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#I FREAKING LOVE THIS CROSSOVER SO MUCH I WISH IF SOMEONE ANIMATE THIS
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In the matters of crossover...
Soul Society does not understand diplomacy. They are 'supreme', absolute, greedy control freaks, and 'holders of balance' or that crap. They lack rivals and others group to keep them in line.
Many group/organizations/goverments in other shows/animes/series/movies like the Wizard World (both other coutries and families), Vongola, Amestris or even Konoha and Asoiaf has 'other factions' that aren't enemies. They cannot simply do whatever thay please. Soul Society would never let another Spiritual Faction exist outside their control (even if are peaceful doing nothing bad), they would refuse to be 'allies', would demand the other faction to bow or betray them. If they ever 'ally' with an group of another anime/show, they would demand them to be subordinades to Seireitei, obey everything they say and be killed once their usefulness run out. Arrogant at the point of foolishness.
Many 'crossovers' would end up with Soul Society getting in so much trouble because they refuse to talk to solve problem and follow laws and respect the local rulers and leaders, wrongly believing they have authority and jurisdiction over everything and everyone.
The Moral Myopia also. No loyality, no trust, no partnership, nothing. No one would ever want to help them or ally with them, they would try to 'arrest/execute' someone they think is 'different', Ichigo should have noped out of here fast.
Fix-Its with most fandons has politics and talking involved, Bleach ones are about destroying Seireitei cuz Soul Society are a Butch of Motherfuckers.
See Game of Throne for exemple, you have to be careful with no only your enemies, but your allies and subordinades too. Two of Robb Stark's greatest fuck ups are Rickard Karstark (subordinade Lord) and Freys (allies), the Lannisters too (Selmy, the Faith and Tyrion), also which decisions you make and how they affect the other groups (Ned Stark's execution was a reckless foolish action and even Tywin knows it), its so fucking easy to switch sides, your enemies may be more sensible and willing to listen to ours wishes, don't you think so?
This whole 'we have an common enemy' and 'you will help us or else' would never work on many characters like it did on Ichigo and his friends.
No one is going to obey/ally with you if they get nothing in turn/are treated badly/you attempt to make them subordinades instead of allies or something similar. Their attitude towards the Vizards, Bounts, Humans in general or anyone powerful and outside their control tell us an lot. In an crossover, they would attempt to kidnap, interrogate, steal, experiment and murder innocent people with no reason whatsover or commit fucking genocide against societies they consider threats. They did nothing to deserve loyality, refusing to help those who sacrificed so much for them, declaring they own people traitors out of blue (Rukia, Hitsugaya in Diamond Rebellion, fucking Orihime when she got kidnapped) and threatening Ichigo and his friends's often. (Poor Uryu)
I also kinda love the idea where the Hero (an minor, a fucking kid) that has his whole life planned for him to involve himself in an secret world and fight wars that are not his, to put his friend and family in danger for an butch of ungratefull assholes and there is an crossover where said Hero meets people from another Fandom and when the plot starts, he looks the group that wants him to fight for them (and he knows them for like...an hour) dead in the eyes and is like 'lol, nope fuckers, #notmywar, I have better shit to do'.
Its also easier to deal with them. A centralized power that have charisma of lettuce juice (Rukongai would turn against them if given chance), the 'smallfolk' of Soul Society hate then and the Shinigami didn't even try to make some propaganda (like nobles in medieval era giving the rest of the food from feasts so when a rebellion hist, the people would be more willing to hid/help them). Horizontal leadership is more difficult to deal with, independant factions even more.
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pinkiedroid200 · 3 years
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Taking over the world problem (uberduck.ai)
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unkownknowledge · 3 years
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Genshin characters and their spider s/o
A little crossover HC post between terraformars and genshin.
Basically the reader is the result of a messed up experiment and now they look like a monstrous humanoid spider, like this guy:
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Except you have no human skin or hair, just pure chitin, extra legs out the back, and mandibles(like a turian)
Also: request are still open, feel free to request!
Including: Jean, Xinqiu, and Razor
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Jean: hollow knight
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Jean had been receiving reports of frightened merchants and townsfolk, all of whom had been found on the road ranting about a giant spider.
Jean was sure it was nothing more than hilichurls or hoarders or abyss mages and the people were merely suffering panic induced hallucinations, this was supported by the clear signs of such dangers at the scene of the crime.
But still, neither any of the knights nor adventurers in the guild reported saving these people, nor did Diluc claim that he did when she asked him.
So Jean decided to investigate, after all not only is there a chance of finding camps of the three above dangers, but also the chance of finding a new ally.
When she saw you in a clearing you looked like a normal human, until you turned your head in an inhuman manner and looked at her with eight red glowing eyes.
You screamed at her and used your geo vision to grow eight giant legs out your back, which you used to run away.
Jean, being the persistent woman she is, wasn't about let you go until she confirmed if you were a friend or foe.
She chased you through the forest for a while, and unfortunately didn't notice a group of hilichurls hiding behind some trees.
One swung out and struck her from behind, knocking her to the ground.
At the sound of this you turned around and saw Jean on the ground.
While she easily could have beaten the hilichurls, she didn't have to. This is because you were immediately next to her, sword drawn and slicing through the monsters like a hot knife through butter. Your geo legs acted like extra blades that parried any attack directed towards the knight.
Because you're other legs were busy, however, you were unable to block the attack from a crossbow that shot right through your knee.
You fell down and were beaten senseless by the hilichurls, the last thing you remember was the sounds of a blade and the monsters turning to dust before you blacked out.
You woke up on a soft bed inside an unfamiliar building. You tried to get up but your knee had a large hole in it, luckily for you your ability to feel pain was long lost.
Jean entered a minute later with some food, "good, your awake."
"Where am I?" You asked.
"In my home, the guest room to be exact."
"Why did you save me?"
"Because you were in danger."
"Yes but why? Aren't you afraid of me?"
"Considering how you saved me as well? No, not at all."
Jean poured some tea for both of you, "now onto-"
You felt your eyes water, something you didn't realize you could still do.
"What's wrong?" Jean asked.
"It's just, it's been so long since anyone was...nice to me. My appearance isn't exactly very welcoming."
"And yet you still help people, the same people who call you a monster?"
"Of course! I might be an abomination, but I'm not a monster. In fact, before I became...this I had always dreamed of joining the knights."
"Well, that makes things easy."
"What do you mean?"
"While I cannot officially make you a knight, I can make you an honorary member of the knights of favonius."
"REALLY!?" You said, a child like excitment on your face.
So you joined the knights, of course not everyone was happy about this.
But noone doubted the acting grand master's decision, after all she never once failed the city.
After a while the city warmed up to you, even hailing you as a hero thanks to all you've done!
But the city's attitude towards you wasn't the only thing getting warmer.
Infact, a certain person's cheeks seemed to grow red as Amber's ribbon at the mere mention of your name.
Lisa and Kaeya were the first to notice Jean's infatuation with you, and they were quite intent on helping her.
It would be easy for them to set it up: you were cold blooded, so you had a heater in your room during the winter, and thanks to a 'freak lightning strike', your house was under renovations for the whole season, this caused Jean to let you stay in her home until yours was repaired.
Now all they had to do was sneak in an 'cool it' down.
You awoke in the middle of the night due to the temperature suddenly dropping. You tried turning on your heater but that didn't work. You went downstairs to make some hot tea, unaware that Kaeya swapped the labels on Jean's coffee and your tea. After making the beverage you sat down in the warmest corner, covered in blankets, and with a warm drink in hand.
Fun fact! Spiders get hella drunk off caffeine.
You are a spider.
One sip of the coffee and you felt funny, you couldn't think straight and felt wobbly.
Kaeya and Lisa giggled watching you.
"So, how DID you get them drunk? You couldn't exactly have spiked their tea could you?" Lisa asked.
"I swapped the labels on their tea and Jeans coffee. Spiders get hella drunk on-" Kaeya noticed Lisa worried face, "fuck, what did I do this time?"
"Kaeya, spiders don't get drunk on caffeine like humans do with alcohol."
Lisa pointed Kaeya towards the window
"Whoops"
Caffeine doesn't make spiders drunk the same way alchohol does a person, which is what Kaeya expected.
Caffeine makes spiders hyper, very hyper.
When Jean heard skittering and clanging she thought someone was robbing the house, so she was reasonably surprised to see you lying in the center of the kitchen, crying, and with webs all over.
When she asked what happened you just rolled over and mumbled out gibberish about how you can't catch any flies.
Jean picked you up to take you to bed, but you wrapped your arms and legs around her and caused her to fall.
"(Y/n), please let me go." Jean pleaded.
You shushed her, "nap time" and fell asleep.
Your grip was to strong for her to get out, and with your weight she couldn't get up in this position, so she just had to wait for you to get up.
The next day Jean got up the same time as you, she would have said something if you didn't kiss her and pet her head.
"I love this dream." You said, nuzzling into the crook of her neck.
Jean was shocked, what dream? You were clearly awake.
"I wonder if Jean is this warm in real life....I wish I could find out..."
"(Y-y/n)" she stuttered out, "you're not dreaming."
You shot up with all your eyes wide as saucers.
You immediately thought of running. But where would you go? The forest? Yeah, that works, just go there a-
You felt a warm sensation on your cheek.
"So (y/n), how does this dream usually go?" Jean said with a suggestive wink.
.
.
.
"(Y/n)?"
404 error, reader.exe has crashed
After that rather unconventional confession session, you both started dating.
Jean was concerned about not having enough time for you, but that proved to be very unfounded. Thanks to your many years alone you didn't know what dating was, so to you simply working together was fine.
On every mission out of the city you would bring gifts or a picnic for when the sun was setting.
On days where you both had paper work you would make tea and buy little cakes or biscuits and sit on her lap as you rested on eachother's shoulders and fed each other snacks, under the excuse that "sharing a chair saves space".
On the rare occasion Jean gets to have a day off, she showers you in affection.
She'll make you breakfast in bed(it's not good 80% of the time, but you don't tell her), she'll cuddle with you all day, she'll even read to you if you want. She wants to give back to you for all the time she couldn't give you her full attention.
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Xingqiu: it's like one of my Inazuman graphic novels
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Your meeting with the guhua geek was far more coincidental.
You were just minding your business, catching some animals to eat, when some weird guy just walks by you, not noticing you at all, as he reads his book.
You were rather suprised and, by extension, curious about this boy.
Was he blind in peripheral? Was he that brave? Was he an idiot?
A bit of colum B, mostly colum C.
Xingqiu sat down on a rock and continued reading, given how he was reading aloud you figured you might as well take advantage of his lack of notice and learn to read.
But he did notice.
"Ah shoot, spaces out again." Xingqiu cried, "now I have to start all over."
Xingqiu started reading the book all over again, much to your joy.
You could easily match his words to the page thanks to your speed of comprehension.
When the boy noticed it was getting late he decided to head home, while you were upset you didn't try and stop him. In fact you immediately darted away before he saw you.
The next day he came back, and read from the same spot.
And again
And again
This went on for quite some time.
Xingqiu knew someone was watching him, but he never was able to catch a glimpse. He just figured it was someone who wanted to read legends of the shattered halberd but couldn't find any copies, and so the chivalrous thing to do would be to read it for them.
One day he finished the fifth book and proclaimed it was the last one, which made you rather sad.
Until he spoke to you.
"Well my secretive friend," he turned around, "shall w-"
You screamed
He screamed
For about five minutes.
After which you both just stared at eachother.
He pointed a shakey finger at you, "you're-"
You turned away, 'a freak I know' you thought.
"SO COOL!"
"What?"
Xingqiu immediately ran at you and started inspecting you.
The whole time he had such an amazed look on his face.
"Woah!" He said as he grabbed your mandibles, "are these real?!"
"Ye ey are, a ah ee e ah a" you said hoping he would understand that you need them to talk.
"Oh. Hehe. Sorry." He said releasing them.
"Aren't you...scared of me?" You asked.
"Why would I be? If you wanted to kill me you would have. It's not like I was particularly on guard when I was reading for you."
'Y-you knew I was there?"
"I knew someone was there, and I knew they were watching me read. Since you showed such interest in my book I thought the only chivalrous thing to do was to keep reading."
You were shocked, most people just ran and screamed upon seeing you.
"Now, shall we go look for the sixth book?"
After that you and Xingqiu became fast friends.
He used some of the money he made from the scam he pulled on that scammer to buy out the forest you lived in, making it officially private property so that people won't go after you.
He kept coming back with books for you both to read, you absolutely loved it!
And while you never realized it, you also loved him.
He however, did know he loved you.
Being the menace to society he is, Xingqiu decided the best way to confess was to just kiss you.
You're sitting on a stump with your head on Xingqiu's shoulder.
"This book isn't as good as the others." You say.
"Ah don't be like that, fairy tales are the foundation of all those 'knight in shining armor books' you love."
"Yeah but this is boring."
"True, true. But I think it has a great ending." Xingqiu turned to the final page, "and then the knight told the (royal title) how much he loved them, and to seal his love he placed a kiss on their cheek."
"That wasn't good."
"Why? It was very realistic."
"In what reality does someone confess by kiss-"
*smooch*
It took you a solid five seconds to process what happened.
Xingqiu smirked at you like the bastard man he is, "this one I believe."
Your mandibles hung slack as your face got a dark shade of blue.
"Uh, (y/n)?"
"Clothes off, now."
Xingqiu stumbled out the forest four hours later. Chongyun, who was protecting his privacy, asked him what's wrong.
"Absolutely nothing." He responded with the largest grin a human could muster, before his legs gave out, "can you carry me home?"
Your relationship was more steady than just that bit though.
Xingqiu spent as much time with you as he could, he even learned how to hunt so he could be with you while you hunted for food.
You never left your forest though, you were far to afraid of people and especially the vigilant yaksha(which Xingqiu tried to convince you was friendly).
Of course, not everything goes so simply.
Xingqiu was skipping through the forest, far to enamoured at the idea of you to notice someone following him.
You sat calmly on your rock and awaited your boyfriend of two years, today was his birthday so you made him a beautiful silk picture of his favorite scene from 'the legend of the broken halberd'
You felt the boy drop into your lap, "hello my love!"
You wrapped your arms and extra legs around him, "hello my little knight, I have a wonderful gift for-"
"XINQIU! WHAT THE HELL IS THAT!"
You both turned around to see a man who looked oddly like Xingqiu.
"H-hey big bro..." Xingqiu said, clearly nervous.
"You're his brother?" You asked, "nice to meet you! I'm your future sibling in law!"
His brother looked surprised, then angry, "Xingqiu, a word."
"No," he responded, "anything you can say to me you can say to my (s/o)."
"Xingqiu, this is not a game."
"ANYTHING," Xingqiu said, far more aggressive, "you can say to me, you can say to them."
His brother sighed, "you can't date them."
"I believe I can."
"XINGQIU! ME AND FATHER HAVE TOLERATED ENOUGH OF YOUR CHILDISHNESS! YOU ARE AN HEIR OF THE FEIYUN COMMERCE GUILD, YOU CANNOT DATE THAT-THAT THING!"
Xingqiu shot up into a fighting stance, "care to repeat that?"
Xingqiu stared down his brother with murderous intent.
"So you wont back down?"
"Never, I love (y/n) to much!"
"If you don't leave them, you'll be disowned by father, all your wealth, power, and influence will be forfeited. All for an inhuman freak!"
"Xinqiu please," you tried telling your beloved, "I won't let you sacrifice-"
"Sorry darling, but I don't give a damn." He interrupted you before turning to his brother, "I will NOT abandon my beloved (y/n)! They are the most precious thing in the world to me! So go ahead! Strip me if my title, my riches, of my very skin! My heart will yearn for nothing else but the cold hard touch of love that is my (s/o)!"
Xinqiu's brother smirked
"So, you promise to always be with (y/n)?"
"Yes!"
"Through both sickness and health?"
As smart as he was, Xinqiu couldn't see what was happening, "with all my heart and soul!"
"And you would take (Y/N) as your contractually bound spouse?"
"I would sooner bite my arm off than live another day without them as such! In fact!" Xinqiu turned to you, "(Y/N)! WE'RE GOING TO GET MARRIED RIGHT NOW! COME ON!"
"Hold it!" His brother demanded, "(Y/N)! Would you stay with my brother, Xinqiu, through sickness and health, through rags and riches?"
You nodded, "forever and always!"
"And would you take him to be your contractually bound husband?"
"E-even if I had to fight Rex Lapis himself!"
Two burly hands grabbed the couple and pushed them together, "You may now kiss the bride!"
Without thought, you two kissed each other, not thinking to question the cheering, clapping, and crying-
You both pulled apart, "what the abyss is happening here?!"
The burly arms, now wrapping you both, was an older crying man who also looked like Xinqiu.
Xinqiu's Brother was crying and clapping.
Chongyun was blasting off party cones(🎉🎉these things)
And several other of Xinqiu's friends were there celebrating.
"W-wait..." Xinqiu started to remember that his brother, as a high ranking member of a commerce guild, can officiate marriages.
The older man, Xinqiu's father, cried and said, "finally! Grandchildren!"
(If you can't have babies, adoption exists and is perfectly normal)
Needless to say
404 error, Xinqiu.exe and Reader.exe have stopped working
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Razor: the big bad spider and the itsy bitsy spider
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(Please understand that my knowledge of Razor is based on his quest, I know of his special vision but it won't be brought up for this. I will be sure to read the wiki page for him if I write him again)
Razor knew something was wrong.
His wolf side told him something was wrong with the forest, and his human side told him it should be either avoided at all cost or destroyed.
Because it had stayed away he had largely tried to just avoid it and keep his lupical away from whatever IT is.
Until a foolish pup decided to try and defeat whatever big bad monster had their protector so scared.
Razor ran faster than any lightning bolt upon hearing the news.
Razor didn't know what he was seeing: giant webs strewn out covering entire trees, boars and Hilichurls wrapped in webs and frozen in a sickly green.
And at the center of it all was a giant, monstrous creature with eight leg like roots coming from it's back, feeding off the life of all the creatures stuck here.
This is what he was afraid of, the beast that every inch of his primal self screamed to get away from.
But he couldn't, not until he found the pup!-
"Hello." You said calmly to the strange man coming into your home, "is this your's?"
You outstretched your hand and a sleeping pup drifted towards razor on a flower.
"He caused lots of problems, so I made him sleep. Don't worry, it's nothing permanent, give him an hour or two and he'll be right up."
After Razor left, you assumed that would be the last disturbance for a while.
But it wasn't.
Razor's wolf half still feared you, was still mortified when he pictured your spider like face, your towering body, everything.
But his human half...teembled.
Not in fear, but in a different way.
He couldn't stop thinking of you, and his primal upbringing did little to quell the less romantic thoughts about your gem like eyes, the way your mandibles clicked and moved when you talked, the overwhelming nature energy that you radiated.
But he still knew good enough to get to know you better.
Just not HOW to do it.
"Why are you spider?"
Is not a good first thing to ask.
But you explained regardless: you were taken as a kid and experimented on by some rogue students from Sumeru academy.
Then some purple lady rescued you, and while you were grateful you much preferred living out in the wild.
"Yes...wild is good! Wolvendom, especially good!"
Someone please help him.
"Purple lady....ah! Shockey wizard lady from knights?"
You nodded
"Razor good friends with her and honorary knight! Do you know red flamy girl?"
"Klee? Oh yes! I love her! She's such a nice kid!"
"Yes, Klee is like lupical! Even if she...burns down forest from time to time."
Lucky for him, your shared familial love for the pyromaniacal minor helped bridge the gap between you two.
Eventually he even got you to leave your grotto(?) And meet his lupical!
He introduced you to the wonders of actually eating rather than just sucking the life force out of animals.
You both love and protect the forest of wolvendom, and if any large threat arises to it then you both will fight fang and claw to protect your home!
Neither of you know what love is in the human sense, but you both feel it to each other and act upon it: giving each other a portion of your food, taking blows in battle for each other, and cuddling more intimately than just friends would.
You are his lupical, and so much more.
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I started this near last year's end, it took me till now to realize I should only do 3 characters.
(Paging: @golden-wingseos, @storytravelled)
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Note
This is probably a strange question since KH is already a crossover in and of itself, but... KH-Crossovers you'd love? XD Not limited to Disney or any medium in particular btw :)
Fun question!
