one solid person. It was going for a walk at 1pm and coming back at 9:30 with no recollection of where he went, or what he did. It was his mind latching onto a statement like ‘does Ohio even really exist’ and ruminating on it so much that he became convinced nothing was real anymore. It was loving people, but simultaneously not being able to trust them and avoiding them. It was flipping the light switch on and off because there was a dark figure in the corner when the lights were off but if he flipped the switch EXACTLY 26 times then it wouldn’t come after him, or his family. It was taking pictures of things with his phone to send to Virgil so he could ask if Virgil saw what he was seeing. It was existing in two separate realities at the same time and constantly having to figure out which one was the real reality and which one was just his illness.

It was staring off into his coffee cup for a half an hour while his service dog barked to snap him back into the moment- like now.

Patton shook his head, trying to refocus. His chronic ‘spacing out’ (to put it lightly) was why Logan no longer let him use the stove. Speaking of Logan- Patton padded his way to the refrigerator where his wonderfully intelligent boyfriend had made a whiteboard checklist for him. In Logan’s neat, almost font-like handwriting there were various tasks written in sharpie with little boxes next to them for Patton to check off every day. When the others returned from their jobs they’d double check it, and remind him of what he didn’t do yet.

“Marker. Blue. Smooth. Marker. Drawing. Write. Blue. Draw. Marker-”

Picking up the magnetized expo marker Pat went down the list. Medication? Check! Brushing teeth? He’ll do that after he drinks his coffee, and eats breakfast. Shower? Did he take a shower today? Patton reached his hand to feel his hair- it was still damp, so he must have. Check! Breakfast? He should do that. He wasn’t allowed to use the stove without the others in, but it was unlikely he would do any serious damage with a toaster, right? Right. Plopping a piece of bread in the machine, he got out some crofters, and butter before going back to the list while he waited. Put out food and water for the pets? Aw, shoot. That’s probably why Remy was barking.

Recapping the marker, Patton moved to fill the dog’s food and water dishes. Telling Remy to shake before he set down his food dish.

“Dog. Noise. Crunch. Food. Dog. Soft. Warm. Hairy. Dog. Woof. Noise. Dog-”

The service dog had actually been Virgil’s idea, and one that Patton was wholly opposed to at the start. It wasn’t like he didn’t want a dog- he did! He loved dogs! But a service dog was a whole other animal (pun intended.) Getting a service dog meant he actually had to admit he had a disability, and Patton didn’t really feel like he was disabled. Sure, certain things were harder to do, yeah. And he had to navigate around obstacles his mental illness provides- but disabled seemed like a stretch. If he’s being honest it still seems like a stretch; but after an hour of Logan listing him all the ways the service dog could help, and how common service dogs had become in the mentally ill community, Patton finally agreed.

There was another reason though, with the dog came the addition of having to explain what his disability was. And Patton...didn’t like having to tell people. He barely liked even associating himself with the word. He was…..split-brained. He had the big S. But the stigma that surrounded it didn’t apply to him. Every time he opened up to a close friend they always expressed how they couldn’t believe it given how ‘normal’ Patton seemed- definitely not what came to mind when someone thought ‘schizo.’ What if people didn’t believe him? Confrontation was never really his thing.

It was actually Roman who supplied a solution. If Patton was getting a dog, then Virgil would too. That way when they went out together it wouldn’t be as weird. That’s how the small yellow Tibetan Spaniel, Dee came to be Virgil’s emotional support animal. Unlike Remy, Dee wasn’t trained to task, he was just there to comfort Virgil when his three boyfriends couldn’t. And all the love and pampering made Dee into something of a complete mischievous diva. The little fluffy dog had a habit of appearing out of nowhere and yapping very loudly right behind Patton. Especially when it came to the horrendous offense that was feeding Remy first. But Virgil had taken the little puffball to work with him today so Patton was safe from any yappy startling.

Patton chipperly checked off the task from the list with the expo marker, recapping it and moving to the living room where his laptop sat. Holding down on-site jobs was, frankly, unrealistic for him. But he managed to still stay on his own two feet by freelancing. It wasn’t easy (and required so many reminder notes) but with Logan’s organizational help he was able to work in his own way, and remain (relatively) independent. Which was a godsend compared to spending the rest of his life living with his parents.

Don’t get him wrong, Patton loved his parents, and they did so much for him. Life couldn’t have been easy with a split-brained kid, and they had been pretty patient with him early on with his first few psychoses. But (why was there always a ‘but’) they still had ticks, and expectations he couldn’t meet. He’d recognized too little too late that they were gaslighting him to make their lives easier. Every now and again, when they’d say something that’d upset him, he’d try talking about it only to be met with ‘I never said that’ or, ‘are you sure that’s how it really happened?’ And Patton believed them because he couldn’t really trust his own perception that much. Their distaste were in the way they presented himself to other people too. “You probably shouldn’t tell them about your….disorder.” They’d lecture in car-rides going to social gatherings that Patton loathed. “It isn’t that we’re not proud of you! Other’s just might not be so understanding-” Their words always echoed in his skull, quickly becoming fodder for his mind to latch onto and use against him. He couldn’t stand the way they grimaced whenever he was brought up in conversation. All the times his mom uttered the hushed words of “Patton’s…...different-” made him want to scream out.

‘Just say it. Say what you’re thinking. Crazy. You think I’m crazy.’

He knew he scared them. Living with them always guaranteed the looming threat of hospitalization if he displayed symptoms they weren’t comfortable with. They always felt the need to walk on eggshells so as not to disturb him more than he already was. His illness became a weapon against him more often than not- a way to discredit him and excuse their own actions. Even with all the tips and tricks he learned to covertly hide; pretending to be talking on the phone when he was arguing with the voices, or practicing proper empathetic faces in the mirror to use when talking to people. Locking himself up in his room whenever he was having a psychotic breakdown, or visual hallucinations, and doing everything in his power to not react to the loud auditory ones. It never seemed to be enough though, and he was always met with glazed over eyes, and disapproving frown of his mother whenever he forgot something and did it several times over, or had too much disorganized thought to speak properly. They just wanted him to be normal, to get better. But unlike other mental illnesses, recovery was a game of chance. He could go into a psychosis tomorrow and never get out of it, or he could wake up a week from now and never have another symptom again. Medication kept him functioning, and therapy helped him deal with the worst of it. But both could only do so much with the chemical war in his brain. That was just the volatile way life was for him, and he had long since learned what to avoid and how to make the best of living day-to-day. But his parents never seemed as satisfied with that as he was. And more often than not it had a negative impact on his mental health, and he found himself getting worse while staying under their roof.

It was Roman who noticed the effect his parents had on Patton, and convinced him to leave. At first Pat dug his heels in. He really didn’t believe Roman knew what he was signing up for. Yeah, they had all been dating since sophomore year of high school- but Patton had done everything in his power to keep the worst of it from his boyfriends. He could take a lot, but he couldn’t take them being scared of him too. It took months of convincing, the final straw coming with Patton’s most recent hospitalization.

He had developed some kind of allergic reaction to a medication he was on, but in order to find out which one he had to be slowly weaned off all of them. They checked him into the hospital, stuck an IV into him, and closely monitored him as he slipped in and out of psychosis, and got wrapped up in some bizarre delusions. But despite his incoherence and strange behavior his boyfriends didn’t leave his side. They took shifts, ensuring that Patton was always with someone he knew. Logan constantly pelted the doctors with questions on the doctor’s care choices. Virgil brought all of Patton’s favorite stuffed animals and blankets for familiarity. And Roman played all of Patton’s favorite disney movies whenever the room was silent. They learned as much as they could about Patton’s situation. How to handle his delusions and what to do when he had episodes of low empathy, or isolation. It was a breath of fresh air for Pat to have his illness embraced, and not met with the usual disdain he got from his parents. He could have almost cried when Logan didn’t get mad when Patton explained that he didn’t want to eat dinner with them because he was convinced it was poisoned, or when Virgil didn’t find it upsetting when Pat had set up a little ‘nest’ of towels, pillows, and blankets in the bathtub because it felt like the only place They™ couldn’t get him. There was even an instance where Pat thought that Roman had been replaced with someone who looked identical to roman, but wasn’t Roman. The actor didn’t tell him it wasn’t true, or refuted Patton’s pleads for the ‘imposter’ to return his boyfriend. He simply went along with it- telling Patton he was going to return Roman before making a show of leaving the bedroom and re-entering thanking Patton for having the clone return him. (He also explained what he did to Patton later when the split-brain was in a better state.)