Hmm... Off the top of my head? Things that I love, because I’m selfish like that. Haha. Something like Inception comes to mind (and I’ve actually written a KH and Inception crossover. Though it would never entirely work out, but shh). But they lend themselves well to each other. Mainly because DDD was clearly inspired by Inception. What?
The Mortal Instruments, Percy Jackson, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, as I think all three of them would mesh well with KH. Also, Dark Angel (and a lot of Fox shows, like Dark Angel and Tru Calling), because again with the selfishness. Also, Fox movies. More on some of that later.
Edit: ABC shows, like Alias and LOST, as they’re mystery box stories like KH.
W.I.T.C.H. Gargoyles too, though I barely remember it.
Kilala Princess, probably. And perhaps Disney Princess: Enchanted Journey (at least the villain from it would be great for KH).
I know there are some companies out there who have adapted fairytales that Disney already has. And it would be cool to see their take on them in KH. In my Namiku multi-chapter story--that I’ll sadly never finish--this was going to be a thing. There was something wrong with Kingdom Hearts, so the characters would go to a world and be like, “Wait... I know this is supposed to be Cinderella’s world, but something is off about it.” But that could also work with things like Once Upon a Time and the new Disney live-action movies.
That being said: Once Upon a Time.
National Treasure... that could actually potentially be in KH (as a few on these list could be), but I doubt it ever will be. So I might as well include it. Enchanted, too.
Phantom of the Opera or Phantom of the Megaplex. Preferably the former.
Some DCOMS Pixel Perfect and Disney Channel shows, tbh. Kim Possible!
I think people, like Shire Folk, who have written the characters with Digimon are on point.
Things like Soul Eater... and probably other animes, Square Enix made or not.
Syfy Alice, because it’s my favorite version of Alice in Wonderland.
Pokémon. Because I think Ash and Sora have a lot in common, of course (perhaps also Misty and Kairi, and somewhat SoKai and Pokeshipping). And because, as weird as it is to say... in the first game, where they made a big deal about the Keyblade choosing its master and choosing Sora (and it was very much sentient), the bond that Sora made with his Keyblade (that eventually chose him over Riku) somewhat reminded me of Ash and Pikachu’s journey. To a lesser extent, of course. But still.
Square Enix worlds...
I don’t think I want a “Beauty and the Beast & the Enchanted Christmas” world per se, but I want a Forte boss fight, somehow and some way.
Winx Club.
A crossover with Clamp could be interesting. Especially since Tsubasa and KH are so similar.
I’m down for the Muppets and Oswald the Lucky Rabbit to be cameos.
Anastasia and Titan A.E.
Tales of Vesperia or something? Just because I once made a manip of Estelle and Naminé together, and someone commented that that wasn’t a bad crosier idea and I kind of agreed?
It would never happen in a million years, for so many reasons, but A Song of Ice and Fire could be interesting. They’re both fantasy theories that keep you guessing, with a lot of theory crafting in both.
People have often theorized what KH would be like if it had been Nickelodeon or something. LOL People say “Spongebob would have taken on Mickey’s role”, and I wouldn’t be opposed to seeing what could be done with a Nickeloden crossover, a Cartoon Network one, or what have you.
Grimm’s Fairytales, maybe? Or even the show Grimm? -shrugs-
I could maybe give the Star Wars, Marvel, and Indiana Jones ideas a try...
Roswell?
Tenchi could be interesting... The sword from that/Master Key reminds me of the Keyblade, somewhat.
Madoka Magica?
Sabrina: The Teenage Witch? I have no freaking clue. But I’ve been rewatching episodes of that show on some week nights lately, so it’s on my mind.
Firefly could probably work, and I am trying to write that. And parts of Dollhouse would lend itself beautifully to KH.
Oh. Avatar: The Last Airbender.
Danny Phantom.
People have been saying stuff like Naruto for years, and I agree.
I also wouldn’t say no to DC. I once wrote a Smallville and KH crossover once, but that was wish-fulfillment. I don’t know how much it would actually work. Haha.
Static Shock. Teen Titans and/or Young Justice. Batman Beyond.
I’m also someone who thinks a High School Musical could work, and would like to see it. XD. I once wrote a KHxHSM crossover, and at least one reviewer seemed to think I handled it pretty well. So it can be done, imo. .
..Maybe even things like Boy Meets World, even though it shouldn’t work. But ever since the fandom joked that Jason Marsden will be announced for KH, and then the fandom will war over whether he’s voicing Max Goof, Noel Kreiss, or Kovu, and I added on that, “You guys are forgetting Eric’s friend on Boy Meets World. Don’t forget that Boy Meets World is Disney owned”, I’ve weirdly been thinking of Boy Meets World in KH. Mostly as a joke. But meh.
Perhaps “I am Number Four”...
Oh! Harry Potter! Duh! People have been doing that for years, and it works.
People have also written Fullmetal Alchemist/KH crossovers, I think. And I haven’t seen FMAB yet (for shame, I know. It’s been on my list for ages, and hopefully I’ll get to it soon), from what I know of it, I love the idea.
The Kingdom Keepers series would probably be good for KH, even though I haven’t read it yet. Descendants?
Phineas and Ferb!
I’ll just add Sailor Moon, because. Actually, you know what? Sailor Pluto’s staff was pretty much the first Keyblade. So it works and works well.
And why am I now imagining things like NCIS and Castle? IDK.
Hocus Pocus!
And can we get Rinoa in the series, already?
Wizards of Waverly Place. Maybe not as a world, but something. I think that exploring what went wrong with Jerry, Kelbo, and Megan’s relationship could be a good warning for Sora, Riku, and Kairi, perhaps. And there are other things you could, too. To a lesser extent: Phil of the Future and That’s So Raven. Again, they probably wouldn’t work as worlds (maybe cameos). But I think there are interesting things there the games could use. Like, “Oh, you can time travel, Xehanorts? Well, let me hop in my friends’ the Diffy’s time machine and beat you at your own game.” Or, “You can see the future Master of Masters, so can my friend Raven.”
Doctor Who.
The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest.
Moana.
This is everything that I can think of right now...
I also think it would be fun to add in little cameos, like Proud Snacks from the Proud Family.
Edit: I want Max Goof in this series.
Edit 2: Oh! The Swan Princess and Quest for Camelot!
Edit 3: Hanna Barbara and Paramount’s monster movies could be a good idea.
Edit 4: Studio Ghibli!
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nemrut · 3 years
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Epic 7 - Recent Stuff
So, some changes.
Most importantly, really happy about the Celine Exclusive Equipment (EE). It gives her exactly what she needs. The stealth one is useful as well but the ability to explicitly target the strongest ATK unit of the enemy is so important, as only now is she a valid anti cleave counter. Before that, her already very niche ability, which frankly can‘t see use against many units or teams, would have a three in four chance of being useless. Now, she snipes the cleaver. So yeah, happy with that.
Meh on the Luna EE. I see some people speculate on it maybe being useful for counter bruiser Luna, but I have to say, not sure I will. That said, I own an already decently molaed Luna, so if I have the spare gear, might try it one of these days.
The Doris SC seems fun. Am in the middle of finishing her change, and while she has decent gear for now, she lacks catalysts for her skillups and I am not sure if I have enough runes for her skill tree. Still, looking forward to try her out. Not sure how useful she is going to be, but she seems to be worth using against teams which have many dark units. Especially since I don’t have Ruele.
So, the coin shop seems...well, not super useful...kinda. Been playing Epic 7 since the first week but I do not have a single coin for the covenant shop so I can’t even see that one. The requirement being that you need at least 8 versions of the same 5 star hero is just utterly ridiculous. It’s something that is only useful for a handful of people, literally. Doubt there are many people who pulled the same unit so often they can buy something from the store, except maybe the molas which cost like two coins each. But then there is the issue that almost all of the people who do have so many spares of the units are whales and as such they couldn’t care less about the 5 star units which you can buy from that shop. Why would they? They have enough resources to get all RBG units. I guess the items is where it is at for them, the ability to buy good gear and that sucks a bit for non whales if they also get additional good gear on top of all the units.
The ML shop seems a bit fairer/more useful in that regard. My ML luck was weird but i did get ML Ken a lot which is...unfortunate in some ways because he is not great atm, but I do have 30 coins which is...more than I thought I would have but also not enough to get a unit. ATM the available unit is Ruele, and while I would like to get her, I can’t. Still missing 10 coins, so yeah. Not gonna use anything on the molas atm because what if i get another ML Ken due to a freak accident and at leas then I could get a Ruele as opposed to nothing because now I was missing 4 coins. Still, it is literally better than nothing and at least an option/solution for when you repeatedly get the same ML 5 unit. I do kinda wish 4 star dupes would field coins as well, that would make the shops more viable, for everyone. Because while 5 stars are super rare, 4 stars at least give everyone the option to get something.
Not gonna roll on any of the normal banners for now, already have all of the units, I think. Additional Draco Plates would be useful but not gonna spend Bookmarks/skystones on that now because there was talk about another coop/crossover in a month or two, so gonna save up for that still, barring a super interesting new unit.
Supermodel Luluca seems really good though. Unfortunate that I blew my pity, my mystic medals and a lot of skystones on Briar Witch Iseria, because ML Lulu just seems objectively better/more useful. I still absolutely love her design but she does need a buff. I am not sure what that buff would look like, probably an improvement for her S2, like an additional effect, because so far she is a bit of a jack of trades, master of none, lacking a specific kick. I use her as a clean up unit to my cleave team if there is a Riolet in an enemy team but she is not really all that useful there. She doesn’t do amazing dmg, she is not a super reliable stripper because if you build her with a lot of effectiveness, you neglect her dmg for which she is definitely build more. If you go full dmg with her, she still doesn’t do that much dmg compared to others. So if you want a dmg dealer or a stripper, there are better options for each role. Sure she kinda does both, but halfheartedly at best and you usually want someone who is specialized in doing one job really well. If you build her as a bruiser with HP and def, you ignore her her stripping and dmg capabilities. Maybe she just needs way better gear than I have, but so far, I have been unable to make her shine and would like her to get a boost to make her more viable.
But yeah, Supermodel Luluca seems really good and fun. Her design is cool, her backstory is just insane in a good way and I am still amused at the fact that Designer Straze is a bigger heavy hitter and danger to the galaxy than God Killer Straze of canon. Her s3 animation being a DBZ blast is cool as well. I will probably refresh the shop a bunch and maybe I will be lucky. Will try to get through abyss as well since one reward was like 10 mystic pulls IIRC. So yeah, hoping to get her. If not, maybe Silver Blade Aramintha will be next and I can get her back then.
Oh yeah, new abyss stages. Stuck with Celine atm but haven’t tried super hard. Liking it so far though.
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twinkletoes-rp · 4 years
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6, 7, 19, 20, 30, 31, 32, 39, 40, 41, 43, 44, 45, 51 (ノ◕ヮ◕)ノ*:・゚✧
Fanfiction Questions meme
6. List your OTP from each fandom you’ve been involved in.
Oh, geez... I’ve been involved in so many fandoms, LOL. I don’t really know if I can/should name them all. I’ll give you the ones (ONLY OTPs - doesn’t mean I don’t ship other things, too) I can think of off the top of my head.
Kiba/Hinata (Naruto), Fakir/Ahiru (Princess Tutu), Stiles/Derek (Teen Wolf), Kirito/Lisbeth (Sword Art Online), Harry/Hermione (Harry Potter), Goku/Bulma (Dragon Ball), Yusuke/Botan (Yu Yu Hakusho), Todoroki/Izuku (BNHA), (better!)Bakugo/Uraraka (BNHA), Toph/Aang (ATLA), and Adrien/Marinette (Miraculous Ladybug)!
7. List your NoTPs from each fandom you’ve been in.
(This isn’t meant to be hate on the ships I name! I just don’t ship them, that’s all! Ship and let ship! ;))
Naruto/Sasuke (Naruto), Kirito/Asuna (Sword Art Online), Ron/Hermione (Harry Potter), Harry/Ginny (Harry Potter), Goku/Chichi (Dragon Ball), Yusuke/Keiko (Yu Yu Hakusho), Bakugo/Izuku (BNHA), and Aang/Katara (ATLA).
19. Is there a ship (in your current fandom) which you wished you could get behind, but you just don’t feel them?
I’m not sure I have a ‘current fandom’ since I live for, like, everything at once, but maybe technically Naruto would be it?
In that case (again, no offense to anyone - and removing the ‘I wish I could get behind’ part ‘cause I do not), NaruSasu. I just...don’t get it? At all? Maybe it’s the ‘what could have been’s or whatever, but when you just take the series at face value, that relationship is...really icky, at least to me, and that’s putting it lightly. It’s so damn unhealthy, especially for poor Naruto. They were never even friends, Sasuke always treated him like shit, and yet...?! *throws hands at half+ of OG series and virtually all of Shippuden* IDK, man. Something’s weird there, and I don’t like it. Can’t support that. Naruto deserves better, damn it. (*casually links her Naruto AU fic where he DOES get better (in more ways than one), TYVM*)
20. Any ships (in your current fandom) which you surprised yourself by liking?
Going with Naruto again, so. Hmm... I guess maybe Kankuro/Tenten? I didn’t even know that was a ship until a friend showed me a really good fic, and I was hooked! lol.
Another might be KakaObi, but only in AUs where Obito survives the cave in and gets out with Kakashi and Rin and recovers, continuing to be the sweetheart he is instead of the ass he turned out to be in canon. Because he, too, deserved better, damn it!
Another is one I might have made up, not sure (mostly in the context of my Naruto AU, NGL), lol: Karin/Shikamaru! It makes sense and there are lots of compelling reasons when you break it down! You know, 'cause Shikamaru would need (or probs at least prefer) someone on his smarts level, and she's a genius, too, just in a different way. And once she mellows out, Karin's really cool, and (in my AU) she grows to eventually adore Naruto (actually fights to defend/protect him in the Pein arc!), and anyone who loves Naruto is good in Shikamaru's book! lol. Plus, she can tell him when he has his genius brain twisted in too many directions, tell him he's being an idiot and help him figure things out in her different way. lol. IDK, I like it!
30. What inspires you to write?
I just...love writing?? I’ve wanted to be an author since I was 8-9 years old, started writing when I was 11, and I’ve been writing ever since! I’m 27 now! I’ve had a few dry spells, ofc, but I always end up coming back! I just feel like writing is in my blood (partly because, I like to joke, my last name is the title of one of Shakespeare’s plays, haha)!
Pretty much anything can inspire me to write, though. I’ll see a pretty flower and be like “OOH, that flower could feature perfectly in this chapter in this way!” and then write 1k about that! lol. Or I could read a review of one of my new chapters and end up thinking of something I’d never considered before and then write almost 3k on that alone (looking at you, middle section of Ch 6 of my Naruto AU, lol)!
Basically, if it sparks joy, I’m gonna write something! X’D
31. What’s the nicest thing someone has ever said about your writing?
Nicest?? Hmm... I mean, I’ve had a lot of things said about my writing... Not sure I can really narrow it down? lol.
I guess the nicest things I’ve ever been told are when I make people cry (espec multiple times!) and actually feel the emotions the characters are feeling, that the characters and their development feel so real that it’s like they’re real people instead of fictional/they’re written so much better than the creator himself wrote them. (Been getting those a lot on my Naruto AU, actually. lol.)
32. Do you listen to music when you write or does music inspire you? If so, which band or genre of music does it for you?
I tend to prefer silence while I write, but sometimes, my house is loud and people keep breaking my concentration (house of 5, lots of animals, not the quietest, lol), I sometimes listen to music. I usually prefer instrumental, and then usually Naruto or Wolf’s Rain (sometimes Princess Tutu, too) instrumental tracks. The Naruto one I like best also has rain sounds mixed in, which is great because I love the sound of rain! Woo! (Here’s a link to that one if anyone else wants in on this! ;))
39. What is your greatest strength as a writer?
Emotions and getting into the nitty-gritty stuff therein. As an extremely visual, emotional writer, I’ve always been able to feel the emotions of the characters pretty much exactly how they’re feeling it in the moment and then put it on paper. I also make people cry a lot with my writing and get them to feel what the characters do, so that’s awesome! It’s always my goal to get my readers to feel things because then I feel like they’ve really connected with the story and characters I’ve written!
40. What do you struggle the most with in your writing?
Transitions are dicks. Sometimes I struggle ‘cause it’s been, like, two seconds or five hours, and I don’t know how to show that, lol. If I can, espec with the last one, I just fade to black. lol.
Also, sometimes I feel like I use the same sentence structure a lot, mostly the ‘..., but...’ format (at least lately). It’s really annoying, and I worry my readers notice and get annoyed/think I suck because of it. lol.
41. List and link to 5 fanfics you are currently reading:
“All the ways I say ‘I love you’” by Leonardo_Charles_BlueWood_21 (Fandom: Ninjago)
“Paradise Lost” by AnchoredTether (Fandom: Voltron Legendary Defender (Zootopia-esque dark AU))
“where my armor ends” by dalniente (Fandom: She-Ra Princesses of Power)
“of cats and curses” by faerialchemist (Fandom: She-Ra Princesses of Power x Fruits Basket crossover)
“Mischief is its Own Reward” by dalniente (Fandom: Megamind)
43. Is there anyone in your fandom who really inspires you?
I don’t really read Naruto fanfic too much anymore, so like...I guess, technically, another main fandom of mine right now is Fruits Basket, so: without a doubt, @kyosohmastan ! They’re my absolute favorite Fruits Basket fanfic author! Everyone’s so in character, the writing is so sweet and feelsy, steamy when it needs to be, and I really love the writing itself - it’s just so well done and beautiful and I die happily when they post a new fic or chapter? Ahhh! Plus, they’re just so nice and talented in so many ways, we have the same opinions on certain things (like Kakeru Manabe is Too Much(TM) for us, haha, no offense to those who like him! lol.), and I just really, really feel blessed to know and read their fics! Love them so! <3
44. What ship do you feel needs more attention?
I’m not sure which ship this is talking about? Hmm... But a ship I definitely think (have always thought) needs more attention is Kirito/Lisbeth from Sword Art Online! It’s so slept on, and that is a damn fucking shame because they’re so healthy and sweet and have so much more amazing potential than they’re given credit for (way freaking more than the actual canon couple, just sayin’, no offense to anyone who likes the pairing)! I have written a good few metas (and a fanfic) on the subject (some/most of which are on my Lisbeth RP blog, actually, lol)! If anyone wants to discuss/RP/anything involving this ship, please let me know! Would love it!
45. What is your all time favourite fanfic?
I’m not sure I have a favorite fic. But one that I always come back to (all of her (mostly G1) My Little Pony fics, actually - first found them when I was, like, 12, and have kept rereading over and over through the years, haha) is A Mother in Her Eyes by LoveLikeElena on FFN. It takes place in the author’s own MLP universe, but I love said universe so much, and her takes on the characters are amazing and so sweet! I love her look at the serious subjects that follow the characters through her ongong MLP series! <3
51. Rant or Gush about one thing you love or hate in the world of fanfiction! Go!
Fanfic readers have become really, really lazy. No one reviews anymore, maybe leave a kudos here and there if you’re lucky (I have a major love-hate (more hate) relationship with kudos...), and it’s so, so, so discouraging to us writers! I wish they knew how it felt, to be honest, espec the ones you know are reading, but just...don’t comment. It’s ridiculously disheartening to work so hard on something for days, weeks, even months or years on something, only to get basically nothing in return. It’s like posting into the void, and it sucks ass. It’s part of what made me quit writing for a good few years, actually, and I’m so sad to see that it’s still a thing. I comment on everything I read because I know how it feels and how much it hurt! It hurts like hell, especially because I remember how it used to be just 6-8 years ago when everyone commented! I desperately pray the fanfic/content consuming world fixes that really soon or we might lose some really amazing writers! Please, even an emoji or keyboard smash! I don’t care, I’ll take anything (and I know I’m not the only one)! <3
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takaraphoenix · 4 years
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DreamWorks for the ask game (though in hindsight, I should've just added Disney to this because CROSSOVERS are a major thing since HiJack...)