It was so nice to not be treated like the burden he thought he was. Their love showed in every one of the caring acts they did for him, trying to make his hectic life a little more manageable in any way they could.

“Patton?” A rough voice broke through his thoughts, making him turn towards the door. It was Virgil, a fussy Dee wriggling in his arms.

“Virgil. Calm. Boyfriend. Love. Virgil. Trusted. Boyfriend. Roommate. Dog. Dee. Virgil-”

“Hi honey, you’re home early!” Patton chirped, a well practiced smile gracing his lips. Virgil raised an eyebrow at him, setting Dee on the floor with little ‘clip clip’s’ from the toy dog’s claws.

“Pat, it’s 4:30, I always come home around this time.” Patton’s face dropped, as he turned back to the laptop he’d been staring at. When had it gotten so late?

“Uh, Virge- could you read this for me and make sure it makes sense?” Patton hummed, trying to reread over the email he was going to send but not quite processing the words. Virgil stalked over, glancing at the screen and humming.

“Sorry Pat, it’s complete jibberish.” He purred, rubbing his boyfriend’s shoulders. “Wanna help me with dinner and we’ll take a crack at writing it after?” “Sure.�� Pat said with a sigh, as he closed the laptop and stood up to join his boyfriend. Living as a split-brain was difficult, but living with three amazing partners made it manageable.

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Endnote: This was way longer than I intended it to be. Sorry, I had a lot to say.

#em writes #vent fic #patton sanders #ts sanders sides #lamp/calm #virgil sanders #roman sanders #logan sanders #Please for the love of all that is good read the warnings

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happy-bellamy · 6 years

Text

My unapologetic review of The Darkest Minds movie! Sorry it’s so long (Spoilers, obviously)

This is probably the most difficult review I’ve done yet... That reason being that I LOVED the books, they are still one of my favorite series to this day. However, I saw the movie on Sunday night, and I can’t not post a review of it. So, I’m sorry Darkest Minds fans, myself included, because we aren’t getting a sequel. They did not do a good job.

Let me rephrase what I just said, because I have two opinions on this movie. Whenever there is a book to movie adaptation of something I’ve read, I take my roommate with me to watch, because he offers a “non-reader” standpoint.

So, as we were leaving the theater, I was on cloud 9. He was sitting in the car next to me, being very quiet. I knew he didn’t like it and was afraid to say anything so he didn’t hurt my feelings, but I got him to budge and tell me his problems. So that is why I like the movie, and I hate it.

I like it because this movie was made for me. I hate it because...this movie was made for me. The Darkest Minds fans love it because it is so accurate to the books! Is it, though?

The first half hour or so are so insanely accurate that I thought my head was going to explode. Actually, as far as what we are seeing, the physical scenes, the entire movie was wildly accurate. But it’s when we start to pay attention to what is actually happening that it starts falling apart.

So Ruby is in a camp, it’s basically a concentration camp, and she’s hiding as a green. Okay, but how did that happen? Well, the doctor that examined her found out that she was an orange, and then Ruby made him change the test. Yeah...but why is he able to do that? Why does the computer allow him to manually change the results? Does the machine sometimes not work? That’s the biggest ex-machina I’ve ever seen! Moving forward, she’s at this camp to be “reformed.” Clancy was reformed, so she can be too! Yeah, but 1 kid was reformed, are you telling me that parents across the US actually believe this? Millions of kids in camp, yet 1 was healed. Wow, what a miracle! Take my kid!

The next problem is the camps themselves. There was a specific line of narration or something that said “There is no economy.” That line ruined the movie. There’s no economy? How is anything functioning? The skip tracers, how are the bounties that they collect paid for? How are the guards paid? Where does the money that keeps these camps running come from? If there’s no economy, how does the government pay for all of these camps, the guards, doctors, skip tracers, etc? Speaking of the camps, how are any of them still functioning? You’re telling me that blues, who can move and control anything, are just...walking around? Yellows are not restrained? Blues are not restrained? As if, those kids outnumber you 100 to 1, the camps would be taken over in a day. Even in Caledonia, all it took was 1 blue to break the fence, then they are all home free! You’re telling me that it took years for someone to go, “Guys, we should break the fence!” The security is dumb enough to let the kids walk around unrestrained? There’s no way in hell that any of those camps would have lasted more than a year.

Also, what are other countries doing right now? Since there is NO ECONOMY! If the US collapsed, the rest of the world is coming down with us, considering that we have 1/4 of the world’s GDP. Yeah, no, the world is screwed if America just suddenly decided to shut down.

But okay, okay, let’s say it doesn’t. Let’s say by some miracle, the rest of the world is fine. They would still send resources? And by resources, I mean people, of course. They would want to help. What happens when they come to help, realize that the camps are holding kids against their will and are torturing them? The UN would immediately step in and stop every single camp. I’m pretty sure it took the US 3 years to learn about Nazi concentration camps, and that was before the internet! All it takes is one kid, guard, parent, etc. to find out and post something online, then it would be viral, and the world would be in uproar! No way these camps last SIX YEARS!

Also this bothered me in the books too. Why are the guards mean? Like all of them? They torture and beat these kids regularly. Whether they’re scared or not, there is no way every single guard would be totally okay with beating kids, powers or no. They’re still human, unless they only hire sociopaths to be PSF’s?

Okay, so I have more to say about the lack of world building, but y’all get my point. Thanks for the socks scene Fox, but that ain’t gonna cut it. I. Need. Exposition. We. Want. Exposition!

Now let’s talk about the things they added in that were not in the books.

Ruby not being white, who cares? Amandla stole the show. Chubs being green? Fits his personality better anyways. The eye color thing? It’s kind of dumb, because I’m pretty sure that the colors originally came from the defcon color severity system, which is the exact same way as it is in the movies (green meaning good, orange meaning bad). So were the colors named after the defcon system, or the eyes? If it was the eyes, then the defcon system just magically matched up perfectly? I guess...

Anyways, I don’t really care about those changes.. I care about those two scenes, you know the two, that they added in that is just absolute garbage.

The first scene being when Ruby goes back home after escaping the camps. It goes exactly how everyone expected, being that Ruby can’t go home because her parents don’t remember her. Why did they make that scene? What purpose did that serve? We knew exactly what was going to happen. What did SHE think would happen? Did she forget what she did? Of course she didn’t! That scene was stupid and should not have been a part of the movie.

The second scene being that...thing at the end with football field and all the kids with paint or whatever. I talked about this with @itsgalaxy29 and we had similar opinions. What the HELL was that? Those are the kids from East River, I think? Well no, there were not that many kids in East River. So they were the Children’s League kids? So, movie, you’re telling me that they took kids from their duties, their missions, to go into a football field, not say a word, put paint on their hands and foreheads, and just...stand there? No, I can’t think about that scene for than one more minute without wanting to laugh.

Next, let’s talk about pacing. The movie went FAST! The run-time with credits is 1hr 45min, why did they rush everything then? That movie could have been amazing if they spent time world building, taken out the dumb scenes, and had the main actors actually learn stuff about each other. A 2hr 30min movie is pretty common these days, so it’s not like they thought that it was too long. I did not shed a single tear when Ruby took Liam’s memories. Why? Because I didn’t really care about them as a couple yet. In the books they spend, like, months together! The movie took place in.... a few weeks? Sorry Liam, you don’t love Ruby yet. Actually, you barely know Ruby. We get no information about Zu and Chubs at all. Chubs’s only purpose being to say kinda funny jokes, I guess. Zu is there to lead her to the van and then literally becomes pointless the rest of the movie. The main cast, other than Ruby, gets no exposition whatsoever, and by the end of the movie we are supposed to care about what happens to them, yet we don’t. Why should we? We don’t even know Chubs’s last name!

And finally, because I have already made this review freakishly long: Clancy. The worst character by far. In the books he is a troubled bad guy. He has some semblance of good in him, yet he doesn’t do the right thing. He’s basically Magneto. Correct me if I’m wrong, but in the books, it isn’t Clancy’s fault that the camp gets compromised. In the movie, Clancy has no reason to be the bad guy. He was tortured by the government and his father for years, and once they ‘cure’ him....he helps them? The movie wants me to believe that Clancy is helping those who tortured him for years. No. He is a villain just so the movie has a villain. We are given no reason for him to be the bad guy. Why would he compromise his own camp? What the hell was that harvest thing? Is this his first ‘harvest,’ or does he do this often? If he has done it before, how is he able to restart the camp? Do new kids show up to just Clancy by himself...and stay? That’s not suspicious at all! And okay this made me so mad, but Chubs wanted to leave because...they made him work. Chubs, of course you have to work! Nothing would get done if the kids didn’t have jobs! You can’t just sit around all day and do nothing! The camp couldn’t physically function!