Thanks for asking! But now I’m confused if you wanna see DreamWorks or the HiJack fandom...? So since I did Disney movies before, I’ll just do DreamWorks movies now (also that HiJack crossover is far too small and short a thing to make sense for this large-ass ask game xD)? ^^°
Top 5 favourite characters: JACK FROST, Hiccup Haddock, Miguel (The Road to El Dorado), Eris (Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas),
Other characters you like: Sinbad, Puss in Boots (Shrek), Megamind
Least favourite characters:that obnoxious alien from Home
Otps: Hiccup Haddock/Jack Frost, Tulio/Miguel (The Road to El Dorado), uuuh that is it when it comes to real OTPs though
Notps: Jack Frost/Elsa, Hiccup Haddock/Astrid Hofferson, Tulio/Chel (The Road to El Dorado), Stoick the Vast/Valka
Favourite friendships: Toothless and Hiccup, Jamie Bennett and Jack Frost!
Favourite family: Ooof... None? I don’t have a favorite family?
Favourite episodes: doesn’t really apply here
Favourite season/book/movie: Rise of the Guardians, by a landslide, followed by The Road to El Dorado and Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas! *^*
Favourite quotes:not a quote person xD
Best musical moment: The drunk godly song on The Road to El Dorado (a rare one, but I do prefer the English version here xD)
Moment that made you fangirl/boy the hardest: uuuhm huh... I don’t know, really. Most of Rise of the Guardians, really ^^°
When it really disappointed you: sadly there are a lot of turds in the DreamWorks line-up... but like that alien from Home. That movie had a lot of potential and the human protagonist was so cute but then that obnoxious creature that talked like Sheldon Cooper and made poop jokes... urgh
Saddest moment: WHEN STOICK DIED BUT I PREFER TO IGNORE THAT THAT HAPPENED
Most well done character death:Jack Frost’s
Favourite guest star: I don’t care much about voice actors
Favourite cast member: see above xD”
Character you wish was still alive: Stoick
One thing you hope really happens:a sequel or TV show for Rise of the Guardians, please, I deserve it ;-;
Most shocking twist: I... got nothing. Not a whole lot of twists
When did you start watching/reading?: When I was a very small child
Best animal/creature: Toothless!
Favourite location: Mh... the Tooth Palace in Rise of the Guardians?
Trope you wish they would stop using: there are probably a couple, but I can’t think of any right now... òô
One thing this show/book/film does better than others:occasionally, the animation and storytelling. It’s... so weird, because DreamWorks is really not very consistent with either of those. xD”
Funniest moments: the moment someone pitched a DreamWorks executive the Bee Movie and actually got away with that :D”““
Couple you would like to see: Tulio/Miguel. They should have been our first gay couple. I would not oppose to a sequel, even all these years later, that makes em gay
Actor/Actress you want to join the cast: don’t care much about voice actors
Favourite outfit: Jack Frost’s hoodie *-*
Favourite item: shoot, maybe the tooth boxes? They were so freaking pretty
Do you own anything related to this show/book/film?: A lot of figures/toys
What house/team/group/friendship group/family/race etc would you be in?: Maybe a Believer? xD”
Most boring plotline: uuuh Turbo? I just... I literally keep forgetting that this movie even EXISTS...
Most laughably bad moment: that human/bee romance in the Bee Movie...
Best flashback/flashfoward if any: If we take that as sequel again... uh... damn... Madagascar 2...?
Most layered character: Megamind...? He would have so much to offer, but a lot is played off as a joke. I mean, the kid was raised in PRISON. He was declared a villain before he ever even spoke his first word. He was raised by a FISH...
Most one dimensional character: Chel. Shit, she is such a cliche bimbo in the character design that is sooo cringey and then her only motivation is “I wanna get outta here because I don’t like it at home anymore. Also money”...
Scariest moment: Really not scary movies xD
Grossest moment: Fart jokes
Best looking male: Jack Frost!
Best looking female: ERIS!!! *^*
Who you’re crushing on (if any):Eris, absolutely. That trickster goddess can step on me any day of the week ù///û
Favourite cast moment: Don’t know any of that ^^°
Favourite transportation: The sleigh from North
Most beautiful scene (scenery/shot wise): ...the whole entire Rise of the Guardians movie? I have seen it about fifty times by now (and that’s not even an exaggeration, after I first saw it I literally watched it daily for a month...) - it’s so incredibly beautiful in animation and design, I can’t look away despite having seen it so often already
Unanswered question/continuity issue/plot error that bugs you:How are you this inconsistent, DreamWorks? How do you make something as beautiful as Rise of the Guardians and then have that followed by Croods...?
Best promo: That Shrek 2 with that Puss in Boots got me hook line and adorable talking kitten sinker ùû°°°
At what point did you fall in love with this show/book: Ironically, rather late. I used to watch them at first release as a kid already, but they never spoke to me, none of them did. Only after Shrek and Madagascar, when I decided to give the old movies a rewatch, I deeply and madly fell in love with Sinbad, Road to El Dorado and Prince of Egypt. Heck, I even ended up liking Antz.
IN DEPTH FANDOM QUESTIONS
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millicent231-watt · 5 years
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(Haikyuu) Ghoul!Reader x Noya
Anime / Crossover: Haikyuu!! / Tokyo Ghoul
Songs: No
Request: Yes - _azunyaan on Wattpad
Modern AU: No
NSFW/R-18: No
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"Hey! Quit that!" I hear my boyfriend yell as he runs towards the group of girls bullying me. "Tch, let's go." The main one orders before they kick me once more and walk off. "Y/N, are you okay?" I hear Noya ask as he holds his hand out to me. I look up at him and smack his hand away before pushing myself off the ground. "I'm fine...." I groan as I look down at the various bruises they had given me. "C...can we go back to your place? I feel like I'm gonna pass out again." I say as I stumble back and forth, holding my head. "Y...Yeah, let's get going." He says as he drapes my arm over his shoulder and walks me out the library, where we were meant to be studying for a test, but Noya got bored and went to go get us some water. "That's when these girls got to me and pushed me onto the floor." I tell him as we walk towards his home. "Sorry for leaving." He says as we pass various people looking at me in interest of what happened.
"Here, lean against this while I unlock the door." Yuu says as he leans me against the wall to his house. I stumble to keep my balance and fall towards him, luckily this libero has quick reflexes so he caught me quite easily. "Come on, let's get you to bed." He whispers as I hobble beside him towards his room. "Where are your parents?" I ask as I notice the quiet house was devoid of any sound except the humming of the heater and the pattering of our feet on the wooden floors. "They're on a business trip, so I'll be on my own for about a month." He says as he gingerly lays me down. "Sorry for always causing so much trouble for you." I say as the cream coloured kagune carefully grow out my back and lay on the bed next to me. "Nothing you do could ever make you a problem to me, Y/N." Yuu says as he starts petting the newly grown appendages in a soothing manner.
"What did they tell you this time?" He asks. "I was looking up something about 'this'." I say as I gesture to my kagune. "I still don't fully understand it, and I wanna make sure I don't hurt anyone with it. They caught me, ripped up any notes I had taken and began calling me a 'Scumbag freak'. Then they hit me more. I’m worried that they already suspect I’m a ghoul" I say as Yuu begins playing with my hair gently. I end in more of a whimper as my boyfriend wipes my tears. "Y/N, you don't believe them do you?" I shake my head and smile at him. "No." I reach my hand up to stroke his cheek and he voluntarily moves closer, allowing me to do so. "I love you, Y/N." He says before kissing my forehead and rubbing the back in my hand. "I love you too, Noya." I say with a smile before he pulls a blanket over me. "You should get some rest after I treat these cuts and stuff." He says as he pulls out a first aid kit from under the bed. "All that research for nothing..." I mumble as he applies ointment to the cuts and bruises. "I'll look up some stuff about it on my laptop while you sleep." He offers and I smile. "That would be a great help, but you don't have to." I tell him, but he shakes his head. "Of course I do, you're my girlfriend!" He says before I close my eyes and drift off.
Time Skip - Next Day
"Nice Receive!" I hear Noya yell as Kageyama receives the ball that was served by Daichi. "Left!" I yell out as I stick my hand up for a toss. "Hinata!" He yells as he throws it to me. Hinata jumps up to the right side of the net as I jump up on the left. I swing my hand and make contact with the ball, sending it over the net. "Yes!" We yell happily as I land on the ground. "We won, Noya!" I tell him as I hug him. "I know!" He says happily. "Oh, S...sorry. I did it again didn't I. I let my kagune out..." I say as I pull away from the hug and retreat the cream appendages. "It's alright, no one's gonna judge you here." Suga says with a warm, welcoming smile. "Thank you... all of you..." I say before letting tears fall from my happy eyes. "No worries. Wouldn't want the CCG taking you away, would we?" Ryu says with a grin on his face and his arms crossed. I nod and wipe my tears. "Yea-"
BANG
I quickly turn around to the door and see a group of CCG walking in. Oh no... I think as they walk into the gym and close the doors, security keeping the doors guarded. "Who are you guys?" Noya asks as I stand behind him. "We are investigators from the CCG. We have reason to believe that one of you in here is a ghoul." The woman says. "Why do you think that? Hah? We're just a volleyball team. So why don't you just-" "Ryu! Stop it." Daichi commands and Ryu backs off. "We have had some anonymous information about this volleyball team, and are here to see if it was false or not." They say as they pull out some food. "All you need to do is eat some food." They say and I swallow a hard lump. "That's all?" Hinata asks and the woman nods. "That's all. If the accusations are false, then there's nothing to worry about, right?" She says as she looks to me and I nod my head before grabbing Noya's hand tightly. He squeezes it, keeping his head forward.
"We'll start with the women, then move onto the men." She says and Kiyoko, Yacchi and I step forward. "Are you the only ones?" A short man with glasses and a clipboard asks. "Y...yes, Sir." I say as someone hands us a bowl of Skittles. "Well? What are you waiting for? Eat up." The woman says and Kiyoko starts eating. "I...I'm not really hungry. I just had my lunch not too long ago an-" "Eat." She commands and I pick up a single Skittle. I should be able to get one down...Yeah, I can do this! I put it in my mouth and swallow it like a pill, pretending to chew it. "Alright, you can go back now." She says and I bow before turning and walking back to Noya. He was looking at me with a slight look of relief on his face. I smile slightly before a gagging feeling comes over me. Noya widens his eyes and shakes his head slightly, but no matter how much he told me not to upchuck the Skittle I couldn't hold it and began coughing. I spit the red candy onto the floor and CCG surround me. I let my Kagune out to protect myself.
"Hm, you did a good job holding it back. You actually had me convinced for a second." The woman says as she walks closer. I look back at her and growl, causing her to smirk. "You don't scare me, so how about you just come along without problem?" She asks and I stand up. "I'm never going to that horrible place!" I yell. "I was hoping to avoid this, but I guess we'll have to use him." She says before I hear my boyfriend yell for someone to let him go. I turn around and see one of the bodyguards holding him up from the ground. "Noya!" I yell before turning back to the woman. "Let. Him. Go." I demand, causing her to hold up a pair of handcuffs and a muzzle. "If you want him to be safe and unharmed, come along calmly." She says and I think for a minute. "DON'T DO IT!" Noya yells. I turn around to him and smile at him. "I love you." I say before retreating my Kagune and getting the restraints put on me. "NO! LET HER GO! SHE'S NEVER HURT ANYONE!" Noya yells as they finish strapping up the muzzle on me. "She's a ghoul, she'll kill someone one day." The woman says before I was harshly pushed out the door.
Students and teachers cover their mouths in shock as they realise that a ghoul was hiding between them this whole time. I see the girls who would constantly bully me smirking at me from the front gate. "Thank you for informing us." The woman says as she hands them some money. It was them! They told the CCG and separated Noya and I! I glare at the girls. "No problem." I hear Noya and the rest of the team yelling out to me as I was put inside the heavy security truck. "Don't try any tricks, freak." One of the guards says as I was pushed down onto a seat.
Long(ish) Time Skip
"Here she is ma'am." A man's voice says as my dark cell was opened to bright, piercing and blinding light. "Fuck off." I hiss angrily before getting a harsh shock of electricity. "Don't be so hostile." She tuts. "What do you want?" I spit angrily before she turns to the guard. "Could we get some privacy? It'll only take a minute. Don't worry, I have the shocker remote for safety." She says and we were left alone. "You're brave. Most people wouldn't walk on the same side of the street as a ghoul, and here you are in a cage with one." I smirk as she walks closer to my chained figure. "Listen, Y/N, I'm here to help." she says quietly. I cock an eyebrow at her. "I'm getting you out of here and back with your boyfriend." She says, making me growl. "How do you know my boyfriend?" I ask and she smiles. "I'm his cousin. Hitomi Yuu." She says with a smile. "Hitomi?" I ask with wide eyes. "Good, you remember me. Now let's go, I'm going to take you outside to 'kill you'. Just go along with it, alright?" She asks and I nod. She smiles before walking back to her original position. "Be angry." She whispers before calling for the guard.
"Yes, Ma'am?" The guard asks in worry. "I wish to take this thing outside and kill it personally." She says and I growl before spitting on the ground. "Fuck you!" I yell and she pretends to press the shocker button again, but little did the guard know (thanks to my great acting) it was off. "Why don't you just kill it in here?" The guard asks. "I'm not just an 'it' you know!" I say bitterly. "I thought I give it something nice before it died. Maybe the sunrise will be good enough." She says and the guard shrugs. "Alright. You're the boss around here. You sure you can kill one on your own?" He asks and she scoffs. "Like taking candy from a baby." She says, grabbing her gun from her inner coat pocket. "Come on." She orders as she undoes my chains and pulls me to my feet roughly, 'forcing' me along. As soon as we got far enough away outside, she pointed the gun at my head. "Blanks." She whispered before she 'shot' me and I fell. We heard the door closing, meaning the guard was gone and she quickly undid my chains and let me go. "Go!" She whisper-yells. "Thank you." I say quickly before running to the only safe place I knew. That cafe run by ghouls.
Time Skip
I bust open the doors and drop to my knees, trying to catch my breath. "Y/N?!" I hear a voice ask and when I lifted my head! I saw Keneki. "Keneki!" I say happily before hugging my best friend. "I thought you were caught." He says and I cry happily. "I got out...I got out!" I yell happily, jumping up and down. "Keneki, I don't know who you're talking to, but can you just be a little bit quiete- Y/N?!" Touka says in shock before grabbing my hands and crying. "It really is you...you're really here!" She says happily before wiping her eyes and turning to the stairs. "Noya! Come down, you've got a guest!" She yells happily and my eyes widen. "He's here?" I ask and Kenkei nods. "He came here a few days ago and refused to leave until you came back. So he's been sleeping here." He says before I hear a soft pair of footsteps come down the stairs. "Touka...can't you just come up to my door next ti-" Noya stops talking as his foot hits the floor and he sees me. 'Yuu...." I stutter happily before he runs at me. "You're back...." He says happily as I feel small droplets of water falling onto my shoulder. I hug him back and fall to my knees. "I missed you so much...I thought they were going to kill me...so many times." I say sadly before he rubs my back. "I wouldn't let them live happily if they did." He says angrily before pulling away and kissing me softly. Oh, how I missed him. I was just happy to be back.
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lyricfrost13 · 5 years
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Top 10 Favorite Characters
It changes, and I like them all for different reasons, but it’s interesting to see how they connect and what they say about me. Some of the order is iffy - certain characters are too close to equals for me to decide - but I thought this would be fun.
10. Merlin
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I came in way late to the game with this fandom but dang if it didn’t hit everything I like. I love his smartassery, his power - Merlin plays at unassuming, bumbling goof, but he’s the center of so much of Camelot. As you’ll see in higher parts of the list, the secret identity thing - the dichotomy of the character - really gets me.
9. Belle
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She’s my favorite Disney Princess. But she also represents similar qualities to most of my favorite female characters - ones that are introverts or intellectuals that are put down for those very reasons. 
Hermione and Luna - who are unpopular because of their respective strangeness. Annabeth (as portrayed in the books or the Lightning Thief Musical - “I’ve always been the smart girl / but smart girl only gets a girl so far) who is known for her intellect, but is hyper aware that her pride is her worst flaw. I’d include them all, but I feel like I’d say the same things - it boils down to I identify so hard with them but I wish I had their ability to make my own strangeness a strength. So I picked Belle because she was the first to really make me feel this way. 
8. Derek Hale
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Again, weird way into the fandom - I saw the first few episodes as they aired, back in my early teens then completely dropped it. As I got into other fandoms,  Teen Wolf crossovers, then just straight up Teen Wolf. And then I recognized it - having to go back and figure out who was who, but still - and that was around the time 6B trailers were dropped. So really I know fandom!Derek better than canon - I just find him interesting as someone who has gone through so much pain (the writers just never stopped torturing him, huh?) and his dynamics that he could have had are really interesting.
Of course, this just made me even more excited about Tyler Hoechlin as Superman, which I personally think he nailed. 
7. Percy Jackson
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Right!  We’re getting higher on the list so the sassmasters are coming out. Percy is exactly the little rebel that just tries to do the right thing - he’s a kid thrown into a situation that grows up not wanting to be thrown anywhere.  In the books, he’s sarcastic, fun, and real. In the musical, he’s funny, just trying to keep up - he’s how he should be portrayed (after all, Chris McCarrell is literally Persassy)
6. Peter Parker
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If you ask me who my favorite superhero is, I’ll always automatically answer “Spider-Man”, and I’ll mean Peter Parker’s spidey.  Something about watching the Spectacular Spider Man cartoon, something about Peter’s attempts to just do the right thing even though people put him down for it - whatever it is, it speaks to me. Tom Holland’s definitely works into my image of how Spidey should be. 
5. Dick Grayson
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I know I said Spidey’s my favorite hero as far as gut reactions go, but that doesn’t mean I don’t like other ones more ultimately! Dickie’s Robin has had my heart since the og Teen Titans cartoon and the Static Shock one. What really gets me about Dick, though, is when he’s finally come into being Nightwing - he tries so hard to be what others need, and Nightwing feels like a freedom thing with him. (I’m seriously concerned about my boy, DC, what are you doing rn?)
4. Sirius Black
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THIS MAN. Okay. Sirius is so freaking interesting to me. He’s a drama queen, a prankster. But - his history, even though he’s a rebel, connects him to a darker part of the story. He’s a Black, he got disowned, he got accused of selling out his dearest friend! He has a temper like no one else, explosive and definitely reminiscent of the only other Black we know a lot about - Bellatrix. He and Remus play off of each other so well (cough wolfstar cough), and his complicated relationship with his past and present just really get me ugh. (PS the Mischief Managers give me my favorite portrayals of Wolfstar and Sirius and Regulus tbh. All of their stuff is fantastic)
3. Jason Todd
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Much as I love Nightwing, and have since I was younger, Jason Todd is my favorite member of the Bat Family. I was introduced to him through Jensen Ackles’ voice acting in that one animation, but just. Ugh. Something about how he built himself back up - revenge ridden or not - how he’s so irreverent and hopeful at the same time just. He’s so selfless and interesting and self-deprecating and I really don’t know what else about him just - 
he’s awesome. I really hope the live action version lives up to my expectations (which for now are incredibly low). 
2. Bucky Barnes
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And if you asked me who my favorite marvel character was, I’d go to Bucky. This man, who stood by his best friend through the CRAZIEST shit, comes along, gets tortured, still keeps fighting, practically dies, is tortured some more with a side of brainwashing - 
he’s been through the wringer, okay?
And yet he stands by Steve. And yet he doesn’t want to hurt anyone that doesn’t deserve it. He claws his way back to being semi - okay, judging by the post credits of Black Panther. He just works his way, tries for redemption for things that definitely weren’t his fault, doesn’t blame it on the world like so many would and - not to mention he’s a total badass and let’s give credit to Seb for absolutely being an amazing Bucky because seriously.