The problem with this movie is that it shows you the ‘what’ and not the ‘why.’ Fans love this movie so much because they get to see their characters doing what they did in the books. People that haven’t read the books need an explanation as to what is happening and why! That’s why the reviews are so bad. They are lost. They are left wondering what was happening in the last scene, and by then the movie has moved on to the next. A good movie needs exposition, as to which this movie offers slim to none. I originally liked the movie so much because I got see Liam, Ruby, Chubs, and Zu doing shenanigans. My roommate had so many questions as to what was happening that he couldn’t like it. That’s why the movie was made for me, someone who has read the book. I don’t need the exposition, I know it already. That doesn’t make it a good movie. They need to accommodate it to people that haven’t read the book. Otherwise 90% of their audience will be lost, which is what happened.

The book is amazing, if you want to watch the movie, read the book first so you aren’t lost. I give the movie 2 stars, because a part of me still loves it because I did get to see my faves on the big screen. Thanks to @itsgalaxy29 and @kyrahchey for being willing to talk to me about it! If y’all wanna yell at me or share similar opinions, feel free to do so in the comments below. I love a good debate. pce.

#the darkest minds #the darkest legacy #the darkest minds movie #the darkest minds spoilers #alex bracken #alexandra bracken #tdm movie #rubiam #the darkest minds review

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dcarevu · 5 years

Text

Batman TAS: Joker’s Favor

“She can't open the door and push it in all by herself! THINK!”

Batman the Animated Series. Teaching the dangers of road rage since 1992!

Episode: 22 Robin: No Writer: Paul Dini Director: Boyd Kirkland Animator: Dong Yang Airdate: September 11, 1992 Grade: B

Char’s main reaction to seeing this episode for the first time was, “My girl!!” She loves Harley (and Poison Ivy). For me too, it’s nice to finally introduce Harley Quinn to the DC Animated Universe. Of course, back when this episode initially aired, it was also her introduction to the world of comic books in general. Written to be a one-off henchwoman to the Joker, wow, who would have seen the massive Harley Quinn storm coming. I was working at Party City when Suicide Squad came out, and by far the most popular costume we sold to young girls and women alike was Harley Quinn. People who know nothing about Batman are at least a little familiar with her. Sometimes even more familiar with her than the Dark Knight himself. And good lord, have fun trying to buy a copy of Batman Adventures #12 for a decent price. Even reprints can cost you around 100 bucks. You know how annoying that is for someone who just wants to own a physical copy of the damn thing to read?

I can only assume that Suicide Squad was the major catapult for the hype surrounding the character. I don’t remember seeing her around nearly as much before. Although I’m sure the Arkham series helped a little bit too. And I won’t lie to you, I’m a little salty about it. Oh, believe me, it’s definitely petty “nerd rage”. Or maybe you could call it the “hipster effect”. What annoys us about liking something for so long, and then, much later, finding out that it suddenly blows up with admiration? It’s stupid, this should make us happy, right? But yes, to let the cat out of the bag, I really do love Harley Quinn’s character. At least, the DCAU version of her. I’ve never seen Suicide Squad, I’ve never read any of her comics outside of the DCAU tie-ins, and I’ve never seen any episodes of other Batman cartoons with her in it. Doesn’t particularly interest me (not that I’m directly opposed). But I know that in the DCAU she’s really interesting, she’s a lot of fun, and some of the best moments of the entire series involve her heavily. The Laughing Fish, from what I remember, is up there among my favorite episodes. And how about the flashback in ROTJ? That’s one of the best Batman stories ever told, period. She’s not my favorite villain by any means, but the show would definitely be missing something without her. Speaking of her roles in the DCAU, maybe that’s where that “hipster effect” comes from. Maybe we get salty when people are oblivious toward a character’s…or a band’s…or a show’s…or whatever’s…early days. Yeah, that’s gotta be it, right? When Pokémon Go was new, I saw people complaining because these kids hadn’t played the original Red and Blue versions. And no one would ever really get annoyed if an old album by Blink-182 suddenly spiked in sales. No, it’s only when someone discovers new stuff and isn’t familiar with anything before that. I’m not saying this behavior is rational, and I hate it whenever I feel this way (for the record, I defended those kids just getting into Pokémon through Pokémon Go who were being shit on by “gen-wunners”). But it’s a possible explanation. Maybe we feel that people are missing out or not putting in the effort to fully appreciate/respect a thing and why it is the way it is.