1. Gabriel
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The Trickster. The Archangel.  UGH. If you’ve followed me long enough you’ve seen my rants.  He’s wonderfully crass, tells the truth (well, the hard truths, not the important ones about himself), is so freaking self-aware. He knows he’s not strong enough to face his elder brothers. He knows exactly how to hit Lucifer where it hurts. He’s just - 
And despite what some might percieve as selfishness - which to be fair is consistent in his character - he takes care of himself first all the way up to the end and then he lays himself bare and vulnerable when there’s nothing left. (Letting Sam know what happened to him? Talking about everyone who left him to Asmodeus?) And lays it all on the line in the end - lays his life down. (I have accepted that in canon it’s probably permanent this time but in fanfic I do what I want.)
Anyway, thanks for looking at my rant and my faves feel free to rant back to me about them
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violethowler · 5 years
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What the Kingdom Hearts Series Means to Me
Holding the physical copy of Kingdom Hearts III that I pre-ordered and paid extra to have delivered on release day is a surreal experience. It feels like a dream in all honesty. Kingdom Hearts III used to be a formless thing. A cryptid that fans hoped to catch a glimpse of but didn’t really believe existed. To put it into perspective, Kingdom Hearts II first released when I was in third grade, and I’m currently approaching my graduation from college. Six games have been released in the last decade and a half to expand on the series’ lore and set up the major pieces for the next “main” installment, but only now are we getting Kingdom Hearts III. This franchise has been with me through middle school, high school, and college. It’s a big freaking deal.
I had never been passionately into video games as a kid. My first game system was the Nintendo GameBoy Advance, and the only games I was interested in playing were movie tie-in games that adapted the plot of a specific movie. The Incredibles. The Polar Express. Ice Age: The Meltdown, Madagascar. The only other game I can remember that wasn’t an adaptation of an existing film was a weird 3D Pacman game, but I don’t remember ever playing it as fervently as I did those old movie games.
Even after receiving a PlayStation 2 for either my birthday or Christmas in 2006, the only games I would play that weren’t movie adaptations were the NickToons crossover games like Battle for Volcano Island or Attack of the Toybots. But I only played them because they featured my favorite TV character. I was never interested in the storyline. That would change one day in late-summer/early autumn 2007, when, after seeing an advertisement for it in my old Disney Adventures magazines, I rented a PlayStation title I’d never heard of called Kingdom Hearts II.  
In the beginning, I didn’t pay attention to the story. I just skipped through the cutscenes and focused exclusively on the gameplay. But as I got to the more difficult portions of the game, I started to watch the cutscenes and pay attention to the story. And the more I did, the more I fell in love with it. Once I had fully digested the story of Kingdom Hearts II, I wanted more. I went back and played the original Kingdom Hearts, then I bought Chain of Memories for my GBA. I was hooked. I started buying and reading the manga adaptations of the games. I bought a couple of collectible figurines. I. Was. Obsessed.
I spent much of my computer time in those days scouring the internet for every scrap of information I could find on the next games in the franchise. Kingdom Hearts III wasn’t in the cards yet, so I focused my attention on the three titles that I vaguely recall being collectively referred to at the time as “the handheld trilogy”: 358/2 Days, Birth by Sleep, and Coded. I searched with a fine-tooth comb on websites dedicated to gaming news in general and Kingdom Hearts specifically, hoping to find out more about these next three games.
In many ways, Kingdom Hearts helped me take my first tentative steps into the wider community of fandom. My search for news on the next games in the series unearthed funny fan-made comic strips about my favorite characters. Even though Kingdom Hearts III was still a fantasy by that point, I found people using Photoshop, or whatever image-editing software was popular around 2008 or so, to create ideas for what the cover art would look like. I found detailed fan art of potential new outfits for all the major characters. I found theories and ideas and the ever-raging bonfire of speculation that grows larger with each new game released. I found fan-made music videos and fanfiction to sate my hunger for more content between games. I wasn’t as involved in fandom to the extent that I am today, but my experience with Kingdom Hearts helped me dip my toes in the water, so to speak, as I started to engage more with my favorite media beyond simply consuming it once and then going back to watch/play it again when I needed something to do.
And what makes this day so much sweeter is how much effort Disney is clearly putting into promoting this game. Almost a decade ago, and the most advertising any Kingdom Hearts title got outside of dedicated gaming magazines or events was maybe a single tv commercial per game. The only way to know a new game was coming otherwise was if you were actively following the development of each title before they even locked in when it would come out. In the last six months of waiting for Kingdom Hearts III, there’s been a concert tour, multiple commercials and advertisements on both TV and social media, and even ads playing before the previews at movie theaters. After years of trying to share my love for this series, only for a handful of people to have ever heard of it, it’s a tremendous thrill to see the games I love finally getting mainstream recognition.
It’s because of this series that I even consider myself a gamer in the first place. Before Kingdom Hearts, I just plowed through every game I had, treating each level as just another puzzle or challenge to complete. But Kingdom Hearts II exposed me to the possibility of video games as a medium for storytelling, and it was through my engagement with the Kingdom Hearts storyline that I found myself seeking out other games with their own compelling stories. Final Fantasy, The World Ends with You, Horizon: Zero Dawn… These are some of the many games with stories and worlds that have enthralled me as someone who loves to both experience stories and create them. And without Kingdom Hearts, I would probably never been enough of a gamer to know or care that they existed.
When I was younger, I was only interested in games if they were available on the systems I had. But Kingdom Hearts wasn’t limited to only one console. In the early years of the franchise, the series was spread across the GameBoy Advance, PlayStation 2, Nintendo DS, PlayStation Portable, Nintendo 3DS, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, and smartphones. So, whenever my research uncovered that the next title would be on a console I didn’t own, I would go out of my way to get it, either by putting it on my holiday wish list, or by saving up the money for it myself. And usually, I would buy these platforms years in advance of the Kingdom Hearts game I’d got it for came out, so I would search for interesting games to play on it while I waited. And unlike before, now I was actively looking for things to play.
When it was just my GameBoy, PlayStation, and a handful of movie/TV show tie-ins, I didn’t go out of my way to look for new games. I relied on advertisements in my trusty Disney Adventures magazine to tell me what games that were out that might interest me. Nowadays, I annually watch live coverage of E3, the entertainment expo where game developers show off the status of their current projects or unveil their next main title. And I keep my eyes out for every title that looks entertaining from both a gameplay and story perspective, whether I see ads in a magainze, footage at E3, a trailer on YouTube, or fanart online.  
Before I realized that animation was what I wanted to do as a career, my first dream job was to be a game designer. And if your first guess as to why I wanted to pursue that career path isn’t Kingdom Hearts, then in the words of one of the franchise’s original villains, “You have come this far, and still, you understand nothing.” While I ultimately realized that animation was my true passion as an artist, it was Kingdom Hearts that set me on the idea of turning my art skills into a career. Without Kingdom Hearts, I might not have ended up where I am today. 
Most of the fandom knows that Kingdom Hearts III isn’t the end of the road for the franchise. Even aside from its immense popularity, series director Tetsuya Nomura has spoken about the fact that the series will continue beyond III, but that this represents the conclusion of the current story arc that has been going on since the original Kingdom Hearts game back in 2002. It’s fitting that this arc of the series is ending the same year that I graduate from college. This series has seen me through multiple chapters of my life. Middle school. High School. College. And in May, I’ll be a college graduate looking for a job. Each time I moved from one stage of life to the next, it always felt like the end. But it never is. But life goes on. The story will go on, but this chapter of it is over.
You can imagine, then, why today is such a big deal. This series has been with me for more than half my life. These games, and other media I obsess over to a similar degree, mean so much to be precisely because the story and characters connect with me on such a deep emotional level. My opinion on storytelling in any medium is that the ones that put your emotions in a blender and take you from screaming in anguish to crying tears of joy in the span of a few hours or less are the ones that deserve to be remembered. The best stories should leave you wanting to know more, not just out of curiosity over what happens next, but also for the satisfaction of knowing that the characters you’ve grown to love will be alright.
Kingdom Hearts has consistently checked every single one of those boxes for me for as long as I’ve been playing it. Even the prequels and midquels that ended in tragedy and heartbreak still had a note of assurance that there was still hope. Even if the games that inevitably come out post-KHIII hypothetically don’t have the same emotional impact on me that the pre-III ones did, I will never be able to stop loving the series I grew up with. I’ve been invested in it for so long that it feels like it’s woven into my DNA. This series has grown over the last eleven years just as I have, and whatever the future holds for the franchise, good or bad, I will never regret the time I’ve spent with this incredible saga.
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upontheshelfreviews · 6 years
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Sigh, poor package features, why does nobody like you? Why is it that internet reviewers and Disney critics and fans always seem to give you the shaft? Is it the minimized animation budget? The effort towards story and character that was forcibly driven towards wartime propaganda over actual films? The deviation of a traditional three-act structure in favor of a string of unrelated shorts woven together by a loosely connecting theme or narration? Well in a manner of speaking, it’s a combination of all three. For one thing most people I know prefer to sit down and enjoy a movie that has one uninterrupted story. And yes there are a good number of films, great ones, in fact, that play around with how the story is presented, but as of writing there’s yet to be an audience or even a filmmaker clamoring for an animated equivalent of something like Pulp Fiction.
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In theory.
And of course the major factor in all this is the time period in which these movies were made. I’ve already talked about this in my review of The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad but for those not on the uptake, THERE WAS A FREAKING WORLD WAR WHILE THIS WAS GOING ON. Disney couldn’t afford to do something on the scale of Pinocchio or Fantasia or even Dumbo because his best animators were A, drafted out to fight, B, struggling to work with what little resources they had when the government was also pushing them to remind the public to buy bonds, or C, kicked out because of the disastrous animators’ strike of the early ’40’s. Projects with linear narratives that were considered big scale like Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, and Lady and the Tramp were put on hold for virtually a decade. The best they could do was package a bunch of fun little shorts together because releasing them individually wouldn’t bring in as much desperately needed revenue as a full feature would.
And who says these shorts are bad? I don’t! At worst they’re fluffy little time fillers, but at their best they can hold their own with the big leagues of Disney animation. Again, going back to my Ichabod and Mr. Toad review, Disney’s Legend of Sleepy Hollow is the first thing I and a good many others think of when the story comes to mind. I also have the advantage that a lot of people today sadly don’t in that I grew up with virtually all of the package feature shorts in one way or another, either through individual VHS releases or on the Disney Channel as part of shows like Mouse Tracks, Donald’s Quack Attack, or the DTV music videos. It would be years until I saw them all as they were meant to in order as one full film, but blame Disney themselves for that. It’s a Catch-22 situation when it comes to their forgotten films; Disney sees there’s not much public interest in these old movies and so holds out on releasing them for as long as possible, while the public notices Disney never getting around to releasing these movies and think it must be because they’re not worth their time. So nobody wins and we all get smothered under another avalanche of Frozen dvds.
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“FROZEN??!!! FROZEN FROZEN FROZEN!!!!!”
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“No! Go home! You’re drunk!”
As of writing there’s only two – count ’em, TWO – Walt Disney Animated Classics that have yet to be released fully on Blu-Ray, and they’re, you guessed it, package features. “Make Mine Music” and “Melody Time” to be precise. You wanna know how old the dvds for them are? The advertisements that play before the main menu are for The Tigger Movie and The Little Mermaid 2. That’s THE YEAR 2000. NEARLY TWENTY YEARS AGO. And the only reason why today’s feature “Fun and Fancy Free” got on blu-ray is because the higher ups at Disney decided to combine it with Ichabod & Mr. Toad. So now we have a package blu-ray of two package features (three if you count The Reluctant Dragon which is also on there). It’s Package-ception, if you will. BWOMP.
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“She’ll get around to the actual review any minute now, folks.”
Back to the topic at hand, World War Two was finally winding down and the country was in a state of elation from having their boys return home after tearing the Axis powers a new one. Walt Disney had ideas for two full-length features, one inspired by a short story by Sinclair Lewis (I’d say based on but it barely resembles the tale that’s printed) and the other a take on Jack and the Beanstalk starring Mickey Mouse. Neither of them were able to get the treatment he wanted due to story issues and because the first thing to go during wars and Republican administrations is money for the arts. So he compromised by bringing them both into one movie with each of them sharing a half. Looking back I would have loved to have seen what an hour-length or even 75 minute version of Mickey and the Beanstalk would have been like because for all its flaws I enjoy it that much, and I’m tired of holding my breath waiting for Disney to do SOMETHING with “Gigantic”. Bongo on the other hand, I can’t see as anything other than a short, but that’s not a jab at its quality. Yet how do both stand up as a feature? Does it live up to what its title promises? Let’s find out.
After the main title song (which sounds like the opening theme of a variety show from that decade), we get Jiminy Cricket from Pinocchio going about his merry way in somebody’s house singing “I’m a Happy Go Lucky Fellow”. This was actually a deleted song from Pinocchio meant to be sung by Jiminy, so it’s good to hear it sung here. It proves the old adage about ideas at Disney is true; things are never thrown away, just put aside for someone to find and use later.
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Wait, that book, is that…Darkman?! Whoever owns this library has good taste.
After startling a goldfish who resembles Cleo from Pinocchio, Jiminy concludes the fish suffers from too much anxiety and tries to reassure her by showing her a newspaper full of headlines that amount to “doom imminent, we’re all gonna die” (ah, the New York Post never changes). He explains that everyone’s been playing Nostradamus for years saying the world is going to end tomorrow but you can’t go around thinking like that. Que sera sera, whatever will be will be, you get the idea. I get where Jiminy’s coming from, I truly do, but it’s hard to back up his philosophy when he’s using real current problems as examples to ignore.
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See what I mean?
Jiminy runs into a hungry cat and hides out in a child’s playroom where he bumps into a sad-looking doll and teddy bear. Assuming that all toys must be like his buddy Pinocchio he takes on the role of conscience yet again and tries to help them with their problems.
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“Lemme guess, you’re wishing to become a real girl, right?” “No, I’m just disheartened by the extreme gender stereotyping that are enforced through children’s playthings and the psychological ramifications that are passed down with every generation.” “Swell!”
Jiminy’s prognosis is that these two depressed toys are in desperate need of some music and fun to cheer them up. So he whips out a record of Dinah Shore reading and singing the story of Bongo the Bear.
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“The main character of the piece we’re about to watch, obviously.”
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“No, I mean who the hell is Dinah Shore?”
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“Ah. Gotcha.”
Dinah Shore was a popular big band singer of the 1940’s and one of the first female artists of her day to make a successful solo career for herself. She appeared on multiple popular radio shows, was a Chevrolet spokeswoman, won a total of nine Emmys for her various television shows and specials, and was romantically linked with stars ranging from Jimmy Stewart to Burt Reynolds. And remember Pee-Wee’s Christmas Special? She’s the woman who keeps popping in singing an endless rendition of The Twelve Days of Christmas that goes over the end credits.
This wasn’t Dinah’s first contribution to a Disney package film as she had lent her pipes to the titular song of the “Two Silhouettes” segment in Make Mine Music the year prior. She does fine as the narrator of this section, though there’s one teensy problem I have which I’ll get to eventually.
The record begins with Dinah Shore saying this is a story about three bears.
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No, Ms. Shore spells it out for us – a girl bear, a big mean bear who wants to be her mate, but mostly of Bongo, a bear born and raised in the circus who’s the star of the show. Had this story turned out the way Walt originally envisioned, it would have been something of a crossover-sequel of Dumbo with the titular elephant and the catty matriarchal troupe of pachyderms providing cameos. I assume this fell through due to Dumbo’s salary demands being a little too far out of Walt’s price range.
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You know the war’s hit you hard when working for peanuts puts a crunch on your budget.
Bongo puts on his impressive act of juggling on a unicycle while on a high wire before making a spectacular dive. But we’re also privy to what happens when the show is over; no sooner does he back out of the tent from his curtain call than he’s manacled, hosed down, tossed into a cage and hauled off to the next state for a literal rinse and repeat. He’s the circus’ main draw, but he’s treated worse than, well, an animal.
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And people wonder why Ringling Bros. went out of business.
In between shows the miserable Bongo dreams of a life of freedom out in nature. We’re supposed to feel immediate sympathy for Bongo based on what we see and because Dinah Shore tells us to, but the abuse is edited so quickly and played off almost comically. They’re aiming for Dumbo’s level of emotion but we had time to get to know Dumbo and develop a connection with him. We saw him be happy, we saw him bond with his mother, we saw him befriend Timothy; almost all of that happened before he was thrust into heart wrenching drama. We barely know anything about Bongo apart from he’s a talented circus performer who’s more like a prisoner than a celebrity. Did he have a good childhood? Was his family in the same line of circus work? Does he have a favorite color?
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One day the call of the wild is too loud to ignore. He escapes thanks to a very flimsy lock on the door of his train car (you think between that and how the staff treats him they’re purposefully setting up an opportunity for him to vamoose) and soon he’s zooming down the mountain on his unicycle. For the next several minutes Bongo explores his new forest surroundings and befriends the usual bevy of Disney fauna. Dinah Shore underscores Bongo’s laid back euphoria with “Lazy Countryside”, an easygoing and pleasant tune.
Unfortunately after night falls Bongo is quick to learn that the bare necessities of life will not come to you, at least not right away. Between the incessant chatter of nocturnal animals and insects keeping him awake and a storm threatening to cut his newfound life short, Bongo spends the night and most of the following morning cold, alone, and starving. His attempt at fishing like a bear should doesn’t go as hoped, but it does catch the eye of our story’s love interest, Lulabelle.
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Voted “Most Likely to Awaken A New Generation of Furries” in the ’47 Disney yearbook.
I love Bongo’s reaction to seeing Lulabelle for the first time; an unmoving incredulous expression on his face as he tries to wake himself up from this vision, all the while Dinah Shore says “I must be dreaming! It’s too good to be true!” about three dozen times. The two flirt for a little while before we’re spun into the next musical number called, you guessed it, “Too Good To Be True”. It’s cute, but the floating on pink clouds, the hearts everywhere, the little cupid bears flying around, it all seems somehow familiar…
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“Do the Care Bears countdown, and send a wish on to the aiiiiir…”
The song itself is nice, but there’s one that always springs to mind which I prefer. My introduction to the story of Bongo was not through a full viewing of Fun and Fancy Free or even a tape of this segment, but through DTV. See, the Disney Channel launched around the time MTV was a massive success, and wanting a little of that to rub off on them the company commissioned a series of interstitials comprised of clips from their shorts and animated films edited to classic pop, rock and blues hits and called it DTV. They basically predated the kind of fanmade music videos you see on YouTube. It was popular enough that there were even a few hour-long holiday specials built around them (mainly Valentine’s Day and Halloween). I bring this up because one of the first DTV videos I remember watching and am still fond of is Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell’s “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” set to a few mountain-climbing themed shorts but primarily scenes from Bongo. And darn it, it cuts through the corniness and simply works. The imagery and overall sappiness of “Too Good To Be True” evokes every single vapid and thoroughly unsubtle Valentines Day product that is churned out en masse that time of year. No, wait, it’s not Valentines Day level of beating you over the head with glamorized romance. It’s Defcon 5, people – it’s LOVE DAY.
So Bongo and Lulabelle are happily in love, but it would make for a pretty dull short if it ended right here. Looks like we’re gonna need some more conflict to get the ball rolling. Enter our third bear, Lumpjaw, whom Dinah Shore describes as “the roughest, toughest, meanest bear with murder in his eyes”.
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Meh, typical cartoon bear, he’s not so scar –
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AHHHHH!! I TAKE IT BACK! I TAKE IT BACK!!
Lumpjaw is jealous that this newcomer is making moves on “his” girl, and since Bongo doesn’t know how to fight like an ordinary bear he starts getting the crud kicked out of him until Lulabelle intervenes – and slaps him silly herself.
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Bongo believes Lulabelle must hate him and is completely oblivious to her and the other bears watching the spectacle waiting for him to hit her back. You see in this movie, the law of the forest dictates that bears show love by hitting each other repeatedly.
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“She hit me…and it felt like a kiss…”
And oh I can already hear the wailing of “this promotes abusive relationships” through my computer screen. First off, I KNOW firsthand what an abusive relationship is, and it is more than just physical violence. That doesn’t condone violence, not one iota, but emotional/psychological abuse play a part in it as well, and Bongo is at least quick enough to recognize the smacking as what it should be, an unwarranted act of aggression that is entirely the slapper’s own fault. Second, give the kids you put this on for some fucking credit. Children’s entertainment is not one size fits all. Some might internalize this backwards logic of “hitting means love”, but others may ignore it completely. If you’re concerned that they might act out this kind of violence after watching this, just sit them down and talk to them about it instead of assuming the worst and convincing your neighborhood to toss their dvds into the nearest dumpster fire. Even if you tell them something as basic as “this is only how bears show they love each other but not how people do” they’ll be more apt to listen. Speaking of, there is some truth to this fact as bears in the mating season can get territorial and violent, hence all emphasis on the slapping. As ridiculous and horribly dated as this whole concept of this plot point is, I’ll give the story men credit that they didn’t pull it entirely from their asses.
Lulabelle doesn’t understand why Bongo isn’t hitting her back and since they can’t talk it out because the only method of communication is the narrator providing inner monologues, the usual romantic misunderstanding ensues. You know how I feel about this blasted cliche, so there’s no point dwelling on it. She tries to give Bongo one more chance with another slap, but he ducks and she hits an eager Lumpjaw instead. The other bears congratulate the two on their forthcoming nuptials while Bongo sulks off.
Then comes our next musical number performed for the half-happy couple by the tribe of bears, “Say It With a Slap”. It sounds like something you’d hear in the Country Bear Jamboree, from the background yodeling to the square dancing bridge to the subject matter being hilarious for the time and for Southerners but awkward and uncomfortable by today’s modern sensibilities. Also as far as ritualistic courtship dances go I’m more fond of the Finnish Fish Shlapping Dance myself.
Watching the festivities from afar Bongo finally puts two and two together and races back to Lulabelle. Since Bongo can’t fight Lumpjaw on the big guy’s terms he faces him like a smarter than the average circus bear and pummels him good with his unicycle. I’ll give the sequence this, it’s the most entertaining thing in this half of the picture. Maybe if this story had focused more on Bongo learning to adapt to the wild bear lifestyle and finding a middle ground between that and his circus upbringing rather than dawdle on love montages and countryside imagery this could have been a more interesting short.
The two wind up on a log on a river, and since this is an animated movie they quickly find themselves at the edge of a waterfall. Lumpjaw goes over but oh no, Bongo’s gone too – oh wait, no he isn’t, yaaaay. The bears celebrate, Bongo becomes a willing participant in Lulabelle’s masochism tango, and they live slappily ever after.
The record ends and Jiminy is pleased to see the toys are now smiling. Thrilled that he’s got two inanimate objects buying into his well-intentioned dime store philosophy, Jiminy is about to go on his way when he spies a birthday party invitation lying about and uses that as an excuse to invite himself. I’d make a complaint here about Jiminy being a gate crasher but it’s something he’s done since Pinocchio; hell, that movie kicked off with him hopping into Gepetto’s workshop uninvited looking to spend the night and messing with some of the toys there as well so nothing has changed between then and this movie.
At the house across the way is the party in question being held for Luana Patten, a Disney child star who’s also appeared in Melody Time, So Dear to My Heart, and Song of the South, usually alongside future Peter Pan Bobby Driscoll. The host is a popular ventriloquist of the day, Edgar Bergen, and his two dummies, little wiseacre Charlie McCarthy and bumbling bumpkin Mortimer Snerd. In fact, they’re the ONLY ones there. Just tell yourself Luana’s parents had to go out for the night and Bergen’s a family friend who’s babysitting and it makes this scene slightly less questionable. When Jiminy shows up, Bergen is doing one of his ventriloquism tricks for little Luana with a literal hand puppet.
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This early version of Lamb Chop’s Play Along is WEIRD.
Now this scene is something that irks a lot of people, and I understand why. Bergen is often touted as the man who popularized ventriloquism but here you see his lips constantly moving. In this kind of act what impresses people is that you’re making your puppet appear to be talking WITHOUT making it obvious that you’re the one who’s doing it. The fact that his popularity got started on the radio, where NOBODY could see him pulling this off is especially baffling. I suppose what Bergen lacked in innate talent he made up for with a good sense of comic timing and his fairly likable if simple characters. Speaking of, Charlie and Mortimer are odd to be sure, and I see why some find them off-putting with their big unblinking eyes and noticeable slits around their large mouths, but personally speaking I’ve found certain Muppets to be much creepier than these dummies. Despite all this, I can’t hate the guy or his weird looking puppets or their questionable placement in this movie.
And you wanna know why?
Because if it wasn’t for Edgar Bergen, we wouldn’t have Jim Henson.
I kid you not.
Henson was a huge fan of Bergen as a child, and it led to him wanting to become a puppeteer. I think we all know how that turned out. It’s enough that as a way of showing his appreciation to Bergen he gave him and Charlie McCarthy a cameo in The Muppet Movie and dedicated it to him after his passing.
Bergen decides to regale the company with the story of Jack and the Beanstalk. When you think about it, Jack and the Beanstalk is a hard tale to tell, not because it’s been done so many times before but because there’s so few good versions out there. Let’s get one fact straight, Jack is a TERRIBLE main character. He makes a stupid decision that nearly plunges his destitute family into further poverty, then cons and steals from an innocent housewife no less than three times and kills her husband in cold blood when he’s caught. It takes a lot to make you want to root for him, and lord knows people have tried. The Faerie Tale Theater version added a backstory where the giant was the one responsible for killing Jack’s father and stealing his family’s treasures in the first place. HBO’s Happily Ever After series and The Henson Company’s made for TV movie explored Jack’s morality by having him learn greed makes him as much of an all consuming monster as the giant. The Gene Kelly television special and the animated Japanese version both added a cursed princess in need of rescuing; the latter also went for straight out weirdness just for good measure. And then there’s the Sondheim musical Into The Woods, which told the story best by forcing Jack to face the consequences of his actions when the giant’s widow finds another beanstalk and climbs down for revenge.
So how does Disney make their version one with no questionable morals or character motives? By having their three main stars Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Goofy star in it, of course (if you haven’t already gotten that before). There were tons, and I mean TONS of story ideas that were tossed around when this was being developed as a full-length feature which I would have loved to have seen in the final product. One version would have had Honest John and Gideon from Pinocchio be the ones who swindle Mickey into buying the magic beans. Another one had Minnie be the queen of Happy Valley (proving that not all animated queens who don’t have ice powers have to be evil) and had her give the beans to Mickey as a way to return the dried up Happy Valley to its former glory. There were lots of gags and and creative visual concepts about the land of the giants and what would happen when the main trio got there. For a time the hen that laid golden eggs, a staple of the original story, was a part of it, and she would have been played by the now relatively obscure character of Clara Cluck! Unfortunately everything had to go when the war started and the budget got slashed. And that’s not the only thing that went with it. This short would be the last time Walt Disney would provide Mickey’s voice as his smoking habit was beginning to affect his performance. After this he would pass the torch to the studio’s sound effects wizard Jimmy McDonald.
Bergen opens the tale in the magical land of Happy Valley and we see Luana imagining it in her mind as he builds on details like babbling brooks, lush farms and a splendorous castle overlooking it all. And in that castle lives the key to Happy Valley’s success, a magical singing harp (Anita Gordon). She sings the lovely “My What a Happy Day”. I really like this song; some have told me it’s the sound of blandness, but I can’t hear them over the innocent joy it infuses me with. Maybe it’s the fact that I grew up with this particular short that makes me enjoy it so much. My VHS copy had the story narrated by beloved Wonderful World of Disney character Ludwig Von Drake with bookends featuring him and Herman the Bootle Beetle, and I watched it all the time. It was my childhood.
According to Bergen the song of the Harp casts a spell of prosperity and happiness over the land, which admittedly raises one potent question: The enchanted prosperity I can get but is the happiness a side effect, or is it enforced like that one Monty Python skit where everyone in that Happy Valley has to be happy all the time or else?
Of course the story would go nowhere if it was constantly this happy which leads into my favorite exchanges between Bergen and Charlie:
Bergen: It was too good to last – Charlie: I knew there was a catch. Bergen: For one day – Charlie: They built a schoolhouse.
Out of the blue an enormous shadow creeps over the valley like a storm cloud (complete with actual thunder and lightning too) and snatches the Harp from the castle. Without the Harp’s music Happy Valley decays into a barren wasteland that no amount of song can salvage.
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And Lord knows they’ve tried.
We check in on Mickey, Donald and Goofy, three starving farmers with nothing to their name but a dried up cow, a crust of bread they have to slice paper thin, and a solitary bean. It’s a darkly comic sight, one made even more tension-filled and humorous when it’s filtered through the narration…
…in the Von Drake version.
Yeah, while we’re on this topic I might as well go into why I prefer the one with Von Drake narrating over the original. The main problem I have with Bergen is the same I have with Dinah Shore’s voiceover in the Bongo section, yet by comparison Shore is barely a nuisance. You want to know what that is?
BERGEN.
NEVER.
SHUTS.
THE HELL.
UP.
Everything he adds to the proceedings is already plain to see before us, and when he isn’t talking about the current action on screen or trading barbs with Charlie McCarthy he’s going into what the characters must be thinking or feeling at that moment. It’s not like film is a visual medium where we can draw our own conclusions based on what we’re viewing and our prior knowledge of the characters, oh no, we have to be told everything like we’re children. Oh wait, we don’t, because I watched the Von Drake one when I was a child and I knew what was going on without him telling me every five seconds! The Von Drake edition knows when to clam up and let what’s happening speak for itself. It allows this half of the movie to breathe and lets us take in some good atmosphere and music where there was once constant voiceover. On top of that, Von Drake’s delivery hits all the comic beats while Bergen’s is rather dry. The original Mickey and the Beanstalk from Fun and Fancy Free has cleaner scene transitions as well as moments that were edited from the Von Drake edition since that was taken from television, but half the charm comes from Von Drake and Herman; that and the previously mentioned amount of narration makes their take the superior version.
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“Wow…I never realized how much I needed to say all that.”
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“Felt good, didn’t it?”
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“You have no idea, Cynicism.”
Anyway, caught between starvation pangs and an omnipotent voice incessantly stating the obvious, Donald finally snaps and attempts to make a sandwich out of the plates and cutlery. Goofy and Mickey bring him back to his senses, or so it would seem.
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Ah, I knew this movie was lacking something – nightmare fuel!
Mickey spies the axe conveniently hanging on the wall has gone missing nearly too late. Outside Donald is making his moves on the cow.
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Heeeeeeere’s ducky!!
For many people this is one of the scariest moments in Disney cinema. While I’m not inclined to agree I can surely understand. His slow descent into madness is framed almost like a psychological thriller. Plus, we all know Donald’s had a temper before but we’ve never seen him flat-out attempt murder…almost.
I’d like to point out that in the picture on the left the gun is going off in a crowded theater. Unfortunately the timelessness of Disney’s films doesn’t always apply to their early shorts.
Mickey and Goofy intervene in the nick of time and the story fades back to the puppet party. Charlie is all up for Donald murdering the cow to survive and lists a number of increasingly gruesome ways to pull it off over Luana and Mortimer’s distressed protests. Ok, NOW I think I understand why everyone is terrified of Charlie McCarthy. The kid’s a little wooden sociopath.
After some more blathering, Bergen gets the story back on track and tells us Mickey went to go trade the cow for some much needed vittles. But Donald and Goofy’s dreams of a Be Our Guest style feast are dashed when he returns home with nothing but a handful of beans. Donald goes berserk even after Mickey says they’re supposed to be magic and smacks them out of his hand where they fall into a hole in the floor. Yet as everyone sleeps that night, light from the full moon shines into the house, which is the very thing needed for the beans to work their magic. The whole sequence where the beanstalk grows through the entire house and raises it up to the sky is a highlight. It begins with an almost sinister air, the beanstalk crawling its way upward and silently through the dark like a snake, and the wonder and music constantly builds as it climbs higher towards the heavens. Every action matches with the music, and the animation is the best in the whole movie. I must say it always amazed me that Mickey, Donald and Goofy are able to sleep as heavily as heavily as they do through the whole ordeal, especially since they get shaken around so much and come close to falling so many times. Were the hunger pains that bad that they took a heavy dose of Ambien before turning in?
The three wake up that morning in a land in the clouds where everything towers above them (and apparently they’re totally fine with their house being destroyed). They venture to a nearby castle where the only clue as to who lives there is a set of footprints each the size of a ditch. While crossing the moat Donald angers a formation of dragonflies and one dive bombs them. On the tape I had it was immediately swallowed by a jumping fish and the ensuing splash washed the friends to shore. So imagine my surprise the first time watching it in full and seeing this was a full-blown action sequence of sorts with the dragonfly going after them repeatedly and their little vessel nearly sinking. I’m guessing it was cut for time but it’s kind of a neat part.
Mickey and crew climb up the enormous stairs and sneak in the castle under the door, and all the while Bergen does not stop talking. I’m almost tempted to put it on mute when the animated characters aren’t the ones who are speaking. They come across a giant table laden with enormous food and gladly help themselves. Goofy in particular gets in plenty of shenanigans involving a bouncy jello mold. The gorging is cut short when they hear the voice of the Harp coming from a locked chest. She informs them that she was kidnapped by the giant Willie.
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Twenty-eight years of watching this…how did I not realize… There is no way that name could have been chosen at random!
Bergen tells us Willie is “a heartless monster” who stole the Harp because “he was cruel and selfish and didn’t care what happened to Happy Valley”. And I…he…I…
No.
NO.
Screw you, Bergen.
Screw you, screw your horrible narration skills, and especially screw your picking on my Willie!
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“Ugh, there’s no way around that phrasing, is there?”
Again, going back to the Von Drake edition, they painted Willie in a much kinder light, one that’s more true to his character. He’s not the crude, gluttonous, overly violent thug like past giants. He’s big enough to pose a threat but he’s silly and very endearing, almost childlike at times.
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Come on, does this even look cruel, selfish and wicked to you?
His goofy voice plays a part in it as well thanks to Billy Gilbert, the same actor who voiced Sneezy in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. At one point he even gets to do his trademark over-the-top sneeze. Willie does not seem at all like a cold-hearted brute who would leave an entire kingdom to rot for his own selfish pleasures. It’s highly likely he didn’t even know the Harp was needed for the land to thrive and was completely ignorant to the fact that Happy Valley was turning into Death Valley without her. That’s why it bugs me when he’s lumped into the group of Disney villains. Nearly every bad guy in the canon either openly embraces how evil they are or do what they do because they believe it is the right thing. Willie falls into neither category; most of his maliciousness is incidental rather than intentional. If you don’t believe me that he isn’t evil, look at how he’s portrayed beyond this movie. In a bout of perfect casting, he plays the friendly and jovial Ghost of Christmas Present in Mickey’s Christmas Carol. He’s also made positive appearances in shows like House of Mouse and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. Maybe it’s just because I’ve always had an affinity for big tough looking characters who are really enormous marshmallows (wait until you see who my favorite character is when we get around to reviewing the American Tail movies), but I can never see Willie as a true villain, and that’s a good thing. So back off, Bergen. He may be a big galoot, but he’s MY big galoot.
What also separates Willie from the giants in most other adaptations is that he has the ability to change himself into anything he wants provided he says or sings the magic words “Fee Fie Fo Fum”. A common complaint with this new feature is that it’s completely unnecessary; his superpower is that he’s already big and strong, so why give him magic? I disagree. I like his transformations and think it adds something special to him. Walt purposefully wanted to create a combination of the traditional beanstalk giant and the shape shifting ogre from the fairy tale Puss in Boots to add more danger and intrigue to the story (as well as eliminate the moral quandary of making a side character a widow). In fact one has to wonder if this means Walt ever planned on doing an animated take on Puss in Boots someday. My only wish is that Willie’s powers were utilized more as it was originally planned in both his song and the first draft of the ending, where he’s shrunk down to normal size and becomes a member of Queen Minnie’s court.
Willie discovers Mickey hiding out in his sandwich and snatches him. But clever Mickey has already seen Willie showcase his powers through his introductory number and pretends to learn and be impressed by that fact after reading Willie’s palm. Willie is eager to show off and Mickey, spying a flyswatter nearby, asks if he could transform himself into a housefly. Willie is of course suspicious and would rather be something like a pink bunny but goes along with it anyway. The friends prepare to attack, but Willie does the old switcheroo and exposes them.
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I’m guessing Mickey never bothered to actually read the original Puss in Boots story; there Puss convinces the shapeshifting ogre to turn into gradual bigger and fiercer creatures and then taunt him into becoming something small and helpless so he can dispose him. Sweat the small stuff immediately and the one you’re trying to trick will be on to you right away.
Willie captures his would-be murderers though Mickey escapes before he can get locked up with Donald and Goofy. Luckily they have an ally in the Harp, who sings Willie to sleep with the sweet lullaby “My Favorite Dream”. Mickey is able to sneak the key out of his pocket after almost waking him with an upturned box of snuff and rescues his friends. Donald and Goofy start making their way back to the beanstalk with the harp, but Mickey tries to buy them more time by tying up Willie’s shoelaces in case he wakes up. Unfortunately doing this does cause Willie to wake up and attack. There’s a surprised “Oh!” from Luana at this part that was left in on the Von Drake tape so for the longest time I assumed it was the Harp crying out in terror despite the fact that they sound nothing alike. Oops.
Mickey manages to outsmart Willie at every turn, mainly because the giant is so furious he conveniently forgot he can become anything and catch and crush Mickey like an insect at any second.  The story abruptly ends with the three friends cutting down the beanstalk and Willie crashing to his death. We don’t even get to see the harp returned or Happy Valley restored or Mickey, Donald and Goofy sharing a victory high five. Mortimer’s not satisfied mainly because he’s saddened by Willie’s murder, and I don’t blame him. As if I need to repeat it, they do too good a job of making him likable that you don’t want to see him die. Bergen responds by reminding Mortimer that Willie is only a fictional character and gives him a crash course in fantasy vs. reality – one that is completely thrown out the window when the real Willie looks in on them.
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So, sentient crickets and puppets are accepted as normal as well as a living giant that everyone once believed to be fictional…
This whole movie took place near Gravity Falls.
There is no other possible explanation for this.
Bergen has the appropriate reaction and faints, Mortimer takes comfort in knowing reality is an illusion and the universe is a hologram, and Jiminy figures maybe now is a good time to get the heck out of dodge before this crossover gets any stranger. So our odd little film comes to a close as we follow Jiminy tailing Willie as he terrorizes the downtown Los Angeles area in search of the mouse who made him homeless.
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“Run!! It’s Godzilla!!” “It may look like Godzilla, but due to international copyright laws and the fact that this giant is so obviously a human whereas Godzilla is reptilian, it’s not.”
Well…that was something. Maybe not as spectacular or fully underrated as I remember, but it was something. The host parts are disjointed and don’t gel very well, even in comparison to the other package features. But the main draw at the time was less about the animation and characters and more about the celebrities that would be playing a part in it. Fun and Fancy Free basically predates the Dreamworks formula by about fifty years. Food for thought, huh?
As for my summary of the individual segments, Bongo is perfectly fine. Not amazingly humorous or gorgeously animated, but not poorly scribbled out or annoying, at least for the most part. It’s middle of the road entertainment that I don’t have much to complain about or praise. The worst I can say is that it’s as padded as my high school brassiere. Mickey and the Beanstalk, though? Never fails to give me the nostalgic warm and fuzzies. It’s a big adventure with a boatful of lovable characters and great songs. By all means though, seek out the version that has Ludwig Von Drake narrating. It’s available on dvd, and last time I checked it’s on Netflix too. It even comes with some of my favorite Mickey shorts like “Mr. Mouse Steps Out” and “Brave Little Tailor”. I know I’m not the only one who feels some connection to this part of film; whereas nobody remembers or bothers to reference Bongo, even in Disney media, there’s one or two mentions of Mickey and the Beanstalk in the Disney parks, primarily in Fantasyland. Also, take a look at these stills from the Animaniacs parody of the fairytale and tell me it wasn’t influenced by the Disney one in any way.
Fun And Fancy Free performed decently at the box office, though it was overshadowed at the time by Walt Disney’s infamous testimony at the House of Un-American Activities Committee. Now it’s merely a footnote in Disney’s history. When interviewed about the film years later, the animators openly admitted they didn’t want to work on it. Even Walt barely had anything to say about it in his interviews and biographies. It was merely an assignment they had to do in order to keep the studio afloat, hold on to their jobs, and get their mascot Mickey back in a starring role (the last one he’d really hold until Mickey’s Christmas Carol in 1983). Truth be told, the making of Fun And Fancy Free, which was included on the original VHS and DVD release, is more interesting than the film itself as a whole.