Even though Harley Quinn was an amazing addition to the series, she didn’t exactly start out that way. Ignoring her popularity, she doesn’t particularly stand out in this episode, at least, not to me. But she must have back then. Fans liked her so much, she started appearing in the Batman Adventures comics! But I won’t start complaining about Batman Adventures #12 again. At least, not yet… Of course, where this is the first Harley episode, it figures as such that Paul Dini is the writer. This episode shows us again that he knows how to write a great story to be taken seriously, but also knows how to inject a lot of fun into it. That seems to be what separates Dini from some of the other best writers. A lot of the most serious episodes are really damn serious, with virtually no fun to be had. But Dini throws in some cheeky bits. Harley, for example. Or Batman coming down with a cold in Heart of Ice. It’s certainly welcome, but honestly, I prefer episodes like Two-Face a little bit more. And that’s why I’ve settled on a B for this episode. Yeah, I know. Everyone raises this episode up on a pedestal and says how much of a classic it is. I won’t argue with y’all. It’s an important episode, and it is entertaining. But it’s not as entertaining as a lot of other episodes to me. I like it. I don’t love it. Sue me. Char actually felt the same way, so I’m not alone there. She loved the Joker, as usual, and loved seeing “her gurl” Harley, but as far as the actual episode goes, she only liked it. Strangely enough, I have virtually no complaints. For the most part it’s pretty flawless, unless I really want to nitpick at stupid shit (like when Joker points out Charlie’s hair-loss when he has the same amount of hair as earlier). Probably the only thing that actually made me scratch my head was during the scene where Charlie threatens Joker with one of his own bombs. Why did Charlie know it wouldn’t explode, but the Joker himself didn’t? The only thing I can really think of is that Batman was in on the joke, and rewired the thing. But that doesn’t sit too well with me either. Oh, and also the scenes involving the fight amongst the recreated temple was a little hokey, and didn’t match a lot of the flow. It was too random-seeming, plus the idea that all of these death traps would remain active is ludicrous. We do get the Joker at some of his best, though, and we even hear Batman laugh in-costume (a first for this series). If there’s one thing Batman shouldn’t do often, it’s use the bat-laugh. And the writers knew when to use it well. Just wait till Mad Love. As long as they don’t have Batman sing… I will now turn my head toward my Justice League Unlimited set and stare at it with a dead smile for a few seconds.

And what about the crime prince of clown himself? I think we get the most insight into his mind out of all the Joker episodes so far in this one. The first two Joker appearances were just sorta goofy romps that you would expect, and the next one (Be a Clown) was an episode of lesser entertainment value. Here, we take the best elements of the Be a Clown Joker and fuse it with the Joker we got more from the other episodes to create what I would consider to be the definitive DCAU Joker. Let’s go over it. Y’know those maniacs who chase you down the street just because you made the tiniest mistake while driving (sometimes it might even be more their fault than yours)? Well imagine if when they caught up to you, you saw that they were a psychotic, killing clown. That’s fun… After this happens to Charlie Collins, the Joker threatens to kill him, but ends up sparing him so that over the next two years, he can have a fun time of basically tracking, stalking, and keeping up with this man. I like this because, on one hand, it seems so silly that he’d want to do this simply because of a traffic incident. Like, doesn’t he have better things to do with this time? But also, the Joker knows that every day, Charlie lives in fear that the Joker will find and contact him. It’s the manipulative aspect that we saw in Be a Clown coming out. The Joker takes pleasure in ruining lives. We also have the whacky side of the Joker seen in The Last Laugh with how ridiculous the concept is. Going back to the hair-loss comment mention earlier in passing, I actually think it would have been really clever to start him out with a full head of hair, but then show him super bald later on, showing that the stress of it all had really taken a toll on him, despite his seemingly great life.

Well, then, the Joker has Charlie fly over to Gotham just to open a door for Harley. Yeah. Open a door. I friggin’ love this twist. He’s like an Alice In Wonderland character, having seemingly no rhyme or reason for anything, but you know it all somehow makes sense in his twisted head. We know this because of what he manages to pull off, and how dangerous he is. If he truly knew nothing, he wouldn’t escape Arkham time and time again or get away with nearly as much as he does. And then finally at the end, we have some moments of scary Joker-rage paired with the Joker actually yelling to Batman for help. It’s such a sudden mood change, and you have to question whether or not the Joker’s anger was real. If it is, that makes it scarier. He’s like a meth-addict. We also see the Joker shove Harley Quinn to the side so that he can get to the phone, a very early look at the abusive relationship that we don’t see in full until later down the line. Like I said earlier, Harley was supposed to be a one-off, so this likely wasn’t Dini’s intent to display, but in hindsight, it’s got a much different light casted on it. It shows how much care was put into these stories, making everything match up, even if it wasn’t the initial plan.

This opening shot looked pretty stilted, reminding us that it’s essentially a cell being moved to the right.

Our main character, Charlie Collins. I wanna know what kind of fashion statement that haircut is. The “vertical rat tail”?

That moment of realization. Great job of capturing that immediate regret. It’s like he was brought back to reality, but sent into the Twilight Zone all at the same time.

The Joker knows how scary he is.

This shot was kinda funky with how bright some of the Joker’s features were.

The Joker appears rather large when in comparison to the character who is supposed to be in front of him. This happens at least one other time in the episode. It adds to his threatening aura here, though.

“Oh please, don’t insult me.” the Joke retorts when Charlie assumes that he’s being robbed of money.

Been missing these guys! Haven’t seen enough of them!

Jim: “If anyone should be getting a testimonial it’s you!” Batman: “I’m just the nightshift. You deal with this mess 24 hours a day. That’s what those people want to honor.” The most endearing friendship on the show. He even then proceeds to ask Batman where he can rent a tux.

The Joker playing darts backwards. Throwing them at the commissioner.

Harley Quinn’s first appearance ever! Bruce Timm did an excellent job with her design. Also, another instance of Joker looking rather large. Apparently perspective isn’t Dong Yang’s strong suit.

And then the Joker proceeds to do a perfect backflip. Damn, he’s limber!

Me too, dude. Also the Joker was throwing darts right above this guy’s head.

Somehow a better license picture than any I’ve ever gotten. Also we have confirmation that, in the DCAU at least, Gotham City is in New York.

“Leave the sideburns.”

An unsettling shot as they circle around Don’s (Charlie’s) block, threatening his family.

“Any way I could sneak out with you?” Me too, dude. Lines like this add so much character that gimmicks or statements about them could never reach.

“Sir, I believe you may be needed inside.”

Bullock hitting on Harley. How does he look like even more of a sleaze when spiffed up for an event?

Montoya’s look of pleasure when Bullock gets whacked in the shin by Harley’s baton. Also, them cheekbones.

“...okayyy, we’ll tough it out here.”

Joker’s sudden mood-swings combined with his delivery from Mark Hamill are obvious callbacks to the Blue Meanies in Yellow Submarine.

Charlie, about to shove a bomb up Joker’s ass. “Batman! Batmaaaaan!” Actually, y’know what this reminds me of?

This great moment.

Joker, relieved to see Batman. “<gasp> How long have you been there?” We also get, “You’re no fun anymore, Charlie.” If there’s one thing Joker can’t stand, it’s getting upstaged when it comes to the crazy.

A solid episode for sure, but for those of you who only know about Harley from her more recent shenanigans (and you don’t have a genuine interest in watching a Batman cartoon), check out The Laughing Fish instead. And for those of you following along with me for the long haul, join us next time! …Crikey!

Char’s grade: B

Next time: Vendetta Full episode list here!

#harley quinn #joker #dc animated universe #batman tas #joker's favor #jokers favor #batman the animated series #the joker #batman #dcau

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hubbleablubble · 5 years

Note

Please! I’d love to hear more on them!! They’re so unique!

OOOOH OK!! more under the cut!

SO these elf concepts are supposed to kind of really tie into their fae identity i guess? Basically they’re like plants, and each subrace is based on different kinds of plants. They don’t need to sleep and trance instead.

All of them have jointed faces that have a different shape depending on their subrace (you can see these in the original post). This comes from their fae heritage! These elves don’t really have teeth either because of it :0 ALSO all elf hair is literally Plants. Those high elves with flower hair? Thats just Actually Flowers. I thought it looked fun lol.