But at the end of the day, do I dislike this movie?
No, not really. I can’t call it one of my favorites, yet there are things I like about it that I wish they were allowed to expand upon. It’s an uneven film that does the best it can to be simply light and entertaining like its title. And I guess that’s why people are quick to harp (ahem) on it. Disney is capable of making great art. But just because it can doesn’t mean we should diss it when they to do something lighter and fluffier. Sometimes you need that shallow, pleasant bit of pure escapism to bolster your spirits. Do you think the animation team would have been able to get by after Walt if they didn’t make The Aristocats? Or begin recovering from the failure from The Black Cauldron without The Great Mouse Detective (which I don’t think is merely shallow filler at all, but I’m saving my thoughts for the actual review of it). I admire Disney for being able to shift gears and go from deeper subject material to goofy comic fun when need be.
In other words, when watching this particular film, just repeat to yourself “It’s just a Disney movie, I should really just relax”.
Thank you for reading. If you like what you see and want more reviews, vote for what movie you want me to look at next by leaving it in the comments or emailing me at [email protected]. Remember, you can only vote once a month. The list of movies available to vote for are under “What’s On the Shelf”.
If you want to support me and totally not get swindled into buying magic beans, please consider supporting my Patreon. It’s completely optional, you can back out any time you choose, and it comes with perks like extra votes and adding movies of your choice for future reviews. Special thanks to Amelia Jones for her contribution!
And a VERY special thank you to The Three CommentEARS for their insightful and entertaining commentary on this film which helped influence and inform this review. I’ve done some commentaries with them in the past for Pinocchio and the extended anniversary edition of Pocahontas, and they know their Disney stuff. Please go and check them out!
Caricature by Brian Slatky, 2017
June Review: Fun and Fancy Free (1947) Sigh, poor package features, why does nobody like you? Why is it that internet reviewers and Disney critics and fans always seem to give you the shaft?
8 notes · View notes
babygirl06301 · 6 years
Note
7. 10. 15. 22.
Hello, dear!
7. What is your least favorite (episode/character/season/ship)?
My least favorite episode of all time is “Bugs,” but I feel like that’s the basic answer, so I’m gonna say “Bloodlines” because holy shit it was so bad. 
My least favorite character (and I’m going with, like, characters that’ve been in more than 2 episodes) is probably Charlie. And I just made a post about this, so I won’t ramble here, but she just turns me off for some reason. 
My least favorite season is season 6. Hard season 6. Honestly, it just wasn’t all that great as a whole. The beginning of the season was muddy, the middle either had amazing episodes (like “The French Mistake”) or horrible episodes, and the only actually brilliant/hyper-amazing part of the season (that actually had to do with the plot of the whole season, which was Purgatory) was the last 3 episodes when all the Cas shit hit the fan. So, season 6 is my least favorite, but you know what? It’s still at least a 7 on a scale of 1-10. Because this show is that good.
My least favorite ship is kind of difficult to say because I’m a true believer of “ship and let ship,” but I suppose the ship I ship the least is Wincest. I don’t have a problem with it, I just don’t ship it.
10. Who do you think was the best big bad?
I love this question so much.
I dunno if I should answer this considering all the semi-minor big bads (like Ruby) or if I should just go for the season-long big bads (like the BMoL). So, I’m gonna do both.
Meg is probably my favorite semi-minor big bad just because she’s so good at being bad. And my season-long big bad award goes to either Metatron or Abaddon. I used to hate that Metatron was a part of the show at all, but when I went back through recently and watched it over, I really appreciated his humor and maliciousness. Abaddon was always an easy character for me to love as a villain. She was just cool and smooth and amazing.
**I would like to note that I loved Crowley as a villain, as well, but I much prefer him as a reluctant ally to TFW**
15. What storyline or concept do you wish had been focused on more?
Oooooo! Okay, so I’m really passionate about this answer because I really feel like we were gypped of something amazing.
Dean’s alcoholism and depression. I think we like to think of Dean’s darkest days as during the time he had the Mark of Cain (barring S13, obviously), and I tend to agree. However, Dean used alcohol long before then to cope with his issues, and he showed threads of depression all the way back into his childhood. 
I just wish that it would’ve been touched on at some point beyond the two second “brother talk” we get once every 10 episodes. I was actually hopeful that S13 would give me some of that, but that’s not going to happen now that a certain someone is back (which is great, but still, I wish I could’ve seen Dean actually try and deal with his shit instead of just mentioning that he has shit in the first place). This show deals with a lot of important issues, and this one was just glossed over, and that’s kind of a waste, in my opinion. 
So, yes. That.
22. If you had to pick a show/movie for Supernatural to crossover with, what would it be?
Okay, forgive me if anyone reading this doesn’t know about this show (but you should). Charmed. Good Lord how I wish these shows could crossover.
I can just see Piper freaking Dean out by blowing up demons and Sam having deep conversations with Phoebe about their shared psychic abilities and Paige and Cas orbing and teleporting (pre-S9 Cas, of course) all over the world. It’d be amazing.
For a more general answer that I know most people will recognize, I’ll say Scooby-Doo, but not the animated version. No, no, no. The live-action version with bloody Sarah Michelle Gellar and Freddie Prinze Jr. Fuck yes.
Thank you for the asks! 
Send me a number (25 SPN Asks)!!!
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Note
For the really long number ask: questions by 10. :D
Oh boy, so many questions! Thank you, Speedy~ XD
There is a lot oftext (mostly rambling) below the cut. I would have had this posted sooner, but I’ve beenpreoccupied lately. ^^’
Feelfree to send me more questions~
~.~
10:The word that I use all the time to describe something great?
Hmm, probably “awesome” or “amazing” getoverused by me a lot. XD
20:Favourite video games?
FFFFFFFFFFF THERE ARE SO MANY!!!!!
Of course, you know me and how much I love HatofulBoyfriend. Those games will forever have a tight grip on my heart. >vBut also the Persona games I’ve played. *sobs* There are so many versions ofPersona 3 and Persona 4 by now, including their crossover sequels and whatnot.I love them so much. And Persona 5 is currently breaking my heart, but it’s sogood~ Also, we’re finally getting P3 and P5 dancing games to accompany P4:Dancing All Night, and I am so ready for that!
I’ve only played through Hakuouki: Demon of the FleetingBlossom so far, but I really want to play some of the other games at somepoint. I keep seeing stuff about them and I need it because the story andcharacters are so good. XD
Dream Daddy is also shaping up to be a pretty good game,from what I’ve played of it, so I can toss it on the list here as well~ ;P
There are way more games I could mention, but these ones areespecially important to me right now, so I’ll just leave it at that for themoment. =P
30:Eye colour?
My eyes are hazel. It depends on the light, but sometimesthey look more green and other times they look more brown.
40:What do I think about most?
I don’t actually know what I think about most. o-o
I try not to be this self-aware because paying too closeattention to my thoughts tends to stress me out. But, I mean, I do very oftenhave moments where I stop and go “oh my god, I love my girlfriend so much,she’s so cute, how is this possible” because I’m a sentimental dork and mybrain won’t stop reminding me. Also just as often over the last year, I’ve hada lot of thoughts about how I miss my dog and my cat, too. But I’m one of thosepeople who stops and notices/remembers really cute things and then has anemotional moment about how cute they are, so I tend to think about how cute myfriends are or how cute an animal is or… similar cute stuff. Because I’m anemotional sap.
Also, I’ve pretty much always got magical boys or birds onthe brain, but literally no one is surprised to hear that. XD
50:How do I destress?
I either play a game I like or listen to music (unless whatI need at the time is to shut out the world and all the noise that comes withit); try to read something or work on my writing; watch a show or movie thatmakes me happy as a distraction; or sometimes scroll Tumblr or just the tagsfor a thing I like a lot, mindlessly Liking/reblogging things.
You can tell I do that last one a lot from my various wallsof spam on everyone’s dashboards. ^^’
60:Pet peeve?
I have a lot of little pet peeves, but the one that comes upa lot is grammar. More specifically when people write “defiantly”when they mean to say “definitely” or when they incorrectly abbreviateet cetera as “ect” instead of “etc” aaaaaaaaaaaaah whydo people do this?
I mean, I understand that auto-correct is a thing and willmake you regret every typo you ever make, and I understand that mixing upletters and confusing words is common for a lot of people. So, I don’t get tooupset when I see it, but. How on earth did“defiantly”/“definitely” become a thing? Like… why? Idon’t understand. It drives me nuts just thinking about it.
But the “etc”/“ect” thing will alwaysbother me because it may have started as a genuine typo somewhere out there,but then people started thinking that “ect” actually WAS theabbreviation for “etc” and… no… Seriously, click on that link upthere and read the definitions of both abbreviations. There is a very cleardifference and it makes me want to rip my hair out that people don’t realize.*sobs*
70:Can I sing?
Actually, yes. People really like my voice, but most of thetime I’m really shy/awkward about it. To think I once wanted to be a singer ina band. ;;-;;
I remember going to a sleepover for a classmate’s birthdayparty in 6th grade and I casually mentioned that I liked to sing, so all thegirls in my class who were there wanted to hear and they kinda coaxed it out ofme. They were all super impressed and wanted me to sing them a lullaby beforewe all went to sleep, but I ended up singing them some 60’s RocknRoll musicinstead because I was really into it at the time and that’s all I knew off thetop of my head.
And then in 8th grade, the music teacher at our schooldiscovered that I had a perfect singing voice for the school musical and sherearranged an entire scene in the script just to give me a song so she couldutilize my voice. I had kind of resigned myself to it at that point, so thefirst time I had to sing in front of everyone during rehearsals I justpretended like I was singing for everyone at that party again. And after I hadfinished the song, everyone in the auditorium who hadn’t heard me sing beforewas speechless and I got a freaking standing ovation because they didn’t expectthe quiet kid to be hiding that kind of voice. //dead
Unfortunately, I don’t have a very powerful singing voice,so it didn’t project very well. No matter how much vocal training I was putthrough for it. But because my speaking voice is so loud, I didn’t need to weara body mic for my voice to project to the back of the auditorium. You know thatrule of the stage about how you’re not supposed to turn your back to theaudience while you’re speaking because it muffles your voice? I was told Icould act in any direction I wanted to if it worked for the scene because, evenif my back was turned, everyone could still hear my voice loud and clear evenin the back row. *sigh* So, the one song I had seemed kind of pointless in theend, but the music teacher (who was also the director of the play) refused togive it up. She apparently just really loved my singing voice that much.Instead, she told me to talk-sing the parts of the song that were too high forme to sing loud enough and I thought that was kinda silly, but I did it anywayand it turned out alright. I can sing lower notes quite loudly, apparently,just not the higher ones.
So, I guess that answers the question. I like singing bymyself, though. Sometimes, I’ll sing around people I’m close to or feelcomfortable with. But generally I’m still awkward about it.
80:Can I drive?
Not yet. *sobs* But I’ve been taking driving lessons and Ihave a road test coming up soon-ish. So, hopefully I’ll have my license beforethe end of the year. I mean, technically, I guess you could say that I can drive at this point, but… I’m really not that good at it.
Up to now, the only vehicle I’ve been able to drive is atractor. A car is a whole different creature, though, and I’m having troublefiguring it out… especially since I’m apparently too small to see over theback seat properly and I’m not sure how I’m going to be able to deal with that,since it’s kind of a pretty important thing for backing up. =/
Tractors are way less terrifying and I would much rather usethat as a mode of transportation if given the opportunity. XD
90:Favourite sporty activity?
When I was a kid, I used to like playing soccer and baseballa lot. Now, I enjoy badminton more on the rare occasions that I get to play it.^^
100:Do I have more girl friends or boy friends?
That is a very difficult question to answer because I don’tactually know. I… don’t really think about that much, so I don’t “keeptrack”… and, besides, gender is a weird and relative thing, so who evenknows? ^^
110:Do I like selfies?
I hardly ever take pictures of myself anymore. I used to alot when I was younger and I kind of wish I still did now, but I just don’thave the energy and I feel weird about it. I don’t dislike it, though. I justkeep putting off doing it because I lose interest almost immediately after Ithink about it. This is why I struggle every time someone asks for a picture ofme because I just… don’t have any recent ones… generally. o-o
120: AmI much of a daredevil?
That really depends on the situation. I don’t mind tryingnew things even if they’re a little out of my comfort zone. But I won’t go outof my way to seek out dangerous/crazy/adrenaline-pumping experiences. XD So, Iguess I play it safe more often than not.
130:Favourite piece of advice?
Aaaaah, I think one piece of advice that can be applied tomany situations and is very important to me because it keeps being relevant inmy life is this…
If someone hurts you (whether they intended to or not) andyou don’t know if you can trust them again, you are not obligated to give thema second chance even if they come back to you and ask for one. If you’re notready to risk putting yourself out there for someone who hurt you before andrisk the chance of getting hurt again, you do not have to. Even if they seem tohave changed or say they miss you and want you back in their life, you owe themnothing. You are not obligated to take them back. You are allowed to say no andprotect yourself. It doesn’t matter if that person who hurt you is“family” or someone you used to be best friends with. You don’t haveto open yourself up to risk getting hurt again just because of your previousrelation to them.
140:Do I believe people are capable of change?
That depends on how you define “change” when itcomes to a person.
Personally, I don’t think people can fundamentally change any part of themselves, but I do believe people can grow. In which direction we grow (positively or negatively) determines who we areat any given time, but deep down on the inside, we are, have always been, andalways will be the same person we were born to be. Personality-wise andwhatnot, that is our identity and it’s how we learn and choose to channel thatidentity that makes all the difference. There’s always room for growth, butoftentimes the results are permanent and it’s easy to spiral in the oppositedirection of our desires because we are still affected by our environments andpersonal situations. You know, the whole nature vs nurture thing. That’s howyou get people who used to be good becoming rotten and people who used to be terriblemaking a positive turn around.
I think this growth is what people refer to as“change”, though, and I’m just being nitpicky with semantics becausethe two words technically mean different things in this context. I justdistinguish between them when it comes to this sort of thing because of whatI’ve observed in different people throughout my life and this is the way I’vemade the most sense of it so far. Humans are complex creatures and it neverceases to confuse and amaze me.
150:What is the best decision I have made in life so far?
I… really don’t know. Clearly, the choices I’ve madeleading up to this exact moment in my life have been a mix of good and bad, butthey still all resulted in me being exactly where I am today. And a lot of goodthings have come from it, such as meeting most of the people in my life. Ican’t really say what the “best” decision I ever made was. I’m justliving each day trying to survive, so I don’t consider each individualdecision. As morbid and depressing as that sounds. I guess I’m grateful forwhatever decisions led me to meeting so many wonderful people. ^^
160:What colour mostly dominates my wardrobe?
*looks at the pile of clothes I still need to fold and putback in my closet* I have a lot of pink, black, and white clothes, but I don’tthink either of those colors can be considered the majority of my wardrobe? Ihave a pretty decent mix of colors to choose from.
170:One of my favourite quotes?
I was always a fan of Adam Savage’s “I reject yourreality and substitute my own” because Mythbusters is cool and I liked thecontext in which it was said. XD
180:Do I like shopping?
It really depends on my energy levels. Most of the time, I’mjust not in the mood to go shopping anymore. I used to love it a lot when I wasyounger, especially when I’d get to go shopping with my grandparents and mycousins. But I do still enjoy hanging out with my mom’s side of the family andmy friends, so going shopping with them is more fun than exhausting. So, Isuppose it also depends on who I’m with, too. ^^
190:If I could time travel, where and when would I want to go?
Honestly, I never have an answer to this question, so Icouldn’t even begin to think of one. This may sound like a cop-out, but I thinkI would rather not mess around with time travel even if it were possible. Although,if I did have that ability, I’d probably use it in such a mundane way as tofind out about things (like social events or awkward encounters) before they happenso I could make sure to avoid them like the awkward potato that I am. XD
200:Dragons or wizards?
*slams hands down on table* BOTH!!!! Or even better! Give medragon wizards! >v
210:What is on my bucket list?
Um. I don’t have a bucket list anymore. Well, I mean, thereare a few conventions I’d like to go to eventually, so I guess that. ^^
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chloelucia13 · 7 years
Text
Vigilante (Teen Wolf x Supernatural Crossover) (Part 1)
Pairing: Isaac Lahey x reader, Winchesters x sister!reader 
Prompt: When the reader’s old friend calls for help, the Winchesters all rush to Beacon Hills immediately, and you immediately see someone you thought you’d never see again. But what happens when your brothers find out that you are best friends with supernatural beings that you all hunt?
Warnings: fluff, violence, language, a tiny bit of angst
A/N: So I started binge watching Teen Wolf and I am now obsessed, so enjoy!
Tag list for Teen Wolf is open!
Supernatural tags: @teamfreewill-imagine, @faith-in-dean, @ellen-reincarnated1967, @sincerelysaraahh, @for-the-love-of-dean, @ofglendower
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“Hello?” you voiced after hitting the ‘answer’ icon on your phone. 
“Y/N?” the, oddly familiar, voice on the other line replied and you racked your brain for a face to the voice.
“Scott,” you whispered, realizing who it was.
“Y/N, we really need your help.”
You pulled yourself out of your thoughts with a shake of your head before responding. “Yeah, okay, I’m heading to Beacon Hills now. I think it’s a better time than ever to have a little reunion.”
“Definitely.”
You smiled softly and held the phone between your shoulder and ear. “Alright, I’m on my way. Call me if anything happens.”
“Alright, bye Y/N/N.” You hung up the phone before tucking it into the back pocket of your jeans. You quickly packed your bag before slinging it over your shoulder and running out into the library. 
“Hey, emergency case, we need to go now,” you stated, leaving out much explanation. Before they could ask, you ran to the garage and tossed your bag into the trunk.
Both boys came out a few minutes later, their bags on their shoulders, and you smiled at them before hopping in the back seat. They exchanged a look before throwing their bags into the trunk, shutting it, and getting into the front seat. “Where’s the case?” Dean asked, starting up the car.
“Beacon Hills, California.”
“Pull in here,” you told Dean, seeing all of the students sitting outside of Beacon Hills High. Dean obliged and parked next to a beat up Jeep. You jumped out of the car once it was parked and wandered around, trying to find the group. 
A large smile spread across your face when you saw Scott, Stiles, Lydia, Malia, and Kira sitting at a picnic table under a tree. You hurried over to them and smacked your hands down on the table. “No detention for once?” you joked and their eyes all widened and smiles grew on their faces when they heard your voice and saw you standing there.
“Y/N!” Lydia squealed, jumping up and hugging you tightly. Everyone else followed suit and you hugged them all back tightly. 
“I missed you guys so much,” you sighed, finally taking them all in as they stood in front of you. 
“Where have you been?” Stiles asked, practically jumping with happiness. “You disappeared off the face of the earth!”
“With family,” you told them, keeping your explanation brief.
“Hey guys, coach-” a voice announced behind you and you spun around, causing the origin of the voice to freeze.
“Isaac?” you choked out. Isaac smiled widely and hurried over to you, wrapping his arms around your waist. You hesitantly wrapped your arms around his neck, returning the hug. “I thought you were in France.” A look of pure shock replaced your large smile, and you stood on your tiptoes, resting your head in his shoulder. 
“I was, but I guess you can never leave Beacon Hills forever,” he stated, moving a hand to card his fingers through your hair. You nodded and pulled away to look up at him, into his eyes, the eyes that you loved, they eyes that left you after your best friend died. “You’re even prettier than when I left.”
A blush spread across your cheeks, despite you willing it not to happen, and you pursed your lips. “Y/N, mind introducing us to your friends?” Dean stated and you pulled away from Isaac, your eyes wide as you smiled awkwardly at your brothers.
“Oh, um, yeah!” you stuttered. “This is, uh, Scott, Stiles, Lydia, Malia, Kira, and Isaac.” You turned to your friends. “Guys, these are my brothers, Sam and Dean.”
“Okay, and what’s the emergency, Y/N?” Sam asked and you looked over to Scott.
“There’s some... things going on in this town, and we need help figuring out what it is,” Scott explained and you nodded softly. 
Dean and Sam smiled tightly and looked at you. “Alright, Y/N, could we have a talk with you, just really fast?” Dean asked, grabbing your arm and tugging you away. “You told them?”
“Told them what?” you asked, even though you knew exactly what they were talking about.
“Our number one rule, don’t tell anyone that we kill freaking monsters for a living!”
“Well, kinda... In a way.” They both looked at you quizzically and you sighed. “Okay, I’ll explain later. We need to get to Deaton.”
Dean pulled up at the animal hospital, you and Lydia looking behind you to see the rest of them getting out of of Stiles’ car. You pushed your door open and the other three did the same, all of you getting out at the same time. “Why are we at a vet?” Dean asked and you just smiled at him, shutting your door and hurrying over to the others, who were already standing at the door. Scott pushed the door open and you all filed inside, already heading for the exam room.
Without looking up, Deaton smiled wide. “Y/N, you’re back,” he stated, tugging his gloves off and tossing them in a trash can. “I’m guessing Scott got the correct number?”
You nodded and smiled. “I’m glad he did,” you responded, nudging Scott’s shoulder lightly. “It’s about time we had a little pack reunion.”
Sam and Dean stepped into the room and looked at you quizzically. “Your brothers?” Deaton asked. You nodded. “Doctor Deaton. Nice to meet you two.”
“Feeling’s mutual,” Dean replied before arching an eyebrow at you. “Now, can you explain what you were going to explain to us before we came here?”
“Right,” you sighed, taking a deep breath. “Here in Beacon Hills, not everything is normal.”
“Nothing is normal anywhere.”
“I know, but things here are... Different.” They both looked confused and you huffed. “My friends, they’re not normal.”
“You kinda need to elaborate here.”
You nodded and turned to your friends. “Scott, Isaac, and another person, Derek, they’re all werewolves. Malia is a were-coyote. Lived in the woods most of her life. Kira is a kitsune, electric kitsune. She can control electricity. Lydia is a banshee, she knows when someone is close to death or is dead, and she’s basically our alert whenever something is happening to her. Stiles, he was a nogitsune, but I have no clue what he is now, if he is anything.”
“I’m batman,” he stated and you rolled your eyes.
“You and Dean both.” You turned back to your brothers and their eyes were hard. “They don’t hurt anyone, they won’t. They’re good, even if what they are typically isn’t.”
“Y/N, monsters are monsters-”
“They are not monsters! They are not like the monsters we hunt! They are good people who try to help!” You clenched your jaw. “What about Garth? He’s a werewolf, and we still trust him.”
“That’s because we know him.”
“And I don’t know my friends? If you don’t remember, when you found me, when you found out I was your sister, they were the only family I had. My dad, our dad, never even knew I existed, and my mom wished that I didn’t! They were all I had. So tell me they’re monsters. Do it.”
Dean just pursed his lips and stomped out of the building. “I’m sorry, Y/N/N,” Sam told you, rubbing your shoulder comfortingly. “I know how it is.”
“Thanks Sammy. I think you should go over and try to calm Dean down.”
Sam smiled and nodded. “Good idea.”
He followed after Dean while you squeezed your eyes shut. “Okay,” you voiced, turning to your friends. “What’s the problem?”
They all looked at you with sympathy before Scott spoke up. “A string of murders,” he explained. “All of them in weird ways. One person died from purging on their own body, another by peeling their skin off one layer at a time, and another ripped their own organs out of their body and strangled themselves with their intestines.”
“The last one,” Lydia interrupted, “a little girl, seven, she died from blood-letting.”
“Okay,” you whispered, sounding oddly calm. “Some fucked up shit is going down.”
“Even I’m stumped,” Deaton admitted and you groaned.
“All I have off the top of my head is a sacrifice to some god or goddess, demon possession, or a curse.”
“That’s closer than we’ve gotten this whole month,” Isaac stated and you nodded, pursing your lips. 
“I guess we should get to studying.”
You sat on Scott’s floor, typing furiously on your laptop as you chewed on your bottom lip. “God, don’t rip your lip off,” Lydia joked and you removed your eyes from the screen to look up and smile at her. “Working hard, I presume?”
“Always am,” you responded, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear. Lydia nodded and smiled, sitting down on Scott’s bed. 
“Everyone’s heading out for some food. Wanna come?”
You shook your head and turned your attention back to the laptop. “I’m good. Thanks, though.”
She sighed and you turned to look at her. “There’s something going on with you, and I don’t think it’s about your brothers.”
You groaned and ran a hand through your hair. “Then what is it about?”
“I don’t know, there’s just a lot of tension. It’s like, visible, Y/N.” 
You chuckled and turned back to your computer. “Well, how about you think about that while you go out and eat. I’m busy!”
She stood from the bed and patted your head. “Alright, bossy. Have fun being lonely.” She left the room and closed the door behind her, leaving you alone. 
A knock on the door pulled you from your thoughts and you yelled, “Come in!”
Melissa walked in a moment later, clothes in her hands. “Hey, Y/N/N, it’s good to have you back,” she told you and a smile spread across your face.
“It feels good to be back.” She returned your smile and handed you the clothes she was holding.
“So, I heard some stuff happened between you and your brothers, so I just want you to know that you’re welcome to stay here. I found some of your old clothes that looked like they would fit you now, and the guest room is open.”
“Thank you, Melissa. That’s really kind of you.”
“Don’t worry about it. You’re like the daughter I always wanted.”
You closed your laptop and tucked it under your arm, rising to your feet. “Well, you’re the best mom I’ve ever had.”
You both chuckled softly and you hugged her before retreating into the guest bedroom.
Once in the room, you closed the door and set your computer down on the chair in the room. Sighing softly, you changed out of your day clothes and into the tank top and shorts Melissa gave you, a soft smile on your face as you tossed your old clothes into the corner before flopping face-first onto the bed. 
You tried to fall asleep, and even though you were exhausted to your core, you couldn’t fall asleep because of all of the thoughts on your mind. With your brothers, your friends, Isaac, who you had no clue what category he fell into, and all of the murders that led to dead ends whenever you were close to finding who or what killed them.
After a few minutes of tossing and turning, you eventually gave up on sleep, rolling onto your back and grabbing your computer. “Can’t sleep either?” someone asked and you looked up to see Isaac leaning against the door frame, a soft smile on his face.
“Was I ever able to sleep when there was all of this shit going down in Beacon Hills?” you inquired, moving to sit up as you stared at him. 
“No, I guess not.” He chuckled and the corners of your lips quirked up in a small smile. “Can I come in?”
“Yeah, sure,” You scooted to the left a bit so he had room to sit. He sat down in the space you left and kept his eyes trained on you. “When did you guys get back? I didn’t hear the door.”
“Just a few minutes ago. I brought you a burger and some fries. They’re in the fridge.”
“Always knew what I wanted.” You chuckled and set your computer back down on the chair.
Isaac nodded and you both sat in silence for a few moments. “How’ve you been, Y/N?”
“Good. Seen a lot of messed up shit, had some messed up shit happen to me, ya know, the usual. You? How was France?”
“It was good. I missed you a lot. Just got back last year. I... I was surprised that you still weren’t here. Still in Beacon Hills. One of the only reasons I came back was to see you. It hurt like a bitch when I didn’t see you at your locker or talking to Coach.”
“I bet it didn’t even hurt half as much as watching your boyfriend leave for a different country barely even a week after your best friend died.”
“Y/N, I’m so sor-”
“You’re sorry, I know. Everyone always is.” You clenched your jaw and looked down at your hands, picking at the chipped nail polish. 
“I remember you would always paint your nails. The nail polish would always give me a headache.”
“It always gave me a sense of... Normalcy, I guess. Just something that all teenage girls would normally do, while a teenage girl like me would be killing monsters and fixing things. It made me feel like I belong.”
“You did belong. You always did, you always will.”
You sighed and shifted your gaze to the window, looking at the stars and moon. Waxing crescent. “I belonged in Beacon Hills, the town where weird is normal and being normal is rare and weird. That’s not anywhere else except with my brothers, and maybe the deep South.” You and Isaac chuckled and you wrapped your arms around your waist. 
“Thanks for defending us, by the way.”
“Of course. I’ll always defend my family. Even if we aren’t blood related. A wise man once told me, ‘Family don’t end in blood.’”
Isaac nodded and you both sat in silence. “You should call him. Dean,” he finally voiced after a few moments.
“Why’s that?”
“Because I don’t want to be part of the reason that you and your brother are fighting. I don’t want to be part of the reason you to leave your family again.”
“When was the first time?”
“When you left Beacon Hills.” You looked down and bit down on your bottom lip. “Y/N?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re crying.” You then felt the wetness on your cheeks and hastily wiped the tears away. You took in a shuddery breath before moving to stand. “Wait,” Isaac stopped you, grabbing your wrist gently.
“I should go,” you whispered, but you didn’t try to free yourself from his grip.
“Please, Y/N. Just five minutes.” He gently pulled you back onto the bed and you kept your legs dangling off the side. He moved to sit next to you and slid his hand down from your wrist into your hand, clasping his hand with yours. You visibly stiffened and kept your gaze focused on the window. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“Everything. Leaving you without a word, never calling or anything, just... Just bringing you into this whole mess in the first place, not keeping you safe, but most of all... I- I’m sorry that you loved me, or if, maybe, by some rare chance, that you still love me.”
You pursed your lips and frowned, seeing Isaac in your peripheral vision as he watched your facial expressions. “You don’t need to protect me from this. I would have found out one way or another. My brothers and I hunt monsters, if you don’t remember.” Your lower lip quivered and you squeezed your eyes shut, letting the tears flow down your face. “And I understand why you left. It’s why I left too, along with some other reasons. And I kind of appreciate you not calling so I didn’t feel any more guilty than I already did.” You chuckled weakly before you pulled your knees up to your chest and pulled your hand out of his, wrapped your arms around your calves, and let soft sobs spill past your lips. “And... God dammit,” you muttered, sniffling. “Dammit Isaac, I’ve always loved you. I always will.”
His eyes widened and a soft but sad smile twitched at his lips, while awe settled into the rest of his face.
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He hesitantly moved his hands to pull your arms away from yourself, draping them over his shoulders before wrapping his arms around your waist and pulling you onto his lap, holding you tightly. You whimpered and fully wrapped your arms around his neck, moving your hands to tangle in his hair. “Shh, it’s okay,” he whispered as you rested your head on his shoulder and sobbed into his neck.
He pressed a kiss to your hair and waited until your sobs died down to pull his lips away. “I’m sorry,” you whispered, slowly beginning to pull away.
“Don’t be,” he told you, holding you tighter as a way to show that it was okay for you to stay. You relaxed in his arms and let out a shaky sigh, moving your legs so they laid to the side of you. “What’s this?” he asked as he caught sight of a black marking on your right shoulder blade.
You moved your arms from his neck turn around and show him the tattoo fully. “It’s an anti-possession symbol. Keeps demons out.” He pushed your hair onto your shoulder before tracing the symbol with his fingers. 
“Sounds like this tattoo comes in handy for your line of work.”
“You have no idea. I have every symbol imaginable on my body in some way.” You moved off of his lap and leaned against the headboard, finally having enough strength to look at him fully.
“I don’t see any other tattoos.”
You chuckled and shook your head. “The rest are in... less visible places.” His forehead wrinkled in confusion and you shook your head. “No, not on my ass. I have sigils carved onto my ribs.”
“Sounds painful.”
“Extremely. But I had a way to have the pain taken away.”
“Like how we take pain? By giving it to ourselves?”
“No, at least, I don’t think so.”
“Then how?”
“Angel mojo, man, it can do some crazy stuff.”
“Angel mojo? Like, powers from like... Gabriel and all those guys?”
“Yeah, he’s just a lesser known angel. And trust me, the Archangels are totally overrated douche bags.”
He chuckled and you grinned. “Sounds like you’ve seen a lot.”
“Seen a lot, been through a lot, yeah.” You wiped the remaining tears off your cheeks and twisted the charm bracelet on your wrist.
“What’s on it?” he asked, gesturing to your bracelet.
“Just little things that keep me going. Devil’s trap, anti-possession symbol, my brothers’ initials, and then stuff for you guys. Deer antlers for Malia, a heel for Lydia, a fox for Kira, red string for Stiles, the triscalade, a moon, a ruby for the alpha eyes, a sapphire for the omega eyes, amber for the beta eyes, and... a bow and arrow for Allison.”
He smiled and took your hand in his, looking at all the charms. The smile quickly fell when he saw all of the scars tattering your body, and he dropped his hand to his side. “Where did you get all these scars?”
“Hunting. It’s definitely not the safest profession. Got stabbed and shot more times than I can count.”
“Then why don’t you quit?”
“Once you get into the life, it’s practically impossible to get out of it. Everything comes back one way or another. Both of my brothers tried to leave, but it did more harm than good.”
“At least you’re with the people you love.”
“Mostly, yeah.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m not with you guys.” You smiled at him before tugging at the duvet.
“You should get some sleep. It’s gonna be a long day tomorrow.” 
You nodded and slipped your legs under the covers, still propped up against the headboard. “Hey Isaac?”
“Yeah?”
“I... I missed you too. A lot.”
His smile grew and he took your hand in his, squeezing it gently. “I’ll see you in the morning.” He let go of your hand and stood.
“Wait,” you voiced, stopping him. He turned to you and tilted his head. “Do you want to... Um... stay with me?” He chuckled and moved to the other side of the bed, pulling back the comforter and looking at you questioningly, making sure it was absolutely okay. You smiled back reassuringly and slipped all the way under the covers, resting your head against the pillows. He laid next to you and pulled the comforter over his body, shifting slightly a moment later. You clicked the lamp on your side off before laying on your side, facing the wall, and nuzzled into the wall. “Are you gonna just lay there or cuddle your girlfriend you haven’t seen for two years?”
In the blink of an eye, he had both of his arms wrapped around your waist, pulling you against him as he nuzzled his face into the crook of your neck. You laughed and held his hands, a big smile on your face. “Night, Y/N,” Isaac mumbled and you both closed your eyes, falling asleep quickly in each other’s arms.
You woke up with your head resting on Isaac’s chest, and just as your eyes fluttered open, the door creaked open. You reached for your gun under your pillow and shot up, aiming the barrel of the gun at the intruder. “Jesus, Y/N!” Scott chastised, looking at you as if you were insane.
“Sorry!” you squeaked, setting the gun back to it’s safety mode before setting it on the bedside table.
“Did you have that under the pillow the whole night?” Isaac grumbled, waking up because of the noise.
“I do every night. I’m not exactly on everyone’s good side.”
“Did you two...” Scott began before trailing off and your face grew red.
“No!” You ran a hand down your face and sighed. “I’ll be down in 10.” Scott nodded and exited.
Isaac wrapped an arm around your waist and pulled you back onto him. You nuzzled into his chest and hummed in content as he carded a hand through your hair, moving his free hand to rub at your hip. “Well, that was a nice way to wake up in the morning,” Isaac whispered, squeezing your hip slightly.
“Sorry about that.” You tangled your legs with his before crinkling your forehead in confusion. “Where are your pants?”
“Got too hot in them. You were practically laying on me the entire night. I forgot how hot it got whenever we slept together. You’re like a space heater.”
You smirked at him and stretched, a big yawn escaping your lips. “Can’t say I’m sorry.”
He chuckled before sitting up, pulling you up with him. “Come on, I smell bacon.”
You perked up at the word and sprung out of bed, grabbing your phone before barreling down the stairs. “Bacon?” you asked when you entered the kitchen, your forehead wrinkling when you saw everyone at the table.
“No, sadly,” Malia sighed and you frowned, turning to see Isaac walking over to you.
“You lied to me,” you grumbled, crossing your arms and sticking your bottom lip out. 
“Would you have gotten up if I hadn’t?” he asked, arching an eyebrow at you. You shook your head and he smirked, wrapping an arm around your shoulders and pulling you against him. “Dean texted after you fell asleep last night.”
You smiled up at him before looking down at your phone and checking your messages. There was, in fact, one text from Dean.
We need to talk. Please? -DW
You smiled softly before typing out the address to Scott’s house, sending it, and setting your phone on the kitchen counter. “Alright,” you announced, looking through the cabinets. “Who wants breakfast?”
The door bell rang as soon as you took the eggs off of the stove. “I’ll get it!” Stiles announced before hurrying to the door. Three pairs of footsteps sounded as your brothers and Stiles all entered the kitchen. 
You put all of the foods on separate plates and set them in the middle of the table before grabbing a stack of plates and giving one plate to everybody. “Dig in guys,” you told them before turning to Sam and Dean. Come eat, we’ll talk after.” 
They nodded and you all sat at the table, Sam and Dean sitting at on side of the table, while you sat at the end of the table, Dean on your left and Isaac on your right. You fought through the sea of hands to grab some food and began eating as soon as you had enough food on your plate. “Malia!” Stiles whined when Malia started to eat food off of his plate.
“You two are like children,” you chuckled, taking a piece of bacon off of Isaac’s plate.
“Hey!” he protested, trying to take it back from you.
“I made it!”
“And it’s mine now,” Dean stated, taking it out of your hand and eating the whole piece in one bite.
You pouted and smacked his arm. “Are you coming to watch the game tonight?” Scott asked, getting up and putting his plate next to the sink, taking Kira’s as well.
“Totally!”
“It sucks that we can’t watch you like we used to when you were practicing on the cheer team,” Isaac sighed and you rolled your eyes.
“You were a cheerleader?” Sam asked, his eyebrows raised high in surprise.
“Only for like, a year,” you mumbled, shooting a glare at Isaac.
“Come on Y/N! Let’s hear one of your cheers!” Stiles teased.
You pursed your lips and stood up, everyone turning to watch you. “Give me an F!” you announced, your voice cheery as you smiled wide. “Give me a U!” You held up both middle fingers and waved them around, flipping your hair back. “Yay! Fuck you guys!” You dropped your hands and began gathering everyone’s plates. “Alright, now, go to school!”
Everyone quickly filed out of the kitchen to go to school and you searched for a tupperware to put the leftovers in. “Y/N/N?” Dean voiced and you spun around to look at him.
“Yeah?”
“I’m sorry about everything. Your friends are actually... really cool. I guess I was just being a little overprotective.”
You nodded and smiled at him, walking over to him and hugging him tightly. “I forgive you. I understand why you did what you did.”
Dean smiled and hugged you back, pressing a kiss to your hair. “Thanks, bug.”
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He let you go and you went back to looking for a tupperware container. “Now, what sport is this game for?”
“Come on!” you shouted, you, Lydia, and Malia all standing and cheering the team on.
“Hey, sorry we’re late,” Melissa stated as her and Sheriff Stilinski sat down at the open spots next to Malia. “Thanks for the breakfast, by the way.”
“Yeah no problem. Hey sheriff.”
“Hey,” he greeted, smiling up at you. “Good to see you back, kid.”
“It’s good to be back.” You sat back down after the referee blew the whistle, the point going to the other team, making the score 10 points against 12.
“Who’s the angry guy down by the field?” Dean asked, pointing to Coach Finstock yelling at the guys and Kira.
“It’s coach. He’s always had... anger issues.” Dean nodded and Lydia handed you the bag of popcorn. You took a handful before handing it to your brothers, immediately shoving the handful into your mouth as the whistle blew. You watched as Isaac, who stole the ball, ran to the goal, throwing the ball in and you watched anxiously as the ball soared past the goalie’s head, making the goal. You shot up from your seat and cheered wildly, the popcorn that was in your mouth falling onto the head of the person in front of you. “Sorry,” you told the unfortunate person before continuing to cheer, everyone else following suit. You watched as the score board changed to a tied game, 12-12. There were 3 minutes left on the clock and just as you were about to sit down, Lydia pushed past you, her mind in a different place as she walked off the bleachers. 
You and Malia exchanged a glance before you followed after her, mumbling a quick “stay here” to everyone before chasing after her. “Lydia!” you shouted, pulling you knife out of your boot. She stopped in front of the fence that blocked off the basketball courts, her eyes staring off into space. “Lydia?”