Moving on, high elves are based on flowers, and by far have the least developed powers lol (if y’all have any ideas please let me know!). So far what they can do is make clones of theirselves and do magic really good but thats kinda weak imo haha. They’re the most fragile subspecies but also, surprisingly, the most long lived and fertile (not accounting for any outside influences of course)

Wood elves are based on (you guessed it) trees! They’re SUPER sturdy and getting a meaningful hit on one is HARD because their skin is like really goddamn tough bark. They can go into a “sleep” that can either heal them or extend their lives. Basically they go into a healing stasis for somewhere upwards of 100 years.

Dark elves (my fave) are based on fungi! By far the most dangerous elves for multiple reasons, but the most understated and terrifying ability of theirs is the ability to heal super fast. You can cut off any elf’s limb and it’ll grow back, but where a high elf would take 100 years to grow back a leg, a dark elf would take maybe 10 or 15. This isn’t even counting for clerics, which can speed the process up to like two weeks. This is TERRIFYING, because dark elves can even regenerate from their heads!!! Decapitation doesn’t even stop them! Everyone thinks there’s a ton of dark elves but no. It’s just that every dark elf you ‘kill’ is back and ready to keep kicking ass. ALSO the female dark elves can use mushroom spores to do lots of things, like put people to sleep or parasitically infect someone and control their brains. Also, they have infravision(can see heat signatures).

tldr: high elves are fragile but have long lives, wood elves are sturdy and can take a really good nap, and dark elves are terrifyingly souped up and i love them

SO here’s some of the really basic characters I made up!

Liarel: Liarel is a wood elf from an important wood elf family who accidentally fell into the underdark and was lost there for a number of years. Eventually she got so used to it that the first time she found a way out she just. Stayed instead. She’s a ranger and a really great hunter gatherer. Eventually realized she had to go back to the surface because her family was probably worried about her. Every second she spends there just makes her wanna go back to the underdark more. She’s very adaptable and is a really good problem solver. She’s very cautious and slow to trust, but she’s also incredibly loyal and VERY devoted, especially to her boyfriend Saedir. Despite that, she can be a bit abrasive and impulsive, and she has a pretty dry sense of humour too haha.

Saedir: Saedir is a talented dark elf tailor/enchanter from a small town in the underdark. He left to be with Liarel because they’re in lov :,) He’s very attractive in dark elven standards so he had quite a few suitors, but he liked Liarel more than any of them! Upon coming to the surface, in order to join Liarel’s surface community, his leg was forcibly cut off to make his life harder and to make sure he wouldn’t be able to ‘get up to no good’ until they can trust him :( He’s fine with it though, because he knows it’ll grow back soon. He’s really laid back and optimistic to a fault! He likes helping people and is devastatingly stubborn and persistent. Once he decides he likes you and thinks you’re a good person, good luck convincing him otherwise. Being his friend means lots of affection too lol. Also this is him:

Iani: Iani is a high elf! He was Liarel’s best friend (he also has a crush on her) since they were kids, and he was devastated when she disappeared (fell into the underdark). He was even MORE devastated when she returned 25 years later with a dark elf she called her boyfriend in tow. However, after Liarel threatened him with bodily violence (not very effective) and a dissolution to their friendship (super effective), he promised that he would give Saedir a chance and protect him as vigorously as he would try to protect Liarel. Eventually, to his surprise, Iani grows to like Saedir. A lot. Almost too much. WAY too much. And thus Iani has two crushes to deal with lol. Iani is, on the surface, very irritable and an ass. He’s hard to get along with sometimes since he’s cold and kind of mean. However, once he warms up to you, you’ll notice that he’s just a goddamn teddy bear. Like Liarel, once you gain his trust he will be loyal to you forever. He constantly beats himself up about a lot of things, even things he has no control over. He’s a closet romantic, and a constant internal whirlwind of emotions.

Anyways that was long! I hope this makes sense and you like these dumb elf concepts lol. If you guys ever think of a cool idea that you think I might like to add on to these, please tell me! I’m always open to more elf headcanons haha :D

#hubble asks #my dumb elves........#i am PHYSICALLY incapable of not making characters im sorry #i want to make high elves more interesting but How #wait wait wai #imagine a high elf who's hair is like that huge rotting meat smelling corpse flower #that guy would have the worst time #dhjgskruy

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