“In there...” she whispered and you nodded.
“Stay behind me.” You stepped in front of her and pushed the gate open, your knife in your hand, ready to attack as you cautiously walked onto the court. You heard sounds of a struggle and you bit your lip as you quickened your pace, walking towards the origin of the sound.
Lydia gasped as you both stumbled across the gruesome scene. A woman’s body laid lifeless on the court in a puddle of her own blood, a man hovering over her, blood on his hands. Lydia screamed and the man turned to look at you two. You ran over to the man and kicked him off the woman before holding the knife against his neck. You screamed and dropped the knife when the woman, who you thought previously was dead, grabbed you by the ankle and yanked you to the ground. You lost your breath from the impact and the woman hovered above you. “Looks like you were gonna do my job for me,” she hissed, smiling wickedly. “Can’t have that.” She wrapped her hands around your neck and you kicked at her, missing her just barely. “And it looks like I have two targets in my reach, two targets for her sacrifice.”
You clenched your teeth and kicked both legs up, your kicks hitting her right in the stomach and knocking her off of you. You grabbed the knife and tackled the woman to the ground, holding the knife to her neck. “Who are the sacrifices for?” you demanded, glaring at her.
She just laughed and you punched her, huffing and puffing as she continued to laugh. “The one who will burn, just like the rest of you.”
You bared your teeth and grunted with anger. “Give me a name!”
“Our mother of all.” She grinned wickedly, blood spilling past her lips. “The magic mother.” She coughed and you added more pressure to the knife on her neck. “She wants you.”
“Burn in Hell, bitch.” You dragged the knife across her throat and grimaced as blood sprayed onto your face and clothes. She cackled until the light faded from her eyes and you screamed in frustration.
“Y/N,” Scott voiced and you spun around to see everyone looking at you with wide eyes, their eyes growing even wider when they saw all of the blood covering you.
“You guys don’t kill people, monsters or otherwise, but I do.” You pursed your lips and tried to wipe away the blood on your skin, but it only made a bigger mess because you didn’t realize you had blood on your hands, making you look even more psychotic. “Let’s just go home. I need a shower.”
“You wanna talk about what happened back there?” Isaac asked as you got out of the car, him and your brothers following after you.
“I’ll have to take a rain check on that,” you told him, pulling the door to Sam and Dean’s motel room open.
“Y/N-”
“Isaac, I know this might not seem normal for you, but that’s normal for me.”
“Killing a woman and getting covered in her blood is normal for you?”
“More normal than you can imagine.”
“Bag’s on the table,” Dean told you, trying not to get in the middle of the argument.
You grabbed your bag and slung it over your shoulder. “Damn, you sure have changed since the last time I saw you,” Isaac continued, following you out the door. You closed the door and tapped your foot impatiently, waiting for Stiles to show up so he could take you back to Scott’s so you could take a shower.
“Well that happens when you leave for another country.”
“You’re still not over that? I thought you were!”
“No, I’m not over that! I don’t think I’ll ever get over that!” You turned to face him and glared at him. “You know, this argument wouldn’t have even started if you didn’t leave in the first place! If you didn’t leave, I wouldn’t have left with my brothers to learn how to kills monsters! I wouldn’t have become so scarred from everything that has ever happened to me, both mentally scarred and physically! I wouldn’t have to carry a knife around in my boot or keep a gun under my pillow! I wouldn’t have to dream about losing everyone I’ve ever loved to all of the evil things in the world! I wouldn’t have been alone for the past two and a half years! I wouldn’t have had to adjust to sleeping in the middle of the bed instead of the left side because you always had to sleep on the right side of the bed! I wouldn’t... I wouldn’t have to cry myself to sleep every night because I thought I wasn’t good enough for you to stay with me, or that I was so shallow as to leave my friends and my home mostly because everything reminded me of you!”
“You still have friends now! You have a family now! You have a home now!”
“My ‘friends’ that I have now, besides you guys, are the King of Hell, an angel who was cast out of heaven for pulling Dean out of Hell, and God himself. The only actual family I have now that is still alive is that same angel and my brothers, and my home is that car or a fucking bunker! And yes, I do have that, and I am grateful that I still have all of that, but the life I have is much worse than the material things that I have. I have watched my brothers be on the brink of death or actually die more times than I can count! Dean became a demon after he died when he had one of the oldest curses from the bible! He tried to kill me! We caused all of the angels to fall from heaven! We brought God’s sister back and she tried to destroy the universe! We opened the gates of hell and almost died when we tried to close them. We brought Lucifer back to earth, and he’s still on earth, possessing the fucking president, and he about to have a child! The list goes on! So, tell me that my life is amazing, and it was a good thing that you left Beacon Hills!”
You turned on your heel and walked back inside the motel room, throwing your bag down on the floor before retreating into the bathroom. “Y/N/N,” Sam stated, followed by footsteps nearing the bathroom.
“I don’t want to talk about it!” you told him, turning on the shower and stripping out of your clothes. You didn’t even wait for the water to heat up before you stepped into the shower, letting the cold water wash over your body.
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Epic Movie (Re)Watch #163 - The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
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Spoilers Below
Have I seen it before: Yes
Did I like it then: It’s a guilty pleasure.
Do I remember it: Yes.
Did I see it in theaters: No.
Format: Blu-ray
1) This is (or was, not so sure after this viewing) a quintessential guilty pleasure movie for me. I’m a sucker for crossovers and old monsters, so even though this team isn’t EXCLUSIVELY monsters the presence of Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde, a why-is-she-a-vampire? Mina Harker, a not-Griffin Invisible Man, and Dorian Grey make the film as much of a guilty pleasure as Van Helsing for me. That’d make for a good guilty pleasure double feature.
2) I get this dude has never seen a tank before, but how stupid can he be?
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3) I have a feeling Germany would not actually say this verbatim in a situation like this.
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4) So I absolutely love the idea of taking The Phantom of the Opera and making him into the big bad technical war-mongering genius the League has to fight in this film. I love the idea, but I feel the execution is a little sloppy. Combining The Phantom’s with James Moriarty utterly takes away any sympathy we have for the character. In Gaston Leorux’s original novel, The Phantom was a figure of tragedy and heartache. I would’ve loved to see more of that side of him, to understand why The Phantom wants to start a World War and what that pain means for him. But instead we get sort of the cliché, “bad guy wants to start war to get rich,” scheme which may be very much in the vein of Moriarty but not in the vein of the Phantom of the Opera.
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5) Sean Connery as...
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According to IMDb:
Sean Connery was offered roles in The Matrix (1999) and The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), but said he didn't understand the scripts. So when offered another screenplay he didn't quite get, (LEG) he took it.
Connery hated working on this film. Absolutely hated it. There were constant production delays and he clashed frequently with director Stephen Norrington (who also hated working on the film, mainly from studio pressures). Connery has retired from acting pretty much because of this film. It was this film which convinced him that he’d fallen out of love with modern filmmaking. In the 14 years since LXG’s release Connery has only had two other acting roles: voicing James Bond in a video game version of From Russia with Love and as the titular character in the poorly received animated film Sir Billi.
Among the many liberties the film takes with the source material, it removes a lot of Quatermaine’s flaws. Yes the pain of losing his son is a nice source of conflict for the character, but this dude was messed up in the original story. His primary character flaw being his addiction to opium, but Connery refused to play an opium addict. The decision to remove this sort of defining flaw makes Connery’s portrayal of the character sort of a generic action hero, at least that’s how I feel. He’s pretty much playing Sean Connery, for better or worse. He never does anything totally unexpected or unique (again, in my opinion) and that hurts the film I think. Connery’s fine in the part. Again, he’s pretty much playing himself. It’s not worthy of a Razzie or anything. But it’s just...fine.
6) There are some really awful bits of dialogue in this film, not helped by exceptionally wooden delivery on some occasion.
Sanderson Reed [as a shootout begins]: “They’re indestructible!”
Allan: “No, just armor plated.”
7) One of the most interesting aspects of Quatermaine is his skills as a hunter and later his sharing of those skills with Tom Sawyer (more on that later). It is a side to him I wish we could’ve seen more of. Patient, steady, able to get off one good shot instead of a dozen fine ones.
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(GIFs originally posted by @mercisnm)
8) There are so many random name drops and references in this film which are just done to remind you you’re in a world of fictional characters. Some of them work, but some of them feel REALLY awkward.
Allan [after Reed says he made good time to London]: “Not as good as Phileas Fogg. Around the world in 80 days? Ha!”
So basically you referenced something and then thought the audience was too stupid to get the reference and just said the name of the book. Great.
9) Richard Roxburgh as M/The Phantom/Moriarty
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This film is FILLED with talented character actors and Roxburgh is one of them. In fact, he’s one of the finest character actors around. With notable roles in Van Helsing, Moulin Rouge, and the lead role in “Rake” (Australian TV show), Roxburgh is able to play a wide array of interesting characters. While this film may lack in some plot and structure, there are a number of performances which I find extraordinary (no pun intended). Roxburgh is able to play the calm and collected gentlemen M, the mad warlord The Phantom, and the conniving scoundrel James Moriarty all in the same character. Three different opportunities shown in one character, all of which done totally and excellently. If only the script would support these opportunities and differences better.
10) In continuing the theme of fine (fine as in exquisite, not fine as in “it’s just fine”) character actors in the movie: Naseeruddin Shah as...
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(GIF originally posted by @barbara-stanwyck)
Hey would you look at that: an actual Indian actor playing a character who was originally written as Indian in a major Hollywood film from 14 years ago! What a concept!
Shah is another actor who is pretty damn great in the role he plays, if only the script would have supported it more. He is able to portray Nemo’s authority and skill in presence alone. When Captain Nemo enters the room you KNOW he’s someone you don’t want to mess with. He is powerful, reserved, but also able to convey Nemo’s pain when necessary. Honestly for all this films problems there are some members of the cast who I just truly love, and Shah as Nemo is one of them.
11) Another member of the cast I think just freaking nails it is Tony Curran as Rodney Skinner/An Invisible Man (not THE Invisible Man, but more on that later).
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According to IMDb:
20th Century Fox was unable to get the rights for the literary character of The Invisible Man, created by H.G. Wells. Not only did this necessitate the character in the film have his name changed from the book's "Griffin", but that he could never be referred to as "the" Invisible Man, only "an" invisible man.
Honestly the change works much better than you might think as Skinner is one of the most likable characters in the film. Curran is able to make his charismatic, devilish, witty, and entertaining for someone who is typically never seen. Unfortunately he sorta disappears around the middle (and the film is worse for it), but Curran is another talented character actor who does an excellent job in the film.
12) Peta Wilson as Mina Harker.
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So...Mina...I don’t really know where to start with Mina. She’s the leader of the League in the original graphic novel, not Alan Quartermaine. She also is NOT a vampire, is dealing with trauma over her encounter with Dracula, and is seen to be a bisexual suffragist (or at least, Alan Moore’s understanding of what that is). A lot of that is lost in the film, and while her vampirism does lead to some badass moments Mina’s motivations are...I’m not sure, actually. I would assume she wants to stop the spread of evil throughout the world to prevent another Dracula, but she has some weird past romance with Dorian Gray and gets sassy with Allan when he acts sexist and...that’s it? Wilson is another strong character actor in the film, but I feel the script supports her even less than it supports say Captain Nemo and Skinner. I’m actually not sure what else to say about Mina.
13) Why does Sean Connery play so many sexist characters?
Connery [to Mina]: “I’ve had women along on past exploits and found them at best a distraction.
Maybe if you didn’t objectify them and trusted their competence you wouldn’t be so distracted.
14) So if you pay attention, right before The League visits Dorian Gray there are newspapers plastered up on the wall of a building talking about Mars (pretty much the words “Mars” is really big). This is in reference to the second volume of the comic book which dealt with The League fighting off HG Welles’ aliens from War of the Worlds. I like that volume more than the first personally, but like a lot (if not all) of Alan Moore’s work it can be problematic. Anyway, moving on.
15) Dorian Gray.
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Unfortunately I feel like Stuart Townsend is one of the weakest actors in the film as Dorian, but that could also be attributed to Stephen Norrington’s direction (theoretically, it’s not like I was on set or anything). He’s kind of overact-y, portraying Dorian’s self assuredness and vanity in a way which kind of makes him a prick. Another character not originally in the novel, I don’t think the film necessarily needed Dorian Gray. Although he does have one of my favorite lines in the film.
Bad guy [after he shoots up Dorian to no effect]]: “What are you?”
Dorian: “I’m complicated.”
16) Tom Sawyer.
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Tom Sawyer is pretty much Tom Sawyer in name alone. He has little-to-nothing in common with Mark Twain’s original character, being a secret service agent instead of a devious little trickster who’s always getting out of work. The studio asked for him to be included as they felt the movie needed an American character to be interesting to stateside audiences. Since he’s not in the original work and he’s not really Tom Sawyer, he ends up being kind of another generic action trope. A shoot-em-up rookie who learns from the more experienced Quatermaine and that’s it. They cut a line which explains that Tom is so desperate to get The Phantom/M/Moriarty because he killed his partner (one Huck Finn) but that’s literally his only unique motivating character factor. And it got cut. It’s done and gone. So we’re just left with...this. Shane West is OK in the film, but the script doesn’t give him much to do in the first place.
17) I’m disappointed with the design of the Nautilus.
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Nemo calls it, “The sword of the ocean,” and I’m just wondering if they couldn’t have let that be a bit more metaphorical instead of looking like a giant sword.
18) At one point Mina does an impression of Allan/Sean Connery. According to IMDb:
According to Wilson, this was a last-minute addition to the scene, and she felt nervous doing it, since Connery impersonations were considered a no-no on the set. Before the shoot she called Connery and offered not to do the accent, but he insisted she should. Afterwards, she asked him what he thought. He replied, "You were great!" She was taken aback and asked if he really meant it. He said, "Yeah, it's terrible! It's the worst impersonation I have ever heard, and it's perfect."
19) Jason Flemyng as Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde.
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Jason Flemyng is another one of my favorite character actors - having notable post-LXG roles in X-Men First Class and 2010′s Clash of the Titans - and may tie with Tony Curran as my favorite actor in this film. Flemyng is able to capture both Jekyll and Hyde very well, making them unique in and of themselves. I have to remind myself that they’re the same actor considering the heavy amount of makeup Flemyng is put into for Hyde. But he brings a wonderful physicality to the part which I think is just spectacular. Unfortunately - again - the script does very little to support his performance and the actor gets a little lost in the middle. A great performance even if I wish it were better written.
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20) Gathering the League feels totally inorganic, unfortunately. Literally the first half of the film is, “let’s get him and let’s get him and let’s get him,” without actually contributing to the overall plot with The Phantom and the impending World War. It is very telling of the film’s biggest problem and that is the one it has with structure and pacing. Everything feels very messy, with not much thought put into why some scenes exist or play out the way they do. Which is unfortunate again because you have a mostly-stellar cast who are already pretty damn good with a crummy script. Imagine what they could do with a better one.
21) Allan teaching Tom how to shoot maybe my favorite part of the film. It not only connects to Allan’s own internal conflict with the loss of his son but it also taught me - at 13 years old - how important patience can be. Just breathe and take your time. It’s better to get off one perfect shot than a dozen shitty ones.
22) So in the course of about ten minutes it is established that both Tom and Jekyll are into Mina even though nothing from before gives them reason to be and they never once revisit it after. Remember how I said this film had some structural issues? Well it has some developmental issues too.
23) This film is an hour and fifty minutes. It takes them fifty-five minutes to get to Venice - where they’ve been trying to get to the whole time - and then the bomb goes off right away (literally) and they have to stop it. The plot is literally: assemble the league, go to Venice, get to Venice and stop the disaster. Nothing in between. Again: this film has some major structural issues.
24)
Jekyll [after he’s asked to bring Hyde out]: “No! Hyde will never use me again.”
Dorian: “Then what good are you?”
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(GIF originally posted by @marshmallow-the-vampire-slayer)
Seriously, why did they bring Jekyll around? Did they only need Hyde? And if so, for what? I know M wants the serum for Hyde but what about the rest of them? What convinced them to bring Hyde along and then be okay with him not doing anything on their big mission?
25) Another example of an extremely wooden delivery. This line hurts my soul every time, although in fairness Dorian himself is supposed to be faking it.
Dorian: “Damn Skinner! He must’ve told them we were coming!”
It hurts my ears, that line. I hate it. So much.
26) I have so many questions about the car chase through Venice. How does Tom know to drive a car? Why is the car designed like it’s American with the wheel on the left? How can Nemo track the car’s “frequency”? Who does the car have a frequency, it is never seen using the radio? I’m so confused.
27) This is the weirdest James Bond movie ever.
Allan: “Vampire lady has us covered.”
28) The scene where Alan faces off with The Phantom in the Venice graveyard is close to interesting. If The Phantom were more developed as an individual and it took its time to peek into Alan’s internal conflict, it could’ve been an excellent character moment.
29)
M [revealing his entire plan via a record]: “It was a ruse to get me closer to my goal.”
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(GIF source unknown [if this is your GIF please let me know].)
So M wanted the technology to the Nautilus, Hyde’s serum, Mina’s vampirism, and Griffin’s invisibility. And here’s how that plan worked: rob an English bank disguised as Germans, kidnap German scientists disguised as the English, try to convince Quatermaine to join a fake League I made up, try to kill Quatermaine to show him the danger is real, send the League I have already to get Dorian who is a traitor in their midst, try to kill them all with Dorian to convince them the danger is real, have Dorian steal what I need from everyone, blow up Venice, have Dorian escape.
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(GIF originally posted by @dailydctv)
If you already had Dorian and an army of minions at your service, couldn’t you have sent them to get what you need from everyone? Wouldn’t that have been easier and less expensive? I’m just...I think I need to move on.
30) The best part of the sinking Nautilus is Jason Flemyng really gets to shine as Hyde. Except it makes no sense that Hyde suddenly doesn’t want to betray and murder everyone for his own personal gain but actually wants to work with the team. There was absolutely nothing to change that character motivation. At all.
31) 
Quatermaine [after the Nautilus is trashed, about pursuing Dorian]: “We were the faster, but now we’re the tortoise to his hare.”
Except the tortoise won that race. Did you not understand the point of the story?
32) And then a random white tiger shows up, stares at Quatermaine, and leaves.
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(GIF source unknown [if this is your GIF please let me know].)
I know it’s supposed to tie into how Allan feels his an old tiger sensing the end but it’s also just totally random. And like, did you need an actual tiger? There’s no subtly to that. At all. You’re just taking the metaphor literally and not trusting the intelligence of the audience. I just...gah.
33)
Skinner [after slapping Mina’s as while invisible]: “I’ve been waiting all week to do that.”
To sexually harass her? Well, you’re still not as awful as how Alan Moore wrote The Invisible Man in the story.
34) Like all the set pieces in this film, the climax is poorly paced and sort of dull. You keep cutting between Hyde and Nemo fighting a weird Hyde clone (which, btw, is not how the serum works in the original novel; it’s not Hulk juice), Mina fighting Dorian in a bedroom because she claims, “You broke my heart once,” (really?) Allan and Sawyer chasing down M who is revealed to be Sherlock Holmes’ Moriarty, and Skinner just being somewhere and then getting burned. It’s just...meh.
35) Also should looking at the painting kill Dorian? Is that how it worked in the original novel? I thought if you stabbed the painting it killed him or something.
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36) In an actually somewhat developed part of the film, Sawyer shoots Moriarty remembering Allan’s teachings about patience.
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37) And then Alan dies, but not really because they wanted to do a sequel and totally set up him coming back from the dead. Too bad this killed the potential of a franchise.
This film was a lot less enjoyable as an adult than it was when I was in high school, but I’m also analyzing it for the (Re)Watch. Yes the story is a muddled mess with underdeveloped characters and concepts which just really don’t make any sense. Yes Sean Connery is sort of just showing up. BUT it’s largely well acted and come one! It’s a film where Tom Sawyer shoots James Moriarty in the back after being taught by Allan Quatermaine how to do it. I’m a sucker for crossovers so this is still a total guilty pleasure. Don’t watch it if you’re not interested, because it’s pretty crummy. But it might be enjoyable for the individual who’s interested in these kind of stories.
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